← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cognitive Cover-Up Exposed, Trump's Historic Peace Speech, and Diddy Trial Latest, with The Fifth Column | Ep. 1072
01:40:55
Megyn Kelly is joined by Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, co-hosts of The Fifth Column podcast, to discuss the ongoing rollout of the "Original Sin" Biden book, the left and corporate media covering up Biden’s cognitive decline, new details about what was really happening behind-the-scenes, real examples of the corporate media’s spin about Biden’s decline for years, their lies and culpability in the cover-up, comedians and non-partisans knowing Biden was mentally unfit for years before it was acceptable to say it, the elite left continuing their Biden lies, Trump's historic speech laying out a new foreign policy vision, his focus on peace and slamming past nation-building from the GOP and America, the disgusting allegations and details revealed at the Diddy trial, whether the prosecution has proven criminality or just bad behavior, and more. More from The Fifth Column: https://www.wethefifth.com/ Everglades Foundation: Learn more about President Trump’s Everglades ...
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- [00:01]
Megyn Kelly
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. Wow, what a day. Yesterday, President Trump currently in Qatar as part of his historic trip to the Middle east where he's laying out a vision. I mean, he's laying out his foreign policy vision. It's incredible. You should definitely go and watch it on YouTube when you can. He. He soup to nuts, said what he believes and why he's doing the things he's doing that he is after an era of peace and prosperity, saying, I don't like war. I mean, it seems like something you wouldn't have to say, but you kind of do, given the history, let's be honest, of the Republican Party in recent years. Uh, it's already getting incredible results. We're gonna show you the highlights of the speech with the. Which the mainstream media is all but ignoring. I mean, it's very little coverage of this in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, this is like, this is a watershed moment. It seems pretty clear to me this is a watershed moment for our country, the Republican Party, and the dawn of a new era. Yes, his election, but this is him pointing the sails and letting us know where he's taking the United States. And it sounded amazing. I mean, I was really moved by parts of what he said. It was a very honest assessment of some of the things we've done. It wasn't an apology tour like Barack Obama took. He wasn't saying he was sorry for anything, but he was free about criticizing prior U.S. decisions without naming presidential names, I think out of deference to, you know, mostly George W. Bush, but also Obama to some extent as well. And he's no fan of Joe Biden. That was kind of mentioned, too. Plus, the Democratic Party's going through hell week with the renewed focus on Joe Biden. They thought they were done with him, but now all these books come, not letting it die. And the most lady latest, the most recent book is the one by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. It's called Original Sin, and they're going to be on this show on Tuesday. I'm actually really looking forward to this. Let me just tell you something about it, because I know Jake personally and I've told you guys before, we're friendly. I help him with his veterans charity, and I respect the work he's done to help vets over the many years. You know, our politics are very, very different. But I respect him and I respect the work he does in that department. And I like him. But it's going to be a contentious interview because, well, you know all the reasons why. And he knows that, okay? He knows that. I think he's looking forward to the opportunity to defend himself. So he's coming to the right place. Somebody who doesn't hate him, who knows all the criticisms about him writing this book, who will raise them? Don't worry, I will. But am also interested in the contents of the book. Unlike the left, which doesn't wanna discuss them, or to the extent they do wanna discuss them, they only wanna use them to say, kamala could have won. Kamala, she would have had it in the bag had it not been for the evil Biden. Well, we have a different agenda, which is truth. Kamala would not have won if Biden had dropped out earlier. I have zero doubt about that. She's a uniquely horrible politician. And so I don't buy that spin. But I think Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, and, you know, I've been critical of him too, getting up there, saying we missed it. You know, he says, I covered it, got this award. We, we didn't miss anything. Right? So we're gonna go over all that. There's nothing. There's no holds barred. There's nothing off the table. And I predict it will be the most interesting interview they give on their book day launch, which is again this Tuesday. Joining me now for the full show today, guys, I know you love. And that's my friends from the fifth Column podcast. Camille Foster, editor at large at Tangle News, Michael Moynihan, host of two the Moynihan Report, and Matt Welsh of Reason magazine. Find their work and subscribe@wethe5th.com Since President Trump's election, the eyes of the nation have been on Mar a Lago and the free state of Florida. It is a thriving, booming place. South Florida is a special place because of its amazing water for boating, swimming, fishing and drinking. Well, today, clean water is endangered by toxic algae. Did you know that? You may have heard of red tide or blue green algae. It can be dangerous and it can be gross. In his first term, President Trump signed a law to solve the problem with a new reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee to keep clean, fresh water flowing constantly to South Florida. President Trump said, after years of rebuilding other nations, we are finally rebuilding our nation. Washington can finish the job in next year's budget and keep President Trump's promise. The Everglades foundation, our advertiser, says that would be very good for Florida and good for the Everglades. Learn more about President Trump's Everglades Support project@evergladesfoundation.org hi, guys. Great to have you.
- [05:09]
Camille Foster
Hi, Megan.
- [05:09]
Michael Moynihan
Thanks for having us.
- [05:11]
Megyn Kelly
So do you think I'm doing the right thing by platforming Tapper and Thompson on their book?
- [05:17]
Matt Welch
Absolutely.
- [05:17]
Camille Foster
What are we even doing?
- [05:19]
Megyn Kelly
You know how you love that term.
- [05:22]
Camille Foster
Thankfully, it's 2025 and people have kind of quietly dropped that for the most part, as a stupid criticism. Now you have like, the New York Times and Ezra Klein, like, maybe we should talk to Steve Bannon after all. So, yeah, you're doing the right thing and give him hell. And we, I would say, speaking for the three of us, we like and know Alex Thompson especially, but also Jake Tapper, and it should be a thoroughgoing exchange of ideas.
- [05:48]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, I think it will be. And I. No one's under any pretenses that it's going to be anything else. Right. It's like what I say about Jake and Alex and them writing this book. It goes out of this microphone. It's not like I'm just whispering it in Doug's ear. I've been pretty open about my thoughts on the media cover up of Joe Biden's problems, so we'll do all that. But I will say, if you're looking for it to be done through a hateful lens, where I just emerge with these two left in a puddle of blood, that's not gonna happen. I mean, I will be respectful to them as I am to anybody who does me the courtesy of swinging by the podcast. It's going to be contentious, but it's going to be robust and meaningful and honest and unsparing, but hopefully cordial in a way that makes them feel respected and glad they came, but makes the audience also glad they came by. You know what I mean?
- [06:40]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah. I mean, you can also say that people were, shall we say, very, very slow on this story that over at the fifth column we figured out in 2021, maybe 2020, maybe this guy's a little too old to be president. But I'll give our friend Alex Thompson some credit because when he was doing it, you know, regardless of the speech at the correspondence dinner, which I didn't listen to the whole thing, so I can't really comment on, but he was telling us off the record then, and I think on the record now, that he was, like, being attacked pretty brutally by people within the administration for the reporting that he was doing starting. And I think 2023, about the.
- [07:21]
Megyn Kelly
See, I'm Interest hearing that.
- [07:23]
Michael Moynihan
I, I, So he's, he's got a lot of stories about that. Yeah, yeah. They went after.
- [07:27]
Megyn Kelly
That's the thing. And I, and I also do want to hear the stories, like, as much as we're all like, oh, my God, how is Jake Tapper writing a book about, you know, that. I do want to hear what Jake Tapper found because I think he's probably got sources a lot closer to Joe Biden than I do, you know, so it's, it's almost like you need these media figures to do this to some extent, because I'm not that we didn't know. But aren't you interested in the details of how bad it was? I am. I'm reading all these excerpts, not just from this book, but from all the four voraciously. I'm like, I just feel so validated. I'm sure you guys feel it too. It's like way new, right? And then now you get the specifics of how right you were.
- [08:05]
Matt Welch
Yeah. And I haven't read the book yet, so I feel a little bit at a disadvantage trying to comment on it, but I do plan to. And as, as the guys have mentioned, we've talked to Alex about this number of times during the period when he was getting a lot of criticism from outside. I mean, it's hard to understate the consequences of groupthink and its ability to make you not see things that you don't wanna see anyways. So that is almost certainly a huge part of what happened in D.C. but from the excerpts that we read already, the coordinated effort on the part of the Biden administration to try and obscure the fact that the President was in fading health and just kind of waning in terms of his actual capacities towards the end, but really throughout his administration is one again, not surprising to us, but is really revealing to kind of read out in the open like that. The disagreements between George Clooney and others, the kind of exercise of going through writing that letter, the fact that people were privately saying one thing about Joe Biden and what they knew was wrong, and publicly saying quite another thing. It's not just politics as usual, or perhaps it is, but that should make one very cynical and deeply concerned. I think there's been a lot of kind of suggestion that the blame here is with the party who lied or with the administration who lied. But as we've all pointed out already, a lot of the blame is with the mainstream media who just did not do their jobs for whatever reasons. And those reasons are often Complicated and can't simply be boiled down to, I don't think contempt for Republicans or conservatives more broadly. It's a little bit more complicated than that, I think.
- [09:39]
Megyn Kelly
So this is what the value. I think the book's bringing. This book and the others, none of us is gonna soften on the media. I mean, I think that's the reality. Like, we know. Anybody who's an independent journalist or right of center knows exactly what the media did with this story. We know. But I personally would like to see some sort of congressional investigation, like an actual commission looking into what. Who was president, how bad was it, who covered up, who lied about the mental fitness of the sitting commander in chief, who had access to the nuclear codes. We need like a serious, maybe even bipartisan commission to actually get to the bottom of this. And so big books by Democrats and their media enablers are helpful in that particular regard. Like, the left does need to be aware that I know they were willing participants in the lie, but they need to be aware of just how bad it was. And. And this needs to be shoved down their throats so that they can't just be like, oh, it's backward looking. Which is what they're saying now. Fuck you, and you're backward looking. We had a sitting president who was a vegetable like it. We need an investigation. No, it's not. You can't just dismiss it and pre. Like it didn't happen by saying backward looking. It's here right now. And I realize it's brand damaging for the Democrats. I don't care. If it has to be just a singular party investigation, then so be it. But we do need to get to the bottom of it. I want to. In line with what you just said, Camille, here's Jake Tapper speaking. The book. They published an excerpt in the New Yorker, and the advanced copy was obtained by the Guardian, and Axios has a piece of it. That's where Alex Thompson's from. And so the news reports are already hitting. So Jake gave interview on his own network, CNN, speaking to the lies. That was his word yesterday. SOT1.
- [11:26]
Jake Tapper
Well, Alex Thompson and I were on the case, as were lots of other reporters trying to figure out what was going on behind the scenes. But the bottom line is the White House was lying not only to the press, not only to the public, but they were lying to members of their own cabinet, they were lying to White House staffers, they were lying to Democratic members of Congress, to donors about how bad things had gotten. And in fact, Alex and I started writing this book after the election of 2024. And we spoke with more than 200 people, most of whom, almost all of whom were Democrats and almost all of whom wouldn't be honest with us or wouldn't be candid with us until after the election. And then after the election, we found out all of these things, that when you looked at what was going on with President Biden at the time, it probably doesn't surprise you the extent to which he was deteriorating. But now we have anecdotes and facts about what was really going on behind the scenes with details that Democrats wouldn't share with us until after election day.
