The Megyn Kelly Show - ABC's Bias, How Trump Could Have Played it, and Whether the Debate Sways Voters, with The Fifth Column Hosts

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

00:00:12.340 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.400 Well, 12 hours after we signed off earlier this morning, and I'm still enraged about those debate moderators on ABC last night.

00:00:23.780 They should never host another presidential debate again.

00:00:26.200 If the Dems want to have their primary debates over there, that's up to them.

00:00:30.560 But if the GOP agrees to participate in any kind of a debate, primary or general election on ABC News, they deserve what they get, and we will have zero sympathy for them.

00:00:44.180 We've learned more in the days and weeks.

00:00:46.780 We will learn more in the days and weeks ahead of what effect, if any, last night's presidential debate had on this race.

00:00:54.340 There are early indications that voters believe she won, but that it changed no votes.

00:00:59.500 It barely moved the needle, if at all, on who they will actually support in November.

00:01:03.480 Trafalgar joined another polling company to see actually how they felt beforehand and how they felt afterward, and there was absolutely zero change.

00:01:12.680 We'll see more in the polling that comes in the next days and weeks.

00:01:16.260 Meantime, the media is basically climactic today about how she did, and ABC, and the praise for these two in-the-tank moderators is as over-the-top as the actual, quote, moderation was.

00:01:35.420 Joining me now to get into all of it, Camille Foster, partner at Freethink, Michael Moynihan, contributor to the Free Press, and Matt Welsh, editor-at-large for Reason.

00:01:43.960 They are the hosts of the Fifth Column Podcast.

00:01:46.520 Find all their content and support them at wethefifth.com.

00:01:50.360 I want to tell you about the Daily Wire's documentary that's exposing the left's precious DEI industry.

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00:02:28.480 Every ticket sold is a blow to the left's narrative.

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00:02:53.180 Guys, welcome back to the show.

00:02:57.940 You know, I wouldn't say I've calmed down.

00:03:01.620 I'm still really angry.

00:03:03.120 I feel like it's a before and after moment for the profession.

00:03:07.400 For me, this debate is not even about Trump and Harris.

00:03:10.120 It's not about the presidential election.

00:03:12.160 It's about what happened last night with what used to be a respected news organization just

00:03:17.900 completely jumping into the tank for one candidate.

00:03:20.320 I mean, not even show me a Fox News debate.

00:03:23.480 Show me one Fox News debate where the moderators have ever done that for the Republican candidate

00:03:29.240 of choice, right?

00:03:31.100 Where they've whatever they've decided we want Mitt Romney to win and they just sank everybody

00:03:35.820 else that you can't find that.

00:03:37.540 But this was a decision by ABC to get Trump.

00:03:42.920 And while he didn't help himself, you know, taking all of her bait and so on and so forth,

00:03:47.420 ABC News emerged the most victorious in having done what they wanted to do and with the biggest

00:03:53.600 loss in reputation.

00:03:55.700 That's my view on it.

00:03:56.600 How do you guys see it?

00:03:57.480 I think that this gave a lot of credence to my political tribe, which is that of the triple

00:04:02.780 haters, the ones who don't like the presidential candidates from either party and also don't

00:04:08.420 like the media.

00:04:09.000 I mean, seriously, there's lots more that you cannot like about Kamala Harris after this,

00:04:13.380 about Donald Trump, who performed horribly, I thought, and definitely ABC.

00:04:17.680 The biggest problem with the ABC moderation, even thinking about it 12 hours later, is not

00:04:23.460 even the asymmetrical fact checks.

00:04:26.220 Sir, this is what you said is not true.

00:04:28.540 Not even that, although that's what we noticed in the room at the time and couldn't believe

00:04:32.420 because it was all going in one direction.

00:04:33.800 The biggest problem is that Kamala Harris hasn't given any interviews, right?

00:04:37.020 She's given one in 50 some odd days to CNN.

00:04:41.040 She hasn't had her views challenged.

00:04:42.820 So this is when you, as a moderator, follow up when she doesn't answer a question.

00:04:48.480 Repeatedly, they asked Donald Trump to, sir, could you please answer the question?

00:04:51.780 They almost didn't do that even once with Kamala Harris.

00:04:54.260 And this is someone who's a new candidate and who has changed her positions really violently

00:04:59.220 on at least a half a dozen big issues.

00:05:01.820 And the way that she answers that is like, well, I've already answered that.

00:05:04.420 Of course, I've answered how I've changed my positions.

00:05:06.880 And then she doesn't actually answer.

00:05:08.480 They did not follow up.

00:05:09.740 That is the biggest bit of malpractice.

00:05:11.380 Not once.

00:05:12.020 Not once.

00:05:12.780 Let me just show you a little of the fact checking that was done of Donald Trump in

00:05:15.620 short form.

00:05:16.240 Watch.

00:05:16.840 There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born.

00:05:20.760 President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down

00:05:24.800 in this country.

00:05:25.440 But here you bring up Springfield, Ohio.

00:05:27.940 And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there.

00:05:30.560 He told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured,

00:05:35.400 or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.

00:05:38.300 There is clarification.

00:05:39.100 And you know this.

00:05:39.780 You and your allies, 60 cases in front of many judges, many of them Republican.

00:05:43.140 No judge looked at it.

00:05:44.280 And said there was no widespread fraud.

00:05:45.940 Vice President Harris, you heard the president there tonight.

00:05:48.240 He said he didn't say that, that he lost by a whisker.

00:05:50.200 So he still believes he did not lose the election that was won by President Biden and yourself.

00:05:57.060 And now I am going to play a quick shot of ABC News fact checking Kamala.

00:06:06.340 Give it a second.

00:06:08.160 That didn't happen.

00:06:08.720 No, it's coming.

00:06:09.480 It's coming.

00:06:09.760 Just hold on.

00:06:10.220 Because she only told the truth.

00:06:12.560 Yeah.

00:06:12.900 That's why.

00:06:13.480 Right.

00:06:14.040 That's it.

00:06:14.340 And say that David Muir is a real credit to the profession and absolutely brilliant

00:06:19.120 moderator.

00:06:20.700 Unbelievable.

00:06:21.660 I'm voting for David Muir.

00:06:22.800 I'm voting for David Muir.

00:06:23.740 He's throwing his hat into the ring until last night.

00:06:25.820 Yes.

00:06:26.120 ABC won last night.

00:06:28.180 I tweeted out.

00:06:29.320 Why did they even need Kamala Harris there?

00:06:31.320 Why did ABC even invite her?

00:06:32.540 She wasn't.

00:06:33.160 Yes.

00:06:34.560 We recorded late last night.

00:06:37.100 It was about midnight after a couple hundred glasses of wine.

00:06:41.560 And I had a brain.

00:06:42.580 I needed that.

00:06:43.020 I wish I'd been with you.

00:06:44.560 It made it much more bearable.

00:06:47.420 Every time you hear an opportunity economy, you have to take a drink.

00:06:50.340 Opportunity economy.

00:06:51.260 I have to smoke fentanyl every time I heard it.

00:06:55.520 The thing is that, Megan, you came up because I suggested you for this.

00:06:59.120 I want to do this in the future in a very specific way.

00:07:02.080 And I was kind of joking, but then quite serious about it.

00:07:04.780 Is that I think that these should be just straight adversarial.

00:07:08.840 You're interviewing somebody for the job of the presidency of the United States,

00:07:12.380 the most powerful job in the world.

00:07:13.380 These should be adversarial interviews.

00:07:15.720 There should be two people, as ABC had it.

00:07:18.540 One person should only ask questions of President Trump.

00:07:22.120 And one person should only ask questions of Vice President Harris.

00:07:25.660 And they should be their adversaries on both sides, challenging them on these issues.

00:07:31.380 Because, as I said last night, and this is a great question for me, would be bring up the tweet about the Minnesota Bail Fund.

00:07:40.600 We've had no one's had an opportunity to ask her this because, of course, she hasn't given an interview.

00:07:44.400 And if she does, it's certainly not going to be to somebody who's going to ask her about that.

00:07:48.060 Get an adversarial person, and they're on both sides, and have them fire questions at them and actually challenge them.

00:07:55.340 It solves the whole thing, and it actually makes for entertaining television.

00:07:57.620 I said the same thing last night.

00:07:59.700 I said that if they have another debate, it should not be with any of these news operations.

00:08:02.920 It should be, I get to choose a moderator, and you get to choose a moderator.

00:08:06.440 There's going to be two from the outside.

00:08:08.760 You know, we can each choose one.

00:08:09.740 But this farce of we're going to entrust the future of the country to organizations like ABC News must end.

00:08:18.120 It must end.

00:08:19.280 And shame on any Republican who ever agrees to this shit again.

00:08:23.520 Donald Trump cannot agree to another debate with one of these organizations again, or he gets what he deserves.

00:08:31.800 This is the organization in which it's run by Kamala Harris's best friend, ABC News is these days.

00:08:38.240 They hired Donna Brazile, debate cheater in chief.

00:08:43.940 And I'm not suggesting she gave the questions to Kamala Harris, but you wouldn't be surprised to learn she had.

00:08:50.520 You certainly, after watching that, wouldn't be like, I'm shocked, shocked that ABC worked to undermine Donald Trump in such a way.

00:08:58.140 Well, I would be, because she didn't answer any of them.

00:09:01.420 I said I'd be surprised because she didn't answer any of them.

00:09:05.280 If she had them before, maybe she would have answered the questions that were asked of her, including the very first question.

00:09:11.920 Literally the first question.

00:09:13.780 No one comes back.

00:09:14.240 She's from middle class.

00:09:15.820 Yeah, of course.

00:09:16.720 She's from the middle class.

00:09:18.320 Small businesses.

00:09:19.040 Yes.

00:09:19.480 Here it is.

00:09:20.220 Here it is.

00:09:20.640 Wait, let's watch that.

00:09:21.400 It's not 12.

00:09:21.840 When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?

00:09:27.800 So I was raised as a middle class kid.

00:09:31.880 I believe in the ambition, the aspirations, the dreams of the American people.

00:09:36.920 And that is why I imagine and have actually a plan to build what I call an opportunity economy.

00:09:42.580 His plan is to do what he has done before, which is to provide a tax cut for billionaires and big corporations.

00:09:51.980 Okay, keep going.

00:09:53.380 Total dodge.

00:09:54.340 Because we're not.

00:09:55.480 That's obviously why we are not better off than we were four years ago.

00:09:58.500 And yet I didn't hear him press her on that.

00:10:01.100 Didn't hear the moderators press her on that.

00:10:03.000 I mean, the question's pretty simple.

00:10:04.460 Are we better off?

00:10:05.220 Are we not?

00:10:06.040 She didn't even address the question, not even a little bit.

00:10:09.380 And let's never leave Donald Trump off the hook on this.

00:10:12.300 She said at the end of that thing, his only plan is to cut taxes and do what he's normally doing.

00:10:17.540 Basically, his only plan in this whole debate was to cut taxes and to enact a tariff when it comes to the economy.

00:10:23.360 And yet other stuff about immigration, whatever.

00:10:25.580 But he didn't rise to the level.

00:10:27.060 You can take that opportunity as the opponent in a debate.

00:10:30.080 And you should never walk away from a debate and blame it on the refs, even if the refs are loaded against you.

00:10:36.820 Conservatives and Republicans have for a long time used that to their advantage.

00:10:39.880 Just look at Newt Gingrich.

00:10:41.160 Look at other people.

00:10:42.300 Who, in moments of high stress, turned it back on and pointed out the unfairness or the loadedness of the moderator.

00:10:48.120 He could have done that.

00:10:48.720 He didn't do any of it.

00:10:49.700 He took the bait over and over again from Kamala Harris and didn't take those opportunities when she was obviously flailing around, as she did in her very first answer.

00:10:57.800 Yeah, yeah.

00:10:58.260 I think that's right.

00:10:58.860 And especially during the debate, I was surprised.

00:11:01.340 I think when we were watching it, I might have even said this, that he didn't do, I mean, Newt Gingrich did it in such a, like, grand way.

00:11:07.980 I mean, a memorable way.

00:11:09.300 I mean, you don't remember things from debates.

00:11:11.700 His response about that question, the kind of dirty question that was asked of him, was terrific.

00:11:17.860 And I think he was maybe prepared for it.

00:11:19.240 But Donald Trump, at a million points during this debate, could have said, I can't believe you guys are doing this.

00:11:25.620 You're worried.

00:11:26.200 This is the way you're going to work against me?

00:11:28.000 Do that.

00:11:28.860 And also, by the way, he has the opportunity to, the first thing that he says every time she doesn't answer a question, is say, by the way, Americans, keep in mind she didn't answer the question, and then answer your own question.

00:11:39.520 So I think it's absolutely right.

00:11:41.540 And, you know, look, a very good column for people to read this morning is Jim Garrity over at National Review, because he did a great thing where he took every question, not the answers, every moderate question, and strung them together.

00:11:52.360 It is really jarring to read them all together.

00:11:55.180 You're like, wow, this is actually what was asked.

00:11:57.240 But as Jim pointed out, and as a number of other people, I can't, I mean, people I've been talking to this morning, Republicans, he did poorly.

00:12:05.900 He just objectively did not do well.

00:12:09.080 But can I say something on that?

00:12:11.060 Look, I agree with you that Trump took all of her bait.

00:12:13.520 He ran after her bait, just like my strategic runs after his liver snaps.

00:12:17.880 But, and that he did not do a good job of staying on his message and fact-checking her in all the places where he could have.

00:12:26.800 But I actually went back, I watched it, re-watched it again today, and then I read the transcript of it carefully, as you can see with my little Post-its.

00:12:35.080 And Trump actually did a better job than I thought he did, trying to bat down her attacks on him.

00:12:42.160 He was, he was attempting, because she would bring up a lot of stuff about him that was not true, and, or that was potentially damaging.

00:12:49.820 And so he, I think he did feel the need to say, that's a lie, here's why that's a lie, don't be worried about, for example, my tariffs.

00:12:58.580 Here's why.

00:12:59.220 And then he would pivot back.

00:13:01.080 But she was given free reign.

00:13:03.260 She was doing what one should do during a debate, which is just deliver your message, not answer the question asked, make it into an attack on your opponent.

00:13:10.460 And then he felt the need to respond to her attacks and then would try to say something offensive or affirmative.

00:13:17.120 But I think we all walked away with the impression that he wasn't doing a good job because it was just constant.

00:13:24.180 Every single Q&A went this way.

