The Megyn Kelly Show - Fraud Crockett's Defeat, Michelle Obama's New Racial Complaints, and Trump's Iran ＂War＂ Question, with Glenn Greenwald ｜ Ep. 1265

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00:01:00.000 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:01:06.380 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:01:15.760 We have major developments to update you on in America's bombing campaign against Iran.

00:01:20.800 As debate over whether we're actually, quote, at war or not becomes a new talking point.

00:01:26.200 But first, a glimpse at the future of the Democratic Party.

00:01:30.080 If you've been watching any left-wing media of late, you have probably noticed that they were excited about both of the major candidates who ran in the primary to be the Democrats' nominee for Senate in Texas.

00:01:41.780 James Tallarico, a Texas state rep, who is a Christian minister in training, faced off against Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who, as viewers of this show know, is well known for making some of the wildest claims of anyone in the Democratic Party.

00:01:58.760 And also appears to be a ridiculous diva who has her staff carry her bag around for her, carry her little pillow around for her, stuffing it behind her back so she's seated just so while she's on the Hill. 1.00

00:02:13.660 Acting like she's there as, you know, Queen Elizabeth, as opposed to a duly elected House representative. 0.96

00:02:22.740 Also, somebody who goes from sounding like a normal American from Texas when she gives her interviews when she first gets elected to someone who sounds like she's from the street when she's in front of a certain camera set with the eyelashes and the fake nails. 0.67

00:02:40.720 Okay, so there's absolutely nothing genuine about this person.

00:02:45.440 And it turns out Texans knew it.

00:02:49.660 For the folks on MS Now, thinking about these two, Tallarico and Jasmine Crockett, well, they could not decide who they loved more.

00:03:00.020 Watch.

00:03:00.960 Especially by Crockett and Tallarico.

00:03:03.260 They're two of the most effective communicators in the entire Democratic Party right now.

00:03:07.000 Yeah, when we were seeing the leaderboard there, you see them on your screen right now.

00:03:10.880 They look like a great pair of running mates.

00:03:14.500 You know what I mean?

00:03:15.840 Can one of you just be vice senator?

00:03:19.400 Can we do that?

00:03:20.760 Who would actually watch that for entertainment?

00:03:22.920 I mean, truly, like who is sitting down at night after a hard day at the office saying,

00:03:27.100 I want to spend time with Nicole Wallace and Rachel Maddow.

00:03:30.800 Like, I would have to have a lobotomy in order for that to be my choice.

00:03:36.700 Well, unfortunately, Rachel, there's no such thing as a vice senator and only one could win. 0.61

00:03:42.240 And last night, despite Jasmine Crockett whining about election fraud and pulling a last minute legal challenge out of her hat, 0.77

00:03:51.080 Tallarico prevailed.

00:03:52.880 Crockett's role on the national stage is likely over, at least for now.

00:03:57.800 And I have to say, she will be missed.

00:04:00.120 Who else is going to give us moments like these?

00:04:02.740 We are going to be in your face. 1.00

00:04:04.900 We are going to be on your asses. 0.99

00:04:06.760 We are going to make sure you understand what democracy looks like. 1.00

00:04:12.000 Donald Trump is a piece of shit. 1.00

00:04:13.480 OK, we know that. 1.00

00:04:14.340 When I first became a public defender, I had no criminal defense experience.

00:04:18.440 And I walked in and I told my boss, Charlie, I said, listen, you should hire me.

00:04:23.320 He said, why?

00:04:24.160 I said, because I'm black.

00:04:25.420 So I had to go around the country and educate people about what immigrants do for this country.

00:04:31.340 The fact is, ain't none of y'all trying to go and farm right now.

00:04:34.480 You're not.

00:04:35.740 We done picking cotton. 0.96

00:04:37.500 If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach blonde, bad built butch body. 0.96

00:04:44.500 That would not be engaging in personalities, correct?

00:04:46.920 I know that there was a time and a place.

00:04:50.380 And if they could, they would throw me back in chains.

00:04:53.840 If you could tell Donald Trump anything tonight, what would you tell him?

00:04:58.660 Stop being Putin's home.

00:05:00.460 Now, I am tired of the white tears.

00:05:02.360 You could speak directly to Elon Musk.

00:05:04.120 What would you say? 1.00

00:05:05.100 Fuck off. 1.00

00:05:05.960 But as somebody who understands history, when I see ICE, I see slave patrols. 1.00

00:05:11.300 Violence doesn't come from Democrats, just to be clear.

00:05:13.900 I mean, obviously, anyone can be a criminal, but it is MAGA.

00:05:18.560 They expect Democrats to kind of be the nice guys that we are.

00:05:22.220 Well, I am here to tell you, not only are we going to punch back, but we about to beat you down.

00:05:26.700 I've got to be honest.

00:05:29.360 She's about five minutes away from getting a show on the weekend at MSNBC.

00:05:34.020 That's clearly where life is going now.

00:05:36.240 Her house seat was basically all but eliminated, but she left it anyway, so it's no longer hers.

00:05:41.620 And she didn't make it in the Democrat primary.

00:05:45.340 It's not like she lost in the general.

00:05:46.500 She couldn't even get through the Democrat primary in her home state of Texas.

00:05:50.780 So that's done.

00:05:52.360 So, yeah, I'm thinking given the love that was espoused for her on the set by Rachel and Nicole, you know, maybe one of them will be willing to give up their spot for a black woman in America.

00:06:03.700 Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

00:06:06.140 White privilege, ladies. 1.00

00:06:08.080 Move aside. 0.88

00:06:09.320 Jasmine Crockett needs a job. 1.00

00:06:10.700 Or maybe they'll just give her Tiffany Cross's old show, which I think ran on the weekend.

00:06:18.600 Tiffany Cross then later got fired, let go for either misstating her finances on her accounting or just being a general racist. 1.00

00:06:28.360 Same with Joy Reid.

00:06:30.160 The latter was the explanation in her case, quite obviously.

00:06:33.540 And so they're looking for somebody.

00:06:35.740 And why not Jasmine Crockett?

00:06:37.480 Let's see what happens there.

00:06:38.740 Now, Tallarico is a white Christian male.

00:06:42.800 Nothing wrong with that.

00:06:44.440 But Democrats, it is.

00:06:47.740 There is something wrong with that if you're a Democrat.

00:06:49.580 However, they were willing to take the risk because they apparently thought that this was their best chance to win in Red, Texas.

00:06:56.240 Get a white guy, somebody said.

00:06:58.540 Oh, and a Christian.

00:06:59.740 Okay, that'll do it.

00:07:01.020 That's all you need.

00:07:02.240 White Christian man.

00:07:03.600 We're going to win.

00:07:04.480 But I'm not sure how comments like this one are going to play in the Lone Star State.

00:07:10.760 Take a listen to Tallarico in January of this year.

00:07:15.100 So what I've said is that our southern border should be like our front porch.

00:07:20.280 There should be a giant welcome mat out front and a lock on the door.

00:07:24.600 We can welcome immigrants who want to live the American dream.

00:07:27.620 We can build a pathway to citizenship for those neighbors who have been here making us richer and stronger.

00:07:33.080 And we can keep out people who mean to do us harm.

00:07:35.400 He's in trouble.

00:07:38.160 And his interpretation of scripture, I mean, it might not connect with your average Texas voter.

00:07:44.560 Check out this one from 2021.

00:07:46.240 The first two lines of the Bible, the first two lines in Genesis, use two different Hebrew words to describe God.

00:07:57.920 One is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity.

00:08:02.420 The second is the feminine Hebrew noun for spirit.

00:08:08.860 God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between.

00:08:15.520 God is non-binary. 0.95

00:08:18.960 Oh, my Lord.

00:08:21.300 Tallarico will take on either incumbent Senator John Cornyn or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton,

00:08:27.420 who are headed for a runoff to be decided on May 26th.

00:08:31.420 Tallarico is not the only baby-faced white dude Democrat in the news today, however.

00:08:38.320 President Joe Biden's Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, is profiled now in the Atlantic with the title,

00:08:46.460 Pete Buttigieg in the Wilderness.

00:08:49.600 Quote,

00:08:49.900 He has a beard, a splitting mall, which I had to look up.

00:08:55.080 It's like a tool that actually is used for splitting wood or attacking people, and a house in Michigan.

00:09:02.160 Is that enough to convince America that he's a man of the people?

00:09:07.500 Okay.

00:09:08.060 We're going to go with a big fat no there, because all I see when I see Pete Buttigieg is I remember Tucker Carlson's joke about him breastfeeding his babies.

00:09:16.900 It was a joke.

00:09:20.740 He was making fun of just how much feminine energy Pete Buttigieg has. 0.90

00:09:26.760 And that's not a reference to him being gay.

00:09:29.060 It's a reference to him being femme and soft and just kind of a P word.

00:09:34.440 Like, I'm sorry, but that's kind of what he projects.

00:09:38.460 Not tough guy.

00:09:39.780 More like elite, liberal, effete Democrat, notwithstanding his beard now and his splitting mall.

00:09:48.760 It's one of the many challenges he's going to be up against.

00:09:51.220 But these are the men that Democrats fall in love with.

00:09:53.400 I mean, truly, this is their ideal when it comes to what a real man is.

00:10:01.500 I mean, in Texas, you're going to go with a guy who says the border should be like the front porch.

00:10:07.760 What?

00:10:08.500 In Texas, you're going to go with a guy who says non-binary for God, that God is non-binary?

00:10:14.360 Like, I don't know how much it's going to take for them to learn.

00:10:17.640 But I'm certainly going to enjoy watching as they do.

00:10:21.200 Here to react to all this and more is the first guest in the history of the MK show, Glenn Greenwald, our official godfather.

00:10:28.580 He is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

00:10:31.040 That's right.

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00:11:54.260 Glenn, great to see you.

00:11:56.500 How are you?

00:11:57.220 Hi, Megan.

00:11:57.760 Good to see you, as always.

00:11:59.460 See, you're living proof one can be a gay man and not project effete feminine energy. 0.98

00:12:07.160 I don't get that off of you.

00:12:08.660 And that's the problem with Pete Buttigieg's beard and splitting mall or not.

00:12:12.600 Well, I mean, this is basically like Pete Buttigieg's living in the woods or whatever is basically Tim Waltz's camouflage hat.

00:12:24.200 And I think all of this, there's a lot to say here, but this really – everything you just went over I think illustrates the core problem of the Democratic Party.

00:12:32.060 Before Trump, the ideal Democratic politician was somebody who went to Harvard and then Yale Law School and then worked at Goldman Sachs and then moved to McKinsey like Pete Buttigieg basically did, a sort of amalgam of everything I just said.

00:12:46.540 And they were just these very kind of a feat, you know, cosmopolitan people who oozed East Coast values and just grew increasingly separate from the ordinary American.

00:12:57.780 And then you have Trump comes along who, although he grew up very wealthy and became a billionaire and has lived a very kind of, you know, flamboyant life, he always had this kind of resentment against the elites, partly from growing up in Queens and being looked down on by Manhattan elites even once he was building the largest buildings.

00:13:16.800 Things that always made him a man of the people, like even in his tabloid days in New York, he really resonated with – I remember one time he was always, you know, in the news.

00:13:25.460 And I remember him saying when I lived in New York at the time, it was like in the late 80s, early 90s, he said, yeah, I go to the construction sites and the guys who recognize me that I'm really happiest about are like the construction guys.

00:13:35.980 That's what real fame is.

00:13:37.200 Like he always wanted that kind of a connection.

00:13:40.080 That's what he most valued maybe because that's what he found easiest.

00:13:42.880 And Democrats are now in this situation where they're trying so hard to replicate it, but all they know how to do is like mimic it like a monkey. 0.99

00:13:51.300 You know, like they curse more, like Chuck Schumer goes on, he's like the bastards, you know, which like they told him to do. 1.00

00:13:59.060 Sometimes he like pretends to almost curse and he's like, God damn – excuse me, God darn it. 0.99

00:14:04.040 And he pretends like he's so angry that he just can't control himself. 0.99

00:14:06.720 That's so true.

00:14:07.780 And this is what – this is why they think Jasmine Crockett is appealing because they think she is what Trump is.

00:14:13.460 The problem is, among many, one of the main problems is that it's all vapid when these Democrats are doing it.

00:14:20.900 Like what does Pete Buttigieg stand for, right?

00:14:23.140 Trump came in with this whole, you know, very aggressive, assertive, puge personality, didn't abide by any of the comportmental limits or roles that politicians used to be forced to abide by. 0.99

00:14:33.000 But he had a very clear set of political beliefs, love him or hate him, immigration, trade, U.S. foreign policy, war, the unfairness of how America is treated by other countries.

00:14:44.920 It was a very – you know, tough on crime.

00:14:47.260 These were things that were like the bedrock of his worldview.

00:14:51.140 Tell me what Jasmine Crockett or Pete Buttigieg believe in that's even remotely on the same level of conviction aside from social issues like culture work.

00:15:01.000 Themselves.

00:15:01.560 Yeah, they're also – and this is – I'm sorry.

00:15:05.780 I have so much to say when you've talked about people like Jasmine Crockett and James Tabarico and Democrats.

00:15:10.000 Yes, same.

00:15:10.340 So let me just add one more point, which is this is very much similar to AOC, by the way.

00:15:14.780 Like I just want to say like one of the things that Marjorie Taylor Greene first said – I've always liked Marjorie Taylor Greene.

00:15:19.860 I always thought Marjorie Taylor Greene still do think she's very smart and insightful. 0.99

00:15:23.240 And, of course, Democrats look at her and think she's stupid because she has a Southern accent. 1.00

00:15:26.680 I've always thought she was very smart. 0.99

00:15:28.300 And one of the things Marjorie Taylor Greene used to always say about AOC because she served in the House with her all those years, she didn't attack AOC the way most people on the right did.

00:15:36.620 Oh, she's a communist, she's a socialist, she's a radical. 0.99

00:15:39.700 That's like giving too much credit to AOC.