- [12:29]
Megyn Kelly
Is anyone shocked?
- [12:31]
Camille Foster
I mean, the and let's keep in mind also that a lot of the quotes, at least that we've seen in the New Yorker piece are still anonymous campaign operatives said and high profile Democrats said we're not going to get anywhere close to fixing the ills and the rot that allowed this to happen without some actual accountability and honesty. I think there's an interesting comp of a book that's out now. Megan, you interviewed David Zweig, as did we at the Fifth Column about his book an Abundance of Caution, which looks back at why did we basically close schools when the rest of the world had figured out that we shouldn't? During COVID boiling it down very quickly. But the media was very complicit in that. The elites were very complicit in that. And part of his approach and understanding is like, hey, look, this can happen again in a different way. We need an autopsy of this so we can figure this out. Historians are going to be looking at this for a long time, just as they did with FDR's 1944 election when he was dying of congestive heart failure with Woodrow Wilson having a stroke. In the White house, we had Dr. Jill Biden chairing cabinet meetings. And then the ones, the few that Biden was chairing, they put the names so that he could see them, like, what are we talking about here? But we need to know exactly the habits of mind that allowed that kind of delusion. I'm reading the New Yorker story and I want to throw a brick through my own window. It's making me infuriated because what is happening here? This is less than 12 months ago, right? The her report is already out in February saying that he's an old man and he's feeble. The Wall Street Journal is doing good reporting, one of the only outs out there doing good reporting. And they are getting absolutely slammed by the Joe Scarboroughs of The world and a lot of other people besides on cable news and elsewhere as like, oh, well, it's Murdoch owned and they're bad and we can't be trusted that. We were literally talking 12 months ago about cheap fakes. People who were in the audience when Joe Biden had no idea where he was, where Barack Obama is like guiding off. Oh, okay, this way. And when, when Fox News and other right of center organizations were pointing out like, wow, that looks bad, they're like, oh, that's selectively edited cheap bakes. It is though, those habits of mine among journalists, let alone Democrats that we need to sort of re.
- [14:55]
Megyn Kelly
Let me show one. And yeah, let me show one. Here's Brian Stelter. June 19th 19th, 2024. We are five days before the debate, which I believe was June 24th if memory serves, but we are within days of the fall down debate. And here's Brian Stelter trying to dismiss all these terrible videos of Biden with his aggressively deteriorating decline.
- [15:22]
Camille Foster
We've been worried for years about AI deep fakes that computer generated images are gonna trick people into believing something that's totally false. Cheap fakes are a little bit simpler. They're cheap, they're just distorted out of context videos chopped up in certain ways. The Biden administration, the Biden campaign is.
- [15:37]
Michael Moynihan
Worried about right now.
- [15:38]
Camille Foster
But make no mistake, they are worried about this.
- [15:40]
Michael Moynihan
This is a real problem.
- [15:41]
Camille Foster
This is not some made up fiction.
- [15:43]
Michael Moynihan
The videos are oftentimes made up, but.
- [15:45]
Camille Foster
The problem is real.
- [15:47]
Michael Moynihan
Oh my God, it's a made up problem. That's, that is in fact a made up problem. Brian, I'm sorry to point that out to you. Yeah, it's amazing.
- [15:57]
Megyn Kelly
He said that like they actually were spinning. The debate was the 27th on CNN and elsewhere, not just there. Ms. Of course, that really the problem here is not at all Joe Biden. It's these terrible right wing cheap fakes that are manufactured and not believable fake videos of the alleged decline. It's incredible. This is, this is not long after that Clooney fundraiser, which is detailed in this new book. And it's horrifying. I mean again, we knew that, we knew that. But more details about just how horrifying it was. And let me just give you a couple, then I'll give it back to you. Moynihan highlights. Biden did not, did not recognize George clooney at this June 15th fundraiser. And to me it's so funny because this is of course what led George Clooney to be like, oh my God, he's really too far gone. He doesn't know me. Everyone knows me. But I mean, in his defense, he is world recognizable. Okay. Biden hobbled out from around the corner. Clooney knew the president had just arrived from the G7 leader summit in Italy and might be a little tired, but holy, he wasn't expecting this. I'm quoting here. The president appeared severely diminished, as if he'd aged a decade since Clooney last saw him in December 2022. He was taking tiny steps and aides seemed to be guiding him by the arm. It was like watching someone who was not alive, recalled a Hollywood vip. It was startling. We all looked at each other. It was so awful. Thank you for being here, the president said to guests as he shuffled past them. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. Clooney felt a knot from form in his stomach as the president approached him. Biden looked at him. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. You know, George, the assisting aide told the president, gently reminding him who was in front of him. Yeah, yeah, the president said to one of the most recognizable men in the world, the host of this lucrative fundraiser. Thank you for being here. Hi, Mr. President, Clooney said. How are ya? The president replied. How was your trip? Clooney asked. Fine, the president said. It seemed clear that the president had not recognized George Clooney. It was not okay, recalled the Hollywood VIP who had witnessed the moment. That thing, the moment where you recognize someone, you know, especially a famous person who's doing a fucking fundraiser for you. It was delayed. It was uncomfortable. George Clooney, the aide clarified for President Biden. Oh, yeah, Biden said. Hi, George. Clooney was shaken to his core by the way he would not come out with his story until after that debate, until after it was clear Joe Biden was imploding and wouldn't step aside. He's a fucking coward. Sorry, a lot of f bombs. My apologies. The president hadn't recognized him, a man he had known for years. And then they go on to say other 6-15-LA fundraiser attendees were also concerned. They described Biden as slow and almost catatonic. There were obvious brain freezes and clear signs of a mental slide. It was, to some of them, quote, terrifying. Obama, who was there, decided that the fault lay with Biden's busy schedule. But Obama would come to realize the scheduling was not the fundamental problem. Okay, go ahead, Moynihan.
- [19:08]
Michael Moynihan
Well, I love the. I love the included detail, that he's known George Clooney for years. It's George Clooney. He could have known him for five minutes. It's like the guy's in Ocean's Eleven. It's not like Philip Michael Thomas from Miami Vice or something. It's George Clooney. You can't recognize that. You can't run for president. President. It's done. It's over. It's funny too, by the way, is that pointing out this, like, BC and AD thing about the debate. I looked this morning at a bunch of stuff from after the debate. Immediately after the debate, Biden calls in to Joe Scarborough, like a phone call in the you I please listeners to the Megyn Kelly show, go find these because everybody there is David Folken Flick on npr. And they were like, Biden came back roaring. He was full of vim and he was angry. And it's like, like, so the Teddy Ruxpin doll wasn't repeating, thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. He got angry for about five minutes. And they're like, I think it's, I think it's done. But the best thing about this in, in, you know, to Alex Thompson and Jake Tabor's book, you know, you to do this reporting of what's going on behind the scenes, you can't do in the way that they've done or appears the way they've done. I haven't, I haven't read the books. I've read the excerpts in real time. You do it afterwards. You do the reporting. You figure out what happened. So that is incredibly useful. But what is also am maybe alone in this is I'm happy that the press did what they did. I'm a thousand percent happy and overjoyed by it. And the reason is, is because I have eyes. I have a television set, I have ears, I have the Internet. And all of us fucking knew this. It's not like they were hiding something that we couldn't see. So we saw it. So what is the result of this? Well, we see that the people that are stumping for him in the media are doing something. They're lying directly to you. And they're saying you're gaslighting something that you're not saying. You're gaslighting me.
- [21:04]
Megyn Kelly
True gaslighting.
- [21:05]
Michael Moynihan
I'm happy because it's not like we wouldn't have known this otherwise. We knew it. You know, there was A poll in 2021, 2021 goes to eight months after Biden became president of, I think it was a Pew poll and Americans saying that he, they didn't think he was very Sharp that he had lost a few steps. I can't remember the, the phrasing of the question. But the thing that makes everybody angry, it makes people maybe come to the Megyn Kelly show and get pissed off at the media, is not that they're saying, all right, well, you know, I think he can, he can tough it out. It's the fact that Joe Scarborough said in May of last year, I've never seen him better. This is the best I've ever seen him.
- [21:44]
Megyn Kelly
When did you meet?
- [21:45]
Michael Moynihan
Two days before. Like, what are you talking about? The best you've ever seen? He's falling asleep on stage. He doesn't know who anyone is. It's like, like I feel bad for the guy. But you're saying he's the best that he's ever been.
- [21:57]
Megyn Kelly
Here's a little more. A little more. They say in this book that Biden's limitations got worse throughout his presidency and he was worse in private than he was in public. You mean it wasn't true? When Karine Jean Pierre and the others were saying, and Jen Psaki, they couldn't keep up with him behind the scenes. I'm shocked, shocked. But still, I enjoy reading it. The real issue they write wasn't his age per se. It was the clear limitations of his abilities which got worse throughout his presidency. I mean, I agree with that because President Trump is, you know, 79 years old and he's doing just fine. What the public saw of his functioning was concerning. What was going on in private was worse. While Biden, on a day in, day out basis, could certainly make decisions and assert some wisdom and act as president, there were several significant issues that complicated his presidency. A limit to the hours in which he could reliably function, and an increasing number of moments when he seemed to freeze up, lose his train of thought, forget the names of top aides, or momentarily not remember friends he had known for decades, not to mention impairment to his ability to communicate, ones unrelated to his lifelong stutter. An unnamed Democratic strategist says Biden stole an election from the Democratic and guaranteed Trump's victory. It was an abomination, said the strategist. Abomination. He stole an election from the Democratic Party. He stole it from the American people. And then they go on to say one of the people he forgot, he didn't forget his name, but he forgot why he was calling him was Chuck Schumer, then the Senate Majority Leader. Sometimes the president would call him and after some chit chat, admit, I'm quoting here, that he had forgotten why he called. Sometimes he rambled, Sometimes he forgot names. Schumer wasn't concerned about Biden's acuity, but he was worried about the optics. Biden talked sluggishly. His voice was not just slower, but oddly quieter, reminding Schumer of his mother who had had Parkinson's. His gait was slower. And Schumer gets asked about this on TV, CNN yesterday in SOT 6. Listen here. I'm interested to know whether the man that you saw sitting there on that couch on that day, you were in there, you saw him up close and personal. Did you really not have any idea that he was not fit to serve a second term? Casey, we're looking forward. We have the largest Medicaid cut in front of us. We have the all of this because you lost a presidential election. And is that not Joe Biden's responsibility for deciding to run again? We're looking forward. Forward. That's it. That's it. All right. Senator Chuck Schumer. I know you got to go. I appreciate your time today. See you soon, I hope. Thank you.
- [24:45]
Sean Combs
Take care.
- [24:47]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, my God. Is that going to fly? I mean, there's another reason why I like the books being out. It's. It is leading to some awkward moments where Democrats are being. It's Democrat and Democrat blood, right? Like Dem on Dem violence. Camille.
