The Megyn Kelly Show - Chicago Mayor Rejects Crime Help, Trump vs. Fed Gov, and Taylor Swift Engaged, with The Fifth Column

00:00:00.540 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.200 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.960 Is it Tuesday? It's Tuesday, right?

00:00:18.060 This week is so weird because, you know, Labor Day is coming and it's Tuesday.

00:00:22.600 President Trump posted a letter he wrote to Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

00:00:27.400 We began our show about her yesterday on Truth Social last night announcing she's done.

00:00:34.700 She's toast. Stick a fork in her. 1.00

00:00:37.980 He says he's removing her from her position following allegations against her of mortgage fraud.

00:00:43.580 She's at the Federal Reserve. It's like, OK, they oversee mortgage rates.

00:00:48.060 She really does kind of need to be squeaky clean in this department. 0.99

00:00:51.380 But she is not going down without a fight. 0.99

00:00:53.740 Wait, Lisa Cook says, I'm black and I'm a woman, so F off. 0.98

00:00:59.380 No, she had her surrogate say that. 0.95

00:01:01.040 What she says is, I'm not resigning.

00:01:02.820 I'm going to continue carrying out my duties.

00:01:05.200 I got a term that takes me into the 2030s.

00:01:08.780 I'm not leaving.

00:01:09.920 Good luck, Lisa.

00:01:11.380 That's not going to end well for you.

00:01:13.100 And the Democratic Party has once again shown the world how out of touch they are.

00:01:17.460 The DNC summer meeting kicked off yesterday.

00:01:22.800 I'm going to give you two guesses how it kicked off.

00:01:26.020 I'm going to give you two guesses at home.

00:01:27.580 Just think in your head.

00:01:28.340 How would the Democrats right now trying to win back voters who are mad over their woke excesses over the past five to ten years,

00:01:37.100 what would you do if you were a Democrat in charge and you wanted to win those voters back?

00:01:42.780 Would you say, like, let's make America great again?

00:01:47.960 I don't know.

00:01:48.660 Would you say something like the pledge?

00:01:51.480 I'm thinking something like, what could a Democrat swallow?

00:01:54.400 The pledge, maybe?

00:01:55.860 No, it was a land acknowledgement.

00:01:58.180 They're really sorry to the Native Americans for stealing their land. 1.00

00:02:00.940 And they're going to do nothing about it.

00:02:02.660 But they're sorry about it, so they're a better person than we are.

00:02:05.600 Lots to get to today with our pals from The Fifth Column.

00:02:10.620 Camille Foster, editor-at-large for Tangle News.

00:02:13.520 Michael Moynihan, host of The Moynihan Report on Two-Way.

00:02:16.300 And Matt Welsh, editor-at-large for Reason.

00:02:19.380 Together they are the hosts of The Fifth Column podcast.

00:02:23.740 If you are stressed about back taxes, maybe you missed that April deadline or your books are a mess, don't wait.

00:02:29.640 The IRS is cracking down.

00:02:32.000 Penalties add up fast.

00:02:33.200 5% per month, up to 25% just for not filing.

00:02:37.120 But there is help.

00:02:39.000 Tax Network USA can take the burden off your shoulders and stop the spiral before it gets worse.

00:02:44.600 They have helped thousands of Americans, whether you're an employee, a small business owner, or haven't filed in years.

00:02:50.580 Messy books?

00:02:51.340 It's not a problem.

00:02:52.420 They've seen it all.

00:02:53.980 Tax Network USA has direct access to powerful IRS programs and expert negotiators on your side.

00:02:59.960 You'll get a free consultation, and if you qualify, they may even be able to reduce or eliminate what you owe.

00:03:06.660 More importantly, they will help protect you from wage garnishments or bank levies.

00:03:11.320 So don't wait for the next IRS letter.

00:03:13.500 Call 800-958-1000 or visit TNUSA.com slash Megan to speak to a real expert at Tax Network USA.

00:03:22.180 Take the pressure off.

00:03:23.620 Let Tax Network USA handle your tax issues.

00:03:26.920 Guys, welcome back.

00:03:29.880 Hi, Megan, for having us.

00:03:31.660 Okay.

00:03:32.740 The land acknowledgement.

00:03:34.380 It's really, it's an unbelievable thing when you actually sit there for it.

00:03:37.600 I think I told the audience this, but a couple years ago, I went to this muckety-muck, like, conference where they want you to go and speak to the luminaries of today and tomorrow. 0.54

00:03:45.760 And first they paraded out General Michael Hayden as some sort of an expert on Trump.

00:03:50.940 Meanwhile, he's like one of his chief antagonists.

00:03:52.880 Okay, this is not objective analysis.

00:03:54.720 And then they had Ashley Judd get up there, and God, she was a hot mess. 1.00

00:04:00.020 I mean, a hot mess.

00:04:01.020 But she began for, like, the first five minutes with a land acknowledgement.

00:04:04.900 This is like, the liberal, the lefts, they love these things.

00:04:08.680 But then they don't do anything.

00:04:10.220 They don't, like, make a donation.

00:04:11.680 They don't give up the land.

00:04:12.940 They don't, like, have someone like Elizabeth Warren, Chief Lieselot, come out and accept the apology.

00:04:18.860 No, that's it.

00:04:19.820 They're just like, we're bad people.

00:04:21.520 We stole your land.

00:04:22.400 Anywho.

00:04:22.800 So here was the DNC yesterday, and it's kickoff.

00:04:27.700 It's Lindy Somek, who is from the Saginaw Ojibwe Nation, and she's going to deliver our land acknowledgement today.

00:04:34.860 Lindy.

00:04:35.460 Bonjour.

00:04:36.680 Lindy Somek, Nindidichikaz, Omikdodam, Saginaw Chippewa Dojibah, Anishinaabe Kwe Ndao.

00:04:44.640 Good morning, DNC members, friends and relatives.

00:04:48.280 Let's talk about the land for a second.

00:04:51.140 Must we?

00:04:51.500 The DNC acknowledges and honors the Dakota Oyate, the Dakota people, who are the original stewards of the lands and waters of Minneapolis.

00:05:00.520 The Dakota cared for the lands, lakes, and the Wakatanka, the Great River, the Mississippi River, for thousands of years before colonization.

00:05:08.880 This land was not claimed or traded.

00:05:11.120 It's a part of a history of broken treaties and promises.

00:05:14.520 And in many ways, we still live in a system built to suppress indigenous people's cultural and spiritual history.

00:05:20.640 Oh, my gosh.

00:05:25.360 Guys, Camille, you look moved.

00:05:28.020 I feel like it touched you a little.

00:05:29.900 I mean, there's always something about those land acknowledgments that reminds me of just how out-of-touch Democrats have the capacity to be.

00:05:36.060 I mean, it's not just that this is kind of pretentious and frequently ahistorical.

00:05:40.260 It just really does expose the vanity of their political project to the extent they're talking about this stuff and not willing to abandon the land completely.

00:05:48.940 Just give it back.

00:05:49.800 Like, there's a history of bloodshed and slavery and oppression and genocide.

00:05:54.940 Well, that's how you came to own this land.

00:05:56.780 What?

00:05:57.180 You should do something about it desperately.

00:05:58.880 Yeah.

00:05:59.160 Like, yesterday, 12 years ago.

00:06:00.600 It's like Bernie Madoff beginning a speech with, like, I just want to acknowledge all the people who I hurt and whose money built this mansion from which I'm speaking to you.

00:06:08.860 Yeah, while bathing and money.

00:06:09.720 So I'm super sorry.

00:06:10.780 And anyway, could you pass me that margarita?

00:06:12.540 Thank you.

00:06:13.320 Jeeves, over there.

00:06:14.420 Bring it.

00:06:14.840 Sat.

00:06:15.180 Anyway, super sorry, as I was saying.

00:06:17.440 What's the point?

00:06:18.240 I think the sad part is that, as someone who really appreciates both history and property rights, this could be a teaching moment.

00:06:27.200 It's always unidirectional.

00:06:28.340 It's always you find some elder from a local tribe who talks at the top.

00:06:32.340 And I like to hear from the elder from a local tribe.

00:06:34.460 I think that's cool.

00:06:35.680 Doesn't necessarily have to be the beginning of every political gathering.

00:06:38.880 But if you take any patch of land, including the patches that we're all in in our various places right now, there's a lot of weird ownership disputes.

00:06:47.360 So this patch of land, the French owned it for a while.

00:06:50.100 And then there was like they went across the border and slit some throats, Champlain or whatever.

00:06:55.940 Let's go for it.

00:06:57.100 You know, this land was seized by eminent domain as part of the urban renewal phrase of the 1960s and dispossessed a lot of people without a vote.

00:07:05.480 Let's do all of it.

00:07:06.860 But they only do it in one way.

00:07:08.360 And it's right.

00:07:09.780 It is in a way to to show, you know, maximum penance and minimum action.

00:07:14.840 Well, you could be concerned with Native American lot in modern day America of all the things that made me mad about the 1619 project is why are we ignoring the people on this continent right now who we screwed over pretty bad and left with pretty bad arrangements?

00:07:31.980 Generally speaking, they got a claim and those people are patriotic as hell.

00:07:37.060 So we should be leaning in that direction and embracing all of that rather than just in a unidirectional way saying, I have the greatest morality by, you know, crying at the right moment.

00:07:47.960 They can't help themselves, Moynihan.

00:07:50.420 I was going to start this response, Megan, with a bunch of gibberish that I would pretend was a language that seven people spoke.

00:07:57.960 But let's do the Buddhist chant from I, from I, Tina.

00:08:03.060 Nyam-myo-ho-renge-kyo. 0.99

00:08:05.800 Does anyone feel better?

00:08:07.720 Mekka-laka-hai, Mekka-hini-ho. 0.97

00:08:10.020 The great Pee-wee Herman.

00:08:12.620 I want to acknowledge Steve, who lived in this apartment before me, but I could pay more.

00:08:19.340 I believe because I paid a little more rent for him and I have dispossessed him from this apartment in Brooklyn.

00:08:26.040 Steve, I'm sorry if you're listening.

00:08:28.840 No, this is, Democrats have to realize a couple of things.

00:08:32.660 One, especially Republicans do this, doesn't work out well for them either.

00:08:36.640 Doing battle over history constantly is never a vote-getter.

00:08:41.840 People get annoyed by it.

00:08:43.560 I get annoyed by it.

00:08:44.780 This constant idea that what you have, everything you have is ill-gotten gained.

00:08:49.980 I mean, Matt mentioned two things.

00:08:52.620 I'll say before that, Matt said, you know, not every political meeting should start this way.

00:08:56.320 Not every school board meeting.

00:08:59.280 Not every school assembly.

00:09:01.600 This stuff is everywhere.

00:09:03.620 And I cannot believe when we say kind of wokeness or whatever you want to call it is dead.

00:09:07.680 It's clearly not dead in the sense that they are not giving up in the universities and in local town councils and blue states, etc.

00:09:15.140 But this idea that history, they want to imbue you with the sense that everything you do, you owe a debt to somebody always and you should always acknowledge it.

00:09:24.840 As Matt pointed out, you can do land acknowledgements as far back as the fossil record.

00:09:30.220 I mean, this is land swapping and fighting and warring and slitting people's throat is really across the board, right?

00:09:38.280 I mean, it's very—

00:09:39.520 So, truly, so, Moynihan, why are they doing it?

00:09:42.820 Like, truly, why—how does today's DNC sit down, understanding the problems they have and the electoral beating they just took, and say, let's do it.

00:09:51.680 Let's include it.

00:09:52.400 Cool.

00:09:52.640 Well, I think one of the reasons is that you have an age shift, and the people who are the kind of, you know, middle-aged people, people in sort of my age cohort now, grew up with this thing.

00:10:05.000 And I certainly grew up with this, that this country has this original sin.

00:10:10.120 And to be a liberal, you have to acknowledge constantly the original sin of this country, which is both stealing land and the institution of slavery and racism.

00:10:18.800 And so, to keep on this kind of religious, you know, it's kind of like a religious mantra.

00:10:25.600 You have to say it at the beginning of everything that you do to say, well, we are, in our original state, a bad country and bad people.

00:10:35.300 In the rest of time, in perpetuity, we have to try to cleanse ourselves of that sin, which is burning down white supremacy, burning down the current structure of the government.

00:10:44.760 It's a destructive, almost revolutionary way of thinking.

00:10:47.840 Yeah, and you're gesturing towards these impossible-to-conceive-of, almost, invisible enemies that can't be defeated.

00:10:56.300 It's so much easier than actually having to do something about the things that are materially impacting the quality or lack thereof of people's lives.

00:11:04.100 So that's why you get all of this performance politics.

00:11:07.260 So it's exactly the same thing.

00:11:08.980 This is the same reason why Trump is having to try to rein in the Smithsonian.

00:11:14.100 It's doing the same thing.

00:11:14.980 The museums are doing—it's a series of museums.

00:11:17.620 They're doing the same thing.

00:11:18.720 Like, basically, every corner is a land acknowledgment.

00:11:22.240 We're terrible because they need us to believe we're terrible, that the United States is terrible.

00:11:27.820 That's why the flag is, like, a dirty symbol now, and he's left his houses.

00:11:31.240 I've told a story before, but when I was at NBC, we were doing a story—it was a charity story.

00:11:35.040 It was, like, we were surprising a widow whose husband had died suddenly with, like, a special gift, and NBC was like, don't have that flag in the background.

00:11:45.860 I mean, the flag was at her house.

00:11:47.260 It was, like, a patriotic widow.

00:11:49.320 They were like, no, don't have the flag in the background.

00:11:51.360 An American flag.

00:11:53.340 Yes, an American flag.

00:11:54.380 It was on Long Island.

00:11:55.700 It was like, what's so controversial about the flag that NBC doesn't feel comfortable having it in the background of a widow's—it was her flag at her house.

00:12:04.340 But that's—it's the same—all part of the same thing, which is we're terrible.

00:12:10.640 We're awful.

00:12:12.040 And there are original sins and then sins on top of those original sins, beyond which we never can move.

00:12:17.840 And we're the better people because we recognize it.

00:12:21.620 And—but to your point that you just made, Camille, so right.

00:12:24.780 But our willingness to do something about it stops at the word because we're not actually going to take a look at South Chicago and do something to help those guys.

00:12:34.260 No, no.

00:12:35.260 We're not actually going to take a look at the Native American reservations and do something about what's happening there.

00:12:40.580 No, we're not touching that with a 10-foot pole.

00:12:43.540 When offered literally free policing in places like Chicago, we're just not going to even acknowledge that that's an offer. 0.81

00:12:53.240 No, we'd rather see the people die.

00:12:55.380 That actually happened this morning on MSNOW when Joe Scarborough had on the Chicago mayor. 0.99

00:13:03.780 Brandon Johnson, who's ridiculous, a ridiculous person whose approval rating, you have more toes than he has approval ratings and numbers in his approval rating. 0.95

00:13:14.700 And here's—watch this. 0.99

00:13:16.220 Look at this.

00:13:16.600 Would you also like to get federal funding to help put 5,000 more cops on the street in Chicago?

00:13:26.160 Would that help drive down crime?

