Hegseth's Media Mic Drop on Iran Strikes, "Daddy" Trump, and Mamdani's White Guilt Win, with Ruthless Hosts | Ep. 1096

Summary

Summary of The Megyn Kelly Show – Episode 1096: "Hegseth's Media Mic Drop on Iran Strikes, 'Daddy' Trump, and Mamdani's White Guilt Win, with Ruthless Hosts"

Release Date: June 26, 2025

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1. Introduction to Iran Strikes and Pentagon Press Briefing

Megyn Kelly opens the episode by highlighting a significant development: President Trump's recent strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, dubbed "Operation Midnight Hammer." This operation has sparked intense reactions, particularly following a historic press briefing at the Pentagon.

Key Highlights:

• Pete Hegseth, the current Secretary of Defense, declares the bombings a "resounding success" ([00:30]). He emphasizes the complexity and secrecy of the mission, comparing it to the development of the atomic bomb.
• The operation aimed to halt Iran's nuclear capabilities, leading to a ceasefire agreement and ending the "12-day war between Israel and Iran."

Notable Quote:

Pete Hegseth at [00:30]: “The bombings were a resounding success and the most complex and secretive military operation in history.”

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2. Media Critique and Natasha Bertrand’s Reporting

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the perceived failure of mainstream media in accurately reporting the success of the Iran strikes. Pete Hegseth critiques Natasha Bertrand, a CNN reporter, accusing her of undermining the mission's success by leaking a "preliminary low confidence" intelligence assessment that labeled the operation as a failure.

Key Points:

• Dan Crenshaw joins to condemn the press's bias against Trump, suggesting that outlets like CNN manipulate information to cast doubt on military successes ([05:40]).
• Pete Hegseth details Bertrand's history, portraying her as a biased reporter who thrives on spreading anti-Trump narratives.

Notable Quotes:

Dan Crenshaw at [05:40]: “You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes... manipulate the public mind.”

Pete Hegseth at [42:55]: “Natasha Bertrand has a very long and storied history of trafficking in just not only lies, but figments of her own imagination.”

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3. General Kane’s Detailed Account of the Strike

General Dan R. Kain, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provides an in-depth explanation of the Iran strike at [10:51]. He outlines the meticulous planning and precision involved in targeting the Fordo nuclear facility.

Key Highlights:

• Two Defense Threat Reduction Agency officers dedicated over 15 years to studying the Fordo site, leading to the development of the GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs.
• The operation required exact timing and execution to ensure the destruction of Iranian centrifuges, effectively halting their uranium enrichment process.

Notable Quote:

General Kane at [10:51]: “These two guys have spent the last 15 years on nothing other than Fordo.”

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4. Recognition of Military Heroism

The hosts and guests emphasize the bravery and professionalism of the pilots involved in the operation. General Kane highlights the human element, praising the young pilots who risked their lives to protect the nation.

Key Points:

• Stories of soldiers defending the base against missile attacks underscore the personal sacrifices made by military personnel ([07:10]).
• The emotional toll on families is acknowledged, with heartfelt descriptions of pilots returning home to tearful and proud families ([16:30]).

Notable Quote:

General Kane at [07:10]: “These awesome humans... stood between a salvo of Iranian missiles and the safety of Al Ud.”

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5. Media’s Oversight on Female Pilots and Gender Politics

A contentious segment addresses the media’s failure to adequately acknowledge female pilots involved in the mission. The hosts criticize mainstream media for prioritizing gender and race issues over recognizing military achievements.

Key Points:

• Dan Crenshaw and Pete Hegseth express frustration over media focus on gender, arguing it detracts from honoring the pilots’ accomplishments ([20:28]).
• The discussion highlights what the hosts perceive as "white guilt" and the politicization of gender in media narratives.

Notable Quote:

Dan Crenshaw at [20:28]: “You're obsessed with race and gender in this department that's changed priorities.”

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6. NATO and "Daddy Trump" Controversy

The episode delves into NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's controversial remarks, where he referred to Trump as "Daddy." The hosts interpret this as a sign of shifting alliances and respect towards Trump's leadership.

Key Points:

• Mark Rutte praises Trump's decisive actions against Iran, labeling him a "man of strength and peace" ([72:10]).
• The hosts commend Rutte's approach, contrasting it with media reporters who demand inappropriate flattery.

Notable Quotes:

Mark Rutte at [72:10]: “He is a man of strength, but also a man of peace... I find him very predictable.”

Pete Hegseth at [74:05]: “We have to laugh at them.”

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7. Supreme Court Ruling on Planned Parenthood Funding

The hosts discuss a landmark Supreme Court decision allowing states to cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, reinforcing efforts to prevent taxpayer money from indirectly funding abortions.

Key Points:

• Josh Holmes explains the ruling's impact on public funding for reproductive services, criticizing Planned Parenthood for misusing funds ([65:41]).
• The decision aligns with conservative interpretations of the Mexico City Policy, limiting federal funding for abortion services.

Notable Quote:

Josh Holmes at [65:41]: “Planned Parenthood should get its own money from its own well-heeled, deep-pocketed leftist donors like Alex Soros.”

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8. New York Mayoral Race and Democratic Party Struggles

The episode examines the New York mayoral race, focusing on candidate Mandani Mamdani and the declining support for Democratic candidates like Curtis Sliwa.

Key Points:

• The hosts criticize the Democratic Party for failing to provide viable leadership, attributing their struggles to radical leftist policies and "white guilt."
• Discussions highlight the polarization within New York voters, with affluent white populations supporting Mamdani while working-class and minority voters back more traditional Democratic candidates.

Notable Quote:

Michael Duncan at [94:20]: “This deranged kind of white guilt which has just gripped the progressive movement... it just keeps getting worse.”

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9. Critique of Media Practices and Parody Segments

Throughout the episode, the hosts mock various media practices, including interactions with biased reporters and politicians. They share clips and anecdotes highlighting perceived double standards and lack of accountability in mainstream journalism.

Key Points:

• Natasha Bertrand is repeatedly criticized for her biased reporting, especially regarding Trump and Russian interference.
• Parody segments target media figures and their handling of political narratives, reinforcing the hosts' stance against mainstream media biases.

Notable Quote:

Pete Hegseth at [84:54]: “Natasha Bertrand has a very long and storied history of trafficking in just not only lies, but figments of her own imagination.”

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10. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode concludes, Megyn Kelly and her guests reaffirm their support for the Trump administration’s actions and criticize the media for failing to honor military achievements. They emphasize the need for balanced reporting and recognition of success irrespective of political affiliations.

Key Takeaways:

• The successful Iran strikes are portrayed as a testament to American military prowess and strategic planning.
• Media criticism centers on perceived biases and inadequate recognition of military heroism.
• Ongoing political discussions highlight broader themes of media manipulation, party polarization, and leadership struggles within the Democratic Party.

Final Notable Quote:

Pete Hegseth at [99:37]: “This country will never understand and inherently recognize and pay homage to the emotional strain that this type of mission creates.”

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Overall Assessment:

This episode of The Megyn Kelly Show offers a strong pro-Trump and pro-military perspective, critically analyzing media coverage of recent military operations and broader political dynamics. Through detailed discussions and characterized quotes, the hosts advocate for acknowledging military successes while condemning perceived media biases and leftist political agendas.

Transcript

[Megan Kelly]

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[Pete Hegseth]

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[Megan Kelly]

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[Pete Hegseth]

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. We begin today with reaction to a historic press briefing at the Pentagon this morning. Wow. Did this one deliver. Bright. We haven't seen anything like this in a very long time. Nothing's coming to mind in my history as a reporter. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Raisin Cain delivering an update on President Trump's strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend. And it was fascinating. Secretary Hegseth calling the bombings, quote, a resounding success and said it was the most complex and secretive military operation in history. And I don't know about that. Like, developing the atom bomb was. That was, that was pretty big. It was complex and it was secretive. But I take his point. It was one of. I think that's probably what he meant to say. He said the bombings directly led to a ceasefire agreement. True. And an end to what the administration is calling the 12 day war between Israel and Iran. And the Defense Secretary took the media in that room to task because the Pentagon media has been a failure, a total and utter failure. Failure in reporting on this administration and in particular this mission, for not playing it straight on this. I mean, yes, it's the Trump administration, so they would love praise, but that's not the media's job. But just play it straight. You know, normally there's not a, an instinct or shouldn't be to shit all over the military heroes after they risk their lives. That's, that's really not been our thing since Vietnam. And then we learned those lessons. Um, it is a strain of leftism. They, they veered dangerously close to doing that when the Iraq war got launched. But for some reason now, because Trump is the commander in chief, I guess it's fine to just not give any credit to the brave pilots who conducted this mission. I mean, truly risked their lives to conduct, to, to conduct this mission. It's just more important to rip on Trump, you see, And Hegseth knows that both As a former member of the military and as Defense secretary and a key part of the Trump administration himself. So he went after them for how they've covered Operation Midnight Hammer. That's what they're calling this based on a selective leak from what we know was a preliminary low confidence intelligence assessment. Let me just tell you something. You know Katherine Herridge, we worked together at Fox News for many years. She was our intel reporter over there. Then she went to CBS and did it for many years. And this is what she said in a post today on preliminary assessments labeled low confidence. In the hierarchy of intel reports, a preliminary assessment with low confidence would not carry much weight. It's an early snapshot that concedes the picture will likely change as more intelligence is developed based on that. So that's normally why the Pentagon would not release such a thing to the public. But some asshole within the Pentagon working for the Defense Intelligence Agency leaked it. And who did this person go to? They went to a reporter by the name of Natasha Berstrand Bertrand, who is the person who has been the best stenographer for deep state type intel operatives. This is the person who had the Scoop on how 51 intelligence agents say the Hunter Biden laptop is Russian disinformation. She led the reporting on Russia, Russia, Russiagate info. We'll have more on her later. But my point is simply there's a reason that some Trump hater within the Pentagon went to a different Trump hater now working for cnn, who, who's got a long history of Trump hating, that has completely undermined any credibility this young woman hoped to have. She's very young, but she keeps getting awards and Emmys because if you just say terrible things about Trump, especially if you can put an intel source behind them, you'll win awards. In any event, she's the one who got this whole thing started saying that the operation was a failure. It was a fucking failure. Sorry. And so now you. It's now at the point where you've got the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense because the media ran with this. It snowballed. Going out there to say, just sit down, okay? Sit down. And by the way, neither the New York Times nor CNN even noted that this preliminary assessment was of, quote, low confidence in their initial reports on this. We pointed this out in AM Update. Neither one pointed out that the assessment was of low confidence. Do you think that might be relevant? Could that be relevant? You know, maybe the audience should be told that, you know, just. Just asking. Here's Hegseth this morning because you, and.

[Dan Crenshaw]

I mean specifically you, the press, specifically you, the press corps, because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad. You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes. You have to hope maybe they weren't effective, maybe the way the Trump administration is represented them isn't true. So let's take half truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the mind, the public mind over whether or not our brave pilots were successful.

