Wargaming How Democrats Could Ditch Biden Next Year, and Criminalizing Speech in the U.K., with Chris Stirewalt and Calvin Robinson | Ep. 640
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 35 minutes
Words per Minute
190.84557
Summary
In the wake of the Lawrence Fox fallout and the fallout from it, Megyn is joined by Chris Steierwalt and Eliana Johnson to discuss what's next for the 2020 Democratic primary race and what it means for the future of the country. Plus, a special guest interview with CNN's Calvin Robinson.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
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Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
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Oh, we have a great, great program for you today, one that I can only bring you in this new format
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Honestly, like if I were on cable news right now, we wouldn't be able to do any of these issues justice.
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In just a bit, we're going to be joined for an exclusive interview with Calvin Robinson.
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He was suspended and now, as of this morning, fired by GB News over in Great Britain
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Remember, Lawrence Fox went on Dan Wooten's GB News show.
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Dan's been on the show many times talking about the Royals, etc.
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And he made a crass comment about a political commentator over there, a woman,
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who he thought was demeaning or diminishing male suicide.
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Dan, who was just anchoring the segment, he got suspended.
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And now this morning, Lawrence got fired and so did Calvin.
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And Dan's fate looms in the balance he's going to find out later this week.
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Meanwhile, we booked Lawrence Fox, the man who made the controversial comments, to come on this show.
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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.
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But we begin with the chaos to come in the 2024 election cycle, which is very uncertain, to put it, to put it mildly.
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We've been wanting to bring you this report for a while.
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What happens if or and how can the Democrats actually swap out President Biden from their ticket?
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How can it happen either before they get to the Democratic Convention?
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After they get to the Democratic Convention, we're going to go down the contingencies.
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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?
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Today, we have someone here who can actually answer these tricky questions and many more.
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Like what happens if Glenn Youngkin actually gets into the race, but beyond the point where his name can be on the ballot?
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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.
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Joining me now on all of it, our expert Chris Steierwalt, contributing editor at The Dispatch, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,
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and co-host of the Ink Stained Wretches podcast with our friend Eliana Johnson.
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My real hope here is that I can navigate this time with you and not myself be jailed.
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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.
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And so I can't find our copy of The Wall Street Journal, but here's what showed up at our house today.
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This is The New York Times for the listening audience.
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And then you've got The New York Post, Gates of Hell, G-A-E-T-C.
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McCarthy first house speaker ever ousted after coup by Florida Republican or Representative Gates.
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I knew they'd sign something to kick the ball a little.
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But this, this is a different sliver, different kettle of fish, as they say.
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And it is interesting to me that McCarthy's out and says he doesn't want to come back.
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I've written down my questions, which I almost never do, Starwalt, so we can do it in baby steps.
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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.
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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.
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And then the icing, the coup de grace, never before has a sitting speaker of the House been removed.
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Now, on the one hand, everything has never happened until it does.
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It's consequences that matter, not whether it's the first time that it happened.
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Matt Gates hates Kevin McCarthy for a variety of reasons.
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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.
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And this is the kind of sanction, the kind of punishment that this small group can deliver in a narrowly divided Congress.
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If I take it in a light less favorable to the defendant, Matt Gates sounds like he wants to run for governor of Florida.
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Matt Gates wants to be very famous and very important.
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And this is a vehicle to be very famous and very important, certainly.
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And get you on the, as you just showed, get you on the front page of every newspaper, makes you the topic of conversation.
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But it will certainly make Matt Gates famouser.
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I also heard that he blames Kevin McCarthy for the ethics investigation into him, though they say that actually wasn't McCarthy's fault.
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But he doesn't like that he's being investigated and he thinks McCarthy at least didn't do enough to save him.
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In any event, that's what Kevin McCarthy is saying, that this is all personal by Matt Gates.
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He barely made speaker because they just have such a slim majority in the House.
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And so he barely won the speakership and he had to cut all these deals to get it.
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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.
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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.
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You know, Kevin McCarthy did have a deal, as I understand it.
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He said, here's a deal that could, like, do some stuff, like maybe some more border funding.
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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.
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Well, the point was to make McCarthy use Democrats, right?
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That was the point, because if you want to remove McCarthy, you need the causes Bella.
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And the reason was going to be that he used Democratic votes to avert a shutdown.
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Now, we remember when John Boehner stunned the nation and said, I'm not going to let you vote me out.
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I'm going to put the vote forward, avoid the shutdown.
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I forget whether it was a shutdown or a debt ceiling lift.
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And I think a larger way to think about this would be starting with the 2010 election.
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There's been a revolution inside the Republican conference, and it has intensified over time.
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And it took down Boehner and it took down Paul Ryan.
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And the problem with revolutions is they burn themselves out because you start out and you
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And the answer continues to be, well, not that different.
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And it keeps going and keeps going, keeps going.
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And if you just try a thought experiment, imagine Democrats doing this.
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They had just as small a majority in the House before.
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And it's impossible to imagine Democrats doing this,
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even with members of the squad, even with radical ideologues and glory hogs abounding in the
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It's impossible to imagine Democrats doing it because Democrats are much better at sticking
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together than Republicans who who are just better at sticking it to each other.
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They fight, but then they they bring it home in the end.
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And the Republicans just wind up killing each other in their circular firing squad.
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Even when they're winning, they they find a way to lose.
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You know, we've always said never underestimate the Republicans ability to screw it up.
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And now they could have had headlines about Hunter Biden and, you know, Joe Biden and the
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And instead, we have headlines about the meltdown inside the House GOP and how they can't even
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It was clear there was a Washington Post poll that showed him getting just shellacked by
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Every story, every bit of energy surrounded the question of whether Joe Biden was going
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And the Hunter Biden story, of course, reinforces all of that.
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And the Republicans said, Matt Gaetz said, hold my beer.
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And we want to talk about how angry we are at Kevin McCarthy.
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And it's look, being as you correctly identified, counselor, being in control of one half of
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one branch of government is not a sufficient posture from which to advance policy reforms.
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The best that you're really going to be able to do is stop bad things that you don't like.
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And looked at one way, the Republicans have been extraordinarily, extraordinarily successful
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under McCarthy's leadership in this brief period of time.
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And they did it because Republicans could stick together and they could pass stuff out
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That's what McCarthy wanted him to do this time.
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Look, I know it's going to pass, but we've got to put the Senate on the back foot.
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And this, again, very small number of members of the Republican conference, I think just
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eight people said, no, we don't want to pass something.
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We would rather we would rather feel good failing than we would take the fight to Senate
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So they have failed and they had to, in order to get rid of McCarthy, work with Democrats.
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He worked with the Democrats to kick this spending thing down the road.
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And then in order to punish him for it, the eight had to work with Democrats who were ticked
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off enough at McCarthy for the impeachment inquiry and blaming a bunch of stuff on them
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and just generally not liking the Democrats so much that they were like, we're not going
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Why is Kevin McCarthy not running for speaker again?
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Um, I, I assume he thinks he, uh, either can't win or in order to win the concessions that
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he would have to make, uh, would be even more odious than the concessions.
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The first time, um, a job in which you have responsibility, but not authority, you're not
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You're there, you're there to take the beating for the failures, but you don't really have
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And that was, that's where the house freedom caucus generally, but this small clack of
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members, that's what they want the speaker to be.
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They, the, the speakership is envisioned as a very powerful office.
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Remember this is third in line for the presidency and the speakership is envisioned as a very
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powerful office and lots of privileges, uh, in terms of how Congress is run, uh, uh, devolved
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So what these folks want is somebody who, who can't do that.
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Who's really more of just a vote counter, right?
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They just want somebody who's going to go with whatever the plurality of Republicans in
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Uh, and that's not a job that Kevin McCarthy would want to have.
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And I also assume that, and this is not something that I think would have come easily to McCarthy
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because he's been climbing the greasy pole to be speaker for so long.
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And if you'll recall, he was denied the speakership once before, which is how it landed in Paul
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Ryan's lap because of the complaints of these folks.
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And there was a, there was a really ugly whisper campaign that was launched against McCarthy
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and his, uh, lifelong, I don't know if it was lifelong, but decades long effort to become
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So he put all of this time and effort into having this job.
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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
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Because as we can see in American politics today, people have a hard time leaving.
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And if what he, and if what he said was, you know what, I'm good.
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If he did what Boehner did or Ryan did and said, I'm, I've had plenty and I'm, I'm leaving
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That's a lesson that both parties in large part can take about letting things change and
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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,
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uh, I think by Ben Dominic and the American spectator as the hateful eight, which I know
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is seed oils, the hateful eight seed oils, which are to be avoided.
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Uh, in any event, uh, Newt Gingrich is very angry at that quote hateful eight and said
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96% of the Republicans voted for McCarthy 4% voted against him from my position as a
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What they did was to go to the other team to cause total chaos.
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Instead, you're going to get a week or 10 days of the media focusing on Republican disarray.
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It's an astonishingly destructive behavior by a handful of egocentric people who think they're
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Well, you know, it's, it's, it's not, um, it's not a crazy thing to say because I think
00:16:05.120
So let's start with the first, uh, assumption, which is people on the right don't like the
00:16:13.380
We have a pro-government party essentially, and we have an anti-government party.
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So if you're good at being in the government, you're already viewed with suspicion by people
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When you reinforce that with a narrative that says, uh, we always get sold out.
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We get sold out every time they tell us they're going to be conservatives and then they get
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And so that idea of betrayal, which by the way, has animated and sustained Donald Trump in
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every way, as he has come to dominate the Republican party, this concept of betrayal is deeply rooted
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I'm talking about going back generations to our grandparents' generation about this feeling
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So you have a party that is disinclined to see the government, to be the government.
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You have a party that is, uh, has a strong belief that they have been frequently betrayed
00:17:07.900
And then you have this, what is proof positive that you've been betrayed?
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They're getting stuff done because the only way that you could, we have a very evenly divided
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And we have had really for most of this century, we have a country that is 47, 47 and people
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who just want to puke and the, in a country, in a, in a country like that, you're not going
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to be able to advance big ideas on partisan lines.
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Look at how Barack Obama, look at the, the disaster of Obamacare, uh, creation, passage
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And they ended up with very few things out of what they wanted and a bad election message
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We don't have the kinds of majorities for either party in America that would allow party
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
00:18:18.580
So in its own perverse way, losing is evidence of purity, right?
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And there was one member of, uh, the freedom caucus.
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And I, I think it was Matt Rosendale from Montana who said, who talked in a recent interview
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about how he prayed that the Republican majority would be small.
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What person says, I just hope that my party didn't do that well.
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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.
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And I think that encapsulates sort of the self-defeating thinking that dominates among Republicans
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and why they, at a moment of enormous political opportunity for their party, cannot seem to
00:19:15.860
Well, now they caught the bumper, you know, the dog caught the bumper.
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There's a temporary guy who's just going to like pass, you know, make sure order is maintained
00:19:35.980
So far, as far as I can tell, this guy, McHenry, his name is Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.
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His first move was to, um, as acting speaker was to order former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
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to get out of her Capitol Hill hideaway office.
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That's like the, the nice big sort of personal office where it's all like your bragging photos
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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,
00:21:24.940
He's the number two guy in the house right now, but yeah, but yeah, he's got a health
00:21:29.800
Um, but Stefanik is very ambitious and she has, has been, uh, grinding it hard to get to
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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
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conference, even though he's been sucking up to McCarthy and trying to mainstream himself
00:21:50.620
I'm, I'm still skeptical, but we'll see anyone can be nominated to be speaker of the house.
00:21:57.160
You, well, you would make a great speaker of the house.
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.
00:22:08.860
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.
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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
00:22:51.520
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
00:23:00.300
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
00:23:14.580
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
00:23:26.520
The reason we have that stupid system that is antithetical to the way that a representative
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
00:24:02.580
But my instincts say he this is just Trump generating like tweaking the PR machine to
00:24:08.500
I mean, he's a genius at PR and I've just this feels like that to me.
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
00:24:30.100
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.
00:25:03.180
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
00:25:21.920
Even if you don't think the charges are worth much, you can't deny that he's in front of
00:25:30.240
So the and the polls show that the vast majorities of Americans on both sides want different
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.
00:25:47.040
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.
00:25:55.960
I've once again, I have written down my question.
00:25:58.180
I've written them down my little note cards, Dyerwald.
00:26:15.360
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.
00:26:29.560
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
00:26:50.880
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
00:27:09.580
But until and so let's say until the middle of September or October 2024, they could still
00:27:19.040
And if they haven't done it by that date, it's Kamala Harris or whoever his running mate is.
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.
00:27:36.000
So you can, as we saw during covid, state legislatures across the country ripped up election rules.
00:27:44.880
Democrats went other directions about when you can vote, when you can't vote and when we're
00:27:50.940
So state legislatures have a lot, a lot of control.
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,
00:28:24.660
Because if somebody went to prison, had the nomination taken from them or became incapacitated
00:28:33.860
So it's going to be up to these electors, basically, as they gather, guided by whatever their state
00:28:44.060
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
00:28:58.780
And legislatures might when you say won the election.
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
00:29:23.100
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,
00:29:36.540
He's made sure it didn't go to RFKJ or somebody else like he's gotten it.
00:29:41.760
But that's basically him handing it to Kamala Harris at that point.