00:13:29.020 Well, look, policing by itself is not the full strategy.

00:13:31.700 No, I understand that.

00:13:32.760 You've talked about the other things you want.

00:13:34.840 Would 5,000 more police officers on the street in Chicago be helpful to go along with all of those social programs?

00:13:43.120 Here's the best way I can put it, Joe.

00:13:45.640 Is that in the 90s when I was in high school, we had 3,000 more police officers and we had 900 people being murdered every single year in Chicago.

00:13:53.960 It's just not policing alone.

00:13:55.400 Of course we want more detectives.

00:13:57.660 I know it's not policing alone, but do you believe that the streets of Chicago would be safer if there were more uniformed police officers on the streets of Chicago?

00:14:09.280 I believe the city of Chicago and cities across America would be safer if we actually had, you know, affordable housing.

00:14:17.760 Look, I'm not saying that we don't—

00:14:18.400 That's not the question I ask.

00:14:19.920 Can I say—

00:14:22.600 Not going to do it.

00:14:24.140 Everybody wants in on that one.

00:14:25.540 Go ahead, Wynnehan. 0.93

00:14:26.200 Oh, my God.

00:14:26.740 I want to say four words that I've never said in my life and I hope to never say again.

00:14:31.620 Good for Joe Scarborough.

00:14:32.240 Good for Joe Scarborough.

00:14:33.820 I knew it.

00:14:35.280 Same.

00:14:36.020 No, I mean, this is a yes or no question.

00:14:38.900 Yes, I do.

00:14:39.780 And then explain contextually why you think it's not going to be the entire solution.

00:14:44.200 But, yeah, I think it would be great if the federal government would give us money because this is what mayors of big blue cities want, more and more money.

00:14:52.680 They believe money can always solve the problem.

00:14:54.320 It's where do you spend that money?

00:14:55.580 What do you do with that money?

00:14:57.040 And to say that in the 90s, during the crack epidemic—I mean, the same thing is true of New York.

00:15:03.220 I mean, we had, what, 2,100 murders a year in the city in 1990, 91.

00:15:08.500 And, you know, effective policing now with technology.

00:15:12.000 I mean, it's insane.

00:15:13.120 The difference is so significant.

00:15:15.020 And why not just say yes to that question?

00:15:17.220 Well, the answer is because he doesn't like the police.

00:15:20.700 And he does not—

00:15:21.280 Because his answer is no.

00:15:22.560 And he just doesn't want to say it.

00:15:23.480 No, he does not think the police are a solution to anything.

00:15:26.820 I suspect if you asked him a question on Democracy Now! or an appropriately kind of left-wing thing, would you take—if I gave you $50 million to get rid of entirely your police force, he'd probably immediately say yes to that.

00:15:40.240 To the point that Camille was making is that this is a thing where the culture battles loom large because the solutions don't exist, right?

00:15:49.660 Because you would have to deal with something like, you know, what are we going to do about policing on the ground?

00:15:53.780 What are we going to do about policy and policy-oriented things to say affordable housing? 1.00

00:15:59.060 Number one, total, complete, and utter bullshit. 0.99

00:16:02.360 Number two, okay, do it. 1.00

00:16:04.140 What's the solution, buddy?

00:16:05.580 Let's find it.

00:16:06.260 Oh, you're going to have the state take over the city of Chicago and build affordable housing and become Caracas, Venezuela?

00:16:11.880 Because you have a murder rate just like Caracas.

00:16:13.860 Maybe you should have a housing policy just like it, too.

00:16:16.200 Get out of here and pretend in some way that this is the thing that you need to do.

00:16:21.340 The problem in Chicago, by the way, is not being caused by a bunch of rabid homeless running around murdering everybody.

00:16:27.320 That murder rate in Chicago, which is about 550 people last year, is from the south side of Chicago, where it's gang-ridden. 0.96

00:16:35.660 And it's like the black gang and the Hispanic gang. 0.99

00:16:38.280 And you can't cross the line, the one street, because then you'll get killed by this gang or that. 0.98

00:16:41.560 I mean, I've been there.

00:16:42.560 I've met the moms.

00:16:43.680 I have seen what's happened to their sons and brothers and fathers.

00:16:46.440 Then the next generation grows up fatherless.

00:16:49.000 And they all have houses.

00:16:50.480 They all have a roof over their head.

00:16:52.780 They're actually getting shot on the front porch of their houses.

00:16:55.940 But it's not about affordable housing, right?

00:16:58.060 There is no law and order.

00:16:59.520 There is none.

00:17:01.180 Because Brandon Johnson doesn't want to send police in there, even if they're free.

00:17:05.960 I mean, Trump, frankly, saying, do you want me to send a bunch of National Guard troops in to help with this problem or other law enforcement?

00:17:14.240 It's almost the same feeling I had when he wanted to create Gaziera or Mara Gaza, right?

00:17:19.240 Where it's like, oh, this is going to be a really tough one.

00:17:22.900 My God, you know, be careful.

00:17:25.120 That's a lot to take on.

00:17:26.720 But certainly there should be the same response in both circumstances.

00:17:30.640 Those who are in the midst of this turmoil should say, please, God, yes, yes, I would like some help with law enforcement and order.

00:17:38.760 But no, Brandon Johnson would rather see everyone shoot each other. 0.99

00:17:42.900 He does not give a shit about the three-year-old girl who got shot in her parents' car this summer by some gangbanger that he doesn't care. 0.99

00:17:52.680 I think that may have happened in Washington, D.C. 0.99

00:17:54.680 But trust me, I could find 10 cases where it happened in Chicago. 1.00

00:17:57.400 So that's what's so annoying about their stupid land acknowledgements. 0.98

00:18:01.640 I await the DNC's tough talk about what's actually happening in our cities. 0.99

00:18:07.020 You know, Matt Welsh?

00:18:08.540 Part of the issue with Democrats in general, and this also applies to Gavin Newsom, who's out there trying to meme his way into the national political conversation,

00:18:19.140 is that they don't have a lot of governing success examples to point to.

00:18:25.080 And, in fact, they have quite a staggering number of failures.

00:18:30.960 And, you know, including these failures, this Brandon Johnson is probably the best example of this in the country where, you know, you have sort of zombie 2020-ism.

00:18:40.020 He still can't just bring himself to talk about policing without going into affordable housing.

00:18:45.700 And it's like, you know, we remember 2020.

00:18:50.060 Everyone lost their minds, some of us a lot less than some other ones, perhaps.

00:18:55.100 But we shouldn't be talking like that anymore.

00:18:57.780 But you still find that in places like Chicago, where last time I looked, of the 50 members on the Chicago City Council, there were zero Republicans.

00:19:07.220 There were, I think, 46 Democrats and then, like, four socialists.

00:19:11.900 The place has been absolutely dominated by Democrats and the left for a really, really long time, and as such is arguably the worst-governed big city in the country.

00:19:22.140 Part of the reason why he answered the question that he did, besides the fact that he's awful, really, really awful, he's just like literally a cutout for the teachers' union, which he used to work for,

00:19:30.160 is that even, you know, the free money to do a thing, he can't hint in that direction because his overwhelming priority is to try to get the, not just the city, but the state,

00:19:44.980 and if he could, the federal government, to bail out the gaping holes in the teachers' union pensions.

00:19:51.160 That's right.

00:19:51.500 That is all of Chicago's politics at the moment is wrapped around there.

00:19:55.700 100%.

00:19:55.980 The Democratic governor won't do it.

00:19:58.480 I will say this, though.

00:19:59.300 I understand the argument against having the National Guard and certainly the military come into a city.

00:20:07.400 I don't think the federal government should be doing that in places where it is not invited and where there is not a riot or a crisis on the ground.

00:20:15.920 No, the legal authority is very sketchy.

00:20:18.680 It's sketchy and it's a bad precedent, and our federal government right now spends $7 trillion a year, and 25 years ago we spent $1.8 trillion a year,

00:20:28.120 partly because we decided that the federal government and national politics must solve every issue, every local issue.

00:20:35.780 The framers of this genius governing structure, the greatest and longest surviving in the world in a constitutional republic, understood that the federal government shouldn't be in charge of fixing local government failure.

00:20:48.660 That is what we're planning to do right now, and it's a recipe for all kinds of conflict.

00:20:53.320 Yeah, no, you're not wrong.

00:20:54.940 You're not wrong.

00:20:55.460 I mean, we have our 50-state experiment, and it's kind of what makes us great, where we have a federal government, and there are certain federal laws that we all have to abide by.

00:21:03.680 There's, of course, the U.S. Constitution.

00:21:04.920 But what drew the original founding colonies into this union was, so we get to be ourselves still, right?

00:21:12.800 Like, we're not going to have to abide by, like, some master king rules, right?

00:21:17.100 Like, we can be different in Virginia than you guys are going to be up there in Connecticut.

00:21:20.820 Cool?

00:21:21.520 And then everybody said, yeah, cool.

00:21:22.800 And the more Trump seizes control in state after state, whether it's the police power or cashless bail, you know, all things—I'm a very, very pro-law and order person, so I'm on board with more cops, less crime, no more cashless bail.

00:21:40.760 That failed, but forcing it by a president on states that have either ruled against it, specifically with legislation or, you know, against their will, is a different story.

00:21:53.060 Like, it kind of Fs up the 50-state experiment that is really at the bedrock of our foundational principles, Camille.

00:22:00.700 And I think it does contribute to the appearance that some of this is, in fact, performative.

00:22:04.900 I mean, you've got D.C., which has had historically, like, lower crime in different periods but had an explosion in crime during 2020.

00:22:13.580 It hasn't quite gone back down to pre-2020 levels, so there is a reason for concern.

00:22:18.180 But at the same time, there's a bit of a kind of strange dynamic when National Guardsmen are coming from states that may, in fact, have higher crime rates to patrol the streets of D.C.

00:22:27.700 And the deployments are only in the safest areas, the kind of tourist centers of D.C., not in the neighborhoods that have actually had the highest levels of violence, which is probably for the best because I don't necessarily want National Guardsmen deploying to southeast and kind of shooting it out with young kids or something like that.

00:22:47.100 That would be a very, very bad look for 100,000 different reasons.

00:22:50.620 But the question becomes, like, how do we get to actually sustainable transformation of these communities that meaningfully lowers violence?

00:22:56.860 As you alluded to a moment ago, Megan, like, part of the reason that it doesn't – it's odd to see people like Johnson talk about white supremacy as the actual danger in Chicago when Democrats have been in charge of every facet of Illinois politics for generations now.

00:23:13.740 At least it seems that way.

00:23:15.440 Those can't be the things that are to blame. 0.89

00:23:17.500 And the people who are dying on the south side, it's black-on-black crime, it's Hispanic-on-Hispanic crime, or Hispanic-on-black, blah, blah. 0.87

00:23:24.000 That area is not suffering from a white supremacy problem. 0.95

00:23:27.580 Yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:23:27.980 It's gang violence that no one gives two shits about. 0.91

00:23:30.820 Exactly. 0.95

00:23:32.040 The gang violence is precisely it.

00:23:33.440 And oftentimes it's block by block.

00:23:35.180 It's neighborhood by neighborhood.

00:23:36.400 That's exactly right.

00:23:37.440 So it is insane.

00:23:39.140 And one has to actually have empathy for the people who happen to live in these neighborhoods who are not a party to the crime, which is most of the people who live in these neighborhoods,

00:23:46.600 who effectively live in war zones.

00:23:48.960 So I think you're right to call into question kind of the morality and the judgment of the political leadership who are looking at the day-to-day suffering of their citizens, of the people who voted them into office.

00:24:00.280 And they don't care.

00:24:00.820 And not doing anything to affect the quality of their lives.

00:24:02.940 The question to Brandon Johnson was like, would you take free police help?

00:24:06.820 It wasn't like, do you want the military to move in?

00:24:09.060 Should we send in the armed Marines? 0.75

00:24:10.680 It was like, do you want free help on the law enforcement?

00:24:13.240 No.

00:24:13.940 Okay.

00:24:14.160 I mean, like, I truly, I went there.

00:24:15.960 I interviewed mom after mom after mom on the south side of Chicago in tears because think about it.

00:24:23.320 I mean, I have two young boys.

00:24:25.140 I have a young girl.

00:24:26.340 Like, they know that their children have zero shot.

00:24:30.420 They don't feel like they have any chance of getting out.

00:24:33.180 Every relative they've ever had is living there, by the way.

00:24:36.220 So they don't really want to leave their moms and their dads who are getting elderly and their aunts and whatever.

00:24:40.820 And they know that, like, they look at their little boy, I look at my little boys and I think, oh, you know what?

00:24:45.540 They could be president one day.

00:24:46.500 They look at their little boys and they're like, please, God, let them live to 18.

00:24:49.980 Let them live to 18 years old. 0.99

00:24:52.340 And they know there's an overwhelming likelihood they're either going to get shot or they're going to get imprisoned before their 21st birthday.

00:25:00.480 And there's a pipeline right into that gang system. 1.00

00:25:02.720 And they look at the little girls and just have to pray they don't get caught in the crossfire.

00:25:05.680 I mean, it's just it's an incredibly effed up way of living.

00:25:09.280 And Brandon Johnson doesn't seem to care at all.

00:25:13.300 He's more interested in his progressive bona fides saying, oh, no, like I'm against cops.

00:25:18.520 He's probably like, Mom, Donnie, I want more social workers like the social workers going to go on to the south side of Chicago and put herself in between the drive by guy and the porch and do an intervention. 1.00

00:25:30.660 So we can center blackness and have a more meaningful conversation, Moynihan. 0.79

00:25:36.040 Well, I mean, a couple of things about this.

00:25:37.980 First of all, you say it's black on black crime in Chicago.

00:25:40.640 Let's not forget Jussie Smollett, who that was. 1.00

00:25:43.820 He was the victim of a Chicago racist attack. 0.98

00:25:48.260 That too turned out to be black on black. 0.99

00:25:51.180 Correct. 0.99

00:25:51.780 It was Nigerian on American crime. 0.99

00:25:53.920 The thing that drives me crazy about this is you start this as a nice kind of bookend of it.

00:26:02.000 Is it Democrats talking about history?

00:26:04.540 Let's talk about history a little bit.

00:26:06.240 I mean, as Camille pointed out, so many of these cities have or Matt pointed out, have, you know, city councils that are 100 percent Democratic, Democratic mayors for long stretches.

00:26:16.040 Well, you know, New York City had a very similar thing.

00:26:19.760 And when it had Republicans, it had Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay, who are essentially Democrats.

00:26:24.320 And then they decided after David Jenkins to give a try to someone named Rudy Giuliani, obviously a very different Rudy Giuliani than what we see today.

00:26:31.960 But that worked.

00:26:34.080 Was it just that?

00:26:35.200 No.

00:26:35.700 To Brendan Johnson's point, was it just policing?

00:26:38.300 No.

00:26:38.700 But if you look at history, what does it tell you that smart policing, and this is, by the way, one of the reasons beyond the Constitution that I object to the National Guard being, is if you talk to cops, and I just was doing this, they are like, no, no, we have very specific things in intelligence, that we have people in the communities, and we do this stuff in a real net.

