The Megyn Kelly Show - Fiery and Fun GOP Debate, and Vivek vs. Haley, with Josh Holmes, Glenn Greenwald, Rich Lowry, and Jim Geraghty ｜ Ep. 681

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00:00:31.000 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.440 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.480 Just back home after a week in Alabama.

00:00:48.520 Hope you had a chance to watch last night's debate.

00:00:51.200 I would love to hear your thoughts.

00:00:52.820 Email me at megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at megankelly.com.

00:00:57.160 And there we will be posting some exclusive content from the debate.

00:01:02.380 So go to megankelly.com, sign up.

00:01:05.100 I don't, we don't sell your emails or bombard you.

00:01:07.940 We send you one a week on Fridays just with news updates.

00:01:10.040 That's it.

00:01:10.700 So it doesn't cost you anything and it's a good way to stay abreast of headlines and some

00:01:14.740 behind the scenes things here at the show.

00:01:16.260 And we will have plenty of them for you this week.

00:01:18.780 I had so much fun.

00:01:20.440 I was so happy that I got to bring my family.

00:01:22.860 Doug came with the kids yesterday and that was super fun.

00:01:24.980 They had a lot of thoughts about the debate themselves.

00:01:28.360 And I was actually really impressed with how thoughtful they were on it.

00:01:31.900 And, you know, I would rather listen to my little 10-year-old Thatcher than Politico. 1.00

00:01:36.200 So I'm telling you, his analysis was spot on.

00:01:41.280 Look, I thought it was a success last night because we got to have a real, actual debate.

00:01:45.820 It's the first time, right?

00:01:47.980 It's like the first debate was a little too big that Fox News had.

00:01:51.700 The second debate was just a hot mess from beginning to end.

00:01:54.160 The third debate was Kristen and Lester doing an interview.

00:01:58.460 I'm really interested in their own thoughts on what matters.

00:02:01.340 Not at all on what the candidates had to say or getting them to argue with each other.

00:02:04.660 And I thought this was the first debate where they really got to go at it.

00:02:07.980 We tried to shrink ourselves and you got to see the candidates be the stars, which I loved,

00:02:12.660 focused on real issues.

00:02:14.060 And by the way, the two other things I thought made it different were we asked questions that

00:02:18.880 Republicans want answers to, some issues that came up that were not raised at any other

00:02:23.940 debate that are important to Republican voters.

00:02:26.820 So I thought that was good.

00:02:27.980 And I thought the questions were all very, very charged in a good way, in a challenging way.

00:02:32.280 You know, you can ask very charged questions like that, I think, if the audience knows

00:02:37.500 you don't hate these people.

00:02:39.580 You know what I mean?

00:02:40.820 Like when I'm up there, those four standing in front of me, they knew I don't hate them.

00:02:46.360 I'm skeptical of politicians in general, as you know, but I've said before, look, I'm

00:02:51.220 going to vote for one of these guys or Trump if they get the nomination.

00:02:54.680 I cannot vote for a man who wants children to have their body parts cut off when they're 0.90

00:02:59.300 10.

00:02:59.600 Um, so in any event, it doesn't have to be a softball just because you're kind of on

00:03:06.080 their side and you can get away with very charged questions and pointed questions really, no

00:03:11.920 matter what, but especially if they know you don't hate them.

00:03:15.120 It's not coming from a very, very negative place.

00:03:17.780 All right.

00:03:18.180 We're going to get reactions from all sides.

00:03:19.600 I'm more interested in what my guests have to say and what you have to say.

00:03:22.420 Glenn Greenwald will be here just a bit later.

00:03:24.600 Rich Lowry, Jim Garrity, too, of National Review.

00:03:26.940 But joining us first is Josh Holmes.

00:03:29.440 You know him as the co-host of the Ruthless Program.

00:03:33.200 It's a hit podcast.

00:03:34.520 We love it.

00:03:35.060 And he's the founding partner and president of Cavalry.

00:03:38.120 He does politics for a living.

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00:04:12.820 Josh, great to have you.

00:04:14.360 What did you think?

00:04:15.420 Megan, first off, congratulations.

00:04:18.200 I mean, that was so well done.

00:04:20.020 I expected it.

00:04:22.000 I've watched your style.

00:04:23.440 I know how you interact, and I know how you give nobody any sort of free quarter.

00:04:27.460 So I expected you to have a good debate.

00:04:29.200 But you really, I mean, this was exceptional.

00:04:31.400 Really, really well done.

00:04:32.740 And, you know, I thought both Elizabeth and Eliana did it well.

00:04:37.140 People got to see what they needed to see.

00:04:39.380 Hats off to you for that.

00:04:41.180 Thank you.

00:04:41.960 I enjoyed just letting them go.

00:04:44.620 That was my favorite part.

00:04:45.440 Just let them go.

00:04:45.920 Let it rip.

00:04:46.820 You know, like for once, they got to pile on each other, and some defended each other.

00:04:51.240 And you kind of really took in the dynamic, I thought, in a new way.

00:04:54.480 You hadn't seen all four going at it.

00:04:56.300 And like the old Republican Party, the new Republican Party, he's defending her.

00:05:00.520 He's on this guy's side.

00:05:01.700 Like, oh, wow, a new dynamic emerged right in front of our eyes.

00:05:05.500 Yeah, they get to actually talk about stuff and challenge each other.

00:05:07.980 You know, I mean, look, off the top, clearly where Nikki Haley is in the polls was sort of

00:05:14.200 validated by the fact that everybody was piling on.

00:05:17.280 I mean, clearly DeSantis saw her as target A1A.

00:05:21.100 Not surprisingly, Ramaswamy continued to put her in the middle of it.

00:05:25.740 And that was interesting.

00:05:28.260 I mean, you can tell a lot about where the candidates see the race based upon their strategy

00:05:34.060 in a debate like this, where they have the opportunity to press their case.

00:05:38.300 I also thought Ron DeSantis did a very, very nice job for the following reasons.

00:05:43.440 You were highlighting a whole bunch of things and tapping into the anxieties that conservative

00:05:49.640 voters have across this country and a range of different issues.

00:05:52.900 And each and every time he was able to not only identify with that, but then show you

00:05:57.480 the solution that he got done in Florida.

00:06:01.200 He's done a little bit of this in every single one of these debates, but what I found sort

00:06:05.660 of separating here was people were challenging their opponents' credentials in all these

00:06:13.180 areas, including his.

00:06:14.540 And each and every time he could lay out what he actually did.

00:06:18.740 And I think that resonates, right?

00:06:20.580 I mean, I think that's a, it's a separating factor.

00:06:23.260 It's not enough to just sort of talk about how you feel about something.

00:06:26.340 When a candidate does something, boy, that's hard to ignore.

00:06:30.140 So I thought he did a really-

00:06:31.320 I'll just add to that.

00:06:32.220 I'll just add to that on DeSantis, because, you know, we, as you know, on this show, we've

00:06:35.880 hit them all.

00:06:36.500 They've all taken bumps and bruises from us, but we've praised them too.

00:06:40.000 You and I were on the air together the day after DeSantis' disastrous launch.

00:06:44.140 Yes.

00:06:44.500 They were unsparing, but he's done many good things for which we praised him.

00:06:48.540 And last night, I thought it was very interesting because I asked that question about vaccine

00:06:52.900 injuries and we'll get to, there's some controversy about the feed going down on Rumble when I

00:06:57.360 asked that and we'll play you the question and let you guys hear it.

00:06:59.360 But, um, I asked that question and when I wrote that question, I thought it was a very

00:07:04.780 important issue to raise because nobody else, that will never be raised by the mainstream

00:07:08.200 ever at a GOP debate.

00:07:10.280 Right.

00:07:10.360 Um, I intentionally did not put it to Ron DeSantis because it's a softball to him, right?

00:07:16.540 It's like, it's a softball because that question landed with was a warp speed, a good thing.

00:07:21.440 So I gave it to Vivek, who's been very defensive of Trump and it becomes more, a little bit

00:07:26.460 more interesting now.

00:07:27.280 Is he going to, cause you know, he knows the Republican party has some questions about these

00:07:30.500 vaccines, but he doesn't want to split from Trump.

00:07:32.620 So now things get a little sexier, you know, it's like, Oh wait, what's he going to do?

00:07:36.200 What's going to happen with this is interesting.

00:07:38.080 And DeSantis did jump in, which is fine.

00:07:41.260 We let him weigh in, but you know what he didn't do, Josh?

00:07:44.020 He did not raise the fact that he has created a whole program to help the vaccine injured.

00:07:49.500 And I thought, cause he had other things he wanted to say, but I really thought that was

00:07:53.220 almost to his credit because that's the thing about Ron DeSantis.

00:07:57.020 He has done something about every single issue bothering Republican voters in Florida.

00:08:04.400 He's actually done something, including this whole thing, but it's, it wasn't unique or

00:08:10.440 special to him.

00:08:11.380 You know, it wasn't like, Oh wait, I've got something I can say about myself.

00:08:14.680 No, he had other, many other things he wanted to get to.

00:08:18.000 We could have gone on probably for an hour with him on that one thing, but I thought that

00:08:21.560 is to his credit.

00:08:24.300 Yeah.

00:08:24.800 I listen, I totally agree with you.

00:08:26.220 I mean, it is issue after issue.

00:08:30.000 And again, everyone else is trying to parse around if they're saying what they actually

00:08:35.020 believe or whether they're just trying to reflect back what they imagine a voter would

00:08:39.660 want to hear.

00:08:40.700 And he just has to, he sets that aside.

00:08:43.020 Like he just doesn't have to deal with that question at all because he's got the record

00:08:46.540 on it.

00:08:47.420 And I just thought he did a nicer job last night of laying all of that out.

00:08:51.280 And I thought the way you directed those questions, Megan, you're absolutely right.

00:08:54.780 That is a much more interesting question for Vivek than it is for Ron DeSantis.

00:08:59.840 And it allowed other people to weigh in.

00:09:02.420 The other thing that I thought was interesting is Chris Christie, for the first time, I think

00:09:09.540 in all of the debates, did what he does best.

00:09:12.000 Now, you can make a strong argument that Republican primary voters don't want to hear that.

00:09:16.620 And I think that's borne out in the numbers and the poll numbers and how people feel about

00:09:20.740 Chris Christie.

00:09:21.680 But he also is on that stage for one reason and one reason alone is because he's willing

00:09:26.780 to draw contrast with Donald Trump regularly and challenge everybody else on the stage to

00:09:31.600 do the same thing.

00:09:32.400 He got that last night.

00:09:33.960 He was very strong last night on all of those things.

00:09:36.780 Again, I don't know how that ultimately resonates with conservative voters.

00:09:40.840 Numbers kind of say that it doesn't.

00:09:42.900 But that's why he's on that stage.

00:09:44.760 And you've heard a lot of people talk about Chris Christie, like, why is he here?

00:09:48.620 That's why.

00:09:49.220 And I thought he did everything he wanted to do and more in that debate, in that context.

00:09:56.040 Nikki had to play a lot of defense last night. 1.00

00:09:58.480 And, you know, the one thing that I think to her great credit is that she never lost composure.

00:10:05.580 And in fact, at the end, sort of stopped responding to Vivek altogether when he's holding up signs

00:10:12.120 and all kinds of things.

00:10:13.000 I mean, that takes a fair amount of restraint, the kind of restraint that I think a lot of

00:10:16.100 voters would like to see in a president of the United States when they're dealing with

00:10:19.700 complicated issues overseas or or what have you.

00:10:22.820 But she also didn't get to play the same kind of offense that she has in the previous 1.00

00:10:27.000 debates.

00:10:27.400 She wasn't, you know, carte blanche to just go anywhere she wanted. 1.00

00:10:31.720 She was pinned down an awful lot.

00:10:33.360 She handled it well, but it's, you know, your scoring ceiling comes down a little bit when

00:10:38.880 you have to play an awful lot of defense.

00:10:41.120 Let's show that moment that you just referenced in SOT 23.

00:10:45.940 Nikki Haley's campaign launch video sounded like a woke Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad talking

00:10:51.360 about how she would kick in heels at the first debate.

00:10:54.880 She said that only a woman can get this job done. 1.00

00:10:57.400 That's what she said.

00:10:58.560 After the third debate, when I criticized Ronna McDaniel after five failed years of leadership

00:11:02.740 of this party and criticized Nikki for her corrupt foreign dealings as a military contractor, 0.99

00:11:07.960 she said that I have a woman problem. 1.00

00:11:10.580 Nikki, I don't have a woman problem. 1.00

00:11:12.860 You have a corruption problem.

00:11:14.840 And I think that that's what people need to know. 0.97

00:11:16.940 Nikki is corrupt. 0.99

00:11:18.820 This is a woman who will send your kids to die so she can buy a bigger house. 1.00

00:11:23.360 This is the problem.

00:11:24.820 Using identity politics more effectively than Kamala Harris is a form of intellectual fraud.

00:11:31.360 And it actually needs to end.

00:11:32.740 There's our donor puppet masters wielding their puppet right up here tonight. 0.76

00:11:36.820 This is how this game is played.

00:11:38.620 The puppet masters put up their puppet.

00:11:40.400 And I reject the use of identity politics in this party.

00:11:43.340 It has been a cancer coming from the left.

00:11:44.940 And I'm sick and tired of the double standards the people of this country are, too.

00:11:48.480 Having two X chromosomes does not immunize you from criticism.

00:11:51.180 Thank you, sir.

00:11:52.140 Thank you.

00:11:52.500 Governor Haley, would you like to respond?

00:11:54.920 No.

00:11:55.940 It's not worth my time to respond to him.

00:12:00.260 By the way, that was a reference in there to the Ruthless Gang.

00:12:04.240 Yeah.

00:12:05.520 It was your podcast on which she said, I think he's got a girl problem.

00:12:09.600 Yeah.

00:12:10.020 Yeah.

00:12:10.300 Now, listen, that has been the marquee attraction in all of these debates is what Ramaswamy is

00:12:17.760 trying to do with Nick.

00:12:18.840 Nicky laid him out in the first couple of debates.

00:12:21.220 Obviously, Vivek wanted to turn the tide on that.

00:12:24.580 And he was very aggressive.

00:12:26.520 You know, there's just an element of a P.T.

00:12:28.060 Barnum routine with him where I think it was summarized in one of his last answers when

00:12:33.440 he starts talking about 9-11 and he's talking about, you know, all kinds of sort of conspiracy

00:12:38.760 theories.

00:12:39.560 Oh, we'll play that in one sec.

00:12:40.820 And all of that.

00:12:42.660 And it's very hard.

00:12:44.020 He makes some points there that are very worth listening to if you're a conservative voter.

00:12:48.580 But it's always overshadowed by this P.T.

00:12:51.440 Barnum routine that verges on complete insanity.

00:12:55.240 And he takes away his authentic pitch.

