The Megyn Kelly Show - Independents Go Blue, Trump's Announcement, and COVID Lockdown Harms, with Victor Davis Hanson and Jennifer Sey

00:00:00.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.620 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Monday.

00:00:16.340 There is a lot happening today. NBC News now projecting that Republicans will take control

00:00:23.440 of the House of Representatives, just barely. To win control, a party needs 218 seats.

00:00:30.000 NBC expecting Republicans to end up with 219. My goodness. Remember this time last week when we

00:00:37.600 were talking about some projections that they would win maybe 40 seats, win by maybe 40, 30 to 40.

00:00:43.900 Now NBC is suggesting they will win by one. I'm sure the thought is a win's a win, right? That's

00:00:52.680 better than a loss, but certainly not what was expected. In some of the key House races that

00:00:58.520 will determine control, however, votes still barely trickling in. In one House race in California,

00:01:04.580 only 47 of the vote has been counted. Nearly a week later. That's where we were on Friday.

00:01:09.100 What did they take the weekend off? What are these people doing? Get to work.

00:01:13.800 And the counting remains ongoing in Arizona's gubernatorial battle between Katie Hobbs and

00:01:18.380 Carrie Lake, although the margin may be too much for Carrie Lake to overcome. She is looking less

00:01:26.240 strong than she was about 72 hours ago. Officials in Maricopa County taking to Twitter to openly mock

00:01:34.580 upset voters in defense of themselves and their process. Why would they defend a process that takes a

00:01:40.620 week to count the vote? Just shut up and do better. Count faster and then apologize.

00:01:46.160 And by the way, Maricopa County has nothing to mock anybody about, given what's happened with

00:01:50.280 their voting machines, right? Just take a seat, take a seat and do better. And don't point outwards

00:01:54.880 for your own incompetence. Tomorrow night, former President Trump is still expected to make his big

00:02:01.460 announcement, which we think will be a presidential announcement. But with Trump, who knows? Plus,

00:02:06.400 a must see Dave Chappelle monologue from over the weekend. He encapsulates what's going on in the

00:02:12.900 country and in particular with Trump. And, you know, he's just got this way with words and with

00:02:19.520 seeing the seam in the story. So we'll play it for you and see what you think. Joining me now,

00:02:24.360 speaking of somebody who's got this way with words and can see the seam in the story,

00:02:27.980 Victor Davis Hanson. Victor is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He also hosts his own

00:02:32.540 podcast, The Victor Davis Hanson Show. And he is the author of several bestselling books,

00:02:37.140 including his most recent The Dying Citizen, how progressive elites, tribalism and globalization

00:02:42.760 are destroying the idea of America. Victor, you are the person I have most wanted to talk to

00:02:50.820 since Tuesday. I keep Googling every day. Victor Davis Hanson, midterms, midterms, just

00:02:56.920 wanting to see your thoughts. I saw you did one bit, but you just today dropped, you know,

00:03:01.960 your big thought piece. And I'm so happy that you're here to share it with us. Before we get

00:03:06.560 to all that. Yeah, my pleasure. Before we get to that. So there we have it. The Democrats won control

00:03:13.020 of the Senate over the weekend, making Georgia still relevant, but not as much. It's going to be

00:03:20.100 at best for the Republicans what it was before, 50-50 Senate with Kamala Harris casting the deciding

00:03:25.580 vote. And it could go even 51-49 if the Dems win Georgia, which is better for the Dems, because then

00:03:32.920 if you have a peel off like Manchin, they can handle it. They don't need every single member.

00:03:38.400 In any event, so the Dems take the Senate. It looks like the GOP takes the House. And what is your

00:03:43.400 reaction to that news? Just barely by the skin of their teeth taking the House. Well, it's a non-godly

00:03:48.400 disaster if you think about it. Just because a first term president loses on average about 22 seats,

00:03:54.760 no matter if he's popular or unpopular. But Joe Biden was a forced multiplier of that effect.

00:04:00.560 He was very unpopular, 38 to 42 percent. None of the issues that he enacted as policies had 50 percent

00:04:07.600 support. So they should have had at least 20 seats and two or three Senate seats, and they didn't.

00:04:15.020 And what's depressing about it, Megan, is that when you look at the disaster, there's so many

00:04:21.500 factors, and they all went against the Republicans. So on the one hand, you had Donald Trump before the

00:04:28.320 election attacking DeSantis, DeSantis monias, or trying to preempt the attention by saying he was

00:04:36.720 going to have a big announcement that may have turned off DeSantis voters from Trump-supported

00:04:42.300 candidates, or it may have energized left-wing people that were so angry that Trump was going to run,

00:04:46.240 they thought. But he should have kept quiet. And then you have Mitch McConnell when you say,

00:04:51.320 well, Trump's not the person, let's turn to the Republican establishment. And then you have Mitch

00:04:55.440 McConnell pouring money into Alaska to adjudicate two Republicans and one that's more conservative,

00:05:02.840 and he's attacking her and not putting the full amount. And then you think, well, he didn't put the

00:05:07.880 full amount of money in, and he didn't to, say, Blake Masters. But then you look at Donald Trump,

00:05:12.740 he had $100 million. He was very stingy with it. So then when you think, well, that was a problem,

00:05:18.220 then you say, you know, but almost every Democrat, with the exception of the Nevada governor,

00:05:24.560 wins, loses on election day, and wins afterwards. So there's something about the mail-in ballot.

00:05:32.180 It's one of the greatest revolutions in American history, I think, because we went from election day

00:05:38.340 about 70% participation before COVID to in many states, it's down to 30%. And the Democrats that

00:05:46.160 have the money and the tech savviness, they have mastered that art. And that's the good take on it.

00:05:52.540 But every day, as you pointed out, that the ballot is delayed, the count is delayed,

00:05:58.640 then there's more avenues for, you know, suspicion. And so if the Republicans don't address mail-in

00:06:06.520 balloting, they're going to lose, lose, lose. They've got to find out an establishment,

00:06:10.800 they've got to find an establishment that knows how to win. And then they had a mistake when they

00:06:17.740 were very good at pointing out what was wrong with Joe Biden, but almost none of the candidates

00:06:22.200 would say gas prices are horrible. And therefore, I'm going to open up Anwar, Keystone. We're going

00:06:31.200 to have legislation going on the first week, sort of like they said in 94 with the contract of America,

00:06:36.500 or inflation. We're going to have a ballot balance budget. Or we're going to build,

00:06:41.220 let's say, 100 miles of wall. Even if they couldn't do it, given the veto of Joe Biden,

00:06:46.540 they could have given constructive solutions to these problems. And then finally, they were caught

00:06:53.500 off guard. I think I was too, when I heard Joe Biden with these Phantom of the Opera speech about

00:06:58.520 semi-fascist on America. And I thought that is so patently crazy. And the idea you tie the attacker

00:07:07.620 of Paul Pelosi, who was a homeless nut, nudist, had BLM and pride flags, and you tie him to

00:07:15.800 MAGA rhetoric, nobody's going to believe that. And then people said, well, you know, abortion

00:07:20.940 is fourth or fifth concern of voters on exit polls. And, you know, Roe v. Wade just turns it over to the

00:07:27.940 state. And many of the people who oppose abortion were not going to outlaw it if a woman is raped or a

00:07:35.620 victim of incest. So that there was a lot of complacency. But that worked. That demonization

00:07:41.480 of the Republicans as election deniers or insurrectionists or un-American was very

00:07:47.100 effective for Joe Biden. And he never defended his record. It's like, I'm bad, but these guys

00:07:52.100 are worse. So all of those together explain it. I don't know the degree to which each is a

00:07:57.460 contributing factor, but they're so multifarious, it's hard for us to get, you know, to address all

00:08:02.540 of them at once is what I'm saying. So what happens? Everybody picks and chooses. If you're

00:08:07.600 a Trump supporter, you blame Mitch. If you're a Republican, Romney-ite, McCain-ite, you blame

00:08:12.300 Trump. If you didn't really get the message at the RNC, then you bring the candidates rather than

00:08:18.580 the RNC that should have had a holistic approach for solutions. And then the state secretary of

00:08:25.740 states, as you say, they don't take responsibility, especially in red states, that the balloting has been

00:08:31.820 hijacked. It's not, election day doesn't exist. Election night doesn't exist. It's just a continuous,

00:08:38.460 monotonous process, amorphous. We don't even know what's going on, whether it's majority voting in

00:08:44.500 Georgia or rank voting in Alaska or here in California, everybody gets a ballot, whether

00:08:50.540 you request it or not. There's no audit, or they have this curing process where if you have a ballot

00:08:57.100 that's rejected, you get another chance maybe to, you know, add your address if it's not valid. So

00:09:02.520 it's just, it's a mess. Yeah, it's a mess. Trump is just truthing on his social network about this

00:09:09.460 very issue in typical Trump terms, which is to tell you what he's saying. I assume everyone's

00:09:15.240 watching Arizona as the great Carrie Lake's easy election win is slowly yet systematically being

00:09:20.260 drained away from her and from the American people. This is a very sad thing to watch. Mail-in ballots,

00:09:25.800 long election counts, many day elections, machines that very few people understand, massive counting

00:09:31.340 centers and more are an American disaster. Our elections have become an unreliable joke and the

00:09:36.560 whole world is watching, he goes on. Even Jimmy Carter, in his and other highly respected politicians

00:09:42.580 and professionals report, said mail-in ballots cannot be trusted. There will be massive cheating. A

00:09:49.200 10-year-old child would understand that. When will Republicans learn? If they don't stop this mail-in

00:09:53.800 scam now, there won't be any Republicans left. Get rid of McConnell. He never should have accepted

00:09:58.560 what was sent to him by Mike Pence. He should have fought like hell, like the Dems would have.

00:10:04.260 Losers are losers. That will never change. Just another giant election scam. Wake up, America.

00:10:10.680 All right. Putting the typical Trump rhetoric aside, the point on mail-in ballots, I mean, he's

00:10:15.520 seeing exactly what you're seeing. It doesn't mean that Carrie Lake's election is being stolen,

00:10:20.720 right? We don't have evidence that it's actually being stolen. Yeah, I think that's a really good

00:10:24.560 point. So what you read from Trump was 75 percent accurate until the last 25 percent about Mike Pence

00:10:31.960 and everything. And it applies to 2020. That election, I wrote a column about it in March and

00:10:37.680 April of 2020. That election was lost when the DNC and activists went in to these key states, about

00:10:49.020 nine or 10 of them. You know, they went into Arizona, they went into Pennsylvania, they went

00:10:53.000 into Michigan. And in various ways, they overturned the will of the state legislatures and law in the

00:10:58.140 books, either by, you know, saying that you don't have to have your complete name or you don't have to

00:11:03.680 have your complete address or you can mail your mail-in ballot on the day of the election will

00:11:08.300 count or even in some states after election day will count. So it was a radical change. It was all

00:11:13.860 designed to eliminate election day. And it worked. And Donald Trump knew that. And he had a lot of

00:11:20.740 money. And there were people saying, why don't you get your legal team to go into these states

00:11:25.180 and fight, fight, fight, because they're cherry picking judges or they're doing it by administrative

00:11:30.300 edict. And the result was the RNC in general and Trump in particular got sandbagged. And that was

00:11:39.040 really the issue. When he says there was fraud or it is in a way fraud, but it was done legally

00:11:44.600 early on. It wasn't computers were communicating with China or it wasn't that. But had 70% of the

00:11:54.480 people voted on election day, which usually happens, I think Donald Trump would have won.

00:11:58.300 But that that decision was made, unfortunately, in March and April and nobody caught it or they

00:12:03.240 didn't want to spend the money to challenge the Democrats.

