The Megyn Kelly Show - Shocking New Biden Cognitive Decline Details, Elon's Future, and Cory's Long Speech, with The Fifth Column

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00:00:31.260 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.820 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Liberation Day to you.

00:00:48.500 You might have thought that was, I don't know, I guess kind of July 4th.

00:00:52.700 That's what the Trump team is calling today ahead of his big tariff announcement at 4 p.m.

00:00:58.920 Didn't we just have Trans Liberation Day? What was that?

00:01:03.260 They shouldn't have kept it so close. I'm exhausted from that celebration.

00:01:07.260 Okay, so anyway, we're going to have a big 4 p.m. press conference,

00:01:12.640 so the tariff thing will be all over the news this evening and tomorrow.

00:01:15.500 We'll have it covered for you in our AM update and then again on tomorrow's show.

00:01:20.240 And we will be hearing from the president in his Make America Wealthy Again Rose Garden address.

00:01:25.900 Plus the results of last night's elections where the media hype did not deliver any actually close

00:01:34.700 finishes in Florida or in Wisconsin. And I've got, I got a clear take on what happened in Wisconsin.

00:01:41.560 And a bombshell new book reveals what Joe Biden ally Ron Klain, who was his chief of staff for two years,

00:01:48.760 really saw while prepping for that disastrous debate. Now the stories come out bit by bit.

00:01:56.440 The stories come out about what they knew. They're all trying to save their own asses by being like,

00:02:01.420 he was a hot mess and I knew. Well, why'd you lie to all of us publicly over? And how does that save

00:02:07.240 your ass? Truly how, like, why, if you were part of the coverup, would you be so dumb as to grant a

00:02:12.500 bunch of interviews acknowledging? Yeah, I knew. I just, why wouldn't you just continue the lie?

00:02:18.320 I had no idea. Uh, it's an interesting question. We'll attack it among others with our guests

00:02:24.060 today for the full show. The guys from the fifth column podcast who are celebrating their nine

00:02:30.180 year anniversary this week. Camille Foster of Freethink, Michael Moynihan, host of two ways,

00:02:36.480 the Moynihan report and Matt Welsh of reason magazine. You can find their work and subscribe at

00:02:41.620 we the fifth.com. What are you doing this Easter to celebrate with your family? Angel studios who

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00:03:23.000 to help angel choose which movies it greenlights. And you will get two free tickets to see King of

00:03:29.400 Kings and every single theatrical re release from angel studios. It's a great deal. Get two free

00:03:35.020 tickets to see King of Kings and join the angel guild as a premium member at angel.com slash

00:03:41.760 Megan. Take your kids to a truly wonderful movie this Easter season and be a part of making family

00:03:47.240 entertainment. Great. Again, angel.com slash Megan. Welcome back guys. Hey, Megan. Thanks for having

00:03:55.720 us. A media queen. Happy anniversary. Thank you. Thank you so much. But not as long as you guys

00:04:01.660 nine years. Media queen. Yeah. That's a good one. I turned to, and there isn't Megan Kelly this past

00:04:06.980 week and a half. Oh, thank you for that. Um, well, congrats. Uh, I understand why the show has

00:04:13.180 withstood the test of time because there are very few rivals to the top quality work that we get from the

00:04:18.900 fifth column. And I, I mean that sincerely, you know, I love you. Um, okay. You have great judgment.

00:04:23.380 Thank you. Thank you. I do. That's true. Um, I want, I, we have to start with Biden because

00:04:28.780 this was not going to be our lead today, but this guardian article is so juicy. We got to do it.

00:04:34.460 So the guardian got his hands on this new book. It just hit, um, you know, shortly before we,

00:04:40.200 we came out and, um, they, the, the new book takes a deep dive into what Joe Biden was like prior to,

00:04:49.200 um, his debate and fall, uh, disaster. And then thereafter, I'm trying to, Oh, the name of the

00:04:53.720 book uncharted, uncharted by, um, some guy named Whipple last name, Whipple, Chris Whipple. He's a

00:05:00.520 reporter. Okay. So Ron Klain is no underling. You know, he's not like some no name staffer.

00:05:06.320 He was the chief of staff from 2021 to 2023, and then returned, uh, last June, again, not even a

00:05:16.160 year ago to run debate prep. So very clearly on the innermost Biden circle and somebody who they

00:05:23.540 trusted. And he, I'll just give you the third paragraph of the guardian piece, according to

00:05:30.080 Klain as reported by this book, uncharted. It turned out Biden quote, did not know what Trump

00:05:37.680 had been saying and could not grasp what the back and forth was left preparation for the debate and

00:05:44.640 fell asleep instead by the pool obsessed about foreign leaders saying quote, these guys say I'm

00:05:50.660 doing a great job as president. So I must be a great president and quote has the ring of truth

00:05:55.400 quote, didn't really understand what his argument even was on inflation and had nothing to say

00:06:02.620 about a second term other than finish the job and get off my damn lawn. Those two things weren't,

00:06:09.460 no, I added the second one and there's so many other juicy quotes in here. We'll go through it,

00:06:14.840 but can I just get your initial reaction to Ron Klain laying it all out there, or at least

00:06:21.340 most of it out there to this reporter for his book. Anyone? Ron Klain is one of the biggest modern

00:06:28.720 villains in American politics. And this just underscores his absolute duplicity. He was

00:06:34.080 described in a lot of reporting. Wall Street Journal was probably the best on this, um, before it was

00:06:39.400 popular, uh, to talk about Biden's, uh, not just his cognitive decline, but the shrink wrap, the bubble

00:06:45.220 wrap operation bubble wrap. It was literally called, um, to protect him from, I don't know,

00:06:50.860 having meetings with anybody. Uh, Ron Klain was the lead of that. He was described as having more

00:06:56.360 power as a chief of staff than just about any modern chief of staff. He would play, he would

00:07:01.160 run interference anytime someone dared suggest that Biden had any cognitive problems. And he was still

00:07:06.700 saying this in August last year, he was complaining that they'd been forced out Biden in August of last

00:07:14.160 year and saying that he was a fit and sharp and all of this. So, uh, I enjoy him attempting to salvage

00:07:20.460 what remains of his reputation, but he's a bad person. I'm reminded of the Biden quote. The only

00:07:26.640 Biden quote I really like, good luck in your senior year. That's, that's what I have to say

00:07:30.980 to Ron Klain. It's a great quote. I don't know where it comes from. The inanity of it really works

00:07:36.320 though. Go ahead, Camille. I don't know if I'm, I'm being like more fair to him or anything like

00:07:41.400 that, but I do want to try to say like the best case scenario here. And it does seem binary.

00:07:45.560 It's either he's being aggressively duplicitous here or he's a total moron. Like the fact that

00:07:51.200 all of us from so far away could like see Joe Biden's decline in real time and noted regularly.

00:07:58.820 And that these people, like the best explanation explanation for their, or the best accounting of

00:08:04.000 their behavior and their, Oh my God, I can't believe this happened. It was so terrible. Um,

00:08:08.580 is that they just didn't see what was going on. They were oblivious to the fact that this man

00:08:12.620 didn't know where he was most of the time. And here at least he seems to be admitting

00:08:16.480 like we are doing debate prep and the president can't keep up after 45 minutes. He didn't seem

00:08:21.820 to know where he was or what he was talking about. He couldn't understand that when he looked into the

00:08:27.300 camera in a kind of confused way, that wouldn't suggest to people, wow, Donald Trump is saying

00:08:32.200 crazy things. It would suggest to people that this guy really has no idea what planet he's on. Um,

00:08:36.900 and it was, I mean, this, this should have been a five alarm fire for them in real time.

00:08:42.080 They shouldn't have let him run at all, but certainly while you're in debate prep,

00:08:45.700 even before it airs, you should be calling every single high profile Democrat, you know,

00:08:49.900 leaking this story to every member of the press you can so that you can try to replace this guy on

00:08:54.560 the ticket. And they did not do those things in real time. They are waiting till now. And that's

00:08:58.760 the part that makes it all look so kind of gross and slimy. Also interesting that like,

00:09:02.840 where is Joe Biden? Like it's not unusual for presidents to go dark after the inauguration.

00:09:08.100 He went to see a play like Barack Obama. You kind of did see him around in 2017. He may not

00:09:13.960 have been giving grand statements. Joe Biden is gone. They've disappeared him. It's nuts.

00:09:19.200 He might, he might be on the international space station. Elon might've been responsible

00:09:21.940 for El Salvador. I don't know.

00:09:23.800 He might be El Salvador.

00:09:25.840 He's yeah, he was, he had the wrong tattoo and he got picked up.

00:09:29.960 Uh, no, I loved, I'm not in a gang.

00:09:32.920 What about my mom?

00:09:34.780 Yeah, I told you my mom got a tattoo when she turned 70. It's a rosary on her foot. Is

00:09:38.300 she almost out of here?

00:09:39.060 Oh my God.

00:09:39.660 Is that what's happening?

00:09:40.760 I saw your mother and I was like, who's that elder stateswoman of the Venezuelan gang scene?

00:09:47.300 And she doesn't wear Michael Jordan gear, but she does. She did go to a garage sale once

00:09:52.540 and come home wearing a FUBU sweatshirt.

00:09:54.900 Oh, that's great. For us, Irish, by us, Irish.

00:09:59.740 It's a black thing.

00:10:00.980 Amazing.

00:10:01.720 It's not for elderly, suburban white grandmas.

00:10:05.920 Are there photos of this, Megan?

00:10:07.040 Oh my God.

00:10:08.140 I can probably get my hands on a photo.

00:10:09.440 If you want to remain in the news cycle, Megan, that Matt is saying you're all over,

00:10:13.000 just come next episode all FUBU gear.

00:10:15.960 You're like, hey man.

00:10:16.840 What you're saying is my, my mom is on the next plane to El Salvador.

00:10:20.880 Of course. That's the important thing.

00:10:22.860 We love you. We love you, Mrs. Kelly, but please be careful.

00:10:27.400 Mistakes are going to happen. That's still worth it.

00:10:31.620 I loved, by the way, on this, I saw some, you know, Ron Klain, no one was closer to Biden,

00:10:40.200 so therefore these stories have a lot of credibility. There's no one who's further from

00:10:46.020 Biden than me. And I knew this for four and a half years. And if you went back, because we've

00:10:51.500 been doing it for nine years, if you went back to us in 2020, I guarantee you there was some

00:10:58.120 conversation about Joe Biden being too old. I was on Bill Maher show in 2022. And I remember talking

00:11:06.340 about this, that the majority of Democrats thought he shouldn't run again. Why? Because they thought,

00:11:11.520 you know, he wasn't liberal enough or something. No, it's because he thought he was too old.

00:11:14.840 All of this stuff is just confirming things that everyone has known. And by the way,

00:11:19.800 there's one great thing is these quotes in there, where the cadence of a quote makes all the

00:11:26.180 difference. Like there was a quote in there of Donald Trump said it, it would be the most Trumpy

00:11:29.620 thing where he's like, I'm the best president. All the people in Europe say it. I'm the best.

00:11:33.420 They all know me that I must be the best. If Trump says that, you start laughing. If Biden said that,

00:11:37.780 you're like, oh my God, he's going to wander into traffic soon. Like it's a crazy person quote.

00:11:44.240 It like, you know, Trump wants to destroy NATO more or less. Joe Biden thinks he's the president

00:11:49.760 of NATO. No, literally. Okay, let's get to that. No, he's not joking. That's not an exaggeration for

00:11:55.200 offense. Okay, let's keep going through the article. Okay. Because my hat is off to you,

00:12:00.260 reporter Chris Whipple. You did a great job. I can't wait to read your book. Okay, here's more.

00:12:05.640 Uh, as described by Klain to Chris Whipple, at one point, again, I'm quoting you from the

00:12:11.860 Guardian piece. At one point, Biden had an idea. If he looked perplexed when Trump talked,

00:12:19.120 voters would understand that Trump was an idiot. Klain allegedly replied to Joe Biden, sir,

00:12:24.480 when you look perplexed, people just think you're perplexed. And this is our problem in this race.

00:12:31.220 Now, who knows whether that's true? I've got questions whether he really said that to Joe Biden.

00:12:34.820 Okay, there's more. Okay. The Whipple told Politico last week in an interview about his book,

00:12:46.580 I happen to think that to call it a cover-up is simplistic. I think it was stranger and way more

00:12:50.440 troubling than that. Biden's inner circle, his closest advisors, many of them, were in the fog

00:12:55.540 of delusion and denial. They believed what they wanted to believe. They go on to talk about how,

00:13:02.560 even after the disastrous debate, according to Klain to Whipple, Klain believed Biden should

00:13:09.440 stay in the race. And then after he quit that he should have stayed in the race. And, uh, they talk

00:13:16.420 about, okay, this is the juicy part, the prep for the debate. At his first meeting with Biden in Aspen

00:13:22.520 Lodge, the president's cabin, according to Whipple, Klain was startled. He had never seen him so exhausted

00:13:28.800 and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Unaware. Halfway

00:13:35.180 through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool.

00:13:40.800 That evening, Biden met again with Klain and his team. Biden aides Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti,

00:13:48.080 and Bruce Reed. We sat around the table, said Klain. Biden had answers on cards and he was just

00:13:54.780 extremely exhausted. And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. So out of

00:14:00.380 touch with American politics, the sitting president of the United States. He was just very, very focused

00:14:05.240 on his interactions with NATO leaders. And here it is, Moynihan. Klain writes Whipple, quote,

00:14:13.200 wondered half seriously if Biden thought he was president of NATO instead of the U.S. He just

00:14:22.200 became very enraptured with being the head of NATO, he said. Oh, my God. He thought he was the head of

00:14:33.040 NATO and not the president of the United States. That's according to his chief of staff for two years

00:14:40.540 who prepped him for the debate. That happened in June of this past year. We pulled a thought from

00:14:49.200 Ron Klain from July 29th of this past year when he was on with that tough, I get to the bottom of

00:15:00.160 all stories reporter, Kara Swisher. Watch. Whether he was in good health or not, whether he was in good

00:15:08.000 mental health. Obviously, top advisors got blamed for this, the preparation itself, and also not being

00:15:14.980 transparent that he wasn't able to campaign effectively. How do you answer those critics?

00:15:22.080 Look, what I say is look at what he did after the debate. The speech in North Carolina the next

00:15:25.860 morning was powerful and effective. He did an interview with George Stephanopoulos I thought

00:15:29.800 was very good. He did a foreign policy press conference I thought was superb, a tour de force

00:15:34.100 about foreign policy. He then went to Michigan and laid out an agenda for the first hundred days of

00:15:38.380 a second term that I thought was a powerful agenda. Got a great response at the NAACP convention.

