Mike Huckabee and Joe Trippi join me on The Megyn Kelly Show to talk about their favorite moments from the 2016 election and why you should vote today. They also talk about how we got to where we are today.
00:00:00.460Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:06.840It's Election Day. What should we expect tonight and into this week?
00:00:12.400Two politics veterans from the right and the left will join us on the show today.
00:00:16.980Governor Mike Huckabee and Joe Trippi, two of my favorites. This is going to be a good one.
00:00:21.640Happy Election Day, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly and this is The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:31.200So glad to have you with us. This is it. Election Day 2020.
00:00:36.140It has finally arrived as we always knew it would. And I see this as a day to express your love for your country.
00:00:43.880Whoever you vote for, you get in there and in effect, you're voting for the United States of America.
00:00:48.160The way it runs its election systems, the people it nominates through a democratic process.
00:00:54.420That's what you go in there for today. Yes, you may have your political preferences and that's fine.
00:00:59.760But this is about more than that. It's about expressing, exercising your responsibility, your right.
00:01:07.400It's it's a gift. We're all blessed to live here and not everybody gets to do this.
00:01:12.620Some people die in other parts of the world just for the one chance of getting into a polling station and casting a ballot like millions of Americans will do today.
00:01:21.900I see this is your chance to say what matters. This is it. Right.
00:01:25.480And I do think that if you don't vote, you really do sacrifice your right to complain.
00:01:29.540It's like I tell my kids, if you're not going to do anything about your about your problem, nothing at all, even though you've been advised on the potential options, you waive your right to complain about it.
00:01:38.220Right. You have to be proactive in your own life, both in terms of what you do in your apartment or your home and what and in terms of what you do at the polling station today.
00:01:47.100So go vote. If you haven't, if you fail to register, at least make a note on the calendar to register for the next one, because I know a lot of people start to beat themselves up that they miss the opportunity.
00:01:57.460Well, there's always tomorrow. Right now for this particular election, unless you're committing voter fraud.
00:02:01.900But in the future, I mean, I've been thinking a lot about what I wanted to say to you guys today because I've been thinking a lot about the last four years and how we got to where we are.
00:02:11.000We're incredibly divided. We're there's so much hate.
00:02:15.160There's breaking up of friends and families over their electoral politics, which is insane.
00:02:21.900The press is at an all time low in terms of its respect and trust.
00:02:26.140And I've been thinking back to how we got here.
00:02:31.240Four years ago, Americans went to the polls and they shocked the world.
00:02:35.500They shocked the world by electing a reality TV star as president, a P.T. Barnum like circus character.
00:02:41.620Right. Known for as much for his questionable real estate deals as for his extramarital affairs and his bankrupt casinos.
00:02:48.620Trump. Everyone told us he's not going to be president.
00:02:51.380That's what everyone said, from Barack Obama to the pollsters to even some of my own Fox News colleagues who loved the guy, but just could not see a pathway to 270 electoral votes for him.
00:03:03.000And then the electoral votes started to come in.
00:03:27.360Very few people could believe it or had predicted it.
00:03:30.060I remember watching in awe at Fox as we we cut between the stunned looking Hillary supporters in an utterly dejected, sad, panicked looking Javits Center here in New York City where the fireworks never did go off.
00:03:44.800The balloons did not drop from the ceiling and then, you know, cut to the exuberant crowd over at Trump headquarters where you saw kids who look like they found the golden ticket.
00:03:55.540Right. A feat so spectacular, even they seem to struggle to actually believe it.
00:05:40.820The people were told you must recoil in disgust and think Trump was awful in every way.
00:05:44.640But every morning, the news would come that Trump, while he was doing all these nutty things, was actually getting results.
00:05:52.560He was passing legislation that, frankly, exceeded most Republicans' wildest dreams.
00:05:57.940That's not the story you would read in the press, however.
00:05:59.940They have waxed poetically in the past days, weeks, and even years about how awful and tyrannical he has been, how dangerous his reelection would be, that we can't afford four more years of this.
00:06:11.360They malign his supporters as bigoted, as dolts who don't understand this is a modern-day Hitler.
00:06:16.580And since so many of his supporters have been shamed into silence, and they have.
