The Megyn Kelly Show - Time's Absurd ＂Person of the Year,＂ Newsom's Inauthenticity, and America's Font Changes, with RealClearPolitics and Doug Brunt ｜ Ep. 1211

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00:00:56.720 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:01:10.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:01:14.180 Time Magazine has named its Person of the Year.

00:01:17.980 Can you guess who it is?

00:01:20.660 Do you have a thought in your mind of who it should be?

00:01:23.700 I'm going to tell you in one second.

00:01:25.580 And Gavin Newsom is making his 2028 plans official as he rolls out his pre-book tour.

00:01:31.000 Later in the show, we will have an actual book author,

00:01:35.160 somebody who writes all his own stuff and is a best-selling author.

00:01:38.080 He happens to be married to me.

00:01:40.840 His name is Doug Brunt, and he's going to be here for our second hour.

00:01:43.400 That'll be fun.

00:01:44.280 But we start today with our Megyn Kelly Channel lead-in show hosts,

00:01:48.720 Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth,

00:01:51.720 who are Real Clear Politics, along with some other great people over there.

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00:03:02.000 Guys, welcome back.

00:03:03.140 How's it going?

00:03:04.360 Great.

00:03:05.760 All right.

00:03:08.300 So there's plenty to go over.

00:03:11.040 You are?

00:03:11.720 So for the posting audience, he means on SiriusXM.

00:03:14.340 We now have a Megan Kelly channel.

00:03:16.380 And we're, of course, live on it at noon east.

00:03:18.440 And these guys are live on it at the beginning of the hour before.

00:03:21.820 And the show is a huge hit.

00:03:23.800 Yeah.

00:03:24.840 Megan, did Time Magazine, I haven't seen that yet.

00:03:27.140 Did they get my nominee, which was you, to be the person?

00:03:31.840 Did they follow my advice?

00:03:34.360 Sadly, not even an honorable mention, Carl.

00:03:37.640 I was robbed.

00:03:38.520 I was seriously robbed.

00:03:40.020 It could be because when I showed up as a member of the Time 100,

00:03:43.080 I crapped all over their award show and said,

00:03:45.020 no one here is actually really important.

00:03:47.020 That may have come back to haunt me.

00:03:48.600 I remember that.

00:03:49.200 Yeah, I remember that.

00:03:51.360 It turns out it doesn't win you any friends at Time.

00:03:54.260 Um, here is who they went for.

00:03:58.680 Okay.

00:03:59.180 They chose, hold on, I want to make sure I get it right,

00:04:02.620 because it's actually kind of weird.

00:04:05.040 Um, artificial intelligence.

00:04:08.020 2025 was the year when artificial intelligence is full potential roared into view.

00:04:13.560 And when it became clear that there will be no turning back for delivering the age of thinking

00:04:18.620 machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the president and transcending

00:04:23.480 the possible, the architects of AI are Time's 2025 person of the year.

00:04:31.180 And they've got, like, two letters, AI, with, like, scaffolding in front of the two letters

00:04:38.340 as the representation of AI.

00:04:42.280 And then there's the, it's, it's the classic, um, you know, construction guys on the crane

00:04:49.120 sticking out from a building from, like, the 1930s, only it's got Elon and I can't even

00:04:55.040 read it from this far, but I think it's all, it's like Elon and Sam, uh, Elon, Sam Altman,

00:04:58.840 Mark Zuckerberg, and others, as if they would be caught dead on one of those cranes sticking

00:05:05.820 out from the skyscrapers in Manhattan.

00:05:08.260 In any event, it's fucking AI.

00:05:11.400 It's, it's AI architects.

00:05:13.440 It's not Charlie Kirk, which is so obvious.

00:05:17.400 It's obvious as the nose on your face.

00:05:19.620 And don't tell me, detractors, oh, he was too controversial.

00:05:23.100 That's not it.

00:05:24.180 They've gone for extremely controversial people and villains in the past.

00:05:29.400 It's always and often come down to, like, Vladimir Putin, the Ayatollah.

00:05:35.440 We've had very controversial people make it or almost make it.

00:05:39.340 And not only did Charlie not get chosen, he wasn't even one of, like, the honorable mentions.

00:05:47.760 Um, hold on, I'm just looking at my list here.

00:05:50.320 Yeah, Putin won it in 2007.

00:05:53.720 Um, Times Entertainer of the Year, Leonardo DiCaprio.

00:05:59.560 Their Athlete of the Year, WNBA.

00:06:03.260 I mean, need I say more?

00:06:04.760 It's, it's a WNBA-er.

00:06:06.300 It's a lie.

00:06:07.120 It's not the Athlete of the Year.

00:06:08.540 And by the way, no, it's not Caitlin Clark.

00:06:10.920 CEO of the Year, Neil Mohan of YouTube, um, as well as blah, blah, blah.

00:06:15.060 So, I'm sorry, but he didn't even make the list, that, that list of honorable mentions

00:06:20.340 goes on.

00:06:21.400 Um, this is a thumb in the eye, and it's genuinely wrong.

00:06:27.040 Like, AI architects are not, are not the most influential people of the year.

00:06:31.920 To ignore what happened with Charlie Kirk in September, Tom, and, and the worldwide revival

00:06:38.140 of faith that followed his assassination is to ignore reality based on your own politics.

00:06:45.740 Yeah, I think that's right.

00:06:47.240 I mean, you know, on one level, it's not really surprising.

00:06:50.420 You know, it's Time Magazine.

00:06:51.660 It's just like, okay, whatever.

00:06:52.860 But on the other hand, it, it does, uh, sort of fly in the face of, of reality.

00:06:58.360 I mean, whether, uh, whatever you thought of, of Charlie Kirk, whether you liked him or

00:07:03.760 didn't like him, he was a massively influential figure in our politics.

00:07:09.780 And, and then when he was assassinated, it was a, it was a traumatic event in our, you

00:07:18.040 know, in our, our lives, in our society.

00:07:21.020 Um, and the, the follow-on effects from, from his death have been, to your point, pretty

00:07:27.520 substantial.

00:07:28.040 I mean, the number of turning point chapters that have, have, have exploded, um, and the

00:07:34.060 revival of faith.

00:07:35.280 I mean, the, the, his funeral, the packing the Glendale Stadium with, I don't know, 70,000,

00:07:40.340 100,000 people, whatever it was, it was, it was remarkable.

00:07:43.260 And now, you know, Erica Kirk is, is out with, uh, and promoting his, his book posthumously,

00:07:49.740 uh, published with talking about faith.

00:07:52.000 And so, yeah, I think he was, he was the obvious choice, but, you know, that's, Time Magazine

00:07:56.480 is, they don't have the courage, I think, to, they have the courage to say, Vladimir

00:08:03.240 Putin's the, you know, the most, uh, the person of the year, but they don't have the

00:08:06.880 courage to say that, that Charlie Kirk is the person of the year.

00:08:09.940 And he clearly, he clearly was.

00:08:11.420 Again, whether you, whether you loved him or hated him, um, he was, he, he loomed large

00:08:16.420 this year in our politics and our culture.

00:08:18.320 How about that, Carl?

00:08:19.320 And by the way, all the former presidents weighed in on Charlie's assassination, international

00:08:24.100 world leaders weighed in on Charlie's assassination.

00:08:26.160 I mean, this was a global event.

00:08:28.680 He was mourned around the world and certainly coast to coast here in America as well.

00:08:32.920 So it's just to ignore this is really telling, but why you tell me, Carl, because I actually

00:08:38.540 think there's an interesting answer to come from this.

00:08:41.020 Why is Time Magazine comfortable choosing Vladimir Putin as the man of the year, but not

00:08:45.840 Charlie Kirk?

00:08:47.300 Yeah.

00:08:47.700 Well, you know, they had a long tradition of choosing strong men and, and even presidents

00:08:52.580 they disagreed with.

00:08:53.420 Their idea was, this was the most influential person in the world.

00:08:57.340 It was called man of the year for decades.

00:08:59.740 They finally got with the program.

00:09:01.860 They didn't get with the program enough to name you, you know, person of the year, Megan.

00:09:07.120 But, um, I want to say one thing about, I want to say one thing about, uh, Charlie Kirk and

00:09:12.220 one thing about their choice.

00:09:13.300 The first is, is that I, I, I hear what Tom and you were saying about Charlie Kirk and

00:09:18.200 I would add one thing to that, which is that to me, he was a champion of resisting, in resisting

00:09:24.640 censorship.

00:09:25.220 And if you're not, even if, if you're not a Christian, if you're not a conservative,

00:09:29.540 um, if you're, you're, if you don't agree with Charlie Kirk on any of his policy positions,

00:09:34.800 what he did was brave and it cost him his life.

00:09:38.280 And he would go to college campuses and he'd say, let's talk.

00:09:41.500 And he would talk and he would listen and he would let other people talk and he would

00:09:45.880 try and win the argument.

00:09:46.780 And if we, and for that, he was killed.

00:09:49.320 And I think, um, that this, this assassination of, of Charlie Kirk and, and, and, and other

00:09:55.760 political examples of political violence we've had, it's a deep threat to the country.

00:10:01.060 And so to me, he should be honored for that, for, for, for, for not just this year, but

00:10:06.660 for years, because he, he was willing to, to do this, the hard work of democracy, which

00:10:11.300 is talk to people who didn't agree with and listen to them and try and change their minds

00:10:14.600 and, and keep an open mind himself.

00:10:16.240 And for that, I think he should be commended in addition to what you and Tom said.

00:10:20.580 And, and the other thing I would say about choosing AI is, and I, I, I'm apparently a

00:10:24.740 minority on this and these guys, Andy and Tom teased me about it on our show.

00:10:29.100 Oh boy, here we go.

00:10:30.500 Well, they gave the award to, they gave the award to Skynet.

00:10:33.160 That's what they did.

00:10:34.220 And remember that poor guy, I forget who plays him in the Terminator movies, that African-American, 0.99

00:10:39.760 very arresting character actor.

00:10:41.320 And he's, he's, and he doesn't realize what he's done.

00:10:43.580 And they go back in time and tell him you've ended the human race and ruined the planet.

00:10:47.260 Oh, I was just trying to build a better mousetrap.

00:10:49.520 And this idea that you would just laud AI without, with pretend to, and pretending you, you don't

00:10:55.960 see the threats to sending depend, pretending you don't see the danger.

00:10:59.800 I think people look back on that and, and maybe the machines won't let us look back on that

00:11:05.580 when they run the planet, but I, I, it made me uncomfortable.

00:11:10.460 So Andrew, I, I've got a different answer.

00:11:12.980 It's a good answer from Carl, but I, but mine is a little different on why they are comfortable

00:11:17.260 with Putin, but not Charlie, because they knew in 2007, Putin didn't have a real groundswell

00:11:23.920 of support here domestically and, and still doesn't.

00:11:27.140 I mean, there are some people who can say, oh, he's got this, you know, would I rather

00:11:32.280 live in Russia or would I rather live in Iran, Russia?

00:11:35.240 Yeah.

00:11:35.560 Okay.

00:11:36.280 But it, the, the reason is because Charlie Kirk and his political philosophy, his influence,

00:11:44.560 his words, which are still available via podcast.

00:11:46.860 And now, as Carl points out with his, um, brand new book, that's just hit things to

00:11:51.620 Erica, you know, making sure it got published.

00:11:53.620 And she, to her credit, completed his publicity tour.

00:11:57.060 She, she honored the stops that Charlie had committed to.

00:12:00.400 Um, that's why she's out there because she wanted to do that for him and his book.

00:12:04.780 In any event, my point is he's still ubiquitous in that way and therefore an ongoing threat

00:12:10.720 to the ideals of the people who make these decisions at time magazine.

00:12:16.200 They're afraid of him.

00:12:17.720 They don't want to do anything more to inflate his power.

00:12:23.220 I think that's probably true.

00:12:25.760 Um, I got to say, um, the, the number of people who still read time magazine, um, they're aging,

00:12:33.800 uh, they're dying and, uh, they're fewer and fewer.

00:12:37.080 So, uh, you know, I'm sort of amazed that anyone really cares what time magazine thinks

00:12:42.420 about anything anymore.

00:12:43.980 Uh, but, uh, don't you think it's a right?

00:12:46.200 It's a right of passage though, in our country, when they, when they name this list to either

00:12:49.960 bash it or applaud it, it's kind of a thing.

00:12:51.840 It's like something we just do.

00:12:53.620 No, no, I, I think, I think it's the one thing that time magazine probably does that anyone

00:12:57.600 still cares about.

00:12:58.440 So, um, uh, but I agree with you, uh, on Charlie Kirk because, and I do think that we're going

00:13:06.040 to see over the next year, what happens with turning point, how, uh, you know, does this

00:13:11.680 generate sort of a movement, um, does the movement keep going, uh, but certainly his ideas, uh,

00:13:17.800 were important.

00:13:18.380 And I think Carl, Carl makes a good point is it's not just that he was ideological.

00:13:23.020 It's that he embraced this idea of freedom of expression and exchange of ideas.

00:13:28.980 And that to me is so central to the American experience that if we lose that, we lose

00:13:34.120 everything.

00:13:34.560 And if, even if you totally disagree with him on everything he believes, you should be

00:13:40.680 smart enough to understand that that core message is so important right now, that that

00:13:45.860 alone to me would be enough to make him the man of the year.

00:13:49.580 Um, but I, uh,

00:13:50.700 And the faith revival on top of it, the faith revival has been amazing.

00:13:54.040 Sure.

00:13:55.000 Yeah.

00:13:55.400 Okay.

00:13:55.860 I will say this about AI though.

00:13:57.840 Yeah, go ahead.

00:13:58.180 If I could just, just on AI for a second, they do raise an interesting question, which

00:14:02.140 is, uh, not so much the people who make AI, but AI itself is AI a person and will in the

00:14:08.880 future we treat it like a person.

00:14:11.000 I mean, we're seeing legislation around that issue right now.

00:14:14.740 Uh, can you marry AI?

00:14:16.460 Can AI be, uh, in charge of your, uh, your, your sort of legal affairs?

00:14:22.440 Um, so there's a lot of interesting questions about, about AI, uh, that I haven't read the

00:14:27.500 article.

00:14:27.860 Maybe they raise that, but, um, uh, that's something that I think about from time to time.

00:14:31.980 There was just this story about the, the guy, he said, chat GPT, like he says, told him

00:14:36.700 to kill his mother or something.

00:14:37.940 I saw this headline.

00:14:38.740 I was like, that is crazy.

00:14:39.400 We had parents on whose son killed himself because of chat GPT telling him over and over.

00:14:46.560 I mean, obviously that wasn't the sole reason he was depressed and he was upset, but chat

00:14:50.600 GPT goaded him into it even worse than that, than that young teenage girl goaded her boyfriend 0.85

00:14:55.860 into it who later was brought up on manslaughter charges for her behavior.

00:14:59.800 I mean, if you could slap chat GPT with manslaughter charges, it would have happened in that case.

00:15:04.360 Instead, Sam Altman has got a civil suit on his hands.

00:15:07.320 That's going to cost him a fortune.

00:15:08.760 I predict, but yeah, there's, there's a dark side of AI.

00:15:12.420 That's, that's for sure.

00:15:13.440 And super intelligent computers, meaning super intelligent AI is a legit threat.

00:15:18.780 I mean, who knows?

00:15:20.460 We're joking.

00:15:21.260 Like, will, will the machines let us have a discussion about whether AI deserves this

00:15:26.060 title in a few years?

00:15:27.400 Sadly, that may not be a joke.

00:15:29.580 I wanted to parlay it from the Charlie discussion into, this is a very toxic conversation and

00:15:36.740 I'm not asking you guys to weigh in on the underlying fight, but there's been a, there's

00:15:41.680 been a back and forth now between Erica Kirk and Candace Owens.

00:15:45.240 And I want to ask you guys about the politics of this, the politics of it, and also the politics

00:15:51.200 of Israel, because those two things right now are dividing the conservative movement and

00:15:56.940 some inside of it.

00:15:58.680 And now it's gone beyond the, the back and forth between like a Candace and the turning point

00:16:04.220 group into, this is going to cost us the midterms, the midterms, like, and I, you guys are the

00:16:10.240 politics experts.

00:16:10.780 So I'm going to set up the underlying argument on which you do not need to opine, but I'm

00:16:14.800 going to ask you for your, your take on the politics of it for, so for the audience, here

00:16:18.880 is what happened.

00:16:19.520 Something extraordinary happened yesterday and just FYI, I am going to have more to say very

00:16:24.540 soon on what's happening between Erica Kirk and turning point on the one hand and Candace

00:16:29.640 on the other, um, not today, but very soon.

00:16:33.640 And I have my reasons for that.

00:16:35.380 Um, so Erica went on with Harris Faulkner yesterday in, again, promoting Charlie's book.

00:16:41.960 And she said the thing that, that Candace had said from the beginning, Candace needed to

00:16:47.360 hear in order to stop with blaming turning point for Charlie's assassination.

00:16:52.780 For the listening audience, we have a man in custody for the Charlie Kirk assassination.

00:16:56.980 His name is Tyler Robinson.

00:16:58.900 He will be in court today in a couple of hours on a hearing about whether or, and what access

00:17:03.900 the media should have to this trial.

00:17:05.580 We'll be covering that for you tomorrow.

00:17:07.560 Um, and Erica, as fired up as I've seen her on this, clearly addressed Candace directly

00:17:15.680 without saying her name.

00:17:16.940 And I know for a fact, this was an address to Candace and Candace knew it too, because

00:17:20.280 she responded to it.

00:17:21.520 Here is Erica Kirk.

00:17:22.740 Um, this is how Erica teed it up a lot of second. 1.00

00:17:28.780 Yeah, no, let's start with SOT nine.

00:17:31.960 SOT nine.

00:17:35.160 Here's my breaking point on that.

00:17:37.520 Come after me, call me names.

00:17:39.220 I don't care.

00:17:40.440 Call me what you want.

00:17:41.720 Go down that rabbit hole, whatever.

00:17:43.720 But when you go after my family, my turning point USA family, my Charlie Kirk show family,

00:17:50.560 when you go after the people that I love and you're making hundreds and thousands of

00:17:55.960 dollars, every single episode going after the people that I love because somehow they're

00:18:02.960 in on this.

00:18:04.760 No, you know, I have to say it.

00:18:07.820 I've never seen you like this.

00:18:08.920 No, I'm, I'm very, I, this is righteous anger because this is not okay.

00:18:15.000 It's not healthy.

00:18:16.020 This is a mind virus.

00:18:19.200 Okay.

00:18:19.720 I'm just going to add another one.

00:18:21.620 Uh, SOT seven.

