← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
RFK Confirmed, Trump Makes Kennedy Center "Hot" Again, and Unearthed Blake Lively Video, with Ruthless Podcast | Ep. 1007
01:39:58
Megyn Kelly is joined by Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, hosts of the Ruthless podcast, to break down why the left’s lawfare against Trump's agenda is failing, the way it's disrupting his administration already, the left's resistance to attempts to cut bureaucracy, waste, and fraud, institutional capture in D.C., how Trump's administration is fighting judicial activism, Sen. Mitch McConnell as the only Republican to vote against RFK and Tulsi, McConnell's political relationship with Trump, Megyn's direct role in helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s monumental comeback from deplatformed everywhere to HHS Secretary, the way the Biden White House worked with the media to make RFK into a villain, the role of independent media in RFK's rise again, Trump’s plan to make the Kennedy Center "hot" again, how he’s cutting out the "woke-y" agenda, Trump's cultural relevance from his performances on SNL and the Emmys, the latest drama in the legal fight between Blake L...
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- [00:00]
Megyn Kelly
Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years.
- [00:05]
Josh Holmes
We know because Multicare has been here.
- [00:08]
Megyn Kelly
Guided by a single making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services, and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@mycare.org 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. As President Trump declared on Truth Social, three great weeks, perhaps the best ever. And it honestly might be, at least when it comes to presidential politics. And this morning, an incredible win for the Make America Healthy Again movement. The Senate voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This just happened on the Senate floor this vote.
- [01:12]
Josh Holmes
The A's are 52.
- [01:13]
Michael Duncan
The nays are 48. The confirmation is confirmed.
- [01:20]
Megyn Kelly
There was one holdout on the Republican side again, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Now he's gone against Hegseth, he's gone against Tulsi, and he's gone against rfkj. Even when here with rfkj, Murkowski and Collins, and with Tulsi, those two voted for her. So he's become the chief antagonist to Trump among Republicans. But nobody's following him. I mean, he's voting like a Democrat. And I'm not sure exactly what he's up to. We have the perfect guest to ask, though, today. Yesterday, Tulsi Gabbard was sworn in as the President's Director of National Intelligence. We mentioned that to you. We will get into the Trump cabinet. Plus an insurrection at the Kennedy center as Trump makes America hot again. We'll explain with the fellows from Ruthless today, Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook. You can find all of their work@ ruthless podcast.com and congratulations are in order. Ruthless is taping its 500th episode live on February 19th in Washington, D.C. four 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 the 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 to donewithdebt.com that's donewithdebt.com guys. Welcome back.
- [03:39]
Josh Holmes
Oh, it's so good to be with you, Megan. Thank you for having us. Very, very excited.
- [03:44]
Michael Duncan
Now, you'll notice there's an empty.
- [03:46]
Megyn Kelly
The last time. Wasn't he late the last time?
- [03:49]
John Ashbrook
Yeah, can you believe it?
- [03:50]
Michael Duncan
Every time.
- [03:51]
Megyn Kelly
After all, you've got to come. I think he should close in. Seriously, I love. He can. This is disrespectful, Holmes. You should move on over. We'll just shoot the three of you. Fuck Smug. He can come to the next one.
- [04:05]
John Ashbrook
Here he comes.
- [04:06]
Smug
Hold on.
- [04:07]
Josh Holmes
Here's our. Here's our chairman of standards and ethics here at the Ruthless Variety Program.
- [04:11]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, Smug, let's wait until he get his ears in. And then now we're going to figure out why he's late again. Now, Smug, you understand that the Megyn Kelly show has millions, millions of listeners, and we're one of the top shows in the country, both overall and certainly within news. What is it about making the 12 o'clock deadline that seems impossible for you?
- [04:32]
Smug
Yeah, so one of the reasons I chose to get a house in North Carolina is I don't have to deal with D.C. and D.C. won't stop dealing with me. But I do apologize for being late again.
- [04:45]
Megyn Kelly
Again. I don't get mad after the first time, but, like, this is a pattern. Next time you're banned. That's it. We have banned people for not making their heads. They're very popular people who continue to fuck us over. Sorry, I'm in a mood today. It's crazy. I'm actually not irritated at you. Smug. I love irritated. I'm irritated at the lawfare that is being unleashed against Trump's agenda at every turn. And now it's like this administration is having to play whack a mole in the courts instead of just enacting the people's will. Every day it's another lawsuit to try to stop what Trump clearly has the power to do. And what I see after the whole morning researching this bullshit. Okay, that's like Three swears within the first three minutes. My apologies to the people who have their kids watching this, is that Trump's winning. He's winning these cases. Right? But think of the distraction by his lawyers, by his federal agencies. Everything Elon's doing, they're trying to stop bit by bit. We can't. And all Elon's doing right now is trying to get information. What is the treasury paying out to whom? All of Trump's cabinet heads, like Treasury, EPA out there, like what. What grants have we given in the, in the waning days of the Biden administration? And to whom against the taxpayers wish. It's just boondock. They've just been like throwing money off of a sinking ship. The Biden administration, Trump and Elon are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's hold on, let's just see. We don't approve this and we can stop it. That the Democrats sue them, saying you have to allot the funds because Biden said so or Congress said so, and you're not even allowed to access who's getting paid what by whom in some of these agencies. And bit by bit, Trump is winning and will continue to win. But this is the most subversive shit. Okay, that's, that's four. That's four within the first four minutes.
- [06:41]
Josh Holmes
So keep it rolling.
- [06:43]
Megyn Kelly
Who would like to kick it off on that?
- [06:46]
Josh Holmes
Well, look, Megan, I think on one hand you're absolutely right. It is completely nonsense. And the fact that there is a cottage industry of liberal funded think tanks and 501 C4s, they're gonna make a mess out of everything. It's just a reality. And when you can't win politically, Democrats try to do it through the courts. I mean, that's why the first Trump administration was so important, that they reshaped an awful lot of courts. But of course they're venue shopping here and they're trying to find the last vestiges of liberal courtship.
- [07:17]
Michael Duncan
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there is a cottage industry of NGOs and Libs, but there's also a mindset in Washington D.C. that this money somehow belongs to them. They forget that people work so hard for what they earn, and it's taken from them at gunpoint every April 15th. And people are just hoping that somebody in government will spend it wisely. And what we've seen over the last few decades is that it hasn't been spent wisely. And Elon Musk and President Trump are doing everything they can to expose the waste, fraud and abuse that is rampant in our government. And if they weren't doing that right now. I mean, I shudder to think about what would be happening this year and how much more of everybody who's listening to this show's money that they turn in.
- [08:04]
John Ashbrook
Ashbrook brings up a really good point about what really is the deep state. I think in the common vernacular, we've come to think of the deep state as this intelligence apparatus or this blob that really impeded the success of Donald Trump in his first administration. But it's wider than that. It's this permanent bureaucracy that exists in Washington D to stop progress, to stop the government from being efficient or any change, any change at all.
- [08:32]
Josh Holmes
Right.
- [08:32]
John Ashbrook
And so, I mean, that's what Elon Musk and Donald Trump are up against is all of these bureaucrats who've suckled at the teat of government for their entire lives and they don't want that to change.
- [08:42]
Megyn Kelly
Wow, we got a little like R rated there.
- [08:45]
John Ashbrook
Yeah, I think I thought you'd appreciate that.
- [08:48]
Megyn Kelly
Following your lead, Megan, we're keeping it very spicy. Suckled at the teat. Okay. I feel like I'm following Kanye West's X feed. Okay. My, my eyes have not recovered from what I saw over the weekend. Here are just a couple of examples. Okay, I'm going to give you. You recall that they sued to stop Elon his so called fork in the road offering. Saying to all these federal fat employees, some are skinny, I mean fat cat. I mean like sitting there on the taxpayer dime there many not doing much, you know, just sort of getting to be an aging bureaucrat on our dime. Said, if you guys want to leave the federal government, go with God. There's your off ramp. Go. And we'll actually give you a nice little package. Goodbye. We'll pay you through March, eight months of payment. We which is more than you would normally get and you know, peace out. And it turns out now the final number is 75,000 bureaucrats took the deal. So we're 75,000 people slimmer in the federal bureaucracy ranks. But not before they tried to sue him. This federal employees union sued him to say you can't offer that. I mean, it's ridiculous. Like no one's being forced to take it. It was a voluntary thing. You can't offer that because you don't technically have funding through March or past, past March, whatever, to get us to eight months. That was the argument. Anyway, they just lost that. Now a federal judge is allowing it. The so called fork in the road offer stands. The final number of retirees is 75. Thousand and Elon won that fight. Then there was the next one where they sued the Trump administration. Twenty blue states challenged this ombudsman directive. They're the ones who kind of run, run personnel at the federal level. They challenged the OMB directive to freeze federal funding. OMB said, let's just, we're not just going to stop paying like all, all this money out into all these plans until we can figure out what we're spending money on. And he got sued for doing that. And then the Trump administration just won that one too, because they issued a TRO stopping the, they stopping the stopping of the funding. So it had to resume. And at the next hearing, the judge said, nevermind, I'm gonna lift my temporary restraining order. You can do what you want, so that's gonna stop as well. You can't force Trump to spend money on programs that he doesn't know what's in them or whether he approves of them. This is all within the executive branch. All within the executive branch. So he, they lost that one too. And you know, bit by bit, they're gonna lose most of these. I said the other day, I think it'll be nine out of 10. They won't lose all, but they're losing most of them. Meanwhile, they're slow rolling the Trump agenda. And you know, Trump's irritated. He, oh, there's the other thing. So he went and he, he clawed back, that was it, 59 million that we gave to New York City to, to pay for the illegal immigrants to enjoy their stay at the Roosevelt Hotel. And otherwise we clawed it back. Kristi Noem got it out of the New York City coffers and said, we're taking it back. Now New York's going to sue the federal government for, quote, stealing our money. Our, the New York City taxpayers. That's our money, that's the federal government. It's just, it's not going to be nonstop lawfare. And you guys know how mired that shit can get. It can just take up all of your energy.
- [12:25]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, no question about it. And that money, by the way, was FEMA money. And tell the people of western North Carolina, right? Smug.
- [12:31]
Smug
That's the thing is we've gone through four years of a federal government that completely ignored its own citizens, I mean, American citizens. And all this money is being shoveled to Manhattan, some of the most expensive real estate on earth to house illegal aliens in hotels that are charging 700 a night at full occupancy. So the hotel owners love this deal. The people of New York who have suffered. I've had multiple friends. I've had family members who left New York City because of all the crime that's going on there. So the, the citizens weren't concern of the government. And now you actually have a president who cares about the citizens. And what you're seeing is these entrenched interests trying to keep the status quo that they've had of American citizens being ignored. Western North Carolina is a prime example of how FEMA pretty much abandoned those people. And we have examples of, for political reasons, they were abandoned, but they want the 59 million to be paid to people who broke the law and entered the country. It doesn't make sense.
