The Megyn Kelly Show - Who Won the Chaos ＂Hot Mess＂ Debate, with Glenn Greenwald, Eliana Johnson, Michael Duncan, and Larry Elder

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.000 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.300 Last night marked the second Republican primary debate and it was terrible.

00:00:21.140 It was terrible. Between the line of questioning, the lackluster performance from some of the

00:00:30.000 It seems yet again the only real winner was Trump, who chose not to play.

00:00:35.260 Today we have an all-star panel to break it all down for you and for more on the 2024 presidential race.

00:00:40.440 In just a bit, I'm going to be joined by journalist Glenn Greenwald, looking forward to his take on it all,

00:00:45.020 and GOP presidential candidate Larry Elder. Larry's actually still running, did not make the debate stage,

00:00:50.480 but as always has some spicy commentary on what he thought about all of this.

00:00:54.860 But we begin the day with Michael Duncan, co-host of The Ruthless Podcast,

00:00:59.120 along with Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon,

00:01:03.940 and co-host of the podcast, Inc. Stained Wretches.

00:01:09.200 Guys, welcome to the show. My God, what a hot mess.

00:01:12.300 I have to say, I didn't enjoy it.

00:01:14.860 I said yesterday, this is a good thing because it's Republicans getting their ideas out there.

00:01:19.480 That's probably better for the GOP.

00:01:21.040 You know, like, reinforce the positions that they hold when it comes to the border,

00:01:25.920 when it comes to the economy.

00:01:27.140 That could work to their benefit as we go into the general.

00:01:30.320 No, I take it all back.

00:01:32.440 They were sniping.

00:01:34.180 They were small ball.

00:01:35.360 They were petty.

00:01:36.660 The moderators were a disaster.

00:01:38.900 I don't think it was a good night for the Republican Party.

00:01:41.880 It could have been.

00:01:42.780 It just wasn't.

00:01:44.300 And I think overall, it was a fail.

00:01:46.700 So I will give the whole event.

00:01:49.040 I won't give it an F, but I'm going to give it a D.

00:01:51.500 I'm going to give it a D because there were a couple of moments that were okay.

00:01:54.580 So I guess let's kick it off there.

00:01:55.980 What's your letter grade?

00:01:57.300 And then we'll get into why.

00:01:58.340 I'll start with you, Duncan.

00:02:01.180 I think I'd give it a C.

00:02:02.340 I agree with you in large part on everything you're saying there.

00:02:05.760 Look, I think it was a food fight.

00:02:07.000 Um, and I think it reflects the anxiety amongst all of these candidates to know that the field

00:02:12.140 is too large right now.

00:02:14.160 If one of them is going to knock off Donald Trump, who has a huge, huge polling lead.

00:02:19.700 Um, and I think you see that in their rhetoric and style in, in this second debate, people

00:02:25.580 are looking for a moment.

00:02:26.680 Maybe some are looking a little too hard.

00:02:28.480 I'm sure we'll get into some of the lowlights of the night, but, um, I think, I think the

00:02:33.360 food fight reflects that anxiety for the, for people trying to have a breakout moment

00:02:37.600 and win of the field.

00:02:39.220 What about you, Eliana?

00:02:40.380 What's your grade for what we saw last night?

00:02:43.400 I'm going to go D plus.

00:02:45.240 Uh, I thought there were a couple of highlights and several lowlights.

00:02:51.960 Uh, clearly I think all of the candidates were conscious that this is the last debate

00:02:58.320 where many of these guys are going to be on stage.

00:03:00.880 I anticipate the RNC is going to ratchet up, um, the qualification threshold for the third

00:03:06.960 debate.

00:03:07.340 And we're going to see far fewer candidates on that stage.

00:03:10.140 And so everybody was sparring for attention and the moderators did a poor job of corralling

00:03:16.080 the candidates.

00:03:16.940 So there was tons of crosstalk.

00:03:19.300 It was oftentimes difficult to hear.

00:03:21.460 Uh, the moderators had a hard time controlling them.

00:03:24.460 And when the candidates were talking, um, the questions appeared to me more appropriate.

00:03:30.880 For, um, a general election debate.

00:03:33.980 If that, then for a Republican primary debate, they just weren't asking about for the most

00:03:39.360 part, things of interest to Republican primary voters.

00:03:42.460 The ones that stood out to me as particularly inappropriate, um, for Republican primary voters

00:03:48.700 was one of the questions was, what are we going to do for the dreamers?

00:03:52.140 Another one was about gun safety.

00:03:53.940 There was a third about LGBTQ plus Americans.

00:03:57.900 And while all of those might be okay for a general election debate, these things just

00:04:02.580 aren't top of mind, um, for conservative voters.

00:04:05.980 Um, and that's who this show is for.

00:04:09.780 That's who this show is for.

00:04:11.880 Um, and so keep the audience in mind.

00:04:14.600 And the New York times today ran a glowing profile of that Univision anchor, noting that,

00:04:20.080 um, Univision retained editorial control over all of her questions.

00:04:24.240 Well, it was obvious and it was a fail.

00:04:26.680 Now, what on earth was Fox thinking partnering with Univision that that woman, Ilya Calderon

00:04:35.200 is a leftist who's been partnering with Jorge Ramos, who more than anyone is responsible

00:04:41.000 for the abandoned objectivity approach to Donald Trump and to journalism.

00:04:45.600 I mean, they have almost singularly undermined the profession of journalism more than any

00:04:52.120 other that I can think of off the top of my head.

00:04:54.760 And it was intentional.

00:04:55.720 She's his co-anchor.

00:04:57.160 Uh, this is a leftist news organization.

00:05:00.080 That's basically propaganda.

00:05:01.920 They've been in partnership with the Clintons.

00:05:04.320 It was like having Hillary Clinton out there, this woman's questions.

00:05:07.940 And while, I mean, I've anchored five presidential debates in the GOP primary field and you can

00:05:13.160 go out there and it's perfectly fine to say, Hey, here's an issue.

00:05:16.320 That's going to be a problem for you.

00:05:18.140 If you're the nominee, when you get to the general, you can do that.

00:05:22.260 Like you're too extreme for moderates on abortion.

00:05:25.720 What say you, is that true or not?

00:05:27.160 That's okay.

00:05:28.160 I we've been doing that from time in memoriam, but the issue selection and the way in and

00:05:34.440 out of the questions showed her bias time and time and time again.

00:05:39.160 And at times she wasn't the only one on the stage committing that sin for a GOP primary.

00:05:44.680 Here's just an example of what we saw last night.

00:05:47.240 Americans want to believe a leader who says you can follow me.

00:05:52.760 I've got you.

00:05:53.960 Don't worry.

00:05:54.960 President Biden is trying to do that with Bidenomics.

00:05:58.680 Vision poll found that mass shootings and gun safety are one of the most important issue

00:06:04.440 for Latino voters.

00:06:06.680 Mental health concerns are not unique to the United States, but gun violence is.

00:06:13.280 The Department of Homeland Security warns that violence against LGBTQ plus people is on the

00:06:18.800 rise and intensifying.

00:06:20.520 How would you protect this community from violent attacks and discrimination?

00:06:25.180 That's just part of a wider income inequality trend in the country.

00:06:29.740 The richest 1% now controls one fifth of all income.

00:06:33.980 New Black History curriculum says, quote, slaves develop skills, which in some instances could

00:06:40.860 be applied for their personal benefit.

00:06:43.120 You have said slaves develop skills in spite of slavery, not because of it.

00:06:48.200 In three days, the billions of dollars in pandemic era funding is going to end and 70,000 daycares

00:06:54.840 could close.

00:06:56.280 According to Customs and Border Protection, about 90 percent of fentanyl is ceased at official

00:07:02.600 border crossings and 57 percent of the smugglers are U.S. citizens.

00:07:08.360 How would you stop fentanyl brought into the country, mostly by U.S. citizens?

00:07:12.980 I mean, like that, especially that last one, really, yes, the problem with fentanyl coming

00:07:23.160 into the United States is all about the people with no connection to cartels.

00:07:28.760 That's what she's leaving out.

00:07:30.220 Yes, it is true that normally the fentanyl coming across the border tends to be brought

00:07:34.520 in at the ports of entry by smugglers, not the illegal migrants who are choosing other

00:07:39.480 places to sneak into the country.

00:07:41.120 That's besides the point.

00:07:43.420 The cartels are the ones providing the fentanyl.

00:07:46.900 They are trying to kill Americans, and desperate people will help the cartels get it across at

00:07:52.020 ports of entry and elsewhere.

00:07:53.900 And by the way, the migrant crisis pulls border agents away from the ports of entry so that

00:07:59.040 they can't do thorough screening to begin with.

00:08:00.720 But the cartels, in the eyes of the Univision lady, are not the issue.

00:08:05.240 You see, it's the Americans desperate enough to help them to get the fentanyl.

00:08:09.420 What the F?

00:08:10.300 I'm sorry, Duncan, but that woman had no business being out there at a Republican presidential

00:08:15.760 debate.

00:08:17.840 It was bizarre.

00:08:19.640 It was almost like if you had a conference call with Joe Biden's comms department and

00:08:26.020 tried to figure out a way to put all these candidates into knots on some general election

00:08:29.900 issue and sort of weaved in there with all of the questions is the framing that the Biden

00:08:35.160 administration would want in a general election debate, right?

00:08:39.160 Like you're forcing all of our folks to play defense on these issues rather than speaking

00:08:44.620 to the conservative values that animate the people who are actually watching this thing.

00:08:48.220 It was an absolute disgrace, Eliana, as I heard her questioning.

00:08:53.860 First of all, I'm going to be honest.

00:08:55.140 She was difficult to understand.

00:08:56.760 Sorry, she's bilingual and I'm not.

00:08:58.960 But I didn't understand her English.

00:09:00.960 And I actually thought quite a few times the candidates on the stage were a little confused

00:09:04.420 by what she said.

00:09:05.560 Like they were struggling a little.

00:09:06.940 She's only been in the United States, I think, for 20 years.

00:09:09.420 She hosts a show that's in Spanish.

00:09:11.100 All of her social media is in Spanish.

00:09:13.380 She decided to open the debate with a little Spanish language.

00:09:16.440 I mean, it's still an English speaking country.

00:09:18.960 It's like are the Spanish speakers at the point now where we actually have to make a debate

00:09:23.500 moderator speak in Spanish.

00:09:25.960 So, OK, fine.

00:09:27.200 That's what Fox and Univision decided to do.

00:09:30.060 But what was more incomprehensible was her editorial for this situation.

00:09:34.280 And the whole thing felt to me like it could have been put on by MSNBC, not Fox News.

00:09:41.280 The miss here, I think, was that there are disagreements on the right among conservatives

00:09:47.820 about foreign policy, on economics and on immigration.

00:09:53.080 You know, I'm old enough to remember in 2014, 2015, a huge debate on the right.

00:09:58.480 Marco Rubio fell into this trap on immigration reform.

00:10:01.540 But the two biggest issues in the country right now are the economy and the border.

00:10:06.720 And there are divisions among these candidates on those issues.

00:10:09.680 And I thought the biggest miss in this debate was not allowing the candidates to face off

00:10:14.140 against each other and to showcase the divisions among the candidates on the issues of most interest

00:10:22.340 to Republican voters.

00:10:23.920 Instead, it was putting the left wing talking points to them and and putting them on defense

00:10:31.840 against them.

00:10:32.720 We want to see the candidates spar against each other.

00:10:34.980 And when we got that, by the way, for example, on China, on TikTok, when Nikki Haley and Vivek

00:10:41.100 Ramaswamy faced off on foreign policy over Ukraine, when they faced off, those were the best moments

00:10:46.720 of the debate.

00:10:48.000 But in the clips that you showed, and by the way, you didn't get the final question on who

00:10:53.120 would you vote off the island, which was just bizarre.

00:10:55.440 It was like Fox didn't learn from the final question of its last debate when they asked

00:10:59.600 about UFOs.

00:11:01.260 Those were just huge misses and ultimately did a disservice to the 75 percent of Republican

00:11:07.600 primary voters who say they're still trying to make up their minds as to who they want

00:11:11.820 to cast a ballot for in the primary.

00:11:14.380 The the the debate question about Survivor and who there's a there's a placard, there's

00:11:22.660 a note card on each of your lecterns.

00:11:24.960 And would you please write who you want to vote off the island was an absolute embarrassment.

00:11:31.700 I was embarrassed for Fox News and for Dana Perino.

00:11:35.300 I don't know why she wrote that question, read that question, and thought that was an

00:11:40.800 appropriate question at a presidential debate.

00:11:42.340 It was beneath the dignity.

00:11:43.900 And I thought it was Ron DeSantis's best moment of the night when he was like, absolutely not.

00:11:50.320 Here's what happened.

00:11:52.580 Which one of you on stage tonight should be voted off the island?

00:11:57.480 Please use your marker to write your choice on the notepad in front of you.

00:12:01.620 15 seconds starting now of the people on the stage who should be.

00:12:06.120 I'm absolutely serious.

00:12:07.620 I mean, we're here like, you know, we're happy to debate.

00:12:10.920 I think that that's disrespectful to my fellow competitors.

00:12:14.120 I think I've been the only one on the stage has been clear about this.

00:12:17.740 I vote Donald Trump off the island right now.

00:12:20.120 Every person on this stage has shown the respect for Republican voters to come here to express

00:12:25.780 their views honestly, candidly, and directly, and to take your questions honestly.

00:12:30.720 This guy has not only divided our party, he's divided families all over this country.

00:12:37.360 He's divided friends all over this country.

00:12:39.340 Of course, Chris Christie took the bait because he never misses a chance to try to hit Trump.

00:12:45.620 But it was beneath the dignity of the event, the office that these men and this woman are seeking.

00:12:50.900 And I was shocked that they that it got through like Fox that the editorial board didn't say.

00:12:56.860 I mean, the editorial board that was there when I was there, they're all gone.

00:12:59.480 And but back when I was there, somebody would have stopped and said, not appropriate.

00:13:04.980 That's a fun little moment, maybe in an interview.

00:13:08.020 The standards at a presidential debate are higher.

00:13:11.780 The decorum is higher.

00:13:13.080 The expectations are higher.

00:13:14.880 And it's an embarrassment that that question made the dance, especially as you point out

00:13:18.060 on the heels of the UFO question, Eliana, at the last one.

00:13:24.520 Right.

00:13:24.960 And I did think DeSantis came across as presidential there and in a debate where you did see these

00:13:32.860 guys hitting each other.

00:13:34.540 It was nice to see him say we all showed respect for each other by showing up.

00:13:39.400 It really was his best moment of the night.

00:13:42.200 And I think DeSantis overall, I thought he came across as tight and overly prepared.

00:13:47.380 And that was obviously a question meant to catch these guys off guard.

00:13:50.860 And I did think it showed that DeSantis can actually be good when he comes off his prepared

00:13:55.980 remarks.

00:13:56.560 He did it in the last debate when he said, I'm not going to raise our hands.

00:14:00.440 Come on, please.

00:14:01.780 And I do think that it demonstrates to him and his campaign that, like, let the guy go

00:14:07.880 a little bit.

00:14:08.800 He's actually better when he's off his talking point so much and not so tightly scripted.

00:14:14.220 That was by far his most memorable moment of the evening.

00:14:17.720 And he's better when he's just a little bit more loosened up and unbuttoned as as loose

00:14:23.760 as he can get.

00:14:24.720 Right.

00:14:24.980 There's like a limit.

00:14:26.360 He has a little example of of DeSantis kind of taking control.

00:14:30.720 He did it a couple of times during the debate.

00:14:32.280 So 10.

00:14:34.020 You vote.

00:14:35.200 You actually asked for a gas tax increase in South Carolina.

00:14:39.880 12 years.

00:14:40.720 Where have you been?

00:14:42.020 I voted.

00:14:43.400 I voted.

00:14:44.540 We've waited.

00:14:45.720 Nothing has happened.

00:14:46.700 Here's what you've done.

00:14:47.820 Here's the thing that I just find interesting.

00:14:50.020 Ron, let me finish.

00:14:51.720 All these guys have said here's the fact.

00:14:53.240 And I appreciate a lot of the things they're saying.

00:14:55.300 Nikki Haley.

00:14:55.700 I'm the only one up here who's gotten in the big fights and has delivered big victories

00:15:00.400 for the people of Florida.

00:15:01.760 And that's what it's all about.

00:15:03.440 You can always talk.

00:15:04.660 But when when it gets hot in there, when they're shooting arrows at you, are you going

00:15:08.860 to be stand up for parents rights to keep the state free?

00:15:11.720 Are you going to be able to do all those things in the state of Florida because of our

00:15:15.260 success, the Democratic Party lies in ruins?

00:15:19.920 That was a strong moment, Duncan.

00:15:21.540 He did well there.

00:15:22.940 It was it was great.

00:15:24.480 It was great because you had Nikki and Tim talking about the cost of drapes and the gas

00:15:30.220 tax and just going back and forth.

00:15:32.460 That food fight we were talking about, it seemed like such small ball.

00:15:35.660 And then, you know, DeSantis has the opening to come in and be like, OK, well, all of you

00:15:39.980 guys are just talking.

00:15:41.440 Let me tell you what I did.

00:15:43.120 And you get back to those conservative accomplishments he's accomplished in Florida, which, of course,

00:15:48.160 is one of the main selling points of his his candidacy.

00:15:51.260 And I also agree with Ileana.

00:15:52.660 Like when he gets an opportunity to interject with that stuff, it comes off more authentic

00:15:57.240 than as part of like this scripted 30 second stump.

00:16:00.680 And I just think he shows more authentic, natural emotion in those moments.

00:16:06.820 And he had another really great one, I thought, on the issue of life, where he was able to

00:16:12.780 weave in Donald Trump not being here, not defending the pro-life movement, supporting the pro-life

00:16:19.180 movement with what he's done in in Florida with the heartbeat bill and talking about.

00:16:23.200 We actually have that, Michael.

00:16:24.340 Let's play it.

00:16:25.180 It's it's not 11.

00:16:26.300 Governor DeSantis, how are you going to win over independent pro-choice voters in Arizona?

00:16:33.520 Same way we did in Florida.

00:16:34.760 We won the greatest Republican victory in a governor's race in the history of the state.

00:16:38.760 And I reject this idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm defeats.

00:16:44.020 I think there's other reasons for that.

00:16:45.920 The former president, you know, he's missing in action tonight.

00:16:49.200 He's had a lot to say about that.

00:16:50.600 He should be here explaining his comments to try to say that pro-life protections are

00:16:56.120 somehow a terrible thing.

00:16:58.520 Keep going.

00:16:59.960 Yeah.

00:17:00.440 So, I mean, he managed to take what was supposed to be a difficult question about a vulnerability

00:17:04.120 that he has in a general election, and he flipped it around and not only talked about

00:17:08.460 his electability in Florida, he also then attacked Donald Trump on the issue and turned

00:17:13.320 it into a positive.

00:17:14.240 So he managed to do a little pirouette out of that question and put Donald Trump and I think

00:17:19.000 going to be a difficult spot on the issue when it comes to evangelical voters in Iowa,

00:17:23.180 right?

00:17:24.880 Who gives two shits about the drapes at the UN ambassador's apartment, which is what Tim

00:17:35.220 Scott was coming at Nikki Haley on, that you paid $50,000 for the automated shades in

00:17:42.580 your UN place, which we know from when the New York Times did this hit piece on her was

00:17:48.180 actually not on Nikki Haley for whatever it's worth.

00:17:50.440 They had to retract it.

00:17:52.060 That was something that the Obama administration ordered and paid for to upgrade the UN ambassador's

00:17:57.580 place that she stays.

00:18:00.040 And then Trump won and she took office.

00:18:02.300 It wasn't even on her.

00:18:03.460 But this is how they chose to spend their time last night.

00:18:05.740 Watch.

00:18:06.320 This is the more of that drapes exchange that Ron DeSantis interrupted to sort of say,

00:18:10.960 can we talk about my record here?

00:18:12.180 Talk about someone who has never seen a federal dollar.

00:18:17.600 She doesn't like 10 cents on this gallon in South Carolina as the UN ambassador.

00:18:24.900 You literally put $50,000 on curtains in a $15 million subsidized location.

00:18:34.540 Next.

00:18:35.280 You got bad information.

00:18:37.500 First of all, I fought the gas tax in South Carolina multiple times against the establishment.

00:18:41.880 Just go to YouTube.

00:18:43.040 Secondly, on the curtains, do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains.

00:18:47.180 Did you send them back?

00:18:48.060 It's in the press.

00:18:48.680 Did you send them back?

00:18:49.460 It's the State Department.

00:18:50.500 Did you send them back?

00:18:51.080 Did you send them back?

00:18:51.800 You're the one that works in Congress.

00:18:53.120 Oh, my gosh.

00:18:53.780 You get it.

00:18:54.280 You hung them on your curtains.

00:18:55.860 They were there before I even showed up at the residence.

00:18:58.640 You are scrapping.

00:19:00.100 You are scrapping.

00:19:01.120 I'm not sure.

00:19:03.100 Oh, my God.

00:19:04.680 Did you send back?

00:19:06.320 What sane person who's moving into the UN residence would say, take the automated curtain

00:19:12.640 shades down and send it?

00:19:15.340 They're not returnable.

00:19:17.220 Anybody's ever had those put in their house notes.

00:19:19.540 You're stuck with it.

00:19:20.260 That was an absurd.

00:19:21.880 I'm sure there's plenty you can go after Nikki Haley on.

00:19:24.600 You know, even if you're Tim Scott, you share a lot of the policy positions that she does.

00:19:28.100 But the curtains, the curtains, Eliana.

00:19:32.180 Look, frankly, I'm surprised that question didn't come from the Univision moderator.

00:19:36.240 Same.

00:19:36.720 But that hit was was beneath Tim Scott.

00:19:40.620 And I thought that that exchange between Nikki Haley and Tim Scott was the low moment of

00:19:46.260 the debate for both of them.

00:19:48.340 Nikki Haley appointed Tim Scott to the Senate.

00:19:51.940 And so I was surprised not to hear Tim Scott say every time Nikki Haley hit him,

00:19:57.460 you appointed me.

00:19:58.880 And I was surprised not to hear Nikki Haley hit back harder on him for being in hock with

00:20:06.560 The New York Times is incorrect, false reporting.

00:20:10.560 I thought she could have gone further on that and said he's picking up their fake news that

00:20:15.120 they retracted.

00:20:16.560 They removed her picture from that article.

00:20:18.820 They issued an editor's note.

00:20:20.520 They changed the text of that piece and had to run away with their tail between their legs

00:20:27.260 after publishing that piece.

00:20:29.080 I thought she could have gone a bit further on that.

00:20:32.060 And back to DeSantis, DeSantis' response on life in the midterms, I thought it was masterful.

00:20:38.240 And when he said Donald Trump owes an explanation to people, he said, you know, pro-lifers aren't

00:20:42.240 to blame for the midterm losses.

00:20:43.740 I thought he could have gone a little bit further on that, too, and said, by the way, it was

00:20:48.340 candidates Donald Trump endorsed in the midterms.

00:20:51.380 It was Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania who lost.

00:20:54.120 It was Blake Masters in Arizona who lost in 2022.

00:20:58.400 It was two senators in Georgia who lost in 2020 when he was crying over spilled milk.

00:21:05.980 If you want to talk about Republican electoral losses, look no further than Donald Trump.

00:21:10.620 If you want to talk about victories, look to Florida.

00:21:13.620 And I think we need to hear a little bit more of that from DeSantis.

00:21:16.580 He could have carried the point a little bit further.

00:21:19.840 You know, Michael, there was a moment where the Univision anchor, Calderon, again, came

00:21:28.640 at the candidates from the left.

00:21:30.220 And this one was for DeSantis on the dumbass, debunked slavery nonsense, that they're teaching

00:21:38.160 slavery was a good thing down in Florida, which is a lie.

00:21:40.560 He's teaching the exact same thing that they put in the African-American AP history class

00:21:46.240 that the Democrats push.

00:21:47.980 And nobody down in Florida said anything about it.

00:21:50.160 They had no problem with it.

00:21:51.380 Only when it wound up at a lower level, K through 12, where they said, you know, some of the

00:21:55.940 slaves were very resilient and developed some skills, that suddenly the left freaked out.

00:22:00.260 Um, and all the agenda was put together by African-American historians along with others in any event.

00:22:07.420 So he, at this, at this point, you saw Tim Scott come at Nikki Haley from the left with

00:22:14.160 a leftist lie from the times.

00:22:15.820 And she tried to debunk it, but I agree with Eliana, she could have been much more effective

00:22:19.580 with, what are you doing?

00:22:20.380 You're repeating a New York times lie that was retracted.

00:22:22.860 Ron DeSantis had it happen to him from the Univision anchor and handle it very effectively.

00:22:26.900 Here's what happened.

00:22:28.940 Florida's new black history curriculum says, quote, slaves develop skills, which in some

00:22:34.660 instances could be applied for their personal benefit.

00:22:37.820 You have said slaves develop skills in spite of slavery, not because of it.

00:22:43.820 But many are still hurt.

00:22:46.440 For the sentence of slaves, this is personal.

00:22:49.640 What is your message to them?

00:22:51.060 So first of all, that's a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris.

00:22:54.460 We are not going to be doing that.

00:22:56.860 Second of all, that was written by descendants of slaves.

00:22:59.840 These are great black history scholars.

00:23:01.380 So we need to stop playing these games.

00:23:02.900 Here's the deal.

00:23:03.900 Our country's education system is in decline because it's focused on indoctrination, denying

00:23:08.620 parents' rights.

00:23:09.780 Florida represents the revival of American education.

00:23:12.840 We didn't just talk about universal school choice.

00:23:15.100 We enacted universal school choice.

00:23:17.060 We didn't just talk about parents' bill of rights.

00:23:19.220 We enacted the parents' bill of rights.

00:23:21.260 We eliminated critical race theory.

00:23:23.100 Florida is showing how it's done.

00:23:25.300 We're standing with parents and our kids are benefiting.

00:23:30.800 And then Tim Scott got all over him.

00:23:32.860 You can hear him on the side going, take the line out, take the line out.

00:23:35.740 There was, it's literally one line about how some of the slaves, you heard her repeat it.

00:23:39.760 Again, small, a small ball, right?

00:23:42.140 This is always with Tim Scott.

00:23:44.280 It's about the drapes.

00:23:45.300 It's about the one line.

00:23:46.360 But he's been embracing this sort of like left wing mainstream media attack on his opponents,

00:23:50.960 both with Nikki Haley and DeSantis.

00:23:53.340 I don't get the strategy really, because it seems like small ball to me.

00:23:57.160 How does this move any voters whatsoever?

00:23:59.320 But I will say this.

00:24:00.640 Ron DeSantis is getting better.

00:24:02.480 He's definitely getting better.

00:24:03.560 He saw market improvement from debate one to debate two.

00:24:06.040 And this is one of the reasons why, you know, it might serve well, serve Trump well.

00:24:11.280 We can debate it all day long to show up at these things, because you do get better once

00:24:16.380 you practice, you know, you get a little bit more agile.

