The Megyn Kelly Show - Pence and Harris Debate, with Charles C.W. Cooke, Krystal Ball, and Saagar Enjeti

00:00:00.500 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:07.100 Today, the vice presidential debate, and will there be a second presidential debate?

00:00:11.520 It's in jeopardy.

00:00:13.180 Coming up today, Charles C.W. Cook, Crystal Ball, and Sagar Anjeti, all with their thoughts

00:00:18.640 on where we go from here.

00:00:26.860 Hey, everyone, it's Megyn Kelly.

00:00:28.380 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, and what a debate last night. 1.00

00:00:32.220 Did you watch it?

00:00:33.280 I watched it.

00:00:34.560 I thought it got a little tedious at times, but overall, I thought the moderator did a

00:00:40.040 fair job, and the candidates, well, we're going to talk about it.

00:00:43.460 With me now is Steve Krakauer.

00:00:44.940 He's my executive producer here on the show, and he's also the editor and writer of the

00:00:50.220 newsletter, Fourth Watch, which is well worth your time, by the way, because he's sort of

00:00:54.000 a media watchdog himself.

00:00:55.220 Steve, so I thought, on balance, that the candidates were generally respectful of one

00:01:02.220 another, that they were pretty measured.

00:01:04.880 There were no meltdowns like we saw in debate number one between the top dogs.

00:01:09.560 It was a little boring, and my mind started to wander about, I don't know, an hour in,

00:01:13.880 like, what am I going to do tomorrow?

00:01:15.740 What am I going to have for breakfast?

00:01:17.220 That's never a good sign.

00:01:18.280 That never happened in debate number one.

00:01:19.800 And I thought the moderator, Susan Page, was fair.

00:01:25.080 I don't think any criticisms of her today as being biased toward one side or the other

00:01:30.340 are fair.

00:01:31.400 I went back and looked at every single question in the transcript, and she was right down

00:01:36.500 the middle, and she was pretty vanilla in the way she phrased the question.

00:01:40.780 She covered things you'd expect.

00:01:42.220 You know, Obamacare, China, trade, COVID, the economy, fracking, climate change, I mentioned.

00:01:47.640 You know, it was Supreme Court.

00:01:49.660 It was all stuff you'd expect.

00:01:51.260 Abortion.

00:01:52.640 Maybe the topic selection leaned left a little, but not enough to really criticize Susan Page.

00:01:57.100 That was my overall thought.

00:01:58.880 What did you think?

00:01:59.540 Yeah, I would say the same thing.

00:02:01.040 I thought that she did a pretty good job.

00:02:03.120 I will say it seemed that she was very interested in two things, in asking her questions, which I

00:02:07.560 thought they were good questions, not really super interested in the answers and whether

00:02:11.420 the candidates actually answered the questions.

00:02:13.800 I would say both sides, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, didn't exactly give a straight answer

00:02:18.860 to two specific questions, and there was no follow-up to press for that.

00:02:22.220 That's because she was scared, you know what, Liz, that she was going to lose control, 0.99

00:02:26.300 like we saw with Chris Wallace.

00:02:27.520 You know, you could see the fear in her eyes, like, oh, God, I don't want the train to go

00:02:31.320 off the rails.

00:02:32.200 Yeah, I think, you know, it was a little different scenario now that President Trump was not up

00:02:36.780 there, you know, stirring the pot a little bit, or maybe it was the plexiglass that was

00:02:41.300 between them that really kept it a little bit more subdued.

00:02:43.940 But there was that, but she also really did seem obsessed with keeping fair time, which

00:02:50.040 was interesting.

00:02:50.640 Obviously, that became a storyline after also.

00:02:53.720 CNN actually timed it that they spoke almost exactly the same amount of time, while ABC

00:02:59.380 had it that Kamala Harris spoke more and CBS had it that Mike Pence spoke three minutes

00:03:03.440 more.

00:03:03.580 So I don't know how we all, you know, do our timing, but she was very, I thought she

00:03:07.920 did a good job of really trying to keep it balanced in terms of the speaking time, at

00:03:12.260 least.

00:03:12.740 She did.

00:03:13.160 But I will say, as a moderator myself, some of those moments were frustrating.

00:03:17.320 I liked that she left it up to the candidates to beat up on one another. 0.96

00:03:20.400 You know, that was good, I thought.

00:03:22.420 And, but there were a couple of moments where I would have loved if she just would have given

00:03:26.360 us a moment of, so what is the answer, yes or no?

00:03:30.260 Just quick, like just quick, put it right to them.

00:03:32.720 And if they dodge again, don't let them complete the answer with a long dodge.

00:03:36.620 You know, just I'll give you 10 seconds.

00:03:38.260 Yes or no.

00:03:38.880 Are you or aren't you?

00:03:40.200 I would have loved that.

00:03:41.100 And I think the audience would have benefited from it.

00:03:44.160 No, the only one who did that actually was Mike Pence.

00:03:46.380 I mean, you know, in trying to press for a specific answer.

00:03:49.420 And well, exactly.

00:03:50.780 On the Supreme Court, which we're going to get to in a minute.

00:03:53.140 Um, I thought, you know, overall, since I thought Pence was very strong on policy, she

00:03:59.480 was very strong on COVID.

00:04:01.680 But I thought without a knockout blow, without like the massive fall down by either candidate,

00:04:07.020 you'd have to give the win to her because her, her side is winning in the polls. 1.00

00:04:12.140 So, you know, the question is whether this could change the dynamic of the race.

00:04:16.640 And I think like most vice presidential debates, it, it didn't.

00:04:20.580 So if you wanted to sort of say, well, it was a wash, that's not necessarily great for

00:04:25.260 team Trump because they would have preferred a knockout blow where they really changed the

00:04:29.720 dynamic.

00:04:30.380 Right, right.

00:04:30.880 Especially considering, and I know you're going to get to this also later on the, uh, the

00:04:34.680 news this morning that I don't know exactly how many more debates we're going to be getting.

00:04:38.440 You need to make the most of every opportunity here.

00:04:40.780 Yeah.

00:04:41.280 The CNN post-debate poll, uh, had the pre-debate numbers versus the post-debate numbers for

00:04:46.460 Pence and Kamala Harris, almost identical in the sense that not a single, you know, person

00:04:51.440 actually moved from, from before to after, which is not exactly surprising, uh, but, uh,

00:04:57.020 but it was interesting to see.

00:04:58.680 Well, and I think some people on the democratic side saw what they wanted to see and same

00:05:03.060 on the Republican side with respect to their attitudes in that debate, which, which we'll

00:05:07.720 get to, but, you know, Frank Luntz had a focus group that was very focused on, among

00:05:11.560 other things, Kamala Harris's interruptions or her, her eye rolls and her, her sort of

00:05:18.080 scoffing at some of Mike Pence's answers and things like that can, can affect a voter's

00:05:25.360 willingness to side with you or their, the amount that they like you, right?

00:05:29.960 If you're too boisterous or too much of a bully, like we saw with Trump in debate number

00:05:33.580 one, it can turn people off.

00:05:35.320 And if you're too nasty or smug that I had a vote on the, uh, guest on the Kelly file

00:05:41.240 who I loved, she was a Democrat, but she constantly rolled her eyes at the other side's answers. 1.00

00:05:45.960 And I pulled her aside to say, you don't want to see seem smug or angry because you're going

00:05:51.240 to turn off the viewers.

00:05:52.120 They're not going to listen to you when I get to you.

00:05:54.080 And, uh, she mastered it for a while and then never quite nailed it, but you always have

00:05:58.580 to worry about that man or woman.

00:05:59.780 You have to worry about how you look when you're not speaking and what signals you're

00:06:04.760 sending.

00:06:05.380 Right, right.

