The Megyn Kelly Show - Fetterman's Debate Disaster, and Biden's Bizarre Cancer Comments, with the Ruthless Podcast Hosts ｜ Ep. 420

00:00:00.500 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.540 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Just a quick note before we

00:00:16.040 get started. I cannot do this show without thanking all of you so, so much. Thanking my

00:00:24.920 friends, colleagues, former colleagues, friends. I have been overwhelmed with the amount of

00:00:31.060 beautiful outpouring of support that I've received with the outpouring of support in the

00:00:37.820 wake of my sister's passing. I don't know. There was a saying that said something like,

00:00:45.560 the tears of today water the seeds of tomorrow. And it's much more eloquent than that, but that's

00:00:54.360 kind of how I'm feeling, that all the pain you go through when you lose somebody brings in

00:00:59.000 just your closest people, you know, your friends and your family and your extended

00:01:04.340 network that you haven't been in touch with. And all these people come out to show you

00:01:08.860 what life's about, what matters, and that you're loved and you're supported. And you wind up

00:01:14.040 feeling such a silver lining in the midst of such great pain. I know all of you who have lost somebody

00:01:21.800 know what I'm talking about. I've seen it. I went to the YouTube and I looked at the comments and I

00:01:26.700 was blown away. And I was so grateful for all of you sharing your own stories of loss and how you got

00:01:31.680 through it and got to the other side and even losses in particular of siblings, which I know can

00:01:39.720 be diminished. I mean, I know it's not certainly the same as losing a, God forbid, a child. And you

00:01:47.580 have a different relationship with your siblings than you did with your parents, but thank you

00:01:51.560 for helping me put it in perspective. So in any event, I want to do the news. I'm excited to do

00:01:56.500 the news today. There's a lot of it, but I just, I want to say thank you. And I want to say to all

00:02:00.800 the people who I know who have texted me and emailed me, I am going to get back to each and every one of

00:02:05.480 you. I know I could just write, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks. It's not in me. This is why I'm a

00:02:09.760 bad texter because I always feel like it needs to be individualized. And I like doing that. It just takes

00:02:13.620 time, but thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's talk about the news. John Fetterman versus Dr.

00:02:19.420 Mehmet Oz. Did you watch this last night? I was still at my mom's and I watched it. She and I

00:02:24.440 watched it. And my mom is a Democrat, but did not have, did not have good things to say about John

00:02:29.320 Fetterman's performance. Last night's debate in Pennsylvania is dominating the headlines today.

00:02:35.960 For the first and only time, only time America got to see the true extent of how Fetterman's stroke is

00:02:42.860 affecting his ability to speak and think. It was downright alarming at times. We're going to play

00:02:48.380 some of the key moments in context. Meanwhile, right now, Fetterman's campaign is trying to blame

00:02:53.660 the closed captioning system for his disastrous performance. Okay. All right. So blame it on the

00:03:00.780 closed caption, ladies. It is the story that everyone's talking about, but we are the only ones

00:03:07.200 who have these four brilliant and hilarious political minds to help us analyze it all. It's no accident.

00:03:11.960 We schedule them for today. Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to have the guys from Ruthless with us

00:03:18.960 for the full show today. John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and the man known to his

00:03:24.380 Twitter minions as Comfortably Smug. Welcome back to the show, guys.

00:03:34.040 Great to be here, Megan. Thanks for having us back. And thanks for doing what you're doing. I know it's

00:03:38.280 a painful time in your family. And that's not easy on anybody. And going back to work

00:03:44.060 is not an easy thing, but you bring a lot of joy to a lot of people who are watching this on a day-to-day

00:03:49.260 basis. And so thanks for soldiering on. Oh, Josh, thank you. You guys are so sweet. The audience

00:03:55.180 should know these gentlemen sent me flowers, beautiful notes. I really appreciate it. And

00:04:01.540 thank you. Thank you for helping me today because I will admit I'm like slightly fuzzy headed. You

00:04:06.280 know, it's just been such an overwhelming time. I'm slightly off. So I'm glad I have you to help

00:04:11.360 me on a day as important as this one. Craziness happening. I mean, honestly, like my mom, I would

00:04:17.500 say she's center left at best. You know, she's right kind of in the center, but she's a registered 0.84

00:04:22.420 Democrat. She's upstate New York. And anyway, you should have heard her commentary during the

00:04:27.840 Fetterman. She's sitting there like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. My God. It was pretty shocking.

00:04:35.620 That debate last night was shocking. I expected him to, you know, flounder a little. I didn't expect

00:04:42.200 what we saw last night. What did you guys make of it? I guess we can all at least take solace in

00:04:47.000 the fact that John Fetterman doesn't remember it at all this morning. So he's got that going for

00:04:51.800 himself. Well, I thought it was a little bit like a PGA tour event. You know, like the entire

00:04:57.680 Pennsylvania Senate race is coming down to a single stroke. Oh, wow. But I don't know. I like

00:05:06.940 there were times I will confess. I listened to Dr. Oz and my mind is kind of starting to wander. I'm

00:05:13.220 like, I don't know. He kind of I lost my focus a lot while he was talking. But when Fetterman talked,

00:05:19.320 it was like he had my full attention, right? You were like, oh, my God, I don't know if he's

00:05:23.780 going to make it. Is he going to make it? And many times he did not make it. And while his campaign

00:05:28.480 has been saying over and over, it's just an auditory processing issue, you know, like he needs

00:05:34.280 to read captioning in order to understand. It's clearly so much more than that. He cannot speak.

00:05:39.820 He can't put the right words in the right order. He mushes them together. We did put together a little

00:05:45.580 highlight reel for the audience who did not sit around watching that thing last night. Here's

00:05:50.680 some of it.

00:05:53.260 Hi. Good night, everybody. You know, he has never met an air or an oil company that he doesn't swipe

00:05:59.700 right about. It's about supporting and helping, you know, young earners, excuse me, young,

00:06:05.740 young, young students to give them a break. I believe that that supporting I do support fracking

00:06:17.400 and. I don't I don't. I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking. It's just

00:06:26.240 the same way that university for degrees as well, too, but going to those kind of vocational

00:06:30.840 schools able to create a career to rate the way to excuse me to Wayne, uh, reach a lot

00:06:37.220 of a high salary and again supporting to reduce those costs are critical too. I want to look

00:06:42.380 into the face of every woman in Pennsylvania. I believe if my doctor believes that I'm fit 0.92

00:06:50.560 to serve and and that's what I believe is appropriate. They all believe that I'm ready

00:06:55.360 to be served. We can't be held, you know, ransom to somebody like Russia. I mean, 0.72

00:07:00.820 I gave the opportunity to defend my community as the chief law enforcement officer there.

00:07:05.640 Everybody in Braddock, uh, an overwhelming majority, uh, community of, of black, uh, community.

00:07:12.280 And I've always believed that the choice believes women and their doctors. And again, it's the 0.96

00:07:17.420 Oz rule. He's on TV and he's lying. I never, so I never supported any of that thing. His family's 0.62

00:07:24.200 property was, it was levied the largest fine for ingratian hiring of, of, of, of immigrant, uh,

00:07:32.880 illegals. Oh my goodness. Oh, this is more than just auditory processing. Yeah. I think that much 0.99

00:07:40.720 is clear from the debate last night. This guy has a whole host of problems beyond his performance last

00:07:45.160 night, by the way, and we'll get into all that. I'm sure in the con of course of the conversation,

00:07:48.360 but I mean, just listening to him, it was, it was just stunning. The only thing that went right for

00:07:54.260 John Fetterman was the merciful chime of the time bell. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's just like a

00:08:02.080 boxer being saved by the bell. Yeah. I think his whole campaign team, his wife, everyone around him,

00:08:08.960 the Democrat party in Pennsylvania should all be ashamed that they're allowing this to continue.

00:08:12.660 This is not fair to do to him. And I think that it's, it's, you're seeing them trying to have it

00:08:18.660 both ways where initially, and this is pre Democrat primary, they told voters, Oh, this is a small

00:08:24.940 setback. Everything will be right as rain. He's going to be totally normal, you know, in very short

00:08:29.060 order. And now they're trying to keep saying that, Oh, it's ableism to try to bring up the fact that

00:08:34.400 he's very clearly incapable of, of, he needs to be focused on recovery. See, but I think a Senator,

00:08:40.360 I think, I think this is on him. I think this is on Fetterman himself and his wife for continuing

00:08:45.500 the spectacle. When he had this stroke right before the primary, or then after the primary,

00:08:51.040 he could have bowed out of this race. They had until August. There was a deadline in August where

00:08:55.760 his name would be on the ballot. Regardless, that was the deadline. They had plenty of time to make

00:09:00.400 this decision. And John Fetterman decided to stay in the race. Yeah. I kind of agree with that.

00:09:04.500 Right. I mean, my, my knee jerk, when you watch something like that is to feel sympathetic for

00:09:07.940 somebody who clearly has undergone something. Yeah. Right. I mean, it was hard to watch.

00:09:12.280 It was very, very hard to watch, but I have absolutely no sympathy when we spent an entire

00:09:17.420 summer, his campaign and the democratic party telling the people of Pennsylvania and across

00:09:22.120 the country, this guy doesn't have a problem at all. Right. He's just, he's right as rain.

00:09:26.180 He's getting better every day. Everything's going to be great. And like, clearly by any objective

00:09:31.580 standard, that ain't right. Yeah. And it went beyond just his campaign at the democratic party,

00:09:36.780 the mainstream media did everything they could to cover up this guy's actual condition to the point

00:09:42.460 where they berated a normal reporter who was very fair in her assessment of the guy.