00:24:18.680 You see what works.

00:24:20.360 He gets better in this situation, I think, particular, Megan, where he's facing these

00:24:25.000 adversarial questions sort of from the left, from the universe vision reporter, because

00:24:30.140 you've got to remember, this guy sort of he came on the national scene answering questions

00:24:34.360 from left wing reporters and mainstream reporters at press conferences in Florida.

00:24:38.880 Right.

00:24:39.340 So like he is used, I think, more than most of those people on stage used to the framing

00:24:43.960 that they used to try to box him in into a corner.

00:24:46.520 And he always was able to fight his way out.

00:24:48.760 It's his most authentic stuff.

00:24:50.920 I really don't get it.

00:24:52.260 Fox News could have said we're not going to partner with Univision.

00:24:54.860 We have plenty of money.

00:24:56.360 We're we're owned by Rupert Murdoch.

00:24:58.460 We're good.

00:24:59.120 We're going to put it on ourselves and we're not partnering with Univision.

00:25:02.180 That's that's a leftist news organization.

00:25:04.100 That's essentially the Clintons.

00:25:05.700 It's like having Hillary Clinton out there as a moderator.

00:25:08.020 It's a no.

00:25:09.160 I don't understand why they agreed to have this woman out there at all.

00:25:14.040 The other thing before we move off the moderators, because we're sort of weaving it all in there

00:25:18.140 is I understand it's very hard to control these guys when they're out there and they're

00:25:22.880 talking over each other.

00:25:23.800 It's very annoying.

00:25:24.680 The candidates should remember how annoying it is to the people at home when they're talking

00:25:29.060 over each other.

00:25:29.860 But as an as a moderator, you at least have the obligation to try.

00:25:34.880 That's the thing.

00:25:35.440 You have to try if that.

00:25:37.180 If you don't succeed, you know, you don't have superhuman powers out there, but you have

00:25:41.740 to show the audience I'm trying.

00:25:43.680 And this Univision woman had absolutely no control.

00:25:48.280 I mean, frankly, none of them had control throughout the whole night.

00:25:50.940 But watch this debate descend into absolute chaos.

00:25:55.020 She was the one who asked the question and she allowed it.

00:25:57.980 And finally, she says something.

00:25:59.520 But watch what is what is it?

00:26:00.880 So 12 W, you know, the one I'm talking about.

00:26:03.660 Stand by.

00:26:05.100 Well, I can't imagine how you could say that knowing that you were just in business with

00:26:11.200 the Chinese Communist Party and the same people that funded Hunter Biden millions of dollars

00:26:18.040 was a partner of yours as well.

00:26:19.760 It's not nonsense.

00:26:20.720 So look, here's what I want to respond.

00:26:23.580 These are good people who are tainted by a broken system.

00:26:27.620 And it's not the fault of anybody who's involved.

00:26:29.800 Some of us aren't tainted.

00:26:30.720 Excuse me.

00:26:31.480 Excuse me.

00:26:32.340 Thank you for speaking while I'm interrupting.

00:26:34.080 Literally.

00:26:34.300 You can't be on both sides.

00:26:39.840 Gentlemen, you'll have your turn.

00:26:41.500 One of the challenges.

00:26:42.960 We should have a focus on the issues that matter between the big and the big business in China.

00:26:47.300 Everybody knows that.

00:26:48.480 If I may, if I may address on holding Joe Biden accountable, that's what we need to be.

00:26:52.080 I actually agree with Ron DeSantis.

00:26:55.360 OK, let me tell you what what should have happened.

00:26:58.760 The person asking the question or there should have been somebody in charge at, you know,

00:27:02.660 sort of at the helm, should have said, Senator Scott, Governor Burgum, stop, stop.

00:27:10.400 Mr. Ramaswamy has the floor.

00:27:12.060 I'll give you a chance.

00:27:13.080 And it's fine to let him mix it up.

00:27:14.700 Like, it's exciting that they want to weigh in.

00:27:16.580 I get it.

00:27:17.000 We're having a moment.

00:27:18.240 It's your job to run herd on the debate.

00:27:21.060 It's not their debate stage.

00:27:23.360 It's not the candidates debate stage.

00:27:25.460 That debate stage was Fox News's.

00:27:27.620 They paid for it.

00:27:28.540 The old Ronald Reagan.

00:27:29.320 They're at the Reagan Library.

00:27:30.360 I paid for this microphone, sir.

00:27:31.860 Fox News paid for the microphone and it's Fox News's debate stage and production.

00:27:37.360 There's a reason they call it broadcast television, broadcast journalism.

00:27:42.660 You you take control and you maintain control and you say you are going to be quiet.

00:27:48.000 And so are you.

00:27:49.560 Mr. Ramaswamy has the floor and you make sure they shut up and you make sure you establish

00:27:55.140 control nice and early so they know who's in charge.

00:27:57.900 And if they try to speak up again, you say you don't talk to them.

00:28:01.900 You say control room, cut their mic.

00:28:03.980 You don't threaten it.

00:28:05.320 You just say, do it.

00:28:06.800 Doug Burgum, you're done.

00:28:08.520 Tim Scott, you're done.

00:28:09.820 Shut the mic.

00:28:10.800 And then you let Vivek Ramaswamy finish his answer.

00:28:13.400 And then you look at Doug Burgum and you look at Senator Scott, whichever order you want.

00:28:17.040 You say, go ahead, sir.

00:28:18.580 Go ahead.

00:28:19.320 That's it.

00:28:19.840 It's she was she receded.

00:28:22.480 She was gone.

00:28:23.700 Nobody else said anything.

00:28:24.760 It happened multiple times over the night.

00:28:26.600 It's one of the reasons why we left.

00:28:28.080 And, you know, it's the viewer at home only knows I don't feel good.

00:28:31.980 I don't like it.

00:28:32.780 I don't know why I don't like it, but I don't feel good.

00:28:34.940 And Eliana, I'm telling them right now, this is why you didn't feel good.

00:28:40.640 Megan, how do we get you up there with the mallet in your in a robe?

00:28:48.260 We need we need Megan center stage.

00:28:52.420 Running court.

00:28:54.420 It's not that hard.

00:28:55.840 I'll wear my little Judge Judy doily.

00:28:59.140 We need it.

00:29:00.180 We need it.

00:29:00.980 Yeah.

00:29:01.840 Look, I don't I'm not under the illusion that this is easy.

00:29:04.940 And I have no experience myself, but it was it was hard to watch in those moments.

00:29:10.700 And and I'm actually curious to see the ratings over the two hours, because my suspicion is

00:29:19.260 the more interesting parts of the debate actually came in the second hour.

00:29:22.360 But I'm guessing that fewer people were watching by the time they got there because of the

00:29:26.620 craziness that transpired on stage in the first hour.

00:29:31.860 And I also think it was unfortunate for Ron DeSantis, who it was bizarre that he is still

00:29:37.580 leading in the polls among the candidates on the stage.

00:29:39.880 But he didn't have much of a presence in that first hour.

00:29:43.300 No.

00:29:43.820 And in fact, they didn't even go to him until 10 minutes into the debate, which was weird

00:29:47.080 because he's among that crew.

00:29:49.120 The frontrunner, though, obviously, we all know who the real frontrunner is.

00:29:52.320 So, Duncan, what was your what was your like, what were your standout moments?

00:29:56.320 Best, worst?

00:29:56.960 What comes to mind?

00:29:59.240 Um, best.

00:30:00.460 I think DeSantis on on some of those exchanges where Nikki and Tim were fighting was fantastic.

00:30:06.940 I think what he did on the pro-life answer was pitch perfect.

00:30:10.120 I think low light Chris Christie and Donald Duck.

00:30:14.120 What do you think?

00:30:15.160 I mean, look, I think everybody.

00:30:18.020 Wait, wait.

00:30:18.340 I'm sorry to interrupt you again.

00:30:19.400 Let's play it and then you react to it.

00:30:21.020 It's not six.

00:30:22.000 It's part of the montage.

00:30:23.000 Oh, can we play it standalone or no?

00:30:24.800 I don't want to watch the whole thing.

00:30:26.860 Well, we'll.

00:30:28.400 All right, go ahead.

00:30:29.500 Watch it.

00:30:31.120 Where's Joe Biden?

00:30:32.340 He's completely missing in action from leadership.

00:30:34.780 And you know who else is missing in action?

00:30:37.500 Donald Trump is missing in action.

00:30:39.340 He should be on this stage tonight.

00:30:41.540 He owes it to you to defend his record.

00:30:44.880 Look at the camera right now.

00:30:45.980 Tell you, Donald, I know you're watching.

00:30:47.780 You can't help yourself.

00:30:49.200 I know you're watching.

00:30:50.520 OK,

00:30:51.020 and you're not here tonight,

00:30:52.500 not because of polls

00:30:54.240 and not because of your indictments.

00:30:56.120 You're not here tonight

00:30:57.220 because you're afraid

00:30:58.640 of being on the stage

00:31:00.160 and defending your record.

00:31:01.480 You're ducking these things.

00:31:03.120 And let me tell you what's going to happen.

00:31:04.620 You keep doing that.

00:31:05.880 No one up here is going to call you

00:31:06.780 Donald Trump anymore.

00:31:07.580 We're going to call you Donald Duck.

00:31:11.500 Is it over?

00:31:15.420 Keep going.

00:31:16.220 Look, I think everyone is aware that Chris Christie has had great moments at debates.

00:31:22.240 Everybody remembers the Marco Rubio exchange in 2016.

00:31:25.300 I think, you know, a New Jersey guy is capable of a little harder language than Donald Duck.

00:31:33.320 I don't think it's his best stuff.

00:31:34.700 And I've heard his best stuff.

00:31:35.880 It was uncomfortable.

00:31:39.100 It was obviously a line he had rehearsed and had sort of the weird smile after he landed it.

00:31:44.680 And it it didn't work.

00:31:46.320 And it was just too light.

00:31:47.940 It was just I don't know.

00:31:49.020 I mean, I felt uncomfortable, which is not a good sign.

00:31:51.380 What he does well is break is break that fourth wall and talk directly into the camera and talk

00:31:56.900 to the audience at home and address Donald Trump.

00:31:59.420 And he's he does that better than any other candidate.

00:32:01.740 And you can tell he's just really comfortable doing that.

00:32:04.100 And I think the voters really appreciate that because I think it perks their ears up.

00:32:07.420 They're like, OK, this is something that's important.

00:32:09.260 But then he just didn't stick to the landing.

00:32:11.440 It was like he got in the air and he was doing three flips and he twisted around back and then he

00:32:16.160 came down to land and it didn't work.

00:32:18.400 I it was it was painful to watch.

00:32:20.340 Here's another one that didn't land Eliana, Mike Pence.

00:32:24.560 Mike Pence should not try humor.

00:32:26.500 OK, there's like certain things people can do.

00:32:28.980 Chris Christie actually can do humor.

00:32:30.500 That one didn't work, but he can do humor.

00:32:32.300 Mike Pence cannot do humor.

00:32:33.680 It's not his thing.

00:32:34.460 It's fine.

00:32:35.440 But he tried.

00:32:36.300 Didn't go well.

00:32:37.040 Here it is.

00:32:38.460 My wife isn't a member of the teachers union, but I got to admit, I've I've been sleeping with

00:32:44.700 a teacher for 38 years and the full disclosure.

00:32:50.340 No, it's so it doesn't work on a number of levels.

00:32:54.140 First of all, nobody wants to picture that, like literally.

00:32:58.420 Yeah.

00:32:58.720 Abigail Finan doesn't want to picture that.

00:33:01.180 And, you know, he's Mike Pence.

00:33:02.880 That's his lane is like to be the distinguished gentleman, the former vice president, the dignified.

00:33:08.760 No, no, no, don't talk about sleeping with your wife or any.

00:33:12.500 And don't use humor.

00:33:13.720 What do you think, Eliana?

00:33:15.560 I didn't mind it.

00:33:17.020 I like that from Pence.

00:33:18.640 I got to say.

00:33:19.580 But but reading Twitter and talking to people, I think my debate impressions were a little bit

00:33:26.120 of an outlier from everybody else's.

00:33:27.880 My best and worst moments were I thought Nikki telling Avivake that she gets dumber every

00:33:33.660 time she hears him talk.

00:33:35.740 And that way we have it.

00:33:37.240 Stand by.

00:33:37.900 We have it.

00:33:38.540 Let's watch it.

00:33:39.120 And then you can pick it up.

00:33:40.520 So, yeah, 13.

00:33:41.280 This is infuriating because tick tock is one of the most dangerous social media apps that

00:33:48.280 we could have.

00:33:49.300 And what you've got, I honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for

00:33:52.900 what you say, because I can't believe they hear you've got a tick tock situation.

00:33:58.660 What they're doing is these 150 million people are on tick tock.

00:34:02.520 That means they can get your contacts.

00:34:04.580 They can get your financial information.

00:34:06.140 They can get your emails.

00:34:07.200 They can get text messages.

00:34:08.760 They can get all of these things.

00:34:10.000 This is very important for our party.

00:34:11.800 This is very important for our party.

00:34:13.780 And I'm going to say you've gone and you've helped China make medicines in China, not America.

00:34:18.540 You're now wanting kids to go and get on the social media.

00:34:21.200 That's dangerous for all of us.

00:34:22.980 You went and you were in business with the Chinese that gave Hunter Biden $5 million.

00:34:26.600 We can't trust you.

00:34:29.460 By the way, there again, all the moderator had to do is quickly say, Mr. Ramaswamy, you're

00:34:34.120 next.

00:34:34.780 You're next.

00:34:35.360 Stop.

00:34:36.020 Let her finish.

00:34:36.920 Anyway, it's so annoying to me.

00:34:38.580 Like on the it's annoying to me to watch because it's like so clear.

00:34:42.360 I feel like any mother who's had a toddler knows how to moderate the debate.

00:34:47.660 That's what you need.

00:34:48.700 You need mothers of toddlers to moderate the debate.

00:34:51.960 We all know how to do it.

00:34:53.280 It's instinctual after you.

00:34:54.680 OK, sorry.

00:34:55.580 Keep going that you like that moment.

00:34:57.900 Why?

00:34:58.100 I liked it because I thought it showed that Nikki's ability to manhandle some of these

00:35:04.320 other candidates was not a one off from the first debate.

00:35:07.340 She hit him again on a foreign policy issue, and I thought it was effective.

00:35:12.020 And I thought she was right.

00:35:14.320 Second best moment, I thought, was Ron DeSantis refusing to answer that last question.

00:35:19.720 And my worst moments, I'm with Duncan.

00:35:23.440 I thought it was Chris Christie and Donald Duck.

00:35:26.560 And second place was the moderators.

00:35:32.400 I went back and forth.

00:35:35.140 I have to say, I preferred Nikki Haley's first debate performance.

00:35:40.680 There were moments last night where I was like, she's kind of crossing over into rude,

00:35:46.040 even though, you know, I've been a critic of Vivek's.

00:35:49.420 I've been a supporter.

00:35:50.440 I've been a critic, whatever.

00:35:51.460 I'll say it depends on the day and what he's doing.

00:35:53.260 But I don't know.

00:35:55.180 That one seemed kind of mean to me.

00:35:57.380 Maybe I'm being too charitable.

00:35:59.360 I don't see.

00:35:59.960 And there was a couple of moments where I was like, she's crossing over into unlikable,

00:36:05.800 which I guess I would be mean.

00:36:07.520 Once I saw Vivek, once I saw Vivek doing his dramatic, I'm giving you the floor, like he's

00:36:14.860 a matador in a bullfight, I would have been pretty mean, too, because it seemed sort of

00:36:21.260 condescending and smarmy, if you're asking me.

00:36:24.200 Well, how about how about the new Vivek who is who really just wants everyone to be kind

00:36:28.900 to each other on the debate stage after all the guys he called super pack puppets?

00:36:33.180 Yeah.

00:36:34.440 Yeah.

00:36:35.000 I think we have this.

00:36:35.900 Do we have this, Deb?

00:36:36.480 We have last time versus this time.

00:36:38.740 Vivek and his 180.

00:36:39.740 Watch it.

00:36:41.260 I'm the only person on the stage who isn't bought and paid for.

00:36:43.620 So I can say this.

00:36:44.300 I think we would be better served as a Republican Party if we're not sitting here hurling personal

00:36:49.220 insults and actually have a legitimate debate about policy.

00:36:56.840 So what happened there, Duncan?

00:36:58.340 As a guy who works in politics, what happened there?

00:37:00.740 I mean, he either doesn't have a single thing he really believes or stands for or he has

00:37:06.580 the memory of a goldfish.

00:37:07.880 You know, I mean, I feel like he got bad.

00:37:10.840 He got bad feedback.

00:37:12.120 He got feedback that was negative about attacking every Republican up there as some corporate

00:37:16.900 shill.

00:37:17.260 Well, I also noticed that he had a super pack fundraiser in California recently for himself.

00:37:24.140 And so maybe it'd be a little dissonant to get back up there on stage for the second debate

00:37:27.820 and call everyone a puppet.

00:37:29.680 So, look, I don't think it works.

00:37:32.240 I didn't think it worked in the first debate.

00:37:33.560 I didn't think it worked in the second debate.

00:37:34.820 But he is talking a lot and mixing it up.

00:37:38.100 And so if you're watching this debate and this is a guy you haven't heard from before,

00:37:42.040 he's going to benefit from that.

00:37:43.840 And I think some of the polling indicates that he had a boom and it sort of receded,

00:37:47.180 but he's doing well in New Hampshire.

00:37:48.740 So he's doing something right.

00:37:50.620 Mm hmm.

00:37:51.180 Yeah, exactly.

00:37:52.160 And he's I thought my own taste was I preferred this Vivek much more than I preferred the Vivek

00:38:00.360 from debate one.

00:38:01.380 I thought he was like respectful.

00:38:02.920 He stuck up for himself.

00:38:05.180 Maybe he had a moment or two with the stage, but like I didn't like what I saw at the first

00:38:09.340 debate and him just tearing down everybody's character as opposed to just getting after

00:38:13.340 him on policy.

00:38:14.520 I'm the only one with the courage to tell you the truth.

00:38:16.420 It's like, who is this guy?

00:38:17.500 What do you let's stop it anyway?

00:38:20.180 Overall, that's my take on the how the debate went.

00:38:24.620 That's my sophisticated analysis, but we're going to keep it going as Glenn Greenwald is

00:38:29.940 up next.

00:38:30.760 Eliana Duncan.

00:38:31.620 Great to see you both.

00:38:32.260 Thanks for being here.

00:38:33.640 Thanks, Megan.

00:38:34.620 Thank you.

00:38:35.320 All right.

00:38:35.520 Glenn's up next.

00:38:36.220 And then Larry Elder comes on.

00:38:42.220 Joining me now, Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and host of Rumble's

00:38:46.840 system update.

00:38:48.520 All right, Glenn.

00:38:49.000 So what's your grade on last night's debate and your overall thoughts on how it went?

00:38:54.900 Honestly, Megan, I really struggled to watch that debate.

00:38:59.300 Even though I have a program tonight where my viewers are going to expect me to discuss

00:39:04.320 it.

00:39:04.620 I knew I was coming on your show this afternoon to talk about it.

00:39:08.680 I kind of have to watch it for the work that I do.

00:39:11.820 I generally like debates, which is part of why I'm interested in politics.

00:39:16.420 And even with all those incentives that I don't think most people share, I had a hard

00:39:21.740 time just not turning it off.

00:39:23.680 I just wanted to so badly.

00:39:25.100 I didn't find it interesting or compelling.

00:39:27.680 It was actually actively annoying.

00:39:29.560 I think a lot of the fault was the moderators and the questions that were asked, their failure

00:39:36.500 to control the debate, the behavior of the candidates just trying so desperately to draw

00:39:41.740 attention to themselves, but in ways that weren't effective.

00:39:46.040 Obviously, I think Trump's strategy of lowering how the debate seems in terms of its importance,

00:39:52.020 even though I don't like that strategy, I think he ought to be there, is an effective

00:39:55.300 one.

00:39:55.620 Already, the threshold for wanting to watch is a little bit lower because the person who's

00:39:59.840 dominating the polls isn't there.

00:40:02.700 And by design, it's intended to feel less important.

00:40:05.960 And when you add all that together, combined with just the fact that they were just rude,

00:40:10.340 mostly just talking on top of each other, interrupting each other, it was very hard to

00:40:15.000 listen to.

00:40:16.160 It just wasn't anything of real value.

00:40:20.060 It was, I don't know if there's a lower grade than F, so I don't appear cliche, I would like

00:40:24.320 to give it, but that was my overall impression.

00:40:28.140 Well, the other possible grade would be incomplete because when it ended, you know, Dana asked

00:40:33.720 that question about survivor and voting people off the island, and then it was over.

00:40:40.060 Like, there was no closing moment.

00:40:42.080 I'm very against the opening speeches.

00:40:43.960 I think they're boring and you never get anything.

00:40:45.720 You need a good first question.

00:40:47.260 And they did better in this one than they did in the first box debate.

00:40:50.720 But it is nice to have a closing message from each of the candidates.

00:40:54.720 And this one, it was just kind of like, it's done.

00:40:57.840 They're gone.

00:40:58.540 What happened?

00:40:59.560 So you didn't have like the, I don't know, the send off.

00:41:02.720 And you know, with the old primacy and recency rule, that's what people remember, what they

00:41:06.060 heard first and what they heard last.

00:41:07.700 It left us with survivor.

00:41:10.460 Like, I don't know.

00:41:11.340 That's that's what I left thinking about and not a closing message.

00:41:14.320 Yeah, you know, I haven't seen any of the ratings.

00:41:17.440 I don't think anybody has.

00:41:18.560 I question how many people who began watching it and joined early on ended up staying for

00:41:23.100 the entire thing.

00:41:24.360 As I said, I really struggled to do so.

00:41:26.340 And in fact, I admit I didn't.

00:41:27.540 I had to go back and watch the like last 40 minutes that I just couldn't endure early

00:41:32.700 this morning.

00:41:33.220 So I made sure that I actually know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about a debate

00:41:37.420 that I've actually watched it.

00:41:39.420 So, you know, as eager as I was to get out of that debate,

00:41:43.260 I really wonder how many people have stayed until the end.

00:41:46.200 And I think you're right.

00:41:46.960 You know, the thing is, by eliminating a couple of the candidates who were there the first

00:41:50.980 time, like Asa Hutchinson, you actually have a number of candidates that are manageable.

00:41:55.860 It's not like you have 13 up there.

00:41:57.420 You have, I think there were sticks.

00:41:59.840 And it is a small enough group that you could have a more structured debate.

00:42:04.780 You could have the kind of ending that you're talking about when you give them that last

00:42:07.700 moment.

00:42:07.940 If they want to read a dumb can speech, that'll be a lost opportunity.

00:42:11.220 I think most of them are capable enough politicians to give an ending that picks out the strongest

00:42:16.660 points of their debate.

00:42:17.880 I just think it was a failure on the part of everybody.

00:42:21.780 And when you have moderators who just don't seem able to control the debate or even really

00:42:27.740 trying to control the debate, it just seems like if they're not interested enough to keep

00:42:33.780 control of the debate so that it's watchable, you feel like you don't have anyone you can trust

00:42:38.100 to make sure that you're being presented with something you actually want to listen to.

00:42:43.080 And I don't know.

00:42:44.080 I just felt like it was a missed opportunity all the way around, even though there were

00:42:47.200 some fine moments.

00:42:48.020 I felt there were some good debates about the border in Ukraine that showed some of the

00:42:52.820 compelling differences within not just the party, but within these candidates.

00:42:56.340 But the debate itself just lacked any kind of attributes that wanted you to watch just

00:43:03.100 as television.

00:43:04.500 And that's, of course, extremely important.

00:43:05.840 There were all kinds of counterprogramming with Tucker Carlson interviewing Bill O'Reilly

00:43:08.860 and Trump giving his speech and the zillions.

00:43:11.160 I think actually the real Survivor was on last night, like the premiere.

00:43:14.680 So when you have people with all these other alternatives, including like if they're interested

00:43:20.040 in Survivor, they can go watch the real Survivor instead of getting the same question that is

00:43:23.840 embarrassing.

00:43:26.280 I don't know.

00:43:27.220 It's just it's amazing how much money Fox spends on this, how much they depend on it

00:43:31.340 and what a kind of failure it was just from a television perspective.

00:43:35.060 I really think the moderators need to remember you're not there to be liked by the candidates

00:43:39.980 and you're not there to just let them have fun on the stage.

00:43:43.320 You're there for the audience.

00:43:46.020 You are the audience's representative and you are their protector.

00:43:51.280 Your job is to make sure the audience can hear the debate is it has lines that we can

00:43:57.920 color in between the candidates can fight.

00:44:00.220 And whether they go petty or go big, that's up to them.

00:44:02.440 But you have to control order so that people can understand and hear and don't feel frustrated

00:44:07.280 at home.

00:44:08.260 You're not a magician.

00:44:09.560 You can't necessarily control it perfectly, but you need to try.

00:44:13.320 And what we've seen is just weak sauce out there, like just sitting back, like letting

00:44:17.860 oh, OK, like at least try at least try to protect your audience as opposed to just seeding the

00:44:25.100 whole thing.

00:44:25.820 That's what leads somebody like a Ron DeSantis to say this is out of control.

00:44:29.620 He's basically saying who's in charge.

00:44:32.180 Yeah.

00:44:32.460 And I think you're exactly right.

00:44:33.820 You know, I think it's a common thing that candidates are going to want to try and grab

00:44:37.740 their moment.

00:44:38.200 And that can oftentimes lead to disorder.

00:44:40.420 You know, it's very common.

00:44:41.340 You see them talking over each other.

00:44:43.000 But I think as a viewer, exactly what you just said, and obviously you have insight into

00:44:47.280 this because you've done it.

00:44:48.880 If you know that you have somebody there who's kind of going to be, as you said, your protector,

00:44:53.500 somebody who's going to put their foot down in a very aggressive way early on so that

00:44:59.340 there's no benefit or incentive to talking when you're not allowed to talk because you're

00:45:03.480 going to be embarrassed or chided or have, you know, some kind of threat issued or not

00:45:08.700 even a threat issue, but actually have your microphone cut off that creates the motivation

00:45:12.840 on the part of these candidates.

00:45:14.640 You know, you don't want to over control it so that everybody's just very rigid and like

00:45:17.940 robots.

00:45:18.280 As you said, you do want to have some mixture, some interaction, but it needs to have some

00:45:23.000 structure and some rules and therefore somebody to enforce it.

00:45:26.560 I think it was like an hour into the debate when they finally threatened to cut off Doug

00:45:30.620 Burgum's microphone because he just wouldn't stop talking and they didn't even do it.

00:45:35.600 He continued to talk and they didn't cut off the microphone.

00:45:37.880 And that, of course, sends the signal to all the candidates.

00:45:40.400 Well, you know, one's going to be controlled and therefore you can't cede the field to let

00:45:45.620 everybody else talk because there's no one here to enforce the rules.

00:45:48.520 And I don't blame Governor DeSantis.

00:45:49.780 A funny thing.

00:45:50.960 What are we doing up here?

00:45:51.960 This it's just it felt so undignified.

00:45:55.540 I would let a candidate get away with a quick one line zinger.

00:45:59.260 I would let somebody interrupt somebody doing their bit, you know, like Vivek at the first

00:46:05.520 debate when he's like, you hugged Obama, you know, and Chris Christie would say that like

00:46:09.460 that was good.

00:46:10.540 Like, yeah, the one line zingers where you're not really that disruptive of the person's

00:46:14.740 answer that that works.

00:46:16.080 But like Tim Scott, he just kept saying the same thing like over and over, just kept interrupting

00:46:21.120 over and over.

00:46:21.700 And like he was just he wasn't he was trying to wrest control of the moment away that you

00:46:27.900 can't allow that.

00:46:28.860 You have to say, I hear you.

00:46:29.980 You want to get in and then you decide whether this is interesting or not.

00:46:33.620 And I really think what these moderators need to remember is you're trying to provide an

00:46:39.440 interesting two hours.

00:46:41.200 You're not going to get it's not going to be the Council on Foreign Relations.

00:46:45.080 We are not going to do a two hour in-depth tutorial on Ukraine.

00:46:49.560 You know, you're it.

00:46:51.140 But so if you stumble on gold and there's some issue that they really want to fight about,

00:46:54.540 let them let us stay on it.

00:46:57.000 So what if questions in the back half about daycare wind up getting sacrificed?

00:47:02.840 Yeah, exactly.

00:47:03.720 It was like the worst mix where on the one hand, they weren't interested in the rules

00:47:09.660 they had set.

00:47:10.500 It was kind of a free for all.

00:47:12.180 They weren't really there to enforce the rules.

00:47:14.940 And so it was this kind of endless kind of bickering and people talking over and nobody

00:47:20.200 likes that, like in any setting, when people are talking over one another, you just want

00:47:24.660 to run away.

00:47:25.180 Like, it's not interesting if it's that the whole time.

00:47:28.780 But then on the other, they were kind of so over dependent on their rules.

00:47:31.640 Like they wanted to get to every last policy question that they would just arbitrarily

00:47:36.500 cut off the few moments where things started happening in this like organic way.

00:47:40.360 It's a balance, right?

00:47:41.200 Where you do want the exchanges as long as you can hear what they're saying, as long as

00:47:44.720 it's vibrant, it's not constant.

00:47:46.100 And so they were ignoring the rules that mattered, like desperately dependent upon the rules that

00:47:53.040 didn't.

00:47:54.920 And I don't know, it was just and again, when you don't have Trump there, you're already

00:47:58.480 kind of fighting an uphill battle to make it interesting to make people want to watch

00:48:02.920 a group of people who voters continuously say are not their candidates.

00:48:07.480 So already having that uphill battle, every time there's anything you can do to intervene

00:48:13.060 to make sure that it's being interesting television, you have to do and they were doing it in the

00:48:18.800 moments where it didn't matter and not doing it in the moments where it did.

00:48:23.100 It was just I don't know.

00:48:24.200 I just thought it was a terrible performance.

00:48:25.800 I just know as a viewer, again, is one far more motivated to watch the most people.

00:48:30.240 All I kept thinking about is God, when can I safely turn this off?

00:48:33.280 When you know, like that was my have the confidence to throw away your outline, have the confidence

00:48:38.520 to throw away your pre-written questions when you realize you've stumbled upon gold, let

00:48:43.640 the audience have it and sacrifice the later questions.

00:48:47.000 It's fine.

00:48:47.760 The audience will never know what you sacrificed and won't care.

00:48:50.880 We'll be right back with more with Glenn.

00:48:54.560 What do you see?

00:48:55.540 You see a young man who's in a bit of a hurry, maybe a little ambitious, bit of a know-it-all,

00:49:00.600 it seems at times.

00:49:01.440 I'm here to tell you, no, I don't know it all.

00:49:03.580 I will listen.

00:49:04.440 I will have the best people, the best and brightest in this country, whatever age they

00:49:09.500 are, advising me.

00:49:11.240 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:49:12.860 Here with me now is Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and host of Rumble's

00:49:17.720 System Update.

00:49:19.680 So he was asked about that answer, Vivek, by CNN's Dana Bash later and admitted that it

00:49:26.240 was based on feedback he'd received from, I don't know, focus groups or consultants after

00:49:31.420 the first debate.

00:49:32.260 He's learning.

00:49:33.760 I think it was good feedback.

00:49:35.140 He was too much of a know-it-all in the first debate.

00:49:37.140 Nobody knows who he is.

00:49:38.200 It's like he comes out there.

00:49:39.180 Not only is he like, I'm the only one I've criticized him about this repeatedly.

00:49:42.260 I'm the only one with the courage to tell you this.

00:49:44.180 I'm the only one who's brave enough to say the truth.

00:49:46.660 And everybody else up here has bought and paid for it.

00:49:48.780 It's like, OK, so I liked the new Vivek better.

00:49:52.320 I thought it was a good tweak.

00:49:53.420 It could have the unfortunate effect of making him seem inauthentic, however.

00:49:57.760 Yeah, I mean, I think that's the problem that a lot of them had, actually, in trying to

00:50:03.720 compensate for their failures of the first night by coming out and essentially unveiling

00:50:08.500 a totally different personality for the second night.

00:50:10.820 You know, it's like, who is this person?

00:50:15.380 And if somebody is willing to change to that extreme, that extent, you start to wonder,

00:50:20.820 do they even have like an actual soul, like an actual fixed personality?

00:50:24.860 Or is it just whatever they're being instructed to do?

00:50:28.520 I think we talked about this last time I was on your show, because I was in Milwaukee for

00:50:31.300 that last debate.

00:50:32.200 And I interviewed Vivek the morning after the debate.

00:50:36.220 And I had interviewed him before, but it was the first time I did so in person.

00:50:39.720 And, you know, he does have kind of like a natural charisma.

00:50:42.960 I absolutely can see easily why he succeeded in business so early.

00:50:46.980 He's obviously very smart.

00:50:48.120 The thing about it is, though, he obviously has a huge amount of faith and confidence in

00:50:54.400 the fact that he's smart.

00:50:55.440 He believes a lot in how smart he is.

00:50:58.660 And that, too, is palpable, not just the fact that he is smart, but the fact that he

00:51:02.640 thinks he's very smart.

00:51:04.280 And that can be very off-putting.

00:51:06.700 It's just that I think there was kind of a consensus in polling, at least, and you saw

00:51:11.620 like in the polling since that he did himself a favor with that first debate, even though

00:51:16.520 he came off in kind of like an arrogant way, he stood out.

00:51:19.540 He clearly dominated that first debate in a way people didn't expect.

00:51:22.980 And I don't mind that kind of a self-effacing humor, you know, like, oh, I know you think

00:51:27.260 I'm a know-it-all.

00:51:27.840 Maybe I am.

00:51:28.300 But no, actually, I'm not.

00:51:29.260 That's fine to do to kind of poke fun at yourself.

00:51:31.860 But to just offer a completely new revamped relaunch of your personality, where like you

00:51:37.700 went from running like a bull through a china shop, insulting everybody's character and

00:51:43.320 intellect and everything about them to suddenly being mismanaged, you know, oh, my gosh, I'm

00:51:49.340 so offended that one might interrupt me and speak of our character.

00:51:53.740 Let us have dignified political debate.

00:51:56.100 I think that's going to leave a lot of people, particularly for someone new on the scene,

00:52:00.140 wondering, like, does he just wake up and change his personality the way the rest of

00:52:03.440 us change our wardrobe every day?

00:52:05.560 It's so true that you, yes, you hit it right on the head.

00:52:09.720 Well said.

00:52:10.360 Um, I will say I'll give Chris Christie this moment.

00:52:13.220 It was kind of funny and it showed himself in control and my kids liked it.

00:52:19.040 Um, he he kind of put Vivek in his place at a certain point here.

00:52:23.160 We'll watch it.

00:52:24.900 Because they've done it.

00:52:25.760 Put your hand down for a second, which I still got I still got time, dude.

00:52:31.300 So so chill out.

00:52:32.760 Um, I liked that.

00:52:35.980 I have to say, you know, it is it's back to what you were saying about, like.

00:52:39.940 The kid in class who's always like with the hand up while you're speaking and like every

00:52:44.220 time he knows all the answers, he's always got something to say is annoying.

00:52:48.120 And so I think Chris Christie was feeling it and it organically was like, just stop it.

00:52:52.520 Put your hand down.

00:52:53.360 It's I still have the mic, dude.

00:52:54.540 Well, what it reminded me a lot of was, uh, you probably remember there was a lot of very

00:53:00.760 similar hostility for Pete Buttigieg and especially in the early, uh, parts of those 2020 debates

00:53:06.160 when, you know, this young guy who never really went through the paces, the most he did was

00:53:10.860 got elected with 7000 votes to be the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, started speaking with

00:53:17.220 that sort of, you know, same kind of self-certainty of having gone to Harvard and worked at McKinsey

00:53:21.980 and believing that you're just like on the smartest kid in the room, always the smart.

00:53:26.420 And it just offended a lot of them there who have been working in politics for decades to be treated

00:53:31.120 as though they were just dumb, ignorant by this person who never really has done anything.

00:53:36.660 And particularly Amy Klobuchar barely could disguise her very visceral contempt for Pete Buttigieg

00:53:44.000 in a way that actually became entertaining.

00:53:46.480 And it's starting to remind me of the dynamic now between Nikki Haley and the fact the problem is,

00:53:51.400 I think a lot of people watching these debates, not necessarily the way we do kind of looking to be

00:53:55.920 entertained, but a lot of people look to politics as a way to help important things in their lives

00:54:02.080 they feel are missing with their kids, with their family, with their financial situation.

00:54:05.940 And when it starts to become these kinds of bickering personality disputes, even though they

00:54:10.960 can produce some entertaining moments, I love the hatred that Amy Klobuchar harbored for Pete

00:54:15.600 Buttigieg. So obviously, and I kind of find it funny the way they have similar contempt for Vivek.

00:54:20.580 I think for the viewer at home, again, remembering that Donald Trump's not there,

00:54:25.040 the person that they've already seen be president, I think it can also have the effect of making

00:54:30.640 people think, well, these people aren't really saying much that, you know, is going to inspire

00:54:35.860 me to want to go and vote for them in a belief that they're going to change my life in a meaningful

00:54:39.140 way.

00:54:41.140 I mean, I think Ron DeSantis did well on that.

00:54:43.400 And I've criticized him a lot in the past, too.

00:54:44.980 But I do.

00:54:45.400 I have to say, I thought if there was a winner last night, it was Ron DeSantis.

00:54:48.560 DeSantis. But to what end? To what end? I mean, he's he really is 30 to 40 points behind

00:54:54.100 Donald Trump. He may be in number two right now, according to the latest polls out of Iowa

00:54:58.780 and New Hampshire. You know, it's just it's a long way to go. And Trump, it is kind of

00:55:04.040 unfair that he doesn't go to the debates because how would he do? What would happen if it was

00:55:09.440 a if it were a face off? You know, if DeSantis got in his grill and said, how dare you say

00:55:14.040 that stuff about the pro-life policies in Iowa and in Florida? And what about the seven

00:55:19.000 trillion you added to the debate to the debt?

00:55:21.280 You know, like it would be very interesting to see him tested like that. These other candidates

00:55:25.640 are being tested and their positions are being held up to scrutiny. And that's not happening

00:55:30.320 with Trump. You know, he's putting himself out there a little. He sat with me, sat with

00:55:33.560 Kristen Welker, but not not much. And it's it's protecting him.

00:55:40.360 Yeah. You know, there is something similar going on, by the way, with Joe Biden.

00:55:44.040 And maybe it's not exactly the same, but Joe Biden does not only have two declared primary

00:55:50.180 challengers within the Democratic Party, Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr., but polls are showing

00:55:55.080 consistently that each of them is polling between 10 and 15 percent for RFK and five and 10 percent

00:56:02.520 for Marianne Williamson. So you have 25 to 30 percent of the Democratic electorate, one out

00:56:07.580 of every three voters, saying they intend they want to vote for one of the two primary challengers

00:56:11.680 and not Joe Biden. And the position of the Democratic Party is we have no primary.

00:56:15.820 There will be no debates. And I think there's kind of this sense like no one's really calling

00:56:20.400 on Joe Biden to debate because of the view that, well, when you're the incumbent, when

00:56:26.080 you already have this gigantic lead, it's savvy and smart not to debate.

00:56:30.680 And maybe the same is true for Trump. That's why there's not a lot of media controversy that

00:56:34.420 he's not participating. But I think our job as journalists is not to be savvy political

00:56:38.700 consultants, but to press people who seek political power on what their responsibilities

00:56:43.480 are. And I think one of the basic responsibilities is not to be so arrogant if you're seeking

00:56:48.180 political power and go face voters and face your competitors and answer questions and

00:56:52.480 criticisms that are being voiced against you. And our job, even if we understand the political

00:56:56.960 rush now, it should be to say this isn't the right thing to do. Yeah, we want to see them.

00:57:03.340 Meanwhile, Trump was in Michigan yesterday speaking with auto workers, not the ones who

00:57:07.280 were striking, but auto workers in general trying to counter program. I don't know that it

00:57:13.760 counter programmed anything. You know, I mean, people weren't tuning in for that. I don't know

00:57:17.580 that they were watching the Fox News or the Fox business debate either. But, you know, the way I see

00:57:23.080 this whole debate process on the Republican side, because Trump right now today is calling for it to

00:57:27.300 stop. He put out a statement saying there should be no more primary debates. We should focus all our

00:57:32.120 resources on fighting Joe Biden. I don't think that's going to happen. But I do think they're

00:57:37.320 important for this reason. We don't know what's going to happen with Donald Trump. He's facing four

00:57:42.800 criminal indictments. Some of these trials could take place on the soon side. And he actually could be in

00:57:49.500 jail by the time we get to November 2024. It is not an unrealistic proposition. So why wouldn't the

00:57:56.560 Republicans be settling on their number one alternate? They really do need to have a contest

00:58:03.300 on at least their number one alternate. I know, but the thing is, Megan, and I think this is the

00:58:10.440 most interesting part of the whole presidential race so far. You know, 10 years ago, even if you were

00:58:18.740 a major candidate for any high political office, Senate, House, you know, never mind president,

00:58:25.360 and anyone even considered indicting you, let alone that you got indicted on felony charges,

00:58:30.180 it would instantly end your candidacy. No one would even conceive of the possibility that you could run

00:58:35.140 for high office credibly, while you're being accused by the government of having committed serious

00:58:40.180 felonies. Trump has now been indicted in four separate jurisdictions, two state, two federal,

00:58:46.280 on a huge variety, a wide range of allegations from what he did after the 2020 election,

00:58:52.120 to fake electorates, to stuff he did in terms of the mishandling classified documents at Mar-a-Lago,

00:58:57.780 to how he accounted for payments to Stormy Daniels. They threw in the entire book at him.

00:59:02.260 And the reality is that not just within the Republican Party, but in general, with independents

00:59:07.000 and non-affiliated voters or whatever, his polling is certainly not declining, and if anything,

00:59:14.880 solidifying. And that to me reveals a very alarming and pervasive lack of trust and faith,

00:59:23.380 even contempt, for our institutions of authority that had traditionally been considered legitimate,

00:59:29.400 which is why if you were indicted by the Justice Department, you would be considered politically

00:59:33.200 dead, and now you're not. If anything, it's strengthening him. And so even if he ends up

00:59:37.960 in jail, you know, because some Manhattan jury convicts him based on a prosecutor's charges that,

00:59:44.320 you know, is perceived as a sort of prosecutor, how many people are going to consider that legitimate?

00:59:48.980 And even if he is in jail, there's nothing that says you can't run for prison or for president in

00:59:53.160 prison. I really question whether that would be politically even damaging, let alone debilitating,

01:00:00.280 where he would have to drop out of the race. I mean, it's amazing, but I think it's true.

01:00:05.280 It's crazy.

01:00:06.520 I know, but I don't see that more readily than Trump dropping out.

01:00:11.280 Yeah, I don't know. I have to say, like, one of the reasons Trump continues to do well is, yes,

01:00:16.680 people are outraged about what's happening to him with the criminal justice system and so on.

01:00:20.000 But when you hear Trump talk, like he goes and he talks to the auto workers last night,

01:00:23.980 he's talking about how you're going to you're all going to get fired in a couple of years

01:00:27.780 because this Biden administration is totally obsessed with electronic vehicles and you're

01:00:33.620 all going to be out of business. And I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen. I'm going to make

01:00:36.660 sure we use gas powered cars. I'm going to save your industry. There was nobody up there last night

01:00:41.880 who was thinking about the working class. They really weren't, you know, like every single question

01:00:47.420 that came from that Univision anchor. What about the dreamers? You know, what are you going to do for

01:00:51.380 them? What about the LGBTQ community and attacks on them? And you could pick anybody, you know,

01:00:57.580 what about the attacks on Asians? Should we talk about that? Like, whatever. Okay. But there was

01:01:02.460 nothing about the working class and the vote that's going to put a Republican in office or not

01:01:09.800 is going to be the white vote and the working class white vote. And you would think that a Republican

01:01:16.540 debate would focus to some extent, especially if it's coming from a business channel on them.

01:01:23.120 You know, I think this is the key point. I think you're putting your finger on the thing that is

01:01:27.100 Trump's gold that we often forget about. I remember the first time in 2016, I was like everybody else

01:01:32.400 reading the polls, you know, believing that Hillary was way ahead of Trump, that he had virtually no

01:01:37.220 chance. And I remember the first time I actually thought Trump had a chance. I remember he went to

01:01:41.720 West Virginia a couple of weeks after Hillary went there. And when Hillary went there, she said,

01:01:46.700 coal is dead. Clean energy is coming. You may not like that, but that's the reality. Your coal jobs

01:01:52.540 are dead. And Trump went there and said, I'm going to save the coal industry. I'm going to save your

01:01:56.960 job. And they interviewed this coal worker at a Trump rally and asked him, do you really believe

01:02:03.000 Trump's going to do that? And he said, no, I don't think he's going to be able to save our coal industry,

01:02:06.960 but at least he's coming and talking about our fears. Like the fact that our lives are being run

01:02:12.880 roughshod over while Hillary Hillary's coming and saying, it's just a reality. You're going to have

01:02:17.260 to accept it. It's a new world now. And Trump's ability to go and speak to the things. Do you just like

01:02:22.980 he connects to these people instinctively? I think a lot of it is because he grew up in Queens,

01:02:28.260 has this like sort of outer borough resentment toward elites. And he always has. That was his success

01:02:33.840 in terms of being a TV star. He's he appeals to ordinary people. He knows how to speak to them.

01:02:38.580 He feels like he just has an intuitive sense to know what to talk about that makes them think

01:02:43.340 he's talking to them in a way nobody else is. And I think he still has that. And I think you're

01:02:49.520 very right that the contrast between what Trump chose to do last night and the way he chose to speak

01:02:54.940 and the way that debate was conducted was a very stark one. And I think that is a big part. I think

01:03:00.420 you're right. Not just the anger over the indictments, but the fact that Trump is still a very,

01:03:04.460 you know, kind of talented politician when it comes to talking to these voters.

01:03:08.580 Mm hmm. If I were one of these politicians, I would try to turn almost any answer into that

01:03:13.980 and not curtains. No, no, that's it's a no. No one cares. I think Tim Scott is one of those

01:03:21.960 candidates is who's in the Vivek field of just completely reinvented on debate number two,

01:03:27.160 because he had been like a potted plant in debate number one. And then he came out and he's like,

01:03:31.560 I'm fiery. I'm fiery. I've got things to say. But he wasn't executing it well. Then he was just

01:03:36.520 kind of annoying. It's like, stop being so interruptive. I want I want to turn the page

01:03:41.680 because I'm dying to get to this story. It's huge over in the UK and it involves GB news where I

01:03:47.460 appear once a week on the show of this guy, Dan Wooden. And Dan's been on our show many times as

01:03:52.040 a royal commentator. He wrote for years for the sun, then for the Daily Mail. And now he has the

01:03:57.180 most popular show on GB news. And I really wanted to get to this because it's absolutely exploding in

01:04:01.820 the UK and it involves a friend of mine. Here's what happened. This actor, very successful actor

01:04:07.660 and now political commentator, Lawrence Fox, and he's sort of been political in the UK for a while

01:04:12.700 now, goes on Dan's show. And he is asked to comment on comments made by a woman, a political

01:04:21.660 journalist over there named Ava Evans. So I'm going to set it up. Ava Evans had made remarks,

01:04:27.140 I would submit quite callously on the epidemic of male suicide. And then Dan and Lawrence Fox wound

01:04:36.020 up talking about it. So here's Ava Evans's comments that are going to lead to this firestorm

01:04:42.260 that could get both of these guys fired. All right, watch.

01:04:46.320 I think that it feeds into the culture a little bit, this minister for men argument like that.

01:04:50.960 In my mind, I think there should be a minister for mental health, which would be all encompassing.

01:04:54.500 I mean, you've got something like 7 million children waiting for prescriptions for mental

01:04:57.320 health at the moment. It's a crisis that's endemic throughout the country, not specific

01:05:00.860 to men. And I think, you know, a lot of ministers kind of bandy this about to sort of, I'm sorry,

01:05:05.880 but make an enemy out of women.

01:05:08.800 So she's suggesting that to have a minister of men who would be overseeing, for one thing,

01:05:14.100 the male suicide crisis would be some sort of making an enemy, way of making an enemy out

01:05:21.640 of women, as opposed to taking a moment to actually get into, wait, why is that necessary?

01:05:27.240 What's happening with men? And there is a male suicide crisis. And we can get into the details

01:05:32.960 of it. We've covered it on our show. There really is. I'll just give you a couple numbers.

01:05:35.760 In the United States, men make up 49% of the population, 80% of the successful suicides,

01:05:41.320 the completed, I guess is a better word, suicides. They're far more likely to complete a suicide

01:05:46.640 and far less likely to either be diagnosed with depression and anxiety, nevermind actually seek

01:05:51.820 help for it. And by the way, September happens to be National Suicide Prevention Month. Okay. So

01:05:57.060 that's in that context, she's in the UK, she's not in America, but they have similar numbers over

01:06:01.540 there. Exactly the same numbers, actually. She doesn't take a moment to actually acknowledge

01:06:05.140 what's happening. I mean, who among us doesn't know? I doesn't know a man who has committed suicide.

01:06:10.820 I do. Someone in my family years ago. Anyway, it's just a very touchy issue. You're supposed

01:06:18.720 to say die by suicide now. And she did not treat it gingerly or even respectfully. So understandably,

01:06:25.580 some people were mad. And one of those people was Lawrence Fox. And he addressed it, I think,

01:06:31.560 with humor, but it was, you know, you'll see crass. Here's what happened when he went on Dan's show.

01:06:36.860 Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman ever,

01:06:44.200 ever, who wasn't an incel, who wasn't a cucked little incel. That little woman has been fed,

01:06:51.160 spoon-fed oppression day after day after day after day, starting with the lie of the gender wage gap.

01:06:58.720 And she sat there and I'm going like, if I met you in a bar and that was like sentence three,

01:07:03.480 chances of me just walking away are just huge. We need powerful, strong, amazing women who make

01:07:10.980 great points for themselves. We don't need these sort of feminist 4.0. They're pathetic

01:07:16.340 and embarrassing. Who'd want to shag that?

01:07:20.760 Total meltdown ensued. It's all over the UK papers. This group, Ofcom, it's a government

01:07:26.980 organization that oversees the UK media, is raining a shitstorm down on GB News. GB has now

01:07:32.860 suspended both Lawrence Fox and Dan Wooten, who really just stood there. He just sat there,

01:07:38.280 but he's gotten punished now too. And this is a woman who Glenn has actually written. She sent out

01:07:44.840 a tweet, I think it was last January, calling men, quote, the most powerful virus of them all.

01:07:52.800 So no problem for her to say that. No problem for her to be insensitive toward the male suicide crisis.

01:07:57.600 Lawrence Fox deals with it with a crass, humorous, attempted humor, you know, attempt. And he's about

01:08:03.840 to lose his job 100 percent. And they just announced today that Dan Wooten was fired from the Daily Mail,

01:08:08.460 which isn't even where the conversation happened. So what do you make of the whole offense?

01:08:13.940 I feel like it's it's both complicated and important. First of all, I do think this issue

01:08:19.300 of this crisis among young men in particular in the West is not just suicide. It's, you know,

01:08:25.520 depression and anxiety and addiction and alcoholism and just like a general sense of being

01:08:32.020 lost, you know, like having no place in society, no purpose, no sense of fulfillment. I think it's a

01:08:39.260 very serious one. There's like a lot of people doing really great work. There's this young woman who

01:08:42.840 who came from the left called Shoe on Head. I don't know if you had her on her show. She covers

01:08:47.160 this crisis a lot and especially the kind of left wing contempt for men that it often provokes,

01:08:54.100 including aimed at her. Like, who cares? They get what they deserve. They're just angry because they

01:08:58.680 don't get to have women as their sex toys anymore and just like make some mockery of it in a way that

01:09:04.040 this political commentator in the West did. There's a great documentary by Alex Lee Moyer who just did the

01:09:10.000 documentary on Alex Jones who before that did one on this kind of incel culture and the way we

01:09:14.160 should mock these people as being misogynist and a lot of like socioeconomic pressures that are being

01:09:19.500 placed on young men in the West as to why they're so lost and have these kind of pathologies. So I

01:09:24.260 think to make light of it and to talk about it in this very callous way, the way this political

01:09:29.140 commentator in the UK did, I understand completely why that generates a lot of anger. I share that anger

01:09:34.360 when I hear her saying that. I do though think that we can on the one hand, push back against the

01:09:43.180 excesses of forcing people to speak in a certain way, while still having some standards. Like I just

01:09:49.900 think a line that you just should observe is that if a woman enters public life, and speaks on a

01:09:58.660 particular policy issue, no matter how angry that you are, you can attack her, you can criticize her

01:10:04.140 the way you would anyone else, including a man. But to talk about her as somebody who's not worth

01:10:09.440 your having sex with how you would never get into bed with her how she's just so repulsive that no

01:10:14.540 man would ever sleep with her. I don't know, I find it gross and degrading. I just don't think

01:10:20.100 that's like a way that we need to be thinking about women. It reminds me a little bit of the commentary

01:10:24.040 you had on Russell Brand that I really like. I was one of the people saying he deserves due process,

01:10:28.300 he shouldn't be assumed to be guilty. But you don't have to go to the other extreme and start

01:10:32.240 talking about these women in the most degrading way possible, assuming they're liars. You know,

01:10:36.620 that they're just every woman now who makes an accusation like this deserves to be hated and

01:10:40.300 assumed to be conniving. There is this kind of misogynistic element that runs through that

01:10:46.140 discourse that both of them seem to share, even the host did kind of laugh about it and claimed he

01:10:51.200 didn't but then had sent a note right after saying, Oh, I love what you said. But then you

01:10:55.460 get to the backlash to it, which is, let's get this government agency involved, let's ensure that

01:11:01.080 their lives are ruined, that their careers are over, that they should be fired. Where I also start

01:11:06.060 feeling very uncomfortable, you know, there can be this middle ground between saying these kind of

01:11:10.660 comments, I personally find disgusting, I don't appreciate this sort of discourse. But it doesn't mean

01:11:16.040 that the government should get involved. It doesn't mean that they should lose their jobs.

