
Megyn Kelly is joined by National Security Advisor Michael Waltz to talk about the state of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, how the Trump administration is responding to the crisis, the critiques from left and right over President Trump's rhetoric about Zelensky and the war, how we can get to a permanent peace, the backlash to Trump referring to Zelensky as a "dictator," why both Russia and Ukraine are incentivized to reach a deal now, the looming threat of China, the latest horrifying example of Hamas' despicable brutality, what Trump means about "taking over Gaza" and his negotiation tactics, and more. Then Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, joins to discuss her experience interning for the first Trump administration, how she came to support Trump back in 2016 while in high school, her experience running for Congress, her role of a working mom with a newborn, the critiques of that lifestyle by some on the right, her sparring with the press in the briefing roo...
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Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show, live on Sirius XM channel 111, every weekday at noon East. Hey, everybody, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Today. What a treat we have for you. We have got first Mike Walz. He's the National Security Advisor and, man, does he have a lot on his plate. There is so much happening in the world of foreign policy right now. You've seen in the news, it probably President Trump's getting beaten up by every paper, every left wing cable operation, news operation. But there's a lot going on and he's got a lot of immense challenges. And Mike Walz is a critical piece of his solutions. So he'll join us for our first time together. And then Caroline Levitt, the White House press Secretary, will be here next. And you're gonna love this interview. I just sat down with her. She is the youngest press secretary ever. Didn't even know that until I was preparing for today. We get into her background, her marriage, her baby. You're gonna learn facts about her that you have never heard anywhere else. And then we talk quite a bit about her boss, the press, what insights she's learned being upfront and personal with these guys, and who her least favorite White House reporter is. And she did name a name, so I think you're gonna enjoy that, too. We continue to face uncertainty when it comes to the economy. With a perfect, perfect storm brewing. As Social Security and Medicare hit a breaking point, as the largest generation is hitting retirement. A smaller workforce means a smaller tax base. You pair that with our growing national debt and rising cost of living and we could have a big problem. So what are you doing now to protect your family for the future? Gold can be a safe haven in hard economic times. And Birch Gold makes it easy to diversify a portion of your savings into physical gold. Birchgold will help you transition an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold. And it does not cost you $0.01 out of pocket. Protect your future today. Text MK to 989-898, get your free info kit on gold and get a copy of the Ultimate Guide for Gold in the Trump Era, with a foreword by Donald Trump Jr. There's no obligation, just information. Birch Gold has earned the trust of countless Americans looking to safeguard their savings. Just text my initials, M.K. to the number 989898 today. Mike Walls. Thanks for being here.
Mike Waltz
Yeah, thank you.
Megyn Kelly
So you're a busy man these days.
Mike Waltz
The President's been a little busy these days. We told him a few days ago, Mr. President. You know, we have four years. Right, right, right. You think about just what we've done in the last month. I think we did more in a month than Biden did in all four.
Megyn Kelly
Years on all fronts, domestic, international, and there's economy happening when it comes to the international situation. I mean, it's like we were just talking before we got started. Oh, yeah. Then there's China, which hasn't been in the news really in the past couple of weeks. So let's start with what is in the news. And today the dominant story is Ukraine and whether things are deteriorating now between President Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. There seems to be an escalating slight war of words between the two of them. Zelensky's complaining he wasn't brought in on the negotiation. Trump called him a dictator. Even some Republicans said that went too far. What do you make of it?
Mike Waltz
Well, this notion that he hasn't been consulted, I've just got to push back. It's just not true. Just a week ago, President Trump in the Oval Office had Putin on the phone for the, I mean, the first time they've engaged since the, since the prior administration had him on the phone. And then Zelensky on the phone within minutes. Both of them said only President Trump can bring this war to a conclusion. And you can't get us to a ceasefire and get this war to end if you don't talk to both sides. So it is an age old kind of approach in diplomacy called shuttle diplomacy. You talk to one side, then you talk to the other. Oh, by the way, we just got to a ceasefire and we see hostages being released in the Middle East. We talk through intermediaries, through the Qataris, through the Egyptians, to Hamas and, and then we talk to the Israelis. The United States has taken this position of shuttle diplomacy for quite some time. So people might be frustrated about how it's going, but Trump just, in a very short amount of time has taken this conversation from endless war as long as it takes open ended death and destruction, you know, all over Europe and expanding now with North Korea to is this war going to end? To is it is going to end. And now we can debate about how.
Megyn Kelly
The reality is it was stuck in what felt like a stalemate, a never ending standoff between these two countries. And so somebody's gonna have to give the criticism that's coming. Trump's way from the right now is you gave up the farm too early. Like their criticism and you tell me whether it's legit is that he shouldn't have said NATO's off the table and they're going to have to go up some territory right off the bat because that should be the end settlement. It shouldn't be where we start.
Mike Waltz
So, but to your point on Zelensky, what has he heard the last three years? You know, blank check as long as you want. You know, what's the end state? What's the strategy? What does victory look like? It was just completely open ended. And oh, by the way, what he heard from Biden was the United States really doesn't have a say. You have a say. And now he's hearing something very different. And I think that's difficult to hear that this is going to end. And you need to get to the table in terms of the criticism. Look, we've been dangling NATO membership in front of Ukraine since 2008 for 17 years. And behind the scenes, not everybody in NATO is, is on board with that. And I don't think the American people are on board with us bringing Ukraine into NATO in the middle of a war which then obligates US Troops to get involved. So what we did and what Secretary Hegseth did was state the obvious, you know, talk to the white elephant in the room and if we're going to get to the negotiating table with the Russians quickly, I think that needed to be said and everybody in the room knew it, even though they were kind of aghast and clutching their pearls in Europe. And then the other piece was on the borders. Look, does anyone, and I've asked this in my European counterparts, is anyone willing to go to the microphone and say that we're going to expel every Russian from every inch of Ukrainian soil, including Crimea? Because that's essentially what the 2014 border, pre2014 border was. No, I mean, it's a statement of reality. And that's the reality that we're living in. Whether it's what's going to happen to 1.8 million people living in death and devastation in Gaza, like can that really happen for the next 15 years? Or this. I mean, President Trump's very common sense. We're taking these issues head on. And I think no one should be of the notion that somehow he's going to get played by President Putin? That is not going to be the case. He's the deal maker in chief. And, you know, if it weren't for him, we wouldn't even be having these conversations.
Megyn Kelly
So if Ukraine gives up some 20% of its territory, what, what Russia's taken Thus far, whatever that rounding number is and doesn't get into NATO, which I think many people believe would be way too provocative right now to even discuss, maybe for a long, long time, because that's really what was stirring up Putin's anger in large part even before. What does Russia give? Right, I can see what Ukraine's going to have to give here. What does Russia have to give?
Mike Waltz
Well, this is always, you know, just in an objective look at it, going to be some type of territory, particularly after Ukraine's counteroffensive in 2023 failed. And again, we're talking all of crime, some type of territory for some type of security guarantee. We fully support France now saying that they'll get involved in the security guarantee. Macron is coming to the White House, uk saying that they will get involved in a security guarantee. There are some fundamental first principles here. One, this is a permanent end to this war, not another temporary stop like we had from 2014 to 2022, that there will be security guarantees involved for the future of Ukraine, that we ensure that there's. This doesn't start up again. There will have to be some type of territory concession.
Megyn Kelly
And then by Ukraine, I think, or by Putin, because I thought we're on.
Mike Waltz
The list by both.
Megyn Kelly
And so we need to give back.
Mike Waltz
We can't even get to that conversation unless we engage both sides.
Megyn Kelly
No, no, I get it. I'm not one of those people who doesn't think you should be talking. I mean, it's ridiculous, right? You can't be talking.
Mike Waltz
But that's what we've heard all week. Oh, my God, I can't believe you talked. And then I went to Riyadh with Marco Rubio and others and furthered those.
Megyn Kelly
Discuss discussions I just don't get. You know, when I took negotiations in law school, yes, shuttle diplomacy was part of what we learned. But the other piece was the best settlements involved both sides giving up a bit. Sure, everybody should walk away slightly unhappy or maybe even very.
Mike Waltz
We just talked about security guarantees that you said right off the bat, Russia's not going to be happy and they're.
Megyn Kelly
Going, they're going to have to accept.
Mike Waltz
And then I think the final piece, which is the back and forth with, with Zelensky this week, is, you know, he himself came to New York last September, he's Zelensky, and started talking about critical minerals partnerships. I mean, that was his idea as part of his victory plan that he proposed, including talking to President Trump about it. So now to act like this came out of the blue we found a bit puzzling when we personally sent our Treasury Secretary there to say, okay, you know, let's, let's, what are you offering? And I can't think of any better security guarantee than to be invested with the United States of America. As I said at the press conference with Caroline Levitt, they have an aluminum plant that could satisfy 100% of the United States imports if that thing was fully operational. They have critical minerals like gallium and tritium and vast reserves that could satisfy a third to a half of our import needs if they were at full capacity, if we had an investment mechanism. So you know what? We've, what I've been on the phone all week with President Zelensky's team is saying, you need to see this as growing the pie. And 50% of a much larger pie is better than 100% of what you have now, which has been essentially devastated or undeveloped. So to be co invested with us for the long term, I think is a tremendous opportunity for them. And we have to restructure the conversation around our aid. The Europeans are doing it in the form of loans. They're actually paying for their loans on the interest of frozen Russian assets, yet all of ours have been grants now for three years. You know, I mean, the American taxpayer deserves some type of recoupment. And if we do that in a way that's mutually beneficial, then that's good for everyone.
Megyn Kelly
That wasn't even discussed under the Biden administration. It was just handouts. And now finally we're talking about what. What about us?
Mike Waltz
Yeah, what about, what about, you know, our tax.
Megyn Kelly
So let's talk about the possibility of securing Ukraine if and when this thing settles. The Russians do not want the Europeans, much less us, but we don't want to go over there and keep the peace. The Europeans reportedly now you're confirming, may be willing to do it. So how do we get that past Putin?
Mike Waltz
Not only are they saying they're willing to do it, they're putting operational plans in place with the NATO Secretary General. And President Trump and I and others have openly said, again, a first premise is Europe has to take more responsibility for their own security.
Megyn Kelly
How do we get that past Putin? And how do we feel about their ability, the European troops, to maintain peace and order and repel any potential aggression that comes out there?
Mike Waltz
The capabilities question is why they have to invest in their own defense. The other thing we've said that is unacceptable is we have a NATO summit, heads of state summit this June, and we will still be at a third of All NATO members haven't met the minimum of 2% of GDP that they pledged to do a decade ago. Over a decade ago. They just want. Right. This is a lot of kind of, you know, chirping and hand wringing about what the United States should do with its taxpayer money.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
Mike Waltz
And they need to come to the table. And both Macro and Prime Minister Stormer of the UK and the NATO Secretary General have said this was a kind of a shocking wake up call. Guys, you've been hearing us say this.
Megyn Kelly
Now, we meant it.
Mike Waltz
We meant it. And President Trump means it. And I mean it. And Secretary Rubio means it. Pete Hegseth means it.
Megyn Kelly
Is there any chance we withdraw from NATO? President Trump has talked about it.
Mike Waltz
So two different conversations about security guarantees of European troops right on the edge of a hot war in Ukraine that is not a NATO member versus defending our NATO allies if attacked. Those are two separate conversations. We support NATO. We support Article 5. But you've heard President Trump's, you know, he looks at it. If you had a club and only half to two thirds of the members were paying their dues. What, what are the other ones?
Megyn Kelly
And the club required you to go to war. If, if somebody in the club not paying their dues has a massive.
Mike Waltz
And I have to tell you, I mean, just my own experience as a Green Beret, a special operations officer who, you know, with multiple tours in Afghanistan, when we were there with our NATO allies, we called them. We had the fighting allies, the British, the Canadians, the Danes. And then we had others, frankly, that were kind of in the more peaceful parts that wouldn't even allow us. I tried to call a medevac from Germany where we needed help. They wouldn't allow them to come. We tried to call for air support for some other allies, and they weren't allowed to do offensive operations, I guess only if the plane was shot at. They had what was called national caveats. So you have kind of my generation with Secretary Hegseth and others that have seen this kind of, you know, play out on the battlefield. And that's not to criticize the troops. They were constrained by their governments. And if we're all in this together, then we're all in this together.
Megyn Kelly
So what's your advice to Volodymyr Zelenskyy in trying to deal with President Trump right now? Because to me, it seems like he's gotten very provocative and may not fully understand who's calling the most important shots.
Mike Waltz
That's right. Number one, the first, second and third thing coming from President Zelensky needs to be appreciation for the American people to appreciate what happened after the 2014 invasion. The Obama administration literally threw blankets at him. Who was the first to actually arm the Ukrainians? President Trump. Russia has invaded a neighbor under Bush, under Obama and under Biden. It did not happen under the first Trump term and he's going to end it in the second Trump term. So I think just an appreciation for that relationship. You are not going to criticize President Trump into getting your way seen that kind of backfire, I think pretty spectacularly. But thirdly, appreciate that this is the opportunity, the opportunity that this is to be co invested long term to really benefit all sides from the critical minerals and resources they're blessed to have. Let's view this as an opportunity going forward.
Megyn Kelly
Yes. It's like I say to my kids when he proposed here's something great. And they say, well, why isn't it this other color? And I say, I think the words you're looking for are thank you. Better said, let's, let's spend one second on the criticism of what Trump said the other day. And then I want to talk about Israel. Sure. He called Zelensky a dictator, which has had a lot of even right wingers say that that's ridiculous. Zelensky's not a dictator. Putin's a dictator. On the front of the New York Post today, Mark Levin, a big fan of the president, spoke out about this. Is that rhetoric that he just throws out there or do you think he actually means that? What's happening with that word?
Mike Waltz
Well, look, I think that he is enormously frustrated with Zelensky. He sees that martial law has been in place. I do think elections need to happen at some point and all of these things can happen once we get to a ceasefire and that, you know, I think President Zelensky again needs to understand that this is a very different dynamic now. This isn't just as long as it takes, as much as it takes, and you do whatever you want to do that we are determined to end this war. President Trump is going to do that. And what astounds me is the kind of these critical voices that were so demanding of a ceasefire and a stop to the fighting in Gaza, but yet are aghast that President Trump is doing, saying, moving.
Megyn Kelly
They don't want to see it.
Mike Waltz
They don't want to see it. So what's the alternative solution that anyone has on the right or the left?
Megyn Kelly
That's a good question because I don't understand if there's no world in which we're letting Ukraine into NATO.
Mike Waltz
Who's opposed to peace?
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I mean, they call it surrender. You've heard them comparing this to Neville Chamberlain situation. Peace in our time. There's a debate unfolding right now between Neil Ferguson, who's a good man, conservative, and JD Vance online over about whether this is just giving it all up, you know, whether this is a surrender. It's always easy to get peace if you surrender.
Mike Waltz
I mean, that's almost laughable, Megan, that President Trump is just gonna give it all up to anyone. And if we look at what we had under Biden's lack of leadership, do you want that or do you want someone who is gonna go toe to toe with Putin, with Xi, with Kim Jong Un? I'll tell you where my confidence, my vote is.
Megyn Kelly
Explain this to me.
Mike Waltz
But if he's going to be. I think part of this was that we moved so quickly. We had that confidence building measure with the release of Fogle, that was in the works. That happened.
Megyn Kelly
That was great.
Mike Waltz
And then, I mean, what was the last prisoner exchange we had? The world's largest arm dealer for a basketball player.
Megyn Kelly
That's right.
Mike Waltz
So we essentially get that for nothing as a tremendous step forward. We have a call with both leaders the next day, and then we're in Saudi Arabia. And the world, you know, didn't feel like this was the normal process that happens over months and years. I'll say another underlying premise here is time is not on anyone's side.
Megyn Kelly
Right.
Mike Waltz
The death and destruction is happening. The threat of escalation is always there. Zelensky's political situation is worsening. And we have an issue here of we're not going to give endless aid and other hundreds of billions of dollars. So I think everyone. And Russia's economy continues to worsen with inflation, with interest rates at 25 to 30%. So everyone should be incentivized to come to the table.
Megyn Kelly
So how much of a concern in this negotiation is President Trump, by the.
Mike Waltz
Way, also stated that he is perfectly willing to tax, sanction and tariff the Russians as well. They've demonstrated a willingness to come to the table. Not everyone's going to like all the terms. We now need Zelensky at the table. Not everyone's going to like all the terms. And how we get there, you know, is the process that's unfolding.
Megyn Kelly
How much, if at all, does the threat of China play in all this? Because there's a lot of thinking that it would be great if we actually could have a better relationship with Russia and focus on what many view to be our biggest adversary or potential, which is China. And right now, what we've seen over the past three years with this war is though, to those two getting closer and the United States being out.
Mike Waltz
Who on any aspect of the spectrum thinks that China, Russia, North Korea and Iran getting tighter in terms of military cooperation, technological cooperation, economic cooperation is a good thing? No one that I know of. And so if we start having different relationships and there is the prospect of a bilateral relationship with the United States and Russia that is very different and much less threatening, that arguably is not a bad thing. We need to clear up this issue of a major war in Europe to get to that point.