00:18:24.380 I do not have time to address the noise.

00:18:30.160 My silence does not mean that I am complacent.

00:18:33.540 My silence does not mean that somehow turning point USA and all of the handpicked staff that

00:18:39.700 loved my husband and my husband loved them is somehow in on it.

00:18:44.120 We are busy building.

00:18:45.720 And you know what I thought?

00:18:46.760 I thought these people are human.

00:18:48.240 We are all grieving in our own way and they are trying to find the answer to something

00:18:53.680 that happened.

00:18:54.240 That was so evil.

00:18:55.480 They are trying so hard.

00:18:56.920 And I get that we're doing the same.

00:18:59.160 Anytime we hear a lead or anytime we hear anything, we send it to the authorities.

00:19:03.760 Please dig into this.

00:19:05.300 No rock will be unturned.

00:19:08.160 I want justice for my husband, for myself, for my family, more than anyone else out there.

00:19:13.580 So for me, you want to keep telling me to come down while we're, we're building.

00:19:18.860 I don't have time for that.

00:19:21.260 And now, last but not least, a bit of the Candace response here in SOT eight.

00:19:27.680 First and foremost, the idea that she does not have time.

00:19:31.480 Okay.

00:19:31.760 She definitely has time.

00:19:32.980 Okay.

00:19:33.200 She's done Hannity. 0.93

00:19:34.140 She's done the five.

00:19:34.920 She's done Fox and friends.

00:19:35.880 She's done outnumbered.

00:19:36.820 She's done Megyn Kelly live. 0.53

00:19:38.060 She sat down with the New York times.

00:19:39.560 She made time, by the way, in case you don't remember to fly to DC.

00:19:43.580 For Sergio Gore to be sworn into the ambassador to India, Erica Kirk has time.

00:19:51.120 She has time.

00:19:52.220 It is just what she means to say, not her priority, which is you are allowed to prioritize things

00:19:58.840 in your own life.

00:20:00.560 But this is not a matter of time constraint.

00:20:04.000 It is not her priority to respond to the majority, actually.

00:20:10.240 The majority of people think of this as BS.

00:20:12.640 The majority of people think Turning Point is acting suspicious, and she does not feel

00:20:18.680 that it is what she wants to do as a matter of priority, responding.

00:20:24.400 Okay.

00:20:24.620 That's fine.

00:20:25.280 This is why there are many people who do not believe that women are equipped to lead companies,

00:20:30.520 because what you are watching here is an unbelievably emotional response that is absent of any logic.

00:20:36.300 If you really care about your team, answer the questions, okay?

00:20:42.560 Just demystify the entire event.

00:20:44.760 Answer, come out, sit down, answer the questions, so people don't think Turning Point USA looks so suspicious.

00:20:50.460 Okay.

00:20:52.820 Turning Point USA was, I mean, I don't think there was a more important organization in getting Donald Trump elected last time around in terms of get out the vote,

00:21:01.600 especially when it came to young people.

00:21:03.420 Charlie delivered the youth vote to Trump in a way we hadn't seen Republicans win for many years.

00:21:08.440 And they're still going strong.

00:21:11.400 They've taken a ton of donations since Charlie's death, and Erica is determined to lead that organization into the next decade as robustly as Charlie would have.

00:21:20.220 So them constantly being under attack by Candace and her followers for having had something to do with Charlie's death, which is her theory, among other theories, actually could have somewhat of an impact, but will it?

00:21:35.820 And that's where this has devolved, because people like Tim Pool are openly warring with Candace, saying, F you.

00:21:42.020 He says he's calling her terrible names, saying this is going to cost us the midterms.

00:21:45.880 And her response is, I don't care.

00:21:47.440 I don't care about the elections.

00:21:49.320 I'm trying to figure out what happened to my friend.

00:21:52.520 You heard what Erica Kirk had to say.

00:21:53.960 And I really do wonder, if you think this, that comes right on the heels of this big divide over Israel within the conservative movement that really fractured the movement in part, does it have a role, guys?

00:22:05.420 I mean, or is it really just about Trump's approval rating, tariffs, quote, affordability, and all the traditional stuff that would decide whether Republicans win or lose as the party in power?

00:22:17.940 Who would like to take that gem first?

00:22:21.840 I will step into the ring here.

00:22:24.880 You always make Tom take the hardest questions.

00:22:28.780 And then I clean up after him.

00:22:30.520 That's what happened to Tom's hair.

00:22:33.020 Yeah, right.

00:22:33.540 Gosh, if I had any hair, I'd be pulling it out at this point over this whole thing.

00:22:39.140 I mean, I don't mind opining about the event itself.

00:22:46.180 I mean, Candace calls herself a friend of Charlie.

00:22:49.400 With friends like this, I mean, you know, you don't need enemies.

00:22:54.360 I mean, what she's doing is just unbelievably toxic and evil, in my opinion. 1.00

00:22:59.860 I mean, she had said previously, look, if Erica Kirk tells me to stop, I'll stop.

00:23:04.440 And Erica Kirk basically said, stop. 0.79

00:23:06.440 And she said, you know what?

00:23:08.360 I'm not going to stop.

00:23:09.440 And why don't you answer my questions?

00:23:10.880 I mean, it's just it's never ending.

00:23:12.180 It's ongoing.

00:23:12.800 It is a distraction.

00:23:14.340 But I do wonder, you know, I know Candace has a big audience.

00:23:18.980 I don't know how big it is in terms of having some sort of impact on the overall political landscape.

00:23:25.160 I do think, look, this election and the next election are going to be based on what the public writ large cares about.

00:23:33.520 And that is affordability.

00:23:34.840 It's inflation.

00:23:35.720 It's, you know, gas prices and all of that.

00:23:37.960 Trump's approval rating for sure.

00:23:39.560 And Democrats and their ability to leverage that stuff against the Republican Party in these midterms. 0.98

00:23:47.020 And then again, in 2028.

00:23:49.080 I do think, though, Megan, when you talk about sort of the youth movement and how Charlie had it unified and moving in one direction and moving toward Trump.

00:23:58.280 Trump was the cool guy to vote for in 2024 in a way that we hadn't seen in a long time on the Republican side.

00:24:06.100 That that has kind of frayed and the Israel piece has divided the party in the aftermath of 2024.

00:24:15.460 That's an ongoing thing.

00:24:17.540 And that could have an impact on Republican turnout among young voters and on the margins, though.

00:24:25.240 Certainly in 2026, it's going to be more, you know, it's going to be a low turnout election.

00:24:30.260 So every vote's going to matter as as they always do in midterms.

00:24:34.140 But I just don't think this Candace Owens thing, it is it's pretty dramatic because it is so, as I said, in my opinion, it's despicable what she's doing and it's getting a lot of headlines. 0.99

00:24:45.980 But in terms of its its impact on the Republican Party overall, I don't think it's going to have much.

00:24:51.720 I'll say one of the thing to your point.

00:24:54.440 You know, Trump became like the cool guy to vote for in 2024 among the youth, in large part, thanks to Charlie and Turning Point.

00:25:03.200 And that also did, in part, depend on Charlie himself.

00:25:06.740 Like Charlie, when I was talking to his staff when I went out there to host his show, I think this happened live on the air, but they were talking about how Charlie loved listening to classical music.

00:25:18.600 He they kept trying to play country music for him out there.

00:25:21.300 They have an Arizona.

00:25:22.160 And he was like, I don't like it.

00:25:23.540 I want my classical music.

00:25:25.200 Then he had a couple of other things that he his late night snack.

00:25:28.240 Erica told me it was like a banana and olives like he was squeaky clean, you know.

00:25:32.340 And I said I joked with the Turning Point staff like, so what you're saying is he was a nerd.

00:25:35.800 And they would not even say that in jest.

00:25:38.520 They were like, no, like Charlie was an alpha male.

00:25:42.600 And it was important to Charlie that alpha men return to the national scene.

00:25:48.160 And that actually also made it cool to vote Republican, Tom.

00:25:52.800 You know, like that swagger, Charlie's swagger.

00:25:55.440 And like he was cool.

00:25:57.400 That also was attractive, I think, to a lot of young people.

00:25:59.820 We saw that, too, with the young men in particular after he died.

00:26:02.680 Absolutely.

00:26:03.240 And I mean, he's irreplaceable.

00:26:05.040 I mean, he had this sort of charisma.

00:26:06.640 He was a rock star.

00:26:07.580 I mean, my daughter was on the ASU campus and she told me a story.

00:26:11.720 She was walking by and there's this huge crowd.

00:26:13.420 She was like, oh, my gosh, who's here?

00:26:14.640 You know, it was Charlie.

00:26:15.900 It was Charlie just answering questions.

00:26:17.320 I mean, he attracted these huge crowds wherever he went.

00:26:19.600 He was a magnet.

00:26:20.760 He had this magnetic personality.

00:26:22.880 And that simply cannot be replaced.

00:26:24.880 And so when you're talking about motivating young voters to go turn out for the Republican Party in 26 and 28.

00:26:30.080 Yeah, I mean, it's a big loss.

00:26:34.000 It's a big loss that he's not the one doing it.

00:26:36.080 It's the loss.

00:26:36.940 That's the loss.

00:26:37.820 Not necessarily this back and forth.

00:26:40.900 But I do wonder, guys.

00:26:42.500 I mean, you're the political experts.

00:26:44.120 What do you think, Andrew and Carl?

00:26:46.740 Go ahead, Andy.

00:26:47.180 Carl, you want to go?

00:26:48.020 You go, Andy.

00:26:48.600 First thing.

00:26:48.980 Well, I think Tom's basically right about if you talk about the midterms and then in 2028, a lot will come down to who the candidates are and candidate quality really matters.

00:27:02.420 So we'll see who the Democrats put up.

00:27:05.140 But I do think that this split about around Israel, especially for young people, is something to keep an eye on, maybe not in 26, 28, but in the long term.

00:27:17.400 It's very dangerous, I think.

00:27:18.980 And I do think that what I've seen from talking to young people, especially young men who really identified with Charlie Kirk, that this part of the message is resonating, this sort of anti-Israel message.

00:27:33.620 And that, you know, dangerously close to anti-Semitism if it isn't straight out anti-Semitism.

00:27:39.840 It's way past anti-Semitism, Andy.

00:27:42.320 I don't agree with that at all, but you finish your point.

00:27:45.800 Anyway, but so I guess overall, I would say I think the midterms are going to turn on the economy.

00:27:54.640 I think this health care issue is much bigger than – and I think the Republicans – some Republicans understand that.

00:28:00.780 I think that's going to be a major, major issue.

00:28:03.620 Well, it's interesting that you mentioned 28.

00:28:05.000 I think, like, picture it.

00:28:06.240 If it were Trump versus Harris all over again, would they really vote for Harris Republicans because the right is divided over these things that we've gone through?

00:28:15.480 Like, I don't think so.

00:28:16.680 I don't think there's anything that could have made any normal Republican vote for Kamala Harris instead of Donald Trump.

00:28:22.640 No, no, no.

00:28:22.980 I think you're right.

00:28:23.480 No, but here's the other part of this, which is that I think there's just an anti-incumbency ethos in America today.

00:28:30.920 It's just throw the bums out whoever the bums are. 1.00

00:28:33.780 That's true.

00:28:34.400 I think that if I were a Republican, certainly looking at the midterms, but certainly in looking at 2020, it's just I'm not sure the Americans will vote again for anybody who's had anything to do with anything in politics in the last four years.

00:28:49.000 They're going to be looking for something.

00:28:49.960 Well, you're really damned if you get into it, and you're damned if you don't get into it.

00:28:53.120 Go ahead, Carl.

00:28:54.220 Well, Megan, I think the thing is a danger to the conservative movement for a slightly different reason.

00:29:00.840 So Candace Owens came on the scene. 1.00

00:29:02.640 And she was a black woman and a conservative, and that was the novelty.

00:29:06.680 Well, when she first started, I think she was a Democrat.

00:29:08.740 When she first got started, she told me that when she came on.

00:29:12.680 But her prominence, you know, left, but she grew out of that.

00:29:15.540 Her prominence came when she was considered a conservative, and then she turns out to be something of a nut on Israel.

00:29:23.560 And probably, you know, a lot of people think, me included, a bigot when she talks about Israel.

00:29:29.220 And then it turns out that Erica Kirk hinted at something else, a third problem with her, which is that she's making money off attacking the memory of Charlie Kirk, that she's a cynic, that she's in this for the money.

00:29:42.160 And the point I'm making is that she shouldn't answer these nutty conspiracy theories.

00:29:49.920 Candace Owens is trying to taunt her into coming on her show. 1.00

00:29:53.640 Why should she even dignify this vile, this crazy conspiracy theories?

00:29:58.800 They're not even theories.

00:29:59.980 She's just throwing stuff out there and hoping it sticks to the wall.

00:30:02.840 But if you're, there's going to be, you know, a couple of million people, young people who were eligible to vote in 2028 that weren't eligible in 2024.

00:30:13.640 And she's undoing, and not just her, I think Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, they're undoing some of this, the good that Charlie Kirk did.

00:30:22.240 These are young people on college campuses or high schools and workplaces, and they're coming into politics and they've become politically aware and they're thinking, okay, everything my left-wing teachers told me may not be true.

00:30:34.880 Maybe, you know, and they're deciding what they believe.

00:30:37.960 And this is muddying the message.

00:30:39.960 This is, if people on the right say the exact same things about Israel that your left-wing, you know, Hamas promoting teacher told you, it gets in the way of the message.

00:30:51.020 A conservative would support Israel because Israel's a democracy.

00:30:55.360 What?

00:30:55.380 It's not necessarily true at all, Carl.

00:30:57.660 It doesn't make anyone a bigot because they've got criticisms over Israel.

00:31:02.620 Israel's just at the tail end of a very bloody, awful two-year war where they were extremely aggressive and a lot of innocents died.

00:31:09.740 And that's why young people are turning on Israel, not because of pundits out there saying things about Israel.

00:31:16.080 Well, you know, this country, we were attacked, you know, in Pearl Harbor, and we killed more people in Japan and Germany, civilians, in a day, an average day, than Israel killed in two years.

00:31:30.400 So I don't think this is about civilians in Gaza.

00:31:33.360 I think it's, I think it's, it's anti, it's the colonial, it's the colonizing, you know, narrative that the left has pushed.

00:31:40.940 And you wouldn't think conservatives, you wouldn't think conservatives would fall for it.

00:31:44.800 Do you think a conservative would say, wait, let me get this straight.

00:31:47.240 There's 22 countries in the Middle East.

00:31:48.900 They're all dictatorships, except Israel. 0.71

00:31:51.200 Israel's a friend of the United States.

00:31:52.800 I agree with all that.

00:31:53.340 This has been conservative policy since 19.

00:31:55.360 I agree with all that, but there's a reason, like, do you think J.D. Vance is a bigot?

00:32:00.360 No, I don't think J.D. Vance is a bigot, but I don't, I don't hear him saying this crap that Tucker and Nick Fuentes and Kenneth Owens are saying.

00:32:08.500 I don't hear him spitting conspiracy theories.

00:32:11.560 But do you have any doubt in your mind that he would be less of a friend to Israel than Marco Rubio?

00:32:20.740 Well, that's actually.

00:32:22.160 I think he would be less of a friend to Israel.

00:32:23.360 Well, that's a very good question.

00:32:25.120 And so in Trump's dream ticket, and you notice when he says it, he always says Marco first and J.D. second.

00:32:31.200 Yeah.

00:32:31.760 I think Marco's probably closer to Trump on foreign policy than J.D. is.

00:32:36.100 But J.D. is, I think, the future of the party.

00:32:40.720 And I think it was either you or Andy said, to your point, the 50 or the under 50 crowd now, even in the Republican Party, has turned on Israel.

00:32:52.460 It was just the young people on the left and independent.

00:32:56.660 And now in the Republican Party, the youth has turned on Israel.

00:32:59.720 This is not all because of podcasters.

00:33:02.480 It's, I would submit to you, because of Israel, because of Netanyahu, because of the messaging around the war, and because of the Iran strike, which the younger generation is against.

00:33:13.420 They're like, fuck you and your never-ending wars, and your willingness, your trigger finger willingness to put me in them.

00:33:22.460 That's how they feel.

00:33:23.740 You know, if we wind up in a war with Iran, who's going to fight it? 1.00

00:33:27.920 Me.

00:33:28.440 That's what these young people, not me, Megyn Kelly.

00:33:30.280 But that's not what the polling shows, Megyn.

00:33:32.580 That's not what the polling shows.

00:33:33.820 Tom and I were at the Reagan Library last weekend, and then this, what's it called, the Reagan National Defense Poll, Tom?

00:33:40.440 Yeah, the Reagan Defense Forum.

00:33:42.140 Yeah, and the polling shows a plurality of Americans all across any demographic age, any party, think that America has a place to leadership in the world.

00:33:52.160 So, and I asked them, Rachel Hoff, who was the director of the, what's her title, Tom?

00:33:59.100 But anyway, she presented the poll to this group, and we had her on our show, and we asked her.

00:34:03.200 So, it doesn't sound like, it sounds like the average mega voter is a lot more internationalist than the mega leadership.

00:34:09.580 Well, that doesn't necessarily mean they want war, or they want to start bombing more countries and get, like, I think that's where the divide is.

00:34:16.940 Like, there's some resentment toward Israel because they feel like they're going to drag us into a war.

00:34:22.920 And I understand the defense.

00:34:23.880 The Israel defenders say, hell no, Israel doesn't need our help.

00:34:26.740 They want us to stay out of their way.

00:34:28.260 That's what they want.

00:34:29.020 They just want us to, like, not give them the red light, but either, like, give them the green light or stay out of their hair because they obviously can take care of their own business.

00:34:38.120 With the Iran thing, it was a different story. 0.97

00:34:39.960 You know, they did need us on that, and we went in, did what Trump thought was right, and that was the end of that, at least for now.

00:34:44.740 Anyway, I don't know.

00:34:46.160 I'm not that interested in Israeli politics, to be perfectly honest with you, but I am interested in whether it's going to cost Republicans elections, especially with young people, because we can't handle a Kamala Harris as president.

00:34:58.740 And there's rumors she's going to run again. 0.59

00:35:01.300 I don't think we can handle a Gavin Newsom.

00:35:03.080 We certainly can't handle an AOC.

00:35:05.220 I mean, look, we will handle, but it's going to be very tumultuous and hard.

00:35:08.640 And I would take any Republican over those nutcases, which leads me to Gavin Newsom.

00:35:14.820 Okay?

00:35:15.360 Now we're on to Gavin.

00:35:17.220 Good transition.

00:35:19.000 Thank you.

