The Megyn Kelly Show - Should GOP Blame Trump or McConnell, and Donald vs. DeSantis, with Rich Lowry, Ric Grenell, and Mike Lawler

00:00:00.560 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Happy Friday and happy

00:00:16.320 Veterans Day. We're going to have more to say about that later in a segment you do not

00:00:21.220 want to miss. It is indeed Friday. Fridays are so great, aren't they? It's like, I love

00:00:26.360 my job, but I still love Fridays. You know what's coming. You're going to have a great

00:00:29.840 Friday night, ideally, with your family, people you love or want to hang out with. Saturday,

00:00:34.800 you don't have to get up at all, usually. It's so great. You have the whole weekend and

00:00:40.100 Friday. I'm just dreaming. I'm dreaming about where we're going. It's just so good, isn't

00:00:45.160 it? No list from Abby. Every day after the show, she goes over my list with me. It's

00:00:50.840 torturous. It's all the stuff that I've tried to put off that I don't want to decide on.

00:00:54.000 She makes me do it. Uh, okay. Anywho, um, by the way, we still don't know who won the

00:00:58.840 House or the Senate. That, that, that little thing of Congress, uh, in Arizona, 18% of

00:01:05.480 the vote is still outstanding. Again, they're right. It's an abacus. That's how they're

00:01:09.260 counting the votes. And Katie Hobbs has extended her lead over Carrie Lake. We're told to 27,000

00:01:17.220 Mark Kelly in the Senate race, Mary, Carrie Lake and Hobbs, that's governor. Mark Kelly remains

00:01:23.140 115,000 votes ahead of Blake masters in Nevada with 10% of the vote. Outstanding GOP challenger,

00:01:32.560 Adam Laxalt is clinging to just a 9,000 vote lead over Catherine Cortez Masto. Now, some say she's

00:01:40.980 looking good to take over him based on where they think the remaining vote is coming from.

00:01:45.300 He's been tweeting out. He's looking good. He doesn't think she can maintain a high enough

00:01:49.760 margin. He says she needs over 65% of those votes and doesn't see her doing it. This read a different

00:01:55.200 tweet, a different article, a different expert. You will get a different answer on Nevada in

00:01:58.920 particular. Most people say Arizona is gone, uh, to the Dems, but on Nevada, so divided, uh,

00:02:07.040 in some places like certain key districts in California, less than half of the votes have

00:02:11.100 been counted. Get out of the damn sun, get inside and do your jobs. I don't care how pretty is out

00:02:18.820 there. Get to work. Californians. How is this acceptable? Some people, uh, of course have moved

00:02:25.140 on like former president Donald Trump, who has instead turned his focus to attacking all of the

00:02:30.740 key figures in his own party in his defense. They are also attacking him here to break it all down

00:02:36.720 today. Rich Lowry, editor of national review. And in a little bit, we're going to have Rick Grinnell

00:02:41.460 with the Trump side of things from rich to Rick, rich. Great to have you back. How are you doing?

00:02:46.700 Good. How are you? Uh, I'm great. I'm great. So can we just stop? Isn't it absurd? I mean,

00:02:51.420 California has 48% of the vote. Like how it's easily it's if they were surprised by the fact that we

00:02:56.800 were having an election. It's, it's positively third world. I mean, there's just no excuse for it.

00:03:02.440 I was reading an article yesterday trying to understand this. Why is the Arizona vote so

00:03:06.880 slow in this, this article in a local Arizona paper was saying, well, you know, you can't do

00:03:13.400 Maricopa County as quickly as Palm, as sorry, as Miami Dade County. Cause it's larger. Really? I mean,

00:03:19.500 just cause like it's 1.5 million votes instead of 700,000 votes or something, you can't do it on

00:03:23.960 election night. It's absurd. It's, it's inexcusable. No one should put up with it. Jeb Bush should do a

00:03:29.120 national tour, giving every state a tutorial on how he fixed Florida system. And everyone should

00:03:34.640 do it that way. It just shouldn't be a question. I still don't totally understand why, why they're

00:03:38.980 so good at it in Florida. I know why they, that they revised it. But, um, I was saying yesterday,

00:03:43.960 it doesn't make your state, your state red to follow Florida in its voting procedures just makes

00:03:49.220 it more efficient. Um, and these guys know that they're swing States and that they should have a

00:03:53.380 better system. And now on top of everything, the problems in Arizona are going to cast a massive

00:03:57.680 shadow. If Carrie Lake doesn't win because her opponent is the secretary of state who oversees

00:04:04.180 the voting procedure. So I know people don't like election denialism, but that's one state where you

00:04:09.440 do have to pause a little and say, all right, this is going to stink to the average voter.

00:04:14.300 And also, I mean, she's the most likely of any of the Republican candidates to contest her results.

00:04:19.780 She's not going to go quietly. I mean, she was suggesting an interview. I think it was yesterday

00:04:23.000 that, uh, this is kind of the establishment slowing down the count so they can get the narrative out

00:04:27.560 there that DeSantis did really well and hurt the MAGA candidates and she'll eventually win.

00:04:32.180 I thought she was going to win. I mean, she's extremely talented, natural politician, but she's

00:04:38.420 a function of just what we saw all around the landscape. Every single Republican underperformed

00:04:43.780 pretty much besides DeSantis, Kemp, and a few other well-established incumbents.

00:04:48.000 Mm-hmm. So, yeah, so we don't know what's happening in Arizona. Can I ask you, because

00:04:52.680 some people called Arizona for, um, the Dem, for Mark Kelly. I saw it yesterday and yet not

00:04:58.600 everybody has. So is Arizona called or not? I don't think it's, I haven't seen it called. I

00:05:05.080 don't think it's called, but it stands to reason, just given what we're seeing now, if, if Lake wins,

00:05:10.740 I mean, it's going to be just barely. And the master's theory, which I believed in, by the way,

00:05:15.040 was that Lake would win by three or four points and help carry masters over the top,

00:05:19.680 but that's not going to happen. So it hasn't been called, but that's one

00:05:22.440 mentally and psychologically everyone should be crossing off the list if it's still on.

00:05:27.240 Mm-hmm. I think that's probably right.

00:05:28.440 In Nevada, you know, I just don't know. You, you outlined very well, just whatever,

00:05:32.800 you just read different things given the source. But I am just now, I was so burned, you know,

00:05:38.400 last week or two by believing in Republican optimism.

00:05:41.040 I had a Republican Senator insisting to me yesterday that, that Laxalt, it's there for

00:05:46.180 him. He's going to win. And I just don't believe it. I just, I don't, I'll believe it if it happens,

00:05:50.640 but I'm assuming that's not going to turn out. Do we know what happened with the polls? I tried

00:05:55.880 to get to this discussion earlier the week. I could, I didn't manage it because we were just

00:05:58.620 tight, but do we know what happened? I know that the very last New York times poll, the very last

00:06:03.560 NBC news poll did pretty well in predicting the ultimate result, but you know, Trafalgar's taking

00:06:11.060 a lot of heat, um, RCP is taking a lot of heat. I think those are, I mean, certainly Trafalgar is an

00:06:16.800 operation that tries to forgive the word, but inflate a little bit Republican vote that he believed was

00:06:22.400 being undercounted, which is why he got the 16 and the 18 elections. So right. Right. But it seems

00:06:30.540 like that methodology no longer works. So I was looking at this cause, um, one of my colleagues

00:06:36.300 was hammering and I love Robert Cahaley. I am sure you've had my, he's a great, really knowledgeable

00:06:42.940 guy. Um, but one of my colleagues was hammering him for, you know, he misled us in, in New Hampshire.

00:06:47.960 And then I looked back yesterday at New Hampshire at the real clear average and not so much at the

00:06:52.960 average, but just, just to get a list of the polls. And for the last two weeks, every poll,

00:06:58.280 every poll, only Trafalgar and the university of St. Anselm had a ball deck ahead by one,

00:07:04.500 but every single other poll had a really tight, you know, um, has some leading by one or three

00:07:10.440 points. And you just look at that naturally and you see, well, it was a month ago, it was seven or

00:07:15.080 nine. Now it's, you know, one or two, the momentum's in his direction. They don't do early vote.

00:07:21.980 This is a sign of, of a wave and he's going to win. And that's what I thought. So, um, we can blame

00:07:27.280 the Republican pollster for getting a little bit more wrong than everyone else, but everyone got

00:07:31.720 that one wrong. And I just think there was, there was a kind of democratic wave. There was a kind

00:07:36.540 of blue wave at the end that really wasn't what, yeah, that, that wasn't picked up. And, um, my

00:07:44.380 assumption was that all the Senate races, which were really close, the usual dynamic is, uh, in, in a

00:07:50.860 election, you assume is defined by the incumbent's low standing, the undecided voters, the

00:07:56.800 independents, they break at the end and they're going to break against the incumbent. That didn't

00:08:00.840 happen. They broke in favor of the incumbent, or at least in favor of the incumbent's party.

00:08:04.560 And this is still, Megan, I just have trouble getting my head around this fact that last NBC

00:08:08.480 news poll, yes, showed democratic enthusiasm, even with Republican enthusiasm, had some good other

00:08:13.600 indicators for, for Democrats, but still had a lot of terrible indicators for Democrats. The most

00:08:18.720 important one, Biden's approval rating in that poll is 28% among independents, 28%. That is not

00:08:24.320 survival. That is not survival. And if you believe the exit polls, there are some people say, you know,

00:08:29.360 you don't cause the methodology is not, uh, the best, but the samples are huge. Democrats won

00:08:34.820 independence by a couple of points, uh, on, uh, on election day. And then in states like Pennsylvania

00:08:40.740 and Arizona won them by 19 points, 30 points. That's just hard. It's hard to fathom. So my, my big

00:08:48.560 takeaway in the election, I don't, I have various theories. I don't, I don't have high confidence.

00:08:53.580 I know, I know what happened, but it just seems as though the issues I was dismissive of abortion,

00:08:58.100 protecting democracy, Trump were more important than I would have thought. And, uh, if there was

00:09:03.480 an increment of voters that, you know, Robert Cahaley talks about Republicans who don't talk to

00:09:07.020 pollsters and you don't know what they're thinking, I guess what they're thinking is that they weren't

00:09:10.700 going to show up because the turnout was just much higher for Democrats than Republicans in a lot of

00:09:15.540 these key States. Wow. And, and the independents, as you say, they normally break for the party out

00:09:19.740 of power. And, and on Tuesday they broke for the party in power, uh, for the most part. And, and,

00:09:24.600 and most relevantly in all the States that were critical for the GOP to win, to gain control of

00:09:29.600 the Senate and the house. We don't know. I mean, it's crazy that it's Friday and we don't know.

00:09:34.340 And there's still at least a chance it could stay blue. I mean, if the house stays blue,

00:09:39.840 I don't even know what's going to happen. I feel like it's going to be full on revolt.

00:09:43.100 Everyone might get fired. Everyone in there in the Republican party.

00:09:47.360 Yeah. So the latest breakdown I saw is there's, they now think they're like 11 true toss-ups

00:09:52.580 that are really tight and no one can really tell you who's going to win. Um, and Democrats would

00:09:57.680 need to win nine out of 11. So, so the odds, just pure odds, you think Republicans are going to win

00:10:02.600 the house, but it's going to be really narrow. And, um, it, it's a massive, it's a massive

00:10:07.840 disappointment. You know, there, there's still a chance they'll win the house and possibly

00:10:11.640 Senate odds are against that, you know, and that's, that's something winning both chambers,

00:10:17.120 you know, it's a better than the alternative, but this was a debacle in the scheme of things.

00:10:22.400 And, and the Senate seats just so important because the, the chance to really just knock

00:10:28.040 off a bunch of democratic incumbents, it doesn't come around very often. And the Senate, you know,

00:10:32.260 staggered terms of six years, it builds on itself. So you get 54 and then you have a really Republican

00:10:38.820 map in 24. I mean, you could conceivably get to 60, right? And now that's totally, um, out the

00:10:45.200 window. So it, it was bad and there, there should be accountability and recriminations.

00:10:50.680 But isn't it, it's so confusing this time around because it's not clear what to go back and yell

00:10:56.100 at people over, you know, like there, there are many factors, right? And I know we'll talk about the

00:11:00.900 Trump as a factor, but as you, as you mentioned, abortion, a much bigger factor, uh, than many thought

00:11:06.920 it would be. I mean, huge in Pennsylvania, it was the number one issue ahead of inflation,

00:11:10.520 big, big issue. Um, and then, you know, I don't know what else was out there that was depressed.

