The Megyn Kelly Show - Why JD Vance is Far Ahead of 2028 GOP and Dem Contenders, and Newt Gingrich on Trump's Unique Appeal - Next Up with Mark Halperin

00:00:00.000 Hey, everyone. It's Megan Kelly. Today, we're bringing you a full episode of our

00:00:03.980 MK Media show, Next Up with Mark Halperin. Take a listen and go subscribe wherever you get your

00:00:10.440 podcasts. Enjoy. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Next Up. Thank you for joining us for our

00:00:17.740 10th episode. We're very happy and excited about building this community and delighted to have you

00:00:23.520 back here or here for the first time, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening as a

00:00:28.220 podcast. We're very grateful to you and hope you'll spread the word about Next Up. Like,

00:00:32.460 subscribe, do all that stuff as this program continues to grow. Next up here will be House

00:00:38.080 Speaker, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He's written dozens of books. His new one is called

00:00:42.160 Trump's Triumphs. He's one of the most interesting people in politics, and he's kept that status for

00:00:47.180 several decades running. So we'll talk to Speaker Gingrich about his book, about Donald Trump,

00:00:51.900 about how he sees the landscape on both the Democratic and Republican side, and couldn't

00:00:57.140 be more delighted to talk to someone again who's one of the more interesting people I know.

00:01:01.820 His story about Donald Trump's presidency is an intimate one because he's known Donald Trump a

00:01:07.460 long time, and in 2015, he was very skeptical that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee.

00:01:13.740 He saw others, including Jeb Bush, who was then the frontrunner, as stronger.

00:01:17.460 We've seen surprises in presidential politics many times. In 2008, for instance, people said,

00:01:22.980 well, no one predicted Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee. Out of the blue,

00:01:27.580 out of nowhere. Well, I have a different view, and I want to talk to you about 2028. Some people

00:01:32.060 say it's too early to talk about the next presidential race. Well, I get paid to think

00:01:36.900 about it all the time, but more to the point, I think there's some things going on now that we've

00:01:41.120 never seen before, and I think they put the Republican Party in a very strong position. Doesn't mean

00:01:45.780 they'll win in 2028, but I think on the current trajectory, there's some asymmetrical advantages

00:01:50.780 for the Republican Party that are worth noting, even at this early stage, because I've never

00:01:56.280 seen a presidential race shaping up like this, and I'll explain why. I look for asymmetrical

00:02:00.860 advantages. Sometimes the parties are roughly equal on candidate quality or roughly equal on

00:02:06.440 fundraising, but when there's a big difference, when one side has a decided advantage, it's worth

00:02:12.160 noting. And in this case, there are a lot of asymmetrical advantages in the Trump-Vance era

00:02:17.120 that benefit the Republicans. And it's hard at this point, as weak as the Democratic Party is,

00:02:22.940 to find asymmetrical advantages that play in their favor. And so what I want to talk to you about is

00:02:27.940 the challenge I see for the Democrats in making sure that as they get to late 2026, after the

00:02:34.840 midterms and into the presidential year, that they've got a good chance to win. Because I think right now,

00:02:39.900 again, on the current trajectory, they'll have a problem. 2028 will be a year, assuming Donald Trump

00:02:45.520 serves at his full term, with no incumbent. And in the modern era, which I mark from when President

00:02:50.640 Reagan was in office, we've had four cycles without an incumbent. 1988, 2000, 2008, and 2016.

00:02:59.760 In all those cycles, we had a different dynamic. What we've never had before on either side

00:03:05.860 is a vice president like J.D. Vance. Now, in three of those years, we did have vice presidents

00:03:11.880 who were interested in running for president. George H.W. Bush in 88, Al Gore in 2000, and Joe

00:03:19.300 Biden in 2016. Okay. And in those cases, those vice presidents did not receive overwhelming support

00:03:26.660 from their presidential, from the president who they served with. It's a big deal, because

00:03:32.560 presidents can put their thumb on the scale. This president can really put his thumb on the scale.

00:03:37.720 If, as I expect, Donald Trump endorses J.D. Vance, that in Republican politics, since Trump became

00:03:46.480 the king of the party, has been dispositive. It's rare for Trump to endorse a candidate who doesn't

00:03:51.880 win. But it's more than just Trump's expected support. J.D. Vance has enormous advantages,

00:03:57.700 because we've never seen a vice president like this. Presidents Bush and Gore and Biden were treated by

00:04:04.400 the West Wing, by the president's aides, as people who should not be allowed to build their own

00:04:10.200 political standing while they served as vice president. They wanted to. They were all ambitious.

00:04:15.080 They all wanted to run for president. They knew that after two terms, assuming that ticket was

00:04:19.060 reelected, they would want to run. So they wanted to do the kinds of things you do if you want to run

00:04:23.700 for president. Become acquainted with all your party's top fundraisers. Meet people around the country who

00:04:29.400 are activists. Become highly visible on important policy issues. Get along with the president and

00:04:35.140 the president's team. Build a network of advisors who could help run a presidential campaign.

00:04:40.380 Bush, Gore, and Biden were not allowed to do that. And when they tried, they were smacked down.

00:04:45.960 One of the most remarkable things about the first few months of this administration

00:04:49.620 is J.D. Vance has played his hand perfectly for setting himself up for 2028. He gets along with the

00:04:56.720 president, with the cabinet, with the political advisors. He's made the top fundraiser for the

00:05:01.820 Republican National Committee. That's never happened, to put someone like him, a vice president,

00:05:06.900 in a position to interact regularly with the party's top donors. He's done it in Las Vegas. He's done it

00:05:12.280 in New York. He's done it, I think, in a few other cities. And that's a huge advantage, to be able to say

00:05:17.020 to the party, I'm the man, I'm the one. And to know all the people, to know the activists, the

00:05:23.340 fundraisers, etc. He has a huge, huge leg up. And I think it's possible, and this would be

00:05:28.480 unprecedented, that he doesn't have a serious nomination challenge at all, that no one runs

00:05:34.340 against him, or no one of any significance. And he'll have all the advantages of four years, again,

00:05:40.800 on this current trajectory, of setting everything up. And you look at how active he is on issues,

00:05:46.480 on national security, how active he is on AI, on Doge, on the budget, on every issue that's

00:05:53.900 important, on crypto. It's going to help him raise money, it's going to help him build connections,

00:05:58.620 and it raises his profile within the party. If he doesn't have a nomination fight of any

00:06:04.120 significance, it will make him less battle-tested. That's the one downside. He won't have the rigor

00:06:09.200 building up the political muscles for fighting for the nomination. But the upside of that is,

00:06:14.720 he can raise hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe billions, and put it all towards the

00:06:19.840 general election. One guy raising all the Republican money, leveraging the power of the

00:06:25.080 presidency and the vice presidency. Extraordinary advantage. What do we have on the other side?

00:06:29.940 We've got a Democratic Party with, I think, a hugely overrated field. There's a lot of names on

00:06:35.060 the list. I've seen lists of 20, 30 people who might run for the Democratic nomination. I'm sure

00:06:39.080 not all of them will. But this is a bunch of very flawed candidates. I got nothing against them,

00:06:44.180 and it's possible that one of them will emerge. But when people say, well, Bill Clinton emerged out

00:06:48.460 of nowhere in 92, or Barack Obama out of nowhere in 2008, it's just not true. Both those guys were

00:06:54.720 touted for many, many years as a future presidential candidate and a massive political talent. This

00:07:01.760 current group, again, I don't want to be impolite to them, but they're flawed. There's no one on this

00:07:06.740 list who I look at today and say they're the frontrunner. And in fact, I can't even make a cluster.

00:07:11.340 I ask people all the time, who are the three most likely Democratic nominees? Which Democrats would

00:07:16.320 be the strongest general election candidate? I get all sorts of names, no consensus. And that is

00:07:22.360 unlike any cycle I've ever covered. Even when there's an open race for a party nomination,

00:07:26.800 no incumbent president, there's always a sense of who are the most likely, who are the strongest.