00:35:20.020 He's continuing his little, you know, I was born a poor black child routine, which he wasn't. 0.85

00:35:26.740 He wasn't.

00:35:27.560 He's basically a Getty.

00:35:29.960 Oh, that suit.

00:35:31.240 Come on.

00:35:31.580 Are you practically a Getty when you're, like, you're on, like, Getty, John Paul Getty is, like, your basic uncle, you're in all the family photos.

00:35:41.000 Gordon Getty was his godfather, I think.

00:35:42.860 Yeah.

00:35:43.140 Gordon.

00:35:43.340 Okay.

00:35:43.760 So he is, he's family.

00:35:45.600 But he's still trying to do the poor me, I'm like this poor kid who had the misfortune of having to hang out with rich kids when I was growing up.

00:35:53.920 And he's just dropped a new book, and he wants you to know you're going to love his book because he's amazing, and he is super open in his book.

00:36:03.320 Just ask him.

00:36:04.460 I think it's SOT1, Debbie.

00:36:08.340 This, this is not the book you'd expect me to write.

00:36:11.140 A lot of people look at me, the stark white shirt, the blue suit, and, yeah, the gelled hair, and they think, oh, I know this guy.

00:36:18.140 I know this guy better than I'd ever want to know him.

00:36:20.880 I get it.

00:36:21.440 It's a story about living between two worlds, one of wealth and privilege, and the other of more modest upbringing, the outsider on the inside, the interloper who learned to feel comfortable in many rooms, a story of self-doubt, and, yes, ambition.

00:36:36.120 I hope that whatever your opinions of me are, openness, the honesty I felt in writing this and living it will resonate.

00:36:45.080 The openness, my openness and my honesty.

00:36:48.300 He also says, this is a truly vulnerable book.

00:36:52.000 It's a vulnerable book.

00:36:53.580 So he wants you to know he's vulnerable, he's open, he's honest, he's both rich and poor, and you're going to love his book, guys.

00:37:04.680 You're making Tom's day, Megan.

00:37:06.200 So, Megan, I don't know if your listeners know this, but we have a running gag on our show that every time the name Gavin Newsom is mentioned, you have to take a drink.

00:37:16.100 Yes.

00:37:16.500 Because Carl is a – Carl knew his father, and he knows Gavin, and he's –

00:37:22.780 A Californian.

00:37:24.360 Yes.

00:37:24.900 He's fondly predisposed to Gavin Newsom, let's put it that way.

00:37:29.000 And we tease him about that all the time.

00:37:31.020 Look, this is – he's clearly running for president.

00:37:34.480 He's ahead in most of the polls.

00:37:36.700 He has – you know, he's laying the groundwork here.

00:37:40.960 And part of that is overcoming this resistance or this idea.

00:37:47.460 And we saw it.

00:37:48.440 You know, he did that podcast where he tried to portray himself as – you know, he's eating mac and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches.

00:37:54.840 You know, I mean, it was preposterous, and he got blasted for it.

00:37:59.980 And so – but I think he's trying to overcome this idea that he's this elitist, West Coast elitist, and he can really connect in the heartland, and he's got these working-class roots and all of that stuff.

00:38:12.240 I also saw a theory that this is him.

00:38:16.380 He's got some stuff in his background regarding –

00:38:21.040 Like he's a cheater.

00:38:21.640 Yeah, an affair with his campaign manager's wife.

00:38:25.780 I mean –

00:38:26.280 While he was married to KG, right?

00:38:28.040 While he was married, and then he went to some rehab or something.

00:38:31.000 I mean, so he's got some stuff.

00:38:32.560 He went to fake rehab.

00:38:34.060 He went to the rehab to go to when you did something bad and you're trying to look contrite.

00:38:38.220 It was like alcohol rehab.

00:38:39.680 He was blaming his affair on his alcohol use.

00:38:42.220 Yes.

00:38:42.620 But he came out still a drinker.

00:38:45.580 Like, okay, you got an F on your rehab.

00:38:49.540 Still a moderate drinker, though.

00:38:51.480 It's moderate now, Tom.

00:38:53.200 Right.

00:38:53.740 So he's trying to get that stuff out on his own terms before there's some expose.

00:38:59.460 Well, it wouldn't be from the New York Times or the Washington Post, but maybe from a conservative outlet sort of detailing some of his dirty laundry.

00:39:05.520 So he's trying to manage his image heading into 2028.

00:39:08.760 And we'll see whether he's able to do that.

00:39:11.980 But he's clearly running, and he's clearly putting all the pieces in place to make a run at the nomination.

00:39:18.080 And I got to say, in my opinion, he'd probably be the favorite.

00:39:21.040 Despite all of his flaws.

00:39:23.400 His dirty French, his dirty French laundry. 1.00

00:39:25.180 On February 1st, 2007, Newsom publicly admitted the affair, apologized, and described it as a profound lapse in judgment.

00:39:32.000 Upon reflection with friends and family this weekend, I've come to the conclusion that I'll be a better person without alcohol in my life.

00:39:37.180 Unless it's on a moderate basis, and it's post-rehab when no one's looking.

00:39:42.440 In a 2018 interview, he clarified, no, there's no rehab.

00:39:45.440 I just stopped and said that after a period of abstinence, he resumed drinking moderately, claiming the earlier period was a reset.

00:39:55.140 That is the fakest rehab ever.

00:39:58.420 He had an affair.

00:39:59.540 Okay, whatever.

00:40:00.220 It happens.

00:40:00.560 I respect him more if he's like, you know what?

00:40:01.960 I had an affair.

00:40:02.640 My marriage was ending.

00:40:04.160 It did end.

00:40:04.900 She moved on and was happily with Don Jr., and she got remarried to Eric Valencia for a while.

00:40:10.320 And I moved on and felt like, why don't you just be a man about it?

00:40:12.800 I can't stand, I don't use the P word, but that's P word behavior, where you're like, I'm a boozer, except I'm not.

00:40:19.500 And I'm back on the moderate alcohol, but only moderate, like, come on.

00:40:23.140 All right, now wait, I want to ask you guys, Andy and Carl.

00:40:27.300 Tom raises his story about being a poor child, and it's a lie.

00:40:31.760 He was in, like, magazines as, like, what it's like to be a child of the rich because of the Getty connection.

00:40:36.680 And his dad was a judge.

00:40:38.020 He wasn't on Pauper's Row.

00:40:40.800 Anyway, here he is trying to tell that to a podcast.

00:40:44.320 It's Sought 2, and then I'll give you a little background that we pulled that's brand new to me.

00:40:48.600 Sought 2.

00:40:48.960 My mom was 19, pregnant and divorced a few years later with two kids, came from no money, and just hustled, you know, worked hard, grinding every single day, two, two and a half jobs, no bullshit. 1.00

00:41:02.420 Part-time bookkeepers, she did restaurant, that's how I got into the restaurant business, and it was just, like, hustling.

00:41:06.760 And so I was out there kind of raising myself, turning on the TV, started, you know, just getting obsessed, you know, sitting there with, you know, the Wonder Bread and five stacks of, you know, peter butter and stuff.

00:41:21.740 Man, it's like the White Steak Bob story.

00:41:22.420 It's a ramen noodle.

00:41:23.320 What do you say, man?

00:41:24.780 Come on.

00:41:26.260 Crack macaroni and cheese.

00:41:28.120 Yeah, bro.

00:41:30.220 Yeah, bro.

00:41:31.480 Okay.

00:41:32.000 So he was basically on public assistance.

00:41:34.940 So here's the truth.

00:41:38.200 Some of this we knew, but some of this is new to me.

00:41:40.220 So his late father, William, former associate justice on the California Court of Appeals, served as an attorney for the Getty's billion-dollar fortune.

00:41:47.180 William Newsom was so involved with the Getty's, he helped personally deliver the ransom payment in response to the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III.

00:41:55.280 That's pretty tight.

00:41:56.520 I love and know you guys pretty darn well.

00:41:58.400 I don't think I'd be the one who'd give the ransom payment if, God forbid, somebody got you.

00:42:03.480 I'd be willing, but I probably wouldn't be the first choice.

00:42:07.060 Gavin's parents divorced when he was three, but William and Gavin did get big money from their Getty ties from a 2003 San Francisco Weekly article.

00:42:17.780 The Newsoms also each have owned stock in Getty Images, which is a $1.6 billion conglomerate that owns a number of 70 million photographs and illustrations.

00:42:28.740 And also, in 2001, William, the dad, brought Gavin, the son, into a Hawaii beachfront real estate investment in which his initial $125,000 stake soared to more than $1 million in just six months.

00:42:41.060 And then listen to this, two additional facts.

00:42:44.420 San Francisco Chronicle, 2003.

00:42:46.360 In 10, count them, 10, of Gavin Newsom's first 11 businesses, the primary money came from the Getty family.

00:42:55.620 Is that where you guys got your money to start Real Clear Politics?

00:42:58.700 I don't think so.

00:42:59.860 And last point, the Sacramento Bee, Gordon and Ann Getty paid about $233,000 toward Gavin Newsom's first wedding reception.

00:43:13.420 His 30th birthday party, given by the Gettys, was Great Gatsby themed down to the flappers and Charlestons.

00:43:23.340 Carl Cannon, the prosecution rests.

00:43:25.740 Well, here comes the defense.

00:43:32.180 So, Bill Newsom was a judge.

00:43:35.380 Gordon Getty was a very close personal friend.

00:43:37.700 And Gavin didn't live with his dad.

00:43:40.900 His sister lived in Marin, across the Golden Gate Bridge.

00:43:45.160 Gavin was a jot.

00:43:46.300 He wasn't a great student, played basketball and baseball.

00:43:51.200 And he grew up middle class.

00:43:52.980 And, but when he, when he graduated from college to Santa Clara and he went out in the world, he started a restaurant.

00:43:59.860 I think it was the Balboa, the name of it.

00:44:03.740 And he was, he wasn't wanting to be in the restaurant business.

00:44:07.240 He got into politics because all the red tape.

00:44:09.620 Was that one of the 11 businesses that were funded by the Gettys?

00:44:12.420 It was the first one.

00:44:14.140 And it was a nice cafe.

00:44:15.420 It was modest cafe.

00:44:16.940 But my, he wasn't, you know, that's that old Steve Martin line that's Tom likes.

00:44:22.320 I was born a poor black child.

00:44:24.080 That wasn't Gavin.

00:44:25.160 But they were middle class family.

00:44:26.380 Bill owned a, had a place up in Dutch Flat, which is in the mother load country.

00:44:29.820 And he didn't even own it.

00:44:30.640 He rented it.

00:44:31.340 No one's saying Bill.

00:44:32.600 I knew them.

00:44:33.480 I knew them at that time.

00:44:34.880 Why is he in the magazine under Children of the Rich?

00:44:37.360 Did somebody make him pose in that and call himself rich and pose with the Gettys with his greased up hair?

00:44:43.000 He loved that image.

00:44:44.640 And he did have access.

00:44:45.660 Could this, let's, I don't know this for sure about you guys, but I just know just from knowing you.

00:44:50.140 I don't know, but I know.

00:44:51.300 You weren't raised with silver spoons.

00:44:53.420 I know you weren't.

00:44:54.860 Bullshit.

00:44:55.300 I wasn't.

00:44:55.720 Fuck that.

00:44:56.020 Nobody gave you $233,000 for your wedding, for your wedding reception, $233,000 and nobody funded your first 11 businesses.

00:45:06.820 That's bullshit.

00:45:07.820 It's stolen valor.

00:45:09.320 It is.

00:45:09.920 For those of us who are self-made, it's stolen valor.

00:45:13.660 Those of us who actually did have to eat mac and cheese and boxed wine and all the bullshit for years, never knowing whether we'd be able to afford the clothes that we're sitting in today.

00:45:22.760 Fuck him.

00:45:23.540 He had so many hands up.

00:45:26.040 And I'd respect him if he came out and said, I was very, very lucky in my family connections.

00:45:29.940 We weren't rich, but we had this great connection in the Gettys, and they really helped me.

00:45:34.060 And that's what makes me different from most people who had to claw their ways up.

00:45:37.340 And that's why I want to help those people.

00:45:38.820 That's not his story.

00:45:39.900 He's dishonest.

00:45:41.620 So I'm going to put you down as undecided.

00:45:49.700 Andy, settle the argument, please.

00:45:52.220 Well, I'll put it this way.

00:45:54.180 I think that he has an authenticity problem, and he's trying to solve it by being even more inauthentic.

00:46:03.840 And I think that's the problem here, is that I agree with you that if he just came out and sort of was honest about the mistakes he's made in life and the things that went well and things that didn't go well, people might be interested in that.

00:46:16.800 But he seems incapable of that, and I think his slickness is both his superpower and his Achilles heel, because I think people see through it.

00:46:27.040 But nonetheless, he is at the top of most of the polls that we're looking at right now.

00:46:33.400 He's coming off this great big win on the redistricting in California.

00:46:37.420 He's set himself up as the anti-Trump.

00:46:41.040 The rest of the field is kind of fumbling while he seems to be moving forward.

00:46:45.980 So he's a formidable politician, no matter how you look at it.

00:46:51.420 And he's got to run it on his record in California.

00:46:54.060 I think that's what people really care about, not his—

00:46:56.920 Which is not great, by the way.

00:46:59.120 Which is also not great, but he's pulling a Jasmine Crockett right now because she launched her U.S. Senate campaign by just like—she defines herself around Trump. 0.99

00:47:07.700 It's all Trump's criticisms of her, right?

00:47:09.600 And look what he just put out today.

00:47:11.140 Gavin Newsom, not on the heels of that redistricting win, which you can't take away from him.

00:47:14.640 He did have.

00:47:16.100 This is what he just dropped.

00:47:18.440 Sot Zero.

00:47:19.060 Watch.

00:47:19.780 It's an AI video he made.

00:47:22.140 It's Trump, Hegseth, and Stephen Miller.

00:47:25.740 Is that who it is over there?

00:47:26.940 Yeah.

00:47:27.380 In handcuffs, in the back of a police car, it looks like, crying, putting their faces in their hands.

00:47:34.200 Now their hands are behind their back.

00:47:35.660 The handcuffs are behind their back, and they're walking like a perp walk in their suits like they're criminals.

00:47:42.480 Andy, you're making faces I've never seen you make before.

00:47:45.640 That's the first I've seen that video.

00:47:47.180 That's new to me.

00:47:47.840 I hate this use of AI in these ads.

00:47:50.320 I think it's terrible that they do it.

00:47:53.700 I'm not sure what the message of that—well, I can guess what the message is.

00:47:56.980 But why today?

00:47:58.980 And, yeah, I think that's bad politics.

00:48:04.640 I think they're responding to a White House post that said something about its cuffing season or cuffing season or something like that.

00:48:12.700 But, look, he has been very active on his team on social media and in a way that, quite frankly, a lot of people, myself included, thought was really kind of cringy and hokey.

00:48:25.020 But, nevertheless, if you operate under the theory that any publicity is good publicity, he has been able to keep himself in the news and at the top of the heap of the Democratic Party, even while Kamala's been doing her book tour and trying to get her reset and get back in the game.

00:48:42.020 And you've got J.B. Pritzker, my governor here in Illinois, who's been battling Trump in Chicago and all that.

00:48:48.140 And so Gavin Newsom has managed to stay relevant.

00:48:53.900 The question is, you know, we're so—it's so early now.

00:48:57.820 Like, is there—can people be overexposed?

00:49:00.920 Can Gavin Newsom—can we get too much of him too soon where people are just like, oh, I can't handle any more Gavin Newsom?

00:49:06.260 I'm there.

00:49:06.600 He's got the—he's got this little—the way he uses his hands when he talks, I mean, it's—

00:49:11.700 Oh, God, it's weird.

00:49:13.760 It's a little weird, yeah.

00:49:15.160 Do you guys remember—it was only a year ago, two years ago, Ron DeSantis was his foil in the Republican Party, and he picked fights with DeSantis everywhere he went.

00:49:25.360 He showed up—

00:49:25.880 They debated on Hannity.

00:49:26.660 Did a debate, that's right.

00:49:27.640 He showed up in Simi Valley at the Reagan Library for the first debate, Trump deciding quite properly, as it turns out, that he wasn't even going to dignify these people in the debates.

00:49:38.340 Trump treated himself as the nominee in waiting, and that turned out to be right. 0.89

00:49:41.660 But we didn't know that at the time, and Newsom came down, he's the governor, said, what are you doing here?

00:49:45.860 He's told people, well, I'm the governor of the state, and it's a beautiful library, and I just want to welcome all the press and the Republicans to, you know, the Reagan Library.

00:49:54.640 And, of course, then he had—the real reason he was there is to set a trap for Ron DeSantis, who he thought was going to be the nominee, and he was going to be the rival.

00:50:04.800 And they debated, and you guys said—but the thing about Sean Hannity that was so interesting to me, Hannity moderated the debate, and Hannity agrees on issues with everything Ron DeSantis said and nothing Gavin Newsom says.

00:50:18.020 And yet Hannity clearly liked Gavin Newsom more than he liked Ron DeSantis.

00:50:21.180 And that was the first clue to me that this guy had the kind of charisma, maybe, that would translate to a presidential run.

00:50:28.820 It was Sean Hannity who gave me that idea.

00:50:30.800 It's now called Riz.

00:50:32.640 I just want you to know that.

00:50:33.880 The kids have gotten rid of the first and the last part of that word.

00:50:37.560 I don't know why they do what they do.

00:50:39.240 Stand by, you guys, because there's a couple more things I want to discuss with you.

00:50:42.400 We'll do it on the opposite side of this break.

00:50:44.360 Don't go away.

00:50:45.520 RCP is still here, and then later, Doug Brunt.

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00:52:15.760 Back with me now, the guys from Real Clear Politics, which you can get as a podcast on YouTube or listen live every day at 11 a.m. Eastern on the Megan Kelly channel.

00:52:31.860 That's channel 111 on Sirius XM.

00:52:34.540 Okay, guys.

00:52:35.380 So you may not know this, but on December 12th at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., they will present the Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Political Journalism.

00:52:49.240 And not only are none of us Time's Person of the Year, but none of us are getting a Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Journalism.

00:52:59.120 And this, too, is bullshit.

00:53:01.960 It's bullshit.

00:53:03.000 Why isn't Susan Crabtree getting one of these awards for all the breaking stuff she did around Butler and since then on the Secret Service and so many inside Washington stories or just RCP in general, which has a great stable of reporters?

00:53:19.260 Why aren't you getting it instead of, I'm not kidding, Rachel Maddow?

00:53:27.020 Rachel Maddow.

00:53:28.260 For what category?