00:06:22.260I realize there are people out there with the MAGA hats and the trucks and the bumper stickers, but there are millions of Americans who no longer will say anything about Trump because they're afraid.
00:06:29.700And that's what led me to want to take this word this morning on why millions of people will go to the polls.
00:06:37.580And behind the curtain, they will pull the lever for Donald Trump.
00:06:41.060No matter the result today, whether he wins or loses, they do not deserve scorn.
00:06:50.980And it doesn't mean they're bigots or awful or stupid.
00:06:55.100The truth is that while Trump was out there tweeting and golfing and watching cable news repeatedly over his first term, he was also getting things done.
00:07:05.520He rolled back scores of regulations that had been crippling corporate America.
00:07:09.840He helped America achieve energy independence, oh, that.
00:07:13.760He worked to deter illegal border crossings, albeit with family separations that continue to haunt us all.
00:07:20.220I mean, the images of those children are terrible.
00:07:22.120But that was in an effort to crack down on a real problem at the border.
00:07:26.400And he did ultimately build at least some of that wall, though not enough.
00:07:30.200If you ask Ann Coulter, he tried to restore due process for young men on college campuses who had been accused of sexual misconduct, who under Obama had virtually all of their rights entirely gutted.
00:08:10.460I don't know why he doesn't mention this stuff.
00:08:12.220He dropped a bomb on Iran's General Soleimani, who had killed hundreds of U.S. troops, despite many predicting that doing so would cause a war, which it has not.
00:08:21.800Trump pushed for peace in the Middle East, moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, which many had said they do, but none did.
00:08:28.160He helped convince countries like Sudan, Bahrain, and the UAE to sign historic deals that recognize Israel and which very well may be precursors to peace.
00:08:44.200God, they were down the rabbit hole on some obscure, boring, esoteric stories, but didn't even devote one little episode to that.
00:08:52.580Trump, of course, appointed three jurors to the United States Supreme Court, originalists from the Federalist Society, some of those conservatives approved, and 220, 220 conservative jurors to the lower federal courts.
00:09:04.820He's also repeatedly cited as the most pro-life president we've seen in a lifetime.
00:09:09.140I personally don't believe Donald Trump when he says that that's a heartfelt commitment he has.
00:09:14.180I think he sort of blows with the wind on that issue, but there's no denying the results.
00:09:17.820If you are pro-life, he's done more for your side than any previous president has.
00:09:21.420Trump passed legislation that should have delighted even the left, right?
00:09:26.760The most significant criminal justice reform law in years.
00:09:29.780He worked with Van Jones, and then Van Jones promptly got excoriated by the left for deigning to work with Jared Kushner on such a legislation.
00:09:37.680But it was it was something the left should have loved.
00:09:40.560And then the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act to protect exploited young women.
00:09:44.340That was something the Democrats, AOC and others refused to even applaud him for at the State of the Union after he got it done.
00:09:50.360Meantime, his economy was booming by any standard.
00:09:55.440Unemployment was at a low not seen in 50 years.
00:09:58.260It was at record lows for blacks, Hispanics and women before the terrible pandemic hit.
00:10:04.560The pandemic that would change the world.
00:10:11.860From day one, they were calling for his impeachment.
00:10:13.580That is actually true within hours of him being sworn in.
00:10:17.280They and the complicit media pushed a BS case of Russian collusion that even the once very respected Robert Mueller could not ultimately make.
00:10:26.680And then they impeached him over something else.
00:10:28.700As soon as the Russia thing failed, they impeached him over something else for an odd and off,
00:10:34.500but not illegal phone call with the Ukrainian leader that never did lead to a quid pro quo.
00:10:40.340And as soon as they failed to convict him, they started in again, questioning whether they might give it another try on that or some other subject.
00:10:47.840The New York Times published Trump's likely illegally leaked taxes.
00:10:51.500No one seemed to have a problem with it, though they wouldn't print the Hunter Biden story.
00:10:55.560Staffer after staffer turned on Trump.
00:10:57.640Some we respected and loved and might still.
00:11:01.380And yet any of them, any of them were afforded media anonymity to bash Trump, no matter how far up his backside they'd been when their egos needed his love and approval.
00:11:11.240And no matter how high or low they really were on the D.C. totem pole, as we saw this week.
