The Megyn Kelly Show - Censorship Mob Blasts Rogan, Biden's NYPD No-Show, and Putin's Next Move, with Clay Travis and Ric Grenell ｜ Ep. 251

00:00:00.000 When I found out my friend got a great deal

00:00:02.160 on a wool coat from Winners,

00:00:03.760 I started wondering,

00:00:05.440 is every fabulous item I see from Winners?

00:00:08.560 Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. 1.00

00:00:10.900 Are those from Winners?

00:00:12.780 Ooh, or those beautiful gold earrings?

00:00:15.260 Did she pay full price?

00:00:16.600 Or that leather tote?

00:00:17.620 Or that cashmere sweater?

00:00:18.840 Or those knee-high boots?

00:00:20.280 That dress?

00:00:21.060 That jacket?

00:00:21.740 Those shoes?

00:00:22.780 Is anyone paying full price for anything?

00:00:25.720 Stop wondering.

00:00:26.980 Start winning.

00:00:27.920 Winners.

00:00:28.500 Find fabulous for less.

00:00:30.620 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.520 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.160 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:43.860 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Monday.

00:00:46.500 We have a great lineup for you today.

00:00:47.780 Really great.

00:00:48.660 Next hour, we're going to be joined by former Ambassador Rick Grinnell

00:00:51.640 to talk about the latest on Russia and Ukraine

00:00:54.480 and Joe Biden's Supreme Court pick

00:00:57.980 or the outlines of the pick as set forth.

00:01:01.420 There's new polling on what the American people really want

00:01:03.560 and is he meeting their desires.

00:01:06.680 But first, we are joined by Clay Travis, founder of OutKick

00:01:10.480 and co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.

00:01:14.500 Clay, so great to have you back.

00:01:15.520 How are you?

00:01:16.160 I'm excellent, Megan.

00:01:17.100 Appreciate you having me.

00:01:18.040 I hope you're having a good start to the week.

00:01:20.140 I'm ready for the Super Bowl and everything else.

00:01:23.420 I am.

00:01:23.940 I mean, even I, Clay, understood that there were some big games yesterday

00:01:27.200 and they were tight, tight, tight and very exciting.

00:01:29.720 Yeah, six straight games, basically, if you're an NFL fan.

00:01:32.520 It came down to the absolute wire, essentially.

00:01:35.460 So, congrats to the Rams and also, crazily, to the Cincinnati Bengals

00:01:40.620 who have not been in this game in a very, very long time.

00:01:43.940 Well, it was exciting to watch.

00:01:44.920 My husband had it on and the kids were watching.

00:01:46.500 I was kind of making some dinner thinking,

00:01:47.940 even I care what's happening over there.

00:01:49.880 And then we'll get to Tom Brady and whether he's really leaving the NFL in a minute.

00:01:53.740 But let's start with this.

00:01:55.480 The Joe Rogan story is the most fascinating story, too.

00:01:58.860 I couldn't get enough of it this weekend.

00:02:00.500 And the reason I can't get enough of it is, I mean,

00:02:02.860 I can't put it better than Glenn Greenwald,

00:02:04.780 who wrote a great, great Substack piece on it over the weekend.

00:02:07.260 But it's really the left and its censorship machine,

00:02:11.700 its mob is now truly out of control.

00:02:15.040 Like, you cannot platform anyone who they think engages in, quote,

00:02:21.740 disinformation or misinformation.

00:02:23.000 It's gone beyond hate speech now.

00:02:24.600 It's any misinformation they now feel is out there that's uncorrected.

00:02:29.160 And the person needs to be entirely de-platformed,

00:02:32.380 which is what they want from Joe Rogan, who's now had,

00:02:35.960 I mean, it's Joni Mitchell.

00:02:38.000 She pulled her music.

00:02:39.820 First, it was Neil Young.

00:02:40.680 Then Joni Mitchell, singer Liza Minnelli.

00:02:43.160 That was a tough one, Clay.

00:02:45.980 The guy who, a guitarist who used to play with Springsteen's band.

00:02:50.340 And now Joe Rogan's actually issuing a statement,

00:02:53.140 which I'll get to in one second.

00:02:54.260 But let's just start with the crazy push

00:02:57.260 to have him kicked off of Spotify.

00:03:00.860 So there are so many different angles to this story, Megan.

00:03:05.400 And I think they're so intriguing to play out.

00:03:09.360 So let's start here.

00:03:10.460 This is the natural extension of the COVID insanity

00:03:15.080 that has taken over our country over the last two years.

00:03:18.000 Because really what is trying to be argued

00:03:21.420 is that science has one side.

00:03:24.280 Let's just take a step back and think about this.

00:03:26.480 We were told initially, and you know this, Megan,

00:03:28.660 you couldn't even discuss where COVID came from.

00:03:31.800 If you attempted to say, hey, you know,

00:03:33.900 it's awfully convenient that COVID seems to have emerged

00:03:37.840 next to a virology lab in Wuhan.

00:03:41.080 Maybe it escaped from there.

00:03:43.200 You were shot down across all of the social media platforms.

00:03:48.140 If early in the days of the vaccine,

00:03:51.780 you looked at some of the data out of Israel

00:03:54.520 and out of England who were ahead of us

00:03:56.660 in terms of their rates of vaccination,

00:03:58.460 you said, wait a minute,

00:03:59.840 their overall case numbers are continuing to increase.

00:04:03.560 It's beginning to look like this COVID vaccine

00:04:06.820 may not prevent you from spreading COVID

00:04:09.480 or from getting COVID yourself.

00:04:11.960 Remember when breakthrough cases were rare?

00:04:14.980 That was the argument.

00:04:16.520 You weren't even allowed to question in any way

00:04:19.180 the efficacy of the vaccine.

00:04:21.560 And so you start to stack up

00:04:23.300 all of these things surrounding COVID.

00:04:26.020 You weren't allowed to talk about the potential

00:04:28.060 of therapeutics associated with when you got COVID,

00:04:31.680 what drugs you could take,

00:04:33.420 what might make sense for you.

00:04:35.640 All of these things were banned.

00:04:37.320 You couldn't question in any way.

00:04:39.060 Wait a minute.

00:04:39.740 I'm not sure that kids wearing cloth masks

00:04:42.740 is going to protect them in the event

00:04:45.660 that they have COVID circulating in the classroom.

00:04:49.100 You couldn't even question

00:04:50.580 whether schools should be shut down or not.

00:04:53.880 You couldn't question

00:04:54.840 whether kids should be wearing masks in schools.

00:04:57.640 All of these things, as the data has come out

00:05:00.600 and we have learned that many of those things,

00:05:03.580 I see a great meme regularly on the internet, Megan,

00:05:06.740 that the distance between a conspiracy

00:05:09.480 and the truth is about six months.

00:05:12.340 And so there is a great deal of people

00:05:15.380 who just question.

00:05:16.560 And that's ultimately what science is all about, right?

00:05:18.840 It's a scientific method

00:05:20.160 is about questioning everything.

00:05:22.320 And so this idea that the experts out there

00:05:25.920 were only allowing one information source,

00:05:29.860 were only allowing one thing to be shared,

00:05:31.760 I think has been fundamentally rejected

00:05:33.360 by the vast majority of the American public.

00:05:36.000 And shows like yours, like mine, like Joe Rogan,

00:05:38.860 so many different places out there

00:05:40.380 that are willing to look at data

00:05:41.740 and ask difficult questions

00:05:43.620 have come at times under fire

00:05:46.060 for asking those difficult questions.

00:05:48.100 And so one, the big battleground here is

00:05:51.180 what is allowed to be said and who can say it.

00:05:55.060 That is the larger scope here,

00:05:57.180 particularly when you are employed

00:05:58.900 by a major media company like Spotify, okay?

00:06:02.760 The bigger question to me,

00:06:04.860 and I'm trying to unpack this

00:06:06.260 and you can dive in and tell me what you're thinking.

00:06:08.440 I kind of had a Twitter thread last night.

00:06:11.780 Censorship to me, Megan, is not a sign of strength.

00:06:15.300 It's a sign of weakness, ultimately.

00:06:17.940 And so when I look at what Spotify is trying to do

00:06:21.300 to Joe Rogan,

00:06:22.160 if I were Joe Rogan waking up this morning,

00:06:25.020 I would be hoping that Spotify fires me.

00:06:27.980 Because if Spotify fires him,

00:06:30.240 they're probably going to have to pay out

00:06:32.180 most of the money that is owed on his contract.

00:06:34.700 Because I would imagine that he has a great deal

00:06:36.900 of creative freedom in any deal that he signed.

00:06:40.360 And therefore, it's unlikely

00:06:41.980 that they're going to fire him for cause.

00:06:44.720 And then he would be able to go out

00:06:46.540 and create his own media company.

00:06:48.880 And I believe his audience, Megan, is portable,

00:06:50.980 as many audiences are in today's digital space.

00:06:54.500 So this balance of power,

00:06:56.720 I think Joe Rogan is more powerful

00:06:58.780 than Spotify is here.

00:07:00.400 And it can be rattling, I'm sure, to him

00:07:03.100 to be challenged as he is being challenged.

00:07:06.140 But ultimately, all of the people trying to cancel him

00:07:09.240 are the best advertisement that his show could ever have.

00:07:13.140 Because, as well as anyone,

00:07:15.520 people are going to tune in more

00:07:17.400 as they hear how controversial he is.

00:07:20.400 And so I think we're poised for a great disruption

00:07:24.400 of many of these tech companies

00:07:26.580 because their power, as they become more censorious,

00:07:30.740 is actually on the wane.

00:07:32.760 And the overall power of individual talent

00:07:36.180 that is authentically trusted by their audience

00:07:39.220 continues to grow.

00:07:40.740 So the antidote to me to cancel culture 0.95

00:07:43.300 is the loyalty of your own audience.

00:07:46.180 That's right.

00:07:47.360 You know, to me, it's so crazy

00:07:49.660 because you've got people like Harry and Megan

00:07:53.620 weighing in on this.

00:07:55.820 Who the hell wants to hear from those two?

00:07:58.620 On Joe Rogan.

00:07:59.960 They've literally done one podcast on Spotify.

00:08:03.020 That would be, I'd listen to that, wouldn't you,

00:08:06.780 if he had them on and actually grilled them

00:08:08.680 about their background.

00:08:10.380 And instead of Oprah's sort of the soft light interview,

00:08:13.280 he actually dove into some of the claims

00:08:15.340 that they have made.

00:08:16.080 I mean, I would watch that.

00:08:16.980 That's probably the most engaging Spotify episode

00:08:19.540 they can have.

00:08:20.180 They won't do it, but I'd watch it.

00:08:21.860 But no, I can't say yes to that.

00:08:23.540 I need to do it.

00:08:24.580 I have no offense to Joe Rogan,

00:08:26.360 but I can do a better job of that one.

00:08:28.220 I would love to see you grill here.

00:08:30.100 They won't do it, right?

00:08:31.140 Because we live in this era of everybody

00:08:34.100 wanting to be protected

00:08:35.240 and they want to be questioned by people

00:08:37.000 who are going to not really probe

00:08:39.560 any of their questions.

00:08:40.540 I would love to hear.

00:08:41.900 I mean, I watched the Oprah interview.

00:08:43.940 Although I still want Fauci more than I want anybody. 0.98

00:08:46.340 So those two losers are coming out like saying, 0.97

00:08:48.380 oh, we've expressed our concerns to Spotify 0.98

00:08:51.100 about the all too real consequences

00:08:54.500 of COVID-19 misinformation on its platform.

00:08:57.600 And they want Spotify to, quote,

00:08:59.800 meet this moment, Clay,

00:09:01.960 but are committed to continuing our work together

00:09:04.260 as it does.

00:09:05.220 In other words,

00:09:05.720 you better keep paying us our $50 million

00:09:07.860 because we're not that concerned.

00:09:10.280 And by the way,

00:09:11.520 how easy is it to do a podcast?

00:09:14.160 The fact that the two of them

00:09:15.400 have been unable to get a podcast done,

00:09:17.340 we're not talking about making Jurassic Park, right?

00:09:19.820 I mean, there's not a massive amount

00:09:21.540 of behind the scenes work that needs to be done.

00:09:23.880 And the podcast universe is not wildly complicated.

00:09:29.240 I mean, there's why there's a billion podcasts right now.

00:09:31.780 The fact that they can't get this podcast off and rolling

00:09:34.380 is really crazy.

00:09:36.520 Telling.

00:09:37.140 Okay, but they're not my favorite.

00:09:38.560 My favorite is Chelsea Clinton.

00:09:39.960 And she sends out a tweet

00:09:43.840 ripping on the fact that,

00:09:46.540 well, this is,

00:09:47.920 she's upset about Substack facilitating

00:09:49.780 science denialists' ability to profit

00:09:52.720 from destructive lies.

00:09:54.860 She's asked,

00:09:55.380 because Substack's getting it too, right?

00:09:56.900 They're in trouble for platforming

00:09:58.700 people like Alex Berenson,

00:10:02.260 Dr. Joseph Merkula, and so on.

00:10:03.820 So she decides to weigh in

00:10:05.400 because you got Spotify,

00:10:06.920 you got Substack coming under the crosshairs

00:10:09.680 of especially corporate media

00:10:11.020 because they're a threat to them.

00:10:13.040 And people like Chelsea Clinton, 0.93

00:10:14.820 the established left.

00:10:16.160 So she comes after them saying

00:10:17.560 anti-vaxxers making at least $2.5 million a year

00:10:20.200 from publishing on Substack.

00:10:22.000 And she's like,

00:10:22.860 the ability to profit from destructive lies

00:10:25.620 and talking about grift.

00:10:27.760 So Glenn, Glenn goes after her

00:10:29.940 like no one else can.