00:07:32.220 I look at these candidates and I see no political athlete of a generation. I see no one with the

00:07:40.000 capacity to do the things you need to do with a huge advantage to get the nomination or to win a

00:07:46.340 general, raise the money, announce policies, dominate the media, et cetera. They're a skilled group of

00:07:52.840 people, but they're flawed. And again, I see no one who I would say is a clear frontrunner or even a

00:07:57.900 pack. So to try to look on the optimistic side for the Democrats, I thought about what are the

00:08:03.320 traits that would be needed to win a nomination and win a general. And the strongest candidates do

00:08:08.200 both at the same time. They run for the nomination on the same message they run for in the general.

00:08:13.260 They use the same skills, the same team, et cetera. So I looked at the Democratic field and I said,

00:08:18.960 could I build a Frankenstein? Could I take a trait from all the leading candidates or many of the

00:08:24.140 leading candidates and say, well, that's good. If the eventual nominee could have that trait from

00:08:29.760 that person and build a cluster of great skills, well, maybe that's the way to do it. So here's

00:08:35.120 my Frankenstein candidate drawn from some of the leading Democratic figures who may run. Some of

00:08:40.080 these people may not run. But this is what, talking to Democratic strategists, I hear, these are the

00:08:44.880 kinds of things they think they're going to need to run against J.D. Vance. If it's him, maybe fate will

00:08:50.240 intervene, it'll be somebody else. But what do the Democrats need? So first I start with Pete

00:08:54.140 Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary, mayor of South Bend. He has a really important

00:09:00.160 skill that Donald Trump has, what I call go on anything confidence. Pete Buttigieg can go on a

00:09:06.160 sports show. He can go on a podcast. He can go on Fox. He can go on conservative media. That confidence

00:09:12.100 to be able to go anywhere is something Donald Trump had in 2016. He went on MSNBC. He went on sports

00:09:18.080 shows. And of course, in 2024, he went on a range of podcasts. So Pete Buttigieg has what I call the

00:09:23.840 go on anything confidence that would be part of the Frankenstein. Second, California Governor Gavin

00:09:31.520 Newsom. What does he have? He has a search for what's modern and an understanding. He is not tied

00:09:37.920 to the past in terms of culture, society, technology, politics. He's always thinking, underrated for this,

00:09:45.580 always thinking about the future, about what's modern, what's next, what are younger people,

00:09:49.980 what are Americans who are just tuning into politics, what do they care about, what do they

00:09:54.340 think about? That understanding of what's modern is a huge trait, which again, the Democrat nominee

00:09:59.800 is going to need. Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, what does she bring to the table? 0.99

00:10:04.620 She understands swing voters in battleground states. She's a popular governor in one of the biggest 1.00

00:10:09.180 battleground states, one of the most important. And she has been pretty consistently popular in her

00:10:14.620 state during rough times by understanding where those voters are. She understands they care about

00:10:19.660 economics. She understands to stay on the right side of cultural issues. Massive advantage. And 1.00

00:10:24.780 again, not every Democrat has that, particularly the ones who do not come from purple states.

00:10:30.260 Rahm Emanuel, former congressman, White House chief of staff, mayor of Chicago, U.S. ambassador to Japan.

00:10:37.320 What does he bring to the table? Fundraising capacity. I mentioned before, J.D. Vance is going to be a

00:10:42.480 monster fundraiser. He's going to raise hundreds of millions, maybe billions, and maybe be able to

00:10:47.560 devote that all to a general election. Rahm Emanuel knows how to raise money. He did it for Bill Clinton

00:10:52.720 back in 1992. He can raise money from his brother, Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood super agent. He knows all

00:10:58.720 the rich Democrats in the country. Hugely important, huge factor to be able to raise enough money,

00:11:04.920 particularly in a big crowded Democratic field, in order to fund a campaign. Amy Klobuchar,

00:11:10.600 senator from Minnesota. She ran for president before in 2020. She's got something that I think

00:11:16.480 is lacking a little bit. You saw my interview on Next Up with Gavin Newsom. Ambivalence. Too many of

00:11:22.660 these Democrats aren't sure they want to be president. Amy Klobuchar is determined. She has the 0.99

00:11:28.460 determination. If she does decide to run, she will do what I think you need to do to win. You got to get

00:11:33.740 up every morning and say, what are the 10 things I need to do today to win the presidency? And then you have

00:11:39.200 to do them. And you have to do them with a fierce determination. I'll tell you again, part of why

00:11:44.740 this field's underrated. You got a lot of younger folks with young kids. You got people who've never

00:11:49.440 run before and have no idea what's involved truly in running for president. Amy Klobuchar has that 0.92

00:11:55.200 determination. That's an important trait. Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, extremely popular.

00:12:01.960 People have raised questions of late about him. I thought he might be the front runner,

00:12:05.200 governor. But people in Harrisburg and in Washington elsewhere have raised questions about his ability

00:12:09.780 to deal with controversy, his willingness to hire strong people to staff around him. You got to deal

00:12:15.460 with both those things if you're going to be a successful presidential candidate. But what he has is the

00:12:20.440 capacity to do two things at once. Mario Cuomo, the former New York governor, said, you campaign in poetry,

00:12:26.860 but you govern in prose. I think what Governor Shapiro has, which any Democrat would be smart to emulate,

00:12:32.240 is he does both. He governs in both poetry and prose. He's very detail-oriented. He works hard at

00:12:38.660 being a good governor in terms of policy and process, but he also understands you got to be

00:12:43.160 inspirational and aspirational. And again, that's a trait that's going to be needed whoever runs for

00:12:48.740 president and wins on the Democratic side. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York,

00:12:54.100 not sure she'll run, but she has the it factor. She's interesting to people. When she talks,

00:13:00.500 she passes my mute button test. If you see her on TV, you got the mute button on or your computer's

00:13:06.620 on mute. You turn it up. You want to hear what she has to say. Let's be honest. A lot of these

00:13:11.140 other Democrats are pretty boring. People are not compelled to hear what they have to say. AOC has

00:13:16.560 that it factor. All right. Gina Raimondo, she was Biden's Commerce Secretary, President Biden's

00:13:21.740 Commerce Secretary, former governor of Rhode Island, not as well-known as some of the others.

00:13:25.000 But I'll tell you where she is well-known, well-liked, and well-respected is in the business 0.99

00:13:29.160 community. This has become a huge asymmetrical advantage for the Republicans. A lot of business

00:13:34.400 leaders have turned towards the Republican Party. They've always been part of the Republican

00:13:39.260 coalition. But the Biden record on economics in particular really turned a lot of Democrats,

00:13:44.200 business leaders off. Raimondo is seen as a pro-business Democrat. She can raise money from

00:13:49.900 them. She can speak their language. She can get their support. Hugely important. And again,

00:13:54.540 part of the Frankenstein candidate. If you're the Democrats, you want someone who can speak the

00:13:58.560 language of business. Ro Khanna, congressman from California, understands policy and how to connect

00:14:05.580 it up to the real lives of real people. You'd think anybody running for president would do this.

00:14:09.760 But the Democratic Party has gone for several decades now without energized, without getting

00:14:16.460 through new policies that really appeal to people in a basic sense. Generating those ideas by thinking

00:14:23.320 by talking to real voters and thinking about what they want is something most of these candidates

00:14:28.780 do not do. Even a lot of the governors. Ro Khanna understands you need policies that appeal to people

00:14:34.660 that can be explained easily. Lastly, Wes Moore, governor of Maryland. He's said he's not going to run,

00:14:42.200 but some people doubt that. But I'll tell you what he brings to the Frankenstein table is an origin story,

00:14:47.420 a biography. He grew up in a humble background. He served in the military. He was the head of a

00:14:54.080 nonprofit that helps disadvantaged people. Having an origin story that you say to the American people,

00:14:59.920 here's my life. It doesn't have to be humble background. Donald Trump, George Bush, hardly

00:15:03.840 humble background. But you need a story to say, here's where I've been. Here's what I've done.

00:15:09.320 Here's what I've experienced. This is why I think I should be president. These are the ideas that I have.

00:15:14.620 Wes Moore brings that origin story, that strong bio to the table. It's incredibly important to have

00:15:20.820 these things. Now, I will say, who wasn't on my list? Kamala Harris. I looked, I thought long and

00:15:27.140 hard, what are the traits Kamala Harris has as a strong candidate? Bring to the table. Name ID, 1.00

00:15:33.760 something you don't necessarily get from most of these other candidates. But that puts in sharp

00:15:38.760 relief the challenge I think the Democrats have. Even their more experienced candidates, even the ones who

00:15:43.380 understand more of what it takes to win a nomination and win a general election, they do not have the

00:15:49.620 complete package. Vance's flaw, J.D. Vance is not a perfect candidate, but the asymmetrical advantages

00:15:54.600 he has if he gets Donald Trump's endorsement, if he executes on money and policy and communication

00:16:00.260 and building a center-right coalition will make him very formidable. These Democrats are flawed. You

00:16:06.600 could run through all the ones I said listed their positive traits and list five or six negative ones

00:16:11.800 that make it seem unlikely that they would win the nomination or win a general election. I will make

00:16:17.760 this prediction. Someone's going to be the Democratic nominee. And unless someone emerges that I haven't

00:16:22.920 thought of, it's going to be someone pretty flawed. But what Democrats say to me who have run and won

00:16:28.960 presidential campaigns is whoever the nominee is needs to study the best of their colleagues, the ability

00:16:35.680 to do the various things that these 10 folks have and try to figure out a winning way to compete.

00:16:41.820 Because before too long, it's going to be 2027, 2028. And on this trajectory, as I've said, J.D. Vance has an

00:16:49.060 extraordinary set of asymmetrical advantages. And if the Democrats want to win back the White House,

00:16:53.880 they're going to have to figure out how to build that Frankenstein, not in the lab, but by having at least

00:16:58.580 one of their candidates rise to the occasion. All right, we'll keep following that. Next up, my conversation with

00:17:04.560 the former House Speaker, Nick Gingrich, right after this.

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00:18:35.640 All right, next up, the former Speaker of the House, someone who's been on the national stage for a very

00:18:40.380 long time, has written a lot of books, but never gets old because his mind is as agile as it's always

00:18:47.580 been. Newt Gingrich, thank you for joining next up. Delighted to be with you, as always.

00:18:53.260 All right. So you've written a lot of books. The newest one is called Trump's Triumph. You've got

00:18:58.100 lots to do with your time these days. Why did you spend time writing a book about Donald Trump?

00:19:03.500 Well, it's actually about both Trump and the subtitle is America's Greatest Comeback. And in October,

00:19:10.720 we sat down and thought about, I have a team that I work with, particularly Louis Brogdon

00:19:14.900 and Joe Gaylord. And, you know, we were confident we were going to win. And we thought, first of all,

00:19:22.080 it's an astonishing story, as you know, to come down the escalator in 15, win, lose, win.

00:19:31.420 Second, I was pretty convinced because I'd been working with the America First Policy Institute

00:19:35.800 that Trump was going to be dramatically bolder than he was in his first term and that it would be bold

00:19:42.500 in a general direction that would be the first real challenge to the Rooseveltian system since it

00:19:49.900 was established by FDR in 1933. So I wanted to put a historic perspective on what we're about to live

00:19:57.580 through and to both say in sort of part one, here's how we got here, which is Trump's triumph.

00:20:03.480 But also, here's where America wants to go and what the American people are saying and why they

00:20:10.660 stuck with him through everything. I mean, you know, two impeachments, four efforts to put him

00:20:15.720 in jail, two assassination attempts. You know, he's the only candidate in history who knocked the

00:20:22.040 incumbent president out of the race by June, pivoted and then defeated the incumbent vice president.

00:20:26.300 So something was there that was bigger than personality. As charismatic and as effective

00:20:32.960 as Trump is, if he didn't actually have a MAGA movement, he would not have survived. So I think

00:20:38.160 it's a combination of the movement and the man and where will they take us?

00:20:43.760 I want to talk first about the man and then the movement. You've known Donald Trump for a long time,

00:20:48.440 but you've known him, tell me if I'm wrong, but I think I'm right. You've got to know him much

00:20:52.500 better over the last decade than you did before. Yeah, I mean, I sort of generally knew him and we

00:20:56.500 actually joined Trump National shortly after he took it over. And we would see him there back before

00:21:02.440 he was a candidate. In fact, he used to feed Callista french fries, which was mildly weird,

00:21:08.620 sitting around at lunch. But our first real political conversation was February of 2015 in a

00:21:18.940 place you've been often, the downtown Marriott in Des Moines. We were there for a conference

00:21:24.240 that on national security, Trump was there. And he called and said, hey, we're in the same hotel,

00:21:30.280 why don't we do breakfast? So he and Callista and I got together and he would watch me run

00:21:34.860 for president in 12. And even though I'd failed, he understood that I knew a little bit about

00:21:40.280 presidential campaigns. So we talked candidly about what would it take to run? It was the first time I

00:21:46.000 really began to realize that he would be moved beyond the amusing interview stage towards seriously

00:21:52.920 plotting a campaign. And I've watched him ever since. Yeah, you know him better than I do. But

00:21:59.720 to the extent I know him, I find the gap between what he's actually like and how he's portrayed in

00:22:04.760 the media to be as big as almost anyone I've ever covered. I'm wondering how you can describe

00:22:09.600 things about Donald Trump, particular traits or big themes that you think are not fully portrayed for

00:22:15.480 the American people. Well, I mean, let me say, I think that the closest analogy to Trump is Andrew

00:22:21.840 Jackson. And when Jackson took on the entire national establishment, he infuriated them so

00:22:27.680 much. And that included all the academic elites. He did not get a good biography till 1955 because he

00:22:36.300 was just anathema. Trump has some of that same characteristic. He is such a mortal threat to the

00:22:43.400 elites, both at the New York Times and the Washington Post and Harvard, that they just

00:22:47.940 can't, they can't bring themselves to cover the person because they're so angry at what they perceive

00:22:54.660 that he's doing. I find him to be, first of all, stunningly smart. I mean, I think I'm reasonably

00:23:03.900 smart. I have no doubt that he is much smarter than I am. Okay, let's, I want to interrupt you and dwell on

00:23:09.300 that one for a second, because I'm not sure he's smarter than you are. You might be able to be a

00:23:13.480 little bit self-effacing. You're a very smart person, but there's no doubt you put your finger

00:23:17.460 on something. You could read every New York Times or Washington Post story ever written about Donald

00:23:21.540 Trump, and not one will say he's very smart, but he is. So just talk more about, there's different

00:23:26.680 kinds of intelligence. How is he smart? Well, he's smart at three or four levels, some of which I just

00:23:32.500 literally don't have. One is, he's essentially intuitive. That is, he absorbs an enormous amount

00:23:38.020 of information. He is the most existential politician I've ever seen. I mean, Nelson Mandela

00:23:44.520 would be probably the closest parallel. Everything Trump does is in the moment. He is totally engaged,

00:23:51.860 totally involved, and he's sort of schizophrenic in that part of him is thinking strategically,

00:23:56.660 while the other part is totally engaged with you. And so he absorbs stuff, and he's absorbing stuff

00:24:04.600 all the time. I mean, when occasionally I have a conversation with him, I realize that there are

00:24:10.680 three or four conversations going on simultaneously in one conversation, because he's thinking about

00:24:15.760 this, and then he's overthinking about that, and things just flow. He is... Let me just stop you

00:24:22.800 there, because I just want to put a button on this, because it's so important. One way he's intelligent,

00:24:27.020 you're saying, is he has the capacity to think in the moment, talk in the moment, but be thinking

00:24:32.660 about other things, and kind of connecting them all up and processing them. Sorry, go ahead, second.

00:24:36.960 And I think somewhere, and you know, I think unless you, and you understand this even better than I do,

00:24:42.160 because you're a New Yorker, and you went to school in Boston, which I picked up the other day,

00:24:47.480 I thought was great. You know, moving from, people don't get this, moving from Queens to Manhattan

00:24:55.580 is impossible. Nobody in the Manhattan elites is going to accept some newcomer from Queens who's 1.00

00:25:04.100 brash and loud and rising. And so he spent his entire formative years being an outsider and wanting

00:25:12.560 to be an insider, and I think finally concluding he ain't ever going to be an insider. So he would just

00:25:17.960 get to be so big, they would like to be inside with him. And I think there's a very key part of what

00:25:23.420 drives him, is that... How does that speak to intelligence? Because I want to stay on that. Does that speak

00:25:27.640 to intelligence? Yeah, because think about it. He had to sharpen all of his skills, whatever he thought

00:25:33.020 he knew coming out of Queens. He had to learn a whole new world, a whole new system. He describes some of this

00:25:38.460 in his two best books, The Art of the Deal and The Art of the Comeback. And there's one line when he says

00:25:43.580 that he was going to redo the building, which I think is Trump Tower, and they were going to try to

00:25:49.480 keep the Art Deco front, and the New York Times loved it and was nice to him, until the engineer said

00:25:54.340 that's $3 million extra, at which point Trump said he didn't like the Art Deco that much, at which point

00:26:00.080 the New York Times attacked him for three straight days. Well, he said the lesson he learned was he had lots

00:26:05.460 of people suddenly call him and say, I didn't know you were doing condominiums. And his conclusion

00:26:10.560 was, any media beats no media. And bad media is better than no media. And part of it is, and this

00:26:19.100 is what I mean by his intelligence, not only does he learn from you and me face to face, or on the

00:26:24.560 telephone or whatever, but in the back of his head, he's building models. He had to build a model of

00:26:30.200 Queens kid, millionaire in Manhattan. And that was a model. This is how it works. So he's constantly 0.90

00:26:37.360 looking. I mean, I'm sure right now, for example, with Putin, that he's very troubled. And every

00:26:43.320 model he had for how it was going to work has failed. And he is grudgingly moving towards a level

00:26:48.900 of toughness that will shock Putin. Because Putin is mistaking patience for timidity. And I've seen this

00:26:57.820 over and over again. The other part of that, and I don't know whether it relates to intelligence,

00:27:02.040 he is as much of an alpha male as anyone I've ever seen. I mean, you take, and this is what Harvard's

00:27:07.760 learning, you take him head on, he will be compelled as an act of survival to take you apart.

00:27:15.800 He'll have no choice.

00:27:17.300 The way I think that that speaks to intelligence, and I'm going to give you a few others to comment

00:27:21.320 on that I see, is he knows how to leverage advantages. He knows what advantages he has. He knows being an

00:27:27.280 alpha is an advantage in most situations. And he sizes up and knows how to leverage it.

00:27:31.600 Well, he doesn't just know how to leverage. He thinks ahead and understands that there are five

00:27:35.540 or six different points going. So very often I find I'll be on point three and he's on point 11.

00:27:42.580 Right. I'll give you three others. And you can just say, yes, Mark, you're right. Or you can say

00:27:47.080 I'm wrong. Or you can just comment on them. One is his ability to size up people is as good as

00:27:51.680 anybody I've ever seen. He understands what motivates them. He understands how he can get what he wants

00:27:57.260 from them. Two is he understands the media as well as any politician I've ever covered.

00:28:02.300 You're pretty sophisticated about the media. Barack Obama is, he's as sophisticated about

00:28:07.260 as anybody I've ever met who's been in elective office. He does not have a blind spot about the

00:28:11.900 media the way Bill Clinton did, for instance. And then lastly is he gets politics. He gets what

00:28:17.280 the traffic will bear on an issue. How far can he go within the Republican Party to lean towards

00:28:22.700 being more pro life on a pro choice on abortion? How far can he go on on dealing with Canada? He

00:28:29.660 just he just understands what the traffic will bear. Well, and remember, all of that's intuitive.

00:28:34.800 Yeah. Although as long as we're in this conversation about the media, can you explain to me his

00:28:39.820 fascination with Maggie Haberman? I can, but I won't. I part of it's the New York Times. But part of it is

00:28:47.720 she pushes his buttons and she, he wants, he wants her, her, his, her approval so badly, but I can't

00:28:53.400 fully explain it. The three of us, the three of us. I don't know if he wants her approval or her

00:28:58.080 attention, but that's the, that's the funniest single dance. Yeah. I see him doing the media.

00:29:03.720 Yeah. It's a pretty funny one. Josh Dawsey of the, now of the Wall Street Journal is someone else who

00:29:08.140 he's pretty focused on, I'm told, but, but Maggie Haberman of the Times, second to none. And I'll just say

00:29:13.620 to button up the thing about Trump's intelligence. One of the, one of the, to me, one of the stories

00:29:18.420 of Trump's success in the last decade is he's constantly underestimated. And, and you benefited

00:29:24.000 from that at times too. People, his opponents underestimate, say, well, Gingrich, you know,

00:29:29.220 is too far right, or Gingrich doesn't understand this or that. And it allowed you to succeed.

00:29:34.260 People, when I tell people Trump's smart, and I've told, I've said to people I know who are quite smart,

00:29:39.280 you don't understand. Trump's smarter than you. You're very smart, I'll say to them,

00:29:43.020 but Trump's smarter than you. And, and I've lost friends over saying that to them. And, and,

00:29:47.540 and, and they just, they, they just, they should accept the fact that they don't know him and

00:29:52.340 they'll have a better chance of beating him if they, if they deal with him on the terms of reality,

00:29:57.040 which is he's a really smart guy. You know, I mean, in many ways, he's parallel to Eisenhower and

00:30:01.880 Reagan, both of whom consciously underplayed how really good they were. Yeah. Because they thought it

00:30:09.700 was a net advantage. Yeah. And I, and I think part of Trump's vaudevillian approach,

00:30:14.900 and he's, he's clearly a vaudeville performer. And part of that, I think, is a deliberate,

00:30:19.880 how can you really be afraid of me? I'm just this funny guy. Yeah. And when watching him take

00:30:26.280 apart Jeb Bush psychologically was one of the master classes in how really clever Donald Trump is.

00:30:32.920 Yep. Absolutely. All right. You mentioned President Reagan. I often think, what would

00:30:38.420 Thomas Jefferson think of my iPhone? You know, if you, if you had time with Jefferson, you showed

00:30:43.980 him the iPhone, what would he think? What would Reagan think of Trump? They knew each other when

00:30:48.520 President Reagan was alive, but what would he think of Trump being a two-term president?

00:30:52.520 How would he explain it?

00:30:53.460 That's a, boy, that is a great question. I mean, I knew Reagan reasonably well and began working

00:31:02.560 with him in 74. I think, I mean, Reagan was as much a realist as Trump. And people forget he

00:31:09.900 led the only strike by the Screen Actors Guild and was successful. He conscious, I mean, he was,

00:31:18.080 he was amazing. He was more deliberative than Trump, more structured, I would say, than Trump.

00:31:25.060 But I think Reagan would say, looking at all this, two things. One is that Trump has an enormous set

00:31:31.600 of skills that make him uniquely formidable as a president or a candidate. And the other is that

00:31:40.140 his opponents are just idiots. I mean, I think, I think Reagan would have said, you know, you give 1.00

00:31:45.460 me Hillary Clinton, having run against Mondale and Carter, you give me Hillary Clinton, and then you

00:31:50.320 follow it up with Joe Biden and Barack, and with Kamala Harris. He said, I wouldn't be too shocked

00:31:57.700 that Trump could beat them.

00:32:00.080 Yeah. Let me ask you the Reagan question in a slightly different way. There's only been two

00:32:03.720 Republican presidents between Reagan and Trump, which is kind of incredible given the gap, both

00:32:08.680 Bushes. And you and I both know what the Bush family thinks of Donald Trump. They think he's a

00:32:13.220 Philistine who has destroyed the Republican Party and has no business being president. Would Reagan 0.85

00:32:18.400 say that? Would Reagan say, I hate what Trump has done to the party? Or would he embrace what Trump

00:32:22.660 has done to the party? That's what the Bushes would have said about Reagan if they could have gotten 1.00

00:32:25.400 away with it. I don't know if 43 would have said that. Maybe 40. Oh, yeah. No. George Schultz used

00:32:31.160 to say that H.W. Bush eliminated every Reaganite in the first week. Well, but Bush 43 spoke fondly of

00:32:41.980 Reagan. He did. Oh, sure. Maybe you don't think he meant it. But what would Ronald Reagan say

00:32:47.160 about a guy who, I know this is your view because I've heard you say it, he's changed the party

00:32:52.060 fundamentally. He's moved the party from being a conservative party to being an anti-liberal party.

