Georgia Goes Blue, with Hugh Hewitt and Dave Briggs | Ep. 47
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 10 minutes
Words per Minute
181.49457
Summary
Dave Briggs and Hugh Hewitt join Megyn Kelly to discuss the results of the Georgia Senate race and what it means for the future of the 2020 election. Plus, Megyn explains why she thinks a black woman should be the next president.
Transcript
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Like that woman over there with the designer jeans.
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your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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meets to certify the 2020 presidential election?
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Today, disaster for the Republicans in Georgia.
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It certainly looks like they have lost not one, but both of the Senate seat runoffs that
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And who have they elected to the United States Senate?
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Well, in one case, absolutely a radical on the left.
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And in another, you know, pretty open socialist.
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So what does that mean for the U.S. Senate and where we're going as a country?
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We're going to get into all of it in just one minute.
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And what does it mean for Joe Biden's agenda on immigration, on the environment, on taxes,
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Republicans aren't going to like what they're going to get.
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But was that the point where the Trump base members trying to send a message to the GOP
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that you don't listen to us, the whole ship goes down and, you know, then the cleanup
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Joining me now to keep things off today is my old pal Dave Briggs.
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He was also at NBC Sports and CNN, but Fox News was his best stint.
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And he's going to help us understand what happened in Georgia last night.
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We don't want to work at NBC and we don't want to work at CNN.
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So, uh, now it's nice to be on our own too, but, uh, the Fox News years were good ones.
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It, I have to tell you, so I was frustrated last night cause our cable wasn't working.
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And, uh, so I'm trying to get everything online and my team sending me information and I'm,
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I wasn't totally stunned about Kelly Loeffler, but I am stunned that Ossoff appears to have
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pulled this out, uh, given, given how handily he was beaten back in November.
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Well, frankly, I wasn't stunned either about Kelly Loeffler, uh, having not been born in
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Georgia perception that she bought the seat also running against a very popular, uh, Baptist,
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you know, pastor of the church where MLK, uh, Martin Luther King was once the pastor, Ebenezer
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So a lot of factors going against Kelly Loeffler.
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I certainly thought David Perdue would hang on the cousin of a former Georgia governor, a
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very popular U S Senator, but for one, Raphael Warnock, we know that is over.
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Warnock is the winner by looks like 53,000 votes.
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John Ossoff also looks likely to cruise to victory.
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The, the largely outstanding votes look like they lean democratic.
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So it would be a last second miracle to see John Ossoff lose, to see David Perdue still
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So it looks like you'll have your first black Georgia Senator and your first Jewish Georgia
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But most importantly, 50, 50 in the U S Senate with Kamala Harris, the vice president, uh,
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So this is a stunner, uh, that both seats go blue, but look, a lot of people in Georgia,
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Yeah, you know, and, and talking with some friends down in Georgia this morning, as well
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as some Republicans across the country, a lot of blame being cast at the feet of president
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Voter suppression has long been a story there in the state of Georgia.
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Uh, and you heard about it with the governor's race with governor Kemp, but this time it's,
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it's president Trump who looks to have suppressed the Republican vote.
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Eric Erickson, who, you know, a good friend of ours hosts a radio show in Georgia.
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He says, don't give too much credit to Stacey Abrams this morning.
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He spent the last five weeks talking about voting irregularities, voter fraud.
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He called the Georgia elections illegitimate and illegal.
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The president could have claimed his own victory for driving out 74 million votes, a record for
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the Republican party said that he grew the tent and focused on divided government in blocking
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First of all, number one, I don't think Kelly Loeffler has conceded yet.
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But second of all, so Trump was divided from the lawyers like Lin Wood, who, you know,
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at that one rally was like, don't vote, screw this party, screw everything.
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And the White House was pretty quick to say he doesn't speak for us.
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And by the way, he's a lifeline, a lifetime Democratic voter.
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The White House came out and said that the campaign and and then Trump went down there
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and campaigned repeatedly for the two Republicans.
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So I realize Trump's been challenging the electoral results.
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But to say, you know, he was out there suppressing voter turnout, I think I think he would he would
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Well, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll just over a week ago showed that 55 percent of
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those who label themselves very conservative were considering not voting in this runoff election
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because they believe the elections to be illegitimate and fraudulent.
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From the Twitter feed and from the mouth of the president.
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I don't know how you can challenge the fact that the president, the first thing he said
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at that rally Monday night in Georgia was talking about the fraudulent elections.
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I mean, so so that's the thing is that, first of all, he introduced Kelly Loeffler, he called
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But he there's no question he should have spent more time talking, maybe not about Loeffler
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and Perdue, who weren't exactly inspirational candidates, but talking about their opponents,
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talking about their opponents, how far left they are, the controversial things that Warnock
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has said about America, about the military, about cops, about about whites, how this is
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a white supremacist country like a no time spent on that.
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It was all spent on grievance, which is sort of Trump's trademark, you know, and he absolutely
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could have been more helpful to these Republicans if he'd been focused a bit more on the flaws
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in their Democratic challengers in a state like Georgia.
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But wait, let me ask you this, Dave, I read the GOP turnout was actually strong.
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It just happened to not be quite as strong as the Democrats.
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And in fact, Cherokee County, the largely Republican county there at last check, it looked
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like they might outperform the November election, which is staggering.
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But as we saw in the presidential election, right, Joe Biden got 81 million votes, 74 million
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for Trump was a record, but he's even bigger than he is a Republican turnout artist.
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He turns out Democratic votes like nothing we have ever seen before, in particular, the
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Raphael Warnock outperformed the black turnout that Joe Biden saw in November.
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And look, a lot of this credit does go to Stacey Abrams.
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She has built a machine there, voter registration and voter turnout.
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But in the end, I think Republicans will sit there and have to scratch their heads and wonder
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what would have happened if President Trump would have taken this five weeks to simply focus
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on, yes, to your point, about the radical beliefs and policies of these two candidates,
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but also just providing a check on Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and the radical agenda that
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And sometimes it's worked for him and sometimes it hasn't.
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And sometimes it's worked for America and sometimes it hasn't.
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And I mean, I'm a big fan of divided government just in general.
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And I think most Americans don't like one party rule.