- [25:02]
Matt Welch
Well, there's so much culpability to go around here. I mean, you could talk about Joe Biden's responsibility and the fact that he shouldn't have run and that his administration tried to protect him. But Schumer and other prominent Democrats were well aware of Joe Biden's deficit. Totally, very, very early on, we were having conversations about this. Back in 2016, to be totally frank, there were questions about his ability to keep up with this job, to do this job, to run an effective campaign. He did manage to squeak one out prior. But four years later, no one was surprised when he couldn't really do it. Had Schumer had the courage to say something? The opportunity to get to field a better candidate wasn't after a debate. It was during the primaries. And they didn't do anything. You heard radio silence from prominent Democrats. I don't wanna hear any of the nonsense about, well, he's the president. He gets to make the call. You people are supposed to be in leadership positions. You're supposed to be dedicating yourselves to a life of service. And if you see someone who is clearly incapable of doing the job in a meaningful and serious way, fielding this person anyway is going to have consequences. For your party, as it well should. You should be out of power. You should find yourself in the wilderness for a period of time. And certain people should probably get fired.
- [26:09]
Megyn Kelly
Speaking of demon Dem blood, Chuck Todd weighed in on Chuck schumer as follows. Shot 7.
- [26:19]
Chuck Todd
He is among the people that are responsible for this. The leaders of the Democratic Party, the staff of the White House. And I have to say, I find everybody now talking to these authors. Get out of here. Go home. You're part of the problem. Now you tell us. So I just. And I find you know the reason why the Democratic Party has less credibility today. Here's an unpopular president, and the Democratic Party has a worse rating than the Republican Party with this catastrophic governance that we've seen over the last 120 days. And yet, why is the Democratic Party in worse shape? Because of this distrust. Because of this, frankly, what the public feels as if the party leadership let them down and let them let this happen. He's as responsible as anybody else. He was a leader in the party. He could have said something sooner.
- [27:10]
Matt Welch
What is Jonah?
- [27:11]
Megyn Kelly
If only Chuck Todd had a show last year.
- [27:16]
Michael Moynihan
He worked at Baskin and Robbins or something during the first administration. It's like, dude, you had a fucking TV show. Sorry, I'm swearing.
- [27:22]
Megyn Kelly
It's amazing, but it's more unbelievably.
- [27:26]
Michael Moynihan
Thanks for telling us now. Thanks for telling us now. I know you don't have a show anymore, but you did then. I mean, this is insane. And also the Chuck Schumer thing, which I love. I mean, what journalists have to do. And again, let's just ignore the fact that they ignored it in the past just for a second, and say, yes, it's your job right now to prosecute the case against the current Democratic leadership, especially somebody like Chuck Schumer, and push them on this. Tell the American people what you did. Tell the American people why you handed that election to Donald Trump. You know, I think he probably would have won anyway. I mean, depending on. I don't think Democrats could have run a candidate that would have beaten Trump. I mean, he won the popular vote, et cetera. But at the same time, it's like he says, we gotta move forward. We gotta move forward. I mean, imagine being on trial for murder and going in front of the judge, and it's like, I don't know. Your Honor, I just wanna move forward with everything. I don't wanna dwell on that thing that I did. It's like, no, you, Honor, I like.
- [28:20]
Megyn Kelly
To live in the present. My therapist says that's what's best for me. It minimizes my stress levels. It's amazing. I mean, actually, like Chuck Todd is going to go along with this, this fake gaslighting. Again, that word gets overused. But it's truly what's happening with the Biden decline. They were actually saying, don't believe your lying eyes, don't believe your lying ears. He's fine. You're being lied to by cheap fake videos that aren't real. And now that you know, all of us who said that's bullshit, he's deteriorating have been validated and confirmed to be right. They're saying we can't believe we were lied to. These are lies. They're to blame. They're to blame. Except the fundamental promise with a problem with that position is that half of us in the media ecosystem, those who are independent and or right leaning, all saw it and reported on it. It cannot be a cover up if half of the journalistic ecosphere saw it and reported on it. Right. Like the fact that the first half is now pretending they never saw and are outraged because they were lied to doesn't excuse them because they've uttered the words cover up. That's what's so galling about the dynamic at play here.
- [29:34]
Camille Foster
Also, like, you know, it's not just half of the media ecosystem, it's 2/3 of Americans in 2022. Like, he's too old. More than half of registered Democrats consistently said as of 2022, dude is too old. We should have other people running for president. That would be a better thing to do. And so the, I mean, Kyle Smith, the great movie reviewer for National Review, Wall Street Journal, I love him, he's great. Had a comment yesterday in the wake of all of this, tweeted out something like, you know, I guess there's a market for books where journalists try to figure out what Americans already concluded two years ago. Part of what Chuck Dodd, I've seen him in the past. You know, I'm glad that he's on his discovery tour. It's ELO 1979 here. But it's part of it is that he, he's one of the people who have said, and I've heard this a lot, like, you know, I can't believe that the. I trusted the insiders who told me he was doing well. I couldn't believe that.
- [30:36]
Megyn Kelly
I feel burned.
- [30:37]
Camille Foster
No, dude, like there's. When you are critiquing and covering power and this is true of critiquing and covering Donald Trump as well. Different set of stories, but you can't just take the word of people who are very near the throne of power that they're not going to be operating according to their own sort of response to the incentives of wielding that power. You have to treat all of that with skepticism. You have to treat like, I love the unnamed person who said that Biden totally screwed us. The unnamed person named David Plouffe. That's who that was.
- [31:09]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:11]
Camille Foster
My life savings, which admittedly isn't that much. That that was David Plouffe. And of course, he's the guy who squandered a billion dollars trying to elect Kamala Harris by not having her give a single interview.
- [31:20]
Matt Welch
So true.
- [31:21]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, he's been, he. I have to say, David Plouffe has been pretty rich in these excerpts of the book. Like, they F'd us. They absolutely F'd us. Of course, he's looking to pass the blame on his colossal historic loss, his absolutely terrible implosion as he tried to sell this lady responsible for what happened in your administration. Yes, you do. You got to take responsibility for what happened in your campaign to Plough tried to sell that lady to us as the next Obama. Right. He's a liar, too. I'm sorry, but, like, his gaslighting is just as bad as the others. Like, we could have done it if we had more than 107 days. No, you had honestly, one of the. Probably the worst presidential candidate in US History, Sarah Palin, looked like an Einstein next to that total moron you tried to sell to us.
- [32:16]
Matt Welch
You know, one thing I think is important to mention here with respect to, like, the Correspondence association and the speech that Alex gave there is that them finding religion and him saying, clearly we missed the mark here. We made some mistakes. It's not obvious. They don't have to do this. There's a world where you just try to ignore this when you just don't talk about it anymore. That's the world that we live in when it comes to a lot of the mistakes made during the pandemic. That's the world that we live in when it comes to the insanity of 2020. From the true.
- [32:48]
Megyn Kelly
That's a good point.
- [32:49]
Matt Welch
May on through the end of the year, in fact, right up to January, when we had some similar craziness on the right, which we seem to imagine happened in a vacuum. But no, we all kind of lost our minds there. And we do not talk about it. We don't talk about the political failure. We don't talk about the failure of the media during those periods. Those are Things that happen and have still continued to happen. So the fact that people are actually talking about this, that some of them are even willing to look in the mirror, accept some responsibility for having gotten this wrong, is important and worthwhile to bear in mind. And again, it's why I say that I think that's a little more complicated than just saying, well, it's obvious political bias is what motivated this. Well, political bias is motivating that other thing, too, at least in part. But we don't talk about it at all anymore. So I do think that especially that what you suggested earlier, Megan, an actual inquiry from this officially, formally something bipartisan and trustworthy, something that's transparent, that's more interested in getting at what the hell happened than just finding someone to blame, is really valuable and would be valuable for all of the aforementioned things.
- [33:52]
Megyn Kelly
We did what you wanted us to do, in part, and we found President Biden calling into Morning Joe the day after that June debate. Here we go.
- [34:01]
Michael Moynihan
Fiery Joe.
- [34:02]
Donald Trump
Yeah, I am not going anywhere. I wouldn't be running if I didn't absolutely believe that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024. We had a Democratic nominating process where the voters spoke Clearly, I want 14 million of those votes, et cetera. So I just want, I not only believe that from the beginning, but I.
- [34:25]
Sean Combs
Wanted to reassert it and demonstrate that it's true.
- [34:27]
Donald Trump
And I'm going to be doing that all through this week and from here on.
- [34:32]
Camille Foster
So we, we, we noted yesterday that.
- [34:36]
Megyn Kelly
Was quite a contrast. All right, well, that didn't have the piece in it, but you got it. He was calling in to do his rehab tour and they rolled out the red carpet for that. I mean, anybody who watched the Megyn Kelly show the night of the debate, we did live coverage immediately after, knows within seconds of popping up on YouTube live, his presidential campaign is over. And Sirius XM2, it ended tonight. No matter what they tell you, no matter what happens, he's out. He will not be the nominee. And what you had on MSNBC was that. And you had. It was a bad night. Everyone has a bad night. Which was the official line that Kamala Harris used and Obama used and Joe Biden eventually used and all of his enablers pushed the same bullshit cover for him. Lies. Until they started to get the first polling back, which showed the American people had had it. You know, to your point earlier, they knew. They knew for years. And then their noses were rubbed in it by Joe Biden live. And they were done pretending that it was A possibility he could do it.
- [35:41]
Michael Moynihan
We. I remember Matt and I, I know, were together the night of. The night of that debate at a friend's apartment. And there's a bunch of other people. Yeah, I mean, we were. We were. There was a lot of people there, and I had had about 17 vodka sodas. I was. I was pretty well in. And I just remember looking. The crowd was looking across, like. I mean, it was a pretty bipartisan crowd. People was like, what is going on? And right when he said, I killed Medicare, I was like, no, you just killed your campaign, buddy.
- [36:11]
Matt Welch
We finally beat Medicare.
- [36:13]
Michael Moynihan
We finally beat Medicare. It's like, you beat your campaign to death.
- [36:17]
Megyn Kelly
My team cut that. They knew you were coming, and they baked it, this cake. Here it is.
- [36:20]
Michael Moynihan
Favorite bit. That's fantastic. Yeah.
- [36:22]
Donald Trump
All those things we need to do. Child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for. What I've been able to do with the. With. With the COVID Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with more. Look, if we finally beat Medicare.
- [36:50]
Megyn Kelly
Thank you, President Biden.
- [36:51]
Michael Moynihan
President Trump was right.
- [36:54]
Sean Combs
He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death, and he's destroying Medicare because all of these people are coming in, they're putting them on Medicare.
- [37:02]
Megyn Kelly
Trump's no dummy.
- [37:03]
Michael Moynihan
Oh, my God.
- [37:05]
Megyn Kelly
By the way, I heard you.
- [37:08]
Michael Moynihan
We've been over on the call, and we've been critical of Trump a lot recently. Trade war stuff, particular. But let's go back and say something positive about him. He was. Everyone said, you know, he can't restrain himself. He restrained himself in such an amazing way during that. The best, most subtle line. And it's not. It's not even that subtle. But for Trump, it's subtle. When he said, I don't even know what he said. I don't think he knows what he said. And that was it. And he moved on. It's like, wow, that was actually brilliantly done.
