Power of Trump 2.0, Why Elon and DOGE are Working, and Independent Media's Impact, with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya of All-In | Ep. 1008

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Megyn Kelly Show – Ep. 1008

Title: Power of Trump 2.0, Why Elon and DOGE are Working, and Independent Media's Impact, with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya of All-In

Host: Megyn Kelly
Guests: Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya
Release Date: February 14, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 1008 of The Megyn Kelly Show, host Megyn Kelly engages in a dynamic conversation with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya of the All-In podcast. Reflecting on their evolving relationship, Megyn sets the stage for an in-depth discussion on the transformation of political influences, the economic landscape, and the future of independent media.

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Evolution of Trump: Trump 2.0 vs. Trump 1.0

Key Points:

• Trump's Transformation: Jason Calacanis praises the evolution of Donald Trump from his first iteration (Trump 1.0) to Trump 2.0, highlighting a shift towards less xenophobic and more policy-driven agendas.

  Jason Calacanis [07:52]: "If the Trump 2.0 agenda is let's have less government, balance the budget, free speech, and stop wars, I'm here for it."

• Coalition Shift: Chamath Palihapitiya elaborates on the new MAGA 2.0 coalition, emphasizing its appeal to the working and middle class, and asset-light individuals.

  Chamath Palihapitiya [13:33]: "MAGA 2.0 are the working and middle class people that are asset light. And I think that is important."

Insights:

• The rebranding to Trump 2.0 aligns with broader economic concerns and a desire for disciplined fiscal policies.
• This new coalition is multigenerational and includes tech leaders, making it a formidable force against traditional political structures.

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The Role of Elon Musk and DOGE

Key Points:

• Elon Musk's Influence: Jason and Chamath discuss Elon Musk’s role in shaping economic and technological trends, particularly through his involvement with Dogecoin (DOGE).

  Jason Calacanis [13:26]: "You've got Elon with Doge, you got Sachs, obviously Marco Rubio... and his influence is significant."

• Technological Supremacy: Chamath emphasizes the importance of technological supremacy for national and economic strength.

  Chamath Palihapitiya [14:50]: "If you have technical supremacy, your economy will be the best, your military will be the best."

Insights:

• Elon Musk and the DOGE movement symbolize the intersection of technology and alternative economic models.
• Embracing innovation is seen as crucial for maintaining global competitiveness.

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Immigration Policy and Stephen Miller

Key Points:

• Deportation Policies: The conversation delves into the contentious issue of deporting illegal immigrants, with Megyn citing public approval rates.

  Megyn Kelly [20:12]: "It is 59% of the American public approved deporting all of them, not just the criminals."

• Stephen Miller’s Role: Jason critiques Stephen Miller’s policies as potentially xenophobic, while Megyn defends his strategic importance to Trump's administration.

  Jason Calacanis [10:01]: "I think Steve Miller has been so demonized by the left, and he is absolutely brilliant."

Insights:

• Immigration remains a polarizing topic, balancing public opinion with humanitarian and economic implications.
• Strategic immigration reforms are pivotal in shaping the upcoming electoral landscape.

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Economic Concerns: National Debt, Tax Cuts, and Spending

Key Points:

• Debt and Deficit: Jason and Chamath express deep concerns over the national debt and propose austerity measures as necessary solutions.

  Jason Calacanis [29:02]: "You have two ways to cut this massive deficit we have every year, end the national debt. You can either increase the amount of money coming in through taxes, or you can cut spending."

• Tax Policy: The discussion touches on making Trump tax cuts permanent and the implications for businesses and individuals.

  Megyn Kelly [27:37]: "Trump is calling for a return to the salt deduction... My taxes went up. My accountant's like, you're actually doing better without these tax cuts."

Insights:

• Fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets are emphasized as critical for long-term economic stability.
• Tax reforms are debated as tools to manage deficits while supporting entrepreneurial growth.

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Independent Media and Its Challenges

Key Points:

• Red Seat Ventures Acquisition: Megyn clarifies misconceptions regarding the acquisition of Red Seat Ventures by Fox News, emphasizing that it does not mean Fox owns her show.

  Megyn Kelly [50:42]: "They sold our ads. That's it. ... It was so annoying to see this spun everywhere as some sort of an acquisition."

• Media Commoditization: Chamath discusses the commoditization of news media and the shift towards creator-driven content.

  Chamath Palihapitiya [56:12]: "The news has become totally commoditized... it's about people's opinions, especially smart people, who are consistent."

Insights:

• Independent media faces challenges in maintaining autonomy amidst traditional media conglomerate influences.
• The future lies in creator-driven platforms that prioritize consistent and articulate content over traditional news formats.

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Defense and Military Strategy

Key Points:

• Modernizing the Military: The podcast explores the need to shift from traditional military assets to technology-driven defense mechanisms like drones.

  Chamath Palihapitiya [33:16]: "Everything is drone warfare. Everything is about AIs... you could spend 50% less."

• Cost-Effective Defense: Discussions highlight how innovative companies like Anduril and Saildrone are revolutionizing military capabilities at reduced costs.

  Jason Calacanis [47:07]: "Vent and Systems are producing underwater drones for 75-85% less than what the military spends now."

Insights:

• Technological advancements are pivotal in creating a more efficient and capable military.
• Embracing autonomy and AI can lead to significant cost savings and enhanced operational effectiveness.

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Relationship with Fox News and Red Seat Ventures

Key Points:

• Clarifying Ownership: Megyn reiterates that the acquisition of Red Seat Ventures by Fox News pertains only to ad sales and does not transfer ownership or editorial control.

  Chamath Palihapitiya [56:54]: "Red Seat's a partner that sells our ads and gives us some information on the podcasting industry."

• Maintaining Independence: Jason advocates for greater control over ad sales to enhance revenue and maintain editorial independence.

  Jason Calacanis [57:14]: "I keep asking them, let me read the ads... control that piece of the puzzle."

Insights:

• Maintaining editorial independence is crucial for credible and unbiased journalism.
• Building in-house ad sales capabilities is suggested as a strategy to ensure financial and creative autonomy.

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Free Speech and Platforming Content

Key Points:

• Balancing Act: The discussion addresses the fine line between upholding free speech and avoiding the platforming of harmful or misleading content.

  Megyn Kelly [90:52]: "If there's any doubt about the mental wellness of the person, I wouldn't put him on."

• Mental Health Considerations: The guests emphasize the responsibility of platforms in handling content from individuals with known mental health issues.

  Chamath Palihapitiya [93:29]: "How do you know Jason? Have you watched him and heard his family say he's having an episode?"

Insights:

• Platforms must navigate the ethical implications of providing space for individuals exhibiting harmful behavior.
• Protecting audience integrity while respecting free speech rights remains a significant challenge.

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Closing Remarks

As the episode concludes, Megyn Kelly reflects on the importance of consistency in media presence and the evolving landscape of independent journalism. The guests reiterate their support for Megyn and the importance of maintaining control over one's platform to ensure unbiased and honest content delivery.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jason Calacanis [07:52]: "If the Trump 2.0 agenda is let's have less government, balance the budget, free speech, and stop wars, I'm here for it."

• Chamath Palihapitiya [14:50]: "If you have technical supremacy, your economy will be the best, your military will be the best."

• Megyn Kelly [27:37]: "Trump is calling for a return to the salt deduction... My taxes went up. My accountant's like, you're actually doing better without these tax cuts."

• Jason Calacanis [29:02]: "You have two ways to cut this massive deficit we have every year, end the national debt. You can either increase the amount of money coming in through taxes, or you can cut spending."

• Chamath Palihapitiya [56:12]: "The news has become totally commoditized... it's about people's opinions, especially smart people, who are consistent."

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Conclusion

Episode 1008 of The Megyn Kelly Show offers a comprehensive exploration of contemporary political and economic issues, emphasizing the transformation of Trump’s political influence, the intersection of technology and economic policies through figures like Elon Musk, the complexities of immigration reform, fiscal responsibility, and the future trajectory of independent media. Through insightful discussions with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya, Megyn Kelly provides listeners with a nuanced perspective on maintaining independence and integrity in a rapidly evolving media landscape.

Transcript

[Megyn Kelly]

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[Megyn Kelly]

Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show, live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at Noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Friday. And nothing says love like inviting on your show. One of your frenemies? No, he's not a frenemy. I'm just kidding. But you guys may remember Jason Calacanis of the all in podcast and I have a kind of special relationship. It goes all the way back to his first and only appearance on our show. That was about almost what, three years ago, June of 2022, episode 337, when I ended up calling him a prick. That's. That's not nice. But our relationship has really evolved. I actually really like him and we, I think we've put our differences in the past, though we'll find out today, including spending some time together at the All In Summit last September. I'll just give you a little like, memory lane before we bring him on along with his co host Chamath, because you may remember this funny exchange. It got a lot of attention. Here's the longer one. When he was on the show three years ago, what I'm trying to dispute is the attempt to now say we've gotta get guns because of all the mass shootings. The mass shootings are what justify our newfound push on, quote, gun control. And what it is to me is a dodge on the rising crime rates, which have been a drag on the Democratic ticket and are going to take them down come the midterm elections in October. It's gaslighting.

[Jason Calacanis]

So how many people do need to die in a mass shooting for it.

[Megyn Kelly]

To be why don't you answer my question, since you're here as the guest?

[Jason Calacanis]

What was the question? Was there a question?

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think you're conflating a lot of different issues in a very partisan way to get ratings.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's bullshit. Don't question my motives. That's. This is where you. You turn into what I think.

[Jason Calacanis]

That's what I said. That's what I think, what you said.

[Megyn Kelly]

That there's a. I'm giving you my honest analysis, and for you to say that I am misleading the audience for ratings is a prick thing to say. You don't know me, all right? I've made my name and I've made my business based on honest journalism. I realize you may be number 26 worldwide, but you've never done real journalism at the level I have. So that's how our first meeting went. That's just good fun. And then he was gracious enough to have me at the All In Summit, along with Chamath and, of course, David Sacks, who was the other person in that. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll see who's part of that show as well. And now he's working for the Trump administration. David is. But in any event, those guys all had me out to the All In Summit last September, which was really fun and enlightening. The guests were amazing. I really enjoyed myself. And Jason got a lot of guff for the exchange I'm about to show you, but I saw it very differently. I did not think he deserved all the guff he got because he. He. He knew I was a lawyer. He knew that I knew what I was talking about. I think he was being a generous host. I think he was trying to. To let me show some of my, you know, knowledge on this case. And people were like, he's an idiot. People on the right who didn't like him, but I think they misunderstood that he was actually being generous to me. Here is the exchange that literally went.

[Jason Calacanis]

Everywhere we look at the five cases, you know, six months from now, a year from now, let's assume all five of them go to trial. He's guilty of three so far.

[Megyn Kelly]

Wait, what do you. What do you mean he's guilty of three so far?

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, he's been convicted of three.

[Megyn Kelly]

Sorry, what do you mean? No, he hasn't?

[Jason Calacanis]

I love this.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Ellen.

[Jason Calacanis]

No E. Jean Carroll was guilty.