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.
00:30:21.020
But the way I think about it is you have the pre-primary period where if Joe Biden stepped
00:30:31.300
We don't care that those deadlines have passed because in this scenario, no one has met the
00:30:36.820
And the states and the state parties can change the rules and say, OK, we're waiving that.
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
00:31:00.900
Yeah, at which you have Super Tuesday in Georgia, you have South Carolina, Super Tuesday, Georgia,
00:31:06.280
And by that point, enough delegates will have been awarded that if you haven't if you're
00:31:16.640
It's extraordinarily unlikely that you can win outright going to the convention.
00:31:24.100
So let's say Joe Biden decided to retire or or Donald Trump decided to step aside between
00:31:33.700
OK, OK, well, OK, let's say let's say let's say Joe Biden steps aside after the primaries
00:31:42.460
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.
00:31:51.800
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
00:32:04.220
But then what and then the next your next threshold, and I want to get the date for you is I want
00:32:14.980
I think June, I think June is correct, but the final convention, the final.
00:32:28.300
I remember this when it was Bernie and Hillary and it was June of 16 when we were going to
00:32:34.680
Uh, uh, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.
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
00:33:02.940
There's no, there's no way to affect those delegates in a concrete way, uh, between 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
00:33:18.740
So let's say, let's say Joe Biden is abducted by aliens on the 4th of July of next year and
00:33:27.020
He might be there coming across the Southern border in droves by the day.
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
00:33:41.880
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
00:34:00.820
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?
00:34:19.860
He is not, he is not, he, he becomes unable for whatever reason to accept the nomination.
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
00:34:41.880
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
00:34:58.760
We saw this play out in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson stepped aside and tried to grease the skids
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.
00:35:50.200
And Democrats don't even like Kamala Harris that much.
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
00:36:22.100
I, I forget, but how do you get to the convention with the most?
00:36:29.120
A perfect historical rhythm right there for Democrats, not miss, not missing a beat on
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.
00:36:52.820
So you're saying whatever, whatever delegates are available, let's say he, he bails after
00:36:59.540
And 40% of 40 and 40% of the delegates are available.
00:37:04.480
Cause he's already won 60, but now the whole contest comes down to those 40.
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
00:37:30.860
They need to be wined and dined and they need to be, uh, intra in coalitional interest groups
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
00:38:10.520
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
00:38:36.540
And that's where if Biden were to step aside, he could have influence and that's the magic
00:38:42.520
So leaving before the primary, I'm sorry, leaving before the convention would just throw
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
00:39:19.960
And I want to just, we're going to stay with the Democrats.
00:39:24.860
A special meeting to fill a vacancy on the national ticket shall be held on the call of
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
00:40:04.020
The people who populate the democratic national committee are current and former, uh, lawmakers,
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.
00:40:28.060
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
00:40:36.820
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
00:40:55.180
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
00:41:10.260
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
00:41:25.480
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
00:41:46.740
This is where, this is where you step aside and it's the window between August and mid
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
00:42:08.500
I think that it tells you something about how, how unimportant, relatively speaking, uh, party
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
00:42:59.940
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
00:43:13.220
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
00:43:23.200
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
00:43:45.580
But you're saying even under those circumstances, the thing that makes the most sense is to wait
00:43:51.680
And that gives him in this cabal of powerful Democrats, the most power to make sure the next
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
00:44:14.040
But in this window, uh, there would be a much smaller group of people and an opportunity to do
00:44:20.720
Of course that doesn't take into any consideration how the Democrats are going to get rid of
00:44:24.280
the black woman, uh, and, and sub in someone else, unless it's like Michelle Obama, right?
00:44:32.060
Sunny Austin over at the view, who's also a black woman says we're not interchangeable and is
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?
00:44:54.160
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
00:45:04.300
she would arrive right at the moment where the general election campaign begins.
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
00:45:30.460
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.
00:45:37.800
Even the Democrats, maybe Newsom subs in, maybe she goes back to governor in California.
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.
00:45:55.260
Like, that's, what's crazy about this discussion.
00:45:58.880
And that's even more exciting and interesting and also seemingly impossible.
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.
00:46:21.500
Our, our friend Lawrence Fox is arrested on, on and out it goes.
00:46:25.720
So we have two minutes here and I want to ask you a quick question before we take our deep
00:46:31.080
R F K J is expected to announce he's going to run as an independent because he's getting
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.
00:46:49.420
Does he take more votes from the GOP side or is it a win for the Republicans?
