Absurd Signalgate Spin, NPR Exec Grilled, and Biggest Media Hacks in America, with Ruthless Podcast Hosts | Ep. 1036

Summary

Summary of "The Megyn Kelly Show" - Episode 1036: Absurd Signalgate Spin, NPR Exec Grilled, and Biggest Media Hacks in America, with Ruthless Podcast Hosts

Release Date: March 27, 2025

Introduction

In Episode 1036 of The Megyn Kelly Show, hosted by Megyn Kelly on SiriusXM, listeners are treated to a robust discussion centered around the ongoing "Signalgate" controversy, a heated grilling of NPR Executive Catherine Martin, and an engaging segment on the year's biggest media hacks featuring hosts from the Ruthless Podcast. The episode is characterized by Megyn's sharp critique of mainstream media biases, her support for the Trump administration, and a playful yet incisive "Hack Madness" segment that mirrors March Madness's competitive spirit.

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1. Absurd Signalgate Spin

The episode opens with Megyn Kelly expressing her frustration over the persistent focus on the Signalgate scandal:

"Oh, they're still on Signalgate everywhere. Which is like, move on. It's not going away." [00:XX]

Kelly criticizes both Democratic enthusiasm for the scandal and the Trump administration's continued commentary on the issue. She emphasizes the administration's accomplishments in handling significant matters, suggesting that media and political energies are being squandered on what she deems a "pointless" controversy.

"You have so many good things you can talk about that don't involve this egg on the face situation." [04:XX]

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2. NPR Executive Grilled

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting the NPR Executive Catherine Martin's handling of the Signalgate situation. Kelly and her co-hosts, Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook, delve into allegations of political bias within NPR and the broader media landscape.

a. Allegations of Bias at NPR

Kelly accuses NPR of leaning heavily left and consistently criticizing figures like Pete Hegseth, suggesting that NPR's coverage is not only biased but actively seeks to undermine Republican figures.

"All these left wing hacks get called out explicitly for their left wing hackism. And we'll do more of that here." [05:XX]

b. Catherine Martin's Responses

During a congressional hearing, Catherine Martin is portrayed as defensive and evasive when questioned about NPR's alleged bias and specific incidents linking her statements to personal beliefs.

"I do not believe we are politically biased. No. We are a nonpartisan organization." [43:13]

Kelly and her hosts highlight Martin's inability to recall specific tweets and her reluctance to acknowledge any internal bias, painting her as detached from the real issues at NPR.

"I think he's a little overqualified for this job, but I love how Elon is now, like, generic IT guy for the entire government." [19:XX]

c. Role of Uri Berliner

Uri Berliner, a long-time NPR journalist, is a focal point in the debate over NPR's staffing and editorial decisions. The hosts question Martin's denial of partisan bias in NPR's hiring practices, contrasting it with Berliner's claims of a predominantly Democratic editorial board.

"We have 87 Dems and zero Republicans." - Citing Berliner [43:XX]

Kelly asserts that NPR has failed to address these biases, leading to a decline in trust and support from certain listener demographics.

"It's more dishonesty. She doesn't find that concerning. Right." [47:19]

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3. Biggest Media Hacks in America, with Ruthless Podcast Hosts

In a creative twist, Kelly introduces "Hack Madness," a parody of March Madness, where she and her co-hosts evaluate and rank media personalities based on their influence and perceived biases.

a. Hack Madness Tournament

The segment features a bracket-style competition among various media figures, assessing their performance and impact throughout the year. Notable participants include Don Lemon, Margaret Brennan, and emerging voices like Eugene Daniels from Politico.

"Margaret Brennan has done a phenomenal job building towards this championship and I don't think she's going to be denied this year." [86:10]

b. Commentary on Specific Media Hacks

Each media personality is critiqued for their reporting styles, biases, and controversies. The hosts use humor and sharp wit to highlight perceived flaws and inconsistencies.

"She sounds like Penelope Cruz." - Referring to Hilaria Baldwin [57:17]

Kelly playfully mocks the shifting personas of public figures, emphasizing the performative aspects of modern journalism.

"His body movements are so great. They make the hits, don't they? Like, he's like, yeah, they threw the roof." [27:05]

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4. Cultural and Political Commentary

Beyond the primary topics, the episode touches on broader cultural and political issues, including:

• Representation and Identity Politics: Kelly criticizes political figures like Hilaria Baldwin for perceived inauthenticity and pandering to specific demographics.

• Corporate Accountability: Discussions around companies withdrawing support from Pride Fest parades reflect the ongoing battle over DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives and corporate stances on social issues.

"This is a huge victory in an important battle that we've all been fighting." [100:02]

• Media Influence on Public Opinion: The hosts argue that mainstream media's focus on scandals detracts from more substantial political discourse and governance.

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5. Conclusion

Megyn Kelly wraps up the episode by reinforcing her stance against media biases and her support for initiatives that align with conservative values. She underscores the importance of holding media executives accountable and encourages listeners to engage with content that promotes honest and unbiased reporting.

"It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today you can catch the Megyn Kelly Show on triumph a SiriusXM channel..." [Last Segment]

The episode concludes with a teaser for the next show, promising continued critique of media practices and further exploration of political dynamics.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• "You have so many good things you can talk about that don't involve this egg on the face situation."
  — Megyn Kelly at [04:XX]

• "I do not believe we are politically biased. No. We are a nonpartisan organization."
  — Catherine Martin at [43:13]

• "All these left wing hacks get called out explicitly for their left wing hackism. And we'll do more of that here."
  — Megyn Kelly at [05:XX]

• "It's more dishonesty. She doesn't find that concerning. Right."
  — Megyn Kelly at [47:19]

• "Margaret Brennan has done a phenomenal job building towards this championship and I don't think she's going to be denied this year."
  — John Ashbrook at [86:10]

• "This is a huge victory in an important battle that we've all been fighting."
  — Michael Duncan at [100:02]

• "You have to pick one, Holmes. You can't. You. You. You have to pick one."
  — Megyn Kelly at [62:21]

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Key Takeaways

1. Media Bias and Accountability: The episode underscores a deep-seated skepticism toward mainstream media, particularly NPR, alleging significant political bias and a lack of accountability among its leadership.

2. Support for Conservative Policies: Megyn Kelly and her co-hosts consistently express support for the Trump administration's actions, criticizing both media narratives and Democratic efforts to delegitimize these policies.

3. Engagement Through "Hack Madness": The innovative "Hack Madness" segment serves as both entertainment and critique, allowing for a competitive yet pointed evaluation of media figures.

4. Cultural Critiques: The show delves into broader societal issues, including corporate stances on social movements and the performative nature of political figures in media spaces.

5. Call to Action: Listeners are encouraged to stay informed, question media narratives, and support media outlets and personalities that align with their values.

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Conclusion

Episode 1036 of The Megyn Kelly Show offers a comprehensive and critical examination of media practices, political biases, and cultural dynamics from a conservative perspective. Through incisive commentary, strategic segments like "Hack Madness," and robust discussions with podcast hosts, Megyn Kelly provides listeners with an alternative lens to view and analyze current events and media narratives.

Transcript

[Megyn Kelly]

Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services, and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@ multicare.org Thumbtack presents the INS and outs of caring for your home. Out procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road in plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done out carpet in the bathroom. Like why? In knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download thumbtack today. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show, live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Oh, they're still on. Freaking signal gate everywhere. Which is like, move on. It's not going away. The Democrats are so excited. They've got something juicy that makes the Trump administration look bad to talk about. And for some reason, the Trump administration does keep talking about it, which, like, just stop. There's this is pointless. You have so many good things you can talk about that don't involve this egg on the face situation. But they all are, so we will too, to some extent. Way more delicious is what happened on the Hill yesterday with NPR and pbs. My God. If you listen to the AM Update this morning, that's our new morning show with just the news headlines, which I think you'll like. My friend Donna, you know, she listens to the show every day. My closest friend from law school, she always, she says, you're starting to get spicier. Your personality's starting to come through more in the day. First off, we started out Walter Cronkite, like with our delivery. Now we're getting a little looser. In any event, I think you'll like it. We talked about some of the sound bites. We played some of the sound bites and oh my God, we have so many more. It was so fun. It's wonderful to see these left wing hacks get called out explicitly for their left wing hackism. And we'll do more of that here. Plus, it's March Madness, which means it's hack madness, too. Speaking of hacks, it's hack madness. What do I mean? Well, what media hacks are performing well in their ruthless brackets? There's only one group of fellas that have the answer to that. And they are Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, and comfortably Smug, the hosts of the ruthless podcast or variety program. Think of the last movie that made you think that changed you. Never mind possibly inspired you. Angel Studios is bringing those kinds of films to the world. Movies like Sound of Freedom, Homestead, Bonhoeffer, and Something to stand for. Movies that honor God, celebrate patriotism and lift our values. And right now, when you join the Angel Guild, you will get two free tickets to see the King of Kings, a blockbuster animated film about the life of Jesus, in theaters this Easter. This is a chance to experience a powerful film that's making waves and changing hearts. With a 95% average audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, Angel Studios films are high quality, family friendly entertainment that teaches values like freedom, self reliance and unity. To stream their films and to help angel bring more stories to the world, go to angel.commegan and that'll help you become a premium Angel Guild member. As a member of the Angel Guild, you get to vote on the stories that matter most to you and your family. Become an Angel Guild member today by going to angel.commegan and when you become a premium member, you will get two free tickets to the King of Kings in theaters this Easter only with Angel Studios. Great to see you guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Hey, great to see you.

[Michael Duncan]

Thanks for having us.

[Megyn Kelly]

I, like, I love, love, love the NPR story so much. And I hate, hate, hate the signal story. Not because it makes the Trump administration look bad. I'm happy to talk about stuff that makes the Trump administrator. I don't care. And it's like, I'm obviously a Trump supporter. Still, the news is the news. But this one's just so pointless. No one's saying anything new. We're going back and forth arguing about whether it was war plans or attack plans. And like, is Mike Walsh more culpable because he appears to have added Jeffrey Goldberg to the thread or is it Pete Hegseth who, you know, released. Was it classified information or is it not classified because as defense secretary, he's declassifying it by sharing like, I don't care the Houthis are dead. Which would really have like the average person like, dead Houthis. Cool. And probably you should take it off Signal for the let for the next one and get rid of the nasty reporter. Like, I don't you think that's how most normal people are reacting to this?

[Josh Holmes]

Hundred percent. No question about. I mean, we did our entire show basically on this today. And look, the upshot of this thing is that every administration makes some kind of mistake. The Previous administration, their mistake cost their team Marines their lives. This administration added a reporter to a text chain.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

And then, and then happened to run a flawless mission against the Houthis, which was a 17 month the making problem where they had 175 separate attacks on US Navy personnel while the Biden administration did absolutely nothing. Donald Trump's in office all of eight weeks. Boom. Taken care of. Suez Canal reopened. An Iran funded terror operation destroyed. Okay. You know, like in the matter of scandal, where does this rank? I mean, for me, overwhelming success. Now granted, they shouldn't have any sort of external communication with the heads of the national security apparatus that includes a reporter. They know that. They acknowledge as much literally the day.

