The Megyn Kelly Show - James Woods on Biden's Farewell and Political Bias in Hollywood, and Jim VandeHei on the Trump Era Media and More

00:00:00.500 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.920 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.040 What a show we have for you today.

00:00:16.880 President Joe Biden giving his farewell address of sorts last night,

00:00:21.800 an 11-minute scripted campaign-like speech that was, as the New York Times described,

00:00:27.720 delivered, quote, with a rasp and a slight slur in his voice, speaking sometimes haltingly.

00:00:33.560 Remember all those descriptions before he dropped out, before this became an issue by the New York

00:00:38.700 Times when they would point out how he was obviously deteriorating before the debate?

00:00:43.020 No, me neither. Now we're going to be super obvious and on the nose and all over his deterioration

00:00:50.700 because he's a liability and he will be the dumping ground for everything in order to inoculate her.

00:00:57.720 In any event, the speech gave no indication why he stepped aside as the nominee. I guess

00:01:02.700 we're not entitled to know. I guess it's just going to remain a mystery. It's up to our little

00:01:07.300 imaginations, but still somehow is fit to remain president. Other than the clear implication that

00:01:13.240 this was all done for political purposes only. Duh. But the point is, why? What made him a political

00:01:19.440 liability? Was it the fact that he's non-compass mentis but still remains as our president? I guess

00:01:25.820 we're just supposed to skip past that. His replacement, Kamala Harris, is getting a massive

00:01:31.120 assist, meantime, from the compliant media. My God, they're disgusting. They're so disgusting.

00:01:37.960 So busy memory holing her actual record this week. I mean, it's everywhere. It's ubiquitous.

00:01:44.200 The number of media outlets that are running cover for her, fawning like a high school sophomore

00:01:51.820 asked to the prom by the football captain and also scrubbing all the records of that football

00:02:00.420 captain's criminal history or his run-ins with the law, whatever. I can't think of the analogy of

00:02:08.740 what Kamala Harris has done. Saying dumb things, being super political one way, so much so that

00:02:14.800 they dubbed her the most liberal person in the Senate. That's been memory holed as well.

00:02:18.180 It's just absurd what they're doing. There's no better person to talk to about this than my first

00:02:23.580 guest, who is someone I have never spoken to before, but I'm super excited to bring to you

00:02:28.300 today. He doesn't do many interviews, although his ex-account gives a good idea of his point of

00:02:32.800 view these days and is a must-follow. Legendary, award-winning actor, James Woods.

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00:03:35.240 So happy to be on this show. You have no idea. By the way, it's been years probably since I've done

00:03:42.740 press. I don't want to do press usually and for the obvious reasons because they are now by and large

00:03:48.640 the propaganda organ for the DNC as you and I and any rational American knows. But here we are now facing

00:03:56.560 the fact that once again they've marshaled their forces to jam through a candidate that is not only not

00:04:03.740 really qualified for what the majority of Americans would like for their country, but is actually,

00:04:09.180 I think, a danger to this country. Her progressive, uber-leftist ideology is something that will

00:04:17.440 literally, if not bring this country to its knees, and we'll get to that later as well,

00:04:23.940 then certainly will cripple it for a while. But I swear, after four years of Biden,

00:04:29.460 and with the possibility of four or eight years of Kamala Harris, I don't think this nation,

00:04:35.440 after 248 years of its existence, could actually continue in any way, shape, or form that we recognize

00:04:42.500 it to be. And good morning.

00:04:44.620 She's, good morning and thank you for doing the show, notwithstanding the fact that you don't do

00:04:49.260 many, and I know that. It really is amazing how she's been elevated to the nominee without a single

00:04:55.100 vote being cast for her. First time in my life I've agreed with BLM, which is tweeting nonstop

00:05:00.960 about that, saying, this is undemocratic what you're doing. I was shocked when I saw that. I mean,

00:05:06.560 I find myself, and I'm sure you are surprised by this as well, in the unenviable and surprising

00:05:12.140 position of agreeing with BLM and Bill Maher and so many people who, organizations that may have their

00:05:20.760 own particular attitude about how things are supposed to be in this country. And we are now

00:05:28.900 finding ourselves converging with a common ground of common sense.

00:05:39.260 So last night, did you watch the remarks?

00:05:42.220 Oh, of course. Of course I watched it. Yeah. And I was, look, I have to give you a caveat on my

00:05:49.120 position about Joseph Biden. First of all, he's not Joe Biden. He's not some happy, cheerful uncle.

00:05:55.120 He's a hair-sniffing, child-curious person who's been a bag man and a political hack for 50 years.

00:06:02.780 He has never done anything but service himself and his family, who has been a puppet for somebody,

00:06:09.380 I don't know who, for the last four years, and has been a political hack for 46 years before that.

00:06:16.480 But here's the problem. He clearly has dementia of some kind. I don't know if it's Lewy-Bott. I don't

00:06:24.300 know if it's Alzheimer's. I don't know if it's frontal lobe dementia. I don't know what is afflicting

00:06:29.860 him, but I have a cardinal rule about these things. I think it is cruel. It is unkind. It is incorrect.

00:06:35.980 And it is not fruitful in any way to torture a person who is mentally, I won't say mentally ill,

00:06:44.100 but who is suffering from cognitive decline at such a rapid and alarming rate as he is.

00:06:50.980 So from the time he got sick, which was probably before he was even elected, but certainly by his

00:06:56.300 first year in office, he, as the person he is now, is no longer fair game, I believe. However,

00:07:03.820 the loathsome, disgusting political hack that he was for over four decades in this country

00:07:11.360 is certainly fair game. What he did to Justice Clarence Thomas during those hearings was so

00:07:18.880 vile that how any, you know, his famous statement when he was starting to show him into God,

00:07:27.320 if you don't vote for Joe Biden, you ain't black. It's like, he's the most racist president we've

00:07:34.260 ever had since before Jim. Oh, I mean, it is amazing. And you've got him. He tried to take

00:07:40.340 down Clarence Thomas, his vice president, Kamala Harris, tried to take down Brett Kavanaugh on flimsy

00:07:45.700 allegations that she used to make herself look tough. But you're right, because we are being gaslit

00:07:51.320 right now about both of them since the strong arming worked to get him out. Last night, I'll

00:07:57.480 play you a little bit of his remarks just so the listening audience knows what we're talking about.

00:08:01.540 And then I'll play you some of the reaction, discussing him as just this selfless man who

00:08:06.740 loves democracy. Okay, so let's just listen to Biden last night in what turned out to be a very

00:08:12.300 harshly partisan address from the Oval Office. Take a listen.

00:08:16.640 I revere this office, but I love my country more. It's been the honor of my life to serve

00:08:23.240 as your president. But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it's more important

00:08:30.040 than any title. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America's

00:08:38.060 future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy.

00:08:47.640 That includes personal ambition. So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new

00:08:54.640 generation. That's the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years

00:09:03.300 of experience in public life. There's also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices. Yes,

00:09:10.440 younger voices. And that time and place is now. Ben Franklin was asked as he emerged from the

00:09:18.000 convention going on, whether the founders have given America a monarchy, a republic.

00:09:26.600 Franklin's response was, a republic, if you can keep it. A republic, if you can keep it. Whether we

00:09:36.720 keep our republic is now in your hands. So it was all, really, he was using his

00:09:41.540 11-minute farewell to stick the dagger in Trump. But honestly, it's staggering. Unity is so important.

00:09:49.460 Unity, when you call half the country MAGA degenerate Nazis, and their candidate is Hitler, which they

00:09:59.660 said 10,000 times in lockstep themselves, the most Nazi-esque behavior you could ever imagine.

00:10:07.720 You know what Nazis do? They imprison their political opponents. They marshal their lawfare

00:10:15.480 army, and they go after you and try to destroy you. When you're in office, they create false mandates.

00:10:22.880 They create false fictions. The Russia hoax led by that pencil neck geek, who unfortunately is one of

00:10:30.940 the representatives of my state, Adam Schiff. By the way, what happened at the standard, Adam?

00:10:34.920 Another question, you know, Ed Buck's buddy, Adam Schiff, who is literally one of the few people

00:10:41.460 in the history of the United States House of Representatives who has been censured for being

00:10:47.040 a liar. Okay? They try to destroy, and when it works, then one of their minions, one of their insane

00:10:57.300 followers who's been fired up by their hateful, hateful, non-unity rhetoric decides to

00:11:04.880 try to put a bullet in the leading candidate for president of the United States. And a third of

00:11:12.080 them, according to polls, say that they wish the assassin hadn't missed. You tell me if that's you.

00:11:20.040 You tell me if that's love. It is, you know, you talk about this isn't a dictatorship. We don't have

00:11:27.420 emperors and kings here. You've got a candidate now who's going to be running for president of the

00:11:32.480 United States who's never gotten a single vote in a caucus for her from her party.

00:11:41.680 Okay? What we've seen with her is the closest thing we've seen to a coronation since we broke

00:11:47.360 off from old Great Britain. But because it's important to give him his payment, right? His

00:11:53.500 payment for withdrawing under duress was, we'll make a king out of you, and then she'll be the queen. But

00:11:59.140 we'll make a lion out of you. You'll get your library. We'll say the nicest things. You'll be

00:12:03.260 the greatest thing since George Washington. And the media did its part. They understood that was

00:12:08.320 the deal. They lived up to the deal. I give you a sampling from last night after the speech, top five.

00:12:14.140 This was a speech for the history books. This is the type of speech that will be replayed for decades to come.

00:12:21.040 This moment puts him, you know, with a bunch of American greats, you know, the sort of George Washington.

00:12:26.760 This was selfless. This was selfless on a level, I think, that's important in a way that we talk about

00:12:31.900 George Washington being selfless and saying, I could keep doing this for me because I think I can.

00:12:37.280 Does characters still matter? Well, it does tonight. It does tonight. The kid with a stutter did good.

00:12:43.740 He did good. That's a good man. He fell on the sword. He had somebody sitting in that chair,

00:12:48.860 and he wouldn't give up power no matter what. Wouldn't give up power. Let there be an insurrection.

00:12:54.400 Wouldn't get out of that chair. Even when the people voted for you to get out of the chair,

00:12:58.040 he wouldn't get out of the chair. And you've got somebody who's sitting in that same chair

00:13:01.880 showing that character does matter. Gratitude is the word for so many people in this country

00:13:08.180 pointing to Joe Biden now and calling the patriot who stepped in when democracy needed it.

00:13:13.380 Unbelievable. I mean, to hear anyone in his or her right mind compared to George Washington

00:13:20.840 is just laughable. It's laughable and it's painful to think that we have to deal with this.

00:13:28.040 You know, I'm an organization, a wonderful organization called the Sons of the American

00:13:35.980 Revolution. I'm a direct ninth generation descendant of Gustavus Rieb who fought at the Battle of

00:13:42.240 Cowpens, which was the battle that was featured in the wonderful movie that Roland did with Mel

00:13:49.060 Gibson called The Patriot. Great Patriot ancestor was wounded there. When I see what this country

00:13:57.780 has become under Joe Biden and is destined to be further eroded under Kamala Harris, if lightning

00:14:08.420 strikes five times in a bottle and people end up being stupid enough, honestly, to believe the lies

00:14:14.380 about her and from her. I can't imagine that my ancestors are not spinning in their graves. You know,

00:14:21.580 I lost my dad when I was 12 years old. God rest his soul. He fought in two wars. He had two purple

00:14:29.720 hearts in World War II, fought in the Korean War, and he passed when I was 12 because he got the wrong

00:14:36.240 blood transfusion at a military hospital during a surgery. When you're a child and you lose a beloved

00:14:43.380 parent, you have these fantasies of what would it be like if he came back for one hour? What would you do?