00:11:16.340 I think all the January 6th, the election denialism thing, like I'm, I realized that was a factor,

00:11:21.760 but I also want to be wary. I think that like, I listened to the New York times daily the other

00:11:27.280 day, the podcast, and, and it was the New York times guys saying how it was, this is what did it.

00:11:32.700 It was election denialism. It was Nate, it was Nate Cohn with Michael Barbaro and it was like

00:11:39.720 election denialism. Clearly that's what did it in all these races. I don't know. You know, I see,

00:11:45.200 I saw the people with threats to democracy, but I also saw, um, there were a lot of Republicans who

00:11:49.160 listed that as their main issue, but they were pointing out the majority of people who said

00:11:52.020 threats to democracy as their issue did vote Dem. So it was probably the Dem version of threats to

00:11:56.120 democracy. But I just, I, I guess I just have trouble believing that like that people looked at the

00:12:01.700 dark Brandon speech and like independence were thinking right on really. I mean, are we that

00:12:08.020 out of touch with how non-partisans are feeling? Yeah. So I, I think I, I, I didn't get through

00:12:15.860 that podcast. I listened to the beginning of it, but I was contemptuous about a month before the

00:12:19.560 election. Nate Cohn wrote a piece about how there's a chance Democrats could hold the house.

00:12:22.560 It's like, that's crazy. You're so out of touch New York times guy. And here we are, you know,

00:12:27.400 the Friday after the election, there's still, you know, it's a slim chance, but there's still a

00:12:30.800 chance. I think it's not, it's not so much that kind of maximalist Liz Cheney, January 6th case.

00:12:37.960 I think there was a, was a broad discomfort with Republicans, not, not necessarily, oh,

00:12:44.300 they're, they're a threat to democracy, but just that they, they're, they're too extreme.

00:12:48.720 They're underprepared. They're scandal plagued. They're chaotic. And this would, you know,

00:12:55.200 Herschel Walker is not an election denier, right? I mean, he, he said in the debate,

00:12:59.940 which I think he performed quite well in with Warnock, this came up and he's like, yeah,

00:13:03.540 Trump lost. That's why I'm running, which I think is a really good answer. But then there

00:13:06.840 were deniers like Mastriano who got murdered in Pennsylvania and helped defeat Oz. And then

00:13:12.360 there's a real denier like Lake, you know, who still might win and overperformed, you know,

00:13:16.100 what you would have thought after she got nominated. But I just think all these people,

00:13:20.460 there's a reason to be unsettled about them. And the election was more, again, I can't prove any of

00:13:26.480 this to you with, with the data, but it was usually a midterm where the other side is going to get

00:13:31.280 well, the incumbent party, it's just a pure referendum on them and on their president.

00:13:36.980 And this was something more on the order of a choice and, and what they were choosing from a lot

00:13:42.980 of voters and perhaps especially independence was Biden, who we don't like, but Trump,

00:13:49.000 a Trump Republican party, which we also don't like. And then, Hey, Mark Kelly's a, you know,

00:13:53.820 an interesting guy with compelling personal story and, and Hey, you know, John Fetterman,

00:13:58.920 he'll, he'll be okay. He's not, he's not great, but this, this, uh, we have a weirdo at the top of

00:14:02.920 the ticket. And then a guy who lives in New Jersey, uh, in the slap for the Senate. So that, that's,

00:14:08.100 that's my guess. And I do, you know, coming around to Trump, I just, he, he almost invariably chose

00:14:13.160 the weakest candidate. And if you're, I thought there was going to be a wave and that wouldn't matter so

00:14:18.140 much because it would cover the, uh, the flaws of these candidates. And it turns out it wasn't,

00:14:23.360 and you could go down the list.

00:14:25.640 Let me take you back to earlier in this process. Cause I listened to the editors and I read

00:14:30.260 everything on national review. So I've been listening to your, to your opinions, but if you

00:14:34.200 recall, it wasn't so long ago, let's say August, certainly, you know, certainly like late July,

00:14:38.800 early August, nobody believed that GOP was going to get the Senate. Nobody thought that it was like,

00:14:43.380 they're looking good for the house. They're going to retake the house after Dobbs. People weren't

00:14:48.080 like, yeah, the wind at the backs of the Republicans, all those good numbers from the

00:14:51.420 spring fell away. And the numbers looked really good for the Dems. And, and then everybody was

00:14:56.080 like, Oh, it'd be great if they could take the house. It wasn't until like September, mid September

00:15:00.160 that finally people were like, you know what? They're looking good for both houses. So I, it's not

00:15:05.660 really that shocking to me that things kind of settled back to where they had been immediately post Dobbs.

00:15:11.320 Well, this was, this is, this is why I think it is a little shocking. So you're absolutely right.

00:15:16.580 August Democrats have a great summer, particularly a good August. I still thought Republicans would

00:15:22.580 have a good chance of taking the Senate, but it was, it was quite uncertain. And, and the,

00:15:27.040 the confidence about the Senate didn't, didn't come around until that August effect faded away.

00:15:32.580 So, I mean, you had the initial Bidens in the tank, they're going to get killed. Then you have the

00:15:37.800 summer, wow, Democrats coming back. And then you had a snapback to what I thought was reality and

00:15:42.920 the fundamentals and the broader conditions, you know, which is the economy is even more

00:15:46.740 inflation or even more important in the polling than they were before. Cause gas prices are still

00:15:51.920 high and, and, you know, things are shaking. We could experience a recession and then crime is

00:15:56.480 ascendant as an issue and has overtaken abortion. Abortions faded a little bit and Democrats are

00:16:01.940 over committing on it. That, that, that was like September and October. And it just wasn't

00:16:07.500 Tuesday. Tuesday was more like August. So that's why it was such a huge surprise.

00:16:12.700 Well, on the subject of Trump, of course, he's interesting as ever. Can't say, take that away

00:16:17.520 from him. He was all over the news in August, as you know, the Mar-a-Lago raid, it dominated the

00:16:22.260 news for about three weeks and the Republicans numbers started to go down, you know, with these

00:16:27.320 independents and Democrats started to get a little bit more enthusiastic as they always do when he's in

00:16:30.960 the news. Republicans were mad. I think most Republicans, even the non Trump lovers were

00:16:35.680 like, this is BS. Like we're not in support of what's happening at Mar-a-Lago. Right. But in any

00:16:41.100 event, it seemed to be a net negative for the Republican party, but then he faded out of the

00:16:45.860 news in a very untrumpy like way. He was quiet in the news about him was quiet for about a month.

00:16:52.680 And I think that was to the Republicans advantage. And then he started getting a little loud again

00:16:56.940 and the Democrats got very loud about him. And we had, you know, Biden out there like democracies

00:17:04.240 on the ballot. And they they did sort of remember that it was better for them if they made it about

00:17:09.780 him. You know, if they tried to make the election about him, as you say, instead of a referendum on

00:17:13.900 Joe Biden. And he did seem to be in voters heads, the independents heads. If you look at the poll

00:17:18.960 numbers on Tuesday. Yep. He came back, you know, he had you right, you disappeared. Mar-a-Lago got so

00:17:26.120 complicated legally, you know, it was impossible for anyone to follow him anymore. Kind of faded.

00:17:31.380 Other things happened. Martha's Vineyard happened. You know, I think that was kind of the thing that

00:17:35.820 the big punctuation mark on the Mar-a-Lago news cycle. And then DeSantis says the migrant thing and

00:17:41.580 it just shifts and we've all forgotten about Mar-a-Lago. And then he comes back, you know, you can't

00:17:46.420 blame him for doing rallies. But I think that the teasing the presidential run and actually

00:17:53.220 having, you know, Hannity the other night, Friday night, I forget, all runs together, you know,

00:17:57.940 thought he was literally going to announce or maybe it wasn't over the weekend because it

00:18:01.300 wouldn't have been on. But Friday or something, he's like, he's going to announce, right? There's

00:18:05.020 going to be a big announcement at this rally. I forget where it was in Pennsylvania. And it was only

00:18:08.680 an announcement that he's going to have an announcement, you know, next Tuesday, supposedly.

00:18:12.240 But that wasn't helpful. Where I think Trump is most blameworthy is just the candidate selection.

00:18:18.480 And you can go almost all these states that are close, like Arizona, Branovich, the attorney

00:18:23.400 general, if he would have won the nomination, he probably would have won. McCormick in Pennsylvania,

00:18:28.620 if he'd beaten Oz, and that was like a 0.1% race, he would have beaten Fetterman. A congressman

00:18:35.380 would have beaten Warnock rather than Herschel. So Trump has his fingerprints all over the poor.

00:18:42.020 Candidate selection, I think. Okay. Let me read to you from this piece today that was,

00:18:47.080 it's by Seamus Brennan. And it's called The Absurdity of the Blame Trump Campaign. It was

00:18:54.100 linked on Real Clear this morning. And he, the piece is entitled The Absurdity of the Blame

00:18:58.900 Trump Campaign. And it's interesting to read, you know, an alternate viewpoint. Well, here's what he

00:19:03.000 says. Many Trump candidates, including J.D. Vance, Ted Budd in North Carolina, and almost certainly

00:19:07.720 Carrie Lake and Adam Laxalt, potentially Blake Masters, and possibly after the runoff, Herschel

00:19:13.240 Walker will have won their races in highly competitive swing stakes, despite most of them

00:19:18.720 being outspent by tens of millions of dollars. Where Republican candidates faltered, it was not

00:19:24.520 just those who were chosen by Trump. Numerous strong House candidates handpicked by Kevin McCarthy lost

00:19:29.240 races that the consultant class had expected them to win, including Yesli Vega running against Abigail

00:19:34.200 Spanberger in Virginia, Rhode Island Republican, Alan Fung, Myra Flores, Cassie Garcia on the Texas

00:19:39.460 border, and many others. And then goes on to point this out, that Trump did not actually

00:19:48.180 endorse some of these candidates until they had already announced. He says Trump's endorsement of

00:19:56.100 Doug Mastriano, the disastrous gubernatorial candidate for the GOP in Pennsylvania,

00:20:00.000 did not come until Mastriano had the nomination already all but secured. He didn't really push

00:20:06.180 Mastriano on Pennsylvania primary voters. The same was true in New Hampshire, where Trump did not

00:20:11.140 endorse Don Bolduc until after he had already won the primary. So that's the other side, right? Are we

00:20:18.060 being too hard on Trump? Yeah, I think that there's fair and sound points in that. Look, I mean,

00:20:25.940 it was a disappointment up and down the ballot. Democrats did really well in state legislatures,

00:20:30.580 right? Or we didn't see any of these MAGA versus non-MAGA fights. But the folks who are at the top

00:20:37.160 of the ticket matter. And where Trump could choose, he chose poorly. And J.D., I think, is a bit of an

00:20:46.120 exception, because he was the MAGA candidate who really wanted Trump's endorsement, who was actually

00:20:52.080 the best candidate in that field, at least among the other potential alternatives. Josh Mandel

00:20:59.640 was just terrible, just absolutely terrible. And then there was a businessman who was briefly

00:21:05.720 running ahead, who was also terrible. And if you look at the debate, you think, oh, J.D.'s the normal

00:21:12.340 one, you know, because he's good. He's rational. He knows what he's talking about. So that was an

00:21:17.260 exception. But it's true. The other thing is, if I can just spend one second on J.D., like I've spent

00:21:22.340 a lot of time with him. I did a long piece on him for NBC. I interviewed all his family members,

00:21:26.460 was out there with him in Ohio, he and his wife and so on. His story is so compelling.

00:21:32.940 Hillbilly Elegy is a must read. It will it will break your heart. It will make you cry. It will make

00:21:38.540 you stand and cheer for him. The amount of stuff that that guy's overcome in his life to wind up at Yale

00:21:44.180 law school to wind up working for Peter Thiel to go back to Ohio, back to his home, try to help his

00:21:49.040 local community. I know he had to say Trumpy like things to get the, you know, the primary through

00:21:53.920 the primary and so on. But like my impression way over here is J.D. Vance is a good man. He's had a

00:22:00.040 lot of struggles in his life and he did what he needed to do to get elected. And I only needed some

00:22:04.480 people. But I think anybody who spends a long time looking at J.D. Vance sees a good person. I really do.