00:15:41.840 That suggests that AOC has these like bedrock convictions that are immovable.

00:15:46.900 She's a hardcore ideologue. 1.00

00:15:48.420 She's not.

00:15:49.100 She's a careerist.

00:15:50.040 And so Marjorie Taylor Greene would always attack AOC not by calling her a communist but by saying she's a fraud and a tool of the establishment and a conniver and a climber, which is exactly what AOC is. 0.99

00:16:01.160 She's become – she went from we're going to do a revolution against the Democratic Party to the most valuable weapon the Democratic Party has.

00:16:08.140 And I think that's true of like Jasmine Crockett, this perception that she's on the left.

00:16:12.600 It's really not true.

00:16:13.660 She had a lot of APAC money.

00:16:15.420 She came out of the crypto industry.

00:16:17.040 Banks love her.

00:16:18.540 Everything is a fraud with these people.

00:16:20.120 It's like an inch deep.

00:16:21.580 Same with Pete Buttigieg.

00:16:22.300 They are the byproduct of this very elite East Coast kind of culture that they know now they have to distance themselves from, but it's in their blood and bones.

00:16:31.280 You don't extract that.

00:16:32.360 No matter how, what accent you use or what kind of ghetto talk you try and pretend you have or you dress up in like plaid shirts and go out into the woods, it just oozes out of you. 0.95

00:16:41.760 And people can smell that authenticity.

00:16:44.140 That's one thing you cannot fool Americans about.

00:16:45.960 That is speaking of the fake accent and Jasmine Crockett, we've got to play this, that her her miraculous turnaround. 0.99

00:16:54.040 Normally, if you grow up, you know, talking street, most people who would run for federal office might might aspire to, like, get rid of that accent and just speak with with a regular accent.

00:17:05.080 And she went the opposite way in order to up her cool factor and wound up making a fool out of herself. 1.00

00:17:12.060 Jasmine Crockett before and after.

00:17:13.560 So that's six.

00:17:14.060 In my mind, I'm thinking, I just got to Austin and I had to beat five people to get here.

00:17:20.900 I don't know about this.

00:17:22.380 Y'all don't know what white privilege looks like, but I'm going to show you a little bit of something.

00:17:26.200 It's a huge responsibility.

00:17:27.900 You know, the congressional seat is over four times as large as my house seat.

00:17:32.180 I'm trying to get clarification.

00:17:33.480 Look it, calm down.

00:17:34.860 Calm down.

00:17:35.240 No, no, no, no, because this is what y'all do.

00:17:37.720 And I was just starting to get into the rhythm of doing constituent services.

00:17:41.360 They send them to Texas. 0.81

00:17:42.640 They send them to Florida, every deplorable state that we can think about.

00:17:45.780 They usually coming out of y'all's think tank.

00:17:48.220 There was someone that talked to me and said, in fact, a former ambassador in the Clinton administration.

00:17:54.940 Don't tell me to calm down because y'all talk noise and then you're out of control.

00:17:59.700 He said, Jasmine, what you have to realize is that if you are really going to make change, it's not going to be in the Texas house. 0.94

00:18:08.620 He said, you did a great job playing defense, but you have a chance to play offense.

00:18:13.840 Someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach blonde, bad built butch body. 0.95

00:18:20.340 OK, so she's a fraud and it didn't take much for even the Texas Democrats who are real Democrats to see right through her, Glenn.

00:18:33.000 And she got that seat running as the girl in the red velvet jacket there who was just sort of sweet sounding normal, had gone to law school, had been a public defender and was trying to represent her hometown community. 1.00

00:18:47.240 And then she turned into this sort of wannabe rap star with the way she spoke and what she said and some sort of badass street fighter. 1.00

00:18:59.120 And they bounced her ass right out of there. 1.00

00:19:02.540 Yeah, that is one thing I actually disagreed with you about in your intro when you said you thought she was headed toward an MS Now show. 0.98

00:19:09.220 I actually think she's headed to like some Housewives franchise on Bravo. 1.00

00:19:14.040 Like, that's always what she's most reminded me of.

00:19:16.080 Good bet, too.

00:19:16.460 You know, it's the way she just like – she is good at attracting attention by turning herself into kind of like a freak show. 1.00

00:19:22.760 And so cable news loves her, can't get enough of her, eats her up. 0.92

00:19:26.500 She's interesting.

00:19:27.660 Like, even in – you know, you talk about her more than you would just like the average Democrat.

00:19:32.100 You have to give her that.

00:19:33.660 But they're all negative traits, right?

00:19:36.120 Like, if I go onto the street and start stabbing my eyes out with a fork, a lot of people are going to look at me more than like the people walking to their office.

00:19:42.280 It doesn't mean it's a positive thing, but it is true. 1.00

00:19:44.500 I'll attract more attention.

00:19:45.300 She's figured out that game.

00:19:47.260 And that's the thing, Megan.

00:19:48.640 You know, like Donald Trump proved more than anybody and understood more than anybody, media attention and fame and just having attention always being on you is an incredible political asset.

00:20:00.240 She had that advantage a zillion times over James Tallarico because she did get catapulted by the CNNs and MSNBCs, now MSNs, into this national figure.

00:20:11.800 And her name recognition was 40 points higher.

00:20:15.240 But the more they looked at her and the more they heard from James Tallarico, they're like – it isn't even just an electability issue where they thought James Tallarico was more electable.

00:20:24.620 It's just that they turned away from her.

00:20:26.620 And her campaign matched that diva behavior that you were describing. 1.00

00:20:29.840 They were aggressive with reporters, kicking reporters out who wrote negatively about her, barely even campaigning, not doing any of the things that – they barely had a campaign.

00:20:38.940 It was just a disorganized mess that she thought she was going to win on the strength of her personality.

00:20:43.180 The more Texans saw for South Texas Democrats.

00:20:44.900 Reports – we covered this last year that she's lazy, that she wasn't showing up to Capitol Hill for the hearings. 1.00

00:20:51.900 She didn't want to do her job.

00:20:53.200 She wanted to work from home.

00:20:54.760 She wanted to be driven around in fancy cars and, you know, make sure somebody opens the door for her and be treated like, you know, the queen she thinks she is. 1.00

00:21:02.160 Like, that doesn't get you anywhere.

00:21:03.280 I'm sorry, but, like, if you're not willing to work hard, especially as a young person, my God, like, that's when we have energy.

00:21:08.640 You know, like, the 32-year-old me had a lot more energy than I have today.

00:21:14.880 I still have decent energy.

00:21:16.180 But my point is simply, if you're out of it when you're still in your 30s, forget about it. 0.99

00:21:20.420 Plus, she's just a liar. 1.00

00:21:21.740 Like, she wanted us to believe over and over that she had some, like, hardscrabble background and she really climbed her way up, just like AOC. 0.98

00:21:28.080 And these were lies.

00:21:29.580 Benny Johnson went to her hometown and actually figured out what her real background was in an amazing clip.

00:21:35.020 Here it is again, SOT 7.

00:21:38.140 And we played it when he first hit with it about six months ago.

00:21:40.920 Watch.

00:21:41.360 It is rough.

00:21:42.220 It is tough.

00:21:43.100 It is hood and it is foul, just like Jasmine Crockett. 1.00

00:21:46.840 That's the whole persona. 1.00

00:21:48.200 She's a fraud. 1.00

00:21:49.260 This is where Jasmine says she's from, but this is where Jasmine's really from. 0.68

00:21:58.240 Welcome to St. Louis, specifically the Republican suburbs of St. Louis, with the mansions, country clubs, and private schools.

00:22:05.560 This is where Jasmine Crockett was raised.

00:22:07.360 We're talking quiet suburbs, manicured lawns, college brochures, and the mailbox.

00:22:11.920 And this is where Jasmine Crockett went to school.

00:22:15.560 It's called the Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School.

00:22:20.640 It's one of the most prestigious institutions in the entire country.

00:22:24.660 Also one of the most expensive.

00:22:26.580 Did your high school have its own private Wimbledon?

00:22:31.960 Did your high school have its own aquatic center on site?

00:22:36.900 Did your high school have its own private dock and pond teeming with colorful fish and wildlife?

00:22:42.600 I think not.

00:22:44.220 Well done, Benny Johnson.

00:22:47.260 Mine didn't.

00:22:47.960 I went to public school in upstate New York.

00:22:49.520 My parents paid taxes and they had to take me.

00:22:51.760 How about yours, Glenn?

00:22:52.980 I went to public school as well.

00:22:54.340 We definitely did not have a pond with exotic fish nor a bull on Wimbledon or anything even remotely similar to that.

00:23:01.040 It's like the way Megan, that AOC, tries to pretend that she's from the Bronx when in reality she's from Westchester.

00:23:07.440 And I wanted to make this point about Jasmine Crockett.

00:23:09.880 It's like if somebody grows up in the inner city or in a predominantly black neighborhood where in the south or wherever where people do speak that way,

00:23:19.320 and then they kind of learn when they enter professional contacts to speak a little bit differently.

00:23:23.380 I think we all do that, right?

00:23:24.380 We speak differently with our childhood friends or our family and differently in a public context.

00:23:30.020 That would be one thing.

00:23:31.340 But what she's doing is almost like a minstrel show.

00:23:33.400 That's not how she speaks.

00:23:35.200 And as you said, when she ran for office, that wasn't how she spoke. 0.57

00:23:38.800 She was – yes, she was a public defender, but she was also a corporate lawyer. 0.63

00:23:42.120 This is what I'm saying.

00:23:42.820 Like she is a very – I think a lot of people look at black Democrats, especially like black women, and if they're particularly boisterous, even more so like a Maxine Waters or whatever, 1.00

00:23:52.340 and they say, oh, they must be like super left-wing, the reality is often they're not.

00:23:57.020 Even mostly they're like funded by AIPAC.

00:23:59.340 They're funded by Wall Street.

00:24:01.080 Maxine Waters was the chair of the financial services committee for years, and all the bankers loved her.

00:24:08.080 These are people who go and make themselves, as Marjorie Hill Green said about AOC, establishment tools.

00:24:14.440 And that's what makes it extra offensive that Jasmine Crockett pretends to be this because if it'll – like, you know, Jesse Jackson would speak like that. 0.80

00:24:23.180 But Jesse Jackson grew up like that.

00:24:24.840 That was his politics.

00:24:26.200 That was authentic.

00:24:27.540 Yeah, exactly.

00:24:28.560 And no one ever commented on it when it was obviously authentic.

00:24:31.540 It's only when it's an obvious affect that you make it a thing that it's fair game.

00:24:36.860 Yeah, it becomes patronizing.

00:24:38.680 You know, like who is this for?

00:24:39.960 I mean, it's probably mostly for white liberals, to be honest.

00:24:43.040 I think that's really her big fan base.

00:24:45.920 That's why Rachel's so enamored.

00:24:48.500 By the way, Megan, just one thing.

00:24:50.420 Like, I was amazed.

00:24:51.400 Like, I'm always amazed by this.

00:24:52.820 I don't know if you are, but like when you said, like, oh, listen to these MS Now liberals saying how great both Jackson Crockett and James Tyler Rico are, and the first voice is Nicole Wallace.

00:25:00.460 I still – like, Nicole Wallace, 20 years ago, was George Bush and Dick Cheney's communications director defending the Iraq War, defending every one of those conservative policies.

00:25:13.020 And she supposedly just got alienated from Bobbukins because she didn't like Trump, but she had a complete transformation and turned into an overnight liberal for her career.

00:25:21.220 Talking about frauds.

00:25:22.380 But in any event, yeah, I mean, the idea that, like, these two are the future of the Democratic Party – and notice, it's all surface stuff.

00:25:30.940 It's all surface.

00:25:31.680 It has nothing to do with, like, the agenda.

00:25:34.920 Let's check in on another James Tallarico Sot to see if he's the future of the Democrat Party and is going to fly as a statewide choice in Texas.

00:25:43.440 Here he is in November 2022 at his home church.

00:25:47.020 Before we go further, I want to acknowledge that our trans community needs abortion care, too.

00:25:53.380 Defending trans Texans is something we have to do every day at the state capitol.

00:25:58.140 And you better believe I'll be giving sermons on that, too.

00:26:01.360 So when I use the word woman, it should not be understood as an exhaustive term, but rather as a lens through which to understand, examine, and interrogate patriarchy.

00:26:12.420 Similar to how we specify anti-black racism when talking about police violence, sometimes it's helpful to locate a particular moment within a particular movement.

00:26:22.720 Okay.

00:26:23.920 Okay.

00:26:24.760 Those clips are going to be on loop until we get to the general election, whether it's Tallarico versus Paxton or Tallarico versus Cornyn.

00:26:33.580 And, frankly, I think it's going to be Paxton.

00:26:35.480 I feel like Texans have had enough of the neocon Cornyn.

00:26:39.160 Like, they're ready for something new.

00:26:40.380 Paxton's got his own baggage.

00:26:41.680 But he seems pretty beloved, and he's Trumpian, which is, you know, all the rage.

00:26:46.160 Very in, for obvious reasons.

00:26:47.560 So we'll see.

00:26:48.320 But can you imagine this guy versus Ken Paxton in a race?

00:26:51.900 He's glad that he's going to get eaten alive.

00:26:55.820 You know, well, just first of all, like, it is interesting because Christianity can have kind of a left-wing tinge, like in Latin America, for example.

00:27:04.260 Yes, it can.

00:27:05.180 It's very associated with the left.

00:27:05.580 But not by calling God non-binary and saying the Bible says that trans people needs abortions.

00:27:11.540 It's usually like a left-wing populist, economic populism, like, you know, Jesus taught us to—

00:27:16.700 Or immigration.

00:27:17.500 Or immigration, exactly.

00:27:18.520 In my church.

00:27:18.860 You can make—

00:27:19.680 Catholic church.

00:27:20.700 Absolutely, absolutely.