00:14:48.580 You know, it's that kind of field of dreams thing about playing catch with your dad in the field of

00:14:54.120 dream. But I always thought, what would my dad and I talk about? And I thought recently, it's almost like

00:15:02.600 you have to imagine what would he ask? And if he said to me, what's happened since I've been gone?

00:15:11.080 And I said, well, you know, now they castrate five-year-olds because they have an illusion that

00:15:16.700 because they like the color pink that, you know, they're really a woman trapped in a five-year-old

00:15:21.200 male body. They do that. It's okay to have men march naked down the street with their genitalia

00:15:27.160 flopping around in San Francisco to celebrate a month of pride. Pride because they engage in certain

00:15:35.000 different sexual activities. It's when you say it out loud and in some objective way,

00:15:45.120 it sounds like such rampant madness that it's almost impossible to comprehend trying to tell a

00:15:53.800 person who had spilled blood for their country that, yes, you can stand in Washington, D.C. just

00:16:00.820 yesterday and watch Palestinian people, supporters, not Palestinian, supporters of a terrorist organization

00:16:10.500 dedicated to the eradication of the Jews that Hitler didn't yet, okay, and tear down the American flag,

00:16:17.460 gleefully burn it in our nation's capital, which they still have a right to do, believe it or not,

00:16:22.480 because of our glorious Bill of Rights that allows free speech and free expression, free assembly,

00:16:27.520 nonetheless, and then hoist the Palestinian flag over Union Station. It's unbelievable. It's

00:16:38.380 disgusting. What these people have done to this nation that I can't even grasp it. I just, I don't

00:16:47.560 understand. That's infuriating. Look at that. We're looking at it right now. They lowered the stars and

00:16:53.280 stripes in front of Union Station, and they're cheering as a Palestinian flag goes up. These

00:16:59.480 same people, the same Palestinians who would throw the gaze off the roof are going to celebrate their

00:17:04.720 culture, their background, their flag in front of Union Station in Washington, D.C., our nation's

00:17:09.840 capital, and everyone's just sitting around watching it. Oh, no, they're not sitting around.

00:17:14.460 They're actively participating. And here's the problem. When they say from the river to the sea,

00:17:19.560 ask them two questions, which river, which sea? They don't even know. You know, they chirp these

00:17:27.560 mantras that are provided to them by the mainstream media, the legacy media, the corporate media. Oh,

00:17:34.100 let's just face it, the fluffers for the abominable abortion that news media has, they have become.

00:17:42.420 They're a joke. I mean, the New York Times won the Pulitzer Prize for the Russia hoax, which their own

00:17:51.040 guy, Mueller, said, no, it wasn't a hoax. It didn't exist. It was a waste of taxpayer money,

00:17:57.860 and it interfered with our president trying to serve us during his term and fulfill the promises that he

00:18:05.360 made that we voted for. But instead, he had to be distracted by all of this ridiculous nonsense.

00:18:10.900 But you know what? The Hunter Biden laptop doesn't exist, according to our intelligence sources. And

00:18:18.240 let me speak to that for a second, if I may. I have several friends, because I've had my life

00:18:23.880 threatened more times than I can tell you from my political views. I've had my career destroyed

00:18:29.180 because of it. I had an agent who probably was 20 bears deep when he did it on the 4th of July send me

00:18:35.000 a text and say, I'm feeling patriotic today. I'm going to drop you as a client. Let me rephrase

00:18:41.340 that. Here's what he really meant. You vote differently from me in the United States of America,

00:18:47.320 so you don't deserve to have the career that you worked your ass off for for 40 years,

00:18:53.020 and I'm going to destroy it and blacklist you. And that's what this piece of shit did. Pardon my French.

00:19:00.080 OK. Now, the good news is he lost his. Yeah, he lost his biggest client and so on. And then I said,

00:19:07.140 well, I've got to find a way to pull myself up by my bootstraps. And thanks to two wonderful people

00:19:12.160 in my life. David Wargo, my friend from MIT and my glorious best friend for my entire career in

00:19:19.280 Hollywood. And man, I helped get into the business. Chuck Rovin, the three of us together. David and I

00:19:27.500 brought Chuck a book called American Prometheus and said, do you think you can call your associate

00:19:35.360 and friend, Chris Nolan, see if you can get him interested in this project that we've been trying

00:19:40.760 to get off the ground for five years? And he did. And the rest was history. And I was able, thank God,

00:19:48.460 of up by my bootstraps. And, you know, and it was wonderful when Chuck, you know, won the Oscar.

00:19:55.180 And the first thing he did was thank myself and David. First thing that was, that was sweet

00:20:00.020 justice. Even for me, James, even where I was just to see, I have to thank you to see you back

00:20:04.800 with the award winning. I mean, it won every award Oppenheimer did and they had to think that was

00:20:09.940 sincere, but like everyone in Hollywood had to bow down and say, this was a great idea.

00:20:15.780 Yeah. And well, the nice thing about it was, look, if you can put anything in Christopher Nolan's hands

00:20:22.100 and he says, yes, they have this open up. He's a remarkable, great. Cindy asked his, his wife and

00:20:30.880 producer partner, Emma Thomas, wonderful woman. And Chuck Rovin, do you know that I, I'm the executive

00:20:39.480 producer of Oppenheimer. And you know, I did it all on a handshake. We all just shook hands and we made

00:20:45.860 that movie and we, well, we didn't make the movie. We watched the movie. Chuck and of course Nolan made

00:20:51.760 the movie, but we, we, we were able to put that together because these are decent people. By the way,

00:20:58.160 Chuck is more liberal, you know, in his politics than, than I am, uh, never interferes. We can talk

00:21:05.540 about anything. We don't have to hate each other. I'm going to say something on your show. That's

00:21:09.780 going to shock you. I'm going to try. I'm going to lose a million followers on Twitter right now.

00:21:17.400 I love Whoopi Goldberg. I hate her politics. I think she's insane with her politics, but I worked

00:21:23.800 with Whoopi on a movie, a ghost of Mississippi. I got an Oscar nomination. It was a great experience.

00:21:29.240 I got to meet Van Evers, uh, you know, and, and, uh, I, it was just a remarkable experience.

00:21:38.700 Whoopi and I had the best time together. She was such a sweet person. We became great friends.

00:21:45.780 I like her. And if Whoopi Goldberg and I sat in a room, I'd sit down and go, who wants to start

00:21:51.760 first? Cause no matter who starts first, the person who starts is going to say, why are you so nuts?

00:21:57.440 But here's the difference between, I think, like people say you're a conservative firebrand. I was

00:22:05.040 a Democrat for 20 years. I'm not a conservative firebrand. I am a centrist. I believe in the

00:22:10.760 constitution of the United States of America. I believe in the laws of the land and you should

00:22:15.740 obey the laws of the land. If you're a citizen and you should honor your oath of office to support

00:22:20.400 and enforce the laws of the land. If you are an elected leader, I don't believe that somebody like

00:22:26.860 Gavin Newsom can say, well, you know, Santa California voted for the death penalty, but

00:22:30.460 I'm just not going to enforce it. I was like, okay, great. Then I'm not going to acknowledge

00:22:35.120 your gun laws. I'm going to run around with a AK 47 shooting up the sidewalks. Of course not.

00:22:41.540 You don't get to disobey the laws selectively, but Democrats do. We don't do that.

00:22:46.940 Can I ask you about this? Because I love this. I love, I also have so many friends who are Democrats,

00:22:53.220 who are liberals. I don't really have any woke friends, but I do have a lot of dear, lovely

00:22:59.300 Democrat friends. And I read that you're actually friends with Rob Reiner too, who is one of the

00:23:06.060 biggest drunk critic. That's a big, you worked very early on together. I understand you maintain

00:23:10.820 the friendship. Well, it was the same movie, but, but let me say something about, about Rob. Okay.

00:23:16.760 Rob Reiner is a patriot. And by that, I mean, he is passionate about ideas that he believes

00:23:32.240 in. Hey, it's the United States of America. You can believe what you want. And the things

00:23:37.320 that he believes in are to him, the way to make America great again. Now it may not be

00:23:48.800 great in the way that some of the ideas I'd like to see to make America great again. It

00:23:55.600 may not be that, may not, we not have an equivalency there, but I believe that he truly cares about

00:24:03.660 this country. And that's one of the reasons he's so passionate. I think he's very wrong about a lot

00:24:09.120 of his social aggressive ideas, but you know, he's entitled to that. What's magnificent about this

00:24:18.140 country is that Rob Reiner and I can be friends and completely disagree about just about everything,

00:24:25.260 quite frankly. But you know what? Rob fought for, didn't want me for Ghost of Mississippi. And I

00:24:32.540 promised him, I said, if you take the chance and hire me, I'll get you an Academy Award nomination

00:24:39.140 with my performance, because this is an important story. And it was, it was about the assassination

00:24:44.440 of Medgar Evers, you know, and while hateful people, oh, good, I'm glad I got shot. Let me tell you a

00:24:52.920 wonderful story about that one. We were filming in Jackson, Mississippi. I'm all made up in this

00:24:58.280 make up, be like Byron D. LeBeckwith. Byron D. LeBeckwith happened to be kept after he was

00:25:05.240 convicted for murder, for life, instead of being in the state prison where he would have been

00:25:10.820 murdered. The state of the Commonwealth, Louisiana, is it a Commonwealth state? Whatever, of Louisiana

00:25:18.140 has a responsibility to protect their prisoners. So they put him in the jail in Jackson, Mississippi,

00:25:24.920 in the county jailhouse, which is above their, I think is above their city hall and so on. So he was

00:25:31.040 in the jail, in the hospital part of the jail, looking down on us when we were filming the story.

00:25:41.980 And I walk out of the limousine and I'm looking at the crowd and I look up and there's Byron D. LeBeckwith

00:25:47.780 in the jail window, hospital window, looking down. And I got a note to come into the courthouse.

00:25:59.820 And a lovely lady, she was one of the corrections officers that was assigned to oversee him. And she

00:26:09.200 said, Mr. Woods, I think she was actually a deputy sheriff as well, or a police officer. I'm not sure

00:26:16.120 what her exact, but she was a law enforcement personnel. Very robust black lady serving her

00:26:26.680 community. And she said, Mr. Woods, it's a pleasure to meet you. Mr. D. LeBeckwith has asked if you

00:26:34.900 might want to meet him. She said it very cordially. And I said, could you tell Mr. D. LeBeckwith that I

00:26:43.820 declined the invitation? And as an amendment to that thought, I hope he rots in hell and has his

00:26:50.960 gizzards eaten out by wild dogs. And she says, you know, I always thought I'd like you. You married?

