
Megyn Kelly is joined by the Ruthless podcast hosts Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook to talk about Donald Trump’s decision to name Rep. Matt Gaetz as his pick for Attorney General, the shockwaves that sent through the D.C. establishment, whether Gaetz can actually get confirmed, the drama coming at the Matt Gaetz confirmation hearing, why Gaetz is so controversial in Congress, how he took down AG Garland at a recent hearing, Trump's nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, why Gabbard is terrifying to the establishment, Trump meeting with a smiling Joe Biden at the White House, Jill Biden looking angry with Kamala Harris this week, the Democrats struggling to reckon with their massive loss, their inability to figure out why Trump won again, Rachel Zegler's anti-Trump and anti-Trump voters post, how out-of-touch she and other celebrities are, the hypocrisy in allowing her to star in Disney's "Snow White," Don Lemon, Joy Reid, ...
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Megyn Kelly
Anthropic's Claude is AI backed by uncompromising integrity.
Josh Holmes
Claude is run by responsible leadership who.
Megyn Kelly
Have an ethical approach to the development.
Josh Holmes
Of AI while providing strong data security.
Megyn Kelly
And putting humanity first.
Josh Holmes
Whether you're brainstorming alone or building with a team, Claude can help you do.
Megyn Kelly
Your best work securely. Discover how Claude can transform your work and business at anthropic.com Claude or find Claude on Apple and Android app stores. When work gets crazy, I like to stop by the bar after have a few cold ones. I don't drink at all until 4:00.
Michael Duncan
We limit ourselves to one bottle of wine a night.
John Ashbrook
Excessive drinking has a way of sneaking up on us. A few drinks, a few nights a week, it can add up and suddenly.
Comfortably Smug
We'Re at greater risk for long term.
John Ashbrook
Problems like heart disease, cancer and depression. Reason enough to rethink the Drink. More@rethinkthedrink.com Anoha Initiative welcome to the Megyn.
Megyn Kelly
Kelly show live on SiriusXM Channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. I'm already really, really enjoying the trumpet almost presidency. He I think he loves the drama. I think he loves sending people just running with their hair on fire to their little keyboards to write things about him, good, bad or otherwise. And that's what he's been doing for the past eight days and probably will be doing for the next four years. We've now reached the nuclear meltdown portion of the post 2024 election news cycle as President elect Trump's proposed cabinet takes shape. If you thought Pete Hegseth nomination, that's hard to say. Heg Seth's Pete Hegseth's Try to say that nomination to lead the Defense Department would get people talking. Buckle up baby, because another pick late yesterday sent shockwaves through both parties. President Trump announcing Congressman Matt Gaetz as his nominee for Attorney general. Wait, weren't. I mean, where were you when you heard what, as Sarah would say, my hairstylist. It happened on the same day that the former President made a triumphant return to the White House and was greeted by a positively beaming Joe Biden. The news cycle is a gift. We've got the perfect guests to discuss all this and more today. Joining me today for the full show, the fellas from the Ruthless program, Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, and the man known to his minions as comfortably smug. If you're tired of the same old coffee from the big mega corporations pushing their woke agendas Listen up. It's time to take a stand and support a brand that truly embodies American values. Blackout Coffee. They stand with hardworking Americans who believe in family, faith and freedom. They roast some of the most incredible coffee you will ever taste using only premium grade beans, roasted and shipped to you within 48 hours. And for the cold brew fans, Blackout Coffee is excited to announce the launch of their two new ready to drink cold blue brew coffee latte options. Don't settle for less. Make the switch to Blackout Coffee. Head over to blackout coffee.com mk or use the code mk for 20% off your first order. That's blackout coffee.com mk the code is mk. Join the movement. Taste the difference. Remember, with every sip, you are supporting a brand that stands for America. Be awake, not woke. Guys, welcome back to the show. Oh, it's so good. It's. We have so much to talk about. Sometimes we save the best stories for you and sometimes we just get smiled on by the gods.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, I feel like it's hard to catch up.
Megyn Kelly
All right. I mean, where were you when you heard Matt Gaetz, right? Because I think we were all like, oh, Pete Hexath. Well, there's a curveball. And then it was like, no. Right. My exchanges with my team was like, we're the. No, you lie. And sure enough, he's. He's proposing. He's nominating Matt Gaetz to be the Attorney General. I'm not gonna lie. I wasn't even 100% sure Matt Gaetz was a lawyer until I was reminded he is a lawyer. And it's had the predictable response. Fetterman, I think probably summed it up the best by saying the following. I think this is it. Let's. Let's listen to SOT1.
Michael Duncan
I mean, it's.
Megyn Kelly
I would describe it as God tier level trolling to just trigger a full.