00:32:56.260 But what would Reagan say about the impact Donald Trump has had on the Republican Party? Would he

00:33:02.120 embrace it? Or would he have mixed feelings? Or would he be like the Bushes? I mean, first of all,

00:33:06.200 I think there's the, they lived in two very different worlds. Yeah. And I think that's a

00:33:11.680 big part of where we are. The left had to, the left had to take us off a deep cliff to make sense

00:33:17.540 out of, out of Trump. I would say Reagan, who had after all given 480 speeches to blue collar workers

00:33:26.720 for General Electric over an eight year period. I think Reagan would say it's pretty impressive

00:33:32.980 to finally have a Republican who actually understands and is part of a blue collar movement.

00:33:40.520 Yeah. Again, Reagan was an FDR Democrat. Yeah. Just as Trump was a Democrat. I mean,

00:33:45.700 these guys had a lot they could compare notes on. Yeah. I don't know if you, I don't know if you

00:33:49.220 could quantify it, but it appears to me that Trump has moved the Republican Party to be more of a

00:33:55.300 working class party than even Reagan did. Much more. And Reagan, and Reagan was famous for having

00:34:00.120 created the Reagan Democrats and, and changing the image of the party. So I would think that

00:34:04.560 perhaps Reagan would look in awe, respect, whatever to say, wow, this guy, this guy from New York has

00:34:11.040 moved it. I think Reagan would have said that what we did with the contract was standing on his

00:34:16.120 shoulders, which it was. And that what Trump has done is the natural extension. I mean, it only

00:34:22.300 occurred to me in the last couple of days, you really can't just talk about Biden. What you have

00:34:26.940 is an Obama Biden continuum, which took the country into a series of divisive and destructive patterns,

00:34:33.560 which suddenly made Trump seem reasonable. If you were a blue collar American. Yeah. And so I think

00:34:41.320 Reagan would have said, given the trajectory starting with Obama, Trump is a perfectly natural reaction.

00:34:48.400 And it is terrific that he can communicate with and rally working Americans of every ethnic

00:34:54.520 background. I mean, he, his ethnic reach is astonishing. Yeah. I want to talk more about

00:34:58.920 that, but I want to button up on, on the history and then get to the present regarding the cultural

00:35:03.160 changes in particular. No one, as far as I know, has written the comprehensive book when, about the

00:35:09.880 following topic. You and I both say, and we're not the only ones, Trump didn't create the movement.

00:35:14.740 He saw that it was there and he seized it. He got to the front of the parade and not diminishing the

00:35:19.080 accomplishment, but the movement was there. And I look at the movement. And again, I go back to

00:35:23.480 Reagan, because I think that's when the modern history of all these things began. I see Reagan.

00:35:28.000 I see you. I see Pat Buchanan as three people who are part of the through line that led to Trump,

00:35:35.400 not on the negative side, as you said, in reacting to Democrats. Who are the other people besides

00:35:39.320 Pat Buchanan and Reagan and yourself, you'd put on that list? He's sort of forgotten now,

00:35:44.740 but I actually think Goldwater was very formative. I mean, yeah, number of young people who read

00:35:49.580 conscience of a conservative and suddenly said, that's right. That's, that's real. That's how

00:35:55.460 the world should. I mean, he had an astonishing impact in creating a party which would nominate

00:36:00.420 Nixon in 68. And Reagan's, as you know, Reagan's speech for Goldwater, which people can watch on

00:36:06.340 YouTube as a time for choosing, is still, you can watch it today and it's totally relevant. I mean,

00:36:12.420 Reagan was talking about universal truths that don't disappear. And I think a lot of what Trump

00:36:18.880 tried to do, has tried to do, is pick up on a similar pattern. Trump is a deeply American patriot.

00:36:24.980 Trump is for the work ethic. Trump is for meritocracy, knowing that it drives the left crazy.

00:36:30.800 And Trump is for normal people. I mean, the moment when he went to McDonald's to give out French 0.88

00:36:36.440 fries and then got into the garbage truck, putting on a garbage collector's vest and walks into the

00:36:42.500 arena with 50,000 people and says, you know, they tell me the vest makes me look thinner. Maybe I'll

00:36:47.000 wear it for the rest of the campaign. That is an identification Reagan would totally have

00:36:51.320 approved of. Now, Reagan was a movie star. I mean, Reagan was never, I mean, he may have been back

00:36:56.740 in Illinois or at WHO in Des Moines. But by the time Reagan had become president, he was a movie

00:37:02.720 star. He was part of the great national elite. But he represented and could communicate with

00:37:08.940 an amazing range of Americans. And I think he would say that, and Nancy used to feel very much

00:37:16.640 that she was treated by Washington much the way Trump is. I mean, she was fairly bitter

00:37:22.340 about some of the treatment that she took. Yeah. Is there anyone else, I take your point on

00:37:27.280 Goldwater, is there anyone else from the 90s, the aughts or the teens pre-Trump who you would say

00:37:32.140 belongs in a history of the MAGA movement as being someone who popularized its ideas, who generated

00:37:39.140 ideas, who played on the national stage? I mean, one of the amazing, relatively unknown figures is

00:37:46.060 Grover Norquist. Yeah, I agree. The degree to which Grover and Americans for Tax Reform

00:37:51.200 has spread the no tax increase pledge, the degree to which you just saw it in action when there was

00:37:59.400 a rumor floated about the possibility of raising taxes on billionaires. And people came down hard

00:38:05.100 and said, no, we are not the party that raises taxes, which, of course, was the great fight

00:38:09.440 with George H.W. Bush. I mean, Grover has been one of the seminal figures in the modern

00:38:16.440 conservative. By the way, the other person who, this may get her in trouble, but if you look at

00:38:22.900 Brooke Rollins from the creation of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is now, I guess,

00:38:28.820 25 years ago, up through the Americans for the America First Policy Institute, she assembled and

00:38:36.040 directed a collection of people who laid the base intellectually for what Trump has done in the

00:38:43.620 second term and who understood bridging a conservative movement into, and you're exactly

00:38:51.820 right, Trump is not essentially a conservative. He doesn't read National Review, which, of course,

00:38:56.340 drives the National View editors crazy. But Trump is the most effective anti-liberal in my lifetime.

00:39:03.160 Yeah. You mentioned Grover Norquist, and I think it's a great addition to my list. He's a Washington

00:39:07.920 organizer. He's not very well known outside of Washington. But I'll tell you two things that I

00:39:13.420 think Grover did that are antecedents to Trump, besides holding the line on taxes, tax increases.

00:39:20.040 One is, he was one of the first people who made owning the libs a thing, right? Being anti-liberal as

00:39:28.680 a unifying organizing principle, being against universities, being against the media, being

00:39:33.200 against woke corporatism. And Trump inherited the energy of that. The other thing Grover did,

00:39:39.220 and Grover's famous, he holds a Wednesday meeting in Washington with groups. And I used to have the

00:39:43.740 privilege as a reporter of attending off the record. It's the biggest tent you can imagine.

00:39:48.220 There are people there who care about abortion, right? Right to life. There are people who care

00:39:52.380 about taxes. There are people who care about regulation. There are people who care about

00:39:56.000 gun Second Amendment rights. And Grover taught them, we got to be a big tent. You may be from a

00:40:01.340 Second Amendment group, but if we want to rename Washington's airport after Ronald Reagan,

00:40:05.920 you're going to be part of that coalition. And that's, I think, what Trump did extremely effectively.