[Megyn Kelly]

After that clearly did not mean it. They did not want to include him.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. And the President in fact took it straight on. He said, here's the way that I would prefer we handle this. And he talked about the lead ceilings and lead walls, basically describing the situation room. And that should make perfectly clear to anybody going forward. The way the President sees this, it was a screw up. He's standing by his people because, oh, by the way, they executed a perfect mission, which was the whole point of this. And by the way, an afterthought in the media. But, but ultimately, yeah. I mean that's why you stand by your national security folks. Clearly you screw up, but we'll do things differently and move on. The story's done as far as I'm concerned.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, right. I don't. It's like they want a scalp. And you know, yesterday, with all due respect to Dave Portnoy, they actually raised Dave Portnoy's name at the White House press briefing. Some reporter was like, well, Dave Portnoy, even Dave Portnoy was laughing about the fact that they took his commentary and elevated it to the presidential level. Like, well, what do you have to. I mean, Dave Portnoy is calling for someone to get fired. He wants Mike Walsh to be fired. What do you like, what are we doing? If Dave Portnoy tells me not to go to a certain place for pizza, I'm very interested. If he has something interesting to say about sports, about which I know nothing, I'm interested. His social commentary is fun, but whether someone needs to get fired over signal gate, I'm out. And I certainly would never be so dumb as to raise that with the White House, which I think Portnoy agrees with me on.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I mean, I think that pretty much gives away the whole game of what is exactly happening right now with our media You've got the establishment media that's in that White House briefing room and they're concerned with Dave Portnoy's thoughts on what happened here, only because it runs against Trump is they don't care about actual news. They don't care about what Americans got from that story, which is, oh, wow, terrorists got blown up. Terrific. They're trying to make this like some process, gossipy, juicy story when there's nothing there to discuss. Like, well, Dave Portnoy said this. It's like, maybe you're a little bit way too online here. Like you're using your time in the White House press briefing room to talk about Dave Portnoy's thoughts.

[John Ashbrook]

Is a heck of a showman. He is. He's a heck of a showman, but he's no showman compared to Donald Trump. And that's my recommendation to the Trump administration is like, change the conversation. You just, you just arrested one of these top gang leaders of Ms. 13 in Virginia. I don't bring them into the briefing room. You know, we can dissect all of his tattoos. We can ask Robert Costa. Do you think this guy is, is a gang member of Ms. 13? He has an Ms. 13. What is Dave Portnoy calligraphy on his chest?

[Megyn Kelly]

You know, Dave Fortnite, is this or is this not Ms. 13? They're trying, but that won't do it because that's good news for the Trump administration. And the left wing media that's driving this story won't go along with it. But what's been remarkable to me, because if you, if you search like all the news sites, and obviously that's my job, they're all still on it. Everyone, I mean, everything online, all the print papers completely on signal gate. And so are all of the more establishment Republican media outlets. Right? Like the Wall Street Journal's all over it. National Reviews got like four pieces up on how somebody needs to get fired and how terrible this is. I mean, I love National Review, but they're really turning into never Trumpers. Like, they are starting to read much more like the Dispatch and they should watch it. I love those guys, but they need to rein that in a bit because it's all Trump bashing. But my takeaway is the people who wanted, and it's in particular about Hegseth, Hegseth to have nothing to do with the Pentagon and we're totally against his elevation to that post, are the loudest critics in this scandal. They think there's blood in the water. They're trying to change the conversation from Mike Walls to Pete Hegseth, even though. And I don't think either one should be fired. But even though it was Mike Walsh who added this Jeffrey Goldberg to the Atlanta. Like Pete Hexseth didn't do that. Pete Hegseth trusted the National Security advisor that this was an appropriate place to have this conversation and that he who had created the group Walls had screened everyone appropriately. That's. That was Pete's sin. Right. And then had a frank conversation about the plans, as was obviously requested by Mike Walls and the others who were on there, including the vice President. But I really think it's all these people who hated Pete who will not let this die because they think they can get a scalp. And I'm here to tell you it's not gettable. He's not getting fired. You're gonna have to cry harder.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I think that's right.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. You look back at what did Joe Biden do when it comes to the Houthi terrorists. He took them off the terrorist list. What did Pete Hegseth do? He killed them. And so this is exactly what people voted for. They wanted action out of this president. It's what Trump told people he was gonna do. He came in and he started acting. And we talk about the mainstream media, and you're saying that they don't want the conversation to go away. Well, the one guy who's going away is this top leader at MS.13. Another action that the president has taken. We talked about it a second ago, but, like, this guy is acting every single day in a way that voters wanted. And that's why his approval rating and the right track number that everybody follows is so high. I don't know if you saw this poll from Maris just this week. It showed that the right track number is higher than it's been in 20 years. And Democrats are scrambling. And when you say Democrats, you have to include the mainstream media in that group of people. They're also scrambling, trying to figure out what they can do to get out from under Trump's popularity. And just incredible start in these first two months.

[Josh Holmes]

I think it's also worth a little trip down memory, memory lane when we're talking about the press here. And you're right, they're trying to get a scalp. Whether it's Pete or waltz or whatever, they ask incessantly about whether or not one of them are. Are gonna get fired. How many of those same journalists talked about Afghanistan withdrawal in the same way? Who was gonna get Fired. Of course, nobody got fired. Right. And it cost 13 Marines their lives. But also the story was sort of a process story about, well, Trump wanted to get out of Afghanistan too. Everybody wanted to do this thing and oh, move on. And you look at some of the Democrats like Chuck Schumer we highlighted on our show. He had exactly one thing on all of X over the last five years that contained the word Afghanistan, where there was no call for an investigation, there was no discussion about what went wrong. He condemned terror. Right now he's saying that every single American's life is at risk because of an operation that happened 10 days ago, which was a resounding success. Like this doesn't strains credibility.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yep, 100%. And so now you've got Jeffrey Goldberg moving into saintly status of the Atlantic. This complete left wing hack who has never seen Republican catnip that he hasn't sniffed and rolled around in and peddled to his viewers as real. Right from Russiagate to the fawning piece he did on Mark Milley for like holding the line against this dictatorial Trump, the guy who was going to tell the Chinese if we were going to unleash an attack on them, which by the way, no one was even planning, only Mark Milley's head. Was Trump going to go attack the Chinese. We didn't attack the Chinese. Trump didn't give the order to go attack the Chinese. But Mark Milley decided to take it upon himself to, in a treasonous communication, tell his counterpart in China, if we are going to drop any bombs on you, I will give you the heads up.

[Josh Holmes]

That's crazy.

[Megyn Kelly]

Which is totally. I mean, insubordinate is an understatement, but he's a patriot in the eyes of the Atlantic. Okay, so Jeffrey Goldberg goes out there like, I'm the dignified one here, okay? They added me because I'm important. Obviously I'm in everybody's phone, not mine. Mike Wallace is even saying not in his. Now, I have to say, to be honest, that sounds like bullshit to me. He does. I mean, I don't know how he'd get added from Mike Waltz's phone if he weren't in there walls. In a very awkward exchange with Laura Ingraham seemed to be trying to say, it'd be like if I texted you something Holmes and said, hey, you know, great having you on the show today, Doug, my husband wanted to send you something. And like I cc Doug on the communication, you know how like I added him in so you didn't have Doug in the community in your contacts. But, like, sometimes your phone would recognize, oh, this is Doug. Right. Like, it might say in. At a future point, if you're searching for a Doug, it might pull that up because there is some AI on your phone that does that for you. He seemed to be suggesting Goldberg was part of a different conversation he had with somebody. And that's somehow how. I have no idea. Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

Anyway, back to my main point. All these thoughts. So Goldberg goes out there, and he's like, I didn't. I didn't want to do any of it. I'm so sad that they're making me do this, but I feel, you know, an obligation to tell you how insecure. Unsecure these comms are and that I had war plans. And he went all over the news media on Tuesday saying, I'm not gonna release the stuff they texted about the war plans because it's too incendiary. It's really. It's gonna compromise our military. So that I won't do. And here's a little bit of how he sounded on Tuesday. Watch Satu.

[John Ashbrook]

The last thing I want is to see American lives endangered in any way.

[Megyn Kelly]

Let me.

[Michael Duncan]

Which is why you didn't include it.

[Comfortably Smug]

And, Jeffrey, you rightly didn't publish, of course, the details of everything you saw.

[John Ashbrook]

In that exchange, so I don't expect.

[Megyn Kelly]

You to repeat them here.

[John Ashbrook]

Again, I don't want to go into details because I don't think it's responsible to. Oh, it's not operational issues. And as much as I enjoy national security investigative reporting, I don't. I don't need strike plans two hours before a launch. That's not. That should not be coming into my phone. I mean, I take this stuff very, very seriously.

[Megyn Kelly]

White House press Secretary.

[Catherine Martin]

I've said you're lying.

[Megyn Kelly]

So there are no war plans.

[John Ashbrook]

There have said there's no classified information.

[Megyn Kelly]

So the obvious question is, shouldn't you now demonstrate it?

[Catherine Martin]

Shouldn't you publish the text?

[John Ashbrook]

No, because they're wrong. I have a pretty. I have a pretty clear standards in my own behavior of what I consider. What amazing information that I consider to be in the public interest, even if it's technically classified or not. I'm. I'm sticking to my principles here.

[Megyn Kelly]

Sticking to his principles. Okay.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

So just for the record, this is. That was him. And the messaging up and down television on Tuesday. For whatever it's worth, this. This is what I said on Tuesday. By the way, I think we're T minus like, 72 hours before Jeffrey Goldberg releases it anyway, with Maybe a couple of things redacted. But I, I don't think he's gonna stay in this. Like, I, I'm above it all and I won't release it. He. He just. I don't think he can help himself. And I was 100% right. Except for the redaction 24 hours later. Yeah. So he releases it all. Virtually 99.99% has been released. I think he withheld the one name of the one guy. But the whole. All the. It wouldn't be responsible. I take this stuff very, very seriously. No, I shouldn't publish it. Be wrong. I have clear standards out the window. Not. Not a single redaction. Read it all. Please click on the Atlantic.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's. It's the kind of turn that would make Nancy Kerrigan wish she could do it. I mean it was a full double axle, triple toe loop. The guy in 24 hours was so esteemed and he's never gonna do it because of principle. And then he's like, you know what?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, here it is.

[Comfortably Smug]

Let's get some more publicity.

[Josh Holmes]

Also special hats off to your researchers, Megan, who had to sift through Tim Miller and MSNBC and all of that. I mean, that's enough to give somebody brain damage. There should be some kind of a comp reward for something like that Hazard.

[Megyn Kelly]

It was just. It's unbelievable. So this guy's been turned into some sort of a hero and pick your poison. I mean, if you are pro Europe, you're blaming this all on JD Vance. Like he said terrible things about our best friends about how they needed to take care of this. If you are anti Pete Hegseth, you're saying he needs to get fired. A lot of the sort of pro. More neo Connie guys much prefer Tim Walls. I mean, sorry, not Tim Walls, Mike Walls. So there's like different constituencies coming out and Mike. Mike Walls with Laura Ingram claimed he will get to the bottom of it, which I believe we will. And he said he's brought in a special helper to do that. Take a listen here. So three.

[Michael Duncan]

It's embarrassing.

[Josh Holmes]

Yes.

[Michael Duncan]

We're going to get to the bottom of it.

[Megyn Kelly]

We've have. I just talked to Elon on the way here. We've got the best technical minds looking.

[Josh Holmes]

At how this happened.

[Megyn Kelly]

But I can tell you, I can tell you for 100% I don't know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation and he really is the bottom scum of journalists. And I know him in the sense that he hates the President, but I don't Text him. He wasn't on my phone.