00:09:49.120 Charitable even. Very charitable. She saw something that was amiss and she said what she saw. And then

00:09:55.220 everybody in the lamestream media piled on. I think that's the thing is also the media should be held

00:10:00.140 accountable for the dishonesty where when they attack that reporter, numerous, numerous supposed

00:10:05.940 journalists chimed in saying that I spoke with Fetterman a couple of weeks ago and he was totally

00:10:09.480 normal. Kara Swisher, Stephanie, 100 percent. Kara Swisher went out there saying, you know, he was 100

00:10:15.260 percent. He was fine. All these reporters. No, he's not. You lied and you knew we were going to get a look

00:10:21.080 at him. So how long did you think your lie could be sustained? It wasn't until the day of the debate that

00:10:25.880 his advance team put out some statements saying you might also hear words meshed together and started

00:10:32.260 to get us prepared for what the actual truth was, still somewhat understating it. But what did these

00:10:38.260 reporters think? We were never going to get to hear him speak, that his campaign was going to wise up

00:10:42.120 and pull him? Well, we see the truth now. We know Dasha Burns of NBC was, if anything, understating the

00:10:47.700 problem. They knew what they were doing and they did it for a very good reason is because here we are

00:10:52.800 now. It's been early voting for three or four weeks. And this is the first time voters have been able

00:10:57.400 to get a look at exactly how dire his situation is. And journalists knew that. That's why they did

00:11:03.200 it. That they berated this reporter for being like, he has some issues. Early voting was already

00:11:07.860 underway and they were all defending that he's in such a state. That's why they did it. They

00:11:14.360 understood the vote was underway. They understood they had to keep him under wraps for as long as

00:11:18.100 possible and get as many votes banked before this October 25th debate as they could. And now the jig is

00:11:24.400 up. We've seen for ourself that the guy is not all there. It is not just an auditory processing

00:11:29.140 issue. It is not the fault of the caption, the person doing the captions. It is the fault of John

00:11:36.120 Fetterman and those around him who weren't honest with us. And the moderators, the bell, actually,

00:11:41.660 I felt uncomfortable with the bell. I was like, because again, I felt kind of bad for him. I mean,

00:11:45.340 he's been lying to us, but still just a human. You're like, oh, God. And then he's like,

00:11:48.940 just be getting rolling. It's like, dang. You're like, oh, God, you can't take any more.

00:11:55.160 And then the debate moderators asked him specifically, for the love of God, will you

00:12:01.360 release your medical records? The question was more important than ever. This is soundbite

00:12:06.500 three. Here's how it went.

00:12:09.720 You release this note from your doctor saying you can work full duty in public office,

00:12:15.860 but you have not released your detailed medical records. Will you pledge tonight

00:12:19.900 to release those records?

00:12:22.020 To me, for transparency, it's about showing up. I'm here today to have a debate. I have,

00:12:27.040 you know, speeches in front of 3,000 people in Montgomery County, you know, all across Pennsylvania,

00:12:32.940 big, big crowds. You know, I believe if my doctor believes that I'm fit to serve and that's what I

00:12:41.220 believe is appropriate, they all believe that I'm ready to be served.

00:12:44.280 Follow up. I didn't hear you say you would release your full medical records. Why not?

00:12:48.120 You have 30 seconds.

00:12:49.920 No. Yeah. Again, my doctor all believes that I'm fit to be serving. And that's what I believe

00:12:55.320 is where I'm standing.

00:12:57.480 Oh, my God, you guys.

00:12:59.620 And I think that's also an interesting point to bring up is that the media has treated

00:13:03.640 this note from his doctor as if it's some sort of a medical document

00:13:07.240 and not something signed by a donor to his campaign.

00:13:10.980 Right.

00:13:11.200 That's who happens to be a doctor. Someone who has donated to his campaign

00:13:15.180 is saying, yeah, I think this guy should run. And journalists with no question are like, OK,

00:13:20.060 that's a medical document now.

00:13:21.640 I got I got a couple of observations about this. First of all, like hats off to Oz here.

00:13:27.040 Right. Because I don't I look I've been around a lot of debates. They're all sort of difficult

00:13:32.700 to figure out how you interact with the opposition, depending on who they are and

00:13:36.520 what their attacks are likely to be. But like, I don't know what he expected because they've

00:13:41.760 not been in the same room. I've not I don't know what he expected to see.

00:13:44.780 But like as this disaster is unfolding next to him, he's very professional, keeps it to

00:13:51.680 the camera, makes no observations about the self-immolation that's happening next to him,

00:13:57.400 sticks on the issues and it just sort of drives a point. That's a tough thing to do.

00:14:01.980 I mean, that takes an awful lot of of just sort of restraint.

00:14:06.080 Great. Yeah. Total restraint. It's like driving down the highway and there's a car pulled over

00:14:09.820 to the side that's lit on fire and you're going to have to keep your eyes on the road.

00:14:13.660 Yeah. You know, yeah, that's what was happening there.

00:14:17.360 He had to do it because he would have looked like such a prick bully if he even commented

00:14:23.760 on it and he didn't need to. That's the thing. It was so in your face. He he did the smart

00:14:30.320 move by like, I'm not going to touch it. People will see it on their own. By the way, I'm just

00:14:34.880 seeing that you have facial hair now, Duncan. That's that's new. I like it.

00:14:38.420 Yeah, this is my this is my playoff beard. This is for the election.

00:14:42.740 It's actually just for Instagram, Megan. We're planning on some kind of a calendar

00:14:48.580 shoot around Election Day and this is our cover boy. I'll wait for the big reveal. I like it a lot.

00:14:54.980 Yeah, I'm into the facial hair. It's like everywhere these days and I like it. So anyway,

00:14:59.300 Oz did the right thing. The one answer that's getting a lot of attention and it was the the

00:15:05.360 one that caught my attention the most to was on fracking. And it was like, I realized he reversed

00:15:09.780 himself clear 180 on fracking. OK, on any other given day, that would be what we talk about. My

00:15:14.880 God, he reversed himself. It was a clear 180 and he lied and he got caught. No, that's not that's

00:15:20.960 not why it's relevant. He like was a robot who got stuck on repeat and he couldn't rejigger the system.

00:15:28.180 And it was it was truly was one of those like you got this. You could do it. You could finish.

00:15:33.220 Then you're just like, oh, my God, get out of bounds for the love of God. You know, just as a human.

00:15:37.280 Here it is. Fetterman on fracking.

00:15:42.340 As rule, Mr. Fetterman, I absolutely support fracking, but you have made two conflicting

00:15:47.380 statements regarding fracking in a 2018 interview. You said, quote, I don't support fracking at all.

00:15:54.640 I never have. I've always supported fracking. And I always believe that independence with our energy

00:16:01.140 is critical. We can't be held, you know, ransom to somebody like Russia. But I support how critical

00:16:08.820 it is that we produce our own energy and create energy independence. I must correct the record.

00:16:15.080 Just a second, Mr. Oz. I do want to clarify something. You're saying tonight that you support

00:16:21.080 fracking, that you've always supported fracking. But there is that 2018 interview that you said,

00:16:26.140 quote, I don't support fracking at all. So how do you square the two?

00:16:33.760 Oh, one. I do support fracking and.

00:16:39.000 I don't I don't. I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking.

00:16:44.760 He fracked. He fracked that sentence into five or six pieces.

00:16:50.580 Talk about fracking that one. So much in there. How about like even we can't be held

00:16:55.120 ransom to Russia. We already have a leader who can't get the word straight in talking about 0.77

00:16:59.900 things that matter. Held ransom to. OK. And then he goes on. He he doesn't he won't acknowledge

00:17:05.960 the flip. So even on a substantive basis, he's incapable of defending the earlier position.

00:17:11.200 I mean, any politician would have an answer ready for that. You know, his team prepared him.

00:17:17.160 It was in writing. Right. The clear 180. But again, separate and apart from that,

00:17:21.460 he was stuck and he couldn't get out. How do people think he's going to represent

00:17:25.660 Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate under these conditions?

00:17:29.480 There's just no way he can. And he he can't advocate for constituents. I mean, his his press

00:17:34.300 secretary last night, I don't know if you guys caught this. He was complaining about the questions,

00:17:37.940 complaining about the closed captioning. Obviously, this is a statement that Fetterman made in the

00:17:42.780 past, but it was surfaced two weeks ago by CNN. It's not like it was pushed by, you know, the right

00:17:48.240 or something. This was surfaced by mainstream news because it's a legitimate question that he

00:17:53.080 presumably would have an answer to, because this is a gigantic business in the state of Pennsylvania.

00:17:57.820 Yeah. It's one of the things that actually the voters were deprived of last night as big a spectacle

00:18:02.440 as it is. And I think, you know, obviously, there's a very clear choice for most people just based on

00:18:06.240 what we saw. But you want an answer to that. Right. When somebody says, I've never supported

00:18:12.040 fracking and then I've always supported flag fracking, that's incompatible. Right. I stand.

00:18:19.960 I don't. I frack frack. Like that's not an answer to that question. There is two polar opposites.

00:18:25.820 You've got to figure out how to take us on the journey that led you to this spot. He doesn't begin

00:18:30.980 to do that. He did the same when he was talked to when they were talking about the offense with the

00:18:35.960 African-American where he pulled a gun and put the put the gun to the guy's chest. He had no answer.

00:18:40.740 Right. He couldn't explain. It was like fumble, fumble, community protect, fumble, fumble. Ah.

00:18:46.440 And I'm like, we have that actually. You need an answer for that.

00:18:49.840 Let's play that and then we'll talk about it.

00:18:53.360 There's one person on this stage who's broken the law, we believe. John Fetterman took a shotgun,

00:18:58.220 chased a unarmed African-American man and put the gun, apparently, according to that man,

00:19:03.120 to his chest. I made the opportunity to defend our community as the chief law enforcement officer

00:19:08.540 there. Everybody in Braddock, an overwhelmingly majority community of black community, all understood

00:19:16.400 what happened. You know, they they understood what happened and everybody agreed that. And nobody

00:19:22.820 believes that it was anything about me making a split second decision to defend our community as well.

00:19:29.140 Oh, my God. What? What? First of all, was he a mayor? He was. And so actually, it's incidentally,

00:19:37.940 the Washington Post this morning ran a story about how he actually never showed up for city council

00:19:41.860 meeting. So it's very interesting that all of a sudden he's the chief law enforcement officer

00:19:46.700 protecting the citizens when he never even showed up for the meetings. I didn't I didn't know he was

00:19:51.320 also chief of police. But even so, in his party, that does not give you a pass for pulling a gun

00:19:57.760 on an unarmed black man who was guilty of running while black. That this is one of those cases.

00:20:02.980 The guy did nothing wrong. He pulled a gun on him. He held him at gunpoint. You know,

00:20:06.660 this is according to the public reports about it. And there was no crime committed. I mean,

00:20:11.180 for a Republican, they'd be that that's all they would do is run ads about it for him. It's like,

00:20:17.280 and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, gobbly gobbly gobbly gobbly gobbly gobbly gobbly gobbly. And bye.

00:20:21.320 Yeah. He says that the community understands. I think that's what he's trying to say.

00:20:24.560 It's impossible to understand what the heck he's even trying. Nobody understands, John.

00:20:27.940 Nobody. Nobody. Nobody understands what it is that you're saying.

00:20:31.360 The community of black community. Yeah. Makes no sense. 1.00

00:20:34.820 I think you hit on the most relevant point. Imagine just for a moment that there was a

00:20:38.560 Republican in the Fetterman camp at this point, like the Republican had the kind of debate performance

00:20:43.860 that Fetterman had. And this question comes up. Right. And it is a question about whether or not

00:20:51.120 this guy pulled a shotgun on a black man simply because he was a black man. Right. 0.88

00:20:56.300 Which is the open question that's been a part of this debate. You should have an answer for that.

