The Megyn Kelly Show - MAGA vs. Establishment Over Hegseth, and Key SCOTUS Case About Protecting Kids, with Michael Knowles and AG Skrmetti

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00:00:31.000 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.540 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.820 Well, 24 hours ago, literally this time yesterday, I was in Washington, D.C.

00:00:49.620 for an exclusive sit-down with President-elect Trump's nominee to lead the Defense Department,

00:00:54.100 Pete Hegseth. As you know, Pete's now in a political dogfight to save his nomination.

00:00:59.060 At this point, his future remains unclear. If you believe some in the media, he's done enough now

00:01:04.360 to secure Trump's continued support. Others suggest he does not have the votes and say Trump could pull

00:01:12.200 a switcheroo and name Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in Hegseth's place.

00:01:18.880 Our pal Mark Halperin, who has excellent sources and has been right on just about everything this year,

00:01:24.540 said the following this morning on his show, The Morning Meeting.

00:01:28.880 I heard from a very good source today that by the weekend, Ron DeSantis will be the nominee

00:01:33.480 for Defense Secretary. One source, so I'm not telling you it's definitely true,

00:01:37.300 but that's certainly the case. However, if you go on X, you will see another cavalcade

00:01:42.560 of strong supporters for Hegseth who are making this a test of Donald Trump's fidelity to MAGA,

00:01:52.560 and they find it insulting that someone who MAGA has turned on bigly, Ron DeSantis,

00:01:57.960 would possibly replace someone who casts himself, at least, as full-on MAGA.

00:02:03.380 Mm-hmm. Whatever the case may be, Hegseth is not going down without a fight.

00:02:07.520 This morning, he posted the following on X, quote, Maybe it's time for a Secretary of Defense

00:02:12.840 who has led in combat, been on patrol for days, pulled a trigger, heard bullets whiz by,

00:02:21.080 called in close air support, led medevacs, dodged IEDs, and understands to his core the power of this

00:02:28.820 photo because he's been on that knee before. For those listening to this show on SiriusXM or via

00:02:34.340 podcast, the photo shows two soldiers kneeling in front of a rifle and helmet, honoring a fallen

00:02:40.460 friend. Joining me now, Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show.

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00:03:45.960 Michael, welcome back. Great to see you. So if you believe the New York Post,

00:03:50.680 not a single senator is a hard no. But most of the rest of the media is supporting

00:03:58.180 the notion that he right now does not have the votes. And if you believe Senator Blumenthal

00:04:05.060 of Connecticut, he is a Democrat and he is claiming that between five and 10 Republican senators

00:04:14.120 have told him it's a no and they're just waiting for the right time to say that it's a no,

00:04:18.520 which is a weird way to phrase it between five. Was it five or was it 10? I'm not sure what he's

00:04:24.020 trying to do other than tank Pete. But where do you think this stands? And do you think by Monday

00:04:30.800 we're going to have a different nominee? I'm not surprised that the media and Democrats want to

00:04:36.160 tank Pete Hegseth. And to me, that's a real mark of confidence in his nomination. I really like Pete

00:04:42.520 Hegseth. I have known Pete. Pete is one of the first guys that I met when I got into political media.

00:04:48.040 I've known him for years and years. I've been on air with him. I have been off air with him.

00:04:52.960 Every interaction that I've had with this guy is that he's a really terrific guy. And so the knocks

00:04:58.800 on him that have come from the press are that years ago he was a bit of a Casanova and he's never

00:05:04.180 really hid that, I don't think. But if that's the best that they can come up with, they've got some

00:05:09.520 really insane allegations that there's no evidence for whatsoever. If that's the best they can come up

00:05:13.960 with, he seems, I'm going to try to be objective here like I don't know him, he seems like a really,

00:05:19.200 really solid pick. I think it is great for the military. I think it's great for morale to have

00:05:24.680 someone who looks like Pete, who talks like Pete, who thinks like Pete, has Pete's experience to be

00:05:29.980 at charge of the Pentagon. I think it's probably already helping military recruitment and military

00:05:35.300 morale. And so I think he's a solid pick. Now, could Ron DeSantis do the job? Sure. I think Ron

00:05:43.420 DeSantis could do basically any job in the government. So it's really no reflection at all

00:05:47.220 on Ron DeSantis. But I do think there is real political risk here for President Trump. I understand

00:05:53.520 why he accepted Matt Gaetz's removal from the AG nomination. I totally get it. But now there's a

00:06:01.420 little bit of blood in the water as a result of that. And so it seems to me there is a major risk

00:06:06.480 if the defense sec nominee goes down as well, no matter who you replace him with. I don't think

00:06:12.980 that's going to make the sailing any smoother for the Trump administration. I think it's going to

00:06:16.920 bloody up the water even more and make it even tougher to get some of these nominees through.

00:06:21.200 Because if Hegseth were to go down, you know all the attention is next going to be on Bobby Kennedy.

00:06:26.960 Then it's going to be on Tulsi Gabbard. Who knows? It's going to be on Ron DeSantis. If they put

00:06:30.420 Ron DeSantis up for defense secretary, I don't think that ends the problem. I think in many ways

00:06:34.960 it would exacerbate it. I think that's a very interesting point because if you don't think

00:06:40.440 they're going to do this to RFKJ, you haven't been paying attention. I realize that Pete has,

00:06:46.480 you know, his belly is exposed. He has not led a perfect life. And there's plenty if you want to

00:06:51.980 start attacking his character in terms of his marital history and so on. But as he said to me

00:06:57.100 yesterday, he found around 20, I think it was 18 or so, he found his two J's, his wife, Jen,

00:07:04.640 and Jesus, and started changing his life in a profound way. And, you know, by all accounts,

00:07:11.380 since then has really been on the straight and narrow when it comes to the fidelity

00:07:15.000 toward his wife. And, you know, on the drinking, he says, I do drink socially, but I don't have a

00:07:20.900 drinking problem. And I will not let a drop of alcohol touch my lips in this role. Oh, we have

00:07:26.760 that. Okay, let's play it. So if you're in Iraq and Afghanistan in a combat zone, you're not allowed

00:07:31.360 to drink. That's how I view this role as secretary of defense is that I'm not going to have a drink

00:07:36.900 at all. That's not hard for me because it's not a problem for me. But I need to make sure the senators

00:07:41.540 and the troops and President Trump and everybody else knows when you call me 24 seven, you're getting

00:07:47.300 fully dialed in Pete, just like you always did in Iraq and Afghanistan. So this is the biggest

00:07:52.020 deployment of my life. And there won't be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I'm doing it.

00:07:58.760 Okay, so that's Pete now. But here's the thing. Let's say they get Pete's scalp,

00:08:04.220 like they got Matt Gaetz's scalp. Bobby Kennedy's history makes Pete look like the consummate Boy Scout.

00:08:13.240 He looks like he's ready to enter the priesthood. He's a lot older with a lot more of a checkered

00:08:22.100 past. I mean, even Maureen Callahan, who we love and who comes on this show regularly of the Daily

00:08:28.900 Mail, wrote a whole book about the Kennedys, Ask Not, it's called. And she does not spare RFKJ. And she

00:08:35.700 goes into some detail about the suicide of his first wife, if you just want a little preview for where

00:08:42.280 this is going. It's not going to be pretty at all. So we are really at a crossroads here about whether

00:08:49.540 we are going to sacrifice these nominees because of checkered personal pasts or not. It's not going

00:08:58.700 to get easier after Pete. This is the real issue. And so you hear Pete there come out and he say,

00:09:05.340 I won't drink in the role, which is admirable. But to his point, again, I don't really see any

00:09:11.420 evidence that the man has ever had a serious problem with alcohol, other than that he would

00:09:16.560 drink sometimes, like every member of the military. And well, pretty much just every single person in

00:09:22.460 the country has done at some point. So again, I think that attack was really, really weak. Some of

00:09:26.880 the really ridiculous stuff, I don't even want to state it here, some of the tabloid nonsense without

00:09:32.700 any evidence. You know, that's crazy. And so, OK, you know, the guy had a lot of girlfriends in the

00:09:37.700 past. If that is now the standard to tank down nominees, then President Trump might find himself

00:09:44.340 in the same situation. He found himself the first go around, which is that it could take months or

00:09:48.960 years to get even top nominees through. And I don't think we have the time for that.

00:09:54.740 Can we can we talk about it specifically, though? OK, so I'll take them in reverse order.

00:09:58.100 You know, the allegations about Pete and the women forget that bogus rape allegation. I mean,

00:10:04.400 they may try to make some hay out of that on Capitol Hill. Good luck. Good luck, because

00:10:07.520 at some point or another, the Republican senators will read the police report and ideally listen to

00:10:13.780 the hour long in-depth piece we did on this show so they can hear just how this story fell apart.

00:10:19.140 It fell apart. And that's why it wasn't charged. So I'm really not kind of worried about that piece

00:10:22.940 of it, frankly, with with Pete. But the womanizing is admitted. So that's fair game. And they're going

00:10:29.720 to come for him on it. He's cheated on all three of his wives multiple times, according to the reports

00:10:34.120 by on at least one of the wives. And when he got together with his current wife, he was still with

00:10:40.880 his second wife and he impregnated his current wife while still married to the second. And it wasn't

00:10:47.080 until I think she gave birth that the second wife filed for divorce from Pete. That's when things

00:10:52.420 went really south. And those two had an acrimonious divorce proceeding. OK, so that's going to be

00:10:57.820 discussed. It's not great. But Pete's point is that's in the past. And I admit it. I'm not proud

00:11:03.180 of it. So so that's the the cheating. OK, but the the RFKJ, like there was literally a news report,

00:11:14.200 multiple news reports a couple of months ago about him having a digital affair, you know,

00:11:20.600 like a virtual affair with a reporter who was covering him for New York magazine that they

00:11:26.940 were allegedly sexting, that they were having phone sex and that Bobby kept trying to block

00:11:32.860 her in an attempt to be faithful to Cheryl Hines. But they never physically did anything together.

00:11:39.260 But, you know, that is an infidelity. Mediaite reported on other women who Bobby Kennedy was

00:11:45.420 allegedly cheating on Cheryl with like recently. So honestly, to the members of the audience,

00:11:51.920 we need to decide right now, is this fair game or isn't it? Because if we're going to do this,

00:11:57.640 we're going to start knocking nominees out because, as Rich Lowry said, they're Tomcats.

00:12:03.420 It's such a cute colloquial term that we better get used to them all getting knocked out. If this is

00:12:09.820 the then no one's going to be left. I mean, like maybe Ron DeSantis could withstand. But I mean,

00:12:14.600 there are a lot of these guys will have had problems in this lane. Yes. The strangest aspect

00:12:20.060 of the Bobby Kennedy, Olivia Nuzzi digital sexting story is and the part that would seem the least

00:12:27.860 credible to me is the man's a Kennedy. OK, I don't think Kennedy's need to have digital affairs.

00:12:33.240 Last I checked, the Kennedy's have full on blown affairs. And so this is very bad. It's always

00:12:37.620 inexcusable. She lived in New York. I know. Maybe that was I don't know. Don't they have

00:12:42.840 airplanes? It was just strange, given the 70 year history of the Kennedy family. But regardless,

00:12:49.000 it's always bad. It's always inexcusable. There's no there's no defending it in any way.

00:12:53.560 But I think your point, Megan, is is really apt, which is what what is the standard here? First of

00:12:59.320 all, five seconds ago, the Democrats were telling us that marriage doesn't even exist and everything's

00:13:03.260 fluid and we all need to have throuples and quadruples. And Bill Clinton's a paragon of

00:13:07.520 moral virtue and what, you know, stay out of our bedroom and whatever nonsense they were saying.