[Megyn Kelly]

That was not a conviction. That was a civil case.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, yes, so that's what I'm talking about. So that was okay.

[Megyn Kelly]

But there's a big difference.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. And the Trump Organization, they're guilty there.

[Megyn Kelly]

That again, was civil liable.

[Jason Calacanis]

Liable, yes, of course. But these are the cases we're talking about. And in the third one, you know.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

She'S a lawyer, right?

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. You said three convictions. Now you're walking it back. I'm not walking it back. There's three in which he was.

[Megyn Kelly]

You should walk it back.

[Jason Calacanis]

I'm so glad Megan is here. Three of them. He's either guilty or he got a bad result. Yeah, got a bad result. There are two more. If he is found guilty of those two more, will you chalk all five up in your mind to five different jurisdictions, five different prosecutors, five different juries and or judges all conspiring to get him 100%? Okay.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right. And then I went on to list why, and that that went to a lot of places on the Internet. But here's the interesting thing. My, my impression is, and we're gonna ask him in two seconds, that Jason has gone full on maga. I mean, he is like ready to move in with Steve Bannon. They seem very tight. No, he just seems very pro Trump. And it's been an evolution, you know, it's been an evolution for me too. It's been an evolution for a lot of people. But that's perfect because his bestie, David Sachs, is now the crypto czar in the Trump administration. So joining me today for the very first time, um, well, second time since all of that, is Jason. And then also for the first time is Jason's co host on the hit tech podcast All In Chamath Palihapitiya. First time here. Chamath is one of those evil billionaires the Democrats are always warning us about. But he's a self made billionaire, having started his career out many years ago at Burger King, which we are told is a good thing that you were supposed to celebrate. Unless you actually do parlay it into true billionaire ship, in which case you're bad. In addition to all in, Chamath is CEO of Social Capital. Jason is general partner at launch. We continue to face uncertainty when it comes to the economy, with a perfect storm brewing as Social Security and Medicare hit a breaking point. As the largest generation is of course, 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. The so what are you doing right 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. Birch Gold 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 the number 98989A and get your free info kit on Gold and 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 and diversify them. Text my initials, M.K. to the number 989898 to learn more today. Guys, welcome to the show.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, thanks for having us, Megan. Look at this. Walk through memory lane and you inviting me on Valentine's Day. Stop. It's too much.

[Megyn Kelly]

Stop.

[Jason Calacanis]

I mean, it's so great to be here. Well, the good news is, you know, you said we were 27. Now we're top 10 right up there with you, Megan. Right up there in the top 10 of the ratings with you. And, you know, I think that Trump, just to get right to it, you know, great respect for you as a broadcaster, obviously, and I love having challenging conversations. The Trump lawfare one was a great one. And I think, you know, if we look at Trump 2.0 versus Trump 1.0, it's pretty clear he's put a different group of people around him. And you evoke the name Steve Bannon. You know, like comparing the team he has now to that team. Those guys were kind of losers. I'll be totally honest and xenophobic, and I don't agree with a lot of the Trump 1.0 agenda, but if the Trump 2.0 agenda is let's have less government, balance the budget, free speech, and stop wars, I'm here for it. So Trump has evolved massively. His positions are completely different this time around. And I always want to support the president. Whoever wins sins. I'm not a partisan guy. I'm actually an independent. I voted Republican about a third of the time in my life and Democratic two thirds. And so I, I'm a big fan of supporting our president, whoever it is as best you can and then assessing what they're actually doing. I don't think we should deport 20 million people. I do think we should report the 500,000 who are like hardened criminals. And so there's nuance to all these issues. And I'm really excited to be here, especially with Chamath, to discuss the nuance in a lot of these positions.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Megan, I, I just.

[Megyn Kelly]

Before I get to you, Chamath Who. Who is a loser in Trump 2.1.

[Jason Calacanis]

1.0 or 2.01 in 1.0?

[Megyn Kelly]

Sorry.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I, you know, I think the xenophobic people I disagree with a ton. When I see Steve Miller says stuff like America is for Americans and Americans only. I think that kind of rhetoric, you.

[Megyn Kelly]

Know, he's running policy for Trump now.

[Jason Calacanis]

I do, I do. Yeah. He's. He's the one I disagree with. And I know Steve.

[Megyn Kelly]

His big thing is the border. And you, you know, border crossings are down between 90 and 95%.

[Jason Calacanis]

Sure. So, again, like, we get into the nuance. I think all Americans, like 80, 90%, are in favor of closing the border and having an orderly immigration process. But I think this country was actually built by immigrants, for immigrants. And so when Steve Miller says something like xenophobic, like, oh, America's only for American, Americans only, he's pulling up the ladder. We should actually, Megan, be recruiting the smartest people in the world to come to this country. And that's really at the heart of this Trump 1.0 MAGA OGs versus the techies. And you saw J.D. vance sort of tackling this head on on Twitter this week. I think the soul of MAGA is probably being debated. Should we. Do you believe we should drag the other 19 million hardworking immigrants in this country out of the country? You think the nannies, the dishwashers, the people who've been here for 20 years and built a life, you think all 20 million should be dragged out of the country?

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. And that has majority support amongst the American people. I mean, I'll say this. Stephen Miller has been so demonized by the left, and he is absolutely brilliant. The last thing you can get away with is calling that guy a loser. He's gotten helped get Trump elected twice, and he's behind not just the immigration policy, but he was in part behind the brilliant EO on gender and biological sex. Stephen Miller is extremely smart.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, I was referring to.

[Megyn Kelly]

And those gifts are being unleashed on our behalf right now, so. Okay. Sorry to make you wait so long, but you think. Welcome to the. Hold on.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Stand by.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's not just you and me we want to get.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Would you just relax? Just relax. Sorry, Megan. Sorry.

[Megyn Kelly]

Megan Jamath. Happy Valentine's Day. Thank you. How you feeling about the show show so far?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You know, it's incredible because Jason never gets to talk this much on our own podcast. So I understand. I understand now why he's frothing at the mouth. But I was going to tell you a little story. Which is I dropped my kids off today, my wife and I. And it reminds me that in grade school, you know how you used to treat the person you had a secret crush on? The worst, that's Jason's relationship with djt. So I just think that at some point what's happened is Jason has finally realize that he's actually secretly, he admires him so much and now he doesn't know what to do. So now he's just going for it because now he's got cover. Where most people with the rational brain have said, oh, give this guy a chance.

[Megyn Kelly]

So that's really, we have, we have some of that actually. Just to make your point, we, I think this is a bit of his evolution that we've captured in the following sound bite. Let's take a listen to three.

[Jason Calacanis]

Here we go, everybody. Welcome back to the main character podcast. The number one maga. I was a never Trumper and now I am rooting for him wholeheartedly to do great work. I will say Republicans are fun Fashion was off the hook. And all credit to Trump for winning and running an incredible campaign. I mean just, they crushed it. As somebody who was a never Trumper, as you all know in the audience, and now somebody who is supporting him relentlessly. He's also done an incredible job with the Border2025's biggest political winner. I said Gen X and the elder millennials. You got Elon with Doge, you got Sachs, obviously Marco Rubio, my God, it just goes down. And then if you look at the elder millennials, jd, Vance, Vivek, Tulsi, just a lot of young people and this is going to be absolutely fantastic.

[Megyn Kelly]

I think Chamath, he's been red pilled. He spent all his time with you guys. Purple, full red pill.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Well, you know, you know, you said something really important at the beginning, which is you used the word MAGA 2.0. And I actually think that that's the right observation. MAGA 2.0 is a very different coalition than MAGA 1.0, which explains, I think, why they did so well at the polls. And the way that I describe it in my own framework is MAGA 2.0 are the working and middle class people that are asset light. And I think that that is important. Meaning there's a lot of people that aren't getting stock options, that don't work at a startup, that don't necessarily own a home and are still renting, that don't have these overflowing 401ks and that's a lot of where the tension with the American economy and society comes from. Right. So I think MAGA speaks to them. I think they now speak to patriotic business owners and they also were able to get these tech leaders and innovators. That's a really unique coalition and I think that that is very discombobulating for the Democrats and I think it explains a little bit why they're on their heels and a little confused and don't exactly know how to react in any moment. But that MAGA 2.0 coalition, if it holds, I think is multi generationally relevant.

[Megyn Kelly]

Can I ask you, Jason, what you say Purple, not red. So what caused, what was the red that was mixed in with your former blue that made you purple?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Now?

[Megyn Kelly]

What specifically was it that made you start migrating a bit?

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I mean, I've always been a moderate and voted, like I said, maybe living in New York and in California most of my life, I didn't have the opportunity to vote for a Republican that many times, but about one out of three I voted Republican. And having lived in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, you don't have to do too much research to see how far the woke left and these radical socialist borderline communists in San Francisco, how ineffective they've been at running those cities. Watching New York go from when I grew up in the 70s and 80s being pretty dangerous. Then Giuliani and Bloomberg cleaning the place up and then now, gosh, just gone back into chaos every time I go to New York and I left San Francisco and live now on a horse ranch here in Texas, in Austin. And it's a lovely purple combination. I think of what I loved about New York, LA and San Francisco and this Texas culture, which it feels to me like the pure American culture, which is, you know, it's great to be an entrepreneur. It's great to celebrate entrepreneurship and creation, which is the business I'm in. I invest in a hundred new companies per year as well as doing four podcasts a week. So I'm kind of like a broadcaster and an angel investor. And I really was disheartened by what I saw happen with the Democratic Party and how they related to entrepreneurs, specifically myself, Elon, Joe Rogan, Chamath. We're all Democrats or left leaning right. We believed in freedom, supporting gay rights, supporting a woman's right to choose, these kind of issues. And then the Democratic Party basically kicked Joe Rogan out, they kicked Elon out, and none of us passed their ridiculous woke mind virus test. And I'm for freedom. I'm for freedom of speech. I'm a Second Amendment fan. And that party just went so far left. So I feel like I've always been right here in the middle, fiscally responsible, kind of Clinton Democrat. And then I feel like the Democratic Party just went off the deep end. Like, I, I'm not down with, you know, giving surgery to children who are confused about their gender. Like, that's crazy. If you ask 90, if you ask 100 parents, 99 would say, are you crazy? Giving surgery to a child who's confused and has gender dysphoria? That's. That's crazy. And now we're seeing many countries in Europe and in fact here in the United States, some states saying, hey, yeah, no more of this. And doctors are being sued and the detransitioning movement is just heartbreaking. Why wouldn't a child wait till they're 18, 19, 20 years old? So those were kind of the issues that pushed me out of the Democratic Party. And with Trump and some of the things he does I don't agree with, but when he put his agenda out for this term, with the exception, again, we talked about it before, of taking hardworking non criminal immigrants out of the country, which I think would cause massive inflation and all kinds of problems for us, and it would be cruel and inhumane. I'm down with less government. I've always been for less government. I've always been for balancing the budget as an individual, as a company or as a country. And so when he decided he would bring Elon, who's a close personal friend of mine and Sachs, close personal friend of mine and other folks in our circle into this administration to do hard work and important work around supporting entrepreneurs and stopping waste, fraud and abuse, I mean, that's kind of my wheelhouse. So if Trump's going to evolve and he's going to stop being Captain Chaos and he's going to stop putting people like Bannon around him, and he's going to put incredible entrepreneurs and the smartest people I know around him, I have no choice but to support him. Right. I don't like some of the things he does stylistically, but I don't really care about style points when it comes to the fact that I believe the country is on such an unsustainable path in terms of spending $36 trillion in debt, adding a trillion or two, and the amount of waste and fraud that's gonna come out of Doge. I mean, I've had conversations with Elon. He's been very public about it. He had A presser with Trump in the Oval Office, the stuff that's gonna come out is gonna be mind boggling. The amount of grift, the amount of criminal behavior and obviously wasted and waste is just so staggering. And we have to turn this around, Megan. If we don't get this debt under control, it's existential. They have the saying, how did you go bankrupt slowly and then all at once. And that's where our country is. We need to stop the waste, fraud, abuse and spending. And it's going to take collective, you know, austerity, but we have no choice. And it's going to take really bold leadership. It's unpopular to cut services, it's unpopular to stop spending. But, you know, Trump's on a free roll right now. He is by definition, lame duck. Right. He's not running again. So I'm here for it.

