The Megyn Kelly Show - GOP Chances in NY and CT, Military Recruitment Issues, and REAL Top Gun Pilot, with John Ellis and Dave Berke

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.660 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:14.880 Later, we are going to bring you the incredible story of a retired Marine Corps officer and combat vet

00:00:21.100 who consulted on the new Top Gun. He is the real maverick.

00:00:26.860 That's what I say. They admit he may have been an inspiration for the Tom Cruise character.

00:00:32.440 He consulted on the show for a reason. This is the real guys.

00:00:36.120 We're going to talk about these dogfights in the air and what it's actually like and how you get recruited for that role

00:00:42.080 and what's happening with our military because there was testimony before Congress this week saying,

00:00:48.200 and I quote, there is an unprecedented, an unprecedented mission gap right now when it comes to our recruiting

00:00:58.420 for new military members that we face the greatest recruiting challenge in 50 years.

00:01:05.140 OK, that was just last month that that hit. So why is that right? Why is that?

00:01:10.660 We'll get into all of it. First, though, we take a dive into the midterm races.

00:01:14.160 There's a lot of news to get to in Pennsylvania as John Fetterman's doctor releases a, quote,

00:01:19.920 medical report saying he's healthy. Take a look at Arizona and Carrie Lake's epic battle with

00:01:25.380 reporters. And this is the story I've got to talk about first. Is it possible that New York

00:01:31.180 state is in play for the GOP, New York, deep blue, New York?

00:01:38.780 John Ellis is the founder and editor of the News Items Substack, and he has a wealth of political experience.

00:01:45.420 He says there are some races we need to be watching closely that you may not be thinking about,

00:01:49.500 including the Connecticut Senate race. Again, deep, deep blue. What?

00:01:59.140 John Ellis, welcome to the show.

00:02:01.180 Thank you for having me, Nick.

00:02:03.120 So it's like even to be mentioning Connecticut Senate and New York governor, like what?

00:02:10.740 What do you this is crazy talk, but is it?

00:02:14.420 You know, I'm doing a piece right now on Connecticut.

00:02:17.780 And in 2010, the incumbent, Richard Blumenthal, who had been state attorney general forever,

00:02:24.740 was elected with 55 percent of the vote, had 600,000 votes.

00:02:31.080 OK. And that was in the first midterm of the Obama election.

00:02:36.480 He got 600,000 votes and that was 55 percent of the vote.

00:02:40.060 So healthy, healthy margin. He did well.

00:02:41.720 So, yeah. So six years later, 2016, obviously, the year that President Trump was elected,

00:02:48.860 he gets a million votes and gets 63 percent of the vote.

00:02:54.320 OK.

00:02:54.920 He's going in the right direction, especially considering that's a Republican wave election.

00:02:58.800 That's the first time anyone statewide in Connecticut has won more than a million votes.

00:03:07.960 And so you would think, gee, he's a lock for re-election.

00:03:11.940 And the fact is that he's not. He's ahead, depending on which polls you believe, somewhere between five and seven points.

00:03:21.300 He's suddenly all over the air in this media market.

00:03:26.400 And there's a real chance that he might lose.

00:03:30.520 So that tells you that.

00:03:32.900 I mean, what's important about Connecticut is at the end of the day, probably Blumenthal will win.

00:03:37.540 But if he wins by two or four or five points, that means the Republicans in the rest of the country are going to do very, very well.

00:03:46.340 And that's the New York story as well.

00:03:48.680 Yes. I'm going to get to New York one second.

00:03:50.120 But that's so that you're saying, basically, if he comes within if his competitor, this woman, Levy, comes within two, three points of him.

00:03:57.500 This is another Phil Murphy situation where he just barely held on to his seat as the New Jersey governor and really rattled Democrats.

00:04:05.380 That changed. I think the Phil Murphy near loss really changed covid policy across the nation, you know, several months back when he almost lost that seat that he'd been running 30 points ahead in.

00:04:18.400 Right. I mean, the one way I look at elections is what should be right.

00:04:23.360 So what should be is that Richard Blumenthal, who has won statewide for three decades, he should win by 55 percent or more than the likelihood is that he will win.

00:04:37.060 It's not certain that he will, but it's likely that he will win by significantly less than 55 percent.

00:04:43.660 It might be 52 percent. It might be 51 percent.

00:04:46.240 But that that that is what should be.

00:04:49.300 And if it's not, then what it means for the rest of the countries, the Republicans will do very, very well.

00:04:56.040 Why is that here in Connecticut? Why? Why is it?

00:04:58.520 And this is going to be expanded in a second to New York and beyond.

00:05:01.480 But why would this blue, blue state to which I recently moved be turning more red and be potentially turning against a guy like Blumenthal?

00:05:10.840 Is it the same thing as it is everywhere, the economy and inflation?

00:05:14.140 And are they really holding him responsible for that?

00:05:17.140 I think it's larger than that.

00:05:20.820 I think it's a referendum on President Biden and the Biden administration.

00:05:24.580 I don't think anybody, you know, Joe Biden won by a very narrow margin in the Electoral College.

00:05:30.080 He won by a very healthy margin in the popular vote.

00:05:33.740 But nobody elected him to be, you know, left or left liberal president.

00:05:41.420 They voted him because they wanted Donald Trump to go away.

00:05:44.680 And they came out with, you know, this wildly ambitious agenda that they didn't really have the voters' permission to pursue.

00:05:53.540 And that led to, you know, inflation, higher gas prices, food prices for the roof.

00:06:01.980 And that's what's happened.

00:06:05.080 I mean, it's a referendum.

00:06:06.600 I think in the bigger picture, I think it's a referendum all across the country on Joe Biden.

00:06:12.060 And that's one that the Republicans will do very, very well.

00:06:18.140 I was just going to say that I also think, you know, Connecticut is one of those states where, unlike the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where I moved from, they're not hardcore social liberals on like all this crazy wokeness.

00:06:34.420 You know, they're not they don't want their sons to just be called students now because we're not allowed to have gender in the classroom.

00:06:43.900 They don't want everything reduced to people's skin color.

00:06:48.400 They don't want the boys shamed and they don't want all white students shamed.

00:06:51.880 It's just it's not that kind of a constituency.

00:06:54.220 And yet that madness is starting to infect a lot of the schools out here.

00:06:59.240 And I do.

00:07:00.180 I am convinced this has a lot of Democrats ready to pull the lever for Team Red.

00:07:06.080 The other thing that's going on in Connecticut.

00:07:08.140 I mean, I live in Fairfield, Connecticut, which is a fairly wealthy community.

00:07:12.860 Hedge funds.

00:07:13.540 GE used to be here.

00:07:15.560 Fairfield University.

00:07:16.520 So it's certainly well to do by any standards.

00:07:20.920 And the county, Fairfield County, is one of the richest counties in the United States of America.

00:07:26.480 All anybody talks about here is crime and car theft.

00:07:31.580 There's a car theft epidemic in Connecticut.

00:07:35.320 So I think the crime issue is one that Republicans are benefiting from, if you will, all across the country.

00:07:45.220 The other thing to remember about Connecticut, by the way, is in 2010, which was a good year for the Republicans,

00:07:54.000 the Tom Foley, the Republican candidate for governor, came within 6,000 votes of winning the governorship that year.

00:08:02.320 So it's a state that, you know, is not it's not like Massachusetts, where, you know,

00:08:08.840 it wants to vote Democratic overwhelmingly, unless Charlie Baker is there.

00:08:12.960 This is a state that could elect a Republican without.

00:08:16.220 Yeah.

00:08:17.140 Massachusetts sometimes elects these sort of fake Republicans as its governor.

00:08:21.700 I don't know.

00:08:22.500 No Republican who any, you know, who could win a national race.

00:08:26.160 Although, you know, Mitt Romney used to be more to the right.

00:08:29.020 And then now we see he's, I don't know, returned to his more middle of the road roots or.

00:08:34.620 He's back to being a Massachusetts governor.

00:08:37.160 A hundred percent.

00:08:37.700 But he's enormously, by the way, he's enormously popular in Utah.

00:08:42.100 He saved the Utah Olympics back in 2000, I guess it was 2001 or two.

00:08:50.160 And then has, you know, is unbeatable, I think, in Utah.

00:08:54.520 Yeah, he would, but he would never get the national nomination to run as the Republican

00:08:59.180 presidential candidate.

00:09:00.700 Never in today's day and age.

00:09:03.000 He's changed a lot.

00:09:05.060 OK, so let's talk about New York.

00:09:06.740 This is exciting to me.

00:09:07.880 I'm not going to lie.

00:09:08.680 I can't stand Governor Kathy Hochul.

00:09:10.580 I lived under her reign for too long.

00:09:13.220 And, you know, while Andrew Cuomo was a terrible guy and I was delighted to see him get booted

00:09:17.920 out of office policy wise, he was probably slightly more reasonable than this lunatic running

00:09:22.940 around with her vaxxed network.

00:09:24.640 I mean, necklace.

00:09:27.020 Like she's just she's uninspiring.

00:09:30.560 She's not it.

00:09:31.100 We're going to talk about Carrie Lake in a minute and how everybody's gravitating toward

00:09:34.140 her.

00:09:34.340 She's inspiring.

00:09:35.020 I would say Kathy Hochul is the opposite of Carrie Lake in virtually every way.

00:09:39.280 And incredibly, it's getting tight.

00:09:43.220 I mean, are you telling me, Lee Zeldin, this Republican who's been through hell this election

00:09:48.280 cycle, almost got it?

00:09:49.800 He got attacked.

00:09:50.940 He had two people shot outside of his home while his teenagers were home.

00:09:53.720 Thank God his kids were OK.

00:09:55.420 But I mean, poor Lee Zeldin's really been through the ringer.

00:09:58.360 But is there a chance he's going to win?

00:10:01.900 Well, there must be, because, again, if you live in the same media market that I do, all

00:10:07.680 you see are attack ads on Zeldin from Hochul's campaign.

00:10:14.380 So, you know, you can tell just by watching the local news and the TV ads that appear there,

00:10:21.440 the political ads that appear there.

00:10:23.580 She's obviously panicked.

00:10:26.660 And, you know, taxes, crime, Biden, you know, say, yes, yes, you can win.

00:10:33.700 And it's going to be, you know, if he wins, it's going to be by a point or half a point.

00:10:38.880 But does he have a realistic shot?

00:10:40.580 Yes, he does.

00:10:41.700 My God.

00:10:42.340 That I mean, that would truly be a national earthquake if he unseats her.

00:10:48.300 No.

00:10:48.480 Yeah.

00:10:48.660 You go ahead.

00:10:50.140 No, I think in terms of people watching the election on television on election night,

00:10:56.380 there are three races that are going to tell us a lot.

00:11:00.900 New Hampshire, where the Democratic senator should be a fairly comfortable winner.

00:11:07.420 It looks like a race that may be closer than people think.

00:11:10.820 Good news about New Hampshire is it reports fast and early.

00:11:14.560 Connecticut, the polls close, I think, at 730.

00:11:16.820 They count very fast.

00:11:19.080 So that will tell us about Blumenthal and what his percentage is.

00:11:23.160 And then New York counts very slow, but the exit poll, all of the networks have exit polls

00:11:29.160 there.

00:11:30.020 And that will tell us a lot about what's going to happen in the rest of the country.

00:11:35.040 Wow.

00:11:36.180 There's a David Marcus has an opinion piece out just today, wrote for The Daily Wire saying

00:11:41.060 Lee Zeldin will win in New York.

00:11:43.980 And he says, like, don't forget, it was 1993 with crime surging that New York City elected

00:11:50.440 Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, as its mayor.

00:11:53.160 Two years later, they elected George Pataki, a Republican, as their governor.

00:11:59.420 And I, you know, that's true.

00:12:00.440 You kind of forget we've had uniform Democratic rule in New York state for so long.

00:12:05.080 You forget that this state, too.

00:12:06.800 And George Pataki is a real Republican.

00:12:09.300 And Giuliani was liberal socially, but he was a real Republican other than socially, too.

00:12:14.720 So the state will do it, especially when crime is bad.

00:12:17.060 And crime is a mess.

00:12:18.420 And it's not just a mess in places like New York City.

00:12:21.580 It's bad all over the state.

00:12:23.100 And by the way, I know a lot of New Yorkers, a lot of them who are still very bitter over

00:12:27.760 the covid lockdowns and the authoritarian nature of our governors overreaching, whether it was

00:12:34.000 Cuomo or Hochul after him.

00:12:35.700 Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I go into the city for a amount and used to live there.

00:12:43.540 And it never occurred to me to do anything but stand as close as possible to where the

00:12:48.120 doors would open so I could get on the subway.

00:12:50.080 And I was there two weeks ago and I stood with my back pressed up against the wall because,

00:12:57.020 you know, it it's it's scary what's happening in the subways.

00:13:02.180 And yeah, that's that's sort of a metaphor for the crime issue.

00:13:05.160 And that works to Zeldon's benefit.

00:13:09.000 Advantage.

00:13:09.720 I'll say one other thing.

00:13:10.800 Same, by the way, same.

00:13:12.000 If I ever go down in the New York City subway even before now, but certainly now, A, I wouldn't

00:13:16.560 go down.

00:13:17.000 But B, if I did, I'd have my back up against that wall.

00:13:18.960 Same, they're just taking random people and shoving them onto the tracks that the post

00:13:22.920 had the picture of this poor woman in tears.

00:13:26.920 Her husband had just been thrown.

00:13:29.220 I mean, it's just random, like they'll just throw any random body on the tracks.

00:13:33.340 And if you don't get electrocuted by the third rail track, you get run over by the subway

00:13:36.780 train.

00:13:37.440 There's almost no time to get you.

00:13:38.560 It's just horrific what they're doing.

00:13:40.700 But I'll say this other thing in Connecticut.

00:13:41.940 You mentioned the car theft epidemic.

00:13:44.220 Somebody did give me a good piece of advice on this, which is.

00:13:47.240 Obviously, don't leave your keys in your car.

00:13:51.520 That's hello.

00:13:52.380 That's asking for your car to be stolen.

00:13:54.920 But also, don't leave your keys on your front hall table or any place, obviously, visual,

00:14:02.800 visually obvious at the entrance to your home.

00:14:05.580 Because these thieves are so bold and brazen.

00:14:08.540 They'll open up your front door and just grab your keys.

00:14:10.980 And that's where everybody leaves their keys.

00:14:12.820 They'll walk them in and just throw them on the front hall table.

00:14:15.140 Don't do that.

00:14:15.740 Or at least hide them or put them in like a, I don't know, some sort of a container where

00:14:20.000 it's not that obvious.

00:14:20.800 OK, just a piece of crime advice.

00:14:22.560 All right.

00:14:22.820 So can we talk for a minute about Oregon?

00:14:26.180 Now we're on the subject of blue states where things may be going the other way.

00:14:31.260 Politico has an article today talking about how Oregon may be getting ready.