00:21:00.560 Right. Imagine if a Republican in that situation were to just say community, community, blah, blah,

00:21:06.120 blah. Nobody understands, blah, blah, blah. Community like that's I mean, it'd be disqualifying.

00:21:11.180 Right. It's the end of the campaign and nobody would talk about anything else.

00:21:14.180 And here to your point, here's what actually happened. OK, the media is completely running

00:21:21.400 defense for Fetterman today. They're still in denial about his condition. They're still

00:21:26.460 accusing people of ableism. I have a soundbite, but before I get to it, I'll just give you an

00:21:32.020 example. This is Charlotte Alter. She's a senior correspondent for Time tweeting out. OK.

00:21:38.740 Ahead of the debate tonight, it's worth remembering a couple of things. Fetterman's never been a good

00:21:43.000 debater. Right. Here we go. He's never been a good debater. Even before the stroke,

00:21:46.960 he's always been a somewhat wouldn't debate her. He's not Pete Buttigieg. And she goes on to make

00:21:52.560 a couple of other points for Dems. There will be some relief tonight that he is not brain damaged.

00:21:58.440 Oh, challenge, Ms. Alter. I don't think there was relief. I don't think that's what was proven.

00:22:03.740 Right. For ours, this his flubs will create fodder that they can spin into ads suggesting he's worse

00:22:09.040 off than he is. I find that people who are just paying attention to the Pennsylvania Senate race

00:22:13.800 now seem to think that before the stroke, Fetterman was some master orator like Obama or a

00:22:20.260 Buttigieg. This is supposed to be a straight news reporter here. Master orator like Pete Buttigieg.

00:22:24.740 Hello. Couldn't be further from the truth. His strength has always been in his ability to

00:22:30.200 talk like a normal person. That's not what he was doing, madam. Not even close. And here's a little

00:22:38.140 sample of the post-debate reaction to what we all just witnessed.

00:22:44.540 It was certainly an example of such remarkable transparency. There was such intense scrutiny,

00:22:51.380 often ableist scrutiny.

00:22:53.040 John Fetterman tried his best under difficult circumstances. Mr. Oz, as a doctor, I think

00:23:02.080 literally violated the hypocritical.

00:23:04.220 And I think they admired Fetterman for showing up. I think he lost the battle, but may win the war.

00:23:10.580 You got it. You got to admire him just for showing up.

00:23:12.900 He violated the Hippocratic oath by debating his opponent. It's just stunning. These people are

00:23:19.880 remarkable. It's a really, you know, sentence fragments aside. Like, I think this debate really

00:23:25.520 laid bare what's stunning hypocrites and how shameless these Democrats are. You know, on the issue of

00:23:32.040 the fracking thing or pulling the gun on the black man, you know, the stroke may have impacted his

00:23:38.760 ability to lie. And so it really, I think, laid bare for voters like what an insane person he is.

00:23:45.540 Yeah. No, I mean, that's a really good point. I mean, he had no context.

00:23:48.340 He couldn't. It's like he was debating with one arm tied behind his back. Right. So like he couldn't

00:23:52.040 lie around his neck or he couldn't lie his way out of it. Right. And so I think that's going to be

00:23:57.420 laid bare just as much as his physical limitations. It is true. Does it move? Does it move the poll

00:24:03.860 numbers? Because this is the one race RCP politics. They're putting it in the GOP category. They're

00:24:10.620 saying the GOP will keep Pennsylvania. So they're saying Oz will win, despite the fact that Oz has

00:24:15.380 been behind in, if not, if not every, I think it's every poll. I think every poll has put Oz behind.

00:24:22.360 Um, but it's tightening, it's getting closer and closer and the voting's underway. So what do you

00:24:28.740 guys think? Is it a game changer? Yeah. I mean, there's no question. It's a game changer for, for

00:24:33.820 one, as we mentioned, it's the first time that people in Pennsylvania have actually gotten to

00:24:37.620 see this guy, right? They've been operating under the impression that there's no difficulties

00:24:41.640 whatsoever. That clearly is not the case. But also, if you look at just the texture of the electorate

00:24:47.440 and who likely votes early and who votes late in your late deciders and what they ultimately

00:24:52.420 choose, these are, this is a less ideological bunch, right? You know, the Democrats, I mean,

00:24:57.620 they're going to vote for anything. They'll vote for anything. They'll vote for Fetterman. It doesn't

00:25:00.500 matter if he showed up or not, or if he was in a handbasket. Yeah. They had that stamp licked for

00:25:05.140 their mail-in ballot a month ago. It didn't matter what, whose name was on it. Right. Right. So like

00:25:09.640 they're going to vote who they're going to vote for. And a number of Republicans are kind of in the

00:25:12.640 same camp, but these late deciders, they don't always vote ideologically. And oftentimes the way

00:25:17.640 that they vote is, is who they think can represent them the best. Right. And on that question, after

00:25:23.980 what you saw last night, there can be zero question about who is capable of representing

00:25:29.380 the people of Pennsylvania and who's just quite frankly, not. Yeah. And by the way, here are the

00:25:34.800 poll numbers. Fetterman right now is plus 1.3. One month ago, September 23rd, Fetterman was plus

00:25:42.460 4.2. On August 17th, Fetterman was plus 8.7. Okay. So the span of two months, we've gone from

00:25:50.280 8.7 percentage point advantage for Fetterman down to 1.3 percentage point advantage for Fetterman.

00:25:58.560 And that was before the debate. And that is why you've got the Fetterman camp out today.

00:26:04.300 I mean, literally blaming the captions. Like now I will give them this. I will give them this

00:26:10.520 in that one soundbite that we were playing about him on the fracking, the, the moderator,

00:26:17.400 this isn't about captions, but the moderator who was following up with him, like, Hey,

00:26:21.700 you didn't respond to your one 80. Like I'm asking you about your one 80 fracking or no fracking.

00:26:27.000 She called him Mr. Oz. So I will acknowledge he had a reason to sort of pause and be slightly

00:26:34.280 confused about who the hell she was referring to. Is it Mr. Fetterman? Or is it Dr. Oz? Who are you?

00:26:38.880 And then it became clear to him as it was to the rest of us beforehand that she was just trying

00:26:44.000 to press him. And she just said, Oz instead of Fetterman. And he did answer, but his problems

00:26:49.300 cannot be dismissed by the delayed captions. Yeah. I was just going to say, Megan, I mean,

00:26:55.340 look, he's trying to get a job in the U S Senate here, right? I mean, this is not like a, a, a tollbooth

00:27:01.540 worker. I mean, his job is to attend very high level committee hearings and persuade colleagues

00:27:08.300 for answers and to try to make the best policy on behalf of his constituents in Pennsylvania.

00:27:13.700 What confidence does anybody have? If the debate moderator in trying to fend off one is talking

00:27:19.460 to another, it confuses him to the point where he can't recover. What the hell is going to happen

00:27:24.780 in the context of a judiciary committee hearing? And I think that's the thing is you're seeing how

00:27:28.500 much the media and the Democrats are trying to obfuscate the issue. They're trying to talk about

00:27:33.340 a captioning machine. They're trying to talk about ableism. The central issue, which has become very

00:27:38.780 clear in this race is, is Fetterman capable? Well, that's a very easy question to answer. Let's get a

00:27:44.640 medical report. And their will, their unwillingness to release a medical report tells the answer to that

00:27:49.960 question is they know for a fact he's incapable or else they would, if they had a medical report

00:27:55.220 showing that he is capable to execute the job, they'd have that on the front page of every

00:27:58.680 newspaper in this country. That's exactly.

00:28:00.060 But they're not able to do that. So they're talking about this is a closed captioning machine,

00:28:03.820 which has attacked John Fetterman or, or this is ableism. Any kind of excuse that they have,

00:28:08.740 they're trying to cook up to make voters think about anything but the central issue, which is that

00:28:12.280 Fetterman very clearly can't accomplish this job. But even the other thing is, I wonder how the

00:28:17.460 closed captioning worked because I would, if I were a debate moderator and I knew I was walking into this

00:28:22.820 situation and it's my team, you know, putting this whole thing together, I would probably submit some

00:28:29.220 of my questions in writing to the closed captioner so that it could be handled. Like, I don't know

00:28:33.860 whether there was an actual person doing it or whether it was done electronically, but I would

00:28:37.840 think at least the questions could have been put in there properly in advance. So I think there

00:28:41.220 would have been a low, a higher likelihood of accuracy on the questions as opposed to doing the

00:28:45.720 answers, which are a fly by night. Here's what his campaign said. We're thrilled with John's

00:28:51.120 performance. He did remarkably well tonight, especially when you consider he's still

00:28:54.520 recovering from a stroke and was working off of delayed captions filled with errors.

00:29:00.060 John won countless exchanges, counterpunched aggressively and pushed back on Oz's cruelty

00:29:05.780 and attacks. This is to me is so sad. It's like saying to your, you know, little kid who got just

00:29:11.920 absolutely crushed on the football field. Like, you know, will you, your form looked good, honey. And

00:29:17.600 you, you got out there, you didn't sit out any plays, you know, your uniform looked crisp.

00:29:23.160 It was like for them to become like, what debate team comes out and says he counterpunched

00:29:27.440 aggressively and he won many exchange. Like, come on. So let me just give you the second half of this.

00:29:34.200 So Nextar's chief communications officer said in a statement, they were responsible for the

00:29:38.880 broadcast and the closed captions. It's unfortunate that Mr. Fetterman is now criticizing the closed

00:29:44.360 captioning process. Both candidates agreed to the technical setup for the closed captioning process

00:29:49.160 weeks ago, which was implemented at the request of the Fetterman campaign. Both candidates were

00:29:53.620 offered the opportunity for two full rehearsals with the same equipment used in tonight's debate.

00:29:58.460 Mr. Fetterman chose to do only one. In fact, our production team went to extraordinary lengths to

00:30:04.380 ensure the effectiveness of the closed captioning process and to accommodate several last minute

00:30:08.800 requests of the Fetterman campaign. The closed captioning process functioned as expected during

00:30:13.340 rehearsal. And again, during tonight's debate, we regret that Mr. Fetterman and his campaign

00:30:17.780 feel otherwise. I mean, it's like they're not going to get away with this when you got them when

00:30:22.700 you got the closed captioning team attacking you for attacking. I was like, not good.