00:10:31.120 He says,

00:10:31.900 okay, hold on.

00:10:33.800 I want to get the exact quote.

00:10:35.880 Okay.

00:10:37.220 Apparently this political heiress,

00:10:39.780 who is one of the world's richest individuals

00:10:41.920 by virtue of winning the birth lottery

00:10:43.520 of being born to rich and powerful parents,

00:10:45.460 who in turn enriched themselves

00:10:46.980 by cashing in on their political influence

00:10:48.900 in exchange for $750,000 paychecks

00:10:51.400 from Goldman Sachs for 45 minute speeches,

00:10:54.080 and who herself somehow was showered

00:10:56.360 with a $600,000 annual contract from NBC News

00:10:59.800 despite no qualifications,

00:11:02.200 believes she is in a position

00:11:03.540 to accuse others of grifting.

00:11:06.840 That's exactly it.

00:11:08.360 Who the hell wants to hear what she thinks 0.60

00:11:09.900 about anything, nevermind grift? 0.70

00:11:12.660 Well, and the grifting angle is so crazy

00:11:14.760 because the best way to grift

00:11:16.900 was to be anti-Trump for five years, right?

00:11:20.460 Like this idea that people on the right

00:11:23.000 are uniquely profiting off of the larger media environment.

00:11:26.320 But the big issue here,

00:11:27.660 and this is disappointing, I think,

00:11:28.820 because she's well-educated,

00:11:30.720 that what all of this presupposes, Megan,

00:11:33.740 is that science is fixed.

00:11:35.800 And I would think that if you have paid

00:11:37.560 any attention at all to COVID,

00:11:40.060 what we have needed is more robust debate,

00:11:43.200 not less, right?

00:11:44.240 If anything, the idea that kids are still wearing masks

00:11:48.340 or God forbid that there are still so many kids out there

00:11:51.360 that are right now having to go through remote learning

00:11:54.480 because remote learning is an oxymoron, right?

00:11:57.680 That phrase, the fact that it even exists to me

00:12:00.320 is a fundamental failure of our society.

00:12:02.620 But we need more, more discussion, more debate.

00:12:06.140 And so this idea, science should be questioned.

00:12:09.640 Everything should be questioned.

00:12:11.120 People in positions of power should be questioned.

00:12:14.900 The conspiracy theory, in my mind, Megan,

00:12:17.480 does not come because you question authority

00:12:20.900 or question the consensus opinion.

00:12:23.480 It comes when you are not allowed to do that,

00:12:27.300 which is what has been forcing so many people,

00:12:30.900 whether it's your grandma

00:12:31.940 or whether it's somebody with an audience on social media

00:12:36.240 who is looking at the data and asking questions and saying,

00:12:39.460 hey, this just doesn't add up to me,

00:12:42.900 particularly when you're trying to mandate behavior.

00:12:45.500 And even worse, when you're trying to mandate behavior

00:12:47.900 for some people, for their kids.

00:12:50.180 I don't know about you.

00:12:51.020 That's a good point, Clay.

00:12:51.660 That's a very good point.

00:12:53.100 So it's worse in the context of them trying to

00:12:55.860 force something on us and our children

00:12:57.800 and then tell us we're not allowed to question

00:13:00.300 the, quote, science behind those mandates.

00:13:03.460 That's right.

00:13:05.060 When Fauci says, and to your point,

00:13:07.400 I would love, I would love to get Fauci for an hour,

00:13:11.800 sit down, ask him questions, follow up.

00:13:15.140 You know, I would be respectful,

00:13:16.500 but there's very little actual questioning of Fauci

00:13:20.740 that is anything other than sort of presupposing

00:13:24.420 and genuflecting at his altar of scientific genius

00:13:27.600 when there are so many questions that need to be asked.

00:13:30.780 And when he, even in these interviews,

00:13:32.420 is saying things like, I am the science.

00:13:35.740 I mean, I am the science is a megalomaniacal statement

00:13:40.140 to make, but again, it presumes that science,

00:13:44.220 particularly with a novel virus like this,

00:13:46.520 is set in stone when, if you go back,

00:13:49.420 they're constantly shifting the analysis 0.94

00:13:52.420 and then making people feel like, hey, you're crazy.

00:13:55.660 They're like, oh, we never said that if you got the vaccine,

00:13:58.960 you wouldn't get it or you wouldn't spread it.

00:14:00.640 Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did.

00:14:02.960 Roll the tape.

00:14:03.600 That's typically the argument you made. Yes.

00:14:06.320 And so science is constantly evolving,

00:14:09.760 particularly with diseases that we have never confronted before.

00:14:15.160 And we're still learning about it.

00:14:16.780 And by the way, the virus is mutating itself.

00:14:19.220 So all of it.

00:14:20.060 The thing about Rogan, though, it's disturbing

00:14:22.380 because if Spotify is standing behind him right now,

00:14:25.580 of course they are.

00:14:26.420 He's their most profitable host.

00:14:28.700 I mean, they're not going to pay Joe.

00:14:30.000 They pay these rappers like 10 million bucks a year to be over there.

00:14:33.520 They pay Joe Rogan 10 times that.

00:14:36.840 He's their biggest draw right now.

00:14:38.340 And there's no way they're going to abandon him unless,

00:14:40.840 I mean, everyone would have to leave Spotify.

00:14:42.560 So good on Spotify for standing behind him.

00:14:44.700 Substack is also withstanding these calls.

00:14:46.720 But the scary thing about Joe Rogan is if they went another way,

00:14:50.880 if he could be deplatformed, if Spotify didn't back him, anyone could be.

00:14:55.360 I mean, because he's by far the most powerful person

00:14:57.260 in this alternative media world.

00:15:00.740 And so you do have to watch it because the left starts to drool

00:15:04.500 when they sense they might have another neck on the chopping board.

00:15:08.220 They don't have the normal human response to seeing someone struggling

00:15:12.040 or the thoughts of taking away someone's career.

00:15:14.380 They enjoy it.

00:15:15.160 They would love to deplatform him.

00:15:17.600 And and so I like the fact that they're standing behind him.

00:15:19.840 But right now, I thought it was interesting.

00:15:21.760 Last night, he came out.

00:15:23.120 Rogan posted a video late Sunday.

00:15:25.620 We'll throw in a clip.

00:15:27.440 But right now, what he said is,

00:15:29.740 I promise to do my best in the future to balance things out.

00:15:33.940 Reiterated a couple of times his promise to have more opinions on his show,

00:15:36.700 to research the topics more closely and to have the pertinent back to hand.

00:15:40.200 And I will say something to you.

00:15:42.140 Oh, we have it.

00:15:43.020 OK, let's listen.

00:15:43.760 The podcast has been accused of spreading dangerous misinformation,

00:15:49.620 specifically about two episodes, a little bit about some other ones,

00:15:53.000 but specifically about two.

00:15:54.500 One with Dr. Peter McCullough and one with Dr. Robert Malone.

00:15:59.080 Dr. Peter McCullough is a cardiologist,

00:16:01.240 and he is the most published physician in his field in history.

00:16:06.100 Dr. Robert Malone owns nine patents on the creation of mRNA vaccine technology and is at least partially responsible for the creation of the technology that led to mRNA vaccines.

00:16:19.060 Both these people are very highly credentialed, very intelligent, very accomplished people, and they have an opinion that's different from the mainstream narrative.

00:16:28.400 I wanted to hear what their opinion is.

00:16:30.420 The problem I have with the term misinformation, especially today, is that many of the things that we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact.

00:16:40.220 Like, for instance, eight months ago, if you said, if you get vaccinated, you can still catch COVID and you can still spread COVID, you would be removed from social media.

00:16:50.580 They would they would ban you from certain platforms.

00:16:53.120 Now that's accepted as fact.

00:16:55.580 I'm just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them.

00:16:59.360 Do I get things wrong?

00:17:01.080 Absolutely.

00:17:01.880 I get things wrong, but I try to correct them.

00:17:04.020 Whenever I get something wrong, I try to correct it because I'm interested in telling the truth.

00:17:08.420 Telling the truth.

00:17:09.500 So here's the thing, Clay.

00:17:11.980 Joe Rogan has this incredibly successful show and he built it himself.

00:17:16.380 He just started having conversations with his friends and it blew up into the most powerful show in in the world, really.

00:17:21.100 I mean, there's nobody who gets better ratings than he does between YouTube and what get what he gets in downloads.

00:17:26.300 And he's not a journalist.

00:17:29.380 He does really great interviews and has really great conversations.

00:17:32.480 But I have watched some of his interviews, in particular of some of these guys, and thought he should be pressing them with the with other facts.

00:17:41.040 He should be challenging.

00:17:43.000 Here's what the other side says on that, because the audience gets more out of it.

00:17:46.200 But that's my style.

00:17:47.120 That's not his style.

00:17:47.960 He's not a journalist.

00:17:49.260 He just extracts opinions and information.

00:17:51.460 And I so I actually can see some of the criticisms of him.

00:17:56.100 He's not beyond criticism, right?

00:17:57.740 Like he could do a better job, in my view, of preparing and of pressing and of confronting with the other facts.

00:18:04.820 It's not what he does.

00:18:06.440 That doesn't mean he gets deplatformed.

00:18:08.680 We generally in this country, we leave it up to the audience to figure out how trustworthy a source is and to compile the information they feel they need to make decisions on these issues.

00:18:18.220 No doubt.

00:18:19.820 And Megan, to your point, what I like about the conversations and the conversation that we're having right now is you're not editing it and I'm not editing it.

00:18:30.500 And, you know, this having done a lot of network news interviews back in the day, you can talk to somebody for two hours and use eight minutes of that two hour conversation.

00:18:40.820 I've always said I would rather read the transcript.

00:18:44.480 And this is maybe the lawyer in me, too.

00:18:46.260 But when somebody is is talking, I'm always like, well, is there a transcript attached?

00:18:51.440 I started doing this with with sports when I would cover sports because I wanted to know I didn't trust that the right stories got taken out of a press conference with a coach or with a player.

00:19:01.100 And they would publish the transcript and I would go in and I would look and I would say, OK, what's the most interesting part of this overall conversation?

00:19:07.300 And lots of times, Megan, I found that the way the media covered it was not representative and also not reflective of even the most interesting thing that people were saying.

00:19:15.780 And so the fact that he has these relatively unedited long form conversations to me is part and parcel of being as honest with your audience as you can be, because if you listen to somebody talk for an hour, that's one of the last legacy audio.

00:19:31.660 It's one of the real advantages. I know there's video versions, too, but time, the ability to see somebody in context in full allows that authenticity to come through in a way that, frankly, I do not believe exists in much of modern media where a minute or two is all you get.

00:19:48.680 Right. And so, yes, is he of criticism? No, of course, not everybody is worthy that has a big audience is worthy of being analyzed and you can like or dislike something.

00:19:58.180 But the marketplace is responding in a very favorable way because what he is providing is something that is not being provided enough.

00:20:05.360 Right. That ultimately the marketplace, I'm a big believer in business based market based capitalism.

00:20:11.700 And I think Joe Rogan is serving his audience well.

00:20:14.580 That's exactly right. And as his willingness to do that demonstrates, there is a market for it and his power grows.

00:20:22.620 And that's that's what drives the left insane.

00:20:25.220 Just to note, Chelsea Clinton also tried to have me fired after I interviewed Alex Jones while I was at NBC. 0.90

00:20:34.320 And it was a very tough interview and it didn't go particularly well for Alex Jones.

00:20:39.240 But she wanted me fired just for just for having the interview and for NBC. 0.98

00:20:45.240 But, of course, Chelsea Clinton, her little stint at NBC didn't work out so well because she's talentless. 1.00

00:20:50.700 But I did think it was amazing because I told the story before, but Brian Stelter of CNN came up to me at an event shortly thereafter in the midst of it all and said,

00:20:58.580 Chelsea Clinton, she's pushing for you. She doesn't want any guests to go on your show ever again. 1.00

00:21:03.100 And he's like, do you do you think you'll be able to get her? Do you think you'll be able to interview Chelsea Clinton?

00:21:08.060 And I said, Brian, I said, I have never once asked to interview Chelsea Clinton and I do not intend to spoil my perfect record.

00:21:17.560 Well, by the way, Megan, because this happened to us with with the radio show.

00:21:23.860 I interviewed Buck and I did Senator Senator Rand Paul and we talked to him.

00:21:31.080 I read this.

00:21:32.460 Yeah. And YouTube refused to allow our interview to be posted.

00:21:37.040 Now, to me, I think this is significant. I don't think this gets enough attention.

00:21:41.920 We interviewed him. We did not say the answers to his questions.

00:21:47.100 Right. He is a sitting senator. He is a doctor.

00:21:49.980 He is running for reelection right now in Kentucky. And the same thing, by the way, with your point with Alex Jones or with Joe Rogan in the interviews that he is doing.

00:21:59.900 Why are you responsible as an interviewer for what your interviewee says?

00:22:07.760 Right. Like that is, to me, next level.

00:22:10.700 Now, you can say, oh, push back whatever arguments you want to have.

00:22:14.200 But the conversation to me, we're expanding the scope of cancel culture when we're saying not only are you responsible, which I understand.

00:22:23.660 If I say something that people don't like and they want to write about it from this interview, that's my words.

00:22:28.520 They can use them as they see fit. Right.

00:22:30.960 But attacking someone for having a conversation with someone else expands the scope of what is cancelable.

00:22:40.540 And if I'm running YouTube, the guy is Rand Paul, a senator running for reelection and also the whole purpose of the marketplace of ideas is voters should be able to see all of the opinions of elected officials to better understand whether they want to support them or not.

00:23:00.120 So to me, YouTube is doing a disservice for the Kentucky Senate election.