00:22:09.740 Yeah. So this, this is what I want to pick up on from, from that poll thread is he did what he

00:22:18.440 needed to do to win that nomination. And I have a lot of time for that. I mean, you're an ambitious

00:22:23.260 person. You think there's a good reason for you to be in the Senate. You're going to do good things

00:22:26.640 with it. And Donald Trump, you know, the endorsement of one man can make the difference

00:22:30.320 whether you're there or not. You're going to try to get the endorsement of that one man. Right. And

00:22:33.800 almost everyone tried to do it. Right. Even the more non-mega candidates like, you know,

00:22:37.780 Pennsylvania, David McCormick was trying to get it. But this is where I think the biggest problem

00:22:42.280 comes with, with Trump. And it's certainly true is that, that piece picked up by RCP notes, you

00:22:47.460 know, Mastriano was going to win one way or the other. Baldick was going to win one way or the

00:22:50.500 other. And Trump kind of came in, was, was getting on the train late, but he created this environment

00:22:55.120 where, um, uh, people are really ginned up about the election, um, where it stopped the steal is

00:23:02.260 sort of, uh, a matter of, uh, um, whether you believe it or not makes you, you know,

00:23:07.560 a heretic if you don't believe it. Um, he, he did that. And if he hadn't told untruths about the

00:23:13.440 election, if you weren't obsessed about it, you'd have a primary electorate that was less of those

00:23:17.920 things as well. So he's, he's created, I think, an unhealthy environment for the party in general.

00:23:24.900 I heard you talking about a step before that. And I've read this elsewhere too, where in a,

00:23:30.840 in a way, Trump kind of chased a lot of, I don't know what you're going to call them normal

00:23:35.380 Republicans. They're not really establishment or whatever mainstream Republicans out of running

00:23:40.180 in the, in the first place. Like there were some obvious next choices for Senate in places like

00:23:47.880 Pennsylvania, like Arizona, like Georgia. And a lot of these like really beloved

00:23:54.880 Republicans who could have run. We're like, I'm out of here. I'm not doing it. I know I'm not ready

00:23:59.720 to kiss the ring. And I know exactly what that's going to mean for me. Yeah. So like a great example,

00:24:05.620 Doug Ducey in Arizona, successful two-term governor, one, one by double digits is his reelection would

00:24:11.520 have won in the Senate in a run. I mean, it wouldn't even be an issue. You could put that one in the

00:24:16.740 Republican column and didn't run because he's, um, he's been governor. He's not going to grovel in front of,

00:24:23.380 you know, to Trump. In fact, you know, he had this contention with Trump over, uh, certifying

00:24:27.600 the election. So it's just not going to do it. It's just not. So, so your first tier guy,

00:24:31.880 he's not even consideration. So then you get, get an argument over second tier guys, you know,

00:24:36.020 is Branovich better or Blake Masters better? I'd argue Branovich is better. So I would kind of

00:24:40.340 characterize Masters as, as the third tier in that race. And that's the guy that Trump puts over the top.

00:24:45.700 Um, and, and that, that was true in a lot of other states, Pat Toomey, you know, he'd been,

00:24:51.160 he's been in Congress and the Senate for a while now, maybe just time for him to do something else.

00:24:56.200 Personally, he would have left regardless, you know, but he had counties in Pennsylvania,

00:25:00.420 um, Republican County groups denouncing him, you know, in resolutions. Um, if he had any inkling that

00:25:06.140 he's going to run again, he had to worry about whether he's going to win a, win a nomination. And,

00:25:09.800 and again, he just wouldn't have been an issue. I mean, he would have had a five point race or

00:25:14.040 something. Um, but he would have stopped Fetterman. So again, I just think Trump, he,

00:25:19.240 he won in 2016 against a lot of expectations, including mine. He did a lot of good things,

00:25:23.940 three Supreme court justices, other things. Then he lost a winnable race in, in 2022. And then,

00:25:30.260 and then he took the party down a rabbit hole, um, that led nowhere, led to lots of futility,

00:25:36.380 led to actual bloodshed, bloodshed on January 6th. And it's just time for the party should just say,

00:25:42.000 they don't need to be a never Trumper. They don't need to, you know, have my view of them.

00:25:45.780 They just say, no, thanks, sir. You know, you did a lot. We appreciate it. Now we're going to build

00:25:49.700 on what you did, you know, with, with someone else that would seem to me, you know, the rational

00:25:54.100 alternative. It seemed to me. So since November, 2020, but you know, uh, I I've been wrong a lot

00:26:00.900 and things that I thought may make sense, turned out not to make sense, not to happen. So we'll see.

00:26:05.840 Well, it really is. It's like you fall into a relationship with somebody, you get married,

00:26:09.760 you actually have kids and then things get really toxic and you realize this is no longer good for

00:26:13.620 me. It doesn't mean it wasn't good. You know, you've got your three beautiful children. You're

00:26:17.700 not sorry about the union and how well it worked out, but in many relationships, there comes a

00:26:22.920 time when you realize it really is time to move on. And that's what a lot of the Republican party

00:26:26.340 is saying. Now, even, even party faithful to Donald Trump are saying that, can we talk for a minute

00:26:30.640 about McConnell? Because some of Trump's defenders, again, we're going to have one on the program in

00:26:35.220 just a little bit. Rick Grinnell, who I love. Um, but a lot of Trump's defenders are like,

00:26:39.240 can you, we just stop blaming Trump who, who worked very hard to get a lot of these people

00:26:43.820 elected who know he did not tap into his hundred million dollar war chest, but he raised a ton of

00:26:48.480 money for the candidates who ran and won, uh, this past cycle. And he did tons of rallies and he gave

00:26:54.440 of himself and he's not a young man and he was out there working it. And Mitch McConnell sat over

00:26:59.540 there in the Senate and rather than being helpful to a lot of these people just was like, ugh,

00:27:04.420 candidate quality. And they felt that undermined candidates like Blake, uh, masters and, uh,

00:27:10.100 maybe JD Vance too. And, you know, we could go down the list, Oz in Pennsylvania. And that he also

00:27:15.260 spent $9 million, uh, in Alaska where Lisa Murkowski didn't get the Republican primary nomination. So she

00:27:23.280 ran, she ran it as an independent and, uh, they, the more Trumpy Republican running out there was

00:27:29.600 not to McConnell's liking. So he spent all this money to help get, uh, Lisa Murkowski reelected

00:27:34.620 who, you know, Trump, Trump fans might call her a rhino. Um, I mean, she's obviously much more of a

00:27:40.660 squish than like a Ted Cruz. Uh, and they're mad. Like they're saying, why don't you spend that money

00:27:45.500 on Blake masters or on, on Adam Laxelle, you know, races that we knew this, the whole thing was

00:27:51.340 going to come down to. Yeah. So no one's judgment is flawless and, you know, McConnell, the, the,

00:27:57.480 the, uh, problem there overly conventional, right. And, uh, overly concerned with protecting

00:28:03.160 incumbents, no matter what, you know, that counts for the million spent on Lisa Murkowski. But that

00:28:09.060 said, I mean, he, he raised, I think it's, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, literally it

00:28:14.120 might, might be the most money raised by any person or entity in a, in a midterm ever, I believe.

00:28:20.240 And there's some choices that I wondered about at the time. I was told about an internal poll that

00:28:24.760 had bold that turned out, turns out it was a BS poll, but that had bold that down like two, you

00:28:29.120 know, two weeks before the election. And the very same day, McConnell's SLF, his group pulled out of

00:28:34.180 New Hampshire. Why are they doing that? You know, is it just out of spite? Is it just a bad judgment?

00:28:39.100 Turned out it was the right call, right? Cause they weren't going to win New Hampshire. And that

00:28:42.660 was plowed into Pennsylvania where it was close. How do you know? Maybe if you take that 9 million that he

00:28:48.360 gave in the Alaska race and gave it to Bolduc, New Hampshire would have been tighter or he would

00:28:52.600 have won.

00:28:53.200 Yeah. I mean, I just don't think nothing was saving Bolduc if he was losing by 10. Blake Masters

00:28:58.940 might, might've been more spite, you know, cause JD was critical of the establishment, but then,

00:29:04.800 you know, took called Mitch McConnell, talked to Mitch McConnell. Masters didn't play that game.

00:29:09.860 So I think you can, you can say that was spiteful. Um, they, they still should have been in Arizona,

00:29:16.060 but you know, they still spent massive money on all of these candidates, including JD. You know,

00:29:22.640 I don't know what the SLF contribution specifically was in Ohio, but there's $30 million spent on JD's

00:29:28.640 behalf from the established, from establishment type groups that he was, was excoriating. Um, and, uh,

00:29:35.140 if, if, if JD had been stronger at the outset, you could spend that money, you know, maybe spend

00:29:40.020 some of that on, on Bolduc, but they, they needed the, the way, the way, like a establishment

00:29:45.380 figure like McConnell thinks we want certainty for a majority. That's what we want. If we're

00:29:50.800 going to spend a hundred million dollars and know that we, uh, can get 51, we're going to do that

00:29:57.220 rather than raising, you know, 140 million sprinkling around on kind of stretch seats. So that, that

00:30:03.100 mindset could be flawed. It's not necessarily right in every circumstance, but that's, that's

00:30:06.680 what they're thinking. Um, so yeah, you can, you can ding McConnell on various things, but I, I don't,

00:30:12.260 in terms of the overall environment that hurt Republicans, Trump, although not wholly responsible

00:30:17.120 for it by any means, he's certainly might be more responsible for it than McConnell was.

00:30:22.400 The independents, uh, who were not absolutely a hundred percent disgusted with Biden. The ones who

00:30:29.000 were like, I'm mildly displeased with that guy voted for Republicans. Um, and, but they didn't

00:30:34.800 vote for the Trump Republicans. And that's, I'll get to that in a minute, but that was a, that was a

00:30:38.420 critical problem for the GOP. They needed to get the, all the people who were dissatisfied with Biden

00:30:43.060 to vote Republican up and down the line. And those were the ticket splitters who were like, nope,

00:30:47.700 I'll go for like the ones who seem normal to me, but the ones who were Trump adjacent,

00:30:51.720 that's a bridge too far. Stand by more with Rich Lowry right after this. Don't go away.

00:30:59.000 Let's talk about Trump and DeSantis and the Trump tweets that are coming out. Like I can't even

00:31:06.900 keep track of them. They're coming out so fast and furiously right now. Like he's on a, I call it a

00:31:12.100 tweet, but it's a, it's a quote truth. It's a truth. Uh, he can't stop himself. I'm trying to get

00:31:17.320 him in front of me. I don't know where they went, but he's first, he's going off on the Murdochs and

00:31:21.220 Murdoch owned companies. I'll just give you a flavor. I know you've heard it, but our audience may not

00:31:25.000 have news corp, which is Fox, the wall street journal, and the no longer great in here post.

00:31:29.000 Is all in for governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average Republican governor with great public

00:31:34.040 relations who didn't have to close up his state, but did unlike other Republican governors,

00:31:38.160 whose overall numbers for a Republican were just average middle of the pack,

00:31:41.560 including COVID and who has the advantage of sunshine where people from badly run states

00:31:45.580 up North would go no matter who the governor was, just like I did. Then a long paragraph,

00:31:50.120 which I'll spare you, but it's basically saying that Ron came to him and bent the knee

00:31:53.580 to get Trump's help. And when he was running for Congress in 2017, um, he was politically dead,

00:31:59.980 losing in a landscape to a very good agriculture commissioner, Adam Putnam, who was loaded with

00:32:03.700 cash and great poll numbers. Ron had low approval, bad polls and no money, but he said, if I would

00:32:08.340 endorse him, he could win. Then goes on to explain how that's exactly what happened. And then I fixed

00:32:13.540 his campaign, uh, when he was running for governor, which had completely fallen apart. I stopped his

00:32:19.940 election from being stolen. And now, and now Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games. The fake news

00:32:26.360 asks him if he's going to run if president Trump runs. And he says, I'm only focused on the governor's

00:32:30.640 race. I'm not looking into the future. Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that's not really the

00:32:35.800 right answer. That's kind of amusing. I've got to give him points for being amusing. Um, and then

00:32:41.580 basically just says, you know, make America great again. Me, me, me, me, me. So far as we know,

00:32:45.920 he's going full steam ahead with his announcement on Tuesday, right? Tuesday, the fifth is Tuesday,

00:32:51.400 the 15th. Yeah. Tuesday, the 15th, which knowing Trump, maybe it's not even an election announcement.