Megyn Kelly
Maybe I'm wrong, but as a sort of layperson who has never served overseas, to me it looks like, look, it's lost. It's not that anybody won it or anybody really lost it, the Ukraine war. But, you know, Volodymyr Zelensky limited the Russian gains to where he did, right? And now they've been at a stalemate. And now we're just seeing the death toll rise and the, and the price rise. And at some point, somebody's gotta, if not cry uncle, just say, let's get out now. Let's, let's cut the losses at this point, because it's not going anywhere from here. Other than more death and destruction, though.
Mike Waltz
The war should have not happened. It really shouldn't. And it didn't happen under Trump's first term. We can unpack how that deterrence failed. Everything from Biden saying, well, maybe if it's a minor incursion, right, then maybe it won't be so bad. To the giveaways on Nord Stream after the colonial pipeline hack. I mean, there are all kinds of things that, that I think led to deterrence failing. Then we have this incremental, just a little bit here, a little bit there that essentially drug this war into a World War I style trench warfare, endless stalemate. Again, if you don't like this approach, President Trump's approach, then what is the alternative plan to continue this forever? What will the war situation look like at the end of this year or next year?
Megyn Kelly
How about Trump saying Ukraine started it? People are going off about that.
Mike Waltz
Well, look, he's focused on moving forward. And this came up in the Riyadh talks as well. This kind of long, drawn out, and we could go back hundreds, if not over a thousand years of this side did this, that side did this, 2014. What happened in the Minsk? 1 Minsk 2 and really why those? I think those Talks were a good next step is we kept bringing it, Secretary Rubio, me and Steve Witkoff back to. Okay, let's move forward. President Trump is ready to move forward.
Megyn Kelly
Trump's number one. Putin invaded Ukraine.
Mike Waltz
What's that?
Megyn Kelly
Trump is well aware.
Mike Waltz
No, I mean, he said it.
Megyn Kelly
I mean, the left is trying to spin this as though he actually thinks Ukraine actually started.
Mike Waltz
I'm repeating what he has repeatedly said. Russia invaded a neighbor, Georgia, under Bush, Russia invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, under Biden, and Russia invaded its neighbor under Obama, but not under him. Those are his words. They invaded.
Megyn Kelly
Yes.
Mike Waltz
Right now we can get in debate of who provoked who provoked who or what have you. What I would say to the left or say to anyone is you can't get both sides to the table in a deal if you're trashing one side or the other publicly. And at the same time, if both aren't willing to come, then, you know, we've got all kinds of carrots and sticks and leverage the president's willing to use.
Megyn Kelly
Okay, let's talk about Israel. The news is just so awful, isn't it? It's so awful. I feel like those be bus little boys were like the face of this thing. And there are so many mothers who I know watch this show and who I talked to via Twitter and so on, who've just been praying, you know, hoping beyond hope that maybe they were lying about the babies being dead. They've been claim Israel. An Israeli airstrike killed them. There's zero evidence of that. We have every belief that Hamas did it or their supporters.
Mike Waltz
Now the Israelis have evidence that they were executed. They were brutally executed.
Megyn Kelly
The reports online said they were strangled. I don't know if that's.
Mike Waltz
I. Yeah, I don't want to get into that level of detail for the sake of the families, but they were, they were. This was not an errant airstrike.
Megyn Kelly
It wasn't an errand. Exactly. That's the point.
Mike Waltz
And by the way, just so. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that we had college campuses, professors, administrators, literally celebrating Hamas, flying their flag, saying they were wearing their colors, you know. Right. You know, cheering them on. And where. Where are those people now? Are they still willing to. To step out with that despicable, anti Semitic.
Megyn Kelly
I bet they are. I bet they are. Because it's not like we didn't know on 10, 8 and 10, 9 and 10, 10 of 23 what they had done. You know, the reports of them burning babies were all over the airwaves, and they were still on the college campuses cheering this on. Right. There's something wrong.
Mike Waltz
And you know who does not and refuses to have a two state solution? Hamas.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, right.
Mike Waltz
They fully intend to have more 10/7 if given the chance. So we have to get as many people out as we can.
Megyn Kelly
These people cheering the, the, those two babies coffins like it was Mardi Gras.
Caroline Levitt
Right.
Megyn Kelly
You think these are not people we can deal with? I don't blame Egypt and Jordan for not wanting them. We wouldn't take them. Why would we take them? So how on earth does Trump get any country to take that group of people long term?
Mike Waltz
Well, first we have to address what has happened in the radicalization of a whole generation. And this was largely done under the auspices of the UN and unrwa who has UN funded teachers in these schools teaching these children to not only hate Israel, but hate America and really just hate the world.
Megyn Kelly
And to love death.
Mike Waltz
Yeah, and to love death. We also have them being rewarded and paid financially incentivized to do this for the payments of families. That is often done with a dollars. And one of the reasons that we once again have cut that back off and if we've defunded unru, so let's recognize that for what it is. And the, and one of the reasons that we have this problem. There's me. What President Trump is speaking to is a practical reality. When we looked at drone footage of Gaza flying over the miles and miles and miles of just rubble, the place looks like Hiroshima. It has been devastated. Coupled with no sewage, no water, unexploded ordinance everywhere, all from a war that Hamas started. But how do you rebuild that place with, with nearly 2 million people sitting on, how do they even survive for the 10, 15 years it's going to take? So this is once again, you don't like this plan of somehow offering these people a better solution, a better life that they've never really been offered. We understand the ideological and emotional attachment to the land, but this is just practicality. And if not the neighbors, then you have countries like Indonesia, you have countries like Malaysia, you have countries like Azerbaijan and others that, and this isn't mandatory, but it should be voluntary if they want to leave in the entire world, you know, kind of heart breaks for these people, then let's step up and have real solutions. And what we saw after the visit of King Abdullah of Jordan was the Arab world is pulling people together. They're pulling themselves together and saying, okay, we're going to come to President Trump with an alternative plan.
Megyn Kelly
Tell me what happened there? Because when Trump was like, Gaza, Gazi era, it'll be the Gazi area. You know, we're going to send. They're going to send them to Egypt and Jordan. We're going to rebuild it. It's going to.
Mike Waltz
Beirut was called the, you know, the Paris of Mediterranean.
Megyn Kelly
Everybody's. I mean, Alan Dershowitz, who's been going there for 60 years, is saying it.
Mike Waltz
Was like Singapore could have tell you what happened. Listen, so we're going to invest billions of dollars. United States will be somehow be a part of it. How do we prevent this insanity from happening all over again? So say you shift these people around, you clear the rubble, you invest billions to rebuild, and another October 7th happens, and here we are.
Megyn Kelly
They're very determined to kill.
Mike Waltz
We've been hearing the same old talking points for 70 years, and it keeps happening over and over again. So if he kind of shakes things up and proposes something radically new. Which he did.
Megyn Kelly
Yes, and.
Mike Waltz
But he also changes the conversation.
Megyn Kelly
But wait, that's what I'm going to say.
Mike Waltz
But he also sees an opportunity, though, in that.
Megyn Kelly
But this is my question to you is do you think what's happening now is what Trump intended to have happen, which is, we're not necessarily going in there to build Gaziera, but we were hoping to start a conversation where the Middle Eastern countries would say, we might have a better idea, let us handle it, and get a little bit more aggressive, which they've been hands off about.
Mike Waltz
Both can be true, right? Both can be true. At the same point, you can actually chart a vision to have, you know, this beautiful piece of real estate, right? You know, just south of Beirut, which used to be called the Paris of the Mediterranean. If we clear up the security situation, we get the international community to actually fund the rebuilding. Hey, how do we prevent the same old thing from happening again? And how do we chart an actual positive future? And perhaps that has to kind of break some historic China. That's okay. Come back with a different plan, and that's what people are doing.
Megyn Kelly
So does this thing go forward into phase two of the ceasefire? Because it turns out that Hamas did not return at least one of the bodies that they said they were going to. The mother of those two babies, it was a different corpse. I mean, it's just sick.
Mike Waltz
Those, like, literally those conversations. I'll see Bibi's national security advisor Monday. Now Ambassador Witkoff is talking to them today. I mean, this is a moving, fluid, hour by hour situation, and we need to get as many hostages out as we can. At the same time, we make sure Hamas never exists to do this again.
Megyn Kelly
Which is trickier. Which situation that we spent this half hour talking about keeps you up more at night.