00:23:05.240 When he comes on our show for 15 minutes, we put up all of his comments and all of his opinions and voters are not able to see it.

00:23:12.920 Not just Kentucky voters, by the way, Megan.

00:23:15.400 Somebody might decide whether or not they want to donate money to him or donate money to his opponent.

00:23:21.260 We should have more opportunity to hear the all of the opinions of our elected officials.

00:23:26.820 That was wild to me.

00:23:28.340 What if he says something truly kooky?

00:23:30.920 What if he says something truly out there and YouTube doesn't allow it to air?

00:23:35.060 I'm sure his opponent will be like, what the hell?

00:23:36.980 Put it up.

00:23:37.640 Put it up there.

00:23:38.540 Like, let the voters decide, warts and all.

00:23:41.540 Let the viewers decide what's true.

00:23:44.180 And the real truth is the more you ban, the more people want to see.

00:23:49.240 And you don't you don't suppress the appetite for information by banning people.

00:23:54.700 You only stoke it.

00:23:56.380 All right.

00:23:56.560 Stand by.

00:23:57.020 I'm going to squeeze in a quick break and more with Clay Travis.

00:23:59.600 After this, we're going to talk about a powerful moment from the widow of a fallen NYPD officer and the response she got.

00:24:06.340 If you have not seen the pictures of what happened in New York on Friday, you must stand by.

00:24:12.440 So, Clay, that the funeral of Officer Jason Rivera in New York.

00:24:25.260 Oh, my God.

00:24:26.680 The pictures of the pictures of just the blue, I mean, across the sidewalks in New York, you couldn't there wasn't a space of sidewalk that you could see from the overheads.

00:24:38.920 It was incredibly moving and the messaging from the NYPD standing in solidarity, keeping the watch in the wake of his death.

00:24:48.040 I mean, if you guys go look at this on YouTube later, you'll see these pictures we're showing where it just looks it almost just looks like a forest of trees where you can't see any ground.

00:24:56.900 But those are cops.

00:24:58.280 You can't see anything.

00:24:59.500 It's crazy the number of people who showed up.

00:25:02.120 It's wonderful to see the respect being paid to him, but it's also for a very good reason.

00:25:06.380 They're outraged.

00:25:07.600 And there's so much that has led up to the death of Jason Rivera and his partner, a 22 year old, a 26 year old guy who went to effect an arrest on the call of this suspect's mother.

00:25:19.740 Suspect was 44 years old in Harlem.

00:25:21.360 They went into the house, the apartment.

00:25:23.000 They walked down the hall with a third guy who was a rookie and the suspect came out shooting, killing two of them.

00:25:28.940 And the rookie wound up shooting the suspect in the head, killing him to the suspect.

00:25:33.240 That is these two young cops were killed.

00:25:35.820 And the widow, the young widow of Jason Rivera, she spoke at the funeral.

00:25:43.940 And keep in mind the D.A., Alvin Bragg, the new soft on crime D.A., who has removed, among other things, the death penalty for people who kill police officers in New York.

00:25:52.300 With a with a swoop, a swoop of his pen, just he's made himself the new Congress, the new governor of New York.

00:26:00.700 He's decided that's no longer a thing, was sitting there.

00:26:04.480 And here is what the widow, Dominique Luzuriaga, had to say.

00:26:10.900 You have the whole nation on gridlock.

00:26:15.820 The system continues to fail us.

00:26:22.300 We are not safe anymore.

00:26:25.760 Not even the members of the service.

00:26:30.920 I know you were tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new D.A.

00:26:37.380 I hope he's watching you speak through me right now.

00:26:40.540 So powerful.

00:26:46.900 And it went on.

00:26:47.840 But will it affect change?

00:26:50.620 Your thoughts?

00:26:52.060 I think it will.

00:26:52.920 And I believe if you look at Joe Biden's overall approval ratings, Megan, and you look at the numbers of murders that are occurring all over this nation.

00:27:04.860 What you learn is being concerned that you are too hard on criminals is a luxury of a low crime environment.

00:27:15.880 And we are not in a low crime environment right now.

00:27:18.380 And moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and so many people out there are worried about the safety of their families.

00:27:26.300 And if you look at the data, the people who have overwhelmingly been bearing the brunt of the anti-police movement, the defund the police movement, have been poor and minority people in inner city neighborhoods.

00:27:41.760 There are thousands of people today who are dead because of the defund the police movement, because in the wake of George Floyd, and I think I'm speaking same for you, Megan, that, look, when police officers commit crimes, they should be put in front of juries and they should be held accountable.

00:28:01.180 But the idea that what Derek Chauvin did was representative of what the vast majority of police do on any given day, I think, is one of the colossal failures of the media.

00:28:15.680 They took a viral video that was an outlier of police behavior on a daily basis and used it to tar and feather police officers all over the country.

00:28:27.260 And as a result, the police were unable to do their job.

00:28:32.320 They pulled back from being able to aggressively protect and serve the people in their communities.

00:28:38.140 And we are reaping the whirlwind of what I believe is the single most disastrous political argument of the 21st century, which is defund the police.

00:28:48.500 And I believe that any politician who argued in favor of defund the police, first of all, should be held accountable for it, because now what you see is everybody is running as fast as they can and arguing. 0.96

00:28:59.120 Oh, I never said defund the police, but I don't believe you should be able to represent people in this country if you were dumb enough to argue in favor of defund the police.

00:29:09.340 And so my hope is that we are going to quickly spin. 0.92

00:29:13.460 Remember, Megan, they took cops off television. 0.96

00:29:17.080 They talked about whether or not the Paw Patrol character that is a police officer should continue to be allowed to be a police officer.

00:29:25.760 And I think what's going to happen is you saw that police officer funeral on and you saw Fifth Avenue filled up with police officers is we're going to quickly spin back to police officers are heroic.

00:29:38.960 They are protecting us in a time of great danger.

00:29:41.580 We need to enable them to do their job more in order to protect more of us and combat what is surging crime rates.

00:29:48.920 I mean, we had cities all over America, Megan, in twenty twenty one, hitting all time crime rates, Philadelphia, I believe, Austin, Texas.

00:29:56.820 I don't want to name them off the top of my head, but I remember those two record number of homicides in Chicago, which has not been short on homicides over the past 20 years.

00:30:07.160 New York, same thing on and on.

00:30:09.160 And it's not just civilians who are getting killed.

00:30:11.420 It's cops.

00:30:12.160 It's not just these two cops who got killed, but cops are getting shot every day now.

00:30:15.960 In fact, twenty twenty one was the most lethal year for cops in 20 years.

00:30:19.960 And why is that?

00:30:21.320 Because people have created an environment.

00:30:24.640 The left BLM, the wokesters have created an environment that is ripe for danger. 1.00

00:30:30.460 It's ripe for danger.

00:30:32.080 And so these cops, that's what she's talking about.

00:30:33.900 It's Alvin Bragg.

00:30:34.800 It's the narrative that all cops are bad. 0.98

00:30:37.000 It's this belief by some that they're out there executing, looking for for young black men to execute unfairly.

00:30:42.960 Meanwhile, The Washington Post database, they keep track of the killings by police officers of unarmed people, black, white, male, female, et cetera.

00:30:53.240 Ten million arrests a year by cops.

00:30:54.840 Ten million.

00:30:55.460 OK, four, four unarmed black men were shot and killed by police last year.

00:31:00.020 Four.

00:31:00.900 So the numbers are.

00:31:01.760 So it's like the narrative is out of control.

00:31:03.840 And then the D.A.s create policy based on the false narrative.

00:31:07.840 And then the cops are the ones.

00:31:09.100 And just to give you a couple of stats, Clay, just last week, two cops were shot in St.

00:31:12.540 Louis.

00:31:13.040 A Milwaukee deputy was shot several times at a traffic stop.

00:31:15.840 Three cops were shot in Houston.

00:31:17.260 I could go on.

00:31:18.480 Not to mention these two guys in New York who were shot and killed.

00:31:21.740 And you can see the blue has had it.

00:31:24.300 Yeah.

00:31:24.520 Look, and Megan, to your point on police officer shootings.

00:31:27.560 I share this stat and people refuse to believe it.

00:31:31.320 Seventy five percent of people shot by police are are white, Asian or Hispanic.

00:31:37.880 Seventy five percent.

00:31:38.920 Now, you can argue that black people represent 12 percent of the overall population are being

00:31:43.280 shot at a higher level.

00:31:44.420 But it's important to recognize that most police officer interactions occur with sort of

00:31:50.280 violent criminal backgrounds.

00:31:52.760 Right.

00:31:53.240 It's not as if your average grandma is getting pulled over on a regular basis and hassled or

00:31:58.700 and this blows people's mind when they when they say, hey, you know, these are racially

00:32:02.700 discriminatory actions being undertaken by police.

00:32:05.640 I always fire back with, well, how come you never say they're sexist?

00:32:08.860 Right.

00:32:09.440 Men are overwhelmingly shot by police.

00:32:12.760 We don't ever argue, oh, the reason why the police are shooting men is because of sexism.

00:32:17.980 And just because men commit far more in excess violent crime than the 50 percent of our population

00:32:25.000 would suggest that we would.

00:32:26.580 Right.

00:32:27.080 And it's not all men, by the way.

00:32:28.440 It's not mostly grandpas.

00:32:29.940 It's men between the ages of about 16 and 40.

00:32:33.760 Right.

00:32:34.060 That's where the overall rate of violence, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, whoever you are, 1.00

00:32:39.240 that's it's both male and it's overwhelmingly regularly young men.

00:32:44.300 And so it's funny when people say, oh, the police are super racist.

00:32:49.080 So how come you don't argue that they're also super sexist?

00:32:51.980 The police are trying to protect us from the people who are engaging most often in violent

00:32:56.780 crime.

00:32:57.140 This is like a stat that you're not allowed to share, Megan.

00:32:59.480 Well, it's a real stat.

00:33:01.300 I mean, 50 percent of the violent crime in our major cities is committed by people who 0.99

00:33:04.700 happen to be black. 0.99

00:33:06.480 Yeah, that's right. 1.00

00:33:07.040 And over half of all murders are committed by by black men. 1.00

00:33:11.580 Right. 0.99

00:33:11.860 And so if you look at the data, around six percent of the population is black male and 0.97

00:33:17.120 they're committing over half of all murders. 0.84

00:33:19.120 By the way, the vast majority, I think it's 93 or 94 percent of those victims also black 0.95

00:33:25.100 male because most rape crime is not cross race. 0.95

00:33:29.980 You tend to, for better or worse, inflict damage upon people of your own race. 0.94

00:33:35.920 And, you know, look at every Lifetime movie.

00:33:38.180 If you're a woman and you end up being, unfortunately, a victim of violent crime, you know this, Megan,

00:33:42.720 who is by far the most likely person to do that violent crime to you, your boyfriend or

00:33:47.340 your husband.

00:33:48.120 Right.

00:33:48.680 Unfortunately, that's why every Lifetime movie, it feels like that deals with a murder mystery.

00:33:54.140 The husband or the boyfriend is almost always the bad guy because the one who is most likely

00:34:00.080 statistically going to do harm.

00:34:02.440 It's not so random.

00:34:03.180 In my case, if anything were to happen to me, I think you should look into Chelsea Clinton. 0.99

00:34:08.400 Well, if anything happens, definitely look into my wife first. 1.00

00:34:12.800 All right.

00:34:14.440 Let me ask you about some of the absurd, absurd reaction to the funeral, to the cops.

00:34:20.180 Still, even in this moment, you get people who want to double down on the cops.

00:34:23.680 And so I'll play you a couple of the reactions.

00:34:25.820 But before I get to that, just to pick up on a point you made yesterday, the people who are

00:34:28.800 now claiming I never said defund the police, my staff put together just a list of some

00:34:33.600 of these folks who are trying now in the wake of these deaths to say, like, oh, no, I'm

00:34:38.320 pro cop.

00:34:39.080 What do you mean?

00:34:39.760 I'm just going to tick off a couple for you.

00:34:41.220 OK, state attorney general Tish James here in New York.

00:34:45.480 Back in April, we've got to talk about the history of policing, which is embedded in racism,

00:34:49.340 going back to the slave trade, the slave code, black code, et cetera.

00:34:52.740 Right.

00:34:53.020 That that's going to help.

00:34:54.140 Sure.

00:34:54.280 That's going to help the cops.

00:34:55.380 Friday night.

00:34:56.140 All of New York state is in mourning tonight.

00:34:58.240 We pray for the safety of our police.

00:34:59.800 All right.

00:35:00.620 Comptroller Brad Lander, June of 2020.

00:35:03.300 It is time to defund the police.

00:35:05.640 Friday night.

00:35:06.380 Our hearts are with the police are with the loved ones and colleagues of this 22 year old

00:35:11.080 police officer.

00:35:11.900 Council member Shahana Hanif, the Democrat from Brooklyn, January 2020.

00:35:15.660 More police won't keep us safe.

00:35:17.020 Saturday morning.

00:35:17.860 Heartbroken by last night's shooting.

00:35:19.580 Assembly member Robert Carroll, D.

00:35:21.020 Brooklyn, June 2020.

00:35:22.680 Our streets have been over policed and black and brown Americans over criminalized.

00:35:26.340 Saturday morning.

00:35:26.840 Rest in peace, officer Rivera.

00:35:28.620 Your service will not be forgotten.

00:35:30.220 As New Yorkers, we need to come together as one.

00:35:32.400 Council member Christian Richardson, Jordan, Democrat Manhattan, January 2022.

00:35:36.800 NYPD, January 2022.

00:35:38.620 You got it earlier this month.

00:35:40.320 NYPD is still the biggest gang in New York City.

00:35:43.380 Friday night.

00:35:44.320 I am saddened.