00:27:00.260 Did not see that coming. Well done. Well, wait, this is so I've got it. I got to follow up with

00:27:09.000 this because I'm driving to something you among your many theatrical accomplishments. You were in

00:27:15.760 one of my and I venture to say most American women's favorite movies ever. A little film in 1973 called

00:27:24.040 The Way We Were. It was a very young James Woods playing opposite Barbara Streisand. You were

00:27:31.440 pals on the college campus and you, you know, you weren't Robert Redford didn't have that role,

00:27:37.760 but you were pretty, pretty prominently featured in this movie. And one of the things that you helped

00:27:43.440 her in was her on-campus protest. She was a communist and you guys were young and believed in these leftist,

00:27:49.740 you know, commie ideals. Correct. And we pulled a little clip of it. And then I'd love to ask you

00:27:54.360 whether you've maintained with Barbara, what you've maintained with Rob Ryan. Watch up, Katie. Yeah.

00:28:01.400 All the way to Moscow. You can still take communion and like the Soviet Union.

00:28:08.340 What's cooking in the Kremlin, Katie? The Kremlin is worried about the civil war in Spain. Are you?

00:28:15.200 Thousands of Spanish citizens are being bombed and machine gunned and murdered.

00:28:19.740 Only one country is sending help. One country. The Soviet Union.

00:28:28.080 Katie, be my k-k-k-k-comrade.

00:28:30.980 Okay. Just a little snippet, but she's, she's gone pretty far left too. And I wonder whether

00:28:40.220 there's any relationship there. Uh, you know, I bumped into her a couple of times and again,

00:28:45.440 you know, it's funny in our business, when you bump in to everybody, it's, I went, when, when I,

00:28:55.940 social media sort of changed things a lot. When I was kind of focused on social media as a more

00:29:03.160 conservative person and blacklisted because of that agent's behavior, vile behavior. I, uh,

00:29:10.780 I went to an opening of a film, a friend of mine had produced. It was kind of new to the business.

00:29:15.660 And I thought, okay, I'll go. It was at the Academy, uh, theater and you, you come down the

00:29:21.460 stairs and the place is mobbed. And I thought, Oh man, I felt like, I'm just, you know, I felt like

00:29:28.900 that one guy in the famous pictures of everybody saluting Hitler and he's not saluting Hitler.

00:29:33.060 So here I am. I'm at a meeting of the communist party and I'm, you have that room. People come

00:29:39.660 up to me and go, Hey, I just, you know, just want you to know I'm with you, but I, but you know,

00:29:44.040 I just don't want to say anything. And I said, and don't say anything. I said, because people

00:29:48.740 really are dangerous. They will, you know, that these casting directors now will look up your social

00:29:54.920 media history. They'll see who you follow and so on. Yeah. You know, I say to my friends,

00:29:59.800 I won't say who it is, but a very patriotic, great American who does wonderful things for

00:30:06.720 people in this country, supports veterans and a wonderful guy. He said, you know, being just

00:30:13.520 moderately conservative in this country, just being conservative, uh, in America today is like

00:30:20.600 being gay in the fifties. It's almost like you have to whisper. I see people say to me, we'll be

00:30:25.760 talking, they go, you know, I'm thinking of voting for Trump, but I go, you don't have to

00:30:29.580 whisper this. This is the United States. You don't have to whisper that you're going to vote for

00:30:35.740 the most popular person in the country right now, in terms of the polls to be the next president of

00:30:43.900 the United States. You actually don't have to apologize for exercising your first amendment

00:30:50.160 rights. And we've got to stop doing that. You know, but if you ever want to work again in Hollywood,

00:30:55.840 or if you want to make a career there as a young, different, different story, you must be keep

00:31:01.240 quiet. Oh yeah. You have no chance. I mean, look, it's really funny. When, when Oppenheimer came out,

00:31:09.840 there was a discussion about my Twitter and it was gently suggested that I basically remain invisible,

00:31:20.840 which was painful. On the other hand, I'm a pragmatic person. And I thought a lot of people

00:31:27.780 put their effort into this. So I'm just going to be an invisible pariah because the people who are

00:31:33.720 going to be voting for Oscars, which is very important for a film to get Oscars, uh, because

00:31:38.740 it does help with the financial reward and the historical archive in which it will rest forever,

00:31:45.880 Academy award winning best picture Oppenheimer. You know, I don't want to deprive those people.

00:31:51.140 I don't want to have some nutcase come out of the woodwork, fabricate some ridiculous story

00:31:55.880 about me. I've had a million of them said, they're all lies. I don't want that to happen and have the

00:32:02.780 clickbait story be, Hey James, what's the executive producer of Oppenheimer? We're not going to watch that

00:32:07.880 movie. So, you know, I just, I stepped back and basically, you know, took one for the team and

00:32:15.620 just, you wouldn't even know. I wasn't even invited to the producer's guild award. I'm a producer on the

00:32:20.460 picture. And I was not invited to go to the producer's guild award, which is fine awards, by the

00:32:26.520 way, one, but you know, it's not that environment was not the one that my father shed blood for.

00:32:34.040 Uh, it's not the one that I see as the America. I would like to see my late brother, God rest his

00:32:43.160 soul, my late brother's children. And they're now their, their children, not the future I see for

00:32:49.120 them. I'd like you to be able to vote for wherever you want to. And people say, you know what? You

00:32:52.840 have a right to do it, man. I disagree with you, but come have dinner and so on. And I just don't know

00:32:58.200 why there's this vicious underlying cancer that has destroyed our business. And here's where it

00:33:07.720 comes from. Oh, by the way, I got a little secret project coming out soon in October. Can't say

00:33:15.560 anything about it. Um, if you go to my website, jameswoods.com, there'll be a little hint of what

00:33:23.560 it might be, but I can't say another word about it because it's going to, but some things are going

00:33:27.560 to kind of come out because, because I decided to embrace the second act. Oh, look at you. You

00:33:34.520 are such a little devil. I couldn't figure it out though. I have the picture, but I don't know what

00:33:42.040 it's telling me. Yeah. And you're going to have to think about this now for the next couple of months,

00:33:46.280 but we're going to be teasing stuff out. If you sign up, give your email on my, on the website. Um,

00:33:52.200 you'll, uh, uh, you'll be given updates on, on it. Um, it's, uh, it's a project that's just

00:33:59.960 unbelievably near and dear to my heart. And the good thing is I'm doing more stuff now. I'm,

00:34:04.360 I'm involved in the production of Oliver Stone's new movie. I love Oliver. He's difficult. We disagree

00:34:10.840 on everything. We fight all the time. And he came to me and said, Hey, Jimmy, you know,

00:34:15.960 you think you can help with this project like you did with Oppenheimer? And I said,

00:34:18.920 I think I can. And, you know, I've got Chuck and Alex Gartner, and of course, Fernando Sulichin,

00:34:24.840 who's, who's, um, who's, uh, Oliver's, uh, producer. And, uh, the four of us are together

00:34:31.400 on a handshake, kind of just trying to get this beautiful project put together and we will,

00:34:36.440 and it's going to be fantastic. So, you know, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said,

00:34:40.520 there are no second acts in American lives, but my second act, they're shaping up

00:34:45.080 pretty well. And I give all the credit to somebody who's sitting there off camera,

00:34:51.720 my absolutely beloved, brilliant wife, who Sarah, who is, she's like this extraordinary

00:35:01.080 photographer. Oh, there she, that was, that's the night of the Oscars.

00:35:04.440 By the way, everybody tries to get into the Vanity Fair party. We were living at the time

00:35:11.000 in the wonderful Lermatage Hotel. If you ever stay in Beverly Hills, stay at the Lermatage,

00:35:15.000 wonderful people there. We were staying there while we were renovating the house we're in now.

00:35:19.080 And for some reason there was our local internet provider gave us a hard time. So I had the camera

00:35:25.080 set up in our living room. So beautiful for the refrigerator because we're near, uh,

00:35:31.320 sorry, the connection was bad because they were doing some, but there we are anyway. So my beloved

00:35:37.240 boy, like I'll be watching poker on TV and she'll be in the other room. She'll be doing stuff. And I

00:35:42.840 figure out she's probably watching the Kardashians or something. And along the way, all of a sudden I said,

00:35:48.040 what are you doing? So, you know, my book. I said, what? I said, what? My book. I said,

00:35:55.240 your book? What book? She goes, I'm, you know, I'm writing a book. Well, first of all, she's,

00:36:04.200 this is a little scary. She's an unbelievable expert on every murder ever committed.

00:36:09.720 Yeah. She's my kind of gal. I'm ready to, I'm ready to solve crime with Sarah.

00:36:14.520 Sarah. Oh, great. Let's have a threesome. So I, you can both stab me to death after you

00:36:18.600 duct tape me to a chair. That'd be fun. Uh, yeah. Oh, she, she, she, uh,

00:36:23.560 I can't believe I just asked Megan Kelly on air to have a threesome. Anyway. Okay. Anyway. Um, no,

00:36:31.000 I said, I said, I'm sorry. Well, what's your, what's your book about? She goes, well,

00:36:34.520 I've got a few chapters. Do you want to read it? And now I go, now I got to read my wife's book.

00:36:44.920 And, you know, I said, Sarah, you know, I'm a professional producer. I'm, you know that,

00:36:50.200 right? She goes, yeah, honey. I know that. I said, so do you want to, Oh, darling, this is wonderful.

00:36:56.760 It's so cute. You want that? She said, Nope. I want your straight answer. I got a book,

00:37:00.600 got a manuscript. Why don't you read it like a producer? I said, okay, what do you have? Seven

00:37:06.920 chapters. Okay. I read the seven chapters and I put it down and I go, I say the three words,

00:37:15.880 every writer wants to hear and which are almost a guarantee. If you write a thriller or a mystery

00:37:22.520 to get your movie made or your book made into a movie, what happens next? She goes, what? I said,

00:37:30.600 what happens next? She goes, well, I'm working on it. I got it. I can't, but you're going to tell me

00:37:34.600 I'm your husband. She goes, no, Mr. Big Shot. I'm a producer. I'm going to give you the answer.

00:37:40.760 No, you'll get it when I'm ready. And I said, I can't believe it. You've been sitting in there

00:37:46.760 all this time, writing a book over the past, whatever we've been four years and whatever.

00:37:51.960 She goes, that's sort of accurate. And she didn't tell you. You'll get it when I'm ready,

00:37:59.400 by the way, is sort of the cardinal rule of marriage, but go ahead.

00:38:03.080 No, no. Here's the, here's the punchline. I said, she was, I wasn't writing a book. I said,

00:38:09.960 oh, I'm confused. I wrote four books. What?

00:38:14.680 I said, we've been married almost a decade. And in the process, you've managed to write three and a

00:38:20.120 half novels. And I didn't know about it. Cause you know, I'm, I'm Hercule Perrault. I know what's

00:38:27.640 going on around here. I'm in a 2,200 square foot house on the beach. There's no way she can ever

00:38:34.520 get away from it. Hey, what are you doing over there? And you know, she's writing like novels and

00:38:39.320 her photography, as you probably know, if you follow her online, I mean, everybody on X loves

00:38:44.600 Sarah's pictures. Uh, in fact, on my website, I think it may be in the future. We're going to,

00:38:48.600 so many people have asked, uh, she's I I'm just going to do it. We're going to publish a book of

00:38:53.100 her photography and, and let people, uh, be blessed with the experience of seeing that. I love my wife.

00:38:58.840 She's just, well, I love that honestly. And I think James, especially in your position,

00:39:03.020 I can speak to this to some extent myself when you're under attack all the time,

00:39:07.200 having true love in your life makes it all tolerable. It's like you have this other source

00:39:12.740 in your life. You're like, this is what matters. This is what makes me happy. This person's opinion

00:39:16.280 matters to me. And none of the others does. Well, and, and by the way, you can now extrapolate out

00:39:23.880 from that and say right now, you know, it's the honeymoon period and everybody, Oh, come Harris.

00:39:30.600 Oh my God. She's a new queen of America and all this stuff. Yeah. She's a person who wants mandatory

00:39:36.360 buyback of your guns. She doesn't care that the border is open. Basically. She doesn't even want

00:39:41.040 the fact that if you break the law and come across as this, uh, fictional border that we no longer

00:39:46.460 have, look, uh, you know, she wants to get rid of fracking offshore drilling. She wants to have

00:39:51.560 everybody drive off carts the rest of their life. It goes on and on and on. She's the chairman Mao

00:39:58.160 of America and she's masquerading in some little outfit. Like she's some little liberal doll who

00:40:06.180 was, you know, you know, taking care of law and order in California. Yeah. Putting black men in

00:40:12.000 prison for smoking marijuana. And I can say this, but you don't think Kamala Harris has smoked

00:40:17.680 marijuana. Have you ever seen some of the videos? She finally admitted that she has. She finally,

00:40:21.600 she admitted on Charlemagne the God that she has. She thought that was super funny,

00:40:24.320 but didn't have much of a laugh at the people she put in prison for it.

00:40:28.240 Well, the people who were murdered in prison probably because, you know, when you go to

00:40:31.400 prison, a lot of times you get murdered for other things because you aren't in the right

00:40:35.020 gang or whatever, but you know, she doesn't care and they don't care. And, you know, to say,

00:40:41.480 look, when I was on Twitter, it's a funny thing. Elon Musk has blocked me

00:40:46.180 and I love Elon.

00:40:48.540 You got in a fight with Elon.

00:40:49.560 I mean, he's one of like the greatest ever, but he had wanted to take away the blocking feature

00:40:56.460 and I fought against it. So he thought it'd be cute and blocked me. And I said, thank you.

00:41:01.580 You're proving my point. People have a right to block people. I don't think it would have been

00:41:05.680 great had he banished me from X and he didn't to his credit. But he blocked me, which I think

00:41:14.120 it's kind of his loss in a way. I saw the point he was trying to make because he and I share so many

00:41:20.300 ideals that we believe in.

00:41:23.020 He'll probably unblock you. He's probably temporarily irritated. I don't see that lasting.

00:41:28.920 And this is really important. I don't care if he unblocks me. I don't need his approval.

00:41:34.580 What I admire him for is that he didn't ban me. When Jack Dorsey and the cabal were running Twitter,

00:41:44.420 I got banned from Twitter for seven months for paraphrasing Ralph Waldo Emerson.

00:41:53.540 I basically said, if you try to kill the king, you better not miss. And they said, well, that's

00:41:59.680 violent. And they said, we won't let you back on unless you retract it. At the time,

00:42:05.040 I had two million, three million followers. And I said, fine. I don't give a fuck. It's fine. I

00:42:10.160 don't have to go back on Twitter. I was like, oh, my God. It's like, I don't care. I don't need

00:42:14.600 people.

00:42:14.840 Yeah, but we missed your account. We were happy that he restored you.

00:42:16.960 I know. You may have missed my account. But here's what you don't want, Megan. You don't

00:42:21.260 want my account with me. Look, it's the same with these people who wanted to fund the police.

00:42:25.720 If you worry about being murdered, raped, carjacked, whatever, in Joe Biden's or Joseph

00:42:30.640 Biden's America, and it's going to be that way. Kamala Harris is America. God forbid if she's

00:42:35.240 ever elected. God forbid that ever happens. You know, then you might want to rethink your

00:42:41.540 position of defunding the police because the police cannot defend you when they have their

00:42:46.820 hands tied behind their backs. OK, all the things. Yeah. As the whole country is learning the hard

00:42:53.220 way. Wait, I've got to get something. This is in the news, and I want to get your thoughts on it.

00:42:57.020 It's a Hollywood thing kind of in your wheelhouse. So yesterday, this week, J.D. Vance is under fire

00:43:02.800 for a comment he made a few years back on the Tucker Carlson show in which he said, you know,

00:43:09.020 there are these childless cat ladies who are miserable and they want you to be miserable, too.

00:43:14.220 And he was pointing out some of our elected officials who don't have children saying, you know,

00:43:17.860 that they have no stake in the future. It was a sort of, you know, tongue in cheek comment,

00:43:21.620 whatever. It was passing reference. Well, now all this shit has run has rained down on him like he

00:43:26.080 hates women and he hates people who have no children. And that's not true. But one of the

00:43:30.860 people who weighed in was Jennifer Aniston, who writes on her Instagram as follows. All I can say

00:43:37.280 is, Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.

00:43:44.160 I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option because you are trying to take that away

00:43:49.780 from her, too, which is not true. But I'll say this, James, to the point we had, we discussed

00:43:56.680 earlier, where was Jennifer Aniston standing up for little girls who are getting their breasts

00:44:02.560 chopped off for political purposes by people who are shoving this gender ideology down their

00:44:07.880 throats without figuring out that they might just be temporarily depressed or who are being forced

00:44:12.080 to compete against boys in high school sports to the point where they wind up partially paralyzed

00:44:18.140 and permanent nerve damage from the I didn't see her sticking up for that. I'm perfectly happy to

00:44:24.800 see her on board the women's rights train. But you know what? I haven't seen her there ever before on

00:44:29.940 any of the key issues that don't involve a passing reference and a stupid joke. First of all, I have

00:44:36.680 kind of a cardinal rule that I don't specifically say anything negative about other people in Hollywood

00:44:43.920 because it just becomes clickbait. So I'm not going to address a particular person.

00:44:50.260 Okay, I will.

00:44:51.460 Okay, I mean, I'm just being safe about it. And, you know, when you're a man, you have to be very

00:44:59.680 careful about how you address women's issues. Because I look, my dad died, God rest his soul,

00:45:08.160 when I was 12. I watched my mother, my mother would have been president, the first woman president of the

00:45:12.640 United States, if there were fair elections, and she were living in this era. Because she loved this

00:45:17.880 country. She knew how to make things better for people. She would be appalled at what they're doing

00:45:24.720 to girls today, because she had two granddaughters, and she loved them. I have a sister. I have my

00:45:31.080 brother's two daughters. You know, we have a girl on the way in our family. And look, to see a child,

00:45:45.480 a child of 12, 13, 14 years old, have a mastectomy because of politics.

00:45:55.080 You know, the Salem witch trials were about hysteria. When people believed in witches,

00:46:04.260 you could stir people up. And mass hysteria is one of the most dangerous phenomena in the history of

00:46:14.380 the world. Mass hysteria has been more responsible for wars, for concentration camps, for mass murder

00:46:25.300 by dictators, Pol Pot, Stalin, whatever. When you introduce sick, evil, medically, psychologically,

00:46:38.120 socially, humanistically, corrupt, cancerous ideas, contrary to human nature and all human value,

00:46:48.400 and try to make it seem normal when it's not, you are creating a whirlwind of destruction that can

00:46:58.340 lead to horrific results. Look, when you first discover your sexuality, and somebody,

00:47:06.800 a coach, whatever, gives you a library book for a boy, oh, it's okay to have anal sex, or whatever,

00:47:13.980 and so on. And the kid does it, and then the rest of his life is teased for being, you know,

00:47:18.600 and I won't use the words, the derogatory words they use. That is a cruelty beyond imagination.

00:47:25.780 And the longer these people keep doing it, the more the rest of us will band together and say,

00:47:31.200 we have got to bring this country back. And if going forward means more castrations, destruction,

00:47:40.100 evil by the progressive lunatic left, then I'm very happy. And I don't use this mantra ever. But I would

00:47:49.220 like to see America fulfill her greatest dreams and ambitions. And that will never happen under this

00:47:57.200 cackling clown we have now. And it certainly didn't happen under this gentleman who has cognitive

00:48:03.560 decline, and is currently in the White House, while the world's at war, which is another thing we could

00:48:08.140 talk about for another hour. I can't tell you how much I am honored and overjoyed to have been here

00:48:14.520 with you. I admire you. My mom would have loved you.

00:48:19.880 That is a high compliment. Thank you so much, James. I really hope you come back. I know you don't do a lot

00:48:24.460 of press, but we'd love to be one of the outlets you do do. My wife has never missed one. She, you

00:48:29.720 know, she's the one who's responsible. I said, you know, I don't do press. She goes, you got to do

00:48:33.380 Megan. I go, you're right. You got to do Megan. I hope she tries to beat me up. But you gave me a

00:48:37.640 pass this time. Next time. Well, next time we'll get into it. But I can't because I actually I love

00:48:42.940 what you say. And I love how forcefully you say it. We need 10 million more just like you. Thank you so

00:48:48.180 much. All right. See you soon. That was just fun. Oh, wow. It's great to hear a reasonable voice

00:48:54.060 who says it like it is. A lot more of that coming your way. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Do you

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00:50:01.880 Full-on chaos in our nation's capital as thousands of pro-Hamas and anti-American protesters

00:50:07.600 take to the streets. And yes, I do mean pro-Hamas. Their own flags and statements make it clear this is

00:50:12.980 not just pro-Palestinian. Voicing opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech

00:50:17.980 before Congress. Nearly two dozen people arrested, many just then released. The protesters defacing

00:50:24.500 American monuments, ripping down the American flag in favor of Hamas's and clashing with police.

00:50:32.220 As of this moment, we have yet to hear anything directly from President Biden. His senior deputy

00:50:38.060 press secretary managed to put out a comment saying, quote, identifying with evil terrorist

00:50:42.620 organizations like Hamas, burning the American flag or forcibly removing the American flag and replacing it

00:50:47.980 another is disgraceful. Every American has the right to peacefully protest, but shamefully,

00:50:53.240 not everyone demonstrated peacefulness. Good. But what kept the president from issuing a statement

00:50:59.500 directly condemning what we saw yesterday in Washington? I think we know the answer.

00:51:05.880 Well, last night, President Biden delivered his 11-minute speech, quitting the White House,

00:51:10.800 explaining why he's quitting his bid for a second term, making brief mention that he will continue to

00:51:15.840 call out hate and extremism. And of course, bringing up January 6th. That was followed by

00:51:21.860 an ice cream social with his staffers on the White House grounds, as noted by NBC's Peter Alexander.

00:51:27.260 As for Vice President Kamala Harris, shortly before we went to air, she finally issued a statement on

00:51:33.120 the unpatriotic protesters, only once she was under fire from J.D. Vance and others for saying nothing.

00:51:39.280 In the statement, she condemns individuals, quote, associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas

00:51:45.220 and condemns the burning of the American flag. Meantime, on Capitol Hill, roughly half of their

00:51:51.180 Democratic colleagues, roughly half in Congress, skipped the address by Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday,

00:51:57.920 including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Jim Clyburn, and of course, AOC.

