The Megyn Kelly Show - Biden's Rough ＂Big Boy＂ Night, Elites' Whisper Campaign, and Trump's Polling Advantage, with Michael Knowles and Spencer Kimball

00:00:00.440 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

00:00:11.580 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:16.560 President Biden's re-election campaign remains alive. Is it on life support?

00:00:23.180 Depends on who you ask. Mr. Biden once again sending a message last night to Democrats that

00:00:30.840 he is not going anywhere during his much-hyped big boy press conference. But that has not stopped

00:00:38.020 the behind-the-scenes plotting against him, which seems to be growing by the minute.

00:00:43.180 The Democratic Party is an all-out civil war. Axios reports about very connected Democrats,

00:00:48.860 mostly veterans of the Obama and Clinton administrations, plotting hourly to get Joe

00:00:54.860 Biden to withdraw and to do it quickly. I saw a panicked segment on MSNBC last night. It's fun

00:01:00.620 to watch some of those channels on nights like that, where the one thing the anchor and both

00:01:05.120 far-left guests agreed on, Psaki was one of them, was, this needs to end. It needs to end quickly.

00:01:11.080 This can't go on. This is terrible for us. And I think they're right. It's true.

00:01:16.060 CNN has some of the most devastating new leaks. It really is amazing. It's amazing to watch the

00:01:23.440 news media do actual reporting on this president. It's like, I said this yesterday, but it's like a

00:01:29.280 window into how things could have been had you had an honest media, you know, holding the powerful

00:01:34.040 to account, irrespective of party. But don't get used to it because they will 100% go back to the way

00:01:39.220 they used to be just as soon as they settle on a nominee. They will get behind that nominee.

00:01:42.740 They will lose all skepticism. And if Trump wins, the skepticism will magically come back.

00:01:48.940 It'll magically come back instantly. One of President Biden's own cabinet secretaries. This

00:01:54.380 is to CNN. It's really stunning. It's believable, but just still shocking. Not courageous enough to

00:02:00.480 go on the record. Willing to admit that they are uncertain of Mr. Biden's condition because they

00:02:07.560 see him so rarely revealing that the last full cabinet meeting took place on October 2nd.

00:02:16.200 That's nine months ago before Halloween to whoever this cabinet secretary is. Why are you only telling

00:02:26.160 us this now? And the worst part is anonymous leakers also telling CNN that when the president does hold

00:02:36.080 cabinet meetings, it's customary for cabinet officials to be required to submit their answers

00:02:44.380 to the questions he's going to be asking of them in advance. So they're saying the staff will come to

00:02:51.760 the cabinet officials and say, the president's going to come to you about 25 minutes in, and this is

00:02:57.000 what he's going to ask you. And please give us now a list of bullet points that you will be submitting

00:03:02.360 so the president can see in advance and understand them, obviously. And I, it could go both ways. Perhaps

00:03:09.120 they're telling the cabinet officials what questions the president will ask, because it's obvious the

00:03:13.320 president is not thinking of anything contemporaneously with his meetings. One leaker deeming the cabinet

00:03:19.060 meetings quote orchestrated and kind of an act like everything around this presidency, his interviews

00:03:26.420 with the press, his Collins to these radio shows. I've got a lot to say about the white house press

00:03:33.180 core. I'll get to that in a minute. Yesterday we were wondering where's former president Barack Obama.

00:03:39.040 We did a whole talking points memo talking about him. CNN's Jeff Zeleny reporting. He's of the times

00:03:45.160 reporting that he has had at least one private conversation this week with Speaker Emerita,

00:03:53.800 Nancy Pelosi, two of the party's top leaders speaking privately. Well, okay. What's their

00:04:01.220 grandmaster plan? We'd love to hear it. What is it? The Democrats are relying on you. Well, we have no

00:04:06.020 idea. According to Zeleny quote, neither is quite sure what to do. They're in uncharted waters here.

00:04:14.500 And there's no one at the helm. Joe Biden is supposed to be the leader of the democratic party.

00:04:19.960 And he says, I'm not going and no one's accepting that decision, or at least you are this morning.

00:04:27.140 We heard again from powerful South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn. He went on the today

00:04:32.260 show on NBC and reiterated his support for president Biden. He's all in he's riding with Biden.

00:04:39.600 Unless that is Biden, who's been adamant he's staying, decides to leave.

00:04:47.160 I am all in. I'm riding with Biden. No matter what direction he goes, no matter what method he takes,

00:04:53.960 I'm with Joe Biden. And if he were to change his mind, I'll just answer the question

00:04:58.760 that I would be all in for the vice president.

00:05:03.980 Should the conversation about the president getting out of this race, should that conversation

00:05:08.600 continue?

00:05:10.000 No, it shouldn't.

00:05:10.940 The conversation should be over.

00:05:12.140 No, the conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative

00:05:19.880 to his election, and let Joe Biden continue to make his own decisions about his future.

00:05:27.480 If he decides to change his mind later on, then we will respond to that. We have until

00:05:32.980 the 19th of August to open our convention.

00:05:35.960 What? Open the convention? We have till August. There's time. Let's wait until he's decided.

00:05:43.040 Let's see if he changes his decision. What?

00:05:46.140 This is very different messaging, as you know, from just what we heard a few days ago at the

00:05:50.560 beginning of the week. It was Monday. We played that soundbite of him riding with Biden,

00:05:54.780 riding with Biden, riding with Biden, like one of those dolls that you just pulled a

00:05:58.960 string out of. Well, he sounds a little different this morning, doesn't he?

00:06:02.820 So apparently Joe Biden is in the thick of it still and is going to have to take on the

00:06:08.140 entire Democratic apparatus if he wants to remain the Democratic candidate for president

00:06:14.280 for a second term. But, you know, this is not the first time that President Biden has

00:06:19.180 defiantly stood his ground against his doubters, detractors and those who mean to threaten him.

00:06:25.840 I mean, he did once take on Corn Pop. Remember him? We were talking about this on our team

00:06:30.560 yesterday. This is a reference that often comes up about him. And I was like, what did he say?

00:06:36.600 What was that story again? It happened in 2017 that he told the story. He recalled this alleged

00:06:44.240 story of how he defeated Corn Pop, who was apparently, quote, a bad dude who ran with a

00:06:50.400 bunch of, quote, bad boys. It was 1962. Mr. Biden was a lifeguard. Corn Pop was allegedly horsing

00:06:58.720 around at the pool. So Joey told Corn Pop to knock it off. In return, Corn Pop challenged him to a fight.

00:07:07.680 I was one of the guards and Corn Pop was a bad dude. And he ran a bunch of bad boys.

00:07:16.120 And I he said, I'll be waiting for you. He was waiting for three guys in straight racers.

00:07:20.340 And I said, what am I going to do? And he cut off a six foot length of chain. He pulled up. He said,

00:07:24.460 you walk out with that chain and you walk to the car and say, you may cut me, man,

00:07:29.760 but I'm going to wrap this chain around your head.

00:07:31.800 He's standing in the midst of a bunch of young children who happen to be black looking up at him

00:07:42.280 like, what? What happened with the chain? What was the chain doing there? Fortunately,

00:07:47.500 all's well that ends well. Mr. Biden said in the end, he was able to diffuse the situation.

00:07:52.740 Corn Pop backed down. All right. So take note, Democrats. If Corn Pop was no match,

00:07:58.660 perhaps you're not either. Joining me now, Michael Knowles, host of the Michael Knowles

00:08:03.720 show on the Daily Wire. So he's a tough guy, Michael. He's a tough guy. And that tough guy

00:08:12.600 is in the fight of his political life. There are reports out this morning that his campaign

00:08:16.500 manager is saying to everybody, we've just endured the hardest two effing weeks that anyone's ever had

00:08:22.660 to undergo in political history. And if we can do that, we can survive this. We can survive anything.

00:08:27.660 I mean, I think President Trump and his Access Hollywood tape might beg to differ,

00:08:32.680 but you tell me whether at this point on this Friday, you think this is survivable by Joe Biden.

00:08:40.560 I think those Democrat elites are some bad dudes. And I think they run with some bad boys,

00:08:47.000 but old Joe, he's tough and he knows how to diffuse it. More importantly, he's got all the delegates

00:08:52.320 locked up. So they really can't do anything unless they drag him out of the White House

00:08:56.400 on a stretcher or unless they invoke the 25th Amendment. They can't really do anything.

00:09:02.420 Yesterday, there was some rumor that Joe might decide he was going to step down as the Democrat

00:09:07.100 nominee. But that obviously could not happen because if Joe Biden were to step down as the

00:09:11.760 nominee, he would have to resign the presidency because of the reason that he would be stepping

00:09:16.720 down as the nominee, namely that he's obviously senile and his brain doesn't work anymore. So if his

00:09:22.120 brain doesn't work anymore to run for president, his brain doesn't work sufficiently to be the

00:09:26.320 president. And so he would have to resign the presidency and he's not going to do that. Biden

00:09:30.220 has wanted to be president since he was in the womb. He got elected to the U.S. Senate before he

00:09:34.300 was constitutionally old enough to serve. He's not giving it up. I don't think he likes any of these

00:09:38.840 Democrat operatives. I don't think he likes Kamala Harris one little bit. And so why would he go down

00:09:44.520 in disgrace and humiliation for them? He's not going to do it. So they're going to have to try to

00:09:50.180 wrest it from him. That would probably include invoking the 25th Amendment. The performance at

00:09:55.980 NATO was not as bad as the debate. Exactly. It wasn't all that much better. I don't even really

00:10:02.600 know what Biden said. My main takeaway from the press conference is that President Biden and Vice

00:10:08.340 President Donald Trump have done a great job supporting President Vladimir Putin of Ukraine.

00:10:14.640 And that's why NATO is stronger than ever.

00:10:16.320 It was one of those things when he called introducing Zelensky, he called him President

00:10:23.200 Putin. My team sent it out like circulated. I wasn't in front of the TV at the moment. I thought

00:10:28.240 it was a joke for sure. I just thought 100 percent this is Babylon B. He didn't actually do that,

00:10:32.740 did he? And sure enough, he did do that here. Do we have that moment? OK, let's watch it.

00:10:37.940 And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has

00:10:45.160 determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. President Putin? He's going to beat

00:10:52.040 President Putin. President Zelensky. I'm so focused on beating Putin, we got to worry about it.

00:10:58.220 Anyway, Mr. President. I'm better. You are a hell of a better. Thank you so much.

00:11:04.420 I mean, and what we're hearing is that those who were close to the president in the first row

00:11:10.300 actually had to yell out, you mean Zelensky, Zelensky. So he didn't even do the correction

00:11:15.480 on his own. He had to be called to his attention. By the way, Michael, amazingly, his campaign tweeted

00:11:21.060 that out. They tweeted out that exchange as if it was something to be proud of.

00:11:26.280 Well, that's because it had already gone everywhere. So I think whatever campaign

00:11:31.000 flack was running the account at the time thought, might as well try to control the narrative if we,

00:11:36.880 you know, the narrative has already escaped us. And I don't think they did a great job of it.

00:11:41.100 But they didn't amplify it all that much more in as much as everyone had already covered it. This

00:11:45.780 is the president of the United States preparing for his first big boy press conference in eight

00:11:50.800 months at the NATO summit, talking about the first major war in Europe since World War II.

00:11:55.280 You know, you're not going to be able to bury that one. And you heard he tried to recover.

00:11:59.980 So he said, huh, Putin, I meant Zelensky. You know, I'm so focused on beating Putin. And then

00:12:04.900 and then he trails off and he says, well, anyway, and that's it. And you saw this verbal tick

00:12:11.020 tick up again during that that press conference. I think if I took a shot of vodka every time Biden

00:12:17.860 lost his train of thought and concluded with, well, anyway, I would be almost as dead as Joe Biden.

