The Megyn Kelly Show - Maureen Callahan on Michelle Obama, Mark Halperin on Future of the Dems, Link Lauren with Zachary Levi： MK Media Highlights

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, it's me, Megan Kelly. I would love to bring you some of the highlights from the MK

00:00:04.420 Media shows this week with Maureen Callahan, Mark Halperin, and Link Lauren. And we're soon to have

00:00:11.280 another just a little exciting tease. Enjoy these three and we will see you soon. Father's Day is

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00:01:30.720 order. Riverbendranch.com. Promo code M-E-G-Y-N. Michelle Obama, before we get into this soundbite,

00:01:39.060 which I just want to play because it's hilarious. There's an email from a troublemaker. I don't know

00:01:46.200 if you want to be named, so you'll recognize yourself. I think I figured out the Michelle

00:01:51.020 Obama thing. This marriage is on the rocks and she is panicking. As much as she kvetchis about

00:01:57.660 the years in office and how she hated the hoopla, which we all know she loved it. I think she loved

00:02:01.880 it. So does this troublemaker. I think she loved the adoration. She bangs on about her annoying 0.99

00:02:08.080 husband because she is well aware that it is he who is beloved bang on troublemaker. And without him, 0.87

00:02:16.420 she's only famous for him. I think the pod, the book, the interviews are all to stake her claim

00:02:24.820 before they part ways. You know, as the alpha in their relationship, she cannot stand that he is

00:02:32.140 the favorite. And with every flop of hers, that injustice cuts a little deeper. I love it. I

00:02:39.900 think you're right. Okay. Let's listen to this piece of hilarity. So I'm at this stage in life where I

00:02:49.720 have to define my life on my terms for the first time. So what are those terms? And going to therapy

00:02:57.060 just to work all that out, like what happened that eight years that we were in the White House,

00:03:04.140 what did that do to me internally? My soul, we made it through. We got out alive. I hope we made the

00:03:10.560 country proud. My girls, thank God, are whole. But what happened to me? Right. Right. Right. And going

00:03:17.940 through therapy, you know, is getting me to look at the fact that, yeah, maybe, maybe finally I'm good

00:03:27.680 enough. Oh my God, you guys, we made it out alive. You made it out to really fat deals with major book

00:03:40.280 publishers. You and your husband got a $60 million joint book deal. Then you took yourselves over to

00:03:46.600 Netflix where you got like another, I've reported 120 million to produce films and docs that nobody

00:03:52.920 watches. And now you're doing a podcast where you're bitching and moaning in this economy. 0.99

00:03:58.480 And you were one of the most revered first ladies. This country gave you a tongue bath. 0.85

00:04:03.880 You were the best first lady since Jackie Onassis, maybe better, which again, like nobody can touch my

00:04:10.440 Jackie. Sorry. But I just, she cannot stop herself. She cannot stop herself. And this monument that she

00:04:17.880 has built to herself in the form of this coffee table book, which is out in November, I cannot wait

00:04:23.600 to go through it with all of you. Okay. She, cause she's again, remember she's awesome, but she's

00:04:29.940 miserable, you know? So that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a real intellect at work because those

00:04:35.200 things don't track. Okay. Now, Greta Thunberg, who, as we discussed on the mini, was on a slow boat 1.00

00:04:42.640 to Gaza wearing shorts and a V-neck short sleeve tee. I don't think she's familiarized herself with

00:04:51.220 Hamas, you guys. I don't think she's familiarized herself with Hamas. Anyway, Israel said, don't do it

00:04:58.980 cause we're going to, we're going to cut you off. We're going to block you from entering and that's 0.96

00:05:04.860 what happened. And then, so Greta, again, another professional victim, the people who love being

00:05:12.120 victims are so, I find them equally fascinating and just like one dimensional it's because, but

00:05:20.260 they're always coming up with new ways to be victim. Anyway. Okay. So then, so then on social media

00:05:25.280 yesterday morning, this was one of the first reels I saw, uh, Greta missed her calling. She should 0.96

00:05:32.600 have gone to Rada or Juilliard. She, she could have maybe been a great, like, you know who she would

00:05:38.920 have been great to play. Do you know the story of the, um, it was recently a TV movie with, I think,

00:05:44.720 um, Ellen Pompeo who was treating it like it was one of the great acting challenges of her life. 1.00

00:05:49.020 It was that adaptation of the story. I think this woman was named Natasha and she's like the Ukrainian,

00:05:54.840 I mean this medically, this term medically, like a dwarf and every, every family that adopted her

00:06:01.240 came to suspect that she was actually like a grown woman who was running this epic con and was maybe

00:06:07.120 quite seriously dangerous. And I'll never forget in the promos for this thing, Ellen Pompeo's like 1.00

00:06:13.840 the, she was having an, like one of the Duplass brothers was in it or something. And I, the Duplass

00:06:19.040 brothers elude me, but I digress. Um, she's, she's having a fight with her husband who refuses to

00:06:24.320 believe that Natasha is anything other but a small child. And she's think she's like, no,

00:06:29.000 this is like a really, uh, dangerous dwarf. And Ellen Pompeo whispers the unforgettable line of

00:06:34.840 dialogue. She has adult teeth. Okay. She has adult teeth. You can't, you can't fight science. Okay. 0.82

00:06:43.900 But anyway, so Greta could have done that role. I think, I think she could have done justice to that 0.55

00:06:49.700 role, but anyway, instead she'd rather play an agitator on the world stage. Here was her update

00:06:55.240 after, uh, the Israeli forces, um, interrupted her pilgrimage.

00:07:00.220 My name is Greta Thunberg and I am from Sweden. If you see this video, we have been intercepted

00:07:06.300 and kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces or forces that support

00:07:12.660 Israel. I urge all my friends, family, and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release 0.95

00:07:21.120 me and the others as soon as possible. Okay. This is not a kidnapping. I, again, if only I,

00:07:30.300 as I said, Hamas would have lost their minds over this one, this one, this would have been a captive

00:07:36.360 like no other, you know, and trust me, Hamas would not let you like blast your shit out to Instagram.

00:07:41.780 Okay. It turns out that, uh, the daily mail ran these amazing photos of, uh, Israeli forces

00:07:49.480 feeding Greta and her cohorts, Sammy's and water. Okay. They got sandwiches and water now for causing

00:07:57.340 the trouble they're causing. They are reportedly going to make Greta and, and her little team there,

00:08:04.740 her little posse watch the 43 minute, uh, long footage that the IDF put together of,

00:08:11.780 the, uh, attacks of October 7th. Now I've seen this footage. Um, the Israeli, uh, embassy here in New

00:08:18.920 York city was screening it for journalists. This footage has never been publicly released. You had

00:08:23.580 to be a member of the media or you had to be a member of the government to, to see it. Um, and I

00:08:31.020 didn't want to see it. I, I had to see it. Do you know what I mean? Like I felt morally, if I'm going to

00:08:37.140 be writing about this, I had to watch it. And, um, I remember going up there, it was like maybe two

00:08:42.420 months after the attacks. It was like, it was cold. It was New York, uh, city and the layers of cops you

00:08:50.040 had to go through and the layers of security you had to go through to get up into the, even into the

00:08:55.280 embassy with all these protesters outside. And you're, you're putting this window, this room

00:08:58.600 and I'm going to describe a little bit of the footage to you. So you understand because I,

00:09:04.720 whoever put this together, whoever edited it is a genius. Um, and, and you get, it puts you. So

00:09:11.880 the first scenes that you see of, of this footage is, is that morning and you see, uh, it's, it's,

00:09:18.720 it's footage taken from inside a car and, and, and the car is driving down like a two lane highway.

00:09:26.860 And you are, you, you, the viewer quite literally are in the driver's seat. Okay. You don't see the

00:09:33.220 driver or the passenger. You're just literally in the driver's seat. And this car is driving along.