- [13:23]
John Ashbrook
Yeah, all These liberal, entrenched NGOs are like a JG Wentworth commercial. They're like, it's my money and I want it now.
- [13:31]
Megyn Kelly
Can you guys explain those as. As Washington insiders? Can you explain the NGO graft?
- [13:38]
Josh Holmes
Oh, it's. It's fantastic. I mean, this is, this is one of the progressive left's biggest vic. Multi decade victories in the world. NGOs, and, and what you do through like USAID, which has come under great scrutiny over the last two years or last two, two weeks, I should say. The initial intent behind all of it is, is sort of soft power. Right. Whereas the United States can exert economic leverage against people who may not have our best interests in mind in a bunch of regions throughout the world where we need some help, whether it's a footprint from the United States, it's against terrorism, as it was for much of the first 20 years, I guess, of this century, you could have programs that were set up to basically buy some influence within a. A country that could be helpful or unhelpful. The intent was right. What happened over time is the progressive left took this as a pot of money to Social engineer internationally. And because it was so not prescriptive in terms of where they were awarding this money, they have these NGOs that are like in Tanzania doing transgender studies.
- [14:50]
Michael Duncan
Right.
- [14:51]
Josh Holmes
And it's true.
- [14:52]
Megyn Kelly
It's literally.
- [14:53]
Josh Holmes
No, literally, literally. And the more you dig into it, the more you find out that the use of this money is not about keeping the American people safe at all. There is some of that. And those people, unfortunately, have to suffer the same result as everybody else because of what the progressive left has done and perverted this entire program to a point where, I mean, there's not a single American taxpayer that would agree with 9/10 of what Elon Musk has talked about in terms of where this Money is going right?
- [15:28]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, for sure. These cuts are going to have majority support. And so far the polling shows they have majority support. Elon struggling somewhat in his approval ratings, depending on who you ask, which pollster you ask. But people like Doge and they like cuts and they're not on the side of the federal bureaucrats and they love Trump. I mean, his numbers are great. I mean, Elon's the forward facing, you know, sort of picture of all this. So he, and he's controversial guy just because of X and so on. So liberals don't like him. To your point, smug. Trump said something very similar yesterday, like he's had enough of the nonsense of funneling all this money to these left wing causes, to these illegal immigrants and not to actual Americans who are suffering. Here is Sat 6, because this is.
- [16:12]
Donald Trump
A massive fraud that's taken place. And then you have judges that are activists and they sit there and they say, oh, as an example, $59 million going to a little small group in New York City. You get nothing. Going to North Carolina to help. Nothing. They say, we don't have any money because they've given it away on the border. But you have nothing. What they did to North Carolina is a shame. And then they sent $59 million to New York City for a hotel, for a little, a little bit of nothing. What they've done, a hotel that was not luxury, that's getting luxury rates for migrants where they're making a fortune. And we catch them, we catch them and. But a judge says, well, even though it may be a fraud, you have to send the money in anyway. Send the money. I said, wait a minute, we have money that shouldn't go because we caught it before it was sent out, but they want the money to go anyway. And I think you're going to have a lot of things to look at. Pam.
- [17:15]
Megyn Kelly
Pam Bondi, who. Yeah, that's a fight. Her own offensive lawfare against some of these excesses. Go ahead, Ashbrick.
- [17:24]
Michael Duncan
I was just gonna say, I think that's a fight that the President welcomes. You know, you have these NGOs protecting their money. And the way Josh said it is exactly right. Something that started out in the right direction was corrupted by the left. And that's how you get these ridiculous things, like $75,000 for a trans musical. In Ireland, they already have Riverdance. I don't know why we're supposed to be spending American taxpayer dollars for a trans musical. And every single one of these things that the left is fighting, like the surgeries In Nicaragua, we don't need a sex change. Pay for a sex change for Nicaraguans. You know what I mean? People in North Carolina could use the money.
- [18:09]
Josh Holmes
That's a whole new connotation on the Sandinistas, isn't it?
- [18:14]
Megyn Kelly
That's a really good point about Riverdance. And then we have that for free. We didn't have to subsidize that. All right, I want to play one other soundbite. Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, was getting into some of this yesterday. Here she is in Saudi.
- [18:29]
Caroline Levitt
Many outlets in this room have been fear mongering the American people into believing there is a constitutional crisis taking place here at the White House. I've been hearing those words a lot lately. But in fact, the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branches, where district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump's basic executive authority. We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law. And they have issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration in the past 14 days, often without citing any evidence or grounds for their lawsuits. This is part of a larger concerted effort by Democrat activists and nothing more than the continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump. Quick news flash to these liberal judges who are supporting their obstructionist efforts. 77 million Americans voted to elect this president, and each injunction is an abuse of the rule of law and an attempt to thwart the will of the people. As the president clearly stated in the Oval Office yesterday, we will comply with the law in the courts, but we will also continue to seek every legal remedy to ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure President Trump's policies can be enacted.
- [19:53]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, now here's where I want to go on this point. She. They are winning the law fair. But with every injunction saying you can't review spending, you can't review personnel, you have to restore trans web pages at the cdc. I mean, it's crazy, the micromanaging that these federal courts are trying to do of the executive branch. We are getting closer to the executive branch, really being forced to consider telling the judicial branch to pound sand. That's. I mean, that is potential crisis. I don't know. It's, I don't consider it constitutional crisis until we get to the Supreme Court. But how much does the Trump administration need to take? Like it. How can, how do they have to listen to these federal judges saying, put that web page back up. What in the actual f. And it's happening. There's over, over 50 lawsuits filed so far. Lots of these judges are Obama appointees, Clinton appointees who are Biden appointees, who are far left activists who are just having some fun trying to thwart the Trump agenda. And I, I do think at some point the Trump administration may be, even though Trump's saying, I will abide by the rulings, I'm not looking to thwart the rule of law in any way, either directly with a written statute or if it's issued against me by a judge. But at some point, if this continues, it's almost like the Trump administration is not going to have a choice, are they? I'll give you another example. Over the weekend, the Treasury Department got issued a temporary restraining order, which you can get, you get like that. You go into, you don't even need opposing counsel. What happens is you go into court and you say, Elon is letting big balls take a look at people's, you know, financial information. And big balls doesn't have the security clearances. And judge, you need to stop that right now. The judge doesn't say, oh, get Elon and Trump's and Treasury's lawyer in here. The judge just says, okay, I issue a temporary restraining order. You can always get a temporary restraining order without opposing counsel. That's how you normally do it. And then that just stays in place for like 48 hours or 72 hours until both parties can get in. It just sort of preserves the status quo until you can get to the preliminary hearing. So the judge issued this tro, but in this tro, the judge said, okay, stop, stop letting big balls and anybody else look at the treasury information and shred all documents you've gotten already, shred everything. So this judge, who by the way, wasn't even the real assigned judge on this case, is just like a temporary fill in. And a lefty appointed by, I think Obama tells them, you have to undermine all the work you've done and undo everything you've done by pulling records that you're going to use to figure out where we're spending the people's money before we even have a real hearing on the case, before your lawyers really had had any chance whatsoever to defend you. Right. That's activism. And in the why should the Trump administration actually be forced to start shredding documents before it's even had a lawyer appear before a judge? Like they're trying to create a constitutional crisis is I guess, the point I'm making.
- [23:10]
Smug
So here's something that we've been warning about on the show for years. It's been widely reported that the left Soros, you know, even overseas billionaire donors to the left have put in place prosecutors across the country, the Soros prosecutors that have been widely reported. But there's been a similar problem with judges. A prime example, one of the judges at the forefront of trying to subvert the will of the American people and fight President Trump is Jack McConnell in Rhode Island. Now, Jack McConnell was a major donor to both senators from Rhode island, including Sheldon Whitehouse, who after he donated the money, then nominated him to be a judge. So they have their own patronage system and they've used that to capture a significant portion of, of the judgeships in this country. So when you see this kind of behavior, like you said, it's blatantly against the Constitution. What they're trying to do here, they're subverting the will of the American people. But that patronage system is almost like the fail safe that the Democrats have put in control. That if there's ever a Republican in office, if someone ever tries to stop the gravy train that we've been rolling with, we have this as our last line of defense.
- [24:13]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, a big part of the progressive left's agenda and what they've tried to accomplish basically since 1960 is institutional capture. And it goes everywhere from corporate America, entertainment industry, higher education, to in this case, one of the three branches of the federal government. And this is why it was so important that what happened from 2017 to 2021 in terms of appellate court judges and the Supreme Court is ultimately what they've been trying to do at this federal court level, district court level, is have what you're seeing playing out in front of everybody right now, which is just a leftist agenda with no basis in now because of the work that Donald Trump did the first four years. This is gonna run up against a real life problem for the left in that they've got a whole bunch of courts throughout this country at the appellate level that actually interpret the law. Right. And I think to your point, it's a good one, Megan. Like, yes, it just, it delays the process and it makes everybody focused on the wrong things here. But I mean, your audience should have at least a little bit of confidence in that. Because of the first four years of work that the Trump administration has done, we will ultimately get to the right place. I mean, the idea that you can't actually look to see if 175-year-old American is still receiving Social Security and not, I don't know, blow the whistle on that for fear that a 40 year old somewhere is probably not gonna get their Social Security because they've been exhausted by fraud for generations before them. Like that is the kind of thing that is the reason you elect presidents. And it's gonna be thrown out, actually punted out of court at some level. But it doesn't completely alleviate the discomfort at the front end.