Mike Waltz
I could see. Look, thanks. Partially. Well, they all do do. Europe is going to be harder. I mean, that is a tough, tough situation. And the President has said this as well. Iran is on its back foot. We have a historic opportunity in Lebanon now with the Aun government, Christian Arab led government. We have the fall of Assad, the decimation of, of Hezbollah. We have a tremendous opportunity in the Middle East. We have to make sure that, that this never happens again to Israel and we will always stand with them. But we can see that pathway to get back to where we were the first term, which was the Abraham Accords. And the more we get back to talking about data centers and fiber and infrastructure and those conversations that become bigger, these historic animosities become smaller and smaller. That pathway is going to happen. We just started this first step of a process of bringing the war in Europe to an end and charting that future. We've seen the introduction of American leadership in the Western hemisphere again, and that's from the Arctic all the way down to the border, down and taking on the cartels to the Panama Canal.
Megyn Kelly
I have heard, also known as our 51st state and also known as Greenland. They could be 51 and 52.
Mike Waltz
The reality is the Danish government has treated Greenland like a, you know, like kind of a backwater. They don't have the defense assets over there. We see Russian icebreakers, we see the Chinese trying to get a hold of critical minerals. We see now shipping and fishing and other things happening to the north of our neighbor in Canada. By the way, Canada is near the last in terms of defense spending itself.
Megyn Kelly
Again, what a shock.
Mike Waltz
Shocker. Trudeau came to the dinner and said, no, no, we're on a pathway to get to the minimum 2% 10 years from now. That was a commitment they made 10 years ago. So just, it's unacceptable. And we also see Panama moving away from China. I've heard general after general when I was in Congress and Admiral come to the table and pound the table about China and the Western hemisphere in our food energy ports. And now within a month, we have the country overseeing the Panama Canal saying we're coming back to the United States. We're moving away from China one month. So all of this is, all of.
Megyn Kelly
This is in train moving in the right direction.
Mike Waltz
It's all moving in the right direction. We told the President we have four years. He said, no, we don't. We're doing it right now.
Megyn Kelly
Maybe 400 days at least.
Mike Waltz
Yeah, right.
Megyn Kelly
Thank you so much, Mike, for being here.
Mike Waltz
My pleasure.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, thanks for serving too, Mike Wallace, everybody. Are rising costs or scaling challenges holding you back? Are you having trouble taking your business to the next level? Financial Yield Solutions, Inc. Or FYSI, provides tailored solutions for businesses generating 1 million to $10 million annually. From tax planning, advertising, and retirement strategies to scaling operations, FYSI helps businesses thrive. For those considering selling their business, FYSI guides them through a winning exit strategy with confidence. With 500 billion raised for AI technology under the Trump administration, businesses cannot afford to be left behind. FYSI can even help you explore AI integration to lower costs, enhance efficiency, and increase profits in today's rapidly evolving tech climate. With over 14 years of experience, FYSI specializes in addressing the exact challenges business owners face. Book your free Business Review today to transform your operations, grow your profits, and secure your future. Visit fysi.com megan or call 800-877-4000. Success starts with FYSI. There is a real and growing threat to your home and your equity, and it's called title fraud. Here's how it works. Criminals can forge a single document, file it with a recorder, and just like that, your home's title is stolen. They take out loans against your property, draining your equity, and you wouldn't even know that it had happened until it was too late. Here's a really scary part. Credit monitoring will not protect you from this problem, but I do want to tell you about Home Title Lock. To protect your home and your equity, their exclusive triple lock protection will give you 247 monitoring of your home's title, urgent alerts if there are any changes, and a team of experts to help restore your title if fraud happens at no extra cost. Home Title Lock is offering an exclusive 25% off their protection plans. Go to hometitlelock.com, use promo code MEGAN25 to get 25% off your subscription and a free title history report to ensure that you're not already a victim. Protect your home inequity today hometitlelock.com, promo code MEGAN25 Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American Dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you can impact your family, friends and your community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's online on campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic personality and professional goals. With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University Private, Christian, affordable Visit gcu. Edu I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM. 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 Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the Sirius XM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and.
Mike Waltz
Get three months free.
Megyn Kelly
That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free.
Mike Waltz
Offer detailed Apply.
Megyn Kelly
Caroline, I'm so happy you are here.
Caroline Levitt
I'm so happy to be here.
Megyn Kelly
How are you?
Caroline Levitt
I'm good.
Megyn Kelly
Are you exhausted yet?
Caroline Levitt
A little, yeah. No, I'm. I'm exhilarated. It's exhausting, but exhilarating all at the same time.
Megyn Kelly
Tell me everything. Do you love it? Is it? What? What is it? How is it?
Caroline Levitt
I love my job. Absolutely love it. I wake up every day and I feel very blessed to go through the gates of the White House. It's exhausting. It's all encompassing. It's 24 7, but it's amazing. And I work for a great president who's doing what he said he was going to do. So it makes my job quite easy, actually.
Megyn Kelly
I'm so good at it. And I knew you were young. You're 27. I didn't know you were the youngest ever in this job.
Caroline Levitt
I didn't realize that until after the announcement came out, when the president officially named me and put out the statement. And I saw that on the news myself. So I suppose that's.
Megyn Kelly
You were born to do it. How? How were you born to do it? What? Tell us about your Background?
Caroline Levitt
Sure. I was raised in a family that was not political at all. Business, family, small business. We owned an ice cream stand and a used truck shop that my family still runs up in New Hampshire, which is where I was born and raised. And the fact that I grew up in New Hampshire, it kind of opened my eyes to politics, obviously being the first in the nation, primary state. But I went to school on a softball scholarship. I was an athlete my whole life. And when I went to college, St. Anse College to play softball, we always go there. It's a very politically active school. And I realized, wow, I loved news and media and politics, and I was fascinated by it all. And I kind of threw myself into all of these different opportunities on campus, and then one thing led to the next, and here we are.
Megyn Kelly
So you interned for Trump 1.0.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
For the White House?
Caroline Levitt
I did.
Megyn Kelly
While you were in college?
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
Wow.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
What happened there?
Caroline Levitt
So 2016 was the first election I was eligible to vote in, voted for Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary and of course, in the general election. And I applied for an internship. A student who was a few years older than me, who's actually a producer for ABC at the White House now, was a fellow student, and she was an intern under Obama. And I remember hearing her talk about it in class one day and I thought, that's fascinating. I want to be an intern for Donald Trump. So I literally went on whitehouse.gov and applied for the internship and they chose me. I don't know why, but they did.
Megyn Kelly
College age student from New Hampshire, which isn't the reddest of states, and a non political family wind up voting Trump in 16. Not like voting for him this time around.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah. So I wrote two editorials in the St. Anselm Crier, our school newspaper, and one of the titles of one of the editorials was why Donald Trump Just Keeps on Winning. And at the time, I realized he was speaking in layman's terms and he was saying things that I felt like really resonated with people of my background. Right. Blue collar, small business, middle class, working family. My, you know, neither of my parents went to college. They worked very hard for everything they have and watched my family business have some downturn during 2008 and the financial crisis. I was very young at the time, but that's my lived experience.
Megyn Kelly
You weren't getting shunned by your friends?
Caroline Levitt
No, I wasn't the forgotten men and women. I think that message really spoke to me and a lot of people that I grew up with. In that kind of blue collar town. And when I got to college, I realized not everybody feels that way, especially my professors. And it really propelled me to just use my voice and, you know, dive into politics.
Megyn Kelly
Well, how so? Because people ask that all the time. Do I tell my college student to fight openly for his or her beliefs, or do I have them go along to get along to get the A's, get into the best law school, med school, business school, by playing the game until you have more liberty.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
Where do you fall?
Caroline Levitt
Gotta speak your truth. It's the only way, I believe. And I think when you show courage in sharing your values and opinions, people respect you more and it will work out and you'll land where you're supposed to be. Right. And maybe you won't get that job you were hoping for, you'll get denied by that school, but like, God has a plan and it will work out.
Megyn Kelly
For you for a reason.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah. And I think it's much more liberating to just be honest. And I think this election showed that there's many more people in this country who feel the way that we do on the right than on the left. And I think the silent majority isn't silent anymore. And I think all parents should encourage their children to use their voice and have courage and, you know, speak their truth.
Megyn Kelly
So I know the past couple years before you went into the White House, you were doing campaign work and comms work for Trump, but what about in the interim? Like, what'd you do after Trump 1.0 until then? Yes.