00:15:44.160 So I think the proof that he could campaign was that he did campaign and campaigned very effectively.

00:15:48.480 The idea that somehow people weren't transparent about the state of his health or the state of

00:15:53.680 his acuity, I think, is belied by the fact that the president did events all the time.

00:15:58.600 And, you know, I understand there was a lot of viewership, but he went into the Roosevelt

00:16:03.360 rooms a couple times a week, would make a policy announcement, would take questions from the press

00:16:07.180 corps. The idea that people weren't transparent about his mental acuity is belied by his behavior.

00:16:19.240 The same guy who just sat down, just sat down with this reporter.

00:16:26.560 And by the way, they sat down in September, according to the Guardian. He gave the interview in September.

00:16:33.200 So that's him on July 29th. The idea that people covered up his poor mental acuity is a lie.

00:16:40.460 You know, he did all it's belied by the tour de force. He said he did after that debate.

00:16:45.820 And literally, within two months, he is admitting to Chris Whipple,

00:16:51.060 we wondered half seriously if he thought he was president of NATO.

00:16:58.420 Can I retract my earlier statement? It's just duplicitous.

00:17:02.800 Yeah, that's the liar.

00:17:04.660 And I love what it's like, is he president of NATO or president of the United States?

00:17:08.260 It's like he's neither, actually.

00:17:12.340 But there is actually a lot of small deal.

00:17:14.680 I mean, like decisions were made from that and we don't know who did him.

00:17:19.940 And one of one of the decision makers was exactly wrong claim.

00:17:24.120 And, you know, allow me, Matt, to know to kiss up to our host who loves Kara Swisher so much.

00:17:32.040 She's a great journalist that she is.

00:17:33.840 But is that there's two things here in that thing you just read there.

00:17:38.940 The Whipple says and I actually I think this is actually a pretty smart analysis.

00:17:43.060 He's like, you know, it's actually darker than just a cover up that there was a delusion.

00:17:48.440 And that strikes me as probably true.

00:17:50.360 I mean, just from from his reporting.

00:17:52.420 But there's two tiers of this.

00:17:53.860 There's the delusion from within the White House.

00:17:55.800 But there is a cover up and it's from people in the media.

00:17:59.920 That was where the cover up was.

00:18:01.460 And remember all of these quotes from people like on Morning Joe, like, oh, I saw him do a pole vaulting yesterday and he cleared like eight feet.

00:18:09.840 And I was like, wow, he's the top physical health.

00:18:12.960 Kara Swisher asked that question.

00:18:14.460 And and does it, by the way, in the, you know, some critics say not me saying that some critics say.

00:18:20.120 And then he gives this bullshit answer to which there is a thousand examples of what he just said not being true.

00:18:28.640 And you're not ready with those on a sheet of paper saying, yeah, but Ron, X, Y, Z, all the things that happened in the past month that showed that he didn't know where he was.

00:18:41.040 It just wasn't being responsive to me.

00:18:43.280 I mean, like the problem with Trump, in a way, is that you can't get him away from a camera like 40 hours in a 24 hour day.

00:18:50.280 I don't know how he does it, but, you know, it's the opposite of Biden's.

00:18:53.460 True. Yeah.

00:18:54.660 Yeah. All right.

00:18:55.280 So here's more because he's not done.

00:18:59.300 Klain and Jeffrey Katzenberg and others tried to get Biden into shape.

00:19:06.260 Two mock debates were organized, focusing on domestic policy because not Nito.

00:19:10.800 No, he, no, for the love of God, they must've been like, for the love of God, please don't ask him about Nito.

00:19:15.760 Don't talk about Nito.

00:19:16.940 Don't talk about Nito.

00:19:18.300 Oh, my God.

00:19:20.400 She asked about Nito.

00:19:22.260 Okay.

00:19:23.300 They say, the first was scheduled to last 90 minutes, but Klain called it off after 45.

00:19:29.860 The president's voice was shot and so was his grasp of the subject.

00:19:33.040 All he really could talk about was his infrastructure plan and how he was rebuilding America and 16 million jobs.

00:19:39.880 He had nothing to say about his agenda for a second term.

00:19:43.860 Klain says Biden grew irritable, saying he would not make promises as he would be criticized for failing to deliver.

00:19:49.420 So he knew he knew right there he wasn't going to be delivering.

00:19:52.640 Klain said he tried to persuade Biden to run an unfinished business, including his attempt.

00:19:57.040 Listen to this.

00:19:57.700 This is the best, including his attempt to subsidize state and local efforts to do child care and bring down the cost to $20 a day.

00:20:08.400 And you ought to try to fight for it again.

00:20:11.240 Whipple goes on, quote, Biden seemed befuddled, quote.

00:20:16.260 Well, that just seems like a big spending program.

00:20:18.740 Amazing. It's like these truths, you know, it's like they come out when the filter goes with with elderliness.

00:20:30.320 Klain said, no, sir. No, it brings down costs for people.

00:20:34.960 It's responsive to inflation. It will bring more people into the workforce.

00:20:38.540 It's good economics. And, you know, this is something you're for.

00:20:43.200 I'm quoting. That is the weirdest. That is the weirdest moment.

00:20:47.740 Like, I mean, as Matt said, there were real consequential decisions being made and it's not clear who was making those decisions.

00:20:54.620 And this highlights and underscores that Biden did also have a moment like this, though, back when he was vice president, where he's publicly talking about student loans and federal subsidies for higher education.

00:21:07.200 And he just kind of candidly acknowledges in public, in full view of everyone, in front of a battery of cameras.

00:21:13.400 Yeah, I mean, they raised the prices of college. I'm sorry.

00:21:17.820 Right, right.

00:21:18.760 Federal subsidies raise the prices of college.

00:21:20.820 So every once in a while, the truth just slips out there.

00:21:23.940 But apparently other people are just telling, no, no, no, this is what you actually believe.

00:21:27.500 It can happen when you're overtired. It can happen when you're drunk.

00:21:31.400 And it can happen when you're elderly and dementia is setting in. Right.

00:21:34.880 Like you just kind of lose the filter.

00:21:37.200 You get I mean, Brit Hume once told me, as you get older, your give a shit meter just changes.

00:21:42.060 And I think that's true. But also your ability to, like, even filter it at all.

00:21:46.860 And I think that's what Joe Biden's suffering from. They're like, no, that just that just seems like a big spending program.

00:21:53.560 It's your program. You're for it. No.

00:21:56.280 Yeah, no. I like that. Joe Biden. Who cares? Yes.

00:21:59.360 Big government. That's amazing.

00:22:01.840 Dementia Joe Biden is the best Joe Biden.

00:22:04.160 Dementia Joe Biden is like a Hayekian. It's unbelievable.

00:22:07.200 I don't know if I misheard this, but you said he was getting debate prepped from Jeffrey Katzenberg, right?

00:22:16.460 Yes. Yes.

00:22:17.140 So this is a claim fellow aides and visitors, including the film mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, tried to get Biden into shape to mock debates.

00:22:25.040 It's organized focusing on domestic policy.

00:22:27.140 Here's a problem. Don't trust the guy who had a media organization that wasted one point, what, two or three billion dollars in seven months and went out of business.

00:22:38.120 The last thing that he did.

00:22:39.000 Quibi.

00:22:39.860 Yeah, the short form thing that we all want.

00:22:42.480 It's like five minutes.

00:22:44.420 Yeah, because everybody wants five minutes.

00:22:46.240 Joe Rogan just did an episode for three and a half days and people are still watching and they love it.

00:22:50.720 But we need five minute videos.

00:22:52.460 Thanks to Jeffrey Katzenberg.

00:22:53.640 We live in a TikTok world, Boinehan.

00:22:54.680 He was just the head of his time.

00:22:55.280 Yeah, it's just out of touch.

00:22:56.860 You get a 70 year old media mobile who just pissed away a billion dollars.

00:23:00.980 That'll save it.

00:23:01.520 Talk about missing the moment.

00:23:03.180 All right.

00:23:03.340 Here's the last part of it.

00:23:04.380 OK, after he explains to him, you are president of the United States, not NATO.

00:23:11.580 Don't talk about NATO.

00:23:13.440 And also you are for this policy on subsidizing state and local efforts to do child care.

00:23:19.940 You're for it.

00:23:20.840 You've been pushing it for many years, sir.

00:23:23.240 This is something you support.

00:23:24.720 OK, it's not not a big government spending program.

00:23:27.680 Not Biden, quote, didn't want to talk about it.

00:23:31.360 And, quote, 25 minutes into the second mock debate, the president was done for the day.

00:23:37.160 I'm just too tired to continue and I'm afraid of losing my voice and I feel bad, he said.

00:23:42.520 I just need some sleep.

00:23:43.760 I'll be fine tomorrow.

00:23:45.040 And he went off to bed.

00:23:46.500 The president was fatigued, befuddled and disengaged, writes Whipple.

00:23:51.920 McLean feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.

00:23:57.460 It was on 27 June.

00:24:01.240 Biden arrived at the Atlanta venue with just minutes to spare because, Klain said, he was

00:24:05.240 the president of the United States.

00:24:06.620 They weren't going to start without him on stage for two hours and six minutes.

00:24:10.260 Biden stumbled, stared and mumbled.

00:24:12.580 As described by Whipple, Jill Biden praised her husband's performance.

00:24:19.040 She was like, there is no way I am leaving this White House, people.

00:24:22.900 This is the nicest place I've ever lived.

00:24:24.800 I feel important.

00:24:25.780 I love being on Vogue.

00:24:27.520 I think I'm secretly the president.

00:24:29.340 And he did fine.

00:24:30.520 It was great.

00:24:31.540 But all others around the president.

00:24:33.460 She didn't want to have to go back to her medical practice, Dr. Biden.

00:24:35.760 Her medical, right.

00:24:36.660 A real doctor.

00:24:37.540 Yes.

00:24:38.140 All others around the president could see, quote, something was terribly wrong.

00:24:43.520 Whipple quotes an unnamed close friend of Biden who took a call from Valerie Biden-Owens,

00:24:47.360 that's the president's sister and longtime advisor, who was, quote, so angry, she was practically

00:24:51.860 incoherent, runs in the family.

00:24:53.640 And then the same friend reports later, this friend spoke to Joe Biden, who was laughing

00:25:00.880 at his predicament and sounding like the senator and vice president of old.

00:25:05.020 Where did that voice go?

00:25:06.480 The friend wondered.

00:25:07.260 Where did that guy with that voice go?

00:25:09.300 What the F happened to this guy?

00:25:11.300 To Whipple, that was a question on which the political fate of the nation would turn.

00:25:16.660 Eventually, Biden bowed to reality.

00:25:18.860 Klain took a call from Jeff Zients on 21st of July, his successor, a chief of staff.

00:25:24.180 Biden was out.

00:25:24.960 Despite the debate disaster, the news was a gut punch to Ron Klain.

00:25:28.620 Jeff, that's too bad, Klain said.

00:25:31.460 I think that's a mistake.

00:25:32.980 I think this was an avoidable tragedy.

00:25:37.180 How?

00:25:38.080 How is it avoidable?

00:25:39.480 Honestly, what is Ron Klain trying to do here?

00:25:43.000 Go ahead, Matt.

00:25:44.480 It's avoidable if your chief of staff, who is one of the only people in your inner circle,

00:25:49.940 along with Dr. Jill for two, three years, if that chief of staff, instead of protecting

00:25:56.660 and casing the president of the United States in bubble wrap, says to people in 2021 that

00:26:04.780 this is happening, because it is happening in 2021, and he is witnessing it.

00:26:09.320 It was not a surprise that suddenly came down from the heavens in the summer of 2024.

00:26:14.660 This is something that has been long gestating, that we've all noticed, and that certainly

00:26:18.180 he noticed more than Kamala Harris also noticed, and then pretended not to, and didn't really

00:26:22.800 get many questions about it until like 88 days into her presidential campaign.

00:26:27.400 So the way that you avoid this is that you tell people ahead of time, you note that he's

00:26:31.600 the oldest president in history, and that he said he was only going to really run to

00:26:35.120 forestall Donald Trump, and you start looking for alternatives.

00:26:38.880 Ron Klain chose not to do this.

00:26:42.460 His tears are delicious.

00:26:44.600 Yeah, I mean, it's also the other thing to, I mean, Matt points out something that we tend

00:26:49.140 to forget, because if you asked me early in the morning, I probably wouldn't even remember

00:26:53.900 who ran against Donald Trump in the previous election, because Kamala Harris is so forgettable.

00:26:59.260 But imagine this, when you have a party that's putting forward presidential candidates, and

00:27:05.460 the main idea of the campaign is avoidance, right?

00:27:09.480 You know, Joe Biden is avoiding interacting with the press, interacting with people.

00:27:15.000 Like, you know, every time there's a Joe Biden interview, people are like, you know,

00:27:18.960 biting their fingernails.

00:27:20.100 Is he going to just, you know, tank this one too, and show people who he really is in the

00:27:25.240 state of his brain, to be honest?

00:27:27.400 And then what happens with Kamala Harris, she becomes the nominee, and she avoids the

00:27:31.960 media for how many days?

00:27:33.760 I mean, it's just like, you have a party who's like, we don't want to interact with the American

00:27:37.320 people or the media, right?

00:27:40.060 And the media is on your side.

00:27:41.720 The media is high-fiving you, trying to push you back into the White House, the party back

00:27:46.620 into the White House.

00:27:47.620 And on the other hand, Donald Trump, love him or hate him, think he's doing a great job

00:27:51.160 or a terrible job.

00:27:51.900 He's constantly interfacing with people and with the press, and sometimes that's going

00:27:57.200 to produce some bad results.

00:27:58.360 But people like that, and they also don't like a party that seems like they have constantly

00:28:02.700 something to hide.

00:28:03.700 And are openly lying.

00:28:05.540 I mean, for Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's cognitive decline was pretty much her January 6th.

00:28:10.080 Like, she could never admit the truth about this publicly, obvious political reasons.

00:28:14.440 But still, you are actively lying to the American people as you're running for office, and you're

00:28:20.640 lying about one of the most transparently false things imaginable.

00:28:24.880 My boss is always great.

00:28:26.760 He could totally do this job.

00:28:28.460 He should be running.

00:28:29.420 I mean, he's great.

00:28:30.280 He could totally do this.

00:28:31.340 There was never any problem.

00:28:33.460 No.