00:32:56.660 Maybe it's just some big tease about how he's going to do another benefit for veterans or something. I

00:33:00.320 have no idea. He hasn't specifically said what this, what the topic is, but what are we to make

00:33:06.720 of the nonstop tweeting? He attacked Governor Youngkin as well today. He said his name sounds

00:33:12.720 Chinese. I mean, I can't, that happened. That one was bizarre. I don't know whether it was a typo

00:33:18.520 where, you know, your phone fixes something and it came out young space kin. And then he's like,

00:33:23.940 oh, that's funny. I'll make a Chinese joke or whether he did it deliberately. Who knows? So he's

00:33:29.860 obviously, you know, not in a great state. He's, he's angry. Um, the, the, the truth about DeSantis

00:33:37.060 is both obviously a warning that, uh, Trump will do everything possible to destroy him if he gets in

00:33:45.440 the race and will throw out, you know, as, as, as Trump's want, and that's worked for him over the

00:33:51.340 years, just tons of allegations, some of which fabricated. I mean, the idea he sent the FBI down

00:33:57.480 to stop, uh, the election from being sold from DeSantis is crazy, but DeSantis eventually,

00:34:03.760 you know, have to address it. I mean, he doesn't have to address it now. I just say, well, I need

00:34:06.980 to be inaugurated. I'm focused on, um, you know, our, our agenda and the next term of the legislature,

00:34:12.800 next session of the legislature or whatever. But eventually if he gets in, this is what it'll be.

00:34:17.440 It'd be a hail of fist, uh, from Trump and he'll, he'll, uh, have to figure out how to deal with it.

00:34:23.740 But it, it's at the same time as the warning of what's to come, it's also a sign of weakness,

00:34:28.940 right? This is not, this is someone who's afraid, right? Um, and, and, and is, is eager to keep

00:34:35.020 DeSantis out because he's afraid it will happen clearly if he gets in. And at this juncture in

00:34:41.280 nomination battles, very often everything we think is wrong, right? We think, oh, it's going to be

00:34:44.900 Trump, DeSantis, you know, who knows? It ended up being young, young and Pompeo for all we know,

00:34:49.440 but, but, um, DeSantis, his stature in the party grew a huge way on Tuesday night, you know,

00:34:57.220 winning by 20 points was amazing enough. And to do it when everyone else is, is, uh, losing,

00:35:02.380 just puts it in stark relief. I was talking to a Republican Senator, um, the same one who was

00:35:07.520 trying to convince me about Nevada and just saying his state clearly, if you took a poll now, DeSantis

00:35:11.360 for 2024, DeSantis would be 20 points higher than he was on Monday. Uh, so Trump knows that Trump

00:35:16.420 feels, feels that, and he's trying to grapple with it. I mean, the thing about DeSantis is he

00:35:21.880 hasn't yet been really tested in the way we've seen Trump tested, right? He hasn't, we haven't

00:35:27.420 seen him in a big debate stage. I mean, it's Charlie Crist, please. I mean, my plant could beat him in a

00:35:32.120 debate. Um, so, you know, I feel like DeSantis is far less tested than Trump has been in terms of,

00:35:40.140 you know, what you're getting when you get Donald Trump. So I don't know, like, I don't know what to

00:35:44.080 expect. I don't know DeSantis enough. I have to be honest. Like, I feel a little uncomfortable with

00:35:48.360 how sycophantic everyone in the right wing is sounding about him. Cause can we like just wait

00:35:53.600 and let him, you know, like my God, even the press is like sending out their selfies of their picture

00:36:00.860 with him. I'm like, could you just at least pretend that there's an arm's length there? I just,

00:36:04.400 it's making me a little uncomfortable. Yeah. I, I, I just literally, as I was, uh, I flew down to

00:36:11.740 Florida today just cause of the sunshine, nothing to do with just the sunshine. But, uh, I checked

00:36:17.500 my email. I got playing an old gray beard has been around national review for decades email.

00:36:22.120 And he's like, Trump, you know, what he's done is unforgivable, but counseling you rich don't

00:36:27.640 jump all in and DeSantis yet. Let it play out. And so I, it's exactly the same point. Just the jump

00:36:33.240 from, even though DeSantis has a major national profile now, the jump from performing on a state

00:36:37.900 stage to a national stage is huge, is huge. And performing is you underline that word, right?

00:36:44.000 Trump won in 16. Cause he was such a fantastic performer, Obama, same thing, you know, a performer,

00:36:51.680 you know, you need to light people up. The only exception is Biden. And that was unusual circumstances.

00:36:57.840 Otherwise you need that. Yeah. You need the charisma and DeSantis is naturally introverted man.

00:37:04.740 And, um, uh, you know, he's obviously succeeded, succeeded hugely despite that, which is not a natural

00:37:11.640 quality, uh, quality for a politician, but it'll be tested. It'll be tested in a way. It just does

00:37:16.820 it to everyone. The presidential politics, the pressure cooker, it exposes you and whatever his

00:37:22.340 flaws are. And he has, has some that we're aware of some we're not aware of. We will learn. That's,

00:37:27.780 that's the way it always works. This is the debate we've been having on an ongoing basis,

00:37:32.000 uh, on whether DeSantis or any other man or woman can get past the 800 pound gorilla,

00:37:36.820 you know, can, if the gorilla says I'm in on Tuesday, see if you can get by me,

00:37:43.900 can anyone, and let's say DeSantis does, let's say there are enough angry MAGA core faithful out

00:37:51.620 there. Like, you know, I love Trump, but I like winning more. And I think DeSantis is going to get

00:37:56.520 us, you know, to the promised land. Aren't there enough like Trump faithful,

00:38:02.000 who could be spoilers, who will ruin the whole thing?

00:38:06.560 These are big questions. So I, I've, I've tended, you know, followed what you've said about, um,

00:38:12.240 Trump's strength in the primary and I tended to agree with it, but I think now, you know, he's,

00:38:16.860 he's, he's less of a gorilla and more than an orangutan. Orangutan are still big creatures.

00:38:22.300 They have enormous strong arms. They can hurt you. You don't want to get in a fight with an orangutan,

00:38:25.860 but it's a little less formidable than, than a gorilla. So I think Trump is diminished. Um,

00:38:31.500 at least for now, I thought he's been diminished before and he's always bounced right back. So

00:38:34.960 maybe he bounced right back after this one too, but I, this does feel, um, feel, feel different.

00:38:40.960 So, but I don't discount Trump at all. And we've heard from the elites, you know, we've heard some

00:38:45.680 from penny makers. We've heard from some, from some more elected politicians than I, I would have

00:38:49.600 thought of when some seers down in a lieutenant governor in Virginia said, you know, just the other

00:38:54.640 day, she's not going to support him. Um, but we haven't heard from the voters yet. We haven't

00:38:58.520 even seen polling and they're the, they're the ones who drove the Trump phenomenon fundamentally

00:39:03.340 in 16. They're the ones that have made every single Republican afraid of Trump. It's not Trump

00:39:08.340 so much, although obviously as we're seeing with the census, he'll throw anything at you,

00:39:11.860 but it's, it's the fear of what the voters will do to you if you're on the wrong side of Trump.

00:39:16.380 And that, that feels fear still there for understandable reasons. So we don't know how the voters

00:39:20.820 are processing all this. Yeah. We're taking calls every day and it's obviously just

00:39:24.620 very anecdotal, but it's fascinating to listen to even Trump diehards calling in saying I'm ready

00:39:29.840 for new blood and I'm mad about what was done in, in the, this election, but then also Trump faithful

00:39:35.460 saying it's not DeSantis' turn. You know, it's just not his turn. He needs to wait. The only reason he

00:39:40.340 exists politically is because of Trump and kind of agreeing with Trump, you know, that's kind of rude

00:39:44.660 or however he put it in that piece. It's not the night that is not the right answer as Trump said.

00:39:49.440 Mm-hmm. Right.

00:39:53.340 Let's switch over to Biden for a minute because, um, he gave another press conference the other day.

00:40:00.100 I mean, it was just like, he was flubbing his words. He was saying that, uh, that, that the

00:40:04.120 Russians were pulling out of Fallujah. No, no. Um, okay, fine. He's our president. We also have, uh,

00:40:12.640 Senator Fetterman just in case, in case you were keeping track. Oh, here's a moment of levity. This is

00:40:16.780 what we need right now, Rich, before you go on your cruise. I'll tell the viewers about that in a

00:40:19.860 second. Kamala Harris reacts to the big win as follows. Saw three.

00:40:27.640 You did it, Joe.

00:40:35.720 Couldn't help myself.

00:40:37.780 Oh my God. Good luck with that, Democrats. Good luck with that. Because I know that everybody's like,

00:40:43.800 okay, now Joe Biden is not going to withdraw. Now he's got a runway for a second election here as

00:40:49.180 president, but really, cause he's not getting any younger and the word search and all that's not

00:40:55.820 getting any better. And that's, what's waiting in the wings. Yeah. Look, I think his, his, uh, desire to

00:41:05.260 do it has gone up. Right. Um, he dodged a bullet. He's exhilarated, but the fundamentals are still

00:41:13.280 there. It would, it would be so reckless just for their own political purposes for Democrats to

00:41:19.220 nominate him, I believe. Now, part of it, they're looking at Kamala. Okay. Maybe, maybe Joe's looking

00:41:24.320 more vigorous than we thought, but he could have a terrible fall or something in the midst of a general

00:41:30.960 election campaign. He could die in the midst of a general election campaign. And then the idea that

00:41:36.740 he's going to do this president of the United States until age 86, it's crazy. It's crazy.

00:41:42.220 And it would be terrible for the country, terrible for Joe and his family, but terrible for the country

00:41:46.520 if something happens to him, you know, we have a president die in office. It's, it's just, it's wrong.

00:41:52.740 He shouldn't do it. I still believe my, my odds of him running have gone up after Tuesday night.

00:41:58.520 Cause I thought, you know, if they got shellacked Wednesday morning, everyone would be saying,

00:42:01.660 you know what I mean? Every Democrat, you know what I mean? It just looks so great. Maybe it's

00:42:04.960 time for, for new blood. They're not saying that now, but, but he's still a really old guy.

00:42:10.080 And I just think when, when they sit down, Jill and Joe and whoever else is really in the circle,

00:42:16.400 they're going to say, this is not, you're not up for it. You shouldn't do it. That's still my belief,

00:42:21.720 but we'll see.

00:42:23.200 I mean, it gets more precarious every day. I realize politically he's been shorn up,

00:42:26.700 but again, cognitively he hasn't. Here's just an example of what we saw the other day. SOT 8.

00:42:32.380 You know, I just, I just found it interesting that, uh, Biden's being a pop of a pop of a pop of

00:42:38.680 Biden's being extremist.

00:42:41.160 Oh God. There were a couple of moments there where you can see the interpreter,

00:42:44.460 like the sign language woman on the side frozen. Like I got nothing. Anyone, anyone that's going to

00:42:50.460 be the next four years if he gets reelected.

00:42:51.980 Yeah. And, and we talked about this before you're, you're ahead of the curve being willing to,

00:42:57.020 to talk about this. Um, forgetting is not forgetting names, stumbling on your words,

00:43:03.540 bad age, not concerning. It's the confusion. It's the confusion. And I would say the gate,

00:43:09.900 the way he walks that, that are really concerning and assign some, something else is going on besides

00:43:15.260 just aging. Who knows? You know, we, we should resist, um, uh, diagnosis from,

00:43:20.300 from afar, but not knowing, you know, Congressman passed away, confusing how his own son, you know,

00:43:27.180 searing experience, right. It's not something you mess up. Uh, how, how his son, how, how and where

00:43:32.620 his son passed away. That was a really bad side.

00:43:35.780 Saying he got this student loan quote, forgiveness passed by two votes, something he did by executive

00:43:42.340 fiat, which never was subjected to a vote. And by the way, it's just been overturned by a court

00:43:46.080 like that. That's something you really should remember. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And again, it's, it's,

00:43:53.200 that's just confusion. Well, what about the Democrats? Cause one of the things he was asked

00:43:57.580 was, what are you going to do differently? I understand you had a good day, but 70% of the

00:44:01.340 country is unhappy with the direction and many, the vast majority are angry over the situation they've

00:44:07.000 been placed in economically. So, um, what, what are you going to do differently? And he literally said nothing.

00:44:12.340 Nothing. You're just going to sit back and enjoy the effects of my policies thus far. And then

00:44:15.860 you're all going to come over. So, I mean, if that's true, what does that portend for 2024?

00:44:23.380 Yeah. I mean, they're really the, um, we were talking about this the other day on our podcast,

00:44:29.360 the editors potentially, I mean, this is a big disappointment for Republicans. It's a shame to

00:44:34.740 leave seats on the table, but Republicans take a lesson that we need to be serious about governing.