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
00:47:20.020
R F K as a libertarian would most assuredly do more damage on the Republican side than
00:47:29.940
Because his support among Democrats is relatively low.
00:47:35.400
But on the Republican side, there's a lot of open mindedness toward him and fandom.
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.
00:47:58.900
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
00:48:22.280
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
00:48:35.880
It's like you said at the top of the show, that's the, I just want to puke party.
00:48:45.540
One follow-up question from my, my crack EP, Steve Krakauer.
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
00:49:12.460
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
00:49:31.840
And then we break that period down into the time between December 17th when the elector and
00:49:42.060
So basically prior to the electors casting their votes, it's up to, it would be up to
00:49:51.640
So if the vacancy occurred before December 17th, it would be up to the states to tell
00:49:59.140
We again, saw this during COVID emergency sessions of legislatures to gather and direct
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.
00:50:27.780
And if nobody has, so let's, let's, let's play out this scenario.
00:50:35.640
It's not something that the Democrats would want.
00:50:43.020
First of all, the big buzz, Glenn Youngkin, underdog.
00:50:50.980
I know that, you know, you don't like what you have over here on the B team.
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.
00:51:18.080
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.
00:51:34.720
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
00:51:49.320
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
00:52:16.400
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
00:52:28.600
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
00:53:08.680
But let's say that he waits until afterwards, the Republicans win the Virginia legislature,
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.
00:53:29.960
So you could live without, you could live without Nevada, but living without New Hampshire
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.
00:54:03.620
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.
00:54:25.380
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
00:54:39.040
And as I said, Nevada's won't, doesn't really count.
00:54:44.300
So you're going to have 32 days between the, you have two, uh, you have Iowa, New Hampshire,
00:54:52.000
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.
00:55:10.560
Uh, and then you go to South Carolina and then whammo right after that, it's super Tuesday.
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
00:55:41.140
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?
00:56:01.360
Who's going to tell her, Hey, you're doing great.
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.
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
00:56:32.640
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.
00:56:46.520
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
00:57:00.100
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
00:57:25.180
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
00:57:38.740
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.
00:58:05.060
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.
00:58:22.560
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?
00:58:41.200
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.
00:58:59.360
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.
00:59:17.100
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
00:59:25.260
Uh, the, and part of the problem that Trump has is of course, he wants to say, I'm up
00:59:36.840
And as these debates continue to take place and there's energy around like, Hey, what's
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
00:59:56.220
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.
01:00:35.060
New Hampshire has a better record, but what Iowa does is they like to, what is what they
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
01:01:01.140
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.
01:01:16.720
And then we go into that 32 day period until South Carolina.
01:01:24.520
Look, if the election were held today, if it was one national election and it was held
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
01:01:45.280
And then they're going to go up into meeting halls in New Hampshire and they're going to
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.
01:02:00.120
That's what, that's what got him off and running into super Tuesday in 2016.
01:02:07.600
We're talking about a lot of events that are going to intervene.
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?
01:02:36.580
He's on a roll and he gets the nomination, you know, or he's like got so many delegates.
01:02:43.860
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.
01:02:54.720
And he was saying there is a very good chance Trump could be thrown in jail, especially by
01:03:02.200
I mean, maybe that's strong, but she doesn't like Trump.
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.
01:03:54.100
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.
01:04:03.720
So do the Republicans at that point when they're like, okay, I love him, but this is bullshit.
01:04:09.280
Like I can't, we're going to lose if our, if our candidate is serving a prison sentence.
01:04:17.840
I know these guys love him, but I know those suburban soccer moms who screwed us over the
01:04:25.180
They were barely coming over our way to begin with because they didn't like the transing
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?
01:04:36.600
I mean, look, these parties are not governmental agencies.
01:04:42.380
They are, uh, private nonprofit entities that, uh, abide by their own rules is in, in let's,
01:04:52.780
Donald Trump is, uh, imprisoned, uh, and he is sent to jail pending sentencing, uh, prior
01:05:01.900
Could the Republican national committee take the nomination away from him?
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
01:05:33.260
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
01:05:46.380
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
01:06:03.520
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
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
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.
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.
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
01:14:04.900
cucked little incel. That little woman has been fed, spoon-fed oppression day after day after day
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
01:14:30.700
these sort of feminist 4.0. They're pathetic and embarrassing. Who'd want to shag that?
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
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.
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.
01:16:39.140
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
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.
01:17:09.880
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
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.
01:18:02.660
It's about women being superior to men and men being a lesser half of the species. And that's
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
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
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.
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
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
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,
01:34:13.700
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,
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.