[Megyn Kelly]

I want to say, I want to say one word in defense of Steve Bannon, with whom I've had a very interesting past 10 years. But I think Steve Bannon is actually very, very brilliant and was integral to Trump's, especially his first victory, but I think the second victory, too, and I know you may, you may not like him, but I know that he's had quite a hand in staffing up Trump point 2.0. And he's always there behind the scenes. He's a brilliant strategist. He may not be your cup of tea, he's not everybody's, but he is very important to Trump's success and has been, in my opinion. I want to say this on the subject of the illegals. It is 59% of the American public approved deporting all of them, not just the criminals. The criminals is way up. That's extremely high. But just anybody who's here illegally, 59%. I mean, that's huge to have 60% of the country agreeing on an issue like that. So that's why Tom Homan is saying they're all going. Now, realistically, are they all going? No, because it's impossible. We're having a difficult time even finding the ones who have committed felonies on top of being here unlawfully. It's just that's why it was so egregious for Biden to allow them in in the first place. We're just never going to get all these people. Even Homan's out this week saying, look, we've gotten a bunch of them, but it's not going as quickly as I'd like it to. And it's very frustrating for all of us. Here's one other thing. Let me ask you about this one, Chamath. I love the guys over at National Review. And they sometimes offer a sober reality to, you know, the, the joy that I hear more in the MAGA circles. You know, these are conservative Republicans who are not, they're not anti Trump, but they're not like super pro Trumpy. They had a great discussion on their editor's podcast this week about what's actually gonna happen to the budget. Right? Trump's gonna make these cutbacks even if Elon's allowed to go wild, which, as you know, they're filing lawsuits every day to try to stop the cuts that he and Trump are doing. But let's just say they withdraw all the lawfare and all the cuts go forward. Usaid, Department of Education. And on their point was, it's, we're still going to run a deficit. The budget's still going to go up this year versus where it was last year. It just won't be up as much as it otherwise would have been. We're not going to touch entitlement spending. And I gotta be honest, you listen, you're like, ah, you know, to Jason's point, slowly. And then all of a sudden we're still going to be on that course.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We're in a really difficult spot. So I think it's important for your listeners and viewers to know this. The last couple of years, the Biden administration, and specifically Biden and Yellen, did one thing that I hope no government afterwards ever does, which is they were effectively speculating on rates. And what they did was the Treasury's job is to finance the government, right? Their job is to go into the bond market, sell bonds, use that money and redirect it to hhs, to Social Security, to Defense, wherever they financed it with all of this short term paper. And part of it was they believed that inflation would be in check and interest rates in the future would fall. So whatever happened, we would be able to go back into the markets and borrow later for cheaper. It turned out that was an enormously incorrect assumption and they should not have made that decision. So today, what Trump and Besant have to do is extremely difficult. They have about $10 trillion, so call it 25, 30% of our total debt. We have to refinance in the next six to nine months. And we're doing it against the backdrop where now inflation is ticking back up and rates are ticking back up. So why is that important? It's important because now all of a sudden, what does this budget bill look like and what can we actually accomplish? There's the Senate version, which is super light and it says let's just deal with border security and military. And then there's what sort of Trump has asked for, which is the House version, which is this quote unquote, one big beautiful bill. The problem is those two things are on a collision course. And the big bill may be a little bit too early in the sense that to exactly your point, we don't know how bad the situation is. And if Besant goes into the market and gets clubbed over the head and all of a sudden we have $10 trillion that we have to borrow at first five or five and a half percent, I think it's going to be really bad for the US Economy, in which case there will be no choice except to make very deep cuts to in a broad based way. So we almost need to buy some time and figure out how bad the situation is, which is why we need the air cover to sort of see how much Doge uncovers. Because that'll make the problem less at the end of the day. Right? Because cutting that stuff will mean that's fewer fixed programs we have to cut. So that's kind of where we are. So I think it's in a very, we're in a delicate 60 to 90 day period.

[Megyn Kelly]

I think he's not only trying to find cuts, but he's having some fun with tariffs too, which could be another source of income. I mean, Trump announcing yesterday, no one's tariffing us without us tariffing them. I'm using it as a verb, right? Like you slap 10% tariffs on any goods you sell in the United States, 100% guaranteed. That's what you'll get on your goods coming in here. And that just makes sense to me. I mean, like, that I think is a matter of fairness. Most people are like, yeah, and even Trump admitted yesterday there may be some short term pain. He said there may not be. They're actually. But he's like, trust me, long term this is going to work out well for us. How do you guys view the terrorist threat?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And there's action, there is some short term wins already. So, you know, he slapped a tariff, I think on European car imports or whatnot, and they capitulated and they lowered their import tariff for American cars to match their own. So effectively he said it was 5x greater. So if you tried to take a Ford F150 into Europe and now that import tariff is effectively the same as what we charge European cars on the way in. So to your point, there's already been some early wins. And then when you look at Canada and Mexico, the threat of that 20 or 25% tariff essentially caused them to capitulate. So on the one hand, there's trade normalization, on the other hand, it's a negotiating gambit for other things that are more important in the moment, specifically border security and drugs and all of that stuff in the case of Mexico and Canada. But the reality is that revenue source, if you offset it somehow, doesn't really do much to make the problem any better. Meaning if you get a bunch of money in with tariffs, but then you also cut corporate taxes or you extend the tax cuts for individuals and make them permanent, the reality is all you're doing is sort of like, you know, taking from Peter to pay Paul. It doesn't make the structural issue any better. And the structural issue is what Jason said, which is we have a huge debt wall that we are about to hit and we have to find a permanent way out of it. And I think that's where the President is right, that there's going to be some short term pain, because I don't see how all of these things actually get to the core structural issue, which is we're just spending too much. Congress is appropriating too much money to things that we can't account for. And the law says once Congress says go, you can't say, no, we have to go back.

[Megyn Kelly]

He wants to make the Trump tax cuts permanent, which I think most Americans will support. Even Joe Biden was saying he would keep the Trump tax cuts in place for those making under $400,000 a year. But he wanted to revoke them for those making over, which honestly is just silly because those are the business owners, those are the employers who, you know, I'm an employer, I'm a small business owner. If you tax me more, I'm probably going to get rid of somebody. I'm not just going to pay it to the federal government. Somebody's probably going to go. So that's how it works. But so he's going to make the tax cuts permanent. He's also wanting other tax cuts. As you guys know, no taxes on tips. And, you know, I had a conversation with Senate Majority Leader John Thune earlier this week. I think that's a priority for them to get that no taxes on tips thing. And don't forget, on the Trump tax cuts, Trump is calling for a return to the salt deduction that those of us have in, you know, like New York, Connecticut, which they didn't give us the first time when they cut the taxes because they were like, you're not going to get that, too. That's too big a tax cut for you. But then the truth is my taxes went up. My accountant's like, you're actually doing better without these tax cuts. But it's fine. Anyway, my point is there's, it sounds good to say tax cuts, and I like it, too, but there's a question about whether we can afford all these tax cuts and no one, no one will talk about Medicare or Social Security, Jason, especially Trump. He's not dumb politically. He knows that's, that's toxic. That's like, let me play in this nuclear waste dump. So fun.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. So this is exactly correct, Megan. You have two ways to cut this massive deficit we have every year, end the national debt. You can either increase the amount of money coming in through taxes, or you can cut spending. And you've nailed it. There are some big ticket items, and Medicare, Social Security, and of course, military spending are the big three. We haven't gotten to those yet. But I think that there will be a moment in time when it will become tenable to talk about these and maybe just on the margins, rethinking them. If you look at the last 10 years, when Biden came into office, we're at 16, 17 trillion in debt now. We've basically doubled it. Both parties are out of control with their spending, and they've added 2 trillion a year. It's not sustainable. Everybody knows that it's about to break. And so it's going to take collective across both sides of the aisle, looking at not just Doge, but military spending. And this is where actually Trump does have a superpower. He's very good at talking to Xi Jinping and Putin and other dictators. You can make whatever joke you want to make there about how they vibe, but what he did with North Korea and going and talking to Kim Jong Un was just spectacular. This idea that you don't talk to dictators is a huge, colossal mistake in foreign policy. And if he can get everybody to start rethinking how much we're spending globally on defense and maybe paring that back a little bit, and then we can talk to Americans about maybe instead of Social Security doing what they do in Australia, which is called super annotation, rather superannuation, or they just refer to it as supers in that country, if you've ever been there, instead of giving your money to the government and then the government Giving it back to you. When you retire, you're forced to put a little bit of money, 10, 12% every year into essentially a directed 401k, but public equities. And if we started moving the country to that, then we could be like Australia eventually, where the government's not in the business of providing retirement funds. You do that, you're forced to put money into the markets and then you get the money back as opposed to the government, which is really not great at capital allocation, by the way.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Did you, did you see what Trump said yesterday? Which was incredible on your first point? He said, once we get all of this Middle east stuff sorted out, my next order of business is to sit down with Putin and Xi Jinping and yeah, you know, we should figure out, yeah, we should be spending 50% less. He said. I was stunned that he said, I.

[Jason Calacanis]

Mean, 10% less would be mind blowing.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

50% would be.

[Jason Calacanis]

50% is like. But I love the way he negotiates.

[Megyn Kelly]

I mean, his best quality, in which the Chinese, who have been working so steadily over the past 20 years to build up their military, actually do that. I just like, it would be. He would deserve the Nobel Peace Prize if he, if he were to make that happen.

[Jason Calacanis]

They have systematic problems there, Megan. Like, they got serious problems. Yeah, they do.