- [37:37]
Megyn Kelly
Look at this one. Okay. The same debate. People forget this happened. Watch this. This exchange with the understanding that also revealed in this book, the Tapper Thompson book, is the fact that his aides were having serious discussions about how he needed to move into a wheelchair. But they knew they couldn't move him into a wheelchair even though he needed to during the campaign, that it just had to wait until he won reelection. They had already done the short stares on Air Force One. They'd switched him over to the sneakers. They were shortening, the walks. He had to do publicly. They were trying to put more handrails wherever he had to do stairs or wherever he could get them in general. And on top of all that, they recognized that he was gonna need to go into a wheelchair. He was having, among other problems, severe deterioration in his spinal column, which they lied about and said was an ankle problem. They wouldn't reveal that he had severe arthritis and degeneration in his back. So just all part of the lies. Nothing could be. Just. No one could be honest even about a physical deterioration which isn't, you know, our arguably as concerning as a mental in any event. So watch. That's the conversation they were having behind the scenes as you watch this clip.
- [38:50]
Donald Trump
Look, I'd be happy to have a driving contest with him. I got my handicap, which, when I was vice president, down to a six, and. But by the way, I told you before, I'm happy to play golf. If you carry your own bag, think you can do it?
- [39:06]
Sean Combs
That's the biggest lie that he's a six handicap of all.
- [39:09]
Donald Trump
I was eight handicap. Eight. But I have. You know how many.
- [39:14]
Sean Combs
I've seen you swing. I know you swing.
- [39:18]
Megyn Kelly
President Trump, we're going to.
- [39:19]
Sean Combs
Let's not act like children, okay?
- [39:24]
Camille Foster
Trump is saying, let's not act like children.
- [39:25]
Michael Moynihan
I love. I've seen his swing is the best line in the history of presidential debate. I've seen that swing. And by the way, he's like, you know, I have a handicap. But it's like, no, clearly you do. I mean, if you're talking about golf, apparently, but that kind of whispering thing. And it's funny because you go back and you try to remember what he was like in, like, 2021. It's like, was it. And, you know, you realize something, Megan, you.
- [39:53]
Megyn Kelly
As Moynihan speaks, let's play some Vos. Let's please play. V1, him falling at Air Force graduation. V2, repeatedly falling up the stairs onto Air Force.
- [40:00]
Michael Moynihan
Oh, yeah. I can narrate this if you want. Yeah, you tell me to narrate Joe.
- [40:05]
Megyn Kelly
Down he goes.
- [40:06]
Michael Moynihan
There he goes. He got shot there. Oh, my God. He should get up with his hand and a clenched fist. No, you've had on the show, Megan, one of America's greatest and most underrated comedians, Kyle Dunnigan, who does, hands down the best Joe Biden impression in Kyle Dunigan's impression in 2021 was Joe Biden not being able to say a coherent sentence. And if you're a comedian and it doesn't ring true, it doesn't work. So it's clearly like we forget about the fact that even Dana Carvey, too, is doing that impression of him, like, just rambling and mumbling in 2021. And it's like, you can't do those impressions if that wasn't the person that we were seeing every day.
- [40:53]
Camille Foster
And also, let's.
- [40:54]
Michael Moynihan
God, it's crazy.
- [40:55]
Camille Foster
Remember, too. I mean, some of us are old enough to remember Joe Biden when he was. Was just a yappy senator, right?
- [41:02]
Michael Moynihan
Plagiarist.
- [41:03]
Camille Foster
And. But he was. He was yappy. He would. He would love to hold court and talk and. Come on, man. And I know this. We got to split Iraq into three different provinces and blah, blah, blah, blah. That's not the whisperer guy. The New York. The New Yorker piece, the excerpt was infuriating. Also, shout out to the great filmmaker Steven Spielberg and the. Whatever he is, Jeffrey Katzenberg, because in the year of our Lord 2020, before they were out there adjusting the microphone levels, they wanted to make sure that he didn't sound like he was, which is a guy like this now, the opposite of what he used to be. What are you doing? Right? You people are great filmmakers. Spielberg is. And you're trying to basically use the magic of Hollywood cinematic arts to pull a fast one over on the American public. Like, that ain't cool. Super not cool. You know, there's a thing that we do with if we love our olders and our elders, you know, which is when Grandpa says he's. He can still drive, as Biden was asserting. Joe Scarborough, you say, well, you can't, so give me the keys. My sainted mother, who's sharp as attack, she's voluntarily stopped driving because she is a moral person and thought like, oh, maybe I'm losing it just a tiny little bit. You don't expect morality from presidents or the power seeker because they're going to be mad with power. But the wife, Dr. Jill, at any given time could have said, you know what? My husband's old. Maybe he needs a nap on the beach. And she did. By all accounts, she was right there in the middle. He is fit as a fiddle.
- [42:44]
Megyn Kelly
That was a Giselle Fetterman, you know, propping him up. She wanted to be in the limelight. It was all about her and her. You know, she loved being First Lady. Loved it. And she loved that more than she loved her husband. And shame on her. She should know better as a doctor.
- [43:01]
Michael Moynihan
She's a doctor. Don't talk about a doctor.
- [43:03]
Megyn Kelly
She's definitely a doctor. She's. I know what am I doing. Here's another gift for you. This is from this show on in April of 2022. Vladimir Buchan is.
- [43:18]
Michael Moynihan
The guy.
- [43:19]
Camille Foster
The guy without the shirt, man. He's a bad dude. He's a liar, man.
- [43:26]
Megyn Kelly
Not to be trusted. So I. I don't believe that guy.
- [43:29]
Sean Combs
Says it's like he's like corn pop some guys in.
- [43:34]
Megyn Kelly
In the world, man.
- [43:35]
Sean Combs
You just can't.
- [43:39]
Camille Foster
Can't trust him, man.
- [43:41]
Michael Moynihan
Hey, hey.
- [43:43]
Megyn Kelly
Did you.
- [43:43]
Sean Combs
Did you my pants or did I.
- [43:47]
Megyn Kelly
What happened when you. You seemed to call for reg this week. Something that is not US policy and actually could place other world leaders, including men like yourself, in danger. Why'd you do that? Huh?
- [44:03]
Sean Combs
What did I do?
- [44:04]
Megyn Kelly
You said it. You said it. I said nothing about that. I love that last line. That's Kyle Dun again. You did it. He's in it.
- [44:19]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah, pal.
- [44:24]
Megyn Kelly
Amazing. He's so talented and. But yeah, like, that was 2022. And yes, it did go back early, but I'm just saying, like, they. So somehow like Jake Tapper wasn't able to figure it out, but. But Kyle Dunnigan had it. Like he. He had it. You're like, that's the problem with all of these books. Like, geez. There were some even laypeople without a journalist's smell for deception who managed to put two and two together. That's why, actually, the New York Post is reporting today that Thompson and Tapper have hired a crisis PR agent. Not confirmed by us, but that's what the New York Post is reporting. They have a PR agent through their publishing house and sorry, Politico, not the Post, and that they've had to hire this other woman who does crisis pr. It's actually kind of funny because I was. I remember seeing her name. She's. She's done PR work. Her name is Risa Heller. She's done. She's repped Jeff Zucker during a CNN downfall. Anthony Weiner and Jeffrey Toobin. So I don't think she's very good. I think that Wiener Toobin combo takes.
- [45:36]
Michael Moynihan
On the hardest specialty, quite literally the hard cases. But.
- [45:41]
Megyn Kelly
All right, wait, I have one more for you. One more for you. Watch. And love. Hey, Trans Trump.
- [45:50]
Michael Moynihan
So stunning.
- [45:51]
Camille Foster
So terrific.
- [45:52]
Megyn Kelly
Trans Trump.
- [45:55]
Sean Combs
You got. Look, look, you gotta vote for me. You got no choice.
- [46:01]
Megyn Kelly
You gotta vote. He goes on to go. You gotta do it. You gotta do it.
- [46:06]
Michael Moynihan
Trans Trump again. If you get anything, do you think that you can win Best Comic in America?
- [46:11]
Megyn Kelly
I said to him, do you think he could win one of these contestants? That's Mr. Trump, because, you know, with all due respect, you don't seem like the most beautiful of the ladies who are in this pageant. And he says, there she goes again. Megyn Kelly attacking me. This is a nasty lady. Okay, back to that debate of June of 2024. There was no better story coming out about when that happened than when Art of the surge launched on the Tucker Carlson Network. Done by his former executive producer who put together a behind the scenes, multi episode look at the Trump campaign, including in Butler, Pennsylvania and had all sorts of like great nuggets you hadn't seen anyplace else. I mean, Butler among them. But they were there with Team Trump during the June debate and they got on camera the behind the scenes reaction with Lara Trump, Ben Carson, Lindsey Graham was there. J.D. vance is in it. And you can see the jaws fall open. We pulled it back up. Here it is.
- [47:18]
Michael Moynihan
I does not sound good right now. So.
- [47:24]
Donald Trump
The $15 for a insulin shot, as opposed to $400. No senior has to pay more than $200 for any drug. All the drugs they could include beginning next year, his debt. We'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for. What I've been able to do with the, with the COVID Carson stunned. Everything we have to do is look Lara Trump, if we finally beat Medicare.
- [48:06]
Jake Tapper
Thank you, President Biden.
- [48:08]
Megyn Kelly
President. What the fuck? She says.
- [48:11]
Michael Moynihan
Oh, man, I've never seen that. That's incredible.
- [48:13]
Megyn Kelly
I've never seen that.
- [48:15]
Matt Welch
That is so good. The look of concern on many of their.
- [48:18]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah, I mean you would think that.
- [48:20]
Matt Welch
Their guy was in trouble, but they're just watching Joe Biden implode and cannot believe it.
- [48:28]
Megyn Kelly
I was kind of human reaction first before they had a partisan reaction. They had a human reaction. Oh my God, what is happening?
- [48:36]
Matt Welch
I remember wondering if he might die on stage. Like it was.
- [48:39]
Megyn Kelly
Yes.
- [48:40]
Camille Foster
That bad. Michael mentioned the, the party that we were at to watch it after 20 minutes. And this is people who are way too politically engaged in New York. Bipartisan after 20 minutes. It was so.
- [48:53]
Matt Welch
Until towards Kamala.
- [48:55]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [48:55]
Camille Foster
That people left to go down in the back of the room because they couldn't face it. Like it was upsetting. As an American. We're laughing now because we like to laugh, but it's genuinely upsetting when the President of the United States is not there and you realize you've been lied to and that he's been not there for a long time. How did we get there? It's terrifying.
- [49:15]
Megyn Kelly
I wasn't upset. I was like, every hair in the back of my neck stood up. Like, holy. Oh my God. It's happening. It's happening live. Like, we'd been enjoying the debate as a family with some friends, and then it was like, shut up. Everyone shut up. You know, like you're kind of watching with one eye. You can miss a long discussion on Medicare. But it was like, everyone be quiet. Even my kids were like, what's wrong with him? What's wrong? It was just one of those moments. Okay, there's a lot more to discuss. I do want to get to what Trump said in Saudi Arabia because it was really telling and it's already lighting up the Republican Party. And I'll tell you how Fifth Column is here. The whole show. What a treat. Don't go away. This July, there's a global summit of BRICS nations in Rio de Janeiro. The bloc of emerging superpowers, or so they hope to be, including China, Russia, India and Iran, are meeting with the goal of displacing the US Dollar as the global currency. They're calling it the Rio Reset. As BRICS nations push forward with their plans, some worry global demand for US Dollars could decrease, bringing down the value of those dollars that are in your savings. While this transition, if it happens, will not happen overnight, the Rio Reset could mark a pivotal moment. So learn if diversifying your savings into gold is right for you. Birch Gold Group can help you move your hard earned savings into a tax sheltered IRA and precious metals. Claim your free info kit on gold by texting MK to 989-898 with an A rating from the Better Business Bureau and thousands, tens of thousands of happy customers. Let Birch Gold arm you with a free no obligation info kit on owning gold before July and the rio reset. Text MK to 989-898 today.
- [50:56]
Sean Spicer
Hi everyone, this is former White House press secretary Sean Spicer. We all know that Americans are still recovering from the record inflation of the past four years. Now some in Congress want to make cuts to Medicaid, a program that provides critical health care to 72 million struggling Americans, including veterans, people with disabilities, kids, and your friends and neighbors. 40% of American births are actually covered by Medicaid. And Medicaid covers health care costs for a third of children with cancer. Working families rely on this program. It has 77% support. Nearly 9 in 10Americans oppose Medicaid cuts. Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to Protect Medicaid. As president, he's still promising to love and cherish Medicaid. Did you know that 12 million Medicaid families live in rural communities? Many of these people voted for Donald Trump and they didn't vote for this. If Congress cuts Medicaid, a lot of rural hospitals could close and a lot of rural families will be hurt. No matter how you look at it, cutting Medicaid just doesn't make sense. Stand with President Trump and tell Congress not to cut Medicaid.
- [52:01]
Megyn Kelly
So Trump goes to Saudi Arabia, he gets a king like welcome, which they're no dummies. They know exactly what he loves and how to soften him up. And I mean it worked. And, and it's, I guess it's working both ways because Trump is announcing major investments into the United States and even cooperation on defense spending with the Saudis. Now he's claiming it's some 600 billion or possibly more. Others are suggesting it's less than that. But definitely there's been some investment. Here he is okay, but all that to the side because it's good to get money given to us by other countries. But, but Trump laid out his foreign policy vision like once and for all in a 40 minute speech that was well delivered and had the Saudis clapping for him over and over and over. Now my pals over at Commentary who've proudly described themselves as neocons were not clapping. They were unhappy this morning as I listened to just a bit of their show because I'm curious to see what, you know, what, what their reaction is. Not happy. And Trump took direct aim at neocons and sort of talked about repeatedly. It's the dawn of a new day and we are not going to be treating enemies as enemies just for old times sake. We're going to re evaluate everyone because what we want is prosperity and economic cooperation and no more chaos and went on about how he doesn't like war. Here's a little bit to kick us off.
- [53:32]
Sean Combs
Sat 22 Yet I'm here today not merely to condemn the past chaos of Iran's leaders futures but to offer them a new path and a much better path toward a far better and more hopeful future. As I've shown repeatedly, I am willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships for a better and more stable world. Even if our differences may be very profound, which obviously they are. In the case of Iran, I have never believed in having permanent enemies. I am different than a lot of people think think. I don't like permanent enemies but sometimes you need Enemies to do the job, and you have to do it right. Enemies get you motivated. In fact, some of the closest friends of the United States of America are nations we fought wars against in generations past. And now they're our friends and our allies.
- [54:29]
Megyn Kelly
Let me give you one more. Sat 24.
- [54:33]
Sean Combs
The transformations have been unbelievably remarkable before our eyes. A new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle east is defined by commerce, not chaos, where it exports technology, not terrorism. And where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence. We don't want that.
- [55:11]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, I lied. I got, I got, let me just go through this because I was setting it up, what his message was. So he follows up on that. No more bombing each other, right? Like, let's cooperate, let's have cooperation and not chaos and commerce and not chaos. And.
- [55:27]
Sean Combs
As I said in my inaugural address, my greatest hope is to be a peacemaker and to be a unifier. I don't like war. We have the greatest military, by the way, in the history of the world. You know, I rebuilt our military in my first four years and rebuilt it into the most powerful military there is. And you saw that when I knocked out ISIS in three weeks. People said it would take, take four years, five years. I did it. We did it in three weeks. Just days ago, my administration successfully brokered a historic ceasefire to stop the escalating violence between India and Pakistan. And I used trade to a large extent to do it. I said, fellas, come on, let's make a deal, let's do some trading, let's not trade.
- [56:15]
Megyn Kelly
Nuclear missiles, classic drop. Trump the negotiator sees everything as a possible deal. That's been his approach domestically, it's been his approach to foreign policy. And last but not least, here is the shout out against the neocons. Sat 25.
- [56:32]
Sean Combs
The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so called nation builders, Neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trusts, trillions of dollars failing to develop cabal Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle east has been brought by the people of the region themselves. The people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives. Developing your own sovereign countries. In the end, the so called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. And the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.
- [57:21]
Megyn Kelly
That Last one is so big and to me is so right on. I have to say, like, I, I was almost standing on my feet cheering for it, because I feel like when I was on Fox News, all we did was cheerlead these wars, you know, and kind of dismiss or express disdain for people who had serious questions about them, most of whom were Democrats. And in retrospect, with the benefit of all this hindsight, that was wrong. Like, we, we cheerlead ourselves right into two forever wars in which we expended countless lives, blood and treasure. And for what, you know, now we have the benefit of hindsight to look back and say, for what? Yes, there was some good. ISIS is no more, and we didn't get attacked again domestically for 20 years. You cannot say that's nothing. But I think, like a lot of the troops who were over there, I have serious questions about whether any of it was worth it or whether that thing should have ended when George W. Bush declared mission accomplished after the opening bombing campaign in Afghanistan, period, and not 20 more years and not Iraq and not all that stuff. So to hear the sitting president, a Republican, right, 24 years later, I mean, truly, like, officially declare it a failure and say, we're going in a different direction. We cannot nation build. The greatest nations that have thrived over that time period have thrived thanks to their own ingenuity. Yes, America has supported Saudi Arabia in large measure, but. But he's saying, thanks to yourselves, your desire to improve your community, not thanks to the great hand of America that came in and tried to impose democracy on you. And it's just to me, like a before and after line where he's declared the past approach over and not successful. And it's him saying, this is the dawn of a new day. We're taking the world in a new direction, says, you know, the head of the greatest superpower on earth. Worth still, for now, what are your thoughts?
- [59:30]
Camille Foster
I think some of that is aspirational. The dawn of a new day. It's possible. It's possible we can get a deal done with Iran, which would be great, but a lot of people have thought such things were possible in the past. So I think you're right to point out that this is kind of a needle scratch on American policy and that also it is refreshing to hear, hear someone say that, like, nation building didn't work. I do have questions about, of course, Trump can't just leave it there, right? He does name names. He named Biden in particular. And it is weird. I'm old enough to remember 9, 11, that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. They were. It's not a small thing. The Wahhabist ideology or strain of Islam is baked in Saudi Arabia. The family of Bin Laden.
- [60:24]
Megyn Kelly
But wait, can I just say, I don't have my finger on the pulse of Saudi Arabia, I readily confess, but there have been reforms there. They really have been pushing a crackdown on jihadism over there and trying to send the message, the King and the Crown Prince, no more of that shit. They are trying to turn a page into more of an economic based society without so many radicals, you know, festering the jihad in, in the ranks. But keep going.
- [60:54]
Camille Foster
That's true. And they are also still one of the most dictatorial regimes on the planet. They repeatedly come in the bottom 20, oftentimes the bottom 10 on people who measure stuff. Such stuff.
- [61:06]
Megyn Kelly
Yes.
- [61:07]
Camille Foster
I don't want, I don't want us to, to bomb them. I don't want us.
- [61:12]
Megyn Kelly
No, no, no, no. But wait, this is an important point because this is another before and after moment pivot point because we, one of the reasons we got ourselves involved in so many conflicts around the world is because we have approached the world as we are this superpower and we know better. We will be the arbiter of who's committing human rights violations. And frankly, we haven't been wrong. I mean, in most of these instances, we're totally right. It's not like the Chinese Uyghurs are having a great life and we should just look the other way, though. We are right. So, like there are real human rights violations happening in other countries. But Trump also offered a new entry point on thinking about that. Here it is in Sat 22B.
- [61:57]
Sean Combs
In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it's our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins. They loved using our very powerful military and now it's really the most powerful it's ever been. We just are getting a budget approved, $1 trillion, highest budget we've ever had in history for military, $1 trillion. And we're getting the greatest missiles, the greatest weapons, and you know, I, I hate, I hate to do it, but you have to do it because we believe in peace through strength. You have to have the strength, otherwise bad things could happen. But hopefully we'll never have to use any of those weapons. I believe it is God's job to sit in judgment. My job to defend America and to promote the Fundamental interest of stability, prosperity and peace. That's what I really want to do.
- [63:00]
Megyn Kelly
So I really believe this. I'll give you the floor. But I just want to say one other thing. I really believe this because Trump came under fire for doing deals with Saudi Arabia and being open to Saudi Arabia after the the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, reporter, American reporter and the messaging back from the administration at the time was basically like, we don't love it. Okay, we don't love it. But we actually need to get along with the them for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is we have a mutual foe and that's Iran. And you know, like Trump all along is the deal maker. You know, he looks and he's like, it's not great, I don't love it. But it's more important to me that at the 30,000 foot level we're getting along with them because they can be helpful to the United States and not getting along with them is too big a disaster. Okay, now I'm done. Go ahead.
- [63:50]
Camille Foster
I wish that he would have put it like that, Megan. Instead he says, you are great. And the crown prince, super great, one of the greatest man I've ever seen blows smoke up his skirt. And I don't like that as an American. I just don't. Especially at a time when you're praising their record and their friendship. And you are also acting kind of like a dick to Denmark, which is an actual ally because we want Greenland. For some reason you're referring to Canada as the 51st state. So yeah, we're going to be totally friends with everybody and we might act like a jerk if you are in our hemisphere and in our sphere of interest. So of course it's going to be inconsistent. Loved his last line. And you rightly pointed out that, you know, let God sit in judgment. My job is to protect the United States. That is the national interest. That is the job of the president. And I think too many presidents and he's right to point to this out as, as are you. And I would just point out that libertarians are in addition to Democrats have been skeptical of many of those wars.
- [64:43]
Megyn Kelly
I mean engagements And I like the libertarians better so I shouldn't have left them off the list. List.