00:35:45.540 A loss of one is a loss to the whole as it creates ripples and ripples of pain.

00:35:50.080 I stand with the families of the fallen.

00:35:51.900 Are you kidding?

00:35:53.040 Are you kidding me?

00:35:54.060 Where's Kamala Harris and Joe Biden on attending some of these funerals for police officers?

00:36:01.200 I mean, just think about it.

00:36:01.940 You know, if instead of being a victim here of being killed by a violent perpetrator, if

00:36:11.120 someone had been shot by a police officer, then they would have shown up for those funerals.

00:36:17.300 Yep.

00:36:17.960 Right.

00:36:18.800 I mean, how about just a very, I don't know what Kamala does all day anyway. 1.00

00:36:23.080 The answer is they don't want to have attention drawn to the, as you pointed out, the fact that

00:36:28.220 we're right now dealing with a 20 year high going all the way back to 9-11.

00:36:32.560 2021 was the first year since 9-11 that we've had this many deaths.

00:36:36.320 The police are under siege.

00:36:37.880 But yes, like that is what should happen.

00:36:40.520 You should be held accountable for awful decisions that are made in terms of demonizing police.

00:36:46.580 It's not a coincidence that that demonization has real consequences for police officers all

00:36:52.280 over the country who are now under siege in a level they haven't been in a generation.

00:36:56.120 Yes.

00:36:56.500 They created this environment and it has to be dissembled.

00:37:01.400 People need to know the true facts.

00:37:03.840 And you don't like police.

00:37:04.860 No problem.

00:37:05.400 But you can't engage in misinformation about them over and over and then say, oh, I'm so

00:37:11.040 sad about what happened to them.

00:37:12.640 No, your lies help create an environment that makes it more dangerous for these guys to do

00:37:17.900 an already dangerous job.

00:37:19.980 All right.

00:37:20.560 So now the misinformation about cops does have a real effect.

00:37:24.360 And case in point, here's just an example. 0.99

00:37:26.800 Here is this moron actress who no one's ever heard of. 1.00

00:37:29.920 It's just a story because it reflects the attitudes of so many. 0.99

00:37:33.240 Her name is apparently Jacqueline Guzman.

00:37:35.760 She's an actress and she had thoughts about the difficult traffic situation thanks to

00:37:41.580 these funerals, this funeral on Friday. 1.00

00:37:44.040 Listen to this moron. 1.00

00:37:45.280 Do not need to shut down most of lower Manhattan because one cop died for probably doing his 1.00

00:37:51.760 job incorrectly.

00:37:53.040 They kill people who are under 22 every single day for no good reason.

00:37:57.800 And we don't shut down the city for them. 1.00

00:37:59.800 So like, this is fucking ridiculous. 1.00

00:38:06.400 This is fucking ridiculous. 1.00

00:38:08.080 What if somebody is having a heart attack in this area? 1.00

00:38:11.840 Nobody can get to them because it's all blocked off for one fucking cop. 1.00

00:38:16.640 She's been fired. 0.99

00:38:18.440 She wasn't she wasn't really working anyway, from what I can tell.

00:38:21.020 She had some acting company called face to face films, which is apparently no longer associated

00:38:24.720 with her.

00:38:24.980 But nobody's ever heard of her.

00:38:25.860 But her attitude is indicative of a lot of people, especially here in New York.

00:38:30.260 Yeah.

00:38:30.680 And and again, it also what you feel comfortable saying, you know, we talk about in terms of

00:38:37.840 the larger speech codes that are being being enforced.

00:38:42.560 She obviously spiraled out of the out of the acceptable level of criticism.

00:38:48.340 But what's interesting, Megan, is if she had made those comments anti police and not connected

00:38:54.760 them towards the individual death that she was complaining about in particular, if instead

00:39:00.120 she had been on a video talking about how awful police are and the fact that they kill people

00:39:04.480 all the time and she hates them and everything else that wouldn't have gotten to her, you know,

00:39:10.380 in any way.

00:39:11.400 They put her on CNN.

00:39:12.180 Yeah, that would be the standard talking points.

00:39:16.580 What she said was just unacceptable to say in this particular point in time.

00:39:21.400 And frankly, I hope that there is going to be more because to your point, we when you create

00:39:27.820 the environment that makes police officers the victims that they have become at a generational

00:39:33.180 high, you are putting the targets on their back.

00:39:38.060 Right.

00:39:38.300 The defund the police movement created the idea that you can delegitimize the authority

00:39:44.160 that are that exist in police.

00:39:45.820 And I don't know if you've had these conversations with your kids, but I've had them with my own.

00:39:50.260 I've got boys.

00:39:51.280 One of them's a teenager.

00:39:52.020 And I said, look, if a police officer ever tells you to do something, you do it.

00:39:57.540 Because if you go back and watch all of these videos that lead to violent acts, either with

00:40:04.180 police officers as the victim or with the citizen as the victim, if the citizen had complied

00:40:11.260 with officer instructions, the moment those interactions began, they never would have turned

00:40:16.320 on.

00:40:16.900 And I said, look, you're a lawyer.

00:40:18.100 I'm a lawyer.

00:40:18.840 If a police officer is violating your constitutional rights, we can have a lawsuit.

00:40:23.980 We can get the evidence tossed out.

00:40:25.600 We can do all of the things procedurally that lawyers are able to do to ensure that every

00:40:31.800 American's right is protected.

00:40:33.900 But what we can't do is dial back a violent incident that came because you refused to comply

00:40:40.160 with the authority of a police officer.

00:40:42.040 That's right.

00:40:42.400 Imagine things would look, Megan, if every athlete and actor and celebrity had gone with that

00:40:49.460 presumption, presume that an officer is doing his job or her job and that you're going to

00:40:54.420 listen to them.

00:40:55.300 The number of violent interactions that we would have in America would be at a minimal

00:40:59.720 level.

00:41:00.620 All of them spiral from the citizen almost exclusively refusing to comply with officer

00:41:06.400 instructions.

00:41:07.160 And then it eventually leads to violence.

00:41:09.380 That's another thing that this D.A. in New York has basically decriminalized.

00:41:12.680 He's saying he's not going to arrest people for resisting arrest.

00:41:15.260 How's that going to go for the cops?

00:41:16.360 I'm sure I mean, now they have the criminals have nothing to lose by trying to make a run

00:41:21.780 for it, by trying to resist the handcuffs, by trying to nothing to lose whatsoever.

00:41:25.540 He's not going to go after them.

00:41:26.700 As for my own kids, I will eventually have a talk like that.

00:41:29.340 They're still too little.

00:41:30.120 They're only 10, 12 and eight.

00:41:32.980 But I will make sure they know, Clay, to your point, I can be a hell of a lot meaner in a

00:41:37.860 courtroom than any cop could be to you in the moment.

00:41:40.740 But trust me, just as mean as any cop is to you on the street, I will be 10 times as mean

00:41:45.560 in a court or a lawyer I hire will be.

00:41:47.800 So we'll get we'll get our justice.

00:41:50.120 And everyone should be saying that, because especially in this environment, you go into

00:41:54.040 court, doesn't matter race, doesn't matter gender. 1.00

00:41:56.540 And you allege that a cop has hurt you.

00:41:58.380 And most of them, most of them have body cameras.

00:42:00.360 Now, you're not going to find many sympathetic juries for the cop.

00:42:03.100 Things are turning on that on that front.

00:42:05.260 That's not a bad thing.

00:42:06.320 That's not a bad thing.

00:42:07.120 But encouraging people to resist arrest is insane.

00:42:11.180 And that's only going to lead to more, not fewer incidents.

00:42:13.520 All right.

00:42:13.660 Standby.

00:42:14.360 We're going to come back when to talk about whether Tom Brady really is retiring, among

00:42:18.520 other things, with the one and only Clay Travis.

00:42:22.380 And remember, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every

00:42:27.500 weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel,

00:42:31.480 youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly.

00:42:33.320 If you like the audio version, you can subscribe and download our podcast.

00:42:37.120 On Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free.

00:42:40.740 And there you'll find our full archives.

00:42:43.320 More than 250 shows now, including the first time Clay was on, way back on episode 22.

00:42:49.400 Wow.

00:42:49.820 Way back.

00:42:50.400 A lot has happened since then.

00:42:52.280 You'll love it, though.

00:42:52.900 Check it out.

00:42:53.340 So before we get to Tom Brady, let's talk about Canada and the great freedom convoy of these

00:43:06.340 truckers who just will not be ordered around by Justin Trudeau.

00:43:11.540 They've got what is it over 90 percent vaccination rate in Canada?

00:43:15.800 Never enough.

00:43:17.540 Now they're saying these truckers who spend all day in their trucks by themselves that

00:43:21.360 they have to get vaccinated or they can't cross the border into the United States.

00:43:25.140 And they fought back, creating this convoy of trucks going into Ottawa, the nation's capital

00:43:32.000 up there.

00:43:32.540 And Trudeau ran, true to form.

00:43:38.120 He ran, Clay.

00:43:39.760 He's in an undisclosed location because, of course, he's not man enough to stand up and

00:43:45.320 defend his policy.

00:43:46.200 Well, I mean, first of all, great for these truckers.

00:43:49.440 And I applaud them to the high heavens.

00:43:53.540 I have been waiting and begging and hoping that we were going to see people finally rise

00:43:59.820 up against what I believe are these draconian vaccine mandates.

00:44:03.900 If you want to get vaccinated for COVID, more power to you.

00:44:08.060 But the idea that you should be deciding whether or not people can have jobs based on whether

00:44:14.140 they're vaccinated or not doesn't make sense.

00:44:16.300 I, you know, in the world of sports, Megan, we can see that it doesn't really change anything.

00:44:20.380 100% of NHL players, 97% NBA, 95% NFL.

00:44:26.300 You know, the NFL finally just decided to stop testing.

00:44:28.780 Nobody's testing positive for COVID now as the playoffs have gotten underway.

00:44:33.640 And many of these leagues are finally saying, you know what, we can't test.

00:44:36.760 But what those prove is this idea that Biden has been selling.

00:44:39.980 And I think that Canada proves the same thing.

00:44:42.780 And certainly England and Israel do as well.

00:44:45.900 You can't vaccinate your way out of COVID.

00:44:48.380 The vaccines are not eliminating COVID like we were told that they would.

00:44:52.660 And so once you get to that point, I think we need to allow people to make the personal

00:44:57.200 autonomy a decision.

00:44:58.440 I've had COVID twice.

00:45:00.160 And I had it in August of 2020.

00:45:02.500 And then I had the COVID remix version with Omicron, you know, a couple of weeks ago.

00:45:08.160 I was fortunately fine both times.

00:45:10.360 But, you know, there's a huge percentage of people that that got the COVID vaccine, got

00:45:15.380 the booster and still got Omicron, too.

00:45:17.880 And so this idea that it's going anywhere is a fundamental failure.

00:45:22.180 And I hope that we're going to start to get some more rational public policy decisions

00:45:26.500 made as we move into spring and summer.

00:45:29.100 Well, here's what's great.

00:45:30.460 Justin Trudeau, almost always wrong about everything.

00:45:33.320 I mean, it must be said almost always wrong, said these truckers like this little convoy.

00:45:39.320 It's just a small fringe minority.

00:45:41.840 So listen, I'll play you the sound of him.

00:45:44.280 And you keep in mind that the convoy wound up being hundreds of vehicles at what it was.

00:45:49.740 And then it grew to 45 miles long, 45 miles long.

00:45:53.980 But here's how Justin Trudeau described it.

00:45:55.620 The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa or who are holding unacceptable views that they're expressing

00:46:08.660 do not represent the views of Canadians who have been there for each other,

00:46:16.220 who know that following the science and stepping up to protect each other

00:46:22.180 is the best way to continue to ensure our freedoms, our rights, our values as a country.

00:46:28.440 Oh, my God.

00:46:29.800 Up to 50,000, 50,000 truckers came.

00:46:32.440 Small fringe minority.

00:46:33.840 I have never seen somebody who is attractive to the eye and gets incredibly ugly as soon as they open their mouth,

00:46:42.220 as much as Justin Trudeau.

00:46:43.480 What about this consensus now that happens all the time?

00:46:48.240 I mean, the fringe minority is obviously not true.

00:46:52.180 There's a lot of people who have these beliefs that are shared by the truckers.

00:46:55.540 But they're unacceptable.

00:46:56.560 He says they're unacceptable views.

00:46:59.200 Unacceptable opinions.

00:47:00.800 Like that's just I'm so much more troubled by a leader saying what is and what is not acceptable for purposes of public debate

00:47:10.100 than I am by any opinions that might exist for a citizen group, right?

00:47:15.180 Like, again, I'm old school in that I believe in the First Amendment and the marketplace of ideas.

00:47:20.240 And when you are telling me that a marketplace is not willing to accept an argument, by the way, of whether or not that this vaccine should be mandatory,

00:47:29.600 that's the very essence of what the marketplace of ideas, Megan, should exist for.

00:47:35.300 Right.

00:47:35.500 We should be aggressively debating this instead of trying to artificially constrict the sphere of debate in that country or in our country or around the world.

00:47:46.240 Well, frankly, unacceptable views.

00:47:49.260 What?

00:47:49.860 Not wrong.

00:47:51.020 Not not backed by science.

00:47:53.320 Just the view is unacceptable.

00:47:54.700 I don't want to hear it.

00:47:55.340 All right.

00:47:55.740 Last but not least, Tom Brady in or out.

00:47:59.200 So weird.

00:48:00.600 You know, ESPN said he's retiring.

00:48:02.400 Then apparently his own company sent out a tweet.

00:48:04.540 Tom's own company saying he was retiring.

00:48:06.940 Then they deleted that tweet.

00:48:08.120 Then his manager came out or his agent and said it's he'll let you know.

