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00:00:30.620Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:00:42.320Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. So much news to get to today.
00:00:46.620The Democrats' frontrunner for the presidential nomination in 2028, Kamala Harris, fingers crossed,
00:00:51.960is speaking out again and revealing yet another accent. She's so great.0.98
00:00:59.180May she never leave us. Plus, all eyes on Pakistan at this hour on the question of whether Iran is even going to show up to the latest round of negotiations before the ceasefire with the U.S. ends tonight at 7.50 p.m. Eastern time.
00:01:14.680The AP reporting this morning that the Iranians are expected to travel to Islamabad for the talks with the American delegation led by Vice President J.D. Vance.
00:01:24.220But the latest official word from Pakistan's information minister is far less optimistic.
00:01:31.040He's saying that the Iranians have not confirmed that they will attend the summit.
00:01:35.620And CNN, just as we came to air, reported that J.D. Vance is still in D.C., has not left, that the status of talks is unclear, reporting that a few hours ago everyone felt the Iranians were coming, even though they were suggesting maybe, maybe not.
00:01:53.020And then there was an incident with the U.S. Marines boarding a tanker truck in the Indian Ocean, and now it seems less likely than it did this morning.
00:06:42.260And if you've ever stared at a policy wondering what it actually covers, SuperSure has a fine
00:06:48.060print fax tool that translates the legal jargon into plain English so you know what's covered
00:06:53.820and what's not. It's not some shell game that they seem to be enjoying playing at your expense.
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00:07:08.560Go to Supersure.com. One super agency, one powerful platform, all your policies in one place. Imagine it. Go to Supersure.com slash Megan today. That's Supersure.com slash Megan. Paid for by Supersure Insurance Agency, LLC, a licensed insurance agency.
00:07:25.220guys welcome back so no one knows rich nobody knows even trump doesn't know we have no idea
00:07:34.160where the iranians are showing up whether the ceasefire is going to end and we really will
00:07:37.740bomb tonight um it does seem that trump is desperate to get a deal now he definitely does
00:07:42.680want to bring it to a close that all the reporting supports that no one's reporting anything other
00:07:47.400than that and when you see his poll approval numbers on the overall job he's doing and then
00:07:52.920on the iran war you have every reason to believe that that he actually does want to bring it to
00:07:57.920a quick end now which the iranians know correct which is a problem for us yeah so we don't know
00:08:05.920if the if the inside players don't know and if trump himself doesn't know there's no way for
00:08:10.480anyone else to know my guess is that we get an extension of the ceasefire and somewhere along
00:08:16.420the line here, a JCPOA-like deal, I think it'd be JCPOA plus, probably a little bit better.
00:08:24.720But I think that's where things, it'll be in the same family as the JCPOA. But look, this whole
00:08:29.720thing, Megan, it's so Trump. It's just characteristically Trump. Now, the stakes are
00:08:34.760bigger. It's more consequential. But you can go back to any episode during Trump's rise and his
00:08:41.000ascendancy. You can go way back to insulting Rosie O'Donnell and is he going to show up for
00:08:45.320the Iowa debate or not. You know, he enjoys. He did that. He doesn't mind them. At least he loves
00:08:53.340being at a focus of attention. Everyone guessing, wondering what's going to happen. It's just that
00:08:57.520this is a war rather than the other controversies we've seen over the last 10 years. To me,
00:09:04.500there's something very different about this one. And I take your point because I was obviously
00:09:09.320there for the Rosie O'Donnell moment at the first debate in 15. And then he did threaten to skip
00:09:14.060Iowa, if yours truly was a moderator. And we spent the whole day out there, Chris and I and our team.
00:09:19.720I forgot you were the cause of that one.
00:09:22.280Yeah. Wondering whether he meant it, you know, whether he would or would not show up. He said
00:09:27.400he was going to be hosting a military fundraiser instead. And we waited to the last minute looking
00:09:31.360at the doors like, will he come? Will he come? He did not come. He hosted a military fundraiser.
00:09:35.840And then there was a question about whether he ever gave the military the money.
00:09:38.400Um, I, my own feeling, Charlie, is that there is, this one's different in that there's just,
00:09:46.580I think there's a lot of frustration with president Trump right now. Obviously the left
00:09:51.400hates him, but you've got 80% of independents who are against this war who I don't think are
00:09:55.960enjoying his little parlor games on like, I'm going to bomb them to out of civilization.0.97
00:10:01.300The bombing's going to start. We're going to bomb bridges and threatening some civilian0.96
00:10:05.440infrastructure over and over. And I think there's a growing, I don't think, I know from the polls,
00:10:12.060there's a growing portion of Republicans who are sick of this too, who are sick of him,
00:10:17.340and who are pissed off about the war. I just don't think it's playing the way his normal
00:10:22.580too cute by half routine plays. Well, I agree with both of you in so far as I don't think
00:10:29.980that this is different for Trump. I agree with all the criticisms you laid out, Megan, at the
00:10:35.800beginning, but I don't think they're new. I think you could apply them to anything Trump has done
00:10:41.080really in 11 years. But I agree with you that this is perhaps playing differently and perhaps
00:10:46.900should play differently because this is a war and not something inconsequential, not to downplay the
00:10:53.480importance of debates. I think they're a key part of our system around elections, but it matters a
00:10:59.460lot less whether you show up to a debate than whether a serviceman dies. I mean, I think there
00:11:05.200are a couple of things going on to substantiate that. One is that we are quite late on now in
00:11:11.600Trump's presidency. If you view it as a two-term presidency back-to-back, we would start to be
00:11:19.260talking about him being a lame duck, people becoming exhausted with him. But he didn't
00:11:24.120serve back to back he served with a four-year gap so we're now in year 11 of trump and people
00:11:30.760are just tired of it and i think with this one the gap between the stakes and his behavior
00:11:40.600is just difficult to wipe away i mean i have always thought it was amazing that he behaves
00:11:46.840the way he does in the white house this has been a constant refrain of mine i'll never be president
00:11:51.080because I moved here from another country.
00:11:53.200I don't want to be for the record, but I can't be.
00:11:55.820But if I were somehow parachuted into the presidency, though,
00:12:00.900I think I would feel the weight of all those portraits on the wall looking at me,
00:12:07.140But people can say, and I think this is reasonable,
00:12:09.800well, okay, but, you know, I get what I want out of him,
00:12:12.360and it's more important that I get good policy or that the other person loses.
00:12:16.380But with this one, yeah, it's it's it just seems worse somehow. Now, I should say, I actually think that the policy here hasn't all been bad on Iran. I'm not intrinsically opposed to it, although I have a lot of criticisms as to how it's been done. But yeah, the Real Estate Act probably rubs people the wrong way when it's a war.
