Shocking DOGE Findings, Elon vs. Sen. Kelly, and Hillary's Hypocrisy, with Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer, and Dan Turrentine | Ep. 1037
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 40 minutes
Words per minute
181.58698
Harmful content
Misogyny
13
sentences flagged
Hate speech
22
sentences flagged
Summary
Breaking news from the Supreme Court, Elon Musk's Doge goes on the attack, and the Trump administration files a petition to review the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants. Plus, a new Megyn Kelly Media Podcast, Next Up with Mark Halperin.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.
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Did this feel like a long week to you or a short week?
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In any event, it's going to be a great day today.
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You know how like after 100 days, the news media always looks back and says like,
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He's lived up to virtually every single campaign promise he made.
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Through no thanks of the courts who have been trying to stop him via leftist petitions to
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And we have breaking news on that in one second.
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But first, just let me give you a couple of the headlines we're looking at this morning.
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We've got Elon Musk's Doge now going on real offense.
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This seems like overdue to me because, look, they've been taking such a beating in the press
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They went on with Bret Baier last night, Elon, and some of his top lieutenants in Doge.
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I think the numbers on Doge are going to go up after that interview and pretty quickly,
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I really, now having seen them, I'm like, why did they let this image of just young whippersnappers
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in their backpacks and, like, surfer boy clothes go on as long as they did?
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And they should have been put out there a little earlier.
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Well, whatever, you know, better late than never.
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So we'll show you a lot of the clips from that.
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And we are also going to talk about this, the breaking news at the U.S. Supreme Court.
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I want to get to it all with editor-in-chief of Two-Way, Mark Halperin, and host of the
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new Megyn Kelly media podcast called Next Up with Mark Halperin, launching soon, along
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with former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and former Democratic strategist Dan
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They are the hosts of The Morning Meeting on the Two-Way YouTube channel.
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It took us decades to get into the tangled mess that they're trying to unpack right now
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How long is it going to take to get out of it, and at what cost?
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And the feedback from the viewers has been overwhelming.
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Very grateful to you, Steve, and your colleagues there for inviting me to join up.
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And I hope to be worthy of being part of the mega metropolis of your media empire.
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So moments ago, the Trump administration filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court
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asking it to review the Court of Appeals order in the Judge Boasberg case on the deportations
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This has been one of, if not the biggest legal matter that they've been hashing out in the
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And Trump lost on Wednesday with a divided D.C. Circuit three-judge panel.
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A Trump-appointed judge would have sided with the administration.
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And the splitter was an H.W. Bush appointee who sided with the Obama judge and said,
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you can't use the Alien Enemies Act to just deport a bunch of people.
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So they're asking the Supreme Court for immediate review because right now what's happening is
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Judge Boasberg's order halting these deportations stands.
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So the Trump policy has effectively been shut down until we get a final ruling from the U.S.
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And, you know, there's been no, like, real evidentiary hearing.
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Like, Trump is in there saying, no, the policy should be allowed to go forward until we have
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Okay, so we'll find out what the Supreme Court does.
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But as this happens, a very interesting piece in the news this morning.
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This is all stuff we're going to be getting to, so buckle up.
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The question is whether the Alien Enemies Act can be used by a president when it's not
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technically a time of war, meaning war hasn't been declared by Congress, but the president
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has used other language from the Alien Enemies Act to declare an invasion or an incursion.
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Now, Judge Boesberg was not convinced that a president can do that by proclamation and
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that if he can, it's an appropriate circumstance here.
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And the Court of Appeals agreed with Judge Boesberg on those points.
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They're not convinced that this is an incursion or an invasion as those terms would typically
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And he makes the strong case based on another piece of journalism he had witnessed that Tren
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de Aragua is indeed, it qualifies as a military incursion that's been unleashed on us by the
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He says, there was an extraordinary article last week by Miami Herald investigative reporter
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And Delgado interviewed a team of high-level investigators and analysts who had been following
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The only team member to speak on the record was Gary Bernson, among the most highly decorated
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He confirmed that Tren de Aragua was purposefully sent into the U.S. to destabilize our country
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Quoting Bernson here, the Venezuelan regime has assumed operational control of these guys,
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They have given them paramilitary training, training them to fire weapons and how to conduct
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They have given them all a four- to six-week course.
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They put these 300 guys through that course, and then they were deploying them into the
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And Bernson confirming to the author here that sabotage includes arson, taking a look at the
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L.A. wildfires, the cause of which we still have not yet determined, and so on.
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Um, the CIA, he says, doesn't have this information, according to Bernson, because they refused to
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We tried to brief them about this three years ago.
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They were directed by the Biden administration to ignore it.
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And now those officials are trying to undermine President Trump, who listened.
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I have to tell you, as a lawyer, this is a very important addendum to this argument.
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And if, if they can just get a hearing in front of this court to justify Trump's declaration
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of invasion or incursion, I'll start with you on a Spicer, um, it could be a game changer.
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I'm sure as a lawyer, you know, the case I'm going to cite common sense versus nut job,
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where it, it very clearly, the court, the, the court, the court ruled that you shouldn't
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have to argue that hard to get known gang members out of a country who came here illegally.
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I mean, this is on its face, an insane idea that a president of the United States has to
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go all the way to the Supreme court to argue that people who are known gang members coming
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illegally into the country have to go through some serious process to get sent back.
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I, I, I believe the court will side with president Trump, but I, I think it's sad that we actually
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I don't, you know, this clearly has the support, I think, of most Americans, the deportation
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plan in general, Mark has the support of most Americans.
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Maybe they've got some questions on trend or Aragua, but if so, that hasn't manifested
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I think, you know, the more dangerous the, the potential illegals are, the more Americans want
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Cause as a legal matter, it's tricky, but I think Trump's in the right, but the biggest
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If the Supreme court doesn't uphold the DC circuit and allows Trump to do this, how does
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And if they, if they don't allow Trump to do this, how does it play?
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Well, Henry common sense versus nut job, there's always in the law, right?
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There's always ambiguity and, and we don't know how any of these judges or justices will
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rule when you add in the overlay of politics becomes more complicated.
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One you've illuminated, which is super important, which is the actual facts.
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If those facts are true, you'd have to make it akin to the president striking the hooties.
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No federal judge is going to, is going to say, I'm enjoining the president from striking
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the hooties because this is for most Americans.
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And, and as a practical matter, it's every bit as urgent a war in some ways, more urgent
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because it's right here at home than the president trying to, you know, clear up the shipping
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And if those facts are close to true, he should be unshackled to do this.
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And these district court judges, I think should show some humility about what they're interfering
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with and, and stop acting like this isn't urgent.
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Number two, as someone who's had, who had federal litigation that lasted 20 years, I
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know full well how slow the wheels of justice grind.
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In this case, I urge every district court judge, every appellate judge, every Supreme Court
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justice to think about these cases and not treat them all like they're on the same conveyor
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This one should get expedited and ruled on so the president can deal with not just fulfilling
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a campaign promise, but dealing with something that's threatening the life and liberty and
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property of Americans, which is yes, akin to a war.
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Here's, here's how the DC circuit court of appeals saw it, Dan.
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They said, we understand that the government is arguing that we've had these unwanted illegals
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come into the country unlawfully and you're calling it an invasion or an incursion.
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But the court said those terms as used in this statute must be considered in their military
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Now, already as, as a lawyer, I'm thinking, okay, that's fine.
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Who, who has the ultimate say on military calls?
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It's not judge Bozberg and it's, it's not even the U S Supreme court.
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And if you read the terms of the alien enemies act, it specifically says that, I mean, the
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Supreme court's already said, we don't have jurisdiction to review commander in chief calls
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under this, but under very limited circumstances, they can review a couple of pieces of it.
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First of all, those terms invaded or encourage incursion has to be considered in the military
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Uh, and then they go on to say, uh, okay, these words in the statute must be read to mean quote,
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a hostile encroachment by a nation state and concluded that these conditions do not exist
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because we haven't had a hostile encroachment by a nation state.
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Now, if this stuff about trend to Aragua is true, that's a very different story.
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And judge Bozberg had no right to shut down the commander in chief's call on this just
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He shut it down saying, I believe they're going to win.
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And now if the Supreme court doesn't step in, this whole policy could be shut down, even
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though the Venezuelans really may be trying to send an incursion into the United States
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Look, Democrats should not ever be on the side of criminals, uh, who are illegal immigrants.
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And I think the issue of immigration has bedeviled the party now for the last, you know, eight
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And I think to Sean's point, we have been on the wrong side of common sense issues the
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And so I think the party's probably best path here is to support the crackdown on criminal
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illegal immigrants and just say, look, the justice system should work this out.
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You know, let's let it work its way, but not try to kind of like spike the football and
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look like we are on the side of protecting criminal illegal immigrants.
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It is in everyone's interest to get them off the streets.
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To Mark's point, poll after poll, you know, here where I live in New York City and down in
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MS-13 has been terrorizing parts of DC where a lot of Democrats live for the last 10 years.
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And so where they're doing this, we should applaud Trump's efforts to try to clean up
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Megan, if I can real quick, this is a win-win politically for President Trump.
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If the Supreme Court, which I believe it will, rule in his favor for all the reasons that
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you kind of enumerated there, then it's a political win.
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If by chance the court at the highest level rules against him, I think at least on the MAGA
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base side, and I think for a lot of independents, after the four years that we were gaslit and
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told that there was no problem with immigration, that the border was sealed, that criminals
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weren't coming in, they'll give President Trump credit for fighting.
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And so, you know, this to him is a perfect issue because there is no downside.
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If the court rules against us, God forbid they make us bring criminals back into the country.
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But at the end of the day, I think this is one of those ones where you, if you're President
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Trump leading this, to Dan's point, you have, you've put Democrats in a trap.
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They either have to side with you or with the criminals.
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With the worst of the worst, at least in some cases, the, um, the Trump administration is
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asking for an urgent review at the U S Supreme court.
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And my understanding is though, I'm going to have to go, have to go back and check this,
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but my understanding is it's potential, it's potentially the case that chief justice, John
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Um, I know he can either at least grant them urgent review.
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My only question is whether he can actually, without the support of, uh, at least four justices
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in this circumstance, um, reverse the, the temporary restraining order being blocked.
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Anyway, I'll find out, but this is getting hotter, uh, this whole case.
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And now it's going up to the big boys and girls who actually will have the final say.
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And one of the reasons why that's good is because I've made this point on this case before,
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but the Supreme court's more aware than anyone, more aware than anyone, Mark, that
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And that the only thing that gets us to comply with their rulings is our general respect for the
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rule of law for one another, for this sort of implicit agreement. We have to live as non-barbarians
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in a country where we've agreed that there's this through line that will keep us all within the
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certain bounds of behavior. And, um, the Supreme court has the ultimate authority on what the law
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is. And the Supreme court knows, however, John Roberts above all knows if he hands down our
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ruling telling the commander in chief that the nine men and women in black robes have the final say
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over what is perceived as a military threat unleashed on us by a foreign government.
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He's on the thinnest of possible ice and he's so obsessed with the court. Just can't see him
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wanting to do it. Well, he's an interesting figure, right? Because he does vote sometimes against
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Republican presidents, including this one. Uh, he does care about the integrity of the court,
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the reputation of the court, the statement he put out a few days ago, uh, uh, in reaction to the
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president calling for impeachment of judges whose rulings he didn't like testifies to his willingness
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to play in the real world and not just in the rarefied earth, uh, air of the high court.