- [26:01]
Megyn Kelly
And it's so annoying listening to the press coverage of it because they just say, oh, constitutional crisis, you know, because of that no finance tweet and because they just don't like Trump and because Trump's not rolling over in these court proceedings. But what's, what's really happened here is we've had a dereliction of duty and overstepping of the authority by the Biden and other, I'm sure leftist administrations prior. We know that happened during Obama and Trump got smart by, by, you know, Trump 2.0 when it comes to fighting the administrative state. And bit by bit he is undoing their soft power agenda. He's, he now knows like where the soft spot in the belly is and he's sticking the knife in and trying to get back our funds and stop this crazy agenda that nobody voted for that's been rolling forward administration under administration doesn't matter whether it's a Republican or Dem at the top. And man, are they pissed. Now they're like, now it's on, you know, now you're, you're actually going to things we care about which is like our slush funds. So I think he will prevail, prevail on the law front, on the law fair. But man, it's going to be a slugfest. And meantime they are staying on the offense, which is good. Like Pam Bondi yesterday she announced, on the heels of announcing they're suing Illinois for being a sanctuary state and Chicago as sanctuary city, saying you can't do that. There's, you know, thanks to the supremacy clause, you actually do have to work with us on federal laws. You can't actively undermine us on housing illegals and not turning over illegals that you know are illegals. Now. She filed a lawsuit against New York state, including Governor Kathy Hochul, for similar reasons when it comes to illegals in particular, that she's taking issue with the fact that they're issuing illegals driver's licenses. And then when the feds call up saying, do you have an illegal immigrant by the name of whatever, Julio something instead of saying, oh yeah, we have him right here at the Roosevelt Hotel which is where Lake and Riley's would be murderer stayed on the taxpayer's dime. Instead of saying, yeah, he's at the Roosevelt, will, you know, go head over or even in New York jail, you know, at Rikers for having committed a crime, they say, we're not going to tell you. And then they notify the illegal. New York then calls the illegal at the Roosevelt or, or notifies him at Rikers to say, hey, FYI, the feds are looking for you. So if they can flee, they do. And what happened with Lake and Riley's murderer? I don't know that that notification happened with him, but he was staying at the Roosevelt on our dime. And then on our dime, we flew him down south and that's where he murdered Lake and Riley in Georgia. All funded by us. So she is trying Pam Bondi now to stay on offense. In addition to having. She's the one who's going to have to defend all this bullshit happening against Elon, against Treasury, against all these programs that they're trying to look into now, she's also trying to stay on offense by going after Illinois, by going after New York. And she's going to have these other battles on her hand, on her hands as they continue in places like Maine and Minnesota. And there's a third state that I can't remember right now that are saying they're not going to comply with the gender executive orders or President Trump's. Yeah. To California or even the federal District court judges ruling, which applies nationwide, that Biden's changes to Title nine are void and illegal, which means boys cannot play in girls sports in K through 12 education because it's, it's a discrimination. And that's a statute that protects girls in sports and their right to equal participation. Anyway, what we have is open flouting of the law by the Democrats. I mean, it's ubiquitous flouting coast to coast. And I mean, it's. I guess it's a great thing. It's being exposed in the way it is. But I think most people, you guys tell me in the audience will tell me, are like, it's a lot.
- [30:05]
Michael Duncan
My head hurts, Megan. The worst thing about it is that these bureaucrats are continuing to flout the law. I don't know if you saw it, but there is a story about some people working in the FBI who tipped off a bunch of Venezuelan gang members in California that ICE is coming after you. They want to remove gang members from this country. Here is the date. They're gonna be there. Here is where they're gonna go, you guys should get out of there now. I'm telling you, like, for the Biden administration to do that, that is what we expect. But, like, the thought that people who are working for this government, working for taxpayers, are tipping off gang members in California and telling them that they should get out of there before ICE can move them out of the country. I mean, Pam Bondi has been unequivocal on this, and I hope to God she wins. And I hope to God she roots out all of these problems within our own government that exist today that are stopping the progress to keep Americans safe. And I hope Trump wins. I mean, it is so important that they win this fight.
- [31:15]
Josh Holmes
Well, I think there's good news on that, Megan. I mean, look, all this stuff, everything is hard. And they make their whole goal on the left is try to make any change extremely hard. Here's the good news. If you just do these things, these are things that the American people want done. But when you have a vocal opposition, then the American people make a political choice.
- [31:36]
John Ashbrook
Right?
- [31:36]
Josh Holmes
And what you've seen over the first three and a half weeks of this administration is everything they've done, from transgender sports to securing the border to deporting illegals to, you name it, it is a 60% proposition in this country in terms of where the American people are. And I think you're seeing a real life realignment as a result. Democrats have always, always been able to rely on a split, totally partisan country in order to safeguard what they wanna do. But now that they're having this fight, all these fights out in public, they're losing traction. And you can see it when you've got a bunch of public employees who are in the middle of a Tuesday out singing union chants about how they're being treated unfairly, being paid eight months for free to leave with a full retirement and everything. Exactly what the American people were talking about when they wanted this whole thing shaken up. But now they get to see it. Now they get to see it. It's in Technicolor for everyone. That creates political realignment in a way that I don't think we've seen, at least not in my career in politics.
- [32:43]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. It could be generational. That's a very good point, by the way, since we are relentlessly factual here at the MK Show. The Trans Opera was in Columbia, the DEI musical was in Ireland. Just. But to your point, DEI musical in Ireland is really. Now we're getting even closer to what we see on Riverdance.
- [33:01]
Michael Duncan
Yeah.
- [33:02]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, so that covers like the Landscape, which I hope the audience appreciates is a confusing landscape, but hopefully we've summarized it to a level you can grasp. It's hard work to figure out what's happening with the lawfare and doge and all the cutting and so on. But the bottom line is Trump's winning. His, his executive powers will be affirmed as they have been bit by bit in these lower courts. And I think if this thing goes up to the Supreme Court, any of these things testing what Trump has the power to do, only in the most extreme cases are they going to slap his hand because the Supreme Court has no enforcement mechanism. This has been the truth about the Article 3 courts from the dawn of the Constitution. They're all afraid because they really don't have any real way of making the executive branch comply. It's kind of like a, because we said so, a situation for a parent. And because of separation of powers, everybody has obeyed the courts since the dawn of time. I mean, that's, for the most part, that's, that's just the respect that we have. But all those Article 3 judges need to be very careful because if they push the executive too far, especially this executive, they, they will trigger a constitutional crisis that will leave them feckless and powerless in a dangerous and provocative way. And while some of these federal district court judges are truly too stupid to understand that, I mean, we saw all these DEI hires under Obama, we saw some of these confirmation hearings that get through. These judges were absolute idiots. They didn't understand anything about the Constitution, but they had the right DEI profile. And so they got confirmed by a Democrat controlled Senate. So some are idiots. But the Supreme Court is not idiotic and it is still controlled by the conservatives and they will do the right thing in the end. So proceed at your own peril. Proceed at your own peril. Lower court judges and Democrats. You will rue the day in the end. And that leads me. Okay, first I wanted to say this because I'm about to go to Mitch McConnell, your old boss. But I did want to make the point about the FBI leaking. Maybe according to, you know, Kristi Noem and Tom Homan, they think that was the FBI who leaked that they were about to raid that Colorado apartment complex, Ashbrook, that we were talking about and gave a heads up to gang members so they could get out and Tom Holman couldn't get them. Aren't you so glad that we have Cash Patel coming in as the head of now?
- [35:30]
Josh Holmes
Yes.
- [35:31]
Megyn Kelly
Every sound bite I've ever heard from him, I'm now like Shoot it into my veins. Right? He's got swagger. He can be kind of an asshole, but, like, in a good way. And he won't take crap from anybody. I'm like, run, run, don't walk to FBI hq. Cash Patel here. Oh, we actually wait, we have. For the audience members who don't know him as well. Here's a little bit of Cash Patel on Sean Ryan.
- [35:57]
Josh Holmes
And the biggest problem the FBI has had has come out of its intel shops. I'd break that component out of it. I'd shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of deep state. And I take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You're cops. Go be cops. Go chase down murderers and. And drug dealers and violent offenders. What do you need 7,000 people there for? Same thing with DOJ. What are all these people doing here? Looking for the next government promotion. Looking for their next fancy government title. Looking for their parachute out of government. So while you're bringing in the right people, you also have to shrink government. I love it.
- [36:33]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. Right?
- [36:35]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, it's so good. Listen, he is a breath of fresh air. I mean, he's been on the show with us before, too. And there's never been a time, I think, in America's history that needed just a jarring shakeup like the FBI does right now. I mean, we've seen, obviously, how they handled everything during the first four years of Trump and then everything thereafter and all the lawfare that sort of sparked within the FBI. But it requires somebody like Cash. Right? I mean, this is not like a. A bureaucrat job where you can go push some paper around and hope that it all turns out okay. You need somebody who's going to break some China. And that is very clearly what I think he's going to be up to.
- [37:16]
Smug
And I mean, I think he brings up a really good point, is the incentive structure in D.C. is push paper around gun for the next promotion. Why aren't those 7,000 people out in the field? They're in D.C. trying to, you know, work their little networks and be buddy buddy by tipping off gang members in Colorado. They should be in Colorado, handcuffing them. It makes no sense. And I think cash.
- [37:37]
Josh Holmes
And they're probably not prepared for it. I mean, they built the FBI in this current iteration under the wrong pretenses. I mean, we saw it play out during the course of the terrorist attack down in New Orleans, where the First FBI special agent in charge rolled up and was like, well, there's no terrorism here.
- [37:53]
Smug
Yeah.
- [37:53]
Josh Holmes
And like 12 hours later, they're like, no, it's absolutely terrorism here.
- [37:57]
Megyn Kelly
The guy's like, like, well, doing here.
- [38:02]
Josh Holmes
You know, who's the authority.
- [38:04]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Okay, so let's switch to McConnell, because I have to say, I'm not one of those rabid McConnell haters. I'm not. And I know there are a lot on Team Trump, and I get, I get it, totally get it. But I, like, I personally, I can't get over all the good he did for the country when it comes to Article 3 judges and the Supreme Court. Like, we would not have the Supreme Court that we have if it weren't for Mitch McConnell. He is a true blue conservative, dyed in the wool Republican. He really. But he hates Trump and Trump hates him. And this has turned into a problem for Republicans and Trump in the country. And now he's voted against HEGSETH, TULSI and RFKJ. Which leads us where on Mitch McConnell. Guys, I hate to put you in the crosshairs because I know, you know.
- [38:53]
Josh Holmes
No, listen, I mean, it's a fair question. I mean, first off, I should say the last time I provided him any advice on how to vote was in 2014, 11 years ago. But look, I think where this is my first takeaway is the Trump administration and John Thune and Barrasso in the Senate have done an incredible job to get nominees who entered into the public discussion in a very controversial place where there was some concern inside of a traditional Republican Party about how rfk, for example, who've had sort of famously liberal positions and a whole bunch of healthcare issues would fare in that context. And throughout the course of the nomination process, these folks work together in a way that I don't. You know, we haven't really seen a lot of. Even Democrats are really not as good as what I've seen over the last three weeks in repairing those, getting face to face conversations and getting people to a point where they're not gonna lose any of these people. Right. I mean, every single piece of the confirmation puzzle has, has come together. Now, where does that leave McConnell? I think that's more indicative of the change in the Republican Party and his sort of the lack of pressure that he feels personally. You have a whole bunch of Republicans and this is for real, like, people ought to know. There's probably a third of that Senate conference that is a little concerned about the way that Tulsi has talked about intelligence apparatus over the last at her hearing. Ten years. Right. And they're more than a little concerned. If she was a Democratic nominee, they would have voted to absolutely crush that nomination. But the power, the political power of Trump and part of what he's done over the last three weeks in terms of picking issues and having 60% of the American people on side of it, is forcing everybody to a position to reevaluate this. Ultimately, they work for Donald Trump and that's what it is that they're voting to support. Do they have misgivings about Tulsi Gabber or maybe RFK and the way that he's gonna handle the question of abortion in hhs? Sure they do. They're gonna have issues with that. But ultimately they trust Donald Trump. Where McConnell comes into all of that is he's just sort of traditionally where he's always been. But the party has moved and the party is very much a Trump Party. He is a Reagan Republican. And I think if you were to go back in time in some kind of like a Marty McFly DeLorean and look at the way a Republican party, you know, 20 years ago would have evaluated these nominations, it looks very much like the way that he has. I don't think that he's doing what he's doing out of spite for Donald Trump. It's just a lack. He doesn't feel the same political pressure.
- [41:42]
Megyn Kelly
If it were spiteful, Holmes, if it were spiteful, he would have voted against Rubio.
- [41:46]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, exactly.
- [41:48]
Megyn Kelly
Right.
- [41:48]
Josh Holmes
And he's obviously not gonna do that. He thinks that Rubio is a terrific nomination from what I read in his statements. But I also think he's gonna be. I think he's gonna be a force for good in terms of the team as you get into these thorny issues of reconciliation and budget and taxes and all of these things. Cuz his ideology hasn't changed a lick. It is just not reflected when you get into that more libertarian area of defense and foreign affairs in particular, where a lot of Republicans still have issues with that. He just doesn't feel the same political pressures as everybody else. Who's gonna vote the way he's.
- [42:22]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, he's more like a National Review Republican, stellar like those guys. That's right. They don't. They actually. Some have tds, but like Rich Lowry, he's great. He doesn't have tds. He actually can see Trump pretty clearly, but he disagrees with him on a few things and he's constantly defending him on many other things. But yeah, I don't think he's A Tulsi fan. I don't actually don't remember, but I know the editors have not backed Tulsi and they have not backed rfkj. So I take your point. I actually think that's pretty interesting. And that's a position he's allowed to have. I mean, he's, he's. How many years of public service does the guy have? But when you get find yourself on the opposite end of Trump, especially as a Republican like he is, you know, the party will turn on you. That's what's happening to him. And I hate to see it because I think he's a good man. I think he's a principled man. And the, the party apparatus is just like, turned on him because he seems like a Trump antagonist, even though, like, Trump said all the mean things about his wife. I mean, it's just like, it's complicated.
- [43:16]
Josh Holmes
It's gone both ways. But, but I think the story is not told yet. But, Megan, I think what's gonna happen very quickly is we're gonna get into a legislative discussion where the crux of the Trump agenda has to be litigated. And this is the hardest part. What he's done so far has been unbelievably great. But ultimately, you're gonna need Congress to try to work some of these things through in your taxes are going up five grand for your average American if they don't. So there's real consequences here. I think somebody like McConnell, ultimately, there may be a point where he actually does have a significant amount of influence in trying to get people on board for the big win on the things that will come to default.
- [43:57]
Megyn Kelly
Let me follow up with you on that because we try very hard to avoid getting too deep into the budget here on the MK show for all sorts of reasons. I refer you back to my high school guidance counselors college recommendation. For me, it was my college recommendation. Megan does well in English and social studies. Math and science aren't Meg's thing in my recommendation. Who writes that anyway? So I try to avoid the math when I can, but the what's going to happen with the budget is going to be probably the most consequential thing of the Trump president.
- [44:31]
Josh Holmes
No question.
- [44:32]
Megyn Kelly
And that the thing about, you know, the reconciliation, about budget reconciliation is the Democrats can't block that. They don't need 60 votes. The Republicans don't need 60 votes to get a vote on basically financial matters. On the budget, they only need a majority of 51, and they have that. They have 53 Republican senators. So they can afford to lose, you know, a couple. They actually only need 50 because they have JD Vance who could break a tie, but they've got a majority, so they should be able to get the budget through that the Republicans want. Unless some go rogue. And you're saying Mitch McConnell could be the stalwart that keeps. Because it will be controversial. They'll be shoving a lot into that reconciliation bill because they don't need a 60 vote, you know, in 60 votes in the Senate to get cloture, meaning a vote on it at all. They have a low threshold to pass it. So they're going to shove a lot of stuff in there that they want. It's going to be controversial, which will cause some more moderate Republicans to try to peel off. And your point is? It's in that moment in which Mitch McConnell's true influence in the Senate could prove pivotal.
- [45:41]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, I think it is. I should warn your viewers and listeners that the last math class I took was actually called Math. So, you know, this is. This is not my area of expertise, but I do know how the process works. And ultimately, anytime you're working with razor thin margins, three votes in the Senate to until April in the House of Representatives, every single member that matters, matters. And ultimately, where these things get settled out is if you get somebody who, you know, look, they haven't been on the team. They're not like a partisan stall where they're always gonna vote for the Trump agenda no matter what's in it. When those kind of people end up coming to the rest of their colleagues and saying, look, this is really important for the country, it has added weight to it, particularly in somebody who led the Republican Party for, you know, years and years, the longest serving leader in history. So I think it is going to. And I ultimately believe that he's gonna dig his heels in and try to try to provide as much legislative heft as he can on issues like that, where at the end of the day, the Trump administration will be judged based on the outcome of those reconciliation bills.
- [46:51]
Megyn Kelly
Hmm. Well, that is very interesting. Do you see? I don't really wanna get too deep into it, but everyone's debating should there be two bills or one? And I don't understand really what that's about, and I don't really want to, but could you explain it to me like I'm a third grader, what that debate is about?
- [47:09]
Josh Holmes
It's the difference in the two chambers, right? The House of Representatives views one bite at the apple. They think that in order to get a whole Bunch of fiscal conservatives who are concerned about debt and deficits, on board with extending the Trump 2017 tax cuts, which has a deficit number according to obvious CBO scores. All these things. In order to get them on board with that, they need extra incentives. They need immigration, border security stuff, probably need some energy provisions, certainly, like, you know, all the way to things like Spectrum. They need incentives to get on board with something that makes them a little queasy from a deficit perspective. In the Senate, it's a very different deal. They have more unanimity around the issue that you don't have to pay for tax cuts. Like, every time we've made tax cuts in this country, our revenue has exceeded what the revenue was before you cut the taxes in the first place. And the way that Congress scores the thing, they always say it's a big deficit, never turns out that way, but they have a longer view on all of that, and so they're not as concerned about it. They can wrap their mind around taxes. They also believe that this administration, first and foremost, will be most successful if you have a good, stable economy where businesses can actually plan over the long term, and we can end up with an economic boom like the likes of which we saw in 2017. And the only way you get that is if you do the tax piece and you get that part done. The other piece is no less important, but they're very confident that that is something that they can negotiate in and of itself, because there's a lot of moving parts in it that have nothing to do with the core issue of taxes. So that's the two differences of views between the House and the Senate. Now, ultimately, they're gonna have to come together on. This might end up being one big thing that the Senate takes two parts in. But because of what's happened with these confirmation hearings and because of the unanimous sort of Republican support within the Senate, I think the Senate's probably gonna take the lead on some of this stuff because the House has been, you know, they've been arguing a little bit amongst each other about how they go forward.
- [49:12]
Megyn Kelly
Wow, there's so much coming our way. All right, I'm gonna take a pause, take a break, and we're gonna come back. There's a lot to discuss. RFKJ confirmed this morning by the full Senate. He is now about to be sworn in as our Secretary of Health and Human Services. What a momentous event in our. In our country. I mean, it's absolutely spectacular. Trump on his way toward pursuing peace with Russia and Ukraine and much, much More. I've got some good news for you and it's called Firecracker Farm Hot Salt. This small family business is making waves and if you have not yet tried it, it is time to change that. This was was the gift to give and receive this past Christmas. It's delicious and it elevates everything it touches. Eggs, avocado, toast, grilled chicken, and more. It's got a kick, but it's not overwhelming. The flavor enhances food without overpowering it. The best part, it comes in sleek stainless steel grinders that are easy to take with you anywhere. Unlike messy hot sauce that runs out quickly, Firecracker Farm Hot Salt lasts and lasts, providing hundreds of servings from just one grinder. Way more bang for the buck. There are plenty of blends to choose from and refills are available. So for those who find it a bit too spicy, keep this in mind. If you mix it with some regular sea salt, you will tame the heat perfectly. Do yourself a favor and head on over to Firecracker Farm. And here's the kicker. Use code MK at checkout for 10 off your order. Don't wait. This offers only for a limited time. Firecracker Farm and use code MK for 10% off. RFKJ is confirmed and I'm thrilled about this. I couldn't care less about his stance on abortion or even the trans issue because I think he will not undermine Trump's stance on those issues. I believe he wants this job very badly and does not want to get fired. So he's not going to undermine Trump's agenda on those items. And Trump's been really clear on those items. I do care about chronic disease, our children, our food supply, conflicts of interest at the fda, the disgusting cdc, fda, nih. And he's going to run roughshod over all those in a great way. He's the Cash Patel. He is to these organizations what Cash Patel is to the FBI. And we desperately need it. And I have to say, there's something, I don't know, kind of sweet and kind of emotional about it for me, because I'm just going to take you back to spring of 2022. All right, first, actually, I'm going to go back further. Joe Biden during the COVID pandemic when he was censoring us. All right, those of us on the right who had questions about anything got censored. How Covid started, are the vaccines safe, all that stuff. And there was this crazy ass day at the White House where they read a list of the so called disinformation dozen. And it was people who were questioning his dogma, you know, at his. The CDCs, the NIH's, almost all of which turned out to be false. And big tech went along with the censorship. Here is a clip of that day Facebook pointed out.
- [52:25]
Donald Trump
It was pointed out that Facebook, of.
- [52:27]
Megyn Kelly
All the misinformation, 60% of the misinformation.
- [52:31]
Donald Trump
Came from 12 individuals.
- [52:33]
Megyn Kelly
Facebook isn't killing people.
- [52:35]
Donald Trump
These 12 people are out there giving misinformation.
- [52:39]
Megyn Kelly
Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it.
- [52:41]
Donald Trump
It's killing people.
