The Megyn Kelly Show - Post-Debate Spin Room Special, with Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Emily Jashinsky, Michael Moynihan, Tom Bevan, and Chris Stirewalt

00:00:00.000 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:13.320 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and our post-debate spin room special.

00:00:18.460 I am just off the debate stage where I was co-moderating tonight's debate and I have a lot of thoughts.

00:00:23.040 I'm going to share them with you in a minute.

00:00:24.820 Plus we'll get reaction from some of our Megyn Kelly Show favorites.

00:00:27.580 Emily Jashinsky, Michael Moynihan, Tom Bevan.

00:00:29.900 But we begin with one of the stars up there tonight and that is entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:00:35.380 Welcome to the show, Vivek. Great to have you.

00:00:37.220 Good to be up, Megyn. How are you doing?

00:00:38.120 I'll make that for you.

00:00:38.800 Thank you. I appreciate that.

00:00:39.640 So I know on the stage I have to call you Mr. Ramaswamy, but I think I can call you Vivek here.

00:00:43.300 Yes.

00:00:43.680 Okay, good.

00:00:44.160 That works. I took my tie off, so that's our rules.

00:00:45.620 Yeah, we're all relaxed now.

00:00:47.000 How did you think it went? The overall debate?

00:00:49.220 I think it was good. I mean, I was pleased with it. I was fluid.

00:00:51.800 I didn't really have much restraint.

00:00:53.840 And I think that, I mean, I think it's the first time we actually had real conversation

00:00:58.860 between the candidates, but still actually being able to hear one another.

00:01:01.360 So if we're going to set the bar that low, I think it was actually pretty much a success.

00:01:05.280 I think there's some issues that we do need to discuss that we didn't get to in this debate

00:01:08.760 that I think are deep ideological fault lines in the GOP primary.

00:01:13.460 I think free speech is one of those issues.

00:01:15.680 That was one I was saying before we got started.

00:01:17.180 Free speech and foreign policy. Those are the two big ones.

00:01:18.660 Free speech is on our list, but, you know, everything dies as a result of something else that lives.

00:01:22.860 We were a little too free with our speech, I think, to take the time.

00:01:24.440 Well, but we wanted to let you guys debate, you know, so it's like, that's why you have

00:01:27.920 to strike the balance, right? Because otherwise, if we just stay rigid to our questions and

00:01:31.740 get through every single topic, you guys don't get to debate each other.

00:01:34.340 That's right. That's right. And so I think it was a good debate. And I think we do have

00:01:37.860 some ideological divides in the GOP. I think the big ideological divide is what do you think

00:01:42.400 is America's approach to being the leader of the world? All of us agree that America

00:01:46.840 should be that shining city on a hill. I'm of the view that it should be by being

00:01:50.900 foremost strong at home. I think we have weakened ourselves by fighting these foreign wars in 0.99

00:01:55.920 other parts of the world that, as we revealed on that stage tonight, many of them who are

00:02:00.360 clamoring for going after defending some part of Ukraine don't know the first thing about

00:02:04.620 the part of Ukraine they're actually arguing for.

00:02:06.320 You're right that people are starting to move more and more towards the position that

00:02:08.700 you took early on.

00:02:09.580 Yeah. And I think it's a form of intellectual fraud on the American people. But I think that

00:02:12.920 that's one divide, number one. And then divide number two is what do you have the right

00:02:15.900 to say in this country? Do you actually have the right to engage in heinous speech or not?

00:02:19.000 And I think we have candidates on both sides of that issue. But I'm a free speech absolutist.

00:02:22.820 And I think those are the two main divides.

00:02:24.140 Well, you know, I wanted to talk to you about that because you and I had our little exchange

00:02:27.900 on Twitter. I would have loved to have gotten that.

00:02:29.460 And I respect that we have some different opinions. But we can continue that elsewhere

00:02:32.060 as well.

00:02:32.620 That's exactly right. All right. So let's talk about some of the big moments because

00:02:34.860 my impression from the debate moderator's seat was Christie came loaded for bear for you. 1.00

00:02:39.280 Yeah, he did.

00:02:39.720 Right? Were you expecting that?

00:02:41.540 I didn't really go in one way or another. I kind of got a kick out of it. And my view is that

00:02:45.720 Chris Christie's foreign policy experience is, you know, about as thin as it's going

00:02:50.000 to get. And blockading that bridge from New Jersey to New York was, as I said on stage,

00:02:53.860 the best example of it I could think of. And I think that Chris Christie would do this country

00:02:57.560 a favor if he got out of the race. And so I think I didn't hold back in saying so.

00:03:00.580 Here's a little flavor of what we're talking about. Satwan.

00:03:02.560 Let me just say something here. You know, his reasonable peace deal in Ukraine, he made

00:03:10.460 it clear. Give them all the land they've already stolen. Promise Putin you'll never put Ukraine 1.00

00:03:16.460 in Russia. And then trust Putin not to have a relationship with China. Let me tell you

00:03:21.620 something. That's not my deal.

00:03:23.980 Yes, it's exactly what you said. You do this at every debate.

00:03:27.400 You go out on the stump and you say something. All of us see it on video. We confront you

00:03:40.720 out on the debate stage. You say you didn't say it. And then you back away. And I want

00:03:44.720 to say exactly what I said. I'm not done yet. Well, this is. Now, look, this is nonsense.

00:03:49.240 This is the fourth debate, the fourth debate that you would be voted in the

00:03:57.380 first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. So he was gunning for you. What

00:04:05.840 was that about? Why? Why you? Why you tonight? Well, look, I think that he is very frustrated

00:04:10.380 that he's not able to go after Donald Trump. There's two key America first candidates in

00:04:14.280 this race. And as I said, there is a deep ideological divide in the GOP. So I think he's venting his

00:04:18.860 frustration at Trump on me. And I can take it. I can handle the heat. And I responded to him

00:04:23.620 accordingly. How about the Nikki Haley moment? Nikki corrupt. That was big when you held that

00:04:27.280 up. Well, I think it is. What was that about? The heart of who she is and what she represents.

00:04:31.960 I don't care about Republican versus Democrat. We need to end the corruption in D.C.

00:04:36.140 I don't think you should be able to join the board of a company that you underwrote nine figure

00:04:41.180 deals while being governor of a state that did deals with that company. I don't think you should

00:04:45.700 use your connections to start a military contracting firm after you leave the U.N. and then not disclose

00:04:50.980 those clients. She's asked Donald Trump to release his tax returns back in 2016, joining Democrats to

00:04:56.160 do it. Yet now hasn't released her tax returns. I've released 20 years of mine. So I do think that

00:05:00.780 Haley is fundamentally an example of the corrupt establishment. Biden has sold off our foreign

00:05:05.940 policy to make their family rich in the form of that bribe to Hunter Biden. I think Nikki Haley's

00:05:10.440 defense contractor is quite likely, if some recent reporting is to be believed, making money off of

00:05:14.720 sales in the Russia-Ukraine war as well. The American people deserve to know that. And I think there's an

00:05:20.120 intellectual fraud here, where she professes this foreign policy experience that began in all of a

00:05:24.920 cup of coffee stint at the U.N., offering platitudes that were served up by political consultants

00:05:29.540 since the 1980s, yet doesn't know the first thing about the region she actually even wants us to fight

00:05:34.320 for. And so I think it's an intellectual fraud. I think it's a financial fraud. And I do think that

00:05:39.020 regardless of who leads this country, if you want somebody who's actually going to take on that

00:05:43.640 corruption in D.C., you can't be part of it in the first place. And so I did want to speak to that

00:05:48.060 directly to that. Let's shift and talk about free speech for one minute, because, you know,

00:05:51.280 one of the things that we wanted to talk about was what's happening in these campuses. Eliana got

00:05:55.660 to it a bit, and some of the testimony on Capitol Hill. But you and I had a dust-up on Twitter the

00:06:00.680 other week, the other month, because you, I understand the opposition to Ron DeSantis trying

00:06:06.900 to disband students and justice in Palestine. I get that. And that's where I'm strongest. I guess. 0.96

00:06:10.980 That's where I'm most strong. I get it. And I agree. I mean, I've said on my show. I didn't know

00:06:15.120 where you were on. Yeah. I don't agree with that move. Because of the Constitution. Yeah.

00:06:19.280 Yes. There's this thing called the First Amendment. It's kind of pesky. It's annoying. And then there's

00:06:21.940 this separate cultural debate that we ought to have that doesn't have to do with the law. So that's

00:06:25.140 where you and I diverged, because the students for justice in Palestine, days after the 10-7

00:06:31.620 attack, sent this letter saying it's entirely Israel's fault. It's all Israel's fault. I mean, 0.98

00:06:36.740 it's nonsense. No, and I know you don't support that. It's garbage. Yeah. But then you had these,

00:06:41.140 lots of folks like Bill Ackerman and others who said, I want the name. I want every student who's

00:06:45.360 in that group. And I said, right on. Me too. As an employer, I would never hire somebody who signed 1.00

00:06:50.500 that letter. And you were like, you said, we shouldn't be shaming students. We shouldn't

00:06:54.000 be naming students like that. They're dumb kids. Yeah. And my thought is, they're about to go into

00:06:58.540 America's biggest media companies and law firms, right? So I'd say a couple of things. One is very

00:07:02.760 pragmatic in the reality of how college campuses function. And then the other is a cultural point.

00:07:07.100 The way you're a member of a college student group is you actually just put your name on some

00:07:10.520 student group list. Many of these people did not even know they were affiliating them to the

00:07:14.600 statement. Concede. So put that to one side. And I know you would probably agree with that. You'd be

00:07:18.140 like, take me out of that group. I mean, this is a really not terribly important point, Megan,

00:07:24.220 but if we're going to talk about it, let's just understand. I know many of those kids have talked

00:07:27.200 to many of those kids on those college campuses. They actually have no idea whether they would count

00:07:30.720 as members of the group or not, or whether the leadership of the group is saying something they have

00:07:34.260 no say in actually determining it. This is a very easy way of making that clear.