00:09:37.440 It's, it's, it's a, it's a regular morning where people are going to visit family members or go have

00:09:43.060 brunch or go shopping or whatever they're doing. And suddenly there are these cracks in the wind

00:09:49.100 screen, just cracks like, and you're like, what, what the fuck, what the fuck that? And then you 0.60

00:09:53.940 realize it's, it's bullets, it's gunfire. And then you come up on these, these tanks and these armed men

00:10:01.820 and they're just shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting. And then you start seeing all these

00:10:06.420 cars just going off the road, like in a movie, like they're just like going off the road. And then you

00:10:11.220 see Hamas go and like pull these bodies out of these cars and start mutilating them. And then

00:10:21.640 if I, if I recall correctly, and I thought this was so smart, they, they cut to the kibbutz, 0.99

00:10:28.840 the attack on the kibbutz. And the first thing you see, and they used a lot of the body cam that

00:10:34.640 Hamas terrorists were wearing because they were recording this for, for their own perverse 0.64

00:10:39.320 enjoyment. And, and trust me, there's something very, there's something almost sexual about the

00:10:44.500 ecstasy they take in this stuff. And, uh, the first, the first thing we see is a barking dog,

00:10:50.600 a dog that knows something has gone awry. Like these, these are not, this is danger. And I swear

00:10:57.580 to God, there were people in this room from every outlet, like the most liberal outlets. And you could

00:11:02.020 hear them go, Oh my God, Oh my God. Because you know, you can do whatever you want to human beings,

00:11:07.000 but you, you harm a dog and you're a monster. And that was so smart of whoever edited this film to

00:11:13.360 show the dog first, because the dog is shot to death. And then, and then we see them go into

00:11:19.280 homes and we see the father of, of these, of these two young boys rush them in his underwear. He's only

00:11:26.920 wearing like underwear out to like a shed where Hamas follows them and they throw a live grenade in

00:11:33.000 and the father is killed and they go off and the two boys come out and, and they're in the kitchen

00:11:39.420 and they're in utter shock. And one of them completely realizes like his father, their father

00:11:43.340 is dead. Like, it's amazing that, that he had the wherewithal to comprehend exactly what was

00:11:48.880 happening. And it goes on and on and on and on. So I'm just going to say, Greta, this is what you

00:11:55.340 deserve. Okay. I, I, I, you will never unsee that footage. You will never unsee the atrocities

00:12:01.720 visited upon animals and people that you will see. So enjoy it, sweetheart. Okay. Now onto something

00:12:09.880 much lighter, onto something much lighter. It's, but it's something of another horror show. It's,

00:12:14.560 and just like that, the latest episode. Okay. I just, I'm just going to recap briefly,

00:12:19.100 you know, Carrie's living in this like $40 million Greenwich, sorry, Gramercy Park house. And she's 1.00

00:12:26.980 got this pastoral garden in the back, you know, just like every New Yorker has. And she's using it 0.92

00:12:32.920 to write her old timey book that takes place in like the 1840s. Cause now she's like truly losing

00:12:38.920 her mind. And she thinks she's like a Victorian era lady. And her lover is like, not just like

00:12:44.660 jerking off in a pickup somewhere in like the fields of Virginia. But you know, I don't know,

00:12:49.780 maybe he's off doing something of great import, you know, that is causing him to be so far away

00:12:54.700 from her. So she's writing and she's wearing like her $1,200 shoes as one does just like, trust me,

00:13:00.320 any writer, any real writer, you're in your most comfortable clothes because you don't want to think

00:13:04.720 about how you feel. You want to be able to just have your head go where it's going to go.

00:13:09.060 So anyway, a mound of rats come out, a mound of rats come out, a mound of rats come out. And of

00:13:15.120 course, so this is another, I think, I think Sarah Jessica Parker may have it in her contract

00:13:19.880 that she's got to have at least three squeals per episode. I think she thinks it's adorable 0.93

00:13:23.720 when she squeals. It is not, it is the exact opposite. And so apparently they were real rats,

00:13:31.540 I guess. I guess these were not, you know, AI rats, you know, I guess we're still employing,

00:13:36.780 you know, animal extras, what have you. Um, and so, uh, you know, there was this theory that came

00:13:41.720 up in the last episode when we talked about the premiere where I posited that Michael Patrick King

00:13:48.920 may be that type of dangerous gay man who like actually really hates women. He pretends he's an 0.99

00:13:54.180 ally, but he really hates women. Now I think, I think I'm right. And I think you troublemakers who

00:14:00.360 think the same are right to listen to Sarah Jessica Parker talk about that scene.

00:14:08.420 Yeah. I never had rats in the apartment, but we do live in New York and I am genuinely,

00:14:14.800 that is not why Michael Patrick wrote that, but I really am very, very, very scared of rats.

00:14:21.420 So, I mean, I think we have, I, if I were, you know, I'm a prosecutor in my mind, that would be

00:14:29.600 exhibit a, he's fucking with her. He's trolling her. Um, secondly, you know, so Aiden shows up,

00:14:35.860 uh, out of the blue in Carrie's house and she turns around to see him standing there and she

00:14:41.160 screams again, another shriek, but like this is treated in the show as a very cute, romantic

00:14:46.220 gesture. I assure you it is not. And this is the kind of stuff that infects the culture

00:14:50.720 and affects the way women are talked to by men about what they should deem appropriate.

00:14:55.500 I don't care if this guy is your fiance or your husband, like showing up in a house without

00:15:00.720 announcing yourself so that you as a woman are taken aback by the sight of a man who is

00:15:05.360 twice your size, who is suddenly in your house is terrifying. That is not a romantic gesture.

00:15:12.200 Okay. So then they have their moment together and then they sit in Carrie's extremely tiny

00:15:18.340 kitchen. None of this makes any sense. And she's got this little tiny half table. That's

00:15:22.560 like a fixed to the wall. Like again, we're just like an, an 800 year old woman in our tiny

00:15:28.080 Victorian kitchen. And she's got like a piece of toast on the windowsill and she's just so 1.00

00:15:32.900 dainty. And Aiden is telling her the rules of engagement for her texting him. Okay. So this

00:15:41.320 is Sarah Jessica Parker in the guardian. I think this just came out this weekend. Oh, my favorite

00:15:46.880 headline. I'm just going to hold it up. I've been crucified, Sarah Jessica Parker. I've

00:15:51.380 been crucified. Okay. Here she's talking about, you know, every time there's a new season,

00:15:58.500 they talk all this garbage about how these women are just like, it's a new chapter and 1.00

00:16:03.300 effort. They're so, they're so winning. And like, it's so exciting to see them embark on

00:16:07.320 these new things. And like, there's never any specifics. It's like Hoda Kopi. There's never

00:16:12.060 any specifics because there's zero plot happening here. It's a bunch of actresses who get to 1.00

00:16:16.560 dress up in $10,000 worth of clothing, shoes, and handbags and live in these, pretend to

00:16:23.060 live in these lavish apartments and be dealing with all of these men who are just falling all

00:16:27.260 over their feet. It is like fantasy land for, for, for underdeveloped actresses. I think like 1.00

00:16:35.320 emotionally, psychologically stunted actresses. Okay. So this is Sarah Jessica Parker in the guardian

00:16:42.180 about why she's so excited about the relationship with Aiden quote, I was excited about the way the

00:16:48.140 relate would sort itself out because there's a new maturity to both parties. Not so this is not what

00:16:54.920 is on display in your show. A guy who as, as discussed in the premiere, who calls you booty,

00:17:01.680 calls you in the middle of the night after saying, you cannot talk for five years and says, I need to

00:17:06.080 get my rocks off, but I miss you, but let's have phone sex. And then we see him lick his palm, 0.66

00:17:12.500 jam his hands down his pants, and then tell her that he quote unquote, I can't even get the words

00:17:19.460 out. He sharted a little bit. And she's saying this is a grand romance for the ages. Okay. This is how

00:17:26.320 out of touch she is. Parker says that she was quote shocked to discover that the character of

00:17:32.380 Che Diaz was so widely reviled. And you know why she's shocked? Cause she doesn't pay attention to

00:17:38.520 any of the publicity surrounding the show. Sure. Sure. We are, we are also introduced to a new

00:17:44.460 word in the lexicon. Brace yourselves, you guys. Hetero pessimism. Not going to describe it. I think

00:17:53.780 it's a garbage word. She also says that, so the crucifixion, crucifixion rather, I was raised

00:18:01.140 Catholic. I should know better. The crucifixion of one Carrie Bradshaw. I would like to ask any of

00:18:05.820 you artists out there who work in mixed materials. It's a, it's a, it's a nerve challenge. I would love

00:18:12.240 for someone to come up with a Carrie Bradshaw nailed to the cross. I dare you. I know someone out there

00:18:18.940 can do it. We're creating sort of a little bit of a, of an art thing happening here. We'll tune,

00:18:24.140 we'll clue you in later. Okay. Now, so she has been, she believes blamed vis-a-vis sex in the city

00:18:30.780 for imparting this idea that like, if you're young, creative, you want to have a glamorous life,

00:18:36.920 just move to New York and everything's cool. And she's saying, you know, she's not going to take

00:18:42.360 the blame for that, but she really laments how, um, it's quote, beyond a concern. New York has

00:18:49.560 become impossible for artists, whether ballet dancers, photographers, whomever we haven't had

00:18:54.740 the kind of political support in our city to really be smart and innovative about affordable

00:18:58.380 housing. Okay. This is a woman who within the past few years put one of her three townhouses on

00:19:07.860 the market. Okay. These townhouses in Greenwich village are extremely covetable. They're coveted.

00:19:14.960 They are rare. They are multimillion dollars, just cost of entry, 12 million. You know, she has,

00:19:24.860 she and her husband, Matthew Broderick have two side-by-side townhouses. I believe they still do.