00:28:34.280 To the extent that's true, you believe that's true, you're only demonstrating that you do

00:28:38.840 not have the judgment to be president of the United States.

00:28:41.700 To the extent it's not true, then you are, again, just another duplicitous liar who is

00:28:45.900 willing to say just about anything if it means that you get elected and get to stay in power.

00:28:50.280 I think, Camille, this guy, Ron Klain, is worse.

00:28:52.900 He's worse than Kamala Harris on it, right?

00:28:54.780 Because it's like, Kamala Harris was, you have to give her in a very tough position, only

00:29:00.100 the nominee because he gave it to her.

00:29:03.200 And, you know, running around being like, he's mentally infirm.

00:29:07.600 We all knew it.

00:29:08.460 Yes, I saw it, is a tough way to win and not then be undermined by the guy who gave

00:29:15.220 you the baton.

00:29:16.180 But Ron Klain, as chief of staff, had more than enough opportunity to get this on record

00:29:24.120 with powerful Democrats inside, outside the White House, and to get it on record with media

00:29:28.960 and to make sure the public knew before it was too late for them to switch horses.

00:29:34.500 And maybe that's why he feels the need to say now, no, it was never so bad.

00:29:41.260 I didn't think he could do it.

00:29:43.620 It was never so bad.

00:29:44.600 I thought he should step down.

00:29:46.260 And he gave this interview before Kamala officially lost.

00:29:49.160 But let's face it, by September, we all knew the likelihood was that she wasn't going to be

00:29:52.680 able to pull this out.

00:29:53.640 So that may also be playing a role.

00:29:55.540 Like, I was right.

00:29:57.620 Joe Biden could have done it.

00:29:59.480 You know, there were some bad days.

00:30:00.900 And I admit that to this reporter, but he wasn't so infirm.

00:30:03.560 In any event, what this says to me is they're liars.

00:30:06.840 They stole a presidency.

00:30:09.920 And I don't mean that in the sense Donald Trump means it from 2020.

00:30:13.080 I mean, Joe Biden wasn't president.

00:30:16.240 He might have been president of NATO, but he was not president of the United States.

00:30:20.080 It appears that Ron Klain was and Jeff Zients was and Jill Biden was.

00:30:24.620 And we really don't actually know who was president for most of the time or making all these calls.

00:30:28.800 And it's truly outrageous.

00:30:30.860 And now, bit by bit, they want to be returned to power.

00:30:33.660 No, they lost those two special elections in Florida.

00:30:36.800 But that's Florida, which is very red.

00:30:38.400 I realize they tightened the margin a little, but all right.

00:30:41.020 I mean, Republicans won by 15 points.

00:30:44.260 It wasn't 30, but it was 15.

00:30:47.940 But they did win that Wisconsin state Supreme Court election last night pretty easily.

00:30:52.480 They won this special election in the state of Pennsylvania at the state level, not a federal

00:30:56.840 election.

00:30:59.280 Bit by bit, we're seeing Democrats put, well, voters put Democrats back into power because

00:31:05.340 Trump is controversial.

00:31:06.580 Trump's doing a lot of controversial things.

00:31:08.320 And it's just it's such a good reminder of what this party did to us for four years.

00:31:15.040 They started dishonestly and they were dishonest all the way to the end.

00:31:18.760 Yeah.

00:31:20.920 Interestingly, in Wisconsin, voter ID manages to win pretty easily as well.

00:31:25.500 So, you know, that's it's the sort of thing about that, Camille.

00:31:28.300 Yeah, go ahead.

00:31:28.860 As much as I would love to say to our audience, and I'm sure, you know, there are a lot of

00:31:32.520 Republicans and conservatives.

00:31:33.620 I know people want to celebrate that as like the silver lining.

00:31:36.920 I saw Elon tweeting.

00:31:38.240 It was all about that.

00:31:39.940 The truth is, that's not right.

00:31:41.540 That isn't true.

00:31:42.580 The law in Wisconsin already was that you had to show a photo ID when you vote.

00:31:47.360 That was a law on the book, signed into law.

00:31:50.660 And Wisconsin voters had to show a photo ID this past election.

00:31:54.860 What they were doing here was writing it into the state constitution so it can't be changed

00:31:58.620 more easily in the future.

00:31:59.860 So that is another layer of protection.

00:32:02.400 But let's be honest, this was not all about the photo ID, which is it's already law in

00:32:07.380 Wisconsin.

00:32:07.760 This was about trying to maintain control of the state Supreme Court so they couldn't

00:32:10.940 redistrict, bless these new redistricting lines that the Democrats want and capture two

00:32:17.320 additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, right?

00:32:19.300 So I just, I believe me.

00:32:21.160 I had a lot of people try to spin me on Twitter today about how, no, it's a real victory.

00:32:24.920 I was like, okay.

00:32:26.440 And I was actually underscoring it for the other reason.

00:32:28.780 I mean, I think you had Elon kind of just sky, what is it?

00:32:32.800 Skydive in?

00:32:33.600 What is it?

00:32:34.160 What do we call it?

00:32:34.920 I don't know.

00:32:36.120 Helicopter.

00:32:36.620 He helicopters in.

00:32:38.120 Parachute.

00:32:38.480 Parachute.

00:32:39.000 Parachute bags of money.

00:32:40.380 Like Scrooge McDuck.

00:32:41.120 He shows up and he tries really, really hard to move the needle in this election.

00:32:45.640 And to the extent he did move the needle, it seems like he probably moved it in the wrong

00:32:49.580 direction.

00:32:50.340 Like he energized Democrats in Wisconsin and that doesn't bode well.

00:32:55.140 And I think that it's interesting.

00:32:56.620 I would completely agree.

00:32:57.860 Republicans won handily in Florida.

00:33:00.200 They should have won more handily.

00:33:02.340 And for Democrats, they definitely won in Wisconsin.

00:33:04.800 They kind of managed the bloody Republicans in Florida in an obvious way that is hard

00:33:11.180 to deny.

00:33:12.520 And for Republicans, I mean, eking out that win in Florida, it certainly could have been

00:33:16.320 worse for them.

00:33:17.020 But this isn't really good.

00:33:18.420 It wasn't an eke.

00:33:18.860 And they won by 14 points and 15 points respectively.

00:33:22.180 That's, listen, the Democrats were outspending them almost 10 to 1.

00:33:24.640 It was literally almost 10 million to 1 million in one of those races.

00:33:28.120 And the Republicans, first of all, the Democrats, they're probably not going to have that kind

00:33:31.100 of dough on every single House race on the next midterm election.

00:33:34.740 And the Republicans will be more engaged and start donating and it'll be a bigger deal.

00:33:38.740 But I think they knew at some level those two seats were not really in danger.

00:33:42.280 And they didn't really care about slimmer margins.

00:33:44.520 They just wanted to keep the seats.

00:33:45.620 And they did.

00:33:46.780 There was some kind of unnecessary panic about it for a minute.

00:33:50.720 And I don't think the Stefanik decision was more about New York than it was about Florida.

00:33:55.720 But, you know, those margins, they don't surprise me at all.

00:33:58.380 And I don't think they mean anything because, you know, these are seats that Republicans

00:34:02.380 won by, you know, 30 points and they win them by 15.

00:34:06.400 That's meaningless because they're two people who no one had ever heard of.

00:34:11.220 They don't have any name recognition.

00:34:13.280 They're special elections.

00:34:14.840 It doesn't mean anything.

00:34:16.660 This purple state that is now a solidly red state in Florida.

00:34:20.320 And, you know, what the takeaway from this stuff is, oh, and by the way, about a voter

00:34:24.680 ID, that's a bipartisan issue, actually.

00:34:27.060 Not not when it comes to elected officials, but a bipartisan issue.

00:34:30.680 When you ask the average American voter who's like, I'm a liberal.

00:34:33.560 Yes.

00:34:33.840 Should you show ID?

00:34:35.220 In Wisconsin, however, I think I looked it up last night.

00:34:38.920 They had like 24 percent of Democrat support.

00:34:41.380 They had 77 percent of independent support and something.

00:34:44.580 That's surprising.

00:34:45.900 It's surprising.

00:34:46.860 So that's why it passed so easily.

00:34:48.520 Yeah.

00:34:48.940 That was surprising.

00:34:49.640 Surprising is that there was that low amongst Democrats.

00:34:51.820 I hadn't seen that number.

00:34:52.660 However, the thing that that I've been saying this for years, I mean, I think this is like

00:34:57.840 the like the steroid issue.

00:34:59.920 It's like in baseball.

00:35:01.180 It's like, you know, just if people take steroids, they just hit home runs all the time.

00:35:04.220 It's like, no, you have to be a very good baseball player, too.

00:35:06.980 That's the same thing with money and politics.

00:35:09.100 You give you can give a bazillion dollars.

00:35:12.600 The American people have a certain amount of wisdom in them.

00:35:15.140 They are not dummies.

00:35:16.460 They vote for things.

00:35:17.440 It doesn't.

00:35:17.820 I mean, Elon Musk put in.

00:35:19.560 I mean, George Soros, by the way, put in money to the other campaign, too.

00:35:23.280 Forget about that.

00:35:24.200 And Reid Hoffman.

00:35:25.160 And Reid Hoffman.

00:35:26.580 And, you know.

00:35:27.980 We never hear about their billions.

00:35:29.360 They dropped into that.

00:35:30.140 No, no.

00:35:30.660 They're different.

00:35:31.560 Nothing.

00:35:32.140 We only hear about Elon who does.

00:35:33.880 It does look like he net net.

00:35:35.360 He outspent them.

00:35:36.160 But, like, when you're talking about, well, $10 billion from Soros and Hoffman and $19 from Elon, like, okay, please.

00:35:42.420 Yeah, and Randy Fine was outspent $10 to $1, and he won.

00:35:45.660 You know, I mean, I think that Elon, and I've heard this from a lot of Republicans, that they worry about him as a messenger in person.

00:35:53.860 I mean, he's not the most magnetic person.

00:35:55.800 He's a big odd.

00:35:56.180 Well, let me ask you something.

00:35:57.800 He did.

00:35:58.460 He flew out there.

00:35:59.060 He was there Sunday night.

00:35:59.860 He put the cheese head on, and he gave away a couple million bucks to people who would register for his super PAC to, like, support.

00:36:05.060 Or judges in a certain way.

00:36:07.780 Yeah.

00:36:08.600 I actually don't think that was it.

00:36:10.340 This is my own belief.

00:36:12.760 If you listen to the Wisconsin ads on, you know, leading up to this election, you would have thought that that woman, Susan Crawford, was running against Elon.

00:36:22.620 Yeah.

00:36:22.880 Democrats used Elon's donations, and ultimately, yes, probably visit on Sunday night, to turn him into the opponent, you know, to try to say, like, he's buying the election.

00:36:34.760 And, you know, Republicans have never been as good at the ad warfare and the messaging.

00:36:40.080 Like, and the difference here, I think, is that even though Trump won Wisconsin, Big Daddy was not atop the ticket.

00:36:47.740 And without him on the ticket, Republicans in swing states must learn how to win anyway, something which they haven't yet proven, you know, that they can win without Trump.

00:36:58.820 And I think another problem they have is Trump is probably fine with that.

00:37:05.580 You know, he's like, yep, sorry.

00:37:09.580 You know, he didn't campaign for that Brad Schimmel.

00:37:13.560 And that guy had been critical of Trump in the distant past.

00:37:17.480 He was losing in every poll.

00:37:19.060 I only saw one poll toward the end, I think it was by Trafalgar, that showed him maybe up one or dead even.

00:37:25.940 And there was one other by Rasmussen, which, you know, both of these are more right-leaning polls.

00:37:29.480 I like Trafalgar, but I'm just saying, every single other poll the entire race here showed her up by a lot.

00:37:35.840 So I think Trump accurately read the tea leaves and said, he's going to lose, and I'm not going to put my name on the line,

00:37:42.500 and was fine sending Elon, who's already been taking a beating, probably for the president.

00:37:47.300 You know, Elon probably doesn't enjoy this, but is willing to become the, you know, the poster boy for evil,

00:37:53.780 even though he's saving the world in many departments, because it takes some of the heat off DJT.

00:37:59.700 Yeah, he's the lightning rod, and it does make one wonder, like, what would happen if Elon wasn't around to Trump's numbers?

00:38:07.000 What happens in Wisconsin if Elon isn't around?

00:38:09.540 Who gets sent as the surrogate there?

00:38:11.500 Is it J.D. Vance?

00:38:12.480 And I don't know that that's much better for him, although he's also a bit of a lightning rod for the president.

00:38:15.940 But you do have to wonder if at some point in the not-too-distant future, Elon becomes more of a drag on the administration

00:38:23.480 and its approval ratings and its attempt to try to get things done.

00:38:26.500 I've said plenty of very complimentary things about Elon and his prowess as an entrepreneur.

00:38:32.960 I will easily defend him against allegations that he is a Nazi, but it is hard to argue that he isn't belligerent.

00:38:40.180 It would be hard to argue that all of his kind of operations and conduct with respect to Doge have been clearly above board

00:38:48.060 and maximally transparent and conducted in a way that is deft and sophisticated.

00:38:54.880 It's the opposite of that.

00:38:56.540 And some of that is definitely on him and on the administration for not demanding more from him.

00:39:01.860 So in a lot of respects, while Democrats are running against Elon,

00:39:05.600 they're running against him because he's made it kind of easy for them to run against him.

00:39:09.440 No one's running interference for Elon.

00:39:11.600 You know, he's running interference for everybody else.

00:39:13.840 He's taking the bullets so that Trump doesn't have to.

00:39:16.980 Metaphorically speaking, of course, Trump's actually taken a bullet this very year.

00:39:20.760 But no one's protecting Elon.

00:39:23.280 You know, he needs his own comm staff.

00:39:24.900 And by the way, he doesn't have one.

00:39:27.700 Can I tell you something?

00:39:28.520 It's alarming how unprotected administratively Elon is.

00:39:34.520 He does have, you know, physical security.

00:39:36.600 He's got some resources.

00:39:37.260 Yeah, no, but like, I don't think anybody's going to mind me saying this,

00:39:40.940 but I saw him at that all in summit last September and I went with Abby.

00:39:45.340 You know, she goes with me to most places that I go and

00:39:47.700 handles these administrative headaches that I don't have to deal with.

00:39:50.440 He didn't have anybody.

00:39:51.500 And it was funny.

00:39:52.320 Somebody was saying, like, if you want to get Elon, you know, like to book him,

00:39:55.700 you just have to text him.

