The New York Times exposes a new person who helped smear Governor Andrew Cuomo's accusers. And once again, it's all in the family. NBC News apparently is not aware of the abortion laws in America, nor the Democrats' position on abortion laws, as they try and fail to catch Governor Ron DeSantis in a lie.
00:09:36.260And the New York Times is portraying this as some kind of disaster when, in fact, it's actually a kind of heartwarming story.
00:09:42.600And that's happening for scores of thousands of babies that have been saved by these pro-life laws that have passed since Roe was overturned.
00:09:51.480And Democrats are campaigning to reverse that, to go back to Roe state by state through these constitutional amendments.
00:10:47.420They basically will say that, you know, if there's some type of like it, they'll use like different ways to really have a have a wide exception for 1.3 percent.
00:10:56.880And in those circumstances are typically extremely emotional decisions.
00:11:00.040No, I mean, I don't say that that's the norm in terms of this.
00:11:03.700But I do think that the left in this country has moved on.
00:13:25.500You know, as a lawyer, we always used to do used to be taught you have to match the energy of the witness.
00:13:30.300If you go in there and you're the killer and the witness is soft spoken, even if he's a lying jerk, the jury could hold it against you if you're meaner than the witness seems.
00:13:53.540This is a reporter who is misleading on an issue that happens to be near and dear to the vast majority of the Republican base.
00:14:00.300Right. And he can go he can even do a little verbal reframing of the exchange.
00:14:07.900Right. He can say, I just want to be clear for all your viewers that this is wrong.
00:14:13.040Right. That I'm not he can he doesn't have to frame it as a direct attack on her or he can reframe it and say, like, this is what the media does rather than than having a direct confrontation with the person.
00:14:24.180And and he should he should learn, too, from Donald Trump's success in 2016.
00:14:31.780Part of it was the bond he made with values voters in the Republican coalition, because he was the first Republican candidate on stage when asked about abortion to describe it graphically and express genuine physical disgust with the act itself.
00:14:51.500And that is what got the attention of Leonard Leo at the Federalist Society and so many others and got him into a position where he could make this pledge about judges that helped cement his candidacy.
00:15:04.440Right. That he had already won over a lot of moderate Republicans who wanted a businessman.
00:15:09.220And then he was able to speak to social conservatives about abortion in a way they've always wanted to be spoken to about it by their Republican candidates.
00:15:17.520And Ron DeSantis can still do that. And he can do that as someone who just signed a law that a lot of pro-lifers in Florida wanted to see sign.
00:15:26.940And he signed it in the in the face of basically the most pro-choice red state in the country.
00:15:35.400He's he should show in these in these interviews the same moral courage that he's shown politically.
00:15:40.820And and, yeah, I think he'll benefit tremendously from that.
00:15:44.800Then there's the matter of Donald Trump.
00:15:46.940Rich, you mentioned the polls and there's been no sign of Trump weakening at all.
00:15:53.680So DeSantis, to me, seemed to shift slightly in his messaging on Trump.
00:15:58.300And, you know, everybody's been wondering, how do you get around the gorilla, as I call him?
00:16:02.380How do you get around the gorilla? He's 40 pounds, 40 pounds, 40 points ahead of you.
00:16:06.120Maybe 40 pounds ahead, too. And he's immovable.
00:16:09.820You know, he's not wrong that every indictment makes him stronger.
00:16:13.080You know, he's just been he's just been immovable in those polls.
00:16:16.440So DeSantis, I thought, landed the best answer he's landed so far when asked about the setup at this New Hampshire town hall was what are you going to do about the nicknames that he calls you?
00:16:27.800But he could have taken that anywhere. Right. That could have gone anywhere.
00:16:30.880And he's tried to answer that question about the nicknames a number of different ways.
00:16:34.540You call me whatever you want. As long as you call me winner, that one's not going to work anymore because he's 40 points behind.
00:16:40.400You know, it's petty, whatever. But look, look what he did here.
00:16:43.720And you tell me whether you think this is going to make a difference.
00:16:48.320So here's the thing. These insults are so phony.
00:16:52.820These insults are juvenile. That is not the way a great nation should be conducting itself.
00:16:57.960That is not the way the president of the United States should be conducting himself.
00:17:02.240And, you know, one of the things I think about the former president and I appreciate he did do a lot of great things.
00:17:07.300And I was a big supporter. But he's running in 2024 on the things that he promised to do in 2016 and didn't do.
00:17:15.020He said he was going to drain the swamp. He did not drain the swamp. Not even close.
00:17:19.540We ended his presidency with Anthony Fauci running the country.
00:17:23.100You couldn't even fire Fauci. And so now you're going to go drain the swamp.
00:17:27.060Give me a break. He said Mexico was going to pay for the border wall.
00:17:30.000Do you see the border secured? I see people coming in infinitum.
00:17:35.100He said that he was going to lock Hillary up, just like he's now saying he's going to do a special counsel for Biden two weeks after the election.
00:17:42.660And 20. I forget about it. Don't worry about it.
00:17:44.620And then he actually said he was going to eliminate the national debt.
00:17:47.800He added eight trillion dollars to the debt.
00:20:22.280And they talked about a meeting he had with the Chinese leader.
00:20:26.080And Trump said, I just pulled it up just to remind myself he's talking about Xi and how he's a big leader and blah, blah, blah.
00:20:33.160And then he says in this interview about Xi, he had an incredible.
00:20:38.100I'm not allowed to say it because it's very impolite and very politically incorrect.
00:20:41.660In fact, a beautiful female interpreter on the Ruthless program were like, that's the thing about Trump is like, you're like, oh, I'd like to meet with the Chinese leader.
00:20:53.460And he's like, the translator was hot.
00:21:11.160I like somebody who's humorous and doesn't take himself or life too seriously.
00:21:15.580And the more we get from the drama of his four years actually in office, which were exhausting, the less people remember that.
00:21:23.860And they focus back on the show and the fun, as Rich said.
00:21:28.000Yeah, and it's it's this is going to sound like a very juvenile comparison, but there is a way in which, like, Donald Trump is the Bugs Bunny figure.
00:21:37.240And Ron DeSantis is the Daffy Duck, right?
00:21:39.860Where Bugs Bunny always gets the funny insults, always expresses himself freely.
00:21:45.420He does things that seem totally improbable that aren't going to work, like sticking his two fingers into the end of a shotgun.
00:21:52.460And somehow it blasts back on the person firing it.
00:21:56.060And then there's Daffy Duck, who's earnest, who's trying hard, who's plotting and planning and plotting.
00:22:02.580And his beak gets spun around his head in the end of every clip.
00:22:07.780And that's that's the problem every Republican candidate is going to have, is that Donald Trump is having a review day, right, for these sophisticated cultural references.
00:23:46.400So they look at I mean, a lot of people say, Rich, that the moment Trump stood behind Brett Kavanaugh was the moment they came home to the Republican Party, despite their doubts about Trump.
00:23:57.400And they turned and they said that this is my guy.
00:24:01.540The strength it took to stand behind him because it wasn't just the Dems, some Republicans, too, was like this guy's not worth it.
00:24:09.140We can't put an accused rapist on the U.S. Supreme Court.
00:24:11.900And I mean, it's true that most politicians would have folded.
00:24:17.800You know, there's a lot of great talented justices or judges on the circuit courts of appeal you could choose from.
00:24:22.620You did not have to go with Brett Kavanaugh, but he stood by him, even with the onslaught of all the pouring on, you know, allegations in the media and all the protests.
00:24:32.820I think Republicans are worried anybody else might not do that.
00:24:35.940Right. Like you do need somebody who's as strong as Trump, who can stand in the face of Jack Smith and Jack Smith and Fannie Willis and Alvin Bragg and, you know, Joe Biden and all the rest of it.
00:24:47.020And just keep standing and just keep punching and just keep tweeting or truthing or what like he doesn't show any signs of, you know, falling.
00:25:08.780I'm the strongest one here because they've they've tried every way they know to take me down and I'm still standing.
00:25:14.240Yeah. So I was writing after the 2020 election when it just it's it's still kind of unfathomable when it when I really think about it, but that he's remained so strong despite losing a presidential election and going down this this whole rabbit hole.
00:25:27.000It's just been terrible. And I was talking to a friend.
00:25:30.760What how do Republicans get in this place?
00:25:33.320And he said to me something I think that's that was correct.
00:25:37.040What he heard from from all his friends was this goes back to what we're talking about with Dasha Burns and how you think DeSantis should have pushed back stronger.
00:25:44.660The 2012 foreign policy presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama near the end.
00:25:51.280They're talking about Benghazi. Mitt Romney is slamming Obama from Benghazi in a truthful and correct manner.
00:25:58.280And Candy Crowley in retired CNN anchor.
00:26:01.760She pops up. She's going to do the fact check in real time, which is not definitely not your role as a moderator of presidential debate and gets it wrong.
00:27:37.840But the conventional wisdom developing in the Republican circles, at least the ones I read and listen to right now, is Trump's going to win the nomination.
00:27:45.060He's going to lose the general because he's too alienating to independence, right leaning independence in states like Georgia, Arizona and so on.
00:27:54.600Like all those swings in Michigan, Wisconsin.
00:27:58.900I don't know, NBD. I understand that logic.
00:28:01.940I get it. You know, I can use my intellect and see that argument through.
00:28:06.520So Andy McCarthy, our mutual friend and your colleague, has been saying it.
00:28:10.840But that New York Times poll showed them tied Trump and Biden tied, tied.
00:28:16.180And Trump's thrice indicted, twice impeached, as the Democrats like to say.
00:28:20.800They're tied. And, you know, the ties usually go to the Republican because the Republican voters don't always tell the pollsters how they're actually feeling.
00:28:29.080So and Trump's been underestimated before.
00:28:31.840I think Trump's stronger right now than he was in 2020.
00:28:34.400He's stronger right now than he was in 2020.
00:28:37.120He doesn't have COVID around his neck.
00:28:38.620The country's not suffering like it was.
00:28:40.180In fact, it's suffering in a different way that they're holding the Democrat accountable for.
00:28:43.480Direction of the country is blamed on Joe Biden right now.
00:28:48.420Like how do what makes us really think he'll lose?
00:28:52.040And that those voters in Wisconsin or Arizona could get behind Ron DeSantis, who's not John McCain.
00:28:59.880He's not moderate. Like what makes us think this?
00:29:03.900Right. Well, a lot of people say, oh, well, look at the record in in 2018 and 2022 in these midterm elections.