John Ashbrook
On China syndrome to own the libs in perpetuity.
Josh Holmes
Pretty accurate.
Comfortably Smug
I think he's right.
Megyn Kelly
Right. What do you guys make of it?
Michael Duncan
I love that he gets it now. Yeah, I mean, he totally gets it.
Comfortably Smug
Well, I like to think of Donald Trump as like a T. Rex from Jurassic park park. And he's testing the electric fencing on Washington D.C. you know, like, see how many of the establishment he can anger with these nominations, which has been very entertaining.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, like he, like they had Pete Hetzick obviously created the defense industrial complex meltdown that we saw. And he was like, God, I really thought that would be worse.
John Ashbrook
Yeah.
Michael Duncan
Well, let's get a load of this one.
Megyn Kelly
Totally though Somebody was saying that, like Hegseth was the prep for Gates, you know, and now Gates could be prep, or Hegseth was the prep for Tulsi and Tulsi will be the prep for Gates. And now God only knows what's coming next.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, I can't.
Megyn Kelly
No idea.
Comfortably Smug
I think the greatest renewable energy in Washington D.C. is outrage.
Michael Duncan
Yeah.
Comfortably Smug
But I mean, he's threatening to take that meter down to zero.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. All right, so let's talk about it because Gates for the, for the listening audience is, is controversial for a number of reasons. He is definitely a professional shit stirrer. He is fiercely loyal to Donald Trump. He actually is a very effective cross examiner. And that I now I am realizing comes from his, his time as a lawyer. But he's very good when he's, when he's going after somebody on Capitol Hill at these hearings. But he is also immersed in controversy. Some salacious allegations have been made against him by the doj, which then decided not to pursue charges. Gates has denied these charges. We can talk about them. But still under investigation by the House Ethics Committee or Oversight Committee. Now that's done because he resigned yesterday when this news came out. But it's going to come up if he goes through a confirmation hearing. And then also something probably closer to your hearts, you guys, he took down Kevin McCarthy as House speaker over on the Republican side and then kind of didn't really have a solution ready to go once Kevin McCarthy fell. But this is one of the reasons why a lot of the so called establishment Republicans hate him. And therefore it is, let's say, far from a guarantee that he will be confirmed. Because we already have Murkowski and Collins on the record seeming to say it's a no. They can't afford to lose too many others. And you know, you've got some squishes over there when it comes to these kinds of people. So I don't know. Andy McCarthy says, why are we even engaging in this debate? He's never going to be confirmed. So this is all pointless. So who wants to take it? Any of those?
Michael Duncan
Well, look, all of that is true. Everything you said is true. And he, look, he's dedicated his entirety of his congressional career to creating enemies, mostly from within. Like, mostly within his own party and kind of go way beyond the establishment of your own party. He's just not played by anybody's rules, which I imagine probably makes him pretty popular amongst the American people, certainly outside the Beltway. The problem is, as you suggested, at some point you have to figure out how to get 51 votes to get confirmed as Attorney General. I think we may have talked about this months and months and months ago, Megan, is that Donald Trump's nominee to be Attorney General was always going to be the most controversial of them all. It was going to be the most difficult because of this hardened Democratic opposition to it. Some concerns lingering on the Republican side about what he would do with the Department of Justice. And so, like, I, he just went full Leroy Jenkins on it and was like, if you're gonna, if you're, if you're gonna be controversial, well, then let's make it the most controversial. And that's where we're at. I do think the only thing that I'm concerned about from a Trump standpoint is how much political capital do you use on this stuff? He's got four years, and you gotta figure out how to get a whole bunch of things done in the first six, eight months. And political capital is at its highest when you win an election, certainly in the fashion that he did, and you begin to drain political capital out of it with each thing that you do that becomes controversial. That you have to actually use the power of the presidency to try to get through using too much on this in what may very well be something that just can't be done, concerns me a little bit, because there's a whole bunch of things about that Trump agenda the American people really, really want him to spend all of his political capital getting.
Josh Holmes
Yeah, but, you know, he has earned the right to pick who he wants. He had a huge win last Tuesday, and he has a mandate to pick whoever he wants, and the Senate is going to consider them, and we'll see what happens. But, I mean, if you look at Gates, like you said, he can cross examine. The guy is not without talent. And if you look at the beginning of his career, he is a guy who supported Jeb Bush in 2016, which I think is why Comfortably Smug likes him so much. Smug really liked Jeb.