00:19:29.400 They did at one point anyway, which is really weird. And then she had a third townhouse. And when I tell

00:19:35.160 you what this was used for, I mean, the nerve, she used that townhouse as her closet. Okay. Her closet.

00:19:44.160 And then when she put it up for sale, the Rob report ran a huge story about how she used this

00:19:49.540 multi-level townhouse as her freaking closet. So she wants the taxpayers of New York city who are 1.00

00:19:57.280 already overly burdened to figure out a way to foot the cost for young creatives to live here. I don't

00:20:03.220 know, Sarah, Jessica, maybe you could put up some of those like strivers, hustlers that you love in,

00:20:08.980 you know, one of your empty townhouses. Okay. Anyway, as always, very cathartic, very cathartic.

00:20:19.900 Next up, the Democrats in 2028 spend a lot of time talking to Democrats about what they need in a

00:20:26.220 presidential candidate for the next election. Some say, well, they're going to be the favorite to win

00:20:32.100 in 2028 because they think Donald Trump will be a failed president. And without Trump on the ballot,

00:20:36.960 they don't think anyone, including J.D. Vance, can really be a strong candidate. And they might be

00:20:41.880 right. There may be some Trump magic before Donald Trump or Republicans had a hard time winning

00:20:47.340 presidential elections, winning the popular vote, which Trump, of course, did one of three times.

00:20:51.940 But there's a lot of Republican advantages and smart Democrats I talked to are concerned

00:20:56.960 that there's a gap. Not only do Republicans have what appears to be, as we've talked about here

00:21:02.600 before, a very strong front runner in J.D. Vance, but they've got some institutional advantages. And

00:21:08.220 there's something special about this Trump second term as compared to most second terms. Most second

00:21:14.960 term presidents, term limited, lame ducks, they don't think much about politics. They don't think much

00:21:20.100 about fundraising. They don't think much about building a political machine. It's just not true of the

00:21:25.720 Trump Vance operation. They're very focused on the midterms. And they're very focused on using the

00:21:31.140 leverage of the Oval Office to do the kinds of things that are institutional, that can help one

00:21:37.980 side or the other, one of the two parties when a close presidential election. After every presidential

00:21:43.800 cycle, I will typically do a survey to say, who's got technological superiority in the digital age,

00:21:51.060 registering voters, turning out voters. That is a mechanical thing that involves a lot of

00:21:56.060 understanding of social media, digital technology, communications. And I usually, after the end of

00:22:01.940 cycle, I can tell you, here's the side that has the advantage. And here's how big the advantage is.

00:22:07.000 We don't know. We don't know that this time. Why don't we know that? Well, the Democrats aren't

00:22:11.340 talking much because of their, I believe, belief that they're not that strong. And second,

00:22:17.440 they're not talking much because there's no one to talk. You went from a Biden campaign that was

00:22:22.240 behind the eight ball because of the weakness of their candidate to a hundred day sprint from the

00:22:26.960 Harris campaign. Why don't we know how strong the Republicans are? Because the people who helped

00:22:31.260 build what they built, James Blair, who was the political director, now works in the White House,

00:22:36.660 people like Charlie Kirk, outside groups that worked under the law with the Trump Vance operation

00:22:43.180 to build the kind of data driven operation needed in this age. They're not bragging. Typically,

00:22:49.820 you see the winners get credit for winning through superior technology. This started in basically in

00:22:54.960 2008 with the Obama campaign and their much wanted digital operation for registering voters, turning out

00:23:01.380 voters, communicating with voters. This group of Republicans isn't talking. They're barely taking credit for

00:23:08.320 what they did. And they're not doing these long interviews where they explain the advantages that

00:23:13.500 they had because they figured out the technology. I think the Republicans have an advantage here based

00:23:18.760 on everything I know. But there's not a lot of meat on that bone to explain it. The challenge for the

00:23:23.960 Democrats is the Trump Vance political operation is up and running. They're fundraising. They're building on

00:23:30.780 their technological experiences. They're registering voters. You see that in some of the states where data is

00:23:35.900 available. The advantage of spending four years focused on the general election through the RNC,

00:23:43.100 through the White House political operation, through these outside groups is massive. Because

00:23:47.820 what's happening on the Democratic side, there's about 30 people mentioned as candidates. None of them

00:23:52.980 are very active. Some of them will do podcasts and TV, but no one's out there fundraising into a super PAC or

00:23:59.620 building a massive operation. This is the stuff that in a close election makes a difference. And in

00:24:05.840 our system, as you know, in recent history, we've had a lot of close elections. We haven't had

00:24:10.360 landslides. We've had folks win narrowly in the popular vote, narrowly in the electoral college. So

00:24:16.040 what's happening now, three years before the next presidential, could be decisive. One side stronger in

00:24:22.700 the last election, building, building, building, taking advantage of what they had and continuing to

00:24:28.460 quietly build on it. That's the Republican side. What's happening on the Democratic side is a bunch

00:24:34.100 of, two dozen or so, potential candidates who are thinking about it. And they're thinking about

00:24:41.780 building things up, but they're thinking about building things up for themselves in terms of

00:24:46.120 technology and donors and hiring the best technological wizards against other Democrats. Because winning that

00:24:52.080 nomination in 2024 and 2028 is going to be tough. It's going to be competitive. There is no front

00:24:58.480 runner. And I doubt there will be for a long time because we don't have an incumbent. Even if Kamala

00:25:04.780 Harris runs, we don't, no one sees her as clearing the field or becoming this titanic front runner if she 0.99

00:25:11.380 does run. So historically, I've been looking at the question, talking to Democrats, what could be done?

00:25:18.200 How could Democrats try to cut the technology gap, the voter registration gap, the fundraising gap now

00:25:24.900 before they have a candidate? Because chances are there won't be a clear nominee at the earliest

00:25:29.940 until 2028 in the winter, in January, February, depending on when their primaries and caucuses are.

00:25:36.900 That's a long time to wait. That's a long time to not have a front runner who can start building

00:25:43.220 a general election operation. We know even if the Republicans don't nominate J.D. Vance,

00:25:48.840 there's going to be an operation on the Republican side. So look at history and say, well, where could

00:25:54.720 this come from? Could come from outside groups, but it's hard for outside groups to lead. Most of the

00:25:59.540 outside groups the Democrats have started to build now with millions or tens of millions from donors

00:26:04.520 are focusing on messaging. They're doing focus groups. They're doing studies. They're writing papers.

00:26:09.560 How do we speak particularly to working class voters, Hispanic voters, young voters, black voters?

00:26:14.960 That's not the process, the technical process of trying to close the technology gap in a way

00:26:20.980 that can actually deliver votes. When did this happen? When have Democrats out of power figured this 1.00

00:26:27.460 out? You have to go back to 1991. Now, the comparable year in this cycle would be 25.

00:26:34.900 So they've got, or 27 rather. So they have time if they want to replicate the model, but they've got

00:26:43.320 a problem. The Democratic chairman of the National Committee in the cycle that ended in 89, went through

00:26:50.320 Bill Clinton's election in 92, was a guy named Ron Brown. Okay. Ron Brown was a titan. Ron Brown figured

00:26:57.620 out how to build a national party apparatus so that whoever the nominee was could win. Because Ron

00:27:06.080 Brown saw that in terms of fundraising and voter registration and focusing on the battleground

00:27:10.760 states, the Democrats were way behind the Republicans. At that point, they'd lost to Reagan twice, to Bush 41

00:27:16.760 once. They didn't seem to have a way to win. There was what was called a electoral college lock. Back then,

00:27:23.500 you younger people won't know. Republicans won New Jersey, California, all the Midwestern battleground

00:27:29.380 states. Democrats didn't see a way to win. So what Ron Brown and a guy named Paul Tully, who worked for

00:27:35.540 him at the Democratic National Committee, today's your history lesson, what they did was they said,

00:27:40.240 what can we build that whoever our nominee is for president in coming up in a year can inherit,

00:27:47.440 can just turnkey operation so we can raise the money, target the battleground states.

00:27:52.240 How did Ron Brown and Paul Tully do this? I wrote about this in my book that I wrote called How to

00:27:57.020 Beat Trump, based on interviews with a lot of Democratic strategists. This was back in 2019,

00:28:02.740 where they said, Democrats said to me, we got to figure out how to beat Trump, because we lost to

00:28:07.360 him in 2016. We got to figure out a way to do it. So I interviewed a lot of Democrats, and many of them

00:28:12.120 pointed to this extraordinary event that occurred in Virginia in June of 1991. There was a woman named

00:28:20.060 Pamela Harriman. She had an incredible life. She was married, amongst others, to Winston Churchill.

00:28:25.160 She was the big donor of the Democratic Party. She was like the Elon Musk of her time. And Pamela

00:28:30.400 Harriman had a big estate in Virginia. And Ron Brown and Paul Tully said, we need to build something.

