The Megyn Kelly Show - Secrets of Trump's Ground Game Success, with Ashley Hayek, and Sen. Rick Scott Makes Senate Leader Case ｜ Ep. 942

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00:00:32.960 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:00:35.860 Until our names are cleared.

00:00:38.440 We're fugitives from interval.

00:00:40.240 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:00:43.620 Espionage?

00:00:44.320 You still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:00:47.340 Better.

00:00:48.160 Is there love language?

00:00:49.620 We like to walk that fine line between techno thriller and romantic comedy.

00:00:54.420 We make up our own rules.

00:00:56.720 NCIS Tony and Ziva.

00:00:58.180 Now streaming on Paramount+.

00:01:00.200 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:01:03.300 Live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:01:06.980 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:01:14.680 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:01:16.140 The election was just one week ago.

00:01:19.040 And Mar-a-Lago is now the center of the political universe.

00:01:21.940 As president-elect, Donald Trump is quickly making picks for his next administration.

00:01:27.080 Will it be Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State?

00:01:31.320 The New York Times broke the story.

00:01:33.640 We haven't yet seen a Trump truth on it.

00:01:38.200 He's starting to get congratulations now from people like Byron Donalds, who's a surrogate

00:01:44.440 for Donald Trump.

00:01:45.540 And is also a Floridian.

00:01:49.280 And some are kicking his name around as a possible Rubio replacement in the Senate.

00:01:54.740 So maybe it's just a matter of time.

00:01:56.940 Maybe it's not correct information.

00:01:58.280 We just don't fully know until we hear from Donald Trump.

00:02:02.240 Or maybe we'll know in just a bit because I'll be joined by another U.S. senator from Florida,

00:02:08.440 Rick Scott.

00:02:08.960 But he is here to talk about the leadership elections that are happening tomorrow morning.

00:02:14.060 This time tomorrow, he'll be in the U.S. Senate, and they'll be voting on who's going to be

00:02:17.320 the next Mitch McConnell.

00:02:19.060 You know, Mitch McConnell, of course, now the minority leader.

00:02:22.220 And now the Republicans have won control of the Senate, so they need to find a majority

00:02:28.080 leader.

00:02:28.660 Mitch McConnell has already announced, he did, I think it was February, that he's going to

00:02:32.320 be stepping down.

00:02:33.420 He's going to stay in his role as a senator, but he's going to be stepping down from leadership.

00:02:36.700 And there's a bunch of, there's some palace intrigue here because Thune, John Thune, and

00:02:44.400 John Cornyn are his chief rivals, Rick Scott's chief rivals for this role.

00:02:49.180 And they're seen as more establishment.

00:02:51.980 Rick Scott is seen as more Trumpy, more MAGA.

00:02:55.520 And he's got a lot of support.

00:02:58.300 Elon tweeted out his support for Rick Scott.

00:03:00.380 Tucker tweeted out his support for Rick Scott.

00:03:02.860 You've got a bunch of pro-MAGA fans on X pushing for Rick Scott.

00:03:09.480 But then you've got a lot of people who are not on board.

00:03:13.800 I think Josh Hawley is backing Cornyn.

00:03:17.140 And Thune is reportedly the quiet favorite because he's well-liked amongst the senators.

00:03:22.760 And it's a secret ballot, you see.

00:03:24.740 So they can vote for whomever they want.

00:03:27.200 Anyway, it's all getting kind of interesting.

00:03:28.400 Will these other senators who aren't as pro-MAGA as Rick Scott push the Trump agenda?

00:03:36.640 Will they, can they be relied upon to stand shoulder to shoulder with Trump as he gets

00:03:41.940 through his legislation, some of which undoubtedly will be controversial?

00:03:46.000 Or will they be fair weather fans?

00:03:48.340 Will they be more Susan Collins-ish or Mitt Romney-ish?

00:03:52.260 That's, that's the concern by some.

00:03:55.960 Rick Scott is, of course, you know, getting a ton of support from the online right.

00:04:00.660 And we're going to ask him all about what he thinks the dynamics are at play are.

00:04:05.280 He's in an interesting position in this interview because he doesn't want to alienate his fellow

00:04:08.420 senators, right?

00:04:09.560 But he definitely wants Thune and Cornyn not to win.

00:04:13.120 So this will be kind of a fun one to listen to.

00:04:17.380 The October 15th tax deadline has come and gone.

00:04:20.580 Are you prepared for what's coming?

00:04:22.380 Do you owe back taxes?

00:04:23.780 Are your tax returns still unfiled?

00:04:25.740 Missed the deadline to file for an extension?

00:04:28.300 Now that October 15th is behind us, the IRS may be ramping up enforcement.

00:04:32.480 You could face wage garnishments, frozen bank accounts, or even property seizures if you

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00:04:48.080 So visit TNUSA.com slash Megan or call 1-800-958-1000 for a free consultation.

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00:05:03.280 Take control and visit TNUSA.com slash Megan or call 1-800-958-1000.

00:05:08.640 In the meantime, I want to get you up to speed on all the things that are happening in the

00:05:14.220 world news-wise.

00:05:15.600 Let's just start with what's happening with FEMA.

00:05:17.940 An extraordinary development here over the past couple of days.

00:05:21.580 So FEMA, as you know, is responsible for helping Americans in the wake of natural disasters,

00:05:26.480 including the hurricanes that we saw come through Florida twice.

00:05:29.640 And the first one hit North Carolina badly, too.

00:05:33.100 And there were claims by Donald Trump and others that FEMA was not getting help to Republican

00:05:43.680 households intentionally, like that they were skipping over Republican households and ignoring

00:05:50.020 Republican households.

00:05:51.260 And this led to a spate of articles on the left by the New York Times and others saying,

00:05:55.980 these are lies.

00:05:57.480 There's no evidence, no evidence.

00:05:58.720 So to their credit, the Daily Wire sent a reporter down there to Florida in particular

00:06:05.240 to start actually knocking on doors and figuring out what was going on and do some investigative

00:06:10.720 reporting.

00:06:11.380 And they found it was true that FEMA was intentionally skipping houses that had Trump signs on their

00:06:23.300 front lawns.

00:06:24.080 It's pretty remarkable.

00:06:25.280 And not only that, but they found internal correspondence showing the supervisor, the FEMA supervisor

00:06:31.800 on site, telling people to skip the houses with the Trump signs.

00:06:37.360 So it seems pretty clear.

00:06:39.760 What did FEMA do? 1.00

00:06:41.020 They fired the woman. 0.99

00:06:42.760 And now the woman, she's a supervisor who was fired. 1.00

00:06:46.880 And it's all in writing, you know, it was her telling them to skip the Trump houses, the

00:06:50.740 ones with the signs.

00:06:51.340 Now the woman speaking out saying, look, I'm a patsy. 0.99

00:06:56.100 They told me skip the Trump signs houses.

00:07:00.140 And she's claiming this all had to do with, you know, a house here or there didn't want

00:07:05.380 her help or said something not nice to the FEMA workers.

00:07:08.660 And therefore, it was a safety issue, which is sounds like a complete CYA.

00:07:12.500 You know, if you really don't want FEMA there, you're supposed to paint some like a purple

00:07:17.000 X on your house.

00:07:18.620 And then FEMA knows not to come.

00:07:21.180 A Trump sign is not a purple X.

00:07:23.720 And just because some Trump supporter says to you, what are you doing here?

00:07:27.500 Or I know you guys don't like Republicans or something less than I love you, FEMA, doesn't

00:07:32.640 mean you get to skip them, madam and FEMA.

00:07:36.000 So the only question really to be investigated at this point is how high does this go?

00:07:41.200 Because she's saying it went up higher than her and that she's being scapegoated and how

00:07:47.800 much rot needs to be cleaned out at FEMA.

00:07:51.320 Because political messaging from one of the people that they're not huge fans of FEMA is

00:07:58.140 not grounds for skipping their homes and nor are there Trump signs.

00:08:03.580 So we need to get to the bottom of what's going on here because there will be more natural

00:08:09.360 disasters.

00:08:09.900 And just because Trump is president-elect doesn't mean he will instantaneously be able to get

00:08:15.700 to the bottom of the rot that's in so many of these federal agencies.

00:08:20.060 The absolute loathing for him, yes, and for the right half of the country.

00:08:27.280 Uh, okay.

00:08:28.980 In other news, Kamala Harris in the news this week for among other reasons, having run her 1.00

00:08:35.000 billion dollar campaign down to the studs when it comes to her cash, she's reportedly 1.00

00:08:40.680 $20 million in debt.

00:08:42.100 We told you the story the other day.

00:08:43.480 Well, now the reports are that she blew the vast majority of that last 20 million on stars. 0.99

00:08:51.700 Now, so far, we've only had one star deny receiving a direct payment, and that person

00:08:59.660 is Oprah Winfrey.

00:09:01.220 Uh, the reporting is, and we've seen the verification, um, via various publications that Harpo Productions,

00:09:09.120 her production company, was paid a million dollars for that farce of a town hall that Oprah put 1.00

00:09:14.260 on.

00:09:15.020 What a joke.

00:09:16.140 How, so Oprah's production company got a million dollars to put that thing on. 0.99

00:09:22.800 Now, it was on TMZ today, either TMZ or one of their, you know, contractors caught up with

00:09:29.440 Oprah and said, Hey, heard you got a million dollars.

00:09:31.440 She said, no, I didn't get paid anything.

00:09:33.360 She didn't mention that her company got a million dollars.

00:09:36.660 You omitted that Oprah.

00:09:39.180 It was like threading the needle.

00:09:42.080 Um, so she didn't take personal payment.

00:09:44.800 She claimed now look at this set that cost a million dollars and the Kamala Harris campaign

00:09:52.300 paid for all of it.

00:09:53.020 And it looks like a nice set.

00:09:53.880 They've got all the video monitors.

00:09:55.220 I don't get it.

00:09:56.820 Why wouldn't Oprah have used her production company, her set?

00:10:01.960 Um, so maybe that's what it costs maybe to do a photo shoot or a sit downtown hall with

00:10:06.740 Oprah Winfrey. 0.99

00:10:07.260 It costs a million damn dollars. 0.98

00:10:09.700 Let me tell you something, people, this is yet another piece of evidence that Oprah Winfrey 0.99

00:10:17.200 is fake news.

00:10:19.620 News people do not require the campaign to pay us so we can interview them.

00:10:27.400 I did a town hall of sorts in this election when I sat down with the Tim Wall's stolen

00:10:33.560 Valor, former colleagues.

00:10:37.120 Do you think I charged them to set up this?

00:10:40.180 No, I didn't.

00:10:41.660 Megyn Kelly paid for it.

00:10:42.960 The Megyn Kelly show along with Sirius XM.

00:10:46.060 F these.

00:10:46.480 What is happening here?

00:10:48.100 It's just a way of lining your pocket like wink, wink.

00:10:52.120 Oprah sure would be great if you would set up this town hall for us and we'll pay you 0.97

00:10:56.500 a million dollars for your beautiful set and then maybe you could endorse us.

00:11:02.180 There's a report out now that, um, oh my God, who was it?

00:11:07.360 Which performer got $5 million for the song and dance they did?

00:11:13.620 Beyonce?

00:11:14.200 No, I thought it was somebody else.

00:11:16.060 Anyway, no, it wasn't Beyonce.

00:11:17.680 It was one of these other performers.

00:11:19.460 Um, who was the one early on in the blue suit?

00:11:22.100 She got up there and did all of her dancing.

00:11:23.620 It wasn't Cardi B.

00:11:24.800 Yes.

00:11:25.400 Megan Thee Stallion.

00:11:26.500 Yeah.

00:11:26.940 There's a report that she got $5 million for this.

00:11:30.480 Now let's find out whether she denies it Oprah style. 1.00

00:11:33.860 Oh, it was a $5 million for my outfit.

00:11:37.160 Who else got paid by this campaign? 0.92

00:11:40.420 And why won't Oprah just tell us the truth?

00:11:44.240 Her production company got a million dollars.

00:11:48.400 Then there's a report that $100,000 of the money went to build the set for the sex podcast.

00:11:56.500 Girl, that, that when Kamala Harris went on with a sex podcaster, the Harris team paid $100,000 for this. 1.00

00:12:06.840 Would you look?

00:12:07.360 If you are listening to the show on SiriusXM, please, I beg of you, go to YouTube later.

00:12:11.540 Go, go to 10 past the hour and you tell me how this cost $100,000.

00:12:16.440 If I give you $100,000 to redo your home, you could probably redo half of the rooms in it with lovely furnishings for that.

00:12:25.460 Now, this is reportedly a hotel room.

00:12:28.720 One, can we show it again?

00:12:30.420 One hotel room.

00:12:32.420 This is what they did.

00:12:33.880 They've got little letters that, that have the name of the podcast.

00:12:37.080 They've got some lights and some books and some plants.

00:12:41.460 How did that cost $100,000?

00:12:44.360 So this is either the case of absolute waste where nobody mined the shop and Democrat donors, you might want to pay attention to that.

00:12:54.320 Or there's some sort of fraud going on here where the Harris campaign was paying people off.

00:13:00.320 I don't know which it was, and we should find out the full accounting because the campaigns are not allowed to keep this secret from the rest of us.

00:13:10.240 We're supposed to know what they spend the donors' money on.

00:13:14.040 So we will wait to hear how much it really costs to get Oprah to behave in the following way. 0.99

00:13:23.020 Stop five.

00:13:23.460 Stop five.

00:13:53.460 Please welcome Kamala Hara.

00:14:07.060 Totally feckless. 1.00

00:14:08.380 But by the way, did J-Lo get a payment for that?

00:14:10.640 Did Chris Rock get a payment for that?

00:14:12.100 Did anybody get paid for these endorsements that we were led to believe were just completely organic? 0.98

00:14:17.040 I mean, do we really care because they're all losers? 0.83

00:14:21.280 They lost badly and have been rendered utterly powerless and feckless in the eyes of the electorate. 0.98

00:14:28.140 Nobody will be asking for their endorsement again.

00:14:30.680 No one's smart.

00:14:32.260 I mean, no one who wants to win.

00:14:33.980 It's funny because there's already a Democratic primary underway for 2028.

00:14:37.280 Believe it or not, yes, there is.