00:29:09.900The congressional candidates that were associated with Trump all flamed out or the governor candidates.
00:29:17.120They say this. And the thing is, Trump's coolness and charisma and reputation is not transferable to Carrie Lake or to Doug Mastriano in in Pennsylvania.
00:29:30.080Right. Doug Mastriano does not have casinos and hotels and golf courses named after him all over the world and other luxury properties.
00:29:41.660So Trump turns out people and you see in some states like where there were moderate Republicans running and Trump was on the top of the ticket.
00:29:49.520So someone like Susan Collins in Maine, she got her best ever result because she brought her voters and then all the Trump voters came out in Maine and voted for her to down ticket.
00:30:01.300And, you know, some people thought she would lose and she won by 13.
00:30:04.080So Trump is stronger than his reputation electorally.
00:30:09.860And, you know, Biden is a lot weaker now.
00:30:12.880Right. Biden, the whole promise of Biden that was attractive to people was we're going to end the hysteria.
00:30:18.600Right. I'm you're going to not think about me for weeks at a time.
00:30:22.260Right. Because I'm I'm disappearing into my hidey hole of a basement for weeks at a time.
00:30:27.340And you're going to go back to normal and it's not going to be like you're not going to turn on the news and it's a code 11 about the latest tweet.
00:30:34.780Or, you know, fear mongering that somehow Donald Trump's going to give the country away to Kim Jong Un in some summit in Malaysia.
00:30:43.080It's just going to get normal again. And it didn't get normal.
00:30:48.360We have inflation that now of the house that you would have bought in 2020.
00:30:53.260Now the mortgage on it costs twice as much over the lifetime of the mortgage than it did in 2020.
00:30:58.580You know, the the the raise you got at work was completely eaten up by your grocery bills, by the the increase in prices of just everyday items of insurance, of health care.
00:31:11.900You know, so Biden has all of his weakness on him now and his age.
00:31:17.540I mean, he looks worse and worse and even Democrats are admitting it.
00:31:21.360He looks worse and worse. And comparatively, Trump looks vigorous.
00:31:24.640I mean, you know, it's hard to call a 78 year old man vigorous, but he's still like a human tornado compared to most people over 50 years old.
00:31:34.580And the amount of energy he kind of communicates with his presence in a room.
00:31:40.600And yeah, if he's on a stage with Biden, it's going to look bad for Biden and people might independent voters might just be.
00:31:47.340I'm going to go with the guy who looks more, you know, compost mentis.
00:31:51.340Well, and the other thing about Trump is, isn't he a 77?
00:31:54.000Did he have a birthday? Didn't turn to 78 in any event.
00:31:57.980He is a natural extrovert. And, you know, an extrovert comes alive when they're with people, when they're with other when he enters a room.
00:32:06.200You can see his chest inflates. You know, he loves it.
00:32:09.620Look back at celebrity and practice and I like he loves to be adored.
00:32:13.000It's his oxygen. And that helps him in his vigor and the way he interacts.
00:32:18.080And people can sense that. I wanted to say this.
00:32:21.380You guys may have seen this. Kelly O'Donnell, chief White House correspondent for NBC News.
00:32:25.380Last week, when Trump was arraigned on the J6 charges in D.C., he had to go up to Washington, D.C.
00:32:33.040and appear in this federal courthouse in front of this judge who's not in his camp.
00:32:38.520So she tweets out he's flying back because you're talking about how DeSantis and Biden, none of them, they don't have hotels.
00:32:45.880They don't have a plane. And look at this tweet, you guys.
00:32:48.360She tweets out a clear sign because she's showing Trump's president on the Trump's airplane on the tarmac.
00:32:53.780A clear sign he is not president anymore. Despite all the motorcades and perks, his plane has to wait to taxi.
00:33:01.800Air Force One gets immediate clearance.
00:33:05.300The responses to this were absolutely. Here's just one from Matthew Marsden.
00:33:10.840Yeah, what a complete loser. His own 757 has to wait its turn to take off.
00:33:21.080Yeah. And, you know, this is the indictments help for many reasons, but one of them is just right.
00:33:29.980The sure, sheer matter of amount of attention they give him.
00:33:35.300Right. His motorcade is followed and covered like he's president again.
00:33:40.300We don't pay attention to what any other candidate is saying, except to the extent they're commenting on Trump.
00:33:46.900Oh, well, DeSantis is a little tougher. Pence seems to be going all out.
00:33:50.840You know, Vivek wants to pardon him tomorrow. But it's all it's all about Trump.
00:33:54.860So it's it's all it's all to the good. I would say on the electability thing, he definitely could could win.
00:34:00.380I might even say, you know, it'd be kind of a coin toss at this point.
00:34:04.320But there's no doubt he's the riskiest choice among the plausible Republican contenders.
00:34:08.900But that's hard to you can't make the case against him in a primary based on him being riskier.
00:34:13.320You've got to say, oh, we'd actually lose. There's no way he can win.
00:34:15.760I don't think that's correct. I also think Democrats are making a big mistake by thinking, you know, Biden is this unique Trump killer.
00:34:23.020You know, he won in 2020 in the midst of a pandemic.
00:34:25.540Like, barely, you know, it was just as narrow or maybe narrower than Trump's victory in 2016.
