The Megyn Kelly Show - Wargaming How Democrats Could Ditch Biden Next Year, and Criminalizing Speech in the U.K., with Chris Stirewalt and Calvin Robinson ｜ Ep. 640

00:00:00.660 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.840 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:14.920 Oh, we have a great, great program for you today, one that I can only bring you in this new format

00:00:19.500 with the time to truly dig into these issues.

00:00:22.240 Honestly, like if I were on cable news right now, we wouldn't be able to do any of these issues justice.

00:00:27.320 Never been happier to be exactly where I am.

00:00:29.260 In just a bit, we're going to be joined for an exclusive interview with Calvin Robinson.

00:00:33.500 Now, I mentioned him earlier this week.

00:00:35.600 He was suspended and now, as of this morning, fired by GB News over in Great Britain

00:00:41.380 in the wake of the Lawrence Fox fallout.

00:00:43.740 We've been bringing this story to you.

00:00:45.480 Remember, Lawrence Fox went on Dan Wooten's GB News show.

00:00:48.800 Dan's been on the show many times talking about the Royals, etc.

00:00:51.320 And he made a crass comment about a political commentator over there, a woman,

00:00:55.860 who he thought was demeaning or diminishing male suicide.

00:00:58.400 Well, all hell broke loose.

00:01:00.580 All hell broke loose.

00:01:02.260 Lawrence got suspended.

00:01:03.300 Then Calvin defended Lawrence.

00:01:04.880 Calvin got suspended.

00:01:06.280 Dan, who was just anchoring the segment, he got suspended.

00:01:09.220 And now this morning, Lawrence got fired and so did Calvin.

00:01:13.020 And Dan's fate looms in the balance he's going to find out later this week.

00:01:17.060 Meanwhile, we booked Lawrence Fox, the man who made the controversial comments, to come on this show.

00:01:22.080 And he was going to come on in our second hour, except he's not because he was arrested this morning at his home in London. 0.99

00:01:28.200 You cannot make this shit up. 0.99

00:01:30.700 He's in jail at the moment. 1.00

00:01:33.040 So we had to find a different guest.

00:01:35.120 Thankfully, Calvin said he'd come on.

00:01:36.900 He's all.

00:01:37.280 I mean, is he about to be arrested, too?

00:01:38.600 We'll get into it in just a bit.

00:01:40.320 But we begin with the chaos to come in the 2024 election cycle, which is very uncertain, to put it, to put it mildly.

00:01:49.380 We've been wanting to bring you this report for a while.

00:01:52.080 What happens if or and how can the Democrats actually swap out President Biden from their ticket?

00:01:59.160 How can it happen either before they get to the Democratic Convention?

00:02:03.600 After they get to the Democratic Convention, we're going to go down the contingencies.

00:02:08.540 And how about on the other side?

00:02:10.520 Can Trump be subbed out if he wins the nomination, you know, come Super Tuesday and so on, and then winds up in jail between March of 2024 and November of 2024?

00:02:22.600 What are the Republicans options?

00:02:26.080 Today, we have someone here who can actually answer these tricky questions and many more.

00:02:31.320 Like what happens if Glenn Youngkin actually gets into the race, but beyond the point where his name can be on the ballot?

00:02:35.640 All of the ins and outs, this man has answers.

00:02:39.880 You know him well.

00:02:41.060 Oh, and by the way, before we get to any of that, yeah, for the first time in American history, the House voted out the speaker and Kevin McCarthy is gone and we have no speaker of the House.

00:02:48.300 There's that little matter to deal with.

00:02:50.900 Joining me now on all of it, our expert Chris Steierwalt, contributing editor at The Dispatch, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,

00:02:57.460 and co-host of the Ink Stained Wretches podcast with our friend Eliana Johnson.

00:03:04.100 Chris, welcome back to the show.

00:03:05.680 And what a day to have you.

00:03:08.900 I mean, I just hope I don't get arrested.

00:03:11.460 My real hope here is that I can navigate this time with you and not myself be jailed.

00:03:16.400 And also, I would say it's great to be with you because, as you said, you'd have already been late for your first break if this was on cable news.

00:03:25.340 You've got time to expound on this stuff.

00:03:27.660 It's really cool and I appreciate it.

00:03:29.760 I love doing it.

00:03:30.960 And so I can't find our copy of The Wall Street Journal, but here's what showed up at our house today.

00:03:35.840 This is The New York Times for the listening audience.

00:03:37.760 Big, big headline.

00:03:39.100 McCarthy first to be removed as speaker.

00:03:41.120 And then you've got The New York Post, Gates of Hell, G-A-E-T-C.

00:03:48.400 Okay, that's pretty good.

00:03:49.340 McCarthy first house speaker ever ousted after coup by Florida Republican or Representative Gates.

00:03:54.420 So it's a big deal.

00:03:57.000 I do find it hard to get excited by Congress.

00:04:00.720 I didn't get excited by the shutdown.

00:04:03.140 I knew they'd sign something to kick the ball a little.

00:04:06.020 And indeed they did.

00:04:07.260 But this, this is a different sliver, different kettle of fish, as they say.

00:04:12.480 And it is interesting to me that McCarthy's out and says he doesn't want to come back.

00:04:16.100 So let's walk through it in baby steps.

00:04:18.380 I've written down my questions, which I almost never do, Starwalt, so we can do it in baby steps.

00:04:23.560 Here's my first question.

00:04:25.380 Why does Matt Gates hate Kevin McCarthy?

00:04:28.480 That's number one.

00:04:29.340 Okay, well, I mean, first, the big scope is in one day, if you do the split screen, you've got the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and former president in a courthouse getting a gag order because of stuff that he was saying about somebody in the courtroom.

00:04:47.520 Whoa, that's never happened before.

00:04:50.020 Yeah.

00:04:50.180 And then on the other part of the split screen, you've got the sitting president's son in a courthouse entering a not guilty plea to charges that he had previously been prepared to plead guilty to.

00:05:02.140 That's never happened before.

00:05:03.740 And then the icing, the coup de grace, never before has a sitting speaker of the House been removed.

00:05:12.420 Now, on the one hand, everything has never happened until it does.

00:05:17.500 So what, right?

00:05:18.360 It's consequences that matter, not whether it's the first time that it happened.

00:05:22.960 Matt Gates hates Kevin McCarthy for a variety of reasons.

00:05:29.660 And I don't like to question people's motives.

00:05:31.980 But here it seems pretty clear that the motives are in the light most favorable to the defendant, I guess I'd say, that this small group of Republican lawmakers believes that the only way to affect change is to make sure that whoever is in leadership is absolutely terrified to defy them.

00:05:51.940 And this is the kind of sanction, the kind of punishment that this small group can deliver in a narrowly divided Congress.

00:05:58.940 If I take it in a light less favorable to the defendant, Matt Gates sounds like he wants to run for governor of Florida.

00:06:05.800 Matt Gates wants to be very famous and very important.

00:06:09.760 And this is a vehicle to be very famous and very important, certainly.

00:06:14.120 And get you on the, as you just showed, get you on the front page of every newspaper, makes you the topic of conversation.

00:06:20.760 But it won't change anything, right?

00:06:24.100 But it will certainly make Matt Gates famouser.

00:06:27.900 Mm-hmm.

00:06:28.320 I also heard that he blames Kevin McCarthy for the ethics investigation into him, though they say that actually wasn't McCarthy's fault.

00:06:35.420 But he doesn't like that he's being investigated and he thinks McCarthy at least didn't do enough to save him.

00:06:39.900 In any event, that's what Kevin McCarthy is saying, that this is all personal by Matt Gates.

00:06:43.700 He barely made speaker because they just have such a slim majority in the House.

00:06:48.580 I think it's just a four-person majority.

00:06:51.100 And so he barely won the speakership and he had to cut all these deals to get it.

00:06:54.280 But now one has come back to haunt him that would allow any one member to basically force a vote on whether he should stay speaker.

00:07:01.880 That's what Matt Gates did because he didn't like the deal that Kevin McCarthy ultimately cut to postpone the spending battle for, you know, six weeks or so.

00:07:12.000 You know, Kevin McCarthy did have a deal, as I understand it.

00:07:14.280 He brought it to Matt Gates.

00:07:15.200 He brought it to everybody.

00:07:15.820 He said, here's a deal that could, like, do some stuff, like maybe some more border funding.

00:07:21.300 And Matt Gates gave him the big middle finger.

00:07:22.820 He was, like, not good enough and sent McCarthy walking because McGaith said, I'm pissed because you made that deal and you're going to need Dems to support you.

00:07:32.100 This is what a turncoat you are, right?

00:07:33.780 This is do I have it right so far?

00:07:35.980 Well, the point was to make McCarthy use Democrats, right?

00:07:39.540 That was the point, because if you want to remove McCarthy, you need the causes Bella.

00:07:46.220 You need the reason.

00:07:47.640 And the reason was going to be that he used Democratic votes to avert a shutdown.

00:07:52.640 Now, we remember when John Boehner stunned the nation and said, I'm not going to let you vote me out.

00:07:56.980 I'm out.

00:07:57.720 I'm leaving.

00:07:58.700 I'm going to put the vote forward, avoid the shutdown.

00:08:01.860 I forget whether it was a shutdown or a debt ceiling lift.

00:08:04.140 But we're going to do that.

00:08:06.060 And then I'm out.

00:08:07.480 And McCarthy said, I'm going to do that. 0.72

00:08:09.300 And then I'm going to hang. 0.98

00:08:10.580 I'm going to do that. 0.92

00:08:11.640 And I'm going to stay here.

00:08:12.740 And we're going to see what happens.

00:08:14.440 And they did it to him.

00:08:15.680 And I think a larger way to think about this would be starting with the 2010 election.

00:08:21.780 There's been a revolution inside the Republican conference, and it has intensified over time.

00:08:27.640 And it took down Boehner and it took down Paul Ryan.

00:08:31.040 And now it's taken down Kevin McCarthy.

00:08:33.900 And the problem with revolutions is they burn themselves out because you start out and you

00:08:39.980 say, we all want something different.

00:08:41.640 We this should be different.

00:08:43.200 OK, yes.

00:08:44.200 Well, what do you want?

00:08:45.100 And the answer continues to be, well, not that different.

00:08:47.840 I just don't want I want that.

00:08:49.300 I don't want that.

00:08:50.440 And it keeps going and keeps going, keeps going.

00:08:53.320 And if you just try a thought experiment, imagine Democrats doing this.

00:08:56.520 They had just as small a majority in the House before.

00:09:00.240 And it's impossible to imagine Democrats doing this,

00:09:02.980 even with members of the squad, even with radical ideologues and glory hogs abounding in the 0.89

00:09:09.480 conference.

00:09:10.080 It's impossible to imagine Democrats doing it because Democrats are much better at sticking

00:09:16.760 together than Republicans who who are just better at sticking it to each other.

00:09:22.200 They are.

00:09:22.960 The Democrats are.

00:09:23.760 They're good.

00:09:24.120 They get in line when they have to.

00:09:25.300 They fight, but then they they bring it home in the end.

00:09:27.580 And the Republicans just wind up killing each other in their circular firing squad.

00:09:30.540 Even when they're winning, they they find a way to lose.

00:09:33.180 You know, we've always said never underestimate the Republicans ability to screw it up.

00:09:36.600 And now they could have had headlines about Hunter Biden and, you know, Joe Biden and the

00:09:40.720 impeachment inquiry.

00:09:41.600 And instead, we have headlines about the meltdown inside the House GOP and how they can't even

00:09:48.580 run the one body that they now control.

00:09:51.800 They had the one.

00:09:52.520 They can't run it for for two or three weeks.

00:09:54.780 What was the narrative in the political press? 0.84

00:09:57.360 Joe Biden is awful.

00:09:58.560 That was the narrative. 0.95

00:09:59.380 It was clear there was a Washington Post poll that showed him getting just shellacked by

00:10:04.320 Donald Trump in a rematch.

00:10:06.100 Every story, every bit of energy surrounded the question of whether Joe Biden was going

00:10:10.800 to get dumped by the Democratic Party.

00:10:12.740 He's not going to be able to serve.

00:10:14.100 And it was a drumbeat.

00:10:15.300 And the Hunter Biden story, of course, reinforces all of that.

00:10:18.460 And the Republicans said, Matt Gaetz said, hold my beer.

00:10:21.920 We don't want to talk about that.

00:10:23.180 That's not what we want to talk about.

00:10:24.940 We want to talk about back to me.

00:10:26.960 Yeah, back back to me.

00:10:28.420 And we want to talk about how angry we are at Kevin McCarthy.

00:10:31.400 And it's look, being as you correctly identified, counselor, being in control of one half of

00:10:38.240 one branch of government is not a sufficient posture from which to advance policy reforms.

00:10:43.700 The best that you're really going to be able to do is stop bad things that you don't like.

00:10:48.260 That's that's sort of your maximum.

00:10:50.240 And looked at one way, the Republicans have been extraordinarily, extraordinarily successful

00:10:55.020 under McCarthy's leadership in this brief period of time.

00:10:58.780 They did get stuff.

00:11:00.120 They did force Biden to the negotiating table.

00:11:02.100 And they did it because Republicans could stick together and they could pass stuff out

00:11:05.660 of the House.

00:11:06.460 That's what McCarthy wanted him to do this time.

00:11:08.480 Look, I know it's going to pass, but we've got to put the Senate on the back foot.

00:11:11.640 We've got to pass something.

00:11:13.040 And this, again, very small number of members of the Republican conference, I think just

00:11:19.040 eight people said, no, we don't want to pass something.

00:11:23.200 We would rather we would rather feel good failing than we would take the fight to Senate

00:11:28.540 Democrats.

00:11:30.020 Yeah.

00:11:30.700 Shut her down. 0.99

00:11:31.500 We'd rather fail.

00:11:32.320 So they have failed and they had to, in order to get rid of McCarthy, work with Democrats.

00:11:37.420 The ultimate irony.

00:11:38.760 That's that was McCarthy's sin.

00:11:40.140 He worked with the Democrats to kick this spending thing down the road.

00:11:43.880 And then in order to punish him for it, the eight had to work with Democrats who were ticked

00:11:48.920 off enough at McCarthy for the impeachment inquiry and blaming a bunch of stuff on them

00:11:54.320 and just generally not liking the Democrats so much that they were like, we're not going

00:11:57.780 to save you.

00:11:58.420 And I understand that, too.

00:11:59.480 Why should they save him?

00:12:00.840 They're like, bye.

00:12:01.900 So here's my next question for you.

00:12:04.420 Written down.

00:12:06.300 Why is Kevin McCarthy not running for speaker again?

00:12:10.140 Um, I, I assume he thinks he, uh, either can't win or in order to win the concessions that

00:12:17.280 he would have to make, uh, would be even more odious than the concessions.

00:12:22.080 The first time, um, a job in which you have responsibility, but not authority, you're not

00:12:28.800 really in charge, right? 0.98

00:12:30.560 Uh, you're a goat. 0.97

00:12:31.660 You're there, you're there to take the beating for the failures, but you don't really have 0.98

00:12:35.720 the ability to lead.

00:12:36.760 And that was, that's where the house freedom caucus generally, but this small clack of

00:12:41.880 members, that's what they want the speaker to be.

00:12:44.620 They, the, the speakership is envisioned as a very powerful office.

00:12:49.120 Remember this is third in line for the presidency and the speakership is envisioned as a very

00:12:54.360 powerful office and lots of privileges, uh, in terms of how Congress is run, uh, uh, devolved

00:13:01.480 to the speaker of the house.

00:13:03.360 So what these folks want is somebody who, who can't do that.

00:13:07.420 Who's really more of just a vote counter, right?

00:13:09.780 They just want somebody who's going to go with whatever the plurality of Republicans in

00:13:13.880 the conference want from time to time.

00:13:15.920 Uh, and that's not a job that Kevin McCarthy would want to have.

00:13:19.820 So I assume it's those things.

00:13:21.800 And I also assume that, and this is not something that I think would have come easily to McCarthy

00:13:28.220 because he's been climbing the greasy pole to be speaker for so long.

00:13:32.620 And if you'll recall, he was denied the speakership once before, which is how it landed in Paul

00:13:37.760 Ryan's lap because of the complaints of these folks.

00:13:40.940 And there was a, there was a really ugly whisper campaign that was launched against McCarthy

00:13:45.000 and his, uh, lifelong, I don't know if it was lifelong, but decades long effort to become

00:13:50.480 the speaker was dashed.

00:13:52.120 And so he gets it back.

00:13:53.920 So he put all of this time and effort into having this job.

00:13:56.900 And I would just say, uh, if he did it for that, if, if he walked away for this reason,

00:14:03.180 uh, that he thought it would be better for his country and better for his party, then good

00:14:07.980 for Kevin McCarthy.

00:14:08.820 Because as we can see in American politics today, people have a hard time leaving.

00:14:13.660 My gosh, they have a hard time leaving.

00:14:16.100 And if what he, and if what he said was, you know what, I'm good.

00:14:20.860 If he did what Boehner did or Ryan did and said, I'm, I've had plenty and I'm, I'm leaving

00:14:26.440 now so that you guys can move on.

00:14:28.300 That's a lesson that both parties in large part can take about letting things change and

00:14:33.820 letting the page turn.

00:14:35.780 One man who was very effective house speaker is, uh, our former colleague at Fox news, Newt

00:14:40.240 Gingrich, who went on with Hannity last night and was not happy about what this eight dubbed,

00:14:48.700 uh, I think by Ben Dominic and the American spectator as the hateful eight, which I know 0.99

00:14:53.020 is seed oils, the hateful eight seed oils, which are to be avoided.

00:14:55.920 Uh, in any event, uh, Newt Gingrich is very angry at that quote hateful eight and said

00:15:01.420 the following, listen here.

00:15:03.760 96% of the Republicans voted for McCarthy 4% voted against him from my position as a

00:15:10.800 long time Republican activist. 0.96

00:15:12.300 They're traitors. 0.90

00:15:13.980 All eight of them should in fact be primaried. 0.99

00:15:16.340 They should all be driven out of public life.

00:15:18.300 What they did was to go to the other team to cause total chaos.

00:15:22.920 We ought to be focusing on Biden.

00:15:25.340 We ought to be focusing on the economy.

00:15:27.460 We ought to be focusing on the border.

00:15:29.220 Instead, you're going to get a week or 10 days of the media focusing on Republican disarray.

00:15:34.540 It's an astonishingly destructive behavior by a handful of egocentric people who think they're

00:15:41.160 superior to 96% of the conference.

00:15:45.320 And here is my next question, Starwalt.

00:15:48.640 Do Republicans enjoy losing elections?

00:15:52.920 Well, you know, it's, it's, it's not, um, it's not a crazy thing to say because I think

00:15:59.540 it goes like this.

00:16:01.560 Republicans have come to believe that success.

00:16:05.120 So let's start with the first, uh, assumption, which is people on the right don't like the

00:16:10.680 government, uh, and people on the left do.

00:16:13.380 We have a pro-government party essentially, and we have an anti-government party.

00:16:17.080 So if you're good at being in the government, you're already viewed with suspicion by people

00:16:21.980 on the right.

00:16:23.600 When you reinforce that with a narrative that says, uh, we always get sold out.

00:16:28.960 We always get sold out.

00:16:30.620 We get sold out every time they tell us they're going to be conservatives and then they get

00:16:34.620 in there and they sell us out.

00:16:35.860 And so that idea of betrayal, which by the way, has animated and sustained Donald Trump in

00:16:41.920 every way, as he has come to dominate the Republican party, this concept of betrayal is deeply rooted

00:16:48.140 in Republicans.

00:16:49.260 I'm talking about going back generations to our grandparents' generation about this feeling

00:16:54.900 of betrayal.

00:16:55.440 So you have a party that is disinclined to see the government, to be the government.

00:16:59.980 You have a party that is, uh, has a strong belief that they have been frequently betrayed

00:17:05.000 by people, uh, uh, sleeping with the enemy.

00:17:07.900 And then you have this, what is proof positive that you've been betrayed?

00:17:15.020 Somebody is succeeding at governing, right?

00:17:17.780 Somebody is succeeding at winning.

00:17:19.220 They're getting stuff done because the only way that you could, we have a very evenly divided

00:17:24.120 nation, right?

00:17:25.100 And we have had really for most of this century, we have a country that is 47, 47 and people

00:17:32.120 who just want to puke and the, in a country, in a, in a country like that, you're not going

00:17:40.540 to be able to advance big ideas on partisan lines.

00:17:43.880 Look at how Barack Obama, look at the, the disaster of Obamacare, uh, creation, passage

00:17:50.040 and implementation.

00:17:51.200 What a, what a, what a debacle that was.

00:17:53.720 And they ended up with very few things out of what they wanted and a bad election message

00:17:57.900 and all those things.

00:17:59.140 We don't have the kinds of majorities for either party in America that would allow party

00:18:03.660 line success.

00:18:05.080 So the only way that you can get some of what you want is working with the other side.

00:18:09.520 So Republicans look at their fellow Republicans who work with Democrats or offer things that

00:18:14.840 are appealing to a mainstream audience.

00:18:16.340 And they say, this person is a sellout.

00:18:18.580 So in its own perverse way, losing is evidence of purity, right?

00:18:26.120 Losing is evidence of purity.

00:18:28.180 And there was one member of, uh, the freedom caucus.

00:18:31.680 And I, I think it was Matt Rosendale from Montana who said, who talked in a recent interview

00:18:38.000 about how he prayed that the Republican majority would be small.

00:18:41.980 After the 2022 midterms, what is that, right?

00:18:47.060 Who says that?

00:18:48.000 What person says, I just hope that my party didn't do that well.

00:18:51.500 Now, the reason he was praying that his party would have the kind of puny showing in midterms

00:18:57.160 that it did was that he knew his power would be greater in a Congress that was less Republican.

00:19:03.340 And I think that encapsulates sort of the self-defeating thinking that dominates among Republicans

00:19:08.060 and why they, at a moment of enormous political opportunity for their party, cannot seem to

00:19:13.860 get out of their own way.

00:19:15.260 Yeah.

00:19:15.860 Well, now they caught the bumper, you know, the dog caught the bumper.

00:19:20.840 Now what?

00:19:23.020 Unclear.

00:19:24.260 Um, McCarthy's not running again.

00:19:26.320 Jim Jordan threw his hat in the ring today.

00:19:28.700 There's a temporary guy who's just going to like pass, you know, make sure order is maintained

00:19:33.760 while they figure out who the real guy is.

00:19:35.980 So far, as far as I can tell, this guy, McHenry, his name is Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.

00:19:40.560 His first move was to, um, as acting speaker was to order former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

00:19:45.160 to get out of her Capitol Hill hideaway office.

00:19:47.440 That's like the, the nice big sort of personal office where it's all like your bragging photos

00:19:52.080 and so on, according to an email center.

00:19:54.360 I mean, I kind of like that.

00:19:56.560 Go McHenry.

00:19:57.400 Good.

00:19:58.280 Get her out. 1.00

00:19:59.100 So far, I like the new guy, but anyway, putting him to the side, he's not the real guy.

00:20:03.660 So Jordan's throwing his hat in the ring and then, and then there's this little nugget

00:20:09.060 from Hannity last night.

00:20:11.240 Listen, Satu.

00:20:12.500 Sources telling me at this hour, some House Republicans have been in contact with and have

00:20:18.320 started an effort to draft former President Donald Trump to be the next speaker.

00:20:22.820 And I have been told, uh, that, uh, President Trump might be open to helping the Republican

00:20:29.340 Party, at least in the short term, if necessary, uh, if it's needed.

00:20:35.660 Oh my God.

00:20:39.600 I mean, I just, as a, as a journalist, obviously I want this to, I want to see this tried.

00:20:47.260 I, I just, I'm, I'm here, I'm six blocks away from the Capitol.

00:20:51.080 I want to see, I want to see it, uh, as a journalist, but wow.

00:20:56.620 Wow.

00:20:57.440 Yeah.

00:20:57.880 That's not real, right?

00:20:58.900 That's just Trump getting his name repeated over and over.

00:21:02.620 I, uh, so my guess would be this, that Elise Stefanik, uh, a Congresswoman from New York

00:21:10.960 is the most likely person to become, uh, the next speaker.

00:21:15.580 And then you'd say Steve Scalise, unfortunately is struggling with cancer.

00:21:20.560 And I don't know whether that's, whether he wants to put himself through this, but it look,

00:21:24.600 I would guess.

00:21:24.940 He's the number two guy in the house right now, but yeah, but yeah, he's got a health

00:21:27.800 issue and he's well-liked.

00:21:29.800 Um, but Stefanik is very ambitious and she has, has been, uh, grinding it hard to get to

00:21:35.380 this position.

00:21:35.940 She's the one who ousted Liz, uh, Lynn Cheney, Liz Cheney, uh, and she has, so, uh, so I'm

00:21:41.680 looking at those two, uh, Jordan, I don't think would have enough support across the

00:21:46.040 conference, even though he's been sucking up to McCarthy and trying to mainstream himself

00:21:49.760 of late.

00:21:50.620 I'm, I'm still skeptical, but we'll see anyone can be nominated to be speaker of the house.

00:21:56.080 You could be nominated.

00:21:57.160 You, well, you would make a great speaker of the house.

00:21:59.200 It would be a short run.

00:22:00.300 It would be a short run, but it would be very effective.

00:22:03.080 It would be extraordinarily effective out, out.

00:22:05.600 You're out.

00:22:06.280 You're out.

00:22:06.860 Everyone's out.

00:22:08.160 Everyone, you're all out.

00:22:08.860 When you're over 21 in attitude and intellect, um, and IQ.

00:22:13.920 So any, anybody can be nominated to be the speaker of the house.

00:22:19.220 Why would Donald Trump want to submit himself to that vote?

00:22:24.380 What would, what would be, what would be the possible appeal of that?

00:22:28.100 There are already, I think there's still six or eight members of the house who voted to

00:22:32.620 impeach him, who are still serving in the house and a bunch more who would not like to have

00:22:37.940 Donald Trump be the house speaker.

00:22:39.940 I don't see any on the GOP side.

00:22:42.460 I don't see any way that he would get there.

00:22:45.260 So it's a, I guess I, I'll put it like this.

00:22:48.580 It's a job you have to run for, right?

00:22:50.580 You have to go run for it.

00:22:51.520 You have to go convince house Republicans that this is what you want and that you care

00:22:55.820 deeply about it and you'll protect incumbents because Lord knows that's what they all want

00:22:59.620 the speaker to do.

00:23:00.300 They want the speaker to raise money for them and then shield them.

00:23:04.580 One of the reasons we have a joke of a Congress is that what the members want is to be protected

00:23:10.840 from taking challenging votes.

00:23:12.440 They want to bottle up the amendment process.

00:23:14.580 They want to shut down the committees and they want everything crafted in secret by gangs of aid

00:23:19.360 or whatever in behind closed doors and then presented as fait accompli, you vote for this

00:23:25.940 or die. 1.00

00:23:26.520 The reason we have that stupid system that is antithetical to the way that a representative 1.00

00:23:32.160 body is supposed to work. 0.99

00:23:33.360 The reason we have that is because that's what the members want.

00:23:36.180 They don't want to be forced to take hard votes and how many house Republicans would like

00:23:40.000 to have to vote on whether Donald Trump should be the speaker of the house.

00:23:43.360 Can you imagine how much damage that would do for people running in general elections?

00:23:49.720 Or primary elections both and how you voted could blow you up with primary voters or

00:23:54.280 it could blow you up with general election voters.

00:23:55.900 This is not something that Trump should want and it's not anything that the house would

00:24:00.100 want.

00:24:01.120 I mean, who knows?

00:24:02.580 But my instincts say he this is just Trump generating like tweaking the PR machine to

00:24:07.920 get even more.

00:24:08.500 I mean, he's a genius at PR and I've just this feels like that to me.

00:24:11.880 And Gates and others sucking up to Trump.

00:24:13.960 Right.

00:24:14.260 Because what when Trump said shut the government down for Matt Gates, who very much wants to

00:24:21.140 run for Florida governor or whatever, with the blessing, with the imprimatur of Donald

00:24:26.180 Trump.

00:24:26.660 I did it, boss.

00:24:27.960 Look, look, you said shut it down.

00:24:30.100 When they wouldn't shut it down, we took Kevin McCarthy out.

00:24:33.500 So I think a lot of that is just sucking up to Trump to try to get his favor.

00:24:36.880 It's so crazy because, of course, Matt Gates, you know, now he's very, very worried about

00:24:40.520 spending, but he voted for all of Trump's spending increases to the $7 trillion.

00:24:45.600 That was good.

00:24:47.100 That was good deficit spending.

00:24:48.820 This is bad deficit spending.

00:24:50.440 That was good inflation.

00:24:51.780 This is bad inflation.

00:24:53.400 You got it.

00:24:53.800 You got to think about it.

00:24:55.380 This is why.

00:24:55.980 So we've got this situation over in the House.

00:24:57.680 Hot mess.

00:24:58.720 I mean, it's like there's no one to root for.

00:25:00.920 There's no one to root for.

00:25:03.180 Then you go out to presidential politics, which is what we wanted to get into with you.

00:25:07.480 And you got, you know, the one guy who is, I mean, really to be gentle, senile, and the

00:25:14.240 other guy to be gentle under 91 felony counts and very, very likely to be in jail in the next

00:25:21.320 couple of years.

00:25:21.920 Even if you don't think the charges are worth much, you can't deny that he's in front of

00:25:25.580 these far left juries, far left judges.

00:25:27.800 Somebody is going to put him in jail.

00:25:29.240 So it does seem very likely.

00:25:30.240 So the and the polls show that the vast majorities of Americans on both sides want different

00:25:35.780 candidates.

00:25:36.720 Well, you're not going to get it from the look of it.

00:25:39.360 Doesn't look like Joe Biden stepping aside anytime soon.

00:25:42.180 And it doesn't look like Donald Trump is losing any steam.

00:25:44.820 He's going up in the polls.

00:25:47.040 So that's where Chris Dyerwald comes in on the Megyn Kelly show.

00:25:50.880 And then we want to talk about exactly what's going to happen.

00:25:52.920 So we're going to start on the Democratic side.

00:25:55.580 All right.

00:25:55.960 I've once again, I have written down my question.

00:25:58.180 I've written them down my little note cards, Dyerwald.

00:26:00.280 Oh, dear.

00:26:01.120 That's bad.

00:26:02.000 OK.

00:26:02.940 How late into this process?

00:26:05.160 We're on the Democratic side.

00:26:06.600 Can the Democrats sub out Joe Biden?

00:26:14.000 They have.

00:26:15.360 OK, so I don't want to thank my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Nate Moore,

00:26:19.000 who helped me do the voluminous research, because I knew, counselor, that you would come

00:26:23.980 with real questions and would want real answers.

00:26:28.340 I think a rough way.

00:26:29.560 I think a rough way to think about this is about they have about a year, which is to say there

00:26:38.620 are different mechanisms that would be triggered along the way.

00:26:42.340 But until and until October or at some point in September of the election year, there could

00:26:50.180 be a replacement.

00:26:50.880 The mechanism for how that replacement would take place differs as you go.

00:26:56.520 And some if you start at the early end, it's about an electoral process in the primaries

00:27:01.740 and then it moves to the convention and then it moves to basically party leaders gathering

00:27:07.460 together to make a selection.

00:27:09.580 But until and so let's say until the middle of September or October 2024, they could still

00:27:18.180 sub out Joe Biden.

00:27:19.040 And if they haven't done it by that date, it's Kamala Harris or whoever his running mate is. 1.00

00:27:26.060 So one caveat to carry with all of this stuff is that state legislatures and state parties

00:27:32.200 can change their rules as they go to accommodate exigent needs.

00:27:35.640 Right.

00:27:36.000 So you can, as we saw during covid, state legislatures across the country ripped up election rules. 0.89

00:27:42.960 Republicans went some directions.

00:27:44.880 Democrats went other directions about when you can vote, when you can't vote and when we're

00:27:48.960 to count the votes and all of that stuff.

00:27:50.940 So state legislatures have a lot, a lot of control.

00:27:54.180 But basically, I put it like this.

00:27:58.200 The Electoral College meets on the seven is the date is the 17th of September 2024.

00:28:06.100 So prior to that point, the question is, when have the ballots been printed and when can

00:28:12.780 you get on the when can you make a change on the ballot?

00:28:17.000 And and so the period there between middle September to Election Day, the party is stuck,

00:28:24.400 right?

00:28:24.660 Because if somebody went to prison, had the nomination taken from them or became incapacitated

00:28:32.240 and could not serve.

00:28:33.860 So it's going to be up to these electors, basically, as they gather, guided by whatever their state

00:28:40.360 law says in terms of what they can do.

00:28:44.060 So I I think what would happen in the case of a vacancy, if you had a person who had won

00:28:49.420 the election but was not able to serve, that most electors would just flip to that person's

00:28:57.620 running mate, I think.

00:28:58.780 And legislatures might when you say won the election.

00:29:01.960 Are you still talking primary here?

00:29:03.320 Because we're in September of twenty four.

00:29:04.820 And oh, I was a year ahead.

00:29:06.800 I'm sorry.

00:29:07.240 I was not I was not moving at the right pace.

00:29:09.960 I was I wasn't sure.

00:29:11.080 I wasn't sure.

00:29:11.460 No, no, I'm saying I'm saying I'm sort of starting late in the game saying, OK, let's say

00:29:15.460 the Democrats stick with Joe Biden straight through all of twenty twenty four and our

00:29:18.980 fall of twenty four.

00:29:20.120 And the election is about to happen.

00:29:21.420 The general election is about to happen.

00:29:23.100 And the names on the ballot for the Dems are Biden, Harris.

00:29:26.900 And then September, October, anytime before November 4th or whatever the election day is,

00:29:32.960 Biden says, you know what?

00:29:35.080 I'm out like he secured it.

00:29:36.540 He's made sure it didn't go to RFKJ or somebody else like he's gotten it.

00:29:40.000 He's on the ballot.

00:29:40.840 So is she.

00:29:41.760 But that's basically him handing it to Kamala Harris at that point.

00:29:45.100 Is that correct?

00:29:46.440 OK, so think about it this way.

00:29:47.800 You have between now and the beginning of January, where if Joe Biden were to step aside,

00:29:56.620 it would just have a normal open nominating process.

00:30:00.440 Gavin Newsom jumps in a bunch of people jump in and you have there are some deadlines coming

00:30:05.560 up for filing that are material, particularly New Hampshire at the end of this month and Michigan

00:30:13.520 and Texas, which are also big, early and important states in the nominating process.

00:30:19.000 Those are coming up this year.

00:30:21.020 But the way I think about it is you have the pre-primary period where if Joe Biden stepped

00:30:27.100 aside, it just becomes a primary.

00:30:29.100 Right.

00:30:30.020 And it becomes.

00:30:30.840 And we don't care.

00:30:31.300 We don't care that those deadlines have passed because in this scenario, no one has met the

00:30:35.540 deadlines.

00:30:35.980 There's no name.

00:30:36.820 And the states and the state parties can change the rules and say, OK, we're waiving that.

00:30:43.760 You can come in.

00:30:45.040 You can file.

00:30:46.020 We'll accept this.

00:30:46.940 So up until that happens.

00:30:48.760 Now, you have the period between the for Republicans.

00:30:51.240 It's the beginning of January or the middle of January, January 15th.

00:30:54.660 But for both parties, it ends in basically the second week of March, at which point enough

00:31:00.380 delegates.

00:31:00.900 Yeah, at which you have Super Tuesday in Georgia, you have South Carolina, Super Tuesday, Georgia,

00:31:05.320 bing, bang, boom.

00:31:06.280 And by that point, enough delegates will have been awarded that if you haven't if you're

00:31:11.660 not ahead by then, you're not.

00:31:15.300 It's very unlikely.

00:31:16.640 It's extraordinarily unlikely that you can win outright going to the convention.

00:31:20.540 So now we're in phase two, which is maybe.

00:31:24.100 So let's say Joe Biden decided to retire or or Donald Trump decided to step aside between

00:31:31.880 stay on the Dem side for now.

00:31:33.700 OK, OK, well, OK, let's say let's say let's say Joe Biden steps aside after the primaries

00:31:40.040 are underway.

00:31:40.820 Now, what are you going to have?

00:31:42.460 You're going to have a contested convention because nobody's going to go into the convention

00:31:46.920 with enough delegates to secure it on the first ballot.

00:31:49.980 So at that point, we're in spring of 24.

00:31:51.800 He can't just pass the baton to Kamala or anybody else.

00:31:55.400 Like if he's won all these early contests, he does not yet have the ability to pass the

00:32:00.200 baton.

00:32:00.740 It's going to be a convention fight.

00:32:03.520 Right.

00:32:04.220 But then what and then the next your next threshold, and I want to get the date for you is I want

00:32:12.780 to say it's.

00:32:14.980 I think June, I think June is correct, but the final convention, the final.

00:32:21.800 Uh, primary contest take place.

00:32:24.200 It is June.

00:32:25.180 It's California.

00:32:26.180 Right.

00:32:26.460 I remember this.

00:32:27.380 Uh, it's it.

00:32:28.300 I remember this when it was Bernie and Hillary and it was June of 16 when we were going to

00:32:32.500 know.

00:32:33.400 June 4th.

00:32:34.680 Uh, uh, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.

00:32:38.640 California is early.

00:32:39.680 Now, California is a super Tuesday state.

00:32:41.780 Uh, but those are the last primaries.

00:32:44.340 So in the window between June 4th and the conventions and the conventions are set for

00:32:50.820 July 15th for the Republicans and August 19th for the Democrats.

00:32:54.400 So in that window between the beginning of June and for the Democrats late August, nothing

00:33:01.220 happens, right?

00:33:02.940 There's no, there's no way to affect those delegates in a concrete way, uh, between then

00:33:09.260 and then.

00:33:09.560 And so that is the window in which, well, let's, you want to play a what if game, will

00:33:16.360 you indulge me in a what if?

00:33:18.000 Okay.

00:33:18.340 Yeah, please.

00:33:18.740 So let's say, let's say Joe Biden is abducted by aliens on the 4th of July of next year and

00:33:25.820 he is taken away.

00:33:27.020 He might be there coming across the Southern border in droves by the day.

00:33:30.340 There you go.

00:33:31.100 Well, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, but I'm bump up.

00:33:33.200 So he, he, he goes to Melmac, the planet Melmac and is taken far away and is no longer

00:33:39.140 in the race.

00:33:40.400 What happens then?

00:33:41.880 And what happens then is all of these democratic delegates have to pick someone else.

00:33:49.220 And what you would end up with at that convention would be a old fashioned, absolute battle for

00:33:56.500 a presidential nomination.

00:33:58.840 And it would be wild.

00:34:00.120 It would be woolly.

00:34:00.820 It would be horse trading the, because the delegates would all have already been picked,

00:34:04.780 but they would be unbound because their candidate was not available.

00:34:09.180 This isn't, this isn't that interesting because he's not going to be abducted by aliens.

00:34:11.880 In this, in the real life scenario, what's happened here?

00:34:14.620 He's become incapacitated.

00:34:16.200 He's incapacitated, right?

00:34:17.800 He can't find his way to the convention.

00:34:19.860 He is not, he is not, he, he becomes unable for whatever reason to accept the nomination.

00:34:25.580 And whether that he is.

00:34:27.080 So that's, so that's interesting.

00:34:28.100 So, so if it happens between now and August, his incapacitation for health reasons, it doesn't

00:34:36.000 just go to Kamala, even though she's, as of now, his running mate, and we presume his running

00:34:40.120 mate on all these early primaries.

00:34:41.880 So between now and March, if he is incapacitated, it just becomes a primary, right?

00:34:48.700 It just becomes a wild and woolly, absolute primary fight.

00:34:52.380 And Kamala Harris would get no, would get no very few bonus points for being his running 1.00

00:34:58.540 mate.

00:34:58.760 We saw this play out in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson stepped aside and tried to grease the skids

00:35:06.500 for Hubert Humphrey.

00:35:07.760 Hubert Humphrey eventually did win, but only after, I mean, this is the election when Bobby

00:35:12.520 Kennedy got assassinated after a incredibly tumultuous process that ended with a riot in the park

00:35:20.260 across the street from the convention hall in Chicago.

00:35:22.560 Uh, it was a catastrophe and the, that kind of, of contest.

00:35:29.940 I'm not saying that it would end in, in murder and violence, but that just to say the capacity

00:35:36.440 of an incumbent president to ease the way for his vice president is minimal.

00:35:44.360 And this, this would be immediately contested.

00:35:48.640 This would be immediately contested.

00:35:50.200 And Democrats don't even like Kamala Harris that much. 1.00

00:35:52.860 So it's not like she, she would have that track.

00:35:55.000 So between now and March, it's just becomes a crazy primary between March and June.

00:36:03.980 If Biden were to become unable to serve, then it would be a delegate math game.

00:36:10.460 Who can win the most delegates in these states to go with the most bargaining chips to the

00:36:16.600 convention?

00:36:17.540 How do you get to Milwaukee or are they?

00:36:21.180 No, they're not Milwaukee.

00:36:22.100 I, I forget, but how do you get to the convention with the most?

00:36:27.020 The Dems are in Chicago this year.

00:36:28.280 Dems are in Chicago.

00:36:29.120 A perfect historical rhythm right there for Democrats, not miss, not missing a beat on

00:36:34.780 historical rhythm.

00:36:36.080 So they go to Chicago and your goal would be to have the largest number, the most delegates

00:36:43.240 possible so that when you got there, you could have the best opening position.

00:36:48.300 So that's the period, let's say March to June.

00:36:51.520 Wait, can I just, can I just interrupt you?

00:36:52.820 So you're saying whatever, whatever delegates are available, let's say he, he bails after

00:36:57.700 Super Tuesday in March.

00:36:58.960 Right.

00:36:59.540 And 40% of 40 and 40% of the delegates are available.

00:37:03.020 Okay.

00:37:04.480 Cause he's already won 60, but now the whole contest comes down to those 40.

00:37:08.620 That's right.

00:37:09.580 And it comes down to what will the people who were, who, what will, what will the delegates

00:37:14.980 who were sent to vote, who were going to be sent to go vote for Joe Biden?

00:37:20.260 What will they do now that they don't have to vote for Joe Biden?

00:37:24.180 So what you have, so they're free for all that they're, they're like open slate now and

00:37:27.700 need to be persuaded.

00:37:28.540 They need to be wined and dined.

00:37:30.340 That's it.

00:37:30.860 They need to be wined and dined and they need to be, uh, intra in coalitional interest groups

00:37:36.300 naturally would form.

00:37:37.440 And they would say, well, I, we like this and we like that.

00:37:40.120 We haven't had a contested convention in the United States in a long time.

00:37:46.340 You have to go back to 1972 just to get a convention where, and in that case it was for the vice

00:37:53.880 president, uh, but the, the, uh, Thomas Eagleton who had already been chosen, uh, to be the

00:38:00.780 running mate, uh, had to leave for personal reasons and Sergeant Shriver gets picked and

00:38:08.420 he had to, he had to win the delegates, right?

00:38:10.520 They actually had to vote and he had to be confirmed, uh, to do, to do that.

00:38:14.940 So we don't, our people in both parties don't have much experience at doing this stuff, but

00:38:21.400 in each of these scenarios that we described every hour, it gets later, the more chaotic

00:38:27.060 it would be right up until right up until 30 seconds after the convention, that's where

00:38:35.800 it changes.

00:38:36.540 And that's where if Biden were to step aside, he could have influence and that's the magic

00:38:42.140 moment.

00:38:42.520 So leaving before the primary, I'm sorry, leaving before the convention would just throw

00:38:50.120 the convention into chaos.

00:38:51.480 Maybe you get what you want.

00:38:52.760 Maybe you don't get what you want.

00:38:53.860 Maybe it's Liz Warren, right?

00:38:55.280 Maybe it's, maybe it's a catastrophe.

00:38:57.100 Maybe Democrats end up because you have a bunch of, uh, extremists who get their way or

00:39:03.040 whatever, but it's a bad, it could be a really bad scene.

00:39:06.140 But as soon as he secures the nomination, things change and the universe of people who would

00:39:12.960 be making the replacement gets smaller.

00:39:15.660 And the, the, it goes basically like this.

00:39:19.960 And I want to just, we're going to stay with the Democrats.

00:39:22.480 Here's the language.

00:39:24.860 A special meeting to fill a vacancy on the national ticket shall be held on the call of

00:39:30.320 the chairperson.

00:39:32.560 What does that mean?

00:39:34.180 Right?

00:39:34.880 What chairperson DNC? 1.00

00:39:36.700 The, the, the, the chairperson of the democratic national committee calls a meeting and they

00:39:42.120 call a meeting of the members of the democratic national committee and whoever a majority of

00:39:47.760 members of the democratic national committee choose to be their nominee becomes their nominee.

00:39:53.440 Now that's a much more manageable group of people because those are people who are deeply

00:39:58.340 invested in the party's success and they're going to tend to be less ideological because

00:40:02.780 they're politicians, right?

00:40:04.020 The people who populate the democratic national committee are current and former, uh, lawmakers,

00:40:10.880 governors.

00:40:11.300 Wait, so you're telling me that if Joe Biden shows up at the convention in Chicago in August

00:40:15.780 and says, thank you so much, but no, then it's going to be up to a committee.

00:40:22.100 It's not like for him to say, this is the one I want to do it.

00:40:26.740 Like it's some committee.

00:40:28.060 And then that, then the committee comes up with a name or I don't know, I guess one name

00:40:31.880 just to keep things orderly and then puts it out to all the delegates who have shown

00:40:35.160 up.

00:40:35.720 No, no, no, no.

00:40:36.820 So what would happen is Joe Biden goes, he doesn't say no thanks.

00:40:40.960 He says, I gratefully accept your nomination and he leaves the stage.

00:40:45.160 And then the next day he says, because of my doctor's orders, uh, I will not be able

00:40:51.400 to do this.

00:40:52.100 And therefore I must remove myself.

00:40:55.180 I, I, I, I, I rescind my acceptance and I will not stand for this office.

00:41:01.520 Then the members of the democratic national committee, and I'm sorry, I don't know this

00:41:06.040 off the top of my head, but we're talking here about a couple hundred people, two, 300

00:41:09.800 people.

00:41:10.260 Then they convene, they would meet right over there here in Washington.

00:41:14.300 I assume maybe they'd go, maybe they'd go someplace else, but the delegates are gone.

00:41:18.740 There are no, there are no more delegates because the convention is over and those delegates

00:41:23.360 have gone home and they're not asked back.

00:41:25.480 Now, if I'm Joe Biden and this is, again, this is just a, a, a, an thought experiment.

00:41:31.140 Let's say I'm Joe Biden and I don't want to have to be president for four more years.

00:41:36.020 And I don't want to have to go through a general election campaign where I'm getting brick batted

00:41:40.400 all of the time and embarrassing myself.

00:41:43.540 And I don't want to do it.

00:41:45.440 This is the sweet spot.

00:41:46.740 This is where, this is where you step aside and it's the window between August and mid

00:41:54.640 September.

00:41:54.980 You got a month basically that you could step aside and you, Joe Biden, if he wanted to

00:42:01.660 do this, uh, I think is Jamie Harrison, the, the, uh, chairman of the democratic national

00:42:07.600 committee these days.

00:42:08.500 I think that it tells you something about how, how unimportant, relatively speaking, uh, party

00:42:13.940 chair people are now.

00:42:15.120 Debbie, you had to know.

00:42:16.740 Cause they were powerful.

00:42:18.180 Uh, now they're not so powerful, but in this, in this case, you could certainly not to be

00:42:22.100 a conspiracy bug, but you can certainly see, uh, Joe Biden calling Jamie Harrison to the

00:42:28.320 white house and saying, I'm going to step aside.

00:42:32.240 I think it ought to be Gavin Newsom, or I think it ought to be Kamala Harris, or I think it ought

00:42:38.180 to be commander because he really gets tough on people, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever

00:42:44.420 Joe Biden might want, he would certainly be able to start, uh, counting noses in a much

00:42:51.200 smaller group and in a smaller group of people who were more favorably disposed to him than

00:42:58.300 the 2000.

00:42:59.300 Yeah.

00:42:59.940 Then the, then the 2000 people who were at the convention.

00:43:02.820 So in that period, that six or eight week period, that's when you have the smallest number of

00:43:07.960 people who are most deeply invested in the party's success where you could actually do

00:43:12.980 it there.

00:43:13.220 I don't think that's going to happen, but if I were writing the screenplay, this is where I would

00:43:17.640 pick if I were, if I were writing the screenplay about how Joe Biden steps aside, that's where I'd

00:43:22.280 do it.

00:43:23.200 Well, cause most people think I had to squeeze in a break, but most people think he doesn't

00:43:26.580 want to step aside and it would take either Barack Obama coming over to him, putting the arm

00:43:31.980 around the shoulder and saying, I'm telling you it's time to go, or it would take hunters going to

00:43:38.520 jail unless you give him a pardon and then quietly leave stage left, you know, something extraordinary

00:43:43.700 where he's kind of forced to do it.

00:43:45.580 But you're saying even under those circumstances, the thing that makes the most sense is to wait

00:43:49.900 until he's gotten it.

00:43:51.680 And that gives him in this cabal of powerful Democrats, the most power to make sure the next

00:43:58.420 person is what they think is the best person.

00:44:02.300 That's right.

00:44:02.880 And if it happens during the convention or between the previous time, you'd favor Harris,

00:44:08.520 to get it and that she'd get sympathy votes and that it would probably devolve to her, but it

00:44:13.260 wouldn't be sure.

00:44:14.040 But in this window, uh, there would be a much smaller group of people and an opportunity to do

00:44:18.560 it with a fresh start.

00:44:20.160 Hmm.

00:44:20.720 Of course that doesn't take into any consideration how the Democrats are going to get rid of 0.94

00:44:24.280 the black woman, uh, and, and sub in someone else, unless it's like Michelle Obama, right? 0.78

00:44:31.480 But I don't know.

00:44:32.060 Sunny Austin over at the view, who's also a black woman says we're not interchangeable and is 0.71

00:44:36.320 saying this is not a good plan.

00:44:37.540 You're if, if, if the Democrats could convince Michelle Obama to do this, can you imagine

00:44:44.360 the stunning success that she would obtain because she wouldn't have to sit on the shelf?

00:44:49.180 She wouldn't have to be there.

00:44:50.020 People say, Hey, wait a minute. 0.99

00:44:50.920 This is the dumb thing you said before this. 0.99

00:44:52.960 What about this? 1.00

00:44:53.540 What about that?

00:44:54.160 What about, and she wouldn't have to run for it, but that a group of, you know, 150 people

00:44:58.700 in a conference room somewhere could select her to be the democratic nominee and that 1.00

00:45:04.300 she would arrive right at the moment where the general election campaign begins.

00:45:09.460 Oh man.

00:45:10.440 She would ride herd.

00:45:11.980 That would be, that's why it would be, that's why Doug Brunt should write this book.

00:45:17.360 Uh, and because it will probably won't happen, but it would be a really good book.

00:45:21.320 Uh, he's, he's onto nonfiction now, but this, this is better than fiction.

00:45:25.700 If this actually happened and what if, what if you're, you know, you're still playing the

00:45:29.300 identity politics game.

00:45:30.460 A lot of people think that ultimately, you know, Kamala Harris is going to go for that

00:45:33.480 Senate seat in California, but that's, she gets subbed out since nobody likes her. 1.00

00:45:37.800 Even the Democrats, maybe Newsom subs in, maybe she goes back to governor in California. 0.92

00:45:42.120 He subs in as the VP, you got the identity politics at the top and you got the future

00:45:46.780 at the bottom of the ticket and boom, Bob's your uncle.

00:45:49.440 All right, stand by.

00:45:50.760 We got to do Republicans.

00:45:51.980 This is all fascinating. 1.00

00:45:53.860 I mean, this shit could happen. 1.00

00:45:55.260 Like, that's, what's crazy about this discussion. 1.00

00:45:57.060 We're going to do Republicans next.

00:45:58.880 And that's even more exciting and interesting and also seemingly impossible.

00:46:04.020 Don't go away.

00:46:08.280 This just in, I have been arrested.

00:46:10.860 Chris has been arrested.

00:46:12.860 So we'll get back to you from our prison cells.

00:46:15.940 Every, all the best people are getting arrested.

00:46:18.200 Trump's arrested.

00:46:19.720 Hunter's arrested.

00:46:21.500 Our, our friend Lawrence Fox is arrested on, on and out it goes.

00:46:25.580 All right.

00:46:25.720 So we have two minutes here and I want to ask you a quick question before we take our deep

00:46:29.520 dive into the Republicans.

00:46:31.080 R F K J is expected to announce he's going to run as an independent because he's getting 0.93

00:46:36.820 the boot on the forehead from the Democrats in his attempt to run for the Democratic nomination.

00:46:41.860 A lot of debate in the news this week over who does that help and who does that hurt more.

00:46:47.520 So is this a win for Dems?

00:46:49.420 Does he take more votes from the GOP side or is it a win for the Republicans?

00:46:53.060 Does he take more votes from the Dem side?

00:46:55.400 Well, it may not matter to anybody because if he just runs as an independent, he won't

00:46:58.940 be able to get on the ballot and it won't matter.

00:47:01.440 But if he runs as a libertarian, which there are some substantial hints that he might, he'd

00:47:05.700 get tons and tons of ballot access and the libertarians are excited about it.

00:47:08.880 There were enough libertarian votes in 2020 that could have thrown the election into a 269-269 tie

00:47:17.940 if they would have gone for Republicans.

00:47:20.020 R F K as a libertarian would most assuredly do more damage on the Republican side than

00:47:25.700 he would on the Democratic side.

00:47:27.240 And this would be a big win for Democrats.

00:47:29.940 Because his support among Democrats is relatively low.

00:47:33.700 I think it's like 14 percent.

00:47:35.400 But on the Republican side, there's a lot of open mindedness toward him and fandom.

00:47:41.320 Yes.

00:47:41.600 And especially because he lines up on vaccine stuff and he lines up on deep state stuff,

00:47:47.960 all of those things, much more with the MAGA Trump community than he does with Democrats.

00:47:53.480 And if he were in the race, if you're a MAGA, you're going for Trump.

00:47:57.000 You're not leaving Trump for RFKJ.

00:47:58.900 How many votes do you think will decide the election in Wisconsin and how many votes do

00:48:05.020 you think will decide it in Georgia and in Pennsylvania and in Michigan and in Arizona?

00:48:08.960 If we have a replay of 2020 and you have similarly small margins, and I just would, I should also

00:48:14.400 say, these are protest votes, not votes for president.

00:48:17.680 These are people who are saying, I can't vote for either of these people and I want to send

00:48:21.780 a message.

00:48:22.280 And the message that RFK Jr. would send would be ideologically aligned to some degree, but

00:48:27.080 it would mostly be a yawp in the face of the two parties to say, I don't like how anybody

00:48:31.520 treated him.

00:48:32.100 I don't like how this is going for this guy.

00:48:33.760 And he at least wants to shake things up.

00:48:35.880 It's like you said at the top of the show, that's the, I just want to puke party.

00:48:39.420 That's my party.

00:48:40.320 Right.

00:48:40.600 So I see where you're going.

00:48:41.740 Stand by.

00:48:42.240 We'll pick it up there.

00:48:43.620 Starwalt stays with us.

00:48:44.720 GOP is next.

00:48:45.540 One follow-up question from my, my crack EP, Steve Krakauer.

00:48:55.100 He wanted to know, what if Joe Biden wins?

00:48:57.980 What if he wins the general election with Kamala as his number two?

00:49:00.980 But, but then he says, I'm voluntarily stepping down because it's apparently not entirely clear

00:49:08.600 that she would just move into the top spot. 0.98

00:49:11.100 If he dies, we all know what happens.

00:49:12.460 Uh, uh, abducted by, abducted by aliens, uh, Joe Biden, uh, Joe Biden steps aside.

00:49:18.380 Joe Biden is in, in any way unable, uh, to serve.

00:49:22.120 So then we're talking about election day to inauguration day, right?

00:49:26.640 So the election has taken place and the, you know, cause we know what happens after the

00:49:30.680 inauguration.

00:49:31.840 And then we break that period down into the time between December 17th when the elector and

00:49:37.220 the electors cast their votes.

00:49:39.380 And then of course, January 17th.

00:49:42.060 So basically prior to the electors casting their votes, it's up to, it would be up to

00:49:51.120 the state.

00:49:51.640 So if the vacancy occurred before December 17th, it would be up to the states to tell

00:49:56.740 their, and the legislatures could convene.

00:49:59.140 We again, saw this during COVID emergency sessions of legislatures to gather and direct

00:50:04.600 who, who can they vote for?

00:50:06.440 Who do they have to vote for?

00:50:07.480 What is their obligation?

00:50:08.440 So that's a state question.

00:50:10.620 That's a state question before December 17th.

00:50:13.640 After the electoral votes are counted, that is all Congress.

00:50:17.580 That is all entirely up to Congress on January 6th of 2025 to make a determination.

00:50:24.460 What's a valid elector?

00:50:26.020 What's not a valid elector?

00:50:27.780 And if nobody has, so let's, let's, let's play out this scenario.

00:50:32.440 No, I get it.

00:50:33.080 I heard enough.

00:50:33.780 It's a headache.

00:50:34.520 It's a massive headache.

00:50:35.640 It's not something that the Democrats would want.

00:50:37.540 So it's not going to happen.

00:50:38.720 No, no.

00:50:39.840 All right.

00:50:40.060 Let's do, let's do GOP.

00:50:42.060 Okay.

00:50:43.020 First of all, the big buzz, Glenn Youngkin, underdog.

00:50:48.340 Here I come to save the day.

00:50:50.840 Yeah.

00:50:50.980 I know that, you know, you don't like what you have over here on the B team.

00:50:54.500 You don't like DeSantis.

00:50:55.620 You don't like Vivek.

00:50:56.460 You don't like Pence.

00:50:57.260 You don't like Nikki enough, but you might like me, the 500 millionaire, um, ran Carlisle

00:51:03.960 group and, um, who signed a letter in support of the Southern poverty law center, which dubbed

00:51:09.800 Ben Carson, a terrorist and hates moms for Liberty.

00:51:12.780 But I am here and I am going to be the one. 0.95

00:51:15.900 These are just a couple of things.

00:51:17.200 Glenn Youngkin is fine.

00:51:18.080 I like him, but I'm just saying this is what's going to come up about him.

00:51:21.300 Um, and there are still party establishment folks who think he is the underdog.

00:51:27.260 So let's just say, okay, here he is, or he isn't.

00:51:30.920 How late could he get in?

00:51:34.720 So, yeah, you, you correctly counselor divided it into the, uh, lead.

00:51:40.520 So there's the legal slash, uh, operational component, and then there's the social psychological

00:51:47.040 what, how would voters respond to it?

00:51:49.320 And the, how would voters respond to a question is open and I'm happy to discuss.

00:51:53.860 Uh, but I, I doubt that there is actually that, that thirst out there for basically, and I

00:52:01.560 don't mean this as a slight to either party, a, uh, an improved Romney, right?

00:52:06.900 A governor, a private equity guy, a competent, rich, uh, successful governor of a blue state

00:52:13.760 who is going to come in and do this.

00:52:16.400 I, I don't, I don't see that energy in the Republican party, but, uh, who knows, but if

00:52:22.040 he did, basically it goes like this, he would have already missed the New Hampshire filing

00:52:28.160 deadline.

00:52:28.600 So Youngkin says he's not, he's, he's not entertaining and I'm going to give Glenn Youngkin the benefit

00:52:33.920 of the doubt that what Glenn Youngkin is really trying to do is raise as much money and get

00:52:38.620 as much attention as possible for, uh, his midterm elections in Virginia and that he is

00:52:47.000 doing everything he can to get all these billionaires and get all the media attention possible to win

00:52:52.360 those, uh, to win those seats so that he can have a very successful second half of his term.

00:52:57.520 Virginia is a one term only state for governors and that he wants to have a real bell ringer.

00:53:03.240 And by the way, that would put him in good stead, uh, to run for the Republican nomination

00:53:07.620 the next time around.

00:53:08.680 But let's say that he waits until afterwards, the Republicans win the Virginia legislature,

00:53:13.960 take over both chambers.

00:53:16.000 And he says, I want to get in.

00:53:17.440 He's already missed, uh, New Hampshire and he's already missed, uh, well, Nevada doesn't

00:53:24.260 really count this time because they're all screwed up.

00:53:25.900 They're having both a caucus and a primary. 0.90

00:53:28.140 It's a disaster.

00:53:29.160 Won't matter.

00:53:29.960 So you could live without, you could live without Nevada, but living without New Hampshire

00:53:34.420 seems hard.

00:53:35.800 Uh, and then he would have to hit, uh, Michigan has a filing deadline on November 10th.

00:53:40.980 Uh, so we don't know about South Carolina or I don't know any of your listeners who know

00:53:45.840 exactly what the filing deadline for the Republican party in South Carolina remains a little unclear

00:53:50.380 to me, uh, cause it's a party run primary that takes place on a Saturday.

00:53:53.920 And I, I think there's plenty of flexibility, uh, for, uh, getting into South Carolina.

00:53:59.360 So let's say he's not on the ballot in New Hampshire.

00:54:02.640 Here's what he could do.

00:54:03.620 He could cut a deal with somebody who is on the ballot.

00:54:06.840 He could cut a deal with Asa Hutchison and he could go campaign in New Hampshire.

00:54:10.840 And he could say a vote for Asa is a vote from whoever, whomever pick whoever you want.

00:54:15.780 Somebody who is, who has dropped out and say a vote for this person is a vote for me.

00:54:20.180 This is how we're going to show our strength there.

00:54:21.820 And he could go campaign in New Hampshire that way.

00:54:23.640 He could, he could do that.

00:54:25.380 Um, so that's a way to be in the discussion, but something that I would remind everybody

00:54:29.820 of this year is different than most quadrennial cycles because there's 32 days between New

00:54:37.160 Hampshire and South Carolina.

00:54:39.040 And as I said, Nevada's won't, doesn't really count.

00:54:42.720 They've, they've screwed themselves up.

00:54:44.300 So you're going to have 32 days between the, you have two, uh, you have Iowa, New Hampshire,

00:54:49.720 bing, bang, and then you have 32 days.

00:54:52.000 Now in that 32 day period, who do you think is going to be at the, at the top of the discussion?

00:54:58.240 The people who have won or done well, the, the, the value of those first two contests goes

00:55:04.760 up a great deal because you're going to need momentum to sustain you.

00:55:09.040 Through this long period.

00:55:10.560 Uh, and then you go to South Carolina and then whammo right after that, it's super Tuesday.

00:55:15.180 So it takes forever.

00:55:16.540 And then it happens very, very quickly.

00:55:18.740 And by that point, it's something like 40% of all of the delegates available are going

00:55:25.900 to be, uh, are going to be decided, uh, by super Tuesday.

00:55:29.920 And could Glenn Youngkin conceivably before Thanksgiving declare, figure out a way around

00:55:36.760 New Hampshire?

00:55:37.500 Yeah.

00:55:37.940 I mean, he could, uh, it's certainly possible.

00:55:41.140 What effect would that have on the Republican race?

00:55:43.920 I don't think Glenn Young would take any votes away from Trump.

00:55:47.060 Uh, I don't think there are many, I mean, maybe there's a handful.

00:55:50.340 I think the thinking is he would be the guy to consolidate the anti-Trump vote.

00:55:54.280 So who's going to tell Nikki Haley that, right?

00:55:57.320 Who's going to be the one that says, who's going to mansplain to Nikki?

00:56:00.860 Exactly.

00:56:01.360 Who's going to tell her, Hey, you're doing great.

00:56:02.900 You're really on the move here.

00:56:03.940 You've got, and there's a new poll by the way, uh, out today from New Hampshire, and

00:56:07.820 she has leapfrogged over Ron DeSantis and Chris Christie.

00:56:10.720 She's sucked up a bunch of their vote share and she has moved up into a strong second place. 0.92

00:56:15.520 Uh, well, strong, and we have to remember, uh, when these are relative terms, when Trump

00:56:20.660 is, you know, got 40 or whatever percent of the vote in New Hampshire, but who's going

00:56:25.660 to tell Nikki Haley, well, you'll have to leave it's Thanksgiving and the vote is on

00:56:30.960 the J on January 15th.

00:56:32.640 So we're basically two months away or we're less than two months away and you're just

00:56:37.560 going to have to drop out and you can't go to Iowa because it's Glenn Youngkin's turn

00:56:41.980 to do this because we like him better than you.

00:56:44.600 That doesn't sound like Nikki Haley.

00:56:46.520 And it certainly doesn't sound like that we raised an hour ago.

00:56:50.660 It doesn't sound like the Republican party, right?

00:56:52.840 It sounds more like the democratic party where they fix everything so that Bernie Sanders

00:56:56.460 loses the Republicans.

00:56:58.060 They don't do that.

00:56:59.460 Right.

00:57:00.100 The, the, the Republicans are in the best sense of the best way to think about it is they're

00:57:05.960 an individualistic, strongly independent minded group of people.

00:57:10.600 And they deeply resent being told what to do and how to do it.

00:57:14.080 They have railed against the establishment and people in power for as long as there has

00:57:19.140 been an establishment and people in power and even the people in power act like they're

00:57:23.500 not even in the establishment, right?

00:57:25.180 This is how bad it is in the eyes of Republicans to be part of the power structure.

00:57:30.280 The idea that you're going to parachute this guy in late and that a bunch of Republicans

00:57:34.940 are going to say, you know what?

00:57:36.200 Forget Nikki Haley. 1.00

00:57:37.340 I like this guy.

00:57:38.740 I don't think that sounds, I don't think that sounds correct, but I think it would probably

00:57:43.880 The GOP doesn't have its version of Michelle Obama.

00:57:47.000 They, they don't, they, there isn't an underdog in the wings, Youngkin or otherwise.

00:57:51.440 They have the gorilla and he's winning in all the polls by a lot.

00:57:57.900 So let me ask you, Starwalk, cause you watch this stuff for a living.

00:58:00.260 I had Dave Rubin on the show on Monday.

00:58:02.320 He's a definite DeSantis guy.

00:58:05.060 And he said, you know, the polls, how many times have the polls been wrong?

00:58:08.380 And I said, Dave, not by 50 points, not by 40 points.

00:58:12.240 There's never been somebody who lost the nomination after leading in all these states and state

00:58:17.440 polls and national polls by 40, 50 points consistently.

00:58:20.300 And his lead just builds.

00:58:21.560 It builds by the day.

00:58:22.560 I just don't see a scenario in which Trump doesn't become the nominee, putting, tabling

00:58:27.720 his legal problems for the purposes of this, like pure politics.

00:58:33.280 What's, um, what's second place in the Republican nominating contest worth right now?

00:58:38.840 It's worth quite a lot, right?

00:58:41.200 To be second for the reasons that you just enumerated.

00:58:44.200 Trump is facing all of these problems, particularly that documents case down in Florida.

00:58:51.000 He's got all of these legal problems stacked up like jets on the runway at JFK fogged in.

00:58:57.620 They're just, they're just waiting.

00:58:59.360 And if you're Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley, it'd be pretty, if most ambitious Republican politicians

00:59:09.300 would say, I'd like, I'd, I'd like a shot at that second slot right there.

00:59:13.320 I'd like to be the lady in waiting.

00:59:15.520 Yeah, I'll, I'll be in second place.

00:59:17.100 Cause this could definitely end badly for Trump.