00:53:30.340 The biggest conspiracy theorist on camera.

00:53:33.600 But truly, like, you can, like, there's no bigger conspiracy theorist than Rachel Maddow.

00:53:38.740 I mean, that's all she's peddled in for the past 10 years.

00:53:41.640 And she never owned it.

00:53:42.940 She was on one of the late night shows just last week.

00:53:45.420 Like, I think that Russia coverage I did has been proven pretty true right now since they're literally taking Kremlin talking points to strike the Ukraine deal.

00:53:54.580 No, no, it hasn't proven true at all.

00:53:57.260 You're a liar.

00:53:58.580 Nothing you said was true and you never owned it.

00:54:00.740 She's getting recognition for political, her excellence in political journalism, Carl.

00:54:08.680 From, it's, the award will be handed out by the USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, which is a part of the USC in Los Angeles.

00:54:16.860 And the reason they say these people are getting one is, quote, the message is that these winners, by honoring these winners, is that the press is not the enemy of the people.

00:54:29.040 It's the firewall between the public and disinformation, abuse of power, and corruption.

00:54:37.780 Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart.

00:54:43.000 Jon Stewart, who's getting the inaugural award in comedic news and commentary.

00:54:52.020 Jon Stewart.

00:54:53.040 I, Greg Gutfeld has 10 times Jon Stewart's ratings and relevance.

00:54:59.120 He is the only thing relevant when it comes to comedic programming.

00:55:02.940 And Jon Stewart has, he does not do objective programming on anything.

00:55:07.260 And he doesn't do comedy either.

00:55:08.880 All he does is bashing of right-wing people.

00:55:11.600 I'll give you one example.

00:55:13.140 Here he is.

00:55:15.060 I think you are not living in the planet most Americans are, which is why this kind of extremism, this anti-white extremism, is losing popular support.

00:55:27.180 This is what happens when white people don't talk about it, is you have racist dog whistle tropes like this.

00:55:33.700 I did not come on this, on this show to sit here and argue with another white man.

00:55:38.880 That's one of the reasons that we don't even engage with white men at race to dinner. 0.75

00:55:44.400 So, you know, because quite honestly, if white men were going to do something about racism, you had 400 years.

00:55:52.280 You could have done it.

00:55:54.680 Stewart's laughing.

00:55:55.740 I would finger snap right now.

00:55:58.640 Let's remove it then from the...

00:55:59.920 Well, you'd be finger snapping by calling me a racist, Jon.

00:56:01.560 So, let's, you're, you've been doing a pretty good job with it yourself there, so.

00:56:08.080 That's Andrew Sullivan.

00:56:09.760 I mean, truly, like, deeply respected, deeply thoughtful.

00:56:13.240 You know, center-right, but not far-right, openly gay man.

00:56:18.160 Like, F him for the way he and his guests treated Andrew.

00:56:21.240 And that's what you could get you an award now from the Cronkite Center, guys.

00:56:24.380 From the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political...

00:56:27.680 This is disgusting.

00:56:29.600 Thoughts?

00:56:30.000 I have one.

00:56:33.960 To the, I don't, I didn't know her name, but the woman said, if white men want to do anything 0.70

00:56:39.160 about racism...

00:56:40.100 She's the lady, Carl, who you can pay $5,000 to, to show up at your next Real Clear Politics 0.97

00:56:46.160 holiday party and call you all racists.

00:56:50.220 That's what she does. 1.00

00:56:51.360 She explains...

00:56:52.280 We'll probably, we'll take a pass on that, but I would, if she, if she, if she crashes 1.00

00:56:56.580 the party, I'll tell her that, that this country had a civil war and that white men 0.96

00:57:02.420 from every Northern state marched into battle singing the John Brown hymn.

00:57:07.580 And, you know, 300,000 of them died fighting in Mr. Lincoln's army to free the slaves.

00:57:15.240 And, you know, that, that strikes me as maybe a little more of a sacrifice than going on

00:57:19.780 John Stewart's show and pretending to care.

00:57:22.520 This just in, Carl Cannon is out of the running for next year's Walter Cronkite Awards for

00:57:27.740 Excellence in Political Journalism.

00:57:30.420 This is, that kind of commentary is not what gets you over the line, my friend.

00:57:34.440 But to me, it's just disgusting.

00:57:35.700 They're bastardizing the name of Walter Cronkite.

00:57:37.660 They've been doing it for a long time.

00:57:39.320 But there was a time when those Cronkite Awards meant something.

00:57:42.100 And now, like the third person who's getting one, there's actually a couple more, but Scott

00:57:47.700 Pelley, Scott Pelley, guys, this, that's absurd.

00:57:53.320 Scott Pelley's most memorable moment over the past couple of years has been his attempted

00:57:57.220 cross-examination of the Moms for Liberty founders, where he tried to tell them that

00:58:01.520 they're not peddling smut to children in the K through eight schools in the form of books

00:58:07.220 that the kids are required to read and that the parents can't opt out of.

00:58:11.560 You know how wrong he was?

00:58:12.940 The U.S. Supreme Court just so found that it's happening and threw out the program that

00:58:19.620 wouldn't allow Maryland parents to pull their children out of those classes. 0.95

00:58:23.360 That's how wrong he was.

00:58:24.320 The U.S. Supreme Court said so.

00:58:26.340 But he gets awarded this, like the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Journalism,

00:58:32.080 Tom.

00:58:33.760 Well, I mean, these things have become just a caricature and a parody of themselves, right?

00:58:38.720 And, you know, I heard your clip, you were talking about the Golden Globes and how when

00:58:43.840 you worked at Fox, like Roger Ailes, like wouldn't even let you guys apply for any award

00:58:47.440 because they were all-

00:58:48.280 Never.

00:58:49.280 Right.

00:58:49.720 They were all from leftists, for leftists, and that's exactly what this is.

00:58:53.120 There was a prize earlier this year.

00:58:56.740 The Dow Prize has been, this was the second year of the Dow Prize, which is basically awards

00:59:01.900 not just conservative journalism, but sort of middle of the road, what people, what used

00:59:08.900 to be sort of objective journalism and also local journalism that was done across the country.

00:59:15.180 And you mentioned Susan Crabtree.

00:59:17.420 She won it, not last, not this past year, but the year before that, the inaugural Dow Prize

00:59:21.660 for her work on the Secret Service.

00:59:24.320 And this year, the Federalists, the whole team won it for their coverage of the sort of

00:59:28.920 Russia-

00:59:29.380 That was well-deserved, too.

00:59:30.680 Yeah.

00:59:31.200 So, unfortunately, like the, I was going to say the right, and to a certain extent, it

00:59:37.320 is the right, but it's not like the hard right.

00:59:38.880 It's more like the center right, had to sort of stand up their own infrastructure to provide,

00:59:45.020 to see their work recognized, because it was never getting recognized by the usual suspects.

00:59:50.500 They've been doing this, patting each other on the back, giving each other Pulitzers for

00:59:54.240 the Russia coverage and like, you know, the COVID coverage and all this stuff.

00:59:58.260 I mean, it's really, it's become a joke, and I think most people recognize it as such,

01:00:02.800 except for the Rachel Maddows and Jon Stewart's of the world who were like, oh, this is such

01:00:07.240 a prestigious honor.

01:00:08.260 I can't, you know, how-

01:00:10.160 Grew up in my mouth.

01:00:10.780 How lucky I am.

01:00:11.580 I know, exactly.

01:00:12.340 And it's like, give me a break.

01:00:13.820 I mean, most people are over.

01:00:14.820 Andy, the Scott Pelley Award is based on his May 2025 reporting on the law firms versus

01:00:21.720 Trump story.

01:00:23.020 That was a big story when Trump was saying the federal government is not going to do business

01:00:27.020 with certain law firms, like the ones who are hiring my chief antagonists and the ones

01:00:32.120 who have spent the past five years suing me.

01:00:34.580 And so, no question, fair game to cover that story.

01:00:37.700 But how would you do it if you had, say, Mark Elias as your star witness on 60 Minutes and

01:00:45.140 your Scott Pelley?

01:00:46.400 Mark Elias, okay, the guy who was the chief architect, one of them, of the Democrats'

01:00:51.340 Russian collusion hoax, who was out there on behalf of Hillary Clinton campaign pushing

01:00:55.680 the lies about Trump and Alpha Bank and the servers in the basement, all of which were lies,

01:01:00.680 and they knew they were lies, and they were using them to bring down Trump.

01:01:03.500 We know all of this from the classified materials that have been released over the past six

01:01:07.140 months.

01:01:07.820 And you have Mark Elias sitting there, and you're Scott Pelley.

01:01:10.640 You might raise it.

01:01:11.880 You might at least raise it when you talk about why Trump hates his firm and why he's getting

01:01:16.080 so unfairly targeted by the evil Trump.

01:01:18.680 That didn't happen.

01:01:19.820 Here's a little from that segment for which Scott Pelley's now being honored.

01:01:23.260 It was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story because of the fear now running

01:01:32.760 through our system of justice.

01:01:35.080 Many firms and attorneys have been targeted, among them Mark Elias, a longtime opponent of

01:01:41.420 Trump, who is the only lawyer the president has named who was willing to appear on 60 Minutes.

01:01:48.460 Elias and others are warning that Trump's assault on the legal profession threatens the rule of law

01:01:55.480 itself.

01:01:57.060 Elias says that for him, it began with the president's personal grudge.

01:02:03.280 Donald Trump hates me because I fight hard and I fight for free and fair elections.

01:02:07.920 I insist on fighting for democracy in court, fighting for voting rights in court, and insist on telling 0.98

01:02:13.320 the truth about what the outcome of the 2020 election was.

01:02:15.860 Oh my God.

01:02:19.160 Andy.

01:02:21.160 Well, see, I'd like to know a year from now after Barry Weiss has had some impact at CBS,

01:02:26.940 how many awards 60 Minutes will win like this?

01:02:31.200 Hopefully everyone's fired.

01:02:32.900 But my other thing is, you know, from Rachel Maddow, I congratulate her, but there probably

01:02:38.320 will be more people in that room watching her get the award than there are people watching 0.83

01:02:42.840 her on MS now.

01:02:44.640 So there is some compensation there for her, I think.

01:02:48.660 This is just a disgrace.

01:02:50.100 I'm sorry.

01:02:50.620 I don't think anybody cares about the awards.

01:02:52.000 People should know.

01:02:52.140 I mean, go ahead.

01:02:54.720 I'm sorry.

01:02:55.160 I was just going to say, people don't know what a sort of, or maybe they should be told

01:03:02.540 what a sort of nefarious character Mark Elias is too, and to let him sort of have sort of

01:03:06.980 free reign to spin his yarn about how he's a real defender of democracy.

01:03:11.980 I mean, this guy is one of the most odious characters.

01:03:15.800 Wait a minute.

01:03:16.800 Wait, wait, wait, wait.

01:03:17.520 Let's not use words like nefarious and odious.

01:03:19.720 He's a Democratic Party arbor.

01:03:21.780 Use him.

01:03:22.340 He's an operant.

01:03:23.200 Odious, odious, odious.

01:03:24.580 Okay.

01:03:25.000 That's my girl.

01:03:29.760 But that's a subjective...

01:03:30.960 Megan, you see what I have to deal with every single day?

01:03:33.640 Good gracious.

01:03:35.060 This is supposed to be very hard.

01:03:37.960 But those are subjective feelings that you have.

01:03:40.160 But the objective truth is that this guy is a paid operative for the Democratic National

01:03:45.220 Committee, and he's made millions of dollars attacking Republicans, not voting for voting

01:03:50.420 rights, but for voting procedures that help Democrats.

01:03:53.560 And we don't have to demonize him to point out that it's bad journalism to present him

01:03:59.040 as a neutral arbiter.

01:04:00.580 He's a player.

01:04:01.580 Why would Trump want to do business with his law firm?

01:04:04.460 Why?

01:04:05.080 No, it's true.

01:04:06.320 That's the point I want to.

01:04:06.860 Unfortunately, instead of being excluded from any sort of an award for that ridiculous sin

01:04:13.220 of journalistic coverage, Scott Pelley now gets honored for the very report itself, and

01:04:19.240 this will be him at the awards with his glasses down at the end of his news.

01:04:24.560 I was right all along.

01:04:26.800 I'm better than you.

01:04:28.840 And we all know that because I host 60 Minutes.

01:04:32.900 And if Barry is the woman I think and believe her to be, she will fire his ass before we 1.00

01:04:39.960 are halfway through 2026.

01:04:41.440 That's my prediction.

01:04:42.440 He's fucking out of there.

01:04:44.120 Look forward to that news.

01:04:45.840 And I got to go.

01:04:46.740 I'm out of here, too, because Doug Brunt's in the wings, and he's got an eggnog for me,

01:04:50.920 unlike you fine gentlemen.

01:04:51.920 So I got to go.

01:04:52.740 All right.

01:04:54.620 Love you, guys.

01:04:55.440 Thanks for coming on.

01:04:56.440 Thank you.

01:04:57.020 All right.

01:04:58.400 We'll see you soon.

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01:06:16.500 I'm joined now by a very special guest, a New York Times bestselling author, host of

01:06:24.960 the excellent podcast dedicated with Doug Brunt, and the author of the upcoming book,

01:06:31.140 The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel, Romanoff's Revolutionaries and the Forgotten Titan,

01:06:38.720 who fueled the world.

01:06:40.880 Doug happens to be my husband as well, so that worked out well.

01:06:43.840 Hi, honey.

01:06:44.360 Hi.

01:06:44.740 It's great to be here.

01:06:45.380 Congrats.

01:06:46.260 So here is the galley copy of the new book, which is just so cool looking.

01:06:52.220 It's beautiful.

01:06:52.860 The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel.

01:06:55.100 And it looks kind of similar, similar style to your last big New York Times bestseller,

01:07:00.700 The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel.

01:07:03.740 Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel will not be available until May, but they can pre-order it today,

01:07:09.340 have it in time for Father's Day.

01:07:11.240 Yeah.

01:07:11.720 And tell us what The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel is about.

01:07:14.580 Well, getting the galleys is such a nice moment.

01:07:17.340 We open the box, you know, as a family around the dining room table, and you pull them out

01:07:20.520 and you see it and you hold it in your hands after years of working on it.

01:07:23.180 It is a companion book to the Diesel book.

01:07:26.080 Emmanuel Nobel has an appearance in the Rudolf Diesel story.

01:07:28.760 But you don't have to have read Diesel in order to read this book.

01:07:31.540 It can be out of sequence.

01:07:32.860 And in fact, I haven't said this really.

01:07:34.400 The only people who know this next piece are you and my editor and a few people in archives

01:07:39.060 around the world.

01:07:39.520 But I'm working on a third, which will be, will complete a trilogy of these three turn

01:07:43.940 of the century characters.

01:07:45.620 Emmanuel Nobel essentially established the Russian oil industry along the Caspian Sea in southern

01:07:51.360 Russia.

01:07:51.620 So by 1900, he and his family had built an oil business larger than standard oil.

01:07:57.300 And in World War I, he controlled more oil than anyone else on the planet.

01:08:00.320 So it was this huge prize sitting in southern Russia that Germany, the Brits, the Bolsheviks, 0.86

01:08:05.980 you know, the communists, Japan, everybody wanted to get to the Nobel oil because they had 0.94

01:08:10.620 essentially developed a whole oil infrastructure that was superior to anything else in the world.

01:08:16.840 Superior to Rockefeller.

01:08:17.540 That's crazy.

01:08:18.020 Even to Rockefeller.

01:08:18.620 And yet, for reasons explained in the book, Nobel has been obliterated from history.

01:08:24.620 Totally.

01:08:24.920 So this brings him back to life and tells the story.

01:08:26.600 The only Nobel anybody knows is Alfred Nobel, who started the Nobel Prizes.

01:08:31.100 This is Emmanuel Nobel, his nephew, built a totally different, bigger fortune that has

01:08:38.200 been totally forgotten, wiped out.

01:08:39.980 His name is not really known at all in connection with the awards.

01:08:42.860 That's all the Uncle Alfred who did dynamite. 0.76

01:08:45.420 That was his business.

01:08:46.300 And it's, do you reveal why?

01:08:49.900 But I mean, like-

01:08:50.600 A little.

01:08:50.880 I mean, it has to, of course, when the communists took over, Stalin and Lenin, they nationalized

01:08:55.220 all these businesses.

01:08:56.360 But everyone, even in that time, even when the Bolsheviks had taken over, everyone thought

01:08:59.920 the communists are going to last about three days.

01:09:02.100 And so there's an interesting negotiation between Standard Oil and Rockefeller and Nobel about

01:09:06.860 all these Russian assets of petroleum, what to do with them, because nobody believes Lenin's

01:09:11.480 going to last.

01:09:12.480 And with regard to the prize, though, so Alfred Nobel and the Prizes, he was an investor

01:09:18.360 in the oil business of his brothers and nephew.

01:09:21.140 But the prize wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Emmanuel either.

01:09:23.940 And there are two funny stories about that.

01:09:25.700 When Emmanuel's father, Ludwig, dies, Alfred and Ludwig are huge celebrities around the

01:09:30.340 world.

01:09:30.860 And the newspapers in France where Alfred lives mistakes whose died.

01:09:35.780 They thought Alfred died.

01:09:36.940 So they print this obituary for Alfred Nobel, calling him, you know, as the inventor of

01:09:40.980 dynamite, this merchant of death and caused more, you know, killing than anyone in history.

01:09:44.860 And so he reads his own obituary and thinks, holy crap, you know, I need to, this can't

01:09:48.780 be how I'm remembered.

01:09:50.440 And so he changes his will to establish the prize and gives, you know, tons of his money

01:09:54.940 away.

01:09:55.280 And of course, all his, you know, after he dies, all the other Nobel people are like, you must

01:09:59.100 be joking.

01:09:59.660 Like, the fortune's going to this crazy prize, including the king of Sweden, who pulls out

01:10:04.780 Emmanuel aside, and Emmanuel's in charge of the estate, basically, for his uncle Alfred

01:10:08.700 and the prize.

01:10:09.360 And every one of the family's fighting it.

01:10:11.120 The king of Sweden's like, you don't want to pay attention to these crazy pacifists.

01:10:13.980 This is nonsense.

01:10:15.340 You know, you should take care of your family and put all the money toward that.

01:10:17.720 So Emmanuel stands up to the king of Sweden, says, no, no, no, we're going to, you know,

01:10:21.100 I'm taking my role as the executor of his will.

01:10:23.320 Seriously, we're going to have the prize.

01:10:25.620 And so he, at the last second, rescues the prize.

01:10:28.560 Had it not been for Emmanuel Houston.