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I think that they're going to rule some against the president in some form, and they're going to be
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some that are result oriented. They don't, they don't all rule on the merits. Sad to say, I think in
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this case and in the ones, uh, that are comparable, as you suggested, as we've been mentioned,
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deference, the commander in chief on this stuff, something where there's clearly popular will.
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You can find that you don't need, you don't need to look outside the walls, the constitution to find
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that. And I agree with Sean, they'll probably vote with the president on this one, but Roberts is got
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to expedite these things. It's, it doesn't make any sense for America to not expedite them. These
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should be on the fastest of tracks. They should be on a track like Bush v. Gore, not treated at all
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like normal cases because it's a campaign promise and it's, it's happening now. This is not some abstract
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thing. It's happening now. So I wish you were, I wish you would expect them. And then however,
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the court rules, I hope the president does what he said several times he'll do, which is adhere to
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the rulings of the court. I think he will. I actually do. I think he will. I think he understands
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blowing off the Supreme court is, and that, that really is a true constitutional crisis. Um, we can't
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have more Lake and Riley's while we wait this out. John, John Roberts, controversial though,
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he is, especially with righties who wanted somebody who was more like a Thomas or an Alito
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is a good man. And he is going to understand the danger of leaving little kids out there getting
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molested by these rapists. That's that is happening with these gang members and young women and men being
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murdered by them. I mean, every week we have a story. So time is of the essence. It's long overdue.
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Thanks to Joe Biden and Trump is trying to clean up a mess. That was not of his own making. I just
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don't see John Roberts wanting the Supreme court to be the thing that stops him. I will see what
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we'll know better after we hear from them. And, uh, if we get an oral argument after that, okay,
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let's, well, I want to get to Elon Musk and what happened last night. Cause it was such good stuff.
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But before we go there, can we just spend a minute on something else Trump did yesterday,
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which I think is awesome and not getting enough attention. We got an executive order that will
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pull wokeness, DEI and radical, uh, you know, race essentialism and gender ideology out of the
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federal museums, including most specifically the Smithsonian, uh, the zoo he mentioned. And also
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he's directed JD Vance to restore the national monuments and statues that fell post George
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Floyd, meaning they were ripped down by protesters, not all necessarily, but he wants him to take a
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look at this. I mean, it wasn't all, you know, people who are pro-slavery or who were armies in
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the Confederate army or generals in the Confederate army, Sean, that we tore down. We country Christopher
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Columbus statues, Thomas Jefferson statues, George Washington statues, Ulysses S Grant,
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Francis Scott key. Like you didn't have to be all that controversial for these things to get torn down.
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And so Trump is actually going to take a look because for example, at this women's museum,
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um, that's being built, he says specifically they were about to put trans women, meaning men posing as
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women and honors to them in this thing of Trump is stopping it in its tracks.
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Well, look, obviously this was a big issue in the election. Dan referenced it earlier before. I mean,
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the wokeism, the pendulum swung way, way, way too far. And I think what Trump is doing is resetting
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that. This is again, where he can get some great wins on these things through executive order that
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while he waits for reconciliation, some of the big policy issues to come in really kind of score
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points for the American people resetting the culture issues that swung too far. And so going
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through the museums, resetting these things, rebuilding these statues. And the funny thing
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is it's been probably eight or nine months since I seen, I saw any, any inside polling on this,
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but even when it comes to Confederate statues and renaming things like Fort Bragg, uh, those were
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extremely popular. It didn't mean that anybody was a Confederate or racist or anything like that.
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I just, I think there's an aspect of not whitewashing history that was important. So there's,
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this kind of covers a lot of ground that I think he's on solid ground with the base and,
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and probably the majority of Americans, regardless of party.
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What he's doing, Dan, is he's actually having JD Vance, take a look at the Smithsonian and the zoo,
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et cetera. And he's having Doug Burgum as secretary of the interior, take a look at public monuments,
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memorials, statues, markers, and similar properties, um, that have been removed or changed. He says to
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perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, et cetera. He can't go after like state
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monuments. He can't go after, you know, the museum of natural history had Teddy Roosevelt out there.
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He got torn down because there was a native American near him. I like whatever. There's
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just been a lot of tearing down. He can't, if it's a local thing, he doesn't have jurisdiction,
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but the, the federal land stuff and federal monuments, he does. Here are a couple of examples
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on what he's concerned about in the Smithsonian American art museum. There's an exhibit that said,
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quote, societies, including the U S have used race to establish and maintain systems of power,
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privilege, and disenfranchisement by it. Another national museum of African-American history and
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culture proclaimed that hard work, individualism, and the nuclear family are aspects of white culture
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by, and then, as I told you, the women's history museum soon to soon, soon it will be forthcoming
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planned to feature female athletes, including male athletes who claim to be female, which is not a
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thing. It's not real. And it's not recognized by the Trump administration. So what do you think? I
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mean, here's the interesting thing. It's going to happen. Trump will sanitize these organizations of
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all this. And then we're going to be in an interesting position four years from now, if a Democrat were to
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win the presidency, because I think this stuff will be very popular to get rid of this nonsense,
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to put back up the non-controversial statutes, George Washington among them. And whenever Trump
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does something, I guess, with an EO, Dan, I've been asking myself, would the Democrats really have
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the nerve to tear back down George Washington, to shove back in the race essentialism at the
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Smithsonian, the trigger warnings on the national archives that were all over the electronic database
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about our declaration of independent? Like, what do you think?
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I certainly hope that no Democrat would talk about doing that. I mean, as a rule, this is mostly one of
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those 80-20 issues. You know, James Carville said last summer, or I think it was maybe a few years ago,
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that sometimes Democrats sound like they're talking at the Harvard faculty lounge and not like a real person
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in the real world, you know, on the streets of any town USA. I think where Trump does stuff like, you know,
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put George Washington back on a military base or something like that, there is general support for
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it. I think when he does something like eliminate the, you know, recognizing the Tuskegee airmen at
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the Pentagon, I think sometimes people will say, hey, it's a little too far. And this is like small and
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petty. And so I think generally speaking, though, look, Sean said it is a huge issue in the election.
00:26:05.640
The country kind of voted pretty overwhelmingly on this front. I think he enjoys broad support.
00:26:11.840
And look, I don't know how much you remember, I think it was a year and a half ago or two years ago,
00:26:16.480
the San Francisco school board, several members were voted out in a in a like recall election,
00:26:23.280
because the people of San Francisco parents of who lived in downtown were upset that the school
00:26:29.300
board meetings during COVID were focused on renaming the schools in these kind of DEI, you know, neutral
00:26:36.360
names and not reopening the schools for their kids to go back to. And so the history of Democrats
00:26:42.820
focusing on issues that aren't, you know, important to the average American per se is part of what has
00:26:49.680
got us in the hole that we've dug. And so to get out, I think we are best to focus on real issues
00:26:55.660
that impact the real lives of real Americans and not go back to trying to relit again, DEI.
00:27:01.220
What do you know? Tim Walsh has a bone to pick with you, my friend. He was out there campaigning
00:27:08.220
with Beto O'Rourke. Why? I don't. But he was out there having a town hall with Beto. And he sees
00:27:15.460
the loss in 2024 very differently than you do, my friend. Here he is.
00:27:20.000
That our strength is our diversity. We've been talking about this for years as a country of
00:27:27.380
immigrants, and we let them define the issue on immigration. We let them define the issue on
00:27:32.800
DEI, and we let them define what woke is. We got ourselves in this mess because we weren't bold
00:27:41.400
enough to stand up and say, you damn right were proud of these policies. We're going to put them in
00:27:45.760
and we're going to execute them. Lean in, he's saying. Lean in to all those messages.
00:27:53.240
Sean agrees. Sean says, yes, go for it. That's how we all feel. I have his back. Lean in. Lean in,
00:27:59.100
brother. And more of Jasmine Crockett, I think we can all agree, except for Dan.
00:28:04.040
Yeah, I think that, look, I think most Americans, I think, do applaud efforts to diversify
00:28:11.360
a workforce to include different people in decision-making. I think companies, and there's
00:28:19.200
a lot of research that you do get better outcomes if you have different aspects, different slices of
00:28:24.840
America at the table. I think where there's real objection is on the E, the equity, the idea that
00:28:32.420
you're going to specify 30% has to be X and 30% has to be Y, not who's most qualified, not who is
00:28:40.120
the best for that position. And I think that's where the party kind of just really lost control
00:28:45.280
of this issue. I think if we just say we're proud of having a diverse country, we're proud to try to
00:28:51.980
include people, but the most qualified, the best person should be hired or get the admissions slot
00:28:59.340
is probably kind of the middle ground when we think about the future.
00:29:04.820
On Governor Walz, I didn't understand why he was picked originally and nothing he's done since he
00:29:14.280
was picked has cleared up my confusion. On the question of these policies, your viewers understand
00:29:21.200
the central role these issues played in the election. I think part of the challenge for the
00:29:26.880
part of the country that still doesn't get it is the media, for the most part, still doesn't get it.
00:29:32.400
And when you ask about will a Democrat change it back? Well, if they rename Dulles Airport,
00:29:38.880
Steve Bannon Airport, maybe they would change that back. But most of these things I think will be very
00:29:44.120
difficult to change back because the energy in this country is not with this frog boiling in the water,
00:29:50.840
move towards a fetishizing race and gender. But the energy is for people who say,
00:29:56.880
thank goodness for the change and the change happening quickly. The changes in the other
00:30:01.900
direction happen very slowly. But they change dramatically over time. President Trump and
00:30:07.840
the cultural and social forces that are pushing back are happening quite quickly. And I think
00:30:13.160
they're going to they're going to move as things things tend to move quickly, tend to move hard
00:30:17.980
and fast. And I think it's gonna be very difficult for a Democrat, not just politically,
00:30:21.520
but practically to try to put these things back.
00:30:24.880
They they're the Republicans, and frankly, the more centrist Democrats who objected to this stuff
00:30:29.780
when it was overwhelming us. They were silent about those objections because they were scared.
00:30:35.700
Not only has that fright been eliminated, they're emboldened, you know, they voted for Trump,
00:30:42.060
he's emboldened all of them. They're ready for this war. They now have learned that they're in the
00:30:46.940
majority and that this was a temporary insanity that we went through and that it has to be stopped
00:30:53.040
because it's actually extremely dangerous. It's like the whole everything's turned, you know,
00:30:56.380
in the past five years and dramatic. So I agree with you. It will not be brought back
00:31:00.480
because the popular will of the people will not allow it. Now, I opened the show talking about Elon
00:31:05.960
on with Brett Baer and some members of the Doge team last night. And.
00:31:11.340
You know, I did wonder in watching it, why didn't we see this earlier? These guys are amazing.
00:31:19.460
Like this is exactly we should all be on our hands and knees at night, thanking God that men and I
00:31:26.220
presume there are women, too. They weren't on the set last night are willing to take time off from
0.95
00:31:32.060
their real jobs and real lives and do this for us. They were all really just public servants.