00:59:19.740 The, and the only other thing I would say is there is some softening and softness in

00:59:24.060 Trump's numbers, right?

00:59:25.260 Uh, the, and part of the problem that Trump has is of course, he wants to say, I'm up

00:59:29.640 by 60 points.

00:59:30.560 I'm up by 80.

00:59:31.360 I'm up by a hundred points.

00:59:32.560 I'm the, I'm the, I'm it.

00:59:33.820 Nature abhors a vacuum.

00:59:36.840 And as these debates continue to take place and there's energy around like, Hey, what's

00:59:42.080 going on in New Hampshire?

00:59:42.980 Who's going to win this?

00:59:43.880 Who's going to win that?

00:59:44.640 It creates its own center of gravity.

00:59:47.920 Trump's huge advantage is he's basically running as an incumbent.

00:59:51.120 He's an enormously, he's an enormously heavy favorite because he's essentially running as

00:59:55.860 an incumbent.

00:59:56.220 He's got the party apparatus behind him and he is a hundred percent name identification

01:00:01.260 and many Republicans feel that he was wronged grievously in 2020.

01:00:06.760 Uh, and so they're sticking with their guy and that all redounds to Trump's benefit, but

01:00:13.580 there will be attention and action and interest around these other folks with more debates.

01:00:18.940 And as the contest get closer and the last thing I would just remind you, as you know,

01:00:23.420 just as well as anybody, Iowa and New Hampshire have never in the history of modern nominating

01:00:29.700 contests ever voted for the same Republican candidate.

01:00:33.260 They have never agreed one time.

01:00:35.060 New Hampshire has a better record, but what Iowa does is they like to, what is what they

01:00:40.940 did to Trump in 2016?

01:00:42.400 Oh, are we all voting for this guy?

01:00:44.160 Well, we're voting for that guy.

01:00:45.480 What do you think about that?

01:00:46.420 What if we, what, so Iowa likes to be contrary to everyone and New Hampshire likes to be contrary

01:00:52.760 to Iowa and the possibility that Iowa would deliver a, and, and by the way, what Iowa basically

01:00:59.720 does is calls the field.

01:01:01.140 So you have a bunch of people hanging around the hoop, hoping they can get a tip in.

01:01:04.620 And after Iowa, you say, well, you play sixth in Iowa.

01:01:07.260 So I don't think we need to really talk about what you're doing going forward anymore.

01:01:10.980 So that starts the thinning and then New Hampshire cuts it off hard.

01:01:14.760 Now we're down to two or three people.

01:01:16.720 And then we go into that 32 day period until South Carolina.

01:01:20.460 And then it's Katie bar the door. 0.99

01:01:22.100 What could happen in that 32 day period?

01:01:24.520 Look, if the election were held today, if it was one national election and it was held

01:01:27.900 today, Trump would win in a walk.

01:01:30.000 He would dominate it.

01:01:31.580 Absolutely.

01:01:32.520 But that's not how they do this.

01:01:33.840 They're going to do, they're going to have a bunch of people stand around in high school

01:01:37.620 gymnasiums and fire halls on a freezing night in January to caucus and, and talk about viability

01:01:44.540 thresholds.

01:01:45.280 And then they're going to go up into meeting halls in New Hampshire and they're going to

01:01:49.420 vote in New Hampshire.

01:01:50.200 We're talking about a very small number of people.

01:01:52.880 We're talking about, I think Donald Trump got the nomination going through South Carolina.

01:01:57.840 It's like 135,000 votes.

01:02:00.120 That's what, that's what got him off and running into super Tuesday in 2016.

01:02:05.400 We're not talking about that many people.

01:02:07.600 We're talking about a lot of events that are going to intervene.

01:02:10.060 And we're talking about that 32 day window.

01:02:12.120 Yeah.

01:02:12.280 Donald Trump is, I give him a, uh, three out of five, four, maybe four, three, I'll give

01:02:17.300 it three and a half out of five likely to be the Republican nominee.

01:02:20.600 They're, they're very good odds, but they're not prohibitive.

01:02:23.420 And if I were a Republican, I'd want to get in the fight.

01:02:27.240 So that leads me to, let's say, let's say he gets it, right?

01:02:31.860 He, the polls are right.

01:02:33.620 The Iowans go for him. 0.60

01:02:34.700 The New Hampshire rights go for him.

01:02:36.580 He's on a roll and he gets the nomination, you know, or he's like got so many delegates.

01:02:43.240 He's unbeatable.

01:02:43.860 You know, you can see it's his, his for the taking.

01:02:46.320 And then he's actually thrown in jail, actually thrown in jail.

01:02:50.840 I had Mark Levin on the show last week.

01:02:52.720 He's a brilliant, brilliant legal mind.

01:02:54.720 And he was saying there is a very good chance Trump could be thrown in jail, especially by

01:02:58.940 judge Chutkin in DC who hates Trump.

01:03:02.200 I mean, maybe that's strong, but she doesn't like Trump.

01:03:04.660 You can tell that from her prior rules.

01:03:05.960 I don't think Trump likes her either.

01:03:07.980 Trump just, he's not a fan.

01:03:10.380 Right.

01:03:10.520 And this is DC that went, what, 92% for Joe Biden?

01:03:14.540 You know, it's the jury pool is going to be a nightmare for him.

01:03:16.780 Um, and while the January six charges are not very strong compared to like the documents

01:03:21.860 case down in Mar-a-Lago, where his jury pool is likely to be better for him.

01:03:25.540 Um, it, it may be enough of a heartstring pull for a DC jury that he, the prosecution,

01:03:33.340 Jack Smith gets it across the line and he wins and he wins the case against Trump.

01:03:37.700 So if that happens, she could put him in jail, even pending appeal.

01:03:40.720 She could say, no, I will not stay your mandate to go to prison, federal prison, pending appeal.

01:03:47.380 I don't have to do that.

01:03:48.060 I'm not doing that.

01:03:49.220 So he could be in jail.

01:03:50.800 That's just one.

01:03:51.700 I'm just picking one case of the four.

01:03:53.500 Right.

01:03:54.100 By the time we actually vote on November, whatever, 2024, do the Republicans have, and that trial

01:04:00.940 set to take place the day before super Tuesday, March 4th. 0.98

01:04:03.720 So do the Republicans at that point when they're like, okay, I love him, but this is bullshit. 0.97

01:04:09.280 Like I can't, we're going to lose if our, if our candidate is serving a prison sentence. 0.98

01:04:16.380 I know I love him.

01:04:17.840 I know these guys love him, but I know those suburban soccer moms who screwed us over the 1.00

01:04:22.720 last time.

01:04:23.620 They, they're not going to love this.

01:04:25.180 They were barely coming over our way to begin with because they didn't like the transing 1.00

01:04:28.200 of the kids or whatever it is, but that they're not.

01:04:31.180 So now what, is there any option, any option at that point?

01:04:36.320 Yeah.

01:04:36.600 I mean, look, these parties are not governmental agencies.

01:04:39.740 They are not governed by the law.

01:04:42.380 They are, uh, private nonprofit entities that, uh, abide by their own rules is in, in let's,

01:04:51.360 let's do that hypothetical.

01:04:52.780 Donald Trump is, uh, imprisoned, uh, and he is sent to jail pending sentencing, uh, prior

01:04:59.340 to election day.

01:05:01.900 Could the Republican national committee take the nomination away from him?

01:05:06.020 Yeah, they certainly could.

01:05:07.900 They have extraordinary power.

01:05:10.100 The members of that committee who are, by the way, elected by Republicans across the

01:05:14.960 country, they're chosen either, uh, some of them directly elected, uh, on the primary

01:05:20.000 ballot, uh, to be committee men and committee women, uh, and some chosen in state conventions,

01:05:26.080 but they're chosen and they can convene and they have extraordinary power to change rules

01:05:31.140 and blow stuff up, uh, to do that.

01:05:33.260 The question is, would they have the political will to do it?

01:05:38.140 Because if the Republican rank and file was sticking with Trump, you can't abandon our

01:05:43.620 guy at the moment of his greatest need.

01:05:46.380 He needs us now more than ever in his fight and you cannot walk away from him.

01:05:51.600 Who on that committee wants to be the one that said, yeah, I hear you, but we got to dump him.

01:05:56.940 I know you voted for him and I know that you want us to stand with him, but, uh, we're going

01:06:02.020 to, we're going to have to dump him right now.

01:06:03.520 Uh, let me just say one, one thing is as a level setting premise, the Republican party is so divided

01:06:11.160 that I, I don't know how they win a general election. I've never seen a party that hates

01:06:16.800 itself as much as this party hates it. Yes. You're, they are just at each other's throats.

01:06:22.820 They, and so in a scenario where Donald Trump gets the nomination, a quarter of the Republican

01:06:27.880 party is very soft in their support, right? They're very soft in their support. They're

01:06:33.400 anti-MAGA. They hate him. They don't want that. Okay. Flip it around. Nikki Haley,

01:06:38.980 the apotheosis of Nikki Haley, and she pulls it off, right? She slingshots past Trump. She wins 0.98

01:06:44.360 in Iowa, goes on, gets a win in her home state of South Carolina and gets into the convention and

01:06:49.880 barely wins. Are those MAGA voters going to say, ah, it was a, it was a tough fight, but you won fair

01:06:55.400 and square. And now I will come and support you and your globalist elite pop. No, they will say,

01:07:01.580 I will, I will burn in hell before I will vote for Nikki Haley. I'll be voting for, uh, RFK junior

01:07:07.980 and you can go pound sand. So that's the fundamental, what you saw in the house is the fundamental

01:07:13.800 problem that the Republican party has. They hate each other. And when you hate it, the Democrats

01:07:19.160 don't like, they're not excited about Joe Biden, but they don't hate Joe Biden. They're not, they're

01:07:24.000 not, they're not angry at Joe Biden. They're depressed because he's so old and he seems so feeble

01:07:28.560 and they want somebody new and they want something different, but they'll vote for him.

01:07:34.560 That's the thing. So the more establishment Republicans, they will vote for Trump. I think

01:07:40.920 they will vote for Trump if they have to, they might have to hold their noses to do it, but

01:07:44.460 they would definitely rather vote for Trump than lose to a Democrat, but core MAGA, you cannot say

01:07:51.080 the same there. It's Trump or bust Trump or die. And so that, so the Republicans really have no 0.98

01:07:58.440 choice here. If Trump wants it, if Trump is saying, I still am viable and want it, I'm not ready to

01:08:06.140 pass the baton to DeSantis or anybody else. The Republicans have no choice if they want to win

01:08:10.740 the general, but to make it Trump. We're, uh, I mean, I, I, I'd put it a slight, well, here's what

01:08:20.220 poll after poll after poll says about the state of the Republican party. About 35% of the Republican

01:08:27.400 party is Trump mega massive MAGA and about 25% is anti-Trump. And, uh, my friend, uh, pollster

01:08:37.000 Whit Ayers coined a term, which is really good here. He says, you've got, uh, always Trump and

01:08:42.860 never Trump. And then you've got always Republican. You have all of these voters who just want a

01:08:48.640 Republican. They just want the Republican party to win. They just want the Republican party to

01:08:52.680 succeed. Those are the people that rank and file in the house who were saying, I, maybe I'm not in

01:08:57.240 love with Kevin McCarthy, but like, just stop this, like just move on. And the way that a person,

01:09:03.740 a way that a person could win the Republican nomination would basically be get to the point

01:09:11.320 where they have a majority of those, always Republicans in a scenario, just as you described

01:09:15.420 where they say, Hey, Trump did a bunch of good stuff, but he's a loose cannon and he's, he's brought

01:09:22.180 a lot of this on himself and we can't drag this into a general election and he may be in prison.

01:09:27.100 So it's just, it's just too much. So what you would see would be intensification among the core,

01:09:33.300 core group, right? The, that 15 or 20% that have been with him from the beginning and the wilder,

01:09:39.440 the crazier, the better, they like it more because it's more evidence that he's fighting the system.

01:09:44.100 And the harder they come after him, the more evidence that he is that, you know, he's like

01:09:47.640 the John Dillinger character, like he's taking it, he, he is fighting the man. So those people

01:09:52.680 would intensify in their support, but other people would start to peel off. And then the dynamic

01:09:58.400 shifts, I don't know. I don't know how, um, I don't know how the Republicans can,

01:10:04.540 can beat Joe Biden, but I also don't know how Joe Biden can win because he is so old and everybody

01:10:10.440 knows how old Joe Biden is. And I just, uh, not to editorialize, but I am stunned by the selfishness

01:10:17.660 of Joe Biden. I really am surprised. I frankly am surprised that he could not find it within himself

01:10:25.840 for the good of his party and the good of his country to have said, and what a gift it would

01:10:30.120 have been to himself and to the way Washington worked. If he would have said the day after

01:10:34.360 the midterm elections, well, folks, we had, we, we, we've had some fun. We've had a bunch of laughs

01:10:41.260 and now I'm going to try to balance the budget and do whatever I can here in these final two years,

01:10:45.980 but you guys are going to have to sort this out and pick another candidate and his belief that only

01:10:51.000 he can defeat Donald Trump and only he can do this. It is a really a kind of depressing degree of it's

01:10:59.680 almost Gatesian. He's a, he's a person of a very different character than Matt Gates, but it is a

01:11:04.780 kind of solipsism and selfishness that is breaking our politics. When people believe only I can do it,

01:11:11.360 I'm the only person who can do this and I have to stay. And I think it's been a really

01:11:15.680 unfortunate choice. So to sum up, everyone is arrested. And I think I speak for Steyrwalt when

01:11:24.460 I say we also want to puke. There we go. American politics, 20, 20, it's the jail food.