00:27:21.900 Yeah, I mean, the pope has, you know, against the death penalty, you know, always against wars, condemning aggression.

00:27:30.000 So you can make a—you can definitely construct a very Christian, like, genuinely Christian argument for, like, left-wing or liberal economic populism and foreign policy non-interventionism for sure.

00:27:43.580 But that stuff, I don't know.

00:27:45.680 Maybe it was 2021.

00:27:46.920 I don't know if he's from an extremely liberal district.

00:27:48.940 It was, like, right in the wake of the Black Lives Matter and all the, like, obligatory speech where they all started talking that way. 0.98

00:27:56.040 It just aged so poorly.

00:27:58.220 And I don't think that, by the way, that most voters vote on trans stuff.

00:28:02.520 But if there's a perception that somebody so far afield, like, sounding is—like, he's not just saying, like, hey, let's be kind and, you know, decent and tolerant to our trans neighbors.

00:28:12.600 He's saying the Bible teaches that trans people have to get abortions, too.

00:28:17.100 Like, it just—that stuff sounds so extremist that even though that isn't their main issue or close to it, it just—it makes them seem, again, like, very distant from their everyday lives and what they think about and how they speak.

00:28:28.800 Yes, especially when he's saying God is non-binary, like, all of it is going to make wonderful campaign ads. 1.00

00:28:36.480 I know the Democrats today, some of them are heaving a sigh of relief that he prevailed over Crockett, who many did not believe had a chance at statewide office in Texas.

00:28:47.400 And they think this guy is sort of the kinder, gentler, you know, more sellable candidate.

00:28:53.440 Maybe he is versus Crockett.

00:28:55.280 But I'm not entirely sure of that, to be honest, because he's pretty radical in his policies, as we've been playing in the first 26 minutes here.

00:29:03.420 And it's just going to get shoved down his throat no matter who the Republican candidate is.

00:29:07.560 It's just another example, as far as I'm concerned, of Democrats not understanding the constituency.

00:29:12.840 Before we leave Jasmine Crockett, because we may be leaving her forever, depending on, you know, what happens with her.

00:29:18.240 Unless we cover—let's we do a podcast together about Bravo shows, in which case we might have the opportunity to cover her. 0.56

00:29:24.000 Well, whenever you're on, we do that toward the end.

00:29:27.260 And today we do have more Michelle Obama for you, Glenn Greenwald.

00:29:30.260 But let's not leave Jasmine before showing Benny's comparison of Jasmine Crockett's district in South Dallas with her hometown.

00:29:40.380 Here's what your average street looks like in South Dallas, where Jasmine Crockett represents. 0.99

00:29:46.080 Best part about Jasmine Crockett's district is free public bathrooms. 1.00

00:29:50.540 And here's what your average street looks like in St. Louis, in the suburbs where Jasmine Crockett's from. 0.57

00:29:56.320 Here's an elementary school in the heart of Jasmine Crockett's district.

00:29:59.400 Let's go ahead and check on the environment in which these kids are learning.

00:30:02.820 You have burned down buildings in every direction.

00:30:07.280 Nothing's open.

00:30:08.000 FDJT has been tagged on this building.

00:30:10.880 Here's the walkway to school in Crockett's district.

00:30:15.020 This is what the children have to walk through every single day.

00:30:21.200 I don't know how many booze bottles there are, how many beer cans, and how much junk.

00:30:26.960 And here's what a school looks like in St. Louis.

00:30:29.220 And here's what stores and shopping centers look like in South Dallas.

00:30:39.200 And here's what stores and shopping centers look like in St. Louis.

00:30:42.420 Get the point?

00:30:43.040 Yeah, he's did such a great job of that whole thing that she parachuted in.

00:30:49.560 She said, oh, I'm one of you.

00:30:51.480 She got elected.

00:30:52.900 She started talking street like she was from the Bronx or whatever the equivalent is in Texas.

00:30:58.220 And it was all lies.

00:31:00.820 I think even though you're right, she attracts attention for doing some of this stuff. 0.53

00:31:05.300 There's a shelf life for people like this, you know, because to your point as well, it's one thing if it's authentic.

00:31:11.500 And you're Trump and you have the Brooklyn accent because it's, you know, you came by, honestly, you were born in Queens.

00:31:17.500 The Queens accent, I guess there is a slight difference.

00:31:20.060 My dad's from Brooklyn, or was.

00:31:22.220 In any event, it's one thing if it's authentic.

00:31:23.820 And it's another if it's an affectation and it really doesn't take much to see the difference.

00:31:29.440 Yeah, I mean, I think basically the two things that are most destructive for a political candidate are, number one, feeling, seeming like they're tied to the establishment.

00:31:39.280 I do think that was Kamala Harris's biggest problem. 0.97

00:31:41.360 I think I've said before on your show, my impression of her is always that she had just walked out of like a board of directors meeting of Aetna where they were doing like actuary tables and she was like the general counsel.

00:31:50.740 I love it every time.

00:31:52.000 Yeah, I mean, that is what she just gives me so much.

00:31:54.380 And I think that's what people got from her.

00:31:56.200 And she tried a little bit of that like code switching in the way she spoke to and it was even less convincing.

00:32:02.100 Oh, yeah.

00:32:02.600 But any kind of reeking of establishment.

00:32:05.420 Exactly, exactly.

00:32:06.780 And she used to have an Indian accent when she first ran in California as well. 0.99

00:32:09.740 That completely disappeared.

00:32:11.360 But, yeah, so that's one thing.

00:32:13.640 And that's what Pete, that's Pete Buttigieg's problem.

00:32:15.680 You know, he can wear as many like camouflage hats as he wants.

00:32:18.240 He's never going to escape what he really is.

00:32:20.620 And as you said at the beginning, it's very effete.

00:32:23.340 It's not because he's gay or anything else.

00:32:24.840 He's just like very, he wanted to go and just like work with numbers in an office and just like be a very kind of rule abiding, you know, conformant. 0.86

00:32:32.800 This is a very weak behavior.

00:32:34.520 And then the other problem is when people think that you're fake.

00:32:37.420 You know, when people think that you are inauthentic, when you're when you're trying to calm them or snow them.

00:32:41.880 And good politicians can con people like Bill Clinton was very good at that.

00:32:45.660 Obama was good at that.

00:32:46.720 Trump has that, too.

00:32:48.120 But at the core, you need to be authentic because, as I said before, especially more so now where there's so much exposure there, you know, they don't just go on like Sunday shows or a presidential debate twice a year.

00:32:58.300 There's constant exposure.

00:33:00.160 If you're fake, people are going to sniff it out.

00:33:01.760 Well, it's funny how all these Democrats in trying to figure out how to make themselves have mass appeal are growing facial hair from Ezra Klein to Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut to now Pete Buttigieg.

00:33:15.780 Like, I'm going to start looking like Paul Bunyan and that will make me sellable to the larger electorate.

00:33:23.380 So The Atlantic bought it hook, line and sinker and sitting with Buttigieg.

00:33:27.180 And they write that the title of the piece, as I mentioned, is Pete Buttigieg in the Wilderness.

00:33:31.760 I quoted the line.

00:33:32.940 He has a beard, a splitting mall and a house in Michigan.

00:33:36.060 Is that enough to convince America that he's a man of the people?

00:33:39.580 This is the big setup piece for his presidential campaign.

00:33:42.840 This is like this is how he's kicking it off.

00:33:45.200 Make no mistake about it.

00:33:46.500 Twenty twenty eight is right around the corner.

00:33:48.540 We're already at twenty six.

00:33:49.640 It's on.

00:33:50.760 And this is Pete Buttigieg getting it off with The Atlantic, getting it off to a start.

00:33:55.160 Lead line of the article in May 2001 at Harvard's Institute of Politics.

00:34:00.260 A 19 year old freshman named Peter Buttigieg asked David Gergen, a Harvard professor and

00:34:06.480 horse whisperer to five presidents, a question that he might have reserved for himself.

00:34:10.620 A couple of decades later, Peter, who had not yet transformed into Pete, let alone Mayor

00:34:15.200 Pete, said he loved the West Wing, but could feel the idealism reflected in the show slipping

00:34:20.680 away from politics in real life.

00:34:23.280 Quote, the presidency has now devolved into what's called the NBA White House or the corporate

00:34:30.940 model, he said, with the plaintive tone of a child asking about the spirit of Christmas.

00:34:36.920 Quote, is that magic really gone forever?

00:34:41.560 Worse than being underused.

00:34:42.940 As they go on to talk about him is is being used in a campaign to destined for failure.

00:34:48.920 And they talk about Kamala Harris and how she considered Pete Buttigieg, but then overruled

00:34:55.400 him and talked about how he felt about this.

00:34:59.800 They say, OK, we were already asking a lot of America she wrote in her memoir and a lack

00:35:04.400 of grace.

00:35:04.800 Buttigieg says never thanked her for that slight being passed over has left him the most prominent

00:35:11.140 Biden stalwart to remain viable as a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2028.

00:35:15.560 OK, so they're setting it all up like he see how she left him the most prominent Biden

00:35:21.540 stalwart.

00:35:22.080 So he's still got the establishment Dems.

00:35:24.300 He's viable as a candidate for the Democratic nomination.

00:35:27.560 And here he was wistfully talking about the West Wing.

00:35:30.500 Oh, and he went to Harvard.

00:35:31.420 Did we mention he was at Harvard's Institute of Politics and idealistic and he has a beard

00:35:35.860 and a splitting wall.

00:35:36.720 So you see it all.

00:35:37.460 It's not even subtle, Glenn.

00:35:39.280 No, this is exactly what I mean, Megan.

00:35:40.960 So I don't know what you were like at 19.

00:35:42.860 I think I have some ideas.

00:35:44.260 I know what I was like at 19.

00:35:45.840 I was very, very bad, blonde, bleached hair.

00:35:50.000 Speaking of bleached blonde hair out of a box because I was poor and that's how you had

00:35:55.180 to do it.

00:35:56.100 Right.

00:35:56.340 And like, I don't know.

00:35:57.320 I just I wasn't at Harvard, like tugging on the coattails of David Gergen, like trying

00:36:02.400 to form some men.

00:36:03.660 I don't know for people who don't know.

00:36:04.720 David Gergen is like the ultimate Washington insider was like the whisper to multiple presidents

00:36:10.120 in both parties, like the Supreme Washington establishment centrist or moderate or whatever.

00:36:14.840 And then he went we was on CNN, like one of the wise men of Washington.

00:36:18.300 And that is who Pete Buttigieg is.

00:36:20.600 It was who he was since he was very young.

00:36:22.600 Like this is the this is the the core of somebody that cannot change.

00:36:26.720 You can change how they dress.

00:36:27.920 You can change whether they have facial hair.

00:36:30.080 You can change what kind of hat they wear.

00:36:32.100 But like who you are is who you are.

00:36:34.480 And you can evolve and grow and all of that.

00:36:36.520 But you cannot escape that core personality that is clearly still Pete Buttigieg.

00:36:41.560 And that is who he is.

00:36:43.480 Harvard and David Gergen and McKinsey.

00:36:45.540 And and also like this electoral success.

00:36:48.140 You know, you know how many votes he got when he won to be mayor of South Bend.

00:36:51.400 And the maximum like in both times is like 8000 people, 8000 votes.

00:36:56.580 Oh, wow.

00:36:57.240 And wow, he the whole thing is like built on a fake artifice, like a total house of cards.

00:37:04.380 Well, here's so the Atlantic loves it.

00:37:06.240 I mean, oh, yeah.

00:37:06.800 Like I said, line and sinker.

00:37:08.200 He sounds like the younger member of the old Democratic Party, the one that flourished before Trump, brainy, credentialed and elite, liberal, but not progressive and personable.

00:37:20.720 But this might be key, frightfully boring.

00:37:24.380 Buttigieg's technocracy made flesh.

00:37:27.800 Who could be safer than a politician who has had his card punched at all the great meritocratic institutions and who has followed the modern cursus honorum, some sort of Latin honorum, from local office to national?

00:37:42.360 And who could be less Trumpian?

00:37:44.600 He's unashamed of technical competence, even when it makes him sound dweebish.

00:37:50.720 Without embarrassment, he bragged to me during his days as a management consultant.

00:37:55.260 He had worked with data sets, quote, too big for Excel to handle.

00:37:59.640 Ha ha ha.

00:38:00.760 And then they go on to say the following.

00:38:02.680 Hold on.

00:38:03.360 Buckle up. 0.96

00:38:04.700 Buttigieg's critics seem to fault him for the vaguest reasons, many of which come down to he's too perfect, Glenn.

00:38:13.060 I'm quoting for the piece.

00:38:14.380 He's too perfect.

00:38:16.120 That's the problem with Pete Buttigieg.

00:38:18.360 Now he gets to it.

00:38:19.700 He's not authentic.

00:38:20.820 He's not a man of the people.

00:38:22.860 It's an odd line of attack.

00:38:24.660 Is it possible to be too perfect?

00:38:26.680 Is perfection a flaw?

00:38:28.740 This is unbelievable.

00:38:30.760 I'm sure J.D. Vance is getting exactly this treatment in The Atlantic.

00:38:34.240 Um, social psychology has documented something known as the pretfall effect, the distrust of people deemed too perfect.

00:38:43.440 It turns out that people like smart, charismatic types, but they really like smart, charismatic types who screw up now and then and do not just ace every test and land every joke.

00:38:54.400 Like, this, it's the interview question.

00:38:58.400 What, what are some of your flaws?

00:38:59.980 Exactly.

00:39:00.420 I work too hard.

00:39:01.900 I'm a perfectionist.

00:39:03.380 And this writer, hook, line, and sinker, as I said, Graham Wood, who teaches at Yale and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was like, I'm in love.