00:31:38.440
Go ahead, Sean. But to your point, the caliber of these people,
00:31:42.000
when he was talking about what Brett Baer was telling him. So you co-founded Airbnb. You're
00:31:47.180
the CFO of Morgan Stanley. These the credentials of these people. We talked about this a little
00:31:52.740
on the morning meeting this morning that it was the illumination of of just the it wasn't like,
00:31:58.080
you know, finding some buried treasure. The guy was like, yeah, we found out that the
00:32:02.380
Department of HHS has 40 CFOs, 40 CFOs, 40 CIOs, chief information officer. There are four point
00:32:10.180
three, four point six million government credit cards and two point one million employees.
00:32:15.940
There's obvious things that are like that doesn't make sense. That doesn't compute.
00:32:20.080
Eight thousand American federal workers can retire in a given month because that's all the system can
00:32:26.600
handle because it has to take a manila envelope going down a mine, a mine. That's how many envelopes
00:32:33.980
can go down in a month. That's insane. And the idea that they were talking about utilizing common
00:32:40.940
sense technology reforms, efficiencies to allow the government to run better. And even Elon, when it
00:32:49.160
came to Social Security, made it very clear that what 40 percent of the people who call the Social
00:32:55.680
Security hotlines were fraudsters trying to steal the money of American retirees. And what they're
00:33:03.360
trying to do is put processes in place to protect the American consumer from fraud. It's something that
00:33:10.640
I agree with you. I was like, where has this been? I wanted to hear this for the last 70 days. And I
00:33:16.100
finally, I was excited. I was fired up. I hope they do more because I think that the more people hear
00:33:23.360
about not only what's really goes on in government, but how it's being corrected, the more support Doge
00:33:29.460
and Elon will get. Here's just a little bit. You mentioned this in your last answer of Joe
00:33:36.420
Jebbia, the Airbnb co-founder and Doge digital retirement project guy. Here he is.
00:33:42.300
Now picture this. This giant cave has 22,000 filing cabinets stacked 10 high to house 400 million
00:33:52.040
pieces of paper. It's a process that started in the 1950s and largely hasn't changed in the last 70
00:33:58.300
years. And so as he dug into it, we found retirement cases that had so much paper, they had to fit it on
00:34:04.620
a shipping pallet. So the process takes many months and we're going to make it just many days.
00:34:11.060
Will it be digitized or how? Absolutely. So this will be an online digital process that
00:34:15.060
will take just a few days at most. And I really think, you know, it's an injustice to civil servants
00:34:21.420
who are subjected to these processes that are older than the age of half the people watching your show
00:34:27.140
tonight. So we really believe that the government can have an Apple store like experience, beautifully
00:34:34.140
designed, great user experience, modern systems.
00:34:36.880
He he said that there were actually at the point where we have to train federal employees on how to retire.
00:34:46.020
They have to go through a training training. It's so embarrassing.
00:34:53.240
It is embarrassing. You know, Mark, I like what Americans sit at home is going to have any reaction to that
00:34:59.400
other than what? It's great to have private sector people in in the government who, you know, my favorite
00:35:08.020
moments was when Brett was asking them their motivation for doing it. And one of them said he's got four kids
00:35:12.520
and he doesn't want the country to decline for his kids. They're an impressive group. And, you know,
00:35:20.040
even Democrats, most Democrats will say, yeah, there's inefficiencies, the federal government.
00:35:24.140
But this is an attempt to to get rid of them. You know, we talk about waste, fraud and abuse.
00:35:31.360
This is, you know, you could call it waste, but it's really just inefficiency.
00:35:34.960
And it's really not having the will to use the ingenuity of the private sector up until now to try to change these things.
00:35:41.940
Al Gore talked about reinventing government, but that was in the dawn of the digital age.
00:35:46.440
There's so much more that can be done now using digital stuff. And this is, again, as Sean said a couple of times,
00:35:53.200
this is such an impressive group from the private sector. I just hope that they're adhering to guidelines
00:35:57.820
and I just hope that they don't get shackled. They do need to move fast for all the reasons that this plan was launched.
00:36:04.500
In my head, like the way they were being described by the media, it was like I pictured like these dope,
00:36:09.720
smoking, hacky sack, kicking, beanie wearing foggy shirts, put them in, right.
00:36:19.360
Were they wearing Crocs or, or, or Birkenstocks in your, in your mind? I couldn't get sandals.
00:36:25.100
I never got down below the ankle in picturing them, but I definitely, I could smell the aroma.
00:36:30.460
I had a perceived smell. This is, they're not that at all. These are actually really accomplished,
00:36:35.180
bad-ass professional guys who are super articulate on top of their game. Now I'm sure they sent their
00:36:41.160
best for the Brett Baer interview. Uh, there may be guys who better match my description,
00:36:46.080
but you know, chief among them was Elon with some very interesting facts of his own. Here's one,
00:36:53.360
uh, here that is somebody, somebody mentioned, but it's not for,
00:36:58.520
uh, the sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government. It is astonishing. It's mind blowing.
00:37:04.400
Uh, just, uh, we routinely encounter wastes of, uh, a billion dollars or more casually.
00:37:13.400
Um, you know, for example, like the, the, the, the, the simple, the simple survey, uh, that was,
00:37:17.740
uh, uh, uh, literally a 10 question survey that you could do with survey monkey cost about $10,000,
00:37:23.100
uh, was, uh, uh, the government was being charged almost a billion dollars for that for just the
00:37:28.760
survey, a billion dollars for, for a simple online survey. Do you like the national park?
00:37:32.480
And then there appeared to be no feedback loop for what would be done with that survey. So the
00:37:36.440
survey would just go into nothing. It was like, you're saying
00:37:38.180
Casually. And you know what, the, what's so devastating about that, Sean is, you know,
00:37:44.580
it's true. I know I've been in the military for 26 years in and out of government. I mean,
00:37:50.840
it's finally good hearing someone articulate, uh, what, what I've known to be the case for,
00:37:55.980
for decades. Yeah. And just be honest about it. That's like the social security thing.
00:38:01.020
Everybody can understand that too. Why are we sending social security checks to people who
00:38:05.240
appear to be 120 or an infant, which is what Elon was saying. He was like, there people are,
00:38:13.040
we're sending checks to infants. And he was explaining exactly how they do the fraud.
00:38:18.900
Someone has a baby and they steal their own child's social security number and they use it to get
0.63
00:38:25.360
some sort of payout from the federal government. And they ruin that child's credit because they just
00:38:29.860
don't give a damn. Here is Steve Davis, who was called the CEO of Doge though. He didn't seem
00:38:36.220
totally comfortable with that label. Um, speaking to some of that issue in SOT6.
00:38:42.100
Now the, um, the amount of issues that were the social security system are enormous. As an example,
00:38:47.880
there are over 15 million people that are over the age of 120 that are marked as alive
00:38:54.500
in the social security system. And that's an accurate figure. Yes. Correct. 15 million. Correct.
00:38:59.660
This has been something that's been identified as a problem. Again, preexisting problems since 2008,
00:39:04.860
at least from an IG report. So there were some great people working at the social security
00:39:10.140
administration, social security administration that found this 2008 and nothing was done.
00:39:15.060
And so 15 to 20 million social security numbers that were clearly fraudulent, um,
00:39:19.240
were floating around, um, that can be used to only for bad intentions. There'd be no way to use those
00:39:24.280
for good intentions. And so what, one of the things the Doge team is doing is carefully and very
00:39:29.400
methodically looking at those and making sure that any fraudulent ones are eliminated.
00:39:34.620
Well, that is shocking, but also not. Um, and this, here's my question. I'm going to play one more
00:39:39.880
SOT on social security, Dan, but this question is coming to you on how,
00:39:42.800
how are the Democrats going to object to this? Everybody knows what a money suck social security
00:39:49.080
is along with Medicare slash Medicaid. We all know that we all know we're not going to make
00:39:52.920
a lot of progress, if any, on our national debt, unless we get honest about what's happening there.
00:39:57.520
Nobody wants us to touch the retirement age. We get it. It's political poison, but this stuff,
00:40:03.700
this stuff we can do, we can do, but the Democrats are saying no, no to Doge, no to Elon. He's evil.
00:40:10.780
Here's the second soundbite on social security with a guy named Aram Mogadassi. He's a Doge engineer.
00:40:18.620
I'll say the two improvements that we're trying to make to social security are, um, helping people
00:40:24.160
that legitimately get benefits, protect them from fraud, um, that they experience every day on a
00:40:29.900
routine basis and, uh, also make the experience better. Um, and I'll give you one example is at
00:40:37.140
social security. Um, one of the first things we learned is that they get phone calls every day
00:40:41.780
of people trying to change direct deposit information. So when you want to change your
00:40:46.080
bank account, you can call social security. Um, we learned 40% of the phone calls that they get are
00:40:51.840
from fraudsters. 40%. That's right. Almost half. Yes. And they steal people's social security is what
00:40:59.380
happens is they call in, they say, uh, they claim to be, uh, a retiree. Um, then they, they, and they
00:41:06.640
convince the post, the social security person on the phone to change the, where the, where the money's
00:41:11.020
flowing. Uh, it, it actually goes to some fraudster. In 67 days, they figured all of this out, Dan,
00:41:18.520
why would the Democrats stand in the way of these fixes? So I think the important thing for the party
00:41:23.740
is they need to split what is common sense from what is questionable. I think what they're talking
00:41:29.340
about here, and I actually saw this morning too, they're talking about trying to upgrade the social
00:41:33.380
security software and computer systems, which are literally decades old just because they haven't
00:41:38.960
received the funding. They want to migrate it to a new platform where they're trying to do stuff like
00:41:43.800
stop fraud. I ran government relations for H and our block, and I know the, a lot about the IRS and
00:41:49.320
fraud. And they're absolutely right. It's the Russian mob. It's all sorts of people who try to
1.00
00:41:54.940
steal your social security file returns, you know, falsely before you do and get your refund. And by the
00:42:01.420
time you realize what happened, it's too late where they're trying to do that. We should say that is
00:42:08.100
good. It will also give us credibility with the public for when we say timeout, this might be
00:42:13.760
objectionable. And one of those things is I know we all say, okay, cutting phone service
00:42:19.200
and making you have to come in, make sense to try to deal with fraud. Sure. If I live in New York
00:42:24.780
city, I can walk down to the social security administration or take the subway or a bus
00:42:28.680
in lots of parts of this country. It is hundreds of miles to reach it. And the elderly it's hard.
00:42:35.620
Some of them don't drive. They have a medical issues that makes movement challenging. And so when
00:42:41.780
Democrats say, wait a second, you need to offer those telephone services. People need, there has to be a
00:42:47.560
way for them to verify and get through. That is where I think the public will say, yeah, okay.
00:42:52.700
All right. But if all we do is always scream no and everything, it's a huge problem. And I actually
00:42:59.220
thought, you know, look, we're making some headway. We Democrats with Elon's favorabilities coming down.
00:43:04.700
But to your point, Megan, those were real people. They were uncomfortable. They looked anxious. There's
00:43:10.200
empathy and sympathy as they talked because they're just regular real people trying to help.
00:43:14.760
And that as Democrats, you know, is a, is something that we need to recognize.