00:13:26.440 He was never really given the opportunity to give up, to have a softball of his own, right, where he just had a great issue raised for him that he got to answer cleanly.

00:13:36.080 And he had no help from the moderators when she would lie.

00:13:40.360 And to the contrary, they bring up all of his controversies and then give it to her to double down on him.

00:13:44.020 So he was just placed in this washing machine where they just kept tumbling him around and tumbling and tumbling and tumbling.

00:13:50.220 But if you read the transcript, you'll see he did try on many issues to first respond to the lies about him and then go back to the actual issue at hand or raise his favorite issues.

00:14:00.400 It just I agree when the debate was over, you just didn't feel like that had happened.

00:14:04.800 He's just been doing this for so long at this point.

00:14:08.080 And I mean, what you're describing, Megan, these are tactical failings on Donald Trump's part.

00:14:11.800 He was not disciplined.

00:14:13.180 They apparently have been working with him behind the scenes for weeks and weeks now to try to get him ready.

00:14:18.840 And you did not see that preparation yesterday.

00:14:21.460 You barely heard the message.

00:14:23.040 For the most part, it's they're bad.

00:14:24.920 They're the worst.

00:14:25.760 They're terrible.

00:14:26.560 There's the hyperbole and the overstatement constantly throughout.

00:14:30.360 He sounded like a car salesman.

00:14:32.000 And I say that with affection.

00:14:33.160 My father was a car salesman.

00:14:34.780 He sold my mother a bum Toyota.

00:14:36.520 She had to keep coming back to the dealership.

00:14:38.960 That old trip.

00:14:40.520 And for him to get flagged for lying when he's doing this kind of hyperbole and everyone understands this is hyperbole.

00:14:46.440 I just use the word everyone, as he does.

00:14:48.820 He doesn't actually mean everyone, but he means a lot of people.

00:14:51.540 Fine.

00:14:51.960 We move along.

00:14:53.080 But he had so many opportunities to turn the page.

00:14:56.120 And I think his worst moments weren't on the redirects.

00:14:59.480 They weren't on the fact checks.

00:15:00.840 It was when they talked to him about January 6th.

00:15:03.280 It was when they talked to him about losing the election.

00:15:05.800 And they should have been prepared for those questions better.

00:15:09.260 And if you're going to play the game Kamala plays, you could say, that's old news.

00:15:13.800 We've been down this road before.

00:15:15.440 What we need to talk about is my record when I was president and her and her boss's record now.

00:15:20.700 And they are a disaster.

00:15:22.040 They are ruining this country.

00:15:23.400 And that is where we need to pay attention.

00:15:25.140 And if they follow up, you come back at heart again and say, I have addressed this so many times.

00:15:30.860 Those were the bad old days.

00:15:31.980 If you want to talk about 2020, let's talk about the disaster of the summer of 2020.

00:15:36.320 Let's talk about Walls and how he is perhaps one of the worst examples of Democratic leadership, quote-unquote leadership, in 2020.

00:15:45.320 I mean, he didn't do any of that yesterday.

00:15:47.800 What he did do was take a shot at his own vice president.

00:15:50.300 That is a self-own.

00:15:52.380 I'm not surprised by the ways he failed yesterday.

00:15:56.180 I am surprised by the extent to which he failed.

00:15:58.920 He looked like-

00:15:59.480 But, you know, on all those questions, Camille, you had David Muir following up.

00:16:03.600 So no regrets.

00:16:04.680 Sure.

00:16:04.860 So, okay, every time.

00:16:07.260 And there are a couple instances where he fought with Trump.

00:16:09.860 He actually fought with him over and over.

00:16:11.900 And yet, let me give you one of these.

00:16:13.480 We didn't cut this, but I'm just reading from the transcript.

00:16:16.200 David Muir, okay, turning now to immigration and border security, an important issue, blah, blah, blah.

00:16:20.520 Okay, root causes.

00:16:22.860 You were the root causes person, Kamala Harris.

00:16:25.420 We know illegal border crossings reached a record high in the Biden administration.

00:16:29.060 In June, President Biden imposed tough new asylum restrictions, and then the numbers dropped.

00:16:35.040 Why did the administration wait six months before the election to act, and would you have done anything differently?

00:16:40.080 That's a good question, right?

00:16:41.320 He asked that of Kamala Harris.

00:16:42.900 That's a general way.

00:16:43.920 Very good question.

00:16:44.760 She goes on with – first, she starts with her John Wayne imitation.

00:16:50.280 My audience knows what I mean.

00:16:51.760 I get down to that border, and I got those criminals.

00:16:55.760 I didn't let them – that's my John Wayne impression.

00:16:59.420 That's me imitating Kamala, imitating John Wayne.

00:17:02.520 She wants us to believe she was like this border – like this tough-on-border crime person because she prosecuted gun trafficking cases in California.

00:17:10.900 That doesn't make her – we're talking about criminal border crossings and how you're going to stop them, not prosecuting crime in California once they come and commit a bunch of murders.

00:17:18.620 Anyway, that's how she started.

00:17:20.180 Then she pivots not to anything that's responsive, but to the border security bill that the Republicans killed, and then she goes here.

00:17:30.840 I'm going to tell you something.

00:17:32.560 He's going to talk about immigration a lot tonight, even when it's not the subject that's being raised.

00:17:36.940 And I'm going to actually do something really unusual, and I'm going to – do you remember where she went here?

00:17:43.100 Let's see.

00:17:43.680 Project 2025.

00:17:44.340 This is where – no.

00:17:46.100 This is where she went to the rallies.

00:17:50.180 In response to why didn't you do anything earlier, where have you been on illegal immigration.

00:17:58.780 People forget that was the – it was a good question by ABC to her, and this is the answer on which she pivoted to his rallies.

00:18:07.640 What the F does that have to do with their failures on immigration?

00:18:12.140 10.4 million under Biden, 2.3 million under Trump.

00:18:16.320 That's it.

00:18:17.220 Those are the numbers somebody needed to say last night, and she says, I'll tell you, I'm going to do something really unusual.

00:18:23.440 I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch.

00:18:28.760 You'll see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter.

00:18:32.840 He talks about windmills causing cancer.

00:18:35.060 And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.

00:18:38.960 This is such an obvious – look over here, something shiny.

00:18:43.920 Don't look at the 10.4 million.

00:18:46.100 And you as the viewer are saying, don't do it, Trump.

00:18:50.300 Don't do it.

00:18:52.240 We were literally having that conversation.

00:18:55.440 We weren't saying don't do it.

00:18:56.900 We're like, he's going to do it.

00:18:58.320 He's going to do it.

00:18:59.220 No one said don't do it.

00:19:00.380 He's absolutely going to do it.

00:19:01.820 It was an amazing moment.

00:19:02.520 He totally did it.

00:19:04.060 Wait, I need a moment here.

00:19:04.880 Here's the point I'm raising.

00:19:06.220 Here's the point I'm raising.

00:19:06.980 This is the point at which an honest moderator would have said the question was why now?

00:19:17.240 Why didn't you solve it earlier, right?

00:19:19.940 And maybe she would have said –

00:19:20.980 And also, you're the executive branch.

00:19:23.720 It's not just – the border bill line is a good one and it can be contested either way.

00:19:28.660 But it's – Donald Trump did intervene in that legislative process.

00:19:31.920 Okay, that's a thing to talk about.

00:19:33.260 But the executive branch has a lot of power to enforce immigration law in this country in ways that –

00:19:40.440 Did we get kicked?

00:19:41.160 Well, that's the right question.

00:19:42.680 That's the right question exactly right there.

00:19:44.980 You – on his first day in office, President Biden and you, by executive order, undid all of the border security measures that Trump put in place.

00:19:54.400 Aren't you the ones to blame for the 10.4?

00:19:58.460 That's the proper question.

00:20:00.580 It's the proper question.

00:20:01.620 And, I mean, obviously, Donald Trump, if the moderators are not going to do this, and you know at this point they're not going to, you know they're trading their fire on you, it's incumbent upon you as a skilled politician – and he might be a good politician, he's a terrible debater – to actually make that point yourself.

00:20:21.360 You know, it's an incredible thing is that I was – this morning I was getting coffee, and I live in an area where there are actual Marxists, like everyone's an actual Marxist, and I'm in line, surrounded, swaddled by dopes talking about the debate last night.

00:20:36.880 The person behind me is saying, oh, it was such a brilliant thing that she did by bringing up – and it's like, no, it's a very obvious thing, and he should have been prepared for it.

00:20:46.340 It's not that she's brilliant, it's just that he can't control himself.

00:20:50.240 And, you know, look, it's a boring and obvious point, but so many times during that debate you have two instincts, and mine matches yours in one way, Megan, is that I can't believe I'm watching these moderators do this sort of thing.

00:21:02.340 And then the other one is, good Lord, he really cannot control himself on anything.

00:21:08.280 He's debating whether or not the Central Park Five were guilty.

00:21:12.180 Such a bad idea.

00:21:12.940 You know who thought they were guilty?

00:21:14.360 No, nobody cares.

00:21:17.340 Redirect it and say, why did you tweet about the bail fund?

00:21:20.480 Why are you doing price controls?

00:21:22.380 He did raise that.

00:21:23.980 He did raise that.

00:21:25.120 He's the only one who raised the bail fund.

00:21:27.200 They did not raise that against her at all.

00:21:30.600 They let her meander time and time again and lie time and time again.

00:21:33.880 And one time, Trump did fact-check her on the spot, but it was really, you know, kind of lost.

00:21:39.960 I can tell you're going to make a point.

00:21:41.180 Go ahead.

00:21:41.960 No, I just – I think it's right.

00:21:43.500 The thing, though, what he did one time is ask – just because the mics are off – ask a question of her.

00:21:51.860 He did once, and guess what?

00:21:53.700 She didn't answer.

00:21:54.360 Nope.

00:21:54.860 Abortion.

00:21:55.200 He was on the abortion.

00:21:55.860 Eight months, eight months, nine months, nothing.

00:21:58.780 She didn't want to answer.

00:21:59.720 She looked terrible in that.

00:22:01.260 Do the same thing when it's the bail fund stuff.

00:22:03.240 That's right.

00:22:03.440 Answer the question.

00:22:04.540 Why did you change your mind on that?

00:22:05.900 Do you support that sort of thing?

00:22:07.480 I think that's what makes –

00:22:08.400 Where's the moderator?

00:22:09.520 Where's the moderator to make her answer that?

00:22:11.400 Kamala Harris, would you support abortion in that you say you'll support Roe?

00:22:15.460 Does that mean you would support abortion in the seventh, eighth, and ninth month?

00:22:18.420 But no, no follow –

00:22:19.460 None of those little, like, follow-ups you didn't actually answer, which they did to Trump all night.

00:22:23.620 Not one to her.

00:22:24.620 Go ahead, Kamil.

00:22:25.080 Well, I was just going to say, that's what makes his performance last night so frustrating.

00:22:30.420 If you are someone who actually likes Donald Trump, it must be anyways.

00:22:34.920 He had that moment, he had that moment, and he could have done it again.

00:22:40.440 He could have simply redirected it, ask her another question, put the question directly to her.

00:22:45.080 He didn't do it.

00:22:46.280 There were breaks and stops in the action when he could have collected himself, perhaps calmed down a little bit.

00:22:50.980 He even had that moment where he turns to the moderators and says, look, I see what you guys are doing.

00:22:55.280 I get it.

00:22:55.760 I understand.

00:22:56.420 You're not big fans of mine.

00:22:57.800 There are plenty of people out there who aren't big fans of mine.

00:22:59.200 Right there is a good line, yes.

00:23:00.480 Boom.

00:23:01.020 It's easy.

00:23:01.760 And these are small things that he could have worked on.

00:23:04.100 In fact, we've seen him do this kind of stuff in other contexts, which is what made, again, I'm not surprised by the ways in which he failed in the areas.

00:23:13.480 But the degree in which he did it is another thing entirely.

00:23:15.820 He should have had his big media moment.

00:23:17.540 Here's the problem, though.

00:23:18.420 He couldn't have the Newt Gingrich moment.

00:23:20.520 Because that was one question to Newt, and it opened the CNN debate by John King.

00:23:27.020 One, that's easy.

00:23:28.240 I mean, it's not easy to be as great as Newt was on that answer.

00:23:30.820 No, that was spectacular.

00:23:32.180 But I'm just saying, even Trump could have understood, look what happened with me at that debate in 15 when we asked him that very tough.

00:23:40.780 That wasn't actually the opening question.

00:23:42.260 It was something from Brett about whether he'd support the eventual nominee.

00:23:45.720 But my point is, he can do it when it's just one question or two questions.

00:23:49.580 This was an ambush.

00:23:51.900 It was a full, it was an all-in pile-on with one guy in the foxhole and all these shooters all around him.

00:23:59.600 And Trump was trying.

00:24:00.780 He was trying to take care of this one and take care of this one and take care of that one.

00:24:03.740 But it was ubiquitous around him.

00:24:06.000 There's only so much he felt he could do.

00:24:07.840 And I felt for him.

00:24:09.320 I mean, I recognized it, too.

00:24:11.260 All semblance of fairness had gone out the window.

00:24:14.540 I mentioned this last night.

00:24:15.560 This was my least favorite tactic.

00:24:18.460 All right.

00:24:18.620 This was perhaps the most unfair thing ABC did.

00:24:21.820 We pulled a couple of examples.

00:24:23.100 We could have gone on.

00:24:23.900 But here's just a couple of.

00:24:25.180 This is the format.

00:24:27.020 You are fucking awful, Donald Trump.

00:24:30.100 Why are you so awful?

00:24:31.000 And then, Vice President Harris, would you like to weigh in on how awful he is?

00:24:36.780 Watch it.

00:24:37.320 Watch, watch, watch.

00:24:38.200 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:39.000 Mr. President, on January 6th, you told your supporters to march to the Capitol.

00:24:44.700 You said you would be right there with them.

00:24:46.680 Is there anything you regret about what you did on that day?

00:24:49.680 Very simple question as we move forward toward another election.

00:24:52.600 Is there anything you regret about what you did on that day?

00:24:55.540 But I do want Vice President Harris to respond here.

00:24:57.480 He said he didn't say that, that he lost by a whisker.

00:24:59.420 So he still believes he did not lose the election.

00:25:02.580 But I do want to ask you about something that's come up in the last couple of days.

00:25:05.320 This was a post from President Trump about this upcoming election.

00:25:09.120 Just weeks away.