Caroline Levitt
So Trump 1.0 started as an intern and then was offered a full time job, which led me to working in the press Office under Kayleigh McEnany, who was my old boss and remains a very good friend to this day, and then went back home and actually ran for office. I briefly worked for Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who will soon be our United nations ambassador. And she has a, you know, a PAC that supports and encourages women to run for office. And had a conversation with her about being in New Hampshire and the district that I was from, and, you know, really sparked my interest to run myself. So I went back home and kicked off a congressional campaign, which was an amazing experience. I was in a very competitive primary. A lot of money from the D.C. establishment went into the race against me. There was a lot of negative ads. I won the primary, ultimately lost the general election. New Hampshire's a tough state to win at the federal level, unfortunately, for a few reasons, but it worked out.
Megyn Kelly
Did that thicken your skin? Right up, though.
Caroline Levitt
Totally. Oh, my gosh.
Megyn Kelly
There's a reason for all these steps in the journey.
Caroline Levitt
I have so much respect for anyone who puts their name on a ballot because nothing is off limits. They will go after you and your family, and everything is on the line when you decide to be a public servant and run. But I don't have no regrets. I met amazing people, and it taught me so many skills and life lessons, and it was a wonderful experience.
Megyn Kelly
You're a nicer person than I am. I definitely do not have respect for anybody who puts their name on it. I can think of several.
Caroline Levitt
There's some people.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, but you're generous. All right, so at the same time, you're building a family life. You fall in love. I didn't know until today that you married a man who's a lot older.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
He's 59. You're 27.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
How did that happen?
Caroline Levitt
I met my husband during my congressional campaign. A mutual friend of ours hosted an event at a restaurant that he owns up in New Hampshire and invited my husband. And I was speaking, and, you know, we met, we were acquainted as friends, and then we fell in love, as you said.
Megyn Kelly
And was there any, like, I. I can't date him. He's 59.
Caroline Levitt
Yes, of course. I mean, it's very atypical love story, but he's incredible. He's my greatest supporter. He's my best friend. He's my rock, and he's built a very successful business himself. So now he's fully supportive of me, building my success in my career. And he's the father of my child, of course. And he's the best dad I could ever ask for, and so supportive, especially during this. This very chaotic period of.
Megyn Kelly
He had no idea.
Caroline Levitt
I say. I say I walked into your life, and it's been a circus ever since. But God bless him, because he's fully on board.
Megyn Kelly
So he's an Italiano.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
Yes. He's a lover. Yes. He's a romantic man.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
So there's your babe who was born in July. That's your little boy.
Caroline Levitt
My little boy.
Megyn Kelly
What's his name?
Caroline Levitt
Nicholas. And we call him Nico.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I know we talked about this a little backstage at the super bowl, but how are you handling? I mean, true new motherhood is not even a year and this crazy job.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah, it's a lot. No denying it. He's seven months. I had him in the midst of the presidential campaign three days before the President almost lost his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. My son was born on the 10th. The president was shot on the 13th. It was my first day home with him from the hospital, and it kind of threw me right back to work much sooner than I would have probably expected or hoped. But becoming a mother in the midst of this very chaotic political world that I work in has been the best thing I could have ever imagined because it gives you great perspective and it humbles you. And my son doesn't give a crap about my job. He just wants me to come home and snuggle and play toys and be present. So it's, you know, a difficult balance to prioritize being good at my job and being good as a mother. But I just try to prioritize my time and carve out that time when I can. And I'm so grateful to have the support system I do. A great husband who can be very present with our child, and then, of course, a wonderful mother and father and friends who chip in when I need them.
Megyn Kelly
Your parents must be so proud of you.
Caroline Levitt
I think so.
Megyn Kelly
I have a grandchild and access to President Trump in the same year.
Caroline Levitt
My mom actually was in town this week to help with our baby because my husband had some work things to attend to. And she came to my briefing yesterday. She was in the room. I was like, are you sure you want to go in?
Megyn Kelly
Did she get annoyed by pesky reporters?
Caroline Levitt
Well, I brought in some backup yesterday. I brought in my colleagues, Walt and Steven and Kevin. So a lot of the questions were for them. So I asked her. After I said, how was it? She was like, thank God all the questions weren't to you today. I would have been dying in there. So she enjoyed it very much.
Megyn Kelly
That's my nana who died at 101. She was in her elderly years, not that able to, like, get out and around. So if I had a important court argument that was on tape, I would show it to her, and she would get so mad at the judges, she didn't think that they should be allowed to ask me any questions. She didn't like opposing counsel. Why is he saying that about you? They don't totally get it.
Caroline Levitt
It's a motherly bias that we have for our babies.
Megyn Kelly
All right, so you are balancing with the baby. Can I just ask you one other question on that? Because we talk about it all the time, especially on the right, and. And I, too, am a working mom and always have been. I've been a professional woman since I graduated from college or law school. But now there's, I think, a good thing, which is, like, the restoration of Valuing so called traditional moms. And that's great. The women who take care of their kids full time. Most of my best friends are doing exactly that. But it seems like in the right, there's a bit of a shift toward, like, you can't do what Caroline's doing. That's. That's actually like an unsafe or a dangerous or a bad choice for families for children, which I reject wholesale. But you hear it more and more.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
Do you hear that and what do you think of it?
Caroline Levitt
I would reject that. It's a bad choice. Is it a tough choice? Absolutely. You know, as a mother, you want to be with your child 24 7, you have that maternal instinct. Not all the time. Well, right now, yes, because he's seven months and just squishy and lovable. But I'm sure that will change. No, but. But you do have that maternal instinct. But also recognizing I'm doing this work for my son and for all children to make this country better. And it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's also very. It's temporary. Right. In four years, my son will be four years old and the President will no longer be at the White House. And then I'll move on and do something else. But this chaos of 247 work is a temporary matter. And that's what at least I tell myself to get through these very long and hard days. But I would reject that. You can't be a good mom and be good at your job. I think you can do both. Certainly not. It's not for everybody. And it takes a lot of work and will and faith and prayer. And it's hard, but it can be done. And you know, I would reject that.
Megyn Kelly
We can't chase our great conservative moms out of the workforce. Right, Sandy, we get rid of you, we get rid of Katie Britt, we get rid of Usha Vance. Like, this is not the way Amy Coney Barrett is not. That should not be the place. The conservative movement lands agrees. All right, so now you start as White House press secretary. And were you thrilled to get that invitation?
Caroline Levitt
Of course. Yes. I was very humbled and honored. And I was campaigning with the President over the past year through the court trials. We sat in that courthouse in Manhattan with the Bragg trial. So many rallies, and we worked so damn hard to win that election.
Megyn Kelly
You must have really wrestled with how you were gonna meet the high bar set by Karine Jean Pierre. Sorry, was that out loud? No, she was terrible.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
I mean, come on.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
So how has your approach differed would you say?
Caroline Levitt
I think it's vastly different. And if you ask, ask people, even in the legacy media, even the Trump haters, they will tell you the approach has been much different, not just for me, but the entire White House. Oh, absolutely. They come in my office every day and they'll admit that off the record, maybe not on the record, but they will say they appreciate the access and the transparency and the preparation that goes into my briefings. And everybody on our team, by the way, who goes out to the cameras and speaks, we have great policy experts who are great spokespeople for the president and they appreciate the information that they're being given. They're also exhausted, by the way, because we are doing so much.
Megyn Kelly
And not even in like a wussy, sad little way. Like they must be exhausted because it's just nonstop.
Caroline Levitt
It's insane. Yes.
Megyn Kelly
So who's your least favorite?
Caroline Levitt
Well, I did have a bit of a tiff this morning outside with our friend Peter Alexander at NBC News. So it was great.
Megyn Kelly
We'll drop in a clip of it where he was really pressing you on. On what? Whether there's going to be criminal prosecutions for this alleged fraud in the waste, fraud and abuse.
Caroline Levitt
According to an IG report from the Social Security Administration, there was $71 billion worth of fraud in one single fiscal year that we know about. And so that is a lot of fraud, Peter, to be clear, that $71.
Mike Waltz
Billion was from 2015 to 2022. So it wasn't in just one year.
Caroline Levitt
And it was $71 billion billion dollars.
Mike Waltz
But it wasn't in one year, just over multiple years from 2015 to 2022.
Caroline Levitt
So are you defending $71 billion in fraud, Peter? That's a lot of money. Why is the media so against cutting waste, fraud and abuse from the government? I don't get it. We won't be deterred. We will not be deterred from people like you and the press said something.
Mike Waltz
That wasn't true, which is you said that they have found before that they believe there have been tens of millions of people who are receiving money who are dead on the Social Security list. The same report that you referred to said that, Peter, none of those individuals are.
Caroline Levitt
Peter, did you watch the full clip of the interview that I did when I said that? And I said there are a lot of unanswered questions and we suspect there could be tens of millions of people. So you just said what I said is not true. In fact, it was true. That's a suspicion that this administration, administration has and we're committed to finding out the truth. It perplexes me and also infuriates me why the media continues to make excuses for our government spending billions and billions of dollars in wasteful money. Maybe they don't mind, but I know there's millions of people watching that do mind. So we're gonna keep doing what we're doing.
Megyn Kelly
With Doge, it was a pretty incredible exchange where it was like, 71 billion has been spent on fraudulent payments. And he's like, oh, but that was over many years. Well, does it matter? Hello.
Caroline Levitt
There's one report that showed 71 billion dol. What are you talking about?
Megyn Kelly
Eyes on the ball.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah, exactly.
Megyn Kelly
All right, so that's good. I'm glad to hear the NBC guys out. Good choice.
Caroline Levitt
Sorry.
Megyn Kelly
Peter, how do you prepare? Because you can't know everything, and you could get asked anything. And unlike Karine Jean Pierre, you're not out there reading and furiously flipping through your tabs to try to find an answer somebody else has written for you. So how are you preparing?
Caroline Levitt
So I did prepare a binder for the first briefing. My great assistant Keegan, put it together, and then I showed up to work, and it was, like, this thick, and I was like, I can't even move this. I can't use this. It was too cumbersome for my brain and the way I learn and think and study to have that, it felt like added weight. And I said, I want to just go in there and speak from my mind and from my heart.
Megyn Kelly
Like your boss.
Caroline Levitt
Like my boss. And I've been working for my boss now on the campaign. I know the policies we're enacting. We've been talking about them for years, and so. And in school, I was that way, like, studying. I would just read, you know, highlight.
Megyn Kelly
Memorize, articulate, and then it goes off to the side. Yeah, and you talk.
Caroline Levitt
Exactly. And so that's been my method of preparation.
Megyn Kelly
No nerves.
Caroline Levitt
The first briefing, I was certainly nervous. I think any human would, and I'm not afraid to admit that.
Megyn Kelly
But it must have been cool, too, to get up there.
Caroline Levitt
It was. You know, once I got up there, I realized, okay, like, I can do this.
Megyn Kelly
I can do this.
Caroline Levitt
I know what I need to know. And now I feel very, you know, comfortable and confident, and, you know, I will never get complacent because I understand the weight of the responsibility on my shoulders, speaking on behalf of the President of the United States. So I remain as prepared today as I was on that first day. And I hope that's True. Four years from, from now. And I have. We have amazing people in that building who are so smart and know everything about every topic, and I rely on them. You know, I call Stephen Miller or Mike Waltz's team or Kevin Hassett all the time, and I'm like, please explain this to me because I don't understand, but you do. So what's going on?
Megyn Kelly
What's, what's the most interesting or surprising thing you've seen at the White House? You know, like, this isn't a building you spent a ton of time in before.
Caroline Levitt
No, the people you see every day, especially with President Trump and his calendar of meetings. You know, walking through the West Wing lobby, you can see anybody from Tim Cook to Tiger woods, as I saw yesterday. So, you know what you see, it's.
Megyn Kelly
Not as exciting as Joe Biden's White House with the cocaine, but it's good.
Caroline Levitt
Exactly. It's good. It's a hunter hanging around.
Megyn Kelly
Right.
Caroline Levitt
You just never know what each day will bring. And that's what I love most about this job, is every day is new and exciting.
Megyn Kelly
I'm sure it's true of every president, but especially this one. All right, me turn and ask you about some items in the news.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
Mr. Trump does not like polls that say he's going in the wrong direction. And a few came out this week suggesting his favorables have gone down any place from three to eight points. Eight points is the more left leaning pollsters. It feels like some people may be feeling like it's too much too soon. That's what the CNN poll seems to show. When asked, like, what specifically is upsetting you? Others suggest, well, I expected an economic turnaround faster and we're only 30 days in it. How do you read those polls and what do you want the electorate to know?
Caroline Levitt
Each poll is a snapshot in a moment of time. Right. So they have to be taken, I think, with the greater context of everything that's going on. Overall, the President's favorability rating remains higher today than it ever was in his first term. The majority of Americans support what we're doing. The number that that has always stuck out to me is when you ask people, is Donald Trump doing what he said he was going to do? That number is astronomically high, anywhere from 65 to 85% based on the poll. You're looking at that, to us, tells us we need to keep moving forward and not get distracted by critics or certainly not the media, because the president was very transparent and clear about what.
Megyn Kelly
He wanted to accomplish, has clear Majority support on things like immigration and crackdown. Exactly. But let me ask you somebody who's been with him on the campaign trail for years now, where you live and die by polls, or at least most politicians do, he will come out and rip the polls for sure. If he gets too many bad ones, we're going to hear him rip on them soon. But like behind the scenes, does he react to them? You know, do you think they actually do influence him in some way? Like, okay, maybe I inch this way?
Caroline Levitt
I don't think so. I think he pays attention to the polls, but I don't think it changes him or what he's doing. He is who he is. Right. And he's our leader and he calls the shots and we are there to execute his agenda and deliver on his message and communicate that. And he's doing again exactly what he sought out to do. And so I don't think it influences his decision making process. But certainly, as you pointed out, he pays attention to them.
Megyn Kelly
Do you. Have you seen anyone on a Doge cot?
Caroline Levitt
A dogecot? I haven't seen the cots, but I have seen Doge geniuses as we call them. Yes.
Megyn Kelly
Can you spot them from a mile away?
Caroline Levitt
Yes. Because they just look like the smartest kid you had at your school. High iq, focused, gritty, like ready to work and very friendly.
Megyn Kelly
Gritty is interesting. So not like pocket protector nerdy, like tech. Tech nerdy where you're like a little more grungy.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
I would say I don't have the best visual.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
So that's interesting.
Caroline Levitt
They like to stay behind the scenes, these guys. Of course they're doing, they're working 24 7. Elon has them on those computers finding all this waste, fraud.
Megyn Kelly
Right. And there's a lot to find. And Elon's there all the time.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
Hannity asked the two of them something about this when he had Trump and Elon together. But it's clear the media is trying to drive a wedge between them now.
Caroline Levitt
Totally. I called it out at the briefing. I said, it is so evident what all of you are trying to do and we are not going to let you get away with it may have worked in the first term, it's not working now. And I say this, this is no bs, no spin. This White House is so unified. We are having so much fun. Elon and the President are having so much fun. They are genuinely friends and everybody is moving at the direction of the President and of Susie Wiles, our incredible chief of staff, whom I have the utmost Respect for.
Megyn Kelly
She's another working mom.
Caroline Levitt
Another working mom. Yeah. There's a lot of working moms and dads in the West Wing, by the way. Gotta give a shout out to the working dads in there, too.
Megyn Kelly
I mean, they're the president and vice president. Although the president doesn't have young children like J.D. does.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah. The vice president has three beautiful young children. Stephen Miller has three young children. James Blair, who's one of our deputy chiefs of staff, has three young children. Two of our deputy communications directors on the comms team have newborns. There's babies. Yeah. The Easter Egg Roll is gonna be crazy. Yes. We look forward to it.
Megyn Kelly
We thought we had a lot with X inside the Oval. Wait until we get to Easter.
Caroline Levitt
Yes. Which was so cute.
Megyn Kelly
Oh, he's adorable.
Caroline Levitt
I was in there when I saw the nose picking. I was like, there was a report.
Megyn Kelly
That the Resolute desk was sent out for a cleaning. Is that related? Are those two events related? Events related?
Caroline Levitt
No, they are not. I would like to put the kibosh on that fake news I've seen. It has nothing to do with X.
Megyn Kelly
I mean, who could blame him if it were? You know, Trump's a germaphobe. I'm not a ger, but I.
Caroline Levitt
He was digging for gold. Nobody was stopping him. The cameras were. He was unfaced.
Megyn Kelly
Every toddler has done it.
Caroline Levitt
So cute.
Megyn Kelly
Okay, back into the news. And this is a turn, but the beis stories in the news today, those two babies, terrible. I like, it's affecting me. It's like it just is a mother.
Caroline Levitt
I agree.
Megyn Kelly
And you have a baby, like, seven months.
Caroline Levitt
It, like, I get chills thinking about it. And there's no. I was saying yesterday. I spoke to the president about it yesterday morning, and he had seen the footage of the coffins, and I asked him, how should we even describe this? And talking to our team after, I was drafting up a tweet, and I was like, there are no words to put out a statement to describe this horrific scene. I cannot imagine the pain of that father and husband who just lost his entire family. And to say we mourn with him is an understatement. It's so sad. I just. The images of that mother holding her babies.
Megyn Kelly
She looks so scared.