00:43:19.740
I mean, it's the same party that didn't stand for the little boy who got the badge and became the
00:43:23.800
honorary secret service mate. So I don't think they're going to feel for the, for the Doge agents,
00:43:28.640
but here's why I think Mark, they're not going to give an inch on Doge or Elon. NBC news just did a
00:43:37.180
focus group of black men who backed Trump and approve of his presidency and asked how they're
00:43:45.280
feeling. And that focus group showed that nearly all of them, 10 of the 12 still are with Trump and
00:43:53.120
staunchly. The only concern that some of them raised, uh, was about Doge. They said, I'm trying to get my
00:44:02.700
numbers. They say 10 of the 12 said they approved of Trump's early tenure during his second presidency,
00:44:08.000
but only five said they approved of Doge's actions. Only five said they approved three said
00:44:15.440
they disapproved and the rest of the group, they weren't sure. So if I'm a Democrat who really just
00:44:21.580
wants to win back power, I see something I can exploit here. And I'm not sure I want to do anything
00:44:28.580
to give Doge credit for anything, even if it would be good for the country. Well, except as Dan said,
00:44:34.500
they need to have credibility. I think we, you know, we've all wondered why, what we saw last
00:44:39.100
night, those very articulate spokespeople for this effort were not out sooner. I'd say there are two
00:44:44.900
other things that they've done to hurt their cause and, and made it easier for Democrats to rally public
00:44:50.320
opinion around some things. Number one, they've not totally been truthful and accurate as Musk has
00:44:56.020
acknowledged about what's being saved about certain programs are using as examples. And they've not
00:45:04.100
quantified it or qualified it accurately. And that's allowed the press, which is hostile to Doge
00:45:07.880
and those Democrats who want to be against it, to be against it. But the other thing I think they
00:45:13.460
haven't done is they haven't told the stories. They haven't humanized it. We saw humanization last
00:45:18.880
night with these folks, but to say, here's, there's just a cert people are having their social
00:45:23.980
security stolen. This has to be on a human level because cuts while popular in the abstract,
00:45:29.080
when you start to cut specific programs, you run into trouble. I don't think the democratic party
00:45:33.260
has a plan right now. They're all over the map about how to deal with this, but their job of
00:45:38.000
opposing it would be a lot more challenging. If the administration talked about this in a way
00:45:42.740
that was easier to understand why it's a good thing, not just in the abstract, but with some real
00:45:47.380
specifics that can be emotionally, emotionally told in a way that involves great storytelling.
00:45:53.180
I don't know why they haven't done it. Yeah. Why don't we see the guy who says,
00:45:57.220
I tried to retire and it took me six months to, I wanted to retire and one month took me six months
00:46:01.460
to just get out because of the paperwork. We haven't seen those people all over TV.
00:46:06.340
We, we had these guys getting closer and closer to real person stories where you were like,
00:46:12.120
oh yeah, oh God, that would be really annoying. Oh, that sounds so dumb.
00:46:15.120
Um, here's one, Anthony Armstrong, uh, Doge OPM. What does that stand for? Operating
00:46:22.040
Office of Personnel Management. Office of Personnel. Why aren't they all, I guess he's over there in
00:46:26.840
particular. Um, anyway, he's over there at the group that, that takes care of all your paperwork
00:46:32.020
if you're a federal government employee. And here's what he said. Sade.
00:46:34.540
A good example of overstaffing would be the IRS has got 1400 people who are dedicated to provisioning
00:46:42.860
laptops and cell phones. So if you join the IRS, you get a laptop and a cell phone, you're provisioned.
00:46:47.860
So if each of those IRS officers or employees provisioned two employees per day, you could
00:46:55.200
provision the entire IRS in a little more than a month. So 12 times a year, you can reprovision.
00:47:00.920
Why would you have 1400 people whose only job it is to give out a laptop and a phone?
00:47:04.500
Right. The whole IRS could be handled once a month. So that doesn't, that doesn't make any sense.
00:47:09.640
And president Trump's been very clear. It's scalpel, not hatchet. And that's the way
00:47:13.000
it's, it's getting done. I mean, that sounds so right. Sean, you've worked for the federal
00:47:18.480
government. That sounds so right that you'd have to go through that number of people just to,
00:47:23.780
whose only job is to do two things, give you a laptop and give you a phone, which literally
00:47:28.660
should take, even if you consider setting up your password and getting you registered on it
00:47:33.540
at most a half an hour, how does somebody, how do we have 1400 of those in the IRS alone?
00:47:40.560
Yeah. Well, the scary part is, is that they're not alone. There's probably 1400 people who
00:47:45.020
do various other tasks. And as a guy who look, I'm all about tech support. I either I've learned
00:47:51.260
that you just power things on and off and that's, that's the extent of my tech support. So I get it.
00:47:56.480
I appreciate that and I welcome it, but I think 1400 is a bit excessive. And unfortunately it's
00:48:00.740
not, you know, like I said, you go to HHS and they talk about having 40 chief information officers,
00:48:06.760
40. I mean, generally when you're the chief, there's only one, but I, it just shows you the
00:48:13.060
duplicity that exists. Um, I think to your point, these individuals themselves did the, the, the effort,
00:48:21.160
a huge bonus by going out the examples they gave. And then if we can add in the human element,
00:48:26.360
the number of people who, you know, took a month to retire or who couldn't get a benefit
00:48:32.260
or who had their money stolen, we're missing that third of the, of the piece. I was thinking about
00:48:38.260
this, as you were saying a moment ago, you know, the, the, the young gentleman that, that was so cool,
00:48:42.740
um, during the state of the union, president Trump, I think did better than any previous president
00:48:47.440
highlighting his policies through those individuals in the gallery. I think they almost need to embark
00:48:52.620
on a very similar policy or a similar effort now, which is to go highlight individuals who've had
00:48:57.680
struggles with the federal government, uh, who haven't been able to retire, who were taken
00:49:01.500
advantage of who worked in the government, but there was massive duplicity or et cetera, and start to
00:49:06.680
literally put faces to these problems, uh, because they did. And, and by the way, continue to roll out
00:49:13.240
members of Doge, uh, who are finding these things, not just the dollar amount in the programs,
00:49:18.560
but the overall crisis that exists, because that's not to Mark's point though. Those aren't,
00:49:23.760
it's not waste or fraud. The fact that you can't retire, you know, that you can only retire 80,000
00:49:29.080
people. It just doesn't make sense in the military. We went to medical record, electronic medical records,
00:49:34.420
because literally you would have to carry your bulky medical record around with you, wherever you went
00:49:40.480
from assignment to assignment, station to station. And that's how we handle it for until some genius
00:49:45.620
realized, wow, we could just digitize this like everyone else. And it has made life a lot easier,
00:49:51.020
right? What, if we can start doing that within the federal government, it's a win-win for the
00:49:55.640
government. It saves us money. It saves us time. It cuts down on bureaucracy. In fact, I'm sure as one
00:50:01.160
of those gentlemen alluded to the, the federal workers themselves would probably like to go that route,
00:50:07.100
as opposed to climbing up 10 file cabinets high to grab somebody's record from 1979.
00:50:13.440
So we'll have to get training on how to retire, how to retire. It's the least amount of time you
00:50:19.040
want to, you want to take on new training. Personally, I think they should just move all
00:50:22.580
these records onto signal could make everybody's life easier. Nothing more secure, right? I'd get at,
00:50:29.700
get at it in. We'd all get at it in. The best people use it. All right, stand by guys. I'll be
00:50:36.380
right back. And I want to play you an extraordinary exchange with Elon. Let's talk about that car you
00:50:41.060
own, but don't use the one you're paying to keep registered and insured. It's just sitting out there
00:50:46.560
taking up space out front and it's not doing anybody any good. You have a choice. You can give
00:50:53.360
cars for kids. That's cars with a K a call and have them take care of it for you. Just give them the
00:50:59.200
info and they will come to you as soon as the next day and take that car off your hands at no cost to
00:51:04.680
you. Even better, they will turn that car into funds to help children. So visit cars with a K
00:51:11.360
for kids.org slash MK that's cars with a K and then the number four to donate or just call cars for kids
00:51:18.780
directly at 1-877-CARS-4-KIDS and they will get that car picked up quickly. Plus you can get a tax
00:51:26.420
deduction and a vacation voucher. These guys have been around for 30 years. You've seen the ads,
00:51:31.780
right? They've done this over a million times. Call now or head on over to cars, K-A-R-S, the numeral
00:51:38.780
four and then kids.org slash MK right now to get this done. Cars for kids.org slash MK. That's cars with a K.
00:51:47.180
Are you surprised at some of the legal efforts and some of the judges that have weighed in? There's
00:51:54.720
about eight or 10 now of these cases that are at least temporary holds. They're being challenged by
00:52:00.800
the DOJ. Are you surprised by that pushback? Well, the D.C. circuit is notorious for having
00:52:08.320
a very far left bias. And when you look at the people close to some of these judges,
00:52:15.820
who are, where are they working? Are they working at these NGOs? Oh, they're getting them. They're
00:52:20.540
the ones getting this money. Does that seem like a system that lacks corruption? It sounds like
00:52:25.460
corruption to me. Mm-hmm. I mean, not said was one of the judges he's thinking about is almost
00:52:32.140
certainly Judge Boesberg, who is the one behind the blocking of Trump's effort to deport Venezuelan
00:52:38.760
suspected gang members to El Salvador. Back with me now, my panel, Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer,
00:52:44.740
and Dan Turrentine of Two Way. Okay. I did look up the SCOTUS protocol for that appeal,
00:52:52.620
and here's how it's going to go down. So just for those who weren't with us at the top of the hour,
00:52:57.140
the Trump administration has appealed the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against him.
00:53:02.140
On his effort to use the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members out of
00:53:08.300
the United States and place them in an El Salvadorian prison, the trial court judge was Judge
00:53:13.460
Boesberg, an Obama appointee, originally put on the bench by W many years ago, but elevated to the
00:53:18.640
federal bench by Obama. He has had a leftward bent, no question. And he's got a wife and a daughter
00:53:24.460
who own or work in and run, respectively, an abortion clinic, and reportedly the daughter
00:53:29.680
with this NGO organization that helps illegals and gang members. So yeah, I think that's what
00:53:36.700
Elon's suggesting is maybe going on there. And now the Trump administration, just before he came to
00:53:44.380
air, has appealed their loss on the temporary restraining order Boesberg put against them to
00:53:50.520
the U.S. Supreme Court just before we came to air. They want the high court to lift that temporary
00:53:55.700
restraining order so they can continue deporting these Venezuelan illegals and shipping them off
1.00
00:54:01.300
to El Salvador during the pendency of the litigation. And I was unclear when we started
00:54:06.800
whether Justice Roberts could do this chief justice alone. And I was right. He can do it alone.
00:54:13.040
He's the chief justice of the United States. And each justice on the court has a region of the
00:54:19.760
country for which he or she is responsible. And as the chief justice, he oversees the D.C. region,
00:54:26.720
which is where this case is coming out of because all these federal government agencies are in
00:54:30.700
D.C. Anyway, that's where it is. And so John Roberts, if he wants to, can grant the relief himself.