00:14:38.420 Um, and it's people like Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsom out in California is already organizing his resistance to Trump's agenda.

00:14:48.780 Good luck, sir.

00:14:50.080 The California liberal has already been rejected resoundingly by the electorate. 1.00

00:14:56.280 Why would the Democrats be so stupid as to elect another one next go around? 1.00

00:15:01.560 Your little widow's peak does not distinguish you that much. 1.00

00:15:05.740 And it may be hard to believe he's even more radical than Kamala Harris is. 0.99

00:15:11.100 His crazy ass gender stuff is even more radical than hers was. 1.00

00:15:16.720 He, it's not going to be Gavin Newsom. 0.99

00:15:18.700 So now you've got all these early, uh, Andy Beshear, uh, red state blue governor is out there already.

00:15:24.580 Like, I know, I understand the electorate.

00:15:26.500 I told you about this, uh, Chris Murphy in Connecticut yesterday.

00:15:28.920 Like I understand, doesn't mention the trans thing at all.

00:15:31.460 I'll be here to remind them.

00:15:32.620 Don't worry, Senator Murphy.

00:15:33.600 I'll be here to remind them.

00:15:34.940 You don't worry about a thing.

00:15:36.380 You can omit it from all your op-eds.

00:15:38.240 We, we have a lot of listeners in Connecticut, a lot, and many are your voters, but they won't

00:15:45.440 be for long.

00:15:46.060 If you don't get on the right side of this thing, they won't be because you're losing.

00:15:49.940 We pointed out yesterday, the swing state voters, the number one issue was the trans

00:15:55.040 thing boys and girls sports.

00:15:57.400 So good luck holding the line on that, sir.

00:16:00.640 And speaking of that, we've been talking about this guy, Seth Moulton.

00:16:05.160 He's a Democrat in Massachusetts who has now come out.

00:16:10.160 I mean, he's basically now Riley Gaines.

00:16:12.500 He's coming.

00:16:13.740 I just don't want my daughters to have to deal.

00:16:16.600 And we've been pointing out his, his hypocrisy because he has been not only he wasn't neutral

00:16:21.860 on this issue prior now.

00:16:23.360 He was actively pushing legislation that would mandate men in women's sports mandated and

00:16:30.220 actively opposing the bills that would have stopped it.

00:16:33.980 And now he tells us, oh, he's been worried about his daughters all along.

00:16:37.000 Well, why didn't you protect them? 1.00

00:16:38.120 You feckless fool. 1.00

00:16:39.840 Why didn't you do anything? 1.00

00:16:40.640 Why did you, you were on the wrong side.

00:16:42.360 You would rather have seen your daughters get hurt than lose your election or risk alienating

00:16:48.120 your voters.

00:16:49.200 What kind of a man are you?

00:16:51.600 So he's still out there.

00:16:52.960 He goes on with Scarborough, who's also pretending like he's just this like non-woke, you know,

00:16:59.560 voice of reason who tried to speak to the Democrats about how to market this campaign.

00:17:03.620 Just nobody listened to him.

00:17:04.980 I got the revisionist history of these.

00:17:08.320 Watch.

00:17:09.060 Sot one. 0.58

00:17:09.500 But I remember several years ago saying on this show that a male who transitions after

00:17:21.460 puberty should not compete against young women, young girls. 0.81

00:17:27.700 Eighty five percent of Americans agree with that.

00:17:30.180 That doesn't make them hate mongers. 0.83

00:17:31.900 Maybe you will never understand why that issue, why the border issue, why the crime issue,

00:17:39.760 why all of these other issues, the defund the police, as James Carville said, all these

00:17:45.580 things added up.

00:17:46.500 This is just everything that's wrong with this cancel culture.

00:17:50.500 They're canceling the views of a vast majority of Americans.

00:17:54.620 The founders had this crazy concept called freedom of speech.

00:17:57.780 We can't talk about these tough issues.

00:17:59.720 We're never going to win on them.

00:18:00.740 And guess what?

00:18:01.300 You know who's going to get hurt the most? 0.97

00:18:03.160 It's it's trans kids. 0.99

00:18:04.760 That's what Harris's problem was.

00:18:06.000 She didn't have a response to this issue because she was so afraid to even raise it.

00:18:10.960 OK, what side are you?

00:18:12.740 It's how are the trans kids going to get hurt? 0.90

00:18:14.520 The girls are going to get hit the most. 1.00

00:18:17.180 The girls like Peyton McNabb in North Carolina with the traumatic brain injury and permanent

00:18:22.960 Peral. 0.81

00:18:23.380 Those are the this guy will say anything.

00:18:26.640 These politicians are absolutely ruthless in how they will say whatever they need to say,

00:18:35.840 depending on which way the wind is blowing.

00:18:37.900 Don't believe them.

00:18:39.260 Don't believe them.

00:18:40.360 This guy's facing backlash already.

00:18:42.120 This Seth Moulton.

00:18:43.400 He's been some staffers have quit.

00:18:46.620 And he's also seeing some LGBTQ groups push back against him.

00:18:52.720 Is it Tufts University?

00:18:54.040 I think it's Tufts came out and attacked him for these comments.

00:18:59.060 OK, good luck, because you can't thread this one.

00:19:03.680 This is not a needle that can be threaded.

00:19:05.520 You cannot say that this is for the protection of trans kids.

00:19:08.500 This is for the protection of girls.

00:19:09.960 You're going to have to learn how to say it like you did the first time.

00:19:12.720 And then you got the backlash and now you're changing your messaging.

00:19:15.380 My point to the audience is they don't get it.

00:19:17.920 They don't understand how strongly people feel about this.

00:19:21.160 They don't understand that it's an issue from the heart, that it's moms and dads.

00:19:25.620 It's blacks. 1.00

00:19:26.460 It's whites. 0.98

00:19:26.920 It's Hispanics. 0.98

00:19:27.760 It cuts across all cultural lines.

00:19:29.620 It's Muslims.

00:19:30.360 It's Arabs. 0.79

00:19:31.020 We have a guest coming on second hour who helped get Trump elected, who worked in Arab

00:19:35.260 communities, her group, getting them out to vote because they're sick of this and the

00:19:39.640 porn in schools.

00:19:40.640 They have more conservative like these two out there trying to pretend that they got

00:19:44.840 it all along and they're the you know, they're going to be the moral guides for their this

00:19:50.880 party to come back.

00:19:52.180 All the best to you, people.

00:19:53.680 You're going to need it.

00:19:54.860 OK, quick break.

00:19:55.780 When we come back, United States Senator Rick Scott.

00:19:58.980 Trust in media is at an all time low and for very good reason.

00:20:03.320 Stories can be shaped or even buried depending on who is in charge.

00:20:06.680 This is why Ground News exists, a platform prioritizing transparency, allowing users to see the full

00:20:13.360 picture without filters.

00:20:15.280 Ground News is an app and a website that aggregates related articles from around the world, highlighting

00:20:20.600 each source's political bias and corporate influence.

00:20:23.320 It also reveals stories underreported by one side of the political spectrum.

00:20:27.820 For example, Ben Shapiro recently accused The New York Times of trying to silence conservatives

00:20:32.400 on YouTube and left-leaning media shockingly barely covered this.

00:20:37.560 Ground News shows that over 75 percent of the coverage came from right-leaning sources.

00:20:43.260 Ground News has an entire blind spot feed with stories like this, revealing how media narratives

00:20:48.160 shape the conversation.

00:20:49.880 This year, they are offering a 50 percent discount on their Vantage plan, giving unlimited access to

00:20:54.800 their website and app.

00:20:56.320 Check them out at groundnews.com slash Megan.

00:20:59.140 That's groundnews, G-R-O-U-N-D news dot com slash M-E-G-Y-N to take control of the news

00:21:04.740 that you consume.

00:21:06.660 Now streaming on Paramount+.

00:21:08.780 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:21:11.740 Until our names are cleared.

00:21:14.300 We're fugitives from interval.

00:21:16.100 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:21:19.500 Espionage?

00:21:20.180 You still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:21:23.220 Better.

00:21:24.000 Is there love language?

00:21:25.480 We like to walk that fine line between techno-thrillers.

00:21:29.140 Romantic comedy.

00:21:30.760 We make up our own rules.

00:21:32.560 NCIS Tony and Ziva, now streaming on Paramount+.

00:21:36.100 Tomorrow morning, Republican senators are expected to select their new leader, now that they're

00:21:45.020 in the majority, yay, to replace outgoing leader Mitch McConnell.

00:21:49.940 A role that will be key to helping Trump get his aggressive agenda passed.

00:21:54.440 Not everybody in the Senate is as conservative as the MAGA wing of the party would like.

00:21:58.980 Some are a little squishy, and therefore wrangling the votes and making sure that everybody's

00:22:02.940 on board to get Trump's agenda through is important.

00:22:05.480 Three men are up for the job.

00:22:07.120 Two considered more establishment types, Senator John Thune of South Dakota and Senator John

00:22:12.320 Cornyn of Texas, who are not totally beloved, especially the latter, by Team MAGA, though they have

00:22:20.620 some endorsements.

00:22:21.380 Like I mentioned, it looks like Josh Hawley might be backing Cornyn, according to the reports.

00:22:25.360 But a third appears to be the MAGA favorite, and he's my guest now, Senator Rick Scott of Florida.

00:22:32.100 Senator, great to have you here.

00:22:33.420 So, all right, how do you like your chances, and why do you want the job?

00:22:37.080 Well, first off, I think we're going to win.

00:22:40.680 Here's why I want the job.

00:22:42.240 I want Trump's agenda passed.

00:22:45.120 I've been up here six years, and I watched Republican leadership not get Trump's agenda

00:22:51.440 done.

00:22:51.860 Now, what's his agenda?

00:22:53.140 Number one, he's got to get his nominees done.

00:22:55.900 So, we've got to figure out how to do that, because what's going to happen is the Democrats,

00:23:02.200 Schumer's going to try to lead the effort to slow down all those nominees.

00:23:05.220 So, Trump's people, he can't staff his agency.

00:23:09.000 So, it doesn't make any sense to me, but that's exactly what Schumer's going to do.

00:23:13.180 So, number one, we've got to figure out how we get his nominees in place.

00:23:16.140 Number two is, there's legislation he's going to need passed.

00:23:19.960 We've got to do a tax plan through reconciliation, which takes 51 votes.

00:23:24.200 So, we've got to have a plan to get that done, and we've got to corral 51 votes together

00:23:28.060 to make sure that happens.

00:23:29.860 There's going to be other legislation that we're going to need Democrats. 1.00

00:23:32.720 Democrats, we're going to have to figure out how do we bring Democrats into the fold to 0.99

00:23:36.740 get something done, and we have to get the House.

00:23:40.080 So, I've got a great working relationship with President Trump, with the Speaker in the

00:23:46.440 House, with the fiscal conservatives in the House, with Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer, the leaders

00:23:51.180 in the House.

00:23:52.860 So, and I'm a business guy.

00:23:55.140 So, in business, here's what you do.

00:23:56.840 You say, what do I want to get done?

00:23:59.460 How do you build it?

00:24:00.160 You build a team.

00:24:01.280 You write a plan.

00:24:02.980 You set up a timeline.

00:24:04.380 Who's responsible?

00:24:05.500 You measure it, and then you get your stuff done.

00:24:07.600 Oh, you're just constantly doing this.

00:24:10.140 And I built the biggest hospital company in the world.

00:24:12.540 I built a bunch of manufacturing companies.

00:24:14.860 So, this is what you do as a business guy.

00:24:18.100 This is how business guys get their stuff done.

00:24:20.160 And that's what Donald Trump needs.

00:24:21.800 He needs a business guy running the Senate so we can get Donald Trump's agenda done. 0.98

00:24:26.360 And that's why I want the job.

00:24:28.940 Now, End Wokeness, which is a great account on X, quoting the Heritage Foundation statistics,

00:24:34.600 says, Cornyn has a 64% conservative score.

00:24:38.640 Thune has a 62% conservative score.

00:24:41.080 And you have a 95% conservative score.

00:24:44.200 And this Twitter account pointing out, this isn't a hard decision, folks.

00:24:46.860 He's apparently on your side.

00:24:48.100 But the pushback from their backers is, but what you really need is not somebody who is

00:24:56.380 the most conservative or the most pro-Trump.

00:24:58.300 What you really need is somebody who knows how to work the Senate to get the votes, right?

00:25:02.980 The important thing is to be well-liked and to be able to maneuver.

00:25:07.260 And are you the best guy for that piece of the job?

00:25:09.920 I believe so.

00:25:12.260 If you think about how you build companies, you work with people.

00:25:17.700 So think about this.

00:25:18.760 When I was 40, I had bankers.

00:25:22.520 So I had to deal with.

00:25:23.880 I had millions and millions of shareholders.

00:25:26.780 I had probably something like 37 analysts on Wall Street that followed my stock.

00:25:31.820 I had a board of directors.

00:25:33.260 I had 285,000 employees.

00:25:34.940 I had 150,000 customers a day.

00:25:38.060 So you have to figure out how to get along with all those groups to get something done.

00:25:42.680 Same thing in everything I've done.

00:25:44.900 When I was governor of Florida, we cut taxes and fees 100 times.

00:25:49.380 We became number one in higher education.

00:25:51.720 We became number top five in K-12 education, 47-year low in our primary.

00:25:56.040 All those things was the same thing.

00:25:58.780 What's your plan?

00:26:00.440 What's your team?

00:26:02.560 How are you going to get it done?

00:26:04.280 And how are you going to measure yourself?

00:26:06.500 And so that's what this job is.

00:26:08.580 It's how do you create a process to get these things done?

00:26:13.020 But number one, you've got to be absolutely committed to getting it done.

00:26:16.760 And I'm absolutely committed to getting Trump nominees through.

00:26:19.800 And I'm absolutely committed to getting Trump's agenda done.

00:26:25.100 Some say, okay, there's been a lot of tweeting by your supporters.

00:26:30.740 Tucker, we read his tweet yesterday.

00:26:32.560 Elon's backing you and many, many others.

00:26:35.300 And the pushback from the more establishment type publications is, well, they're not going

00:26:42.500 to like that.

00:26:43.360 The senators are not going to appreciate that, Senator Scott, that they're going to say he's

00:26:47.780 pushing us.

00:26:49.080 You know, his supporters are pushing us.