[Josh Holmes]

And we're going to figure out how this happens.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay? I don't. I mean, I. I guess it's good to have Elon and his tech bros, right, Weigh in, but, like, they need to stop going on shows and talking about it. Do they? Am I wrong?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, just stop it. So, I don't know, like, Elon flies rockets to Mars. He might be a little overqualified for this job, but I love how Elon is now, like, generic IT guy for the entire government.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like, a shirt, dress.

[John Ashbrook]

It's like the way you guys treat me around here. Like, the Internet goes out and you're like, duncan the router.

[Josh Holmes]

Did you. Did you plug it in? Did you take the plug out? That's it.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's like. When I married Doug, he was running an Internet security software firm. Like, they would protect against hackers, that kind of thing. And my mom would call up and be like, my browser disappeared. Where's my browser?

[Josh Holmes]

You know, my email is running slow. Elon, everything's going to junk.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay? But here. Here is the most offensive, absurd take of all. Someone I've never heard of. You guys are in the biz, so you might have. Democrat, representative of Texas. What's going on with Texas? We got Jasmine Crockett and we got this loser, Jimmy Gomez, who had this take on it at a hearing with the CIA director and others. But this exchange is with CIA director John Radcliffe.

[Josh Holmes]

Cliff, to your knowledge, do you know whether Pete Hexa had been drinking before he.

[Michael Duncan]

Classified information?

[Megyn Kelly]

You're an idiot. I don't have any knowledge of Secretary Hegseth's personal habits.

[Josh Holmes]

Director Radcliffe, same question. Yes or no?

[Megyn Kelly]

You know, no. I'm going to answer that. I think that's an offensive line of questioning. The answer is no. I find it interesting that you want to answer. You asked me a question. You want an answer? No, Listen. You don't want to focus on the good work that the CIA is doing.

[Comfortably Smug]

That the intelligence community Director want to save my time.

[Josh Holmes]

I have huge respect for the CIA. Huge respect for men and women in uniform. But this was a question that's on the top of minds of every American. He stood in front of a podium in Europe holding a drink. So of course we want to know if his performance is compromised.

[Comfortably Smug]

Was his performance compromised because of a successful strike?

[Josh Holmes]

Mr. I bring my.

[Megyn Kelly]

You want to know.

[Comfortably Smug]

You want to talk about accepting responsibility?

[Josh Holmes]

Do you think you should spend my time.

[Comfortably Smug]

Responsibility for a successful strike to make Americans safer?

[Megyn Kelly]

You want to focus on. By the way, apologies to Texas. He's of course, actually from California. Can you believe the nerve of this guy?

[Michael Duncan]

No, I can. I can't. The Democrats are in such bad shape. Patrick Brooks mentioned it earlier, but their right now favorability rating is the worst it's been in over a generation. President Trump's favorability rating is the highest it has ever been. It's higher than it was on Election Day. The Democrats are trying to manufacture anything. This is beyond grasping at straws. They see that they are falling into a pit and they're trying to grab anything they can, anything that they think will let them get some kind of traction. Because since Election Day, they've been just getting steamrolled nonstop. Americans could not be more thrilled seeing criminals, illegals getting deported out of this country. The media doesn't watch about egg prices. Egg prices have halved in the past month. The story that they were trying to push, that, oh, my God, Biden killed all these chickens and now Trump's caused the egg prices to go up. Everything that they've tried to get Trump on has failed. This is going to go down in the same line. They're going to try to make a story out of this. And I completely agree with you. The Trump administration should ignore this. Talk about the ms.13 guy you just arrested today and move on. Keep putting up W's for the American people.

[Megyn Kelly]

This guy, Jimmy Gomez, according to radio host. A radio host in South Carolina, Brett Winterbol, oh, yeah. Was before he entered electoral politics, a labor organizer. He was organizing labor at the time. Pete Hegseth had a backpack on and a gun slung around his shoulder and was killing bad guys for us in Iraq and Afghanistan and down at Gitmo, dealing with the worst of the worst. So that's how Pete spent his formative adult years, while Jimmy was a mini Barack Obama trying to organize, in his case, labor. But he wants to besmirch Pete as a drunk because he says, we saw him with the drink in his hand. What an absolute fucker that is. Based on Pete standing up in front of a room full of people at a public event in which he was addressing. I can't remember what the. What was the event, you guys? And like a whole group of.

[Josh Holmes]

Was this the NATO summit?

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, it was in Belgium. It might have been that. I can't. Anyway, look, he's saying this is him drinking booze. This idiot Matt Iglesias said, I assume this is the trick of the light. And he's not actually throwing back bourbon on camera, but it's Interesting that the water looks brown. Meanwhile, it would have taken him 10 seconds to Google video from the event where it makes very clear the water was clear like all water is, and that it was just a lighting trick. But like now it winds up in a congressional hearing as like he's been, he's been. This is so disgusting how they use this stuff to absolutely smear honest, hardworking men.

[Josh Holmes]

But it's also a perfect vignette into the larger problem that Democrats have when smug was talking about their approval rating and what it is that they're talking about, this knee jerk opposition to hugely popular things that President Trump is doing. Think about Jimmy's information flow, right? Think about the information that comes to him on a day to day basis to one, conclude that that was in fact bourbon and two, that it's on the top of minds of everyone he's talking to. Think about the information that has to go into that man's head in order to conclude those two things in a congressional hearing and not feel entirely humiliated by the question in the first place. You know, these people are wrecked. Their brain is just broken.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's real. It's so deeply offensive that you would get up there and actually suggest, and only in Congress can he get away with this because you've got a liability shield from defamation to actually basically call him a drunk. Say like, was he drunk when he was tweeting this shit? But if not for nothing, there's zero about the actual text that suggest in any way, shame, shape or form that anyone was impaired while having this discussion. It's absolutely defamatory, but they get away with it. To pick up on the point you just made smug, everyone's favorite pollster, or at least poll analyst Harry Entin was over on CNN doing a bit on what you just said on Trump's approval. And here's a bit of it.

[Harry Entin]

His net favorable rating right now comes.

[Megyn Kelly]

In at minus four points.

[Harry Entin]

Compare that to where he was when he won in November 2024, when he was at minus 7 points, or March of 2017 when he was at minus 10 points. So when you compare Trump against himself.

[Megyn Kelly]

He'S actually closer to the apex than.

[Harry Entin]

He is to the bottom of the trough. And of course that's so important because Donald Trump, historically speaking, has had his numbers underestimated. So let's take a look at the percentage of the country who say that we're on the right track.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's actually a very high percentage.

[Harry Entin]

When you compare it to some historical numbers. What are we talking about? According to Maris 45% say that we're.

[Megyn Kelly]

On the right track.

[Harry Entin]

That's the second highest that Maris has measured since 2009. How about NBC News? 44%.

[Josh Holmes]

That's the highest since 2004.

[Harry Entin]

The bottom line is the percentage of Americans who say we're on the right track is through the roof.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

His body movements are so great. They make the hits, don't they? Like, he's like, yeah, they through the roof. And he's like, it's so high. It's down low. And it's segment. It's out the window. Like, he's very entertaining to watch.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. No, a little theater goes a long way particular on cnn. It makes the rest of the stuff go down a little easier.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, it really does.

[Comfortably Smug]

And he did that on a morning show on cnn. And so what I like to think about is what your typical CNN viewer did for the rest of the day after learning that information not start off on the right foot when they found out that Donald Trump, the guy they hate so much, is actually very, very popular.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

They're not feeling about Harry the way the rest of us are. He's from the Bronx, which is another thing. I love the New York City accent. I love it. But Brooklyn, always. It's utterly charming to me. Okay, enough of that. Signal gate will go away. No one will be fired, and we'll be fine. However, I don't know if NPR is going to be okay. I think NPR is about to lose its taxpayer funding based on what I saw yesterday. Right. I think it's going to. Based on what Trump tweeted and what we saw yesterday. It was so great to watch that. This woman, Catherine Martin, have you like this? Speaking of smug. Smug, Right. She was so smug. She was, like, oozing contempt and, like, superiority and trying to be like, thank you so much for raising a. Thank you. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to respond to that. Now, let me lie for two minutes about how it never happened. I appreciate you giving me the chance to lie about how I never did the controversial thing. I'm very grateful to you for bringing up. And then these congressmen just kept hitting her with, oh, you never did it. Oh, well, here's you saying you did it. And the best. I mean, there's so many good ones to choose from. But we might as well just kick it off with my new favorite congressman. He is from Texas. He's Brandon Gill. He's married to Dinesh D'Souza's daughter. I didn't know any of this. He is a cold stone Dirt. Stone cold assassin in that congressional seat. Watch him.

[Catherine Martin]

Do you believe that America is addicted to white supremacy?

[H]

I believe that I tweeted that. And I. As I've said earlier, I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the last half decade.

[Catherine Martin]

Do you believe that America believes in black plunder and white democracy?

[H]

I don't believe that, sir.

[Catherine Martin]

You tweeted that in reference to a book you were reading at the time, apparently. The Case for Reparations.

[H]

I don't think I've ever read that book, sir.

[Catherine Martin]

You tweeted about it. You said you took a day off to fully read the Case for Reparations. You put that on Twitter in January of 2020.

[H]

I apologize. I don't recall that. I did.

[Catherine Martin]

Okay.

[H]

I. No doubt that your tweet there is correct, but I don't recall that.

[Catherine Martin]

Okay. Do you believe that white people inherently feel superior to other races?

[H]

I do not.

[Catherine Martin]

You don't. You tweeted something to that effect. You said, I. I grew up feeling superior.

[Megyn Kelly]

Ha.

[Catherine Martin]

How white of me. Why did you tweet that?

[H]

I think I was probably reflecting on what it was to be to grow up in an environment where I had lots of advantages.

[Catherine Martin]

It sounds like you're saying that white people feel superior.

[H]

I don't believe that anybody feels that way, sir. I was just reflecting on my own experiences.

[Catherine Martin]

Do you think that white people should pay reparations?

[H]

I have never said that, sir.

[Catherine Martin]

Yes, you did. You said it in January of 2020. You tweeted. Yes, The North. Yes, all of us. Yes. America. Yes. Our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes. Reparations. Yes. On this day.

[H]

I don't believe that was a reference to fiscal reparations, sir.

[Catherine Martin]

What kind of reparations was it a reference to?

[H]

I think it was just a reference to the idea that we all owe much to the people who came before us.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, my God, I love him so much. I need to know him. He's got to come on this show. I have to tell him how much I deeply admire him.

[Michael Duncan]

He's an absolute rock star. So he was elected class president for the incoming freshmen, and for good reason. It's because of that. He showed up and he wanted to be the tip of the spear. He doesn't take any garbage. I mean, every time you see the left try to come up with some dirty trick to go after President Trump, to go after Republicans, or like this, try to rob taxpayers like NPR has been doing, pushing their fake hoaxes, he holds them accountable. That's what you want from a member of Congress. He's off to a phenomenal start. And you love to see it. You wanna see this is the people that we are sending to Congress.

[John Ashbrook]

What I love most about it, Smuggle, is you can tell he's enjoying it.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, big smile.

[John Ashbrook]

He's getting a crack in the smile as he's going back like, oh, I got a receipt for that one too.