00:12:07.440 And now in Arizona, you're seeing Carrie Lake's lead disappear. He's right about that.

00:12:13.980 Slowly but surely, she's going down and down and down in the in the count. And people are

00:12:20.040 suspicious. As of 10 a.m. Saturday, Katie Hobbs, her opponent, had 50.7% of the vote. Carrie

00:12:26.480 Lake had 49.3 with 88% of the votes in Hobbs is in the lead again as of Saturday with by

00:12:33.180 34,000 votes. That's a lot. David Axelrod saying that Carrie Lake needs bigger numbers

00:12:42.100 to catch up with Katie Hobbs. Arizona is coming up big for sanity, he says. It doesn't look

00:12:47.840 very good for Carrie Lake right now. And the problem there is that not only do they have

00:12:52.500 the mail-in ballots and they had all the problems on voting day with the Maricopa County machines

00:12:56.660 in in more red leaning places. But her opponent is overseeing the whole vote counting process.

00:13:07.140 That's in in defense of all election deniers. This smells.

00:13:12.540 No, you can't do that. And, you know, what's sad is I think all of us are mystified. I'll give you an

00:13:19.940 example. I have a lot of confidence in Robert Cahaly and the Trafagor poll. But I remember

00:13:27.060 the week before he had Carrie Lake up by an astounding margin, eight or nine percent, finally.

00:13:33.440 And more importantly, I was just in Sunday, this weekend at the David Horowitz, and there was a

00:13:39.380 a very inspired presentation by a congressman from Arizona. And he pointed out there were 800,000

00:13:46.900 ballots left to be counted. And by all estimations, 57 to 61 percent would be traditionally Republican,

00:13:57.280 and she only needed 40 percent. So this was a done deal. And what I'm getting at is there was this

00:14:03.460 assurance, this certainty that this wouldn't happen. So I'm wondering. So we really need an

00:14:09.800 exegesis. What happened? Why did these pollsters that have been so reliable were so off? Was it they

00:14:16.680 got, you know, was it the mail-in balloting or their voters didn't turn up or was it they misinterpreted

00:14:22.340 the abortion issue or did they didn't really think that these 30-something people who voted 70 percent

00:14:28.400 against Republicans would have been influenced by the student loan amnesty? Or I don't know what it

00:14:35.340 is, but nobody's quite found the answer why traditional ballots that should break one way,

00:14:41.060 not just didn't break toward Carrie Lake or Blake Masters, but they radically broke in the opposite

00:14:45.980 direction. So it's either faulty data or people are bewildered and they've got to find out.

00:14:51.440 But nobody has come up with a holistic explanation.

00:14:54.280 Listen, in Arizona, it would be especially suspicious if this were the only race in which

00:14:57.900 that were the dynamic. But of course, it's not. It's happened across the country, especially

00:15:01.440 in a state like New Hampshire, where they were putting her. It wasn't just Trafalgar, but

00:15:05.000 St. Anselm College had a poll that put the Republican, I don't know, I think nine points ahead

00:15:10.100 and lost by nine or 10 points. So it was like a 20 point swing in the wrong direction. And I know

00:15:17.040 that Trafalgar and Kahaley, he inflates the Republican vote in his polls. He's been, I don't know if

00:15:23.180 inflate is the right word, but that's that's essentially what he does, because he thinks

00:15:26.900 there's a hidden Trump vote. And he thought this year that there would be a, quote, submerged

00:15:31.840 GOP voter that would be even more reluctant to tell a poster they were going GOP between the

00:15:36.900 Dark Brandon speech, the Trump stuff, election denialism, how much Republicans have been demonized.

00:15:42.480 It turned out to be very wrong. If anything, there seems to be some sort of submerged

00:15:46.680 Democratic vote this time around, because he no one was showing that like Maggie Hassan up 10 points

00:15:56.900 over Dan Bolduc in New Hampshire. Not not that I recall. And the real clear politics average of all

00:16:03.440 polls did not show anything like what ultimately happened either. So it wasn't just Trafalgar,

00:16:09.300 like something went on in the polling this year, but for a couple of pollsters that misled us.

00:16:16.320 Yeah, I think a lot of I think that you're on to the submerged voter. I think a lot of college

00:16:20.820 students that had said in August and September, they're going to they weren't interested or single

00:16:26.320 women. They just didn't. I think the abortion issue, the way that it was played up by the

00:16:31.180 Democrats. I mean, what they did was pretty nefarious, but it was effective. They basically said

00:16:36.520 that that Roe versus Wade was not turning that decision over to the states and therefore to

00:16:41.980 democracy. People could in individual states could vote by a majority vote what what type of abortion

00:16:47.480 policy they wanted. They just said every woman is going to die in America if she doesn't get an

00:16:51.420 abortion. That was their message. And to a college student or a single woman, 70 percent of single

00:16:56.900 women voted for against the Republican. And so I think they energized them with that issue and they

00:17:03.680 energize them to extent. I didn't think that would happen. But the student debt, even though it hadn't

00:17:07.920 been inactive, we don't know where it's going to end up in the courts. That was effective. And there

00:17:12.560 was a message that you young people have to stop these crazy MAGA insurrectionists, these un-Americans,

00:17:18.740 these semi-fascists. And that really resonated. You know, I work on a campus and you could really see

00:17:24.100 it happening that these students were starting to organize in the student clauses. And they had that

00:17:29.860 hadn't been true in August and September. So I think there was a late October surge that the pollsters

00:17:36.280 didn't quite catch on. And it was a quiet vote. Absolutely. And people came out in droves that we

00:17:43.480 didn't think would be of influence to do so. The abortion debate definitely played a role in a way

00:17:51.460 that it hasn't for years because Roe was in place. Abortion typically drove Republicans to the polls

00:17:56.980 because the pro-life contingent, like the hardcore pro-life contingent of the GOP, which is maybe 30%

00:18:02.180 that that wants it outlawed, except in cases of rape or incest or the life of the mother.

00:18:08.660 They they were very motivated to see Roe overturned, to see a Republican president and Republican senators

00:18:14.300 in place so that they could create a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe. And in a way, they were

00:18:19.380 they were pilloried for their success because they got what they wanted. And then it went back on those

00:18:24.520 state ballots. And it was I mean, democracy in a way worked the way it's supposed to. Right. It went

00:18:28.780 back to the states and the voters are having their say, no, we don't want to go back to a pre-Roe

00:18:33.600 standard or no. Or yes, we do whatever. It's working the way it's supposed to. But Republicans

00:18:38.200 are seeing, you know, actual voters tell them in many states, we do not want what that core 30%

00:18:45.320 of Republicans want. We want abortion to stay legal in most cases through the first trimester.

00:18:50.380 My own take on it is and I'm no political pundit, but my own take on it is the Republicans would do

00:18:57.460 very well to settle on something akin to the Florida standard. Fifteen weeks with those exceptions I just

00:19:03.080 measure I just mentioned. And that's it. And put it up to a vote right now, well in advance of the

00:19:08.840 2024 presidential race. I think you're right. In this election, the conventional wisdom was if

00:19:15.640 the Republicans stayed away from outlawing abortions in cases of, say, incest and rape,

00:19:23.660 then people would listen to them. And if the left stayed away from a partial birth abortion or

00:19:30.760 abortion on literally the day of delivery, they stayed away from that, then people would listen

00:19:35.980 to them. And there was this large area and you mentioned how many weeks that it would be permissible

00:19:41.320 or months. But what happened this election, it was, it was almost as if when Republicans use that

00:19:47.020 argument that these people want to have abortion all the way to the end of a pregnancy, they said,

00:19:53.360 yeah. I mean, and so the extreme left position was not as a top, is not as toxic as the extreme right

00:20:00.140 position. So a lot of people weren't bothered. They just said, we need abortions and I don't care

00:20:05.140 what it is. We don't want any restrictions at all. And I think the Republicans thought that would be so

00:20:10.300 absurd. So when they started making these arguments, either they weren't replied to or

00:20:16.860 the Democrats went mute. And a lot of it was also, and that brings up another topic,

00:20:22.060 we're self-selecting in these states now. So when you get three or 400,000 leaving New York

00:20:27.400 to go to Florida or leaving Illinois, the blue states, I'm in California, we've lost 650,000 people

00:20:34.840 in the last three years. They're all mostly middle-class Republicans, conservatives, and

00:20:40.580 they're flocking to Florida, they're flocking to Tennessee, flocking to Texas. And what it means is

00:20:46.660 that people are, I think everybody talks about the candidates and that's important, but is it that

00:20:51.780 important? I mean, John Fetterman won after the worst debate in history. And there was a person who

00:20:57.220 wasn't even alive that won in Pennsylvania. So I think a lot of people now are just voting a straight

00:21:02.960 blue or red ticket. And regardless, because when you look at Carrie Lake, she was so much more

00:21:09.380 charismatic, dynamic, aware of the issues and homes. And it used to be an American politics. If you

00:21:15.660 wouldn't debate your opponent, you were considered cowardly, or you weren't transparent, or you were

00:21:20.940 an app. That doesn't apply anymore. She just said, I don't want to. She's an election denier. Why do

00:21:27.040 vote? And I think people just voted a straight what the Democratic Party told them or the Republican

00:21:32.420 Party. And it works the other way. I don't think Beto ever had a chance. And Charlie Chris never had

00:21:38.160 a chance. And Stacey Abrams never had a chance. And part of it was candidates. But I think we're

00:21:44.860 getting down to the point where we're really two nations now, 50-50. And we've got to realize that

00:21:51.240 I know everybody blamed the Trump candidates. But I thought actually Tudor Dixon and Smiley and

00:21:59.400 others' candidates were pretty good candidates.

00:22:03.060 Lieselden.

00:22:03.660 I know they were, yeah, Lieselden. They were not experienced in the statewide election,

00:22:07.980 but they were pretty good. I just don't think you, no matter how effective you are, if you're

00:22:13.220 a conservative, it's going to be very hard to be a governor of Washington or a senator of Washington

00:22:19.020 or Michigan or New York. Because people have, the demography is so fluid now. And things are

00:22:26.540 getting redder and they're getting bluer and they're getting less purple. And I think long-term,

00:22:33.460 it helps the Republicans. Because if I want to be crass about it, people who are having more children

00:22:38.240 and traditional families and two-parent households and stability, they are the red states and their

00:22:45.180 growth rates are much larger. And what we're seeing out in the blue states are these hollowed

00:22:49.760 out cities that are, you know, they're civilization in reverse. And people, the stereotype of those

00:22:58.040 cities are young hipsters that are not getting married to their 40s or maybe having one child,

00:23:03.460 et cetera, et cetera. So, they're shrinking in a variety of ways. And the red states are dynamic

00:23:08.420 and robust, but we're not there yet. So, it's-

00:23:14.000 The numbers, as put out by Tom Bevin, who's, you know, he runs RealClearPolitics. And he took a hard

00:23:20.280 look at why things were off. You know, the RCP averages were off and certainly Trafalgar was off.

00:23:26.400 And he said, the more you dig through the numbers, the more stunning the election looks. GOP moved the

00:23:31.240 national vote roughly seven points in their direction from 2020, but will gain only a handful of

00:23:36.100 House seats and make no gains or may even lose a seat in the Senate. He goes on to say,

00:23:41.540 point out that those who rated the economy not so good overwhelmingly voted for Democrats,

00:23:48.380 including in all the major Senate races. And then he says, to me, the biggest stunner was

00:23:53.080 independent voters who went for the incumbent party by two points, 51-49, after four straight midterm

00:24:01.000 cycles of breaking in favor of the out party by double digits. So, not only did they not break

00:24:07.340 for the out party, they went for the in party by two digits. And then he points this out. On average,

00:24:14.200 Dems voted three points more along partisan lines in battleground Senate races than the GOP did.