00:07:37.040 Then you have to disavow. Well, take me off your email list. And then it gets to a culture of what

00:07:41.340 we want in our country. Do we want student groups, students signing up with groups even they disagree

00:07:45.240 with? I did that when I was in college. And so it gets to the cultural question of not legally,

00:07:50.100 what would our founding fathers say? But actually, you guys asked me on that debate stage, you know,

00:07:53.600 who, which president would you take inspiration from? And so let's just go through this.

00:07:57.660 TJ. And the swivel chair.

00:07:58.440 The original TJ. And the swivel chair we're sitting on. He invented it. I don't think Thomas Jefferson

00:08:02.560 would be on the side of saying that we want our universities and institutions of higher ed

00:08:07.680 creating blacklists based on what a 19-year-old kid has or hasn't said.

00:08:11.260 It's not a blacklist. It's just, here's the names. It's up to you.

00:08:14.140 That's absolutely a blacklist.

00:08:14.820 The UN will hire all those people.

00:08:16.140 For this one issue. Because then if we do it for this issue, we're going to be doing it for

00:08:18.800 somebody who denied climate change, somebody who questioned the wisdom of using fossil fuels.

00:08:22.680 I don't think this is the same thing.

00:08:23.300 Somebody who claimed that J6 was actually an inside job or not. I think that people should be able

00:08:28.260 to speak their mind freely on these topics. And I think once we go down this road,

00:08:33.760 imagine if this was during the COVID pandemic.

00:08:35.200 I get it. You're saying slippery slope.

00:08:36.560 But I think the slippery slope is really part of what these free speech incursions,

00:08:40.660 cultural free speech incursions are all about. If during the COVID pandemic, 0.59

00:08:43.480 I think you and I would probably be on the same side of this. If somebody questioned the safety

00:08:46.340 and efficacy of vaccines, I think you have a lot of people on the other side to say,

00:08:49.420 as an employer, I want to know that. If I'm in the healthcare industry,

00:08:52.000 tell me which student did that because I don't want to hire them.

00:08:53.860 That's fine. I actually think this could lead to the better alignments with the students and

00:08:59.060 their employees.

00:08:59.300 I think it leads to students being less likely to discover who they are and what they think.

00:09:03.600 And I think that we've got to lead them rather than censor them.

00:09:05.660 So talk to me about your plan because your poll numbers have gone down in recent history.

00:09:10.120 And one of the top guys in your campaign left and went to work for Trump.

00:09:13.200 And there's a lot of guys that-

00:09:13.500 It was actually one of the top guys as a side note, but we brought in someone above him and he moved.

00:09:17.440 But I respect him. I don't want to be throwing people under the bus.

00:09:20.000 But respectfully, you're not on track to win.

00:09:21.540 Well, the polls are not on track to where they need to be for me to win this election yet.

00:09:24.360 Right.

00:09:24.780 That much is fair.

00:09:25.300 Or even win the undercard part of the election. So how long do you stay in this thing?

00:09:28.940 What's the goal at this point?

00:09:29.720 Oh, I think I'm not going anywhere. And I think to the contrary,

00:09:32.080 I feel I have a responsibility to be in this race as somebody who is taking the America First

00:09:36.700 movement to the next level. I do think we're going to deliver a surprise in Iowa. I think the

00:09:41.720 media has done us a great favor of downplaying our expectations going into Iowa and New Hampshire.

00:09:46.840 We're seeing a lot of people come into our events, like a lot, like not small numbers of people.

00:09:51.540 Like the crowds we're seeing at our events do not match up to the narrative of where the

00:09:56.240 public polling is at.

00:09:57.400 That's what happened to Trump.

00:09:58.420 And absolutely. And when you see many of those people at those events, though, many of them

00:10:00.820 are coming with Ron Paul shirts. Many of them are first time caucus goers. We're actually

00:10:05.020 going to college campuses. I go to frat houses and they have like massive events where people,

00:10:08.920 I mean, I haven't been, I haven't been a celebrity for much of my life, but if you go to many,

00:10:14.000 many of those young people, we're seeing something that I think Iowa has not seen for a long

00:10:18.520 time. So if those people come to the caucus, I think we're going to shatter expectations

00:10:23.460 on this. And I think that's going to propel us forward.

00:10:26.000 I love that you fit some frat houses in on your busy campaign schedule. Good move. 0.99

00:10:30.300 Hundreds of them, too. And these kids, and that's what I see in these kids is they're lost,

00:10:33.860 but the conservative movement needs to lead them. And I think we can do that.

00:10:36.680 It's great to see you.

00:10:37.380 It's good to see you, Megan.

00:10:37.980 Yeah. All the best to you.

00:10:38.780 Thank you.

00:10:39.080 Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

00:10:40.380 All right. That was fun. It's great to see him in person. We've known each other a long time,

00:10:43.380 but we haven't done this in a while. Joining me now, Emily Jashinski. She's culture editor at

00:10:47.840 The Federalist and host of The Federalist Radio Hour and Michael Moynihan, co-host of The Fifth

00:10:52.240 Column. Guys, great to see you. I haven't gotten to talk to you, but I know you've been busy

00:10:55.660 working here. What'd you think?

00:10:58.080 Great job, Megan. I mean, that was, I thought that was easily the best of all the debates.

00:11:02.040 I thought the pacing, by the way, was excellent because you've got a broader scope of issues.

00:11:06.620 And it was interesting, actually, with the vague just now that you guys didn't get to some of the

00:11:10.480 topics you wanted to get to, because that was the broadest range of issues that I've heard

00:11:14.680 covered in any debate. And actually, like, it was very, very impressive how much was brought in.

00:11:19.680 I thought, personally, this looks like a two-way race between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley for the

00:11:25.060 second place. So it's really, obviously, a three-way race, as you often point out, Megan. But the

00:11:30.180 second place is clearly DeSantis and Haley at this point. I also preferred having it down to the

00:11:35.720 four candidates. I thought that really let them distinguish themselves in a way we haven't seen yet,

00:11:39.900 either. Thank you for the kind words. Moynihan, what'd you think?

00:11:44.100 So I have to offer the kind words, too, now? I mean, I have kind words. It was great. They were

00:11:48.640 great questions. You don't need kind words. Get your thoughts. Here, I don't need to butter you up.

00:11:54.040 But they were great questions. I will say this. I will say about Vivek, who is just on, so I'll

00:11:59.240 respond to him. And I'll be generous to start. It's always nice to be generous at the beginning.

00:12:04.340 I, like you, Megan, think he is very, very good on free speech. He excels in that. And I think Ron

00:12:10.840 DeSantis is absolutely off base when it comes to the execrable people in the Students for Justice in

00:12:17.480 Palestine movement, the horrible things that they said. I thank God that they say them, and they say 1.00

00:12:22.580 them loud so I know who they are. And like Bill Ackman, I would never hire them. So that's the first

00:12:27.140 thing. The second thing is with Vivek is that, you know, I understand why his unfavorables are so high

00:12:33.060 after watching that debate. The one thing that really, really irked me, if he, he referenced

00:12:38.200 Ron Paul at the end there, if he wants to be the Ron Paul of the new GOP, a little more aggressive,

00:12:44.260 Trump, you know, he's like, I don't really, he doesn't really care about foreign policy. He says,

00:12:48.160 I keep you out of foreign wars. Whereas Vivek is much more ideological about it in the sort of

00:12:52.340 Ron Paul way. But he makes an unbelievable mistake here when he attacks Chris Christie and Nikki Haley

00:12:59.360 with something that is not true. He keeps on saying that we are going to, they want to send

00:13:05.120 your kids who die. I have looked for this. There is no such statement from either of them.

00:13:10.880 They want to support the Ukrainians and the Israelis. You can disagree with that. That's

00:13:15.460 absolutely fine. I have a lot of friends. I have people on my own podcast who disagree with some of

00:13:19.660 those policies. But I don't. But it's not true in any way that, you know, it's a rather different thing

00:13:26.060 to say that Americans are going to be involved in a ground war in Donetsk and Luhansk, if those are

00:13:32.220 the words that he was looking for tonight. Or Crimea. I had them. I was ready to go. But you know

00:13:37.840 what? It's I don't like the cheap gotcha stuff. But the point, it reminded me of George Bush in

00:13:42.920 2000, when every time he sat down was like, you know, name the president of Uzbekistan. And he was

00:13:49.260 like, I have no idea. But no, I think that's a that's a cheap point, because it's just not true.

00:13:56.640 It's frankly, like beneath him to say things like that. And you know what, if he's going to be

00:14:00.980 conspiratorial in a very Ron Paul way, he said in his book that that January 6 was deplorable.

00:14:07.460 And now he says it's an inside job and that we don't know what really happened on 9-11. So I mean,

00:14:12.640 I don't know what happened to Vivek. But those are those are sort of not sensible positions to be

00:14:19.980 taking. There was a lot in there. What what did you think somebody won and lost? I mean, look,

00:14:27.680 I think that Ron DeSantis had a very good debate. I mean, and I say this independent of the things

00:14:34.060 that I agree and disagree on. I think Nikki Haley was okay. I don't think she hurt herself too much,

00:14:42.060 but she really, really flailed on the trans answer. And you pushed her hard on that.

00:14:48.020 You know, I will say this, at least Chris Christie was completely forthright about it.

00:14:52.180 This is what I believe. She kind of played it in a couple of different ways. And DeSantis went in

00:14:58.120 really hard on her and did very well. So I think that, you know, I guess on points,

00:15:02.960 like a boxing match, I would say DeSantis came out came out ahead of everybody else.