00:25:09.900 He said, when I win, those people who cheated, and then he lists donors, voters, election

00:25:14.220 officials, he says, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

00:25:17.980 One of your campaign's top lawyers responded, saying, we won't let Donald Trump intimidate

00:25:21.780 us.

00:25:22.260 We won't let him suppress the vote.

00:25:24.480 Is that what you believe he's trying to do here?

00:25:26.080 Mr. President, you recently said that President Harris quote, I didn't know she was black until

00:25:30.360 a number of years ago, when she happened to turn black.

00:25:33.280 And now she wants to be known as black.

00:25:35.400 I want to ask a bigger picture question here tonight.

00:25:37.620 Why do you believe it's appropriate to weigh in on the racial identity of your opponent?

00:25:42.480 Vice President Harris, your thoughts on this?

00:25:44.900 Yeah.

00:25:48.440 But asking as a debate moderator, do you believe it's appropriate to whatever you said is just

00:25:56.900 like as a moderator question?

00:25:58.200 I think that the average American actually notices this.

00:26:02.100 And I was talking to somebody about this today, is that Donald Trump lost the debate.

00:26:06.580 I think there's no doubt about this.

00:26:07.900 I think he was terrible.

00:26:09.140 I know other people might disagree with me on that.

00:26:11.320 But I think the one thing that saved him was the moderation.

00:26:15.060 I think that pushed that more towards a, you know, not like a draw, but it's somewhere

00:26:20.800 kind of in the closer to the middle because of how obvious it is to watch them do things

00:26:25.760 like that.

00:26:26.380 A hundred percent.

00:26:27.100 I mean, imagine that you're like the follow up here is like, you know, how much do you

00:26:32.280 agree that he should feel bad about this?

00:26:35.080 Whereas there's an actual question that she was talking about near the top, right?

00:26:41.580 About tariffs.

00:26:42.440 She's calling tariffs taxes.

00:26:44.240 Okay.

00:26:44.840 He points out correctly that many of his tariffs, especially about China, the Biden

00:26:49.960 administration, the Biden-Harris administration had adopted.

00:26:52.760 So the natural moderator question is, so Kamala Harris, those tariffs, are they not taxes?

00:27:00.520 Which ones are taxes?

00:27:01.500 Are the ones that you don't like, the one that Trump wants, or the ones that you do like?

00:27:05.160 And just tease that out in a way that's a little bit more elegant.

00:27:07.700 That's an actual important follow-up question about policy and about philosophy.

00:27:13.000 That is so much more important than like black Indian nomenclature.

00:27:18.340 And this is the second time.

00:27:19.520 Dana Bass asked that.

00:27:21.040 Dana Bass asked 30 questions.

00:27:22.700 These guys asked about like 13 or 14, depending on how you do it with some follow-ups.

00:27:27.580 They thought that was one of the most important ones.

00:27:29.700 And also, here's one that maybe you didn't even highlight, Megan, but we've seen this in

00:27:33.960 how many debates over the last 25 years?

00:27:35.800 This question, you know, climate change is a really big issue.

00:27:40.000 And our, you know, the young people especially really, really care about it.

00:27:43.180 What are you going to do about it?

00:27:45.280 That is no longer the question.

00:27:47.900 The question is, maybe say something like, okay, so you wanted to ban fracking in 2019.

00:27:53.180 Fracking has been the single biggest driver of reducing carbon footprint, which is good

00:27:57.840 for greenhouse gases.

00:27:59.660 How do you square that circle, right?

00:28:01.980 Like, talk about a policy or a trade-off, not just the young people really care about

00:28:06.840 climate change.

00:28:07.560 What do you say?

00:28:08.720 It's been 25 years.

00:28:09.500 That was the question.

00:28:10.640 Where do you stand on climate change?

00:28:12.060 The fracking thing was one of the biggest fall downs of the night.

00:28:14.880 For all his stupid fact-checking, David Muir's stupid fact-checking, I listened to all those

00:28:21.860 pieces of tape and I did not hear sarcasm.

00:28:24.600 Shut up.

00:28:25.540 Who died and made you king of what sarcasm is and what isn't?

00:28:31.080 That is opinion.

00:28:32.420 It's not a fact-check.

00:28:34.460 He seems like someone who understands sarcasm.

00:28:38.660 He didn't fact-check her on the fracking.

00:28:43.480 He didn't.

00:28:44.440 After Dana Bash fell down on the job in that CNN interview and let her get away with, I've

00:28:50.540 made my position perfectly clear back in 2020 on the debate stage.

00:28:54.020 It's perfectly clear that I do not support a ban on fracking when, of course, the Joe

00:28:59.440 Biden, that was the Joe Biden, she was the vice presidential debate, where she said Joe

00:29:03.100 Biden won't ban fracking.

00:29:04.520 Joe Biden won't.

00:29:05.360 She had said she would have if she had been elected as president six months earlier.

00:29:10.960 So now, if you're David Muir, you know this is coming.

00:29:14.040 You've written it into your questions.

00:29:16.220 Lindsay Davis has a question about fracking and the flip-flop.

00:29:19.060 And she says she hasn't flip-flopped.

00:29:21.480 And again, they let her get away with it.

00:29:25.300 No fact-check.

00:29:27.200 But for Trump, that was a sarcasm.

00:29:30.620 What?

00:29:31.100 And those other stupid fact-checks we just played.

00:29:34.000 It was so unfair and lopsided.

00:29:36.720 I can barely keep the stomach bile where it belongs.

00:29:40.440 We were going to, like, send a drum and some Xanax over to your compound.

00:29:45.100 I have an Uber Eats just full of Xanax and Klonopin.

00:29:49.580 I want ABC to come back.

00:29:51.220 I love angry Megadeth.

00:29:52.440 I've never taken a Xanax.

00:29:53.920 But I would.

00:29:55.500 Yeah, I have a couple in my bag.

00:29:57.500 I want to say one final thing.

00:29:59.760 I really, really want to be clear.

00:30:02.300 I love adversarial debate moderators.

00:30:05.720 Sure.

00:30:06.080 Totally fine if you want to do it in an even-handed way.

00:30:09.700 So we were talking about this last night.

00:30:11.900 I think, like, why?

00:30:13.300 Just, you have a list of questions, right?

00:30:15.700 You write these out and they kind of send them around ABC.

00:30:19.880 You know, be a little more off the cuff at certain times.

00:30:23.180 So, for instance, it is a perfect time for a moderator who's been paying attention to this race when she says in the question about Afghanistan,

00:30:31.420 well, Joe Biden, it's like, wait, wait, Joe Biden.

00:30:34.920 And then, you know, she says, you know, well, I didn't ban fracking in the past.

00:30:41.380 As a moderator, as somebody who is an interviewer, Megan, you know this, you see these things, you make those connections.

00:30:47.720 It's the beautiful mind.

00:30:48.880 Why can you say, wait, hold on, Madam Vice President, when are you in charge and when are you not in charge?

00:30:55.720 What can you take credit for and what can you not take credit for?

00:30:58.840 Because the disaster in Afghanistan was Joe Biden's.

00:31:01.980 You not banning fracking was you.

00:31:04.020 So explain to the American people what you do as a vice president, in which decisions you're responsible for.

00:31:11.140 That is a completely reasonable question.

00:31:13.760 But they're just reading up.

00:31:14.740 Here's the other thing on the fracking, because here's what a responsible journalist does.

00:31:20.300 They go back and they look at all her recent statements and all of his recent statements on these issues that you know you're going to raise.

00:31:24.660 And you make sure you know where they normally go and you get ready for a potential fact check if you have to do it.

00:31:29.760 You know, what's she going to say in response to this?

00:31:32.780 We used to do this on Fox News all the time.

00:31:34.140 Go go back and look at any debate.

00:31:35.700 Brett Baer, Chris Wallace and I did as the three moderators of these.

00:31:39.000 And this shit never happened to us because we were we were prepared and we would anticipate what they would say.

00:31:44.280 And we'd have the hammer ready to drop if they walked into our trap.

00:31:48.440 It was fun.

00:31:49.440 And we did it to Republicans, even though we were at Fox News.

00:31:52.700 So you can.

00:31:53.260 Right.

00:31:53.400 Exactly.

00:31:53.800 You can set them up for difficult questions.

00:31:55.440 You just have to do it to both sides.

00:31:56.740 But on the fracking question, they should have known based on what she said to Dana Bash that she was going to both deny that she held this position, refer to her 2020 vice presidential debate and claim that as her own position, even though it was only saying Joe Biden won't ban fracking.

00:32:12.960 And that she would then go on to say exactly what she said to Dana Bash in that CNN interview, which was, I, in fact, cast the deciding vote as president of the Senate in my role as vice president to open up more leases as part of the Inflation Reduction Act for fracking on fracking.

00:32:30.920 That sounds so good on paper.

00:32:32.300 Yes, you because she said it before.

00:32:35.380 They clearly didn't do their homework because they don't give a shit.

00:32:38.040 All they want to do is go with that.

00:32:39.320 That sounds good.

00:32:40.220 We actually looked it up.

00:32:41.200 You know what?

00:32:41.980 It's true.

00:32:42.460 She did open those up, those more leases by that vote, only to then a couple of months later, shut them all down, saying the environmental impact hadn't been fully studied.

00:32:54.840 So they put that in there so they could say they'd done it, only to then cut it all out at the knees.

00:33:00.000 A responsible debate moderator interested in fact checking might have raised something like that.

00:33:05.280 If you were going to bring back any question from that Bash interview, I didn't suspect it would be the one about the race stuff.

00:33:13.560 I thought it might have been the one about Biden, his fitness for office, which was a moment when Dana, she asked the question.

00:33:19.820 She didn't ask it well because she covered it in euphemism to try to help Kamala to the right answer.

00:33:24.540 But it's the right question to ask.

00:33:26.420 And if the moderators aren't going to ask it, Donald Trump should have mentioned it.

00:33:29.700 At what point did you know that your boss was incapable of actually doing the job?

00:33:35.100 Because there's only two possibilities there.

00:33:37.180 You were either lying and you said that he could do it when you knew he couldn't or you have incredibly poor judgment because every single American and everyone in the media, once they saw that debate performance, knew what we've known for a very long time, that Joe Biden simply isn't up to the task at this point.

00:33:53.700 And he certainly won't be up to the task next year or four years from now.

00:33:57.380 There wasn't one question about his mental fitness and why she didn't come forward about it.

00:34:07.180 Not one.

00:34:09.600 And it's not just mental fitness.

00:34:11.060 How did we go through a whole debate without that?

00:34:12.560 That is probably the biggest bit of malpractice because it extends the malpractice from Dana Bash.

00:34:17.580 She asked the question really, really badly, as Camille said, gave three multiple choice answers in the question, which is not very helpful as a journalist.

00:34:25.200 The question is not just like, when did you notice, which is an important one, but it's also she said that the Robert, her investigation, which came out in February, said it was clearly political.

00:34:37.180 She was politically motivated, right, career prosecutor here in the DOJ.

00:34:41.060 She defaming him.

00:34:42.020 She was an attorney general, right?

00:34:43.360 So she was like arresting illegal aliens on the border.

00:34:46.780 That's a weird thing to do to one of your career prosecutors.

00:34:49.360 Undocumented migrants.

00:34:50.320 Thank you.

00:34:50.600 I'm sorry.

00:34:51.160 But she said that it was also objectively false.

00:34:56.100 His assessment of Biden's fitness, she said this in February.

00:34:59.400 She went further than anybody else in the administration.

00:35:03.680 She was the morning Joe of the administration in defending Biden's fitness and defaming a career prosecutor in his reasons for not prosecuting Joe Biden.

00:35:13.280 She has never had to answer this.

00:35:14.880 She's been running for president now for nearly two months.

00:35:17.100 She has not had to answer for that.

00:35:18.700 And she didn't after that.

00:35:19.620 This is the thing.

00:35:20.900 And by the way, this is the thing to always emphasize when she she hasn't had to answer that.

00:35:24.940 I have a friend who watches this show and I know I'm going to get an email from him after because, you know, I'm not a Trump fan.

00:35:32.260 He's more of not a Trump fan.

00:35:34.260 But the reason that the focus for me and I think for us is on Kamala Harris, I can just, you know, blithely say that I thought Donald Trump was a disaster.

00:35:44.080 He was bullshitting a lot.

00:35:45.520 He did poorly.

00:35:46.660 But it's because of that thing.

00:35:49.280 It's because she not that she hasn't answered.

00:35:52.860 She hasn't had to answer.

00:35:54.560 We have two opportunities, Dana Bash and this.

00:35:57.520 So guess why I'm going to be pissed off because I have this whole parcel of questions that I want answered because I'm a fucking voter.

00:36:05.720 Am I going to swear on this, right?

00:36:07.300 I shouldn't have.

00:36:09.940 Megan's 1230.

00:36:11.480 Sorry, kids who are listening to Megan Kelly.

00:36:14.020 My body mouth world.

00:36:15.560 But these are things like, again, not to be boring about this, but you are, you are, you know, auditioning for the most important job in the world.

00:36:26.320 And this is what you're doing.

00:36:28.420 You're not answering questions.

00:36:29.540 You're not being asked good questions.

00:36:31.260 As an interviewer, as Megan is saying, I used to call this watching fight tape.

00:36:35.760 You know what people are going to say.

00:36:37.480 You anticipate what they're going to say.

00:36:39.500 You're ready to go this way and that way.

00:36:41.300 And the only explanation I have for them not doing that is that they don't want to.

00:36:46.160 And I think the reason for that, and I'm actually going to say something that you might disagree with.

00:36:50.100 I don't think this comes from the top.

00:36:52.480 I don't think it has to come from the top.

00:36:54.500 I think these are people, they are, you know, the thing was when Donald Trump was president, we saw this phrase always.

00:37:02.540 And then it disappeared without evidence.

00:37:05.640 Donald Trump claimed, comma, without evidence, comma.

00:37:08.220 And then, all of a sudden, politicians were always using evidence.

00:37:12.760 After Donald Trump got it, everybody had evidence.

00:37:15.200 But that instinct comes back.

00:37:17.300 When Donald Trump is there, you're like, sir, I really need to tell you right here.

00:37:20.580 It's like that voice, by the way, is driving me crazy.

00:37:22.400 It's like, I'm going to fact check you here.

00:37:24.160 It's like that is the Donald Trump instinct because you've had nine years of this where you're being pushed by everyone.

00:37:31.500 Fact check him in real time.

00:37:32.540 All he does is lie.

00:37:33.740 OK, he lies a lot.

00:37:34.660 I totally agree.