00:11:18.220Trump never did find a way to talk about race or women or immigrants respectfully.
00:11:22.720Though he did condemn white supremacy repeatedly, and he never called the Charlottesville Klansmen good people, despite the media's dishonest reports.
00:11:32.540He came with jagged edges that often cut deep.
00:11:36.220And anyone deemed an enemy for a day or a debate has the scars to prove it.
00:11:42.780But he also kept us safe from another terrorist attack.
00:11:47.920He kept us out of war with North Korea.
00:11:49.980And he did not start unnecessary quagmires in the Middle East, as some other Republican presidents did.
00:11:57.040How important were his tweets, really?
00:12:00.360His thin-skinned nature, his occasional cruelty, his childish relationship with the truth.
00:12:07.620The pandemic hit and he stopped travel from China.
00:18:08.320You take your measurements and then you customize it online.
00:18:11.180With BlindsGalore.com's new Build a Blind tool, you'll even be able to see exactly how your blind or shade will look on screen before you buy.
00:18:18.740You will save a ton compared to the big box stores.
00:18:21.400And you'll get a custom-made product designed just for your windows.
00:18:24.160A designer look without a designer price tag.
00:18:26.940You can even connect your shades to your smart home.
00:18:55.680Join me now, Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, former presidential candidate, and now host of The People's Podcast on Quake Media.
00:21:13.180Well, you know, it's when the facts are not good for your side, you tend to switch to something else like feelings or your lived experience, which isn't all that probative.
00:21:48.120But people are not going to feel uplifted if their side loses, because, as you well know, enormous dejection comes to one side inevitably on a day like this or maybe over the next couple of days, depending when we get the results.
00:22:01.160What do you think now on actual voting day?
00:22:04.200What's going to make the difference today?
00:22:05.700This is a turnout election, without any question.
00:22:10.320Which side gets their voters to go and vote?
00:22:13.780How many of those people have already voted?
00:22:15.960I mean, we know that 100 million have, which is stunning.
00:22:19.120More people than voted in all of 2016.
00:24:20.680Well, and I think what you just said is very true, part of which is because the press historically has given presidents, and really all politicians, a certain layer of protection.
00:24:35.780Did the American public know about FDR and his dalliances, or JFK?
00:24:41.840No, they just simply were never told about those things.
00:24:45.260People made their minds up about these presidents because of what they did, not because of the things that maybe were going on behind the scenes that had nothing to do with their job performance.
00:24:56.580Now, tonight, when the shows get started and we start to see the anchors come out to the anchor desks, here's the thing I'm going to be looking at as somebody who's done this for years.
00:25:05.240And what happens usually at Fox News at five o'clock on election night, we would always have a pre-show meeting with the pollsters, with the decision desk people who were, you basically get two per news company.
00:25:19.660They get invited to look at the exit polls.
00:25:25.660They wouldn't tell me anything, even a heads up, prior to sharing it with the group, because they are just, you know, they're Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
00:25:31.640So you sit around and they tell you, and I'll never forget last time, four years ago, they sit around and they said, it looks like it's going to be a very good night for Hillary Clinton.
00:25:41.020And that's what the exit polls were showing at that point.
00:26:10.840But and there'll be a tell in some way of more than they're allowed to share at that point as to what the exit polls are showing.
00:26:18.060Now, it doesn't mean it's going to turn out to be right, but the anchors are limited in what they can say, but they can sort of telegraph with their overall tone where they think the night is going.
00:26:27.220And we'll see whether tonight is more accurate than last time.
00:26:30.300What are you going to be looking for when things get underway?
00:26:33.860Well, I'm going to be looking for some early results out of places like Pennsylvania, Florida, Iowa, Michigan and North Carolina.
00:26:41.960If Donald Trump doesn't win Florida, then he's in trouble and he's got to win Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina and probably Wisconsin and maybe Arizona.
00:27:02.780I think the others start falling in line.
00:27:04.980I remember four years ago, Megan, I had for weeks said Donald Trump was going to win and I had arguments, maybe even with you.
00:27:13.280I don't remember specifically, but I had arguments on air with a lot of our Fox anchors and others who said, and here was the big catch line.