00:12:57.960 I don't know what the demographic is that's looking for like J-6 as an inside job and 9-11 0.99

00:13:02.660 was a conspiracy and all of these things.

00:13:05.020 Niche.

00:13:05.320 Fair to say niche.

00:13:06.700 Very niche.

00:13:07.380 Very, certainly does not reflect the primary electorate writ large and definitely not in

00:13:13.300 Iowa.

00:13:14.460 So I don't know really what he was grasping for.

00:13:17.120 So here, I mean, that line about she will send your kids to die so she can have a bigger

00:13:22.580 house.

00:13:23.080 I mean, that wow, that is below the belt.

00:13:26.140 I mean, that is like, look, we raise the issue and it's fair to ask about, as I did at the

00:13:30.880 top, whether she's too beholden to the banks and the billionaires and is going to push an

00:13:35.460 agenda to please them.

00:13:37.360 But what he said there is absolutely impugning her moral character, her integrity, her, you

00:13:44.880 know, her, her life as a Christian, no, no Christian, no good person, no, like would ever 0.99

00:13:50.960 do such a thing.

00:13:51.760 That's really like, it's taking it, ratcheting it up to the nth degree.

00:13:54.860 Although I do think on the other thing, he had a fair point about the Republican Party

00:14:01.080 is not about identity politics.

00:14:02.820 Yeah, that's, I agree.

00:14:04.140 I agree.

00:14:04.760 When she said on your, when she said on the program, Josh, I think he's got a girl problem. 1.00

00:14:09.060 She said it because he attacked Ronna McDaniels.

00:14:11.780 He attacked Christian Welker and he attacked her, Nikki Haley at the beginning of the last

00:14:18.980 debate.

00:14:19.280 And she said, I think he's got a girl problem.

00:14:21.280 She said it kind of with a fun vibe, you know, you could make the argument she was just being

00:14:25.300 playful, but you know, I'll be the first to say, we are not immune from criticism just

00:14:30.620 because we do have the double X chromosome.

00:14:33.620 The lady parts do not get you some sort of immunity from attacks in a presidential race. 1.00

00:14:39.560 So I agreed with his point there, but then of course it just goes too far.

00:14:43.380 That doesn't mean she's going to kill children so she can have a bigger house. 1.00

00:14:46.940 You're entirely right.

00:14:49.200 In a very good point, one worth examining and getting response to, again, totally overshadowed

00:14:54.500 by complete insanity.

00:14:56.580 I mean, no, this was, this was Donald Trump's UN representative, you know, I mean, that's

00:15:01.700 a hell of a thing to, by extension, accuse the Trump administration of, which is essentially

00:15:06.260 what it was that he was doing there.

00:15:08.080 You can disagree with Nikki Haley's foreign policy all you want, but it happens to be pretty

00:15:12.120 well reasoned based on somebody who spent an awful lot of time thinking about these sort 0.98

00:15:15.720 of things to reduce that to killing your kids because she wants a bigger house is nonsense.

00:15:21.700 It's the kind of thing that you hope doesn't show up on a stage in Iowa, New Hampshire for

00:15:26.980 the next two debates.

00:15:27.840 If that means that Vivek's not there, so be it.

00:15:30.400 But that, that's not serious discussion at all.

00:15:33.980 You know, part of what Vivek was doing reminded me a little of Trump.

00:15:39.100 I mean, I've said he's kind of like a Trump wannabe, but there's only one Trump.

00:15:43.700 There can only ever be one Trump.

00:15:44.160 There is only one Trump.

00:15:45.720 You're, you're exactly right.

00:15:47.120 There is only one Trump.

00:15:48.000 And you know what Trump is?

00:15:49.320 He's funny.

00:15:50.520 He's funny.

00:15:51.360 He's funny, Josh.

00:15:52.660 He raises this sort of thing and it's, it's outrageous. 0.80

00:15:55.420 It's ridiculous, but he kind of does it with a wink.

00:15:58.220 And it doesn't feel as mean. 0.93

00:16:00.260 Right.

00:16:00.840 Right.

00:16:01.200 It's like, he's part of the crowd making commentary on everything else.

00:16:04.760 He breaks that fourth wall when he does it.

00:16:07.300 With Vivek, it's, it's like, he's just shot out of a cannon.

00:16:11.140 And it's the kind of guy that you, you know, if you're cornered at a party with, you're

00:16:15.480 just kind of trying to slink away as fast as you possibly, you know, that's the irony

00:16:20.120 of that.

00:16:20.800 But that's the true irony of Vivek is that I've known him for a long time.

00:16:24.740 He's totally charming.

00:16:26.740 One-on-one, you'd love to have drinks with him at a cocktail party.

00:16:30.380 And I, the Vivek I know doesn't say these things.

00:16:33.360 I, I think this is an appeal to a sliver of the Republican base with whom he's getting

00:16:37.960 more and more popular.

00:16:39.720 And he's kind of leaning into it.

00:16:42.780 You know, he's, I, I, it's like, you know, you see the positive clicks or the positive likes

00:16:48.460 on your tweet, and then you get kind of radicalized toward whatever it is they're liking.

00:16:53.340 It seems like that's what's happening.

00:16:55.660 It's a way, it's a reflection back of the way to online, right?

00:16:59.800 You're entirely right.

00:17:01.180 The subsect of the population that believes the things that he's talking about is so small.

00:17:07.040 It's very intense and it's very loud if you spend all of your day on X, right?

00:17:11.340 And I understand if you spend all your day on X, you probably get the impression that

00:17:15.420 there's a much bigger constituency to talk about these kinds of things than ultimately

00:17:19.140 exists.

00:17:20.560 But, you know, at some point you'd think you would get, if he's actually trying to play

00:17:23.780 to win this thing, he would take a broader view and be like, well, you know, I, I peaked

00:17:27.920 somewhere in August at double digits.

00:17:30.720 I'm now at like four or 5% real danger of not making a debate stage from here.

00:17:35.160 I mean, that could have been his last performance right there.

00:17:37.140 I would think you'd want to broaden this out and showcase some of the things you just talked

00:17:41.840 about.

00:17:42.200 I've known Vivek too.

00:17:43.500 He, this is a charming guy.

00:17:45.160 He's a very smart guy.

00:17:46.280 He's a thoughtful guy.

00:17:47.700 And I think what we've been critical on in the Ruthless Variety program is that that guy

00:17:51.460 hasn't shown up yet at all.

00:17:53.280 Yeah.

00:17:53.780 It's really, it's, it's, even at the beginning of last night's debate, I was like, oh, you

00:17:58.460 know, cause my question to him on electability was all about how he's like, I, I joked like

00:18:01.840 the symbol of debate candidates.

00:18:03.340 Like, I don't know what I'm getting.

00:18:04.300 Well, who is it?

00:18:04.880 It's the calm, nice one, or it's the really mean personal insulting one.

00:18:08.540 And last night he kind of started off kind of nice.

00:18:11.500 I was like, oh, we've got second debate Vivek.

00:18:14.220 I don't believe in personal insults and these people are good people. 0.98

00:18:16.840 And then it was like, psycho killer, you're fat Chris Christie, which is by the way, what 0.96

00:18:23.100 he was kind of saying in stop 14. 0.99

00:18:25.100 Take a listen.

00:18:26.480 I think we just learned something from Chris Christie.

00:18:29.360 We learned three things.

00:18:31.360 We learned three things right there.

00:18:33.300 First of all, Chris Christie also doesn't know what provinces in Eastern Ukraine he actually

00:18:37.320 want us to fight for.

00:18:38.540 Chris, your version of foreign policy experience was closing a bridge from New Jersey to New

00:18:44.200 York.

00:18:44.760 So do everybody a favor.

00:18:45.880 Just walk yourself off that stage.

00:18:47.760 Enjoy a nice meal and get the hell out of this race. 1.00

00:18:55.560 Whoopsie.

00:18:56.540 I mean, to your point, like, listen, I know this isn't nice.

00:18:59.020 I'm not trying to argue this was nice by Trump, but Trump gets up there.

00:19:02.440 He's got a whole bit he does on Chris Christie's weight.

00:19:05.320 And as I said in that debate last night, Chris Christie has given as good as he's gotten from

00:19:09.680 Donald Trump.

00:19:10.360 You heard the list of I could have kept that list going for, you know, three more minutes.

00:19:14.180 Yeah.

00:19:15.080 So Donald Trump doesn't like him.

00:19:16.700 Christie doesn't like Trump either.

00:19:19.060 Donald does this thing on the campaign trail where he's like, it's not nice to call him 0.64

00:19:23.480 fat.

00:19:23.900 That's not nice, sir.

00:19:25.240 See, I didn't say it.

00:19:26.280 I didn't say he said it.

00:19:27.280 Stop. 1.00

00:19:27.600 Don't call him a fat pig. 0.99

00:19:29.180 That's not nice. 0.99

00:19:29.960 We're not.

00:19:30.580 OK, I am not advocating this language in any way, shape or form.

00:19:34.180 But he tries to do it with some humor.

00:19:37.120 It does.

00:19:38.060 It land differently than if you do it with and get the hell off this stage.

00:19:42.780 You know, it just feels a little meaner and a little bit more alienating for the audience.

00:19:48.600 Yeah.

00:19:48.760 Also, just totally disconnected.

00:19:50.540 I mean, whatever you think of Chris Christie, he has a resume to be on that stage.

00:19:53.960 The only person who doesn't is Ramaswamy, to be honest with you.

00:19:57.320 And he's making an argument that nobody else is making.

00:20:00.600 Ramaswamy really isn't. 0.66

00:20:01.640 I mean, the only arguments that he's making that nobody else is, is like real conspiracy

00:20:06.460 niche stuff.

00:20:08.080 And so he obviously should be on that stage.

00:20:10.860 But I think throughout all of this, you begin to separate the wheat from the chaff and you

00:20:16.700 start to see that if anyone is going to have the capability of challenging Donald Trump

00:20:21.620 seriously, and it might be after South Carolina in the context of like a Super Tuesday at the

00:20:26.900 beginning of March, it's going to require consolidation down to one person.

00:20:30.620 And it's quite obviously going to be Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley.

00:20:34.440 The results in Iowa are going to have a huge impact on that.

00:20:37.800 New Hampshire clearly.

00:20:38.940 And then Nikki Haley will have her Alamo in South Carolina unless, you know, she really 0.80

00:20:44.240 underperforms in the first two states.

00:20:46.480 At that point, if they're going to make this a race, it's going to have to be a mano a mano

00:20:50.960 deal and we still didn't see, although you gave him every opportunity last night, still

00:20:57.340 didn't see anybody naturally rise out of that crowd to a point where you're like, well, that's

00:21:02.320 the one, that's the one.

00:21:04.060 And that's a tough deal when a guy's got a 30 point head start on you.

00:21:10.140 Yeah.

00:21:10.680 It needed to be not just like, oh, it was a good debate.

00:21:13.780 You know, like you look at Ron DeSantis, I think by far it was his best debate so far.

00:21:17.660 Although I think the debates are done.

00:21:19.720 I'm going to go on the record right now and say there will be no more debates.

00:21:22.460 I really do.

00:21:23.120 I don't think the RNC is going to do it.

00:21:24.580 I don't have any inside knowledge on this.

00:21:26.760 I just think it's too close to Iowa.

00:21:29.280 They cost a lot of money.

00:21:30.800 It's the undercard debate.

00:21:32.960 You know, Trump's not participating and they're not going to do it.

00:21:36.220 You mark my words.

00:21:37.180 Last night was the last debate and it might be the last debate of the entire cycle.

00:21:40.640 Well, they're going to try to schedule it, Megan.

00:21:44.220 And I think they've talked to CNN about it.

00:21:46.060 There was some news about this today.

00:21:47.420 But look, for all intents and purposes, I think you're probably right in that this was

00:21:52.800 the last best chance.

00:21:54.400 Now, they may have one right before Iowa.

00:21:56.480 They may have one right before.

00:21:57.840 That was the original plan.

00:21:59.660 Yeah.

00:21:59.960 And I still think that they hope to execute that.

00:22:03.580 But what you saw last night was hard to improve upon in terms of giving voters a good look at

00:22:09.380 what it is that they're voting on or who.

00:22:12.720 So, you know, we'll see.

00:22:14.160 Up to this point, as long as Donald Trump is not showing up, it's that elephant in the room

00:22:19.040 that you can talk and you can debate and you can defend yourself adequately and you can score

00:22:25.240 points.

00:22:26.180 But you're not closing a 30 point gap by getting into a discussion with Vivek Ramaswamy about anything.

00:22:32.040 Mm hmm.

00:22:33.960 So did did Ron DeSantis do enough to at least retain or regain, depending on the poll you're

00:22:42.000 looking at, his frontrunner status?

00:22:44.240 Because, you know, last night you have to figure out who the frontrunner is because you're arranging

00:22:48.960 the podiums.

00:22:49.600 Now, thankfully, we had four, but we didn't know we had Christy until, you know, the day

00:22:52.540 or two before.

00:22:53.140 So when we thought we might have three, we had to figure out, is Haley the frontrunner?

00:22:57.440 Does she get to go in the middle or is it Ron?

00:23:00.440 And it is still Ron DeSantis, if you look at all the polls and the averages and so on.

00:23:05.300 But as I said, she's leading him in South Carolina.

00:23:08.180 She's leading him in South in New Hampshire.

00:23:10.400 And she's now within three points of him in Iowa.

00:23:13.420 Now, if you expand it, he's still leading.

00:23:15.480 But my point is, he's got to do something.

00:23:17.940 He does have to, like, give her the boot in the forehead to get her back down because 0.99

00:23:23.880 he needs to be number one in the undercard.

00:23:27.200 If Trump implodes, he wants to be number one.

00:23:29.940 There's no number two, right?

00:23:32.120 At that level.

00:23:33.040 So did he do enough?

00:23:34.000 I know I agree with you.

00:23:34.980 Not enough to overcome number one, the true number one Trump, but enough to overcome her

00:23:39.260 and and give her the boot. 1.00

00:23:41.400 Yeah, well, look, I think he stopped the bleeding a long time ago.

00:23:43.980 I think he's had a pretty good four or five weeks here.

00:23:46.520 Now, that's all the staff nonsense that I don't think voters actually pay attention

00:23:51.260 to, but it becomes captured in the pundit world, whereas Super PAC has got problems and

00:23:56.340 people are resigning and this, that and the other.

00:23:58.220 But outside of that, in terms of candidate performance, DeSantis has stopped the bleeding

00:24:02.180 a long time ago.

00:24:03.380 He's basically stuck at his number, maybe a little bit of an improvement.

00:24:07.320 And last night, I think he did himself a lot of favors.

00:24:10.180 The reason that that race has changed a little bit is not so much about Ron DeSantis over the

00:24:14.400 last month, as it is about Nikki Haley and actually solidifying herself as not only a

00:24:19.120 serious presidential candidate, but somebody who can garner support, raise a lot of money

00:24:23.660 and become central to this debate in and of itself.