00:13:12.100 Now, of course, the situation's totally changed. And I don't know. It seems to me that if we're

00:13:17.940 going to have a standard, it needs to be a consistent standard. And just from practical politics,

00:13:23.140 how much chum are we going to throw into the water for these guys? Because it's going to be a really

00:13:28.900 tough fight in any administration. A president needs to replace about 5000 people in the government.

00:13:36.080 If you really want to make serious changes to a bureaucracy that counts into the millions,

00:13:40.160 you probably need to swap out 40 to 50,000 people. Now, a relatively small number needs Senate

00:13:44.660 confirmation. But a lot of those people are going to get a lot of publicity. So how high are we going

00:13:49.920 to set these standards and how much higher are these standards going to be than the Democrats set

00:13:54.280 them? To me, I think the real reason they're going after Pete Hegseth with such intense fervor is

00:13:59.380 because the guy's good on TV. Somehow being good on TV is now considered a negative in some

00:14:04.780 quarters. I don't think that's a negative. I think it's very important if you're in senior

00:14:08.300 administration roles to be able to communicate in a way that is persuasive, that gets the message

00:14:13.540 out there, that moves the ball down the field. And so the guy's got a great military background,

00:14:19.580 seems important for running the Pentagon. The guy has very prestigious degrees from even if you think

00:14:25.960 the schools don't matter anymore. He is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard. He's very good at

00:14:30.560 communicating on air. He's worked with veterans. I don't know. What more do you really want? If

00:14:35.500 we're going to set these standards impossibly high, then don't be surprised when you can't staff your

00:14:40.120 administration. I think the media is going after him for a couple of reasons. Number one, yeah,

00:14:46.800 Fox News personality, good looking guy who's a conservative, never mind white guy, F you. The media is

00:14:53.440 already like, we don't like you. We're jealous that you've been tapped for a massive position of

00:14:58.600 power, notwithstanding your disgusting work over on Fox and friends weekend, which we loathe with a

00:15:03.840 passion. Right. And, um, they're not that pro military. Most of these media members anyway. So

00:15:10.360 they're, they're inclined to dislike him, but I also think it's just, they're still reeling the media

00:15:15.500 and the Democrats, um, from the loss in the presidential race. And they would love to punish Trump and anyone

00:15:21.720 around him. And so, uh, any scalp will do that. It's they, they, if they could do this to Tom

00:15:27.540 Homan, who's going to be border czar, which is not, doesn't require Senate confirmation, they would

00:15:31.700 do it to him. If they, if they could do it to the press secretary, they would do it to her. But Pete's got

00:15:36.960 personal vulnerabilities, which they're really enjoying, you know, uh, exploiting. Um, the, the thing

00:15:44.180 that's so insane though is every single allegation against Pete, every single one, it has been

00:15:51.200 anonymous. There is not one on the record attack against him. There's no, not one name saying he

00:15:59.800 did this to me, or I saw him do X. I was the eyewitness who saw him fall down drunk and, you

00:16:04.620 know, require assistance getting into the hotel room, whatever, not one. And on the other hand,

00:16:09.220 you have medal of honor recipients, war heroes, guys who spent time with him at the veterans

00:16:15.100 charities. He spent his middle 10 years working at saying, this is a man of character. We were

00:16:20.900 actually present for a lot of these events and they did not go down as is being alleged. He wasn't

00:16:25.680 even at the strip club. Sean Parnell, Parnell, who's been on this program many times, um, ran for

00:16:30.740 Senate in Pennsylvania has said, I was the, I was at that strip club. He wasn't there. That's not,

00:16:34.720 he wasn't there. Um, he was there on that trip. I think is what he said. I'm not sure if he was at

00:16:39.620 the strip club, but he was saying that that didn't happen. Um, so you have anonymous and then on the

00:16:45.560 record saying not true and refuting a lot of the points point by point, or at least challenging them.

00:16:50.740 So how possibly can you tank a nomination as important as this, Michael based purely on anonymous

00:16:57.260 accusations that we don't know where they're coming from. We have no way of assessing their credibility.

00:17:02.700 Exactly. And this is what's so dangerous about these kinds of allegations is it, it's not just

00:17:10.780 when, when people throw out a total falsehoods, those that's actually pretty easy to knock down

00:17:16.580 what, what political operators do, which is much different, more difficult to, to knock down

00:17:22.420 is they mix a lot of falsehood with a little bit of truth. So we know that Pete has this checkered

00:17:28.260 marital history. So then they're going to start saying, and you know, he, he showed up drunk to

00:17:33.480 the morning show. Now this one should be easily disproven because there's footage, there's video.

00:17:39.540 He's never appeared drunk on the morning show to me. I've done Fox and friends during the weekend,

00:17:43.900 on the weekend, many, many times. I've been in studio with him many, many times, never seemed

00:17:48.700 drunk to me. I don't know. And there are others who have been on that couch with him every day.

00:17:52.380 They come at, Will Kane came out and said, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm with

00:17:55.500 them every day. And this isn't true, but because they mix it in with a little bit of things that

00:18:00.780 are, you know, demonstrably true. The guy's been married multiple times. Then it just gives this

00:18:05.520 patina of credibility. But I think your point is really good, Megan. You know, if, even if there

00:18:11.860 were accusers who are putting their names on this, who are coming out and saying, it was me on this

00:18:16.700 day. And then here's my Sheila Jane, you know, Smith, even then there's a good chance that it's

00:18:21.960 nonsense, like the Christine Blasey Ford attacks on Brett Kavanaugh, which were totally without

00:18:25.940 credibility. But, but in this case, the fact that it's all anonymous, all at the most convenient

00:18:31.580 time, I think it's, it's enough to say that at least 90% of this stuff is bunk.

00:18:39.020 And you know, it's so galling. So now, you know, Pete got accused of rape by this woman. He had

00:18:46.620 an interlude with in a hotel room in 2017. And this woman, the media, I mean, they've abandoned

00:18:53.380 now reporting that she was married and her husband was in a hotel room down the hall. They're not even

00:18:57.220 pointing this out. The woman had a reason to make up the rape charge people. The reason was a man

00:19:01.900 with two legs and two arms and two kids with him who happened to be her spouse. Um, it, you know,

00:19:07.820 it's not a great thing to go bang Pete Hegseth when your husband and kids are down the hall. It's,

00:19:14.060 you know, even the loosest of women might have some guilt returning to the marital bed after that.

00:19:20.600 And so, so that, that woman, that happens. And the woman claims, oh, I was raped. And she comes

00:19:27.940 back a couple of years later wanting money and he pays her off as I think most men would like Pete

00:19:33.180 was married to Jen at the time. I'm sure it was an embarrassment. He was at Fox. He didn't want that

00:19:38.620 to hit the news. Who would want that to hit the news? True or not true. Either way,

00:19:43.580 he wouldn't want that in the news. So he pays her off. So now, uh, Senator Rick Scott of Florida

00:19:49.680 goes on CNN with Jake Tapper and he's defending Pete saying all this stuff is anonymous. This is

00:19:55.240 ridiculous. We can't tank people based on this. And Jake Tapper says, well, shouldn't he release her

00:20:01.940 from the NDA? Then she won't have to be anonymous anymore. What in the actual F?

00:20:07.680 What? No, this is so, this is such bullshit, Michael. Yes. And to his credit, Senator Scott

00:20:13.240 said, no. So you see how it works. So like Pete's got to pay the money to stop the professional

00:20:19.580 embarrassment, which he does. Then a friend of the accuser leaks a memo to the Trump transition team

00:20:26.880 saying he's a rapist. And Pete has to say, that's not true. So the woman has clearly violated the NDA

00:20:32.700 through a friend. Uh, so he's not getting the benefit of his bargain anymore. She's,

00:20:37.700 she's blown it, but he's still paying because he's upholding his contractual obligations.

00:20:42.400 And now the next media line is we'll release her from her obligations. If you don't like

00:20:46.640 anonymous allegations, if you don't then tell her all the money he's paid flushed down the toilet.

00:20:52.300 And I, you know, presumably might still have to pay. And just, unless you give her a national

00:20:56.920 forum to say all the terrible things about you that she said before that you say are made up,

00:21:00.600 then you're guilty. You're guilty. And you can't raise the anonymous thing,

00:21:04.420 which by the way, applies not just to this woman, but to the whatever 10, 15, who knows how many of

00:21:09.520 these people are leaking in the media about his drinking. And that's pretty much what it is. It's

00:21:13.640 drinking. Well, and of course, Megan, I don't know what Pete paid in this NDA, but, uh, the publicity,

00:21:20.660 the book deals, the podcasts, the lecture tour that she's going to get. If she becomes the center

00:21:25.780 of a defense secretary confirmation hearing, I guarantee it's going to blow whatever Pete signed

00:21:31.560 off out of the water. So this seems so deeply cynical to me. It seems so deeply opportunistic.

00:21:37.980 It's so obviously hypocritical for the Democrats who consistently mock marriage, mock monogamy,

00:21:45.340 mock fidelity, try to redefine all of these things or abolish them outright. It's just, it's so,

00:21:51.620 it stinks to high heaven. And so I, I really hope for, uh, for a number of reasons pertaining to

00:21:59.800 justice, but also just pure practicality. I hope that Republicans don't take the bait here because,

00:22:05.700 uh, it's, it's a trap. And it's going to be really hard to get out of on the drinking front.

00:22:14.260 That one is a legitimate concern. I mean, I think that's a fair thing to inquire about. If Pete

00:22:21.420 can't handle his alcohol, if he's got an alcohol problem, even if it's short of being an alcoholic,

00:22:26.640 he shouldn't be sec deaf. That's true. So it is fair game to ask questions about whether some of

00:22:33.600 that behavior is ongoing and whether there's any reason to believe, you know, he'd behave like that

00:22:38.640 as a secretary of defense. If so, yeah, it's a no. So I think all that's fair game and they should

00:22:44.720 probe that. And even if Trump is satisfied that that's a problem, he should not pursue this

00:22:50.040 nomination. What I've seen is the only thing that's saying it's anything close to recent

00:22:54.720 is this anonymous NBC news report with 10 current and former staffers, seven former three current

00:23:02.320 who say they smelled alcohol on his breath. Sometimes when he showed up at set now at Fox and

00:23:08.000 friends weekend in, in the morning, right? Like either he was hung over or he went on the air

00:23:13.360 drunk, show us the tape, right? Show us the tape. Because let me tell you, I've been on air for 20

00:23:20.280 years. It's very hard to go on the air and, and I hide drunkenness. You know, I've only ever been

00:23:27.660 drunk once on the air and it was two Fridays ago, right here on the show, the audience watched it

00:23:32.820 happen. It wasn't a secret. It's, I, I can't imagine trying to hide that. I think even the most,

00:23:39.540 you know, the biggest drinker, the, the, the most familiar with alcohol can't do it because even an

00:23:46.660 alcoholic, they may think they're still in control, but the rest of us sober people are looking at them

00:23:51.060 like you're drunk. Yeah. If, if one could hide drunkenness, then people would get out of speaking,

00:23:58.540 speeding tickets much more frequently, you know, but the thing is even the most practiced drunk,

00:24:03.540 when he gets pulled over and says, what seems to be the officer problem, everyone knows exactly

00:24:07.560 what's going on. So I, I find that allegation about Pete to be totally without credibility.