00:54:39.520
He could, with the stroke of his pen, lift the TRO and say, have at it, Trump. And then the case would
00:54:45.920
go back down to Judge Bozberg for litigation on the merits. You know, they would hash it out. It's
00:54:50.480
not a final adjudication, but it is on the TRO. It's in a form of relief that he could grant to
00:54:57.100
Trump. Or he could say, I'll give you an expedited briefing schedule in front of the United States
00:55:03.960
Supreme Court at large. And so we'll keep the pedal down, but we'll let all nine of us decide
00:55:10.460
whether you can do this. Or he could just deny it and say, I'm not dealing with any of this yet
00:55:16.120
and kick it back down, which would be a loss for Trump. So Trump could win with the stroke of a
00:55:20.300
Robert's pen. He could lose with a stroke of a Robert's pen, or he could get a hearing in front
00:55:24.800
of the all nine justices. And hopefully we'll find out soon which one of those it's going to be.
00:55:30.920
Okay. Elon Musk sat across from me in September at the All In Summit and said one of the main reasons
00:55:38.180
he wanted Donald Trump elected and was willing to serve and was talking about forming Doge and
00:55:43.880
doing the, finding the efficiencies was his experience as really a rocket scientist, right?
00:55:49.460
As a rockets guy and talked about how it takes longer to get the permission slip, in his words,
00:55:55.480
to launch a rocket than it does to build the rocket and how insane it is and how, you know, you,
00:56:02.440
you get fined $40,000 for dumping potable water, like water that one could drink. You dump it out
00:56:11.420
of the spaceship when you got back and the government would swoop in and fine you for it. You say, well,
00:56:16.860
what do you mean? It's, it's potable water. Why is, why am I getting fined? That cut like comes out of
00:56:21.000
the sky. Why, why if God drops it, is there no fine? But, but if I drop it, I'm getting fined. Well,
00:56:27.560
that's just the rules. I said, that's the way, well, what do you mean? Like, I'm trying to get
00:56:31.020
us to Mars. Why are you hassling me this way? Like I could, my daughter could come by with a little
00:56:36.260
garden, uh, pitcher and do the same thing. You're going to find her 40,000. This is what he was
00:56:42.000
dealing with. And he had it up to his eyeballs, which is why he's now doing all of this, the red
0.99
00:56:47.460
tape. And for those out there thinking it may just be a Republican issue, think again, because Ezra Klein
00:56:53.580
of the New York times, who's on this book tour, making a bunch of stops swung on by John Stewart's
00:57:00.640
podcast, I guess. I don't, I don't follow John Stewart at all. And it makes me a very happy
00:57:05.520
person, but there was the following exchange. Watch step four has to review and approve and award
00:57:14.320
again, planning grants, not broadband grants, planning grants. Step eight is states must submit an
00:57:21.780
initial proposal, an initial proposal to the NTIA. Then is that the result of their $5 million
00:57:30.380
planning fund? I assume, but then what was the five-year plan? And what the fuck did they apply
00:57:36.320
for? What was their nofo? Like if the five-year action plan isn't the initial proposal, then what's
00:57:42.980
the five-year action plan? Forget nofo, mofo. Step 10, states must publish their own map and allow
00:57:49.500
internal challenges to their own map. Wait, who's challenging it within the state?
00:57:54.740
Well, you know, organized interest groups, environmental groups, like I don't know who
00:57:58.100
specifically, but any, literally anybody. This is, I want to say something because it's very important
00:58:02.480
I say this. This is the Biden administration's process for its own bill. They wanted this to
00:58:08.280
happen. This is how liberal government works now. This is a bill passed by Democrats with a regulatory
00:58:15.180
structure written by Democratic administration. Step 12, states must run a competitive sub-granting
00:58:23.140
process. Oh my fucking God. At step 12, by after all this has been done, I'm speechless.
00:58:31.640
This is the $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service under Joe Biden, which has yet to connect a
00:58:39.220
single household. Ezra Klein, they're detailing how in the end, only three of the 56 jurisdictions that
00:58:45.160
did apply for it actually finished the process by the end of 2024. I mean, this is just, this is
00:58:52.020
devastating. And you know why, you know why, I mean, you guys tell me, I'll let any of you take it.
00:58:56.680
This is why I think Trump's approval ratings are at a historic high for him and why the direction of
00:59:03.900
the country numbers are so positive for him is because everyone knows this. They didn't apply for
00:59:10.460
broadband broadband internet expansion, but they've had to deal with the federal government when their
00:59:16.740
tax refund didn't come. It's a nightmare when they wanted to go on Medicare Advantage and like
00:59:23.960
upgrade that. Like when they, when anything went wrong with their federal government paperwork,
00:59:27.800
they had to correct it. We've all been there calling or dealing with the federal government on
00:59:32.780
any of this stuff. Nevermind like your taxes. It's a nightmare. So what Elon's saying,
00:59:38.440
the doge guys are saying, and Ezra's saying it all has the ring of truth. And I do think like,
00:59:44.480
while Elon's getting battered and bruised, the people are generally going to back this. Maybe
00:59:49.660
they, they feel a little bad about the layoffs of the federal employees. Uh, maybe they just don't
00:59:53.760
really like Elon cause he's brash, but they like the cleanup in aisle seven. Who would like to take
00:59:58.840
that? Well, it's even worse than that. Right. So that just laid out the stupid process and the amount
01:00:03.700
of money we wasted on broadband. And people look at that and say, I had my own experience with like
01:00:08.860
some Titsi fly in the backyard when they wouldn't let me put a shed up. But then they also look and
1.00
01:00:12.840
go, wait a second. Isn't there a thing called Starlink that you could get for like eight bucks
01:00:17.660
that you don't even need to do all that. That right. I mean, it's, it's worse than even that
01:00:23.760
example that Ezra Klein was going through. That's, that's just, if you wanted to, you know,
01:00:27.680
what it takes to lay down broadband and do this, but then you go, okay, that's stupid enough as it is,
01:00:31.840
but there's actually an alternative that's costs like no money. And that's linking up to Starlink,
01:00:38.660
getting you internet, not having to lay down all that. The, this, the mindlessness of everything
01:00:43.980
that the federal government touches is unbelievable. And you're right. Most people get it and they just
01:00:50.400
need to have it validated, uh, in terms of the absurdity. Explain to them. Yes. All right. So,
01:00:56.600
uh, I tease this before we took the break, we got into a bit of why Elon is disliked by some,
01:01:05.420
you know, he's not afraid to throw a barb on X, which he owns. You know, he's not,
01:01:11.520
he doesn't sound like Supreme court justice, John Roberts. He does not sound like he doesn't speak
01:01:17.640
the same way he does. And, um, one of the things he did was to call Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona,
01:01:23.860
a Democrat who's married to Gabby Giffords. And he's the brother of Scott Kelly, both of whom are
01:01:29.320
astronauts. Scott's amazing. By the way, came on my show at NBC and told us all about how he was a
01:01:34.180
straight C student, straight C, right? Isn't that your first question? Did you get all A's you crushed
01:01:39.840
physics? You know, you were a math whiz and a science. No, he was like, I was listless. I had no
01:01:44.760
direction. And I was a terrible student. If you became an astronaut, that's brother, Scott,
01:01:49.200
brother, Mark, also an astronaut and now a Democrat Senator. Elon called him a traitor
01:01:54.780
in the context of Ukraine. And Brett asked him about it and listen to this answer.
01:02:02.640
We should have empathy for the thousands of people that are dying every day in trenches
01:02:06.720
for no movement in the, in the lines. So the borders remain the same for the past two years.
01:02:12.900
Thousands of people have died every week for nothing. For what? And I, I take great, great
01:02:23.520
offense at those who, those who put the appearance of goodness over the reality of it. Those who
01:02:34.480
virtue signal and say, oh, we can't give into Russia, but have no solution to stopping thousands
0.98
01:02:40.360
of kids dying every day. I have contempt for such people. I don't want to make that clear.
01:02:44.620
Yeah. So you're optimistic because they're virtue signaling and their, their lack of a solution
01:02:50.960
means that kids don't have a father. It means that parents lost a son for what?
01:03:01.980
Pretty powerful. Mark Kelly came in his crosshairs because he posted something on X about having
01:03:09.780
just returned from Ukraine and how, in his view, it was very important that we stand by Ukraine. He
01:03:13.600
wrote, um, everyone wants the war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine security. Can't
01:03:18.380
be a giveaway to Putin and went on from there. Um, I here again, I have to say, Dan, I think the
01:03:25.460
American public is with Elon. I think the American public, while they have nothing but empathy in
01:03:29.700
general for Ukraine, they realize where we are, that this thing needs to end and that we can't
01:03:35.080
keep throwing good money after bad as Americans. Well, I think there's two things here. I think
0.87
01:03:41.340
generally speaking, president Trump ran on trying to end the war in Ukraine. And I think you're right,
01:03:46.000
even within the democratic party and the Bernie Sanders kind of base, there is a desire to spend,
01:03:51.200
but you know, focus and spend money on problems at home, not necessarily abroad. Although aspirationally,
01:03:56.960
as you say, people would like Ukraine to be protected. I think where Musk gets in trouble
01:04:01.520
is when he makes statements like that. People died because Russia tried to invade Ukraine and
01:04:07.340
they're trying to defend their homeland. Right? So I, I get why they dug trenches and they're doing
01:04:13.400
everything they can to resist a country that's trying to take it over. I think when Musk does stuff
01:04:18.480
like in the interview, say, this is a revolution, we're trying to revolutionize things.
01:04:23.960
Yeah. The public doesn't necessarily love that language. I mean, this goes to like Joe Biden
01:04:28.980
trying to suddenly become FDR, right? That's not what a lot of people signed up for in 2020.
01:04:34.840
And so I think Musk, to your point is brash. I would never bet against him as a businessman.
01:04:40.720
He's unbelievably successful to state the obvious, but he's rough around the edges. And I think as he
01:04:46.540
wades more into politics, whether it's trolling people on X or kind of forcefully interjecting into
01:04:51.920
politics, you get the good, but you also get bad that I think, you know, you have to be willing
01:04:57.040
to digest, but I think his numbers are coming down. He is the wealthiest man in the world with
01:05:02.960
conflicts, you know, from here to kingdom come. I'm not saying I don't care about that.
01:05:08.060
Well, they, they, I, I actually think they do a little bit. George Soros.
01:05:12.820
Well, that's it. Americans are inherently distrustful of very wealthy people who start
01:05:17.780
getting involved in government. And to your point, Democrats who have had a lot of them in our
01:05:21.660
corner and we loved it. It was damage was done to us on George Soros and other things. So I, I,
01:05:28.000
I think again, it's good and bad with Elon. I want to get to what Elon's doing in Wisconsin,
01:05:33.600
because this is an important election that's coming on Tuesday and you guys are the people
01:05:37.900
to ask about it. But before we go to the special elections and what's happening in Wisconsin with
01:05:41.960
this judicial election, can we spend a minute on Hillary Clinton? Hillary Clinton decided to drop
1.00
01:05:52.420
an op-ed in the New York times today. Uh, that's entitled how much dumber will this get? And she
01:06:00.960
uses signal gate and the messaging by Pete Hegseth and Mike walls and JD Vance and Tulsi and others on
01:06:07.860
there as the jumping off point to talk about how dumb the Trump administration is. Uh, some
01:06:13.840
highlights, uh, she calls the Trump administration, hypocritical, dangerous, and dumb over this story.