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And I think we'll have one party rule until two years from now.
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And by the way, this Warnock seat is only a two year seat.
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The only person who won a six year seat, as it appears now, at least, is Ossoff, right?
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Because it was it was sort of a temporarily held seat.
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So in two years, this one seat could flip back.
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And while we don't have divided government the way you and I would like to see it, and
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I know a lot of your listeners, what we do have is truly a divided Senate, because even
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if this seat goes to Ossoff, which it looks like it will, we're still looking at 50-50 with
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But they can't cram through massive legislation unless they get rid of the filibuster, which
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I, for one, will go on record as saying, I do not think that will happen.
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And I just don't think Joe Manchin, maybe two or three others would go along with that
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They're going to get through maybe some tweaks to strengthen Obamacare.
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Certainly those $2,000 stimulus checks for COVID relief, which, again, oddly, the president
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introduced that debate and forced Loeffler and Perdue to support those $2,000 checks.
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But a lot of people panicked about taxes going up and massive pieces of legislation on the
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That doesn't look likely, again, unless they get rid of the filibuster.
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I think they are going to roll back the Trump tax cuts.
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And I think we're looking at amnesty for 11 million undocumented immigrants in this
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I don't think those are unrealistic things to expect under a united Democratic government
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And I think the squad just got a lot more powerful last night.
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And, you know, now now there's nothing to stop him.
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There's no reason for Joe Biden has no one to blame for for moderating anything.
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You know, he can just say he can't say, look, I've got to work with the Republican Senate.
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I got to ask you another question because there's another big story happening today, and that
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is Congress is going to meet to confirm Joe Biden as president elect.
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So walk us through that process and what's expected to happen this afternoon.
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This is a sad day in American history that we're about to see on the Senate floor.
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Mike Pence's role is supposed to be largely ceremonial, but the president has forced him
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into a very uncomfortable position where you have Republicans in both the House and the
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Senate objecting to the Electoral College and attempting to overturn the November results.
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Again, this is a mere formality in U.S. history where we simply count the votes and read
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But President Trump tweeting this morning, a short time ago, states want to correct their
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votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received
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All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the states and we win.
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The vice president, Mike Pence, knows his duty is to the Constitution.
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And as I said before, his duty is largely ceremonial in this capacity.
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He does not have the role to overturn this election.
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Dozens, perhaps more than 100, object in the House.
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I think this is the real Apprentice reboot, not on NBC, but on the GOP, attempting to cater
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to the president's dangerous delusions that he won this election in a landslide.
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Ultimately, this not only is an attack on the Constitution, but it's a waste of all of our
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But they cannot and will not change anything as related to the November election.
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Anybody who tells you that we're going to get a different result other than Joe Biden
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becomes, you know, his victory is certified, is lying to you.
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But I will say, you know, to me, like, I don't like what's happening.
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It doesn't get us anywhere and it just prolongs this division and so on.
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Like, Maxine Waters got up there after Bush won in 2000 and she did the same thing.
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And by the way, she didn't even have a senator, you know, to back her up.
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And I'll never forget because Gore, Vice President Gore, who was the one who lost that
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presidential election to Bush after the Supreme Court's ruling, got up there and said, you
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Vice President Pence is supposed to just be a reader.
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He's supposed to be a reader of each state's vote.
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And, you know, what's going to be interesting to me is he the New York Times reported that
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And then Trump sent out a tweet yesterday saying that the New York Times reporting was wrong.
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So we're going to find out today who's telling the truth.
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And that cost of that loyalty will be on display for the country for Mike Pence, who has been
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blindly loyal to the president for four years in every way, shape or form.
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And for the president to turn on him for doing his job, for upholding his oath to the
00:17:41.440
But what could get worse is 30,000 Trump supporters marching in D.C. today.
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And there is a lot of traffic online about potential violence.
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And Trump will address those supporters marching in D.C. today.
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So it could be a very dark day in this nation's history.
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But Liz Cheney tweeting this morning, just a reminder, Congress has no authority to overturn
00:18:07.760
Doing so steals power from the states and violates the Constitution.
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The conservative movement is about states' rights, not to mention fiscal discipline, which
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Oh, yeah, there's there's no question if this if the shoe are on the other foot and a
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Democrat were trying this, the Republicans would be losing their minds, losing their
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And if you're Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, you don't want to be cast in the same boat as
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Maxine Waters that you just you don't want to be compared to her.
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You are potential candidates in 24 and constitutional attorneys.
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Because you mentioned Kamala Harris, who will become, you know, basically the deciding vote
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And there was news about her yesterday that I just I mean, I want to say I couldn't believe
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And it's just to me, it somehow felt like the hilarious, hilarious Baldwin story where
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somebody is pretending some nonsense about their past because they think it makes them
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And for Kamala Harris, it was this ridiculous story about her in the stroller at civil rights
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I'll let her tell the story and then we'll talk about what happened.
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Well, I was in a stroller and I was in a stroller and so I was out there.
00:19:27.740
And in fact, my mother used to have a very funny story about I was fussing and and she
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It was a much cuter story when she would tell it.
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OK, so I'm sorry, but the maniacal laughter is weird.
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I don't know where it comes from, but that story was made up.
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It was either made up by Kamala or, you know, if you want to be really charitable to her,
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And she has just chosen to believe it because it was cribbed.
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It was cribbed from Martin Luther King, who told that story years ago.
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You know, and she's taking a page out of Joe Biden's book.
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I mean, that's that's how his political career began with plagiarism accusations all over the
00:20:38.200
But, yeah, that's from a 1965 interview with Playboy magazine, similar to what MLK told
00:20:48.900
We forget that Kamala Harris was a quick out in the primary, largely because what you see
00:20:59.820
She never responded well in the moment, never debated well.
00:21:03.860
And that's why I don't think ultimately she's much of a threat in 2024.
00:21:12.560
But that inauthenticity, I think, cost her in the primary and will cost her again.
00:21:17.740
She never knows who she wants to be, similar to what we saw with Hillary Clinton.
00:21:22.100
So if she is the nominee, I think Republicans can feel good about their chances of taking
00:21:28.500
So a guy on Twitter who I follow tweeted out yesterday since she cribbed this from MLK.