00:12:24.020 Let's see. Let's see. I don't know if you have a vodka there presently. It's a little early in the

00:12:28.880 day, but let's see how many times you would drink. We have a little montage of those moments put

00:12:32.860 together from last night alone. Watch. Other leaders, heads of state in thanking me, saying the

00:12:39.340 reason we're together is because of Biden, because Biden did the following. Look, folks, this is.

00:12:45.940 Well, anyway, I had things all the time. Very. I'm catching hell from my wife.

00:12:56.180 And anyway, the longest time it was, you know, Biden's not prepared to sit with us unscripted.

00:13:03.520 Biden's not prepared to. And anyway.

00:13:05.680 My team wants you to know that wasn't the entirety of the anyways, that was just sampling.

00:13:11.540 That was not enough to actually get you drunk. But before you react over the weekend, we saw the

00:13:17.360 same verbal crutch. He kept saying when he loses his train of thought, which is often he resorts to

00:13:22.540 anyway or probably shouldn't to avoid whatever was going to come next or to avoid revealing that he

00:13:31.080 has forgotten his train of thought. He's lost it yet again. Here's top 15.

00:13:35.680 Imagine this. The guy says he wants to be a dictator on day one. Come on. Dictator on day one. He needs a

00:13:42.100 thought. You know, he means a look what he did. Anyway, I won't go into too much detail. People have a look.

00:13:50.380 What's the thing that people look to? I remember. Anyway, I shouldn't get too personal.

00:13:57.180 And by the way, you know, I was in that World War One cemetery in France. And the one that

00:14:07.480 Mike, one of our colleagues, the former president, didn't want to go and be up there.

00:14:14.380 I probably shouldn't even say it. Anyway, we got to just remember who the hell we are.

00:14:20.660 We're the only nation in the history of the world that has gone through every crisis and come out

00:14:25.900 stronger than we went into the crisis every single time. And by the way, I've been all over the world

00:14:33.200 with you. I've been in and out of battles. Anyway, you're incredible.

00:14:40.680 Oh, my God, Michael. Uncomfortable.

00:14:44.520 We got to remember who the hell we are. I mean that literally. Who am I? Who the hell? Who are you?

00:14:49.460 Where are we? Anyway, anyway, really bad. And especially at NATO, that's really bad. Because

00:14:56.660 Biden's argument is that NATO wants him to remain president because he's going to be tough on Putin,

00:15:05.380 unlike Trump, supposedly. He's going to support NATO, unlike Trump, supposedly. But the proof of

00:15:11.460 the pudding is in the tasting. The only presidency during which Vladimir Putin has not invaded a

00:15:18.360 country in the last, what, 20, 25 years has been Trump's presidency. Things have fallen apart on

00:15:25.240 Joe Biden's watch. And so, yes, does Donald Trump say, I'll talk to anybody. I'll work out a deal with

00:15:31.100 anybody. He does. But then he works out the deal. So you get Putin remaining in Moscow, not going further

00:15:37.580 into Ukraine. You get a relative peace in the Middle East. You even get little rocket man over

00:15:41.500 North Korea pulling back on the provocative rhetoric. Does Donald Trump say NATO needs to pay

00:15:48.320 more? We need to stop footing the entire bill for NATO. He does. I'm sure NATO doesn't like to hear

00:15:53.080 that. But guess what? Then they pony up. And Trump is a big supporter of America's alliances.

00:15:58.300 Meanwhile, under Biden, things have gone to hell in a handbasket. And so, if you are Vladimir Putin,

00:16:04.800 who do you want to be president, really? I think it's clear. I think even most Democrats would

00:16:11.340 probably admit today, candidly, if you're Putin, you want Biden because you get to do much more of

00:16:16.200 what you want because Biden is just not all there. The lights are on, but nobody's home. And the same

00:16:20.540 thing is true. If you're a NATO ally, if you're the leader of a NATO nation, you know that. You cannot

00:16:26.740 be feeling reassured after Biden's performance at this conference. No. The other moment that you

00:16:32.660 were referenced at the top was part of the beginning of the remarks. And in addition to the Putin

00:16:39.320 Zelensky thing, had everyone, I mean, all the muscles in my body were tense. You know, it was like,

00:16:43.760 I can't take too much more of this. I don't want to see our president be embarrassed on the world

00:16:48.060 stage. I really don't. It's not a partisan thing. I just, it makes me uncomfortable. It makes me

00:16:52.340 uncomfortable to see an elderly man fall, or woman for that matter. And this made me uncomfortable

00:16:57.700 too. And he didn't seem to know what his vice president was named. Here it is.

00:17:03.800 I wouldn't have picked vice president Trump to be vice president,

00:17:07.340 but I think she was not qualified to be president. So let's start there. Number one.

00:17:14.560 And did not realize that he had done it. He went forward. It wasn't until the end of the presser

00:17:19.060 when, when I think it was NBC news stood up and said, Hey, you did this. You know, how are you going

00:17:23.300 to respond when you get crushed for this? And he said, well, just listen to him. And what,

00:17:27.820 when he called Trump, his vice president, look at this, you can see his cabinet members, including

00:17:33.760 Anthony Blinken, secretary of state, wincing. The secretary of defense was right next to him.

00:17:38.700 They're wincing as he does it. Watch.

00:17:42.400 I wouldn't have picked vice president Trump to be vice president.

00:17:45.640 I think she was not qualified to be president. Oh God. It's like the, you can see the one with

00:17:53.100 the hand up to the face. That's how we all felt. I'll tell you this. I watched it and certainly it

00:17:58.380 was better than the debate, but that's such a low bar. I mean, anything short of dying would be better

00:18:04.360 than what we saw in the debate. But what I saw was someone who was coughing, rambling, kept having to

00:18:11.040 cough and clear his, his throat, who was hard to understand a lot of mumbling, still confusing

00:18:17.920 facts. And the, the number one thing I saw, Michael was something that his campaign ad seemed to be

00:18:23.840 praising him for. But I, as somebody who's seen this up close and personal, um, saw something very

00:18:30.080 different, which was, you know, his depth of knowledge on foreign policy. Okay. You know, I'm

00:18:34.200 sure he's got a lot of facts in there about foreign policy. I saw another sign of dementia, which is

00:18:39.940 long rambling stream of consciousness, soliloquies that don't seem to have a point of beginning a

00:18:48.040 crescendo and a decrescendo and an end. That's how normal conversation is made. That's how normal

00:18:52.920 answers to questions are provided. He wasn't able to do it. And that too is a sign. And you don't

00:18:59.420 have to trust Megan Kelly. Go ahead and Google it. Google exactly what I said. You'll see lots of

00:19:03.560 results come back to say, that's a sign of potential brain disease, any form of dementia and some other

00:19:09.340 problems with him. So I was not encouraged by it at all. And I think the people who are saying they

00:19:15.280 were, are there, they're pretending his campaign emerged from that last night. Like he was Tom

00:19:22.360 Brady at the super bowl, completing the hail Mary to win the game. That's not what happened.

00:19:28.280 Yeah. The only little nugget of a victory that, that the Biden loyalists, the remaining Biden loyalists

00:19:36.580 in the Democrat party are trying to promote is this supposed vast knowledge that he has of foreign

00:19:41.760 policy. But, but I didn't see that. If you want to demonstrate a vast knowledge of foreign policy,

00:19:46.660 you have to be able to, at the very least distinguish between national leaders and

00:19:50.980 between countries. It's not just the Putin, Zelensky gaffe. He also confused Europe for China.

00:19:57.460 He also, as you say, went on and rambled, didn't really articulate any clear policy vision.

00:20:02.540 He seemed to suggest that he's not the commander in chief of the United States. So he, he didn't,

00:20:07.560 he didn't do that either. Even the one area where they say he succeeded, he, he really didn't succeed.

00:20:12.880 And, and you don't need to listen to him. You can just see the, the, the effect on foreign policy

00:20:17.220 of his administration, which has been disastrous. So he failed last night because what he had to do

00:20:23.280 last night was reassure Democrat party elites that he is still the man for the job. And he manifestly

00:20:30.600 did not do that. And so now you're seeing the journalists come out and they're continuing

00:20:35.780 the leaks. They're ramping up the leaks. You heard this conversation between Chuck Todd of NBC

00:20:41.000 and Jonathan Martin of Politico, where they're talking about how journalists for years now

00:20:46.420 have been privately talking about how obvious Biden's decline is. In fact, they bring up some

00:20:53.080 of the sources they have, including a cabinet official who said years ago, oh boy, things are looking

00:20:58.780 really bad for, for Joe Biden. And so I think this actually explains why the media can't make a

00:21:04.480 second term. That's right. That he couldn't make a second term in this condition. I think this

00:21:09.120 explains why the media are being so vicious to Biden right now. In part, it's because they realize that

00:21:15.580 he's, he's not going to be able to make it over the finish line and their job is to promote the

00:21:19.900 Democrat party and they won't be able to do that. So in part, it's a little bit of partisanship,

00:21:24.460 but I think the reason that they're so particularly vicious with Biden right now is because he has

00:21:30.740 made them look foolish and he has exposed them as frauds. The media and the Democrats and the Biden

00:21:38.860 administration had a deal. And the deal was the media are not going to reveal that Biden is in

00:21:45.980 obvious senility and Biden is going to win. He's going to stay in the basement and he's going to win

00:21:51.800 and everything gets to go on tickety boo. And Biden broke the deal because Biden's poll numbers were

00:21:57.820 low. Biden had to challenge Trump to a debate. He thought he could do it in a clever way by changing

00:22:04.460 all of the rules and kicking out the commission on presidential debates and putting it on CNN

00:22:08.020 and getting rid of an audience. And he thought that he was making an offer to Trump that Trump would

00:22:12.780 reject or try to negotiate the details of. Trump very wisely accepted all of the conditions

00:22:19.020 immediately. And so what you saw was not the journalists finally digging into Biden. You saw

00:22:25.280 because of the Trump campaign's wisdom, you saw Biden being exposed past all of the journalists.

00:22:32.880 And now I think that's what they're so furious about. They're furious that he has exposed

00:22:36.940 them for what they are. That's exactly right. I'm looking at

00:22:41.500 the latest on the radio interviews that he's been giving and speaking of his interactions with the press.

00:22:49.020 And the latest we saw, you know, this week, it came out that at least two radio stations last

00:22:54.540 weekend when he was on his I'm robust tour after the debate, at least two of the radio hosts admitted

00:23:01.160 got caught just repeating the questions that the White House spoon fed to them, gave them and said,

00:23:05.860 please ask these questions. And they did it. One of whom was later fired. I mean, honestly,

00:23:09.680 they both should have been fired. I've got nothing against these folks, but they they embarrass

00:23:12.940 themselves and their network. You don't do that. That's a hard no. I mean, I will say it's not

00:23:17.660 unusual for the subject, whether it's a senator or the White House or what have you to say.