01:06:18.980
It's not the hypocrisy that bothers me. It's the stupidity. We're all shocked, shocked that
01:06:24.380
president Trump and his team don't actually care about protecting classified information or federal
01:06:29.720
record retention laws. I mean, this is so rich given her history, but we knew that already. This is
01:06:36.160
her just trying to say like, I did nothing wrong. And all my whole controversy was made up. No one
01:06:40.440
actually cares about any of that because they're not blaming Trump harder. And Trump allowed this
01:06:45.040
in the first place, which much what's much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our
01:06:51.080
troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a
01:06:56.380
journalist into the chat. That's dangerous. And it's just dumb. Okay. I mean, fine. I really think
01:07:04.820
Hillary Clinton should have sat this one out given she's in no position to throw stones. She did this
1.00
01:07:10.460
willingly. She had her homebrew server for years, an intentional choice. Actually, we do need to stop
01:07:17.400
and take that one for on for a minute, like for years and intentional choice that she's, she's trying
01:07:23.300
to be like, no one really gave a shit about that. This is far worse. This unintentional mistake that was
01:07:29.840
done by adding in the journalist. And yes, they, obviously they intentionally chose signal to have
01:07:35.740
the discussion on, but we've already heard in recent days, Mark, that this was a means of
01:07:40.980
communication used by the Biden administration. I just think she should have had Bill write it.
01:07:46.700
She should have had some friend of hers on team blue, write it someone other than the person with
0.99
01:07:52.920
this brand of problems. Well, in Arkansas, we have a word for it. We call it chutzpah.
01:08:00.260
Look, Dan knows Hillary Clinton better than I do, but you can hear her voice in that thing.
01:08:06.260
There may have been some ghostwriting help, but that's her. And she has the rare honor,
01:08:13.940
along with Kamala Harris, of losing presidential elections to Donald Trump.
01:08:16.920
Trump and she will never get over it. And I understand why you're saying she shouldn't have
01:08:23.280
been to what right when the right it, but it's a pretty good enunciation of the view of tens of
01:08:27.660
millions of people about what's going on. And the Clintons, both Clintons, they just love the
01:08:33.080
national town square. They don't want to be away from it. I will also say that she has not just
01:08:40.840
because she lost to Donald Trump, but because of her worldview, she has a genetic inability to stay
01:08:48.440
off of the stand to criticize him. It's in her craw. She cannot help herself. And I'm surprised
01:08:57.580
that she's been relatively low key in the first 100 days here because she is, I know from talking
01:09:05.540
to her friends, she's very engaged on this in a day-to-day capacity. Here's, here's what really
01:09:12.460
galls me, Sean. She writes that as secretary of state under Obama, she used smart power while Trump
01:09:21.440
is now using dumb power. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart
01:09:27.500
power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development
01:09:35.320
assistance, economic might, and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job
01:09:42.180
alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. I believe she's
0.76
01:09:50.580
talking about, among other things, Ukraine, where she was secretary of state when we went over there.
01:09:58.540
And to say we meddled in their election is to understate where we are today as a result of that
01:10:06.480
meddling, in part, for which she takes no responsibility. She just talks about how smart
01:10:11.380
she was and the way she manipulated the world and how dumb Trump is, who's now, again, having to clean up
01:10:17.660
a massive Democrat-fueled, if not made, but at least fueled, mess that's cost countless numbers of lives.
01:10:26.340
Yeah. If she still has that reset button that she handed Sergei Lavrov, maybe she wants to take a
01:10:34.080
do-over on this op-ed and get a reset there. I mean, this is the woman who literally brought a
01:10:39.620
reset button to try to make a joke over our relationship with Russia and wants to lecture
01:10:45.960
somebody else about that. I really wouldn't go there. Then to go into the classified issue,
01:10:51.640
after having kept all of your stuff on an unclassified server, wiping it with bleach blit.
01:10:59.540
I just, there are days when you go, you might want to sit this one out. This was one.
01:11:05.980
Wait, one quick follow-up for you on it, Sean. Then she goes on to say,
01:11:09.260
she criticizes him for de-emphasizing the importance of embassies. Oh my God.
01:11:16.700
Why would she touch anything having to do with an embassy or a diplomatic facility after Benghazi?
01:11:26.000
I just, there's a million, I literally feel like she's the one who let someone in her chat that
01:11:30.660
shouldn't have gotten in and wrote that op-ed. Cause that, that, that, that re- I know that's
01:11:36.240
where it's like, I wish she could have at least blamed that on somebody and, and use the reset button,
01:11:40.840
but it's just embarrassing how clueless, uh, and how unselfaware she is of her own vulnerabilities
01:11:48.360
that cause it's not just that when she does stuff like this, it means that Democrats have to answer
1.00
01:11:53.520
for it. We have to talk, we get to talk about it. This is one where you literally say, I'll write it
01:11:58.460
for you and then hand it off to somebody else or just sit this one out or don't send it into the
01:12:03.620
New York times, write it for your, in your journal or put it on your unclassified server and keep it
01:12:08.900
for yourself. I know how she tried to act bored during the Benghazi hearings. Like, Oh my God,
01:12:13.940
I just didn't listen to this nonsense. Well, also her homebrewer server or cell phones were wrong
01:12:19.160
either. Go ahead. But, but for, for, for just one thing we got, we lost in the conversation about
01:12:24.020
signal gate was that the president and his team knocked out all of those Houthi targets. No lives
0.53
01:12:31.460
were lost. Targets were hit. The Obama, uh, or the Biden administration lost 13 lives coming out
01:12:38.440
of Afghanistan. She dealt with Benghazi. If we want to talk about missions and diplomacy and,
01:12:45.220
and actions, I'll take the Trump record over her record over Biden's record any day of the week.
01:12:51.340
Yeah. I mean, we, uh, we lost an ambassador. Like she, now she's just kind of like, Oh,
01:12:56.780
the embassies, there's a de-emphasis. Would you like to have the embassy conversation? Cause we could
01:13:01.420
do that. We could definitely get back into it. You purported to be bored about it. I know you like
01:13:05.640
this thing, Dan, how did you like this thing? So I, I actually loved it. I will fully admit all
01:13:11.980
the things. Yes. All that, all the things that you guys both said and Mark that she may not be
01:13:17.220
necessarily the best messenger for the reasons that you guys all said, but I think she fully
01:13:21.820
believes it. She, she, she's throwing punches. And I think the party has sat around frozen since Trump
01:13:28.820
got elected. They're exhausted. They don't know what to do. They're questioning, you know,
01:13:33.720
all their strategies and tactics the last four or five years against Trump. And I think to Mark's
01:13:38.740
point, she sits there and she's, I mean, Hillary Clinton is if nothing else, one tough SOB. And I
1.00
01:13:44.880
think she's just like, gosh, darn it. We need to stand up and start saying stuff and I'll do it.
0.98
01:13:49.680
And I look, I give her credit. I mean, she knows exactly what we're saying are all the words about
01:13:54.960
her. And she's not going to be our candidate in 2028, but she is trying to give some, some steel
0.98
01:14:01.240
to the spine of Democrats to just say common sense, as we see it stuff and get in the game
01:14:08.000
and start trying to go at him instead of just sitting around in the fetal position, getting
01:14:13.300
rolled. Dan, do you think your donors on the Dem side or, or house rank and file house members
01:14:18.780
were excited to see that op-ed in the New York times this morning? I think they were probably
01:14:24.300
not excited to see the name. They're the reasons that we all just, but I think they probably say,
01:14:29.620
all right, you know, she's getting off the sideline. Like I think, and we may get to this,
01:14:33.120
this has been the best week for Democrats probably since August of last year, kind of optimism going
01:14:39.400
into the convention. There was less coming out of it, but I think they're like, all right,
01:14:43.900
now Hillary's in, in the game. She's one of the few people in the party who's an aircraft
1.00
01:14:48.280
carrier who can take the fight to Trump with clarity. And while the answer is some donors
01:14:55.240
were not happy to see it. I know some were not because it was her, but because as Dan said,
01:15:00.500
they need someone to enunciate the contrast, you know, Bill Clinton could do it. You know,
01:15:05.680
Barack Obama could do it. They won't, they won't because they're former presidents, but she will.
0.99
01:15:10.820
And so it's not an imperfect messenger, obviously, but, but go read it and take the name off of it.
01:15:16.320
And you'll see a lot of stuff. As Dan said, Democrats want to hear somebody saying,
01:15:21.280
Oh, I, I want to ask you a follow-up on signal gate, but you mentioned that they won't do it
01:15:26.080
because they're former presidents. And, you know, there's this, I guess, unwritten rule,
01:15:30.280
or at least used to be about unwritten about, about sitting presidents,
01:15:35.220
former presidents, trashing the sitting president. And this is what Joey Behar said about it on Thursday.
01:15:40.580
They also have a tendency to blame the Biden administration. It's like, move on, that ship
01:15:49.100
has sailed. I never remember in my lifetime, a sitting president, trashing a previous president.
01:15:54.340
I've never heard that before. You never heard, you know, Ronald Reagan didn't do it. They're,
01:16:00.800
And just quickly just found in like a 30 second Google search. Here's Joe Biden as president.
01:16:07.400
What in your view constitutes the primary threat to freedom and democracy at home?
01:16:14.140
Donald Trump. Donald Trump and the maggie Republicans
0.84
01:16:16.860
represented extremism that threatened the very foundations of our republic.
01:16:23.040
Donald Trump has no character. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.
01:16:27.780
There's one more thing Trump and his Republican friends want to do.
01:16:31.000
These are the kind of guys you like to smack in the ass.
01:16:33.400
Hey, so yeah, some of that was when Trump had declared, but I could have given you 20 other
01:16:40.680
examples of Trump not running of him. There's no, there's no rule anymore. The only rule is there's
01:16:46.640
no rules. It's just like the same as the end of Greece. When Danny Zuko and Kinnicky were doing the
01:16:52.840
drag race, the rule is there ain't no rules. That's where we are in today's day and age. Back to
0.97
01:16:57.760
Signalgate. Mark, what is happening with the weirdness between what seems to be like Team
01:17:04.780
Hegseth and Team Walsh? Like, are these two guys maneuvering against each other to see like if one
01:17:13.020
of us has to go down, it's going to be you? What's happening?
01:17:17.180
Um, there's certainly people in their orbit who are interested in of, uh, moving the spotlight if
01:17:23.560
necessary to save their friend or their boss. I don't know about between the two of them. I think
01:17:28.780
my, my belief is that everyone on that chain bears some of the responsibility because they should have
01:17:35.500
said, whoa, this conversation shouldn't be here. If there's two primary mistakes involved, errors of
01:17:42.800
judgment beyond the shared error of all of them. One is allowing Jeffrey Goldberg on the chain. Still
01:17:48.500
don't know how it happened, but the national security advisors taking the blame for that. And for many,
01:17:52.900
that's the big sin. And so Walsh is taking the blame there. But the other is the sharing of
01:17:58.140
information that almost everybody I know, including Sean, because we've talked about it on two-way,
01:18:03.240
doesn't believe should have been on Signal. And that falls primarily on the Secretary of Defense. So
01:18:07.820
they both have primary responsibility for one of the things that went wrong.
01:18:12.320
Many people have noticed that the president has been more critical of Walsh than he has
01:18:16.080
of, of Hegseth. And, and there've been some reporting that, that for a couple hours,
01:18:20.880
a couple of days, at least there was some chance the national security advisor would go. So
01:18:25.000
those guys are both ferocious competitors. They both want to stay in their jobs. One of them has
01:18:32.500
got more personal closest to the president, which is Hegseth, but it appears they're both fine for now.