[Megyn Kelly]

But that military is important to them.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The problem is that we have like two versions of the military. We have the old school neocon version, which is still the dominant version on the ground, which is the projection of power. Right. How do you project power? You have, you know, aircraft carriers and you have these F35 planes and you have these huge frigates and all of this stuff. Right. The Navy just announced, you know, a 30 year program. They're going to spend $1.2 trillion. They'll get 365 boats. Right. Which is like, okay, crazy. But the, but the real version is what Anduril is doing, which is everything is drone warfare. Everything is about AIs. You see it on the ground today in the Ukraine and Russia, which is, that's how you fight a modern war. So that costs meaningfully less. And it's not necessarily a projection of power as much as it is a projection of capability and skill. So if you take the latter approach, you could easily spend 50% less. The former approach really is about building big iron and big metal. And we all know that's complicated and it takes a long time. So you need a philosophical shift in how people think about geopolitics and the projection of power.

[Megyn Kelly]

This is why, I mean, on this front, this is not exactly the same thing, but it's consistent with the new approach that this administration is taking. We have, of course, a new defense secretary, and it's not a big deal, but he is every morning out there working out with troops. When he was back stateside, he was doing it. Now he's over in Poland, he's doing it. He posted this video today of him running with troops over in Poland, saying, you know, fitness readiness starts in the beginning of the day. There's no, you know, do we have a sot? We'll run it. It's just pictures. Okay? It's just pictures. By the way, he needs pants. It's too cold in Poland to run with just shorts.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Is he running in shorts? He's running in shorts.

[Megyn Kelly]

He's running in shorts. It's snowy, and it's Poland. In any event, I like it too. I have to say. You know, like, Lloyd Austin, with all due respect, was overweight, was in the hospital, unaccounted for for, like, a week. We didn't know what was wrong with a health crisis. It's great to see a young, robust defense chief. And just a juxtaposition in the messaging. Now he's saying that we've had a record sign up and increase in troop numbers in December in anticipation of Trump taking office, and now in January, once Trump has and he points to specifically, among other things, the difference in recruiting efforts. Like, look at the ad that they just put out for special forces under the Trump dod. This enormous guy left enormous weights.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Stronger people are harder to kill.

[Megyn Kelly]

Strong people are harder to kill. That seems right. But just to just so you have the full picture, stand by. Here's what they were running under. Joe Biden.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh.

[Megyn Kelly]

Although I had a fairly typical childhood, took ballet, played violin. I also marched for equality. But his graduation approached. I began feeling like I'd been handed so much in life. A sorority girl stereotype. Sure, I'd spent my life around inspiring women, but what had I really achieved on my own? I needed my own adventures, my own challenge. And after meeting with an army recruiter, I found it. A way to prove my inner strength and maybe shatter some stereotypes along the way. Oh, my gosh. The difference. Guys, it's crazy. I mean, as men, you. You must see the difference in messaging and why the numbers are going up.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Well, look, I think that it's like, there was, like, this fever, and I think it's broken. And the. The thing is, it should be okay to be able to look at certain job categories and basically say, what is it that we need? So what should firefighters be able to do more than anything else? They should be able to put out fires and everything that that entails. What should a spec ops person be able to do? They should be able to kill with precision. And somehow we lost that where you weren't allowed to say those things anymore. And now I think we're getting back to just the common sense of it all. And there are other jobs, by the way, that should be governed by empathy and compassion and you should optimize for those. That's like a well functioning society. And I don't know how we lost that script, but I think we're slowly getting back to that.

[Jason Calacanis]

This is a big omission, Megan, because I don't know if you've ever seen Chamath's thirst trap that he posted on social media, but he has very thin legs. His legs are not capable of carrying. He would not be a great firefighter.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Megan.

[Megyn Kelly]

Megan can't carry any, Is that what you're saying?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, Megan, I'm tall. You know, he's tall, but he's got very thin legs. No, that's not true. That's what, that's what robust.

[Jason Calacanis]

Show the photo.

[Megyn Kelly]

Cut the photo in, please, please go find the photo to my team. We're getting it right now.

[Jason Calacanis]

But there's the military issue, really. Is that what's going to happen, you know, on future military excursions? We're going to have to go on and it'll look like the Ukraine. We're going to look like Ukraine. Sorry to put in the thigh in there. You are going to have drones. And there's a good friend of mine, Palmer Lucky, has a company called Andrew that's doing particularly well in this regard. There's another one, Vantan Systems V A T N. I'm not an investor or anything, but I had them on my podcast and they were showing me their underwater drones. You can cut in a video of it. It's really cool. Vent and Systems, they are producing these Underwater drones for 75, 85% less than what the military spends now. This is exactly what Elon did for putting people in space and he lowered the cost by 90%. Those opportunities exist. And so if we can reimagine the military, we could have more capability, we could be more competitive, and we can do it at literally 50, 60, 70% less if we unleash innovation and entrepreneurship. And this is the thing that pushed me out of the Democratic Party. Back to the original question you had for me. We have to support Founders. It is very hard to start a company. You suffer. You're doing it now, right? You got to exist in Fox and NBC and take the Lincoln Town Cars and have all this stuff. Now you're an entrepreneur, right? You gotta be scrappy and you gotta fight the Democratic Party abandoned and shamed entrepreneurs. And they're still doing it. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are out there every day attacking Elon for doing something he doesn't need to do right now. He's already incredibly wealthy. He's got Tesla, he's got SpaceX to work on, and he's taking a side quest for the American people. Four, five, six month.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

He's moving into the government.

[Jason Calacanis]

Billions.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, he's moved in.

[Megyn Kelly]

He's moved before. I give you the floor on it, Shamath. Here's the thing about Elon. He could have gotten the D reg regulation that he wants for his industries just by all the donations and the blood, sweat and treasure he gave to Trump prior to November 5th. Trump owed him enough that he would have probably tried to help Elon roll back some of the red tape he once rolled back without Elon doing a single thing. Post 10 5. Everything he's doing now is because he genuinely wants reform. He wants the government to work differently for all of us, not just for him. Go ahead, Chamath.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

There is a framework that we talk about. I've talked about it a few times now. I'll just sort of share it with your audience to the extent it's valuable. I think we all want to be and remain the most important country in the world. That should be not really controversial. But the problem is that we have somehow found a way to debate how to get there. And I think how to get there has always been the same and will always be the same. Which is America is the best when it has the most vibrant economy in the world and the most capable and powerful military in the world. That's it. And whenever any country has had those two things, if you look back in history thousands of years, they've always been the most important and the most vibrant place, whether it's Rome or whether it's the British Empire. But underneath that is one thing in this modern iteration, which is you must have technical supremacy. You must, if you make the best clothes, it doesn't mean much. You could have a vibrant fashion industry, but it's not going to give you economic vibrancy or military supremacy. If you have great, you know, buildings, it doesn't do anything. If you have, you need technology supremacy. And this is why What Jason said is so critical. So why is Elon in there? I think part of what he's in there to do is to make sure that by helping to bat back some of these regulations, it's not just him, but there's so many others that hit this air pocket now that can actually do stuff on behalf of Team America. And if you're technically supreme, your economy will be the best, your military will be the best. By the way, look at, like, two days ago, there's a $24 billion program to arm the army with this incredible next generation vision system. Initially it was given to Microsoft. Microsoft realized they couldn't do it. What did they do? They gave it to a startup, Anduril. Now what happens? That technical supremacy filters in through the economy, gets into our military, our military will be that much better than everybody else. And that cycle, for whatever reason, was frozen in time for literally 15 years. And this is what we need to undo. And in that 15 years, the biggest mistake we made was we allowed China to catch up. And now they have a level of technical supremacy that rivals ours and in some cases exceeds us. And that was a mistake that we allowed to happen and we need to correct.

[Megyn Kelly]

We're in a battle with them on many fronts, including AI, though not so much the Europeans. One of the things that happened this week was J.D. vance went over to Europe and at a conference that was dedicated to discussing slowing the AI March, he thumbed the middle finger, essentially, and said, we're not slowing anything. We're the United States of America. We're leaders on this, and we intend to stay leaders on this. And then he made some other news, which I want to get to with you, but I just want to make one point on the drones. These things can be very threatening, potentially used by us and potentially used against us. And there was a report out earlier this week on how the Iranian threat against Trump's life was more serious than we knew. And it was to the point where they were deploying decoy Trump planes when not Air Force One, but Trump Force One, as they used to call his private plane when he was campaigning to where, like, they just have staff on the one plane. And some of these staff would later say, like, whoa, what? Like, we were. We were on the decoy plane trying to, like, say, hey, Iran, Trump's here. When he wasn't really there, like, uncool, but they were reporting that. Forgive me, trying to remember who broke this. It was a very good report, but it was talking about. It was Axios. Okay? And it was talking about how at one point there was a drone hovering over Trump's vehicle as he was traveling, and the security Secret Service opened up the sunroof and shot it, shot it down right then and there. But that's like the. These drones effective?

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, you know, it's.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It's incredible that you say this. Do you know what the largest military company in the world is now? It's dji. This was a Chinese drone company that people relied on just for drones when drones were this, you know, a consumer pastime. But. But when it turned the corner, especially in this Ukraine, Russia war where it became the de facto method of effective attack. They sell parts every which way. Now, I'm not saying DJI is doing anything bad. I don't think they are. They're selling drones. Somehow it gets redirected and finds itself in all these places. But it's an attack vector. And in as much as it's an attack vector that is now the largest military company in the world. It's China. It's based in China. It's an incredible thing. It's not Lockheed Martin, it's not anybody else.

[Jason Calacanis]

And you know what? There's a lot of scrappy people, Megan, working on this. I read a story in the Wall Street Journal about some University of Toronto students who made a dish that uses acoustics to interfere with the components, specifically of DJI drones. It's called Prandtl Dynamics, P R and D T L Dynamics. So I had them on my podcast, I talked to them a whole bunch about how the technology works, and they were just students. And I said, hey, terrible name, by.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The way, to get funded.

[Jason Calacanis]

Terrible name. Anyway, terrible name. Prandtl, P R A N D T L. You can just talk. Basically, they knock drones out of the sky. So I talk to them, I check out the technology. It actually works. So I actually gave them the angel investing money to start.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Jason, tell them to call a drone strike.

[Jason Calacanis]

Drone strike. Perfect drone. That would be the new name. Yeah. So there's all this technology that is coming out and venture capitalist Megan, it was very interesting when I started, I don't know, I started angel investing 12, 13 years ago. It's just a side thing to support my friends. And at that time, venture capitalists wouldn't invest in military technology. And in fact, at Google, the kind of resistance inside of Google was protesting them, even providing things like Google Docs like Gmail to the military. And now that's totally turned around. Silicon Valley is enamored and investors like myself, Chamath and others Sachs to, you know, we're looking and saying, hey, this is actually the patriotic thing to do on Trump 2.0, by the way.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Sorry, just, just on that, let me tell you a quick story. So I seeded this company about eight or nine years ago to make, make drones for the sea. It's called.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, Saildrone. Yeah, great company.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And you know, Saildrone now has contracts with the Coast Guard and the Navy and all of this stuff. But these are, as you can imagine, autonomous drones that you can deploy literally from the United States and it can get to any conflict hotspot and it has all of the sensor arrays it needs to collect information, send it back, et cetera. But to your point, Jason, the obvious thing five years ago would have been to add some kind of kinetic ability to those drones. Right? Meaning those drones. By the way, one of our drones was famously intercepted by the Iranian navy. Okay. I think in the Strait of Hormuz or someplace. But the reason we weren't able to add that, you know, kinetic ability five years ago is because sort of internally, when you're building these things in, you know, Berkeley, California, people, people have an opinion on that. This is not cool, or this is the patriotic thing is to actually not make these things happen. And somewhere along the way now, I think we've had a couple of examples, Andrew being the best, where no, the patriotic thing is to actually make sure Pax America wins. And, and it's incredible that we, it took all this time for us to be able to say that without sounding like some, you know, right wing loon.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. And.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And now we have to play catch up, which I think is the thing that frustrates me a little bit. It makes me concerned, quite honestly. But if we can, if we can get it done, then I think we'll be in a much better place.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's happening.