00:24:20.800 It made a difference in GA, in Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.

00:24:24.400 I think that's fascinating. The Democrats did vote partisan lines, and the GOP did too. But the Dems did

00:24:32.600 it a little bit more. More GOPers wavered. Yeah, they did. And they're more effective. And I think a lot

00:24:39.060 of us, when we look at the youth vote, we think that people wouldn't fall for this. So, in the last 60

00:24:45.640 days, the youth of America was said, I'm going to cancel a lot of your student loans. We thought, oh,

00:24:50.740 that's just patent. That's just pandering. Nobody would believe that. And then they said,

00:24:55.280 we're going to give you amnesty for marijuana conviction. Oh, who cares about that? It won't

00:24:59.000 affect that many people. Or these people are going to take abortion away from you.

00:25:05.260 And those issues for that rubric, and they were galvanized on the campuses of that half of the

00:25:11.780 nation that goes to college. They just were overwhelmingly deleterious to the Republican cause.

00:25:19.220 And I don't know how you get them back, or whether you want them back, or how do you

00:25:25.280 counteract them with other constituencies. I know here in California, we had about 40 to 42%

00:25:31.780 Mexican-American voting Republican. And in a usual election, because they've lost the white working

00:25:37.680 class, that would have been fatal to lose 42% of the Mexicans. And it didn't hurt them. And in some of

00:25:45.960 these races, they're not called yet. But it's because they're getting overwhelming response,

00:25:52.620 as you say, from these single women and young people are voting in a way that we don't really

00:25:59.320 know why they're voting. We think they're voting against their own interests, given gas prices and

00:26:04.440 food prices, and the border and all of these things, and crime. They live in big cities or on

00:26:09.920 university campuses or places like University of Chicago or Berkeley are not safe. And yet we

00:26:15.440 think, why wouldn't they want to vote that way? And I think we don't understand the effect of these

00:26:19.620 rhetoric and these things that Joe Biden did. Even Draney and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

00:26:25.700 probably brought gas prices down about 10 cents or 15 cents a gallon. And that apparently might have

00:26:31.860 worked. So what we consider pandering and demagoguery, or whoever believed that phantom of the

00:26:38.860 opera speech that Biden gave, it was so obnoxious and repellent, that actually worked.

00:26:46.380 And what about what about because, you know, makes me wonder, so if the Republican problem today is,

00:26:51.680 how do we get those? How do we get those 3% or so who deviated from the GOP and voted dem back on our

00:26:58.820 team? And how do we get those independents who normally would have gone double digit for the out

00:27:02.920 party, but went to two points for the in party? How do we get them on our side? And if

00:27:08.860 you know, we talk about the Republican message, it was considered smart strategy to make it a

00:27:13.660 referendum on Joe Biden. The argument in favor of not really putting out a specific agenda was

00:27:19.260 don't make it about us. Just keep the laser beam on the president whose approval ratings are at record

00:27:26.080 lows, because traditionally that has worked. And, you know, obviously not this time. So the so this is

00:27:33.880 where the John Podorets of the world come in, you know, who's writing another front page article for

00:27:39.240 the New York Post every day about how it was all Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,

00:27:44.440 election denialism, bad candidates who were Trumpy, too Trumpy. And that's, you know, he and many other

00:27:52.400 even Republicans are saying, that's how you get those people back. What do you make of it?

00:27:57.200 In some ways, but I think the problem, he's off on that, because I think the problem was really that

00:28:04.220 once you are being called an election denialist, or un-American, or semi-fascist, and that's an

00:28:10.400 effective propaganda, and you're on the other side saying Joe Biden is non-compos mentis, he doesn't,

00:28:16.860 he's shaking people's hands that don't exist, or the border, or crime, and it's all an attack on Biden.

00:28:23.660 And they're saying, these people attack, they attack. Then it becomes even more important to

00:28:30.380 have a positive message. So what I'm getting at is, if all of these candidates that Podorets doesn't

00:28:36.460 like, say, just take Blake Masters, and he was very good on the attack. And a lot of these Trump

00:28:45.880 candidates were very good. But what if they had a unified message that said, okay, as I said earlier,

00:28:51.100 why, this is what we want to do to help people, we're going to do the following five things to

00:28:55.720 get gas prices down, or we're going to do this for inflation, or we're going to do this for crime,

00:29:01.260 but they didn't do that. And so they thought by attacking Joe Biden in negative terms, all justified

00:29:08.280 and all true, they were going to reduce him into a caricature of a caricature. But what it did was it

00:29:15.700 amplified the Democratic message that these people are shrill, and they're angry, and they disrupt

00:29:21.240 elections. I think that was more of it. The other problem that Podorets doesn't understand is, okay,

00:29:29.100 we go back pre-Trump, and what do we go to? We go to John McCain and Mitt Romney. And the Republican

00:29:35.360 Party has not won 51% of the popular vote since George H.W. Bush did it in 1988 against Mike Dukakis.

00:29:43.960 And it lost, I think, six out of the last seven popular votes, whether it was Trump,

00:29:49.700 or whether it was George W. Bush in 2000, or whether it was John McCain or Mitt Romney. So

00:29:56.760 what is his solution? Because if he, if, let's say that he wants DeSantis, and I'm really impressed

00:30:05.120 by DeSantis, but nevertheless, there's going to be enormous pressure on DeSantis for all the Romneyites,

00:30:11.340 all the McCainites, all the never-Trumpers to come back and say, this is our mainstream,

00:30:17.420 silk-stocking, traditional Republican, and we're all going to unite. But that didn't work because

00:30:23.400 seven to eight million people in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, sat out in 2008.

00:30:30.460 They sat out in 2012. They sat out in 2000, because they're not going to vote for that type of

00:30:36.520 Republican. I can tell you, I live among them right now in central, rural California. They would

00:30:43.780 rather sit out than vote for what they call a RINO, a Lisa Murkowski, or somebody like that on the

00:30:49.420 national scene. And so you've got to get a Reaganite effective governor or senator with effective

00:30:56.300 record that understand and is charismatic to bring those two constituencies together for a time.

00:31:02.540 Maybe DeSantis can... I think the biggest mystery about DeSantis is that because he's come on this

00:31:09.400 stage so quickly and so effectively, half the country, half the Republican Party said, well,

00:31:15.520 this is kind of like a Reaganite guy. He takes the fight. We had reservations because we didn't know if

00:31:21.540 he had fire in the belly. He took the argument to the opponents like Trump did, but he does,

00:31:26.320 and he lacks Trump's cul-de-sac spats. So he doesn't tweet. So he's the ideal. And then the other half

00:31:32.000 said, well, wait a minute. We don't know whether he's really going to stand up to the pressure or

00:31:36.120 not. He might be the perfect candidate like Scott Walker was, purple state governor at the time,

00:31:41.400 took on the teachers union. And what happened in 2016? He was devoured by Trump on the debate stage,

00:31:48.120 and he kind of fizzled out. So I think that's what people... They want to unify or they can bring

00:31:53.560 these. But if Paul Horowitz thinks we're going to go back and ignore the Trump base and just write

00:32:00.880 them off as a bunch of crazies, he's talking about 25 to 30 percent of the Republican Party that will

00:32:05.820 never vote. They're never going to... They're going to sit out rather than vote for a Romney-like

00:32:12.280 candidate. That's right. And this is what I've been pointing out, too, that a lot of these voters,

00:32:16.720 millions of them, came to vote for Trump off of the sidelines entirely. It's not like they had been,

00:32:24.780 you know, Republican voters that sometimes voted or they'd been Democratic voters. A lot of these,

00:32:29.260 the Trump core faithful were non-voters. He got registered for the first time. They were excited

00:32:35.580 about a candidate who was speaking to their issues. And to think that those people are easily pried away

00:32:41.840 from Donald Trump, the guy who got them off of the bench entirely, I just... I mean, I'll believe

00:32:48.240 it when I see it. Wait, let me stand you by because there's so much more to get to. And we've thankfully

00:32:53.160 got Victor for another two blocks. I'll squeeze in an ad and we'll pick it up right there as Trump

00:32:57.380 is now tweeting out about his announcement tomorrow night. Truthing out, I should say. Stand by.

00:33:01.980 Just to update the Carrie Lake Katie Hobbs data. Now there's 93% of the votes in according to the

00:33:13.720 New York Times. Hobbs is still up by about 26,000 votes. She has 50.5%. Lake has 49.5. Again,

00:33:23.720 with just 7% of the votes outstanding. We continue to watch it. So Trump just truthed out this quote,

00:33:34.960 hopefully tomorrow, this is when his announcement is, hopefully tomorrow will turn out to be one of

00:33:39.400 the most important days in the history of our country, exclamation point. He's going to announce

00:33:48.000 from the sound of it. And there was a report just this past couple of days by people close to Trump

00:33:54.500 saying indeed that, but two sources close to Trump told Fox News he is about to announce and

00:34:03.060 basically there's no stopping the announcement. It's happening in that. I'm trying to look for

00:34:08.060 the exact words. Just that two sources close to the former president tell Fox News he is going to

00:34:12.860 announce on Tuesday, irrespective of the advice from some people in his former orbit, not to do it

00:34:18.600 prior to the Georgia runoff. I mean, he, he made the announcement that he was going to announce even

00:34:24.620 before we knew Nevada had gone blue. So I don't think he cares about the runoff. And, um, you know,

00:34:31.200 you're as the, as the man who literally wrote the book, the case for Trump, what do you think?

00:34:37.020 Is it a good idea for him to run? And is it a good idea for him to announce now?

00:34:42.860 It's not a good idea. I think to announce now, I think he needs to digest the midterms,

00:34:48.300 not interfere. I mean, Georgia was in 2021, that special election really hurt him because he turned

00:34:55.440 off his base by doubting the legitimacy of the Florida ballot counting in those Senate races.

00:35:02.100 And then he offended swing voters and they did the unthinkable. They elected two socialists in red

00:35:07.500 Georgia. And so he's got a bad reputation. What he should do is keep quiet right now and just digest

00:35:15.060 the election and then take that of his hundred million dollar plus in his pack, write a check

00:35:20.780 for $10 million to Herschel Walker, tell everybody in the country to vote for Herschel and keep repeating

00:35:29.140 that message nonstop and don't get on a stage with him. And, and then if he were to win, I think he can

00:35:35.460 win, then Donald Trump would get a lot of credit for that. And he could start rebuilding the damage

00:35:41.220 that's happened to him. But he's a tragic figure, Megan, because he has two of the three essentials

00:35:47.420 for a leader. He has a program and an agenda that was, it was revolutionary, that mega agenda,

00:35:54.200 just those four or five issues of the border and re-industrializing the Midwest and the working

00:35:59.800 classes and the border tough on China, et cetera, energy independence. That was, that blew away his

00:36:08.280 opponents. And then he had the other essential characteristic that he wasn't scared, that he

00:36:13.600 was blunt, that he called our attention to a lot of really bad things in this country, whether it was

00:36:19.640 the media bias or whether it was the elite bi-coastal wealthy people who had done, made out like bandits

00:36:27.940 and globalization, often at the expense of fair trade by pushing unlimited free trade. So that

00:36:34.120 was a good agenda and it worked. But the third essential was that you don't want to be vindictive

00:36:40.800 and you don't, you want to get, if you get all of the right, you're right on all the major issues.