00:39:14.980 No, but you know what's so funny, Megan, is when I was just describing why Pete Buttigieg is such a pathetically weak candidate, why he'll never have this, like, compelling appeal, I actually sounded almost identical to the, to the Atlantic article, at least until I got to the part about how he's too perfect, that he is, like, from a different political era, like, from the Obama era, where people wanted technocrats and, like, very kind of cold, you know, people who came out of establishment institutions.

00:39:43.500 The authority and credibility of all those institutions are in collapse.

00:39:47.820 And the more you have to do with them, the more you smell like them, the more you seem like you're a byproduct of them, the weaker you are. 0.76

00:39:54.720 So, yeah, maybe he would have been a good, like, candidate in, in, like, the Democratic Party of Barack Obama in 2012 or 2008.

00:40:02.740 Trump destroyed all of that, that, that political era, that whole political appeal.

00:40:06.980 And you see, like, smarter politicians like Gavin Newsom who realize that and are also trying to show that they're just kind of, like, regular guys who speak in regular speak.

00:40:16.980 Pete Buttigieg doesn't have it in him.

00:40:18.860 And that, the Atlantic is, like, ground zero for political, a steady political establishment.

00:40:24.800 And so, of course, they still think those are appealing traits when, in reality, they're fatal.

00:40:29.420 Yes, so, and by the way, Newsom is another person lying about his origin story.

00:40:36.140 And one other excerpt from this piece.

00:40:38.300 He never spoke more slowly or sounded more rehearsed than when I asked him about the issue he will be most harshly critiqued on if he runs, his silence during Biden's cognitive decline.

00:40:50.020 Quote, we all saw what we saw, that he was old, he said.

00:40:55.160 I never saw a decision that was different or worse because he was old, end quote.

00:41:01.600 And as long as the decision-making was sound, Buttigieg had no duty to pull a senility alarm.

00:41:08.940 Well, this will be a problem for Pete Buttigieg among other Democrats running.

00:41:13.600 Why didn't they say anything about Biden's cognitive decline?

00:41:17.160 He was part of the administration, said nothing.

00:41:20.040 Gavin Newsom wasn't part of the administration, but he's also going to get questioned about it because he was such a huge Gavin Newsom.

00:41:25.960 Sorry, well, yeah, Gavin Newsom backer, but Joe Biden backer.

00:41:30.140 The Emerson poll that was most recent on Democratic presidential possibilities hit February 26th, says the following.

00:41:39.000 Newsom leads the pack at 20%.

00:41:41.520 Buttigieg is second at 16.

00:41:44.640 Harris is third at 13.

00:41:47.400 AOC is fourth at nine.

00:41:49.260 Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has 7%.

00:41:51.940 Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear at 5%.

00:41:54.620 24% are undecided.

00:41:56.380 So right now, if you were to go by today, it's Newsom versus Buttigieg for this contest.

00:42:02.520 And they are very different.

00:42:05.100 I mean, I'm not going to lie.

00:42:07.860 Every woman I talk to, when you say, you know, I'm constantly like, Gavin Newsom.

00:42:12.840 And every woman, even the Republican ones are like, he is hot.

00:42:17.340 It doesn't hurt in politics to be very good looking.

00:42:22.040 Pete Buttigieg is not.

00:42:23.100 You don't look at him and think hot.

00:42:24.820 But he's trying to get, like, cooler with the beard and the plaid, right?

00:42:31.420 The equivalent of the camo hat.

00:42:33.940 We'll see whether that works on anybody. 0.96

00:42:37.140 I mean, no woman is fantasizing, like, at Pete Buttigieg, because we know he's gay. 0.59

00:42:41.680 So, like, I guess you can't really compete in that lane exactly.

00:42:45.000 That's not the only reason.

00:42:46.100 Even if he were totally straight, you still wouldn't be.

00:42:49.280 No, my God, who would want that on top of them?

00:42:51.380 I mean, gay or straight or whatever, male or female.

00:42:54.160 It's a no.

00:42:55.760 Okay.

00:42:56.740 But speaking of Gavin Newsom, he sat down with Mark Halperin.

00:43:01.020 And, you know, he is now in that famous clip where he's talking to the mixed audience,

00:43:06.420 but a lot of black people in it saying, I'm like you.

00:43:09.180 I can't read.

00:43:10.620 I got a 960 on the SAT.

00:43:12.520 I mean, just absolutely devastating. 1.00

00:43:14.160 But what he's saying is, I'm like you, dumb. 1.00

00:43:16.260 That's how I relate to you, black people. 1.00

00:43:18.040 I, too, am dumb. 1.00

00:43:19.100 Can't read. 1.00

00:43:20.700 Ridiculous, but okay. 0.96

00:43:22.820 So, he sat down with Mark Halperin, who asked him, you know, are you actually dyslexic? 0.97

00:43:28.400 Can you read?

00:43:29.160 And here's how that went, SAT 12.

00:43:31.020 Can you read?

00:43:31.880 Can you read a book?

00:43:33.420 I can read.

00:43:34.240 I just have to underline it.

00:43:35.300 I can't read spatially.

00:43:36.500 I can't.

00:43:37.040 That's why I can't read a speech, Mark, because spatially I'll lose the line.

00:43:40.580 So, I'll literally, and I mean, I wish I had a book here.

00:43:42.860 Yeah.

00:43:43.020 If you ever lend me a book, that's why I don't go to the library, because I can never return the book.

00:43:46.660 I have to underline, and then what I'll do is I'll take what's underlined, and then I'll put it out, and this is literally an actual example.

00:43:53.860 I'll just put in pieces of paper everything I underlined, and then I'll do that for hours and hours and hours, and then eventually I'll put it on a little yellow card, which will have just quick notes, and then it's in my head.

00:44:05.300 But that's the process.

00:44:07.080 That's why everything online I have to print out.

00:44:09.520 So, I take what's online, print out your blog or something, and then underline it, and then put it in here.

00:44:15.600 So, it's a process.

00:44:17.180 So, you can't read on a phone or an iPad?

00:44:20.720 I can.

00:44:21.320 I just get, I start daydreaming.

00:44:22.920 I start drifting off.

00:44:24.040 And so, it's a pen is the key.

00:44:27.220 I might also be dyslexic.

00:44:29.740 Look at me.

00:44:30.180 I have to underline all my things, too.

00:44:32.520 Like, I don't know.

00:44:33.680 I actually don't doubt him that he's got some sort of a learning disability, because Yashar Ali, who worked in his office, has said online this has long been known about him.

00:44:44.640 It's fine, okay?

00:44:45.700 But what you actually said to the audience was, I'm like you.

00:44:50.480 I can't read.

00:44:51.600 I got a 960 on the SAT.

00:44:53.620 So, dyslexic or not, he's not saved by this.

00:44:58.260 This is all a crutch to get out of what was an offensive comment in the way it was delivered to this particular audience, in my view.

00:45:04.800 Your thoughts?

00:45:06.020 Well, also, he's been in public life for 20 years.

00:45:08.920 And why now?

00:45:12.540 Why was this suddenly thrust forward as something we have to hear about Gavin Newsom from Gavin Newsom?

00:45:19.320 It just seems very exploitative.

00:45:21.920 And then when you listen to him describe what the issue is to Mark Halperin, I kind of believe it, too, mostly because who cares?

00:45:30.420 Like, yeah, I'm sure it's not – it's just something – I don't know.

00:45:33.880 Like, his attention wanders.

00:45:36.000 Does your attention wander sometimes if you're reading a book?

00:45:38.100 Mine does.

00:45:39.640 Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.

00:45:41.140 You know, I think it's very much like, oh, you know what?

00:45:43.840 You know what will make me seem relatable is if I have – if I talk about my disability.

00:45:49.080 And, you know, he's supposed to –

00:45:50.340 No, and he's digging himself out of the hole that he created –

00:45:54.720 Right, but why did he create that hole? 0.93

00:45:55.580 In front of that largely black audience.

00:45:57.420 Right, but why did he create that hole?

00:45:58.920 Because he was trying to be relatable.

00:46:00.180 Like, yes, I know when I was, you know, 18 or 20, I was best friends with this billionaire family that financed my businesses and financed my political career.

00:46:08.100 But don't worry.

00:46:09.700 I'm like you because I can't read and got poor scores on my SAT.

00:46:13.920 I mean, the way it was said was very offensive.

00:46:15.760 But also the impulse was – and again, it's like monkey behavior.

00:46:20.960 They think they're imitating Trump, although Trump would never talk about his disabilities.

00:46:25.780 But it's like a way of trying to be open and vulnerable, kind of like, I don't know, the Oprah era or something.

00:46:31.000 It just seems very off to me.

00:46:33.420 You know, like he's been in public life for more than two decades, and now suddenly we have to hear about his dyslexia.

00:46:40.040 Like, who cares, Megan?

00:46:41.220 And it's part of the same thing that – you're right, that has him out there like, you know, single mom, mac and cheese.

00:46:48.540 Meanwhile, his dad was a judge, and he was getting boatloads of dough from the Getty family.

00:46:53.780 The Getty family.

00:46:54.340 He was featured in a magazine article with the Getty kids, Gavin front and center, with the caption, children of the rich.

00:47:03.000 Like, okay, again, back to the Benny Johnson thing.

00:47:08.060 Did you get featured in a magazine, Glenn, growing up as a child of the rich?

00:47:13.440 Me neither.

00:47:14.860 Megan, did you have best friends who were billionaires, the Gettys?

00:47:18.340 Were you like best friends with like the Morgans and the Porns?

00:47:19.640 Well, I didn't even know any doctors or lawyers.

00:47:22.220 Yeah, I know.

00:47:22.980 I mean, never mind a judge.

00:47:25.020 Like, that was a huge thing, like, to find that out.

00:47:27.460 I mean, when I went to law school at Albany Law School, a fine pedestrian law school.

00:47:33.100 It's great if you want to go to practice law in New York.

00:47:36.480 But beyond that, it's not well known.

00:47:38.060 I thought I had finally made it, Glenn.

00:47:40.860 I was like, now people are going to have to take me seriously because I'm going to be a lawyer.

00:47:46.780 I was so impressed with, like, the possibility of getting a law degree.

00:47:51.820 We didn't know anybody who had an advanced degree like that.

00:47:55.420 Like, do I run around reminding my audience of my humble beginnings every day?

00:48:00.200 No, I don't.

00:48:01.360 This is like a uniquely weird politician thing.

00:48:04.700 He'd be better off just pulling a Trump.

00:48:07.300 Like, yeah, I was so lucky.

00:48:10.320 The Gettys took such good care of me, you know?

00:48:12.840 Like, and I was born to, like, a really smart dad who was a judge and a mom who was loving and worked hard. 0.99

00:48:19.100 Just fucking own your actual history. 0.96

00:48:21.360 That's what authentic looks and sounds like. 0.99

00:48:24.060 Yeah, yeah.

00:48:24.700 I remember when they would bring up Trump's bankruptcies.

00:48:27.000 And he'd be like, yeah, bankruptcy is a great tool in the law.

00:48:29.620 Maybe it shouldn't be there.

00:48:30.360 Maybe it should be.

00:48:31.560 But it is there.

00:48:32.280 And I'm a businessman.

00:48:33.380 I'm going to use all the tools.

00:48:34.420 And exactly, you know, when he was asked about things like his father's wealth and the opportunities, you know, he didn't say, no, I grew up very, you know, exactly what you said.

00:48:43.440 Like, and it does give the impression that Trump always is willing to tell the truth.

00:48:49.600 Like, he doesn't have this shield.

00:48:51.920 Now, Trump lies a lot, like every president and every political leader.

00:48:55.020 I don't mean that.

00:48:55.680 I mean that when he talks about himself and just kind of, like, being conversant, he, like, almost lacks that filter that politicians have where you calculate what you're going to say to, like, calibrate it for the best effect on the audience.

00:49:09.160 Many, many times that Trump speaks, he just simply lacks it.

00:49:12.400 Or he doesn't care enough.

00:49:14.120 And that is a political strain.

00:49:15.480 It was like the moment with Hillary Clinton, right, at the one debate.

00:49:17.880 Like, you didn't pay your taxes.

00:49:19.400 You paid zero taxes.

00:49:20.660 And he was like, that makes me smart.

00:49:22.460 Exactly, exactly.

00:49:23.320 There was no denial.

00:49:23.880 Exactly, exactly.

00:49:24.560 He was like, yeah.

00:49:26.360 Here's another fact for you.

00:49:27.880 Pete Buttigieg lives in Traverse City, which has become the Hamptons of Michigan.

00:49:33.420 I mean, like, it is a joke that he lives in the wilderness of Michigan, according to our Michigan sources.

00:49:40.040 So that, too, is not true.

00:49:41.660 And as for Gavin Newsom, Gordon and Ann Getty paid about $233,000 toward his first wedding reception.

00:49:52.200 His 30th birthday party given by the Getty's was Great Gatsby themed down to the Flappers and Charlestons.

00:50:00.680 And per the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003, in 10 of Gavin Newsom's first 11 businesses, the primary money came from, you guessed it, the Getty family.

00:50:11.280 Once again, Glenn, did you have some billionaire family like the Astors or the Rockefellers or the Vanderbilts or the Getty's paying for anything in your life?

00:50:23.280 No, no one did other than this guy who's trying to convince us he's a man of the people.

00:50:29.240 You know, when you when you that is amazing.

00:50:31.300 Like he was basically like an honorary Getty.

00:50:33.280 I don't like they really took a gigantic interest in, like, every aspect of his funding, his wedding and throwing birthday parties for him and investing in 10 of his.

00:50:42.380 I mean, that connection, he didn't just know the Getty's.

00:50:45.920 It was an extremely deep and intricate relationship.

00:50:48.940 Who knows why?

00:50:49.680 Maybe they saw that he was a driver.

00:50:52.100 Who takes two hundred and thirty three thousand dollars from someone who's not their family for their wedding?

00:50:57.100 Thirty years ago.

00:50:58.020 What?

00:50:58.180 That was like, you know, seven or almost a million dollars now or a hundred thousand or whatever.

00:51:03.080 That's exactly right.