[Megyn Kelly]

All I can think of is my husband's book, the Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel, which is about the Elon Musk of the early 20th century. Rudolf Diesel, who was German born, spent his childhood in France and was this genius who designed the diesel engine. It was his engine. And diesel should be spelled with a capital D. To this day, when you go to the gas station, it's diesel, capital D. Fuel for a diesel engine. After this guy. But he was a peacenik. He was definitely a peacenik and did not want this, this engine to be used in war machines. His, his idea, his goal was for it to be used on like small farms who could put just vegetable oil in it and he can run off vegetable oil. Willie Nelson powered his diesel, powered, I don't know, van or camper with corn oil. And that's really what diesel thought it would be. But it wound up becoming so important to war vehicles, to war war boats in particular, both in England and in Germany and then around the world. And there's really not a massive boat on the water that's not powered by diesel now. And Doug has talked many times about how, like, what would diesel think if he could see how his engine wound up getting used as, like, the main machine of war? And I think he. He believes diesel would be against it because he never had the evolution, the final stage of the evolution you just talked about. Chamath. You know, it's a lot of these inventors start off feeling more altruistic and, you know, they think their product's going to go a different way. But then it takes a while for you to evolve to realizing, even if in a machine of war, it can be an instrument of peace in a way.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, these new wars. Look at the. Sorry, go ahead.

[Jason Calacanis]

No, go ahead. Good.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, I was going to say is like, I mean, look at what happened through the Manhattan Project. That started out as a complete project of war. But if you look at the downstream positive impacts of nuclear energy, the body of knowledge that we were able to accumulate, essentially because it was directed through a war effort, whether you agree with that issue or not, take that off the table. But it is undisputable how productive and useful nuclear energy is all around the world, how impactful it can be to actually give people a better life. But it would not have advanced as quickly and as safely had we not gone through those phases of the. Of the Manhattan Project. A different example is the Apollo program. You know, we spent in today's dollars a quarter of a trillion dollars getting to the moon in the late 1960s and early 70s. That is the basis of everything we touch and feel today. When you look at a computer, all of these incredible inventions came out of a government program that was about excellence, in part motivated by beating a competitor of ours in Russia or the Soviet Union at the time. So to your point, sometimes you have to be able to take these inventions and just have a grain of humility and say, you know what? Like, these things take a meandering path, and as long as you can eventually direct them constructively, you got a responsibility to do it. But when you get caught up in all of the virtue signaling and this other stuff, I think you can really slow things down and these things have impacts.

[Megyn Kelly]

I Got to give the floor to Jake Al when we come back from this quick break. But before we go, we found the picture. We're. We report. You decide. Let's take a look.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, let's look at the top.

[Megyn Kelly]

Looks great.

[Jason Calacanis]

Zoom in on those legs. Zoom in on those legs. He's not. Guys, I know how big you are, Megan. You're, you're. He's not going to be able. You wouldn't be able to carry Megan out of a burning building. Of course we.

[Megyn Kelly]

Let me tell you something strong.

[Jason Calacanis]

That lesbian fire chief in SoCal, she would do a better job. Stop. Look at those legs.

[Megyn Kelly]

She's a large lady. I mean, she's a large lesbian fire chief. All right, stand by.

[Jason Calacanis]

She would be able to carry you.

[Megyn Kelly]

You can email me megan kelly.com 4 years of crushing interest rates, runaway inflation and reckless government spending, and who is paying the price? You are. You might have bills stacking up. You might have debt collectors on your back. You might barely be able to keep food on the table. And that's stressful. Done With Debt can be a way out. These guys have developed a new aggressive strategy, many of them actually designed to get you out of debt permanently. Without bankruptcy and without loans. Done With Debt will stand between you and your bill collectors. They can go head to head with their creditors, getting your balances reduced, your interest rates slashed and penalties stopped. They create a plan to end your debt fast and put more cash in your pocket every month. And right now, Done With Debt is accepting new clients. But you need to act fast. Some of these credit relief programs expire before you make another payment. Consider a visit to donewithdebt.com or call 1-888-322-1054 right now. Speak with one of their debt relief strategists for free. Go to donewithdebt.com that's donewithdebt.com you mentioned in the first hour a passing reference to this show and your show and my status and yours as well as an independent broadcaster. And that brought something up that I've been meaning to mention this whole week. And now's as good a time as any. So over the weekend, it was announced that Fox News had acquired, has acquired the company called Red Seat Ventures, which sells our ads. They sell the ads for the Megyn Kelly show. Red Sea Corporation and Fox acquired this company because they sell ads not just for the Megyn Kelly show, but for the Tucker Carlson show for Bill O'Reilly show. For now, Piers Morgan, who's, you know, got a YouTube show and so on. And that's one of the challenges when you get into the space as an independent. You kind of have to partner with some sort of somebody who's got relationships with the ad companies. It's very, very difficult to do it yourself. You can't just start calling up Jenny Sell and saying, hey, you advertise on the MK Show. So Red Seat and this guy who runs it named Chris Balf, they've been great partners to us. And I love Chris and he's been absolutely wonderful and his whole team to work with. So they help us out, they sell our ads. He's been an advisor to me and my professional life as well. So the media decides to take this story and announce, or at least spin it, such that I have been acquired by Fox News, that the Megyn Kelly show is now owned by Fox, that the Tucker Carlson show is now owned by Fox. They spun it as we're going home. There was one article from Reuters. The deal brings O'Reilly, Kelly and Carlson back into the Murdoch fold through Red Seat Ventures. Though Red Seat Ventures will operate independently within Fox's Tubi Media Group. No, it doesn't. It does not bring any of us back into the Murdoch fold. Nothing against the Murdochs, nothing against Fox. Happy for Chris and Red Seat and for Fox, but this has almost nothing to do with us other than, I guess Fox and Tubi are now eventually going to. Well, they own the company or most of it that's selling our ads. That's it. But it was so annoying, you guys, as. Cause I know you've worked for every ounce of that success and for every notch you've moved up on the podcast ranking. And it. It. Maybe it would have been helpful. I never offered it and I never wanted it, but probably would have been helpful to have the backing of a company like Fox News pushing me. But I didn't have it and you didn't have it. We earned all those ranks ourselves. For. For once in my professional life, Fox News had nothing to do with one single viewer. I have right now.

[Jason Calacanis]

They're taking credit.

[Megyn Kelly]

Annoying. Yeah, it was annoying to see this spun everywhere as some sort of an acquisition or a sellout by yours truly or Tucker, who I'm sure would never be selling to Fox, but it makes Fox look good to make it look like they acquired us, which we. They didn't and whatever. So it's kind of annoy. Anyway, Chris Balfe went on the Semaphore podcast with Ben Smith, formerly of the New York Times and buzzfeed, and they talked about this, and here's a bit of the exchange that just hit today.

[David Sacks]

One of the most fascinating things of the deal is that you are the platform for three of the biggest stars Fox has ever had. Megyn Kelly, tucker Carlson, Bill O'Reilly and Piers had a relationship with Fox, but a little different. And you have this radically different relationship with them, which was when Fox News. When you work for Fox News, you really work for Fox News. You do whatever they say. You do not do things they. They don't say. They have total control over everything you do. When you work for Red Seat, Red Seat sort of works for you. It's an inverted relationship in which the talent has a lot of power. You get to work for them to the degree that you're providing great service for them and great money for them. But it's an inverse relationship where you as the media company just have so much less control. You're kind of an agency for talent.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You're exactly right about the characterization of the relationship. Right. We work for them, they don't work for us. And we operate at the pleasure of these hosts. And the minute that they see someone who's doing better for them, who can help them monetize better or grow their show better or whatever it may be that we're doing in each individual case, then they can move. This is the way that this business works. And so if you want to be part of the creator economy, you have.

[Jason Calacanis]

To realize that creators are in charge.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And it's our job to do as good of a job for them as we possibly can to make sure that they do want to be with us and not somebody else.

[David Sacks]

I can, like, faintly hear, like, shrieks coming from Fox News World. As you say, creators are in charge.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's pretty funny, right? So anyway, just to set the record clear, what he said is exactly right. Red Seat's not a platform for us. You know, SiriusXM is a platform. Apple, Spotify, those are YouTube. That's a platform. Red Seat's a partner that sells our ads and gives us some information on the podcasting industry. And Balfour personally has been a great friend.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's a service provider.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The reason why the traditional media writes that article is that they are hoping that some of these viewers may get turned off by it and stop watching, listening to you. That's the.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

They're jealous. That's the point of that. Jealous.

[Jason Calacanis]

Direct diminishing you. You know, that's what's really happening here is, I think, independent. It's very rare for somebody to come out of the Fox world and be able to actually start a business. I've been in publishing my whole life and really publishing is three things. You got to have talent, which you clearly have. You have to have distribution, which has now been democratized. You just give an RSS feed to Spotify and to Apple and you're good to go. And then you need to have ad sales. I'm actually shocked that you haven't brought that in house yet because there's 100 ad sales people who will send their resume to you right now. And your cost of ad sales should be 10% or lower if you had an in house team based on, you know, my knowledge of what you're doing.

[Megyn Kelly]

Whole new future you're laying out for me here, J Cal. Keep going.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, the rep firms tend to take 25 to 40% and that's fine to start out, but for you to be a truly independent media company, you need to control that piece of the puzzle. And you can very easily and you will, I guarantee you, by next year. And I make millions of dollars a year off this week in startups. All in doesn't have advertising. We probably leave 25, 50 million on the table every year because my co hosts refuse to let me read the ads. I keep asking them, let me read the ads. You know why, Megan? Private aviation. Private aviation. I could be in a Phenom 300. I could be in a Pilatus PC24 if Chun Moth would let me read one goddamn ad on the show Eat the Rich. And this is what making me crazy private aviation is. But we make our money through the events we host and that's a great business. And you were there. Thank you for coming.

[Megyn Kelly]

It was awesome.

[Jason Calacanis]

In our new tequila and we're going to do all in tequila. And you know, I got to spend some time with Ben Shapiro when I went to the inauguration, who I have great respect for in his team and what he's doing.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Are you going to make this point? Are you trying to make a point?