00:52:03.280 One who did choose to attend, Michigan Congresswoman and Squad member Rashida Tlaib, who wore a Palestinian

00:52:10.120 flag pin as a sitting American member of Congress and a cafea, and repeatedly held up a sign reading

00:52:18.800 war criminal and guilty of genocide, as Mr. Netanyahu spoke. Outside, it was just bedlam and disgust.

00:52:29.400 I just can't believe what I saw in the nation's capital yesterday. The terrorist sympathizers

00:52:35.880 making comments like this one to Fox News' Griff Jenkins.

00:52:40.240 You saying you would support Hamas? Are you saying you support genocide?

00:52:46.320 What does Hamas have to do with 20,000 babies and children massacred and butchered? Women and

00:52:52.220 families. 400 universities flattened. Schools flattened. Hospitals flattened. Thousands of

00:52:58.460 hospital workers murdered. Do you think that has anything to do with the mosque or humanity?

00:53:03.260 It's human rights. We're human rights. Not the mosque.

00:53:07.080 What about the hostages? What do you say about the hostages that have been killed in California?

00:53:12.040 On October 7th, most of those people were killed by Israeli forces using the Hannibal Directive.

00:53:18.300 Hello, wake up. All right, so that's obviously not been proven to be the case,

00:53:23.200 but the protesters are getting very passionate out here.

00:53:27.000 Yeah, she seems nice. Timcast News also capturing this. Protesters burning the American flag,

00:53:37.160 chanting Allahu Akbar. Hello. You're not allowed to do that when it belongs to the federal government.

00:53:43.700 You want to burn your own flag? Go for it. That's the beauty of living in America. You can do and say

00:53:48.360 stupid, offensive things. But stealing federal property and burning it is a no-no. We used to

00:53:54.720 refer to that as a crime. They also, you could see, had put up an effigy of Benjamin Netanyahu.

00:54:01.720 Burn that shit! Burn that shit! Burn that shit! Burn that shit! Burn that shit! Burn that shit! Burn that shit!

00:54:19.700 One guy grabbed the burning flag and made a run for it, trying to save it. It was actually pretty great.

00:54:25.380 Then this crazy-ass mob ran after him and tried to attack him, even once they ripped the burning

00:54:31.900 flag back from the guy. They wanted to hurt him. Nice group of people. Those American flags were

00:54:37.000 ripped from their rightful place outside of D.C.'s historic Union Station and burned. How did the

00:54:41.800 media respond? Well, apparently Politico was upset that Republicans were upset. Quote,

00:54:48.480 Republicans pounce after Netanyahu protesters burn U.S. flags and wave Hamas ones instead. That was an

00:54:55.380 actual tweet sent out by Politico. What are you doing, Politico? That is the wrong headline.

00:55:02.900 Republicans pounce. They know this is a thing. Why do they keep doing it? Yet another example of how

00:55:07.780 out of touch they are. Real clear investigations. Mark Hemingway put it a very different way,

00:55:13.400 and I think he's closer to the truth. On one side, he has in his post, former President Trump

00:55:17.740 bloodied fist in the air with old glory waving behind him. On the other, anti-American protesters

00:55:23.500 burning our flag. As he puts it, the ad writes itself. When the dust settled yesterday, American

00:55:30.880 patriots took matters into their own hands, and good for them. It was a very sweet scene

00:55:36.880 after it all settled down involving former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who I really love this guy.

00:55:44.920 He's so reasonable. He's such a nice Twitter follow. He had biked over. He wasn't looking

00:55:49.780 for attention. He was doing this privately, but Breitbart was there documenting the scenes,

00:55:54.320 and they saw him do something that the others weren't doing, which was he biked over to place

00:55:58.920 his own personal flag at the scene. Breitbart captured it. Good for them. Clearly did not

00:56:03.540 realize who they were talking to. And listen as he explains why he felt it was important to do this.

00:56:08.800 Sir, I see you putting the American flag there. Just wondering why you're doing it.

00:56:15.260 I'm an American citizen. I'm proud of my country, and I don't like the fact that the flags are taken

00:56:19.260 down. So you just happened to be visiting D.C. today? No, I lived in the D.C. area. I was in the

00:56:25.160 government for a long time and served for many years, including the prior administration and

00:56:31.260 the FCC. And I love this country and everything it stands for. I'm as strong a believer in the First

00:56:36.980 Amendment, as you'll ever find. But I also do not like the fact that our nation's capital has been

00:56:42.580 defaced and defiled in certain ways, and in particular, the flag being taken down.

00:56:47.540 So I thought the least I could do is take the one flag that I could move from my house and bring it

00:56:53.140 here to make sure that the star-spangled banner still waves over the land of the free and the home

00:56:58.240 of the brave. God love him. Isn't that amazing? Again, not looking for attention, just did it privately

00:57:05.140 because it was important to him, and I'm right there with you. Thank you for doing that.

00:57:10.220 When darkness fell, several lawmakers went out there, this is a great piece of the story,

00:57:15.480 and restored the American flag to its proper place at D.C.'s Union Station. Congressman and

00:57:20.280 former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw among them, good for you, Congressman, he's been on the program before

00:57:25.520 as well, writing that a group of them, including the Speaker of the House and many veterans,

00:57:31.340 went out there and restored the Stars and Stripes to their rightful place, saying it took a while to

00:57:38.440 get it done because the Hamas supporters broke the connections on the flagpole with the lines,

00:57:43.180 but D.C. police helped them out and got them zip ties to get it up. I love that. Look at this.

00:57:49.420 It's a great video. They did the best they could on finding the flags to put up. They said they're

00:57:54.160 going to replace them with better ones and, you know, I guess newer. But what a great gesture.

00:57:58.620 What a great gesture. Restores your faith in humanity. Okay. So that was a remarkable story

00:58:06.340 yesterday. And I have to say, I've had enough of the lawlessness and the disrespect of our country.

00:58:13.140 I don't want to listen to Allahu Akbar watching an American flag burn in our nation's capital as they

00:58:20.120 threaten patriots who try to protect the flag. That's not us. I don't know what that is. But we need to

00:58:27.780 fight against it. We need to call attention to it. And we need the media to understand that the

00:58:31.140 headline is not Republicans pounce. Okay. The headline is people supporting a terrorist group

00:58:37.180 that right now have American hostages in their custody, came to Washington, burned our flag and

00:58:44.440 chanted Allahu Akbar and then tried to attack American citizens and cops. That's the story.

00:58:50.700 It's not that hard. Meanwhile, speaking of the media, the Democratic Party, its big wig donors and

00:59:00.320 media elites have fallen in line and in love with Vice President Kamala Harris. Oh, the honeymoon

00:59:05.560 continues. Honeymoon or coronation, or you can pick any of those words. Even the New York Times called

00:59:10.220 it a coronation and it has been. This Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said this week,

00:59:14.860 Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Are they enthusiastic? Yeah. It's ground up grassroots. One name in those

00:59:24.580 who have rushed to endorse Kamala Harris so far, at least has been missing. And that's former

00:59:28.140 President Barack Obama. The New York post is reporting, citing one source who they say is close

00:59:33.840 to the Biden family, uh, that Mr. Obama has not yet endorsed Harris because he doesn't think she can

00:59:40.980 win. Apparently Mr. Obama was hoping that the nominee would be Arizona Senator Mark Kelly,

00:59:46.580 according to the post. Now we should say NBC news is reporting today that Mr. Obama and VP Harris have

00:59:52.420 spoken and that he will soon endorse her. But what are we to make of the delay? He is sort of an outlier

00:59:57.580 at this point. Everybody, everybody, all the top Democrats have. And if true, does the former

01:00:02.920 president actually have a point about Senator Mark Kelly? Who's getting more and more buzz,

01:00:07.140 at least as a possible VP candidate to Harris at the top of the ticket. Joining me now,

01:00:14.020 Jim VandeHei. He's the co-founder and CEO of Axios. And he's also the author of the recently released

01:00:20.320 book, Just the Good Stuff, No BS Secrets to Success. Jim, welcome to the show.

01:00:26.520 Great to be here. I don't know about that intro. You know, I started Politico. I don't work there

01:00:30.720 anymore. Now I've started Axios. So I'm going to throw myself to the wolves. All right, let's go.

01:00:36.880 Well, I don't blame you for Politico's tweets these days. We can talk about Axios later, but

01:00:41.860 the political thing, it's such a, it's so annoying Republicans pounce. How does that kind

01:00:46.540 of annoying fucking headline wind up? Forgive me, Jim, but how does that, how does, how is that the

01:00:51.720 headline? It's, I watch this stuff unfold all the time, right? I think people underestimate how

01:00:57.880 at news organizations, like a tweet gets sent out. It's often like a young news desker who's looking at

01:01:02.480 at a piece that, that, that runs on the site and they're figuring out how do I get people to engage

01:01:07.560 with this? And they throw it up there. I think people assume one, sometimes there's more thought

01:01:12.440 put into it than there was. And that two, there's some kind of agenda because it was a crappy tweet

01:01:17.520 or a clumsily worded tweet. And so what I always advise people on is like, listen, like, I think

01:01:23.660 people get really hopped up about the media. I think there's a lot of things that media does

01:01:27.480 that can tick people off, but that for the consumer, what you should do is find some sources

01:01:32.300 that you follow, that you authentically think, try to get to the closest approximation of the truth on a

01:01:37.260 routine basis and deliver on that and follow them and maybe not get so hopped up and assume that

01:01:42.600 there's a conspiracy between every bad tweet or every dumb thing that, uh, that an entity does.

01:01:48.320 Well, I think you're probably right. This is probably a young staffer because it was sent

01:01:51.860 out via tweet, but I think the, you know, young people in DC are overwhelmingly left wing, as you

01:01:57.100 know, I mean, overwhelmingly. So those three things are not coincidental. You know, this is how she saw

01:02:01.760 the story. She saw the story or he, as it's a Republicans overreacting story, as opposed to my God,

01:02:08.700 what, what is happening? What are they doing? You can always glean a reporter sympathies in the way

01:02:13.540 they style the piece. So, uh, you're right though. Media selection is part of shielding yourself from

01:02:18.140 I think that is true. I think it is true. I think it is true that if you took every single newsroom

01:02:25.540 and put people on true serum, that there's more people who probably have a liberal background than

01:02:29.620 not. And I, so I don't think that that's an unfair critique. I think what's an unfair,

01:02:33.600 unfair maybe critique or not, not generally known would be, I listen, I worked at the Washington

01:02:39.260 Post. I worked at the wall street journal. I started Politico. I started Axio. So I have a

01:02:43.600 pretty good sample size of reporters. I think most reporters, despite their own personal politics,

01:02:48.880 do try to get to the closest approximation of the truth and try to do it in a clinical way.

01:02:54.240 Are there times where they screw it up or maybe because their background, they're not as familiar

01:02:57.660 with faith or they're not as familiar with a gun culture or the hunting culture. Uh, yes, but I,

01:03:03.760 I, I do think in general, I wish that people readers in particular didn't assume the worst

01:03:11.740 about every single news organization and every single reporter, because I feel we then go down

01:03:16.220 this dangerous road where nobody believes anything. And in a world where nobody believes anything,

01:03:21.060 you have like intellectual anarchy and within intellectual anarchy, I think bad things will happen.