00:30:27.360 You know, one other thing that broke right before the debate started was that the Fetterman team

00:30:31.720 was pushing to get journalists and everybody in front of the closed captioning process so they could

00:30:38.000 see how it worked. They had that much confidence in the process that they agreed to ahead of the

00:30:42.980 debate that they wanted the whole world to see how it was going to work. And yeah, because they

00:30:47.440 were they were nervous about just the closed captioning being there. Right. They thought

00:30:52.700 that they were going to take heat by the fact that he needed closed captioning. So they want a

00:30:56.620 journalist to come in and look at this wonderful sort of easy, transparent system that they'd all set

00:31:01.240 up that allows him to cleanly answer the questions. Right. There were so much. Yeah. So proud of it

00:31:06.300 beforehand. But then he blew it. And now they now they're blaming it. And meanwhile, riddled with errors,

00:31:11.300 where like were the questions riddled with errors that he was getting or was it his answers, which

00:31:16.020 were incomprehensible to all of us? Never mind a computer that generates the answers from hearing

00:31:21.220 the voice or a person who had to transcribe what he was saying, however that works. So, I mean,

00:31:26.020 let's get more specific. What what exactly was he confused on? And it all begs the question,

00:31:31.300 are we going to close caption his entire Senate career? Like how is he how do they propose this is

00:31:38.420 going to work if he gets elected? So so I think that's the thing is they're trying to portray any

00:31:44.020 sort of a debate as being cruel, as being ableist, as letting voters actually have the transparency to

00:31:50.040 see what state he's in as being unfair to him because they just want to get him across the finish

00:31:54.840 line. And my thinking is they just want to sweep his wife in, you know, a couple months and he says,

00:32:00.180 you know what, I actually can't do it. But guess what? We've got someone right here who can who's

00:32:03.900 already called themselves the de facto candidate who multiple times over multiple years has given

00:32:08.640 answers to the media saying that, like, I'm actually the brains of this outfit. Direct quote,

00:32:12.500 I'm the brains of this outfit. So I think they're just trying to that they're angry that they had

00:32:17.360 to have this debate in the first place. They were wishing that they could just run up a scoreboard

00:32:21.700 on some early votes, not let voters see exactly how bad the state is and then sweep his wife into

00:32:26.860 power when they want it. Well, I mean, look, Democrats have a pretty good track record about this,

00:32:30.540 right? They kept Biden in the basement for two years. We didn't know the extent of the

00:32:33.880 problems that he was having. I mean, they won with it. There's no reason to believe they couldn't

00:32:37.520 get away with it again. Unfortunately, they had this stumble for them. But but like back to your

00:32:42.620 closed captioning piece and whether that was responsible for all this. Recall the fact that

00:32:47.060 he opened this debate. Hello. Good night. Right. That's not on the closed caption.

00:32:53.780 The closed captioning isn't responsible for the words that come out of his mouth

00:32:58.060 or lack thereof. I hope not. I'm going to go with that. I'm actually going to do that from now on.

00:33:03.060 Whenever I say something stupid, which is often I'm just going to blame it on whatever

00:33:05.980 somebody popped up on the board on the tree. It wasn't me. Don't believe your lying ears.

00:33:10.260 And by the way, Gisele Fetterman owes that NBC News reporter an apology. She wanted her disciplined 0.96

00:33:16.000 for saying he really struggled to understand me in our pre interview banter and also Kara Swisher and

00:33:23.460 many others attacked the reporter. Oh, you don't know. Maybe he was just not listening to you. Maybe

00:33:27.480 you were just bad at small talk. That wasn't it. She was trying to raise an issue that people

00:33:32.180 should consider. And now we can all see why. But that reporter will not get an apology. And

00:33:38.140 Gisele Fetterman will be the last person to say anything. One of the commentators online said

00:33:42.700 this is Jerry Callahan. Gisele Fetterman is a cruel, heartless, power drunk woman. 1.00

00:33:47.100 A decent woman couldn't do this to the man she loves. And Sagar and Jetty said, if anything,

00:33:52.120 the NBC News reporter understated his condition. All right. Stand by you guys. You mentioned Biden.

00:33:58.020 I don't. His closing midterm message makes Fetterman look like a smooth orator like Reagan,

00:34:05.400 you know, the gifted communicator. We'll talk about that right after this when the gang with

00:34:09.480 Ruthless stays with us.

00:34:11.120 Guys, one thing I wanted to follow up with you on. I heard you guys say on your show the other day

00:34:20.880 that at least in Pennsylvania, the Fetterman campaign hasn't gotten so desperate because

00:34:25.040 they're bringing in Biden. Finally, they're bringing in Obama that they would bring in

00:34:29.280 the vice president, Kamala Harris. Oh, contraire. They've gotten quite that desperate.

00:34:34.680 Uh, the headline today is that they are bringing her into Biden, Harris and, uh, Obama are all

00:34:42.480 going to be campaigning for Fetterman in Pennsylvania. I'm sure that's going to make

00:34:47.700 all the difference. She's going to show him what truly great oratory looks like.

00:34:53.160 Somebody's got to make him sound confident.

00:34:54.940 Well, I mean, honestly, line up Kamala and Biden and Fetterman on the same stage. Wow. I mean,

00:35:01.960 that is a linguistic parade murder. Honestly, that might be, that might be a smart play is all of a 0.95

00:35:07.580 sudden Fetterman looks like the most capable person on stage. You know, you're right. Now that you

00:35:11.760 think about it. Yeah. Murderers row is a reference to the old, well, I know it is a reference to the

00:35:16.940 old 60 minutes gang, Mike Wallace and others who just were just totally unsparing in their

00:35:20.420 interviews. Um, so speaking of Joe Biden, he had his chance to make his closing argument before we

00:35:26.460 go into these midterms. And I love it. He too is out there. He's like, I I've been invited by like

00:35:30.720 16 or 17 or 18 different campaigns to go out there and campaign. Well, why is your schedule

00:35:36.560 totally clear except for this one appearance in Pennsylvania? Why aren't you actually doing that,

00:35:41.720 Mr. President? Um, he decides to make his closing argument about inflation, about immigration,

00:35:48.620 about abortion. Even that's, that's a good issue for the Dems. Not exactly. Uh, here's what he said.

00:35:54.680 A lot of Americans begin to wonder whether we can still do anything, whether we're still,

00:36:00.800 we've always been. We are. And everybody thought I was nuts when I, when I asked the question,

00:36:08.380 if I could do one thing, what would you do? I do something that doesn't answer any of the real

00:36:13.960 questions we just have. We just demonstrate we can still do anything. If I could wave a wand,

00:36:18.300 I'd cure cancer. Why? Because no one believes it can be done, but we're starting to do it.

00:36:24.720 There's nothing beyond our capacity. I mean, not a joke, not a joke.

00:36:35.960 That is terrifying. I mean, that is just so wild. I thought, did anybody else think that he was

00:36:40.100 like the next step, just going to swallow the camera? I mean, it was, what the hell is he talking

00:36:48.100 about? He looks like Jim Jones at the end, you know, after the Kool-Aid. Somebody, somebody starts,

00:36:55.940 you know, stirring that Kool-Aid. It's like, this is days after the interview with Jonathan

00:37:02.080 Capehart of MSNBC, in which he clearly like, he appeared to fall asleep when asked whether Dr. Jill,

00:37:07.960 but Dr. Jill, so ridiculous, wants him to run again. Couldn't like basically couldn't keep his

00:37:13.920 eyes open. And then here's another whopper he just delivered. There's no contact with the facts

00:37:20.320 anymore. Speaking of Kamala Harris, talking about her approval rating. Listen to this one.

00:37:27.480 The vice president of the United States, Vice President Harris. How's she doing? You're

00:37:31.920 almost two years in. She's doing great. She is a, first of all, she's smart as hell. She has,

00:37:39.120 she has a backbone like a ramrod and she has enormous integrity. And, but if you take a look

00:37:46.240 out there, there isn't any public figure that is, you know, 60% favorable rating.

00:38:00.240 No, no, no, we don't know, Joe.

00:38:05.220 There certainly isn't in your administration. I can guarantee you that.

00:38:08.840 What is he suggesting? She's there. I don't like whatever. She's got, I think, 39%

00:38:13.540 approval rating, according to the latest polls. She's right around where he is, I think. Correct

00:38:17.600 me if I'm wrong, Debbie. But yeah, what's he saying? She's at 39.

00:38:21.980 First of all. Yeah, no, I mean, her, her average on 538 is like 36%, right? But there's like a

00:38:27.860 Quinnipiac poll last week that was, had her at 28. I mean, she's, she's historically unpopular, 0.99

00:38:33.060 unquestionably about that. What I appreciate is the hard hitting journalism there. I mean,

00:38:37.120 that has really taken the president to task, throwing it open what he thinks about the vice

00:38:40.640 president. I mean, my God. Did you, did you guys see?

00:38:43.360 How about the setup? Like to say it like four different ways. So he knows Kamala Harris is the 0.99

00:38:47.460 vice president. Did you read what Jonathan Capehart wrote after the interview? Sort of like this

00:38:56.120 after action report he filed with the paper. Here's what he wrote. Quote, folks, listen to me. Biden is

00:39:01.860 just fine. More than fine. In fact, I came away with two overwhelming impressions. Biden is totally

00:39:06.880 going to run for reelection in 2024. And he doesn't just like being president. He loves the job of

00:39:12.240 president. Oh my God. I mean, that's the thing is like for the majority of Americans who don't see

00:39:18.380 this, the Dems have an entire apparatus of the media to run cover for them, to make it sound like,

00:39:25.220 oh, must've gone great. You know, like he can be as disastrous as staring at the, at the reporter for

00:39:30.900 like five seconds with no idea what he's about to say. And then you're going to see reports saying

00:39:35.640 that, oh, it was totally fine. The same way that you had all these journalists covering for Fetterman,

00:39:39.600 you have all these journalists who've been covering for Biden. The guy can't talk about

00:39:43.460 the economy. He can't talk about crime. He can't talk about Americans struggling to get by. Americans

00:39:48.100 being struck, uh, terrified to walk out of their homes, to be a victim of, of violent crime, which

00:39:52.360 is just up double digits in basically every part of this country. He can't talk about that. So he goes

00:39:57.120 off the reservation and starts saying, Hey, uh, I'll cure cancer guys. And, and we're supposed to

00:40:02.420 accept that this is totally normal. Like,

00:40:04.580 and a lifetime supply of chocolate. Um, I heard you guys talking about this on your show yesterday,

00:40:09.580 the AP article by Zeke Miller to your point smug. It was, here he goes, um, one hug and one selfie at

00:40:18.360 a time. Biden's mission to connect the lead line of the article, one handshake, one hug, one selfie at

00:40:25.260 a time. If president Joe Biden could greet every American this way, long time allies say his approval

00:40:31.100 ratings would soar. And then they say in the piece, there can occasionally be awkward moments

00:40:37.940 such as when a presidential quip lands poorly that in today's partisan environment are often

00:40:43.180 broadcast online by his political rivals, but they are outnumbered by the positive interactions

00:40:48.960 that have defined Biden's career and tested the stamina of his AIDS. Adding, stand by is the last part.