00:39:57.160 Yeah.

00:39:57.420 Like you have to know him.

00:39:58.440 You have to DM because there's no assistant.

00:40:00.040 So there's no question in my mind he doesn't have some massive comm staff that's trying

00:40:05.060 to protect his reputation and make sure that the media is being fair to Elon, which they're

00:40:09.200 completely not.

00:40:10.900 But that all of this, I think, has led to him becoming this like, I don't know, he's

00:40:16.360 becoming.

00:40:17.160 What's the word?

00:40:18.660 Yeah.

00:40:18.860 No, but like when you're the battering rat, when you're the one who keeps getting battered

00:40:22.920 on behalf of everybody else.

00:40:24.120 I can't think of it right now.

00:40:24.960 The punching bag.

00:40:25.600 Thank you.

00:40:25.900 He's the punching bag.

00:40:26.980 I got there eventually.

00:40:27.800 But wait, here's Harry Enten on CNN talking about what he's saying on Elon Musk and the

00:40:34.600 polling.

00:40:36.360 If you are a Republican candidate running in a swing state, you don't want Elon Musk anywhere

00:40:41.080 near you.

00:40:41.600 Yes, maybe you like the money, but you do not want his presence in your state.

00:40:46.260 Why is that?

00:40:46.720 Elon Musk simply put, is an unpopular guy.

00:40:49.700 He is political poison.

00:40:51.720 Look in Wisconsin, his net favorable rating, minus 12 points, 12 points underwater.

00:40:56.300 That is an even worse number when you look nationally.

00:40:59.240 Look at that.

00:40:59.840 It's minus 17 points.

00:41:01.700 So if there's one big lesson to take away from Wisconsin is Elon Musk does not help Republicans

00:41:06.380 when he shows up.

00:41:07.300 If anything, the data suggests that he hurts him.

00:41:11.360 I love his body language.

00:41:14.780 Yes.

00:41:15.220 The bigness, though, you know, this is so entertaining.

00:41:18.540 The Rory's the best.

00:41:19.620 Harry Enten.

00:41:20.880 I love Harry.

00:41:22.360 Don't come over, Elon.

00:41:24.060 Just send a Venmo.

00:41:25.200 Can you send a Venmo?

00:41:26.220 I accept those data points as real.

00:41:30.620 He's not, you know, he'll give it to you straight, this guy.

00:41:33.300 But to me, it's so unfair because we had six weeks of he's a Nazi.

00:41:39.080 He did a Nazi salute.

00:41:41.020 And now we've had another however many, well, two months of blaming, of course, everything

00:41:46.060 related to Doge on Elon.

00:41:47.520 But that all has Trump's blessing.

00:41:48.740 And by the way, Trump ran on finding these government efficiencies and was very clear

00:41:54.100 that Elon would come on and a bunch of people in the federal government were going to get

00:41:57.320 fired.

00:41:58.300 It's been stopped at every turn by federal judges.

00:42:00.480 But he's trying.

00:42:01.280 He doesn't have to be doing any of this.

00:42:02.760 He doesn't have to do any of this.

00:42:05.200 I really think he's been unfairly demonized.

00:42:08.460 I don't know.

00:42:09.720 There's nothing unfair.

00:42:11.080 I mean, you guys want in on that one.

00:42:12.740 That's all three.

00:42:14.460 We'll start at Moynihan and we'll go around clockwise.

00:42:17.460 Go ahead.

00:42:18.220 All right.

00:42:18.540 I will I will say this.

00:42:19.920 I don't know how many people who are being polled the average American.

00:42:24.560 Twitter is not real life.

00:42:25.960 Who is watching Elon Musk on Twitter?

00:42:29.100 We defended him for a very long time against like very scurrilous and unfair attacks.

00:42:34.920 We are the type of people that Doge was created for.

00:42:38.840 We talk about the, you know, waste and inefficient inefficiencies in government and how they can

00:42:44.040 be gotten rid of.

00:42:44.920 But, you know, my estimation of Elon has plummeted because of Twitter.

00:42:49.040 It's like the guy just tweets stuff constantly that isn't true in his own AI grok.

00:42:56.140 People do this all the time.

00:42:57.160 They say scan Elon's Twitter feed.

00:43:00.460 And is he like saying things that aren't true?

00:43:02.760 And they're like, it's like, yes, lots of stuff is not true.

00:43:05.700 And I think that's the thing about Elon.

00:43:07.060 The other thing is that he's not Donald Trump.

00:43:10.040 Donald Trump can bullshit you and you're charmed by him.

00:43:13.560 He's funny.

00:43:14.160 He's a TV guy.

00:43:15.500 He knows how to play it.

00:43:16.980 I'm not saying you should do it, but he knows how to play it.

00:43:19.860 Elon just does not like you have to have the personality for this.

00:43:24.140 And going out there and the reason he's on stage is because he's rich, not because he

00:43:28.720 has a personality.

00:43:29.340 And that personality that Donald Trump has would really help him.

00:43:32.220 And I don't think those numbers would be underwater if he was like Donald Trump.

00:43:35.400 I don't worry.

00:43:36.860 I don't worry about the fairness that is afforded to people who are exercising power, which is

00:43:42.580 to say that it's not to it's not that you remove yourself from critiquing people who are being

00:43:46.800 unfair to him.

00:43:48.300 But for me, the arena, the the locus of of, you know, doing political journalism and commentary

00:43:54.300 is that you're critiquing power right now.

00:43:56.720 Elon Musk has power.

00:43:58.140 He is worthy of critique.

00:43:59.580 As Moynihan points out, you know, he is he is polluting the informational ecosystem on a

00:44:05.620 rather daily basis and pursuant to the thing that we all care about, which is actually making

00:44:11.400 government work better and make it smaller.

00:44:13.700 We're about ready to ratify, you know, a one point eight trillion dollar year on year

00:44:18.440 deficit year after year under Republican management, regardless.

00:44:22.460 Right.

00:44:22.680 The Republicans are about pass a continuing resolution that keeps funding the Department

00:44:27.440 of Education.

00:44:27.980 That thing that we're supposed to get rid of via Doge, that is the stuff that matters

00:44:32.180 in a big, chunky way.

00:44:34.300 A lot of what Elon is focused on, sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly, is marginal

00:44:41.300 stuff that doesn't even come close to mattering as much.

00:44:43.840 So all of that says to me, pluses of low popularity, that the gains from Doge are going

00:44:50.060 to produce a pendulum swing that's going to make the next person who holds power use

00:44:55.560 it in a different way.

00:44:56.520 And then suddenly we're going to wake up and we still have this seven trillion dollar

00:45:00.740 government with a two trillion dollar deficit.

00:45:03.280 Well, I will say, I mean, look, we'll see what Trump does when we actually get to the

00:45:06.520 budget, probably the end of this year.

00:45:08.540 But that continuing resolution was just like, let's just we're going to kick this can down

00:45:12.120 the road and we'll deal with it all in one bill.

00:45:14.700 And now I think that was smart.

00:45:16.260 They just didn't they didn't want to do that right up front as their first most divisive

00:45:19.840 thing.

00:45:20.080 They had a lot of other divisive, important things to do, especially along the border.

00:45:23.960 So I understand why even budget hawks voted for that continuing resolution.

00:45:28.120 Just like we'll get there.

00:45:29.280 Just give us six more months.

00:45:30.480 We will get there.

00:45:31.620 Go ahead, Camille.

00:45:32.920 Yeah, I'll say briefly.

00:45:34.200 And actually, I'm going to say something else, because this this notion of fairness, I actually

00:45:39.080 think, Matt, you probably do endorse some idea of fairness, not so much that we're going

00:45:43.980 out of our way to be polite to people and certainly not the kind of motivated journalism

00:45:48.880 that we've that we've become accustomed to, where there's this almost coordinated effort

00:45:53.260 to put out a really negative message about someone on the right, the most nefarious possible

00:45:58.580 reading of things.

00:45:59.580 But with Elon, he's just chosen really silly battles, like the aspiration of getting all

00:46:05.740 of the justices impeached and insisting that at every single turn, when the courts try to

00:46:10.380 stop something or ask even practical questions about the use of a rather novel legal law in

00:46:17.160 order to try to accomplish something pretty dramatic, like taking people to a country they

00:46:21.620 didn't come from.

00:46:22.660 Like at a minimum, it requires like some scrutiny is defensible here and insisting that we should

00:46:28.880 impeach them, we should impeach them over and over.

00:46:29.640 You're talking about Judge Boesberg.

00:46:30.920 You're totally wrong about that.

00:46:31.940 No, I just mean, but Elon, well, I'm giving one example.

00:46:35.040 And I'm just saying that it's something that merits scrutiny, whether or not the decision

00:46:38.040 was right.

00:46:38.940 Elon responds to every single one of these decisions, insisting that justices need to be

00:46:43.480 impeached.

00:46:44.560 Maybe it's true.

00:46:45.940 It's not really practical.

00:46:47.700 So if you want to make this a priority messaging wise, that's a mistake.

00:46:51.660 Trump does that too.

00:46:52.780 And his, his approvals, it's good for him.

00:46:55.840 I mean, it's not great.

00:46:57.280 It would, yeah.

00:46:58.200 It might be worse if Elon wasn't doing it.

00:46:59.700 But it's higher than it's been in Trump's entire presidency, counting the first term.

00:47:03.580 So they're not holding any of this really against Trump.

00:47:07.680 And I do think Elon's out there.

00:47:09.360 You know, I remember at Fox News, whenever one of us would get in trouble for something

00:47:12.340 dumb we said or really didn't say, whichever.

00:47:14.700 But if we were all over the news, Roger would go out there and do something controversial.

00:47:17.320 He would, he would draw fire away from his favorite anchors, his top anchors.

00:47:22.380 And that was a loyal boss and somebody who knew, you know, how to be a sort of, how to

00:47:27.720 run cover for somebody, how to help you when you're in trouble.

00:47:30.440 And I think that in part is really what Elon is doing right now for Trump.

00:47:34.700 And I think Trump appreciates it.

00:47:36.280 I think Trump is loyal to Elon until he's not, you know, until Elon's run his course and

00:47:40.820 is no longer, you know, is more of a drag than he is a help.

00:47:43.920 And I think at that point, Elon probably will willingly step to the side.

00:47:46.880 He's got a lot to take care of.

00:47:48.700 I want to play this one other soundbite.

00:47:51.320 That's pretty remarkable because to me, it's like the Democrats are the masters of these

00:47:56.260 deep pocketed billionaires in politics, the masters.

00:48:00.020 And the one who you see on the Republican side is Elon Musk.

00:48:04.520 You know, like that's, that's the main one you see.

00:48:06.820 And he's become this larger than life figure in the world, not just in America and certainly

00:48:12.400 not just in American politics.

00:48:13.620 He's one of the world's greatest figures and will be one of the few people on the planet

00:48:18.580 right now who will be remembered for generations in the way that Albert Einstein was, you know,

00:48:23.500 in the way that Tesla was in a way that all these great inventors were.

00:48:26.880 In any event, um, here are back to Kara Swisher, uh, sitting with Jake Tapper talking about the battle of the billionaires.

00:48:37.300 Listen to how they frame it.

00:48:38.940 You heard anytime anybody brings this up, a Republican will say, well, what about J.B.

00:48:44.440 Pritzker?

00:48:44.880 And what about George Soros?

00:48:46.160 And what about this?

00:48:46.880 What about that?

00:48:47.360 And I guess the answer is you don't see George, first of all, you don't see them out there talking.

00:48:53.960 No.

00:48:54.320 Right?

00:48:54.580 I mean, they might be giving money to organizations, this and that, and people can criticize that

00:48:58.080 if they want.

00:48:58.900 But, but the idea that like, oh no, I am going to tell these voters, forget like hiring Scott

00:49:05.000 Walker to do it or somebody on the Milwaukee Bucks.

00:49:08.040 I'm going to tell them.

00:49:09.020 Right.

00:49:09.320 No, it's, he has to suck up all the oxygen.

00:49:11.460 He is only one other person that needs more attention is Donald Trump.

00:49:15.340 And, okay, so it's, it's all about Eli.

00:49:21.180 You can do it.

00:49:22.020 You can give millions, 20 million if you want.

00:49:24.520 You just can't show up at a rally.

00:49:25.880 That's, that's what it boils down to.

00:49:28.120 I don't believe that.

00:49:29.180 Where's the wall to wall negative coverage about any of these Democrat donors like J.B.

00:49:34.200 Pritzker or George Soros for that matter.

00:49:36.380 You only see that on podcasts and sometimes Fox news.

00:49:40.060 Yeah.

00:49:40.580 And that's a silly standard.

00:49:41.720 Yeah.

00:49:42.680 Yeah.

00:49:43.080 And like creating organizations like Soros has done over the years is a lot more influential

00:49:47.940 than, uh, than just showing up in a thing.

00:49:51.160 The Kochs, uh, got a lot of pushback over the years for creating organizations.

00:49:56.200 They didn't go on stage much either.

00:49:58.380 Right.

00:49:59.320 Um, there's breaking news on Elon Musk.

00:50:02.140 I'll leave that as a tease.

00:50:03.800 We're going to take a quick break.

00:50:05.300 Thankfully, the guys from the fifth column, as they always do, such gentlemen, stay with

00:50:10.240 us for the full show.

00:50:11.160 Don't go anywhere.

00:50:11.820 We'll have them and the news coming right up.

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00:51:54.160 So the breaking news is that this is via Politico.

00:51:58.320 The headline is Trump tells inner circle that Musk will leave soon.

00:52:03.220 Now, keep in mind, Elon Musk basically told the same to Brett Baer in his interview last

00:52:08.920 Friday where he said, just so you know, he's been hired as a special government employee.

00:52:13.340 That's a special role you can get as a top advisor to the president.

00:52:17.980 And you only have a term of 130 days.

00:52:20.560 It's basically a way to end around Senate confirmation requirements.

00:52:25.280 Joe Biden did this to Anita Dunn, that monstrosity.

00:52:29.160 She's a horrible lady.

00:52:30.640 She was one of the key people over at the Time's Up organization that loved to go after

00:52:34.960 any man who was a Republican.

00:52:36.800 But if you were a woman like Tara Reade seeking their help, it was a big middle finger because

00:52:40.380 Anita Dunn was close to Joe Biden.

00:52:41.900 So screw you, Anita Dunn.

00:52:43.480 In any event, she's she was a special government employee for Joe Biden.

00:52:48.260 And the thing is, to be honest, at the end of that 130 days, they can just renew it so

00:52:52.160 they can keep it rolling.