00:44:39.220 We need to have an agenda. We need to be more normal. I don't necessarily like, like that,

00:44:43.860 that word, but seem less threatening to, uh, uh, and less unsteady to voters. If Republicans really

00:44:49.900 take that lesson on board and act on it, you know, that something would have got good would have come

00:44:54.720 from this, this disappointment. Whereas the Democrats who are deeply unpopular and sort of

00:45:00.180 threaded the needle and managed to, to, to, uh, dodge a bullet this time are going to learn nothing

00:45:04.800 from it. And, and, uh, even if it had been a shellacking, I'm not sure what they would have

00:45:08.440 learned from it. They're so fixed now and their ideological beliefs on, on the border. I mean,

00:45:13.580 they basically just believe in anyone who's an asylum seeker, no matter how bogus should be able to

00:45:18.640 come to the country and stay. Right. I mean, that, that, that's what they believe. Um, the, uh,

00:45:23.360 climate, you know, it's a climate emergency. So it doesn't matter what, how high gas prices are,

00:45:28.300 you know, we'll kind of flail around a little bit with strategic reserve and lobbying size,

00:45:32.080 but otherwise we're not, we're not doing any of our own, uh, drilling. They're not going to change

00:45:36.220 on that. And they're, you know, he'll be forced to change somewhat if Republicans take the house

00:45:40.320 on spending, but they're, they're just dead set on that. And they'll be probably be woker in 24 than

00:45:46.360 they are now, just cause that's natural progression. And they've learned. Even though the exit poll

00:45:51.700 showed 50% of the voters said, we do not like the direction we are going on this trans education,

00:45:57.260 sort of social, uh, engineering stuff. And only 22% said we're, we like the direction. So

00:46:03.520 ignore them too at your own peril. I got to run rich. You're going on the national review cruise.

00:46:10.240 That's a tough ticket to get. I, I, uh, one of these years I'll join you guys and it'll be super fun.

00:46:14.940 Thanks Megan. All right. Enjoy the Caribbean. Uh, coming up one bright spot for the GOP,

00:46:20.620 Mike Lawler, the guy who knocked out the head of the democratic congressional campaign committee.

00:46:25.840 That guy was so worried about getting other Democrats elected. He forgot to think of himself

00:46:30.040 while the new Republican congressman from Rockland County is here next.

00:46:37.760 In one of the biggest victories for the Republicans this week, New York state assemblyman,

00:46:43.520 Mike Lawler, unseated democratic congressional campaign committee chairman, Sean Patrick Maloney.

00:46:49.080 Mike joins me now. And by the way, later, we're going to take your calls again. Please get on the line.

00:46:53.620 I'd love to hear from you on Trump, DeSantis, McConnell, and more. Who do you think is to

00:46:58.380 blame for the disappointing results compared to what people were expecting? If the GOP wins the

00:47:03.840 house, and certainly if they managed to eke out the Senate, it will be considered a victory by most

00:47:08.180 on team red, but I'd love to know your thoughts. So call me eight, three, three, four, four M E G Y N.

00:47:13.280 That's eight, three, three, four, four, six, three, four, nine, six. Congressman Mike Lawler. Welcome.

00:47:20.700 Thanks for having me, Megan. How are you?

00:47:22.700 Yes. Congressman elect. I'm great. I'm great. I'm so happy for you because I love Rockland County.

00:47:29.220 I come from a long line of people from Rockland County. My Nana was raised in Rockland County.

00:47:34.560 She lived in Tapan. I know you're in Pearl rivers right there. We used to go all the time.

00:47:38.820 I went to Piermont every summer growing up. Um, and so, you know, had I remained in that region,

00:47:44.500 you would be my new Congressman. That's it. It's a, it's a great community. Uh, I've born and

00:47:49.880 raised here. My family's been here over a hundred years. Uh, I love Rockland County. It's a, it's a

00:47:54.940 great place. So what do you do in turning it red? How, how did you achieve the unachievable in New York

00:48:00.200 state? Well, I think there were a number of factors here. Uh, first and foremost, the redistricting process

00:48:06.240 itself, uh, back in January of this year, Sean Patrick Maloney and his role as chair of the D triple

00:48:12.080 C sent a memo to state Democrats demanding that they gerrymander New York's congressional districts.

00:48:18.460 Uh, and they did. And ultimately a Democrat appointed court of appeals, uh, ruled that it was

00:48:25.100 unconstitutional and gerrymandered and threw them out and then appointed a special master who drew a

00:48:31.040 fair set of maps. And as we saw on Tuesday, we picked up four seats, uh, bringing our total to

00:48:37.200 11 Republicans, uh, going down to Washington come January. So I think redistricting, uh, played a

00:48:44.800 major factor on top of that. When the new map came out, Sean Patrick Maloney, uh, decided rather than

00:48:52.800 running in the 18th, which he currently represents that he would run in the 17th, uh, in part because

00:48:59.680 he lives in Putnam County and Putnam County got brought into the 17th. The problem was 75% of his

00:49:06.920 current district, uh, is in the newly drawn 18th. So he only represented about 25% of the newly drawn

00:49:15.620 17th district. And he pushed Mondaire Jones, the first openly gay black man out of Congress to do it.

00:49:22.880 And I think that did not go over well, uh, with many Democrats and progressives, uh, in the district.

00:49:29.680 And I was coming out of Rockland, which is 42% of the newly drawn district. So I had a, a pretty,

00:49:37.700 you know, good base of support in Rockland County. Um, and I represent 20% of the district

00:49:45.220 in the state assembly currently. So he didn't have that kind of built in advantage on top of that.

00:49:51.120 Then you look at the issues and what was going on. Democrats control everything in Washington,

00:49:57.120 Albany, and New York city for the first time ever in our nation's history. And they created an absolute

00:50:03.140 mess of 41 year record high on inflation, surging crime, skyrocketing energy prices, a porous Southern

00:50:10.100 border, parents being labeled domestic terrorists for daring to ask questions about their children's

00:50:16.000 education. And I think voters across this district, especially, uh, were very frustrated and wanted to

00:50:22.980 see balance and common sense restored at every level of government. And so I think that played

00:50:29.120 a major role as well. And then finally, in his capacity as chair of the D triple C, frankly,

00:50:36.100 he wasn't paying attention to the district. Uh, he was gallivanting around the globe. He, he was raising

00:50:42.000 money in Paris and London and Geneva as recently as a month ago for Nancy Pelosi. Uh, while I was out

00:50:49.240 doing six, seven, eight events a day for six months and pounding the pavement, talking to voters. Uh,

00:50:56.220 and I think it paid dividends on election day. Hmm. Now what happened? Why didn't the, you know,

00:51:02.440 a lot of the Trump detractors say, if you were Trump adjacent, you got wiped out. Like if you were Trumpy,

00:51:07.940 you got wiped out. We've talked about in our first segment, how that may or may not be totally true.

00:51:12.300 Um, why, why, like, do you feel like that didn't affect you at all? And I don't know whether you

00:51:18.520 are Trump or Jason, I know you've said it's time for him to move on, but do you feel like you avoided

00:51:22.940 that? Uh, well, you know, uh, Maloney was tagging me as Maga Mike and too extreme for the Hudson Valley.

00:51:31.100 Uh, but anybody who's talked to me for five seconds realizes, uh, that's not how I am or who I am.

00:51:38.480 And, and I think, you know, for me, I won a two to one democratic district two years ago.

00:51:43.700 And I did that by going into every community, uh, talking to voters, regardless of their race,

00:51:50.160 their ethnicity, their gender, their religion, or their political persuasion. And I did the same

00:51:55.380 thing here. And I think for me that, uh, played, uh, well because voters were very upset about what

00:52:03.820 was going on. And it wasn't so much about being a Republican or a Democrat. Um, I ignored the

00:52:09.680 attacks that, that Maloney was, uh, you know, running against me. He was lying about my position

00:52:15.380 on abortion. He was lying about, uh, a number of things. And I just kept heavily focused on the

00:52:21.920 issues that voters were concerned about, which was primarily inflation, the costs of living and crime,

00:52:27.200 um, and just hammered away on it. And I think that obviously ultimately, uh, prevailed because

00:52:33.820 that's where voters were focused on. And I think part of this, as, as we move forward as a party,

00:52:39.420 um, candidate recruitment matters, uh, but also message discipline matters and not getting into,

00:52:46.580 uh, frankly, issues that voters either don't care about or are less likely to get their vote.

00:52:52.520 How big a factor do you think this so-called election denialism was in the national races?

00:52:59.020 Well, I think it, I think it hurts, uh, any candidate that's engaged in it because,

00:53:03.780 I mean, unfortunately it's just not based in reality. And, uh, you know, I, I was asked very,

00:53:10.160 uh, clearly, do, did Joe Biden win? And I said, yes. And was January 6th wrong? Yes. And I think,

00:53:18.460 you know, that immediately ended that conversation with anybody who had a concern because I was not

00:53:24.440 trying to hem and haw about it. Um, so, you know, I think as we move forward, we, we got to move beyond,

00:53:31.140 uh, some of this, this rhetoric. Um, there's no question when you, when you talk about election laws,

00:53:37.640 uh, you want to make sure they're fair. You want to make sure that they are enforced, uh, to the letter

00:53:43.120 of the law, but to, to just make blanket statements that the, uh, the election was

00:53:49.120 stolen or fraudulent, I don't think serves anyone well. Um, and I think for those that engaged in

00:53:55.180 that, uh, I think it backfires. So one more question on Trump, and then I want to talk about

00:54:00.120 Hochul. Uh, what do you think about him? I mean, he's clearly making an announcement next week.

00:54:06.060 That sounds like a presidential announcement. He's tweeting out or truthing out right now,

00:54:10.120 um, messages that he's the best candidate retweeting people who are saying he's the

00:54:14.260 one who should run. He should be the next president. I mean, very clearly he's in a lane

00:54:18.360 right now. Uh, should he run again? Look, he's going to make that decision and, uh, nobody else

00:54:25.720 is going to tell him, uh, whether he can or can't run, um, obviously. And, and ultimately,

00:54:31.140 uh, should he run? Voters are going to make the final determination, but I think, um, you know,

00:54:36.580 so many of the policies that he enacted, uh, are embraced by Republicans and, and he had a lot of

00:54:43.640 accomplishments during his administration. And I think what is unfortunate is that rather than focus

00:54:49.480 on those accomplishments and the record, uh, a lot of time has been squandered, uh, you know,

00:54:56.480 uh, talking about the past or talking about, uh, what is, uh, perceived slights. And, and,

00:55:02.680 and I just don't see how that serves, uh, him. Well, I don't see how it serves the country well

00:55:07.440 or the party well. And I, and I think should he run, he really should be focused on the future

00:55:13.100 and he should be focused on, uh, what he's going to do to fix the challenges, uh, that we're facing.

00:55:19.940 Uh, me personally, I would like to see new voices, uh, kind of step up. I think we have some, uh, great

00:55:26.920 rising stars in the party. Obviously governor DeSantis had a, a great night on Tuesday night,

00:55:32.480 um, but I think in, in any election, it's about the future. It's about what you can do, uh, to help

00:55:39.420 families and to help the voters, uh, address the challenges that they're facing. And, and that's

00:55:45.140 in large part why I won because I stayed so focused on that and didn't get caught up in some of the

00:55:51.100 Southern nonsense that goes on. Help us understand a lot of my mom friends in New York city who went

00:55:56.240 through the lockdowns and didn't have their children in school for over a year. And then finally they went

00:56:01.420 back to masks. I mean, long past the point where any, but any serious person thought that worked

00:56:06.100 and they're frustrated. And these are lifelong Democrats who voted red in this election. I'm

00:56:11.280 sure you know, a lot of these people, they don't understand how Kathy Hochul got reelected. They

00:56:17.260 don't understand why here we are on the Friday after the midterms and we're getting video of

00:56:22.360 governor Hochul with Randy Weingarten visiting Puerto Rico with a bunch of children behind them

00:56:29.420 still masked up. Hold on. I'll just show it to the YouTube audience here because it's,

00:56:34.620 it infuriates makes my blood boil. Here it is. Oh, they're having such a good time.

00:56:39.360 There she is clapping. And every child has got a mask on their face and she doesn't. And the other

00:56:46.760 adults don't either. And no one wanted to see this. No one wanted to see her laughing and cheering and

00:56:53.080 clapping with her without a mask on with the children still, it's not New York, but still,

00:56:57.340 but still masked up. It's so unnecessary. How, how'd she do that?

00:57:02.540 It's, it's really sad. Uh, she, she is one of the most incompetent people I've ever seen, uh,

00:57:08.780 in any elected position. Um, and obviously, you know, she walked into it because governor Cuomo

00:57:15.440 imploded, uh, because of all of his conduct and, uh, especially surrounding the nursing home,

00:57:20.860 uh, crisis here in New York. Uh, it's sad because Lee Zeldin, uh, really would have tackled the

00:57:27.460 challenges that New Yorkers were dealing with, which is primarily affordability, uh, and crime.