00:23:22.000 You know, he'd really love to talk about his whatever bill. You know, he's coming on to

00:23:25.960 promote this thing he sponsored. That is that's part of the course in journalism. Fine. That's how

00:23:30.180 you get access and you get a yes to the interview to be spoon fed actual questions to be handed

00:23:35.700 actual questions. They want you to ask and then to do it. No, that's that is a that's a bridge too far,

00:23:42.780 far too far. But here was another report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sentinel that a Milwaukee

00:23:49.160 radio station is now admitting that it agreed to make edits to a Joe Biden interview at the White

00:23:57.080 House's request. And this is not. You know what? Like he he spat on the one answer. Could you please

00:24:05.600 not show that like that's that would be a normal thing not to try to embarrass anybody. These were

00:24:11.060 substantive edits that obviously made him look bad that they they took out. For example, let me

00:24:17.540 see. Do I have it in front of me yet? One was and I'm only going to guess on why they took this out

00:24:23.580 at time. Five twenty. They removed, quote, and in addition to that, I have more blacks in my

00:24:30.740 administration than any other president, all other presidents combined and in major positions,

00:24:35.620 cabinet positions. Now, I like it's not unusual today in today's day and age to hear people refer

00:24:41.280 to the black population as blacks and the white population as whites. But that's not how you're

00:24:46.620 allowed to talk. If you're a Democrat, you are not allowed to do that. You have to use 10 other words

00:24:51.280 to describe black people and you have to capitalize black, too, by the way, but not white. OK, and then

00:24:56.340 time, 1415, in reference to Donald Trump's call for the death penalty for the Central Park five,

00:25:02.960 they removed, quote, I don't know if they even call for their hanging or not, but he but they said

00:25:10.440 something like convicted of murder. So it seems like he was inarticulate. He was admitting a lack

00:25:15.300 of knowledge about the case he was trying to prosecute. And he looked a little lost. That's not OK.

00:25:22.120 You know, if that's what you're taking it out for, because you're both on the same page about

00:25:26.120 making them look good. Not OK. So anyway, here's where I'm going with this, Michael.

00:25:29.840 What we've learned this week is this White House press corps that literally gets paid to follow him

00:25:36.560 around 24 seven and do nothing other than report on the president. They don't have multiple beats.

00:25:45.400 This is the beat. Did not care to look into or realize that a neurologist had visited the White

00:25:52.440 House nine times, at least over the past year. And now we know for sure, even the White House

00:25:59.500 admits at least three of those were to visit President Biden. I believe it's more and I

00:26:02.980 believe they're obfuscating and outright lying that they did not know that he was doing written

00:26:09.540 questions in advance to many in the press who are interviewing him. There's something Nora.

00:26:15.300 Who is it? Kelly O'Donnell is out there denying right now. She's denying that they take those

00:26:19.940 questions. That's not true. Some of them do. We know that we saw it with the L.A. Times earlier

00:26:23.720 this year and we've seen it with these radio hosts over the weekend that they did not catch on to the

00:26:28.420 fact that he's asking for edits in the substantive edits, edits in the interviews he does and that

00:26:33.500 others are going along with it. This is all they have to do. You fall right now. There's

00:26:38.160 all this reporting on how all the questions that these radio hosts ask are the same. How did that

00:26:42.360 happen? Oh, it's because they were provided the way. Just listen. Your only job is to listen to

00:26:46.260 his interviews. Listen to him. What's he saying? Find the similarities. They didn't. They didn't care.

00:26:51.820 They don't care about reporting anything that might make him look bad. They did not know that he was

00:26:56.720 requiring his cabinet officials to submit their talking points to him in advance and vice versa.

00:27:02.280 They did not report and jump up and down about the fact that behind the scenes,

00:27:05.200 there's only been a full cabinet meeting. The last one was in October. They did not report

00:27:10.380 on the baby instructions he's been getting everywhere. The kind you'd provide really to

00:27:14.780 like a hundred year old person to say, Nana, when you walk in for your hundredth birthday surprise,

00:27:19.600 you go over to the stage and you do a wave and then you sit down in that chair. That's what he's

00:27:24.180 getting. Toddler like instruction. None of this was reported by this White House press corps.

00:27:30.040 And now they want us to believe none of this is their fault, Michael.

00:27:35.820 Of course. We know that the White House at the very least is obfuscating and lying, actually. We

00:27:42.600 saw Karine Jean-Pierre just the other day on the issue of this neurologist's visit. She said that

00:27:48.080 Joe Biden had seen the neurologist three times, which is a clever way of putting it because he has

00:27:55.040 seen a neurologist three times. That doesn't necessarily mean he hasn't seen the neurologist

00:27:58.860 a fourth time as well, or a fifth time or a 12th time or a 20th time. There's an old Mitch

00:28:03.580 Hedberg joke, which is, uh, I used to do drugs. I still do drugs, but I used to do them also.

00:28:08.820 And that's what Karine Jean-Pierre was trying to say. And the, and the media, they don't dig into

00:28:14.040 it at least initially. Well, let me just say something. She did say he hasn't seen a neurologist

00:28:18.960 outside of those three annual physicals, but she also said some other things that turned out to be

00:28:23.660 untrue. And we know she's not allowed to reveal what he hasn't authorized her to reveal. And the

00:28:31.960 same is true for his doctor, Kevin O'Connor. They cannot reveal anything more than Joe Biden has

00:28:37.580 authorized. Keep going. Right. So, so we know that the press know about this. It's not just that they

00:28:43.440 didn't want to dig into it. It's not just that they didn't want to do their jobs. They were doing

00:28:47.720 their job, but their job is not to speak truth to power. Their job is not to be the intrepid

00:28:53.600 reporters following the facts, wherever they lead. Their job is to carry water for the liberal

00:28:58.640 establishment and to advance the liberal establishment project. And so what you're

00:29:03.160 seeing now is that the reporters are still doing their job. They were doing their job when they

00:29:07.580 didn't report on Biden's obvious dementia. And they're doing their job now that they are reporting

00:29:11.740 on Biden's dementia because they have lost faith and many leading Democrats have lost faith in

00:29:16.940 Biden's ability to beat Donald Trump. And so in order to advance the liberal establishment agenda,

00:29:22.060 they've got to get rid of Biden. The problem now for the Democrats is Biden still has the goods. He

00:29:28.640 still has the desire to, to stay in office and to seek a second term. And so they're playing this game

00:29:34.180 of chicken and the press is saying, Joe, we're going to make you so unelectable. You're going to go down

00:29:41.540 in flames. We are not carrying water. So you got to get out. And Joe is saying, he's saying, well,

00:29:48.620 okay guys, but I'm not getting out. So you can make me unelectable all you want, but then you're

00:29:53.500 going to lose your power too. Cause I ain't going anywhere. You're not going to bully me. And the

00:29:57.620 only question now is who blinks first. You're so right, Michael. I was looking at this last night

00:30:03.260 as these leaks came out about the cabinet thinking, of course, they've known this all along.

00:30:07.580 The reason that the cabinet members are now leaking this stuff to CNN is because there is a full fledged

00:30:17.460 behind the scenes effort now among the Dems to get him out. And they said as much at the beginning of

00:30:23.760 the week that things would get more humiliating for him if he didn't make the right decision.

00:30:29.600 So it's not accidental. Yes. We're seeing more Dems come out and call for him to leave. We saw that

00:30:34.760 last night, right after his remarks concluded. But what we're seeing now more by the day is more

00:30:39.720 vicious leaks about him. So they've had it. They've had it in their pocket. The, the team that's around

00:30:46.200 him and just allies of his like donors, like Clooney, and indeed in some cases, the media,

00:30:52.980 and only now are they releasing it because they're amping up the pressure. They're turning up that knob

00:30:58.360 as he continues to dig in and say, I'm not going anywhere. It's actually really clear when you know,

00:31:04.040 that's a strategy and you start reading the press. You mentioned the George Clooney op-ed in the New

00:31:08.460 York times saying, I love you, Joe, but you got to go. And this is a great example of this behind

00:31:13.160 the scenes movement because does anybody really believe that George Clooney can write? Does

00:31:18.240 anybody really, but no, I don't think anybody really believes he wrote that op-ed and Joe Scarborough

00:31:23.280 on MSNBC was suggesting as have many others that maybe actually other Democrats were behind that.

00:31:29.420 Maybe it was Barack Obama himself who put George Clooney up to writing that op-ed. Who knows?

00:31:34.660 This is just wild speculation, but there's this movement. You saw Joe Manchin earlier in the week.

00:31:40.280 He came out and was asked, do you still support Joe Biden? He said, listen, listen, you know,

00:31:44.740 I love Joe. And I think it'll be a lot clearer after this weekend. And that's why I support Joe,

00:31:50.160 but things will be a lot clearer after the weekend. And that raised my eyebrow. I thought, well,

00:31:53.840 what's going on this weekend? What sort of plans do we have? You're seeing publicly people like Obama

00:31:59.900 or Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi say, we stand with Joe, but then all the leaks, actually Obama

00:32:04.860 doesn't, actually Schumer doesn't, actually Pelosi doesn't. So this is going to come to a head at

00:32:11.180 some point. They're going to blow each other up. And then I don't know, there will be no liberal

00:32:15.520 establishment left anymore, or somebody is going to win. I just think it's such a dangerous game for

00:32:22.260 the liberal establishment because at this point, Biden has basically nothing to lose. I mean,

00:32:27.700 you know, and if he did have anything to lose, I'm not sure he would even be aware of it at this

00:32:32.120 point. Whereas for the Democrats, if Joe manages to hold on to the nomination, they're going to have

00:32:38.240 to flip back. I don't know how you unwind the accusations. I have a theory on this though. I said

00:32:44.580 it yesterday, Mike. I just think what they do at that point is they go 100% against Trump. That's it.

00:32:49.820 And there's just no Biden news. There's not, there's no news about Joe Biden or polling,

00:32:54.400 unless it shows that they were right, that he shouldn't be the nominee. And then you kind of

00:32:57.820 mentioned, see, he's behind the, in the polls. This was really like reckless, but anyway, back to

00:33:02.260 Trump being a devil and they can kick that off as early as next week. You saw the New York times

00:33:06.220 yesterday with this editorial that was in all black with like the white letters popping up about what a

00:33:13.320 demon Trump is. And that was because they're under pressure now having hit Biden repeatedly

00:33:18.280 as unfit by their core audience to say, Hey, what about the other guy? You know, that's what you

00:33:24.000 hear. The joy reads of the world saying, what about Trump? So this is their, you know, they're throwing

00:33:28.740 him a bone. Oh, you know, of course Trump's the devil. So I think that's what they'll do.

00:33:33.020 Um, right. Here's a moment. Yeah, go ahead. In, in, as much as a candidate is the center of the

00:33:41.880 news cycle, uh, either Trump or Biden, uh, that is going to be to their disadvantage in, in, in,

00:33:48.200 at least this news cycle, if not all of them. Uh, and so that, that is a easy way to flip the switch.

00:33:54.260 And, um, that, that is what they've done in years past. Uh, at this point though, now that they've

00:33:59.680 thrown four prosecutions at Donald Trump and they've accused him of, of, I don't, you know,

00:34:03.820 harassing a woman in Bergdorf Goodman 75 years ago. And I don't, you know, they've raided his house

00:34:08.780 and they've, they've, they've done everything short of banish him to St. Helena. I am not convinced

00:34:14.280 that that is going to work because don't forget to rewind a little bit. The reason that the Democrats

00:34:19.200 are in this mess in the first place is because Joe Biden proposed that disastrous debate with Trump.

00:34:23.920 And the reason Joe Biden proposed that debate with Trump is because the net constant negative

00:34:29.500 Trump headlines were not doing enough to suppress Trump's poll numbers and buoy Bidens. So they

00:34:35.280 can try it. It's probably the last thing they have left. You saw, uh, just the other day,

00:34:39.240 a news report from the Intel agencies that Russia is looking to interfere again and support Trump.