00:34:31.880I think it's a little bit more like Biden needs Trump because maybe he couldn't beat anyone else because Trump will somewhat, even though he's more extroverted and feels more vital, you know, kind of mutes the age issue because he's old, too.
00:34:45.500Trump has his ethical problems, too. So mutes the Hunter Biden stuff.
00:34:50.140And Trump's really unpopular at the same time. Biden is unpopular.
00:34:53.100So it may be that Biden can can can beat him.
00:34:56.860He definitely can beat him. But Trump would be propping up his making up for his his weaknesses.
00:35:04.360Hmm. You have news today that DeSantis has gotten rid of the polite way of putting it.
00:35:11.580His campaign manager. She's out genera and in is a guy named James Uthmeyer, who is his chief of staff.
00:35:21.940It was I think a genera pack was her last name.
00:35:25.020And so she's going to remain chief strategist on the campaign, but she's no longer the top dog.
00:35:29.720And he's bringing in his chief of staff for his gubernatorial office.
00:35:33.640So this guy's worked for him for a long time. I think that's smart.
00:35:36.980I mean, I don't know genera, but, you know, obviously you've got some real raw political talent there and Ron DeSantis.
00:35:43.020I don't know that it's been properly channeled. And I think I mean, as I have been making clear on this show, and I'm sure you guys, you know, feel the same.
00:35:51.020The DeSantis campaign has not been well run.
00:35:52.740It's like there's it's not all the indictment that makes him 40 points behind.
00:35:58.540He's got some responsibility for all of that, too.
00:36:01.560So but, you know, it's like, is it teaspoons in the ocean, MBD?
00:36:06.160You know, it's like, OK, how much can James do that genera couldn't given the gorilla and the lead?
00:36:14.820Yeah, I mean, I think the campaign, you know, in some ways we talk about, oh, DeSantis has fallen behind for several months.
00:36:22.940And that's true if you look at these national polls.
00:36:26.040But there's no contest in the there's no electoral contest in the world like a U.S. presidential primary where you have these discrete momentum changing contests in small states like Iowa, where the winner of Iowa is going to get showered with more media attention and more money than anyone's put together in the past six months.
00:36:48.920And and that will change the dynamic of the race.
00:36:52.140And that's why I think in some ways, like all these stories we're talking about are prelude to that moment when if we get it, when Trump and DeSantis are on a stage together and a moderator puts them into conflict directly with one another, unmediated, that's that's when the campaign really begins.
00:37:10.680And it may be the moment the campaign ends, right?
00:37:15.060Whoever wins that first exchange is going to walk away with all the momentum from it.
00:37:20.440I mean, it's just, you know, and that's why DeSantis has to moderate his attacks in the media, because he can't be seen to be spiking the volleyball that Mika Brzezinski has just served to him.
00:37:32.420That's going to make him look like a traitor to Republicans, not like a strong contender against Donald Trump.
00:37:38.180Right. So he has to he has to be on a stage with Trump, looking him face to face and challenging him directly.
00:37:48.240Yeah, I don't think one exchange could do it for him.
00:37:50.660Trump could take him out in one exchange, but he can't take Trump out in one exchange.
00:37:54.520It would have to be, you know, I'm sure there's some boxing analogy that would come to mind if I knew anything about sports.
00:37:59.640But it would just be it's the Buster Doug it's the Buster Douglas fight, right, which is Buster Douglas against Mike Tyson in Japan.
00:38:10.300No, but it's a very famous fight, because if you if you look back at it, Buster Douglas was this big upset winner, Mike Tyson, and the commentators couldn't even see what was happening as they were watching it.
00:38:21.680They're watching it. They're waiting for Mike Tyson to just break out like he has in the last 25 fights, hit him with one big punch and it's over.
00:38:29.720And it takes them about seven or eight rounds to realize, oh, my gosh, Buster Douglas is beating this man in every round.
00:38:35.520They can't even see it while it's happening in front of them.
00:38:38.340And that's what it's if someone's going to beat Donald Trump, it's going to be like that.
00:38:42.000It's going to be they're scoring points consistently round of round.
00:38:45.840And it's taking a long time for people to realize that Trump is getting gassed in some way.
00:38:52.000And if that happens, then the aura of invincibility comes off of Trump.
00:38:56.760Trump and, you know, it's it's a fresh, fresh contest right from there.
00:39:03.120But it's going to it's going to take something like that for it to happen.
00:39:07.000And like I said, it won't happen until there there is this direct conflict.
00:39:13.200We know that the Fox News executives, Suzanne Scott and James and Jay Wallace went to meet with Trump the night of the night that he found out he was indicted again.
00:39:21.980And they were with him in Bedminster, reportedly trying to give him the cell on showing up at the August 23rd Fox News hosted debate.
00:39:31.060He's left that door wide open, but he is not committed.
00:39:35.140And, you know, I don't know what they could say to him that could make him do it.
00:39:39.540If he doesn't think it's in his interest in winning the presidency, he's not going to do it.
00:39:43.060No matter how much it would help Fox News, for the record, it would be unethical to promise better coverage if he came to the debate.
00:39:52.420I don't know what was promised, but what could they possibly promise him to make him change his mind?
00:39:57.400You know, this is a political calculation on his part on how best to win this nomination.
00:40:01.960One other point I wanted to make, then I'll squeeze in a quick break on your point, Rich, about the earned media in 2015 and 16.