01:10:29.940 But the funny thing is, because it's like, you think about, you know, Russia, and you

01:10:34.520 know, they've got one huge asset.

01:10:36.620 Well, two.

01:10:37.440 One is oil, and two is their ability to mess with you online, right?

01:10:40.960 Like, those are two big assets that they have.

01:10:43.160 Those are their two primary weapons.

01:10:44.360 There's also the matter of nuclear weapons.

01:10:45.920 But in any event, this is their main source of income, is their petroleum industry.

01:10:50.600 And it wasn't theirs, and they didn't invent it.

01:10:53.160 And actually, nobody was doing it at all in Russia until Emmanuel Nobel came along, and it

01:10:57.620 was like, hey, look at all this stuff.

01:10:59.800 This actually looks quite interesting.

01:11:02.080 When they first bought land in the Caucasus, in present-day Azerbaijan, along the Caspian

01:11:07.440 Sea, people were skimming oil out of puddles.

01:11:10.220 There was no drilling, you know, any wells that were dug were dug by hand with spades.

01:11:15.240 So they come down there with great—they are chemists and engineers by trade.

01:11:18.420 And so they come down there, and they completely turn it around.

01:11:20.820 But this was in the 1870s, at the time of the czars.

01:11:23.060 So the book has these amazing detours through history that include the Rothschilds and Rockefellers 0.99

01:11:28.200 and Dostoevsky and Fabergé.

01:11:30.220 And tons on Stalin.

01:11:31.300 I learned so much about Joseph Stalin that I did not know.

01:11:34.120 And you personalized his backstory in a way that I didn't know.

01:11:36.840 Like, how did he grow up to be this murderous, crazy dude?

01:11:39.740 And now I know.

01:11:41.020 I mean, you actually have a lot of backstory on Stalin.

01:11:42.900 And you see the rise of these two men, very, very different in character.

01:11:46.300 But in strength, they were equals for a long, long time, Emmanuel Nobel and Joseph Stalin. 0.81

01:11:51.860 So you learn a ton about world history, about Russia.

01:11:55.840 Everything that Russia is today is explained in this book.

01:11:59.120 Like, but you don't feel like you're learning.

01:12:00.720 You feel like you're just getting, like, a caper.

01:12:03.400 Well, yeah, it's written, ideally, in a very novelistic way.

01:12:05.900 It's a ripping read.

01:12:06.900 I mean, you go through it.

01:12:07.780 But it has these fun detours.

01:12:09.260 But it is a piece of history.

01:12:11.200 And Stalin, as you say, grew up as a neighbor to Nobel in southern Russia.

01:12:14.920 He grew up in Georgia, which is between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

01:12:17.620 And he actually worked in the oil fields of the Nobels and the Rothschilds, 0.97

01:12:20.640 who are another big figure in Russian oil.

01:12:23.220 And so Emmanuel Nobel and Joseph Stalin, they're sort of like these counterpoints to each other.

01:12:28.240 And Stalin is looking at these oil capitalists, industrialists, with envy and hatred.

01:12:33.800 And, you know, ultimately, you know, the whole book brings this collision you know is coming.

01:12:39.020 Yeah, he was looking at Nobel's oil the same way Zoran Mamdani is looking at the billionaires in New York.

01:12:45.540 All right, now, so don't forget, it's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel by Douglas Brunt.

01:12:50.380 You can get your preorder right now.

01:12:52.080 That would help Doug out and yours truly, because I'd love to see the book be a success.

01:12:55.660 And avoid the Mayhem of pub day.

01:12:56.400 Like, Diesel sold out.

01:12:57.400 People couldn't get it for, like, two months because, you know, Simon & Schuster had to go back and print more copies.

01:13:01.500 If you preorder it now, it shows up on your doorstep or your bookstore has it.

01:13:05.100 It's all easy.

01:13:05.780 You don't have to wait.

01:13:06.520 And that's happening right now with Charlie's book, where they've already sold out.

01:13:09.100 Yeah, you're going to have to wait months for his book.

01:13:10.580 They always underestimate anybody who's conservative or married to a conservative.

01:13:15.380 Conservative adjacent.

01:13:16.200 Yeah, they do, because they just assume there's no audience for that,

01:13:18.580 because that's not the world in which these book publishers live.

01:13:20.920 So it's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel.

01:13:23.480 Get your copy now.

01:13:24.800 Now, more importantly, what do we have here with us?

01:13:27.400 Yes, my God.

01:13:27.740 And explain what happens on Dedicated.

01:13:29.640 All right, first we've got, we have our Jack Carr tumblers with the,

01:13:33.040 I don't know if it can show up here with the ice, but it's got the Tomahawk Navy Seal thing.

01:13:36.560 So shout out to Jack Carr.

01:13:37.760 Merry Christmas.

01:13:39.160 Thank you for the glasses.

01:13:40.880 We're going to have a little traditional eggnog with bourbon.

01:13:43.180 It's organic.

01:13:43.800 It's healthy.

01:13:44.840 Locale organic.

01:13:45.780 It's like having an egg.

01:13:46.680 We learned that lesson a few years ago.

01:13:48.700 Yes, exactly.

01:13:50.060 We'll do it with rye, Michter's rye.

01:13:52.520 Yeah, what officially goes in an eggnog?

01:13:56.080 Some people do bourbon, some do rum, some do both.

01:13:59.340 And what are we doing?

01:14:00.540 Well, rye, which is basically bourbon.

01:14:02.240 Okay.

01:14:02.800 The reason that we're doing this is A, it's eggnog and why not?

01:14:05.940 It's that time of year. 1.00

01:14:06.660 But B, on Doug's podcast, which is called Dedicated with Doug Brunt, where he interviews authors.

01:14:12.760 He both interviews authors and talks about their books, and he always pours a cocktail of choice.

01:14:17.120 Could be virgin, could be alcoholic. 0.95

01:14:20.520 This one happens to be alcoholic.

01:14:21.920 It's almost always alcoholic, thank God.

01:14:24.480 And everyone drinks the drink.

01:14:25.600 Michael Lewis was on the other day, and he's like, do people actually drink the drink?

01:14:28.560 He had a Sazerac, by the way, which is like the New Orleans cocktail.

01:14:31.920 Sazerac?

01:14:32.380 Yeah.

01:14:32.780 It's basically similar to an old-fashioned.

01:14:35.220 Now he's doing the nutmeg.

01:14:36.600 Nutmeg over the...

01:14:37.940 Didn't we do this last year?

01:14:39.080 This is the real deal.

01:14:39.260 Didn't we do the eggnog last year when he came on?

01:14:40.660 We did, and I think I had to read your ad by the end.

01:14:42.560 Maybe that was a different show.

01:14:44.560 Cheers, honey.

01:14:45.060 Merry Christmas.

01:14:45.440 Cheers, honey.

01:14:45.900 Love you.

01:14:50.880 Oh, yeah, that's tasty.

01:14:52.100 Our first eggnog of the season.

01:14:53.720 That's delicious.

01:14:54.300 I know.

01:14:55.180 Well done.

01:14:55.600 Yeah, no, and we talked about how that one year we were drinking eggnogs like they were

01:14:58.840 going out of style.

01:14:59.620 When we were young, we didn't have kids, and we both blew up like ticks.

01:15:03.100 We were huge.

01:15:04.160 We're looking in the mirror like something's changed in our diet.

01:15:07.340 Is it possible?

01:15:08.520 It's the eggnog.

01:15:09.360 The full-fat eggnog.

01:15:10.560 And then we looked at the nutritional information on the box.

01:15:14.440 Which, by the way, low-fat isn't a whole lot better.

01:15:16.880 What is it?

01:15:17.200 What does it say?

01:15:17.640 Well, 150 calories, you know, a lot of cholesterol in there.

01:15:22.400 Yeah.

01:15:22.960 A lot of sodium in there.

01:15:23.980 Oh, really?

01:15:24.540 Sodium.

01:15:25.540 Decent amount of sugar.

01:15:26.200 Nothing is worse than the Martha Stewart recipe.

01:15:28.540 I mentioned this to you this morning over coffee.

01:15:30.840 I just saw it on X.

01:15:32.180 Steve, I'll send it to you.

01:15:33.180 We had to drop it in for the listening audience.

01:15:35.460 This thing was loaded with alcohol.

01:15:38.200 First of all, it was like so many eggs and so much sugar and so much heavy cream.

01:15:41.300 And then on top of that, it was like three cups of bourbon, three cups of rum, and three cups of another alcohol.

01:15:48.180 Martha gets after it.

01:15:49.180 You're phoning it in with this rye business.

01:15:50.580 I know, exactly.

01:15:50.960 She's putting me to shame.

01:15:51.900 I don't know what you were thinking, you know?

01:15:54.260 Usually men are trying to get women intoxicated. 0.93

01:15:56.120 No, we're on set.

01:15:56.640 You can't like, well, we can definitely add more booze.

01:15:59.020 But getting involved in eggs and cream and stuff, we're not going to do that here.

01:16:01.960 No, you don't want egg cream of any kind.

01:16:03.540 And she stuffed the yolks in there, too.

01:16:05.160 It was pretty nasty.

01:16:06.220 So we're getting ready for our holidays.

01:16:09.360 What have you been doing to get ready?

01:16:11.860 I sent a few present suggestions, which is more than I normally do.

01:16:16.200 I'm only laughing because every woman knows that's a joke. 1.00

01:16:20.120 And every guy gets defensive.

01:16:23.480 No, we kind of have our shared responsibilities, I would say.

01:16:25.880 But generally, the Christmas shopping is on my list because I want it to be.

01:16:30.240 Yeah.

01:16:30.680 Well, you're so good at it.

01:16:31.660 It's amazing.

01:16:32.540 It's like Santa Claus threw up under the tree.

01:16:35.260 There's like a million presents everywhere.

01:16:36.480 He helps me, and that's why I have an ace in the hole.

01:16:39.800 I have a secret weapon.

01:16:40.960 We have a little elf up in the north.

01:16:42.140 Yeah, so I don't really need Doug Brun's help because I've got Santa.

01:16:45.500 Although I do help a little.

01:16:46.900 You do help.

01:16:47.880 But we were talking a little bit about our Christmas traditions.

01:16:50.520 I was doing this for Steven Crowder, and there's so many that we do.

01:16:53.860 Like, we go to Montana every year, and there's a bunch of stuff we do over there.

01:16:57.320 But what would you say?

01:16:57.920 Like, I've asked, what's our top or what's a couple of top Christmas traditions that we have?

01:17:02.260 I mean, well, we're still, you know, earmuffs on the kids.

01:17:05.780 We're still firing away with the elf every morning and the advent.

01:17:09.860 They know.

01:17:10.860 They know.

01:17:11.820 And we try to carol as much as possible, but that's not every year.

01:17:16.240 We do have a great, like, almost 20 years tradition of getting lunch with a particular group of friends in the city.

01:17:22.280 It used to be at the 21 Club.

01:17:23.740 Hello, that's got to open back up.

01:17:25.420 It does.

01:17:25.540 The 21 Club.

01:17:26.180 Yep.

01:17:27.200 But we have found new venues for that.

01:17:29.840 Wait a minute.

01:17:30.600 What was the second thing you said?

01:17:32.860 The advent calendar?

01:17:33.660 The caroling.

01:17:34.120 Oh, the caroling.

01:17:34.820 Do we really?

01:17:35.580 That's not really traditional.

01:17:36.300 I say that's not an angle.

01:17:36.980 Should we reveal what happened last year when we caroled?

01:17:41.100 Yes, it's embarrassing, but it's a funny story.

01:17:43.200 It's a disaster.

01:17:44.220 Yeah.

01:17:44.620 No one wanted us.

01:17:45.920 Well, our first stop was actually pretty good.

01:17:47.380 They were amazed.

01:17:48.180 They're like, this is so great.

01:17:49.220 And we kind of knew them.

01:17:50.660 And they thought, this is great.

01:17:52.120 And the other dad was like, I'm coming with you.

01:17:54.300 And he turns around, it's like, let's go.

01:17:55.420 And they're all like, screw you, dad.

01:17:57.280 He's like, next year, maybe I can join you.

01:18:00.020 But he was totally supportive.

01:18:01.200 It was just the five of us.

01:18:02.560 Yeah, just the five of our family.

01:18:04.200 And so then we go to the next house.

01:18:05.280 From that point forward, it went down.

01:18:06.580 Like, nobody really wanted it.

01:18:07.660 They're like, it's cold outside.

01:18:08.920 Why do I have to stand by this open door?

01:18:10.720 There was one moment where we were waiting across the street.

01:18:13.700 We had our Santa hats on.

01:18:14.960 We were freezing.

01:18:16.160 And this SUV drove by with the window down and just kind of waved at us.

01:18:20.340 And we were like, chiggle bell, chiggle bell, chiggle bell.

01:18:23.760 Shaking the bell at them.

01:18:24.540 It was like an assault of Christmas carols.

01:18:27.940 It was hard to get an audience.

01:18:28.940 Everyone was kind of like trying to squeeze the door closed, kind of like, I've got some

01:18:31.880 people inside.

01:18:33.280 Yeah, it wasn't the greatest doubting.

01:18:35.100 It's probably not going to be a tradition.

01:18:36.640 No.

01:18:36.760 But I think I'm thinking of things like when we watch It's a Wonderful Life.

01:18:40.840 Oh, yeah.

01:18:41.360 Yeah.

01:18:41.600 So actually, you drive, in addition to getting the presents, you do drive a lot of these things.

01:18:45.660 We do It's a Wonderful Life.

01:18:46.240 But everyone's a gamer.

01:18:47.080 With the salt and the bread and the whole bit and, you know, ringing the bell when Clarence makes an

01:18:52.860 appearance on screen.

01:18:53.720 And hissing when Potter.

01:18:55.060 And I, like, the greatest tradition, bar none, of, you know, Christmas aside, you and I start

01:18:59.520 every morning with a cup of coffee.

01:19:00.900 We've got the coffee machine in the bedroom.

01:19:03.220 It's set the night before with the alarm.

01:19:05.180 It goes off.

01:19:05.600 And we start each day with 20 minutes together talking, having coffee.

01:19:09.580 Sometimes listening to AM Update.

01:19:10.980 But other times, watching Christmas in Connecticut for a few minutes.

01:19:14.060 Yeah.

01:19:14.220 It's just an awesome way to enter the day and enter the world, you know, having connected

01:19:18.300 a little bit.

01:19:18.780 It's so true. 0.84

01:19:19.480 And right now, we have a little tree in our bedroom.

01:19:22.500 We've got some Christmas lights.

01:19:24.540 And that makes it magical, too.

01:19:26.120 You know, like, turn that on.

01:19:27.280 The only thing Doug and I argue about in the bedroom is the temperature.

01:19:31.300 Yes.

01:19:31.820 Right?

01:19:32.080 God, yeah.

01:19:32.720 So now, we both like it cool when we sleep.

01:19:34.740 That makes sense.

01:19:35.620 Everybody should have it.

01:19:36.580 They say 68 degrees.

01:19:37.840 It's good for your health.

01:19:39.040 It's good for your sleep.

01:19:40.480 But Doug would like the thermometer to be turned down much earlier in the evening so that it's,

01:19:47.140 like, cold when we arrive.

01:19:48.780 Yes.

01:19:49.440 That makes me irritable.

01:19:50.140 We climb in bed.

01:19:50.920 I'm like, it's so effing hot in here.

01:19:52.600 And I'm like, it's freezing.

01:19:54.280 Because you can't function in there when it's—

01:19:56.160 It's 68 degrees.

01:19:57.040 Like, when you're doing your nighttime routine, you're washing your face, you're in your nightgown,

01:20:01.120 you're freezing your ass off if it's 68 degrees. 0.79

01:20:03.860 You've got a heated floor, though.

01:20:04.960 You should just sort of, like, get low.

01:20:06.360 That is a luxury, by the way.

01:20:07.540 When we bought the house, it had a heated floor.

01:20:08.940 I've never had that.

01:20:09.520 And it's wonderful.

01:20:10.440 It makes a nice difference.

01:20:11.640 Damn.

01:20:12.280 Damn, as they say.

01:20:14.380 So we're going to go to Montana.

01:20:15.640 It's not snowy there, unfortunately.

01:20:17.860 No.

01:20:18.080 Early conditions.

01:20:19.960 Is that a blessing?

01:20:20.720 They're making some.

01:20:22.000 Yes.

01:20:22.400 For me.

01:20:22.820 Like, I'm happy to do a couple of Groom Blues and then go sit by the fire, play poker with

01:20:27.040 the kids and—

01:20:27.980 Yes.

01:20:28.400 Like, never get out of pajamas.

01:20:29.820 Like, a couple days like that would be great.

01:20:31.420 Doesn't that sound like heaven on earth for two weeks?

01:20:33.920 Yes.

01:20:34.000 It's going out there.

01:20:35.120 We've got our annual costume night.

01:20:37.220 I recommend this to everybody.

01:20:38.940 You can go big.

01:20:39.900 I mean, obviously, I go big because I love costumes.

01:20:41.880 But you can do this on a shoestring budget, too.

01:20:44.920 You just go to the local costume store and you get a couple of costumes for your family.

01:20:48.740 It does not have to be fancy, but it needs to be a theme.

01:20:51.480 It needs to be theme-related.

01:20:52.740 And then the way we do it in our family is on costume night, I like controlling it, so

01:20:57.920 I'll put out the costumes on people's beds.

01:21:00.960 You'll keep the kids busy.

01:21:02.340 They all know it's costume night.

01:21:03.100 It's super fungus.

01:21:03.700 Nobody knows what the theme is.

01:21:04.840 Meg plans this every single year, and then the theme's amazing.

01:21:07.940 One year was Back to the Future.

01:21:09.620 One year, we had watched The Ten Commandments.

01:21:12.360 So, you know, I was Moses, and someone was the various kings, Ramses.

01:21:15.340 You were the best Moses.

01:21:16.100 Oh, look.

01:21:16.460 Here's Back to the Future.

01:21:17.800 Oh, nice.

01:21:18.340 Blurred the kids' faces.

01:21:19.700 You were the best McFly.

01:21:21.060 You were George McFly, the dad.

01:21:22.660 Oh, yeah.

01:21:23.240 It was Marty.

01:21:24.560 Oh, you've got to do your imitation.

01:21:26.240 Can you do your George McFly imitation?

01:21:32.180 All right.

01:21:33.700 Take your damn hands off her. 1.00

01:21:38.660 I don't know if I nailed that.

01:21:39.860 You did.

01:21:40.320 Exactly.

01:21:40.600 I love it.

01:21:41.260 And then we did Moses.