00:52:53.140 You actually don't have to leave right after the 130 days.

00:52:56.240 But Brett Baer saw that, you know, we are, I don't know, a month or two away from hitting

00:53:00.460 that point.

00:53:01.220 He asked Elon about it.

00:53:02.140 Do we have that soundbite?

00:53:03.760 I don't know if we have the soundbite.

00:53:06.180 We don't have the soundbite, but here's what he said.

00:53:07.920 I'll tell you what Brett said.

00:53:08.740 Then I'll read you the political thing.

00:53:09.720 He asked Musk on Thursday whether he'd be ready to leave when his special government

00:53:13.780 employee status expires.

00:53:15.000 He essentially declared mission accomplished.

00:53:16.520 Quote, I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit

00:53:19.740 by one trillion within that time frame.

00:53:23.640 And then this past Monday night, Trump told reporters that, quote, at some point, Elon's

00:53:28.320 going to want to go back to his company and added he wants to.

00:53:31.880 I would keep him as long as I could keep him.

00:53:34.860 On the heels of that comes this piece in Politico that Elon Musk will leave the administration

00:53:39.180 soon.

00:53:39.720 Trump told his inner circle, including members of his cabinet, Elon Musk will be stepping

00:53:43.160 back in the coming weeks from his current role as government partner, ubiquitous cheerleader

00:53:47.240 in Washington, hatchet man.

00:53:48.940 President remains pleased with Musk and his Doge group, but both men have decided in recent

00:53:54.220 days it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role,

00:53:58.340 according to three Trump insiders who were granted anonymity to speak.

00:54:03.360 There is a headline over in the Daily Mail that he has stepped down as the head of Doge.

00:54:07.520 That does not appear to be the case.

00:54:09.620 That is unconfirmed.

00:54:10.660 It feels like at least as of this hour, that's only the Daily Mail who's reporting that.

00:54:14.900 And that's not in Politico.

00:54:15.900 So we'll wait to see whether that's also true.

00:54:19.040 But I think, look, if it's true that he's going to be stepping down from his responsibilities

00:54:25.560 like right now in the weeks before he hits 130, there's a reason for that.

00:54:31.480 And my own guess, without having spoken to anybody on Team Trump, is this has been very

00:54:36.520 hard on Elon.

00:54:38.420 Elon, his Tesla stock is down, his company's being attacked.

00:54:43.380 Nobody wants to buy a Tesla now because they're worried their car is going to get vandalized,

00:54:48.120 keyed, that the place they have to go to recharge it is going to be set on fire with Molotov cocktails.

00:54:54.960 They've been walking to a Tesla dealership.

00:54:56.500 That could be burned by some lunatic.

00:54:58.560 It's insane.

00:54:59.580 We have hate crime charges now that the DOJ is trying to file against people doing this.

00:55:03.660 But other than, you know, yes, legally, he's being protected by the attorney general.

00:55:08.600 But like the left is celebrating this.

00:55:10.880 You had Tim Walsh, the vice presidential nominee for the Democrats out there, talking about

00:55:14.400 how joyful it was to watch the Tesla stock fall.

00:55:17.940 I'm sure Elon would love to get back.

00:55:22.120 He got a president elected or at least played a big part.

00:55:24.720 Get back to just trying to solve paralysis with Neuralink, trying to colonize Mars with SpaceX,

00:55:32.360 trying to continue the fight for free speech on X, running the boring company where he's

00:55:37.480 boring big tunnels underneath the earth to get people faster from A to B.

00:55:40.720 And I've missed one.

00:55:41.620 I've missed one of the big ones.

00:55:43.160 I can't keep track.

00:55:44.180 And Tesla, I guess, trying to improve our world for our children with more green energy

00:55:48.180 cars, something the left should like.

00:55:50.080 In any event, what do you guys make of it all?

00:55:51.200 Um, I mean, a couple of things is that, you know, he should have anticipated this.

00:55:57.680 I mean, this is not going to work in for Donald Trump in the way that he did is not the same,

00:56:03.800 obviously, as going to work for Mitt Romney.

00:56:06.360 I mean, it inspires a different level of hatred and bile from people.

00:56:11.860 Look, I have a Tesla.

00:56:13.180 I was sitting in my car the other day because there's street cleaning in New York.

00:56:16.920 I was moving in and a guy came up and knocked on my window and I rolled down the window and

00:56:22.520 he said, you got to get rid of this car.

00:56:24.940 And I was like taking a backlight.

00:56:27.060 I was like, so every time I go out, I look to see if it's been keyed.

00:56:30.640 I mean, I live in a neighborhood that I think in, if it was like in the center of Caracas,

00:56:35.620 people would be like, it's a little too left wing.

00:56:37.260 So I'm like expecting the thing to go up in flames at, at any point.

00:56:42.140 But you're right.

00:56:43.160 I mean, look, in the break, we were just talking about, I saw this number and, you know, year

00:56:48.460 on year, I think it was January and February in Europe, Tesla's sales are down 43%.

00:56:54.340 I mean, they're down not as much in the US, but they're down considerably.

00:56:58.700 You know, the idiot, worst person in the world, Brad Lander, who, if you know anything about

00:57:02.820 New York politics, I know Matt hates him with the passion that I do.

00:57:06.120 He's going to sue Tesla on behalf of shareholders, like because of the pension fund and what he's

00:57:11.620 doing to the share price, et cetera.

00:57:13.100 So, yeah, he's being, he's being rounded on in every possible direction.

00:57:16.720 And I think that, you know, you got to get back to your, your company.

00:57:20.200 I mean, you're the richest man in the world, but for how much longer, if you make a product

00:57:25.060 become, and look, it's just, it's just a fact of politics, that divisive.

00:57:29.240 I mean, it's, it's, it's going to be a divisive thing.

00:57:31.540 I mean, I, I, where we do the Moynihan report show for two way, there's a Tesla dealership

00:57:37.420 right around the corner.

00:57:38.380 And I went outside yesterday and there was a huge protest in front of it.

00:57:41.460 I mean, it's like pretty unrelenting.

00:57:43.600 And if you are a stockholder, I mean, you've lost a significant amount of money on this

00:57:49.240 stock, depending when you bought it, you know?

00:57:50.980 Yeah.

00:57:51.420 Yeah.

00:57:52.000 Definitely depending on when you bought it.

00:57:53.560 Cause the, the big drop in the stock, like it's still doing pretty well if you bought it

00:57:56.860 a year ago.

00:57:57.460 So, um, but yeah, I mean, Elon's, Elon's problems here, um, with respect to Tesla are

00:58:02.140 very complicated.

00:58:02.920 I too own one.

00:58:04.260 Um, but I, on the other hand, discovered that like my loan to value is absolutely terrible.

00:58:08.700 So I just park it in Oakland overnight and I'm hoping that someone will actually set it

00:58:13.340 on fire.

00:58:14.080 But I'll tell you once they destroyed that car, I will go buy two new cars.

00:58:16.660 Dude, you could park a Hyundai and it would be set on fire in Oakland.

00:58:20.560 No, you should be in Brooklyn.

00:58:22.100 You should be in Park Slope.

00:58:23.320 You're in the wrong neighborhood now to get your Tesla.

00:58:25.280 Oh, no, no, in Oakland, we get it in.

00:58:28.360 Yeah.

00:58:28.720 Yeah.

00:58:29.460 No, it's just not political.

00:58:31.620 Never.

00:58:32.140 You mind.

00:58:32.880 I think they'll get around to me.

00:58:34.560 Maybe I just have to wait another week or so, um, but I will, yeah, I will go buy two

00:58:39.240 new Teslers, um, as the president is accustomed to describing that they at least won't be impacted

00:58:44.960 by the 25% tariffs that are coming.

00:58:47.660 So that should make things a little easier.

00:58:49.420 What do you mean?

00:58:49.800 It's a day of liberation.

00:58:50.880 I know you sound like you have a judgment about it.

00:58:52.480 My libertarian friends.

00:58:53.220 This is, this is the third Juneteenth coming for us now.

00:58:56.840 It's not time to be liberated from world crisis.

00:58:58.580 Well, I, look, I think it's sad.

00:59:00.220 It's like, imagine living in the, in the time of, of Albert Einstein, you know, or Thomas

00:59:04.660 Edison and having them say, I will help solve the nation's problems.

00:59:09.360 I'm happy to pitch in and saying, no, we hate you.

00:59:14.040 That's what the left is saying.

00:59:15.040 We know we hate you.

00:59:16.080 We don't need your brain to help us solve problems.

00:59:17.820 Like I realize he's, he's a controversial guy and he doesn't speak or, or opine with

00:59:24.280 a velvet glove either.

00:59:25.420 He's not like super sweet.

00:59:26.860 And I don't understand how people are having a negative reaction to him.

00:59:29.200 It's not like that.

00:59:30.160 But I just think we're so lucky to have someone like that willing to touch government with

00:59:35.420 a 10 foot pole.

00:59:36.600 It's not like Taylor Swift.

00:59:38.240 She got booed at the Superbowl because she got political and she alienated half her fan

00:59:42.980 base and half of the country.

00:59:44.560 And when I saw it, did I feel sorry for her?

00:59:46.820 Not at all.

00:59:47.840 You know, you put yourself out there.

00:59:49.360 You didn't need to get political, but in her case, it was utterly pointless.

00:59:53.700 You have no political sway.

00:59:55.440 You just want to feel like you're more important.

00:59:57.540 It's not enough for you to have a billion dollars before you're, you know, 36.

01:00:01.580 You want to feel like you have more influence than you do.

01:00:04.240 And you found out the hard way that you don't with Elon.

01:00:07.760 He actually is a very important person to have in the world and in this country.

01:00:13.320 And on top of it, he did help get President Trump elected.

01:00:17.880 He actually did move the needle.

01:00:19.660 I don't think there's any question about that.

01:00:21.120 So it really was valuable to us as a nation to have him get political, unlike Taylor Swift.

01:00:26.580 So he did it.

01:00:28.000 He, I think he did it for his country.

01:00:29.520 He did it because as a businessman, he saw all the red tape and the regulations we were

01:00:32.980 drowning in and realized the average man could never fight this fight, never fight this fight.

01:00:39.120 So he decided to do it and he's paid a real price for it.

01:00:42.160 And I think the nation should be in his debt.

01:00:44.480 Okay, listen, I stole the last word on Elon.

01:00:46.280 That's that.

01:00:46.900 Let's, let's move on.

01:00:47.520 Cause there's so much other stuff to get to.

01:00:49.340 Let's spend a minute on Spartacus.

01:00:50.780 Uh, I mean, Cory Booker, who, but he, this truly was like his, he, he held a filibuster.

01:00:59.400 I guess it's not technically a filibuster.

01:01:01.060 And why isn't it technically a filibuster?

01:01:03.020 Because he wasn't filibustering anything.

01:01:04.800 He just got up there and sent it well and talked for 25 hours without stopping.

01:01:10.120 He didn't go to the bathroom.

01:01:11.660 He didn't eat.

01:01:12.640 He didn't sit down.

01:01:13.520 You weren't allowed to, or it would be broken, but it wasn't a filibuster.

01:01:16.460 He wasn't trying to stop anything.

01:01:18.140 He was just up there to make a point that he's Spartacus.

01:01:22.840 I mean, really, it was about him.

01:01:25.660 And here he is after the fact.

01:01:27.300 Now, it's really, truly, to this moment, I have no idea what he was protesting.

01:01:29.660 I have zero clue.

01:01:30.620 I don't care.

01:01:31.740 But here he is talking about the sacrifice this required of him.

01:01:35.620 Sade team.

01:01:37.400 But I really spent time dehydrating myself beforehand.

01:01:40.320 So I did not have to go to the bathroom.

01:01:42.240 You didn't have to go to the bathroom at all for 25 hours.

01:01:45.380 Again, it's nice.

01:01:46.460 But my challenge was that my strategy was to stop eating.

01:01:54.080 I think I stopped eating on Friday.

01:01:57.320 And then to stop drinking the night before I started on Monday.

01:02:02.000 And that had its benefits, and it had its really downsides.

01:02:05.180 And so instead of fighting or figuring out how to go to the bathroom, I ended up, I think, really, unfortunately, dehydrating myself.

01:02:11.460 This, really, doesn't he remind you exactly of this guy?

01:02:17.260 It's Nelson Mandela for the listening audience.

01:02:38.640 Not me personally, but many of my colleagues were bitten.

01:02:44.780 But the experience was a very harsh one.

01:02:49.060 And jail is never good.

01:02:50.680 Especially when one has a family.

01:02:54.480 Hope was always there.

01:02:56.240 And this is what saved us.

01:02:57.500 Same man.

01:02:59.520 It's the same thing.

01:03:00.240 It's the new version of the same guy.

01:03:02.180 Yeah.

01:03:02.320 This is, he's Nelson Mandela.

01:03:04.980 Still get a chill when I hear, like, Mandela talking about that, about that stuff.

01:03:08.880 Not so much.

01:03:09.560 And also, Cory Booker, Camille.

01:03:10.940 Please have some respect.

01:03:12.900 The Seinfeld of the Senate giving his filibuster about nothing.

01:03:16.240 It just, it did not land all that well for me.

01:03:19.820 He got dehydrated, sir.

01:03:22.320 Yeah, I don't believe him.

01:03:23.020 Did you hear Chuck Schumer after he decided that 25 hours was quite enough?

01:03:28.060 And he was like, the American people owe you the greatest thanks.

01:03:32.400 Lars.

01:03:33.060 You know, the world, Mars owes you thanks.

01:03:36.100 You are the best.

01:03:37.200 And it's like, why?

01:03:38.040 Because he just rambled for 25 hours?

01:03:39.920 If no one says that to me, I fucking talk nonstop.

01:03:43.820 No one, like, for nothing, too.

01:03:46.160 The exact same thing as him.

01:03:47.820 And I never get accolades for it.

01:03:50.300 Jesus.

01:03:50.940 No, it says anything.

01:03:51.320 I love the fact this is the Democratic Party now.

01:03:53.620 Like, the conversation that everyone's having, which is the right conversation, is that there's

01:03:58.280 no policy, that you guys have screwed things up.

01:04:00.980 How are you going to recalibrate?

01:04:02.640 And the idea is to have Cory Booker, the most insufferable person in a building full of insufferable

01:04:10.280 people, talk for 25 hours.

01:04:12.440 Because I would literally vote for, like, American Communist Party before that, for

01:04:17.600 the Democrats after watching that.