00:48:11.400 But what the hell is going on in or out?

00:48:13.520 I think he's out, Megan.

00:48:15.120 I think he wants to control the way that he leaves.

00:48:18.900 And he wasn't happy that that information leaked.

00:48:21.560 To me, this week would be perfect because you've got a week off before the Super Bowl week.

00:48:26.680 And so you respect a lot of times it's kind of a quiet week as we get ready for the frenzy that will be next week for the biggest sporting event of the year.

00:48:34.280 And so he's been so great on social media, so great with videos and sharing his life, particularly since he left the Patriots and joined the Tampa Bay bucket of years down in Florida, that I believe he wants to control the messaging.

00:48:48.240 I don't know if you watch Curb Your Enthusiasm or not, but there's an entire season where Larry David got mad at the coffee shop and decided to open this fight coffee shop next door.

00:48:57.860 Brady seems like the kind of guy who could decide to play another year just to spite people over the way that came out about how he might retire.

00:49:08.060 I hope that's true because it's fun to watch him.

00:49:11.220 My other favorite observation was immediately people blame Giselle.

00:49:14.540 Of course, the woman's always got to be thrown under the bus. 1.00

00:49:17.800 If he decides to go, I'm sure it'll be his own decision.

00:49:20.760 He's a big boy.

00:49:22.480 Clay, so fun talking to you.

00:49:24.240 All the best.

00:49:24.820 And we'll listen to you later today on the Clay and Buck Show.

00:49:27.620 Up next, Rick Grinnell on the potential threat from Russia and the Supreme Court and Joe Biden's plan for naming the Breyer replacement.

00:49:38.060 The U.N. Security Council is meeting today to discuss the Russian troop buildup along Ukraine's border.

00:49:46.540 Russia has denied that it is planning to invade, but Western nations remain on edge, threatening sanctions and more if Russia makes one false move.

00:49:55.620 Rick Grinnell is the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, intimately involved in all of this.

00:50:00.860 Germany is.

00:50:01.680 He served as acting director of national intelligence as well and was a special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations.

00:50:10.060 Rick, great to have you back.

00:50:11.120 How are you?

00:50:11.780 I'm doing great.

00:50:12.640 Thanks for having me back.

00:50:13.860 Love the show, by the way.

00:50:15.000 Can I just say it's like it's it's mandatory?

00:50:18.660 Oh, thank you.

00:50:19.620 Well, you're the perfect person for this.

00:50:20.980 I mean, since this whole thing started, I'm like, let's get back on the show because you understand this region.

00:50:26.260 You understand Germany's role in all of this, which is critical, better than most people.

00:50:31.140 And unlike most people, you've actually negotiated for peace and for sort of stand downs on tough issues before.

00:50:36.960 So let's just start broad brush.

00:50:38.800 Let's let's assume the audience knows very little about Russia and Ukraine because most people don't pay that much attention.

00:50:44.040 It's like, what are they doing?

00:50:44.920 They're saber rattling again. 1.00

00:50:46.460 Our president misstepped and said something stupid again. 1.00

00:50:49.700 OK, are we going to Russia? 1.00

00:50:51.600 Are we going to war with Russia or not?

00:50:53.160 Probably not.

00:50:53.720 But there is a lot to watch and follow.

00:50:58.200 So let's just start with this.

00:50:59.860 Why is Russia on Ukraine's border right now?

00:51:03.340 Why does it have 100000 troops sitting there in a threatening way and has captured the attention of the world?

00:51:12.400 I think really the basic answer is that they want to break up NATO.

00:51:15.380 They don't like NATO, which, as you know, was literally created and designed to keep Russia from entering into Europe and to not rolling over Eastern Europe.

00:51:28.720 And so what's been happening under the Trump administration is that we've been strengthening NATO.

00:51:33.620 You know, it's so crazy, Megan, because the narrative from the media was that Donald Trump was undermining NATO.

00:51:39.900 And I would really argue and I could go toe to toe with anyone to say, if you care about an organization that is adrift, do you ignore it and let it be adrift?

00:51:52.220 Or do you actually go in, talk about the problems and try to fix it?

00:51:56.940 Let's let's give the analogy of a marriage.

00:51:58.940 If your marriage is not going well, do you try to fix it or do you ignore it and eventually say, you know what, this is over?

00:52:08.720 I actually believe that we're in that relationship right now with the U.N., for instance.

00:52:14.140 It's not going well.

00:52:15.620 It's wasting money.

00:52:16.600 We're ignoring it.

00:52:18.100 That's not good.

00:52:19.140 It's eventually going to come to the point where we say it's useless.

00:52:22.380 But with NATO, Donald Trump was was annoyed that NATO was adrift.

00:52:26.680 And so he engaged.

00:52:27.860 He tried to get members to do more.

00:52:30.640 I think the Russians have seen under Donald Trump more money going into NATO, us talking about reforming NATO.

00:52:40.040 Clearly, there's conversations about who should become NATO.

00:52:43.540 And that has become a NATO member.

00:52:46.780 And that has been scaring the Russians. 0.82

00:52:49.600 The Russians then see Joe Biden take over.

00:52:51.880 They see, and I think this is an incredibly important point, a disastrous Afghanistan pullout, which signaled to the world that we were really in terrible leadership positions here in the United States.

00:53:07.920 We had a weak leadership team at the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House, the NSC.

00:53:13.700 And so like Putin did under the Obama-Biden regime, when he grabbed parts of the Ukraine, this area called Crimea, just went in and grabbed it and it was over quickly.

00:53:26.800 By the way, he did that right after the Olympics.

00:53:28.820 Now what we're seeing is the Russians' saber rattling. 0.95

00:53:33.540 I think that's a good description.

00:53:37.220 And now they're all around the Ukraine border threatening to take over or, you know, cause some sort of conflict destabilization campaign inside Ukraine.

00:53:49.620 That's where we are.

00:53:50.420 I think it's all signaling from a weak Biden administration.

00:53:54.860 There is no possible way Putin would be doing this under a Donald Trump administration.

00:54:00.900 They do not, the Russians, want Ukraine to become a part of NATO.

00:54:06.040 And right now we've sort of given them a special status.

00:54:08.780 It's like you're our little special friend.

00:54:10.340 You're NATO adjacent, but you're not in NATO.

00:54:12.640 But they really want us to say explicitly they're not in NATO and they will never be in NATO.

00:54:18.220 And then they want us to make all sorts of promises about not expanding NATO further and not having certain military installations or certain weapons around Russia or, you know, in these European countries.

00:54:31.180 They basically ask for everything.

00:54:32.740 You know, Putin, in response to our demands of, you know, what are you looking for, has given us the kitchen sink of Russia's wish list.

00:54:39.160 And we're basically saying, yeah, you're not getting all of that.

00:54:42.280 But is it all about the fact that Ukraine had been getting closer and closer to Western countries and getting more and more NATO adjacent than it even had been?

00:54:51.320 And Putin's fear, because he sees NATO as really an extension.

00:54:54.300 I mean, he sees Ukraine as an extension of Russia.

00:54:56.840 And is this really about just stopping at bottom Ukraine from becoming part of NATO?

00:55:02.280 Well, first of all, I have to say, can I start using NATO adjacent?

00:55:05.540 And do I have to credit you?

00:55:07.020 Because that is brilliant.

00:55:07.740 I love carte blanche.

00:55:09.580 Okay.

00:55:11.620 Look, I think it's all about NATO strength.

00:55:14.720 The Russians have always hated NATO, although they do have an office there in Brussels and trying to coordinate because we want to make sure that we don't just all of a sudden miscommunicate and end up in war.

00:55:26.180 So they've had an office there.

00:55:28.100 They've closed the office.

00:55:29.420 Now they're kind of working, but not really working and talking.

00:55:33.160 So it's definitely a problem.

00:55:35.480 I think it is all about NATO membership.

00:55:37.180 Certainly, we have other countries that have talked about joining NATO, who are NATO adjacent, and they've wanted to move into the status, like Finland.

00:55:47.720 And suddenly there is an uproar from the Russians.

00:55:53.220 They don't want to see this.

00:55:54.100 They certainly don't like their former satellite countries or areas becoming closer to NATO.

00:56:01.840 They don't like NATO on their doorstep.

00:56:04.360 And so I do believe that this is a signal and a negotiations tactic to say, look what we can do if you start talking more about putting Ukraine into NATO.

00:56:14.880 Now, we have said, apparently, that that's a nonstarter.

00:56:19.120 We've repeatedly said that any guarantees that Ukraine will never be a part of NATO is a nonstarter, not negotiable.

00:56:25.240 And the Russians are saying, you know, too bad.

00:56:28.360 That's that's our core demand.

00:56:29.660 They also want here's a list of what the Kremlin had reportedly.

00:56:34.540 Apparently, Putin apparently had a conversation with Macron in France and said, I'm mad because so far no one's taking account of key Russian concerns like the one we just discussed, Ukraine.

00:56:46.860 Also, we just don't want NATO expansion at all and we want the non-deployment of strike weapons systems near Russian borders and we want NATO to return its military potential and infrastructure in Europe to positions existing in 1997.

00:57:05.420 Again, we've called all of those things nonstarters.

00:57:07.400 But can you explain points two and three, non-deployment of strike weapon systems near Russian borders and then returning NATO's military potential and infrastructure back to what it was in 97?

00:57:19.360 So, first of all, let's start from the fact that I'm going to say something that immediately everybody's going to jump on and say, oh, my God, he's pro-Putin.

00:57:26.260 This is a terrible guy.

00:57:28.840 We don't want to stick our finger in the eye of Russia or Putin.

00:57:33.600 That shouldn't be our goal.

00:57:34.960 And I think it was so brilliant when Donald Trump would say, you know, we're going to put tough sanctions, we're going to try to change the behavior, we're going to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, but I want to get along with Russia.

00:57:45.760 And the left would go crazy to say, why are you saying that?

00:57:48.540 And I think that it's important to say up front, especially as a diplomat.

00:57:52.580 I've been at the State Department for 11 years.

00:57:54.340 We don't want to not get along with any country.

00:57:57.660 We should look to try to find ways, but we should have absolutes.

00:58:01.040 So let me start by saying that.

00:58:02.420 But I do believe that the demands of Russia to not put any hardware, and what they're really saying is don't move strike force capability, don't move mobile missile launchers, don't move people, don't make it look like you're threatening us on our borders.

00:58:23.560 So don't move it closer to us through your NATO countries or through countries in Central or Eastern Europe.

00:58:31.880 And, you know, the Russian point of view is don't threaten us by moving weaponry closer to us.

00:58:40.220 I get it.

00:58:41.160 But our point of view is you don't tell us what to do.

00:58:43.960 We're America.

00:58:44.840 And when you start threatening people, we have to react.

00:58:49.380 So it is a little bit of a chicken and an egg thing.

00:58:53.340 We want to make sure that we don't take anything off the table.

00:58:57.360 That's important in negotiations.

00:59:01.100 But I think we've had terrible negotiators because we should be able to sit across the table and say, look, we don't want war.

00:59:07.820 We are our people are tired of war.

00:59:09.600 We're bringing home troops from Iraq and Afghanistan while now Biden is adding troops in Syria.

00:59:15.240 So he is trying to start wars.

00:59:18.240 But under Trump, we certainly didn't.

00:59:20.520 And I think that it's really important when we boil this down that the audience understands we did not have this problem when Donald Trump was saying we have sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,

00:59:34.840 which is a huge, not only moneymaker for Russia, but it is a pipeline of influence into Europe.

00:59:44.280 And when we had sanctions and when we talked about shutting down that pipeline, it never came online.

00:59:49.280 And technically, it's still not online.

00:59:51.320 We could do the diplomatic thing and say we're shutting down this pipeline.

00:59:55.840 And I think Russian behavior would change. 0.90

00:59:58.000 But this would have never happened if we had a president who didn't back down and give a pipeline to the Germans and immediately the Russians smell weakness. 0.93

01:00:08.720 I mean, I could go on and there's other parts of the world.

01:00:12.180 Look at the Houthis and the UAE. 1.00

01:00:14.420 I'm so outraged about what's going on there, Megan.

01:00:16.640 It's unbelievable.

01:00:17.360 We have Abu Dhabi, a commerce hub in the Middle East, a peaceful nation and an ally.

01:00:28.280 We have a lot of Americans in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

01:00:31.180 The Houthis who were taken off the terrorist list by Joe Biden were immediately sending rockets, launching rockets into Abu Dhabi.

01:00:40.380 What is going on?

01:00:41.740 Everyone around the world is smelling weakness with Joe Biden.

01:00:44.880 So let's talk about the pipeline, because that's a big part of this.

01:00:49.240 Joe Biden had a different view of it, as you point out, than Donald Trump did.

01:00:53.100 And this is a critical pipeline for Russia, because not only does it allow them to fuel countries like Germany, which got rid of its nuclear power plants, which we're starting to do in more and more states here in the U.S., even though it's an incredibly efficient, clean way of manufacturing energy.

01:01:11.700 The cleanest.

01:01:12.700 So they got rid of their nukes, their power plants, and now they're dependent on other countries for their energy because their little renewables aren't quite cutting it.

01:01:22.720 So Russia, enter Russia, was like, we got you. 0.83

01:01:25.360 We got tons of natural resources here.

01:01:26.960 We got this pipeline.

01:01:28.180 We're going to send you what you need.

01:01:29.680 And Trump said, oh, no, no, you're not.

01:01:33.620 We're going to sanction that.

01:01:34.740 We're not going to allow that to happen.

01:01:36.020 And Biden had a different view.

01:01:37.540 And not only does that put Germany now in the position of not really being able to be in solidarity with the other NATO countries on shutting down Russia's behavior, but it emboldens Russia because they make a ton of money off of this.