00:26:58.800 We just need more funding and more of us.

00:27:00.880 And I would highly, highly, highly recommend to listeners and viewers the new book from Peter Moskos.

00:27:06.560 Peter was a Baltimore City cop and is now a professor at John Jay College here in New York City.

00:27:13.820 And it's basically an oral history called Back from the Brink about how New York, through policing, brought New York City back to a normal place, from a place that was like, honestly, like South American, Central American levels of violence.

00:27:27.880 And as he says, it's not entirely policing, but there was a lot of it was.

00:27:31.640 And if they want to look back in history, don't go so far back and say, land acknowledgement, that does nothing for anyone.

00:27:38.560 Go back to New York City in the 90s, talk to Peter Moskos, and say, okay, we don't want to flood the zone with, you know, 30,000 cops.

00:27:45.100 But what can we do with more cops and smarter policing to get violence levels down in this city?

00:27:50.980 Talk to Bill Breton.

00:27:52.560 Bill Breton is alive and well.

00:27:54.420 And we'll walk you through exactly how he did it as the police commissioner.

00:27:58.700 He is the star of Peter Moskos' book, yeah.

00:28:00.460 Yeah, he's amazing.

00:28:01.680 I'm blessed to be able to call him and his wife, Ricky, my friends.

00:28:05.640 But he's done it in a couple of cities.

00:28:08.600 And it's a whole broken windows thing.

00:28:10.220 It's very famous.

00:28:11.040 But like Bill Breton's written whole books where you can read exactly how he and his team cleaned up New York.

00:28:16.840 They just don't want to.

00:28:18.020 They think it's the ACAB thing, right? 1.00

00:28:21.600 All cops are bastards and F the police, defund the police. 0.99

00:28:25.220 They like to say now they're not for that anymore in the Democratic Party. 1.00

00:28:27.980 They're totally for that.

00:28:29.040 And Mamdani, a couple of years ago he was saying that.

00:28:31.820 Now he's like, oh, well, not exactly.

00:28:33.440 Now he just wants the social workers on the domestic violence calls.

00:28:36.000 A couple months ago.

00:28:36.800 Sure, sure. 1.00

00:28:37.460 Like any woman getting the shit kicked out of her by her, you know, twice her size husband. 1.00

00:28:42.160 What she really wants is a social worker to ring the bell and have a chat with him about white supremacy and implicit bias. 1.00

00:28:50.800 You know, like it's ridiculous. 0.98

00:28:52.480 That's Mamdani's view. 0.87

00:28:53.700 That's Brandon Johnson's view. 1.00

00:28:55.240 And these, like, I want to say that these cities deserve what they get because they keep voting these morons into office. 0.99

00:29:01.340 But it's hard to look at those moms in South Chicago and say that. 1.00

00:29:04.200 It's hard to look at a mom who's getting abused in Queens and say that.

00:29:07.940 I just, they feel powerless.

00:29:09.280 They don't even feel like their vote counts and their lives are not spent, even on Election Day, standing and waiting in line.

00:29:15.220 You know, they're, they're probably working three jobs just trying to keep food on the table.

00:29:19.560 Back to Scarborough, though.

00:29:20.720 I will make you eat those words, Michael Moynihan, no sooner than five minutes after you say them.

00:29:24.720 I should never say it again.

00:29:26.600 You know, you're not going to say it here.

00:29:28.300 So here he was yesterday going after Mike Johnson, Speaker Mike Johnson, hammering red states as the most violent ones.

00:29:37.480 How, like, let's keep the big picture perspective.

00:29:39.860 It's really red states that are the violent ones. 0.70

00:29:42.260 This is from yesterday.

00:29:43.160 And if you want to look per capita, they need to do no more than look to Mike Johnson's home state, the Speaker of the House.

00:29:52.340 And look at violence per capita.

00:29:55.800 You have a much higher chance of dying in Monroe, Louisiana than you do Chicago, Illinois.

00:30:02.040 You could look Little Rock, Arkansas.

00:30:04.600 You could look at Monroe, Louisiana.

00:30:06.220 You could look at Shreveport, Louisiana.

00:30:07.820 You could look at New Orleans, Louisiana.

00:30:09.400 You could look at Memphis, Tennessee.

00:30:11.100 You could look at one Nashville, Tennessee.

00:30:13.420 You're going to look at one red state after another, Bessemer, Alabama.

00:30:17.560 And you will see violent crime rates much, much, much higher per capita than Chicago, Illinois, San Francisco.

00:30:27.740 Send those troops to Shreveport, Louisiana.

00:30:30.980 Send them to Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee.

00:30:33.400 Send them to red states where they need them. 0.98

00:30:35.060 Okay, so first of all, Stephen L. Miller on X pointing out that the current mayor of Monroe, Louisiana, is an independent who has served for five years.

00:30:47.020 The previous mayor is a Democrat named Jamie Mayo.

00:30:49.360 He literally served for 20 years.

00:30:51.720 Democrat-run city.

00:30:53.260 He mentions Nashville, Tennessee.

00:30:55.220 Democrat-run city.

00:30:56.260 He mentions Little Rock, Arkansas.

00:30:58.020 Democrat-run city.

00:30:59.920 Jackson, Mississippi.

00:31:01.140 Democrat.

00:31:01.900 Birmingham.

00:31:02.620 Democrat.

00:31:02.980 St. Louis, Democrat.

00:31:04.200 Memphis, Tennessee.

00:31:04.960 Democrat.

00:31:05.440 New Orleans.

00:31:06.300 Democrat.

00:31:06.860 Baltimore.

00:31:07.440 Democrat.

00:31:08.040 Detroit.

00:31:08.540 Democrat.

00:31:08.920 Atlanta.

00:31:09.540 Democrat.

00:31:09.900 All of these big cities that he wants to hold up is like, look at these.

00:31:14.260 These are Democrat-run in red states with red governors.

00:31:19.100 That doesn't mean that the governor can step into any city and clean it up.

00:31:24.220 This is one of the reasons why governors of New York have historically had difficult relationships with the mayors of New York City.

00:31:30.580 Because very often they have very diametrically opposed views on what to do in running a city as big and dynamic as New York.

00:31:38.360 So he kind of misses the big picture.

00:31:40.760 Moynihan, do you care to take that one?

00:31:42.940 Well, yeah.

00:31:43.540 I mean, governors can't and shouldn't in ways, and I don't think presidents should either.

00:31:48.220 And, you know, if Joe Scarborough thinks we should be sending the military to other places, just not the places where his viewers live, I think he's wrong.

00:31:56.000 No, he's trying to make it sound like this is a Republican problem, not a Democrat problem.

00:31:59.900 And it's not.

00:32:01.140 It is not a Republican problem.

00:32:03.000 It's a soft-on-crime Democrat mayor and governor problem.

00:32:06.700 I think, so I think that's the right way of framing it in the sense that even if, and it is often the case, you can have a case in which you have a Republican-run city that has out-of-control crime.

00:32:17.960 I mean, sometimes it's very, very hard to get a handle on these things, and you have to, you know, bring all the people in.

00:32:23.160 The thing is, wanting to bring all the people in, wanting to solve these problems, thinking about policing, because it is an essential component.

00:32:30.820 If you don't have a robust police force that is actually tackling gang violence and tackling crime, then you have – I mean, there's not a lot that, you know, a Republican governor or a Republican mayor of a state can do about a city that has 95 percent fatherlessness.

00:32:47.820 In certain neighborhoods.

00:32:49.500 But you can do things to be creative on crime.

00:32:53.040 The problem is the juxtaposition between that and Brandon Johnson the next day is saying, I don't even want it.

00:32:59.080 I won't even answer the question about a city that has been so overwhelmed.

00:33:02.860 And you mentioned, Megan, a little girl being killed.

00:33:06.560 I remember talking on the Fifth Column about a little girl who was killed in Chicago sitting in the parking lot of a McDonald's.

00:33:11.280 She was shot.

00:33:12.280 This stuff happens all the time in these places.

00:33:15.940 It doesn't matter who takes over Illinois in the governorship or if, you know, every member of Congress becomes a Republican.

00:33:22.260 It's still Brandon Johnson's city, and he's still the one saying, no, we don't want any cops.

00:33:26.420 That's what's been so frustrating to me.

00:33:27.880 That's what's been so frustrating.

00:33:29.140 So I've talked about this before on the show.

00:33:30.580 But, you know, for example, Tucker is constantly talking about the shitty state of American cities right now, and I agree with him 100 percent.

00:33:38.860 But I see this as a Democrat-run city problem. 0.82

00:33:41.900 I see this as a Democrat problem.

00:33:43.200 I really do.

00:33:43.680 I think if these cities would elect more Giuliani's or Bloomberg, who was also very good when it came to law and order, they would do better.

00:33:52.480 They would have a turnaround.

00:33:53.940 Somebody who knows how to manage sanitation and waste management, that would be great if we could find that in New York City again.

00:34:01.420 Trust me.

00:34:01.800 I lived in the Upper West Side for 14 years.

00:34:03.480 What the hell happened to the waste management?

00:34:05.200 It makes a difference.

00:34:06.720 It's not so different from the broken windows theory, you know, where it's like clean up the broken windows, even though nobody's like using that building because it's like order.

00:34:15.060 Like go after the guy for public urination because it's about law and order and sending a message and then like starting small and then going big.

00:34:22.240 Same thing on sanitation. 0.98

00:34:24.040 You walk down the street and every corner's got a garbage that is overflowing.

00:34:28.940 You've got rats coming to eat. 0.99

00:34:30.640 It's like, where is the damn budget for the sanitation? 0.99

00:34:34.460 And Mayor de Blasio's wife was getting hundreds of thousands to be some videographer for the city. 1.00

00:34:40.180 We all knew that was bullshit. 1.00

00:34:41.800 What a lie that was. 1.00

00:34:42.960 They were padding their own pockets. 0.98

00:34:44.200 And we had rats eating on the nice parts of New York. 0.99

00:34:47.460 And it's just ridiculous. 0.97

00:34:48.720 OK, so that's that's a long thing of saying this is a Democrat problem. 0.94

00:34:53.100 And the one great thing about Trump.

00:34:56.020 So I was totally with him on taking over D.C.

00:34:58.120 I think it's fine.

00:34:58.820 He has the right to do it under law.

00:35:00.580 But sending troops into other cities like L.A. was a different story because he was sending them to protect the ICE agents.

00:35:05.520 But just picking a random American city that's got a crime problem and sending in National Guard or other troops.

00:35:10.400 I don't see the legal basis for it.

00:35:12.000 And it's not OK because of our 50 state experiment and federalism.

00:35:14.820 And there are important principles behind these bands, these laws, these boundaries that we have.

00:35:20.740 But it is a very interesting experiment on whether we're just going to talk about fascist Trump and his overreach or we're going to get to the underlying problem that has gotten his attention.

00:35:34.120 You know, I think it's not it's not far afield from what he's doing with this with the flag, you know, executive order. 0.55

00:35:42.000 We can get into the details of that, too.

00:35:44.220 But I think in both cases, what Trump really wants to do is call attention to the underlying problem.

00:35:50.160 Thoughts on it?

00:35:50.880 I don't really think that flag burning is an underlying problem that ranks anywhere.

00:35:56.600 It's a lack of patriotism.

00:35:58.240 He's trying to get into the lack of patriotism.

00:36:00.100 The America hatred that consumes the left.

00:36:03.920 My I will I will repeat my mantra, which is that anyone worried about lack of patriotism, go take a drive.

00:36:10.600 Just drive.

00:36:11.660 Just drive for a day in any direction.

00:36:13.480 And drive through the NYU campus, drive through the Yale campus, drive through Stanford.

00:36:19.420 Let's do that and see what the patriotism looks like.

00:36:21.440 There is more than one way to drive, Megan, Megan Kelly.

00:36:25.640 No, I just say no one's saying the entire country is not patriotic.

00:36:29.220 It's the left.

00:36:30.440 It's the academy.

00:36:32.100 It's the K through 12 indoctrinators who have hold on our students. 1.00

00:36:35.520 It's the people who run the Smithsonian, the people who used to run the Kennedy Center, the people at NBC.

00:36:40.600 What are you talking about?

00:36:41.740 Like there is a massive problem with lack of patriotism and love of the country.

00:36:45.040 It's all on the left.

00:36:46.640 I think that we are we are trying to do what we always do in politics, which is to organize our hatreds.

00:36:52.100 Right.

00:36:52.520 We are organizing our hatreds of the left who deserve it.

00:36:55.740 In some cases, I don't like to hate because I'm a hippie.

00:36:58.680 We're organizing our hatred against the right because they're overreaching and doing other things that I don't like.

00:37:03.020 But again, I don't like to hate because I'm a hippie.

00:37:04.620 But I would suggest the people who are invested in either as a consumerist or practitioner of politics, we are trying to like organize ourselves being really mad at fellow Americans.

00:37:16.360 And I got to say, someone who's been driving around a lot for the last like four or five months.

00:37:20.560 I ain't seen it.

00:37:21.640 I go to Cooperstown, New York.

00:37:22.900 Is that a Republican city?

00:37:24.220 No.

00:37:24.760 Is it filled with American flags and awesomeness in the Baseball Hall of Fame? 0.77

00:37:28.060 God damn right.

00:37:29.280 It's not exactly San Fran. 0.77

00:37:31.220 San Fran, which is now run by a mayor who's doing – Camille would know more about this than I do.

00:37:37.280 But San Fran has been turning around slightly over the last couple of years, beginning with the bouncing of the school board.

00:37:44.200 No, I agree because they went so far left electing Chesa Boudin, who you guys and I have talked about before.

00:37:49.680 But like let's not pretend – you're – I don't understand because you know better.

00:37:55.140 You know what the problem is.

00:37:57.060 You've seen the Gallup polls with the decrease in patriotism and how the left's loathing for the country is rising.

00:38:03.500 The problem is results, not people's hearts.

00:38:06.900 I am not going to be able to fix people's hearts.

00:38:09.400 I wish that I could, but also I don't wish that I could.

00:38:12.360 I don't want that.

00:38:12.860 What I want is for places to be governed better, beginning with the place that I live in.

00:38:17.080 One of the problems that we have in modern politics – you mentioned de Blasio, and you mentioned like rats and things running well.

00:38:23.260 De Blasio the first time around, who was a non-entity who wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for Anthony Weiner not being able to handle himself.

00:38:28.900 Or maybe handling himself a bit too much.

00:38:30.440 He was public advocate.

00:38:31.960 That was his job.

00:38:32.820 He came on my show.

00:38:33.760 I was like, what the hell is that?

00:38:34.740 No one's ever even heard of you or that.

00:38:36.520 You have no chance.

00:38:37.600 And then he won.

00:38:39.300 But who did he run against?

00:38:40.560 He ran against a really capable New York City guy named Joe Loda, who had run the MTA well.

00:38:47.160 He'd worked under both a Republican and Democratic administrations, like being, by all accounts, a very good and dedicated public servant.

00:38:56.380 And he lost by 50 percentage points because Democrats living in New York were thinking to themselves, how embarrassing is it that in our biggest city, the most important city in the country, we've been run by Republicans and independents for 20 years.