00:37:36.340 But politicians lie a lot.

00:37:38.560 You have to do it to everybody else, too, because there were whoppers in there.

00:37:42.300 And the one that pissed me off the most, sorry to go on a rant here, is the bloodbath one, which is so obvious.

00:37:48.580 And if you don't know that.

00:37:49.660 Let me play some of it.

00:37:50.760 Here's a montage of some of her unchecked lies.

00:37:54.180 Not a single fact check by ABC.

00:37:56.980 Watch.

00:37:57.480 Sat 6.

00:37:57.900 Let's remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing anti-Semitic hate.

00:38:08.800 And what did the president then at the time say?

00:38:12.740 There were fine people on each side.

00:38:15.220 When it came to the Proud Boys, a militia, the president said, the former president said, stand back and stand by.

00:38:22.680 Donald Trump, the candidate, has said in this election there will be a bloodbath if this and the outcome of this election is not to his liking.

00:38:32.040 The president of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation's capital, to desecrate our nation's capital.

00:38:42.380 On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured and some died.

00:38:47.500 If Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban.

00:38:51.960 Tim Walls and I are both gun owners.

00:38:53.560 We're not taking anybody's guns away.

00:38:56.280 She's literally on record supporting a mandatory buyback program.

00:39:00.080 Yeah.

00:39:01.260 She's left in that.

00:39:02.720 Tell the bloodbath story because not everybody knows this.

00:39:04.580 Yeah.

00:39:04.860 No, it was about tariffs and electric vehicles in Mexico.

00:39:08.860 And it would be an economic bloodbath if this stuff came through.

00:39:12.740 And, you know, by the way, Trump is not restrained in this debate at all, but was restrained in those moments.

00:39:20.360 I think he should have been more vocal.

00:39:21.880 Obviously, the mics were off, but you could hear her when the mics were off, objecting and baiting him.

00:39:30.080 But that one, I have to say, Megan, because we were 97 drinks in and yelling at the TV, which is what I do when I watch ALF.

00:39:38.840 It doesn't, I mean, this is no different than normal, but I'm doing this and I missed the Brian Sicknick reference,

00:39:46.440 who was the officer who died and the autopsy showed that he died of natural causes.

00:39:53.760 And it wasn't because he was beaten over the head with a fire extinguisher and all these things.

00:39:58.240 And Trump tried to go back to that with the Ashley Babbitt stuff, but I think he made a hash of it as he did a lot of this stuff.

00:40:03.660 But that is really egregious.

00:40:05.560 Because she knows that that stuff's not true.

00:40:08.120 And what is the presumption that we have?

00:40:09.860 That they're going into this knowing that they don't have to really, you know, be precise about this stuff because they're not going to be fact-checked.

00:40:16.300 They know it.

00:40:16.980 And let's, and think about one of the biggest ones.

00:40:19.320 The both sides lie has been debunked by Snopes.

00:40:21.060 It's Trump and his, I'll give you the floor in one second, Matt, but Trump's response was,

00:40:24.060 Laura Ingraham has said it's not true.

00:40:25.600 Oh, my God.

00:40:26.060 That was not a shot.

00:40:28.220 Victor Orton said it wasn't true.

00:40:31.240 Snopes, which hates Republicans, has said it's not true.

00:40:37.640 Go there, sir.

00:40:38.620 Go ahead, Matt.

00:40:39.840 The one that wasn't even in your montage, maybe because it's so built into the fabric of democratic and media life right now, is just the incessant-

00:40:48.400 2025, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the Trump blueprint, everything in that is his government program.

00:40:55.220 He has distanced himself.

00:40:57.100 He has said, and he said at the debate last night, that's not my program.

00:41:01.800 It's a Heritage Foundation document from 2022 that was prepared in mind with maybe Ron DeSantis gets the thing as well.

00:41:07.680 And clearly, like, it got too much press, and he got mad and tried to push it away.

00:41:13.120 But there is a Republican Party platform, right?

00:41:16.400 That says what they're going to do.

00:41:18.080 Trump has a campaign website with issues.

00:41:20.840 Harris now has lots of issues on her website beginning on Monday, finally, two months into the whole thing.

00:41:26.100 But that has led, they've said that nonstop during the DNC.

00:41:30.240 I don't know how many references this was at Project 2025.

00:41:32.580 Probably more than 150, I would say.

00:41:34.760 Yeah, that big prop book.

00:41:35.800 Yeah, the big prop book, Jared Polis, who was otherwise pretty good, brought the prop book out, and that was very disappointing.

00:41:42.660 They can say that without any fear of being fact-checked, that this is the governing document.

00:41:47.680 It is not the governing document of what a Trump administration will do.

00:41:52.000 You could make the argument that, hey, there's some overlap there, there's some personnel, there's some aspirations and whatnot.

00:41:57.600 There's also some things in there that Trump would absolutely hate, like free trade things written by Veronique de Rougie or something.

00:42:03.960 And you're like, that's not going to happen at all under a Trump administration.

00:42:07.320 But she can say it over and over again.

00:42:09.080 And without fear of ever being fact-checked to the same degree, Trump's hyperbole is going to be a fact-checked.

00:42:14.860 No, look at this.

00:42:15.480 Look at her claim last night on what, again, she's John Wayne again.

00:42:19.040 She loves the guns.

00:42:20.060 Take a listen.

00:42:21.540 Then this business about taking everyone's guns away.

00:42:24.620 Tim Walls and I are both gun owners.

00:42:26.100 We're not taking anybody's guns away.

00:42:27.860 So stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.

00:42:30.760 The continuous lying.

00:42:32.120 Here she is in 2019.

00:42:34.280 Assault weapons that are already in circulation.

00:42:36.700 What do you do about those?

00:42:37.900 We have to have a buyback program, and I support a mandatory buyback program.

00:42:43.600 Mandatory buyback.

00:42:44.480 Moderator would have been ready with that fact.

00:42:48.880 That's not spin.

00:42:49.980 That's not a Trump argument.

00:42:51.280 That's not the RNC.

00:42:53.200 That's her on cam saying it.

00:42:55.900 But she got away with just stop with the continuous lies because she had either lazy moderators

00:43:01.040 or biased ones.

00:43:02.520 My suspicion is both.

00:43:04.720 Shout out to Craig Melvin there from NBC, who is an actually very good moderator, in my

00:43:08.280 opinion, and a pretty good journalist, Meg.

00:43:10.600 I would offer this.

00:43:11.960 And so are you for saying that.

00:43:13.580 What do you think that she's going to be okay with that?

00:43:16.780 No.

00:43:17.560 She hates everybody.

00:43:18.940 Craig Melvin is one of the assholes who jumped all over me after my Blackface Halloween thing.

00:43:26.860 I'm so nice to him.

00:43:28.500 He begged me to come on my show.

00:43:30.120 I put him on.

00:43:31.100 I helped him out repeatedly because he didn't really have much of a role other than his shitty

00:43:34.640 no-watch MSNBC show.

00:43:36.720 I helped him.

00:43:38.440 And then they would make this comment with the knife like a psycho killer.

00:43:43.040 And I do Craig Melvin.

00:43:44.500 And screw you, Matt.

00:43:45.500 Megan, I got a couple things here.

00:43:50.740 But I want to know if in the next hour I can just name journalists and you can lose your

00:43:55.180 mind about them.

00:43:56.340 And we can create some New York press headlines.

00:43:58.500 Can we get some New York press headlines?

00:43:59.440 I'm in that kind of mood today.

00:44:00.260 I know it's the best mood to ask these questions.

00:44:02.860 And by the way, the best debate moderator follow-up, because I had never heard, and maybe

00:44:08.320 this is just me and I've done my homework, that she's a gun owner.

00:44:11.760 It's just what kind of gun do you have?

00:44:13.700 She has like eight.

00:44:14.900 That's right.

00:44:15.920 Does she?

00:44:16.620 Yeah.

00:44:16.960 And what kind of gun is it?

00:44:18.160 I would be interested.

00:44:19.400 I mean, there's two follow-ups to that.

00:44:20.720 It's like, no, you didn't say that.

00:44:23.480 Also, Craig Melvin is a fascist or whatever.

00:44:27.120 Just ask me.

00:44:27.840 Ask me.

00:44:28.280 That's not Megan.

00:44:28.940 That's not Megan.

00:44:30.140 I'm just, I'm trying to get into character of what Megan and Matt is.

00:44:34.040 And then the third one is, what is a mandatory gun buyback?

00:44:40.000 What is that?

00:44:40.420 It's a mandatory gun buyback.

00:44:42.640 Yeah.

00:44:42.920 She's going to pass an assault weapons ban, and then she's going to go and collect everybody's

00:44:46.220 guns.

00:44:46.640 That's what she's saying.

00:44:47.480 It's what people live in fear of, because we're American and we have a Second Amendment.

00:44:52.640 The egregious fall downs on the job were everywhere.

00:44:56.760 And again, no follow-ups whatsoever.

00:44:59.120 She kept saying, we're going to get to that.

00:45:00.540 I can't wait to talk about all my flip-flops, and she never did because she wasn't made to

00:45:05.300 by the moderators, right?

00:45:07.320 It was just, they were perfectly happy to let her get away with the gun buyback, with

00:45:11.440 the fracking, with the private health insurance.

00:45:13.560 They did ask.

00:45:14.140 She said, you supported Bernie Sanders' proposal to do away with private health insurance and

00:45:19.580 put everybody on a government-run health care system.

00:45:21.860 Two years later, you proposed a plan that included a private insurance option.

00:45:25.400 What's your plan today?

00:45:26.920 All right.

00:45:27.460 That's just the softest way to ask these questions, right?

00:45:30.060 No, you're shaking your head.

00:45:31.220 No, that's not the right way.

00:45:32.840 And so first she says, I absolutely support a private health care option, and I will get

00:45:39.660 to that, Lindsay.

00:45:40.700 But first, I need to tell you, I've made very clear my position on fracking and the business

00:45:47.020 about taking everyone's guns away.

00:45:49.620 And so stop with the continuous lying and all.

00:45:51.660 I mean, it's just, and what does Lindsay Davis respond with?

00:45:54.660 Like, anything about that earlier gun comment or the earlier tape of her saying she does

00:46:00.060 want to take away private insurance, any of that?

00:46:02.580 No.

00:46:03.300 I want to move on to an issue that's important, right?

00:46:06.100 And then she goes on and eventually gets to climate change.

00:46:09.660 Climate change.

00:46:10.100 I got to start doing that.

00:46:12.500 You know, my girlfriend's like, I saw you texting this woman.

00:46:14.640 It's like, I know that's an important issue.

00:46:16.380 We'll get back to that.

00:46:17.200 But at first, I want to say, then filibuster for three days.

00:46:21.440 I mean, it's an amazing thing that it's, by the way, it's not even an ideological thing.

00:46:26.020 As somebody who interviews people for a living, I know Megan can sympathize with this too.

00:46:30.280 When people do that, it is annoying as an interviewer, and it gets my dander up.

00:46:35.660 And I'm usually like, hey, hey, stop, stop, stop.

00:46:37.140 Wait, I asked this very specific question.

00:46:38.960 Let's get to that.

00:46:39.480 We can get to the other thing later.

00:46:40.580 And, like, the people, what abouting everything or changing the subject is the very, very base unit as an interviewer that you're just trained to intercept.

00:46:51.520 And I just, I mean, I do know why, but it was very frustrating to see that stuff.

00:46:56.180 And once, by the way, when you get away with it in the first question, you do it the whole time.

00:46:59.620 I'm curious.

00:47:00.860 Is some of her, like, over talk is, like, not strategic.

00:47:06.600 The ambition, the aspiration, the hope.

00:47:08.820 I have, I imagine and actually have a plan.

00:47:13.780 Like, you have said the same thing several different ways in one sentence.

00:47:20.080 I can't imagine that that isn't, like, actually designed to obfuscate the fact that she's not responding to questions.

00:47:27.900 Like, it feels that way.

00:47:29.140 And one can imagine that with the moderators, and maybe this is giving them too much credit,

00:47:32.840 that maybe if they realized, if they could see through that smoke screen, they might have followed up in a couple of instances.

00:47:39.720 Like, I'm sorry.

00:47:40.980 What's the answer to the question?

00:47:42.760 But they never thought her.

00:47:44.440 No, they had no instinct for it, Camille, because they wanted to help her.

00:47:49.320 That's why.

00:47:50.460 That's why they didn't let Donald Trump get away with that at all.

00:47:53.980 When he tried to not answer the question, they had their follow-up.

00:47:57.200 The question was, insert.

00:47:59.500 With her, it didn't happen one time.

00:48:03.200 And she dodged and weaved, like, O.J. Simpson.

00:48:07.880 There, I made a sports reference.

00:48:12.220 It's more of a double murderer reference.

00:48:14.580 I don't know.

00:48:15.660 Who's an athlete?

00:48:16.740 He did.

00:48:17.360 I don't know.

00:48:18.300 Who's an athlete that dodges and weaves?

00:48:20.720 I can't think of.

00:48:23.220 You literally went with O.J.

00:48:25.600 Emmett Smith was also good.

00:48:27.320 He did win some championships.

00:48:29.240 You know.

00:48:30.260 Unbelievable.

00:48:31.100 It's the O.J. of debates.

00:48:32.300 Before we take a break, what do you guys make of the Taylor Swift endorsement?

00:48:37.640 Oh, man.

00:48:38.260 You guys have sent your daughters to see Taylor Swift in different states and countries.

00:48:42.580 You make this sound as if I'm sending her to, like, reformatory school or something.

00:48:48.700 She was wanted, her cousin wanted her to, I'm sorry, I have to defend my daughter for a second.

00:48:53.180 I'm just saying it's a big deal.

00:48:54.960 Megan will be on my side on this and I know why.

00:48:58.180 Because when she was 11 years old, not knowing, she sent me something from Instagram that was a clip from the Megyn Kelly show.

00:49:04.700 And I was like, wow, red pill to the left.

00:49:06.940 I swear to God, I swear to God, I can screencap it and send it to you.

00:49:11.100 But, yeah, I don't, look, the thing, I don't care and it didn't surprise me.

00:49:15.540 You know, she intervened in the Tennessee thing in the past.

00:49:18.820 She's a liberal.

00:49:19.980 Her father, by the way, isn't.

00:49:21.360 Remember this whole controversy because he's a bit conservative.

00:49:24.660 He had posted some things on Facebook.

00:49:26.520 Yeah, I don't know.

00:49:27.360 I mean, we have to disaggregate the number of people because we were talking about our daughter's liking.