01:01:51.620 Right. And that's kind of what Joe Biden was saying.

01:01:53.780 He was like, well, Russia's not going to do anything with Ukraine because they can't have additional sanctions.

01:02:00.320 They need that pipeline.

01:02:02.280 They he was like, I love how he like references his grandma or his dad with sayings that we've all heard a thousand times.

01:02:09.220 He pretends like it came from Joe Joe Biden's dad, like as my as my dad used to say, that'd be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

01:02:17.040 It's like, OK, everyone says that.

01:02:20.760 It's like Russia won't do it because I'd be cutting off the nose to spite the face. 0.95

01:02:25.160 OK, so your general thoughts on on the pipeline and how important that is and how how important Joe Biden's policies are with respect to it.

01:02:32.280 Well, first of all, let's talk about why America and the rest of the European Union doesn't want the Russian gas energy into Germany.

01:02:43.220 You know, I think most people would say, well, let them trade.

01:02:45.940 Who cares? Let them trade the the policy of America. 1.00

01:02:49.580 And it's been a bipartisan policy for decades.

01:02:52.060 And the policy of the European Union is that no country that's an ally of ours or within the EU should get too much of their energy from one place because then, you know, you can be bribed.

01:03:04.400 It's a real problem if one country, especially Russia, if you're a member of NATO, is giving you too much energy.

01:03:10.720 It's important to note that Nord Stream 1, we believe the United States policy is Nord Stream 1, should be a part of the overall diversification of energy.

01:03:22.400 Nord Stream 1 is OK.

01:03:24.100 Why not have some Russian gas, Russian energy into the mix?

01:03:29.560 That should be fine.

01:03:30.740 Our position is that Nord Stream 2, the second pipeline, goes too far.

01:03:35.120 It's too much energy.

01:03:37.140 Germany is dependent upon Russia.

01:03:38.960 And let me just tell you, as former U.S. ambassador to Germany, Germany depends on Russia. 0.73

01:03:44.420 They don't want to pick a fight.

01:03:46.260 They need to be Switzerland when it comes to Russia because of that energy.

01:03:51.160 We've already seen the Russians play games in politics with with turning down or turning off energy as making energy a weapon.

01:03:59.940 We know they do that.

01:04:01.040 And here's the other thing that I would remind my friends on the other side of the aisle here in America.

01:04:06.640 Look at the rest of Europe.

01:04:08.960 Because Germany is an outlier. 0.99

01:04:11.020 The rest of Europe, European Parliament has said no to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

01:04:16.140 They've tried to shut it down.

01:04:17.680 But Germany is a big player in the EU.

01:04:20.440 They're the largest economy in all of Europe.

01:04:22.640 So they get to do what they want.

01:04:24.120 There is this thing called Germany first economic model where Germany sells cars to China.

01:04:29.640 Germany sells cars to anybody who wants to buy it.

01:04:31.600 They love their money in Germany.

01:04:34.660 They have a budget surplus.

01:04:37.120 Think about that.

01:04:37.980 Every year they have a budget surplus.

01:04:40.660 And yet they refuse to pay their NATO obligations.

01:04:45.120 So a couple of facts on the pipeline.

01:04:48.760 The Nord Stream 2 pipeline runs from Russia to Germany.

01:04:52.160 It is 760 miles.

01:04:54.960 Took five years to build.

01:04:56.100 Costs roughly 11 billion.

01:04:57.620 Designed to double Russia's gas exports to Germany.

01:05:00.580 Runs under the Baltic Sea.

01:05:02.640 Has not started operating.

01:05:04.200 As regulators said in November, it doesn't comply with German law.

01:05:08.420 They suspended approval, but it could be.

01:05:11.680 And now we're saying, this is from U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price to NPR on Thursday,

01:05:20.340 that we, the United States, will try to halt the opening of it if Russia invades Ukraine.

01:05:26.120 And we don't control everything Germany does, but he said we will work with Germany to ensure 0.87

01:05:31.520 it does not move forward.

01:05:33.520 And this is the thing they keep going back to, Rick.

01:05:35.680 We're going to sanction them.

01:05:37.120 We're going to make it too painful for Russia to do anything to Ukraine.

01:05:40.900 And you've got people like Victoria Nuland saying, fear not.

01:05:44.280 Get me started.

01:05:45.280 I do want to get you started.

01:05:46.900 Fear not.

01:05:47.680 We're going to sanction Russia out of its bad behavior.

01:05:51.380 Oh, where do I begin?

01:05:52.760 This is such a mess.

01:05:54.300 First of all, let me.

01:05:55.580 I follow your tweets.

01:05:57.900 I'm going to be very careful not to give away intelligence here.

01:06:01.180 So let me just speak in facts.

01:06:03.040 But when I started as U.S. ambassador to Germany in 2018, I was told the pipeline was weeks away

01:06:14.160 from coming online.

01:06:16.400 And that was the argument from the Russians to say, back off.

01:06:19.880 It's at the end.

01:06:21.280 And the Germans, what are you doing? 0.61

01:06:23.780 You know, it's almost near the end.

01:06:25.280 It's too late.

01:06:25.880 Too late.

01:06:26.220 Too late.

01:06:27.380 It wasn't true.

01:06:28.520 Wasn't true then.

01:06:29.200 Now, what we're being told is we're weeks away.

01:06:32.800 We're weeks away from starting.

01:06:34.720 Not true.

01:06:36.720 We can still shut this pipeline down.

01:06:39.080 We did not bring it online in the Trump administration.

01:06:41.820 And still, the Biden administration could use diplomacy and sanction.

01:06:46.620 There was a sanction bill in the Senate just a couple of weeks ago brought forward by Ted

01:06:52.500 Cruz to say, let's sanction this.

01:06:55.660 Look what the Russians are doing. 1.00

01:06:56.820 They're making moves.

01:06:58.420 They're undermining NATO.

01:07:01.020 Let's sanction the pipeline. 1.00

01:07:02.340 Let's bring these sanctions back online that Biden took away.

01:07:06.460 The German ambassador and the Germans went on a lobbying campaign to lobby the Democrats

01:07:13.020 to not do that.

01:07:15.400 The Biden administration joined them.

01:07:18.060 We had the national security advisor and the deputy secretary of state going to Democrats

01:07:24.500 in Congress, in the Senate, saying, don't put sanctions on.

01:07:28.900 Now, that doesn't make any sense.

01:07:31.300 The Democratic Party is speaking on both sides of their mouth.

01:07:37.880 They're saying we need to do something about Russia diplomatically, but they're not putting

01:07:42.020 sanctions on the number one project that Russia and Putin care about.

01:07:47.620 Putin has Google.

01:07:48.940 He sees what's going on.

01:07:50.680 He sees that the Senate is so weak and that the Democrats and the Germans are working together 1.00

01:07:55.820 to not put sanctions on his pipeline.

01:07:58.280 So he pockets that and he moves forward.

01:08:00.700 So I really believe that if you want to avoid a war, you should put sanctions back on.

01:08:07.180 You should do diplomacy.

01:08:09.520 Do it right now.

01:08:10.580 I don't understand.

01:08:11.560 When you move Russian troops to the border of Ukraine and you have belligerent talk and

01:08:17.180 actions, why aren't we immediately sanctioning this pipeline?

01:08:22.920 And when we talk about sanctions, it's about the companies that are helping to finish and

01:08:28.480 build this project.

01:08:29.820 Those companies do worldwide work.

01:08:32.600 So, for instance, there's one company that is a deep water pipe layer.

01:08:38.900 There's very few companies.

01:08:40.040 I think there's only two or three in the whole world that do that.

01:08:42.640 They also work in the Gulf of Mexico.

01:08:44.580 They work with American companies.

01:08:46.800 If they're sanctioned on this one project, they're not going to risk the rest of their

01:08:50.820 business.

01:08:51.300 They're going to shut it down.

01:08:52.300 So we do have tools.

01:08:55.340 We absolutely have tools.

01:08:56.960 But we haven't been able to utilize that.

01:09:00.260 When I was DNI, I watched this closely.

01:09:02.760 I had every single day I asked for a briefing on the pipeline because I knew it wasn't too

01:09:09.260 late and that there was more that we could do.

01:09:11.380 And I would try to educate senators to say, read your intel.

01:09:15.700 Don't listen to the German or the Russian spin. 0.77

01:09:19.040 Read your intel and react.

01:09:21.360 Obviously, a lot of them didn't.

01:09:24.060 It's funny because at that disastrous press conference, President Biden kept saying it's

01:09:28.020 totally up to Russia.

01:09:29.180 It's totally up to Vladimir Putin.

01:09:31.720 What comes next?

01:09:32.520 You know, it's completely his decision whether he's going to launch basically World War Three

01:09:37.160 by starting this.

01:09:38.900 And a lot of people were saying, well, why are we allowing that?

01:09:42.020 Why wouldn't we?

01:09:42.760 You know, it's not like we're some meek little player with no international heft.

01:09:46.560 Why wouldn't we come out and say, no, it's not totally up to Vladimir Putin.

01:09:49.980 We'll make it so painful for him to actually do this and create this conflict that he will

01:09:56.720 have no choice but to back down.

01:09:59.260 And I guess sanctions is our most effective means of doing it.

01:10:03.460 The only answer I seem to glean from grandpa at the at the presser was it'll hurt us, too,

01:10:09.760 economically.

01:10:11.060 Look, I think it's really important.

01:10:13.180 We could do a whole show on this next point.

01:10:15.460 But but Washington is literally trapped into military talk and military planning.

01:10:24.820 Yeah.

01:10:25.420 As somebody who's been at the State Department for 11 years, we're in a crisis at the State

01:10:29.960 Department.

01:10:30.860 We have diplomats who are not very good and who haven't been trained to have muscle when

01:10:37.880 they go in.

01:10:38.580 We have diplomats who don't know how to negotiate.

01:10:40.680 They know how to write reports about what's going on in a political situation.

01:10:44.280 But we need diplomacy with muscle.

01:10:47.260 I mean, look, let's be honest.

01:10:48.800 I was mocked.

01:10:49.720 A whole bunch of other people were mocked for being undiplomatic or whatever.

01:10:53.600 When when, you know, I'm the nicest guy in the world.

01:10:56.340 I was never rude to anyone, but I was firm.

01:10:59.740 And I would say to Chancellor Merkel, no, you know, it doesn't make sense.

01:11:02.720 And the American people don't understand when you have a budget surplus and you're not paying

01:11:06.760 your NATO bill.

01:11:07.520 It doesn't make sense.

01:11:08.280 Why are you doing that?

01:11:09.060 You know what she once said to me, the reason why it really riles up the media in Germany

01:11:14.180 when I say that and the reason why the political people attack me and the reason she doesn't 0.92

01:11:18.220 like it is because it's true.

01:11:20.640 She literally said that to me.

01:11:22.160 She knows it doesn't look good.

01:11:23.520 But they have all sorts of reasons why nobody wants a, you know, another powerful military

01:11:29.480 in Germany, which is not true.

01:11:31.140 But that's one of their excuses.

01:11:32.400 And so we've got to get around that.

01:11:35.460 And the way to get around that is diplomacy with muscle, training our State Department

01:11:39.800 diplomats to understand when you're sitting at the table, you've got to solve this problem.

01:11:47.020 You've got to be tough.

01:11:48.340 You've got to come up with creative ideas, because if you fail, you take that file and

01:11:52.600 you transfer it over to the Pentagon.

01:11:55.200 They don't negotiate.

01:11:56.000 And what Washington right now is trapped in is immediately sending troops into every

01:12:01.820 situation, immediately saying, oh, what's the military option?

01:12:05.720 And so instead of diplomacy with muscle, we've pushed the State Department aside.

01:12:10.520 I mean, you've got Blinken, who is a disaster at negotiating.

01:12:13.360 He sends in Wendy Sherman, who is, you know, basically her nickname is What Do You Want, Wendy?

01:12:17.680 She sits at the table and gives everything away. 0.83

01:12:20.720 She's done that in North Korea. 0.84

01:12:22.220 She's done it in Iran.

01:12:23.400 Now she's doing it with Russia. 0.72

01:12:24.680 It's like a drive-by shooting for them.

01:12:27.040 They go in.

01:12:28.100 They watch everything that's happened.

01:12:29.820 They sit at the table.

01:12:30.760 They issue a statement.

01:12:32.340 They claim we had a meeting.

01:12:34.340 I'm so tired of the State Department pretending like a meeting is action.

01:12:38.540 A meeting is a tactic.

01:12:39.960 A meeting is like we get there and now what?

01:12:42.560 A meeting is nothing.

01:12:44.300 You've got to have action.

01:12:45.780 And so I believe that when you go in as a State Department diplomat, you better be there

01:12:51.160 with muscle because if you fail, you've got war coming behind you.

01:12:55.120 I also will just finish with this.

01:12:56.940 I don't want to see diplomats talking about true presence and war.

01:13:02.280 You can talk about the possibility that the Pentagon will come in if we fail, but I don't believe that a diplomat should be there saying, you know, war, war, war.

01:13:11.740 And we have too many diplomats, even on our side of the aisle, that talk about war instead of it being a backstop.

01:13:19.380 It just seems to me that they keep using it as a tool.

01:13:22.480 And I want to see diplomats that go in, get creative, and who are there until the end so that we don't have war, so that we can avoid it.

01:13:30.440 But you've got to be tough if you're going to do that.

01:13:32.360 The current crop of diplomats that we have, honestly, too many of them are not cutting it.

01:13:37.360 What do you want, Wendy?

01:13:39.520 It's not fair to use somebody's high school reputation again.

01:13:42.100 No, I don't.

01:13:42.640 I know nothing about her past.

01:13:43.920 Just kidding.

01:13:45.260 All right.