00:40:59.160 He outlasts us. White house deputy chief of staff, Jen, Jen O'Malley. Dillon told the associated press

00:41:06.440 of Biden's penchant for spending 30 minutes, an hour, sometimes longer shaking hands. Give me a break.

00:41:14.180 This is all lies lies. I've learned one thing from this moment in time is hopefully many years from now

00:41:23.600 when I'm incapable and I am all over the place and my children want to put me in some kind of an

00:41:29.720 assisted living facility or a nursing home. And I don't want to go. What I'm going to do is hire 1.00

00:41:35.300 a Democrat communicator and I'm going to fuse them with a left leaning journalist. And I'm going to

00:41:41.800 have them make my case for me because it clearly, clearly they are like, it seems like a new profession

00:41:47.660 in the Democratic left now is trying to explain the inexplicable about your inability to actually

00:41:54.080 operate as a human in this world. They talk about Joe Biden like he's an elderly member of their

00:41:59.960 family going through dementia and you got to explain why he still loves us. You know, like it's

00:42:06.440 so sick, this whole thing. It's and they're also kind of repackaging, I think, what what they

00:42:13.560 packaged for Biden's appeal in 2020. And that is like, look, it's Grandpa Joe. You know, his son

00:42:19.220 died and that's why he didn't run last time. But he's got such a good heart and he felt called to

00:42:23.740 do this because Trump is so abhorrent, you know, to our norms and he's going to restore these norms.

00:42:29.380 But it was, you know, long on the soaring rhetoric and short on the details. And to Smug's point earlier,

00:42:35.240 that's how it is now. He can't talk about crime. He can't talk about inflation. Can't talk about the

00:42:38.940 border. Can't talk about gas prices. But what you know what they can write a thousand words about?

00:42:42.860 The hugs he gives. Maybe he hands out candy to kids still. The dementia's not too bad. He remembers

00:42:49.260 their name. How he has perfected his selfie arm. The products of which are widely shared on social

00:42:54.740 media. Oh, my God. It ain't going to work again. You know, the people can't have the wool pulled over

00:43:05.260 their eyes again on this. No, I completely agree. I mean, it's catching up with him. It's why he's got

00:43:09.400 approval rating in the mid thirties. It's why nobody trusts the media anymore. They don't take

00:43:13.500 the accounts that they see, you know, in their newspapers as fact, because I mean, quite frankly,

00:43:18.460 there's nothing about that that was a fact. Right. But more importantly, if you're struggling

00:43:22.880 with 10 percent unemployment, you can't afford groceries and crime is terrible in your neighborhood.

00:43:28.140 Why do you give a shit whether or not he throws a good hug on somebody? Yeah.

00:43:31.380 No. You know what I mean? Like, that's just not what we hired you to do, pal.

00:43:34.780 And I would just say if you're trying to run cover for Joe Biden, don't use the term Joe Biden and hug

00:43:39.400 in the same sentence. It brings up a lot of negative imagery. You don't want in there. OK,

00:43:44.880 so let's talk about New York. I'm so into this race. You know, having spent the vast majority of

00:43:49.820 my 51 years in the state of New York, it's just so exciting to me. The fact that this like the thought

00:43:54.600 that it's going to be tight. You know, I know we have we've had Republican governors before and

00:43:59.200 Republican mayors in New York, but it's by far the exception, not the rule. And Kathy Hochul,

00:44:03.880 who is totally unqualified for this post, totally unqualified, is getting nervous.

00:44:10.300 She had the debate last night with Lee Zeldin, her Republican challenger, who he could win.

00:44:15.840 He could win this race, despite the fact that, OK, I did. I gave like the pole tightening

00:44:20.440 for Fetterman. Listen to hers. On September 1st, she was plus 18. On October 1st,

00:44:27.920 she was plus 12.4. And as of yesterday, she was plus 6.1 from 18 up to six up and still time for him

00:44:37.960 to close it. And the big debate in this race and the reason it's getting so tight, among others.

00:44:43.740 But the number one is crime. Our state has gotten disgusting thanks to her no bail and soft on crime 0.96

00:44:51.280 policies. And Lee Zeldin couldn't stop in the way that we heard like abortion, abortion, abortion

00:44:57.920 from people like Charlie Crist at the Florida debate. We heard crime, crime, crime from Lee

00:45:02.400 Zeldin, the Republican challenger, to Kathy Hochul in an exchange that made her look totally out of

00:45:07.720 touch. Listen here. It's about getting the guns off the streets. That's the first start.

00:45:12.880 Kathy Hochul believes that the only crimes that are being committed are these crimes with guns.

00:45:17.460 And you have people who are afraid of being pushed in front of oncoming subway cars. They're being

00:45:21.780 stabbed, beaten to death on the street with hammers. My opponent thinks that right now there's a polio

00:45:26.640 emergency going on, but there's not a crime emergency. Different priorities that I'm hearing

00:45:30.900 from people right now, they're not being represented. From this governor, who still, to this moment,

00:45:36.360 what, are we halfway through the debate? She still hasn't talked about locking up anyone committing

00:45:40.820 any crimes. Okay. Anyone who commits a crime under our laws, especially with the change we made to bail,

00:45:47.000 has consequences. I don't know why that's so important to you. All I know is that we could

00:45:51.500 do more. We could do more. Excuse me, I'm speaking. Sure, go ahead. We could do so much more if there

00:45:57.200 was a nationwide ban, but certainly a state ban on teenagers be able to get guns. I don't know why

00:46:03.460 that's so important to you. The crime rate? It's interesting. She's floating her bail plan too,

00:46:10.000 right? It's like, yeah, no, they definitely have consequences with the bail plan. They're going to

00:46:14.000 miss a daytime TV one afternoon. We'll be right back at it. Just incredible. Smug, this is kind

00:46:19.740 of your backyard though. Yeah. I mean, I think Zeldin did exceptional. And I think bringing up that

00:46:24.160 subway incident, which I think a lot of folks, especially in New York, saw a video of where

00:46:28.620 there was this guy in a subway station was just waiting around looking for a victim to push in

00:46:32.640 front of a subway track, push the guy in front of the subway track or push them onto the subway tracks.

00:46:37.160 And then you get word that he's been let out of jail something like 20 times because you have a

00:46:42.740 system now that that Kathy Hochul is responsible for and signs off on, which lets criminals out with

00:46:49.260 zero repercussions, with no bail, so they can go right back out to the streets to hurt people.

00:46:53.900 These are her policies. I can't believe that. I don't know. Like, could Lee Zeldin win? I guess he

00:47:00.480 could. If it happens, it's going to be a complete political earthquake and it's going to be a red 0.69

00:47:05.480 tidal wave on the midterm night. All right. Standby. We're going to get to some other states,

00:47:09.840 including a close look at the Nevada race out there, which Josh has been really closely involved

00:47:14.560 in. And so we're going to get you all the information on Nevada, on Arizona. Don't go

00:47:18.700 away. The ruthless guys are staying with us. And don't forget, folks, you can find the Megan

00:47:22.220 Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east and the full video show

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00:47:45.480 Doug Brunt's new podcast. It's called Dedicated with Doug Brunt. It's basically like an inside

00:47:50.480 the actor's studio, but with authors. There's a great one with Lee Child, Jennifer Egan. You're

00:47:55.460 going to see a lot of names, you know, they're super fun. And honestly, Doug may be better at

00:47:59.240 this gig than I am. Check it out.

00:48:02.600 Ruthless has been en fuego lately with great guests with really their finger on the pulse

00:48:09.920 of what's happening in these midterm elections. I've been learning a lot from them. And so

00:48:14.320 I want to start with and you're involved in some of these because, as you say, like your

00:48:17.680 real job, your day job is actually in politics as political operatives. And this is your moonlighting

00:48:23.840 gig. But let's talk about some of them. Let's go through Colorado, Michigan and Nevada.

00:48:28.340 Colorado described as a sleeper race for the GOP, a possible sleeper race hasn't been getting

00:48:37.160 as much focus because everyone just assumed that the incumbent, the Democratic Senator

00:48:41.840 Michael Bennett was going to win. But he's got a challenger out there, Joe O'Day, who had

00:48:47.400 been is CEO of a Colorado construction company raised by a Denver cop who's he's a comer.

00:48:54.120 And I know you guys had this guy on your show who was like, you know what, let's look at

00:49:00.520 this. This is a possible, you know, pickup for the GOP. And then after he left you, I

00:49:04.600 don't know if it was you guys who did it, put up put one point two five million dollars

00:49:07.620 into this race. So what's going to happen in Colorado? Could could O'Day actually win this

00:49:15.120 race in which Michael Bennett, the Democrat, is up plus seven point five?

00:49:21.180 Yeah. So we've had Joe on a couple of times the first time way back in the primary when

00:49:25.740 basically nobody knew who he was. And Democrats were funding a primary opponent against him

00:49:31.680 because they didn't want him on the ballot. And they recognized what I think our audience

00:49:35.600 recognized about 15 seconds is that this guy is very authentic. And the contrast to Michael

00:49:40.600 Bennett could not be greater. Right. I mean, what's the thing you say about Michael

00:49:44.280 Bennett? He's softer than Giza sheets, which he is. Right. And all he's ever done throughout 0.97

00:49:51.600 the course of his career is not along with his party leadership, whether it was President

00:49:56.280 Obama, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, whomever he has just followed orders and he's never really

00:50:02.080 stepped out. Remember, he ran for president. I've forgotten that he should be disqualified

00:50:05.900 for that reason alone. The very idea that Michael Bennett looks in the mirror and thinks

00:50:10.460 he could be president is insane. Insane. But but even though he ran for president, he

00:50:15.900 still looks a lot like a generic Democrat. And that's not something you want to you want

00:50:19.140 to be this cycle. And the tricky thing with Colorado is that the right track, wrong track

00:50:23.300 number in the state and the Biden approval in the state has actually remained a little bit

00:50:28.360 more favorable to Democrats than it is in other states around the country. That's changing

00:50:32.940 now within the last few weeks. Probably a lot of it's due to Joe O'Day, who's just a

00:50:37.140 tremendous candidate. Yeah, he really draws a striking contrast. He's been running a really

00:50:41.100 aggressive, very good campaign, got a good campaign staff. That thing's closing. Look,

00:50:46.480 is it at the outer reaches of where Republicans would like to be in November, right? Sure.