00:28:36.840 And so what they built was a meeting where they invited all the people who might run for president,

00:28:43.500 all the top fundraisers, and they had them to a meeting. And they said, here's the deal. If we do

00:28:49.580 nothing, and everybody fights on their own to build what they're going to build, we'll never beat Bush,

00:28:54.720 we'll never beat the incumbent Republican, because nobody will have time to build a sufficiently large

00:28:59.640 thing. So what we need is for all of you to work with us together. Help us build it. Get your donors

00:29:05.240 to give to the DNC. You support the DNC, knowing that if unless you win the lottery and you're the

00:29:12.200 nominee, you're not going to benefit from this. But knowing that if you don't contribute and you're

00:29:17.880 the nominee, you'll never have a chance. So they had a big meeting over a couple days. They laid out

00:29:23.780 the case of how they could use the money and the political support to build the kind of infrastructure

00:29:29.260 that could win a presidential campaign. And then the press was quite interested in this because you

00:29:34.380 had all the leading candidates there, including Bill Clinton. Ron Brown came out and he spoke to the

00:29:40.160 media after the meeting, and he explained, to some extent, what they were doing. Please roll B2.

00:29:47.300 We have had an extraordinary meeting, a historic meeting for the Democratic Party,

00:29:51.680 where there was absolute consensus that we're on the right track and getting ready for the 1992

00:29:57.300 general election campaign early on. It is clear to us that George Bush is very vulnerable

00:30:03.340 in 1992 because this administration has absolutely no domestic agenda. It is not speaking to the

00:30:11.480 needs and aspirations and goals of average, everyday working men and women and working families in our

00:30:16.900 nation. We've developed a strategy, a preliminary strategy for the 1992 general election campaign.

00:30:23.520 The essence of it is to have our party leaders and our prospective candidates and our national party

00:30:30.280 working together as a team.

00:30:32.660 That guy, I think, is the greatest chairman, at least in the history of the Democratic Party.

00:30:38.460 He had experience across the party, relationships across the party. And you heard him there say,

00:30:45.160 well, before the general election, we've got a plan and we're going to build this plan with the help of

00:30:50.980 everybody and we'll be ready. And we'll hand this off to the nominee. So, as I said, amongst the people

00:30:56.640 who were there were Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton and his folks, at that point, Bill Clinton was not an

00:31:02.160 announced candidate, wasn't sure necessarily he would even run, but he came to the meeting and his

00:31:07.380 folks got the joke that if they supported this effort and he won the nomination, he would inherit

00:31:12.900 an unprecedented good operation that would help register voters and turn out voters. Here's Bill Clinton.

00:31:19.640 Again, this is from June of 91 at the same event after the meeting. This is B3, please.

00:31:26.640 I will say this. I believe that the research confirms what any work-a-day politician would find

00:31:33.400 who went out and just talked to real people, that they have real problems, real concerns. They don't

00:31:38.180 think they're being addressed at the national level. And if we can come up with a message that brings

00:31:42.720 people together around these concerns, then the Democrats have a chance to win in 92.

00:31:48.420 All right. That guy, a political stud. He might have won without the help from the DNC.

00:31:53.100 But if you ask people who worked in the Clinton campaign, how much did you benefit beating George

00:31:57.860 Bush and Ross Perot because of the groundwork laid by the Democratic Party, they will tell you

00:32:02.400 quite a bit. Otherwise, they would have had to win the nomination, which, as you know, Bill Clinton

00:32:07.360 struggled to do because of his personal problems on the draft and Jennifer Flowers and other issues.

00:32:13.440 Big benefit. OK, so I look now every day. I look and talk to my sources, look in the press.

00:32:19.260 What are the Democrats doing to build something like that? Because there's no doubt in my mind

00:32:24.340 that they're at a disadvantage today because of what the Trump-Vance operation built in 2024

00:32:30.080 and what they continue to aggressively build. They are registering voters today in the battleground

00:32:36.720 states. So one place to look would be the DNC, the current Democratic Party. Ken Martin is the chair

00:32:43.260 of the Democratic Party now. He is not Ron Brown. I say that with respect to Mr. Martin.

00:32:48.960 Ron Brown had national experience with labor unions, with business. He became, after Bill Clinton won,

00:32:54.980 he became Commerce Secretary, tragically killed in a plane accident. Ken Martin was the chair of the

00:33:00.080 Minnesota Party. Nice guy, but not building anything. And in fact, over the weekend, it was reported by

00:33:07.200 Politico that instead of focusing on building the party and being confident that he can create

00:33:11.600 something to hand off to his presidential nominee. There was a meeting of Democratic officials

00:33:17.200 and Ken Martin talked about this guy, David Hogg. David Hogg is the vice chair of the DNC.

00:33:22.560 And he has created a massive controversy by saying that he's going to raise money from an outside

00:33:28.240 super PAC to try to beat Democratic incumbents. It's kind of like the opposite of what you're supposed

00:33:32.960 to do if you're the vice chair of your party. But he's doing that and it's caused, obviously,

00:33:37.040 a bunch of controversy. There are people who say, no, you cannot be DNC vice chair if you're

00:33:43.200 going to try to beat Democratic incumbent candidates. There are some who say, great,

00:33:46.460 the party needs something that shakes things up. In any event, here is Ken Martin in a secretly

00:33:51.840 recorded Zoom session with David Hogg and others lamenting what's happened to his chairmanship of the

00:33:57.860 DNC because he's dealing with this David Hogg controversy. This is B1, please.

00:34:03.360 I'm just quite frustrated to be in this position because what you've done, whether you like it or

00:34:11.860 not or know it or not, David, is I'm trying to, no one knows who the hell I am, right? I'm trying

00:34:18.060 to get my sea legs underneath of me and actually develop any amount of credibility so I can go out

00:34:24.540 there and raise the money and do the job I need to to put ourselves in a position to win. And again,

00:34:29.520 I don't think you intended this, but you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show

00:34:33.920 the leadership that I need to. So nobody knows who the hell I am. You've destroyed my chairmanship.

00:34:43.180 I mean, you'd never hear Ron Frank saying stuff like that, but that's the state of the current

00:34:47.640 Democratic Party. The apparatus is distracted. Ken Martin, who by his own acknowledgement there,

00:34:53.860 not very well known, not an influential figure, even in political circles, let alone with the

00:34:59.000 wider country, is dealing with the kind of controversy that a strong chair like Ron Brown

00:35:04.040 would have never allowed to happen. And so now what you see is the specter of, you know,

00:35:09.560 who are the people most active? People like J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois, Pete Buttigieg,

00:35:14.940 if you think he's going to run, maybe the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. But mostly what those

00:35:20.360 folks are doing is building up their own name ID. Again, they're going on media. Are they gathering

00:35:27.180 names for their social media, from their social media to raise money? Are they meeting with big

00:35:32.980 donors? They're doing some of that, but nothing at the scale, I believe, and my sources believe is

00:35:38.220 required to really take on the Trump-Vance machine. Now, again, if Donald Trump has a failed

00:35:44.980 presidency, if Vance is part of an administration that's not popular and he does become the nominee,

00:35:51.360 of course it will be easier for Democrats to win. And perhaps they won't need to close the technology

00:35:56.040 gap, the voter registration gap, the turnout gap. But chances are, unless Trump's administration is

00:36:01.740 a disaster or somebody runs against Vance and beats him who's too weak to win, chances are Republicans

00:36:08.600 are going to continue to build on the advantage they have now. And as I said, in a close election,

00:36:15.620 these things are an edge. I don't believe Donald Trump would have won the six battleground states

00:36:20.600 he won without the extraordinary efforts, still somewhat opaque, of Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk and

00:36:27.000 others who figured out early on that the way to spend money is not on TV ads or digital ads. The way to

00:36:34.260 spend money is to build a digital first operation that reaches voters where they are and registers

00:36:40.500 them and turns them out to vote. The Democratic Party right now talked about this before. They don't

00:36:46.360 have a great leader. It's not Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries. They're decent at the inside game, but

00:36:51.080 they're not outside. They obviously don't control the White House. And the folks who are thinking of

00:36:55.820 running for president have good moments and bad, but no one has a daily megaphone. And none of them,

00:37:01.540 and I've said this before, none of them is politician of a generation, a political talent

00:37:09.060 like Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. And when people say, well, did you know about Barack Obama three

00:37:14.780 years before the 2008 election when he won? Yeah, we did. Because he spoke at the 2004 convention and

00:37:21.400 gave the keynote address. And for decades before that, he was touted as one of the great political

00:37:28.260 talents on the Democratic side. Same with Bill Clinton. People say, well, did you know about him

00:37:32.560 in 1992? Yes, because for 20 years, he was touted going back to Georgetown. But when he first became

00:37:39.300 elected official in Arkansas, he was touted as a great generational talent. Now, can one of these 24 or

00:37:45.520 so Democrats win, even if they're not part of being touted as a great Democratic talent for generations?

00:37:51.720 Sure, they could. But their chances of doing that without an effort like Ron Brown's, either by the

00:37:58.180 DNC or by an outside group, I think are much lower. Because if you look at where they are right now,

00:38:05.380 they're going to have to fight for the nomination in the winter of 2027 into 2028. And winning the

00:38:13.440 nomination is different than winning the general election in terms of infrastructure. You're talking

00:38:17.980 about different states. You're talking about a different electorate. You're talking about a

00:38:21.540 different set of databases. Is there going to be some Democrat who runs for president with the

00:38:25.960 financial backing and discipline and foresight to say, I'm going to simultaneously figure out how to

00:38:32.460 reach, you know, South Carolina Democrats to win the primary and Michigan independents to win the

00:38:40.060 general. Not the way politics typically work. You'd have to you'd have to have a big head start to do

00:38:45.600 that. And if somebody is smart now, my Democratic sources say they should be thinking about those

00:38:50.240 general election voters now and trying to figure out, can they get the ability to deal with that

00:38:54.880 challenge? It's hard and it's expensive. Part of what the Trump organization is doing now with

00:39:00.620 Vance is they're raising a lot of money and they're putting that money where their mouth is. They're saying

00:39:05.440 we're going to continue to consolidate the advantage. Data begets more data. Money begets more money.

00:39:11.660 The people and the systems that helped Trump win the six battleground states on the ground in 2024 are just

00:39:19.800 going to grow. They're not letting their they're putting their taking their foot off of the pedal. What's

00:39:25.920 happening on the Democratic side? You've got a chairman who's who's on a zoom with 20 people. I'm sure he

00:39:31.920 didn't suspect it would leak. But in a zoom with 20 people, he's basically saying his chairmanship is being

00:39:37.160 held hostage to the vice chair, who's a young guy who's got a lot of ambition. This is a this is not a

00:39:43.740 recipe for having the DNC help them figure this out. Could the outside groups do it? I suppose they

00:39:49.160 could. But as I said, most of the outside groups seem focused on things like messaging and research,

00:39:54.480 as opposed to the very challenging task of building things up. Now, there have been in Silicon Valley,

00:40:01.160 a big switch, as you know, Silicon Valley for most of the of its existence has tilted left,

00:40:07.880 has tilted to the Democrats. George W. Bush made some inroads there. But now Silicon Valley is tilting

00:40:13.520 Trump. They like Trump better on issues like AI. They like Trump better on issues like crypto. They

00:40:20.000 like Trump better on regulation. And so you have this weird challenge for the Democrats, not just who is

00:40:25.360 going to be the organizer of closing the technology gap, but where are they going to get the propeller

00:40:31.060 heads, the geniuses, the tech gurus? Where are they going to get them from? Sure, they could still

00:40:36.320 get them from Silicon Valley, but that's less likely. And then within the Democratic Party, they have a

00:40:41.100 generational problem. You look at the people who worked on the Biden and Harris campaign at the top

00:40:45.640 levels. They're people who've been around a while, some back to Clinton, both Clintons, some back to

00:40:52.840 Barack Obama. But that next generation of folks who are dedicated to the Democratic Party, who have the

00:40:59.980 technology knowledge, who have the political knowledge, right? It's one thing to build technology

00:41:05.160 to sell widgets or to build a social media platform. It's another to do that in service of politics to

00:41:11.040 understand how to win elections. And I look again and I say, it's not the DNC. It doesn't seem to be

00:41:17.880 the current outside groups. It doesn't seem it's going to be Congress. It doesn't seem like it's going to be

00:41:22.520 any of these two dozen Democratic candidates. But someone in the party is going to have to figure out

00:41:27.560 in the next year or so, the sooner, the better, because the Trump people are going full throttle.

00:41:32.400 How do they close the technology gap? I will tell you, when we get to the summer of 28 and you all

00:41:39.420 are listening to me talk about the issue of who's got the edge in the campaign on the trajectory we're

00:41:44.900 on, the answer will be whether it's J.D. Vance or someone else, that the Democrats have a technology

00:41:50.520 gap. It's like any gap in, you know, between competitors. You got it. The sooner you start trying to

00:41:56.140 close it, the more likely you will be to be able to close it. And I will tell you, if you're a Democrat

00:42:00.760 and you care about winning the 2028 election, you better get to figuring out who's closing the gap.

00:42:07.440 Where's the money come coming from? Who are the geniuses? And how do you do it in a way that all

00:42:13.280 the presidential candidates buy into it the way Ron Brown got everybody to buy into it in 1991?

00:42:18.980 It's a tall it's a big order. It's a tall it's a tall challenge. But it's one that if Democrats don't

00:42:24.100 meet, I can tell you their chances of winning in 2028 go down maybe substantially. And the problem

00:42:31.400 right now is I don't see the person or people or organization who are going to get together and

00:42:36.900 make this happen. Now, I could not be more excited to bring in this next guest. We're kind of brothers

00:42:45.400 in Maha, except that we've never met before. I can't wait to bring in actor and Wildwood

00:42:50.560 studio founder Zachary Levi. You might know him from the show Chuck. You might know him from the

00:42:55.560 Shazam movies. They were huge hits. They made hundreds of millions of dollars. I personally

00:42:59.620 haven't seen them, but I know a ton of you love them. He was also on Megyn Kelly's show a few

00:43:04.180 months ago. Without further ado, let's bring in Zachary Levi. Hey, Link, good morning.

00:43:10.420 Hey, how are you doing? I can't believe we haven't met because I worked on the Kennedy campaign and I

00:43:15.700 remember you were going to host a boat cruise fundraiser. Do you remember this? You were

00:43:20.500 going to do a boat fundraiser? I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I was excited about it too. I mean,

00:43:25.860 listen, I, I wanted Bobby to be president so bad and I know many of us did. Um, but obviously that's

00:43:33.020 not how everything worked out. And so that's ultimately, you know, the boat cruise was all

00:43:37.440 kind of, you know, part and parcel of that, but I'm very grateful that regardless of how things all,

00:43:43.540 you know, came about Bobby is where he's at now and he's doing the work that he's doing and

00:43:48.940 very proud of him, very proud of the team that he's assembled. Uh, and maybe one day we'll get

00:43:53.940 that boat cruise. Who knows? No, exactly. It was good for the people who don't know. Maybe we can find

00:43:57.800 the flyer. It's going to be like you Drea from Sopranos met a world piece, some other people. And I

00:44:03.300 think it was God's plan for that boat cruise not to happen. Bobby ended up endorsing Trump

00:44:07.840 last August in Arizona and the cruise did not end up happening, but you going out on a limb and

00:44:12.880 saying, I'm going to vote for president Trump because of the coalition he's building was really

00:44:17.300 kind of shocking in Hollywood because everybody's scared to come out of the closet and say they voted

00:44:21.380 for Trump. Isn't this a theme you've noticed? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, listen, it's a, it's an

00:44:27.320 unfortunate theme that's been in Hollywood for a long time because Hollywood is traditionally a much

00:44:31.140 more liberal industry in town. And, uh, and listen, I have lots of friends that are of that ilk and

00:44:38.500 that's their, that's where they lean. And I have loved them regardless. I believe that we're all

00:44:43.960 supposed to be able to hold the values that we hold and vote accordingly. Um, and, uh, so yeah,

00:44:51.800 it, it definitely was a pretty massive coming out party, uh, as, as it were a political coming out

00:44:59.160 party. But to me, the, the stakes could not have been higher. We had, you know, unfortunately every

00:45:06.420 single election we're left with two options. And oftentimes of those two options, you're having to

00:45:13.200 eat the chicken and spit out the bones. You're having to look at a candidate and say like, okay,

00:45:17.500 which one of these two candidates, even though I might have issues with either or both of them,

00:45:21.860 which one of them still represents, or is at least, you know, talking about implementing policies

00:45:27.520 that are most in line with what I believe are necessary for where we're at as a country.