00:39:09.500 That's embarrassing.

00:39:10.220 We want to express our sense of national politics by voting for a Sandinista, who we don't know, don't care. 1.00

00:39:18.140 And if he throws out a first pitch at a Mets game, we're going to boo him because he sucks. 0.98

00:39:21.380 But we're still going to vote for him as opposed to a competent person. 0.98

00:39:24.880 When you fixate constantly about national politics and the people that you hate, whom you think their hearts are bad, then that fixation is going to prevent you from seeing what's around you.

00:39:35.320 And what's around you is you're being misgoverned, especially so in big cities, but not only.

00:39:40.240 And that sort of harnessing of that sense of national-focused hatreds is blocking you from actually finding a solution that all of us here want to see.

00:39:50.040 Well, yes. I mean, that last point I agree with.

00:39:52.560 But I would say that Trump is not a hippie and definitely not going to share a roach clip with you, Matt Welsh.

00:39:59.720 But he does have goals. 0.97

00:40:02.120 Like, he's not dumb. 0.94

00:40:02.960 And in the same way he set up the Democrats to boo the little boy with cancer at the State of the Union, right? 0.90

00:40:09.060 Like, he's got these to boo no murders in D.C., right? 0.99

00:40:14.920 Like, he's very good at finding these causes that make the Democrats look terrible and dumb. 0.96

00:40:19.700 And I do think the flag burning in a way is one. 0.96

00:40:22.440 Not only might they burn the flag in response to it, which is a fine thing to do. 0.99

00:40:26.560 I don't—I'm totally against it, but it's absolutely constitutional and should not be—no one should mess with it.

00:40:31.240 I'm sorry, but it's very—it's one of the things that makes America great is that you can do that here without getting arrested.

00:40:36.900 Not that I would.

00:40:37.600 Not that I want to see it.

00:40:39.580 In any event, I think that he's trying to call attention to not necessarily that they're now going to burn flags, but that that's what they do. 0.99

00:40:45.400 And that they're now going to defend it in a way that's going to be like, yeah, I'm going to burn it and fuck America and this, that. 0.99

00:40:50.860 And, like, he calls attention to something bad about them that irritates the vast majority of Americans and puts them in the awkward spot of having to be like, are pedophiles so bad? 0.99

00:41:00.760 You know, like, over and over, he puts them in this terrible place and they take the bait, Camille.

00:41:06.820 It's been almost a decade of Donald Trump being at the center of American politics, and it is the case that Democrats continue to fall for exactly the same ploy with respect to what you just described.

00:41:18.140 Donald Trump does things. 0.98

00:41:19.280 They are framed in a particular way that, to the extent you're actually disagreeing with him, you do seem a little bit like a lunatic.

00:41:27.780 Like, you're opposed to federal dollars for policing.

00:41:31.500 You're opposed to trying to do something to kind of promote American pride.

00:41:36.180 But it's possible that you could talk about things in a more sophisticated way, my friends on the political left, that you could say, for example, that, well, policing is.

00:41:45.160 Of course we want more police.

00:41:46.400 We need more police on the streets.

00:41:47.840 We need policing to be well-funded.

00:41:49.740 But also a national-level solution to this problem probably won't work.

00:41:54.480 Like, we should maybe think about some of the more practical things that we could do.

00:41:57.580 Closure rates, clearance rates for cases in Chicago have always been historically low, and it's one of the things that is a commonality across the most crime-impacted regions of this country.

00:42:08.800 Police departments that just don't work well.

00:42:11.120 It's not just that they're underfunded in many instances.

00:42:13.820 It's not just that they don't have enough police officers.

00:42:16.080 The police officers who are there aren't necessarily doing a great job.

00:42:19.720 Like, you actually need better engagement with the local community in order to work on that.

00:42:23.460 You need better staffing in those departments with respect to the leadership, and you also need political officials who are interested in doing more than just making these kind of preposterous statements about national politics and posturing with respect to Donald Trump.

00:42:38.800 If you are the political leadership of St. Louis, you should not give two shits what's happening in Washington, D.C.

00:42:44.360 It has absolutely no impact on the quality of the lives of the people in your community.

00:42:48.560 The stuff that matters to them is closer to the ground, and that's what you should be talking about.

00:42:52.820 And you can defend those reasonable policies and talk about policies in a substantive way without getting completely captured by the national political hysteria.

00:43:04.740 And yes, I think Matt is right.

00:43:06.460 Like, our desire to perhaps foment this kind of contempt of the other, which is great for politicians, but is oftentimes really, really bad for the citizens who they're supposed to be serving.

00:43:15.800 Okay, so what Camille is calling for is a more sophisticated, substantive messaging coming from our Democrat politicians, all politicians, that is not necessarily about personal destruction or insults of the other side.

00:43:30.440 You should have a little chat with Tim Walz.

00:43:32.940 Here's thought three.

00:43:34.220 Oh, no.

00:43:35.960 Oh, my God.

00:43:36.660 The privilege of my lifetime was stand beside someone we know was the most qualified and would have been a fantastic president in a President Harris. 0.99

00:43:47.280 And look, we wouldn't wake up every day to a bunch of shit on TV and a bunch of nonsense. 0.98

00:43:56.980 We would wake up to an adult with compassion and dignity and vision and leadership doing the work. 1.00

00:44:03.260 Not a man-child crying about whatever's wrong with him.

00:44:06.520 May his fat ankles find something today. 0.99

00:44:15.520 Petty as hell. 0.99

00:44:18.520 I mean...

00:44:19.040 What does it mean?

00:44:19.460 What?

00:44:20.860 Wait, what?

00:44:21.960 I want Gavin Newsom and Tim Walz to start writing checks to Donald Trump for stealing bits that he...

00:44:31.500 Yes. 1.00

00:44:32.460 ...bring so much shit and fat ankles. 1.00

00:44:34.820 Do you think 20 years ago, Tim Walz would have been talking about his fat ankles? 1.00

00:44:40.020 I don't...

00:44:40.260 But he didn't even stick the landing.

00:44:42.300 No, of course he didn't.

00:44:43.040 May his fat ankles find something today?

00:44:46.640 I don't know what that means.

00:44:48.060 Petty...

00:44:48.660 It's funny.

00:44:49.240 It doesn't matter what you think of a...

00:44:50.820 If you have to work to understand it, is it a good burn?

00:44:54.140 A terrible burn.

00:44:55.280 Also, I don't know how big that audience was, but it's pretty tepid applause for the most qualified

00:45:01.020 woman in the history of the Republic, Kyle Harris.

00:45:04.060 It's like, well, I guess.

00:45:05.260 I mean, is he kidding me?

00:45:06.480 Get the fat ankles joke, which is not going to land either.

00:45:09.460 But it is...

00:45:10.340 It's an amazing thing to watch people like this and watch Democrats who are desperately

00:45:14.640 trying to be, you know, Donald Trump cover bands.

00:45:17.800 I used to mention this all the time about Republicans doing...

00:45:21.640 All of a sudden doing their impressions of Donald Trump and being really bad at it.

00:45:24.800 And I'd see it on Fox and I'd see it all over the place and just be like, oh, come on,

00:45:28.280 guys.

00:45:28.800 He's singular in that sense.

00:45:30.440 Don't try to be it.

00:45:32.000 But to the point of, you know, patriotism, which ties into this because they have no idea

00:45:38.260 what to do now, Democrats, particularly because...

00:45:40.700 And the patriotism thing in America used to be the flag waving was both sides of the aisle.

00:45:45.880 They don't feel that they can say anything generous about the police or about America.

00:45:51.280 And you look at those numbers, Megan, which you cited the Gallup poll, which was, I think,

00:45:56.240 in June, which didn't surprise me in any way.

00:45:59.400 And the reason is because I am the generation that grew up in this time in which everything...

00:46:05.680 What is the land acknowledgement other than to say we live in a kind of a crappy country

00:46:11.040 that did something crappy to become what it is today?

00:46:14.180 And then you look at, you know, illegals who are being deported or being detained by ICE.

00:46:21.300 Saying, as they're being shuffled away in front of a bank of TV cameras,

00:46:25.560 saying that this is a corrupt government.

00:46:27.820 But yes, you want to stay here, don't you?

00:46:30.040 Isn't that the entire government?

00:46:31.260 You want to be...

00:46:31.560 See how you do in El Salvador.

00:46:33.320 Not going to...

00:46:33.880 Or Uganda. 0.66

00:46:35.000 I mean, you want to stay.

00:46:36.600 There is a reason that people wash up onto the shores of the United States and not the 1.00

00:46:41.480 other way around.

00:46:42.080 People aren't washing up on the shores of Cuba or Venezuela.

00:46:44.400 The Venezuelans are coming here. 1.00

00:46:45.720 The Cubans are coming here. 1.00

00:46:46.620 But we can't accept that.

00:46:48.260 And we're so far down that road that I think...

00:46:51.380 We had a bit of an argument about this on the 5th, about the Smithsonian stuff.

00:46:55.100 But it is so ingrained in us now that if we see something positive or some positive spin

00:46:59.660 on the US in a museum or something, we kind of bristle like, oh, that's...

00:47:04.640 Or it just...

00:47:05.000 It seems out of place.

00:47:06.440 Like, that seems a bit weird.

00:47:07.460 Particularly when you realize that the 1619 Project wins every award.

00:47:12.600 That the biggest movie of the 90s was JFK, which, by the way, is an extended attack on

00:47:19.160 this country and saying it's so bad that we even killed our best president.

00:47:23.320 I mean, it is just in the groundwater of everything we do.

00:47:26.480 Howard Zinn books are always on high school curricula.

00:47:29.920 It's the most popular history book. 0.97

00:47:32.720 And it's absolute horseshit. 0.84

00:47:34.320 And I've written about this a million times. 0.98

00:47:36.680 It's just bad history.

00:47:37.700 But it's the right history because it's directionally the right history.

00:47:40.820 And I think that if Democrats wanted to do something radical, they could, you know, kind

00:47:45.100 of embrace...

00:47:45.720 Because I think, you know, to Matt's point, there are people that are in little Democratic

00:47:49.740 enclaves that aren't hippie, you know, Park Slope, food co-op, Hamas-supporting weirdos.

00:47:56.960 They're people that are just like, oh, we voted Democrat our whole life.

00:48:00.080 And, you know, we kind of like this country.

00:48:01.660 And it's pretty great.

00:48:02.340 And we don't want to see it go down the tubes.

00:48:03.620 But right now, it's...

00:48:04.800 They're not political.

00:48:05.660 A lot of those people are not political people.

00:48:07.500 They may vote Democrat, but they're not political.

00:48:09.840 Just a small observation.

00:48:11.200 I was watching Good Will Hunting recently.

00:48:13.500 We actually watched it with our kids.

00:48:15.620 And I noticed, you know, how the Matt Damon character is this savant who's working as a

00:48:22.320 janitor on his, like, work release from his many criminal problems.

00:48:26.560 But he's smarter than everybody at MIT.

00:48:28.340 And he kind of goes off on Robin Williams, the therapist, in one scene about, like, you read

00:48:33.660 all these books.

00:48:34.180 You read all the wrong books.

00:48:35.640 And he says, you know, why don't you try reading a real book like Howard Zinn?

00:48:39.020 And he starts talking about his history books.

00:48:41.220 I'm like, I never even really caught it when I was younger because, you know, I wasn't raised

00:48:45.380 like that.

00:48:45.720 And I wasn't thinking about those things.

00:48:46.780 But it's amazing how many institutions the left has captured, how many of their references

00:48:51.900 dominate the day.

00:48:52.760 Like, that's the definitive book that you should read if you want to know about America.

00:48:56.980 And that's still all over private schools in New York City.

00:48:59.880 That's the one.

00:49:00.580 Howard Zinn is their God.

00:49:01.860 And he will teach you to love America right quick.

00:49:04.600 He will, I mean, hate America right quick with every passing page.

00:49:09.260 There's much more to discuss.

00:49:12.120 I have 50 seconds before break.

00:49:15.220 I do want to show you Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

00:49:17.640 In that moment, you pointed out, as he was being arrested by ICE, saying, this is a corrupt

00:49:22.460 government.

00:49:23.060 Sot 25.

00:49:26.840 So you'll have to trust me that that's what he said in Spanish.

00:49:36.600 Then why are you fighting so hard to stay here?

00:49:38.720 Get out.

00:49:39.380 Because as we can tell, you came here illegally. 0.75

00:49:42.100 You were deported. 1.00

00:49:43.120 You put up a bullshit asylum claim. 1.00

00:49:44.960 They let you stay. 1.00

00:49:46.580 And then you beat your wife repeatedly, according to her.

00:49:49.800 And then you tried to traffic a bunch of people into the country. 0.60

00:49:52.880 You appear to have joined a gang.

00:49:55.000 And then when we tried to say, get out, get out of our corrupt country, you held on with 0.98

00:49:59.760 your bloody fingertips, saying, let me stay, let me stay, let me stay. 0.86

00:50:02.800 So, okay, I'm not feeling the sympathy. 0.98

00:50:05.820 Stand by, because there's more to discuss.

00:50:08.660 Let's be honest.

00:50:09.780 America can still be a dangerous place.

00:50:11.860 And you cannot afford to wait for help.

00:50:13.520 Sure, you could use a firearm, but in today's America, defending yourself with deadly force

00:50:18.240 could have legal consequences.

00:50:20.420 According to FBI data, 99.9% of all altercations do not require lethal force.

00:50:26.760 And that's exactly why so many are turning to Berna.

00:50:29.440 Berna is proudly American, hand-assembled in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

00:50:33.960 These less lethal self-defense launchers are trusted by hundreds of government agencies,

00:50:38.920 law enforcement departments, and private security companies.

00:50:42.780 And by me, over 600,000 Berna pistols have been sold, most to private citizens who refuse

00:50:49.060 to be victims.

00:50:50.520 Berna launchers fire rock-hard kinetic rounds and powerful tear gas and pepper projectiles

00:50:56.720 capable of stopping a threat from up to 60 feet away.

00:51:00.280 No background checks, no waiting periods.

00:51:02.400 And Berna can ship straight to your door. 0.97

00:51:04.160 You can get this thing right away.

00:51:05.200 Take responsibility.

00:51:07.060 Protect your future.

00:51:08.440 Visit Berna.com right now or your local sportsman's warehouse.

00:51:12.520 That's B-Y-R-N-A.com or your local sportsman's warehouse. 0.99

00:51:16.560 Visit now and be prepared to defend.

00:51:18.700 Here with me for the full show today, Camille Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welsh.

00:51:28.560 Together, they are the hosts of the Fifth Column Podcast.

00:51:32.600 Go subscribe now at wethefifth.com.

00:51:36.360 All right, guys.

00:51:36.780 So we started the show yesterday on Lisa Cook, who is one of the Board of Governors.

00:51:42.380 She's a governor on the Board of Governors overseeing the Federal Reserve.

00:51:45.380 And that gives you a 14-year term, I think it is, when you get appointed.

00:51:51.700 Yeah, 14-year term.

00:51:53.000 She was appointed under Joe Biden.

00:51:54.560 And so she's officially supposed to be on there through the 2030s.

00:51:58.260 And she just got fired by President Trump.