01:21:42.620 We did Ten Commandments, and you made an amazing Moses.

01:21:46.920 Years early.

01:21:47.720 This was good.

01:21:48.260 I mean, this, we went all out for the Moses.

01:21:50.200 We got Pharaoh represented.

01:21:52.160 We got Zephia.

01:21:53.840 If there's no one in the family who does this amount of planning, as you do, which is amazing,

01:21:58.000 because everyone fully appreciates.

01:21:59.980 But even, like, a wig night is kind of fun, if you're, like, recommending to the audience.

01:22:03.780 We have, like, a closet full of wigs.

01:22:06.200 It's true.

01:22:06.500 And it's fun just to, like, I don't know.

01:22:08.160 Somehow things are more fun in wigs.

01:22:10.320 Yeah.

01:22:10.680 Right?

01:22:10.920 It's like, you could just be eating your dinner.

01:22:12.180 We don't actually do anything.

01:22:13.520 Like, somebody's asking, what do you do on costume?

01:22:14.980 We're like, nothing.

01:22:15.940 We just put them on.

01:22:18.240 Laugh at each other.

01:22:19.260 There's the wonka. 0.94

01:22:20.000 That was a great one.

01:22:21.160 Here's the funny story about these two people in there as Violet Beauregard and Augustus Gloop.

01:22:27.140 They've since become dear friends of ours, but that night we didn't know them at all.

01:22:30.600 So we were expecting two family members who then couldn't come.

01:22:34.700 It was, like, right after COVID.

01:22:35.720 That was either 2020 or 2021.

01:22:37.960 It was right when things were still nutty because of COVID.

01:22:40.580 And their flights got canceled.

01:22:43.080 And these two go to our school, and we had just met them.

01:22:46.640 And we're like, so would you like to come for dinner?

01:22:49.100 They're like, sure, we'd love to.

01:22:50.020 And we're like, could you wear some weird costumes?

01:22:53.940 That's not exactly how it goes.

01:22:55.240 There's no could you wear.

01:22:56.480 It's like, here's, she, Meg, like, lays down the law.

01:22:59.240 When you cross that threshold, you're in her world.

01:23:02.340 And she says, off you go.

01:23:04.060 And here's your costume.

01:23:04.980 And don't come back out until it's on.

01:23:06.280 It's kind of the price of admission.

01:23:07.380 Yeah.

01:23:07.960 Anyway, and we realized too late that Augustus Gloop winds up looking a little like Hitler Youth. 0.66

01:23:13.500 He's in, like, a little military outfit with the blonde wig.

01:23:16.700 Yeah, it's very, like, Australian.

01:23:18.620 But our friends, Lisa and Chris, were such good sports.

01:23:21.500 They donned the outfits, and it was such a fun thing.

01:23:23.940 I think he sort of entered with a little trepidation, but, you know, mid-dinner was loving it.

01:23:27.980 Once we got the liquor flowing.

01:23:29.540 Well, that helps with all costumes and wigs.

01:23:31.640 But no, so the other piece of costume tonight is just to order a background from Amazon.

01:23:36.660 So if you go on Amazon and you type in Ten Commandments or you type in Back to the Future backdrop, you will pull up so many options for $40 or under.

01:23:47.760 $40 for the big one, for 8x10.

01:23:50.100 But if you want to go smaller, it's much cheaper.

01:23:52.040 Anyway, my point is simply, for under $150, you could probably get everybody in your family in a costume and with a backdrop.

01:24:00.320 And that's really the end of it.

01:24:01.200 So we'll try to sometimes do, like, the food that's themed appropriately if, like, that night, one year we did Karate Kid, Cobra Kai.

01:24:08.460 Yeah, that was great.

01:24:09.600 We had Asian that night.

01:24:10.640 That's about as much as, you know.

01:24:12.780 It's not that, like, then you just sit there and you laugh.

01:24:14.880 Miyagi specials.

01:24:15.760 Yeah.

01:24:16.240 Oh, we did have John Kreese do one of those.

01:24:18.620 And speaking of, like, cheap, that was, like, $30 or something.

01:24:21.400 Yeah, one of those services where you can pay an actor to, like, say something personalized.

01:24:24.740 Yeah, he's like, strike first, you know, getting on with our kids.

01:24:27.300 By the way, that was the best $30 we ever spent because the kids were totally into it.

01:24:30.580 And he called us the blunts, I think, instead of the brunts.

01:24:32.900 Yeah, he did them wrong, for sure.

01:24:33.580 It was close.

01:24:34.260 Whatever.

01:24:34.760 You don't expect perfection from John Kreese.

01:24:36.540 Yeah.

01:24:37.220 Anyway, I can't wait for all that stuff to start.

01:24:39.780 It's, like, that's what makes the two weeks magical.

01:24:41.640 Like, the Christmas is the apex of it.

01:24:43.720 But if you put these other things around, then it's not as much of a letdown when Christmas is over.

01:24:48.000 Yeah.

01:24:48.480 You know, he's still something like, for sure.

01:24:49.200 And it's also that, you know, one of the few times of the year where there aren't obligations all over the kids, especially in us.

01:24:54.580 And we get, you know, tons of time together.

01:24:57.060 High quality, low quality.

01:24:58.460 But it all adds up.

01:24:59.500 It's great time together.

01:25:00.580 Yeah.

01:25:01.100 The poker's become a fun tradition.

01:25:02.540 Yeah.

01:25:03.200 You know, the kids are getting more into Texas Hold'em.

01:25:05.220 We used to be able to beat them more easily.

01:25:06.720 I know.

01:25:07.020 We'd have the big stack in front of us.

01:25:08.720 Or at least cheat them without them knowing.

01:25:11.100 One or the other.

01:25:12.220 But, yeah, no, that's been fun.

01:25:13.620 We've got to learn some new games.

01:25:14.620 The kids are now into Texas Hold'em, which I actually, I don't totally know how to play Texas Hold'em.

01:25:18.560 You just hold three cards and you play off of.

01:25:20.540 You hold two and there's, yeah.

01:25:22.240 But it's really, it's like a betting thing.

01:25:23.940 Once you learn how to bet, you're good.

01:25:25.620 It's basically, everything's a poker hand, so.

01:25:27.360 We should try that.

01:25:28.220 Yeah.

01:25:28.480 Let's do that.

01:25:28.840 This time next year, we'll be sitting here talking about how well I did at Texas Hold'em.

01:25:33.000 Done.

01:25:33.440 Okay.

01:25:34.060 So let's talk about the news a little bit because it's always fun to get your take on it.

01:25:36.940 And I thought, I saw this article yesterday.

01:25:38.300 I was like, this is a good one for Duggar.

01:25:39.820 Here's a headline from the New York Post.

01:25:42.160 Marco Rubio instructs diplomats to use Times New Roman font, eliminating Biden-era DEI initiative.

01:25:50.660 Did you know there's DEI font?

01:25:52.900 I did not.

01:25:53.480 By the way, I don't think the takeaway of this story should be that Calibri is woke.

01:25:58.100 Exactly.

01:25:58.620 But I totally get where Rubio's going on this.

01:26:01.340 Calibri does look a little light in the loafers.

01:26:03.860 I'm sorry.

01:26:04.020 It's a little different, for sure.

01:26:05.140 Times New Roman is like, bald, bald.

01:26:07.720 We're showing it on the screen for the listening, for the people on YouTube.

01:26:09.860 Oh, nice.

01:26:10.260 That's perfect.

01:26:10.840 Calibri is like skinny with softer edges, and it looks a little more feminine, I'd say.

01:26:19.600 Well, look, here's my overall take on this because I understand what Rubio's doing.

01:26:23.880 I'm sure when people heard about this, you can imagine the attacks.

01:26:27.060 Like, you're running state, and this is what you're going to spend your time on.

01:26:29.700 But it does matter.

01:26:30.840 And you know firsthand, when I am working on these books, Simon & Schuster and I spend time on the font.

01:26:36.140 Like, it's got to match the mission, and, you know, it's your first chance to set the tone, set the atmosphere for the audience that you're engaging.

01:26:46.140 The mood.

01:26:46.620 It's the last little bit of, you know, connection point that you have, and it does matter.

01:26:51.420 It's why writers, authors, and publishers, and editors actually focus on this.

01:26:55.280 The font of different books looks very different depending on what kind of book it is.

01:26:58.580 Like, if you open George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones and you see Times New Roman, you're going to be like, what is this?

01:27:03.800 Like, the best versions of those books look like it was written by an elf, you know, like Bilbo Baggins.

01:27:08.280 True, true, true.

01:27:08.760 Something a little medieval and fanciful and, you know, especially like the first letter of the chapter should look that way.

01:27:14.660 And so it's Rubio's way of creating a mindset or creating an atmosphere for the information he's putting out there.

01:27:22.780 And you see that dynamic everywhere.

01:27:25.260 It's the same as Bill Bratton's broken windows policing.

01:27:27.820 You know, you walk into a neighborhood that's full of broken windows and graffiti on the walls and trash on the streets, and that creates a mindset and an atmosphere for crime.

01:27:35.580 And Bratton and others before him have proven that if you fix the windows, paint the walls, clean up all the trash and have this beautiful neighborhood, you prevent crime before it starts.

01:27:43.820 And it's that same dynamic.

01:27:44.960 It seems like a small thing, but setting that tone, setting the atmosphere matters.

01:27:50.200 Like strong, robust language or whatever font.

01:27:53.820 So I get why he's doing it.

01:27:54.800 If he was going to – the only change I would make is he shouldn't go back to Times New Roman.

01:27:58.080 He should do like the Bilbo Baggins handwriting for all of our state communication.

01:28:02.340 But actually, that reminds me of a story you were telling me the other day.

01:28:05.620 It's the same thing of like the small tonal things we should value and prioritize them more.

01:28:11.580 Almost we have to invert our thinking that these things are more important.

01:28:15.280 It's like that Jordan Peterson piece that you were showing me.

01:28:17.540 Yeah, that's right.

01:28:18.480 Oh, yeah, that was so good.

01:28:19.440 It was the Jordan Peterson soundbite on Instagram where he was saying, yeah, it's great to go to St. Bart's or Aruba and have a margarita down on the beach.

01:28:28.960 Everybody would love that.

01:28:30.000 But your life, he said in this clip, is how your wife greets you at the end of the day.

01:28:35.620 It's how you are around the dinner table with each other, how you're treating each other, whether you're, quote, present.

01:28:42.780 But truly, it is.

01:28:43.840 Like do you feel valued when you walk into the room with your spouse or your kids or your family?

01:28:47.720 Like that does make up your life.

01:28:49.420 With so many more of our waking hours are spent around that table or that coffee mug than they are down in, you know, Aruba with a mocktail.

01:28:56.940 And they're small and they're often overlooked and it's not, we don't think it was a big deal.

01:29:01.460 And yet we really do need to invert how we think about that because that's the biggest deal.

01:29:05.400 As Peterson points out, that's 80% of your life, those little moments that add up.

01:29:09.740 And so it's, you know, long way of saying I think that's the same thing Rubio is getting at of like, this is the font they're going to be staring at for 10 hours a day.

01:29:17.720 Like this is an opportunity to set an atmosphere, to set a tone.

01:29:21.540 Yeah.

01:29:21.880 This is what I want.

01:29:22.600 What is a telegraph?

01:29:23.460 Yeah.

01:29:23.640 So it's not, it's not trivial.

01:29:24.800 It actually is something.

01:29:25.680 Well, this led to a discussion that we had about like, what, who do you want the kids to marry?

01:29:31.320 You know, and I was saying, my God, they all have to marry somebody with a good sense of humor.

01:29:35.100 Like number one.

01:29:36.320 Totally.

01:29:36.880 Right.

01:29:37.120 And we were talking about this because it's like.

01:29:38.880 You're so lucky in that regard because I.

01:29:40.740 You're very funny.

01:29:41.820 I am lucky.

01:29:42.880 Yeah.

01:29:43.360 I treasure you.

01:29:44.420 Yeah.

01:29:44.560 I will concede though.

01:29:45.900 You are actually the funnier of the two.

01:29:47.660 What?

01:29:47.960 That's never been conceded before by anyone.

01:29:49.940 I felt under pressure on air and everything.

01:29:53.160 No.

01:29:53.940 Off air, I'm going to take it back.

01:29:55.320 But we laugh a lot.

01:29:56.340 Totally.

01:29:56.740 We laugh at each other.

01:29:57.500 And our kids are so good.

01:29:58.700 All three of them have developed a different, but awesome sense of humor.

01:30:02.080 Yes.

01:30:02.280 Because it is important.

01:30:03.580 Number one, it's important to laugh at life, but it's almost equally important to be able to laugh at yourself and others.

01:30:09.420 All of those things must be laughed at.

01:30:11.040 It's not cruel.

01:30:12.380 Like it's a stress relief mechanism.

01:30:14.960 I really think it's the antidote to cortisol, right?

01:30:18.200 Like just laughing.

01:30:19.140 And life provides so many opportunities.

01:30:21.340 It could be just nothing, but like we're constantly making fun of ourselves, you know?

01:30:26.100 And I have noticed, I mean, you and I have had these little sidebar conversations when one of our kids isn't hanging in that department.

01:30:33.120 Like he gets made fun of, and you can see like he's a little pissed off that he got a little made fun of.

01:30:37.580 And we're like, that's not, I mean, we don't pounce on him at that point, but we're like, it's, you know, that's, that's a sign that we need to keep doing that until he gets a little better at that.

01:30:46.800 Otherwise he's going to, you know, it's not going to work out come college dorm days.

01:30:50.920 That's right.

01:30:51.420 Life is tough.

01:30:52.080 And you really do have to be able to laugh at all of it, or you're not going to make it very far.

01:30:56.780 I really feel like, you know, my Nana, I've talked about her on the show too.

01:31:00.300 She died at 101.

01:31:01.840 She only ate processed foods.

01:31:03.700 She never exercised a day in her life.

01:31:07.000 So what did she do?

01:31:09.040 She laughed a lot.

01:31:10.620 She was very funny.

01:31:12.160 Yeah.

01:31:12.640 She had a circle of friends that laughed.

01:31:14.360 She was very quick to make fun of herself first and foremost, but everyone else as well. 0.85

01:31:19.180 Like, I do think it's a, it could make the difference between life and death.

01:31:22.480 Totally.

01:31:22.880 Totally.

01:31:23.120 We need to study Nana and we need to study Dick Van Dyke.

01:31:25.780 Whatever those two are doing, I'm going to do all of it.

01:31:28.520 Well, I was a little concerned about Dick Van Dyke's comments about how he made it to a hundred.

01:31:33.060 He said.

01:31:33.480 He was like drinking way too much until his fifties.

01:31:35.400 That wasn't the part that concerned me.

01:31:36.820 It was, he said.

01:31:37.720 I was sort of on board with that.

01:31:38.640 He said he's, he's never, it was either he's never hated anyone or he's never been like rageful.

01:31:44.980 I was like, uh-oh.

01:31:48.540 I don't think he's right about that.

01:31:50.200 You know, people can't self-analyze.

01:31:51.820 They have no idea.

01:31:52.620 We need to analyze him, you know, from the outside.

01:31:54.840 It was all the dancing.

01:31:55.940 It was the dancing.

01:31:57.180 He's skinny.

01:31:58.040 You know, he's a skinny guy.

01:31:58.980 That probably helps a lot.

01:31:59.920 It was totally the old bamboo in Chitty Chitty Bam Bam.

01:32:03.320 Totally.

01:32:03.740 Once you learn that, you keep doing that dance, you live forever.

01:32:06.900 Yeah.

01:32:07.500 How are we going to do that?

01:32:09.000 The Old Bamboo?

01:32:09.640 Yeah.

01:32:09.920 Yeah.

01:32:10.100 Oh my God.

01:32:10.680 Yes.

01:32:10.860 We have to watch that with the kids.

01:32:11.840 I think they're totally up for it.

01:32:12.900 They haven't, the kids, we used to watch this movie on a loop about 10 years ago.

01:32:18.260 You guys know Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

01:32:19.620 12 years ago.

01:32:19.840 Yeah.

01:32:20.680 And it's such an amazing movie.

01:32:22.280 It does have that AI haircut.

01:32:23.800 So I saw your tweet on that actually, that this was already invented in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

01:32:28.640 But the kids, I think, have like foggy memories of it.

01:32:30.940 So I'm excited to see how they see it now.

01:32:33.380 I love all parts of it.

01:32:34.800 I love Truly Scrumptious.

01:32:36.360 I love, love, love.

01:32:38.240 I love Dick Van Dyke.

01:32:39.400 He's just so utterly charming.

01:32:41.180 I love the apparatus he sets up in their house to cook the breakfast, to lift the blankets off the beds.

01:32:48.780 Yeah.

01:32:48.980 It's all great.

01:32:50.220 The villains are great in Bavaria.

01:32:51.900 The whistle thing.

01:32:53.020 Yeah.

01:32:53.040 Too sweet.

01:32:53.600 That's such a great scene.

01:32:54.840 It's like, who even knew?

01:32:57.100 But we had a very funny thing happen with our love of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang over our Thanksgiving holiday where we have the family come for fake Thanksgiving.

01:33:04.980 Not the actual day, but it makes it easier on everybody who needs to travel.

01:33:08.100 And we split the family into two groups to play charades.

01:33:12.520 And our side was coming up with the clues for the other side.

01:33:17.800 And then they came up with their clues for us.

01:33:20.420 Now, unbeknownst to our opponents, who are also family members, our family is obsessed with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

01:33:27.180 We know a lot about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. 0.92

01:33:28.700 We've seen that movie truly hundreds of times.

01:33:31.500 Yeah, exactly.

01:33:31.960 So there was a joke when we used to watch it.

01:33:34.920 Our oldest, Yates, who was just a little guy at the time, like two or three, he saw this one scene involving this boat.

01:33:41.140 And there were these, like, rounded things on the boat.

01:33:44.420 Like funnels from the top of the boat.

01:33:46.120 Okay.

01:33:46.580 Yeah.

01:33:47.000 And for whatever, and then two bad guys hide themselves later in those funnels and go on land and start spying on people.

01:33:53.420 And for whatever reason, Yates always referred to them as the barrels.

01:33:56.920 I want to see the barrels.

01:33:58.260 And he would do this with his hands.

01:33:59.560 For a listening audience, I'm, like, twinkling my fingers together.

01:34:02.860 It needs to be like the barrels.

01:34:04.640 Well, I got up there, and I pulled my clue from the other side, and the movie was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and you were on my team.

01:34:14.360 So I needed to act this out to you.

01:34:16.200 And, of course, they're wondering.