00:21:36.320
And who can forget Kamala's famous I have a Dweem speech?
00:21:49.000
Well, the trending hashtag this morning, unfortunately, for Republicans, you mentioned Twitter is hashtag
00:21:56.740
That is the top trending story on Twitter, because it looks like Mitch McConnell is the Senate minority
00:22:04.260
leader, Chuck Schumer, majority leader moving forward.
00:22:25.040
And Joe Biden at the top with the squad nipping on his ears.
00:22:37.600
Um, if you're a Republican or you're more of a centrist like I am, I, you know, I said
00:22:50.920
You know, if it were divided government and Joe Biden was moderating his behavior, um, I
00:22:57.020
don't know, I think maybe there would be less controversy or there's going to be controversy
00:23:00.300
coming up and people are going to get fired up.
00:23:03.060
I mean, don't forget what happened with the Tea Party in 2010.
00:23:05.300
And, uh, you know, electing, um, switching the balance of power in 2010 and people marching
00:23:12.340
in the streets and those town halls that we all witnessed.
00:23:15.400
America was angry about the far left agenda being shoved down our throats without majority
00:23:22.280
And, um, I, I predict you're going to see something like that if, if this government
00:23:29.400
And, uh, you know, as I, as I point out at best, one of those Georgia Senate seats,
00:23:33.960
the one held by Warnock last for two years, and then there's another election there.
00:23:39.020
We're going to get to Hugh Hewitt to talk about all this in one second, but first I want
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Joining me now, Hugh Hewitt, host of the Hugh Hewitt show.
00:25:35.800
And, uh, you know, let's just start with, it looks like the Republicans lost both seats.
00:25:42.440
Let's get to why in one second, but your reaction to that reality.
00:25:48.120
I went to bed last night cause I had to get up at four 30 to prepare for my show, which
00:25:53.100
And I thought maybe there was a chance that David Perdue could hold on and that I might
00:25:59.800
I woke up to what is in effect, uh, a certain Ossoff win.
00:26:03.880
I don't believe the military ballots or the outstanding ballots can close a 14,000 vote gap,
00:26:08.760
which is somewhere where it is and recounts, et cetera.
00:26:12.780
It might need to recount, but it's a, it's a democratic Senate, a democratic house and
00:26:21.100
We've been here before in January of, of, uh, 1993.
00:26:35.240
I mean, I think forward to what we're looking at in terms of agenda, you know, foreign policy,
00:26:42.140
immigration, uh, environmental, uh, regulations, taxes, healthcare.
00:26:48.400
And I, I worry, I worry it's going to go far left.
00:26:59.300
I think Joe Manchin and Angus King and Jack Reed, uh, provide us some security blankets in
00:27:08.260
And I believe that the narrowness of the democratic majority in the house, whether it ends up being
00:27:13.080
six to 10 votes, it's still kind of depends upon what happens in New York 22 and the Iowa
00:27:19.360
race, but they are sufficiently narrow in the house that people will be looking over
00:27:24.260
their shoulder at crazy stuff and saying, no, thank you, Nancy.
00:27:28.420
And in the Senate, I actually believe Angus King is a great patriot.
00:27:33.820
And, uh, he was co-chair with Mike Gallagher on the cyber solarium, uh, a key defense issue.
00:27:40.640
He's on, uh, armed services, Jack Reed, he's a veteran, knows armed services.
00:27:46.200
And I, I think, uh, Chris, uh, uh, Coons is also kind of a sane person.
00:27:55.060
Uh, I think the corporate tax rate will go back to 28, maybe even 32%.
00:27:58.940
I expect the tax breaks that president Trump's reform extended to small businesses will be
00:28:05.200
I expect immigration to be rather quickly attached to a reconciliation.
00:28:09.800
And Green New Deal, perhaps a carbon tax, uh, there will be some definite shifts, but
00:28:15.920
it's not the disaster that was expected in November.
00:28:19.000
Had this result occurred, Megan, on November the 2nd, we still, we being Republicans, I
00:28:27.440
I'm outwardly and always have been a Republican.
00:28:30.460
We Republicans would be still relatively happy with the result of November because it wasn't
00:28:38.720
It's a 50, 50 country with the reins and the democratic hands on a few issues that will
00:28:51.360
I think two things, uh, Governor Kemp, one of the rules I have in life is don't make, uh,
00:28:59.040
And he had an easy decision when, uh, Johnny Isakson had to retire.
00:29:03.860
He could have named Doug Collins and it would have been an easy walk to victory in the general.
00:29:09.740
Instead, he listened only to himself and the consultants who surrounded him and Kelly Loeffler
00:29:14.980
who were intent on running a so-called woman for the suburbs.
00:29:19.940
Well, she's a billionaire and she's never run for anything.
00:29:28.340
The last two months are on the president because, um, you cannot have a battle between the president
00:29:34.300
and the governor and not turn off at least five to 10%.
00:29:38.600
Democrats turned out, Republicans didn't turn out in the numbers that they needed.
00:29:45.960
What do you make of Lin Wood, you know, in that rally that we saw and, uh, you know,
00:29:51.520
one of the stop the steal rallies where he got up there and said, don't vote.
00:29:55.480
And, you know, the white house was quick to distance itself from him, but it was very well
00:29:59.420
publicized, of course, because the media loved that message.
00:30:03.580
Um, and there are a lot of ticked off Republicans in Georgia who are Trump voters who may have
00:30:10.400
seen it as a middle finger to the party, to the system, to just stay at home.
00:30:19.240
I also don't think he was particularly significant or Powell, the whole crack and nonsense.
00:30:24.360
Uh, the longer it went on, the, the less attached to the reality of the political situation it
00:30:36.080
And therefore I didn't count it so much, but the Raffensperger presidential conversation
00:30:42.900
of two days ago that Raffensperger leaked it is incendiary in a party structure.
00:30:49.620
Uh, and I, you know, this is a question of 1%, 1% of the party staying away and, you know,
00:30:57.900
If the 1% that was coming decided to stay home, you're not at 87, you're at 85.
00:31:03.520
And it, it's a, it is a, or, or you energize 1% on the other side by virtue of that.