00:45:33.780 And in this moment, particularly when it came to things like our borders, you know, things that

00:45:38.660 we're still, even now with, you know, what's going on with ice and, and in Los Angeles, which is

00:45:43.400 absolute frigging chaos. And I know we want to talk about that too. Um, you know, I, that is an

00:45:49.480 existential threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to our jobs, to everything else. And I do think that,

00:45:56.020 you know, it comes down to triage. It's one of the things that I learned early as a child,

00:46:01.120 I think it was like in elementary school and we had some, you know, EMT or somebody come to school

00:46:06.520 and they would tell you about triage. It's like, Hey, if there's an accident, you got to find the

00:46:10.800 people that are, you know, there's going to be people that are, that are just a little bit

00:46:14.900 injured. And there's people that are moderately injured. And there's people that are really injured

00:46:18.480 and you got to focus on the big injuries and then work your way down. And so when it came to the

00:46:22.980 policies that both candidates were talking about, or, you know, I don't know that Kamala was even

00:46:27.340 really talking about a lot of policies that, you know, most of what the democratic platform was

00:46:31.800 based on was just hating Trump, which in and of itself, I was like, Hey, what are like, give me

00:46:36.160 something, give me something of substance. So I know what it is that you want to do with it. You want

00:46:40.700 to implement. And I don't think most of us got that. And I've made it very clear that, you know,

00:46:46.020 I didn't vote for Trump the first two times he ran. I, in fact, I voted third party both those times

00:46:50.540 because I was very disheartened with the options that we had, but I do believe that, you know,

00:46:56.100 a few things happened. Um, the, the miracle in Butler, you know, Trump moving his head just ever

00:47:02.320 so slightly and avoiding getting assassinated, which is insane. And I think in that moment,

00:47:07.800 there was a humility that he experienced that he had yet to that point in his life ever experienced.

00:47:15.700 And that is an important thing, particularly for somebody like him and particularly for someone who's

00:47:19.600 going to be the president of the United States. And when that happened, we know now, obviously,

00:47:25.000 Cali means was a huge part of connecting those two Bobby and Trump. The Democrats were doing 0.85

00:47:31.180 everything they could to make sure that Bobby had no chance of ever getting anywhere in that election,

00:47:35.180 which was also criminal. The fact that they didn't hold the primary was criminal. Um, and so for,

00:47:41.160 for Bobby and Trump to connect, for them to really see that, Hey, listen, a coalition could be

00:47:47.700 very powerful, could really help all the movements, MAGA, MAHA, all of it. And again,

00:47:52.880 as you said, we were very much in the MAHA camp and, you know, and I care about that. We care about

00:47:57.920 that. Like to me, that's one of the biggest parts of the triage. Yes. We can talk about lots of

00:48:02.340 different groups or, you know, groupings of people that had issue with this or that, but it affected,

00:48:07.500 let's say that group of people, our health and wellness is everybody. How our, our food is being

00:48:14.500 grown and processed and delivered to us. How are the pharmaceutical industries are completely out

00:48:19.060 of control. This is affecting every single American. It's not just this little group or

00:48:23.300 that little group. It's everybody. And it's our children. And that's our children's children. I mean,

00:48:26.820 this is genetics. So I was like, this is a no brainer to me. I, and so ultimately I became friends

00:48:33.880 with Tulsi Gabbard, who's a wonderful human being and Tulsi, I was explaining, listen, I, I love what

00:48:39.580 you're doing. I love what Bobby's doing. I think that, uh, if you guys are really genuinely doing

00:48:47.180 the prop, you know, what you need to do to vet Donald Trump and make sure that he means what he

00:48:51.620 says, cause I didn't know Donald Trump and, and they did. And, and I asked both Bobby and Tulsi when

00:48:57.820 they asked me to go and moderate their, um, town hall leading up to the election, I said, I need you to

00:49:04.440 tell me beyond a shadow of a doubt that this isn't just some political play. This isn't just

00:49:10.420 some, you know, whatever, but you, you believe with everything in you that he means what he says,

00:49:17.800 that we're going to actually get some effective change and good positive change. Um, and, uh,

00:49:24.640 and that you, that he's a man of his word in that regard. Um, and they both said, yes,

00:49:29.340 we really genuinely believe that. And that's why we're doing this from two former Democrats who

00:49:33.120 completely, I mean that, you know, that says volumes really says volumes. And so I said,

00:49:39.360 okay, I didn't vote for that guy the last two times, but if you are telling me that he means it

00:49:44.220 and you're all in on what this is, then I will be all in on that. And I will cross this Rubicon

00:49:49.920 and I will, I will suffer whatever slings and arrows are going to come my way. And, and there have

00:49:55.340 been, um, but I knew that was going to happen and I didn't do it, you know, without a lot of thought

00:50:00.500 and a lot of prayer and a lot of weighing out what those consequences would be. And, you know,

00:50:06.200 I've always been very disheartened with my industry anyway. I think that it's been broken

00:50:11.100 for a really, really, really long time. And that's why I have felt compelled to create a new system,

00:50:18.220 a new ecosystem, a new studio that is Wildwood studios. Uh, by the way, if anybody is interested,

00:50:24.040 you can go to Wildwood Austin, that by the way is Wildwood W Y L D W O O D Austin.com. Uh, and please

00:50:32.620 let us know if you're interested in investing and helping this vision, but the vision is genuinely to

00:50:36.860 take back our entertainment industry, to create a place that's safe for all artists where you don't

00:50:43.560 have to tow this woke agenda line where you can speak your truth and whatever that truth is. I'm not,

00:50:48.720 this isn't a, a conservative studio. It's not any, it's, it's just trying to be, I'm a libertarian.

00:50:54.820 I'm just trying to create a place where people can be themselves and speak truth and have common

00:51:00.280 sense and reason and actually make content that's uplifting, that's redeeming. Um, and, and more than

00:51:07.180 that, um, you know, one of the things that I weighed in my decision to go and support Trump and knowing

00:51:13.220 that there could be some jobs that I might lose was that I could see the writing on the wall when it

00:51:17.940 comes to AI. AI is coming at us like a freight train and it's not just my industry, it's everybody's

00:51:24.700 industries. And so we need to be very, very, very cognizant of this and very mindful about how we

00:51:32.560 are going to be implementing it. I don't think that AI in a vacuum is an evil thing, but how humans will

00:51:38.440 decide to use AI and the massive amounts of unemployment that's going to come from that,

00:51:42.920 including in my industry. And so I thought to myself, well, what am I really afraid of here?

00:51:47.220 I'm afraid that I'm not going to get hired for jobs that aren't even going to exist in a few years

00:51:52.620 because the studios, knowing the way that they operate, knowing how most industry operates, they're all

00:51:58.580 about bottom line. They're all about margins. We want to make bet. We want to make more money so that our

00:52:02.900 shareholders are happy. So our CEOs have better salaries. I mean, that's how it all works. And just

00:52:07.220 wringing out the working class so that they can make more and more profit. And so once AI becomes the 0.58

00:52:13.640 shiny new tool that they can use in order to just keep making more money and

00:52:17.160 unemploying more and more people like myself, regardless of our political beliefs, to me, it was

00:52:22.900 kind of a no brainer. It's like, all right, I got to go all in. I got to make sure that I can do what not

00:52:27.120 just my own vote, but I have to go and try if I can to reason with people and say, I understand your

00:52:34.020 aversion to Trump. I understand he can be brash and cocky and arrogant and all of those things that

00:52:40.580 the Trumpiness of Trump, I get it. I'm not a fan of that stuff either. But the guy at the very least

00:52:46.580 is he's not a career politician. He is a he's a wild card. He's somebody that isn't captured because

00:52:53.540 he hasn't been in that system like a Joe Biden had for 50 plus years and like Kamala had been.

00:52:59.320 And so and but but with that, and then also this incredible coalition that he put together

00:53:06.180 with JD and Bobby and Tulsi and his now former maybe I don't know, friend Elon Musk, you know,

00:53:15.000 but still all of that and Vivek and and, you know, all of it. I was like, that is something I can get

00:53:21.680 behind. But the Democratic Party was not offering anything close to that. So I had to I had to go fight

00:53:26.940 for it. No, absolutely. I think what happened in this election was people said we're tired of being

00:53:31.620 put in silos of Democrat, Republican, Independent. We just want common sense. And I think because of

00:53:36.580 people like Bobby and Tulsi and these former Democrats coming over, that is what helped

00:53:40.620 President Trump win the election. We don't know we could slice and dice the information and the data

00:53:44.580 anyway. But there were a ton of California women who were typically like granola, crunchy moms who 1.00

00:53:50.500 were passionate about their kids health, who said, you know what, if Bobby's going in there and he's

00:53:54.280 going to try to fix the chronic disease epidemic, we're going to pull the lever for Trump. But you

00:53:58.220 mentioned something about career politicians like Biden and Kamala and Newsom all over the news right

00:54:04.320 now. We're seeing the ice raids in Los Angeles. You live in Los Angeles. What do you make of Karen

00:54:09.100 Bass, Gavin Newsom and these leftist failures we're seeing because no major city should allow people to

00:54:15.220 run amok and burn cars and take over free right freeway, Zach? Yeah, yeah. Well, so fortunately,

00:54:21.060 I actually don't live in Los Angeles anymore. I am. Yeah. So I grew up in Ventura, California,

00:54:27.060 which is about an hour. Well, now with traffic is about an hour and a half north of L.A. And I'm

00:54:32.160 here now. I just welcomed my son into the world out here because my family's still here. So thank you.