- [52:43]
Megyn Kelly
It's bad information. Okay, so RFKJ was at the top of the disinformation dozen list. And that was July of 2021. He dropped his book on the real Anthony Fauci, which even I was like, I don't trust him. I'm not gonna read that book. And then my friend in this great moment when we were skiing was like, you know, you might wanna give it a try. And I was like, well, you might wanna be careful. Cause garbage in, garbage out. And she's like, oh, I mean, I love this woman. She's very smart and she's not some nutcase. And she was like, you know, maybe just take a look. So I trusted her. I did start to take a look and I was like, well, this is actually kind of interesting. Like, no, I don't like Fauci. So I'm kind of open minded to it.
- [53:24]
Josh Holmes
It.
- [53:24]
Megyn Kelly
One thing led to another, and I asked my team to take a look at this book and then start taking a look at rfkj. And then what we did was we started calling all of his worst critics and hearing all the terrible things they had to say about him and then calling other people, like going down the line, try to figure out whether they sounded like people, you know, we trust and we should listen to or not. And long story short, they sounded much more like agenda driven Biden supporters who didn't want discussions about lab leaks and so on. And we decided to invite him on the show. So it was the spring of 2022, March of 2020. 2020 22. I was going through this terrible thing where my son, at the time we were skiing, tore his spleen in three places. He was only eight. Yeah. And it was like, serious. He was in the ICU for a week. It was this whole. It's still my number one or number two, most watched video ever. I went on the air, I just had to talk about it because it was like, I'm in the midst of this. I'm just going to share with you what's happening. And that was the week I had to tape the wraps for the RFKJ interview that we had done. But we did it. We got it out there and he came out. He sounded so reasonable. All right, so here's how he sounded that day. And I remember we talked about, like, his voice issue, and he was like, I have this condition and I'm sorry, my voice actually isn't doing that well. Today has good days and bad days. And then he kind of made a point about how he was still a Democrat, but he was a bit of a disaffected Democrat when he looked around at his own party. Listen here, my political party.
- [54:58]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I saw a Gallup poll recently. It was either Gallup or Rasmussen that said that something like a 70% of Democrats support government restricting the speech. And, you know, it's almost inexplicable, explicable to me that we could be in that place right now. I believe my political party was the party that would go to the mat to protect people's right to say what they want. And that's so critical for our democracy. And it also is critical of public health. Listen, I may be wrong about the things that I talk about, but, you know, why can't we debate him?
- [55:47]
Megyn Kelly
He had been banned from all social media platforms, virtually all, I think maybe one allowed him. @ that point, nobody would talk to him. I think Tucker had spoken to him and nobody else. He. He specifically complained that he couldn't get on Joe Rogan. He just wasn't getting any doors open because it like my own bias. Most people were looking at him, thinking he's a kook. That's all we ever heard about him. And it seemed universal. So, you know, people have busy lives. They don't really spend a lot of time trying to rehabilitate some random figure. And we had a very contentious but robust and great four hours together, half about vaccines, half about personal. And I really came to like and respect him. And. And shortly thereafter, doors started to open for him. People felt like they could put him on and that that interview lived on all platforms. It didn't get deplatformed or demonetized or clipped anywhere. Not on TikTok, not on Insta, not on YouTube, nowhere. It lived everywhere. And it was the beginning of a resurgence for him that ultimately resulted in him running for president. Two years later, he came back on the show he had been on. He's been on a few, many times now. But. And this is what he said, thanks.
- [57:04]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
For putting me on back in. What was it? Was it March of 2022?
- [57:09]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's right.
- [57:11]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah. Because you were one of the first people to let me on at a time when it was, you know, very dangerous or other outlets to give me a platform. And I've always been very grateful to you.
- [57:24]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, that was all so silly. And I'm thrilled to see you out there with your message and doing so well, as you should be. That whole thing was so nonsensical. And now here we are in February of 2025, and that man has just been confirmed by a majority of the Senate, losing only Mitch McConnell on the Republican side, 5248, to be our next. Not just any position, but Secretary of Health and Human Services. It's been a monumental comeback for him, and he did it through his own hard work and refusal to stay quiet and refusal to stay down when they. He was blacklisted by the White House as a disinformation officer. And, you know, I really think. I feel so hopeful, you guys, because this whole movement, this Maha movement, is. Is his, and that's why Trump put him in this position. I think he really did help Trump get elected, and I'm thrilled he has the green light to start enacting true reform. What do you guys make?
- [58:28]
Michael Duncan
Yeah, And. And Megan, I don't think he's the only one who's grateful that you put him on. I think there are people all over this country who are grateful that you gave voice to what so many people are thinking. And what happened to him is really an object lesson in how the left reacts when anybody dares to think differently than they do. When anybody questions an assumption. You have many people in this country who are like, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. Why am I not allowed to ask questions? Because you know that the best information, the best science, comes from asking questions, from testing hypotheses. And this guy has done it over and over in the face of retribution from not only his own party, but his own family. The things that his own family has said about him is just terrible. And I'm, I'm. I mean, and I'm grateful that you put him on.
- [59:17]
John Ashbrook
There's plenty of things that RFK has said that I might not agree with, but I don't think he's crazy. I think the world in which we were living in during COVID was crazy. If you said, maybe it's likely that if we have a level 5 lab studying coronaviruses in Wuhan, China, that maybe the virus leaked out of the lab, you were crazy. If you suggested perhaps that instead of getting a vaccine, if you got natural immunity, you might be covered, that was supposed to be crazy. If you question the fact that you had to be six feet from everyone and wear a mask on your face around, you know, living your life like that was going to stop anything, you were crazy. Kids had to be vaccinated. Kids with robust, you know, immunities had to be vaccinated. You were crazy. So, yeah, in that world, RFK is one of the sanest people on the planet.
- [60:07]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, totally. I also think it's a perfect object lesson to the power of independent media. Yeah. And particularly you, Megan, and what you have done with your show and this incredible run that you've had that I think everybody in our line of work admires deeply and admire because you've helped us out in the process. But your decision, based on reading a book and talking with people and trying to get a real sense of the facts, led you to a point where you're like, no, it's a conversation that's worthy of happening. When the entire media industrial complex was saying, nope, you can't hear from him. You'll get banned. Don't do it. Your decision to do that very likely triggered a larger conversation amongst the American people that ultimately led him to be confirmed Health and Human Health Services secretary. Incredible domino, isn't it?
- [60:57]
Megyn Kelly
He's got ideas like maybe we should test them, kick them around a bit. You know, I was gonna say it's not just him, but, like, I don't think Tulsi would have been confirmed if it weren't for digital media, independent media, no question. I don't know about Cass. Maybe not him either, and definitely not rfkj. Even, you know, Tucker had him on his podcast that he was doing over on Fox Nation, but they wouldn't let him on Fox News Channel. Like, RFKJ would still be in the, you know, off to the sidelines if it weren't for independent media. And there was no way he could rehabilitate himself without independent media. And I think the same is true of Tulsi, where she was, you know, rejected by the Republican establishment. And it's amazing. This is a victory, I think, for, you know, anybody who supports Maha and the revolutionary things happening in when it comes to public health. But it's also, it's a victory for people in our lane. And thank you for saying the nice things about me helping you guys at Ruthless, but here's the truth. I have helped and promoted a lot of podcasts and podcasters and not everybody takes off. Guys, you guys are celebrating this great 500th episode and have so many fans because you're amazing. People love the way you tackle the news and your good humor and what a camaraderie you have between the four of you. And I'm one of them. So I'm happy to have helped in any small way. But you deserve every ounce of success you've earned yourselves.
- [62:22]
John Ashbrook
Thank you.
- [62:23]
Smug
I mean, you are too kind. But I mean, we would be remiss if we didn't bring up that in this entire media sphere, you've probably been the most generous with everyone on the right elevating voices. And in a more macro image of RFK success, when you saw the Democrats in the left focus on de platforming and trying to shut down voices and trying to shut down discussions, all that led to is this massive blowback we saw last year where now you have Democrats scrambling saying, why don't we have our own Joe Rogan? Why don't we have our own Independent? Because they took over. They captured the institutions, tools of the state.
- [62:58]
Josh Holmes
That's why.
- [62:58]
Smug
So when folks like you put up their own shingle and start this own massive audience and have this tremendous influence and opportunity for people to have these discussions, that's where this victory came from in 2024.
- [63:10]
Megyn Kelly
Well, you knew, the Democrats helped more than that even because, you know, when I was at Fox and then for that year at NBC, I was more in the center. I was like definitely center. Right now I think I'm, I'm pretty conservative. I mean, I just am now. I mean the earth has shifted such that I think I have to say, yes, I, by today's standards, you'd call me conservative. But that's thanks to them. You know, they, what they did to me, I, I, they were vicious. They're complete assholes. Their WOKE ideology completely radicalized me against them. And I love, I love that it empowered me in a way that allowed me to see the truth about them. You know, that was very helpful to me. I like, I wouldn't undo it if I could because it really helped me understand who I was dealing with over there.
- [64:01]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, and your in your power is in your authenticity and what you do so well, Megan. And we said this from the first moment that we came on your first show. This is not Megan trying to figure out how to tell a story. She's telling you exactly what it is that she thinks. And for people who saw you on Fox or saw you on NBC, they had an image of you. And then all of a sudden, they got the raw, uncut Megyn Kelly and they were like, whoa, I'm tuning into that. Yeah, yeah, I gotta get some of that. Like, that sounds fantastic. And it's interesting, provocative conversations, the kind of which we should have at every din table across this country that the left has been saying, like, don't do it. It's dangerous.
- [64:40]
John Ashbrook
Well, and I think it is. Right? Like, I think this is the discussion that people are having at dinners across this country. And like, her experience of being somebody who's like, I'm kind of in the middle, maybe I have some conservative opinions. And then the world changed and the left changed. I feel like that is a view reflected across this country. And we saw that on election day. You know, there are, I know, people in my personal life who didn't consider themselves Republicans, Big R Republicans. But, like, they came out and voted early for up and down the ballot. Right?
- [65:10]
Megyn Kelly
Like, Right.
- [65:10]
John Ashbrook
It's what they did to the world. And it's Covid. It's censorship. It's everything that I think has really moved. Not just the Megyn Kelly's of the world, but, like, you know, just moms and dads across the country.
- [65:22]
Megyn Kelly
Totally.
- [65:22]
Josh Holmes
And it's the. But it's the fearlessness of people like Megan who can give people the confidence to know I'm not crazy. Yeah. I've not. I've not shifted myself. I have, like, she gets it. She knows what it is that I'm talking about. And if she can do that, well, let's have a conversation at the dinner table.