00:51:03.880 And that was to our pal Kimberly Gifoil.

00:51:05.500 All right.

00:51:05.700 Quick break.

00:51:06.120 We're right back with Glenn.

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00:52:41.240 Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show.

00:52:42.880 Glenn Greenwald is back with me.

00:52:44.800 He is back on Substack as well.

00:52:46.680 Go to greenwald.substack.com to find all of his work.

00:52:51.460 You will be smarter for having done it.

00:52:54.100 All right.

00:52:54.280 Before we move on to Iran, and there's plenty to discuss, there was a presser out of the Pentagon this morning.

00:52:58.320 I have got to run this Michelle Obama soundbite by you, Glenn.

00:53:02.840 It's Michelle Obama day for you.

00:53:04.980 She sat down with Conan O'Brien, and you're going to be shocked, shocked to learn she feels that there's a double standard when it comes to first families, depending on skin color.

00:53:18.820 Watch.

00:53:19.080 I could tell when you and I took a trip once to visit a big, giant military base in the Middle East.

00:53:29.520 You and your team were being so careful that everything is done by the book.

00:53:33.640 You know, there's no perks.

00:53:34.920 There's no...

00:53:35.780 And I was really impressed with that.

00:53:37.120 And it occurred to me then, oh, I see.

00:53:40.640 Everyone feels we need to be so, so, so far beyond.

00:53:47.360 It wasn't even a feeling.

00:53:48.720 It was the truth.

00:53:49.620 It was the truth.

00:53:50.360 Yeah.

00:53:50.440 You know, I mean, there's absolutely no way that the behavior in this current administration would have been accepted by the first black family in the White House. 0.95

00:53:59.880 Right. 0.88

00:54:00.020 You don't get here without being damn near perfect.

00:54:03.400 Yeah.

00:54:04.020 We don't get to fail two, three, five, seven times.

00:54:08.840 We don't get to file bankruptcy over and over again and still be considered a successful business person.

00:54:15.600 Right.

00:54:16.020 You know?

00:54:16.480 Right.

00:54:16.620 We don't get to not be at the top of the class.

00:54:21.240 You know, every I has to be dotted.

00:54:23.960 Every T has to be crossed.

00:54:26.660 Okay. 0.54

00:54:27.140 So she behaved on her best at a military base because she's black and she couldn't fall below the standard. 0.99

00:54:35.020 That's why she had to behave so well while visiting troops serving in the military on their territory. 1.00

00:54:43.040 It's because she's black. 1.00

00:54:44.800 That's why she had to act so well, Glenn. 0.71

00:54:48.180 I mean, that was a hard clip to get through, Megan.

00:54:50.780 So, you know, anything for you, I will do it.

00:54:52.980 But that was not easy because it wasn't just her.

00:54:56.220 Like, the whole thing was set up by Conan being the good white progressive ally.

00:55:00.720 Yes.

00:55:00.880 Basically saying, it was his thesis.

00:55:03.040 He was like, so, first of all, it was very funny because he was basically saying what the Atlantic said about Pete Buttigieg.

00:55:07.720 Like, you were, you were, like, perfect to a fault.

00:55:11.060 You know, everything about it is so perfect. 0.98

00:55:13.760 And he's like, and then I realized, like, that's because you're black. 0.92

00:55:17.080 And she's like, absolutely.

00:55:18.180 And this, you know, this grievance is from her is, I don't understand why, is there nobody near her who says, you know, Michelle, you're one of the richest and most famous women in the world.

00:55:29.880 You spend your time traveling around the world on, like, Richard Branson's yacht and, you know, with Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos in the most luxurious places.

00:55:38.440 You have a gigantic estate in Martha's Vineyard in a bigger mansion or a big, huge mansion, multimillion dollar mansion in Washington.

00:55:45.400 You were the first lady, your husband was the president of the United States, every door is open for you.

00:55:49.040 Maybe, like, just tune to turn, tune down a little bit on the constant grievance because you're not really, like, a major figure of sympathy.

00:55:56.900 But she can't.

00:55:58.220 She can't.

00:55:59.420 She, she, she, Americans twice voted for them.

00:56:03.600 You know, they, they went into, they were in the White House for eight years.

00:56:06.460 Before that, he was elected senator out of nowhere by the state of Illinois.

00:56:10.180 And you would think that, you know, she spent the first half of her life, like, under Jim Crow or in chains or something.

00:56:17.940 Yes.

00:56:18.140 The way she speaks.

00:56:19.120 And it's really resentment producing.

00:56:21.580 Meanwhile, she, she's like, oh, you know, we, we have to get perfect grades in order to be acceptable.

00:56:28.060 It's, the truth is exactly the opposite.

00:56:30.620 And we all know that affirmative action is there to help black Americans like Michelle Obama, who didn't get perfect grades.

00:56:39.580 Wind up at Princeton.

00:56:41.720 That's what happened in her case.

00:56:43.840 And she knows it.

00:56:45.500 She did not have to get perfect grades.

00:56:47.400 In fact, this system bent over backward to help her get into our most elite institutions, despite the fact that she failed to do that. 1.00

00:56:56.800 Trump and his bankruptcies happened because he spent his life for decades as a businessman taking massive risks in real estate, one of the most volatile industries we have.

00:57:07.540 And he played the system just like all people in that business do, something she would know nothing about because she'd done nothing prior to becoming first lady.

00:57:16.380 She spent a few years at a white shoe law firm in Chicago.

00:57:20.360 Okay, sorry.

00:57:22.040 Look, I've done that.

00:57:23.040 I've, I've done that literally the exact same thing.

00:57:25.380 It's fine.

00:57:26.160 It's, it's a respectable way to spend your living, your life, but you, you're not a woman of the world coming out of that. 1.00

00:57:32.520 You haven't taken big risks like President Trump did when he was a private citizen.

00:57:36.820 So she would know nothing about filing for bankruptcy as a corporate tool to take care of debt and so on. 0.81

00:57:43.700 And she has no idea what she's talking about.

00:57:45.600 Everything for her reduces to a racial grievance.

00:57:49.520 Yeah.

00:57:49.860 I mean, it's just, it's so tiresome.

00:57:51.980 And, you know, I, I heard Obama himself talking the other day about his library and he was talking about how there's going to be a whole wing of the library for what people really want to see, which were Michelle's dresses.

00:58:01.500 She spent, you know, eight years.

00:58:03.240 It wasn't like she innovated the position of first lady and took on, you know, she did some stuff on like children eating well, which is fine.

00:58:09.340 It's a good cause, like not to be obese and to exercise, but it wasn't like she was some driving force or intellectual pioneer in that position. 0.94

00:58:16.720 She really was most known for her, her love of fashion, you know, and her relationship with the world of fashion.

00:58:22.660 That's really what she most became known for.

00:58:25.100 And also the Obama presidency was far, far, far from perfect.

00:58:30.060 They bailed out the banks.

00:58:31.080 They, they let huge millions and millions of people go underwater, get expelled from their, evicted from their home because of their inability to pay mortgage.

00:58:38.440 They had a gigantic fund, all those drone attacks and wars overseas.

00:58:42.100 They destroyed Libya and he got reelected. 1.00

00:58:44.660 So where's this, this framework that if you're black, you have to be perfect in order to succeed when her own husband is a living, breathing testament of the falsity of that.

00:58:54.800 The other piece of it is Glenn, like you would think as first lady, all these years later, if somebody says to you, you know, I remember I was at a military base with you.

00:59:02.780 And so both of these two, the, what Conan O'Brien, I was waiting for him to say was maybe you were so great with the troops, the way you guys interacted.

00:59:12.220 It seems so authentic to me, like how, how much you loved them or could you believe how bad-ass those guys were?

00:59:18.180 You know, they were huge and they were bad-ass MFers or for her, even not having it teed up that way to go there.

00:59:24.620 Like that's the normal instinct by most patriots to, to make it about the guys and the gals who you saw at the military base.

00:59:32.620 But both of them were determined to make it about her and not just her, but about racial grievance again with some slips in some digs at Trump.

00:59:44.120 It's just, she's so small minded.

00:59:46.720 This is the only lens through which she sees her experience as first lady.

00:59:50.820 There's no gratitude, not even for the troops, not a word about how tough they were or amazing they were or how selfless they were in their sacrifice.

00:59:59.660 Just her sacrifice in having to be first lady for eight years and deal with the abject racism of the country. 0.99

01:00:07.020 I, I've had it with this bitch. 1.00

01:00:08.980 I'm sorry, but like, I am done listening to her fucking line with the help of, as you point out, little white liberals who are begging for her to pat them on the head. 1.00

01:00:18.400 It's an, I don't know about you, Megan, but I, I kind of do actually. 0.99

01:00:21.580 And I, I can say for myself, like whatever I have in this world, I'm constantly grateful for it.

01:00:28.760 Like I'm aware of how blessed I am.

01:00:30.280 Like I, I know that I have things that other people don't.

01:00:33.160 And the idea that I would go around, like, not just complaining to myself or in my private realm, but like demanding that the public listen to me as I complain about the unfairness of my life.

01:00:45.520 You know, it's like, if you're poor, if you are downtrodden, you've had a lot of tragedy in your life.

01:00:52.400 I get it.

01:00:53.220 Like, I understand why people like that are angry.

01:00:55.820 You can't have a more blessed life than the one that she's had.

01:00:58.560 And yet she, she, as you say, she's, she's, there's no gratitude.

01:01:02.380 There's no humility yet.

01:01:03.780 She can't even pretend to like, remember that visit to the base being about her being impressed with overseas troops and the sacrifices they make and the courage to make was like politics.

01:01:12.300 One-on-one.

01:01:12.980 No, it's about how unfair it was that she had to be so regimented because she was black. 0.63

01:01:16.920 That is, I mean, malignant narcissism doesn't even capture that at all.

01:01:21.260 It's something way beyond.

01:01:22.880 Truly.

01:01:23.960 Truly.

01:01:24.280 Like, I've visited military bases.

01:01:26.100 You go, you do walk away thinking, OMG, I don't know how they do it.

01:01:30.560 I mean, that's, that's been my number one impression.

01:01:32.360 Just, oh my God, they're so strong.

01:01:34.280 They're so dedicated.

01:01:35.200 The stories they tell you, if you're inquisitive, Michelle, if you actually bother to speak with the troops about their experiences, you might learn about what they've had to deal with.

01:01:44.400 About like, just, I remember one guy, um, talking to me about the pterodactyl style, a size mosquitoes that they had to deal with.

01:01:52.880 And when they were out on their morning 5k, uh, in some of the deployments, like just things you wouldn't think of, you know, you think of the enemy, you think of gunfire.

01:02:00.300 You don't think of things like that, like pterodactyl size mosquitoes.

01:02:04.280 In any event, she's always about herself.

01:02:06.480 She reduces everything to race. 0.65

01:02:08.100 I'm sick of her shtick. 0.99

01:02:09.800 That was her podcast today.

01:02:11.780 I mean, this is like, to this day, it's 2026 and she's still bitching about her time as first lady. 1.00

01:02:19.800 Get over it for the love of God.

01:02:22.900 Okay.

01:02:23.240 Let's keep going.

01:02:24.040 Um, you mentioned Barack Obama droning people, um, and that brings us to warfare and Iran. 0.93

01:02:31.220 We had a briefing from press, uh, from Pentagon, uh, chief Pete Hegseth, secretary of war, along with the chairman of the joint chiefs, Dan Raisin came this morning.

01:02:40.240 And here was a bit of how that sounded.

01:02:42.980 Sot 13.

01:02:44.200 Thus far, operation Epic Fury has delivered twice the air power of shock and awe of Iraq in 2003, minus Paul Bremer.

01:02:53.060 And the nation building.

01:02:55.000 We are just getting started.

01:02:57.460 We are accelerating, not decelerating.

01:03:00.660 The Iranian air force is no more built for 1996 destroyed in 2026.

01:03:07.860 The Iranian Navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

01:03:12.520 Combat ineffective, decimated, destroyed.

01:03:15.520 The combination of U S and Israeli intelligence and combat power will control Iran. 0.87

01:03:21.240 We've taken control of Iran's airspace and waterways without boots on the ground.

01:03:27.680 We control their fate.

01:03:31.060 Um, though the president says we are likely to be there for another four to five weeks.

01:03:36.200 And this is what B.B.

01:03:38.560 Netanyahu said on Hannity the other night.

01:03:40.980 Sot 26.

01:03:42.740 I said it could be quick and decisive.

01:03:45.020 It may take some time, but it's not going to take years.

01:03:48.240 It's not an endless war.

01:03:49.440 In fact, it's an effort right now to achieve the peace that we all yearn and pray for.

01:03:56.380 It may take some time is as far as he went.

01:03:59.940 The president saying four to five weeks.

01:04:02.420 We really don't know it.

01:04:04.340 It's not gonna be quick.

01:04:05.000 And it doesn't seem like they're leaning toward taking the out that a lot of MAGA has been begging them to take, Glenn, which is just say it's a success right now.

01:04:13.960 You took out the Ayatollah. 0.93

01:04:15.340 You took out 39 or 40 other top members of the regime.

01:04:18.760 You've put the Navy at the bottom of the ocean.

01:04:20.960 You've gotten control of the airspace.

01:04:22.600 You've done a lot of damage to their top missile sites and so on.

01:04:27.520 Can we just declare it a win right now and leave and do the thing that should have been done in Iraq after the shock and awe? 0.96

01:04:34.280 He made a reference to the shock and awe.

01:04:35.440 Just do that.

01:04:36.180 Just say it's a win right now and leave, but we're not prepared to do that.

01:04:40.100 It's going to get worse.

01:04:41.380 And we're still told that the full unleashing is yet to come.

01:04:45.120 So your thoughts on where we are now on day five, five.

01:04:49.300 Yeah.

01:04:49.980 Okay.

01:04:50.540 First of all, this is exactly what we heard, not just before the Iraq war, but into the Iraq war.