00:52:01.520 And she says, hell no, I won't go.

00:52:04.160 She is refusing to leave the post.

00:52:06.620 And President Trump fired her because he says she's been credibly accused of committing mortgage fraud, which is a problem for really anybody, but certainly for someone in her position.

00:52:20.440 And her case has been referred to the Department of Justice by this guy, Bill Pulte, who oversees the mortgaging industry.

00:52:28.860 Trump posted to Truth Social, on Monday, he posted to Truth Social the letter that he sent to Lisa Cook that reads,

00:52:37.320 Pursuant to my authority under Article 2 of the Constitution and the Federal Reserve Act, you are hereby removed from your position on the Board of Governors, effective immediately.

00:52:45.520 The Federal Reserve Act provides that you may be removed at my discretion for cause.

00:52:49.560 Trump noted that the DOJ's inquiry into whether she lied on mortgage applications amounted to sufficient cause to remove her.

00:52:55.920 In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter, they cannot, and I do not, have such confidence in your integrity.

00:53:02.360 Her term set to expire by its terms in January 2038.

00:53:07.540 So she gave a statement to Politico as follows.

00:53:11.900 President Trump purported to fire me for cause when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so.

00:53:17.360 I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy, as I have been doing since 2022.

00:53:24.020 Her lawyer, Cook's attorney, Abby Lowell, again, he's the ubiquitous when it comes to Democrat candidates and causes.

00:53:31.300 President Trump has taken his social media to once again fire by tweet, and once again his reflex to bully is flawed,

00:53:35.760 and his demands lack any proper process, basis, or legal authority.

00:53:38.600 We will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action.

00:53:42.600 We believe that he's now filing a lawsuit to stop this attempted firing.

00:53:49.940 What the media wants you to know about Lisa Cook is black woman, black woman, black woman, black woman, first and only black woman on the board of governors, 1.00

00:53:56.780 which somehow is supposed to mean that you cannot be fired.

00:53:59.760 I guess I have superior abilities to avoid getting fired, so does Camille.

00:54:04.360 You two guys are effed, because we have superpowers.

00:54:08.600 Mine are from below the waist, and Camille's are all over him, and these give you the ability to never, never get fired,

00:54:15.460 even if you've committed a criminal fraud, as she's now being accused of.

00:54:20.100 She denies it.

00:54:21.680 Chris Ruffo, always there with something in his back pocket, adds this to the conversation.

00:54:25.420 From April of 2024, when she was nominated, she's also apparently a plagiarist.

00:54:32.700 He went back and looked at her academic work.

00:54:35.340 He says it contains plagiarism, according to her former university's policy.

00:54:39.100 He went through, says her publication history is quite thin, has serious methodological errors,

00:54:45.400 largely focuses on race activism rather than rigorous quantitative econ, and he has all the examples.

00:54:51.380 And as far as we can tell, Lisa Cook really doesn't have all those stellar credentials when it comes to economics either. 1.00

00:54:59.700 Yesterday we pointed out how her biggest accomplishment when it comes to her academic write-ups

00:55:05.100 appears to have been she wrote something about how when lynching was happening to blacks in the United States,

00:55:13.940 it led to fewer patents being filed by those who were lynched.

00:55:20.080 Now, I'm sorry, but this doesn't seem like such an aha moment that we would lead to like some deep thought dissertation,

00:55:30.800 but I guess Lisa Cook got credit for it. 0.98

00:55:33.740 So what we're learning now is that the two properties she bought,

00:55:37.560 because she's accused of doing kind of what Adam Schiff and Letitia James are accused of doing,

00:55:41.520 having two residences and declaring them both as your primary residence so you can get a lower mortgage,

00:55:46.040 which would be fraud if you did that, and she declared both her Ann Arbor, Michigan property

00:55:52.180 and her Atlanta, Georgia property her primary, her principal residence,

00:55:56.440 and apparently she did it within two weeks.

00:55:59.360 This I didn't know yesterday.

00:56:01.700 She bought each, or got the mortgage for each, within two weeks of one another.

00:56:06.460 So there was no mistake that she's not going to be able to argue it was an error.

00:56:09.540 She knew that she was buying two properties at once, and she knew that only one could be a principal residence.

00:56:15.000 And that, I would suggest, makes it look even more intentional than we knew,

00:56:19.840 and less and less like a mistake.

00:56:22.380 And so what do you think should happen here?

00:56:25.180 Do you think Trump should stand by his effort to remove her?

00:56:30.160 Should the DOJ prosecute her?

00:56:32.380 If it does indeed have this documentation that Bill Pulte says exists?

00:56:36.700 And what do you think is really going on here?

00:56:38.720 Anyone?

00:56:40.540 Do we have to refer to, defer to Camille?

00:56:43.520 Go ahead, Camille.

00:56:45.680 Of course.

00:56:46.740 Not legally, but it's usually a good idea.

00:56:48.500 Just in general, not on this particular matter.

00:56:50.840 Look, you have an allegation.

00:56:52.780 You don't have any sort of criminal charge that's been filed.

00:56:55.160 An allegation on its face is perhaps not enough to justify a reasonable cause for dismissal here.

00:57:02.220 But one can suspect that the likelihood of a charge happening in this particular case,

00:57:07.120 given the interest of the president and given the fact that the Justice Department seems to have an interest in prosecuting cases like this,

00:57:15.040 it could very well happen, in which case then the dismissal actually happens.

00:57:19.100 And the dispute and questions about whether or not the president has the authority to do this goes away.

00:57:23.980 But there are still some lingering concerns, and I'll come to that in a moment.

00:57:28.060 But I will say that the defense of this particular woman has not been particularly glorious.

00:57:33.200 The profile that the New York Times wrote up over the weekend really does have, and it's almost, like, it feels like comedy.

00:57:39.860 She's draped in one of those, like, kinte cloth sashes.

00:57:43.560 And it's, like, emblazoned in the headline is, first black woman.

00:57:47.560 And I just, these facts don't matter to me whatsoever.

00:57:50.980 I am actually interested in if a federal official, or at least here, an appointee at the Federal Reserve,

00:57:56.880 is engaged in some sort of financial fraud.

00:57:59.340 Even a rather small-ish thing that lots of Americans, I imagine, have been guilty of,

00:58:04.240 which is somewhat lying on mortgage or loan applications,

00:58:07.140 which, interestingly, has a weird parallel to a legal drama that Donald Trump himself found himself caught up in,

00:58:13.620 which I was personally quite skeptical.

00:58:17.420 And, in fact, I think we probably talked about it on this show a couple of times.

00:58:21.580 Like, I thought that was dubious.

00:58:22.980 I thought prosecuting him for any of that stuff seemed completely outlandish,

00:58:26.840 especially because there was no one who lost any money, he repaid the loans, et cetera, et cetera.

00:58:31.320 And in this particular case, I think that these cases, even the Letitia James stuff,

00:58:35.960 like, none of it rises to the level of being particularly concerning to me.

00:58:40.800 So I think that the lesson here perhaps ought to have been we should tread lightly

00:58:46.580 to the extent that we're engaging in prosecutions or even investigations

00:58:49.860 that could have serious political ramifications even for people that we dislike.

00:58:53.900 I think the unfortunate thing for the president and the administration more broadly

00:58:57.220 is that in a couple of these cases, including the John Bolton stuff earlier this week,

00:59:01.720 they're so determined to spike the football.

00:59:04.360 Even if all of these investigations are above board

00:59:07.040 and there are legitimate grounds for getting rid of these people or prosecuting them,

00:59:11.040 the thing that you would expect is kind of decorum.

00:59:14.060 That is an ongoing investigation.

00:59:15.900 We're not going to comment on it.

00:59:17.260 Instead, even if, again, I'm going to take them at their word in these legitimate cases,

00:59:22.080 they make it hard to defend it publicly because they're so determined to spike the football, 0.99

00:59:26.760 to call these people stupid, to put up kind of insulting tweets about how, 0.99

00:59:32.200 yeah, you know, no one is above the law. 1.00

00:59:34.100 I see what you're doing there.

00:59:35.860 I love it.

00:59:36.800 I'm like, spike it, spike it, do it.

00:59:40.200 With the four years we got from Tish James, no one's above the law,

00:59:44.300 as she was rabidly pursuing Trump.

00:59:46.280 And I thought she was wrong then.

00:59:50.060 She was, but they will not learn unless they are forced to suffer.

00:59:54.760 And so I'm 100% behind it.

00:59:56.660 If Lisa Cook did not fill out primary residence on two mortgage applications within two weeks,

01:00:02.460 she would not have this problem.

01:00:04.060 I'm sorry, but like, she brought it upon herself.

01:00:06.520 I'm sick of, like, I don't do this.

01:00:09.300 I really don't.

01:00:10.160 Like, you say a lot of people might have this problem.

01:00:11.760 I don't have this problem.

01:00:12.500 I actually have always been very Pollyanna-ish when it comes to this kind of thing.

01:00:18.480 You don't commit fraud.

01:00:20.200 You know, character is what you do behind closed doors.

01:00:22.800 You could get away with it.

01:00:24.060 You can't get away with it.

01:00:24.860 It's irrelevant.

01:00:25.540 You don't do it because it's wrong and it's against the law.

01:00:28.740 And if she did it on her, she deserves what she gets.

01:00:31.920 I have zero sympathy for her.

01:00:33.420 And then the nerve to do it, allegedly, and then, like, take this job.

01:00:40.080 And they're saying in the reporting now that she may have lied about it when she interviewed for this job.

01:00:44.400 Where she's going to be a mortgage rate assessor, decider, enforcer? 0.99

01:00:50.040 No, absolutely not.

01:00:51.580 You may not have this sort of a blemish on your record, which is criminal, and hold that job. 0.99

01:00:57.460 I say fire her ass, take it to court, and actually, this should be the least of her legal problems. 1.00

01:01:03.140 She should be defending against Pam Bondi for most of the time. 1.00

01:01:06.340 I want to be clear.

01:01:07.380 I'm not acknowledging that I've—I haven't engaged in any sort of mortgage fraud, to my knowledge.

01:01:11.920 I've always been faithful on my mortgage loan application.

01:01:14.700 I'm just saying in general, I don't like the specter of these kinds of things being politicized.

01:01:19.520 I think we're better off as a country when people can indifferently, perhaps, just look at these prosecutions and say,

01:01:25.600 you know what, I have some trust and confidence that people are going to pursue these cases in an above-board, legitimate manner.

01:01:31.160 Me too.

01:01:31.480 That's what I'm advocating for.

01:01:31.980 But my own view is the only way back to that norm is to make them suffer.

01:01:37.800 They must have skin in the game.

01:01:39.860 We cannot take the high road and get out of this.

01:01:42.480 We tried that.

01:01:43.380 We didn't prosecute Hillary Clinton, though it's looking more and more everyday like we should have.

01:01:46.740 Trump tried to go high road in 1.0.

01:01:49.840 They ruined his first term, and then they tried to lock him up for four years and bankrupt him.

01:01:54.040 And now they must suffer.

01:01:55.800 They must suffer, or we're just going to go through this again, but only with Republicans. 0.99

01:02:00.520 So I think, really, you have to take the nose and rub it in the crap in order for these people to learn that it's a really unfortunate, unpleasant process. 0.98

01:02:10.280 Don't do this. 0.99

01:02:11.220 Don't do this again.

01:02:11.980 And not to find somebody who didn't commit a crime and go after them.

01:02:15.220 That would be very, very wrong.

01:02:16.600 But if Bill Pulte kicks the tires on your car and he finds mortgage fraud rolling away, you're going to be in a lot of trouble.

01:02:23.800 Sorry.

01:02:24.200 I'm not in the box your way towards peace camp.

01:02:28.800 When I associate myself with the comments of the economic historian Philip Magnus, a pretty good follow on Twitter, who said, I opposed, although I didn't, but just because I didn't know her, I opposed her appointment to begin with because she's mediocre and bad.

01:02:45.000 And I oppose Trump being the one to fire her because I don't want the president to have that much authority over the Federal Reserve Board.

01:02:54.440 It's better to have a quasi-independent or fully independent Federal Reserve if we are going to have a Federal Reserve than it is to have something that's being impacted by the president.

01:03:08.020 I think there's a problem that Democrats have here and the media by extension because it's a lot of the same sort of initiatives.

01:03:16.620 And again, I'm saying this is someone who thinks that Trump shouldn't do this and that, you know, as Harvey Silverglades pointed out in a book of the same name, the average American commits three felonies a day because there's so many things that have been classified as a felony.

01:03:28.260 If you want to find me doing a crime and I don't even smoke pot, Megan Kelly, you can probably find me doing a crime.

01:03:34.540 And I certainly don't smoke mortgages for crying out loud. People are crazy owning property. 0.94

01:03:39.740 But the problem is that Democrats in their sort of spaces, in their administrative state, in their kind of just sort of soft neoliberal sort of governance of things, they are constantly appointing people who aren't great.

01:03:54.380 I mean, I don't like RFK. I know you do, Megan. We won't argue about that right now.

01:03:58.620 But everyone's up in arms about RFK being appointed as head of HHS.

01:04:04.260 Tell me how much greater Javier Becerra was.

01:04:07.360 Yeah, exactly.

01:04:08.940 An absolute total political hack with zero relevant experience appointed by a president in 2021 when, I don't know, was there something going on with health, public health in 2021 that was of concern?

01:04:22.520 And he was nominated in part because he was from California, but also because he's Latino and COVID, you know, obviously affects our Latino American communities, blah, blah, blah. 0.91

01:04:32.600 Didn't make any sense at the time. And it did not excite anything like the same level of outrage.

01:04:37.520 It's just sort of understood that we'll have mediocre people like, I don't know, Kamala Harris, the vice president, you know, and Karen Bass was on that short list, a career mediocrity.

01:04:49.400 You're right.

01:04:49.540 Well, who had never been in any election where she didn't win 80 to 20, as it was on the short list of being there.

01:04:59.340 So there's this sense of like, yes, Donald Trump is assertively trying to break norms and create more power for himself to do as he pleases in the presidency.

01:05:10.020 He does that literally every single day.

01:05:11.440 He's signed more executive orders in his presidency than any president in history, with the exception of FDR in his first term.

01:05:19.900 This is for those of us who are opposed to an overly vigorous executive branch.

01:05:26.020 Very alarming. I don't like it.

01:05:27.620 And he's trying to do this in such a way to expand his power.

01:05:30.740 He clearly has been jawboning Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve all his second term, trying to get rates lowered because that's going to juice the stock market and make the bad effects of tariffs seem probably less bad.

01:05:44.240 It's kind of obvious what he's trying to do.

01:05:46.580 I don't have any faith that he is he's approaching or that his Department of Justice is approaching this in a fair manner.

01:05:53.740 I don't I don't have faith in any politician, turns out, and let alone him while he's dunking the football, dunking the football, spiking, spiking, spiking basketball, dunking football and even the baseball.

01:06:08.640 Well, I'll tell you something.

01:06:10.840 They tried to go after Donald Trump for writing payment for legal services in payments to his lawyer around the Stormy Daniels thing.