00:34:44.260 They're, they're playing the hits, you know, like Rolling Stones hitting satisfaction at Madison

00:34:48.280 square garden. They're going back to their, their classic numbers from 2016, but I just don't see

00:34:53.600 any evidence that it still works. Yeah. There was, you see a clip online yesterday of Mick Jagger

00:34:59.140 praising Justin Trudeau, uh, and the whole crowd started booing him. He looks so confused. What

00:35:04.740 do you mean? Like people don't like Justin Trudeau? Hello, stick to the music. Um, the, the intra party

00:35:11.560 fighting going on within the Democrat party is highly entertaining, obviously. And, uh, it boiled

00:35:18.700 up and, you know, into plain view on MSNBC last night when Chris Hayes was hosting, uh, DNC chair,

00:35:25.140 Jamie Harrison, watch this. Stop the nitpicking. Okay. But focus on, on, on the work ahead. This

00:35:32.440 guy has done it in the past. I get you on that, but I just, I want to just come back one more time

00:35:36.900 because I think that's a little straw manning, right? I'm not saying that it's his stumbles

00:35:40.500 that, that you should focus on. I am saying that I'm not saying many people are saying, I mean,

00:35:46.920 I don't know what the answer is. Again, the good faith concern here for people who admire Joe

00:35:51.140 Biden and think he's done a good job is that the nature of time and the stress of the job

00:35:57.640 means that it will be very difficult for him to effectively execute the next four months of the

00:36:02.740 campaign and effectively execute a second term. Chris, Donald Trump is literally talking about

00:36:11.040 calling Chris Christie a fat pig. Let's be serious. Joe Biden just laid out a complex, uh,

00:36:17.900 view of the entire world. And we are putting ourselves in this, uh, mental gymnastics to

00:36:24.560 talk about, well, how, how will his age be in two years? We know what we have in contrast with Donald

00:36:29.760 Trump. Technically Trump said somebody else brought up the fact that Chris Christie was allegedly that

00:36:38.200 thing. Trump told him not to say that that's actually how it went down, but that's not a scene

00:36:43.460 you see every day over there on MSNBC, Michael. They're tearing each other apart.

00:36:47.800 Listen, we, we have to support the dementia patient in the white house because otherwise we might have

00:36:53.720 a president who would insult Chris Christie. That's the best they got. That's a plus for a lot of voters

00:37:02.000 that that's the best that the Democrats have to offer. I think that is the best the Democrats have to

00:37:07.080 offer. And that's why you hear desperation from the voice of the official party Democrats,

00:37:11.140 but you also hear desperation from journalists like Chris Hayes. He says, I'm just worried. Oh,

00:37:16.520 sorry. I should say I'm not worried, but a lot of, a lot of other people are worried

00:37:20.040 that we're losing this thing. Yeah. And, and look, it does look perilous for them. Hold on.

00:37:26.940 We're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back and do a little bit more on that post

00:37:30.480 analysis. So what does it mean? What does it mean now? Does he go? Does he stay? Because more Democrats

00:37:34.340 did pile on and we have to discuss the fundraising because that may be the most significant thing that

00:37:39.960 happened this week. Stand by Michael Knowles stays with me more and more. You're getting Democrats

00:37:47.620 coming out. I think the numbers up to 17 now who have gone public calling for Joe Biden to not be

00:37:53.660 the candidate for term two, uh, mostly from the house. We've seen a couple of senators while Michael

00:37:58.420 Bennett of Colorado explicitly, you know, going there and then some others toying with it. Just now

00:38:03.900 we have Colorado governor, Jared Polis. This is just hitting saying the debate about his candidacy

00:38:08.800 remains legitimate, uh, quote, they really need to look at how they can reinvent this campaign.

00:38:13.940 Again, look at messaging, look at strategy. Of course, it's a legitimate discussion about the

00:38:17.720 candidate, but how we're going to win to protect democracy last night, uh, democratic representative

00:38:23.040 Jim Himes of Connecticut, who's the top ranking down on the house intelligence committee came out

00:38:27.260 right after the presser ended, uh, all this stuff about he's the greatest. I mean, truly they're

00:38:33.520 talking about this guy, like he's Lincoln, all of them before they stick the knife at him,

00:38:36.760 the greatest ever accomplishments immense. Um, he must not risk that legacy and those accomplishments

00:38:42.380 and American democracy to soldier on in the face of the horrors promised by Donald Trump and on it

00:38:48.100 goes. Um, there were two others who came out last night as well. Representative Eric Sorensen of

00:38:53.160 Illinois, representative Scott Peters, Democrat of California, both calling on president Biden to

00:38:58.260 withdraw from the race. And yet I don't know exactly what the plan is. Obama, Pelosi meeting,

00:39:07.580 um, Democrats speaking up more and more. And yet what we're hearing again from CNN to whom these

00:39:13.280 Democrats talk is that if you step out of line, you get it. Like the white house is still the white

00:39:20.800 house. Biden is still the president. And so there's a reason we haven't seen more than 17 come out.

00:39:27.100 And here's that reason. So 23. One thing that many of the folks that we spoke with that they

00:39:32.680 are so furious about is this idea that when people have gone to these inner circle of advisors around

00:39:38.220 the president to express some of these concerns that they were not taken seriously or really

00:39:43.240 brushed aside. This is what one top Democrat told me. They said everyone who expresses any level of

00:39:49.060 suspicion or contrary views, they call everyone and they beat the shit out of them and say,

00:39:53.440 stay on message. Whoa, CNN with the salty talk. So what could the plan be, right? If they're too,

00:40:01.360 if they're too afraid, if Obama and Pelosi just had a conversation, but nothing came of it.

00:40:05.940 If Clyburn's still digging in though, saying if he changes his, like now we're about to,

00:40:10.820 the whole media is about to turn to Milwaukee and start talking about Trump and his VP pick. So,

00:40:15.240 I mean, it's sort of like a perfect storm for, for Donald Trump, right? Like he loves these rough

00:40:22.340 waters. He's doing some smooth sailing. He's like churn and burn, keep it going. Like stick,

00:40:28.480 stick it out, Joe, you got this. Don't let them bully you out of office.

00:40:33.240 The plan is through a combination of sticks and carrots to get Biden to choose to leave the race,

00:40:40.600 because the only way to get him at is basically the only way to get him at is for him to choose it.

00:40:45.240 The problem is that the sticks aren't big enough to hurt Biden and the carrot doesn't exist. There

00:40:51.560 is no incentive that they could give him. What they're trying to say is by puffing him up and

00:40:57.820 pretending that his total failed term in office has been some great accomplishment, that he will

00:41:03.500 therefore preserve his legacy by stepping down now. But, but he won't. He is already seeking the

00:41:11.600 presidency. The history books already will say if he were to step down that he wanted to get it. And

00:41:18.600 he was, he was thrown out because he has dementia because he couldn't do the job because he was a

00:41:23.420 failure because he was an embarrassment that's already baked in. So, so the horrible situation

00:41:28.780 for the Democrats, some news just broke. There's a report out that Democrat donors are freezing some

00:41:33.580 $90 million in funds in the biggest Biden super PAC. That's the thing. That's the one from the New York

00:41:38.720 Times. Well, sure. I mean, good luck. Okay. You can freeze those funds. What does Joe Biden have to

00:41:45.340 lose by sticking it out? What does Joe Biden have to gain? Legacy. The legacy, the legacy that's already

00:41:52.480 completely tarnished and, and that the Democrats by playing this game of chicken have already tarnished

00:41:57.580 because now any way you slice it, he will have been chased out of, out of the nomination,

00:42:03.640 out of the white house probably. And he'll go down as a man who, who left the job because his brain had

00:42:08.860 turned to applesauce. So if I'm Joe Biden, what I do is I say, okay, you're going to freeze my $90

00:42:13.620 million. Okay. You're going to keep running these nasty pieces about me. Sounds good. Uh, I'm going to

00:42:18.420 turn my phone off until late August. And then when I am inevitably and formally the Democrat nominee,

00:42:24.280 you're all going to come groveling back. You Democrat donors are going to have no option

00:42:28.620 other than to unfreeze my money. You, you scoundrels in the press, you jackals are going to have no

00:42:34.200 option, but to play nice with me again and try to help me win the white house, uh, because I'm the

00:42:39.680 guy you got and I've already won the nomination. There's no procedural way for you to take it from

00:42:44.240 me. So good luck guys. Sounds good. I'm going to go on vacation for a month. See it. See you in late

00:42:49.240 August. He did say something interesting last night. I actually wanted to make this point.

00:42:54.280 In addition to the long rambling stream of consciousness talking, he repeatedly did the

00:43:01.480 whisper. And then he did the angry Joe, you know, it was a lack of emotional regulation that we saw

00:43:09.180 time and time again, last night, he did make a point about releasing his delegates. Let me just

00:43:14.560 give you a couple of examples of what I'm talking about before I play it. Here's let's listen to top 12.

00:43:19.720 I love my staff, but the ad thing, no one's saying that. No, Paul says that. None of you

00:43:27.280 thought that would happen. None of you thought that would happen. Everybody says we want somebody

00:43:31.460 else. That's a democratic process. It's not going to happen. More children are killed by a bullet

00:43:39.560 than any other cause of death. The United States of America.

00:43:46.460 By the way, that last point is not true. It's motor vehicles, but, um, you saw that. And then, um,

00:43:53.260 you saw that moment where he was talking about the guns that came out of nowhere and just kind of

00:43:57.640 tacked it on. And you could see, he kind of thought he was having a bad-ass moment. Here's a little bit

00:44:02.400 more in, uh, SOT 9.

00:44:07.360 Controlled guns, not girls. I mean, the idea we're sitting around, this is where Kama was so good as

00:44:13.800 well. We're sitting around. More children are killed by a bullet than any other cause of death.

00:44:23.540 The United States of America. What the hell are we doing? What are we doing?

00:44:28.720 We've got a candidate saying, promised the NRA, don't worry. I'm not going to do anything.

00:44:33.760 I'm not going to do anything. We've got a Supreme court that is what you might call the most

00:44:39.060 conservative court in American history. This is ridiculous. All right. So you see the,

00:44:45.580 and it just like out of nowhere was the crescendo, right? And then back down. And then finally when asked

00:44:51.900 about the delegates, which is really the most important thing, here is what he said. They're all

00:44:56.080 pledged to him. They're his to hold on to, um, very hard for them to break with him. Or is it SOT 13?

00:45:04.440 Obviously they're free to do whatever they want, but I get overwhelming support,

00:45:09.680 overwhelming support. I won how, I forget how many votes I won in the primary.

00:45:16.140 Overwhelming. And so tomorrow, if all of a sudden I show up at the convention, everybody says,

00:45:21.060 we want somebody else. That's a democratic process. It's not going to happen.

00:45:26.900 Even if that means we'll vote for someone else?

00:45:30.300 Sure.

00:45:32.400 It's not going to happen. Is it going to happen, Michael? What's your prediction now?

00:45:37.960 It's not going to happen. And part of the reason I think it's not going to happen is because

00:45:41.580 Joe Biden, who can't remember people's names, who's been looser than his, with his language than usual,

00:45:47.820 he's pretty careful with his language there. The reporters are asking him a technical question.

00:45:54.340 Do you release the delegates or, or will you possibly release your delegates? And he gives

00:45:59.540 a rather informal and ambiguous answer. I mean, come on, man, they're free. You know,

00:46:03.480 they're free. There's free will. They're free to do what's free country, you know, and that.

00:46:06.940 And yeah, I mean, look, man, the democratic process and there's the process, but you know,

00:46:11.180 it ain't going to happen. You see, despite the quiet little odd whisper, you see old tough guy,

00:46:18.240 Joe, come back there. He says, I'm not giving you the answer you want. I'm not saying that I'm going

00:46:22.580 to release my delegates. I they're my delegates and I won that primary and you're not going to

00:46:27.180 take it from me. You jerks. And so he's trying to balance it. As you point out, he can't regulate

00:46:31.660 his emotions and his rhetoric as well as he used to. But in that answer, I see a lot of prevarication.