00:49:33.500 And none of them are going to vote this time around because they can't.

00:49:37.460 And I don't know.

00:49:38.060 Their children.

00:49:38.940 Their children.

00:49:39.520 I saw the pictures from the concert that my daughter went to.

00:49:41.880 Not a lot of voters among them.

00:49:43.600 But so I don't know what kind of effect this has considering that I think people already knew this.

00:49:49.180 I know you're a bit exercised about this, Megan.

00:49:52.280 I have no opinion on her.

00:49:53.760 I'm irritated at her reasons.

00:49:56.860 It was Tim Walsh and his stance on LGBTQ, which she's either a know-nothing or she's an insane person.

00:50:03.340 Standby, quick break.

00:50:04.320 More with the guys from the fifth column who are here for the whole show.

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00:51:00.500 Don't forget to use our link so they know I set you.

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00:52:03.780 I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.

00:52:09.880 It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today.

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00:53:02.680 Offer details apply.

00:53:06.700 To tie the game at 7-7.

00:53:22.980 There it is.

00:53:24.020 Okay, that was O.J. Simpson dodging and weaving people.

00:53:32.640 That's video proof.

00:53:33.720 My reference was spot on.

00:53:35.980 I'm just saying, Megan, that we could have gone with Tony Dorsett.

00:53:38.660 We could have gone with Gail Sayers.

00:53:40.160 There's a lot of running backs who did that who didn't do all the murdering.

00:53:42.980 Yeah, the objection wasn't that he didn't dodge and weave.

00:53:46.360 It was that he murdered two people.

00:53:47.760 You have to separate the athress from the crime.

00:53:49.940 Yes, we do.

00:53:50.220 That's what you have to do.

00:53:52.100 Wasn't Gail Sayers part of the really sad story?

00:53:55.680 The Brian Piccolo, Brian song.

00:53:56.980 You bet.

00:53:57.300 Yeah.

00:53:58.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:53:58.340 The Brian Piccolo story.

00:53:59.120 That's the only reason I know that.

00:54:00.580 Only if it crosses over into entertainment or news do I know the sports players, which is

00:54:05.760 why I am limited to these weird references.

00:54:08.700 Your audience just heard you say sports players.

00:54:11.460 And they know exactly what's what's called.

00:54:15.800 The point is, I was right.

00:54:17.880 Okay, that's a point.

00:54:18.780 It was fine.

00:54:19.320 The reference was fine.

00:54:20.340 I've got to stay on Taylor Swift for one minute.

00:54:22.560 Because Doug Brunt, my husband, he doesn't react to that much in the news.

00:54:25.820 So when it gets his attention, I know that something's gone either very right or very wrong.

00:54:29.860 And he did not like this clip from Tim Walz reacting to the Taylor Swift news watch.

00:54:37.460 Taylor Swift signed Childless Cat Lady.

00:54:41.580 I have to get your response to that, Mr. Governor.

00:54:45.940 All those things.

00:54:46.960 I am incredibly grateful, first of all, to Taylor Swift.

00:54:49.580 I say that also as a cat owner, a fellow cat owner.

00:54:52.860 Look, you heard it.

00:54:54.380 We know that it's there.

00:54:55.400 That was eloquent.

00:54:56.640 And it was clear.

00:54:57.540 And that's the type of courage we need in America to stand up.

00:55:01.620 Courage.

00:55:02.140 Okay, so for the listening audience, when he first reacted, his mouth was like this.

00:55:06.880 Yeah.

00:55:07.440 And my husband said he looks like Elmer Fudd.

00:55:10.140 That's what he looks like, Elmer Fudd.

00:55:11.640 Like there's something off about this guy.

00:55:14.220 And just one more for you.

00:55:16.780 Different but similar reaction from Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC.

00:55:22.640 The Harris for President campaign now has the two most perfectly timed and most important endorsements of this campaign.

00:55:33.780 Joe Biden's 27-minute timed endorsement after he said, I'm not the candidate.

00:55:41.040 Perfect timing.

00:55:41.780 It just put a rocket on her to the nomination.

00:55:45.440 And it's so important, I think, to the people who are going to be consuming that Taylor Swift endorsement, including those fathers of eight-year-old girls.

00:55:53.360 And the timing on it is absolutely exquisite.

00:55:56.020 The wording of it is flawless and perfect, right down to the cat lady stuff.

00:56:00.860 There you go.

00:56:02.520 The fathers.

00:56:03.260 That's you guys.

00:56:04.280 The fathers of the young girls are going to be pushed.

00:56:07.560 I know.

00:56:08.140 I mean, I don't really get it.

00:56:09.440 But perfect.

00:56:11.360 First of all, I don't.

00:56:13.140 Two comments.

00:56:13.900 Two very important comments that everyone should pay attention to.

00:56:17.560 I really cannot stand on cable news when people pretend that something's funny because someone important is on.

00:56:23.400 He said, I got my cat owner, too.

00:56:25.120 And everyone's like, oh, my God, that was amazing, Tim Waltz, the Richard Trotter of Minnesota.

00:56:31.280 That's the first very important thing.

00:56:32.660 It makes me sick.

00:56:33.980 The second thing is I don't like the Joe Biden.

00:56:36.520 That was the rocket.

00:56:38.520 First, I was at the DNC.

00:56:40.380 I don't remember that rocket taking off.

00:56:42.360 And then the fathers of eight-year-old girls.

00:56:45.280 My daughter is 13.

00:56:47.000 And as you can imagine, she's perfect and hilarious and everything.

00:56:49.840 That said, I don't look to the people that she listens to on her Spotify account and say, who are they going to vote for?

00:56:58.280 That's what I really want to know.

00:57:00.320 Because, you know, sometimes it's Freddie Mercury and he doesn't have a choice right now.

00:57:04.020 My 16-year-old property.

00:57:05.160 I have an 11-year-old son.

00:57:06.820 That's my youngest.

00:57:07.540 And all the people he listens to sing about poop and farts.

00:57:10.940 That's really it.

00:57:11.620 Oh.

00:57:12.380 Who are these artists?

00:57:13.600 What else is that?

00:57:15.120 There's a lot of songs on there.

00:57:16.520 You're in, too.

00:57:17.120 That's fine.

00:57:17.760 But there's a lot of songs.

00:57:18.620 These are not our political, you know, opinion makers.

00:57:23.020 Go ahead, Matt.

00:57:24.120 DJ Skato.

00:57:25.300 Yeah.

00:57:25.640 I might want to have a talk with him, by the way.

00:57:27.580 But that's just, you know, I'm not like.

00:57:29.120 There have been many.

00:57:30.740 My daughter is a 16-year-old Swifty.

00:57:33.880 My other daughter is becoming a Swifty.

00:57:35.420 She's nine.

00:57:36.560 And she's not going to be moved even a millimeter by this.

00:57:41.120 She's moved by, as all 16-year-old girls are, by hilarious TikTok videos having to do with, like, skibbity-rizzlers and things like that.

00:57:49.220 Yeah.

00:57:49.880 And Melania Trump.

00:57:51.560 Melania Trump is an absolute hero to 16-year-old girls.

00:57:55.260 I think she's fantastic.

00:57:56.420 Couture?

00:57:57.580 Well, today's a 16-year-old girl.

00:57:58.920 Oh, yeah.

00:57:59.460 But I could see it.

00:58:00.360 Sure.

00:58:00.820 She's a hero to me, too.

00:58:02.460 Yeah, me, too.

00:58:04.280 Me, too.

00:58:04.780 Oh, that's pretty cool.

00:58:05.540 People hate Melania Trump so much that they've forgotten that she's our hottest first lady by a lot.

00:58:10.000 By a lot of exciting quotes.

00:58:11.960 And, like, Abigail Adams.

00:58:13.460 Nothing.

00:58:13.900 Please.

00:58:14.380 I'm on the record.

00:58:15.420 Abigail Adams.

00:58:16.860 Permanent.

00:58:17.180 I don't believe you.

00:58:18.360 As long as possible.

00:58:19.720 Vogue put Jill Biden on the cover as our caption icon we're supposed to be looking up to.

00:58:23.960 Jill Biden.

00:58:24.480 Remember Jill Biden?

00:58:25.280 Remember Joe Biden?

00:58:26.900 Yeah.

00:58:27.260 He's still president.

00:58:28.360 FYI, I don't know if you're aware.

00:58:29.940 Here is another attempted, well, it's Trump who's doing the fact check.

00:58:36.520 But I can't believe David Muir had the nerve to say this about the crime stats.

00:58:43.140 Watch this.

00:58:44.540 Sop 9.

00:58:48.260 Crime here is up and through the roof.

00:58:50.660 Despite their fraudulent statements that they made, crime in this country is through the roof.

00:58:55.680 And we have a new form of crime.

00:58:57.320 It's called migrant crime.

00:58:58.580 And it's happening at levels that nobody thought possible.

00:59:01.620 President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country.

00:59:06.040 But, excuse me, the FBI defraud.

00:59:07.640 They were defrauding statements.

00:59:09.360 They didn't include the worst cities.

00:59:11.780 They didn't include the cities with the worst crime.

00:59:14.760 It was a fraud.

00:59:15.980 That is totally correct, what Trump said in response.

00:59:21.080 He was having to fact check the moderator, gents.

00:59:25.900 Fact check the moderator.

00:59:27.160 Not only is he right, they did remove the major cities, several of them, from that crime study that was referenced.

00:59:32.820 But on top of that, the decrease in violent crimes is looking at all post-George Floyd.

00:59:39.200 If you want to compare present-day year, present year to 2019, pre-George Floyd, there is not.

00:59:46.980 We are not down.

00:59:48.120 We are up considerably.

00:59:50.560 And Heather McDonald has been pointing this out and pointing out if you want to go back even further and look at the Ferguson effect after 2014 and compare where we were prior to Ferguson versus now.

00:59:59.160 Again, we've skyrocketed, none of which would be offered by David Muir.

01:00:03.160 But what do you make to of the fact that Trump had to fact check not only Kamala, but the moderators?

01:00:10.080 It didn't help that, as Trump always does, he then extends his own kind of apocalyptic hyperbole, right?

01:00:20.260 So he's, in the same way that, like, Dana Bash gives Kamala Harris four different things to ways to answer a question to make it soft on her,

01:00:28.080 where he gives moderators, especially ones who are keyed up through what I think is peer pressure, really, from their colleagues industrially to be sort of tough on Trump so he doesn't abuse his platform.

01:00:38.760 When he says, you know, our country is being destroyed, Israel is going to cease to exist in two years.

01:00:44.560 Which he said that Kamala is a communist, his dad's a communist, Joe Biden hates her.

01:00:49.720 A lot of these are, like, jokes.

01:00:51.220 He doesn't know he's alive.

01:00:52.320 Doesn't know he's alive.

01:00:52.940 That was funny.

01:00:53.340 So, like, he is giving, in addition to that fact check there, and I take your word for it, Megan, of his depiction of it, but he's also saying these other things.

01:01:04.800 And so it kind of dulls the impact, right?

01:01:08.640 Donald Trump is never going to come across as the person who's going to be the biggest truth teller on any stage.

01:01:13.660 And especially towards the end when he knew, I think, that he was kind of scrambling for keeping his head above water in this debate, he sped up and he kept getting more and more hyperbolic in his statements in a way that it just becomes hard to take him seriously.

01:01:29.620 And I think even in those things that he was saying about Kamala Harris, she was skillful in not taking the bait herself.

01:01:36.280 She could have said, oh, no, my dad's not a communist.

01:01:38.420 She's, like, left.

01:01:39.320 She left that there.

01:01:40.560 She left a bunch of stuff there, which was very wise.

01:01:43.080 She's not capable.

01:01:43.800 Yeah, well.

01:01:44.540 It was smart, but she's not capable of doing it.

01:01:46.220 She was like, that is not part of my rote memorization.

01:01:48.620 What card is that on?

01:01:50.280 I do not have it.

01:01:51.780 There were, yeah, there were two grades that we were talking about last night, the one on substance and on style.

01:01:57.160 And I think she did well on style.

01:01:58.600 She backed up and she didn't fall on her face like we thought we were going to do, she was going to do.

01:02:03.320 But if you look at the David Muir question, there's actually the first four or five words are the key to it.

01:02:10.240 I mean, people kind of forget this.

01:02:11.960 She said, he said, Mr. President, as you know, which is a blatant accusation of lying.

01:02:18.580 I mean, the thing is, is that there's a number of ways.

01:02:21.800 And again, like Matt, I haven't looked at this stuff and looked at it recently.

01:02:24.700 I'm trusting your, your take on it, Megan.

01:02:28.380 But there's a number of ways of looking at these statistics, right?

01:02:31.500 Going back to 1993 in New York when there were over 2000 murders, like, oh, it's down.

01:02:35.620 It's like, yes, but down.

01:02:36.820 Where's your starting point?

01:02:38.280 So you can be generous in some sense and say, you know, you're interpreting this a different way.

01:02:43.320 But if you look at it this way, Mr. President, but you're just going out of the block and saying, as you know, Mr. President, that is incorrect.

01:02:51.240 That's a, I don't think you should do that as a moderator.

01:02:54.200 I'm sorry.

01:02:54.740 Let me give you some stats.

01:02:56.380 Let me give you some stats because we had Heather McDonald on the show who you can trust implicitly.

01:03:00.980 I mean, Heather does her homework on all things revolving around crime.

01:03:04.920 She's, this is like one of her main beats.

01:03:06.340 And here are some of the, the stats that we pulled in connection with that interview.

01:03:11.480 According to the Council on Criminal Justice, comparing 2023 to 2019, the homicide rate, uh, 18% higher in 2023 versus 19 gun assault rate, 32% higher carjacking, 93% higher car theft, 105% higher.

01:03:28.800 Uh, Chicago total crime up 55% in 2023 robbery up 38% car theft up 22% Memphis homicides up 87%.

01:03:39.700 Um, and as for those, the, the, the one article that the left Rachel Maddow and David Muir are basing their claims on that crime has been falling and that it's at a 50 year low and all and so on and so forth.

01:03:52.880 Um, the guy admits that the major cities were not included in this report.

01:04:00.520 Some major cities, uh, like Chicago and Los Angeles did not report any data.

01:04:06.480 So Trump was right.

01:04:07.780 You don't have to believe Trump.

01:04:08.940 You can believe me.

01:04:09.700 You can believe Heather McDonald.

01:04:10.980 You can believe the guy who authored the study on which David Muir is basing that claim.