00:24:27.640 And she's gone from, you know, six, seven percent now up to 17 in many polls.

00:24:33.280 Ultimately, Megan, there's no debate that can litigate this.

00:24:36.700 What's going to litigate it is the performance in the Iowa caucus.

00:24:40.640 It just is what it is.

00:24:43.520 It's a separation event that if you're looking for a winner, it quite obviously looks like

00:24:49.060 it's going to be Donald Trump.

00:24:50.640 But one of these two candidates, either DeSantis or Haley, needs to be up in those 20 percent,

00:24:55.580 high 20 percent, and they need a margin between them and the third place finisher.

00:25:00.300 If they're both in the high teens, for example, this thing's cooked.

00:25:04.480 I don't understand how you could possibly rearrange the math when you've given both an incentive

00:25:10.920 to keep going, and yet there's no separation at all.

00:25:14.580 So I think Iowa is a huge, huge deal, maybe much larger than it has been in several open

00:25:21.080 primary Republican years.

00:25:24.100 So no sooner do I utter them than I eat my words, because apparently CNN has just announced

00:25:31.580 that it's getting not just one, but two, two more Republican debates, one before Iowa and

00:25:36.580 one before New Hampshire, before the voting starts.

00:25:40.380 Can I just say this? 0.98

00:25:42.060 I think that's bullshit. 1.00

00:25:43.880 I don't think they should reward CNN. 1.00

00:25:45.980 I don't.

00:25:46.980 What has CNN done for the Republican Party?

00:25:50.460 Honestly, honestly, it's a joke.

00:25:53.440 Who are they going to have moderate it?

00:25:55.300 I just like I don't know why the RNC keeps doing this.

00:25:58.320 They they I realize not every debate can go to Fox, nor should it.

00:26:04.020 But what is CNN like?

00:26:05.360 What has it done for the Republican Party over the last six years other than lie incessantly

00:26:09.980 about it, Josh?

00:26:12.160 Well, and in and of itself, I think, you know, I tend to agree with you, except for this.

00:26:17.480 I think the RNC has done a really good job in an impossible situation of trying to pair

00:26:23.140 up partnerships here where you're not getting the same kind of thing that we saw in 2016,

00:26:27.820 where you have agenda, you know, many agenda driven moderators that are not asking questions

00:26:35.880 at all.

00:26:36.180 I mean, Hugh Hewitt, for example, in that NBC debate, I mean, if there's anybody that you

00:26:39.660 could say is is worse than CNN, it's NBC, except for the fact that they bring Hugh in to

00:26:43.940 ask very serious policy oriented questions.

00:26:47.800 It'll be interesting.

00:26:48.300 Well, MSNBC is worse than CNN.

00:26:50.500 Yeah, I mean, yeah, I kind of looped the whole mess in.

00:26:53.360 You could go worse.

00:26:54.940 I kind of looped the whole mess in.

00:26:56.900 But I guess what I'm saying is I want to see who else they bring in on that.

00:27:00.600 I find it very hard to believe that it's just going to be a CNN anchor directly to camera,

00:27:05.680 as we've seen.

00:27:06.700 No, let's hope it's not.

00:27:08.100 I mean, I'm sure, you know, CNN is going to want to front its talent and then they'll

00:27:12.760 they'll bring somebody else in as sort of the third party.

00:27:15.320 But look, I've done this a lot.

00:27:17.760 That's not going to change the tenor of the debate.

00:27:19.740 That's just not going to.

00:27:21.420 You know, it's probably not like the one weird thing down at, you know, table left saying

00:27:26.360 weird things that the other two are like, what?

00:27:28.760 It's like I realize that Rana and the others are in a difficult spot because the mainstream

00:27:33.420 media is run by all leftists.

00:27:35.680 I mean, the liberals run CNN, they run NBC, they run CBS, they run ABC, never mind MSNBC.

00:27:41.980 And so if you want coverage, if you want the debate blasted everywhere, which is their

00:27:45.860 goal, there's only so many partners you can work with.

00:27:49.040 So I get it.

00:27:50.520 Putting putting the conservative on the panel is like their next best option. 0.99

00:27:55.100 But I think it's so irritating that they get rewarded after all the shit they pull and 0.99

00:28:00.260 all the all the nonsense they've dumped on Republicans and Trump for the past six years 1.00

00:28:05.820 since they went hard partisan.

00:28:07.520 I just felt like it's outrageous to me.

00:28:09.860 Whatever.

00:28:10.360 OK, I've had my say.

00:28:12.220 I think there's an awful lot of primary voters that agree with you on all of that, Megan.

00:28:17.360 But they are in a tough spot.

00:28:19.480 And you do need a broadcast partner at some level, because remember, it's not just about

00:28:24.480 your Republican primary voter.

00:28:26.120 It is chiefly about that.

00:28:28.080 But in order to win a presidential election, you're going to have to reach voters beyond

00:28:33.140 a Fox News.

00:28:34.360 I mean, look, you guys did a nice job on NewsNation.

00:28:36.200 I've never watched NewsNation before.

00:28:38.360 No, I know.

00:28:39.300 Right.

00:28:39.560 And I had to, you know, I have not.

00:28:40.700 It's like it's just started.

00:28:42.740 Yeah.

00:28:43.020 I mean, I had to scramble to try to figure out what channel was on.

00:28:45.620 I found it.

00:28:46.100 Thank goodness.

00:28:47.000 But they did a nice job.

00:28:48.720 They did a nice job.

00:28:49.580 The production quality was great.

00:28:50.740 I mean, you guys obviously are pretty hard to screw up because you're pros and you do

00:28:55.200 it as well as anybody in the business if you're sitting in front of a camcorder.

00:28:59.200 But it wasn't that.

00:29:00.180 It was a nice production.

00:29:01.320 It was good to do.

00:29:02.020 I'd like to see some more of that.

00:29:04.220 Yeah, me too.

00:29:04.920 I'll say this.

00:29:06.220 Just on first glance at the requirements for the next debate, they're saying the candidates

00:29:12.260 will have to have at least 10 percent in three separate national and or Iowa polls

00:29:18.200 in advance of Iowa.

00:29:19.360 And I assume it's the same for New Hampshire.

00:29:21.300 That's a lot.

00:29:22.560 And that will eliminate everyone, everyone.

00:29:24.920 But DeSantis and Haley and maybe maybe both of them.

00:29:30.740 Yeah, well, maybe if it's down to a point where we're 85, five.

00:29:40.240 OK, you know, it's a wrap.

00:29:43.020 Guess it's off.

00:29:44.400 We tried.

00:29:45.200 Unintentionally, that may be the most hilarious part about this.

00:29:51.080 But look, if they're going to do another one, it's got to be a one on one.

00:29:56.220 We all know who the two candidates are here.

00:29:58.820 I mean, Christy barely made the dance at six percent and Vivek is barely making the dance

00:30:02.720 at these numbers.

00:30:03.520 There's zero chance of them making 10.

00:30:05.140 Go ahead.

00:30:05.940 Yeah.

00:30:06.160 No, I mean, that's right.

00:30:07.080 And what we saw during the course of last night's debate is you have two people who are taking

00:30:12.040 this extremely seriously by their tone, by the way they conduct themselves.

00:30:16.540 I think Chris Christie is, too.

00:30:17.760 But I think reality is that there is no real path to the nomination here for Chris.

00:30:23.580 And I like Chris, but I think that's true.

00:30:25.980 So we're really dealing with these two candidates.

00:30:28.200 We might as well showcase that.

00:30:30.120 I'm guessing that's why it's at 10 percent.

00:30:32.820 Yeah, the same.

00:30:33.960 OK, Josh Holmes, a pleasure as always, my friend.

00:30:36.620 Say hello to the gang for me.

00:30:38.260 Looking forward to the next time.

00:30:40.120 Check out the Ruthless program, everybody.

00:30:42.560 Up next, Rich Lowry and Jim Garrity will get their thoughts on what changed, if anything.

00:30:48.620 They do puberty blockers.

00:30:50.060 These are irreversible.

00:30:51.400 That is what Nikki Haley opposed. 1.00

00:30:53.580 She said the law shouldn't get involved in that. 1.00

00:30:55.580 If you're somebody that's going to be the president of the United States and you can't

00:30:59.620 stand up against child abuse.

00:31:01.500 Nikki, you were bankrupt when you left the U.N.

00:31:04.380 After you left the U.N., you became a military contractor.

00:31:07.940 You actually started joining service on the board of Boeing, whose back you scratched for

00:31:12.480 a very long time.

00:31:13.660 That math does not add up. 0.98

00:31:15.600 It adds up to the fact that you are corrupt.

00:31:17.780 Because when she was governor of South Carolina, she was the number one ranked governor of bringing 1.00

00:31:22.700 the CCP into her state.

00:31:24.520 She wrote a love letter to the Chinese ambassador saying how great a friend China is.

00:31:29.080 The only person more fascist than the Biden regime now is Nikki Haley, who thinks the

00:31:33.800 government should identify every one of those individuals with an ID.

00:31:38.520 That is not freedom.

00:31:39.600 That is fascism.

00:31:40.520 It's one thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could

00:31:44.360 even state for you three provinces in eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to

00:31:49.780 actually fight for.

00:31:51.300 Look at that.

00:31:52.540 This is what I want people to understand.

00:31:54.060 These people have I mean, she has no idea.

00:31:56.320 You saw the pile on Nikki Haley last night.

00:31:58.960 It is a sign she's in the lead or about to be.

00:32:02.200 But it was probably also unpleasant for her.

00:32:04.580 She did not seem to be enjoying it.

00:32:06.680 Joining us now, Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review and Jim Garrity, senior political

00:32:11.040 correspondent of National Review and contributing columnist for The Washington Post.

00:32:14.680 Guys, welcome back to the show.

00:32:16.140 So that was sort of the lead story of the evening.

00:32:20.360 The pile on Nikki, Rich.

00:32:22.040 I guess we shouldn't have been surprised.

00:32:23.560 How do you think she did?

00:32:24.700 Well, first of all, you did a great job.

00:32:26.200 I thought you guys did a great job.

00:32:27.600 Most enjoyable debate as far as I've learned.

00:32:29.660 And it helped us to have four candidates up there.

00:32:32.300 Could have had, you know, stood to have one or two less, actually.

00:32:34.780 Um, but this was predictable.

00:32:37.400 I'm not sure like the Boeing stuff and you're going to cave the lobbyist.

00:32:42.760 I'm not sure how, how telling that was.

00:32:45.640 I thought the, the, um, and that the site just played, it was the first one, which came

00:32:50.540 about halfway through where DeSantis really hit her on the trans stuff, uh, queued up

00:32:56.220 by your question, uh, in exchange with Chris Christie on this.

00:33:00.060 And that's where I was like, you know what?

00:33:01.660 DeSantis is having a better debate.

00:33:03.080 That one really landed.

00:33:05.480 And I think goes to the point DeSantis is better positioned for whatever it's worth.

00:33:09.900 And it might be worth nothing, uh, given what you, the dynamics you and Josh were talking

00:33:13.560 about is better positioned in Iowa.

00:33:15.220 He just has a more social conservative record is more current with where Republican voters

00:33:20.960 are, but I thought he's had fine debates all along and, uh, and obviously hasn't moved

00:33:26.180 anything, whereas Haley has had quite good debates and she's moved, you know, within limits

00:33:31.000 within this distant second place, uh, context, but I don't think she made quite as much an

00:33:36.240 repression last night.

00:33:37.980 She's clearly just done with the vague, didn't answer, let kind of Christie take it on and

00:33:43.560 disappear for, for a long part in the middle.

00:33:45.400 So I don't think she hurt herself.

00:33:46.580 I don't think her momentum is going to be blunted, but I don't think she helped herself as much

00:33:51.780 as in the first three debates last night.

00:33:54.000 You know, she wasn't really doing battle in the way we had seen Jim.

00:33:58.060 She was, she was kind of shrinking to me.

00:33:59.660 She was, she was like most physically shrinking back. 0.79

00:34:02.020 And, um, then Christie stepped in again. 0.96

00:34:04.720 I said this on the post show, uh, uh, show last night with Stierwald, he had predicted

00:34:08.320 Stierwald had said, I predict Chris Christie's stance steps in to be the white knight for Nikki

00:34:13.420 Haley.

00:34:13.960 And man, he called it exactly.

00:34:16.460 Here's the moment in SOT2.

00:34:19.140 This is the fourth debate, the fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes 0.94

00:34:24.400 as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. 0.80

00:34:26.900 We're now 25 minutes into this debate and he has insulted Nikki Haley's basic intelligence, 0.58

00:34:37.100 not her positions, her basic intelligence.

00:34:41.560 She doesn't know region.

00:34:42.720 She wouldn't be able to find something on a map that his three-year-old could find.

00:34:46.700 I've known her for 12 years, which is longer than he's even started to vote in a Republican

00:34:51.120 primary.

00:34:52.200 This is a smart, accomplished woman.

00:34:54.100 You should stop insulting her.

00:34:55.260 So I'm going to take this.

00:34:58.660 So it was interesting how the camera got her at the end for the listening audience, just

00:35:02.060 kind of looking down almost demurely and then back up.

00:35:05.800 And I know it's nice.

00:35:07.760 Like it's nice for him to defend her.

00:35:09.780 I have to say, she wants to be commander in chief. 0.64

00:35:11.620 I really wanted her to say, Chris, thank you.

00:35:14.940 I got this.

00:35:15.860 And to interrupt him and to defend herself. 0.97

00:35:18.260 She didn't.

00:35:20.460 Megan, I see what you're saying.

00:35:21.640 And by the way, let me echo what Rich said.

00:35:23.500 You must have felt like the lion tamer or the ringmaster in a circus last night, except

00:35:30.060 all the animals were cocaine bear. 0.99

00:35:32.500 It was just, you know, damn the torpedoes. 0.99

00:35:37.660 I'm holding nothing back. 0.99

00:35:39.020 I saw what you're saying about CNN says they're going to do two debates.

00:35:42.000 But, you know, for this could be the last time we see Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy on

00:35:47.420 stage as presidential candidates.

00:35:49.500 So I'm sure their attitude is we're holding nothing back.

00:35:52.000 You could see Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk on stage in front of us.

00:35:56.880 And so I think that's like in that kind of environment.

00:36:00.620 Look, we all know Nikki Haley can be really tough.

00:36:03.340 When she was at the United Nations, she was blessing all those hearts up there.

00:36:06.320 Um, I don't I think she's proven her toughness.

00:36:10.060 I think, you know, often women candidates, there's this question of, oh, you know, she 1.00

00:36:13.140 is she tough enough to be the commander in chief? 1.00

00:36:15.960 I think Nikki Haley cleared that that threshold a long time ago.