00:57:33.460 And she still refuses to do anything, uh, to address the scourge of crime in New York city.

00:57:40.860 Uh, the fact that she has not called us back for a special session to repeal cashless bail,

00:57:47.320 to, uh, ensure judges do have discretion to, uh, create a dangerousness standard speaks volumes to

00:57:55.420 what her priorities are. No, she would rather fly down to Puerto Rico and dance in the streets with

00:58:01.440 children being masked, uh, right next to her. Uh, it just shows you how out of touch she is,

00:58:06.960 how incompetent she is. Um, and unfortunately in New York city where they are most impacted by

00:58:14.880 these really bad policies, uh, they voted to reelect her once again. And it, and it's,

00:58:20.580 it's very frustrating. I, you know, I, I previously served as executive director of the state Republican

00:58:25.700 party. I ran Rob Astorino's campaign for governor in 2014 against Andrew Cuomo.

00:58:31.000 Uh, we were outspent seven to one and yet Rob defeated, uh, Cuomo 49 to 46 outside the city of

00:58:39.760 New York. Rob got 18% of the vote in New York city. Lee Zeldin got over 30% of the vote in New

00:58:46.720 York city. Um, and, and one, uh, the rest of the state, uh, pretty, pretty convincingly.

00:58:53.840 Unfortunately, uh, you know, a lot of Democrats came out in New York city and voted to continue this

00:59:00.580 disastrous, uh, set of policies that have really destroyed our state.

00:59:05.160 It's a very far left city and getting more far left by the second as people of reason move out

00:59:09.780 in droves and went 87% for Joe Biden in the presidential election. So the fact that Zeldin

00:59:15.040 got 30% really says something about how at least some people there are feeling. Meanwhile, in your

00:59:20.680 district, so you, this is an embarrassing loss for the Democrats. This one, it's embarrassing. Um,

00:59:26.720 this is a district that Biden won by 10 points in 2020 that now you just turned red and your opponent,

00:59:34.300 uh, Maloney is talking about his loss and he, I think was gracious and conceding you won fair and

00:59:40.500 square. Um, but kind of took a shot at AOC, which was interesting. He said, um, she's also a New York

00:59:47.460 Congresswoman. She represents a different district. She said, I didn't see, he said, I didn't see her one

00:59:53.080 minute of these midterms helping our house majority. She's an important voice in our politics,

00:59:57.640 but he continued, but when it comes to passing our agenda through the Congress or standing our

01:00:02.300 ground on the political battlefield, she was nowhere to be found. What do you make of that?

01:00:08.060 She's fought back saying he courted me for donations and swing races. And it was the first

01:00:12.620 thing I did this term over a quarter million for Dems this cycle. DCCC facilitated some, and now he

01:00:17.520 denies it. If he's not aware of my visit to CA and efforts we put in that's on him. And she goes on

01:00:23.680 as for him, not seeing me, perhaps it's because at a, as a party leader, he chose not to see or

01:00:28.260 value prominent members of his party for years. And she goes on, uh, listen, the, uh, the infighting

01:00:37.760 begins. Um, look at the end of the day, honestly, he has nobody to blame, but himself. I mean, he,

01:00:43.780 he, uh, was in part responsible for the redistricting fiasco with his memo that was exhibit a in the

01:00:50.420 lawsuit, uh, that overturned, uh, the Democrat drawn maps. He moved into a district that he only

01:00:57.340 represented 25% of. Um, and he really did not campaign until the final three weeks. You know,

01:01:04.480 this district is home to bill and Hillary Clinton and George Soros. And, uh, in the final three weeks,

01:01:12.000 he had bill Clinton come and campaign for him. He had Jill Biden come in. He had Hillary Clinton

01:01:16.780 send an email out for him. Uh, he had Joe Biden make phone calls into the Orthodox Jewish community,

01:01:22.940 uh, to try and sway votes. Uh, he scrambled and he lost and he lost because he was out of touch.

01:01:30.000 I mean, at the end of the campaign, he told voters, uh, that, you know, his plan to deal with

01:01:34.760 inflation was that they should go, uh, eat chef Boyardee. I mean, it was comical, uh, if it wasn't so

01:01:41.060 sad. So I think, you know, he can point the finger at Kathy Hochul. He could point the finger at AOC,

01:01:47.360 but frankly, I think voters were tired of his shtick.

01:01:51.760 Mike Lawler, it's going to be fascinating to watch you and your fellow newly elected Republicans as you

01:01:57.280 head down to Washington. All the best to you. Thanks, Megan. Wow. What a feat coming up, Rick Grinnell

01:02:04.880 and you. Our next guest is Rick Grinnell. We're going to bring him in in one second. He was of

01:02:13.500 course, acting director of national intelligence under the Trump administration, but we're going

01:02:18.180 to begin this hour or this block, I should say with your calls. Uh, I can see the phone lines

01:02:23.200 already lighting up. Let's go to Kathy in Indiana. Kathy, you have, do you have thoughts on Trump

01:02:28.540 DeSantis? Oh, hi, Megan. How are you? Hi. Hi, good. Good. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Um, I,

01:02:35.620 I like DeSantis, but I, I'm still a Trump fan. I, unlike you, do believe there was a lot of suspicion

01:02:44.040 and there was some fraud that went on in the 2020 election. Um, unfortunately, since we have so many

01:02:50.700 Democratic, uh, left leaning judges, they wouldn't allow the evidence to be told. I actually had a

01:02:57.260 very, very close friend of mine that worked in the polls, um, during the 2020 election and she said

01:03:03.420 it was just unreal the things they were doing. Um, and there's just too many people that have come

01:03:08.120 forward. So I think the problem is that it is so entrenched the deceit in Washington. It has gotten

01:03:17.620 so powerful that Trump was trying to unbury the boat. And unfortunately, you know, the rhinos don't

01:03:26.540 want it to be known and the Democrats definitely don't want it to know. And so you're not ready

01:03:31.580 for like to move on. You know, you've heard all these Republicans saying I liked him, but it's time

01:03:36.160 fresh blood. Right, right. No, absolutely not. No, I am not ready to move on because, because they keep

01:03:42.520 saying he needs to prove what he's going to do. Now I get it. I get tired of listening to the same

01:03:47.240 speech over and over, but one, no offense to the East coast people, but he's a New Yorker.

01:03:52.700 I teach for a major university here in Indiana and all the people from New York who I dearly

01:03:58.640 love, but they're very brash and they're very, uh, what's the word? Especially out of the New

01:04:04.700 York, New York real estate scene. That's for sure. Yes. They're very crude. So I just have to get past

01:04:11.580 that brashness and just go, you know what, you know, you're a great person. Uh, does he have flaws?

01:04:18.040 Yes, of course he does. But I think he also has the hootspas to, to take people down and just say

01:04:25.660 enough is enough because our, our country is just, it is, it's just imploding with it. And my students

01:04:33.120 around the world, I got to run, but I appreciate your voice and your opinion, Kathy. Thank you.

01:04:38.520 Thank you for calling in. Let's see. Let's go to, uh, let me see David in North Carolina and then

01:04:45.360 we're bringing Rick Grinnell. David, hi, what's on your mind? Hey Megan. Um, I'm kind of on the

01:04:51.160 opposite camp. I mean, I love Trump, a big supporter, but it's like you said, you know,

01:04:57.400 sometimes the relationship is over and you've got to move on. Um, I think that Trump wrote the

01:05:05.100 blueprint, but he's just not the vessel anymore to carry it forward. I think DeSantis, um, you know,

01:05:14.140 I think he, I think he beat Biden like a, like a drum, but I just don't see first, you know,

01:05:22.360 suburban moms, never Trumpers. I don't see him getting over that. I mean, my wife is one of

01:05:28.360 them. She would not vote for Trump if, um, she was running against anybody. I mean, she voted

01:05:35.240 for Biden in the family. Yeah. And she's, and she's a conservative. She votes mostly Republican,

01:05:42.760 but she just hates him. Meanwhile, you're like, honey, I'll drop off that absentee ballot for you.

01:05:48.780 You can trust me. I got this. All right, David. I appreciate it. I'd like, I like hear from both

01:05:55.220 sides. It's always fascinating in our audience. I would say they're more leaning on maybe it's

01:06:00.420 time for new blood, but very, very healthy percentage saying no, we stay with Trump guys.

01:06:05.260 Thank you. I'm getting back to calls in just a minute, but I'm going to go to

01:06:07.880 former ambassador Rick Grinnell. And, uh, of course, as I mentioned, acting director of

01:06:13.000 national intelligence, Rick, great to have you back on the show. It's so fascinating. It's like

01:06:16.720 great to hear from actual voters and actual, actual Trump fans who are wrestling with some

01:06:22.000 of these issues. You know, I had Richard Lowry on who made the case for why it's time to move on.

01:06:26.500 You've read the national review pieces. What is the case to not move on to, to stick with president

01:06:31.880 Trump and say to Ron DeSantis maybe later, but not yet? Well, first of all, um, I should start by

01:06:38.540 saying, uh, I'm not an East coaster. I live out West and you know, the East coast types are typical.

01:06:48.080 I mean, I've, I've heard these arguments for a long time. Uh, they, they tend to rush into, uh, making

01:06:55.820 big sweeping judgments. Like it's Donald Trump's fault that we didn't have a red wave. And meanwhile,

01:06:59.740 I'm thinking we still have Arizona and Nevada that were counting ballots. And how do we know

01:07:04.540 there hasn't been a big red wave? We might sweep it all. Let me just say one thing. If there was one

01:07:10.340 person on the ballot, this, uh, midterms who was the most pro Trump had the best Trump, uh, relationship

01:07:19.220 and president Trump went all in on it's Carrie Lake. And the fact of the matter is, is Carrie Lake

01:07:26.060 is a rock star nationally. Carrie Lake is solidly pro Trump and Carrie Lake is going to be the

01:07:32.640 governor. I can tell you, I've dug into these numbers. I've been working in Arizona and Nevada.

01:07:37.840 She is going to be the, uh, the, the governor of, of Arizona. And also I'll add this before I give you

01:07:44.340 my opinion on Trump to Santas. President Trump picked Ted Budd, JD Vance, Adam Laxalt, and one

01:07:56.360 more, um, and Noah, one more that's going to win, uh, that could win Blake masters in Arizona, right?

01:08:05.620 All of these people in the primary when they were not ahead and they didn't have the most money.

01:08:12.400 All of them are either on the cusp of winning or already won. So let's just say that Blake

01:08:19.140 masters and Adam Laxalt win. Donald Trump will be able to say, I picked people in the primary

01:08:24.700 that ultimately gave the Senate to the Republicans. We know the house is going to Republicans only on

01:08:29.400 the East coast is this idea that the Republicans win the house in the Senate. And yet somehow they're

01:08:35.240 all disappointed because they didn't get their neighborhood picks, which let's be honest, Megan,

01:08:41.000 you know, this to be true. All of the staffers in television news live in New York or Washington,

01:08:47.360 DC. They care about Pennsylvania and New York more than anything. They lost Oz. They lost Lee

01:08:53.260 Zeldin when they were told they were going to win in this big red wave. They're wildly disappointed.

01:08:57.680 And so they move on. I've even seen people talking about let's vote in the leadership race this week.

01:09:02.780 I'm like, is that madness? We still have two senators that might still win out West. We're

01:09:08.900 still counting votes out West and you East coasters are like already moving on. So with all of that said,

01:09:14.780 I say, bring it on. A healthy primary is good. I think it'll make Donald Trump better. I think it'll

01:09:21.960 make other people better, but make no mistake. I know our base. Donald Trump runs. Donald Trump is

01:09:28.580 the nominee. It doesn't matter what happens in the race. If somebody else wants to jump in

01:09:34.780 and literally lose, then they should jump in and lose. But there's no question that there's only

01:09:42.300 one person who has been tested and is absolutely going to win with the base. Nobody can get the

01:09:49.320 crowds that Donald Trump has. And I'll just finish with this. If you think that any future president,

01:09:55.800 whether it's Ted Cruz or Ron DeSantis or whomever, Carrie Lake, okay, some future president,

01:10:02.460 if you don't think that their home is going to be raided and they're going to be impeached twice,

01:10:06.380 you don't understand what's happening in the Democratic Party. These people are radicals on

01:10:10.560 the left. Donald Trump has already withstood this incredible outpouring and he's still standing.