01:11:19.260 So I think, unfortunately, there was this very important issue that we should be spending a lot

01:11:23.580 more time talking about that a lot of people are talking about in a very good way, that does often

01:11:27.740 produce this really crass, callous reaction. And it all got kind of sidetracked, because Lawrence Fox

01:11:34.600 decided to make it about whether any man would want to sleep with this woman. And I don't know,

01:11:40.060 I kind of understand the visceral reaction to that discourse. But now I find myself siding with them,

01:11:45.560 because I think the reaction is so extreme. It's so funny, because so I think I, you and I sort of

01:11:52.440 came in on the Russell Brands thing in a very similar way. But maybe diverged on whether he should

01:11:59.240 be defended or resurrected. But I, I think we diverge again here, because I have to tell you,

01:12:06.040 I was not offended by what Lawrence Fox said. I wasn't. It's not like I would have said it myself.

01:12:11.160 But I've had so much worse said about me. I mean, my God, go back and take a look at what happened

01:12:16.660 speaking of presidential debates after that first one with Trump. It's not pleasant. You know,

01:12:22.240 yes, there can be sort of a sexism tinge in some of the comments. But this what I think he was trying

01:12:27.740 to say, he was angry. He was angry about her blowing off the fact that I mean, here in the United States,

01:12:33.680 it's 35,000 men a year who die by suicide. And no one gives a shit about that. It's like not even

01:12:38.840 okay to be a man anymore. And so he was angry. And he was trying to say, this woman couldn't be

01:12:45.620 more unattractive to me. She is ugly. She's ugly in her soul. That's what I think he was feeling,

01:12:53.240 that she has a dark heart. And I reject her on a visceral level. That's if he had been more

01:13:00.100 articulate in the moment, that's probably what he would have said. You know, he's an entertainer.

01:13:03.500 So he went a different way. And I like we're pretending that she's this delicate flower

01:13:09.560 who can't hear it. You know, who's like, oh, my God, he's someone said something offensive about

01:13:14.960 me. And I just feel like it's not great. But it's this is not a fireable offense. And for everyone

01:13:20.120 like the government to be raining a shitstorm down on him. Whereas I see the Russell Brand stuff as

01:13:24.620 much more problematic. He was allegedly sleeping with a 16 year old when he was 31. Totally different.

01:13:29.740 That's not like saying one offensive thing that that had a tinge of jest in it. And by the way,

01:13:35.260 the same woman over here is now like claim to be so offense offended. She's got a long history of

01:13:41.340 saying this exact kind of stuff that he tweeted out some of her tweets about. I'm not going to shag

01:13:46.500 you, pal, when somebody comes from her. Oh, this person's not going to shag you, mate. I'm not going

01:13:50.360 to shag you, mate. He's not going to shag you. She's constantly saying that. So he says, I'm not going to

01:13:56.180 shag you because I don't like your personality and what you just said. And now he's going to lose

01:14:01.140 his career. She's not. She's the victim. He's the bad guy. And I think it's wrong. I think once again

01:14:09.480 here to the public should be able to decide whether they like Lawrence Fox or not, they can tune in to

01:14:16.340 his show and segments on GB news or not. But I don't think he should be fired. I certainly don't

01:14:21.820 think Dan wouldn't, who just sat in the chair. It was mildly bemused should be fired. And I think

01:14:27.440 people need to sort of understand like what got it, what got them mad to begin with. Do we care

01:14:32.100 at all about that? No, the answer is no, because they're dudes. I'll give you the last word on it,

01:14:36.440 Glenn. Yeah, no. So here's, I do kind of, I do agree with that. I think the one place we diverge is,

01:14:42.220 I don't know. I just had a visceral reaction to that kind of discourse. It's not discourse in which

01:14:45.500 I would engage. The thing though, is I do, I, there is this thing that I think is very important that we,

01:14:50.580 that I do want to mention, which is, and it's happened to me so many times. So there are a lot

01:14:55.300 of influential women in media and politics, they wield a lot of power. And there's this culture now

01:15:01.680 that says, and I can't tell you how many times this happened to me, where if you criticize an

01:15:06.100 influential journalist or an elected member of parliament or whoever, who happens to be a woman,

01:15:10.420 you get accused of riling up hatred for them, of speaking misogynistically about them,

01:15:16.440 of generating hate against them because women suffer so much worse than anybody else on the

01:15:21.640 internet. And I do think this tactic of trying to say, oh, these women are so fragile and so weak

01:15:29.280 that they can't be subjected even to aggressive vitriol is this kind of, you know, actual sexism.

01:15:37.960 This idea that women are weak, women are fragile, women can't handle the same thing. Masquerading is

01:15:41.900 chivalry that I think is, you know, very damaging to women, to our discourse in general. You cannot,

01:15:48.960 on the one hand, say women are entitled to the same access to power as everybody else. And then

01:15:53.420 the other hand, you have to like pull your punches rhetorically when you talk about them.

01:15:57.760 And I also do think this woman, the comments she made are horrific. They're deserving of contempt

01:16:03.920 and scorn. I do think he went a little too far, but like I said, to have now the focus point be on,

01:16:09.560 we have to fire him as opposed to just say, I don't like his comments. That used to be fine.

01:16:14.080 We used to be able to do that and not have everybody fired or the government intervening.

01:16:19.220 I think ultimately, as I look at the story and all the kind of component parts, that does end up being

01:16:25.400 the one that disturbs me the most is the backlash and the way this kind of thing gets exploited. Like

01:16:30.500 no criticism of any woman. They're off limits. They're too fragile to handle the same sort of

01:16:36.100 criticism of men as men do. And I think it's offensive actually, uh, to women to create that

01:16:42.320 she's helping drive it. She had an opportunity here to be like, that was offensive. Lawrence is

01:16:47.840 a jerk. I'm moving on with my life. But instead she's really leaning into it. Like I'm getting

01:16:53.340 death threats. Really? She's getting death. Is she getting death threats because of what he said or

01:16:57.680 because of what she said? And I'll guarantee you, he's getting threats to the government has no place

01:17:02.980 in this. If I'd been running GB news, I would have said GB news has spoken with Lawrence about

01:17:08.500 trying to keep an elevated level of conversation on our airwaves, which is our promise to our

01:17:12.760 audience. That's it. That's fine. And I bet Lawrence would have been like, okay, cool. Got it. That's

01:17:17.400 more like a barroom conversation. Not so much on the air on camera on, you know, this news channel.

01:17:22.780 I think it's going another way. I hope I'm wrong. Um, but anyway, it's bugging me because I know and

01:17:27.980 like both guys, it's not like I want anything bad to happen to her, but I really hope she takes a

01:17:32.580 moment and does some self-reflection on her callousness here too. And thinks about the

01:17:37.660 young men who have no one, no one advocating for them. Instead, women like this one have so much

01:17:44.860 access to the microphones and are just utterly dismissive of them as she publicly refers to them

01:17:50.500 as the worst virus. You're wrong, madam. You're wrong factually. And you're wrong morally.

01:17:55.840 Uh, Glenn, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on. Great seeing you, Megan. All right. Up next,

01:18:02.900 Larry Elder and he's got thoughts. Stand by.

01:18:10.460 I want to tell you that there appears to be, or could be some breaking news happening

01:18:14.360 right now. Uh, the Drudge report, you know, very connected in Republican circles. Matt Drudge

01:18:19.280 has got a headline up right now that reads, um, mystery 11th hour candidate in the GOP primary race

01:18:28.740 about, about to shake up. Is that what it says? Republican race about to shake with late entry

01:18:35.580 question mark with a big old picture of Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia. We've been

01:18:44.280 talking about it on this show. Uh, if you click on the link, it brings you to CBS news with the,

01:18:49.240 with a report from, um, Robert Costa in which he were just clicking on it now, but he appears to be

01:18:55.280 saying that, uh, there's the GOP donors are pushing for Glenn Youngkin to enter. We knew that. So it's

01:19:01.220 got to be more than they're just pushing for it. We knew that. So perhaps there's movement that would

01:19:07.600 be huge, uh, whether it would be tenable. That's a very different question. Uh, in the meantime,

01:19:14.440 there's another candidate in this race who did not make it on stage last night. He's probably got

01:19:17.840 thoughts on all of this. And that's Larry Elder. He is also author of the upcoming book set to be

01:19:22.400 released in November. It's called as goes California. And you know, the rest, my mission to rescue the

01:19:28.840 golden state and save the nation. Larry, great to see you again. Um, can I ask you to comment on this

01:19:35.100 drudge headline and the possibility of Glenn Youngkin possibly getting in this race?

01:19:40.500 Well, I don't think it'll matter all that much. Uh, I think that, uh, you know, still a long way to

01:19:45.500 go between now and November, 2024. And of course, anything can happen, but look at Ron DeSantis,

01:19:51.240 Megan. What's not to like guy is young. He's governed successfully. He won reelection by 20 points.

01:19:57.600 He carried Miami day County. Uh, he's a military decorated vet, a beautiful wife, a young family,

01:20:05.100 and he's gone nowhere. Why? Because the 10,000 pound elephant in the room is a guy named Donald

01:20:11.360 Trump. I recall years ago, uh, Michael Dukakis was saying something flattering about this new guy

01:20:17.340 named Bill Clinton. And he said, Bill Clinton quote, is the best standup politician I've ever seen.

01:20:21.620 Well, Trump is even better. Uh, he's likable by the, by the base. Anyway, he's funny. He governed

01:20:27.900 successfully. His policies were great, great economy, uh, great border. So, uh, what's the case that

01:20:34.420 Lynn Young is going to make that, uh, uh, Ron DeSantis has not made. So I don't think it's

01:20:39.280 going to make any, any real difference. I've been on the campaign trail. I've seen how people

01:20:42.240 respond to Donald Trump. I've seen how they respond to the other candidates. And as far

01:20:46.200 as I'm concerned, I don't see anybody dislodging Donald Trump at this moment.

01:20:50.580 To your point about Donald Trump being funny. Uh, and he is funny when he was in Michigan last

01:20:55.040 night, speaking of the auto workers, he did a bit on his indictments, which we don't for

01:20:58.700 any normal human would make you very stressed out. Just, just one would make most of us very

01:21:04.160 stressed out. Here he is on that. Listen to this top 23. I never heard of the word indictment. Now

01:21:11.500 I get indicted like every three days. He spoke badly about the election. He must be indicted.

01:21:18.060 He said something bad about Joe Biden. Joe Biden is the most corrupt president and most incompetent

01:21:25.560 president we've ever had. Oh, no, no, I shouldn't have said that. I'm going to get indicted again

01:21:31.860 for saying that. To your point, this is when you see him out there and you're kind of reminded,

01:21:40.660 oh, oh, this is why he's 40 points ahead of all those other guys we saw last night.

01:21:45.480 You know, and Megan, uh, in the debate to our debate, nobody brought up the indictments. I mean,

01:21:50.900 Donald Trump's arguable, uh, biggest vulnerability, at least with swing voters,

01:21:55.240 uh, is the indictments. Nobody even brought them up because the base feels that they're BS. I feel

01:22:01.840 that they're BS. Uh, and to his point, uh, be more serious about it. What he did on January 6th,

01:22:07.820 Megan, you're a lawyer. Uh, I'm a lawyer. He's made the same legal argument about the powers that

01:22:13.040 vice president had that the Democrats made after 2000 when they lost and they tried to decertify

01:22:18.160 Florida. About a dozen house members argued that, uh, the vice president had the power to not

01:22:22.700 certify Florida, which would have given the election to Al Gore. 2004, they made the same

01:22:27.340 argument when W got reelected. 30 House members joined Senator Barbara Boxer to try to decertify

01:22:33.260 Ohio claiming where we heard this before. The Debold voting machine had been tampered with.

01:22:37.820 Fast forward 2016, uh, more House Democrats on the first week of January, 2017,

01:22:43.140 challenged more states, nine, than did Donald Trump following 2020 when he challenged six.

01:22:48.160 So they made that exactly the same argument. Nobody accused him of being election deniers.

01:22:52.700 Nobody prosecuted their lawyers and let alone the lawyers face disbarment as is going on right now.

01:22:57.420 It's a two tier judicial system. And even Chris Christie ought to see that.

01:23:01.780 Hmm. Let's, uh, let's shift to what we saw on stage last night at the, um, Reagan national library.

01:23:08.640 The questions when we've talked before on this hour about how far left they were, but I mean,

01:23:14.620 especially on social issues, Larry, it was bizarre. The LGBTQ community, what are you going to do

01:23:20.660 to decrease a tax on them? Uh, dreamers, what are you going to do to make sure they can stay in the

01:23:26.520 country? Um, uh, minority students, what are you going to do to improve their education, right?

01:23:32.960 Like everything, every way in was about some allegedly oppressed minority group and how as president,

01:23:40.160 you're going to make their lives better. What did you think of it?

01:23:42.520 Yeah. And don't forget the one about slavery and what, uh, Florida said slavery.