00:14:37.560 I mean, this this place went for Biden by 14 points.

00:14:43.340 OK, 14 points in the late in the last election.

00:14:46.400 But there is a new House district allocated because of population growth that now is being

00:14:52.600 considered a toss up in Oregon.

00:14:54.700 It's between Democratic state legislator Andrea Salinas and Republican businessman Mike Erickson

00:15:00.780 and the Republican, again, in a place where Biden won by 14 points, he could win.

00:15:07.860 There's a couple of other races, including the governor's race in Oregon.

00:15:12.580 Oregon!

00:15:13.700 That could go red.

00:15:15.380 Yeah.

00:15:15.860 Oregon is two states, right?

00:15:17.480 And the western part of the state is Democratic.

00:15:20.400 The eastern part of the state is a conservative Republican Mormon.

00:15:24.320 And what's happened, so you have that very, if you're a Republican, you have that very solid

00:15:29.580 base in the eastern half of the state, roughly speaking.

00:15:33.360 And then you have the issues working to Republican advantage, both in the congressional districts

00:15:39.360 and in the gubernatorial campaign.

00:15:41.520 And in the gubernatorial campaign, you have an independent candidate who's drawing a significant

00:15:47.200 vote.

00:15:47.800 So the Republican candidate doesn't have to get to 50 plus one to win.

00:15:51.420 Um, and so a lot of people I know think that the Republican candidate there will win the

00:15:57.640 gubernatorial race.

00:15:58.960 Wow.

00:15:59.880 What else are you watching?

00:16:01.100 What are the interesting races to sort of watch as bellwethers?

00:16:04.700 Um, I, I've liked, uh, Tiffany Smiley from, you know, the first time I read about her, I

00:16:11.580 followed her on YouTube and stuff.

00:16:13.940 Um, she's running, she's a Republican candidate, uh, for the U S Senate in Washington state.

00:16:20.280 She's running against Patty Murray, who famously, uh, ran, ran a campaign, I think three terms

00:16:28.040 ago, uh, as the, as the woman in tennis sneakers, uh, tennis shoes.

00:16:34.660 And that sort of became her brand, if you will.

00:16:37.980 And she did well.

00:16:39.180 Uh, she's by any sort of, uh, if you talk to people in the state of Washington, they'd say

00:16:45.520 she's sort of stayed too long.

00:16:48.260 And, uh, for some reason, the Republican, uh, Senatorial Committee and the Republican

00:16:53.440 party and major donors have not, uh, supported Smiley's campaign choosing to invest in places.

00:17:02.280 She sounds so nice.

00:17:03.100 Smiley.

00:17:03.520 How do you not get behind Smiley?

00:17:04.760 Well, she's, she's terrifically, uh, uh, attractive and she is, um, you know, she's, she's determined.

00:17:14.700 Her husband was blinded, uh, by an IED, uh, in the Iraq war and the army said he couldn't

00:17:22.000 serve as an officer and she fought the army and he is now serving as an officer.

00:17:26.140 Um, she is, she's formidable, uh, she's attractive and, you know, I think if there is this huge

00:17:35.080 wave, then I think she will, she will surprise a lot of people.

00:17:39.000 Uh, the other one that I think is, is, uh, nationally important is Carrie Lake's campaign

00:17:45.660 in Arizona.

00:17:47.140 Um, the Democratic candidate for governor there may be the stupidest person on the planet.

00:17:53.140 Um, she chose, well, there, you know, there was a debate, uh, you know, to be set up between

00:18:01.520 her and, and Carrie Lake and, and she, she said that she wouldn't debate Carrie Lake.

00:18:08.000 Um, and by, you know, the, the result of that was basically, okay, well then you lose the race.

00:18:15.420 Uh, so, uh, Carrie Lake is going to win in Arizona and, you know, the Republican party hasn't

00:18:21.720 had a kind of superstar female, uh, I don't know, candidate, uh, elected official, uh,

00:18:30.260 since really since, uh, Sarah Palin went to Nashville in, in 2012 and Carrie Lake is the

00:18:37.460 next big thing.

00:18:38.360 I mean, she's the moment, the moment, the moment that she wins the, uh, Arizona gubernatorial

00:18:44.640 race, she will be the front runner to be the vice presidential nominee in 2024.

00:18:49.240 That's amazing.

00:18:51.660 Yeah, it is amazing.

00:18:53.120 I, I'm amazed that she hasn't gotten that kind of coverage.

00:18:57.100 The only, the only coverage I've seen that really sort of, uh, explains, uh, why she's

00:19:04.700 so, uh, attractive or significant or whatever the right word is, um, was by Ruby Kramer,

00:19:12.240 uh, in the Washington Post.

00:19:14.540 I saw that.

00:19:15.140 This is, this is, uh, this is a formidable, uh, political force coming at us and when she's

00:19:23.380 elected, which she, I'm certain she will be, um, all eyes will turn to her.

00:19:28.780 Can I say something about Carrie Lake?

00:19:30.020 And with all due respect to Sarah Palin, Carrie Lake is, is in a different league.

00:19:34.920 Um, she's very smart, very savvy.

00:19:39.560 She can talk about any issue.

00:19:41.840 She's not going to have a Katie Couric moment like Sarah Palin did.

00:19:45.160 It's, it's not possible.

00:19:46.560 She's too smart and she's too savvy.

00:19:50.540 Like she would see that coming a mile away.

00:19:53.340 And, uh, you know, case in point, what she's done with the election denialism, we talked about

00:19:57.320 it on our show yesterday, this charge of election denialism, election denialism, everybody

00:20:01.780 keeps throwing this at her because she's, you know, in, in, in the Republican party, there

00:20:07.660 are most, the majority of Republicans believe that the last election was totally unfair.

00:20:12.820 And, you know, Mark Zuckerberg's money to try to tip the scales and the bearing of the Hunter

00:20:17.680 Biden report by Twitter and social media.

00:20:20.400 I mean, you could go down the list, uh, not to mention the changing of the rules in places

00:20:23.660 like Pennsylvania to make it never ending voting.

00:20:26.040 And then what was the process overseeing all that?

00:20:28.040 But then there's a smaller contingent.

00:20:30.080 That's the hardcore MAGA faithful that believes it was actually stolen, stolen ballots, funny

00:20:35.260 business at the actual polling stations and so on.

00:20:37.880 Um, Carrie Lake's in the latter category.

00:20:40.960 She's her view of the election sounds pretty much the same as president Trump's, which is

00:20:46.320 controversial.

00:20:47.000 Okay.

00:20:47.380 So she gets asked by every reporter about it.

00:20:50.540 She came on my show.

00:20:51.460 I asked her about it.

00:20:52.100 She handled it fine, but now she's found her footing and she's turning it.

00:20:58.200 And it's so effective what she's doing.

00:21:00.740 Here's a bit that went totally viral.

00:21:03.020 I have to say, I enjoyed it, as did I think anybody who's not hardcore left watch.

00:21:08.600 If you're going to start throwing around terms like election denier, let's remember who the

00:21:13.320 other election deniers were, Hillary Clinton and all the Democrats.

00:21:18.020 You know, I did a little actually Anthony.

00:21:20.420 Anthony, how old are you?

00:21:21.600 20.

00:21:22.440 Are you a journalist?

00:21:23.660 No.

00:21:23.920 Well, you did better research than half these people.

00:21:27.740 Um, let's talk about election deniers.

00:21:30.500 Here's 150 examples of Democrats denying election results.

00:21:36.180 Oh, wow.

00:21:36.600 Look at this.

00:21:37.180 This is from, this is from, uh, Joe Biden's press secretary.

00:21:42.000 Reminder, Brian Kemp stole the gubernatorial election from Georgians and Stacey Abrams.

00:21:47.320 Democrats saying that.

00:21:48.580 Is that an election denier?

00:21:49.660 Oh, look at this.

00:21:52.420 Just heard Republican Ryan Costello said it would be difficult for Stacey Abrams to win

00:21:58.060 because she lost her state bid.

00:21:59.320 But yet she's still claiming she never lost.

00:22:02.800 I mean, it goes on.

00:22:04.100 It's worth watching the whole thing, John.

00:22:05.780 But she will not be bullied by Katie Couric or any mainstream media figure who sits across

00:22:12.400 from her.

00:22:12.800 And I think you're right.

00:22:13.880 I hadn't actually really been thinking about her as a national Republican figure.

00:22:17.720 But you're saying as soon as she wins and she's going to win, boom, she's the favorite

00:22:21.540 for the for the number two slot on the GOP ticket.

00:22:24.600 Yeah, I'm surprised that, you know, as I said, I'm surprised that that hasn't, you know, sort

00:22:30.300 of emerged in the coverage.

00:22:31.640 But it certainly is certainly will after Election Day.

00:22:34.880 And you're saying that even if it's not Trump at the top of the ticket, who she loves and

00:22:39.620 he loves her, you're saying any like a DeSantis, a Tim Scott, all these guys would be nuts.

00:22:46.080 Sorry, but most of the leading the guys leading in the poll are men would be nuts not to choose

00:22:50.580 her.

00:22:50.760 Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're running for president on the Republican side and you have

00:23:01.400 to show at least loyalty to former President Trump.

00:23:08.420 And the thing about Carrie Lake that's different from, say, Nikki Haley or other people is that

00:23:16.360 the Trumpian base of the Republican Party, which is essentially the Republican Party,

00:23:22.320 loves Carrie Lake.

00:23:24.260 I mean, that's that's the thing that I don't understand why.

00:23:27.620 But what we call the mainstream media hasn't really focused on that that Carrie Lake is

00:23:35.460 beloved by the base.

00:23:37.700 And so if you're Ron DeSantis or Tom Cotton or whoever, and you're the Republican presidential

00:23:44.400 nominee, you want the base fired up.

00:23:47.780 And what's going to fire them up is Carrie Lake.

00:23:50.460 And she's a fighter.

00:23:51.480 That's don't you need that?

00:23:52.660 I mean, forget Kamala Harris.

00:23:54.520 And to some extent, forget Mike Pence.

00:23:57.520 Typically, they would pick people in the number two position who would come out there and fight.

00:24:01.400 And when John McCain's campaign was not doing that well, people weren't excited about John

00:24:07.520 McCain.

00:24:07.820 They respected John McCain, but they weren't excited about him.

00:24:10.380 I mean, I will never forget Sarah Palin coming out at the Republican National Convention in

00:24:15.700 St.

00:24:16.040 Paul and bringing the house down.

00:24:20.200 She, like Carrie Lake, was beautiful.

00:24:22.740 She is dynamic.

00:24:24.100 She knows how to work a room.

00:24:26.000 She had her colloquialisms that really people love, the lipstick on a pig and so on.

00:24:30.700 And she injected such energy and excitement into that McCain campaign like like we had not

00:24:36.400 seen before.

00:24:37.260 And Carrie Lake can do that times 10.

00:24:41.040 So that's an exciting thought to think about.

00:24:43.300 Honestly, I was so impressed with her when she came on the show.

00:24:45.440 And at that point, she was fighting just for the nomination.

00:24:47.560 The other candidate was more favored.

00:24:49.480 But she got it.

00:24:50.500 And she's I agree with you.

00:24:51.480 It looks like she's going to get the the big job.

00:24:54.140 Let's talk for a minute about because I know you said there are two races that you're

00:24:58.300 watching.

00:24:58.680 One was Washington State.

00:24:59.740 And we'll get to the second one.

00:25:01.460 But before we do that, can we just spend a minute on Pennsylvania and Fetterman's doctor's

00:25:05.580 note?

00:25:06.140 OK, so it reminds me of when like I was sick and I was sick from high school and I had to

00:25:25.560 write a note and I tried to forge my mom's signature on the post-it note and they called

00:25:29.120 her immediately she did not back me up anyway.

00:25:32.880 He gets a note not from his stroke doctor, you know, not from any specialists that he

00:25:40.140 has seen, but from his primary care doctor saying he's recovering well from his stroke

00:25:46.100 and his health has continued to improve.

00:25:49.660 He has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.

00:25:53.980 He says that at his appointment on Friday, very limited scope here, Fetterman spoke intelligently

00:26:03.220 without cognitive deficits.

00:26:05.940 His speech was normal and he continues to exhibit symptoms of an auditory processing disorder,

00:26:10.060 which can come across as hearing difficulty.

00:26:14.460 But it's he says his hearing of sound such as music is not affected, but occasional words

00:26:19.580 he will miss, which seems like he doesn't hear the word, but it's actually not.

00:26:23.900 It's it's not being processed properly.

00:26:25.840 Now, him saying, first of all, that he has no cognitive defects does not match up with what

00:26:29.380 we've seen.

00:26:30.220 You know, when he went on with Chris Hayes of MSNBC, no matter how he heard the question,

00:26:36.200 what came out of Fetterman's mouth was garbly.

00:26:39.320 It was gobbly gook.

00:26:40.520 It was it didn't make any sense.

00:26:42.600 That's not an auditory processing issue.

00:26:44.820 That's something's going on in his own head that doesn't allow him to speak words that

00:26:50.400 make sense.

00:26:51.080 And we've seen that more than once.

00:26:53.360 So I don't know about this doctor's note, but I have to tell you, John, it it reminded

00:26:57.420 me, sorry, but any chance to go back to this wonderful doctor, Harold Borenstein, God rest

00:27:03.580 his soul, he died in 2021.

00:27:05.400 And his his pronouncement of Trump's health.

00:27:08.820 Do you remember this guy?

00:27:09.880 I do.

00:27:10.500 Yeah.

00:27:10.720 Or here it is.

00:27:11.540 Flashback soundbite to.

00:27:12.940 That letter that showed up in the Times about his health, he wrote himself.

00:27:20.120 You know that.

00:27:21.280 Yeah.

00:27:21.580 He wrote it himself.

00:27:23.680 He was talking about how Trump wrote his own health letter.

00:27:27.220 I feel like history is repeating itself.

00:27:31.060 Yeah, I my dad had a stroke way back when.

00:27:35.620 And, you know, it took him about a year to recover from it.

00:27:39.280 The stroke, as I understand it, that Mr. Fetterman experiences significantly more severe than the

00:27:49.200 one Maguette's experience.

00:27:51.540 So this notion that he is fully capable of fulfilling his duties as a U.S.

00:27:57.600 senator is almost certainly not true.

00:28:02.520 The problem on the Republican side is that there's a spectacular statistic about Dr. Oz,

00:28:09.940 which is that 61 percent of Republicans regret that he's the nominee.

00:28:15.660 Wow.

00:28:16.040 So if, if, you know, if David McCormick were the nominee, this thing would be over probably,

00:28:24.480 you know, a 10 point win for McCormick.

00:28:27.600 Oz makes it close, but I think the tide will bring in.

00:28:31.380 You think the tide will bring in Fetterman or?

00:28:33.780 No, bring in Oz.

00:28:35.120 No, the tide.

00:28:35.880 Yeah, the red tide.