00:06:05.680 Especially in a, in a format like this, where there are no one shots, right?

00:06:09.140 Everything is a two shot.

00:06:10.240 You see the reaction from the other candidate to what the candidate who's speaking is actually

00:06:14.540 saying.

00:06:15.100 It's the, the, the, you know, the sort of the broadcasting side of it that that's interesting

00:06:19.200 there.

00:06:19.520 Yeah.

00:06:19.840 No, I think, you know, even just some of the, the, the post debate reaction was watching

00:06:23.660 CNN.

00:06:24.180 Abby Phillips said she should have pushed back in certain ways.

00:06:26.520 Dana Bash said she didn't get a lot of help from the moderator.

00:06:28.940 So I don't, I don't know why she would get help from the moderator, but that was, that

00:06:31.960 was notable, which all sort of translates to me that, you know, Harris did fine, but

00:06:35.380 not great.

00:06:36.960 Right.

00:06:37.400 Well, I think, you know, one of the things I tweeted about was she had some, she had several

00:06:40.920 strong answers on the points, but I was distracted by the head shaking in response while he was

00:06:47.280 speaking.

00:06:47.660 And I know she was trying to signal, I disagree, or he's not telling the truth, but it, it had

00:06:53.740 a turnoff effect on me.

00:06:54.920 Like stops to stop.

00:06:56.700 Right.

00:06:56.840 Um, you, you actually were tweeting a lot during the debate.

00:06:59.500 Uh, and, and I have to say, I went to bed last night.

00:07:01.940 I said, all right, I'm going to pull the tweet that had the most retweets and talk about it

00:07:05.500 with you at the time.

00:07:06.560 That was you tweeting Pence is so much better than Trump at defending Trump.

00:07:10.140 And then I wake up this morning and you're, you're trending nationally on Twitter for a

00:07:13.800 different tweet, which was take it like a woman don't make faces, which apparently 1.00

00:07:17.760 has, uh, has drawn out people.

00:07:19.760 Like, uh, I'll just give you an example, like Bill Burton of one who says, uh, be better,

00:07:24.480 Megan expressing disgusted lies, deception, and constantly being talked over is worth reaction. 0.99

00:07:28.920 Oh, please.

00:07:30.260 The point is not whether he was in fact misleading.

00:07:32.920 The point is what message are you sending to the audience at home?

00:07:36.420 You want to project calm, cool, controlled, and ready to go when it's your turn, you know,

00:07:42.420 respectful of the process and ready to go when it's your turn.

00:07:45.600 You know, there are a lot of moments in these presidential debates where you could be doing

00:07:49.080 that, but most not, let's put the first presidential debate of this cycle to the side,

00:07:53.480 but usually the candidates will try to maintain their poker face until you get to them out of

00:07:59.720 respect for the audience who is trying to listen and doesn't want to see scoffing.

00:08:04.840 And I think between the head shaking and she had a couple of, you know, the thing about

00:08:10.180 I'm speaking, I'm speaking when she first did it, I liked it because I do think when

00:08:16.400 you get interrupted and it does happen a lot to women in the boardrooms and so on, I do

00:08:21.220 believe more than men.

00:08:22.940 Uh, it's a, it's a good tool.

00:08:24.880 I'm speaking or I'm not done.

00:08:27.080 I like that, but used too much.

00:08:29.920 It crosses over to what is this?

00:08:32.980 An attempted feminist moment or it, she was clearly trying to project like, you're rude. 1.00

00:08:39.240 The floor is mine and I will not seat it.

00:08:41.780 And I started to get turned off by it.

00:08:43.940 Like at least switch it up to one sec or just let me finish or I'm not quite done.

00:08:51.180 Right.

00:08:51.340 Just, just like squeezing alternatives because it started to seem like an obviously rehearsed

00:08:56.640 thing.

00:08:57.620 Right.

00:08:58.180 Yeah.

00:08:58.420 And then it got the reaction from, you know, people like George Stephanopoulos who called

00:09:02.360 Mike Pence a mansplainer.

00:09:04.080 Uh, yeah.

00:09:04.540 Was there, was there a debate reaction that stood out to you?

00:09:08.340 Uh, oh yeah.

00:09:08.920 Many of them.

00:09:09.640 But at one more point on Kamala, the other thing she was saying was I will not be lectured

00:09:14.080 by the vice president on this or on that.

00:09:16.600 And it was just, I think she was dying for him to do something really sexist and he didn't.

00:09:22.260 And so she had her little lines ready to go, but she was unleashing them on the wrong target.

00:09:27.220 She thought she was going to debate Donald Trump, who was going to be his normal self.

00:09:31.200 And she had a gentleman sitting over there who was debating her like she might be the future

00:09:36.400 vice president.

00:09:38.060 Uh, and, and, you know, George Stephanopoulos may have said, yeah, vice president who may have

00:09:41.120 said, George Stephanopoulos said she, that he was mansplaining to her.

00:09:45.300 And to her credit, Martha Raddatz interrupted and said, no, women can be interrupted too. 1.00

00:09:50.860 She wants to be vice president and women don't get to be treated in a special, in a special 1.00

00:09:56.760 way just because they're women out there. 1.00

00:09:59.120 What's what equality means is you get punched in the face, just like the other guy gets punched 0.92

00:10:03.820 in the face and you take it.

00:10:05.040 And that's what my tweet was.

00:10:06.100 Take it like a woman instead of how they always say, take it like a man. 0.98

00:10:09.120 Right.

00:10:09.620 My point was women can easily maintain composure, maintain facial expressions and hold their cards 1.00

00:10:14.880 to the vest until it's their turn on the, on the debate stage, just like a man can.

00:10:19.020 And she needed to do that because today people are talking about her facial expressions instead

00:10:23.920 of the substance of her answers.

00:10:25.760 And that that's on her.

00:10:27.540 Uh, so, okay.

00:10:28.640 The reactions to the debate, as I said, they, they fell along party lines, but I, once again,

00:10:33.880 I was channel surfing around and I couldn't believe first what I heard from Gail King on CBS

00:10:41.200 News, listen to it.

00:10:43.260 One point when they were talking about systemic racism, I think it's very interesting timing

00:10:47.580 that a fly would land on Mike Pence's head at that particular time when he said that there

00:10:52.580 really wasn't systemic racism.

00:10:54.120 I saw the fly basically go and say, what?

00:10:57.200 I mean, it was very interesting.

00:10:59.480 That was, I don't want to call that a highlight, but that was certainly a memorable moment.

00:11:04.240 A memorable moment for Gail King was the fly saying, say what?

00:11:07.380 Oh my God, like she actually treated it as if it were a thing, that there was a message

00:11:13.440 that God sent the fly down to pass judgment on Mike Pence and, and comments about white

00:11:19.880 supremacy.

00:11:20.660 I mean, you've got to be kidding me.

00:11:22.260 I Twitter love the fly, but I don't understand how the fly made it into any post debate, like

00:11:26.800 actual television coverage, but it did everywhere.

00:11:29.980 Well, and how did it make it into the room, which I'd been told has had been hermetically

00:11:33.580 sealed, people were basically forced to wear hazmat suits until the moment they began to

00:11:37.900 bathe.

00:11:39.320 They were, they truly continued to treat COVID like it is the bubonic plague.

00:11:43.620 I realized we need to take precautions, but how many layers could they have had between

00:11:48.200 the people who are already 12 feet apart on that stage?

00:11:51.660 Okay.

00:11:52.080 Then there was MSNBC and Nicole Wallace.

00:11:55.900 You tell me whether, whether this comment was a bit loaded.

00:11:59.540 The problem tonight is that vice president Pence appeared flaccid and anemic, and that's

00:12:05.360 going to hurt him with men.