00:26:50.580 And we are U.S. senators.

00:26:51.880 We do not take kindly to a pressure campaign and its secret ballot, which is kind of, I

00:26:59.440 don't know, it's a little messed up that it's secret ballot, I think.

00:27:01.820 I don't understand why people can't just come out and say who they're voting for, because

00:27:04.820 aren't they responsible to their constituents for who they put in leadership?

00:27:08.120 In any event, what do you make of that?

00:27:10.440 Are you concerned about possible pushback to what some may perceive as pressure?

00:27:15.980 Well, number one, I think it ought to be an open ballot.

00:27:20.380 We ought to know how we're going to tell everybody how we're going to vote.

00:27:23.260 Everybody knows when I vote for a judge or vote against a judge.

00:27:26.140 So that's number one.

00:27:28.260 Number two is, you know, we're U.S. senators.

00:27:31.040 We're supposed to represent people.

00:27:32.960 We're supposed to get feedback.

00:27:35.060 That's why I have nine offices in Florida.

00:27:37.220 One, to help them.

00:27:38.220 Two, to get feedback.

00:27:39.580 That's why, you know, I have any, I have make it easy for people either to email or text

00:27:45.080 or call the office.

00:27:46.060 I want feedback from people.

00:27:47.360 So my experience up here is people, people want to get feedback.

00:27:51.720 Of course, you know, you like everybody to agree with you, but they're not going to.

00:27:55.200 So, but my job is, you know, I got elected to represent people and to tell them how I'm

00:28:00.280 doing it and, and to be consistent with what I told them when I was going to, when I was

00:28:04.000 campaigning.

00:28:04.420 I just went through a campaign.

00:28:05.680 I told people what I was going to do.

00:28:07.180 And now I, my job is to go do everything I can to make sure that happens and, and take

00:28:12.820 all the feedback that people want to give me.

00:28:14.700 But I'm very appreciative of all the support I've gotten, uh, from, you know, from, uh,

00:28:19.040 Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy, Laura Trump.

00:28:23.100 Uh, so I, I'm, I'm blessed with a lot of support and I'm very appreciative of all that

00:28:28.500 support.

00:28:29.640 Trump himself has not yet, uh, said who he's backing.

00:28:33.060 If anyone, I think he's wisely trying to keep good relationships with everybody because

00:28:36.500 he doesn't know how it's going to come out.

00:28:39.160 Um, do you like, what's your thought on Mitch McConnell?

00:28:42.380 I know that he's not very popular among the MAGA base.

00:28:46.860 Um, we know this though.

00:28:48.160 He's been hugely instrumental in getting, you know, these three Supreme court justices of

00:28:52.420 Trump confirmed and so many judges on the federal bench, which is something I watch as somebody

00:28:57.080 who's into the courts.

00:28:58.440 Um, but what's your thought on him?

00:29:00.600 Because there's been a lot of blowback against him and also a suggestion that this vote is

00:29:05.520 taking place too soon.

00:29:08.160 Well, number one, I ran against Mitch McConnell two years ago.

00:29:11.920 Um, I think the way the Senate operates has to change.

00:29:15.560 Uh, there's been two dictatorships in the Senate on the Republic side, Mitch McConnell and

00:29:19.860 Democrat side, Chuck Schumer.

00:29:21.380 I believe we've got to treat all senators as equal.

00:29:23.980 We've got to listen to them.

00:29:25.560 We've got a lot of bills go through committee.

00:29:27.320 We need to have a robust amendment process and we've got to help.

00:29:30.380 Let me just stop you there because the average person doesn't know what that means.

00:29:33.320 But he, so the way he gets legislation through versus what you're saying you would like to

00:29:37.540 do, explain that.

00:29:39.400 Well, he would, he and Schumer would just sit down and negotiate themselves.

00:29:44.400 Uh, we just did a continued resolution, which I completely opposed.

00:29:47.400 We shouldn't be doing those.

00:29:48.360 And it was done between Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer without the input of, um, you

00:29:54.360 know, every, every, every, every center, they expect us to vote on this.

00:29:57.720 We ought to have some say in it.

00:29:59.800 Um, they're going to try to cram an omnibus down our throat.

00:30:02.720 We're not going to, it's not going to go through a committee.

00:30:05.520 It's not, we're not going to be allowed to have any amendments to try to make it better.

00:30:09.420 They're just going to say, nope, this is your stuck vote up or vote down.

00:30:13.160 That's all it is.

00:30:13.900 Last year, uh, they did this at Christmas over a trillion dollars, gave it to us a one

00:30:18.880 three in the morning.

00:30:20.340 Schumer and McCollum gave it to us, expected us to vote on it by nine o'clock in the morning

00:30:23.660 that nobody ever read.

00:30:25.280 Uh, so it ought to go through a committee, a bill ought to go through a committee where

00:30:29.400 there's have plenty of input from outside speakers, from experts and let other senators 0.80

00:30:35.980 say, oh no, I can make it better with this amendment on this amendment.

00:30:39.140 And then we ought to bring it to the floor and we ought to have a robust amendment process

00:30:43.020 to say, oh no, I think we ought to change it this way or that way.

00:30:46.740 And what's been happening since I've been up here, I've been up here six years is either

00:30:51.160 McCollum or Schumer, they'll decide on their own, a bill they'll bring to the floor, won't

00:30:55.140 even go through a committee.

00:30:56.000 We'll have no amendment votes.

00:30:57.220 So my only choice is to say either I like it or I don't like it.

00:31:00.760 Not that I can't improve it.

00:31:02.840 Um, so it makes it, you know, so it's like, we're just little robots here.

00:31:07.560 Um, so I think I, you should respect everybody.

00:31:11.380 Everybody worked their butt to get off of get here.

00:31:14.180 We represent our States.

00:31:15.240 I represent Florida.

00:31:16.560 I respect everybody's vote, vote to represent your state.

00:31:21.040 You mentioned Florida.

00:31:22.040 I got to ask you quickly, what do you make of this report that FEMA fired this woman 0.79

00:31:25.100 now who is skipping the Trump, uh, the houses with the Trump signs in it.

00:31:29.000 Now she's coming out and saying, I'm a patsy.

00:31:31.320 It goes up much higher than me.

00:31:32.520 I was ordered to do it by FEMA.

00:31:34.900 Allegedly she's claiming in response to some threats they purport to have received from

00:31:40.300 a house or two with the Trump signs.

00:31:44.480 Well, we're going to, we'll find out.

00:31:45.920 I'm on the, I'm on the Homeland Security Committee.

00:31:47.600 We ought to, we ought to bring people in.

00:31:50.080 We ought to bring her in, bring her supervisors in. 1.00

00:31:52.900 Let's get to the, let's get to the bottom of this.

00:31:55.300 No one should be discriminated against.

00:31:56.860 This is one, this is your tax dollars.

00:31:59.080 This is a federal program.

00:32:00.700 Uh, we had a lot of people hurt, uh, as a result of the, the storms we've had over

00:32:06.280 the last two years and FEMA needs to do its job and needs to rep, you know, help everybody.

00:32:11.220 They've got a variety of programs.

00:32:13.220 Everybody should be helped, whether you're a Harris supporter, you're a Trump supporter.

00:32:17.960 Um, so, I mean, this is, this doesn't make any sense, but look, I'm, I'm glad that FEMA

00:32:23.540 fired her. 0.79

00:32:24.940 Uh, that's, that's, I think that might be my six years.

00:32:27.860 That's the only federal employee that's been fired and nobody wants to fire anybody, but

00:32:33.260 come on, you don't do your job.

00:32:35.120 You get fired in the private sector.

00:32:36.880 You should get fired in the public sector.

00:32:40.000 How deep do you think the anti-Trump sentiment is in federal agencies like FEMA?

00:32:48.340 I mean, we've seen some evidence inside FEMA just from this story, but from other stories

00:32:52.760 too, but there are so many executive agencies that Trump is now going to be in charge of.

00:32:57.840 He is the chief executive.

00:32:59.540 And, you know, last time it was such an issue of the so-called deep state, however you want

00:33:03.880 to label it, working against him.

00:33:06.220 Do you think that's softened at all?

00:33:08.840 Or is he up against all these same forces second time around?

00:33:12.860 Oh, it might be worse.

00:33:14.900 The, you know, when I was, you know, I just finished my campaign for reelection.

00:33:18.420 And I asked people, do you feel comfortable that the federal agencies, whether it's, it's

00:33:24.260 Secret Service or Homeland Security or the FBI are going to tell us the facts of what happened

00:33:29.680 with the shooting of President Trump at Butler and not one hand is raised.

00:33:35.200 So the American, the American public has completely lost support of the federal government because

00:33:41.740 it has been put aside.

00:33:44.080 So, I mean, look at all these lawsuits against Trump.

00:33:46.320 I mean, they've got, they've slandered him.

00:33:48.880 They've gone after him.

00:33:49.740 They've lied about him.

00:33:50.680 They've done, I mean, everything under the sun.

00:33:53.020 And so it's going to be a lot of work.

00:33:55.380 That's why we have got to get his nominees done quickly.

00:33:59.120 So he has people in there to try to fix these agencies.

00:34:02.720 When I became governor of Florida back in January, 2011, they, you know, you had, I had to go

00:34:09.080 in and I had to replace agency heads.

00:34:11.000 And sometimes more than once to get, find people that are willing to do, do the job.

00:34:17.060 I got elected on an agenda and I said, look, I'm going to appoint people that believe in

00:34:22.460 my agenda and I'm going to do it for the time period I'm elected.

00:34:25.760 I was elected for four years at that point.

00:34:27.420 I said, for those four years, we're going to, I'm going to appoint people that believe

00:34:31.140 in what I explained to the public and they voted for me as the same thing with Trump.

00:34:35.860 So I think he's going to work hard.

00:34:37.980 I think he's doing, going to do a great job.

00:34:39.960 I think he's probably like all of us.

00:34:41.580 You learn a lot of the lessons.

00:34:42.980 You look at his nominees.

00:34:45.180 I hope Marco Rubio is going to be the secretary of state.

00:34:48.200 I mean, he's, he's picking some wonderful people so far that are going to work hard to

00:34:53.340 get his agenda done.

00:34:54.480 That's why I'm running to be the majority leader.

00:34:56.180 We got, we've got to get his agenda done.

00:34:59.180 He won.

00:35:00.280 Let's help him.

00:35:00.960 Yeah, I mean, I do think it's a mandate given the size of the win and I realize it's tight

00:35:07.540 in the house and relatively tight in the Senate, but I mean, Republicans won four seats.

00:35:12.760 That's as close to a mandate as you're going to get given this divided electorate and with

00:35:17.280 president Trump winning, not only the electoral college vote, but the popular vote.

00:35:20.780 It's tough to deny.

00:35:21.780 You mentioned Rubio.

00:35:23.180 That's not yet officially confirmed, but we believe he's going to be the one tapped by

00:35:27.400 Trump for secretary of state.

00:35:28.380 Any thoughts on, uh, who should replace him?

00:35:34.040 Oh gosh, I have so many colleagues.

00:35:36.080 Uh, there's wonderful congressmen and women in Florida, whether it's Marie Salazar or, 1.00

00:35:40.520 or, uh, Mario Dias Blard or Carlos Jimenez or Vern Buchanan or, uh, Laura Lee, Kat Kamek.

00:35:47.760 There's so many, gosh, I'm Byron Donalds.

00:35:50.500 I'm trying to, I'm going to, I'm going to forget somebody's name, but there, we've got so many

00:35:54.980 great members of Congress that one of them, any one of those would be a great pick.

00:35:59.840 But does it have to be walk me through how that would go though?

00:36:02.160 Because the house is tight.

00:36:04.020 The Republicans only have, we think, I mean, the voting goes on, right?

00:36:07.140 But they, we think we're going to land with a four seat majority, same as they had last

00:36:10.600 time, which is tight, tight, tight.

00:36:11.720 So we can't keep picking off Republican congressmen and women for these administration posts because 1.00

00:36:17.560 it eats away at the house majority.

00:36:19.280 And then there's a process to replace them, but everything gets slowed down.

00:36:22.160 So do you think that counts against nominating or, you know, elevating a congressman?

00:36:27.580 Yeah, it could.

00:36:28.560 It slows it down, but we've got a great attorney general, Ashley Moody.

00:36:31.060 We've got CFO, Jimmy Patronus.

00:36:33.180 We've got a great ag commissioner with Wilton Simpson.

00:36:35.140 There's, there's some wonderful people that have gone through the process, been elected statewide.

00:36:39.100 Uh, that would be great picks to be, uh, U S Senator.

00:36:43.100 Uh, and then there'll be another election in, in, in, uh, in two years, uh, for, uh, you

00:36:49.280 know, all right, let me throw something crazy out there, Senator Scott, something crazy.

00:36:52.840 This is crazy.

00:36:54.360 Ron DeSantis.

00:36:55.740 Oh, I said it.

00:36:58.620 Yeah, I think, I think he can appoint himself if you, if he wants to, it's my understanding.

00:37:03.300 I mean, he, you, you went from governor to Senator.

00:37:06.420 Do you, is there any chance that happens for him as Rubio potentially gets elevated?

00:37:11.480 I don't know.

00:37:12.340 I mean, I don't know if people have ever appointed themselves.

00:37:15.580 Um, I assume they have.

00:37:17.240 I mean, I don't think there's a limitation of pointing yourself.

00:37:19.860 So, um, I know he, I know he would work hard if he, if he, if he appointed himself.

00:37:24.920 So there's, we've got, we've got a great group of talent.

00:37:27.900 You can see like in, you know, Trump and I each won by 1.4 million votes.

00:37:31.660 We became, we made Florida, uh, the Republicans, uh, party center of the country, I think.

00:37:37.340 Uh, and so, and so you can see what Trump's nominees.

00:37:39.860 He's picking great people from Florida to be part of the Soothy Wiles was my first campaign

00:37:43.700 manager.

00:37:44.460 Uh, she's amazing. 0.99

00:37:46.020 So yeah, she's amazing. 0.96

00:37:47.940 She's wonderful.

00:37:49.180 She, she'll do a great job. 0.97

00:37:51.040 She's a good person.

00:37:52.100 She's a great sounding board.

00:37:53.500 She wants to do good things.