00:31:10.400
So it's a game of inches like football when the runoff like this is so close and everybody
00:31:18.380
I'm glad you mentioned the media played up every story that benefited Democrats and they
00:31:26.520
There are major character concerns about Pastor Warnick, major character concerns.
00:31:32.640
They received almost no attention from the national news media.
00:31:39.380
And I don't, I will not accept anyone believing that they were other than a hundred percent in
00:31:47.360
John Ossoff has nothing to recommend him over David Perdue, except that he had, uh, Raphael
00:31:56.440
This is a guy, Warnock, who is, has, uh, defended Fidel Castro, who said you can't serve the military
00:32:04.900
And the Democrats, Hugh, who not too long ago were lecturing us and Brett Kavanaugh about
00:32:09.700
how we must believe all women didn't seem to give a damn about what Raphael Warnock's
00:32:19.580
Here's, she, she claimed that he ran over her foot with his car.
00:32:23.520
Uh, he denied that, but the problem seemed much bigger than that with respect to his
00:32:30.480
We have a little bit of a back and forth between the two of them, but you tell me how the media
00:32:34.720
would have treated this story if Raphael Warnock were a Republican.
00:32:39.980
So I'm like, move, and she won't move, and she's keeping the door open.
00:32:46.140
And I move, and I close my car door, get in the car, and I start to move slightly, thinking
00:32:59.640
And all of a sudden she's screaming that I ran over her foot.
00:33:04.380
This man's running for the United States Senate, and all he cares about right now is his reputation.
00:33:08.720
I work at the mayor's office, and this is a big problem.
00:33:11.580
I've been trying to be very quiet about the way that he is for the sake of my kids and
00:33:17.220
I've tried to keep the way that he acts under wraps for a long time, and today he crossed
00:33:23.400
So that is what is going on here, and he's a great actor.
00:33:27.240
He is phenomenal at putting on a really good show.
00:33:31.100
You didn't hear that on every cable news show, on the front of the New York Times, and the
00:33:37.400
New Yorker, in-depth profiles on her, Ronan Farrow, you know, the full treatment didn't
00:33:43.340
Did not happen, and you know, he's up for re-election again in two years, and will this
00:33:53.920
I do have to add, though, Megan, you've watched enough people in politics for so long.
00:33:59.760
You know a good candidate from a bad one immediately.
00:34:03.900
Do you realize, I invited her on for 60 consecutive days.
00:34:08.040
Open invitation, Senator Loeffler, come on the Hugh Hewitt Show, 14 affiliates in Georgia,
00:34:12.940
drive time, highest rated show in Atlanta for a talk show in the morning.
00:34:20.740
Now, Senator Perdue came on, Sonny Perdue came on, Republicans galore came on, surrogates
00:34:31.160
You know people, what's that tell her, tell you?
00:34:40.120
She's a billionaire poser who thought it would make her look good and seem smart to have this
00:34:46.760
seat, but she didn't want to actually answer to her constituents.
00:34:52.500
And in fact, you can't buy anything in American politics.
00:34:59.280
You can buy a lot of lobbyists, but you can't buy votes.
00:35:03.740
And no matter how hard you try, if there's no there there, if you're just a nice person,
00:35:15.020
And I believe that she has got a record of accomplishment that is extraordinarily thin
00:35:20.180
and that Brian Kemp lost this election and the Senate when he appointed her instead of
00:35:28.900
You know, her again, her opponent is pretty radical, right?
00:35:36.300
And I know that, you know, you and I, as people who are farther to the right on the
00:35:41.320
ideological scale than James Carville, think that these comments are controversial, the
00:35:45.940
But Carville came out and said, look, she thinks she's attacking a preacher's words by using
00:35:50.660
some of these comments like God, the military, but she's really attacking the black church.
00:35:55.480
And that, he said, has spectacularly backfired.
00:35:59.480
So he thinks these attacks on on Warnock and what he said from the pulpit, because he's
00:36:05.080
a preacher, worked against him because the black vote turned out in record numbers to
00:36:15.160
I do not believe, however, that that Jim is James is right about that.
00:36:21.240
I don't I don't belong to one, but I've attended enough of them.
00:36:23.840
And I have a number of friends who are pastors of AME churches and they've never said anything
00:36:29.920
They've never said you cannot serve God in the military.
00:36:32.320
I played that probably 100 times in the last two months because I wanted Georgia is a military
00:36:37.460
state and I wanted the military to understand Pastor Warnock's view of their service.
00:36:45.180
I don't believe that the black church generally is that radical.
00:36:51.460
The one thing that I have not lived in is the Georgia envelope where the the raining down
00:36:58.000
on Warnock and Ossoff of negative ads was relentless.
00:37:01.660
It was a five hundred and fifty million dollar campaign, which is so staggering.
00:37:10.080
And so it's every ad opportunity on every medium plus Internet ads by the score.
00:37:17.000
And it may have indeed turned into a solidarity issue.
00:37:24.280
I am voting for the pastor because he's being assailed to this extent.
00:37:29.600
That may have happened, but I don't think it was their choice of excerpt.
00:37:36.860
Well, it's amazing because Trump did better with the black boat nationally.
00:37:39.960
I mean, he basically increased his share of it by 50 percent, even though the numbers
00:37:43.340
overall remained low during the November election.
00:37:47.080
But the black boat did in the Republicans in Georgia last night.
00:37:53.180
You know, I know on your show you've been reminding listeners about Senator Schumer's pledge.
00:38:02.260
I mean, as as Glenn Beck likes to say, you know, when people tell you what they're going
00:38:06.060
to do, you should believe them and sort of take off on the Maya Angelou quote.
00:38:10.460
And I kind of believe Chuck Schumer is going to change America, that he wants to change
00:38:15.680
America and that and he's probably a stronger leader than Joe Biden is.
00:38:19.580
You may not like him, but he's probably stronger.
00:38:23.500
I certainly think Trump's legacy on judges will start to get undone.
00:38:28.640
Those judges are not going to look like Trump's judges.
00:38:32.140
But what are the areas that you are concerned about?