00:36:46.340 It's just important to be right on the minor issues. So you don't go in and say that Anthony Fauci

00:36:52.440 throws a ball like a girl. There was no need for that. So, and that's the problem. And why is that

00:36:58.740 a problem? Because there is about 15% of the electorate that the Republicans cannot win. They

00:37:05.180 have about 48. If everybody's united with the base and this traditional Republicans, they can get 45 to

00:37:11.620 48. But they need, I don't know, 3% to 8% of these swing voters. And that issue turns them off. And so

00:37:19.460 that leaves us with this dilemma. Will Donald Trump, basically in his mid-70s, as if he runs, will he be

00:37:28.240 able to change? Will he be able to say, you know what, I'm going to have discipline. I'm going to have

00:37:32.640 a filter on my Twitter, if I'm back on Twitter, or my truth social. I'm going to not just do it in

00:37:37.900 the middle of the night. It's going to be grammatically correct. It's going to be spelled

00:37:41.120 correctly. It's not going to be ad hominem. I think we know the answer to this. I think we

00:37:45.340 know the answer to this, don't we? That's a rhetorical question. But this is the problem for

00:37:49.880 the GOP, because to get those swing voters and those 3% of Republicans who voted Dem this past time

00:37:56.500 and those swing voters, they probably would like a John McCain, right? But then you lose the core

00:38:03.320 MAGA faithful, the people who are on the bench. You know, you've got to find somebody who can get

00:38:07.320 them both. That's why people are looking so closely at DeSantis.

00:38:10.220 Exactly. And that means when you look at DeSantis and you ask yourself about these three core

00:38:14.100 abilities, does he have a good MAGA program? Yes. And he tried to prove to the country when he took

00:38:21.800 on Disney or the school boards or busted that he's willing to do what it takes to incur criticism from

00:38:29.920 the left, but on principle. And that was the second. And the third is, can he unite the swing

00:38:37.140 voter without selling out or without turning off the base and saying, you know what, he's a globalist

00:38:43.000 or he's a McCainite? And we'll see. But I don't think at this point everybody should just say Trump

00:38:49.420 should get out or DeSantis should be president or DeSantis doesn't. You've got to let the people

00:38:54.300 decide. And there's a process. And it's called primaries and votes. That's why I'm a little

00:38:59.880 critical of the Republican establishment when they say, well, these candidates that Trump select,

00:39:06.040 he didn't select them. He endorsed them. The people voted for them. And they may have voted

00:39:10.460 stupidly or they may be influenced by Trump, but that's how the system works.

00:39:15.780 And if you thought they were bad candidates, go get, yeah. And they had some candidates that

00:39:20.420 I thought were really good, Miraflores and others in the House that were supposedly the future of the

00:39:27.680 Republican Party that Kevin McCarthy poured millions of, and they didn't win.

00:39:31.460 And so we don't know. I mean, if we were having this conversation in late 2015, if I had said to

00:39:40.520 you Donald Trump is going to be the nominee and win the, nobody would have believed that. I didn't

00:39:44.440 know until later. And if we had said Scott Walker was going to implode or these great candidates like,

00:39:51.500 you know, Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz.

00:39:54.960 Or Jeb Bush.

00:39:56.180 Yeah, Bush. Jeb Bush. Remember, it was Jeb exclamation mark. And people had, he had all

00:40:00.420 this money and he was supposed to be. So we don't know what's going to happen because we don't know

00:40:04.480 the human factor, how people will perform on a debate stage or how they react with criticism.

00:40:10.900 But it does seem that DeSantis is really smart and not replying to Trump because Trump, it will be like

00:40:17.800 a boxer who's punching himself off against a rope-a-dope. All DeSantis is doing is saying,

00:40:24.320 keep going, keep going, because the more you attack me, the more you attack my wife, the more you

00:40:28.940 attack Mitch McConnell's wife on maybe racial terms, the lower your percentage and the less

00:40:35.360 appealing you're going to be. And it's going to magnify me. But at some point, he's going to have to,

00:40:41.000 you know, he's going to have to get out there if he's going to run. I don't think he can wait

00:40:46.920 and say, I don't believe that he can say, well, it's not my turn yet. And Donald Trump will only

00:40:52.040 be here for four years. I'll support him because he's at a zenith right now.

00:40:56.600 And he could be a Chris Christie if he waits.

00:40:59.080 Absolutely. And it's either he goes now like Obama chose to go, or he's going to fade. And he's going

00:41:05.520 to have to make that decision. And he's got a lot of pressure and expectations on him because people

00:41:10.980 are saying to him, we want you to be having effective governance like Trump did. We want

00:41:16.500 you to go after the left for what they've done to this country. But you've got to be wise and select

00:41:25.760 your targets and not waste your ammunition on irrelevant people like Donald Trump did.

00:41:30.920 And that's what's tragic about it. You know, it's, and I know I've kind of run that simile into the

00:41:36.700 ground. But when you look at Sophoclean tragedy, and there's a lot of people in the classical Greek

00:41:41.340 stage, Oedipus or Ajax, Antigone, or you look at the searchers or Shane or Magnificent, you see this

00:41:49.620 character again and again, this typology that people, when they get paralyzed as we were in 2016,

00:41:55.480 and they want somebody to come in with a different skillset, different experiences, and they start to

00:42:01.500 really affect change because they have a type of personality, or they're blunt, or they're black

00:42:07.600 and white, or they're Manichaean. And that's necessary, because we're not that way. And then

00:42:12.180 when they start to be successful, that those methodologies become more predominant, and people

00:42:18.500 say, oh, not in my name. And then the tragic hero says, but look, I got your gas prices down. Look,

00:42:25.180 I got the Operation Workspeed. And you said, yes, but everything is going well. And now I have the

00:42:30.920 laxity, because things are going well, to look at other things, how you're doing it. I don't want

00:42:36.640 you to have a six gun. I do not want you to, you know, to use foul language. I do not want you to

00:42:43.660 tweet all that. And so that's the tragedy of Donald Trump, that tragic heroes have a certain time and a

00:42:50.480 certain place and a certain mission. And the more that they're successful in fulfilling that mission,

00:42:55.460 and they do it by unorthodox means, the more the unorthodox means can draw the attention

00:43:00.900 of their beneficiaries. And I think that's what's happened to Trump. People are saying,

00:43:06.060 you know what, he did a lot of good, but it's been four years, five years, and I'm exhausted.

00:43:11.800 And he can't change. And that's what's tragic about him. He knows what he has to do, Megan.

00:43:17.580 He knows that the mega agenda is fine. He knows that his combativeness is necessary.

00:43:23.120 But he knows he can't stop tweeting, as you said. He knows he can't stop making fun of Mitch

00:43:28.900 McConnell's wife. He knows he can't make fun of Yunkin's name if he wanted to. And at that point,

00:43:35.740 the people are not going to put up with it anymore.

00:43:38.860 In very provocative ways, too. Like, why does he continue calling Elaine Chao Coco Chao? He's

00:43:45.320 spelling the last name C-H-O-W. It's spelled C-H-A-O. Honestly, I asked my team, like, what is that a

00:43:52.120 derivative? Like, what's that from? Is that some well-known slur? I don't even know. We couldn't

00:43:56.240 even find it. We found some food truck that's called Coco Chao. We found Coco can sometimes

00:44:01.780 be used as a derogatory word for people who are Asian or maybe even Hispanic because of the skin

00:44:08.600 color. I have no idea. And to think that Trump has thought it through is probably getting too

00:44:14.500 analytical. But yeah, but then, like, to point out that Yunkin, that sounds Chinese. Like,

00:44:19.480 what's he doing? He's acting like a child. It's not that this is unprecedented for his tweeting,

00:44:25.020 but if anything, he's going in a more provocative, more unhinged direction.

00:44:30.100 Especially when he he was, you know, I thought it was because there's such a thing as a Spanish

00:44:35.300 flu or the Ebola virus that have toponyms that that's fine. So when he said the China virus,

00:44:39.880 I thought, well, that's OK. And then the left is going crazy. But the point is, he knew that people

00:44:45.460 were sensitive to that and they had been attacking on that. So you don't think he would double down and

00:44:49.960 then let the left say, well, you know, maybe the China virus could, in theory, not sound racist,

00:44:55.640 but look what he's doing now. And that shows you why he used it. And that's what he does. He gives

00:45:01.000 ammunition to his critics when he has the benefit of the doubt, when he's all done. He himself shows

00:45:07.560 you there's no benefit of the doubt. And that's that's what's tragic about him. And, you know,

00:45:13.020 there's such great Westerns. I remember The Searchers. I don't know if you saw that John Wayne movie.

00:45:17.180 And he's the only one that can bring back Natalie Wood. But he is so crude and he's so rough that

00:45:23.740 once he brings her back, everybody's celebrating and they just and he just walks out the door and

00:45:28.820 that John Ford and he's out the door and he goes away because he can't change and he can't he can't

00:45:34.820 all the skills that are necessary at a particular time when the mission is solved. And I think Donald

00:45:41.000 Trump's mission was to recalibrate the Republican Party and make it into a populist nationals. And he

00:45:46.180 succeeded in ways that nobody ever dreamed of. And then to actually have a Republican

00:45:51.900 go in there and start to build the wall and stop illegal immigration. When he went out of office,

00:45:57.740 or at least before COVID, we were energy independent. We had low employment. We had record

00:46:03.200 minority low employment. We had low inflation. It was wonderful. But there were things that he was

00:46:10.960 doing to enact that agenda that the more it was successful, the more we thought, well, you know

00:46:15.860 what, I would rather pay more for gas and read another tweet. At least I'm speaking now as a

00:46:22.060 Romney or and that's that's what's tragic about it. And he can't change. And I wish he I wish he could.

00:46:29.180 But I don't think he can.

00:46:30.180 Yeah. In your latest piece, which people have to read, it's that American greatness

00:46:33.940 called Tragically Trump, you write as follows. One explanation of the Trump dilemma is that like

00:46:39.640 all classic classical tragic heroes and Western gunslingers, Trump solved problems through means

00:46:44.620 unpalatable to those in need of solutions beyond their own refinement. It is the lot of such tragic

00:46:50.500 figures to grate and wear out their welcome with their beneficiaries, but only after their service

00:46:56.640 is increasingly deemed no longer needed. Stand by, Victor. Let me squeeze in a break and we'll pick

00:47:04.160 it up right there after this. Wow. There's only one Victor Davis Hanson. It's amazing to read his

00:47:10.320 words. They're so helpful in understanding where we are. And don't forget, folks, you'll get more of

00:47:14.080 Victor after the break that you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph channel 111

00:47:19.240 every weekday at noon east. The full video show and clips at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

00:47:23.900 Please subscribe while you're there. Audio podcast as well. We release it later in the day. You can

00:47:29.160 follow and download Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcasts and

00:47:32.960 they're free. So you have that added benefit. And if you are a Sirius XM subscriber, you can listen to

00:47:38.080 it right after, like immediately after we air. Sometimes if I want to listen back, I go there.

00:47:46.800 Victor, I mean, I love the analogy and thinking about sort of the tragic hero and how not to be so

00:47:52.280 tragic. You know, there's a scene in which he could ride off on his horse and be a kingmaker and

00:47:56.460 help Republicans get elected and become adored. January 6th fades and so on. And Dave Chappelle

00:48:04.340 was on SNL this weekend, sort of making us remember about why much of the country did fall in love

00:48:10.680 with Trump, despite all of the flaws. You know, there is room for us to remember all of those great

00:48:16.520 things and continue the relationship with him. I don't know whether we can remember all the great

00:48:21.540 things and vote for him when there's another alternative like DeSantis sitting right there.