00:40:06.980That's how Trump won. He was in all the rest of us were like, how could he keep?
00:40:11.720How is he leading in the polls? Look, he attacked John McCain.
00:40:14.580He did all these crazy things. He attacked the Gold Star family.
00:40:18.200But he was in the media dominating every day, every day, every day over the controversies.
00:40:22.180If you think about it, he couldn't do that this time because we're used to him saying the outlandish things.
00:40:28.700It's not it doesn't drive the national news cycle the way it did back then.
00:40:31.540But the indictments do. And so it is it is like a gift.
00:40:37.820You know, it's a new way of dominating the news every day.
00:40:43.660Unfortunately for Trump, however, he may have to pay for this news coverage from prison.
00:40:51.820Not that the Democrats care, because we're not talking about the economy.
00:40:55.860You know, we're not talking about immigration. We're not talking about crime.
00:40:57.860We're not talking about any of the things that matter because we're just talking about Trump versus Jack Smith.
00:41:02.220And that's a preview of how it's going to go for the next year.
00:41:05.640Quick thought on that, Rich, and then I'll squeeze in a break.
00:41:07.600I think that's that's a great insight. I hadn't thought about it that way.
00:41:11.900So the media was the tip of the spear in terms of getting Trump attention in 15 and 16.
00:41:16.580Now it's the law enforcement system with the media kind of coming in behind.
00:41:20.400And I kind of think Trump I've thought Trump wouldn't go to the debate.
00:41:23.840I still think he he won't. But if he does, it'll just be the allure of that stage.
00:41:28.440Because if he's there, this is the biggest political show on Earth. Right.
00:41:33.400If he's not there, it's still interesting. And if he's not there, by the way, the other guy who can take him out in one punch.
00:41:39.200Potentially, it's not DeSantis is not just Trump, but also Chris Christie, who can't stand DeSantis, will be loaded for bear.
00:41:46.180We'll want to take him down because he'll be the biggest guy on on the stage.
00:41:50.300You know, the de facto front runner being in clear second place as opposed to the rest of the field.
00:41:56.040So if I'm Trump, I let it go. I let these guys fight like a scorpion in the bottle and hope someone takes down DeSantis further.
00:42:03.200Hmm. I will say I'm glad Chris Christie is there. I understand why people find him annoying, but I think it's good to have these guys punched up.
00:42:12.140You know, let's see how they do. Punch him right in the face. Throw all the stuff.
00:42:16.020He's basically kind of the things he's saying are like Democrat things.
00:42:19.940And so it's almost a preview of how a general election debate would go.
00:42:23.280I think it's very good for all the Republicans to have Chris Christie out there.
00:42:27.140And he's very good at it. So it'll be exciting to have him no matter who shows up.
00:42:32.800As we go to break, I'll give you this one thought on Trump and the way he sees the legal crackdown, the warfare, the lawfare that's being unleashed on him.
00:43:52.820Today, President Biden has decided to improve our country and his hopes of being reelected by sitting down, not with NBC, not with ABC, not with Fox, not with CBS.
00:44:08.220But the man who's given fewer interviews, I think, than any modern president will be sitting down with the Weather Channel, sitting down with the Weather Channel to talk about climate change.
00:44:22.980This reminded me of when he was going to sit down with not Brett Baer on Fox News when Fox had the Super Bowl, but with Fox Soul, with one of his surrogates who had worked actively to get him elected.
00:44:38.900This is not going to be the hardest-hitting interview, I'm guessing, MBD.
00:45:26.260I've been around, like, a piece of furniture you can't get rid of and you inherited from, you know, three generations ago.
00:45:33.600And, you know, you just can't imagine the House without me.
00:45:37.360That's going to be his strategy for winning re-election.
00:45:40.940And it's not a bad one, but it's certainly not one that honors the American people as far as giving us a chance to scrutinize his first term in public and have a real debate about it.
00:46:10.240Yeah, well, this also goes to the big partisan divide where Democrats are totally freaked out about climate change and Republicans aren't.
00:46:18.840And there's this big effort in the media every time there's a heat wave or extreme weather event to portray as solely the responsibility of global warming, which is unscientific.
00:46:32.320And this just goes to with COVID, we learned that all this, you know, you get a paper somewhere that said if a kid wore an N95 mask perfectly all day long, which is never going to happen, it might diminish his or her chances of getting COVID or spreading it by 5%.
00:46:46.320And then the advocates would get that and get reported in the media and cable news is report fines.
00:46:54.120And I'm not an expert on climate change, but I know that very same thing has to be going on with the so-called the science and the so-called science of this phenomenon.
00:47:03.900It's there will be absolutely no challenges.
00:47:06.560No one's going to ask him about Hunter Biden, about whistleblowers.
00:47:09.880I mean, we saw him sit for a major interview, I think it was on NBC or MSNBC, forgive me, but my team will check me, short after some of that broke and they didn't ask him, oh no, CNN, wasn't it?
00:47:29.160As a reporter, you can agree to that, MBD.
00:47:30.780But they didn't ask one question on Hunter or the controversies.
00:47:34.520This is going to be the playbook going forward.
00:47:37.300Avoid those questions like the plague.
00:47:39.880Yeah, I mean, the media wants to avoid them because the media was complicit in suppressing the story in the first place in the 2016 election.