01:06:20.800 If that is a 34 felony indictment and conviction, actually saying two residences at the same time are your primary residence is fine by me.

01:06:32.220 That that is a crime. It actually is a crime, unlike the shit that they were pulling against Trump. 0.98

01:06:36.520 Her what she did if she did this, it actually is mortgage fraud. So it's OK. 0.99

01:06:42.140 Maybe we wouldn't have prosecuted it in, you know, 10 years ago, but it is a new day thanks to the Democrats.

01:06:50.180 And now they must suffer to learn. And she's as much a part of all of it as anybody.

01:06:55.220 She's been such a hyper critic. She's been on board with Trump and the white supremacy and all the like.

01:07:01.060 She was fine with everything that happened to him. So suck it, Lisa Cook. You're fucking fired. 1.00

01:07:06.520 Deal with it. She's fired. And by the way, he does have the authority. He has the authority to fire her for cause. 1.00

01:07:13.200 The statute does not define cause. You've been accused credibly.

01:07:17.780 And by the way, Bill Pulte of the mortgage organization is saying he has great cause to fire her.

01:07:25.140 Alleged felonies in when it comes to mortgage fraud, when you're sitting on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is 100 percent cause.

01:07:32.940 You actually don't need to be convicted. It'd be nice if he let her have a trial and be convicted before you.

01:07:38.480 But he doesn't have to. She's calling the organization into disrepute.

01:07:42.160 There have been multiple news stories about whether she committed mortgage fraud.

01:07:45.660 It's she can be fired right now. And that's what's going to happen. 1.00

01:07:49.060 And that's what a court is eventually going to hold. Maybe not the district court, depending on the judge they pull.

01:07:53.560 But I have no sympathy for her. Zero. And I and she's not the only one.

01:07:58.740 I don't have sympathy for any of these people if they committed crimes.

01:08:01.800 And we'll see what happened with John Bolton. I don't know what happened with John Bolton.

01:08:04.760 If he did something, I'd like to see the evidence. But if he actually crossed the line legally, then him, too.

01:08:09.520 I don't care. If you committed a crime, you opened this Pandora's box.

01:08:14.880 The Trump critics, mania ridden Democrats must suffer. OK, that's it. Go ahead, Camille.

01:08:24.760 I just want to ask what happens if the next election cycle Democrats sweep into power?

01:08:30.560 I mean, again, stranger things have happened. I'll just put it that way.

01:08:34.600 And they aren't thinking to themselves, you know, we got it so bad the last time they're thinking we are really going to stick it to him this time.

01:08:42.080 It seems to me that the most likely outcome is not they learn their lesson.

01:08:45.960 It's that the lesson that they learn is that we need to be about retribution twice as much as we were before.

01:08:52.680 And I just think that there was an opportunity.

01:08:54.140 Then we're on the course that we have to that we must play out before this stops.

01:08:58.840 I mean, I practice law for 10 years. I love law and order. I love the law.

01:09:04.860 I actually think it's the one thing still binding us together.

01:09:08.140 Like the honest judges out there who are still interpreting the law and upholding it, no matter where the chips fall politically, are like a really important piece of what's holding us together still 250 years after we were formed.

01:09:18.980 But in this particular instance, and I would never advocate charging somebody who didn't do anything, but if somebody actually violated the law and it's a crime that we normally wouldn't prosecute because it's just too small ball for us, we're just in a new era.

01:09:30.680 And so the Republicans are doing the right thing right now. And if if what is required to get us back to normal, which was, let's say, 10 years ago, is more pain and suffering on both sides, then so be it.

01:09:42.400 Then that that I'm sorry, but it's what the country has to go through. We can't we are going to die.

01:09:47.360 We are the country will end if we become if lawfare is just a new tool that's in the political arsenal of whatever power, whatever party is in power.

01:09:56.920 Lawfare. How do you know this isn't lawfare itself, Megan? No, I don't know. But my point is, I'm fine with it if it is.

01:10:02.820 If she committed a felony and we normally wouldn't prosecute it, but the reason we're really prosecuting it is because we're done not we're done with the exercise of discretion that would have been in their favor.

01:10:14.660 Then that's fine by me. I mean, we we didn't prosecute Hillary Clinton. We did not go after her. We did not lock her up.

01:10:21.040 We tried to take the high road. They didn't accept the olive branch. They tried to ruin Trump personally, Trump professionally, Trump's presidency and many around him.

01:10:33.260 You know, they're the ones who locked up Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress, Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress.

01:10:39.260 We didn't try to lock up Merrick Garland when he committed it. It's it's time.

01:10:43.680 I'm fucking done taking the high road. They have to suffer. 0.99

01:10:47.740 They have to have real skin in the game before they will accept reality, which is this move by them, repeated, repeated move by them is ruining our foundational basis.

01:11:00.300 So until they know that on a visceral level, like the kind you get when you're looking between bars, they're not going to behave differently.

01:11:09.080 So that's I mean, in a nutshell, where I am on it.

01:11:14.680 OK, low road, Megan. 0.96

01:11:19.360 No, I mean, look, I you know, you know, us dumb libertarians and our obsession with the Constitution. 0.83

01:11:25.800 I mean, I'm obviously nothing unconstitutional about it. 0.92

01:11:30.000 You violate the law. You can be put in jail if there are if there's a basis for the prosecution.

01:11:35.860 I mean, if if I was fired from my job and they didn't allow me to respond to the charges, I'd probably file a lawsuit for wrongful termination.

01:11:42.720 But I like what we would say at the beginning of the Bush at the middle of the Bush administration, libertarians are quite loud about this, is that executive power and the growth of executive power is going to turn on us.

01:11:55.940 Essentially, essentially and eventually. And in 2008, that's what happened.

01:12:00.520 Barack Obama became a president.

01:12:03.520 I don't like executive power either. I don't like a very strong, large president. I don't like it.

01:12:09.200 So I see that point. Keep going.

01:12:10.740 The problem is, is that when you respond to the expansion of executive power under George W. Bush with the massive expansion under Barack Obama and then you see where it's gone, it keeps on going, keeps on going.

01:12:25.260 And my concern with this is that we become Latin American in if you look at any Latin American country, particularly, you know, Argentina is a great example with economic policy of firing people that, you know, just, you know, if we keep doing this forever, where does it stop? 0.54

01:12:39.780 Does it ever stop? Number one. And number two is that, do I want to live in a world?

01:12:44.980 And I don't know about the John Bolton stuff, as you just said, Megan, it's unclear what this is.

01:12:50.280 But had John Bolton written a hagiography of Donald Trump, would the FBI have been at his house last week?

01:12:57.740 No chance.

01:12:58.080 No. I mean, is that, this is a question we have to ask ourselves. And, you know, it is a question that cannot be answered. But if this woman, I would prefer, by the way, when you point out, I have no idea about her qualifications, but I believe you, Camille has looked into this.

01:13:11.080 If that is the case, I want to get to the point where we stop hiring people. And there are ways of doing this legally. It is against federal law to be hiring people on the basis of, for instance, the color of their skin and to, quote, Camille, the shape of their genitalia.

01:13:27.580 But that is something that we should be attacking every day.

01:13:33.880 Right? I agree with that. But I do worry about this cycle of lawfare. And it's like, well, you use it against us. And just to be totally clear to listeners and viewers who have not been paying attention, they should have, when we've been on the show for many years now, and we were full-throated in our denunciations of this shit against Donald Trump.

01:13:54.160 So, I worry that— 0.99

01:13:56.160 Because it crossed a Rubicon.

01:13:58.000 Yeah, but I worry that there's no way of going back if we keep going on this, and that it's just lawfare, political lawfare forever.

01:14:05.580 I get it. I totally hear you. It's a valid point. Like, it doesn't sound like a crazy rebuttal to me at all. I just maintain, just based on my life experience, the only way they will learn is if they feel pain personally. Like, they must be made to feel personal pain.

01:14:21.900 Their heroes, for example, the ones who perpetrated Russiagate, and those around them, must be put through this same meat grinder, or it will continue in perpetuity.

01:14:36.200 They have to feel like, to quote Edward the Longshanks, that could be my head in a basket, or they'll just keep doing it. They'll just keep doing it.

01:14:45.940 So, I know—I hear you. I mean, we're at an impasse, but I think Trump sees it as I do, and I think we're going to be spending the next three years talking about the legal cases that have been brought against people like John Brennan, Jim Comey.

01:15:01.320 Maybe—potentially John Bolton didn't have that one on my bingo card, but okay, I'm open-minded to what he may or may not have done. Let's see.

01:15:09.120 Going after somebody for whom you have no colorable base is something that seems clearly made up.

01:15:14.620 I will speak out against, but so far I have not seen that, and I don't know what John Bolton did or didn't do.

01:15:19.020 So, you know, the reporting yesterday was that the CIA called something to the attention of the FBI about something he had disclosed overseas.

01:15:29.020 No idea. So we'll just hold our—keep our powder dry until we know more about that one.

01:15:33.060 Okay, I do want to get this soundbite in, because we've spent a lot over the first hour and 20 minutes talking about the left's obsession with identity politics,

01:15:40.340 and why are they still doing this, and this is not a winning strategy.

01:15:42.880 And you won't be surprised at all to learn that Tiffany Cross, who was probably the biggest racist after Joy Reid, 1.00

01:15:50.800 or she might have been ahead of Joy Reid, depended on the day, over on MSNBC, 0.95

01:15:55.080 she got fired from MSNBC, allegedly because she was, like, committing shenanigans with the company, like, reimbursements.

01:16:01.540 I don't know. But she denied all that.

01:16:03.380 I think it was because she was a racist hack who had no ratings. 1.00

01:16:06.060 But that's what gets you invited onto Abby Phillips' panel. 1.00

01:16:10.060 And she went on and had some pearls of wisdom to offer about Stephen Miller, deputy assistant to the president,

01:16:20.080 who's been behind a lot of these executive orders, who is brilliant, who is very much behind the immigration policy,

01:16:27.980 who was very much involved in writing the executive order on the gender madness, which was wonderful, 0.99

01:16:33.520 and is one of the left's favorite villains.

01:16:37.660 And here she is talking about him in Sot 9. 0.85

01:16:42.160 Anytime that we play something from Stephen Miller, it would be journalistic integrity to point out that he is a white supremacist,

01:16:47.800 and he is the brainchild behind this policy.

01:16:50.140 That's not my opinion. That's actual fact.

01:16:52.540 And for him to purport lies from the Oval Office as a white supremacist, it should be pointed out.

01:16:58.800 Oh, the Wall Street Journal reported that he's, it's a fact.

01:17:07.360 He's a Wall Street. Poor Arthur Idala, who goes on there.

01:17:11.400 She's an idiot, and that's actual defamation. 1.00

01:17:13.800 If I were Stephen Miller, I actually would file a lawsuit against her. 1.00

01:17:16.420 If I were Trump, I would file a lawsuit against AOC for saying over and over that he's a rapist. 0.98

01:17:20.440 Like, they're stating it. 0.97

01:17:21.820 She actually says it's not opinion. It's a matter of fact.

01:17:25.420 Just, that's, that's a problem, CNN.

01:17:29.220 Like, that is where the CNN producer should have gotten in Abby Phillips' ear to say, 1.00

01:17:32.660 you actually have to take that back. 0.98

01:17:35.240 We're going to get our asses sued. 0.98

01:17:36.960 Stephen Miller should sue her. 1.00

01:17:38.780 And it's just ridiculous.

01:17:40.360 They continue to do this to Stephen Miller because of the immigration policies. 0.66

01:17:45.200 And it's like, okay, they're very popular.

01:17:47.640 Deportation is less popular right now than it was.

01:17:49.720 But closing down the border, even Rahm Emanuel told me he wouldn't change a thing about what

01:17:55.280 Trump has done at the southern border.

01:17:56.600 But you've got your hangers on who can't let go.

01:17:59.720 What do you make of Tiffany Cross?

01:18:02.900 Full disclosure, I've been on Abby Phillips' show a couple of times.

01:18:06.420 I like Abby.

01:18:06.880 She's nice.

01:18:07.720 I was even on once with Tiffany Cross, who, I mean, the best thing about Tiffany Cross is

01:18:13.560 that she is relentlessly consistent.

01:18:15.740 This is always the argument that she deploys in precisely this sort of way.

01:18:21.380 And it's interesting that her target in this case is Stephen Miller because Stephen Miller

01:18:24.740 is actually pretty notorious for using a similar sort of argumentation tactic where you attribute

01:18:30.760 to people the worst imaginable motives.

01:18:32.820 Oh, you disagree with my policy position?

01:18:34.880 Why are you siding with murderers?

01:18:36.900 Why do you love murder? 0.99

01:18:39.180 So there's a sense in which this is just kind of what you expect, like the kind of ridiculous, 0.97

01:18:43.480 hyperbolic political theater that you're going to get.

01:18:46.880 And it's not at all surprising that that is what Tiffany Cross engages in on that particular

01:18:51.160 panel.

01:18:52.000 No, it is not an objective fact.

01:18:53.360 I am not aware of the Wall Street Journal publishing that.

01:18:55.600 And I do not think it is a winning strategy for progressives or Democrats broadly or the left

01:19:00.420 or anyone who opposes Donald Trump to simply go on making the most extreme, absurd claims

01:19:08.140 about the other side, about the nefarious motives of the people that they're arguing against.

01:19:13.780 You could make practical, well-structured arguments against these people.

01:19:18.480 You could advocate for even better policy.

01:19:21.380 But they don't do that.

01:19:22.780 And they refuse to do it for so long, which is why they may be in the political wilderness

01:19:26.120 for a long time.

01:19:27.600 But it's also, again, just hard to predict how these things will work out.

01:19:30.620 And so, you know, I've said a little bit in defense of Abby Phillips, who I think at least

01:19:34.500 tries to have on a diverse array of characters and try to represent the broader-

01:19:39.460 Before she goes on another podcast and then bashes the conservatives. 1.00

01:19:43.680 Yeah, I'd say that-

01:19:44.460 That's what she's been doing.

01:19:45.600 I think Abby tries to be middle of the road. 1.00

01:19:48.200 I also think that there is, in general, just a tilt towards the left amongst most elite

01:19:53.060 journalists.

01:19:53.640 You're so sweet.

01:19:54.600 Camille, you are a sweet guy.

01:19:55.900 You're just as sweet and hippie-ish as your friend Matt, Darren, because-

01:20:00.600 I'm less of a hippie.

01:20:02.140 Come on. 0.98

01:20:02.880 She is a dishonest broker. 1.00

01:20:05.200 She's a far-left person who's trying to masquerade as an impartial arbiter. 1.00

01:20:09.860 And you don't have to look very far to see it. 0.74

01:20:12.320 And especially, like, look at that interview she gave to Kara Swisher, where she shat all 0.98

01:20:15.960 over Scott Jennings and Jillian Michaels and basically called her a loser who's got these 1.00

01:20:23.640 insane ideals. 0.91

01:20:24.440 And if she wants to come out and make herself a national embarrassment, that's Jillian's 1.00

01:20:28.280 prerogative.

01:20:28.860 It's like, oh, nice way of treating your guests.

01:20:30.900 Okay.