00:24:13.420 And to your point, Megan, it's a fair enough question. And I'm, I'm sure for basically any guy

00:24:18.520 in the country, you could find some example of them being drunken in college or in their twenties

00:24:23.120 or something and, and, uh, say that this is evidence of some big problem, but, uh, well,

00:24:29.060 show me the proof that this has been a problem anytime in the past, I don't know, decade, half

00:24:34.920 decade. I don't show me any evidence of that. I don't really see it. And for a guy who's on TV for a

00:24:40.320 living, it would seem to me there would be any evidence whatsoever. So once again, even on this

00:24:46.520 front, you know, the, the lady charges didn't totally take him out. So now they're trying to call

00:24:51.100 him a booze hound. Okay. Provide one shred of evidence right now. The charges just seem so thin.

00:24:57.620 Mm-hmm. Um, well on the anonymous front, want to follow up on something that happened in my Pete

00:25:05.200 interview yesterday, where we talked about this one document based on Pete's time at Concerned

00:25:10.760 Veterans for America, a pro veterans, uh, group that was trying to, uh, endorse candidates and do

00:25:16.540 things for candidates who would support veterans causes while he was there. Um, Jesse Jane Duff was

00:25:22.860 there in some capacity to his, uh, side says that Pete fired her and that she then became embittered

00:25:30.460 and started attacking him in the media and elsewhere, like quietly though, behind the scenes.

00:25:36.140 And ultimately someone wrote a seven page letter, uh, complaining about Pete that was sent to Fox

00:25:45.180 news. And it was about his time at Concerned Veterans for America. Just a small clarification

00:25:50.360 yesterday. I said that the whistleblower letter was sent to Concerned Veterans for America. That's

00:25:55.780 not the case. It was sent to Fox complaining about Pete. And we said that the whistleblower,

00:26:03.620 as far as we understand it, if you want to use that term was Jesse Jane Duff, because that's what

00:26:08.460 CBS news had reported that she'd been found to be behind the letter. We said, we talked to Jesse

00:26:13.380 Jane Duff about it and we did reach out to her. And here's the statement she gave us. I am not the

00:26:18.120 whistleblower. I cannot come on your show because I invited her to come on too. She added, I am the

00:26:22.920 executive director of veterans for Trump and still a paid member of the Trump team. I work at the

00:26:28.640 behest of president Trump and my loyalty lies there. Now we sent her several follow-up questions

00:26:36.360 that, you know, we wanted to clear up because what they're saying on Pete's side is that it was her

00:26:45.320 that she sent the letter and that she forgot to remove the metadata. And they were able to identify,

00:26:52.140 forget the term whistleblower, but her as the one who wrote that letter to Fox complaining about Pete.

00:26:57.140 And, um, so we asked her in a follow-up, did you complain about Pete Hegseth? And did you, do you

00:27:05.760 deny that you wrote an email complaining about Pete Hegseth in the 1516 timeframe, the metadata of which

00:27:12.680 was later traced back to you? We did not get an answer from her on that. Uh, we did hear from her, from

00:27:21.020 Pete's lawyer who told us standby. I want to make sure I've got it that, uh, he says she was the one

00:27:30.060 behind the letter that was sent to Fox news. He said it was anonymous, but she did not remember

00:27:35.880 to scrub the metadata and that she was the person behind that. Now she's over on Newsmax trying to

00:27:42.600 say nice things about Pete now, like supportive of his nomination, backing his position about women

00:27:50.120 in combat. And if she is working for team Trump in any capacity, I'll bet she does have some worries

00:27:57.380 about being identified as somebody who's trying to bring him down either then or possibly right now.

00:28:03.900 But this is what I will say. If any of the media are using Jesse, and if it's true that Jesse was

00:28:12.260 fired by Pete, that needs to be disclosed. You cannot just take random complaints about a man

00:28:21.020 and not figure out the bias of the people making the complaints. And if you're going to say anonymous

00:28:29.080 person anonymous here, then you have an obligation to say this anonymous person was terminated by Pete

00:28:36.720 Hex. Like it's so effing dishonest, Michael. I, I can't, I've got nothing against Jesse,

00:28:43.380 nothing whatsoever. But if this is all true, that it's just a microcosm of how dishonest this media is.

00:28:50.500 And don't forget, Megan, we've been viewing this as a lens, uh, through a lens that pits the Trump

00:28:57.200 team against the liberals and the liberal media. But a lot of this fight can also take place within

00:29:03.660 the Trump team. This is not particular to Trump. This is true of any political organization.

00:29:08.020 There is all sorts of infighting. Mar-a-Lago is Versailles because Trump is the great figure in

00:29:14.480 the party. And so not everyone is always on board. There are always factions vying for power,

00:29:21.960 vying for influence, rival nominees who want the spot. We're talking about one of the most desirable jobs.

00:29:27.200 In the country, you're leading the U S military. So there's going to be all sorts of fighting and

00:29:33.280 backstabbing and trying to hold positions within Trump world. Well, maybe stabbing people in the

00:29:38.100 back who are in a different part of Trump world. That is how politics works. The fundamental things

00:29:42.540 apply as time goes by. Uh, but we, we need to take that for what it is there. There is a lot of

00:29:49.620 cynical jockeying that goes on in any political organization. And it's, it's why we, we need to be,

00:29:56.540 uh, asking questions, not, not merely about the motives for people in the liberal media or in

00:30:01.940 the Democrat party or in some Democrat Senator's office, but maybe the motives for different

00:30:06.980 factions within the Trump umbrella, because those are in many ways going to be more relevant to the

00:30:13.020 fight that's going on than, than even what we're seeing on the left. So let's talk about Joni Ernst

00:30:19.620 and Ron DeSantis because, well, first one, just one quick point. Will Kane put out a tweet on X

00:30:26.840 yesterday saying, just got off the phone with, um, Bill Brown, a former Navy seal, a combat vet and

00:30:34.140 leader in the seal community right now, over 100 Navy seals are organizing and committed to march on

00:30:39.720 Washington in support of Pete Hegseth, just a heads up at GOP Senate. So it will be very interesting

00:30:46.240 if the rank and file stand up on Pete's behalf and say, no, we're not going to let you pull this

00:30:53.200 bullshit on him. He, we want him. We, we actually really want a war fighter. Who's one of us. Who's

00:31:00.240 not an administrator. Who's not worried about the next star on his shoulder, but who's worried about

00:31:06.120 us. That's going to put these GOP years in a very tight spot because so far what they're saying is

00:31:11.160 forget what Blumenthal said about five to 10 secretly confessing to this Democrat, their plans.

00:31:16.340 They will answer to Trump and to Elon who will unleash his pack on them. So they can tell Dick

00:31:22.000 Blumenthal, whatever they want, by the way, he's a known liar. Um, what, what, what's going to matter

00:31:28.300 is voting day. And let's just see if they really do have the balls to stand up to Elon super PAC.

00:31:32.440 That's going to primary all of them. That's going to spend ad dollars to try to hurt them. Right?

00:31:36.880 So we'll see. But so far the reports are right now. It's of course, Murkowski, of course, Collins,

00:31:41.820 McConnell and maybe Joni Ernst, who is a Senator from Iowa red state served herself. She met with

00:31:51.100 Pete yesterday and came out with some anodyne statements. They were not critical, but they

00:31:54.900 were not positive either. And, um, I don't know where she stands, but there are some reports now

00:32:01.620 by the federalist and elsewhere that she is vying for the role that she, she wants to knife Pete

00:32:08.860 because she would like to be that of DOD. And then there's DeSantis who was minding his own

00:32:15.380 business governing Florida. And I mean, I suggested him as a possible fill in if Pete fell. I mean,

00:32:21.820 I don't want him to replace Pete actively, but if Pete goes, I think he'd be great. But it's

00:32:29.260 complicated with him because like, if it looks like he's replacing Pete, MAGA will not accept him

00:32:36.340 because he was not a Trump loyalist. And in fact, it was very critical of Trump toward the end of

00:32:40.420 that primary campaign campaign. So what do you make of these, of, uh, the senators, including Joni?

00:32:44.960 Because if they lose four, they're toast, they can lose three and JD Vance can cast the deciding

00:32:50.380 vote. If they lose four, he's toast and of DeSantis as a possible next bet. Don't forget who was at

00:32:58.400 the top of George W. Bush's vice presidential search committee. You know, the, the man, uh,

00:33:04.020 himself who just, he kept finding problems with every nominee who came up until, well, alas,

00:33:10.980 Mr. Bush, if you're asking Dick Cheney to be your VP, I guess I have to serve my

00:33:14.960 country. One gets some of those vibes from Joni Ernst right now, uh, though that's, it's

00:33:21.060 unfortunate. And I, I hope that, uh, if Trump really does want to stand by his nominee, that

00:33:27.360 they, uh, impress upon Joni Ernst and any other senators that there, there could be problems

00:33:32.920 for their political careers and legacies if they, if they don't get on board, uh, in terms

00:33:38.700 of DeSantis, DeSantis would be great in any part of the government, but I think your fears

00:33:42.400 are quite, uh, right, Megan, which is that the, the, the way that DeSantis could enter

00:33:47.840 into a Trump administration has to be delicate. One of the things I really love about Trump

00:33:53.400 is that everyone mistakenly believes that for him, it's all personal and he holds grudges

00:33:58.260 and he's petty and, but really I think the opposite is true. He fights in a very personal

00:34:02.860 way, but I I've really never seen anyone in politics, forgive his enemies and bring them

00:34:08.560 back in quite as much as Trump. I mean, he just put up Marco Rubio with whom he fought

00:34:14.260 a bitter primary contest in 16, put him up as secretary of state. It's one of the most

00:34:18.300 important roles in the government. He's now buddies with Lindsey Graham. He's now buddies

00:34:22.880 with Rand Paul. He made fun of Rand Paul's face during a presidential debate in 16. Now they're,

00:34:28.340 they're chummy, chummy. He's now pals with Ted Cruz. He's now, you know, all of these guys,

00:34:32.200 he does bring them back in. It's not to quote Michael Corleone. It's not personal. It's strictly

00:34:37.440 business. Yeah. It's strictly business. Um, Lindsey Graham is annoying to put it mildly. I,

00:34:46.500 I think he's trying to tank this nomination right now. I think he's against Pete Hegseth. He,

00:34:50.680 I've never seen somebody so desperate to like thread the needle to like play both sides, uh,

00:34:56.440 of defense at once. Right. To me, it seems clear based on his statements so far, you know, like

00:35:00.680 I'm very concerned about the latest reporting. We're going to have to get to the bottom of these.

00:35:03.500 He is not pro Pete. He's a, he's a more Neo Connie kind of guy, but he's bent the knee to Trump.

00:35:08.920 So he knows like he's got to check his Neo Connie instincts and try to seem a little bit more

00:35:14.020 appealing to MAGA. But to me, it seems clear. He doesn't like Pete. I'm sure he'd much rather have

00:35:18.020 a Joni Ernst who, by the way, I really liked Joni Ernst. I like her. So I don't think we should

00:35:22.660 completely throw her under the bus as like, this is necessarily true until we have

00:35:26.300 proof that it's true. Um, but if it's true, if it's true, she's about to lose a massive amount

00:35:31.160 of support because if there's an active undermining and knifing of Pete without, you know, really

00:35:36.120 giving him a fair hearing, that's not going to go well. And I will tell you this, Charlie Kirk just

00:35:40.400 tweeted out. We're learning a lot about Joni Ernst and the Senate establishment right now.

00:35:45.620 Trump faithful are talking about finding a primary challenger. This is getting very serious.