- [65:39]
Megyn Kelly
All right? Now, Abby did find my. My recommendation, my high school recommendation. Okay, so, you guys, I'll just read you this one. It's literally just a little paragraph at the end. Truly, this is all I had. Nobody wrote anything else. Look at the way we get our kids into college these days. I haven't yet had to fight this battle, but, you know, soon I'm sure, because I have a freshman.
- [66:00]
John Ashbrook
Some folks go to jail to get.
- [66:01]
Smug
Their kids in college these days.
- [66:03]
Megyn Kelly
Right, Right. And literally I write like a private letter. There was no. There was nothing. It's my guidance counselor. He had to write it. And here I'm going to read to you the first paragraph of this thing. The rest is just perfunctory. But he writes, meg Kelly is a solid student who has taken a strong program in high school. Her areas of strength seem to be in language arts and social studies. Meg loves to write and has a real interest in politics and government. Currently, her goal is to become a political journalist. Omg.
- [66:38]
Smug
Wow.
- [66:38]
Megyn Kelly
Megan has had to work much harder and achieved less success in math and science in my recommendation. What, what is happening, Mr. Villa? He says, however, her willingness to struggle with these subjects, which are difficult for her, is positive, as is the way she handles herself when she experienced difficulty. Meg knows how to ask for help or take appropriate steps when she encounters a problem. She perseveres in situations and bounces back from adversity. All right, Mr. Villa, you landed it. But I mean, did we have to point out the math and science problems in the recommendation letter?
- [67:19]
Josh Holmes
I love that so much. Also, clearly she was a better student than we were.
- [67:24]
John Ashbrook
Yeah.
- [67:25]
Josh Holmes
You know, like my math and science or English, whatever was like, who's the hot girl I can sit next to in first period? Basically the, the sum and substance of my academic portfolio.
- [67:38]
Megyn Kelly
So you were normal. It's good. I like a red blooded American man with a bunch of testosterone. They're back. We're back, baby. So speaking of red blooded American men with testosterone, Trump in the news for many things, including he is now the chair of the Kennedy center board, which is this like cultural arts institution that is, so far as I can tell. I don't really know what they do, but every year you get like the awards and you see all these old musicians and actors and other people who you may or may not like, but they're usually on the left getting some sort of recognition by this institution. And Trump, like fired half of the people who are involved in it and replaced them with Trump loyalists. And like Usha Vance is now on the board, which is great. I'm thrilled she's there. And then declared himself having won unanimous support to become the new chairman.
- [68:41]
Michael Duncan
Yeah. Yeah.
- [68:42]
Megyn Kelly
At CNN air last night, their exclusive audio of Trump speaking to the Kennedy senator board trying to, you know, get everybody psyched up because it's not all Trump loyalists now. He didn't fire everybody. There's still some like old timers still sitting on it. I don't know what led to the firing of some and the firing and the non firing of others, but here's Trump describing how things are about to change over there. Sat 17.
- [69:08]
Donald Trump
It's a very exciting development. It's going to be great. I think we're going to do something very special. So it got very wokey and some people were not happy with it and some people refused to go. And we're not going to have that. We're going to have something that will be very, very exciting and we'll do things Both physically and in every other way to make the building look even better. I think we're going to make it hot. We made the presidency hot. So this should be easy. And it's just really, I just got through all the names. It's great to have, have all of you with us. We're going to add a few more to get up to the. Whatever the number is that we're supposed to be up to. But it's going to be really exciting, really fun. I think you're going to enjoy yourselves and you're going to have a lot of good nights, also nights and days watching performances of great artists. So thank you all very much for your time and for being willing to do it. But I think it's, again, it's something a lot of people wanted. I think it's something you're going to enjoy for a long time to come. And thank you all very much.
- [70:13]
Smug
That's so awesome.
- [70:14]
Michael Duncan
Yeah, I just love that so much. And think about the person who was on that call and it was like, I'm recording it.
- [70:21]
Megyn Kelly
Cnn.
- [70:21]
Michael Duncan
I gotta get you this audio. And Trump sounds like a normal person who's talking about making change in an organization. You know, he is not the first guy to fire people from the Kennedy Center. I don't know if you remember, Megan, but during COVID the Kennedy center worked with their pal Nancy Pelosi to get a bailout because they said that if we don't get a bailout from taxpayers, we're not gonna be able to continue to operate. And you know what happened right after they got that bailout from Nancy Pelosi? They fired a bunch of people in the organization who were probably sweeping up after the performances. And what I really hope that Donald Trump is able to do is breathe life back into that building. Bring some acts that people actually want to see, something that's interesting to everybody, not the same old woke stuff that we've seen out of that.
- [71:06]
Josh Holmes
Yeah.
- [71:06]
John Ashbrook
And Donald Trump has a soft spot for theater and theatricality, old man. I do. I mean, well, Trump's the only guy I know who, when he plays golf, listens to Andrea Bocelli and Pavarotti, you know, so he clearly has a soft spot for the arts, and I can appreciate that. And I would like to highlight that the Kennedy center is showing Les Mis coming this summer. And I think that's a fantastic production. But my, the thing that really grinds. The thing that really grinds my gears about the Kennedy Center Center. The Kennedy center is, you know, it's surrounded by Some of the wealthiest zip codes in America. All of America, and a community that does a lot of philanthropic activity. Why is it that the Kennedy center needs to be funded by Congress in any way, shape or form?
- [71:48]
Michael Duncan
Great point.
- [71:48]
John Ashbrook
You know, if everybody agrees that it's this great cultural testament to the United States of America. Raise the money from private, you know, sources.
- [71:56]
Josh Holmes
We've had harder fundraising experiences than it would be to raise money for the Kennedy seat. Exactly.
- [72:01]
Megyn Kelly
Everyone would donate to that. All those rich fat cats. But, you know, you're not wrong. Duncan Trump is very culturally astute and experienced. We pulled just one example. It's from the 2005 Emmy Awards featuring Donald Trump and actress Megan Mulally.
- [72:24]
Smug
Green Acres is the place to be Are living the life for me Land.
- [72:33]
Megyn Kelly
Sp out so far and wide Keeping hot Just give me that countryside he's really singing.
- [72:41]
John Ashbrook
Fresh air.
- [72:43]
Megyn Kelly
Trump Tower, you are my wife Goodbye, Queen Anna Queen.
- [72:53]
John Ashbrook
I mean, just so great up.
- [72:56]
Smug
What a showman.
- [72:57]
John Ashbrook
People don't, like, appreciate what a sense of humor Donald Trump has, and he's willing to make fun of himself and all these liberals in Hollywood and stuff used to love that about him. If you ever see the, the SNL clip, clip of Trump wings when he's doing the wings promotion, it's hysterical.
- [73:13]
Megyn Kelly
We have something from SNL standby. It's from 2015. I don't think that's the one. But it's him doing a parody of Drake's Hotline Bling. Okay.
- [73:22]
Josh Holmes
Tax guys getting in on Israel doing the truck dance.
- [73:27]
Megyn Kelly
Call me on the cell.
- [73:33]
Michael Duncan
Call me on the cell phone.
- [73:44]
Josh Holmes
So good.
- [73:45]
John Ashbrook
So good.
- [73:48]
Megyn Kelly
So he's more than qualified to chair the Kennedy Center.
- [73:52]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, for those of you who haven't been in D.C. like, that place has been lit up in a rainbow flag for the last four years. Literally every night it's lit up like a rainbow.
- [74:02]
Megyn Kelly
That explains what's happening. Because what's happening is people are resigning. Like the remaining riff raff are, you know, taking their ball and going home. Because they don't. They wouldn't be on any board of which Donald Trump was the chair. Sandra Rhymes, you know, she created Grey's Anatomy, Bridgerton super woke. She was treasurer for the Kennedy center board appointed by Obama. And she resigned, she resigned shortly after Trump was elected as head, saying, please be advised that as of today, Chandra Rhimes has resigned from the board of the Kennedy Center. Meanwhile, she did not, she did not express any outrage whatsoever when the Kennedy center was doing drag shows. That was all just fine. With her. This is the same woman who expressed her public empathy for Juicy Smollet. Very, very upset. She. So she tweeted, sending love, healing, and support for Jesse Smollett. We all have a responsibility to rise up against the ignorance and hate out there. If you know who did this, report them to the police. She's got a long history of cutting tail and running. When Elon took over X, she left. Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned by. Well, we don't miss you, Chandra. She was on the board of Time's up, that organization which imploded because it would only help women who'd been harassed by Republicans, but not anyone who'd been harassed by a Democrat. So that's Chandra. She's decided to leave, as has singer and songwriter Ben Folds. You guys might not remember Ben Folds, but he was the lead singer of Ben Folds Five. And he did sing a song which I love called the Luckiest, which I sang to Doug when he turned 40 at his 40th, 40th birthday party, believe it or not.
- [75:52]
Josh Holmes
Amazing.
- [75:53]
Megyn Kelly
I. I learned how to play it on the guitar. I had secret lessons in my office, and then I sang it to him. And I'm not a singer, but I loved Doug a lot, as I still do. And Ben is all about, you know, when you don't like something, get out of it. Because he's been divorced five times, but really has a judgment on Trump's morality and is piecing out of the Kennedy sense. What do you guys make of it?
- [76:18]
Josh Holmes
A real cut and runner.
- [76:20]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [76:21]
Josh Holmes
Ben Folds Five.
- [76:23]
Megyn Kelly
Ben does. Yeah.
- [76:24]
Josh Holmes
You know, you.
- [76:24]
Megyn Kelly
You get five times, now that I think about it.
- [76:28]
Michael Duncan
That's right.
- [76:28]
Josh Holmes
Maybe he was just trying to, like, amp the brand a little bit. I don't know. I mean, but you get the sense that all of these people who are resigning are the same kind of people that posted the Black Box on Instagram. Everything is a virtue signal. Like, they're not the interest in making sure that fine arts are preserved or come very secondary to whether you can virtue sign your empathy for something. You know, it's just so pathetic.
- [76:52]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, it's like they're like, what's going to happen? We're going to be giving lifetime achievement awards to, like, Clint Eastwood and Sly Stallone and, you know, John Vo. I'm out, like, hard pass. All because of their politics. You can do that all day long to somebody on the left, and the right will just suck it up and say, fine. He sings good music. It's fine. I don't care. But you do that, you Honor. Somebody who's actually a campaign for Trump or expressed openly that they're a conservative. And it's a hard no. Ben does fold and Chandra rhymes too.
- [77:20]
Michael Duncan
He's a brick and he's drowning slowly.