01:20:31.200 She didn't rip on you, Camille. 0.99

01:20:32.520 So, I mean, we'll turn it in for the next episode.

01:20:34.680 I wouldn't rip on Jillian in that way either. 1.00

01:20:36.860 I saw the thing that she was getting castigated for recently, and it's completely unreasonable

01:20:40.560 and unfair.

01:20:41.120 Jillian was right.

01:20:42.500 Yes, completely agree, as she usually is.

01:20:45.440 I've got to take a break, and I have another subject I want to get to, but this doesn't fit in

01:20:50.340 anywhere, so I just have to play it and get your reaction.

01:20:53.140 Kamala Harris is going on a book tour.

01:20:55.240 She wants you to get really excited about it.

01:20:56.880 And here's her latest promo on TikTok, Sot8.

01:21:03.480 Okay, I almost forgot these.

01:21:06.400 It makes them room.

01:21:08.620 She's packing.

01:21:09.560 Actually, I think I have everything I need.

01:21:11.460 On tour this fall.

01:21:15.060 What on earth was that?

01:21:17.480 She's in her sweatpants.

01:21:18.620 Did she come out of the bathroom?

01:21:20.480 Oh, my gosh.

01:21:22.340 She's one of us.

01:21:23.720 Don't you do this?

01:21:24.740 Isn't that how you pack?

01:21:25.980 This is so, it's so funny.

01:21:27.700 Are you excited for her tour?

01:21:29.400 Are you guys going to be going?

01:21:31.100 Oh, yeah.

01:21:31.480 I might go.

01:21:32.100 I might go.

01:21:33.020 It could be comedy gold.

01:21:34.560 I mean, that's bad.

01:21:35.240 Totally.

01:21:35.540 The Lenny Kravitz.

01:21:36.440 Yeah.

01:21:36.840 Hell yeah.

01:21:37.200 Yeah, I like the score.

01:21:38.040 I feel like.

01:21:38.860 It ain't over till it's over.

01:21:39.840 What is that about?

01:21:41.100 What is the subject there?

01:21:42.020 It ain't over.

01:21:42.740 Right.

01:21:43.000 What does it mean?

01:21:44.500 Good observation.

01:21:45.980 What does that mean?

01:21:47.100 Like, it is over.

01:21:48.360 You realize you didn't win, Stacey Abrams.

01:21:50.300 Um, I want to, like, offer a challenge to, like, a viewer who will go to all of the Kamala

01:21:57.920 Harris book signings and events in her one, and I will give, like, five bucks a pop for 0.93

01:22:05.620 any new idea she expresses from the first one.

01:22:09.440 So we'll get, like, the list of things she says at the first one, and if she says anything

01:22:13.040 new, any sort of new idea at all, I'll give the viewer five dollars.

01:22:17.080 I want to come up with some sort of a challenge, because this woman has no new ideas. 1.00

01:22:21.340 There will be nothing of substance said.

01:22:24.160 It's going to be the worst waste of money to go see this person and buy this book, but

01:22:27.560 I think she's going to do it, because I don't know, guys.

01:22:29.560 I think she thinks it ain't over, Camille.

01:22:31.440 I think she actually thinks she does have a shot in 2028.

01:22:35.360 Am I wrong?

01:22:36.320 Megan, to say that this woman has no new ideas is one word too long. 0.54

01:22:42.040 I don't think she's ever had a single idea, period.

01:22:44.860 So, very generous of you.

01:22:48.560 You're like Camille with Abby Phillips.

01:22:50.740 Just speak two times.

01:22:52.720 No, in fairness, she thought it was a good idea to arrest the parents of truant kids in

01:22:57.440 high school.

01:22:57.720 That's right.

01:22:58.600 Or you with Joe Scarborough.

01:23:00.740 Yeah, we're all just feeling a little warm and fuzzy today, and Matt thinks everybody's

01:23:04.600 patriotic.

01:23:05.400 You love Joe Scarborough.

01:23:06.640 You think Abby Phillips is so moderate down the middle. 0.53

01:23:09.320 I don't know what's going on today.

01:23:10.360 We have to take a break.

01:23:11.320 Let's get ourselves together.

01:23:12.200 There's some deep breathing, fellas, and we'll be right back with the fifth column, guys,

01:23:15.640 who stay with me.

01:23:17.000 A lot of you may have some kind of extra car just sitting around.

01:23:19.900 Maybe it's an older model.

01:23:21.240 You don't drive anymore.

01:23:22.240 Maybe it's that second vehicle just collecting dust in the driveway.

01:23:25.720 Or maybe, yes, it's the one that has not moved in months, and you're still not even sure

01:23:29.520 it runs.

01:23:30.500 Whatever it is, if you are not using it, you could be donating it.

01:23:33.960 And here's a better idea than letting it rot.

01:23:35.780 Don't donate it to Cars for Kids.

01:23:38.620 That's cars with a K.

01:23:40.240 They have been doing this for over 30 years, taking over a million vehicle donations, and

01:23:44.580 they make the process so easy, you will wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

01:23:48.640 Free towing, fast pickup, no hassle, and you get a tax-deductible receipt.

01:23:53.540 You donate your car, running or not, and Cars for Kids will turn it into funding for children's

01:23:58.400 programs across the country.

01:23:59.480 And let's not forget the jingle, 1-877-CARS-FOR-KIDS.

01:24:03.420 You remember it.

01:24:04.560 Go to carsforkids.org slash mk.

01:24:06.580 That's cars with a K.

01:24:07.860 It's fast.

01:24:08.740 It's smart.

01:24:09.760 It helps kids.

01:24:10.940 Carsforkids.org slash mk.

01:24:13.120 Donate your car today.

01:24:15.060 Listen to this.

01:24:16.760 Brickhouse Nutrition's Labor Day sale just went live.

01:24:20.120 For a few days only, you can save 25% on everything with code LABORDAY25.

01:24:25.900 Start fall off strong.

01:24:27.080 Reboot your health and save big.

01:24:28.680 And this massive sale includes their best-selling weight loss formula, LEAN.

01:24:33.860 Brickhouse Nutrition says doctor-formulated LEAN helps turn excess fat into energy, reduces

01:24:39.140 appetite, and curbs cravings.

01:24:41.720 LEAN could help you reach your weight loss goals without needles or prescriptions.

01:24:45.540 Plus, you can also find Field of Greens there, a super fruit and veggie drink that promises

01:24:51.300 your doctor will notice your improved health, or they'll give you your money back.

01:24:55.680 Plus, favorites like Radiance, their Super Collagen Booster, and even the new Brickhouse

01:25:01.320 Whey Protein.

01:25:02.640 It's all on sale, 25% off, but only for a few days.

01:25:05.560 Kick off fall feeling stronger and more confident than ever.

01:25:08.240 Head to BrickHouseNutrition.com.

01:25:10.820 Use code LABORDAY25 for 25% off.

01:25:14.480 BrickHouseNutrition.com.

01:25:15.600 Code LABORDAY25.

01:25:17.080 I'm Megan Kelley, host of The Megan Kelley Show on SiriusXM.

01:25:24.320 It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and

01:25:29.140 important political, legal, and cultural figures today.

01:25:32.460 You can catch The Megan Kelley Show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts

01:25:37.020 you may know and probably love, great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave

01:25:43.520 Ramsey, and yours truly, Megan Kelley.

01:25:46.700 You can stream The Megan Kelley Show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are, no car required.

01:25:52.900 I do it all the time.

01:25:53.960 I love the SiriusXM app.

01:25:56.540 It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast, and more.

01:26:02.260 Subscribe now.

01:26:02.900 Get your first three months for free.

01:26:05.280 Go to SiriusXM.com slash MKShow to subscribe and get three months free.

01:26:11.120 That's SiriusXM.com slash MKShow and get three months free.

01:26:17.060 Offer details apply.

01:26:23.100 So, this just in.

01:26:26.480 Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are officially engaged.

01:26:31.240 She just posted it on her Instagram with the following message.

01:26:37.960 Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married and a picture of him apparently

01:26:43.440 down on one knee and her caressing him looking lovingly at him.

01:26:47.840 Here's another picture where he's standing and they're holding one another and then there

01:26:51.020 is a shot of the ring, which I can't see very clearly here, but I'm sure it's very nice.

01:26:55.920 They can afford whatever ring they want.

01:26:57.300 But I'm not a Taylor Swift fan for many reasons.

01:27:01.320 I mean, I respect the empire she's built.

01:27:03.460 I do.

01:27:04.140 Yeah, I do.

01:27:04.760 I respect the empire she's built.

01:27:06.060 I respect that she stood up for herself and she's got some modicum of talent.

01:27:10.260 However, she went political and like anybody who does that in the arts, they risk alienating

01:27:15.460 half the country and she's done that. 1.00

01:27:16.980 She's done that very effectively.

01:27:17.980 So I'm really not her fan.

01:27:20.680 However, as an American billionaire, right, which she's she's got to be at this point,

01:27:27.440 who's like not even 40.

01:27:29.900 I think it's great.

01:27:31.140 She finally found love.

01:27:32.740 I really do.

01:27:33.440 I am rooting for them.

01:27:35.460 I think it's not a coincidence that the person she ultimately decided to settle down with is 0.99

01:27:40.280 a real man is like a football player, you know, tough guy who doesn't really take a lot of shit 0.97

01:27:48.040 from people like, yeah, that's that's generally attractive to most women who don't want, you 0.97

01:27:53.980 know, someone where like in a scooter with a man bun.

01:27:56.820 That's really not as hot.

01:27:58.240 And so I think it's it's no accident.

01:28:01.080 This gal from the South who started out singing country songs found him attractive and he was

01:28:06.460 the one who ultimately won her heart.

01:28:08.580 And I think it's obvious the reasons why he would be attracted to Taylor Swift.

01:28:12.340 So I am rooting for them again.

01:28:14.680 Not her fan politically, but I don't care.

01:28:17.020 Like I I hope they have a wonderful, happy life together.

01:28:20.900 I hope they make a bunch of beautiful children and I hope she stays out of politics. 0.90

01:28:26.240 I really genuinely hope that the last year was an example to her of how much easier and

01:28:30.820 better her life will be if she just stays in her lane and lets people enjoy the music 1.00

01:28:35.640 or not, instead of trying to tell us what she thinks about LGBTQ policies. 0.81

01:28:40.320 Thoughts on it?

01:28:42.700 Love wins.

01:28:45.920 I'm up on this real man thing.

01:28:48.720 I'm not sure.

01:28:50.460 Do you feel attacked?

01:28:52.140 I have no man bun.

01:28:53.440 I would probably crash a scooter, which I guess is not banish because I can't I couldn't ride

01:28:59.080 a motorcycle either.

01:29:00.160 But I just want to say, Megan, in my defense, that those of us who don't read very manly,

01:29:05.940 you know, sometimes are beneath the surface, our own Travis Kelsey's.

01:29:10.780 So I just want to.

01:29:11.620 I agree with that.

01:29:12.880 Losing a lot of bar fights.

01:29:13.940 You're not you're not effete.

01:29:15.960 You're not effeminate.

01:29:17.220 But he's not like, no, not at all.

01:29:19.860 You haven't effeminized yourself.

01:29:21.780 Let's take him at his work.

01:29:22.700 He's not a real man like me and Travis Kelsey.

01:29:25.440 I mean, that's true.

01:29:26.980 You know, I want to tell you, though, I've had a lot of women ask me whether you are single 1.00

01:29:31.880 and available.

01:29:32.580 So like whatever you're putting down, they're picking up.

01:29:35.980 Megan, why?

01:29:37.040 That's pointing to himself with a questioning face.

01:29:42.760 Are you kidding me?

01:29:45.000 It's a certain people.

01:29:46.100 Maybe I'm with somebody who knows, but maybe I'd break up with them if you showed me that

01:29:50.620 it was someone spectacular.

01:29:52.540 Right.

01:29:53.060 I feel like you.

01:29:55.000 It's I had Charlie Kirk on recently.

01:29:56.840 We were talking about this viral clip of his where he talked about how he would never when

01:30:00.240 courting a woman and use that word courting, which I like split the bill on the first date, 0.95

01:30:05.460 how it would be so humiliating to do such a thing.

01:30:08.180 And he said something like the the honor you sacrifice is not worth the money you save

01:30:13.680 in doing such a thing.

01:30:15.120 And these young guns who are interviewing him were just flabbergasted by they're like,

01:30:18.900 what do you mean?

01:30:19.340 You don't even know if it's going to work out.

01:30:20.560 You're not sure if you're into her.

01:30:21.760 And he schooled them.

01:30:22.960 I feel like you would absolutely pay for the first date.

01:30:25.780 You're a Gen Xer.

01:30:26.920 I would pay for the first for the 50th.

01:30:29.800 My the chances that that date is going to be, shall we say, successful.

01:30:34.780 successful get a lot smaller.

01:30:38.180 You know, like, oh, yeah, let's let's not go back to your.

01:30:42.320 No, I'm just saying that I always pay for the bill, Megan, Charlie Kirk.

01:30:46.880 And I probably disagree on a lot, but I think he's right about that.

01:30:49.940 And congratulations.

01:30:51.960 I'll bet you that's how Travis Kelsey helped in part get Taylor Swift.

01:30:55.980 I bet he understood she could pay every bill of theirs from here to eternity.

01:30:59.800 But he probably I'm going to bet insisted that he'd be the one to pay.

01:31:04.140 And let's face it.

01:31:04.860 He's doing OK to pay the bill.

01:31:07.300 She's always going to pay for the jet. 0.99

01:31:09.040 So just absolutely correct.

01:31:11.460 And let's not say the fact that this engagement happens after what happens.

01:31:17.320 Travis Kelsey shows up to camp in the best shape of his life.

01:31:20.480 I was like he did the year one problem that a lot of dudes do, which is like, wow, I'm

01:31:25.880 in this happy relationship.

01:31:27.140 I'm going to get fat.

01:31:28.960 That's interesting.

01:31:30.060 You got fat last year.

01:31:31.380 And it wasn't right.

01:31:32.340 I don't think he could put a ring on it unless he'd like sealed that up.

01:31:35.380 And he shows pretty good.

01:31:37.180 Some ladies like the heftier bare bodies, you know, they like them. 1.00

01:31:41.440 Although I say that. 0.92

01:31:42.520 I think it's a gay term.

01:31:44.640 So I probably shouldn't use it here.

01:31:46.140 But you know what I mean?

01:31:46.820 They like a little bit more meat on the bone.

01:31:48.580 Do you believe that, Megan?

01:31:50.300 Do you believe that?

01:31:51.640 I know some women who like their men a little heftier. 1.00

01:31:53.940 I think they feel maybe more secure with them.

01:31:56.120 I'm not sure.

01:31:56.820 I'm not one of them.

01:31:57.780 Doug is perfect.

01:31:59.720 Are these the same women who are asking about me?

01:32:06.260 It's fine.

01:32:07.220 It's all right.

01:32:08.060 You can entertain it.

01:32:09.220 No, no.

01:32:09.680 I'm sorry.

01:32:11.280 You could put out a few and woo them along.

01:32:14.600 I don't know.

01:32:14.940 Just to say anything more.

