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

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.

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

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.

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,

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

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,

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript