The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump Wins New Hampshire, But Haley Fights On, with Victor Davis Hanson, Comfortably Smug, and Michael Moynihan ｜ Ep. 709

00:00:00.440 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.900 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.240 Former President Donald Trump lands a win in New Hampshire, but the GOP primary isn't officially over.

00:00:24.140 Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley kind of overperforming expectations.

00:00:31.000 She overperformed some recent polls and vowing she will stay in this race.

00:00:36.340 And now warning that a Trump nomination will lead to a Kamala Harris presidency, sharpening her attacks on Donald Trump in, I mean, is it the 11th hour?

00:00:45.660 It's like, you know, it's like literally almost midnight by the time you decided to hone in on your message. 0.98

00:00:51.560 Trump calling Haley's move bullshit. 0.97

00:00:54.140 Term I know and love myself. 0.91

00:00:56.040 Later, I'm going to be joined by Victor Davis Hanson with his perspective on all of this.

00:01:00.640 But first, here with me today, one of the co-hosts of the Ruthless Program, the man known as Comfortably Smug,

00:01:08.080 and a co-host of the Fifth Column Podcast, Michael Moynihan.

00:01:11.580 This is so fun.

00:01:12.160 This is like Battle of the Network stars when they get like Laverne and Shirley cast together and the Happy Days guys there.

00:01:18.700 Thanks for having me.

00:01:19.460 Good to be back.

00:01:20.960 It's great to have you guys.

00:01:24.140 So, okay.

00:01:28.520 Yeah, she outperformed the expectation.

00:01:32.180 She lost, Moynihan.

00:01:33.680 That's two in a row.

00:01:34.580 She came in third.

00:01:36.180 She came in second.

00:01:37.140 And she's talking about this like, onward we go.

00:01:40.080 Thank you so much.

00:01:41.200 It's on.

00:01:41.900 It's amazing.

00:01:43.760 Both speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire.

00:01:46.440 I had to like double check that she lost because both of them, she made it sound like she won. 0.67

00:01:51.520 She was like, this is amazing.

00:01:52.560 And we're going on to my home state of South Carolina where I'm down 30 points.

00:01:58.380 And if you lose that one, I mean, look, it's over.

00:02:02.060 We have to be honest about this.

00:02:03.360 And there's people in our position that try to make this much more interesting.

00:02:07.980 And, you know, she's saying it shouldn't be a coronation.

00:02:10.320 Well, it isn't a coronation.

00:02:11.360 Republican voters want Donald Trump.

00:02:13.640 I'm not super happy about that.

00:02:15.740 And I think, by the way, her attack, the 11th hour attack, which is the most convincing one, is that electing or nominating Donald Trump might get you, in the fairly high odds of this, I would say, a Kamala Harris presidency.

00:02:30.560 That is the most convincing line that I've heard, by the way.

00:02:33.180 Yeah, now we're talking.

00:02:34.080 Because it made me shake a little bit.

00:02:35.000 I was like, oh, wait, that's actually real.

00:02:36.800 That actually might happen.

00:02:37.960 So, yeah, it's over in that sense.

00:02:39.840 Because Donald Trump won, she overperformed some of the polling, but so what?

00:02:46.180 Who cares?

00:02:46.860 It's New Hampshire, by the way.

00:02:48.020 You know, 40% of the electorate in New Hampshire are independents.

00:02:51.680 That was the only shot she had was New Hampshire, and she lost.

00:02:55.620 So it's over for her.

00:02:57.340 It's like, Smug, she overperformed in that the last poll said she was going to lose by 22, and instead she lost by 11. 0.62

00:03:03.720 That's a win.

00:03:04.680 It's a win in this weird alternative.

00:03:06.940 No, it's not.

00:03:07.540 It's a loss.

00:03:08.000 It's a double loss.

00:03:08.920 And she's about to get crushed in South Carolina.

00:03:11.940 There's no path.

00:03:14.260 I think essentially what you have right now is not a candidate as much as like a dream.

00:03:19.800 Like, there's always been the theory that, going back to 2016, that if there's one candidate that can go one-on-one with Trump, of course, that's, you know, the thing that Republican voters are crying out for, that, you know, Rubio and Kasich and Ted Cruz,

00:03:33.460 that situation didn't allow there to be a fair, you know, heads up one-to-one, and voters finally have it in front of them.

00:03:41.040 Granted, they got it, you know, like 24 hours before New Hampshire, but they got the one-on-one heads up.

00:03:47.580 I think the theory going forward is she's already lined up a tremendous amount of fundraising events going into this week.

00:03:57.880 A ton of money is going to be raised.

00:04:00.400 Whether that's going to be enough to overcome Trump in South Carolina, I mean, I wouldn't bet on it personally.

00:04:07.100 But you finally have what so many, you know, people in the press, so many of the never-Trump conservatives have said that they wanted a direct choice one-to-one.

00:04:16.460 It's here, and I would say I'll give the benefit of South Carolina.

00:04:20.920 You know, you can have your case of this is my home state, one-on-one.

00:04:24.880 I believe Republican voters want to have an alternative.

00:04:28.560 I say South Carolina is where you prove it.

00:04:31.060 It's going to be tough to withstand four weeks of Trump coming down on you,

00:04:34.680 especially when essentially every single candidate he beats lines up behind him.

00:04:39.380 That's further convincing to his case that, okay, it's time for the party to come together.

00:04:43.680 This is a wrap.

00:04:44.260 I mean, I'm all for a one-on-one race for the Republican nomination.

00:04:49.340 Trump's definitely got his fair share of baggage and then some that Republicans should be considering in deciding who to nominate.

00:04:57.620 But the other one needs to be someone who Republicans like.

00:05:04.120 And for whatever reason, the way this campaign has come down, they don't like Nikki Haley anymore.

00:05:10.080 She's been sufficiently alienated from that MAGA base.

00:05:15.340 Maybe it was Vivek in the debates.

00:05:17.420 Maybe it was Trump with his bird brain tweets about her.

00:05:21.100 You know, whatever.

00:05:22.400 Maybe she's just too neo-conny for a more isolationist Republican Party. 1.00

00:05:27.240 It just hasn't worked.

00:05:28.600 She won second place yesterday in New Hampshire, thanks to independents, Moynihan.

00:05:35.440 That's who voted for her. 0.95

00:05:36.880 She's doing great with the independents.

00:05:39.180 That's terrific.

00:05:40.400 The independents are an extra. 1.00

00:05:42.880 As the Republican, to get the nomination, you have to win with Republicans.

00:05:46.600 And to win the general, you need all Republicans plus some independents.

00:05:52.780 Yeah, I mean, that's Trump's weak spot there.

00:05:56.020 I mean, Kayleigh McEnany is on Fox News last night.

00:05:58.760 And of course, Trump responds to her.

00:06:01.760 He only hires the best people and then denounces them on Twitter or Truth Social after.

00:06:06.720 But she said, you know, look, this is in a way a win for Joe Biden, particularly when it comes to things like independents.

00:06:11.720 I mean, Nikki Haley, they can denounce her and say she's only winning independents.

00:06:15.800 These people are crossing over.

00:06:17.440 They're not actual Republicans.

00:06:19.360 OK, fine.

00:06:20.620 And that's why she is overperforming. 0.92

00:06:23.540 But that's what Donald Trump needs.

00:06:24.940 I mean, he is not going to win this election without those independents.

00:06:29.340 And he's not going to tack to the center.

00:06:30.780 He never does.

00:06:31.940 And, you know, you could say that Nikki Haley is not impressing Republicans because she's a neocon and things like that. 0.97

00:06:37.780 I don't really buy that.

00:06:38.780 But actually, she does buy it in the sense that her last pitch in New Hampshire, she sounded like Christine O'Donnell saying, I'm not a witch.

00:06:46.260 She's like, I'm not a warmonger.

00:06:47.860 It's like, no, that's not how you do it.

00:06:50.020 But this is all personality.

00:06:52.120 She's bad at it. 1.00

00:06:53.180 I'm sorry to say that on paper, I could like her policies and Ron DeSantis' policies more than Donald Trump.

00:06:59.880 You know, Vivek was annoying.

00:07:01.460 Everyone understood that.

00:07:02.580 Ron DeSantis governed incredibly well in Florida, but had no kind of personality for it when it came to the actual race.

00:07:09.660 And Nikki is just incredibly unconvincing. 0.99

00:07:11.880 That speech last night, it was just kind of cringe half the time.

00:07:15.340 And you get to Donald Trump, who's saying the most insane things during his speech.

00:07:20.400 But I am like, you know, entertained.

00:07:23.520 And I it's unfortunate that American politics is maybe always has been a battle of the best entertainers.

00:07:31.160 But that is where we are.

00:07:33.020 And that's why he won.

00:07:33.840 It doesn't matter what her policies are.

00:07:35.900 It doesn't matter.

00:07:36.480 Donald Trump, if he was president, who knows what he would do with the Houthis? 0.92

00:07:40.280 Who knows what he would do with Ukraine?

00:07:42.340 These people who suggest that, you know, he's the anti-neocon candidate.

00:07:47.320 I don't know.

00:07:47.820 They loved him in Israel.

00:07:48.820 You know, he sent 75 Tomahawk missiles into Syria.

00:07:52.760 It's unclear what Donald Trump's ideology is.

00:07:55.720 But we know what his personality is.

00:07:57.480 And that is somebody who can run a very, very good race.

00:08:00.700 And, you know, if there's a debate between him and Joe Biden, I think we all know how that's going to go.

00:08:05.660 It would be the most watched event in television history.

00:08:08.520 Correct.

00:08:08.980 It would really it would have Super Bowl plus type numbers just to see that.

00:08:13.300 I mean, just to see.

00:08:14.320 But Joe Biden can't do it.

00:08:15.540 And everyone knows.

00:08:16.280 And Trump is so unhinged sometimes in the way he deals.

00:08:19.540 Look how he did, you know, four or five years ago when they debated and Trump didn't let him answer a single question.

00:08:24.260 Can you imagine him now when he knows Biden actually can't answer the questions?

00:08:28.520 The most devastating thing he could do is to be quiet.

00:08:31.220 Let's just see.

00:08:33.200 There was a lot in there.

00:08:35.260 So I will say I think Trump is more moderate.

00:08:37.560 I don't think if the Republicans, I think, would have been a little bit more dangerous going with a Ron DeSantis, who is definitely established conservative.

00:08:45.000 And I don't know, it's just like that's that I think more alienating to independence than somebody like Trump, whose personal behavior is shocking to some extent.

00:08:56.540 Right.

00:08:56.780 It's still I mean, whatever is left of the shock ability.

00:08:59.260 But who who's, you know, his policies, he's not really he doesn't support the six week abortion ban.

00:09:06.760 He probably doesn't support any more abortion bans, to be honest with you.

00:09:09.920 He'd probably sign a 15 weeker if pressed.

00:09:11.840 But I don't even know about that.

00:09:13.420 Even on the trans stuff, he wiggled a little. 0.99

00:09:16.000 He's much more of a New Yorker, you know, like live and let live.

00:09:18.900 And let's just worry about the economy.

00:09:20.760 That's he's a transactional guy.

00:09:22.100 So I think he would be more acceptable to moderates and independents.

00:09:26.080 It's it's his temperament that people find problematic.

00:09:29.200 So in a way, the Republicans have done themselves a service by when it comes to the independent vote.

00:09:33.960 She won last night's mug with the independents.

00:09:36.800 Yes, because as between Nikki and Trump, if you're an independent, you're probably going to go for Nikki Haley.

00:09:42.820 And they said they liked her position more on abortion and foreign policy.

00:09:48.060 So there's some like neo-conny stuff in there.

00:09:50.240 But there's a question about exactly who was signing up to vote for her and why was it all independents who don't find Trump acceptable or was it sort of crossovers who are just trying to make her look stronger and Trump look weaker than the facts would support.

00:10:08.800 I give you this guy who was over on MSNBC.

00:10:10.820 If you listen to The New York Times analysis of this on their podcast, The Daily, their reporter said he talked to a ton of these voters, too.

00:10:18.260 The MSNBC reporter said this person had talked to a ton of voters, just like the one you're about to hear from.

00:10:23.480 It's anecdotal, but take a listen to this person.

00:10:25.880 It's not 14.

00:10:27.600 Christian, who did you vote for and why?

00:10:30.200 Yes.

00:10:30.440 So thank you.

00:10:31.180 I voted for Nikki Haley.

00:10:32.160 It was certainly a strategic vote.

00:10:33.980 I think the DNC is fairly resolute in their nomination for Joe Biden.

00:10:40.640 And while I wouldn't vote for her in a general election, particularly on our differences with climate change solution, a woman's right to bodily autonomy or incarceration rates, 0.99

00:10:49.260 I think a vote for Nikki Haley helps diminish Trump's influence in the RNC and their nomination, but it's also a vote towards democracy.

00:10:57.760 And Christian is emblematic of so many conversations that I've had here throughout the day.

00:11:03.980 So what do you make of that, Smug?

00:11:06.080 Do you think Trump is as weak with and Haley's as strong with independence as those numbers suggest?

00:11:11.900 So I think that is a major issue that is playing out.

00:11:14.620 We've seen in polling for a while now that Nikki Haley of the Republican candidates performs the best in a general election. 0.97

00:11:21.280 You can have the same body of voters polled, likely voters and registered voters.

00:11:26.100 We've seen a number of polls that have been done on this, and Nikki Haley ends up performing the best when you include the entire body of voters and not just Republican primary voters,

00:11:34.620 which I think is going to end up becoming an issue when a lot of Republican primary voters are once again motivated by a sense of being wronged.

00:11:45.340 And they see a lot of that in Trump, who they see as being wronged with all these frivolous lawsuits.

00:11:52.500 And that's when you saw Trump's poll numbers take off.

00:11:54.860 If you go back and look at the cleave that began between the polling numbers that he had and his lead that grew eventually over Ron DeSantis when DeSantis first announced,

00:12:04.340 when the lawsuits became the main issue of essentially the Democrats are out to get President Trump,

00:12:11.660 that's when Republican primary voters kind of came back to Trump, and that's when his numbers start to surge.

00:12:18.260 That seems to be one of the largest motivating factors right now for Republican primary voters,

00:12:22.180 and that's absolutely not a motivating factor for independent voters in the country right now.

00:12:27.100 There's a significant number.

00:12:28.120 We saw Dean Phillips is putting up 20% on Joe Biden.

00:12:31.720 That's insane when Joe Biden is a sitting president.

00:12:34.340 There's a lot of disaffected voters, whether they are Democrats, whether they identify as independents.

00:12:39.700 And losing those voters is what cost Trump the election previously.

00:12:43.340 You know, he had alienated suburban moms, for example, a very powerful voting group. 0.98

00:12:49.760 And I think he's going to have difficulty, again, reaching them.

00:12:52.620 Earlier, it was mentioned that, like, you know, he appears that he's going to be more of a moderate on abortion.

00:12:56.760 That's going to be probably the top issue that Democrats try to hammer, because they can't run on Joe Biden's got a great economy.

00:13:02.940 Voters absolutely don't feel like it's a great economy.

00:13:05.400 But when you had Donald Trump at a town hall say, I'm the one responsible for Roe v. Wade being overturned.

00:13:10.240 I'm the one who picked those justices.

00:13:11.600 I'm the one who got Roe v. Wade killed.

00:13:13.680 That's going to be the message that Democrats put front and center to make sure that suburban moms stay in the column for Biden. 1.00

00:13:20.060 Yes, they will.

00:13:22.660 And Trump had to say that because it's true, and Republican voters tend to love it.

00:13:27.040 But, I mean, it's very easily handled on the campaign trail when you've switched to the general, which is Roe v. Wade was an abomination. 0.62

00:13:35.860 It was a terrible decision.

00:13:37.380 Even liberal scholars admitted that, and it had no business being on the books.

00:13:41.340 I'm the one who got the Supreme Court justices appointed who said, forget it.

00:13:45.060 It's like it's bad jurisprudence.

00:13:47.520 Let's give it back to the states. 0.97

00:13:49.060 Now it's a state-by-state fight.

00:13:50.880 I'm going to keep the federal government out of it.

00:13:53.400 You know, it's up to your state.

00:13:55.280 I'm not—the best he can say, and that's what he should say, is I'm not going to interfere.

00:13:58.860 There shouldn't be a federal ban, because if you ever get a Democrat back in this office, then they'll institute a federal permission slip that'll go all the way up through the ninth month. 0.53

00:14:07.940 It's not the Fed's business.

00:14:09.540 It's the state's business.

00:14:11.200 Would you be confident in Trump's ability to prosecute that case is the thing is, can he stay on message?

00:14:15.860 You know, if Biden in a debate brings up, do you believe the election was stolen?

00:14:20.560 He's going to veer right into that path that independent voters absolutely do not want to hear about stolen elections.

00:14:26.200 It's amazing to me that the number of like—I mean, he's completely convinced the Republican Party that the election was stolen.

00:14:31.440 It's crazy.

00:14:31.960 Like, the numbers, they're big.

00:14:33.560 I mean, they say legitimate, was he legitimately elected, and that's a little different than stolen.

00:14:40.080 But the question was, do you think Joe Biden legitimately won the presidency?

00:14:43.280 And this is all—this is the New Hampshire voters yesterday in the GOP primary.

00:14:49.220 So half of the electorate says, yes, he was legitimately elected, 47 percent.

00:14:54.360 51 percent said no.

00:14:55.980 A majority of New Hampshire—these are not the blood, you know, red meat eating.

00:15:01.100 51 percent said no, he was not legitimately elected.

00:15:05.640 Those who were saying he wasn't were overwhelmingly Trump voters.

00:15:09.520 Those who were saying he did legitimately win were overwhelmingly Haley supporters.

00:15:14.960 So I don't know, Moynihan.

00:15:16.200 He's right.

00:15:16.940 He's not going to be able to prosecute the abortion issue the way I said.

00:15:19.700 He's going to say what he said at that town hall, which is—or it was the thing with Brett and Martha, where he's like,

00:15:23.440 everybody's going to be happy, we're going to strike a deal, everyone's going to be happy.

00:15:28.500 Like, oh, he's—

00:15:29.680 Yeah, I don't—

00:15:30.620 But—

00:15:30.820 I don't know about that.

00:15:32.600 Yeah, I don't think he's going to be very—

00:15:34.000 But the man is very convincing.

00:15:35.080 But here's the thing about Trump.

00:15:36.520 What we see in that number, like, that he's even convinced half the majority of Republicans in New Hampshire

00:15:42.160 that he actually won is a testament to Trump's disciplined messaging on the things that matter to him.

00:15:50.840 The wall, the wall, the wall.

00:15:53.040 China, China, China.

00:15:54.540 It was a perfect phone call.

00:15:55.960 A perfect phone call. 0.97

00:15:57.760 You know, crooked Hillary. 1.00

00:15:59.760 Now crooked Joe Biden.

00:16:01.440 And I guess on abortion, it's going to be—you're going to be happy.

00:16:04.820 You'll be happy.

00:16:05.540 You'll be happy.

00:16:06.560 He's very good at it.

00:16:08.240 He may not be that good at, like, temperament stuff.

00:16:11.420 But the reason we all knew Donald Trump—you talk to all the businessmen in New York.

00:16:16.120 It's not because of his amazing business skills.

00:16:18.060 It's because of his amazing marketing skills.

00:16:22.000 That's, I think, what's won him these elections and has just secured his nomination yet again.

00:16:27.980 I found myself annoyed last night because Matt Welch and Camille Foster and I, my co-host of the Fifth Column,

00:16:35.620 we were watching this and recording at the same time.

00:16:37.860 And I found myself annoyed when MSNBC, because we had to watch MSNBC, would, of course, cut away.

00:16:43.860 Because there was a lie, says the woman, Rachel Maddow, who has convinced the world that Russia is controlling the White House or was controlling the White House.

00:16:52.900 It's cut away.

00:16:53.760 And I found myself disappointed.

00:16:55.740 And I'm somebody who doesn't really like Donald Trump in so many ways.

00:16:58.920 But I love watching him speak.

00:17:00.840 He is magnetic.

00:17:02.000 He is a great personality.

00:17:03.300 I don't think that's what the quality for, you know, the best president should be.

00:17:08.080 But to your point, by the way, about his moderation—and I think that's right, and I think it's an underappreciated point—you know, the Christian conservatives,

00:17:17.780 the religious conservatives have not performed well and have not—I mean, you think of people like Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, in a way.

00:17:26.400 I mean, and Ron DeSantis this time, I mean, the six-week ban and stuff, Donald Trump not only attacked that, but also attacked him for going after Disney too much.

00:17:35.200 I mean, that is not the—I mean, that's not a culture warrior guy there.

00:17:39.220 He's setting himself up in opposition.

00:17:41.320 And, of course, he's going to take any opposite position of Ron DeSantis when he's running against him.

00:17:46.080 But he has the ability to be kind of the person who doesn't.

00:17:50.740 He is the New York conservative who is not very conservative.

00:17:55.260 I mean, it's very hard to be a conservative in 2024.

00:17:59.140 He gives, in the most hilarious way, gives Vivek Ramaswani a minute.

00:18:03.920 You have a minute, which is like sort of partially humiliating, and he gets up there.

00:18:09.520 And the last—the only thing that he says when it comes to policy is, I am not going—well, he talks about Ukraine, of course,

00:18:16.220 but I am not going to allow them to—or he's not going to allow them to touch Social Security.

00:18:21.900 I mean, have you heard a Republican running for any office in the past 40 years who didn't make it a primary talking point

00:18:30.420 that the growth and the spending on Social Security is going to bankrupt us?

00:18:35.160 He's on the other tack there.

00:18:36.740 So if you're like a traditional conservative, they're in a victory mode there talking about how they're going to spend more money

00:18:42.800 or at least not cut money or reform Social Security.

00:18:46.400 It's a very, very weird time to be a Republican or to be conservative.

00:18:50.100 He would never say that he would cut Social Security or Medicare, and I don't think he ever would do it smug

00:18:55.520 because he understands that that would hurt his electoral prospects, and that's what's most important to him.

00:19:01.920 I mean, that's the thing about Trump.

00:19:03.340 He will say whatever he needs to say to get elected, and then once he gets in there, he'll govern as he sees fit.

00:19:10.680 But the thing is, he governed pretty darn well the last time around.

00:19:14.460 We actually have a track record to look at this time, and most Republicans were very pleased with the way he did while in office.

00:19:21.800 So I really think the Democrats' scaremongering that we're about to go through for the next 10 months is not going to work

00:19:29.880 when they talk about, oh, my God, his extreme policies and the ultra-maga. 0.99

00:19:35.040 If you want to go back to January 6th and talk about denialism, yes, that's real, and independents hate it.

00:19:41.580 So they're smart to get ready to tee that up.

00:19:44.280 But, like, the policies and him being an extreme right-winger, I don't think so.

00:19:49.960 Yeah, I mean, I think that's something.

00:19:51.600 There's been almost like a sort of sea change that's been occurring culturally where the scaremongering that the Democrats had going for them for so long

00:19:59.740 is kind of like losing its effect.

00:20:01.840 The whole idea that they've been pushing that, you know, Trump represents white supremacy and he's going to destroy the country 0.72

00:20:08.900 and democracy is under danger and everyone's going to die.

00:20:11.960 You know, we've had years now in this country under Joe Biden, and you've gotten enough time that you can compare

00:20:17.580 what a Trump administration, what a Trump presidency looks like compared to a Biden presidency.

00:20:22.060 And it's very easy for folks to look back on the Trump years to remember, you know what?

00:20:27.200 The economy was much better.

00:20:29.160 We did not have chaos around the world where missiles are being fired in various countries.

00:20:34.280 And I have to be aware of, okay, who are the Houthis now?

00:20:37.180 Apparently there's this group who doesn't like us and they're firing missiles at us.

00:20:40.200 Like, every day you have to read a new primer on this is a new group that's attacking us.

00:20:44.340 And with Trump, it was like he's brought a dog to the White House because it killed a terrorist.

00:20:48.300 Okay, you know, it's a much better environment to be in that than feeling kind of like an existential dread of,

00:20:55.460 okay, what am I going to hear about today?

00:20:56.760 Is inflation going up?

00:20:57.880 Is a new terror group coming?

00:20:59.020 Is Israel being attacked by terrorists?

00:21:01.380 So voters definitely can make a choice in terms of what the presidency looks like.

00:21:07.560 And the scaremongering, like the DEI thing falling apart so quickly has been central to keeping the progressive movement marching forward.

00:21:16.360 And if they're not able to use that fear-mongering, what do they have left to convince voters that, hey, look, we're the better choice?

00:21:23.540 Not much.

00:21:23.920 Well, I mean, now you're making the argument I have that concerns me about Trump because I think DEI is falling apart for a number of reasons.

00:21:30.720 But I doubt that it'd be falling apart if Trump were president.

00:21:33.400 Like, I think the left is more motivated to hold on to their sacred cows when they have a boogeyman like Trump in there.

00:21:39.680 And when it's Biden, you know, the right is more motivated and they're looking at what he's doing to the country and they're saying, tear it down. 1.00

00:21:45.080 This is bullshit. 0.99

00:21:45.860 That does worry me a little. 1.00

00:21:48.040 Let's listen to a little bit to what we heard last night.

00:21:50.840 And I'll play that Matt out clip in a second, Moynihan.

00:21:52.680 It was gold.

00:21:54.560 Here's Trump pushing Nikki Haley on, you know, she basically declared herself the winner. 1.00

00:21:59.880 At least that was the tone of what she said.

00:22:02.800 She did congratulate Donald Trump.

00:22:04.840 It said, you know, he won.

00:22:06.360 So good for him.

00:22:07.560 But it's not over.

00:22:08.700 And I'm in it.

00:22:09.820 And this is the first state.

00:22:11.180 It's not the last state.

00:22:12.680 And here was Trump in response and sought one.

00:22:16.020 She's doing like a speech like she won.

00:22:19.740 She didn't win.

00:22:20.760 She lost.

00:22:21.340 If you remember, Ron was very upset because she ran up and she pretended she won Iowa.

00:22:28.360 And I looked around.

00:22:29.580 I said, didn't she come in third? 0.97

00:22:30.840 Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and like claimed a victory?

00:22:37.500 She did very poorly, actually. 1.00

00:22:39.140 I find in life you can't let people get away with bullshit. 1.00

00:22:43.280 Okay? 1.00

00:22:43.700 You can't.

00:22:44.560 You just can't do that.

00:22:45.620 And when I watched her in the fancy dress that probably wasn't so fancy come up, I said, what's she doing? 0.63

00:22:53.820 We won.

00:22:55.020 And she did the same thing last week, but he was much more angry about it than I was.

00:23:00.880 I said, get up there and you let him know.

00:23:04.460 Vivek, he's motioning to.

00:23:05.740 I love that he switched into Joan Rivers' fashion critic there for a minute.

00:23:08.960 What was that?

00:23:11.100 The dress wasn't that fancy.

00:23:13.660 I don't even know where to go with that.

00:23:16.840 I mean, Donald Trump is, you know, he is.

00:23:19.720 And before you get to the Maddow clip, it's actually funny that you said this about the DEI stuff is that it does.

00:23:24.500 I think you're right about that.

00:23:26.020 But there are diminishing returns here because, you know, four years plus in this, and the plus is the Biden administration.

00:23:32.300 If you watch MSNBC in the past, like, two and a half years, you wouldn't even know that Joe Biden was president.

00:23:39.400 I mean, it is the constant drumbeat of the fascist at the door who's going to be Mussolini 2.0.

00:23:46.660 It's like, wasn't he already president?

00:23:48.200 Did he do it that time?

00:23:49.760 But the thing about it is that, I mean, we were talking on the podcast the other day.

00:23:53.280 Somebody said, do you ever go back and listen to the things that you recorded four, five, six, seven years ago?

00:23:58.820 And I said, well, you know, I don't.

00:24:00.000 But if I went back, I probably would have said something about the Russia stuff and said, well, you know, there's a little smoke here.

00:24:05.860 It's kind of suspicious.

00:24:07.080 And that's how we all were at the time.

00:24:08.800 And then after time, we're like, this is just a concerted effort to try to destroy Trump in a way that is not electoral.

00:24:17.320 And there are people that are incredibly fed up with this stuff.

00:24:19.980 Independence, too.

00:24:21.700 It's like you cannot keep on crying wolf and saying democracy is over.

00:24:26.080 Everything is over. 1.00

00:24:27.080 I mean, Donald Trump says, I don't like bullshit. 1.00

00:24:29.160 I mean, he's the king bullshitter. 1.00

00:24:30.680 Come on. 0.99

00:24:31.300 We know he's a bullshitter. 0.96

00:24:32.700 We know he lies about the election and this. 0.96

00:24:35.500 He said, oh, I won every possible time in New Hampshire.

00:24:38.480 It's like, that's not true, et cetera. 0.98

00:24:40.140 He's bullshitting then.

00:24:41.140 But at the same time, you can denounce the fake news media, but you need the fake news media because as fake as they are, incredibly beneficial to you.

00:24:50.740 Because I've met so many people who say, look, I don't like the guy.

00:24:54.140 I don't like his temperament.

00:24:55.060 I don't like his tweets.

00:24:55.860 This was a common refrain when I was at Trump rallies.

00:24:58.240 But the way they treat him is so horribly.

00:24:59.980 And they find that this is like, you know, they don't care that he's a billionaire who had a television show that was number one.

00:25:04.800 They're like, he's being unfairly treated.

00:25:06.460 He's not a Russian stooge.

00:25:07.900 He's not this, you know, fascist that they're portraying him to be.

00:25:11.780 And I have to say, I went to a Trump rally in Detroit a couple months ago, and I love the fact that Trump flipped it around and now he's using the word fascist. 0.66

00:25:19.240 He's like, Joe Biden's a fascist. 0.95

00:25:20.980 It's just like, yeah, everyone is gone insane. 0.99

00:25:23.840 Yeah.

00:25:24.640 Election interferers.

00:25:26.120 I mean, he's like, they're anti-democratic because they're interfering with the election.

00:25:31.320 That's anti-democracy.

00:25:32.480 If you care about democracy, vote for me.

00:25:34.500 That's, again, back to his marketing skills.

00:25:36.340 He knows how to use them.

00:25:38.360 They're actually quite effective.

00:25:39.840 So now it seems clear.

00:25:40.880 The term fake news itself, he co-opted from them when they-

00:25:43.180 Correct.

00:25:43.720 That was Hillary Clinton. 1.00

00:25:45.460 There were these fake news farms in Eastern Europe which got him elected, and then he just co-opted it and he called them the fake news.

00:25:51.480 Yes, that's exactly right.

00:25:52.760 Yeah.

00:25:52.900 So I don't know what Nikki Haley's going to do.

00:25:56.060 I don't know if she's actually going to get out before she gets humiliated in her home state where he's beating her by 30 points, or if she's just going to kind of stick around kind of collecting random delegates.

00:26:05.860 Because even if you're not the winner, if you're still in it, you can get a delegate here or there so that if Trump goes to jail or, God forbid, dies, something like that, she can be like, here, I have the next most delegates, as if that would entitle her to be.

00:26:19.220 That's not going to be how it works if one of those things happens.

00:26:21.900 But I have no idea what she's doing, but it's over.

00:26:24.440 She's done.

00:26:24.980 So we can, like, pretend as long as she wants.

00:26:28.240 It's just obvious what's happened here.

00:26:30.140 He's won.

00:26:31.540 So now, what's happening around him in the messaging is kind of interesting.

00:26:35.280 So I'll give you a couple of examples.

00:26:37.280 Jim Messina, the guy who got Barack Obama elected, he had a tweet that he put out that reads as follows.

00:26:44.180 I wake up every morning and drop to my knees and pray, please, God, give me Donald Trump as the GOP nominee.

00:26:52.180 Now, I'll bet that's true.

00:26:55.940 I'll bet he does want Donald Trump.

00:26:57.720 And I'll bet there really are a bunch of Democrats who believe that the indictments would be a great way to stir up the Republican base behind him and set him up to fall once he hit the general electorate.

00:27:07.020 Because you look back at, for example, the New Hampshire polling and the question among the New Hampshire electorate voting in the Republican primary.

00:27:17.100 Again, these are largely Republicans and so-called unaffiliated, believed to be independent voters.

00:27:23.200 The question was, if he were to be convicted of a crime, would you consider him fit to be president?

00:27:28.340 Yes, 54 percent, 42 percent said no.

00:27:31.900 Forty-two percent of those voting in the GOP primary.

00:27:35.580 Yesterday, New Hampshire said if he gets convicted, he's not fit.

00:27:38.220 And that's why Jim Messina is hoping that Trump will be the nominee, which he is, which he's going to be.

00:27:43.840 So I have to say, I've got real questions about whether they should be hoping for this, Smug, because I know they say I'm reading the polls.

00:27:54.900 If he gets convicted, it's a no.

00:27:57.000 I'll change my opinion.

00:27:58.820 But I really think, given the amount of coverage that's going to come this next year, and coverage not just from MSNBC, but from you and from you guys, Moynihan on the Fifth Column, and from me and from Ben Shapiro, people who are not bought and paid for by anyone but can see what's being done to him, even if you're not a huge Trump fan, that that will permeate.

00:28:23.260 You know, I would venture to say, like, I know between the three of us, we actually have a fair amount of independents listening to us.

00:28:29.940 You know, Moynihan, your podcast is more libertarian.

00:28:32.060 You're more sort of standard Republicans mug, you guys.

00:28:35.060 I'm center-right, but I've got a lot of center-lefties listening to me.

00:28:37.980 They're going to hear the truth.

00:28:39.200 And I am just not convinced that when push comes to shove, these valuable independents who he does need are going to be so horrified at a, quote, conviction, because I think the truth about Jack Smith, already about Fannie Willis, never mind Alvin Bragg, is going to come out.

00:28:57.620 It's coming out.

00:28:58.320 Yeah, I mean, I think an issue here is you've seen Democrats really breach this kind of unprecedented approach to what they think elections should be like.

00:29:12.880 For some group that has essentially made their platform that we are defending democracy, saving democracy, the use of lawfare, essentially, to secure an election victory, it's unprecedented.

00:29:25.760 This is kind of a new tack that's being taken, and I think they have not considered the long-term ramifications of this.

00:29:32.940 This is almost seeming like, you know, Harry Reid again, getting warned by Mitch McConnell that you're going to regret this sooner than later, and now we've got a conservative Supreme Court as a result of that.

00:29:42.820 The fact that Democrats are counting on we want to be able to sue someone into losing an election, that that's the approach, that they want to be able to control voter perception

00:29:54.300 through the use of elected officials who run on, I will sue Donald Trump.

00:30:00.640 It's a very new kind of way to approach elections, and it's an extremely cynical approach to voters, and I think it will really poison, you know, for all this talk of we need a leader who can bring back a divided America together.

00:30:15.080 That's the best way to cleave almost irreparably the electorate, where you make it that we will win elections by any means necessary.

00:30:24.260 They've already shown their willingness to try and have, you know, members of the former CIA and FBI people saying, oh yeah, this Hunter Biden thing, it's classic Russian disinformation.

00:30:37.440 Ahead of an election, they wanted to withhold information from voters, and then afterwards they're like, oh well, you know, what are you going to do?

00:30:43.400 It was real.

00:30:43.820 We already won.

00:30:45.800 So the cynical approach that Democrats have taken is starting to catch up with them.

00:30:50.540 I think the polling among independent voters is very real.

00:30:53.440 They are still, you know, if Trump is convicted, they're gone.

00:30:57.880 They will flee, and that's pretty much ballgame.

00:31:00.640 But I think going forward, making that, you know, a part of their election campaign process of just suing their opponents into submission, winning elections by any means necessary, is really going to cleave the country.

00:31:14.800 I just don't know.

00:31:15.900 I read the polls.

00:31:16.900 I do not deny that's what the independents are saying.

00:31:19.720 Conviction, it's a no.

00:31:21.380 I just have a hard time believing they actually will follow through on it.

00:31:25.620 I think that the next year, and look, let's be honest, we don't even know whether the trials are going to get underway, never mind get concluded, before November now.

00:31:35.660 I mean, they've been kicked back in a couple of jurisdictions.

00:31:39.020 They're having massive problems in a couple of others.

00:31:41.720 So it's possible that the news will not be as dominated as we once thought with his criminal trials.

00:31:47.580 But, Moynihan, they will be dominated by Trump.

00:31:50.780 Trump is about to come.

00:31:51.760 You know how, like, when he wasn't president, or at least some time there, we had some time where we weren't talking about Trump all the time.

00:31:58.480 We weren't thinking about Trump all the time.

00:32:00.920 And let's be honest, that was kind of a nice reprieve.

00:32:03.620 Like, I'd rather think about my own life, my own problems, than think about Donald Trump's problems all the time.

00:32:09.480 Yeah, look, I, yeah.

00:32:10.760 He's about to come back in a national review, and in a big way, and I'll just play the Nikki Haley messaging on this now, because she is starting to get it, means Kamala Harris, what?

00:32:22.320 And then this is the second line she's been using lately in SOT 4.

00:32:25.200 All right, so that's her first ad she's running in South Carolina.

00:32:50.760 But it begins with, Biden's too old, and Trump is too much chaos.

00:32:55.160 Trump is too much chaos.

00:32:57.760 That's the risk over the next year, as he's in the news every day.

00:33:03.380 I mean, that line is right, actually.

00:33:06.020 It's the rematch that nobody wants.

00:33:08.060 I mean, this is every time.

00:33:09.680 And how did we get into this situation where every poll suggests that Republicans and Democrats don't want their nominee?

00:33:18.180 And it's like, oh, no, not this again, Groundhog Day with 2020.

00:33:24.940 It's like, do we need this?

00:33:26.060 And as you said, it's like you get a reprieve from Trump, and you feel kind of like you can exhale a little bit.

00:33:32.240 And, you know, to the point of independence, I mean, I think you're right if they're educated independence, if they're engaged independence.

00:33:39.320 If the people are not that engaged, I mean, the specifics of Fannie Willis and Alvin Bragg in some of this stuff eludes people, not because they're not clever and not bright.

00:33:50.420 They're just not paying that much attention.

00:33:53.360 But I think that, you know, they have lives.

00:33:55.580 And, you know, what Smug said is also right, is that, you know, this what really drives people crazy is this idea that to save democracy, we have to smother elements of democracy.

00:34:09.640 So, for instance, the hilarious thing of Rachel Maddow saying, we don't want this dictator and this anti-democratic.

00:34:16.140 We're just going to you can't hear him. 1.00

00:34:18.440 You're too stupid to actually hear him. 1.00

00:34:20.500 Now we've teased it twice. 1.00

00:34:21.420 Let's play.

00:34:22.160 Yeah.

00:34:22.220 Stop five.

00:34:22.900 We're expecting Trump to speak momentarily.

00:34:28.040 We are going to go to those remarks to see how he uses this moment, at least at first.

00:34:33.620 We'll see how it goes.

00:34:34.860 Again, this is a decision that is one that we consider to be an open ended live decision.

00:34:41.540 Let's go to Trump headquarters right now in Nashua, New Hampshire.

00:34:44.580 You know, we won New Hampshire three times now.

00:34:47.880 Three.

00:34:48.680 Three.

00:34:50.620 We win it every time.

00:34:52.020 We win the primary.

00:34:53.100 We win the generals.

00:34:55.620 So there we go.

00:34:57.620 So this is part of the issue here.

00:34:59.540 The former president has opened his remarks tonight once again by proclaiming falsehoods about previous elections.

00:35:06.980 This is what makes it hard to take him his pronouncements live.

00:35:11.240 We'll try again, though.

00:35:12.560 Here we go.

00:35:12.960 You have to bury the.

00:35:17.560 Oh, Moynihan.

00:35:19.600 No, I want you to cover your children's ears. 0.55

00:35:24.120 I know a lot of eight year olds are listening to Megyn Kelly show. 0.99

00:35:26.680 But how the fuck? 0.99

00:35:27.440 Actually, I have some. 0.99

00:35:28.480 I know. 0.60

00:35:29.280 How the hell?

00:35:30.220 Let me correct that.

00:35:31.180 Do you run a cable news network that is based on politics and showing politicians speak and cutting away when they lie?

00:35:40.540 I mean, as Mary McCarthy once said about Lillian Hellman, every word she says is a lie, including and and the.

00:35:47.180 This is what happens with politicians.

00:35:50.060 They lie.

00:35:50.460 But why are you so specific about protecting us from this person?

00:35:54.080 It is so condescending to listeners, to viewers, to voters that you can't make up your mind.

00:35:59.840 I, Rachel Maddow, can make it up for you because I'm going to tell you.

00:36:03.340 And by the way, when you're talking about the end of democracy and as Smug said, you have a couple of things going on here.

00:36:08.640 We want to keep somebody off the ballot.

00:36:10.660 We're going to prevent you.

00:36:11.760 Never been convicted of a crime, but we're we think it's probably real.

00:36:15.160 So we're going to keep him off the ballot.

00:36:16.540 If this keeps going in the Supreme Court, we're going to stack the Supreme Court.

00:36:20.380 We have to make it bigger.

00:36:21.320 The last person to try to do that was FDR in 1936.

00:36:24.620 I mean, imagine all of these things that we have to correct the errors of Americans.

00:36:30.600 We believe in democracy insofar as people vote the way we want.

00:36:35.480 And if they don't, we have to go about trying to correct it and talk about misinformation, disinformation, et cetera.

00:36:42.340 Words that have ended up meaning absolutely nothing at this point.

00:36:46.900 And so I don't need Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O'Donnell or Chris Hayes telling me what I can and cannot hear.

00:36:54.020 And I can adjudicate for myself and people that I know can do the same thing of what is true and what is not true.

00:37:00.400 Stop trying to be the paternalist in the TV studio in Manhattan.

00:37:05.820 It's so true. 0.84

00:37:07.220 My mommy, my mommy in black, Rachel Maddow with your, you know.

00:37:12.240 My mommy in a turtleneck.

00:37:13.220 It's an open-ended live discussion.

00:37:16.380 It's an open-ended live decision on whether we're going to stay with this.

00:37:21.720 And now you see why we had to cut away.

00:37:24.580 We're going to try again.

00:37:26.060 We'll give him another chance.

00:37:27.540 But he's going to lose that snack forever if he once again doesn't listen to mommy.

00:37:31.260 I mean, that's smug.

00:37:33.400 It really does.

00:37:34.920 That's smug and carnet.

00:37:36.260 It's a very odd kind of like paternalism, but at the same time, it's fundamentally based on the idea that democracy is when the party in control decides who's allowed on the ballot, which is just the wildest ever possible definition that is being defended right now by the Democrats every single day of where they're saying that like, okay, well, we have elected officials who ran specifically on that.

00:38:00.880 They said they would sue Donald Trump, and the outcome of that should decide whether a candidate is allowed on the ballot.

00:38:07.840 On the face of it, it's just, it's absolutely stunning.

00:38:10.840 And then to try and portray the candidate that they're punishing in such a fashion as a fascist is unbelievable.

00:38:17.540 And when's the last time, you know, we decided, okay, this guy's a dictator because he got elected.

00:38:23.020 We're voting for the dictator or the democracy.

00:38:25.320 This is not how any of this works at all on its face.

00:38:28.680 It's complete absurdity, but they have to be able to corral their audience in such a fashion to be like, well, we don't want you to be able to hear this.

00:38:36.500 We need you to keep, you know, on board with the talking points we've been pushing on you, saying that at any day now, the fascist is going to show up and he's going to ruin your life as long as you don't support the party we tell you to.

00:38:49.080 It's unbelievable.

00:38:50.020 It's really not hard.

00:38:51.360 Like if you act, it's true that Trump, I've said it many times, does not have an adult relationship with the truth.

00:38:56.620 He just doesn't.

00:38:58.560 If I were anchoring that speech at the Fox News channel, I would listen to it.

00:39:04.160 I would make a note to my control room.

00:39:06.900 What's his track record in New Hampshire?

00:39:08.840 Could he possibly be talking about the general?

00:39:10.800 How did he do in the primaries?

00:39:12.220 How about that one?

00:39:13.060 What do we know about this?

00:39:14.140 What do we know about that?

00:39:15.120 Right.

00:39:15.380 And on the ones that mattered.

00:39:16.900 Right.

00:39:17.140 Maybe I'd have five things that I needed to address on the back end.

00:39:20.120 And I'd say, for what it's worth, and then I'd offer without affect or enthusiasm, the truth on any items.

00:39:27.700 And then I'd move on. 0.99

00:39:28.800 Like, you don't have to have fucking meltdown. 1.00

00:39:31.200 Sorry, eight-year-olds. 0.99

00:39:32.860 For over the fact that he might say some things that aren't true.

00:39:35.820 And by the way, if you're going to do it to Trump, then do it to Biden, too.

00:39:40.280 Do it to yourself, Rachel Maddow.

00:39:42.400 Yeah, do it to yourself.

00:39:43.320 He and his team lie all the time just about different subjects.

00:39:47.660 Yes, I think Biden would tell the truth about which primaries he had run because he probably couldn't remember and he'd just read off of what was in the prompter.

00:39:55.760 But, I mean, this administration and his previous boss, Barack Obama's administration, he was responsible for lie of the year.

00:40:03.880 You know, we can go back over.

00:40:05.080 Anyway, if you're going to do it to one, you have to do it to both.

00:40:07.580 Standby.

00:40:08.240 Quick break.

00:40:09.040 Much more to discuss with the guys, including a shift in tone from Ron DeSantis.

00:40:13.100 What's happening there?

00:40:15.560 The corporate media is basically saying that.

00:40:19.340 For months, they were saying, you know, Trump's a juggernaut.

00:40:22.740 He's leading Biden.

00:40:24.880 Now they've flipped almost on a dime.

00:40:26.600 I mean, I thought they would give it two weeks.

00:40:28.540 They haven't even done that.

00:40:29.780 They're now saying Trump is bleeding moderates and some traditional Republicans that have voted for him twice, and they're really hammering this point.

00:40:37.640 I did observe that.

00:40:38.660 I mean, I observed voters who are conservative voters who voted for Trump in 16 and 20 and who said, you know, they're just not doing it again.

00:40:46.800 So it's a huge warning sign for Republicans nationally based on what we saw in Iowa.

00:40:52.480 I ran because I thought that my candidacy represented a way to break through that where we could win a clear-cut victory.

00:40:59.780 So he's got to figure out a way to solve that.

00:41:01.800 I think there's an enthusiasm problem overall.

00:41:04.220 And then I also just think there's some voters that have checked out at this point that you've got to find a way to get them back.

00:41:11.280 Oh, boy.

00:41:13.960 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:41:15.280 Comfortably Smug and Michael Moynihan are with me today.

00:41:19.080 Not exactly bullish on the prospects of Donald Trump.

00:41:24.500 Maybe we're expecting too much of him, Smug, because he's probably still licking the wounds, right? 0.99

00:41:28.760 Just got out.

00:41:29.580 So much effort expended.

00:41:31.440 But that, I'm sure, did not go over well at the Trump home camp.

00:41:36.040 Yeah, definitely not.

00:41:38.000 I mean, he also, I think it was probably the first tweet he had out since dropping out where there's a bill that's been put forward in Florida of having taxpayers pay for some of Trump's legal fees down there.

00:41:52.220 And he tweets out that like, well, I'd veto that if it came to my desk.

00:41:56.620 So he, I think, unlike a lot of the candidates that you saw behind him, it's like the weirdly floating Tim Scott behind Trump, which I thought was just an odd image, you know, the whole victory speech.

00:42:11.080 I think unlike a lot of those candidates on the stage, Ron DeSantis was actually trying to beat Trump.

00:42:17.120 Vivek was essentially like a one-man super PAC for Donald Trump through his entire candidacy.

00:42:22.200 Tim Scott did a better job saying why Trump should be president than he ever described why he should be running for president.

00:42:28.380 So I think it takes longer than, you know, 10 minutes to jump completely on board the Trump train, even though he did endorse relative to the other candidates that you're seeing there.

00:42:37.760 But I think, you know, DeSantis does have a lot to be mad about.

00:42:40.920 And I don't think it's Trump that he has to be mad about.

00:42:44.300 I think his campaign is what failed him.

00:42:47.320 He had a great track record.

00:42:49.140 You know, he had that massive win and coming off of it, just these missteps that, you know, before he's pissing on Trump's chances there.

00:42:57.660 And I think that comes directly from just the anger of seeing his own failed campaign that, you know, he was he had so much potential, essentially, and to see none of it realized whatsoever, especially after such a massive victory.

00:43:12.220 You know, coming off of that, polling showed he was almost neck and neck.

00:43:16.200 But then, you know, Trump got the charges.

00:43:18.320 The base came back to Trump.

00:43:20.000 And then his campaign.

00:43:21.200 Well, I mean, I'm sure he'd say, look, it's straight analysis of how I see Trump's challenges ahead.

00:43:25.360 Right.

00:43:25.560 He's got there's going to be an enthusiasm problem and he's got to win over moderates.

00:43:29.260 I've got to play the soundbite with Tim Scott last night because you referenced him.

00:43:32.280 And it really was.

00:43:32.960 I was like, what just happened?

00:43:34.800 Tim Scott was behind him.

00:43:36.060 Trump, as he was doing his victory speech.

00:43:37.820 And then came this moment in Sot 3.

00:43:42.720 Did you ever think that she actually appointed you, Tim?

00:43:47.900 And think of it appointed and you're the senator of his state and she endorsed me.

00:43:56.280 You must really hate her.

00:43:59.640 No, it's it's a shame.

00:44:02.000 It's a shame.

00:44:02.500 Oh, I just love you.

00:44:05.480 No, that's that's why he's a great politician.

00:44:10.820 Oh, my Lord.

00:44:11.720 It's so awkward.

00:44:12.940 I'm feeling so uncomfortable.

00:44:15.320 I'm yeah, I don't know what to do after watching that.

00:44:17.700 It was kind of a funny humiliation ritual for Tim Scott, too, because then he said, can you believe he got engaged?

00:44:23.380 Did anyone think that would actually happen?

00:44:25.640 The guy was there on stage.

00:44:27.880 Yeah, he basically called him gay, by the way.

00:44:30.360 I don't know if anyone else was.

00:44:32.000 He's like, can you believe it?

00:44:33.140 I didn't believe it.

00:44:33.800 I didn't see that coming.

00:44:34.540 It's like, why didn't you see that coming?

00:44:36.520 You know, we all know.

00:44:37.840 We all know. 0.93

00:44:38.440 And then saying like you, I cannot believe you just stabbed her in the back. 0.83

00:44:42.520 Right. 0.89

00:44:42.940 Right.

00:44:43.320 Yeah.

00:44:43.660 You don't like her.

00:44:44.380 And he comes up and he's like, I love you.

00:44:46.560 It's like the ritual humiliation and the people just go through with it.

00:44:51.160 And that is, I guess, when people say there's a culty nature to the MAGA movement.

00:44:56.460 It's like, all right, I guess I see it now.

00:44:58.880 And to DeSantis's point is like, he's not wrong.

00:45:05.280 I mean, that is actually a totally normal analysis of what Trump is up against in the general.

00:45:12.260 The problem is, is that Ron DeSantis, you know, it's like being a baseball player, a professional that is very good in the field, but can't hit.

00:45:20.320 He was very good in Florida.

00:45:22.140 He governed in a way that the Floridians were very happy with.

00:45:26.100 He won by like two votes against Andrew Gillum and then stomped to victory against Charlie Crist.

00:45:30.960 And because, you know, he did very well with COVID.

00:45:33.240 He did very well with, you know, many, many weather events that he responded to in agreement.

00:45:38.380 But he couldn't figure out how to run a national campaign.

00:45:41.800 And one of the things he didn't do, which I think should have, people should have done and people in his team should have made him do, because I know no one in his team liked Donald Trump because I talked to them about this, but is to differentiate himself and to go after Donald Trump.

00:45:56.740 They were always expressing fealty in some ways.

00:45:58.940 And so it doesn't surprise me to see Tim Scott up there being like, oh, you just called me gay, but I love you.

00:46:05.460 That was amazing.

00:46:06.560 That was amazing when you called me gay. 1.00

00:46:08.200 That was my favorite bit of your speech.

00:46:10.120 It's like, dude, seriously, have some self-respect, please.

00:46:14.760 I mean, as Smug said, Vivek was doing the whole time he was running to be Trump's friend, if not his VP.

00:46:22.340 But that was never but no one wanted to differentiate themselves.

00:46:25.580 I mean, even Nikki didn't do it very much.

00:46:27.160 I mean, she said at one point because of polling, she went on the abortion thing, you know, after Republicans lose in, you know, Kansas and various other and everywhere in every sort of conservative state.

00:46:39.480 You know, and then she comes out and says, you know, I'm not, you know, on board with like the six week stuff.

00:46:43.800 And then she differentiates herself a little bit from Republicans, but not even from Trump in that.

00:46:48.260 And no one did that.

00:46:49.220 They were not running against him. 1.00

00:46:50.800 They were running against each other as Donald Trump looked on saying, look at you fools. 1.00

00:46:55.300 And that's what happens. 1.00

00:46:57.180 Yeah, it worked out perfectly.

00:46:59.140 Here's a little bit more from DeSantis.

00:47:01.140 Tell me what you think of this, Sam.

00:47:02.720 I think we have time.

00:47:03.920 Number eight.

00:47:06.000 Well, we'll see what kind of if we have a country left by 2028.

00:47:09.620 I mean, I think I agreed with you, Steve.

00:47:11.120 I viewed 24 as really a hinge point in American history.

00:47:15.060 And if we don't get it right, you know, I don't know what it's going to look like in the future.

00:47:19.920 So who knows?

00:47:21.400 We'll be we'll be active.

00:47:22.660 We'll be exercising leadership down here in Florida and holding down the fort for freedom.

00:47:27.540 And so we'll see what what the future holds.

00:47:31.680 It's getting some hit on that.

00:47:32.960 Like, will you run in 28?

00:47:34.360 The proper response is, you know, I'm going to do all everything I can to make it work for Trump and the country in 24.

00:47:40.380 Not like, we'll see.

00:47:41.400 We have a country left.

00:47:42.200 Yeah, that's a bit of an odd response.

00:47:46.560 But I mean, I was like, wait, who is he talking about?

00:47:49.160 And I guess I guess, oh, he did.

00:47:50.900 He did endorse Trump, but he left it open.

00:47:53.540 He didn't say if Joe Biden wins and we don't have a country left is kind of interesting.

00:47:58.020 Yeah, my prediction is we're not going to see a lot of Ron DeSantis on the campaign trail smug.

00:48:02.160 I think like those resentments run deep.

00:48:04.860 Yeah, I mean, he you didn't see him at all in New Hampshire as, you know, one of the supporters on stage that Trump was taking turns with.

00:48:12.960 And I don't think you're going to see him.

00:48:15.100 It's going to take a while for those wounds to heal again.

00:48:17.220 He was he was supposed to be the golden boy and, you know, the successor to Trump.

00:48:20.880 And he just ended up, you know, falling to the wayside.

00:48:24.040 It's it's it's tough.

00:48:25.000 It's going to take time for him to lick his wounds.

00:48:27.240 I mean, maybe at the end, maybe he'll get a speaking slot at the convention.

00:48:30.200 Usually they do that for like the top runner up, but he better.

00:48:34.460 It's going to have to be sincere between now and then or he's going to get a Chris Christie convention speech.

00:48:39.120 Me, me, me and back to me.

00:48:42.680 Remember that one?

00:48:43.540 And then there was the Ted Cruz one, which was like, vote your conscience.

00:48:47.040 You got to pick the right people who are true believers who really love guys really love you, too.

00:48:51.880 Thanks so much for being here.

00:48:52.920 Smug morning to be continued.

00:48:54.380 And we'll be right back with Victor Davis Hanson.

00:48:58.720 VDH, don't go away.

00:49:03.640 Joining me now for more analysis of New Hampshire and the 2024 race, as well as what is happening right now at the southern border.

00:49:11.140 Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of the new book out this May, the end of everything.

00:49:19.540 Victor, welcome back to the show.

00:49:21.100 So what did you think of last night's results?

00:49:23.680 Well, I think Nikki Haley, you know, she always wanted a two person race and she got it and she got the ideal state in which more people voted the Republican primary who weren't Republican than were Republican.

00:49:37.000 And yet she lost by 11 points.

00:49:40.460 So I think she's trying to say that coming in second in these primaries to come is not coming in last, but it is.

00:49:48.680 And the Republicans have a finite amount of money and they're going to be outspent like in 2020, three and a half, four to one.

00:49:56.040 And so I don't know what her strategy is other than dividing these limited resources.

00:50:02.560 I guess it's it's one of four.

00:50:04.440 She has four choices, Megan.

00:50:05.720 She can do the Ron DeSantis and avoid being wiped out in South Carolina, her native state, or maybe drop out at some point right after that and endorse Donald Trump and then hope for a high level appointment in the Trump administration.

00:50:23.160 Or if she can do the George H.W. Bush, 1980, you know, tactic where you want, you keep running and you keep, you know, losing, you win five or six, maybe primaries, but you do so in a very positive way.

00:50:36.500 You don't attack like Bush didn't attack Reagan.

00:50:39.600 She doesn't attack Trump.

00:50:40.780 And she impresses the Trump team by bringing in independents, renegade Democrats the way George H.W. Bush.

00:50:48.740 And then the impossible happens in which Reagan asked Bush to be on the ticket.

00:50:53.000 He did.

00:50:53.660 He got vice president.

00:50:54.940 He served well and he was the front runner and was nominated and won an 88.

00:50:59.520 Maybe that's an alternative for if she did that. 1.00

00:51:02.460 Or she could just be limp along as a rope-a-dope perennial second-last candidate and say that she's the backup in case Donald Trump finds himself in real legal jeopardy in the summer and might be, you know, jailed or have a felony conviction that might hurt him.

00:51:18.880 That's a possibility.

00:51:19.780 The fourth and worst choice, though, Megan, is to go the full nihilist, never Trump, and get angry and start really lambasting Trump and almost suggesting that she's going to bolt the party. 0.74

00:51:32.800 And that would blow up her career.

00:51:34.080 I don't think she's going to do that.

00:51:35.260 But those are the alternatives that are open to her.

00:51:39.260 Well, here is what she sounded like last night.

00:51:42.320 If I had to put this soundbite into one of those boxes, it would probably be number four.

00:51:47.480 Take a listen to Saw III.

00:51:49.780 With Donald Trump, Republicans have lost almost every competitive election.

00:51:57.020 We lost the Senate.

00:51:58.720 We lost the House.

00:52:00.780 We lost the White House.

00:52:02.680 We lost in 2018.

00:52:04.520 We lost in 2020.

00:52:06.220 And we lost in 2022.

00:52:08.840 The worst kept secret in politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump.

00:52:17.480 A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency.

00:52:24.120 You can't fix Joe Biden's chaos with Republican chaos.

00:52:30.460 The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.

00:52:37.840 You know, the interesting thing, Victor, is she spoke before Trump.

00:52:47.580 And then Trump got up there and took some shots at her, her dress and just in general.

00:52:53.600 He was just kind of ticked off.

00:52:54.760 And all the headlines today are, angry Trump, you know, red-faced, irate, rageful.

00:53:01.100 It's like she listened to what she said.

00:53:03.460 She said it with a smile.

00:53:04.760 She has a nice tone.

00:53:05.860 But those are serious insults and barbs at the man.

00:53:09.760 Of course he's going to fight back.

00:53:11.600 It's Trump.

00:53:13.580 Yeah.

00:53:14.320 And I mean, I know that he's had some cognitive issues lately, confusing Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley.

00:53:20.900 But more or less, he gives these one-hour-long monologues without missing a beat.

00:53:27.600 It's pretty amazing that a person at that age, and when she starts attacking age in general, rather than differentiating people who are not cognitively alert at that age, she kind of insults people that are septuagenarians or octuagenarians who are voters.

00:53:42.180 That's not a wise thing, I think, necessarily.

00:53:45.440 But I don't know what the strategy is in doing that.

00:53:48.120 Is it to – when she runs like that, does she really think she's going to get traction in South Carolina? 0.66

00:53:55.240 She's a native daughter of the state.

00:53:56.740 I don't think she is.

00:53:58.080 And it's going to alienate a lot of people.

00:54:00.960 And I don't know what she thinks the endgame is.

00:54:05.380 I thought the endgame was that she wanted to be politically viable in 2028 and endorse the ticket like Zasantis did and have mild criticism and maybe stay in there, just as I said, as an inert candidate that might be a backup if something happened. 1.00

00:54:22.100 Or, you know, campaign and do pretty well, get within five points but not really win, and then they become a viable vice president candidate.

00:54:30.720 But it doesn't seem like she wants to do that.

00:54:33.260 The never-Trumpers are completely taboo among the MAGA base.

00:54:38.200 They're despised, Megan.

00:54:39.820 And if you want to get into that group, I don't think it leads it anywhere.

00:54:44.040 We know what happens to people, both pundits and politicians, that went that way.

00:54:49.040 We know what happened to Lynn Cheney.

00:54:51.060 I mean, where does that go?

00:54:55.120 Yeah, Liz. 0.50

00:54:56.100 Yeah, no, she's a hero, heroine to the left, but only the left.

00:55:00.380 And she says she's still a conservative Republican.

00:55:02.240 Okay, that's fine.

00:55:03.900 You can do that, but you're not going to be holding office.

00:55:06.320 You're not going to be a party leader, and you're not going to be an important voice for your own party.

00:55:10.900 So that's—Nicki Haley needs to watch it.

00:55:13.160 She's already kind of been relegated to—very much otherized by the Republican base that doesn't—the MAGA base, which doesn't like her.

00:55:21.840 So maybe she feels like that's already lost, but I don't know.

00:55:24.420 I still think she has a shot of being someone important to Trump, given that she does have some follow-up.

00:55:31.600 I think that's what's sad about it, because she does resonate with these donors that have been on record.

00:55:37.940 They don't want to support Trump.

00:55:39.800 But when they look at what Biden has done to the country, and they say to themselves,

00:55:43.720 do I want a repeat of 2017 to 2020, which was Trump, or do I want a repeat of 2021 to 2024?

00:55:56.160 I think most of the donors who are backing Haley look back at the Trump four years and see it as vastly superior to the Biden four years.

00:56:03.620 So for all their protests, they're volatile, and they could go back to Trump, and she could be a valuable agent in seeing that done.

00:56:12.280 And I think she would be rewarded politically for that if she could—she could be of help to Donald Trump in some capacity.

00:56:20.140 And I think she could.

00:56:21.260 She appeals to people that Trump does not appeal to, and he's going to need that 3% to 5%, given what this election will look like.

00:56:30.360 I don't think we're up for this election, to tell you the truth.

00:56:33.300 They're going to outspend him $3 or $4 billion to $1 billion and a half.

00:56:36.880 And there's going to be 60%, 70% voting not on Election Day in these swing states.

00:56:44.680 And Mark Zuckerberg and the Silicon Valley money is going to be, I think, there in greater number even than in 2020.

00:56:52.540 And if you remember that Molly Ball time essay that she outlined the plan, it was pretty scary what she admitted to post facto.

00:57:00.100 And I think it's going to be enhanced in 2024.

00:57:02.920 So Trump is going to need all the help he can get, and it's too bad that Haley doesn't see that.

00:57:09.840 Well, I mean, she might.

00:57:11.200 She might still. 0.61

00:57:11.840 Because, you know, they all say they're staying in, and then they drop out.

00:57:15.120 Even after Iowa, DeSantis.

00:57:16.740 Iowa got our ticket punched.

00:57:18.060 He was out within days before the next contest.

00:57:20.500 And the odds are that she's going to do the same so she can hold on to whatever relationship is left right now between her and the core Republican base and possibly get an administration post, which, you know, right now she's not set up for anything. 1.00

00:57:33.940 She has no job. 1.00

00:57:34.900 So it's none that I know of anyway.

00:57:36.880 She was on the Boeing board.

00:57:37.920 She's sort of been in corporate America here and there, but not with a principal role.

00:57:41.520 So maybe she makes up with Trump.

00:57:44.060 She campaigns for Trump this next year, tries to get those moderates on board, and winds up with some sort of cabinet post. 0.53

00:57:51.080 The independents in New Hampshire voted for Nikki Haley.

00:57:55.520 The people with a college degree voted for Nikki Haley.

00:58:00.740 Everyone else voted for Trump.

00:58:03.840 He won with the old people, with the young people, with the men, with the women. 0.99

00:58:09.920 I mean, across demographics, he won.