[Josh Holmes]

The cadence of it is fantastic. He's like, oh, but do you have. There's a. There's a tweet about it.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes, you did good. I love so good. Yes, you did. His, his lack of emotionality is what made it so good. He was just like you did. You said that. You did tweet that. Here's the exact tweet you did. You said you read that book. You said you took the whole day off and spent the day reading that book. And here's the thing that's so great about it is, you know, so which, which is the lie? Were you lying when you said that you read these woke annoying books time and time again to try to pander to left wingers who you think are your fans? Was that a lie or are you lying today under oath when you're looking at me saying you never read these books because, like, not only did you take the time to lie to all these people if you didn't read these books, but like, you actually tweeted it in front of I don't know how many followers. Followers she has probably hundreds of thousands. So, like, the virtue signaling that she felt was important to do to be like, I'm a leftist just like all of you, and I'm reading all your favorite insane books. Like, which is worse if those were lies and she was just pandering or if she really did that shit and then just lied under oath to Congress?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that she lied under oath to Congress. I mean, look at the organization that she's running. I mean, this is not somebody who's faking leftism. You had a deep commitment to it over a period of time that, like, I don't know, if you just flip on the radio, turn on. I mean, that's what it is, folks. That's what it is. There's no secrets there.

[Comfortably Smug]

Remember the TED Talk?

[Megyn Kelly]

Do you think she read the Case for Reparations? I don't think she read the Case for Reparations. Go ahead, Ash Brooks.

[Comfortably Smug]

I remember the TED Talk she gave where she was trying to explain why truth doesn't matter, why leftist ideals are more important than truth.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, that, like, objectivity gets in the way.

[Megyn Kelly]

How annoying white men are.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

I.

[John Ashbrook]

What I love most about that exchange is, like, we all had this buddy in college who would black out so much, and then the next. The next day you'd have to walk him through his evening, and he'd be like, oh, no, that doesn't sound like me at all.

[Michael Duncan]

I'd never do that.

[Josh Holmes]

The end of it is like, all right, who do I need to do.

[Michael Duncan]

Apologies. Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

Thank God that guy was never subjected to my new favorite representative.

[Josh Holmes]

Although it probably went down exactly like that with his buddies. It was like, well, yes, he did use a picture of.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I didn't know you were standing on the bar.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, you did. Here's more. First of all, I'll go back to the congressional hearing, but I will give you a little bit for old time's sake of Catherine Mars, TED Talk that you referenced in 2022. This is before she came the head of. Became the. The head of npr. This is the stuff that got her the job. Watch that.

[H]

Perhaps for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth and seeking to convince others of the truth might not be the.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right place to start.

[H]

In fact, our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that's getting in the way of finding common ground in getting things done is because the truth of the matter is very often for many people, what happens when we merge facts about the world with our beliefs about the world so we all have different truths.

[Michael Duncan]

What the.

[John Ashbrook]

This.

[Megyn Kelly]

It.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is not extemporaneous. She practiced that speech 37,000 times in front of the mirror so she could deliver it with that cadence and the. In fact, folks with that hush tone.

[Megyn Kelly]

This.

[Josh Holmes]

It's like the worst HR person in corporate America showed up in your office and they're telling you why you have to shut your computer down.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, she's like, yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

And making you go through all the yeah. Seminars. Go ahead. Smug.

[Michael Duncan]

She's the embodiment of the whole problem the left has now found itself in. They've been completely siloed off from the majority of people. The way she talks. She's doing a TED Talk with such self importance and explain to people. Here's the thing. There's lots of truths. You know, the. I run npr. It's not important for me to give objective facts.

[Megyn Kelly]

We're talking about.

[Michael Duncan]

We need to get across the message that we want people to believe public radio.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm not surprised at all that she has no memory of tweeting any of those things because People like this. Life is theater for these people, and they're just acting.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right?

[John Ashbrook]

And so, yeah, when you're an actor, sometimes you forget your lines.

[Megyn Kelly]

Here's. Here's some more from Catherine Mair over the years. Again, this is just over the past few years again, before she was made CEO, But I would suggest to you, this is why they made her CEO in January of 2024. Okay, I'm looting. I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive, but it's hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people's ancestors as private property. On whiteness. I know that hysteric white woman voice. I was taught to do it. I've done it. It's a disturbing recognition. While I don't recall ever using it to deliberately expose another person to immediate physical harm on my own cognizance, it's not impossible. That is whiteness. She's got a rant about too many white men in business class and in the lounge. She's annoyed seeing all the white people like herself and the guys, especially with the penises. She gets upset. I mean, there's. You name it, there's a tweet for it. Catherine Marr absolutely hates white people. But reality, realistically, she doesn't. I think she's just faking. She's been faking for a long time. Like all these other white Upper west side women who are the woke that you can be and who are being reflected in these polls as the only thing still propping up the Democratic Party. Yeah, right. It's these woke white women like Catherine Maher. Meanwhile, black people are like, would you stop that shit, for the love of God?

[John Ashbrook]

I have a fantastic idea for her, you know, since she's so concerned about reparations and everything in BLM, you know, we're tearing up BLM Plaza here in Washington, D.C. 16 16th street is going to be rest to its former glory. But NPR has some fantastic real estate here in our nation's capital. A beautiful building in the heart of the city. I think we take off the words NPR and we put blm.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And then.

[Josh Holmes]

And we can just have everybody go there too. I mean, it doesn't. You know, we can just make it like basically housing. Yeah, right. For everybody. Yeah, that'd be a great service to the community. Maybe she'd be interested in that. I was sort of with her, though. You know, when you were talking, Megan, you were talking about the people that she cloisters herself around and, you know, the White woman, the wine. Essentially, she was like, oh, I know that voice. I was kind of with her on that. You know, I mean, like, yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it. That's, that's exactly what annoys all of us.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, but I mean, it's like, I've been that voice. Okay, but what do you mean? Like, what specifically did you do? I want to know exactly. Get into more that. That would have been a good follow up. Like, what exactly you said you did this. Could you walk us through how and when you use the white woman voice and said all the things that, that you were taught, who taught you that. It's a disturbing recognition. And, and you're suggesting you did use it to deliberately expose another person to immediate physical harm. You might have done that. Who, who got hurt? Why'd you do that? That is fucking racist. That's actually really upsetting. Like, you should not be the head of NPR or any other news organization.

[Comfortably Smug]

I remember, I remember one time she used that voice and said, you're fired to a guy named Uri Berliner who had the temerity to say, and maybe at NPR we should have another Republican or two. Maybe it shouldn't be 1,000 libs and Democrats.

[Megyn Kelly]

Deep track, that's all. Here's a little bit more. Let's go to Representative Tim Burchett. This was one of the best. Side 8.

[Comfortably Smug]

Why did you call President Trump a fascist and a deranged racist sociopath in 2020?

[H]

Congressman, I appreciate the opportunity to address this. I regret those tweets. I would not tweet them again today. They represented a time where I was reflecting on something that I believe that the President had said rather than who he is. I don't presume that anyone is a.

[Comfortably Smug]

Racist, which you don't believe anyone is a racist.

[H]

I don't start by presuming anyone is a racist, sir.

[Megyn Kelly]

But thank you so much for asking me, because I, I, I love that. Why did you, why did you call him a racist, fascist, sociopath? I, I regret that. That's, I regret that she doesn't regret that at all. She totally stands by every word of that.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you so much for the opportunity to address all these past comments. I can't thank you enough.

[Michael Duncan]

I think the most important thing for everyone to take away from all this is you're paying her.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Your money is going to her against your will. And that has to stop. That has to stop immediately. This hearing was so important because everyone should have to see this is what Doge is doing. They're getting vilified, they're getting attacked, terrorized across the country because they're bringing garbage like this to light. There's no reason hardworking people who go to work day in, day out are paying that woman's salary. That's completely unfair.

[I]

It's wrong.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

It's supposed to be public information. It's there to try to get people educated on what's going on in their government and their communities and everything else. And in reality, what it is is a poison. It's going into communities. When you have viewpoints like this, it's not a surprise that the derivation of that is like dei, that goes a month. All the education system problems that we've seen pop up over the last few years. I mean, what they're doing is quite literally tearing communities apart 100%.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, so here's the thing. So maybe so she later tried to claim, oh, there's a strong firewall between me and the news division. You know, I don't run editorial. I'm the head of npr. But trust me, but, but even. So, like it, whatever. The whole organization is full of rotten. It's up and down to the studs. It's full of rot and hatred for Republicans and an aversion to the truth if that truth reflects negatively on Democrats or positively on Republicans. And that's where the real problem is with npr. It's not so much. I mean, she's fun to make fun of, but the real problem is that this really is Media Matters with a different moniker. That's how far left they are and, and getting to like how biased they are in their coverage, which, again, we're paying for, is really getting to the heart of the matter. That's what Jim Jordan tried to do in the following exchange.

[Harry Entin]

Sat 12, he wrote on the Trump Russia story. He wrote at npr. We hitched our wagon to Trump's most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff, and he said they interviewed him 25 times. That accurate?

[H]

I was not there at the time, but those numbers sound accurate.

[Harry Entin]

Those sound accurate. But then he said, when the Mueller report came out, he said Russiagate faded from our programming. Is that accurate?

[H]

Again, I was not there at the time. I'm not. I couldn't say.

[Harry Entin]

You couldn't say?

[H]

I was not at NPR at the time.

[Harry Entin]

You didn't prepare for that. You knew we were going to ask you about this guy, didn't you? It's come up like 6,000 times already in the hearing.

[H]

I just couldn't say whether it faded from our coverage. Sir.

[Harry Entin]

How about this story. October 2020, New York Post had the Hunter Biden laptop story. And one of those editors, I guess One of those 87 Democrat editors said this. We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories. We don't want to waste the listeners and readers times on stories that are just pure distractions. Was that a pure distraction story?

[H]

Our current editorial leadership believes that that was a mistake, as do I. Yeah.

[Harry Entin]

The whole country knows that was a mistake. Mr. Berliner said we became fervent members of the team Natural Origin. Even declaring that the lab leak was debunked by scientists.

[H]

There's more questions.

[Harry Entin]

There is. You guys were 0 for 3 on, on the three of the three of the biggest stories in the last five years. You guys were over three. And yet you maintain that NPR is not biased.

[H]

Congressman, I do not believe we are politically biased. No. We are a nonpartisan organization.

[Michael Duncan]

Oh my God.

[Megyn Kelly]

Russiagate, Hunter laptop and Covid. I mean he exposed her. And he's exactly right. The mistakes only go in one direction.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Well, I'm also reminded that none of this would be happening if not for a two seat majority in the House of Representatives. None of those questions would be asked in the first place. She would have no regrets about any of that at all. I mean, it's one of the things that we tell our listeners and I know you tell your viewers and listeners as well. You can't sort of relax and hope that everything's gonna work out all right because but for two seats in the House of Representatives across this country, none of those questions would even be asked, much less contemplated, by a woman who's clearly got an agenda to run national public airwaves as she sees fit. And as she sees fit is off the left hand side of the map.

[Megyn Kelly]

So true. I mean, they did a great job yesterday of exposing just how left they are. And they reference back to that Uri Berliner piece in the Free Press. He's. He won a Peabody. He was there for 25 years. Very respected journalist who comes out to say we've lost our way. I mean we are just, we're hard left now, care about truth. What we care about is protecting Dems and promoting them. And this came up because somebody was asking her. I think it was Jordan again. Yeah. About what Uri posited in that piece, which was of the editors in the D.C. area alone. That's, that's just the only one I checked. We found 87 Dems and zero Republicans and she actually had the nerve to Try to say that that was concerning to her. I think this is that SOT. Let's just watch a little bit of it.

[H]

SOT 11 is NPR biased, Congressman? I have never seen any instance of never of political bias determining editorial decisions. No.