00:35:50.800 The first response is absolutely. We need to Liz Cheney her. So there's a lot of risk. There's a

00:35:57.700 lot of risk. There's no risk for Collins, Murkowski, McConnell. There's risk for Joni Ernst and any

00:36:02.960 other Senator. When you mentioned that Lindsey Graham is a little bit more Neo Connie and there's

00:36:08.560 part of that establishment is really opposed to Pete Hegseth. All you got to remember that the story

00:36:15.040 that tells you this whole story is that after Pete was named as the SECDEF nominee, Politico ran a

00:36:21.660 piece about all the opposition to him and their chief source was a defense industry lobbyist who said,

00:36:28.200 who the hell is Pete Hegseth? We don't like this guy. That to me tells you everything. Yes, he hasn't

00:36:35.260 worked in the defense industry lobbies. He's not really part of the military industrial complex and

00:36:40.220 they don't like him. And that is one of the chief recommendations of Pete Hegseth for this job.

00:36:45.960 So, yeah. Well, wait, can I, let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question on the heels

00:36:49.500 of that yesterday mentioned it in passing yesterday with Pete, but why on the report that came out of

00:36:56.140 NBC about alleged Fox news, current and former staffers, who's that Gretchen Carlson? I mean,

00:37:03.760 honestly, who, who tell us who give me the names. Cause let me tell you something. I will be able to

00:37:09.440 tell you right away, whether they are credible and whether they know anything about Pete Hegseth.

00:37:13.980 Tell me who they are. Okay. Because I was there many years with the guy and I know the scuttlebutt

00:37:19.960 on Pete. It was that he was a philanderer, which we now know is true. That's what people were saying.

00:37:25.780 There wasn't a whiff, not a whiff of he's a drunk. And there were whiffs along those lines about other

00:37:32.040 people drunk or drugs, depending on the person, never anything about Pete. Okay. So anyway, that NBC news report

00:37:38.980 that allegedly has all these current and former Fox news support staff are saying this stuff about

00:37:44.040 him. One of the lead reporters on it was the NBC Pentagon reporter. Why would the Pentagon reporter

00:37:53.460 be penning that story? I realize he's, you know, being nominated to be defense chief, but if you're

00:37:59.980 looking for sources at Fox news who know about Pete's alleged drunkenness, then you want your media

00:38:06.780 reporter. That would make some sense. Um, they have an entertainment reporter that that made some

00:38:12.580 sense, but the Pentagon reporter would have very different sources. Sometimes presidents get elected

00:38:20.720 to just keep things going and make modest improvements. Other times, as in this election,

00:38:27.240 presidents are elected to radically shake things up. Uh, and when you want to radically shape,

00:38:33.540 shake things up, people are going to come out with the knives for you. So to your point, Megan,

00:38:38.860 I think it just backs up the political point, which is that if, if the Pentagon, if some of the corrupt

00:38:46.060 top brass who spend more time whining about white rage and seeking to instill critical race theory into

00:38:53.940 cadets, uh, then they do focus on winning wars. If those guys oppose Pete Hegseth, that is a great mark

00:39:00.860 in Pete Hegseth's favor. Even to your point, Megan, on the anonymous sources at Fox past and present,

00:39:09.040 you've spent a lot more time around Fox news than I have, but I've spent a little bit of time around

00:39:12.520 there and there, as in many political organizations and media organizations, there are factions. There are

00:39:19.560 people who don't like the other people there and they want to get the other people fired and they're

00:39:24.080 jockeying for influence and power. And they whine about each other, sometimes even on the record,

00:39:28.720 but usually off the record to other media that always happens. And so it seems to me that what's

00:39:34.640 going on here is not an honest vetting of a defense secretary nominee in the interest of the common

00:39:41.580 good of the American people. I think what you're seeing is a lot of people trying to settle scores,

00:39:46.640 scores that go back decades that have nothing to do with the job and nothing to do with the

00:39:51.020 administration, scores within old political nonprofits, scores within campaign apparatuses and

00:39:57.100 scores within media organizations. Okay. That is to be expected, but no serious statesman should

00:40:03.460 allow that to distract them from the actual job that is before them, which is putting the common

00:40:08.840 good of the American people first and making America great again. Here is Democratic representative

00:40:15.740 Jim McGovern of Massachusetts on the Trump picks so far. Listen to this guy.

00:40:24.660 It looks like the requirements to be in the Trump White House are that you have to, that you either

00:40:29.820 abuse women or you're an out of touch billionaire. What's next? Are they going to replace FBI background

00:40:36.960 checks with a Fox News screen test? I mean, forget about a White House cabinet. Donald Trump is making it

00:40:44.160 into a junk draw. His commerce secretary, a billionaire, a billionaire, big surprise. His education

00:40:52.920 secretary, yet another billionaire. What's her qualification? She ran WWE. The person he tapped

00:41:00.900 to lead health and human services, he thinks tap water turns kids gay. His defense secretary, I mean,

00:41:07.980 this guy is probably dropping out momentarily. Apparently he drinks on the job and paid to cover

00:41:14.160 up his sexual assault allegations. Even his mom doesn't like him. Now, do we want people who

00:41:20.380 understand our struggles? People who will fight for regular folks? Or do we want billionaire trust fund

00:41:27.040 weirdos who just prop up the same broken rigged system?

00:41:31.820 Okay. I mean, where to begin? First of all, Pete should sue him for saying he drinks on the job.

00:41:40.440 He should sue his ass. That's defamatory. Um, there's absolutely no proof of that. There's

00:41:44.960 only anonymous source saying that Pete has denied. So sir, be careful. Um, secondly, the, the ties to

00:41:51.020 billionaires. You've got to be kidding me from these Democrats with their, you know, Pritzker,

00:41:55.500 the role and Cuban look what, let's just look at the election we just had who they Stephen Colbert

00:42:00.860 asked Kamala Harris, who's your favorite billionaire. It's Oprah. Like, would you just spare me your

00:42:05.800 indignation over these politicians surrounding themselves with billionaires? Uh, and also just

00:42:10.640 on the premise, Megan, the premise to me seems a little weird. I'm not saying that we should have

00:42:15.300 billionaires fill up every position in the government. And I think there are legitimate

00:42:18.060 questions about economic inequality and blah, blah, blah. You know, I'm all for it. But when we're

00:42:22.160 talking about the commerce department, I don't know, call me crazy. I don't think we should have

00:42:27.860 a poor guy running the commerce department. Like if your job is to run trade and commerce,

00:42:33.420 I would be more inclined to trust a rich guy to do that than I don't know, someone like me.

00:42:38.920 Right. What are we going to do? Get, get somebody from the coffee kiosk at the corner of, you know,

00:42:42.540 56 and Broadway. I'm like, there are some roles that we want somebody who's seen some financial success

00:42:47.340 having. And then the womanizing charge from that Democrat. I mean like, Oh, they're,

00:42:51.440 they're abusers of women over on the Republican side. Hello. I mean, Joe Biden, do we have to go

00:42:57.380 through the number of allegations against him? Not to mention Bill Clinton, not to mention Doug

00:43:02.640 Emhoff, which is the final cherry on top of the Sunday, because all these same media that are

00:43:07.680 running to print these anonymous allegations against Pete, despite the fact that they're

00:43:12.360 anonymous, totally ignored the Doug Emhoff allegations, both that he cheated with his last

00:43:18.920 girlfriend or with this, I'm sorry, his last wife before Kamala with the nanny and impregnated her.

00:43:25.400 And according to the daily mail did something that that woman, the nanny affair partner said,

00:43:32.120 caused her to miscarry their baby and then wailed on another woman out in the open public

00:43:38.300 in France. And that woman is very successful, credible attorney who made these allegations

00:43:43.900 anonymously. So they couldn't cover them. Michael, you see, because we don't go with anonymous

00:43:50.380 reports like this, unless you're a Republican. Hello, Republican senators get into the game or keep

00:44:00.060 losing. Yeah, precisely, precisely right. When, when Charlie Kirk comes out there and makes these not

00:44:07.900 so veiled threats at members of the Senate who don't want to give President Trump his, his nominees,

00:44:13.020 you know, he's, he's actually educating them. You know, he's making an important lesson, which is,

00:44:17.420 look, some of you guys here in the Senate, in the GOP establishment, it's like you want to lose. And I

00:44:23.820 think there are people in the GOP establishment who are comfortable being the junior party in the

00:44:29.420 governing coalition. The Democrats are the major party, the Republicans are the minor party. In some ways,

00:44:35.660 those Republicans, they're, they're like court jester conservatives, their chief role is to be present,

00:44:42.220 put up the facade of opposition, and therefore to legitimize the liberal regime. And they like doing

00:44:48.780 it, and they're paid relatively well, and they have their positions of prestige. But if you actually want

00:44:53.740 to go in and change things, if you want to improve the situation, you're going to ruffle a lot of feathers,

00:44:59.260 you're going to get a lot of bullets flying at you politically, and, and you're going to have to

00:45:03.660 fight. And so if there are Republican senators who are not up for the fight, you know, that that's a great

00:45:10.300 pity, and probably they should face consequences the next time they're up for election.

00:45:16.900 Yeah, and you know what, Trump has been reasonable, like Matt Gaetz fell because there were these

00:45:21.020 allegations about paying 17 year olds for sex. And he didn't put on some big campaign to save him. You

00:45:26.700 know, he called some senators and said, gee, it's too bad. I'd really like to keep him. And they said, the votes

00:45:31.880 aren't there, Mr. President, Matt Gaetz went away, and Pam Bondi came. So it's not that Trump's going

00:45:37.240 to be unreasonable on this, but that this can't go on. Like, there's, like I say, if you, when we get

00:45:44.600 to Tulsi, they're going to be telling us she is a Russian foreign agent. They're going to be tens of

00:45:51.880 of anonymous sources in news articles saying she's got this connection to Bashar al-Assad and this

00:45:59.480 connection to Putin, and she's compromised, and the no-fly list. And like, this is a, these

00:46:04.920 Republicans are going to have to find their steely spines. Or he's right, they will be

00:46:08.920 primaried. They will be primaried thanks to Charlie, they will be primaried thanks to Elon, and thanks

00:46:13.320 to all of us who are sick of losing like this. Yes, you know the letter is already being written.

00:46:20.200 51 former and present intelligence officials know that Tulsi Gabbard is a secret KGB agent and the leader

00:46:27.800 of ISIS. And we're, we have proof because this whole charge came to us first from Hillary Clinton.

00:46:34.040 People forget that. This whole Tulsi is a Russian asset nonsense. That was just a line from Hillary

00:46:39.160 Clinton in 2020. It's totally, well, I suppose the Russia hoax against Trump was also a line from

00:46:45.000 Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she was, ironically enough, colluding with the Russians to get that

00:46:50.280 Steele dossier. So it's just such bunk, Megan, and it's not going to stop. By the way, it's not going

00:46:56.520 to stop with Tulsi Gabbard. Whoever the next person they put up, that person's going to have a whole

00:47:01.160 dossier of mostly nonsense thrown at them too. So it really, it's not a question.

00:47:05.720 Then they'll get to Marco Rubio and Elise Stefanik and say, oh yeah, they're acceptable. And then

00:47:12.600 they're going to say, see, we're so reasonable. We said he could have a couple of them. It's fine with us

00:47:18.040 because they're more establishment types. And so it's all the core MAGA that do come with, you know,

00:47:24.120 some colorful resumes and histories in some cases. It's kind of, I don't know. I just feel like the

00:47:28.680 rebel strain within MAGA produces that, but also produces a willingness to bust things up,

00:47:34.920 which is why he got elected. So they're going to be just, just fine with establishment types and try

00:47:40.000 to look like the grownups in the room. But when the true MAGA acolytes get in there, it's going to be

00:47:45.520 bloody. Okay. I wanted to show you this. Something very weird happened about Hegseth over on MSNBC.