00:12:40.040that's right I think the thing is rich and I'm chief among them I'm very quick to overlook
00:12:47.920Trump's ethical problems you know his loose talk his weird tweets I don't really care about any of
00:12:55.560that as you guys know you know how long have we been doing this show together you know five years
00:12:59.660now I don't get I don't obsess over that stuff it's just for me personally and I know for a lot
00:13:04.960of people who I listen to on the right I that's almost exclusively where my news comes from
00:13:09.400it's just hitting differently. They're, they're over it. It's like, you know what? Like you were
00:13:15.460Epstein, who cares about Epstein? And people were very angry with that. It was, well, you,
00:13:21.200you did your, you hired all these people for your administration who said it was going to be a huge
00:13:26.100deal and they were going to get to the bottom of it over the FBI. You had Pam Bondi over Fox news
00:13:30.500saying, Oh, I've got the file on my desk. Wait until you see what I've said. I've seen. Then
00:13:34.720you thought you were going to get rid of that story with a two page memo from DOJ FBI and then
00:13:38.680mock anybody who thought it was still a story because of you and your lieutenants. Like, not
00:13:44.540cute and started to lose some goodwill. That was last July. And now here we are with him breaking,
00:13:50.580I mean, one of the top three promises he made that got him elected by a large segment of the
00:13:57.400populace, right? I mean, there were obviously more hawkish Republicans who wanted him to be
00:14:02.300more aggressive on Iran. But there was a huge number of supporters who definitely believed him
00:14:08.360that there wouldn't be another new war
00:14:09.940and certainly not one in the Middle East
00:14:36.840Another thing they talked about in the Wall Street Journal piece about how Susie Wiles thought that might help him.
00:14:41.740It didn't. There was nothing to say. And he didn't say anything.
00:14:44.900And people are left feeling like, what is this? Like, we're we're starting a Middle East war here.
00:14:50.640We don't know where it's going to land. We could go nuclear, could go away tonight, which we don't know.0.80
00:14:55.420You know, six one way, half a dozen. And he doesn't show us the respect of having a sober conversation about it.
00:15:02.260Yeah, well, we talked about that at the outset. This is one of my points of skepticism about the war was that there was no effort to sell the American people on it to make a case for it. And if you did make a case for it, then you get an iterative argument where people poke holes in your assumptions and ask questions. What's going to happen to the strait? Right. And then you can say, well, don't worry about the strait. We're going to take care of it. And then people say, well, how are you going to take care of it? We'll get minesweepers. We'll get the Europeans involved. You know, whatever the plan is, but would have forced more planning.
00:15:30.160So I think the problem is that the case wasn't made to the public, there wasn't adequate planning, and there wasn't enough thought around what might happen to the straight, in part because Trump was overly optimistic about it. And that just brings me back to the point I made at the outset. This thing is characteristically Trump from beginning to end, whether you favor it or you're against it. It's been audacious. He's been erratic in the course of it. It's been overly optimistic.
00:15:57.060All that's just Trump. And he promised not to launch forever wars, but he's been very consistent over decades.
00:16:06.780He hates the Iranian regime. He's talked about bombing it, talked about taking Karg Island, what, like 30 years ago.
00:16:14.240So I think there's a chance that this.0.51
00:16:16.720How are we supposed to glean from that soundbite 30 years ago, Rich, that he was going to bomb Iran?
00:16:21.380Well, he said he was so clear, Megan, forever that Iran couldn't get a nuclear weapon. So personally, I wasn't shocked that he he did this. And I think it could still land in a good place. If we get a JCPOA like deal that's better than the JCPOA.
00:16:40.380And on top of that, you have the economic devastation that's been wreaked on this regime and some potential, you know, skeptical regime regime change from the air from the outset, as we talked about at the beginning of the war.
00:16:52.600But there's some chance this regime could fall six, 12 months from now.
00:16:56.120But anyway, I think it would be a net plus for American national security if the straits open, if they stop enriching for some period of time, which is more than we got from the JCPOA, and they're going to have to spend years rebuilding their military apparatus.
00:17:11.380Wait, what's more than we got from the JCPOA on enrichment?
00:17:15.360What did you say is more than we got from the JCPOA?
00:17:17.580If they actually cease for some period of time, that would be better than the JCPOA.
00:17:22.900But then also later on top of that is a devastation that's been wreaked on their missile program, on their military apparatus, on their petrochemical industry, on their economy generally.
00:17:32.860So that's why I think it'd be a net plus to American national security if that's where we end up.0.66
00:17:41.740It's founded on anti-Americanism, has American blood on its hands.
00:17:46.000And if you've bought five years, whatever it is, I think that's that's a net plus.
00:17:53.220Obviously, we disagree. We lost 16 soldiers. We've had hundreds more wounded. We've alienated our allies in the region who are now talking about not letting us have a base in places like the UAE.
00:18:04.980The military bases don't look good to them anymore because it just makes them a target. Iran can't hit us. So they're hitting all of our friends.0.96
00:18:36.920This seems to be our number one goal now in bringing this thing to an end, to regain control of the straight, you know, the Western world, which is something we had before we launched the war.
00:18:46.220So it's just I totally disagree with you.
00:18:49.300I just think the costs have been enormous and they're not worth the gains.
00:18:52.320And now the irony that we're talking about, oh, maybe we'll wind up with a deal that's like kind of as good as or maybe slightly better than the Obama JCPOA, which Trump eviscerated on his first term, saying it was the worst deal ever.
00:19:08.740And now, let's face it, he's begging to have that deal back so he can save face and make it look like this is a win.
00:19:16.520The very deal he said was horrible and that evaporated because of him.
00:19:22.320Yeah. But the key difference, though, like Obama didn't bomb Iran and devastate his economy, then cut a deal. Right. After that deal, Iranian power around the region was waxing rather than waning. And we're going to be in a situation where I think its power will not be the same for a very long time. And that's an upside.
00:19:41.220Okay. The problem we have, though, is if it goes the other way and we don't get a good deal. And now what you have is Iran is more empowered than ever. Now it's emerging as one of the four global powers because it can exercise control over the Strait of Hormuz and hijack the world economy and effectively bring a president to his knees because Trump is the one in there begging right now for a deal, not Iran.
00:20:29.860The longer we can make this economic pain go on and we can take way more than you can.
00:20:34.500We're basically suicide bombers over here.
00:20:36.560We will 100 percent throw our offspring and ourselves on the grenade as long as we can take some of you down.0.96
00:20:43.000That's how they are. And the one they're looking at is President Trump and his political fortunes.
00:20:48.460That's what they're trying to ramp up the pressure on.
00:20:51.220And that piece of their strategy is working because they are whatever you want to say about them.0.82
00:20:56.380Tough M efforts. Yeah, they're religious fanatics, right?0.89
00:21:00.440So it's a little bit trying to, this exaggeration, a little bit trying like to negotiate with Khmer Rouge or the shiny path.0.88
00:21:07.000So there is a game of chicken there, de facto control of the strait and our blockade, which if the blockade just held for seven months or something, you would have a good chance of just the Iranian state totally running out of cash.0.96
00:21:20.420But we can't do that so long as they control the strait, right, because they exact pain on us.0.98
00:21:25.820So my guess, again, is that ultimately we'll get a deal.0.94
00:22:21.540but there's been no updates since. And then there was an update from Lucas Tomlinson of Fox News
00:22:28.780that the vice president is now headed to the White House. That's not great. Again,
00:22:35.800we don't know whether he'll wind up going or not. And if he doesn't go, it's not happening.
00:22:41.100He's, you know, he's the linchpin. Charles, did you see the Wall Street Journal piece
00:22:46.280over the weekend on, you know, President Trump and the alleged fears that have been gripping him
00:22:53.300as this thing spins it closer and closer to quagmire. It was titled, Behind Trump's Public
00:22:58.900Bravado on the War, He Grapples with His Own Fears. I haven't read it, but it's been relayed
00:23:04.780to me by so many people that I feel as if I have. Okay, all right. Because in this piece,
00:23:11.400It basically it reveals a lot, including that Trump was so erratic around the capture of that second pilot that they had to keep him out of the room as they got the minute by minute updates.
00:23:24.620They believed his impatience would not be helpful.