01:18:38.120
And in the last day, the tensions that I've heard between their camps have tamped down appreciably as
01:18:44.220
it looked like they kind of teamed up to, to move the thing off the table.
01:18:47.900
All right, Sean, same question to you. What do you see happening there? Yeah, go ahead.
01:18:52.380
Well, this is my big tell. I said this this morning. It's the manifest to Greenland
01:18:57.760
is important today. More importantly, is the manifest returning from Greenland.
01:19:03.640
Right. So pay attention to the manifest on the flight home. Does anybody become the special
01:19:08.640
envoy to Greenland and just get stuck in Nook? You know, I mean, I know she's fine. I think
01:19:15.760
everybody loves her. She bought, she bought a round trip ticket. But, but I do wonder if somebody
01:19:21.700
ends up hanging around the commissary too long there at the, at the base. Um, can you, can you speak to
01:19:27.120
what he was saying about, you know, the biggest question is, and I've heard this too from Trump,
01:19:32.020
how did Jeffrey Goldberg get into Mike Wallace's phone? Something Mike is denying, but we all know
01:19:37.360
he was in there in one way, shape or form, or this mistake could not have happened.
01:19:42.680
Yeah. So there's two things. Not all sins are created equal. And I think in Donald Trump's
01:19:46.300
eyes right now, the sin of allowing Jeffrey Goldberg into that conversation is greater
01:19:50.520
than Pete Hegseth probably going beyond what he should sensitivity wise on that chain. Right.
01:19:56.820
And the mission was a success. So I think Trump looks at it and says, who am I more pissed at?
01:20:02.560
Uh, somebody who allowed this Jeffrey Goldberg guy into the thing who obviously is, uh, someone
01:20:08.980
of dubious character to begin with, uh, and obviously a never suckers and losers. So I, I,
01:20:14.920
I think Megan, the problem that a lot of people are having is, and I said this on the free Goldberg
0.89
01:20:20.900
is in my phone. I had to call and yell at him during the transition because of a horrible,
01:20:24.880
horrible story. Uh, when I met him the first time that his reporter wrote that I called to chastise
01:20:30.740
him about. So like, it's not a, I think if Mike Walt said, Hey, yeah, he was in my phone book
01:20:35.180
because one time he was writing a profile on blah, blah, blah. No one. I mean, I have a lot
01:20:40.580
of people in my phone that good and bad, but because over 30 years you that's, I mean, I actually
01:20:46.720
have Mark Halperin's contact information going back like 18 jobs time that I can do Mark's bio
01:20:52.420
because I don't delete anything, but that's another story. The point is that like, it wasn't,
01:20:58.380
if, if it doesn't Jamison Greer might've been the, who's the U S trade rep is JG. Maybe that's
01:21:03.760
who, why would they be putting a U S trade rep on the, such a conversation? I mean, that's,
01:21:07.880
that's again, that's a whole separate thing. But my point is it's an honest mistake instead of just
01:21:13.360
saying, Hey, look, the guy was in my phone book. Cause I had to yell at him eight years ago or he
01:21:16.960
did. Who cares? Instead of trying to do this, I don't know how he got in my phone book. I think that
01:21:22.500
that's gonna, that could be the bigger problem because he's opened himself up to, I think that
01:21:28.660
we should investigate this. Well, at some point, I don't know enough about tech, but you know,
01:21:33.120
maybe there's some way of finding out the date that a contact ended it entered into your phone
01:21:38.040
book or something like that. I bet there is. You don't want to look like Joy Reed. Like,
01:21:42.400
I don't know who made those anti LGBTQ entries on my blog. I demand an FBI investigation.
01:21:48.240
I agree with you. I don't think it's that controversial to have weird, bad, nasty,
01:21:54.320
anti-Trump reporters or whatever in your context. It's like the nature of all of our industry. You
01:22:00.380
deal with people you can't stand. You deal with people who can't stand you.
0.99
01:22:05.580
It's just change over time. I mean, you might've met someone 15 years ago. I've had people work for
01:22:10.360
me during my six years at the RNC who I haven't spoken to since because of some of the positions
01:22:15.520
they've taken. They're still in my phone book. I don't spend time purging it. I don't think that
01:22:19.800
was the big sin. And so this to me is going to be the rub. If there is something that comes of this,
01:22:26.280
that's going to be a problem because a crisis should die after 48 hours if it's not given
01:22:30.960
oxygen. And I think this thing has lasted way too long. I don't think they should have said it's
01:22:36.420
not war plans. I just don't think that was worth a worthwhile argument. Well, I don't think he
01:22:40.860
should have said Jeffrey Goldberg wasn't in my, I, I just think all of it, they should have said,
01:22:44.820
here's exactly what happened. You just, I mean, the way you put out a scandal is you say,
01:22:48.720
here's everything, here's everything. And we're going to get the defensiveness on the plan though.
01:22:53.740
I will say as somebody who, who understands what those terms mean, right.
01:22:59.140
But the average person isn't really drawing the same distinctions. I mean, I get it. I understand
01:23:05.560
why he felt unfairly attacked, but I just think as a PR, like PR is something I actually know pretty
01:23:11.200
well. He knows war plans and I know PR. But you also, but Megan, here's the thing. You also know
01:23:15.780
the law very well. And if I started pontificating and said, well, they should have just filed this
01:23:20.460
motion inside of you as the good lawyer you are, you'd say you can't do. And I think there's a
01:23:25.580
defensive posture for people in the national security space to say that wasn't a war plan.
01:23:30.660
Though Jeffrey Goldberg wouldn't have released the actual text with the, with the, whatever you want
01:23:37.080
to call those things. And the story didn't get better for Pete and Mike and everyone when he did
01:23:42.860
that. So it's like, I'm just saying, I'm just saying I get their defensive reflexive defensive
01:23:49.840
response because you're defending something, you know, not to be true. I get why they did it.
01:23:55.600
I know. I just like, you have to be smart when it comes to PR, same as you do as a military planner
01:24:01.640
and be able to see three, four or five steps ahead. So it's going to make you feel better to
01:24:05.920
do this counterstrike, but then, then what? Right. I, and that's, I bring it up because you're,
01:24:11.060
you know, we're talking about how we're now in day five of what should have been a 24 to 48 hour
01:24:15.520
scandal. I think it's over. I don't think it's, I mean, the Democrats will still continue to try to
01:24:19.420
light the flame. Megan, we also, you know, one of the things that didn't get much attention,
01:24:23.340
someone brought this up. I can't, I will steal the idea, but it wasn't mine is you think about
01:24:27.740
this. Goldberg knew about this for weeks, right? And he held it until he knew there was a pre-planned
01:24:34.040
hearing of the Intel chiefs on Capitol Hill. Like he got away with that. Just think about this. He
01:24:40.120
timed the drop of that story until he knew those chiefs were going to be on Capitol Hill. I mean,
01:24:44.980
you talk about the PR piece of this. I will give the Atlantic credit for, for literally thinking about
01:24:49.640
how to place this story and when to get the maximum effect.
01:24:53.860
Well, Walter Kern and Matt Taibbi were on the other day and they had a really good point.
01:24:58.320
They were like, why would you ever declare that you were on there? Just think you could have four
01:25:03.540
years of access to the most amazing communications ever. And then at the end of the administration,
01:25:09.080
be like, here's everything I saw. Oh my God. Like I could have been an even better scoop for them.
01:25:14.620
Anyway, I think it's over. I just thank God nobody on our side got hurt. The mission went
01:25:20.160
off perfectly and that we should be grateful that it did. I guess the trade representative
01:25:24.780
might've been on there because we were striking trade routes and the Houthis therein. Okay.
01:25:29.460
Next up, we've got to talk about, you know, on Monday, all the news was how the Democrat party is
01:25:34.500
in shambles. It has its worst approval ratings in years within its itself. You know, it's Democrats hate,
01:25:40.840
hate the party. Democrats hate their leaders. They have no leader. And then we start to see
01:25:45.980
like last night, Elise Stefanik was withdrawn as Trump's nominee for UN ambassador because he needs
01:25:52.180
her to stay in her seat. And then we find out that there was a special election in Pennsylvania
01:25:56.680
in a jurisdiction Trump won by double digits that went blue. And now we're looking at two in Florida
01:26:04.180
where Trump won by huge margins that are potentially in trouble. So what, what's happening? Is this a party
01:26:10.420
that's in trouble or isn't it? That's where we go with the guys right after this.
01:26:16.760
I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open,
01:26:22.680
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01:27:19.320
What are we supposed to make of what I said before the break? I thought the Democrats were imploding
01:27:25.420
and yet Elise has got to leave the UN job so she can hold on to that seat. You've got, um, this was a
01:27:33.340
Pennsylvania state race that the Democrats won, but it was a, it was a jurisdiction by Lancaster
01:27:42.620
County, Pennsylvania. It was a state Senate seat that Trump won by 15 points in November and included
01:27:49.420
the more conservative parts of a County that only one Democrat presidential candidate, Lyndon Johnson,
01:27:55.400
had won since the civil war. So that's Dems have to be feeling good about that. And then you've got
01:28:01.080
the Matt Gates seat and the Mike wall seat in Florida, which are normally totally solidly red,
01:28:07.440
but Republicans are worried about those. Elise Stefanik won her seat by 24 points last year.
01:28:13.780
And the guy who was running to replace her as the Republican on the ticket is up 16 points,
01:28:18.260
but still Trump said, get back down there. Elise, we can't afford to lose it. So I like what,
01:28:23.640
what's happening, Mark, what's happening. Well, don't want to overstate what the trend here,
01:28:29.120
because the country, the polls say, yes, the country's thinks, uh, people think the country's
01:28:34.020
on the right track. Um, president Trump is still wielding his power in a pretty dramatic and some
01:28:39.740
ways unprecedented way. I think there's three things going on. First of all, with any president,
01:28:44.060
the year after the election, you almost always see some sort of bounce back, right? The two
01:28:48.700
gubernatorial races the year after the presidential, only two, uh, competitive races every year,
01:28:53.280
uh, or, or somewhat competitive, at least New Jersey and Virginia. And for years, they swung
01:28:58.700
almost always to the president, the party, not of the president. So part of it is just,
01:29:03.240
it's a year after. Second is some of the stuff the president's doing does not seem, uh, relevant on
01:29:09.800
the economy to a lot of voters, particularly on inflation, where the, where has the president's
01:29:17.020
focus been on the economy. It's been on tariffs. Most people don't understand that. Some people
01:29:20.760
are worried about them. Um, and we see consumer confidence is, is a little bit off. So, or,
01:29:26.380
and some polls a lot off. So I think, I think that there's an economic, uh, gap and then you see that
01:29:31.700
in the president's polling where his ratings on the economy are lower and that's a big issue for voters.