00:48:27.280 But I want to take you to the Dave Chappelle monologue just at the piece on Trump, because

00:48:30.660 it was pretty powerful and it was a good reminder of what a formidable candidate he was. And let's face

00:48:38.360 it is likely to remain. Watch this. They're declaring the end of the Trump era. Now, OK,

00:48:43.420 I can see how in New York you might believe this is the end of his era. I'm just being honest with

00:48:47.780 you. I live in Ohio amongst the poor whites. A lot of you don't understand why Trump was so

00:48:56.460 popular, but I get it because I hear it every day. He's very loved. And the reason he's loved is

00:49:03.800 because people in Ohio have never seen somebody like him. He's what I call an honest liar. That

00:49:10.520 first debate, that first debate, I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen a white

00:49:15.940 male billionaire screaming at the top of his lungs. This whole system is rigged, he said.

00:49:23.400 And the moderator said, well, Mr. Trump, if in fact the system is rigged, as he suggests,

00:49:29.640 what would be your evidence? Remember what he said, bro? He said, I know the system is rigged

00:49:37.940 because I use it. I said, God damn. And then Hillary Clinton tried to punch him in the taxes.

00:49:46.840 She said, this man doesn't pay his taxes. He's shot right back. That makes me smart.

00:49:50.880 And then he said, if you want me to pay my taxes, then change the tax code. But I know

00:50:03.700 you won't because your friends and your donors enjoy the same tax breaks that I do. And with

00:50:10.700 that, my friends, a star was born. No one had ever seen somebody come from inside of that

00:50:17.160 house outside and tell all the commoners, we are doing everything that you think we are doing

00:50:22.640 inside of that house. They just went right back in the house and started playing the game again.

00:50:30.480 So good.

00:50:32.640 So good. So dead on.

00:50:34.800 You remember what he said with Rand Paul? That was what changed a lot of people's votes. Rand Paul,

00:50:39.180 who was a, I've grown in admiration for him, especially about the lockdowns. And he said,

00:50:45.440 well, Donald Trump represents the toxic brand of politics, quid pro quo. And he went on and

00:50:50.880 he made some legitimate criticism. Trump didn't even blink. He said, yeah, absolutely. You came

00:50:55.840 into my office. You wanted $10,000. I wrote you a check and you've been subservient and you've done

00:51:00.800 whatever I wanted since. And I thought that was just amazing to hear somebody say that. And it kind

00:51:07.800 of blew Rand Paul off the stage. But it's not wise to wrestle with Donald Trump because he's actually

00:51:14.840 been in a wrestling ring himself and he doesn't care. And a lot of people thought, I mean, if you

00:51:19.400 look at the people like an Anthony Fauci or even a Howard Stern or the Clinton group, anybody who

00:51:27.440 thought they were going to go mano to mano with Donald Trump and just trash him, trash him, trash

00:51:31.800 him, they didn't end up as well as they thought they would. And the other thing that's ironic and

00:51:36.920 also tragic, Megan, is that we have this group of candidates and Trump is just bane at the moon

00:51:44.200 that they all owe him. So it is true that he really helped DeSantis win in 2018. Excuse me. Yeah,

00:51:55.400 he really did. And it was a very close race. Mike Pompeo will probably run, but we wouldn't have known

00:52:01.700 Mike Pompeo unless Trump had appointed him CIA director of state as secretary of state. He really

00:52:07.140 empowered Nikki Haley by putting her in the national scene as UN ambassador, where she was very good and

00:52:12.900 she got a lot of good airplay. And he endorsed Ted Cruz and made up with him. So that's what's sad

00:52:19.020 about it. And Mike Pence, I don't think Mike Pence had a career left until Donald Trump selected him

00:52:25.420 vice president. So in a way that makes it even more tragic that all these people are going to run

00:52:31.800 against him. He's going to scream and yell that he had a hand in giving them prominence. And they're

00:52:37.360 going to say, yes, you did, but I don't owe you forever given your behavior or what you've said.

00:52:42.780 I can't condone that. And so it's just the whole thing is tragic because we all know what he has to do

00:52:50.620 and he knows what he has to do and he can't. He and by the way, Rand Paul, he's gonna be on the

00:52:58.560 show tomorrow. So, you know, one of the things I admire Rand Paul now, I mean, he just he's another

00:53:03.560 person that after what Trump did to him like that, rather than just get irate, and he kind of ended his

00:53:12.060 presidential campaign, he began to see that Donald Trump had some ideas and policies that were similar

00:53:19.200 to his own. And and he was very pragmatic. And what he did with those COVID hearings, I thought

00:53:25.700 were was absolutely necessary. He's the reason we know. He's the reason we know half of what we know

00:53:32.340 about Dr. Fauci. He just wouldn't let it go. And he is a doctor saw it early on. And the lies, the

00:53:38.500 dishonesty, the misleading. Yeah, we doubt that's a separate issue, but we definitely he's he's unafraid

00:53:43.800 when the whole Pelosi thing happened. It was, you know, everybody was sending their thanks. Maybe it

00:53:49.780 was on tour, but he reminded everybody that Pelosi's own daughter, when he was seriously injured with

00:53:56.920 lung damage and broken ribs and pneumonia, she had said, seems like your neighbor was right. She was

00:54:03.000 celebrating that. And she used her, not her married name, but the Pelosi name to give that message

00:54:08.220 residence. And Nancy Pelosi didn't say a word. That was terrible for her to do that. And he brought

00:54:14.140 that up. And everybody said, Oh, my God, he can't at this moment. Yeah, he can do that to remind

00:54:18.440 everybody that it's a two way street. And once you break the rules, and you can't expect everybody to

00:54:24.500 take you seriously as an enforcement rule. That's exactly right. And by the way, most people were not

00:54:29.500 saying it didn't happen or that Paul Pelosi deserved it. I didn't see any person who promised

00:54:35.080 saying that. There were just questions about the story being released by the police and the FBI.

00:54:41.700 And that's legitimate. But in any event, so Donald Trump is going to run from the look of it. He I,

00:54:48.900 I think he's going to run based on what we're hearing. He can always surprise you. So I want

00:54:53.220 to put that asterisk on it. But one of the things that's looming out there, Victor, is why? Why would

00:54:59.000 he announce it right now? Right? It's November. I mean, I remember having been through this cycle many

00:55:03.740 times as a media person. They usually come out in like the late spring. I remember on the Kelly file

00:55:09.000 back in 15. We were profiling Huckabee and Herman Cain and Donald Trump and others around the spring

00:55:16.420 of 15. And then that now infamous debate between, you know, the top 10 Republican candidates that Fox

00:55:24.120 hosted was August, August 6, 2015. So we knew by the late summer who the front runner was,

00:55:30.820 it would never not be Donald Trump. And then it was spring. So here we are fall. This is very early

00:55:35.820 in the electoral season for him to announce. And I understand he wants to get ahead of everybody.

00:55:40.840 But Andy McCarthy has an interesting piece in National Review, positing that there's something

00:55:45.400 else he's trying to get ahead of. If he's out there as a declared presidential nominee,

00:55:51.340 he's less likely potentially to be indicted that, you know, Andy thinks there's a better chance now

00:55:58.560 after these midterms that he's going to be indicted than there ever has been. But could it be he's

00:56:03.340 trying to say, I'm running, I'm running, I'm running to get ahead of an indictment so he can say,

00:56:07.700 you see, they're, they're indicting Biden's chief rival.

00:56:11.680 Yeah, I, I like Andy. I know him well, but I don't believe that because I think now the Democrats,

00:56:19.020 I think the DOJ is entirely weaponized and politicized under Merrick Garland. I think they're

00:56:24.020 going to, they feel right now that Donald Trump is a liability. And I feel it's just the opposite,

00:56:30.040 that they're going to pull back in hopes that he will be the nominee. And they're more terrified

00:56:36.080 of DeSantis and anything that helps Trump, they're going to be for I don't think and,

00:56:43.240 you know, and the other thing is, the Mar-a-Lago raid and all of that, that didn't I mean,

00:56:47.840 this is just what we should expect. But I don't think they're fatal. Maybe they will try to indict.

00:56:52.840 I don't think it's going to go anywhere. But why is he doing as to your question? Why is he

00:56:57.920 announcing? I think the real reason is, he's looking at this DeSantis phenomenon, he's looking

00:57:03.660 at some of these polls, not that we should believe polls after the midterm election, but

00:57:07.660 DeSantis is either running neck and neck or ahead of Trump. And people are telling him,

00:57:12.080 this phenomenon is getting out of hand, this cult of DeSantis, and he's growing in stature.

00:57:17.680 And we never, we thought we were going to have a red wave that we could take credit for,

00:57:22.860 and all of our candidates going to win, but the only red wave was in Florida. And he won every state

00:57:27.500 white office. And Marco Rubio was just as impressive. And he, people had said that he

00:57:32.080 might have a problem. And this DeSantis thing is growing, growing, growing, we've got to nip it in

00:57:36.720 the bud now or we will, it'll be out of control. So I think that explains why he's going to declare

00:57:41.860 his candidacy. And the declaration of his candidacy is going to be synonymous with an

00:57:48.020 anti-DeSantis candidacy. He's going to try to, I think you won't hear anything about Pompeo or

00:57:53.660 Haley or any other person. It will be, I am running for president and this guy cannot do the job,

00:58:00.880 or he's disloyal, or he's full of ingratitude or whatever. And that's going to be a hard task for

00:58:07.860 Trump because DeSantis has an actual record. And he's going to say, you know what, I'm a MAGA

00:58:14.040 person, but I also have a record. I'm competent. And, and I pay my most attention after a hurricane

00:58:20.400 to fixing things. And I've done this and I've changed Florida. And so I think it's, if he doesn't

00:58:26.100 do it now and preempt, I don't know how you would stop this DeSantis record.

00:58:32.520 Here's the latest on the polling. Uh, there's a new YouGov poll, YouGov slash Yahoo news,

00:58:39.380 YouGov gets a, for whatever it's worth, B plus rating from five 38, which dictates itself as the

00:58:45.220 God of polls. We don't agree, but that's what they like to say. In any event, they, they say that

00:58:50.700 there's been a 17 point swing, uh, from Trump to DeSantis from just a month ago, more Republicans

00:58:57.780 and Republican leaning independents now say they would prefer DeSantis 42% as their 2024 presidential

00:59:03.100 nominee over Trump than say they would prefer Trump to DeSantis. So, uh, it's 42% would like

00:59:09.780 DeSantis over Trump. 35% said they'd take Trump instead of DeSantis. And there was another, um,

00:59:16.540 oh, in just days before the election, Trump led DeSantis in a different poll by 22 points

00:59:20.720 morning consult. That would make it a 29 point swing in favor of DeSantis. But still, still that

00:59:29.600 what this says to me is 35% of the base still wants Trump even after the big win by DeSantis.

00:59:36.020 And the, that's the big question, right? That is now the big question. Can the 35% be won over

00:59:40.880 Trump's going to sling all the mud he can at DeSantis. He's, he's like shiny and new and interesting

00:59:46.840 and a winner right now, DeSantis, right? But in the clutches of Donald Trump, nobody emerges.

00:59:52.920 Yeah. Donald Trump would have advisors or he would wise up. He would do just the opposite of what he

00:59:58.460 was doing. He would say on his tweets and in his public appearances, he said, Ron DeSantis was a good

01:00:04.460 friend of mine and we partnered together in Florida and I live in Florida and I'm a beneficiary of his good

01:00:10.440 governance. And he's a very good capable, but he needs to concentrate. I'm not saying this is my

01:00:17.340 view, but this is what he should say. He should say he should need, he's just had a big victory.