00:12:07.180 Then she went on to add, not just flaccid, but limp and lame. 0.53

00:12:11.880 And then Maddow doubled down on, yes, flaccid.

00:12:15.060 What are they trying to say, Steve?

00:12:17.920 You know, it's really, it really leaves a lot to the imagination.

00:12:21.980 Yeah.

00:12:22.400 No, I think, are they just trying to come up with what's the, like the worst insult they

00:12:26.000 can level at Mike Pence and say on television, I guess?

00:12:28.420 Well, yeah, I mean, even going there, obviously everybody knows what they're trying to say.

00:12:33.320 Like he's this, he's not a virile man.

00:12:36.700 He looked weak.

00:12:38.280 He's not somebody who could get it done in the bedroom or in the boardroom or in the

00:12:42.900 Oval Office.

00:12:43.580 I mean, that's the, that's what they're telegraphing with that, the use of those words over and

00:12:46.980 over.

00:12:47.580 And if any similar remarks had been made about a woman, everyone, everyone would be crying

00:12:52.740 sexism, right? 1.00

00:12:54.340 They'd be crying sexism. 0.79

00:12:55.300 Uh, but the truth is Mike Pence was controlled.

00:12:59.520 It's like you almost can't win because if you're interrupting and all fiery and energetic

00:13:04.080 the way Trump always is, they say you're a bully.

00:13:06.240 And if you're a gentleman who's controlled and just measured the way Mike Pence always 0.99

00:13:10.560 speaks, then you're limp and you're flaccid.

00:13:13.500 And I thought those comments were out of line.

00:13:16.260 Yeah, that was, that was, uh, not shocking from MSNBC, but, uh, but it was sort of surprising

00:13:21.300 there.

00:13:21.580 Um, all right, Megan, uh, we talked a lot about the, the people talking on the stage.

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00:14:53.200 Okay.

00:14:54.040 I want to bring in now our first guest.

00:14:55.720 Charles C.W. Cook is NationalReview.com editor and an amazing, brilliant writer, and I always

00:15:02.440 love listening to you on the podcast, The Editors, Charles, because your takes are always so

00:15:06.360 insightful.

00:15:06.820 So thanks for being here.

00:15:08.460 And what are your thoughts on what we saw last night?

00:15:12.100 It was certainly different than the presidential debate that we saw recently.

00:15:17.740 I was on brand last night.

00:15:20.060 I watched this in a cigar bar, and at points you couldn't hear it, and I thought that that

00:15:29.200 was almost as interesting as when you could, in that Kamala Harris came across to me badly

00:15:40.060 in both settings.

00:15:42.320 Now, I should say, your audience probably won't know who I am.

00:15:47.400 I don't like Kamala Harris. 1.00

00:15:49.140 I am perhaps her number one enemy.

00:15:52.040 She's my nightmare candidate. 0.99

00:15:53.740 She's an authoritarian, and on every single issue, she ticks the wrong box for me.

00:15:58.600 But I thought that Pence won the debate.

00:16:02.960 He couldn't answer every question.

00:16:05.200 He was weak on healthcare.

00:16:06.520 The Trump campaign has been weak on healthcare, and that's because they don't have a plan.

00:16:09.740 And he wasn't especially convincing on coronavirus.

00:16:13.840 But other than that, I thought he did better than she did.

00:16:17.120 And I think she comes across badly, both when she's speaking and when she's not.

00:16:24.260 What did you make of the head shaking, the I'm speaking, and I will not be lectured to

00:16:31.300 by the vice president?

00:16:32.320 Well, if you remember back to the presidential primaries, when they were parodied by SNL,

00:16:41.120 the Kamala Harris character was constantly trying to create memes, quite literally on those skits. 1.00

00:16:47.240 She would move her head into the shot, and the background would be a famous meme.

00:16:52.680 And this is something that she's got a bit of a reputation for. 1.00

00:16:55.640 She did it during the Kavanaugh hearings.

00:16:57.820 She did it during those debates.

00:16:59.200 She does it on the stump as well. 0.95

00:17:02.120 It struck me that that was scripted.

00:17:05.520 I mean, she almost behaved as if she were debating Donald Trump.

00:17:10.240 Now, that behavior from Harris would have been appropriate against Trump because his behavior

00:17:14.680 was absolutely disgraceful.

00:17:16.660 But Pence's wasn't.

00:17:18.160 I mean, irrespective of whether Pence is a gentleman or limp, choose your own adventure,

00:17:23.740 he's not Donald Trump.

00:17:24.900 He doesn't interrupt rudely, try to shut people down, try to dominate.

00:17:30.040 The interruptions and crosstalk were fairly normal.

00:17:33.780 And I thought she had decided ahead of time that she was going to keep doing that so that

00:17:38.020 a certain subset, many of whom are in the media, would say, oh, look, you go, girl.

00:17:43.700 But to me, it just came across as fake and actually weak.

00:17:46.400 Mm hmm.

00:17:47.580 What did you for me?

00:17:49.300 I thought the exchange of the night was on the Supreme Court.

00:17:53.640 And for once, someone and it was Mike Pence really tried to push her on whether the Biden

00:18:00.900 Harris ticket is going to pack the Supreme Court if they win, which is a huge, huge deal.

00:18:06.580 I know we've gotten a short form in the media now, but the audience needs to understand if

00:18:11.400 they get in there and add three justices to the U.S.

00:18:13.520 Supreme Court, the Supreme Court is done.

00:18:15.820 It will be over as a credible institution in the United States.

00:18:19.840 So you're you're basically talking about rendering ineffective the leading court in the third

00:18:25.180 branch of government.

00:18:26.700 It's a huge deal.

00:18:28.360 And the fact that they keep getting away with dodging on it when Kamala Harris said in the

00:18:34.260 primary process that she is open to packing the court, she told that to The New York Times.

00:18:39.140 So there she is on the stage.

00:18:40.600 She gets asked about it.

00:18:42.240 We have a little bit of the exchange.

00:18:44.020 Let's listen to that.

00:18:44.960 Now, you've refused to answer the question.

00:18:47.200 Joe Biden has refused to answer the question.

00:18:49.020 So I think the American people would really like to know if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is

00:18:53.700 confirmed at the Supreme Court of the United States, are you and Joe Biden, if somehow you win this

00:18:58.920 election, going to pack the Supreme Court to get your way?

00:19:02.520 I'm so glad we went through a little history lesson.

00:19:06.000 Let's do that a little more.

00:19:08.300 In 1864.

00:19:09.760 I'd like you to answer the question.

00:19:11.060 And she didn't.

00:19:14.620 And then he tried again, and she didn't.

00:19:16.840 He tried again, and she didn't.

00:19:18.920 And even though she was saying, OK, let's talk about packing, after the third time he tried to make

00:19:24.000 her answer, what she answered was, President Trump has appointed 50 federal judges, not one of them

00:19:30.180 as black. So we never we never got an answer, Charles.

00:19:33.960 No. And her history lesson was false, as Dan McLaughlin at National Review pointed out last night.

00:19:40.500 I'm glad you introduced this subject the way that you did, because I feel often as if this is talked

00:19:46.340 about as if it were a minor policy dispute, excise tax rates or insurance reimbursement rates.

00:19:53.080 It's not. This is an extraordinary proposal. This would be the most radical change to the

00:20:01.260 American system of government in at least a century. When it was last proposed by Franklin

00:20:06.500 Roosevelt, his own party didn't just reject it, but said, this is tyranny. This is the worst thing

00:20:12.020 that has ever been presented in the Senate. And bear in mind, his own party had three quarters of the

00:20:18.040 seats in the Senate and in the House. He'd won 46 out of 48 states. So it's extraordinary enough

00:20:24.020 that there are people in America in public office who are proposing this. But then not to say whether

00:20:30.240 you support it or not is, I think, the biggest story of the election. Now, President Trump very often

00:20:36.300 says terrible things, things that I have written against him on for four, five years. He's bad on the

00:20:44.060 First Amendment. He hasn't done anything, thankfully, but he says terrible things about it.