00:23:27.780They talk about how he's been losing his focus over and over, that he does not want a ground invasion.
00:23:36.280he has fears of becoming Jimmy Carter, that he does want to seem unstable, which I actually
00:23:42.860believe. I don't believe the people who are like, it's time that he'd be 25th Amendment-ed.
00:23:46.580I don't agree with that. I think Trump is, he's not being responsible in his rhetoric. You don't
00:23:51.700threaten to wipe out a civilization of, you know, civilian population. But I never thought he did
00:23:57.120it because he really wanted to do that and that he was truly crazy. I did think it was a negotiation
00:24:01.860tactic. And it does talk about how he remarked to his advisors how impressive the military was
00:24:09.400seeming in awe of the scale of the bombs. He had done little to sell the American public on the
00:24:15.080war. He knew that. And he's been frustrated that he's not getting the same kind of praise as the
00:24:20.980military is. None of this reflects well. And the journal, as we know, Charles, is owned by Rupert
00:24:29.480Murdoch, who we learned from other reporting, is one of the main people who talked Trump into this
00:24:34.080war. He was very, very pro, not just Rupert personally, but Rupert personally, but top
00:24:40.360people from Fox, including General Jack Keane, my old pal Mark Thiessen, and others. So it's
00:24:46.040interesting that such a piece should come from the journal. Your thoughts?
00:24:48.820Well, this brings me back to one of my long-standing theories about Trump,
00:24:52.840which is that he is and will always be a real estate developer and this is a good thing sometimes
00:25:01.840but in the context of the presidency it can be a real problem for a couple of reasons first
00:25:07.400because Trump does seem to believe that he can bend reality to his words which when you're
00:25:14.900dealing with the sandbox which contracts often are can be true in business if you go in and you
00:25:22.560make your demands, even if you're wild, it can work out, but is much less likely to work
00:25:29.840in constitutional politics and in global politics as well. And I do think there is some extent
00:25:36.960here to which Trump has thought that if he just says what he would like to happen,
00:25:43.120then it would happen. And that's not really how reality works. The second reason is that
00:25:50.020when you are dealing in real estate especially in a place in New York especially in the 70s
00:25:55.220and the 80s then saying anything that comes into your head or being wild can help you go into a
00:26:04.640closed room you talk to people who are probably a little bit surprised maybe intimidated by you
00:26:09.380and you say crazy stuff and you get what you want and we know that this is one of the reasons that
00:26:15.020Donald Trump is so rich. But when you're the president, your words matter. So even if you
00:26:19.780say something that works, you've still said it. I thought this back in his first term when he
00:26:25.920would praise Kim Jong-un. Yeah, that seems to have worked. But the president of the United0.98
00:26:32.560States should not be praising a dictator. Likewise here, sure, maybe it works to say you will wipe
00:26:40.520out a civilization. I did love that he subsequently wrote, God bless the Iranian people. So they're
00:26:44.800the same message. He was going to wipe out the civilization and bless them. But he shouldn't
00:26:50.620have said that. That's not a thing. Even in the context of a great debate, that is not a thing
00:26:55.900that an American president can say. There are rules. And so when I watch him here, I see somebody
00:27:03.420who is applying a skill set that is different to that which is expected of the presidency. Now,
00:27:10.360sometimes that's actually quite refreshing. I'm not somebody who always dislikes this in Trump.
00:27:16.240I do think sometimes you need a guy who comes to Washington and just sort of says,
00:27:20.120but that's nonsense. The way you're doing it is stupid and shakes everything up. And there have1.00
00:27:25.600been some advantages to having him in our politics as well as downsides, but it's just not going to
00:27:30.500work here. You do need to build a coalition. You do need to set out your aims. You do need to talk
00:27:36.980in a way that is appropriate for the presidency. And I just haven't seen that from the beginning,
00:27:41.800which is what I always describe as the original sin, as this adventure in Iran, which I'm not0.98
00:27:46.760intrinsically opposed to. And another thing that plays a role here, Megan, clearly, is the success0.57
00:27:54.140of the Venezuelan operation, I think, inclined him to think that this could be easy, short,
00:28:00.600and very successful as well. I analogize it a little bit to our success in the initial phase
00:28:06.800of the Afghan war, just taking Kabul and toppling the Taliban made us, George W. Bush, think, well,
00:28:12.200we can do the same thing in Baghdad, which was a more difficult proposition. Now, both Afghanistan
00:28:16.680and Iraq involved extensive ground operations, obviously, in a way. We had guys in the ground
00:28:21.380in Venezuela briefly and Iran as well, but we're not talking about that here. But I think the same
00:28:25.480thing was at play. I got this incredibly proficient military. We just grabbed this guy dead of night.
00:28:32.340We can do anything we want. And again, this plays into just Trump's inherent optimism. Like his
00:28:37.180critics very often, they, you know, focus on the American carnage Trump, you know, that phrase from
00:28:42.640the first inaugural, he's so apocalyptic and so negative. Now I can obviously, there's an aspect
00:28:47.340to him, but I think the more pervasive one is just an overwhelming optimism. I talked to him
00:28:52.400about this once during the lawfare campaign before the 2024 primaries when they're trying
00:28:57.920to throw him in jail. I was like, do you ever lose sleep at night? He's like, no, I just figure,
00:29:03.380I assume everything's going to work out. And if it doesn't work out, I'll change course and find
00:29:09.000some other way out of it. And that's worked for him his entire adult life. And he's applying that
00:29:13.920here as well, for better or worse. Yes. You know, it's a very interesting point that the skill set
00:29:20.960that he has rhetorically is just, it's mismatched to the moment. And, and it's, it has served him
00:29:27.420and us well many times. And even the, you know, unpredictability of taking out Soleimani,
00:29:32.760which I thought was great. I mean, that guy actually does have American blood on his hands1.00
00:29:36.160without question. And maybe it even could have been used here as well. If we had just taken out0.62
00:29:42.140the Ayatollah, you know, that, that would have been fraught for sure. You're taking out the1.00
00:29:46.200My counterfactual, by the way, runs in the opposite direction, Megan. If I get to have a do-over again, maybe what you do, you don't take the Ayatollah out. Make it clear you're not going to try to kill the regime. Instead, you're doing another 12-day war for two weeks or for three weeks that would perhaps keep the Iranians from going up the escalation ladder and closing the strait.0.83
00:30:05.660And then you degrade a lot of stuff and then you can, you know, close the book at your discretion and go away and focus on other stuff, which I think Trump ultimately would want to do.0.82
00:30:15.020But once you make it clear this is an existential war for the regime, there's no incentive for it not to take the most extreme steps it can in retaliation.
00:30:23.780Yeah. And they're enjoying playing it out like they they can take a lot of pain.
00:30:29.260You know, it's like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. How many times did they waterboard that guy?