01:11:33.380 It's very illuminating on a number of levels. It's been great having you. Thanks for doing so much

01:11:38.260 homework for us, Chris Steyrwalt. Great to see you. So good to be with you. All right. And coming up next,

01:11:43.440 somebody who could be arrested at any moment, uh, Calvin Robinson, who now is fired from GB news for

01:11:48.540 what? I don't know, but we're going to talk about this crazy ass controversy across the palm to stay

01:11:54.740 tuned. Joining me now, father Calvin Robinson. Calvin is a deacon in the free church of England. 0.85

01:12:02.780 And as of today, a now former GB news presenter contributor, uh, GB news is sort of, it's not Fox

01:12:11.120 news in UK, but it's more fair and balanced certainly than the BBC in these other offerings.

01:12:17.040 Now Calvin was first suspended, but now as of today, he's officially fired from the UK network.

01:12:22.400 His sin, he offered some support for fellow GB news contributor, Lawrence Fox and presenter.

01:12:29.000 That's how they refer to anchors over there. Dan Wooten. Lawrence was booked to come on this show

01:12:34.480 today, but he couldn't because he was arrested this morning. All right. We're going to get into all

01:12:39.860 of it. Calvin. Great to see you. Thank you for coming back on. How you doing?

01:12:43.060 All things considered Megan. I'm okay. Thank you. Okay. Right, right. Good, good caveat. Or just to

01:12:49.900 get the audience up to speed in case they haven't been following it. What happened was on GB news,

01:12:53.660 where you regularly appear, I regularly appear on Dan Wooten show, which is the most popular show on

01:12:58.060 the entire network. Um, it was Lawrence Fox, right, right. Lawrence Fox appeared. It was two Tuesdays ago.

01:13:06.520 Um, and responded to this woman, this female journalist, Ava Evans, who had made comments that

01:13:12.960 were dismissive of male suicide. It wasn't like a screed she went on, but it was offensive enough

01:13:18.240 that a lot of people were like, whoa. And she felt the need to try to tweet and kind of take it down

01:13:21.780 a notch after she said it. She knew she had stepped in it. She seemed very dismissive of this massive

01:13:26.960 problem. It's the number one cause of death for men under 50 in the UK. And in America, we lose 35

01:13:32.140 men, 35,000 men a year to this. And she was kind of like, ah, we don't need a minister of men. 1.00

01:13:37.660 All right. This is just a way of, of engaging in the culture wars. I've played it a couple of times

01:13:42.720 already. The audience can go look it up if they want to hear it again. So Lawrence goes on GB with

01:13:46.840 Dan in response. And Lawrence knows somebody who's died by suicide. And this is an issue that's near

01:13:51.600 and dear to him and says the following here. It is sought seven. Show me a single self-respecting man

01:13:58.180 that would like to climb into bed with that woman ever, ever. He wasn't an incel. He wasn't a 0.93

01:14:04.900 cucked little incel. That little woman has been fed, spoon-fed oppression day after day after day 1.00

01:14:11.620 after day, starting with the lie of the gender wage gap. And she sat there and I'm going like,

01:14:17.780 if I met you in a bar and that was like sentence three, chances of me just walking away are just

01:14:24.480 huge. We need powerful, strong, amazing women who make great points for themselves. We don't need 1.00

01:14:30.700 these sort of feminist 4.0. They're pathetic and embarrassing. Who'd want to shag that? 1.00

01:14:37.420 Lawrence, well, look, she... Sorry. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just going to provide a touch of

01:14:45.420 balance from her because she did actually respond to this earlier today, saying that she regretted her

01:14:53.500 comments, but she didn't apologize. Uh, yes. So, so, so there you go. And she's a very beautiful

01:15:03.380 woman, Lawrence. Very beautiful. There you go. Okay. I was sitting there. I was up next on Dan's

01:15:11.500 show that night. I heard it all in my ear sitting from this very desk. I knew it was a controversial

01:15:15.720 thing to say. I was not offended. I just, I wasn't. I mean, I've said to the audience, if you go back and

01:15:20.940 take a look at some of the things, just Google, just Google, Megan Kelly, Trump, Breitbart, do that

01:15:26.160 and see, like it, it's not a nice piece of being in the public eye, but it is a piece of being in

01:15:31.420 the public eye. And while yes, about women, it may be like your looks or whether they want to shag you 1.00

01:15:36.100 or not. And about men, it's probably something diminishing in an equal type of way. Um, in any event,

01:15:43.140 it's not lovely, but it happens. And I was not offended by what he said. I was like, I wasn't sorry.

01:15:47.740 Um, not sorry. So you were, you got out there and defended Dan because Dan got sucked up in this and

01:15:54.160 defended Lawrence, like take a breath. It's, you know, that he said something, stop having such a

01:15:58.240 meltdown, right? You weren't defending the remarks, but you were defending your friends and saying,

01:16:01.720 could we take a breath here? We're treating this like he sexually assaulted this woman. 0.81

01:16:06.620 And they were the headlines in the UK have been over the top. The uniform reaction against Lawrence

01:16:13.640 and Dan has been breathtaking, such an overreaction. And Lawrence did come out and say,

01:16:21.740 I'm sorry. I didn't express myself the way I, I should have, but I'm the, my point stands. I'm still

01:16:26.820 mad. Well, today, I think today it was official. They fired him. GB news fired him and you got fired.

01:16:36.060 You got fired too. What was your sin, Calvin?

01:16:39.140 My sin was loyalty and my sin was actually believing in free speech on the channel that

01:16:44.460 calls itself the home of free speech. But what it means is the home of free speech, but no,

01:16:48.540 not that speech. I also was there that night, Megan, I was sat in the green room and I was

01:16:53.300 watching it live. I thought, oh, oh, Lawrence, you know, because he could have destroyed her

01:16:57.400 because she was in the wrong. She's a vile misandrist who hates men. And she's well known for this on all 1.00

01:17:03.240 of her commentary. You know, people can check out her Twitter. She's said plenty of times,

01:17:06.920 oh, I wouldn't shag him. You know, she's used the exact words that Lawrence used.

01:17:09.640 Many times.

01:17:09.880 I don't think Lawrence, I don't think he should have gone to her level because that made him look

01:17:13.860 like the bad guy. Whereas he could have totally destroyed her argument because this is about men's

01:17:18.080 mental health. And it is the biggest killer of men in this country. Suicide. No one seems to care.

01:17:23.180 We have a minister for women. We don't have a minister for men. And people like this able woman

01:17:26.680 don't think we should have one because men are, well, worthless in her eyes. And that's the story 0.76

01:17:31.620 that should have been told. That's the sadness. But every single news outlet over here is saying,

01:17:35.140 Lawrence Fox, misogyny. You know, I was interviewed today by Sly News. They didn't say,

01:17:39.880 why were you fired? They didn't want to care about if Dan was coming back. It's just like,

01:17:43.340 wasn't Lawrence Fox really misogynistic? It's like, for goodness sake, the hysteria.

01:17:48.480 You know, we've had on our broadcast men being talked about in the exact same way. We've had people

01:17:53.500 saying, wouldn't shag him. Nothing. No one cares. Again. So it's not about equality, which is what

01:17:59.040 feminism says it's about, right? The equality between men and women. It's not about that. 0.99

01:18:02.660 It's about women being superior to men and men being a lesser half of the species. And that's 1.00

01:18:08.320 very sad because we need men. We live in a society of fatherlessness, a society of men's mental health

01:18:13.640 on the decline. We need to fix all of that. And this is not the approach to do it. So I was

01:18:18.600 disappointed in Lawrence for taking that line. And I said this to him, but I backed him 100% and

01:18:23.200 thought, you know, he has a right to do it. He has a right to say it if that's what he believes. And

01:18:26.600 if we say we're for free speech, surely he should be able to say it. Nothing illegal,

01:18:30.880 no incitement of violence, didn't break any laws. So why cancel him, suspend him and fire him?

01:18:36.960 But worse than that, they suspended Dan too. And they're going to fire Dan. I'll put money on it

01:18:42.300 right now. They're going to fire Dan. It's more difficult for them to fire him because he's in

01:18:45.340 a two-year contract, which me and Lawrence weren't in. But all Dan did is hosting. You saw he tried to

01:18:50.580 provide some balance. He was clearly caught off guard. And he's Lawrence's friend as well. So he

01:18:55.360 doesn't want to drop him in it. So there are all these things to consider. But why is the question?

01:18:59.820 Why did they want to fire Lawrence? Why did they want to fire Dan? And why did they fire me?

01:19:04.940 Yeah, that is the question. And I know you've got some thoughts on it. I want to get into exactly

01:19:10.000 what you think is happening at GB because I too have been there from the beginning. I mean,

01:19:14.320 you've been there from the beginning. Dan's been there from the beginning. I mean, I only go on once a

01:19:17.980 week, so I'm not this integral, but I care about the thing. I've been doing it because I care about the

01:19:22.820 mission. And I'm concerned about what's happening right now. I can't believe that three of my

01:19:27.420 favorite people there are out in one fell swoop over this, over this, you know, one moment,

01:19:32.500 which again, some people may find it offensive. I didn't, um, whatever. I have a very thick skin.

01:19:37.720 Um, so then today Lawrence was booked to come on to talk about this and he got arrested. Now he's

01:19:45.480 going to make all these references in the clip that I'm about to show that I just want to bring the

01:19:48.980 audience up to speed on something else. So Lawrence did a couple of shows over the past couple of

01:19:53.500 days, including he went on the show of Majid Nawaz. He used to come on my Fox show all the time.

01:19:57.500 And on that show, he, he was complaining about this weird initiative over in great Britain to crack down

01:20:04.800 on emissions coming out of people's cars. And you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but they have some sort

01:20:09.600 of a program where now you can't have certain cars because they put out too many emissions and they put

01:20:14.660 these cameras up all over the UK trying to spy on different areas to see if said car comes into said

01:20:21.200 region. And if, if it does, they'll take a picture of your license plate and send you a fine for breaking

01:20:27.660 the emissions. I mean, it's crazy. The amount of state intrusion into your life now. And there's this

01:20:34.380 group that's sort of a, they're protesting it that, uh, I guess you'd call it civil disobedience

01:20:38.920 running around, taking down the cameras. And Lawrence was trying to say, I would join them. I don't know how

01:20:44.060 the discussion spun into this, but I think he was just talking about the overreach of the state

01:20:47.080 because the government is getting involved in his case. Offcom is trying to punish him,

01:20:50.880 which oversees UK media. And they're trying to crack down everybody's emissions and what kind

01:20:54.860 of car you drive and whether you've driven in the right place or the wrong place. So he's making a

01:20:58.200 reference to it. And here as the police are in his house this morning, which is why he's not here

01:21:02.600 with us live right now, he makes a reference to it. Watch.

01:21:05.560 Morning guys. Um, in London's knife ridden capital city where a 15 year old girl was stabbed to death

01:21:17.420 with a sword. We've got one, two, you can show them one, two, another three upstairs,

01:21:26.380 stealing, going through my house to intimidate me because, um, this is what the police are. They

01:21:34.440 don't police with consent anymore. They police with fear and intimidation. That is the stylesy

01:21:39.820 police force that we've got nowadays. Instead of being on the streets, solving crimes like the

01:21:44.280 murder of the poor 15 year old girl, they're on all over social media. But I'd take it. The, um,

01:21:50.160 ULS scam cameras outside of London are a complete, the outer ULS zone is a complete scam. There's no

01:21:57.200 scientific evidence. Sadiq Khan rubbished the evidence and had it rewritten to serve his own

01:22:02.620 needs. No one voted it. It's the beginning and bringing in of a surveillance state.

01:22:08.600 And he's trying to make noises so that I can't say that it's the beginning in of this surveillance

01:22:13.560 state. And these boys are the stylesy. Sadiq, Stasi. Bless them. So have a lovely day. I'm going

01:22:19.780 to spend my day in the clink in it. My goodness. So that's him this morning as he's being arrested

01:22:26.940 and he was arrested. He was charged, uh, reportedly with conspiring to commit criminal

01:22:32.640 damage to you loves cameras, U L E Z. It stands for ultra low emission zones. Again, put in place

01:22:40.360 across London. If a car drives into the zone and does not meet emission standards, it gets a daily

01:22:45.920 charge about $15 U S money. Uh, and the U less cameras record a car's plate numbers and so on. So

01:22:51.440 this is what the controversy was just to expand, forgive me one more soundbite, Calvin. It was

01:22:57.080 Majid Nawaz's show where he made the comments that apparently led to this this morning. And this is

01:23:02.860 where you'll hear him reference these cameras, um, a couple of times here to take a listen. Stop five.

01:23:08.740 I would encourage mass, mass removal of the surveillance state because once it's there,

01:23:14.520 you cannot remove it. Are you interested in testing the law around this? If some people get arrested,

01:23:18.400 I would be happy to be arrested myself. So, you know, I, I won't be, I won't be, when I go out

01:23:24.520 and take their cameras down, which I will be doing, I won't be, I will be taking my phone with me. So

01:23:29.060 they know exactly where I am because the babe runners are clever. They, you know, they, they,

01:23:33.880 they, they know what they're doing, but I would happily sit there and go sit in court and go,

01:23:37.820 who voted for this? What's your evidence for the out of London clean air zone? What's your

01:23:42.540 evidence for that? Why are you doing this? You know, I'd sit there and do it, but I do that. I've got

01:23:46.760 several court cases going on, as you know, but, um, yeah, I would.