[Pete Hegseth]

Secretary Hegseth then turned the press conference over to Chairman Kaine who revealed the extraordinary skill and true heroism of service members whose stories seldom reach the public. It's so extraordinary to get a play by play like this. He began by describing exactly how the military shot down those 14 missiles heading at them. Iran fired them in the wake of our dropping the bombs on Iranian nuclear sites. And this was Iran's retaliation, you'll recall, against American air bases. One went, I think to Iraq. But in Qatar On Monday, roughly 44American.

[General Kane]

Soldiers responsible for defending the entire base to include Comms Forward headquarters in the Middle East. The oldest soldier was a 28 year old captain. The youngest was a 21 year old private who'd been in the military for less than two years. You at that age are the sole person responsible to defend this base. These awesome humans, along with their Qatari brothers and sisters in arms, stood between a salvo of Iranian missiles and the safety of Al Ud. They are the unsung heroes of the 21st century United States Army.

[Pete Hegseth]

He described what it was like for them to be sitting there and understanding that they had 120 seconds to act to strike down these incoming missiles with our own Patriot missiles, which, you know, end them and protect us and how, you know, these young guys, this One guy, the 21 year old guy had been in the armed services for less than two years. Think of it, it's so great when they put that sort of human element onto these reports. The general then explained just how much time and effort went into the bombing. There were three nuclear sites that we bombed, but in particular the one at Fordo. And it was crazy. That's the one that truly it was like the Top Gun Maverick operation. If you haven't seen Top Gun Maverick, you've got to download that movie tonight with your family because it's all about how there was a nuclear site of a foreign government that we needed to Hit where they were enriching uranium. It was going to be in this very skinny little valley that would be very difficult to get into. And fly an F16 into or what looked like one of these B2 bombers. And you're going to have to reach Mach 10 and it was going to be impossible to maneuver. And it can only be done by a couple of planes. They had to get in and get out and they could get shot down. And one was going to sort of loosen the spigot on the site, another was going to drop the big bomb that was going to take it out. I mean, it's like it's got so many parallels. Not perfect, but it's a lot of parallels. So he explained much more about the strike on the nuclear facility at Fordo. That that much like in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, where we'd been on this mission, we learned, you know, later that the CIA had been on this mission for years, for years after 9, 11 to figure out everything they could about not just bin Laden, but everything related to bin Laden, everyone related to bin Laden, so they could figure out where he was. They've been doing that on Fordo. They knew where it was, but they knew everything. They knew when the Iranians started it. They watched them build it. They had been on a mission for years to know everything that could be known about this place. And then they developed a plan. Long ago, this has been in the works just in case, to destroy it. All right, General Kane revealing that One officer spent 15 years on this issue. He said they started building it in 2009 and this guy has basically been in a basement for that entire time. And then they added a second guy to it. So these two guys have spent the last 15 years on nothing other than Fordo. And not only have they been studying everything there is to know about Fordo, but they realized we were going to need a new bomb to destroy Fordo, that we didn't have that in our existing arsenal. And that is how those 30,000 pound bunker busting bombs were born. Listen.

[General Kane]

In 2009, a defense threat Reduction Agency officer was brought into a vault at an undisclosed location and briefed on something going on in Iran. For security purposes, I'm not going to share his name. He was shown some photos and some highly classified intelligence of what looked like a major construction project in the mountains of Iran. He was tasked to study this facility, work with the intelligence community to understand it. And he was soon joined by an additional teammate. For more than 15 years, this officer and his teammate Lived and breathed this single target for doe, a critical element of Iran's covert nuclear weapons program. And along the way they realized we did not have a weapon that could adequately strike and kill this target. So they began a journey to work with industry and other tacticians to develop the GBU 57. They accomplished hundreds of test shots and dropped many full scale weapons against extremely realistic targets for a single purpose. Kill this target at the time and place of our nation's choosing. And then on a day in June of 2025, more than 15 years after they started their life's work, the phone rang and the President of the United states ordered the B2 force that you've supported to go strike and kill this target.

[Pete Hegseth]

Think of it. Can you imagine that? Can you? I'd love, I'd love to meet these two guys. I understand perfectly well while why we can't. But wouldn't you love to meet these pilots? And then these guys, these guys who are, they're like the CIA agent who found bin Laden. They do all the preliminary work. They know this site like the back of their hands. I'm sure they worked every day to figure out exactly what it would take to destroy it. And then once they built that bomb and understood, then got the call from President Trump that we're, we're doing it like your site Fordo is now under my target. We're doing it then, then those guys have got to pray. They've got to hope that the military guys who fly the B2s do it perfectly, that nothing goes wrong, that the Iranians don't detect the flights on the way in. I mean, think of it. It's crazy how much had to go right for these guys. The amount of planning and professionalism. General Kane next describing the stunning precision required to actually hit Fordo where it was most vulnerable. All of which they knew that this was not. Just like a bunch of guys like, oh, we got to go bomb this very small site. They knew Fordo forward and backward and, and they were very prepared to destroy it.

[General Kane]

You can see these three holes. Depicted here is the main exhaust shaft with two additional ventilation shafts on either side. The United States decided to strike these two ventilation shafts, as seen here on the main graphic as the primary point of entry into the mission space. In the days preceding the attack against Fordeaux, the Iranians attempted to cover the chips with concrete to try to prevent an attack. The planners had to account for this. They accounted for everything. The cap was forcibly removed by the first weapon and the main shaft was uncovered. Weapons 2 3, 4, 5 were tasked to enter the main shaft, move down into the complex at greater than 1,000ft per second and explode in the mission space.

[Pete Hegseth]

Then he talked about there was a weapon six with a flex capability, which sounded a lot like the flex capacitor. And things got really exciting. But no, it's incredible. The four star general showing exactly how these bombs work. Debuting stunning footage of a test shot. This isn't the actual bombing of the Iranian facility. It's a test shot the military did of a GBU 57 bomb just like the one that was used on Iran. You were watching it right now for the listening audience. It's hard to explain. You should just go watch it 14 minutes after the hour on our MK YouTube feed. But it's incredible. And you, you've got up close footage of this thing sort of burrowing, it looks like, almost to me. It looks like a space shutt like that. We would launch upward normally, but we're launching it straight downward, burrowing into the ground. And then it explodes when it gets down there. Yeah. Okay, so then there's a human element to every military operation. General Kane knew that. And as I already pointed out, he talked to some, spoke to some of that. But he went on, these pilots absolutely risked their lives to protect this country. There was a time in which we wouldn't have had to be reminded of this by the Secretary of Defense, by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. There was a time in which we would have understood and inherently recognized and paid homage to the emotional strain that this type of mission creates on those who execute it and on their families. We used to be quick to praise the heroes of our military, especially in effectively never before attempted missions like this one. And General Kane took that on earlier today, too. Watch.

[General Kane]

When the crews went to work on Friday, they kissed their loved ones goodbye, not knowing when or if they'd be home. Late on Saturday night, their families became aware of what was happening. And on Sunday, when those jets returned from Whiteman, their families were there, flags flying and tears flowing. I have chills literally talking about this. The jets rejoined into a formation of four airplanes, followed by a formation of three, and came up overhead. Whiteman proudly in the traffic pattern, pitching out to land right over the base and landing to the incredible cheers of their families who sacrifice and serve right alongside their family members. Like I said, there were a lot of flags and a lot of tears. One commander told me this is a moment in the lives of our families that they will never forget.

[Pete Hegseth]

It's incredible. I have chills Just thinking about it. General Kane is an F16 pilot himself, by the way. All I could think of when he was talking about it was this video that was circulating on X over the weekend. I think this is Blue Angels down in Florida. It's not these guys, but the scene as he described it reminded me of this. And I'll bet you those pilots saw something like this when they flew back home to Missouri. God bless America and gentlemen, start your heart. It's Americans on their porch. I think it's the Blue Angels flying overhead in a similar formation. And of course, thunderstruck playing in. In the background, which is one of the greatest songs ever made. Just so it's. It's so impressive. It's something to be honored. I really don't care how you feel about the Iranian mission. I mean, the, the mission to take out the Iranian nuclear sites. As I've made clear, I'm in favor of it, but I don't care. You can support our military and the incredible feat they accomplished no matter how you feel. So this is one of the things that Pete and, and General Kaine were saying, like, could you just pause for two minutes? Could you give us two days trying to process what happened, trying to get a handle on how it went. General Kane said, that's. That doesn't come from me. You know, what exactly we destroyed. He said, we don't grade our own homework. But Pete saying, just calm down and give us a beat and we will bring you the results just like we're doing this morning. But instead you need Natasha Bertrand to have a leak from some Trump hater of low confidence, not identified as such, reporting that it was a failure, that nothing was destroyed, and that it's only been set back by a month or two. It's not true that now we've had reports from the Israeli intelligence, we've had reports from the iaea. The IAEA is out there saying the sites have been destroyed. The director of the iaea, Rafael Grassi, said specifically, not just the entrance. This is one of the reports. Like, maybe they just got the entrance to the Ford O facility. The exit. He said, no, the centrifuges at Fordo, where they are doing the. In the enrichment of the uranium, are no longer operational. I mean, what. What more do you need to hear? So the press, having been subjected to this appropriate lecture from these two, absolutely remained clueless and got absolutely nothing of what had just been communicated to them, and instead thought this would be the moment to whine again to Secretary Hegseth about why he Called the pilots boys when one of them was female.

[Tara Kopp]

Why not acknowledge the female pilots that also participated in this mission? The early messages that you sent out only congratulated the boys.

[Dan Crenshaw]

So something like our boys and bombers. See, this is the kind of thing the press does.

[Pete Hegseth]

Right?

[Dan Crenshaw]

Of course. The chairman mentioned a female bomber pilot. That's fantastic. She's fantastic.

[Josh Holmes]

She's a hero.

[Dan Crenshaw]

I want more female bomber pilots. I hope the men and women of our country sign up to do such brave and audacious things. But when you spin it as Because I say our boys and bombers is a common phrase, I'll keep saying things like that, whether they're men or women. Very proud of that female pilot. Just like I'm very proud of those male pilots. And I don't care if it's a male or. Or a female in that cockpit. And the American people don't care. But it's the obsession with race and gender in this department that's changed priorities. We don't do that anymore. We don't play your little games.

[Pete Hegseth]

Right on. Well handled like a boss. Secretary Hegseth also lashing out at Fox News. Jennifer Griffin, who on Sunday posted on X about there being a female pilot. Huh? It's an expression. Our boys. I. I guarantee you I was the only female lawyer in my Chicago law firm when I. What kind of a moron would take offense to the generic reference of our boys? We get it. All right? Only the most thin skinned, sensitive women would be like, oh, and I guarantee you the most thin skin sensitive women don't become B2 bomber pilots. This is an absurdity. But she was one of the ones to quickly call him out for using the term boys in the bombers. And Hegseth and she had an exchange this morning. Do you have certainty that all the highly enriched uranium was inside the 4Do Mountain? Or some of it? Because there were satellite photos that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days in advance. Are you certain none of that highly enriched uranium was moved? Of course.