00:28:37.060 The tide is going one way.

00:28:38.780 Yeah.

00:28:39.860 The red tide.

00:28:40.800 And what about what do you think is going to happen in Georgia?

00:28:43.520 The the latest data that I saw suggested that the few polls done after the Herschel Walker

00:28:52.340 scandal broke suggest maybe it has hurt him a little day to day.

00:28:57.060 It changes.

00:28:57.620 But it was suggesting that there have been, I think, three polls since the news broke of

00:29:02.100 his children who he didn't take care of reportedly.

00:29:05.680 And he had a he allegedly paid for an ex-girlfriend's abortion.

00:29:11.160 And this is according to FiveThirtyEight dated 1018 saying we have new polling data suggesting

00:29:17.120 the abortion story may have cost Walker some support.

00:29:19.300 Trafalgar, who is, you know, they're they're good at gauging Republican feelings.

00:29:24.200 Quinnipiac, Emerson College and Insider Advantage have all polled Georgia since the abortion story

00:29:28.540 broke.

00:29:29.380 Those surveys showed Raphael Warnock leading on average 48 to 45 percent, pointing out that

00:29:35.440 previously those same pollsters, most recent surveys before the news broke, had them essentially

00:29:41.020 tied at 47 percent each.

00:29:43.820 We had on RealClearPolitics, Tom Bevin.

00:29:48.160 RealClearPolitics is projecting Republicans take the Senate, including in Georgia.

00:29:52.900 They're projecting a Herschel Walker win here, which is one of the ways that they're going

00:29:56.040 to do it, according to Tom Bevin, here in Nevada.

00:30:00.560 And I wonder what you think about that assessment, that the polls show Herschel was hurt and that

00:30:08.520 the momentum, at least according to these polls right now, is with Warnock, despite what it is

00:30:14.460 on a national basis towards Republicans.

00:30:17.100 There are two things about that.

00:30:18.260 One, there's a libertarian candidate in Georgia that'll probably get between, you know, two,

00:30:23.820 three percent of the vote.

00:30:25.880 So it's likely, I think, that it will go to a runoff in December.

00:30:31.500 So it'll be taken out of the context of this kind of red wave that we expect.

00:30:37.620 What that means, you know, Herschel Walker's chances in December, I don't know.

00:30:43.460 But I don't think the race will be decided on election night.

00:30:46.380 The second thing to remember, and this is, you have to remember this when you're looking

00:30:51.700 at American politics, is that conservative, very conservative voters don't talk to pollsters.

00:31:00.460 They just don't.

00:31:01.720 And they are mainly rural and ex-urban.

00:31:06.040 They don't want any part of it.

00:31:08.200 So when you see a poll that says the Democrat is ahead 48 to 44, that probably undercounts

00:31:16.420 Republican support, depending on the state.

00:31:18.720 But if we say, for instance, Georgia, you would say 48-44 is probably a tie.

00:31:26.420 I also maintain that most women, when called in the wake of a scandal like Herschel Walker's,

00:31:33.120 asked by some random pollster, do you care about the fact that Herschel Walker fathered

00:31:38.520 a bunch of kids that he didn't actually parent and then may have paid for his ex's abortion

00:31:42.620 and then denied it.

00:31:45.100 Most women, I think, on the Republican side would say, yes, I care.

00:31:49.660 I care.

00:31:50.540 It doesn't mean they're not going to vote for him.

00:31:53.100 What they tell the pollster bothers them may or may not be true.

00:31:58.260 And it may or may not dictate what actually happens in that polling box when it's just between

00:32:02.100 them, their candidate and their God.

00:32:04.280 Before I let you go, last point.

00:32:05.580 I know you'd been you raised a question about the Iowa Senate race with Chuck Grassley.

00:32:10.080 Is he in danger?

00:32:13.160 You know, the best pollster probably in the country is a woman named Ann Seltzer who does

00:32:17.820 the who does the Des Moines Register poll.

00:32:20.520 And she has an uncanny knack of of producing the right numbers.

00:32:26.140 And her most recent poll from the register showed essentially a tie.

00:32:32.500 Again, you know, margin of error sort of thing.

00:32:36.260 What would undo Senator Grassley is the fact that he's been there for as long as he's been

00:32:41.760 there.

00:32:42.000 I think he's 88 years old now.

00:32:43.760 He serves seven terms.

00:32:45.160 And, you know, that it may sort of like a gold watch ceremony.

00:32:51.340 It may be time to retire him.

00:32:53.080 I don't think it's I don't think it's an issues race.

00:32:57.620 If he loses so much as it is, enough is enough.

00:33:00.740 You should know that would be huge.

00:33:02.760 That'd be huge.

00:33:03.720 The Republicans need to hold all of their seats and gain at least one.

00:33:09.400 They can't afford to be losing Iowa if they're not running strong in places like Pennsylvania

00:33:14.480 and Georgia and Nevada and elsewhere.

00:33:16.640 John Ellis, such a pleasure.

00:33:17.720 Would you please come back?

00:33:19.360 I come back anytime.

00:33:20.580 Thank you very much for having me.

00:33:21.780 Great.

00:33:22.320 Great to talk to you.

00:33:23.380 Coming up next, a former Top Gun pilot, the Top Gun pilot.

00:33:27.500 This is the guy Tom Cruise wants to be with a story and a personal background that you

00:33:33.220 are going to want to hear.

00:33:34.140 Stay tuned.

00:33:38.580 Our next guest is a retired Marine Corps officer and combat vet, and he has an incredible

00:33:45.480 story and one that parallels the film Top Gun Maverick, except Dave Burke is the real

00:33:52.600 Maverick.

00:33:53.300 He was Pete Maverick Mitchell in real life.

00:33:55.380 After graduating from the Marine Corps, he was selected to attend the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons

00:34:00.980 School, better known as Top Gun.

00:34:03.360 He went on to become a Top Gun instructor and Top Gun senior instructor, joining an elite

00:34:09.440 class of the military.

00:34:11.240 His skills and experience in aviation are unparalleled, and he now shares his lessons in leadership

00:34:16.820 and life with others as chief development officer at Echelon Front.

00:34:22.520 Dave, welcome to the show and thank you for your service.

00:34:25.040 Thank you for having me.

00:34:25.920 It's awesome to be here.

00:34:27.420 Oh, my God.

00:34:27.940 The pleasure is all mine.

00:34:28.880 This is so cool.

00:34:30.220 So, all right.

00:34:30.860 Take us back.

00:34:31.500 Where'd you grow up?

00:34:32.100 I grew up in Southern California in a town called El Toro, which happened to be right

00:34:38.320 next to a now-closed Marine base called Marine Corps Air Station El Toro.

00:34:43.380 Okay.

00:34:43.960 And what year were you born?

00:34:45.540 Born in 72, so you can do some math.

00:34:48.560 Yeah.

00:34:48.860 Okay.

00:34:49.200 I got you because I was born in 70s.

00:34:51.080 Yeah.

00:34:51.220 So now you're 49.

00:34:52.760 Yeah.

00:34:54.360 So that means you were young teens when Top Gun came out.

00:34:59.360 Yeah.

00:34:59.680 I was 14 years old.

00:35:00.640 I grew up near a fighter base, always interested in airplanes because they were literally flying

00:35:06.060 over my head as a kid.

00:35:07.320 My entire childhood was underneath airplanes.

00:35:09.860 And then when the movie came out, I was 14 years old.

00:35:12.280 I kind of sealed the deal on what I thought I wanted to do.

00:35:14.720 It did it.

00:35:15.280 Okay.

00:35:15.460 So you like have an active memory of seeing Tom Cruise and Tom Skerritt.

00:35:19.820 Yeah.

00:35:20.020 Okay.

00:35:20.220 Yeah.

00:35:20.860 A hundred percent.

00:35:22.300 Because really, you not only became Tom Cruise, but you became Tom Skerritt, too.

00:35:28.180 I got to do some pretty cool things that I did see in the movies that I looked at and

00:35:32.920 said, man, I'd love to do that.

00:35:34.080 And I did end up getting to do that.

00:35:35.860 So it's an interesting way to describe it.

00:35:38.200 But yeah, I got to live certainly my childhood dream in a lot of ways, which is very cool.

00:35:41.540 Now, was it the Jets that lured you in or was it the beautiful women throwing themselves

00:35:46.000 at Tom Cruise and Maverick in the film?

00:35:50.840 Mostly the Jets.

00:35:51.840 How about that?

00:35:52.580 But the whole package looked very interesting to me.

00:35:55.740 It was super intriguing.

00:35:56.640 In all seriousness, the thing that really just captivated me was watching a plane land on

00:36:01.120 a boat just seemed like an out of this world thing.

00:36:03.880 And as a little kid, when you see that happening, it almost doesn't seem real.

00:36:07.720 And then you go, actually, that is real.

00:36:09.380 Maybe I could do that.

00:36:10.200 So it was pretty cool.

00:36:11.540 Oh, my God.

00:36:11.900 I mean, very few have that second thought.

00:36:13.860 You know, it's real.

00:36:15.060 And maybe I could do it.

00:36:15.860 Very few.

00:36:16.520 And that's sort of your life story.

00:36:18.740 You're one of the very few.

00:36:20.460 That magnetism, that thing that drew you in and then drew you to the top and then got

00:36:24.200 you all these special offers to be the guy.

00:36:27.740 That's part of what's so interesting about you.

00:36:29.360 How did that happen?

00:36:31.200 Did your parents, what did they do?

00:36:33.160 How did they cultivate leadership in you?

00:36:35.700 Yeah, that's a good question.

00:36:37.220 And listen, you've got to understand, too, that a lot of the things that happen, some of it

00:36:41.140 is just really good luck, really good circumstance, and really good timing.

00:36:45.020 But there's obviously a blend of some other things as well.

00:36:47.760 You have to be prepared.

00:36:48.660 You have to be committed.

00:36:50.140 I think the best thing that happened to me as a little kid, and you asked about my parents,

00:36:54.400 is my mom said something at a pretty young age that stuck with me, probably around the

00:36:58.480 time I saw the movie, is she said something to the effect of, somebody's going to go do

00:37:02.860 that.

00:37:03.180 It might as well be you.

00:37:04.840 And she gave me the sense that all these things that seemed larger than life and impossible

00:37:09.620 to accomplish, she's like, regular people do that stuff all the time.

00:37:12.660 And if you want to do it, you should go do it.

00:37:14.480 And she made it much more, I guess, believable at the time.

00:37:18.360 Instead of fantasizing about it, she took that fantasy and said, hey, people are going

00:37:21.720 to go do this.

00:37:22.220 You should be the one to go do that.

00:37:23.580 And it made it so much more attainable.

00:37:24.920 And I think I was lucky that at a young age, I got that it's still to me.

00:37:28.100 And it made these things a lot more believable than I initially thought they were.

00:37:32.460 This is so funny.

00:37:33.100 I'm just contrasting with my own mom, who was like, you better take typing again, Meg.

00:37:37.340 You better.

00:37:37.880 I'm like, what do you mean, ma?

00:37:39.260 She goes, they don't give scholarships for cheerleading, honey.

00:37:42.880 We're on different paths, Dave.

00:37:45.800 Slightly different.

00:37:47.000 Yes.

00:37:47.640 So were you from a military family or what was the, because usually guys who sign up for

00:37:51.340 the military have somebody in their life who's their inspo.

00:37:53.960 Well, literally none.

00:37:56.080 I'm the first and only member of my, certainly not my immediate, but my extended family as

00:38:01.160 well.

00:38:01.460 I don't think I have any military background for anybody that I knew growing up.

00:38:05.660 Obviously, to me, Megan, the biggest thing was, it was just really just random that I

00:38:10.520 happened to go and move to a place right next to a Marine base.

00:38:14.140 Seeing those airplanes was probably the first exposure I ever had to the military.

00:38:17.120 It certainly got in my blood.

00:38:18.180 But when I told my mom and my family that I wanted to join the military, that came out

00:38:23.300 of left field, I think for a lot of them, because there's no military background in my

00:38:26.340 family at all.

00:38:27.640 Wow.

00:38:28.200 All right.

00:38:28.580 So now why the Marines?

00:38:30.940 Well, there's another part of that too.

00:38:32.580 So obviously there was a Marine base there and I imagine it could have very easily had

00:38:38.200 I'd grown up next to a different type of military base.

00:38:40.220 I might've gone in a different direction, but there was something unique about the Marines.

00:38:45.440 Even just the fact that they call themselves Marines was really appealing to me.

00:38:48.900 And I had built it up in my head, whether it's true or not, I had built it up in my head

00:38:52.920 that the Marine Corps was the hardest.

00:38:54.340 Now, the reality is, is all the services are difficult.

00:38:57.780 They're all awesome.

00:38:58.460 I got a lot of exposure to all of them, but for some reason in my brain, as a kid, I put

00:39:03.660 the Marines up on a pedestal and I convinced myself if I could fly for the Marines, I could

00:39:08.280 do anything.

00:39:09.340 So I created this thing in my head that the Marine Corps, the entrance, the bar was just

00:39:13.540 a little bit higher and that's how I saw it.

00:39:15.500 And so I told myself, well, if you're going to do it, you might as well do it for the Marines.

00:39:19.200 And I really got that in my head at a young age too.

00:39:21.380 So probably by the time I was 14, 15 years old, I was going to be a Marine Corps fighter

00:39:25.440 pilot.

00:39:25.740 And that was to me kind of represented the pinnacle there.

00:39:29.140 I know what you mean.

00:39:30.380 I mean, that was my impression growing up too, around the same time that commercial they

00:39:33.580 had was just so good.

00:39:34.820 The few, the proud, the Marines.

00:39:37.560 It's just like, oh my God, yes, I want that.

00:39:39.980 Not, I mean, you know, I wanted it in a different way than you wanted it, but in any event, so

00:39:44.860 you, you do it.

00:39:45.980 And then what happens?

00:39:47.360 Like, are you immediately a star where they're like, you're, you're going to go?

00:39:51.540 No.

00:39:51.840 Okay.

00:39:52.000 So what happened?

00:39:53.300 No.

00:39:53.660 I mean, I had some pretty humble beginnings.

00:39:55.580 I remember specifically, you know, the recruiting of the Marine Corps definitely gets in your

00:40:02.160 blood.

00:40:02.500 They, they know what they're doing when they say the few, the proud, the Marines, they

00:40:05.520 know who they're appealing to.

00:40:06.640 So the other side of that is there's like a very pragmatic sort of step-by-step process

00:40:11.260 to make it all happen.

00:40:12.140 So I'm a kid in high school thinking, okay, I want to be a Marine.

00:40:14.560 I got to go figure out how to do this.

00:40:16.440 There are steps along the way that go well beyond the fantasy of being a Marine.

00:40:20.120 So I go find, you know, a kind of a local officer recruiter, ask them, what am I supposed

00:40:24.580 to do?