00:20:47.500 He says he doesn't know whether he'll accept the election result. He dismisses the Constitution

00:20:53.900 when it doesn't suit him. He'll ambass the Supreme Court when it rules against him.

00:20:58.840 This is bad, but it pales in comparison to this proposal, which, remember, would not just blow up

00:21:05.600 the judicial branch, as you say, but as a prerequisite, would blow up the Senate, because you can't do this

00:21:11.860 without abolishing the filibuster, which would change the way the Senate has worked for more than a

00:21:16.160 century and put a lot more power to affect Americans' lives, regardless of the state they

00:21:22.560 live in, in Washington's hands without mass buy-in. So this is enormous. And I find it deeply,

00:21:30.500 deeply alarming that neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris have an answer for it.

00:21:34.780 What did you make about the moment? Another moment that's making news for probably the wrong reasons

00:21:41.180 is it happened when the fly went on Mike Pence's head. And she was attacking him and President Trump

00:21:49.260 on the issue of white supremacy again. And once again, she said, Trump stood on a debate stage and

00:21:56.740 refused to condemn white supremacy, referring to the last debate where he was asked, will you condemn it?

00:22:02.820 He said, sure. Then they said, do it, do it. And then they got in the Proud Boys exchange and then

00:22:07.820 said, reference back to his Charlottesville comment that there were, quote, fine people on both sides.

00:22:13.240 To me, it is annoying because if you go back and look at what President Trump said about Charlottesville

00:22:21.280 and what happened there that day, he did say there are fine people on both sides. And he was talking

00:22:27.280 about protesters who were there in response to taking down a Robert E. Lee statue. And his point

00:22:35.520 was, some people don't like that. Some people don't like the scrubbing of American history.

00:22:40.200 And he went on to say that day, and I quote, I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white

00:22:45.620 nationalists. I'm not. He made that clear. But he gave them enough, you know, I don't know,

00:22:51.320 he gave them enough that they've used it against him at every turn. And we see it in every presidential

00:22:55.280 debate. I just don't know whether anybody's ever adequately debunked it.

00:23:00.520 Well, it's difficult to debunk because they keep asking and keep asking. And Trump, since he first

00:23:06.520 entered politics in 2000, has condemned white supremacy about 20 times, mostly in unequivocal

00:23:12.640 terms. Now, he is oddly, on every topic, incoherent. He's not a man who, unlike Mike Pence,

00:23:20.960 strings, strings paragraphs together. But there's really no evidence that Donald Trump is a white

00:23:28.220 supremacist. I think this is more of a media construction. I noticed after the debate with

00:23:34.680 Joe Biden, CNN went within about three or four hours from declined to condemn, to refused to condemn,

00:23:44.080 to actively courted. This is narrative building. Now, there are times when Trump needs to be called

00:23:52.720 out. Absolutely. For example, when he criticized Judge Curiel and said that he would be unable to

00:23:59.160 give Trump fair treatment because he was of Mexican origin, that was outrageous. That was racism.

00:24:05.420 Yes.

00:24:05.580 I think Paul Ryan called it a textbook example of racism. There's no need to invent or endlessly hype

00:24:12.360 this. And, you know, I think it is alarming that they keep asking this question over and over and

00:24:20.120 over again, even when they get an answer to it, rather than asking questions that really, really

00:24:25.780 matter. A good one to follow up with over and over again would be, what do you mean you won't

00:24:30.300 necessarily respect the outcome of the election? That would be a great one to push and push on,

00:24:34.600 because he said this now twice this year, and he said it once in 2016 during a debate with Hillary

00:24:40.340 Clinton. It's obviously not up to him whether he gets to remain president. But I want to know what

00:24:44.960 that means in practice. And yet we fixate on this, which is really a chimera.

00:24:50.980 Well, I've listened to you on the editors from National Review. And one of the points you make

00:24:56.160 about Trump is a frustration of yours with him is he's really not that eloquent. And right now,

00:25:03.880 the past few months, we've seen America itself, the idea of America come under attack time and time

00:25:10.020 again. It's systemically racist. The lies of the 1619 project, that it was formed in order to

00:25:16.280 perpetuate slavery, things that they're trying to undo now quietly at the New York Times without being

00:25:21.500 honest about their mistakes. And Nicole Hannah-Jones, who wrote it, the same, that now there's a group

00:25:26.260 pushing for her to be her Pulitzer Prize to be taken away. But anyway, your frustration is you would

00:25:32.140 love to see a Reagan type go out there and really defend some of these principles and talk about why

00:25:38.020 they're important. In watching Pence last night, I thought, he could be your guy. I sent out a tweet

00:25:43.940 saying, you know, it's amazing to me how much better Pence is than Trump at defending Trump.

00:25:53.440 And you don't need Mike Pence necessarily. You need almost anyone who isn't President Trump. This is one of

00:26:00.220 the real frustrations of the moment in that there is a strong case for President Trump as a check on an

00:26:08.820 increasingly crazy left wing in America, a left wing that doesn't just consist of the Democratic Party,

00:26:16.420 which has moved far and far and far away from the Clintonian era Democratic Party. But in the media and

00:26:24.540 in academia and in Hollywood, there is an argument, look, we need somebody who will act as a check on

00:26:30.520 that. And it's just odd to me that it's Trump. Now, there's not much choice. Trump is the nominee. He is

00:26:37.500 the president. But almost anyone else would first be more eloquent, would do his reading, would take it

00:26:44.340 seriously, would watch his words. But two, would care about his position. Part of my frustration

00:26:53.400 is not just Trump's ineloquence and unwillingness to work hard, but is that he is at the head of this

00:27:00.420 movement of people who care very deeply about a whole host of issues. And he likes to present

00:27:06.960 himself as the guy standing in the breach. And yet he is so capricious that he seems unlikely to prevail.

00:27:19.520 So yeah, I'd much rather someone else were there who could do this well, but also would not waste his 0.99

00:27:27.960 chance and alienate half the country with stupid shenanigans when it really does matter who prevails 0.98

00:27:37.460 in this fight. To me, I thought Vice President Pence put some meat on the bones of the top line that we 1.00

00:27:43.720 get from Trump. And it was interesting to listen to him and for him to drill down a little, pardon the pun,

00:27:48.460 on things like the Biden-Harris position on fracking. You know, he stayed on them. And I learned some stuff

00:27:56.100 last night, which I can't say about the first debate. Can I ask you about whether you think that he's really

00:28:02.580 not going to do this next debate? You know, that broke this morning that Trump is saying, apparently the

00:28:08.360 presidential commission unilaterally said the next presidential debate is going virtual without consulting with the

00:28:14.080 candidates in the campaigns, which is, if true, a problem. And Trump responded, that's pathetic, and I'm not 0.93

00:28:19.940 doing it. So what happens there? 0.99

00:28:23.560 Well, it's difficult to try to get into Trump's mind. I assume he thinks he has some leverage here,

00:28:32.260 which he does. Although it's arguably worse for Trump if there's no second debate, because Trump's losing.

00:28:41.240 And he needs to make up ground. And it would probably be better for him if the more recent

00:28:50.960 impression of the candidate in the minds of people entering the voting booth were at a second debate

00:28:56.440 in which he was more respectful and more direct, rather than that debacle that we saw last time around.

00:29:04.780 Trump's a guy who tries to negotiate every single question. That's how he operated as a businessman.