00:40:10.860 Well, the other thing I would say is you cannot describe the rise of modern conservatism

00:40:16.200 without three people, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Roger Ailes. I mean, the degree to which they

00:40:24.160 are, they unified an entire nationwide movement, educated, in the case of Ailes, built an entire

00:40:31.940 network for it, created a frame of, and again, if you listen to them, they're much more anti-left-wing 0.99

00:40:39.940 stupidity than they are doctrinaire conservatives. Yeah. But their collective impact, I mean, 1.00

00:40:46.300 Rush and Sean, in terms of the scale of their audience, and Roger, in terms of the scale of

00:40:50.100 the institution he built, they were a major counterbalance to the traditional media.

00:40:56.420 No doubt. And only one of those three is still alive, Sean. And those who don't listen to Sean to

00:41:01.700 understand Trump are making a mistake. The reason those guys have an affinity is for the very reason

00:41:06.180 you said, which is they are part of that same understanding of how to communicate that Trump

00:41:11.840 took advantage of. Less doctrinaire conservative, less here are my 82 ideas, and more we need

00:41:18.620 fundamental change because there's too much going on on the left that's being rejected by working

00:41:22.500 class people. And by the way, in Sean's case, I think he's known Trump for 30 years. Yeah. I mean,

00:41:27.580 it's a genuine social friendly, you know, they can talk for an hour, an hour and a half because

00:41:32.060 they're New Yorkers and they understand the rhythm of each other. Yeah. They end almost every sentence

00:41:38.160 with forget about it. We're going to take a little bit of a break, Mr. Speaker. And when we come back,

00:41:43.000 we're going to talk more about Trump's triumph, Speaker Gingrich's 111th book, and about woke culture

00:41:48.840 after this brief break. Now, let me tell you a story about a guy named Leo Grillo. While on a road

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00:43:10.360 All right, more next up with Beaker Gingrich. Newt Gingrich has written a new book,

00:43:14.080 Trump's triumph, and it is not just, as he said, a history of Donald Trump, but also of the movement

00:43:22.920 and what's going on in America now. Who should buy this book, Mr. Speaker? Who's it intended for?

00:43:28.540 Trump fans, historians? Who's it for?

00:43:30.660 I think it's really aimed at any citizen who wants a sense of how do we get here and where could we

00:43:36.680 possibly go from here? And I think it's the combination of the book. America's greatest

00:43:41.200 achievement part really launches into the next 50 years. And of course, Trump's triumph was the last

00:43:47.700 unique cycle going back to 2015. So I tried to have both a, you know, before looking back and

00:43:55.800 looking forward in the same book. I said earlier in the program, my thesis, that we've never seen

00:44:01.500 an incumbent vice president in the modern era, again, since Reagan, with the advantages that

00:44:06.780 that Vice President Vance has, and that that puts him on the current trajectory on a path to

00:44:12.400 nomination if he chooses to, that could be almost effortless to win the nomination. I'm wondering

00:44:18.640 what your analysis is of his, of how well positioned he is right now with the president, with the White

00:44:24.660 House, with activists, donors, et cetera, if he chooses to run for the nomination.

00:44:28.760 Well, if Trump is a success, remember this is, I always tell the Trump team that they've won a ticket

00:44:34.660 to the dance, but now they've got to dance. If Trump is a success, I think it's almost inevitable

00:44:41.220 that Vance will become the presidential nominee. I watched the two of them, Cliff and I watched on

00:44:48.380 TV, the two of them at the National Cemetery on Memorial Day. And, you know, realizing that J.D.

00:44:56.460 Vance is one year younger than Richard Nixon was when Eisenhower picked him. I mean, so he's a very

00:45:02.880 young vice president. He's almost in the Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy range.

00:45:09.920 And he's been very smart. I mean, you know, when they had the announcement a couple weeks ago,

00:45:13.940 oh, he's going to be the national finance chairman for the Republican National Committee.

00:45:18.740 Well, he'll know every major Republican donor in the country by sometime early next year.

00:45:25.540 Now, you combine standing next to Trump, the natural news coverage, you know, visiting the last

00:45:32.440 pope, visiting the new pope, making major speeches that really do matter, which he has done.

00:45:40.560 It's very hard for me to see, if he wants it, how he avoids becoming the Republican nominee. And then

00:45:46.020 the question will be, I think the only question for 26 and 28 is really simple. Is it working?

00:45:53.920 Whatever it is. If it's working, we're going to keep the House in 26 and we're going to elect J.D.

00:45:59.580 Vance president in 28. Assuming it stays on this trajectory and it's working well enough,

00:46:04.500 at least for Republicans, can you name either the person or the type of person who would challenge J.D.

00:46:10.380 Vance for the nomination? Well, look, it's a free country. I mean, there are a lot of governors,

00:46:15.220 there are a lot of senators, there are a lot of billionaires. I mean, you know, you are allowed

00:46:19.300 to come and play. You're just not guaranteed to win. I discovered that in 2012 when I did pretty

00:46:25.420 well until I ran into Romney's millions and learned that it's a game for big boys. It's not, you know,

00:46:30.500 it's not. But is the opening potentially someone to his right, to his left, anti-establishment?

00:46:36.680 I have no idea how that, I mean, because he is going to be, it's beyond MAGA.

00:46:45.220 If we are succeeding, J.D. Vance will be the articulator and the co-manager. I mean,

00:46:54.880 he's done a great job, for example, in the Senate, getting the cabinet through because

00:46:58.680 he could go back to his senatorial colleagues. He's done a very good job so far representing

00:47:04.180 America overseas. He did a great job on Memorial Day just standing next to the president at Arlington.

00:47:10.360 I mean, you watch, you look at that picture and you think to yourself, what's the wedge somebody's

00:47:17.120 going to try to drive? And I don't see how they do it. I mean, everybody's allowed to run and

00:47:21.920 every professional consultant in the country will have some plausible explanation of why you should

00:47:27.240 hire them. But I mean, from my standpoint as a historian, look, I was for Jack Kemp against George

00:47:34.280 H.W. Bush in 1988. And I learned the power of having stood next to Reagan. Because inside your

00:47:43.100 own party, it may be harder in the general, but inside your own party, it's very hard to beat a

00:47:49.020 vice president. Yeah. And Bush 41 had nothing like the support of President Reagan that Donald Trump's

00:47:54.400 likely to give J.D. Vance. If the RNC said, we want to do deep opposition research and prepare

00:48:01.740 for three Democrats who are most likely to be the Democratic nominee for president,

00:48:06.880 who would you tell them to prepare for? Which three? I haven't got a clue. I mean. Because they

00:48:12.680 all look weak? Well, because now you're talking about winning a nomination. Yeah.

00:48:19.040 Yeah. Look, I mean, at one level, you have to say, and I just did Newsom's podcast, so I have to be

00:48:24.860 nice to him. I mean, and he's very, very smart. I mean, he's very agile. He's also very shallow and

00:48:31.260 has to carry California on his back. And that may be by itself prohibitive. But if you have the

00:48:38.760 largest state in the country and the kind of fundraising that the San Francisco mafia can do,

00:48:43.760 he has to be considered a serious candidate. For the life of me, I don't understand Pritzker.

00:48:49.040 I can't admit it. But he has so much money. He apparently was pretty effective in New Hampshire.

00:48:55.020 I think the governor, Whitmer, of Michigan is the most attractive of the Democrats, just in terms of

00:49:00.980 fitting a series of different boxes. And I think the governor of Pennsylvania is probably the smartest

00:49:05.240 of them. But again, but he's Shapiro. And can a Jewish governor of Pennsylvania really find love

00:49:12.680 in the Democratic primary? And I'm not sure. Okay. I just want to ask you about one thing

00:49:18.160 respectfully. You've been on Governor Newsom's show. He's been on my show. You said he's shallow.

00:49:23.540 And I know that's a common view. But I'm wondering what you base that on, because I don't think he is.

00:49:28.340 Well, shallow may be the wrong. He's agile.

00:49:31.880 Yeah. Agile sounds more positive than shallow to me.

00:49:35.620 I don't have a thesaurus here.