00:36:19.880 I think everybody can find, you know, whether you think the appropriate comparison is Margaret

00:36:23.960 Thatcher or whatever past woman leader strike you as the ideal. 0.95

00:36:27.960 I don't think anybody looks at Nikki Haley and says, oh, she's a squish, which is why 1.00

00:36:33.200 DeSantis is, oh, she always backs down, uh, attack just, just struck me as like, that

00:36:39.120 doesn't fit.

00:36:40.340 I wasn't sure where that came from.

00:36:41.820 Yeah.

00:36:42.400 Like, I, you know, I'm sure he wants to say like, look, everybody wants to say I'm the

00:36:45.600 fighter going back to Howard Dean.

00:36:48.400 The easiest, you know, brand to sell yourself as is everybody else in this party is a weak,

00:36:55.000 squishy sellout.

00:36:55.960 And I'm the fighter.

00:36:56.840 I'm the one who's representing the Democrat side of the, and it's like, well, it's a pose

00:37:00.840 by the way, right.

00:37:01.700 You know, um, but almost all of them have some version of it.

00:37:05.440 And it's particularly egregious when it comes from Ramaswamy in one of the earlier debates,

00:37:10.260 there was like, you know, the Republican party has been losing.

00:37:12.220 What do they need to do?

00:37:13.520 Vivek Ramaswamy, you've never been elected to anything.

00:37:15.880 What are Republicans need to do to win more?

00:37:17.960 Uh, which I think was a, uh, less than ideal person to, to ask that kind of question.

00:37:23.480 Um, so, and I, I just got, she's beat up on Ramaswamy.

00:37:26.560 And like several debates now, I think we've all seen that.

00:37:29.560 I think this was Chris Christie, you know, like he wanted to pull open the shirt and show

00:37:33.400 Superman, uh, and kind of to show up any kind of playing to type.

00:37:36.820 We all remember that the one Christie debate moment everybody remembers is when he used

00:37:41.660 Marco Rubio as a tackling dummy back in 2016.

00:37:44.400 And I think he's been waiting to do that.

00:37:46.820 And his whole presidential campaign was predicated on this idea that at some point he'd be on

00:37:50.840 a stage with Trump and he'd get a chance to really let into Trump.

00:37:54.300 And we've never seen Trump really get, you know, uh, a blistering attack, you know, uh,

00:37:59.800 from, uh, from a, from a one-time ally.

00:38:01.340 This is the thing about Christie is he is say what you will about the guy.

00:38:04.460 And I realized most of the Republicans are not fans.

00:38:06.840 He is the best there is at forensically diagnosing a candidate's obfuscation or frailties on that

00:38:17.540 debate stage.

00:38:18.240 That's what he did to Marco Rubio.

00:38:19.660 He listens.

00:38:20.600 He's smart.

00:38:21.280 And as a lawyer, he hears it.

00:38:22.960 He hears it when they're dodging, when they're evading.

00:38:24.920 He called it out last night.

00:38:26.520 Um, when he was talking about how Ron DeSantis, DeSantis did not ask the question about Hamas

00:38:31.440 and the hostages, here's a bit of it.

00:38:32.960 Stop four. 0.70

00:38:35.600 This is the problem with the first three debates.

00:38:39.120 Ron gets asked a question and he doesn't answer it.

00:38:41.820 Your question was very specific.

00:38:44.600 You said, would you send American troops as commander in chief?

00:38:48.700 And he went on to this minute 32nd Hosanna about his knowledge of the military and what

00:38:54.800 we need to do and didn't answer your question.

00:38:57.600 Look, when you're president of the United States, you're not going to have a choice

00:39:00.920 whether to answer that question or not.

00:39:03.080 Your generals, your secretary of defense, your secretary of state, your national security

00:39:06.620 advisor are going to present plans to you.

00:39:08.520 They're going to look at you and say, do we go or don't we, Mr. President?

00:39:11.900 And you can't give a 90 second speech about your military service.

00:39:16.200 Oh, my gosh.

00:39:17.520 That was good, Rich.

00:39:18.840 You got to give it to Christy on that one.

00:39:21.180 I'm totally with you.

00:39:22.460 It shows tremendous forensic skill. 0.95

00:39:25.420 And this might sound like a stupid thing to say, but it's hard to think and talk at the 0.86

00:39:29.700 same time, and it's hard to listen to other people when you're on a stage like that because 0.93

00:39:33.760 you're thinking, well, what question might come to me next?

00:39:36.620 What would I have said to this question that just was asked to another candidate that might

00:39:41.640 come to me?

00:39:42.420 And it's hard to just focus in detail on what other people are saying.

00:39:45.900 And Christy has the ability to do that. 0.98

00:39:47.740 That was a good hit on DeSantis.

00:39:49.300 And DeSantis had no rejoinder.

00:39:51.500 And Christy came back on a couple other answers and pointed out the same thing.

00:39:54.440 On one of them, on whether Trump is fit as a matter of age, I thought most people listening

00:40:00.360 to DeSantis would have thought he answered that, right?

00:40:02.940 He's saying he's not unsuited, but he's too old and now needs someone younger.

00:40:09.180 But no one else is better on his feet than Christy.

00:40:11.720 The problem he has is he had a couple assumptions going into this race.

00:40:16.720 One is that Trump would be on the stage, right?

00:40:19.180 And he's not.

00:40:19.680 Another would be rewarded by being a truth teller and being willing to say things about

00:40:26.460 Trump that no one else will say.

00:40:27.880 And a lot of people don't want to hear because it would translate as toughness, translate

00:40:32.100 as forthrightness.

00:40:33.300 And it's just made him radioactive.

00:40:35.240 He wasn't in a strong position going into the race, but I was struck at some of the same

00:40:38.660 numbers you cited to him.

00:40:40.880 And one of the questions, New Hampshire is his state.

00:40:43.480 And that's where he's at 14%, which in the context of this second place battle is respectable.

00:40:48.740 60% of people have an unfavorable view of him in New Hampshire.

00:40:54.500 You know, two-thirds of people would be angry or dissatisfied, as you noted, if he got the

00:40:58.980 nomination.

00:40:59.700 That's in his state.

00:41:01.320 And that's just why there's a path for him.

00:41:03.660 He might overperform in New Hampshire because independents and Democrats can vote, but that's

00:41:07.160 not true everywhere else.

00:41:08.380 You know, that can get you to 20 in New Hampshire, which might be enough to be a distant second

00:41:12.180 or to trip up Nikki Haley if she has a chance against Trump, but it's not getting him

00:41:15.980 the nomination, which is why he shouldn't, even though he's good at it and he has a zeal

00:41:20.700 for it, he should not be on that stage.

00:41:23.440 So I'll give you guys some news.

00:41:26.060 All over the internet last night was a video that went viral of somebody in the balcony

00:41:30.760 filming Chris Christie coming over to yours truly during a break at the end of the first

00:41:36.380 hour and kind of getting up in my grill.

00:41:38.540 And there was all sorts of speculation about what was happening there.

00:41:42.180 I will tell you what was happening there.

00:41:43.420 It was not off the record.

00:41:44.660 He was pissed off.

00:41:46.200 He was mad that he wasn't getting enough questions.

00:41:49.120 And he said, you know, I made it up on this stage and I haven't been able to speak in a

00:41:52.800 while.

00:41:53.620 And, you know, I should have been brought in on that last debate.

00:41:56.180 And, you know, I had a couple of minds of it.

00:41:58.080 I said, we're coming to you.

00:41:59.220 You're going to be happy in the second hour, which I lived up to.

00:42:02.160 But number one, he was right that in the last run he had been excluded.

00:42:07.720 And the reason that happened is because we let them fight in the first 40 minutes of

00:42:11.780 the debate.

00:42:12.700 And therefore, that comes at the expense of something.

00:42:15.020 And where you insert yourself, Chris Christie, on this earlier fight or that's it's all at

00:42:18.900 the expense of something else that's coming, which is fine.

00:42:21.220 We were not wedded to our rundown.

00:42:23.180 We are we had like 40 questions going out there.

00:42:25.100 Our goal was to ask 10 of them, you know, in a perfect world.

00:42:27.520 But the producers in the truck have to rejigger the rundown and move like our whole Trump

00:42:33.220 block was supposed to be playing much earlier in the show.

00:42:35.600 We had to move it.

00:42:37.080 And anyway, the long and the short of it is the sort of even distribution of questions

00:42:41.060 got mucked up by all the arguing.

00:42:44.340 Having said all that, I knew very well that Christie was going to get asked a Trump question

00:42:48.580 having to do with immigration at the top of the next hour.

00:42:52.260 So it was totally fair to him.

00:42:53.660 And he's polling at two percent.

00:42:56.240 OK, in.

00:42:57.520 No debate ever.

00:42:58.620 And I've now done six of them.

00:43:00.440 Have we given as many questions to the guy who's at three percent as to the person who's

00:43:05.640 in the lead, at least amongst the candidates on the stage?

00:43:08.660 I'm sorry, Governor Christie.

00:43:10.280 That's the way it is.

00:43:11.820 And all said and done, CNN says this is the timing on the stage.

00:43:15.540 Vivek got 22 minutes.

00:43:17.060 DeSantis, 21.

00:43:18.620 Haley, 17.

00:43:20.060 Christie, 16 and 52 seconds.

00:43:22.440 So he was a half a minute behind Haley, who's tied up there for number one. 1.00

00:43:30.640 So I don't want to hear it, frankly.

00:43:32.580 We did right by him.

00:43:33.800 He got a ton of airtime.

00:43:35.200 That's what he was mad about.

00:43:36.280 I like the guy.

00:43:37.080 But just to break some news on what people are speculating on, Jim, they never like it

00:43:41.660 when they don't get to speak.

00:43:42.560 Yeah, I was going to say, one, by the end of it, it didn't feel like any of the candidates

00:43:49.180 had been significantly shortchanged.

00:43:51.600 And I think those numbers bear that out.

00:43:54.320 If you need further support, I checked the RealClearPolitics national average this morning.

00:43:59.440 Christie's actually at 2.5 percent.

00:44:02.300 So that's looking better.

00:44:04.220 But to point out, Tim Scott is still at 2 percent.

00:44:07.600 And he left the race a month ago.

00:44:09.080 So he's still so, you know, Chris Christie is half a point ahead of the guy who dropped

00:44:14.240 out a month ago.

00:44:15.160 So that's that that's the momentum there.

00:44:17.620 I mean, right.

00:44:18.300 Yeah.

00:44:20.540 Whenever you have four candidates, one of those candidates is going to be the last one to

00:44:24.500 speak.

00:44:24.900 I think he got to speak like 14 minutes in.

00:44:27.040 And I can understand that kind of, you know, rankling on him.

00:44:30.060 But if you like, you know, not that many people came to see Christie.

00:44:34.320 Yeah.

00:44:35.400 Others were jumping in and I was allowing it.

00:44:37.420 You know, it's like I you can lead the horse to water, but he didn't.

00:44:41.140 And I said, you're like, hey, I see you over there.

00:44:43.160 We're coming to you.

00:44:43.700 But good stuff's happening here.

00:44:45.560 And nobody had said, hey, can I get in?

00:44:47.220 I was like, they were just going for it.

00:44:48.600 It was great stuff.

00:44:49.400 Anyway, he got in.

00:44:50.540 He had his say.

00:44:51.360 All was said and good.

00:44:52.400 I said and done.

00:44:53.060 And it was good.

00:44:53.540 And he and I, I think, are fine.

00:44:54.780 He left the debate hall seemingly unhappy.

00:44:57.400 He gave an interview to Dana Bash on CNN and he seemed rather angry.

00:45:01.100 In fact, we have some of that.

00:45:02.080 It's at 16.

00:45:03.320 He was most unhappy with Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:45:06.100 Here it is.

00:45:07.420 I think Vivek does have a woman problem.

00:45:10.320 I do think he insults women's basic intelligence.

00:45:13.320 He's done it over and over and over again.

00:45:15.500 And I guess tonight I just had had enough. 1.00

00:45:17.860 I had enough of listening to his garbage. 1.00

00:45:19.760 And as I said, his smart ass Harvard mouth, because that's what it is. 0.99

00:45:23.400 When he's dictating to me and Nikki Haley, who have committed ourselves to public service, 0.95

00:45:27.960 while he's been off stealing from seniors to make his fortune.

00:45:31.300 Yeah, I'm not going to put up with him anymore.

00:45:32.800 And I'm going to tell the truth.

00:45:34.140 If someone's insulting Nikki Haley in a way that was personal, it was nothing about issues.

00:45:38.560 He was saying she's not smart enough to know where things are on the map, that somehow his three-year-old son is smarter than a woman who served as a two-term governor and a UN ambassador. 1.00

00:45:47.940 He's a jackass. 0.99

00:45:49.060 So did he take Vivek out in the way he took out Marco Rubio? 1.00

00:45:57.700 No.

00:45:58.460 I mean, there's not taking Vivek out.

00:46:00.640 I mean, Vivek has kind of been slowly taking himself out.

00:46:04.900 I mean, every one of these debate performances has been a little sip of arsenic for him in terms of his electoral ambition.

00:46:10.300 And the reason why, as you pointed out at the beginning, you know, he shifted a little bit is that he does apparently care about being liked by voters and his poll standing.

00:46:19.860 And he's been slipping since the first debate when he came out so obnoxious.

00:46:25.040 But the ultimate goal here is not really to win.

00:46:29.400 You know, it's to cater favor, as you were pointing out earlier, to a certain segment of the very online right that is very popular, that has a great market share in terms of the conservative media and where he will at least have a home as a constant guest and I would think hopes to have a perch as some sort of host or moderator at some point.

00:46:49.580 I mean, in those terms, this has been a great success, but it's been a disservice to the process.

00:46:55.960 He's cheapened everything.

00:46:57.220 He's touched.

00:46:58.340 I mean, he has occasionally important and original things to say.

00:47:02.280 He says them in a swarmy way.

00:47:03.800 Maybe he can't help that. 0.86

00:47:04.920 But the rest of it is just totally unworthy, dishonorable, childish.

00:47:09.600 I mean, the logical endpoint of his performance in these debates so far, we'll see if there are any more, was when he held up that piece of paper.

00:47:16.940 I mean, just give me a break.

00:47:18.060 But there are people like Charlie Kirk on X immediately saying, what a fantastic moment.

00:47:23.640 You know, Vivek's blown up the debate again.

00:47:25.480 Look, he drew on, wrote on his pad that Nikki Haley is corrupt. 1.00

00:47:29.560 It's just absurd. 0.97

00:47:31.100 And it's a shame.

00:47:32.280 Democrats don't tend to have these kind of candidates and their process and for whatever reason Republicans do.

00:47:38.720 I liked the prop.

00:47:40.100 I have to say, as a TV person, I was like, yes, visuals.

00:47:42.460 Thank you.

00:47:42.840 We had no graphics.

00:47:43.940 We had nothing.

00:47:44.320 Thank you.

00:47:45.220 What other graphics can you guys sketch out in the two seconds we have?

00:47:48.840 I appreciated the prop.

00:47:51.060 Yeah, I don't.