00:15:06.800 I was surprised, Emily. This is sort of a new version of DeSantis. I don't think we've seen

00:15:10.600 this version at the prior three debates. I had the exact same takeaway. I thought DeSantis won

00:15:16.140 on one with another foil. So when he was debating Andrew Gillum, when he's debating

00:15:20.720 another candidate, one other candidate, he's at his strongest. There's something about it for him

00:15:26.320 that's where he's at his best. And this four person debate really, really allowed it,

00:15:32.120 allowed the Haley DeSantis matchup to take center stage in a way that he rolled off of

00:15:37.020 his Gavin Newsom debate from last week, feeling good. He took her on in the donor question.

00:15:42.800 She had a tough line back at him about how, you know, he's just jealous that the Wall Street donors

00:15:47.120 aren't on his side anymore. But I actually thought he ended up with a better of that argument. He

00:15:51.820 ended up with a better in the trans argument. He sounded very strong on foreign policy,

00:15:55.660 which is really Nikki's bread and butter. That's where she's supposed to be at her best. 0.69

00:16:00.900 So again, yeah, I think Nikki Haley has this idea that she's going to have momentum going into

00:16:04.920 North New Hampshire and then down to South Carolina, where Tim Scott is now out of the race.

00:16:09.660 She's down to Donald Trump in both of those states, neck and neck with DeSantis in New Hampshire.

00:16:13.600 I don't think this helps her in New Hampshire to the extent that even matters when everyone is

00:16:18.040 down double digits to Trump anyway. And to say that it's a very, very bad comeback in the GOP of 2023

00:16:26.260 that you're just jealous that I have all the Wall Street donors. That doesn't really resonate.

00:16:31.560 All right. Well, she's sitting right here. So I'm going to ask her about that now. Stand by,

00:16:34.320 guys. Thank you. Joining me now, 2024 presidential candidate and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N.,

00:16:38.880 Nikki Haley. Great to have you, Ambassador. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. How did you feel it went?

00:16:42.940 It was fine. I mean, look, we knew that they were all going to start to kind of hit.

00:16:47.580 They were after you. But I appreciate that. That means we're winning. And so our goal was

00:16:52.180 just to make sure we tried to show that, look, they're fighting to go up, but we're continuing our

00:16:58.160 momentum. We're going to continue to do well. We're second in Iowa, second in New Hampshire,

00:17:01.680 second in South Carolina. We got one more guy to catch up to, and that's what we're working on.

00:17:05.740 What did you think of, I mean, Vivek and DeSantis kept hitting you on the ties to the billionaires,

00:17:10.600 the ties to the banks, corporate corruption. And, you know, our guest was just saying,

00:17:14.900 in this Republican Party, is it really a defense to say, oh, well, you know,

00:17:19.360 they're just jealous that I have all these donors and they don't.

00:17:21.660 It's true. All of these were all donors of Ron's and they've left him because he's losing and

00:17:26.960 they've come to me. And now he's upset about it. It's just like the Americans for Prosperity.

00:17:31.160 That's the most conservative grassroots network in the country. And he was hitting it saying that

00:17:36.380 they weren't great a couple of days ago. Well, he fought just as hard to get that. He took that

00:17:40.300 endorsement from them when he was running for governor. So it's sour grapes for him. But look,

00:17:46.020 I mean, at the end of the day, when you go and look at what matters, I've been a chief executive,

00:17:50.720 I've been a governor. I know what it takes to take a state that has 11 percent unemployment and make

00:17:56.820 it an economic powerhouse. I've dealt with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea every day that I was at

00:18:01.720 the United Nations. Let me ask you about the DEI thing, because they raised the, you know,

00:18:05.200 it has a different name when it's in corporate America. But they were sort of saying companies

00:18:08.900 like BlackRock, they invest in left-wing causes and they're backing you and they're going to somehow

00:18:14.400 want you to do their dirty work, to, you know, push left-wing causes to sort of abandon the

00:18:19.800 conservative movement. They know I am completely against all the woke ideology, all the woke

00:18:24.760 culture. I've been on record saying that. I will continue to say that. Companies need to focus on

00:18:30.280 making money and they need to stay out of politics, period. That's what I think we need to do.

00:18:35.500 All right, I want to talk about the trans thing, because we spent some time on that tonight,

00:18:39.220 which we hadn't done before. And I'm still unclear, because I, too, have looked at your history on

00:18:44.100 this, and I still don't know whether you are in favor of a ban on these medical procedures

00:18:49.580 for minors or you're not in favor. Very clear. I am in favor of a ban. I do not think any medical

00:18:56.520 procedure should be done to a child before the age of 18. That's why I said, I've been on record

00:19:01.560 saying if you can't get a tattoo until 18, you certainly don't have any sort of gender

00:19:07.040 transformation during that time. Even if your parents give you permission, I don't think it's 0.88

00:19:12.660 okay. Because kids, we know kids going through puberty can be confused. They get a lot of different

00:19:18.800 thoughts through their heads. That is not the time to be making a decision like that. I'm adamantly

00:19:23.640 opposed to any sort of body changing anything until the age of 18. How about the puberty 0.57

00:19:30.920 blockers into cross-sex hormones? None of that should happen until the age of 18. I'm on record

00:19:35.760 saying that. I've always said that. I mean, you know, Ron kept saying that I hadn't done it, but Ron has

00:19:41.920 been lying this entire time. I mean, he's got spending millions of dollars on commercials, on TV, and

00:19:47.300 everybody from CNN to Newsmax has said that his ads are false. On this subject, I confess, I myself

00:19:53.640 and my researchers looked very hard because I wanted to make sure I knew everybody's position.

00:19:57.960 By the way, I was right about what I said to Governor Christie, too. And what I found you saying

00:20:03.480 was, you probably saw yesterday, there was a viral clip of you, which we had seen. But they clipped,

00:20:07.620 but they took a small part of it. I've seen the whole interview. Six months ago, I was given a CBS this

00:20:11.420 morning, and you were asked if a 12-year-old girl wants to become a boy, should, what medical procedures,

00:20:16.360 what medical care should be available, or do you believe the law should get involved? And you said,

00:20:20.300 I don't believe the law should get involved. There's that. But then I saw your spokesperson

00:20:23.760 gave a statement to the Daily Caller saying she's against the medicalization of the minors.

00:20:28.940 So I, too, saw a bit of a split. Why did you say that to CBS?

00:20:32.420 So I don't want government involved in anything related to what happens between parents and children,

00:20:38.660 but I don't want any procedures for kids. Does that make sense?

00:20:42.520 Yes, it does make perfect sense. That's a law saying you can't change

00:20:46.420 a child until the age of 18. But parents and kids can decide how best to deal with that. That

00:20:51.100 video that was going viral that talked about, I was talking about suicides. And so they took the

00:20:56.340 suicides and they tried to make it something else. But I'm very clear on this. I want parents to have

00:21:01.040 as many rights. When Chris was talking about parents having rights, they do have rights. I want them to

00:21:05.500 have rights. But that's not government saying parents can't have rights. That's us just saying

00:21:11.580 for a law, you can do whatever you want when you're 18. But we're not going to have you do

00:21:16.680 that before then, because I don't think that's in the best interest of this subject. Let me ask you

00:21:20.720 another question that wound up in the editing room floor just because time. What do you think we

00:21:25.880 should do about the fact? And I know you're good on the girls sports and all. I've heard you many 1.00

00:21:29.100 times on that. I don't want to retread it. But what about the fact that the term woman

00:21:33.140 is being eroded? I mean, it's being erased in American society.

00:21:36.620 This is infuriating to me because the idea that, what was that? I forgot which school it was,

00:21:44.280 but they gave the definition of a woman and it was a non-man. And I was sick to my stomach.

00:21:51.360 That's why I always say strong girls become strong women. Strong women become strong leaders. That 1.00

00:21:55.840 doesn't happen if biological boys are playing in their sports. That doesn't happen if you go and make

00:22:00.660 a woman feel any more inferior or not, you know, who she is. And the idea that they're trying to 0.94

00:22:07.880 erase us. That's my biggest thing is I think they're trying to erase women by now saying,

00:22:12.920 oh, but biological boys should do that. I mean, that's, it's absurd and we can't have that happen. 0.96

00:22:18.260 The crack team telling me it was Johns Hopkins. Johns Hopkins. Thank you. Yeah. All right. So the other

00:22:23.420 thing is immigration. I thought it was an interesting question because you, you did not say,

00:22:28.520 I'm going to deport all of the people who are here illegally tonight. You said the ones who 1.00

00:22:33.120 came recently under Joe Biden, that's one thing, seven or eight million. But you know that there's

00:22:36.920 a hardcore wing of the Republican party who are like, what about the rest of them? All of them

00:22:42.820 need to go. Right. And we have to find them first. So the first thing we need to do is we've got to

00:22:47.800 figure out where everybody is, look at what their status is. And that's why I say it would be easy to

00:22:52.600 say, oh, send them all back. We don't know where they are. That's the reality. We know.

00:22:57.160 But are you saying if we find them, they're all going, like even the ones who are working and

00:23:00.220 paying taxes? Because you seem to be saying the opposite. If they've been here 20 years and

00:23:03.620 they've been paying taxes and they've had a job and they've been since, I think we need to create

00:23:07.540 categories of how we're going to do this. There is no simple answer. And so if somebody's been here

00:23:13.360 20 years and they've done everything right, I think we put them in one category. If they have come over

00:23:18.280 and they're sitting there feeding off the system or they're part of these eight, nine million that came

00:23:22.700 under Biden, they got to go back. The point of all of that is don't incentivize more to come.