00:47:53.300 David Frum goes on there and makes a comment on Morning Joe on Wednesday. I mean, it was kind of,

00:48:01.000 it wasn't a nice comment. It was kind of a stupid throwaway. Well, here's, there's a story around

00:48:04.960 it. Watch Thought 9. David, I'll start with you on this. What's your sense of where the Hegseth

00:48:10.960 pick is headed here? Well, just given what one sees on camera, if you're too drunk for Fox News,

00:48:17.380 you're very, very drunk indeed. Okay. Well, whatever, right? Like who cares,

00:48:25.420 right? He writes for the Atlantic, by the way. So he comes out and says that, and then here's

00:48:30.120 what happens next. Thought 10. Before we go to break a little bit earlier in this block,

00:48:35.080 there was a comment made about Fox News in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number

00:48:42.080 of allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with

00:48:49.240 alcohol. The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we're in. We just want to

00:48:54.340 make that comment as well. We want to make that clear.

00:48:58.080 Um, we have differences in coverage with Fox News and that's a good debate that we should have,

00:49:05.520 uh, often. Um, but right now I just want to say there's a lot of good people that work at Fox News

00:49:10.740 who care about Pete Hegseth and we'll want to leave it at that. What? Right. So she comes out,

00:49:16.900 said like, I'm so sorry. What's happening. Then from comes out and says, we know what's happening

00:49:21.460 here is they're afraid. They're afraid of Trump. And this is very dangerous that they're already

00:49:27.580 bending the knee to Donald Trump. Um, because all, you know, freedom requires us to express

00:49:32.900 our opinions. What's happening here? Like what's actually, why is Mika Brzezinski trying to be nice

00:49:39.040 to Fox news? And why are they now trying to act offended at about a joke about a Trump nominee?

00:49:46.280 I think there are three layers of varying degrees of seriousness. One, if David from was making some

00:49:53.760 kind of accusation, I think they want to protect themselves from any claims of defamation to Mika

00:49:59.540 and Joe spent a lot of money on those airplane tickets to go grovel at Trump's feet at Mar-a-Lago.

00:50:04.080 That was only a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, I don't even think the polish is off the shoes yet

00:50:08.360 and they don't want to have wasted that trip. And then three, MSNBC doesn't have any viewers anymore.

00:50:14.220 They're probably going to be spun off. They're on the chopping block. Their demo gets fewer viewers

00:50:19.500 than local public access. You know, the main demo 18 to 54. So, you know, they're, they realize

00:50:25.980 they're in trouble. And I think in part they're sucking up to Trump and Fox news really just to

00:50:31.360 appeal to viewers beyond even some of the other considerations. Those old things that they used

00:50:37.160 to have called viewers. Michael Knowles stays with us. Don't go away. Well, we're all feeling pretty

00:50:41.860 good about where our country's headed right now, aren't we? I am. But it's when we let our guard down

00:50:47.100 that bad things can happen. This is why you always want to prepare for emergencies, no matter how good

00:50:52.160 you're feeling. And for that, there is My Patriot Supply. They have emergency food kits, solar power

00:50:58.720 generators, and water treatment systems. And right now you can get their four-week emergency food kit

00:51:03.620 for 50 bucks off. Their four-week emergency food kit includes some of my favorite meals like

00:51:08.900 creamy Alfredo pasta. Yes, this would be a comfort in an emergency. And snacks like sweet banana chips

00:51:15.580 with warehouses located across America. My Patriot Supply can send your four-week

00:51:20.800 emergency food kit in as little as one day. Go to preparewithmegan.com to get your four-week

00:51:28.300 emergency food kit now. But don't wait. Emergencies can happen anytime. That's preparewithmegan.com to

00:51:34.320 get your four-week emergency food kit now. All right, Michael, we got to spend just another

00:51:41.440 minute on that Scarborough, David Frum of the Atlantic story because my team will correct me

00:51:47.340 if I didn't think it was interesting enough. We've been laughing the last few minutes in the break

00:51:54.000 about what's actually happening here. We've got a couple of good things lined up for you. All right.

00:51:58.280 So they really wanted me to play the Scarborough reaction to David Frum's responsive attack,

00:52:05.040 which I'm going to get to. But first, I'm going to have to read you more of what David Frum

00:52:08.040 wrote. So he says this comment about, if too drunk for Fox News, oh, that's bad.

00:52:12.440 Then Mika goes out there like she's Queen Elizabeth. It's like, oh, we don't talk like

00:52:16.480 that here. This is MSNBC. And then David Frum goes to the Atlantic and writes a piece about what

00:52:27.220 just happened to him, right? Like he got called out and treated like he was some sort of a cad.

00:52:32.000 And he writes the sound of fear on air, the sound of fear on air. This morning, I had an

00:52:38.560 unsettling experience. I was invited, invited onto MSNBC's Morning Joe to talk from a studio. I was

00:52:43.880 asked about Hegseth, blah, blah, blah. I told this, I said this thing. Uh, I told the story. Oh, I

00:52:49.500 answered by reminding viewers of some history. Then he compares Hegseth, whatever it goes on. Then he

00:52:54.620 says, um, at the next ad break, a producer spoke in my ear. He objected to my comments about Fox and

00:53:00.320 warned me not to repeat them. I said something noncommittal and got another round of warning.

00:53:04.880 Shortly afterward, co-host Mika Brzezinski read an apology for my remarks. Here we go.

00:53:09.620 It is a very ominous thing. If our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling

00:53:16.740 the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease. I write these words very aware

00:53:24.120 that I'm probably saying goodbye forever to a television platform that I enjoy and from which I

00:53:29.520 have benefited as both viewer and guest. I have been the recipient of personal kindnesses from the

00:53:34.980 hosts that I have not forgotten. I do not write to scold anyone. I write because fear is infectious.

00:53:43.600 Let it spread and it will paralyze us all. The only antidote is courage and that is infectious too.

00:53:52.720 Boom. Boom. That's David Frum. Okay. Mic drop. I'm the courageous one. Man up you P words over there

00:53:59.940 on MSNBC. So then Joe Scarborough, it's so fun to watch them fight. It's like these internal Democrat

00:54:05.800 fights. They're all mad at each other. Everyone's very, very sensitive after the Trump victory.

00:54:11.480 Here's Joe Scarborough responding to that on the air. Watch.

00:54:17.700 What was the headline? The sound of fear. No, that wasn't the sound of fear. That was the sound of

00:54:24.200 civility. I would recommend that if we're at a stage where a comment like this causes a meltdown,

00:54:31.420 and I saw George Conway, another guy we have on the show.

00:54:34.160 Who we love.

00:54:34.760 We love George saying, oh, read this article. It's going to make you very sad, but you must read it

00:54:41.520 all. Oh, because of the fearful times we're in. Well, there's some problem with the times that we're

00:54:50.000 in. Let me tell you something. You can talk to anybody that's worked in the front office of NBC and

00:54:56.400 MSNBC over the past 22 years. I'll tell you, I'm not fearful. You talked to anybody who served with me

00:55:03.660 in Congress. They will tell you, not fearful of leadership. Yeah. Not fearful.

00:55:11.820 Rambo. Rambo of morning Joe horned ring glasses wants you to know he doesn't eat. It's no for breakfast,

00:55:20.580 just like Kamala. He's like, who is he? You guys are chickens. No, you're a chicken. You're the big

00:55:27.460 buck, buck, buck. No, you're a buck, buck. This is one of the great examples of an observation by

00:55:35.380 Henry Kissinger. When you are watching the Iran-Iraq war, you're really just hoping that they

00:55:42.240 both lose. I could not find more delight in this. Yes. Okay. So now I have a fun follow-up for you

00:55:50.080 because the media really, it's not going well for them. In fact, I should tell you about the MSNBC

00:55:55.460 ratings before I move on. Problematic to put it mildly. Here it is. On November 26th, last week,

00:56:07.440 MSNBC had the lowest rated non-holiday weekday among that advertiser coveted demo of 25 to 54-year-olds

00:56:15.420 in 20 years. Lowest numbers in 20 years. The audience has heard me talk about the slashies.

00:56:23.360 That's devastating. That's the last thing you do. We never got a slashie on Fox News ever.

00:56:27.660 And that's when you get under 50,000. You'd never get it in the overall at Fox. You might get it on

00:56:32.460 MSNBC. But sometimes the MSNBCers were flirting with slashies in the demo, 25 to 54-year-olds getting

00:56:38.640 less than 50,000. I mean, the shame, the shame of getting slashies. Well, this was back 15 years ago.

00:56:44.600 And they sometimes got them, but then they started doing better and they did better under Trump and

00:56:48.300 so on. They're back. The slashies are back. 25 to 54-year-old demo, 38,000. The average in the demo

00:57:00.080 was 38,000. It's smallest non-holiday audience among the viewers since July 19th, 2004. Slashies,

00:57:10.900 Michael Knowles. So that, you're right, is why they're like, we don't talk like that here about

00:57:18.320 Trump cabinet nominees or our friends over at Fox News. They're begging Republicans to give them a

00:57:26.300 try. Please, please forget everything we said and did. Please, if you have a Nielsen box, give us a

00:57:33.640 chance. That number is really shocking, Megan, especially cable and network TV. The numbers are

00:57:42.340 a little murkier based on Nielsen ratings or whatever. It's a little vaguer. If you exist in

00:57:48.300 the new media, as we do, you've worked in all of it, but I came up in the new media, you know your

00:57:53.720 numbers right down to the man. And you know a lot of data about your audience. You know not only the

00:57:59.860 age demo, you know men, women, this race, that race, over here in this part of the country,

00:58:05.400 you get a lot of information. To be posting those kinds of numbers, that is like a weak,

00:58:11.480 weak podcast. Forget about a cable news show on what was once a pretty sizable channel.

00:58:19.240 I have never felt more bullish on the new media, specifically right-wing or center-right new media,

00:58:26.360 which is almost repetitive because the popular alternative media tend to be center-right or

00:58:32.800 further-right. And that's because it's an alternative to the liberal media, which took over and had a

00:58:37.640 monopoly in the old ways. This is looking really, really good. And further evidence, I called some

00:58:44.840 weeks ago for the next White House press secretary, now Caroline Levitt, to tear up the press room seating

00:58:49.920 chart, not only because we don't like these people, but even more so because the chart doesn't make

00:58:54.480 sense. The fact that MSNBC has a seat at all on any day is pretty crazy. The fact that CNN is up there

00:59:00.820 by the front row, I mean, just doesn't make any sense. But now you see so much more evidence for

00:59:06.260 that. And I think you see a sign that President Trump will be doing it because, you know, the job

00:59:11.560 of the White House press room is to mediate between the American people and the White House, get the

00:59:16.480 White House's message out and get the questions from the people to be asked. Nobody is watching MSNBC.