00:38:37.300
If Mitch McConnell controlled the Senate, the president, President Biden, would get many
00:38:44.640
Now he will get all of them and they will move the Overton window for Biden judges just
00:38:49.960
moved left so that the California Supreme Court justices that I'm worried about will end
00:38:58.240
So the moderating influence of a Republican majority has vanished.
00:39:03.040
First, I do not expect Senators Manchin and Senators King to interfere with judges the way that
00:39:09.460
they might on the filibuster, as I expect they will on the filibuster, on D.C. statehood,
00:39:25.320
So Mitch McConnell has to adopt Chuck Schumer slow walking.
00:39:29.040
They've got a slow walk, in a disciplined way, everything.
00:39:35.160
And so they're going, luckily, there isn't one vacancy on the circuit courts right now.
00:39:42.580
I think Justice Breyer will call it quits at the end of this term.
00:39:47.740
Because I want to remind a lot of your listeners, Megan, you'll remember it.
00:39:50.720
In 2001, it was a 50-50 Senate when the smoke cleared in January of 2001.
00:40:10.440
And so I expect the Democrats to do the one thing Republicans have never done, which is run.
00:40:15.740
I mean, they're going to try and run the clock.
00:40:21.640
And Senator McConnell knows that body very, very well, as does Senator Thune.
00:40:26.220
They're going to be maxed out in trying to delay the Democrats as much as the Democrats delayed President Trump.
00:40:33.180
It'll be fascinating from a scholarly point of view to see who's better at obstruction.
00:40:42.420
Well, what do you think the big agenda items will be for Biden?
00:40:45.360
Because you looked at when Barack Obama came into power and we had one-sixth of the U.S. economy altered by Obamacare.
00:40:53.020
Now, he had a much bigger mandate than Joe Biden does, who got dragged across the finish line by Democratic operatives who weekend at Bernie'd him right over into November to the White House.
00:41:08.620
I mean, it's basically an evenly divided Senate with Kamala Harris set to cast the deciding vote.
00:41:14.920
So assuming, like most of us do, that the American public is likely to divide the government in two years, what does he do in these first two years?
00:41:25.100
What do you think are his most—because he promised amnesty, Hugh.
00:41:27.480
He openly promised amnesty at the presidential debate and beyond.
00:41:34.060
But what do you think he's going to use that collateral for?
00:41:37.800
You see, the president gets two bites at the apple.
00:41:41.020
He gets the reconciliation process in the next year, and then he gets the reconciliation process in 2022.
00:41:49.780
So he gets a 2021 reconciliation package and a 2022 reconciliation.
00:41:55.800
And a reconciliation package is, by law, and the parliamentarian will rule out of order anything that does not affect the budget.
00:42:04.220
So I believe the first thing he will do will be to raise taxes comprehensively.
00:42:09.520
And the Green New Deal taxes will be a part of that.
00:42:11.660
So that carbon tax is, I think, the very first thing.
00:42:20.020
Return the state and local income tax deduction and perhaps the mortgage interest deduction,
00:42:27.360
I think that all goes into the first reconciliation bill.
00:42:31.840
The second one is immigration because you can maybe squeeze it in by taxing new citizens or new residents.
00:42:41.100
So if you said everybody who's in the country can become a citizen by virtue of paying a tax of a few hundred dollars,
00:42:50.800
then it becomes a tax and spending issue and is qualified, I think, for reconciliation.
00:42:56.040
I think those are the two big issues that he can accomplish with a 50 Democrat Senate.
00:43:02.580
There's also the Congressional Review Act, Megan.
00:43:05.220
And people forget that, that the Congressional Review Act provides that by simple majority,
00:43:10.400
any regulation passed in the last year can be repealed.
00:43:14.260
And there was a lot of work done by the Trump administration in the last year,
00:43:19.180
particularly out of the Environmental Protection Agency.
00:43:21.500
I always note my son works there so that no one claims a conflict of interest.
00:43:33.320
I mean, all those Trump executive orders, those are all going away.
00:43:39.300
Now it's a bigger question of what can be done with the cooperation of, you know,
00:43:43.200
the co-equal branches of government, one of which he's going to stack with more left-leaning judges
00:43:47.240
and one of which he now controls as the Democrats appear to take power in both branches of the House and the Senate.
00:43:52.920
And don't forget, Obamacare was shoved through through that same reconciliation.
00:43:56.220
It was an economic budget move, which is why they only required 51 votes instead of 60 at the time.
00:44:02.780
And that was why the Scott Brown election was so important in Massachusetts and so on and so forth.
00:44:10.220
I think things could get more radical and I think it could happen soon.
00:44:15.100
You've got guys like Manchin of West Virginia who are not not far left people at all.
00:44:21.940
But then you got people like Mitt Romney, who I'm amazed at what's happened to Mitt Romney.
00:44:26.700
Did you have you been seeing the videos that have been circulating of people harassing him like in the in the airport and so on?
00:44:31.100
But Mitt Romney sounds an awful lot more like a Democrat to me than any other guy I ever saw get the Republican nomination for president.
00:44:41.340
I helped him write his book, Megan, when he ran for president.
00:44:45.720
So I am a very, very big fan of Governor and now Senator Romney.
00:44:49.160
He voted instantly for Amy Coney Barrett, came out on the first day and said, I'm voting for Barrett.
00:44:53.160
But I believe he is a traditional New England Republican who happened to be transplanted to California and then to Utah and that like traditional New England Republicans, he is center right and more on the center than the right.
00:45:12.440
He's not going to vote for business destroying taxes.
00:45:18.540
He is like Rob Portman, old school Republican, country club Republicans, they used to be called.
00:45:27.300
And I don't think the harassment you've seen is the underlying breach in the Republican Party.
00:45:33.640
The fault line in the GOP is between Trumpists and old guard.
00:45:38.540
And I try and keep everybody happy and I try and listen to everybody because I want everyone to get along.
00:45:49.620
The errors to Trump, in my mind, are Ron DeSantis, Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo.
00:45:58.340
I don't think anyone who ran against him actually in 2016 can pick up the mantle without MAGA America being upset.
00:46:06.960
But I think those three people can and maybe Nikki Haley as a fourth and maybe Dan Crenshaw as a fifth.
00:46:13.560
But that's going to be the debate in 2023, 2024 is what does the president do and to whom does he do it?