00:29:13.220 And I assume that's what he's doing here. I hope it is because he needs that debate to have any chance,

00:29:24.420 I think, of staging a comeback.

00:29:25.560 Yeah, I don't think there's any way he doesn't do the debate. But I am reminded of the 2015-16

00:29:33.640 election cycle where he was mad at me about my question to him on the women at the first debate

00:29:39.360 Fox hosted. And then he said, if I wasn't going to be pulled as a moderator by the next debate,

00:29:44.080 he wasn't going to show up. And we thought, oh, bull. And right up to the moment, I mean,

00:29:48.480 we're talking 15 minutes before we went on air that night, Brett Baer, Chris Wallace,

00:29:52.020 and I were all thinking, he's going to come. He's going to come in, you know, underdog to save the

00:29:56.900 day at the last second with a helicopter drop. And we had a podium ready to go out on stage for him.

00:30:03.280 And we all had questions for him. And he did not show. So anything is possible with him.

00:30:10.920 As we have learned over and over. I mean, this is the story of President Trump right from the

00:30:15.700 beginning. I didn't think that he would be the nominee. I didn't think that he would be elected.

00:30:19.980 At every stage along the road, I thought, well, he must change. Surely he can't be this chaotic.

00:30:27.140 Surely the office that he has won will change him. You know, if I were president, which of course I

00:30:33.600 can't be and don't want to be, but if I were president, I would spend all of my time in the

00:30:37.460 White House feeling as if Abraham Lincoln's eyes were following me around the room. And,

00:30:43.260 you know, the city is called Washington. This would have an effect on me, but it hasn't on him.

00:30:48.420 He doesn't play by the rules. He's not going to change. Yeah, this is what you've got. So who

00:30:55.260 knows? But it would be to his disadvantage. To put it in terms he would understand, it would be a

00:30:59.860 bad deal for him if he backed out. Yeah. And one of the effective negotiation tactics in any deal

00:31:05.280 is to be willing to walk away, to actually be willing to walk away, which I imagine he is. And

00:31:10.180 he's played that card right away. And now we'll see that. I don't think the Commission on

00:31:13.740 presidential debates is really known for its strength and and fortitude. So I'm going to guess

00:31:20.340 they're going to cave quickly. We'll see how. OK, lastly, can we talk about the polls? Some of the

00:31:26.380 polls that have come out, I just don't believe there was a Quinnipiac poll saying Biden's up 11

00:31:31.640 in Florida. I don't believe that. And up 13 in Pennsylvania. I just there is no way Biden is up

00:31:38.960 11 in Florida. I just like, no, even the Florida pollsters down there saying no. But he's also

00:31:45.580 behind Trump is in virtually every poll in these major swing states. And now there are some reports

00:31:50.900 that they may be scaling back on advertising in places like Wisconsin and even Ohio. So what is

00:31:58.060 the state of the race today? I think Joe Biden is winning the race. The national polls are catastrophic

00:32:05.360 for Trump. The state polls are closer. I mean, this morning, he's still up half a percentage point

00:32:11.200 over where he was at this stage in 2016. And that's not because it's four years ago, there was

00:32:16.700 the excess Hollywood tape. This has been broadly true for the last two weeks. Now, of course, you have

00:32:21.920 to average those out doesn't do much good if he's winning in one state, but getting blown out in

00:32:26.480 another. But it is a lot closer at the state level. And those polls are really noisy. I mean, he's not

00:32:32.180 losing by 11 in Florida, as you say. There is another poll in Florida recently that had it tied.

00:32:38.580 It was one two weeks ago that had him up four. The same is true in Pennsylvania and Ohio and North

00:32:44.600 Carolina. And to an extent, Arizona, oddly, the most recent poll out of Arizona has Trump only down two.

00:32:52.760 So I suppose the answer to the question is, I don't know. But if you are down in pretty much

00:32:58.820 every single averaged poll in every single state you need to win, you're losing the race unless there

00:33:05.840 is an astonishing mistake with the way polls are conducted across every single polling firm,

00:33:13.240 across every single region. And that was to some extent true with the state polls in 2016 and 2018.

00:33:20.260 But I don't think it was true enough to have him winning if the race stays as it is today.

00:33:26.160 The biggest question in this race is how big is the shy Trump vote? How big is it? And is it going

00:33:32.520 to be enough as it was last time to get him over the hump? Okay, so I want you to stick around. Normally,

00:33:38.160 I'd be saying goodbye to you now. But just stick around with me for one second, because we do this

00:33:41.140 feature on the show called You Can't Say That. It's a nod to cancel culture. You can't say that. You

00:33:46.940 can't think that. You can't be that. Oh, wait, this is America. So the late, I want you to stay

00:33:51.960 because you wrote my favorite column of the of the past month by anyone on this particular issue,

00:33:57.160 which also caught my eye. So here's what happened for the audience. There's a writer for Inside Higher

00:34:02.680 Education who wrote a column called Why America Needs College Football. And it featured examples of

00:34:08.300 how college football can can help Americans get through this this difficult time we're going through.

00:34:13.300 Well, apparently that's racist. And this guy, I guess, was forced to issue a very somber apology.

00:34:22.880 And he did it in a follow up column. I'll just give you a couple quotes so you get the feel.

00:34:27.760 Here's a quote. I am sorry for the hurt, sadness, frustration, fatigue, exhaustion and pain this article

00:34:35.120 has caused anyone, but specifically black students. I am struggling to find the words to communicate the 1.00

00:34:41.300 deep ache for the damage I have done. I don't want to write anything that further deepens the pain

00:34:46.180 experienced by my ignorance related to black male athletes in the black community at any time,

00:34:51.240 but especially in light of the national racial unrest. Your thoughts on that one, Charles?

00:34:58.420 Well, I should start by saying that even if this person had written something genuinely offensive,

00:35:05.680 this apology would be over the top. Now, this is redolent of the sort of concessions you would expect from

00:35:13.180 somebody under torture or in a Maoist apology camp. But what he actually wrote was that football might help us

00:35:26.080 get through these uncharacteristically difficult times. College football holds a special bipartisan place in the

00:35:33.600 American heart. Bear in mind, he's writing this from Ohio State. This is not some random school. This is

00:35:40.020 the football school. And he said in the piece that football gives players a platform to make statements

00:35:47.320 about issues they care about. I mean, he mentioned racial equality. He talked about athletes kneeling to

00:35:53.060 protest police brutality. He said colleges should empower athletes to do this. I mean, this was not some

00:36:00.260 insane racist rant. This was a very normal, very well measured piece from a professor at Ohio State

00:36:12.200 saying people in Ohio like watching football, it will be great when it comes back. That it has spawned

00:36:17.960 this apology is baffling to me.

00:36:20.680 Yeah, because you not only have to apologize, there has to be the period of self-flagellation,

00:36:25.840 and it better be real, as Professor Matthew Mayhew just found out. Your response, which I recommend

00:36:32.020 as a read for everyone, I tweeted it out, but you can also see it at National Review. This is a quote from

00:36:37.800 your piece. This professor has managed to pen a piece of craven absurdity so perfect in scale and composition

00:36:43.920 that it is difficult to imagine how it might ever be topped. But this is what you have to do, right?

00:36:49.920 Now maybe this guy will keep his job because he really, really, really bent the knee. He bent every

00:36:55.440 knee and he's still on his knees.

00:36:57.480 Yeah. And you know what I find so sinister about it as well is that anyone who is not sucked into this

00:37:04.020 way of thinking can see the power dynamics that are underplaying it. In that as recompense for his

00:37:12.660 saying college football is popular, he's promised to

00:37:17.400 put himself under the tutelage of some other professors

00:37:21.640 at the university, who presumably will give him all of the correct opinions that he will now have to follow

00:37:28.260 and say out loud, that's not what a university is for.