- [77:25]
Megyn Kelly
So I can't wait to see what happens at the Kennedy Center. I think it could be actually super fun. Now, speaking of celebrities, Jimmy Kimmel was very upset that Donald Trump took a shot at Taylor Swift. Trump was making fun of the fact that she got booed openly at the super bowl and he got cheered to the high heavens. And Jimmy Kimmel didn't much like that and had the following to say.
- [77:49]
Michael Duncan
Trump was at the game. He got a big thrill because some of the crowd booed Taylor Swift when they put her up on the Jumbotron, which of course made Harry Con Man Sr. Very happy. He posted three times about this after the game. He wrote, the only one that had a tougher night than the Chiefs was Taylor Swift. She got booed out of the stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving. Well, she didn't get booed out of the stadium. Unlike you, she stayed for the whole game. And it was the Eagles fans who were booing her. But you're right, it's all about you. It's always all. Trump's just jealous of Taylor Swift because she has more followers and more money and no kids than he does.
- [78:28]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. By the way, I was there all the way through and she was gone. Like she was missing in action for most of the second half. So I don't know what he's talking about. Trump left at his previously designated time, which was, I think, think 802 that had been scheduled. And that is when he left. And it's a little harder, Jimmy, when you're the President of the United States because if you leave when everybody else is leaving, you completely F them over because no one can move anywhere. It's total gridlock in the city. Hello?
- [78:56]
John Ashbrook
Yeah. Where are the jokes in his late night show?
- [78:59]
Smug
That's the thing.
- [78:59]
John Ashbrook
That's what I want to know. You know, I mean, like, I think Taylor Swift got out pretty easily. Usually when Philly fans show up, they bring batteries.
- [79:08]
Josh Holmes
You know, the other thing he definitely wasn't due doing there is hitching his wagon onto the Taylor Swift following.
- [79:14]
Smug
Yeah, right.
- [79:15]
Josh Holmes
Definitely wasn't influenced trolling at all by mentioning her name.
- [79:19]
Megyn Kelly
Right. Like, please like me, Taylor. Please pat me on the head like a good little boy. I don't know. I really think that Taylor Swift's magic has left the Building. I think people are over her. It's not that she doesn't have any fans left. She does. She'll still sell lots of records. But I think she peaked and is already on her way down because of overexposure. And she got political. Those. Those two things really hurt her. It's too much. I like. There's a reason you don't see everyday pictures of Angelina Jolie going to Starbucks or going to work out. It's not because she never does those things. It's because she doesn't call the paparazzi and have them photograph every time she does. Or Julia Roberts for that matter, who I don't love. But she doesn't do this to herself. J. Lo. Every turn she got overexposed and she damaged her own brand. And the same happened to Taylor. She said yes to everything. She was too out there. The air is in your face at every turn. Every Chiefs game dominating the NFL. She didn't have to sit at every Chiefs game right in the front row when she knew the cameras would get her. Truly. I mean, I was just in one of these suites. You can sit toward the back and you don't have to be on the camera if you don't want to. She wanted. She wanted to be in the spotlight. She wanted the cameras to cut to her. They did. She ate it up and now we're sick of her. She ruined football and we're pissed off she got political. So it's not just about the Eagles fans who are very vocal and do hate her, but it's beyond that.
- [80:42]
Josh Holmes
Well, incidentally, is a very famous person yourself, Megan. Maybe you could tell us here at the Ruthless variety program who we need to call to get TMZ to show up and photograph us on a day to day basis. I don't know if you've done, but we now have a White House correspondent sitting here at the diets. A very famous.
- [80:58]
Megyn Kelly
I can't believe we haven't talked about that.
- [81:00]
Josh Holmes
It wouldn't.
- [81:01]
Megyn Kelly
He's the Sam Donaldson of the ruthless crowd.
- [81:03]
Josh Holmes
That's exactly right. And it wouldn't kill if he got a little bit of FaceTime out there. That's all I'm saying.
- [81:09]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. Okay. I'll see what I can do. I know some people might be able to make this happen. Yeah, I mean, the world does want more Ashbrook. Who are we kidding?
- [81:16]
Michael Duncan
They do.
- [81:16]
Megyn Kelly
How was that, Ashbrook? You were the first. Well, it's not just podcaster, it's like digital media, you know, independent media who now officially have a seat in the White House press briefing room, the most relevant seat there is. And you were the very first one there and the very first person in the seat to ask a question. You did it great. You stood up, you went for it. You were merciless. How did it feel?
- [81:42]
Michael Duncan
It felt great, Megan. And you know, I wasn't nervous going into it because the entire time all I was thinking about was, I cannot wait to see the looks on the reporters faces when I walk into this room. I can't wait to see him. I can't wait to see him. They opened the door and it didn't disappoint. I mean, people were literally rolling their eyes, they were laughing and it was so funny because they were like, you gotta be kidding me. You're coming in to ask a question. And you know what? I asked a serious question and she made serious news that they had to report immediately. And so it was just. It was a triumph. It was just a career triumph.
- [82:18]
Josh Holmes
The funniest part about it for your audience, Megan, is that this guy has made a 20 year career in Washington D.C. as being the person that all of those journos have to call to get what the story is right. They all call Ashbrook for 20 years. It's like the first call of, all right, how do I sort this story out? And then for all of them, you know, dedicated their careers to it, to have to watch him march into the White House briefing and do their job too was just hilarious. I mean, that is like what Ruthless is in a nutshell.
- [82:47]
Smug
And then to ask, is the media out of touch?
- [82:50]
John Ashbrook
So they're all just like.
- [82:53]
Megyn Kelly
I got a lot of text. We'll drop the sod end for the podcast when I have it here.
- [82:58]
Michael Duncan
Media went after this administration for deporting illegal immigrants they claimed were not criminals. The question is, do you think they're out of touch with Americans demanding action on our border crisis?
- [83:11]
Caroline Levitt
The media out of touch? I think the media certainly is out of touch. And I think that's proven by a number of things, John.
- [83:18]
Megyn Kelly
To me, it's like the nerve of that press corps to have any arrogance whatsoever, right? To think they're better than as Ash preferred. The nerve.
- [83:30]
Michael Duncan
You look at, you look at that front row and it's people who represent gigantic corporations. Paramount, Comcast, Disney, they all get questions. So why can't everybody else ask a question?
- [83:40]
Smug
That's right. That's right.
- [83:42]
Megyn Kelly
Absolute shills. It's a new day in Washington. The Ruthless fellas are everywhere. All right, stand by. We're gonna take a Quick break. We'll be right back.
- [83:52]
Michael Duncan
We finally beat Medicare.
- [83:54]
Donald Trump
He's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.
- [83:57]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Joe Biden's legacy for seniors.
- [83:59]
Josh Holmes
He raided Medicare, made premiums skyrocket and drove up drug costs. Worse, the Biden pill penalty is already slashing the development of affordable drugs, forcing seniors to pay the price of Biden's failed policy. Biden broke Medicare, but President Trump can fix it. Call Congress and urge them to end the Biden pill penalty.
- [84:22]
Megyn Kelly
I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius X M. 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.
- [85:07]
Josh Holmes
Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months.
- [85:18]
Megyn Kelly
Free offer details apply. Guys, a couple of things in cultural news, some like shocking news from Teddy Mellencamp, who's the daughter of John Mellencamp. And she happens to be one of the stars of Real Housewives of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills. And I, I'm sure you guys are not big fans of the franchise, but I am. And she's one of the sweet ones. She's not like, of course she gets drawn into these fights that they all get drawn into, but I, she's been one of the more sensible characters on this show for many years now. And I, you know, John Mellencamp is definitely a leftist, but, you know, I don't care. I love his music. I think he made great songs and I love his sound. And this poor woman who is the mother of three young children has been battling melanoma now for many years. And I always pay attention, I mean, to anybody's, you know, health stories. But melanoma I live in fear of because I, too, am very fair. We don't, I've, thank God I've never had melanoma. But, you know, you got to worry about it if you're fair at all. And she's been battling melanoma for a number of years. Now. She posted publicly not long ago a picture of her back which has a, like, almost a Z shaped scar across the whole back. Look at this.
- [86:41]
Michael Duncan
Oh my God.
- [86:43]
Megyn Kelly
From the numerous, numerous melanomas that she's had to have removed time and time again. You know, you don't mess around with melanoma, right? Like, that's, you got to get very serious about that. And she has been, she's been all over it and she's been very vocal about checking, having your skin checks and all that. And unfortunately this week she revealed that she was in the hospital as of yesterday. She said, I'm in the hospital because I had very bad headaches. And it turns out they found five brain tumors, two of which they were going to remove surgically and three of which were smaller and they were going to attack with radiation. And they did not reveal whether these. And I think they just did the surgery yesterday or the day before. So they didn't say whether these are malignant brain tumors. But you know, she's had 17 or 18 or 19 melanomas and they're going to use radiation to get the other three. So it doesn't sound great. And I guess I just wanted to mention it because I do think, like, skin cancer is one of the few cancers. There are a couple of others, but, like, you can potentially catch this one early with skin checks, and that's in no way shaming anybody who hasn't caught it early. I just want to remind people, like, it's so easy to get caught up in your daily life and you don't want to think about these things because whenever you think about these things where it's, whether it's you guys getting a prostate check or us going to the OB gyn, you know, it makes you think about the, the bad things that could happen and you kind of either skip it or postpone it or try not to do it. And skin checks are also compromising because you're naked and you're in front of some doctor who's checking out all your parts. And like, the really good ones really get up in there and it's a little like, whoa, whoa. I think the doc and I are married. But it's important to do because that stuff, you really can potentially find it early and then you get it cut out. You know, if, when it's still localized, you can get it cut out. And I, I've said this before. I've never had a melanoma, thank God. But I did have a Basal cell right here on my left temple. And they. Yeah, and it was in the beginning, and I always, I'm vigilant about these skin checks. They found it early, they took it off, and now I just have a small scar there. But anyway, life is short, you know, the mother of three kids, very public figure in a profession that, you know. Yes, contentious and sort of fun, but. But like, kind of joyous, you know, I think she has generally a good life. It's just so sad. And our days are just, you know, you get reminded the time is limited. Make the most of it.
- [89:25]
Josh Holmes
Totally.
- [89:25]
Michael Duncan
Yeah. I mean, it can happen to anybody. Megan, I've. I've had cancer, thankfully, and, you know, it was radiated in remission, but, like, you've got to start early. You got to go see the doctor. No guy ever wants to go to the doctor.
- [89:37]
Josh Holmes
Well, I think you. You got married to your doctor this week, didn't you?
- [89:40]
Michael Duncan
I did, I did. Thankfully.
- [89:42]
Megyn Kelly
You did.
- [89:42]
Michael Duncan
Cancer free once again, in the way.