00:58:13.440 Even associate's degree, he won.

00:58:16.000 And he lost bachelor's degree people narrowly to Nikki Haley.

00:58:20.000 Then she beat him solidly with people who have an advanced degree.

00:58:24.100 He also won with everybody making under $100,000.

00:58:28.120 She narrowly beat him with those making over $100,000.

00:58:32.540 This brings me to a discussion I heard on the VDH podcast the other day, where you were talking about this Rasmussen poll, looking at the elites and how they see the world.

00:58:46.380 Like, there is a reason, Victor, that the people doing well financially, over $100,000 a year, the people with advanced degrees voted for Nikki Haley and probably are not going to vote for Donald Trump no matter what.

00:59:00.740 The way they see the world is extremely different from the way the other people I just ticked through see the world.

00:59:07.280 Absolutely.

00:59:09.500 I'm speaking from, you know, my farm in the Central Valley, and the per capita income is about $13,000.

00:59:17.800 And I work each week in Palo Alto where it's over $150,000.

00:59:22.980 And I work with people with PhDs and MBAs and JDs.

00:59:27.260 And then I'm here where I don't see very many people with any – most people don't have a high school diploma.

00:59:33.160 And yet they're very competent.

00:59:34.980 They're very hardworking.

00:59:36.200 They're very good people.

00:59:37.500 Mostly they're Mexican-American citizens and so-called illegal immigrants.

00:59:42.300 But it's a dichotomy.

00:59:44.700 And I just – when I go drive that 200 miles, I see what globalization did and enriched the Bay Area.

00:59:51.380 And it impoverished people who were involved in muscular labor.

00:59:55.080 In other words, what they did could be Xeroxed in other countries.

00:59:59.180 Both their labor or the whole company could be outsourced.

01:00:02.080 And the people in the Bay Area, they take this example, the bi-coastal elite.

01:00:06.280 They woke up around 2000 and their market was no longer $300 million.

01:00:11.060 It was $7 billion in law, insurance, tech, finance, banking, corporate.

01:00:17.300 And they've created a level of wealth that is just unprecedented in civilization, which is okay.

01:00:23.340 It enriches all of us.

01:00:24.960 But the problem is that they became utopian and they came up with these crazy ideas about education, about energy, about race.

01:00:34.120 And it was all predicated that the real-life consequences, whether it was critical legal theory, critical race theory, the green theories, they never were subject to the consequences of their own ideology.

01:00:46.580 They just experimented on the losers of globalization.

01:00:49.400 And that's what Trump understood.

01:00:51.400 And so he was trying to create an ecumenical class party that wasn't predicated on racial differences.

01:00:58.600 And he may be successful when getting the highest number of Latinos and blacks in the next election if he's careful than we've ever seen for a Republican. 0.90

01:01:06.680 But this wealthy group hasn't really been examined.

01:01:11.440 And because they own the media and academia, K-12, entertainment, the corporate boardroom, the popular culture, they're really exempt from really introspection on who they are, what their values are.

01:01:24.020 But I think they've been a very pernicious influence on this country.

01:01:27.480 And they're very selfish people, and we don't say that because they have all of these degrees, they have the right zip codes, they have the right 401Ks, they have the right professions.

01:01:39.440 And they have high self-regard for themselves.

01:01:44.900 And I see them on the Stanford campus hourly.

01:01:47.720 And, you know, it's just a relief to get away from them because they're very judgmental, and yet they're very proud of their generation, and they're very critical of the dead.

01:01:57.800 And when you look at what they've accomplished, and I don't see San Francisco better than it was 30 years ago or 50 years ago.

01:02:06.240 And I don't see the universities, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, as pillars of intellectual inquiry and freedom of thought compared to 1940 or 50.

01:02:14.620 So I don't really see what they're basing their high self-regard on, given what they've done to the country.

01:02:20.640 Yeah, they're in their own little bubble.

01:02:22.240 Here's some of the data from I Heard You Discussing, and it's a very interesting Wall Street Journal article that you were taking up.

01:02:28.560 It's by Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal.

01:02:31.060 She writes it on January 18th, and it's entitled The Them Versus Us Election.

01:02:34.680 She's basing the piece off of polling from Scott Rasmussen's RMG Research and how this subset of Americans feels about the issues.

01:02:45.460 And it's fascinating.

01:02:46.520 It's fascinating.

01:02:46.940 Listen to this.

01:02:47.780 So those with a postgraduate degree earning more than $150,000 a year and living in a high-density area, these are what are considered elites for the purposes of this poll.

01:02:58.880 All right?

01:02:59.060 Postgraduate degree, more than $150,000 living in an urban area.

01:03:04.160 Among these elites, 74% say their finances are getting better compared with 20% of the rest of voters.

01:03:12.820 The share is 88% among elites who are Ivy League graduates.

01:03:18.540 Their finances are getting better.

01:03:19.940 Yeah, it's awesome.

01:03:20.660 Life under Biden.

01:03:21.780 We love Bidenomics.

01:03:22.720 The elite gave President Biden an 84% approval rating compared with 40% from non-elites.

01:03:31.020 Again, this is not left-right.

01:03:32.340 This is based on those three criteria I just listed.

01:03:35.860 84% approval rating.

01:03:37.500 Large majorities have a favorable view of university professors.

01:03:41.860 89% approve of what we're seeing on college campuses with these professors.

01:03:46.420 79% love journalists and what the medias do.

01:03:50.800 This is like an alternate universe.

01:03:52.120 78% give a big thumbs up to lawyers and union leaders.

01:03:56.740 And 67% even like members of Congress.

01:04:00.660 I mean, it's incredible because every year you hear Congress has the approval rating of like maybe 6%, at most 13%.

01:04:09.420 So this is a very tiny sliver of America, but they drive major industries.

01:04:14.560 I'm going to keep going.

01:04:15.960 Two-thirds say they would prefer a candidate who says teachers and educational professionals, not parents, should decide what children are taught.

01:04:23.960 Nearly 50% of the elites believe the U.S. provides too much individual freedom.

01:04:30.500 As if that's something we get.

01:04:33.040 They just give to us.

01:04:34.360 And we've been given too much.

01:04:36.880 77% of these elites support strict rationing of gas, meat, and electricity to fight climate change versus 28% of everyone else who would support that.

01:04:47.400 And finally, two-thirds, more than two-thirds of elite Ivy League graduates favor banning things like gasoline-powered cars and stoves and inessential air travel, all because they want to support the environment.

01:05:06.180 These people, no wonder they're freaked out by MAGA and Trump.

01:05:11.600 They have absolutely nothing in common with regular people, real regular people.

01:05:17.440 They don't.

01:05:18.840 I work in the San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Stanford triad, and I see them every day.

01:05:25.700 They're very peculiar people because they insulate themselves from the consequences, as I said, of their ideas.

01:05:33.600 So they hate teachers' unions.

01:05:35.300 I mean, they love teachers' unions.

01:05:37.020 They hate charter schools.

01:05:38.100 They hate homeschooling.

01:05:39.300 And yet their kids are not in the public schools.

01:05:41.540 They hate jet travel for poi polloi, but they love to be, you know, tag along on private jets. 0.82

01:05:49.200 And they want kilowatts up to 30, 40 cents, you know, 40 cents for a kilowatt for heating and cooling.

01:05:59.260 And yet they live in a Bay Area environment that's about 65 degrees year-round, where they don't even need air conditioning.

01:06:06.960 And yet every once in a while you see a chink in their armor or you get a glimpse into their soul. 1.00

01:06:11.860 And by that I mean sometimes, on rare occasions, the consequences of their ideology hit them.

01:06:17.460 And we saw that with illegal immigration.

01:06:19.640 They praised illegal immigration.

01:06:21.600 They loved their maids. 0.93

01:06:22.500 They loved their nannies.

01:06:23.440 They loved their landscapers.

01:06:26.240 But every once in a while it hits them when people go to Martha's Vineyard or the red state governor say, why don't you share the burden in New York or Chicago or Seattle?

01:06:36.160 Then they show that they get angry about what's happening to them.

01:06:39.480 You also saw it with the DEI and the effect on kind of what I would call repertory admissions, where to take one case where I work, 20% of the incoming Stanford classes the last two years have been so-called whites. 0.76

01:06:52.860 And that meant there's not enough room for brilliant white kids, especially white males with perfect SAT scores, which SAT was dropped as a requirement, or perfect GPA.

01:07:05.920 And not all of them are billionaires that can buy their way in, and not all of them are kids of rich alumni or legacies or administrators or faculty.

01:07:16.040 So a large number of straight-A kids with high test scores, optional, they submitted, did not get into places like Harvard and Stanford.

01:07:25.220 And all of a sudden, these people were furious.

01:07:27.960 They said, this is unfair.

01:07:29.120 This is racist.

01:07:29.960 This is horrible.

01:07:31.500 In other words, they never thought it would happen to them, just like with immigration. 0.98

01:07:34.780 And that really shows me when you see these contradictions come home to roost to them, and they get irate, but they never quite see that they created these situations that have hurt people for generations.

01:07:47.360 And now they just barely start to affect them, and they go hysterical.

01:07:51.960 And if the Republicans are coherent, and they can create a large, lower, middle, middle, and upper middle class coalition that transcends race and starts talking about not equity, but equality of opportunity in the real sense, and starts addressing these, they could win really big.

01:08:14.300 They could do a lot of good by winning the House and the Senate and the presidency.

01:08:18.660 And it requires a lot from Trump because, you know, that speech he gave in Iowa, I thought it was brilliant.

01:08:24.320 And it just drove the acceptance speech.

01:08:27.900 It drove the media crazy.

01:08:29.120 They didn't want to cover it.

01:08:30.400 It was much better than the one he gave in New Hampshire.

01:08:32.540 And when he set aside that I'm not a vindictive person, I don't hold grudges, anytime he does that, he smiles, got a twinkle in his eye.

01:08:39.380 And so he's capable of doing that.

01:08:41.940 And everybody said he can't do it.

01:08:43.560 He's Trump.

01:08:44.300 You know Trump.

01:08:45.020 He goes in.

01:08:45.760 No, I don't believe that.

01:08:46.680 I think he can do that.

01:08:48.080 And if he were to do that, he could win a Reagan 1980-type revolutionary election.

01:08:54.800 And that's the hope, I think, that we all have.

01:08:58.320 But I don't know if it's going to come to fruition.

01:09:00.860 They have to unite.

01:09:01.680 There's so many things against the conservative mega movement.

01:09:05.020 There really is.

01:09:05.740 The institutional opposition, the cultural opposition, the international opposition, the financial opposition.

01:09:11.700 And the only chance they have is to unite.

01:09:14.360 The voting system.

01:09:15.260 Yes.

01:09:15.640 And the voting system.

01:09:16.540 As you just pointed out, the way they changed it in 2020, it hasn't been unchanged.

01:09:20.000 It hasn't.

01:09:20.760 You know that all these swing states, as I said, they're all going to vote 70%, 60% non-election day.

01:09:26.880 And so they have to unite.

01:09:28.620 They have to raise money.

01:09:29.680 They have to be disciplined.

01:09:30.840 Trump's got to be ecumenical.

01:09:32.880 And that's a lot of ifs.

01:09:34.580 But if they were to do that, they could win.

01:09:36.380 And they could really make things better for everybody.

01:09:38.520 There was the Supreme Court ruling this week saying that it's complicated, but the sum and

01:09:47.140 substance of it is Texas put up barbed wire and a flotilla that looks sort of like a barrier

01:09:53.360 to entry at one of its busiest entry point for illegals because the feds are doing nothing.

01:10:00.060 I mean, it's truly just they're doing what they can to try to protect their citizenry.

01:10:03.600 And rather than just leave well enough alone, the Biden administration saying, you know what,

01:10:08.260 we didn't do it, but no one's going to hold it against us if we don't interfere with Texas's

01:10:14.300 attempt to protect itself.

01:10:17.020 We're going to go down there and we are going to interfere and we're going to sue them and

01:10:20.400 we're going to try to make them take all that down because we're in charge of immigration,

01:10:24.200 which they are.

01:10:24.760 The feds are in charge of immigration, but they're not doing it.

01:10:27.120 So they did go into court.

01:10:28.780 And after a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Texas's favor, saying that the Border

01:10:35.940 Patrol should not, should not interfere with that barbed wire unless it was a case of an

01:10:43.360 emergency, so that Texas had won.

01:10:45.960 The feds were being kept out, went up to the Supreme Court, has to still be heard on the

01:10:50.380 merits, but a temporary decision was handed down by the high court saying while the case

01:10:57.400 is pending, the feds win.

01:11:00.140 Basically, they can't interfere.

01:11:01.520 They can do what they want.

01:11:02.620 They're in charge of the border.

01:11:03.820 If they want that wire down, they can take down that wire.

01:11:06.340 In Texas, you can't stop them.

01:11:08.020 Well, something extraordinary is happening right now.

01:11:09.940 And I told the audience yesterday, I oppose it.

01:11:12.580 We're getting some disobedience from Texas saying we're not going to let them.