[Harry Entin]

Well, Mr. Berliner in his story a couple last year wrote I've in the D.C. area editorial positions at NPR, he said he found 87 registered Democrats, zero Republicans. Is that accurate?

[H]

We do not track the numbers or the voter registration. But I find that award winning journalist.

[Harry Entin]

Who worked 25 years at NPR, Mr. Berliner, was he lying when he wrote that?

[H]

I am not presuming such. I just don't have. We don't track that information about our.

[Harry Entin]

Journalist 87 to 0 and you're not biased.

[H]

I think that is concerning. If those numbers are accurate it then.

[Megyn Kelly]

Do something about it. It's more dishonesty. She, she doesn't, she doesn't find that concerning. Right. It's been a year since Berliner's piece and if she cared at all they already would have been hired. They hired some six person editorial board to like shore up their editorial over there. Not one of whom is a Republican.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like there, there is no way forward in cutting out the, the majority of the country now the majority is right leaning and voted for Trump out of the conversation entirely. And if you want to be that left wing rag. Right on sister, you do you. That's why we have MSNBC and a lot of other organizations. But we don't have to pay for it.

[Michael Duncan]

Bingo.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, Right. That's totally right. I mean Johnny, you bring this up all the time but they've had ample opportunity to rectify what was exposed by Berliner.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

And we all know what happened. She pretends like do you heard what she said? She says I was not there at the time that this was taking place. But when she started, the first thing she did right after she got her login and her password was to get rid of Uri Berliner because he had the temerity to say that maybe we shouldn't be so biased at this place. And so her dishonesty is multi level in this whole interaction. And I really hope so many people saw this because they can see NPR for what it is and finally we can not have to pay for it.

[John Ashbrook]

It is wild that you could be the CEO, ostensibly the CEO of a company or organization and have little to no idea of what goes on there.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[John Ashbrook]

You admit that in a public hearing. It's like she doesn't know anything about the BLM. Tweets, she doesn't know anything that's happening in NPR. The only thing she's 100% sure of is that she's tweeted that Donald Trump is racist.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right. And she's very glad that you brought that up. Very glad. So she could tell you it isn't true. I don't know why I said that. That was crazy talk. The funny thing is there was a report, I think it was Politico after the hearing yesterday, saying that. No, it was New York Times Benjamin Mullen who reported that supporters of public media were breathing a sigh of relief. At the end of the hearing, one longtime public media executive texted me to say that neither chief executive, because PBS was also there, had made a major error yet. They don't get it, you guys. No.

[Comfortably Smug]

They're living in a bubble with viewers like you and the members of the Paul R. And John D. MacArthur foundation that are right alongside the rest of us as we continue every April.

[Megyn Kelly]

They're like, catherine, it was stellar. Right on point. That part where you said you didn't actually read the books. Loved that part. Didn't lay a glove on you. Wait until you see your. Your funding go away. I mean, probably, to be honest, the most important question there was that question we play. We played of the guy being like, why'd you call Donald Trump a fascist, racist sociopath? I meant it lovingly. That was probably the most important one because Trump already tweeting out, we need to defund these guys. They've got to go like, there's no point in us funding pbs. And all the Dems had was but Elmo. But Elmo. Meanwhile, Sesame street was sold to HBO in 2015. Elmo is going to be just fine.

[Michael Duncan]

He's in the private sector now. He's doing great.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. The fellows are with me for the full show. And there's a lot more to get to. The IRS is the largest collection agency in the world, and with April 15th fast approaching, it's more aggressive than ever. If you owe back taxes or have unfiled returns, waiting is not an option. April 15 could mark another tax year that has passed you by. So the smart move is to get ahead of it now. But listen, never contact the IRS alone. Instead, you could let the experts at Tax Network USA handle it for you. Why? Well, not all tax resolution companies are the same. Tax Network USA has a preferred direct line to the irs, so they know exactly which agents to deal with and which to avoid with proven strategies to settle tax problems in your favor. Whether you owe 10 grand or 10 million. Tax Network USA's attorneys and negotiators have already resolved over 1 billion in tax debt. Speak with one of their strategists today for free. Don't let the IRS control your future. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com Megan that's tnusa.com Megan. April 15th, just around the corner. Act now before the IRS acts first. There's been a lot of this in the news lately, and so I just, I decided to save this segment for you. And I know we're going to get to Hack Madness, your own special version of March Madness, in a minute. But to put us in the mood, this is the appetizer to Hack Madness. I have my own little game for you. And this is more in the field of the Academy Awards. And I really would love for you guys to weigh in on who you think, who you think is, in fact, the best actress in America today outside of Hollywood. Okay? And I have got a couple of contenders for you. All right, I've narrowed it down to four. And I'm going to show you how these people normally sound and then how they sound when they get in front of certain audiences and certain cameras.

[Michael Duncan]

I think I know where this is.

[Megyn Kelly]

You're tell me what's happening. Who, who wore it best? Who, who fooled you? Who's really like, who's phoning it in and who's really going Method. Okay. In fourth place. Not necessarily fourth place. This is just, I'm going to start with as the fourth possibility. But I've got four total. And you'll decide what order they go in. I'm going to kick it off with aoc. Okay. Her real name is Sandy Ocasio. This is what she went by her entire life, Sandy Ocasio. And only when she decided to run for office did she decide to suddenly become Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and lean into her Puerto Rican history, where her mother was born in Puerto Rico, but her father was born in New York City. And she decided to tell us sob stories about how she's from a poor family and she was living, you know, paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, she was raised in a tony part of Westchester called Yorktown Heights. The single family home she grew up in was just sold in 2016 for $355,000. So it's not exactly, you know, food stamp central. She went to Boston University. You know, you hear her tell her story, you think she never even went to college, Right? She was only a bartender. No. So she went to Boston University and graduated with a BA in International Relations and Economics and then spent some time as a waitress and a bartender. Good for you. Virtually everyone in America, I mean literally raise your hand if you had a service personnel job.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh my God, yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right? All of us. All five of us. Hello. The difference is we don't run around asking for people to pat us on the back because we did it. It's called being a normal human. When you're young, you take those kinds of jobs and even when you're older, sometimes you do to pay your bills. This is called being a normal human, not oh, woe is me. I worked as a waitress. And I'll get to some of what she's saying around that. But that's her story. Now. She makes almost $200,000 a year as a US congresswoman and is still pretending that she's on her waitress salary. But in any event, here is how she normally sounds when she's speaking and not thinking about who's listening or trying to fool anybody.

[Josh Holmes]

When Donald Trump tapped into this idea.

[Michael Duncan]

Of make America great again, there, there were.

[Josh Holmes]

There was times of economic opportunity. Wages rose until the 1970s.

[Megyn Kelly]

They should have taught her at Boston University. It was were. There were times she was right. You gotta get that subject. Verb, agreement. I know it's tough, Sandy, work on it. That's her though, sounding relatively normal relative. Then there's a different version that we've heard a lot more of a lot recently.

[Michael Duncan]

I'm proud to be a bartender. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Ain't nothing wrong with working retail folding.

[I]

Clothes for other people to buy. Am tired about appearing about how a.

[Megyn Kelly]

Two bit union buster thinks of himself.

[I]

As more of a patriot than the.

[Megyn Kelly]

Woman who fights every single day to lift working people out from under the boots of breed shrapneling on our way of life. Our way of life. All right, so you got, you got that in mind, are we. You're with me.

[Josh Holmes]

It's tough to beat.

[Megyn Kelly]

It is. But. But we have contenders. All right, now I'm gonna go outside of the political realm for this next one. You'll know her as soon as you see her. I think. Let's play the normal version of the person who. Whose name is Hillary, who grew up in a very nice suburb of Boston, going to some tony rich school that virtually no one else can afford. I think her dad is a dentist, but now goes by Hilaria Baldwin. Here she is sounding like her normal self. It's not easy. And I think part of it is that I'm in shape before I have a baby, and then I stay active when I'm pregnant. And I'm not trying to stay thin. I'm just trying to keep my circulation going and stretching and keep my muscle tone up. And then married life is really nice. You know that? So please, please leave my family in peace and let this all play out. We have cucumber. Cucumbers.

[Josh Holmes]

How do you say?

[Megyn Kelly]

Some olive oil. And we have some vinegar. Vinegar so much.

[Michael Duncan]

That's so funny.

[John Ashbrook]

She sounds like Penelope Cruz.

[Megyn Kelly]

I'm making it tough for you.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, you're such a hypocritus.

[Megyn Kelly]

Tasty vinegar. Okay, so already I'm torn. I, like, I gotta say, just be honest. I'm not sure who I like better on Best Actress, but we. We've got other contenders, so, you know, keep an open mind. This woman all over the news these days, the new spokesperson for the Democrat Party, and we all hope the future of it. Here is Jasmine Crockett, as recently as 2023, again sounding like a normal person.

[I]

My mind, I'm thinking, I just got to Austin and I had to beat five people to get here. It's a huge responsibility. You know, the congressional seat is over four times as large as my House seat.

[Megyn Kelly]

Kind of cute, excited, optimistic, normal hair, normal eyelashes and probably normal nails, though they weren't shown in that clip. Flash forward to today's day and age and more recently, and we've done a 180.

[Comfortably Smug]

If you could speak directly to Elon Musk, what would you say?

[Megyn Kelly]

Fuck off.

[I]

Now, I am tired of the white tears. There has been no oppression for the white man in this country. That it is white men on this side of the aisle telling us people of color on this side of the aisle that y'all are the ones being oppressed.

[Megyn Kelly]

Equal. If you could tell Donald Trump.

[Comfortably Smug]

Trump anything tonight, what would you tell him?

[I]

Stop being Putin's hoe. Unfortunately, we had an opportunity to have a woman leave this country. And I promise you, she would have led us to the promised land. But instead, we got somebody that seems like he want to take us to hell and back again. We have someone that is occupying the White House, and as far as I'm concerned, he is an enemy to the United States. We are going to be in your face. We are going to be on your ass. And you and your little friend off of Twitter, y'all about to find out.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, y'all about to find out. All right. Do I need to say it again? Because I will. She sounds absolutely nothing like she used to. You guys. Nothing.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, that's. Fake it till you make it. That's how you become the head of the Democrat Party. It's absolute fakery.

[Josh Holmes]

I have to confess that I love her. Yeah, I do. I just. I love everything about her. She's fantastic. The best. Spoken for Democrats. Yeah, exactly.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right. We do. We need a whole lot more of her. It's amazing how she's now, like, street. Right? Like I'm a whip. Somebody hit. Okay, sure. We'll look forward to that, Jasmine. Okay. No segment like this would be complete without our fourth candidate. And honestly, she's probably got the inside track and you'll. You'll see why. Here she was sounding normal.

[I]

Let's talk about respecting the American people. You respect the American people when you tell them the truth. You respect the American people when you have the courage to be a leader. Speaking of those things that you may not want people to hear, but they need to hear.

[Megyn Kelly]

Note how she said courage. And here where we had ours being used properly, and yet when she ran for president, having been passed the baton by Joe Biden, very, very different sounding. Here it is.

[I]

Have you no empathy, man? You know, for the suffering of other people? Have you no sense of purpose? You better thank a union member for sick leave. You better thank a union member for sick leave. You better thank a union member for vacation time. You all helped us win in 2020, and we're gonna do it again in 2024.

[Megyn Kelly]

We're gone.

[I]

Hello to all my divine nine brothers and sisters and my. So this is a margin of error race. It's tight. I'm gonna win.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, God, I'm gonna win. But it's tight.

[I]

Weeping may endure for a night.

[Megyn Kelly]

This is the best.