00:46:22.280
I've always respected Mitt Romney, but he he's been so sharp in his criticism of the president and the president's supporters that I understand their anger at him.
00:46:35.140
He he I mean, the people of Utah are ticked off.
00:46:38.240
They wanted a Republican to go in there and support a Republican agenda.
00:46:41.920
And Mitt Romney, he's been so all over the board in hating President Trump, supporting President Trump, going back to President Trump on bended knee, then attacking President Trump.
00:46:50.360
I understand why people have developed this feeling about him.
00:46:53.560
I don't like to see anybody get harassed just as a human matter.
00:46:58.700
He seems to go and he's at the Black Lives Matter protests.
00:47:01.180
It's like, do you know what you're protesting for?
00:47:02.480
Do you actually know what that group stands for?
00:47:04.400
Like he he to me looks awfully, awfully Democratic these days.
00:47:08.820
And I I do wonder when push comes to shove, what constituency he's serving.
00:47:13.600
And look, I like the guy moderated one of his conferences.
00:47:15.800
It's not like I have any problem with Mitt Romney, the man.
00:47:18.460
As a politician, he seems an awful lot more to the left than most of those GOPers.
00:47:27.080
But I also want to talk about Jacob Blake quickly, who, you know, was the was the was the man who was shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
00:47:34.920
He was not killed, but he was shot repeatedly by a police officer.
00:47:38.840
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00:48:36.320
OK, Hugh, so I want to get back to politics and what's happening with the presidential race in a second.
00:48:40.460
But quickly on Jacob Blake, this is one of the cases that we saw over the summer that led to massive protests.
00:48:46.860
It led to that shooting we saw in Wisconsin later with Kyle Rittenhouse at that one protest for which he's facing charges.
00:48:55.000
And it all came down to an incident in which Jacob Blake, who was accused of violating a protective order that his ex had gotten against him, showed up at her house in a threatening way.
00:49:05.580
She called the police, she called the police, they showed up, he resisted arrest, he got the cop in a headlock.
00:49:11.680
Some of the scuffle was caught on camera, but not all of it.
00:49:14.600
And he wound up getting shot by a police officer seven times.
00:49:19.180
Unleash, you know, hell, because the protests happened.
00:49:22.820
Kamala Harris went to visit him in the hospital, said she was proud of him.
00:49:26.360
Um, and and many people taking a look at the at these facts thought, why are you proud of him?
00:49:32.740
He was accused of digitally raping the woman that called the police on him.
00:49:37.560
And at best, he assaulted a police officer who was trying to place him under arrest for violating a protective order.
00:49:42.760
It's not to say he deserved to get shot seven times, but you don't go tell somebody like that they're proud of him, that you're proud of him.
00:49:48.500
And and what the facts appeared to suggest at the time was that Jacob Blake was armed, that the reason he got shot is because, A, he resisted arrest.
00:49:57.500
B, he had a knife on him and refused to drop it, despite the police's calls that he do so.
00:50:07.880
OK, people refused to accept this, even though the evidence was there.
00:50:10.920
Third parties, the police union came out early on and the D.A.
00:50:16.220
Yesterday, the Kenosha D.A. said, we're not charging this cop.
00:50:21.240
It is incontrovertible, incontrovertible that Jacob Blake was armed.
00:50:34.260
Jacob Blake, while actively resisting, arms himself with a knife.
00:50:40.960
I think I heard the rally last night, the vigil where someone again said he was unarmed.
00:50:47.640
It is absolutely incontrovertible that Jacob Blake was armed with a knife during this encounter.
00:50:55.300
OK, so that was obvious to anyone paying attention to this case from the beginning.
00:51:02.140
And you could see what appeared to be a knife on the on the in the car that he approached.
00:51:09.520
And the police from the beginning had been saying that he had it on him and then turned against them with it.
00:51:16.660
Hugh, the media takes these cases, blows them up without context, without an open mind, without even deigning to report what the police officer side is and tries to make it a race issue, a police abuse issue.
00:51:31.480
You and I both know as lawyers, the law makes no distinction between bullet number one and bullet number seven.
00:51:36.640
If the cop has has a reasonable fear of bodily safety or death, he may shoot to kill.
00:51:43.380
I realize it doesn't look good or feel good to see an officer shoot a man seven times.
00:51:47.800
But people don't understand what it's like to be a cop and have to worry every night that he's not going to go home to his family and understand that every day in this country, a cop gets gets shot by somebody he's trying to arrest.
00:52:01.480
Number one, the media and number two, activists who will refuse to acknowledge this, as the Kenosha D.A. says, they will refuse to acknowledge that Jacob Blake was armed and had assaulted a police officer.
00:52:12.920
And they did have a reasonable fear of fear for their bodily safety or lives.
00:52:21.080
I tweeted out an article that that reflected the police officer side and the D.A.'s suggestion that this guy was armed, that he had a knife at the time.
00:52:33.120
One awful person in particular, Soledad O'Brien, who I really can't stand.
00:52:36.520
She's the nastiest person on Twitter, attacked me with a racist insult for saying that.
00:52:43.360
Somebody tweeted out yesterday, where's where's your apology to Megyn Kelly?
00:52:50.980
Anybody who pushes back on these narratives gets called an awful name.
00:52:54.200
The media has no interest in reporting the truth.
00:52:56.120
They try to shut you down by calling you terrible terms.
00:53:00.800
And the reason I have never gotten one of these cases wrong, not once, I've always been able to tell you whether the cop is going to get charged or not, is because I just pay attention to where the facts take me.
00:53:10.400
I don't have an ideological agenda on this stuff.
00:53:14.220
And I think we're in a lot of trouble in this country when it comes to race relations and other issues right now because we have a dishonest media that's more focused on identity politics and virtue signaling than they are on facts, Hugh.
00:53:26.700
They have to distinguish between unjustified uses of force and justified uses of force.
00:53:32.580
This came home to me when Michael Eric Dyson was my guest on my show recently.
00:53:37.560
He has a new book out, Long Time Coming, which I would recommend to everyone, which revisits most of the high profile cases of the last decade, including Michael Brown.