00:47:52.280 Vivek's not going anywhere, but there's he's not going anywhere in this race and he's probably not going anywhere in the national conversation for some time.

00:47:58.880 But I don't know.

00:48:00.400 I don't.

00:48:00.920 The problem with Vivek in terms of like becoming a host or becoming a very successful podcast host is he really likes to hear himself talk.

00:48:08.000 And, you know, I think you do better as a host.

00:48:11.100 If you really like to hear your guests talk, you can get in the mix.

00:48:14.840 You know, he tried that.

00:48:15.820 He went to the Daily Wire and actually helped.

00:48:18.460 He was over there kind of sniffing around about possibly launching a podcast.

00:48:21.400 It didn't go very well from what I hear.

00:48:23.840 And now he's launching his own podcast.

00:48:25.720 And, you know, we'll see whether that's what this is all about.

00:48:27.760 There's he's not going to be president.

00:48:29.300 Not this time around.

00:48:30.980 Probably not.

00:48:31.520 I don't know.

00:48:32.860 We'll see.

00:48:33.420 Anything could happen, but not this time around.

00:48:35.120 So in any event, he's giving voice to an important part of the Republican Party right now.

00:48:39.900 So that piece of him, I appreciate because it keeps things saucy.

00:48:43.600 Stand by.

00:48:44.420 Quick break.

00:48:45.360 More with Rich and Jim.

00:48:47.240 You do not favor a ban on trans medical treatments for minors, saying it's a parental rights issue.

00:48:53.100 The surgeries done on minors involve cutting off body parts at a time when these kids cannot even legally smoke a cigarette.

00:49:00.560 Kids who go from puberty blockers to cross sex hormones are at a much greater likelihood of winding up sterile.

00:49:08.500 How is it that you think a parent should be able to OK these surgeries, never mind the sterilization of a child?

00:49:14.880 Republicans believe in less government, not more in less involvement with government, not more in government involvement in people's lives.

00:49:22.740 And you know what, Megan?

00:49:24.260 I trust parents.

00:49:26.300 And we're out there saying that we should empower parents in education.

00:49:29.760 We should empower parents to make more decisions about where their kids go to school.

00:49:33.520 I agree.

00:49:34.640 We should empower parents to be teaching the values that they believe in in their homes without the government telling them what those values should be.

00:49:42.400 And yet we want to take other parental rights away.

00:49:45.460 And we're going to put my children's health and my decisions in their hands for them to make those decisions, for Joe Biden to make those decisions, for me and for my wife.

00:49:57.260 Let me just say this.

00:49:58.680 This is not something I favor.

00:50:00.580 I think it's a very, very dangerous thing to do.

00:50:04.940 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:50:06.000 Back with us now, Rich Lowry and Jim Garrity of National Review.

00:50:10.240 So his defense was parental rights.

00:50:12.560 And then I followed up with, you didn't seem like such a big fan of parental rights when you were governor.

00:50:17.620 You passed a law requiring this guidance be issued to the schools in New Jersey that, among other things, said the teachers don't have to tell the parents if a kid is, quote, transitioning or going by an opposite identity from their actual.

00:50:31.960 And he denied it.

00:50:32.720 And it was a false denial, as I said on the stage that night.

00:50:35.740 He did.

00:50:36.600 Go look it up.

00:50:37.380 He passed the law.

00:50:38.580 He required that this trans guidance be provided, including, he specifically said, to protect the confidentiality of the trans kids, to protect their transition, to make sure that they could be in the sports and use the facilities of their, quote, identity.

00:50:53.800 He just, I don't know if he didn't remember it or if he just felt uncomfortable and he wanted to lie about it.

00:50:59.560 But I'm sorry.

00:51:00.760 The last half of that question was, aren't you way too out of line on this for the Republican voters?

00:51:05.480 And I asked that because that's what I think.

00:51:08.240 That's what I think, Jim.

00:51:09.380 Am I wrong?

00:51:12.200 No, you're not wrong.

00:51:14.480 And I think that basically Christy can, you know, argue that the first half of that answer, the I trust parents, that's probably the best defense he could make.

00:51:23.660 Of the stance that he has.

00:51:25.160 And no doubt there are probably some Republicans who feel that way.

00:51:28.800 There's probably a more libertarian-minded section of the voters.

00:51:31.940 You're probably going to find more of them in New Hampshire than you are in Iowa.

00:51:35.280 Maybe I'm broadly stereotyping the kinds of people who show up for the caucuses and primaries out there.

00:51:41.220 But I think the Ron DeSantis position, and I think kind of the, you know, context of your question of, wait a second, wait a second, this is completely ridiculous that you're going to say that kids can do this without parental consent for this,

00:51:52.140 but they can't get parental consent for tattoos or some places they can't get, you know, ear piercings without parental consent.

00:51:59.600 So, like, isn't this a wild disparity in what we consider appropriate for kids to make their own decisions about?

00:52:05.500 Yeah, you know, I think that's, you know, going to be a losing issue for Christie.

00:52:10.500 He may, you know, he could either flip-flop and say, oh, I was totally wrong when I was governor.

00:52:14.060 This should be banned.

00:52:15.260 Or he could make this the best thing he can put on it, you know.

00:52:17.680 That's what he should have said.

00:52:19.280 I was wrong.

00:52:20.240 Things have changed.

00:52:21.300 I've changed.

00:52:22.380 A lot of people have changed in this issue.

00:52:24.180 That was really wrong.

00:52:25.120 Now I see the harm.

00:52:26.000 Now, I, he should have said, I know the case now, Chloe Cole.

00:52:29.320 It's outrageous.

00:52:30.180 But you know what?

00:52:30.660 His stuff on the trans medical procedures has been said over and over recently.

00:52:34.580 So he couldn't wiggle out of that.

00:52:35.980 The only thing he was trying to wiggle out of was this notification to parents in schools.

00:52:39.880 He favors these medical procedures on minors.

00:52:44.260 He does.

00:52:44.740 He thinks a parent can consent to the sterilization of her child.

00:52:49.920 I, it's, it's amazing.

00:52:51.820 Like we're not paying attention to what these, just the drugs, nevermind the surgeries are doing.

00:52:55.920 Ron DeSantis, in my view, best moment of the night, brought the crowd almost to its feet

00:53:01.700 with this response in 21.

00:53:03.900 Watch, it's not 21.

00:53:05.020 You do not have the right to abuse your kids. 1.00

00:53:08.040 This is cutting off their genitals. 1.00

00:53:10.320 This is mutilating these minors. 1.00

00:53:12.800 These are irreversible procedures.

00:53:15.520 And this is something that other countries in Europe, like Sweden, once they started doing it,

00:53:19.580 they saw it did incalculable damage.

00:53:21.340 They've shut it down.

00:53:22.640 I signed legislation in Florida banning the mutilation of minors because it is wrong.

00:53:28.160 We cannot allow this to happen in this country.

00:53:31.020 And I know Chris disagrees with me.

00:53:32.760 And I think he has an honest position.

00:53:34.860 Nikki disagrees with me.

00:53:36.100 She opposes the bill that we did to ban that.

00:53:38.520 She said law shouldn't get involved with it. 0.74

00:53:40.260 You said the law shouldn't get involved with it.

00:53:42.600 She also, though, I think, and this is flows from what she did as governor of South Carolina.

00:53:47.080 You know, they had a bill to try to say that men shouldn't go into girls' bathrooms. 1.00

00:53:51.220 And she killed that bill. 1.00

00:53:52.840 And she bragged that she killed that bill. 1.00

00:53:54.960 Even to this day, she bragged that.

00:53:56.740 I don't think men should be going into little girls' bathrooms. 1.00

00:53:59.460 I think it's wrong.

00:54:00.540 And I think we have every right to protect them from that.

00:54:02.760 Rich, I'm not sure how he could have done better on that answer.

00:54:08.120 Home run.

00:54:08.980 Absolutely his best moment of any of the debates.

00:54:12.600 And what we saw last night, and this is born partly of desperation, right, is that he was much more willing to mix it up.

00:54:18.480 The first three debates, almost every time, here's my set speech, right?

00:54:23.180 Even when he got hit, you just ignore it and go, here's my set speech.

00:54:26.940 And that's just not – it doesn't create moments.

00:54:28.820 It's not very interesting.

00:54:30.400 They believe very much in, you know, three yards ahead and a ball of dust kind of approach.

00:54:35.300 Use the form to get your message out.

00:54:37.340 But he mixed it up much more last night.

00:54:40.160 And this – he's just on the strongest substantive and political ground.

00:54:44.600 And it goes to Christie.

00:54:45.500 He – you know, it's not like he was governor 20 years ago.

00:54:48.660 But what his position was back then, which he's now stuck to, unfortunately, was kind of the conventional wisdom, say, with Nikki Haley back then.

00:54:56.400 That's what you did if you're a respectable politician.

00:54:59.520 And DeSantis represents a much more current position, has actually walked the walk down in Florida.

00:55:05.080 So that's – if there's a moment that really helped him last night, it was that.

00:55:09.140 Mm-hmm.

00:55:09.900 And, you know, we'll see whether it changes any hearts and minds.

00:55:12.520 Because I will say, Ron DeSantis appears to me to be more – what's the word?

00:55:17.960 Anchored in principle on this than Donald Trump.

00:55:21.740 That's what I think.

00:55:22.560 Donald Trump is now – he's now saying the right things.

00:55:25.020 But I'm not sure his heart is in it the way DeSantis is rich.

00:55:28.900 Am I – what do you think?

00:55:30.220 No, I think that's absolutely right.

00:55:32.240 This is something where clearly – I think most things, you know, there's some exceptions.

00:55:37.540 Ukraine, I don't think – DeSantis is particularly sincere.

00:55:40.080 Ukraine funding.

00:55:40.640 But on this, he feels it passionately.

00:55:42.880 He understands the case and can state it strongly.

00:55:47.120 You know, the thing with DeSantis, and I think the reasons why he's had such trouble – one is Donald Trump, right?

00:55:52.920 This is the greatest showman on earth.

00:55:54.780 People are still attached to him, and he's got indicted four times, and people hate it.

00:55:57.900 That's the fundamental thing that's gone wrong.

00:56:00.100 But with DeSantis, there's also – you know, last night, even though I thought he was good, he has that sort of Nixon-esque, five o'clock shadow thing going on.

00:56:08.840 And he never feels relaxed, you know?

00:56:11.480 He always feels as though he's trying a little too hard.

00:56:13.720 We also had that viral moment with the conservative leader in Canada eating the apple, you know, while he's getting –

00:56:19.120 Yeah, it's great.

00:56:20.240 ...pastor reports.

00:56:21.160 Who says that?

00:56:22.700 That's total relaxed.

00:56:23.940 You know, most people can't pull that off.

00:56:26.300 But DeSantis just feels – even last night, it's a little bit too much of an attempt to hammer every single point home.

00:56:32.600 It's not modulated very much.

00:56:34.200 You know, there's no subtlety.

00:56:35.280 There's no humor.

00:56:36.560 So I think that plays more than it might because he's not running against, at the end of the day, conventional politicians.

00:56:43.220 He's running against this incredibly talented communicator and entertainer that people feel an emotional bond to.

00:56:51.260 And it's just hard to match that.

00:56:54.560 Let's switch over to another candidate.

00:56:56.340 I want to go back to Vivek Ramaswamy because he – I tell you, when this moment happened on stage, I was –

00:57:01.500 like, some of the moments when Vivek was speaking, I was like, he's good.

00:57:05.680 This is good stuff.

00:57:06.700 Like, this is very well said and well argued.

00:57:08.860 And then we heard stuff like this where I was like, what?

00:57:12.840 Wait, what?

00:57:13.740 Watch.

00:57:14.120 Here's my issue with all three of my other colleagues on this debate stage.

00:57:20.460 Is all three of them have been licking Donald Trump's boots for years for money and endorsements.

00:57:27.000 Ron DeSantis, you've been a great governor, but you would have never been one without actually begging Donald Trump for that endorsement.

00:57:32.080 And you attacked him in your book a year ago.

00:57:34.100 Same thing with Chris Christie as a lobbyist, begging them for COVID money for his special interests in New Jersey, prepping him for the debates last time around.

00:57:42.500 These people are now Monday morning quarterbacking some decision he made.

00:57:45.740 I think the real enemy is not Donald Trump.

00:57:48.480 It's not even Joe Biden.

00:57:49.940 It is the deep state that at least Donald Trump attempted to take on.

00:57:53.840 And if you want somebody who's going to speak truth to power, then vote for somebody who's going to speak the truth to you.

00:57:59.500 Why am I the only person on this stage, at least, who can say that January 6th now does look like it was an inside job?

00:58:06.040 That the government lied to us for 20 years about Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9-11?

00:58:11.100 That the Great Replacement Theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory.

00:58:15.740 But a basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform.

00:58:19.480 That the 2020 election was indeed stolen by big tech.

00:58:23.900 That the 2016 election, the one that Trump won for sure, was also one that was stolen from him by the national security establishment.

00:58:32.560 Okay.

00:58:32.820 That actually put up the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that they knew was false.

00:58:37.480 A lot.

00:58:38.240 A lot.

00:58:39.400 A lot in there.

00:58:41.700 Jim, would you like to take a shot at that one?

00:58:43.600 Megan, Rich, we don't talk directly about religion on this program very much.

00:58:51.480 But I think of myself as a believer.

00:58:53.240 But I'm not going to lie.

00:58:53.940 There are times my faith is challenged.

00:58:56.500 And when Ramaswamy can be up on that stage and accuse the other three of being bootlickers to Donald Trump,

00:59:02.200 the fact that Ramaswamy was not struck by lightning makes me question the existence of God.

00:59:08.300 Because if there was ever a moment for God to say, nope, that's a lie.

00:59:12.160 It's thunderbolt.

00:59:13.080 Here you go.

00:59:13.860 You can't say that kind of thing.

00:59:15.760 That would be it.

00:59:16.560 That would be, you know.

00:59:18.360 To paraphrase some comedian, Ramaswamy calling you a Trump bootlicker is like Michael Jackson calling you weird.

00:59:24.680 It's just kind of the guy who defines the term.

00:59:28.620 So, look, I could rip into Ramaswamy all afternoon.

00:59:32.100 But one of the things that jumps out at me last night, he began by saying that Nikki Haley, like Joe Biden, wanted to send troops into Ukraine.

00:59:42.160 She's never said that.

00:59:43.620 I went and I checked.

00:59:45.020 If Nikki Haley had said we should send U.S. troops into Ukraine to fight Russia, that would be a big deal.

00:59:50.560 You would have heard about it by now.

00:59:51.840 This isn't that you missed it somewhere in the news cycle and only Ramaswamy picked this out or something like this.

00:59:58.040 Now, we can have a legitimate argument about Ukraine.

01:00:00.920 We can have a legitimate argument about how much age should we send? 0.83

01:00:03.640 What kind of weapons can we spare?