00:27:53.460It was people who were tired of being subjugated to the back of the political bus, who were sick and tired of being denigrated as deplorables, as people hanging on to their religion and their guns and dismissed as rubes and yokels, treated like dirt when it came to trade deals.
00:29:23.840And I think we all learned an important lesson through Trump.
00:29:26.860And I don't know if it holds, you know, for future Republicans, but certainly for the Donald Trump vote, it always has to have a big asterisk next to it.
00:29:35.120Because people people do lie to the pollsters when it comes to him.
00:30:20.620You know, you talk about the shy Trump voter, and I believe that.
00:30:23.120There are people that don't want to put a yard sign or a bumper sticker on their car because they don't want their car scratched up, but they don't want their home egg or worse burned down.
00:30:32.540They don't want people breaking down their doors.
00:30:35.780And they see, you know, this mass of violence going on around the country, people being sucker punched because they were wearing a MAGA hat.
00:30:44.420And people just don't want to have that.
00:30:46.160They don't want to have arguments with their own family members.
00:30:48.240They don't want to be disinvited to Thanksgiving dinner because they dare vote for Donald Trump.
00:31:52.260And I feel like what's even sadder is to see Barack Obama in front of those rallies or standing in front of four people because, you know, it's just a far cry from Invesco field with the Greek columns in 2008, where it was like the second coming has arrived and people went nuts.
00:32:06.840I realize it's a covid world, but it did make me rethink my judgment of their basement strategy.
00:32:15.860They are saying, though, right now that the enthusiasm, if you if you had to look at it, it's actually greater this year on the Democrat side.
00:32:25.240But Gallup always points out enthusiasm doesn't necessarily predict who is going to win the election.
00:32:31.280But the Democrats are way more enthusiastic this time than they were last time around.
00:32:35.100There was it was like 50 percent of Democrats were enthusiastic about Clinton in 16.
00:32:40.280Seventy five percent are enthusiastic, at least to vote in 2020 on the Dem side.
00:32:45.220Um, for Republicans, it was actually lower as well.
00:32:49.940In 2016, it was 53 percent were enthusiastic and 2020 is 60.
00:32:54.500So they've gone up as well because some GOP years have actually come to like Trump when last time around they were suspicious of him anyway.
00:33:02.160So we'll see whether enthusiasm translates.
00:33:04.260But what do you think is going to happen?
00:33:07.060And I mean, as the as the days go on, as they could, as we wait for possibly Pennsylvania, because you could mail in your vote there and and even evoke it that gets postage postmarked today has to be counted.
00:33:20.580If it's close in Pennsylvania, we're all screwed.
00:33:22.360What is the likelihood of litigation and of shenanigans when it comes to a state like Pennsylvania?
00:33:29.080If it's close in a state like Pennsylvania and it has to be recounted or maybe there's a challenge of the validity of certain ballots, I think it's going to get ugly.
00:34:03.320If he doesn't, I'm not going to take to the streets and loot some store and go grab television sets and burn cars and throw bricks at police officers over it.
00:34:14.340I'm going to suck it up and say, hey, you know, this is what an election is.
00:34:18.240Now, if we find it that there was certain types of shenanigans, even then I'm not going to burn anything down.
00:34:24.980I'll just say, let's get to the bottom of it, make sure we have the results right.
00:34:29.660But I really do fear that if Donald Trump wins, whether it's by a landslide or by a small margin, we're going to see the kind of things that we saw in Minneapolis and Seattle and Portland and Kenosha and Atlanta in New York and major cities.
00:34:49.780I think it's a destructive thing to happen, not just to these cities, but to our processes of a peaceful transfer of power, which we're supposed to be able to accept.
00:35:01.500But let's face it, Megan, the Democrats never accepted the results of the 2016 election and they couldn't accept it.
00:35:11.240They but there was at least a clearer picture in 2000 in the Florida votes.
00:35:18.420A lot of that was because of where I live now in the Florida panhandle, which people counted the votes in East Florida, which is in the eastern time zone.
00:35:25.900I'm failing to remember that in the panhandle, in the central time zone, those results hadn't come in.
00:35:31.740The county where I live voted 84 percent Republican, 84 percent.
00:35:37.300So the panhandle is always where the Florida votes start really swinging to the right.