00:46:37.420 I see a lot of euphemism. I see a lot of blurry language and I see a guy who is taking this thing

00:46:43.700 to the convention. The, his team really just needs to continue treading water because this week we're

00:46:50.640 all going to be focused on the RNC. And then we were talking about this yesterday. Then come the

00:46:55.240 Olympics for two weeks, which will dominate, you know, the news they'll have, they'll find some time

00:47:00.500 for this for sure. But this is not rating. We look, took a look at some of the ratings on our,

00:47:05.880 on the liberal media channels. They're not doing gangbusters. And in fact, they move away from the

00:47:10.420 story now a lot sooner than they used to because the Democrats are depressed. Like it's, it's doing

00:47:15.300 well, I think in conservative media, but the Democrats are depressed, which is another incentive

00:47:19.580 for them to turn away from it. So it, you know, the longer he can draw it out, the more likely he

00:47:25.380 weathers the storm, which does suggest the Democrats need something big to happen if they want to get

00:47:31.760 rid of him. And I just don't know what that is. Like Obama can't control this from behind the

00:47:36.700 scenes. It's, this isn't in front of the scenes kind of thing. I'll give you the last thought.

00:47:40.880 It's going to take more than some op-eds from George Clooney. Uh, you know, the, the real hope

00:47:46.240 in all of this, a real glimmer, a bright spot in politics is sometimes we conservatives believe that

00:47:52.300 the Democrats, they just control everything. They've got it all so locked, locked in. We have no hope

00:47:57.760 of ever getting power back. And I think they were completely caught with their pants down here. They

00:48:03.180 have no idea what to do. They're scrambling, they're making threats, they're trying, they're eating

00:48:08.120 each other alive and they still can't make any progress. For now, the Democratic voters have

00:48:14.940 spoken. Joe Biden is their nominee and I am totally in support of that fact. As the kids say, and I am

00:48:23.300 here for it, Michael Knowles. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. Great to be with you as always.

00:48:29.000 So one of the reasons Biden says he's not dropping out last night is he says the polls are wrong.

00:48:33.520 Show me a poll that shows me losing to Trump and I'll get out. We'll do that next. Don't go away.

00:48:38.480 I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open,

00:48:44.280 honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political,

00:48:48.080 legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch the Megan Kelly show on Triumph,

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00:49:05.640 Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I

00:49:12.300 love the Sirius XM app. It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast,

00:49:19.460 and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free. Go to Sirius XM.com slash MK show

00:49:26.580 to subscribe and get three months free. That's Sirius XM.com slash MK show and get three months

00:49:34.220 free offer details apply. I am joined by a polling expert to discuss some of the latest numbers in

00:49:45.740 the 2024 race. And man, oh man, the polls are getting a lot of importance placed on them by

00:49:51.620 a lot of pundits lately. As of today, former president Trump remains up a bit in the real

00:49:57.260 clear politics average of all polls, almost three points over president Biden. And this week polling

00:50:04.340 from Emerson college shows new trouble for Mr. Biden, not just nationally, but in the battleground

00:50:10.740 states as well. Here to discuss it all, Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson college

00:50:16.280 polling. Spencer, welcome to the show. Megan, thanks for having me. Okay. So give us the top

00:50:22.160 line that you concluded that you reached in your polling. Well, the takeaway from the debate is that

00:50:28.140 Trump either gained ground or stayed the same in those six, seven swing states that we're looking

00:50:32.780 at. And nationally over the last two weeks, he's pretty much picked up a point a week going from

00:50:38.440 about one to three. And I think in the big picture, about four years ago, he was trailing nationally

00:50:44.740 at this time by about four points. So we're seeing a bit of a reversal of what we were looking at in

00:50:50.540 the last election cycle. Hmm. So with the national popular vote, which is kind of like the generic

00:50:57.940 non-battleground state polling, he's doing well. And in the battleground states, he's doing well

00:51:03.920 and getting better over the last two weeks. Essentially. And what's most concerning for

00:51:09.840 President Biden would be looking at the states of, let's say, Georgia and Arizona. Those two states

00:51:15.620 have been trending towards Trump for six, seven months. Most of the polls in Arizona all have

00:51:21.020 Trump leading in that state. If those two states swing towards Trump, then any of those other swing

00:51:27.360 states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, if they swing, Virginia, Minnesota, if any of those five

00:51:34.020 states swing, then Trump gets the 270 electoral votes and wins. So the Georgia, Arizona is a big

00:51:40.260 problem for President Biden at this time. And then, of course, you got those five other states that are

00:51:45.200 either trailing or very close at this time as well. So as far as I can tell here, you polled all the

00:51:52.700 swing states and we looked at them and we looked at what you found pre-debate versus post-debate.

00:51:57.360 It looks like in Arizona right now, it's Donald Trump up four over Biden. Before the debate,

00:52:04.520 it was Donald Trump up four. Michigan, Donald Trump up one. Before the debate, Donald Trump up one.

00:52:12.800 Wisconsin, Donald Trump up three. Before the debate, Donald Trump up three. But then we get to

00:52:19.060 Nevada, where Trump, you're showing he's up six. Pre-debate, you had him up three.

00:52:24.560 Pennsylvania, Donald Trump up five. Pre-debate, Donald Trump up two. And then there's Georgia,

00:52:33.500 where he's now showing in the Emerson poll, Donald Trump up five. Pre-debate, he was up four.

00:52:39.620 So in particular, in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and to some extent in Georgia, it looks like Biden really

00:52:45.540 hurt himself with that debate.

00:52:46.780 And it was across the board that he got hurt. It wasn't just with younger voters or older voters

00:52:53.520 or a particular racial group of voters. And that's the concern for President Biden is finding that

00:52:59.680 pocket of support to be able to build and get back. In my opinion, just getting to 50-50 isn't enough

00:53:05.620 for the Democrats to be able to win a national election anymore. They have to win by three, four,

00:53:10.640 maybe five points nationally. So he's got a lot of room to make up.

00:53:14.100 Okay, explain that. I don't understand that at all. I've heard a bunch of pollsters talk about this,

00:53:18.800 and this is where I get lost.

00:53:21.080 Well, it's not that the national poll is going to mirror all the state polls. There'll be some

00:53:25.820 exceptions to it. But what we've seen over the last eight years is generally, as the national

00:53:31.620 poll goes, it's pulling those states in that direction. So the national poll in 2020 was four and a

00:53:39.160 half points. And in 2016, it was two and a half points, both leaning for the Democrats. The difference

00:53:44.840 between 2016 and 2020 is Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania. And so if Biden is able to get that

00:53:55.660 lead from, you know, four, four and a half points, that looked like he could take the presidency. Now that

00:54:02.460 he's even or he's trailing, that's a difficult spot to be in at the state level, because there is

00:54:09.160 some, you know, mirroring of the two votes, the national vote in the state vote. So as he's

00:54:14.900 trailing in the state votes, he's also starting to trail in all of these, or in the national vote,

00:54:20.240 he's also trailing in these state polls. And so there's not really like a silver lining at this

00:54:26.640 point where we're seeing maybe California and New York doing better. We're seeing New York at like

00:54:30.660 seven, eight points. This is a 23 point state. California is better for Biden at like 20 points,

00:54:36.660 but that's again, a 33 point state. So what you're seeing is kind of a dropping of the tide for Biden

00:54:42.820 from where he was in 2020. And then the question is, will that help Trump or does Trump have a ceiling

00:54:48.500 in and of himself where we've seen the polling kind of sit around 46% nationally? Can he get that

00:54:55.000 number up to 48 to 50% and then be able to split the vote that way and win at the state level?

00:55:03.160 It's like the Democrat voters have taken a depressant. They've taken some sort of a

00:55:08.460 depressant and it's being reflected in those numbers. Like the whole electorate seems like

00:55:12.940 down there, but you mentioned the Trump ceiling and that, that number you just said is a problem

00:55:19.840 for Trump. Has Trump ever been as high as 50% with the electorate? Well, in our polling,

00:55:27.460 we'll do the head to head ballot test and generally Trump peaks at 46. And that's what we've had him at

00:55:32.420 for the last four months. But then we do a push question and that's where he gets to 50%.

00:55:37.860 We asked voters who are undecided if they had to choose which direction they would go in.

00:55:43.200 And at that point, it goes to about a 50, 50 race, which is good for president Biden,

00:55:48.960 but not good enough. In my opinion, he needs to get that two to three points higher on his side.

00:55:54.420 And then the real question is, is it all baked in? You know, we saw that debate

00:55:58.640 and the numbers didn't move dramatically. What would change the numbers at this point for

00:56:03.840 president Biden to move them dramatically in his direction? And that's what we're waiting to see

00:56:08.840 if those change at all. So back in 2016, Trump won the electoral college, but lost the popular vote,

00:56:16.360 you know, renewing the push by some Democrats to get rid of the electoral college.

00:56:21.020 I heard an interesting discussion the other day on the commentary podcast about whether

00:56:26.540 Steve Kornacki was on about whether there's a scenario this time around where it could be

00:56:34.380 reversed, where Donald Trump could win. I mean, of course, it's always possible, but is there any

00:56:39.880 likelihood that this time around Donald Trump could win the national vote,

00:56:44.240 the popular vote and not the electoral college?

00:56:48.920 I mean, as you said, anything is possible in American politics. We're looking at some

00:56:53.620 pretty close races from 2020, but right now they're not looking that close. Arizona, Georgia,

00:57:00.160 Pennsylvania, those aren't looking like toss up states that we've seen over the last two cycles.

00:57:05.260 They're leaning towards the Republican, leaning towards Trump at the presidential level.

00:57:09.660 There's a different story happening at the Senate level, but at the presidential level,

00:57:13.440 those states are leaning. So it would be surprising now to that point, if the popular vote is down in

00:57:20.360 New York, if the popular vote's down in California, and remember, Clinton really ran up that popular

00:57:24.980 vote in California. But if you let that vote kind of settle and Biden only wins those states by in the

00:57:31.620 teens, there's an opportunity there for Biden to be able to win because he's giving up probably

00:57:38.220 five, six million votes between those two states and, you know, his leads. And but to me, that would

00:57:45.080 tell me that there's a, you know, not a rising tide. We saw that in 2016, when we saw like Indiana and

00:57:50.680 Kentucky results come in early that night, like, whoa, that looks like a rising tide. Like, well,

00:57:55.340 this is three, four points higher than what we expected. And then obviously, we saw how 2016 played

00:58:00.460 out. So we'll see if in this cycle, Biden's able to win in a very unusual game plan for the Democrats

00:58:08.300 to try to win without winning the popular vote. So you're saying when Hillary Clinton won the

00:58:12.880 popular vote in 16, it was via the route that basically leads Republicans to oppose making this

00:58:22.480 a popular vote election, which is you could basically win with New York and California as a Democrat.

00:58:27.920 You just they're huge states with huge population and they're almost entirely blue, not entirely,

00:58:34.660 but largely blue. And that's how she got the popular vote as high as she did. But those states

00:58:40.860 don't determine the election because we know they're going to be blue. And it's still very

00:58:45.700 possible for a Republican to get to 270, thanks to all the other states that are out there.