[Dan Crenshaw]

We're watching every single aspect. But Jennifer, you've been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally.

[Pete Hegseth]

What?

[Dan Crenshaw]

What the President says.

[Pete Hegseth]

I'm familiar about the ventilation shafts on Saturday night. And in fact, I was the first to describe the B2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy. So I take issue with.

[Dan Crenshaw]

I appreciate you acknowledging this is the first opera, the most successful mission based on operational security that this department has done since you've been here. And I appreciate that. So we're looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where.

[Pete Hegseth]

I mean, I like Jennifer, but he's not wrong that she's had a definite and detectable bias against Donald Trump. If you look at her reporting, that's just, it's obvious. Again, I really like her and I respect what she's been through as a reporter and a woman, but I don't. I see why he's angry. And you heard her there defending her reporting here. Now to react to all of this. The fellas are back. Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, and Comfortably Smug, the hosts of the Ruthless podcast. You were on top of your bills and then inflation hit. Groceries, gas, everything shot up. Prices are up 26% from just a few years ago. 26%. Let me share a smarter, faster, far easier way out of debt. It's called done with debt. And they're not like other debt relief companies. They don't push loans or bankruptcy on you. Done with debt. They have negotiators who go head to head with your credit card and load companies. They have one goal, to drastically reduce or eliminate your debt altogether. And unlike others, done with debt can move lightning fast. Most clients see more money in their pocket month one. But a word to the wise, hurry because some of their brilliant debt erasing strategies are time sensitive. Do not make another bill payment until you speak with a Done with Debt strategist. It's free. Visit donewithdebt.com that's donewithdebt.com donewithdebt.com Guys, great to see you. What a banger. First 23 minutes. How's it making you feel?

[Megan Kelly]

I love it.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, and what a great press conference. And for those of us who grew up and revere America and love our country, believe in American exceptionalism and believe that America is the greatest force for good that this world has ever known. This feels like we've returned America to the leader of the free world.

[Megan Kelly]

Well, and I love the way Megan compared it to the hunt for bin Laden. Like, you know, there were people at the CIA that were on the bin Laden desk for their entire career focused only on this thing. And to think the United States of America had not just one, but two dudes or ladies, I don't guess. We don't know.

[Pete Hegseth]

I don't want to pull a headset, guys, but you never know.

[Megan Kelly]

Yeah, yeah. Sitting in a basement somewhere studying for. I mean, I have niche interests, but 15 years on one facility on the.

[Pete Hegseth]

Other side of the globe, that's a lot.

[Megan Kelly]

I think it's It's. And it says a lot, right? It's like, who could ever question the resolve of the United States of America?

[Michael Duncan]

Do not screw with America. We will have two dudes and a basement study your facility for 15 years to kill you.

[Comfortably Smug]

And they're heroes, and we will never know their names. You're exactly right, Megan. But you said something about how you would like to meet them, and I'm quite confident that when they heard that, you launched a thousand conversations among them and their buddies about how you said you want to meet them.

[Pete Hegseth]

I would love for you to meet them, even in private, even just to press the flesh and say thank you and just show them that this country loves them and is proud of them. Notwithstanding what these moronic reporters would have them believe. The New York Times wants people to feel on the subject of Jennifer Griffin, not to beat up on her too much. But I'll just give you one example. So right. Just today, now she's reporting because, you know, Trump yesterday was like, I'm not sure we need an agreement with Iran. Like, I guess we could put something in writing that we're going to, like, inspect, but we blew up their, their nuclear facilities. And Trump's kind of like, and I guess maybe we'll just have to blow up more. I don't feel like they're. It's done. He's like, it's destroyed. So I guess we could put something in writing. He says, I don't care if we have an agreement or not. And then, of course, Jennifer Griffin comes out and says, actually, every U.S. and Israeli expert who has studied the Iranian nuclear program tells me that without the agreement and inspectors on the ground, the Iranian regime, which, while definitely hurt, survived the humilitary military strikes, humiliating military strikes on its key nuclear sites, and its ballistic Middle infrastructure missile, will return to pursuing nuclear enrichment. You can't bomb the knowledge. There's no way to bomb Iran's nuclear ambitions. The military is a tool to set the program back in order to then negotiate. But, you know, I have to say, guys, it seems to me that our ability to know what was happening at Fordo was pretty good. And it seems to have largely come from our intel, the Israeli intel, satellite images, and probably not exactly the IAEA inspections that Iran had to allow. I mean, I'm sure it's a combo, but like, my point is simply, we. We seem to have known for Ito the way your GYN knows your ovaries, and that's a good thing.

[Josh Holmes]

I don't quite know how to react to that. I presume that you probably more can.

[Michael Duncan]

Be said.

[Pete Hegseth]

Is that it is like an over. You don't actually have the ability to lay hands on it every day, but you can check it out and keep an eye on it, make sure insurance general health is where you want it to be.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, okay. That's a fair assessment. Well, I don't want to continue the, the, the parallel here but look, if, if you think about the way that the press has, has just entered into this conversation with casting doubt using this low confidence intel assessment to basically suggest that this mission was a failure, which is ridiculous. It, it's also illogical in that those stated mission from Donald Trump over and over and over again and then after over and over and over again was to render these nuclear sites inoperable. That's what it was. Now, unless you didn't pay attention to the news for the last 10 days, the Israeli Air Force was basically doing an Oshkosh air show over Tehran. It wasn't a lot of opportunity to just sort of like one shot and done. I mean if they didn't get the job done, does anybody really think that Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and our brave men and women in uniform wouldn't get that job done? Or moreover that somehow Natasha Bertrand has a better handle on whether or not they're enriching uranium still than our United States military that mapped out as you say, the ovaries of the nuclear facility. You know, I mean that's, that's just the logical piece of this. That makes no sense.

[Pete Hegseth]

Well, and here's the other thing. Like the initial report was like oh, they, they collapsed the entrance to Fordo. That, that's basically it. Meanwhile, you hear General Kane talking about how we all the, the number of bombs we had but these like burrowing bombs that again just picture like a rocket that we watch launch only facing down, going down into the earth. That the precision drops of each into each ventilation shaft that was on either side of the centrifuges doing the enrichment. And the reason was because you can get down in those ventilation shafts. Here's this. This is from the test video that they showed us. Isn't the actual. But supposedly it looks like what it looked like. So they go down into those two ventilation shafts on either end and then dropped like £1,000, whatever these are 30, 30,000 pound bombs and caused a huge explosion in the presser. They talked about how the pilots talked about it was pitch dark and then it lit up like the daytime. Possibly because they hit a uranium centrifuge and now they want us to be believed. Like, oh, they basically knocked down a screen door with them.

[Megan Kelly]

Well, and back to Holmes's point on the whole common sense of this, do you think, like, if Donald Trump wasn't super confident that he got what he needed to out of these strikes, do you think he would have been calling for a ceasefire?

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Megan Kelly]

And getting the Iranians and the Israelis to the table the next day?

[Josh Holmes]

That's the mission. That was the point of the mission. If it didn't succeed and they were basically doing whatever the heck they wanted over Tehran for a calendar week, they, of course, would have gotten the job done. I mean, it just.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yes, it defies. Even Trump said that. Trump, in his thing about the agreement, when he's like, I don't think we need an agreement, he says, you know, I. I told Marco, like, should we have an agreement? He goes, because I think they'll do whatever we want him to do. Like, right? He's like, right now they're going to sign whatever the hell we want and resign so they don't see our B2 bombers again anytime soon.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, fire up the AC dc. Fire up Freebird. We got America back on top of the world right now. You see it? You know, Trump goes over to NATO and What a difference eight years makes, right? They're like making fun of them eight years ago. Now they're like, oh, you wanted 2%, how about 5? How about 5% of our GDP? What else do you need?

[Michael Duncan]

To me, that's the most stunning thing of seeing the press reaction, especially from people like Natasha Bertrand, is we are so incredibly fortunate. President Trump saw this window of opportunity where Israel had degraded so many of Iran's proxies all around that region, and America had already bombed the Houthis. And so you have a window of opportunity for this problem, this thorn in our side, which could eventually get to the point where Iran has a nuclear bomb. And he has the foresight and knows there's so much chatter out there online of like, oh, no, this is going to be a forever war. This is going to be 20 years of boots on the ground in Iran and he's willing to do the right thing. Precision strike, which takes care of the problem. Americans should be celebrating. Wow.

[Josh Holmes]

Universally celebrating.

[Michael Duncan]

How lucky are we?

[Pete Hegseth]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

The only group of people trying to take America down a peg right now is the press. I mean, Pete Hegseth had the temerity to say thank you to our boys in the air, and they're like, wait a minute, you didn't mention women. You played this clip. They asked them about it again today. And it's an issue that I think deserves some examination. You know, our good friend Josh Holmes pointed out earlier this week that if you look throughout history like it's Cyndi Lauper's famous song, girls just want to have fun. Well, the truth of the matter is boys want to have fun too. So you need to go back through everything in history and even things out if you're going to start doing it right now in America's day.

[Pete Hegseth]

So true. The nerve of Cyndi Lauper. Who knew she was such a sexist pig? Is it like it's this exclusionary language? Must stop. By the way we looked it up. The Washington Times is reporting that the woman who asked that totally inane question was Associated Press reporter reporter Tara Kopp. Tara C O PP if so, she ought to be ashamed of herself. If not, we'll correct it after we find out if we're wrong. But I don't think we're wrong. It tracks, it's so bizarre.

[Josh Holmes]

The whole tracks perfectly. You have this incredible mission, this absolute success. Presidents from the, from the 90s. We're talking about how you go about dealing with nuclear ambitions. In Iran, we, we end up with a successful strike and they're like, Mr. Secretary, were there trans capabilities in B2s? Like, we gotta make sure that everyone feels comfortable and allowed to bomb, to rock. I mean, what in the hell?

[Pete Hegseth]

That's exactly right. Was there a non binary bomber? If so, I can't. If not, I can't get behind this. There's so much more to talk about here, so I want to spend a minute on the media. Laura Coates of CNN did like a whole hour earlier this week on how this was a failure. Here's a sampling. Just how effective were the American strikes.

[Tara Kopp]

On Iran's nuclear program? Well, tonight CNN is learning a preliminary.

[Pete Hegseth]

Intelligence assessment suggests they did not destroy Iran's nuclear sites. This early report is from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency.

[Tara Kopp]

CNN has spoken with seven people briefed on it. One source says that the strike set Iran back, quote, maybe a few months tops. Two others tell us the country's stockpile of enriched uranium was also not destroyed. Another says the centrifuges are largely intact.