00:59:22.280 Nobody is watching these old outlets. So a time to keep up with the times. And if we got to say

00:59:27.540 goodbye to Joe and Mika, now so be it. It's amazing. 38,000 on MSNBC. They probably have

00:59:34.280 100 staffers over there, you know, per show, at least 50. Like that's the average of my Instagram

00:59:39.300 clips from this show. Okay. Good luck to you. We have six staffers. So it's not going well,

00:59:49.060 particularly over there. And then they're feeling it. And it's not just MSNBC, the leftist

00:59:52.340 media in general. Esquire magazine decides what would be really fun is to embarrass ourselves

00:59:57.480 even more. And so they put out this article. Oh my God, where is it? Why can I never find

01:00:04.280 anything? I just have so much. Here it is. Hold on. I'm going to pull it up for you. They put

01:00:08.800 out this article that tries to, um, rip on the controversy over the pardons, right? Is

01:00:18.580 that what it is? Hold on a second. I got to find this. Why can't I find it? What page is

01:00:22.520 this? Oh yeah, here it is. Page two. Okay. So they, this was the headline that they published

01:00:28.480 on Tuesday, Hunter Biden. I was like Hunter Biden. Isn't the first presidential son caught

01:00:34.900 up in controversy. Anyone remember Neil Bush? And it goes on to say, uh, let's see. No,

01:00:45.100 no, nobody defines Poppy Bush's presidency by his son's struggles. This is Neil Bush was the brother

01:00:52.260 of George W. Bush and the son of George H W. Bush. Nobody defines Poppy Bush's presidency

01:00:57.020 by the son's struggles or the pardons he issued on his way out of the white house. The morals

01:01:03.660 shut the fuck up about the moral is shut the fuck up about Hunter Biden, please. And, um,

01:01:10.880 this gentleman, the type is so tiny on here. I'm too old for this tiny type. Charles Pierce

01:01:17.360 is the person who published this. Then they wound up removing the article saying this column has

01:01:24.540 been removed due to an error. And what the article had been about was all about how George H W. Bush

01:01:31.220 pardoned Neil Bush on his way out of office. So why are we bitching about a president pardoning his

01:01:38.120 son? Well, they had to pull it and issue that statement saying we pulled the article due to an

01:01:43.660 error because the original article stated incorrectly that what did they get like a supporting fact wrong?

01:01:49.260 Did they take a left turn someplace? No. President George H W. Bush did not give a pardon to his son,

01:01:56.540 Neil Bush. Esquire regret. They wrote a whole thing about how he pardoned a son and the whole thing was

01:02:06.280 wrong. It was all made up. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how'd you like the play? It's not surprising

01:02:13.780 at all. Also, even when it says anybody remember Neil Bush, first of all, the answer to that question is

01:02:20.100 obviously no. But but even if one did, even if one did have some awareness of Neil Bush, do you remember

01:02:26.660 Neil Bush recording himself with tons of crack and hookers and even more importantly, selling American

01:02:34.180 state influence, potentially with the permission of his father, the president or vice president to foreign actors to get

01:02:41.540 bribes? He was never tried criminally. He never faced any criminal charges. He had some civil case that he got

01:02:46.660 caught up in. There was never, unlike Hunter, he was never convicted of crimes.

01:02:51.100 Absolutely high-larious. It is, you know, really, you saw this broadly with the whole 2024 election.

01:02:59.400 The argument for the 2024 election was that Trump is a threat to democracy. And to stop the threat to democracy,

01:03:07.300 they kept trying to prevent people from being able to vote for Trump. And then they justified

01:03:12.120 murdering Trump. And then they tried to imprison Trump. And they did they did all of these things.

01:03:16.740 And now Trump's elected. And what do you know, we still have democracy, a really full expression of

01:03:21.480 democracy because Trump even managed to win the popular vote. And so but other than that, you know,

01:03:26.100 Mr. President, your campaign went great. It's it's so sad. You know, Esquire at least claims to have

01:03:33.840 some kind of credibility. Before I sent a tweet like that, I would at least make a Google search

01:03:41.380 to make sure that my central thesis was correct. Good Google. He's he's your friend. Here's this

01:03:47.000 same writer. A couple of a couple of recent articles by him. Hunter Biden's pardon has all the idiots

01:03:53.940 riled up. Here's another one. Remove Kennedy from RFKJ from his name. And what do you get? A guy who

01:04:00.400 shouldn't be allowed to mop the floors at HHS, let alone run the joint. Then he calls Jane Mayer,

01:04:06.720 who wrote the latest hit piece on Pete Hegseth and all the alleged women's troubles, etc. A national

01:04:12.660 treasure, etc., etc. So that's the article. The article's author K file, which is Andrew Kaczynski over

01:04:19.840 at CNN, who I mean, truly, this guy may be the best thing at CNN. I really like what the turn he's

01:04:24.760 taken. He's he's really gotten a lot more fair. I quite like he writes as follows. Right. He writes

01:04:31.140 as follows about Esquire. Esquire wrote an entire piece saying that people should shut the fuck up

01:04:36.220 about Hunter Biden's pardon, claiming that George H.W. Bush pardoned his son, Neil. The entire story

01:04:41.520 has now been corrected to note this is not a thing that happened. Quote, Esquire regrets the error.

01:04:47.740 I love it. You know, in a way, we're being unfair, Megan, because given the current state

01:04:59.480 of journalistic standards, the fact that they even wrote the correction rather than just

01:05:04.820 stealth deleted the entire piece. I'm not even being facetious. The fact that they even copped to

01:05:10.720 their error is a surprising display of ethics in an era when the mainstream journalists have no ethics

01:05:18.900 whatsoever. You're right. Like Nicole Hannah-Jones at Project. That's right. 2020. Sorry. 1619.

01:05:28.140 1619. Project 1619 over the New York Times, where they took out all of her historical references and

01:05:33.100 didn't tell us that they were doing it. Just totally dishonest. All right. Now that leads me to this

01:05:37.260 lovely little nugget. Speaking of being embarrassingly wrong. This is so good. The

01:05:45.160 news cycle right now is so delicious. Anna Navarro over at The View is also trying to defend the Hunter

01:05:53.560 Biden pardon. And she decides to send out a tweet to defend the pardon, showing all the others who have

01:06:01.920 pardoned relatives. And it reads as follows. I'm going to get it. Woodrow Wilson pardoned his

01:06:11.460 brother-in-law, Hunter DeButts. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger. Trump pardoned his

01:06:17.560 daughter's father-in-law, Charlie Kushner, and just appointed him ambassador to France. But tell me

01:06:22.320 again how Joe Biden is setting precedent. That's all great. Hunter DeButts is also not a thing.

01:06:30.920 Doesn't exist. At least not in the public eye. There is one we found just like some rando. We

01:06:38.140 googled it and who's, you know, someplace doing something who has nothing to do with Woodrow

01:06:42.740 Wilson, who died a hundred years ago. So I don't think she's referring to this Hunter DeButts who's

01:06:49.300 alive and well today. So I think the internet piled on immediately and somebody community noted her on

01:06:56.340 X where the community writes, you're an idiot. Here's the actual facts. And her defense was,

01:07:03.300 hey, Twitter sleuths, thanks for taking the time to provide context. Take it up with chat GPT.

01:07:10.080 And then she shows how she asked chat GPT, have any U.S. presidents pardoned relatives or in-laws?

01:07:16.980 And chat GPT decided to have some fun with Anna Navarro and said Woodrow Wilson pardoned Hunter DeButts.

01:07:30.200 Also, if you really check the history ledger, Abraham Lincoln pardoned Mike Hunt.

01:07:35.980 Oh, yes. The, the, the famous, the famous Seymour Butts pardon, the Homer sexual. Yes, of course.

01:07:44.680 They all, you know, I, I love that her rejoinder is, hey, hey, internet sleuths. I don't do my job

01:07:55.360 ever. Hey, internet sleuths. Um, I plagiarized a robot. Oh, um, sorry. Am I not? Does that? I don't

01:08:07.100 know. You think it is. It's so funny. I mean, truly Debbie Murphy, my producer, she's like, I mean,

01:08:13.060 honestly, when somebody gives you back Hunter DeButts, who doesn't know not to do an extra search?

01:08:18.380 Just to make, like, triply sure. I, I just also love now, I love that chat GPT's historical archive

01:08:29.200 is just like old Simpsons jokes. That, that actually gives me much more respect for chat GPT. I'll have

01:08:35.220 to use it more. I don't know. I, I can't get enough of what's happening. People are being very,

01:08:41.080 very well true to form. Okay. I can't let you go without talking to you. Up next, we're going to

01:08:46.300 have the attorney general of Tennessee and a very, very important case went up to SCOTUS yesterday,

01:08:52.680 Supreme Court of the United States, and it involves this Tennessee law. It's a ban on the totally

01:08:58.360 misnamed gender affirming care that these States are trying to give to minors, puberty blockers into

01:09:06.180 cross-sex hormones. And Tennessee also banned surgeries for minors. Great. Good for you, Tennessee.

01:09:10.940 Tennessee. Well, some 24 States have similar bands and in Tennessee, there was a challenge filed to

01:09:18.140 not the surgeries piece of it. Not yet. That's not an issue, but the, um, puberty blockers in the

01:09:22.680 cross-sex hormones being denied to minors who say they're quote transgender. And it was a very

01:09:27.840 interesting argument where we'll get into it. And as I said, in about, well, a few minutes,

01:09:31.780 but I wanted to ask you about it. Michael knows this is something near and dear to your own heart

01:09:35.600 as well. Um, and it's been pretty remarkable to watch, you know, people covering this, especially

01:09:45.580 CNN, which has gone all in, in favor of doing this to children, of sterilizing them, of depriving them

01:09:55.900 of any sexual pleasure, which is what puberty blockers into cross-sex hormones does. And of

01:10:00.520 trying to make it seem like everyone who opposes this is an evil mouth breather who wants to hurt

01:10:07.420 children. So first Jake Tapper did an interview with the trans lawyer. It's a woman pretending to

01:10:15.920 be a man unconvincingly and was using all of the so-called terms, you know, like it was just, you

01:10:24.540 know, he's taken too many lessons from the AP style book on how we're supposed to talk about this.

01:10:28.580 And then CNN airs a segment with a so-called trans child. That's not a thing. Uh, talking about

01:10:36.480 her fear of being murdered. Watch this. It's not 25 or 15. Concerns have you had about speaking out?

01:10:45.860 Yeah. I'm going to be like murdered. Like one day I'm going to be walking down the street and

01:10:53.840 somebody's going to come up and like shoot me or something. That's a really scary thing to be

01:10:58.700 worrying about at 10 years old. Yeah. That should not be a worry.

01:11:05.960 And the lower third is anti-transgender laws and their mental health effect. The poor children

01:11:12.460 who need their gender affirming care, Michael, and the evil states that are denying it.

01:11:19.820 That's awful. And that, that child's parents should be arrested. It's just, and the, and

01:11:25.460 frankly, the journalists should be fired if not, if not brought up on charges for exploiting a child

01:11:31.180 this way. It's just so. She's an LGBTQ activist too. Absolutely disgusting. First. And now the

01:11:38.020 premise of course is false as well. The, the, the notion that there is some kind of violent attack on

01:11:43.800 trans identifying people. It does not exist. Every year there's some list published of the dozen or

01:11:48.980 two dozen trans identifying people who died in any sort of, of these circumstances that year.

01:11:54.020 And usually it's because their prostitutes are involved in other kinds of crime that are

01:11:57.660 already increasing the likelihood of danger. And the, the number one reason that, uh, uh,

01:12:03.420 trans identifying people die in unfortunate circumstances is suicide. And it's because

01:12:08.340 they've been affirmed and encouraged in this kind of, uh, delusion. So it's really total fake news

01:12:14.720 there. Uh, it's wonderful. Jonathan Scrimetti's done, done a great job here, the attorney general

01:12:19.900 of Tennessee. And so many, so many people have spoken out and, and called attention to this grave

01:12:25.780 injustice of the transgender ideology, especially on children. I listened to the oral arguments

01:12:30.820 yesterday. I thought the conservative justices, notably Alito and Thomas did a masterful job of just

01:12:37.320 totally destroying the, the pro-trans side of the argument, even with simple questions, you know,

01:12:43.360 the, the scientific rationale, uh, justice Alito completely ruined that the legal rationale,

01:12:48.760 uh, justice Thomas destroyed that. Uh, the, the best that the liberal justices could muster

01:12:53.900 was Sotomayor comparing the castrating a little child to taking an aspirin. I mean, it was laughable.

01:12:59.700 And then you had that, you had that lawyer that the first ever trans identifying lawyer to argue

01:13:04.540 a case at the Supreme court is providentially named strangio. What, what an amusing fact that is.