01:04:18.860 I tried to watch some of it.

01:04:20.260 I just had no idea what he was talking about.

01:04:21.680 What's going on with these deportations?

01:04:23.780 We have that.

01:04:25.220 Let's watch.

01:04:25.840 Do we have the Schumer?

01:04:27.000 Here it is.

01:04:28.000 For a question.

01:04:29.860 Chuck Schumer, it's the only time in my life I can tell you no.

01:04:31.900 I just want to tell you a question.

01:04:37.240 Do you know you have just broken the record?

01:04:40.040 Do you know how proud this caucus is of you?

01:04:42.760 Do you know how proud America is of you?

01:04:45.260 What Cory Booker did over the last 24 hours may have changed the course of political history.

01:05:04.760 I watched a lot of it.

01:05:07.360 I listened to words.

01:05:08.420 I listened to phrases, how he presents himself.

01:05:11.880 Did he criticize Donald Trump?

01:05:13.280 Of course he did.

01:05:14.620 But he struck the kind of tone that grassroots Democrats are looking for.

01:05:19.200 He gave them a reason to fight.

01:05:21.180 He gave them a reason to stand up and say, this is my country, too.

01:05:24.980 OK, Frank Luntz, who, FYI, predicted Trump would lose in 2024 after the devastating September debate against Kamala Harris.

01:05:35.660 OK, he's the same one who said the GOP would win the House in the 2022 midterms by huge margins, that the GOP would win the Senate in 2022, that in 2021, he said Republicans are more pro-immigrant than elites realize and Democrats are more pro-border security than elites realize.

01:05:52.840 He said in 2021, the GOP shouldn't use the term border wall.

01:05:57.060 It's it's that they should use the term barrier.

01:05:59.380 It's more accurate and less ugly.

01:06:01.020 This is the same man who wants you to know now.

01:06:03.000 Cory Booker just changed the world.

01:06:05.480 Yeah, I'll probably charge you four hundred thousand dollars for all of all of those things to be wrong.

01:06:12.580 Can I confess something I've never said to anyone?

01:06:15.240 Oh, please.

01:06:16.320 I vomited in his house.

01:06:20.420 I'm not joking.

01:06:21.360 I was so I interviewed him and I got sick afterwards.

01:06:24.820 I don't know why.

01:06:25.880 And I think it might is actually true.

01:06:28.060 It might have been because of the content of the conversation.

01:06:30.880 I'm not.

01:06:31.540 But yeah, yeah, I've never talked about that.

01:06:34.700 But that's a replica of the White House or something like that.

01:06:37.340 Correct.

01:06:37.840 The Oval Office.

01:06:38.220 Yes.

01:06:38.640 In the Lincoln, the Lincoln bedroom.

01:06:40.480 And he has a replica of the Monica Lewinsky dress.

01:06:44.340 What?

01:06:44.900 Were you in there?

01:06:45.820 It's just like Kid Rock.

01:06:46.640 Yeah.

01:06:46.940 Yeah.

01:06:47.160 No, you have a lot in common with him, Camille.

01:06:48.420 He's a big sneakerhead.

01:06:49.240 So, yeah, that's what else I found out, too.

01:06:51.220 I mean, that's not a lot in common.

01:06:52.800 Does he know you vomited in his house?

01:06:55.360 He does now.

01:06:55.860 He does now.

01:06:57.560 No.

01:06:58.560 No.

01:06:59.060 It was 2016.

01:07:01.520 Yeah.

01:07:02.100 Oh, my God.

01:07:03.100 He takes a face off of C-SPAN and starts paying attention.

01:07:06.340 Shout out to Cory Booker for reminding us that the Senate exists because I haven't seen any news of that for years.

01:07:13.760 But I was thinking back to the last time that I remember someone being captivated by an actual filibuster.

01:07:22.160 It's when Rand Paul filibustered 12 years ago, and very rightly so.

01:07:28.400 Like, it was an actual filibuster.

01:07:29.420 I want to stop a thing from happening.

01:07:30.800 What was the thing that he wanted to stop from happening?

01:07:32.560 John Brennan being nominated to the head of the CIA.

01:07:35.860 Oh, that was a good one, Rand.

01:07:38.520 Liar.

01:07:38.880 And it was a good one, and it actually kind of – it was sort of unplanned, and more people joined as they went on, and it became a critique of NSA surveillance and the ability for the Obama administration to drone American citizens without due process.

01:07:52.960 Due process is something that we should champion regardless of who is president, and Rand Paul reminded us of that.

01:07:59.600 But Cory Booker could have – if you think of what is happening this week in the Senate, in American politics, in American life, today on National Liberation Day, which is an absolutely comically ridiculous way to describe the imposition of import taxes in a nearly unprecedented sense.

01:08:18.540 But the Senate right now has a bill on the floor, co-sponsored by Rand Paul, and just as we were talking, now endorsed by Mitch McConnell, very interestingly enough, to undeclare a national emergency, which is the fake reason that Trump is using to do tariffs against Canada, the national emergency of the 19 kilograms of fentanyl that came across the border last year.

01:08:43.800 So he could have been working with Republicans who are defecting right now on a bill that would actually limit the president's power in a meaningful way, in a way that also would be – have some symbolic resonance because you would see for the first time really any Republicans showing any spine in opposition to Trump.

01:09:01.280 And instead he gave a 25-hour speech and talked about his water tablets and whether he, like, pooped on his own shoes.

01:09:08.360 It's not as effective as –

01:09:09.820 Look at me.

01:09:10.460 Yeah.

01:09:10.660 It was a lot of detail about, like, how he hadn't eaten in a certain amount of time before.

01:09:15.340 And then suddenly you're thinking about Cory Booker's colon, and supposedly it's supposed to be inspirational to you.

01:09:19.760 Wow.

01:09:19.960 You're like, that's where you go.

01:09:22.460 Come on.

01:09:22.880 You know exactly what you're walking you through.

01:09:23.680 I thought my puking in Frank Luntz's house story was bad, but that, you know.

01:09:27.660 He's trying to tell us I didn't want to get backed up.

01:09:29.880 I didn't want to have to run out of the Senate floor because, you know, I had to empty the poop chute.

01:09:33.840 That's really what he's trying to say.

01:09:34.940 It's not me.

01:09:35.460 It's a U.S. senator.

01:09:36.380 Same U.S. senator who said this nonsense when he tried to stop the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.

01:09:40.660 He literally said this.

01:09:41.840 Watch.

01:09:43.460 And I could not understand, and I violated this rule knowingly, why these issues should be withheld from the public.

01:09:50.840 Now, I appreciate the comments of my colleagues.

01:09:52.820 This is about the closest I'll probably ever have in my life to an I Am Spartacus moment.

01:09:57.900 God.

01:09:59.060 Yeah.

01:09:59.680 That's him.

01:10:00.240 This is all about Cory.

01:10:02.020 He lacks tact in the most profound way.

01:10:04.680 Like, that is actually the thing that makes him uniquely annoying and frustrating.

01:10:10.700 And I think Matt is exactly right.

01:10:12.720 Like, he could have used this in a way more tactical way if all he's trying to do is engage in this kind of project of self-aggrandizement and strengthen his bid for supremacy in a leaderless party that is apparently was being drug around by the nose by Jasmine Crockett for about a month and a half.

01:10:30.060 So at least that moment seems to have passed for now.

01:10:35.060 But I will say, if I could say one positive thing, it's that he broke Strom Thurmond's record here.

01:10:40.260 And Strom Thurmond's record from the 1960s is when he was filibustering.

01:10:44.520 When he tried to stop the Civil Rights Act from passing.

01:10:46.000 The Civil Rights Act.

01:10:47.280 Yeah.

01:10:47.400 So, you know, along the grounds of states' rights, defending the rights of the states to actively discriminate.

01:10:54.140 And, of course, the Southern way of life, as Strom described it as the time.

01:10:57.540 Strom seems to have found religion on these matters later in life.

01:11:00.060 So I don't, you know, whatever, hold it against him.

01:11:01.860 But I'll give him points for having at least dislodged that record.

01:11:06.540 This is a slightly less embarrassing thing for someone to have done publicly.

01:11:10.800 For the record, I want it to be known and I want it to be quoted that Camille Foster does not hold the segregationist views of Strom Thurmond against Strom Thurmond.

01:11:21.880 That's good to know.

01:11:23.220 I'm a forgiving guy.

01:11:24.480 I'm nothing if not generous.

01:11:25.740 I care about people.

01:11:27.260 I want the best for everyone.

01:11:28.920 Yeah.

01:11:29.240 But it crossed it off my list.

01:11:30.240 I was waiting for the day.

01:11:31.040 I'm glad it finally happened.

01:11:33.320 We love you, Strom.

01:11:34.020 Okay, there's a lot to get to.

01:11:35.180 We've got to spend some time on the deportation of the guy who's Elvis El Salvadorian.

01:11:41.440 He's Salvadorian.

01:11:43.160 But if you read The Atlantic, you'd probably think he was a U.S. citizen who'd never done anything wrong.

01:11:48.440 I came to the story late because I was off on, I was traveling yesterday.

01:11:53.320 And then later on Monday, I went out to California to speak with a lovely group of people.

01:11:59.000 In any event, what appears to have happened here, very long and involved story short, is this guy sneaked into the country illegally in 2012 from El Salvador.

01:12:10.620 He did not claim asylum or any of that nonsense.

01:12:13.760 He ultimately got arrested and in response to that arrest wound up in an immigration court where he said or where others said about him that he was a gang member and that a judge, an immigration judge, found there was credible evidence and that he was, in fact, a part of MS-13, a dangerous gang.

01:12:34.000 Then it went up to a higher appellate court judge within the immigration system who said, yep, I see it, too.

01:12:40.820 The guy's a danger to society.

01:12:42.580 And no, we will not be releasing him.

01:12:44.880 And he still did not claim asylum.

01:12:47.440 And it wasn't until he was on the brink of being deported.

01:12:52.360 We were saying, get out.

01:12:53.300 You have to go back home.

01:12:53.960 And he had already, in that time, met an American, married her, and his two brothers came.

01:13:00.140 They got green cards.

01:13:01.300 They had a baby.

01:13:02.840 He's like, oh, I really don't want to go.

01:13:04.100 And suddenly it was an asylum claim.

01:13:05.600 Suddenly he claimed, I need asylum.

01:13:07.420 It's very dangerous in El Salvador.

01:13:09.140 There's this terrible gang.

01:13:10.160 It's not MS-13.

01:13:11.140 It's a different gang that I never heard of.

01:13:13.060 And if I go back home, I'm going to be killed.

01:13:15.740 They're going to kill my whole family because we've been making some sort of food in my mom's house that has led to death threats against my mom and me and everybody.

01:13:24.320 And you can't send me back there.

01:13:25.640 It was on the eve of deportation, which does undermine the claim entirely.

01:13:30.620 And instead of saying, you know what, you can have asylum because the statute of limitations had passed on that.

01:13:35.840 You have to assert asylum claims within one year of getting here.

01:13:38.020 And he didn't.

01:13:38.720 He was well past it.

01:13:39.620 The judge said, all right, I'll give you temporary protection from removal.

01:13:44.080 And all this judge said was, you may not be removed to El Salvador from the United States.

01:13:51.220 And that is the only blanket of protection this guy had over his head that we couldn't remove.

01:13:56.220 But at any point, we could have removed him to Canada.

01:13:58.460 We could have removed him to Mexico.

01:14:00.040 We could have removed him to Colombia.

01:14:01.800 And what happened since Trump is now doing immigration crackdowns is they arrested this guy looking at that underlying history that I just laid out,

01:14:10.700 saying he's part of MSN 13 and a higher court confirmed it and said, you got to go.

01:14:16.840 And if they had deported him, even without a hearing, to any other country, including Colombia or, you know, take your pick, they would have been fine.

01:14:26.680 But instead, they deported him to the one country he's not supposed to go to under that non-removal blanket, which was El Salvador.

01:14:33.520 However, Trump is allowed under the law even to remove him there if the threat that existed when we gave him the temporary protection has abated, if it's been lifted, if something's happened in the country.

01:14:48.240 And there's a real argument.

01:14:49.580 I guess the president, Bukele, of El Salvador has cracked down on this other gang.

01:14:54.820 It ends in 18.

01:14:55.720 I can't remember.

01:14:56.300 There's MS 13.

01:14:57.180 Then maybe this is MS 18.

01:14:58.340 I can't remember.

01:14:58.780 But it's 18.

01:14:59.660 He's completely apparently eradicated this gang in the intervening years.

01:15:06.280 So even then, Trump would have had an argument that, you know what, the circumstances that led to his temporary removal have abated.

01:15:11.680 And under the law, I'm allowed to say they've abated and he's out of here.

01:15:15.300 But he should have had a hearing about that.

01:15:18.560 And they didn't give him one.

01:15:19.740 So they did commit a violation of procedure.

01:15:23.760 And that's the story.

01:15:25.420 It's not great.

01:15:26.080 But I will tell you up front, I view this the same way I view the death of Palestinians.

01:15:33.400 It's all on Hamas.

01:15:35.000 It's all on Hamas.

01:15:36.320 That's really how I see it.

01:15:37.660 Hamas committed a terrible, atrocious terror attack.

01:15:40.280 And they invited this unleashed violence into their region that wasn't there.

01:15:44.200 Israel had no choice but to eradicate Hamas and gave warnings and tried to tell everybody we're about to do it.

01:15:50.500 And this is where the bombs are going to fall.

01:15:52.040 Hamas uses its fellow citizens as human shields.

01:15:54.680 And so I blame them for the violence that has happened there thereafter.

01:15:58.820 And that's how I see this.

01:16:00.660 I think this, too, is the Democrats' fault.

01:16:03.060 You opened the borders.

01:16:05.320 You created a national crisis.

01:16:07.260 You let someplace between 10 and 20 million illegals flood into the United States, many of whom got Social Security numbers, many of whom we're now seeing actually voted, many of whom are taking our social services that we can't afford for our own people.

01:16:20.960 Get out.

01:16:21.520 Finally, Trump is getting them out of here.

01:16:23.940 And will there be some small, minor administrative mistakes in the process?

01:16:28.080 Yes.

01:16:28.640 That, too, is on the Democrats.

01:16:31.460 You created this problem.

01:16:33.060 Trump is trying to solve it.

01:16:34.620 That he doesn't solve it perfectly on every day and in every way is not on him.

01:16:40.140 It's on you.

01:16:40.900 You created a firestorm of immigrants that we're now trying to get rid of, and it's not going to be perfect or pretty.