01:11:17.440 And as much as I'm on Texas's side, and I know you are too, Victor, you can't have it.

01:11:22.400 Supreme Court, the orders must be obeyed.

01:11:25.080 They have to be obeyed if we are to have a country.

01:11:27.860 The rule of law is what holds us together, whether we like it or we don't.

01:11:30.360 We really don't want to set a precedent that you can blow off their opinions when conservatives

01:11:33.820 have finally amassed a six to three majority for the first time in decades.

01:11:38.940 And the principal case has not yet been decided.

01:11:41.300 It could still go Texas's way.

01:11:42.780 This is not worth it for the next six months to disobey the order and set that precedent.

01:11:47.280 And yet they appear to be doing it.

01:11:49.600 However, this is I want to get your thoughts on that.

01:11:51.500 But this is my real question to you.

01:11:54.120 What is going to happen?

01:11:56.000 So far, the feds haven't done it.

01:11:57.420 So far, the feds haven't gotten down there.

01:11:58.700 Just came down the other day.

01:12:00.100 They haven't gone down there to try to pull down the fences, the wire, the barrier, all that.

01:12:04.160 You get videotape of the Biden administration chopping down the wire fence, getting removing it.

01:12:16.520 I mean, it's the essential rolling out the red carpet as the news comes out, like we just saw today.

01:12:22.860 Again, God bless Bill Malugian of Fox News.

01:12:24.940 Here's just one guy who was arrested Sunday, as in a few days ago, a cartel member with 40 plus illegal entry attempts.

01:12:37.760 Just one of those is a federal felony that should land you in jail for two years.

01:12:41.580 This guy has 40 over the last two years during the Biden administration.

01:12:46.140 We don't enforce the law.

01:12:47.700 We let them come in.

01:12:48.760 He's a cartel member of one of the most dangerous.

01:12:53.060 They're all extremely dangerous, but one of the most brutal enforcement wings of the most brutal cartels.

01:12:59.620 And you're going to have video on loop by Team Trump, Fox News, people like me, of Biden taking down the wire fence that would have kept this guy out.

01:13:10.600 I just wonder whether they'll do it, whether Biden will do it.

01:13:14.620 Well, I think they will, because I think they see it as a January 6 hysteria to capitalize on.

01:13:21.220 And you're right.

01:13:21.820 You can't oppose the Supreme Court ruling, although I would note that the left and academia, it's now illegal to use affirmative action.

01:13:29.420 And all these universities are doing right now, and I can attest firsthand, are coming up with strategies to videot or cancel the Supreme Court's ruling.

01:13:37.860 And they will.

01:13:38.900 That won't affect them at all.

01:13:41.020 Even if they're sued, they'll keep doing it.

01:13:42.680 But, you know, what was really bad about this was, at first glance, you say, you know, this is a crazy state's rights, and the states don't have jurisdiction over a federal matter.

01:13:53.500 But when you look at it closely, Texas has the same border as the federal government.

01:13:59.080 It's our border, but it's also their border, number one. 1.00

01:14:02.980 And number two, Texas was trying to enforce a federal law, and the federal government was trying not to enforce and break the law.

01:14:12.680 So Texas was saying to the federal government, we're going to help you enforce your law, and the federal government is saying, we're going to break the law and force you not to enforce our law.

01:14:23.760 That was one thing.

01:14:24.680 The second thing was asymmetry because, Megan, there's 550 sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide, state, local, county, civic, and they nullify federal law.

01:14:38.900 In other words, if you go to Fresno or Modesto or San Francisco and you're an illegal alien, you commit a felony, and you're detained and ICE wants to deport you and has a right to do that, those jurisdictions will nullify the federal immigration statutes and not turn that person over.

01:14:58.180 And they're really saying the left is, we're going to be like South Carolina in 1832 or 1859.

01:15:05.400 We're just going to thumb up our nose at federal law.

01:15:08.580 And you know what would happen if counties or cities in Utah or Montana said, okay, we're going to have a sanctuary city for the endangered speeches list.

01:15:19.040 If we see that little rat with two spots on its tail and it's endangered and it's going to hold up an office building, we're just going to smash it.

01:15:27.840 We're not going to follow that statute.

01:15:29.780 Or if we're going to want to buy a Glock and the federal gun registry says we have to register, wait 90 days, except we're not going to do that in Wyoming.

01:15:39.280 We're going to nullify it.

01:15:40.400 This is a free zone.

01:15:42.180 And so you can see what I'm getting at.

01:15:43.960 The left is so asymmetrical.

01:15:46.140 There's sometimes states, Confederate, almost neo-Confederate, the way they interpret states' rights.

01:15:53.280 And then suddenly when it's an issue that they don't really, they don't support, then they turn into, you know, ultra hyper-federalist.

01:16:01.880 And you can't have it both ways.

01:16:03.480 And so I think they're baiting and egging on Texas to protect themselves and therefore clash with the federal government.

01:16:12.940 And then they'll take MSNBC and CNN.

01:16:15.720 We'll have pictures of a standoff between Texas, you know, Border Patrol officers and federal Border Patrols.

01:16:22.540 And you'll get clips of January 6th and insurrection.

01:16:25.900 And they'll get a quote from Trump.

01:16:27.360 That's what they want, because anything, any of these hysterias, COVID, the George, the lockdowns, the George Floyd thing, that is all they have.

01:16:37.240 And they exploit it so brilliantly because they don't have 50 percent support on the agenda.

01:16:42.260 Nobody supports their crime, border, economic, foreign policy, energy agendas.

01:16:47.720 Even in New Hampshire, illegal immigration was the number one issue for voters on the GOP side.

01:16:51.780 Again, when it's unaffiliated, like at least half of these folks are unaffiliated.

01:16:55.420 It's not all Republicans.

01:16:56.240 Number one, over the economy.

01:16:59.080 As far north as New Hampshire, thanks in part to this busing plan that Greg Abbott put in place where that makes sanctuary cities and as a result, the areas around them feel the pain of these illegals, too. 0.63

01:17:11.880 Yeah, I don't think people realize what's happening.

01:17:14.620 I live in a county in an area where people are bused in.

01:17:18.320 So about a year ago, I had an allergic reaction of all things to a bee sting and I had to go to the ER.

01:17:24.520 I completely passed out.

01:17:25.920 I almost, you know, 70 over and I just passed out.

01:17:31.460 Ambulance came.

01:17:32.420 I go.

01:17:32.780 There was not one person in the ER that spoke English of the patient.

01:17:37.260 I was the only person.

01:17:38.660 And the doctors were trying to do their best, but it was they were just overwhelmed.

01:17:44.140 And when I go to my specialist for a problem, say, two years ago, there were eight or nine people and there's 30.

01:17:53.000 And when I drive down my avenue, there used to be a little litter.

01:17:58.540 But we have so many homes now with people who are living illegally and they don't have trash pickup.

01:18:03.860 I'm talking about whole appliances.

01:18:06.280 I'm talking about car seats.

01:18:08.020 I'm talking about bags and bags of wet garbage.

01:18:11.460 I'm talking about everything from dead cats to human feces just thrown throughout, just as if it is in Mexico. 0.98

01:18:19.120 And when you say this to people who are not experiencing it, then they get angry and say you're racist.

01:18:26.960 And then all of a sudden, Eric Adams says, well, wait a minute. 0.97

01:18:29.180 There's parks in New York where there's human feces, excrement. 0.98

01:18:32.440 We can't believe this. 0.52

01:18:33.420 What's happening?

01:18:33.880 Well, it's coming home.

01:18:35.560 And that's what all of us have been dealing with for years.

01:18:38.420 But now it's at the point where it's not sustainable.

01:18:42.420 And it's really hard on a lot of minority communities because they've tried so hard to get advanced placement in their schools.

01:18:50.020 And suddenly when you're inundated with people who don't speak English and some of them don't speak Spanish, they teach they speak an indigenous dialect.

01:18:58.440 You have to have bilingual education again.

01:19:00.600 Or your grandmother's at a dialysis clinic and she's got an appointment and suddenly there's 50 people clamoring for that one machine.

01:19:08.680 And that happens all the time.

01:19:10.200 And the people who the Biden family and the people around them are never they never worry about this.

01:19:16.680 It's like they have the same attitude on this as they did East Palestine. 1.00

01:19:21.140 Well, these are losers and racists. 0.99

01:19:23.800 You know, as you know, it's not just limited to the Democrats. 0.99

01:19:26.760 It's this sort of old school Chamber of Commerce Republicans who are being rejected.

01:19:30.640 I hate to say it.

01:19:31.800 It's it's the Chamber of Commerce, big corporation, Wall Street Journal editorial page.

01:19:38.200 That's who they are.

01:19:39.020 If you try to get your information on what's happening in Texas or anyplace else from the Wall Street Journal, you are going to get spun right into how bad all those border efforts Texas is doing are.

01:19:49.000 And how, you know, it's really no one likes it.

01:19:52.460 It's dangerous.

01:19:53.360 I mean, it's you might as well just read MSNBC.

01:19:56.380 Meanwhile, I mean, the Babylon Bee, which is such a important cultural voice, right?

01:20:01.180 Like they just kind of get these things and make an attempt to humor out of them, allow us to laugh a little bit.

01:20:05.940 But the reason that Texas suffered this defeat, temporary, though it may be in the U.S. Supreme Court, was because three liberals joined with the two with two of the conservatives, Chief Justice Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee to say the feds can interfere with the fence.

01:20:21.980 And then the Babylon Bee tweets out the following, Victor.

01:20:24.900 Amy Coney Barrett says ruling for open border has nothing to do with landscaping work she needs done this summer.

01:20:30.140 Yeah, I mean, and people on the court who are on the left have absolute rigid discipline.

01:20:39.960 There's never a dissenting void.

01:20:41.260 And they all say that this they don't know one ever says to the the three and the minority were or when there was four or even when there was they had a majority.

01:20:52.240 No one ever says that lockstep, complete discipline.

01:20:55.980 Every liberal cause is somehow wrong.

01:20:58.580 But when the Republicans or the conservatives on the bench do it, it is.

01:21:02.820 And so that puts enormous pressure on conservative justice.

01:21:06.520 They live in that environment, Washington.

01:21:09.060 They want everybody wants to be like they like to be look in the newspapers and see that they're praised as sober and judicious and ecumenical.

01:21:17.160 And so it's just really depressing to see them rule like that when they should move out of Washington.

01:21:23.360 This is back to my husband's theory.

01:21:26.080 My husband's theory is that we should not have any attractive Supreme Court justices that they get pulled into the Georgetown Party circuit. 0.93

01:21:34.300 They're there.

01:21:34.880 You they're kind of it's important to them to be loved and have the affirmation of people around them, because that's what being attractive your whole life has gotten you.

01:21:41.880 And I will say, you know, Amy Coney Barrett, she's lovely.

01:21:45.040 And Chief Justice Roberts, he's a good looking man.

01:21:47.560 Those are the two.

01:21:48.900 This is well, I mean, same with Justice.

01:21:51.020 But it's kind of onto something.

01:21:52.340 O'Connor was the same way.

01:21:54.440 She was a very charismatic person.

01:21:56.300 Reagan appointed her.

01:21:57.440 And pretty soon she wanted to be loved.

01:22:00.140 And she was.

01:22:00.960 She was a very nice person and a good judge.

01:22:02.700 But she wasn't a conservative by the end of her career on the bench.

01:22:05.980 And she ruled one of her worst rulings was to affirm another 20 years or something of affirmative action. 0.98

01:22:12.680 And so I think that's I think that's one of the biggest problems that the Republicans have in general, just to take off on that point, that they they don't have these institutions that communicate with us and the methods of journalism or reading or video or audio communication.

01:22:34.180 And they want to be liked and they want to be accepted.

01:22:36.840 And they don't they can't face the tragic reality that if you are going to support the customs and traditions of the United States and what made us exceptionally unique in a very bizarre postmodern world that we live in, you're going to be hated.

01:22:50.800 And these institutions are going to try to destroy you and discredit you and defame you.

01:22:54.720 And you have to accept that as a price of trying to save the society and the culture and the civilization.

01:23:00.660 But that's what really gets it gets.

01:23:03.460 I see it so often with pundits, you know, or book writers.

01:23:06.560 They want a good book review in the New York Review of Books or they they want to be, I don't know, PBS or NPR.

01:23:14.000 But it's not going to happen if you because they don't want you if you're genuine and authentic in your views.

01:23:19.780 And we never can accept that because to accept it is it's kind of tragic.

01:23:24.720 It's going to say if you try to tell the truth about the civilization where we're headed, you're going to be despised in your own time.

01:23:31.880 And all you can say is, well, maybe in some future day, people will appreciate that there were some of us trying to warn where we were going.

01:23:39.860 And, you know, to some extent, that was the tragedy of Donald Trump, that he had this methodology that came in and did great things.

01:23:47.680 And once the thing started to work, people looked at the methodology and said, oh, my gosh, I voted for this guy.

01:23:53.620 He tweets. He's vulgar. Not in my name. I can't take it any longer.

01:23:57.840 And then we got Biden. And now we're back where we were before when people are going to have to grow up and say he has the ability as a gunslinger, a Shane or a Magnificent Seven to come in and get rid of the cattle barons or the banditos, whoever they are, and fix things.

01:24:12.420 And then he'll ride off in the sunset. But I don't think people can accept that, especially the donor class.

01:24:19.020 They just fixate on his crudities and forget all the good things he did while he was there.

01:24:26.560 Well, that's because somebody was just asking me this. I gave an interview to the BBC and they were asking me, why is it that Trump resonates with the working class and he grew up with a silver spoon and has all this money?

01:24:37.720 And Joe Biden, who's from Scranton, Pennsylvania, doesn't. And one of the things I was saying was, you know, on a number level, Trump speaks the same language as the working class.

01:24:47.320 He grew up in construction in New York City real estate. He's got the New York accent.

01:24:50.980 It's just something endearing about it. And he gets the way they talk and what some might discuss is his vulgarity, which, you know, let's face it, I have it, too.

01:25:00.120 So many people find endearing and it's the way they talk and they're not even in the least offended by it.

01:25:05.660 But the other piece of it is his policies have been very pro working class. It's the major piece, right?

01:25:09.600 China, immigration, the wall, manufacturing.

01:25:13.260 And on top of all that is the thing that scares them the most, Victor, which you just alluded to.

01:25:18.120 And that is he's got the credibility to be able to say, I know I'm one of them.

01:25:23.820 I can tell you how the game is played. That's that's what we do.

01:25:28.980 We take money from this Republican and from that Democrat and whoever's the highest bidder has the most access, you know, to somebody like this politician here.

01:25:38.540 And I remember you, you came to me and you asked me for a donation. I gave it because I wanted to buy you.

01:25:42.460 That's exactly. I wanted you to do what I wanted.

01:25:44.400 Yeah. You're quoting verbatim how he kind of in one line destroyed who I like, Rand Paul, but he destroyed his candidacy.

01:25:51.080 And Rand Paul said, you're the problem of money and politics.

01:25:53.800 He said, yeah, you came into my office and you wanted ten thousand dollars and I gave it to you and it's been good to me ever since.

01:26:00.320 And nobody ever heard anybody say anything like that.

01:26:04.320 And so the thing about him was the attraction. He was authentic.

01:26:07.400 You know, he came to Tulare, California. I couldn't go. And I talked to everybody and I said, so did he come and he have the straw in his mouth?

01:26:13.860 Did he have the caterpillar hat? Did he have the jeans?

01:26:16.360 Did you have the sets with the hay barrels and the John Deere tractor?

01:26:21.340 And it was amazing. This was in 2016.

01:26:23.980 They said, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:26:25.860 He came and it was very, very hot with a black suit and a tie that went all the way down to a zipper.

01:26:32.080 And he had polished shoes.

01:26:34.140 And I said, well, did he do the Hillary, you know, hey, you all and I'm so tired or the Obama,

01:26:39.320 the modulation of the voice and a phony way for the no, he said he had this bizarre Queen's accent that nobody had ever heard before.

01:26:47.660 And he was sweating like a dog. And I said, well, did he at least get get rid of the comb over?

01:26:52.900 And no, no, no, no, no. He was more Trump than ever.

01:26:55.360 So I said, everybody thought he was just a city sicker.

01:26:57.600 And they said, no, no, they loved him because he was authentic.

01:27:00.120 And that's that was what he was. He was what he was.

01:27:03.900 And, you know, it's a commentary on all these politicians.

01:27:07.180 They all you know, it's so sickening to see Hillary or Joe Biden or Barack Obama go, you all.

01:27:13.680 And they get in and they insult the audience when Joe Biden said they're going to put you all in chains.

01:27:18.860 And he modulated an African-American patois.

01:27:21.660 And all the people he were speaking to were upper middle class professionals.

01:27:25.340 And he was acting as if they were first generation, 1870 blacks living in the South.

01:27:31.920 And it was so condescending, just like his corn pulp, corn pop stories.

01:27:36.560 And yet the left doesn't see anything wrong with that.

01:27:40.420 But oftentimes, if you're authentic, it's very valuable.

01:27:43.620 This is what we're banking on.

01:27:44.700 You know, the country's banking on.

01:27:47.460 Forget the left.

01:27:48.540 They're not going to vote for Trump, but for those independents he needs to see it.

01:27:51.760 But I am going to say, well, I'm going to take a break and then I'm going to come back with what Van Jones said Biden should do now.

01:27:59.000 I mean, I agree with Van Jones.

01:28:00.880 I think he's pushing the right strategy here, but I'd love to know what you think.

01:28:04.640 Quick break.

01:28:05.340 Right back.

01:28:06.160 Victor Davis Hanson stays with us.

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01:29:06.120 So, Victor, here was Van Jones with advice to Joe Biden on what to do over the next 10 months.

01:29:18.040 What is the campaign going to look like?

01:29:19.560 Are there going to be debates?

01:29:20.960 It is going to be debates.

01:29:21.580 I think that's an open question.

01:29:23.040 If I were Biden, I would stay hidden, and I'll tell you why.

01:29:29.160 He doesn't inspire confidence, and he's not a great messenger for himself.

01:29:34.660 There's something wrong with this campaign where we're somehow expecting Joe Biden, who frankly hid during the last campaign,

01:29:39.680 to come out now and be Flash Gordon and save his own campaign.

01:29:42.860 The people who are benefiting from the Biden economy, and they exist, should be empowered to speak.

01:29:49.160 Stay hidden.

01:29:50.760 It's good advice, no?

01:29:52.460 Yeah, he's right.

01:29:54.220 And he could have added that it worked the first time because of COVID, and that was the excuse.

01:29:59.220 And now he doesn't have the excuse of COVID.

01:30:02.240 So it's going to be a little bit more problematic.

01:30:04.080 I don't know what he means when he says the people who benefited from the economy should be speaking, given their mortgage rates are 7%,

01:30:13.440 and the prices for staple food, gas, rent are about 20% to 30% higher, and they have not gone down, even though the annual inflation rate's gone down.

01:30:25.740 So I don't see anybody out where I live that's better off.

01:30:28.960 They all detest the economy and what's happened to them, especially when they, even now they're paying over $4 a gallon for gas.

01:30:37.200 So I don't see that.

01:30:38.920 I don't think he wants them.

01:30:40.400 But I guess what he's saying is that, I think the subtext of what he was hinting at is that there should be an intervention.

01:30:47.520 Because if you're saying that he can't campaign, and you're not going to have an excuse,

01:30:52.960 then he's really saying that at the convention, it's your last chance to do something.

01:30:57.320 And I think that do something would be, I don't know what that would be.

01:31:01.720 It would not be the elevation of Kamala Harris, but it might be the intervention of Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom or somebody.

01:31:08.960 Because I think he's, I think Biden is declining at a geometric rather than an arithmetic rate.

01:31:15.780 And I think it's getting worse by the week.

01:31:18.000 And the time that he's not in the White House is increasing.

01:31:20.880 I don't think we've ever seen a president that is working three to four days a week maximum, and not all day.

01:31:27.660 And just a few hours a day.

01:31:29.000 Let me show you an example of the latest, Victor.

01:31:30.820 He was on Tuesday in Virginia trying to say something about don't mess with the women of America.

01:31:37.620 But take a listen to what it sounded like.

01:31:41.400 We'll teach Donald Trump a valuable lesson.

01:31:45.660 Don't mess with the men of America unless you want to get the benefit.

01:31:50.880 What? Every day with the marbles in the mouth.

01:31:55.980 You can't understand.

01:31:56.840 I mean, Van Jones is being very charitable when he says he's not an effective messenger.

01:32:00.960 It's so far beyond that.

01:32:04.380 Yeah.

01:32:04.680 I mean, I think what he's saying is, look, when we had high inflation, I covered for him.

01:32:11.820 When the interest rates went up, I covered for him.

01:32:14.540 When we see all the stuff going on in the Middle East and Afghanistan, I covered for him. 1.00

01:32:18.940 When we see the crime going, I covered for him.

01:32:22.240 When I saw the open border, I covered for him.

01:32:24.400 When he's hid in the basement, I covered for him.

01:32:27.020 But at some point, I'm kind of like the 51 intelligence authorities that lied about the lab.

01:32:33.460 At some point, I can't do this any longer.

01:32:35.920 And we've got to do something.

01:32:37.580 He's got to get out there and debate.

01:32:38.900 But he can't get out there and debate.

01:32:40.200 And yet we can't keep telling everybody that he's perfectly cognizant and there's no problem.

01:32:46.900 And so I think he's trying to warn people either that he's not going to do it anymore and or that they shouldn't do it anymore or that Biden shouldn't do it anymore.

01:32:58.080 Right.

01:32:58.300 It's everybody talks about some more effective messenger to really bring it home.

01:33:02.300 But really, the campaign is going to be based on scaring the electorate about ultra MAGA.

01:33:08.000 That's very clearly what they're going to do.

01:33:09.640 Can't say I disagree with the attempt, right, because he can't keep touting Bidenomics or the border.

01:33:16.160 So it's going to be trying to scare people.

01:33:17.920 But I will say credit to Dean Phillips, who is this Democratic challenger to Biden.

01:33:22.020 He really only had to play in New Hampshire where Biden wasn't on the ballot for all sorts of reasons.

01:33:27.360 Dean Phillips was he wound up getting 20 percent, which was OK, got 20 percent.

01:33:32.700 I mean, Dean Phillips doesn't have any shot, but he's a nice guy.

01:33:35.060 He came on the show and I think he's an interesting man.

01:33:36.940 He's a centrist.

01:33:37.560 So I like centrists.

01:33:40.060 And he listened to what he said about the Trump electorate and what his party is not understanding in Sot9.

01:33:48.000 I got to tell you guys, I went to a Donald Trump rally a couple of nights ago.

01:33:51.860 Never been to one.

01:33:53.100 I had an event across the street.

01:33:54.380 I saw the line of people waiting in the cold for hours.

01:33:57.360 And I thought, what the heck?

01:33:58.560 You know, I'm going to be a leader who actually invites people, doesn't condemn them.

01:34:02.320 Met probably 50 Trump people waiting in line, every single one of them, thoughtful, hospitable, friendly, all of them so frustrated that they feel nobody's listening to them.

01:34:12.420 But Donald Trump, a diverse crowd, people who had never been to a Trump event before.

01:34:16.860 My party is completely delusional right now.

01:34:20.000 We have a.

01:34:21.700 Right.

01:34:22.220 They're completely delusional in characterizing these people as something to be afraid of, silenced, defeated, avoided.

01:34:30.260 They do better to listen to them and try to address some of their concerns, which, by the way, would not include cutting down the razor wire.

01:34:39.340 They don't get it.

01:34:40.420 Dean Phillips is right.

01:34:41.260 No, I mean, at five this morning, I talked to a guy who was shredding brush on the almond orchard.

01:34:48.400 I had talked to a plumber yesterday and I went to a used car guy and talked to him.

01:34:53.360 Just normal business.

01:34:54.740 You know what's so strange about them?

01:34:56.120 They were all for Trump, but they're not judgmental people.

01:34:59.640 They're open minded.

01:35:00.420 And they just are voting for him, not because of some cosmic theory, but because they feel that things were going their way three years ago and they're definitely not going their way now.

01:35:12.560 But the irony is when you go up to the Silicon Valley people or the people on the Stanford campus, they are ideologue.

01:35:20.340 They're set.

01:35:21.000 They're intolerant.

01:35:21.880 You try to talk to them.

01:35:23.120 They get angry.

01:35:24.340 They write.

01:35:24.820 They get ad hominem.

01:35:26.540 And I think that's what what Phillips was trying to say is that you people don't understand that these people that you demonize is ultra mega and semi fascist.

01:35:36.820 When you go talk to them, they're very rational, logical people.

01:35:40.120 They're just trying to find a way out of the dilemma that we're in.

01:35:43.560 They want to be able to they want their kids to be able to buy a house.

01:35:47.200 If their son goes into the army, they don't want them to be exposed to woke. 0.97

01:35:51.040 They're tired of all these generals that are going in the revolving door and then lecturing people about how illiberal they are.

01:35:57.720 They're tired of all this and they have they have a point.

01:36:00.600 And we are the people who are judgmental, not them.

01:36:03.640 And I thought that was pretty brave of him to say that.

01:36:06.320 I really did.

01:36:06.860 It was it was insightful and it was brave.

01:36:09.520 And I think the guy's got a future ahead of him in politics if he wants it.

01:36:12.600 Hopefully the Democrat Party won't punish him too hard for daring to challenge President Biden.

01:36:18.580 Victor, always a pleasure.

01:36:19.840 Thank you so much, my friend.

01:36:20.860 Great to see you.

01:36:22.100 Thank you for having me, Megan.

01:36:26.580 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:36:28.700 No BS, no agenda and no fear.

01:36:31.240 Thank you for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

The Megyn Kelly Show - January 24, 2024

Trump Wins New Hampshire, But Haley Fights On, with Victor Davis Hanson, Comfortably Smug, and Michael Moynihan ｜ Ep. 709

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