01:13:45.800 Now, up next, I'm going to ask Rick about that disastrous press conference and what exactly how did that change the stakes now?

01:13:52.680 We've pulled the people out of our embassy.

01:13:54.760 Was that necessary?

01:13:56.040 It obviously wasn't imminent when we did it.

01:13:58.400 But, you know, after what happened in Afghanistan, were we were we wrong to do it early?

01:14:02.860 That's up next.

01:14:03.620 And then we'll talk about President Biden's SCOTUS requirements, Supreme Court requirements and how the American people feel about it.

01:14:10.340 Don't go away.

01:14:15.280 The Biden press conference earlier this month, I mean, left and right, has been condemned as a disaster.

01:14:22.240 The comment about minor incursion possibly being OK in Ukraine.

01:14:27.780 I'm fascinated to know your thoughts on what has where has that gotten us?

01:14:31.900 How much of what we're saying right now and what Putin's thinking right now is linked.

01:14:36.740 I'll just play it for the audience.

01:14:37.960 It's only 14 seconds to this comment by Joe Biden at that presser on January 19th.

01:14:44.580 Take a listen.

01:14:45.200 I think what you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. 0.96

01:14:52.220 And it depends on what it does.

01:14:53.700 It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.

01:15:01.140 And so that was just a short bet.

01:15:02.380 But that's he's that's one thing.

01:15:03.980 And then he spent the rest of the week.

01:15:05.140 And Jen Psaki did, too, trying to clean it up. 1.00

01:15:07.080 Look, we need to understand that the disastrous Afghanistan pullout is really the basis for what we're talking about.

01:15:15.700 It shocked the world.

01:15:16.820 And Joe Biden went out and said, hey, we got 90 percent of the people out, which was real terrible because it was an admittance that the United States was going to leave 10 percent behind.

01:15:25.620 And that was OK.

01:15:26.740 That was literally a earth shattering moment for our allies to understand maybe we can't rely on the United States.

01:15:35.140 Maybe this is the United States that's moving in a different direction that it was really groundbreaking.

01:15:41.280 I actually believe we've I said this before about the Houthis, but I actually believe that moment the Houthis thought, well, now's the time that we can start attacking others in this region. 0.61

01:15:51.500 They were taken off the terrorist list by Biden.

01:15:54.140 Biden clearly thinks we're doing OK.

01:15:56.100 Let's let's up our game.

01:15:57.420 And so then you come back to this press conference and you have the minor incursion, really a delineation between how much can Russia go in and take over a country that was heard very loudly by Ukraine.

01:16:13.220 And look, this last phone call that Joe Biden had with President Zelensky was also not a very good phone call because what what my sources are telling me and I trust my sources.

01:16:27.240 I can tell you they're they're absolute that Zelensky was told President Zelensky was told by President Biden that Ukraine should expect no more hardware, no more military help from the United States and no more sanctions unless Russia goes in.

01:16:47.120 To which President Zelensky was very upset and he said, this is the worst of both worlds for us, Mr.

01:16:54.760 President, you don't understand.

01:16:57.040 It's the worst of both worlds.

01:16:58.920 You're not stopping the Russians at all. 0.88

01:17:01.120 They continue to march forward and you're ruining our economy because you're scaring the heck out of people.

01:17:07.600 Now, if one country would be the country that would not want to downplay war and maybe arguably overplay the threat.

01:17:17.120 It would be Ukraine. 0.85

01:17:18.460 But the Ukraine government is from top to bottom is telling everybody, don't panic.

01:17:25.860 We don't see a war coming.

01:17:28.140 Right.

01:17:28.520 And I don't think it's just about their economy.

01:17:30.520 I think they would be prepared.

01:17:32.460 And so when the United States is the first country to say evacuate the the embassy, no other country did that, Megan.

01:17:43.980 We don't have an ambassador there, by the way.

01:17:46.160 So this is an important point.

01:17:47.920 Let me just tell you the way embassies work with no ambassador there.

01:17:51.580 Everybody is a foreign service officer beholden to Washington to get a promotion and to get a good report on their annual employment survey.

01:18:00.460 No one is going to do anything unless Wendy Sherman and Anthony Blinken tell them to do this.

01:18:08.640 And so this decision was a Washington based decision.

01:18:12.380 Evacuate.

01:18:13.600 You know, they started with non-essential personnel, to which my reaction was, why are we paying for people who are non-essential?

01:18:19.740 We should have a lean, mean, diplomatic core of only essential people.

01:18:23.980 Why are we paying people that really don't matter?

01:18:27.100 But anyway, we started with non-essential.

01:18:29.520 We moved to everybody, evacuated the embassy.

01:18:33.260 The first America was first to evacuate.

01:18:36.380 Nobody followed.

01:18:37.440 No other country followed.

01:18:39.500 It's embarrassing.

01:18:41.160 So it's embarrassing.

01:18:42.420 So it was unnecessary.

01:18:43.640 We were the first to tuck tail.

01:18:45.180 I mean, to your point of leave no man behind.

01:18:47.100 Right as Afghanistan was happening, we had on Marcus Luttrell and his twin brother, Morgan.

01:18:53.480 And, you know, the whole movie in the book, Lone Survivor, are all about how we we don't leave anyone behind.

01:19:00.100 It doesn't matter how dangerous it is.

01:19:01.800 We go back in and we find find our guys.

01:19:05.000 And they were just so stunned that we had just made this decision to just pull up stakes and shrug our shoulders about those who remained.

01:19:13.220 So but is this a damned if you're do if you do damned if you don't situation for Biden?

01:19:17.440 Now he says, let's get them all out.

01:19:19.520 Yeah, that's such a great question, because my only reaction to that and I've gotten that question a lot of like, oh, it doesn't mean no matter what you what you really did.

01:19:27.840 You are going to always be criticized.

01:19:29.540 Here's my reaction.

01:19:31.320 We have to be able to use intelligence to inform our decisions.

01:19:37.060 We cannot let emotion or misinformation get involved in our decisions.

01:19:42.680 Our decisions should not be political.

01:19:45.580 I actually believe that because of the criticism in Afghanistan, the disaster that we had in leaving people behind, Jake Sullivan and the entire NSC apparatus became political.

01:19:57.720 And they said, we got to lean forward and remove our people proactively because of Afghanistan.

01:20:04.080 Let's be emotional about Ukraine and let's get our people out. 1.00

01:20:08.640 It's a double whammy.

01:20:09.760 You missed the information last time and then you overestimated this time.

01:20:15.720 Intelligence is an estimate.

01:20:17.480 Sometimes you get it right.

01:20:18.280 Sometimes you get it wrong.

01:20:19.460 But clearly what this administration is doing is letting misinformation and emotion get into our intelligence decisions.

01:20:25.780 With that estimate, sometimes you underestimate and sometimes you overestimate.

01:20:31.460 They did both.

01:20:33.500 So now what?

01:20:34.840 How do you see this ending?

01:20:36.060 We're not going to meet Putin's demands.

01:20:38.040 And indeed, you know, analysts are saying he's being intentionally, you know, he's asking for the moon intentionally, knowing that we're never going to meet these demands.

01:20:47.000 And so why is he doing that?

01:20:49.000 Right.

01:20:49.220 Like, where does he want to land it?

01:20:51.120 And what do you see happening?

01:20:52.760 I see that Putin has already won.

01:20:56.420 He's wanted to scare member states and NATO to not expand.

01:21:01.340 We're going to have a reluctance to talk about expansion.

01:21:04.580 And by the way, let me just say, separate from this, you know, people are going to quote me in years to come on this next statement.

01:21:12.360 But separate from all of the drama that's happening, I don't believe that we should be adding members to NATO until everybody is paying their bill and everybody is doing 2% and doing everything that they're obligated to do.

01:21:30.040 Why are we talking about making the membership bigger when the current membership are not pulling their weight?

01:21:36.060 So I want to make that very clear.

01:21:38.800 But the reality is, is that what the Russians and what Putin specifically want is no more discussions about NATO expansion and certainly no more, you know, aggressive NATO, a successful NATO.

01:21:54.480 He doesn't want that.

01:21:55.300 He wants us trapped into talking about obligations and pay and back pay and, you know, all sorts of misinformation about the strategy that we're going to do on cyber, which is what, you know, NATO is trapped in right now of where are we going to go and how active are we going to be with cyber attacks?

01:22:14.860 So the reality is, is with Putin winning and getting us to get off our game on a unified NATO, and I blame the Germans largely. 0.78

01:22:26.460 Their move towards Switzerland foreign policy is so evident.

01:22:30.800 They want to sell cars to everybody and they don't want to make tough decisions.

01:22:34.260 They're really undermining NATO.

01:22:35.820 And as the largest economy in Europe to undermine NATO, you know, Putin wins. 0.64

01:22:41.620 He loves his relationship with Germany right now and the Germans need him.

01:22:46.420 And so I actually pray and hope that he doesn't invade.

01:22:52.240 And I think the signs are that he's already won.

01:22:55.040 He's threatened us.

01:22:56.440 But again, I think we got to be prepared because the last time he took over Crimea was right after the Olympics.

01:23:01.820 And I'm sure I'm quite sure that Chinese President Xi has called Putin to say, can you at least give me good news at the Olympics?

01:23:14.680 Don't start a war before.

01:23:16.560 Well, if you're going to do something, do it afterwards.

01:23:19.080 There's no question about that.

01:23:21.180 So what about can I just ask you, is there a lot of people who are I don't know?

01:23:25.860 I don't know how I describe them, but who criticize the expansion of NATO anyway, who say NATO was something we came up with after World War Two to prevent aggression from Russia.

01:23:38.400 And here we are, you know, 80 years after that.

01:23:41.460 Like, do we really need the expansion?

01:23:44.120 Why are we expanding this organization that was formed to counter a threat that it's still there, but it's not exactly what it used to be?

01:23:52.500 You're hitting on all the right questions, and we need to really rethink NATO.

01:23:57.040 And I would argue, Megan, that Donald Trump really, even though he boiled it down to, you know, pay your fair share, Germany is not paying its fair share.

01:24:07.040 I have been in lots of discussions with him about NATO.

01:24:10.500 And his frustration is that NATO is not up to date in terms of what the current threats are.

01:24:17.100 And that's why I brought up cyber.

01:24:18.880 We need to rethink NATO.

01:24:20.420 We need to rethink how a membership is done.

01:24:23.720 We need to think about the current threats.

01:24:26.700 You know, there are members of NATO that do not share the same threat assessment that we do.

01:24:31.620 And so there needs to be a discussion about that.

01:24:34.280 I think we need to have a real, you know, discussion about Turkey's membership in NATO.

01:24:40.680 And I'm not suggesting to kick them out.

01:24:42.200 I'm not.

01:24:43.000 What I am suggesting is that we need to have a more thoughtful strategy about why are they in NATO,

01:24:48.640 what they can do to help, what are the current threats.

01:24:52.320 We can't just think of the threats as, you know, Russia taking over Ukraine.

01:24:56.860 So we've got to roll tanks into Eastern Europe.

01:24:59.400 I do believe that if we had a assessment of what are today's threats, we would have a much better strategy of what it's going to take to be a NATO member and how to make NATO current membership stronger.

01:25:16.320 Hmm. OK, this is a good transition soundbite.

01:25:21.620 So it's not going particularly well for Joe Biden domestically or abroad from Afghanistan to this debacle where you can see he's not that well respected on the world stage.

01:25:30.680 And we, we, more importantly, the United States is not that well respected at the moment.

01:25:36.440 Not according to Donna Brazile.

01:25:39.420 Here was my old pal Donna Brazile, who cheated at a presidential debate and then made the mistake of sitting for an interview with me and denied it. 1.00

01:25:46.820 Meanwhile, we already had her emails.

01:25:47.940 I love that.

01:25:48.460 She had already.

01:25:49.000 I love that.

01:25:49.440 That was one of the best interviews ever.

01:25:51.020 She was like getting indignant with me.

01:25:52.600 I was like, ma'am, you already admitted it.

01:25:54.840 It's too late for this routine.

01:25:56.100 Anyway, Ben Fox News made her an employee.

01:25:59.460 It's OK.

01:26:01.200 And now this week she was on the Sunday shows.

01:26:04.420 And this is how she described Joe Biden's current position.

01:26:08.800 You know, Joe Biden's number one priority is the health, safety and well-being of the American people, which means crime prevention, which means jobs creation, which means making sure that we can go home to safe neighborhoods and have clean drinking water.

01:26:23.180 He's a good president.

01:26:24.280 He might be at 40 percent or 30 percent.

01:26:26.720 But you know what?

01:26:27.700 He's doing everything right.

01:26:29.440 Your thoughts on that, Rick?

01:26:30.940 I mean, this is such the Washington way to have these recycled people that just stick to the lines.

01:26:36.500 And I don't understand why ABC, CBS and NBC have these, you know, characters.

01:26:42.280 I mean, they literally she's working for ABC now.

01:26:44.720 Yeah, it's like Baghdad, Bob.

01:26:46.180 You know, they say something that is not based in reality.

01:26:49.420 And only in Washington, D.C. do people go along with it.

01:26:52.300 I mean, the rest of us on the outside look at it as a circus.

01:26:56.100 But but in Washington, there's this group think and group mentality.

01:26:59.480 And they say, oh, Donna Brazile, everybody knows her.

01:27:01.600 And, you know, she's got this history.

01:27:03.340 She's the first woman to run a presidential. 1.00

01:27:05.740 And so they give her the ability to just go out and say anything.

01:27:09.860 And meanwhile, it's like, you know, propaganda from the ruling party.

01:27:14.660 And so I believe, Megan, we really no longer have a fight between Republicans and Democrats in this country.

01:27:21.260 But really, the problem is Washington, D.C. and the rest of America.