01:04:55.420 It's only a matter of weeks, maybe a couple months at the most.

01:04:58.520 This is not going to be a prolonged war.

01:05:00.760 We have total dominance over the Iraqi military.

01:05:03.220 They're dispersed.

01:05:03.960 They're destroyed.

01:05:04.580 Their military is destroyed.

01:05:06.160 As you know, of course, President Bush made that, George W. Bush made that notorious trip with the gigantic mission accomplished banner behind him,

01:05:13.340 which, I mean, I understand from the military perspective, they did what they were at first told to do.

01:05:17.680 But as we know, that accomplished nothing.

01:05:19.360 We did end up being sucked in to Iraq.

01:05:22.520 On top of that, even Tony Blair, one of the primary decision makers that led to the Iraq war, that advocated it, admits in retrospect that the power vacuum that we created is what gave rise to ISIS, 0.90

01:05:32.820 that extremism and all kinds of terrorism can emerge when you take out a government and crush the civil society.

01:05:39.840 So that's one thing.

01:05:41.100 We heard this whole thing before.

01:05:42.860 Yes, they can just say, okay, we're done.

01:05:45.500 But then the question is, what did that accomplish?

01:05:47.800 Remember, the whole thing was justified at first on the grounds that the Iranian government is, you know, slaughtering all of its citizens, killed however many protesters.

01:05:55.500 The number constantly changes, but they killed a lot.

01:05:57.100 And we were so concerned about that, we wanted to change the government, liberate the Iranian people.

01:06:01.760 If we're going to do that, it's obviously going to take months and years of nation building, which is what Pete Hex says is scorning.

01:06:09.320 But if we don't do that, what have we achieved?

01:06:12.520 We're going to smash this country, leave it in a kind of Syria or Libya-like state where we bombed all their police stations. 0.71

01:06:19.580 There's no more police.

01:06:20.420 There's going to be anarchy.

01:06:21.460 There's going to be balkanization.

01:06:23.100 There's going to be a power vacuum.

01:06:24.660 Who knows who will fill it?

01:06:26.400 For what?

01:06:27.100 How does that make the United States safer?

01:06:29.740 It doesn't, just like the Iraq war didn't. 0.59

01:06:33.280 President Trump doesn't seem to have a clear plan in mind when it comes to the Ayatollah succession plan, like who's likely to be elevated.

01:06:42.360 He said to the media the other day, you know, we had a couple of people in mind, but now they're all dead.

01:06:47.720 It looks like they may have elected Khamenei's son to be the next supreme leader.

01:06:54.360 Not totally clear to me whether that's a done deal or whether it's just heading in that direction right now.

01:06:58.940 But by some accounts, he's even more hard line than the old man was.

01:07:02.820 And there's a question now about, are we already headed to a place where we, the new boss is worse than the old boss?

01:07:10.580 And was this thought through?

01:07:12.180 First of all, this does seem very similar in a way, and I think a lot of people on MAGA are hoping it ends up similar to what happened in Venezuela, which is where we heard for weeks and months about Maduro and all the evils of the Maduro government.

01:07:25.620 It was a communist regime that destroyed liberty and destroyed the country, and that was the original impetus for the war in a lot of people's minds.

01:07:33.380 And then Trump goes in, takes out Maduro, doesn't do much else, blew up some boats, and left the entire rest of the government in place, which I'm glad about.

01:07:41.400 I'm glad we didn't destroy the Venezuelan government and the nation built in Venezuela.

01:07:44.660 But the question then is, like, what did that achieve?

01:07:47.300 We were able to run Venezuela, which we're basically doing.

01:07:50.700 But so what is it in Iran?

01:07:52.620 Are we going to just go in and say, OK, we killed the Ayatollah, we killed some senior leadership, and now the country, we're just going to leave it as is, govern the way it was before? 0.82

01:08:01.840 He was asked specifically about the Shah of Iran, which is what all these Iranian exiles want, is the Shah of Iran's son to go be reinstalled.

01:08:08.720 And when they asked Trump about it, he sounded exactly like when he sounded when they asked if Maria Machado was going to go and rule Venezuela.

01:08:15.180 He was like, yeah, he's a nice guy, but I prefer somebody who's actually in the country, who's popular in the country.

01:08:20.500 I don't think Trump wants a radical change in the governance.

01:08:23.900 The problem, Megan, is that once you start a war like this, you can't control what the other side does.

01:08:28.880 If they do things that require escalation, require retaliation, other countries get involved.

01:08:33.940 That's a very volatile region.

01:08:35.980 And that's what scares me the most is not that Trump wants endless war.

01:08:39.000 He doesn't want to be there for years.

01:08:40.420 But sometimes when you start a war like this, you have no choice.

01:08:43.000 Bush didn't intend to be in Iraq for years either or in Afghanistan for 20 years, and yet we were.

01:08:47.140 The reporting today is from Reuters that because there's a report that we're running low on our interceptors for these missiles at our outposts and domestically.

01:09:01.580 We've given so many to Ukraine.

01:09:03.380 We've already given a bunch to Israel in the wars that they've been involved in.

01:09:07.960 And we've been using them in our combat with the Houthis.

01:09:11.940 We use them when we bomb Nigeria over Christmas. 1.00

01:09:14.280 So, like, there's a question about whether we have enough interceptors, which are very, very expensive.

01:09:19.960 We're told reportedly $12 million.

01:09:21.620 I've heard as low as $4 million, but, I mean, the official said $12 million.

01:09:25.520 And you can be using them to take out a $30,000 drone.

01:09:29.160 So it's like it's a very—the ratio is not great for us because they've got a lot of drones, the Iranians do, and they have missiles, and we need these interceptors for both. 1.00

01:09:38.480 So now there's a report today from Reuters, per five people familiar with the plan, that the Trump administration plans to meet with executives from the biggest U.S. defense contractors at the White House on Friday to discuss accelerating weapons production as the Pentagon works to replenish supplies.

01:09:54.560 We've got Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, all the usual suspects to talk about things like Tomahawk missiles that Raytheon makes and a new agreement with the Pentagon.

01:10:03.720 At the same time that Reuters again reports the White House meeting is coming as Deputy Defense Secretary Steven Feinberg has been leading Pentagon work in recent days on a supplemental budget request of around $50 billion that could be released as soon as Friday.

01:10:19.260 Today, the new money would pay for replacing the weapons used in recent conflicts, including those in the Middle East.

01:10:24.700 $50 billion is a huge, huge number, Glenn.

01:10:28.060 It's especially huge in advance of midterms when people are having difficulty paying their rent and their mortgage, and their number one complaint, according to the polls, is the economy.

01:10:39.980 I mean, this is everything Trump ran on, not doing.

01:10:42.900 I mean, that is the reality.

01:10:44.460 You can say he changed his mind.

01:10:45.560 You can say whatever.

01:10:46.280 Conditions change.

01:10:46.760 This is exactly what Trump told people he would not do, was pursue foreign wars that didn't have a direct threat to the United States and use our resources for Raytheon and Boeing and General Dynamics instead of renewing their communities with infrastructure and with health care and with the kinds of things that Americans should have just to live a decent middle-class life.

01:11:04.500 It's a total violation of what he told Americans.

01:11:06.720 I'm so glad you brought up, if I can, just quickly about this issue about depleting our stockpiles, especially our anti-missile defenses, which are crucial to how we've been defending Israel. 0.69

01:11:15.160 So Dan Caldwell is, I think, one of the smartest people on this question.

01:11:18.800 I interviewed him a lot.

01:11:19.540 I've talked to him a lot.

01:11:20.240 He used to be a very high-ranking official.

01:11:22.680 Yeah, he's fantastic.

01:11:23.800 In the Pentagon, got booted out in sort of a power play, but he knows as much about, if not more, about this than anything.

01:11:29.440 And he talks about how during the 12-day war, the U.S. and Israel had to end that war because, as Trump said, Israel was getting pummeled hard by ballistic missiles, and they were running out.

01:11:40.420 What Iran has done in this instance is they're not just sending them to Israel.

01:11:44.780 They're sending them to all of the Persian Gulf states on which the United States relies, Saudi Arabia, but especially the Emirates and Bahrain and Saudi Jordan. 0.97

01:11:53.080 All these states are getting hit, and they don't have very many anti-missile defenses at all.

01:11:59.400 And this idea that we're going to just ramp up production, these are extremely complex systems.

01:12:04.100 They track missiles.

01:12:04.880 They take missiles out of the sky.

01:12:06.100 But there's no such thing as ramping up production in a way that's going to be ready in a few weeks or even a couple months.

01:12:10.500 These are years-long processes to produce them.

01:12:13.320 That's why we ran out last year.

01:12:15.280 We were using them in Yemen.

01:12:16.460 We gave them to Israel. 0.97

01:12:17.520 We gave them to Ukraine. 0.50

01:12:18.460 We used it to defend Israel. 0.81

01:12:20.000 And we still don't have very many because of how long it takes and how intricate the process is to rebuild and replenish the stock cloud.

01:12:26.980 That is a major, major issue.

01:12:28.440 Yeah, and reportedly it's one of the reasons why we waited to even launch this thing because we were considering doing it a few weeks ago when all those protesters were on the streets of Iran.

01:12:39.160 But we didn't because we realized we needed to reposition our military assets and we needed to shore up some of these interceptors for the expected missile attacks, both at the U.S. bases and with our friends.

01:12:50.780 And now it sounds like we're spread thin.

01:12:52.700 Although the good news, if you're looking for good news here, appears to be that, at least for now, the number of missiles being launched out of Iran has gone down.

01:13:04.260 Here's General Jack Keene on Fox News yesterday.

01:13:08.620 Yeah, Tuesday, SOT 31.

01:13:10.440 Where we are, it exceeds a lot of expectations here.

01:13:15.480 Yesterday, after two days, we have reduced attacks by 50%.

01:13:20.620 Today, after three days, we've reduced the attacks by 75%.

01:13:25.400 Not only that, this is from ballistic missiles now.

01:13:29.120 And not only that, but the Iranians had, through their own intelligence and communication with each other, and obviously we have a capability to understand what they're communicating, what orders they're putting out.

01:13:42.860 Their own expectation was salvos, Martha, 25 to 50 salvos.

01:13:49.400 And the reason for that is, if you shoot all those missiles at the same time, you're going to overwhelm the Israeli defense systems and overwhelm the U.S. defense systems on our bases. 0.55

01:14:00.120 Well, they haven't been able to do that.

01:14:03.500 So what do you make of it?

01:14:04.560 Well, I'm not privy to the intelligence I would need to be to say for certain if that's true or not.

01:14:11.280 I would put the very strong note of caution that the government and the military in every war, not just our own, but every country's lie to the population, always tell them that we're winning, whether we are or not.

01:14:21.940 This is a very common thing.

01:14:23.500 But let's just assume that that's true, because there is this theory that they've been using their primitive missiles on purpose.

01:14:29.480 They're primitive just to exhaust the anti-missile capabilities, and that they're really hypersonic and more advanced ones are ones that they're going to use once those defenses are eroded.

01:14:37.400 But let's assume they're running out of missiles or bombing their missile facilities, making the whole point of what happened in the Iraq war between Ukraine and – sorry, the Ukraine war between Ukraine and Russia is that this has been a war that wasn't determined by these big, gigantic, technologically sophisticated missile systems, but by very cheap drones.

01:14:55.720 That's what's doing all of the damage on the battlefield, and a lot of the supply that Russia has been using has been coming from Iran.

01:15:01.700 That's the thing is you don't need ballistic missiles to do huge damage.

01:15:04.980 As you were just describing, you need like $20,000, $30,000 drones that you can shoot huge amounts of, even if you don't have a lot of ballistic missiles left and do a ton of damage, especially if you're eroding the anti-missile capability, not just of the U.S. and Israel, but again, the Persian Gulf countries that are going to start demanding that the U.S. stop because their populations are being exposed to attack.

01:15:25.920 And I think there's a lot of complications here that aren't being – it's day five.

01:15:31.620 The other thing I'll quickly add is Pete Hegseth said we totally dominate them.

01:15:35.940 We have control of their air, their navy, the waters, the navy.

01:15:38.820 We determine their fate.

01:15:39.840 If we can totally dominate Iran in five days after five days of war, how is it possible at the same time to say that this was some grave power that was threatening the United States when apparently, according to Pete Hegseth, it just all completely crumbled? 0.88

01:15:54.760 They have like 30-year-old systems, he said, and it's hard to reconcile those claims with the claim that Iran is some sophisticated grave power that can do great damage to Americans at home. 0.52

01:16:04.300 Well, the president was out there yesterday trying to do some cleanup in aisle seven after Marco Rubio appears to have told the truth to the Gang of Eight and then was kind of forced to say it to reporters because he'd already said it to the Gang of Eight, which is the reason why we launched this attack when we did.

01:16:21.580 Instead, that's the most charitable interpretation that the statement was just about timing.

01:16:27.140 But Marco Rubio very clearly told reporters that we did it because we knew that there was going to be Israeli action and that there would be a retaliatory strike by Iran against us.

01:16:36.700 And we preferred to hit them first, but that BB was in there saying, we're doing it, Israel, and that we made a calculation, we better join with them because we're going to take incoming from Iran in response to that.

01:16:47.940 And we don't want to be hit after, like we don't want to be hit before we've hit.

01:16:52.240 Here was that comment from Rubio on Monday, Sot 16.

01:16:55.540 It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. 0.53

01:17:04.800 We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. 0.57

01:17:07.640 We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.

01:17:10.940 And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.

01:17:17.140 There absolutely was an imminent threat.

01:17:18.680 And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believe they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. 0.87

01:17:26.700 OK, then there was a follow up by a reporter on site saying, basically, wait, did you just say that we did this because of Israel?

01:17:32.560 Watch this.

01:17:33.440 Sot 17.

01:17:34.800 Iran was forced to strike because of an impending Israeli action.