01:03:26.040 And so I think the media has responsibility to try to be as clinical and as fair as humanly possible.

01:03:31.000 We certainly try to do it at Axios. I encourage anybody at other news institutions to do the same.

01:03:36.520 And then I encourage people on the consumption side to just know your sources and, and, and maybe

01:03:41.280 like try to find things you trust and not get so hopped up.

01:03:44.760 I completely disagree. I didn't want to start it on a disagreeable note, but I totally disagree with all

01:03:52.180 of that. I think that the agenda is so patently clear. And I do want our audience to know Steve

01:03:57.140 Bannon was on the show a couple of weeks ago, singing your praises. I mean, Politico and Axios

01:04:00.940 are just incredibly powerful news, uh, organizations and they're yours, you know, like not political

01:04:07.860 anymore, but you started it without you. We wouldn't have had it. And you were this kid who I know

01:04:11.040 had a crappy G, uh, GPA at Wisconsin and said, you know what, they're telling me I'd have no future,

01:04:16.060 but I'm going to go create one for myself. And boy, have you. And I, I appreciate everything

01:04:21.120 you've done. However, just completely disagree on the bias in the media. I just think it's,

01:04:25.580 it's in your face every day. What's happening with the borders are, you know,

01:04:29.900 whitewash today is just today's example of it. But I mean, let's go bigger. Let's talk about what

01:04:35.920 they've been doing with Biden. You know, it was like everything about his health was downplayed.

01:04:40.640 People were attacked. The white house reporters weren't reporting on it. They didn't even know

01:04:44.200 that the Parkinson's doctor had been visiting the white house. They didn't care to check or,

01:04:47.820 you know, look at any of that. And then they stuck the knives in him for months. Well,

01:04:51.660 weeks, I guess, since the debate. And then as soon as he left screen, it's like, he's the greatest.

01:04:56.520 He's wonderful. Joe Biden is a patriot. It was like, you're all stuck the knife in him because he was no

01:05:02.120 longer useful. Okay. I'll take it. I'll take that. So what I would say, going back to find a source

01:05:10.460 that you trust, if you go back and look at Axios coverage, which is the only one I can really defend

01:05:14.500 with, with personal knowledge, we've written a lot about that, like an extraordinary amount to the

01:05:19.820 point where we did a great job in covering his post-domain problems. I don't give a crap. If we

01:05:24.720 have friction with any white house, we're trying to get to the truth. So there was a source of truth

01:05:28.880 would have been Axios in this case where we were reporting on that it was out there. And I agree

01:05:34.320 that other news institutions weren't as aggressive on a topic that you could see with your own eyes.

01:05:39.320 And it's a very valid topic. They said, pardon, they were saying cheap fakes. It wasn't just,

01:05:45.660 they weren't aggressive, but I mean, you had NBC and CBS and CNN and MSNBC saying the evidence that

01:05:53.040 we were watching before of our eyes was not what we know it was.

01:05:59.180 Yeah. Again, like I can't defend other news organizations. I can say there were people in

01:06:03.820 the mainstream media, us, I would put on that list who were covering it aggressively. And that's what

01:06:08.120 you need to find. You need to find sources of truth that you believe that are trying to get to

01:06:12.260 the, to the truth and get to the closest approximation of it. Doesn't mean we get every

01:06:15.620 single thing right. Or that there aren't things that I would critique that we do. It's my job to do

01:06:19.860 that all the time and to recalibrate, just make sure we have the right people doing the right

01:06:24.180 coverage, but it is out there. And I do still think that people take these outlier cases and

01:06:29.440 then assume that everything, the post or NBC or times rights is crap or it's, it's, it's partisan or

01:06:34.980 it's bias. I just don't think that to be true. Like I read a lot of these publications quite

01:06:39.240 religiously worked at some of them. And I would argue at a lot of those places, they have some really

01:06:43.160 good reporters and the ones who are really good on topics I care about. I try to follow because I

01:06:48.120 find it edifying. I find that I walk away with it, knowing something I didn't know. If someone

01:06:52.560 kind of reeks of bias and they exist, you and I both know that I don't follow them. I just don't.

01:06:58.600 And like the test for us is like you, Steve Bannon, right? Like I know he's a reader of Axios and I'm

01:07:05.080 sure there's a lot that we write. He'll jokingly like text us and say, you're a damn communist.

01:07:09.160 And like, but I know he's reading us every day because he believes that we are getting to the closest

01:07:13.940 approximation of the truth. And that's part of the job. And it's again, it's like the,

01:07:18.960 it comes with the gig, right? Like media is just a, it's, it's front and center. It's part of

01:07:23.360 everybody's life and everyone has an opinion on it. I don't think Axios is by, is anywhere near the

01:07:29.360 worst offender. I mean, I, I, you probably wouldn't even be on the show if, if, if you were right.

01:07:35.280 Cause you wouldn't want to talk to somebody like me. Um, but I don't agree with the, in giving the

01:07:41.020 mainstream media, like a widely a pass or an assumption that they're all operating. Most

01:07:44.840 are operating in good faith. That hasn't been my experience. And, you know, I've been on more

01:07:48.580 conservative type media side for all of my career. So I've seen it through a different lens entirely.

01:07:54.160 Um, I've been, I know you were with the journal, but it was a short stint. So I've been 20 years in

01:07:58.280 conservative media and it's just when you're a conservative and you see your ideals being bashed

01:08:02.280 at every turn and reduced to a pounce when you say what, you know, like then you develop these

01:08:07.920 opinions. But since we're, we're going there, let's talk about Axios because the, the example

01:08:12.720 that's in the news today, and I'm looking here at a free press piece, um, by a guy named Peter

01:08:17.820 Savodnik, he's calling you guys out in particular for this borders are thing. And he takes us back

01:08:23.960 to March, 2020, 2021, where you guys publish a story with a headline, Biden puts Harris in charge

01:08:30.300 of border crisis. Biden puts Harris in charge of border crisis. And it was done by your politics

01:08:35.340 reporter, Steph kite, K I G H T, um, who she informed us in that piece that Harris would be

01:08:43.060 addressing the migrant surge at the U S Mexico border, that Harris would lead the efforts with

01:08:47.800 Mexico and the Northern triangle, meaning Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to manage the flow of

01:08:51.960 unaccompanied children and migrant families arriving at the border. And, um, we understood at the time

01:08:58.080 that this was a big deal. President Biden had said that he was going to turn to Harris for his

01:09:02.320 biggest responsibilities. And this was one of them then today. Well, yes. Yeah. Today, right.

01:09:07.340 Today's July 24th. Um, the same reporter, I guess that was yesterday, yesterday, the same reporter,

01:09:14.000 the same outlet yours, uh, put out a story headline, Harris border confusion haunts her new campaign

01:09:21.560 reporting that in fact, back in 21, Biden enlisted Kamala Harris to help with just a slice of the

01:09:29.120 migration issue. And now there's confusion around the VP's exact role and that early, early media

01:09:37.640 misfires and the rapidly changing regional migration crisis has made the issue a top target for the GOP

01:09:45.260 trying to define their new opponent. Meantime, she had said the same. And then you guys added a note

01:09:54.640 to your own earlier report saying we Axios, um, were among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled

01:10:04.560 Harris, uh, borders are in 2021 after all the blowback. So Jim, what like people look at it,

01:10:12.900 they're like, this isn't even being, even Harris isn't talking about this. She wasn't out there saying,

01:10:17.520 don't call me a border czar. So what made you go back and amend your earlier reporting?

01:10:25.520 Okay. Okay. So I wasn't personally involved in this, but it's my company. So I will, I will talk

01:10:30.080 about it. So when, like, when you talk about a czar, there's a czar, which is like an official

01:10:35.700 appointment. Like you, we have a car czar. Well, we don't really have czars. Well, people have used

01:10:40.660 that term in the past when they put, appointed somebody to have basically specific control over

01:10:45.300 our portfolio. Right. And so to me, like this whole argument about whether she's a czar or not

01:10:49.920 a czar is like a, is a semantical thing, right? It's not actually a substantive thing. Like the

01:10:55.600 truthful thing is, was she involved deeply in the Biden-Harris immigration policy and what happened

01:11:02.900 at the border? Absolutely. Was she fully responsible for their immigration policy and border control?

01:11:09.720 Absolutely not. She didn't, I don't think she had the trust of the administration at that time

01:11:13.980 to be able to control that entire portfolio. Were there parts of it where she had say,

01:11:18.720 and he, I think the president himself even said, she speaks for us or speaks for me on parts of this

01:11:24.260 portfolio? Absolutely. Should she have to explain and defend the immigration policy and the border

01:11:32.160 issues under the Biden-Harris administration? Well, of course she should. Like, why shouldn't she? She

01:11:37.000 is the number two in the U.S. government. And we have an issue at the southern border that is arguably

01:11:42.960 the biggest topic in the swing states that are going to decide the election. So whether you call

01:11:47.800 her a czar, don't call her a czar, she was intimately involved in the policy. Undoubtedly is going to have

01:11:54.260 to defend it and we'll have no choice but to defend it because it's one of the top couple of issues that

01:11:59.580 voters care about. Certainly it's not just Republican voters. There's a lot of Democrats and

01:12:03.740 independents who care about it and see it as a legitimate crisis. And they want to understand between

01:12:09.780 the two candidates. What are you going to do about it? If we have all these people trying to swarm

01:12:13.480 over our border and we have people here who are here illegally, how are you going to take care of

01:12:18.080 that problem and the derivative problems that flow from it, whether it's crime or the economic effect

01:12:23.100 of having people here or not having people here? So to me, like this is one of those topics where

01:12:28.640 people's heads explode and they spend it. Is it a czar? Is it not a czar? And you're actually losing focus

01:12:34.380 on, like, who gives a crap at the end of the day what the official term is? At the end of the day,

01:12:39.020 what is the policy? Can she defend the policy? Does Trump have a superior policy? What would the effects

01:12:45.060 of those policies be? And then for me, the voter, now that I know those things, if that issue is what I

01:12:50.960 care about, how do I make a really educated decision come election day on who I should vote for based on

01:12:57.180 that topic? I hear you on all of that. But the bottom line is the media said, I mean, I'm looking

01:13:04.120 down the list of the publications. We've got Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, Axios,

01:13:09.180 CBS, USA Today, Time. That's just what I found before air. All of whom called her a border czar.

01:13:15.540 That's when he announced this back in March of 21. They all went with that. I mean, I'm reading,

01:13:20.620 the president himself said, I have asked her, March of 2021, I have asked her to lead our efforts

01:13:26.920 in stemming the immigration to our southern border, the migration to our southern border.

01:13:32.360 I have asked her to lead our efforts in stemming the migration to our southern border. That was how

01:13:36.100 he announced it. And then now that she's become the top dog, it's like czar? Who said czar? That's

01:13:43.520 not an appropriate term. It's not just Axios. It's not just Politico. Wait, let me run the soundbite and

01:13:48.240 then you take it. I'm going to give it to you after I show the audience what we've heard from

01:13:51.940 the television news reporters watch. Quote, unquote, border czar. Vice President Harris was

01:13:58.400 not a border czar. In the meantime, Vice President and border czar, Kamala Harris,

01:14:02.540 facing some backlash. What he said about Harris and immigration was not true. She was never

01:14:06.920 appointed border czar. And this will be her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border region since she

01:14:12.660 was appointed as the border czar by President Biden. People are going to have to counter the

01:14:16.240 misinformation. You already hear folks talking about the border czar. She wasn't the border czar.