[Jason Calacanis]

I am. And you know the other thing that's very interesting is what he's doing with cigars, razors, et cetera. Yeah, they made their own brands, I think Meg and Kelly, you need. I don't know what you drink. You drink a sauvignon blanc.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What are you.

[Jason Calacanis]

What is making Kelly drink on the weekend? What's going on tonight on a Friday?

[Megyn Kelly]

Big fan of gin. Tell you the truth, I'm a big fan of gin.

[Jason Calacanis]

G and T. G and T. Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

And club soda with a. With A lemon. I actually really like that. I call it the Gin Haven.

[Jason Calacanis]

All right, listen, Meg, MK's Gin Haven, right now, let's get a gin company on here. You brand it, you put it in cans, bottles, whatever, it's gonna make a billion dollars. Let's get Megyn Kelly paid. This is what I'm talking about. We're doing all over. This is going all in dot com.

[Megyn Kelly]

But I love. But I love what you guys just said, because that's what was so annoying to me. Like, Yahoo, Their. Their headline, Yahoo Finance, was that that they've acquired. That I've gone home. That they've acquired my home. Like, at Red Seat, with all due respect, is not my home. My. My home is my show, my editorial. And I put my home out to a various, you know, degree of platforms, right? Like to. To YouTube.

[Jason Calacanis]

They hate you because they ain't you, Megan. That's it. They hate you because they ain't you. Just.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, I didn't want people to be confused. I didn't want, like, if Fox News, if I did sell out to Fox News, if Fox News owned the Megyn Kelly show, it would change what they were getting at there with Ben Smith and Chris Balf was exactly right. Fox does control everybody who works there. Trust me, I know. That's why it's so. You got so many stories in the independent lane, right? It's like you guys say that you can say whatever the hell you want.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The thing that's changed is that the news has become totally commoditized, right? You can basically get the same facts everywhere. And I think what people have sniffed out is that it's people's opinions, especially smart people, who are consistent. That's what matters. You're one. Tucker's one. You know, on the left, Ezra Klein is one. There's people on both sides. But my point is that what people don't care about is if you, for example, you know, wrote an article and the byline said the New York Times, you just wouldn't care as much as you used to. And in five years, they'll care even less. And it's the same with Fox. Now, those people, for a moment, they had the right to have the business model that they did because, you know, let's take Fox as an example. They literally spent billions of dollars to build the broadcast infrastructure to get in front of people. But that's been undone. And so now I think the next 20 or 30 years will be about people who can be articulate, consistent. Interesting. You know, some people will want Partisan, some people will want independent. But that sorting function is going on right now. And I think that's why the media, I don't want to say that they lie, but I think that they can be their insecurity around this. One thing comes through in so many articles. You see it in the Doge articles, You see it in this article about the Red Sea. You see it everywhere. If you're paying attention for it, which is what they're really expressing is we're not nearly as important as we used to be. And so they have to go to more and more extremes because the relaying of the news doesn't really add that much value. You can go on X and get that in eight seconds.

[Jason Calacanis]

And the control, this is about control. You know, you and Tucker, supremely talented, they controlled you because they gave you these giant multi year deals. You guys were at the top of your game. Eight figure deals is extraordinary. You guys top ticked it. As we say in the business, you hit the peak and it's scary, but. And to be talent and then start from zero again. But you did it and now you control it and now Tucker controls it. But you know, you can see their top down control ruins the editorial. You could see it in that Dominion case that Fox had to settle.

[Megyn Kelly]

They start.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, and they start messing with you and they, they try to steer you in one direction or the other.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It's even more.

[Jason Calacanis]

The audience gets it. The audience understands it now.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. And it's more subtle than that. You don't need a $750 million lawsuit to go against you now. What you have are things like the CBS clip of 60 Minutes.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yes.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

All of that just subtly chips away at people's trust right? Now I used to watch 60 Minutes religiously on Sundays when I was growing up as a kid, I thought, okay, this is where I, I watch for an hour and I'm a little bit smarter for it. And now when you see these kinds of things, you think to yourself, what is the point of even watching these clips? And then when you see the clip being distributed, you think to yourself, well, is this yet another moment where CBS cherry picks the editing of something to portray a message? I don't want the cognitive load of having to deal with that and figure it out. I got, you know, I have kids, I have a business, I have a family. I'm trying to live my life. Just, just give it to me straight. And if you're giving me an opinion, I want to know upfront that it's your opinion. But what I don't want is the manipulation.

[Jason Calacanis]

It really is.

[Megyn Kelly]

Over time, you realize who you can trust and who you cannot. And for, you know, for me, it's like, that's. It's fine. You know, I'm happy for Chris. I'm happy for Fox. But it matters who controls this show. And some were suggesting, like, they have an ownership. I own 100% of the Megyn Kelly show. I don't have investors. I have nobody. I have me. And. And that's the other thing. Like, they're not wrong. When I worked at Fox, you couldn't say any. If you said anything, like, to the press, Irina Briganti, that snake would be all over you. They'd be dropping hip pieces on you to try to control you. And I'm delighted to have nothing to do with this person. She. I don't know. You know what? I don't think Fox has any delusions that they would control me because they sell ads for me in this new context. But. But it's delightful to be able to not worry about people like that, you know? And you guys know, maybe you don't know, because I, I know you had lean years. We talked about. Chamath worked at Burger King when he was a kid. But, you know, after Fox and NBC, both of those organizations tried to destroy me. 100% tried to destroy me. And you have those nights in your bed where you're kind of, like, sad and your career's blown up and you're like, jesus. And bit by bit, then you build it back, and the last thing you want is for somebody to come in and be like, oh, she sold out. She sold out to one of them. Like, in the end, she bent the knee and went back. That's not at all what happened. I had nothing to do with this. It wasn't my decision. And when I tweeted that out, again, not trying to antagonize Fox, I see why they're smart to have made this move. Just setting the record straight. But that's when I tweeted it out. You guys won't be surprised to learn. Everybody, every one of the people who follows me on Twitter was like, we got your back. We get it. We knew it. Don't worry. It's just a brand new world.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Can I.

[Jason Calacanis]

Can I make a just three legs of the stool? Megan, you have two of them and you got half of one. You gotta make that last leg of the stool very strong.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I agree with that.

[Jason Calacanis]

Chamath and I, we brainstormed and we built this infrastructure inside of all INS so that we never have to bend the knee. And we have the FU money and the FU platform.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

There's. There's a picture. I don't know if Allison, you can find it, but there's a picture of SpaceX's engines. They're the Raptor engines, and they're sitting side by each. Okay, Raptor 1, then Raptor version 2, then Raptor version 3. And I think what's happening in the creator economy is very akin to that picture, which is that if you're going to build something real, and I think the creator economy is real because mainstream media is decaying. To build something real takes at least 15 years. There's no shortcuts, there's nothing you can do about it. And what happens is the first version, all it has to do is just kind of work and hang together. And a lot of people will dunk on you, and a lot of people will think that you're still kind of wasting your time or you're working on a pet project or whatever, but you're not.

[Jason Calacanis]

Not.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Because the minute you get that version one working and you've gotten version one working, Tucker has. Ezra Kelly has kind of. But he should really leave the New York Times and do it on his own, or Ezra Klein, sorry. What you are then allowed to do is work on version two. And version two is the first version of it that's like a real thing that can stand alone. And then four or five years later you get to this version three, and that is. Is just excellence. And that's when everybody else goes out of business. And I see this pattern in so many businesses. It's going to happen in this creator economy. So you, Mr. Beast, us, Tucker, you know, we're on version one. It's very rough around the edges. People are figuring it out. We're all going to make mistakes. But that version two is when there's going to be this meaningful downtick in the New York Times, in the Washington Post, in the Wall Street Journal. By the way, like, you know, I said this. I had probably 15 media subscriptions. I'm down to one, which is the Wall Street Journal, And I'm looking for every reason to just dump it. And for me, it's the anxiety of. There's probably some financial news that I will miss and I won't really get on X or with the. With the other places, but the minute I feel like I can, I will. Now, version two has to solve a much bigger problem, though, which is in. Once we're all out there making opinions the other problem that it will highlight is that the algorithms are brittle. And we're going to have to figure out, well, how is our information getting in front of the right people? And how do we make sure that it's not just a bunch of million echo chambers so that we become fragmented? That's not solved because right now we go into a centralized algorithm, right? Everything goes into one version inside of Meta or inside of X or inside of Google. And we're going to. And Jason's talked about this before, which is this idea like there should be a marketplace and a competition for these algorithms as well. That's the next part of fixing the media cycle. Because some people may literally want to just stay in a partisan bubble, but some people want the media diet to be balanced. How do you get that today? It's impossible.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's funny because I was speaking with a very Smart person about YouTube algorithms, and this person doesn't work for YouTube. But, but I was saying, well, how do you, you know, how can the Megyn Kelly show go from three and a half million subscribers to 20 million subscribers? And it later became clear to me that this person was of the left. And of course his answer was, you have to be more moderate, put on more Democrats, you know, like, reach across the aisle. I'm like, okay, how can we do it without me changing my business model? Because I must be honest. And I don't think the secret to my next level success is to populate the show with a bunch of leftists. I do have a lot of Democrats on the show, but the answer is not to change anything about my content. It's to make sure the algorithm picks.

[Jason Calacanis]

Up the most important thing in media. And I told this to my squad on All In. When I was in the early days, it was just hard to get these guys to show up every week. And I just sat them all down. I said, guys, the number one way to be successful in media is to show up every day. Consistency. And that's what you have. You are a juggernaut. You show up every day, you're consistent, and I, I subscribe to you. Congratulations on breaking 3 million. That's extraordinary in a short period of time. Consistency is the key. And when we started out, you know, some, you know, Free Bird can't make this day, Chamath can't make this day. Whatever. Now, nobody misses every Thursday. It's locked in. Nobody misses whether I'm in Japan, skiing or Italy, we're all in. And that's the way to do it. And hey, when Are we going to get this Megyn Kelly Con? That's what you need to do. MK con with the G and Ts, sell a thousand tickets, get all your fans. Where I would come to MK Con.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

This is where Jason just embarrasses himself. He just. He starts off. So I got ideas.

[Jason Calacanis]

I have ideas for Megan.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

If you actually crack your performance on this show, it starts off and then it just crashes. Ashes.

[Megyn Kelly]

I feel really good about our relationship, though. I feel like my relationship with J Cal has come full circle. Look at us now. It really is now.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

By the way, guys, there's a. Just. Just to clean up on this, there's an incredible paper published by TikTok, the engineers at TikTok about how they do personalization and their algorithm. And this is what made me think about this, which is, why don't I have the choice to opt into it now? The interesting thing that they do that nobody else does is no matter what your content preferences are, they will always seed you with something that's a little bit off topic, slash off brand, slash off interest. Because they're always trying to get this, you know, this more visceral reaction to do you engage in it or not? And it's just an insight to me that even if you are one way, the most valuable algorithms that we all need to make content on top of need to get that right, which is how do you expose it? Even if you're exposing it to someone that just viscerally disagrees, but it just makes the content more valuable and it makes the service better. And I think that that's like the next big turn. That's the version two of that Raptor engine that we all need to get right.