00:47:47.480I mean, it's egg all over their face that all these facts have come out, dribbled out over four years, basically, about Hunter Biden, that the laptop was not Russian disinformation, that the media was taken in by a handful of ex-spooks, and that this turned into a censorship regime led by social media.
00:48:07.720So they're going to avoid it like the plague.
00:48:12.680This whole thing, though, sitting down with the Weather Channel reminds me of a Hillary Clinton tweet recently where she blamed the weather on Republicans.
00:48:19.660Remember, she tweeted out, hot enough for you?
00:48:45.100And we've got some new thoughts on Megan Rapinoe and new tape as well.
00:48:52.980So, guys, we are officially in August.
00:48:55.140And on August 26th, we will be at the two-year mark of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal and the bombing, the suicide bombing that took place thereafter, killing 13 U.S. service personnel.
00:49:06.380And as we approach that dreadful anniversary, Gold Star families gathered in Escondido, California, at the invitation of Daryl Issa, a Republican, to tell their stories.
00:49:25.200They are angry at the Biden administration for not taking responsibility for that withdrawal and what happened to their sons and daughters,
00:49:32.080for completely ignoring them after it happened, not speaking their children's names publicly, trying to move on past this as soon as humanly possible because it was bad for Biden politically.
00:49:44.800But we listened to them and it was heart wrenching and a very stark reminder of not just what happened that day and how poorly it was handled, but how they've been treated.
00:49:55.560I'm going to kick it off with Cheryl Rex, who had some thoughts on her exchange with Joe Biden.
00:50:02.060She's the mother of Lance Corporal Dylan Marola.
00:50:05.200And she talked about the moment they did meet with President Biden after her son and the others were killed.
00:50:13.160When Joe Biden, our elected president, entered the room, when he approached me, his words to me were,
00:50:20.940My wife, Jill, and I know how you feel.
00:50:24.560We lost our son as well and brought him home in a fog-draped coffin.
00:50:29.680My heart started beating faster and I started shaking knowing that their son died from cancer and they were able to be by his side.
00:50:36.640After this encounter, I have never had any personal correspondence, nor has my son been honored or his name spoken by this commander-in-chief or his administration.
00:50:49.140How could so many people pay their respects, but nothing at all from the president of the United States on something he had conducted?
00:52:02.460And it cuts against his biggest strength, supposedly, as a politician, which was this power of empathy.
00:52:11.200But when it's an empathy that is based on a lie, it becomes just so sinister in his mouth to utter that words.
00:52:22.220Or in a sense, in a sense, he's almost like, we talk about stolen valor, but in a way, he's like stolen suffering from these Gold Star Mothers.
00:52:33.660It's a really sick quality about Joe Biden that tears at this image of integrity and soulfulness that he tries to portray.
00:52:45.440And, you know, he could have handled this so much better.
00:52:49.680I mean, all he had to do was the things that they are mentioning that in those testimonies, speak their names, speak truthfully with them, honor their sons and daughters.
00:53:03.180Politically, you know, the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was made by the Trump administration, which had negotiated a withdrawal.
00:53:11.480And he did not have to take full responsibility beyond anything except how it went that day.
00:53:21.840And he could have done so and done so in a manful way, in a way that took responsibility that, you know, the commander in chief has to take these decisions that risk the lives of young men and women in uniform, our bravest, our best, the flower of our youth.
00:53:39.460And that these terrorists are responsible for their deaths.
00:53:48.820And he just couldn't do it because it was too politically embarrassing.
00:53:52.820And they saw immediately in the polls that the American people ultimately lost confidence in the Biden administration that very day.
00:54:00.860They decided this this administration is incompetent in a fundamental way.
00:54:04.980And then Joe Biden's age is layered on top of that, that his his incompetence is due in part to, you know, potentially his senility or to some reduced capacity he has as an octogenarian.
00:54:19.060And so it is awful. And I imagine we're going to be hearing more from these families when the general election campaign comes around.
00:54:29.000Yeah. And this this month, as we hit the two year mark, you know, Rich, when you and MBD were on your way here to the Jersey Shore to join me for that Fourth of July party, we were talking about the State Department on the eve of July 4th weekend released a scathing, right, a scathing report on Afghanistan.
00:54:47.980So they knew they had to do it, but they buried it on the Friday before a holiday weekend.
00:54:52.680And it blamed, yes, President Trump's administration, but also the Biden administration for a precipitous decision to end the military mission there without contemplating or even considering considering sufficiently worst case scenarios and saying it had serious consequences that those decisions and the failure to make them and saying,
00:55:17.780even though planning for the evacuation of Kabul began some time beforehand, the State Department was hindered by the fact that it was unclear who in the department had the lead.
00:55:27.960They didn't even know who was in charge when it came to evacuating our personnel and so on.
00:55:32.580No one understood who was in command. And the person who is the commander in chief is still in the job right now.
00:55:37.880So after that bombing on August 26th, where we lost 13 service personnel, I mean, a week after August 31st, Joe Biden came out and said this and the families were not happy about this.
00:55:51.700Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history.
00:56:03.320The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravely and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.
00:56:14.960It was a lie. It was a political lie. It was inconsiderate and heartless toward the family of those who had just died days earlier, not even a full week earlier.
00:56:24.960And it was raised yesterday by Christy Shamblin, who is the mother-in-law of U.S. Marine Nicole Gee. Listen here.