00:37:55.500 Uh, so she, she's a great, uh, supporter of Donald Trump.

00:37:59.820 Can we talk about the recess appointments?

00:38:01.540 Cause in, in the discussion about Trump needs to get his, uh, his cabinet secretary is confirmed.

00:38:06.300 He needs to get the judges he wants on the bench and so on.

00:38:09.140 Um, he is pushing right now.

00:38:12.400 It doesn't seem an accident now that, you know, cause we're having this leadership debate

00:38:15.520 to, for like a pledge that the Senate will allow recess appointments by him.

00:38:22.400 And can you just explain to the audience what that means?

00:38:25.220 Because most people have no idea what exactly he's asking you for.

00:38:29.760 So number one, I believe that we should do it.

00:38:32.180 Um, so what happens is the president will have the authority to make appointments.

00:38:37.160 Um, and he said nonjudicial, which I agree with that nonjudicial appointments, as long 0.99

00:38:41.640 as we're out of session for 10 days.

00:38:43.880 Now it's been done in the past.

00:38:45.700 I think, um, Bill Clinton did over a hundred appointments that way.

00:38:49.480 Uh, I think even George D.B. Bush did almost 170 appointments that way.

00:38:54.040 Barack Obama did some.

00:38:55.100 The only person that hasn't been allowed to do it is Donald Trump.

00:38:58.440 So I think, uh, we ought to do everything.

00:39:00.600 We, everything we can do to get his nominees done.

00:39:03.880 We know Chuck Schumer is going to try to slow it down and prevent them, uh, from, uh, starting

00:39:09.000 their jobs.

00:39:09.840 So, uh, doing a recess appointments, I think is something we ought to do.

00:39:13.340 We ought to figure out as a conference, how to get that done.

00:39:15.280 But can I just ask you, so is it the case that if you wanted to, let's say you win Senate

00:39:20.600 majority leader, if, if you wanted to, could you say, we're not doing any recess appointments

00:39:25.460 and you could stop that?

00:39:27.220 You could stop him making temporary appointments if you wanted to.

00:39:31.580 Yeah, they've done it before.

00:39:32.900 What they do is you just, you never get out of session for more than 10 days.

00:39:35.920 So you just, even if you're off, you have somebody come in and you have a pro forma session.

00:39:40.940 That's what, that's what they've, that's what they did to Donald Trump the last one,

00:39:44.480 his first four years.

00:39:45.480 They never allowed him to do any recess appointments, uh, by, uh, by doing that.

00:39:49.600 I believe we ought to let him do recess appointments.

00:39:51.500 There's a way to do it.

00:39:52.200 We can, we should, we should talk, talk to, uh, him about who he wants to do, uh, make

00:39:57.500 sure Republican senators don't have a problem with them.

00:39:59.980 Uh, I think we're all going to be very supportive of his nominees.

00:40:03.340 Uh, if you look at the nominees he's done so far, I think they'll easily get all Republican

00:40:08.400 senators to support them.

00:40:09.840 Uh, Lee Zeldin, uh, you know, all the, all these individuals, you know, at least upon

00:40:14.780 any, uh, all of them will get a hundred.

00:40:16.960 I mean, I can't imagine Republicans that are not supporting them.

00:40:19.820 No, I think all factions of the Republican party will, uh, support all these guys.

00:40:24.280 So yeah, that's an issue because you're getting pushed back from some of my friends at national

00:40:27.800 review saying, if you want to go ahead and cede your constitutional duty, you're supposed to be

00:40:32.400 a, an independent branch that, you know, has advice and consent.

00:40:36.040 You're supposed to confer.

00:40:36.840 You shouldn't just cede the, that duty just because you want to make president Trump happy.

00:40:42.600 What do you say to those folks who, and then we'll put that.

00:40:44.900 I agree.

00:40:45.260 But, but I think the issue is not that we're ceding our authority.

00:40:48.480 What we're, what we're saying is we know, we know that Chuck Schumer is not going to act

00:40:53.280 in a responsible manner to allow Donald Trump to, to put his cabinet together and get his

00:40:58.080 nominees in place.

00:40:58.960 So if that's the case and there's a way for the minority to slow the process down, uh,

00:41:04.840 make it very difficult for these nominees to all get confirmed, then we're going to have

00:41:09.660 to figure out how do we, on the other side, work with Donald Trump to get his nominees done.

00:41:14.940 Uh, so I, I, I think there was a way to do it.

00:41:18.000 I think our Republican caucus will support it.

00:41:20.800 Uh, I clearly support, uh, using the recess process to do it.

00:41:24.840 Uh, and we can do it in a manner that we're comfortable with the people that Donald Trump

00:41:29.080 is, uh, is, uh, nominating.

00:41:31.380 Uh, if somebody were, if somebody was not, we can say, you know, we're okay with these,

00:41:36.420 but not these.

00:41:37.560 So, but I think we ought to, we ought to be, do everything we can.

00:41:42.100 And we, the other thing was we need a transparent process.

00:41:44.980 So Donald Trump quickly gets everybody in place.

00:41:48.340 If somebody has major problems with people, let's, let's make sure that the Trump administration

00:41:53.300 knows it right away and see if we can resolve it.

00:41:56.500 You know, as a business guy, what I always did was talk to people, find out what the

00:42:01.720 common ground is, find out where the issues are, and then go try to solve them.

00:42:05.940 And that's what we ought to be doing with nominees.

00:42:08.840 I feel like Trump is transactional and probably doesn't have his heart set on any one particular

00:42:14.640 person for any one particular role, maybe other than the ones that we've, we're hearing

00:42:18.380 about right now, right?

00:42:19.500 Like his first appointments are going to be his favorites and the ones he feels really

00:42:23.540 strongly about.

00:42:24.200 You don't even have to confirm the borders are, that's a non-confirmed position.

00:42:29.240 Stephen Miller's a, he works for Trump.

00:42:31.480 That's not something that needs to be confirmed.

00:42:32.940 So a lot of these roles, you're not going to have to get involved in.

00:42:35.880 And secretary's statement, everybody in the Senate seems to really like Marco Rubio and

00:42:38.980 so on.

00:42:39.280 I think you're right about Stefanik.

00:42:40.640 So we'll see.

00:42:41.520 I mean, we'll, we'll find out how, how that goes.

00:42:43.840 I want to ask you two other questions, if you don't mind from the other side, why they

00:42:48.940 say, well, maybe we have doubts about Senator Rick Scott.

00:42:51.120 So you can, you can convince people who need convincing.

00:42:54.280 There are two objections.

00:42:56.540 As far as I can tell, Brit Hume was on Fox news, espousing one of them has to do with 1.00

00:43:00.820 when you ran the, uh, the group that's tried that tries to get more Republicans elected to

00:43:06.420 the Senate back in 2022.

00:43:08.300 And we didn't have the greatest red wave in 2022.

00:43:12.380 And so Brit is giving voice to some of the criticisms around you connected to that.

00:43:17.940 Here it is.

00:43:19.400 And I actually think Senator Scott's kind of a long shot.

00:43:22.260 Um, the reason being that, um, for example, he was the head of the national Republican

00:43:26.580 senatorial committee in the 21, 22 election cycle, raised a ton of money.

00:43:30.200 As you may recall, the Republicans had a very disappointing result in those midterm elections.

00:43:34.460 And, uh, and there was a lot of questions about where all that money went, why it was

00:43:38.340 all spent so early in the process and, and how much of it was spent by Scott to, uh, to

00:43:44.020 boost himself.

00:43:45.420 Uh, and, and I don't think he's close to a lot of senators.

00:43:49.420 And I think this, this pressure from Trump world to support him is likely to backfire.

00:43:56.400 All right.

00:43:56.920 So we spoke to that last point already, but what do you make of that?

00:43:59.240 The money and the, it wasn't well spent or well planned.

00:44:02.960 He's saying for, uh, those elections.

00:44:04.860 Well, first off, clearly, uh, we all wanted to get a majority and we didn't.

00:44:09.580 Uh, and that first off, let's all acknowledge we wanted to get a majority, uh, in 22 and

00:44:14.280 we didn't, uh, fortunately we got a majority, uh, barely in the house.

00:44:18.360 Uh, but I can tell you, everybody worked their butts off to get a majority.

00:44:21.300 We had, we had candidates that worked their butts off.

00:44:24.040 We spent the money to, to, uh, to get our can selected, but you're right.

00:44:28.480 It was, uh, it was not, it was a disappointing year, but I can tell you that, uh, our candidates

00:44:33.920 worked hard.

00:44:34.800 Um, the, the people at the NRC worked hard and, and I'm glad we got, we have a majority

00:44:40.100 this time.

00:44:40.700 I want to thank everybody that, that ran this time and what they did.

00:44:44.400 And I think a lot of it was the, uh, Trump had ran a great race, which helped a lot of

00:44:49.300 us, but you're right.

00:44:50.220 I wish that we would have gotten a majority.

00:44:51.920 And I can tell you, we worked all, we all worked our butts off.

00:44:54.400 And unfortunately, sometimes you win and sometimes you don't.

00:44:57.880 Mm-hmm.

00:44:58.320 A few, a few years later, look at you now.

00:45:00.420 Um, lastly, uh, my pal, Dana Lash, she is not your fan.

00:45:05.100 You may know her.

00:45:05.620 She's an amazing person and she's very big on the pro second amendment thing. 0.99

00:45:09.380 And she does not like the fact that, um, you signed a red flag law.

00:45:15.760 Uh, I want to, she says that you, hold on.

00:45:18.940 I want to get her objection correctly.

00:45:20.560 She says you steamrolled over second, fourth and fifth amendment rights as governor, that

00:45:25.500 you backed amnesty.

00:45:27.900 And, um, there is a group called the American firearms association that wants to know whether

00:45:34.100 you would support waiting periods on second amendment rights, whether you would abolish

00:45:38.700 the ATF.

00:45:39.460 They've got some concerns about whether we're going to be looking at more red flag laws,

00:45:43.300 um, under your leadership or whether you're pro two a enough.

00:45:47.700 Well, first off, I'm a big supporter of the second amendment.

00:45:51.560 Um, uh, I believe in the second amendment.

00:45:54.080 I believe, um, it's very important we to defend the second amendment.

00:45:57.800 So in Florida, what was, uh, what the legislature passed, uh, was a bill after the Parkland shooting

00:46:03.340 that basically said, if you're threatening harm to yourself or threatening harm to somebody

00:46:09.800 else, you can go the, uh, somebody that knows you can go to law enforcement and law enforcement

00:46:16.060 can go to the, to the courts and the courts for a short period of time, uh, can say you

00:46:22.660 cannot have that weapon, but they have to go to the court system.

00:46:26.320 It has to be done by law enforcement and it's clearly not permanent.

00:46:30.180 Uh, the, it was passed, uh, through the, you know, by the Florida house and Senate, um,

00:46:36.780 I left six years ago.

00:46:38.160 They've decided, um, not to repeal it, uh, because it has worked in Florida.

00:46:44.000 Uh, we, you know, we, we put a lot of effort in to make sure we had a lot of school safety

00:46:48.660 in our state.

00:46:49.260 Uh, we've added law enforcement in all of our public schools.

00:46:52.940 Uh, we've added a lot of, uh, barriers.

00:46:55.600 Uh, we added, uh, mental health counselors.

00:46:58.840 Uh, we did a lot of things to make sure our schools are safe.

00:47:02.260 And this was, this was one as a result of the, uh, 17 people died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

00:47:08.900 And if you talk to a sheriff's center of state, uh, it's worked, it's kept people safe, and

00:47:14.480 it has not, uh, infringed on anybody's second amendment rights.

00:47:19.260 Okay.

00:47:20.160 That makes sense.

00:47:21.040 I mean, she's, you should go on her podcast because she's, she'll have some tough questions

00:47:24.480 for you on this that I don't have, because this isn't really my issue, to be perfectly

00:47:28.120 honest.

00:47:28.940 Um, but yeah, that's, that's one of the objections.

00:47:31.760 The thing that I wonder about Senator is, will we see any difference?

00:47:36.100 You know, Thune and Cornyn, they've said some negative things about Trump.

00:47:40.420 I mean, I, I've seen that they, they kind of ripped on him when E. Jean Carroll came out.

00:47:44.820 They haven't been like staunch defenders of his.

00:47:47.800 Um, unlike yourself, but they are Republicans and it's not like you versus a Democrat.

00:47:55.080 So like, why should people care?

00:47:56.940 You want to get Trump's agenda through?

00:47:58.500 Yes.

00:47:58.820 But won't all three of you get Trump's agendas through?

00:48:01.880 You would hope so.

00:48:04.380 Um, well, both, both John Thune and John Cornyn are friends and their colleagues.

00:48:08.000 I've worked with him for six years since I've been up here.

00:48:10.360 Um, so I, I just tell you my background as a business guy completely, you know, which

00:48:15.420 is, I think the way you get things done in life is you create a process.

00:48:20.120 You create a team, you measure the live and daylights out of results.

00:48:24.600 That's been, I built the largest hospital company in the world.

00:48:27.320 They built a variety of manufacturing companies.

00:48:29.160 I was the governor of Florida.

00:48:30.360 We became number one, higher education, top, top five in K-12 education.

00:48:34.740 It's 47 year low on our primary.

00:48:36.580 We did it by, we built a team.

00:48:38.660 We worked every day for in a process and we measured things.

00:48:41.960 That's what, at my belief, that's what we need going forward.

00:48:44.980 If we're going to get things accomplished, we've got a lot of problems to get accomplished.

00:48:49.320 We're spending 40% more than we take in.

00:48:51.580 We haven't balanced our budget forever.

00:48:53.080 We haven't passed budgets.

00:48:54.440 Our military is woke.

00:48:55.900 We got an open border.

00:48:57.160 So we, we've got a lot of problems.

00:48:58.800 So it's going to take somebody that wants to create a process and go sell this to get

00:49:03.080 it done.

00:49:03.800 And I've done this my whole life.

00:49:05.380 That's what, how I've gotten all my stuff done.

00:49:07.120 I'm a, I mean, think about, I'm a kid that grew up in public housing, born to a single

00:49:10.280 mom.

00:49:10.640 I figured out how to create processes and build teams to get things done.

00:49:15.600 Okay.