00:23:28.400 The only way you don't incentivize more to come is to deport, is to make sure they don't jump the

00:23:33.440 line and they know that there's going to be a price to pay. Another question on foreign policy. I asked

00:23:37.540 this question of DeSantis, but I'd love to hear your answer too. If China does invade Taiwan, and I know 0.90

00:23:42.980 deterrence, I get it. But if they do, are we going to send American troops? This is the thing. If we say

00:23:48.020 that we're going to do it, we have to follow through with it. And so the best way to deal

00:23:52.520 with China, and this is what I saw at the United Nations, is let them know there will be hell to 0.99

00:23:56.800 pay. That's how you say it. They're trying to stay strategically ambiguous. It's more about,

00:24:01.660 but it's leveraging us, right? So when you say there's going to be hell to pay, it shouldn't just

00:24:06.880 be words. Taiwan should be getting equipment, ammunition, everything they can so that China sees 0.96

00:24:13.000 it. This is action that we're actually arming them right now. We're actually giving them everything

00:24:17.500 that they need. That's going to let China know we're serious. The other thing that's going to 0.93

00:24:21.360 let China know we're serious is if we stick with Ukraine, if we stick with Israel. Because if 0.74

00:24:26.360 they see us just getting tired and leaving... We are tired, though. Don't you think? You look at

00:24:30.520 those polls of Republican voters on Ukraine, they're not with you. Listen, and this war would have been

00:24:34.460 over if Biden would have given them what they needed in the first place. This war never should

00:24:38.320 have happened if Biden would have dealt with it when Russia surrounded Ukraine for that whole year.

00:24:43.100 I think most voters believe that. I think most Republicans would give you that,

00:24:46.600 but they're fed up. They're fed up. I totally agree. And we need to end it. And there's a way

00:24:51.080 that you can end Ukraine. The way you end Ukraine is if you went and said to Ukraine, 0.79

00:24:55.860 we will invite you into NATO. It's a process. It doesn't happen quickly. We will invite you into

00:25:01.620 NATO. Doesn't require anything more of the U.S. under those laws. What would happen is Putin would know

00:25:08.260 Russia's never invaded a NATO country. They've invaded Georgia, Moldova, and now Ukraine. They've never

00:25:14.700 invaded a NATO country. If we do the invitation, Putin would know he needs to come up with an exit

00:25:21.480 strategy. Zelensky would know. He can go back and say, we got the invitation. And then if Putin does

00:25:28.040 continue fighting with Ukraine and they come in NATO, then we have to fight. We have to get involved.

00:25:32.800 I mean, Ukrainians and Israelis, they don't want American troops. They want to win this on their

00:25:39.420 own. They want to win their countries on their own. I don't think we should ever give cash to any

00:25:44.020 country, any country, because you can't. And not troops. Not troops. I don't think we need to do

00:25:49.520 that. I think, look, my husband's a combat veteran. I don't want him fighting any more wars than he has

00:25:54.320 to. All right. Last question on that front, because I worked with a bunch of 17 and 18 year old boys in

00:25:59.380 advance of the debate. And I asked them, what would you like to ask the candidates? And for you,

00:26:04.020 they're the young guys. I actually went back and chaffed. I did not realize once we let women into 1.00

00:26:07.380 combat roles, we kept the draft still limited to just men. And I have to say, I'm kind of relieved.

00:26:12.460 I don't know. It just makes me scared to think of my 12 year old daughter when she gets to that age,

00:26:16.600 maybe it's sexist. But in any event, they want to know under what circumstances you would implement

00:26:21.020 a draft. I don't think we need to go back to a draft. I think what we do need to do is focus on

00:26:26.560 recruitment. Recruitment is down 25%. Why is it down? Interestingly enough, we get 80% of our

00:26:33.460 recruits from military families. For the first time, military families are telling their kids,

00:26:38.480 don't do it. It's unheard of. But if you look at how we treat our veterans, you wouldn't be

00:26:43.120 surprised. If you look at the fact that they're teaching gender pronoun, that they're making our 1.00

00:26:47.700 military men and women take gender pronoun classes, you wouldn't be surprised.

00:26:51.420 But we did look at the Army survey that said only 5% say it's wokeness, the reason they're not

00:26:55.560 joining. They say, kind of amazingly, because I know you're a military family, the number one

00:27:00.080 reason they're not joining is fear of death. And the second one is a fear of post-traumatic stress

00:27:05.620 disorder, like stress. They're afraid of stress. And the third is they don't want to miss their

00:27:10.000 friends and family. Which, I mean, I just think like, as a military, like, where are the old grizzled 1.00

00:27:14.680 military people? The patriots, right? My husband joined after 9-11. It was that love of country.

00:27:19.940 It's that sacrifice. Your friends and family. First of all, they don't think government's going to have

00:27:23.300 their backs. That's a real thing. The second thing is one in three veterans suffers from PTSD or thoughts

00:27:30.780 of suicide. We lose 22 heroes a day. There's something to that. And we're not doing anything

00:27:36.040 to help them. And we're not doing near enough to help in the transition or to make sure they have

00:27:40.180 telehealth with mental health care. We're not giving them good health care all the way. You know,

00:27:43.760 so why does anybody see the need? But I want to bring back love of country. I want us to go back to

00:27:49.000 our national purpose. People should be proud of America so much so like the Israelis are, 1.00

00:27:54.100 where they want to fight for their freedoms, where the Ukrainians are. They want to fight 1.00

00:27:57.560 for their freedoms. We want people to love our country. But our country's in chaos. And we've

00:28:02.200 got to get out of this chaos. Yeah, it's true. The more patriotism you feel, the more likely you are

00:28:06.500 to sign up for the military, to want to defend. Exactly right. It's like this downward spiral.

00:28:10.320 So nice to have you here. Great to be with you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Good luck to you.

00:28:13.620 Thank you. Yeah. Well, that was fun. I hope you're enjoying the show. I am. It's great to see these

00:28:17.620 candidates here in person after being with them on the debate stage. Back with me now,

00:28:21.480 Emily Jashinsky and Michael Moynihan. All right, Moynihan. So do you feel satisfied now? Do you feel

00:28:26.600 better? I do. Here's the thing is that when I said before, and I want to be clear about this,

00:28:33.220 that I thought Haley was knocked a little bit onto her heels by DeSantis and the trans exchange. And 0.99

00:28:39.160 that was particularly about bathrooms and about Florida's own policy when it comes to the trans

00:28:44.600 issue. What she should have done, and I'm going to offer some free advice here, and she didn't even 0.98

00:28:48.760 do it here, was that clip that was going around. I heard that 19 seconds too. It was 19 seconds.

00:28:54.100 The DeSantis people published it. It's a dishonest edit. And the thing about that is, and I don't think

00:28:59.040 she expressed this in the right way, because the 30 seconds into that, she says, you know, I think

00:29:04.160 parents should be able to interface with their kids about this stuff without government. And then 0.70

00:29:09.560 she says, but when they're 18 and they're interested in, the quote from her was a more

00:29:14.460 permanent change. And the more permanent change is obviously what people were hanging around her neck 1.00

00:29:20.480 that she wants 12-year-olds to have surgery if their parents say it's okay. She didn't say that.

00:29:26.900 And I don't think she was clear enough in making the point that when she said permanent change at 18,

00:29:31.600 she was talking about surgery. Okay. So I think, I'll tell you this. I think this was the most

00:29:37.720 lively debate. And I think the candidates came ready to battle, which was great. I think two

00:29:44.100 things made it great. We wanted them to debate and they wanted to debate. You know, we, we allowed

00:29:50.300 them, right? They came feisty and we allowed that to sort of manifest. And that's what I think made the

00:29:55.040 difference in tonight's performance. And I will say, I do believe, if I may say, I think the questions

00:29:59.840 were harder and they were more provocative and they were more interesting. And so people, you know,

00:30:04.320 they were a little bit more on their heels and they had, it was like a little bit torqued up

00:30:07.520 as opposed to what would you do about that? You're right. So I think those are the things that kind

00:30:12.400 of made the difference, Emily. Well, yeah, but they also were framed really well because the typical

00:30:18.760 corporate media framing, which takes basically like a dorm room, college, freshman, leftist's idea

00:30:25.560 about trans ideology or about the border. I mean, I thought the border, Elizabeth Vargas' question

00:30:31.560 about fentanyl to Vivek Ramaswamy, just a fantastic, a sharp question. We haven't heard anyone bring

00:30:37.120 that up basically this entire cycle. And that's because these Republican candidates are answering

00:30:42.620 questions for people who despise their worldviews. And I think that basic point of respect,

00:30:49.100 that basic point of respect, like meeting people where they are and saying, I'm going to ask you

00:30:52.780 about this in a way that is going to actually be clarifying for Republican voters. That was the

00:30:58.200 difference with this debate. And that's not easy to do. So I really thought that made a huge

00:31:03.380 difference. It's also helpful that there are four candidates. So it's, I imagine being patient with

00:31:08.380 everyone is a little bit more easier when there's four candidates, but then again, they're all jockeying

00:31:12.480 for time over the next person. So that's probably never easy. Yeah. Although they were compliant,

00:31:17.340 you know, if you nine times out of 10, if you gave them the signal, like be quiet, I'm coming,

00:31:20.600 they were compliant, which I think helped too. All right, stand by. I'm going to get to Tom

00:31:24.540 Bevin. He's here. He's co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics, which we love. Great to

00:31:29.500 see you, Tom. How are you doing? Great to be here. Thanks for having me. What'd you think of the big

00:31:32.220 night? I thought it was great. I agree. I thought the questioning, I mean, out of the gate, Ron

00:31:37.660 DeSantis, why are you 40 points behind Trump? Yeah. Chris Christie was a great one too. So

00:31:43.400 look, I think in my opinion, I think DeSantis, this was probably his best debate, I think. Yeah,

00:31:49.680 I agree. He was more comfortable. He had, he obviously had command. He managed to stay out

00:31:55.140 of the fray. There was a lot of bad blood, a lot of bickering, name calling going on,

00:31:58.020 and he managed to kind of stay out of it a little bit. I thought Nikki Haley, she should

00:32:03.120 have been prepared for the attacks. I think she was, but I think she was still a bit taken

00:32:06.580 aback and a little overwhelmed by the, the magnitude of them, the multitude of them on every single

00:32:12.800 issue with DeSantis and, and Ramaswamy sort of joining forces almost. It was definitely

00:32:19.760 a pile on. Yeah. Total pile on. And you know, Chris Christie came to her defense a little bit,

00:32:23.840 but at the end, I mean, she just, she didn't respond. She couldn't really respond as forcefully.