01:27:25.500 What works in Washington doesn't work outside.

01:27:28.180 People go there and get really taken.

01:27:31.360 And this is not a criticism of just Democrats.

01:27:34.420 There are a whole bunch of Republicans who are there 20, 30 years.

01:27:37.660 And they just love the place.

01:27:40.540 Their social life is there.

01:27:41.600 Their church is there.

01:27:42.940 They never want to tear it down.

01:27:45.480 We've got to stop asking reporters who live there and wear the hats of the sports teams and their kids go to school there.

01:27:51.840 We have to stop asking them to to, you know, make Washington, D.C. less powerful with a smaller budget.

01:27:59.700 They're never going to do that.

01:28:01.320 We've got to send people there that are on the outside. 0.69

01:28:04.680 I'll just finish with this one point.

01:28:06.900 And I believe this really strongly.

01:28:08.900 If you're listening to this podcast and you're about to vote in an election in your state for senator or congressman, look at the person you've never heard of and look at their background.

01:28:20.280 Because the whole idea of sending somebody new means you haven't heard of them before.

01:28:27.280 If you've heard of these people, it's because they've run for office three or four times.

01:28:31.500 Don't just vote for the name because you're comfortable hearing the name.

01:28:35.260 Look at the outsider, look at the person you've never heard of and look at their background.

01:28:40.340 We want business people, people from all walks of life, the Jeffersonian principle to go to Washington, make the laws while they're there and then leave the place, come home and live under those laws.

01:28:53.460 I get the whole idea of term limits are not good in theory because you deny my ability to vote for who I want.

01:29:03.040 I get all that.

01:29:04.040 But the theory isn't working anymore.

01:29:06.440 The reality is, is that name ID keeps getting reelected.

01:29:11.640 And I think we should have term limits.

01:29:13.540 I really I believe that that it would reset if we had term limits for the bureaucrats who also work for the politicians.

01:29:22.440 Oh, I'll tell it to Nancy Pelosi, who said last time around she wouldn't run again.

01:29:27.620 And now at 81, she's going to.

01:29:31.200 She cannot separate herself from power, even though it certainly appears the American people are about to do that for her.

01:29:39.020 She's not she's not going to be.

01:29:40.220 Let me make a prediction next year.

01:29:41.920 Let me make a prediction.

01:29:43.380 She runs for reelection.

01:29:44.980 She gets reelected.

01:29:46.880 The Republicans take over the House.

01:29:49.560 She then gives up her seat. 0.88

01:29:50.940 We have to have a special election.

01:29:52.380 She's already got this in her mind.

01:29:54.440 And the state of California has to pay for a special election.

01:29:57.520 Somebody, some real reporter, some real journalist in Washington should ask her,

01:30:02.700 are you committing to not give up your seat for two years to have a special election, a costly special election?

01:30:09.760 Wait, why would she do that? 0.96

01:30:10.800 Because she can see just the same as the rest of us that the House is likely to go red.

01:30:15.580 I mean, it's predictable.

01:30:16.440 These these politicians in Washington stick to the line until the very end.

01:30:21.680 You know, they always they they they ignore reality.

01:30:25.720 And so she's going to do that because she doesn't want to signal that the Democrats are losing.

01:30:31.120 You know, they still believe that there's a chance.

01:30:32.840 And you've got Donna Brazile saying, you know, Joe Biden is doing great.

01:30:35.980 So, you know, the people who believe in Washington, the rhetoric of the ruling party are going to stick to that.

01:30:43.580 So she doesn't want to signal that somehow there's a problem.

01:30:46.540 She will say, I'm running and I'm going to be the speaker again.

01:30:50.120 And then when she loses, she'll give it up.

01:30:53.540 That's my reaction.

01:30:54.260 OK, now let's talk about the Supreme Court, because that's another area in which there seems to be a divide between the this administration and the American people.

01:31:03.700 Joe Biden has has come out and made very clear that he's got really just two criteria, two main criteria for who's going to be the Supreme Court justice.

01:31:12.440 I'll let I'll let him say it.

01:31:14.080 This is soundbite seven.

01:31:15.080 I've made no decision except one person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity.

01:31:28.260 And that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. 0.86

01:31:34.840 OK, so there was a poll, ABC News, Ipsos over the last couple of days, and 76 percent of the American people do not want this.

01:31:42.640 They it's not that they have anything against a black woman as a Supreme Court justice.

01:31:46.560 They just want him to consider all possible nominees.

01:31:49.420 They don't want identity politics controlling the next Supreme Court pick.

01:31:53.640 Only 23 percent believe he should consider exclusively black women for the nomination.

01:31:59.640 He's hell bent on doing it.

01:32:01.280 He's fallen almost 20 percent in terms of 20 20 percentage points with the black voters in the past few months.

01:32:08.140 So you tell me whether it's all about that or whether he's on the right track.

01:32:11.900 What do you think?

01:32:13.280 Where to even begin with this disastrous announcement?

01:32:16.780 I mean, you know, what I heard immediately were Asians, Hispanics and gays were not going to be considered.

01:32:23.100 And that's outrageous.

01:32:25.340 Men are not going to be considered. 0.97

01:32:27.160 Whites are not going to be considered.

01:32:29.520 This is not what Dr. King envisioned.

01:32:31.640 This is, you know, look, Joe Biden voted against the first the second black person of the the first black conservative to sit on the Supreme Court.

01:32:43.500 He roughed him up. 0.97

01:32:44.280 Now he's making this outrageous demand that the only people he are the only people he's going to consider are black women. 0.93

01:32:56.180 I don't even think black women are going to go along with this because the reality is whoever gets the nomination is going to have an asterisk next to their name. 1.00

01:33:07.080 They weren't in a pool of being considered as the best.

01:33:11.400 And that's sad because there are a lot of black women who are very qualified, who should be considered in the larger pool. 1.00

01:33:20.640 This is also just politically stupid. 0.99

01:33:23.340 Why didn't he just give us a list of everybody he's going to consider and do what he does best, which is, you know, you put somebody handicapped on there, you put a gay on there, you put a Hispanic and an Asian and and then you pick. 0.99

01:33:37.060 And he could have picked whoever he wanted.

01:33:38.640 And and I I think that what he has done is really undermined the Supreme Court and this specific nominee to always be the one that wasn't considered with everyone else.

01:33:53.020 The same as he did to Kamala Harris, the same thing, just just handicapped them a little going into the next phase in a way that's totally unnecessary.

01:34:02.040 But he wanted the bounce in the polls that came from saying, I'm going to find a black running mate, or in this case, I'm going to find a black woman. 0.85

01:34:10.160 He got the bounce from the Washington, D.C. newsrooms.

01:34:13.380 He didn't get the bounce from the American people.

01:34:15.720 The American people look at this and they say, oh, gosh, I hate this.

01:34:19.340 This is not what Dr. King envisioned.

01:34:21.320 And again, I go back to, you know, there are a whole bunch of qualified Asian women, Hispanic women, lesbians. 1.00

01:34:29.800 They weren't even considered, Megan.

01:34:32.040 Mm hmm.

01:34:33.380 I know it's it's embarrassing because, honestly, you see these distinguished jurists up there.

01:34:38.760 You will when one of them is named and accepts the nomination and then has to sit before the Senate for the confirmation. 0.98

01:34:45.440 And you're thinking about pigmentation and vaginas. 0.61

01:34:49.680 Honestly, it's like I don't want to have to think about that when I see the choice.

01:34:54.800 I want to think about what's between her ears.

01:34:57.320 That's it.

01:34:57.820 And it's because of him that I won't be.

01:35:02.040 Look, you know, you didn't get your job because you're a woman. 1.00

01:35:07.200 And I find it really condescending. 0.98

01:35:10.440 The Democrats always send out press releases when they hire a gay person.

01:35:13.800 And I think it's just it's not good for the nominee or the person that you pick to somehow make an irrelevant characteristic as the reason they're getting the job.

01:35:26.940 Look, as somebody who's had to fight within the Republican Party to actually even get an interview for the job.

01:35:35.080 Right.

01:35:35.160 You know, I didn't get a leg up.

01:35:37.500 I certainly didn't get any help.

01:35:38.920 I had another barrier to get over.

01:35:42.540 But, you know, it makes you better.

01:35:45.780 It makes you stronger.

01:35:47.060 And I think that's what we want in America is people who get their job on merit, not on skin color, not on gender, not on sexual orientation.

01:36:00.140 You know, it would be amazing if one of the women, let's say he whatever, I don't know who he's going to choose, but let's say he chooses this one woman on the D.C. Court of Appeals. 0.63

01:36:09.240 If she publicly says, I decline because I will not be an affirmative action appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court, you get back to me or some other future president, get back to me when what you're looking for is the most talented jurist.

01:36:24.400 Then I'll consider you consider me in the larger pool of everyone.

01:36:28.060 Yeah, that would be amazing.

01:36:29.760 Oh, my gosh.

01:36:30.340 I hope she does it.

01:36:31.260 Whoever it is, I hope she does it because then he's going to come back begging on his hands and knees. 0.96

01:36:34.980 You're still going to get the job.

01:36:36.100 It's just you're going to have the love of the American people and remove all the doubts he has created about you before we even know who you are.

01:36:44.400 Rick, it's not good for the Supreme Court pick as somebody who's broken a lot of barriers.

01:36:48.780 I appreciate your perspective on it.

01:36:50.600 You you've fought a lot of fights and you almost always win them, which is also amazing.

01:36:55.380 It's a pleasure.

01:36:56.380 Thank you for your expertise.

01:36:58.040 Always a pleasure.

01:36:58.960 Thanks, Megan.

01:36:59.960 All right.

01:37:00.220 To be continued and coming up, we're going to take some of your questions.

01:37:03.900 Don't go away.

01:37:06.100 Now it's time for Asked and Answered.

01:37:11.580 This is a feature where listeners submit their questions via email to questions at devilmaycaremedia.com.

01:37:19.520 And we do our best to answer them.

01:37:21.020 My executive producer, Steve Krakauer, joins me now with the question part of the feature.

01:37:25.960 Steve, what's on the docket here?

01:37:27.920 Hey, Megan.

01:37:28.340 Yeah, we are.

01:37:29.120 We are checking that email inbox.

01:37:30.360 So keep those questions coming.

01:37:31.500 We're going to get to more of those this year.

01:37:33.520 And we also check from Instagram.

01:37:34.660 This one came to us from Kim, who wants to know, what advice do you have for first time

01:37:38.980 moms?

01:37:40.180 Oh, Kim, a lot.

01:37:42.040 I have a lot of thoughts on that.

01:37:43.520 For me, that was not my favorite time of motherhood.

01:37:47.460 I mean, I actually right right now is my favorite time of motherhood.

01:37:49.940 They're 12, 10 and eight.

01:37:50.760 And it's awesome.

01:37:51.260 And so what I really tell first time mothers, people who are pregnant, expecting their first

01:37:55.860 baby is to set the expectations low.

01:37:59.460 Because if you're anything like I was, I expected myself to be in a white flowing dress, looking

01:38:03.800 beautiful on a couch like the like the Brett commercial.

01:38:06.960 If you're as old as I am, you'll know that reference.

01:38:09.520 And, you know, having it all together with my beautiful baby there at my side.

01:38:13.120 And I'm going to have everything, you know, worked out.

01:38:15.500 And of course, the reality was so much different. 0.89

01:38:18.160 I look disgusting. 0.96

01:38:19.620 Of course, your body is just completely out of control from having carried a baby for nine 0.99

01:38:23.700 months. 1.00

01:38:24.380 Your breasts are killing you. 1.00

01:38:26.220 Breastfeeding was so painful in the beginning. 0.99

01:38:29.220 I mean, bloody and awful and excruciating.

01:38:32.520 Sorry to gross you out, guys.

01:38:34.140 And it's hard.

01:38:36.120 The baby cries a lot.

01:38:37.540 It needs you every hour.

01:38:39.280 You can't get any sleep.

01:38:40.500 You're under rested, which is the number one thing that causes bad moods and stress.

01:38:43.760 And so I think if you go into it, knowing all that's going to happen, that you're going

01:38:48.520 to be stressed out, that you may not be enjoying it, that you may even be looking at this little

01:38:51.440 baby like, oh, my God, I ruined my life.

01:38:53.280 You will have a shot of enjoying it more if you happen to be one of those mothers to whom

01:38:57.380 it all comes so naturally.

01:38:58.900 Great.

01:38:59.780 No problem with setting lower expectations.

01:39:01.900 But if you're somebody like me who realizes upon birth that like, oh, my God, this is so

01:39:05.700 hard, so much harder than I ever expected.

01:39:08.120 Am I a bad mother?

01:39:09.100 Does it make me a bad mother that I'm not enjoying it?

01:39:11.780 Remember stories like mine.

01:39:13.060 No, it doesn't.

01:39:14.160 And it gets so much easier and so much better.

01:39:19.540 And by the way, so does the breastfeeding.

01:39:20.820 So if you can hang in there, it gets so much easier.

01:39:22.720 And by the time you're like six, seven, eight months, that baby's taken like five to 800

01:39:26.960 calories off of you a day.

01:39:28.480 It's worth it for that reason alone.

01:39:30.660 All right.

01:39:30.880 Don't miss the show tomorrow.

01:39:31.960 We've got a great little culture segment with Emily Jasinski and Eliana Johnson.

01:39:35.540 And in the meantime, download the show and go to youtube.com slash Megan Kelly to 0.99

01:39:39.560 subscribe.

01:39:40.020 Thanks for listening.

01:39:43.060 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:39:46.160 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - January 31, 2022

Censorship Mob Blasts Rogan, Biden's NYPD No-Show, and Putin's Next Move, with Clay Travis and Ric Grenell ｜ Ep. 251

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