- [64:48]
Camille Foster
There's not many anyways. But Saudi Arabia has always been skilled for 80 years in a bipartisan way though til towards Republicans of inserting themselves into American national interests whether they need to be there or not. So they're, you know, they're hosting the Ukraine, Russia talks. Do they have a direct interest in that. Not really, but they know that Trump cares about that. And I think you're also right. And I think this is very underrated about Donald Trump. I think he is very sincere about wanting his legacy to be as a peacemaker. I think he sincerely has a revulsion towards war. And people who are like to dismiss Donald Trump and I criticize him every waking hour of my life, in my head, at least, they underrate that he is sincere about that, whether he's going about it the right way, whether he's going to lead to that vision that he sketches out. Completely different question. But it is interesting. And we should take, I think, him a little bit at his word, because it's consistent with what Marco Rubio told you at the first week of this presidency and what the United States foreign policy wing has been doing in the second Trump administration.
- [65:52]
Megyn Kelly
You guys remember when Hillary Clinton tried to press that big reset button over in Russia, Russia, and it was spelled wrong and it was a disaster. You know, it was a nightmare. She was Barack Obama's secretary of state and she completely fumbled it. They were looking for a reset with the Russians, like, let's be friends again. That's what this is. Only it's sincere and it has the potential to actually be effective. I mean, Trump's basically saying, we don't. Can we just get along? Like, literally saying it to everybody, like Iran, like, we don't want to bomb you. We will totally bomb you. But we, we have this. Here's a little bit of it in Sat 23.
- [66:28]
Sean Combs
Iran can have a much brighter future, but will never allow America and its allies to be threatened with terrorism or nuclear attack. The choice is theirs to make. We really want them to be a successful country. We want them to be a wonderful, safe, great country, but they cannot have a nuclear weapon. This is an offer that will not last forever. The time is right now for them to choose right now. We don't have a lot of time to wait.
- [66:59]
Megyn Kelly
So he's like, let Iran. We can get along. He lifted the sanctions on Syria. He announced that yesterday, which is big, saying, we're going to try to help you succeed. Now, you who have taken over for Bashar al Assad, you with like, weird Al Qaeda background or terrorist backgrounds. But you know what? What? Let's give you a chance and see how you can do. He's, you know, trying to foster peace between Ukraine and Russia, way more so than the last administration. He's trying to foster peace in Israel and Gaza, like, working tirelessly through Witkoff and others to try to get those two sides to come to the table. He did. The United States, and Trump in particular, was very instrumental in settling for now the India, Pakistan war that started a couple of days ago. He's bringing home hostages, American hostages from country after country. I mean, Trump, Trump, truly, like he. He is devoted to finding peace in the world and to saying, I know these people have done awful things. It's 2025. We're turning the page. We're willing to give you kind of a pass, a buy without blessing it, to try to go forward in a better way, to try to say you could. You could be business partners with the hottest ticket in time in town, the United States of America. We'll do business with you. We'll help your economy get better. We'll help you have skyscrapers like they have in Riyadh. But, you know, you're gonna have to back off the killing all the Jews thing and the terrorist thing, and we'll see whether that's cool with some of these actors. But to me, it's so refreshing to hear somebody state the mission as, like, an actual reset and the thought of, like, possibilities.
- [68:37]
Michael Moynihan
I mean, the words are fine. I mean, the words are good. I think they're slightly naive in some places, and they're slightly aspirational, as Matt said and others. But I'll say a couple good things first and not be entirely negative, but the Abraham Accords was an enormous success, and it actually managed to kind of hold through October 7, which was what a lot of people who care about the region were worried about. And so giving him credit for that in that lasting success is something that no one was willing to do the first term and most people forget about now. But what a lot of this stuff is contingent upon is, I mean, I think that it's also mostly true that, you know, people don't love war. I mean, there are some. I mean, I know that there's this idea of that these bloodthirsty warmongers, but I think, by and large, is not the case. Yeah, I mean, there's John Bolton. I mean, Donald Trump, of course, hired John Bolton, but. Which was a weird thing. And then also. And look. And also, you know, he's. I mean, yeah, I mean, you talk about the evolution of politics. He's talking about this Iran deal and praising this Iran deal, the potential of this Iran deal, which most of the observers of this stuff in the JCPOA basically say pretty much the same thing, which, you know, very similar. And he called the Obama Deal, the worst deal in American history. So I think he's probably moved on a lot of these issues as his like son has moved on.
- [69:56]
Megyn Kelly
He's John, I meant, I mentioned John Bolton who yes, worked for Trump for a short time. But like he, this is a blatant condemnation of the Bush administration. I mean it's, it's, it is a terror. It's, it's Donald Rumsfeld, it's Dick Cheney, it's Condoleezza Rice and it's John Bolton. It is all of them, Colin Powell too, on the coals without calling them out by name, saying that era is done. And Trump's felt it for a long time. He was very critical of the war in Iraq. It's one of the main things he's, he was saying when he first ran about how wrong that war was. And he was saying it at the time. He said it on Fox and Friends. He said it elsewhere. Elsewhere. Like he's had this general aversion to the knee jerk march toward war for I think his whole life.
- [70:39]
Michael Moynihan
No, I don't doubt that. And I think that, you know, what he did in 2016 when it came to Iraq was actually open that lane up for people to criticize it. And actually now to say the opposite of that would be surprising to hear a Republican say on stage or not debate stage. He was the first one to do it. And then everyone kind of followed suit after. It was like, okay, here's the signal that that part is gone. But what a lot of this relies upon, I mean, again, the rhetoric is fine and you know, I don't want wars either. The, what it relies upon though is our enemies or our new comrades and allies. It depends on them. It depends on, you know, there isn't a peaceful Middle east. That's not happening right now. I mean if you look at what's happening, hasn't settled. And you know, also to say like he made a deal with the Syrians and there's some, some interesting things about that. As you point out, Al Jilani was a leader of the Al Nusra Brigades, which was an Al Qaeda affiliated organization. And he was arrested by the Americans in Iraq. I mean, he's affiliated with Al Qaeda. So after 9, 11, Matt remembers that. It's not great. I mean we remember not good, not a great. Al Qaeda's bad. But the thing about it is we remember this stuff. The Taliban is in power in sitting on American Abrams tanks. There's a head of Al Qaeda that is running Syria right now. No change in anything in Iran, we're always promised these sort of new liberal leaders. Qatar, giving Trump possibly a jet or being an ally, despite the fact that they fund Hamas and encourage Hamas. And by the way, we saw this, and this is Trump you're talking about getting hostages out. He negotiates that without the Israelis involved with Qatar. And Qatar says, okay, here's the American. Meaning that the Qataris have the power to get rid of. Get all those sausages back or actually quell some of the stuff in.
- [72:29]
Megyn Kelly
Trump doesn't get lot of.
- [72:30]
Michael Moynihan
There's a lot of problems. He doesn't get caught up in that. There's a lot. But. But when he steps back, I mean, one of. By the way, this is an interesting point I haven't seen anyone make, but I wonder what will happen to Europe now that. That the Trump administration has said to Syria that they're going to lift all the economic sanctions. The response to that in Syria. Syria was people on the streets cheering, flying flags in a million Syrian refugees are in Europe. And do some of them come home now? Because the funny thing is, you said about the Saudis, Megan, they know how to speak Trump's language. What did the former head of Al Qaeda in Syria say to Trump? You can build a Trump tower in Damascus. That's literally what he said. Literally what he said. And he was like, all right, let's do it. Sanctions down.
- [73:13]
Megyn Kelly
He clearly lifted the sanctions on Syria as a. At the request of the Saudis. He. He said that in speech. As soon as he said, I'm lifting the sanctions on Syria, he looked at the Crown Prince and he goes, oh, what I do for you, the things I do for you. He's not trying to hide anything. But that's. That's the transactional Trump. Other than we had trans Trump and we have transactional Trump, we prefer transactional.
- [73:42]
Matt Welch
Interestingly, a virtue that I don't. I don't know that I've ever attributed to Donald Trump before in this particular context is modesty. The foreign policy disposition here appears to be that I understand that interventionism in the foreign policy context is going to be of kind of limited potential and has very recently resulted in pretty profound failures. We probably need a different approach, and one that's centered on finding opportunities for mutually beneficial exchange is probably a way for us to have some meaningful influence here. Does it mean doing really difficult things like trying to carefully select your words in public when talking about someone who you're looking for a partnership like this with, while behind closed doors, we hope having sober conversations about the things that they're doing that are unacceptable. Yeah, it means that. Does it also mean acknowledging that the world is complicated, that while you're exchanging the stick for the carrot in the context of Syria, you also have really severe problems that you're still dealing with? I think it was the Houthis attack during the speech. So the real world problems still exist, but the limitations of the previous disposition towards trying to reshape the Middle east by way of US Policy, as opposed to finding ways to gently entangle our shared interest from an economic standpoint, I think is really important. I think this is probably one of the better moments of the second Trump presidency. The challenge, however, is that it is somewhat overshadowed in certain contexts by the appearance of corruption. The scandal with respect to the Qatari plane is one thing, but also the.
- [75:18]
Megyn Kelly
Fact that Mark Halperin says, zero chance Trump ever steps out on that plane. He's not. It's not going to happen too much.
- [75:25]
Matt Welch
But his son's watching.
- [75:26]
Megyn Kelly
And John TH Came out yesterday saying, no, you're not getting congressional approval for that, though John Thune, I don't know that he's known, you know, for really standing up against Trump when the chips are down. We'll see. But Halperin, we still have a Congress.
- [75:38]
Michael Moynihan
I didn't know we had. I didn't know we had a Congress.
- [75:41]
Matt Welch
We'll see how much Trump wants to fight. How much Trump wants to fight for the plane. But I also think the fact that his sons have been in these same countries in the weeks before, in days before the president got there, essentially striking deals for the Trump Organization. Again, is there anything explicitly corrupt about any of this? Does any of it suggest that there is necessarily some sort of quid pro quo? No, I haven't seen any evidence of that. But as we said repeatedly when we talked about Biden and Bariza, the appearance of corruption is often as important and consequential as actual corruption.
- [76:14]
Megyn Kelly
That is a material hard. The plane is a tough one. But if, if the quid pro quo is for us, the United States is a different story. You know, if he's. If he's getting things for the United States, it's a different story. This is what I was saying when Trump was running that, like, yes, he's a narcissist. All presidents are narcissists. I mean, very, very few, I think, are the exception of that. But I was saying, like, you look at him and you think, well, that could be very useful to us if the payoff is not exactly like, if Trump's ego is Served not by compliments, yes, of him, but not just by that, but by wins for the United States. If we can get the, the United States lined up with Trump's ego, this could be very, very beneficial for us. And I really think that's what's happening. But I think as a foreign policy matter, this is the declaration of a win for the restrainers, you know, for the J.D. vance's of the world, for the Tuckers of the world who have had enough, and even Marco Rubio, who's a much more interesting figure because he's become, he talks restrainer, he definitely gets it and he's on board with it. And I talked to him myself about that. But he's got a neocon past. You know, he's, he understands that other wing of the Republican Party that, you know, where he says it is terrible what's happening in Gaza and every single one of those deaths is the fault of Hamas. Right. Like that's what the neocons want to hear. Like there's a clear understanding of morality in the world from the United States of America and they're willing to toe the line to make sure the right side is supported. Right. Like that's kind of. So he's more of a hedge bet. In any event, it was fascinating to hear Trump just spill it out. At the same time he's saying, we're going to reset. We won't hold the past sins against you. We're not going to try to import culture. You do your thing. It's for God to judge your decisions, not for me. At the same time, you, he's like, we might invade Greenland and Panama and might have to take Canada too.
- [78:03]
Michael Moynihan
So it's like, well, just like easy wars. I mean, we can beat the Greenlanders. I mean that's pretty simple. But the thing is, Megan, is that what the. I think what the difference is is that this has been the kind of unwritten policy of America and Americans for a long time, but it's non interventionist that after Iraq was just not going to happen for a long time. The I think what will be interesting, particularly vis a vis the Israel who are kind of mad at Trump right now, the hostage negotiation happened without them. His cozying up to the Qataris in any way makes them, makes them angry. So I mean, we'll see how that relationship, because you know, the Tucker wing, they can't stand Israel, they can't stand Netanyahu. So I'd be interesting to see if that relationship fractures at all. But I think the real thing, I.
- [78:51]
Megyn Kelly
Mean, I don't think it's fair to say Tucker can't stand Israel, but they're critical of Israel. He's a very, very restrainer.
- [78:57]
Michael Moynihan
He's become more skeptical in recent. He just did an interview with the comedian Dave Smith where they were not very, not very positive on Israel. But I would say that it's a matter of what do we do about foreign funding of things like, so funding the Ukrainians, funding the Israelis. And look, there was something that happened in Israel the other day in the Knesset about stopping all American military aid, which has been something that's been floated by a lot of Israelis.
- [79:25]
Megyn Kelly
Cool.
- [79:27]
Michael Moynihan
Our friend Jake Siegel, who is a big Zionist, you know, writes for Tablet, wrote a thing. Matt has written about this, too, of like, okay, it's enough of this. It's not going to stop the people who say that we're still close, too close to Israel. But if that is the next phase of pulling American support out for allies in a military way, that would be really shocking to me. And that would be, that would be.
- [79:52]
Megyn Kelly
That would be a very big development. But, you know, when we were talking about how the United States did the, the forever wars, you know, the Iraq disaster, staying too long in Afghanistan, not knowing, you know, not having any plan, training all these troops, then leaving all of our tanks behind, all of it, such a nightmare. But we have been messing in foreign policy throughout the world for a long, long time. You know, we're talking about Ukraine and Russia. We, of course, were over there under the Clinton administration. You know, we were, we were there under the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton was over there there trying to make regime change happen. I think this is Trump saying, we're done with that. We may invade you, but we won't quietly try to change your, your leadership like we did in Ukraine. Like, you know, we clearly would. Some would like to do in places like Russia. He's like, those days are over. So the verdict was in the day he was reelected. But this is him really spelling it out. And I'd love to find. I'm sure we can't. Who wrote that speech, because that was a barn burner. And Trump, he delivered it fine. He was a little quiet in the messaging. I think he was tired. There was video of him maybe falling asleep. The White House denied it, but I didn't blame him. It was like, it looked very, very hot and kind of boring in there to some extent because we saw this from Trump. Here it is. Watch. Yeah, stand by. Watch this. V5. So he's not actually Asleep. This is from Fox News, but he's doing the old closing my eyes for a minute. This is boring. I don't know what he's listening to.
- [81:24]
Michael Moynihan
Joe Biden 2.0 in the middle of a speech. So call Jake Tapper.
- [81:29]
Megyn Kelly
There's a difference between boredom and infirmity because he. Didn't you look over at Marco Rubio at the event, and did you guys see this picture of him yesterday? It's amazing. Look at him. Him, Marco listening audience. If you haven't seen it, it's him with like the, the legs spread, the hands crossed. He's got literally gaping mouth. He looks kind of sweaty. He's got a little bit of a belly there, with all due respect to Marco Rubio. And he looks so tired and so, like, get it over with. It's hilarious. I think there must have been something about this room that was, like, hot and not. Not that stimulating. Guys. I don't know.
- [82:13]
Matt Welch
I mean, if I was over there, I probably would have adopted the, the local garb for that event personally.
- [82:18]
Megyn Kelly
The what? The garb?
- [82:19]
Matt Welch
Yeah, the local garb instead of the suit. I think that would have been a better look for Marco in that moment for sure. You wouldn't have seen the, the belly.
- [82:26]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah, like Nancy Pelosi and a secretary.
- [82:31]
Matt Welch
Taking, taking a knee in the capital.
- [82:33]
Michael Moynihan
Ret.
- [82:33]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, yeah. No, I don't know. In any event, I think it was a successful visit, and I think it's the beginning. It's the dawn of a new day. I feel that. And we'll see. We'll see whether we have partners who are willing to turn that page and join him in this new good faith effort. In some instances, there's like a religious fervor that we're never gonna get past. There will be no maragaza. That's not happening. They're just too dug in on their very bizarre ideology of trying to, to wipe Israel off the face of the map. I don't think anyone can solve that. I don't, I don't know what to do about that. Like most humans on earth, I don't know what to do about that. But I think, you know, with the Saudis, I don't know about the Iranians. Really don't know about the Iranians. Trump even complimented the Houthis. He's like, you know, the Houthis, like, we resolve that, they stop bombing us. He's, boy, they're tough. They're tough. Like, he's, he's like, tough throwing out the nice compliments. So, like, anybody who comes to the table, he's like, I'm willing to look at you anew, which is not a bad trait. All right, stand by guys. Got to take a quick break. We'll be right back with the fifth Column. Guys. We live in a world our biology just was not built for. Artificial light, seed oils, microplastics, chronic stress. It's no wonder our health is under attack. These modern stressors disrupt our cells ability to function the way they should, impacting gut health, immunity, even how we age. Age. Amra Colostrum is a bioactive whole food that helps restore cellular signaling and strengthens your body from the inside out. It's packed with over 400 powerful nutrients that work to reinforce your immune barriers, fortify your gut, rev up metabolism, and even support stronger skin and hair. Pure, potent, natural, clean and sustainably sourced. We've got you a special offer. Okay, it's get 15% off your your first order. Just go to tryarmra.com megan or enter code Megan at checkout. Try t r y armra.com Megan let's be real. Our modern world can be toxic. From ultra processed foods to environmental chemicals, our bodies are under attack every single day. And one of the biggest casualties, our digestion. Millions of people suffer with indigestion, bloating, upset stomach. Stomach. But here's the good news. We don't have to just accept this. Our ancestors had the answer all along. Bitter foods, bitter herbs and plants have been used for centuries to stimulate digestion, support detox and keep the gut thriving. That is why just thrive Digestive bitters can be a game changer with a powerful blend of ancient time tested bitter herbs. Just one dose before meals wakes up your digestive system, helping you absorb nutrients better. Better break down food and say goodbye to bloating and sluggish digestion. Ditch modern toxins and get back to what our bodies were designed for. Reclaim your gut health with Just Thrive Digestive Bitters, available now@justthrivehealth.com use code Megan to save 20% off your first order. That's Just Thrive Health.com promo code Megan.
- [85:31]
Unknown Speaker
The media is broken. For decades, big cable and legacy media filtered information to hide the truth. But thanks to podcasts like the one that you're listening to and new media around this country, the truth can break through, providing voices and views that legacy outlets we know well will not air. But big cable still has a major way of controlling information access. They do this by limiting access to something called spectrum, the invisible airwaves that power affordable wireless Internet. Internet. And by forcing you to keep their bundles, the old cable package bundle, keeping independent media out of reach. Trump and Republicans in Congress have a huge chance right now to get this right by making more spectrum available and breaking the big cables stranglehold on your information. Tell your senator or representative to work with President Trump and sell more spectrum so everybody can keep listening to shows like this, the Megyn Kelly show. Go to inthecableopoly.org to learn more.
- [86:32]
Sean Spicer
Hi, everyone. This is former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. We all know that Americans are still recovering from the record inflation of the past four years. Now, some in Congress want to make cuts to Medicaid, a program that provides critical health care to 72 million struggling Americans, including veterans, people with disabilities, kids, and your friends and neighbors. 40% of American births are actually covered by Medicaid. And Medicaid covers health care costs for a third of children with cancer.
- [86:57]
Camille Foster
Cancer.
- [86:58]
Sean Spicer
Working families rely on this program. It has 77% support. Nearly 9 in 10Americans oppose Medicaid cuts. Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to protect Medicaid. As president, he's still promising to love and cherish Medicaid. Did you know that 12 million Medicaid families live in rural communities? Many of these people voted for Donald Trump and they didn't vote for this. If Congress cuts Medicaid, a lot of rural hospitals could close close and a lot of rural families will be hurt. No matter how you look at it, cutting Medicaid just doesn't make sense. Stand with President Trump and tell Congress not to cut Medicaid.
- [87:34]
Megyn 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 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 Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM 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.
- [88:19]
Michael Moynihan
Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and.
- [88:23]
Matt Welch
Get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months.
- [88:30]
Megyn Kelly
Free offer details apply. Okay, so the P. Diddy trial is now in day three. Sean, call Combs. And it's, it's unbelievable. I mean, it's just like. I want to stress again to the audience, we must distinguish before we get the legal instructions between disgusting, filthy, pervert, cad, asshole and criminal. That's really what this trial is about. That I think even the defense seeds 0.1. They have to. They have to. There won't be a juror in that room that can stand Sean Combs, but the question here is whether he broke the law. And even your humble correspondent is open minded to being persuaded that there wasn't a technical legal violation. I, I really want to see the. I haven't looked up the proposed legal instructions, but we'll get them jury instructions on what the law is. Because I'll tell you, like, I've got questions. I'm horrified by the testimony, but I, I've got questions about whether they're going to get a conviction. Addiction. Okay. I hope they do, but that's just because I can't stand him. Okay. His, the star witness is Cassie. His. She was a singer. Cassie Ventura. She signed with him when she was 18 years old or right around there. She became a singer. She, she signed like a 10 record deal with Bad Boy Record Records, which is his. And within like two years, he started having sex with, with her. And he was with a different woman at the time. But, you know, shockingly, he wasn't faithful and started sleeping with Cassie. And then she testified how in the beginning, by the way, when she took the stand, she was eight and a half months pregnant. Yesterday, his side was so worried about that making her look overly sympathetic. Sympathetic that they asked if she could be brought in and put on the stand without the jury in the room. Look at this. I mean, like, apparently they're not exaggerating. She had that enormous belly that we all get in the very, very last few days, which is where like, it's just, it becomes like voyeuristic to even look at a woman at that point. It's just out of control. God bless you, Cassie. So anyway, the judge overruled that and said she can walk in her full pregnant self. And she did. And she testified about how he started very early on telling her he wanted her to participate in these freak offs. That's what he called them. And these things. I mean, it's the right word for them. I mean, they're absolutely depraved behavior where he would hire these male sex workers. And she's testifying. This is all, you know, her testimony that they would come over and that Sean Combs would be there watching and directing everything. And that there would be multiple sex sessions within the one freak off which could go for days, but even if it went for hours, there'd be multiple sessions in which she would have to perform with these male sex workers, including in like outfits and fishnets and masquerade masks and hooker heels is how it was described. And he would tell him exactly what sex acts he wanted and how. And then he would participate in some of them. We talked yesterday, forgive me, listening audience, about how he allegedly, both himself and through the male sex worker urinated on her and I guess in her mouth to where she testified she was gagging. She thought she was going to throw up. She, she testified that the freakoffs quote became a job where there was no space to do anything else but to recover and to just feel normal again. That they could go from 36 hours to as long as four days. That they took, quote, a big chunk of my life, sometimes on a nearly weekly basis. At the end of the sessions, the hotel linens were off, often very soiled with baby oil residue as well as bodily fluids including blood and urine. And his staff keep in mind he's being accused of like racketeering, like the way mob boss does where he has an enterprise of criminals around him. That's why these details are important, that his staff would both set up the freakoff rooms and clean up the freak off rooms that eventually they graduated to adding like television lighting, like cle lights in there that would have red, red lighting coming out of them or blue lighting coming out of them to set just the right mood. Choking back tears, she testified. Reading here from New York Times, she testified the freak offs made her feel disgusting and humiliated. If he wasn't in the room, he would Sometimes watch over FaceTime, he began recording the freak offs side, side by note. The media has now filed a request to see the videotape of the freak offs. And the, the parties are objecting, saying they don't need to see everything. Like Cassie doesn't want them to see it, but then Diddy doesn't want them out. And the judge says he's leaning towards releasing them because there's a little thing called the first amendment. But of course the media is like, we want to see the free cost. Show us the tape. That's the, that's what the media's position is. She lists the drugs that he provided to the participants. Ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, ketamine, mushrooms, whatever was the drug of choice at that point. She says she took the drugs for disassociating and to have some kind of buffer from what she was experiencing. She talked about how he beat her repeatedly. She talked about that one incident we saw at the Hotel Intercontinental where he dragged her and beat her on the ground. She was trying to escape a freak off. Like it was just a day ending in. Yeah, she was like, that's kind of. Yeah, that we did that all the time. And he would beat me sometimes and that time I made a run for it and I stayed on the ground. Once he knocked me down because it was self defense. I thought maybe he wouldn't be able to hit me as easily if I stayed down. I mean he's just an absolute disgusting, hideous pig, awful man. She said she stayed to keep him happy. When you're in love with someone, you don't want to disappoint them. Them. But as the years passed, even as she still sought to please him, she recognized he had become increasingly abusive, beating her and orchestrating ever more degrading sessions that made her feel like her career was no longer music but performing in his sexual for his sexual satisfaction. Here's the thing. She testified that she was asked, the cross has begun about why, like whether she told him that she didn't want to do it. And the testimony as I understand it thus far has been basically no. She said she would do it. And they have text messages of her saying to him like I can't wait for the next freak off. I can't wait to do it. Like I might not be able to do it today because I have a red carpet. And she testified about how she had to get all drugged up and also he would beat her and like she did have to go to the red carpet with a black eye. I think it was after that intercontinental one we saw. But they, the defense has text messages from her being like, can't wait, I love it. You're like, when's the next one? And so this has the real danger for the prosecution of morphing into a Harvey Weinstein esque case where it's there, it's only a crime if there. If he forced you, if, if you guys are just freaks in bed who wanted to do this stuff. Yes, there's a question of the prostitution element, but he's not being charged with abuse of like with assault. And a lot of the viewers wrote in after our discussion yesterday saying what do you mean he beat her? It's on tape. Yes, I know they're. No, he's about not being charged with that. That's not one of the Charges. The charges relate to solicitation of prostitution or like arranging the transportation of a prostitute and RICO racketeering, a criminal enterprise. So it's relevant if there's a crime of prostitution and relevant if there was a crime on which the statute of limitations has run called assault. But they don't have to actually prove any of that. And he's not exactly being charged for that. He's. But if this is consensual sex, or at least if Sean Combs believed that it was consensual sex, he, he could skate legally. And that's. That's my impression so far. That's. I. Very open minded to being this. Going another way. Your thoughts on the cultural impact of this trial and just thoughts on what we're learning now about one of the most famous people in America.
- [96:24]
Michael Moynihan
I mean, he should skate if that's the case. Right? I mean, it's not criminal. And to be not part of a criminal enterprise if you're a scumbag. And sometimes it's very hard to separate those things in situations like this. I mean, I saw the tape from the hotel. Nothing about that surprises me considering what we know about his character. And as you said, Mike. And it's. It's like we can disassociate these things and say, you are a horrible, horrible monster. And that is clear. And his life is over. I mean, whether he goes to prison or not, there's no way he's going to be allowed back into the. To the club of celebrity. It just can't. I mean, recalling that he had these white parties in the Hamptons, you know, Martha Stewart is going to these things. This is not something that's just in the hip hop world and that is gone for him forever. But whether or not he's been in jail, I don't know for a year or something in Brooklyn, whether or not that is justified, I just. I haven't paid really close attention to this because I have a life and I. I try to try to limit my. My Diddy, Puffy, whatever the hell he's called, consumption. But there is a thing that at the last, the sort of heel end of that kind of Me Too movement where it was getting a little troubling. And I'm not saying that this is comparable, but there would be times when people.
- [97:44]
Megyn Kelly
Me.
- [97:46]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah, well, what it was feeling silly in the sense that, well, that was a bad relationship or you. That person was a jerk. And it's like there's. That's not a legal kind of thing. This is a next level of that and it's gross. And you know, my freak offs aren't like this at all. I mean, we all. I have an iPad.
- [98:04]
Matt Welch
Yeah, yeah.
- [98:06]
Michael Moynihan
No, it's very fast. You know, I'm like Woody Allen. I'm like, you know, maybe a minute and a half, you know, and that's. And it's done and everyone's happy and we like, read afterwards. It's like a book club. But if that, if this. Yeah, we do. We're reading Willa Cather's My Antonia now. It's great. There is a moment when you look at this stuff and you say, you know, the text messages, we saw that with Armie Hammer. We saw that with the picture from the Dodgers. So many of these things, the text messages always come out and paint a different picture. And, you know, we have to hold off on that. But if it is just having gross sex parties and maybe hiring a male prostitute or whatever, it's like the feds this big raid him in jail for it. It could be that there's a lot more to this.
- [98:52]
Megyn Kelly
Not, not alleging any force. He texted. He testified that he. There was the male prostitute or whatever, escort. I don't know how he goes by saying she was the one who would, who would text me saying, come over for the freak off. She was the one who would pay me. She and I developed like a friendship on the side. And he did say, I grew very concerned for her. I said, you know, you've got to leave him. He beats you. He tests by. You heard a beating. But like, the beatings are as horrific as they are, and they are criminal in their own right. Though the statute of limitations may have run on assault. I haven't actually looked that up. But there's a reason he didn't get charged with those. And certainly the one at the Intercontinental. Oh, and by the way, the, the, the testimony by this one guy who was a security officer at the Hotel Intercontinental where that beating took place. Place was that he saw it. He. He went up there and this is a Friday. He went home for the weekend. And when he got back on Monday, the tape was gone. The tape was gone.
- [99:45]
Michael Moynihan
They paid somebody 100 grand for it. Well, no.
- [99:48]
Megyn Kelly
Diddy offered him $100,000 in a wad of bills saying, here, please make this go away. And I think the testimony was like. He was like, no, I'm not doing that. That's not how this works. This guy's lapd. No, but I think he was legit. But when he got back on Monday, the tape was Gone. And he did. But he didn't call the police because she didn't want him to. She didn't want to testify. Like most domestic violence victims do not want the police called unless they're actively in fear for their life at that second. And then they almost always live to regret it and recant. It's terrible. It's terrible dynamic. You know, Gabby Petito, we saw a similar thing when. When she could have saved herself in any event. I don't know, because all that testimony about how the. The escort willingly came. Cassie was the one who reached out to him. He seemed to enjoy it. He thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Like no one. I don't know how we've gotten to, like, she's being forced by like the equivalent of a mob boss yet.
- [100:41]
Matt Welch
Yeah, I mean, I think I've read. I have read some accounts of this. I do have some interest in the story. We also talk about these things professionally, Moynihan, every once in a while. And look, Cassie. The Cassie situation is.
- [100:53]
Megyn Kelly
Camille's joining the motion to see the freakox. This is what we.
- [100:58]
Michael Moynihan
I have to get all the freak offs. I talk about this.
- [101:02]
Matt Welch
If I don't watch at least a little bit. You know, I don't mind maybe pixelated if you want to. Fine, but I'm going to.
- [101:07]
Megyn Kelly
With the lighting, please give me the sound.
- [101:09]
Matt Welch
You know.
- [101:10]
Jake Tapper
Sorry.
- [101:10]
Megyn Kelly
Keep going.
- [101:11]
Michael Moynihan
Yeah. Camille, then they come for your freak offs. Yes, but.
- [101:17]
Matt Welch
But I do think, you know, Diddy, clearly a violent person, dangerous. I think deviant are words that apply here. I agree. I mean, the federal RICO attempt, like, I'm still, to my knowledge, there isn't anyone else who's been charged. And the whole thing seems kind of unusual in that regard. One imagines that, as you said, Megan, the rest of those charges couldn't be brought in some of those other situations. But I mean, the things that were alleged in that civil suit that he settled with Cassie, that he had blown.
- [101:46]
Megyn Kelly
Up for eight figures, reportedly. Yeah.
- [101:49]
Matt Welch
But that he'd blown up Cudi's car. I mean, these are extraordinary, extraordinary allegations. This is a guy who sounds like. It sounds like he believes he is above the law and can get away with just about anything. And stories about his violent temper and his capacity to attack even other superstars. I mean, there's a pretty notorious story about him beating up Drake at some point. Drake is a really big star. It's nutty stuff. I'm very interested to see where the case goes, but I share the kind of skepticism of the federal prosecution here, I think they may have overreached, but we'll have to see what else they've got in the whole state, are there.
- [102:28]
Megyn Kelly
What's crazy is SDNY does not normally lose. They do not normally lose the feds and in federal court they don't bring the case unless they've got you. I mean that's, it's, that's why it's so awful to be indicted by the feds. So, but, so I have been underwhelmed by so far by what they say. They have all like the, the, some of, some of the worst stuff was in these, let's not forget complaints brought by a guy who seemed like a questionable lawyer who was called out as a questionable lawyer by a judge. But that guy also represented Cassie, I think if memory serves, and she got an eight figure payout. And in what he wrote about her turned out to be true. I mean, or look, at least she's backing it up and she got paid eight figures. So Sean Combs was scared. So anyway, we'll continue to watch it and see where this goes. I think this has cultural implications well beyond P. Diddy. I mean who knew how many in Hollywood coverage it up who didn't give two shits that he was allegedly engaging in the serial abuse of women. Not to mention these parties with, you know, as we worry about Justin Bieber and others. We'll leave it at that for now. Guys, thank you. Great to see you tomorrow. A first time guest on the program, Teamsters President Sean o' Brien. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.