00:32:29.840 I mean, they were just coming too fast. Yeah. I thought that was an interesting dynamic because

00:32:33.860 Stierwald had said on our show today, I think it was today, that if you were Christie, I can't remember

00:32:40.000 whether he said this on the air or to me in our debate prep, Christie would be looking for a white

00:32:44.100 night moment of Nikki Haley. And man, he called it. That's exactly what we saw. Yeah. And I looked

00:32:49.840 at her to see how she was responding when he was white nighting her. And she looked a little like 0.98

00:32:54.700 uncomfortable. I'm not sure if she knew what to do. Like, do I, I'm running for president. Do I let

00:32:59.420 him white night me? Or do I say I can, I got this Chris. Yeah. But there was just sort of a dynamic of

00:33:05.040 let's, you know, let's get her like wolves. Yeah. No. And, and, um, even despite your prompting

00:33:12.560 and trying to make Donald Trump an issue other than Chris Christie, he really didn't, the candidates

00:33:17.380 didn't really engage on Trump. Uh, DeSantis had that one list of promises that Trump didn't fulfill

00:33:22.280 that he was going to fulfill. Nikki Haley took a couple of swipes, but, but that was basically it.

00:33:26.340 You know, who didn't come in for a lot of criticism tonight? Joe Biden. Yeah. I mean,

00:33:29.920 they mentioned him on the economy a little bit, but other than that, like he really did not take

00:33:34.660 the beating that you would have expected from these candidates focused on each other. Yes. And

00:33:38.420 our questions were focused on these individuals on the stage, not on Joe Biden, because that's just

00:33:42.140 such an easy out for them. We were never going to give them that glorious pass. Right. You go rip

00:33:46.440 on the Democrat. Of course they all want to do that. But if I were a candidate, I would have made it

00:33:51.180 happen anyway. You know, I turn it, give it, give it, give an answer that's responsive and then turn it

00:33:56.000 up. Right. Cause it is low hanging fruit and it's something that unites the Republican base.

00:34:00.240 Did anything change tonight? Um, I don't know that the fundamental, I mean, look, we've had three

00:34:05.660 debates. Nothing's really changed the funnel fundamental dynamic of this race. I'm not sure

00:34:09.400 that anything that happened up there, um, is going to fundamentally change what happens in Iowa. But I

00:34:14.800 do think Ron DeSantis, as I said, um, he needed to have a strong debate. I think he did. And then the

00:34:20.600 question is, you know, is the organizational pull that he's got in Iowa that he says he has in Iowa,

00:34:25.000 is going to show up because what it's going to take is one of those candidates, Haley or DeSantis,

00:34:30.320 to really overperform. He's at 17 in Iowa. She's at 14. Trump's at 45. And so you're going to need

00:34:36.780 one of them to sort of overperform bigly. And you're going to need Donald Trump to underperform

00:34:42.080 his polls. And if they can get within 10 points of him, then they can say, listen, it's on we're

00:34:46.900 surging. Donald Trump is vulnerable. He didn't, you know, there, the thesis out there that,

00:34:52.240 that he is vulnerable, that they're, um, you know, his support is soft. That is true. And

00:34:57.580 off we go to New Hampshire. So, I mean, Haley's in a better position to make that argument since 0.94

00:35:01.120 she's in second in New Hampshire and DeSantis is in fifth, but nevertheless, that's, that's what

00:35:05.460 either one of these candidates wants to see 45 days from. Okay. Stand by. Uh, joining me now,

00:35:10.240 I just mentioned him, News Nation's Chris Steyerwalt. He's also co-host of the Ink Stained

00:35:14.420 Wretches podcast with my debate co-moderator, Eliana Johnson. So you called it the white night.

00:35:20.740 What did you think? We put so much time into this debate, Steyerwalt. How'd you think it went?

00:35:25.020 It's so hard for me to separate the personal from the analytical, right? So I have to put

00:35:30.900 on two different hats here. So the one is, wow, right? Like it was great. We had the best debate

00:35:38.080 by far. And I, I'm, I know that I'm a partial in this, but we had the best debate so far. That

00:35:44.320 was the most interesting. We talked about things nobody else had talked about. You guys did a stellar

00:35:48.240 job. It was one half of a debate that was, I believe someone once described it as a spicy

00:35:55.160 margarita, I believe. I think we delivered the spicy margarita. So for the first hour was spicy

00:35:59.780 margarita, a pitcher of spicy margaritas. Yeah. And then the second hour was a steak dinner. It was

00:36:03.880 substantive. We talked, you talked about things that had not been discussed before. It was deep. It

00:36:08.800 was substantive. It was interesting. So I really think we did what we did. So I just have to give you a

00:36:13.360 little, little pound, little pound. And everybody should know that you are very, very involved in

00:36:17.300 all the questions, making them better. I just complained about lunch not being delivered on

00:36:21.520 time. That's all I do. Not true. But I can tell you this as an analyst, this was, and Tom Bevan is

00:36:28.500 exactly right. This was Ron DeSantis's best debate. Yeah. He was obviously mad. He was obviously PO'd,

00:36:36.820 and he brought that sort of intensity. And it's something that you had alluded to in questions

00:36:42.240 and that we had been talking about, which is where's the COVID Ron DeSantis, right? Yeah. Where's

00:36:47.660 the never back down Ron DeSantis? Where's the fighter guy? He showed up. He was present. He was

00:36:53.060 there. I thought it was also important that his attacks on Nikki Haley were not characterological

00:36:58.040 attacks. It wasn't saying you're a bad person. You're not corrupt. He was fighting her on substantive

00:37:01.800 policy, things that he said she had done. And they went back and forth on that.

00:37:05.760 I thought Nikki Haley had a very good hour during the margarita pitcher, right? Yeah. Because she 1.00

00:37:11.320 rose above, she elevated, she was placid. A very smart moment where you guys gave her the opportunity,

00:37:19.300 okay, you want to roll around in the mud with Ramaswamy again? And she said, nope. Nope. Nope. No,

00:37:24.580 thank you. I'm good. Second hour, she was a little too placid, right? She's not far enough up in the

00:37:30.280 polls to be running like a front runner, right? Because what got her where she is is scrapping,

00:37:35.420 and it's not time for her to stop scrapping yet. We actually have that soundbite. Let's watch it.

00:37:39.720 Saw three. Nikki Haley's campaign launch video sounded like a woke Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad

00:37:46.100 talking about how she would kick in heels. At the first debate, she said that only a woman can get 1.00

00:37:51.900 this job done. That's what she said. After the third debate, when I criticized Ronna McDaniel after five

00:37:57.180 failed years of leadership of this party and criticized Nikki for her corrupt foreign dealings as a military 0.90

00:38:02.160 contractor, she said that I have a woman problem. Nikki, I don't have a woman problem. You have a 1.00

00:38:09.060 corruption problem. And I think that that's what people need to know. Nikki is corrupt. This is a 0.99

00:38:14.580 woman who will send your kids to die so she can buy a bigger house. This is the problem. Using identity 1.00

00:38:20.800 politics more effectively than Kamala Harris is a form of intellectual fraud. And it actually needs to

00:38:27.700 and there's our donor puppet masters wielding their puppet right up here tonight. This is how this game is

00:38:33.220 played. The puppet masters put up their puppet and I reject the use of identity politics in this party. It has been a

00:38:39.020 cancer coming from the left and I'm sick and tired of the double standards the people of this country are too. Having two

00:38:44.220 X chromosomes does not immunize you from criticism. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Governor Haley, would you like to

00:38:49.020 respond? No, it's not worth my time to respond to him. Okay, so that was it. And yes, I so I thought that was fine. But I

00:38:59.440 just thought she was sort of the incredible shrinking woman for most of the evening. Exactly. So the first hour, she's going for 0.68

00:39:06.380 high minded regret rising above. I'm not going to I'm not going to can I'm not going to can be as lowly as you people you

00:39:15.980 squalid people. But then in the second hour where she should have stepped up more and fought more and been more assertive about

00:39:22.600 her policy views and pushing in on that. She didn't. And I think and I as a dude, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this. It

00:39:30.940 didn't strengthen her to have Chris Christie now riding in it did not it did not say I was just

00:39:36.300 saying to Tom, like I think had it been me up there getting and he'd white been white knighting me. I think I

00:39:41.240 would have said, I got it, Chris. I'll fight my own. Thank you. Thanks very much. But I'll fight my own. I'm

00:39:45.660 good. Yeah, appreciate it. But I'm good. That's right. I didn't think she knew what to do. Because it was

00:39:49.840 like, there was a moment where I looked at her face. And she almost looked like there was almost a scared

00:39:54.100 look. And I don't think it was scared. Yeah. But the facial expression conveyed like, like, I don't know, I

00:39:59.900 can't imitate it. But she just looked like she was getting smaller by the second. And I was like, she needs to 0.77

00:40:04.780 change that look immediately. She's asking me leader of the free world. So Emily and Moynihan are still

00:40:10.280 with us, too. I mean, let's talk about Vivek. Because, you know, my opening questioning question

00:40:14.960 to him on electability was, you know, with respect, it was basically you're Sybil, you know, you show up

00:40:20.680 to dated reference. But you know, it's like, who the hell are you? Right? Like you show up the one debate.

00:40:26.320 You're really sweet. Then you're really mean. Then you're making fun of I don't I can't keep track.

00:40:30.640 And tonight, I thought he kind of started off trying to be nice, Vivek. And then boom, like the chest

00:40:38.620 opened up with the no, it's me mean Vivek still here corrupt. What did you think?