00:53:47.640
And Michael Eric Dyson, Dr. Dyson, I disagreed about Michael Brown because I'm very intimately familiar with the Michael Brown shooting.
00:53:57.200
And I believe, look, it was an Eric Holder Department of Justice that exonerated the officer.
00:54:01.340
In the Kenosha case, there's one factor also you did not mention, Megan.
00:54:07.340
And if he had been allowed to drive away, he would have had three children in imminent danger of their lives in an excited state and with a weapon and with police pursuit.
00:54:19.640
So I've always thought that this was a case that that ought to have cautioned the media to slow down.
00:54:26.220
But like you, I bring a lawyer's perspective to everything.
00:54:29.440
I've never taught criminal law, but I've taught a lot of constitutional cases involving the criminal law.
00:54:35.660
And it always does come down to the moment in which the incident occurs and not to people on the sidelines.
00:54:42.040
My own newspaper, The Washington Post, I believe, had to issue a correction yesterday because they they said Mr. Blake was unarmed and they had to rush out.
00:54:51.420
And so like Michael Brown, this is not an Eric Garner case.
00:55:02.600
And it's the reason I encourage people to read Michael Eric Dyson.
00:55:05.040
I understand the point of view of activists who say don't confuse the facts with the trend.
00:55:11.000
And the trend is that the police approach blacks differently than they approach every other American group.
00:55:18.900
That argument, however, does not make policemen go to jail or punish them when they are in fear of bodily harm
00:55:26.400
or when they have to go to the aid of three children in the back of a vehicle being about to be operated by an individual who's just been in a fight with the police and is armed.
00:55:36.240
So to me, the best thing to do is to take a race out of the case, examine it and then add race back in.
00:55:44.120
And usually if you do that, you'll get to the right answer.
00:55:46.920
If you talk to Glenn Lowry, he'll be quick to tell you, Hugh, that there is that the reason the police approach people of color differently than everybody else is because the crime rates in the major cities, it's not popular to say, but 60 percent of the murders in major cities are committed by black defendants.
00:56:03.640
And so there is there is empirical data that may make the police approach in certain cities in particular, people of color differently than than white people or other other groups of potential suspects.
00:56:17.540
It's not popular, but these are facts and they have to be taken into account when assessing police behavior.
00:56:23.940
I have to tell you a quick story, Megan, in the first presidential debate I did after your famous debate, I got the second debate at the Reagan Library and I had to drive very quickly from Palo Alto to the Reagan Library.
00:56:38.900
And I was driving at night and I may have been exceeding the speed limit.
00:56:41.700
I will not confess to that, but I may have been going fast and my gas cap may have been open.
00:56:48.400
I had to make rehearsal and you know how that goes.
00:56:49.820
So I got pulled over by a chippy in California who approached the car and I decided I would do the dishonorable thing.
00:56:57.820
I said, well, I have to get down to the Reagan Library.
00:57:01.520
And he looked at me and he walked back to his car and he honestly going to check to see if Hugh Hewitt was on the debate panel.
00:57:07.160
And he came back to the guy, I'm going to let you go.
00:57:10.720
Got out of the car and he said, I'm going to let you go.
00:57:12.460
But on the condition that you ask those candidates, when are they going to stand up for the police who are being fronted?
00:57:17.360
As I was last night on this stretch by every motorist who believes it's in their interest now to confront police.
00:57:23.000
Fronting mean to stand close to a police officer and argue with them.
00:57:32.560
He wasn't asking for any particular point of view just to let the public know that the life of the police officer has grown increasingly difficult.
00:57:40.680
With attention to every controversial case, increasingly impossible to do.
00:57:48.500
I mean, listen, I don't want to discount that there's any bias in law enforcement or that black men in particular get treated differently by the cops and not always for good reasons.
00:57:58.160
But we do have to keep in mind the overall statistics and factoring in what happens in these interactions and getting to the root cause of why that happens.
00:58:08.220
Everyone just knee jerk, bias, bias, bias, race, race, race, racists isn't helpful.
00:58:15.020
And if we would just be honest about what causes the crime rates and how we can help people in the inner city do better and have better lives and be less likely to resort to crime without just saying everyone's racist.
00:58:24.860
It's white supremacy. I think we get a lot farther to just to put the point on what you said.
00:58:33.600
Police officers won't be charged in shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man who was shot seven times in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
00:58:44.900
I won't make you criticize your publication, but I'll do it.
00:58:50.840
I mean, that narrative has been pushed by a lot of people.
00:58:57.240
I want people to note what Megan just did there.
00:58:59.500
And it's a professional courtesy not to ask someone to critique their own platform.
00:59:05.300
But in this case, it is an inexcusable error and one that the Post immediately corrected because it is an inexcusable error on a controversy of extraordinary public importance that could lead to violence and public demonstrations to get the basic facts wrong.
00:59:28.400
OK, so let's let's talk about the presidency, which is still being debated today, Hugh.
00:59:35.100
Today, as you know, we're supposed to have Mike Pence preside over the finalization of these electoral votes.
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He's being pressured by the president to not do it.
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It's the certification of the vote of the Electoral College.
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Senator Hawley, Senator Cruz are promising to object, to make waves.
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And in order to have real debate on any of this, you have to have a member of the House and a member of the Senate.
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And you've got them both on several states object.
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And then they have debates in their own individual chambers.
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And then they come back and they see if there's any of the bottom line is nothing.
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But what do you make of what's happening today?
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Democrats making the objections, the debates being triggered.
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And so I don't think it's a constitutional crisis.
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I think it has become now part of the pattern in practice that will now follow presidential elections forever.
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That some members of the public will ask their representatives, key word there, to represent them with their dismay at some aspect.
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It's the exercise of representation and responsibility.
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I do not, I would not myself object and I would not myself participate in any debate that trafficked in falseness.
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I have to deal every day with callers who want to talk about Dominion.
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There's nothing wrong with the Dominion machines.
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I have to talk every day, had to talk about today, about dead people voting.
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This is, again, the lawyer in both of us coming out.
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Sixty different legal challenges were filed and in not one of them was an evidentiary bar met that would allow it to proceed to the accumulation of evidence by deposition or exhibit such that judgments would be made following rulings.