00:54:37.120 I appreciate that. But listen, I lived in L.A. for 15 years and obviously I still frequent it and have a

00:54:43.700 lot of friends there and there's still business to do in Los Angeles. But even as a native Californian who

00:54:50.520 loves California, I saw the writing on the wall a really long time ago because when you have

00:54:56.720 leadership in states like California and cities like Los Angeles, who ultimately I don't think

00:55:05.700 really care about the people, their constituents, they care about the power that they can hold

00:55:12.140 and wield and the money that can be made through their position, which is exactly what's gone down.

00:55:19.440 And this has happened in California and New York and Illinois, Chicago. I mean, if you just look at

00:55:26.480 the cities that have the highest crime rates, the highest level of homelessness, the most insanity

00:55:31.980 going on, these are typically democratically held states and cities. Now, this is not an indictment of

00:55:39.780 the everyday voting Democrat, right? Like, I think this is one of the problems that we're running into

00:55:44.140 is that we have all been pitted against each other, the voters, the people. And we have got to

00:55:48.860 we have got to stop doing that. I don't have a problem with Democratic voters. I have a problem

00:55:53.560 with Democratic leadership who actually, I think, doesn't even care about their voters. And what's

00:55:59.060 happening in Los Angeles right now is absolute insanity. We have millions of illegal immigrants who 1.00

00:56:06.460 illegally came here. OK, now I have a lot of empathy for a lot of those folks. I understand that many of

00:56:14.000 those people are not serial rapists and murderers and wrong evildoers. They are people that were

00:56:20.780 genuinely looking for a better life. And yet there is a legal way, a proper way, a fair way for them to

00:56:28.020 come into this country and assimilate into this country. Because if you want all of the benefits of 0.99

00:56:34.280 the United States and yet you hate the United States and you go and you wave your nationals,

00:56:40.440 you're you're you know, a lot of people are in L.A. right now waving these like Viva La Mexico flags.

00:56:44.640 Listen, I love Mexico. My brother in law is Mexican is Mexican. I love him. I love his family. I have

00:56:50.680 lots of Mexican friends. But you if you want to, could you imagine if as Americans we were going into

00:56:58.780 Mexico and taking advantage of their illegally going there and taking advantage of all that they have to 0.98

00:57:04.040 offer and then trying to burn down Mexico City waving American flags, we'd be shot in the streets

00:57:09.300 dead, not with rubber bullets, not with tear gas like that would be. And I we would never do that

00:57:15.000 because that's we that would not be respecting that country. So I find it really not just fascinating,

00:57:20.580 but really sad that a lot of these folks don't understand that you cannot go and want all of the

00:57:26.860 benefits of that country and despise it like that doesn't that doesn't work. And so what's now

00:57:33.620 happening, Karen Bass for her to encourage people, literally encourage people to interfere with what 0.97

00:57:40.620 ICE is trying to do, which I'll let me let me be clear about this. I think that we must find a better

00:57:49.140 about the same thing with you know, with those with ICE with any of it, right? We need to be able to do it as

00:57:55.180 effectively and as surgically as possible. Are there people who are being detained and deported

00:58:01.620 that might actually like there are there are few but very few cases of people who actually are here

00:58:08.480 legally, and they got looped into the whole thing and they got taken out. And we those people should not

00:58:14.580 be dealing with that. They should not be being detained. But that's very few people in a much

00:58:19.680 larger group. And that larger group of illegal immigrants, the lots and lots of them are in 1.00

00:58:25.660 fact criminals that have come here not not just criminals because they came here illegally, but

00:58:29.620 have a criminal past and record and continue to do crime in this country, including, as you know,

00:58:35.120 there are multiple myriad cases of murders, rapes and murders that have happened in this country.

00:58:41.100 And I don't see a lot of these protesters showing up and being like, hey, wow, we should we should be

00:58:46.740 upset about that, too. It's like they don't even care. It's like, well, that's just what happens.

00:58:50.780 It's like, that's just what happens. No, that's not what happens. And as Americans, we should not be

00:58:55.680 tolerating this at all. No, absolutely. People don't want another Lake and Riley, another Jocelyn

00:59:01.300 Nungari, right? And if we hadn't had the failed open border policies the last few years, if people have had 0.99

00:59:05.600 to come in and get vetted, we wouldn't have criminals and rapists running amok on the streets right now.

00:59:10.460 And people voted for President Trump because he was talking about doing deportations. President

00:59:14.920 Trump ran on mass deportations. The New York Times had a poll. A majority of Americans supported

00:59:20.020 mass deportations. I know we're not supposed to say that out loud. So what we're seeing is a

00:59:24.760 president who's actually following through on what he said he was going to do. And I think that's

00:59:28.060 making Democrats' minds go crazy. So it doesn't sound like you think Gavin Newsom has a prayer in

00:59:33.140 2028, because these are the best campaign ads for Republicans. These pictures and these videos,

00:59:37.740 do you think Gavin has a chance, Zach?

00:59:41.200 I don't know.

00:59:42.200 I mean, listen, I mean, the rational, logical mind in me would say absolutely not. But how

00:59:50.580 did, how was he in office right now? How did he not, how did he not get when they, you know,

00:59:57.180 when, when they,

00:59:57.860 The fire hydrants?

00:59:59.980 No, no, no, no, no. Well, yes, all of that, for sure. But no, when they recall,

01:00:04.680 the recall, when they recalled him, how did, you know, and I've heard some weird things about maybe

01:00:09.640 there was some screwy things going on with some of that and the voting and whatever. I don't know.

01:00:14.760 I mean, that's a whole other conversation. But listen, unfortunately, as a, this weird duopoly

01:00:21.580 that we live in and one that we should not be living in, I think that we should have a far

01:00:24.760 different system of, of political system where we have more options. You know, some people say

01:00:30.900 ranked choice. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of different things that we could be talking about,

01:00:34.800 but we've all been pitted against each other so poor, so, so badly. And so Democratic voters,

01:00:41.360 even when they're looking at somebody like Gavin Newsom, they go, yeah, well, but at least he's our guy,

01:00:46.780 even though he's failed over and over and over again, even when Karen Bass has failed over and

01:00:51.420 over and over again, it's so obvious when Gavin Newsom is going and, you know, telling everybody

01:00:56.140 in California, you got, you got to stay in your home and you got to mask up and you got to go put

01:01:00.100 these vaccines in you. Nevermind that. I'm going to go have my private parties at French laundry and

01:01:05.880 have dinners. And then he gets caught and he's like, Oh, you know, he's making all these excuses.

01:01:10.560 You know, it's, you know, they tell us what we should do and then they don't even live by their own

01:01:15.300 rules. That's the man that these voters put into office. One would hope that that would have been

01:01:21.160 the end of it, but no, because the propaganda is real. It's big, man. And they have so much money

01:01:26.420 to put into commercials and they will do everything they can to keep twisting people's minds. I hope

01:01:31.220 that voters in California do not forget every single failure that this administration has put them

01:01:39.420 through. And it's been many, many failures. And this is just the most recent of them, but of course,

01:01:44.240 there's going to be a lot of voters that, that think right now that what's going on is actually

01:01:48.140 good. It's good that we are intercepting ice and making sure that they're not deporting these good

01:01:53.440 people, that even if they came here illegally, they're still good people and we need to treat

01:01:57.080 them with dignity. Listen, I don't, I, as somebody who believes that we're all children of God,

01:02:02.440 I actually agree that we should all be treated with some amount of dignity, right? But you're also

01:02:07.060 dealing with full-on criminals. You can't just be like, Oh, what's all, well, let's just talk.

01:02:11.060 Let's just see if they're going to change their ways and maybe they'll, they're going to be good,

01:02:15.220 you know, people that are, that are putting back into our community. You can't reason with people

01:02:21.000 like that on that level. But I will also say, even if this wasn't a matter of actual criminals

01:02:27.540 and murderers and rapists and all that stuff, one of the most insidious things that has gone on

01:02:32.580 is we have actual American citizens in places like Western North Carolina, for example, that were

01:02:41.220 devastated. People in Lahaina, Hawaii, devastated. Every single time Americans, not illegal immigrants 0.80

01:02:49.740 to America, but actual Americans who have grown up their entire life in the United States, paying taxes

01:02:54.700 their entire life are left with a check for $700. And yet USAID and all of these other little

01:03:04.020 Machiavellian little, you know, uh, agencies and what are taking our tax dollars and putting these

01:03:10.500 immigrants into hotels and feeding, giving them debit cards and cell phones and traveling them around 1.00

01:03:16.900 the country on our dime while we are leaving our own citizens, hanging out to dry. That is insanity.