01:17:37.880 No, first of all, I mean, two things I would say.

01:17:39.440 Number one is, no matter what, ultimately, this operation needed to happen.

01:17:42.420 That's the question of why now.

01:17:43.980 But this operation needed to happen.

01:17:45.780 Because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it. 0.98

01:17:54.100 Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us.

01:17:58.040 And we had to be prepared to act as a result of it.

01:18:00.060 But this had to happen no matter what.

01:18:01.640 OK, so that's him saying, ultimately, at some point, we were going to have to hit them.

01:18:07.740 But we had to do it now because of Israel, which is like sort of his—it's the same thing as what he said in the first soundbite, which is we had to do this because of Israel.

01:18:16.700 And the reporter basically said, did you say we had to do it because of Israel?

01:18:19.440 And he said, no, eventually it was going to have to happen, but we did it because of Israel. 0.97

01:18:23.200 And then yesterday, Rubio went out and spoke to reporters and took umbrage at the fact that they were saying, hey, you said yesterday we had to do it now because of Israel.

01:18:31.040 And he said, oh, no, I didn't.

01:18:32.220 Go back and look.

01:18:32.940 Well, we did.

01:18:33.440 We went back.

01:18:33.900 I looked at the entire transcript.

01:18:35.440 And I love Rubio.

01:18:37.200 I'd vote for him in a heartbeat for president.

01:18:39.400 But he was not taken out of context.

01:18:41.560 He did say that.

01:18:42.380 He said it over and over and over.

01:18:43.460 If you watch the whole presser, you read the whole transcript.

01:18:46.600 He said it repeatedly, the thing about Israel.

01:18:49.500 And you tell me what's really going on here, Glenn, because for me, I got to be honest.

01:18:53.480 I'm confused because the obvious response, if Israel was in there, Bibi saying, we're going to go now.

01:18:59.240 The Ayatollah is having a meeting.

01:19:00.320 We got to take him out.

01:19:01.160 We're doing it with or without you.

01:19:02.520 If we did not want that, would have been to say, no, we're the senior partner.

01:19:06.320 Everybody knows that.

01:19:07.140 Trump could have stopped Bibi if we were worried about retaliatory strikes and we're not ready yet.

01:19:11.080 And we didn't do that.

01:19:12.000 We clearly wanted to do that.

01:19:13.460 So is this Israeli inspired?

01:19:15.940 Is it for Israel or isn't it? 0.91

01:19:18.440 Well, one thing that I know for sure, and Netanyahu has said it many times in the past several weeks, is that this has been his number one wish for 40 years is to lure the United States into a regime change war or a very serious war with Israel's main adversary in the Middle East, which is Iran.

01:19:32.960 You can literally go back 40 years to Netanyahu advocating this, and now he says, this has long been my number one wish list.

01:19:39.260 This has been the wish list of Israel loyalists and neocons in the United States.

01:19:42.740 They planned to do it after Iraq but got tied down in Iraq.

01:19:45.780 You can go find 2004 articles where they're like, now we're on to Tehran.

01:19:48.920 But the problem that Rubio has – and by the way, other people said exactly what Rubio said, including Tom Cotton and others, because if you think about it –

01:19:57.740 And Speaker Johnson.

01:19:58.840 And Mike Johnson, exactly.

01:20:00.180 So the problem is –

01:20:01.120 And members of the Gang of Eight have come out and said that's what they were told, but when they got briefed over the weekend as well.

01:20:06.100 I mean, in every comment, they said we had to because Israel was going to do this, and we had no choice but to go along. 0.75

01:20:12.840 Exactly.

01:20:13.420 And the reason for it is because – the reason why – you know, Mark Rubio is a very competent speaker, very quick on his feet.

01:20:18.360 But the reason it was so difficult is because you have to say that this was a preventative war.

01:20:23.260 Otherwise, the war has no basis.

01:20:24.660 Like, why did you just go and attack Iran if they weren't going to attack us? 0.99

01:20:27.380 So they have to say, oh, no, they were going to attack us, and we wanted to attack first.

01:20:31.260 Nobody believes that Iran was just going to, out of the blue, attack the United States and provoke a war that they obviously have been working very hard to prevent.

01:20:39.060 Nobody was going to believe that.

01:20:40.360 So then the question is, why would they attack us?

01:20:42.400 And the only cogent, sensible answer that Mark Rubio could have given was, oh, they were going to attack us because Israel was going to attack them, meaning we were forced into this war by what Israel was going to do.

01:20:52.760 Go look at how Donald Trump talks to Europe and the leverage he knows he has by virtue of the fact that we spend so much on their defense and he's constantly badgering them and telling them what they can and can't do.

01:21:02.120 Israel is a thousand times more dependent on the United States, on our finances.

01:21:05.640 We finance that country.

01:21:06.760 We arm them.

01:21:07.320 We go to war for them. 0.98

01:21:08.080 We diplomatically protect them.

01:21:10.080 Trump could have, in theory, just told Netanyahu, we're not ready for a war with Iran.

01:21:14.580 We don't want a war with Iran.

01:21:15.800 So, no, you cannot attack them because that will put our troops in harm's way, which is exactly what happened.

01:21:20.420 Six of them died in the first 24 hours.

01:21:23.240 So, the question is, why didn't Trump do that?

01:21:25.540 And there's a lot of theories about it, but clearly he is somebody who is beholden to Netanyahu and Miriam Adelson and this whole crew that has become dominant.

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01:24:43.580 The last thing I just want to quickly add, Megan,

01:24:50.180 is Mark Rubio saying this was something we had to do.

01:24:53.100 We had to eventually go to war with Iran.

01:24:55.160 If that were true, why didn't Donald Trump throughout 2024,

01:24:58.660 when he was running for president, let the American people know,

01:25:01.360 hey, by the way, we're going to have to go to war with Iran at some point.

01:25:04.540 He said the opposite.

01:25:05.560 He did say we can't allow them to have a nuclear weapon,

01:25:07.380 but a major war like this, sinking their navy, shattering their city,

01:25:11.220 if everybody knew Trump had to do that,

01:25:14.280 why was that hidden from the American people when he was running for president?

01:25:17.000 That should have been something that should have been part of the plank

01:25:19.200 of the Republican Party.

01:25:21.200 The IAEA, which does the inspections of the Iranian nuclear program,

01:25:27.200 the Defense Intelligence Agency here in America,

01:25:30.520 reportedly both had been saying Iran is not anywhere near getting a nuclear weapon

01:25:35.000 or, and is not shorter than 10 years away from getting a ballistic missile

01:25:39.780 that could hit the United States.

01:25:42.040 So they were telling, the intelligence that President Trump was getting

01:25:44.680 was saying there is not an imminent attack.

01:25:47.340 There is not a rebuilding of the nuclear program.

01:25:50.360 There is only an ambition.

01:25:51.880 There's a desire by the Iranians to do it.

01:25:54.700 That's, I don't know when we've ever launched a war based on desire,

01:25:59.480 like an unfulfilled, esoteric desire.

01:26:03.380 This is why it's all so extraordinary.

01:26:05.700 And yet it seems to me that they saw an opportunity to take out the Ayatollah, 0.97

01:26:08.660 who was a bad guy and Israel hated.

01:26:10.720 And Bibi Netanyahu made note very clear for those 40 years,

01:26:13.680 and during his seven visits to the White House, this is undisputed,

01:26:16.420 that he wanted to launch a war against Iran,

01:26:18.540 and that he was pressuring President Trump to help.

01:26:20.640 He wanted the United States to help, and he knew he couldn't do it without our blessing.

01:26:23.320 And we decided to go along with it pretty late in the game,

01:26:26.720 according to all the reports.

01:26:27.960 So to me, that's why all of it makes very clear this was a Netanyahu-inspired action.

01:26:35.120 He wanted it, and he talked our president into it.

01:26:37.720 Because let's face it, Iran's not been warm and fuzzy towards the United States, 0.61

01:26:40.640 and they've committed multiple sins against us and our troops in Iraq and elsewhere.

01:26:43.960 And we're kind of pissed. 0.99

01:26:45.280 We don't fucking like Iran. 0.99

01:26:46.700 And the Ayatollah's killed a lot of Americans. 0.99

01:26:48.880 So it's like there's been simmering building resentment for years.

01:26:51.960 That's not normally why you launch a hot war out of the blue when you run a not launching wars.

01:26:56.960 That's how I see it.

01:26:59.820 Two months before the last attack on Iran by the United States and Israel last year in June of 2025,

01:27:05.600 two months before that, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence,

01:27:09.480 the person whose job it is to understand and coordinate and summarize the intelligence for President Trump,

01:27:16.780 went before the Senate and testified under oath that the consensus at the intelligence agencies

01:27:21.200 is that the Iranian government had not made any decision to acquire a nuclear weapon.

01:27:27.320 That's the first thing.

01:27:28.240 That was the intelligence.

01:27:29.340 And then when they asked Trump about it, he was like, I don't care what she says.

01:27:31.720 Very similar to how Dick Cheney was told by the CIA that Saddam Hussein doesn't have a WMD.

01:27:36.960 And he just said, I don't care what you say,

01:27:38.440 and created his own kind of alternative world that justified the war.

01:27:41.240 And then the second thing is, you know, why would Iran want a nuclear weapon?

01:27:45.980 The reason, Megan, is, is like, look at the countries we attack and look at the countries we don't attack. 0.98

01:27:50.800 We've been told forever that North Korea is run by crazy, insane, fanatical people. 0.96

01:27:55.140 We don't go and attack them. 0.99

01:27:56.080 Why not?

01:27:56.360 Because they have nuclear weapons.

01:27:57.900 Countries with nuclear weapons don't get messed with.

01:28:00.060 We've created a world where people understand if you don't have nuclear weapons,

01:28:04.860 you're liable at any moment to get attacked by the United States or Israel.

01:28:07.860 If you have nuclear weapons, you're all safe and secure. 0.89

01:28:10.720 We've created a world where every rational country is incentivized to get them.

01:28:14.420 And that is a dangerous signal to send to the world.

01:28:17.420 Well, just yesterday, we saw an announcement from Poland that they are now going to be pursuing a nuclear weapon. 0.73

01:28:22.800 And so, you know, it is kind of scary to think we're allies with Poland, obviously, and they're NATO.

01:28:26.780 But the question is, how many more are now going to say, I'm getting one.

01:28:30.260 I don't care what you think.

01:28:32.940 Mark Levin, very, very happy, almost as happy as Lindsey Graham over this whole thing.

01:28:38.340 And taking issue with the remarks I made them, many other people made them, that we're angry about those six dead American service men and women.

01:28:47.540 We're angry.

01:28:48.800 And we don't feel that they needed to die.

01:28:51.320 And that they died in a war that was for Israel.

01:28:54.160 Not for us.

01:28:55.160 This is a war that was for Israel. 0.76

01:28:56.680 It was at Israel's behest, which was unnecessary. 0.72

01:29:01.220 This was not a defensive action.

01:29:03.400 Iran was not attacking us.

01:29:05.340 You know, it was not like when we went after the Taliban after 9-11 and Al-Qaeda. 0.74

01:29:11.120 I mean, we had been attacked.

01:29:11.980 It was a massive provocation.

01:29:13.480 And no one would reasonably dispute that we had the right to defend ourselves, which is why so many countries came to fight with us.

01:29:19.040 That plus the NATO obligation.

01:29:20.620 Anyway, here's Mark Levin yesterday.

01:29:23.560 But the battle against the Iranian regime, the purpose is to protect the American people, protect our armed forces, protect the homeland, help our allies, protect tens of thousands of people from being slaughtered, who've been slaughtered.

01:29:44.300 And yes, retribution, to make it clear that you don't get to do this to us for half a century without any effective response.

01:29:51.200 So, of course, if we lose heroes and we lost three and there may be more, the president says likely so because it's a massive military operation.

01:30:03.640 It's a terrible thing.

01:30:06.080 They gave their lives.

01:30:08.260 They gave their lives for a great cause.

01:30:11.900 A great cause.

01:30:13.400 Frank Gaffney was on with Steve Bannon two days ago saying it's basically cost free.

01:30:18.260 He's like, I know some service personnel died, but this is basically cost free to us.

01:30:22.080 So great cause, cost free.

01:30:23.900 Your thoughts.

01:30:25.500 You know, for a long time it was taboo to talk about the fact that U.S. foreign policy is driven by Israel and people who in the United States view Israel as their most sacred cause.

01:30:35.060 Even though presidents in private have long said that, I mean, there's tapes of Richard Nixon going back and Barry Goldwater said it and you go on and on.

01:30:43.220 But in public, nobody was allowed to say it.

01:30:45.180 And so the problem was is that we created this climate where a major fact about our foreign policy and about the wars we fight was banned, basically, because you would stand accused of bigotry and racism and anti-Semitism if you said that.

01:30:57.820 Thankfully, that taboo is now broken, though they're desperately trying to maintain it.

01:31:01.980 And I think the main reason is, of course they are.

01:31:04.120 They're desperate.

01:31:05.140 But it's done.

01:31:06.420 I mean, they don't there's there's too much because of independent media, too many sources of information.

01:31:10.800 And, you know, it's like the left found out if you overuse the racism accusation or misogyny or homophobia, you drive it into the point of meaninglessness and nobody cares anymore.

01:31:19.720 And that's the same as they found with anti-Semitism.

01:31:22.360 If everybody is anti-Semite, it basically now means nothing.

01:31:24.800 They've trivialized the term.

01:31:26.040 The reality is that Israel pours huge amounts of money into our political system.

01:31:32.760 Right now they're spending, you know, tens of millions of dollars from Miriam Adelson on down to remove Thomas Massey from the Congress in a one single Kentucky district, congressional district, because of his opposition to to the U.S. financing and arming Israel.

01:31:46.700 They've succeeded in doing that to many other people.