[Pete Hegseth]

Really? Because the director of the IAEA is now on record saying the centrifuges are no longer operational. The CIA and every other intelligence agency to look at this, including the Israelis, say it's been destroyed and it will take years for them to rebuild anything. So I like. I look forward to their correction. What's happening instead is you had Trump take aim in particular at CNN because they hired this dishonest Natasha Bertrand. Bertrand. That's my opin. She's actually not just bad dishonest. They hired her. And Trump says she should be fired. I agree. She shouldn't be hired. The fact that she has a job at all after her disastrous fake news reporting for years at Politico and Business Insider and for the Atlantic is a miracle. I mean, it's a travesty. So he, he says she should be fired. This is a ridiculous thing that she's out there still doing this to me. And then you get. Wait for it. Jake Tapper to swoop in and provide a lecture to the President on what the proper role of a journalist is. I think we have it. Let's watch. Yes.

[General Kane]

We don't know yet whether this administration.

[Pete Hegseth]

Is accurately portraying what happened in Iran or not. We don't know.

[General Kane]

That's the point of publishing what we know, that the government learns once we learn it, the lessons there. The news media needs to press for.

[Pete Hegseth]

Facts, even if it's uncomfortable.

[General Kane]

Even if, as Americans and as humans, there is a personal instinct to rally around the flag.

[Pete Hegseth]

Asking questions is literally our job. Demanding facts and answers instead of just taking a president's word for it. History has taught us that the most.

[General Kane]

Pro service member action we can take.

[Pete Hegseth]

Is to ask questions of our leaders, especially in times of war.

[General Kane]

That for journalists, is the height of.

[Josh Holmes]

He's still going.

[Pete Hegseth]

My head hurts. We have obligation to ask questions of our presidents and not just take their word. We know.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, we know.

[Comfortably Smug]

We just spent four years covering for an invalid. Wonder what was different about him. Maybe it was because he's a Democrat.

[Josh Holmes]

I would say, Megan, though, it was nice to see that Jake has now regained control of his faculties after the beatdown that you administered during his book talk. My God, that was incredible. It's the only time I've ever felt really sorry for him, ever in my life.

[Michael Duncan]

No, he deserved it.

[Megan Kelly]

He.

[Pete Hegseth]

He said he wanted to beat down, so he said he was looking forward to the. The exchange. And then I think it went as we.

[Josh Holmes]

It was, it was kind of you to oblige.

[Pete Hegseth]

Okay, so. So they're all, you know, they're all upset at CNN that their star reporter is now coming under fire. This. Let me just give you a sample. I know you guys know, but like the audience, because no one's ever heard of this woman, Natasha Bertrand. I can't even get her name Straight. She's very young. She is fucking clueless. Honestly. She has no idea how not to be used as a stenographer for intel forces that have an agenda. These are the least trustworthy people on the planet. Like their leaks to you are the require the most scrutiny, doubt and tire kicking of any leak you'll ever get. But instead, her only test seems to have been, does this help or hurt Trump? Hurt. I'll go with it. Let's do that. Here's just a sampling of her over the past couple of years.

[Natasha Bertrand]

But if you take for example, the Steele dossier at kind of face value, or you take that as any kind of guideline, there was a lot of internal dissent within the Russian government about whether or not and to what extent the Russians should interfere in the US Election and coordinate with Donald Trump. Trump said, Russia. If you're listening, it almost seemed like a signal. Intelligence experts have been telling me that it seemed like at that moment Trump was signaling to the Russians that it was okay for them to do that and implicitly giving them his permission to do that. That it makes it much more plausible that Trump did go to Russia and he did have these kinds of sexual escapades with prostitutes and no, Trump has been traveling to Moscow for quite some time. And it just makes it all the more plausible that what the dossier says he did actually did occur. What if Donald Trump actually knew beforehand that the Russians planned to do this and was kind of giving them a signal to proceed? Because former intelligence officials that I spoke to said that this might have been in fact a signal to the Russians to give them kind of political cover in order to hack into Clinton's emails.

[Pete Hegseth]

All right, Natasha, thanks so much.

[Megan Kelly]

You've covered this so closely and it shows.

[Josh Holmes]

First class reporting.

[Pete Hegseth]

We could have been here all day with soundbites from her just like this. You guys know Eric Wemple, right? At the Washington Post?

[Comfortably Smug]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Hegseth]

He's a media critic and he's unsparing and he, to his credit, will be unsparing even of left wing reporters. And he went off on this woman in February of 2020. I'm just going to give you a couple of samples, okay? He, he started by recounting a hit that she was doing on MSNBC because she used to be an MSNBC contributor. Now she's over at cnn and he talks about how she went on Joy Reid's show. And they turned to Natasha on whether Trump wanted Russian meddling or whether he just can't accept that foreign help is there. Natasha responded, we don't have the reporting that suggests the president has told aids, for example, that he really wants Russia to interfere because he thinks that it's going to help him. Right? Eric Wemple goes on. No, we don't have that reporting, though there's no prohibition against fantasizing about it on national television. Such is the theme of Bertrand's commentary during previous coverage, coverage of Russian interference, specifically the Steele dossier. Bertrand helped a heaped credibility on the dossier, which was published in full by Buzzfeed in January 17th. In repeated television appearances, her written work has appeared on Business Insider, the Atlantic, Politico, where she's now a national security correspondent. She was at Political before cnn, too. Along the way, she bootstrapped her punditry into a contributor's role in msnbc. Her boosterism for these lies dates back years, and he goes on about how she got the Paul Manafort story wrong. She kept going on the air to play up every piece of the fake Russiagate reporting in the most uncharitable way towards Trump possible, he says. She her highlight reel features a great deal of thumb on the scale speculation regarding the dossier. And if I read you all the highlights, we'd be here all day. But let's just suffice it to say that she never saw a negative piece of information from the intel community about Trump she didn't like. And she's the one who printed who broke the big news in politico about the 51 intelligence agents who say the Hunter Biden laptop is Russian disinformation. This is the woman who just took a massive dump on those B2 pilots because she decided to run with nothing was destroyed except for the screen door. And without telling the audience it was low confidence.

[Michael Duncan]

So Natasha Bertrand has a very long and storied history of trafficking in just not only lies, but figments of her own imagination. I think. You know, there were rumors that heard from other journalists that the reason why she hops from publication to publication is because editors eventually get sick of having to deal with covering for what are out and out lies.

[Josh Holmes]

Sort of a Taylor Lorenz issue.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. So she has to keep hopping around to publications. And further, I've heard from Democrats that she's the easiest way to place anything you want and get it out there. Of course, she has built her career off of these TV hits where she basically says whatever, any kind of like Looney Tune resistance. You know, wine mom wants to hear, they want to be told you're not crazy, lady. It's not, you know, you're A cat and your brain worms, actually. Trump is a Russian agent this whole time, believe me.

[Josh Holmes]

Now let's spill the Chablis. Have an afternoon.

[Michael Duncan]

Her entire career is based off of just feeding into that madness and telling insane people. You're not the crazy one. And she's gotten away with it for so long, I cannot wait for it to finally catch up with her.

[Pete Hegseth]

I mean, I have to. It's like I, I don't know if they're lies, I don't know what they are. But how is she wrong so often and always in one direction, you know, is she this naive? Because when, if you're going to cover this beat, you know, intel, the Pentagon. I'm sorry, but like, you need a Catherine Herridge, you know, you need like a motherfucker who will like be all over you. She won't believe a word you say. She dislikes everyone. Like, that's what you need. It works. It works. You can't have this doe eyed, no nothing reporter who just gets used as tool, a stooge of these intel agents who are far smarter than she is. So I don't know if these are lies or just she's fine being used and made to look like a fool in every report she does. Smug. I. I don't know.

[Megan Kelly]

Yeah, I don't, I don't know if they're lies, Megan. I think what it is, is to the, it's wish casting, like whatever is the least charitable, you know, fact that the deep state can spin to her, she's going to accept it at face value because she wants it to be true so badly. The other thing that really comes to mind in all of this, you know, with reporters like that, talking about how, oh, well, we didn't actually take out the nuclear sites. Like, it's, it's their, their instinct to sort of root against Trump. And it reminds me so much of those, like, early months of COVID where you got this whole sort of strain of journalism that seemed like it was almost rooting for the virus.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yeah.

[Megan Kelly]

You know.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yes. Yep.

[Josh Holmes]

Big inroads in Manhattan this afternoon. No, it's true, it's true. But I think the intel thing, look, this is a fairly recent phenomenon in the, it's in the era of Trump where we've sort of become more skeptical of what the deep state is producing and there's just cabal. It's not new, but now we know about it, that part is new. Of like the Brennans and the clappers and their acolytes that sort of live within this Apparatus and people like Natasha Bertrand are their exclusive way out to just sort of undermine the larger mission of the country and the President and everything else. But they do this very tricky thing. And you could hear in the clips that you played of her doing just this, which is making an assertion that is like blindly insane, totally unsupported by facts. And then she drops a comma and says, intel official. Say, yeah, right, yeah, intel official, unidentified, is likely one of these, you know, somebody who picks up Brennan's coffee in the morning. But, but that's the way that she can traffic the information to the American people. This has been happening for decades. It's only in the era of Trump that we've become aware of it.

[Pete Hegseth]

And what you have is like in that example, Jake Tapper trying to spin this as like some glorious noble effort at reporting by leaking a preliminary low confidence report, which she did not tell the audience was low confidence in her initial reporting. Neither CNN nor the New York Times thought that would be relevant at all. And I read you the Katherine Herridge explanation of how a normal schooled Pentagon or Intel reporter would receive such a leak. They would be like, this is not worth the paper it's printed on. It's it. That's. But what they do is when Pete Hegseth comes out and says, just stop. That was low confidence and it was preliminary, all their instincts are, we're being lied to, we're being spun, we're being spun. As opposed to, what if he's telling the truth? What if, you know, when Tulsi Gabbard comes out, which she just did too, and said it was that the facilities were destroyed, the CIA, John Radcliffe comes out and says, you know, I can't remember his phrase, but it was basically massive damage at all of them and devastating. The IAEA guy saying, let's get more specific, the centrifuges are no longer operational. And he went on to describe the mass. What if they're telling us the truth? What if they're not all just engaged in a massive cover up operation, but our pilots actually did get it done? How is it you can't even allow for that? Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

And if you go back to the first clip you played, what was the one thing she was willing to take at face value? The Steele dossier wasn't going to question that. A lot of good reasons to believe that, but it's not, it's not just her, you know, it's not just her. There's an editorial process that falls apart when they don't include that this is a low confidence preliminary early report. And also by the way the CIA says, and also other intelligence sources say, and the way that they frame it is that this is the fact. And then here's a quote from Pete Hegseth, who worked at Fox News and therefore not credible. And then here's more conjecture from blind sources that we're not even quoting. We're just paraphrasing our interpretation of what it is they're claiming.

[Josh Holmes]

Well said.

[Megan Kelly]

And the Israelis feel pretty confident that these facilities were destroyed. And like, I don't know, not for nothing but Mossad and these Israelis can put a missile into an apartment bedroom to kill a guy in Tehran. I think they're pretty well sourced. And not to, not to mention, I mean, like they're the most under.

[Pete Hegseth]

And Duncan, I don't think it's from the IAEA inspections that they knew where those guys were living and how to murder them. Keep going.

[Megan Kelly]

And then the other side of it is like they're the most under threat. Like they have all the incentive of the world to be like, I think Maybe we did 50% of the job that you should go back in there. But if they're confident in it, then we should be pretty confident.

[Josh Holmes]

That's why it's more pernicious than anything in that what they're saying, assuming by saying this story is that basically Donald Trump is going to try to put our men and women in uniform in harm's way for something that didn't get done and then throw a bumper sticker and say it got done. It's, it's insane.

[Pete Hegseth]

It is, it's, it literally doesn't make any sense.

[Josh Holmes]

Imagination.

[Pete Hegseth]

And as Judge Judy says, if it doesn't make any sense, it isn't true. Okay, stand by. There's much more to discuss. We've got to get over the bromance between Trump and the UN Secretary General. It was unlike anything we've ever seen before. NATO hates us. NATO's But Secretary General, but NATO hates us. And yet no longer. Now we're BFFs. It was an extraordinary turnabout. We'll talk about it next. Let me tell you about Financial Yield Solutions Inc. Known as fysi. If you are handling your own books or you have a bookkeeper, you risk inaccuracies, missed deductions and blind spots in cash flow. Fysi's team of seasoned accounting professionals, corporate and tax attorneys handle every journal entry, bank reconciliation and month end close with unmatched precision, delivering clear and timely financial reports that keep you in control. They weave advanced tax avoidance strategies into your bookkeeping so you capture every deduction before you file. And plug you into their network of industry leaders and referral partners for real world growth opportunities. Set up your free consultation to learn how FYSI's experts will transform your books and into a growth engine and accelerate your business to the next level. Act now to claim your free $5,000 business assessment, available only for a limited time. Visit FYSI.com Megan use promo code Megan or call 800-877-4000 today. Here with me for the full show today, the hosts of the Ruthless podcast, John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and the man known to his minions as comfortably Smug. You can find all of their shows@ ruthless podcast.com and speaking of shows, you guys are here. You are my. My audience, in addition to my actual audience for the world premiere of the following exclusive trailer. You know, we've been doing, we've been getting into the parody business here on the MK show. We had some fun at Meghan Markle's expense and we had some fun at the expense of the ladies from Blue Origin when we did our own Blonde Origin. And our latest target, as you will see in this little trailer for tomorrow's bigger piece, is Michelle Obama Watch a former first lady with her own podcast. I'm Michelle Obama. People line up for my advice. No, not her. This former first lady, I'm Megan O. People need to hear from me. Many people don't understand. Not much is covered in the White House. It's expensive to live in the White House. We made it through. We got out alive. But what happened to me? What happened to me? No one talks about this. No, they don't. With advice that will inspire. Do you know what having children does to your life? It ruins it. They mess you up. What is marriage? It's about misery. Folks think that this is harsh. It's like you're going to have a bad decade. We don't articulate our pain. Yes. Meet Megan O. Friday on the Megan Kelly Show. I think you're gonna like it.

[Josh Holmes]

I love that stuff.

[Megan Kelly]

Yeah, I love the dead pan. We don't talk about that.

[Pete Hegseth]

Nobody ever talks about that. Maureen is my sister on the. On the podcast. You know, she has her brother with her always. All he does is kiss her ass and get told how wrong he is on everything he says. Anyway, we had so much fun doing this because it's like basically we're doing the things that Saturday Night Live should do. We're targeting the people who should be subjected to scorn and ridicule. But the left won't touch because they're too revered. Like, for some reason, Meghan Markle's in that category. Michelle Obama, obviously the ladies of blue origin. Everyone's too afraid of Jeff Bezos to touch. The Lauren Sanchez thing. It's like we've been having such a good time just saying what's obvious about that. Like Michelle, she should change her name to Misery Obama. That's really what I think of when I. Misery Obama never has a positive word to say. Never. Never. Not about children, not about family, not about. Certainly not about her husband. By the way, before we leave this topic, here's her latest soundbite that made the rounds. This happened on June 18th, but I was off. Here it is, SOT 39.

[Tara Kopp]

You should have threw a boy in the mix.

[Pete Hegseth]

I would. I'm so glad I didn't have a boy. Ever throw a thumb. Throw in the cause he would have been a Barack Obama. The baby Barack.

[Josh Holmes]

It would have been amazing.

[Pete Hegseth]

No, I would have felt for him.

[Comfortably Smug]

She just borrowed our boys.

[Pete Hegseth]

I got as many. Wow, catch that. She's. She's glad she didn't have a boy because he would have been a Barack Obama. And that's a hard pass for her. This woman can't stand him.

[Michael Duncan]

Wait a minute now. Now I like her. She prevented another Barack in the world. The Iranian regime quakes. We could have had another shot.

[Pete Hegseth]

No, wait. Speaking of Barack Obama, he decided to drop a post on X today. And I thought, okay, maybe in the wake of the Pete Hegseth presser, he's going to say something like, no matter how you feel about the Iranian strike, hats off to our boys in blue, our guys in the bombers. He went a different way. This is what it was.

[Megan Kelly]

Curious how you're thinking about this eulogy specifically in the moment and all the tensions that you just.

[Mark Rutte]

I didn't even want to talk. I was so mad. Part of the reason I think I ended up having anything to say at that moment was when I heard some of the victims families forgive the shooting. And I thought, all right, let's, let's see if maybe this is a way America can hear me at this moment. Go back to that day 10 years ago. What I think binds it together, all these different strands, case upholding health care, a case declaring same sex marriage part of our constitutional protections of mourning. I think what pulls it all together is that no one person did any of that.

[Pete Hegseth]

Okay, so he's sitting around on a June Thursday thinking about Himself and his glory days. And to your point, smug. I'm starting to warm up to Michelle Obama's pov. I'd be like, what is he doing?

[Michael Duncan]

That's really something. A lot of people can try to be critical of President George W. Bush, but he said numerous times that upon leaving the White House, he saw it as not a respect that wasn't even given to him, of leave with grace. The job is someone else's now.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And like, the kind of thing you do when you respect your country.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

And then you've got the first off, Michelle Obama being like, you don't understand how tough it was.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, Hats off to the production team, though. At the Megyn Kelly show, I'm seeing some numbers, and I think your production team actually may have doubled the total audience of the Michelle Obama podcast. Like, last time I saw, they had, like, just the most atrocious numbers.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, I guess I thought it was just because everyone's done with. With the Obamas, it doesn't want to hear about them. But, like, even if you were the kind of person who's like, I really care what Michelle Obama thinks. And then she's like, it was tough. We barely survived living in the White House.

[Pete Hegseth]

We got out alive.

[Megan Kelly]

I have a conspiracy theory on this, Megan, and that is Michelle Obama is probably getting really tired of people being like, you should run. Like, you should be a politician.

[Josh Holmes]

She's like, I'm going to disabuse you.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Megan Kelly]

I'm going to make myself as likable as possible.

[Pete Hegseth]

Negative. I am. Yeah. People, stop asking Misery. Obama does not want to run for office. Misery just wants to sit and talk about how miserable she is. And honestly, when you see the full parody tomorrow, you'll laugh. Like, even I started bursting out laughing a couple times because it seems impossible. Like, it seems like I'm being too mean. But then we've interspliced the actual Michelle Obama saying these exact things like, that we didn't have to make.

[Michael Duncan]

Jaw dropping.

[Josh Holmes]

I'd like to see outtakes of that whole thing too, Megan.

[Pete Hegseth]

It's a good idea, Holmes.

[Josh Holmes]

Gonna be great.

[Pete Hegseth]

We may. Let me try to put that together for you on request. I will speak to the production team because the fellas have good ideas. Okay, so that's. By the way, Bill Clinton, too. He had time to Tweet out about June 19th or Juneteenth. He had time to tweet out about Zoran Mamdani, but not a word about our. The military accomplishment that they all said we needed to do that. They all said, Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. And our boys went out there and made sure it didn't happen. And because it was under Trump, they couldn't spare just a fucking tweet. Just to say, proud to be an American. Go Team usa. Or like, congrats to our men and women in uniform for once again proving what a true professional looks like. You can absolutely find a way to. To tip your hat to these guys over whom you were commander in chief for a time without endorsing the mission. If you don't want to do that, you know, it's just. No, it's more important to talk about Zoran Mamdani or Juneteenth or in Obama's case, himself.

[Michael Duncan]

And it's even deeper. Like, Jeb Bush tweeted out, congratulations to President Trump for stopping Iran's nuclear program. And Trump tweets out, thanks for the shout out, Jeb Bush. Like, if you have a situation where President Trump, like, viciously destroys you on stage and then you can come out and be like, bygones are bygones. I celebrate America de arming a terrible ally of ours and preventing Iran from having a nuclear program.

[Josh Holmes]

I've given this some thought, though, on the Bill Clinton side of things, and I'm tired of Barack Obama. I don't necessarily need to hear from the Clintons. There is one media appearance that has absolutely essential that he makes at some point. It's that Monica Lewinsky podcast. I mean, can you imagine? That would be an absolute barn burner.

[Pete Hegseth]

Now, wait, I'm sorry, I'm pausing because I'm just looking at this possible breaking news that's coming in. The Times of Israel has a report. It's sourced to one source. So it's. It's sourcing a local Israeli Hebrew daily newspaper. So it's not the Times of Israel's original reporting. So we'll see whether it's true. But I'll give you the headline. It's that Netanyahu has agreed to end the Gaza war within two weeks after the US Strike on the Iranian facilities. And it also goes on to say again, we don't have this confirmed, that the deal will include the expansion of the Abraham Accords, according to a source familiar with the conversation. That would be huge. And actually also has a plan for what to do with Gaza. This is according. Again, they're citing this one outlet that. We don't know. We don't know. I don't know. Let's see, what's this? This Is another thing coming in. Per this paper, Gaza hostilities will conclude within two weeks. Ending conditions. Yeah. Will encompass four Arab nations, including Egypt and the uae, to administer the Gaza Strip, replacing the murderous Hamas terrorist organization. The remaining Hamas leadership will face exile to other countries while the hostages gain freedom. If this is true, it's huge.

[Michael Duncan]

If this is true. I mean, there is no reason why President Trump doesn't get the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Pete Hegseth]

If it's true.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, this. These are generational issues which have been conflicts that have gone unresolved and caused so much loss of life and misery. And if this is true, in six months, this guy. I mean, I'm flabbergasted. I never thought my lifetime I'd see this.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. And if the Nobel committee can't see it within themselves to give him that prize, they need to just create a new one called the Trump Peace Prize. This is. This is peace in our time, possibly like we've never seen in our entire lives.

[Pete Hegseth]

I got the chills. Like, I actually. There are hair standing up in the back of my. My neck because, like, they've think of that even, like, getting the hostages back is number one. Bringing the fighting to a close officially between Israel and Hamas and expanding the Abraham Accords. That's gonna be very interesting. Who's next? Saudi would be huge. And then possibly having the UAE and Egypt oversee Gaza. Muslims, right? Not. Not the United States, not Israel, most importantly, but Muslims, you know, who don't want the Palestinians coming to them, but could be responsible for keeping the peace in that region. My God. I mean, what a massive undertaking. Again, huge grain of salt to the audience. We do not know Times of Israel is legit, but we do not know. This other paper they're citing, it's a Hebrew daily newspaper. Who's reporting this based on a phone call they're saying happened between Trump and Netanyahu.

[Michael Duncan]

God, I hope it's true. That would be such a. So wonderful for the world.

[Pete Hegseth]

We'll put a pin in it until. If it's true, it's going to come out probably within the next hour. We can round back to it. But I'm just letting you know that that's. That's what I was looking at. I have to spend a minute on what happened at the Supreme Court today, which did happen and has been confirmed. Another victory for sanity, as the. The Supreme Court rules that states can cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood within their states. What happened was the state of South Carolina did it. You're already not supposed to be Using taxpayer money to, on, on Planned Parenthood on abortion. But what happens in various states is Planned Parenthood says, oh well, Mary's coming here for contraception or they always say cancer screenings even though they're really not done at that. All these Planned Parenthoods there. She's just coming here for her cancer screening or her birth control control. That's all. But Mary's not going to have an abortion and she's not going to use her Medicaid money for an abortion. And that's how they get Medicaid funding for Mary's visit. But money's fungible and this Medicaid is a joint state and federal program. So we are, we are funding abortions because our money is going to Planned Parenthood in various states. And there are millions of Americans who have a very, very deep problem with that. Planned Parenthood should get its own money from its own well heeled, deep pocketed leftist donors like Alex Soros now and his weird wife Uma. And that's where they should get their money. Not from us, not from taxpayers who want nothing to do with abortion. So the Supreme Court has sided with the same people because what happened was Mary, who's not really named Mary in this case, it's an individual who said, I'm going to sue you. Her name was Julie Edwards, saying, I want to keep going back to my South Carolina Planned Parenthood for birth control and I want my Medicaid payments to pay for it. And the governor had said, no, we're not allowing that for anybody. Julie. Sorry. And the Supreme Court just said states actually do have that right because Medicaid has a private right of action to enforce it. Like you have a right to sort of get the doctor of your choosing. And the Supreme Court said, no, this is one exception to that rule. The states do not have to allow a private plaintiff to bring a lawsuit if a governor says no public funds for Planned Parenthood are happening in our state. And that's, that's huge, you guys. That's a big ruling.

[Josh Holmes]

It is really big. It all stems from what they call the Mexico City policy, which is reinstated every time there's a Republican president which prohibits taxpayer, federal, taxpayer dollars for going to pay for abortion. But as the left does with almost everything that they do, they try to figure out a way for payers to pay for their social agenda in one way or another. This is a perfect example of how they've done that. The idea that Medicaid dollars are going to Planned Parenthood. I mean, we know what that outfit does. And for decades, they've just couched it under Women's Health. Women's health. This is a women's health clinic. Now it's an abortion store. That's what it is. And let's be very clear about it. But that's a big court ruling. Gosh, what a time to be alive. And that we're having insanity tomorrow.

[Pete Hegseth]

Tomorrow we're going to get, we expect, I think it's the last day of opinions. We expect to get the ruling on whether these nationwide injunctions can keep getting handed down by these district courts, which is the number one form of Resistance 2.0 to stop the Trump administration. It's coming up in the context of birthright citizenship, you know, which Trump has said you can't have. He's interpreted the Constitution to say you're not a citizen just because you're born here, if you're born to somebody who doesn't have citizenship. And a judge blocked that executive order and issued a nationwide injunction against enforcing it. And so while this doesn't exactly get to the birthright citizenship issue, that's the context in which the notion of a nationwide injunction is coming up. So this is going to be a very interesting case on all fronts. We'll have it covered for you tomorrow because it's, it'll come down at 10am okay, let's keep going because there's still a lot to get to. We were on run. Let's take the close pivot to NATO and related issues. NATO, of course, is an organization that many North Atlantic countries have joined originally to prevent aggression in the region by countries like Russia. Now it's less clear what exactly we're all doing in this party, but it's very, very important to the Europeans because we seem to be the Big brother who protects everybody. And they don't want Big Brother to leave. They like Big Brother's muscles, they like Big Brother's strength, and they really like his big military with the big B2s. So they want us to get along with the Big Brother. They want Big Brother to stay in the alliance. And Trump all along, first term and second, has kind of been saying, I guess we will, but, like we're kind of sick of you freeloading off of us. Why don't you at least pay what you've already agreed to Pay, which is the 2% of your GDP, all of you countries, instead of reloading. And he went over there and I pulled this for AM update today. People should listen to that pod. But I pulled the New York Times article from 2018 when he went to NATO, and it was so negative. It was like he has everyone rattled. He's disrespectful. He's doing things unconventionally. You know, all the backbiting comments about Trump, both from the Times reporters and from other countries who are like, what is this effing thing that's come over here trying to demand we pay 2, 2% for real, and threatening to leave NATO if he, if, if, if we don't now flash forward to, you know, all these years later, what, five, six, seven years, and NATO's like, let's do this. And Trump gets him to pay 5% of GDP or at least commit the major nations to commit to doing that. And does the time say, like, nailed it, Mr. President, good for you. You know what? Your irascible nature actually wound up working on these people long term. No, they complained that they're not actually going to pay the 5%. And why wasn't there more attention on Ukraine and the funding for that war? He can't win. He's at the point where, literally the Secretary General of NATO is calling him Daddy and saying he deserves the praise. Shut up. And they're still like, no, he's failing. He sucks. Okay, so let me give you the sound bites because everybody wants to hear the NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, and his comments about Trump. Daddy. This is what set everything off. Where he referred to him as Daddy. I think that's 14. They've had a big fight, like two kids in a schoolyard. You know, they fight like hell. You can't stop them. Let them fight for about two, three minutes, then it's easy to stop them.

[Mark Rutte]

And then Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.

[Pete Hegseth]

Every once in a while, you have to use a certain word. Okay? He didn't say, you're my daddy, but he said daddy has to use strong language. That's okay. All right. I'm fine. I think it's fine. Trump gets asked about it by the snarky reporter and says this in soda. Levitt, Mark Rutter, the NATO chief who is your friend, he called you Daddy earlier. Do you recall your NATO allies as kind of children? No. He likes me. I think he likes me. If he doesn't, I'll let you know. I'll come back and I'll hit him hard.

[Megan Kelly]

Okay?

[Pete Hegseth]

He did it very affectionately. Daddy, you're my daddy. Okay, one more, one more before I toss it to you. Mark Ruda got asked about it by maybe the same reporter. She sounds terrible. Take a listen. The language that you have used when talking to Donald Trump has been notable because of its flattery. Today you called him daddy and you sent a text message to him that was gushing with praise. Is this the way that you feel that you have to act when doing business with the US President, through flattery and praise? Isn't it a bit demeaning and doesn't it make you look weak?

[Mark Rutte]

No, I don't think so. I think it's a bit of a question of taste. But I think he's a good friend. And when he is doing stuff which is forcing us to, for example, when it comes to making more investments, I mean, would you ever think that this would be the result of this summit if he would not have been re elected president? Do you really think that seven or eight countries who said yes, somewhere in the2030s we might meet the 2%. We've now all decided in the last four or five months to get to 2%. So doesn't he deserve some praise? And when it comes to Iran, the fact that he took this decisive action, very targeted to make sure that Iran would not be able to, to get his hands on a nuclear capability, I think he deserves all the praise.

[Pete Hegseth]

Such a good answer.

[Michael Duncan]

That's it right there.

[Josh Holmes]

Such a good.

[Pete Hegseth]

Right. Former prime minister of the Netherlands there, Mark Ruda. Good for him. Go ahead.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, Couple observations. The first is that was the same reporter sort of into the daddy talk.

[Pete Hegseth]

It's Deborah Haynes of Sky News.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, she's got a thing with the daddy talk. I don't know what's up with that. You get two questions to ask the President, United States. The NATO secretary judge is like, tell me more about the daddy thing. Let's talk more about that. I don't know.

[Pete Hegseth]

I'm not saying send her a T shirt. They're already making T shirts. They're red and they have Trump's picture on it and they read Daddy.

[Josh Holmes]

Second observation is this guy, what an exceptional head of hair he has.

[Michael Duncan]

Right?

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I'm, I will follow that man anywhere. That is incredible.

[Pete Hegseth]

Put it back up. I didn't look at the hair. Can we put him back up there? You don't have to run the sound.

[Michael Duncan]

You'll have it's S tier flow.

[Josh Holmes]

It really is. It's like the kind of thing you would want leading your nation.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, it makes Mitt Romney look like Mr.

[Pete Hegseth]

Tape. Please. Producers, let's see. Not her. No, we're not. Mark Ruda.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, just a great head of hair. More than happy to feel the daddy talk from that young Sky Porter.

[Pete Hegseth]

They're good looking people.

[Michael Duncan]

And I mean, the thing is, is that. But, you know, his job is to ensure that NATO is in a position to accomplish what they need to get done. And for a reporter to again, use her time to try to make it. Do you feel you need to be effusive in your flattery? That he has to be like, let me present the facts to you. Did you not just see what happened in Iran?

[Pete Hegseth]

Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And that he has to. He even says, like, if President Trump had not been reelected, do you think would be in a place where all these countries have agreed to this funding?

[Josh Holmes]

But tell me more about the daddy talk.

[Michael Duncan]

It's unbelievable.

[Comfortably Smug]

I will tell you one of the.

[Pete Hegseth]

He's like, look, there's a question of, like, taste. I, I realize you're razzing me. I was making a joke. Like, he's basically like, calm down, Deborah. Right?

[Michael Duncan]

Yep.

[Pete Hegseth]

Take a chill pill. It was humor and he deserves my praise. I mean, is it possible even our friends in Europe are starting to get that the, the way to deal with these woke asshole reporters is to laugh at them?