01:00:21.580 He's helped us. He's helped the party. He needs to concentrate for the next four years. And that's

01:00:27.980 what he needs to do. And I wish him well, but I'm the person who, you know, and then, and then talk

01:00:34.360 about his record, but not go after him like this, because what he's going to do is we've got to the

01:00:39.460 point, Megan, where the independent or the mainstream Republican is now favorable to DeSantis

01:00:46.660 and we're down, as you said, to that 35% base, but that basis, he's going to chip away at that base

01:00:52.600 because finally people, it's going to be like a coronation or a snowball effect for DeSantis and

01:00:58.000 he's feeding it and he doesn't quite understand that. And if he would just give his base some

01:01:04.100 ammunition so they can say, look, Trump, Trump was nice to you. He was magnanimous. He's telling

01:01:09.560 DeSantis, wait your turn and you're doing a great job. And at this moment, in this time,

01:01:13.720 we need a little bit more Trump himself and that would be fine. But when he starts using these

01:01:18.840 epithets that we discussed, he makes it harder and harder, even for the base. And he says, you know,

01:01:24.800 well, if I shot somebody in New York, they would never abandon me. That's never been true.

01:01:28.600 Richard Nixon had a good base and people abandoned him and people will abandon a base. They can get

01:01:34.960 down to 20%. George Bush had a good, he left office. Harry Truman had a good base. He left

01:01:40.580 office about 22% approval rating. So the base is there, but if you keep testing it and keep trying

01:01:48.640 it and keep insulting it and asking them for heroic support, when you're not willing to be wise to earn

01:01:55.360 their support, they will start to erode. And I can tell you, I've had maybe 50 calls in the last five

01:02:00.960 days from fanatic Trump supporters. And they've all said the same thing that can be summed up, Megan,

01:02:06.320 with what the hell is going on? And that's what they say. And they don't mean that as a compliment

01:02:13.080 to Trump. They mean, why is he doing this? This is the time when we need smart action and we need,

01:02:20.420 you know, and DeSantis has got a Cheshire smile, you know, it's like, okay, what's next today?

01:02:28.320 Yeah, the GOP's lost now in 2018 and 2020, and now pretty much lost all the important races,

01:02:36.240 even though they appear to have eked out a victory in the house in 2022. And so there really is,

01:02:41.440 if there's no introspection on how to grow the party and grow the vote, then they deserve what they

01:02:45.780 get. Yeah. And, you know, Trump had an argument and Roger Kimball, who's a very bright guy,

01:02:52.740 pointed out in a column not too long ago that DeSantis is a MAGA person, but the Trump argument

01:03:00.360 against him will be that watch what happens now as the never Trumpers, not the extreme ones,

01:03:06.540 the Bill Crystals, the David, they're gone, the bulwark people, but the other never Trumpers or the

01:03:11.100 corporate right or Wall Street, they're going to see this person as a person that they can shower

01:03:16.720 money on and can, you know, can reject the MAGA. And that's an argument that Trump could be using

01:03:24.120 rather than an ad hominem, because we don't know. And that's why I think it's very important. I think,

01:03:29.580 I don't believe it's going to be true, but it's something that would be persuasive. At least it'd be,

01:03:34.940 it would be preferable to what Trump is doing now is ad hominem. He can just say

01:03:39.100 that Ron DeSantis is a great governor, but he's going to be under too much pressure from the

01:03:44.080 corporate right. And watch out, he's going to be showered with money. And once you're showered

01:03:47.700 with that type of corporate traditional silk stocking Republican money, it's very hard to

01:03:52.420 have to retain your independence. That would be a good argument, but he, and it would be,

01:03:57.600 it would be persuasive to some people, but I'm not sure he can make it.

01:04:02.320 To put it in judicial terms, it's like what he could, he could be a John Roberts instead of a Sam

01:04:07.620 Alito instead of a Clarence Thomas. He could be wooed by the Georgetown party circuit in a way

01:04:12.560 that the MAGA base would not like. And that's going to be something that we should watch with

01:04:16.880 Ron DeSantis because I don't envy him because he's going to be under enormous pressure. And I can tell

01:04:24.140 you as somebody who supported Trump, you lose a lot of friends and then you have all of these people

01:04:29.320 in the mainstream Republican party that are not MAGA. And they're, let's go back to the good old

01:04:34.940 McCain or Romney days. And they have a lot of money. They have a lot of influence and they try

01:04:40.320 to persuade you. I can't believe you would vote for Trump, that kind of stuff. And that's what

01:04:44.820 they're going to do with DeSantis. They're going to say, well, you know, you, you worked for Trump

01:04:48.740 and you had a good MAGA, but you know, now's the time to unite the party behind traditional

01:04:52.680 Republican pillars of respectability and sobriety. And, and I hope, so we'll see what he does,

01:04:59.780 but he's going to be under a lot of pressure because there's going to be a lot of money that's,

01:05:02.960 I think he's going to raise a fantastic amount of money, much more than Trump.

01:05:07.820 Definitely.

01:05:08.400 And with, with money comes obligations or, you know, loyalties.

01:05:14.080 Right. I mean, of course, Trump did it all the first time around getting the nomination,

01:05:17.960 at least without any money or any backing or no establishment and no party leaders behind him,

01:05:23.140 you know, in this insurgent campaign. We'll see. I mean, Ron DeSantis, two things I know about him

01:05:28.040 are number one, he doesn't look at polls. He, he thinks he knows his electorate. He thinks he

01:05:33.500 knows what's best for them or what they want. And he proceeds accordingly. Uh, and number two,

01:05:39.160 he does not respond to Trump. He does not respond to Trump. He does not. There will come a day

01:05:45.240 when he will have to, if they're on a debate stage together.

01:05:48.380 I think he has a lot of, uh, I don't know if respect is the right word, but he has a lot of,

01:05:54.680 he, he understands that Trump has a rare cunning and people can make fun of Trump all he wants,

01:06:00.040 but he has a rare political instinct for weakness, for liabilities, for vulnerabilities,

01:06:05.560 and for what the pulse of the people and for all of his excesses. Anybody right now who says Donald

01:06:12.560 Trump is finished just for the reasons that we talked about, we never quite said he's finished.

01:06:17.340 I don't believe he is, but I think he's being self-destructive and he's empowering DeSantis

01:06:23.400 and that could be bad or good for the party, but the idea that he's going to be indicted and finished

01:06:28.280 or that he's just, he's all through, or he's going to tell us tomorrow that he's not, I don't see that

01:06:34.040 because he's very resilient. He's got nine lives and, uh, he's only used about seven of them.

01:06:40.120 And he's, he's pretty vibrant. Unlike, uh, our, our commander in chief right now,

01:06:44.840 he's still pretty youthful despite his advancing age, Victor. Oh, wonderful talking to you. Thank

01:06:50.900 you so much for being here. Thank you for having me, Megan. All right. Coming up. Jennifer say is

01:06:56.220 back. Remember Jennifer say she was the Levi's president who got forced out. She, she refused

01:07:02.320 to take the silencing money and walked out on her own, her own accord. But that was after she pushed

01:07:07.340 back against some of the COVID overreaches like school closures. She was so controversial because

01:07:11.920 she didn't want the schools to be closed. Well, she's back and she's going to talk about her exit

01:07:15.820 from Levi's after speaking out on COVID and some of the latest insanity, like a, the claim in this

01:07:22.140 new England journal of medicine, uh, article that masks reduce racism. Okay. Really? We'll go there

01:07:30.520 next. Stand by. Perhaps one of the biggest stories of COVID has been parents finding their voices. It

01:07:39.620 appears the Democrats just woke up this election and realized parents are an actual voting group

01:07:43.960 to be courted. Great. Unrelenting in their efforts to fight back against school boards and even

01:07:50.820 scientists when they felt their decisions harmed their children and were as the left likes to say,

01:07:56.520 anti-science, um, parents could see it left and right. And we're jumping up and down about it.

01:08:01.520 No matter the names that were thrown at them, like domestic terrorist. One such mom was at the top of

01:08:07.140 her field in line to take charge of one of the biggest clothing companies in the world until

01:08:11.500 her views became too quote toxic for the powers that be her stance for public school children,

01:08:17.460 not only cost her a dream job, but friends and family members too. We've spoken to Jennifer say

01:08:23.640 before, but now she's back to discuss the fallout, the lessons learned and her brand new book,

01:08:29.000 Levi's unbuttoned. The woke mob took my job, but gave me my voice. It's out tomorrow.

01:08:36.480 Jennifer say, welcome back to the show. So good to see you.

01:08:40.620 Thank you so much for having me again, Megan. I think yours was the first interview I did right

01:08:45.700 after I resigned. And now here I am. It's the first one for my book. So thank you. And thank

01:08:52.140 you for the blurb. That was amazing. Oh, you're so welcome. I love, I'm in good company on the back

01:08:57.340 there. So I'm honored to have done it. Um, well, how does that feel right? Like I can speak to this

01:09:02.860 myself. Like after I left NBC, I was reeling, it was kind of traumatic. And then seven, eight months

01:09:09.040 later, and certainly a couple of years later, boy, I see it all very differently. I see myself

01:09:12.780 differently. I see the country differently. You gain a lot of perspective. Oh yeah. And sitting

01:09:18.640 and writing the book in such a fast fashion gave me a lot of clarity, but it's, you know, it's been a

01:09:24.120 difficult nine months and two years before that, because I was really sort of waging a war internally,

01:09:30.040 um, within the company, it was really difficult. I recently listened to one of your old episodes with

01:09:35.680 Bridget Phetasy and it brought me so much comfort because, you know, it, it's not easy. Even after

01:09:43.520 you've decided I'm going to do the right thing, I'm going to stand in it. I'm going to work from a

01:09:49.680 place of integrity, but you lose a lot and it's, it, it's hard. It's not like I, I do that willy nilly

01:09:56.680 and it's not like, it's not still hard. Sometimes, as you said, you know, I gave up the city. I loved

01:10:01.800 a job that I loved. I lost friends and yes, some family members, um, through the sort of fractured

01:10:09.340 relationships and that's, it's hard. So, you know, that episode, I'm sure you remember the one

01:10:13.700 was very helpful to me. I don't have any regrets at all. Um, but it, that doesn't mean it's easy all

01:10:19.500 the time. Yeah. Don't you think though, there's like a, it's, it's, it had to happen. You know,

01:10:25.640 I don't, I don't know if you'd call it fate or what you'd call it, but I do think that one of

01:10:29.820 the ups, upshots of cancel culture is it separates some people from institutions from which they

01:10:35.600 needed to be separated. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good way to look at it. I mean, I've

01:10:40.480 been there close to 23 years, 20 of them were really awesome. Two were really crappy. Um, I'm

01:10:49.160 going to work on forgiving those, but I feel like I was unchanged in all of that. I stayed true

01:10:54.660 to the values and the principles. I didn't change, even though some people look at me,

01:10:59.460 even, you know, former friends and are like, what happened to Jen? I didn't standing up and saying

01:11:04.980 public schools should be open while by the way, private schools were opened and they were shouting

01:11:11.060 about equity and equality means meanwhile, the low income kids are shuttered at home. Like where is

01:11:18.240 the equity and equality in that? It's just so obvious and it's this lie. And this is really what the,

01:11:24.440 the book is about of, of woke capitalism that allows folks to get away with that. It's,

01:11:31.080 it's insane. You know, when we see it brought to life now with the recent story about Sam Bankman

01:11:36.440 Freed and, um, and you know, before that Elizabeth Holmes and the WeWork guy and like the, they put

01:11:43.240 forth this blustery image of we're going to change the world cultiness and everybody buys it. And they

01:11:49.160 forget to look at what's going on underneath the covers, which is no finance, no fundamentals.