[I]

But joy, joy cometh in the morning. The path may seem hard, the work may seem heavy, but joy cometh in the morning. And church morning is on its way.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, man, that's me.

[John Ashbrook]

Saturday night with a bourbon.

[Megyn Kelly]

Come on.

[Michael Duncan]

Have you no decency? Mom, Come on.

[Megyn Kelly]

You know.

[Josh Holmes]

Little cool reference for the listener.

[Megyn Kelly]

We're going to win. Who is going to win this little contest? Gentlemen, who's. Is there a clear number one?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I just have such secondhand embarrassment every time you play the second half of those clips. You watch it.

[Megyn Kelly]

You have to pick one, Holmes. You can't. You. You. You have to pick one.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I just. For me, the Hillaria, what makes her special is like they all have this beautifully presented juxtaposition. But what makes her special is pretending that she didn't know the word cucumber.

[Megyn Kelly]

That is special to me.

[Josh Holmes]

That, I mean, she's talking about.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's a commitment to the bit.

[Josh Holmes]

That's such a commitment to the bit.

[J]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, it's like, no, I don't understand the English language. I'm gonna pretend like that I don't know what a cucumber is.

[J]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

You said you love Jasmine Crockett. I love Hilaria. I love her so much. I love that she tries to sound like Penelope Cruz. It makes me want to buy a Cessna and start running drugs.

[Megyn Kelly]

Wait, we're going to come back to Hilaria in one second. But, I mean, I feel like you're. You might be giving short shrift to Jasmine. Right? Who's like, yeah, that. The 2023 version is so sweet. You'll like her. You're like, oh, yeah, I see why Houstonians said, yeah, let's send this gal to Congress. Before she was like, I will cut you. Whoa, wait, what. Here's the thing. What happened?

[Michael Duncan]

I think, you know, among those. Those selections that you gave us, number one, it overlooks lifetime achievement, Hillary Clinton, who famously, when she goes in the south, all of a sudden is a Southerner in those choices. Three of those people are doing it out of political expediency. They're just your standard, run the mill.

[Josh Holmes]

There's political crook points for that, right?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Well, I take away points. That's commonplace in D.C. it's a dime a dozen. Finding someone who's going to lie and just play to the audience to get what they want out of them. Hilaria Baldwin is just crazy.

[John Ashbrook]

She's doing it for the love of the game.

[Megyn Kelly]

Exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

It is the love of the game.

[Michael Duncan]

It's so pure. It comes from a pure place of like, I want to be crazy.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm going to be totally not it. Yeah, you're right.

[Megyn Kelly]

And Alex totally buys in. Right? Like, he goes on a late night shows. He's like, you know, my wife, she. She's from Spain. She's in the kitchen cooking.

[Michael Duncan]

Literally.

[Megyn Kelly]

She grew up in Boston. Wait, what? She's like, definitely not from Spain. What? What are you saying?

[Josh Holmes]

Two Bostonians in this, by the way, which is an interesting. Maybe there's a regional issue there.

[Michael Duncan]

Boston University's just got a reputation putting out horrible people.

[Megyn Kelly]

Who's the other?

[Michael Duncan]

I think this is a known thing. Like, a lot of people from Boston University, just problems, problems, problem, problems. It's a dumb thing.

[Megyn Kelly]

You're gonna get hate mail for that. Wait, Holmes, who is the other Bostonian? Ileria.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, no, bu. You.

[Megyn Kelly]

You've got aoc. Oh, Alexandria, Cortacio hotels.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And I don't think she found that accent until she left Boston.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I've seen some clips of her at BU where none of that. Yeah, she was like. Looked like a sorority girl.

[Megyn Kelly]

No, honestly, it's like, it's truly like if. If I were running for mayor of Chicago next year, and I'm running around going, top of the morning to you. You. It's obvious what you're doing.

[Josh Holmes]

Megan's doing. Oh, hey, what's going on? We just got here in Chicago. Just looking out for the crime on the streets and all that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Watching out for my wee ones. Okay. Speaking of Hilaria, I think. So we all agree. Are we all in agreement that Hilaria won, or would you guys like to disagree?

[Josh Holmes]

Anybody have.

[Comfortably Smug]

Man, it's. It's so hard to disagree with that. Yeah, it is. I would say that Kamala deserves special points for doing it on a national stage.

[Josh Holmes]

Know everyone is watching, right? Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

And in so many different flavors. Right.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what consideration Megan is? She's got. She has a. A full spectrum of options.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, you. If you want Jamaican, we got some of that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

We can go urban. We can go southern. Horse. We can go southern. I mean, there's versatility.

[John Ashbrook]

If it's a best actor, it's multiple personality disorder.

[Megyn Kelly]

No, but, like, if you're a Hollywood.

[Comfortably Smug]

Casting age, dexterity and talent.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like, if you're. If you're casting for snl, that's. You gotta. You gotta go with Kamala. She can. She can do any bit. You know, we can go take it Rastafarian. I have you no decency. Right. We can go Latina. We can go preacher. We can do the. I don't know what she's doing there with her. Whatever.

[Josh Holmes]

Seamlessly transitions from Bob Marley to mlk.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's amazing.

[Josh Holmes]

And you're right, there is that accent.

[Michael Duncan]

It's like. Like her channeling Jon Ossoff channeling Barack Obama. So it's like a copy of a copy, you know, third rate.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, so while we're on the subject of Hilaria, she and Alec have this. This reality TV show. It must not be doing well because they're clearly now making a point of doing and saying very weird things to try to get into segments like the one that I'm doing right now. And it's Working. Cause they're very strange people. And the following clip went everywhere. We. We could have raised it earlier in the week, but we saved it for our friends from the Variety Program. And you will see why.

[J]

I've seen one of the loves of her life naked.

[Michael Duncan]

Not the love of her.

[J]

He was one of the loves of her life. We went to go see him on Broadway, and he was naked. We went to go see Take Me out, the musical that our dear friend Scott Ellis directed. And all these baseball players were in the locker room and they were all turn around naked with their dongs hanging out. And he's there, her boy. And I recognize him. I met him before. And when he turns around with his personality hanging, I'm like, oh, oh, oh, okay. He had like a clarinet hanging from his pants. The guy literally turns around, we're all like, ah, whoa. We go out into the lobby, we meet them all, and her boyfriend comes in. I'm like, hey, how you doing?

[Megyn Kelly]

And I was like, I'm going to stay over here.

[J]

And you can't pay attention to a word he's saying. He's standing right here talking to me. I'm sitting like him going. Then he's gonna be going, yeah, you know the show and this and that and this. I'm like, you have like a baseball bat that you stuff into your pants every day. How would that work for you? All right, let's move on from that subject.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, that's good. Speak currently. Oh, man. Actually seen that question.

[Josh Holmes]

He ends it with saying, it had to be said. It had to be said.

[Megyn Kelly]

There's a lot going on there. Is dong an appropriate word for the fellow down south in Rio? I thought that was much more of a dated reference from like Sixteen Candles. Dong. Is that still in the vernacular?

[Josh Holmes]

You know, we've got a lot that we explore on this topic. Probably not appropriate for the Sirius XM crowd, but we have many nicknames that we could probably share with people. Dong is pretty common vernacular, but not necessarily one that you would use to describe your wife's ex boyfriend.

[Megyn Kelly]

But. But in general, you're telling me it's still in favor. This is good to know. How about the personality? He. He referred to it as the personality. He turned around with his personality out. Is that. That's got to be a new one.

[Josh Holmes]

That's new to me. Also new. And I thought innovative was the clarinet.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

That was. That was something that was.

[Megyn Kelly]

That makes it sound like there's somewhat of a skin problem. Problem.

[Josh Holmes]

Also alludes. It alludes to how it Was used, perhaps. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Megyn Kelly]

I.

[Josh Holmes]

You know what? This is a classy show.

[Megyn Kelly]

Sorry. What was the last thing? Oh, the baseball bat. The baseball bat. Because it really hurt Alec. I think that's why that came to mind. It really hurt him. Yeah. Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

You don't want to think I don't know that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Has anybody. Has. Is this. Has anyone given a moment's thought to those that came before them with their spouse? I don't. I'm not sure this is. Maybe it's seeing them naked and.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, what. It struck me he keeps referring to the guy as her boyfriend, like, present tense. And all it did was remind me of President Trump. What's the name of that dinner that happens in New York? Al Smith dinner, where he was like, I'm talking about the dudes for Kamala. You know, they're all voting for Kamala, but it's fine because all their wives. Wives and wives. Boyfriends are voting for me.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Alec Baldwin, I think he was talking about you.

[Megyn Kelly]

I don't know what's going on in that strange relationship, but I do know they're actively seeking attention because they need ratings on their show. Okay. I. I feel like I would be remiss if I did not mention, as we're talking about people who have changed themselves dramatically in mentioning a Republican controversy today that involves. Involves Kristi Noem. So Kristi Noem is our Department of Homeland Security head. As you know, she's a controversial pick. The reason she wasn't chosen for vice president was probably that ridiculous memoir she wrote confessing to killing her puppy, Cricket, who she shot in the face for no reason right after. Before she killed their goat and. I don't know, like a set of horses. No, not really. I know horses died. Just the puppy and the family goat. And then the daughter got off the bus and was like, where's Cricket? Anyway, there was that. There was an alleged affair with Corey Lewandowski, which was reported by the Daily Mail, which we talked about in the show. She got probably downgraded off of vp and she got made dhs. And I said to this audience, well, I. I will be rooting for her, because that is a very big job. And what we've seen so far is a lot of photo ops. Okay. She went on. Was it Fox News wearing her, like, FBI DHS jacket? Like, she just finished a field operation while she was actually doing the arrests. Like, that's cosplaying. All right, we. We'll show you that picture when we get it. Then we saw her out there rounding up illegals on her horse with her cowboy hat, which I said, all right, I'm going to have to give her a pass on that because she actually was raised on a ranch in South Dakota. That's not necessarily cosplaying. Right? Like that could. But it was obviously a curated photo op that she put together to make sure she look. And in all this, she's got false eyelashes, heavy eyeliner, the big lips with all the gloss, the heavy blush. You know, she's camera ready, like I would be for doing a television hit, but maybe not while I was riding the horses and, like, capturing illegals. And then she went next level last night, by the way. This is after she got in trouble for, like, being a spokesperson for a dental office when she was still the governor of South Dakota and showing off her fake veneers, which she's really proud of. Like, very obsessed with the new look, which is dramatically different than the old look. And then we see her last night dropping this video from that El Salvadorian prison. Watch. I also want everybody to know, if you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face. First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people, okay? Standing behind her in a cage are dozens of shirtless prisoners in the El Salvadorian jail, looking kind of scared, confused. They're being used as props for her photo op in her skin tight shirt with her hair perfectly curled and quaffed. And again, the makeup as she tries to sound tough with these prisoners behind her as her background as like, truly her human props in her photo. And I'm telling you, you guys, guys, it's fucked up. I have no empathy for Venezuelan gang members who wound up in an El Salvadorian jail, but this is messed up. I mean, truly, like, to use them in this way as her backdrop to show us how cool she is and how tough she is is gross and utterly unhelpful to those of us who have been out there arguing that Trump is within his rights to round up these eagle eagles in America and send them there with very limited due process. Utterly unhelpful. So any thoughts on that?

[Josh Holmes]

You know, she's had a tendency in recent years. I mean, she started as a congresswoman from South Dakota, Wonderful, awful hue. Like, I got to know her staff and whatnot a little bit on Capitol Hill. But in recent years, if she's got a major glaring weakness. It's that she gets out in front a little too public of a way. I mean, one of the things that caught my eye early on in the administration was them deciding that they were going to run a bunch of public service announcements using taxpayer dollars, but with her basically to camera. And I think the challenge for that, that is you're in Donald Trump's administration and Donald Trump's the star of this show. Right. It's not Kristi Noem. And I think everybody sort of understands that. At least it seems that this administration understands that a lot better than the first time around. But she's kind of getting herself into a territory where it's a little overexposed. I mean, everybody knows that Tom Holman is walking around literally showing up in a different place, case every day, deporting some incredibly violent gang member somewhere. And he's getting the job done. And the best, you know, his only publicity at all is when some journal asks him a horrible question. He just dresses him down and moves on. Right. I think that's a better approach.

[Megyn Kelly]

I it. I don't remember another DHS secretary showing up for TV hits like this. Hold on, we'll put it on the board. Like trying to look like, look at her with the long dangling earrings and the hat and like the, the jacket. This is, the whole thing feels like an act. And I'm all for women taking over these powerful, tough, important positions, but I'm embarrassed for how she's presenting herself while doing it. Like maybe it's time. And, and as you know, look, I, I look, I'm not really in a position to cast stones here from my made up face at my desk, but I can guarantee you that if I became Secretary of Homeland Security, I would not be laying on the lip gloss, the lashes and the blush. Before I started talking about illegals, I made sure wound up in El Salvador or cosplaying up with my DHS wear before I went on Fox News. This is a deeply insecure person and I'm sorry, but it doesn't. Who are we if we only have honest talk for the left? This is honest talk from someone who's a Trump supporter that he needs to rein her in because she's becoming an embarrassment.

[John Ashbrook]

It's all a little much. You know, all of the stuff, the ads that, you know, the video in front of the prison and the reason why back to Holmes point is like, it seems sort of excessive in spiking the football and you're getting out ahead of the Trump Administration let Donald Trump. Trump talk about how he wants to talk about the El Salvadorian.

[Josh Holmes]

And by the way, there's ongoing.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. Litigation.

[Josh Holmes]

Litigation over exactly what it is that she's talking about there. I mean, that guarantee you, I guarantee you will be entered as an exhibit in that courtroom.

[John Ashbrook]

The one thing I would say in her defense, the one thing I would say in her defense is like the PSAs. If it gets people to self deport, fantastic. If that video, you know, in front of those criminals get, gets less migrants to try to cross the border and smuggle drugs onto this country, good.

[Megyn Kelly]

I take your point. I see that now, actually. I. In her defense, when she put that out last night, it's getting way more likes than it is getting criticism. And most of the people criticizing it are like on the left and against this policy to begin with. So I think I'm in a unique spot because I actually support this policy and I want more illegal gang members deported to El Salvador. However, however, the way to convince Judge Boasberg, who will be the ultimate trier of fact on this, that we're not winning this fight right now. We just lost at the court of appeals and the Supreme Court may not take it immediately. So Judge Boasberg is in control at the moment, is really not to give him more reasons to suspect what kind of treatment they're going to have down in El Salvador and to take them and make them look like little lab rats behind prison bars. Looking dazed and confused and shirtless as she stands there totally glammed to the nines is a bad move. I can say this as a lawyer, this is not what you'd want introduced into the record, Christy. And what should have been done, Duncan, to your point on deterrence is let's, let's stick with the video we have that's already out there of the prisoners being processed. It's bad enough, frankly, of them bent over and being like, you know, put assembly line as they get checked out and. Yeah. And put into the, the prison. Like, I'm not really that comfortable with that. But it's fine. Like, these are gang members. These are fucking people who killed Americans. So, you know, cry me a river some of them. But there is a debate about who got in there that shouldn't have. There were two mistakes made. A woman got in and she, she was sent back home. A guy from Nicaragua who clearly is not a Venezuelan gang member, got in and he was sent back home. Anyway, I'm just saying right now we're debating over how much due process they should get while we figure out whether they really are Trenda Aragua and whether we should have shipped them to this prison. And shots of them looking. Maybe it's for the camera, but like scared and disoriented and a little shell shocked aren't helpful. Okay, that's my, my, that's my take on the matter. Feel free to disagree. My audience often does with me, but that's what we love about each other. Megan Kelly dot com.

[Michael Duncan]

Can I take one second to be.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Smoke.

[Michael Duncan]

Not the voice of rationality like you have been. I support it.

[I]

I support it.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's good. I like it. I know it's a bad take, but.

[Michael Duncan]

I like it and I support it. All the Democrats at their debate raised their hands and said, I'll give illegals free healthcare. You know, if you have an attractive woman, it gets more eyes online and what they're going to see is, shoot, if I try to enter the country illegally, I'm going to end up in this cage with a bunch of terrible people. And that doesn't look fun. I know it's absolutely bad for the legal system and I'm counting on the Supreme Court to hurry up and do its job and help us out there. We can make bad decisions along the way. We can have a little bit of fun.

[Josh Holmes]

This is our resident nihilist.

[John Ashbrook]

He's the devil on our table.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's funny because I'm really against these people and I trust in Tom Homan's ability to figure out whether they're Venezuelan gang members. I really do. There he is. Not running around willy nilly, just picking random Hispanics as the left would have you believe.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

But it's, it's another thing to put that on display and ask Americans to be like, all right, sure, I'm fine with zero due process before we do that. Right. Like, because that's really what Trump is asking for under the Alien Enemies Act. And look, I've defended, defended it repeatedly on the show, but I just feel like, like I don't. Maybe it's a woman thing, you know, maybe I'm too soft. But I, for me, that was too much. It was like, you look like you're on the backs of people who are in a lot of trouble. We understand that and most of us are okay with them having to sort that out. But you look like you're trying to make it into a photo op about you looking tough as opposed to a serious and sober legal issue. You that we're really regretful. We have to deal with but we do have to deal with thanks to Joe Biden. And you should not look like this is a fun thing for you to do and you're going to wear your skin tight shirt and go down there and try to look hot and threatening. I just, it's to me is a big turnoff. Okay, sorry, stole the last word. But I appreciate the disagreement and keep them coming. All right, stand by. Quick break. More after this. These days, personal safety is not something that can or should be left to chance. Whether at home, on the road or just living everyday life, having a reliable way to protect yourself and your family is crucial. That's why Burna is the choice for so many. Burna is a game changing, less lethal self defense tool. It's compact, powerful and easy to use. And it provides the confidence to act in any situation. Burna uses non lethal rounds, tear gas, pepper and kinetic projectiles to effectively stop a threat threat from a safe distance. And by the way, with this projectile, you don't actually have to necessarily hit the target in order to incapacitate him. As long as you're close, the fumes from this thing can potentially be incapacitating. And the best part is Burna can be shipped directly to your door and it's legal in all 50 states. Burna's proudly American with products hand assembled in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sometimes a firearm is just not the right option for you and Burna provides a powerful alternative. Protect what matters most with Byrna. Visit byrna.com, b y R-N-A.com Megan to receive a 10% discount and learn why thousands of people and law enforcement agencies are incorporating Burna's less lethal protection into their lives. Burna non lethal self defense. Always ready.

[Josh Holmes]

Don't miss Good American Family.

[Megyn Kelly]

We have a little girl here.

[Michael Duncan]

Adoption.

[Megyn Kelly]

She has 12. Dwarfism. Starring Ellen Pompeo and Mark Duplass. Something is off. She's just a little girl. You think she's faking? She has adult teeth. There are signs of puberty. Inspired by the shocking stories that Torah Family apart. I don't know what's going on. How old are you?

[Comfortably Smug]

You should get a lawyer.

[Megyn Kelly]

You have no idea how those people hurt this girl.

[Josh Holmes]

The Hulu Original series Good American Family New episodes Wednesdays streaming on Hulu.

[Megyn Kelly]

Megan Kelly I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on triumph a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Music Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the Sirius XM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free. Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com and get three months free. Offer details apply. So Hack Madness is a play on March Madness. And I liked the top four. Your number one seeds, this is for hacks in the media, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, are Nicole Wallace, Eugene Daniels of Politico. But now he's got a show on MSNBC. Nora O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan. I like it. I like it a lot.

[Josh Holmes]

Big year for cbs. Yeah, I mean, smug is our resident bracketologist here. We all put a lot of work into the seatings this year. This is our fifth annual Megan, and every year it's a body of work, right? You got to get, you got to do a lot of things throughout a calendar year in order to qualify for the tournament. And then we seed you appropriately on how we thought throughout the year.

[Michael Duncan]

And that's the thing is, so I mean, it starts with 66. We have two playing games we're talking about. It's the same size as March madness. There are 64 hacks that are going head to head. It gets voted on online, on X. It's huge. I mean, we've so far had, you know, throughout the history of these, over 10 million votes cast. So I mean, it's bigger than some congressional races in terms of the number of race votes that go into this. But also it's so great because I tag every single one of these hacks. I at them on every X, every single time. And very frequently I get blocked. They start tweeting about how mad they are. They're like, I'm so unbiased. And then without fail, they get all these replies of screenshots of like Russiagate nonsense and everything else. But like Home said, it's their previous year's body of work that goes into deciding it. And I think, to me, the story of this year is that two CBS people got the number one seat in each of their divisions. Further, they were the two who also managed a vice president debate like, this has to stop, too.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it's really remarkable.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, this is like that trans movie about the Colombian guy who wanted to be trans. And they got all the nominations. That's CBS right now. They got all the nominations. But I do. I mean, I have one bone to pick, because it seems that the latest matchup has this Eugene Daniels up against Don Lemon, who's only an eight seed. What kind of disrespect is that to Don Lemon's hack?

[John Ashbrook]

This is very, very, very important, Megan. We have a proprietary methodology in college basketball. Ken Pomeroy has this Ken Palm, which he uses as, like, a quotient to rank basketball teams. We have this methodology that includes everything from, like, how liberal they are, exposure, how crazy they are, how much of a liar they are, and then exposure. And, like, Don Lemon dropped in the seating because his quotient and exposure has gone down a little.

[Josh Holmes]

He's been fired twice.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. I've never seen Duncan this animated about any other subject that we've ever discussed with him.

[John Ashbrook]

I put a lot of thought into this and included a lot of work. It included a lot of numbers. I might. I might be on the spectrum, you know.

[Megyn Kelly]

Now, is it going to be. Is it like the NCAA March Madness, where we've learned this year there's no more Cinderella stories? Because it's basically because we're allowing the athletes to make money and so they can switch to schools and they're leaving their small schools and they're all going to the big schools. Good comparison. So is that. Is that what's. And hack madness, too? Or could there be a sleeper surprise? Like, I would say, Eugene Daniels kind of a sleeper surprise? Most people. Not a household name.

[Josh Holmes]

No, not a household name. I mean, there's an inherent bias, as we've done this over five years, for people who are on tv, they're recognizable. All the crazy stuff that they've done is visual, so people can actually see it. There's an inherent bias against print whose body of work might I say is extraordinary, but they don't get the kind of representation that's necessary to make it all the way to the Final Four in this kind of thing. We're hoping that that sort of work works its way out a little bit, but there's only, like, six print journalists left after one round. So. Yeah, I mean, this is. You know, household names go a long.

[Comfortably Smug]

Way, and there were some newcomers that went down really hard in the first round. And I'm telling you, I mean, as much as some of these people have tried Their best. They are not going to overcome Margaret Brennan, she has done yeoman's work building towards this championship and I don't think she's going to be denied this year.

[Josh Holmes]

A real powerhouse house.

[Megyn Kelly]

Wait, what? What? Did Jeffrey Goldberg even make the dance? He's probably not even on your radar. No.

[Michael Duncan]

He was a bubble team.

[John Ashbrook]

He was a bubble team.

[Josh Holmes]

He was a bubble team. But it happened. All of this happened a week after the bracket came out. And so sorry, sir.

[Megyn Kelly]

Sorry.

[Josh Holmes]

Late submission. He could have been, you know, in terms of what he's done lately. Yeah, serious contender after that, played at.

[Megyn Kelly]

The top of the show. I. I could have elevated him a couple of seeds at least. I know you. We.

[Josh Holmes]

We have some upsets.

[Megyn Kelly]

We have.

[John Ashbrook]

I'm. This is breaking news because the next round of Hack madness currently live.

[Michael Duncan]

Everyone visit Comfortably Smug.

[Megyn Kelly]

Can people still get in on this, you guys, or is it too late?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

Where do they go?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, Eugene, you vote at Comfortably Smug on X. I have it pinned right on my profile.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. I mean Eugene Daniels right now is losing to Don Lemon. He's a one seed. Don Lemon's an eight seat upset. Navarro's beating Chris Hayes.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, that's right now.

[John Ashbrook]

Oh, it's very surprising. Keith Olbermann is beating Sunny Hostin. She was a two seed.

[Josh Holmes]

Boy, she did a lot of work this year.

[Michael Duncan]

The View is really like the, the power of the View has really started to wane.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, enjoy Joy, what's her name got from the View got knocked out.

[John Ashbrook]

Joy Mayhar.

[Megyn Kelly]

Joy Behar. What about Joy? What'd you do with Joy Reid? Because now no visibility, but I mean very hackery scale body of work throughout the year.

[Josh Holmes]

Right. She had that kind of visibility throughout a calendar year and so she richly deserved.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, and it's. And it's paying off for Anna Navarro addition to like that. She's also going on like Bill Maher and she's on CNN a lot. And so all that visibility means she's going to make a long run here in the tournament.

[Josh Holmes]

All to crown the biggest hack in all of political reporting.

[Megyn Kelly]

Who did you guys pick? You know how we have to pick our number one this year? I went with Duke for all sorts of reasons on the other bracket, which is completely collapsed by the way, my bracket. But who do you guys have for number one? Did you all pick different people?

[Josh Holmes]

I think we might have picked different people. I will say I had three CBS people in my final four, but I ultimately ended up going with Nicole Wallace. I making fun of the kid at the State of the Union. It's just a, it ha. It's a recency bias perhaps, but sometimes that propels a team.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, I, I, Brendan, I just, I, I, she goes in day in, day out with the hackery. It started her like Cinderella run started at that VP debate. And then you saw things as recent as when she tried to go after Marco Rubio on Sunday. Like she keeps at it week after.

[Josh Holmes]

Week with the hacker humiliation finish.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I'm, I'm with smug on this. I, I'm counting on America's love of J.D. vance, America's love of memes, and America's hatred of Margaret. Margaret, you know, I don't really care. Margaret.

[Michael Duncan]

I don't care. Margaret was huge moment.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm also a big believer in Margaret Brennan this year. You know, just tournament. Yeah, I did believe her because this tournament is about the big moments, like she did in the debate. It's also about doing, you know, what you're doing when nobody else is watching.

[Josh Holmes]

Day in, day out.

[Comfortably Smug]

That's her show. Nobody watches her show. But in the big moment moments, you know, when like Marco Rubio dunks on her or JD Vance dunks on her, that's on X. People see it. She's performing well then too. So I'm telling you, I think this is hers to. Hers to lose.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. Who was it? Which, which blonde news anchor was it who said to J.D. like only two, only a cup. A few apartment buildings have been taken over by the Venezuelan gangs. Who was was that, Steve? Was it might have been Martha Raditz.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it was Martha Raditz.

[Megyn Kelly]

We didn't see an honorable mention in there. That was like enough of her.

[Josh Holmes]

But she was a bubble team.

[Megyn Kelly]

The exposure's low. Yeah, she could be a bubble exposure.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

I mean, Kathy Mayer mar. She got in there super late, you know, media executive. God, if she had just had this testimony, what might have been? In any event, we'll tell you.

[Josh Holmes]

I will tell you, Megan. There's one really special Cinderella story in this year's tournament. A former champion who had not made the bracket for a couple years due to an unfortunate employment situation, has made a return and is now working his way through the bracket. The potato himself, Brian Stelter, such a story.

[Michael Duncan]

Gets fired by cnn, begs his way back.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, fighter.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's what's built this country.

[Megyn Kelly]

How can you, how can you root against him? I can only imagine the halftime speech he's giving the rest of the team. Great. While we're on the subject of actresses and awards and hacks do we have a moment for Rachel Zegler and Snow White? Because is an update in that story today. There was an in depth piece like a behind the scenes piece. Was it Variety talking about how they've. They've been in a full meltdown about this girl for a couple of years now and how they had her tweet out like a little Yay, Snow White. Can't wait. So excited. I love to play her. And she did it and got like millions of views and they were like good job Rachel. And then she like minutes later followed it up with and never forget Free Palestine. This is just like few months after 107 was like it hadn't even been a year. And they were like my, my God. What?

[Josh Holmes]

Isn't her co star Jewish?

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes. Gal Gatot. I mean what. Wow, she's Jewish. And apparently this actually all hell broke loose. They gal started to getting death threats. She's Israeli and I think served in the idf. They tried, they, they flew an executive, one of the producers out to go visit personally with Rachel Zegler to say could you please take that down because we understand you can have your political views but those aren't really helpful. Well you're trying to build an audience for a movie. Maybe save them for like your diary and your friends but like maybe not. Maybe just take the tweet down and she won wouldn't. And then they had to hire a special media consultant for her to follow her around all the time and make sure she didn't continue on Snow White and the Prince and Young Love and women who want to get married and Steven Spielberg, the executive producer of her previous movie and white people who she claims wanted to know if she was really a Latina on her first movie. Like the list was really long. And then the son of that producer who got on the plane to go over and say would you please for the love of God take this down and she wouldn't. Was all on Instagram yesterday admitting it all the Variety report being like of course, what would you do when you have this narcissistic nightmare trying to ruin a film that you've put hundreds of millions of dollars into that's employing all these working classes people. She refused to keep her fat mouth shut. It was a great spilling of the tea.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

So I don't think she's in the running toward the real Academy Awards. She wasn't right. She was not nominated for this past year because the film hadn't come out. But you tell me, you know, you're not Hollywood guys. But you are political oddsman. So what do you think the odds are of this person. Person working ever again?

[Josh Holmes]

I don't know. Doesn't it seem like it's almost a prerequisite in Hollywood? I mean, maybe things have changed a little bit. They are, didn't they? Megan, tell me, isn't this the one where they actually took the dwarves out of the seven Dwarves?

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes, we have CGI dwarves now.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Because little people didn't need jobs either. Yeah, but. But it's.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's. Peter Dinklage wanted the whole field to himself and went out there down behind us. Unless it's me.

[Josh Holmes]

He kicked the ladder. Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

He got money in Hollywood.

[Megyn Kelly]

Now he's like, nicely done. Smug. The ladder was nicely done. That was low.

[Michael Duncan]

No, but I mean, he got his money acting as a little person. Now he's saying it's demeaning for them to have those roles. He acted as a dwarf on, like, the most popular show on TV for 10 years. Made millions of dollars. Now he's like, how dare people hire dwarves to act as dwarfs? It's ridiculous. He got his money and they kicked the ladder down behind him.

[John Ashbrook]

The thing that really shocks me about this story. Story. You know, Disney and all these media companies, they invest hundreds of millions of dollars into these projects, right? Have they ever thought about maybe like, a little bit of, like, I don't know, vulnerability study, opposition research, that sort of thing before you go and hire some zoomer who's a lunatic.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but they're all lunatic. I mean, how many people in Hollywood, maybe not to this extent, but how many people. Do you hear about actors you love? You love what? Look at Robert De Niro. I love, like, basically every movie he's ever done. Every time that guy opens his mout as a private citizen, I'm like, oh, my God, you can't possibly believe that. You know what I mean? So it's like, if you're trying to vulnerability study it, where do you start?

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, I mean, I think.

[Megyn Kelly]

I don't think they're all this bad. I think so. I think most young ingenues can be scared into just being quiet until the movie comes out. At least, like, please give the movie a chance understanding that Republicans buy sneakers too. You know, to quote Michael Jordan, like, just.

[Josh Holmes]

And there are a few actors now that are not. Are less afraid of sort of showing their conservatives.

[Michael Duncan]

It's also a generational thing. I mean, her generation has basically grown up being told every opinion you have, Post it online, share it with the world. You're the most special person. The world revolves around you. Everyone has to change to fit your beliefs because you're so special and you're so important, and everything you say is validated. And that's your truth. And that's not going away anytime soon. The other problem is Disney keeps doing. Doing this shit. Yeah, they don't care how many times they lose money. I mean, this is.

[Josh Holmes]

They're going to learn a lesson.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, I don't think so. I mean, they're projected to lose between 2 and 400 million on this. I mean, they're not going to learn their lesson.

[Comfortably Smug]

About a third of what Democrats lost on Kamala Harris. And I will tell you that I think that this woman will be the governor of California. I think she is going to run. And I think that Californians are looking for a step up from Gavin Newsome. And I think they found their candidate. I think she's going to be the governor.

[Josh Holmes]

Maybe a formidable voice of the left.

[Megyn Kelly]

Here's some good news. Speaking of the woke wars, Anheuser Bush declines for the first time in over 30 years to sponsor the Pride Fest parade in St. Louis. They will not. That's. That's Bud Light learning its lesson. They won't. They won't sponsor, sponsor the Pride Fest. And several other companies are saying, we're out. This LGBTQ Pride Fest is now openly complaining, saying, we don't understand DEI is somehow becoming a bad word. We need these partners. We need them now more than ever. And they've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars as various companies refuse to pitch in, including, reportedly, according to the New York Times, Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte Comcast, an auto dealership group, dark Cars. And then there's Bud Light all saying, not interested. This is a huge victory in an important battle that we've all been fighting. Will it continue, guys? What do you think?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I do think it will continue, at least for a while. I mean, all of these companies are ultimately in the business of making money and providing value to shareholders. And you look at elections, production results, and for the first time, they're not talking to just a far left shakedown artist. They're looking at the American people and they want to change it.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's wonderful to see that they're learning their lesson. Go ahead, Ashbrook, you got.

[Comfortably Smug]

I'm just gonna say I grew. I grew up in a very small town. We had a 4th of July parade every year, and I don't remember giant corporate sponsors coming in to make people turn out for that so I'm guessing if this parade is as popular as that one, then maybe people, they'll show.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, they can make it happen without all these corporate dollars. And these corporate corporations are looking at people like Chris Rufo and Robbie Starbuck, who's been doing such a good job of shaming them for continuing DEI policies that are divisive and racist and sexist. And we've all got our eyes on them now. They know they have real skin in this game. They will not be universally praised. They will be publicly humiliated with their core audience like Buck Light was. So I love it. It's progress. Great to see you fellas.

[Josh Holmes]

Great to see you, Megan. Thank you.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you so much.

[John Ashbrook]

Thanks for having us.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, we'll be back tomorrow with Halperin and the morning Meeting crew. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.