The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump's Next Move, DeSantis' Future, and Pence's Op-Ed, with Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch

00:00:00.540 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.680 Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:14.880 Well, it's Thursday now, and we still don't know who will control the Senate or the House.

00:00:20.880 And you should get used to that feeling.

00:00:23.320 In the Senate, we are waiting for results in two races.

00:00:26.440 We know that George is going for a runoff in Arizona.

00:00:30.220 Blake Masters is down ninety five thousand votes to Mark Kelly.

00:00:34.080 But there is still still somehow 30 percent of the vote to be counted.

00:00:39.320 Meanwhile, Carrie Lake remains twelve thousand votes back in the governor's race.

00:00:42.980 Same number as we were giving you yesterday.

00:00:45.480 Outstanding votes there are expected in the state of Arizona to favor the GOP.

00:00:50.340 We explained yesterday these are mailed in votes that actually are physically dropped off by voters on the day of the election, which they say tends to trend Republican.

00:01:01.080 But it's all tarot card reading.

00:01:03.100 Then there's Nevada with Adam Laxalt ahead by fifteen thousand votes with eighty three percent of the vote in.

00:01:09.080 Well, Republicans might be feeling good about that.

00:01:10.980 Fifteen thousand votes ahead.

00:01:12.180 Eighty three percent of the vote in.

00:01:13.400 It's pretty high percentage.

00:01:14.360 He actually said this morning, we expect the remaining male universe to fall well below the percentage she, his opponent, Catherine Cortez Mazda, needs to catch us.

00:01:25.100 Or actually, that's she's over it.

00:01:26.140 But anyway, meaning he expects to win.

00:01:29.220 He expects to win.

00:01:30.660 But the remaining vote is actually said to favor the Dems.

00:01:34.380 So he may be wrong.

00:01:35.560 And Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report says, based on the mail ballot trend, there's actually, quote, an excellent chance.

00:01:43.340 Laxalt's Democratic opponent will be victorious if that happens.

00:01:48.040 And the GOP loses both of these states.

00:01:50.500 Who cares about Georgia?

00:01:51.940 It's done.

00:01:52.760 Dems control the Senate.

00:01:54.160 Georgia's mildly interesting.

00:01:55.460 And that's it.

00:01:55.960 In the House, the GOP is still expected to win, but it's not over.

00:02:02.240 It's not over.

00:02:03.760 Incumbent MAGA candidate Lauren Boebert in Colorado could be the deciding seat.

00:02:09.380 She's behind by 64 votes as of this moment.

00:02:13.880 My God, you ever have that moment where you just don't vote because you're like, who cares?

00:02:17.380 My vote doesn't matter.

00:02:18.700 Think about the people in her district right now on both sides of the aisle.

00:02:22.220 Your vote mattered.

00:02:23.740 It mattered a lot.

00:02:24.740 But President Biden held a press conference late yesterday and the GOP, well, late for him, 4 p.m.

00:02:29.860 And the GOP media is turning on Trump by the droves.

00:02:34.040 But it's, for the most part, people who didn't like him to begin with.

00:02:39.160 So there's a lot to get to.

00:02:40.660 Joining me now to cover it all are friends from The Fifth Column podcast, Michael Moynihan, a correspondent for Vice News Tonight, Matt Welsh, editor at large for Reason Magazine, and Camille Foster of Freethink Media.

00:02:53.380 Guys, welcome back to the show.

00:02:54.560 How are you doing?

00:02:55.640 Howdy.

00:02:56.140 Amazing.

00:02:57.020 Never been better.

00:02:57.880 It's fantastic.

00:02:58.420 Oh, wow.

00:02:58.860 Yes.

00:02:59.120 Wow.

00:02:59.820 So, so excited.

00:03:01.240 Wait.

00:03:01.540 I'm so excited.

00:03:02.860 Is that facetious?

00:03:03.960 Or is that real?

00:03:05.420 I think it's slightly facetious.

00:03:06.700 Is having been following people on the campaign and watching the unbelievable skill with which the people of Arizona can count ballots.

00:03:15.040 Yeah, it's all, it's all slightly depressing and distressing.

00:03:18.120 So, yeah.

00:03:18.500 Was it one of you?

00:03:19.300 Somebody tweeted out this morning.

00:03:20.800 Are they counting votes out there with an abacus?

00:03:25.720 I mean, let's not sleep on California.

00:03:27.920 Last time I looked an hour or so ago, California has already counted 45% of their ballots.

00:03:34.600 And that's where the house races might come down to because there's like a half a dozen contested seats out there.

00:03:42.100 So high five, California.

00:03:44.260 And I love the people who say, look, they're just taking the time that it takes to get it right.

00:03:49.120 You know, it's really bad of you to try to question any of that.

00:03:53.240 It would have been great.

00:03:54.420 And Camille says this all the time.

00:03:55.660 And he's right.

00:03:56.340 It would have been great if in the last two years, instead of just shrieking all the time about how fascism is going to take over the country and our democracy is doomed.

00:04:03.640 You might have worked on making elections run a little smoother.

00:04:06.500 I'm just like spitballing here.

00:04:08.920 Just do it however Florida does it.

00:04:10.960 Just look at the Florida model.

00:04:12.280 It doesn't it's not going to make you into a red state.

00:04:15.360 It's going to make you in an efficient vote counting state.

00:04:17.940 Just do it the way they do it so we can have results on election day.

00:04:20.480 Is it so hard?

00:04:21.600 Well, the way they do it is they have a governor who wins in 2018 by half a point and then wins by 20 points.

00:04:28.780 So the counting is a little easier because they're just like at halfway through, they're like, he's just winning.

00:04:33.080 Let's just give it because it was such I mean, the red wave that that didn't crest across the country certainly did in Florida, which which where I've been for the past.

00:04:42.280 Five days following the DeSantis campaign around and the enthusiasm was really amazing.

00:04:48.480 And then, you know, during all of this on Election Day, we broke away and went to lovely Palm Beach to watch the president vote.

00:04:56.560 And it was a pretty kind of small crowd.

00:04:59.080 There were maybe like a handful of people there to to see him vote, you know, real diehard Trump people.

00:05:04.320 But that was a pretty interesting contrast to the DeSantis events that I went to, which were shockingly raucous.

00:05:12.100 And people were really, really excited.

00:05:14.440 I mean, I've been to a million campaign events in my life.

00:05:17.680 This was probably the most engaged I'd seen people.

00:05:20.740 Are you saying that Trump was low energy?

00:05:22.360 He was he was low energy.

00:05:23.880 Don, that's his new.

00:05:25.120 Yeah.

00:05:25.300 I mean, I guess it was because the nickname that Ron DeSantimonious didn't really stick.

00:05:30.660 But I said that to certain people.

00:05:32.860 They're like, what?

00:05:33.540 And I was like, I don't know.

00:05:34.200 But who gets excited about following the former president to cast his vote?

00:05:38.700 I mean, DeSantis was on the ticket.

00:05:40.440 But this does get to, you know, the biggest issue of the day.

00:05:43.840 I want to do DeSantis and Trump in a second, actually, before we get to that.

00:05:48.060 Can you believe the House is still in question?

00:05:50.900 I listened to The New York Times podcast The Daily this morning and they were laying out

00:05:54.660 exactly, you know, the question.

00:05:56.520 Like, it is not certain.

00:05:57.980 I listen to Steve Kornacki.

00:05:59.300 You know, I try to take in the news from both sides on MSNBC, laying out the districts in

00:06:03.560 California, in Nevada and elsewhere that could definitely still go blue.

00:06:10.320 And it's this is they have a road.

00:06:12.640 It's a slim road.

00:06:14.040 The GOP has more roads, but the Dems have a road.

00:06:17.160 I mean, it's it's crazy.

00:06:19.700 70, 70 percent of the country is unhappy with the direction of the country.

00:06:23.800 And yet everything could wind up being the same.

00:06:27.200 The Dems could be in control of both houses.

00:06:29.340 Like it's it's there's there's no way that you can screw up this election this bad.

00:06:34.040 And yet the Republican Party managed to find a way.

00:06:36.780 It's it is really remarkable.

00:06:38.680 You can't there's there's no precedent for this.

00:06:41.400 The closest that we get is 1998, which wasn't a first midterm.

00:06:44.860 And there was an impeachment.

00:06:46.120 There'd been a sex scandal.

00:06:47.320 People were kind of tired of that noise.

00:06:48.740 There's just no precedent for what we've seen.

00:06:51.500 All the conditions and any favor.

00:06:53.200 And Bill Clinton's popularity, I think, was over 60 percent.

00:06:55.420 Yeah.

00:06:55.920 Weirdly after Lewinsky scandal.

00:06:57.340 So, yeah, it was a different different set of circumstances.

00:06:59.520 I mean, Mark Thiessen, you guys probably know him.

00:07:02.180 He's over at Fox News.

00:07:04.120 I would like to take a moment to give myself credit for Mark Thiessen.

00:07:06.680 I am the person who made him a star.

00:07:08.980 He came on the Kelly file.

00:07:10.920 Actually, it was my daytime show.

00:07:12.200 And he was a little nerdy guy with his little clipper clipboard.

00:07:15.560 And Roger was like, why don't I just go sit there?

00:07:17.220 I'm like, give him time.

00:07:18.140 He's brilliant.

00:07:18.940 Just needs to get better at TV.

00:07:20.140 I'm sorry.

00:07:20.760 I just had to have a moment because I did see his greatness early on.

00:07:24.320 But that's just a rando.

00:07:25.200 I thought that was going to be just randomly giving yourself credit for Mark.

00:07:27.720 That's it.

00:07:28.080 Just complimenting myself.

00:07:29.520 OK.

00:07:29.740 I just want to make sure.

00:07:30.520 Yeah.

00:07:30.860 I'm like Trump.

00:07:31.400 He's a very smart nerdy guy.

00:07:33.020 No, I want you to make sure that that you understand how brilliant I was in seeing him.

00:07:37.520 Here's here's Mark Thiessen on Fox News the other night.

00:07:41.680 I don't have the soundbite cut, but he says this night was an absolute disaster for Republicans.

00:07:46.140 Quote, we have the worst inflation in four decades, the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in U.S. history.

00:07:55.180 We have Joe Biden, who is the least popular president since Harry Truman, since presidential polling happened, and there wasn't a red wave.

00:08:02.380 That is a searing indictment of the Republican Party.

00:08:05.080 That is a searing indictment of the message that we have been sending to the voters.

00:08:08.960 They looked at all of that and looked at the Republican alternative and said, no, thanks.

00:08:15.600 I mean, he's pretty, pretty powerful.

00:08:18.580 Camille, Camille, he's he's nailed it.

00:08:21.580 Well, he's not he's not wrong.

00:08:22.580 And I'm also thinking a lot about the fact that these are just very close races, really, really close.

00:08:28.520 And the outcome is going to be that one side wins and the other side loses.

00:08:33.520 And you're going to either get a sort of you're going to get dramatically different government in those two circumstances, which makes one wonder if we shouldn't be looking at other approaches to how we conduct these elections.

00:08:44.660 I mean, should we do rank choice voting?

00:08:46.900 Do we need more people running in these races so that we can get, say, more moderate candidates, perhaps, if if we know that the the razor thin margins by which these elections are being decided are the difference between you getting,

00:09:00.740 you know, you know, a government that you completely and utterly hate and have contempt for and one that your next door neighbor would completely or utterly hate and have contempt for.

00:09:10.960 It seems like there's a lot of complicated conversations that we ought to be having about our democratic processes.

00:09:18.580 Hmm. It's been interesting to me to listen to the dissection and what I'm gathering is, you know, I I take in my news from a wide variety of sources because I'm I just am determined to not let anybody control my brain or my thinking.

00:09:34.180 You know, I don't want to be turned into a hardcore MAGA supporter.

00:09:37.660 I don't want to be turned into a member of the squad.

00:09:39.920 I don't want to be turned into somebody who could work for The New York Times and I don't want to be turned into somebody who could appear regularly on Steve Bannon's war room.

00:09:47.700 OK, so you have to fight against that.

00:09:50.020 Everyone's trying to manipulate you into their corners.

00:09:52.840 And as a news person, it's really important not to allow that to happen.

00:09:55.740 So I'm taking in my news from all of them now to see what's the spin.

00:09:59.600 And I I realize that the big narrative in the GOP circles right now is Trump is toxic.

00:10:05.740 Look at the look at the post today.

00:10:07.620 And the New York Post, OK, this is the New York Post, Trumpy Dumpty.

00:10:13.660 And the headline is Don, who couldn't build a wall, had a great fall.

00:10:19.320 Can all the GOP's men put the party back together again?

00:10:22.260 So the post is definitely turning on Trump.

00:10:24.000 I get it.

00:10:24.820 The article is written by John Podoretz, who I love and I listen to commentary all the time.

00:10:29.720 But he's always been a never Trumper.

00:10:31.800 He hates Trump.

00:10:32.440 So it's like he feels validated in his pre-election Trump hate.

00:10:37.620 And a lot of the people blaming this on Trump fall into that same general field.

00:10:42.760 They hated him before.

00:10:43.900 They hate him now.

00:10:45.120 They feel like you look for the thing that's going to make you have been right all along.

00:10:50.340 Well, I would like to figure out what it actually is.

00:10:52.800 And my take so far, and I haven't totally digested it, is it's a little bit of a lot of things.

00:10:57.980 Trump's bad candidate selection and push.

00:11:01.120 Yes, I think that was a factor in some of these races, in particular at the House level.

00:11:05.160 You had some guys like out there talking about how like the Democrats were like Satan worshipers, like drinking the blood of children.

00:11:12.960 Like that shit actually happened.

00:11:14.400 Those candidates got on the ballot.

00:11:15.900 Okay, I could see that being a candidate selection problem.

00:11:19.980 But I look over the Democratic side and the elected Fetterman, you know, they didn't have any problem with him.

00:11:25.160 There are a couple other races where the Dems got in where you're like, I mean, look at Joe Biden.

00:11:28.140 Joe Biden get elected.

00:11:29.320 He can't even put two sentences together himself.

00:11:31.000 So it's like, I'm not sure how important Democrat or candidate selection is on either side.

00:11:35.720 I don't totally get it.

00:11:37.460 Now I hear people who have been very anti-election denialism saying it was all about that.

00:11:43.020 But all candidates who denied the election was legit, those are the ones who get bounced.

00:11:48.060 All right, maybe I don't.

00:11:49.600 Carrie Lake was like a rising star.

00:11:51.640 Everybody was gravitating toward her.

00:11:52.820 She outdid the Blake Masters candidate who was less of an election denier than she was in Arizona.

00:11:58.100 Why is that like you can't find a consistent theme in each of these races?

00:12:03.000 Some people were upset about abortion.

00:12:04.680 Some people were upset about the January 6th election denialism.