00:49:36.800 I meant it in the sense that he's able to constantly move. He wrote a book, which I actually

00:49:42.100 touted, Citizenville, which I think is a very good book. And what puzzles me about Newsom is,

00:49:49.460 to your point, where you're right, and I didn't say it very well, Newsom has the potential to be

00:49:55.340 very serious, very thoughtful, and very real. He avoids that, partially because it doesn't pay in

00:50:01.800 Sacramento, to actually think through how bad Sacramento is. And that's what I meant. He is a

00:50:07.140 guy who has the potential to go deep. He consciously stays on the surface.

00:50:11.260 Okay. I'm more open to that analysis than Sean.

00:50:14.180 Okay.

00:50:15.820 I think one of the biggest stories of the last four months, and really go back further, but more

00:50:21.160 impactful as president, is the degree to which woke culture, in all its manifestations, is on the

00:50:28.180 retreat. It's almost an unfathomable story. The only thing I can compare it to was at the end of

00:50:34.260 the Cold War, as Eastern European countries started to change so quickly, and the Berlin Wall came down.

00:50:41.980 If you look at Silicon Valley, so many of the leaders there are now not just neutral, but they're

00:50:47.040 very pro-Trump. Their employees, I thought, would revolt. They have not, or at least not openly.

00:50:52.220 The Washington Post owner announces, we're not going to endorse Kamala Harris. I thought there'd be

00:50:56.960 mass resignations. A lot of people have left the paper, but the paper continues to run.

00:51:01.960 Harvard, although they're at war with the president, clearly on the retreat. So much has

00:51:08.160 changed in the culture where political correctness is no longer terrorizing people. I'm just wondering

00:51:16.820 if you think what's happened has happened simply because of the firm actions of this administration,

00:51:24.080 or did they basically just tap into something that was already ripe to happen?

00:51:30.080 Well, you may remember the story, the childhood story about the emperor who had no clothing.

00:51:35.640 Yeah.

00:51:36.020 And all of his advisors had told him that having no clothing was great and that it was exactly what

00:51:40.500 he should do. And as he's walking down the street, this little boy goes, he's naked. And the emperor

00:51:46.220 looks around and suddenly realizes, yeah, I'm naked. You guys are crazy. 0.99

00:51:49.000 I think what happened was there's a remarkable story to be told someday, which at least goes back to the 0.96

00:51:56.700 early 60s. And I wrote some of it for The Spectator a while back. The American left has roots all the

00:52:05.440 way back to the beginning of the 20th century of despising American bourgeois culture, believing the

00:52:13.160 average person's incompetent. I mean, Woodrow Wilson said publicly that we have to have experts because

00:52:18.360 normal people can't make decisions. And that process of thought has grown and mutated for

00:52:27.060 over a century. It gained, in Lenin's sense, the commanding heights, the universities, the news

00:52:34.580 media, the people from the universities began to infiltrate the corporations. So the 29-year-old

00:52:40.200 assistant to the president is totally left-wing nutso and gets the president to do things stupid like 1.00

00:52:45.520 having a transvestite for, you know, for a Bud Light. I mean, you go down and look at what was 1.00

00:52:52.060 going on. But everybody thought that it was unavoidable. It was irritating. We wish it wasn't

00:52:57.800 happening. But what can you do about it? Where Trump is sort of amazing is he knew, he intuited that

00:53:06.160 among a huge block of Americans, much bigger than his vote, actually, that people despised us. We do a

00:53:13.280 project called the America's New Majority Project, which people can go to that website. And we've

00:53:18.420 been taking polling since 2018. And you ask questions, for example, should boys be in girls

00:53:23.960 sports? No, 15% say yes. Should teachers control everything that happens to children with no

00:53:29.620 knowledge of the parent? 15% say yes. You can go down a whole series of these things. And what you

00:53:34.500 have is that AOC, who's much more radical culturally than Bernie Sanders, I mean, Sanders is an old-time

00:53:42.020 left-wing socialist. AOC's worldview, which is very central to the Democratic Party, has really become

00:53:50.940 dominant, ultimately has a base so small that they're going to be crushed if they stay there.

00:53:59.320 And what happened was Trump stood up, starting really in 15 and 16, when his first attacks on

00:54:06.040 illegal immigration horrified people. You may remember the first Fox debate where he got in 0.92

00:54:12.080 this brutal knockdown with Megyn Kelly. You flinched, I flinched, Calista flinched, watching it on TV.

00:54:19.400 I watched the Frank Luntz focus group. Everybody in the elite said he lost this debate. And I began

00:54:27.220 looking at the various websites where people could vote, and he was getting 70% in a field of 16.

00:54:34.820 And by midnight that night, I thought, there is a phenomenon building here that none of us

00:54:40.180 understand. And I think that Trump was tapping the root of people who are sick and tired of being told

00:54:47.940 they have to suffer lies. And so, I mean, just the act, and again, this is radical,

00:54:53.700 the act of saying there are two sexes, male and female. Biologically true, very different than the

00:54:59.380 cultural issue of gender. But just the act of saying that was, of course, verboten.

00:55:04.180 And people have now, and this is where Europeans are in deep trouble, and in Canada, because the

00:55:10.020 structures there, the elites, are desperately clinging to power in order to impose lies on their

00:55:15.620 population. And in every single one of those countries, people are beginning to rebel in terms

00:55:20.740 of populist movements. I know it's a mixed picture, but I'm going to ask you to answer binary.

00:55:25.060 Is the American left adjusting to the reality that they're out of step on so many cultural issues

00:55:31.300 and moving towards change? Or do you think they're more dug in and still have their eyes closed on

00:55:36.740 things like trans athletes in women's sports? You may be the best political reporter I know.

00:55:44.420 So I'm going to venture out here, and then you can explain to me whether I'm close to right.

00:55:50.420 I believe they're heading towards a civil war. I believe that the rational, I mean,

00:55:56.260 in a sense, AOC and Schumer is a perfect model. Schumer is the old time, yes, I'm a liberal,

00:56:01.460 but let's not be crazy. AOC is, well, if you're not crazy, you can't be a Democrat.

00:56:07.780 You know, and I think that it seems to me in place after place, you're going to have that kind of a fight.

00:56:14.660 All right. I appreciate your kind words. I don't know the answer to the question,

00:56:17.540 so I can't help you. I was hoping you were going to tell me the answer.

00:56:21.060 No, I'm still working on it. All right. A couple rapid rounds, because I know you like

00:56:24.500 rapid rounds. First, I'm going to name two Democrats. You pick the one who you think is

00:56:29.300 more likely to be their party's nominee for president in 2028. Binary choice, just one name.

00:56:35.540 Buttigieg or Newsom? Newsom.

00:56:40.020 Whitmer or Emanuel? Emanuel.

00:56:42.260 Shapiro or Newsom? Shapiro.

00:56:47.940 Klobuchar or Ocasio-Cortez?

00:56:50.980 Neither.

00:56:51.380 Ro Khanna or Wes Moore?

00:56:56.260 Moore. I like Moore very much.

00:56:58.980 Really? Tell me why.

00:57:00.100 He's formidable.

00:57:01.300 Tell me why.

00:57:02.420 He seems to have common sense and he seems to have an ability to talk to people in normal English.

00:57:07.780 I mean, from what I've seen, at least, again, I'm not a student of his, but from what I've seen,

00:57:13.460 he's a very impressive person.

00:57:16.500 Interesting. So it sounds like, from what you said, that you think he may be their front runner if he

00:57:20.500 runs.

00:57:21.380 He could be. I mean, again, if he can put the money together, because you're going to be up against

00:57:25.700 people like Pritzker, you're going to have the money to drown you.

00:57:29.380 Yeah. I remain deeply skeptical of Governor Pritzker.

00:57:33.700 The Illinois record just seems like not a perfect calling card.

00:57:37.700 Well, he is not a perfect. I look at Pritzker and think, you know, not since

00:57:41.620 President Taft have we had this kind of a candidate.

00:57:46.340 Yeah. I'm not currently in a position to rule out weight as a factor in qualification, so I cut

00:57:54.820 him some slack. All right. Word association. One or two words max for Trump figures. One or two words

00:58:01.620 max. Here we go. Marco Rubio.

00:58:04.420 Brilliant job.

00:58:05.860 Pete Hegseth.

00:58:08.100 Still learning.

00:58:08.820 Scott Bessent.

00:58:13.060 Remarkable.

00:58:14.660 Stephen Miller.

00:58:17.140 Amazingly powerful.

00:58:19.620 These are very good answers, by the way, audience.

00:58:22.820 Susie Wiles.

00:58:24.660 Indispensable.

00:58:26.660 Indispensable. These are very good answers.

00:58:29.460 Okay. Michael Watley, chairman of the RNC.

00:58:32.580 Good job.

00:58:34.100 Speaker Johnson.

00:58:36.180 Astonishing job.

00:58:37.780 Impossible.

00:58:38.340 I can't imagine it.

00:58:40.340 Yeah. It's kind of amazing.

00:58:42.500 Okay.

00:58:43.060 Cash Patel.

00:58:46.100 Growing.

00:58:48.260 Okay.

00:58:49.940 Pam Bondi.

00:58:52.820 Excellent choice.

00:58:54.820 Excellent choice. All right. Don Jr.

00:58:56.820 Amazingly influential.

00:59:02.100 Charlie Kirk.

00:59:05.860 Equally amazingly influential.

00:59:08.020 I'll give you the third one on that.

00:59:11.700 Tucker Carlson.

00:59:12.580 I don't understand it.

00:59:15.620 Tell me, tell me, tell me about that.

00:59:17.300 I just, I mean, he seems to have a very strong grip on some people and I'm underwhelmed.

00:59:23.220 Underwhelmed by his intellect, his policy, by his influence, by some of his attitudes, some of his views.

00:59:28.660 How do you, how do you distinguish between him and Charlie?

00:59:35.060 Um, oh, I think Charlie's much less on the fringe than Tucker is.

00:59:39.940 And do you have a personal relationship with Tucker?

00:59:43.700 No.

00:59:44.740 No.

00:59:45.380 That surprises me because you know most people like that.

00:59:48.980 We know a lot of people.

00:59:50.660 Yeah.

00:59:50.900 We all have limits to how much time we have.

00:59:52.400 Understood.

00:59:53.760 Okay.

00:59:54.160 Couple more.

00:59:55.680 Um, uh, there's more, there's another White House person I want to ask you about.

00:59:58.680 Um, oh, uh, Kevin Hassett.

01:00:03.920 Very smart and very helpful.

01:00:06.240 Yeah.

01:00:06.880 Um, is there, are, is there one or two people in the, in the government who you think are currently,

01:00:12.000 who you think are unsung heroes who work in the administration?

01:00:16.240 Um, well, I mean, you have to think Linda McMahon, who took on a job that turned to be 0.88

01:00:22.360 radically harder than I'm sure I think she thought it would be.

01:00:25.520 Right.

01:00:26.920 Anybody else who you think is, is, is kind of a star who doesn't get sufficient attention?

01:00:31.540 Um, no, I don't want to pick out any one person.

01:00:38.020 Okay.

01:00:38.400 Okay.

01:00:38.840 I want to ask you about AI, um, because you've always been interested in the future and in

01:00:43.300 technology.

01:00:44.180 Do you look at it as more of a danger or more of as an opportunity?

01:00:47.960 I look at it as a reality.

01:00:49.320 I mean, it's like asking me about electricity in 1880 or the internal combustion engine

01:00:55.140 in 1900.

01:00:56.580 AI is coming.

01:00:57.740 It's going to happen.

01:00:58.700 It's going to be developed.

01:00:59.940 It'll be developed all over the world, whether we do it or not.

01:01:02.640 Uh, and we don't fully understand it.

01:01:05.000 Uh, in some ways it could be a threat.

01:01:07.260 In other ways it could be an enormous advantage.

01:01:09.700 And I think that's, that's a conversation we'll have for the next half century.

01:01:12.800 How would you describe, I talked in the beginning of the program about asymmetrical advantages

01:01:18.560 and sometimes a party has one that's so large, it can be part of being dispositive in an election.

01:01:24.220 How would you describe the current relationship or the current, uh, balance of power between

01:01:28.880 the left and the right and regarding the media?

01:01:31.240 And I'm defining the media broadly, CBS news, TikTok podcast, who's got the advantage

01:01:36.940 and how would you describe it?

01:01:38.000 I don't have quantitative data, but my, my sense is from the polling we do, um, if you

01:01:46.780 think of culture rather than politics, this country is clearly moving to the right and

01:01:53.200 it's moving to the right in reaction to its perception of the left.

01:01:56.400 I mean, I thought in Trump's speech to the Congress, the, the brief section where he talks

01:02:01.660 about merit, that we ought to hire on merit, we ought to promote on merit, which is a direct

01:02:06.200 assault on the left's core cultural value, uh, that you should not reward individualism.

01:02:11.900 Um, that, that was an important cultural point, uh, when he went to Alabama and listed 10 things

01:02:17.980 he'd learned in his life.

01:02:19.200 They're all very conservative, uh, in a cultural sense.

01:02:23.200 So from my perspective, uh, what's happening is, and again, these are all old colleagues of

01:02:30.420 years, they have two problems.

01:02:33.360 They don't understand, and the big media, they don't understand that the culture and

01:02:37.880 the technology are all making their world disappear.

01:02:41.820 Yeah.

01:02:42.420 I mean, it's not, it's not even whether you're right or left, it's just irrelevant.

01:02:46.220 And second, they don't realize that we now have this enormous capacity on the internet for

01:02:53.360 people to find each other, uh, and, and to pay attention to each other.

01:02:57.540 I mean, you know, I, I get, uh, I have about 2.2 million followers on Facebook, on, uh, on

01:03:03.760 X, uh, smaller number on Truth Social.

01:03:07.420 Uh, but I'll, some days, and I'm not quite Trump, but some days I'll post things and I'll

01:03:13.340 get 40,000 likes.

01:03:16.580 Well, I can write a letter to the editor or an article in the Wall Street Journal, the

01:03:20.460 Washington Post.

01:03:21.040 Just, I'm not sure I'm going to get 40,000 likes because I'm not sure people are going

01:03:25.020 to pay attention.

01:03:27.280 If, if I send you a link to this episode, would you post it on X?

01:03:30.980 Sure, of course.

01:03:32.240 Oh, okay.

01:03:32.760 No, listen, I love your work.

01:03:34.080 I do, I do everything I can to support you.

01:03:35.920 I think, I think you're a very important contribution to the American system.

01:03:40.260 You're very generous and, and I appreciate the kind words and I'm very grateful to you for

01:03:43.420 making time and I wish you the best of luck, uh, trying to peddle this book because no

01:03:49.360 matter how good a book is, you can't take it for granted.

01:03:51.620 You got to go sell.

01:03:52.480 And I know you're doing that.

01:03:53.720 Trump's Triumph, it's, uh, Speaker Gingrich's, uh, was like your 43rd book?

01:03:58.240 I'm told 44th, but I don't have any idea.

01:04:00.280 44th.

01:04:00.540 All right.

01:04:00.920 43rd or 44th.

01:04:02.060 Trump's Triumph.

01:04:02.740 It's available now and it's, it's an important look at an historical figure, whether you

01:04:07.480 like Donald Trump or not, there's no denying he's an extremely important historical figure.

01:04:11.280 And as the speaker said, if he dances well, having been invited to the dance by the American

01:04:15.680 people, he will be an extremely important historical figure.

01:04:19.080 Mr. Speaker, thank you.

01:04:20.040 Very grateful to you for making time.

01:04:21.340 Great fun.

01:04:21.860 All right.

01:04:22.160 That's it for next up.

01:04:23.220 Grateful to you for watching.

01:04:24.120 As always, we'd urge you to share the program.

01:04:26.080 You can like, subscribe, uh, watch us on YouTube, listen to us as a podcast.

01:04:30.380 And every Tuesday and Thursday, we'll have new episodes.

01:04:32.900 So we'll see you have a great weekend and we'll see you next week on Tuesday.

01:04:37.080 Find out more about what's next up.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 30, 2025

Why JD Vance is Far Ahead of 2028 GOP and Dem Contenders, and Newt Gingrich on Trump's Unique Appeal - Next Up with Mark Halperin

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