00:37:32.800 And that's not why we have a free culture in the United States.

00:37:36.480 That is the opposite of an intellectual

00:37:40.740 approach. And the fact that his immediate instinct was to say,

00:37:46.740 okay, I will go away, unlearn everything that I have ever learned. Again, what he has to unlearn is

00:37:51.360 that people like college football. And he will throw himself at the mercy of others who will tell him

00:37:58.200 what is right. And then for the rest of his life, presumably, he will hew to their ideas. I think that's

00:38:04.860 terrifying. That is the opposite of what we should want America to be.

00:38:09.100 Mm hmm. We have to start standing up and just saying I refuse, I disagree. And I'm I won't be

00:38:15.380 saying what you want me to say. Yeah, Charles, such a pleasure. As always, thank you so much for being

00:38:19.820 here. Thank you so much for having me.

00:38:26.420 Joining me now, Crystal Ball and Sagar and Jetty of Rising on The Hill dot com, which is well worth

00:38:31.860 your time. You can see it on YouTube. Guys, thank you so much for being here. So let me start with

00:38:35.640 you, Crystal. What did you think was the most important moment last night?

00:38:39.500 So overall, it was actually sort of weird how normal the debate was, like two very conventional,

00:38:49.560 very traditional politicians trading talking points. And I think like, let's be clear,

00:38:54.140 no minds were majorly made up last night. It's not going to be a game changing kind of event.

00:38:59.880 But I thought Kamala's opening answer, which she had clearly carefully prepared about coronavirus

00:39:06.360 was her strongest of the night. And ultimately, I think is also what the election is going to boil

00:39:11.900 down to. OK, I think we have that. Let's listen. What would a Biden administration do in January and

00:39:17.860 February that a Trump administration wouldn't do? Would you impose new lockdowns for businesses and

00:39:24.220 schools and hotspots? A federal mandate to wear masks? You have two minutes to respond without

00:39:29.840 interruption. Thank you, Susan. Well, the American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure

00:39:37.680 of any presidential administration in the history of our country. And here are the facts.

00:39:44.800 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last several months. Over 7 million people who have

00:39:51.840 contracted this disease. One in five businesses closed. We're looking at frontline workers who have

00:39:59.660 been treated like sacrificial workers. We are looking at over 30 million people who in the last

00:40:08.260 several months had to file for unemployment. And here's the thing. On January 28th, the vice president

00:40:17.020 and the president were informed about the nature of this pandemic. They were informed that it's lethal

00:40:22.500 in consequence, that it is airborne. And she went on. I thought that was a strong answer, too. And I

00:40:29.620 thought in general her best stuff of the night was on COVID. Absolutely. And look, it's the top issue for

00:40:36.000 Americans, COVID and the economy. She pulled them both together. And this is the reason why the bottom

00:40:42.220 has fallen out of Trump's numbers. It's the first thing in his presidency where he really can't talk

00:40:46.660 his way out of it. Mike Pence did the best job that he could defending their record, but honestly,

00:40:52.300 he doesn't have a lot of a leg to stand on at this point, given how impacted people's lives have been

00:40:56.860 and given the fact they pulled the plug on any stimulus this week. The moment of the night for her,

00:41:02.300 as far as I saw it, was it came right after that when she said to him something to the effect of how

00:41:08.400 can you keep the country safe when you couldn't even keep your own White House safe? And he said,

00:41:13.080 we have boundless confidence in the American people and sort of put it on individual responsibility.

00:41:18.600 And she responded, you respect the American people when you tell them the truth.

00:41:22.760 And it's asking too much of them to not equip them with all the information they need to protect

00:41:28.580 themselves and their families. That she went back to the Bob Woodward interview. And that really was an

00:41:33.380 important moment in this race. In the Bob Woodward interview, it's not the fake news media.

00:41:37.800 It's Bob Woodward with Trump on tape and Trump acknowledging for months. I thought they're

00:41:44.700 being unfair to the guy because a lot of doctors didn't realize how serious this was until we were

00:41:48.940 a couple months in a lot of really well-respected medical professionals. And I gave Trump the benefit

00:41:54.280 of the doubt. But when you hear him on tape saying to Woodward, um, I knew, I knew it's, I know it's

00:42:00.360 really bad and it's bad, not just for adults. It can be bad for kids. He's going down the list

00:42:05.060 and then saying, uh, but I'm, I'm going to, the reason I'm not saying that is because I want to

00:42:09.860 keep people calm. And she, I think did the right thing by trying to zero in on what she sees as the

00:42:15.060 consequences of that. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, there was an open question, like,

00:42:19.600 is Trump just diluting himself as he's just cherry picking data and like sharing what he actually

00:42:24.560 thinks with the American people. And it's very misleading. Or is he actively like, does he know

00:42:29.580 better? And that's what those tapes ultimately revealed. And yeah, it was the first Trump era

00:42:34.380 book. Like all of these people have written these books to try to make lots of money off of, you

00:42:38.860 know, Trump's infamy and whatever. This was the first one that actually landed because it was him

00:42:43.720 on tape, because it was Woodward and because it was about an issue that people really actually care

00:42:49.380 about. Yeah. I mean, the COVID is definitely what, what happened with COVID in the economy is

00:42:53.080 absolutely what, if Trump loses, what cost him a second term. Sagar, what did you think about

00:42:58.440 last night? Yeah, I take this view of even in the best of times, vice presidential debates are

00:43:04.100 largely irrelevant. And look at us, we're already the morning after in the main news is not about

00:43:08.120 this debate, it's about the next one, which the president says, he's not going to participate in.

00:43:12.680 But we always have to remember that these are the two people who are one heartbeat away from the

00:43:16.380 presidency. And so what I was really looking at are, how do Mike Pence and Kamala Harris kind of

00:43:21.900 conceive of themselves within the realms of their own parties, a lot of people were saying this is kind

00:43:26.980 of the first debate for 2024. I think that's very true. The thing that stuck out to me the most was

00:43:33.080 about Kamala Harris's theory of the democratic party. She was talking and bragging about her

00:43:38.940 coalition. And I expected her to be like, Oh, you know, suburban women and white, you know, 1.00

00:43:43.800 working class men who felt betrayed by the president. No, she went all in on kind of trying to embrace

00:43:49.140 these never Trumpers and more like neocons who frankly, I think created the conditions for this

00:43:54.640 country in the for the election in the country for Trump's election in the first place. So I just

00:44:00.060 thought it was a very revealing moment. President Trump has several times refused to commit himself

00:44:04.720 to a peaceful transfer of power after the election. If your ticket wins, and President Trump refuses to

00:44:11.640 accept a peaceful transfer of power. What steps would you and Vice President Biden then take what would

00:44:18.000 happen next? You have two minutes. So I'll tell you, Joe and I are, I think, particularly proud of

00:44:28.420 the coalition that we've built around our campaign. We probably have one of the broadest coalitions of

00:44:33.920 folks that you've ever seen in a presidential race. Of course, we have the support of Democrats,

00:44:38.340 but also independents and Republicans. In fact, seven members of President George W. Bush's cabinet

00:44:46.260 are supporting our ticket. We have the support of Colin Powell, Cindy McCain, John Kasich,

00:44:55.900 over 500 generals, retired generals and former national security experts and advisors are supporting

00:45:03.800 our campaign. Yeah, so you didn't think that was going to particularly speak to, I don't know,

00:45:09.740 to whom, Sagar, to disaffected Republicans? Yeah, the way the way it plays to me is like, you know,

00:45:14.680 you're trying to win over a Nicole Wallace voter who's already voting for you, or you're trying to

00:45:18.480 appeal, you know, towards that type, basically that type of commentator. And I just couldn't believe,

00:45:23.820 I mean, they own one of the only people who's less popular than Donald Trump is George W. Bush and the

00:45:28.380 invasion of Iraq. And we're talking there about people who worked in his cabinet. We're talking

00:45:32.740 about many of the people that led us into war in the first place. And if you could think of a single

00:45:37.060 event, I mean, I think I boil it down to Iraq and 2008 as to why Donald Trump is president of the

00:45:43.000 United States. And you're talking about people who played central roles in both of those things.