01:04:14.920 You can believe the city, the Council on Criminal Justice.

01:04:17.860 The point is, it's not the candidate's job to clean up the moderator's inaccurate questions.

01:04:24.560 This is such bullshit.

01:04:26.120 Again, he was in the foxhole.

01:04:28.420 Everyone was surrounding him, firing down at the guy.

01:04:31.900 And Trump was trying to put, you know, stop the gunfire at every turn.

01:04:35.840 There was, the guy's human.

01:04:37.780 There's only so much he can do.

01:04:39.880 And that's why I watched this thing and I felt empathy for him.

01:04:43.760 I felt like this is unfair.

01:04:45.720 This is not a fair test of what a president can do and what we should be putting our presidential

01:04:52.300 candidates through in order to get to the office.

01:04:55.520 This is, it's, it's almost cruel.

01:04:59.120 It's just, it's trying to humiliate him.

01:05:01.240 That's how I felt watching it.

01:05:03.100 I just, I keep coming back to the fact that he, even he talked about his expectations of

01:05:08.960 unfairness in the debate.

01:05:10.780 He did not expect them to be fair.

01:05:12.360 He said so in advance.

01:05:13.580 He said so before the CNN debate as well, and that they were fair.

01:05:17.500 And just, if you know that that is the case, there's two things they probably should have

01:05:20.940 done in the campaign.

01:05:22.180 Insist that there be another debate on Fox News or something like that, so that you at

01:05:27.300 least have this other opportunity and it's already there.

01:05:29.980 Force Kamala to do it.

01:05:31.580 And the second thing is, again, you know what the defects of your candidate are.

01:05:36.000 You know that he has difficulty just being disciplined and staying on message.

01:05:40.280 That, you should laser focus on that.

01:05:42.300 Every question should come, and for every Kamala response, you should go back to the

01:05:48.040 fact that you're in office right now.

01:05:49.800 Why haven't you done it already?

01:05:51.280 Everyone.

01:05:51.600 You should have said it like twice.

01:05:53.340 You should have said it every single time.

01:05:55.360 And then apologize.

01:05:56.300 He did get there.

01:05:56.660 I know you're at home and you're watching.

01:05:58.800 And I've said this eight times already, but I'll say it again, because she is the sitting

01:06:02.920 vice president.

01:06:04.180 They aren't doing the things she promises you that she's going to do that are going to make

01:06:08.540 your life better.

01:06:09.020 What is she waiting for?

01:06:10.640 You can't trust her.

01:06:12.240 That would have worked, but he didn't do it.

01:06:14.460 You should have said he never said that, that you can't trust her.

01:06:16.860 She changes her positions all the time.

01:06:18.300 She makes all these promises, but she doesn't do them while she's in office.

01:06:20.820 His best answer was his closing statement, where he did make these points over and over.

01:06:26.060 Here's a highlight.

01:06:26.620 You just started by saying she's going to do this.

01:06:30.400 She's going to do that.

01:06:31.340 She's going to do all these wonderful things.

01:06:33.540 Why hasn't she done it?

01:06:35.540 She's been there for three and a half years.

01:06:38.160 They've had three and a half years to fix the border.

01:06:41.300 They've had three and a half years to create jobs and all the things we talked about.

01:06:46.540 Why hasn't she done it?

01:06:48.740 She should leave right now, go down to that beautiful White House, go to the Capitol,

01:06:53.420 get everyone together and do the things you want to do, but you haven't done it and you

01:06:57.400 won't do it because you believe in things that the American people don't believe in.

01:07:01.920 We can't sacrifice our country for the sake of bad vision.

01:07:06.680 But I just ask one simple question.

01:07:09.080 Why didn't she do it?

01:07:12.240 Primacy and recency.

01:07:13.580 That's what viewers remember.

01:07:15.680 And here was the CBS focus group of, I believe it was Pennsylvania Undecideds,

01:07:20.780 reacting after the debate.

01:07:23.340 Listen to what came up.

01:07:25.640 She just basically repeated everything that Biden has said in the past.

01:07:33.300 What were your thoughts?

01:07:35.120 She made, Donald Trump made a strong closing statement by saying,

01:07:39.780 why didn't they do all the things that she's proposing during the three and a half years

01:07:45.000 that they've been in the office and Biden did this entire moderate stance back in 2020.

01:07:52.320 And she's trying to do it again in 2024.

01:07:55.180 But she didn't talk about her policy changes between 2020 and 2024.

01:08:00.940 Her whole centrist moderate stance is just a facade.

01:08:04.420 That reminds me a little bit of the post-DNC glow when everybody in the building was just talking about all the joy.

01:08:17.380 Don't you feel joy?

01:08:18.360 You're being joyed on all over your face.

01:08:20.980 And there was tangible joy or at least a euphoric sense of relief in the audience

01:08:27.700 because they didn't have to pretend that Joe Biden was fit to be president

01:08:30.940 or at least like a good candidate.

01:08:33.300 They had some nice speeches from the Obamas and Oprah Winfrey and stuff.

01:08:37.460 So people were in a good mood.

01:08:38.480 They had a really great DJ legitimately playing like a sweet home Alabama.

01:08:43.240 So there was joy in the building, but they tried to incept the joy as if all of America was feeling it.

01:08:49.320 And no, all of America isn't the people who can get through 75 security checkpoints

01:08:53.560 and into the United Center for a few days.

01:08:57.840 Americans are people who haven't heard from this vice president.

01:09:01.380 We know who Trump is.

01:09:02.680 Americans know who Trump is.

01:09:03.620 There's not going to be a lot of new information unless he somehow changes in a certain way.

01:09:07.880 And there's an argument that maybe he's changed a little bit.

01:09:10.080 But they don't really know Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate and aspirant.

01:09:15.760 And as the guy said in the Pennsylvania focus room,

01:09:19.580 we haven't got good explanations at all about how she's changed her mind

01:09:22.640 and how this then impacts what she's going to be like.

01:09:26.080 So that, yes, is the job of a moderator.

01:09:28.860 But it also gives us a sense that maybe there's a cap on, even right now, on a debate that it seems pretty clear that she won.

01:09:36.880 I think most people who watch it will say she won.

01:09:38.820 But the question is, how much of an impact is that going to have on people when you have, on one hand,

01:09:45.240 a lot of those who don't have that natural sense of democratic joy are going to look at the way that this was moderated and presented

01:09:52.080 and feel like this is just continuing the sneering that I'm that I'm reacting against.

01:09:57.080 This is the thing that attracts me to begin with, even if we don't like him and thinks that he colors too much outside the lines

01:10:03.000 or don't like this policy or that part of the Trump coalition and the modern day Republican coalition

01:10:07.940 is a revulsion at kind of elite discourse of journalism, of whatever the elites think that they were trying to do.

01:10:15.640 You're going to put more people in that position.

01:10:18.340 So the DNC bump, there really wasn't one. And within a week or two, it kind of dissipated.

01:10:23.160 I think that she will get a measurable bump, but I think that there's a ceiling on that precisely because of that response

01:10:30.280 and also just because it has been a 50-50 race all along. It's not going to become 80-20.

01:10:35.480 So she won, but what did she win? Did she actually persuade anybody or are there millions of people sitting at home like that guy saying,

01:10:42.760 I did not hear her explain why she flipped on fracking and I know she flipped on fracking.

01:10:47.440 I did not hear her explain the private health insurance or the guns. She just denied it, but I've seen the sound bites.

01:10:52.660 And here was another person, this is a CNN focus group, who got a similar message, who had a similar takeaway.

01:10:59.440 Like, okay, for all the dazzling, like rhetorical, oh, you know, you didn't do this and you're terrible and everyone hates you.

01:11:05.300 This was his takeaway. I think it's a him. Watch.

01:11:07.500 I think it's important to remember that we are voting for the leader of our country

01:11:12.720 and not who we like the most or who we want in our wedding party, but who is actually going to make our country better.

01:11:20.240 And we're in an incredibly unique situation where we've had both of the candidates in office before,

01:11:25.780 and we've gotten to see what they would do. And when facts come to facts, my life was better when Trump was in office.

01:11:31.600 The economy was higher. Inflation was lower. Things were better overall.

01:11:35.740 And now with Kamala's administration, things haven't been so fantastic.

01:11:41.200 And she's saying she can fix the problems that her administration has caused,

01:11:45.100 but I just don't know if I can afford to take that risk.

01:11:47.780 Were you leaning towards the former president coming in tonight?

01:11:50.480 Probably.

01:11:51.320 And did you have a forum in 2016 or 2020?

01:11:53.340 I did. Interesting.

01:11:58.460 This is the thing that frustrates me. As, you know, I heard some people talking about this last night, Republicans.

01:12:03.860 I think Ben Shapiro was talking about it.

01:12:05.880 I think he's a pretty good weather vane for Republicans in some senses, is that you hear the anger from people.

01:12:13.420 And I know, Megan, you said you had some sympathy for him.

01:12:15.980 You hear the anger at Donald Trump for not seizing on these opportunities.

01:12:19.960 Those were two articulate answers from two different panels on CNN and I guess the other one was false.

01:12:25.140 But these people who make, you know, good points, and I've heard it before when I'm out in the field talking to people, too.

01:12:32.660 And if you're a Republican, you have to say, you know, on the immigration issue, why are you talking about cats?

01:12:37.160 Why are you not talking about the border in a more substantial way?

01:12:40.780 You get to it at some point, right?

01:12:42.720 Well, yeah, you get to it at some point.

01:12:44.480 You get to the end.

01:12:45.160 And people did remember that, but they're there at CNN tasked with watching the whole debate.

01:12:50.240 Is everybody getting through?

01:12:51.140 I was getting exhausted by minute 85.

01:12:54.140 And then he leaves the good stuff for the end.

01:12:56.860 And I'm thinking of it.

01:12:57.640 If I'm in this situation and the moderators are being this way, you could have so many of those people in those focus groups talking about the good line, not a canned line, but a natural line, in the way of, like, Reagan's, which I think was probably a canned line.

01:13:10.680 And there you go again, you know, going after the moderators, like, you know, look at what these people are doing.

01:13:16.280 This is your media.

01:13:17.880 These are the people that are telling you things about me, right?

01:13:20.500 Do you trust these people?

01:13:21.740 Something like that.

01:13:22.540 But when you talk about the crime stats, all you have to do is beseech the audience to listen to and say, what's the nearest city to you?

01:13:31.800 Do you feel that that city is safe?

01:13:33.680 Do you feel like things are better?

01:13:35.140 Do you feel like your groceries are less expensive than they were under my administration?

01:13:41.260 Have you gone into a CVS lately?

01:13:44.100 What was your experience?

01:13:44.860 Correct. Everything's locked up.

01:13:46.020 You can't, I mean, I literally, this is actually true.

01:13:48.460 The other night I was in the city, I was trying to get painkillers, and I was like, fuck it, I'll screw it, I'll deal with it, because I had to find someone to unlock it.

01:13:56.340 And it's like, no, this is an annoyance in my life that actually kind of matters to me, because writ large, it's a big thing.

01:14:03.260 But Donald Trump has absolutely zero discipline.

01:14:06.160 He's so obsessed with personal grievances.

01:14:08.020 Because, as I said, do people say, oh, it's genius that he mentioned the crowd size?

01:14:11.500 No, it's not genius.

01:14:13.280 I know that.

01:14:13.960 No, that's not genius.

01:14:14.260 You know that.

01:14:14.940 Everybody knows that.

01:14:16.320 But if you put that out there, it will be a record.

01:14:17.600 But I will say, Moynihan, if you look back at, like I did at the transcript, he brings up the economy a lot, to his credit, and he did bring up immigration a lot.

01:14:24.300 He did manage to weave both of those things into his messaging throughout.

01:14:28.820 It was just so much shit being thrown at him, it got lost.

01:14:32.160 Here is another, this is David Chalian over on CNN talking about a focus group on the economy.

01:14:38.460 And watch this.

01:14:39.240 Who better understands problems facing people like you?

01:14:44.120 Before the debate, 39% said that about Harris, 43% Trump.

01:14:49.100 And look at how that flips for Harris.

01:14:51.840 After the debate, 43% of the debate watchers say that she understands problems facing people like them.

01:14:58.120 40% say that about Trump.

01:15:00.660 Look at the economy here.

01:15:02.520 Who would better handle the economy is what we ask.

01:15:06.100 Going into the debate, before the debate, 37% said Harris, 53% Trump.

01:15:11.720 After the debate, again, margin of error stuff here, but numerically she lost a little ground.

01:15:16.400 35% said so after the debate that she would better handle the economy.

01:15:19.960 55% said Trump.

01:15:23.420 That's the risk in just dodging and weaving if you're her on these answers.

01:15:28.180 Like, she threw out the same nonsense about how she's going to, I don't know, give people $25,000 loans and she's going to help small businesses.

01:15:36.960 People don't buy it.

01:15:38.380 They don't trust her to handle the economy.

01:15:40.240 They know Trump can do it.

01:15:41.360 And I think his last message about, were you better off four years ago?

01:15:44.780 Why hasn't she done anything in these past three and a half?

01:15:47.160 You know, may have resonated with some people notwithstanding all the stuff we're talking about.

01:15:50.860 All right.

01:15:51.060 I want to pick up on something else.

01:15:53.140 Moynihan, you said 20 minutes ago you thought she won on style.

01:15:58.180 I know why you said that.

01:15:59.960 I know why you said that because she was disciplined.

01:16:02.480 She did not run after the liver snaps like Strudwick and Trump.

01:16:08.300 But I want to ask your opinion as three guys because my impression was men are not going to respond well to this.

01:16:16.960 Left-wing men, yes.

01:16:18.100 But like normies, you know, who are, not that you're not normal if you're left-wing.

01:16:24.480 I mean leftist.

01:16:25.440 Yeah, I'm neither left-wing nor normal.

01:16:28.440 But yeah, I'm a special category.

01:16:30.140 It's true.

01:16:30.380 I might need a different focus group.

01:16:31.900 Yeah.

01:16:32.260 Camille.

01:16:32.660 You love chasing after women, so continue.

01:16:36.500 You tell me whether this is going to fly, this kind of behavior with men, male voters, because she's doing poorly with them.

01:16:47.300 Trump's got like a 13 to 15 point margin over her with male voters.

01:16:50.500 She's got like a 10 point margin over him with female voters.

01:16:54.180 You can do the math.

01:16:55.520 She needs to get those numbers up.

01:16:56.980 And he needs to keep those numbers high on his side.