00:40:25.020 And it's like, Hey, you got to go to college.

00:40:26.140 You got to get a certain GPA.

00:40:28.340 You got to go through these steps in the process.

00:40:30.180 And you're one of a lot of kids that have the exact same goal and the exact same objective.

00:40:34.840 You're certainly not unique in that regard.

00:40:37.880 Now, of course, these are some really cool kids that have a lot of the same interests as

00:40:41.380 you, but you kind of put in this pool of people who have to meet all the requirements and all

00:40:45.700 the high standards that Marine Corps has to become an officer and then eventually a pilot.

00:40:49.520 So I just got on the path.

00:40:51.320 And by my freshman year in college, I was doing all the pragmatic, deliberate things that

00:40:56.380 aren't all that exciting that you have to do in order to eventually become a Marine

00:40:59.600 officer.

00:41:00.060 And so I really didn't have any other interests.

00:41:02.320 I was fully committed to that.

00:41:03.460 And that's what I did.

00:41:05.520 So wait, so you go to, as I understand, Cal State Fullerton while working full-time at

00:41:09.900 Target to pay your way through college.

00:41:11.460 Respect.

00:41:12.280 Seriously, respect.

00:41:13.200 Good for you.

00:41:13.920 You've done your homework.

00:41:15.240 This is all true.

00:41:15.860 Well, my God, my team is amazing.

00:41:18.160 And then officer candidate school comes after it.

00:41:21.300 Like, where do you go to Marine training?

00:41:24.400 You know, like you go to college and then what?

00:41:27.320 Totally.

00:41:27.740 It's a good question.

00:41:28.240 It's actually happening in parallel.

00:41:29.900 So yeah, I grew up in Orange County in that town, El Toro.

00:41:32.560 I was going to El Toro High School.

00:41:34.560 I decided I wanted to be a Marine.

00:41:36.300 You have to get a college degree.

00:41:37.580 So I took out my map, found the closest school that I could get to, because at that time,

00:41:42.720 college was just a path to getting in the Marine Corps.

00:41:45.200 The nearest university was Cal State Fullerton.

00:41:47.980 Parents didn't have any money for school.

00:41:49.420 So I went to school Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

00:41:51.040 I worked Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and got on the path to getting my degree

00:41:55.460 in four years.

00:41:56.860 In between that, after your freshman year and your junior of college, you have to go

00:42:00.900 to something called Marine Corps Officer Candidate School.

00:42:04.040 And that's out in the East Coast in a place called Quantico, Virginia, which is, I think

00:42:08.060 they call it the crossroads of the Marine Corps, because every single Marine officer

00:42:11.400 has to go through this Officer Candidate School program in Quantico.

00:42:14.800 And I did that in my two of the summers in between my freshman and sophomore year and

00:42:19.720 my junior and senior year.

00:42:21.160 I was able to complete both of those, fortunately.

00:42:23.220 So the day I graduated, I was commissioned as a Marine, having completed that Officer Candidate

00:42:27.380 School program, which is a total of, I think, 12 weeks that I did during college.

00:42:32.060 This is crazy, just like for the audience, because they know what's going to come is,

00:42:35.700 you know, this character Maverick is basically based on you and what you do.

00:42:39.240 So this guy back then is going to Officer Candidate School and then going home and working

00:42:43.960 at the Target.

00:42:45.000 Were you like the greatest Target worker ever?

00:42:47.200 Were you like, keep a straight line for the love of God?

00:42:50.180 Get that aisle seven.

00:42:51.420 Yeah, I don't think I was the world's greatest employee.

00:42:54.680 But I will say this, like, I was fortunate enough to know that getting into the Marine

00:42:59.620 Corps, being an officer wasn't going to be easy.

00:43:01.300 And I had, I kept my nose clean.

00:43:03.000 There's certainly, I look back, I probably could have had a little more fun, but I was really

00:43:07.220 on the path and didn't have a lot of distractions.

00:43:09.640 So I would say, as I think about my time, even at school and even at a place like Target,

00:43:15.920 that was a path to get me to where I wanted to go.

00:43:19.560 So I did school well, you know, I did my job well.

00:43:23.420 I was not a superstar in any of those things.

00:43:25.640 But I knew that I needed to do those things correctly and effectively and well to get me

00:43:30.280 where I wanted to go.

00:43:31.700 So I was a decent employee.

00:43:33.460 I was a decent student.

00:43:34.460 And I certainly did well enough to get through the Officer Candidate School program.

00:43:37.880 But all of that in my mind was, if I can't get this right, there's no way I'm going to

00:43:42.340 get to do the things that I wanted to do.

00:43:44.420 So I guess I did a fairly decent job of all of them because I knew they were the path to

00:43:49.960 getting me to where I wanted to be.

00:43:51.620 Oh, my God.

00:43:51.900 The other employees were probably like, he's so annoying.

00:43:54.680 Mike, he's like, who can compete against this?

00:43:58.440 All right.

00:43:59.560 Standby, Dave, because I love your story.

00:44:01.340 We're going to get to much, much more of it in just a bit.

00:44:03.360 But squeeze in a quick break.

00:44:05.140 And when we come back, we're going to do our first Megyn Kelly mailbag, BMK mailbag.

00:44:09.400 We've been writing in and we want to respond to a couple of the emails that all of you

00:44:13.460 have been so kind to send in with your thoughts and questions and so on.

00:44:16.820 And don't forget, folks, that you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph

00:44:21.360 Channel 111 every weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips by subscribing

00:44:25.800 to our YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash Megyn Kelly.

00:44:28.860 If you prefer an audio podcast, follow, download an Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher or wherever

00:44:33.900 you get your podcast.

00:44:34.720 And don't forget to check out that YouTube right now, because that little bit we did

00:44:37.760 yesterday morning on Meghan Markle is getting quite a few thoughts.

00:44:43.120 Go ahead and check it out.

00:44:44.300 It's 12 minutes long.

00:44:45.160 I think you'll enjoy it.

00:44:46.100 We'll be right back.

00:44:46.740 We're going to get back to our guest in one minute.

00:44:51.880 But first, I want to tell you this and bring you something else tomorrow.

00:44:56.240 The latest edition of the American News Minute comes out.

00:44:59.640 It is all the news you need to know in 60 seconds or less.

00:45:03.460 I promise.

00:45:04.840 Plus a personal message from me.

00:45:07.120 Yes, I read them myself.

00:45:09.120 And oh, the latest trouble my Strudwick got into.

00:45:12.820 He has had a banner week.

00:45:15.320 OK, a banner week.

00:45:17.100 I tweeted out a photo last night.

00:45:19.040 That was just the latest.

00:45:20.320 OK, wait until you read the Strudwick saga in tomorrow's American News Minute.

00:45:25.100 You can skip it and just go to the news if you want, or you could just be there for Strudwick

00:45:28.440 if that's your jam.

00:45:30.360 Sign up now at Megyn Kelly dot com.

00:45:32.740 M-E-G-Y-N Kelly dot com.

00:45:34.500 And you can also email me, by the way, at Megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at Megyn Kelly dot com.

00:45:39.580 I can take emails there.

00:45:40.780 And we've gotten so many great ones that we've created this new show, this new segment of

00:45:46.120 the show, MK Mailback, the MK Mailback.

00:45:48.640 So I'll read a few every week.

00:45:50.920 Here's just a couple just to just to kick it off.

00:45:53.760 I'm going to start with some that we just got over yesterday's episode.

00:45:56.320 This is from Jennifer, who writes in Megan Markle is a narcissist of the highest order.

00:46:01.400 Honestly, I think she's suffering from the same borderline personality issues that

00:46:04.460 Amber Heard displayed during her court case against Johnny Depp.

00:46:08.160 That's a fascinating thought.

00:46:09.300 And I think you're probably right.

00:46:10.720 I think she truly believes the shit she's making up in her head.

00:46:13.220 She really does believe she's a victim, even though the rest of us look at her and think

00:46:16.260 she's nothing but a liar.

00:46:17.480 Keep getting after her.

00:46:18.380 She deserves to have a spotlight on her to highlight exactly what's wrong with our society

00:46:21.300 today, because she's the embodiment of grievance being used as social currency.

00:46:26.880 Yes.

00:46:27.160 And then she goes on to say on a much better note, I was hysterical crying listening to you

00:46:30.960 and Mike Rowe.

00:46:31.540 Talk about poop.

00:46:32.980 Yes, yes, me too.

00:46:36.120 Here's one from Lisa who writes in, right now I'm not using people's last names.

00:46:39.960 I'm just not sure if you don't want me to use your name.

00:46:42.040 I want to spare you your full name unless you want to say, feel free to use my name.

00:46:47.480 I laughed all the way home listening to your Markle monologue.

00:46:49.840 And then another favorite, Mike Rowe.

00:46:51.200 I teach at a college.

00:46:52.980 I love his support of our students.

00:46:54.860 Keep us laughing.

00:46:55.580 We need it.

00:46:57.080 Okay, here's another one.

00:46:58.420 Hold on.

00:46:59.160 Kevin writes in, to Markle is to be a royal pain in the ass.

00:47:04.460 Thanks for all the great shows.

00:47:05.800 Listening to Yesterday's with Mike Rowe and have laughed out loud several times and I'm

00:47:09.000 only halfway through.

00:47:10.580 A similar one from Deborah who writes, we're stuck in traffic on Route 1 in North Carolina

00:47:14.540 and rolling in laughter.

00:47:15.840 Makes us so glad we got stuck or we might have missed your show.

00:47:19.020 Thank you.

00:47:19.360 Thank you.

00:47:19.720 Thank you.

00:47:20.100 It was a funny one yesterday.

00:47:22.740 Here's one on another front that's near and dear to my own heart.

00:47:26.840 Andrew wrote in about episode 393 in our coverage of Blake Barclidge.

00:47:31.840 Oh, sweet Blake.

00:47:33.140 He writes, I just wanted to commend you regarding the story on Blake Barclidge in episode 393.

00:47:38.300 It was very well done with an incredibly appropriate tone, tenor and candor.

00:47:42.300 Having lost a child, it was comforting to hear a story like this told in the manner you

00:47:45.940 did.

00:47:46.700 Not many in the media are willing to handle this subject at all.

00:47:49.060 And when it's handled, it's often handled in a manner that's condescending or insulting.

00:47:53.280 Good on you for embracing the subject in the manner you have.

00:47:55.800 It's probably a small subset of the population that's affected by these stories.

00:47:59.920 But at least for me, as someone who's been touched in a similar fashion, I do appreciate

00:48:03.900 the manner in which you handled such a difficult and delicate subject.

00:48:07.600 Thank you from Andrew.

00:48:08.880 That was a team effort, Andrew.

00:48:10.660 So thank you for saying that.

00:48:12.140 And everyone who worked on that piece put their heart and soul into it.

00:48:16.440 Finally, Lee writes in, who's your Mount Rushmore of journalists working today?

00:48:20.000 We can agree on Glenn Greenwald and Cheryl Atkinson.

00:48:22.100 But who else?

00:48:23.220 I mean, come on.

00:48:24.060 You already named some of the greats.

00:48:25.360 Matt Taibbi.

00:48:26.480 It's a really short list after that.

00:48:28.460 And even having thought about it, I'm going to get back to you real soon.

00:48:35.560 When we come back, more with Dave Burke.

00:48:37.060 All right, Dave.

00:48:41.220 So you're on your way toward becoming a Marine officer.

00:48:44.840 And then how do we parlay that into Top Gun, which is the dream of so many men who are in

00:48:51.060 your position?

00:48:52.120 Yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't say in the back of my mind throughout my entire career

00:48:56.540 in the beginning that I didn't want to end up at Top Gun.

00:48:59.600 But there's a lot you have to do before then.

00:49:02.700 So I kind of tabled that fantasy a little bit.

00:49:05.000 But interestingly, when I got into the Marine Corps, I was telling you, I went to that officer

00:49:09.960 selection officer.

00:49:10.720 I was actually initially enrolled as a ground officer.

00:49:13.700 So I went to the basic training.

00:49:15.560 I became an officer.

00:49:16.440 And then I had to go through the school where they assign you a job.

00:49:19.100 We called it MOS.

00:49:20.200 You could be like an infantry officer or an artillery officer or a pilot.

00:49:24.380 And when I found out when I got there, there was going to be two people from my class of

00:49:28.580 250 that got this slot.

00:49:30.500 My dreams of Top Gun weren't really at the forefront.

00:49:32.920 I just wanted to get selected for aviation.

00:49:35.480 So I was lucky enough at the end of that class, I got that second pilot slot.

00:49:39.060 And then I was asked, what would be the difference between aviation and Top Gun?

00:49:44.080 Like, what would you be doing if you just went aviation versus Top Gun?

00:49:48.620 Yeah.

00:49:49.000 So Top Gun is kind of a very narrow segment of a particular type of platform that you fly.

00:49:54.580 So I wasn't even guaranteed that I was going to fly at all.

00:49:57.640 I was very lucky to get a spot where I just got to go to flight school.

00:50:00.360 Then I get down to flight school and flight school had different phases.

00:50:04.540 The first phase was called primary, where they selected whether you're going to fly jets,

00:50:08.100 like you'd do at Top Gun, propeller aircraft, like cargo planes, like a C-130 or helicopters.

00:50:13.300 So even getting to fly airplanes and then which particular airplane, that was all unknown as

00:50:18.020 I was rising up in my initial couple of years in flight training.

00:50:21.240 I was lucky enough.

00:50:22.160 I got a pilot slot.

00:50:23.260 I was lucky enough to get a jet slot.

00:50:25.440 And then I completed jet training after about a year and a half.

00:50:27.740 And I was selected for an airplane called the F-18.

00:50:30.180 And that's the only plane at the time that had a pathway to getting to Top Gun.

00:50:35.820 But being a student at Top Gun, there was a lot of things I had to do well before then.

00:50:40.400 Get an aviation spot, get through flight school, get jets, get into the F-18.

00:50:45.160 And then I could start to really think about what that path looked like to getting in there.

00:50:48.820 So that was several years after.

00:50:50.400 I think I got commissioned in 1994.

00:50:52.400 I started flight school in 1995.

00:50:54.180 I didn't go to Top Gun until 2001.

00:50:57.540 So a lot of time, a lot of training, a lot of things predated the opportunity to be a

00:51:02.220 student at Top Gun.

00:51:03.240 Why do they make it so hard?

00:51:05.060 What's going to be so elite and special about your missions as a Top Gun graduate versus

00:51:09.280 everything else?

00:51:10.740 Yeah, the biggest thing about Top Gun and why that is considered to be such a unique and

00:51:15.260 elite group of people is their obligation isn't just to be good at flying.

00:51:19.380 The pilots in the military are all magnificent.

00:51:21.400 The obligation you have at Top Gun is you have to be the trainer and the teacher of all the

00:51:27.080 other pilots going through that program who are going to then lead their squadrons and

00:51:31.200 lead the other pilots to war.