00:50:51.380 But it all depends. I look at these races as they break one way with late undecideds late

00:50:57.380 in the month. It's either a two to three point break, three to five point break, or on one occasion

00:51:03.380 in my career was five plus. And that was 2014 on a statewide basis. If it's two or three,

00:51:09.040 it's very, very difficult. Right. But if it's a five plus situation, Joe O'Day is coming to

00:51:14.140 Washington. Wow. That would be huge. I mean, do you think that would be one of the biggest

00:51:19.120 political upsets after New York, after New York and the governor's race? Yeah. I mean,

00:51:23.840 no question about it. It's very akin to, you know, Glenn Youngkin basically winning the state

00:51:29.240 of Virginia last year, right? It's thought to be absolutely impossible with a generic D plus 12

00:51:34.500 environment and anyone. So yeah, no, stranger things have happened.

00:51:38.940 And I think also coming out of COVID has made a lot of these blue states more gettable for us,

00:51:43.640 right? Because, you know, these voters have lived under, you know, these tyrannical restrictions and

00:51:49.600 the lockdowns and the school closures and all of that sort of stuff. And this is now finally their

00:51:54.100 first opportunity to make their opposition to those things known on in the ballot box. We saw

00:51:59.780 it in Virginia. A lot of voters around the country have just had all this pent up frustration with

00:52:03.440 nowhere to put it, except, you know, writing on Facebook or showing up at a PTA meeting and

00:52:08.280 getting tagged as a domestic terrorist by Merrick Garland.

00:52:11.820 That that reminds me of two things. So that takes me to Michigan. OK, because I agree with you.

00:52:17.400 COVID retribution is at play, whether it's pulled for or spoken aloud or not. And the culture wars,

00:52:23.840 and I know you guys talked to Tudor Dixon. So Michigan's getting really interesting.

00:52:29.000 Gretchen Whitmer. I mean, everybody just thought for sure she's got this again to take a walk down

00:52:33.520 memory lane. In August, Whitmer was up 17.6 percentage points over Tudor Dixon, her challenger. 1.00

00:52:42.060 October 1st, that had fallen to up 10. Now she's up 3.2. I mean, from 17.6 to 3.2.

00:52:52.020 So it's even worse for her than it is for Kathy Hochul here in New York. And I think having listened

00:52:59.200 a bit to Tudor Dixon, who I know you interviewed, in part, it's because Tudor Dixon is amazing on

00:53:05.420 culture war issues. I mean, you get her talking about critical race theory in the schools and

00:53:09.060 all this nonsense, and you just want to sit back and pop the popcorn.

00:53:14.520 Yeah. And then you look at the studies that are coming out now that, you know,

00:53:17.800 kids are basically two years behind on math and science and reading. And, you know, they're

00:53:23.240 talking about drag queen story hour and, you know, pronouns and gender affirming care. And,

00:53:30.360 you know, so it's no surprise. And you're absolutely right, Megan. I mean, she's like

00:53:34.940 smart as a whip and she's so sharp on these culture issues. And it's going to matter. It's

00:53:42.420 going to matter a lot to parents, you know, who are going to make a disproportionate part

00:53:45.980 of the electorate in the midterm. And I said, for example, I think it's starting to become

00:53:51.640 like really apparent to Dems that the policy decisions that they were responsible for,

00:53:56.980 like like Duncan said, they're going to be held accountable for this is the first election where

00:54:01.200 they're going to be held accountable for the decisions that they made in Whitmer's case,

00:54:05.840 keeping schools closed for years. And then last night in the debate stage, Gretchen Whitmer lies 1.00

00:54:11.580 and said that, oh, I only closed schools for three months, which is, you know, demonstrably false,

00:54:16.020 which is which is, you know, there are a number of her own tweets where she says, yes, I'm going to

00:54:19.900 keep, you know, schools closed until Thanksgiving. And then in the meantime, it's also important for

00:54:24.440 voters to remember March of 2021, when she's keeping schools closed, she flies to Florida for vacation.

00:54:32.620 So the hypocrisy and the lies from Gretchen Whitmer is something that voters are waking up to. 0.96

00:54:38.120 And that's why you're seeing, you know, the polls tighten to the point that this is this is a

00:54:42.040 winnable race. So I have a very good friend. One of my closest friends lives in Michigan,

00:54:47.440 right outside of Detroit. And she is a true blue Democrat. I mean, she she is she voted Democrat

00:54:54.960 in every election her entire life. And she is so not on board with this woke crap. Like she she's a 0.88

00:55:01.740 normal Midwesterner. You know, Midwesterners are pretty cool. They're not extreme. And I've

00:55:08.100 really feel like the Democratic Party has lost sight of that. They've forgotten that even their team

00:55:13.380 is not on board with this crazy 10 percent or whatever it is on the far left of their party

00:55:18.720 that's pushing all this insanity on us. And to me, it was outlined by CBS recently did a focus group

00:55:24.760 with a Dem, a GOP or an independent. And they got on this topic and we pulled a soundbite just to show

00:55:32.260 you what happened. Listen to this. Biggest concerns about raising children in America right now. John?

00:55:38.680 The whole woke culture affecting our children. All these elementary schools and middle schools

00:55:46.180 having woke culture pushed on them from the LGBT plus community for sexual identity and gender.

00:55:56.420 We should be pushing the actual school studies, math, social studies, science.

00:56:03.400 I can also agree with some of his points. I really would say sex education. I feel like

00:56:10.200 some things, you know, are brought to the children's attention they wouldn't even

00:56:14.220 think about. And you have eight kids. I imagine you have some pretty specific ideas in your mind when

00:56:20.540 you're speaking about this. Yes. But children are, you know, they're really influenced. You can teach

00:56:27.080 them one thing at home, but when they go to school, they're just as much influenced by their teachers

00:56:32.140 and their surroundings. And we should have more input to parents. I agree. Often when we do these

00:56:39.860 focus groups, we have people from different party affiliations disagreeing with each other. But I'm

00:56:44.540 hearing all of you echo a lot of the same concerns and agreeing with each other. Yeah. And if you

00:56:50.320 agree on those issues, you tell me, who do you vote for? Yeah, you have one choice, right? I mean,

00:56:55.760 it's a Republican candidate because the Democrats, honestly, this is their invention, right? And I

00:57:01.420 mean, it was the secret to Virginia and Glenn Youngkin, but it's also fused into almost every

00:57:05.780 campaign throughout the country at this point, right? The schools issue, the COVID issue that gave

00:57:11.360 rise to it in a greater understanding of the curriculum that these children were being taught in the

00:57:16.740 school boards that somehow have more of an allegiance to activist communities than they do your children's

00:57:22.300 education has just become one of those ties that bind. And you've seen everything from the left

00:57:27.840 center all the way to the far right, sort of put an umbrella around it. And yeah, you only have one

00:57:33.760 choice in this election if that's your concern. I mean, that's the thing is like, you know, you saw the

00:57:37.680 teachers unions and these schools essentially, you know, set up their own fall where they wanted to

00:57:44.880 keep schools closed. But as a result of teaching classes on Zoom, parents saw, you know, they're not

00:57:50.480 teaching math, science, social studies, history, you know, at this kid's school, they're teaching this

00:57:56.320 woke garbage. They're asking, you know, second graders, third graders to talk about sexual identity,

00:58:03.300 which is insane to be asking and talking to children to. And anyone, I think, talking to

00:58:09.480 someone underage about that should be arrested. But this is coming from teachers. And it's insane.

00:58:13.080 It's insane that the Democrat Party has on issues like COVID or, you know, gender theory or critical

00:58:19.540 race theory. They've let their party get hijacked by that extreme you were describing, Holmes, and they

00:58:25.460 pander to it. And that becomes the policy of the party, which is just so wild to me. If you looked at

00:58:31.920 the median Democrat voter, they're the furthest thing from all of those things. And for whatever

00:58:37.260 reason, that furthest left thing becomes the policy they expect the entire party to toe the line on.

00:58:44.680 Wear two masks, wear three masks, 10 boosters forever for the rest of your life and mandate it.

00:58:49.740 Like, that is not where your average Democrat is. I've got family in Michigan. They are normal people.

00:58:55.700 They are not super partisan people. And they look at this stuff and they just shake their head.

00:59:00.020 Well, Democrats are facing the consequences for this all over the map. And they're facing the

00:59:05.380 consequences with working class people of all stripes because we're the working class in this

00:59:10.640 country are very concerned about the economy. I mean, paying for the groceries, paying for the

00:59:15.420 gasoline, paying for their housing, paying for whatever. And all they're hearing from Democrats

00:59:20.120 in Washington is culture, culture, culture. It's you're seeing it in every single state.

00:59:24.820 You're seeing it in Colorado. You're seeing it in Michigan. And Megan, you mentioned Nevada. You're

00:59:30.040 seeing it in Nevada in spades. All right. We'll get to Nevada in just one second. But on the subject

00:59:34.740 of covid and the messaging, because Whitmer was the worst. I mean, she truly is like she's the anti

00:59:38.540 DeSantis. She was a lockdown queen. The White House has a new message in advance of Monday's upcoming

00:59:45.600 Halloween holiday on covid. Since we're talking about the vaccine and the messaging and the shot

00:59:53.300 and it's never ending commitment and fealty to it. Listen to how they are now trying to push

00:59:58.520 what they're. Well, I'll let I'll let this the ad speak for itself. Listen to how they're now messaging

01:00:04.000 on the covid vex. You can't see it. You can hear it. Unbelievable. Get your annual. I can't read it

01:00:21.960 from here, but but I know it says, oh, it says get your annual covid vaccine shot your annual. Get

01:00:28.240 your annual vaccine shot. So they couldn't. Somebody said, get rid of the term vaccine because it's not

01:00:32.920 one, I bet. And then somebody else said, are you insane? We call it a vaccine. And so they settled

01:00:37.560 on vaccine shot. But annual. Probably exactly. Right. Annual masterminds of the White House

01:00:44.280 communications department. Right. So how many we're going to get? Right. How many are you going to get

01:00:47.620 like my Thatcher? He's he's nine. You know, God willing, he's going to have a nice long life. So

01:00:52.560 how many does he has like 91 shots in store for him? Oh, right. Well, I mean, look, it's born out of

01:00:59.480 a total dishonesty about all of it. Right. And the reason that people are reluctant to get covid shots

01:01:04.280 is because they were told that they prevented infection. Right. I mean, you remember the whole

01:01:07.900 pandemic of the unvaccinated. Right. Oh, wait a minute. All of a sudden, if you're vaccinated,

01:01:13.020 like three weeks later, you can get covid again. Well, nobody told us that. And then you hear later

01:01:17.300 that they never even tested whether or not you could get it after you get vaccinated. And so it's that

01:01:22.180 skepticism that's built into that. Right. That. Well, especially when we knew that we knew so much of

01:01:28.120 this and they kept telling us the sky was purple rather than was blue, we knew it was a low, you

01:01:33.380 know, small C coronavirus, that the flu is also a coronavirus, that you get a flu shot every year

01:01:39.460 because it doesn't prevent you from getting the flu. And if they're both coronaviruses, you follow

01:01:44.980 the logic to say, well, this vaccine isn't going to prevent me from always getting covid. That's not

01:01:50.480 how this is going to work. Yeah. I mean, I could get podcasters. Why is it that we're figuring this out?