01:16:48.260 Okay.

01:16:48.860 So that's where I stand on it.

01:16:50.300 My libertarian friends, I have a feeling you feel differently.

01:16:52.640 I agree with most of the explication of the situation.

01:16:57.420 And it's one of the things I love about you.

01:16:59.160 Like, you get all of the details with respect to the kind of nuances of the case, and that's totally appropriate and important.

01:17:05.220 But I want to draw a quick analogy to free expression.

01:17:07.380 And I'm on the board of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, America's premier and perhaps the planet's premier civil liberties organization.

01:17:15.280 And people like us, and I mean us collectively, all four of us, and most of the people watching, I'm sure, are rabid free speech defenders.

01:17:23.320 And what that means is that in many instances you find yourself defending people who are saying awful things or awful people who are saying things that are just fine and ought to be okay.

01:17:34.500 And it becomes a difficult circumstance when most of the time that's greeted with a kind of disingenuous, well, you think Holocaust denial is great.

01:17:43.480 And it's not that at all.

01:17:45.460 We know that the procedure matters.

01:17:47.360 We know that the marginal kind of edge cases matter a great deal.

01:17:51.020 And here we have a somewhat edge case, like a guy with a somewhat dodgy record, an uncertain circumstance with respect to the kind of his legal status and situation, but an admitted mistake on the part of the Trump administration, at least by the Justice Department, that there was a clerical error of sorts and they probably shouldn't have done things the way that they did it, which is at the core of much of the consternation about these deportations.

01:18:15.160 Like, it's easy to kind of talk about this in apocalyptic ways that are perhaps too absurd, but it's also important to just acknowledge what is happening here.

01:18:24.540 We do have a circumstance where people who work for the U.S. government will show up.

01:18:30.380 They will tell you what agency they're from, but sometimes they're in masks.

01:18:33.960 Sometimes they're in unmarked vehicles.

01:18:35.660 And they will kind of spirit you away and they'll move you around to different facilities in order to make it hard for you to kind of marshal, mount a legal defense for yourself.

01:18:43.720 And then they'll ship you off to a country where we have very credible reports of systematic human rights violations and all sorts of other bad things.

01:18:53.120 Is that the kind of America that we want to live in?

01:18:55.860 Is it better that they're going into the prison there as opposed to just wandering in El Salvador?

01:19:00.300 I don't know.

01:19:02.640 I don't know.

01:19:03.620 You know, there are all sorts of nuances here.

01:19:05.620 And I think just in general, all I'm trying to underscore here is at a minimum, it's relevant that there are technical issues here.

01:19:12.160 It's relevant that there are court objections.

01:19:14.660 And it's relevant that there are kind of public relations issues.

01:19:16.980 But at the core is this idea that there are certain principles that we defend in this country.

01:19:21.620 And sometimes we have to defend those principles even in contexts where there are people who are perhaps a little noxious when there are circumstances that make this less than ideal.

01:19:30.620 And one of the things I'm kind of most frustrated by is like J.D. Vance's response to this.

01:19:35.540 No, I can't disagree with in principle.

01:19:36.800 It's just we're at an emergency level here.

01:19:39.800 You know, Americans are getting killed.

01:19:41.080 They're getting gutted and murdered by these animals like the guy who killed Lakin Riley, the guy who killed Jocelyn Nungari,

01:19:48.060 a 12-year-old girl who got bound, sexually assaulted and thrown off a bridge.

01:19:54.380 F these guys.

01:19:55.860 I don't give a shit about their hearings.

01:19:59.440 I don't.

01:20:00.180 I have to be honest.

01:20:01.300 We're not deporting American citizens.

01:20:03.420 Nobody has said, oh, my God, there's an American in the El Salvadorian prison.

01:20:07.860 They are screening.

01:20:09.520 And the vast majority of these folks are already under a removal order, have already been adjudicated.

01:20:14.780 And it might be all of them.

01:20:15.740 I'm trying to figure this out right now, whether everybody who gets on board one of these planes is actually under an order of removal that's already been handed down by a judge.

01:20:23.280 They just then what Biden was doing was you get that order and then he send you right back out in America.

01:20:27.480 Now, Tom Homan's actually trying to find them.

01:20:29.760 But I'm pretty sure it's either the vast it's either the vast majority or it's all.

01:20:34.340 So they have had in the vast majority of these cases some due process, some hearing afforded to them way more than they.

01:20:40.560 Yeah, way, way more than you get in any other country.

01:20:43.740 It's not like we've totally abandoned our principles.

01:20:45.660 And then there's that group under the Alien Enemies Act, which was treated differently.

01:20:50.360 And that's playing out in the courts.

01:20:51.520 And I'm on Trump's side on that, too.

01:20:52.920 But the left would have you believe we're actually just rounding up literally like we joked about at the top of the show.

01:20:58.140 The Linda Kelly's of the world, you know, because they have a tattoo and a FUBU shirt, which is not exactly the same as being a member of MSM 13, which apparently they all love Michael Jordan.

01:21:08.060 And they wear red and they wear Michael Jordan sweat clothes in addition to a certain set of tattoos.

01:21:13.240 And I'll say one other thing.

01:21:14.320 I realize you can have tattoos, whatever.

01:21:16.420 But and they say and it can be ambiguous.

01:21:18.740 They say like a crown and there are certain other ones.

01:21:21.200 But if you look at that photo behind Kristi Noem, which I was very critical of her for doing.

01:21:24.840 I did not appreciate her using human beings as props for her little photo op.

01:21:29.240 They all have the same tattoos.

01:21:30.900 It is like a uniform that screams Trenda Aragua.

01:21:36.320 OK, so anyway, you guys keep going on why I'm wrong.

01:21:40.400 Anytime that you say that, you know, I I'm normally a favor of due process, but, you know, there is an emergency.

01:21:46.940 My brain goes like, yeah, I remember 9-11.

01:21:48.760 But you don't see a difference on illegal immigration.

01:21:50.720 I mean, we're not on illegals.

01:21:52.100 You don't you understand they get some measure of due process in the United States, but they are not entitled to anywhere near what a U.S. citizen would get.

01:21:59.320 Right. And I understand that in this particular case, the administration acted in defiance of a court order.

01:22:05.440 And I just can't get with that.

01:22:07.160 You know, there's.

01:22:08.380 Would you care if he had been deported to Colombia?

01:22:11.020 I don't think I would have cared if he'd been deported to Colombia, to be honest with you.

01:22:15.100 OK, it's the technical violation of the hearing.

01:22:18.260 That's fair.

01:22:18.720 Well, I mean, it's also this this administration and J.D. Vance in particular, they've been cruising for a bruising.

01:22:25.440 They want showdowns with the judicial branch.

01:22:27.640 They like this stuff.

01:22:28.580 J.D. Vance, who has misrepresented this case on several occasions, I think.

01:22:32.860 He said the guy was convicted of being part of MSNBC, MSNBC, MSNBC.

01:22:40.340 It's worse than MSNBC.

01:22:43.560 It's worse than we know.

01:22:46.480 Now we're all in favor of him going.

01:22:48.860 He said he'd been convicted.

01:22:50.660 And that's not right.

01:22:51.880 He was adjudicated by an immigration judge.

01:22:54.640 And then that was upheld by an immigrant.

01:22:56.480 But it's not the same as being convicted.

01:22:58.300 And he said that when he got into all this trouble with the courts, it was 2019 under the Biden administration.

01:23:04.280 And that was Trump in 2019.

01:23:06.420 Yeah, but he also said it's gross for a gang member for us to be more worried about gang members than victims of violent crime, which is profoundly disingenuous.

01:23:16.100 I mean, no, it's true.

01:23:17.080 The left is.

01:23:18.060 But maybe the left is, but I'm not like and I don't know that I would make that claim about the left.

01:23:23.360 But he's speaking to the Atlantic publicly.

01:23:24.900 Like, that is the response to kind of categorically from J.D. Vance.

01:23:29.160 And I get it.

01:23:30.140 Again, he's a politician.

01:23:31.480 I expect them to make these kind of peace by the Atlantic on Jocelyn Nungare.

01:23:36.360 Where was that?

01:23:38.400 I can't speak to that.

01:23:39.820 You know, maybe the Atlantic isn't getting it right.

01:23:41.320 That's because he's right.

01:23:42.040 They care more about these illegals who very much look like they're members of MS-13 than he does about the little girls than the Atlantic does about little girls getting sexually assaulted and murdered at 12.

01:23:54.980 If he'd said it about the Atlantic, he might be able he might be on slightly better footing.

01:23:58.500 But he made a categorical statement and suggested anyone with the Atlantic.

01:24:02.300 He started it off by attacking the Atlantic.

01:24:04.240 It was in that same thread.

01:24:06.100 Ted Cruz made a very similar and very similarly sweeping argument to Ted Cruz, who once self-styled as a constitutional conservative.

01:24:13.840 This is not a constitutional way to act in defiance of a judge's order.

01:24:19.520 And that's why the administration acknowledged its errors.

01:24:22.220 You do have to at some point say, whoops, did a bad one here.

01:24:27.440 So that type of broad sweeping language, again, is something that as a civil libertarian I've been hearing for 38 years.

01:24:34.720 Any time the other team, and for me it's always another team, has the presidency, it's always an emergency.

01:24:40.440 And so therefore we have to go through TSA.

01:24:43.940 We have to invade Iraq.

01:24:45.380 We have to do this.

01:24:46.200 We have to withdraw this procedure that we used to have beforehand.

01:24:50.320 And as someone who is married to a naturalized citizen, I remember very specifically the layers of procedures that we're taking away in the 1990s.

01:24:59.980 Bipartisan, signed into law by Bill Clinton when there was a big anti-immigration push in the mid-90s from both parties.

01:25:05.440 That made it possible for there to be border guards at points of entry who, if they didn't like your look and you had not gotten your protected status yet, hadn't got a permanent green card, they could just stamp do not entry on your passport and you were screwed for five years.

01:25:22.540 Those are the good old days.

01:25:23.440 We're not doing this to U.S. citizens.

01:25:29.600 You're fine.

01:25:30.340 If you're an American, you're good.

01:25:32.240 This is being done to illegals.

01:25:34.300 Some of us are married to non-U.S. citizens.

01:25:35.720 But the thing is, it's always done to people who have protected status.

01:25:40.180 Every time you crack down on illegal immigrants.

01:25:42.300 Protected status still means you're an illegal.

01:25:44.160 It doesn't mean you're a citizen.

01:25:45.660 It does not mean you're, like, they treat you like you're a citizen.

01:25:47.880 You're not illegal if you are a legal resident.

01:25:51.260 You're not illegal.

01:25:52.140 You're just illegal.

01:25:52.940 You have protected status.

01:25:54.220 You have temporary protected status, which is not the same as being a citizen.

01:25:58.900 I'm now talking about, I'm talking about, like, the Japanese businessmen.

01:26:01.820 I'm just saying you're at the lowest nader of having due process rights.

01:26:05.960 And the media won't acknowledge that.

01:26:07.600 They do not get the same process as you or I would get if they wanted to get us out of here.

01:26:12.140 Be really hard.

01:26:12.860 It's an edge case.

01:26:13.660 Yeah, it's an edge case.

01:26:14.780 Exactly.

01:26:15.240 It's an edge case.

01:26:15.960 And that's why I just have no, I think I speak for most people when I say, I don't care.

01:26:19.620 Get them out.

01:26:20.640 Get them out of here.

01:26:21.280 And if they raise an objection, we find that there was a mistake.

01:26:24.200 We can take care of it after the fact.

01:26:25.760 And we should take care of it after the fact.

01:26:27.920 I mean, all it's going to take is Trump saying, let's move this one to Colombia.

01:26:31.740 That guy seems to be willing to take our prisoners or our illegals.

01:26:35.140 I'm like, go.

01:26:35.980 Enjoy Colombia, sir.

01:26:37.120 Fine.

01:26:37.440 You think you'll do better there?

01:26:38.560 We'll see.

01:26:38.880 We can't take care of this one after the fact.

01:26:41.620 They said, oh, he's in the prison.

01:26:42.600 We don't know where he is.

01:26:43.960 They've washed their hands of that mistake.

01:26:44.840 I mean, they say that.

01:26:45.180 But he's in that prison.

01:26:46.900 We know where he is.

01:26:47.620 The Trump administration needs to clean up that piece of it.

01:26:49.720 Like when we send the wrong people there, there has to be a clear procedure for getting

01:26:53.260 them off to where they need to be, whether it's here or another country.

01:26:56.500 And there's one thing that I personally am struggling with in the deportations to El

01:27:00.420 Salvador, which I'm looking into right now with my team.

01:27:02.760 And that is, why do they have to go to jail?

01:27:05.060 You know, like we generally are not allowed to send anybody to jail unless they've had

01:27:10.400 a trial on criminal charges.

01:27:12.100 So I don't, I totally get the plane loads to Colombia.

01:27:15.540 That is the biggest problem.

01:27:17.560 Yeah.

01:27:17.980 It's also, by the way, not just the jail.

01:27:19.960 I don't understand how we can just send them to jail.

01:27:22.060 Go ahead, Moynihan.

01:27:22.680 Yeah.

01:27:23.060 Well, it's not just a jail.

01:27:24.140 I mean, I appreciated you having Glenn Greenwald on and having a debate about, about this

01:27:30.720 stuff and kind of stuff around these cases.

01:27:33.200 And I disagree with Glenn on a lot.

01:27:34.900 I'm on his side on this one, but like the reason those gangs have disappeared in Bukele's

01:27:41.980 El Salvador is because there's, you know, no civil rights that are left in El Salvador.

01:27:47.760 Right.

01:27:48.240 Never, no civil liberties in that prison is the, I think the largest prison in the world.

01:27:52.820 It has something like 45,000 people and 44,000, some insane number for such a small country.

01:27:58.220 And they basically look, I mean, if, if you like that kind of living and it's a North Korean

01:28:03.740 in its way, cause there's no crime in North Korea is that the murders have just fallen

01:28:08.280 off to zero basically there because they put everyone in a prison.

01:28:11.040 The problem is, is it's not as if it's just some sort of holding cell, it's one of the

01:28:15.740 most dangerous prisons on earth.

01:28:18.080 And it is one of the largest prisons on earth in put, you know, sending somebody back to the

01:28:23.520 country from whence they came.

01:28:25.560 I have no problem with sending somebody to a third country and then depositing them in

01:28:30.700 a prison should bother the conscience of everyone.

01:28:34.340 And I don't think that's, you know, should they be here?