00:51:32.980 So it isn't just that you need to be a good pilot.

00:51:35.280 You have to be a good instructor.

00:51:36.620 And in fact, you have to be a better instructor than you are a pilot.

00:51:40.340 And it's one thing, you probably know this, it's one thing to be able to do something.

00:51:43.900 To be able to teach it is something very different.

00:51:45.540 So the criteria for getting to Top Gun and then certainly the criteria for coming back

00:51:49.640 is based on more than just your ability to fly the airplane.

00:51:53.300 And so that's a pretty, they make it a very high entrance bar because the obligation for

00:51:57.440 you to teach other people to go to war is super, super critical.

00:52:01.460 So if you matched up a Top Gun instructor against a student who's, you know, these are

00:52:06.920 elite students, as you just outlined, even to be at Top Gun.

00:52:10.360 Is there any way the student could beat the teacher?

00:52:14.220 There's no chance.

00:52:15.320 It's not even close.

00:52:16.820 And this isn't because the Top Gun instructors are like better human beings.

00:52:20.220 It's simply just that their experience, the amount of repetitions they had.

00:52:23.760 But unlike what you see in the movie, when the students show up to Top Gun, their thought

00:52:28.100 isn't that I'm going to beat the instructor.

00:52:29.580 Their thought is I'm going to learn everything I can from the instructor because the disparity

00:52:33.460 in performance and capability at that time, it's massive.

00:52:36.840 So students don't go to Top Gun with any hope of beating their instructors in training.

00:52:41.980 They go there with the hope of learning what they can.

00:52:44.080 So and when you're a student, you understand that there is no real ego involved about I'm

00:52:48.480 going to beat this instructor.

00:52:49.620 You want to just go there and learn.

00:52:51.460 So when you got selected, because you did wind up being one of the top two, and so you

00:52:55.020 got selected to go to Top Gun.

00:52:56.200 What was that like?

00:52:57.040 Is that I mean, it's like winning the lottery.

00:52:58.760 It's like finding out you've won the presidency.

00:53:01.840 What did that feel like for you?

00:53:04.000 I don't think it's quite quite that level of excitement.

00:53:10.360 There is a sense when I was told by my squadron commander that I was going to Top Gun, of

00:53:15.280 course, I was elated.

00:53:16.880 I mean, that really was in that sense, kind of a culmination of my childhood dream.

00:53:21.080 So it was a huge deal.

00:53:22.580 But on top of that, there's this massive burden, this sense of obligation and this

00:53:26.080 sense of responsibility.

00:53:27.220 So you certainly I remember going home being pretty excited.

00:53:30.720 I remember telling my friends and my family, hey, I'm getting to go to Top Gun as a student,

00:53:33.660 which was awesome.

00:53:34.600 But you also know that there's a ton of work that goes involved in that.

00:53:37.540 And then there's an expectation, too, from that commander who sent you there.

00:53:41.240 Hey, you got to come back and be an instructor for the squadron.

00:53:43.960 You have to prepare us to go to war.

00:53:45.720 So there's a blend of elation, for sure, but also this massive amount of responsibility.

00:53:50.560 So I remember feeling both heavily.

00:53:53.060 So you went to Top Gun, as I understand it, summer of 2001.

00:53:56.360 Yeah, I was in the last graduating class of Top Gun, the last group of students to graduate

00:54:02.260 before September 11th.

00:54:03.880 So I graduated in July of 2001.

00:54:06.860 And our class is the last class to have graduated before 9-11.

00:54:10.340 Oh, my gosh.

00:54:11.260 So where were you?

00:54:12.540 What were you doing on September 11th?

00:54:15.260 I was literally dressing, putting my boots on.

00:54:18.320 I was getting dressed.

00:54:19.000 It was probably, you know, five something in the morning, West Coast time.

00:54:22.620 I had a habit, I think, in the morning I'd get up, I'd exercise.

00:54:25.600 I'd get my flight suit and my boots on, and I'd flip on the TV to kind of see what's going

00:54:28.840 on.

00:54:29.620 So it was probably, you know, five something in the morning.

00:54:31.860 I'm literally lacing up my boots, and I'm watching what's going on.

00:54:35.460 And I'm realizing I got to get to work.

00:54:37.220 I was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, you know, right there in San Diego.

00:54:42.180 So I drove into work that morning knowing that everything, everything had changed.

00:54:46.200 And I can certainly remember that very vividly as I'm driving to work that morning, knowing

00:54:50.700 that the world had changed dramatically.

00:54:53.000 My God.

00:54:53.500 I mean, like, the training means so much.

00:54:55.600 More suddenly.

00:54:56.360 This isn't just a drill.

00:54:57.680 You are going to have to put this into use and soon.

00:55:01.220 Megan, that's such a good point.

00:55:02.880 It's such a great way to say it.

00:55:05.380 When I went to Top Gun as a student, it was a peacetime military.

00:55:09.080 And not that we didn't understand that we were training for all we did, but it's a little

00:55:13.120 bit ethereal until something like that happens.

00:55:17.340 And I knew that morning as I'm driving to work, we're going to war.

00:55:20.800 I didn't know exactly how and when, but there was no question in my mind.

00:55:24.180 And the way you described it is exactly right.

00:55:25.780 That's exactly what I was feeling was, oh, all this training, this isn't for fun.

00:55:29.320 This is for the real world.

00:55:30.320 And now the world is going to expect us to go to war and take all that training and put

00:55:33.760 it to good use.

00:55:34.220 And that's, I mean, that's exactly what happened.

00:55:37.200 Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is you went, you, you became a Top Gun instructor

00:55:42.960 from 02 to 05.

00:55:45.520 So before they sent you over, cause they did send you over, uh, to fight, um, they, they

00:55:50.620 wanted you to get some other guys trained to go help us fight because they, they recognized

00:55:55.220 the dearth of qualified pilots we had to fly these jets.

00:55:59.360 Yeah.

00:56:01.220 So obviously 9-11 was a big deal.

00:56:03.220 I was back in my squadron after graduating from Top Gun.

00:56:06.780 We went within six weeks, I think we're on a carrier steaming to the North Arabian Gulf

00:56:11.020 flying combat missions while I'm flying combat missions in Afghanistan, which was the kickoff,

00:56:15.340 you know, late 2001, early 2002.

00:56:17.940 While I'm there, I get an email from the commanding officer of Top Gun saying, when you're done with

00:56:23.040 this combat deployment to Afghanistan, we want you to come back.

00:56:26.280 We want you to be a Top Gun instructor.

00:56:27.600 So I knew while I was flying combat missions in Afghanistan, that when that was over, I

00:56:32.180 was going to come back from that deployment, which ended up being seven or so months.

00:56:35.320 And I was going to go up to be an instructor at Top Gun.

00:56:37.960 It's, it's starting in 2002, just like I understand you're in the middle of fighting

00:56:40.660 a war and there's a lot bigger stakes, but like, there had to be a moment of like, holy

00:56:44.180 crap, I'm going to instruct it.

00:56:45.680 Yeah.

00:56:47.080 Another great way to describe it.

00:56:48.500 That's about how I felt was, holy crap, this is going to happen.

00:56:50.760 And it's, it's like you described, there's this blend of massive responsibility, massive

00:56:57.320 obligation, huge amount of pressure and this sense of, of needing to deliver and all that

00:57:01.820 training.

00:57:02.220 And then the sense of, I was a fortunate old kid.

00:57:05.200 I watched this movie about a guy who flew airplanes and got to be a Top Gun instructor.

00:57:08.500 And that's exactly what's going to happen to me.

00:57:10.420 So there was an absolute combination of all those different feelings.

00:57:13.680 It's more than anything, it's a profession and you feel this professional obligation.

00:57:18.540 I was super excited to go, but more than anything, I wanted to go and do a good job.

00:57:21.980 And that's what I remember feeling more than anything.

00:57:24.160 You mentioned the F-18.

00:57:25.460 What was the other main jet?

00:57:28.040 So I flew a few different jets.

00:57:29.560 I was very lucky when, as soon as I got up to Top Gun as an instructor, they just started

00:57:33.220 training Top Gun instructors on an F-6, on the F-16, which is at the time the Air Force's

00:57:38.380 primary jet, uh, or one of their primary jets.

00:57:40.980 So as soon as I got to Top Gun, I got what's called a dual qualify.

00:57:43.980 So I was qualified in two different airplanes at the same time, the Navy Marine Corps' F-18

00:57:47.760 and the Air Force's F-16, which the Navy just started flying at the Top Gun.

00:57:51.840 So I spent three years there flying both of those jets, which was completely awesome.

00:57:56.760 All right.

00:57:56.860 I'm going to do my Chris Farley on SNL, um, as a host routine.

00:58:01.180 Was it scary?

00:58:03.760 What was that like?

00:58:04.760 Yeah, I know.

00:58:05.220 I remember that skit.

00:58:06.220 No, it was not scary.

00:58:07.660 It was like 100% the coolest thing ever.

00:58:10.220 For most people, and certainly at this time, you know, this is back early 2000s, you got

00:58:14.540 assigned a platform, which we, you know, our jet would call it the platform, the F-18.

00:58:17.740 It was very, very unlikely you were ever going to see the inside of another airplane.

00:58:21.520 So the fact that I got to see two at the same time was kind of very unique, very, uh, very

00:58:25.760 rare at the time.

00:58:26.720 And it was nothing but just a blast.

00:58:28.980 I'd land at an F-18 and I'd walk across the flight line and I'd get up in an F-16 and

00:58:32.680 go fly.

00:58:33.160 Uh, and at the time it was really uncommon for anybody in the military to be flying two

00:58:37.500 different types of fighters, especially two awesome fighters at the same time.

00:58:41.120 So no, it wasn't scary.

00:58:42.640 It was completely awesome.

00:58:43.680 I loved it.

00:58:44.140 So give me the, give me the cocktail party description of like G-force and throwing up

00:58:48.520 and what happens to your facial skin.

00:58:50.520 Like what, what is it like?

00:58:52.920 It's not pretty.

00:58:53.640 You don't want to see any of those videos.

00:58:54.900 Um, nine G's, uh, you know, one of the cool things I flew the F-18, um, that was an airplane

00:59:00.640 that pulled seven to eight G's, you know, eight G's was kind of the magic number.

00:59:03.940 Then you start flying the F-16, that thing pulls a nine G's.

00:59:07.060 And just the quick explanation is all the G is, is a force of gravity.

00:59:10.580 And so I was, uh, at the time, if I had all my flight gear on, uh, I weighed about 200

00:59:15.400 pounds.

00:59:16.040 And if you were flying around at one G, you feel like you weighed 200 pounds.

00:59:19.260 You fly around at nine G's, you feel like you weigh 1800 pounds.

00:59:22.240 So yeah, the skin on your face, uh, all the pressure in your body, it can be really hard

00:59:26.680 just to stay awake sometimes.

00:59:27.780 So we have this training on how to manage those G's.

00:59:30.860 Uh, it doesn't look good, but, or sound good, but it's a really important skill to have.

00:59:35.120 And obviously managing those G's is a big deal.

00:59:37.260 I never really got sick in an airplane.

00:59:39.460 Uh, maybe, maybe my first flight or two at the very beginning, I got a little, a little

00:59:42.660 nauseous, but I was fortunate enough to really enjoy being in a cockpit and I loved flying

00:59:46.740 under high G.

00:59:47.340 It was a lot of fun.

00:59:48.000 It was a lot of pressure, but you learn how to deal with it.

00:59:50.580 And, and most pilots, uh, learn that skill pretty early in their fighter career.

00:59:54.040 So more than anything, I've seen the videos of people falling asleep immediately.

00:59:58.600 It's like they pass out.

00:59:59.580 What, why, why do you pass out?

01:00:01.620 You pass out because all the blood in your head under the force of gravity, all the blood

01:00:05.520 leaves your brain and you literally, you literally fall asleep and pass out.

01:00:09.160 And so the technique that we learn is how to squeeze your muscles, uh, to make sure the

01:00:13.140 blood stays in your head.

01:00:14.180 Cause most of the blood's out of your head.

01:00:15.460 You literally pass out.

01:00:16.760 That's possible.

01:00:17.600 Like if you're feeling light of, you know, lightheaded, even in civilian life, you could

01:00:21.500 squeeze your muscles in a way that would keep the blood up there.

01:00:24.320 Um, I think there's a little bit different there in terms of why some people pass out.

01:00:27.960 But if the reason you're passing out is that the blood is leaving your head under the force

01:00:31.780 of gravity, you can squeeze your muscles and fight gravity and keep that blood inside

01:00:35.760 your brain.

01:00:36.240 And that's a technique we learned.

01:00:38.400 What is to prevent?

01:00:39.540 Cause you get a co-pilot, right?

01:00:41.840 Nope.

01:00:42.340 I flew by myself.

01:00:43.340 I was a single seat pilot.

01:00:44.520 I always flew alone.

01:00:45.920 Well, what happens if you pass out?

01:00:48.160 What if the technique doesn't work?

01:00:50.300 It's not good.

01:00:51.220 You got to stay awake.

01:00:52.260 And in fact, Megan, you're, you're doing a very good job of highlighting like very legitimate

01:00:57.020 concerns.

01:00:58.140 Um, we call it G lock G induced loss of consciousness.

01:01:02.280 We have sadly crashed a lot of airplanes that are perfectly flyable jets with pilots to have

01:01:08.140 unfortunately not maintain their consciousness.

01:01:09.900 In fact, we've developed software, uh, that I was lucky to participate in that development

01:01:13.540 to have a plane recognized when the pilot has passed out, it's not flying to recover itself.

01:01:17.800 So you don't play into the ground.

01:01:19.080 But sadly back then, uh, it was unfortunately not the most uncommon thing for a pilot to lose

01:01:24.160 consciousness and crash that that happened.

01:01:26.020 Um, you know, not all the time, but it happened routinely.

01:01:28.060 It was very, it's very sad.

01:01:29.080 I'm curious if the pilot has a, if the, if the plane has a pilot who's passed out and

01:01:33.600 we're trying to get him back, does the, does the plane need to go lower in terms of altitude

01:01:38.820 or does it just need to go slower to, to bring, you know, the blood flow back?

01:01:43.500 Um, it's not necessarily how high you are, uh, when you slow down or, or really stop accelerating

01:01:48.680 and stop, uh, maneuvering.

01:01:50.600 Um, the blood can come back pretty quickly.

01:01:53.180 The problem is, is it takes a little bit of time for when you wake up from, from passing

01:01:56.980 out to understand what's going on and planes are flying so fast and pointed to the ground

01:02:01.340 going so quickly that sometimes that can be unrecoverable and planes crash doing that.

01:02:05.640 And it's, it's awful.

01:02:06.640 It's an awful thing.

01:02:08.080 Would there be a situation where you can see the guy and you know, you just got to say

01:02:11.320 like, all you need to do is hit eject, just hit eject.