01:16:59.400 And they tend to vote in equal proportions in these elections.

01:17:03.920 So it's right now you'd say he's got a bit of an edge and that may be reflected in some of the polls.

01:17:09.400 In any event, I'm watching her behavior last night.

01:17:11.980 I'm thinking we haven't had a female president in 250, in 250 years.

01:17:15.560 And sadly, there's all sorts of reasons for that.

01:17:20.040 But are American men going to make this woman the first one with her her rumphing and her facial expressions and her tisk tisking?

01:17:30.200 And here are some examples of some of that.

01:17:33.760 Let's play a little bit of this video.

01:17:35.940 Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people.

01:17:39.420 So let's be clear about that.

01:17:41.380 And clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that.

01:17:44.680 During the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter.

01:17:48.820 And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.

01:17:55.400 World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump.

01:17:58.000 I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you.

01:18:02.040 And they say you're a disgrace.

01:18:04.000 It is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy.

01:18:11.180 Consistently over the course of his career.

01:18:13.120 Attempted to use race to divide the American people.

01:18:16.880 These dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they're so clear.

01:18:23.580 They can manipulate you with flattery and favors.

01:18:28.760 All right.

01:18:29.300 So that was her nasty personal insults.

01:18:31.160 Here are the faces on top of that.

01:18:32.780 Okay, watch.

01:18:37.500 There goes the hand on the chin.

01:18:41.480 What?

01:18:42.340 What?

01:18:44.240 Oh.

01:18:45.180 It's a cackle.

01:18:47.100 Oh, I'm confused.

01:18:48.660 You confuse me, orange man.

01:18:51.280 Hmm.

01:18:52.640 Hmm.

01:18:53.840 Oh, there he goes again, head shaking.

01:18:56.420 It's not true.

01:18:57.260 It's not true.

01:18:57.720 By the way, I think that was on the accusation she bailed out BLM rioters, which she did.

01:19:03.020 Oh, no, no.

01:19:06.120 What?

01:19:06.860 Look at her.

01:19:07.620 Filled brow.

01:19:09.480 He confuses me.

01:19:10.800 Oh, why am I having to stand up here?

01:19:13.080 Haughty chin up.

01:19:14.160 Why?

01:19:14.580 Have they subjected?

01:19:16.020 My feeling is American men are not going to respond well to any of that.

01:19:22.660 Does anyone want to take that one?

01:19:25.800 Who's going to be the representative of the American man here?

01:19:29.460 I don't know.

01:19:29.960 But I text you guys because my wife was watching.

01:19:32.740 She's on the West Coast, so it was a little earlier.

01:19:35.560 She was watching with my two-and-a-half-year-old son.

01:19:38.320 And he caught a little bit of the footage, the side-by-side.

01:19:41.880 And he said, I don't like him.

01:19:44.360 He's rude.

01:19:45.460 I like her.

01:19:46.560 Yeah.

01:19:47.020 So, yeah.

01:19:48.140 Well, congratulations on having a communist-a-half-year-old.

01:19:52.300 Little-a-half-year-old.

01:19:53.880 Yeah.

01:19:54.220 That's what it is.

01:19:55.080 He can't vote either, so it doesn't matter.

01:19:57.600 I don't know.

01:19:58.000 Well, if we're doing that, I'll tell you that my 13-year-old said, why do the moderators

01:20:03.840 only fact-check her or him?

01:20:06.640 Him.

01:20:06.840 Why do the moderators only fact-check him?

01:20:09.120 I was like, yep, you got it.

01:20:10.960 All right.

01:20:11.500 So what's happening here?

01:20:13.320 Are you guys having too much soy?

01:20:15.600 Do you not understand how-

01:20:16.700 I don't see it.

01:20:18.000 What'd you say?

01:20:18.840 What was that?

01:20:19.500 You said you are drinking too much soy.

01:20:21.020 Are you having too much soy?

01:20:22.100 Yeah.

01:20:22.660 I was going to take this opportunity to come out on this broadcast, but apparently not today.

01:20:26.380 I just want a big audience, but everyone should know.

01:20:30.480 True to me, yes.

01:20:31.940 No, I don't see it.

01:20:32.920 Look, there are the ones with the hand on the chin I noticed at the time, and I said, this

01:20:39.080 is a bad look.

01:20:40.280 And I saw that Frank Luntz, who I've done a couple of focus groups with, actually, was

01:20:47.060 all over that.

01:20:48.280 And then people were all over him.

01:20:50.120 He said, men are not going to respond to this.

01:20:52.100 And I don't know, because the split screen stuff, I don't think she performed well.

01:20:57.680 I just think that's kind of naturally.

01:20:59.620 It didn't affect me in any way.

01:21:01.160 But again, I don't think that anything is moving anybody in this debate, is that what

01:21:06.120 you typically have after these debates is about a one or two point shift.

01:21:09.020 And then one of those points usually contracts, sometimes both of them.

01:21:12.940 And I just don't think anyone's being moved by this at all.

01:21:15.780 And especially, well, some, yes, you may be right on the undecided, but some people felt

01:21:20.280 very moved by her performance, like Michael Steele, former head of the RNC.

01:21:25.160 Listen to SOT 36.

01:21:26.880 Yes.

01:21:29.320 She spanked that ass.

01:21:30.940 She prosecuted.

01:21:32.860 She needed to prosecute.

01:21:34.760 And all other times, she was presidential.

01:21:37.520 And he looked small.

01:21:39.760 He looked withered.

01:21:41.400 He looked beaten.

01:21:42.480 But most importantly, he looked pissed.

01:21:46.180 And there's nothing worse than a pissed bigot on the stage with a woman he can't control.

01:21:53.640 Did you hear how it started?

01:21:55.560 Did you hear the top of that soundbite?

01:21:56.660 Can we replay it just so that it sneaks up?

01:21:58.500 Watch.

01:21:58.940 She spanked that ass.

01:22:00.160 She prosecuted.

01:22:01.320 Yeah, that was it.

01:22:02.200 When she needed to prosecute.

01:22:04.260 I didn't mean that by a ring.

01:22:05.420 Yeah, you can bet.

01:22:06.260 That's enough.

01:22:07.760 She spanked that ass.

01:22:09.660 He practiced that.

01:22:10.980 He had that one planned.

01:22:12.480 Good Lord.

01:22:13.280 I don't know why.

01:22:15.260 Was it that bad?

01:22:16.560 Did she spank his ass?

01:22:18.100 I don't know if she spanked his ass.

01:22:20.280 But the old saw from Michael Steele that there's nothing worse than a pissed bigot on stage who hates a lady.

01:22:27.480 I'm like, is that an old saying where he comes from or something?

01:22:31.720 I would agree with the assessment that she won.

01:22:34.920 I think yesterday I ended up with maybe a C-D situation in terms of her grade.

01:22:40.060 Maybe I think ended at a C.

01:22:42.060 But it's by default.

01:22:44.020 I think the actual issue here is that Donald Trump really lost the debate given the circumstances.

01:22:48.940 And ABC News, I think, as we've said already, ashamed themselves in the debate.

01:22:53.140 And Kamala survived.

01:22:54.120 She wasn't a total disaster.

01:22:55.400 Did she answer the questions straightforwardly?

01:22:58.000 No, she didn't.

01:22:58.680 She did the strategery you would expect her to do here.

01:23:01.120 There was one piece in that sequence of sots that I wanted to call out, though, the thing about race that Donald Trump is constantly trying to divide us with respect to race.

01:23:10.200 This is the equity administration we're talking about.

01:23:12.680 The very first thing we did when they assembled the office was past all of these pieces of all these executive orders were instituted.

01:23:21.180 And she's still focused on trying to do minority set-asides.

01:23:25.720 They never stopped talking about race.

01:23:28.300 Absolutely never.

01:23:29.480 Was it smart for Donald Trump to talk about whether or not she identifies as black or Indian?

01:23:34.200 Probably not.

01:23:35.320 Does she try to capitalize on race all of the time?

01:23:38.240 Yes, absolutely.

01:23:39.280 She is the vice president of the United States, in large part because of the shape and shade of her genitalia.

01:23:45.060 That is who Democrats have been for the last couple of years, and they've shown no signs of stopping.

01:23:50.900 But it is interesting that the only question about race yesterday was not about white supremacy.

01:23:56.560 It wasn't about systemic racism or any of the problems we need to fix in this country.

01:24:00.580 It was about a completely stupid, rather innocuous, in my estimation, question that we've blown out of proportion that Donald Trump asked at this weird journalist of color event that he participated in.

01:24:13.760 I think that is an interesting indication of just how crazy we went in 2020 and just how unserious people are about these issues, like the reparations bill that failed in California.

01:24:26.320 These people were never serious about those issues.

01:24:28.220 They're not serious about them now.

01:24:29.660 But we know who the people are who are actually engaged in this kind of dividing people with respect to race.

01:24:34.700 And it's never been obvious to me that Donald Trump is that person.

01:24:37.640 It's absurd.

01:24:38.340 Is anyone else still stuck on shape and shade of her genitalia?

01:24:41.580 Every time he says it, I have to go for a walk, because I have a very imaginative brain.

01:24:48.740 And I'm like, oh, my God, why am I thinking about this?

01:24:51.480 It's disgusting.

01:24:52.320 I want it to be visceral.

01:24:53.500 Yeah, you were visceral, all right.

01:24:55.620 It is a gross way to do business.

01:24:58.260 We can't assess candidate quality that way.

01:25:00.480 That's what Joe Biden did.

01:25:02.320 The shape and the shape.

01:25:02.980 The overall point is a good one.

01:25:04.880 Here's what shape the shape.

01:25:12.520 I don't know if we're obsessed with it.

01:25:14.380 Some of the things I won't say on the show right now, you know?

01:25:17.940 I don't know.

01:25:18.860 I don't think that's exactly what we're obsessed with.

01:25:21.560 But OK.

01:25:23.700 But here is what she said.

01:25:25.380 To your point, she said this was on the subject of his when did she become black thing?

01:25:30.380 Um, it's a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president, who is consistently

01:25:35.280 over the course of his career, attempted to use race to divide the American people.

01:25:41.200 The gall, Camille.

01:25:42.980 You know, I do believe that the vast majority of us know we have so much more in common than

01:25:47.540 what separates us.

01:25:48.380 And we don't want this kind of approach that is just constantly trying to divide us, especially

01:25:54.360 by race.

01:25:55.680 It's incredible that she had the nerve to say that, given what I mean, we have like

01:26:01.640 segregated dorms and graduations and in some instances, lunch rooms in schools and academic

01:26:10.020 exercises where the blacks are on the one side now and the whites are on the other side.

01:26:14.140 In some instances, calling each other names as some sort of thought exercise, all because

01:26:18.700 of these bizarre DEI practices that she loves of being woke, which she says we should get

01:26:25.000 more of.

01:26:26.140 And this was one of those frustrating situations where you want Trump to then respond and shove

01:26:32.860 it down her throat.

01:26:34.600 But he doesn't exactly.

01:26:36.920 All he does is try to rehabilitate himself on the Central Park five and, you know, saying

01:26:44.240 she had to go back 50 years and they're they're destroying our economy.

01:26:47.740 But it's like, oh, yeah, come on.

01:26:51.000 He knows the answers to these questions.

01:26:52.860 I wanted to touch on your montage of her allegedly sort of male alienating facial expressions,

01:27:02.400 which I didn't feel.

01:27:03.400 So I guess I'm drinking the soy milkshake as well.

01:27:05.720 You are.

01:27:06.720 With the exception of that, the hand one, that was that was a bit much.

01:27:10.320 But let's remember what we expected going into this debate, or at least it was a big

01:27:13.500 topic, was like, oh, the mics are not going to be on.

01:27:16.820 And there's big negotiation over that because everyone assumed that she wanted to do the

01:27:20.760 I'm talking to her thing.

01:27:22.300 Well, she did.

01:27:23.040 She did.

01:27:24.040 Yeah, she did.

01:27:24.460 Right.

01:27:24.740 But who said it at this debate?

01:27:27.040 It was Trump.

01:27:27.900 And then we had a big, big argument about this last night.

01:27:30.840 Camille thought that was great.

01:27:31.540 Let me let me play it.

01:27:32.400 And then and then you tell me about the argument.

01:27:34.000 Let me let me show.

01:27:34.700 Here it is.

01:27:35.200 Sock 29.

01:27:36.860 She was big on defund the police in Minnesota.

01:27:39.920 She went out.

01:27:40.740 Wait a minute.

01:27:41.060 I'm talking now.

01:27:42.620 If you don't mind, please.

01:27:44.720 Does that sound familiar?

01:27:45.720 So every time that she has done this or other people have done that in that place, I think

01:27:57.580 Hillary Clinton might have done that before.

01:27:58.880 I forget now.

01:27:59.780 I've wiped my brain clear of Hillary Clinton, thank God.

01:28:03.840 But it was terrible.

01:28:06.020 It was terrible when she did that before.

01:28:07.580 Right.

01:28:07.820 And that she was planning to do this or if she was going to do that this time, it would

01:28:11.560 have been terrible now.

01:28:12.600 She didn't do it.

01:28:13.240 Maybe she wanted to.

01:28:14.120 Probably wanted to.

01:28:14.960 But he did.

01:28:16.380 And it was terrible when he did it, too.

01:28:17.900 And not even as a callback or a joke.

01:28:19.800 It's just a bitchy little thing to do.

01:28:22.060 It worked for me.

01:28:23.200 It worked for me.

01:28:24.000 I laughed.

01:28:24.640 I thought it was funny.

01:28:25.440 And he was doing it for effect.

01:28:26.980 He wasn't doing it because he was seriously concerned about being able to get a word in

01:28:31.500 edgewise.

01:28:31.900 Of course.

01:28:32.240 But when she did it, it was severe.

01:28:34.580 I'm speaking.

01:28:35.560 She did it five or six times in one night.

01:28:37.960 Totally true.

01:28:38.600 He did it once.

01:28:39.780 I'm speaking.

01:28:40.300 He made it explicitly a callback.

01:28:42.660 And then he did it again later.

01:28:43.980 But in that way, he did it in a slightly more subtle way.

01:28:46.560 I thought it worked.

01:28:47.520 It was one of his better moments.

01:28:48.500 It was part of what I think one of his mistakes was that yesterday he was the chief debater

01:28:53.100 of two online girls.

01:28:55.820 That's fair.

01:28:56.220 That's true.

01:28:56.820 That's fair.

01:28:57.220 Like, he's just going to debate everything that people have been memeing about.