00:40:45.040 I mean, yeah, I mean, he started off nice for about 14 seconds. And then we got to Vivek

00:40:52.140 calling Nikki Haley more. Wait, I think I've just lost the audio. Did I lose the audio?

00:40:59.500 No, no, we can hear you. No, we're back. I lost you for a second there. Vivek calling Nikki Haley

00:41:06.000 more fascist than the fascist Joe Biden. And then I was like, oh, that guy's back. And then

00:41:12.400 hold on, let me play it. Let me play it. Hold that thought. Hold up. It's a quick stop for

00:41:16.360 we're marching towards fascism under Biden. Jack Smith has subpoenaed every last retweet that

00:41:24.540 someone has issued from Donald Trump in the year 2020. The only person more fascist than the Biden

00:41:29.960 regime now is Nikki Haley, who thinks the government should identify every one of those individuals

00:41:35.560 with an ID. That is not freedom. That is fascism. Keep going, Michael.

00:41:41.420 I mean, that's about as ludicrous as it comes. I mean, this is something that we've expected from

00:41:45.320 the left for a very long time. If you've watched MSNBC over the past four years, and you've counted the

00:41:50.900 times that the word fascism has been used and Donald Trump has become, you know, compared to a

00:41:55.440 Nazi. I don't love it. As he says, I don't like identity politics on the right when they do it on

00:42:00.960 the left. I don't like fascism accusations on the right when it's so common on the left. He also kind

00:42:06.180 of referred to her as a Stalinist too, because he then invoked Orwell's 1984, which is obviously a

00:42:13.000 book about Stalinism. So yeah, that Vivek that showed up early and seemed to be like he was going to be

00:42:18.780 the first debate, Vivek, became even crazier than I had seen previously.

00:42:24.760 Yeah, no, second debate, Vivek, was the nice Vivek. Second debate, Vivek, was, yeah, I don't believe

00:42:30.720 in personal insults. That's what he said. I don't believe in personal insults. What happened to that

00:42:34.660 guy, Emily? He was not there. But you know what? He was handing out little golden nuggets to

00:42:39.340 Cormaga. That's what he was doing tonight. And I bet they ate up every single one of them. I haven't

00:42:43.460 even looked at Twitter, but I'm guessing they ate up every one.

00:42:46.120 Well, you know, yeah, I was going to say, actually, in a weird way, there's a benefit

00:42:50.340 to having Vivek on stage, because he really does represent Cormaga in a way that even Ron

00:42:55.560 DeSantis, who flirted with representing Cormaga, but then never really pulled it off, doesn't. And

00:43:01.800 so kind of pushing candidates on foreign policy in the way that Vivek does, listen, I don't think

00:43:06.840 it comes across as appealing, especially on a stage with four candidates. It was different

00:43:11.660 when it was the pure chaos of, you know, 10 people on the stage screaming at each other

00:43:16.680 incoherently. But when you have four people, you're constantly jumping in and being the loudest

00:43:21.800 person in the room. I just think it's a lot harder to pull that same act off. I thought

00:43:27.660 this debate felt like it had more gravity and seriousness to it, and he wasn't reading the

00:43:31.640 room super well. And I should also say, I'm going to need a spicy margarita to fall asleep

00:43:36.280 tonight after the vivid rendering of Vivek as Sybil that you just put in everyone's mind.

00:43:43.720 Megan, thank you.

00:43:45.460 I was referring to that as the Sybil question. I don't know what I'm getting, whatever.

00:43:49.920 You know, it's funny, you guys talk about the Cormaga, but I don't know whether he said

00:43:54.480 this when he was talking to you, but Ramaswamy is behind us right now, and he's appealing to

00:44:00.780 Ron Paul voters.

00:44:01.920 Yeah, he did mention Ron Paul.

00:44:03.580 So I think, and Michael, we're veering over into a libertarian space, so you can check me

00:44:12.680 up as we go. But so when we met Ron Paul as a 2008 and 2012 presidential candidate, we thought

00:44:20.960 it was about libertarianism, right? We thought, oh yeah, and the Fed and, you know, all this

00:44:24.840 stuff and foreign policy stuff. But there was also the undercurrent of not libertarian, but

00:44:30.080 just kooky, right? Just like the weird beard, unusual stuff that you're like, aliens? Or

00:44:35.700 like, what are we talking about? That's who I heard Vivek Ramaswamy. When he started talking

00:44:40.840 about Bitcoin. Well, yes, and it's just like the long litany of things where he was hitting

00:44:45.200 J6, there was like a long litany of buzzwords. He was like touching, like bam, bam, bam. 0.57

00:44:50.140 I was like, the YouTube censors are like, oh, oh.

00:44:54.200 You sounded like Michael Moynihan.

00:44:56.100 Yeah.

00:44:56.600 So why is he doing that?

00:44:59.460 So if you want to, there is already a core constituency for MAGA, but the libertarian and

00:45:09.220 libertarian adjacent space in the Republican Party is not served, right? They don't have

00:45:13.780 a candidate. They don't, because that's not Donald Trump and that's not MAGA. Nationalism

00:45:17.720 and libertarianism are not the same thing.

00:45:19.620 But there is a group of these people, especially younger people and especially very online people

00:45:24.000 that are interested in that. And if you can cultivate that, and look, I don't ever like

00:45:28.340 to impugn people's motives. I try to take people at their word. They say they're running

00:45:32.340 for president. I believe they're running for president. But if someone was trying to become

00:45:36.640 a media, a media sensation, if someone wanted to have a media life after this, this is a good

00:45:43.320 core group of people to cultivate, right? They're loyal. They're interested, high engagement

00:45:47.300 users.

00:45:47.940 Yeah.

00:45:48.260 And, and he said, when you asked him, like, what's the end game here? He's, when you get

00:45:53.320 out, he's not getting out.

00:45:54.800 He's not.

00:45:55.300 He's going to stay with...

00:45:55.920 Do you believe that? You know, they always say that.

00:45:57.460 Oh, yeah. I think this is...

00:45:58.520 He seems sincere.

00:45:59.460 I think this has become a bit of a vanity project for him, you know? He's, he's gotten

00:46:04.700 a lot of notoriety. I think he's, in his mind, he's pushing forward the, you know, the America

00:46:09.880 First agenda when Donald Trump's absent from, from the stage. But I think he's, he, he is

00:46:16.300 going to stick into it. I mean, if, if, if it was a spicy margarita, Vivek's like his

00:46:22.000 own, you know, wine cooler and three shots of fireball, I mean, he's just, he does, he

00:46:27.720 does, I'm hung over just you talking about that. But this is what he does. And I mean,

00:46:32.740 obviously, I think this is going to be the last debate and the last time that he'll get

00:46:35.280 to do it in this way. And he certainly went out with, with a bang. Although, I don't think

00:46:39.380 the audience appreciated some of the antics.

00:46:41.400 Yeah. Well, I was, it was hard to read the audience at times. They booed him a lot, but

00:46:45.100 then they cheered him at other times. They cheered for DeSantis way more than I thought

00:46:49.420 for an Alabama crowd given DeSantis and this lawsuit over the Florida team. I don't know.

00:46:54.980 These guys tried to explain it to me, but it's supposed to be a war right now between

00:46:58.820 Alabama and Florida and the crowd seemed to be a Florida crowd. Here's my question for

00:47:03.520 you guys though, over there on the zoom satellite. Did Vivek hurt Nikki? Because all night long

00:47:10.020 he punched and he punched and he punched and DeSantis punched too. But I wondered if at the

00:47:14.400 end of it, did they actually hurt her? Did, did the vague in particular hurt her?

00:47:18.960 No, I don't think so.

00:47:19.960 Okay, Michael go first because I disagree.

00:47:20.960 Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that him being lustily booed is, you know, lines up with his unfavorables.

00:47:28.680 I mean, people don't like that stuff very much. And I think that, you know, when they cheer

00:47:32.400 him, I mean, look, I can't stand Vivek for a lot of reasons, but I think that there's certain

00:47:37.200 things he said tonight, because I can be a kooky libertarian too, that are fairly sensible.

00:47:42.400 And he, when he calms down, when he stops doing that wrestling villain routine that he does,

00:47:48.160 he can be fairly sensible and fairly convincing. But to Chris's point, by the way, about the

00:47:52.560 libertarian thing, I think there's two things here and both of them are right. I mean, that

00:47:55.760 he does appear to the, try to appeal to the MAGA base. I mean, I was at a Trump rally in Detroit

00:48:02.160 two months ago, and it was the first time that I had heard Donald Trump repeatedly use the word

00:48:06.640 fascist, referring to Joe Biden as a fascist. And I said, oh, that's where Vivek is getting that from.

00:48:11.280 But the thing about the Ron Paul in like 2008, 2012, was who was Ron Paul appealing to?

00:48:16.560 What did Vivek say when he was talking to you after the debate? He said, I go to college campuses,

00:48:20.960 I go to frat houses. That's who Ron Paul was appealing to. He was a like octogenarian,

00:48:26.720 kind of Buchananite, paleo conservative, bit of libertarian. And there is a market for that.

00:48:32.480 And that's, you know, that's where Tucker has gone. That's where a lot of people have gone.

00:48:35.760 And that is, he's trying to gather people from both of those sides of the right.

00:48:41.040 I think Vivek is not just, I was gonna say, I think he's not just hurting Nikki Haley's candidacy.

00:48:45.440 I totally disagree with Michael on this. I think he's actually hurting Nikki Haley's future

00:48:49.440 political career. I don't think it's helpful for her to face, you know, accusations of joining the 0.72

00:48:53.920 board of Boeing. That's not even an accusation. It's absolutely true. This is not the time. This is

00:48:57.840 not the temperature of the Republican base to hear that over and over again about a candidate,

00:49:01.920 and then have your face juxtaposed with a notebook that says Nikki equals corrupt.

00:49:06.320 Just over and over having that repeated, I don't think is helpful for her. I think he slammed her 0.59

00:49:10.320 on the internet anonymity question. All of these things add up in a way that he's painting a picture

00:49:15.040 of her that appeals to the median Republican voter probably more than her message does. I do think

00:49:20.480 her message absolutely resonates in the suburbs with educated women. I think, you know, some people 0.97

00:49:24.880 would be wrong to dismiss that level of appeal. But with that core Republican voter right now,

00:49:30.320 I think he's really undercutting not just her candidacy, but her political career in the future.

00:49:34.720 JUDY WOODRUFF, stand by. Here's Nikki responding on stop-by on Boeing.

00:49:38.320 NIKKI HALEY- We weren't bankrupt when I left the U.N. We're people of service. My husband is in the

00:49:46.400 military, and I served our country as U.N. ambassador and governor. It may be bankrupt to him,

00:49:51.840 but it certainly wasn't bankrupt to us. Secondly, I did serve on the board of Boeing. I did a lot of work

00:49:57.520 with Boeing when I was governor. They were a great partner to me. I served for 10 months.

00:50:02.480 And then when they decided after COVID that they wanted to go for a corporate bailout,

00:50:07.040 I've never supported corporate bailout, so I respectfully stepped back and got off the board.

00:50:12.400 I love Boeing. They build good commercial airplanes. They build airplanes for our Air Force. I am proud

00:50:17.440 of them. They employ a lot of people in South Carolina. But that's why I left the Boeing board.

00:50:21.920 There's nothing to what he's saying. And in terms of these donors that are supporting me,

00:50:25.920 they're just jealous. They wish that they were supporting them.

00:50:30.640 They're jealous of me. They don't want me to have it. Keep going.

00:50:33.600 So what did you think? You didn't like that, Emily? Do you think that was effective?

00:50:36.720 Well, no, I don't think it's effective. Again, she really has to make that case in the context

00:50:43.360 of an election that Donald Trump is running away with this race. And it's not a Pete and Amy situation

00:50:49.280 where the RNC is collaborating behind the scenes to push absolutely everybody out and consolidate

00:50:54.560 voters that are anti-Trump behind Nikki Haley. If anyone, it would probably be Ron DeSantis stepping

00:51:00.160 into that position. And she's just that those past points in her career are very hard to defend

00:51:07.600 in this moment. And that is not helpful for her going forward to have Vivek Ramaswamy constantly

00:51:13.360 reminding people sometimes in hyperbolic terms, but constantly like bludgeoning her over the head,

00:51:18.320 metaphorically with that. I just don't think it's helpful.

00:51:21.760 Did you? I'm going to get you, Tom. Pete and Amy? Is that the Peter Strzok? What is that?

00:51:26.080 No, Pete Buttigieg. Oh, the Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. They were worried about Bernie

00:51:31.200 in the same way they were worried about Trump, and they got everyone behind them.

00:51:34.000 Yes, yes. I'm not on a first-name basis with them, so I like that you are. Thank you. What were

00:51:37.920 you going to say, Tom? They're close friends. I think the attacks hurt her a little bit tonight,

00:51:42.960 and for a couple of reasons. One, they were more substantive, at least on the issue of the donors.

00:51:51.520 But the other thing is this wasn't just, you know, Vivek going at Nikki Haley and, you know,

00:51:57.760 sort of in a personal way. DeSantis joined in. Yeah. I mean, it felt different because they were

00:52:02.640 together singing from the same sheet of music. She's beholden to donors. She's craving. I thought

00:52:07.520 when DeSantis hit her on China and, you know, how she was soft on China, according to him,

00:52:13.840 when she was governor of South Carolina. Those attacks seem to resonate to me a little differently.

00:52:19.440 They hit a little differently tonight, maybe a little harder, maybe cut a little deeper than some

00:52:23.760 of the attacks in the past that were just, you know, Vivek sort of flying off the handle.

00:52:27.120 That's it, especially because it's more effective when you don't do it a lot.

00:52:30.960 So when you do pipe up to fight and launch a serious attack, it can hurt more, right? It's like,

00:52:36.560 oh, wow, DeSantis is fighting tonight. He's got actually something to say. And he's very measured.

00:52:40.720 Like he doesn't, he's not hysterical. DeSantis is very measured. Definitely a good night for DeSantis,

00:52:46.160 but we have to remember it in this context. What does it cost you to get the ticket that you need

00:52:52.400 to go ahead? The ticket that Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley need to get go ahead from here

00:52:58.080 has nothing to do with Trump voters. They need them later. They'll need some Trump voters later

00:53:02.720 if they want to actually win the nomination. And certainly if somehow they managed to get

00:53:06.800 the nomination to win the presidency. But that's a problem that they're going to have to face in

00:53:11.280 March. The first problem that they have is, can you consolidate the part of the party that hates

00:53:16.880 Vivek Ramaswamy? Because there's a whole big chunk of the party that hates Vivek Ramaswamy

00:53:21.600 with the white hot passion of 10,000 suns. And it's only 25% or a third of the Republican party

00:53:29.120 that likes Nikki Haley and likes Boeing and likes that stuff and is okay with that. These are the

00:53:33.760 traditional Republicans. These are, as Emily referred to, college educated, more affluent voters.

00:53:40.240 They like Nikki Haley. They're fine with that. Ron DeSantis' problem in the premise of his candidacy

00:53:46.000 was at the beginning, he started from the wrong end of the elephant, right? He was going to go blow

00:53:52.080 up Donald Trump's coalition. I'm going to go blow up MAGA. I'm going to do culture war stuff all the

00:53:56.160 time. I'm going to suck up to them very online MAGA voters. I'm going to do all that stuff.

00:54:00.560 He failed to consolidate this part over here, right? So now he's sprinting back across to fight

00:54:06.960 with Nikki Haley before it's over. So he can say, well, let me consolidate this group.

00:54:11.280 He may succeed in doing that, but the first task for them, and it may be terminal, right? Emily

00:54:17.600 might be quite right that it may kill any chance of actually winning the nomination in the end,

00:54:22.640 but there's no way to even find out unless you can consolidate that other side of the party.

00:54:27.440 Right. They really are in a death match right now. So let's, let me shift gears and talk about

00:54:31.520 the trans issue, which really has been given no or at a minimum short shrift in all these other

00:54:37.520 debates. And it's, I mean, it's a huge issue for, I think a lot of voters, not just Republicans.

00:54:42.160 I have a lot of Democrats who contact me because I'm very outspoken on it to say, keep going, keep

00:54:46.320 going. Um, so Chris Christie, I will, I confess to you, I was dying for him to make the debate.

00:54:54.000 I wanted him up there very badly because I knew what an outlier he was on this issue.

00:54:59.840 So I prayed Tom Bevin. I, I prayed to real clear politics every day to tell me that he was going

00:55:05.520 to be over 6% in the national and the New Hampshire poll. And at the last minute it happened. And I,

00:55:14.480 I, I was just dying to ask him my questions and I did. I was not wrong as he suggested, but it was the

00:55:21.920 first question that I really needed to ask him. Here it is. Sat 9. You do not favor a ban on trans

00:55:28.800 medical treatments for minors, saying it's a parental rights issue. The surgeries done on

00:55:34.160 minors involve cutting off body parts at a time when these kids cannot even legally smoke a cigarette.

00:55:40.640 Kids who go from puberty blockers to cross sex hormones are at a much greater likelihood

00:55:45.280 of winding up sterile. How is it that you think a parent should be able to okay these surgeries,

00:55:51.440 nevermind the sterilization of a child? Republicans believe in less government, not more,

00:55:57.280 in government involvement in people's lives. And you know what, Megan? I trust parents.

00:56:05.760 And we're out there saying that we should empower parents in education. We should empower parents to

00:56:10.400 make more decisions about where their kids go to school. I agree. We should empower parents to be

00:56:15.200 teaching the values that they believe in, in their homes, without the government telling them what

00:56:20.080 those values should be. And yet we want to take other parental rights away. And we're going to put

00:56:26.320 my children's health and my decisions in their hands for them to make those decisions, for Joe Biden

00:56:33.360 to make those decisions. For me and for my wife, let me just say this. This is not something I favor.

00:56:39.760 I think it's a very, very dangerous thing to do. Okay. So I will tell you,

00:56:48.080 if he really had any chance at getting the Republican nomination, I think it died right there.

00:56:54.160 I don't think the Republican Party will nominate somebody with that position. I really don't.

00:56:58.640 And I think that's one of the reasons why Nikki Haley came out very forcefully tonight. And it was for the first time to say,

00:57:03.760 hell no, not only no, but hell no. And look, I give him credit for being honest about his position

00:57:09.680 and defending it. I really do. But I just think this Republican Party, that's going to be a hard no.

00:57:15.440 He's being backed mostly by Democrats as I raised, you know, he doesn't have the support of the

00:57:19.840 Republican Party. The numbers behind him in New Hampshire are mostly Democrats. So I wonder though,

00:57:24.960 Emily, whether this issue is going to explode for the Christie campaign. Is this going to keep

00:57:30.560 coming up more and more now? Or is the mainstream press still going to be too scared to ask him and

00:57:36.800 others about it? You know, that's the thing. Like they'll, they'll happily ask people about it,

00:57:42.000 but not with the proper framing as you did right there, the sharpest question on this that they've

00:57:47.120 faced so far. And Chris Christie's answer was really good in the sense that that's the best he can do

00:57:53.280 with that position. I do think that's sincerely his position. And that was the best possible way

00:57:57.840 you can handle having this horrible position morally and politically on the issue. I thought

00:58:02.960 he handled it as best as he could have. But I don't know going forward because most of the corporate

00:58:08.080 press agrees with the answer that he just gave. In fact, I saw people from the corporate press,

00:58:12.560 Alyssa Farah over at The View reacting very positively to what Chris Christie had just said about trans kids.