01:31:48.740 People are petrified of the Israel lobby, and that has been a major reason why we've been so willing to send our troops into the Middle East to die for Israel. 0.74

01:31:58.760 In fact, you know, Megan, during the bombardment of Gaza and then some exchange of missiles, we deployed our own troops to go defend Israel.

01:32:07.160 And there were people on military bases who died, American soldiers during that time.

01:32:11.740 They definitely died for Israel. 0.99

01:32:13.340 And we were supposed to get out of the Middle East for so long.

01:32:16.000 The U.S. security state was saying we need to pivot to Asia.

01:32:18.860 We no longer have vital interests in the Middle East.

01:32:21.360 What are our vital interests in the Middle East?

01:32:22.820 Oil?

01:32:23.100 We have so much oil.

01:32:24.560 Those countries will happily provide us oil.

01:32:26.500 We control Venezuelans oil.

01:32:28.140 Oil is not a vital interest.

01:32:29.180 We've long been told China is our main adversary, pivot to Asia, and yet we can't extricate ourselves from the Middle East. 0.98

01:32:35.660 And the reason is for Israel. 0.92

01:32:37.360 And as we're spending billions and billions and billions on these wars, look at what China is doing.

01:32:41.560 They don't fight wars.

01:32:42.400 They haven't fought a war since 1979 because they know how self-destructive they are.

01:32:47.400 Yeah, but I'm sure they're building up their interceptors and their military assets quietly, steadily, throwing money at that problem while we're over here expending all of ours.

01:32:58.280 For a war that benefits a foreign country, a country of 9 million people, not the country of 350 million people.

01:33:04.520 I mean, that's why the Daily Mail has a poll out today talking about where the president's numbers are right now in the wake of this, and it's not good.

01:33:10.720 And this is just months before we have the midterms where you've got – it shows President Trump down four points just since Friday.

01:33:18.720 They say that he's at 44 percent, down four points since Friday, marking the lowest rating recorded in Daily Mail tracking to date.

01:33:28.400 Only 24 percent of voters believe killing Iran's supreme leader will make Americans safer.

01:33:32.480 55 percent claim the risk of terror attacks on U.S. soil has gone up because of these strikes.

01:33:38.060 40 percent of voters say their view of Trump has become more negative in the last week.

01:33:41.680 Compared to 26 percent, their opinion of him has improved.

01:33:46.260 And obviously, when asked what the main reason was, their view had worsened.

01:33:50.360 59 percent cited the war with Iran.

01:33:52.920 Prices are too high, and now he's started a war, said one respondent.

01:33:57.040 So, I mean, that's the real thing.

01:33:58.740 Like, to me, I just – it's amazing to me.

01:34:01.400 I've gone through this whole crazy thing in the past, you know, I don't know, since last July.

01:34:06.740 Since last July, when I made one comment about whether Epstein might have been an asset for the Mossad, and people started calling me an anti-Semite after being ardently pro-Israel and very, very defensive, as I remain, of American Jews.

01:34:21.040 And I was like, what's happened here?

01:34:22.620 What – why – whoa.

01:34:24.580 Like, they know I'm not an anti-Semite.

01:34:26.580 They know that I'm not, for sure.

01:34:28.100 They know that.

01:34:29.020 So why are they unleashing that term against me?

01:34:30.720 And then Charlie was murdered, and the discussion came up about what his feelings were on Israel, and you weren't allowed to even raise that.

01:34:39.020 And I had had a conversation with Charlie in August, the month before he was killed.

01:34:44.400 I hope people go watch that.

01:34:45.880 People should go watch that if you haven't seen it.

01:34:49.300 It was an incredible 30-minute exchange we had that wasn't even on the agenda.

01:34:53.840 You know, when you're coming on the show, we'll give you a couple of, like, a little outline.

01:34:56.320 Like, we'll probably hit these five topics if you want to bone up.

01:34:58.520 And we had done that for Charlie, too, and we had not given Charlie anything about Israel.

01:35:03.100 I just – it just – it was still resonating with me.

01:35:06.620 We were both still reeling because we were both called anti-Semites.

01:35:09.000 And he was so pro-Israel, too.

01:35:11.420 And we were both pissed. 1.00

01:35:13.000 It was like, what the fuck? 1.00

01:35:13.880 This is bullshit. 1.00

01:35:15.200 And we had a long talk about it. 1.00

01:35:17.240 And then from that point forward, it's just been nonstop with, like, you're an anti-Semite. 0.83

01:35:21.380 You have to defriend Tucker.

01:35:23.280 You have to speak out about this person or that person and their commentary.

01:35:26.420 And I've been saying all along, I'm responsible for my own commentary.

01:35:29.180 I don't – I have no obligation to defriend anyone.

01:35:33.460 And by the way, I don't believe Tucker's an anti-Semite.

01:35:35.920 And I'm responsible for the words that come out of my mouth.

01:35:40.140 And that's it, period.

01:35:42.420 It's been nonstop.

01:35:43.440 And now, honestly, Glenn, I can barely go on X because I get trolled so heavily by the pro-Israel crowd and the Israel first crowd and then the bots.

01:35:55.600 There are many, many bots on X that, you know, are part of an operation.

01:36:00.340 And then there are many, many live humans on X who actually get $7,000 a tweet.

01:36:04.720 People have come out and admitted it from the Israelis to troll anybody who deviates from the party line. 0.82

01:36:09.920 And so, like, I want the audience to understand that this is happening and it's an effort by a foreign country to silence the views of American about American foreign policy. 0.99

01:36:23.920 That is fucked up. 0.99

01:36:26.120 That's not okay. 1.00

01:36:27.440 It's one thing to have regular Americans say, I disagree with you on this.

01:36:30.440 That's fine.

01:36:30.800 We should all be doing that.

01:36:31.680 It's quite another to have a foreign country actively interfering online to silence American voices about its interference in our affairs and the lives of our American service personnel. 0.93

01:36:46.400 You know, Megan, I grew up in, like, an overwhelmingly Jewish, like, subculture.

01:36:52.300 Every one of my family is Jewish.

01:36:53.820 You know, friends, et cetera.

01:36:55.720 I went to Jewish camp every year for the summer.

01:36:58.680 There is anti-Semitism in the world, like, there's racism, like, there is everything else, and it has manifested in dangerous ways.

01:37:05.120 But you can smell it.

01:37:06.980 You can sense it.

01:37:08.260 I know Tucker extremely well, hours and hours and hours in front of the camera, out of the camera talking to him.

01:37:13.420 I know you very well.

01:37:15.140 And when you see people who you know aren't even – I mean, Megan, you and I have fought on this very show where you were defending Israel.

01:37:22.680 Israel, or more so, like, the expulsion of anti-Israel protesters on the grounds of anti-Semitism.

01:37:30.020 Yes.

01:37:30.180 I mean, this is – like, you forever, you know, have been a stalwart defender of Israel, and simply – and so was Charlie.

01:37:38.720 But simply because you both started asking questions about, wait a minute, is this war really in our interest?

01:37:42.920 Is this really Israel exerting undue influence?

01:37:44.880 And they don't tolerate that debate, and they start shutting it down by calling you a bigot and a racist.

01:37:49.920 And when you have the self-possession to know you're not that, you will not be, you know, bullied by it.

01:37:56.440 You will not be told that you can't speak about your own country and our government's policies.

01:38:00.980 And by doing that, they really have trivialized anti-Semitism, which has long been one of the big dangers because it's supposed to pack a punch.

01:38:06.980 Like, you're supposed to not want to be called an anti-Semite publicly, but they've so cynically exploited it into a weapon to force you to pledge loyalty to Israel, just like the left did with the racism accusation, as I said, that it's completely drained it of all its meaning.

01:38:21.380 And they've done more than anybody else now, not just to open up what has long been necessary, which is this very serious debate about how much we do for Israel and why, but also they've opened up this world where, you know,

01:38:33.600 people don't care anymore about standing accused of that accusation because people see how cynically it's wielded against people who so blatantly are far, far from anything that is recognizable as anti-Semitism.

01:38:46.580 Now, you know, I'm so relieved to see you and Tucker, Charlie, before he was murdered, and a lot of other people on the right, Thomas Massey, Roger Charlie Green.

01:38:54.860 This is a, you're right, there's a, Benjamin Netanyahu says controlling the message on social media, combating anti-Israel sentiment on social media,

01:39:02.140 is one of the most important battles that the Israelis have in their war, and they've done a lot to regain control of social media, including taking TikTok away and giving it to the Ellison family, but, and doing a lot on X as well.

01:39:14.800 But it's so much, as somebody who's been criticizing Israel and arguing about this for a long time, it's so much better now than it ever has been that finally we get to have this debate out in the open to the point where there's a New York Times article this morning,

01:39:27.220 saying that Trump battles the perception of his own base that this war was for Israel.

01:39:31.280 That was unthinkable even five years ago. 0.95

01:39:34.820 I will say this, in real life, which is not X, I have so many people stop me, Jewish Americans saying, this is such bullshit, we know you're not an anti-Semite, please don't listen to these rabid, you know, folks online, they don't speak for us, and I know that. 0.93

01:39:48.860 But it is amazing to me just to watch the bullying happen, you know, where, like, they all pile on. 0.92

01:39:54.520 And I've even noticed that if I put out a tweet that's critical of Israel, or even mildly, you know, or, like, whatever, Lindsey Graham, I'll get completely trolled on my tweet.

01:40:04.660 But if somebody who's not considered an Israeli ally, you know, who's been more open in their criticisms of Israel, if they retweet the tweet, it's a very different response.

01:40:15.860 Like, they're not, they're not, I don't know if you are or not, but, like, a lot of the people who would retweet something, I would tweet along these lines, they're not actively getting trolled anymore, or maybe they never were.

01:40:25.160 Maybe they're people like me who they considered a strong ally, who they think might be waffling.

01:40:30.400 They reserve a particular ire for people like that in the same way that, like, if you were a Democrat and you turn on the Democrats, they really pile on you, you know what I mean?

01:40:39.200 Like, you've betrayed them, you're supposed to be on their team, and you didn't, you aren't any longer.

01:40:44.340 And I'll tell you what, it's like, I'm allowed to have questions about Israel.

01:40:47.920 I have been, I haven't been ardently defensive of Israel, you know, for my career, but in general, I mean, as you and I have talked about before, I'm not, like, huge on foreign policy.

01:40:57.760 Right, right.

01:40:58.300 And, you know, I'm mildly supportive of Israel in general, and certainly after 10-7, very defensive of Israel's right to defend itself fully, and really just didn't pay that much attention to the day-to-day conduct of the war, though I saw the terrible headlines.

01:41:10.540 My biggest struggle over the past couple of years has been, who do I trust on information, on the death toll, on who's getting, you know what I mean?

01:41:15.880 It was like, there's so, Hamas is a propaganda artist, and now what I see is, so is Israel. 0.91

01:41:21.240 So is Israel. 0.89

01:41:23.080 Like, they are absolutely working and paying to manipulate public opinion in the United States as we speak.

01:41:28.820 And so I no longer trust them when it comes to messaging either, and I will not be silenced by bullies of any kind, whether it's BLM bullies, whether it's leftist bullies, whether it's, you know, the people who tried to cancel me after Trump and I had that debate bullies, whether it's Vladimir Putin, I will not be silenced by these bullies.

01:41:46.680 And you warned them, you warned them, you warned them ahead of time.

01:41:50.040 You said, if you think this is going to silence me, it's going to have the opposite effect.

01:41:53.360 Charlie said the same thing.

01:41:54.360 Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest you were some, like, hardcore Israel crusader, just that, you know, on foreign policy, you worked at Fox.

01:41:59.420 I think you were generally supportive of the war on terror mindset with some questions.

01:42:02.920 You were never somebody, I guess I just mean that you were never somebody who was, like, an Israel critic.

01:42:08.340 And even after October 7th, as you just recounted, and I know for this personally, you were somebody who was mostly sympathizing with Israel.

01:42:15.260 They had been attacked, was your view, and these protests were anti-Semitic.

01:42:18.700 And to watch them basically pick you up and Charlie up and Tucker as well, and basically turn you into anti-Semites just simply for expressing some questions or doubts, which you have every, not just the right, but the obligation to do as American journalists, as American citizens.

01:42:35.480 It's disgusting.

01:42:36.660 It's as despicable to me as what the left did when they accused people of being racist or otherwise bigoted without any basis whatsoever. 0.96

01:42:43.700 And it's creating the same backlash.

01:42:45.080 It's exactly the same mentality.

01:42:46.520 It's exactly the same tactic.

01:42:49.200 Thankfully, I have experience there too.

01:42:51.300 And I was swept up in that as well.

01:42:52.700 Like, I've been called all the things.

01:42:53.980 So I'm used to being called the things.

01:42:55.620 It's not pleasant, but you can't let it silence you.

01:42:59.120 I worry more about, like, regular citizens who are having the same doubts I am and experiences kind of blowback in their own personal lives and don't maybe have a platform and don't have, like, a daily reassurance in terms of whatever.

01:43:11.080 There's their ability to go out there and keep doing their job that they're secure.

01:43:15.420 And so this, like, it has to stop, and we have to speak out about it.

01:43:18.880 I still support President Trump fully.

01:43:20.880 I am completely rooting for our success in what is clearly a war. 0.98

01:43:24.960 I am 100% rooting for our troops.

01:43:27.780 But I'd like it to end.

01:43:28.680 I'd like it to end ASAP so we can minimize the loss of human life and go back to worrying about our own citizens.

01:43:36.220 Glenn Greenwald, thank you.

01:43:37.420 Thank you for always being a true teller.

01:43:38.160 Always great to see you, Megan.

01:43:39.140 Love having you on.

01:43:40.960 We're back tomorrow with the pastor who was interrupted by Don Lemon.

01:43:45.580 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:43:49.280 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - March 04, 2026

Fraud Crockett's Defeat, Michelle Obama's New Racial Complaints, and Trump's Iran ＂War＂ Question, with Glenn Greenwald ｜ Ep. 1265

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