00:35:52.240There's a real chance of, well, either president, because, you know, if Trump loses and it's close, he's going to try to delegitimize Biden entirely.
00:35:59.840He's going to say they stole the election.
00:36:17.560So I hope legal legal challenges don't resolve this election because we all saw how that worked out.
00:36:22.480But I do think they're likely, especially given all the changes we've had to make in the electoral system, thanks to covid, the number of mail in votes, the the oddities in 22 states.
00:36:31.880You can postmark your vote as of today and still mail it.
00:37:40.000I have a first grader, a fourth grader, fifth grader.
00:37:42.440My fourth grader is studying the election, the electoral process.
00:37:45.900And I mean, there isn't a day that that goes by that she doesn't come home and repeat to me what she's being taught in school, which is how unfair the electoral college is and how it should really be the popular vote.
00:37:56.380And I'm like, oh, honey, let me try to explain to you why your teachers are saying that and what that would actually mean for America.
00:38:05.260But, you know, what is frightening about that is to take fourth graders and rather than educate them, trying to indoctrinate them on a particular worldview that goes against the very essence of the Constitution and how it was created and designed for a purpose.
00:38:23.340Now, I think it's fine to have the discussion and even say maybe the founders were wrong.
00:38:29.800But you can't have that discussion fairly and accurately if you don't explain what the electoral college was intended to do.
00:38:37.740The same way that we have a Senate, by the way, the Senate should still be elected by the states.
00:38:44.120It was 100 years ago that we changed it to a popular vote.
00:38:48.840It was a huge mistake and we paid the price for having a popularly elected Senate as opposed to a Senate chosen by the state legislatures like we had until the early 1900s.
00:39:01.340And it really created the massive federal government that we have.
00:39:05.320As a governor, I saw the results of senators who didn't care about what was happening in their states.
00:39:12.280Mm hmm. So speaking of the Senate, and I'll ask you, President, as well, I know you think Trump's going to win, but I'm curious about whether you have an electoral college prediction in terms of the numbers.
00:39:22.060But what do you think is going to happen in the Senate?
00:39:24.020Because, I mean, there is a scenario, obviously, in which the Democrats win it all and we have one party rule at every branch of government.
00:39:30.220But there's another scenario in which some of these disaffected Republicans who just don't like Trump, they can't get back on board with him.
00:39:36.180Some of these women and so on say, I don't I don't like him.
00:39:40.660I'm not going to put him back in there, but I'm not giving over the Senate to the Democrats as well.
00:39:45.740There should be one branch of government that is still, you know, makes us divided.
00:39:49.580So what do you think the odds are that the Republicans lose the Senate?
00:39:52.780I think Republicans keep the Senate. We've got several key states that are up for grabs.
00:39:59.700We may lose Colorado with Cory Gardner. I don't have a good feel for that.
00:40:03.540But I think Joni Ernst will win in Iowa.
00:40:07.640I think Lindsey Graham holds on in South Carolina despite a hundred million dollars poured in against him.
00:40:14.380And I want to believe that Martha McSally, who is a wonderful senator, a strong woman.
00:40:21.240I don't know why anyone would not want to keep her if they knew her story, if they'd read her book and recognized all the obstacles she's overcome to shatter glass ceilings.
00:40:32.040She was, in her case, with an A-10 Warthog combat fighter, the first female combat fighter pilot in America.
00:40:39.460And boy, did she have to go through some tough experiences to break those barriers.
00:40:45.500They'd want her there. And it's interesting that Mark Kelly, her opponent, is an astronaut.
00:41:01.660You know, the thing about Martha McSally is she's not a great retail politician.
00:41:05.840You know, she's a fighter pilot. I don't know that they're the best at glad handing, you know.
00:41:10.060And Mark Kelly, Mark Kelly is he's pretty charming.
00:41:13.620I had him on my show at NBC and he talked about becoming an astronaut and how he was a D student and really didn't think he had any business being selected for this role.
00:41:23.680You know, I think that he's got some sort of he's got a better retail sales case than she does.
00:41:29.080But Arizona would then have two Democratic senators, which is, you know, this is a state that has a lot of red in it.
00:41:36.040You know, it will be surprising if they have two Dems, but he is favored.