[Megyn Kelly]

That makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's been interesting the past couple years when Facebook de emphasized news. It used to be such an important platform for people who were in news really kind of before we all came into this space, it was very important. Like for Ben, I know when he was building his show, it was extremely important Facebook and then they just decided in the wake of all their wokeism and their annoying politics that they were gonna stop platforming news. And people kind of lost their news feed. A lot of people who use Facebook for news lost their news feed. And for us, we just started using Facebook to promote our more cultural content. We do a lot of cultural segments on the show and that wound up working out fine for us because that works very well on Facebook. Facebook likes those segments. They'll recirculate them a lot. It Is, you know, it's alternative content in the way, you know, my wife.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And I went down the rabbit hole of the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni thing.

[Megyn Kelly]

And you're saying it was a good rabbit hole?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, you got like, we, we lived inside of your clips for a while. Those were living rent free in our head.

[Jason Calacanis]

We talked.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, I like when you talk about Brian Friedman all the time. And I, I predict it's not going to end well for Blake Lively. I don't think, I think this will not go to trial. It's been set for trial, March of 26. There's no way they're going to let this. She's going to let this go to trial because she really will turn into Amber Heard, who had to leave the United States after that trial against Johnny Depp.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Did you guys watch, did you guys watch the movie? Did you guys like the movie?

[Megyn Kelly]

I did not watch the movie, nor do I have any desire.

[Jason Calacanis]

Do you know why it's so contentious, Megan? Because there's so little at stake. There's so little at stake in this Blake Lively movie.

[Megyn Kelly]

What do you mean?

[Jason Calacanis]

There's just like, who cares? There's a bunch of like, you know, Hollywood people fighting.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's a behind the curtain. That's why it is.

[Jason Calacanis]

That is interesting.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like I guess the PR stuff. She truly, I know this gets overused now, but she did fafo, like she thought she could blame all of her negative press on him. He's a weakling. She's Blake Lively with Ryan Reynolds, her dragon. And she decided I can't take one month worth of negative press, which she got, you know, generated, she says, by him, he says, by you and your badness. And she's so thin skinned, you know, like, look, look what happens to you. Look what happened to poor J. Cal. Even on this show, people get picked on when they're in the public eye, right? Like, look at, just Google Megan Kelly. You'll see terrible articles about me. It's part of being in the public eye. She's just used to being Hollywood's golden girl. And she had such thin skin that after being having a couple negative things happen to her for a month, she had to blame him. She decided to blame him and boy, did she open up a hornet's nest and learn. You be careful what you wish for because now you've got the fight you asked for and you're not winning it.

[Jason Calacanis]

I love my Jaders. My Jaders make me greater. I love them. That's why. That's Raiders, the Jaders. I love it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You branded the people that, that, that, that.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, absolutely. I mean, how do you think I have so many followers? All these people who hate me.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

How big is your.

[Jason Calacanis]

They all follow me. That's the thing, you know.

[Megyn Kelly]

Are you speaking of.

[Jason Calacanis]

They retweet you, you know, David. And it's so funny. I, I was never into politics. David inserted politics into the all in podcast because it's his passion. And I've actually enjoyed, you know, sparring with him over it, refining my positions on it. It's made me think about it in a much deeper way because I just never liked it. And you know, we have these like grand debates on Putin and Ukraine and you know, who's, who's.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's how I first heard Chamath's name early on. You were early to say. I just, I'm sorry, but I don't care. Like it's, you know, you below my line said it very plainly. But frankly, most of the country landed where you were then. Like, it's not that we don't care at all about what happened to the Ukrainian people, but it's like we have our own problems. We can't keep throwing good money after bad had on that conflict. And don't you think that's what Trump's really been saying these past couple of days? And Hegseth has been saying like, look, it's gotta end. It's we, of course Russia is going to have territory. They're not get. Ukraine's not getting back its entire borders and obviously Ukraine's not joining NATO. Pete Hegseth got a hard time from the press for actually saying that, but we all know that it's like, is it. Did he really give up the farm when we all know that Jamal Path.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No. And I think he said the quiet part out loud and you weren't allowed to say it because it was, you know, almost like some, it was like a virtue signaling test. You know, you have to maintain this line even though everybody behind the scenes already knew to your point the answer. I mean the, the crazy thing about Russia, Ukraine is a couple things. One is, you know, it pulled us in to a situation where the Europeans really should have been taking the lead and instead we had to have the opinion. Then we became the major funder. It turns out we sent 200 plus billion dollars of which at least 100 billion has gotten completely misplaced, which is unbelievable. And it just goes to show you that you can't even have a conversation about what's right or wrong. And so now do we need to audit what happens over there, probably. Do we need a resolution? Yeah, instantly. And I would rather us be able to take our mental energy and focus it internally. And I think that we. We weren't allowed to say that. To your point, when I said that, it was really more in the context of China and, you know, some of the things that are going on in China. But it also applied to Ukraine and applied to many things, and, you know, people tried to cancel me, and I thought, wow, this is crazy. And now it looks like most Americans, I think, to your point, believe that the right thing to do is just to focus internally and get our house in order.

[Megyn Kelly]

The great thing about that, Trump said yesterday he had direct talks with Putin that he thinks that he's ready to make a deal. He did it without Zelensky. Zelensky people said, how could you do it without Zelensky? He said, I gotta find out first whether Putin wants to make a deal. Now, I know he does want to make a deal. And then I talked to Zelensky, who also wants to make a deal. He doesn't think that Zelensky doesn't think that Putin genuinely wants to make a deal. But Trump's like, we're going to make a deal, all right? And no one's going to walk away thrilled, but we're not going to keep funding this thing. And Hegseth said, we're definitely not going to have American boots on the ground over there maintaining security. That's going to have to be Europe. That's Europe. And the Europeans are like, why weren't we on the call? It's like, would you. There's only one person who can get this done. And he happens to be in the White House oval, and he'll get it done. The Europeans will provide the security for it. He secured all that money that Ukraine took from us with earth materials that we need that are in Ukraine. It's the one thing they can give to us, right? He finally got us something for all this money.

[Jason Calacanis]

But here's the thing. Biden and I brought this up countless times with Sachs, and we had this very vibrant debate on it where I said, listen, this is a loan lease. Like, they are buying these weapons on loan, and they have to pay it back. And Sachs was like, you know, to his credit, like, that's never gonna happen. Biden's never gonna ask for the money back. It's gonna be a donation. We all know that. You know, Trump comes in, he cares about money. He cares about the balance sheet. He knows we have Issues around our solvency. And he said, you know what, I want the money back. It's a loan lease, which is what we did during World War II. And Ukraine's gonna pay every dollar back. If Ukraine pays every dollar back, we do a 10, 20 year. Ukraine can't join NATO for 10 years. No big deal. We can outlast Putin. And that's the thing you have to realize about these dictators. You know, they have a certain lifespan, they typically implode, they cause their own problems, as Putin and Xi and North Korea have done. The best thing is to contain them. And you know who's great at containing them and managing them? Trump. They respect him. He's a strong man. He's crazy. He's Captain Chaos. He saber rattles, he threatens them. They respect him and they're a little scared of him, I think. And if he gets all that money back from Ukraine, we will have protected democracy, we will have contained Putin, and, you know, all's well that ends well. So I really hope, and I actually think Trump's gonna pull it off. And I would give him a lot of credit when he does.

[Megyn Kelly]

I think we have a lot of good news. I mean, as good as we could ask for when it comes to wrapping up that conflict, because it just, it's gotta, it's gotta end.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's just at this point, give us our money back.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The long tail of that conflict, though, guys, is gonna play out over many decades in Europe, I think, think that the question is, well, can Europe change the playbook, meaning in the middle of that conflict, to basically just torpedo their ability to actually import energy to then still continue down the path of turning off domestic nuclear. France was the only one that basically said, this is crazy, I'm not going to do it, and then have to import all this energy from all over the world at all these exorbitant prices. At the same time, the economy is sort of very fragile. They, like, the European continent is in a lot of trouble. And these last three or four years have actually added a lot of fuel to the fire. So I think, like, you know, smart people need to have a better opportunity to just like, be smart in public and then have the public be able to absorb that and actually make decisions. That's why, that's why the. These things are nuts. Like, what's happened is crazy.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's a good transition. Smart people saying smart things to JD Vance back in Munich. Oh, yeah. With a truth bomb in front of the Europeans, who were reportedly just stunned in their seats, uncomfortable shuffling when it comes to free speech, which is, I mean, Europe has just been absolutely abysmal on and immigration, which take what I said about free speech times 10. So the sitting Vice President of the United States goes over there. These are allies, yes, but man, he did not mince words. Here's a little of JD Vance in Munich yesterday.

[JD Vance]

I've heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from, and of course that's important. But what has seemed a little bit less clear to me, and certainly, I think, to many of the citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you're defending yourselves for. What is the positive vision that animates the this shared security compact that we all believe is so important? And I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people. Europe faces many challenges, but the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump.

[Megyn Kelly]

Sorry, that was earlier today. But it's amazing to hear him say it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, I think so. I think he has to basically set this agenda very, very clearly. The Europeans are going to be at the forefront of, like, this next phase of very difficult decision making. I'll give you one example. The amount of rules and regulations that they make around climate change and the impact that it has economically, all over the world, including domestically, in their own countries, how are they going to deal with that now that we have to recognize nothing the Europeans do actually has a meaningful impact on climate. Climate. Whether you agree with it or not agree with it, it's irrelevant. You need to look at China and India. That's where the whole game is played. So if you can't say that inside of Europe, inside of the borders of Europe, how will you ever change the rules? That's an example. A second example. There is not a single company that's getting started today that has a desire to locate an office directly inside of the UK or Europe. Why? Because the regulatory framework will now come and really go after you if they don't like a single thing that you're doing. So what now happens to the European economy? They get deprived of their chance of having some small modicum of technological supremacy. What do you think happens to those economies? So if you add all of these things up, it all goes back to the root cause that JD's identifying. If you can't say it, you can't fix it. And so they have to decide what page they're on.

[Jason Calacanis]

And it's even worse than that, Chamath, if you think about the fact that they're not content to just have this regulation impact their citizens and to make unbelievably stupid decisions. Like the Germans turning off three of their remaining nuclear reactors and then building a pipeline from a dictator to buy oil directly from Russia. The French figured it out, they were 90% at the peak nuclear, now they're about 60 and about 20% renewables. They're totally energy independent. The European Union wants to regulate American companies. We have companies like Adobe wanted to buy a tiny company called figma for 10, 20, $20 billion. You know who stopped was the Europeans. It was the uk.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It was the uk.

[Jason Calacanis]

So yeah, they're going after our companies and what we're doing. My advice to those companies were, you know what, if you're Adobe or Figma, stop selling your product in the uk. Block the uk. It's a meaningless market. They're so deranged with the regulations, they want to have them apply to the rest of the world.