01:29:35.980
And then lastly, there's no perfect off year election. That's going to tell you, you know,
01:29:41.720
exactly what's going on nationally, but there's no doubt that a factor in these races is when Donald
01:29:46.880
Trump isn't on the ballot, Republicans don't do as well. He's not on the ballot in these races
01:29:50.940
and Democrats finally have a little bit of pep in their step. They finally have a feeling of, well,
01:29:55.920
we can't beat him in Washington. We didn't beat him in the last election, but if we win these
01:29:59.920
special elections, if we donate money, if we volunteer, if we get energized, we can send a
01:30:04.140
message to everybody that we want to check on Trump. I think all those things have combined to
01:30:07.920
put Republicans back on their heels. Doesn't mean they're going to lose any of these races
01:30:11.760
necessarily, although they did, as you say, lose the one in Pennsylvania, but this is a time,
01:30:17.080
uh, uh, we talked about it on the show, this, our show this morning, it's been the best week.
01:30:20.840
We all agree for, for Democrats since Trump got elected and, and that adds up to creating an
01:30:26.620
electoral environment that's favorable right now for Democrats as compared to the mean.
01:30:31.680
Dan, Scott Pressler is the guy who went to Pennsylvania, moved there for more than a year
01:30:37.080
prior to the vote and really was very instrumental in turning it red. Um, and he tweeted out,
01:30:43.120
I'm going to be honest with you, even if you don't want to hear it, Republicans have been losing
01:30:47.840
special elections all over the country, even red districts in Iowa and Pennsylvania. Democrats are
01:30:53.880
fired up. Unless we begin focusing on ground game, we will lose 2025 and 2026. Do you agree?
01:31:02.560
Yeah. And I think James Blair, I think it was in an interview with Politico,
01:31:05.760
the white house political director recently said, like, it is a little bit of a problem that our
01:31:10.340
team, meaning kind of Trump and MAGA supporters are pretty kind of happy right now. And you're
01:31:15.440
always a little less energized when you feel like everything is being accomplished that you fought
01:31:19.780
so hard for. Whereas angry MAGA is more effective, right? Whereas conversely Democrats are fired up.
01:31:26.120
And I think there's two things. Democrats are fired up about Donald Trump. They've also,
01:31:31.300
they're fired up about the kind of incompetence and ineptness of their own leaders. And what you're
01:31:37.500
seeing is this, like we've had enough and now like we are going to force action from the bottom up for
01:31:44.340
our own party to get its act together. And so on the local level, on the grassroots level, we can all
01:31:50.260
talk about AOC and Bernie Sanders. Their politics are not necessarily my politics, but what they're tapping
01:31:56.420
into, what they're showing the party. Hey, we can get 30,000 people to show up in a red state.
01:32:01.580
That is hard. I was in politics for 20 years. The only person who's been able to do it for year
01:32:06.600
after year is Donald Trump. You know, Obama had like a two year period where he was like really hot,
01:32:10.700
could fill arenas. And then it became a grind. Trump is the only one in Bernie Sanders who can do it.
01:32:17.000
And I think that you're seeing, you know, this week was signal. It was a little bit of a ding,
01:32:21.000
a self-inflicted error that Democrats said, okay, they're human a little bit, right? They were
01:32:25.440
fumbling around like it gave them some confidence. And so I think Democrats are energized. Republicans,
01:32:32.220
maybe not quite as much. And we'll see here. I also would not underestimate that what Mark said,
01:32:40.040
Trump got elected on the economy and inflation. And he doesn't even talk about those things most
01:32:45.320
of the time. Most of these press conferences, DEI, Doge with Elon Musk a lot, Ukraine, it's not on the
01:32:52.880
economy. And I think voters are frustrated. And you combine that with Doge having kind of a little
01:32:58.280
bit of a rickety, you know, reputation in polls, you see some, some pieces together.
01:33:05.080
You know, Megan, the thing is, look, special elections are special. That's a fact. There are
01:33:10.600
though lessons to be learned. And one of the things that I learned out of Pennsylvania beyond,
01:33:14.740
I mean, the environment we just talked about, there's no question. Republicans aren't as fired
01:33:18.640
up as Democrats right now, but mechanics matter and candidates matter. And in Pennsylvania,
01:33:23.100
by all estimation, the candidate was not very good. The mechanics on the ground were horrible.
01:33:28.320
That's what worries me about the Florida two special elections. The first district, which is the,
01:33:32.760
the, the one held previously by Matt Gaetz should be okay. Jimmy Petronis has run statewide before
01:33:39.280
and won several times. So he's a good candidate. He's got a good fundraising base. He's got people
01:33:43.760
motivated. The, the sixth district, which is the Matt, uh, Mike Waltsey, uh, which is the,
01:33:49.780
the Republican nominee state Senator Randy fine is not raising it by 30 points, 30 points. This
01:33:56.560
should be a slam dunk. Uh, now again, it's special. So maybe he only wins it by 10 or 12,
01:34:01.780
but right now it's dead. Even there's even one poll that shows the Dem up. This should be
01:34:06.660
a huge wake up call. The candidates matter. The mechanics matter, but that, I mean, that should
01:34:12.620
still keep it within five or 10. We have a problem. Scott Pressler is absolutely right. And that's the
01:34:17.860
thing is that at some point you can, you know, those things matter for a few points here and
01:34:22.200
there. We got a bigger problem too, in terms of keeping the base motivated. Well, um, it won't
01:34:28.120
be long until they get angry again. That's, that's Republicanism. There's always somebody disappointing
01:34:33.460
you. Um, go from fat and happy to angry in a big hurry. Yeah, it's, it's easy. Um, the Wisconsin
01:34:40.820
Supreme court race, we should spend a moment on spend a moment on too. There, there, I can't
01:34:45.380
believe the amount of messaging I get on a daily basis about this race as somebody lives in
01:34:49.980
Connecticut. Like, why am I getting this online and everywhere? Elon's doing his, you know,
01:34:55.340
you'll get a million dollars. If you can show me that you voted, you don't have to tell me who you
01:34:59.160
voted for. He's doing that thing again, uh, going back out there. Everybody's sounding very alarmist on
01:35:04.480
this thing. Uh, but the Democrat is up and by a lot, according to the latest poll, uh, where her
01:35:10.600
name is, uh, Crawford, Susan Crawford, she's up against Brad Skimmel and it's 50 42. According to
01:35:17.040
the latest poll of likely voters, 500 of them, although Wisconsin, they say is like impossible
01:35:21.180
to poll. So what's going to happen there and why does everyone care so very much? And is it
01:35:27.560
redistricting that this court is going to have the final say on? Yes. Yes. That's the biggest issue
0.98
01:35:35.000
redistricting. I mean, that, that's when they're going to, that would be a huge issue that people
01:35:39.040
should care about nationwide, not just the folks in Wisconsin, a lot of voter ID thing, a lot of
01:35:43.260
early voting all goes through this will go through the state Supreme court. So yeah, for a lot of
01:35:47.500
reasons, people should care about that. I think there's no question. Democrats have the edge going
0.96
01:35:51.480
to this. This is going to be a turnout thing. And that's why you're seeing Elon, Don jr. Others try to
01:35:55.860
make the case, tele-town halls, personal visits, et cetera, that Republicans could do themselves a
01:36:01.280
huge favor, uh, if they pick up the Supreme court seat. And, uh, I would say that they're not favored
01:36:07.000
to do it, but it's definitely one of those things is we head down the stretch that they have every
01:36:10.940
ability to do. I can't think of any state. Sorry. Go ahead, Mark. I can't think of any state
01:36:17.840
whose Supreme state Supreme court decisions have been as impactful, not just in the state, but kind of
01:36:23.160
nationally resonant as Wisconsin and like the, the, the political culture and the States and the U S
01:36:29.640
senators, they are actually purple, right? You can't think of very many States cause there aren't
01:36:34.060
very many left who have senators from different parties. Wisconsin does Ron Johnson, far right,
01:36:39.220
MAGA, Tammy Baldwin, pretty far left. And you see on that state Supreme court, the stakes are huge.
01:36:45.880
Again, Wisconsin's probably been supplant, supplanted by Pennsylvania as the battleground state,
01:36:51.480
but it's still number two. And so the stakes are high in order to not just impact that particular
01:36:57.320
state, but the symbolism is what's important to so many to say, we're going head to head with all
01:37:03.280
the outside money and the state ground games to see who can win a very contested seat in, in,
01:37:08.680
in Wisconsin. We've seen it before with Scott Walker. We've seen it before with the U S Senate race.
01:37:13.220
It is high stakes there because of the national resonance of the state of the state and it's put in
01:37:17.940
our political culture. So Dan is what's going to happen. Let's say that if the Democrat wins,
01:37:22.500
then the Democrats control that court. And then is it true that that could mean as many as two
01:37:28.520
congressional seats, additional congressional seats for the Democrats?
01:37:33.820
It could, I mean, we'll, we'll have to see, there's going to be a gubernatorial race in Wisconsin
01:37:39.020
here in two years in 2028. And, um, you know, we'll just have to see kind of how it shakes out.
01:37:44.800
Look, what it does do is just give a little, you know, momentum to the party. We just lost,
01:37:51.180
but Tammy Baldwin did win there. I think one of the things that we're really watching for all three
01:37:56.220
of us and Megan, you probably as well as Elon Musk in the fall last year was an asset to Donald Trump.
01:38:03.880
I don't think anyone would disagree with that. He is now going there this weekend. He's put a lot
01:38:09.840
of money into this race. He's been very vocal on X and other places. I'm curious if his presence
0.77
01:38:15.720
helps, if he is still an asset or if what we're seeing in polls, that his favorabilities are coming
01:38:21.900
down as unfavorables are rising, like the black focus group, people have concerns about him.
01:38:27.380
Does he become a liability? And if he does, that will be interesting, right? As we head into
01:38:33.680
more doge cuts, we, we head into this bill, the reconciliation bill, it will start to say to
01:38:39.520
Republicans, perhaps, perhaps the ground is shifting. Hmm. I don't like the chances in
01:38:46.780
Wisconsin, but I'm heartened by the fact that the polls in Wisconsin are never correct. I mean,
01:38:52.440
it's just like you, you can't, it's like having no pull whatsoever. So I suppose anything could
01:38:58.180
happen because Trump won it. So, you know, it's not like there's no. Yeah, so did Ron Johnson,
01:39:03.080
so did Scott Walker. It tends to break to the right at the end. Uh, but that assumes a strong
01:39:08.220
ground game. And as you know, these off year ones are just so, so, so, uh, reading the electorate's
01:39:14.900
very difficult. So I, I mean, that's, you're absolutely right. That's the one on one piece of
01:39:19.180
hope. The GOP has to learn to win without Trump because, you know, he's not going to be on the
01:39:25.560
ballot again. I mean, I know there's some ban and talk, but he's not going to be on the ban on the
01:39:29.760
ballot again. You guys, it's a pleasure. Have a great weekend. It's so great to see you. Thanks
01:39:36.300
for sticking with me. Great to see you, Megan. Thank you again. Great to see you. Wow. So
01:39:40.120
interesting. Aren't those guys great? Uh, if you would like to weigh in on the show, you can email me
01:39:43.920
Megan at Megan Kelly.com. And today is the day to go to Megan Kelly.com because there you can
01:39:48.980
register for our once a week email. We call it the American news minute, and it gives you all the
01:39:53.520
week news, uh, in 60 seconds or less, plus some fun highlights of the show and some Stradwick
01:39:59.140
antics. And I think you'll really like this week's Stradwick update among, among other things that are
01:40:05.120
newsy. Uh, thank you all so much for watching and you have a great weekend too.
01:40:08.460
Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.