[Comfortably Smug]

Go ahead, Ashburn. It's exactly right. It's one of the fringe benefits of Trump being who he is, that all of these other leaders are like, wait a minute, I don't have to just take it from this idiot. I have common sense, too. And I'm gonna answer your question that is so stupid with normal common sense, and you're gonna look really dumb. And Trump has shown everybody, I mean, that's real leadership. He's shown everybody around the world that you can do that, that, and you can win.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, and also, you know, I don't think what's been appreciated is the second and third order effects and results of President Trump taking this decisive action. We've already talked about how, you know, the Houthis and Hezbollah and the various groups that Iran would lean on had been dismantled. And President Trump used this window of opportunity to then get rid of the nuclear program. Part of the reason Iran also didn't have is because Syria, you see, like, the allies in the region that they had are all one by one, falling apart. Russia no longer has any say in this region. So. So Europe's got to be in a happy position. China now can't buy cheap oil from Iran. You're seeing a situation where President Trump has been able to just slice through all these geopolitical problems that we've had. So I imagine Europeans are thrilled.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, it's restoring America to the leader of the free world, yeah.

[Megan Kelly]

The Europeans are thrilled, but the left, I'm sure, is furious. Oh, they hate it because four years of Joe Biden, they all had to walk around and pretend that this gu was bringing America back on the world stage.

[Josh Holmes]

You know, like Totena colostomy bag around.

[Megan Kelly]

The middle age, may or may not have his britches over there when he met the Pope for the, you know, or he farted in front of the Queen or something like that. I can't remember. But. But that must make them furious to see Donald Trump roll up. Eight years ago, they were laughing at him, like you said, Holmes. And now, you know, they're kissing the ring.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yeah. And now Mark Ruda, he was like, doubling and tripling down. Here's more. He. Somebody tried to play the. But he's so unpredictable. You know, he's, like, irascible and he's unpredictable. And here's what Mark Ruda said to that guy sat 15.

[Mark Rutte]

He's a good friend. I trust him. He was totally right that Europe and Canada were not basically providing to NATO what we should provide. Now we are correcting that. We are equalizing. I think it is a man of strength, but also a man of peace. You've seen that basically with Iran, the man of strength being able to command his B2 bombers to go into Iran to take out a nuclear capability, but also the man of peace who is then immediately following up with, making sure that Israel and Iran will commit to a ceasefire. And I think this is exactly what you want the American president to do, provide that type of leadership. And so I find him very predictable.

[Pete Hegseth]

Because the question had been, you're dealing with a very unpredictable president or friend who's been all over the map on Article 5 in the past. But how do you know? How are you certain that the Trump you're dealing with right now is the same version of Trump that you'll be dealing with for the rest of this term. And he went on like the beginning was. I've known him for almost 10 years. He's a good friend. I trust him. He was totally right. Europe and Canada were not providing to NATO what we should provide. And then goes on to say what you just heard him say, like, he is predictable and he's a friend. It. Like, this is. We've never heard world leaders do this. Like, this guy seems genuinely inspired by Trump, his strength, his unwillingness to bend. And I can only hope it becomes a little more contagious across the pond, because they could use. They could use the backbone. Okay, I got It. I gotta spend a moment on Kari Lake. I can't believe what I saw yesterday. Did you see it? Oh. Oh, sorry. Steve really wants us to play the White House's response to the daddy thing. I'm less enamored with it, but okay, we'll play it. Here it is. 16.

[Josh Holmes]

Steve likes.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yeah. The White House put this out. Okay, we get it. It's strong. They're leaning in. It's cute. The White House has a sense of humor, which we appreciate. Okay. But I gotta get to Carrie Lake. So Carrie Lake is working for the President. Hold on, I got my papers here. Okay. She's working for the President right now as a senior advisor at the U.S. agency for Global Media. And she's do. She's dojifying it, which Trump instructed her to do. She announced last week that this group was eliminating 400, 1400 positions, which is an 85% cut of the personnel from March. And that's when Trump signed an executive order gutting the agency does not think this is an important agency. They oversee Voice of America, which you know as like radio reporting throughout the world and funds several other independent broadcast outlets stationed around the globe. During the hearing, she was talking about how one of the reasons they're getting rid of all these people is because it's staffed with people who hate America. This is clearly Trump's conclusion too. Yeah, and right, exactly. So she went in there to, you know, what's the. To basically take a sledgehammer to them, chainsaw to them. And now they're having hearings on Capitol Hill talking about whether this is a good idea. And one of the persons who cross examined her was Arizona. That's where she's from. Democratic Representative Greg Stanton. Now he started off. I don't. Is this in our sound bite? Cause he started off going for her. Greg Stanton sounds like a prick. I'm going to be honest. I'll just give you a little bit more than what you're going to hear in the sound bite. He said she's eroding America's soft power around the globe. Your job is to tell the people of the world the truth about America, which I guess he doesn't think Kerry Lake will tell. Then challenged her on her election losses in Arizona and her refusal to accept them. You lost fair and square. He said she lost due to her own toxic politics. You're an adjudicated liar and two time political loser. He said people around the world can't trust this agency if she's lied about her own election outcomes. He sarcastically asked her to run for Arizona governor again. So just so you know, that's what led up to her giving him an elbow of her own right in the face. And just watch.

[Comfortably Smug]

You are an adjudicated liar and a two time political loser in Arizona. You lost for governor in 2022 to Katie Hobbs. You lost even worse to Ruben Gallego for Senate in 2024. Well, Arizona has another election for governor next year. Will you do us all a favor and run it back and run for governor again?

[Pete Hegseth]

I yield.

[Megan Kelly]

The gentle lady respond to some of.

[Tara Kopp]

That because that was complete insanity. I wish I could yield back the last five minutes of my life. But you weren't here. You came in late. And we're talking about USA Jam Today, the agency for Global Media, and how they can put out absolute abject lies and we can't control any. We have no say over what the editorial content is. And I would hope that you would not be okay with that. They could literally put out a lie about anybody here, here. And I know you've been the victim of that. I know you've been the victim. I remember the stories about you where they said you had a gay lover. And those were going on, Mr.

[Pete Hegseth]

Chair.

[Tara Kopp]

Those kind of lies could be broadcast today on VOA and you couldn't pick up the phone, Representative Stanton, and call them and say, hey, you're putting out lies about me. And how would you like it if those lies were put on Voice of.

[Megan Kelly]

America right now ruling on the chair, on the member. She was responding and I thought rather complimentary, that in fact those were untrue and she was defending that.

[Tara Kopp]

So that's what he says.

[Megan Kelly]

I'll leave it as that.

[Pete Hegseth]

Republican Darrell Issa.

[Josh Holmes]

You guys, that's awesome.

[Pete Hegseth]

Come on.

[Comfortably Smug]

So good.

[Megan Kelly]

So good.

[Pete Hegseth]

Perfect. What a mic drop.

[Comfortably Smug]

She's quick on her feet. I mean, she obviously is very talented and she has not lost any of that. I mean, her ability to answer and dodge and weave and like, take it right back to him is, is something to behold. And that was truly.

[Pete Hegseth]

It was a thing of beauty because, like, she kept it. She's stone cold. Like, she kept it professional. She managed to work the insult into like a substantive response.

[Michael Duncan]

And the reply says, like, I thought it was complimentary. She said it was un.

[Josh Holmes]

Straight up calls. It calls a guy a homo in the middle of a congressional hearing. And then it's like, but it's untrue, right? I mean, you said it's untrue. So maybe you could respond.

[Megan Kelly]

If you couldn't correct it, it would be so wrong. Right. And it would be a shame to keep talking about lover rumor, which we all acknowledge should not be true.

[Pete Hegseth]

The.

[Megan Kelly]

Again, the gay lover rumor. Is that in the record? Official record. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. The other thing I really loved about it, Megan, like, back to the whole common sense thing, Voice of America. Well, maybe if you work there, you shouldn't hate America.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yeah.

[Megan Kelly]

Like, it's really that complicated.

[Josh Holmes]

Also, it's just so antiquated. I mean, this is the thing with DOGE and as it applies now to Voice of America and everything else. Like, it was built in a time where radio was, like, the only way that you could get anything ever, and you couldn't certainly get anything overseas. Like, are you aware of the Internet, folks?

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Like, why.

[Pete Hegseth]

Why are we paying any money for this antiquated organization? I got to get one more. Like, she's. Remember her on the campaign trail, how effective she was? Like, the biased media would get in her face, and she's. Of the media. You know, she was an anchor in Arizona for 25 years, I think, and she was just so effective at slicing and dicing, and she still got it. So here's Premea Jayapal, part of the squad, trying to come for her on her election denialism. And she. She was ready. Watch.

[Tara Kopp]

I wanted to start just by confirming. Do you support democracy or authoritarianism? Pretty obvious. I support freedom and democracy. Democracy.

[Pete Hegseth]

Great.

[Tara Kopp]

Would you agree that accepting the results of a fair and free election are critical to a functioning democracy? Would you agree that standing up and cheering for a cancer survivor would have been a nice thing to do? Ms. Lake, this is my time. Okay. Would you accept that accepting the results of a free and fair election are critical to a functioning democracy? It's a yes or no question. Do you think it's essential for democracy to have a free and fair election? We need free and fair elections. Free and fair elections are great things.

[Pete Hegseth]

Thank you. She's holding up a picture of. Of little Daniel, the. The guy who went. Who was made the honorary Secret Service kid. Would you agree that you should have stood for this cancer survivor, you cretin?

[Megan Kelly]

I love that she brought the photo with her.

[Josh Holmes]

She had visual aids. She was prepared, man.

[Pete Hegseth]

Right. It's just so nice. You know how it is when you're a Republican or you're right of center. You never get to see that. You only get to see the leftist beat up on our people. And usually they try to go high road. It's just like in the era of Trump. We're done with that. And it's wonderful.

[Comfortably Smug]

It is wonderful.

[Josh Holmes]

It's nice to see. Plus the content is just extraordinary. What a time to be doing shows, right?

[Pete Hegseth]

Yes. Wait, while we're doing it, why don't I give you this gift too? Because, wait, do we have. Yeah. Brandon Gill. Is he not our favorite?

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, the best.

[Comfortably Smug]

So good, right?

[Pete Hegseth]

Who doesn't love Brandon Gill? Well, he was at it again. Might as well spend a minute on him before we go to break. He had Dr. Sean Harper there, who is a DEI lover and he was talking about how every, every organization needs to have like representation in the same proportion as the race or even fat people exist in America. Like literally he was saying that, like, I mean, okay, so what is the military need to have like 75% fat people? Because isn't the country like 75% obese? Whatever. So that's these guys. Yeah, I come from a long line of them. I'm allowed again, my mom does not appreciate when I say that. So Brandon Gill gets Dr. Sean Harper in front of him. And here's a bit of that in Soc 27. Which race do you think should be preferred? I do not think that a single race should be preferred. You just said that you believe that race should be considered in employer hiring practices. I don't know. There's going to be a transcript of this hearing. I didn't say that in that way. Okay, why don't you explain what you believe. And what I believe is that the demographic composition of workplaces which our nation's military composition, our Congress ought to reflect the diversity of the United States of America. Composition, Racial, demographic, Is that what you're saying? Racial, gender. Okay, so race should be a factor in employer hiring practices. Yet that's what you're saying, is it not? Organizations ought to attempt to match the diversity of their hopping around the question. No, I am answering quite straightforwardly as a matter of fact. Determine which races are preferred. I don't. I, I already told you, I don't have a single racial. You just told me that you believe that the demographic, the racial, demographic makeup should be taken into account in hiring pract. And it should be reflected in all levels of companies and other organizations. But who gets to decide? Right?

[Josh Holmes]

The greatest part about all of this is just watching just the full compilation that we've discussed is just dismantling this leftist argument that has never been challenged in any serious way by media, by punditry, by lawmakers themselves. And now you get to see it almost every day. And their entire fallacy, everything that they believe, all of These policies that they've foisted upon the American people just fall like rocks.

[Megan Kelly]

Yeah, we're going to end racism by doing a little bit of racism.

[Josh Holmes]

We have to do some racism while we're doing eliminating the racism.

[Pete Hegseth]

Okay, now I got to take a quick break and then we'll come right back because we've got to touch on Mandami Mamdani because I'm terrified to think he might be with us for a while. Stand by. You know that moment at night when you're locking up, you're turning off the lights and you just want to feel completely safe before heading to bed? That is what Simplisafe can give to you. Most security systems only take action after someone breaks in that's too late. Simplisafe's new active guard, outdoor protection helps stop break ins before they happen. This is so smart. AI powered cameras and live monitoring agents detect suspicious activity around your property. If someone's lurking, agents talk to them in real time. Can you imagine this? They turn the spotlights on them and they could call the police. This is so great. It's a proactive way of deterring crime before it starts. No contracts, by the way. No hidden fees. Was named best home security system of 2025 by CNET. More than 4 million Americans trust Simplisafe. I mean, it almost makes you want to like have it happen just so you could see your security system go off and scare the you know what out of a bad guy. These guys have monitoring plans that start around $1 a day plus a 60 day money back guarantee. Visit Simply safe. Simply is spelled S I m p l-I.com/megan to claim 50 off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com Megan. There's no safe like Simplisafe. If you are a homeowner, listen to this. In today's AI and cyber world, scammers can steal home titles and your equity is the target. Here's how it works. Criminals can forge your signature on one document, use a fake notary stamp, pay a small fee with your county, and just like that, your home title has been transferred out of your name. Then they can take out loans using your equity or even sell your property. So when's the last time you checked in your home title? If your answer is never, you can check out home title lock to see if you're already evicted. Use my promo code meganometitlelock.com and you will get a free title history report And a free trial of their million dollar triple lock protection. That's 24,7 monitoring of your title, urgent alerts to any changes and if fraud does happen, they will spend up to $1 million to fix it. Don't be a victim. Protect your equity today. Go to hometitlelock.com and use promo code Megan. That's hometitlelock.com promo code Megan. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey and Yoruba. 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. Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free offer details apply. Okay, Mandami. He's won the socialist for the Democratic nomination, looking pretty good for winning the entire mayoral race. However, two interesting things. It appears that Cuomo is now out entirely. He's not going to run as an independent. And now there's growing pressure on Curtis Sliwa, the Republican guardian angel, to drop out. Because even though we love Curtis and it would be so nice if a Republican could be the mayor, it's not going to happen. He has no chance. So there's pressure on him to get out so that the city can coalesce behind Eric Adams, who is the last best choice of stopping Mandami right now. His relaunch at his campaign offices has people lining up around the block in New York. I mean, he's gotten a second life here. What's gonna happen and how did this happen?

[Josh Holmes]

Geez, the funniest take I saw on the Internet about all this was, you know, we've all been concerned about the Islamic extremist reaction and, you know, potential consequence to America as a result of the Iranian bombing. It. We just didn't know it would come so quickly in the form of a Democratic primary in New York. Yeah, this is a bad news deal, but it's indicative of where the Democratic Party is their energy is all behind. Not just somebody who's totally unqualified to run a city like that, but somebody whose ideas are so antithetical to America in and of itself and so off the left hand side of the map that it's, it's, it's like they're killing themselves.

[Michael Duncan]

And, and I, I love it. It's terrific. So here's the thing is, if you look at the breakdown of where he won, Mandani won in New York City, upper middle class and wealthy people came out and drove to vote for him.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yeah.

[Megan Kelly]

Look at his margins in Bed Stuy and Bushwick.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. You know, so like poor voters, the.

[Pete Hegseth]

Blacks, the Hispanics and the working class all went for Cuomo. They did not vote for this guy. It was the white college educated graduate degree holder across Manhattan and Brooklyn.

[Michael Duncan]

So this deranged kind of white guilt which has just gripped the progressive movement of thinking that, well, white people are evil, capitalism is evil. Even though I have a place in the Upper east side, capitalism is a horrible system. Doesn't work for people. Even though, you know, from Park Ave, I go shopping on Madison every day. It's a wonderful system for me, but I think we need a communist. They get what they deserve. They're going to get what they deserve. I, you know, know for so many folks, Megan, yourself included, who no longer live in New York, who don't have a place in there, you see what they've done, it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

[Josh Holmes]

They really whittled down the old talent pool of candidates. Right. I mean, we was basically down to a choice between a guy who killed your grandmother and a socialist psychopath or, you know, or the current guy, which is like no bucket of fruit either.

[Pete Hegseth]

No, it reminds me of back in the day, cnn. I'm gonna screw this up. But CNN launched a competitor to the Five. Roger had come up with the Five, and as he likes to say people thought that. Liked to say people thought he named it that because it had five hosts. But he says, I named it that because that's about how long it took me to think it up, that he'd have five hosts on AT five hosting a news program. And it's hugely successful. I think it's still the number one show in cable news. And CNN decided to try to do the same thing. And they came up with, with. They have no original ideas, so they came up with their own group that was going to go like across from this group. And if memory serves, it was like Van Jones and SE cup and I can't remember who the others were, but I remember Roger's like, my God. He's like, they've got an atheist, they've got a Communist, they've got a, like a Marx. I can't remember the other one. He's like, so far I'm rooting for the communists. Anyway, it's kind of of the situation New Yorkers are in, in looking at these candidates like, I think I want the corrupt one who just takes money from Egypt. Allegedly.

[Megan Kelly]

Yeah. I mean, like, you look at New York City like, you know how America looks at a place like Syria during the Civil War. It's like, we need to fund the moderate New Yorkers on the ground.

[General Kane]

Right?

[Pete Hegseth]

I know it's true. It's like, well, I was talking to somebody about Syria the other day and it's a. Like, you know, it was taken over by Al Qaeda, but they don't seem that Al Qaeda y. So, you know, fingers crossed. This is. These are not good positions to be in. You tell me. Because like, there's a, there's a debate playing out about whether this guy Mandami is a. Is a reflection of like too much illegal immigration. And no, people don't assimilate and they bring their values. And then the white working, the white upper class, that has the white guilt, you know, buying into all those messages and this coalition is born. And then there's another line of thinking that's more something you might hear from a Steve Bannon, you know, which is like, it's the left's populist uprising. These young people can't buy homes and they can't get a decent job and they can't make it without both the mom and the dad working. And they just, they want a revolution. They want to burn shit down. And the socialist message of just taxing the billionaires is extremely attractive. And so. And by the way, those people have never lived during the New York of the 1970s or late 80s, so they've totally forgotten what these leftist policies actually lead to. So what do you think?

[Comfortably Smug]

I think that the second thing that you mentioned, I think there's some validity to that. There are people who don't see any path to buy their own home out there off the left hand side. But you don't need to put your hopes in a guy that's gonna take away your guns and control the food flow into Manhattan. Everything that he is talking about to turn Manhattan into Gaza. And they're going to start shooting rockets from Flatiron into Williamsburg. This guy is absolutely Insane. And he is not the only leftist out there. There has to be somebody else who is literally not going to get rid of the cops, not get like everything he's done. The prisons that doesn't put somebody in a home.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. It's also indicative of this larger lack of leadership within the Democratic Party in and of itself. Right. I mean, both political parties from time to time have captured by this like super radical, totally inconsistent with where the center of the country is type movement. It's full of energy for a variety of different reasons, but always there's somebody that provides some leadership to try to like recapitalize that and make sure that no, these are good policies. Like you don't need an, a clinically insane person to lead you down the road in order to have, you know what it is that you're all really looking for. I think Donald Trump's done a lot of that within the Republican Party. But if you look around like Chuck Schumer in the home state here, Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries, they're the first ones who are just dodging all this. Right. A real leader would sit there and be like, look, we're not gonna get rid of the nypd, which is what this guy is campaigning on. Clearly that's not something that Democrats believe in. Except he can't say it and he won't say it, which is how this has grown within the Democratic Party.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yeah. Bill Clinton is congratulating him. That's another thing Bill Clinton weighed in on rather than our troops victory and seems to be all in on, on, on this guy. Notwithstanding what we just said, Bill Clinton doesn't want the prisons open and the cops gone. Go ahead, Duncan.

[Megan Kelly]

Well, and neither do the, the lower income and middle income voters of New York. The like. If there was this really this, this left wing populism idea that is so popular, you would think the New Yorkers who are struggling the most would have voted for it. But they didn't. They voted for Cuomo. Right. It was, it was the affluent, the wealthy, over $100,000 a year who were voting for this guy.

[Pete Hegseth]

Guy.

[Megan Kelly]

So I think it's more just the luxury beliefs of people who like, don't actually have to worry about, well, you abolish prisons, you know, you're going to let all the criminals out in the street. But you know, I live 100 floors up, so it doesn't matter.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, but this has become the base of the Democratic Party.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yep. Doorman building security. Possibly an iron fence around my doorman building. They can't get to me. And on the Upper east side, where my children go to private school, we'll have no problems. No matter what I vote for. That's why you get nutcases.

[Michael Duncan]

That's my thing is Cynthia Zorin can, can mobilize his supporters to actually storm the doorman buildings. That's what it's going to take.

[Pete Hegseth]

Yeah, that is what it's going to take. Well, that's. A lot of people are saying that, like, let's, let's let them see what the natural consequences of this decision are. Let's not save them from 1970s New York. Let's watch them experience it. It's sad to me. I mean, we moved right outside of New York and it's like, I still love New York and we go into New York and I to want, I want my kids to be able to go there and your kids to be able to go there and watch a Broadway show and not worry about getting shot in the face. It's just, it's, this is a dark moment for the city and the country. And I, I for the Democrat Party. I don't, I don't know what their future looks like. In any event, not a dark moment for the fellas because we always have things to talk about. It's great to see you guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Great to see you, Megan.

[Michael Duncan]

Thank you so much.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you for having me.

[Megan Kelly]

Thanks for having us.

[Pete Hegseth]

The pleasure's all mine. And, and don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow on the show, Maureen Callahan will be here and we will have the premiere of our latest parody. Both of us are in it. Megan O. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.