00:41:40.300By the way, don't you think Cory Gardner's got a good political future ahead of him, even though it does look like he's going to lose this race?
00:41:52.280You know, he's a thoughtful legislator, which is something we need a lot more of.
00:41:57.180He's in the mold of a Mike Rounds that never gets a lot of attention, but is a very effective go to legislator.
00:42:03.940You know, there's some people that just don't like to do TV wall to wall.
00:42:06.640So they may not be as famous or as notorious, but they're effective and they know how to build coalitions with people from the other side toward issues that need to be resolved and frankly can be resolved when people.
00:42:20.380Well, but as you know, you don't always get resolved or rewarded for that.
00:43:24.240Speaking of the deplorables and the messaging being even worse now on Trump voters, Maxine Waters, she never disappoints in her nasty rhetoric.
00:43:35.940She's just come out promising to never, ever forgive black Trump voters, saying they will go down in history as having done the most despicable thing ever to their communities, to their mothers, to their grandmothers.
00:44:04.440I think, like, to me, if one remark could embody why people don't really want to telegraph their vote, she's shaming the black Trump voters.
00:44:13.700Imagine how the white Trump voters feel.
00:44:15.660That comment was so beyond the pale, in part because you may not like Donald Trump or his personality, and a lot of people don't.
00:44:26.820But if you look at what Donald Trump did with the First Step Act, and I was a part of that.
00:44:30.540I worked on that with people from the White House.
00:44:33.500And by the way, there were people on the far left, people like Van Jones, who was very intimately involved in helping bring this about.
00:44:47.540As my prison director used to say in Arkansas, we're locking up a lot of people because we're mad at them rather than because we're afraid of them.
00:44:54.700And we need to lock people up that we're afraid of.
00:44:57.500But we've locked up people for nonviolent offenses because they didn't have a good lawyer.
00:45:03.800And if they'd been an upper middle class white kid, they would have had a plea agreement.
00:45:07.920They would have gone to Harvard Law School and made a couple of million bucks a year.
00:45:12.660But because they were poor and they were black and they lived in the projects, they had a public defender who didn't have time to do much more than do a plea bargain.
00:45:19.440So they pled, they have a felony, and now they can't get a job changing a bedpan in the nursing home.
00:45:26.960And I'm not saying that facetiously because we passed all these three strikes or outlaws, and then we passed laws that said if you didn't pass a background check, you couldn't be a janitor in a school and you couldn't work in a nursing home.
00:45:39.800So they literally could not change the bedpan of the nursing home or sweep the floor of the school because they had a felony conviction that was really nothing to do with safety of the public.
00:45:56.380Joe Biden voted for it in 1994 in the crime bill that was a disaster, and it was Donald Trump who fixed it.
00:46:01.960And if that alone isn't enough to cause African-American voters to say, you know, maybe this guy is not so bad for us, and the unemployment numbers for African-Americans prior to COVID was the lowest in history.
00:46:19.640Those are facts, and they may not be comfortable for people like Maxine Waters, who lives, by the way, in a very nice home behind a gate in a gated community.
00:46:30.180And a lot of her constituents, they don't live like that.
00:46:36.080I just begrudge the fact that she thinks that she has a right to tell people who would like to move up the ladder that they can't do it if the person helping them up that ladder is Donald Trump.
00:46:47.960No, it's like the same as LeBron James.
00:46:50.080I mean, I saw an article, I think it was in People magazine last week, showing the dollhouse, like the playhouse that LeBron James had built for his child.
00:46:59.080And it's nicer than most people's actual home.
00:47:03.160I mean, it looks like a Kardashian built it.
00:47:05.680And this is a guy who's out there calling to defund the police.
00:47:09.040He wants to take the money away so that the inner city black people cannot get protected by the cops.
00:47:15.300But LeBron's not going to have any problem.
00:47:17.300Trust me, his kid lives in a fortress when it goes to play with the when the kids go to play with the dollies.
00:47:21.420But like if you're in the inner city, you don't get protected because LeBron James wants to make a point about cops.
00:47:27.760It's absurd, the hypocrisy and the unwillingness to acknowledge reality and what life is really like.
00:47:33.140I mean, I think about how hard black voters have it who might lean conservative.