01:03:25.440 So these are the things that we have to remember when it comes to, when we're doing these doge cuts 0.57

01:03:29.340 and these, these USAID cuts. And when we're also trying to ask ourselves, well, how does this work

01:03:35.000 with illegal immigration? Like that can't be the way we have got to take care of. We must. And, and, 1.00

01:03:40.480 and if you were to ask any democratic voter, if you were to just, you know, bring it down to the

01:03:44.220 most localized level and say, okay, let me ask you a question. It's your own home. Just forget about

01:03:49.860 the country, for example, but the country is all of our home, right? But let's talk about just your

01:03:54.240 home. Would you want anyone, particularly people that have a criminal record to just have cart block

01:03:59.680 access to your home, to just be able to move in whenever they want? Of course they would say,

01:04:03.360 absolutely not. I don't want that. Well now just expand that out because that's what's going on.

01:04:09.160 If you don't treat this country as if it's just a larger version of what you are trying to

01:04:14.000 protect in your own life, then really what you're saying is, well, it's good for thee,

01:04:17.900 but not for me. I've seen these like kind of viral comedy videos where people go knocking on doors

01:04:24.720 and they go, Hey, we have a petition for, you know, these illegal immigrants and they want to be able

01:04:29.480 to be in our country. And they go, Oh yeah, I'll sign that. They go, great. Well, we got 10 of them

01:04:33.380 right here. Can they move in? And they go, uh, no, I, I, we can't, you know, and they don't know what

01:04:39.640 to do because they're more than willing to pass the buck, pass the buck, pass the buck. If you're

01:04:43.960 not willing to do it yourself, then don't expect everyone else in this country to be footing the

01:04:48.660 bill for that. That's just not acceptable. Well, that's what was happening with Kilmar

01:04:52.320 Abrego Garcia, all these Democrats and especially Senator Chris Van Hollen. We have to bring him back.

01:04:57.320 What's happening is wrong. We have to keep these criminal MS-13 gang members on the street.

01:05:01.620 Mark my words, all of these elite Democrats sitting around in their fancy homes. They do not

01:05:07.240 want MS-13 moving in next door. They wouldn't want their apartment complex being taken over by illegal 0.78

01:05:12.580 migrants, but it's the rules for the, not for me. They want to sit in their ivory towers and preach 1.00

01:05:17.020 and proselytize to all of us, how we should live and what we should be okay with. And Americans have

01:05:21.260 said enough. So everything you have said, Zach is music to our ears and what we talk about all the

01:05:25.980 time. I was thinking is Gavin Newsom at French laundry last night, because nobody was hearing from him

01:05:30.720 we're seeing him and he's pretty much MIA missing in action, Zach, but we could not be more grateful

01:05:35.960 to have you. We will not keep you any longer. I couldn't be more excited for Wildwood studios

01:05:40.120 also because I'm from Dallas. I love seeing Dr. Phil come into Texas and so many people building

01:05:45.080 complexes. Maybe you guys should connect. Are there any stories or movies that you're building now or

01:05:50.280 any stories you want to tell with Wildwood studios that you can sort of give us a precursor to,

01:05:54.320 or where are we going with this? I mean, man, so many. I mean, you know, the reality is

01:05:59.140 we'll have stories forever, right? Like there are so many great ideas. There's so many scripts that

01:06:05.360 I read and projects that I am a part of currently and developing for future. But the most important

01:06:12.840 thing is that we must build the arc. Like, and that's really what this is. Like I have to build

01:06:17.700 a place that is safeguarding human art and entertainment, certified organic free range artists

01:06:25.040 like that. That's what's this about because we can keep developing more stories. That's not a

01:06:30.540 problem. But if we don't actually have the place to hold the line, then those jobs are all gone.

01:06:36.300 Right. So, so, you know, I, I could, we, I could talk for hours about some, you know, new movies or TV

01:06:43.300 shows or video games or music, things that I have a passion about creating. But I would say that,

01:06:48.560 you know, the through line for all of it is just making sure that it's all stuff that's actually

01:06:54.420 entertaining. That's actually excellent. The vast majority of the leadership in Hollywood

01:06:58.620 for far too long has not only not valued the artists, right? And that's very obvious because

01:07:05.360 they, they don't, they love to screw with the creative process and take a lion's share of the

01:07:11.100 money and then leave whatever left is left over for the rest of the cast and the crew. But also the

01:07:16.460 vast majority of the leadership in Hollywood hasn't cared about excellence, which means they

01:07:19.820 don't care about the audience. If they really cared about the audience, then they would have

01:07:24.020 processes where they really refine these movies first through the writing process, then through

01:07:29.440 the shooting process, and then through the editing process. And, but instead what they do is they say,

01:07:35.040 well, you know, we, we were targeting to release this movie, whatever, you know, big movie X,

01:07:40.200 a star Wars movie. They go, we're, we know we're going to release this in October of this year.

01:07:45.520 And then they go, well, we've, we must release it then. So that means regardless of what form it's

01:07:53.260 in, we have to release it at that point. And we'll just, we'll fix it in post. We'll, we'll

01:07:58.160 market it really well. And by the way, and it's star Wars. So, you know, the IP is so strong that

01:08:02.340 people will watch it anyway. Well, then you have a lot of star Wars fans, myself included,

01:08:06.040 who want to go to these movies and want to love the movies, but then you see them and you go,

01:08:10.500 what happened, what happened between now and then that they didn't understand even who their

01:08:16.860 audience is, that this is what's come out of it. Right. So it's, it's a matter of getting all of

01:08:22.400 that nonsense out of there, getting the power and back in the artists' hands so that we is,

01:08:27.920 cause we don't need a lot of these executives, man. It's a lot of middle management, just,

01:08:32.280 just gatekeepers. And that's not necessary. Plenty of writers, directors, producers, actors,

01:08:38.600 crew, department heads are very capable of telling these stories without a whole bunch of

01:08:44.240 undue influence that's coming in. And sorry, to tangent back, just one thing you were saying

01:08:49.320 and just to me, what was an incredible example of, of, you know, rules for the, and not for me,

01:08:57.100 but even though they weren't even MS, uh, MS 13 gang members in Martha's vineyard, Martha's vineyard

01:09:05.260 was a perfect example of, Oh, let everybody else handle this. But Martha's vineyard had illegal

01:09:10.980 immigrants that were being sheltered in Martha's vineyard. And those folks lasted like two weeks.

01:09:16.620 And then everybody in Martha's vineyard was like, no, but they, they can't be here to Martha's

01:09:20.740 vineyard. And we don't want these people here. That is a perfect example of the elite class

01:09:25.780 because only of the elite live in Martha's vineyard. This is not like, you know, and for

01:09:30.400 them to just dispose of those people and yet still wanting to champion them is a perfect example of

01:09:36.560 this nonsense. So anyway, there's so much that we need to take care of, but I, but as, as an actor,

01:09:42.680 as somebody who really cares about other actors and artists of all ilk and knowing where AI is going

01:09:49.300 and knowing that, that this is also a perfect opportunity as Hollywood is imploding and burning,

01:09:54.300 that this is a great moment for us to really take that power back and to really truly value

01:09:59.780 the artists again, if not for the first time and really truly value the audience and make sure that

01:10:05.440 we are doing everything we can to just make excellent content. And that can be excellent

01:10:09.220 stories. They could be more liberally leaning or conservative leaning, like as long as they're

01:10:13.840 not agenda. I don't want like in the same way that people are like, I don't want to go watch that

01:10:18.080 like hardcore Bible thumping Christian movie. I agree. I don't want to watch that movie. I'm a deeply

01:10:23.380 spiritual person, but I don't like it when people are just like infusing agenda into something and

01:10:28.380 trying to preach to you about something. And the same has been happening in Hollywood for far too

01:10:32.380 long. When it comes to more woke, liberal agenda, it's like, you want to go see a movie. And the

01:10:36.820 next thing you know, you're getting lectured about somebody's pronouns within the movie. What are we

01:10:42.240 doing? That's totally unnecessary, completely unnecessary.

01:10:46.080 No, we could sit and talk for hours. We have to have you come back on because there's so many shows

01:10:50.840 I've seen recently, especially on Netflix, they somehow have checked every single box of like

01:10:55.460 trans, non-binary, this, that, like they somehow hit, they have pronouns I haven't even heard of.

01:11:00.320 And I'm a gay guy who's Gen Z and went to NYU. I'm like, how have I never heard of this? But

01:11:04.600 Zach, you mentioned Star Wars. May the force be with you. I am so excited. I think maybe you should

01:11:09.620 run for office someday, but thank you so, so much for coming on and congratulations. And we wish you

01:11:14.100 love and health with your new baby boy. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

01:11:17.840 Thank you, Link. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for all of it you're doing and everything you're

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The Megyn Kelly Show - June 14, 2025

Maureen Callahan on Michelle Obama, Mark Halperin on Future of the Dems, Link Lauren with Zachary Levi： MK Media Highlights

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