00:49:16.240 Lastly, there's some nonsense being spewed by the left about possibly convincing Sotomayor

00:49:22.040 to step down off of the Supreme court reports are she's not willing to do that. 0.90

00:49:26.720 And then subbing in Kamala Harris and getting her confirmed before Joe Biden leaves office.

00:49:34.440 Is this anything that could actually happen with the U S Senate's approval between now and

00:49:40.500 his departure?

00:49:42.300 I don't think there's any chance in the world that that could happen.

00:49:45.940 I mean, maybe they could try it.

00:49:47.960 I can't imagine, uh, that they could, they could get that through. 0.95

00:49:51.500 Um, so, and I mean, that would be, that would be so foolish on their part because, uh, one, 0.73

00:49:58.680 I don't think Harris is qualified, uh, to have set unbelievable, unbelievably bad precedent.

00:50:05.300 She's genuinely not qualified.

00:50:06.700 I mean, she, we, we were never able to really confirm even how many cases she'd ever tried,

00:50:12.420 uh, while she was allegedly, you know, this John Wayne type DA and AG as she now claims

00:50:18.360 to be Senator Rick Scott.

00:50:19.920 We're going to be watching this closely.

00:50:21.280 Good luck to you.

00:50:22.660 All right.

00:50:23.140 Thank you.

00:50:23.660 Have a great day.

00:50:24.960 All right.

00:50:25.440 You as well.

00:50:25.940 So it happens tomorrow morning.

00:50:27.100 I really do think it should be public.

00:50:28.620 Why should it be secret ballot?

00:50:29.920 Why they work for us?

00:50:31.060 I think he's right, right?

00:50:32.500 Why can't we know?

00:50:33.200 Why can't you find out who your Senator from your home state backed?

00:50:38.180 If you want Rick Scott, you want people to vote for Rick Scott.

00:50:40.720 Shouldn't you know?

00:50:41.860 Um, I don't know these, these, sometimes these governmental, uh, you know, politicians and bodies forget

00:50:47.720 they work for us.

00:50:48.540 There are employees.

00:50:49.640 So I think he's right.

00:50:50.640 We need transparency and, uh, we'll see.

00:50:53.420 I mean, look, worst case scenario, it's still a Republican in charge of the majority.

00:50:58.420 And that's the way it's going to be.

00:50:59.620 The Republicans officially now with 53 seats.

00:51:02.400 And that's the way it's going to end.

00:51:03.940 Even though Bob Casey has a challenge to his loss in Pennsylvania to Republican there, uh,

00:51:10.340 it's going to be 53 and that my friends is a blessing.

00:51:13.700 Okay.

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00:53:01.560 For years, we've been hearing about the vaunted Democratic ground game.

00:53:13.840 And it was a real thing, especially under Barack Obama, that the left can get its supporters to vote at a higher rate than the right can.

00:53:22.320 After Harris raised a billion dollars and the polls were showing a tight race, many Republicans were worried this was going to happen again.

00:53:29.260 But in 2024, it was Trump who got his people to the polls.

00:53:34.360 How did it happen?

00:53:35.880 We're going to talk now to someone who helped make it happen without a billion dollars.

00:53:40.020 Her name is Ashley Hayek.

00:53:41.760 She's the executive director of a group called America First Works.

00:53:46.120 She headed up their Project 19 program, which targeted the most important counties in this election and how.

00:53:55.700 Ashley, welcome to the show.

00:53:57.740 Thank you for having me.

00:53:59.480 All right.

00:53:59.720 Tell me everything.

00:54:00.620 Who are you?

00:54:01.940 How did you deliver this?

00:54:04.220 Most people don't know your name.

00:54:05.660 It's not like a name that was out there all the time, like our friend Charlie Kirk or like Elon's group.

00:54:10.260 But we knew it was canvassing and trying to get voters out.

00:54:12.660 Ashley Hayek.

00:54:13.200 Who's Ashley Hayek?

00:54:14.080 What is this group?

00:54:14.960 How did you get pulled into this?

00:54:16.460 So we are the sister organization to the America First Policy Institute, which is run by Brooke Rollins and Linda McMahon and Larry Kudlow and many of the other former Trump administration officials.

00:54:30.680 And we were launched in November of 2021.

00:54:33.460 And we really were focused on a lot of state policy.

00:54:36.260 So working in target states, advancing policy at the state level, advancing Trump America First policies at the state level.

00:54:43.640 And then in 2023, we had the opportunity to really look at, you know, how do we continue to build upon the movement?

00:54:51.760 And this was before I think President Trump even announced.

00:54:54.620 But we started talking to different organizations.

00:54:56.860 We started looking at how we can grow with, you know, Hispanic voters and women voters and Black Americans and parents.

00:55:04.580 And my background, I worked on the Trump 2020 campaign.

00:55:07.780 I was the coalitions director.

00:55:09.420 We had over 45 different coalitions.

00:55:11.500 We had 650 advisory board members.

00:55:13.620 And I knew that the inroads that President Trump and his message could make.

00:55:17.600 So to be able to continue that mission was absolutely critical.

00:55:21.260 Lee Zeldin is on the board of America First Works.

00:55:23.980 He was really a key integral part of this, given that he ran for governor and got almost 50% of the vote in a state that had only 23% Republican registration.

00:55:35.160 So how do we take that model and apply it to the battleground states, really targeting low and no propensity voters?

00:55:41.280 So we had a meeting in January.

00:55:43.840 We had a few other organizations.

00:55:46.300 January of 2024?

00:55:47.640 2024.

00:55:48.760 Yep.

00:55:49.340 Okay.

00:55:49.680 And it was to determine.

00:55:50.760 Just the one down in Washington, D.C.?

00:55:52.760 This was in our office on Pennsylvania Avenue at the time.

00:55:56.680 And there was only seven groups that had met.

00:55:58.840 It was a pretty small group.

00:56:00.640 And from that meeting, we realized this has to be so much bigger.

00:56:03.580 You look at the data.

00:56:04.580 You look at the numbers.

00:56:05.840 This is going to take all hands on deck.

00:56:07.780 So there was about 50 organizations that met on April 3rd at the Willard Hotel.

00:56:12.020 And we had a briefing from Kellyanne Conway on polling.

00:56:15.820 Lee Zeldin, you know, made some remarks about his race in New York.

00:56:18.780 And then we did a data presentation where we looked at the numbers and determined where we needed to be and which audiences we needed to target.

00:56:26.860 And we talked about who was going to do what where.

00:56:29.540 Who's going to do digital?

00:56:30.600 Who's doing radio?

00:56:31.520 Who's doing text messaging?

00:56:33.080 And one of the biggest gaps that we saw at American First Works was the ground game.

00:56:37.020 And that was when we realized this was our opportunity to step up and help with ground game.

00:56:41.340 And that was, Megan, right when the FEC opinion came to fruition as well.

00:56:46.360 And that was a game changer, I think, for the movement.

00:56:49.420 We we were all in my lane media speculating about how, geez, it's a risky bet because she's got reportedly voters like women who are high propensity voters who have a track history, a track record of getting out there. 1.00

00:57:04.320 Even in the midterm, even in the local elections, they vote, they vote and Trump's relying on these lower propensity or never before voters.

00:57:12.640 And so that's that's a risky bet.

00:57:15.360 You as far as I can tell, that's not untrue that that was true.

00:57:20.340 But you guys were looking at those low propensity or never before voters saying they're gettable.

00:57:25.620 We can we can make them get out.

00:57:29.760 100 percent.

00:57:30.400 And I think one of the untold stories was the women who showed up for President Trump who did not show up for Kamala Harris.

00:57:37.000 So at that April 3rd meeting, one of the things we talked about was that there is a massive gender gap across the country, especially in states like Georgia and North Carolina, where you have 10 to 12 percent more women participating in elections than men.

00:57:49.760 And we even told some of the moms groups that were there, moms for liberty, moms for America, you know, in 2016, Hillary Clinton said you need to husbands, you know, told their wives how to vote.

00:58:00.420 Well, now we need to tell moms you need to tell your husband to go vote. 1.00

00:58:03.980 And that's exactly what happens leading up to the election up to, you know, the weekend before the media was completely gaslighting conservatives and the public saying that Harris had historic support for women.

00:58:16.680 There was at that point in the battleground states, one hundred and twelve thousand more Republican women, women that had already voted and five hundred thousand no and low five hundred thousand Democrat women that had not voted yet. 0.55

00:58:29.360 That's a six hundred thousand vote swing not in favor of Harris.

00:58:33.820 She had a massive, a massive disadvantage amongst women. 0.88

00:58:37.180 And we saw that play out on Election Day as well.

00:58:39.660 So when you saw the Harris campaign send out that messaging and The New York Times reported the same messaging, that there had been this huge spike in female voter registration in Pennsylvania and that they were there, they were coming like they were showing up in droves.

00:58:55.440 That's that was what the report was, that they were not not the registration, but they were showing up in droves in the early voting.

00:59:00.520 Your response was what?

00:59:01.700 Well, that's a lie.

00:59:03.400 And we put a tweet out and I did a couple of media hits that this is not true.

00:59:07.540 She doesn't have that support.

00:59:08.960 But, Megan, like you can't say what is a woman?

00:59:11.800 You can't force men into women's bathrooms. 1.00

00:59:14.920 You can't make women feel unsafe and have, you know, illegal aliens kill young girls on a jog at her university and think women are going to show up for you. 0.95

00:59:24.640 So President Trump was delivering the message, you were delivering the message, and it made it very easy for us in America First Works to connect that message to the people and make sure America First voters were showing up and not Democrat voters.

00:59:37.540 And the Democrat voters, they stayed home.

00:59:39.700 They stayed home because they can't buy into this craziness from the radical left.

00:59:43.860 Wow.

00:59:45.760 Was there one particular message for all the groups or did the message change depending on which voters you were targeting?

00:59:57.060 It wasn't so much that the message changed.

00:59:59.900 It was who was delivering the message.

01:00:02.400 So in a lot of ground games, people will hire like a firm and they'll subcontract to a bunch of different firms.

01:00:08.640 We tried to choose firms because ours was all paid canvassing that were best for that area.

01:00:14.900 So, you know, we had part of Brian Kemp's team that ran our Georgia program.

01:00:19.400 We had the Frederick Douglass Foundation that reached out to Black Americans.

01:00:23.760 We had 20 Arabic door knockers in Dearborn.

01:00:27.400 And those boys, there's 20 of them, young men, they knocked on tens of thousands of doors in Dearborn.

01:00:32.460 And I believe they're part of the reason that Dearborn flipped was because they were taking the Trump policies and delivering it to their actual community.

01:00:40.440 So we tried to get people that, you know, it's it's if you are you like me, do I like you?

01:00:45.620 Are you a member of the community?

01:00:47.020 Are you just being imported?

01:00:48.600 And we just saw that that message worked.

01:00:50.720 We sent text messages from Riley Gaines.

01:00:53.020 We sent videos with Hunter Nation, another C4 organization of Ted Nugent, to hunters and Second Amendment people.

01:01:01.780 So you had to have the right message, but overall or the right messenger.

01:01:05.780 But overall, the message was the same.

01:01:07.220 So my understanding is it took an average of about three text messages to these low propensity voters to convert them into I guess you got about 40 percent of them to actually the ones you targeted to the polls.

01:01:22.120 And it was so it was two texts on messages and then the third text on let's go like now it's time.

01:01:29.480 Get up.

01:01:30.220 We're going to get out.

01:01:30.960 We're going to actually vote.

01:01:32.000 So we did three door knocks, three visits, physical visits, like someone going to their house.

01:01:38.920 And then in addition to that, we had a text messaging program.

01:01:42.300 The cool thing about the text messaging program was we had a team of 50 volunteers who would actually reply to the text messages.

01:01:49.160 So if you got a text message from Riley Gaines, for example, and you replied back and I'll be honest, sometimes they were just like F you.

01:01:58.060 We would say, oh, I'm so sorry that we bothered you, but we just wanted to make sure you had your polling place.

01:02:02.960 And they were blown away that there was someone on the other end that was actually reading the text messages.

01:02:08.120 And from there, we could have a conversation.

01:02:10.260 The day after the election, Megan, we started sending text messages out again to every low and no propensity voter who's Republican, Democrat and independent saying, welcome to the America First movement.

01:02:20.640 What do you want to see on day one of a new administration?

01:02:22.980 Because now we've built these relationships, we have to expand our base.

01:02:27.600 We went up with black Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, youth.

01:02:31.700 This is our opportunity to make sure that people feel heard and that we connect them with these policies and make this the most successful first hundred days of any administration.

01:02:40.620 You know, it's crazy.

01:02:41.780 I know this is anecdotal, but I mean, the youth vote did turn out for Trump in a way that it normally never does for a Republican.

01:02:47.720 She still won it, but it was tight.

01:02:49.880 It was very tight and it's never tight.

01:02:52.220 But what's I'm sure you've seen these videos of all these young, beautiful women like in bikinis and the red MAGA hat dancing. 0.96

01:03:01.100 The MAGA label, the hat, the message far from being toxic as it was considered by many eight years ago.

01:03:10.480 It's cool now like that didn't just happen.

01:03:14.440 That was the result of, yes, President Trump, but also these door knocks and the constant messaging from people like you.

01:03:22.120 Well, and I have four daughters and I have one boy and this election to me, I think like a lot of moms, was personal.

01:03:32.000 And when you hear the stories, we did an event in Scottsdale, Arizona, and it was two moms that lost their sons to fentanyl poisoning.

01:03:41.240 One was a senior in high school, super overachiever.

01:03:44.460 The other one was in college and the stories were devastating.

01:03:48.540 I could hardly get through the conversation with them because I was so moved to tears.

01:03:52.940 But that happens in every community.

01:03:55.080 That's happening across the country.

01:03:56.660 And I think just being able to take those stories and connect them to people is what really changed hearts and minds.

01:04:03.660 And that's what this was about.

01:04:05.140 It's how do you convince people?

01:04:07.040 There's a cool side of it, of course, you know, with the Swifties for Trump and you see such a cultural shift, too.

01:04:13.440 Our athletes have been phenomenal in, you know, carrying the America first banner.

01:04:17.760 But I think for so long, too, just a little bit of a separate point is we have been shamed to be Americans.

01:04:23.620 And that's just wrong.

01:04:24.940 Like, we should be proud to be Americans.