- [89:44]
Megyn Kelly
I've gotten married to mine. Got it. Okay.
- [89:48]
Michael Duncan
But I mean, guys especially. No guy wants to go to the doctor. I mean, I'm sitting at a table full of guys who would be like, no way, honey, I'm not going to the doctor. But you, you gotta go. You gotta bite the lip and you gotta go in, you gotta get the checks. You gotta take it seriously, because it can happen to anyone.
- [90:04]
Josh Holmes
We collectively forced each other to do it because, like, just like you are talking about, Megan, like the last thing, if you're feeling good, you're fine and you don't need to worry about it. But like, we collectively, as a group, forced each other to have annual executive physicals for this reason. Reason. Right. Because, you know, be pretty damn shame if somebody on roof was. We're a three man show.
- [90:24]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [90:24]
Josh Holmes
I don't think we recover from something like that.
- [90:26]
John Ashbrook
Yeah, we haven't invested enough in key man insurance, so we've got to stay alive, you know, but, like, look, I guess what I'd say to your audience, anybody listening is, you know, there's no better feeling than peace of mind, especially when, you know, you have people relying on you, like children and stuff. And so if. If you're not doing it for yourself, do it for them.
- [90:47]
Josh Holmes
Yeah, great point.
- [90:47]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So sorry to bring the room down, but all the best to her and her family and at 100% praying for her, and I hope that they. They can bring her back to good health. Even her messages this week have been positive and not woe is me and Like, I, I just, I've always liked her. She just always seemed like somebody who is more on the sunny side and less vituperative than some of the women who get caught cast on that show. And her dad's brought us all a lot of joy in his songs, so on and so forth. All the best to her and her family in this journey. Okay, on a much lighter note, we got to spend a minute on Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. Okay. I know the ruthless fellas have been all up in this business and I mean. No, but seriously, have you followed it at all?
- [91:33]
Josh Holmes
A little bit. I mean, it's all over the tabloids, so you got to see it a little bit. I don't know.
- [91:38]
Megyn Kelly
All over the top boys. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so she. For those of you, just a quick two liner for those of you not following it. They started this movie. It ends with us about domestic violence. It was his movie that he bought the rights for from the woman who wrote the book, Colleen Hoover. Then he managed to convince Blake Lively to star in it with him and all hell broke loose. She claims he sexual harassed her and then by the time they premiered the movie, they weren't even speaking to each other. She made him stay in the basement and Ryan Reynolds turned on him too. He. And then she claimed that he unleashed a bad PR campaign against her. And he claims none of that is true. There was absolutely no harassment. Those are made up claims. She rested his movie away from him and decided to try to hurt him with petty made up, out of context complaints when he pushed back, even in the mildest way. And that she and her husband are bullies. And now it's resulted in in vicious cross litigations against both of them. The New York Times is being sued for defamation by Baldoni. There was lawyer Brian Friedman, who's also my attorney, who's been on the show. And it's as vicious as it can get in Hollywood. My own position is she's absolutely ruined her brand. She has started a fight she cannot win. She does appear like an Amber Heard to me. I have yet to see one of her complaints borne out. In fact, all of the ones I've seen have been undermined by his hardcore proof in text messaging and so on. That puts a totally different light on her horrific allegations. Then you see what she actually said and wrote. It's very different. She called herself Khaleesi and said Ryan Reynolds and we believe Taylor Swift were her dragons and she's got the best dragons because they'll fight on behalf of her. Friends, too. Now she and Taylor are reportedly on the outs because Taylor Swift is like, I'm nobody's dragon. That's unconfirmed, but it's out there. And. And today we see some evidence now that Blake Lively may have a history of not being upfront when she gets cast in a movie of her secret desires to actually play a much bigger role than that of lead actress. Here she is at the 2022 Forbes Power Women's Summit.
- [93:50]
Blake Lively
I would show up on a set. I knew that they just wanted me to show up and look cute and stand on a little pink sticker where I'm supposed to go and say what I'm supposed to say. But I also knew that, like, that wasn't fulfilling for me, that I wanted to be a part of the storytelling, that I wanted to be a part of the narrative, whether that be in the writing and the costume design and creating the character. And sometimes I had directors or producers or writers who would welcome that and invite that once they saw that I was able to offer that. And sometimes I would have people who really resented that because they were like, we just hired you to be an actor. Yet when I went in the meetings, I would just seem like I'm just there to be the actor and ready to get the gig. I wouldn't reveal that I actually need to have authorship in order to feel fulfilled. So I think that for them, sometimes that might have felt like a rug pull because you're like, you're trying to assert yourself into something that we didn't hire you to do.
- [94:42]
Megyn Kelly
So she's a serial fraudster. That's called fraud. Odd when you pretend you want to do the one thing and you'll do the thing they're hiring you for, but all along you have secret plans to do something very, very different that's above your pay grade. And she finally bumped into someone who was weak enough and not famous enough to stop her. Right? This Justin Baldoni. Most people had never even heard of him. He'd been in, like, one series. He certainly wasn't at Ryan Reynolds level fame, Nevermind Blake Lively. And. And she bullied him, him into giving her the movie where she did her own cut. They released the cut of the movie. He. He didn't even get to see it. He was the director of the film, the producer of the film, the guy who got the rights to the film, the one who's supposed to be in control. He didn't even get to see it. He was in the basement in his own movie premiere. And then she had the nerve because she had a, like two minutes of bad publicity when the film hit to come out and try to blame it all on him. None of it was just due to the fact that she seems like a rather shitty person. Person. Your thoughts?
- [95:43]
Smug
I mean, it's. It's wild. She just pretty much said the whole problem here. It's like if you hire the plumber and he climbs up from under the sink and says, now let's talk about how you've decorated the place. What are you talking about, man?
- [95:55]
Josh Holmes
I gave you a job.
- [95:56]
John Ashbrook
How dare they hire an actor to act, you know, Right.
- [96:00]
Josh Holmes
Deal with a little bit.
- [96:01]
Megyn Kelly
She tries to make it sound like, like a female empowerment thing, you know, like they just wanted me to be an actor. Well, yes. I mean, maybe someday you could be a producer or a screenwriter, but you. No one contracted with you for to do that here. And that's another allegation Holmes is that she. She started to rewrite scenes that nobody had asked her to rewrite.
- [96:21]
Josh Holmes
That's just wild to me. I mean, that is for. The plumber thing is absolutely perfect. I mean, you hired somebody to do a job and they're like, well, hold on a second. I've got a different vision for your toilet that I'd like to create a bidet.
- [96:33]
Megyn Kelly
Here's the other piece of it. One other piece of it. So. So she is accused of having turned the whole cast of. It ends with us against Justin. By the time they premiered the movie, Ryan Reynolds had unfollowed him on Insta. So had Blake. So had the rest of the cast. Now you tell me, if you're an unknown actor in this film and you know that Blake and Ryan have turned on the no name Justin Baldoni, who are you gonna follow? You know, these are weak, feckless people out in Hollywood. They have no spine. So of course they all unfollowed him and chose team Blake, including, by the way, Colleen Hoover, the one who really owed him a debt of gratitude because he bought the rights to her book. She. She went team Blake. Well, guess what she just did this week. She scrubbed her. All of her social media of Blake Lively. She. She had already stepped away from Justin. Now she scrubbed all of her social media from Blake Lively because I think she's starting to realize she made a mistake. Okay? But here's the other piece of news that came out this week. A 2009 Glamour UK interview by Blake Lively. She was on the COVID at the time and in her interview, she admitted to trying to poison the cast of Gossip Girl, which is where she made her name against her co star Penn Badgley, who played her love interest Dan Humphrey on the show she wrote. She said, at first I was so upset that they had hired him, I actually poisoned the whole cast against him. And she goes on to say, but then they noticed that he wasn't a jerk and was actually a nice, charming person. And almost immediately I realized it too. But it took me about a week to admit it. And here's the thing. Reports were that Blake Lively and Leighton Meester, who played best friends on that show, were not friends during the six season run of the show. Leighton Meester and Penn Badgley and other Gossip Girl co stars have remained silent in the wake of the Baldoni legal drama. Neither Meester nor Badgley follow Lively on Instagram. Graham, members of the jury, what does this lead you to conclude?
- [98:38]
Smug
I think the real victim in all of this is Ryan Reynolds.
- [98:43]
Josh Holmes
I was going to say the same thing.
- [98:44]
Smug
Like, he's coming home, he's trying to sell some cell phone plans, he's trying to sell some gin. And she's like, I need your help, little dragon. We're going to ruin people today.
- [98:53]
Josh Holmes
All I do is buy soccer teams that win, sell tequila that people like or vodka or whatever it is. And he's like, generally state above. And all of a sudden he is in the dirt with this.
- [99:02]
Smug
She's like, I need you to get on a zoom with Taylor Swift and we're ruining life lives tonight.
- [99:05]
Josh Holmes
Be very, very careful with your marriages, folks.
- [99:07]
Megyn Kelly
This, this is the kind of thing Dragon.
- [99:10]
John Ashbrook
Yeah, to your point, Megan, I mean, the silence of the people who worked with her the longest on the previous show tells you everything you need to know. It reminds me a little bit of that standup special that Dave Chappelle did talking about Juicy Small A when the gay community was mad at the black community for not defending juicy enough. And Dave Chappelle says we were defending him with our silence because he didn't believe him.
- [99:34]
Josh Holmes
We didn't believe.
- [99:36]
John Ashbrook
And I think all the, you know, the people from Gossip Girl know that she can be a lot and that's probably why they stayed silent.
- [99:43]
Megyn Kelly
That's right. You know, it reminds me of when I was at NBC and this is before everyone hated Meghan Markle. You know, this is the honeymoon phase where everybody loved her before she decided she was a victim. And all the cast of suits came on to talk about her. And behind the scenes, let's just say they weren't quite as cheery and smiley about this person, person with whom they'd spent years on the set as they were with the Outward Facing interviews. And talking to the hair and makeup crew about what they said behind the scenes was very enlightening. I'll just leave it at that.
- [100:16]
Smug
That's awesome.
- [100:17]
Josh Holmes
Megan's dishing some hot gossip.
- [100:19]
Megyn Kelly
You know, that's good at this point. Like, let's talk tea. Let's do it, guys. Congrats on the 500th episode. 500 more. Lots of love. Thank you so very much.
- [100:33]
John Ashbrook
Thank you.
- [100:34]
Megyn Kelly
All right, we'll see you soon. All right. Coming up tomorrow, we are spending Valentine's Day with Chamath and Jason from the all in podcast. You know, Jason's first time back since I called him a prick. That'll be fun. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda, and no fear.