01:14:19.860 President Biden tapped Kamala Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris, to be the border czar.

01:14:24.880 Now, she wasn't the border czar. That's what Republicans labeled her. They were very critical

01:14:30.220 of Kamala Harris, especially in her role as border czar. Now what she's up against is folks

01:14:35.900 lying about her border record, calling her a border czar. Kamala Harris, who was appointed as the

01:14:40.840 border czar. The Biden team didn't declare her the border czar. They wanted her to work on kind of

01:14:44.240 the root causes of immigration. There has been so much criticism against Kamala Harris. You know,

01:14:48.100 she was the border czar. Calling her sort of the border czar.

01:14:52.660 It's pretty amazing. And newsbusters put that together. Go ahead, Jim.

01:14:56.020 Yeah. My point on that is it's still like a semantical battle. Was she czar or not czar? I

01:15:00.620 don't even, like, if you're a voter, like, what do you care? Like, at the end of the day.

01:15:04.740 If it doesn't matter, then why is the media doing it?

01:15:08.360 I think, I don't know what was the root of it yesterday. I'm sure it came up in some context

01:15:12.420 or someone used it. And then I'm sure, like, even our story was, like, trying to explain the nuance

01:15:16.960 of was she technically a czar? Because in the past, some governments have actually appointed

01:15:21.760 someone to be the czar that have the official accountability, the official authority over a

01:15:26.660 specific policy. We have that. Forgive me for interrupting you. But we did have that. It was

01:15:30.840 Roberta S. Jacobson before Kamala Harris. And when she was stepping down, she said she was happy to

01:15:37.140 see Ms. Harris assume the work of stemming migration from Central America. This she was thrilled in the

01:15:42.220 Washington Post was reporting the same time describing this move that she'd be taking on the

01:15:46.600 lead role on the overall border and regional issue. I mean, it's just to me, if the semantics don't

01:15:50.920 matter, then why is the media now just she's been elevated, rushing to change the label?

01:15:55.320 I've not seen, you played a bunch of clips that I have not seen. What I do know, I don't know of

01:16:00.540 anybody or nobody should be denying, was she intimately involved in the administration's

01:16:06.360 immigration policy? She was, whether she was czar or not czar. What should matter to anybody is not,

01:16:11.520 was it called a czar or not called a czar? To me, that's the kind of silly stuff that people get

01:16:15.580 distracted with, spend an entire day hyperventilating. I agree with that. I agree. I totally agree with that.

01:16:20.920 But it's partly on you. I'm going to critique you. So you critique me, me being a representative of

01:16:26.840 the mainstream media. What I don't like about conservative or really liberal media is to assume

01:16:32.260 that everything that the mainstream media produces is not on the level. And then to hunt every single

01:16:38.780 day to find some example of it with no recognition of maybe 99.9% of the content that was produced by

01:16:46.520 those same organizations yesterday, might've been really helpful, might've been totally on the level,

01:16:51.480 might've been things that you'd say, yeah, that was a, that was a well done story. Well reported.

01:16:54.920 That's helpful. Boy, that's happening in the environment or boy, that's happening.

01:16:58.400 I mean, Jim, on this program, you haven't been watching the Meg and the Megyn Kelly show because

01:17:01.100 we've, we've cited Alex Thompson a lot. We've cited Axios a lot. As I said, we gave you a shout out

01:17:06.660 just recently. I'm trying to defend the other people. Well, but I'm not going to, you will not

01:17:11.720 find me defending MSNBC. I think Politico has gone much further to the left than Axios has.

01:17:18.560 I mean, you left the organization. I know you had some critiques of clickbait media and so on. So

01:17:24.280 I'm, I'm not, I'm not coming down on Axios in particular. In fact, this was, I think one of the

01:17:28.680 more egregious examples, because I think in general, it's one of the least offensive publications,

01:17:33.380 which trust me for me is a compliment because I generally don't love most of our media colleagues

01:17:37.840 and the way they approach the news. But my general, my concern is right, is because of the way that

01:17:44.960 people treat media. And I'm not saying that the mainstream, I could give you a thousand things

01:17:48.760 of mainstream media has gotten wrong and things that I wish didn't happen and didn't happen to

01:17:53.460 this day. What I worry about is if we have most people spending most of their time trying to figure

01:17:59.200 out why everyone's full of it and why everyone has some kind of agenda, what happens when we live

01:18:04.120 in a society where none of us have any kind of common understanding of like, I'll answer that.

01:18:08.740 I know, I see your point. I'll tell you.

01:18:11.740 At some people coming across the border, is that a problem? Yes. How do you solve it? What are the

01:18:15.520 options? Well, there's a, there's a physical fence. There's, there's, there's non-physical fences.

01:18:19.920 There's more aggressive policing on the other side of the border. I wish more people paid attention

01:18:25.020 to that. And I think like where you and me, we were white. Well, we come at it. You come at it

01:18:30.280 with a very specific show and you have your view. I come at it with a very specific company trying to

01:18:35.340 do things our way. Like where I feel like we can help people, where I try to serve people is just

01:18:40.800 try to get to the closest approximation to try to be clinical, admit like that there's things that

01:18:46.260 we get wrong. Like what I don't like with the mainstream media is like pretending like we haven't

01:18:50.620 gotten anything wrong or pretending that when that reporters went on there and suddenly started to

01:18:56.500 betray their biases. I hated that. I think it destroyed, uh, it's destroyed part of the soul

01:19:01.300 of mainstream media, but I don't think therefore the soul is totally gone and that there's no truth

01:19:06.700 that's emanating from a lot of really good news organizations that are full of people trying to do

01:19:11.500 the right thing. So I take your point. I, I still disagree. I think the soul of news media,

01:19:18.380 uh, I don't know if I can say the soul is dead, but I, I think that the, the organization, like

01:19:25.440 the, the entity has completely changed to, to the point where you really do have to figure out who

01:19:29.800 you trust. And that is not the fault of the consumers. You know, the readers, the, the, the

01:19:34.260 viewers it's, it's our fault. It, it happened, you know, it was happening even before Trump,

01:19:39.760 but Trump completely broke the media and they allowed it. They wore their, um, their biases on their

01:19:47.220 sleeves. They leaned into them. They declared him a unique threat and began every report by

01:19:53.040 pointing that out, calling him names, sexist, racist, but this, that the other thing and

01:19:58.480 telegraphed for, you know, now it's been eight years that they not only loathed him, but they

01:20:04.000 loathed people who supported him, which as it turns out is half the country or more. And that's

01:20:08.660 what broke media. That's what led people to go down rabbit holes in the most extreme cases and

01:20:13.480 follow just online, strange sites that would mislead them. Or in better cases, I would argue.

01:20:19.160 And that's not just because I'm a part of digital media decided to go someplace else decided to realize

01:20:24.920 I can't trust CNN. Not only do they mislead me, they hate me. So I blame the media for the choices

01:20:30.800 they made in particular. Once Trump became a national political figure. I'd, you know, I don't totally

01:20:36.580 disagree that a huge trigger of both like a hyperventilation on behalf of the media and then

01:20:42.880 a reaction to it was triggered by Trump. I, I, I do agree with that. I don't think where I disagree

01:20:49.940 is. I don't think therefore, because that happened, you can't trust media. And I'll get, again, I'll go

01:20:54.560 back to Axios, which is the only thing I could take ownership of. We've interviewed Trump a bunch

01:20:59.080 of times. I know he reads us. I think he thinks we try to get, it doesn't love everything we write.

01:21:04.320 He's probably different times. He's tweeted or put something on true social that he doesn't

01:21:08.240 like us, but like, we seem to have a pretty good line into them. We're able to break a lot

01:21:13.020 of news. We've, like I said, we've interviewed him, spent time with him in the way that we've

01:21:18.760 done it. And the way that I would encourage other people in the mainstream media to do it

01:21:21.880 is one, get the hell off of Twitter. We ask our, we ask all of our employees, not just our

01:21:26.540 reporters to not express their opinions in public settings, because we're trying to regain

01:21:31.320 the trust. We're not perfect, but we try to do that. And then when we report, report clinically,

01:21:36.320 we don't even have an opinion page. I don't want it. I don't want it to get, I don't want it to be

01:21:39.720 muddied for the people who might trust the content that we have. And then I try to hire really

01:21:43.940 experienced reporters who can break news and tell you things that you didn't know. And again,

01:21:48.780 all my only ask of you or of any other buddy who might be an Axios consumer is like,

01:21:54.060 let's say we screwed something up. Let's say we got yesterday wrong.

01:21:56.440 They don't just then assume like everything Axios writes is crap. Like we're human, right? We're

01:22:01.680 human like anybody else. And what I would say with us or the journal.

01:22:06.140 You are, but for many, it is a pattern, Jim. For many, it's a pattern and they don't deserve

01:22:10.920 our good opinion or the benefit of any doubt. I'm not putting you in that camp, but I mean,

01:22:15.340 we've been covering this long enough to know there's, there are many dishonest brokers who just,

01:22:19.180 they not only hate Trump, they hate Republicans and you can see it in their reporting and their

01:22:22.940 headline choices and their content choices. Okay. Enough about the media where there's

01:22:26.880 navel gazing, right? But you, you have been having a lot of good scoops in connection with the whole

01:22:33.840 Biden problem and now Kamala's elevation. And I really want to get to that with you. Let me

01:22:39.220 squeeze in a quick break and we'll come right back with Jim's inside look into the white house

01:22:44.200 and what's happening there. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home

01:22:50.240 for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political,

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01:23:00.620 featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck,

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01:23:47.420 This morning, you have a piece called behind the curtain, the new 2024 campaign foretold. And you

01:23:55.220 argue in here that these two Trump and Kamala are going to unleash their attacks in seven states,

01:24:01.420 but three will decide the winner, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. So explain that to

01:24:09.620 me. Why miss Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, instead of the, everybody's talking about Kamala's

01:24:14.900 chances in the sunbelt, you know, Nevada and Georgia and Arizona is the, the reason that even coming out

01:24:23.320 of the RNC, or you'll see it coming out of the DNC. The reason that the polls don't matter that much

01:24:28.100 right now is the election is going to be super close, right? How do we know? Because the last

01:24:32.460 several elections have been super close. You move 50,000 votes last time around and Biden loses. You

01:24:38.000 lose 78,000 when Trump won and he loses. Like we're just, we are just a 50, 50 country and there's only

01:24:44.320 really seven or so swing states. The truth is, if you just look at the map in terms of like the states

01:24:51.180 that are authentically in play, there are many more ways for Donald Trump to win than there are

01:24:56.860 would have been for Biden and that there would be for Harris. And there's almost no map that works

01:25:04.620 for Democrats that doesn't include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. You lose three, they call

01:25:09.520 them the blue wall for a reason. You lose those three, it's really hard to sketch out a scenario

01:25:15.140 where Democrats win the White House. It's one of the reasons that it was crystal clear,

01:25:20.420 almost instantaneously after that debate debacle that Biden had, that he wasn't going to survive.