01:04:26.860 We're the greatest country in the world.

01:04:28.620 And we've had the elite and the woke and the leftists try and force such garbage down our throats that we should feel sorry for that when we're the reason the world can continue in a way that doesn't have three wars break out like we just saw this past administration.

01:04:42.900 So I know you called it back to your meeting, Project 19, because you were prioritizing 19 counties across the swing states.

01:04:49.340 And then you added two more.

01:04:50.500 So it was technically Project 21, but you stuck with the old name.

01:04:53.020 So it's called Project 19.

01:04:54.060 And then fanned your volunteers out to go work these counties and try to make them as red as possible or turn them red if they weren't already.

01:05:02.480 What what were the most persuasive issues like the the boys and girls sports?

01:05:08.740 Was that universal or was that only deployed in, you know, the reddest counties?

01:05:15.540 The number one issue we heard was the economy.

01:05:19.320 Hands down.

01:05:20.440 Everywhere we went, it was the cost of living prices.

01:05:23.600 And it came in different forms.

01:05:25.220 Sometimes it was in inflation.

01:05:27.020 Sometimes it was in housing.

01:05:28.280 But it was always just cost of living economy.

01:05:31.980 The second issue very close was the border.

01:05:35.400 And the border was prevalent everywhere.

01:05:37.860 It wasn't just in like Arizona or Georgia.

01:05:40.980 It was in Wisconsin and Michigan.

01:05:43.680 And the third issue that we heard predominantly in Michigan, which I think is extremely interesting, was education.

01:05:49.600 And I think education in Michigan is interesting because you have a governor who had forced lockdowns so hard on those families that when school started back up again in September, they were kind of shocked that, you know, their kids weren't performing well and that they were still very far behind.

01:06:07.080 So I think that's going to lay the groundwork for future governor races.

01:06:11.280 And it's something that we're thinking about already.

01:06:13.780 I'll tell you something.

01:06:15.360 I mean, you're going from your anecdotal experiences with all your folks out on the ground.

01:06:19.060 We talked about this on the show yesterday, but there's this public opinion research initiative that's trying to they're trying to help Democrats called Blueprint.

01:06:27.060 And they just did a postmortem on on what they're hearing caused the Democrats to lose.

01:06:32.940 And they went and did surveys in all these states.

01:06:35.260 And I'm sure we'll continue to.

01:06:37.080 And what they found was that for minorities who crossed over to vote for Trump, in particular, like blacks and Latinos, by far, the number one issue was the economy and immigration.

01:06:46.700 But for swing state voters writ large, it was described as follows.

01:06:52.680 Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class, that this trans thing really moved votes. 0.95

01:07:02.520 They actually didn't care.

01:07:03.660 I'm amazed and horrified, but they did not care whether the candidates supported the coronavirus lockdowns, which is just OK.

01:07:11.560 I completely disagree.

01:07:13.100 But I wonder if people completely misread, for example, the Muslim issue you mentioned, the Arabs, because in communities like that and Latinos, too, even though it wasn't their number one issue.

01:07:27.160 We can we can see that according to this survey, we saw story after story the past two years of them showing up and protesting outside of schools, saying, get this disgusting pornography out of the K through 12 libraries.

01:07:40.700 And then 60 Minutes did a whole piece with with Moms for Liberty, trying to say it wasn't happening and that they were just making this stuff up.

01:07:49.720 And you're pointing out like these are much more conservative groups like in Dearborn, Michigan, who they're not going to tolerate this stuff.

01:07:58.940 That's exactly right.

01:07:59.940 That's exactly right.

01:08:00.940 So there's a separate entity.

01:08:03.780 It's called America First Action Fund.

01:08:05.840 And we had a mail piece that went into Dearborn.

01:08:09.680 It was mailed to, you know, Arab American, Black Americans.

01:08:13.940 And it was this is your transgender story hour coming to a library near you.

01:08:20.160 And it was transgender reading a story to these young children. 0.99

01:08:24.560 And it highlighted the policies of the left on how they've tried to push this woke transgender pornography garbage agenda to our kids. 0.99

01:08:33.740 The funny thing is, is one of our door canvassers got it in the mail and he heard his sister yell like, what the hell is this? 0.99

01:08:42.700 And he really goes, that's us.

01:08:44.300 That's our mail piece.

01:08:45.340 That's I know this group.

01:08:47.140 And his dad started texting it to all of the they have they're all on WhatsApp.

01:08:51.620 So he started texting it out to all of the Arab American WhatsApp groups that we got so many antidotes of people who said, you know, I've never voted.

01:08:59.040 I wasn't planning to vote.

01:09:00.400 But this pushed me over the edge.

01:09:01.980 This was this is a bridge too far.

01:09:03.880 And remember, that was a big issue that took place in Dearborn with the books and the schools.

01:09:08.080 And it's not something that I think most people who have common sense, who want to protect children, will tolerate.

01:09:15.740 But especially in the black American, Hispanic and Arabic communities, it was just absolutely mind blowing that this is something that, you know, the left wants to perpetuate.

01:09:26.220 That's amazing.

01:09:28.300 I mean, it's like we need to keep all of this in mind as we watch the Democrats do their postmortem and decide we're going to make this change and that change, but we're not going to make the other change.

01:09:38.440 And they're tearing themselves apart right now over the cultural issues because while they might be able to settle on some economic faux populism that they think they can sell, this, the cultural stuff is deep in their bloodstream now.

01:09:53.300 And I just I don't see a future for them until they manage to excise it.

01:09:58.540 And I just don't know how they're going to.

01:10:00.700 They allowed this to fester for too long.

01:10:03.720 Well, and the other issue that we came across, too, especially with, you know, the historically underserved lower socioeconomic communities is the schools are already crowded.

01:10:15.700 And now you have an influx of illegal aliens coming in.

01:10:19.660 They are getting free food, free housing, Playstations.

01:10:25.520 Their their kids spots are taking my kids spots in school.

01:10:29.020 You don't even have, you know, a strong education system.

01:10:32.240 And now you're overcrowding.

01:10:33.600 People were angry.

01:10:35.360 They were so angry that this administration, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and everyone in between, would open our borders, give them whatever they wanted.

01:10:44.900 And they're sitting there thinking, wait a minute.

01:10:46.880 What about me?

01:10:47.800 What about my family?

01:10:48.660 I am American.

01:10:50.260 What about my rights?

01:10:51.540 And that that was very resounding from especially the lower socioeconomic communities.

01:10:58.860 Well, that's what's so interesting about Trump's border plan and his deportation plan, because the vast majority of Americans are going to support these people being deported.

01:11:09.400 Obviously, the criminals, everyone wants them deported.

01:11:13.500 I mean, every sane person.

01:11:14.800 But then there will be additional deportations beyond that, just as there were under President Obama and all most presidents, most modern day presidents.

01:11:24.920 President Obama deported, I think, three million people.

01:11:26.600 And so I think the Democrats are planning on this being a daily news story where people will be crying and this is going to generate interest amongst their base that will be anti-Trump.

01:11:38.400 I think they're in for a rude awakening because the people you're talking about, we've covered these news stories, want their community center back.

01:11:46.300 They want their schools back.

01:11:47.920 They don't want their children to have to learn every subject in four different languages because you've got translators from all over the world now, at least here in New York, by school mandate to translate everything into whatever the native tongue is.

01:12:00.300 I mean, it's gotten to the point of true absurdity and it's unmanageable.

01:12:04.620 Yeah, that's exactly right.

01:12:06.540 And we're already starting to hear about it from the left.

01:12:09.080 They're losing their minds over this issue.

01:12:11.200 But this is the things that they're losing their mind over are the policies that President Trump won over with the American people.

01:12:17.080 So it's like they haven't learned their lesson yet.

01:12:19.840 And I think we just have to keep capitalizing on it and continue to make these make these gains.

01:12:24.680 My goal moving forward is to continue to build on these relationships that we've built since June.

01:12:30.780 That's when we first started our initial door knocks where it started in late June and just continue to build upon the relationships, keep the momentum going and go direct to consumer.

01:12:41.680 We have to run politics like a business.

01:12:43.940 It shouldn't just be, oh, see you again in 18 months.

01:12:47.120 If we don't build upon the success, we're going to lose people in the process.

01:12:51.040 I think people are really excited about what's to come.

01:12:53.760 And so if we can just view our voters like customers and provide service to them and make sure that they're getting your message, Megan, and the President's message and Elon's message and RFK Jr.

01:13:03.620 Maha was a really big deal with our moms, too.

01:13:06.760 I mean, we have so much opportunity ahead of us.

01:13:09.460 Let's just let's just keep, you know, pedals in the metal and keep going.

01:13:12.820 Yes, yes, because there's going to be agenda items he has to get through and he's going to need the squishy members of the House and Senate to get on board.

01:13:20.620 And that's where your organization will become relevant again to get that get the support.

01:13:24.740 Call your senator. Call your House member.

01:13:27.220 Let's talk about the Kamala Harris ground game is this is very interesting.

01:13:30.280 Like what happened? What happened to the vaunted ground game?

01:13:34.480 My my team pulled this great soundbite of Wajahat Ali, leftist commentator on CNN and other channels.

01:13:41.580 This is the same guy. The audience knows the clip by now who's in the Don Lemon clip with Rick Wilson, like them Republicans making fun of the way they talk,

01:13:50.080 like as if the Republicans would be sitting there going those Democrats with their maps and like their books.

01:13:56.240 That was them. So for the audience, that's who you're about to hear.

01:14:00.020 A guy who looks at the right half of the country that way.

01:14:02.480 And here he was. What show is he on, Steve? Was it Piers Morgan?

01:14:07.320 Yeah, he was on Piers. Watch this before on election day.

01:14:10.440 Righteous rage of women is going to be felt tomorrow. 1.00

01:14:12.800 Piers, I've been saying on your show for a year.

01:14:14.200 I believe I'm going to say in front of the camera and if I'm wrong, I'm going to come back in your show.

01:14:18.780 You give me crow. Make sure it's halal. 1.00

01:14:20.700 Oh, put some salsa in it and I'll see you.

01:14:22.740 There you go. Kamala Harris is going to win. 1.00

01:14:25.880 The X factor is going to be women, independents, Republicans voting against Trump and people of color.

01:14:33.800 I can't wait to see the follow up episode.

01:14:38.080 So what do you say to him, Ashley? How did he get it so wrong?

01:14:42.080 Oh, he was so wrong.

01:14:43.580 The righteous rage of women came from women who voted against Kamala Harris.

01:14:48.500 Because like I said in the beginning, you can't ask what is a woman and literally put women in the most unsafe positions over the course of your entire administration and then think they're going to show up and support you.

01:15:00.160 In fact, women were so upset. 1.00

01:15:02.480 And many women, I think like you, Megan, and myself, we're voting for our kids. 0.97

01:15:06.640 We're voting for their future and just voting against the complete lunacy of the garbage that they're trying to put in our schools, that they're trying to indoctrinate our children with. 0.99

01:15:17.840 It's disgusting. 0.99

01:15:18.680 And so it's just, it's absolutely hilarious that this is how out of touch the elites are versus the real American people.

01:15:27.460 They have no clue what's going on.

01:15:29.760 We heard for months throughout the summer into the fall that she had a ground game.

01:15:36.560 It was going to be this amazing ground game.

01:15:38.280 I was getting reports, so our canvassers were paid door knockers.

01:15:42.600 That was their job was to go knock door to door.

01:15:44.820 I get reports every day and every week.

01:15:47.900 And when I read those reports, we weren't seeing them on the ground until after Labor Day in some places.

01:15:54.540 Like in Michigan, they sent two guys to Dearborn and they were there for maybe a week and left.

01:16:01.120 We just didn't see them.

01:16:02.220 Maybe they were there and we were in different routes or different streets, but their ground game did not exist.

01:16:07.660 So I don't know what their feedback loop was.

01:16:11.360 The other issue that we read was helpful to you.

01:16:15.480 I mean, obviously economy and immigration.

01:16:17.760 And then we talked about the trans thing.

01:16:19.720 Was the stolen valor allegations against Tim Walz?

01:16:25.700 Yeah.

01:16:26.860 We saw veterans show up very early, very quickly.

01:16:30.020 Um, we did canvas and did text messaging to veterans, but usually in these types of races and

01:16:37.060 presidential races, the VP is somewhat irrelevant, but Tim Walz was the goofiest choice.

01:16:43.280 I still don't understand how she, I think she got stuck with him because Shapiro and Kelly didn't

01:16:48.260 want to tie their pitch, their wagon to her, to be quite honest. 0.53

01:16:52.000 Um, but Tim Walz was so goofy and he lied.

01:16:54.860 And the media, CNN, especially gaslit the American people again about his service, made 0.61

01:17:01.340 people feel bad for questioning his title, um, his rank.

01:17:05.560 He did not earn that rank.

01:17:07.080 He was supposed to finish his school yet.

01:17:08.560 He continued to use it and use it throughout the campaign.

01:17:10.780 That's insulting.

01:17:11.900 He also said he was deployed.

01:17:13.360 I'm a Marine wife.

01:17:14.480 He, that man was never deployed into combat.

01:17:16.680 And I mean, the, also the flips of him trying to load a shotgun was hysterical.

01:17:22.620 Uh, he doesn't even know how to unload his gun.

01:17:25.740 And then you have JD Vance who actually has served his country, who is, you know, a great

01:17:31.360 Catholic man who's, who's served honorably.

01:17:34.360 And you have such a strong contrast between the two of them.

01:17:38.420 That was a slam dunk for us.

01:17:40.920 It's amazing, especially in a day and age when we're lamenting how woke the military

01:17:45.220 is to have this guy touting his own military service, which he falsified in large part.

01:17:51.000 Uh, I mean, he served, but his title, he falsified and whether and where he served became an issue

01:17:56.300 as well.

01:17:56.740 Um, and super woke, right?

01:17:58.960 I mean, as woke as they come transing kids in Minnesota who don't even live there, who 1.00

01:18:03.280 seizing custody from parents who actually live out of state, not to mention tampon Tim in

01:18:09.000 the bathrooms, like he, I'm sure those military members who are sick of this woke military

01:18:15.040 understood exactly what they'd be getting if they had four more years of a Democrat administration,

01:18:20.780 including the likes of Tim walls in it.