01:02:14.020 You got to get out.

01:02:15.580 Yeah.

01:02:16.080 You know, even in the, the most recent Top Gun movie, there's the scene where there's

01:02:19.460 a pilot has G lock and it's, it's one of the scenes in there that are, unfortunately,

01:02:22.900 there's very little you can do, uh, you can try to talk to them a little bit, but, uh,

01:02:27.340 a pilot who is having a G lock episode where they've passed out, uh, there's very little

01:02:31.560 you can do in another airplane to help that person recover.

01:02:34.800 There needs to be an eject thing controlled by, you know, a friendly plane.

01:02:39.600 Well, what they've developed is some technology in the airplane that goes, Hey, this pilot

01:02:43.500 hasn't done anything.

01:02:44.340 We're flying towards the ground.

01:02:45.480 It does some very quick math of, if I keep going at this speed, this altitude and this

01:02:49.340 angle, we're going to hit the ground.

01:02:50.580 So the jet will take over flying the airplane and recover the jet in hopes that the pilot

01:02:55.320 that will engage consciousness.

01:02:56.280 So that technology is out there.

01:02:57.540 It's awesome.

01:02:58.620 Uh, and I've worked on that, that technology and it's saved, it has saved airplanes and

01:03:02.180 saved lives.

01:03:02.680 It's really cool.

01:03:03.320 Thank God.

01:03:03.900 Thank God.

01:03:04.260 I mean, I was going to say, even in my car, like if I turn to the right lane without signaling,

01:03:08.620 it'll make me stay in the, in the, you know, like technology is so advanced now.

01:03:12.440 I imagine our F-16s and our F-18s with guys like you, we're doing everything we can to save

01:03:17.340 you.

01:03:17.660 Yes.

01:03:17.980 And the very expensive equipment as well.

01:03:19.580 So yeah, that technology is out there.

01:03:21.740 It's called auto G cast, uh, and it's designed to keep you from crashing when you pass out.

01:03:25.880 It's amazing.

01:03:27.060 Wow.

01:03:27.440 Okay.

01:03:27.660 So you, you spend three years there training fighter pilots to go off and do what you do

01:03:32.080 and then you get deployed to Ramadi.

01:03:35.840 Yes.

01:03:36.900 Okay.

01:03:37.260 And, and, and just set it up for us because it sounds like when you first got there, like

01:03:41.020 this is, this is the real deal.

01:03:42.600 I mean, there's nothing like nothing.

01:03:44.640 It's deadly serious in Ramadi, especially at that timeframe.

01:03:47.480 So you go over there and as I understand it, one of your first impressions was, holy

01:03:52.020 shit, we're undermanned.

01:03:52.860 Like we don't, we don't have enough resources to do what I'm doing.

01:03:57.040 Yeah, that's great.

01:03:57.640 So I'm leaving top gun.

01:03:59.380 It's like 2005.

01:04:00.140 I'm actually making kind of thinking I'm going to get out of the Marine Corps.

01:04:03.280 Uh, but there's a part of me that has the sense of not having done everything I ever

01:04:07.160 wanted to do.

01:04:08.260 Uh, and so I thought, Hey, I will do a tour on the ground.

01:04:11.220 So I volunteered to do what's called a forward air controller.

01:04:13.360 That was the person that uses radios, talking to airplanes overhead.

01:04:15.940 I volunteered for a couple of jobs and end up, uh, right after top gun going to Ramadi.

01:04:21.200 Um, I, I understood how crazy it was.

01:04:24.580 And Ramadi at the time in 2006 was literally the most dangerous city in the world.

01:04:28.900 Uh, but I don't think I fully understood what I was getting myself into.

01:04:32.020 And when I got there, what I realized is that I had a team of, of, of three guys with three

01:04:38.220 sub teams, about four or five people each.

01:04:40.080 I had about 13 or 14 of us that could break into three or four man teams.

01:04:43.160 And I wish I had 10 times as many because they really, really, especially in Ramadi,

01:04:47.700 we needed as much help as we could get.

01:04:49.480 So instead of me sitting in some sort of air conditioned command center, I realized I had

01:04:53.380 to get out into the field and start operating as an air controller, working for the, the

01:04:57.420 Marines, the soldiers.

01:04:58.140 And as you probably know, the seals that were there in Ramadi at the time.

01:05:01.540 It's so heartbreaking.

01:05:03.040 You know, I've, I've done some of my favorite interviews are with like Marcus Luttrell, Dakota

01:05:06.860 Meyer and Marcus's story, you know, lone survivor of how like they couldn't get the air

01:05:10.900 support and, you know, they were left there.

01:05:12.620 It's not because his, his fellow, um, you know, Marines and so on didn't want to help.

01:05:17.340 It's just, we didn't, we didn't have all the resources that we needed in a lot of places

01:05:21.600 over there.

01:05:22.060 You can only be one guy and we only had so many aircraft and that's impossible for a

01:05:27.640 guy like you who's in the decision making role.

01:05:30.840 Yeah, it was certainly a tough situation.

01:05:32.480 And obviously those two men you talked to, those are heroes and what they endured.

01:05:35.720 I've never, uh, uh, had to be in a position as dire as what they were able to endure.

01:05:40.020 But I certainly found myself in Ramadi working alongside of Jocko Willink and his, his seals

01:05:45.480 there being exposed to things that I, I had never seen before.

01:05:48.880 And as you can imagine, uh, given my career flying airplanes, it was by far the most, um,

01:05:54.680 the most violent, the most hectic, uh, and the most significant thing I ever did in my

01:05:58.120 career was that year on the ground.

01:05:59.420 Uh, and that deployment that I did in Ramadi compare the feeling you had at top gun, flying

01:06:04.320 those jets, feeling like a bad-ass.

01:06:06.140 I'm sure like you're the man to the feeling you had over in Ramadi when you realized it's

01:06:11.000 real, I don't have what I need and actual lives are at stake.

01:06:15.700 Yeah, it's a very interesting thing.

01:06:17.560 You, you can't not enjoy being a top gun.

01:06:20.880 It is like the coolest job in the world.

01:06:22.880 I loved every second of it.

01:06:24.900 Um, it's a huge responsibility.

01:06:26.180 It's a very tough job, but as you described, um, it's in a training environment, it's relatively

01:06:30.920 safe.

01:06:31.920 Um, you have that certain sense of obligation and burden, but the environment is one that

01:06:36.220 you can, you know, really enjoy and thrive in Ramadi is the exact opposite.

01:06:39.920 Ramadi was the most violent war zone in the world.

01:06:43.020 And I was on the ground and, and the firefights that I had seen in the past from the cockpit of

01:06:47.640 an airplane, uh, even when I was over Iraq and Afghanistan.

01:06:50.620 Now they're happening to me, you know, in person and, and on a perspective that I'd never seen

01:06:56.260 before.

01:06:57.240 What I found though, was the attributes and the leadership skills that I was fortunate

01:07:02.240 enough to develop teaching a top gun and elsewhere.

01:07:04.820 They were the same skills that I was going to need to leverage to be successful with my

01:07:08.580 Marines and the seals on the ground in Ramadi.

01:07:10.340 So in some sense, despite how chaotic and violent that environment was, I had a sense that

01:07:15.760 very quickly, I knew I was capable of being successful there.

01:07:19.380 If I followed the leadership principles that I've learned that were made me successful

01:07:23.160 up to that point, which is exactly what I did.

01:07:25.720 Oh, wow.

01:07:26.120 I mean, God bless the U S military because this is what they do.

01:07:28.720 This is what they've been doing for decades now.

01:07:31.660 What you get to the point where loss becomes real and somewhat personal for you over there.

01:07:39.580 And I'm, I gotta imagine there's a moment for every soldier where it all comes home.

01:07:43.900 Like it's, it's not a, as I said earlier, it's not a drill and it's not an exercise and

01:07:48.180 it's not something that you just control from afar.

01:07:50.380 Someone you really love or care about dies.

01:07:53.180 And yeah, you know, you're in it, you're in a foreign role.

01:07:56.160 You know, you're not a civilian back at home where somebody dies of cancer or somebody dies

01:07:59.140 in a car accident.

01:08:00.060 It's got a totally different connotation about it because it's somebody you're, you're

01:08:03.040 fighting with and you're maybe you're supposed to protect him and he's supposed to protect

01:08:06.100 you.

01:08:06.340 And you could be, it's got so many other layers to it.

01:08:09.000 So take us to that moment.

01:08:10.620 I understand it for you.

01:08:11.500 It was in June, 2006.

01:08:14.460 Yeah.

01:08:15.020 June 20th.

01:08:15.840 And Megan, you're doing such a great job of articulating those feelings that I was having.

01:08:21.580 And I imagine that for those of us that have experienced that up close and personal, I

01:08:25.500 think you're describing extremely well.

01:08:27.640 Listen, I had certainly known that there was loss.

01:08:31.300 I had, you know, people that I grew up in training with that crashed in airplanes and you

01:08:35.760 cannot escape that in the military.

01:08:38.120 It's a sad, unfortunate reality.

01:08:41.060 Combat is different.

01:08:42.700 And when on June 20th, a Marine that was on my team had a small 13 man team.

01:08:47.640 So you can imagine we get to know each other really, really well.

01:08:51.660 And a young Marine named Chris Leon, who was my radio operator, someone I saw literally

01:08:56.760 every single moment, every single day on June 20th, 2006, he was killed in Ramadi.

01:09:01.980 And what happened was exactly what you described, Megan, was there's a sense of it being more

01:09:06.800 real than anything else.

01:09:08.420 And I don't want to diminish or marginalize all the other loss.

01:09:12.160 And as you can imagine, while we were in Ramadi, the army unit they were supporting had

01:09:16.080 nearly 500 wounded and nearly 100 killed.

01:09:19.760 And I was there for 61 of the killed in action from an army unit happened during the six months

01:09:24.140 that I was there.

01:09:24.700 But when it happens to someone that is on your team and is so personally close to you, it

01:09:30.380 is different.

01:09:31.100 It strikes in a way that is really hard to articulate, to be quite frank.

01:09:36.460 I don't think I was fully prepared for it, although I understood it was a potential reality.

01:09:41.600 But when Chris was killed, that hit closer and hurt more than anything that has ever happened

01:09:46.820 in my career.

01:09:47.500 And that is a day that, as you can imagine, I will never forget that.

01:09:51.800 I'll never forget Chris.

01:09:52.820 And I'll never forget the fact that I was there to experience something like that.

01:09:56.420 And that was a hard day, for sure.

01:10:00.020 In September of 2006, you were sent back home.

01:10:04.760 And by this point, you are married, right?

01:10:07.620 You've married Whitney by this point?

01:10:09.680 Yes.

01:10:10.080 I got married.

01:10:11.220 So I met my future wife, then girlfriend.

01:10:14.160 I had just become a Top Gun instructor.

01:10:15.740 And she's like, oh, this is cool.

01:10:17.540 This guy flies airplanes.

01:10:19.100 And I was driving a Corvette.

01:10:21.580 Life was pretty sweet at the time.

01:10:22.680 Oh, she's your Kelly McGillis.

01:10:25.960 So we met.

01:10:27.180 We got married right before I left Top Gun.

01:10:30.380 So we spent most of our time together, dating, engaged, married at Top Gun.

01:10:34.560 I say, hey, guess what?

01:10:36.580 I think I'll stay in the Marine Corps, and I'll be a Ford Air Controller, and I go to Iraq.

01:10:41.580 And then I spent the next 19 of the next 27 months deployed.

01:10:47.120 So I go to Iraq while we were newlyweds, and I'm deployed for that.

01:10:51.460 And she got to see the other side of the real military and the real Marine Corps.

01:10:54.860 So when I came home from that deployment, I'd already been married, but I was gone.

01:10:57.940 Basically, only but a few months of our marriage, she was with me, though.

01:11:02.140 So it was a trial by fire for her as well.

01:11:05.220 Yeah, not exactly how she envisioned the honeymoon period going, though, of course, every military

01:11:10.200 spouse assumes that risk and understands it fully.

01:11:13.060 So you're pretty open about how when you came back, because, you know, you don't think about

01:11:18.140 it this way, but every day over there is sort of a day of damage to you, to like your psyche

01:11:22.820 potentially.

01:11:23.880 And I realize you're trained to handle it.

01:11:26.100 And, you know, there's a certain mentality that can go into it and become an officer.

01:11:29.360 I've interviewed Jocko, crazy, so what a guy, you know, he's so many life lessons for all

01:11:33.940 of us in Jocko Willink said, but you're still human.

01:11:38.720 So you come back, and your own humanity is right there staring you in the face, and you

01:11:45.480 realize, maybe I'm not totally invincible.

01:11:49.760 Yeah, again, I think you described it really well.

01:11:52.040 Every day there has the potential to be corrosive.

01:11:55.220 And there are things that are going around you, going on around you that are, they're all

01:11:59.340 awful.

01:11:59.980 You see the worst in humanity, you see the worst in mankind, you see the worst that human

01:12:04.060 beings are capable of, and you have to live and function.

01:12:06.880 And actually, you have to thrive in that environment.

01:12:09.820 You have to be more than just a survivor in combat, you have to lead your team, you have

01:12:14.020 to make sure they are successful, you do your best to bring them all home.

01:12:16.460 So you have to work to thrive in that environment.

01:12:19.440 So for me, obviously, June 20th was an awful day, but that marked kind of the halfway point

01:12:23.780 of my deployment.

01:12:24.380 So I had to keep doing the things that I was doing to make sure the rest of my Marines came

01:12:28.100 home.

01:12:28.820 It wasn't until I got back, you know, September, October of 06, when that deployment was behind

01:12:33.240 me.

01:12:33.800 And now I'm back to my wife, I'm back to San Diego, I'm back to flying airplanes, where

01:12:38.600 I had to take stock and reconcile, you know, what had really gone on, and learn exactly

01:12:44.620 what we just described.

01:12:45.360 I was not invincible.

01:12:46.360 The people around me weren't invincible.

01:12:47.620 And I was going to have to learn to manage that corrosive experience.

01:12:51.260 And what I was going to do with my life in the future was going to be highly dependent

01:12:54.320 on how well I handled the aftermath of that, that brutal deployment.

01:12:59.040 Yes, it's like we we stimulate every ounce of testosterone in you guys.

01:13:03.700 And we send you over there where people really are shooting at you and people are dying around

01:13:08.080 you and ask you to to pull out like every piece of strength and resolve and courage that

01:13:14.400 you have inside of you.

01:13:15.360 And then like within days, you're back living civilian life, where you're supposed to be

01:13:20.480 polite and put your napkin on your lap and, you know, follow sort of the I just it's such

01:13:25.060 a challenge.

01:13:26.460 I was struck by the story of you and your wife walking on the beach that one time because

01:13:29.880 you don't snap out of it.

01:13:31.700 You don't snap out of your military mindset.