01:28:37.340 No, of course not.

01:28:38.260 I've, I've been gotten much more hawkish on certain immigration questions as the, the kind

01:28:44.720 of number of people swelled and you saw it everywhere in New York city.

01:28:48.240 And you're like, wow, this is, this is actually a problem that the people are being incentivized

01:28:52.120 to come here.

01:28:52.720 And obviously that incentive has been removed, but you can do that created by showing El Salvador

01:28:58.560 on the, on the television and this is where we're going to send you.

01:29:03.040 Yeah.

01:29:03.520 And that's wrong in my, in my estimation, because it would also be a disincentive.

01:29:07.240 We shot them in the middle of the street.

01:29:08.620 We can't do that either.

01:29:10.060 We shouldn't do things that are good disincentives that are themselves immoral.

01:29:14.640 I mean, putting people in prison who are un-American.

01:29:17.320 It's un-American.

01:29:18.360 I just think it's like sending somebody to a third country that they are not from and into

01:29:22.900 their prison system without a trial is just mind boggling to me.

01:29:26.840 Yeah, see like, this is where like, if you've committed a crime here in the United States,

01:29:30.100 in addition to crossing the border illegally, like an actual crime, and we just ship you

01:29:33.860 off to El Salvador after you've had your, because you know, whatever you, you, you committed

01:29:38.520 a crime and somehow you weren't, you got out or, you know, the, some local sanctuary state

01:29:42.540 let you out with a slap on the wrist.

01:29:44.180 That's a different story to me.

01:29:45.300 Like you've had your due process.

01:29:46.560 Cause like when it comes to you, you're going to be imprisoned and you're going to lose your

01:29:50.480 liberty.

01:29:51.300 That is a higher standard of due process.

01:29:53.640 It's much higher than you get for just getting kicked out of the country.

01:29:57.140 And I will say one final thing about this that I wouldn't object to.

01:30:00.300 Lake and Riley's killer was given due process and convicted of murder.

01:30:03.700 On his criminal charges.

01:30:05.260 Well, I mean, either way, whatever the charges are, that if you sent that man to a prison

01:30:12.520 in El Salvador, I wouldn't lose a moment's sleep.

01:30:15.220 Um, you know, because we do have a general policy of providing the same due process to

01:30:21.920 anyone citizen or not, who's been accused of a crime, whose liberty we're going to take.

01:30:27.780 We, they will get the same due process.

01:30:29.460 You or I would in a court of law.

01:30:30.940 They would that we don't.

01:30:32.320 That's why this guy, Jose Aubera, who killed Lake and Riley had a whole trial.

01:30:36.000 We devoted all sorts of resources to proving that he was her killer.

01:30:39.300 That's who we are.

01:30:40.660 That's what we do.

01:30:41.380 That makes us very different than the vast majority of countries.

01:30:44.100 But what's happening with these other guys is something else.

01:30:47.840 We're, we're not necessarily accusing them of crimes.

01:30:50.700 We're saying you committed a crime, one crime by coming here illegally.

01:30:54.420 And then you were adjudicated here illegally and told to leave and you didn't.

01:31:00.100 So now we're getting rid of it.

01:31:00.960 You won't leave on your own terms.

01:31:02.160 We will get rid of you.

01:31:03.860 And so far, I'm fine with it.

01:31:06.080 Ship them to Columbia, ship them to El Salvador for all I care.

01:31:08.920 It's putting them in prison where I start to get wobbly.

01:31:12.640 And again, I'm looking into whether that, what the legal justification is for that.

01:31:16.840 Cause I actually haven't taken a hard look at it.

01:31:18.520 All right, stand by.

01:31:19.260 We've got to take a break more with the fifth column hosts straight ahead.

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01:32:59.420 I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.

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01:33:57.500 Guys, you mentioned it at the top, and the audience has heard plenty about it.

01:34:05.480 But as you know, I sat down with the New York Times, and they released an in-depth interview

01:34:11.000 on Saturday, and then the piece hits in the New York Times Magazine this weekend.

01:34:14.900 I'm told you have thoughts.

01:34:16.000 What are they?

01:34:17.340 Well, one, that you did a great job.

01:34:19.640 I mean, just in general, did a great job.

01:34:21.660 And it's funny.

01:34:22.420 I was talking to your wonderful producer.

01:34:24.280 You have many wonderful producers, but Steve Krakauer, and I said earlier, it's funny.

01:34:29.300 Folks at the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have spent so many years now

01:34:34.720 just kind of demagoguing anyone on the right that when they actually have to talk to them

01:34:40.000 face-to-face and engage in a sober conversation, they really don't know what to do.

01:34:46.240 They either turn into Gavin Newsom and are kind of falling all over themselves to deny that

01:34:50.820 they ever held the positions that they actually held, or they're kind of befuddled that the

01:34:54.940 person I'm talking to isn't actually a monster who wants to rip my face off and say terrible

01:34:58.640 things.

01:34:59.480 And you kind of got that dynamic.

01:35:01.340 Like, Meghan is just being her usual self and acknowledging facts.

01:35:04.340 I criticize Donald Trump all the time.

01:35:06.400 Like, I've done it in context where he was mad at me months before I went and showed up

01:35:10.520 at a press event.

01:35:11.420 I'm candid about my actual views on things.

01:35:14.200 Like, this is utterly defensible.

01:35:15.680 And it is all consistent with the things that you've been doing publicly.

01:35:19.060 But for them, like, this is all kind of new territory in some respects.

01:35:23.280 They kind of have to sit down, take you seriously and soberly, and it doesn't make them look

01:35:27.940 particularly great in every instance.

01:35:30.200 But I thought you did, handled yourself very well in that particular interview.

01:35:33.800 So...

01:35:34.200 Thank you.

01:35:34.580 Not that you need my approval or anything.

01:35:36.520 No, no, but I'm curious because we had such a battle about media.

01:35:40.120 You know, what the future of media is, where the lines should be drawn in today's media

01:35:44.180 environment, you guys are in the same environment I'm in.

01:35:46.940 And, you know, she really seemed to be struggling with getting more opinionated to the point

01:35:52.220 where you would endorse a candidate and still calling yourself a journalist.

01:35:55.820 Yeah, I mean, you can do that.

01:35:57.980 I mean, I've been doing it for years, and sometimes I separate those things when I do reported

01:36:02.560 pieces and go all over and shoot things, and they're not opinionated pieces, and then

01:36:07.640 I can come back and be opinionated.

01:36:09.180 Right.

01:36:10.060 Lula Navarro, Garcia Navarro, is that who it is?

01:36:13.280 Garcia Navarro.

01:36:14.180 She is now on CNN, shouting at Scott Jennings or whoever's shouting at everybody around

01:36:21.920 her, and she's being an opinion person all the time.

01:36:24.880 I mean, she just has the right opinion.

01:36:26.400 I was like to mention, the Times endorses candidates.

01:36:28.700 The Times, most of these newspapers up until this past November, when they realized she was

01:36:34.260 going to lose and they didn't want to piss off Trump, they almost all endorse candidates,

01:36:37.900 and yet they still do journalism.

01:36:39.460 It's like having an opinion side, they have a news side, and they endorse.

01:36:42.760 And that's the same as me, but all in one person.

01:36:45.740 Everybody has opinions.

01:36:47.900 I mean, the right does it, the left does it.

01:36:49.780 When you say, well, this judge was appointed by somebody, the judge always has to be disappointed

01:36:52.600 by somebody.

01:36:53.140 You have to do this on a case-by-case basis because everybody has politics.

01:36:57.040 Everybody has opinions.

01:36:58.240 Every journalist who says they're straight down.

01:37:00.300 Matt's magazine, Reason, has always been the most admirable that everybody has to confess

01:37:04.500 who they're voting for in every election in the pages of Reason and show your cards.

01:37:08.540 That's the way you do it.

01:37:09.360 Or to say that they don't want to tell you, but whatever.

01:37:12.120 Like, we ask our staffers.

01:37:13.500 We actually don't do endorsements at Reason.

01:37:15.660 The last endorsement they ran was in 1976 or something like that.

01:37:18.780 But I tried to do this when I was at the LA Times, too.

01:37:21.120 Like, all right, you know, let's just list all of this.

01:37:24.140 Because one thing, it kind of takes away that as a cudgel.

01:37:27.180 But another, if you poll your own news organization, right?

01:37:32.920 Imagine, Megan, over at not just MSNBC, but NBC News or also at Fox.

01:37:37.560 That would be interesting.

01:37:38.620 Poll all of your journalists.

01:37:40.240 Maybe you don't even have to make it public.

01:37:41.820 If you have 99% voting for one party, you've got a screwed up news organization.

01:37:46.680 Why don't you want that information?

01:37:47.600 Well, Fox would definitely have the most diverse employee base.

01:37:50.600 Definitely.

01:37:51.240 There are tons of Democrats working at Fox.

01:37:53.540 Young people who get into the news are all leftists.

01:37:56.620 They're all leftists.

01:37:57.940 At Fox, some of them can be massaged out of it.

01:38:00.360 But when you first get into the business, you are.

01:38:02.060 Go ahead, Matt.

01:38:02.460 Sorry.

01:38:03.380 One of the only other outlets that do this is Slate.

01:38:07.280 I don't even know if they did it this past year.

01:38:09.560 But as they went on, it would be like 55 Obama won Gary Johnson.

01:38:14.720 Like, the numbers were always Jack Shaver.

01:38:19.640 That's useful information.

01:38:21.220 And it's also like showing that you have faith in your audience.

01:38:25.060 You can handle this information.

01:38:27.120 You don't have to run scared from it.

01:38:28.300 The LA Times when I was there was terrified that people would discover something about them.

01:38:32.900 Like, why don't you show it to the world?

01:38:34.660 So, like, have faith in your audience.

01:38:37.360 It doesn't matter if you have politics.

01:38:39.760 Yeah.

01:38:40.900 Something has to be falsifiable, right?

01:38:42.540 I mean, if there is a study that says, you know, vaping is not going to kill you and they say, well, it was it was paid for by the vaping industry.

01:38:50.720 It's like, well, can you replicate the study?

01:38:52.680 I don't care who paid for it.

01:38:54.240 Is it true or not?

01:38:55.560 And that's ultimately the case with politics, too, is that ideologically motivated people break some great stories on the right, on the left.

01:39:02.360 I mean, you know, the Pentagon Papers, there were people that broke that story because they wanted an end to the Vietnam War.

01:39:07.220 And that was one of the most consequential pieces of journalism of the past 50 years.

01:39:10.960 Who cares about somebody's politics, provided they are they are giving you accurate, smart information that you wouldn't get anywhere else?

01:39:18.520 I mean, I'm tired of this idea that we're all pretending that to be above the fray.

01:39:24.000 And, you know, European newspapers don't do that.

01:39:26.360 There's right wing newspapers, left wing newspapers, and they report from that general drift.

01:39:30.100 But that's fine, as long as it's true.

01:39:32.860 And just let me filter it, though.

01:39:35.060 Like, if you're a hard partisan, it's I would love if you would just share that with me, as opposed to posing as an objective journalist who's just going to give me the straight facts.

01:39:42.840 And then and then I can take it for what it's worth.

01:39:44.500 You're right when you say it takes away a cudgel, Matt.

01:39:46.880 That's the New York Times would stop being this punching bag for the rest of us if it would just say we are a left wing organization.

01:39:55.740 We are going to report through our liberal bias like we own that.

01:40:00.380 Take it for what it's worth.

01:40:01.460 It may not be worth anything to you.

01:40:02.920 They wouldn't lose a single reader because all of their readers already know this.

01:40:06.640 But it's just the reputation.

01:40:08.140 They would stop getting battered as much by those of us on the right because they're pretending they're fakers.

01:40:13.880 And that's what's such a turnoff, right?

01:40:15.440 It's like, why wouldn't you just take away the battering ram we've been using on you for all these decades?

01:40:21.060 Because the jig is up.

01:40:22.100 We already know anyway.

01:40:22.900 I mean, wasn't that the first 10, 15 years of Fox News?

01:40:28.460 Every time there was something that looked like it drifted towards Republicans, it would be fair and balanced, eh?

01:40:34.800 Yes.

01:40:35.320 Just acknowledge what you are and then that's fine.

01:40:37.600 No, that's right.

01:40:38.500 And then they changed it.

01:40:39.480 Then they changed the slogan from fair and balanced.

01:40:42.220 I don't know what the new slogan is.

01:40:43.440 It happened after I left.

01:40:44.040 Well, it used to be we report, you decide, right?

01:40:46.120 Well, that was always it.

01:40:46.960 No, but they got rid of fair and balanced.

01:40:48.820 I think they I don't know if it's because they wanted to lean more into like owning what they do.

01:40:53.080 But I actually think fair and balanced worked because it was really like it provided balance to the rest of the news media, which was true.

01:41:00.600 And they did it in a fair way.

01:41:02.060 It worked for me.

01:41:02.660 In any event, you guys, you also have worked very much for me today, both in fact and rhetorically.

01:41:08.740 Thank you, as always, for being here.

01:41:10.420 Thank you, Megan.

01:41:11.060 Thank you, Megan.

01:41:12.560 All right.

01:41:13.080 Tomorrow we're going to have Michael Knowles and Anna Kasparian.

01:41:15.820 And then later this week, we're bringing back Mike and Dave, Mike Davis and Dave Ehrenberg.

01:41:20.460 And they are going to help us hash out.

01:41:22.840 And I mean, hash it out.

01:41:24.460 Some of these big legal disputes that are coming down the pike and have been getting fought in the in the courts this week.

01:41:30.360 You're going to love that.

01:41:33.680 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:41:35.620 No BS, no agenda and no fear.

01:41:45.820 As President Trump is settling into his new administration, one of the top Democrats in Congress aiming to undermine him and the Trump agenda is Senator Dick Durbin.

01:41:58.020 According to our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, Senator Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card.

01:42:05.700 Today, Americans have thousands of choices in credit cards, but they say Senator Durbin's plan will result in less competition and less security.

01:42:13.320 That means more risk for your credit and your identity.

01:42:16.800 Learn more at guardyourcard.org and consider telling your senators to stop Dick Durbin's government takeover of your credit card before it's too late.

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01:42:48.580 Visit CanadaLife.com slash EmployeeBenefits to learn more.

01:42:53.000 Canada Life. Insurance. Investments. Advice.

The Megyn Kelly Show - April 02, 2025

Shocking New Biden Cognitive Decline Details, Elon's Future, and Cory's Long Speech, with The Fifth Column ｜ Ep. 1040

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