00:30:34.180like he didn't care um and and that's that's the mentality of a lot of these like religious
00:30:41.360zealots in the middle east they don't care about themselves their pain their loss of life the loss
00:30:47.800of life of their children in the way we do i mean they'll they'll exact retribution against you for0.99
00:30:53.540for you know taking it or risking it but they'll expend their child's life in order to advance the
00:31:00.120regime. That's what we're dealing with. You know, so it's like it's that's why it's like just don't
00:31:05.060start it. Just don't don't start something like this. Then you don't risk the escalatory ladder
00:31:09.040where the next thing you know, they've discovered this thing with the Strait of Hormuz, which has
00:31:12.520changed the world economy, which is turning our our friends against us. Already we're seeing
00:31:17.900discussions in Europe about jet fuel over the summer and flights being canceled, like things
00:31:23.900like that that will drive those poll numbers down even more charles well or do it but build the case
00:31:30.800we can win this this is not like a war game scenario where we're looking at a potential
00:31:39.280conflict with china and there are some outcomes where you say we would lose we can win this we
00:31:47.020are infinitely more powerful than them but and i'm not criticizing this we're not prepared to0.78
00:31:53.380do what it would take because the public doesn't want that we could we'd lose a lot of people
00:32:00.740but we could win this and if if we had been invaded here and the reaction of the public
00:32:08.620was different we would fight back and we would win and we would lose people and then we would
00:32:15.020move on so it's not that we're in this situation because we're weak we're in this situation because
00:32:22.080as you say, we have a desire to stay alive and see our fellow citizens stay alive. And the regime
00:32:33.420does not. Now, I don't think he would have been able to build a coalition in the way that George
00:32:41.020W. Bush did after 9-11. I agree. But if Trump had made the case, and over a sustained period of time
00:32:51.220said, what he now says. Look, this has been a thorn in our side for 46 years. They've killed
00:32:58.040a lot of our servicemen. They are built atop an ideology that hates us. His slogan is death to
00:33:06.840America. They are building nuclear weapons. And once they have those nuclear weapons, then they
00:33:13.300will become like North Korea, essentially immune from our influence. We have to do something about0.94
00:33:19.800this. If he had built that case, told people it would cost American lives, told people that it
00:33:27.140would lead to increased gas prices, and told people that there was a risk of trouble in the
00:33:32.800Straits of Hormuz, and I think we probably have had a better plan for the Straits of Hormuz if he
00:33:37.820had done this as a result, as Rich points out, we might be looking at a different calculation.
00:33:42.920at that point the escalation you're describing is baked in because again it's not for a lack
00:33:50.440of technical ability we could open the Strait of Hormuz we could own the Strait of Hormuz if we
00:33:55.500wanted I mean we could go and invade Britain tomorrow when we would win we would own that
00:33:59.500country if we wanted we just don't want to do that and we don't want to go all out here either
00:34:06.180and so i think the big problem for him was that he didn't ever make that case he did it in the
00:34:13.240middle of the night and then as we were talking about earlier rich is absolutely right trump
00:34:17.420actually has been an iran hawk for a very long time but it is also true that if you ask the
00:34:21.600average voter who isn't familiar with all of that what they thought he was campaigning on in 2016
00:34:27.4602020 and 2024 it was no new wars in the middle east that's the vibe that's the tone uh that they
00:34:35.000heard. And the juxtaposition between those two things just makes this impossible. So I think he
00:34:39.660set himself up to be placed into this problem, where they can escalate in ways that we are not
00:34:49.080able, but not willing to counter. Yep, totally agree. You're right. The average person doesn't
00:34:54.960realize, oh, there was an exception to the promise he made. I mean, I could play you a soundbite that
00:34:59.220would keep us here for four minutes of Trump saying, no new wars, no new wars, no new wars in
00:35:03.740the Middle East. These wars in the Middle East keep you bogged down. They cost billions of
00:35:07.540dollars. It's money we could be spending on our people here at home. They get distracted. They
00:35:13.060never end well. It's quagmire. I mean, we've got the soundbite. There was no like, but I might
00:35:19.440launch one against Iran. And by the way, the intelligence was, Tulsi Gabbard testified to this
00:35:25.240a couple of weeks before we started the war, that Iran was not close to having a nuclear weapon,
00:35:30.000that our strikes against the three sites with Iranian or with the nuclear facilities had been
00:35:36.140very effective. As Trump said, they'd been basically obliterated and that they were not
00:35:41.140close to getting a nuke. And that was one of the reasons why he knew people weren't going to buy it
00:35:45.060because he'd done those June strikes and we kind of bought what he sold then. And if you bought
00:35:49.500what he sold then, you were not going to buy that they were close to a nuclear weapon six months
00:35:53.380later. Here is something Glenn Greenwald pointed out online is a good point. He writes, if you ask
00:35:59.06015 people who are MAGA followers what the Iran war aim was, you will hear 15 different answers
00:36:04.220because Trump gave a different goal every day. Here's what he said was his main goal on the day
00:36:09.260the war started. And he's got a Washington Post headline, Trump, colon, freedom for Iran is goal
00:36:16.400of major military operation. And I remember that too. That was the initial goal, freedom. They were
00:36:22.500going to be free. We were going to do regime change. And now he keeps saying that we've done
00:36:26.500regime change, which we clearly haven't. That's a lie too. And it's so transparent. Honestly,
00:36:32.780it's one thing for Trump to be like, you know, the economy's hot. It's the hottest it's ever
00:36:38.840been. And you're like, okay, that's puffery. He wants people to feel good. The better they feel,
00:36:43.480the more they spend. But like, this is serious stuff. Don't tell me there's been regime change
00:36:49.180because three guys named Abdul are gone and three guys named Mohammed are now in. That's basically
00:36:56.200how it is. The only difference, as far as I can tell, is that the three new guys seem more radical
00:37:01.540than the three old guys, and there's no fatwa against a nuclear weapon. We found one sort of
00:37:07.300nice guy we can talk to who's the Speaker of the Parliament, but he's not actually in control.
00:37:13.300You know, you've got the IRGC calling the shots. They seem to be really wanting to queer all
00:37:17.960deals on ceasefires. And then you've got, I don't know, whoever's still in there,0.79
00:37:22.380The Ayatollah's incapacitated son, who may or may not be still alive or in a coma, we have no idea.
00:37:28.460But he and the people around him are definitely more radical than the dead Ayatollah, according to all the reports.
00:37:33.220So it's yet another thing we just don't know about.
00:38:29.080He enjoys it too much, and it's pointless.
00:38:32.340But I still approve of his general approach to his domestic agenda.
00:38:37.080I really would love for him to get back to it.
00:38:39.740NBC reports that 13% of self-described supporters of the MAGA movement now say they disapprove of Trump's handling of the war,
00:38:48.160which is interesting that he's lost 13% of like the core, core MAGA, I mean, which I did not think
00:38:53.980was movable in any way. Anyway, he sees that. And while Trump may tell you he feels so great about
00:38:59.340the MAGA numbers, 80% of independents, 82% disapprove of this war. 82. It's not a fringe,
00:39:07.760like the majority, the two thirds of the country wants this to stop. That's why, Rich,
00:39:13.980Trump wants it to stop. He's listened to Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin and Netanyahu and Thiessen
00:39:21.260and Keane and all of the much more hawkish people who are in his ear. But that NBC poll and the
00:39:27.980Reuters-Ipsos poll that came out today and the AP poll and the Pew poll and all the polls that
00:39:32.880have come out now that all repeat this number, two-thirds disapprove. He sees that too. He's
00:39:37.920not immune to that by any stretch. Yeah, well, he hadn't, again, as we've repeated over and over
00:39:42.520again. He didn't build a case for it publicly prior to the launching of the war, and the war
00:39:46.360wasn't popular at the outset. So usual political physics say support goes down for a war over time
00:39:54.020rather than growing unless they're really unusual circumstances, or you're winning a smashing
00:39:58.360victory, and this so far has been fairly inconclusive. On the regime change thing,
00:40:03.820it's absurd they're saying that the regime has changed. Again, key aspect of Trump's character,
00:40:08.860He thinks he can bend reality to his words. Benefits to this, downsides. Benefits, it can often get him through obstacles that you would think are going to stop him.