01:11:55.500 They're not making money. They're not delivering on their commitments. Um, and they're defrauding

01:12:01.480 investors and the press buys it, which is really disturbing. And they put these folks on the cover

01:12:07.500 of Forbes and fortune, you know, and I would argue, how is that different really than, you know,

01:12:13.800 what my CEO did under the cover of COVID laying off 15% of the workforce, bolstering the stock price

01:12:19.960 and cashing out on $42 million in stock for himself, but he did it with empathy. So all is

01:12:27.180 forgiven, you know? So this, this woke capitalism is, it's a big con it's reputation laundering.

01:12:34.360 And I think business needs to get back to the fundamentals, offer a great product that people

01:12:38.900 want at a fair price and treat employees fairly. It's not that hard. I'm so glad you brought this

01:12:44.000 up. I've been dying to talk about this case, this cryptocurrency billionaire guy. I mean,

01:12:47.940 I don't really follow it that closely, but it's, it's riveting and it's been the front page of every

01:12:52.960 single newspaper for a few days now, but the long and the short of it is I'm looking at Miranda

01:12:56.840 Devine's piece in the post, um, that Biden's second biggest donor, Sam Bankman free, they call him SBF,

01:13:04.500 this 30 year old wonderkind, um, who started this cryptocurrency group. He was a billionaire,

01:13:10.520 uh, has filed for bankruptcy just days after the election. And as Miranda says, but, but not before

01:13:17.080 pumping $40 million into the democratic party to spend on get out the vote and other shadowy ballot

01:13:23.320 harvesting mechanics for the midterms. Everybody promoted this guy. He's this amazingly brilliant

01:13:29.600 guy and they celebrated him. And she's got some examples in here, which are just absolutely

01:13:34.360 spectacular. She talks about how this venture capital firm Sequoia, um, which is a big backer

01:13:40.280 of this guy's crypto group, um, hired a freelance writer, Adam Fisher to write a puff piece on this

01:13:46.500 guy who now is now being accused of being a fraudster. And, uh, the guy writes in, in promoting

01:13:52.880 him, um, he's a future trillionaire. I don't know how I know I just do. SBF is a winner. I couldn't

01:14:01.460 shake the feeling that this guy is actually as selfless as he claims to be the article, which was

01:14:06.380 replaced on Sequoia's website over the weekend with a somber note to investors describes how SBF

01:14:13.560 wild Sequoia's partners into giving him a billion dollars during a zoom meeting and so on and so forth.

01:14:17.840 So yeah, this guy's a darling of the democratic party, Joe Biden's second biggest donor.

01:14:21.500 He said all the right things and he appears to have been, according to what I read, a total fraud,

01:14:27.700 a complete fraud, just like Holmes. And, and just like the WeWork dude, whatever his name is,

01:14:34.040 Newman. Adam Newman. I was just, yeah, I was just, I mean, I know what he did wasn't illegal per se,

01:14:39.340 but it was certainly immoral. And he knew the fundamentals of the business were not, you know,

01:14:45.080 were not strong. He was not delivering what he said he was going to do. They both, they all three

01:14:50.200 had the same sort of pose as do-gooders, right? So they're concealing their greed and corruption

01:14:57.880 by positioning themselves as altruists. That should be an alarm bell for people. And it was all bullshit,

01:15:05.580 as we now know. And what's really alarming to me is, is the press furthers this image. The business

01:15:13.400 press does not do due diligence. They say, you know, they celebrate them as heroes. They put them

01:15:19.020 on the cover of Forbes and fortune and give them all sorts of awards. And they're just stealing money.

01:15:26.640 Basically they're stealing money. It's, it's gross. And I think it's important to look beyond these

01:15:33.260 really extreme examples to the broader trend of woke capitalism or woke corporatism. And that's really

01:15:40.880 what the book is about. And I think, you know, CEOs today, it's not enough to be super, super rich.

01:15:46.460 They now want to be heralded as philanthropists and altruists and they're not, you know, business

01:15:55.140 is same as it ever was. It's about making money and delivering profit to the bottom line. Let's be

01:16:00.000 honest about that. Let's do it with integrity, pay workers fairly, offer a great product that lasts,

01:16:07.680 that consumers want at a fair price, treat employees fairly. Uh, when it beers into this

01:16:13.200 other area and it becomes this pose, it really is concealing, or we should be wondering what it's

01:16:18.340 concealing. And I use, well, meanwhile, you've got the, as divine points out in this New York post

01:16:23.280 piece, you've got these Democrats who want us to believe that they're so woke and they're so pro,

01:16:27.720 you know, any downtrodden group. Uh, but secretly they're taking money from these alleged billionaires

01:16:34.440 to cover the billionaires asses. Like she points out that he, this is a quote from her article.

01:16:40.220 He lavished, lavished his largesse, um, pro crypto Democrats like New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand,

01:16:46.240 who was sponsoring a bill, wait for it to lock the sec out of regulating the crypto market.

01:16:53.240 What a shock. He also visited the white house meeting with top Biden advisors as recently as

01:16:58.080 April, according to the free beacon. Um, and then she concludes, no wonder the Biden administration

01:17:02.800 has been weak on regulating the crypto market. It was the goose that laid the golden egg. It's very

01:17:09.000 easy to get these people to support you in the non-regulation, which is going to hurt the little

01:17:13.200 guy, as long as you're lining their coffers. And Jennifer, there was, um, the head of Coinbase

01:17:19.400 was just on with our friends over at the all in podcast, David Sachs and co. And he was saying,

01:17:24.960 um, I could not figure out how this guy had so much liquidity, like where these guys in crypto

01:17:31.800 don't tend to have a ton of liquidity, right? And this guy was the exception. And let's see whether

01:17:36.960 the Democrats ask those tough questions now that his firm is totally imploded, filed for bankruptcy,

01:17:41.940 and a lot of people look like they're going to be very hurt.

01:17:45.640 It just seemed, it's mind blowing to me that we collectively keep getting suckered by these young,

01:17:53.200 culty leader, lead. I say leaders. I'm being generous. They're not leading anything. They're

01:17:59.860 just stealing money for themselves. We fall for it over and over. How did we fall for this guy

01:18:04.680 right after Newman and Holmes? Same strategy, young, charismatic. Although I look at them and I go,

01:18:11.580 what, what do people see in them? They seem like frauds to me from the beginning. They seem like

01:18:15.840 cult leaders. The charisma is questionable. I don't really get it. Um, but again, I think we have to

01:18:24.480 look at the issue more broadly and not just look at these three as outliers, but that it's a trend

01:18:28.920 across corporate America. Uh, you know, I'll use Nike as an example. I use this one in the book.

01:18:36.780 It, they, they do all these campaigns, all these woke campaigns about women's history month and pride,

01:18:43.080 et cetera. In the same year, they're doing all this stuff about women's history month and celebrating

01:18:48.300 women. And we celebrate women and body positivity and all this stuff. The same time, three bombshell

01:18:54.320 articles in the New York times about how they actually treat women in the company. They, you know,

01:19:00.040 just widespread harassment, abuse of a young athlete in their running program, um, and discrimination

01:19:06.020 against one of their paid endorsers who was an Olympic runner, Alison Felix. So, but people buy the

01:19:12.960 woke pose and they ignore the reality. So I don't even think people actually care. They like the

01:19:18.180 pose. They like the reputation laundering because they actually cared. Nike wouldn't have grown 8%

01:19:24.080 that year that all that stuff was exposed. That's so true. It's like Hollywood, you know,

01:19:29.600 lecturing us for years about how we need to be better people and be woke and be more PC. Meanwhile,

01:19:34.660 they're elevating people like Harvey Weinstein and calling him God at the Academy Awards. Like,

01:19:40.280 okay. Or as Schellenberger points out, it's like, you know, all the green leaders telling us we got

01:19:48.720 to stay home in a small home. We got to buy an electric car, whether or not you can afford it,

01:19:52.700 but we're going to turn your electricity off while they fly around the world and wear single use

01:19:57.720 outfits at whatever kind of events they're going to. It's the hypocrisy is startling. And I guess,

01:20:06.480 you know, to go back to your question from, from before, like that hypocrisy is something I cannot

01:20:12.040 unsee now. And I've certainly rejected the democratic party at this point, which I'd been a part of a

01:20:19.360 registered Democrat my entire life. I would have considered myself probably left of left of center.

01:20:24.780 I can't unsee this hypocrisy. Now that doesn't mean I've embraced the right totally either.

01:20:30.700 I'm going to volunteer for Trump. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not out there doing that. I'm unaffiliated,

01:20:36.540 which is 40% of voters in Colorado. So I'm in good company here. So it was interesting watching

01:20:42.520 the election without a dog in the race, so to speak, because I wasn't kind of aligned

01:20:47.300 with either. Wait, I want to ask you about that. I want to ask you about that. But before I do,

01:20:51.320 I want to make a quick point on what you said about wearing the same outfit twice.

01:20:54.140 I'll never forget. Joaquin Phoenix was being nominated for, I can't remember one of his many great

01:20:58.880 roles. He's a great actor. And he wore the same tux, like the election season and Stella McCartney,

01:21:04.620 who I think designed it, was out there like, oh, praise Joaquin. He's wearing the same outfit

01:21:10.540 over and over, like good for him. Now, meanwhile, it's like, and I remember Janice Dean, our mutual

01:21:15.400 friend, she tweeted out a picture of her husband, who's a firefighter. Like, here's my husband, Sean.

01:21:21.440 He also wears the same outfit to all of his award shows.

01:21:24.380 All of his awards. This is called being a normal person. Like, appreciate it. Okay,

01:21:32.500 it's great. But like, the fact that this is a thing is absolutely ridiculous and an indictment

01:21:37.340 of your entire industry. You know, when I was at Levi's, I worked with a lot of stylists,

01:21:43.120 well-known, famous stylists, and I encouraged them in their work that wasn't, you know, with us.

01:21:48.180 Their celebrity work, why don't you, for a full season, have one of your celebs wear the same

01:21:54.440 outfit the whole time? Change the earrings, do whatever you want, change the shoes. But you're

01:21:58.700 all out there making this big statement about how green you are, and yet you dress these folks in a

01:22:04.280 different outfit every time that they probably never wear again. Why don't you do that like a

01:22:08.880 normal person does? I mean, I've been wearing the same shirt for every interview.

01:22:12.520 Yes, I wear the same pants every day. Yeah. But they don't, you know, and so the hypocrisy of

01:22:21.320 that, which Michael Schellenberger talks about so eloquently, is it's startling. And I don't

01:22:27.340 understand why people don't care. So, you know, that's primarily... You're right, though. I see

01:22:31.860 your point. They just want the box checking, because it's like, hey, a vote's a vote. I don't care if

01:22:36.360 you really meant it. Now, wait, let's... They don't care. I'd love to get your perspective on the...

01:22:40.920 Like, why do you think that I was talking about in our last segment, Republicans, Democrats voted

01:22:47.200 for Democrats, Republicans voted for Republicans, but Democrats, 3% greater, stuck with their team.

01:22:53.360 There were 3% of Republican migrators, and independents, rather than voting for the party

01:22:58.700 out of power, went for the party in power. So why do you think that happened?