00:58:50.740 Yeah. And so that was the strategy. And then at the end, she tried to get to Michigan and Minnesota

00:58:56.420 and tried to hold that Midwest blue wall. But that cracked on her. Biden was able to bring that back

00:59:03.440 to some extent. But the key to me was in the South, being able to hold Georgia in Arizona that allows

00:59:08.820 the blue wall to get into play. And we'll see if Biden's able to make a comeback in either one of

00:59:13.780 those two states at this time. As I said, especially out in Arizona and Georgia, the polling for

00:59:21.040 the year has been leaning towards Trump. Those states. I mean, when I was coming up at Fox News

00:59:27.700 from 2004 to 2017, they were they were red states. Georgia and Arizona were red states. And then they

00:59:35.600 started to shift more blue. And we started to hear about Stacey Abrams. And, you know, Arizona got

00:59:42.340 ticked off during the Trump years. And I'm sure they didn't much like his fight with John McCain,

00:59:46.080 who was beloved and all that. But and then the Trump presidency was somewhat chaotic, you know,

00:59:51.400 and so they're the more moderate Republicans were irritated. But now they seem to be going back to

00:59:56.860 their roots, having been under four years of Democrat rule, at least at the federal level. Is that what's

01:00:02.440 happening? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, Megan, to think about it. You have four senators from those

01:00:07.300 two states, all Democrats, to think about that's where Arizona and Georgia went in the last four or five

01:00:13.380 years, kind of raises an eye. You know, considering, yeah, you've got, you know, with Sinema now, I guess

01:00:19.920 it's an independent, but those are surprising shifts that we saw in those states. But then there

01:00:26.480 seemed to be shifting back. Kemp wins his race by seven points over Abrams, where Abrams was in a

01:00:31.660 nail biter the last time they ran. If Trump is up by, you know, five to seven in Georgia, again, it's about

01:00:38.740 270. So how does President Biden or former President Trump get to that number? And those

01:00:44.100 are those key states. So we'll be monitoring to see if there's any movement. But right now,

01:00:49.040 it seems pretty consistent, not just in our polls, but in the other numbers that we've seen from other

01:00:53.660 pollsters. So if Trump flips Arizona and Georgia back into the red column, as you know, again, we have

01:01:01.120 four months to go, but right now it's looking pretty promising. Then Biden must win the blue wall

01:01:07.580 states, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's the must

01:01:16.560 win state for him. Correct. Like above all Pennsylvania. All of them are must wins. Now,

01:01:20.880 if he gives up Georgia and in Arizona, Pennsylvania becomes a must win. Michigan's a must win. Any one

01:01:26.640 of those Wisconsin's a must win combination of, uh, Nevada and, uh, New Hampshire. Uh, if those two

01:01:33.200 were to swing, Minnesota is a 10 electoral state vote, uh, uh, you know, Minnesota is the same as

01:01:38.640 Wisconsin. Now, Minnesota hasn't gone for a Republican since Nixon. So hard to imagine.

01:01:43.400 They keep chasing it. They keep chasing it, but it was close in 2016.

01:01:48.220 Yeah, that's true. Trump did win it. Uh, it was close, but, um, the Wisconsin is,

01:01:53.800 wait, wait, wait. Trump did Trump, Trump. I thought Trump won Minnesota in 16. Am I?

01:01:57.940 No, he lost Minnesota, but he won Wisconsin. Right. Um, and I think Minnesota was the closest

01:02:03.520 state that he lost, uh, was within a percentage point, but New Hampshire was also really tight

01:02:08.460 in 2016. And then it shifted towards Biden by seven points. What Biden is losing this cycle

01:02:13.760 are the independents. So he's got to switch over. He's winning the independents last time by five

01:02:18.060 points. And now he's losing them by five points. So he's got to bring that group back over and still

01:02:23.680 hold on to that Obama coalition. And it'll, it's going to be an interesting summer to see how this

01:02:28.680 all plays out. The Obama coalition is not going to vote for Trump. We think, although portions of it

01:02:33.020 are saying they will, you know, he's, he's some black voters, some Hispanic voters are migrating

01:02:36.940 over to the Republican ticket, but, um, the enthusiasm is important, right? Like that's how

01:02:43.760 motivated are you, are you to get out there and vote? Like I said, the democratic party seems like

01:02:47.020 it's on a depressant right now. And they were, they were banking on the hatred of Trump lawfare convicted felon.

01:02:52.960 And my God, I can't vote for that to like drive their voters to the polls. But then we've had so

01:02:59.160 much bad news economically at the border, the lawfare campaign fell on its face and then the debate. So it

01:03:04.860 kind of explains what's happening in, in, including in these States where that are so critical.

01:03:10.160 And Megan, I'll jump on to that point even further with the Democrats is that they traditionally win

01:03:15.600 new voters. They're usually up by 30 points on newly registered voters in this cycle. It's either

01:03:21.760 tied or leaning towards Trump. So those younger voters that come into the arena for the first time,

01:03:26.560 they generally break for the Democrats. Obama wins them by 30 points. Biden wins them by 25.

01:03:32.600 And now we're talking about them being maybe split. Maybe they, they break slightly for Biden at the

01:03:38.240 end of the day, but it doesn't look like the Democrats have that recruitment process that we've

01:03:42.720 seen in years past, as far as voter registration of these newer voters into the arena.

01:03:47.580 I feel like there's so many reasons for that. The economy would be a huge one as it is for many

01:03:52.300 of these disaffected voters. The, um, the lack of inspiration, you know, Obama, you know, a lot of

01:03:59.100 Republicans can't stand him, but he was beloved in the democratic party and he was new and he was

01:04:03.320 different and he was mixed race. And it was exciting to vote for, you know, somebody who was the first

01:04:08.080 black president. You know, it's like all of that would get young people to the polls. And I also think

01:04:12.820 just from my own experience, there's been so much of the nonstop DEI talk and race essentialism and

01:04:18.160 like to these young people in particular, they're like on the front lines of that battle I've seen

01:04:24.100 in my own worlds, which are very left, you know, New York city, the upper West side. And now I'm in

01:04:29.600 Connecticut where it's at best 50, 50. Um, the kids are revolting. They're, they're signing up for

01:04:35.120 the turning point USA conferences. They're registering Republican. They're wearing MAGA hats,

01:04:39.880 like openly. I do think something's happening where there's a backlash amongst the young ones

01:04:44.340 who have been put through the nonstop women's history month and black history month and LGBTQ

01:04:49.480 history month for the love of God. Okay. That's my own armchair analysis on it. So you mentioned

01:04:56.740 New Hampshire and Nevada, like that those would also be in the must have category for Biden. If, um,

01:05:04.880 Trump wins Georgia and, uh, Arizona. Okay. Trying to keep all the states clear in my head

01:05:14.640 and it's not looking so great for Biden. It's looking bad for Biden in Nevada and even New

01:05:21.720 Hampshire's wobbling. Now there was news. Gavin Newsom felt the need to swing by

01:05:26.380 and make a campaign visit in New Hampshire for the Dems just recently. So can you talk about those two

01:05:32.440 states? Yeah, the silver state out West has really been trending to the right. Uh, remember they voted

01:05:39.200 in, uh, Lombardo as their new governor, a Republican, former sheriff. Um, and we'll see there's a Senate

01:05:47.260 race there as well with Jackie Rosen and, uh, Brown Brown back. Um, we'll see if that one tightens up

01:05:54.800 over, you know, next couple of months, but yeah, if, uh, that's a six electoral votes,

01:06:00.640 New Hampshire's four electoral votes, the idea that New Hampshire could be competitive

01:06:04.480 is, is a concern for the Democrats. Cause you have an open governor's race that they were looking to

01:06:09.540 try to pick up. Plus you've got an open seat in the second district and generally the first district's

01:06:14.440 like a five, six point democratic advantage. But if that's all melting away, depending on who the

01:06:19.980 Republicans put up, yeah, you've got the presidential race, but then you've got the Senate

01:06:24.020 in the house, uh, particularly the house with New Hampshire and in Nevada, you've got the,

01:06:28.780 the first district, the third district. Um, you know, they've been going after Susan,

01:06:32.880 Susan Lee for, uh, since she's gotten in. Um, so those are going to be key, but it's a combination

01:06:39.480 of those two States. Cause that's a six electoral vote and a four electoral electoral vote. So Biden

01:06:45.140 could lose one of them and still be okay if he carries those other five States. But if he loses

01:06:50.500 both of them along with Arizona and Georgia, again, Trump hits the two 70 mark.

01:06:55.460 So if Trump wins Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire and Nevada, what position does that leave Biden

01:07:04.680 in? What must he, I mean, then, then can he get there? No. So even if he wins the blue wall

01:07:10.640 and Pennsylvania, that's right. That's why, you know, those are the 10 electoral votes. It's just a,

01:07:15.960 it's a game to two 70 and we can sometimes get lost in the game because you're, Oh, you got the

01:07:20.340 national poll. We've got this close. But when we just come down to those States,

01:07:24.240 that's what's so important. And that's, what's concerning for the Democrats is they're saying,

01:07:28.960 look, we're trailing here. How are we going to turn this around? Because if we don't turn it

01:07:33.060 around, we're going to lose. And Biden saying, I will turn this around. Um, and we'll see what

01:07:39.200 happens at the end of the day. What we see in the polling is that there are Biden supporters

01:07:44.340 sitting on the sideline when pushed two to one, they break for Biden, but it doesn't seem to be

01:07:49.740 enough at this time to put them over the top. He'd still trail to Trump.

01:07:54.240 Uh, nationally and in the state polling. I mean, this is pretty, I mean, again,

01:07:58.960 now listening to the conversation that Spencer and I just had, let me read those numbers again.

01:08:03.240 Right now, Emerson college poll showing Trump's up four in Arizona, only up one in Michigan.

01:08:11.240 But the fact that Michigan's in play is good for Trump, Wisconsin. He's up three Nevada. He's up

01:08:17.700 six. And I've seen there, there's internal polling, um, from, I think the Trump campaign,

01:08:22.940 or maybe it's Biden, but it's showing Trump up 10 as much as 10 in States like Nevada. We'll see

01:08:28.500 Pennsylvania, Trump up five and Georgia Trump up five. I mean, he's, he's looking great

01:08:36.360 in all the States. He needs to look great in. And you, you said, so what they're asking themselves

01:08:42.920 on team blue? What can we do? What, what catastrophic event could there be for Trump

01:08:49.220 or miraculous event? Could there be for Biden to provide the lift Biden needs now to recover what

01:08:56.340 he lost in that debate? And then some, cause he was losing, going into the debate. Most of these

01:09:00.880 States, the lawfare campaign doesn't look so great. It really doesn't. It doesn't, it looks like it's

01:09:06.920 over, frankly. Um, so what have we seen something historically? Like we know that the Comey announcement

01:09:15.120 about the Hillary emails shortly before the November election, Democrats are convinced

01:09:20.500 that doomed her. Like, is it going to take it? If you look at history, is it going to take

01:09:26.340 a catastrophic or miraculous event?

01:09:29.080 Um, I wouldn't say a catastrophic event, hopefully not, but, uh, it's going to take

01:09:36.720 some game changer and we didn't see it at the debate. In fact, you know, probably lost

01:09:42.200 a little bit of ground at the end of the day on, on that performance. So last night's

01:09:46.900 press conference, I don't know if that's going to do it. Um, but something, you know, we never

01:09:52.480 know where, what the future holds, but it could be an opportunity, a crisis where he stands

01:09:57.240 up and shows leadership and the country rallies around the president at that moment. But at

01:10:03.400 this point, uh, you know, he's struggling to, to have that moment. And until that happens,

01:10:09.860 it just seems like it's a slow, even as you watch members of the democratic party come out

01:10:14.760 and start slipping away from their support of the president, it's like a slow bleed. And

01:10:20.200 the question is next week, does he lose another point nationally or in the following week? You

01:10:25.080 know, now you're going to have the Republican convention. That's going to be the highlight.