01:01:55.400 Why did we figure this out like a year ago? Right. Yes. I mean, it's insane. It took the

01:01:59.340 New York Supreme Court to hand down that ruling where they demanded everyone who was fired for

01:02:03.820 refusing to get the covid shot be reinstated in their jobs and be given back pay because of the

01:02:10.560 fact that this is from the New York Supreme Court, that the the covid shot does not prevent

01:02:14.580 infection. So it took this long when you had the White House for years attacking Americans,

01:02:21.320 saying that's a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Meanwhile, Pfizer just announced that they're

01:02:26.020 raising the prices on that because now they have support from the government to ensure that it's

01:02:30.060 mandated among even more people and they can increase their profits. And now they want to

01:02:34.180 mandate it for kids. There you go. Make it part of the vaccine schedule.

01:02:37.540 We got to talk about that. So just two points. Yesterday, we had an interview with RFK Jr.

01:02:41.880 And he was great on the on the whether the vaccines have ever prevented transmission and how he raised

01:02:47.700 very early on this study that had been done on monkeys that showed the monkeys spreading the

01:02:52.400 virus post vaccination. And he raised it, as he always does, on Instagram. And he was shut down.

01:02:59.640 He was shut down because he said, I don't think this even the original vaccine prevents transmission.

01:03:05.260 And then we saw the Pfizer executive in that exchange with the European Parliament admit exactly

01:03:09.420 that. They never even tested for that. They never even posited that. But Anthony Fauci was out there

01:03:13.560 saying it would prevent transmission. And Joe Biden was out there saying prevent transmission.

01:03:16.880 And all these policies were put in place and schools were shut down. And the anti the

01:03:21.660 unvaccinated were shamed by our entire administration, federal and Democratic state

01:03:26.460 leaders for not getting vaccinated, including Whitmer, including Hochul, including all these

01:03:30.920 people we're talking about. So it's absolutely outrageous. And just to clarify, the New York

01:03:35.380 State Supreme Court, that's the trial court. So it's going to go up on appeal. Weirdly, we call our

01:03:39.540 highest court here the Court of Appeals. But you got you got the trial. You got the Supreme Court.

01:03:44.020 You got the appellate division. You got the Court of Appeals. So that's going to work its way up.

01:03:46.880 But I think that Supreme Court judge came to the right conclusion about those back pay and not

01:03:52.120 firing any more public service workers who don't have the vaccine. It's ridiculous.

01:03:56.660 I knew we had a lawyer around here somewhere.

01:03:59.960 It's outrageous. But on your point about the kids vaccines, you know, I did a whole thing about

01:04:05.260 this last week because I'm very angry about this, that the CDC would recommend the COVID vaccine to

01:04:10.980 go on the annual list of recommended mandated vaccines, which, of course, these rubber stampers 1.00

01:04:16.240 are going to do. And then the CDC says, oh, wasn't us. It was your local authorities. And the local

01:04:20.380 authorities are like, oh, it wasn't us. The CDC said we ought to do it. Here's Hochul and Lee Zeldin,

01:04:27.020 the Republican challenger, talking about exactly that thing. And listen to how she leaves herself

01:04:31.200 the wiggle room. She's not honest enough to say she's going to fucking do it. Sorry.

01:04:35.520 Here it is. Soundbite 8.

01:04:40.200 Will you follow the CDC's recommendation to add COVID vaccines to children's vaccine schedules?

01:04:50.080 Not at this time.

01:04:50.820 My opponent just said she will not mandate COVID vaccines at this time. Let me be clear to all

01:04:55.500 of the parents who are out there. I will not mandate COVID vaccines for your kids ever.

01:05:00.100 Thank you.

01:05:02.300 That's clear. There you go.

01:05:03.560 Clear contrast. Clear contrast. Yeah. I mean, look, this is such a big deal, right? And what

01:05:08.800 I don't understand is, you know, I'm not a, I don't know anything about this stuff, but I do know

01:05:14.920 it takes an awful long time to get something on a mandated schedule, particularly for children.

01:05:21.560 And it both to the efficacy of it, but also what it is that you're trying to prevent, right? And what

01:05:27.480 we're trying to prevent in like polio, for example, is a debilitating disease that killed

01:05:32.760 thousands of Americans back in the day. And there is a legitimate reason to do that, right? 0.99

01:05:38.100 It is proven efficacy over 60 years of taking care of this problem, nearly eradicated the problem.

01:05:45.680 Well, what's the problem with the coronavirus? Do we still, is there, is there, is it killing

01:05:49.820 children? Have we gotten to the point where it's killing children? Like, no, I don't think it is.

01:05:54.100 Are you mandating that because of what then? What, what's the, what's the purpose?

01:05:59.560 The only other purpose could have been that it's going to prevent community spread, which we

01:06:03.260 already know is not, it doesn't do. So there's literally no justification for it. These kids are

01:06:09.520 not in danger. Getting the vaccine is not going to prevent community spread at all, as we've seen.

01:06:15.280 And so it's, it's bonkers. It's absolutely crazy.

01:06:18.060 It's yet again, another example of the group who is least susceptible to facing consequences of this

01:06:25.040 being held to the worst and most rigorous standards where you had kids kept out of school,

01:06:30.440 where we're now seeing, and it's become universal countries that had these lockdowns and kept kids

01:06:35.320 out of schools. Their kids are two, three years behind on education and will probably never catch

01:06:40.260 up to where they should be. And now you've got the White House using the term annual.

01:06:44.200 It's not susceptible from being hurt.

01:06:45.620 Now you've got another White House saying annual, annual. So you've got to give it to your kids.

01:06:49.500 So it's going to be on the recommended list of vaccines. And it's not just, okay, like the one

01:06:53.140 time when you get your baby, you know, the MMR and all that stuff, it's going to be annual COVID

01:06:57.620 vaccines that you will be forced to mess with your kids' immune system, kids who have already had

01:07:02.720 COVID, kids who are likely to get COVID again, and getting the vaccine and then getting COVID is not a

01:07:06.760 good combo for your immune system. Even the CDC and Anthony Fauci have admitted that.

01:07:11.380 This can't happen, but it's going to unless people fight. All right, let me get to Arizona. I mean,

01:07:16.760 Nevada, because you guys have been involved in that. And I really, I'm interested in this. I don't

01:07:22.000 know that much about this race, but I know it's hugely important. And that if the GOP wins this one,

01:07:28.640 it's going to be pretty earth shattering. Biden won Nevada by 2.4%. Clinton won Nevada by 2.4%.

01:07:35.320 The last GOP president to win Nevada was George W. Bush in 2004. We've got Catherine Cortez Masto,

01:07:44.520 a Democrat, against Adam Laxalt, a Republican. And right now he's leading. He's point, he's plus 0.8.

01:07:57.280 But she was up in August, plus 2.6. And she stayed ahead until September 13th. But he took the lead

01:08:05.940 and he hasn't let it go since RCP is projecting this is going to be a GOP pickup. And it would be a

01:08:12.880 hugely important one. Holmes, you've been involved in this. What are you doing? And how are you feeling

01:08:17.900 about it?

01:08:18.720 Yeah. So every cycle, our company, John and Michael and I, we have a political consulting company.

01:08:24.300 We pick one or two races that we feel like make a significant difference, right? They could be the

01:08:29.780 difference between minority and majority. And we knew Adam Laxalt, both at a friend capacity and a

01:08:36.780 professional capacity and knew that he was just an incredible potential candidate. And so we

01:08:40.900 recruited him pretty hard to try to get involved here because we felt like it really could make

01:08:45.740 the biggest difference. Well, he decided to run and it's been an incredible race. They've spent,

01:08:51.220 what, $60, $70 million trying to smear him. I mean, everything from attacking his family to

01:08:58.820 somehow suggesting that his 401k is responsible for gas prices going up. I mean, it's just truly

01:09:05.680 hilariously laughable stuff. But they've thrown all this stuff out. I mean, he's run a really

01:09:10.300 disciplined, really good campaign, an extraordinary candidate. I think the best in the country. And

01:09:16.660 that's not just because we work with him and he's really, really done great work. But yeah, we're now

01:09:20.840 down to it. And like you said, Nevada is a very purple state, right? This is a very, very narrowly

01:09:27.740 divided place. But it just so happens to have conditions, both economic and otherwise, that make

01:09:33.420 a lot of voters in that center left, center right, and particularly in the Hispanic community, much more

01:09:39.500 open to the Republican view of the world right now than they had been probably for the last 10 years.

01:09:44.840 Yeah, this is one of those states where Democrats have absolutely overlooked the economic situation

01:09:50.320 that people are in. This is a working class state. These are people who, you know, you hear about 8%

01:09:55.120 inflation nationally. Inflation in Nevada is 16%. You hear about gas prices. Democrats are saying,

01:10:01.300 oh, they're coming down nationally. They didn't go down in Nevada. And this is a state where people

01:10:05.020 are driving to work every day, 15, 20 minutes. So what does that mean? Why is that significant?

01:10:09.780 Because they're filling up their tank every week just to earn a paycheck so that they can get home

01:10:14.640 figure out how to pay the high grocery prices that Catherine Cortez Masto and Joe Biden have given

01:10:19.260 them, figure out how to pay for the gas prices they've been given, and figure out how to pay

01:10:23.120 for their housing. People are dissatisfied. This is a referendum on poor leadership in Washington.

01:10:29.540 This is an election where people just simply want change. And it spans every single demographic.

01:10:36.540 It's Latinos. It's white. It's everybody.

01:10:38.620 And Laxol has two advantages that Dr. Oz doesn't get in Pennsylvania. Number one,

01:10:44.800 he's running against an incumbent, right? And Catherine Cortez Masto has rubber stamped all

01:10:49.380 of the failed economic policies of the Biden administration. So she's responsible for all

01:10:53.480 of it, not to mention, you know, rising crimes going on, the borders and chaos and all of that sort of

01:10:58.040 stuff. So there's that. Then you got Vegas. You've got a hospitality industry that was

01:11:03.720 disproportionately impacted by the covid lockdowns and all of that. And they're still,

01:11:07.360 you know, dragging themselves out of the ditch. Right. And so you add those two things in.