01:10:17.640 I mean, that's such an important point that I realize Trump's got his own personal style

01:10:21.860 and is unlike anybody else's. But if you don't think they're going to toxify

01:10:25.980 DeSantis or Cruz or Youngkin, even with his little sweater vest, they will. They made Mitt Romney into

01:10:33.860 a crazy misogynistic ass because he said, I have binders full of women instead of the more artful

01:10:40.520 binders full of women's resumes, which is just a slip of the tongue. They had him into Harvey Weinstein by

01:10:47.200 the end of that news cycle. Yeah, totally. And I think we've got to learn that lesson as

01:10:52.380 Republicans. And by the way, the base has learned this lesson. They want a fighter. They don't want

01:10:57.960 you backing down. They don't want you to say, okay, let's do better next time. Look, we're dealing

01:11:03.120 with a Democratic Party that just put a woman on the Supreme Court who doesn't know the difference

01:11:08.720 between a man and a woman. We are not talking about a rational Democratic Party. These people are

01:11:14.380 radicals. They have to be crushed. We can't negotiate with people who don't know the difference

01:11:20.740 between a man and a woman. This is literally a time where we have to have the best fighters and

01:11:29.000 people who, by the way, who cares what the New York Times says? They're not our people. Our people are

01:11:34.400 not watching that. So why are we going to sit around with a bunch of bedwetters and saying, oh, we got to

01:11:39.500 have somebody who's gentler and nicer? I say, what about what's happening now? Because it's not just

01:11:44.720 New York Times. Now you have the New York Post, you have the Journal, you have some on Fox News,

01:11:48.260 you've got the Daily Wire, you've got, you know, more and more. Yes, never Trumpers like National

01:11:53.480 Review. I love those guys, but they're not pro Trump, although they backed him on most of his

01:11:56.900 presidency. They shouldn't want him to actually be the president. So it's all this sort of right wing

01:12:03.060 media, a lot of never Trumpers, but they're not all number Trumpers that I just listed who are saying,

01:12:08.280 no, it's time. Yeah, totally. And I get that and I see it and I'm not blind to it, but I guess I'm

01:12:14.720 old and I've worked on five presidential campaigns. And I can tell you this, that this is extremely

01:12:21.820 typical, that whenever the front runners out there, there's always a lane for somebody says,

01:12:26.940 it's time to move on. There's always a lane for I'm the nicer one that can get along with the other

01:12:31.260 side. Look, I think that that is a worthy review, right? We should have somebody come up and say,

01:12:38.700 I can get along with the other side. And let's look at it. Let's review it. And let's look at

01:12:42.340 that person and decide. I'm just telling you that the that I'm a person who's not part of the East

01:12:48.160 Coast elite. You could argue I'm part of the West Coast elite, but I try not to be I'm pretty,

01:12:54.340 I grew up middle class, maybe lower middle class. I really identify with regular people. As you know,

01:13:02.100 I'm gay. I feel like I'm already an outsider in many ways in the Republican Party. I got to be

01:13:06.500 careful with who I offend so that I can still maintain credibility inside. So I feel like I'm

01:13:16.000 a scrappy fighter from the outside. And I know these people. And I'll say this, I have waited for a very

01:13:23.360 long time to have a Republican Party that has first and second generation Americans and working

01:13:30.280 class people as the core. You go to any Trump rally, you go anywhere. And we've got first and

01:13:36.460 second generation Americans fighting hard saying this country is going down the wrong path. And

01:13:41.860 Donald Trump is the fighter that we need. And the media is all corrupt. And then you've got working

01:13:46.600 class people who have always voted Democrat. And now they're coming around and voting with Donald

01:13:52.040 Trump. Now we've got Hispanics. I fear that if we go the way of, you know, the National Review or,

01:13:58.080 or, you know, some of these other never Trump type publications, that they're going to try to put us

01:14:05.340 into the party that is more like for the rich white guy. And I don't want that party. I want the party to

01:14:12.120 be, you know, a real transitional country club Republicans, country club Republicans.

01:14:18.440 Now, wait, let me jump in because I want to let me finish. I'll say this because I have a veteran

01:14:23.700 state tribute that we have to get to. That's a debt. It's a real hard transition because you lose the

01:14:29.040 corporate money when you do that. And therefore, we're at an odd on some of these campaigns going

01:14:33.540 to take us a little while. Can I ask you quickly, there are reports that donors are pulling out of

01:14:37.340 Trump, you know, in the campaign like crazy that they're all going to back DeSantis and he's not going to have

01:14:41.200 any money. Yeah, I don't see that at all. I know our California donors really well. They're more

01:14:46.400 right wing than the average voter. Okay. Okay. Let me ask you this. This is an interesting report

01:14:52.420 by Josh Crashour. And he he's pointing out, he's looking at the polls and he says, important

01:14:57.080 political point here from NBC News, the somewhat disapprove of Biden voters backed. He calls them

01:15:02.480 normie Republicans. That's just a short form for Twitter, Twitter, but could not stomach the maggot

01:15:07.960 types. And he gives a couple of examples in Georgia. They went a Kemp won these voters by 57

01:15:13.500 to 41, but Warnock, but they went for Warnock 50 to 44. So it's basically a 19, sorry, a 22 point

01:15:21.120 swing. They, they overwhelmingly voted for the GOP governor, but they sided with a Democrat senator.

01:15:26.780 And he's saying candidate quality there, Herschel Walker in New Hampshire, they went 59 to 39

01:15:32.120 for the GOP, uh, governor, but they only went 72 to 25 from, uh, Maggie Hassan. In other words,

01:15:40.220 there too, it was a 34 point swing. They split their ticket GOP Dem in favor of the, the Democrat

01:15:46.940 over of Trump endorsed Dan Bolduc. Um, and they go through the same thing in Nevada. I take your point

01:15:53.820 about Arizona because Carrie Lake is very pro Trump and also a, you know, election denier. That's the

01:15:59.080 short form and Blake masters less so, uh, and she's doing better than he is according to the early

01:16:05.680 results. So like mayor, maybe she's an anomaly cause she is a star telegenic, powerful messenger.

01:16:11.540 I mean, just a lot of great political qualities, but what do you make of that? That the somewhat

01:16:16.960 disapprovers who you need to win an election, they were like, eh, and they want the so-called normies

01:16:22.600 or country clubs or whatever we're calling these other guys. Well, first of all, I would say that

01:16:26.680 it's not Donald Trump's fault that, uh, certain candidates didn't perform well. You look at,

01:16:31.700 even in Pennsylvania, he endorsed Mastriano, which some people would say is a very far right

01:16:36.000 candidate. And then he got in trouble for endorsing Dr. Oz because Dr. Oz was a far left

01:16:40.380 candidate. So you can't really win in any way, uh, with his candidates in Pennsylvania. I will give you

01:16:45.660 that in New Hampshire, I think Bolduc was probably not our best choice to put forward. And, you know,

01:16:51.780 you've got the governor performing better. I think Georgia has been a mess for a long time.

01:16:56.360 I guess my, my rule is, is that all politics is local. And I'll finish with this. In Arizona,

01:17:01.980 you've got Abe Hamaday, who is a diehard pro-Trump, uh, first generation American, Syrian and

01:17:10.280 Venezuelan out front of the whole ticket. He's the one who's getting the most votes, even better than

01:17:16.800 Carrie Lake and Blake Masters. And he is wildly pro-Trump. And then you've got Adam Laxalt and

01:17:22.620 Lombardo both performing pretty much the same. Uh, but it's all about the local politics. Every

01:17:28.260 state has a little bit different, uh, you know, in Michigan, for instance, that was all about

01:17:31.840 abortion. And so it was really rough, but Tudor gave a real big run for her money. And in New York

01:17:37.900 for Zeldin, he did amazingly well for a Republican in New York. He was a Trump, uh, supported candidate.

01:17:45.640 And I think that, uh, you know, you just got to look at each state. That's the great thing about

01:17:50.020 the United States is we've got 50 states. New York is different than North Dakota.

01:17:54.060 Michigan's interesting to me because I, I confess I didn't follow Dan Bolduc that closely,

01:17:58.460 nor Mastriano, although I saw every single piece of press on him was terrible, but I did talk to

01:18:02.860 Tudor Dixon and I did follow that race a little bit more closely just because she was interesting.

01:18:06.220 And Whitmer was just as a nightmare during COVID. And they're now trying to make her into this like

01:18:12.340 crazy extremist. Like she wasn't, you know, she also has the little sweater vest. She,

01:18:18.540 she was pro-life and, but she said she would not interfere if the voters said, you know, in this

01:18:24.120 prop three vote that abortion is going to stay legal for, you know, basically the row standard,

01:18:29.680 uh, return. She's like, I'm not going to interfere with that. And she did nod to the election

01:18:35.280 denialism thing and the January 6th sort of, you know, did he really lose? So that was the most

01:18:39.640 quote extreme thing she did, but they're really trying to make her sound like she's a lunatic.

01:18:44.040 And so that was one of the things Rick that gave me pause in terms of so many members of the press.

01:18:48.420 They hate, hate Trump and they see the chance to like cut him out. It's like, this is it. Let's get

01:18:56.560 it going. And it almost seems like an effort, like a group effort to blame all the losses on him

01:19:02.760 because now this is the chance to sever the relationship between the GOP base and Trump.

01:19:07.560 Look, I, first of all, let's just take the Michigan example. This, the Michigan thing is

01:19:11.760 not about Trump at all, even though, you know, people who don't understand, we'll try to make

01:19:15.320 it about Trump. Uh, Gretchen had three times the money that Tudor did, uh, Donald Trump endorsed

01:19:21.040 Tudor, but let me just tell you, there was a whole bunch of, uh, Trump people in Michigan who thought

01:19:26.160 that Tudor was too moderate and were screaming at Trump, don't invoke, endorse Tudor. You go with

01:19:31.980 the four, the more right wing person. And Trump didn't listen to that. And he endorsed Tudor

01:19:37.080 because he liked Tudor, but let's, let's just be honest about Michigan. I was born there. I follow

01:19:41.360 it very closely. That entire race was about abortion. That's all Gretchen talked about. There

01:19:47.040 was, uh, you know, Elise Slotkin should have lost. She eked it out and won on the abortion issue

01:19:53.240 alone because you had, you know, in and around Ann Arbor going crazy with students on the abortion

01:19:58.460 issue. But the reality is, is that Michigan didn't have the ability, didn't have money,

01:20:04.060 Tudor didn't have money to combat the extremism that they were trying to do in scaring, uh, voters

01:20:10.580 on the abortion issue. Michigan was literally all about an abortion. It was about abortion. Okay.

01:20:15.860 Finally, is Trump really going to announce for president on Tuesday and should he? Well, look,

01:20:21.320 I, I really don't have any specific information to know exactly what he's going to do. I've been

01:20:26.600 part of the conversations of up and down and, and, and what I'll leave it to him to decide exactly

01:20:32.580 what's going to happen on Tuesday. I will just say this is that, um, you know, Donald Trump wants to

01:20:38.200 run for president. Um, if he runs for president, he's the nominee. There's just no doubt in my mind,

01:20:44.060 anybody who gets involved in the primary, you're welcome to it. It's going to be rough. You can't be

01:20:49.800 surprised that Donald Trump is going to play rough, uh, any undercurrent from people, whether

01:20:54.520 it's Mike Pompeo or DeSantis or Nikki Haley, who literally want to try to stay under the radar with

01:21:00.480 donors, but collect the money and keep telling people you're running, but not tell reporters

01:21:04.440 you're running. It gets out. The Trump team knows you can't be surprised that we're going to play

01:21:09.400 hardball. It's a primary. Welcome to American politics. What do you think about Kayleigh McEnany saying

01:21:16.100 he should not announce this before Georgia? Georgia is too important to win.

01:21:19.800 Look, I think there's a lot of people with different opinions. I think everybody in the

01:21:23.200 media knows that Donald Trump is already running. I don't buy into this East coast idea that,

01:21:27.840 oh, somehow announcing before the election or before Georgia makes it about Trump. I mean,

01:21:32.220 look, you could argue that Donald Trump has a massive army. And when he focuses the massive army

01:21:37.800 on something, they come out. I don't buy this East coast thing that, oh, the people aren't going to

01:21:42.980 come out because of Trump. You had a caller, David, that was saying that his wife voted for Biden,

01:21:46.640 but he was trying to say she's a diehard conservative. I'm sorry. I don't believe

01:21:50.680 that anyone is a diehard conservative. If you voted for Joe Biden simply because you don't like

01:21:55.360 mean tweets, look at your gas price. Now, wait, just before I let you go,

01:22:01.540 what will happen? What do you think is Trump's been sort of intimating? It's not going to go very

01:22:05.320 nicely for DeSantis if he does run against Trump in a primary. What do you think that would look like?