01:10:29.240 You know, that's where Trump is going to peak by the end of next week into the following week.

01:10:33.680 How much does he go up? And then is there movement? You know, a lot of this has been baked in for

01:10:39.080 years, in my opinion, can you move this electorate in some of these places that he's going to need to?

01:10:44.680 And that's where the, the, the Democrats are really questioning it. And he's going to,

01:10:49.940 the president's going to have to decide if he can actually win this race at this time or, or not.

01:10:56.540 We were talking about these States and how they're doing. Are those all two man polls?

01:11:02.040 No, with the three horse race, it's kind of a mixed bag when you throw in a Kennedy West,

01:11:08.480 uh, chase, um, but Stein, Stein. Um, but they generally help Trump, but it, it, it nationally,

01:11:18.280 you see it helped Trump. It's a bit of a mix in the States, like in Arizona, Wisconsin,

01:11:23.660 they seem to help Biden a little bit more. Um, but Georgia, Arizona, uh, Pennsylvania,

01:11:30.240 they helped Trump a little bit more. I think it has a net positive for Trump because when we look

01:11:36.320 at who's voting for these third party candidates, it's younger voters, uh, they're under 30, under

01:11:41.880 40. And that's again, part of that democratic base that they seem to have lost. And the only area where

01:11:47.940 Biden is slightly improved is with voters over 70. Um, so let me ask you a question on the younger

01:11:54.800 voters. So what you're telling me is the younger voters, it's not that they love Trump.

01:12:00.480 It's that they don't really like Biden and they probably would stay at home. But if they saw like

01:12:07.040 a Cornell West or an RFKJ or a Jill Stein on the ballot, they might actually go out and vote for

01:12:12.580 them. That's is, does that explain why Trump does better when there is, when it's five way?

01:12:16.720 That does. Uh, you've articulated my thought. Well, Megan, thank you. Um, so yeah,

01:12:22.440 I'll talk about the old people, the old people. They, they were a little bit more for Biden,

01:12:28.200 well, I didn't lost that group by about five, six points last cycle. He's losing them by like

01:12:32.980 three or four. So I'm not saying he's winning the group, but he's, he's made a little bit of

01:12:35.960 an inroads with them. But then you could get into like the forties and the fifties, they've

01:12:40.400 really moved away from the president. And, you know, you're looking five, six point swings there

01:12:46.100 where Trump was winning by five and now he's winning by 10. But again, the most concerning part

01:12:50.580 of the voters under 40 that since Obama had been locked with Democrats and particularly

01:12:56.360 voters under 30 that have been even more strongly for the Democrats aren't there right now. And how

01:13:02.940 do you get them excited? Student loan programs, other programs is what the president has tried

01:13:07.820 to do. Uh, marijuana policies, uh, they've thrown out, hasn't really got this group of voters

01:13:13.800 excited for him. But part of it is that this group was really part of the Bernie Sanders group

01:13:18.680 that there was a big mix when he didn't get the nomination. And, um, and it seems that right now

01:13:24.740 they're holding back in supporting Biden. Okay. Maybe you can help us predict something.

01:13:31.660 We're looking forward to the RNC next week. And Trump is, you know, by this time next week,

01:13:36.060 we're going to know who his vice presidential running mate is. Um, we think he's going to announce

01:13:40.560 it. I mean, at this point, you know, he's only got a couple of days left. If he wants to announce

01:13:43.860 it pre-convention, we think he's going to do it at the convention. He was on, on the record saying

01:13:47.380 he thought it was more exciting when people did that and that he would like to do that.

01:13:51.140 So it could be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday's the night that the vice presidential candidate would

01:13:54.860 speak. So we're all trying to figure out who's he going to pick. And we have no idea whether the

01:14:00.320 press has any clue what it's talking about when it says the shortlist now includes Rubio, Vance,

01:14:06.840 and Burgum. So let's just widen it out. Let's just, okay. Just knowing that those are reportedly

01:14:12.040 the three names, but he didn't choose one of the final three names that was in the press

01:14:15.640 last time he had to pick somebody. Who does Trump need to shore up with, right? Like who is he

01:14:26.120 struggling with right now that he could use help with last time around? We knew more conservative

01:14:32.140 voters had doubts about Donald Trump, which is why he chose Mike Pence. But like, what's the one group

01:14:38.300 he needs to soothe? Cause I've heard Ann Coulter say he went down with white men from 20 to 16,

01:14:47.260 sorry, from 16 to 20. And so he should be picking somebody who drives those numbers back up. He

01:14:53.760 should not be thinking about diversity. That's the case she makes. Um, I've heard others say

01:14:58.520 he's getting Hispanics at record numbers. So why not shore that up by choosing a Hispanic candidate like

01:15:07.060 Marco Rubio drive the enthusiasm even more, get even more of the Hispanic vote and keep Joe Biden's

01:15:12.340 turnout in the Hispanic vote as low as possible because he can't win if the current polling with

01:15:17.720 blacks and Hispanics stays as it is. So stick a knife in there. So what, what's your analysis of

01:15:23.680 what might make the most sense? Well, from the polling data that I've seen, almost all of these

01:15:30.140 candidates, they kind of hurt Trump at the beginning. You're going to see they, they're not as strong of a

01:15:35.340 brands as the Trump brand. So whoever he brings on, my opinion is going to be a little weaker than he

01:15:39.800 is and might actually cost them a half a point a point. Um, we'll see how much of a personality

01:15:45.700 of the person is that they're bringing on, but the Trump brand is very strong and whoever he brings

01:15:50.840 on with that brand, uh, is going to have to, you know, get on board. Uh, I, uh, I'm not sure

01:15:57.300 everything that you raised are good points where, you know, you say he's made inroads with the Hispanic

01:16:01.660 vote. You bring in Rubio and then bang, instead of, you know, then you look like Bush in Oh four,

01:16:06.320 where you lose the Hispanic vote by six points and you win the election. He won the popular vote in

01:16:10.800 Oh four, uh, the black vote. They talked about, uh, Senator Scott, um, being able to make inroads

01:16:17.400 there. I don't think it's that easy. I think that vote is more locked in than the Hispanic vote. Uh,

01:16:22.640 there's the male vote, um, that he's already doing much better than he was in 2020 with the group that

01:16:29.860 really raises another eyebrow is the female vote. They were plus 15 for Biden last time. And now

01:16:35.000 it's like five. So you've seen it all swing over to the right. Um, the group that Biden still holds

01:16:42.980 with are those post-graduates, those with advanced degrees. He's still winning that group by 25,

01:16:47.700 but you know, college grads, they're not heavily with Biden this time. So it's a long way, Megan,

01:16:53.720 I'm saying, I don't know. Uh, everyone, you know what that tells me, Spencer, you know,

01:16:57.160 that tells me, it tells me that the choice will probably then be ideological. What factions of

01:17:03.820 the party, right? Like what, what's factions of the electorate does he need to stimulate as opposed

01:17:08.880 to their demographics, whites, blacks, men, women, old, young, ideologically, who do I need to get?

01:17:15.680 And that leads me to my breaking news, which is a local Virginia reporter on X just reported that

01:17:23.220 Glenn Youngkin is going to the Republican national convention. This is like, that would be classic

01:17:29.500 Trump, right? Somebody who hadn't really been mentioned much. He's he, I bet you anything.

01:17:35.900 Trump likes Youngkin because he likes rich people. He does. He respects money. And Burgum's rich too.

01:17:44.140 So I don't know. So who, who the hell knows he's going. Virginia is a swing state.

01:17:49.900 I will, I will give you this inside, uh, info. We're in the field right now in Virginia. And what

01:17:55.680 did we do? We've made a ballot test with Trump Youngkin versus Biden Harris, uh, because we did

01:18:01.920 think, um, that could be a potential and we want to see, does Virginia swing with Youngkin on the

01:18:08.900 ticket? And if he does, yeah, I could see that playing out. And we'll probably have those numbers

01:18:13.840 on Wednesday next week to be able to verify what we're talking about here now. But yeah, that's a

01:18:19.960 real possibility because now Virginia is a swing state. Plus, you know, Youngkin is term limited.

01:18:24.540 You only get one term in Virginia. So he's looking for a job as well, but, um, that could be an

01:18:30.560 interesting combination for Trump. And, uh, again, puts more pressure on the Biden team to have to

01:18:37.800 be able to, you know, since Obama, Virginia has been blue. So if all of a sudden Virginia is turning

01:18:43.520 red, it puts a lot of pressure on these other States. Again, more money being spent. Plus you

01:18:48.020 got Tim Kaine on the ticket up there running in the Senate race. So that would be an interesting

01:18:52.880 pick, but, um, one thing would ignite the establishment. It would ignite the establishment

01:18:58.360 that all those people said he should choose Nikki Haley. No, every Nikki Haley voter would be fine

01:19:03.280 with, with Glenn Youngkin. They, they probably wanted Glenn Youngkin to begin with. He just kind of

01:19:09.000 fell off the national stage and focused on Virginia. And then he had bad electoral results.

01:19:12.780 Last time around in Virginia, he didn't manage to shore up both houses under Republican control.

01:19:17.360 And there was somewhat of a backlash from the very liberal DC suburbs against his crackdown on

01:19:23.880 woke ism and so on. Anyway, that would be such an exciting pick because he's not like a long time

01:19:29.180 Trump basher. That's some of the problems that the people he's considering on that short list to have,

01:19:33.900 you know, every day there's another story about something negative JD Vance said about him.

01:19:37.740 Certainly Rubio. We saw less so of Doug Burgum, but I don't know that Doug Burgum gets people

01:19:42.480 excited the way that Youngkin does who many establishments see as the future of the party

01:19:46.500 or would like him to be. Yeah. And if we remember back in 2016, Trump was really the moderate

01:19:53.140 candidate. It was Cruz who was winning that conservative vote. So he needed Pence at that

01:19:57.080 time. Maybe at this point, he's actually flipped where he was stronger with the Republicans in the

01:20:02.820 nominating contest this cycle than with the independents. That's where Haley was able to make some

01:20:07.960 inroads. So the Youngkin pick would be ideologically in line with maybe his needs.

01:20:14.820 Fascinating. Okay. We've got to talk about this. Let me play this soundbite from Joe Biden yesterday.

01:20:21.900 It's Sop 41.

01:20:24.040 If your team came back and showed you data that she would fare better against former President Donald

01:20:29.440 Trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race?

01:20:33.200 No, unless they came back and said, there's no way you can win.

01:20:39.560 Me. No one's saying that. No poll says that.

01:20:47.740 Yeah, I'm laughing at the secret. The secret is a little weird, but the whisper.

01:20:53.140 No poll says there's no way he can win. Well, I think that's true, right? I mean,

01:20:59.000 I haven't seen a poll that no polls would say there's no way. The question is trying to read

01:21:05.760 what's out there and determine likelihoods with the understanding that we have four months to go.

01:21:11.840 So, I mean, if the Biden team called you in there and said, just give us, give it to us straight.

01:21:17.280 What is the likelihood at this point, based on what you're seeing that he can win? What would you say?

01:21:24.000 Slim, slim. Uh, you know, again, it comes down to Georgia and Arizona.