01:25:25.400 Because you could see almost instantly that those states in particular were taking a hit for

01:25:31.500 Democrats. And they realized that if it collapsed, the whole thing was over. And so one of the reasons

01:25:37.280 I think that the pick will likely be, almost certainly be a moderate white male, maybe from

01:25:43.300 one of those three states, is they're not stupid. They know that they have to win those three states and

01:25:49.340 that to do it, they have to appeal to a broader set of voters than Biden was appealing to. And so I

01:25:55.420 wouldn't be surprised at all if Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania is the pick, because Pennsylvania,

01:26:00.480 you could argue, is the most important state in this presidential election. And so when you're

01:26:06.060 watching the election, paying attention to it, national polls are irrelevant. And to be honest,

01:26:11.240 if you live in about 42 or 43 states, you're probably irrelevant in terms of determining whether or not

01:26:15.860 who's going to win the presidency, it's really those seven swing states. And even inside of those, it's

01:26:22.420 about 6% of the people who are truly persuadable, who are undecided, who right now are saying they won't

01:26:28.080 vote, but might vote. It's really that narrow. And even within that 6%, you talk to the campaigns,

01:26:35.380 they're looking at the same people, they're looking at black men who suddenly are much more receptive

01:26:40.180 to Donald Trump. We saw that with the election results last time. It's continued. Hispanics,

01:26:45.480 generally, for whatever reason, Trump has been appealing more and more to them and has had more

01:26:51.260 success. And I would argue any president, certainly since George W. Bush, and then young people, which

01:26:58.480 especially when it was Biden versus Trump, young people moving really decisively towards Trump. And

01:27:04.500 you even see it on TikTok, where much more engagement with Trump content than you would see with

01:27:08.820 democratic content. And so they're really focused on those micro groups. And if you, the point of the

01:27:15.140 column today was, if you really want to understand everything they say and do, look at it through

01:27:19.560 that lens, and you'll start to understand why they talk about the things they talk about, why they visit

01:27:24.040 the places that they visit, why they put out the videos that they put out. So she, those are the three

01:27:30.680 groups that typically would vote overwhelmingly democratic, certainly black voters, young voters, and,

01:27:36.040 you know, up until recently, Hispanic voters. But Trump's been eating into all those margins and

01:27:41.880 was alarmingly so for the Democrats when Biden was still the nominee. So now we just did a show with

01:27:48.700 Emerson polling on their latest poll, which shows she's gotten the numbers up already a little bit

01:27:55.400 in those groups. Young people, she did see, they did see some improvement for her. And they said in

01:28:01.660 particular, young minorities, uh, have come back a little bit more for her. And so the question

01:28:07.040 you're saying now, between now and November is how much can she get those numbers up? The young people,

01:28:12.860 black voters, Hispanic voters, and, and that this race is going to be all about improving those margins.

01:28:19.500 For sure. I mean, think about it. So just think about it as a numbers game.

01:28:23.200 You could safe to assume anyone who was going to vote for Biden, especially a damaged post debate

01:28:30.080 Biden is going to vote for her. That's not enough to win the election. So then there has to be

01:28:34.700 something that's additive. It's why Emerson's taking a look at, well, young people, which is good news for

01:28:40.200 her. The bad news is young people don't vote. And even when they were jazzed about Barack Obama,

01:28:45.320 they didn't really vote. So you can't count on that being enough. And then you have to look at what

01:28:51.120 are historically, I mean, really, really, really reliable voting groups, Hispanics and, and

01:28:58.060 African-Americans, huge, huge, huge. Like you're talking 92% for a lot of candidates with the black

01:29:04.560 vote. So when you start to see Trump getting 20, 30, we're thinking about the Hispanics, 50, 50,

01:29:12.320 that's alarming, alarming. And it's not new. It's not new. So if you go back to the last election

01:29:18.220 and you look at the results, yes, Trump lost, but Trump did better with black men than any

01:29:23.780 Republican had in some time, it didn't better with Hispanics. It just happened to be that Biden did

01:29:29.040 better overall and had enough votes to be able to win, especially in the pivotal swing states

01:29:33.460 that we're talking about. And that's the reason that post debate, I knew, I knew within 20 minutes

01:29:40.800 of that debate, Biden was going to get forced off the ticket. He didn't realize it, but he was

01:29:45.020 because Democrats knew that if Biden goes down, the whole damn thing goes down, meaning they're

01:29:50.240 not going to win the Senate. They're not going to win the House. The Senate is another map for the

01:29:54.580 Senate. Very favorable for Republicans. Doesn't guarantee they're going to win it, but they should

01:29:59.200 win it just based on the states that are in play. The House, very much a toss up. But if you just look

01:30:04.680 at the dynamics of it, like if you would have had a really bad top of the ticket, everything went

01:30:10.700 down. And that is why almost in a Shakespearean way, you saw post debate, all of these people who

01:30:18.940 I think they love Joe Biden. I don't think Barack Obama necessarily loves him, but I think he likes

01:30:23.320 him. And I think that they're, but Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, their silence

01:30:30.420 echoed very loudly. The minute that they didn't say definitively knock it off, he's our nominee,

01:30:35.720 no scenario. We're swapping it. It gave everyone license to say, let's get the guy out. And little

01:30:41.560 by little. And then she went on mourning Joe and said, we'll wait for his decision after he'd already

01:30:46.180 decided. That was a big tell. Let me ask you quickly about the Obama report in the New York

01:30:50.460 Post. They cite one source close to the Biden family as saying Obama didn't endorse her because

01:30:56.120 he doesn't think she could win. Do you put any stock into that? I would have a hard time as a

01:31:01.680 reporter writing something based on one source who's not close to Obama. I don't think that that

01:31:06.800 is the reason. Do I think? Kind of telling that maybe a source close to the Biden family thinks so.

01:31:11.480 You know what I mean? That's kind of interesting. Now you're really getting into some tricky personal

01:31:14.420 politics. Biden and Obama have a very complicated relationship. You saw that. A lot of people around

01:31:21.160 Obama helped push Biden out. And it is very accurate. The Democrats don't want to talk about this now,

01:31:28.300 but one of the reasons Biden ran for re-election and one of the reasons he refused to step down is

01:31:34.140 he did not think Vice President Harris can beat Donald Trump. That is certain. Our reporting is

01:31:39.980 certain on that. There was deep, deep reservations, not just by him, by people around him. Eventually,

01:31:46.100 he endorsed her. He has to. It's his vice presidential pick. But that, for all the Democrats who are feeling

01:31:51.860 euphoric, and there is a euphoria. They felt like we're screwed before. Now we have a chance.

01:31:55.920 The thing that should give them pause and that they should reflect on is what was it about her

01:32:00.760 in the White House that gave the people with the closest proximity to her the belief that she can't

01:32:06.680 beat Donald Trump? You got to start figuring out and then reverse engineer that. I think a lot of it

01:32:11.140 is she overprepares. She doesn't have a lot of people who've been with her a long time. So there's

01:32:16.880 like this curious lack of loyalty. What is it about her? And how do you offset that enough to be able to win

01:32:25.420 a presidential election? And so we're not done with the twist and turns. This is like one of the

01:32:30.380 craziest, wildest where our kids' kids will be seeing that Trump photo on a history book. And

01:32:37.540 we're going to be reading about the debate debacle, arguably the biggest debate debacle in the televised

01:32:43.380 debate history, right? Like 22 minutes ended a presidency. Then you have a candidate getting shot or

01:32:51.840 getting almost assassinated. And then you have a president stepping down and then you have his

01:32:56.920 vice president coronated instantly. This is not over. There are going to be more wild twists and

01:33:03.560 turns. And that's why we did the column today is just try to ground people to take a deep breath.

01:33:09.300 Like these are the things you need to be watching for. Realize it's going to be close. It doesn't mean

01:33:13.380 that the media is skewing polls or that polls are wrong. It means that we live in a really divided

01:33:18.600 country, very tight. And there aren't that many people who are that persuadable. I mean,

01:33:23.700 I always joke with people. I was like, who's the last person you met when you said, hey, Donald

01:33:27.300 Trump, what do you think of him? And they're like, I don't know. Jury's still out. That person doesn't

01:33:31.760 exist. You could go to some African village. They'd have strong thoughts. I read online the other day,

01:33:38.880 somebody had a joke saying the only way you would have an October surprise that was truly a surprise

01:33:42.880 this year is if actual space aliens come down and somehow mess with the election. I think that's

01:33:47.840 about right quickly before I lose you because we're about to end with the computer. Some are

01:33:52.840 speculating the best VP choice might be Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. He's not in one of those

01:33:57.800 states you mentioned, but he's the son of two cops, the husband of Gabby Gifford. He's obviously spoken

01:34:04.300 out about gun control, which Democrats like, but owns guns and also was a NASA astronaut and a fighter

01:34:10.640 pilot. I see all that. I kind of like that argument, but you're saying don't bet on it because

01:34:16.340 Arizona is not one of those three states. I mean, Arizona is one of the seven states. So it

01:34:21.780 could he, with his addition to the ticket, plausibly take a state that I think right now leans Trump

01:34:28.540 and turn it into a toss up or a leans Democrat. It doesn't seem to me that his popularity is such

01:34:34.840 that it would, he by himself on the ticket would get it. That doesn't mean he doesn't get it. Like

01:34:39.860 he fits the bill of what they're looking for. They want a white moderate male on the ticket

01:34:45.520 with her. And I think if it's somebody who has good ties to the business community,

01:34:50.560 has faith in their background, they're looking at the same map. We are, they're looking at the

01:34:55.420 same persuadables that we are. They understand the skepticism that swing voters have about Joe

01:35:01.200 Biden and have about the democratic party. And so I don't think it's a coincidence that it's Rory

01:35:07.580 Cooper, that it's Mark Kelly, that it's Shapiro in Pennsylvania, that walls in Minnesota. It's not

01:35:15.140 a coincidence about that. These are the people that are under Beshear in Kentucky, that they're

01:35:19.440 the ones that are under consideration. And I would be very, very surprised if it's not one of them.

01:35:23.960 I'd be pretty surprised if it's not either Kelly or Shapiro.

01:35:28.220 Wow. I mean, that's yet another thing we have to look forward to, and it's going to happen soon.

01:35:32.520 It's going to happen, actually can happen really soon because it looks like the Democrats are going to

01:35:36.560 have a virtual vote now earlier than expected. So if you want to jump in against her, I think you

01:35:42.540 have like 72 hours left. It doesn't look like that's where this is going. Jim, listen, we

01:35:46.940 appreciate you coming on. Please come back. Thank you. It was great. I appreciate it. Fun

01:35:51.000 conversation. All the best. Likewise. Okay. And thanks to all of you for joining us today and

01:35:55.980 every day. We greatly appreciate it. If you want to get more of our content, you should go to

01:36:00.000 megankelly.com. You should sign up for my one email. I don't bother you. I check in once a week

01:36:05.900 and I will give you all the news you need to know from the whole week in 60 seconds or less. Go to

01:36:12.200 megankelly.com. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:36:30.000 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 25, 2024

James Woods on Biden's Farewell and Political Bias in Hollywood, and Jim VandeHei on the Trump Era Media and More ｜ Ep. 848

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