01:18:22.560 So that's very, that's very interesting too.

01:18:25.020 Can we spend a minute on the Iowa poll?

01:18:27.020 And we're, we're back on like the lies being put out.

01:18:29.480 We talked about how women they're surging in Pennsylvania, that Iowa poll had a lot of

01:18:34.440 Republicans rattled.

01:18:35.640 It was concerning.

01:18:36.480 It was like red state, Iowa, she's up three. 0.74

01:18:39.720 Holy smokes.

01:18:41.720 When you saw that, what did you think?

01:18:44.720 We knew something was wrong.

01:18:46.680 So we immediately started looking at it.

01:18:48.640 The early vote, there was like a nine point advantage for conservatives.

01:18:51.820 Our voter registration gap was massive.

01:18:54.860 Um, it was very much, I think a tactic to maybe distract conservatives or try to distract

01:19:00.020 conservatives from what was actually happening.

01:19:02.500 And what was happening was she was just getting absolutely creamed in Iowa.

01:19:06.260 Um, that poll also does not have any transparency.

01:19:08.900 You couldn't really see any of the cross tabs, but just based on the early vote and the voter

01:19:14.060 registration, uh, president Trump had a massive advantage in Iowa.

01:19:18.100 There was no question whatsoever.

01:19:20.480 So, and it was proved, it was proven true on election day.

01:19:24.440 When you watched these polls, which all along said it's tight, tight, tight, tight, tight.

01:19:28.680 And of course, look, I mean, president Trump, it'll wind up being maybe a one, two point

01:19:34.020 victory in the popular vote.

01:19:35.340 So you can make the argument it's tight, but he won all seven of the swing States, all seven

01:19:40.680 of them.

01:19:42.000 Um, what were you thinking?

01:19:44.080 Did you believe the polls that it was tight?

01:19:45.860 And you said, let's double down, let's triple down.

01:19:47.840 Or were you like, it's not going to be tight.

01:19:49.840 We'll double and triple down anyway, just to be safe.

01:19:51.800 But what were you thinking beforehand?

01:19:54.860 Well, no matter what the poll said, we always ran like we were 30 points behind.

01:19:58.680 And we always tried to maximize every dollar that our investors gave us.

01:20:02.480 And we wanted to make sure that we had the highest return on our investment.

01:20:06.500 So working with our pathway partners was critical, making sure that we were, we had data and we

01:20:11.180 were, we were making every decision using data and metrics that was critical for us.

01:20:15.340 But also when we were looking at the numbers, we knew we had to bank votes.

01:20:19.560 So going into election day, we knew that we had banked over 604,000 votes for, you know,

01:20:26.640 concern for president Trump, um, that he didn't, and the left was behind like a million votes

01:20:32.760 compared to 2020.

01:20:34.060 So we knew going into election day, we had done our job.

01:20:37.400 We had widened the gap.

01:20:38.920 We were, we were very confident.

01:20:41.660 Um, and our team jokes around.

01:20:43.560 We say, it's just math.

01:20:44.640 It's just math.

01:20:45.320 It's just a math problem.

01:20:46.280 So if you can figure out the math problem, then you can win.

01:20:50.560 Wow.

01:20:51.600 That must've been very comforting because those of us who are on the outside, just relying on

01:20:55.300 these pollsters, very frustrating because you just had like, I think most of us had a feel.

01:20:59.860 You just look around.

01:21:00.480 It was like so many more lawn signs for Trump than we'd ever seen before.

01:21:03.640 So many MAGA hats everywhere.

01:21:05.080 So many people being open about their support for Trump.

01:21:07.720 The huge rallies that which the left continued to tell us we're not huge.

01:21:11.180 It's like, we can see that they're huge.

01:21:12.700 We can, for a presidential candidate, they're huge.

01:21:14.260 And then they say, oh, look at Kamala Harris. 0.95

01:21:16.240 The only time she got the big crowds is when Beyonce was there or some performer, which

01:21:20.040 is why they got paid millions of dollars so she could boost her. 1.00

01:21:23.620 But it was like, but it's all anecdotal.

01:21:25.540 You know, you can't go by that.

01:21:26.600 The pollsters across the board were saying it's tight.

01:21:30.840 So it's just one of those things.

01:21:32.300 Okay.

01:21:32.620 Was there anything in the Democrat vaunted ground game of old, like the Barack Obama one

01:21:39.860 that you took lessons from?

01:21:41.680 Data, technology, and their mantra was always vote blue no matter who.

01:21:50.360 So they really focused on policies.

01:21:53.300 In this particular case, we knew we needed to up our game on data.

01:21:57.060 So the Democrats are very good about sharing information.

01:22:00.620 And that is where I think sometimes conservatives aren't as strong.

01:22:04.000 So for us, we created our AFW data command is what we call it.

01:22:08.520 And we had data shares with different organizations, including the Trump campaign.

01:22:12.640 And so because of the FEC opinion, which said that we could legally work with, you know, federal

01:22:17.900 campaigns.

01:22:18.560 So we legally worked with the NRSC, the president's campaign, the RNC, and some of the Senate races.

01:22:28.100 That was a game changer for us because we were able to build universes based off of our data

01:22:33.220 share agreement.

01:22:34.540 And then we could also share that with other 501C4 organizations so that they could be successful.

01:22:39.480 Because the more successful they are, the more successful the whole movement is.

01:22:43.420 So that was really our goal.

01:22:44.780 Like the Charlie Kirk group, like the Elon group, for example.

01:22:46.480 Is that what you mean?

01:22:47.480 Yeah.

01:22:48.100 And I mean, Hunter Nation, they specifically target Second Amendment.

01:22:51.760 Moms for America, Moms for Liberty, Targeting Moms, Faith and Freedom Coalition, I mean,

01:22:58.300 Tea Party Patriot Action.

01:22:59.980 There are so many.

01:23:00.760 We ended up with almost 100 organizations by the end of it that we were working with to

01:23:06.080 be really intentional.

01:23:07.780 The other thing that I think was a complete game changer was having Laura Trump and Michael 0.93

01:23:11.940 Watley as the head of the RNC on election integrity.

01:23:14.900 We would have an issue pop up and it would be resolved literally in minutes.

01:23:19.060 It was completely different from what I experienced in 2020.

01:23:22.900 That was a true game changer.

01:23:25.380 Yeah.

01:23:26.040 So if we saw an issue pop up in Wisconsin, or if we saw there was an issue with some of

01:23:32.340 the ballots in Pennsylvania, for example, there was a couple of people who said that a deceased

01:23:38.160 spouse had received a ballot.

01:23:39.920 They were able to take issue on that like right away.

01:23:43.300 They've jumped into action, investigated it.

01:23:45.940 The Bucks County.

01:23:46.680 So we started working in Bucks County in 2023 and the chair there is amazing, the Republican

01:23:52.980 Party chairwoman.

01:23:54.280 But in Bucks County, we had so many people showing up for early, early votes.

01:23:59.320 The lines were super long and they had like one person working in one of the locations.

01:24:04.680 The party was able to file a lawsuit to extend the vote deadline to Friday at 5 p.m.

01:24:10.720 And that was extremely helpful.

01:24:13.300 I don't think that would have happened in 2020.

01:24:15.960 And it gave us extra time to, again, those relationships with those text messages, have

01:24:19.840 conversations saying, hey, just so you know, there's a two hour hour wait, but it's going

01:24:24.520 to be open again tomorrow at 9 a.m.

01:24:25.840 if you want to come back.

01:24:26.740 And that's really because there was such a quick, rapid response on any sort of election

01:24:31.360 integrity issue. 0.99

01:24:32.740 I have to say, it's like Laura Trump took a lot of crap when she got elevated to that 1.00

01:24:37.060 position by people who are like, what are her qualifications to help run the RNC? 0.97

01:24:42.240 And I remember at first saying, I don't totally understand the choice, but I'm open minded.

01:24:46.440 And I went and contacted some of the people I know who have been high up in that organization.

01:24:51.440 And they were like, you know what?

01:24:52.720 It's actually does make sense because the partnership makes sense.

01:24:56.400 He can be responsible for some of the more of the traditional organizational things.

01:25:00.580 And she can be somebody who people really respond to when it comes to fundraising and

01:25:04.880 outreach and messaging as she already had been for Trump.

01:25:08.420 And people said, oh, it's going to be too pro-Trump.

01:25:10.180 It's like, well, we need we need pro-Trump.

01:25:11.880 We need somebody who's going to help on the mission of getting this guy elected.

01:25:17.040 That was so that was actually a really smart decision.

01:25:21.280 And I think a lot of people forget that there was so much distrust in the RNC from a lot of

01:25:27.200 the base because of all of the problems that happened in 2020 and 2022.

01:25:31.160 And people didn't want to work with the RNC.

01:25:33.700 And one of the things I in my conversations with James Blair or Brian Swenson, it was they

01:25:40.580 understood that and having Laura, who was part of the Trump family, helped bridge that gap.

01:25:45.980 I had the privilege of working with Laura on the 2020 campaign.

01:25:49.340 She is the most dynamic, hardworking, high energy person. 0.95

01:25:53.040 When you meet her, you love her.

01:25:54.600 And I thought she was the perfect person, like I said, just to bridge that gap and kind

01:25:58.120 of restore trust in that institution that people were just really doubting.

01:26:02.380 And so having them, you know, having the smarts of Michael Watley, who North Carolina has run

01:26:07.540 seamlessly for so long, and he knows that operations mechanical side of it, you know, and also

01:26:13.520 pull in a Trump.

01:26:14.620 That was really, I think, the secret sauce that made the election integrity world move

01:26:18.640 so much more smooth than in the past.

01:26:21.620 No, I mean, she was roundly criticized for thinking she could do that job. 1.00

01:26:25.340 And I haven't heard a lot of apologies to her by her detractors now that she's helped deliver

01:26:30.100 total victory.

01:26:31.320 I mean, it's very impressive.

01:26:33.360 Let's talk about the numbers, because there's something interesting in the numbers.

01:26:36.560 They're still counting, of course.

01:26:38.220 I don't know when we're ever going to have the final couch, thanks to our friends in

01:26:40.920 California.

01:26:41.300 But it looks like Trump will get just above the 74 million votes that he got in 2020,

01:26:46.620 and that Kamala Harris will be around 10 million votes behind what Joe Biden received.

01:26:54.840 I mean, think about that.

01:26:55.860 My God, they just didn't want her.

01:26:58.220 It was a wholesale rejection.

01:27:01.240 So is this election more about Republicans getting to the polls, or is it more about Democrats

01:27:08.740 saying, I can't do it?

01:27:11.280 I will not pull the lever for that woman. 1.00

01:27:14.760 I think there's a combination of both, to be honest.

01:27:19.100 The demographics have changed, you know, in a lot of ways with the increase of young women,

01:27:25.600 youth vote, Hispanic vote, Black vote.

01:27:28.100 There's such a massive shift.

01:27:30.000 I think there may be some people, and we won't know until we see the final numbers, but I think

01:27:34.300 that there are some people who were undecided that may have been more left-leaning, because

01:27:40.060 those independent voters, remember.

01:27:41.600 And I think only time will tell on some of those pieces once we get the data back on who stayed

01:27:48.480 home and who actually turned out on election day.

01:27:50.600 I think it's going to show that maybe more people who were really upset with who were,

01:27:56.220 you know, independent but leaning left, they may have just stayed home and didn't want to

01:27:59.680 participate.

01:28:00.300 Yeah.

01:28:00.440 So that's going to be, we will know this probably in February, March.

01:28:05.920 I'd be happy to give you the full report then.

01:28:08.620 Okay.

01:28:09.120 Yeah.

01:28:09.340 I'd love to know.

01:28:10.080 I mean, it's fascinating just to hear, I want all the postmortems.

01:28:13.140 I want to hear every single word about how it happened and what she was doing that didn't

01:28:17.060 work and what Trump was doing that did.

01:28:19.080 What, can you explain your take on ticket splitting?

01:28:23.980 Because the Republicans did not, you know, they won 53 houses or seats in the Senate, which

01:28:29.080 is amazing, but they didn't win 56, right?

01:28:31.460 They lost Nevada.

01:28:32.580 They lost Michigan.

01:28:34.040 They lost, um, was Wisconsin the other one?

01:28:36.240 Yeah.

01:28:36.900 Um, yeah, Wisconsin.

01:28:38.000 So why, why, why would somebody go into the ballot booth and check yes for Trump, but no

01:28:45.780 for the Republican Senate candidates in those states?

01:28:50.120 So in a couple of those, uh, states, what we saw was there was a higher number of people

01:28:56.940 who Democrats who voted for the Senate candidate and didn't vote for president at all.

01:29:03.280 So think about that.

01:29:05.000 Be somebody who would go in like and vote for Jackie Rosen, but not vote for Kamala Harris.

01:29:10.240 So they just, they were very turned off by such a middle finger.

01:29:14.820 Totally.

01:29:15.460 A hundred percent.

01:29:16.540 And also in Nevada, you can actually choose none of the above, none of the candidates as

01:29:22.540 one of your choices.

01:29:23.260 So that was another interesting piece.

01:29:26.120 The other thing I will say though, is that on those Senate races, they were all outspent

01:29:30.440 two to three to one.

01:29:32.000 So the Democrat candidates had such a bigger war chest to tell their story as opposed to

01:29:37.420 the Republican candidates.

01:29:38.440 And that does have a really big impact, especially in the States on those down ballot races.

01:29:44.740 Well, yeah, because Trump was outspent outspent three to one to their latest report is he spent

01:29:50.980 about 300,000 and change and she spent a billion, but he had so much earned media.

01:29:57.420 I mean, everyone in the world is interested in what Donald Trump is saying and doing, and

01:30:02.680 he can drive the news cycle like that.

01:30:04.860 Just that I mean, truly just by snapping his fingers.

01:30:07.420 But you can't do that if you are, you know, a Nevada senatorial candidate, it's just not

01:30:12.860 the same.

01:30:13.460 So the money does make a difference in those smaller races.

01:30:16.900 Yeah.

01:30:17.440 And in Michigan, for example, a slot can had raised like $40 million and Mike Rogers raised

01:30:22.800 $10 million.

01:30:23.360 Like that's just, it's just astronomically different when you have that much more money.

01:30:28.620 And that was a very, very close race.