01:13:11.120 But if you read the transcript, something that was disturbing is that the transgender ideology

01:13:15.360 was, was set up in the premise of the whole case, that the transcript referred to this lawyer,

01:13:20.780 who's a woman as Mr. Strangio. So they were already accepting the premise that a man can be a woman or

01:13:25.840 vice versa. And this, Megan, I think is the real problem here. I am quite confident after the oral

01:13:31.320 arguments that Tennessee's law is going to be upheld and that kids are going to be protected,

01:13:35.780 at least in some States. Uh, however, uh, this is not the sort of issue that really can be argued

01:13:43.820 and, and present, have evidence presented for, and then some conclusion drawn about what is a man?

01:13:50.560 What is a woman is a premise. It's, it's goes back to first principles of practical reason. Okay.

01:13:56.060 You can't, you just have to kind of know, you gotta know certain things. Like in math,

01:14:00.440 you have to know a equals a and, and, uh, uh, if a equals B, then B equals a, you gotta know

01:14:05.540 axioms and premises. And so the fact that this case would even make it to the Supreme court

01:14:11.300 is such a damning indictment of our country and the state of our, our affairs. I'm confident that

01:14:17.900 we're going to get a win here, but we have a lot of work to do.

01:14:21.020 I've got to end on this exchange that I referenced that Jake Tapper had with this

01:14:26.220 strange geo on the air yesterday. And for the listening audience, you tell me whether this

01:14:31.800 sounds like a woman or a man. And you know, I mean, I have already told you it is a woman

01:14:36.120 pretending to be a man. It is a woman with facial hair and a man's suit. She looks slight in the

01:14:42.240 shoulder. This is not a fucking, sorry, man. It is a woman masquerading as one. And you,

01:14:47.420 the voice of course, gives it up. This is one of the lawyers who argued in front of the Supreme

01:14:51.760 court yesterday saying we should do all this stuff to the children to listen.

01:14:56.320 You heard some of the more deranged things that Donald Trump said on the campaign trail about

01:15:00.660 kids going off to school and the school changes the gender of the kid, uh, you know, at school

01:15:06.160 that day, parents don't, I mean, just wild claims. He, he, uh, he has also more directly,

01:15:13.060 um, well, let's just play some of what he said to get your response.

01:15:17.420 I will revoke Joe Biden's cruel policies on so-called gender affirming care. I will sign

01:15:26.720 a new executive order instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the

01:15:32.860 concept of sex and gender transition at any age. I will then ask Congress to permanently

01:15:39.240 stop federal taxpayer dollars from being used to promote or pay for these procedures and pass

01:15:46.220 a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states.

01:15:51.480 Is this case that you are going to argue before the U S Supreme court involving Tennessee

01:15:56.520 relevant to what president Trump, president-elect Trump says he wants to do there?

01:16:01.580 Yeah. He obviously says a lot of things and it's causing people a lot of panic for, for a good reason.

01:16:07.820 Oh, Michael, I can't, I know Jake and I would like to talk to him personally and explain to him,

01:16:15.660 there is nothing deranged or wild about the claim that schools are changing quote the gender

01:16:23.760 of children without parental consent. It's happening all over New York city, including at the schools

01:16:29.460 that I attended where the policy in both public and private is to let the child change his or her

01:16:34.960 gender and to keep it a secret from the parent. And once you socially transition the child,

01:16:40.600 it is almost impossible to stop the trans ball from rolling into the cross sex hormone,

01:16:47.000 the puberty blockers, the cross sex hormones, sterilization, no more sexual pleasure for the

01:16:51.100 rest of your life. An absolute outrage for a school to do without parents, not to mention the rest

01:16:56.680 of those policies that Trump promised, which are the reason many of us voted for him.

01:17:02.360 Yes. What happened at the Supreme court yesterday was a decadent circus. The sort of thing you would

01:17:08.120 expect out of late empire Rome. Uh, I don't know if Jake Tapper is just woefully ignorant here,

01:17:14.780 or if he's lying to try to spin for the pro trans side, but that was absurd. And there was a time in

01:17:20.700 this country when in order to practice law, you had to demonstrate a basic, uh, working faculty of

01:17:26.940 reason, uh, having relatively intact judgment and perception. And if a person thinks that he is the

01:17:33.260 opposite sex, or if a woman thinks that she is the opposite sex, that would seem to be pretty clear

01:17:39.040 evidence that there was a severe defect of reason and judgment. Uh, yesterday during the, the oral

01:17:45.520 arguments, chief justice Roberts asked miss, miss Strangio, uh, if she had anything that she could add,

01:17:52.180 any different arguments than the solicitor general had previously made. And her answer was no. So she was

01:17:57.940 really just there. It seemed to, uh, be the first trans identifying lawyer as a token. Yeah. And, uh,

01:18:04.700 which was unfortunate for the federal government's case because she did a very poor job defending what

01:18:09.740 is admittedly an, an indefensible action, which is to castrate a little kid in, in the defense of

01:18:16.180 perversions and fantasies. So it's, it's really depressing to why it's depressing to watch that clip

01:18:22.200 earlier of a, of a little child being exploited by lunatics and perverts. It's depressing to watch

01:18:27.660 the Supreme court have to be degraded to the level of debating whether or not we should castrate

01:18:32.740 little kids. It's just sad and it's degrading to watch the media take it seriously. Oh, that is so

01:18:39.360 well said. It is degrading. It's galling to have to watch them deal with this and engage in this

01:18:43.880 fantasy of pretending this woman, because she's got facial hair is somehow a man and call her Mr.

01:18:51.060 and talk about this. Yes, you're right. Castration, both actual castration through surgeries of little

01:18:56.220 boys and chemical castrate castration through these medicines. Oh, he's just going to take estrogen.

01:19:02.900 It's going to make him feel more like the body that he thought he was born in. Yes. That is a

01:19:08.140 chemical castration of your son. He will not perform as a man should for the rest of his life. And you

01:19:15.500 make this decision for him when he is a minor and incapable of understanding what this means.

01:19:22.440 It is abuse. How are we debating whether it can still happen in any state? I mean, I don't see

01:19:30.360 this as abortion where it's like, all right, we've got the 50 state experiment. Now, you know,

01:19:34.560 Mississippi is going to do something other than California. This Trump should pass a federal ban

01:19:40.280 if if there's the basis for it so that it stops in all 50 states. And the states that are not banning

01:19:46.580 this must be brought to heel. They must have the cast review and other research shoved down their

01:19:53.660 throats so they stop hurting minor children and letting parents who are either deranged themselves

01:20:01.080 or fooled by this dishonest, disgusting medical establishment trying to slip its hands into their

01:20:07.740 pockets into believing that there is such a thing as transing a kid that would somehow be a benefit to

01:20:14.800 them. Michael, always a pleasure with you. Love talking to you. Thanks for coming on.

01:20:19.700 Great to be with you, Megan. Thanks for having me.

01:20:21.640 Well, you heard Michael mention Scrimetti and that's the that's the attorney general. Jonathan

01:20:26.500 Scrimetti is here. He's here next. The attorney general of Tennessee. We'll ask him what he thought

01:20:30.680 of yesterday. Is the education system the cause and solution to the biggest problems facing America?

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01:22:27.620 Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the Biden administration's challenge to a Tennessee law.

01:22:36.920 This is the biggest case of the entire term to a Tennessee law that bans hormone treatments and

01:22:42.920 puberty blockers for minors who are gender confused. By almost every account, it seemed to be a very good

01:22:49.980 day for supporters of the law. In other words, yay. Listen to this exchange where Justice Alito,

01:22:56.940 God bless him, forced the first trans identifying lawyer to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court

01:23:02.600 to admit that so-called gender affirming treatments, that's not what these are, are not as effective

01:23:11.180 as they want you to believe. On page 195 of the Cass report, it says there is no evidence

01:23:18.300 that gender affirmative treatments reduce suicide.

01:23:24.920 What I think that is referring to is there is no evidence in some in the studies that this treatment

01:23:31.520 reduces completed suicide. And the reason for that is completed suicide, thankfully and admittedly,

01:23:36.800 is rare. And we're talking about a very small population of individuals with studies that

01:23:41.940 don't necessarily have completed suicides within them. However, there are multiple studies,

01:23:48.000 long-term longitudinal studies that do show that there is a reduction in suicidality, which I think

01:23:54.900 is a positive outcome to this treatment. That lawyer, Chase Strangio, is representing the families

01:24:01.860 that originally brought the lawsuit. And the left is getting so desperate, they went back to their

01:24:05.540 favorite tactic, making everything, even this, about race. Here's Justice Katanji Brown Jackson

01:24:13.260 comparing Tennessee statute to an overturned Virginia law that banned interracial marriage

01:24:19.440 over 50 years ago. You know, as I read the statute here, excuse me, the case here, you know,

01:24:26.800 the court starts off by saying that Virginia is now one of 16 states which prohibit and punish

01:24:31.240 marriages on the basis of racial classifications. And when you look at the structure of that law,

01:24:36.700 it looks in terms of, you know, you can't do something that is inconsistent with your own

01:24:41.860 characteristics. It's sort of the same thing. So it's interesting to me that we now have this

01:24:46.280 different argument. And I wonder whether Virginia could have gotten away with what they did here by

01:24:51.720 just making a classification argument the way that Tennessee is in this case.

01:24:56.940 Yes, I think that's exactly right, that there is absolutely a parallel.

01:25:01.380 That second woman you heard there was Biden's solicitor general agreeing with Justice Jackson.

01:25:06.500 This case is called United States versus Scrimetti. So who better to bring on than

01:25:10.600 Jonathan Scrimetti himself? He's the attorney general of Tennessee. Good for you, sir,

01:25:14.820 for defending this. And this is a hugely important case. So how do you think it went yesterday?

01:25:21.220 I think it went great. You never want to prognosticate that justices will spend months

01:25:25.620 talking through this. And, you know, you just never know how it's going to turn out. But we put

01:25:30.400 on a very strong case. I thought the questions were probing in a way that gets to the truth of

01:25:36.820 the matter. And I'm looking forward to the court's decision. We heard in that soundbite, we just played

01:25:44.740 with Justice Alito. The other side, admit, admit that gender affirming care, again, this is a misnomer,

01:25:51.320 does not reduce suicides. It does not reduce suicide. So this is what they've been telling.

01:25:57.100 The truth comes out in court. But what they've been saying everywhere in the public eye is we

01:26:02.660 have to allow these puberty blockers and these cross sex hormones because these kids will kill

01:26:07.960 themselves. They will kill themselves. They use this to manipulate parents. And there in front of

01:26:13.080 the U.S. Supreme Court, it's admitted right there by a so-called trans attorney that this so-called

01:26:20.600 care does not reduce suicides. What a moment. I think it's the most important thing that happened

01:26:26.620 in the oral argument. You know, usually the briefing is what really drives the outcome in the case. And

01:26:31.900 the argument is just to cover a few little loose ends. But we've heard for years, you can either have

01:26:38.540 a live son or a dead daughter. And parents have been essentially threatened. And kids have kept

01:26:44.700 hearing over and over again that suicide was the appropriate reaction to not transitioning.

01:26:51.380 And of course, suicide is a social contagion phenomenon. The more kids hear it, the more

01:26:56.500 risk there is. And so to have the truth out there for everybody to hear on the record that suicide is

01:27:03.320 not, in fact, the expected outcome, that this treatment, so-called treatment, does nothing

01:27:09.900 to address the instances of suicide was huge. That's going to make a lasting difference in this

01:27:17.720 conversation. And then you've got Sonia Sotomayor comparing the castration of little boys to

01:27:26.300 there are risks in taking an aspirin. Here's that. And the question of how many minors have to have

01:27:33.180 their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits is one that is best left?