01:32:15.880 Look, one thing about this couple that makes me feel a little uncomfortable, I'm not going

01:32:19.920 to lie, is like, why are we so obsessed with celebrity?

01:32:22.280 Like, we're obsessed.

01:32:23.440 Can I tell you this post that they just, she just put this up like two seconds ago.

01:32:28.320 It's already got, well, last I looked 36 minutes ago, it's got 4.3 million likes.

01:32:35.300 4.3 million likes in like a couple of minutes.

01:32:39.600 But these two, they're being treated like they're royalty, like they're American royalty.

01:32:45.440 And God, I mean, when she gets pregnant, it's going to be ridiculous, the coverage. 0.97

01:32:50.520 So like, why?

01:32:51.860 What is it?

01:32:52.840 Why?

01:32:53.680 It's, she's one of our last pop stars.

01:32:56.440 We really don't have that as a category anymore.

01:32:58.560 I guess, I suppose Beyonce might be like that. 0.96

01:33:01.140 But we don't really have any, like, everyone knows who this person is.

01:33:04.520 They've created a reality that everyone has to deal with because pop culture is so fragmented.

01:33:09.580 And she, with the Iris tour and other things, she's just like ubiquitous, certainly to those

01:33:14.020 of us who have teenage offspring, preferably daughters.

01:33:18.380 I asked my daughter, I'm like, are you into Taylor Swift?

01:33:20.340 She was like, no.

01:33:21.120 She's like, she's fine.

01:33:22.140 And actually, my daughter goes, I respect what she built.

01:33:24.480 But no, I'm not into her.

01:33:25.660 I'm like, right on.

01:33:26.560 It's more Billie Eilish with her.

01:33:28.640 No, no.

01:33:29.900 I don't know.

01:33:30.160 She's not like a, she doesn't obsess over music. 0.60

01:33:32.300 And honestly, can I tell you, when my kids play their music for me now, I don't, I've

01:33:35.420 never heard of any of them.

01:33:36.520 I have no idea who these people are.

01:33:38.140 Right?

01:33:38.480 Do you guys have that?

01:33:39.220 I've become, I'm like, back in my day, there was a melody, but I have no clue what they're

01:33:42.660 listening to.

01:33:43.880 Now, we, we had this conversation on the podcast the other day when we're in the car, Matt

01:33:47.960 and I, particularly with teenage daughters, when I'm in the car, I now put on music to try

01:33:53.320 to please my daughter and like, maybe she'll like this.

01:33:55.780 It's like embarrassing.

01:33:57.480 What channel do you hit?

01:33:58.680 When you put on Sirius XM, other than channel 111.

01:34:02.440 Uh, to listen to yours truly and Dr. Laura.

01:34:04.880 Um, what channel do you hit?

01:34:07.000 Well, first of all, did I tell you the time that my daughter said, why does Megan hate

01:34:11.320 Taylor so much?

01:34:13.300 Yes, I think we did talk about her.

01:34:14.540 That's a long story.

01:34:15.900 And she just like, honestly.

01:34:17.060 She softened her message today.

01:34:18.760 Yeah.

01:34:19.280 You know, she follows you on Instagram and she's like, why?

01:34:21.620 She'll know.

01:34:22.040 Some clip that you saw or something.

01:34:23.520 But no, I mean, I would love to, um, uh, shout out Sirius to give them a plug, but I don't

01:34:29.880 know.

01:34:30.260 I think it, don't they, is there a, like a Dylan channel?

01:34:32.900 I like, I, I, I'm like 40 years.

01:34:35.580 Bob Dylan.

01:34:35.880 Yeah.

01:34:36.000 I actually, I like, I like pop rocks.

01:34:38.360 I like eighties.

01:34:39.500 I like nineties.

01:34:40.320 I like the year aughts channels.

01:34:41.840 I like those like down in that rain, in that region there.

01:34:45.040 I like the Tik TOK channel.

01:34:46.720 They've got stuff that the younger people like, I don't know the Taylor Swift music.

01:34:51.020 It's fine.

01:34:51.980 I like the, let's not pretend she's one of the great, you know, artists or songwriters

01:34:57.260 of all time.

01:34:58.240 She's fine.

01:34:58.760 It's like kind of bubble gum, you know, it speaks to a certain population.

01:35:03.200 There's a reason that most of her fans are tweens.

01:35:06.020 Um, and that's fine.

01:35:07.060 There's a place for that in our society.

01:35:08.340 I just, I think she was treated like she was more important than that particular role.

01:35:13.960 And she started to believe that she was more important than that kind of role.

01:35:18.460 Like think like her endorsement would be critical to the Kamala Harris team. 0.87

01:35:22.400 And then she did.

01:35:23.460 That's, that's when I turned on her when she, first she made some nonsense about like supporting 1.00

01:35:27.840 the Palestinians right after Israel got attacked.

01:35:30.040 It was like, okay, could you give them a beat to like figure out how many of their people 0.95

01:35:34.460 have been taken hostage before you do a fundraiser for the other side.

01:35:37.620 And then she endorsed Kamala Harris because she chose Tim Walsh and his crazy LGBTQ stance. 0.99

01:35:43.880 He's the most radical governor in the country on that.

01:35:46.600 But so that's when I turned on her, um, that, and then, you know, Trump has got his own

01:35:50.480 reasons.

01:35:50.720 We have to explain that to, to Moynihan Jr.

01:35:53.100 She, she's probably with me on this if she thinks it through.

01:35:55.200 Isn't Kamala Harris' dad a conservative?

01:35:57.280 It was like outed as liking wrong things on Facebook or something, which shows you how

01:36:01.380 family is that people are paying attention to what her dad likes on Facebook.

01:36:04.240 Well, I think she's from Tennessee, right?

01:36:05.740 She's, she's from the South. 1.00

01:36:07.300 Um, so it shouldn't come as a big surprise that he's probably a little bit more right leaning.

01:36:11.540 In any event, the whole celebrity obsession is just a lot.

01:36:14.920 And I'm like, get over it.

01:36:17.200 You know, it's like we, we do this thing in America where we just, we, we, we build these

01:36:22.500 people up like they're infallible, like they're gods, like there's some sort of, some, not

01:36:26.760 the same humans we are.

01:36:27.820 And then they always disappoint us.

01:36:29.460 You know, look at Tom Brady and Giselle.

01:36:31.440 That was another Hollywood royalty kind of couple, you know, or it was like NFL player,

01:36:37.000 just like Travis Kelsey and supermodel, not a singer, but a supermodel.

01:36:40.760 It fell apart, by the way, I do think there's a lot to be gleaned from who she wound up with

01:36:46.600 after Tom.

01:36:47.600 This is my own opinion.

01:36:49.800 Her jujitsu instructor, Giselle, according to my sources and in my opinion, wanted a normal 0.99

01:36:58.460 life.

01:36:59.100 She wanted a husband who would stay with her and raise their family and be like with her 0.95

01:37:05.220 at night in their home.

01:37:06.880 She's Brazilian. 0.58

01:37:07.640 She's a more traditional woman and he wanted to be on the red carpet and flitting about

01:37:13.920 the world and going to the Lauren Sanchez wedding.

01:37:17.020 And she didn't want that.

01:37:18.340 Notwithstanding the fact that she's a totally glamorous model. 1.00

01:37:20.760 And I have been told by somebody who knows them both, this was at the root of their problems.

01:37:26.740 He wanted the big life and she didn't.

01:37:28.460 So in any event, we'll see.

01:37:30.380 These things can be fraught to huge, huge careers, you know, where both is used to being

01:37:36.600 the dominant player.

01:37:38.720 How long do we give it to it?

01:37:40.300 Do we end on a cynical note?

01:37:42.620 Is that too dark?

01:37:43.760 How long?

01:37:44.600 I'm still smarting from my Kim and Kanye prediction.

01:37:47.740 I promised that their marriage would endure despite what critics said.

01:37:51.320 I was rooting for them.

01:37:52.680 It was the camelot of our times. 0.95

01:37:54.100 I'm just a huge Kanye stand.

01:37:56.760 I'm still smarting.

01:37:58.240 Honestly, the whole thing is very difficult to talk about.

01:37:59.440 I guess you didn't see the Hitler stuff coming. 0.80

01:38:01.900 I did not see that coming, you know?

01:38:04.440 So I'm reluctant to offer any prognostication for fear that it will backfire in the worst

01:38:11.020 imaginable way possible.

01:38:12.380 I feel like that should have been disclosed earlier in the episode, but okay, everything

01:38:16.400 needs to be funneled through that acknowledgement.

01:38:17.880 I don't do the prognostication anymore.

01:38:20.280 I'll give you the prediction.

01:38:22.040 I mean, first of all, Giselle, if you want somebody that just like stay home with you

01:38:25.640 at night, I mean, my Uber app is like, I think I had a low rating.

01:38:30.540 No one's picking me up.

01:38:31.440 So I'm going to say that's the first thing.

01:38:33.640 Second thing is, is this is a mean thing to say, but I saw them on a podcast together.

01:38:41.200 I guess it was, I guess it was Travis Kelsey's podcast where she's announcing something.

01:38:45.260 And he's a bit of a mimbo. 1.00

01:38:48.620 And so

01:38:48.900 It's nothing like that to me.

01:38:52.700 He's not like, what is a mimbo? 1.00

01:38:56.120 A mimbo is a male bimbo, a mimbo. 1.00

01:38:58.820 Oh, he had a bit, he had a bit of a mimbo vibe and she seems a lot smarter than him. 1.00

01:39:03.900 So that might be staying power or she might realize the football player is maybe not, not,

01:39:10.840 I don't think it can last because of that.

01:39:13.180 Oh yeah.

01:39:14.480 I had never just been so engulfed in the curiosity of who you were.

01:39:19.440 Oh, that's really, I really, I really had things about that last statement is you didn't

01:39:23.400 even know what the word engulf meant before.

01:39:24.880 Like you met Taylor, like this is, you've broadened your horizon.

01:39:28.060 We're the perfect, I'm telling you, it's so, she makes me so much better.

01:39:36.480 Thank you for saying that.

01:39:37.980 Thank you for saying that.

01:39:38.900 And then, but it's like, you see you on the stage and you see how crazy you can get an

01:39:45.420 entire stadium going.

01:39:46.640 And then I get you in a room and it's like, I've known you forever.

01:39:50.920 It's like, it was just the easiest conversation I ever had.

01:39:55.440 And it was just so much fun that it just, it knocked my socks off from what they say.

01:40:01.540 Knocked your socks off.

01:40:02.640 Yeah.

01:40:02.900 Thank you.

01:40:03.840 That's, I felt the same exact way about you.

01:40:05.660 She blew me away and I had never, I had never experienced something so mesmerizing on stage

01:40:10.380 and then so real and so beautiful in person.

01:40:13.920 Here's where it usually goes south.

01:40:15.600 Like, let's be honest.

01:40:17.300 Travis Kelsey is very famous and very successful in the NFL.

01:40:19.900 He's not Tom Brady level because there's only one person who's Tom Brady level and that's

01:40:24.260 Tom Brady.

01:40:25.760 But it can happen with these big sports guys, NFL or elsewhere, that after they leave the big

01:40:31.820 sport, you know, they're never going to be as successful as they were when they were,

01:40:37.240 what is he, a tight end?

01:40:39.140 It's very hard to achieve that level of success again.

01:40:42.600 And then a lot of these guys, we've seen the cycle.

01:40:44.760 They get down on themselves.

01:40:46.140 They have a suffer, they suffer a crisis of confidence.

01:40:48.820 You know, they, they act out in some circumstances.

01:40:51.520 Like, it's not that he's not going to be fine.

01:40:53.320 Obviously he's marrying one of the richest women in the world.

01:40:55.220 I'm just saying like the post glory phase of life comes quickly for professional athletes

01:41:01.860 and that can be a tough pill to swallow, especially for men.

01:41:06.220 I think that's true, Megan, but also in his particular case, um, he's going to be a broadcaster.

01:41:11.300 He's got the gift of gab despite, or because of his mimbo-esque qualities. 1.00

01:41:16.920 That's the word, Matt.

01:41:17.800 Yeah.

01:41:18.880 Broadcast that he does with his brother is pretty, uh, pretty popular.

01:41:22.120 And he's just sort of like a funny winning personality.

01:41:24.720 Um, and, uh, and he's going to be-

01:41:26.760 Moynihan was not impressed.

01:41:28.260 I'm not impressed.

01:41:28.800 But then again, I don't understand anything about anything these days because I was served up a clip-

01:41:34.240 This also should have been disclosed at the top of the show.

01:41:36.860 Yeah, yeah.

01:41:37.340 I shouldn't, I literally should not be on the show.

01:41:39.560 Um, someone's just typing this on a screen to me.

01:41:42.120 But I saw a clip of this talk to a girl and I'm like, wait, people watch this?

01:41:47.780 Hayley Welch.

01:41:48.360 What is happening?

01:41:49.300 Not anymore, right?

01:41:49.900 You know her name?

01:41:51.640 No.

01:41:52.120 She shares my last name, Megan.

01:41:55.160 This is something you need to disclose.

01:41:58.600 You want to know?

01:42:00.800 I was, by the way, just, I was appalled trying to watch that.

01:42:04.600 I was like, okay, she was in a viral clip.

01:42:06.260 Now she has a, like a podcast where she makes like millions of dollars. 1.00

01:42:09.420 I mean, good for her.

01:42:10.280 She was working at a factory before.

01:42:11.980 So it's awesome in a great American story, but I do not understand it.

01:42:16.440 So-

01:42:16.500 All the way up to the crypto scams.

01:42:18.380 Yeah, the crypto scams were working in her favor as well.

01:42:20.700 Oh yeah, I read about that.

01:42:21.620 To her disadvantage.

01:42:22.240 I don't know.

01:42:23.320 Are people still listening to that show?

01:42:25.320 It's back.

01:42:25.740 I hope the Taylor Swift marriage lasts longer than the Hawk to his podcast career does.

01:42:32.420 Fingers crossed.

01:42:33.580 And you know, best wishes.

01:42:35.120 I'll leave it at that.

01:42:35.960 Guys, a pleasure as always.

01:42:37.900 Find all their work at wethefifth.com.

01:42:40.480 Love those guys.

01:42:41.480 We're back tomorrow.

01:42:42.000 I'll see you then.

01:42:45.900 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:42:47.740 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:42:57.720 Your business doesn't move in a straight line.

01:43:00.760 Make sure your team is taken care of through every twist and turn with Canada Life Savings,

01:43:05.680 Retirement, and Benefits Plans.

01:43:07.340 Whether you want to grow your team, support your employees at every stage, or build a

01:43:11.760 workplace people want to be a part of, Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all

01:43:16.960 sizes, so it's easy to find a solution that works for you.

01:43:20.780 Visit canadalife.com slash employee benefits to learn more.

01:43:24.800 Canada Life.

01:43:25.880 Insurance.

01:43:26.840 Investments.

01:43:27.660 Advice.

01:43:28.160 France.

01:43:28.960 Business.

The Megyn Kelly Show - August 26, 2025

Chicago Mayor Rejects Crime Help, Trump vs. Fed Gov, and Taylor Swift Engaged, with The Fifth Column

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript