The Megyn Kelly Show - Top Political Soundbites of 2025, Trump's Israel and Tucker Friendships, and Life After a Pardon

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody. Mark Halpert here. Thank you for being part of Next Up. This is our last show of

00:00:06.700 2025. Eager to have a little bit of a holiday break. I hope you will, too. And we'll see you

00:00:11.980 the first week of January. But a great show to finish off the year with that I'm super excited

00:00:16.100 about. I am the editor-in-chief of the live interactive video platform Two Way and your

00:00:20.640 host here to everything Next Up on the MK Network. Very grateful to you for helping us build the show

00:00:26.120 this year. We've got a lot in store for next year that we're excited to share with you in the new

00:00:30.660 year. But for now, again, we're all just super appreciative of how supportive you are, how the

00:00:36.360 audience has grown, and again, doing new stuff together next year. Two great guests today,

00:00:41.240 conversations. First, Dan Senor, my friend who is one of the country's leading experts on foreign

00:00:47.080 policy and particularly adept at understanding what is going on within the American and Israeli

00:00:53.740 governments, but other governments around the world. He's a super well-wired guy.

00:00:57.220 He hosts his own podcast, and we're always grateful to have him here. I want to talk to

00:01:00.060 him about what's going on with anti-Semitism here as the year-end, unfortunately, what's going on with

00:01:05.960 the Middle East peace deal and how that's progressing. And also, a really important topic

00:01:10.640 that really doesn't get enough coverage, which is Marco Rubio, man in the job as both Secretary of

00:01:16.180 State and National Security Advisor. We're going to talk about why that's so significant and how he's

00:01:20.040 doing in the job. And then Congressman Chris Collins is here. He was a congressman in New York.

00:01:24.820 He was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump and then worked closely with President

00:01:30.360 Trump until he began to some trouble with the law, was indicted at the federal level, pled guilty,

00:01:36.520 went to prison, and then was endorsed by President Trump. And now he's not only running for Congress now

00:01:41.980 in Florida, but he's written a new book. And we're going to talk to him about this extraordinary

00:01:46.540 journey that he's been on and where he is now as a grandfather, someone who thought about retirement,

00:01:51.100 but is instead looking to get back to elected office. Excited to talk to them both and share

00:01:56.540 those conversations with you. But first, my last reported monologue of the year. This is my,

00:02:04.720 not struggle, but I was just thinking like how to do a year in review on politics. We did last episode,

00:02:10.340 we did the year in review in media. And I thought, well, what's the best way to do year in review in

00:02:16.680 politics? I could do another awards thing like we did with the media, but I was so struck by how

00:02:24.060 news packed the year was. I mean, there were just, you know, so many news stories this year

00:02:31.000 in politics and in culture and in sports. I mean, the pace of news is so fast now, but for some reason,

00:02:39.480 this year seemed particularly packed. And of course, first and foremost, the new administration. I

00:02:43.100 mean, Donald Trump became president, sworn in president this year. It just, it seems, seems like

00:02:49.260 he's been there for a long time because, because it's been such an active administration. So what

00:02:53.860 we're going to do is we're going to review 2025 by looking at some of the great clips of the year,

00:03:00.640 some of the great sound bites from people in politics, media that define the year for, to a large

00:03:06.820 extent. And some of them will be from Donald Trump. I could do the whole program, which is

00:03:12.380 incredible clips from the president, but we're not going to let the president dominate this.

00:03:17.800 And we're not even going to start with the president. Believe me, there'll be some Trump

00:03:21.900 sound bites here, but we're going to start with others. And we're going to do that by showing you

00:03:27.520 some clips. My guess is you'll probably remember most of these, but not all of them.

00:03:32.400 But in all, we chose ones that we thought were interesting for representing the year,

00:03:38.100 revealing things about the people involved, but also part of the story of the year in terms of

00:03:44.680 issues and the mood of the nation. I think you'll like them. And I think some of them will make you

00:03:49.680 laugh and certainly will be, will be compelling. So we're going to do that. I'll tell you that I did

00:03:57.140 the research for these and looked at with my colleagues, some of the clip options on my new

00:04:02.360 up phone. And I want to show you something about the up phone. Again, the up phone is from unplugged.com.

00:04:08.220 It's the folks that are trying to change the relationship you have with your own data,

00:04:13.380 because the unplugged, the up phone from unplugged helps you keep your data, protects you from prying,

00:04:20.220 protects you from having folks gather information about you. So I've been testing the up phone for a

00:04:24.840 while now using it when I'm traveling around and need to do research, look at stuff on the web.

00:04:29.440 Take a look at the dashboard on my phone. And you'll see this is the phone's real-time firewall,

00:04:35.760 different than you'd have on a standard smartphone. And it's blocking. You can see over and over all

00:04:40.820 these attempts, hundreds of attempts, thousands of attempts of tracking attempts to try to get your

00:04:47.100 data. Okay. Amazing. Hundreds and thousands of times, all the apps you use on your regular smartphone

00:04:53.060 are trying to harvest your data, trying to build profiles, track your location, figure out what

00:04:57.880 you're looking at, and then sell that data and try to sell you stuff. Whether you're in politics or

00:05:02.760 business or government, journalism, whatever you do, everybody on a normal phone is going to have

00:05:10.780 their data tracked. What happens on the up phone is it's blocking the attempts to track you, trying to

00:05:16.940 build intelligence on you, know what you're reading, who you're talking to, etc. The up phone shows

00:05:22.020 exactly which apps are trying to spy on you, and then it blocks them in real time. So if you work

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00:05:32.180 to protect your data, go right now to unplugged.com. Whether you're texting, browsing, using any app,

00:05:37.340 the up phone ensures your personal information. It stays personal. It's the phone for people who are

00:05:43.000 done having their privacy invaded, done being watched. If you're ready to take back your digital

00:05:48.060 privacy, visit unplugged.com slash mark. You'll get 25% off the phone case you purchased with the

00:05:54.580 phone. Learn more now. Order your up phone today. It's at unplugged.com slash mark because your life

00:06:01.460 should be yours, not theirs. All right. So I did all my research with my colleagues, and this is what we

00:06:06.760 came up with. The first clips I want to start with come from J.D. Vance, the vice president. And he's had

00:06:12.220 an incredible year, and it remains, I've talked about it all the time, but it remains just such

00:06:17.380 an undercover story, which is the influence that J.D. Vance has. I've said most influential vice

00:06:23.820 president of the modern era, more than Mondale, more than Cheney, Dick Cheney, who are generally

00:06:27.860 considered the most influential. So let's start with a moment that happened right at the beginning

00:06:32.540 of the administration. This is a pretty famous one. I'm pretty sure you'll remember. This is February

00:06:37.500 28th, last day of February. This is J.D. Vance in the Oval Office talking to Vladimir Zelensky

00:06:46.700 about whether or not he's grateful enough for American assistance. This is S-1.

00:06:52.860 They should have. Have you said thank you once? A lot of times. No. Even today. Even today. You went to

00:06:59.860 Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the

00:07:05.580 United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country.

00:07:13.020 So assertive. And that moment shocked everybody of how confrontational it was.

00:07:18.700 But if you look at where we are now in the peace process, it really rocked the Ukrainians back on

00:07:25.120 their heel. And Zelensky did make up for it by being a lot more gracious. And you've seen that

00:07:30.780 ever since that moment, whenever there's conversations about the Ukrainians and the

00:07:37.380 Americans, and there have been some rough negotiations about what's going to be in a

00:07:40.940 possible deal, you can just feel in Zelensky's appreciation a recollection of that moment and

00:07:48.320 saying, whatever else I say in public, whatever else I say in private, Zelensky, I think, says to

00:07:52.860 himself, I got to be grateful. I've got to express that gratitude. And I think it goes a long way.

00:07:57.780 There's a reason the vice president said it, which is the president himself, the American people,

00:08:02.660 they put a lot of treasure into trying to help the Ukrainians. And gratitude is required. And I

00:08:08.720 think not just in terms of gratitude, but I think it rocks Zelensky back on his heels in terms of

00:08:13.360 recognizing that the Americans have a big role here. And he can't just turn his nose up and give the

00:08:21.260 Heisman to any American request or suggestion about what should be in the deal just because

00:08:27.680 he doesn't like it, doesn't agree with it. Huge moment for the vice president. Here's another huge

00:08:33.800 moment. This was a couple of weeks before that first one. At the Munich Security Conference in

00:08:39.660 Germany, officials from all over the world, Europe and the US in particular, gathering to talk about

00:08:46.640 security. And one of the missions that Donald Trump had in the first term, and he and Vice President

00:08:51.940 Vance have in this term, is to remake the relationship between the United States and

00:08:56.580 Europe, to remake the mission of NATO. And a lot of people in the establishments of both parties say

00:09:03.320 to me all the time, Trump and Vance, they hate NATO. They want to destroy NATO. No, they really don't.

00:09:08.500 They want to remake it. And by the way, when you talk about Europe contributing money to its own

00:09:13.640 defense, the American people, I think, are pretty foursquare on the side of the president and the

00:09:18.080 vice president, when you talk about redefining the mission. So that conversation has been around for

00:09:23.960 a while. But Vance and the speech in Germany, I think it's one of the most important speeches and

00:09:29.860 impressive speeches an American official has given about the US-European relationship since World War II.

00:09:37.440 And it got a little bit of coverage at the time, but it's just extraordinarily important. And

00:09:40.860 basically what Vance said is, I don't hate Europe, but Europe has to change. Europe has to grow up

00:09:46.260 and not just grow up regarding its relationship to NATO, but has to grow in the United States. But

00:09:51.500 Europe has to grow up regarding its internal societies, how work is seen, the influence of

00:09:58.140 woke, controlling borders, all these problems that the United States has that the president and the

00:10:03.860 vice president have addressed and said they would address when they ran. All these problems exist in

00:10:08.840 Europe. And in some cases, they exist in Europe to a massive degree. You know, their immigration

00:10:14.240 problems in some ways are significantly worse than ours. So here's a bit of the vice president at the

00:10:19.940 conference. And this is a historic and stark message, but it's one he firmly believes in, the president

00:10:27.280 believes in. And I believe, again, although some Europeans recoiled at it, not all of them did. Here's the

00:10:33.160 vice president in February of this year. S10, please. The threat that I worry the most about

00:10:39.200 vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia. It's not China. It's not any other external actor. And what I worry

00:10:46.300 about is the threat from within the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values,

00:10:53.760 values shared with the United States of America. What an extraordinary thing to say that the problems

00:11:00.600 with Europe are not, the biggest problems are not China and Russia. The problems are, you know,

00:11:06.100 Europe needs to be back to market economy, hard work, controlled borders, no dominance of woke in

00:11:13.960 the society. It's an incredible thing to say. And as I said, I was in Europe around this time after

00:11:19.620 the speech, and some Europeans would say, including publicly, would say, oh, it's so offensive, mind your

00:11:24.740 own business. The United States has its own problems. But I believe the vice president reached

00:11:29.580 directly and indirectly a number of Europeans, government officials, business leaders, people

00:11:34.240 involved in the public square who said, yeah, thank goodness someone's telling us because our own

00:11:39.100 leaders, in many cases, particularly the places with more liberal governments just aren't doing it.

00:11:44.740 So those are two moments for the vice president, two of the more visible moments where his role

00:11:49.240 was elevated. But I'll say again, behind the scenes, literally on a daily basis, he's extraordinarily

00:11:54.840 involved in the government. All right. People are not looking past Donald Trump in 2025. People continue

00:12:01.260 to understand he's the dominant figure. But what you've seen with the vice president's elevation, some of the

00:12:07.700 other people in the administration, Scott Bess and Marco Rubio, you're seeing the emergence of other powerful

00:12:13.360 figures on the Republican side. And you're certainly seeing it this year on the Democratic side. You've seen even as the party

00:12:20.140 has grappled with the loss to Donald Trump, even as the party has tried to figure out what it stands for. You've seen the

00:12:25.300 elevation of a number of Democratic figures, first and foremost, Gavin Newsom, from his podcast where he hosted people like

00:12:32.140 Charlie Kirk and took a lot of heat from the left to his confrontations with the president over the fires in

00:12:37.480 California, Southern California on immigration. You've seen him really stand out as someone who regularly appears on

00:12:45.580 camera, on his own podcast, on TV, on other shows, on this show, and really made a difference in terms of how

00:12:52.720 people, how aware people were of him. And I think it's clear from the polling and from talking to sources, how elevated

00:12:59.580 he's become with the Democratic Party. Here he is after what became the capstone of his year of elevation, as not just

00:13:07.460 the front runner for 2028, but almost a shadow president, which was the successful night he had on

00:13:13.280 Proposition 50, the ballot measure that's going to allow Democrats to almost certainly pick up at least a few, up to

00:13:19.620 five new seats in the House of Representatives as part of the redistricting battles nationwide. At the time he announced

00:13:26.680 this effort, a lot of people, including me, said this is a big risk. Republicans are going to raise a lot of money. It's hard to

00:13:34.520 win. And a ballot measure in California history says it's hard to win yes on a process question. Just voters

00:13:40.240 don't pay that much attention. They're just inclined to vote no. And the early polling showed yes was not doing

00:13:46.300 great. If you looked at the early polling, you'd say yes was probably headed for Daveed. Two things

00:13:52.360 happened, or really three things. One is Republicans did a horrible job raising money and organizing to beat the

00:13:58.600 ballot measure on redistricting. Number two, Newsom raised a ton of money and really built a sophisticated

00:14:05.240 team to get yes done. And then three, their message was, this is all about Trump. Stop Trump. If you want

00:14:12.880 to stop Trump and California stopping Trump, for most voters, is a big priority. You got to vote for this

00:14:19.220 ballot measure. Here's Gavin Newsom on the election night giving his victory speech after California's Proposition 50

00:14:26.900 on redistricting passed overwhelmingly. This is S4, please. And let me underscore, it's been a good

00:14:34.000 evening for everybody, not just the Democratic Party. But what a night for the Democratic Party,

00:14:40.640 a party that is in its ascendancy, a party that's on its toes, no longer on its heels from coast to

00:14:49.460 coast, sea to shining sea. All you Newsom haters out there will scoff at my next sentence, but

00:14:56.440 if he becomes the Democratic nominee and if he's elected president in 2028, that night, that speech, that

00:15:02.420 political fight will be a massive part of the story. And I know all you Newsom haters and you Newsom

00:15:07.880 skeptics. And I'm not here cheerleading for him or speaking for him. I just believe you're underestimating his

00:15:12.320 political potency, certainly to win the nomination. You look at that confidence and that framing of a message.

00:15:20.220 I think one of the things you saw in that clip that's underestimated about Gavin Newsom is he's a pretty optimistic

00:15:25.560 public figure. He talks about hope and determination for a better country. Now, again, you Newsom haters will

00:15:33.560 say, well, California is such a mess. California has a lot of problems. But just in terms of the pure

00:15:39.280 political situation, that clip is a highlight of the year for Newsom and a highlight of the political win

00:15:47.600 that has elevated him quite high in 2025. Another person who's become elevated this year is Alexandria

00:15:56.080 Ocasio-Cortez. She partnered with Bernie Sanders, events around the country, built bridges quietly

00:16:03.060 within Congress with even some more moderate conservative members, and has become a public

00:16:10.820 face of the party in a way that is, I'll say unique, but it's special. She can raise a lot of money

00:16:19.060 online with a huge gift. And she is in demand. Gavin Newsom featured her in an ad he did in support of

00:16:26.400 that ballot measure on redistricting. And she herself, whether it's traveling with Sanders or by

00:16:31.460 herself, going on media or on the floor of the House, she has become a recognized, visible and

00:16:38.260 in-demand spokesperson for the Democratic Party. Here she is on the House floor, where she's become,

00:16:44.060 again, a very frequent speaker and attention getter, talking about her opposition to the

00:16:50.080 Republican signature measure that they passed this year, the so-called reconciliation package,

00:16:55.120 the big, beautiful bill. This is Congressman AOC, S7, please.

00:17:00.460 This bill is a deal with the devil. It explodes our national debt. It militarizes our entire economy

00:17:10.220 and it strips away health care and basic dignity of the American people for what? To give Elon Musk a

00:17:20.140 tax break and billionaires the greedy taking of our nation. We cannot stand for it and we will not

00:17:27.040 support it. You should be ashamed. Now, again, I don't rate her as high as likely to run for president.

00:17:35.540 I don't rate her as high as if she does run being a strong candidate as a lot of my colleagues.

00:17:40.600 But there's no doubt that you saw in that clip and you saw it throughout this year that she's become

00:17:45.640 an exciting figure in the party. And in the age in which we live, the attention economy,

00:17:50.520 where we're getting people to listen to what you have to say is the first battle she proved in that

00:17:56.720 clip. And she proved throughout the year that she continues to grow as someone who can get attention.

00:18:01.320 And if she doesn't run or if she runs and loses, regardless of who the Democrats nominate in 2026,

00:18:07.900 2028, regardless of where the competitive races end up being in the midterms next year,

00:18:12.960 she is an in-demand person within the party, without a doubt, and not just by the progressives.

00:18:18.300 All right. Another big story of this year involves the president, but really separate is MAGA and all

00:18:25.480 the questions of the Marjorie Taylor Greene's retiring from Congress and the fights within the

00:18:30.540 Republican Party in Capitol Hill and then around the country, the pundit class, the people with

00:18:36.920 podcasts, all these tensions. And the death of Charlie Kirk really unleashed a lot of stuff that it's

00:18:43.720 clear now that Charlie put a lid on, kept the peace. And so there's all sorts of, on X every day,

00:18:50.320 there's all this MAGA on MAGA action that is, it's so intense. Like it makes me uncomfortable how

00:18:54.980 angry people within the same movement are, people who are longtime friends and allies really going

00:19:01.420 at it. Here's an example of that. This is Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson, both podcasters. Senator

00:19:08.420 Cruz has his own show, you know, but here they are going at it pretty hard. And again, this clip is

00:19:13.700 to me representative of the kind of tensions that exist with people who have been allies,

00:19:19.300 who agree on most things, who are supportive of the president. And yet on many issues, including

00:19:25.360 Israel, but not only Israel, real tensions. This is a Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson, avert your eyes if

00:19:31.840 you don't like awkwardness. S8, please. How many people living around, by the way? I don't know

00:19:37.720 the population at all. No, I don't know the population. You don't know the population of

00:19:42.660 the country you seek to topple. How many people living around? 92 million. Okay. Yeah. How could

00:19:50.040 you not know that? I don't sit around memorizing population tables. Well, it's kind of relevant

00:19:56.160 because you're calling for the overthrow of the government. This issue of America's role in the

00:20:02.500 world, it comes up on Israel all the time. There it was on Iran, but you're going to see it potentially

00:20:07.960 in Venezuela. You're going to see it potentially with Russia, Ukraine, with the Middle East peace

00:20:12.180 deal. It's a big source of tension within the party at a time when normally tribalism is the order

00:20:19.440 of the day, right? Keep watching that. Here's another moment, key for MAGA. This is Erica Kirk.

00:20:26.160 Speaking at Memorial for Charlie Kirk in September of this year, talking about, as she has said since,

00:20:33.900 kind of almost spontaneously about how she feels about the man accused of murdering her husband.

00:20:39.460 Erica Kirk, S9, please. That man, that young man, I forgive him.

00:20:56.160 So much embedded in that incredible moment. First of all, the elevation of Erica Kirk as a visible and

00:21:16.720 known figure much more widely than she had been before. And then the moment of grace,

00:21:23.100 an example for people to be able to forgive in that situation, someone who just killed her husband,

00:21:29.880 allegedly, such a powerful moment. And then, of course, again, the controversy,

00:21:36.240 her fights recently with Candace Owens, criticism she's received from the right, also the left,

00:21:42.000 but from the right about how she's conducting her public grief. All of this part of just an

00:21:46.600 extraordinary year and tragic year for the Kirk family, but also another area of tension within

00:21:54.140 MAGA. Okay. Lastly, the president, of course, again, we could play 100 soundbites. Here's here

00:22:00.660 he is from his inaugural address. Again, startling that that's this year, 11 months ago, January 20th,

00:22:05.760 2025. Here's just a bit of the president from his second inaugural address. You recall,

00:22:10.260 it was moved inside because it was so cold. This is a S five, please. During every single day of the

00:22:17.000 Trump administration, I will very simply put America first.

00:22:30.040 That inaugural address kicking off in a year of, I think, unprecedented. And the White House puts the

00:22:35.800 stats out all the time, how much he has spoken, press conferences, speeches, rallies, foreign trips,

00:22:42.920 these photo ops in the White House, which he turns into press conferences, the cabinet meetings.

00:22:47.620 Donald Trump started 2025 talking as being as the incoming president, and has now talked as president.

00:22:54.860 More than many would like, certainly the people don't like him, don't want to hear so much from

00:22:59.460 him. But even some of his supporters have been amazed at how much we have heard from Donald Trump

00:23:05.080 this year. That's a little bit of 2025 in review through some pretty interesting, compelling

00:23:11.720 soundbites. Didn't play as many funny ones as I had wanted, but it's been quite a year. It's been

00:23:17.960 quite a year. And we're looking forward to next year and continuing to track it all with you. Send me an

00:23:23.220 email. Let me know what you thought about our clip selections. My email address is next up,

00:23:28.100 halpern at gmail.com. Make sure you're watching the show. And if you miss some episodes during the year,

00:23:33.320 you can go back during the holidays and watch them on our YouTube channel. It's youtube.com

00:23:37.840 slash at next up halpern. All our full episodes are there, but also the bonus clips that we do

00:23:43.700 all of them on our YouTube channel. And of course, if you want to listen to the backup issues, episodes

00:23:48.360 rather that you miss during the year, you can subscribe at next up with Mark Halpern on any podcast

00:23:54.360 platform that you use. Make sure always have the downloads turned on. So every new episode pops right

00:24:00.060 up. If you do that, you'll have the opportunity to always get everything right when we file them,

00:24:05.080 all the new reports right here. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back,

00:24:10.500 Dan Sinor is going to talk to us about what's going on in the Middle East and around the world. And with

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00:26:13.480 All right. Welcome back, everybody. Joining me now and next up, Dan Senior. He's the host of the

00:26:20.640 Call Me Back podcast. And he's one of the few people I know who understands the nexus between

00:26:25.840 domestic and international policy, politics, media, pretty much everything. And one of my big

00:26:33.200 complaints, you've heard me say it before, is a lot of people out there talking and don't understand

00:26:37.000 everything a 360-degree, five-dimensional chess way. That's why we love having Dan on. Dan,

00:26:42.260 welcome back. Thank you for being here. Great to be with you, Mark. How's Hanukkah going for the

00:26:46.260 senior family? It's mixed because the holiday is all about Jewish light in the world and Jewish pride.

00:26:58.200 And these last few days, especially given what happened in Australia over the weekend and what's

00:27:05.020 been happening elsewhere, Australia is just actually one event. It's gotten outsized attention,

00:27:09.400 but there was anti-Semitic violence in Amsterdam. There's been two very serious acts of anti-Semitic

00:27:16.140 violence in California over the last few days. I can go on and on. There's been some stuff in New

00:27:20.320 York and Crown Heights, one on the New York City subway. So there just feels to me, particularly over

00:27:25.100 the past week, to be a string of, I don't want to say coordinated, but it does have a kind of global

00:27:32.360 feel, to borrow the phrase, globalized intifada. And so while the Hanukkah holiday is about light,

00:27:42.100 there's a sense right now, and there's a conversation happening in the Jewish community,

00:27:45.480 in the diaspora, in the U.S. and elsewhere about should the holiday also be about Jewish might,

00:27:51.380 not just light, that we should really be thinking about how well we are protecting the community and

00:27:57.280 defending ourselves. And so, like I said, it's been, it's been mixed. Yeah. We talked a lot about

00:28:02.560 these issues with David Wolpe on the episode earlier this week. And, and the big question we

00:28:07.420 discussed is what can be done? And, and as you just suggested, there needs to be more thoughtfulness

00:28:13.000 about security. There just does. But if you just take from, from October 7th till today, what are

00:28:19.400 things that can be built on to deal with the core questions here? Young people, anti-Semitism on the left

00:28:25.880 and on the right. And I know you've spoken about your, your greater concern about anti-Semitism on

00:28:29.760 the left, but there are problems on the right as well. So what, what are, what are the building

00:28:34.240 blocks? If we want to flip from being scared as some people are, or in the moment of these incidents

00:28:40.060 that you described and how to grapple with them kind of as, as a momentary challenges, what are the

00:28:46.020 positive things to build on for, for nations and individuals to build on? Yeah. I would say since

00:28:52.620 your audiences is largely focused on politics and you have a lot of politicians and political

00:28:57.940 leaders or people with influence in politics that, that listened to this podcast, I would

00:29:03.000 say to them what has been lacking on both the left and the right. I say I'm more alarmed by what's

00:29:11.020 happening on the left than what's happening on the right. But I, but I'm not, I don't have zero

00:29:15.400 concern about what's happening on the right. I see something happening there. I just think it's way

00:29:18.900 behind where the left is in terms of how advanced it is, meaning on how the degree to which it's,

00:29:24.360 it's really permeated the base of electoral politics. And let me just spend a moment on

00:29:29.220 that. See on the left right now, as you know, Mark, virtually anyone say running for, for

00:29:34.280 Congress, save for maybe 15 or 20 seats in the country, the overwhelming majority of congressional

00:29:40.140 districts in the country, they are either very red districts, very blue districts. And the

00:29:45.200 incumbents in those seats are rarely worried about a general election challenge. What they

00:29:50.620 really live in fear of is a primary challenge. And so if you are a Democrat today, I mean,

00:29:55.680 take, you know, a race happening here in the New York city area where, where Dan Goldman is

00:30:00.160 being, Congressman Dan Goldman, Goldman is being challenged by Brad Lander. I mean, I'm not

00:30:06.540 going to say it's the only issue in the primary, but a big issue in the primary will be Israel and

00:30:10.300 the Jewish community and the rise of anti-Semitism and where Dan Goldman is being pressured by many

00:30:15.580 Democratic primary voters is, is from the left on that issue, from the hard left on, you know,

00:30:22.180 criticizing him for being too supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship. And so if you're a Democrat,

00:30:26.600 I can give you other examples around the country. If you are a Democrat running for reelection,

00:30:29.520 you live in fear of that. And all the pressure right now, all the energy

00:30:34.900 among the Democratic primary electorate is on, is on, uh, distancing the United States from Israel.

00:30:43.220 That is not the case in Republican primaries. You'll be hard pressed to find any Republican

00:30:47.380 primaries in the country where the issue of the U.S.-Israel relationship is going to be a big issue,

00:30:52.040 pressuring a incumbent Republican from the right. I mean, really, I, I can't, there, there are two

00:30:56.840 members of Congress who have basically held that position. Tom Massey, who's facing a tough primary

00:31:03.340 challenge and Marjorie Taylor Greene who left Congress, but virtually. So that's what I mean.

00:31:07.060 Again, I'm not saying the right Republicans can't arrive there. I'm just saying they're not where

00:31:11.620 the Democrats are. And I think one of the lessons from what happened with the Democrats is the

00:31:16.520 Democratic leadership did not confront this toxicity earlier and they didn't, and they didn't shut it

00:31:24.260 down earlier. And we tend to think Mark that antisemitism is nurtured and, and flourishes that

00:31:32.440 dare I say that use that word, meaning it, you know, it thrives, let's say antisemitism thrives.

00:31:36.600 We tend to think if you look throughout history, that antisemitism only thrives

00:31:39.900 in situations of chaos. And that's wrong. It often simply thrives with permission that if,

00:31:49.540 if leaders in that society, if the gatekeepers, if you will, in the, in a particular society or

00:31:54.420 institution give it permission. And I think the Democratic leadership gave, gave it permission.

00:32:00.120 And then it kind of became this Frankenstein thing that got out of control. And I hope Republican

00:32:04.460 leaders will learn from the Democratic lesson and what happened to Democrats and where they see it,

00:32:08.860 they try to stamp it out quickly and don't give any permission to its rise. And that I would say,

00:32:15.000 if you say, what's something people can do? What, what did Albanese, the, the prime minister of the

00:32:20.540 Australia get wrong? I'm not saying he wanted there to be violent antisemitism against Jews in

00:32:25.800 Australia. I don't, I'm not saying he even wanted to create a culture where there was thriving,

00:32:32.180 energetic antisemitism. But the reality is, if you look at his history, right back to when he first

00:32:36.820 entered parliament, he created a culture and, and cultivated an environment and a political

00:32:42.780 movement where antisemitism was given permission. And so the question is what are, what kind of

00:32:47.520 political risks are leaders willing to take to confront their own base of support in order to

00:32:53.780 stamp this stuff out? Right. I agree with, I agree with you and you've made, you've made a very

00:32:58.560 important distinction, but here's, here's a reality. And I don't, I don't like to make everything

00:33:04.400 about Tucker. I really don't, but, but, but, but Tucker's really important. Tucker was on the

00:33:10.000 All In podcast. Okay. So number one, Tucker is being, everybody's favorite word, platformed

00:33:15.780 by being on All In. And on All In, he said his relationship with the president is better than

00:33:20.020 it's ever been today. Okay. Not every, it surprised me a little bit and, and maybe the president would,

00:33:25.900 would disagree, but clearly he's in good standing with, with the president. The guy who platformed

00:33:32.080 Nick Fuentes, the guy who interviewed Nick Fuentes in a very soft way, and a guy who regularly says

00:33:37.260 things that people who are concerned about antisemitism are really troubled by. So one of

00:33:43.980 the most powerful people in MAGA, a very close friend of the president who says their relationship

00:33:47.900 has never been better. And all the stuff with the Heritage Foundation, like you could say not

00:33:54.920 everything should be about Tucker. And you could say, I know Tucker, he's not an antisemite, but isn't

00:33:59.820 that the silence around that? It's not total silence. People are quitting heritage over it,

00:34:04.040 but isn't the relative signs of the president and the vice president around that. Isn't that

00:34:10.440 something that if people just said buy and tolerate, you could say it's contribute to a climate that's

00:34:15.280 helping foster this. So first, of course, the answer is yes. Okay. And now here's my caveat. Here's,

00:34:24.680 here's my butt. The president hosted a Hanukkah party at the White House on Tuesday night. And

00:34:30.960 it's worth watching his remarks, because he basically said, I'm the best friend Israel and

00:34:38.680 the Jewish community are ever going to have. And the reality is, Mark, if you look at the history of

00:34:45.960 President Trump's first term, and now this term, just one year into his first term, almost one year,

00:34:51.940 you're going to be hard pressed to find any president in modern political history, at least

00:34:58.120 since 1948, for our purposes, who is who has piled up the record of accomplishments as it relates to

00:35:04.520 the US's relationship that this president has. I mean, it's really, I mean, I just, I sometimes feel

00:35:10.740 like a broken record in rattling these things off. But it's important, you know, first president,

00:35:14.200 despite many presidents talking about doing it to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognize

00:35:17.840 Jerusalem as its capital, recognizing Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, putting a maximum

00:35:22.820 pressure campaign on Iran in his first term, taking out Qasem Soleimani, who's responsible for more

00:35:29.280 Israeli and American deaths in the Middle East than almost anyone else. Then obviously, and then the

00:35:36.800 Abraham Accords. And then in this term, obviously, June of this year, the war against Iran and no

00:35:43.680 daylight between the president and the prime minister, as it relates to Israel, Israel's war in Gaza.

00:35:49.020 So Israel's defense of war in Gaza. So it is like from his from the president's standpoint is what

00:35:56.520 do you what do people care whether or not why are people hyperventilating or analyzing whether I'm

00:36:01.280 friends with this person or whether I talk to this person, or whether that person says my relationship

00:36:05.280 with the president is never better? Who cares? Look at what I've done. And I really and I friends of

00:36:12.460 mine who've spoken to the president about their concerns about some of the people he's he's

00:36:17.860 associated with who who are who are very causing great concern within the Jewish community.

00:36:25.660 The president's reaction is what guys I you have to worry about me, like whether that person runs

00:36:30.540 around and says we're friends or whether that person runs around since they met with me, who cares?

00:36:34.360 It's what I'm doing that matters. Right. And he's, you know, he is right about that.

00:36:38.980 Well, let's talk about something he's done, which is the peace deal. It's fallen off the radar as a

00:36:44.480 matter of daily coverage, because there's so much on the call me back podcast. Not not. But that's

00:36:49.020 why you're here, dude, to fill us in. Pretty much everything I know that's happened since the deal

00:36:54.460 has been unfortunately negative. Right. It is conflict in Gaza. There's been conflict in Syria.

00:37:01.540 There's conflict. There's stuff breaking out. There's no sign of an international peace force on

00:37:06.560 the ground. There's no sign of standing up a detailed plan or any plan to rebuild Gaza.

00:37:11.740 There's still refugee issues. There's there's criticism of Israel on a variety of fronts.

00:37:17.780 There doesn't seem to be forward motion. So what's the except for the fact that the deal

00:37:22.180 hasn't completely fallen apart? What are the pessimists getting wrong? What is on track

00:37:27.120 about implementation of the deal, whether whatever the ultimate rule disposition of who runs Gaza is

00:37:34.460 what's on track about rebuilding peace, withdrawal of forces, et cetera.

00:37:40.000 Yeah. So so I think you're right to say the reality is more by and large, Israeli soldiers,

00:37:48.020 if you just think about from Israel's perspective, are not being killed every week. They were keep

00:37:52.620 in mind there were casualties like almost every week, either killed in action or just severely wounded.

00:37:58.160 And so that isn't happening. All the living hostages are out of Gaza. There's there's still

00:38:04.200 one deceased hostage, which is which I know is highly important to get back. But but basically,

00:38:10.000 this is held while Israel is still in 53 percent of Gaza. So it can protect its, you know, its its

00:38:16.180 southern border. And the reality is Hamas doesn't pose a strategic threat to Israel anymore. It just

00:38:22.220 doesn't, which means Israel doesn't have to really do much more than it is doing now for the time

00:38:28.140 being. So that's like a big win. We underestimate. We play down. That's like a really big deal. Hamas

00:38:32.500 is no longer a strategic threat to Israel. OK, now the question is, who's going to take care of Gaza

00:38:37.320 going forward? That is a big question mark right now for the following reason. One,

00:38:46.400 the countries that would volunteer to sign up to serve in the international stabilization force

00:38:51.040 are not necessarily the countries Israel wants in Gaza. Some countries that have stepped up are

00:38:57.300 ironically too close with Israel. Right. So take a country like Germany, which my understanding is

00:39:02.800 they did offer to to contribute some kind of forces at one point. And Israel was uncomfortable

00:39:06.680 with it. Why? Because Israel, the Israeli government has a very close relationship with the German

00:39:10.260 government. And Israel knows that if things get messy in Gaza at some point, even if there's an

00:39:15.620 international stabilization force, Israel may, you know, bullets start flying and is and some of the

00:39:20.220 IDF bullets. The last thing Israel wants is the idea of killing a German soldier. So, you know,

00:39:25.220 so they don't want countries that are too close with them. Now, a country like Turkey has wanted to

00:39:29.040 come in, but they're they're almost too distant from Israel, meaning they're too much of an enemy

00:39:32.880 of Israel. So Israel doesn't want enemies in Gaza. So the question is, who can you find that's in

00:39:37.380 between those two? And the administration is working on that in coordination with Israel,

00:39:42.140 who are the front runners? I'll tell you who you see in the press, the Azerbaijanis, the there's talk

00:39:50.120 if times to time, from time to time from Indonesians or the Malaysians. I mean, this is not what I

00:39:55.520 remember telling you what's publicly out there. Now, here's to me the wild card. Will the Saudis or

00:40:02.180 the Emiratis come in? That's the real question. Yeah, I can wave. It's the wild card. It's a $64,000

00:40:08.180 question. And it might be essential, right? Well, for the following reason. What the Saudis have

00:40:14.680 done, especially under MBS, but it began before MBS came became crown prince, but especially under

00:40:20.860 MBS is basically began after 9-11 in 2001. The Saudis have demonstrated that they know how to

00:40:27.960 de-radicalize very radical parts of its population. I don't know, Mark, if you've been to Saudi Arabia in

00:40:32.800 the last few years, but it's I mean, I've been in and out of there over the last couple of decades.

00:40:36.960 It's the transformation is extraordinary. And this is not a, you know, regardless of what one

00:40:42.280 thinks of the MBS or the transformation is, is, I mean, it's, it's incredible. I mean,

00:40:47.760 they really, and they've de-radicalized, they have a real system for de-radicalizing really bad

00:40:53.040 actors. The Emiratis have done the same thing. They didn't face the same challenges in terms of

00:40:56.840 radicalization as the Saudis. But my point is there are governments in the, in the region that know how

00:41:03.020 to do this. And that is what the Palestinian society needs. It's one thing if Israel finds

00:41:07.800 an international state of parties to participate in the international stabilization force and provide

00:41:12.220 basic security. But what do you do with the fact that a majority of Palestinian society still

00:41:16.120 sympathizes with Hamas? That is a massive problem of radicalization.

00:41:19.760 A hundred percent. There's so many positives. The Saudis doing it. It's unthinkable in, in,

00:41:24.340 on one level, but there's so many positives. Is Israel all for the Saudis doing it?

00:41:30.320 Yes. Yeah. So Israel is. The problem isn't Israel on this. The, the Israel would be thrilled if the,

00:41:34.040 if the Saudis or the Emiratis did this. Yeah. The, I will tell you that when you talk to Saudi

00:41:41.160 officials and not, you know, they will say, and Emirati officials, they don't want their sons dying in

00:41:48.040 Gaza. Right. In order to do this, as one Emirati official put it to me, is he said, you know,

00:41:52.700 the Egyptians should do this. Why should the Egyptians do it? And the Egyptians may do it,

00:41:56.200 by the way. The Egyptians may play a role. He says, the Egyptians should do it. And I said,

00:41:59.760 why? And he said, because the Egyptians have no problem killing Gazan Palestinians. Right.

00:42:04.260 They were doing it. They've been done it for a while. They did. They certainly did it before

00:42:07.220 48 and 67 when 1948, 1967, when Egypt was in control of Gaza, they said they, they're perfectly

00:42:13.340 comfortable killing Palestinians or, you know, and the Saudis do not want to kill Palestinian,

00:42:18.820 Gazan Palestinians, and they don't want their young, they're, look, most of

00:42:22.680 Saudi society wants, they have some sympathy for the Gazan Palestinians, but this is not their

00:42:27.680 problem. And they don't want to own it. And they certainly don't want to risk lives trying to deal

00:42:31.760 with it. They'll write checks, but they don't want bodies there. All right. We could drill down on

00:42:35.800 this forever. I did want to talk to you about Ukraine, but we're getting close to out of time.

00:42:39.240 So I want to talk about Secretary Rubio, who's also the national security advisor. I know you're

00:42:43.740 hearing and have heard what I hear, which is, is incredibly influential. There's other players in

00:42:50.220 national security, Scott Besson's involved, the Pentagon's involved, et cetera. Obviously the

00:42:54.880 special ambassadors, Whitcoff, Jared Kushner, but Marco Rubio basically works out of the White

00:42:59.640 House now, not the State Department for the most part. Just talk about what you know about the role

00:43:03.880 of Secretary Rubio in Venezuela, in the Middle East, in Russia, Ukraine now, as compared to what I would

00:43:10.720 call him normal Secretary of State. Well, he's, he's, he's, he's not like any normal Secretary

00:43:16.840 of State. I don't want to call Rubio Kissinger. It's too, it's too early to apply the Kissinger

00:43:22.820 crown to Rubio, but, but structurally to your point, Mark, he structurally, there's only one

00:43:28.740 other precedent for the structure that you just described, which is Kissinger, which has been

00:43:32.100 serving as both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. So I think he has comparable

00:43:37.700 structural, structural, structural influence to Kissinger. And then the question is not just

00:43:43.560 the structural and bureaucratic power, but it's the personal power and the relationship with the

00:43:47.440 president. And like Kissinger, Rubio really has the confidence of the president. I mean, of the,

00:43:55.220 I mean, to me, it's, you know, another comp would be Condi, Rice and Bush in terms of that confidence,

00:44:00.840 except Condi did not have the bureaucratic and structural power that Rubio does. So Rubio has,

00:44:05.980 says, you know, other than Kissinger, unprecedented, at least since Kissinger,

00:44:11.900 unprecedented structural and bureaucratic power. And he has a real personal relationship with the

00:44:18.000 president that I really think has truly been developed since Trump has been president. I

00:44:24.020 mean, it's not like they had, you know, I mean, I know Rubio is close to, Marco's close to,

00:44:28.840 to Susie Wiles and some other people around the president, but, and I, and I think where he's been

00:44:33.340 very deft is in managing this whole Witkoff, Kushner situation. Whereas previous, I know

00:44:39.820 two previous secretaries of state had a challenge with the, with Jared playing such a important role,

00:44:45.500 an outsized role in the Middle East. I think Marco is, has figured out a way to, to balance that in a

00:44:51.380 way that it's not a turf issue and he's actually leveraged them and they leverage him. And I actually

00:44:56.820 think the dynamic is, is very, it works. It's, it, it, it, it balances. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen,

00:45:03.440 if you're interested in the inner workings of this administration, when it comes to national

00:45:06.800 security, the last thing Dan said is, is just, it's the story. It's, it's the reality. It's a

00:45:12.620 human story, but it also is allowing the United States government to deal with all these complex

00:45:16.520 foreign policy matters at one time. Marco Rubio has put aside bureaucratic turf wars, made easier by

00:45:21.800 the fact that he's got both jobs, but there are so many people who've been secretary of state who

00:45:26.340 would look at Witkoff and Jared Kushner's roles and say, oh no, impossible. I'm not going to delegate

00:45:31.880 that authority, but he has, but he's involved. And as Dan said, confidence of the president, it's an

00:45:37.100 incredible story for a guy who has been underestimated, not by everyone, but by some people. And as, as,

00:45:43.460 as a relatively young age has turned into a fully functioning, grownup, sophisticated secretary of

00:45:50.700 state, national security advisor, player on the world stage and player in the white house in a way

00:45:54.660 that is, is quite something. Dan, again, I wish we go another 20, but we got to stop. Very grateful

00:46:00.640 to you. Very grateful. You spend part of your holiday season with us, my best to your family

00:46:04.480 and to you. And I'll remind everybody, if the call me podcast, call me back podcast is not in your

00:46:10.320 regular rotation, you're making a big mistake because it is worth the listen. Every time you learn

00:46:16.360 something new and you understand in a sophisticated way, what is happening, Dan, thank you.

00:46:21.480 Thanks Mark. Be well. Happy Hanukkah. Take care. Happy Hanukkah. Next up Congressman Chris Collins,

00:46:27.000 former Congressman, maybe future calls and Congressman. He's written a brand new book

00:46:30.940 about an extraordinary life, including a brush with the law and early support for Donald Trump,

00:46:36.220 which continues to pay dividends in his life. Next up Congressman Chris Collins.

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00:48:12.680 All right, next up, a person with a book called My Remarkable Life, and I'd say Truth of an

00:48:18.300 Advertising. Chris Collins has had a remarkable life, and it continues to be remarkable as he tries to

00:48:24.140 become one of the few people in American history to be in the U.S. House of Representatives from two

00:48:28.540 different states. But having served as a member of Congress from New York, both before and after

00:48:33.820 he got elected to Congress, he had a pretty remarkable life. And we're going to talk about

00:48:37.460 that with author, former member of Congress, Chris Collins. Congressman, welcome, and thank

00:48:42.100 you for making time. Merry Christmas to you. Oh, Mark, I'm very happy to be with you and all of

00:48:46.480 your listeners. And I, too, want to wish everyone a very happy holiday as we end what we know is a very

00:48:52.520 tumultuous year of 2025. So it's good to be with everyone. And I have written a book. It was published

00:49:01.380 just two days ago. So here we go. What's a guy who represented a local elected official, a county

00:49:07.680 executive, and member of Congress? What's a guy who lived in New York doing in Florida? That's the

00:49:12.040 oldest story in the book, a New Yorker flees for warmer climes. But what are you doing in

00:49:17.740 Florida now? Well, I'm enjoying what I thought was a bit of a retirement. But with President Trump

00:49:23.860 back in office, and as people can find out in my book, I was the first member of Congress on February

00:49:30.700 24th of 2016 to endorse Donald Trump for president. I was ridiculed. There were political cartoons

00:49:38.960 written about me in the Buffalo News. And I stood firmly with now President Trump back when he was

00:49:45.780 candidate Trump in 2016. I seconded his nomination at the convention in Cleveland. And when those

00:49:53.400 Access Hollywood tapes hit less than four weeks from the election, and people like Paul Ryan put a

00:49:59.620 knife in his back, told him he shouldn't be running and to turn it over to Mike Pence. I was the one on

00:50:05.700 national news defending Donald Trump, reminding people that in his case, it was locker room talk and

00:50:12.000 words. In the case of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton at his side, these were actions. So I

00:50:18.080 compared words to actions, defended him. And ultimately, he did win. And that was a good day

00:50:25.280 for me as well. He never forgot my early endorsement of him. And he appointed me to be the congressional

00:50:32.040 liaison to the White House. And I spent, you know, those next couple of years flying on Air Force

00:50:39.300 one meetings in the Roosevelt Room, where he always had me sitting directly at his left. So I got to

00:50:46.140 know President Trump very, very well. And certainly, in my case, my role in Congress shifted significantly.

00:50:54.000 And my early endorsement of him turned out to be very good timing on my part.

00:50:59.180 Yeah. So we're going to talk about this whole thing, the whole run of your career in the book,

00:51:04.380 including that you're now again running for Congress in Florida. And you got a pretty good

00:51:08.140 chance, as best I can tell, to return to the House. You endorsed the president, as you said,

00:51:13.140 in February of 16. And we're going to talk about that in a second. For your, in reward for your

00:51:19.740 early support for the president, first member of Congress to support him, you were part of the

00:51:25.200 inaugural, the Transition Committee. As you said, you met with him frequently. Then after you had what

00:51:30.360 we call a little bit of trouble with the law, we'll talk about your conviction, you're having

00:51:34.380 pled guilty. He got a presidential pardon. All of these things grew out of your relationship with

00:51:40.580 the president. It all starts with your endorsement of him. Now, I want to unpack your endorsement of

00:51:44.680 him. You didn't endorse him originally. You were a supporter of Jeb Bush. And then when Governor Bush

00:51:49.280 has failed as a presidential candidate, please clap, you shipped it to Donald Trump. It's kind of

00:51:55.320 incredible that you were the first in the sense that he got into the race in 2015. And not one member

00:52:01.300 of Congress chose to endorse him. And yet today, he has more control over, sway with, whatever you

00:52:07.360 want to say, members of the Republican Party than any president of our lifetime. So what do you,

00:52:12.940 how did everybody miss it? How did you and others miss 2015 when Donald Trump came down the escalator,

00:52:19.560 gave his announcement speech? Well, why didn't more people see then what everybody or almost everybody

00:52:24.700 seems to see now? Well, in my case, I thought that Jeb Bush certainly had the background and what

00:52:35.020 looked to be the credentials with a lot of experience. And so, yeah, I was early on with

00:52:40.220 Jeb Bush, and that was well before Donald Trump even entered the picture. And I'm not somebody who

00:52:46.740 would just leave somebody at the curb. And so I stayed with Jeb Bush. Again, I was very early on with

00:52:53.300 him even before he formally announced. But when he did pretty much self-destruct during the debates

00:52:59.320 and his campaign floundered, I waited until after South Carolina when he did officially drop out.

00:53:08.100 That's when I said, okay, I'm going to endorse now President Trump, a business person like me.

00:53:15.780 And when I looked at the other candidates, he was my obvious choice. But I was loyal to Jeb Bush until

00:53:21.960 they dropped out. Yeah. And I'm not making it, I don't want to make it as much about you as just

00:53:25.700 as kind of a, to me, it's kind of a gee whiz question. A guy who eventually would come to

00:53:30.980 dominate, as he has for, you know, almost a decade now, the Republican Party, same guy, right? We're

00:53:37.200 still talking about Donald Trump, same agenda, immigration, you know, Washington's not working,

00:53:43.620 standing up to China, economic growth, same guy in all of 2015. How could it be that not even,

00:53:51.320 you've got, I would argue, you've got a special excuse because you'd endorse someone already,

00:53:55.760 you'd endorse someone early, so you couldn't switch over. But how, most members were unaffiliated.

00:54:00.920 How could it be that everybody at the party didn't come to that conclusion in 2015?

00:54:05.660 I can't answer that question. They would have to. But, you know, throughout 2016, there were only,

00:54:13.480 I created what was called the Trump Caucus. Throughout the entire election cycle, there were

00:54:19.240 only 11 of us that would even stand up and say we were supporting Donald Trump. You know, now Senator

00:54:26.620 Marsha Blackburn and now Senator Kevin Cramer were two of the other 10 beside me. But, you know,

00:54:33.840 I carried that torch and I can't speak for the other members, but I'm a private sector guy. And that

00:54:39.420 was what Donald Trump was. They just blew him off and said he doesn't have experience in the political

00:54:46.780 world, I guess, which they must have thought was the most important. But, yeah, it was a fairly lonely

00:54:54.060 period of time between February and November when there were only 11 of us in the entire United States

00:55:01.980 Congress standing with Donald Trump. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about what led you to leave Congress

00:55:08.600 and eventually get a presidential pardon. Just, you know, I always say people shouldn't be judged

00:55:14.460 by the worst day or days of their lives. And you've been involved in public service. You've been a

00:55:18.640 successful business person. You're running for Congress again. But tell people the story. How did

00:55:22.880 you come to end up having to plead guilty and become a convicted felon?

00:55:26.420 Well, it comes back to the Department of Injustice. And my situation was fairly similar to General

00:55:32.860 Flynn. When, in this case, Jeff Berman, the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York,

00:55:38.980 went big game hunting. I had been involved in a biotech company that was creating a drug to treat

00:55:46.140 secondary progressive multiple sclerosis in Australia and New Zealand. And there was a stock that was

00:55:53.480 publicly traded in Australia, not in the United States. Myself and my two children had stock in

00:56:01.280 that company. It turns out that the trial surprisingly failed. And I did share those results

00:56:08.380 with my son. And as the chairman of the board later said in a letter to the judge, every member of the

00:56:14.980 board shared that information with their family because it was a trading halt on the stock in Australia

00:56:21.380 where it was traded. No one could trade it. Unbeknownst to me, my son had moved his stock

00:56:26.380 into the U.S. with a brokerage firm. And unsurprisingly for all of us, NASDAQ did not honor

00:56:33.860 the trading halt. And the surprise was the next morning, the stock was being traded on NASDAQ,

00:56:41.900 what they call the pink sheets, off market. And my 24-year-old son did sell some of his stock.

00:56:50.740 I didn't know his fiance had also bought a few hundred shares. She sold her stock. And when he

00:56:57.640 called me the next morning, there was nothing more I could do about it other than to say,

00:57:03.240 you know, that shouldn't have happened. We're not going to talk about it.

00:57:06.780 And let's just move on. Well, Jeff Berman saw an opportunity to leverage my son

00:57:13.320 to come after me, even though I never sold any stock, was never accused of it.

00:57:18.840 It was a trading halt on the stock when I called my son with the information.

00:57:24.200 But that whole story revolved around what the Department of Justice does. They typically leverage

00:57:30.400 family where they can. And in my case, they leveraged my son, basically forcing me, in my

00:57:38.500 opinion, to plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit insider trading because I didn't trade.

00:57:45.300 And the FBI had knocked on my door, set me up, and claimed I made a false statement, which I did not do.

00:57:53.380 But they charged me with making a false statement. And I was frankly forced to plead guilty to those

00:57:59.000 two charges in order to take some pressure off the situation with my son. And fortunately,

00:58:06.620 by me taking the fall, and then because of that, having to resign from Congress,

00:58:11.380 my son ultimately was just given a sentence of probation, whereas they did send me to federal

00:58:17.440 prison. That's a chapter in my book, which was really mortifying to me. But I think people who,

00:58:23.040 you know, will go on Amazon maybe today and buy my book, My Remarkable Life,

00:58:27.380 they'll be horrified at what I was put through for 10 weeks. Before President Trump did pardon me on

00:58:34.900 December 22nd of 2020, three days before Christmas, I was home for Christmas. And then I had to

00:58:44.080 basically rebuild my life. Took me a good three years to climb out of the shell I was in. I was

00:58:50.860 embarrassed, you know, convicted felon, yes, with a pardon, but nevertheless, convicted felon.

00:58:58.220 So it took me a good three years, Mark, maybe four, before I was able to, you know, walk with my

00:59:05.000 shoulders high, my head held high. And now I'm, I am back. And I am running for Congress again. I intend to

00:59:12.680 win and go back to serve with President Trump for the last two years now of his second administration.

00:59:20.860 Yeah, couple follow ups for you. First of all, I have a friend who went to prison. He was he was

00:59:26.340 indicted for things that he didn't believe he did, that he was as seals the way you do. But he pled

00:59:33.120 guilty as well. Because his lawyers told him it was the right thing to do. I think some Americans would

00:59:39.440 say if you were innocent, why plead guilty? And I know you explained a little bit, you did it to take

00:59:43.760 pressure off your son. But is it is isn't isn't isn't what is it possible that it would have been

00:59:49.660 better to go to a trial and try to fight it? Well, no, I would not have been convicted at a trial,

00:59:54.780 the case against me had completely fallen apart. Jeff Berman, the political US attorney, admitted that

01:00:01.880 in a book he wrote. And he even admitted in the book that they leveraged my son, thinking that would

01:00:08.140 force me to plead guilty, which it did. And, you know, Mark, if you look, and there's been a lot

01:00:14.620 of reports on this in the federal system, 98 percent, 98 percent of all of all individuals charged

01:00:23.340 with a federal crime plead guilty. Yeah, they do so because typically they leverage family where they

01:00:28.960 can, in my case, and also General Flynn. But they threaten you with, you know, 50 years in federal

01:00:36.040 prison. They charged me with 11 felonies, 11, where would have been 40 years and my son the same way.

01:00:45.800 You know, I made a six minute phone call, never sold any stock. And I was looking at what it could

01:00:50.140 have been literally a 40 year sentence in prison. I chose to, you know, which 98 percent of all

01:01:00.480 individuals charged in this report say, it is a department of injustice. They leverage family,

01:01:07.360 they overcharge with the threat of decades in prison. And that's why 98 percent, whether you're

01:01:13.200 guilty or not, plead guilty to reduce their exposure. Yeah. What can be done? What can be done? And this is

01:01:20.900 a big, a big cause for the president. It's a big cause for MAGA. It's a big cause for liberals who get

01:01:26.820 caught up in the same thing. Any family that's gone through this. So out of control prosecutors,

01:01:32.940 political prosecutors, prosecutions that leverage family, no one would say that that's right. What's

01:01:39.120 the solution in our society to try to keep that from happening? How does that, how can that be part

01:01:45.300 of how justice works in America? Well, the difficult thing is a lot of these U.S. attorneys, and in fact,

01:01:51.400 even the judge in my case, had been a former prosecutor in the same Southern District of New

01:01:57.340 York. He ruled against every single motion we made. And just so the listeners know this, this was 2020.

01:02:05.180 In the midst of the COVID pandemic, I was 70 years old with underlying health conditions,

01:02:10.960 and they forced me into that federal prison on October 13th of 2020. There was no treatments for

01:02:18.280 COVID. It was in the worst possible state. They put my life in jeopardy because there was a rumor

01:02:24.400 I might be pardoned. And they wanted me behind bars prior to being pardoned. And they forced me in and

01:02:31.300 put my life at risk, both the judge and the prosecutor. So, you know, let's start with an FBI

01:02:39.780 interview. They don't record interviews. One person is asking questions. Another one is writing down

01:02:46.240 what they think they heard or what they think might turn into a charge, in my case, of making a false

01:02:52.500 statement, which I did not do. But there's no tape recording. So the simplest thing we can do

01:02:57.760 is force the FBI, like every other agency, to tape record the interview. In my case, that would show I

01:03:09.680 did not make a false statement. That one could be easily done. The rest of it, though, the overcharging,

01:03:16.280 in my case, 11 felonies went for a six-minute phone call when I didn't even sell any stock.

01:03:22.480 I guess that's just unprofessional behavior. And I'm not sure exactly how we get to the bottom of that,

01:03:28.900 because these U.S. attorneys pretty much are unfettered. And if they're big game hunting,

01:03:33.720 they know they can, at the end of the day, get a guilty plea, you know, because they've charged

01:03:38.400 somebody like me or my son with potentially four decades in prison.

01:03:43.440 Yeah. It's unfortunate that even someone as thoughtful as you is connected to public policy

01:03:50.440 and obviously had this searing experience. It's unfortunate that you're pretty limited in

01:03:54.860 what you can recommend, because prosecutors have a lot of power. I want to ask you one more

01:04:00.920 question about this on a personal level, and then I want to move on to politics.

01:04:04.840 I know the answer to the question of, did people start to treat you differently

01:04:08.200 in your neighborhood, in your community, in politics? I know the answer is yes.

01:04:13.860 What separated, in your mind, the people who stood by you from the people who walked away from you?

01:04:19.580 Well, Mark, my friends stood by me. When I was looking at a potential, you know,

01:04:26.220 four-decade prison sentence, I had 137 people, which is unheard of, many, many members of Congress

01:04:35.420 write letters saying, we know Chris Collins. We know he's a thoughtful person with, you know,

01:04:42.180 family man, with integrity. We ask that he be treated in that manner as the criminal justice system

01:04:50.300 issues. People that knew me, and they all knew I never sold stock, understood, you know, my standing

01:04:59.580 behind my, beside my son. So your friends and your family will stand with you, in my case, after many,

01:05:10.100 many, many decades of public service and success in the private sector. So I guess my reputation,

01:05:17.180 even though it was trashed, with a guilty plea that made me a convicted felon, thank God my friends

01:05:24.440 did stand with me during those very, very dark days. Not, that doesn't happen with a lot of folks.

01:05:32.380 Again, we're talking to author, former member of Congress, maybe future member of Congress,

01:05:36.920 Chris Collins, new book, My Remarkable Life, available now. He was the first sitting member

01:05:42.860 of Congress to endorse Donald Trump back in the first campaign, the 2016 campaign. You have a,

01:05:48.640 I'll call this, you know, there's this whole image of Florida as a kind of a wacky place,

01:05:55.000 and I think it's pretty well earned. You're running for, in the district where currently Byron Donalds,

01:05:59.980 who's running for governor, is. And here's some of the, here's the descriptions of some of the people

01:06:05.340 running in your primary. And the winner of the primary is almost certainly going to be elected

01:06:09.620 a member of Congress because of the nature of the district. A guy who is a retired medical salesman,

01:06:15.100 guy who owns a media company. Jim Oberweiss, former Illinois state senator, who's run for a bunch of

01:06:20.940 stuff. A jeweler, a former advisor to a member of Congress, an HVAC installer, and then Madison

01:06:29.640 Cawthorn, who used to be a congressman from North Carolina. Am I right that you're the favorite to win

01:06:36.040 the nomination? Is that fair to say? Well, Mark, I have a lot of support. And what I have is a resume

01:06:41.580 of success and accomplishments in both the private sector as an entrepreneur that's created thousands

01:06:48.400 of jobs with 22 separate companies. And also, as a successful politician, the county executive of

01:06:56.680 Erie County, New York, based in Buffalo when it was bankrupt when I was elected, and then

01:07:01.820 elected and reelected to four terms in Congress, 2012, 14, 16, and 18. So my resume of success and

01:07:09.760 accomplishments dwarfs all of the others who are saying, here's what I think I may do if you elect

01:07:16.420 me. Well, I've got a resume of accomplishments. I passed the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act that was

01:07:22.340 signed into law, and many others, six total bills that I sponsored were signed into law, which is a bit

01:07:30.420 unusual. I served on the Energy and Commerce Committee. So my resume of accomplishments and success

01:07:36.360 do separate me from all the other, what will probably be 14 other candidates.

01:07:43.140 So one thing that I don't, unless I missed it, one thing that's not on your resume is endorsed

01:07:47.300 candidate by Donald John Trump. And of course, you did endorse him. Do you expect the president to endorse

01:07:52.940 you in this race?

01:07:53.700 Let's just say I will be addressing that after the first of the year when I really kick things off.

01:08:01.860 The election's not till August 18th. It's still nine months away. So I will be approaching him at

01:08:08.940 some point there in January. I would certainly very much appreciate his endorsement. One thing I can say,

01:08:16.340 he may just decide to take a timeout. This is a Republican seat, 65-35. It's not a purple seat.

01:08:24.660 Whoever wins the primary on August 18th will be the next member of Congress for this area. So I'm

01:08:32.640 confident he won't endorse anyone else. But he will decide to take a timeout.

01:08:38.440 Yeah. I mean, I'll say, I'm going to say this, and you can respond if you want. But my view is,

01:08:45.040 my experience in Republican primaries in almost every district in America is if the president

01:08:49.880 endorses a candidate, it's dispositive. There's no fundraising and other endorsements, nothing else

01:08:54.660 matters. And given your history with the president, that you were the first for him, stood loyally by

01:09:00.020 him after what happened with Access Hollywood, a big supporter of his, the fact that he felt strongly

01:09:05.620 enough about you to give you a pardon, I would be, I'd be surprised if the president didn't endorse

01:09:10.240 you. I'm not saying you can't win the primary without him, but I'd be surprised if you didn't.

01:09:15.220 Well, I hope that's the case, Mark, but you know, you can't take anything for granted.

01:09:19.740 I will say, assuming, let's say he did not, and he just stayed out of the race, I can tell you,

01:09:26.020 you know, the photos of me on Air Force One and the Oval Office meeting in the Roosevelt Room and so

01:09:31.340 my campaign will be many, many direct mail pieces or advertising with the president at my side.

01:09:41.000 So the voters in the 19th Congressional District of Florida will certainly know about my background

01:09:48.020 and support with President Trump as my campaign moves forward. But I agree with you, if I was

01:09:54.920 able to get his endorsement, that would pretty much be a game changer.

01:09:59.380 Yeah. One of the things we try to do on this program is educate people in the country about

01:10:05.740 what Donald Trump's really like. Because I say all the time, I've never read a New York Times or

01:10:10.200 Washington Post story that accurately describes the president, how he is with people, his personality,

01:10:15.220 et cetera. And I say that not as you are a big supporter of the president, just as a journalist

01:10:19.340 who's interested in people understanding the truth. So tell people, because you've spent so much

01:10:24.020 time with him, what are things about the president that you think normal consumers of normal media,

01:10:29.440 even conservative media, what are things you've seen about him, observed about him,

01:10:33.360 that you think is not accurately captured and wouldn't be commonly known to folks?

01:10:37.580 Well, let's start with the fact he is the most loyal individual to ever walk.

01:10:43.760 And I think people do see some of that. There was some controversy about Susie Wiles over the last

01:10:48.460 couple of days in an interview with Vanity Fair. And it took President Trump two seconds to stand

01:10:55.100 beside her and support her. So his loyalty is truly amazing. But I think that the most surprising

01:11:04.320 thing, because he's very opinionated, and you hear that in press conferences, in meetings,

01:11:10.840 he's very quiet. He's very thoughtful. He asks everyone at the table, whether it's two people

01:11:17.720 or 15, what do you think? Tell me your thoughts. You know, I can remember it's in my book, one of the

01:11:25.660 first meetings of his campaign team, where I was in the meeting, Kellyanne Conway, at one point,

01:11:33.580 the president, after listening, you know, turned to Kellyanne and said, what will the women,

01:11:38.840 Kelly, think of, you know, this situation with ISIS and so forth. And she was pretty funny. She said,

01:11:45.920 well, Mr. Trump, 72.6% of the women in America will support your decision, at which point he turned

01:11:53.700 to the team and said, all right, that's what we're going to do. And when he makes a decision,

01:11:57.860 you better march with him. But the fact that he's a quiet listener, probing and asking the opinions of

01:12:05.800 everyone around him before he makes the decision, I think most people would find that surprising.

01:12:11.940 They think he just jumps to conclusions, which he absolutely does not do. He makes his decisions

01:12:18.700 based on facts and input. But I can also assure everyone, when he makes the decision, you better

01:12:25.300 follow his lead moving forward. Is he a funny guy? He's very funny. He's a human being. You know,

01:12:33.680 he, yes, he jokes around. He's, you know, he and I, you know, we had a kind of a special relationship.

01:12:43.660 I'd sit next to him in the Roosevelt room, and people would always ask for his autographs. And I've

01:12:48.400 been known to poke him in the side as he's speaking and say, Mr. President, could you autograph

01:12:53.720 these for some of my friends? And he'd look at me and he'd say, okay. And then he'd start signing

01:12:58.840 away, autographing things in the middle of a meeting. No, he's funny. He's a human being.

01:13:05.740 He's a great guy to be around. And he just happens to be the leader of the world.

01:13:11.500 If he called you this afternoon and said, Chris, tell me what I could be doing better in this job.

01:13:18.460 What's something I could improve in how I'm doing lately? What would you tell him something you

01:13:21.780 could improve in? Well, I think I'm not going to give him a, one thing I'm not going to do right

01:13:27.840 now is give him advice as he's facing things that no one's ever faced, whether it's Venezuela

01:13:32.700 and now the oil boycott. I would basically just say, Mr. President, stay the course. You know,

01:13:39.320 you are making the progress you had promised. You've made the country safe again. You're making the world

01:13:45.000 safe. You know, with, with Robert Kennedy, you're making the country healthy again. I would just

01:13:52.480 simply, my advice would be stay the course. And the good news is he's not running for reelection,

01:13:57.820 so he can do what's right without any thoughts of public opinion. You know, we all care about what

01:14:04.180 the public thinks, but he's more focused on doing the right thing, knowing, you know, it's still early

01:14:09.760 in his, this administration. He's got three more years as things will start to come together. What's

01:14:15.760 the economy and, and other things, you know, affordability. You know, he was just dealt a tough

01:14:20.920 hand, a disaster of the Biden years. So no, my advice to him is stay the course. All right,

01:14:27.480 Congressman, I'm really grateful to you for making time. My Remarkable Life is a remarkable book,

01:14:32.420 and it's a story unlike any other. It's an incredible American story about someone,

01:14:36.080 extraordinary success in business and in politics, and then a brush with the law that was

01:14:41.540 certainly a pivot point, leave Congress after building a relationship with an unexpected president,

01:14:47.000 and now back in society at the table and trying to return to a job that not everybody in America

01:14:54.980 wants, but the Congressman wants to, wants to go back and do it and try it again. And we'll watch

01:15:00.160 your primary with great interest and look forward to seeing after the first of the year, whether you

01:15:04.360 get that endorsement. Congressman, grateful to you. Congratulations on the book and Merry Christmas

01:15:08.700 to you. Yes, same to you, Mark. Very much enjoyed this. All right, that's it for today's program.

01:15:14.420 We'll be back next year. It's the last one of 2025, but we'll have all new episodes the first week of

01:15:18.660 January. Wishing all Nexters a very happy holiday, very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah. You can subscribe

01:15:24.560 to the program on YouTube, and you may watch it every week, but once or twice a week, but go to YouTube

01:15:30.580 and hit the subscribe button if you haven't done that yet, that makes sure you get notified about

01:15:34.440 all the new content. And of course, same with the podcast stuff and share it with people. Tell people

01:15:38.840 as you gather for the holidays when they say, what do you like to listen to? Everybody always asks

01:15:43.560 each other, what podcast do you like? Tell them you like Next Up and subscribe and tell them how they

01:15:48.120 can to become an extra so they will be like you in 2026. They'll always know what's coming next up.

01:15:54.220 Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, everyone. Merry, Merry 2026.

01:16:00.580 Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 22, 2025

Top Political Soundbites of 2025, Trump's Israel and Tucker Friendships, and Life After a Pardon

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