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And so there just isn't a case anywhere in the United States, not one state, not two states, not the minimum of three states necessary.
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So this is performance art and performance art and politics is just fine.
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And what I don't like, and we're back to double standards, is that which was uncontroversial and covered sympathetically in 2004 and 2016 is being treated as a rending of the republic in 2020 because it's Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Jim Lankford bringing it forward.
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I would not myself object, but I also I do object to the idea that this is some kind of crisis.
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If there is a if there is a provision for it happening in the Constitution, it's not it's not by definition a constitutional abuse to then do it.
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You know, it's like it's a constitutional crisis.
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Like, well, how can it be a crisis if the Constitution allows for this very thing?
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And if the president doesn't go to the inauguration, that's not a constitutional crisis.
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If he doesn't have Joe Biden over to the White House, it's not a constitutional crisis.
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A constitutional crisis is when the Constitution is ignored or broken.
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It's not when it's actually the pattern of law or practice is is established and is being followed by a different party.
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Right. So Joe Biden's going to get certified today.
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And what does Trump do over the next two weeks before the inauguration?
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I mean, he's still going to be saying what he's saying about the electoral process.
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Full disclosure, I put my name to a pardon effort for a.
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No, I just sent a note to a member of the staff saying, I think this fellow deserves it.
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A longtime rehabilitated prisoner who's active in evangelical circles.
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That's routine at the end of the administration.
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People get pardon applications and people ask all the time.
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But I do believe there will be more pardons because it's the last thing a president can do.
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I do also think that he will be expansive in his grants of Medal of Freedoms.
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I'm not sure that I would have given one to Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan.
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I like them both, but it's not Medal of Freedom stuff.
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Again, and the Democrats do it when they're in power and the president's going to do it when he's in power.
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I would just, I would just say to everybody, it will be fine.
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And the president's going to decide for himself when he's not president anymore how to conduct himself.
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And Joe Biden will be president and that will be fine.
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We live in the best time ever to be alive in the best country ever to be alive in.
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And I think sometimes we get caught up in the, I mean, we're talking on a podcast and a new way of communicating.
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So the ups and downs, if we can keep our eyes on the Chinese Communist Party, which is crushing Hong Kong this week, that would be a good thing as opposed to our foibles.
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And these are just foibles in the larger scheme of things.
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We would rather navel gaze about pigmentation and lady parts.
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So what do you think, just quickly, the future of the GOP party?
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Because I do wonder, after last night in Georgia, people are saying, oh, Trump, you know, he's a drag.
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Because he's going to exit the White House, though, not the national stage.
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And he's never going to give up the Twitter account, and nor should he.
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I think he's going to start Trump 2024 immediately.
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Whether or not he runs, that will remain open, but he'll raise a lot of money.
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I hope he has good advisors around him on the candidate selection process, because we do not need fringe candidates.
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They will lose, as they did in the first Tea Party years.
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Chris Coons was there because we ran a very marginal person who beat Mike Castle in a primary.
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Mike Castle would have been a Republican senator like Mitt Romney, center-right, who would still be there to this day.
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So we need to be wise, but not much will be discernible until after the redistricting is done.
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The key thing for the Republican Party is to recruit.
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It's sort of like media has got to go younger, younger, younger, and it's got to get rid of the, frankly, people like my age.
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They've got to pass from the scene and let new people expressing new points of view rise up and take control of the party.
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But if the Republicans do one thing right, which is to candidate recruit the way that Tom Emmer did this time for the House cycle, if Mitch McConnell does that, they do have to persuade Pat Toomey to run again in Pennsylvania.
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But they can have a pretty good cycle if they come up with a woman veteran in Colorado who was in combat.
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If they come up with a woman veteran in Georgia, she can beat Raphael Warnick in 2022.
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There's a lot of opportunity because we actually, we being Republicans, again, I don't want to make you a member of my party, Megan.
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My party can very much win everything back in two and four years like we did in 2010 and 2016.
01:07:05.900
And just to reiterate, you were sort of calling out who you thought was the future in terms of presidential politics of 2024.
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You mentioned DeSantis of Florida, Crenshaw, possibly.
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Tom Cotton, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, I would guess, are the frontrunners, because I do think anyone who ran against President Trump in 2016 has a burden in the eyes of MAGA America, whereas those who are generally supportive of him do not.
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I mean, I know you said earlier, no, but like he's gone full Trump.
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It still remains difficult, in my view, to see someone stepping up who has crossed swords with the president.
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He's got the longest memory ever, and it just will come into play in that cycle.
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I've talked to him on a few occasions about policy.
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And there are some people, like Mitch McConnell, who are called to the Senate for their entire lives.
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And I think maybe Tom Cotton may end up being one of those, but he also has ambitions for the highest office.
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And what's interesting, we've learned in the last two cycles, when the moment is upon you, you cannot hesitate.
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And so I think it's going to be 24 people, and you and I are going to be moderating debates throughout the Republican primary season, double the number that we did in 2016.
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I'm going to put another name on your list, and I realize he's only an AG, a state AG, but Daniel Cameron.
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I think he's sort of the Barack Obama of the right.
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And he'll be a governor by that time, because he will win the governorship of Kentucky in the next cycle.
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He's 100% going to be a governor, and he's brilliant.
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He doesn't care what you're going to say about him.
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All the names he's been called after he refused to get the indictment in the Breonna Taylor case.
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It's going so well, and increased success to you in 2021.
01:09:25.980
And I want to tell you, before we go, our episode today was brought to you in part by Norton 360 with LifeLock.
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With a top trusted ally in today's connected world.
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Now that we're closing out the show, you can get on the internet, norton.com slash mk to learn more.
01:09:44.100
Don't forget to tune into the program on Friday, because we're going to have Glenn Beck on a tear
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about his call for secession and where this country's going over the next four years.
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We were always tight at Fox, and he's got some interesting thoughts on where we are at this moment in time.
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I guess you can't review it right now on Apple.
01:10:10.980
But you can send us a review at questions at devilmaycaremedia.com.
01:10:17.860
Let us know if you have any questions for our Asked and Answered segments or any thoughts on guests.
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We always take them into consideration and appreciate you guys all listening.
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The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care Media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.