01:00:04.940 What kind of weapons can we not spare?

01:00:06.820 Is there a, you know, longer term?

01:00:08.580 This is a legitimate debate to have.

01:00:10.320 But when you begin it with, my opponent has a position, you know, you make up your opponent's position.

01:00:16.640 One, you muddy the waters.

01:00:17.920 And then he goes back to the same well later and he says, she's doing that. 0.94

01:00:21.940 She wants your children to die so she can get a bigger house. 1.00

01:00:24.800 Does he know that Nikki Haley's husband is in the South Carolina Army National Guard and is currently deployed in Djibouti, Africa for a year?

01:00:33.280 Like, do you know a lot of military moms who are like, yeah, let's have war. 1.00

01:00:36.920 I want to have as many casualties as possible. 0.96

01:00:39.220 What the hell is wrong with this man? 0.98

01:00:40.800 So, yeah, I could rant all day, but that gives you the gist of my day. 0.96

01:00:44.180 Can we just spend a minute on it, though?

01:00:45.420 Because I am interested in what's happening to this piece of the Republican Party, because I know a lot of MAGA voters, people who love Trump, who do not think January 6th was an inside job, have questions about 9-11,

01:01:01.080 or maintain that both elections, 2016 and 2020, were stolen.

01:01:07.800 Like, there is a, like, slice of within MAGA, maybe it's growing, that seems to be really latching on to these things.

01:01:17.240 It's like, yeah, we see the inside truth.

01:01:19.520 Deep state is everywhere, doing everything.

01:01:22.320 What do you think about it, Rich?

01:01:23.560 You guys follow this for a living.

01:01:24.780 Yeah, so it's clearly not everyone, it's not a majority of the parties, it's not a majority of MAGA, but it's a really engaged part of MAGA.

01:01:35.100 And again, an element of MAGA that's very loud online, and that has big social media followings, and is making Viveka folk hero.

01:01:44.600 So, I just think what's happened is he slowly slid this way over the course of the campaign, and I think it's based on the affirmation of those kind of social media influencers that, you know, they are important.

01:01:57.980 They have important bases, important voices, and important audiences.

01:02:02.420 So, you know, you can run through those things.

01:02:05.820 No, January 6th is not an inside job.

01:02:07.840 The government did hide the Saudis' role.

01:02:09.640 Now, he's presenting it in a way that plays into this broader conspiratorial thinking.

01:02:14.620 What the national security establishment did after 2016 was terrible, and he's wrong about the 2020 election.

01:02:20.400 But it's all to go to this radical doubt that's afoot in the Republican Party about everything that the establishment or conventional opinion believes.

01:02:31.180 Now, some of that skepticism is called for.

01:02:33.560 So, Megan, you obviously, you represent it and have been a very important voice on the vaccines and the mask mandates and all that and how insane it was even when they're trying to shut down debate.

01:02:43.880 But this tendency kind of runs out of control, especially if you don't care what you're saying, you don't care about being responsible the way Vivek is.

01:02:52.540 So it's working for him if you have a very stowpipe goal at the end of the day, which I believe he does.

01:03:00.060 But it's not it doesn't contribute to the discourse and it's not contributing to his efforts to win the Republican nomination to the extent that matters to him at all.

01:03:08.360 He's like he's got a nugget of truth in there and he expands it, like, again, well beyond where the facts would support.

01:03:15.620 For example, we've seen the videotapes on January 6th of, yes, cops letting people in.

01:03:19.980 We'd like to know more.

01:03:20.820 How many federal agents were there?

01:03:22.020 OK, we haven't we don't have full answers to that.

01:03:23.920 But that does not mean that it was a quote, an inside job, that everybody there was a Fed, that there were more feds than there were rioters, that the people spraying bear spray in the face of cops.

01:03:33.260 I mean, it's just he goes too far.

01:03:35.440 And the thing about Saudi Arabia, 9-11 is a cover because he originally said it's totally fair to inquire how many federal agents were on the planes that hit the towers in the Pentagon on 9-11.

01:03:48.900 And then many of us in the press hit him for that nonsense and looking for an out, he found, oh, there was a question about how much Saudi Arabia cooperated and helped the 9-11 terrorists.

01:04:01.900 That's what I'm going to exploit to say the government has been lying to us about its role and what it knew, the facts, the truth about 9-11.

01:04:10.220 That whole thing was born as a cover of something absurd, he said.

01:04:14.880 And now he's like, I'm owning it.

01:04:16.820 I'm the only one who will tell you the truth.

01:04:18.400 So the average voter has to work very, very hard to find the truth in what he's actually saying and the nuggets of its origins.

01:04:29.460 All right, let me end with this.

01:04:31.920 I don't think anybody thinks anything really changed as a result of last night.

01:04:35.180 So once again, Trump won because if nothing changed, he's the winner.

01:04:38.940 He's 50 points ahead.

01:04:39.720 So now what, guys?

01:04:42.220 Andy McCarthy had an editorial on National Review saying he really thinks Judge Shuckin might not let Trump go free on bond when he is likely convicted in that federal case in D.C.

01:04:53.740 There will be riots.

01:04:54.940 The country will burn if she sends him to jail prior to November 2024.

01:04:59.560 And Andy's, the smartest guy we all know, is saying, don't rule it out.

01:05:05.880 So where do we go from this day to that?

01:05:12.320 Well, earlier this week, I had pitched the idea of, you know, look, you look at the dynamics of this primary.

01:05:22.480 DeSantis and Haley should form a unity ticket, either Haley DeSantis, DeSantis Haley.

01:05:27.520 I don't have a particularly strong preference, one or the other.

01:05:30.180 But, you know, that's the one way you could get most Haley supporters to jump on board with DeSantis and vice versa.

01:05:35.260 The reaction online is uniformly negative.

01:05:37.320 It is all, they just say, oh, my God, why would we want to associate with a neocon warmonger like Nikki Haley and the Nikki Haley?

01:05:43.980 Why would we associate with this, you know, theocratic maniac from Florida?

01:05:49.000 But here's the thing. 0.91

01:05:49.740 I'm kind of in this Dr. Philman thing.

01:05:51.500 Like, how's that working out for you so far?

01:05:53.980 What these guys have done is fought for a very distant second place.

01:05:58.600 Neither one of them is, they need like 20 points in the next six weeks in Iowa, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, and they need like 30 to 40 points nationally.

01:06:07.760 And we're seeing this kind of insane little infighting over this small slice of a much bigger pie that they need to win if they have any hope of being the nominee.

01:06:16.240 If Trump's the nominee, we're in totally uncharted waters.

01:06:19.780 And I would say, based on history, don't doubt Andy McCarthy, even if he's very skeptical about the Jets.

01:06:28.620 Truer words are never spoken.

01:06:30.340 Guys, thank you.

01:06:31.120 Thank you both so much.

01:06:33.860 All right.

01:06:34.520 Coming up next.

01:06:35.780 Thank you.

01:06:36.320 Our pal Glenn Greenwald joins us, and we'll get into what happened when Rumble went down, just as I asked my question about COVID vaccine injuries.

01:06:47.280 We've got some reporting for you.

01:06:49.500 I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM.

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01:07:52.860 Joining me now, Glenn Greenwald.

01:07:54.780 He's host of Rumble's System Update.

01:07:57.700 Glenn, welcome back.

01:07:58.500 Great to have you.

01:07:59.480 Great to be with you, Megan.

01:08:00.380 And I don't like to start any appearance by praising the host, but I nonetheless wanted

01:08:04.320 to say how great it was to see you back in that chair where people knew that the rules

01:08:08.640 were going to be enforced and there was not very much funny business.

01:08:12.180 And I think that was largely due to your presence.

01:08:13.880 So it was great to see you doing what you do best.

01:08:16.740 Thank you.

01:08:17.060 Thank you, Glenn.

01:08:17.580 It was great to be back out there, I have to say.

01:08:19.680 Also, I have an update for the audience now.

01:08:22.620 With this just in on the debates that we reported on earlier.

01:08:26.020 See, I knew it.

01:08:28.280 Like, I really did not think that the RNC would offer another debate.

01:08:31.060 I just don't think that the RNC, I think, is kind of aligned with Trump.

01:08:34.640 I mean, they recognize he's the party leader and I know they they're trying to be fair to

01:08:38.320 everybody, but are they really going to have more debates?

01:08:40.760 That's why I'm surprised to hear that there's two more debates, one in Iowa and one in New

01:08:44.580 Hampshire.

01:08:44.940 And now this just in from Brian Steinberg, a variety.

01:08:48.060 CNN plans to host two Republican primary debates next month, one in Iowa, one in New

01:08:52.380 Hampshire.

01:08:53.400 Events appear to be organized without the sanction of the RNC, without the sanction.

01:08:58.400 So I think what's happened here is the RNC has basically said, you're released.

01:09:01.660 Go do your own thing.

01:09:03.100 We're no longer participating in the debates.

01:09:05.440 And if you guys want to do it, do it on your own.

01:09:07.240 So that's kind of interesting.

01:09:08.060 Um, I don't know how much point the debates are going to serve at that point in the contest.

01:09:14.900 I don't know how much point they're serving right now.

01:09:17.740 It's kind of like, Glenn, we give them the chance to land some knockout blows and change

01:09:21.160 the trajectory, given the fact that Trump's 50 points ahead.

01:09:24.460 I'm not sure that's even come close to happening.

01:09:27.000 What was your take on last night?

01:09:29.300 Yeah, I mean, there's an obvious gigantic elephant hanging over these debates, which is that the

01:09:34.080 person who, by all indications, the voters of this party actually prefer to be their

01:09:40.600 nominee is not participating in these debates.

01:09:42.960 And the more he doesn't participate, he doesn't suffer any harm.

01:09:47.000 And on some level, maybe he even gets stronger.

01:09:50.560 But I also don't think the candidates are doing themselves a lot of favors because I heard

01:09:55.440 the end of your last segment, I didn't hear all of it, but you would think that they are

01:09:59.720 seeing these same poll numbers as we are.

01:10:01.440 And if they're really serious about winning, they would be doing things to try and undermine

01:10:05.420 that fact by uniting, by having a joint strategy to at least attack Trump.

01:10:11.060 And they just won't do it.

01:10:12.300 And so when they sit there and bicker among themselves, I saw some focus group that I think

01:10:19.080 News Nation had convened.

01:10:20.720 And the overwhelming sentiment in that focus group of Republican voters was that the winner

01:10:24.400 was Trump by a pretty good distance.

01:10:25.820 And that's been the dynamic that they haven't been able to break.

01:10:28.300 This is what led to Chris Christie raising the following on stage last night.

01:10:34.360 Listen to Sot 3.

01:10:36.780 Respectfully, Governor, you have not stopped, Mr. Trump.

01:10:39.880 And voters may wonder how you could possibly become the nominee of a party that does not

01:10:44.420 appear to like you very much.

01:10:45.960 Well, look, Megan, it's often very difficult to be the only person on the stage who's telling

01:10:51.980 the truth and the only person who is taking on what needs to be taken on.

01:10:56.700 I look at my watch now.

01:10:57.820 We're 17 minutes into this debate.

01:11:00.060 And except for your little speech in the beginning, we've had these three acting as if the race 0.67

01:11:05.920 is between the four of us.

01:11:08.660 The fifth guy who doesn't have the guts to show up and stand here.

01:11:13.060 He's the one who, as you just put it, is way ahead in the polls.

01:11:17.160 And yet I've got these three guys who are all seemingly to compete with, you know, Voldemort.

01:11:23.400 He or shall not be named.

01:11:25.040 They don't want to talk about it.

01:11:28.120 It's totally fair point, right?

01:11:29.500 It's like we gave them a whole Trump section.

01:11:31.400 Here's your chance.

01:11:32.280 Try to take a shot at the front runner.

01:11:34.060 They were too afraid.

01:11:34.900 But here's the reality.

01:11:37.560 And I mean, actually, Chris Christie alluded to this, which is you can think it's wrong.

01:11:43.360 You can complain about it.

01:11:44.580 A lot of people do.

01:11:46.600 The Republican voters love Trump.

01:11:48.320 That is just the reality.

01:11:49.680 And I don't think they love him just because he's Trump and all of his charisma and personal

01:11:54.340 characteristics that they seem to really like.

01:11:56.580 He represents an ideology that has really stimulated their interest and passion about politics.

01:12:04.500 Mostly based in the idea that the establishment wing of both parties, the kind of status quo

01:12:09.940 power centers that run the United States, are fundamentally corrupted and not interested

01:12:16.360 in what their interests are.

01:12:18.920 And so when you have politicians up on that stage like Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, who

01:12:23.360 very much represent that kind of establishment Republican ideology, even if they were to do what

01:12:29.740 one might think they should do.

01:12:31.840 I don't think it would resonate very much with these voters because I don't think these

01:12:36.160 voters like them.

01:12:37.240 That's what you pointed out to him.

01:12:39.200 And I think one of the things Ron DeSantis and Vivek are interested in and thinking about

01:12:44.780 is their future in this party.

01:12:46.700 And I think Chris Christie even said that, like they might be thinking about four years from

01:12:49.640 now.

01:12:50.220 You don't want to alienate those Trump voters because they're a gigantic part of this party.

01:12:55.500 Yeah, it does make some sense.

01:12:57.100 Because they've all been pretty diligent about not doing it.

01:13:01.420 Like they're careful.

01:13:02.100 They have to hit them on some things, but they never go too far.

01:13:06.160 And look, I still believe there's a point in having and it's actually important having

01:13:11.960 these debates to some extent because we do need an alternative.

01:13:14.640 There has to be first alternate given all the legal jeopardy that Trump said there must

01:13:18.260 be a first alternate just in case.

01:13:21.220 I mean, truly, Glenn, if Trump's in jail as of what the trial supposed to start in March

01:13:27.760 this March, that's what, four months away.

01:13:30.760 I don't know how quickly it's going to go.

01:13:32.660 Are you there is a scenario?

01:13:34.300 It's slim.

01:13:34.960 It's not likely.

01:13:35.860 But it's that Trump's in jail this summer when they're having the Republican National

01:13:40.720 Convention.

01:13:41.200 What are they going to do?

01:13:42.080 Like, you have a collect phone call from the D.C.

01:13:46.680 Correctional Facility.

01:13:48.280 Yes, I accept the nomination.

01:13:51.000 Not a plan.

01:13:53.960 We don't know how any of this is going to work.

01:13:56.420 I mean, for one thing, he has a gigantic Secret Service detail that has to guard him

01:14:02.000 for the rest of his life.

01:14:02.860 He's entitled to that by law.

01:14:05.780 And there's nothing in the Constitution that bars you from running if you're in prison.

01:14:09.800 We had a candidate, Eugene Debs, who was in prison under Woodrow Wilson for opposing

01:14:15.200 the U.S. entry into World War I, got charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 for that, was

01:14:20.060 convicted, and he ran for president as a socialist leader and got a fair number of votes.