01:23:52.160 So that's him saying, I, I object. I like this blade runners group that's coming around,

01:23:56.720 taking down the cameras and I'd be happy to join them. That's what got him arrested

01:24:00.920 on conspiracy, conspiracy to commit criminal damage to the cameras. I looked it up. The UK law,

01:24:06.320 that law requires the very first thing and agreement between two or more parties to commit

01:24:11.880 a criminal offense and agreement. Who did he agree with? Who did he agree with? I didn't hear

01:24:15.600 blade runners say, join our cause. Let's do it. We'll do it on Wednesday. We'll meet you there at

01:24:19.400 eight. Nothing. It was saying something. It was aspirational. This is what his defense lawyer is

01:24:24.540 going to argue. You cannot, I think even in the UK be arrested for thought crimes for thinking I will

01:24:30.880 do it. I'd like to make an example out of myself. I would like to challenge this law. I'm going to go

01:24:35.140 out there even saying I'm going to go out there and cut him down. No, that's not a crime. There has to 0.98

01:24:39.400 be an agreement to have a conspiracy toward anything. There wasn't. So what's this all about?

01:24:45.260 Well, it's pre-crime, isn't it? He said he might commit it. So they're going to arrest him just in

01:24:48.940 case he does. It's like something out of minority report. But I wish you were right. But actually in

01:24:53.460 this country, you can get arrested for thinking things. You know, Isabel Vaughan Spruce, a friend

01:24:57.380 of mine, was arrested for silently praying in her head not too long ago. Thankfully, the police

01:25:01.560 dropped the case. So it didn't end up going to trial. But if it does, and it will do at some

01:25:06.300 point, we'll find out, can you be arrested for what you're thinking in this country? Because

01:25:09.980 they're trying to clamp down on it. And I think the thing with Lawrence was that they knew he'd

01:25:14.080 stream. They knew he'd put all this on social media. And it's a shot across the bow. It's a

01:25:18.380 warning to these Blade Runners, great name, by the way, that they go around. And it is civil

01:25:22.900 disobedience because they're saying, we did not consent to this CCTV everywhere. We did not consent

01:25:27.500 to this big brother state. And it goes against the science that you're saying it backs up. So we're

01:25:32.400 going to take them down and do our duty as civil servants of our land. And I think what the police

01:25:38.580 are doing and what the state are doing is saying, how can we clamp down on this? Well, Lawrence Fox

01:25:42.700 is a big voice. He's got a big profile. If we arrest him, maybe it will scare a few people off.

01:25:48.540 And he's in the mix right now. He's been all over the papers and the tabloids and everywhere as the

01:25:54.400 latest demon meant to absolutely demolish and have absolutely no thought for his well-being,

01:26:00.360 his mental health, what this kind of a crackdown does on him. That's not relevant to anybody.

01:26:04.440 He just needs to be fired and ruined over that one segment that we just showed. That's it. And

01:26:12.220 you too, by the way, you can be ruined. I heard you this morning saying, I actually need this job.

01:26:17.400 I have a rent to pay and I was dependent upon my salary from GB. No one cares, Calvin. None of your

01:26:23.740 friends there. No one. No one does care. That's a good point. Lawrence doesn't actually know he's

01:26:28.620 been fired yet. I've been keeping in touch with people who are down there in Croydon and he's

01:26:32.400 locked up. He doesn't know that he's been fired. But the moment he gets out, finally gets out of

01:26:36.300 jail. He's going to have the news that he's been fired from his job as well. And you're right. No

01:26:39.980 one cares about men's mental health. And my biggest point is at GB News, the so-called home of free

01:26:45.640 speech, so-called against cancel culture. How many of the high profile figures there have stood up for

01:26:51.220 Lawrence, Dan, or myself? How many of them have said, this isn't right. If one falls,

01:26:55.680 we all fall. Let's gather together. The left do it. When Gary Lineker was in trouble at the BBC

01:27:00.360 over here, the state broadcaster, all of the presenters refused to go on the show. And you

01:27:04.440 know what? They brought him back. It doesn't happen on the right. We don't stick together. And it's a

01:27:08.500 great shame because we can't protect free speech. We can't protect any freedoms unless we stick

01:27:12.660 together. And people are more concerned about their own career objectives, about how much money they can

01:27:17.280 earn and all these things that are important, but not as important as our freedoms.

01:27:20.560 Why did they tell you you were getting fired? I mean, I saw your tweet defending Dan and saying,

01:27:27.440 we need to be pro-free speech. And you were critical of the decision to suspend Dan and

01:27:32.620 Lawrence, but it wasn't a barn burner. So what did you do?

01:27:37.160 It was my tweets. And they're saying I brought the company into disrepute. But my rebuke to that would

01:27:42.700 be, no, you guys are bringing the company into disrepute by firing us all for nothing. And all I did was

01:27:47.640 stand up for my colleagues. And the criticism that I put out against the station was in favour

01:27:51.860 of the station. I believe in the project that we all started at the beginning, a home for people

01:27:56.940 that feel like they have no voice. The silent majority in this country who've been disregarded

01:28:01.780 by the metropolitan liberal elites. We've got politicians, we've got mainstream media all

01:28:06.140 ganging together from their own Westminster bubble on net zero this and Black Lives Matter that and 0.91

01:28:11.260 critical race theory this and gender theory that and drag queens reading to children. It's all

01:28:16.320 abominable to the rest of us. Most people in this country believe in traditional British values,

01:28:21.040 traditional Christian values. And there's no home for people like that in politics. 1.00

01:28:24.960 So the whole idea of GB News was to create a home for those people in the media. And now that home

01:28:29.660 has been snatched away, who's going to talk about the important topics? Who's going to talk about

01:28:33.360 the sanctity of life or the importance of fatherhood or marriage being between one man and one woman

01:28:39.640 or the fact that drag queens should not be talking to kids? They shouldn't be sexualising young 1.00

01:28:43.640 kids. Who's going to bring up these topics if not for us? That's the problem. And we're seeing

01:28:47.740 already, you know, Tuesday nights is the night that you and I are usually on Dan Wharton's show.

01:28:51.500 Last night was Tuesday night. The ratings were nearly half. People aren't tuning in now without us.

01:28:57.240 And that's a great shame, not just for GB News, but for the whole idea of having a centre-right voice

01:29:02.260 in the media, a different perspective and shifting the dial in public discourse. It doesn't exist now.

01:29:07.640 It's crazy because I've always said on Cancel Culture, it's not enough. If all you can muster

01:29:13.220 is to not join the mob, OK, we'll take it. But what would be better is if you would stand up

01:29:18.220 against the mob, a tweet, anything to say what you're doing is wrong. You don't have to defend

01:29:22.800 the conduct, but just to say we're not for this, you know, the absolute ruination of somebody because

01:29:27.780 of one errant comment. And that's what you try to do. So the fact that you lost your job because

01:29:32.880 you refused to join the mob and tried to stand up for free speech and for two guys who have been

01:29:37.260 integral to GB's success, it's just deeply wrong what happened. And Dan, Dan is their most successful

01:29:45.080 presenter. Dan did nothing on that clip. Dan, you know, there was a little chuckle and then he had

01:29:51.040 to issue this, you know, it was a groveling hostage statement. It was very, very clearly written by a PR

01:29:57.080 agent. I'm here to tell you, I guarantee you that was written by a PR agent and said, I'm deeply

01:30:03.140 sorry. And I didn't recognize what Lawrence was saying. Dan's trying to save his job. Everybody

01:30:07.260 knows that, but it's not going to work. He's probably going to get fired too. And the UK,

01:30:11.120 the problem, Calvin, is that UK hasn't yet exploded with independent media exactly in the way that

01:30:15.740 the United States has. So like the podcast Digital Lane isn't as robust as we would like it to be there.

01:30:22.960 You're right. You're absolutely right. And that's what we need to do. That's what I'm going to

01:30:25.400 launch my own independent thing. And I think that hopefully Dan would do the same and hopefully

01:30:28.880 Lawrence will do the same. We have to have more voices out here that aren't controlled.

01:30:32.160 You know, Ofcom is the government regulatory body for broadcast media, and they are the big

01:30:37.700 brother of broadcast. They determine what can be said and what can't be said. And you may have

01:30:41.580 heard me mentioned before, but over COVID, they said you can't question or undermine public health

01:30:46.600 bodies. So they're censoring what we can discuss. They're censoring the conversations. We can't say,

01:30:50.840 is this vaccine really safe? We can't say, is lockdown a good idea or is it going to be worse

01:30:56.720 for young people locked away in abusive homes, et cetera? Are these masks effective or are they

01:31:00.820 going to cause the spread of germs? You know, we can't ask these questions. They said no.

01:31:04.700 And this is the problem with our state-established media. So we do need, you're right, we need more

01:31:08.860 independent broadcasters from the centre-right, but from across the spectrum. And we need to stick

01:31:13.320 together. And if we don't, there's no hope for this country.

01:31:15.780 So if you did launch, let's say you, and let's get Mark Stein going too, because he also got the

01:31:21.660 move from GB. We've talked to him about it. If you, if you launch your own independent digital

01:31:26.100 network, would you be governed by Ofcom? Because they're impossible. I mean, it's amazing how they

01:31:30.880 micromanage speech. They're actually saying things like, Dan should have pushed back in this way at

01:31:35.640 this moment. It would drive me insane. So would they oversee such a thing if it were private and not,

01:31:42.000 you know, on the cable airwaves? Yeah, it is insane. It's problematic because there are double 1.00

01:31:46.820 standards at Ofcom. So that, you know, Dan and Lawrence have been in trouble for this conversation,

01:31:50.880 but I've seen exactly the same conversation on other channels talking about men in the same way

01:31:54.500 and nothing's happened. But yes, Ofcom will have parts play in this, unfortunately. The government

01:32:00.640 have just passed a bill called the online safety bill, which means that Ofcom is no longer just

01:32:05.500 responsible for broadcast media, TV and radio, but now also media on the internet. And I don't know

01:32:11.640 how that's going to look, how it's going to manifest because it's only just been passed in law. But

01:32:16.120 this essentially means that YouTube, even Rumble, all of these platforms are going to be at the

01:32:22.000 behest of Ofcom, which means we might not actually have any freedom of speech or expression in this

01:32:27.220 country in a matter of months or weeks. What are they going to do? I mean, I'm on Rumble. I'm on

01:32:33.260 YouTube and obviously available to anybody in the UK who wants to see my commentary. Are they going to

01:32:38.280 just, I won't air? I mean, I just won't be, I'm not complying with them. You know what you can do

01:32:43.440 Ofcom? This. Sorry. Sorry, father. That's what they can do. You're saying the right thing and

01:32:48.600 you're being bold and a few people will do that, but your show just won't make it to the UK. It

01:32:52.260 won't get through our ISPs. It'll be filtered out. You know, Germany already do this with some

01:32:57.000 things. A lot of countries, obviously China and North Korea filter their internet, but a lot of

01:33:01.220 countries filter their internet already. You just won't make it to the UK. We'll be stuck. We'll be lost.

01:33:05.640 So we won't know what's going on unless it's given to us, spoon fed to us by the establishment.

01:33:11.860 That is really scary. I mean, honestly, this is not to be so too, you know, self-promotional and

01:33:18.900 by self, I mean America, but this is why we fought a revolution to get away from this, right? This is

01:33:22.700 why we came over here and we established the constitution with the bill of rights and the

01:33:25.540 first amendment saying freedom of the press and freedom of speech. And our government's not allowed

01:33:29.180 to do this to us. It's not to say they haven't been trying over the past couple of years,

01:33:33.100 but we've been getting a couple of very good, uh, favorable court opinions lately saying no,

01:33:38.540 the first amendment means what they said it means. And the government is not allowed to censor or

01:33:43.380 control speech period. It's incredibly important. It's worth fighting for. And you guys, you need to

01:33:50.680 follow our lead. You need your own revolution within the UK right now.

01:33:53.980 We do need a revolution. You're absolutely right. But I mean, even you guys are hanging onto it by

01:33:59.420 a threat because the persecution is coming. The fact that political opponents can be arrested and

01:34:04.800 sent to jail, essentially what they're doing to Trump is similar to what they're doing to Lawrence

01:34:08.040 Fox. You know, he's a leader of a party too. It's if they don't like you, they can get rid of you,

01:34:11.980 forget your free speech. You can be gone.

01:34:13.700 It's absolutely crazy. Meanwhile, the journalist, um, who was the subject of Lawrence's comments has

01:34:22.320 come out saying, I don't care that he apologized. It's unforgivable. It was dehumanizing and that

01:34:28.720 she's getting threats. Now, you know what she's getting threats for, for because of her comments, 1.00

01:34:32.260 not because of his comments, she's getting threats because she's been so dismissive of men

01:34:36.580 of her own heartlessness toward men. And you know what? I'm sorry. Like getting vile threats on the

01:34:43.400 internet is part of what they call the internet. It's just, it happens to anybody who puts themselves

01:34:48.380 out there. It's not pleasant, but it's part of the cost of doing business. Calvin Robinson,

01:34:52.800 please let come on anytime. I'm, I'm determined to save all three of you. This is bullshit. Sorry.

01:34:57.840 Sorry. I should clean up my language. This is BS. And, uh, I wish you all the best. I want to tell

01:35:02.360 the audience people can help support Calvin. Uh, it's at www.give, send, go.com give, send,

01:35:09.420 go.com slash home of cancel culture. Okay. Give send, go.com slash home of cancel culture.

01:35:17.080 Can't pay the rent. No one gives a damn. No one's been supportive of him. Nevermind them. Uh,

01:35:22.040 and it's just wrong. It's just deeply wrong. Uh, okay. We're going to be back tomorrow with GOP

01:35:28.740 presidential candidate, Mike Pence. Looking forward to that. His very first interview here on the show.

01:35:33.120 Email me with your thoughts, Megan at Megan Kelly.com.

01:35:39.840 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 04, 2023

Wargaming How Democrats Could Ditch Biden Next Year, and Criminalizing Speech in the U.K., with Chris Stirewalt and Calvin Robinson ｜ Ep. 640

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