00:12:07.680 Some of the candidates sucked who had been handpicked by Trump in favor of more mainstream Republicans

00:12:12.660 who probably could have gotten in in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia.

00:12:16.760 I get that.

00:12:17.780 But I'm just not seeing the clear explanation.

00:12:20.660 And I wonder whether you guys are.

00:12:22.980 I think there's more of a candidate selection problem maybe than you do, especially in Michigan

00:12:30.180 and Pennsylvania.

00:12:31.240 Right.

00:12:31.360 These are these are swing states by every definition.

00:12:34.140 And yet both of them just experienced a blue wave.

00:12:37.600 I think it's because the top of the tickets, especially Tudor Dixon, Mehmet Oz and or Doug

00:12:43.780 Mastriano, actually, were so vociferously MAGA so much about it.

00:12:52.240 It's not just that they check the little box saying, yeah, I'm a little bit suspicious of the

00:12:56.160 2020 election.

00:12:56.920 They were loud and proud about it.

00:12:59.780 And so when you have people at the top of the ticket who are really bad in swing states,

00:13:04.760 suddenly you have Democrats saying, wow, blue wave in in Michigan.

00:13:08.840 You know, Gretchen Whitmer should be on the ticket in 2024.

00:13:11.800 No, she was a really bad covid lockdown or she should have lost with a credible opposition.

00:13:18.700 I think she would have lost Lee Zeldin, I think, might have won actually in New York when

00:13:23.720 he already did better than anyone's done since George Pataki.

00:13:26.940 I think he might have had a puncher's chance if he had not voted against certifying the

00:13:31.880 election in 2020.

00:13:33.140 Other people may disagree, but he ran on crime and he ran on covid and a bunch of other things

00:13:37.840 besides.

00:13:38.360 And hopeful is very annoying.

00:13:40.160 I think candidate quality mattered in those cases.

00:13:42.760 The fact that Zeldin ran a really good campaign is going to might be end up being the decisive

00:13:49.360 tip in the House races because we've flipped a lot of cases here.

00:13:54.640 So in that sense, I think it does matter.

00:13:56.620 But the caveat is, let's not forget that Pennsylvania elected a dead man.

00:14:01.620 Yeah, they did.

00:14:02.800 I mean, in their defense, he only recently died.

00:14:06.920 Yeah, he only recently died.

00:14:09.140 I would say, Megan, on the New York Post thing, it's actually interesting.

00:14:13.520 And you're right.

00:14:13.860 It is John Potter.

00:14:15.160 It's from commentary who has been firmly in the anti-Trump camp since, you know, 2015.

00:14:20.180 But, you know, that's an editorial page piece.

00:14:23.520 You know, the post-lead decision to put that on the front, you know, and that's the second

00:14:28.020 in a row.

00:14:28.920 I mean, the first, you know, yesterday, two days ago, it was a DeSantis cover that it

00:14:33.620 said, DeFuture, with a picture of him.

00:14:35.680 And obviously, people have been peeling off from Fox News and going to Newsmax and OAN

00:14:39.240 and all these other places because Fox is, you know, kind of backed away from Trump.

00:14:43.200 I mean, that is a kind of institutional decision.

00:14:45.660 Rupert Murdoch, obviously, is Australian in places where, you know, newspapers used to,

00:14:49.420 in England, too, make decisions about candidates in a very specific way.

00:14:52.760 We're no longer supporting this guy.

00:14:54.680 But, you know, I mean, one of the things that, you know, I think Matt's right about all this

00:14:57.260 stuff and particularly interesting in New York and, you know, all this, the kind of

00:15:01.200 minor red wave in places like upstate New York.

00:15:03.520 And, you know, Cuomo won by, what, 20-odd points when he won the governor's day?

00:15:08.400 I mean, Kathy Hochul won by four or five, right?

00:15:11.400 I mean, they're encroaching on this.

00:15:13.540 It's really impressive in a way.

00:15:14.980 And I think the January 6th stuff did hurt Zeldin.

00:15:19.640 But one of the things that I think is really interesting, because you say, and you're right

00:15:23.240 to say that there's no one thing, there's no silver bullet, it's a grab bag of a bunch

00:15:26.820 of different issues.

00:15:28.120 But, and I know they're going to talk about this in a bit, and, you know, it's obviously

00:15:30.740 on the top of my mind because I've been in Florida.

00:15:32.180 But, you know, the thing about DeSantis is he ran a very, very disciplined campaign about

00:15:37.300 issues.

00:15:38.220 So I don't know what Dr.

00:15:40.420 quote unquote Oz believes.

00:15:42.120 Right.

00:15:42.400 I don't know what Herschel Walker believes.

00:15:44.400 I know that they mouth the sort of MAGA platitudes.

00:15:47.100 But, you know, you have a guy like DeSantis getting up on stage every single night doing

00:15:50.520 30 minutes on COVID, 10, 15 minutes on the response to the hurricane, like what he did

00:15:56.280 in Florida, what made Florida a quote unquote free state that nobody else is doing.

00:15:59.760 Whether or not you agree with that is irrelevant.

00:16:02.160 It's that he ran a very disciplined campaign about ideas.

00:16:05.500 And everybody I talked to was like, he was amazing on this issue.

00:16:08.920 We moved to Florida because he was great on COVID.

00:16:11.460 This is a man that has actually done something and says, I want to do this on a bigger level.

00:16:16.320 And that's why people put him on the front of the New York Post and want him to take

00:16:19.300 over because it's no longer sniping and like, you know, crappy nicknames and stuff like that.

00:16:24.160 It's somebody who's smart and focused and has a kind of flavor of MAGA to him.

00:16:27.960 So I think that that's why Florida's been been so impressive and Trump less so.

00:16:33.460 Is there a refinement there, Michael, with respect to DeSantis and whether or not he was

00:16:38.020 running on ideas or if it's the practical implications of his policies during COVID?

00:16:44.460 And I think that is actually the thing when I look across the country at all these different

00:16:49.740 races, like what are the salient policy proposals that are deciding these elections?

00:16:55.060 And in a lot of instances, I can't find them.

00:16:58.140 You'll hear a lot about abortion because it is a salient policy issue and people want some

00:17:03.200 specific outcome.

00:17:04.320 But beyond that, these are elections that seem to be about contempt, who I have the most contempt

00:17:09.940 for at the moment, who's failed me the most profoundly.

00:17:13.460 And in rare cases, you have someone like someplace like Florida, where the governor of Florida

00:17:19.120 made very good decisions throughout the COVID situation.

00:17:22.820 It's interesting to imagine what this race would have looked like had COVID never happened

00:17:26.180 if he wouldn't have had a much closer race in that case.

00:17:30.080 But, you know, that is a defining characteristic of that race.

00:17:34.140 And in many of these other cases, all you know is you're choosing between two candidates

00:17:38.640 you hate or a candidate who you absolutely hate and a candidate who doesn't seem to have

00:17:43.260 the mental faculties to actually be able to do the job.

00:17:45.800 We'll get to that.

00:17:46.820 We'll do more Florida and DeSantis in one second.

00:17:48.780 But I just want to stay on the Trump situation because I want to be honest about it.

00:17:52.660 I actually want to take a hard look at this.

00:17:54.720 I feel like one of my advantages as a journalist is, and I've said this before, I'm not under his

00:17:59.060 spell, but I don't have Trump derangement syndrome either.

00:18:02.020 So I feel like I can see this guy clearly.

00:18:04.420 And I am very open minded to Trump forced out the right candidates and blessed the wrong

00:18:10.260 candidates because they bent the knee to him.

00:18:12.360 And I can see that that did happen in some circumstances.

00:18:15.660 You know, it seems like we would have had a different candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania

00:18:20.120 if he didn't think that Trump was going to be such a nightmare, that that would have

00:18:23.860 happened in Georgia, that that would have happened in Arizona, where the governor there

00:18:29.460 was term limited and would have run for the Senate seat, but just didn't want to deal

00:18:32.880 with Trump attacking him in every turn.

00:18:34.960 Right.

00:18:35.080 Because Arizona, these are all states that became relevant in the 2020 story Trump was

00:18:39.620 telling.

00:18:40.200 And he decided that they were turncoats if they didn't take on the election was stolen

00:18:44.540 story.

00:18:45.140 So he definitely had a massive role in forcing.

00:18:49.800 I don't know if you want to call him mainstream, but just sort of more not hardcore MAGA candidates

00:18:54.820 off the national scene and out of these races.

00:18:57.340 And then there were primaries that were ugly and you really had to bend the knee to Trump

00:19:03.040 to get the nod in some of these.

00:19:05.140 And so maybe even once that, you know, best suited candidate was removed, the best candidate

00:19:11.720 didn't win.

00:19:12.380 Right.

00:19:12.620 It had to be the guy on his knees saying 2020 was stolen.

00:19:16.680 That's not great.

00:19:18.020 That's not great.

00:19:18.780 And I really think like the Republicans, I mean, I have been somebody all along who has

00:19:22.960 said the 2020 election was not stolen.

00:19:24.980 And I get a lot of feedback from some of my audience members saying, you're an idiot.

00:19:29.620 Pay attention.

00:19:30.560 Take a closer look.

00:19:31.380 Well, I have.

00:19:31.920 I have looked at all of it.

00:19:33.340 I'm not persuaded.

00:19:34.380 And I think the election does show most people are not persuaded or at least want to move on

00:19:40.300 from this other than Trump, other than Trump, who like that was the litmus test for him.

00:19:46.100 You saw the tweet he sent out just the other night about the guy in New Hampshire.

00:19:51.680 Right.

00:19:52.180 Who's like he he backed me, Bolduc.

00:19:55.020 He backed me and he said that the election was stolen and it wasn't until he switched

00:19:58.720 on that that he started to fall.

00:20:01.320 You know, he went down because he switched and stopped denying that the election was stolen.

00:20:06.180 I mean, so I don't know.

00:20:09.560 Don Bolduc shows the problem with a kingmaker like Donald Trump.

00:20:12.180 I mean, you have a guy like that running in New Hampshire.

00:20:14.780 That that should have been a pretty reasonably easy get for Republicans.

00:20:19.100 And you have a guy who's talking about 2020 in the election and is also a little bit unhinged.

00:20:24.940 I mean, obviously, New Hampshire has been live free or die and has a sort of libertarian

00:20:28.920 ethos.

00:20:29.400 But, you know, I'm from Massachusetts.

00:20:30.240 It's been people moving for, you know, to not pay property taxes and things or state

00:20:34.460 tax in moving to New Hampshire.

00:20:36.640 So it's a different kind of electric.

00:20:37.900 Now, it's very purple in its way.

00:20:39.440 And it's just the wrong candidates.

00:20:40.920 You have one person anointing people.

00:20:42.520 You're not looking specifically at what Republican candidates work in certain places.

00:20:47.240 I mean, Memonau is like, you know, a carpetbagger who I didn't I can't even imagine what it

00:20:52.820 is about him that is Republican in any sense.

00:20:56.000 I mean, not even MAGA, just Republican in any real sense.

00:20:58.880 So, you know, it's been strange.

00:20:59.940 I mean, Pat Toomey should have been running again.

00:21:02.400 I mean, this is a thing.

00:21:03.620 Also, by the way, let's also say in Pennsylvania, Democrats who just, you know, pissing on Republicans

00:21:08.700 all the time, you know, Conor Lamb would have been the much better candidate there.

00:21:11.980 I mean, he's he's an interesting guy.

00:21:13.380 He's a centrist guy.

00:21:14.060 He's a smart guy.

00:21:14.880 And they go with John Fetterman.

00:21:16.240 And this is, you know, pre-stroke.

00:21:17.760 But even after I mean, how the Republicans let's just stop for a second.

00:21:21.680 I'm going to break my train of thought there.

00:21:23.500 They lost to John Fetterman.

00:21:25.580 They did.

00:21:26.420 No offense to John Fetterman.

00:21:28.100 I feel bad for the guy and everything.

00:21:30.120 But they lost to John Fetterman.

00:21:32.800 I mean, this is astonishing.

00:21:34.640 Blame whoever you want.

00:21:35.620 But you have a TV doctor and the thing that this is the thing about Trump, you know, you

00:21:39.500 said you're right, Megan, he's going backwards.

00:21:41.120 And, you know, we can't have a future unless we look backwards about 2020.

00:21:45.060 This is a man who won the election in 2016 and questioned the numbers.

00:21:48.440 This is a man on, you know, his inauguration day, questioned the numbers in 2020.

00:21:52.460 He's always looking for more in this sense.

00:21:55.120 And he just can't let this go.

00:21:56.400 And it's like we don't need somebody like that who is obsessed with the past.

00:22:00.660 It's not even about mega policies because you have people that can pull this off.

00:22:04.700 They can do versions of MAGA and realize that the Republican Party is a more populous place

00:22:09.480 now.

00:22:10.140 It's less, you know, unfortunately, of a free trade, free marketplace.

00:22:13.400 But, you know, that's kind of the vibe in Republican politics now.

00:22:16.320 You can do that without grievance politics.

00:22:19.380 And that's what the Republican Party has to learn.

00:22:21.200 And, you know, I think the lesson that this election is not MAGA in general.

00:22:26.200 It's the grievance stuff about elections.

00:22:28.160 It's the grievance stuff about a whole bunch of other things.

00:22:30.700 You know, talking about the media endlessly gets boring to people because I've talked to

00:22:34.620 people about this and they're like, enough.

00:22:36.740 We like him, but enough.

00:22:37.940 And that happens a lot.

00:22:39.400 This honestly comes up a lot.

00:22:40.980 It's like we'd like him better if he wasn't so rough around the edges.

00:22:44.120 It gets a little tedious and tiresome now.

00:22:46.860 I mean, speaking of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu had a good quote yesterday, I think, on Fox

00:22:50.500 saying voters and, you know, he sailed to victory.

00:22:55.080 Voters, they want us to fix policies, but first they want us to fix the crazy.

00:22:59.820 And that is kind of what's happened.

00:23:02.880 It's worth looking and highlighting the independent vote, which John Putthorch does in the New

00:23:08.160 York Post story.

00:23:09.480 Independents always swing against the party of the incumbent president in the first midterm.

00:23:15.140 There's no exception to that rule.

00:23:17.140 2002 after 9-11 would be the only other one that I can think of.

00:23:20.560 In this case, independents by one or two percentage points favor Democrats.

00:23:25.000 I wouldn't even say actually favor Democrats.

00:23:28.580 They chose to vote for the Democrat because they saw crazy.

00:23:31.880 And if you look at all of those individual races, Herschel Walker, Mastriano, some of

00:23:35.800 the more out there people, independents swung against them by 20 percentage points, not

00:23:40.040 one or two.

00:23:41.260 One race that I would highlight, Megan, talking about, you know, you're contrasting with Arizona.

00:23:47.800 Joe Lombardo has a decent to an excellent chance of winning the governorship in Nevada to

00:23:53.580 flipping it from an incumbent Democrat, Steve Sisolak.

00:23:56.960 Even if Cortez Masto ends up winning the Senate, he has a good chance of being the governor.

00:24:01.920 Why?

00:24:02.520 Well, in his primary, which was a jungle primary, they had a super Trumpy person who then, like,

00:24:08.460 after he lost, denied that he lost all kinds of lawsuits.

00:24:11.940 He was as Trumpy as could get.

00:24:13.820 Lombardo, who's the sheriff of Clark County, and, you know, likes Trump and got his endorsement,

00:24:19.840 but didn't run on that and didn't run on stopping the steal and all that kind of stuff.

00:24:23.900 He ran on COVID because Steve Sisolak was a big lockdown guy in a state that absolutely

00:24:28.700 positively needs tourism dollars.

00:24:31.820 They're all looking at the beaches in Florida being open and the strip was closed.

00:24:36.360 He ran on this.

00:24:37.260 He's probably going to win on this.

00:24:39.200 And he won by not being as full of a 2020 election focused person as he could have been.

00:24:45.560 That is the path.

00:24:46.280 It doesn't mean that you have to be John Podhoretz or Jonah Goldberg or other people,

00:24:51.560 all of whom are lovely and friends of ours, but who staked out a very strong anti-Trump,

00:24:57.020 as did Rupert Murdoch back in 2015.

00:24:59.180 Let's not forget.

00:25:01.560 State.

00:25:02.820 No, there's a way to do this and to be respectful, but also be talking about policies that actually

00:25:07.620 affect human beings.

00:25:08.480 And people are really mad about the policies that Democrats have been doing.

00:25:12.080 So there's a great opportunity here.

00:25:13.740 And again, Republicans just blew it.

00:25:15.140 All right.

00:25:15.860 I have a couple of points to make.

00:25:17.660 I don't think there's any way the New York Post would be running headlines like this

00:25:20.840 if it hadn't been blessed by Team Murdoch.

00:25:23.300 There'd been some sort of, you know, it can be.

00:25:26.140 Trust me, I've worked at the organization.

00:25:27.480 It could be something as simple as like Rupert really likes DeSantis.

00:25:31.100 You know, just it could be a passing comment like that.

00:25:33.860 People think that that was said to me before I had my contentious, you know, moment with Trump

00:25:38.920 at that dispute at that debate.

00:25:40.220 It's not true.

00:25:40.880 No one had ever said I had no idea where the Murdochs stood.

00:25:44.460 It was just a debate where I wanted to, you know, give everybody a tough question.

00:25:48.300 But to me, it seems clear they're there.

00:25:50.960 They've moved over to Team DeSantis.

00:25:52.800 You watch Fox, if you see the New York Post.

00:25:55.140 One point from Podoretz's piece in the New York Post on the independence.

00:25:58.520 You raise a good point.

00:26:01.460 It's pretty shocking.

00:26:02.640 He writes, in the past four midterms, independence chose the party out of power by double-digit

00:26:10.480 margins.

00:26:11.380 All right.

00:26:11.640 By double-digit margin.

00:26:12.700 Independence like divided government.

00:26:14.200 I'm an independent.

00:26:14.880 I like divided government.

00:26:16.140 In 2018, independence went 12 points.

00:26:19.420 Dem.

00:26:19.860 Trump was president.

00:26:20.860 In 2006, they went 18 points.

00:26:23.520 Dem.

00:26:24.140 There was a Republican president.

00:26:25.140 In 2010 and 2014, when Obama was president, independence went Republican 16 and 12 points,

00:26:31.960 respectively.

00:26:33.100 This week, they went 49 to 48.

00:26:36.720 Dem.

00:26:37.980 Completely reversing the historical trend.

00:26:41.480 They didn't even go for the party out of power.

00:26:43.880 They went for the party in power by one point.

00:26:45.860 I mean, extraordinary.

00:26:48.200 So they clearly, and, you know, one of the things that's really irritating me is none

00:26:52.820 of this was reflected in the majority of polls we were watching.

00:26:56.520 When you looked at the independence and how they were polling, they were definitely leaning

00:26:59.500 right.

00:26:59.980 We'll get to the polls in a second, too.

00:27:01.100 That's also on our agenda.

00:27:02.300 But before I do that, let me give you one other thing, because Trump has just commented

00:27:05.100 yet again.

00:27:07.040 He's truth socially.

00:27:08.420 He's truthing.

00:27:09.080 I don't think this is like the Inflation Reduction Act.

00:27:12.500 This is like the Inflation Reduction Act.

00:27:15.520 I do not think the name reflects what is actually happening.

00:27:21.820 He sends out just now, Clark County, Nevada, has a corrupt voting system.

00:27:29.620 Be careful, Adam, as do many places in our soon to be third world country.

00:27:34.940 Arizona even said, quote, by the end of the week, end quote, they want more time to cheat.

00:27:41.540 Cary Lake must win.

00:27:45.580 Now, we've all been complaining about the time, but here he is.

00:27:48.880 Once again, it's corrupt.

00:27:50.600 It's a third world country.

00:27:52.860 Cary Lake must win.

00:27:54.160 You know, it's kind of like an or else.

00:27:55.780 It's you can't move the immovable guy.

00:27:59.420 No, and it's the language of a third world country, too, actually, to talk about elections

00:28:03.060 and talk about, you know, how disastrous everything is.

00:28:06.200 I mean, I have been very, very vocal in denouncing people on the left who say that we're in the

00:28:12.520 midst of a fascist takeover in a fascist moment, in a Weimar moment, that democracy is dying

00:28:18.600 and it dies in darkness and is probably going to die on Tuesday or there is going to be

00:28:22.860 violence.

00:28:23.520 I mean, this is both ways.

00:28:24.740 And I mean, of course, that I think it's been a lot worse on the left recently.

00:28:27.480 But you have these things and like if you see those numbers that John Podhurst puts

00:28:31.960 out there and that doesn't cause a little bit, just a little bit of introspection.

00:28:36.880 And I'm going to steal from something from Matt Welch, but I'm giving him credit right

00:28:39.820 now.

00:28:40.540 He said you said something this morning, but it reminded me is that people coming out

00:28:43.460 now rather than being introspective, because the MAGA movement isn't a very introspective

00:28:47.840 movement.

00:28:48.140 Right.

00:28:48.500 I mean, that's probably not very surprising, but there's something Marxist about it when

00:28:52.080 it says when there's people coming out and say, you know, well, no, no, no.

00:28:54.500 It's actually true MAGA has never really been tried.

00:28:57.060 I mean, that's what happened after the fall of the country.

00:28:59.800 Well, actually, that wasn't real communism.

00:29:01.920 And it's like instead of doing that, the raw numbers, it doesn't mean, again, and I want

00:29:06.540 to stress this, that it doesn't mean that the party doesn't have to back away from things

00:29:10.900 that people liked.

00:29:11.960 There was a change that happened in 2016, and it was speaking to, you know, what was

00:29:16.560 called in the New Deal, the forgotten man, the people that came out for Trump in a way

00:29:21.720 that they hadn't come out for Republicans before, because there was a messaging in a

00:29:25.000 way that talked to working class people.

00:29:26.820 Is the Republican Party going to remake itself as a working class party?

00:29:29.360 It's trying to do that.

00:29:30.580 It doesn't have to do it in a MAGA way.

00:29:33.080 And I think that the problem with Donald Trump and why he's kind of like a millstone

00:29:37.220 around their necks is that it takes the focus away from, I mean, all this, having a conversation

00:29:42.640 on truth social, you know, in the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, the name of truth

00:29:48.440 social, I mean, it doesn't, this is not helpful.

00:29:51.520 Nobody cares about this stuff.

00:29:53.140 It is exactly what the blue checkmark idiots that live in Brooklyn do.

00:29:57.160 They're talking to themselves.

00:29:58.600 There is a MAGA bubble happening.

00:30:00.040 And when you go out and talk to voters, they're like, yeah, yeah, maybe they'll even agree

00:30:03.500 that there was some anomalies or something.

00:30:05.680 There's some really hardcore people that have seen a D'Souza, you know, 48 million mules movie

00:30:10.420 or whatever it's called.

00:30:11.200 But it's not many.

00:30:12.420 It's mostly people that are annoyed that X and Y are happening in their pocketbooks and they

00:30:17.640 can't pay for things.

00:30:18.580 I mean, like, you know, interest rates.

00:30:20.880 There are people that I talk to who have adjustable rate mortgages and it's up seven and a half

00:30:23.880 percent, the highest in 1991.

00:30:25.880 I mean, these are real issues.

00:30:27.280 Nobody gives a shit about what happened in 2020 at this point.

00:30:30.700 That's grievance politics.

00:30:32.240 It's in the past.

00:30:33.420 Look to the future and be solutions oriented.

00:30:35.360 And if the Republican Party could do that, they could win easy elections that they're losing.

00:30:39.620 There was that Adrian Vermeel tweet that one of you guys shared in our persistent iMessage

00:30:45.620 thread earlier today.

00:30:48.040 Speaking of grievance.

00:30:49.080 The message of the tweet was essentially-

00:30:50.560 Chat, before you come on the show, that's fun.

00:30:53.740 You essentially, you can't expect better from progressives who are in a cult and will vote

00:31:00.380 for failing progressive candidates, even at the expense of their own lives, which very

00:31:06.140 much sounds to me like, what's the matter with Kansas?

00:31:09.300 It's the same sort of construction.

00:31:11.380 Like, these people are voting against their own interests.

00:31:14.740 We're not the problem.

00:31:15.760 If voters aren't choosing us, it's because of something that's wrong with the voters.

00:31:19.880 Either it's white supremacy or it's, what, woke derangement.

00:31:24.060 And I do think that there is something very, very pernicious that makes you far less introspective

00:31:29.520 when you have this kind of fundamentalist thinking that guides your politics and that informs

00:31:34.240 the way that you organize your party.

00:31:36.500 And at the moment, I mean, conservatives in particular, I think, are more at risk of this

00:31:40.780 than Democrats.

00:31:42.020 Democrats, for the most part, have been telling you over and over again, things are not as

00:31:45.680 bad as you suspect.

00:31:46.680 What inflation?

00:31:47.520 There's no inflation.

00:31:48.240 Everything is fine.

00:31:49.200 And also, democracy is going to end unless you vote for our party.

00:31:52.420 But Republicans, on the other hand, are just kind of gesturing in the direction of progressives

00:31:56.880 and saying, look at them.

00:31:57.620 They're making a mess of things.

00:31:58.980 Aren't they terrible?

00:32:00.160 Maybe you should vote for us.

00:32:02.060 And it's just not a very compelling argument.

00:32:04.200 Well, they wanted to make it a referendum on Joe Biden.

00:32:07.060 And the conventional wisdom was that that would work.

00:32:09.540 That was a smart thing to do.

00:32:11.100 And maybe those progressives are not gettable.

00:32:13.260 You know, maybe that tweet is correct and they're not gettable.

00:32:16.220 Their team, you know, Dem, same as a hardcore right, is team Republican.

00:32:21.220 But the independents are gettable.

00:32:23.060 The independents, as I just listed, they're gettable.

00:32:27.540 And the real question here is, why didn't you get them?

00:32:30.920 That's what the Republicans need to be figuring out.

00:32:32.980 Why didn't they come to you?

00:32:34.600 And there are a lot of possibilities.

00:32:36.760 Abortion, Trump, candidate selection, which is kind of related, you know, election denialism.

00:32:42.260 All those things are related.

00:32:43.680 I think a lot of us were like, oh, my God, shut up with the January 6th hearings and like

00:32:47.440 the constant focus on like he's an election denier and he's an election denier.

00:32:51.980 I would say as somebody who watches Republican politics closely, that has kind of became used

00:32:56.160 to it.

00:32:56.500 I'm like, we all have to say that because they have to kiss Trump's ring.

00:32:59.020 That's the price of admission.

00:33:00.060 We know they don't believe it.

00:33:01.940 Then once they get past the primary, they all wind up being like, well, you know, there

00:33:06.580 are questions and they move past it.

00:33:09.580 But I think for a lot of voters, they were like, oh, no, we're not doing that.

00:33:14.740 Or, you know, there will be some accountability for people who refuse to say that Joe Biden

00:33:19.840 won.

00:33:20.200 And who were those people?

00:33:21.620 Independents.

00:33:22.640 That's just one of the many, one of the many, you know, again, like the guy saying

00:33:25.860 that there's a blood cult in the Hillary in the following Hillary Clinton.

00:33:29.380 That's that's not going to fly with the people who have an eye after their names.

00:33:32.500 Let me stand you by quick break.

00:33:34.320 God, we've got a lot to get to.

00:33:35.300 I'm glad we have you for the full show.

00:33:36.680 More with the guys from the fifth column right after this.

00:33:39.020 All right, a word on candidate quality.

00:33:46.260 I'm thinking in my head.

00:33:47.060 All right, because the Democrats didn't have some stellar roster either.

00:33:50.940 Right.

00:33:51.200 But they managed to win Maggie Hassan in all in any sane world.

00:33:55.220 She would have gone down.

00:33:56.720 Katie Hobbs.

00:33:58.300 I mean, right.

00:34:00.020 Exactly.

00:34:00.440 That that wooden table in front of you has more of a personality than she has.

00:34:04.060 Kathy Hochul.

00:34:04.920 My God.

00:34:05.900 Horrible with the big eyebrows and the vax necklace.

00:34:08.300 I mean, what independent wants to vote for her?

00:34:10.700 And then there's John Fetterman.

00:34:12.620 OK, John Fetterman, who, as we know, is incomprehensible now.

00:34:17.360 He's he's unable to comprehend and he himself is incomprehensible.

00:34:22.040 And yet, listen to the talk about that guy.

00:34:26.380 Now, I give you Katie Turr of MSNBC.

00:34:29.940 Fetterman as a nominee at some point for president.

00:34:34.340 I know there's some variables, obviously.

00:34:36.480 But I just, you know, what he did in the in the super red, deep red parts of Pennsylvania and the way that he ran ahead of Biden, as you were saying, ran ahead of Trump.

00:34:48.260 I mean, it just makes it makes you wonder about his future.

00:34:51.880 This reminds me of a similar approach that they had towards Tim Ryan.

00:34:59.280 They're showering praise on Tim Ryan's campaign in Ohio, which he lost to J.D. Vance.

00:35:04.080 Let's remember, I think that there is this sort of admiration that media lefty Democrat elite New York coastal people have once they encounter a semi blue collar person being successful as a Democrat in the wild.

00:35:22.200 Wow. He talks like a he talks like a trucker or something.

00:35:27.580 That's thrilling.

00:35:29.920 It's kind of it's kind of it's kind of gross.

00:35:31.920 And I like Katie.

00:35:33.100 But I clean articulate.

00:35:35.140 Clean and articulate is the phrase that comes.

00:35:36.680 Well, that's the thing, Camille.

00:35:37.780 I'm going to say this. Do you want to say it?

00:35:39.220 And I just want to say, first of all, I really like Katie.

00:35:40.820 She's a great person.

00:35:41.620 But that was very Trump.

00:35:42.880 He's a great person.

00:35:45.260 Camille, you can say it.

00:35:46.580 This is what Republicans do.

00:35:48.020 What Matt was saying about about working class people, it's what Republicans do with black candidates.

00:35:53.720 You got to take it from me because I can't talk about this.

00:35:56.360 You have said this is what Republicans do with black.

00:35:58.560 Yes, of course.

00:35:59.480 Oh, not just Republicans.

00:36:00.440 That was Joe Biden.

00:36:01.660 Oh, he's so clean and articulate.

00:36:03.380 That was Joe Biden on Barack Obama.

00:36:04.940 You know, that's amazing, too.

00:36:05.840 I totally forgot that he had a vice president.

00:36:08.660 I completely forgot about her.

00:36:10.540 Wait a minute.

00:36:11.060 You haven't been on talking about yellow school buses at all recently.

00:36:13.480 And Camille, it wasn't just that Joe Biden said it about Barack Obama.

00:36:18.640 But did you hear him last week speaking at the, I've got to get the acronyms right, the HBCU?

00:36:25.640 He was speaking to a bunch of people.

00:36:27.380 And he was like, you know, you don't have as big of an endowment as like Harvard.

00:36:33.400 But you're just as smart.

00:36:35.340 You're just as capable.

00:36:37.760 Honestly, it was so humiliating.

00:36:40.140 It's cringy.

00:36:41.120 You could, the unheard statement was, even though you're at an all black college, even

00:36:46.200 though you're black.

00:36:46.780 Yeah, the gentleman does protest too much is the thought that always comes to mind.

00:36:50.640 He always gets away with it.

00:36:51.880 I think Corn Pop went there.

00:36:54.020 Come on, Corn Pop.

00:36:55.340 Come on.

00:36:56.780 Knife in a shoe.

00:36:58.400 Yeah.

00:36:59.140 No, but the tokenism is real.

00:37:00.800 And I get the instinct of somebody in a way to be like, oh, finally, we have somebody who's

00:37:05.940 a working class or feels like a working class candidate.

00:37:07.860 Because, you know, the issue with all these people, it's the same thing in media.

00:37:11.320 Anybody in media, you just look up their LinkedIn.

00:37:13.900 They all went to Columbia Journalism School.

00:37:15.720 Everybody did undergraduate at some elite school.

00:37:18.220 And that is kind of annoying to people.

00:37:19.920 And you have somebody who even feels a bit authentic.

00:37:23.520 And I get the idea of like, maybe we can run him.

00:37:27.040 Because, you know, in the thing we're not supposed to talk about, because we're going to talk

00:37:29.360 about it in a bit in Florida, is that, you know, you do have somebody who went to an Ivy

00:37:32.540 League school, but, you know, seems to connect with working people.

00:37:36.480 And that's something that Democrats, you know, that's FDR.

00:37:39.660 That's Great Society, LBJ.

00:37:41.180 That's not today.

00:37:42.380 And they're not doing that.

00:37:43.140 And I get the kind of desire to find someone that's even close.

00:37:46.440 I mean, Biden is supposed to be that, right?

00:37:47.940 He's supposed to be Lunch Bucket Joe from Scranton.

00:37:50.060 Takes the Amtrak.

00:37:51.440 Forget where he had it off, but he takes the Amtrak.

00:37:53.200 The part of it does seem to be that there's this kind of contempt for people who don't

00:37:58.080 have cosmopolitan sensibilities.

00:38:00.440 And they seem to be amazed by the fact that you can go to conservative places, to deep red

00:38:06.180 places, and talk to people and not insist to their faces that they're racist monsters who are

00:38:12.640 deplorable and are beyond contempt.

00:38:15.040 If you just don't do that, hey, yeah, you've got a shot at persuading them.

00:38:19.820 It doesn't make you a genius.

00:38:21.240 It makes you a decent human being.

00:38:23.920 And unfortunately, some of these people have forgotten that that's even a possibility.

00:38:28.720 Yeah.

00:38:29.020 I mean, it's crazy because Ron does.

00:38:30.740 I mean, John Fetterman is not going to become president of the United States.

00:38:34.680 Maybe if he runs against Dr. Oz, maybe if he runs against Dr. Oz again.

00:38:38.960 And that's the thing about Dr. Oz.

00:38:40.520 Like Dr. Oz is a nice guy and he's a super smart guy, but he was never a good fit for Pennsylvania.

00:38:46.300 He was a carpetbagger and they knew it.

00:38:48.560 They knew it.

00:38:49.200 You know, Hillary Clinton got away with doing that here in New York, even though she wasn't

00:38:53.140 from New York.

00:38:53.740 She didn't live in New York.

00:38:54.480 She claimed she was a New Yorker because this is a blue, blue, blue state that was like,

00:38:59.120 OK, we'll take her.

00:39:00.000 She's our queen.

00:39:00.680 And but he Pennsylvania wasn't like that.

00:39:04.540 Pennsylvania's got a healthy Democratic population.

00:39:06.520 And they were like, no, no, no.

00:39:09.200 And you can't drink wine at a tailgate and you can't not know when the Steelers are playing.

00:39:13.940 These are like you can't you can't baby blood.

00:39:17.580 No, it's just I'm just saying that's a rumor.

00:39:20.280 That's what I heard.

00:39:21.040 I can't confirm it.

00:39:22.360 All right.

00:39:23.360 Let's talk about DeSantis now, because he you were saying, you know, he has he went

00:39:27.080 to Harvard, Harvard or whatever.

00:39:28.540 I think I think he did double Harvard.

00:39:30.080 In any event, he was in the military, too.

00:39:32.620 And he's from Florida.

00:39:33.960 Right.

00:39:34.200 Like, I think he's born and raised Florida.

00:39:36.220 So this is not a guy who's like he's not from like forgiving because I'm in Canada.

00:39:40.440 He's not from Connecticut.

00:39:41.720 You're like my kids will be.

00:39:43.700 He's not he doesn't sound like an elitist snob.

00:39:48.360 He like, yes, he's always in a suit, but he's a little bit like.

00:39:53.060 Disheveled about him.

00:39:54.020 I don't know.

00:39:54.660 Like an endearing way in an endearing way.

00:39:57.000 I don't he doesn't like look like a Mitt Romney who's like perfectly quaffed all the time

00:40:01.280 where you're like, oh, or even Dr.

00:40:03.420 Oz.

00:40:03.680 Right.

00:40:04.300 So you tell me, having spent all this time with him, Moynihan, like what what's the magic

00:40:09.640 like when you observed him?

00:40:11.500 How do you describe the magic?

00:40:13.560 Well, the first thing is, I think people make a mistake about, you know, I don't I kind

00:40:17.860 of sometimes do it, too.

00:40:18.820 And it's easy to kind of slip into that is that if you went to Harvard, if you went

00:40:22.300 to Yale, it doesn't make you I mean, and you actually can use the word in a pejorative

00:40:27.320 way and call people elitist.

00:40:28.620 I mean, remember, the person who was, you know, a quote unquote traitor to his class

00:40:32.200 was FDR, one of the kind of richest men in the country from a pretty illustrious family

00:40:36.800 and became the the kind of avatar of the working class during the Depression in the 30s and

00:40:42.180 the 40s.

00:40:42.820 So I don't think it's difficult to do that, provided you actually don't act like it and

00:40:47.180 you actually really try to understand and try to focus on on the needs of working class

00:40:51.400 people.

00:40:52.320 But, you know, I think the thing that people misunderstand is that they spent a long time

00:40:56.600 comparing DeSantis to Donald Trump, you know, as just as a stage presence, which is the

00:41:02.520 wrong comparison.

00:41:03.820 I'll tell you what to do.

00:41:04.700 You watch him and there's always opening acts, right?

00:41:07.140 You see him and there's going to be local people.

00:41:09.060 There's going to be people in the state Senate.

00:41:11.540 You know, none of them are very good.

00:41:13.420 I mean, there's some that were smart people.

00:41:14.720 Some of them are interesting.

00:41:16.100 And DeSantis goes up there and just, you know, blows the house down because he just

00:41:20.980 he gets what, you know, the applause lines he understands.

00:41:24.400 Trump would work out an applause line and make it policy.

00:41:27.220 You know, he would say, build the wall and be like, oh, you know, until we find out what's

00:41:30.460 really happening.

00:41:31.040 And he was like, oh, that was a good one.

00:41:32.240 And like literally advisors, people said this in books that like he would then make that

00:41:35.580 policy.

00:41:36.340 It's much more, you know, applauded with with DeSantis, who understands the issues that voters

00:41:41.560 care about.

00:41:42.640 And you notice at the end of this, by the way, that the cheers you get, which is really

00:41:48.460 something else for covid stuff where I mean, you understand at the end of this who won

00:41:54.780 the covid debate because who who took an opposite position of Florida and Ron DeSantis is running

00:42:00.980 on covid zero.

00:42:02.960 You're not going to get a single person.

00:42:05.100 No Gavin Newsom's of the world at the French Laundry, you know, violating their own mandates

00:42:09.320 and no one is doing that.

00:42:11.200 Ron DeSantis is because he actually has a pretty solid case.

00:42:15.180 And so when he goes out there, he has a very, very good mix of kind of culture war stuff,

00:42:19.620 but applies it pretty specifically to the state.

00:42:22.260 Right.

00:42:22.660 But forward looking.

00:42:23.840 We want to stop it here as the kind of to borrow from FDR.

00:42:27.000 You know, this is the kind of laboratory of democracy in Florida.

00:42:29.640 And we're going to push this out.

00:42:30.880 But it's really interesting to see the applause lines that are actually here are things that I

00:42:35.960 did not, you know, good lines, not funny bits.

00:42:39.640 He does a little funny bit about Joe Biden and the rest of it.

00:42:42.220 But the stuff that people go really crazy about is like, yeah, I know you did that.

00:42:47.080 That's why I live here.

00:42:48.020 And that's why Florida is a great free state.

00:42:49.880 So it was really interesting to watch people respond because I'm always watching people

00:42:53.440 respond to like a good speech.

00:42:55.860 This is someone saying, here are my achievements.

00:42:58.080 And people are really excited about it.

00:42:59.940 I think that there's a misperception that we're an underratedness, let's say, of COVID.

00:43:07.560 If you look at the exit polls that came out, I think today, asking people what's their most

00:43:13.000 important issue or what issue they think is most important in the country, which are two

00:43:16.480 different questions.

00:43:17.260 And COVID is like 2%.

00:43:18.560 It's not there.

00:43:19.820 But Michael Brennan Doherty, I think, makes a pretty good case over at National Review that

00:43:24.040 the issues that people do care about a lot right now are like directly downstream from

00:43:28.660 COVID.

00:43:28.880 It's inflation.

00:43:29.460 You know, we threw a ton of money into the system right then and also before then, to

00:43:35.000 be honest, both Biden and Trump.

00:43:37.400 But we threw a ton of money, unprecedented amount, and it led directly to inflation.

00:43:41.460 Crime, right?

00:43:42.480 That all, like the summer of 2020, it just shot up in a whole bunch of cities directly.

00:43:47.900 Education, which is animating a lot of people.

00:43:50.480 So all of those come from there.

00:43:52.740 Uh, DeSantis was not anything like a nationally viable politician four years ago.

00:43:59.420 No.

00:43:59.820 Barely beat a guy who was showing up in weird situations in the hotel room.

00:44:05.660 Literally.

00:44:06.780 On drugs.

00:44:07.740 Beated by half a percentage point.

00:44:09.320 Prostitutes.

00:44:09.940 The thing that changed was the way that he managed COVID.

00:44:12.540 And this also helped Brian Kemp in Georgia.

00:44:15.620 It helped Jared Polis in Colorado in a very strong way.

00:44:18.840 So I think that that issue has more salience than people are giving credit for.

00:44:24.600 Yes, abortion was a much bigger issue, I think, than people realized before this election day.

00:44:31.300 But COVID lasts.

00:44:32.620 And people remember the stuff that people are mad about right now that I'm mad about right

00:44:36.060 now living in New York, um, and it motivated, uh, my vote, uh, uh, here, uh, is, is COVID related policy.

00:44:44.060 So I think that's a strong base to build.

00:44:47.660 It's not going to evaporate because people are going to remember and apply it in different ways

00:44:51.860 to their lives, even if they don't name it as the, their top mind issue right now.

00:44:55.880 Well, think about that because in New York, they kept Hochul, but she wasn't really in

00:45:00.120 charge during COVID for most of it, as we all know, it was Cuomo, uh, and she was, you know,

00:45:05.460 she, she moved up once he got bounced and New Yorkers are mad.

00:45:08.540 New Yorkers did make them pay at the polls this time.

00:45:10.720 And New Yorkers had the advantage of, uh, an overzealous Democrat party that tried to

00:45:14.960 gerrymander the state in a way that was so unfair.

00:45:17.480 The court struck it down and said a special master and independent, uh, third party had to

00:45:21.820 redo it.

00:45:22.360 So that was redone in a fair way.

00:45:23.760 So Republicans had a fighting chance and they were mad and they got to express it.

00:45:28.200 And there's 100% chance it had to do with COVID.

00:45:30.880 It was mostly Long Island, um, which tends to be more red than let's say New York city.

00:45:36.300 And she was made to pay in Michigan.

00:45:38.040 I think the same thing could have, could have potentially happened, but abortion was a

00:45:41.600 much bigger issue.

00:45:42.240 There, much bigger issue.

00:45:43.420 There was on the ballot.

00:45:44.260 It was very smart move by them to put that prop three on the ballot because in the same

00:45:47.700 way, Karl Rove got the gay marriage initiatives on the ballots in 24, 2004, when George W.

00:45:53.200 Bush was suffering, he got people to the polls, he got him to vote Republican.

00:45:56.960 That's what they did in Michigan with that prop three.

00:45:59.380 But yeah, I think you're right.

00:46:00.340 There is the downstream of COVID things did appear in this election cycle, but just in

00:46:04.260 an unexpected way.

00:46:05.160 Go ahead, Camille.

00:46:06.380 No, I was just going to say that I, I, I heard Ron, um, give a talk.

00:46:10.280 Maybe it was, uh, like summer of 2001, uh, when, or 2021, when things were starting to

00:46:15.800 open up and it was interesting, it contrasted with the, the things you heard him saying,

00:46:20.240 Michael, like most of those talk, most of the talk focused on wokeness and cultural war

00:46:25.640 stuff.

00:46:26.080 At the time he could talk about COVID and the response to COVID a bit, but it was still

00:46:31.340 somewhat up in the air, whether or not he, he would be right.

00:46:33.740 Uh, I think the fact that he has so decisively been proven right on that issue has allowed

00:46:39.240 him to put it front and center.

00:46:40.360 And that is all to his advantage.

00:46:42.340 But also Camille, he was probably speaking to your group is as a national group, as opposed

00:46:46.880 to running for a local, yeah, this was outside of the state.

00:46:50.760 This was in Georgia.

00:46:51.340 Yeah.

00:46:51.580 I mean, his, his signaling and the stuff that he's done, I've been against it.

00:46:54.740 I think it's bad, like trying to punish Disney, trying to punish woke things.

00:46:58.000 I don't like, uh, uh, his education bill, not necessary to argue about all of it right

00:47:03.200 now, but I don't like those, but all of those things for the most part, with the exception,

00:47:06.440 I think of, of, uh, like trans athletes in schools are like him putting on his national

00:47:12.080 face, especially when he's, when he was, uh, I think more worried about Trump than he

00:47:15.660 probably is right now.

00:47:16.560 Well, and it's such a joy just to see somebody take on these battles.

00:47:19.240 It's like so many Republicans roll over about it.

00:47:21.560 They'll give it lip service.

00:47:22.400 They don't know how to fight it.

00:47:23.220 Stand by much more with the guys from the fifth column after this.

00:47:27.480 An update because Trump tweeted that thing about Nevada, um, and it's corrupt voting

00:47:36.640 system.

00:47:37.580 And now John Ralston, who is like the political reporter for Nevada, who we're all following

00:47:42.560 from both sides of the aisle that we follow this guy responds as follows.

00:47:46.260 He says, I want to pause here and say this, and I hope all Republicans on the ballot and

00:47:51.280 listening will disavow.

00:47:52.520 Trump just put out that Clark County has a corrupt voting system and needs, quote, more

00:47:57.320 time to cheat.

00:47:58.740 This is the kind of garbage that he and Laxalt put out in 2020.

00:48:02.820 There is zero evidence of any of this.

00:48:05.140 And all campaigns knew about the mail ballot rules from the start.

00:48:08.460 None of this is a surprise.

00:48:10.080 Neither is Trump's mendacious mewling.

00:48:12.780 Are there any Republicans left in this state who will stand up for the integrity of Nevada's

00:48:18.240 vote?

00:48:20.340 We'll find out.

00:48:21.480 Mendacious mewling.

00:48:22.000 I like that.

00:48:22.640 Mewling.

00:48:23.300 That's a nice alliteration there.

00:48:25.780 Can I take you to the Trump?

00:48:27.500 I mean, sorry, the Pence op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

00:48:30.120 Yeah.

00:48:30.460 Wow.

00:48:31.560 Wow.

00:48:33.120 Speaking of January 6th and election denialism, it's like when I heard it, I started to feel

00:48:40.220 like a sadness for Donald Trump.

00:48:42.420 You know, I really I do feel sad that he had his first term ruined by all these bullshit

00:48:48.600 allegations about Russia and just like the press never let up on him.

00:48:52.320 They were determined to ruin his presidency.

00:48:55.460 And and to his credit, he kept fighting.

00:48:57.520 You know, he did fight and he got a lot of great things done.

00:48:59.880 But the thing about election denialism was like a.

00:49:04.500 I don't know, like a like a robot malfunctioning, like you just can't get it to stop malfunctioning,

00:49:08.940 like that chip went wrong and you just can't write it.

00:49:12.020 He couldn't see it.

00:49:13.700 He's so averse to losing and losers.

00:49:16.980 He just wasn't able to say this one got away.

00:49:20.000 I I made history in 16.

00:49:22.760 The country's in a different mood and I lost this one.

00:49:25.400 Couldn't do it.

00:49:27.200 And Mike Pence, for the first time, describes in this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the

00:49:32.280 extraordinary exchange that they had right after January 6th on Capitol Hill.

00:49:37.360 I'll give you a couple of highlights.

00:49:38.300 I met with the president on January 11th.

00:49:40.980 He looked tired and his voice seemed fainter than usual.

00:49:44.060 How are you?

00:49:44.580 He began.

00:49:45.460 How are Karen and Charlotte?

00:49:46.980 I replied tersely that that we were fine and told him they had been at the Capitol on

00:49:51.980 January 6th.

00:49:53.500 Of course, this is when Trump had antagonized Trump had Pence.

00:49:56.300 His supporters were screaming, hang Mike Pence.

00:49:59.160 Trump had tweeted out aggressive tweets about Mike Pence at this time.

00:50:03.000 Mike Pence was in danger that day.

00:50:04.280 There's no question.

00:50:04.980 And it was in part, in large part, because of Donald Trump.

00:50:10.020 So Trump's telling him, my kid and my wife are with me at the Capitol.

00:50:14.080 Trump responded with a hint of regret.

00:50:16.100 I just learned that.

00:50:17.460 He then asked, were you scared?

00:50:19.860 No, I replied.

00:50:20.740 I was angry.

00:50:22.180 You and I had our differences that day, Mr. President.

00:50:24.840 And seeing those people tearing up the Capitol infuriated me.

00:50:28.200 Those are strong words from Mike Pence, who is like a soft-spoken guy, especially in his

00:50:31.720 dealings with Trump, reportedly.

00:50:32.960 He started to bring up the election, saying that people were angry, but his voice trailed

00:50:36.960 off.

00:50:37.820 I told him he had to set that aside.

00:50:39.940 And he responded quietly, yeah.

00:50:42.840 I said, those people who broke into the Capitol might have been supporters, but they're not

00:50:45.740 our movement.

00:50:46.780 And he went on from there.

00:50:48.180 With genuine sadness in his voice, the president mused, what if we hadn't had the rally?

00:50:53.900 What if they hadn't gone to the Capitol?

00:50:55.840 Then he said, it's too terrible to end like this.

00:51:01.340 It's sad.

00:51:02.260 It's sad because Trump did a lot of good, you know, for all the personal problems he had

00:51:07.000 and so on.

00:51:07.780 He fought and he did a lot of good.

00:51:09.860 And he's recognizing in this moment what just happened and how he's tarred his own legacy

00:51:14.980 by this nonstop election denialism talk and so on.

00:51:18.980 Then it goes on from there.

00:51:21.660 He seemed discouraged.

00:51:23.600 So I reminded him that I was praying for him.

00:51:26.780 Don't bother, Trump said.

00:51:28.740 As I stood to leave, he said, it's been fun.

00:51:32.360 A privilege, Mr. President, I answered.

00:51:34.860 Yeah, with you, he said.

00:51:37.480 Walking toward the door leading to the hallway, I paused, looked the president in the eye and

00:51:41.320 said, I guess we'll just have to disagree on two things.

00:51:45.080 What?

00:51:45.660 Said Trump.

00:51:46.100 I referred to our disagreement about January 6th, and then I said, I'm also never going

00:51:52.220 to stop praying for you.

00:51:53.740 He smiled.

00:51:54.920 That's right.

00:51:56.060 Don't ever change.

00:51:58.400 That whole thing makes me so sad.

00:52:00.960 Mike Pence was this loyal soldier.

00:52:02.980 He, more than probably anybody in the White House, was loyal to Trump, wouldn't publicly

00:52:07.160 criticize Trump, didn't resign after Jan 6th like some of the administration did.

00:52:12.140 He tried to do his best for this guy personally and professionally and for the country.

00:52:17.240 But that but saying that the election was fake was a bridge too far and and not certifying

00:52:23.260 the count was not an option.

00:52:27.120 Contrary to what Trump and others told the world, he didn't even have the power to do

00:52:30.700 what Trump wanted him to do.

00:52:31.820 And still, Trump did sick the mob on him and he was in danger that that day, along with

00:52:37.240 his wife and child.

00:52:38.580 And here they are.

00:52:39.840 This is this is the moment.

00:52:41.380 This is like the chance when they had to address the total disloyalty Trump showed Pence.

00:52:47.260 Pence and Pence in this moment is a classy guy, as I think he usually is.

00:52:53.800 And Trump himself seems to be wrestling with his own behavior and the fracture of this

00:52:59.800 relationship, which I I do think was somewhat important to him, recognizing how bad it was.

00:53:05.580 It's too terrible to end like this.

00:53:08.220 My God, what do you guys think about it?

00:53:11.340 I mean, you're full of of of sadness.

00:53:13.420 I'm filled with anger.

00:53:14.300 It makes me super angry, assuming that the whole thing is true, is written, because

00:53:20.300 all right, he felt he felt the sense of a tinge of regret.

00:53:24.060 And then what did he do in the weeks and months and years since then?

00:53:28.340 He aggressively pushed for people who believed in the thing that he said maybe shouldn't have

00:53:33.600 happened to win elections and primaries in specifically divided states.

00:53:39.560 So I bit crocodile tears for me.

00:53:42.180 Um, I, uh, uh, I appreciate, uh, Pence absolutely turning the other cheek in this situation.

00:53:49.680 Um, I'm a very mild mannered person.

00:53:52.740 I would want to kick the guy in the nuts.

00:53:55.020 You endangered my wife and my daughter.

00:53:57.440 Fuck you.

00:53:59.100 Yeah.

00:53:59.420 I mean, there's, yeah, there's a lot of that in there too.

00:54:01.480 Like, no, I mean, you can, if, as it's rendered is again, if, if, if that is true, it's so

00:54:08.180 hard to imagine Donald Trump having tinges of regret like this.

00:54:12.460 And I'm not trying to sort of dehumanize him in any way, but this has happened with so many

00:54:16.540 people.

00:54:16.980 So many people have been loyal to him who have been by his side and tried to do right by

00:54:21.800 him that, you know, one or two things went wrong.

00:54:26.440 And then he just, I mean, you have to be like him to accept that.

00:54:29.940 So if you're Steve Bannon and I've spent some time with Bannon, you know, Bannon was booted

00:54:34.740 out of the White House fairly, fairly quickly.

00:54:36.460 Right.

00:54:36.720 And then he starts denouncing him, calling him sloppy Steve and the rest of it.

00:54:40.460 And then Bannon comes back.

00:54:41.580 It's very similar that way.

00:54:42.780 It's, it's, it's a bit of a, you know, a kabuki theater, a bit of, you know, professional

00:54:47.220 wrestling that that's okay.

00:54:49.180 But for people like Mike Pence, who, you know, you can hate him, you can dislike his politics,

00:54:52.880 whatever, seems like a pretty genuine and a pretty sensitive guy.

00:54:56.400 And he's, you know, put in a sort of impossible situation here.

00:54:59.720 But, you know, on that day, it's, it's just, you know, had he walked that back and gone

00:55:06.060 to your point and publicly said this was something that was wrong, um, as you know, like, I mean,

00:55:14.220 you see guys like Kevin McCarthy come and denounce January 6th and then walk that back.

00:55:17.540 If Trump had gone out there and said, and given the signal to these people and just said,

00:55:21.240 look, you know, the people have a right to protest.

00:55:23.700 They have a right to be angry.

00:55:24.920 I'm with you.

00:55:25.520 I understand it, but we cannot have this kind of violence.

00:55:28.560 You cannot be shouting that my vice president should be hung up on the gallows in the ellipse

00:55:33.140 in front of the Capitol as madness.

00:55:34.960 But, you know, Trump's thing is that at the end of it, I've always thought this, that the

00:55:38.720 overwhelming thing in his brain, the thing that washes over any sense of reason is, as

00:55:43.500 Megan said, this idea of winning.

00:55:45.100 And I'll give you a brief example of this.

00:55:46.860 I think this has been reported, but a friend of mine worked for Donald Trump for many, many

00:55:50.420 years, and he told me a story that, and it was during The Apprentice, and he said that

00:55:54.880 every time someone would come into his office, he had a stack, and I think this has been

00:55:59.060 reported, a stack of the ratings printed out next to his desk, a stack of them.

00:56:05.100 People would come in and ask nothing.

00:56:07.880 He would sign them and give them to them.

00:56:09.780 And they'd be baffled.

00:56:10.900 They're like, what?

00:56:11.780 And he'd be like, it's the ratings.

00:56:12.800 We're number one show.

00:56:13.480 And just that mentality of constantly winning, constantly being richer than you are, constantly

00:56:20.120 having more voters than you actually had, more people at the inauguration than you did.

00:56:24.560 There's some kind of mental block that it wreaks havoc on everything else.

00:56:29.640 Because I understand Megan's point, too, is that if you are somebody who is a devoted

00:56:33.900 MAGA person, it's like, stick to the things that you did and you did well.

00:56:38.600 You know, the New York Post is right in the coverage, they didn't build the wall.

00:56:41.100 But if you're somebody who likes, you know, some of the regulation stuff, it's pretty

00:56:45.020 interesting.

00:56:46.040 I'm not a fan of the trade stuff.

00:56:47.040 But, you know, the guy did things during his presidency.

00:56:49.500 But it's all overwhelmed by this personal sense of grievance and also this personal

00:56:55.380 sense of that, that if he's not, you know, on top of everything, then there's something

00:56:59.320 wrong.

00:57:00.220 You know, it's so I get in the sense that I think it's sad in that way, because I think

00:57:03.520 there's there's something just slightly defective about the way he thinks about it.

00:57:07.940 You know?

00:57:08.440 Yeah, I think if you thought there was room for a different a different legacy, you know,

00:57:12.980 for people to see once Trump exited the scene and took his, you know, big personality to

00:57:18.920 be charitable in the in summing up Trump's tweets with him, that maybe people could just

00:57:26.240 see the policy, you know, like I look at how strong the economy was.

00:57:30.420 Gas was at 240 when he left office.

00:57:32.580 He had stood up for America on the world stage.

00:57:35.580 It wasn't that our allies were loving us more than ever.

00:57:38.320 But he was right about NATO and these other countries not paying their fair share.

00:57:42.660 He took out some terrorists.

00:57:44.260 He got the Supreme Court in a six three balance.

00:57:47.100 He thought he didn't abandon Brett Kavanaugh when virtually any other president, Republican

00:57:52.040 or Democrat, would have run for the hills after what was done to him.

00:57:56.340 I think about the restoration of due process for young men accused on college campuses,

00:58:01.060 which was very ballsy.

00:58:02.920 And he took a lot of incoming and he stood for it.

00:58:04.820 He's the one who signed the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act.

00:58:07.640 I mean, you could keep going down the list.

00:58:10.000 Operation War Speed.

00:58:11.720 War Speed, Abraham Accords.

00:58:13.860 Yeah, that's right.

00:58:14.820 How did I forget that?

00:58:16.040 Exactly.

00:58:17.000 So it's and it's.

00:58:17.760 Yeah, no, it's sad to me because he his own like his his own.

00:58:22.680 Even there's like a piece of mental illness, almost, you know, that chip that can't get

00:58:27.480 straight with a loss that wound up ruining part of his legacy.

00:58:32.360 Some would argue his entire legacy.

00:58:33.760 I don't think that's true, but some would.

00:58:35.420 And it continues to overshadow him to to loom in American politics.

00:58:41.220 And I think I understand the case that it's actually cost the Republicans what three elections

00:58:46.600 now, you know, not 2020, but like just Trump's personality, his unwillingness to sort of

00:58:51.620 regulate himself, 2020 and 2022.

00:58:55.120 I guess two elections now.

00:58:56.900 I think that imploring us to have some empathy is always important to remember that these

00:59:02.940 people are humans.

00:59:03.780 And there's a very real sense in which there is an unfair standard that national political

00:59:08.600 leaders are held to.

00:59:09.640 But there's a sense in which it's kind of unfair.

00:59:12.440 Like there's an asterisk there, like your your lack of self-discipline, your poor

00:59:16.980 leadership, the lack of courageousness, the duplicitousness, that all of the things that

00:59:22.940 were important qualities of your quote unquote leadership throughout your presidency, they have

00:59:29.460 something to do with how things go badly on January 6th and how you continue to conduct

00:59:35.560 yourself after that.

00:59:37.100 Um, and I think it's, it's fair to focus on and talk about those things.

00:59:42.480 And I say that as someone who in a number of instances where it was decidedly unpopular

00:59:47.900 have found it, um, necessary, at least for me to be honest about the, the mistakes that

00:59:55.360 were made and the mistakes that weren't made when it comes to like characterizations of what

00:59:58.560 Trump said post Charlottesville, for example, which I think is widely misconstrued and misunderstood.

01:00:04.200 Um, and you know, he's getting slagged for racism when in fact, he was just a little sloppy,

01:00:10.120 um, in, in with respect to his statements, but I do think there's something materially

01:00:14.660 different here.

01:00:15.260 And, you know, I, I, I too read the Pence thing and I had some somewhat complicated feelings

01:00:20.040 about it, but mostly like just kind of, uh, uh, a bit of revulsion because you've continued

01:00:25.880 to do this thing, which apparently, you know, is reprehensible.

01:00:29.480 Well, he came close.

01:00:31.260 It was like a moment of seeing the sun, you know, in private and then, and then no, and

01:00:36.400 then we haven't seen that side again.

01:00:38.580 A tip, a tip to people in politics, I think it should be rather obvious, but this is what

01:00:42.140 happens when you have an outsider in politics.

01:00:43.620 Donald Trump, after he was elected very quick, quickly, I think it was in, went to Langley

01:00:46.980 and made this kind of crazy speech at the CIA headquarters, denouncing the CIA and saying,

01:00:52.940 you know, these, these.

01:00:53.980 Gestapo tactics, I think.

01:00:55.020 Yeah.

01:00:55.540 Gestapo tactics and all this stuff.

01:00:56.820 And it's like, okay, maybe don't do that right away and antagonize them at the exact

01:01:00.900 same time, by the way, you can do it privately.

01:01:02.960 That's what Nixon did.

01:01:03.840 He didn't do it publicly.

01:01:04.940 And then at the same time, you have a media that's not going to treat you fairly.

01:01:09.000 I don't think that anyone, even the media would say that he got a fair shake, but when

01:01:13.240 you don't set your own legacy, and this is to your point, Megan, talking about writing

01:01:17.360 your legacy, it's you help write that legacy in a way.

01:01:21.140 And when you are constantly attacking the media and saying they're the enemy, the people,

01:01:25.800 they're this, that you're just not making a lot of friends and you just can't, I'm not

01:01:28.820 saying that this is good or bad.

01:01:29.920 I disagree with you there.

01:01:30.660 I'm just saying you just can't be surprised when everyone is on the other side.

01:01:33.900 I disagree with you there when you get to the media.

01:01:34.200 I mean, the CIA, I see your point, but the media, no, he, they were his enemy for sure.

01:01:38.780 Oh, no doubt.

01:01:39.340 No doubt.

01:01:39.760 But don't, I mean, they are the ones who are going to help write your legacy.

01:01:42.740 And some of those people.

01:01:43.960 No, no, no.

01:01:44.400 I don't know.

01:01:44.740 I don't agree with that at all.

01:01:45.780 But some of those people like Megan were just doing their job and he created a ridiculous,

01:01:51.280 unnecessary scandal because of his preposterous conduct.

01:01:54.940 True, true.

01:01:55.640 But taking me out of it, like I, I, the media at large, right, and you can argue a specific

01:02:00.520 case, me or whomever, but he had to take them on.

01:02:03.840 He had to.

01:02:04.600 They were out to get him from the, from the minute they realized he actually was going

01:02:07.960 to win or did win, which was election night.

01:02:09.980 They were, they were completely determined to take him out and there was no way forward but

01:02:13.420 to get them and Donald Trump did as a favor with the media because he exposed them.

01:02:18.080 He's the reason CNN has fallen.

01:02:20.420 He's the reason CNN plus had no chance.

01:02:23.120 He's the reason that people now know when they turn on CNN in the airport, it isn't quote

01:02:26.920 the news.

01:02:27.600 It is left wing news.

01:02:29.020 Same with MSNBC.

01:02:30.220 Their colors are flying.

01:02:31.640 Fox News was forced to really readjust and sort of get more honest about where it stood.

01:02:36.360 And I, and that was a good thing.

01:02:38.080 People understand where the New York Times, they don't believe the democracy dies in darkness,

01:02:41.840 bullshit from the Washington Post.

01:02:43.660 They've exposed themselves.

01:02:45.220 All that happened because of him.

01:02:46.820 So I, I understand he may, believe me, I understand he went too far in some cases, trust me.

01:02:52.140 But I think on a, on a grand scale, what he did with the media was a benefit.

01:02:55.900 Can I just give you one quote?

01:02:57.500 Same New York post from today.

01:02:59.800 By the way, if you're not reading the New York post, you should.

01:03:02.220 Piers Morgan has a piece.

01:03:03.560 He's not a Trump fan.

01:03:04.440 His, his love kind of goes with whether he's getting along with the president or not getting

01:03:08.340 along with the president, former president, the president.

01:03:10.720 Yeah.

01:03:10.840 But he, exactly.

01:03:12.020 But he does tell an interesting story, which I think I've heard before.

01:03:14.540 He says, in the fall of 2008, I interviewed Donald Trump in a vast Beverly Hills mansion

01:03:19.000 he had recently bought.

01:03:20.440 And he admitted the crucial importance of success to his brand.

01:03:23.720 America loves winners, period.

01:03:25.900 He said, you got to win.

01:03:27.780 That's what it's all about.

01:03:29.140 You know, Muhammad Ali used to talk and talk, but he won.

01:03:31.620 If you talk and talk, but you lose, the act doesn't play.

01:03:36.080 And that is why we're getting tweets, truths from Trump today.

01:03:43.020 Like, let me find it.

01:03:45.620 He's, he's basically saying he's still won.

01:03:49.920 Um, he's talking about, uh, okay, let me find the numbers where he's talking about, maybe

01:03:57.920 my team can help me find it, but he's talking about how overall his record was really good.

01:04:02.260 Uh, all right, here it is.

01:04:03.700 Now he says, uh, while in certain ways, yesterday's election was somewhat disappointing from my

01:04:10.100 personal standpoint, it was a very big victory, 219 wins.

01:04:14.140 He's talking about his endorsements and 16 losses in general, in the general, who has ever done

01:04:20.480 better than that?

01:04:21.700 Trump asked.

01:04:22.920 Now, of course, this is padding.

01:04:25.880 He jumped in and a lot of races like DeSantis is at the last minute was like, I endorse.

01:04:30.980 So, okay.

01:04:32.680 And, and the ones, those 16 are the ones that the whole election was about, right?

01:04:36.040 It's like, for the most part, it's like, yes, those were the ones that you really needed

01:04:39.120 to get right.

01:04:40.300 Uh, those are the ones that would determine the balance of power.

01:04:43.300 Then he goes on and writes, now that the election in Florida is over and everything went quite

01:04:48.420 well, shouldn't it be said that in 2020, I got 1.1 million more votes in Florida than

01:04:54.880 Ron D got this year, uh, 5.7 million to 4.6 million.

01:05:00.280 He inquired, just saying, just asking.

01:05:04.080 It's so self-absorbed.

01:05:06.120 It's crazy.

01:05:07.880 It's crazy for, for among other reasons to compare a general election, which he ran in

01:05:12.840 to a midterm election, right?

01:05:14.700 Which is going to have way less turnout.

01:05:16.300 And the Daily Wire actually took a look at this and said, um, okay, we should take a look

01:05:20.800 at the margin.

01:05:21.660 Let's take a look at, you can't compare numbers, but you can control, uh, you can take a look

01:05:26.180 at margins and they said the margin of victory in 2020 for Trump in Florida.

01:05:29.920 He won by 3.3 points.

01:05:32.500 DeSantis won the state last night by 19.4 points.

01:05:36.340 So it's just, it's so petty.

01:05:39.520 It's, it's so petty.

01:05:40.580 It's unnecessary.

01:05:41.620 He clearly wants DeSantis out and he's already threatened before Tuesday night that he's going

01:05:46.220 to reveal some secrets about DeSantis that he allegedly knows if DeSantis takes him on

01:05:50.680 in the primary and he is maintaining Trump is that he's going to make his quote, big

01:05:55.420 announcement on November 15th.

01:05:58.040 Even now, even now, even with people like Kayleigh McEnany, uh, his former press secretary

01:06:02.500 saying, please don't wait until at least after the Georgia runoff, but Trump is Trump.

01:06:07.740 Does anyone believe him?

01:06:09.100 Does anyone think he's actually going to make this announcement?

01:06:11.380 I don't.

01:06:12.640 I don't know.

01:06:13.340 I feel like he's got to now that people are telling him not to, he's got to.

01:06:17.460 Yeah.

01:06:17.640 Yeah, that's true.

01:06:18.740 Um, uh, I've been, I, you should never make predictions.

01:06:21.160 And my one prediction that I've broken my own rule with is I don't think that he will

01:06:25.220 ultimately run for president this time around.

01:06:28.220 Um, I mean, and partly it's because of the winning thing that you talked about, Megan,

01:06:31.600 you reminded me in your windup.

01:06:34.420 I had written at the beginning of his presidency, a column that both stands up and fell apart,

01:06:39.200 uh, that compared, uh, uh, Trump to Arnold Schwarzenegger and his run for governor because

01:06:44.320 they had a huge, uh, uh, uh, falling out, uh, in 2016, 2017, Schwarzenegger took over

01:06:49.440 his show, right?

01:06:50.440 The Apprentice for a little bit and his ratings were terrible.

01:06:52.900 And then Schwarzenegger said that the Trump is, you know, reprehensible, whatever.

01:06:56.460 During the, uh, the Billy Bush, uh, episode, um, uh, uh, Arnold taped a big thing against

01:07:02.860 him, but I talked about their similarities.

01:07:04.760 They both came from outside of politics.

01:07:06.360 They both have a, just a preternatural sense of what in, in, in ways that just defy, uh,

01:07:14.820 uh, all logic.

01:07:15.840 There are outsiders who everyone said, you can't possibly succeed in this way, in this

01:07:20.360 field.

01:07:20.720 Maybe Schwarzenegger can succeed in bodybuilding, but with that accent in Hollywood, are you crazy?

01:07:26.140 And, and he totally succeeds and like has a sense of, of a connection with the public

01:07:31.700 that politicians just can't and don't have.

01:07:35.480 Um, but Schwarzenegger, what happened with his governorship, he's so concerned with, you

01:07:40.600 know, the people, as he would always say, um, that, uh, when he suffered setbacks after

01:07:46.160 his first year of, uh, being governor, um, uh, had a series of ballot initiatives, uh, to

01:07:51.740 try to tweak public sector unions, they all lost at that moment.

01:07:55.800 He pivoted so hard, uh, in the opposite direction because he was worried about pleasing

01:08:01.420 people that he was losing and that he would personally change direction because of this.

01:08:06.720 Uh, what I got wrong in the column was thinking that Trump would ever change direction.

01:08:11.260 He is so, uh, narcissistic even more than, than, uh, than Schwarzenegger.

01:08:16.300 Schwarzenegger has a natural empathy with people.

01:08:18.680 That's pretty famous, um, and interesting.

01:08:21.240 Um, he's not just all about himself, although obviously he has a huge ego.

01:08:24.460 I think Trump is so self-centered with this that he has to tell himself to Michael's point

01:08:30.160 stories that somehow absolved for him from the fact that he lost the popular election

01:08:35.140 of that matters too much in 2016, but it matters to him, right?

01:08:39.360 And he lost the popular and electoral college election in 2020.

01:08:42.640 And he's been a wipeout, um, uh, worse and worse for the Republican party.

01:08:47.480 Here is the thing to watch is will his, uh, very by now very evident lack of winning.

01:08:53.560 Like people are tired of not winning right now.

01:08:56.220 If they're Republicans that are associated with Trump, is that going to break their spell?

01:09:00.460 I found it very interesting that JD Vance in his, uh, election speech, victory speech

01:09:05.220 did not mention Donald Trump.

01:09:06.760 Yeah.

01:09:07.040 Um, there's a guy, uh, uh, one of the flips in, uh, in, uh, upstate New York, I think

01:09:14.640 it was, uh, from Democrat to Republican, uh, was, uh, on, I think TV just today or yesterday

01:09:19.960 saying, you know, it's time to move on.

01:09:21.900 Um, uh, and this is New York, this is New York where Republicans generally like Donald

01:09:25.660 Trump because he's from New York.

01:09:27.220 Um, so if those people start to say, okay, look, we're not winning.

01:09:30.580 Um, and it's because he can't let it go because of his, um, personal sense of being wounded

01:09:35.960 at not winning, um, then a tide could turn.

01:09:38.960 But we've been here three or four times in the past and Republicans have always come back

01:09:42.340 to him.

01:09:43.740 Can I ask you this?

01:09:44.760 So, so the party naturally is looking at DeSantis, who by any measure is today a winner,

01:09:51.900 the biggest winner of Tuesday.

01:09:54.620 Not only did he get the numbers we discussed in Florida, but, um, his chief rival for the

01:09:59.960 nomination, we presume if DeSantis decides to get in and if Trump decides to get in is

01:10:04.800 of course Trump.

01:10:05.520 And Trump did not have a very good night, uh, notwithstanding his tweet, his quote truth.

01:10:09.680 Um, so you, you and I both know that the media, they'll hold their fire a little bit on death

01:10:18.140 DeSantis for the moment.

01:10:19.500 They were all over him during COVID.

01:10:21.700 They'll hold it for a moment because the Democrats slash media would love nothing more than for

01:10:27.800 Donald Trump to be the nominee.

01:10:29.060 So they're just going to, they're going to keep quiet about DeSantis right now.

01:10:33.400 Um, but what happens next?

01:10:36.200 Like if he throws his hat into the ring and actually on that, on that note, let me bring

01:10:41.660 in a caller who, um, has got thoughts, I think on this Patty in Michigan.

01:10:46.320 Hi, thanks for calling in.

01:10:48.080 What's on your mind?

01:10:49.260 Hi, that's what I wanted to say is I wanted to just point out the fact that the media is

01:10:55.620 going to start the machine as soon as Trump or whoever DeSantis, they're going to destroy

01:11:03.060 him the way that they destroyed Trump and his family.

01:11:06.420 And I just don't want to see it again.

01:11:09.220 They're going to turn him into Trump.

01:11:11.380 I think, I know exactly.

01:11:13.260 Just the way they've been doing probably my whole life with every Republican, the Bushes,

01:11:19.400 Reagan.

01:11:20.660 We had a governor here, Rick Snyder.

01:11:23.460 They did the same thing.

01:11:25.100 A lot of it was based on lies.

01:11:27.440 It's just, it's just a machine.

01:11:29.900 And I think Trump can take it.

01:11:31.380 I don't know about DeSantis.

01:11:33.000 I'd like to see DeSantis maybe when Trump is done, but.

01:11:37.960 So you're a Trump voter who hasn't abandoned Trump.

01:11:40.200 You'd still like to see him run in 2024.

01:11:44.480 I do want to see him run.

01:11:45.940 I think he deserves it.

01:11:47.840 Okay.

01:11:48.080 What about all this time of dying to talk to somebody like you?

01:11:50.800 But what about all this time?

01:11:51.700 I know he's to blame and, you know, what about that?

01:11:55.340 Well, look what they did with January 6th.

01:11:58.060 It exploded into something it wasn't.

01:12:03.500 I mean, and that's the media.

01:12:05.360 That was the politicians.

01:12:06.680 That's Hollywood.

01:12:08.220 That's just one itty bitty thing.

01:12:11.640 I don't know.

01:12:12.340 How do you mean?

01:12:13.300 How do you mean?

01:12:13.840 Because, I mean, I understand it wasn't 9-11, as the crazy media said.

01:12:17.560 I mean, like, it was not worse than 9-11, but it was bad, and police officers were hurt.

01:12:22.960 Oh, it was bad, but it wasn't any worse than the 2020 riots.

01:12:27.420 Don't look at this, but let's see this.

01:12:30.520 We never hear anything about, what is it, the Ashley Babbitt, or is that her name?

01:12:35.320 We never hear anything about her that died.

01:12:37.240 She's the protester who was killed, yeah, while on the grounds of the Capitol.

01:12:39.960 Yeah, we never hear anything about that.

01:12:42.880 And it's all spin doctors.

01:12:44.360 It's all, it's, I'm just, it's frustrating.

01:12:50.680 It's, everything is fun a certain way, and I think that Trump can take it.

01:12:56.360 I feel bad for his family, but because they, you know, one by one, they pick everyone off,

01:13:03.660 and he deserves way more credit and acknowledgement than people are getting.

01:13:08.880 I understand other politicians don't want to, they kind of want to distance themselves,

01:13:15.920 but it's the same old thing.

01:13:17.620 It's just the same old politics as usual.

01:13:21.880 We're politicians.

01:13:24.020 We just turn the other cheek.

01:13:25.320 They're going to do, they're going to do what they're going to do.

01:13:27.500 Patty, thank you.

01:13:28.260 Thank you for calling with your POV.

01:13:30.120 We appreciate it.

01:13:31.340 So guys.

01:13:31.660 The question, the, the, the, it's already started with, with DeSantis.

01:13:37.160 I mean, it happened before with Death Santas, but you see people like New York Magazine,

01:13:41.400 you know, are like saying he's MAGA, that the, the Trump fascists are now obviously rooting

01:13:49.260 for DeSantis to win.

01:13:50.560 They want to make an, an absolutely seamless transfer into saying that he's exact, this person

01:13:55.900 who is a unique threat to democracy, the likes of which we've never seen before.

01:13:59.360 We all have to do everything to put out the stops of this Putin stooge.

01:14:03.440 Oh yeah.

01:14:03.740 And by the way, the governor of Florida is exactly like him.

01:14:05.720 You're absolutely going to see this.

01:14:07.200 And maybe Michael can speak to this.

01:14:08.800 He has been very combative with the press.

01:14:10.580 It's part of his shtick there.

01:14:12.300 And it seems to me like he's been slinging it pretty good.

01:14:14.900 He slings it pretty good.

01:14:15.500 Yeah.

01:14:15.640 I think he can take it.

01:14:17.040 It's a lot less like the Chris Christie.

01:14:19.240 I mean, you remember when Chris Christie came on the scene and he was doing these press conferences

01:14:22.580 and everyone's kind of tuning in because they were professional wrestling too.

01:14:25.900 I mean, the difference with Donald Trump, which I find, and I take Megan's point earlier

01:14:30.880 that, you know, the existence of Donald Trump sharpened everybody's kind of minds when they

01:14:37.020 were looking at the media, right?

01:14:38.360 So democracy dies in darkness.

01:14:39.960 They're actually wearing it on their sleeves now.

01:14:41.600 And I've said this before, and I might've even said on this show that the language of

01:14:45.660 media change with Donald Trump.

01:14:47.380 So they're all of a sudden, and I'm, I'm, I'm bang on about this all the time is the phrase

01:14:51.360 that popped into every news story was without evidence.

01:14:54.840 Donald Trump said X comma without evidence that seems to have disappeared.

01:14:58.940 And you're not going to try to tell me that Joe Biden or any politician, you know, in the

01:15:03.380 House Senate would say are saying things that are always true and always larded with evidence.

01:15:07.700 No, that thing disappeared because they thought he was a specific existential threat.

01:15:12.700 So you, it did.

01:15:13.940 And to Megan's point, it did allow people to understand that the media and in certain times

01:15:19.040 says, okay, now this is our duty.

01:15:20.800 We really, really have to, to rile ourselves up here.

01:15:23.860 And, but the problem was, was that Donald Trump, when he, somebody would, you know, be giving

01:15:28.400 them a hard time, Jim Acosta, whoever these people, and he would look and be like, sit

01:15:31.040 down, fake news, fake news.

01:15:32.500 You watch DeSantis and he mows them down.

01:15:34.760 I mean, he actually has policy debates with them.

01:15:36.720 And I think they're going to be a little more reluctant to get into those conversations

01:15:39.720 rather than, cause Trump would give them clicks.

01:15:42.760 He would give them the, the moment they could put on Twitter, put on media, et cetera.

01:15:47.460 That's what those people were looking for.

01:15:48.860 They weren't looking at how to clarify issues.

01:15:50.520 They were doing things that were performance themselves.

01:15:52.880 DeSantis is a little different in that sense.

01:15:55.000 Well, I, I would really like to see that.

01:15:57.320 I would enjoy a DeSantis, Acosta exchange greatly.

01:16:01.060 Now you're really whetting the appetite.

01:16:02.800 Yeah.

01:16:03.100 Yeah.

01:16:03.520 They'd be good together.

01:16:04.580 I think that they'd give it both to each other.

01:16:06.500 I mean, I think the color is certainly right that there is a profound degree of determined

01:16:12.160 unfairness, but the kind of self-immolation that took place repeatedly is important.

01:16:19.360 And I think it's fair to draw comparisons between January 6th and a lot of the other

01:16:24.160 instances of sustained political violence that we saw and unrest over the course of 2020.

01:16:30.560 But it's important to do that in a way that does not, um, take away the culpability of

01:16:38.560 Donald Trump in helping to precipitate the madness of January 6th.

01:16:43.180 And I think it is, if you're a fan of his, so be it.

01:16:47.620 But there are failures there.

01:16:50.060 Um, and some of those failures are profound and they're personal and they have something

01:16:54.180 to do with the, the leadership qualities or lack thereof, of the man himself.

01:16:59.660 Um, and it's, it's fine to look at the determined unfairness of a number of people in the press

01:17:05.680 to, to look at the, the, the bias that is there now, the, the, the man that we be, that

01:17:11.620 there'd be moral clarity, um, and actual judgments of whether or not it's, it's, you know, the

01:17:17.420 particular policies are racist or not racist in like every article.

01:17:21.160 Um, it's fine to decry that and to be concerned about it.

01:17:24.000 But I think at the same time, there are ways to respond to that thoughtfully in a sophisticated

01:17:28.660 way, um, and brashly and irrationally.

01:17:32.300 And I think far too often Donald Trump chose the latter.

01:17:35.380 Um, and that is to his detriment.

01:17:39.160 The big question is if the GOP did not abandon him after the actual January 6th, right?

01:17:48.960 Remember how hot everybody was back then.

01:17:51.800 I mean, Republicans and Democrats were outraged by those scenes.

01:17:55.800 Yeah.

01:17:56.220 They were out there and they were in fact outrageous, but the GOP did while, while angry for a time

01:18:02.760 went back to him.

01:18:04.140 They all did.

01:18:05.440 That's the reason why they were all bending the knee and kissing the ring, trying to get

01:18:09.720 his endorsement, uh, in running in these races.

01:18:11.960 So if the actual January 6th did not end the affiliation, or at least force the GOP to say

01:18:18.240 we're moving on, will the losing to the extent they believe that lingering thing, the threat

01:18:26.260 to democracy, election denialism, just what happened on Jan 6th, all that's in the same

01:18:31.080 cloud.

01:18:31.620 If they believe as the conventional wisdom is unfolding, that that actually cost them

01:18:38.700 this election, that those independents who they must have, they cannot win it with just

01:18:44.240 Republicans.

01:18:46.140 Will that be enough to end the relationship?

01:18:50.680 Possibly.

01:18:50.840 The difference with January 6th is that we were on the air in our podcast on January 6th

01:18:55.700 and we were all kind of shaking our heads saying, this is, you know, astonishing.

01:18:59.440 The very next week we were like, wait a second, did Chuck Schumer just compare this to Pearl

01:19:03.800 Harbor?

01:19:04.700 And so it becomes tribal almost immediately that you know it's bad.

01:19:09.540 You know, this stuff shouldn't have happened.

01:19:11.020 You watch the videos of like cops being beaten up with like, you know, uh, thin blue line flags

01:19:16.900 and you're like, God, this is just doing my head in.

01:19:19.020 But the thing about it was the, the response to it, the committee, et cetera, it became such

01:19:24.020 a partisan issue that people start retreating to their tribal corners.

01:19:26.900 And, you know, I'm not in either of these corners, but the rhetoric from it was like,

01:19:31.660 this is 9-11.

01:19:32.820 I was like, you mean the place where 3,000 people died and precipitated a war in Afghanistan

01:19:36.220 and Iraq, et cetera.

01:19:37.220 Same thing.

01:19:37.940 Really?

01:19:38.500 And yeah, they were saying, yeah, no, it's the same thing.

01:19:40.140 Same thing.

01:19:40.560 Same kind of effect on America.

01:19:42.540 Whereas this, you don't retreat to your corner.

01:19:45.240 Yeah.

01:19:45.440 You see that your corner is now being destroyed by, you know, irresponsible politicking.

01:19:51.500 There's no one to protect here.

01:19:52.900 It's actually, you're not being protected.

01:19:54.700 And that's the thing that I think this could precipitate it.

01:19:57.080 I mean, who knows, Megan?

01:19:57.820 I mean, he has created so much loyalty over so long of a period of time that he is kind

01:20:03.300 of like a, you know, the dawn is a dawn in a way that people go and express their fealty

01:20:07.500 to him.

01:20:08.080 But it could be that this would be, I mean, this is the closest thing that I can think

01:20:11.700 of that will actually shake people out of this.

01:20:13.500 That's what we heard from our audience yesterday.

01:20:14.800 We took calls and, you know, person after person kept calling in saying, I'm a double Trump

01:20:18.180 voter and I'm done.

01:20:19.420 And I'm angry about what happened.

01:20:21.360 One guy from Pennsylvania was saying in my state, others said, it's time, like, it's

01:20:25.220 just time to move on.

01:20:26.440 He's about grievance.

01:20:27.500 We continue with you and the guys right after this.

01:20:35.620 Let's take a caller.

01:20:36.900 Gabriella from Louisiana.

01:20:39.460 Hi, Gabriella.

01:20:39.900 What's on your mind?

01:20:40.880 Let me just tell you, I agree with that woman.

01:20:44.180 There are millions and millions and millions of Americans that want Donald Trump to be the

01:20:48.400 president. I cannot believe that no one sees the obvious that the media is trying to divide

01:20:54.140 Republicans, Trump versus DeSantis.

01:20:56.940 They're just trying to divide us and make us get angry and argue and get us all, you

01:21:02.380 know, chaos.

01:21:04.260 We want.

01:21:04.680 What about folks like what about folks?

01:21:06.200 It's not just the media this time.

01:21:07.480 It's it's Republicans like the Daily Wire and the Daily Wire is not Rhino, but they're

01:21:12.720 not hugely pro Trump.

01:21:14.540 But like Daily Wire, Commentary Magazine, New York Post and so on.

01:21:18.080 I think they're scared that Trump won't get elected.

01:21:20.700 And so they think DeSantis is a safe bet.

01:21:22.940 He's younger.

01:21:24.000 You know, he's he's successful in Florida.

01:21:26.660 Doesn't have as much, you know, controversy.

01:21:29.620 But like the other lady said, as soon as DeSantis were to say he was going to be president,

01:21:34.700 run for president, the media would attack him even worse.

01:21:38.600 Donald Trump is a warrior.

01:21:39.960 He can withstand the media.

01:21:41.680 He does not care about hurting people's feelings.

01:21:44.200 He speaks the truth.

01:21:45.440 He wants the best for America.

01:21:47.500 There are millions of us that are still on board 100 percent for Donald Trump.

01:21:52.360 Well, it's an interesting point she's raising, guys.

01:21:53.800 Thank you for the call, Gabriella.

01:21:54.840 She's basically saying they're going to Trumpify.

01:21:56.480 They're going to Trumpify DeSantis.

01:21:57.820 He will be just as evil as Trump in two seconds, thanks to the media.

01:22:02.320 And so what where is the real argument for moving on from Trump?

01:22:07.200 But Gabriella.

01:22:08.520 Go ahead, Camille.

01:22:09.280 Sorry.

01:22:09.380 No, I was just going to say that Gabriella is bypassing, I think, the most important

01:22:12.980 point, which is that Donald Trump is the one who's going after after Ron DeSantis here.

01:22:17.980 Yeah, he's been talking.

01:22:19.400 He's been he's been drawing the comparisons.

01:22:21.140 He's been denigrating him and calling him names and effectually talking about how how well

01:22:26.180 he's doing and how well Ron isn't relative to him, which is absurd and has generally been

01:22:32.580 hostile to other people.

01:22:33.920 There are indications that he's trying to push him to not get into the race.

01:22:38.140 So to the extent someone is calling for this and trying to contrive a conflict here,

01:22:43.280 I don't know that it's fair to suggest that the media is principally responsible for this.

01:22:47.360 I think Donald Trump is is doing this.

01:22:49.760 And it's not as though it's the first time we've seen him go after people who are somewhat

01:22:54.200 affiliated with him.

01:22:55.740 Yeah.

01:22:55.840 And I would say that what's on the ballot here, if it's between in a primary for 2024,

01:23:01.040 would be, and this is actually the interesting question, it's a MAGA kind of conservatism

01:23:06.360 versus a, you know, basically what conservatism was in 2015.

01:23:12.600 Not so much Mitt Romney, there's some MAGA elements to it, but it is much more in the

01:23:17.320 traditional kind of American Enterprise Institute vein from 10 years ago.

01:23:23.380 And, you know, that's it.

01:23:24.540 That's a significant difference.

01:23:25.600 It doesn't matter what those differences are to certain elements of the media that

01:23:29.980 are going to attack Ron DeSantis.

01:23:32.220 But I think the difference is that he is, he will be, he will treat it in a different

01:23:37.180 way.

01:23:37.460 And I think, you know, not wage a war against the media kind of, he kind of sort of ignores

01:23:43.180 them and attacks them back when, when they need to be attacked.

01:23:46.720 So I don't see, I don't think it would be that much different.

01:23:48.960 And I think the caller is probably right in that, that there's going to be elements of the

01:23:52.040 media that are not going to like Ron DeSantis.

01:23:53.380 They already showed that during, during the COVID stuff.

01:23:58.180 But, you know, look, the interesting thing about being in the media is to never have

01:24:01.660 to say sorry.

01:24:02.440 I mean, how many people in the past two weeks were promising us the violence today?

01:24:08.460 I don't know if you can hear it, Megan, but there's massive rioting outside the windows

01:24:11.160 right now because of the election and people are burning things down and it's like Venezuela

01:24:15.460 here.

01:24:16.520 No, people who say this constantly, fascism, democracy, it's, it's, it never happened.

01:24:20.620 And they just move on.

01:24:21.440 The same thing with DeSantis, death Santas.

01:24:24.080 There's one, actually one mainstream media that I saw that went back and looked at it

01:24:27.360 and said, you know what?

01:24:28.240 He was kind of right about that.

01:24:29.480 And I think it was CBS, but that's not really that common.

01:24:32.140 So there's really not an incentive to not bullshit about this stuff.

01:24:36.040 There's not an incentive to not go out there and attack somebody with about half of the

01:24:39.920 knowledge that you should have.

01:24:40.900 Because at the end of the day, who's going to make you say sorry?

01:24:43.580 You just plow ahead.

01:24:44.780 And that's going to happen to him too.

01:24:45.620 Politics means never having to say you're sorry.

01:24:47.040 Let's go to Franco in California.

01:24:50.680 You know, when you guys are talking about, you know, January 6th, bad, the riots, bad.

01:24:58.720 But the Democrats didn't, didn't carry the way on the, on the riots that, you know, Pelosi

01:25:07.180 said, oh, people are going to do what they do.

01:25:09.440 Well, this is America.

01:25:10.660 And that was the problem.

01:25:12.600 I saw it as a problem because history is history, you know, good or bad.

01:25:16.320 It is our history.

01:25:17.640 And we have to figure out to go forward, not backwards.

01:25:21.460 And then my partner, you know, we drive together and we were saying, you know, it's funny during

01:25:26.380 the middle of the riots where they're like, we were going to some of the riot places, you

01:25:30.340 know, and delivering our loads and doing our thing.

01:25:32.960 And we said, you know what, what happens if, you know, they go to the Capitol and it

01:25:36.880 happens there.

01:25:37.460 What's going to happen then?

01:25:38.340 And then it happened.

01:25:39.920 I was like, oh, I mean, I felt bad, you know, but we, but we said it and it happened.

01:25:44.420 And look what happened, you know, like, oh my gosh, but Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer, they

01:25:50.380 all, and Adam Schiff can all spew anything they want to say and no consequences are on

01:25:57.380 them.

01:25:57.880 But when Trump says something, I know he was the president, but when he says something,

01:26:03.380 there's consequences.

01:26:04.840 So it doesn't, it doesn't make sense to me.

01:26:06.600 January 6th should have never happened.

01:26:08.900 I totally agree with that.

01:26:10.660 But 2020, everything that happened in 2020, you know, with all the riots, that should never

01:26:16.360 happen either.

01:26:17.160 It should have been squashed and it didn't happen.

01:26:20.000 And everybody's talking about it.

01:26:21.100 These are a lot of good points.

01:26:22.760 But let me, let me ask you our bottom line on it, because we're searching for answers

01:26:26.040 on, you know, Trump supporters.

01:26:28.160 Are you ready to move on from Trump and go with somebody like DeSantis or you're not ready

01:26:33.000 to move on?

01:26:33.440 In my opinion, I wasn't a voter.

01:26:38.100 And then I voted for Trump for the first time.

01:26:40.820 And then I never watched politics.

01:26:43.080 I never cared.

01:26:43.720 And then after Trump was the president and things were coming out, you know, on a lot

01:26:50.060 of things.

01:26:50.460 I listened to CNN and MSNBC and Fox.

01:26:53.860 I listened to all of them.

01:26:55.200 And then I, you know, did my opinion from there.

01:26:58.360 And then when the facts finally came out on a lot of things, I was like, well, this, you

01:27:03.840 know, this one side.

01:27:04.880 All right.

01:27:05.160 But now, but now we're short on time, Franco.

01:27:07.620 Give me the bottom line.

01:27:08.440 Yeah.

01:27:08.600 How are you feeling?

01:27:09.220 Uh, Trump or DeSantis, I'm fine with either.

01:27:13.780 Uh, I like Trump with his policies.

01:27:16.500 The policies are great.

01:27:17.580 Yes.

01:27:18.240 But his legacy can be childish.

01:27:20.080 Thanks.

01:27:21.220 So there you have it, guys.

01:27:22.460 Like, this is this is one of the reasons why I said recently, I just don't think there's

01:27:27.420 any way to the GOP nomination that requires one to go through Trump.

01:27:32.120 Like, Trump's got to get out of the way for DeSantis to ascend because he does have diehard

01:27:37.180 supporters even now.

01:27:39.220 Who are just not going there?

01:27:41.160 Not Franco, but like our first caller and Patty, who are team Trump, period.

01:27:46.520 They're not going to vote for DeSantis.

01:27:47.720 And some wouldn't vote for him if he steamrolled over Trump.

01:27:51.200 And Trump said, stay home like he did in Georgia.

01:27:53.880 There I would.

01:27:54.740 This reminded me and the caller is right.

01:27:57.480 And this is something we've talked about on our podcast a whole hell of a lot.

01:28:01.300 And Michael went to Wisconsin and Kenosha the next day after it was a burn to the ground.

01:28:06.200 Our listeners helped the guy rebuild his business or at least begin to start trying.

01:28:11.400 So it's something that we care about deeply.

01:28:13.460 One of the really bad results on Tuesday was the governor, the Democratic governor of Wisconsin,

01:28:19.240 Tony Evers, got reelected.

01:28:21.060 That's someone who should have lost his opponent, opponent Lee Michaels, I believe his name is

01:28:26.140 Tim Michaels, was campaigning on COVID in Kenosha over and over again.

01:28:33.060 The man had abdicated his duty in many ways.

01:28:35.680 Michael knows the story when Camille, both of them know it better than I do.

01:28:38.360 Um, but the candidate was not a great candidate.

01:28:41.560 Uh, again, super Trumpy talking about 2020 and the election and all these kinds of things

01:28:46.420 that should have been a gimme for the Republican party.

01:28:49.360 And it makes me upset that a sitting politician who did a bad job during an important thing

01:28:54.640 in which bad, bad things happen.

01:28:56.680 I want those people to be accountable.

01:28:57.960 I want them to lose.

01:28:59.020 That's the, as an outsider in the political process, I, the only joy I get is like voting

01:29:03.920 yes on recall elections in California back when I lived there.

01:29:06.740 So I want that person to lose.

01:29:07.980 They didn't.

01:29:08.960 Part of the reason they didn't win, um, was because it was poor candidate, uh, a selection

01:29:14.300 too tethered to Trump quickly on the caller's point.

01:29:17.260 I mean, he was kind of tracing the etymology of his own political awakening and this is on,

01:29:23.280 uh, Democrats and this is on liberals in a lot of ways is that when you go back, there

01:29:27.580 is a category difference between what happened in the, in 2020 and what happened, uh, with the

01:29:34.740 George Floyd stuff and what happened, uh, at the Capitol, you know, particularly because

01:29:38.360 this is the president egging it on and they're saying, we want to, uh, stop the certification

01:29:43.120 of an election.

01:29:43.840 It's a pretty big deal.

01:29:44.960 At the same time, everybody I ever talked to when I walk around talking to voters, everybody

01:29:50.520 who's on the Republican side or leaning Republican or just started voting for Donald Trump, they

01:29:54.780 always point out the kind of incongruity of these things.

01:29:57.380 It's like, wait, didn't she give to a bail fund that Kamala Harris?

01:30:00.080 Didn't they just say, well, you know, this is actually, you have to understand why this

01:30:04.160 is happening.

01:30:04.640 No one's saying you have to understand this side.

01:30:06.940 They're having to understand that side.

01:30:08.720 And this is far more destructive.

01:30:10.140 It's going on for days and weeks in places like Portland for months.

01:30:14.580 People get really annoyed and alienated by that.

01:30:17.240 And, you know, that was one of the things that I saw, particularly with, um, Hispanics,

01:30:20.800 you know, you have, uh, DeSantis, the most popular politician in Florida amongst Hispanics,

01:30:24.860 exit polls show that he gets about 60% of the vote.

01:30:27.140 And you talk to people like that and they say, well, you know, we don't think that you

01:30:30.640 should be able to just walk into the country.

01:30:32.180 Why is it okay?

01:30:33.320 Why do I have to wait in a pass?

01:30:34.260 Someone actually said this to me.

01:30:35.160 Why do I have to wait in a passport line for two hours to get back in the Miami airport

01:30:38.980 when I'm coming from, to visit my, you know, aunts and uncles somewhere else.

01:30:42.420 And people just walk across the border.

01:30:43.700 They see these things as incongruous and hypocritical.

01:30:47.860 And that's what draws people to Donald Trump.

01:30:50.040 They want to know where did this guy come from?

01:30:51.680 Where did, like, when you see what happens in those, in the riots, and then you see what

01:30:54.860 happened in the Capitol Hill riot, et cetera, that, yes, I get you.

01:30:58.180 Don't email me.

01:30:59.160 I understand the difference.

01:31:00.320 I totally.

01:31:00.700 You have to trade it seriously.

01:31:02.180 I get it, too.

01:31:03.020 I mean, the Black Lives Matters were, they did far more damage than January 6th.

01:31:07.860 Far more lives were lost and injuries were caused to innocents that day.

01:31:12.120 Um, if we need to get into a comparison, that's, that's how it went.

01:31:16.120 However, the lingering election denialism is something else, right?

01:31:20.680 It's like, I get why people are like, just stop lecturing me about January 6th when you

01:31:24.360 didn't care at all about BLM.

01:31:25.940 But it's the lingering election denialism that I think is costing people at the polls.

01:31:30.580 Um, let me get another caller and let's go down to Richard in Alabama.

01:31:33.460 Uh, I know I don't hear from people in Alabama that much.

01:31:35.680 Hi, Richard.

01:31:36.100 What's on your mind?

01:31:36.960 Hi, Megan.

01:31:37.560 Great show today.

01:31:38.340 I appreciate it.

01:31:39.600 Thank you.

01:31:40.080 So I wanted, uh, yeah, just the, the DeSantis-Trump thing.

01:31:44.440 I think Ron DeSantis, and I live on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, right, butted up to the,

01:31:50.140 the Western Panhandle of Florida.

01:31:52.680 So we get a lot of Florida news here.

01:31:55.100 And, and I, the performance I've seen from DeSantis, I think he is maybe uniquely qualified

01:32:00.940 to, uh, to beat Trump in a primary.

01:32:03.960 I think the country, especially Florida, may be a little tired of the

01:32:09.260 revenge tour, uh, prelude that Trump is, is kind of out there trumpeting.

01:32:15.440 Um, uh, that's the way I see it.

01:32:17.920 And now full disclosure, if Trump makes it through the primary, I'll go for, for, for Donald Trump.

01:32:24.200 But my preference would be Ron DeSantis.

01:32:27.280 Wow.

01:32:27.780 Thank you for that.

01:32:28.760 Appreciate it, Richard.

01:32:29.440 It's so fascinating, right, to hear from actual voters and Trump supporters who are

01:32:33.720 kind of all over the map.

01:32:35.380 They have another new, exciting option.

01:32:38.720 And that option has somehow got to remove the 800-pound gorilla from his path.

01:32:43.940 Um, we only have these short time left, guys.

01:32:46.800 What do you think?

01:32:47.160 I like revenge tour.

01:32:48.280 That's a good, I'm going to steal that.

01:32:49.400 Revenge tour is good.

01:32:50.080 Richard, you should know you cracked up all three of the guys.

01:32:52.180 Well, when you said that.

01:32:53.680 Do you think, in the limited time we have, that he can do it?

01:32:56.120 Can, can DeSantis take Trump out?

01:32:59.180 I think so.

01:33:00.020 I think he probably could.

01:33:01.540 I think he could.

01:33:02.600 It's a question of whether he wants to at this point.

01:33:04.800 And that's actually not clear.

01:33:06.300 I mean, according to Gabe Sherman, and I've said this before, he's wrong.

01:33:09.600 Literally 50% of the time, he just makes it up.

01:33:11.600 I mean, but he had a report out last week that, uh, that DeSantis is getting ready not

01:33:16.440 to run, that he's telling donors he won't run.

01:33:18.420 He's going to wait until the next four years.

01:33:20.500 Um, but that was, of course, a pretty Tuesday.

01:33:21.620 I heard from a reliable source that that wasn't true, but.

01:33:23.880 I know, exactly.

01:33:24.620 Like, well, my sources tell me.

01:33:26.860 And I, by that, I mean, Abby sitting over there.

01:33:28.920 Um, anyway, you guys, such a good discussion.

01:33:31.060 This is exactly the discussion I wanted to have today.

01:33:32.760 I'm so grateful to all three of you for your thoughtful commentary.

01:33:36.720 See you again soon, I hope.

01:33:38.160 Thank you, Megan.

01:33:39.240 All right, guys.

01:33:39.820 And I'm so grateful to all the callers, too.

01:33:41.360 I hate leaving people on the line.

01:33:42.820 So we'll do it again tomorrow.

01:33:44.000 Okay, call me back tomorrow and we'll resume the discussion.

01:33:46.660 It's really fun talking to all of you.

01:33:48.100 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:33:52.420 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - November 10, 2022

Trump's Next Move, DeSantis' Future, and Pence's Op-Ed, with Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch ｜ Ep. 432

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