00:40:19.060Downsides, it's just it's detached from reality, right? So that's what we're seeing here.
00:40:23.780I think regime change, despite that Washington Post headline, it was something obviously he mentioned in that white-headed initial statement about the war.
00:40:33.420You know, we hope the Iranian people will rise up after the shooting stops.
00:40:38.700But there are a lot of other objectives that have been consistent from the beginning, whether it's further degrading their nuclear program or their missile program that have been consistent.
00:40:54.600But I never thought you could change the regime from the air unless you got exceptionally lucky.
00:40:59.380Then you'd not have any control over what would come next.
00:41:03.420Now, I think there are signs the regime is fracturing.0.86
00:41:05.220This is one reason we don't really know whether we can believe what's coming from the Iranian side.
00:41:09.720And there's a chance that fracture grows or, you know, as I mentioned earlier, that discontent rises six months, 12 months from now.
00:41:18.700But to underline a point you were making earlier, Megan, this is a regime that just a couple of months ago slaughtered tens of thousands of people in the streets.
00:41:25.980We don't know what the actual number is.0.98
00:41:27.640So obviously they do not have the best interests of the Iranian people at heart.0.91
00:41:30.700So if you're going to lose some bridges, it's not going to affect them. Right. If you're willing to kill your own people and the cause of your regime's own survival, it's not as though infrastructure projects are going to move you as well.0.98
00:41:42.200So this, again, goes to something we've all been saying here. These guys, the Iranian regime, they're not real estate developers.
00:41:48.120They don't have rational calculus the same way we do. They have an entirely different worldview.0.94
00:41:53.800Yeah. This just in that Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner are also still in the US. The plane that
00:42:06.760was supposed to take them this morning from Miami to Europe and to Pakistan did not leave until
00:42:12.640several minutes ago and is now instead making its way to Washington, D.C. So they're heading to see
00:42:18.600Trump, as is the vice president, and no one is going to Islamabad right now, at least. Doesn't
00:42:24.020mean it won't happen later today, because the Iranians are still saying, we're not coming.0.92
00:42:29.520We're not going to be there. They're mad because we have continued our blockade of the Iranian0.99
00:42:37.820ports in the Strait of Hormuz, and they want us to remove that. And Trump, I understand why. He's
00:42:44.260like that's my that's my pressure point on you i'm not removing that boot off of your neck
00:42:48.460until we cut a deal and they're like we're not even going to talk about a deal until you
00:42:52.240move your foot so that's where we are right now um waiting for something here's one other thing
00:42:58.100he told joe kernan of cnbc charles to your to your point about the president's rhetoric and
00:43:04.900does it does it work when we're on the subject of war here's thought four and when it's over
00:43:11.140And it will end when it's over. You know, they want it to be over immediately. And I just looked at a little chart. World War One, four years and three months. World War Two, six years. Korean War, three years. Vietnam, 19 years. Iraq, eight years. I'm five months. OK, five months. I would have won Vietnam very quickly.
00:43:32.520I would have, if I were president, I would have won Iraq in the same amount of time that we won because essentially we've won here.
00:46:55.760I mean, I'm pleased he didn't go back to World War II and say that unlike that feckless Eisenhower fellow, he'd had it done in 1942.
00:47:02.720But it's just quite boring outside of campaigning.0.85
00:47:06.400And there's just going to come a point 11 years in at which people say, even when he's right, oh, could you give it a rest?
00:47:14.580Yeah. You know, Rich, I've been wondering whether Trump thinks his Trump card is this new guy who is in confirmation hearings today to become the new chairman of the Fed, right?
00:47:27.900that he calls Jerome Powell too late, too late because he won't lower interest rates. And Trump
00:47:33.580really thinks that's the key to unleashing the economy, that it worked to his advantage in his
00:47:39.360first term. And he's been begging Powell to do it. Powell won't do it because we still have
00:47:43.120inflation from Joe Biden. And if you lower interest rates, it tends to drive up inflation.
00:47:48.200But Trump really believes that it will unleash his economy if he can get interest rates lower
00:47:53.340to bet on borrowing homes and so on. And this guy's going to get confirmed. He seemed pretty
00:47:59.620milquetoast today at his confirmation hearings. I haven't heard any rumblings of he's not going
00:48:03.880to get confirmed. And Powell's term ends in May, I think, right? It's like next month. It's very
00:48:09.120soon. And so I've been wondering whether Trump thinks that's, again, his Trump card on the
00:48:14.960economy. Like, I'm taking a beating on these gas prices, but I'm going to have a guy who is much
00:48:20.380more amenable to my opinions, in charge of interest rates, just in time for the months
00:48:28.380leading up to the midterms. Yeah, he's probably thinking that. This is another aspect in which
00:48:32.540he's a real estate developer. Real estate developers always want low interest rates.
00:48:35.720And this is something Trump's been consistent on the last 10 years. He always wants interest rates
00:48:39.500lower no matter what. And I think Warsh may agree with him here in the short term, but he is a real
00:48:46.060pro, Kevin Warsh. He's going to be there for 10 years. He's not a lackey. And it wouldn't shock
00:48:51.760me if by the end of Trump's term here, he hates Kevin Warsh, too, because he hasn't done his
00:48:57.380bidding. But I think a lot of, in terms of the midterms, a lot of the economic factors are kind
00:49:03.320of baked in the cake. The gas prices have not helped, obviously. But it's hard to see huge
00:49:10.840changes before then. They're changing people's attitudes one way or the other about the economy,
00:49:15.420and they're dissatisfied about the economy.
00:50:42.100Our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, says Washington politicians are always getting
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00:51:31.380it's an nr day here at the mk show go ahead and sign up for nr at nationalreview.com you can get
00:51:44.640all of their content without the annoying ads and you can get the audio version of their articles
00:51:50.340it is a great way oftentimes guys i am starting my day putting the makeup on and i just press play
00:51:56.960on NR article after NR article, and it makes life so much easier, makes news consumption so much
00:52:01.800easier. And your AI is very good. Not everybody's AI reader is good, but the one on NR.com is. So
00:52:08.960thank you for that. Okay. There is a new poll out just now from Echelon, likely voters, and it looks
00:52:16.380at both the Democratic field and the Republican field for 2028. I'm going to start with the
00:52:21.700Republican field, even though this is because we're adults, so we're good at delayed gratification.
00:52:26.960because the Kamala Harris sound that I have queued up for you guys is the greatest thing
00:52:30.600you will see or hear all day. It's a gift from me to you. We have the best sound bites,
00:52:35.360but delayed gratification. Let's start with GOP since we just got off of Trump and Iran.0.58
00:52:39.940They are showing Vance at 42% and Rubio at 14, which is quite a drop down. Rubio had been
00:52:48.480higher in an earlier poll we had seen. Trump Jr., that's Don Trump Jr., at 10%,
00:52:56.160And Ron DeSantis at eight percent. Charlie, that's you and your wife and your friends there.
00:53:02.000There you go. The eight percent there. So Vance, obviously the heavy favorite, given the name recognition and given his current role.0.96
00:53:08.260But there's been a lot of debate within Republican circles, Rich, about whether this whole thing.
00:53:14.640Could sink. I don't think it could make J.D. Vance. I don't know if he comes back from the Middle East with some huge win.
00:53:21.440they capitulated, they folded, they gave up everything. Maybe, but that's not realistic.
00:53:27.180So like, this does seem fraught. And we discussed on the show last week, I think,
00:53:31.980it feels a little like making Kamala Harris the borders are, you know, like,
00:53:36.940thanks so much for the assignment. Is there anything else I could do instead of this thing?
00:53:44.080So how do you see this playing out for him? And also just zooming out to what's happening in
00:53:49.720the Republican Party right now, you know, with the more hawkish neocon group here and then the
00:53:54.240more isolationist group and the proxy fight over J.D. versus Marco, et cetera. So how do you see it
00:53:59.640all playing out there? So I don't think anyone's blaming J.D. Vance if the negotiations fail in
00:54:05.360Islamabad, assuming there's another round, which I think there will be eventually. I think the main
00:54:11.360political risk to him of the war is somehow getting separated from Donald Trump. And that
00:54:19.740Because he's going to the Lama bot.0.82
00:54:21.200And J.D. has every incentive to keep that from happening.0.92
00:54:23.860If you believe all the reporting in the big New York Times piece on Trump's decision to go to war, J.D. apparently is the only guy actually told Trump his opinion, which I think speaks well of it.
00:54:35.460But if you decide to do it, I'll be with you.
00:54:38.020And all indications are he has been a loyal soldier and Trump's appreciate Trump appreciates it.
00:54:44.260So the big X factor in terms of 2028 is just Trump for J.D.
00:54:48.140If Trump decides to don't like him anymore, Trump decides just to screw him for the sake of it, that would be very bad. But I'm doubtful that Marco Rubio will actually run. He's at this incredibly prominent place in American politics and American government. He's doing things that he believes in deeply. We knocked off Maduro. Maybe we're coming around to Cuba when the Iran thing is over.
00:55:14.020And we're really going to believe that he's going to give all that up, give up the eighth floor of the State Department, which is an awesome space, give up, in effect, an Air Force One that he has on his own, his own version, knockoff version of Air Force One, going, being greeted as a head of state in foreign countries to start driving in a rented car from Pizza Ranch restaurant to Pizza Ranch restaurant in Iowa.
00:55:44.920I guess I haven't really paid any attention in the past elections as to who in the administration decides they are going to run for the nomination and whether they have to leave their post.
00:55:55.200So is that I mean, is it typically like if you're in the administration and you want to run for the primary nomination, you got to leave what, like a year and a half prior to the end of the president's term?
00:56:06.920Yeah, I don't know what the general rule of thumb is, but I think it's especially fraud if you're the Secretary of State.
00:56:13.400And the Secretary of State is like a serious job, and supposedly has other jobs too, like National Security Advisor.
00:56:18.380And he's got National Security Advisor too.
00:56:19.520Yeah, so you just have to say, I'm giving up the gig of a lifetime for what could be, long shots probably exaggerating it, but, you know, not a certain, you know, clear path to the nomination.
00:56:30.680And a nomination that, you know, any nomination is worth having because in the abstract it's about a 50% chance of winning.
00:56:35.980But, you know, he could have a president at 40 percent approval in 2028.
00:56:40.720It could be very difficult for for Republicans.
00:56:43.360And he's still young. So I don't know. Maybe maybe he does it.
00:56:46.720But again, I'm just a little doubtful.
00:56:49.840J.D.'s got another factor to worry about here, Charlie, which is, you know, as the president's fortunes go, so go your fortunes if you're the VP.
00:56:59.760You know, it's not like he's an outsider.
00:57:01.360It's everything Trump has done. He's going to be asked to explain and defend and he's going to be in that Kamala Harris position of like on the view.
00:57:10.940Is there anything you would have done differently? And President Trump is watching.
00:57:14.440And if you answer that wrong, you lose the most important endorsement you need.
00:57:19.740But if you say there's nothing, you turn off an electorate that may be only approving of him by, you know, whatever, some small margin.
00:57:28.020i think it's a problem on both sides of the coin the reason jd vance is polling at 40 or so i
00:57:35.140imagine is because people know who he is and the reason that people know who he is is because he's
00:57:39.400the vice president to trump and so if trump is unpopular then he will be the vice president
00:57:46.480to the unpopular trump and that will be a problem but as you say if he tries to separate himself
00:57:53.580from Trump, it will sound silly and unpersuasive. Also, Trump will go after him. And then his
00:58:01.320fortunes will fall in that lane as well. The reason that Marco Rubio is lower is fewer people know
00:58:08.500who he is. He's less closely associated with Trump. Now, if you are looking at 2028, that's
00:58:17.840probably a problem. And if Rubio did run, he might have some of the same problems. But that's
00:58:23.240probably good news for him if he thinks he might run later on that he's not so closely associated
00:58:29.040because by that point he would be able to stand up and say well I think Trump got some things right
00:58:32.980and here are the things that I think he got wrong so I do see this as a big problem for J.D. Vance
00:58:39.820this is of course why it is extremely rare for vice presidents to win subsequent elections
00:58:48.920The last one who did it was George H.W. Bush.
00:59:32.160Like even in 2000, I should have said it the other way around.
00:59:34.940Even Bill Clinton could not push Al Gore into the presidency in the year 2000.
00:59:41.020I think it's quite clear that if Bill Clinton had been able to run for a third term in 2000,
00:59:47.800And he'd have had a really good shot. But it just doesn't seem to happen. And so you're looking at intrinsic headwinds. And then the last thing I'd say is those headwinds are made worse by Trump being such a monumental figure, somebody who has dominated the last, at that point, it will have been 13 years of our politics, someone who has an almost cult-like following.
01:00:15.360So J.D. Vance is going to rise and fall on the basis of Trump.
01:00:17.460Well, I mean, to your point, Charlie, and I share this with you, whether it's Trump
01:00:22.660or not Trump, I don't think most people want to be thinking about the president this much.
01:00:26.740You know, you want a small executive branch.
01:03:18.540all right good morning good morning good morning welcome back to power rising
01:03:26.940it's so hillary it's so hillary clinton like it's uncanny she's so alienating charlie i just can't
01:03:37.740believe that i have had to spend so much of my adult life with donald trump and kamala harris
01:03:43.320You know, I am hoping, I'm hoping that the reason that she's leading in the polls is a combination of name recognition, which obviously she should be, and also I think Democrats who wish she'd won.
01:03:59.700And so they feel like they're answering the question, who do you wish had won the 2024 election?
01:04:05.380And so they say Kamala Harris, because if they nominate her again, first off, she'd actually probably have a chance.
01:04:11.780if the republicans really do sink to the 30s but second i just can't go through it again megan i've
01:04:19.980been a bona fide kamala harris hater now you can do it we can do it together 2014 i mean if you go
01:04:28.460back and you read my diatribes against her they go back 12 years that i i'd forgotten that i'd
01:04:36.640forgotten that the she starts off there sounding as if she's drunk she always sounds as if she's
01:04:42.660totally then she panders then she panders with the preacher stuff and then the laugh i mean
01:04:49.760there's a little clip and it's everything that is wrong with her and she's at 40 what have i done
01:04:55.060to deserve this all right hold your hold your fire because we got a lot to get through here so
01:04:59.860you can't just give it all up on the first answer um rich don't think i didn't save some glory for
01:05:04.800you i've got multiple sound bites here here she is with i don't know if this is a new accent but
01:05:10.580it's kind of a new accent and she tries it out a couple times inside eight what gives me hope
01:05:16.080is that we're gonna win the midterms we're going it's gonna be difficult and to say i'm gonna get0.98
01:05:25.980mine also and so don't count on me she's a she's a black woman who does a fake black woman accent i0.54
01:05:37.860i don't care you know if you do fake accents here you thought i gave all the goodness to charlie0.98
01:05:43.680but no rich lowry she gonna win yeah so if you do fake accents almost by definition you're a bad
01:05:49.560politician and we're talking about you know trump's upsides downsides in the first segment
01:05:54.020But one upside is that you can never get him to do a fake accent.
01:07:06.620It's been a bit controversial, but one of the things I've been saying is this.
01:07:10.000As I have reflected on what has been going on, I've come to the realization that part of the issue is part of the frailty, I think, of human nature for some, is they are purely transactional people.
01:07:28.080They're not pretending to be grounded in morals or values or principles.
01:11:30.760It's like that's the custom in speaking Polish is to say the thing three times, not one time.
01:11:35.460And I think she's got some Polish in her.0.86
01:11:38.000I like only she doesn't and she only speaks English because she's so repetitive and she inserts so many phrases in her sentences that are unnecessary.0.98
01:11:49.120And it's, I think, a nervous tick to buy time because she can't think quickly enough on like how I'm going to land this sentence.
01:11:57.220But here is a little flavor of that in SOT 9.
01:12:01.480recognizing that at some point this administration will be termed out and there's going to be a whole
01:12:08.000lot of debris and i would i would caution us against talking about rebuilding with any sense
01:12:18.520of nostalgia about how things were because even before they weren't working so well for a lot of
01:12:28.540folks. And so we're going to have to be clear eyed. We're not going to go back to just trying
01:12:34.840to bring back the status quo, the thing that you worked well in and made you comfortable.
01:12:42.080We've got to upend some of this stuff to actually get this work done, including, again,
01:12:49.200health care, child care, what we need to do around housing. There has to be a vision that is about
01:12:54.880what we do when we're in power because it's one thing to know how to fight the power
01:12:58.840it's another thing to be in power and own that power and i know everybody in this room knows
01:13:06.760what it means to be in power and empowered anyway that's how i've been thinking
01:13:12.340that's how she's been thinking charles
01:13:15.520i think that's a threat actually you know she just talked about housing you know typical policy
01:13:23.060But I think when they say, if we win, we're not just going back to the status quo, I think that means they have learned from how Trump's wielded power, and they're going to double down on it.
01:13:32.660We had this astonishing statement from James Carville the other day.
01:13:35.800As soon as they get in, Puerto Rico's a state, D.C. is a state, and the Supreme Court has 15 justices.
01:13:42.040Now, I'm not sure they're going to be able to do all that, but I think that's where they're headed.
01:19:45.300You're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more.
01:20:38.660thank you oh yeah so this is a special freedom of the press and freedom of speech practice
01:20:45.300that's very nice yeah and we're i'm gonna be you know saturday night's the white house
01:21:01.460correspondence dinner i did not know and um there are a bunch of us that are going to be wearing
01:21:07.340these these are from the reporters committee for the free press and uh because there might be some
01:21:10.940guests there that are unfamiliar with uh oh this is the first time this is the first time that the
01:21:18.060president is going to be attending right now that you say so yes by the way i brought you one oh
01:21:23.940so isn't that nice rich they're going to stand up and speak truth to power make sure trump knows
01:21:35.780how important freedom of the press and freedom of speech are in America. CNN.
01:21:41.740Yeah, I'm not into pin wearing. This is very reminiscent of what we talked about this
01:21:46.280a month or two ago. Was it the Grammys or something? Everyone was wearing pins. They
01:21:50.440didn't quite know what the pins were, but the pins stood for some sort of social justice cause.
01:21:55.700This is pointless and annoying. And that dinner has been pointless and annoying for a very long
01:22:01.440time. Back in the day, I don't know, 20, 25 years ago, it was kind of enjoyable,
01:22:04.720But then it got celebrified and journalists shouldn't consider themselves working journalists as celebrities and have the same mores.
01:22:13.620But but this is this this is very incestuous and annoying event.
01:22:18.900The worst part about it, Charlie, is not even the actual event, the White House Correspondents Dinner.
01:22:24.720It's all the events around the dinner where like this magazine wants you to show up and like be photographed at their party.
01:22:33.440And that, you know, sort of kingmaker wants you to show up at his or her party.
01:22:38.920And, you know, you got to go kiss the ring at all these parties to try to prove that you're somebody special in Washington.
01:22:44.920Meanwhile, you're supposed to be a shoe leather, scrappy, hates everyone reporter.
01:22:51.660That's what that's what a good D.C. reporter is like.
01:22:54.980They don't want to rub elbows with any of these people.
01:22:57.560They want to bring all of them down, no matter which party they're in.
01:23:01.080They're looking for the latest scandal, not for the latest free cocktail and red carpet opportunity.
01:23:08.380And it's yet another reason to avoid this thing, but it goes on.
01:23:11.940Yeah, well, I wasn't invited, so I have to slum it here on the beach with my family.
01:23:16.360But I do think the most annoying part, as you say, is that this only goes in one direction.
01:23:22.520There's nothing particularly offensive about that pocket square.
01:23:25.600First Amendment is crucially important.
01:23:27.460And sometimes Donald Trump isn't good on free speech.
01:23:30.180It's just that that moment there only seems to happen when a Republican's president, that laughter slash clapping from the audience on Stephen Colbert's show with a journalist who's being smug.
01:23:45.960They didn't do that when, for example, Twitter and Facebook shut down the New York Post story into the Hunter Biden laptop. They didn't do that when abortion covering journalists were being targeted in California.
01:24:06.180It's just so one sided. So it's not that Jake Tapper is completely wrong there. It's great to shout at all administrations and all government officials about the First Amendment. It just becomes so annoying when it only happens in limited circumstances. And I think all the people who are clapping in that probably don't know that. They probably think that they're entirely virtuous and that their opponents are entirely evil.
01:24:27.780What about under Joe Biden when James O'Keefe, who's he is a journalist, he's a muckraker, when he got the FBI raiding his home early in the morning because Joe Biden was upset that he got his hands on Ashley Biden's diary and was considering publishing it.
01:24:44.060What about when James Rosen was basically frozen out of asking another question for months in the White House press briefing room because he had the nerve to ask about Joe Biden's health and its deterioration?
01:24:55.100And by the way, it wasn't just him. All the press corps understood they'd be punished by this White House, the Biden White House, if they inquired about Joe Biden's health.
01:25:04.880I don't remember his little pocket square back then. It's only when it's Trump.
01:25:10.880And, Rich, to that point, The New York Post reports today that a group of over 250 journalists implored members of the Beltway Press Corps to, quote, forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday.
01:25:23.100Prominent veteran journalists such as former CBS News anchor Dan Rather.
01:26:19.400Another complaint was Trump's decision to pardon the January 6th Capitol rioters, which the letter claims sends a message that attacks on the press will be forgiven.
01:27:33.980But the other problem is it does nothing.
01:27:36.700It's an empty, meaningless virtue signal, right?
01:27:39.880It's like it's it's worse than nothing because it's meant to make them look somehow above board and like they really care about these issues.
01:27:48.800Charlie went, you know, Tapper's infamous for completely blowing it on the Biden mental health story, as did all of CNN.
01:27:57.000They did not care about freedom of the press to do honest reporting until they saw that Biden was imploding and then they found, you know, their spine, shall I say.
01:28:08.740So their little pocket square isn't going to change anything.
01:28:36.880and he's an idiot he's a senile idiot who doesn't know where he is that's the joke1.00
01:28:45.300likewise Kamala Harris is this sort of vain insecure mumbling fool who's constantly taking1.00
01:28:57.040pictures of herself and looking at the camera well once Joe Biden had won the nomination for0.98
01:29:03.940the Democratic Party, they stopped the sketch. They didn't keep doing it throughout his presidency,
01:29:09.360even though it was far more relevant by 2023 than it had been in 2019. Likewise, you know,
01:29:16.460obviously, I write about politics. So I get all of these unsolicited and frankly, unwanted emails
01:29:20.700from people trying to share opposition research on people they dislike. And in 2019, I got email
01:29:26.580after email after email from the left about Joe Biden saying Joe Biden was a racist. Joe Biden
01:29:31.820defended segregation, Joe Biden opposed busing and so forth. That all disappeared as well. And
01:29:37.260that's what makes this particularly annoying. It's not that the criticisms of Trump that you
01:29:42.240mentioned from that letter are wrong in every case. And I think some of what Brendan Carr has
01:29:48.340been doing is bad. It's that the indignation stops the second it doesn't serve the broader
01:29:54.560political purpose. The mockery stops the second it doesn't serve the broader political purpose.
01:30:00.000But then when it's somebody on the side they dislike, it instantly goes up to 11, and we're all supposed to clap it as coming from a good place.
01:30:08.120But it doesn't come from a good place.
01:30:10.240It comes from a very cynical place in almost every case.
01:30:13.800To me, it's amazing how they're pretending that the press corps, the White House press corps and beyond, is what it was 20 years ago.
01:30:26.660You know, I I've mentioned this to the audience before, but when I first got in a news, it was 2003 and I got a part time job at WJLA in Washington and I was so excited.
01:30:38.280It was so thrilling to me. I was still practicing practicing law and I got this job one day a week doing I said I'd work for free, but he did pay me and I loved it so much.
01:30:49.660And then he invited me to the radio and television correspondence dinner, which is sort of a wider spread like invitation list.
01:30:57.180And you don't have to work at the White House in order to get invited to that.
01:31:00.500And it's the it's the dinner featured in broadcast news, which is one of my favorite movies.
01:31:43.800And I remember thinking about my next move, you know, after they made me an offer to that ABC affiliate.
01:31:49.680And at the time I was like, all right, well, if I'm good enough to be full-time here, maybe I'm good enough to be full-time someplace better than here.
01:31:55.160And I talked to somebody at MSNBC and at Fox.
01:32:00.500Like I absolutely would have gone to MSNBC.
01:32:02.880I had absolutely no qualms about that.
01:32:12.040but things were just starting to change. And now in 23 years time, the news business is a shadow
01:32:20.760of its former self. Yeah, absolutely. And similar experience in print, local newspaper in the
01:32:27.060Washington DC area. And the guy who's a proprietor and the editor, former Washington Post reporter,
01:32:32.120and he was a curmudgeon, right? He didn't have an ideology. He just wanted to know the facts,
01:32:36.640wanted you to get them right, and wanted stories. That was it. And as media has become professionalized
01:32:44.660and these people imagine themselves as their great tribunes of justice, it's a totally different
01:32:54.300attitude than when we started out. And it's discredited the news, right? Because it's no
01:33:01.560longer just the facts that we're driving an agenda. We're driving the agenda because the agenda is
01:33:06.440is deeply just, and we're going to support a narrative that reinforce the agenda. So that's
01:33:13.960been like a 20-year process. It's a very bad one. Trump accelerated it because they even thought
01:33:19.080they were more just, and they had to be even more open with their agendas and their narratives.
01:33:24.180And now we've had this splintering. So certainly the broadcast outlets and all that will never
01:33:28.880be the same. I mean, I've talked about this before, but I'm very grateful for my time at
01:33:35.660Fox News. Very grateful. It made my whole career. But I do think sort of cable news accelerated the
01:33:41.880deterioration in the following way. It had been not openly partisan and the whole media leaned
01:33:47.640left, but not as openly and perhaps not quite as severely as it does now. And Fox came around as
01:33:53.840the antidote to that left wing bias and leaned in. And then the others realized that was a very
01:33:59.200successful business model. They were cleaning the clocks of CNN and eventually MS. And then they
01:34:05.360they leaned into their partisanship openly and more obviously. And things just got progressively
01:34:12.460polarized. The broadcast media became more and more irrelevant. And then they started to lean
01:34:17.740into their bias more openly. And it's not that it's Fox's fault, but it's like the Fox antidote
01:34:23.340to what was indeed left-wing bias wound up, I think, making the problem, yes, exposed, but also
01:34:28.980kind of worse in some ways. Or maybe it was just a trajectory the news business on either way.
01:34:34.380But the fact that Dan Rather is leading this charge, I mean, because in those early days at Fox where I got hired in August of 04, one of the very first stories they put me on was that 60 Minutes 2 piece they were doing on George W. Bush where they had faked papers around his National Guard service.
01:34:53.760And Dan Rather was leading the charge, and it led to his exit from CBS, and so now he wants to be our moral better.
01:35:00.200Here's what Trump posted in March, Charlie, when he said he was going to attend because he hasn't been attending these things as president.
01:35:07.120The White House Correspondents Association has asked me very nicely to be the honoree at this year's dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924 under then President Calvin Coolidge.
01:35:17.320In honor of our nation's 250th birthday and the fact that these correspondents now admit that I am truly one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country, the GOAT, according to many, it will be my honor to accept their invitation and work to make it the greatest, hottest, and most spectacular dinner of any kind ever.
01:35:41.320I just have a feeling that's not how it's going to go down.0.97
01:35:44.660I think he's going to walk into open hostility from the little pocket square people.
01:36:02.480And I actually, in this context, like Trump when he does that, because I think it has a tendency to puncture the bubble.0.95
01:36:14.660and the bubble in this instance is a ridiculous one so i like trump when he's like this
01:36:21.560uh the white house dinner that he's going to is in my view pointless uh i was of course joking0.88
01:36:30.340i would much rather stay on the beach with my family uh but he is uh he is hostile to them
01:36:38.240they're hostile to him and in that sense they they both get what they want right i mean this is
01:36:46.140it's a pantomime it's a punch and judy show they want to play that role they want to channel
01:36:54.360watergate they think that that's who they are and then trump thinks he's the greatest president
01:37:00.800who's ever existed and then the audience sort of watches it uh as a drama and i think this might
01:37:07.940make this one more interesting than the average. It's amazing, though, right, that Trump can't
01:37:12.040resist the pull of these people, right? He should be so much bigger than this dinner. He doesn't
01:37:15.800need to go to this dinner. He shouldn't go to this dinner, in my view. But he can't help calling
01:37:19.400these people, caring about what they write, what they say, you know, working behind the scenes.
01:37:24.700So he's such a media creature through and through.
01:37:28.820As always. Now, we've never had a woman as the guest of honor because we've never had a female
01:37:34.760president, and that is because we are a nation of sexist pigs. Back to Kamala Harris before we go.1.00
01:37:41.140I've got to play SOT 13 and listen to the repetition, too. I do believe America
01:37:47.360is, can be, and will be ready for a woman to be pressing United States.
01:37:54.940And I strongly believe, you know, I mentor, as we all do, a lot of people.
01:37:59.660And one of the things I will say to our young people, and I know we have many here, is don't ever let someone's limited ability to see your capacity to be a limitation on your ambition for yourself.
01:38:20.720And so, again, part of it is I just try to not let other people's problems be my problem in terms of believing and knowing and acting on who can do what.