01:34:17.320 I'm sure the other side is like, okay, maybe she'll do Bang Bang. 1.00

01:34:19.800 How is she going to get this?

01:34:20.960 And all I said was movie, and then I did the finger motion.

01:34:25.140 And you were like, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. 0.92

01:34:27.740 At which point, there's no convincing them that we haven't been cheating.

01:34:30.760 Like, there's nothing you can say.

01:34:31.940 They're like, no, no, no.

01:34:33.160 You obviously cheated.

01:34:34.320 None whatsoever.

01:34:35.380 And we did crush them.

01:34:36.400 I mean, it was embarrassing.

01:34:37.460 It was brutal.

01:34:38.080 By the end, we had to take pity on them.

01:34:39.540 It was brutal.

01:34:41.300 It was so fun.

01:34:42.100 I love charades.

01:34:42.800 What a fun game.

01:34:43.600 Our kids have recently introduced us to a new game.

01:34:46.500 Oh, my God.

01:34:47.060 That is so fun.

01:34:48.060 What is that thing called?

01:34:49.020 Imposter.

01:34:49.920 Imposter.

01:34:50.380 Yeah.

01:34:50.740 Yeah.

01:34:50.920 So someone in the group, you can do it on your iPhone, which is actually a great use

01:34:54.620 of the phone for this.

01:34:55.460 So explain it, how it works.

01:34:57.100 Let's see.

01:34:57.860 Oh, my God.

01:34:58.480 If there's five of us sitting there.

01:34:59.960 I can't remember.

01:35:00.700 The five of us are sitting there.

01:35:01.880 Someone's the imposter.

01:35:02.900 And there's a word.

01:35:04.480 And everybody has to hold the phone at one point.

01:35:07.700 Like, it starts off.

01:35:09.220 I'll explain it.

01:35:09.820 So if I were patient zero of this five-person game, but you can play it with, you know,

01:35:16.600 three people, too, I think.

01:35:17.620 Three is probably the fewest you could do it with.

01:35:20.480 Five.

01:35:20.760 Yeah, I would say five.

01:35:22.300 Yeah.

01:35:22.800 Five or more would be most fun.

01:35:24.000 Yeah.

01:35:24.860 So you open, you see the phone.

01:35:27.480 I don't know the app.

01:35:28.080 I'll ask the kids.

01:35:28.720 But I'm sure if you Google imposter app, you can get it.

01:35:31.400 And it will say, like, you agree as a family on which category you're going to pick.

01:35:35.340 Like, there's sports, there's, like, movies.

01:35:40.960 And we picked movies, for one.

01:35:46.600 I wasn't, was I the first on that one?

01:35:49.960 No, I wasn't.

01:35:51.120 Okay, so Yardley went first on this one.

01:35:54.020 I think I might take over.

01:35:55.240 No, no, I've got this.

01:35:56.140 Unbeknownst to me, she got Peppa Pig.

01:35:59.200 That was the clue.

01:36:00.400 So Yardley wasn't the imposter I was.

01:36:02.760 And so when Yardley looked at the phone, it said, Yardley.

01:36:05.020 And she saw Peppa Pig.

01:36:06.420 Then we handed it to Thatcher, and he saw Peppa Pig.

01:36:08.980 Then they handed it to me, and I saw imposter.

01:36:11.680 Yes, you have no idea that it's Peppa Pig.

01:36:13.460 You don't know.

01:36:14.040 So when the phone gets handed to you, it says, it just says your name.

01:36:16.560 Because the person who starts it just types in the five names who are playing.

01:36:19.560 So when it sees, I see Megan, I hit it.

01:36:21.980 And then it either says imposter, or it gives me the clue.

01:36:24.580 And then we pass the phone around, and then you start guessing.

01:36:27.160 And the way it works is, like, Yardley went first.

01:36:29.200 And so she said, oh, I knew we were in, like, TV and movies.

01:36:32.660 And she said pink.

01:36:34.700 And then the next person said, Australia.

01:36:38.740 And so when it got to me, I was the imposter.

01:36:40.480 And I thought, Flamingo.

01:36:42.420 That's what I thought we were going for.

01:36:44.140 So when you're the imposter, you have to try to act like you know what it is.

01:36:47.380 You have to, like, act like you know.

01:36:49.320 And the other people have to, when they do know, have to reveal a clue that shows they know,

01:36:54.860 but not so much that they're going to clue in the imposter.

01:36:57.320 So I said feather, and you go, mom's the imposter. 1.00

01:37:01.780 And everyone started laughing at me.

01:37:03.700 Everyone started laughing.

01:37:05.020 Because if you're early as the imposter, you don't have enough.

01:37:07.780 You know, if you go late, you might get enough clues that you can sort of dial in on what it is.

01:37:12.560 Otherwise, you're just sort of throwing darts and hoping to say something that makes any amount of sense to the rest of the group.

01:37:19.040 We are here today with Douglas Brunt promoting his new novel, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel, even though it doesn't sound like it.

01:37:26.940 You can get it on pre-order right now.

01:37:29.180 It's well worth your time.

01:37:30.360 But that game imposter is worth your time as well.

01:37:33.360 However, be more ambiguous than I was with that whole thing.

01:37:38.020 Now, I want to keep going.

01:37:39.660 I want to keep going a little.

01:37:40.440 We're going to keep going past the break a little bit.

01:37:42.920 Sorry, EJ.

01:37:43.680 I'm going to eat into the next hour just a bit.

01:37:45.740 But in the news today, well, yesterday, but also today, is the fact that they have named a new CBS Evening News anchor.

01:37:57.320 Did you know that they were looking for one?

01:38:00.820 The only reason I know anything about this story is you tweeted how irrelevant it is.

01:38:06.960 And I saw your tweet.

01:38:08.540 I'm like, oh, what's so irrelevant?

01:38:09.820 And it was DeCopal.

01:38:11.960 Yeah.

01:38:12.420 Tony DeCopal.

01:38:13.480 DeCopal.

01:38:13.920 Do you know anything about Tony DeCopal?

01:38:15.060 I don't.

01:38:15.460 I remember he got in trouble for, like, doing an interview that pushed back a bit in a way.

01:38:19.720 I don't even remember all the details about it.

01:38:21.460 But I remember he pushed back in a way that seemed like actual journalism.

01:38:23.960 And he got some blowback for it.

01:38:25.340 It was a great moment, actually.

01:38:26.320 When he was on the morning show.

01:38:26.940 Yes.

01:38:27.100 So that's the only way I'd know him, which is a positive thing to know, I guess.

01:38:31.000 But it is crazy irrelevant.

01:38:33.240 I mean, you and I are the same age.

01:38:34.520 We grew up in, you know, 150 miles apart at the same time.

01:38:39.420 Like, loving all the same movies, having the same high school experiences, and watching one of three evening news anchors.

01:38:46.840 And that's almost how households identified in those times.

01:38:49.120 Like, are you a Jennings house? 0.95

01:38:50.580 Are you a Rathers house? 0.98

01:38:51.920 Yeah.

01:38:52.320 You know, we were Jennings.

01:38:53.200 You were Jennings. 0.58

01:38:53.720 We were Jennings, too.

01:38:54.760 And no longer.

01:38:56.480 Like, that's no longer how people – it used to be like, I'm an American.

01:39:00.060 I'm a Christian or a Presbyterian.

01:39:02.120 I'm a whatever.

01:39:02.680 And we watched Jennings.

01:39:04.200 Like, it was in the top ten of things to identify your household.

01:39:07.660 And no longer.

01:39:08.540 Nobody even cares.

01:39:09.740 Nobody, you know, our age or younger gets news that way.

01:39:12.940 No, it's so irrelevant, right?

01:39:13.920 It's like –

01:39:14.260 Yeah.

01:39:15.180 I mean, I would – I know I'm biased, but I think podcasts are far more relevant now.

01:39:18.480 People, like, they have their loyalty, their allegiance to, like, this show.

01:39:21.640 If you're going to spend an hour or two a day with somebody, it's not going to be the evening news.

01:39:26.660 My God.

01:39:27.280 Why would you want to spend time with that?

01:39:27.700 Which, by the way, it used to be like the newspaper the next day was kind of stale from yesterday's news.

01:39:31.580 You know, the immediacy cut because of cable.

01:39:33.900 And now, you know, by the time it's made it through the producers and packaged and written and ready for primetime cable evening news, it's so old.

01:39:44.400 It's so old.

01:39:45.140 Yeah.

01:39:45.360 So I don't think, you know, like, all the mainstream media is writing articles.

01:39:50.020 Like, can Tony DeCoppo restore CBS to its former glory?

01:39:54.160 I'm like, when?

01:39:55.140 What glory?

01:39:56.340 And they're like, can he get them out of third place?

01:39:59.000 The answer is no, he cannot.

01:40:00.320 He can't do that either.

01:40:01.920 Nothing's changing in TV news other than diminishing ratings.

01:40:04.420 Maybe he can do something relatively with the other three, but the three as a unit, like evening news, is going only one way.

01:40:11.240 Yeah.

01:40:11.520 Which is down.

01:40:11.820 No, one big Tyrannosaurus Rex, only not as scary.

01:40:14.420 All right, we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with Doug Brunt, who is here promoting his new book, which you can get on preorder, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel.

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01:41:44.400 We are back now with Doug Brunt.

01:41:59.980 It was a very tough booking for me, but I made it this morning over coffee.

01:42:02.900 He is here promoting his soon-to-be-released The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel, Romanov's revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan who fueled the world.

01:42:13.720 I like that.

01:42:14.560 Not ruled the world.

01:42:16.040 Fueled.

01:42:16.720 Fueled the world.

01:42:18.100 Play on with the font that Rubio would approve of.

01:42:20.460 Well done.

01:42:20.920 Exactly.

01:42:21.540 It's musculature.

01:42:23.160 It's got musculature.

01:42:24.260 Yeah, it gives you a sense of history, turn of the century.

01:42:26.400 Yeah.

01:42:27.060 Except we've changed the cover since then, since this.

01:42:30.080 Yes, not the font, but we did.

01:42:31.620 We got rid of the Romanovs. 1.00

01:42:33.200 Wait, hold on.

01:42:33.600 Okay, there we go.

01:42:34.560 That lower right picture of the Romanovs, Tsar Nicholas II and his family who were brutally killed.

01:42:39.700 We moved that to the back because it seemed like the cover was a little too busy with that on there.

01:42:42.760 It's fun hearing the stories, right, about like how a book that you enjoy or wind up loving changed over time.

01:42:49.520 Yeah, like from the title to the cover art.

01:42:51.620 So here is The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel.

01:42:54.060 This is Doug's bestseller.

01:42:55.900 This book has sold a ton.

01:42:58.020 Hugely successful.

01:42:59.160 And it's a mystery about Rudolf Diesel, who was the Elon Musk of his time, who went missing.

01:43:04.400 And Doug solved the case.

01:43:05.500 He solved the mystery of what happened to him.

01:43:07.920 And it was not always called The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel.

01:43:10.880 No, I mean, for months and months, my editor and I were going back and forth like we're going to solve this over a bottle of wine.

01:43:15.780 We came up with Engines and Empires.

01:43:17.520 It's the diesel engine.

01:43:19.060 And I loved it.

01:43:19.660 He loved it.

01:43:20.500 11th hour, they have a sales meeting with the internal SNS team.

01:43:23.440 Barnes & Noble has a sales team that contributes to this stuff too.

01:43:25.560 The CEO, John Karp of Simon & Schuster.

01:43:28.400 And so I get this call.

01:43:29.420 We've already printed galleys, like what we have for Nobel.

01:43:32.620 And it has the Engines and Empires title.

01:43:34.440 And he's like, everyone loves the book.

01:43:35.500 It's charming.

01:43:36.180 It's atmospheric.

01:43:36.760 It takes us to this early Downton Abbey era and a crazy mystery.

01:43:40.140 And it's super fun and great history, except the title.

01:43:43.660 We've got to change the title.

01:43:44.540 I'm like, what?

01:43:45.520 That's the one thing we had.

01:43:47.340 So they had come up with a different title.

01:43:49.220 And in the last second, it was that.

01:43:50.660 So those things happen.

01:43:51.800 And it's kind of a fun part of the journey.

01:43:53.280 When the book is, all aspects of it, I really love the research and time in the archives.

01:43:58.000 All of it is great.

01:43:59.520 But these fun little twists at the end.

01:44:01.500 And looking at the cover art, the SNS cover art team, their art department is amazing.

01:44:05.780 It's very cool.

01:44:06.340 And it's always interesting to hear or see how someone else has an expression of the story.

01:44:11.980 You know, like what did they come up with for a cover of this book you just spent years writing?

01:44:15.320 Right.

01:44:15.960 It's like yours.

01:44:17.140 It's your personal baby, your creativity, your research, all of that went into it.

01:44:20.440 And then somebody else has got strong thoughts on it.

01:44:22.340 And it's fascinating to get the first like read back or feel feedback on how somebody else sees it.

01:44:28.240 Like, what is this book about?

01:44:29.260 What should it be called?

01:44:31.000 You do host a podcast, which we're actually now airing on the Megyn Kelly channel on Saturdays.

01:44:35.300 Yes.

01:44:35.660 Called Dedicated with Doug Brunt, which I mentioned.

01:44:37.520 And you had a very interesting interview the other day with Michael Lewis, famed author.

01:44:43.060 Author of Moneyball and Blindside and Liar's Poker.

01:44:47.120 Yeah.

01:44:47.360 All of which have become big movies.

01:44:48.820 And he winds up telling you a story about, okay, I'm not going to give it away.

01:44:54.720 Listen to this story.

01:44:55.480 I'm just going to run the soundbite.

01:44:57.040 It's going to end in a big reveal about somebody, you, the Megyn Kelly show listeners and watchers, know very well.

01:45:05.120 It's, this guy's everywhere.

01:45:06.740 He's Waldo.

01:45:07.720 He's everywhere.

01:45:08.360 Okay, listen to Michael Lewis talking to Doug Brunt.

01:45:12.820 One of the people we interview, I interviewed for this podcast, was Steve Bannon.

01:45:17.840 My connection to Steve Bannon, he bought the movie rights to Liar's Poker.

01:45:22.460 Oh my God.

01:45:23.200 I didn't know he was even in that business.

01:45:24.760 You did know he was in that business.

01:45:26.100 Where do you think his money came from?

01:45:27.200 Seinfeld.

01:45:28.220 He went from, he was.

01:45:28.980 Steve Bannon was involved with Seinfeld?

01:45:30.240 Steve Bannon went from the Navy to the Navy to Harvard Business School to Goldman Sachs to Hollywood.

01:45:35.640 Bannon told me, I just found this out like a month ago, that not only did he buy the movie rights, but he was so pissed off by how bad the script was they got out of a very fancy script writer that he went off in a little dark room by himself and wrote a Liar's Poker screenplay himself.

01:45:54.080 He was obsessed with this.

01:45:54.780 Did you get to read it?

01:45:55.720 Well, this is the next thing.

01:45:57.000 I'm going to go see him and he says he has a copy somewhere.

01:45:59.620 So I want to read it.

01:46:00.580 I want to see what he did.

01:46:03.820 That would be amazing.

01:46:05.020 I'm glad you played that clip.

01:46:06.000 I got to follow up with Michael Lewis to find out how the Bannon meeting went.

01:46:08.800 This is all sort of happening now.

01:46:10.360 You call him and I'll call Steve.

01:46:11.560 We'll see whether this is happening.

01:46:13.000 I would love to see that.

01:46:14.180 Liar's Poker is an amazing book.

01:46:15.780 It's still read today.

01:46:17.000 So Liar's Poker has not yet been made a movie.

01:46:18.620 Has not been made a movie.

01:46:19.560 But it's his first book.

01:46:21.180 It was a breakout book.

01:46:22.160 He tells so many amazing stories of how he first started writing.

01:46:25.080 You know, he was working at Solomon Brothers and Wall Street and he writes, he has sort of a Jerry Maguire moment.

01:46:29.500 He gets this article published about how bankers are paid too much.

01:46:33.100 And it goes in the Wall Street Journal.

01:46:34.520 And someone had sort of stuck their neck out to get him this job at Solomon Brothers.

01:46:38.240 So he comes up the elevator feeling like, I've written this.

01:46:40.660 I'm in the journal.

01:46:41.640 Like, this is so exciting.

01:46:42.560 And the guy who got on the job is at the top of the elevator bay, like ashen, looking like, what have you done? 0.97

01:46:48.340 Like, you can't do that.

01:46:50.180 You can't work here and do that.

01:46:52.000 You pick one.

01:46:52.740 So he ends up actually writing financial articles under a pseudonym for a while.

01:46:58.240 But then he comes out with Liar's Poker, which is an amazing book.

01:47:00.500 This reminds me of a story when I was practicing law where we had a client who came to us already having had a default judgment entered against them.

01:47:09.020 Like, they had blown off this complaint repeatedly.

01:47:12.060 And the plaintiff got a default judgment against them because they failed to defend.

01:47:15.700 Then they called us and said, will you help us?

01:47:17.640 So I was a low person on the totem pole.

01:47:19.260 So they sent me in there like, go get this default judgment vacated for our client, which is an uphill battle.

01:47:24.020 So I went in there and it was very contentious.

01:47:28.140 And the other side, the plaintiff did not want the default judgment to go away.

01:47:31.160 We really battled.

01:47:32.260 And the judge gave me a super hard time because the client had been completely derelict and defending.

01:47:37.920 And it was just a funny and tumultuous time in my career.

01:47:42.500 So long story short, they vacated the default judgment.

01:47:44.860 And the court wrote this opinion, like in writing that you can still look up now, where he really praised me and the oral argument, but he completely dumped on my client.

01:47:57.600 I was so young.

01:47:59.400 I was like, this is the greatest opinion ever.

01:48:02.280 He loved me.

01:48:04.240 I brought it back to Jones Day.

01:48:06.800 I'm like, look what they said.

01:48:08.580 And of course, the seasoned lawyers were like, this is not a great opinion for our client, who now is like being ripped by a court on the record repeatedly for its dereliction of duty.

01:48:21.120 I'm like, but I got the right result.

01:48:23.600 And look at all the praise for me.

01:48:27.700 Kind of like that.

01:48:28.900 Yeah.

01:48:30.380 And like Michael Lewis, you went on to a great career.

01:48:33.420 Yes.

01:48:33.820 From there.

01:48:34.180 It all wound up.

01:48:34.860 In a different place.

01:48:36.140 That's right.

01:48:36.640 We all wound up working out different, different industry altogether, although some of the skills translated.

01:48:40.760 Here's the other piece of news I want to talk to you about.

01:48:42.480 We've been trying to get this on.