01:29:01.340 And this is when her facial expressions are actually the correct one, which is the kind

01:29:05.980 of, what are you doing?

01:29:07.820 Right?

01:29:08.200 Like, it's the, it's kind of the, right?

01:29:10.640 And I think that that speaks to something that is attractive for her.

01:29:14.600 It's a selling point, probably the selling point for her, which is that, aren't we tired

01:29:18.400 of this?

01:29:19.460 And aren't we tired of this guy being weird talking about that they're going to come

01:29:22.500 after your dogs and cats?

01:29:23.980 What the hell is he talking about?

01:29:26.240 Seriously.

01:29:26.480 I think that Megan makes the point about the transcript and reading the transcript.

01:29:33.300 And that's a failure on his part, you know, because, I mean, we talk about grading on style.

01:29:38.100 Is it so much of this stuff, particularly in debates is style.

01:29:41.740 It's not style when you're writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times.

01:29:45.020 It's very specific.

01:29:46.640 The stylistic thing here and, you know, whether it's the dogs or the Central Park Five is that

01:29:52.580 Megan says, you know, I read this and I got a lot out of it.

01:29:55.580 And it's like, well, what was masking that during the debate was all the other bluster

01:30:00.300 and all the other, like, you know, debating these weird things and pulling you off into

01:30:04.680 these little, even a debate needs a narrative.

01:30:08.340 It needs a beginning.

01:30:09.220 It needs a middle and an end, a callback at the end to the beginning, right?

01:30:12.560 There's no narrative here.

01:30:13.800 It seems scattershot.

01:30:15.540 And that's why I say on her stylistically and not, you know, on substance, I have literally

01:30:21.700 probably know less about what she believes now than I went in.

01:30:24.280 But she kind of tried to stick to that.

01:30:27.680 And at the end, when you have that moment, that Donald Trump looks at the camera, it does

01:30:31.900 not surprise me that people in a focus group reference it because it was a strong ending.

01:30:36.840 It was a very straightforward thing that are you better off type language and why didn't

01:30:42.380 you do it?

01:30:42.880 Those two things can twin and they can make a good argument.

01:30:46.460 But, you know, falling into these traps is the easiest thing.

01:30:50.420 And it just shows that he might have good political instincts writ large, but he has

01:30:55.280 them horribly on the debate stage.

01:30:56.640 Could you imagine if he had just turned to either of the moderators last night and said,

01:31:00.980 am I debating you or am I debating her?

01:31:03.160 Like, what is going on?

01:31:03.980 I know Trump attacking the media works.

01:31:07.360 It's gold.

01:31:08.900 But no, I wanted to raise this moment.

01:31:12.740 It was kind of interesting.

01:31:13.960 Kamala got very high marks for her answer on abortion and playing up like the horrible

01:31:20.260 dangers of women who are now in states where there are new, very restrictive abortion laws

01:31:25.620 and the horror of them having to get on a plane next to strangers to go get that so-called

01:31:30.980 care out of state.

01:31:32.800 And she had a line in there which got a big reaction from a nurse who was on two way with

01:31:38.740 Mark Halperin this morning.

01:31:39.960 Here's what Kamala said first.

01:31:42.480 Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied

01:31:48.560 care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail

01:31:53.600 and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot.

01:31:56.580 She didn't want that.

01:31:58.100 Her husband didn't want that.

01:32:00.780 Watch this, the reaction.

01:32:03.180 I'm an emergency room nurse and there is no circumstance where we would ever let a woman

01:32:10.600 sit in her car and bleed out regardless of the abortion law.

01:32:17.800 Like, we would bring her in if abortion was like illegal, right?

01:32:22.220 No circumstances.

01:32:22.600 We would bring her in and give her emergency relief blood.

01:32:25.500 We would give her fluids.

01:32:26.900 And the fact that she so blatantly gave such disgusting medical misinformation, like, just

01:32:34.360 turned me off to her.

01:32:37.420 I really think that's interesting because she did this a lot.

01:32:39.940 These sweeping draconian claims about Trump and especially on abortion, the rhetoric that

01:32:45.980 she had.

01:32:46.380 Meanwhile, his suggestion that there are states in the union where they would let a baby born

01:32:51.860 alive die.

01:32:53.900 He said he made the point, he used the term, you could say kill.

01:32:57.480 He was making the point it's not an active murder, but that they would let a baby attempted

01:33:02.260 to be aborted that nonetheless lived and was delivered die on the table.

01:33:06.760 That's true.

01:33:07.920 That gets fact checked.

01:33:09.260 That's extreme.

01:33:10.080 He's where.

01:33:10.380 But these claims of hers, right, like medical personnel all over America, now they're just

01:33:14.700 letting women bleed out in the parking lots.

01:33:16.700 Good for this woman for getting on there and saying that's just bullshit and a total turnoff.

01:33:20.980 She's an undecided voter.

01:33:22.160 What do you make of it?

01:33:22.740 And it's also, Camille, you were looking at the her policy claims about Trump, too.

01:33:26.860 Like, there's going to be a minder.

01:33:29.940 Can you rehearse those since you had those in your fingertips?

01:33:32.480 She was referring to Project 2025, and the first thing she insisted is that if Donald

01:33:37.100 Trump is elected, he is going to pass a federal ban on abortion, which he's not said he would

01:33:41.700 do, and that there would be a minder who is monitoring whether or not you've had miscarriages

01:33:47.060 or something like that.

01:33:48.320 And again, this is a recommendation from Project 2025.

01:33:51.320 There's been no indication that Donald Trump would do any of this.

01:33:53.940 And at the end of her saying all of this, the moderator says, thank you, Vice President

01:34:00.380 Harris, and that's when Donald Trump has to interject, and he says, none of that is true.

01:34:06.700 She's doing it again.

01:34:07.980 Those are false statements.

01:34:09.240 And again, it is unfair when you're in a circumstance where the moderators are not willing to fact

01:34:16.140 check your opponent.

01:34:16.920 They're not willing to push back.

01:34:18.340 They're requiring you to do all of this work.

01:34:20.480 And then when you have things to say, they're pushing back on you.

01:34:23.380 It is unfair.

01:34:24.260 And then back to that cherry on top of the sundae, Daniel Dale, the fact checker at CNN, saying

01:34:28.900 Trump lied 33 times, and Kamala Harris lied once.

01:34:34.080 Yeah.

01:34:34.740 Maybe.

01:34:35.520 I was going to say maybe.

01:34:36.920 Maybe.

01:34:37.220 Maybe.

01:34:37.580 At least once.

01:34:38.520 At least once.

01:34:38.920 Yeah.

01:34:39.320 That's the nerve.

01:34:40.500 You can't figure it out for a second.

01:34:41.960 Yeah.

01:34:42.880 It's, I mean, we have to laugh, but the state of media is dire.

01:34:49.040 That's what ABC did, how CNN reacted.

01:34:52.940 I don't know what the future looks like.

01:34:54.380 I do know.

01:34:54.980 It's end times.

01:34:56.220 And for very good reason.

01:34:57.640 I think the future is rosy in one sense, is the fact that if you look at the way the

01:35:06.180 campaign has dealt with race issues and the DEI type stuff and, you know, all the stuff

01:35:12.960 that, you know, overwhelmed them in 2020, they've walked away from it.

01:35:18.440 Why?

01:35:19.240 Because they have to win an election.

01:35:21.240 And they've understood something in the aftermath of 2020.

01:35:25.500 People don't like it.

01:35:26.520 And guess what?

01:35:27.740 It's not just whiteys that don't like it.

01:35:30.140 Hispanic people don't like it.

01:35:31.600 Black men have been migrating towards Trump, not in enormous numbers, but enough that they're

01:35:36.060 significant.

01:35:37.040 You can say, wow, some polls 20%, et cetera.

01:35:39.920 That stuff does not work.

01:35:42.280 The media is very behind on this.

01:35:45.000 And they're very behind on their own power, too.

01:35:47.060 We're, you know, you're talking about Mark Halperin's show this morning on Two-Way, which you can

01:35:51.920 see over Matt's shoulder.

01:35:52.800 We're going to be on Mark Halperin's Two-Way show at four o'clock.

01:35:55.240 And Mark Halperin is doing an end run around the media like all of us are.

01:35:59.800 And after a while, people really, really are alienated by this stuff.

01:36:04.200 I think that watching the debate in moderation last night would have been a different instinct

01:36:09.560 maybe 20 years ago, maybe 15 years ago.

01:36:12.520 People are really fed up with it.

01:36:14.220 And I don't say that just because of what, you know, I think about things or, you know,

01:36:18.500 our show or whatever it is.

01:36:19.900 I see it.

01:36:21.000 And we see it in the numbers.

01:36:22.540 We see it in the numbers of people who are, you know, coming to our show and coming to

01:36:26.200 other people's shows, like coming to Megyn Kelly.

01:36:28.240 Megyn Kelly doesn't need to be on Fox News.

01:36:30.180 Glenn Beck doesn't need to be on Fox News.

01:36:31.960 Tucker Carlson doesn't need to be on Fox News.

01:36:34.080 That is an interesting shift for everyone, right?

01:36:37.820 And for them to say we can keep doing this forever is a delusion.

01:36:41.480 It's a huge mistake on their part.

01:36:43.040 I mean, we've seen for years now, decades, actually, that trust in media has been plummeting,

01:36:48.700 plummeting across the board.

01:36:50.700 There's very good reason why platforms like this are successful and are able to thrive.

01:36:56.700 And ABC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, to the extent it spells doom, to the

01:37:05.840 extent the apocalypse is on the horizon, it is definitely, it's with respect to them and

01:37:12.300 their prospects for the future and their viability.

01:37:14.640 And also that thing we forget about is that that also means that their power, their influence

01:37:21.960 to their ability to fund the scale, even last night, is diminished.

01:37:26.540 I think a lot of people who are critical of the media make the mistake of thinking that

01:37:30.280 the media is as powerful as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago.

01:37:33.760 It just really is not.

01:37:35.080 It is not.

01:37:35.700 There isn't a single media institution, legacy media institution, in my quick snap knowledge,

01:37:42.040 that has more power than they did 20 years ago.

01:37:45.260 And that is fascinating and interesting.

01:37:48.080 It creates its problems.

01:37:49.200 It creates mostly great opportunities.

01:37:51.500 And I think for consumers, it's mostly terrific.

01:37:56.360 I mean, I just, I love and agree with everything you guys just said, but I still think they play

01:38:02.120 an important role.

01:38:02.820 Like a night like that, where they had the, probably the only presidential debate in hand

01:38:08.620 and they were so biased, they're influencing a presidential election.

01:38:14.940 It's, it feels almost like cheating to me.

01:38:17.640 It just felt, I realized we've gotten away from the presidential debate commissions and

01:38:21.800 I get why.

01:38:22.560 And those were not perfect.

01:38:23.960 We've gone over Chris Wallace's, you know, bias in handling that.

01:38:27.400 And there've been plenty of fall downs in those moments too.

01:38:30.900 So Candy Crowley, um, but this system isn't working because it's too important to allow

01:38:37.960 a network like that with an agenda to have the soul, soul control over the soul debate.

01:38:43.920 And I realized, you know, now we should say Trump shouldn't have agreed to it.

01:38:47.540 I realized why he did agree to it.

01:38:49.200 He thought it was agreeing to a pair of them and the CNN one worked out and he wanted to

01:38:52.360 say, okay, I'm putting myself out there.

01:38:53.720 Even last night, Trump went into the spin room.

01:38:55.680 Did she know she's hiding from the media?

01:38:59.500 We don't get to interview her.

01:39:00.980 We have no access to her.

01:39:02.320 She doesn't hold press conferences.

01:39:03.800 She gave one interview to a fawning Dana bash who fell down on the job.

01:39:07.760 And now this is the one debate and they tanked it.

01:39:11.340 They tanked it for her.

01:39:12.680 She's probably not going to do another one.

01:39:14.080 And she might not do another interview at all.

01:39:16.820 You guys, this is like really serious as right now, while they're failing and they're falling,

01:39:22.580 they're still in control of a lot of forums that matter.

01:39:26.560 And it's just very disheartening to watch how low they've gone.

01:39:31.380 I just can't believe that back in the day, the ruined arliges of the world would have allowed

01:39:36.080 something like this.

01:39:37.600 And yet there it is.

01:39:39.440 Well, let's not forget also that there was a pretty good debate last time.

01:39:42.460 Um, and also consequential, uh, Dan, uh, Jake Tapper in particular, and I think Dana bash

01:39:47.060 was the other one.

01:39:48.180 They did a good job.

01:39:49.440 Jake Tapper must be the magic sauce.

01:39:50.720 Cause when put on her own, Dana bash fell down.

01:39:53.820 She needs a half a thing of a Jake Tapper.

01:39:57.960 I hope that, uh, Kamala Harris flushing victory as she did last night, which said, okay, we want

01:40:02.920 another one.

01:40:03.700 Let's do that.

01:40:04.240 Let's have some, because it looks like increasingly at, to your point, Megan, that after this,

01:40:09.300 especially if they think that they have a lead and a bump coming out of this,

01:40:12.460 is she going to do more interviews?

01:40:14.300 No, I would imagine that she's going to do fewer.

01:40:17.780 Um, so let's get some, I think it would be wise for Trump to either pick actual independent

01:40:23.940 people, um, uh, or an adversarial process, or even go into Fox news.

01:40:28.960 Maybe she's feeling cocky.

01:40:30.480 We need more because we are not seeing enough, uh, actual examination of her as a candidate

01:40:36.000 right now.

01:40:36.640 Um, if he, if he agrees to go on CBS or NBC, he deserves what he gets.

01:40:42.620 And sadly, he'll bring the rest of us down with him.

01:40:45.540 All right.

01:40:46.080 Uh, in the last 20 seconds, why is it when you come in the MK show, you don't put my logo

01:40:49.680 on the background, but when you go on two way, you put,

01:40:51.420 WTF, they were going to put like Nicorette commercials.

01:40:59.340 We said no to that, but we're getting a little money for this.

01:41:02.560 So come on.

01:41:04.140 Great to see you guys.

01:41:06.800 As always, I'll take you out right to get you.

01:41:10.320 See you soon.

01:41:10.960 Back tomorrow.

01:41:11.880 Bye.

01:41:12.100 See you all then.

01:41:12.920 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:41:18.380 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 11, 2024

ABC's Bias, How Trump Could Have Played it, and Whether the Debate Sways Voters, with The Fifth Column Hosts ｜ Ep. 885

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