01:11:12.800 And even though the state was won by a larger margin by Joe Biden, you know, the situation for

01:11:18.280 Democrats is perilous. The the Latino vote you just mentioned, this is how Time magazine put it.

01:11:23.900 This is a signpost to the future of American politics, a crucial test. This Senate race we're

01:11:29.020 discussing a crucial test of whether Democrats can hold on to or Republicans can peel off the voting

01:11:36.160 block that could determine future elections for a generation or more, which is why both candidates are

01:11:42.400 making an aggressive play to appeal to Latinos, a voting group that is key to victory in Nevada and

01:11:49.300 maybe up for grabs in a brand new way in that state. It's weird because his like entire family

01:11:58.340 is against him. I don't like it seems like every day you hear about some other nasty family member

01:12:04.220 was like, Adam sucks. Well, you know, what's super funny about that? So so like every fan,

01:12:09.480 the Laxol family is a big family, right? Your family is mentioned that your mom's a Democrat.

01:12:14.060 My family, both my parents were Democrats. Right. I mean, in every family, you've got Republicans

01:12:19.440 and Democrats and, you know, you go down the line and like the core part of Adam's family are all

01:12:24.980 incredibly supportive of his candidacy. And then you've got you've got Democrats, right? That

01:12:30.180 don't want to vote Republican. And so surprise, surprise, every cycle where his name has ever

01:12:35.700 been on a ballot, they roll these people out as if it's some kind of a character assessment

01:12:40.300 of Adam Laxol, which I find, you know, I mean, look, it's it's it's politics. So I expect the bottom

01:12:45.320 of the barrel, but it's pretty darn close to the bottom of the barrel. But I wanted to touch on the

01:12:49.060 Hispanic piece that you mentioned, because I think that's the most important thing that's happening

01:12:52.760 here. We watched. And I know you've probably talked to Myra Flores in South Texas and what's

01:12:57.860 happening down there during the course of the primary elections and then that special election.

01:13:02.340 But there's a distinct shift that's happening across this country with the Hispanic community.

01:13:06.440 Part of it is the cultural issues that you talked about. Part of it is the economic issues that no

01:13:10.560 longer resonate with them at all because they're suffering under it. And then the other piece is

01:13:14.040 the crime. Right. And contrary to the conventional wisdom that Democrats have fed us for 20 years,

01:13:19.840 the Hispanic community is incredibly, incredibly pissed off about the border situation. Right. 1.00

01:13:26.680 There are communities in large part of the ones that suffer the greatest consequences, whether it's

01:13:31.720 human trafficking, whether it's drugs, what have you. And so multigenerational Hispanic communities in

01:13:38.200 this country have flipped and there is a big, massive shift. You know, Cortez Masto won Hispanics by 40 percent

01:13:46.120 in her last election. It's basically a neck and neck deal in Nevada right now. And I think that that is 0.97

01:13:52.480 only a good thing for this country. Certainly a great thing for Nevada. But I think in the larger,

01:13:58.560 much larger context, when you see South Florida, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, this vote share is now

01:14:05.580 actively being competed for by Republicans up and down the ticket. And that is an excellent thing for

01:14:12.140 this country. I want to give I saw you retweeted this, Josh. This is fascinating. So GOP strategist

01:14:19.880 Jeremy Hughes tweeted out data from the first weekend of early voting in Nevada. And this is

01:14:25.940 why are you giggling? Do you know Jeremy Hughes? What is that? Yeah, we know. Awesome guy.

01:14:31.180 Okay. I thought it was like, because a GOP strategist is always so amorphous. It's like,

01:14:34.680 what does that mean? Who's that? That's gonna be like some 21 year old saying.

01:14:37.160 No, he knows what he's talking about. He's one of the very few that know what they're talking about.

01:14:41.160 Great guy. Okay, there's a backstory here. I'm gonna have to get to it. And I'll bring it to my

01:14:43.780 audience members when I get it from you. So he tweets this out. I love the information on the

01:14:49.880 early voting is like getting a sneak peek. It feels like you're not allowed to know. But he's he tweets

01:14:54.040 out the following. Here's some data from the first weekend of early voting and mail ballots in Nevada.

01:14:59.040 Definitely like red alarm fire for Democrats and good stuff for Republicans. So he's looking at 2022

01:15:07.040 so far, comparing it to what happened in 2020 in the mail-in ballots at this point is saying and

01:15:13.960 pointing out we don't have rural numbers at this point, which tend to be more Republican leaning

01:15:17.460 in general. In 2020, after the first batch of mail was tabulated, Democrats led by 37.8% in Clark

01:15:24.320 County. In 2022, after the first batch of mail was tabulated, Democrats led by 23.15% in Clark

01:15:31.420 County. So from 37.8% to 23.15%, not doing as well as his point. Let's go to, is it Washoe County?

01:15:39.540 Yep. Okay. In 2020, after the first batch of mail was tabulated, Democrats led there 29.5% up. In 2022,

01:15:49.660 16.6% in the same county from 29 down to 16. In Clark County, back in 2020, Republicans lost the

01:16:00.260 early vote on Saturday and Sunday. They won both days in 2022. It went from losing to winning. And

01:16:06.700 finally, in 2020, Democrats had a lead of 36,000 in Clark and Washoe County at this point. Now it's a

01:16:14.480 lead of 7,907. Bottom line, things are looking very good for Republicans. Anything could change,

01:16:22.480 but those are dramatic falls. Those aren't small falls. Those are big.

01:16:26.120 Yeah, it's good. It's good news, but it's also very early. And that vote tabulation is pretty

01:16:30.780 light. There's a light first weekend in comparison to, you know, maybe some expectations, but we clearly

01:16:36.180 did better than 2020, for example, when it was only a two-point race at the top of the ticket.

01:16:41.460 I think the most important thing for people who are in Nevada is that this is an election where

01:16:46.360 you got to all get involved, right? We've talked about it in every one of these states, but

01:16:50.720 if you have friends and neighbors that are interested in changing the direction, you got to do it. You

01:16:55.280 got to get out there and you got to walk the door to door. You got to put up a sign. You got to go talk

01:17:00.900 to friends and neighbors about it because they're counting on apathy, right? Democrats have this machine 0.84

01:17:07.160 where they like to turn, they call it the culinary union, right? And they think that they can just sort

01:17:11.640 of turn over all of the votes of the culinary union as they have in years past to a democratic

01:17:17.560 candidate. Now, I have some reason to believe that that's probably not going to happen the same way

01:17:21.380 it has in years past because of some of the things that you were talking about earlier with the

01:17:25.600 hospitality industry and the way that democratic governance has worked. But the point is, is they

01:17:29.880 have a formidable turnout machine. And so Republicans are going to have to work real hard to put that one

01:17:35.280 in the bank. But I think we're heading the right direction. All right. Before I let you go, let's

01:17:38.960 go down the line. Predictions on Senate, on the Senate. Will the Republicans take it? And if so,

01:17:44.040 how many seats will they wind up with? Johnny, you want to start?

01:17:49.420 Never like to do this, but I'm going to say 51. I think Republicans do take the Senate. And I think

01:17:54.900 we protect all of our real estate. I think that Oz wins in Pennsylvania. We win Ohio. We win

01:17:59.000 Wisconsin. We keep all of the seats that are in our hands right now. And we pick up-

01:18:02.380 Not Georgia. Not Georgia. Well, I think we could. I think we could pick up in Georgia.

01:18:07.260 I know. I could. But if you had to put money- Here we go. Here we go. I think we could pick

01:18:11.000 up in Georgia. You caught him being a politician there, Megan. All right, Duncan, let's have it.

01:18:16.100 What do you say? I think 51 on election night with a runoff in Georgia. Well, that's where I was

01:18:25.240 headed with this. I think we've got 51 on election night. I definitely think that there is going to be a

01:18:30.700 razor thin issue because Georgia has that 50% threshold. So you have to hit or you go into a

01:18:37.520 runoff. We all experience that nightmare in 2020. I think the likelihood of that repeating itself is

01:18:42.680 somewhat certain. But I will say, if Pennsylvania and Nevada go in the Republican category and we

01:18:50.160 hold everything else, the majority is not at stake at that point. It's about adding to 52.

01:18:55.320 Yeah. Then no one cares about Georgia at that point. Smug, what do you think?

01:18:58.420 52. I'm going with 52. And also, I have a really good feeling about Arizona.

01:19:04.240 Arizona is starting to feel like, you know, you see the momentum that Carrie Lake has gotten.

01:19:08.940 You see how well Blake's campaign has been doing right here at the close. I think there's going to

01:19:13.660 be a lot of surprises. I think you look at the way that polling's closed and the direction it's

01:19:18.180 going in the past month. There's a lot of momentum, but that doesn't mean Republicans should

01:19:22.000 let up. Like Josh said, you got to go out there, you doorknock, make a plan to vote,

01:19:26.020 get your friends involved. So on your 52, that would mean you think the Republicans are going

01:19:31.500 to keep Pennsylvania, I assume, and they're going to gain where?

01:19:36.460 I think they take Nevada and they take Arizona. They take Georgia. That takes us 53.

01:19:41.920 53.

01:19:42.760 Look at that. Look at that. You revised your own math.

01:19:45.200 I'm not going to have you doing the vote tabulations.

01:19:50.180 All right. I'm not going to hold you to it, but it's always fascinating just to see,

01:19:53.180 you know, how you're feeling about it. And traditionally, I mean, especially when it's

01:19:57.740 not your party in power, these last two weeks, as Josh was touching on, would be even greater

01:20:03.540 momentum builders for the party out of power. Like the way these, the momentum's right now in the

01:20:08.320 Republicans' favor. And if you look at past history on midterm elections in the past,

01:20:11.620 in the last two weeks of the race, it goes even more in the direction of the challenging party.

01:20:17.820 So we shall see. We'll know soon. You guys, such a pleasure. Thanks as always.

01:20:22.340 Always great. Great to see you, Megan. Thoughts and prayers with your family and loved ones.

01:20:26.840 Thank you. Lots of love. Tomorrow, Sean Parnell is going to be with us. He was originally running

01:20:31.500 in this Pennsylvania Senate race until he had to drop out due to personal matters,

01:20:35.300 matters he's never talked about publicly until now.

01:20:41.620 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 26, 2022

Fetterman's Debate Disaster, and Biden's Bizarre Cancer Comments, with the Ruthless Podcast Hosts ｜ Ep. 420

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