00:56:31.880When our leaders, including the secretary of defense and our commander in chief, call this evacuation a success, as if there should be celebration, it is like a knife in the heart.
00:56:52.160I live every single day, knowing that these deaths were preventable. My daughter could be with us today.
00:57:01.600And that wasn't just one decision. It was many decisions. Many times over, it could have been stopped.
00:57:08.600So to call it a success is an ultimate disrespect.
00:57:17.080It's a pattern with him, Rich, to call his failures successes and just hope the American people are too distracted to understand.
00:57:29.520Yeah. So the the Bo Biden thing is just really weird and it's either he's lying about it or he doesn't know the reality of it anymore.
00:57:37.940I'm not sure what's most disturbing, but like it just just a basic life lesson is when someone has experienced some unbelievable, heart wrenching loss, even if you know what it's like, you don't say you know what it's like.
00:57:52.760You say there are no words. Right. The the the Bible tells the story of of Job and and the wisest friend of Job is the one who just sits there and says nothing because there's nothing you can say.
00:58:06.580And that's that's that's what you do. You don't say, oh, this has happened.
00:58:10.540My boy, Bo, especially when it didn't. So what these families want is commiseration.
00:58:17.380They want recognition for the sacrifices of their their children and they want the truth.
00:58:23.300And that shouldn't be too much to ask for from the United States government.
00:58:28.300And just to portray this as as a success was a terrible lie.
00:58:35.140Everyone knew it's a lie. So it didn't even have you know, it didn't even work for them.
00:58:39.500And as MD points out, you know, these families aren't going to get satisfaction, unfortunately.
00:58:44.820But Biden did pay a price for this. It put him on a fundamentally different trajectory.
00:58:49.900His reputation for competence, such as it was, just disappeared after this withdrawal, never to never to return.
00:58:58.260But it's just it's amazing how just very rarely he's called on the lie about Bo Biden.
00:59:03.420You know, most of the press just ignores it like this is something normal when it's when it's really weird and disturbing.
00:59:13.940This is not. And you shouldn't. You're right. When somebody says, oh, my God, this horrible thing has happened to me, the response is not something horrible happened to me, too.
00:59:20.740Let's talk about me in response to your tragedy, especially if you're the commander in chief who put that person's child in harm's way to begin with.
00:59:27.760And as his own State Department is concluding here, handled it horrendously.
00:59:32.260So what's interesting to me in part about this MBD is I think Daryl Issa, a Republican House member, probably did this to honor the families.
00:59:39.880I don't take away his sincerity there, but also it's a terrible political item for Joe Biden.
00:59:46.340And I'm sure he can understand that reminding people of that disastrous withdrawal is not going to not going to be a good thing for Joe Biden and his reelection chances.
00:59:54.900But to me, yes, it underscores the incompetence of it all.
00:59:58.380But it also underscores the heartlessness of Joe Biden, because, you know, as you point out, he's the piece of furniture.
01:00:04.420You can't get rid of me. You know, comfy and nonthreatening.
01:00:08.260But look at like the series of things we've seen in the news over the past couple of months.
01:00:12.520The refusal to acknowledge his own grandchild until it became a media issue that The New York Times was writing about.
01:00:19.360Right. Right. The the dog we talked about this the other day, the dog that bit with like seven secret service members to the point where they had to go to the hospital repeatedly.
01:00:29.500He does nothing about it. He doesn't give a damn how many of his the guys and gals who protect his life.
01:00:35.020How many of them have their blood drawn by this dog commander, this German shepherd who's nothing to be trifled with?
01:00:40.920He doesn't care. The fact that forget the bribery allegations against him.
01:00:47.140You know, we don't know whether those are true, but the fact that he had Hunter out there sitting on the boards of, you know, this Ukrainian company and dealing with the Chinese when he knew he was an active, active drug addiction and didn't care how badly this reflected on him, his boss, Barack Obama, the administration, what might happen to the American people as a result of it just didn't care.
01:01:06.900He's just a purely political animal who looks out for number one.
01:01:13.340Yeah. You know, you see it in those statements that they made upon the withdrawal about the success of the withdrawal.
01:01:21.120Now, I'm sure that Joe Biden's speechwriters and speechwriters for the leaders of the Pentagon thought, hey, we're honoring the sacrifices that were made over 20 years.
01:01:34.920And we're not we're not going to imply that any of that was made in vain.
01:01:40.500And that's they wanted to make that point.
01:01:43.660But in a sense, that's that's as far as they went.
01:01:49.120It was this completely superficial thing of what we say.
01:01:52.840Now, what would a responsible commander in chief do responsible commander in chief would take that report that came out before July 4th?
01:02:01.700He'd be waiting for that report to hit his desk.
01:02:04.300He'd be talking about how there was a culture of lying and of butt covering in the military in Afghanistan for almost the entire mission.
01:02:15.380But there was a constant pattern of self-deception about, you know, winning hearts and minds, these color coded maps, these false promises and new dawns that every new general brought with them, earned their stars and then walked away from this mission.
01:02:31.940And he would say, I'm going to fix this culture because it's this culture that led to the confusion and disaster of that day that I'm and I'm responsible to fix it.
01:02:45.440And it's driving military families nuts and it's killing military recruitment because the military relies on military families for continuing recruitment generation after generation.