01:13:33.660 And so tell us what happened and how it was like an aha moment for you.

01:13:37.640 Yeah, your crew did an incredibly good job.

01:13:40.340 You've got a lot of those do our homework.

01:13:42.660 Yeah, you did.

01:13:43.600 I think that that story that you're talking about, Megan, was a moment where I was I was

01:13:48.300 back from deployment.

01:13:49.280 You know, it was shortly after I got back.

01:13:50.900 I was taking a walk with my wife.

01:13:52.680 It's just the two of us.

01:13:53.560 I remember we were holding hands.

01:13:55.040 I think we were kind of crossing the street or something.

01:13:57.080 Anyway, across the road was an auto body shop and those air guns that they use to take

01:14:01.920 the tires off a car, make that kind of like that ratchety loud sound.

01:14:06.460 Anyway, that sound went off and I literally grabbed my wife and kind of threw her to the ground

01:14:10.320 to kind of get on top of her and to cover her.

01:14:13.480 I realized like halfway through what I was doing, like I needed to stop doing it.

01:14:17.120 It was just a reaction.

01:14:18.200 It happened very, very quickly.

01:14:20.020 But the feeling that I felt more than anything was just embarrassment.

01:14:23.080 I was embarrassed at how quickly I reacted.

01:14:25.920 And then when I say threw her to the ground, I was throwing her, bringing her to the ground

01:14:29.940 to kind of protect her as if there was something that she was exposed to.

01:14:33.080 And that was a moment where I'm like, all right, you're going to have to rethink how you deal

01:14:37.840 with this.

01:14:38.580 I can't be going around throwing my life to the ground and I have to learn how to react

01:14:42.100 to these stimulus around me that bring back a particular sensation.

01:14:46.780 That was kind of a low point for me more than anything.

01:14:49.360 I was embarrassed that I did it.

01:14:51.880 And then I had to kind of realize, all right, let's think through how I can take ownership

01:14:55.140 of this and how I can solve this.

01:14:56.920 And I've got to be a functional, capable person moving forward.

01:14:59.760 I can't live my life like this.

01:15:01.060 That's certainly represented rock bottom for me as a story she could certainly tell you

01:15:05.240 as well.

01:15:05.660 I'm sure her perspective is a little different, which is what is going on.

01:15:09.660 But yeah, that was that was a rough day.

01:15:11.860 Well, there's there's a piece of it that's kind of sexy.

01:15:14.180 I'm not going to lie.

01:15:14.920 Like, even when my husband, Doug, puts his arm across me, like when the car is stopping

01:15:20.580 short, it's like I feel a bond.

01:15:22.720 You know, I understood this was coming from a damaged place.

01:15:25.760 But what you did for her was also coming from a loving, protective, you know, courageous

01:15:30.440 male partner place, which I adore.

01:15:33.120 And I'm sure she understood that as well.

01:15:35.520 So you did.

01:15:36.800 You did find a path forward.

01:15:38.580 You now have three children.

01:15:40.760 How old are your kids right now?

01:15:42.360 I have a 13, 11 and a nine year old.

01:15:44.960 Three kids.

01:15:45.960 Oh, we have exactly the same age children.

01:15:48.080 Exactly the same age.

01:15:48.960 Right on.

01:15:49.620 So I know what you're I know what you're going through.

01:15:51.540 But actually, this is this is the this is the honeymoon period.

01:15:54.260 Right.

01:15:54.540 It's like the toddlership is tough.

01:15:56.460 The teenage years are tough.

01:15:57.740 But like right now, I don't know about your kids.

01:15:59.200 Like my kids like me and I like them.

01:16:01.320 It's a miracle.

01:16:02.840 We're kind of like that.

01:16:04.460 Well, I say we're back in two for three.

01:16:05.980 How about that?

01:16:08.640 That older one is is more in the teenage years already, I'd say.

01:16:12.580 OK, I would say my 11 year old is actually closest to that because she's a girl and she's

01:16:17.140 just, you know, advanced.

01:16:18.080 Like all those girls are that at that age, more than the boys.

01:16:20.820 And yeah, we have more like I have more parenting moments where I'm like, do better, do better

01:16:26.200 with her than anyone else.

01:16:28.940 OK, let me pause it there because we got it.

01:16:30.880 Now we're going to get into Top Gun.

01:16:31.940 We're going to talk about the movie and talk about Maverick and talk about Tom Cruise and

01:16:34.860 what you're doing now with some guys who I absolutely love in Echelon Front.

01:16:39.100 So stand by much more with Dave Burke right after this quick, quick break.

01:16:48.080 Here is now Dave Burke, combat veteran and chief current chief development officer at

01:16:53.620 Echelon Front, which is Leif Babbitt's organization and Jocko.

01:16:58.740 And people may know him from he was married to my friend Jenna at Fox News.

01:17:04.980 Anyway, it all it all comes together.

01:17:06.580 It's a small community.

01:17:07.280 And I love that.

01:17:08.020 I love that you guys found each other.

01:17:09.580 So just so people understand, what does Echelon Front do?

01:17:12.540 Echelon Front is a leadership consultancy.

01:17:14.600 We teach leadership.

01:17:15.320 And just like you said, Leif Babbitt and Jocko Willink started it.

01:17:18.700 And the only reason I have been lucky enough to be part of that team with Leif and Jocko

01:17:22.540 and be part of Echelon Front is when I got to Ramadi in 2006, the SEAL team I was talking

01:17:27.220 about was Jocko's task unit.

01:17:29.140 So it turns out that all those major operations that happened during our time in Ramadi, I

01:17:33.680 was fortunate enough to do that with Leif and Jocko's team.

01:17:36.640 So I got to work really closely with them for those six months.

01:17:39.160 As you might guess, we created a really, really tight bond.

01:17:41.760 And then about six years ago, when they were really building out Echelon Front, they said,

01:17:45.200 why don't you come back and join us again?

01:17:46.620 I said, I'm in.

01:17:48.240 So that's our connection there.

01:17:49.260 It's awesome.

01:17:49.640 So can I tell you, I was there the night Leif and Jenna Lee met.

01:17:53.920 This is, I feel like, special because I was there and we were at a benefit for Navy SEALs

01:17:58.920 with Roger Ailes.

01:18:00.040 And she was there looking like her dazzling self.

01:18:02.900 And he was there looking like his.

01:18:04.920 And it was meant to be.

01:18:06.760 These two beautiful people in every way should find each other.

01:18:09.220 And now they're down in Texas.

01:18:11.120 OK, so after you came back, did you do anything I should ask to deal with your PTSD?

01:18:18.200 Did you do anything formal to handle that?

01:18:21.460 No, I didn't.

01:18:22.520 I think one of the things, listen, my wife ended up being a massive support for me.

01:18:28.940 And those feelings of being embarrassed, which is, I think, something a lot of veterans deal

01:18:32.780 with is why am I having these reactions?

01:18:34.480 She didn't make me feel like that.

01:18:35.700 So I was very fortunate to have what I consider a really good support system, not just with

01:18:40.500 my wife, but also my best friend, who had also was a Marine and had been through a combat

01:18:44.940 deployment similar to mine.

01:18:46.000 So I had someone I could commiserate with.

01:18:47.740 I also started to learn and think about how the feelings that I had and the things that

01:18:52.220 I was struggling with, they can actually be used to my advantage.

01:18:54.920 It gave me a sense of understanding.

01:18:57.200 And actually, I think it made me a better Marine and a better leader by using it as a catalyst

01:19:01.400 to do a better job rather than some sort of burden that was creating a problem for me.

01:19:05.140 So I was very lucky to have a good support system around me and to have just enough recognition

01:19:10.360 that I can use this to actually become better.

01:19:13.080 And I was fortunate to be able to get past that with the people around me.

01:19:16.800 It's so you're so extraordinary.

01:19:18.220 This is why I love I love you guys like the Marines and the SEALs.

01:19:21.540 So it's like for Dave, it's like, what is this?

01:19:23.580 It's I think it's vulnerability.

01:19:25.960 It's like it's a feeling of weakness.

01:19:28.700 I'm going to use this.

01:19:30.080 I can do something with this.

01:19:32.120 It's why we love you guys so much.

01:19:34.140 It's like you're the opposite of these victims, these fake victims running around today who are

01:19:38.360 like, and I've got this disorder and that disorder and the other one.

01:19:41.400 And please feel sorry for me.

01:19:42.780 I'm going to I'm in yet another online chat room about how weak and sad I am.

01:19:47.160 You're literally the opposite of that.

01:19:49.420 We don't like and I don't like the feeling of being a victim.

01:19:52.820 Being a victim doesn't help us.

01:19:54.020 And so I try, you know, not just in the things that I think with other people, but certainly

01:19:57.900 things with myself is I don't want to be a victim.

01:20:00.900 So if I got issues, which we all do, we all have problems in life.

01:20:03.780 Nobody's immune from that.

01:20:05.160 I don't want to let that become a reason why I'm going to be a victim.

01:20:07.680 And I want to try to find a way to use that as a strength.

01:20:09.460 And I think that's the right approach.

01:20:10.620 Just like you.

01:20:11.120 Yes.

01:20:11.320 If you got an issue, you got an opportunity.

01:20:13.800 You got an opportunity.

01:20:14.660 I don't know if it's true, but once somebody once told me that the symbol for crisis in

01:20:19.080 Chinese is the same as the symbol for opportunity.

01:20:22.440 And there's probably a very good reason for that.

01:20:24.280 Right.

01:20:24.500 Even if it's not true, it's it's it's the same thing.

01:20:26.920 It's two sides of the same coin.

01:20:28.900 OK, so let's just spend a minute on Top Gun because this is too fun not to.

01:20:34.060 So then how did you find out that they were making, you know, Maverick, which is part

01:20:38.180 two of Top Gun?

01:20:39.940 Yeah, very randomly.

01:20:41.120 I had a friend who worked in some I'm going to get it wrong.

01:20:46.420 He worked somewhere in Hollywood, a kid I grew up with, and he either at the production

01:20:50.160 company, he knew something and he knew the guy who was originally going to be writing the

01:20:55.260 story for the movie.

01:20:57.460 And he's like, hey, they're going to make a sequel.

01:20:59.440 I know the guy who's going to be writing it.

01:21:01.020 You two have to connect.

01:21:02.140 And so I heard through a friend that had a connection that they're going to write the

01:21:06.740 story.

01:21:07.060 And he's like, hey, man, this thing is happening.

01:21:09.120 You should get involved in that.

01:21:10.140 I'm like, cool, sounds good.

01:21:11.260 So that was my first inclination back.

01:21:13.480 And I think this was like 2016 that this was going to happen.

01:21:17.220 Were you excited?

01:21:18.640 I mean, it must have been a little like, yes.

01:21:20.880 Oh, my God.

01:21:22.220 Totally.

01:21:22.840 I was totally excited.

01:21:24.500 That movie in 20.

01:21:26.100 I'm sorry, when I was 14 in 2000 or 1996.

01:21:29.980 86.

01:21:30.540 1986.

01:21:30.820 I'm sorry, 1986.

01:21:31.980 That movie changed my life.

01:21:33.280 That movie changed my life.

01:21:34.280 Now, I really was hoping that the sequel was good, but I was super excited.

01:21:38.500 And I cannot wait.

01:21:39.420 And I wanted my kids to see it.

01:21:40.900 I wanted a whole generation to see this movie and have the same reaction I did.

01:21:45.180 So I was super pumped that it was coming out.

01:21:47.280 It's like the life cycle is so crazy how this very young Tom Cruise played this role that

01:21:53.440 inspired you to become the real deal, not just a Top Gun student, but an actual instructor.

01:22:00.080 And then now the movie comes along where he's in that role and comes back to you to help for advice.

01:22:08.440 I love the whole thing.

01:22:09.920 It's crazy good.

01:22:11.580 Now, the sad part is, as I understand it, you didn't actually become BFFs with Tom Cruise,

01:22:17.380 but you did advise.

01:22:20.240 So we're going to be real careful.

01:22:22.020 I played a very, very limited role.

01:22:23.920 But what I was lucky enough to do, given the timing, is as they wrote the initial story,

01:22:30.140 I got to sit down and go through the entire story.

01:22:34.320 And the writer, what they wanted was they wanted it to be as realistic and authentic as possible.

01:22:40.760 And so I got to go through every scene that was at least, you know, it evolved over time.

01:22:45.620 But I got to go through every scene.

01:22:46.740 And the questions they were asking was things like, would this really happen?

01:22:49.860 Was this how they would say it?

01:22:51.400 Is this what they would do?

01:22:52.280 So I was fortunate to have a little contribution in the beginning to help them accomplish what

01:22:56.840 they wanted to accomplish, which was as much authenticity and accuracy as you could have.

01:23:01.720 It is a movie, of course.

01:23:03.320 But for me, it was super cool because I got to be a part of it.

01:23:06.440 Plus, I got a little insight of some things that I knew were going to happen in the movie

01:23:09.640 that I was sworn to secrecy on that I knew was going to happen years before everybody else did.

01:23:14.820 So there was a little bit of fun there for me, too.

01:23:17.360 It's so cool.

01:23:18.040 There was just a story.

01:23:18.840 We just did a long episode on Scientology.

01:23:20.820 This is as an aside.

01:23:22.700 And by the way, it's like doing super well.

01:23:25.200 People are into that story.

01:23:26.820 And he like it came out in our research of Tom Cruise before we did this long show about

01:23:33.220 how he had tried to recruit David Beckham into Scientology.

01:23:35.880 And they built a whole perfect football, not football, you know, European football, but soccer field for him,

01:23:41.340 trying to show him like what would what would Scientology do for him and so on.

01:23:44.780 So it may be all for the best that you and Tom did not.

01:23:48.300 Because I mean, God only knows what he would have used on you to lure you in.

01:23:52.360 All right.

01:23:52.600 You don't have to comment on that because that was my own.

01:23:54.200 We never met.

01:23:54.820 Yeah, no.

01:23:55.320 OK, so you're advising them on what it is.

01:23:58.080 And one of the things that must have come up, I'm assuming, is the thing I asked you about an instructor versus the student and who might win.

01:24:07.940 And because I take the audience, I'm not going to give any spoilers in this and the movie's too new.

01:24:13.760 But there was a scene in which Maverick, Tom Cruise, who is the instructor, takes on his students in flight.

01:24:22.220 And it doesn't go that well for the students.

01:24:25.300 Here's a bit of that.

01:24:26.220 This is Soundbite 5.

01:24:28.620 So what say you put some skin in the game?

01:24:30.380 What do you have in mind?

01:24:31.660 Whoever gets shot down first has to do 200 pushups.

01:24:34.740 Guys, that's a lot of pushups.

01:24:36.700 Well, they don't call it an exercise for nothing, sir.

01:24:39.740 You got yourself a deal, gentlemen.

01:24:41.840 That's a kill.

01:24:42.900 We don't get fooled again.

01:24:47.560 That's a kill.