01:14:24.580 So there's precedent for people running from prison.

01:14:28.160 And it's the huge unknown.

01:14:30.640 Like, is this obvious distrust that people have for institutions of authority so fundamental

01:14:36.480 and so entrenched?

01:14:37.860 Obviously, they're not willing to hold it against Trump that he was charged or indicted.

01:14:42.120 Is it that entrenched that even if he's convicted, that still won't cause the law of support?

01:14:48.600 And in prison.

01:14:49.360 Will that be looked at as a form of political persecution, where they'll want to kind of

01:14:53.980 double down in their support on Trump?

01:14:55.380 I mean, Tucker Carlson just said, I've never supported a candidate as a journalist.

01:14:58.140 And the only time I decided I would was I became a Trump supporter when they raided Mar-a-Lago.

01:15:02.040 I think there's probably a lot of people who see it that way.

01:15:05.800 And we don't I just don't know.

01:15:07.600 I can't pretend I know.

01:15:09.620 Yeah, I know.

01:15:10.500 None of us.

01:15:10.880 We're in really uncharted territory here.

01:15:13.320 And only time will tell.

01:15:15.540 All right.

01:15:15.880 Let's talk about Vivek because we've beaten up on him a little bit here tonight.

01:15:19.860 And it's not all there's he did some good stuff last night.

01:15:23.820 And he's very interesting.

01:15:24.640 And I was saying to the guys before you, there were moments last night where you kind of

01:15:29.260 become mesmerized by him.

01:15:30.400 He's such a good speaker.

01:15:31.660 He makes his points so well.

01:15:33.460 He's got he's like there's a bit of theater to him that's compelling.

01:15:37.860 You know, he knows how to sort of like capture your attention and deliver a line like the rise

01:15:42.660 and fall in his voice.

01:15:43.880 It can kind of suck you in.

01:15:47.440 Van Jones felt differently over on CNN.

01:15:50.420 He was not not sucked in.

01:15:52.340 Here is his reaction on CNN after the debate.

01:15:55.960 Sat 18.

01:15:57.980 And the smug, condescending way that he just spews this poison out is very, very dangerous

01:16:04.920 because he won't stop Trump, but he's going to outlive Trump by about 50 years. 0.98

01:16:10.740 And you're watching the rise of an American demagogue that is a very, very despicable person.

01:16:16.300 And I literally I was I was shaking listening to him talk because a lot of people don't know 0.88

01:16:22.320 that is one step away from Nazi propaganda coming out of his mouth.

01:16:26.940 Oh, we got the N word Nazi and he's shaking.

01:16:32.320 Vivek made Van Jones shake.

01:16:35.380 Yeah, I mean, look, when you know, the New York Times has this little thing they do after

01:16:39.840 every debate where they all their columnists rank the participants and see who they think

01:16:44.780 wins and see who they think loses.

01:16:46.820 And they've ranked Nikki Haley as the winner of all three debates.

01:16:50.580 I don't know what they did last night.

01:16:52.340 And I think they always comes in last or second to last.

01:16:55.300 These people, I don't think this is breaking news, are not even a little bit in touch with

01:17:00.300 the sentiments and perspectives of Republican Party voters because Van Jones has cried on the

01:17:05.400 air about Donald Trump and how sick and fearful he gets when he hears Donald Trump.

01:17:09.180 And these are the people these Republican voters hate.

01:17:13.920 So I know that, you know, I don't know who was packed there last night.

01:17:17.800 I went to the first one.

01:17:18.680 I know that the RNC usually gets to pick and choose who's there. 1.00

01:17:21.480 So the reaction of the crowd, too, is often disparate from what American voters in the

01:17:25.080 Republican Party are reacting to.

01:17:26.420 But they don't respect these people.

01:17:28.660 They don't like these people.

01:17:29.700 And I know I think Vivek is purposely kind of seeing what Trump did and more or less following

01:17:36.920 in that path.

01:17:38.160 You know, I talked to Vivek two and a half years or three years ago about an unrelated

01:17:40.840 thing, and I hung up the phone and I knew I said to my friends, that is going to be a

01:17:44.680 politician very shortly.

01:17:45.940 It was clear that he had this kind of ambition to be a public figure in that way before he

01:17:50.100 was.

01:17:50.500 And he is skillful and talented.

01:17:52.160 And of course, he's not going to his audience is not his target audience is not Van Jones and

01:17:57.160 New York Times columnist.

01:17:58.580 But if you want to be successful in the Republican Party, that shouldn't be.

01:18:02.180 They love Chris Christie and Nikki Haley.

01:18:05.540 So when when he's dropping the N word on Vivek in that moment, the other N word, it was in

01:18:13.220 response to Vivek this, you know, I listed the things that Vivek said, like January 6th

01:18:18.540 was an inside job and this.

01:18:19.840 And the one thing he said in there that I will give him is the great replacement theory is

01:18:24.520 a Democrat thing.

01:18:25.620 It's not a Republican thing.

01:18:26.880 He's 100 percent right about that.

01:18:29.300 But the Democrats will never admit that they want to say talkers are racist.

01:18:34.640 And I'm sure Vivek's a racist. 0.98

01:18:36.640 Vivek's a Nazi. 0.94

01:18:38.040 And Dana Bash asked Vivek about that after the debate.

01:18:41.860 Take a listen.

01:18:42.320 It's not 16.

01:18:42.900 When people hear great replacement theory, conspiracy theorist, I'm the kid of immigrants.

01:18:51.240 But when the Democratic Party and Biden, the leader of the Democratic Party now, as recently

01:18:55.160 as 10 years ago with Mallorca sitting at his side, expressly talking about nonwhite populations,

01:19:00.080 exceeding white populations, that being a good thing and immigration policies they've advanced 0.99

01:19:04.260 to achieve that result remain in Mexico, which they're not enforcing.

01:19:07.040 And let's have that debate rather than saying this is a dog whistle.

01:19:10.580 This is going to cause violence.

01:19:11.960 A lot of it grounded in truth to be able to have that debate without labeling somebody

01:19:15.380 Let me just ask you one question.

01:19:16.300 A xenophobe or a racist or a denier or anything else.

01:19:20.080 I'm not going to use the term anymore because it is a dog whistle for people out there who

01:19:25.040 are looking for reasons to go after people of color and and Jews.

01:19:30.040 But let's just assume that that that was something that was happening.

01:19:38.000 Is that so wrong?

01:19:39.880 So what's wrong with what's wrong with people?

01:19:41.880 First of all, let me just pause right there.

01:19:43.460 A majority.

01:19:44.140 Let me just pause right there.

01:19:45.280 This is a legitimate discussion for us to have.

01:19:47.620 And my view is I don't care about skin color. 0.77

01:19:48.820 I could care less for skin color.

01:19:50.240 Do you share the ideals of this country?

01:19:53.680 Wow.

01:19:54.860 Wow.

01:19:55.900 What did you make of that?

01:19:57.520 It's such a microcosm.

01:19:59.140 I mean, it's a perfect clip to pick because, first of all, it really drives me insane, Megan.

01:20:05.140 And it has for quite a long time now. 0.92

01:20:07.620 This idea that the great replacement theory is something that white supremacists like Tucker

01:20:11.440 Carlson say to provoke mass murders like they tried to blame him for in Buffalo, even though

01:20:17.120 the guy left a gigantic manifesto about all the people who influenced him.

01:20:20.840 And not only didn't he ever mention Tucker or anyone on Fox, there's no indication he

01:20:24.100 even knew Fox News or had ever watched it.

01:20:26.260 But they don't care about that.

01:20:28.100 The great replacement theory is 1000% a Democratic Party idea.

01:20:33.280 There are Democratic Party operatives, mainstream ones who wrote books saying that the key to

01:20:37.980 an enduring permanent Democratic Party majority is ensuring that we have so much immigration 0.99

01:20:42.500 that it changes the demographic composition of our country and these newly arrived immigrants 1.00

01:20:46.780 will forever be Democrats and there'll be no way for us to lose elections because of

01:20:50.340 these demographic shifts.

01:20:51.940 So the Democrats can say that that's their plan, but then you can't point it out that

01:20:56.380 that's their plan? 0.60

01:20:57.540 That is insane.

01:20:59.560 But I also think that there are legitimate debates about things like immigration and what

01:21:06.680 the effects are that people like Dana Bash and CNN and the whole liberal commentariat have

01:21:11.960 tried to say is off limits and they just scream racist and they yell at you that you're provoking

01:21:15.760 violence.

01:21:16.900 And that was a perfect microcosm right there of the fact that huge numbers of people, as

01:21:21.900 we know, Democratic governors and Democratic Party mayors, the minute large numbers of immigrants

01:21:27.500 started showing up on their door, illegal ones, they started screaming bloody murder and

01:21:31.460 calling for the Biden Justice Department to do more to secure the border.

01:21:34.300 But there's this idea that if you're in a neighborhood like where Dana Bash lives or people like her

01:21:39.260 live and you're all ensconced and you don't have the kind of immigrants in your neighborhood 1.00

01:21:43.820 that many other people do, then you can call everyone racist for caring about it because

01:21:48.780 it doesn't affect you.

01:21:49.760 And that is the breach between, I think, elite culture and ordinary Americans that has become

01:21:55.000 so destabilizing.

01:21:56.640 Yeah, couldn't agree more.

01:21:59.020 By the way, speaking of Tucker, I should tell our audience, Tucker will be joining us on Monday.

01:22:04.260 Very excited to bring him to the show.

01:22:06.260 This is the first time we've spoken many times privately, but this is the first time he's

01:22:09.000 been on the show since he left Fox.

01:22:11.920 And guess what?

01:22:12.780 He has a big announcement when he comes on.

01:22:15.100 So you will hear that only here.

01:22:16.940 Don't miss that.

01:22:18.840 Yeah.

01:22:19.060 OK, so Vivek, it's kind of fun to watch him be provocative towards the left.

01:22:23.460 And he really stirs up a lot of feelings in them.

01:22:25.780 He stirs up a lot of feelings in the right, too, but on different issues.

01:22:29.540 I don't think he told me after the show he's not going anywhere.

01:22:31.960 He does not plan on dropping out.

01:22:33.660 I think he's in this now for other reasons, because Vivek is not going to be the president

01:22:37.460 this time around.

01:22:38.860 And, you know, he's accomplishing something.

01:22:40.980 So let's talk about because I know you're not a Nikki Haley fan and he was her chief

01:22:46.600 antagonist.

01:22:47.420 DeSantis got in on the act more than ever.

01:22:49.480 But Vivek was the chief antagonist last night.

01:22:51.540 And I'm told by the team that this particular exchange captured one of your complaints about

01:22:56.900 her.

01:22:57.140 I want to go back, though, to Nikki Haley's comment from earlier that she is somehow not

01:23:03.820 responding to the will of these donors.

01:23:06.400 Nikki, you were bankrupt when you left the U.N.

01:23:09.240 After you left the U.N., you became a military contractor.

01:23:12.840 You actually started joining service on the board of Boeing, whose back you scratched for

01:23:17.360 a very long time and then gave foreign multinational speeches like Hillary Clinton is. 0.99

01:23:21.640 And now you're a multimillionaire.

01:23:23.300 However, that math does not add up. 0.98

01:23:25.760 It adds up to the fact that you are corrupt.

01:23:29.960 What was it about that exchange you liked?

01:23:34.000 Well, the facts are true, first of all, that when she left government, she spent her whole

01:23:38.620 life in government and she did struggle with a lot of personal debt, which I personally don't

01:23:43.440 consider a moral failing.

01:23:45.660 Most Americans at some point in their lives struggle with that.

01:23:48.520 It's a very American thing.

01:23:49.520 In fact, I think it's actually a good thing if you're running president to have had that

01:23:52.120 experience. But it is true that she immediately converted her political celebrity and political

01:23:57.240 influence into enormous amounts of personal wealth, using that Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair,

01:24:03.140 now very common way that when people leave Washington, they get very rich by meeting in

01:24:08.580 private, with activist groups, giving speeches to them, serving on the board of Boeing.

01:24:14.280 And when you look at Nikki Haley's policies, the one on which she's running, those policies

01:24:18.840 completely align with the interest of all of those big donors and those corporations that

01:24:23.980 made her personally very wealthy and that are now funding her campaign.

01:24:27.320 Now, the question always is, the eternal question is, are they funding her campaign because she agrees

01:24:31.720 with them or does she agree with them because they're funding her campaign?

01:24:34.140 Usually, you can't really draw that line.

01:24:37.400 It ultimately doesn't make a difference.

01:24:38.980 The influence of money is so great in our politics that you might kind of morph into the

01:24:43.800 kind of person that you know will attract big donors and think you're doing it because you

01:24:48.020 really believe in it.

01:24:48.860 But the point is, there's a reason why Wall Street and why corporate donors are running

01:24:53.720 to Nikki Haley because they see her as a vessel, as a tool to advance their agenda.

01:24:59.560 And their agenda is not the agenda of the American people.

01:25:02.080 Well, Republican Party voters have made very clear they reject that agenda of international

01:25:06.740 globalism and corporatism and militarism.

01:25:09.280 That's not what they said they want in every poll and the way they're voting.

01:25:13.620 And so I think it's an extremely legitimate question to ask, how is Nikki Haley's campaign

01:25:18.280 being funded by whom and how did she get so wealthy in such a short amount of time?

01:25:22.160 And I think those answers have now been revealed through investigative journalism, including some

01:25:26.140 of the work we did about where her money came from.

01:25:28.420 I really wrestled when I was coming up with her electability question on between two things.

01:25:34.400 Well, three things.

01:25:35.540 The candidates, because the way you do it is you come up with all sorts of research on

01:25:40.260 the person.

01:25:41.580 Obviously, hopefully you have a working knowledge of what matters to Republican voters and what

01:25:45.740 the party looks like and what it's saying.

01:25:47.380 And you look for her vulnerabilities.

01:25:50.200 And for her, there were a couple of lanes.

01:25:51.820 There was one accusing her essentially of being a political opportunist because she's flipped and 1.00

01:25:56.800 flopped back and forth on Trump many, many, many times.

01:26:00.820 One was how hawkish she is in a party that is increasingly rejecting that and that has learned

01:26:06.700 some hard lessons from 20 years of war.

01:26:09.380 And then the third was this lane, which is where I ultimately went with the money and,

01:26:14.900 you know, being beholden to the banks and the billionaires.

01:26:18.000 You know, is it are we being too hard on her versus someone like Trump?

01:26:22.380 Right.

01:26:22.660 It's like eventually he did once he won get all the billionaires.

01:26:28.000 They're all they all wind up bending the knee once you become the president and they will

01:26:31.620 do it again.

01:26:32.480 So like once you get into office, you know, they're all there wanting to control you for

01:26:37.360 money and so on.

01:26:38.160 And they're all going to try to woo him again if and when he becomes the nominee.