01:30:31.000 But again, compound that with the people who showed up and said, I'm not voting for president,

01:30:36.080 but I'll vote for my Senate.

01:30:38.360 And I think that was also some of the messaging too, from, I think the pro Palestine, pro Hamas

01:30:44.760 movement really hurt them because they had campaigned for months, the grassroots on, you know,

01:30:52.260 vote, no commitments, don't vote for presidential.

01:30:55.640 And it wasn't until like the week before the election did they say, well, I guess we should

01:30:59.380 support Kamala.

01:31:00.480 It's too late.

01:31:01.860 You have literally spent the past year convincing your people to sit out and now you're going

01:31:07.420 to tell them to show up.

01:31:08.620 It was, it was, the damage was done on that point.

01:31:12.140 Wow.

01:31:13.040 Ashley, congratulations to you, your whole team.

01:31:17.160 The Republicans are very lucky to have you.

01:31:20.460 Well done.

01:31:21.080 America is lucky to have this new administration.

01:31:24.540 I'm so excited.

01:31:26.140 Ah, Ashley Hayek, all the best.

01:31:28.120 Good luck.

01:31:28.980 Thank you.

01:31:30.480 Wow.

01:31:31.380 Incredible, right?

01:31:32.660 You can change the world.

01:31:34.540 Just a little elbow grease, planning, hard, hard work.

01:31:37.960 Good for her.

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01:32:10.280 I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.

01:32:14.140 It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and

01:32:19.200 important political, legal, and cultural figures today.

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01:33:07.140 Offer details apply.

01:33:13.740 You know, I was just thinking about the situation with a FEMA worker in Florida,

01:33:17.340 and it's like the messaging that was sent, we've seen the internal FEMA emails now.

01:33:23.220 The messaging sent was avoid homes advertising Trump.

01:33:27.660 It was not avoid 844 and 846 on such and such a lane because somebody made a threatening call.

01:33:36.660 This is all CYA. 1.00

01:33:38.100 This is such bullshit. 1.00

01:33:39.900 It was avoid homes advertising Trump. 1.00

01:33:42.720 Maybe there was one bad apple.

01:33:44.580 That doesn't justify ignoring homes advertising Trump, which they know.

01:33:49.720 This was punitive.

01:33:51.060 That's how it feels.

01:33:51.920 And there does need to be a full investigation into this disgusting development in FEMA. 1.00

01:33:56.360 OK, let's get to our audience here who's calling in.

01:34:01.460 Let's see.

01:34:02.160 Dustin in Florida.

01:34:03.380 We've had a lot of Florida stuff happening on the show today.

01:34:05.420 Dustin, how are you feeling about last Tuesday?

01:34:08.400 You're the best.

01:34:09.060 It's true.

01:34:11.180 We're led by the best governor in the country.

01:34:13.120 I mean, come on.

01:34:13.820 We couldn't get him.

01:34:14.480 And Trump is home here, too.

01:34:16.320 So, you know.

01:34:16.740 Listen, I got to I got to tell you, I told your call screener, I feel absolutely like

01:34:21.100 a million ton weight was just lifted off my shoulders last week.

01:34:24.740 I had a feeling it was going to go this way.

01:34:26.860 I kept saying it was going to go this way.

01:34:28.240 But like you and like Sean Hannigan, you people on the radio that I listen to today, like,

01:34:32.040 don't count it out.

01:34:34.840 You know, get out and vote.

01:34:35.900 Go and vote.

01:34:36.840 Yeah.

01:34:38.340 Don't count on it.

01:34:39.700 Exactly.

01:34:40.520 Right.

01:34:40.980 Yeah.

01:34:41.340 No.

01:34:41.600 And it worked out.

01:34:42.920 But God, can you imagine if we would have woke up last week and it was the other way?

01:34:47.020 No, I was preparing myself.

01:34:49.040 I was saying like privately to my husband and I, we talk about it every day.

01:34:52.340 And he's like, what do you think is going to happen?

01:34:53.880 And I would just say, I think Kamala is going to win.

01:34:56.160 I didn't actually have a thought on whether Kamala is going to win.

01:34:58.480 I had no idea.

01:34:59.420 But I would say it just to get myself like ready for it.

01:35:02.000 You know what I mean?

01:35:02.340 Just so I could accept it. 1.00

01:35:03.400 And I wouldn't be one of these blubbering fools. 1.00

01:35:06.100 Right. 1.00

01:35:06.500 Because I didn't want to be one of those idiots who is out there crying. 1.00

01:35:09.180 I'm like, oh, I need to be able to handle it. 1.00

01:35:11.220 If she won, I was like, might as well just ease myself into it because it's a possibility.

01:35:14.560 I knew I wouldn't need any easing if Trump won.

01:35:17.280 And hasn't it just been the most glorious seven, eight days?

01:35:20.840 Oh, it's been wonderful.

01:35:21.980 I mean, you know, even watching some of the liberals melt down between everything from

01:35:25.640 Glenn Beck all the way to Mark Levin every day.

01:35:27.580 I listen to talk.

01:35:28.180 I listen to way too much talk radio.

01:35:29.460 But I mean, come on.

01:35:30.320 And you're one of my favorites now.

01:35:32.100 And you replaced Rush for me because I grew up since I was 13 years old listening to him.

01:35:37.480 But you know what?

01:35:39.140 Listening to the clips you guys play of these people melting down, it's like, you know, 1.00

01:35:44.060 at first I want to say, oh, you're just so stupid. 1.00

01:35:45.960 How can you believe this stuff? 1.00

01:35:46.860 But I really think they're just misinformed people. 0.99

01:35:49.900 Some of them are mental.

01:35:51.340 But there's a lot of people in this country that have no clue.

01:35:54.860 And you illustrate that every day. 0.89

01:35:56.780 Deeply mental.

01:35:57.840 The ones with the blue bracelets.

01:36:00.160 Like, OK, sister.

01:36:01.440 Dustin, thank you.

01:36:02.240 Thanks so much.

01:36:02.840 I love the Rush compliment.

01:36:04.020 That is the highest praise.

01:36:05.340 And thanks for listening to us.

01:36:06.300 Greatly appreciate it.

01:36:07.720 All right.

01:36:07.920 Let's see.

01:36:08.320 Let's go.

01:36:09.380 Let's take a walk down to Rob in Texas has thoughts on Carrie Lake. 1.00

01:36:14.780 What are those thoughts, Rob?

01:36:17.380 Well, I'm just wondering if she has a position in the Trump administration.

01:36:21.300 But first I wanted to say that when we found out that Trump won, I thought back to your book when you had done a case in front of two professors and you didn't know, but you found out later that they did a hi-fi to each other when you left the room.

01:36:40.560 So that's the way I felt about our country.

01:36:43.080 You know, I just love that.

01:36:46.020 You're so sweet.

01:36:47.140 Thank you.

01:36:47.560 Yeah, it was on my moot court audition.

01:36:49.740 Yeah, that they kept it a secret how they felt about the audition, but it went well.

01:36:53.800 I know I've been high-fiving everybody.

01:36:55.740 I mean, I've been hugging strangers.

01:36:57.220 I'm just so thrilled.

01:36:58.560 I'm thrilled for Trump because it's such an amazing comeback.

01:37:01.220 I'm thrilled for our country.

01:37:03.380 And then the team of Avengers he's bringing in there, I can't wait, can't wait for them to get to work.

01:37:10.260 Rob, thank you for your lovely message.

01:37:12.960 Mark in Virginia, which, you know, we're trying to make a swing state again.

01:37:16.800 It was once and now it's more blue.

01:37:19.680 Your thoughts, Mark?

01:37:20.780 We were close.

01:37:21.760 We were closer than I thought we'd be.

01:37:24.180 By the way, Megan, when you were speaking with Trump on stage, I thought I missed it.

01:37:29.740 And I was so upset.

01:37:31.600 I sat there with my little finger and rewound the whole video to see that I hadn't missed you yet.

01:37:36.860 So I was so glad that you actually made it on stage and you did a wonderful job.

01:37:42.240 And I got to tell you, you're the reason that I'm renewing my XM subscription this year.

01:37:48.220 Oh, that's so nice.

01:37:50.200 Oh, I really hope the serious brass is listening to this.

01:37:52.280 Thank you, Mark.

01:37:54.220 Well, I mean, it's so convenient.

01:37:56.200 And I got to tell you, I mean, I was the Fox News junkie.

01:37:59.940 That's that's where I was, you know, first saw you.

01:38:02.560 But I flipped between you and back on election night.

01:38:06.720 That was my election coverage.

01:38:08.040 And I never would have done that a year ago.

01:38:11.020 Awesome.

01:38:11.660 We're the future.

01:38:12.740 It's it.

01:38:13.260 I feel like only the dinosaurs are still watching cable news.

01:38:16.540 It's like I turn to cable news when there's like a breaking weather event.

01:38:20.680 And other than that, and I'll tell you something, this is not a nice fact about me, Mark.

01:38:24.320 But since we're so close and you said all those nice things about me and Sirius, I'm going to tell you.

01:38:29.720 I I have a TV in my studio here as as of the election night.

01:38:35.680 I don't normally have the TV in here, but they put it up so we could see the results coming in.

01:38:40.160 And they left it up.

01:38:41.420 So Steve Krakauer, my EP, was like, we should make your commentary on this into a show.

01:38:46.900 I it's been like 10 years without seeing any of these cable news people.

01:38:49.900 And it's been hilarious to tune back in.

01:38:53.460 Nothing's changed.

01:38:54.600 The people don't look as good.

01:38:56.600 That's changed.

01:38:57.920 But but they've changed nothing. 1.00

01:39:00.840 They're having the same stilted, guarded, fake conversations that last four minutes long with like the stupid panels. 1.00

01:39:07.460 It's amazing how out of date they are. 0.99

01:39:10.160 Well, I'm so proud of you for taking the leap that you did after everything with Fox and NBC.

01:39:16.180 And and I'm just I really am proud of you.

01:39:18.460 I'm I am a radio broadcaster.

01:39:20.640 So it's just this is a thrill just to be able to say hi to you.

01:39:24.780 And I hope you and your hubby have a great Hanukkah and Christmas.

01:39:28.600 Thank you.

01:39:29.240 You're a good man, Mark.

01:39:30.260 Maybe we'll see you down in Virginia.

01:39:31.260 I've got some family down there.

01:39:32.320 Big, big fan.

01:39:34.200 OK, let's go.

01:39:35.160 Let's go out west.

01:39:36.000 Let's go to California and talk to Marlo.

01:39:37.960 Hi, Marlo.

01:39:38.420 What's on your mind?

01:39:39.000 Hi, Megan.

01:39:40.920 Thanks so much for taking my call.

01:39:42.880 Just wanted to say I am a Californian Republican.

01:39:46.500 I voted for Donald Trump straight down the party line.

01:39:50.080 I'm a business owner of 30 years.

01:39:52.260 And I can't tell you how much of a relief has lost my shoulders.

01:39:57.660 I can't wait for all the wonderful things that he's going to do to help our business, to help

01:40:02.780 our country, to help my children buy a home.

01:40:06.080 My husband and I have just been so excited and I haven't stopped smiling and I haven't

01:40:10.380 been this happy in a long time.

01:40:12.800 And I love your show.

01:40:13.540 I know.

01:40:13.960 I love listening to your show.

01:40:15.940 I love the straightforwardness.

01:40:17.920 It just makes my day every day.

01:40:20.540 Oh, gosh.

01:40:21.520 Thank you for that, Marlo.

01:40:22.520 I feel the same.

01:40:23.480 I feel genuinely euphoric, which as a cynical mofo newswoman, I don't often feel like it

01:40:30.280 takes something wonderful for my children to make me feel euphoria generally.

01:40:33.620 But this week, I have felt totally euphoric about our country and the future.

01:40:39.220 I feel like we saved it.

01:40:41.760 I know it's melodramatic.

01:40:43.680 I mean, we still would have been here if she had won, but it would have been, I don't know

01:40:47.520 how we would have gotten the number of illegals that are crossing the border under her out. 1.00

01:40:52.100 I just like, we're already looking at 10 to 20 million.

01:40:54.700 There would have been maybe 10 to 20 million more.

01:40:56.540 That's a country that it's not going to change back.

01:40:59.040 So thank you, Marlo, for calling.

01:41:00.640 I completely agree with you, and it's very hard to be a conservative in California, so

01:41:05.460 you must be a strong lady.

01:41:06.600 All right, let's go to Kevin in Tennessee.

01:41:09.360 Kevin, thoughts on the election?

01:41:12.440 Yes, Megan.

01:41:13.660 I was just, I haven't heard many people talking about the fact that, well, other than the left,

01:41:21.700 that misogyny played a role.

01:41:25.420 And I just have to say, you'd be hard pressed, in my world at least, to find anyone who would

01:41:32.700 not vote for a woman as president, just not this woman. 0.97

01:41:38.560 Kevin, I believe everywhere, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.

01:41:43.220 Like, why are they still spewing this nonsense on us, right?

01:41:47.060 And Barack Obama won twice. 0.96

01:41:49.520 And he's black, because that's the other thing they blame it on, right?

01:41:52.040 Like, she was a woman, and she's a person of color. 0.98

01:41:54.520 This is baloney excuse-making she lost because of inflation, immigration, culture issues. 1.00

01:42:01.100 And she stunk. 0.99

01:42:02.660 She stunk up the joint. 1.00

01:42:04.140 She was a terrible candidate. 0.99

01:42:06.400 I got to go.

01:42:07.180 Kevin, thank you for listening.

01:42:08.300 Thanks to all of our callers and our listeners.

01:42:10.760 Hope you're feeling great.

01:42:12.400 I want to tell you tomorrow, Bill Ackman's on the program.

01:42:15.600 We've talked about him a lot on this show.

01:42:17.160 Well, you'll hear from him directly.

01:42:18.880 Full program.

01:42:20.300 Don't miss that.

01:42:21.420 God bless.

01:42:22.280 By the way, send me an email if you didn't get to call in.

01:42:24.340 Megan at MeganKelley.com.

01:42:28.920 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:42:30.780 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - November 12, 2024

Secrets of Trump's Ground Game Success, with Ashley Hayek, and Sen. Rick Scott Makes Senate Leader Case ｜ Ep. 942

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