01:24:50.200 Smoked.

01:24:52.940 You're out, Phoenix.

01:24:54.220 Son of a...

01:24:55.200 Where is he?

01:24:57.180 Where is he?

01:24:58.480 That's a kill.

01:25:02.600 I got you, Omaha.

01:25:03.880 Do it.

01:25:06.700 Lights out, Coyote.

01:25:08.560 Copy, kill.

01:25:09.740 Yeah!

01:25:10.840 See, he crushes everybody.

01:25:14.780 How realistic is that?

01:25:16.980 I'd say the movie did a very good job capturing reality.

01:25:20.040 Now, maybe the only thing they miss is no students at Top Gun are dumb enough to bet the instructors that they're going to win.

01:25:25.740 It's probably the only piece that they added to.

01:25:27.600 But yeah, and again, it's just a fact of the experience and the training, the instructors and the students.

01:25:33.240 The disparity there is certainly in the one against one.

01:25:35.760 It's a massive disparity.

01:25:36.840 The students don't go there looking to beat the instructors.

01:25:39.160 They go there looking to learn from them.

01:25:41.560 Is it chummy at all?

01:25:43.140 Well, you know, you're all in military, but there's definitely a hierarchy.

01:25:47.520 Well, there is.

01:25:48.380 It's certainly an unspoken hierarchy.

01:25:49.920 The relationships are really strong.

01:25:51.320 The student-instructor bond is very close.

01:25:54.440 You know, we have 25 instructors on the staff.

01:25:56.820 These are rough numbers, and it may have changed very slightly.

01:25:59.480 And only about 10 or so of the instructors at a time are fully qualified to train with the students.

01:26:05.740 And then you have about, you know, somewhere between 10 and 15 students going through at a time.

01:26:09.500 Again, rough numbers.

01:26:10.740 So those teams that you match up with them and you're with them for 13 weeks, you've built great relationships.

01:26:16.040 They're great people.

01:26:17.500 And so there's no real competition.

01:26:19.340 And to be quite frank, there's not a lot of ego there either.

01:26:21.920 There's a lot of humility, which I think is highly valued across Top Gun on both the instructor and student side.

01:26:27.420 So the students and instructors get along great.

01:26:29.880 Why is there no co-pilot?

01:26:30.980 What about Goose?

01:26:31.900 Was that not real?

01:26:33.800 No, no.

01:26:34.280 It absolutely is.

01:26:34.940 Certain variants of jets, like the F-18 has a two-seat variant called the F-18D or the F-18F, and there's a single-seat variant.

01:26:42.420 I just happened in my career to fly the single-seat variants, but the F-14 was a two-seat jet back then when Goose was flying it in the original movie.

01:26:50.220 And there is a two-seat variant of the F-18 that's currently flying now called the F-18F.

01:26:54.700 So it's real.

01:26:55.440 I just didn't fly two-seat fighters.

01:26:57.100 I flew single-seat fighters.

01:26:58.840 Now, describe the lifestyle.

01:27:00.380 Do you guys go out boozing together every night and carousing, or is it more like straight-laced military guys, like, no, my body's my temple?

01:27:09.700 I would say there's a balance there.

01:27:12.080 I would say that kind of like Monday through Thursday, you are – I mean, you're up early.

01:27:19.380 You have a – it's a hardcore regiment.

01:27:21.220 You're working hard.

01:27:21.980 You are in long, long, long days.

01:27:24.920 Friday night, game on.

01:27:26.660 So I think that the team there does a really good job of working really hard and then playing equally as hard.

01:27:33.920 We carve out time.

01:27:34.700 If you were to have my wife on this podcast, she would tell you some of the highlights of her life were the Friday nights at the Officers Club at Top Gun.

01:27:40.560 They're awesome.

01:27:41.620 Monday through Thursday – or Monday through Friday at 5 p.m., people are in the game.

01:27:47.080 They do a really good job of balancing those two.

01:27:49.200 I never once in my career saw one's personal life affect their ability to do well in their professional life.

01:27:55.740 And I never really saw too many people who were, like, really, you know, strident professionals couldn't have a good time after the fact.

01:28:01.660 So it's somewhere in the middle.

01:28:02.980 We have fun.

01:28:03.800 I know you mentioned this, but where exactly is the Top Gun School?

01:28:07.560 The school is in Fallon, Nevada, which is about an hour and a half east of Reno, Lake Tahoe.

01:28:13.760 So Reno and Tahoe are a short drive away.

01:28:16.480 I actually live – well, my house was in Lake Tahoe.

01:28:19.640 I lived on the base during the week, but on weekends, you're at Reno or Tahoe.

01:28:23.040 It's hard not to have fun in those places.

01:28:25.520 So we strike the balance there partially because of the geography.

01:28:28.860 I feel like I'd be letting my male, young audience members down if I didn't ask you.

01:28:34.000 On those Friday and Saturday nights, was it like shooting fish in a barrel to try to pick up a young, beautiful woman?

01:28:38.840 I mean, come on.

01:28:40.960 Well, go be a fighter pilot, and you can find out for yourself.

01:28:44.360 The military is recruiting all wrong.

01:28:46.780 They're putting up bullshit commercials on bulkness.

01:28:48.960 They should be showing this.

01:28:51.900 I look back in my military career, both single and married, and have very good memories of all of it.

01:28:58.340 I'm sure.

01:28:59.560 How's that?

01:29:00.640 That's what we call it.

01:29:01.580 Tease for all of you who have dreams.

01:29:03.840 All right, let's spend a minute on the military and the problems because I tease that at the top, and I do think it's an ongoing problem.

01:29:09.500 As I mentioned, I'll get the stat in front of me.

01:29:11.180 This is just last month.

01:29:13.420 Pentagon leaders warned Congress that the military is facing the greatest recruiting challenge in 50 years in testimony that they gave.

01:29:21.220 That there is an unprecedented mission gap right now as they continue to fail to meet their recruiting goals, and it's happening in branch after branch, and they've had to play some sort of funny games with the numbers in order to hit.

01:29:33.520 The branches that have hit the numbers this year had to do some funny math, like take from a pool of reserves.

01:29:40.340 I can't explain it, but we're not doing well in recruiting new young men and women.

01:29:45.160 One of the reasons is that the youth of America, 16 to 24, they're fat.

01:29:52.580 This is one of the things they're citing, that almost 44% of those who would be potential recruits are overweight, which is a disqualifier.

01:30:01.980 So America's youth is fatter than ever, and 52% have never even considered the military.

01:30:08.440 We're not even just raising little patriots who understand how valuable it is to serve.

01:30:13.520 What do you make of these numbers?

01:30:16.280 Yeah, and again, I couldn't narrow down specifically those numbers, but just generally speaking, that's not good, not just for the military, that's not good for anybody.

01:30:26.540 Being healthy, being fit, of course, that's important for the military, and that's an absolute qualification because, yes, there are some unique military expectations, unique expectations and standards of physical fitness.

01:30:39.360 But we don't want people that are out of shape anywhere in America, and that's kind of a heartbreaking statistic because I think parents raising their kids and kids growing up recognizing the value of that shouldn't just be to be more qualified to be a good soldier or a good Marine.

01:30:54.560 But that's sort of a critical thing for you to live a good, healthy, productive, functional life.

01:31:00.340 So those numbers are not good, no matter what the context is.

01:31:04.080 What do you hear, if anything, about this soft recruiting?

01:31:09.240 It's no longer the few, the proud of the Marines.

01:31:11.160 It's like, my mom was a lesbian.

01:31:13.500 And I mean, really, they're hitting every sort of identity box now and trying to recruit people.

01:31:17.540 Do you think it's related?

01:31:18.500 To be very frank, and I am fortunate, I still live here in San Diego.

01:31:23.520 I live very close to the Marine base.

01:31:24.800 I get to spend a lot of time there.

01:31:26.980 From my perspective, I have no real insight to that part of it.

01:31:30.260 When I see Marines, and I get to see Marines a lot, Marines are still Marines.

01:31:35.320 And so the process, I think, by which you take –

01:31:38.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:31:38.860 No, and I hear what you're saying, and I'm not trying to diminish the risks that you've highlighted.

01:31:43.700 And I think those are – we should be very conscientious of that because these statistics don't get changed overnight.

01:31:49.300 We have to recognize that we are playing a long strategic game here for the health of our country and the health of our military.

01:31:55.480 That said, I am lucky enough to spend time with Marines on, I'd say, a fairly regular basis.

01:32:02.140 And when I look at young Marines, I see Marines, and they still are Marines.

01:32:05.820 And so certainly for the Marine Corps – and I think this is true for the other services – the process by which we take a civilian and transform them into a Marine or transform them into a service member, that process works.

01:32:16.900 And I think we have everybody as much talent, skill, dedication, and capability as ever.

01:32:22.340 But the comment you made at the beginning and where this started from, we should not use that, what I just said, as a reason to be complacent.

01:32:30.780 Those things you described, those aren't good things.

01:32:32.840 We don't want that.

01:32:33.540 We need to change that, but I want other people to hear and recognize, too, that inside the military, I look at the military, and I have a ton of confidence of what the military is capable of because when I see the Marines, I see Marines.

01:32:46.120 It's never been the rank and file.

01:32:47.520 It's always been the leadership that get us into trouble, the people in charge of the ad campaigns, not to mention the work campaigns.

01:32:51.660 It's always leadership.

01:32:53.000 Yeah.

01:32:53.680 Megan, you said that so well.

01:32:56.060 It's always leadership, and that's true in everything.

01:32:58.740 It's always leadership.

01:32:59.680 That's exactly right.

01:33:00.420 What about this?

01:33:01.760 Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization, does an annual index of U.S. military strength, and they just yesterday put out a report saying years of underfunding and poorly defined priorities has led the military to become weak relative to the force needed to defend national interests on the global stage.

01:33:17.280 The current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single major regional conflict.

01:33:25.060 The force would probably not be able to do more and is certainly ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous major conflicts.

01:33:32.920 I mean, do you think that we are paying enough attention to the military, to the funding of the military?

01:33:37.520 Are we getting a little complacent now?

01:33:38.940 I realize we're kind of anti-war now in a way we weren't 20 years ago, and that's probably a good thing.

01:33:44.780 But are we getting complacent on the strength of our military?

01:33:49.220 Yeah, I think one of the perils, and there's so many dichotomies here, Megan, there's so many things to balance is, I want a world where there's peace.

01:33:57.420 I think everybody does.

01:33:58.420 And one of the drawbacks to wanting that is, I think, what you described very well, which is the potential that creates this complacency.

01:34:07.780 And I think complacency is something that has to be thought against and pushed back against all the time.

01:34:15.220 And so when I hear concerns and I hear comments and I hear statistics that drive towards the conclusion that we're being complacent, we have to pay attention to that.

01:34:24.560 That's a really important consideration.

01:34:26.600 And the irony is that it's one of the largest drivers of complacency is when things are relatively peaceful.

01:34:34.740 And this is not to say that I don't want a world with peace.

01:34:37.580 I do more than anything.

01:34:39.300 But it's that period of time where we convince ourselves maybe we fought our last war or maybe war will never be like it used to be.

01:34:47.880 Or maybe we won't see in the future what we've seen in the past.

01:34:52.380 That complacency can be highly, highly corrosive.

01:34:55.500 You made a comment earlier, too, that is so critical is that that is leadership's job.

01:34:59.520 Leadership at every level's job to make sure we do not fall into that trap.

01:35:03.340 That's something that I think the military has always battled, has always struggled with.

01:35:06.820 There's absolutely a curve that has gone through.

01:35:09.480 But the word complacency is a word that I think you highlighted extremely well.

01:35:12.880 We should always, always, always fight against that.

01:35:15.480 And we can't look six months into the future.

01:35:17.020 We have to look years down the road.

01:35:19.040 And so I'm glad you're highlighting that.

01:35:21.100 And I'm glad that there's recognition that that's something we absolutely need to be paying attention to because that can be a killer.

01:35:25.720 This is a high bar, a big challenge, but 30 seconds or less.

01:35:31.020 How do we raise little leaders, the next generation of courageous young men and women?

01:35:37.860 Well, the first thing I do is I tell all parents to get their kids, the Warrior Kids series, because what Jocko wrote in those books is literally the best summation, the best explanation, the best description of how we raise kids that grow up to be, and they don't have to be in the military, they grow up to be constructive, productive, valuable members of American society.

01:35:59.060 And as a parent, the first thing I think is important to recognize is that that is an obligation that we have, that I have as a parent.

01:36:06.700 And I think it's much easier than we give ourselves credit for, and it's much more controllable and much more manageable than we think.

01:36:13.380 And I think when you set a good example and you're a good role model for your kids, the kids, they're just kids.

01:36:17.960 They're following the leads of their parents.

01:36:19.840 They're following the leads of their role models.

01:36:21.420 And the better example we set, the more likely the next generation is to be successful.

01:36:26.080 And that's an obligation we should feel and we have.

01:36:28.000 And I know you do.

01:36:28.820 I certainly do.

01:36:30.120 And it's my goal to raise my kids like that.

01:36:33.280 Amen, Dave.

01:36:34.360 Thank you for your service.

01:36:35.740 Thank you for your story.

01:36:36.900 Incredible meeting you.

01:36:38.400 Thank you for having me.

01:36:39.140 This was awesome.

01:36:40.780 Thanks for joining us today.

01:36:42.000 I don't know about you, but I feel inspired.

01:36:43.420 I feel inspired by Dave Burke.

01:36:45.040 I just love meeting guys like that.

01:36:46.460 Oh, my God.

01:36:47.620 We need to spend more time with him and less time with Meghan Markle.

01:36:51.200 Tomorrow, I'm super excited to have my pal Mary Catherine Hamm on for the very first time.

01:36:57.260 We have a lot to get to with her, including her personal story about CNN and Jeffrey Toobin.

01:37:04.280 Mary Catherine Hamm kind of broke the rules over there to tell this story.

01:37:08.100 She'd had it and just boom, dropped a bomb and told what they had done to her because

01:37:12.820 she had the nerve to comment on him and his masturbatory behavior.

01:37:18.980 OK, so she's going to tell that story live for the first time right here tomorrow.

01:37:23.400 Don't miss that.

01:37:24.140 Plus, I want to tell you that next week, guess who's coming back to the program by popular

01:37:28.680 demand?

01:37:29.880 Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

01:37:32.020 This is huge.

01:37:32.980 We're going to have a great discussion.

01:37:34.520 You will not want to miss this one.

01:37:36.460 Download the show in the meantime so you don't miss anything.

01:37:39.220 The Megyn Kelly Show, Apple, Pandora, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcasts for

01:37:42.700 free.

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01:37:44.980 And thank you for listening.

01:37:48.740 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:37:50.940 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 20, 2022

GOP Chances in NY and CT, Military Recruitment Issues, and REAL Top Gun Pilot, with John Ellis and Dave Berke ｜ Ep. 416

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