01:48:44.360 This has been out for a week now.

01:48:46.000 The Atlantic dropped a piece called Accommodation Nation.

01:48:49.940 And this piece, you may not have read it, but it is all about something that you're very familiar with.

01:48:55.460 How many schools now, this focuses on colleges, but it's true in high schools and other schools too,

01:49:00.520 have, quote, disabled students who need, quote, need extra time on the exams.

01:49:10.380 It's gotten out of control.

01:49:12.080 Even the Atlantic is calling it an explosion over the past 15 years.

01:49:15.360 The increase is driven by more young people getting diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression.

01:49:21.960 And by universities making the process of getting accommodations easier.

01:49:24.860 The changes occurred disproportionately at the most prestigious and expensive institutions.

01:49:30.340 Of course.

01:49:30.840 Right?

01:49:32.220 Students, they write, you hear students with disabilities.

01:49:35.260 It's not kids in wheelchairs, one professor at a selective university told the magazine.

01:49:39.160 It's rich kids getting extra time on tests.

01:49:42.820 Even as poor students with disabilities still struggle to get necessary provisions, elite universities have entered an age of accommodation.

01:49:50.780 Here, listen to this.

01:49:51.900 Individual universities.

01:49:53.400 These are stats from the Harvard Crimson.

01:49:55.700 Stanford, in 2014, 3% of the student body said they had a disability.

01:50:00.340 Today, 38%.

01:50:02.600 Oh my God, I didn't see that.

01:50:03.500 Brown, 2014, 10%.

01:50:05.640 Now 22%.

01:50:06.600 Cornell, 2014, 5%.

01:50:08.380 Now 22%.

01:50:09.460 Harvard, 2014, 3%.

01:50:11.300 Now 21%.

01:50:12.820 Yale, 2014, 8%.

01:50:15.180 Now 20%.

01:50:16.860 The school with the lowest is MIT.

01:50:19.240 They had 3% in 2014 and they have 8%.

01:50:22.740 UC Berkeley, the number has quintupled over the past 15 years.

01:50:27.940 Amherst, it's at 34%.

01:50:30.180 At one law school, which they don't name, 45% of the students receive academic accommodations.

01:50:36.400 And listen to this.

01:50:38.600 It's because of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which passed in 1990,

01:50:41.540 meant to make life fairer for people who have actual disabilities and you have to provide 0.99

01:50:46.040 a reasonable accommodation.

01:50:47.020 But now it's been expanded to people who basically have any physical or, quote, mental impairment

01:50:53.680 that substantially limits a major life activity.

01:50:56.780 And even beyond that.

01:50:57.740 Now, in 2018, 2008, Congress amended the ADA to restore the definition to include a list

01:51:04.160 of major life activities that could be disrupted by disability, including learning, reading, concentrating,

01:51:09.220 thinking, even if it doesn't severely restrict your daily life.

01:51:13.580 And now this depression thing, listen to this.

01:51:18.420 Mental health issues have joined.

01:51:19.640 ADHD is the primary driver of the accommodations boom.

01:51:22.780 The number of young people diagnosed with depression and anxiety has exploded.

01:51:28.220 Okay.

01:51:28.640 It doesn't need it.

01:51:30.220 After the release of the DSM-5, the symptoms need only to interfere with or reduce the quality

01:51:36.140 of academic functioning.

01:51:38.260 That's all.

01:51:39.320 Reduce the quality of your academic functioning.

01:51:41.160 And for this, you get extra time or unlimited time on your exams or papers, or you can get

01:51:47.180 out of homework, or you can get the professor to, quote, not call on you without warning.

01:51:55.400 That's happening at Carnegie Mellon, per The Atlantic.

01:51:59.320 Ohio State says 36% there have these issues.

01:52:02.740 You can get extensions on take-home assignments, permission to miss class.

01:52:07.140 You can get social anxiety disorder.

01:52:10.180 If you say you have that, you can get a note.

01:52:11.680 So you're not called on in class.

01:52:12.860 And then some get housing accommodations, including single rooms and emotional support

01:52:17.520 animals.

01:52:18.500 One administrator told me, writes the author, that a student at a public college in California

01:52:22.580 had permission to bring their mother to class.

01:52:25.120 This became a problem because the mom turned out to be an enthusiastic class participant. 0.99

01:52:31.200 This is deeply wrong.

01:52:33.200 And we've all seen it.

01:52:34.660 You know, as you're reading that and all the stats, and there are all these universities

01:52:37.780 you're talking about, it's occurring to me, the real, I mean, this is something we've

01:52:40.640 talked about a bit before, but with this story, the real problem here is the college

01:52:43.840 admission process.

01:52:45.140 It's so screwed up.

01:52:46.860 And the parents.

01:52:47.780 Well, it's the parents' fault and the university, because the parents gear everything around

01:52:52.520 the wrong goal.

01:52:54.000 We're supposed to be preparing these kids for life.

01:52:55.820 So offering these little cheat codes to get a better grade, to get into the college is

01:53:01.520 not preparing you for life.

01:53:02.460 It's preparing you to get into the college that makes the parent feel good, like junior

01:53:05.460 got into an Ivy or whatever it is.

01:53:08.440 And it's ruined not only academics, it's ruined athletics, because that's the same thing, too.

01:53:12.940 Athletics used to be about teaching practice equals improvement and teamwork and all of these

01:53:17.300 values that you get from sports.

01:53:19.380 And in addition to just sort of having a rounded youth, having a rounded youth, that's like

01:53:24.300 the way to get into college in the 70s and 80s.

01:53:26.120 Now you're not rounded.

01:53:27.080 You have to be a specialist in one thing.

01:53:28.580 You have to be the best violinist or the best chess player so you can get into Yale or whatever.

01:53:33.620 Well-rounded is not valued at all.

01:53:36.300 And it's the same with these academics.

01:53:38.080 If someone's like struggling on their SAT or on their math test, if they don't actually

01:53:43.360 have a problem, giving them an extra hour to take it so they can get a little bit better

01:53:46.260 grades, so they can get to a little bit better college.

01:53:48.000 College is backward.

01:53:49.920 You should be teaching them, how are you going to survive in the world?

01:53:52.280 Right.

01:53:52.840 When you get out into the law firm or the investment bank or whatever you wind up doing, they're

01:53:58.860 not going to give you extra time on the test.

01:54:00.580 You've got to perform.

01:54:01.600 Someone's there.

01:54:02.060 The client needs this result by 5 p.m., period.

01:54:04.640 But no longer is anyone chasing a goal for their kids of, how am I going to prepare this

01:54:10.040 person for life?

01:54:10.780 How are they going to be strong and self-sufficient, provide for themselves?

01:54:14.080 It's all geared around a college application for an Ivy League school.

01:54:17.840 Yes, as if that degree is your make-or-break ticket.

01:54:21.220 That's why they play lacrosse 500 hours a month or squash or whatever it is.

01:54:27.260 It's all about college.

01:54:28.480 It's not about a great experience for my kid or my kid enjoying a rounded life.

01:54:33.820 It's all, we're all so screwed up with all of this college stuff.

01:54:36.900 It's really perverted everything.

01:54:38.500 And this is so unfair because if you have a kid who just studies hard and goes into class

01:54:44.260 and is ready to take the test, they get disadvantaged by this.

01:54:48.560 They've got a kid with obviously equal abilities.

01:54:52.440 Yeah, but has a little money.

01:54:53.760 So they get a doctor's note that says he has this problem.

01:54:56.900 It's diagnosed.

01:54:58.000 Right.

01:54:58.200 We could all get this note very easily and use it to advance our kids' future or get extra time

01:55:04.480 for our kids on their tests.

01:55:06.260 And this is not to disparage those who have genuine disabilities.

01:55:08.660 There are that few, those numbers in 2014 sound real to me, about 3%.

01:55:12.940 But now it's gone from 3 to 34.

01:55:16.640 Bullshit.

01:55:17.260 Those 31% are fucking faking it to get an academic advantage. 0.84

01:55:22.300 And it's a disadvantage for the kids who just work hard and show up and want to color within

01:55:27.960 the lines.

01:55:28.600 They'll play by the rules.

01:55:29.880 You just have to hope that after college when junior with the note went to Cornell and

01:55:35.280 someone else without the note went to Syracuse.

01:55:37.760 What?

01:55:38.660 They're going to meet in the workplace one day.

01:55:42.060 And who's going to win?

01:55:43.000 Right.

01:55:44.300 Excuse me.

01:55:44.960 The bourbon and the amog is getting to me.

01:55:46.480 Well, Doug caught my illness.

01:55:47.920 Sort of.

01:55:48.740 Sort of.

01:55:49.320 I'll explain what happened.

01:55:50.460 But let me, remind me to explain that in a second.

01:55:54.740 I really think when I was reading this, I was like, okay, so then when you apply to college,

01:55:58.080 you don't have to put on there that you got the extra time.

01:56:00.160 The colleges don't get to know.

01:56:01.360 What?

01:56:01.680 Really?

01:56:02.120 You're not actually allowed to ask and you don't have to put it on there.

01:56:04.560 So the colleges have no idea who took the SAT in nine hours.

01:56:07.500 So do they have to resubmit the note when they get to college for the tests there?

01:56:10.880 No.

01:56:10.900 No.

01:56:11.420 Oh, yeah.

01:56:11.820 Yeah.

01:56:11.940 Of course.

01:56:12.400 Yes.

01:56:12.580 But who cares?

01:56:13.480 By that point, their only goal is to get hired by Goldman Sachs or what have you.

01:56:16.900 But I think like, what if we just play this out and said, there's no time limit.

01:56:23.940 There's no time limit on any tests.

01:56:26.060 Tests are now held like whatever.

01:56:28.680 If you want to take your history test at your history class, which starts at 1 p.m.

01:56:33.280 and most students have to finish in 40 or 50 minutes, whoever wants to stay for two hours

01:56:38.820 can stay for two hours.

01:56:39.540 Like, go ahead, all of you.

01:56:41.020 You'll then have to make up the work that you missed in the classes after that.

01:56:45.340 Good luck with that.

01:56:46.500 Like, that's a disadvantage.

01:56:47.400 That's a you thing.

01:56:48.540 But like, what if we just said to all students, if you want the extra time, you can have it.

01:56:52.440 I actually think this could help solve it because this would be like a nightmare for the teachers.

01:56:57.240 They wouldn't like it.

01:56:57.880 It would eventually kill itself, right, this system.

01:57:01.220 And what would happen to, like, the kids with the disabilities wouldn't much like all the other kids 0.99

01:57:05.340 having all the extra time either.

01:57:06.540 Yeah, but they can take 10 more hours if everyone's, yeah.

01:57:09.340 I don't know.

01:57:09.640 Actually, that would be good.

01:57:10.720 I kind of, I'm tempted by it.

01:57:12.140 But so here's what happened with Doug's illness.

01:57:14.060 As you guys know, I was sick last week.

01:57:15.560 I still have a hangover on The Voice, but I'm fine.

01:57:18.820 But Doug got it.

01:57:20.940 Obviously, he's my husband, so he got it.

01:57:23.080 But yours was less bad.

01:57:25.500 Yeah.

01:57:25.740 And would you like to tell the people how you fought it?

01:57:27.880 I claim that when I first started feeling something, you know, it starts in the throat.

01:57:35.780 So as soon as I felt something, I'm like, oh, my God.

01:57:37.500 I had a couple things that were going to be hard to reschedule.

01:57:39.720 I was like, I really would like not to get sick as I now am.

01:57:44.980 So I started, I cut a lemon in half, and I squeezed it into tea, and I took a sauna.

01:57:50.580 I've got one.

01:57:51.260 Thank you, honey.

01:57:51.740 Yeah, I was going to say you need the water.

01:57:53.120 And I did that basically every day for, like, five days.

01:57:56.880 Took a sauna and squeezed lemon into tea.

01:57:58.660 Yeah.

01:57:59.340 And you were taking the Zycam.

01:58:00.900 The Zycam, yeah, which is like, I don't know, zinc is in there and some other stuff.

01:58:04.340 Yeah.

01:58:04.500 I can't even see, maybe.

01:58:05.260 And you think it minimized your experience.

01:58:06.700 I think I, so I did get it, but I feel like I got it about 10% the level you had it.

01:58:11.960 You were really hurting for a while.

01:58:13.840 You lost your voice, and I never had it anywhere near what you had it.

01:58:17.040 But I did have it, so.

01:58:18.140 You did want to discuss it.

01:58:23.900 It is amazing.

01:58:24.960 The difference, I don't know if this is a sex thing or what, but I do talk about it more when I'm sick,

01:58:30.040 and I'm a little bit of a baby, and I want to just, like, be under the blankets and have someone tell me it's going to be all right.

01:58:35.980 And meanwhile, Meg, like, you've lost your voice.

01:58:38.480 You're taking steroids so you can keep your voice.

01:58:40.600 And I'm like, you know, I feel a little tickle.

01:58:42.920 I got a tickle.

01:58:43.220 And you're like, would you shut the fuck up?

01:58:45.060 I said, we don't have to talk about typhoid Mary over here, but we definitely should not spend too much time talking about that tickle.

01:58:57.340 That was very funny.

01:58:58.860 But I am sorry that I got you sick.

01:59:01.160 Now that you actually have it.

01:59:01.960 It's all worth it, honey.

01:59:03.060 Watching our Christmas in Connecticut.

01:59:05.220 Yeah, we actually fired that up this week for the first time in a year.

01:59:08.400 It's so fun.

01:59:09.560 I don't know.

01:59:10.760 I love everything about it.

01:59:11.840 I love the way I feel when those Christmas specials are on the TV.

01:59:14.420 I love, it's not even like, it's not like a great movie.

01:59:18.780 You know, it's.

01:59:19.260 No, it's actually kind of weird in a few places.

01:59:21.040 It's a little odd.

01:59:21.320 It like gets the atmosphere going.

01:59:22.640 Yeah, like she's kind of supposed to be married to this guy and cheating on him. 1.00

01:59:26.140 Whatever.

01:59:26.880 She's not, though.

01:59:27.580 She's not actually married to the guy.

01:59:29.880 I just love the feeling.

01:59:31.360 I love the, first of all, I love the feeling of old movies, right?

01:59:33.860 It's like a very cool vibe.

01:59:35.520 And second of all, I love the cinematography with a sleigh ride in that movie.

01:59:38.980 I love like all the snow outside.

01:59:40.800 Yeah.

01:59:40.960 Reminds me of my childhood up in Syracuse, New York.

01:59:43.360 Like, I miss snow.

01:59:45.100 I miss tons of snow.

01:59:46.480 Like, I miss where snow is the default as opposed to green and brown in the winter.

01:59:51.240 Well, brown and brown.

01:59:54.040 And I just love this season so much.

01:59:55.980 You know, like these little twinkling lights in the studio.

01:59:57.580 I'd love to keep these past December.

01:59:59.180 But even I, who am a diehard Christmas fan, can't do it.

02:00:02.580 Because when Christmas is over, you've got to move on.

02:00:05.280 I mean, come mid-January, you're just ready for warm weather.

02:00:07.260 Yeah.

02:00:07.460 It's enough.

02:00:08.020 You've got to clean it up and move on.

02:00:09.660 It only comes once a year, which is why you must treasure it for the next X number of

02:00:13.520 days because it comes and it goes.

02:00:15.500 So what are you getting me for Christmas this year?

02:00:17.400 Not telling.

02:00:19.180 We don't really do Christmas presents for each other, is it true?

02:00:21.440 No.

02:00:21.460 I mean, lately, it's like write a letter.

02:00:23.200 Yeah.

02:00:23.820 I love that.

02:00:24.360 I think that's an important thing.

02:00:25.260 And then I'll find a little something.

02:00:28.520 One year, a couple years ago, is either my birthday or Mother's Day.

02:00:32.200 I don't remember.

02:00:32.580 But you gave me a beautiful letter, which I always love.

02:00:35.220 That's really what I want every year.

02:00:37.460 And a little dumb pillow.

02:00:43.520 It wasn't even that nice.

02:00:45.380 It was from CVS.

02:00:46.420 No, it was a CVS pillow, like a shamrock.

02:00:48.480 I was like, what is this?

02:00:49.460 Sometimes they acquire some nice merchandise.

02:00:51.300 It doesn't go anywhere.

02:00:53.320 It was cute.

02:00:53.900 It was a little shamrock.

02:00:54.840 It was like a statement pillow.

02:00:56.860 The house has been decorated by somebody who knows what he's doing.

02:01:00.440 He will not approve.

02:01:02.960 It was the thought that counts.

02:01:04.380 I really loved it.

02:01:05.520 Yeah.

02:01:06.640 By the way, so I know you had Elliot Ackerman on earlier this week, and you were discussing

02:01:10.620 my lack of faction, which I cannot deny your observations there on my fashion.

02:01:16.700 But I was bleeding edge on the quarter zip, which apparently is the thing now.

02:01:20.080 Totally.

02:01:20.560 You were Black Diamond Sexy before it was popular.

02:01:23.500 Totally.

02:01:23.980 We will find the episode with a fifth column to explain to the audience what that means,

02:01:27.260 although the diehard fans at the Megyn Kelly Show already know about your Black Diamond

02:01:31.320 Sexy.

02:01:31.760 And how you're the saboteur.

02:01:33.760 And I was wrong.

02:01:34.520 I was wrong about it all.

02:01:36.420 You were always sexy.

02:01:38.800 It was just a question of-

02:01:39.880 How sexy?

02:01:40.960 And what it was encapsulated in.

02:01:44.360 You got there.

02:01:45.280 You got there in the end, babe.

02:01:46.520 Here's to that.

02:01:47.360 Cheers.

02:01:47.840 Love you, honey.

02:01:48.560 Love you, honey.

02:01:49.160 Merry Christmas.

02:01:50.120 Happy New Year.

02:01:50.680 Don't forget to go and get Doug's new book.

02:01:53.120 It's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel.

02:01:57.500 You guys are really going to love it.

02:01:58.500 I promise.

02:01:59.320 And now I will hand it over to our pal, Emily Jashinsky, who has been patiently waiting.

02:02:03.020 Thank you so much, EJ.

02:02:04.020 We love you, too.

02:02:04.980 She's hosting the MK Wrap-Up Show on SiriusXM 111.

02:02:08.020 We'll see you tomorrow.

02:02:11.260 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

02:02:13.560 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

02:02:38.020 Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all sizes, so it's easy to find a solution

02:02:43.000 that works for you.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - December 11, 2025

Time's Absurd ＂Person of the Year,＂ Newsom's Inauthenticity, and America's Font Changes, with RealClearPolitics and Doug Brunt ｜ Ep. 1211

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