Caroline Levitt
So scared. There's no words. And I think I'm pretty good with my words. And there are no words to just describe how. How sad and heartbreaking it is. But I think it underscores why we need to end this conflict, why we need to eradicate Hamas and The President sees these images and he's moved by them. And that's why he told Hamas very directly in the Oval Office, you will release all of these hostages or there will be all hell to pay. He dictated that statement months ago. And look at what has happened. There was an extension to the ceasefire. More hostages have come home. We released Mark Fogel from Russia. The whole world should take President Trump very seriously. He wants innocent people to be led out of captivity and free from captivity. And he is a peacemaker. He believes in peace to his core, and he's going to do whatever it takes to establish it.
Megyn Kelly
Trump is good at stoicism, which we tend to like in our men, right?
Caroline Levitt
Very much so.
Megyn Kelly
We on the right. Yes. And. But when he sees something like that, I, I'm curious when, about his reaction when that news was brought to him and they were literally celebrating these dead babies and coffins over there. Do you think he feels it on, like, that gut level that we do?
Caroline Levitt
Absolutely. Absolutely he does. You know, I could hear it. I was on the phone, so I couldn't see his expression, but I could hear it, you know, in his voice. Anybody with a heart, with a humanitarian heart, has to feel for these innocent Israelis and these families. It's just, it's got to be disturbing.
Megyn Kelly
Like this particular family and being released in the way that they are for a reason. And all I can hope and pray is that God is. He's steering this in the way it's happening so that we're reminded of that these are monsters. I don't see these people as human. I really don't. Somebody who could strangle a nine month old baby. I'm. You're not a human being. I don't know what you are, but you can't be negotiated with. You can't be accommodated. You must be annihilated. I like. And that's President Trump's job. And in a way, it's your job. You know, it's. It's why I almost see, when we were talking about you going back to work. Okay. Four days after you had a baby. It's hard for a number of reasons, physically and emotionally, but it's almost like a soldier being called up.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah, I suppose I haven't thought of that analogy, but I felt compelled to go back to work just knowing the gravity of the work that the President was trying to do at that time. We were campaigning and pitching to people why he should be elected. And obviously it worked. And that's been such a fun part of this experience is Seeing the president go from campaigning to governing and watching all of his promises come to life. You talk about the monsters of Hamas, the illegal immigrants that we have here that have taken the lives of American citizens. I was at the rally in Georgia a few days after Lakin Riley was killed. And Lakin's mother was backstage with the President and met him for the first time. And I witnessed that encounter and God bless that woman. But then to see her at the White House for the bill signing, the first piece of legislation that the President signed into law, named after her beautiful daughter, was so special. And she was there teary eyed, saying President Trump is a man of his word. To see that come to life and to see the President fulfill these promises.
Megyn Kelly
That are the love of Mark Fogel.
Caroline Levitt
Exactly. The guy that Russia 95 year old mother. The president met her in Butler. She was supposed to have a call up on stage. It was inserted into his speech. He was going to call her on stage so she could advocate for the release of her son.
Megyn Kelly
The day he got shot.
Caroline Levitt
The day he got shot. So she never made it on stage.
Megyn Kelly
Oh my gosh.
Caroline Levitt
And she told CBS News following the assassination attempt, you know, that the president was so warm to her. And he told her backstage, if I'm elected, I will bring your son home. And he did it within four weeks.
Megyn Kelly
So Trump gets Vogel home right away. Trump made, I mean, basically made this hostage deal happen between Hamas and Israel, saving lives and at least in this case, returning the bodies of the dead to their families so they can be properly buried. Trump does what he says he's going to do with Lake and Riley's mom. Trump spent the time with the Gold Star families from the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal when Joe Biden never did, who stood by him then when they tried to attack him for going to Arlington Cemetery and somebody taking his picture in a certain area, they all stood by him, came out publicly and saying, stopping that he's been good to us. It just, you know, you might say, if you were an objective observer not suffering from tds, that this is actually a good man. What do you think people are missing? Why do the lunatics who suffer from TDS not see it? Why can't they get beyond their hatred of him?
Caroline Levitt
I think they're blinded, unfortunately, by their hatred. And they don't see the good because. Because likely the news outlets that they pay attention to don't share the good that we're doing. I have msb, dnc, as we call it, on my tv, in my office all day long because I want to see what they're reporting and what they're saying. And I need to laugh every now and then too. And they're never reporting on the good that we're doing on a daily basis at the White House. It's always negative. 100% of the coverage is negative. So when you are being indoctrinated with such bias, of course you're going to believe this person is an evil monster when couldn't be further from the truth. I know that just looking at what he's done, but also on a personal level, working for him. But again, I think it's a smaller and smaller percentage of people in this country who feel that way. I think the vast majority of Americans, Republicans, see the president as a strong and tough leader who when he says he's gonna do something, he's gonna do it. And that's just been proven by his first term record. And then of course, the first four weeks. Look at all that he's done.
Megyn Kelly
My observation over here is that some of the, that little dip in the polls is due to these guys. It is wall to wall negative coverage. Look at this, this one CNN poll, all right, today, which shows a dip to some extent in the approval they get to listen to this. The Trump policies trying to deport 11 million undocumented migrants. Okay, whatever.
Caroline Levitt
Illegal aliens.
Megyn Kelly
Right. So the public's still with him. 51% of U.S. adults support. And then we get down to USAID shutting down the agency that provides humanitarian aid in low income countries. Oh, amazingly, 59% of the American public opposes that. I would have gathered that you would have styled that a little differently.
Caroline Levitt
Interesting framing of a program that has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to overseas. Programs that do absolutely nothing for humanitarian purposes.
Megyn Kelly
With a trans opera in Colombia, it's a no.
Caroline Levitt
Why are we, why are we funding vasectomies in Mozambique? Why are we funding DEI and Serbia and sex changes in Guatemal? That does nothing for working class people in this country. And that is just one agency of many, one program of many that Doge and the administration are looking into. It is fascinating, but also infuriating what they are discovering on a daily basis.
Megyn Kelly
Are you getting, you know, a closer up view? Yes. But like, are you getting more insight.
Caroline Levitt
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
On how they do it now that you're in this role?
Caroline Levitt
Yes, absolutely. And it's much more simple than the media is spinning it to be. They're making it seem like it's this chaotic operation. It's actually not. It's very simple.
Megyn Kelly
Doge.
Caroline Levitt
Doge has individuals who are, again, genius level tech nerds, if you will, for lack of a better term, who are onboarding at every agency as political appointees, just like I onboarded as a white at the White House as a political appointee. This is what happens from administration to administration instead of like under Biden Harris, you have a bunch of left wing bureaucrats who are onboarding now. We have outsiders who are here to shake up the swamp. Onboarding to administer President Trump's agenda. They are working at the direction of the secretaries at these agencies. You saw our new secretary of ag, Brooke Rollins, put out a photo, a selfie yesterday with some of the Doge engineers that are now AG employees. And they're helping her dig into the books, go line by line to identify the waste and the fraud and abuse. So this is a whole of government effort. The President obviously appointed Elon to head it up. The Department of Government efficiency is a promise they campaigned on. And ultimately the President is directing all of this. But every secretary across the board is on board with this idea.
Megyn Kelly
They're welcoming this idea.
Caroline Levitt
Yes, absolutely.
Megyn Kelly
We're all working together. Like Elon's in there with his magnifying glass, looking up our salaries and his competitors, you know, financial data. And this is all about, I guess, Elon's get rich quick scheme. I'm not sure why he needs to look at our data.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah, I loved his comments addressing it at CPAC yesterday. He was like, there's no country in the world who can afford me. If even if they did want to buy me, they can't afford me. You know, he has nothing to gain from that. He truly cares about humanity and the future of our country. And it is a fact that the United States of America is going to go bankrupt unless we have massive reform and change. And that's what the people voted for. And so we will not be deterred by the Peter Alexander's or the mainstream media hacks who are, you know, trying to fear Monger people. And I think it's really sad that the media is trying to do that.
Megyn Kelly
But shut down his agenda.
Caroline Levitt
Exactly.
Megyn Kelly
What, speaking of media hacks, can we talk about at the Associated Press?
Caroline Levitt
Sure, I'd love to.
Megyn Kelly
Is it censorship to tell them they can't go into the Oval or on Air Force One?