01:23:03.100 Yeah, I mean, I'm still making sense of it. And I'm, you know, not in that habit of prognosticating

01:23:09.020 about politics. First off, I would say the pollsters, we should stop listening, right? Like,

01:23:14.660 that is just ridiculous. They don't know anything. Clearly, everybody has said this, it seems like,

01:23:22.820 at least in this election, and I know this is counter to what your last guest was saying,

01:23:26.740 but in this election, Trump endorsing it was not helpful. I think it's important to look at the two

01:23:34.080 races, my state, where Governor Jared Polis won, and then Florida, where DeSantis won. These are the

01:23:41.300 two, not only were they decisive, I think they won each by about 20 points, which is a pretty crushing

01:23:47.920 defeat. Polis is a Democrat with real libertarian tendencies. And obviously, DeSantis is, you know,

01:23:55.160 the rising star, if not the star in the Republican Party. They both had more in common, although

01:24:02.440 Polis took umbrage at this this weekend on on Bill Maher, but they both really ran on freedom.

01:24:09.100 They both ran on giving their voters more choice and more freedom and more ownership of their own

01:24:17.420 decisions. And I think some might disagree, but you know, on integrity and accountability,

01:24:23.740 Polis was the best Democratic governor. Now that may be a low bar, you can decide. But when it comes to

01:24:29.440 COVID, you know, he's not implemented vax mandates and mask mandates, and he was the first to open the

01:24:37.040 schools. And he really didn't trust the folks in Colorado to make the decisions for themselves,

01:24:43.100 which is why we came here. You know, we came here for that reason. We came from California because

01:24:48.980 the schools were open in Colorado before other Democratic strongholds. Clearly, DeSantis runs on some

01:24:56.340 of those same things. So they are very different stylistically. But I think there's a lesson there

01:25:01.800 for the other candidates who may have, you know, eked it out in one state or another.

01:25:09.220 That's reminding me of you, undoubtedly, given your all your history was speaking out bravely on COVID.

01:25:16.480 Of course, you were 100% right on opening the schools. It's insane to me. I said this the first

01:25:21.680 time we talked that that was your quote sin that you wanted the school. That's what got people so

01:25:26.620 upset. Okay, sure. But in any event, the Atlantic just did an article on on Ron DeSantis. The headline

01:25:33.120 is that they said it was a gamble. Yes. But what they basically said was, okay, here's what he did.

01:25:42.740 He gave people freedom. They were free. People were free in Florida, free to support their family,

01:25:47.620 free to attend school, free to run a business, free from the constraints of fog glasses and not being

01:25:52.140 able to unlock their iPhone. To that, a liberal might add, free to get sick or even die from a

01:25:57.520 respiratory disease for which safe, effective vaccines are available, which is exactly the point.

01:26:02.140 DeSantis, his COVID policies reassured members of his political base that they were in control.

01:26:06.600 They understood the risks and took them anyway. And although Florida had a relatively high COVID

01:26:09.740 death toll, the welter of confounding factors, weather, demographics, wealth denied liberals the

01:26:15.920 smackdown they craved. Kind of interesting. It's a begrudging. Okay. Yeah. And first of all,

01:26:23.260 the headline makes me a little nuts. It wasn't a gamble. It's exactly what almost every European

01:26:28.400 country did, which is in the article, right? How can that be a gamble? We were the outlier here in the

01:26:34.240 U.S. in the blue states and cities. He also allowed people who were sick and dying in the hospital to

01:26:41.700 have relatives with them. Like this was the humane choice. And he wasn't betting on it. He was informed

01:26:49.300 by data. He did a round table with doctors. Did any other governors do that? Not that I know of. They

01:26:54.620 just adopted the stance handed down from public health. I would be willing to wager a lot that he

01:27:02.860 is more informed on COVID data than any of the other governors. But like I said, Polis also was very

01:27:11.300 reasonable. He got the schools opened. He didn't mandate masks or the vaccine. And so there's a lot of

01:27:20.560 overlap there. And so I think they were the most dominant in every race. And Polis, they're saying, turned

01:27:26.880 his state that was once purple, blue. DeSantis turned a state that was recently purple, red.

01:27:33.000 But they did it in a similar way, if you think about it. Now, stylistically, they're very, very

01:27:38.200 different. Polis is much sort of quieter and more reserved. DeSantis is not that. He's fiery. But it's

01:27:45.880 not just fire and brimstone and screaming at people and calling them names. He actually is putting the

01:27:50.600 policies into place that the citizens of Florida want. Then you have Whitmer, who dominated in

01:27:56.800 Michigan despite being governor lockdown. But abortion was a very big deal there. And you got

01:28:01.740 Kokel winning in New York. But we're so blue in New York. It's just tough to unsee. I mean,

01:28:06.360 Lee Zeldin did a great job, but it's just tough. Let me ask you about this.

01:28:09.900 Some of the local races Republicans did get in in New York. And I will say one, I will make one other

01:28:15.440 point is there was a real sort of trend towards school choice in this election, whether it was

01:28:21.640 school board candidates or governors, even, you know, Governor Hochul lifted the whatever the limit

01:28:27.940 on charters. Pritzker supported private school vouchers. So that isn't something people are talking

01:28:36.800 about a ton. Corey DeAngelis is. But there is a real trend towards choice for schools, for parents.

01:28:43.720 And it came from both Republicans and Democrats. Now we'll see if folks like Pritzker and Hochul

01:28:49.500 follow through. Yeah, I got to tip the hat to Moms for Liberty down in Florida. I spoke with this

01:28:54.600 there. They're beyond Florida. But I spoke to this group a couple years ago. And they talked about how

01:28:59.500 they had run for school boards. And they were out there knocking on doors trying to change some of

01:29:03.080 these COVID policies and stand up for their kids on the radicalization of the agenda being pushed on

01:29:08.280 them in the social agenda in schools. And one of them had dog feces slammed against her door. I mean,

01:29:14.800 they were getting a lot of incoming, but they kept going. They kept going. And the GOP dominated

01:29:21.280 every school board race in Florida, thanks to Governor DeSantis's endorsement to this past

01:29:26.940 Tuesday. There was another article in recent days. I think it was the New Yorker that was about the

01:29:31.620 sort of school choice wave that that happened in the election. They talk about Moms for Liberty

01:29:36.100 and basically call anyone who's for school choice a white Christian nationalist. So apparently that's

01:29:43.540 what I am now, even though I'm a Jewish atheist.

01:29:48.140 Detail. Stop it.

01:29:49.240 Okay, let's talk about the latest bit of quote, science, capital science, new, new study in the

01:29:56.000 New England Journal of Medicine. This is from our pal Carol Markowitz, again, New York Post saying

01:30:01.720 mask policies, this is what it purports to show that mask policies in schools work to contain COVID.

01:30:08.860 But that's not all. The authors conclude, quote, we believe that universal masking may be especially

01:30:14.300 useful for mitigating effects of structural racism in schools. Really? Including my favorite

01:30:20.880 potential deepening of educational inequities. And as Carol puts it, sure, they do. Why not?

01:30:27.220 And the next study will show masking fights climate change. This is an absurd study.

01:30:33.220 It's it goes back to the the woke thing. You know, it's like wokeness gone wild. All you have to do is

01:30:39.560 say that it fights structural racism and provides greater equality or equity. And you don't have to

01:30:46.760 defend it. They don't offer a rationale for it. No, they just say it like it's a fact. And I, you

01:30:53.180 know, there's a million confounders in that study, which make it incredibly flawed and smarter people,

01:30:58.780 scientists and doctors than me can get into that. But it's about timeframe. And, you know,

01:31:03.300 other confounding factors about the populations in those in those, each of those districts. But the

01:31:10.000 study is far from conclusive. But that line that it just exposes the absurdity, because and the fact

01:31:19.380 that they don't even bother to offer the rationale for that statement, I'd like to understand what they

01:31:24.500 think it is. I mean, honestly, and there has been nothing more structurally racist and classist

01:31:32.740 than closing schools for 18 months in deep blue states and cities where within the public schools,

01:31:38.540 you have predominantly low income children, black children, brown children, the, you know,

01:31:43.860 the nation's report card, the facts are clear, the learning loss is devastating, not to even get into

01:31:49.340 the mental health impacts. But the the data from the nation's report card, it concealed the worst of

01:31:57.160 it, because it's the lower income students, the black students that lost the most. And the results are

01:32:04.020 all just sort of blended and blurred. But it doesn't even get at the increased inequity that was caused

01:32:12.240 by these catastrophic. They got away with it. And, and no one's really, one of the things that was

01:32:19.320 frustrating for me in in the election is no one's really talking about what do we do now? Because

01:32:25.500 this is not you know, a lot of folks want to be like, Oh, the store schools were closed. Let's just

01:32:29.160 kind of move on amnesty. Let's grant amnesty. Peace. These, these, these kids are still suffering.

01:32:36.060 They are still chronic absenteeism in some schools is as high as in some districts is as high as 40%.

01:32:45.020 There's schools, public schools, individual schools in San Francisco, where chronic absenteeism is as

01:32:50.420 high as 90%. This problem is going to be with us for a long time. The disengagement is going to lead to

01:32:58.180 higher dropout rates. We know what that leads to lower life expectancy, higher incarceration rates, like

01:33:05.780 it's not over because the schools are open now and kids are still restricted. Look, Governor Hochul is

01:33:10.860 still threatening all kinds of mandates. So it's not over. And people tell me all the time, you know,

01:33:18.120 just drop it. It's over. Well, it's not over. No, without a woman. The woman who wrote that piece,

01:33:24.420 what Emily Oster, what's her name? Emily. That's her. You got it. Right. In the Atlantic calling for

01:33:30.820 amnesty for people who got things wrong. And, uh, on COVID, the absurd, like if that had been done

01:33:35.740 the other way, this white woman, who's got a very well-paying job at Brown university, married with

01:33:41.800 two kids and like the great house and the, and you know, very celebrated author as well, basically

01:33:47.260 looked at a bunch of black and Brown children who had been disadvantaged and was like, let's move on.

01:33:52.040 Amnesty. Can you imagine the blowback? If she, if she'd been a Republican trying to defend some sort

01:33:57.880 of Republican errors, this is a Democrat trying to defend herself or her fellow party men who got it

01:34:03.920 really wrong. Tell that to the kids that you just listed who still aren't back at school. Why should

01:34:08.860 they, the people who hurt them get amnesty? Well, and she's talking about one way amnesty. Where's my

01:34:13.980 amnesty? I still don't know. You don't get it. No. Right. Right. It's not about me. I, you know,

01:34:19.640 I, one quick thing back to the book though, it, you know, it is largely about that, but it is also

01:34:23.880 a memoir just about being a woman in corporate America for the last 30 years, which I'm sure you

01:34:28.360 can relate to. And, and, um, one of the things I most appreciate about my situation now, and I

01:34:33.680 remind myself of this is I'm free. I'm free to say what I want. I'm free to stand up for what I

01:34:39.660 believe in. And there's not anything that can stop me from doing that. Yeah. Levi's unbuttoned,

01:34:45.680 but also Jennifer say unbuttoned. I like it. Cause it's like a little saucy. You're

01:34:49.600 like, Oh, what? Unbuttoned. That makes me go to a different. Anyway, I love, love the title.

01:34:54.660 No, no, I know. I know. I know. But I, I love it. It's a great book. And your personal story is

01:34:59.420 incredible. Some of which we highlighted in our last exchange, but you read the book. You will

01:35:04.300 not be sorry. Jennifer's got a lot of smart things to say on a lot of issues. Levi's unbuttoned. Check

01:35:10.060 it out. All the best to you, Jen. Thank you, Megan. Tomorrow, as I mentioned, Senator Rand Paul is back

01:35:15.520 with us. What does he think about what's happened in the Senate and what's next for Fauci? Download the

01:35:19.440 show and see you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - November 14, 2022

Independents Go Blue, Trump's Announcement, and COVID Lockdown Harms, with Victor Davis Hanson and Jennifer Sey ｜ Ep. 434

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