00:45:47.880 I just, I mean, you look and you see how she conceives of the Democratic Party within that

00:45:53.260 realm. And I think that's very profound in terms of what the future of the Republican Party is going

00:45:58.080 to look like, too. Can I also think of that? Yeah, go ahead, Crystal. One thing that is remarkable

00:46:02.760 in this race is that, you know, the Trump-Pence approach to attacking Kamala and Joe has been like,

00:46:10.280 oh, they're these radical socialist leftists. Not only has that not landed, but it has actually,

00:46:17.120 their favorabilities, both of them have gone up over the campaign. And you know how incredibly

00:46:22.380 unusual that is. In that moment, there was an opportunity to launch what is, in my view,

00:46:28.340 a more effective and more potent and more reality-based criticism of Kamala Harris,

00:46:33.260 that she's a tool of the establishment. She's a tool of the donor class. She's a tool of Silicon 0.97

00:46:38.220 Valley and Wall Street. We saw that in her record as California AG. Same thing with Biden. No one

00:46:44.340 believes he's a radical leftist. Like, I wish, Megan, I am a leftist. I want him to be that.

00:46:49.740 He's not. And he's never going to be. No one believes it. But he has been a tool of the corporate

00:46:55.180 establishment. They called him the senator from MBNA because he did the bidding of credit card

00:47:00.260 issuers in the state of Delaware. That was an attack that could have landed. But the way that

00:47:05.340 they've gone about this has actually bolstered the favorability ratings of both Kamala and Joe.

00:47:10.660 Which is- Every time they say Joe Biden is a leftist, Crystal gets little

00:47:14.200 rainbows in her eyes.

00:47:16.360 I wish.

00:47:16.780 My mind looks up.

00:47:17.640 I wish it was true.

00:47:20.340 So what did you think? We had a heated debate earlier when we were talking about

00:47:23.380 Kamala Harris and her, she was shaking the head and, you know, I'm speaking, I'm speaking.

00:47:29.520 Just as a quick aside, I was mentioning, my EP Steve told me that I was trending on Twitter

00:47:35.280 for saying, take it like a woman. Stop making faces. Meaning, you know, be stoic. Like, you 0.98

00:47:39.780 can handle this. Like, you don't have to interject with those kinds of faces. And the reaction

00:47:45.920 to that tweet has been insane. My team just told me that the actor Billy Baldwin just tweeted

00:47:51.560 out, don't be gross, Megan. You sound like Harvey Weinstein.

00:47:56.640 Oh, what?

00:47:58.240 Unbelievable.

00:47:59.420 Well, you've been now getting attacked by Discount Baldwin.

00:48:03.120 It's so true. I'm like, first of all, spare me any moralizing, any mention of Harvey Weinstein

00:48:10.780 from an industry that protected that predator for years. And honestly, it's like, Mike Pence

00:48:15.300 was not raping Kamala Harris. Mike Pence was not threatening Kamala Harris's career if she

00:48:19.900 didn't do what he wanted or say what he wanted. It's like he was saying things with which she

00:48:24.520 disagreed. She reacted in a way that was distracting and to me seemed petulant. And neither Harris

00:48:30.340 nor any woman is immune from criticism because of our gender. That's true equality. That means

00:48:35.520 we can take it just as fiercely as we give it.

00:48:37.660 It was a real Rorschach test because I thought the first time she did it, I thought it was strong.

00:48:43.300 I thought it was assertive. And it, you know, and for me, it was fine. And look, there are

00:48:47.980 gender dynamics at play. There are race. That is all certainly true. And there's like

00:48:52.520 a tightrope you can walk. But by the way, it's hard for a man to debate a woman in certain ways

00:48:57.500 too, because of those same gender dynamics. When she kept doing it to me, it just, again, 1.00

00:49:02.740 it felt a little rehearsed. It felt a little, you know, t-shirt ready. And it was a funny moment.

00:49:08.040 I watched the CNN coverage afterwards and they were talking a lot about this. And they were like,

00:49:12.760 I think the audience is really going to feel that the moderation was unfair to Kamala and that

00:49:17.260 she really got run over by Pence. And then they put up the speaking time. She actually got more

00:49:22.080 speaking time than vice president Pence. So, you know, there was like such a different perception

00:49:27.260 of what happened than what actually unfolded in my view. Yeah. I couldn't agree more, Megan. It was

00:49:32.560 so nauseating to me watching like Dan Rather and MSNBC and all the immediately afterwards talking about

00:49:39.200 this mansplaining moment. I mean, it's like you said, give me a break. If you're in the vice

00:49:44.020 presidential debate, you're not immune from criticism whatsoever. And it was so obvious

00:49:48.980 she had prepared the Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking line for like t-shirts and yes, queen,

00:49:54.320 you know, mugs to be sold on the Biden website. It was, it was just a joke.

00:49:59.500 Honestly, there was, there's some woman, I don't know her, but her name is Charlotte Clymer and

00:50:03.680 she's got some 300,000 followers on Twitter who tweeted out your male buddies who thought Pence

00:50:08.420 won. They don't like women in power. Sorry. It's so absurd to immediately play these identity cards 1.00

00:50:16.600 when there's any criticism is absurd and people can see right through it. And speaking of media

00:50:21.300 insanity, just looking at the headlines, apparently Steve Schmidt, who is the, the most, I mean,

00:50:27.200 he's the craziest never Trumper you've ever seen. He's like, he, he pushed Sarah Palin through as

00:50:33.140 John McCain's vice presidential nominee and he's never forgiven himself. And he's the self-flagellation

00:50:37.180 that's gone on from that day to this is just, it gains an intensity. But he, he just said to,

00:50:42.120 on MSNBC that the fly on Mike Pence's head is a mark of the devil.

00:50:50.160 Seems like a really totally even handed and reasonable to make us.

00:50:54.900 He's like someone we should be listening to, right?

00:50:57.280 No, no. I mean, look, he's trying to sell books or what Lincoln project donations or whatever.

00:51:01.980 That's what it all, this is all about money. You know, there's a lot of suburban wine moms out 1.00

00:51:06.240 there in America who love hearing that. And they'd be like, former McCain staffer says his mark of

00:51:11.160 the devil. It really gets them going. But look, and actually, interestingly enough, Chris and I

00:51:16.100 were just taking a look at some research, Lincoln project ads, people like Steve Schmidt and Rick

00:51:20.800 Wilson and many others, the ads that they're cutting are the least effective ads that are being run

00:51:26.060 by Democrats. According to some new analysis we were looking at, you know, it's more effective

00:51:30.100 talking about healthcare and the economy. What a shock.

00:51:32.500 Who knew? Who knew? Yeah, but they've raked in millions. They've raised so much money. And so,

00:51:39.180 yeah, it's not ultimately about winning. And I mean, for me, it's depressing that someone like

00:51:43.420 Steve Schmidt, who was, you know, a McCain person and Iraq war and Sarah Palin and all of this is now

00:51:49.580 some like liberal hero. Like what is going on?