00:58:19.040 So I think it could explode for him in the sense that the media devotes even more airtime. He's

00:58:24.240 already getting disproportionate airtime in corporate press. They devote even more airtime

00:58:28.640 to Chris Christie fawning over him and saying, this is the brave man who is standing up against those

00:58:33.840 MAGA rubes in the conservative wing of the Republican Party. So maybe it could almost,

00:58:39.600 you know, hurt him in that way or backfire in that way.

00:58:42.640 It's not just MAGA rubes. What were you going to say? I know you know that.

00:58:45.840 This, this struck me as an Obama answer. Sounds great. And then you kind of think

00:58:51.040 about it for a second, you scratch the surface and you're like, wait a minute, like, really?

00:58:55.440 Is it okay, Chris Christie, if, you know, parents let their kids drink? Five-year-old, give them a,

00:59:01.760 give them a, you know, shot of whiskey, give them a cigarette, give them drugs? Like,

00:59:06.000 of course not, right? His, his premise is sort of absurd. Like, we're not going to let the government

00:59:11.760 come in and tell us what we can do as parents, our values, whatever our values are. The government

00:59:16.640 does it all the time. We set limits on all sorts of things for kids, right? That's so, so in that

00:59:22.080 sense, it's kind of, um, again, it sounds good as he gives it and you're like, oh yeah, we're all for

00:59:27.360 parents. And then, and then you think about it for a second and you're like, well, that doesn't make any

00:59:30.080 sense. If the kid really wanted to cut off his arm, he's desperate to cut off his arm. And should the

00:59:33.840 law allow the, it's parental rights. The parents should be able to make that decision, Moynihan. That's

00:59:38.160 basically what he's saying. I would modify what you said at the beginning slightly and said,

00:59:42.640 this doesn't play with Republicans. It doesn't play with a lot of Democrats too. I mean, if you

00:59:46.000 look at opinion polling on this stuff, this is a culture war issue. If handled in the right way,

00:59:51.600 you can get bipartisan support, not huge bipartisan support, but you know, bipartisan support. Disney,

00:59:56.640 you go after Disney and people say, well, you know, I like some of their movies. I like some of

01:00:00.000 that Disney stuff. When you talk about, you know, you want to see these people up in the pyramid,

01:00:05.280 number one, number two, number three in a bike race, and two of them are biological males.

01:00:09.680 That resonates with almost everybody. It's a very simple thing. The thing that,

01:00:13.840 about Christie's answer is what he does is he takes something that I very much agree with,

01:00:19.120 which is keeping the government out of our business, but it's not school choice. I mean,

01:00:24.080 he's saying that, you know, look, the government shouldn't tell you where your kid goes to school.

01:00:27.520 I'm a school choice person. I agree. This is not the same thing. And I think that that's

01:00:32.320 pretty obvious to most Republican voters. And I think that's obviously kind of obvious when you

01:00:36.640 look at opinion pollings to a lot of sort of centrist swing voters and people that are kind of

01:00:41.680 traditional Democrats. I have a question for you on a different subject. So the opening round of this

01:00:49.200 debate was on electability. And we did a lot of internal debate about, do we like that? Is that

01:00:54.240 good? And we did like that because nobody's done it so far. And the right thing to do. Yeah. And it was

01:00:58.880 what we did not anticipate to the extent that it happened was that it was going to fire everybody

01:01:04.480 up. And that worked out great. I was thrilled. I didn't know whether the others would want in.

01:01:09.040 We kind of hoped. Yeah. We were in the truck, like ripping up, tearing apart the rundown,

01:01:13.760 like we remaking, remaking, remaking, redo, redo, redo. Right. You know how they say that when Alfred

01:01:21.280 Hitchcock talked about suspense, that suspense is when the audience knows the bomb is on the train,

01:01:28.640 but the people on the train don't. Right. That that's suspense. Well, for us in the truck,

01:01:34.800 when you said to Chris Christie, okay, here's your question, your first question that you just played

01:01:41.200 there. And he answered it. I know it was like, because we knew what the follow up was. And he's

01:01:49.760 like, parents rights and this, and I believe in parents rights. And I was like,

01:01:56.560 he's doomed. There's going to be a murder in the building. He's sprinting into this question.

01:02:03.840 It's like, and the bomb then blew up on him. And it was like that. Um, I, I think the first,

01:02:11.760 their desire to fight. Right. And by the way, this is why I'm a proponent of more debates,

01:02:16.800 not fewer debates. Yeah. There's just, there are ill humors that have to be purged. Right.

01:02:23.120 You just have to get it out. You just have to get it out. And what you guys did so well tonight,

01:02:28.480 like, okay, get your spleens out. Yeah. Go for that. Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. And by the way,

01:02:34.160 get all your dumb canned one-liners, your corny stunts, get them all out. Say all your dumb stuff.

01:02:40.160 Okay. Are we done now? Have you finished saying all of the things that somebody in the car over

01:02:45.040 here was like, Oh yeah. And you should say that he, and you should call him fat and you should do blah,

01:02:49.040 blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. We're done. Great. Now let's talk about Obamacare. Now let's talk about

01:02:56.320 trans. Now let's talk about and move through all that stuff and did it in a substantive way.

01:03:00.640 And again, I know I'm insanely biased, but this was a debate that included both

01:03:06.160 the wildest wild, right? This was Mr. Toad's wild ride for the first part. And then the most

01:03:12.080 substantive. Yeah. I mean, I thought it was very substantive too. And we lucked out because they

01:03:15.760 came to play. The electability stuff for me was exciting because you really do get to zero in on

01:03:22.000 what, I mean, I asked myself for months, I mean, what is it that's going to stand in the way of

01:03:27.520 this person making it other than Trump? Trump obviously is the big, the big thing. And I will

01:03:33.200 tell you for Ron DeSantis, I struggled a lot because I really wanted to go to his failure to connect with

01:03:37.440 voters, his failure to connect with on retail politics. But in the end, we just weren't sure,

01:03:43.120 like you can't craft a question like that without being very opinionated. You know, it's like me being

01:03:48.320 like, you're not a retail politics person. People don't like you in the way that you need. Yeah,

01:03:53.120 you're lame. Like that doesn't, no, that's, you can't, you got to stick to facts and his numbers

01:03:57.360 are just so dreadful. Anyway, we have a little clip of some of the, the opening questions to them.

01:04:02.880 Let's watch. We begin with the question of electability. Governor DeSantis, your campaign

01:04:11.280 and its super PAC have spent the most money, had the most high net worth donors, and had a wave

01:04:16.880 of momentum coming into this race after your big reelection win in Florida. You were seen by many

01:04:22.480 as the candidate most likely to consolidate the non-Trump field. But here we are a month out from

01:04:28.160 the first real votes and you haven't managed to do it. The voters actually make these decisions,

01:04:33.840 not pundits or pollsters. I'm sick of hearing about these polls because I remember those polls

01:04:39.360 in November of 2022. They said there was going to be a big red wave. It was going to be monumental

01:04:44.880 and that crashed and burned. The one place it didn't crash and burn was in the state of Florida.

01:04:50.160 You left government service in 2018 with just $100,000 in the bank. Five years later,

01:04:55.440 you're reportedly worth $8 million, thanks to lucrative corporate speeches and board memberships

01:05:00.560 like you had with Boeing. Weeks ago, you met with Wall Street heavyweights, including leaders from J.P.

01:05:05.840 Morgan, Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. Aren't you too tight with the banks and the billionaires

01:05:11.040 to win over the GOP's working class base, which mostly wants to break the system,

01:05:15.600 not elect someone beholden to it? In reference to donors coming on board, look,

01:05:20.960 we will take support from anybody we can take support from. But I have been a conservative

01:05:25.680 fighter all my life. Mr. Ramaswamy, for months you campaigned as a unifier. The second debate,

01:05:32.160 you changed your tune saying these are good people on this stage, admitting you can come across as a bit

01:05:36.880 of a know-it-all and rejecting the practice of personal insults. Megan, I think there's a time

01:05:42.000 and place for everything. We need somebody in the White House who absolutely is going to be

01:05:46.640 a fighter when it counts. And I did say that there were some good people on that stage in that third

01:05:50.960 debate. Doug Burgum was on that stage at that time. And I'll say that jokingly. Ron DeSantis is a good

01:05:56.000 person too. It's fun to rewatch it and relive it. Tom Bevan, what do you think of Ron DeSantis? He went

01:06:05.520 after your neck of the woods. The polls crashed and burned in 2022. I thought it was a pretty good

01:06:09.120 answer. His theory of the case, the thing that he's making is, listen, he's done the full Grassley,

01:06:16.320 he's got Vander Plaats' machine, he's got Kim Reynolds' machine, and that's not being picked

01:06:20.800 up by the polls and it's going to show up big for him on January 15th. It's possible. I mean,

01:06:27.360 we've seen that can happen. And we've seen surprises in Iowa before. So I think he was right to push back

01:06:34.000 on the polls because they're not, I mean, listen, if the polls were in his favor, he'd be touting

01:06:37.920 them all over the place, but they're not. So he's making the best argument that he can.

01:06:41.520 That's what you have to do as a politician. It's pretty clear. Well, you guys, thank you all.

01:06:45.440 Thank you so much. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Tom, Emily. You're the best. Michael,

01:06:50.400 love you. Thanks to all of you. And thanks to all of you for joining me live on SiriusXM

01:06:54.720 and YouTube. And we're going to be back tomorrow with our normal program at our normal time.

01:06:58.560 We are live on SiriusXM at noon, Monday through Friday. And then we drop the show as a podcast,

01:07:04.080 just a short time after that. And on YouTube, you can get it in any number of ways with much,

01:07:08.720 much more debate analysis and more. Thanks to all of you. All the best.

01:07:18.800 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:07:28.560 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:07:29.680 Thanks, man.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 07, 2023

Post-Debate Spin Room Special, with Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Emily Jashinsky, Michael Moynihan, Tom Bevan, and Chris Stirewalt

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