[Megyn Kelly]

And to Chermat's point, Elon was battling this. When it comes to free speech and X in Europe and the free speech battle, I mean there's, it does, it's a reminder of why we left England, why we as Americans said, you know what, the most important thing to us Amendment number one is free speech. And they don't have it anymore. It's all but dead in Europe. There was a great tablet magazine piece, I actually just pulled it in advance of today and it's, it's written by a guy named Paul du Quenoy and he goes on about what just happened in Germany with this compact magazine and how there's a rule in, in Germany, there's a law that says that they can shut you down, they can shut your speech down if they think that it is inconsistent with their constitutional order, the constitutional order of their country. And so they went in, they think this is a quote, far right magazine because it supports, supports this ADL party, sorry, AFD party that is very anti illegal immigration. And they went in, they seized, they have like 40,000 subscribers. They, they seized the offices. They basically took over the control of the whole thing and shut it down from publishing. The thought of that happening in the United States, I mean it's, there would be a full revolt, I'd like to think so. He's Speaking to the right audience there. They do need to hear it. And I'll just give you one more sound bite before I give it back to you. You mentioned their, you know, their insane green energy commitment at the expense of their own people. JD tied that and the free speech together in Sat 30.

[JD Vance]

And expressing opinions isn't election interference even when people express views outside your own country and even when those people are very influential. And trust me, I say this with all humor. If American Democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk, what no democracy, American, German or European will survive is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

This is. He's completely right. I'll give you an example of this. You know, I've, I've been to 10 downing a couple of times in the last four or five years. With all of the relationships that I've tried to build in Europe and in the uk, I think Greta Thunberg has met with more of the leaders there than I have. Multiplied by like 10. Now that's fine and good for Greta Thunberg, but, but I think the point is that there is just this incredible animated energy to wrap yourself around these moral ideals without questioning whether they were legitimate. And I don't exactly know why it happened or where it came from, but JD's right. You need, at some point you just got to rip the band aid off and course correct. And I think Europe's at that moment. America is at that moment, we're clearly doing it. And you can tell that they are just so viscerally concerned. And it just, it really pushes against the grain of 20 or 30 years of embedded behavior. But I think Europeans are capable of it. They just need to figure out that it's, it's existential as well for them.

[Megyn Kelly]

I think they're starting to feel it, though, in the same way we reached our boiling point and reelected Trump. You know the woman JD mentioned, a different man who was arrested for praying outside of an abortion clinic. I remember this video. It's a woman, her name was Isabel Vaughn Spruce. She was silently praying, guys. In her head, she's sitting there silently praying. They can't come over and say, what are you praying in your head? What are you doing? She's like, I'm silently praying in my head outside of an abortion clinic. You have to go. They arrested her. That's what it's come to across the Pond in, you know, a distant relative now of the United States. We don't, I don't think we can really even understand this, although we're getting a little dangerously close in incident after incident in throwing the book at people who are praying outside of abortion clinics here to the point where Trump had to pardon some of them. You know, it's not nearly as bad as it is overseas, but I think you're right. What do you think, J. Cal that they're reaching their breaking point. The citizenry has had enough of this.

[Jason Calacanis]

I don't know where America, you know, or how we got onto this like weird side quest that we had to police speech. When I grew up, UCLA was out there saying we're gonna let the Ku Klux Klan march down, you know, Main street because that's better to defend uncomfortable speech than lose freedom of speech. It's a reason why we put this.

[Megyn Kelly]

Number in party lines.

[Jason Calacanis]

We believe that 100%. That was a Democratic position. In fact, and by the way, the border, it was the Republicans position but 15, 20 years ago that we should have an open border because they wanted to reap the benefits of NAFTA and free trade. So these parties have just flip flopped their positions. And the idea that Americans can't say what they want even if it's unpopular, is crazy. You look at, you brought up Zuckerberg before he was more than willing under Biden, Kamala, everybody to ban speech on his platform. YouTube would put put warnings on the all in podcast. When we talked about the science behind Covid, like, you really need to give people a warning like Friedberg's a scientist. Like we're gonna. You're warning people, blocking content. It makes no sense. If Kanye west, as but one recent example, is a racist, mentally ill whatever he is, and he posts crazy stuff, we can all see it. Now we know Kanye's mentally ill and. Or he's a huge fan of Hitler's. Great. Now we know we don't have to do business with him. I always love the fact that these idiot racist lunatics would out themselves. That's good. And it's good for our kids and everybody else to see. Hey, here's racist people. Here's racist evil people. They exist in the world. They're nuts. There they are. And you can ignore them. You can change the channel. If you don't like what somebody's saying, you can listen or you can create your own media today and counter it. You could write an essay, you could do your own monologue on your own podcast. Podcast. And and, you know, why. Why silence people? I don't. I don't understand what the point is. It. It basically says to me, you can't win the argument or you're not willing to engage the argument.

[Megyn Kelly]

You're too afraid to hear the words. I agree with you on Conway, on Kanye. I think he's. Or, yay. He's now in the middle of another mental health episode. I think that's what this bizarre latest behavior. It is sad. I. I've said along. I don't understand. People should stop platforming him like this. Like he's, you know, like he. During his last meltdown, he was on News Nation and it was like, don't try to monetize his mental break. Which is very clear. He's in the midst of. We all know he's got this issue.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's so interesting you bring this point up as a broadcaster. Broadcaster, broadcaster. I had a conversation with Lex, and I was talking to Lex. He's like, should I have Kanye on. I'm going to try to get through to him. I said, lex, you're a great interviewer. We're friends. He's mentally ill, and you're gonna platform. I guarantee you, in the first hour or two, he's gonna say something so crazy, and then you're gonna be responsible for propagating it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Guys, where's the balance between free speech and platforming and de. Platforming then?

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, if you know the person's got mental illness, I mean, giving them a platform.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

How do you know Jason?

[Jason Calacanis]

Have you watched him and have you heard his family say he's having an episode?

[Megyn Kelly]

His family is. Kim Kardashian says he's bipolar and she was married to him for, what, 10 years? Like, I take her at a word on that. And I know he's denied it, that I should say that, but it does seem he goes through these bouts of very bizarre behavior that don't necessarily match up with how he is the rest of the time. I mean, maybe it is just him. I just. If there's any doubt about the mental wellness of the person, I. I wouldn't put him on. I just. I would be too worried about exploiting a weak moment, you know, like a low moment for the person mentally. In the same way that you can't. I don't know if you guys have ever had somebody that, you know, a friend or family who's actually dealing with mental illness. You can't get through to them. You can't say you're having a mental episode. Please stop saying that. You know, they're not reachable, so it's kind of like the whole thing is pointless, other than for just like, voyeurism sake. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today, you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the 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.

[Jason Calacanis]

Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Free offer details apply.

[Megyn Kelly]

There's another podcast with the very annoying Kara Swisher and her partner Scott Galloway. I know that decided it would be a great idea to arrest the Doge workers under Elon. I mean, Scott Galloway openly called for them to be arrested and Elon responded on X saying Swisher and Galloway are threatening talented young software engineers who gave up high compensation for death threats in order to help the American people. Shame on them, Swisher and Galloway. Cruel, mean and deceitful human beings that they are. Then those two went back on their podcast and said the following in SOT 10 like, they traded it because this.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Is what they want to do and they were enthusiastically doing it.

[Megyn Kelly]

And we don't have to like them.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And just by not liking them, we're not threatening them. So that's fucking nonsense. And neither. You didn't threaten them in any way. And it's a larger part of his strategy of intimidating journalists. They're trying. He's trying to shut us up. He's going to accuse me of overreaching.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

Then come after me to go after the woman.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, it.

[Jason Calacanis]

It shows one of two things. Either you're weak or you're have an incredible bias. I misogynist. Let's just get to the source here. It's just so clear. The guy wants to me.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I mean, that's what I said.

[Megyn Kelly]

The sexual tension is.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I get it, I get it.

[Jason Calacanis]

And he's rich.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

There is a shot here. What is that?

[Jason Calacanis]

I mean, it's irrelevant.

[Megyn Kelly]

You explain it to me, she says she's the tech journalist. She's the one who covers your industry better than anyone.

[Jason Calacanis]

You know, she was. I was friendly with her for a long time with Karen Swisher, and I'm sorry, Kara Same. And, you know, she kind of. When she was with Walt Mossberg, you know, she really focused on the tech, the business. She was a little spicy on the margins as a broadcaster. But when she partnered with Scott Galloway, the whole thing went really dark. And, you know, he. I have some sympathy for him. He's talked about mental illness, depression, whatever, very publicly on his podcast. And, you know, I think he's so desperate to, you know, get ratings. And they're making, you know, decent money, I think, from their podcast. They've been talking about, you know, oh, they're making eight figures with their new deal or whatever. They. They just do Elon for clicks. Right. In the NBA, I'm a Nick fan, we have an expression, Knicks for clicks. You get a lot of clicks if you talk about the Knicks, because a big market, you get a lot of views if you trash Elon. But, you know, I do think, you know, they're saying some things that are truly offensive and then. Which is fine. But he also was, like, making jokes about Trump being assassinated. I thought that was incredibly poor taste. Like, you really shouldn't make jokes about the, you know, potential assassination of the president.

[Megyn Kelly]

Especially this president.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, it's like, happened twice. And, you know, I think he's off the deep end. You know, people send me clips and they go viral and stuff like that. That.

[Megyn Kelly]

But she's making a cottage industry out of being this alleged Elon expert because she's interviewed him. I mean, so has Don Lemon. Doesn't make him an Elon expert.

[Jason Calacanis]

I. I was with Elon, like, the two or three times she interviewed him, like, because we're friends and we hang and it's irrelevant and, you know, like, trading on other people's brand, like, just go build something in the world. Go do something yourself. And I think these commenters are not actually in the arena, as my friend Chamath likes to say. They're not building something. So they just want to te people down and it's good for ratings or whatever. But it just seems super illogical because to what we were just talking about with Germany and Europe. They're just out of sync with how.

[Megyn Kelly]

People think we have bigger problems.

[Jason Calacanis]

They're super out of sync, and they're not objective. You know, I can come on here and I can talk about, hey, here's where we differ in the border and you can have an intelligent conversation about it. I think they're just off the deep end with Elon derangement syndrome, Trump derangement syndrome. I think they're just, just really scared of what's going to happen during this presidency. I can tell you what's going to happen during this presidency, exactly what happened the last time. It's going to be a bit chaotic. Stock market's going to go up. We're going to balance the budget a bit. He'll stop the wars. He's good at not starting wars and he's good at stopping them. And I think it'll be a relatively successful presidency and then somebody else will win and life will go on. This idea that, man, Trump's going to destroy the world is crazy. Hopefully he destroyed the world last time.

[Megyn Kelly]

They're calling JD48, which I like and fully support. I gotta run. I'm up against the clock. You guys, what a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming on together. This was fun.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Thanks, man.

[Jason Calacanis]

Good times.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Happy Valentine's.

[Jason Calacanis]

Valentine's Day. Yeah. We could do this on Valentine's Day.

[Megyn Kelly]

Tradition, too. Absolutely. You're booked. Consider yourselves booked. See you next year.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Have a wonderful day.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, you too. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.

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