01:03:03.940And the past four administrations have been totally careless with the military and those families.
01:03:11.440And now we are reaping the whirlwind because we have to lower standards for the physical entrance exams, for the ASVAB intelligence exams.
01:03:20.960And we're still not making bare minimum recruitment numbers at a time when the Chinese and Russians are sending flotillas three times bigger than what we can respond with in Alaska.
01:03:34.980I mean, this is a serious, serious problem.
01:03:38.420It reflects it goes much deeper than just failing the PR of the death of these 13 service members.
01:03:46.680It goes directly to Joe Biden's totally self-satisfied, neglectful leadership style, which is evident not just in his family, but with with his presidency.
01:03:59.460The military recruitment point is so good.
01:04:01.240There was a Babylon Bee headline the other day that said something to the effect of military leaders can't understand why young men won't sign up to go die for this racist country.
01:04:35.760I'm calling out Secretary Blinken, Secretary Austin, General Milley, General McKenzie, Lieutenant Colonel Whited, who could not give the order to the snipers to take out the bomber before he detonated his vest and ultimately the president.
01:05:51.040This is one reason we have a deep distrust almost of every institution in the country, because it seems as though no one ever takes responsibility or pays a price for failure, except for if you transgress against woke ideology.
01:06:04.280You know, and you're a general, you're out the next day, right?
01:06:42.560In fact, I'm thrilled that they lost and I'm I remain hopeful that they will take a lesson from the fact that they have allowed themselves to be led into oblivion, the oblivion of being a loser by a woman who's much more concerned about her Nike checks and subway checks than she is about getting the big W.
01:07:03.380There's more video that surfaced yesterday.
01:07:05.420We saw her laughing after she failed to score on the penalty kick.
01:08:08.460And it trickled down to where other than three girls who half asked the national anthem, gentlemen, it was not like the MBD rendition of the declaration.
01:08:16.380Other than those three girls, they wouldn't sing.
01:08:59.800And there is no accounting for how certain people process emotions.
01:09:02.940You mentioned a miracle on ice, 1980 U.S. hockey team.
01:09:09.340I watched the the end of that game against the Soviets, like at least probably every six months.
01:09:14.960It was one of those formative sports in my life.
01:09:19.060My kids once once said to me, why don't we never never see you cry?
01:09:22.980And then one day we were bored and I was like, let's watch the the Herb Brooks speech from the movie when he's escorting his his exhorting his team prior to the.
01:09:52.960So how people could process emotions is different.
01:09:56.400But this, you know, when she was asked what she was proudest about, wasn't wasn't a game, wasn't a moment in a game, wasn't a victory, wasn't being with her teammates.
01:10:42.060This is a person, MBD, who said she'll never sing the national anthem again.
01:10:45.980She's so disgusted with our country, this country that made her a multimillionaire, that let her don the stars and stripes to go out there and represent it and all that it stood for and all the sacrifices made by men and women like the 13 who gave their lives two years ago this month.
01:11:00.520She she did not feel the need to honor any of them.
01:11:02.680And that's what makes her different from a LeBron James who's playing privately, who doesn't bear the stars and stripes, who's not out there representing America.
01:11:50.440Yeah, I mean, what you are expressing, I feel like this is, you're actually, Megan Rapinoe is wrapping up the theme of this show.
01:11:58.900The whole show is this theme where you felt like, I want them to lose.
01:12:03.760You've betrayed this institution, a national team, at a fundamental level.
01:12:10.020You've corrupted the enterprise you're in.
01:12:12.520And so I want to see the whole thing fall apart.
01:12:15.040And I think that's, that is becoming a common feeling.
01:12:18.880It's why people are withdrawing their trust from the military.
01:12:22.140It's why this whole contest with, you know, between Jack Smith and the Justice Department and Donald Trump is going to polarize our politics like nothing before, right?
01:12:32.980Because it just, it tears away all the specifics of the issue and it just says, okay, we're going to pit the corrupt, captured, woke institutions against the people.
01:12:44.680And we're just going to have a straight out contest about who runs the country.
01:12:50.000And a lot of people look at these institutions and say, I want you to fall apart.
01:12:55.840You're no longer serving your purpose.
01:12:57.300You're no longer serving, you know, what you were founded and funded and patronized to do.
01:13:11.240And it, you know, you see sports leagues suffering from this, this nonsense where, you know, the fans and the people who run the sport are, are from completely different cultural and political worlds.
01:13:27.300And the sport is being torn up because of it, right?
01:13:29.980I mean, like the, and half the players aren't even on the side of the executives and owners or the managers that run the, the marketing departments.
01:13:39.520I mean, we saw this with the Dodgers this year, where you have a marketing department that markets this anti-Catholic group.
01:13:47.140And you have a Christian pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, trying to salvage something of his own self-respect and the team's reputation with fans by trying to institute, you know, something to honor Christians on another night.
01:14:01.580So this is, this is just a pattern repeated throughout our culture.
01:14:05.820And it's not going to go away until you take the left's toys away from them.
01:14:11.740Until they're, until they are chastened again, like they were earlier, like in the Reagan era.
01:14:17.080There were a lot of liberals who had out their opinions on American foreign policy, on American domestic policy, in all sorts of positions of cultural influence.
01:14:26.200But they knew that they were a minority and they knew to respect the sensibilities of the majority as much as possible.