00:51:53.060 And still, just like Nicole Wallace and Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post, people are still

00:51:56.740 pawning them off as Republicans as somehow like they're fair and balanced because they've got somebody

00:52:00.500 who once had an R after their name on, not so much. Okay, let's look forward. What do we think

00:52:05.760 is going to happen with the next debate? Because now Trump is saying, you can pound sand, I'm not

00:52:10.160 doing a town hall debate virtually. Yeah, I mean, I actually think it, I'm not sure, Megan, because,

00:52:16.900 you know, you interviewed people virtually, we do it every day. It's not, I mean, the flow of the

00:52:21.600 conversation versus in person is just so radically different, especially in the current age, like you

00:52:26.780 cancel somebody's mic if you're talking over them, and however it would work. And it's also a town

00:52:31.440 hall format. I think it's a real loss for a virtual debate. And I think Trump in his, you know, his

00:52:36.440 complaint, which was that they can cut you off, I think is correct, which is look, I think if Trump

00:52:41.120 wants to go out there and behave exactly the same way he did last time, Godspeed, let him let America

00:52:46.020 see exactly the case that they are making. And those town hall debates have made for some famous moments

00:52:51.720 in American politics, the HW debate with George W. Bush, I thought President Obama's 2012 town hall

00:52:57.140 was a big moment for him. So if you look back through that, I think Trump actually can excel and

00:53:02.200 has done decently in the town hall format in the past. So it's a bit of a loss, but I think he's

00:53:07.120 going to stick to his guns. I don't think it's going to happen. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, it's

00:53:11.000 kind of a terrible landscape for him, because virtual is not good for him. I mean, clearly, he will be

00:53:16.120 diminished by that. And yeah, they'll be able to cut his mic. And, you know, that may have served him

00:53:20.180 actually last time, because people obviously hated his debate performance, ultimately, in the way

00:53:24.780 that he decided to conduct himself. But, you know, he only has a few weeks here to turn it around,

00:53:32.380 and he needs a big turnaround. This is in 2016. The polls are way more in Biden's favor now than they

00:53:39.540 were in Hillary Clinton's favor at that point. So, you know, we all want to go like, oh, but 2016. No,

00:53:45.220 this is a different landscape than what we faced last time around. People are already voting.

00:53:49.800 He doesn't have many more opportunities to make something happen. This debate was one of the

00:53:54.700 last chances that he would have. Well, that was my reaction when I saw him at the last debate,

00:53:58.500 you know, being so loud and interrupting and so on. I thought, this is not the behavior of a man

00:54:03.160 who's winning. This is, it's a kind of a tell. It's a tell. But I don't think there's any chance

00:54:09.380 he misses the opportunity to change his numbers. He's also, he's a smart businessman. I mean,

00:54:15.240 I realize he's had some business issues, according to those tax returns, if those are real.

00:54:18.400 Um, but he, I think he understands that getting out in front of people is the way forward for him.

00:54:24.960 Um, and in terms of his, his core supporters, I know like Ben Shapiro is like, no, go back in the

00:54:28.880 basement, go back in the basement, just let your policy stand. But I think in Trump's mind, he

00:54:32.400 wants to get back out in front of people. And, uh, I can't see him truly bailing. And then it leaves a

00:54:37.780 question of, is there something about the town hall he doesn't want to do? And then he reappears for

00:54:41.980 debate number three. Right. Yeah. I, I think that's definitely within the realm of possibility.

00:54:48.020 Sorry. They can't talk now. I think, I think it's definitely within the realm of possibility

00:54:54.780 that we just see him in debate number three, whenever COVID and everything is cleared. And

00:55:00.200 I think you're right though, Megan. I mean, I doubt he would pass up an opportunity, but at the same

00:55:04.420 time, when he's the president, he can set the terms. He could say, I'm going to do a, you know,

00:55:08.800 prime time address on the night of that. Most people would cover it. And I think that, you know,

00:55:12.920 at the end of the day, he's going to have that ability. He did it with some success during the

00:55:17.480 primary campaign in 2016. It kind of reminds me of that a little bit, his ability to manipulate and

00:55:23.220 have the media. I mean, not even manipulate, look, he's the president. Like whenever he speaks,

00:55:27.060 the cameras are on, especially in the middle of a campaign, I think he has a little bit more of the

00:55:31.500 upper hand here. Last question. Where do you put, I'll just, I'll phrase it like this. What do you,

00:55:37.420 where do you put Trump's chances of winning? Crystal, you first. Very, very vanishingly low.

00:55:44.840 I mean, we've been talking to strategists, pollsters, looking at the numbers that are coming out.

00:55:50.720 It is looking extremely bad and not like 2016 whatsoever. His attacks on Joe haven't landed.

00:55:59.600 His attacks on Kamala haven't landed. He hasn't laid out, look in 2016, whether you liked it or

00:56:04.120 not, you knew what the guy stood for and you knew what you were going to get if he was president.

00:56:07.360 I don't know what he would do in a second term. He hasn't made that case whatsoever.

00:56:11.220 And to me, maybe the final nail in the coffin was pulling the plug on the stimulus as millions of

00:56:18.060 Americans are absolutely struggling and devastating. I mean, a suicide hotline was trending on the

00:56:25.040 subreddit on our unemployment of people who have been, who have lost their jobs, lost them permanently 0.99

00:56:31.460 and are looking for someone to give a shit about their lives. And he pulled the plug. 0.98

00:56:36.420 Then he muddied that with another tweet suggesting people might get checks. I mean, it was so many,

00:56:41.720 as with so many things with Trump, I don't understand what exactly the next move is. What,

00:56:47.540 where do you put the chances soccer? Cause I know like five 38, Nate Silver's got it. He's got a 15%

00:56:53.500 chance of winning, but I'll never forget going out there on election night in 2016. And it was

00:56:58.260 the Washington post saying it was something like higher than 90% that he was going to win.

00:57:02.940 Right. Yeah. I'm always, I mean, I'm sorry that she was going to win that she was.

00:57:06.580 I always carried, I've seen Trump, you know, he's wily like a Fox. I won't count him out just as much.

00:57:12.620 I give him probably like one in five, but I think he, if he sealed his fate, there are two moments,

00:57:17.700 February, 2020 downplaying the virus, comparing it to the flu. And a couple of days ago when he

00:57:23.260 killed the stimulus, he can try and crawl out of the hole with the airline thing or trying to

00:57:27.540 reinstate it. But he gave Pelosi the excuse that she needed not to strike a deal. Millions are going

00:57:32.880 to go without checks and without money. And now they've got somebody to blame. And that's a very

00:57:37.680 strong reason to vote, not vote for him. Hmm. Well, less than a month to go guys. Thank you

00:57:42.640 both so much. Thanks Megan. Here's, here's my question for you guys. What do you think? Because

00:57:48.780 Trump he's, he's so unpredictable. Do you think the second presidential debate will go forward?

00:57:54.200 The town hall debate that's supposed to happen in about a week. Um, you can actually at our show

00:58:00.040 for the replies it's at on Twitter at Megan Kelly show, not the Megan Kelly show, just at Megan Kelly

00:58:06.820 show. And I'd love to see some of your answers because, uh, I'm, I'm baffled as to what his next

00:58:11.960 move will be. Okay. I know what our next move is going to be tomorrow. We will be dropping our

00:58:17.620 podcast with Candace Owens in a very revealing, really smart, interesting discussion. She she's

00:58:24.740 brilliant. As you know, she's only 31 years old and what that woman is going to do in her future. 1.00

00:58:29.660 There's just no stopping her, but tune in. Cause I think you're going to enjoy it. And, um,

00:58:33.760 I'm certainly enjoying being with you guys. Thanks you so much for listening and have a great day.

00:58:38.960 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

00:58:45.360 The Megan Kelly show is a devil may care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures. 0.56

00:58:49.720 I'll see you next time.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 08, 2020

Pence and Harris Debate, with Charles C.W. Cooke, Krystal Ball, and Saagar Enjeti

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