01:26:41.180 So are we being too hard on her in that way?

01:26:44.320 Well, one thing she said that is true is that all of these people had been backing DeSantis

01:26:49.160 in the beginning.

01:26:49.920 They thought he was the best alternative to stop Trump.

01:26:52.480 And only once they saw his polling numbers and concluded that he wasn't talented enough on

01:26:57.560 the campaign trail and dealing with people, he wasn't resonating.

01:27:00.000 They switched to Nikki Healy.

01:27:01.940 So now he gets to say, oh, she's getting all this money from bankers on Wall Street.

01:27:05.060 He was getting it at first and lost it to her.

01:27:08.240 But, you know, when once you're president, of course, everybody in power is going to go

01:27:13.100 and try and, you know, have a friendly relationship with you because of how much power you wield

01:27:17.900 as a politician.

01:27:19.300 It is true, though, when Trump ran in 2016, all of this big donor money was looking for

01:27:24.520 every alternative.

01:27:25.220 But Trump, they started with Jeb Bush.

01:27:26.900 That was where all those dollars went.

01:27:29.940 No, they didn't want Trump.

01:27:31.140 Then they went to Marco Rubio.

01:27:32.460 Then they even, even though they hate him, went to Ted Cruz, anything but Trump.

01:27:36.540 And they went one after the next and ultimately didn't win.

01:27:39.220 And this is what they're doing here, too.

01:27:40.840 So you are, of course, right that once somebody gets very powerful, everybody bends the knee.

01:27:45.520 But you can look at who power centers want to become president and who they don't want

01:27:49.880 to become president.

01:27:50.620 And I'm not saying you should automatically reject the candidate they support because

01:27:54.460 maybe they support them because they'll foster economic growth or whatever.

01:27:58.120 But the reality is, as you said, Nikki Haley supports an ideology, a foreign policy ideology

01:28:02.840 and an economic ideology that the largely working class base of the Republican Party has come

01:28:08.020 to detest.

01:28:08.700 That's just the irreconcilable reality.

01:28:10.640 Well, that's why, you know, we thought it would be interesting in that quick last block

01:28:15.260 that we had, which was tight, to just ask a question about which president you admire.

01:28:19.520 And, you know, Christie said Reagan.

01:28:20.740 I think an honest Haley probably would have said Reagan, too. 0.87

01:28:23.800 And Reagan, even though he's been a god in the Republican Party for many, many decades,

01:28:27.800 in today's Republican Party, it's kind of controversial to choose Reagan because he had that same foreign

01:28:34.000 policy and some of the domestic policies.

01:28:36.020 And so Christie did it.

01:28:37.860 He said Reagan.

01:28:38.720 And she said George Washington and Abe Lincoln.

01:28:41.900 Glenn, it was like, oh, it's like a third grade book report.

01:28:45.500 You know, like if you ask any American kid in like junior high who their favorite presidents

01:28:49.740 are, they're going to say Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

01:28:52.460 I mean, it really sounded a little bit pitiful.

01:28:55.200 That was not.

01:28:55.940 Yes, I appreciate the Calvin Coolidge reference, though, that that one was actually kind of thought

01:29:00.220 out.

01:29:00.800 And that is Ron DeSantis.

01:29:01.660 He's well thought out on everything.

01:29:03.060 I said this after my interview with him.

01:29:04.180 He can go 10 deep on any subject and then some.

01:29:06.520 So I wasn't surprised at all that he had one that nobody else chose and he had good reasons

01:29:10.660 for it.

01:29:11.640 And then Vivek with the Thomas Jefferson and the swivel chair.

01:29:14.700 I mean, everybody loves the swivel chair.

01:29:16.420 We've been spending too much time focusing on that declaration of independence.

01:29:20.540 The swivel chair is the bomb.

01:29:22.980 Thanks, TJ.

01:29:24.340 All right.

01:29:24.660 I have to move on to Rumble.

01:29:26.860 We've gotten to the bottom of this.

01:29:28.400 You're on Rumble.

01:29:29.040 So one of my questions last night was about the vaccine injured.

01:29:35.900 And apparently, unbeknownst to me, the feed blacked out on Rumble in the middle of the

01:29:42.240 question.

01:29:42.920 And I totally understand why on that question it would lead people to go into, whoa, who

01:29:49.640 did that mode?

01:29:51.080 Here's the question, first of all, on it unedited.

01:29:53.220 Through Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration and private industry developed a COVID vaccine

01:30:01.780 in record time.

01:30:03.380 The program protected the drug companies from virtually all lawsuits over vaccine injuries.

01:30:08.960 The government has a program to compensate for such harm, but critics say it is a black 1.00

01:30:12.320 hole of bureaucracy.

01:30:13.800 12,000 claims filed, 10 percent decided, only eight payouts so far in a forum with no right

01:30:19.480 to counsel, no hearings, no appeals.

01:30:21.240 Mr. Trump says he's very proud of Warp Speed.

01:30:24.860 Should he be?

01:30:27.360 Okay.

01:30:27.960 And he went on from there.

01:30:29.700 That was the full question.

01:30:31.560 Now we know why the feed went out on Rumble.

01:30:35.280 Rumble says it was not fed, like there was a problem in the feed it was receiving from

01:30:41.220 NewsNation.

01:30:42.140 It was nothing Rumble did.

01:30:43.740 And NewsNation had a problem feeding to the spin room as well on that question and maybe

01:30:48.200 another one I heard.

01:30:48.960 Um, yeah.

01:30:51.040 Oh, this is what happened.

01:30:52.040 It froze black on Rumble.

01:30:53.580 That's what the audience.

01:30:54.260 So I get it.

01:30:55.200 Anyway, we just want to clear it up.

01:30:56.280 There's no conspiracy.

01:30:57.060 NewsNation had trouble.

01:30:57.940 It did air live on NewsNation.

01:31:00.560 Right.

01:31:01.020 And Rumble also posted the proof of this.

01:31:03.920 Christina Pouchard, the spokesperson for Governor DeSantis, said, you know, they absolutely

01:31:08.160 believe that.

01:31:08.840 And if there's any platform that wants an open COVID debate and has done more to foster

01:31:12.960 an open COVID debate, it's Rumble.

01:31:14.340 They allow every last conceivable view on there.

01:31:17.300 So as Christina said, if there were any other platform, it'd be suspicious, but not with

01:31:21.500 Rumble.

01:31:22.300 Yeah, exactly.

01:31:23.240 They're committed to all this stuff.

01:31:24.320 But what did you make of this is the first vaccine in which COVID or God forbid the vaccine

01:31:30.000 injured was raised.

01:31:31.820 Um, and I, I, like, it's been very annoying to me that nobody else has raised any of this.

01:31:39.400 I realize we're well past COVID and people don't, they don't want to be reminded, but

01:31:42.900 the vaccine injured are still out there.

01:31:44.660 And it's not just people with small injuries.

01:31:46.740 There have been some people catastrophically injured who are completely ignored.

01:31:51.520 And you look at those, the payouts, I didn't get to this because the question is going to

01:31:54.980 only be so long.

01:31:55.740 The payouts, these eight people have gotten are like a grand, maybe two, there's been

01:32:01.620 no big payout and there never will be.

01:32:04.320 And these vaccines were mandated in company after company and government after government

01:32:10.160 department.

01:32:11.980 Well, this is a thing, Megan.

01:32:13.380 I mean, this is, I think that the heart of everything we've been talking about in that

01:32:16.860 actually the Republican party is dealing with, which is the reason that all happened is because

01:32:21.940 there's complete government capture, capture of the regulatory agencies, capture of the

01:32:26.960 entire executive branch by these industries through campaign ad, uh, donations and packs

01:32:31.660 and all sorts of other things.

01:32:33.420 They have the revolving door where the executives of the industries go to run the regulatory agencies

01:32:37.580 and they run it in favor of these industries. 0.99

01:32:39.560 And when they leave, they get rewarded by getting hired, even better jobs, stock options.

01:32:44.120 It's, it's legalized corruption.

01:32:46.420 And so when everything is done from a public health perspective, it's all done to protect

01:32:50.560 the pharmaceutical companies.

01:32:52.720 So they had this mandate to develop a vaccine.

01:32:55.700 And of course they want to say, look, if you want us to develop a quick vaccine, we'll

01:32:58.560 do it.

01:32:58.860 But then you need to give us some protections.

01:33:00.180 It's not totally unreasonable.

01:33:01.640 The problem is, is that it was rendered taboo to talk about the deaths and the harms from

01:33:08.300 these COVID vaccines because it was deemed COVID nihilism.

01:33:11.660 There was widespread censorship on it.

01:33:13.720 The minute anyone talked about it, they were accused of wanting to encourage people not to

01:33:17.040 get the vaccine or to kill people.

01:33:18.720 And so there was every attempt made to repress it.

01:33:22.460 And that's exactly the problem is the establishment has so many ways of preventing debate that it

01:33:26.920 took until the fourth debate, even in a Republican party field, which is more open to talking

01:33:31.360 about this for this issue, even to be raised.

01:33:33.620 And I think a lot of people would find it controversial.

01:33:35.480 And I understand why they would think maybe there was tampering going on to prevent the discussion

01:33:39.460 because so much of that has happened.

01:33:42.180 I know it was kind of a confluence of events all at one time, but News Nation aired the full

01:33:46.920 thing on News Nation.

01:33:48.340 They had no desire to censor anything.

01:33:49.820 News Nation loved the question.

01:33:50.780 I can speak to that firsthand.

01:33:52.320 It's just sometimes you have these technical snafus and it's available in all forums now

01:33:56.080 online so you can see it for yourself.

01:33:58.040 By the way, not for nothing, here's, I mentioned this at the top of the hour, I intentionally

01:34:01.500 did not bring the COVID question to DeSantis because it would have been too easy, but he saw

01:34:07.360 the opportunity and jumped in and did have a powerful message on it.

01:34:09.920 Here he is in SOT 6.

01:34:12.340 We need a reckoning for what this government did during COVID-19.

01:34:16.340 That includes the MNRA shots.

01:34:18.260 They put it out.

01:34:19.120 It was experimental.

01:34:20.140 People wanted it.

01:34:21.000 Then the government started trying to mandate it to say you don't have a right to put food

01:34:25.560 on your table if you don't take an MNRA shot that was under emergency use.

01:34:30.040 They tried to take nurses away. 0.94

01:34:32.480 Now, in Florida, we block that.

01:34:34.160 We provided protections for everybody so that they wouldn't lose their job.

01:34:37.520 You also have the FDA approving an MNRA shot for six months old babies.

01:34:41.900 There was no data to support that.

01:34:44.780 They're doing it because big pharma will make money.

01:34:48.400 So I'm going to go in there, CDC, NIH, FDA.

01:34:52.280 We're going to clean house.

01:34:53.460 There's going to be a reckoning because right now nobody's been held accountable for any

01:34:57.540 of the damage and they're going to try to do it again.

01:35:00.380 When I'm president, this will never happen to our country ever again.

01:35:03.780 Glenn, the thing is, I believe him like I believe him.

01:35:09.800 He actually has gotten things done and he lived it firsthand.

01:35:13.640 And unlike so many others, he wasn't lured into the excessive authoritarian rule that we

01:35:20.720 were getting handed down.

01:35:23.200 Well, here's the thing, Megan.

01:35:24.540 This is what I don't understand because you asked me earlier why they're not attacking

01:35:28.700 Trump more directly, more harshly.

01:35:30.420 And we talked about that.

01:35:31.660 But in this, these kinds of things, I think is where they could without even alienating

01:35:36.160 Trump voters.

01:35:36.820 I mean, if you're going to be Chris Christie and just constantly talking about how much

01:35:39.220 Trump is a terrible human being, of course, Trump voters are going to hate you.

01:35:43.340 But what Ron DeSantis is able to do, I don't think he does nearly enough, is say Trump's 0.98

01:35:49.100 words were correct.

01:35:50.640 The problem is he didn't follow through with any of it.

01:35:53.120 He said he was going to build a wall.

01:35:54.580 Where's the wall?

01:35:55.320 I'll actually get it done.

01:35:56.220 I mean, he did say that, but even with the COVID thing, the reason we have Fauci is because

01:36:00.220 Trump didn't fire him.

01:36:01.640 The reason we have Christopher Wray is because Trump didn't fire him.

01:36:04.500 The deep state continued because Trump did nothing about it.

01:36:07.880 Trump had so many appointees, including Nikki Haley, who were in foreign policy positions,

01:36:13.360 even though their foreign policy was the exact opposite ideology of the one he said he believed

01:36:17.760 in.

01:36:18.260 So there was this constant mismatch between what Trump was promising people that he was going

01:36:22.560 to do, that he got them to vote, that got them to vote for him and the failure of the

01:36:26.760 follow through the actions.

01:36:28.240 And I think that's where DeSantis could do way more work in saying, this is why Trump

01:36:34.480 failed you.

01:36:35.260 Not because he was wrong.

01:36:36.260 He was right, but he didn't do it.

01:36:37.620 And I'll do it.

01:36:38.200 I think that could be a lot more direct.

01:36:39.500 And obviously, COVID is the perfect example where even a lot of liberals will now look back

01:36:43.560 and say, even though we attacked and smeared and maligned DeSantis while it was being done,

01:36:48.900 he turned out to be largely right.

01:36:50.520 He was willing to read the data and not go along with the herd mentality.

01:36:53.560 And that is an impressive attribute in a political leader.

01:36:57.220 It seems to me that Ron DeSantis is finally finding his groove in this race.

01:37:02.120 After the debate with Newsom, at this debate, he's finally finding his groove.

01:37:07.920 And the question is whether it's too late, whether it's too late.

01:37:11.180 You know, because if he had found that groove earlier, maybe this race would look a lot

01:37:16.160 different.

01:37:16.740 I don't know.

01:37:17.180 His future in politics is going to be very long, no matter what happens in this race.

01:37:21.660 Glenn Greenwald, your future in punditry and journalism is going to be very long as well.

01:37:25.980 It's always a pleasure, my friend.

01:37:27.140 Great to see you.

01:37:28.480 Great to see you, Megan.

01:37:29.300 Thanks a lot.

01:37:30.540 All right.

01:37:30.740 See you soon.

01:37:31.280 All right.

01:37:31.540 Tomorrow, we're going to be back and Maureen Callahan will be here.

01:37:34.960 I'm looking forward to talking to her.

01:37:36.000 She's always fun.

01:37:36.940 There's so much to catch up on.

01:37:38.200 Uh, and again, Tucker Carlson will be here for the full show on Monday and then we'll

01:37:44.360 leave a little time at the end for calls.

01:37:46.160 So set your calendar for that one.

01:37:47.860 We'll see you tomorrow.

01:37:50.280 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:37:52.380 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 07, 2023

Fiery and Fun GOP Debate, and Vivek vs. Haley, with Josh Holmes, Glenn Greenwald, Rich Lowry, and Jim Geraghty ｜ Ep. 681

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