Caroline Levitt
They. Their argument that this administration is not standing up for the First Amendment is preposterous. You have a President of the United States who, within hours of taking the oath of office, welcomed journalists into the most intimate corner of the American presidency, the Oval Office, to ask him questions for more than an hour on every topic under the sun. He has done that on a near daily basis. And when he's not doing that because he's too busy with meetings, even though he'd love to do it every day I as his press secretary am out there. We have administration officials going to the cameras every single day. They are hearing from this White House in this admin. Their transparency is off the charts. And the Associated Press still has their White House credentials. They still have a seat in the press briefing room. They are still welcome to cover this administration. But nobody has a right to enter the Oval Office. It is a privilege to cover the United States. And I said it in my first briefing. We are going to hold people accountable that push lies. And the president believes deeply that American news outlets should be reporting the truth truth about the Gulf of America. And that's not all with the Associated Press style book.
Megyn Kelly
I mean, don't get me started.
Caroline Levitt
They don't even want to call women mothers. They want to call us birthing people. They removed Hamas from their style book for some very odd reason. I have a whole list. It's actually in my purse. I carry it around with me as a souvenir of all of the crazy things in the AP style book. So look, they are welcome to cover this White House and there are hundreds of outlets on that campus who show up every day in good faith to cover this administration with accuracy and truthfulness that don't have the privilege of being in the Oval Office every single day because they're not the ap. Well, guess what? We're gonna start giving those media outlets a seat at the table. They deserve to be in front of the Resolute desk asking the President of the United States questions. What gives the AP greater privilege than no nothing should. Nothing.
Megyn Kelly
If they would behave the way they behaved 50 years ago, maybe they would.
Caroline Levitt
Still have their seat.
Megyn Kelly
But if you look at what's happened to them over the past 10 years, it's been complete leftist radical capture.
Caroline Levitt
Yes. And they are no longer that unbiased organization.
Megyn Kelly
Are you surprised that all the organizations, including Fox and Newsmax signed this letter to as part of the White House press correspondent saying we stand with them.
Caroline Levitt
It was a little surprising some of the names on the list, but doesn't faze us again. There are thousands of reporters across the country who will fly to Washington D.C. to cover this president in a minute.
Megyn Kelly
And they just recently AP I can cover President Trump just fine from my desk in Connecticut.
Caroline Levitt
Exactly.
Megyn Kelly
You'll be okay.
Caroline Levitt
You can get the pool reports, we'll send them to you. You can get the pool feed.
Megyn Kelly
Somehow I've managed.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah, exactly. And like I said, we just had a local media row. We have had a bunch of outlets come to Washington, local radio stations, local tv. They were so honored to be and grateful for the opportunity. And they're covering the White House with honesty and transparency. And they reached 60 million people across the country, across the heartland. So, James, we'll get our message out just fine without the Associated Press in the Oval Office.
Megyn Kelly
Ask one question of President Biden about his mental health. Health, and he did not get called on or offered a question for the next 18 months.
Caroline Levitt
That's true.
Megyn Kelly
No one had a problem with that. No one was saying, we stand with James Rosen.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
What you're doing is wrong. You're effectively freezing him out of the briefing room by doing this.
Caroline Levitt
Or of the Fox News reporters Peter Doocy and Jackie Heinrich, who didn't get questions for, I believe it was 12 weeks from the previous press secretary. And we are still welcoming the legacy media into that room.
Megyn Kelly
And you'll take questions from the apartment.
Caroline Levitt
I take question. We took four questions from Kaitlan Collins yesterday. I mean, we take questions from everybody. We're not afraid of that because we have truth and facts and statistics on our side. But the legacy media doesn't deserve this superior access. There's many other outlets who have far greater reach, like this Megyn Kelly show. I'm sure you have many more viewers than MSNBC will tonight.
Megyn Kelly
100%.
Caroline Levitt
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
I mean, to quote Trump about Rosie O'Donnell McConnell on the AP, they're a bunch of losers and they've been losers for a long time. That's the truth. Sorry. Do better and you'll probably get more of a red carpet laid out for you. You two can get back in the old. It's not like he's saying, cover me nicely. He knows they're not going to do that.
Caroline Levitt
Right.
Megyn Kelly
He's saying, I'm the president. I renamed this thing. You accept name changes like that when it presents some woke ideology.
Caroline Levitt
Exactly.
Megyn Kelly
This isn't an affront to me and my administration.
Caroline Levitt
No doubt.
Megyn Kelly
So maybe I'm in the wilderness on it, but I'm Team Trump on that one. Thank you. Not team White House press corps. Caroline, good luck with everything.
Caroline Levitt
Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's good to see you, Megan.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, likewise.
Caroline Levitt
Thank you.
Megyn Kelly
More to come. Ah, she was amazing. Right? What a pair we have in. Those two are so lucky that they're willing to serve. Okay. Before we go. Wanna tell you that this episode's coming out a little late today cause I came down to dc, I interviewed the my guests and then now I'm heading over to CPAC where I'm going to be offering some remarks and you'll see Caroline there as well and all of these guys are there, but we'll be releasing those just a bit later. I'm not sure if we're going to do it later tonight or early tomorrow morning, but it'll hit our feed. So keep refreshing. And thanks to all of you for not only tuning into the Megyn Kelly show this week, but also our new AM update that shows crushing it. Thank you so much for tuning in. Whether it's on YouTube.com Megan Kelly or on podcast, you guys seem to be liking it. And while it is definitely extra work for us, I think we all feel like it's a worthwhile endeavor. And you know, in the Trump era you've got to stay on top of the news or you'll get left behind. So we're all going to do it together. Thanks for listening guys. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you later. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No. No bs, no agenda and no fear. Life is busy and finding time to shop for clothes can feel impossible. That's why Daily look is a game changer, the number one premium personal styling service for women. Here's how it works. A stylist curates a box of up to 12 pieces tailored to body shape preferences and lifestyle. Whether chic office outfits or cozy everyday looks are needed. Daily look delivers what fits the moment. Everything can be tried on at home and you keep what works and send back the rest. With free shipping both ways, it's a seamless, stress free way to elevate any wardrobe. Daily look works with top brands like Kate Spade and more, offering premium pieces for every occasion. Sizes go from extra small to 3x0 to 24, making it an inclusive styling service for everyone. Daily Look's mission is simple to elevate personal style style while saving time and effort. It's time to get your own personal stylist with Daily Look. Head on over to to DailyLook.com to take your style quiz and use code Megan for 50% off. Your first order DailyLook.com for 50% off and make sure you use my promo code Megan so they know I sent you DailyLook.com promo code M E G Y N.
Podcast Summary: The Megyn Kelly Show | Episode 1011
Title: Michael Waltz on How Russia-Ukraine Peace Deal Happens, and Caroline Levitt on Sparring with the Press and Being a Working Mom
Host: Megyn Kelly
Release Date: February 21, 2025
Guests:
In Episode 1011 of The Megyn Kelly Show, host Megyn Kelly engages in two in-depth conversations with prominent political figures: Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, and Caroline Levitt, the youngest ever White House Press Secretary. The episode delves into pressing foreign policy issues, the dynamics of the press in the White House, and the challenges of balancing a high-profile career with motherhood.
Timestamp: [02:28] – [32:38]
Key Topics:
Notable Quotes:
On Shuttle Diplomacy:
“It's an age-old kind of approach in diplomacy called shuttle diplomacy. You talk to one side, then you talk to the other.”
[03:21]
On Presidential Leadership:
“He's the deal maker in chief. And, you know, if it weren't for him, we wouldn't even be having these conversations.”
[07:19]
On Ukraine's Role:
“You've been dangling NATO membership in front of Ukraine since 2008 for 17 years.”
[05:13]
Discussion Highlights:
Timestamp: [36:48] – [76:17]
Key Topics:
Notable Quotes:
On Personal Integrity:
“Gotta speak your truth. It's the only way, I believe.”
[40:36]
On Media Relations:
“This White House is so unified. We are having so much fun. Elon and the President are having so much fun.”
[52:26]
On Balancing Roles:
“Recognizing I'm doing this work for my son and for all children to make this country better.”
[47:31]
Discussion Highlights:
Notable Interactions:
Episode 1011 of The Megyn Kelly Show offers a comprehensive look into the administration's foreign policy strategies and internal dynamics. Through candid discussions with Mike Waltz and Caroline Levitt, listeners gain insights into the complexities of negotiating peace in Ukraine, the importance of European responsibility in NATO, and the personal challenges faced by high-ranking officials balancing demanding careers with family life. The episode underscores the administration's commitment to transparency, policy reforms, and fostering stronger international alliances while addressing domestic economic concerns.
Notable Exclusions:
Final Thoughts: This episode serves as an informative resource for individuals seeking to understand the current political landscape, the administration's approach to international conflicts, and the human aspect of public service. The inclusion of direct quotes and timestamps allows for easy reference to specific discussions, enhancing the summary's utility for those who have not listened to the full episode.