01:23:47.300 Yeah. I mean, honestly, well, you know, the whole agenda on the part of the left is that America

01:23:52.700 remains systemically racist. Uh, the country is divided 50, 50, the way Democrats win elections

01:23:58.120 at the top is to convince 13% of the, of the electorate black, black people, uh, that America

01:24:04.020 remains systemically racist. And we Democrats wear the white hat in that battle. And these dastardly

01:24:09.180 Republicans wear the black hat. That's what this is all about. That's one of the reasons

01:24:12.500 that I ran, because I feel that our party, uh, is wimpy when it comes to dealing with this

01:24:17.480 lie that America remains systemically racist. Quick example, Joe Biden goes to Howard University

01:24:23.320 a few weeks ago, uh, commencement exercise speech. And he says, the number one threat to

01:24:28.700 the homeland is white supremacy. Are you smoking something? The anti-defamation league keeps

01:24:34.160 track of the number of people killed every year by extremists. And there were 25 people last

01:24:39.120 year killed by extremists as, as opposed to over 20,000 homicide victims. Do you want to play that

01:24:44.360 game? Most homicide is same race homicide. Uh, most whites who were murdered are murdered by other

01:24:50.040 whites. Most blacks who were murdered are murdered by other blacks, but every year out of the, uh,

01:24:54.020 total homicides, about 3% are interracial black, white, uh, homicide, 500 white people killed by

01:25:01.040 blacks, even though blacks are 13% of the population, 250 blacks killed by whites, even though whites are

01:25:08.320 60% of the population. Now, if Donald Trump at a commencement speech said the number one threat

01:25:13.340 to the homeland is black supremacy, you and I would deride him as a race hustling demigod.

01:25:18.920 When Biden says this, nobody says a word. And also in Jacksonville, Florida, a few weeks ago,

01:25:25.460 as you know, uh, a racist white man murdered three black people and did it because they were black.

01:25:29.760 And Biden of course commented on that because it advances his narrative. However, two months

01:25:34.260 earlier in Tulsa, Oklahoma, black guy gets a gun, walks up to a white guy. He doesn't even know

01:25:39.280 pulls out the gun, shoots him and kills him in the back of the head. Another part of Tulsa,

01:25:44.060 same black guy goes, sees another white guy. He doesn't know, pulls out the gun,

01:25:47.400 shoots him in the back of the head, kills him. Uh, Biden did not say a word. And when he talked

01:25:51.320 about Jacksonville, he said silence and that kind of hatred makes you complicit. Well, he didn't say a

01:25:56.580 darn thing about Tulsa because it does not advance his agenda. It's offensive to me.

01:26:00.480 And the, and the RNC didn't say a thing about it. Right. They're afraid. So I have got to ask you,

01:26:07.820 you ran for governor of California, which would have been such a blessing to the state had you won,

01:26:11.980 didn't happen. Uh, Gavin Newsom is the governor, as we all know. And now Fox news and Sean Hannity

01:26:17.060 are arranging a debate between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis. And it looks like it's going to happen.

01:26:22.760 They negotiated terms. There were some bad snarky back and forth. Now it looks like it's going to

01:26:27.500 happen. And then Gavin Newsom, now that it's set, it's supposed to happen. Gavin Newsom goes on some

01:26:32.600 local television show, uh, in, I think it was Fox LA and was so ungenerous and classless about this

01:26:41.880 thing happening. Listen to just a bit of what he said. The fact that he took this debate,

01:26:48.000 the fact that he took the bait in relation to this debate shows that he's completely unqualified

01:26:54.140 to be president of the United States. That's my humble first person. Why is that? You're baiting

01:26:57.600 him with the debate offer? Of course. I mean, why is he debating a guy who's not even running for

01:27:00.880 president when he's running for president? He's showing up at the Reagan library, hollow ground,

01:27:05.000 and he puts on an ad today, not for his presidential campaign to promote a debate against the governor

01:27:10.380 of California. I mean, this guy's distracted. So I don't know that he has it in his heart.

01:27:15.860 What did you make of it, Larry? Where do you start with this? Uh, so

01:27:21.320 DeSantis is distracted from his job, but Newsom is not distracted from his job by participating in

01:27:27.580 the debate. More importantly, where was Sean Hannity? Where was Fox news? Where was Fox 11?

01:27:33.900 Where was Alex Michelson, the person to whom, uh, uh, Gavin Newsom made the comment when I ran for

01:27:39.620 governor, when he refused to debate me, when it mattered during a recall election, I didn't participate

01:27:44.360 in the GOP debates because I said over and over and over again, I want to debate one person and

01:27:48.860 one person only. And his name is Gavin Newsom and nobody, but nobody in the media put pressure on

01:27:53.820 him to debate me when it mattered. People are leaving California. We have a huge homeless problem

01:27:59.040 in California. This man shut down the state in a more severe way than did any other governor.

01:28:03.880 A third of all small restaurants in California are now gone forever. Most of them run by the mom

01:28:10.200 and poppers, black and brown people that people on the left purport to care about. We've got a real

01:28:14.460 crime problem because of the soft on crime DAs, uh, and the soft on crime, uh, policies that he has

01:28:19.820 backed. Uh, our budget had gone from a hundred billion dollar surplus to a 30 billion dollar deficit.

01:28:25.720 We have a 1.5 trillion dollar underfunded pension liability. I could go on and on on the man signed

01:28:32.760 legislation requiring publicly held corporations in California, Megan, to have one member of the

01:28:38.360 LGBTQIA, uh, member on his board of directors, clearly a violation of the 14th amendment. He signed

01:28:45.240 it anyway. I can banning gasoline powered cars, uh, by 2035. I mean, this man is a left wing loon.

01:28:52.920 And if you look at, uh, uh, the reason that Joe Biden is underwater with the economy,

01:28:59.720 with borders, this man, Gavin Newsom has not said a single negative thing about any policy

01:29:05.160 that Joe Biden has, uh, imposed. California is a sanctuary state. So Newsom has said nothing

01:29:10.600 about the borders. California is a state that believes that rich people are under tax. Uh,

01:29:15.080 we should be spending more. He's expanded the number of illegal aliens who get healthcare

01:29:19.320 at taxpayers expense. So what policy has Joe Biden enacted that Gavin Newsom has criticized?

01:29:25.480 He's one of the few politicians who probably at the time praise, uh, Joe Biden pull out of

01:29:30.920 Afghanistan. So there's nothing that Joe Biden has done. Gavin Newsom has criticized. So what's

01:29:35.880 the case for Gavin Newsom, uh, taking over for, for Joe, for Joe Biden.

01:29:39.720 I really hope you connect with Ron DeSantis before he goes on this Hannity debate.

01:29:46.040 Here's another thing. We know that Gavin Newsom is radical when it comes to the gender issue. He is

01:29:50.680 radical. He didn't sign that most recent bill, but he's just as radical as they come.

01:29:55.160 And here he was. I was glad to hear this is one nice thing about the moderators last night. I was

01:29:59.000 glad to hear them bring up the issue of what's happening in schools, not notifying parents when

01:30:04.280 their child expresses gender confusion or says, you know, I'm suddenly transitioning. And, um, here was

01:30:09.160 Gavin Newsom, who's in the spin room last night. Here was his reaction to that.

01:30:12.520 Why should parents not know if their kids are transitioning at school?

01:30:18.760 It's a hell of a thing. You're talking about about 1% of the population. Climate change,

01:30:23.080 it's impact 100% of the population wasn't even brought up. And we're talking about trans issues.

01:30:27.640 Here in California, this is an issue for you. This is a front and center issue for parents.

01:30:31.160 This is a front and center issue for parents.

01:30:32.200 This is a front and center issue for parents.

01:30:34.200 It's the great, it's the great, this is one of the greatest

01:30:38.200 distractions. And it's classic. 1% of the population in the United States,

01:30:43.320 these kids just want to live. These kids just want to live.

01:30:48.200 And we're having a debate about trans issues. And the Reagan Library is going to be a shame.

01:30:54.680 What do you think?

01:30:56.600 Again, where do you start with this guy? He did not sign legislation that would have allowed a judge

01:31:03.080 to take away a child if you did not affirm that child's gender. And the Democrat lawmakers who assumed

01:31:09.000 he was going to sign it were livid. He's doing that because he's missioning himself to run for

01:31:13.080 president at some point. May I also say something too? The biggest knock against Donald Trump is

01:31:17.960 Donald Trump's character. This is a man, Gavin Newsom, who when he was mayor of San Francisco,

01:31:23.480 was having an affair with the wife of his campaign manager. His campaign manager was his best friend.

01:31:30.280 Nobody ever brings that up. Happened in 2007. He admitted it, apologized for it, yada blah, etc.

01:31:38.120 Nobody ever brings it up here in California. I mean, talk about somebody's character. I could go on

01:31:43.800 and on and on and on. And by the way, there is this assumption that somehow, some way,

01:31:49.960 the Democrats are plotting to get rid of Kamala Harris and or Joe Biden and swap them out with

01:31:56.840 Gavin Newsom. Not going to happen. The most loyal part of the Democratic base, Megan, are Black females.

01:32:03.160 And they love, love, love them from Kamala Harris. The first primary for Democrats in South Carolina.

01:32:08.680 They do. They're the ones.

01:32:09.640 60% of the primary voters in South Carolina are Black. Majority of those are Black female. There

01:32:16.840 was a poll in the LA Times showing that among Blacks, Kamala Harris had a 70% approval rating

01:32:22.680 and they didn't divide it by gender. I assure you, she's even more popular among Black females.

01:32:27.560 If she is perceived as being dropkicked in favor of some white dude like Gavin Newsom,

01:32:32.440 Black females would be so angry. They won't vote Republican. They just won't vote, thereby

01:32:36.360 guaranteeing whoever it is we nominate, he or she will win. They cannot afford that. You play by the

01:32:41.800 gender and race sword. You die by the gender and race sword. They are stuck with Kamala Harris. Trust me.

01:32:46.760 So how do they proceed? Because you look at Joe Biden and there are obvious reasons to doubt whether

01:32:54.040 he can get this across the finish line, whether he can make it across. So maybe he's the one who

01:32:57.960 gets subbed out. Gavin Newsom gets subbed in at the top and she stays the number two.

01:33:03.400 Uh, you have to get the, the, the, the agreement of Kamala Harris to be number two. This is a woman

01:33:09.240 who ran for and got elected DA of San Francisco, ran for and got elected attorney general of California,

01:33:14.680 ran for and got elected US Senator. She dropped out early on in the, in the 2020 race. Uh, but she was on

01:33:21.160 the ticket and she won. So every time she's been on the ballot, she has won her race. What makes

01:33:25.080 you think she's going to say, you know what, Gavin, I'm so incompetent. I'm so airheaded.

01:33:29.800 I didn't get to the root causes of illegal immigration. Uh, I speak in, in, in tongues.

01:33:34.440 So please come on and take my job. She's not going to do that. She wants to be president.

01:33:39.320 The only way you get rid of Kamala Harris is if she says, you know what, I'm incompetent. And then

01:33:43.560 you've got to swap around for an equally popular, a well-known black female, and the only two

01:33:48.440 fit the bill. And that's Oprah Winfrey, uh, and Michelle Obama, neither of whom, uh, wants the

01:33:53.720 job. So they are stuck with Kamala Harris. Hmm. Do you think Joe Biden will be the nominee

01:33:59.000 and that will, he will be the one to stand against Trump or whoever lands it on the GOP side?

01:34:03.800 If Joe Biden can fog up a mirror, he will be the nominee. If he cannot fog up a mirror,

01:34:08.200 the nominee will be, will be Kamala Harris. All right, listen, um, this is just being filled out

01:34:15.880 from the news we began with. Uh, I gotta be honest. It seems like bullshit. It seems like

01:34:21.240 they're making something out of stuff we already knew, uh, on that drudge report. They're saying,

01:34:25.720 GOP donors making a push for Youngkin to enter. They're just discussing the possibility of him

01:34:30.200 getting in late and what he would have to do. Should he decide to, he has said,

01:34:33.720 he won't make a decision until the election, the election in Virginia, which is in November for the

01:34:37.640 state house, uh, for the, for the legislature. So this is really nothing we haven't heard before.

01:34:42.120 Costa reports that he's, um, that people who want Youngkin to run, uh, he's listening to them.

01:34:50.440 Youngkin is listening to them and he hasn't told them to stop saying it. That's the big scoop.

01:34:55.800 The election is November 7th. We may know more than it's not impossible. It's just,

01:35:00.600 this is not news. Larry. I miss talking to you. Will you come back and stay for a longer time?

01:35:05.640 There's so many subjects I wanted to get to. Absolutely. Go to LarryElder.com.

01:35:09.880 I'll throw something in the tip jar because I've incurred unexpected legal expenses by going after

01:35:13.720 the RNC or, uh, in my opinion, shafted me for that first debate for which I was eligible.

01:35:18.920 I met their criteria. So go to LarryElder.com. Throw something in the tip jar.

01:35:24.120 Thank you so much for being here. Great to see you. We'd love to see more of you.

01:35:26.920 My pleasure.

01:35:27.080 It'd be great if you could make it the debate stage. It'd be super fun to have him up there.

01:35:29.880 He'd be raising some good points. Um, and he'll come back when his book is out. I hope

01:35:33.400 tomorrow on the show, we have Scott Adams on for the first time,

01:35:36.840 so that'll be exciting to interview him. I want to tell all of you, what did you think of the debate?

01:35:41.400 Would love to get your thoughts. Email me, Megan at MeganKelley.com, M-E-G-Y-N.

01:35:48.840 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 28, 2023

Who Won the Chaos ＂Hot Mess＂ Debate, with Glenn Greenwald, Eliana Johnson, Michael Duncan, and Larry Elder ｜ Ep. 637

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