01:21:28.280 Tell me what the game plan is to turn one of those states around. And then you've got so much

01:21:33.760 pressure on this firewall that, as we said, even if like a New England state, like New Hampshire and

01:21:38.860 a Western state, like a Nevada switch, you know, swings, then even the firewall isn't enough to

01:21:44.700 hold it together. And then you're going to have, so it's slim right now. I'm not saying it's over,

01:21:49.780 but when you look at where he was four years ago, it's a totally different match. And we can't

01:21:55.680 pretend like it's the same board that we're playing on. And, you know, the opinions are a lot

01:22:00.140 different today than they were four years ago. And he's got a lot of ground to make up from where he

01:22:06.000 was even maybe six months ago. And a lot of this is so baked in that the question is, how do you

01:22:11.640 shake it up to move this electorate? You know, we watched the debate. And as I said, only a couple

01:22:17.260 of points shifts in like three states, three states didn't move at all. So what happens if he had a

01:22:21.300 miraculous, you know, great debate where, you know, maybe he floats on there. I don't know if

01:22:25.360 he would even move the needle, you know, two or three points more. So the question is, how do you

01:22:29.840 shake up the race right now, which seems to be pretty strong in the Trump camp in these key swing

01:22:35.840 states? I'll tell you what, if I were a Democrat in charge of elections, I'd be speaking with Jack

01:22:44.360 Smith right now, because I don't believe this, but they believe that the law fair will make a

01:22:49.420 difference. And I would be telling him slim down that indictment right now to only the things Trump

01:22:55.320 said would not be immune. Refile it. Judge Chutkin is going to put us on the rocket docket and get us

01:23:01.200 a trial super fast. And if we can't get him convicted by November, we'll get him convicted before January

01:23:06.840 6th. And the certification will make the case that you can't swear in a convicted felon on a January 6th

01:23:12.560 type federal felony. Like that's that's a Hail Mary. That's what I'd be doing if I were on their team.

01:23:19.420 Yeah, that's that's a stretch. I don't know. I mean, we'll see, obviously, November 5th,

01:23:25.260 if the legal challenges were a good plan for the Democrats, there seems to be some backlash to all

01:23:32.540 of these court proceedings. Even Trump's conviction, you had Democrats asking for a pardon, which raises

01:23:38.200 an eyebrow about how they feel about these cases. So I'm not sure if that's the way to go. Maybe some

01:23:45.500 outside intervening event. Wait, what do you mean even Trump's conviction? You had Democrats asking

01:23:51.020 for a pardon? I think the candidate that ran for president out of Minnesota, he asked for Biden to

01:23:59.420 pardon Trump. Oh, Dean Philip. Yeah, saying he should pardon him. Right, right, right. OK. You know,

01:24:04.880 that's a Democrat running for president saying, you know, you would think that's like the base who are

01:24:08.540 like, yeah, throw him in prison. And he's stepping back as a more moderate wing. That shows you that

01:24:13.860 there's some divide within the party on the issue of what to do with the former president

01:24:17.840 on those legal challenges. So I don't know if it was necessarily a home run hit to move forward with

01:24:24.580 all of those plays. Obviously, we'll find out November 5th. Yeah, the exit polling will ask about

01:24:31.360 it. All right. So now the the Democrat Party is spending every waking hour trying to figure out if not

01:24:37.040 Biden, then who could be who could be Trump. And you did do some polling on that.

01:24:43.280 This what I see here is no one. That's that's what I'm seeing from your your your polling.

01:24:51.020 I'll read the numbers. So it shows Trump up by three in the national poll over Biden.

01:24:58.620 Up by six over Kamala Harris, up by six over Bernie Sanders, up by five over Al Gore. Al Gore is

01:25:05.520 polling better than Kamala Harris. Wow. Up by seven over Hillary Clinton, up by eight over Gavin

01:25:10.860 Newsom, up by 10 over Pete Buttigieg, up by 10 over Elizabeth Warren, up by 10 over Gretchen Whitmer,

01:25:19.700 up by eight over Josh Shapiro. That's pretty much everyone. So what how do they go into Joe Biden and

01:25:32.820 say you should resign? If I'm Joe Biden, I'm looking at the Emerson poll saying who's better

01:25:37.940 than I am. And I think that's what you heard last night. But I think in those numbers, and I'm glad

01:25:43.760 that you brought them up, Megan, because let me explain what's happening. These candidates are

01:25:48.260 unannounced. And so when I put them into these ballot tests, what we're seeing is these younger

01:25:53.280 voters. They're only breaking for Biden by 12. They're totally split with these other candidates

01:25:59.100 because they don't know who they are. And so I do think that there isn't like a magic bullet in this

01:26:05.920 group that's going to change the trajectory immediately. But I think if you rallied around

01:26:11.760 one of these candidates, you could have a star in that mix, somebody who might be able to shake up

01:26:17.020 the campaign and change the dynamics. Some candidates that looked interesting was Governor Shapiro out of

01:26:23.080 Pennsylvania. He was polling a little bit more from that youth vote than what we saw out of the other

01:26:27.760 candidates. But they all start so far behind on name recognition that Biden, the president's in

01:26:33.700 a strong place to be able to argue that they're weak because they are. But if you gave them three

01:26:38.240 months of campaigning, I think you could see a different type of ballot test between them and

01:26:44.560 Trump than what we're seeing right now with Biden. Now, it could go in the other direction where the

01:26:49.140 bottom falls out on the Democrats. And they say, well, we like President Biden, but we don't like any of

01:26:54.160 these horses. And you see it go to Trump or a third party. So, you know, it's not an easy decision

01:27:00.140 to make. It's never been made. I mean, Johnson is the first one to drop out, but he drops out in

01:27:05.040 March, March 31st of 68. And then you had Kennedy. And I mean, yeah, Kennedy in there who gets

01:27:10.180 assassinated. So that's 68. You know, it's a weird cycle as well. You know, incumbent President Jimmy

01:27:17.460 Carter, he was able to sustain Ted Kennedy's push in 1980. And that's what they asked him about voting

01:27:23.300 your conscience last night because that comes out of the convention where that's what Kennedy wanted

01:27:28.220 out of the voters. We'll see if the convention is a moment for the Democrats to shake up the race

01:27:35.040 or we'll see if maybe Biden is right that all the polling is off five or six points and he'll win

01:27:42.240 in a nose. I mean, whatever happens, Trump is in store for an even greater onslaught of negative

01:27:50.020 press than he's received, of course. And if there is a new Democrat candidate, they will have only

01:27:58.060 universally positive press coverage except for in conservative media. That's it. I mean, I think

01:28:04.120 they won't get all these people who are out there, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC. They will be

01:28:10.240 lionizing whoever steps in to take this baton from Joe Biden. They'll be lionizing Joe Biden too.

01:28:14.880 One other thing I want to ask you, um, the reporting is that, um, this is from semaphore.

01:28:22.340 I've seen it elsewhere though. This is the first time in 24 years that the GOP nominee has led

01:28:27.640 after the July 4th holiday going into the conventions. That's very interesting. And we

01:28:34.400 have had GOP nominees win. I mean, obviously we had George W. Bush. We've had his dad. We've had

01:28:40.400 other Republicans. We had Trump. Um, so how big is, uh, fact is that, that for the first time in 24

01:28:47.380 years, the GOP nominee has led after the July 4th holiday. And the point is time is short and the

01:28:54.580 GOP is ahead. Yeah. I think it's an interesting point because they're winning the popular vote

01:29:00.220 and they're winning the popular vote, not by a point it's three now. And it seems to be growing.

01:29:05.960 We're more one of the more conservative numbers. I've seen it as high as five or six, you know,

01:29:10.580 out of Quinnipiac and the New York times. So that's a huge popular vote total. That's what

01:29:16.160 Reagan had in, you know, 1980. Um, and that was a blowout. So that's the concern if you're on the

01:29:22.140 democratic side that, yeah, it looks close and maybe it's close enough for Biden to be able to

01:29:27.600 reach out and win it. But it also could be far enough away that this thing just slips away in

01:29:33.560 September, October. And the biggest concern for the Democrats is not just the presidency in the

01:29:39.400 Senate, because the Senate's probably gone if they lose the presidency, it's the house itself.

01:29:45.060 Um, you know, it's a toss up and you've got a lot of races in New York and California that they're

01:29:50.020 trying to pick up. If they're only winning New York by six, seven points, those are going to be

01:29:54.400 tough seats to pick up. And then, you know, you've got legislation and then, you know, there you could

01:29:59.900 have a presidential mandate, uh, if president comes in with that type of victory and that's

01:30:04.680 got to be a concern for the Democrats because it's one thing to lose. It's another thing to lose all of

01:30:08.900 that policy. And, um, those are, that's what they're thinking about. That's right. I mean,

01:30:13.900 there, there was a top New York lawmaker saying New York is officially a battleground state. Now,

01:30:18.560 you know, we're, we're not winning this by anywhere near the margin that we're used to seeing in New York.

01:30:23.540 And we saw that in the last midterm elections where, uh, Lee Zeldin came, you know, within this,

01:30:28.700 he came this close to actually winning over Hochul, um, which was just impressive.

01:30:33.380 Six points. It was good. Yeah. I mean, that's very respectable for a Republican. Wait,

01:30:37.500 last question before I let you go, Spencer Biden now twice to Lester Holt. And then last night

01:30:42.380 said the same thing when pressed on the polls, do you really believe the polls are the polls as

01:30:47.260 accurate as they used to be? That's what he keeps saying. Do you, how accurate does anybody think

01:30:52.360 the polls are these days? So, you know, we have had polling surprises like Trump, you know, Hillary

01:30:59.320 Clinton's numbers were great all the way up to election day or so. So should we be trusting the

01:31:05.120 polls this time around? Of course, but, uh, there's always a margin of error, Megan. And the biggest

01:31:11.060 concern here is all of the polls historically that are skewed, they skew to the left. So in like 2016,

01:31:19.940 what you mentioned, 90% of the polls skewed towards Clinton, it should be like a 50, 50 skew. You know,

01:31:27.700 some polls are going to be off. You're going to be off to the left. You're going to be off to the

01:31:30.220 right. But historically, what we found is that these polls have been systematically off to the left.

01:31:36.200 Now we tried to balance that off and we ended up a little bit to the right in the midterms.

01:31:40.960 But as we come back into the presidential cycle, we'll see. Cause historically they lean

01:31:46.680 in the other direction that should be helping Biden. And if there, if that is the case, that

01:31:51.600 might mean that Trump could be up by two or three points higher than what we've been seeing in the

01:31:56.580 polls. But at this point, I would leave the polls as they are and look at it as a margin of error in

01:32:02.460 a range of scores. And what we're seeing is a trend and that trend is trending towards Trump in a lot of

01:32:09.180 these swing States. And we'll see if that trend continues for four months or if it starts trending in

01:32:14.620 the other direction. And we see this all the time in races. We saw it in Ohio, Bernie Moreno's race.

01:32:20.000 He was very close. Trump came in and rallied for him. He went up 20 points in the polls. He wins by

01:32:24.900 25. We saw it down in Maryland with also Brooks and Trone. Trone was up cause he spent a lot of

01:32:30.540 money. Also Brooks, Angela gets into the race and pulls off the upset in two months because there's

01:32:36.900 energy and excitement. So there's still time in the race. We see it in other races, but again,

01:32:42.040 this presidential race might be a little bit more baked in than what we see in these other races

01:32:46.300 where the candidates are fairly unknown. Yeah. And these two have ubiquitous name recognition.

01:32:52.400 Spencer Kimball. So good. Please come back. Thank you for having me, Megan.

01:32:58.840 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 12, 2024

Biden's Rough ＂Big Boy＂ Night, Elites' Whisper Campaign, and Trump's Polling Advantage, with Michael Knowles and Spencer Kimball ｜ Ep. 836

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