01:22:11.160 Well, look, I don't think anybody should be surprised that we're going to play hard

01:22:15.780 if you jump into the primary. Donald Trump wants to be the nominee and it's politics. So put on your

01:22:21.540 big boy pants. No complaining. Don't say he's too mean. This is the primary. We're confident that

01:22:27.020 if Donald Trump runs, Donald Trump is the nominee. So fun talking to you, Rick Grinnell. Great to see

01:22:32.600 you, my friend. All the best. All right. And we will be right back with a special Veterans Day

01:22:38.100 message. Don't go away. Today, our nation celebrates Veterans Day, a day when we take

01:22:47.140 time to remember all U.S. military veterans who served, fought and sacrificed for the freedoms

01:22:52.140 we have today. Over the last two years on this show, we have had the privilege of profiling some

01:22:56.720 of our nation's most heroic veterans. Incredible, in-depth discussions about the battles they fought.

01:23:03.200 Those are my most memorable interviews. When people ask me, what's your favorite interview?

01:23:07.060 Those are the ones that come to mind. These battles that they fought abroad. And then in some cases,

01:23:11.860 when they returned back home, more of an internal battle in some cases. In May 2020, for Memorial Day,

01:23:17.780 back when we were just an audio only podcast, I spoke with Rob O'Neill, the U.S. Navy SEAL who shot

01:23:24.220 Osama bin Laden. He shared with us a chilling, an amazing story about the conversation he and his

01:23:31.480 teammates had before leaving on that mission. Before we left, I had one of my guys say,

01:23:37.060 because we accept the death. That's it. We're going to die. He said, don't take this the wrong way,

01:23:42.700 because I'm 100% going. Don't worry about that. I'm going. I just need to say it out loud.

01:23:47.740 If we know we're going to die, why are we going? And so we had a conversation. And we had a

01:23:55.080 conversation. We said, okay, well, we're not going after bin Laden for the fame or the reward

01:24:00.220 or the bravado. We are going after Osama bin Laden for the single mom who dropped her kids off at

01:24:06.840 elementary school on a Tuesday. And 45 minutes later, she jumped to her death out of a skyscraper,

01:24:11.980 because that was a better alternative than whatever the hell was going on inside at 2,500

01:24:17.020 degrees Fahrenheit. And her last gesture of human decency was holding her skirt as she jumped out

01:24:22.660 of a building and murdered herself. She was never supposed to be in the fight. We're supposed to be

01:24:27.020 in the fight. That's why we're going. Oh, my God. If you don't have chills in listening to that,

01:24:32.520 you do. I know you do. Like me. Robert O'Neill, we salute you and your many sacrifices for our country.

01:24:39.080 This past Memorial Day, we spoke with Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer.

01:24:43.940 In 2009, while serving in Afghanistan, Dakota and his team were ambushed by more than 50 Taliban

01:24:49.180 fighters. Over the course of the six-hour battle, Dakota defied military orders and repeatedly

01:24:54.840 entered and re-entered the ambushed area to rescue his trapped and wounded teammates.

01:25:01.120 I remember reaching down and picking, I think I picked up Gunny Johnson first. And Gunny was the

01:25:10.300 biggest one. And I picked him up, threw him over my shoulders, and I started to carry him out. I just

01:25:14.780 slipped and I fell. Like, it was like every bit of energy I had that fell flat on my face.

01:25:19.160 And I got back up and the Afghan soldiers, I see them, they're right there. And they're going to grab

01:25:28.400 the guys. And I was kind of upset. I kind of got mad at them. And I said, hey, don't touch my guys.

01:25:35.960 I said, I'll take them home. And Fazel came up to me and he said, no. He said,

01:25:41.040 and I did. I started crying. Like, I literally, like, when I fell with Gunny Johnson, like, I literally

01:25:48.320 started crying. And I'll never forget, Fazel came up to me and said, don't cry. You can't show this

01:25:55.360 weakness. And I was like, you're right. And he said, the Afghans want to help you get your guys out

01:26:04.660 because they just watched you help get their guys out. And it was such a, kind of for me,

01:26:12.420 it was like a monumental moment in my life of, you know, it's not us against them. It's just,

01:26:17.860 it's good against bad.

01:26:20.380 Hmm. My goodness. These interviews. Dakota is credited with saving the lives of 36

01:26:26.660 U.S. and Afghan troops that day. Oh, we thank you so much, Dakota, for your service.

01:26:31.940 The world is better because of men like that.

01:26:34.660 In March 2021, we spoke with now retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink. Jocko led, he led the most

01:26:42.960 highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq war. You talk to these guys now,

01:26:47.640 everybody knows Jocko. And I have to say, if you're a parent and you want your child to learn

01:26:51.360 how to deal with adversity and taking ownership, listen to Jocko, read Jocko's books. He's got a

01:26:55.960 whole series for kids. Jocko shared with us the story of having to deal with the fallout

01:27:00.220 of an operation that went wrong. Some of my guys ended up in a firefight with friendly Iraqi soldiers

01:27:07.560 who had a U.S. Marine with them. And it was a nightmare. One of the Iraqi soldiers got killed.

01:27:14.320 A couple other ones got wounded. One of my guys got wounded. And it was only by the grace of God that

01:27:19.300 that none of my guys were killed. It was just an absolute nightmare. I couldn't feel comfortable

01:27:24.480 picking the person to blame. And I just was trying to figure, is it this guy? Should I blame this guy?

01:27:30.260 Should I blame this other guy? And as I'm sitting there, I realized like a bolt of lightning hit me

01:27:35.120 that the reason I couldn't figure out who to blame was because there was only one person to blame.

01:27:42.280 And that person was me. I'm the overall guy in charge. I'm responsible for what happens.

01:27:47.000 Whatever happens is on me. And so I went in there and, and, and took ownership of the entire incident.

01:27:55.660 And, and, you know, this is not the first time that I ever had this idea. This is how I was brought

01:28:01.640 up in the SEAL teams. And, and really, this is how I was brought up as a, as a human. When something

01:28:05.900 goes wrong, you don't blame other people. You take ownership.

01:28:09.960 The SEALs are just, they're cut from a different cloth. I mean, it's just,

01:28:13.340 you know what they've been through. Thank you for your service, Jacko Willink.

01:28:16.420 Last but certainly not least, in August, 2021, we spoke with retired U.S. Navy SEALs and twins,

01:28:22.600 Marcus and Morgan Luttrell. In 2005, while on a mission to kill or capture a high-ranking

01:28:27.680 Taliban terrorist, there was an ambush. Marcus was the only survivor of the attack,

01:28:32.380 but it took six days for the military to find and rescue him. He later wrote a book titled

01:28:36.680 Lone Survivor. Morgan told us the story of what it was like for him and his family

01:28:41.820 when they found out that Marcus had been rescued.

01:28:45.240 Master Chief Gothro was out there and he's the one that would answer the phone. And by this time,

01:28:49.580 there's anywhere, there's about 40 SEALs out there. And we would all pile into my father's

01:28:54.120 bedroom, which was little bitty. And shoulder to shoulder, and Master Chief's on the phone.

01:28:58.960 He's like, yes, sir. Roger that. Understood. Roger that. Yes, sir. And he dropped his head.

01:29:03.160 And I mean, we lost it, right? We was like, oh my God, you know, the worst case scenario. I'm sitting

01:29:09.940 there staring at him. Everybody was crying around. I was in there staring at him. And he gives us a

01:29:14.880 thumbs up. Anyhow, my parents came walking in. And then some of my best friends came walking in.

01:29:20.900 They saw everybody else crying. Mom loses it. Dad loses it. They're like, no, no, no. They found him.

01:29:25.100 He's rescued. So, um, I mean, I don't remember who it was, walked out to the crowd and said they

01:29:31.320 found him. And I mean, it sounded like the Super Bowl. Like I could hear it from Afghanistan. So all

01:29:34.900 the, but the problem with that was all the, all my friends and family were celebrating the fact

01:29:40.460 that we found my brother, but all the SEALs that were out there and all the other, and there were

01:29:43.680 some Marines and army and everybody just started to come out and spend time with us. We were still

01:29:49.120 very stoic because we're down. We're down men. Wow. In the end, the three other SEALs Marcus

01:29:57.080 was on the mission with did not survive. So in addition to honoring Marcus and Morgan

01:30:01.460 Luttrell today, we also salute Lieutenant Michael Murphy and Petty Officers Danny Dietz and Matt

01:30:06.840 Axelson. Morgan Luttrell has also found another way to continue serving, serving this country.

01:30:12.140 This past Tuesday, he became Congressman Elect Morgan Luttrell. He will be serving in Congress

01:30:18.940 representing Texas's eighth congressional district. Yay. Congrats, Morgan. So proud of

01:30:24.280 you. So to all these heroes and all of our listeners and viewers who served as well, we

01:30:30.000 thank you for your service. All right. I want to take a few more of your calls in the time

01:30:34.500 that we have left. Let's go to, let's go to Kathy in Florida. She's got thoughts. Kathy,

01:30:39.860 what's on your mind? Hi, Megan. Just, I mean, I love Trump. I love what he did for the

01:30:47.540 country. I love that he exposed the media for what it was, but it's time for someone

01:30:53.720 new. And if Trump really wanted to succeed and we could be so successful, but we need

01:31:00.260 someone who's going to pull the country together, not pull it further apart.

01:31:05.880 What if he endorsed DeSantis? Can you imagine?

01:31:09.260 I mean, we could go so far and he could be so successful and he could claim all of that.

01:31:18.440 But it doesn't sound like Trump. It doesn't seem like that's where we're going.

01:31:23.800 Kathy, thank you. I want to squeeze a couple more in. Bill in Iowa, what are your thoughts?

01:31:28.160 Oh, it's Dale in Iowa.

01:31:29.660 Oh, Dale. Hi. What are your thoughts, Dale?

01:31:32.040 We've talked a few times. First of all, I want to say thank you for that tribute to veterans. I want

01:31:37.560 to say shout out to all my fellow veterans out there, especially those who served overseas. That

01:31:42.780 was still one of the highlights of my career. As I look at the flag draped coffin or the flag that

01:31:49.500 draped my father's coffin that's folded, it's such a reminder that every day, everything that we have

01:31:55.180 and we owe is to people who voluntarily sign up for this assignment. Absolutely. Absolutely.

01:32:01.060 I can give you a little bit from Iowa, since we're first in the nation for the Republican side of the

01:32:06.920 caucus. I'm an independent. I think both sides are screwed up, but he's lost support and he's just

01:32:13.940 not lost support Trump. He lost support in the Western part of the state, which is the most

01:32:18.440 conservative. And it's basically what I heard when I was back there last week was

01:32:23.520 a great leader knows when it's time to pass the mantle. He'd had great policies, but it's time to

01:32:30.580 move on. We don't anymore. Well, how he's the greatest thing. We're done. We're done. We're done.

01:32:38.220 We're done. Yesterday, when I heard Winston Sears, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, by the way,

01:32:43.800 a fellow veteran, say the same thing. It's time to move on.

01:32:48.900 We shall see. Thank you for the call, Dale, and thank you for your service and that of your

01:32:53.240 family. Dave in Delaware, you've got thoughts. We don't take a lot of calls from Delaware.

01:32:57.380 Pleasure to speak with you. What are your thoughts?

01:32:59.820 Sure. Your last caller summed it up so well. I've been a huge supporter of Donald Trump for

01:33:06.320 many years, but it's time for us to move on. There's been a lot of gross injustices done to

01:33:11.760 Donald, but it's time for us to move on. And the issue isn't the primary that I'm concerned about.

01:33:18.420 It's the general election that we're all concerned about, that we need to win the general election.

01:33:23.360 And there's now just too much noise and confusion with Donald and too much separation. So we need to

01:33:30.720 come together. And if Donald could be so humble to support someone like a DeSantis, I also like

01:33:37.720 Christy Noem. I read her book, which was outstanding.

01:33:40.780 Yeah. She's one of the favorites for the VP slot. Sorry to cut you off, my friend. I'm up against a

01:33:45.560 hard break, but thank you for your call. Thank you all for calling and for listening. I couldn't do

01:33:49.600 it without you guys. And I just feel like we had a big week together and I appreciate you being with

01:33:55.100 me. Listen, next week on the show, we got Victor Davis Hanson. Can't wait to talk to him. Senator

01:33:58.700 Rand Paul, Alex Berenson, Dr. Laura, and Doug Brunt will join us next week. Thanks for joining us.

01:34:04.800 Download the show. Go to youtube.com and subscribe to at Megyn Kelly. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.

01:34:10.780 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - November 11, 2022

Should GOP Blame Trump or McConnell, and Donald vs. DeSantis, with Rich Lowry, Ric Grenell, and Mike Lawler ｜ Ep. 433

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