01:27:38.300 I'm sorry, Counselor. Every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin.

01:27:46.960 There is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that's going

01:27:53.220 to suffer a harm. So the question in my mind is not, do policymakers decide whether

01:28:03.180 one person's life is more valuable than the millions of others who get relief from this

01:28:10.060 treatment. The question is, can you stop one sex from the other?

01:28:16.440 Let me ask you something in general. There'd be no question that you could pass a law in Tennessee

01:28:20.320 saying you can't sell fentanyl in pill form over the counter right next to Band-Aids. There'd be no

01:28:26.320 question that you would be allowed to do that in Tennessee and every state. So clearly there is the

01:28:30.780 ability to regulate certain medications and drugs, even, even something as, as gentle potentially as

01:28:37.880 an aspirin. So this is a sliding scale. You know, the fentanyl would be a no, the aspirin can be on

01:28:42.560 the shelf. And the question is where, where does the gender affirming so-called care proceed, uh,

01:28:48.200 medications and so on fall? Can you explain to the audience why those, the puberty blockers and

01:28:53.780 cross-sex hormones are closer to the fentanyl than they are to the aspirin? Be my pleasure. So every

01:29:00.460 systematic review of the evidence has shown little to no benefit for kids from these procedures,

01:29:07.920 from puberty blockers, from hormone treatments, from surgeries. Uh, it's, it's still relatively new.

01:29:14.420 Uh, most of the cases have been coming up recently. The numbers have exploded, but all the research out

01:29:20.060 there when systematically reviewed and analyzed shows no benefit. And meanwhile, the risks are huge.

01:29:26.660 Kids on these, on these drugs face the permanent loss of their fertility, the permanent loss of their

01:29:33.280 sexual function for the rest of their lives. Uh, they face, depending on which treatment we're

01:29:38.340 talking about, uh, tumors, blood clots, uh, cognitive impairment for the rest of their lives, uh, bone

01:29:45.580 density disorders. So these are serious conditions and children are not in a position to make those

01:29:51.400 big decisions. We don't let them get tattoos. We don't let them use alcohol. We don't let them,

01:29:55.940 uh, consume tobacco products because they're too young to fully appreciate the effect that will have

01:30:01.980 on their future. Meanwhile, these are incredibly consequential, uh, drug regimes that will affect their

01:30:08.800 body forever and ever. The research shows that it's not actually treating the condition it's purported

01:30:15.280 to, to, to treat. And the risks are enormous. And that is why Tennessee outlawed these for kids.

01:30:22.520 There was, this is a lengthy exchange, but I am going to play it an exchange between Justice Alito

01:30:26.500 and the solicitor general for the Biden administration. Biden administration is on

01:30:30.020 the trans team, not the Tennessee team. That's about to change when Trump takes over. But right now

01:30:36.180 we are where we are. So he really went after her on what I think he believed was a misrepresentation

01:30:42.680 in their brief to the court. Take a listen to this. So 36. Well, can I ask you a question about the

01:30:49.340 state of medical evidence at the present time in your petition, you made a sweeping statement,

01:30:56.780 which I will quote overwhelming evidence establishes that the appropriate gender affirming

01:31:02.720 treatment with puberty blockers and hormones directly and substantially improves the physical,

01:31:08.360 psychological well-being of transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria. That was in November

01:31:15.200 2023. Now, even before then, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare wrote the following.

01:31:24.280 They currently assess, quote, that the risks of puberty, puberty blockers and gender affirming

01:31:29.840 treatment are likely to outweigh the expected benefits of these treatments, which is directly

01:31:36.480 contrary to the sweeping statement in your petition. After the filing of your petition, of course,

01:31:43.260 we saw the release of the Cass report in the United Kingdom, which found a complete lack of high-quality

01:31:53.320 evidence showing that the benefits of the treatments in question here outweigh the risks. And so I wonder

01:32:04.140 if you would like to stand by the statement that you made in your petition, or if you think it would

01:32:11.320 now be appropriate to modify that and withdraw the statement that there is overwhelming evidence

01:32:17.300 establishing that these treatments have benefits that greatly outweigh the risks and the dangers.

01:32:24.420 I, of course, acknowledge, Justice Alito, that there is a lot of debate happening here and abroad about the

01:32:30.380 proper model of delivery of this care and exactly when adolescents should receive it and how to identify

01:32:35.740 the adolescents for whom it would be helpful. But I stand by that there is a consensus that these

01:32:40.740 treatments can be medically necessary for some adolescents, and that's true no matter what source

01:32:45.380 you look at. So she didn't disavow her clearly false statement to the court about the alleged

01:32:52.440 overwhelming evidence that the benefits outweigh the harms.

01:32:57.920 So what we're looking at in this situation is a conflict between what the evidence tells us

01:33:03.040 and what the consensus tells us. So we've got this manufactured consensus where very biased activists

01:33:09.900 have managed to get all of the major medical organizations to buy in to their approach through a very

01:33:16.800 circular process. Meanwhile, they're suppressing research showing the actual efficacy of this for

01:33:23.420 kids, and they are ignoring developments in countries that have pioneered these procedures

01:33:31.440 that used to make them very available to kids and now are restricting them because they looked at the

01:33:37.000 evidence. And Steve Marshall, the Alabama Attorney General, had an amicus brief in this case that really laid out

01:33:43.620 the process. And that showed that the medical guidelines that are being used here were written not by

01:33:49.020 doctors, but largely by policy advocates, by social justice lawyers, and by people within the Biden

01:33:55.820 administration who are lobbying for the most ideologically aligned outcomes rather than

01:34:02.640 delving into the evidence and making an evidence-based decision about what's best for kids.

01:34:07.740 It's truly horrifying how our medical organizations have been captured by these activists who are trying to

01:34:19.680 set policy for our children, for the chopping off of body parts for the most vulnerable among us, and then

01:34:28.560 confused parents go to a psychiatrist, a child psychiatrist or psychologist for help, and they are put on a path of

01:34:37.260 severe danger.

01:34:40.740 Yeah. I mean, it's just, it goes to a broader problem with America's elite, which maybe is outside the scope of

01:34:48.680 this conversation, but they are just divorced from reality. We're supposed to embrace evidence-based

01:34:56.200 medicine. We're supposed to look at the evidence when making those determinations. And this is,

01:35:02.500 this is kind of a Trojan horse. It's, it's, you know, they, they dress it up to look legitimate in

01:35:10.340 every possible way. But it's empty in the middle. I guess it's not like the Trojan horse at all,

01:35:16.540 actually, but, you know, they're, they're, they're transporting these radical ideological beliefs

01:35:23.400 in the guise of legitimate medical research. And that is having a really profound impact on

01:35:31.360 thousands of kids. The numbers have gone up spectacularly, very dramatically, a 4,000% increase

01:35:38.540 in adolescent girls looking for hormone treatments, according to one researcher.

01:35:43.340 And as the numbers go up for unexplained reasons, more and more evidence comes out showing that this

01:35:50.060 is harmful. Other countries have pumped the brakes. And here we are with the White House,

01:35:55.720 with the major medical associations, with the American Bar Association, with all sorts of very

01:36:02.460 powerful institutional players in this country, pushing in the other direction, essentially trying

01:36:08.520 to get everyone to ignore the evidence and pursue this ideological end at great cost to children.

01:36:14.900 They, they are the enemy. They are the ideological enemy. And their, their so-called expertise

01:36:22.460 must be challenged because it is not coming from a factual or trustworthy place. Thank God you're,

01:36:29.200 you see that. And so do these other States, almost half the union is on board. So, uh, one thing it does

01:36:35.460 look like, I mean, for sure, when the Trump administration begins, the support of the government

01:36:42.260 for the trans argument will go away. That could cause some procedural snafus that could be to your

01:36:48.400 benefit. We'll have to see, but it doesn't look like the case will go away. I agree with you.

01:36:52.300 It looks like you're going to win. Um, good justice Gorsuch who gave us boss doc, which said you can't

01:36:58.040 discriminate in hiring when it comes to trans people. Didn't say anything yesterday. Interesting,

01:37:03.160 potentially troubling, but I think you got him. I'm going to guess you got him because boss doc said,

01:37:07.340 we're not making any pronouncements beyond hiring of trans people, but what's going to happen now?

01:37:13.360 Because if, if you win, will it make it easier for sanity to prevail in cases involving boys in girls

01:37:21.760 sports, um, or any of the other fights that we're seeing on the trans front right now?

01:37:26.400 So if we win, it really depends how we win, uh, depending on what the court does here. There,

01:37:32.040 there are just many different outcomes, but the, the biggest win would be if the court says,

01:37:37.600 uh, transgender gender identity issues do not receive any heightened scrutiny, rational basis

01:37:44.520 applies, which essentially means the democratically elected representatives of the people are allowed

01:37:50.000 to make the choices about what our policies are. That would impact sports that would impact bathrooms

01:37:55.600 that would have, uh, a significant impact on the volume of litigation because we're being sued in

01:38:01.240 Tennessee, uh, on a number of different cases involving gender identity as people try to use

01:38:07.160 existing sex discrimination laws to force policy changes on the state. That's what they're trying

01:38:13.240 to do. They're trying to say this is sex discrimination. I got, I gotta be honest. I

01:38:16.240 listened to the whole thing. I didn't follow how it's sex discrimination. Even arguably, I really

01:38:19.460 didn't. She kept saying like, well, a girl who wants puberty blockers because she has precocious

01:38:24.380 puberty can get the puberty blockers, but a girl who wants them because she thinks she's a boy

01:38:28.960 can't. And so somehow this is sex discrimination. I don't get it. I don't think the court is going

01:38:33.080 to buy it. The three libs will because they're ideologically driven. But I really think you tell

01:38:38.780 me it's been, it's a boon to you that this case went up. You think you would have won anyway, but it

01:38:43.540 went up in the, on the heels of an election in which this issue was front and center. And the American

01:38:48.740 electorate overwhelmingly said, we've had enough of this. Do you think it will embolden the more

01:38:53.980 potentially wobbly justices? Yeah, it's hard for me to say. Um, they, there, there's a counter

01:39:00.520 narrative that maybe they're concerned about, uh, excesses in reining this in. I mean, I really don't

01:39:07.060 know which way they're going to go, but it is clear that this was an issue in the election. If you look

01:39:11.400 at the coalition of people that were pushing back against these treatments, it's not just your

01:39:17.000 traditional conservatives. I mean, there were these, uh, LGB groups out there. There are, uh,

01:39:23.200 sort of insurgent medical organizations of doctors horrified at the lack of evidence-based practice

01:39:29.440 in this area. Uh, so there's, there's a broader group concerned about this than just the ideological

01:39:35.440 right. Uh, I, I certainly hope that as the country takes a hard look at these policies and where

01:39:42.640 they've gotten us, uh, that the court is paying attention to what seems to be the pendulum

01:39:47.900 swinging back. It got pretty far out there in the last couple of years. God bless you for fighting

01:39:54.540 the fight. Attorney general of Tennessee, Jonathan Scrimetti, please come back on. We have a ruling.

01:40:00.780 Thank you. I will. All the best. Wow. This is so important. You guys, this is so important.

01:40:07.980 And we have to win this. And thanks to Jonathan and, and men and women like him in there.

01:40:14.660 Looks like we will pray God. Uh, okay. See you tomorrow.

01:40:20.300 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 05, 2024

MAGA vs. Establishment Over Hegseth, and Key SCOTUS Case About Protecting Kids, with Michael Knowles and AG Skrmetti ｜ Ep. 958

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