John Ashbrook
So I look at the same data that Ashbrook and Holmes are presenting, and I think it's accurate, but my conclusion is completely different. President Trump did come away with an absolute mandate, which is why I think every one of these senators should be on board with it. And like Holmes said, there's a small window where Trump can act, and it's even shorter than four years, it's even shorter than two years. It's probably the first hundred days where you can really move the ball before you start getting all the opposing forces organized and trying to stop Trump's agenda. Which is why I think Matt Gaetz would be the perfect person you want in place in those first hundred days. I think what most of these people are afraid of is, oh God. We had the Department of Justice and we used it to go after conservatives, we used it to go after Trump. You know, you had Merrick Garland calling parents who would show up to school board meetings, domestic terrorists. So we don't need to send, you know, the same old same old. We need to send the message that, hey, that time is up, there's a new sheriff in town.
Megyn Kelly
I, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I agree with you. Smug. I was never really a Matt Gaetz fan. I was never really a huge Matt Gaetz person at all. I haven't really spent any time thinking about him other than with that whole Kevin McCarthy defenestration thing. But I know that there are allegations against him. There, there are no charges. So that's that. I mean, they weren't able to make any charges. And it involved his alleged relationship with his 17 year old girl, which he's denied. And then they were accusing him of sex trafficking. He went on, he denied this and this is the thing he went on, Tucker, about a long time ago. He answered the charges as bullshit and didn't go anywhere. So I mean, that's that. We'll see what the House says if there's something more. But if there was something seriously more, we, we would have seen a charge. But what I look at is two things. Number one, and I tweeted this out yesterday, if you are Donald Trump and your chosen Attorney General has turned you over to Robert Mueller who then ruined your first term as president with a bunch of bullshit, then you leave office and the next guy's Attorney General is behind not one but two criminal prosecutions of you and his DOJ is cooperating with not one, but two state prosecutions of you in a bridge that's never been crossed in our 250 year history as a nation, then I too might prize loyalty to me above all other qualities and go with a guy like Matt Gates who can blame Trump for trying to pick the most loyal soldier he can find for this position. And then point two is what you just said, smug. Eric Holder was a partisan hack loser and so is Merrick Garland. Partisan hack loser. So what do I don't care. Like at this point I'm like, you know what? F you people get the fighter in there, the gloves are off. You took them off. Now Trump's brought in his Own guy with the brass knuckles. It's on. Yeah.
John Ashbrook
That's the greatest fear of Democrats, is that other people will do to them what they've been doing to the American people. And Trump picking people who are loyal to him is exactly what the American people want. That's why he has the popular vote on top of the Electoral College in his victory. He needs to send people who will execute his vision 100%. And if he sees Matt Gaetz as a loyalist who's willing to accomplish that, I'm 100% on board.
Megyn Kelly
I don't blame him, Duncan, for being a little squeamish about, you know, some rando establishment attorney general. Sorry, Ashbrook, I interrupt you.
Comfortably Smug
You go, go, go, go.
Josh Holmes
I mean, what. Like I was saying, it's going to take a very, very strong person to fix these gigantic problems at doj. And Gates will take a meat ax to it. You can bet on that. And if he doesn't get there, Trump will find somebody else who will do the exact same thing, because these problems have to be addressed. That's why he was elected.
Megyn Kelly
Go ahead.
Comfortably Smug
Oh, okay.
Megyn Kelly
I see you're looking at me, Michael.
Comfortably Smug
I heard you there, Megan. Am I squeamish about it? No, I just to reinforce Holmes take on this, it's like you don't want to waste political capital on things that aren't going to happen. I agree with everything that Smug said. In fact, I think it goes deeper than that. You go back and look at what James Comey did at the beginning of Trump's first administration, where he basically went to Trump Tower to President elect Donald Trump and tried to entrap him and gave him oppo research generated by the Hillary Clinton campaign and said, hey, did you pee on Russian prostitutes? And then he scurried back down to his car and typed out a bunch of notes and tried to leak it to the media to get a special counsel appointed. So I'm all for that and rooting out all of the deep state bureaucracy at DOJ and the FBI and all those sort of things. I just don't want to waste any time. The thing that makes me squeamish is trying to get a Gates through. And we waste a lot of time solving these problems because like you said, Susan Collins Murkowski, like, that's just political reality. There are people who are going to not support him. And I saw Dick Durbin this morning, you know, telling the House Ethics Committee that he'd love to see that report for the hearings against Matt Gaetz. And, I mean, it'll just it's going to be a circus. That's all I'm saying. A circus.
Megyn Kelly
So just to be clear, Susan Collins, the reports are that she will oppose Murkowski, said, quote, we need to have a serious attorney general. And I'm looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one, this one was not on my bingo card. So she hasn't said no, but she certainly sounds like a no. Then Senator Tom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, he didn't say no, but he said the following. I have very few skills. Vote counting is one. And I think he's got a lot of work to do to get to 50. So it's really about the Republicans. There's this, this is on the record from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who dodged POLITICO's question on Gates, saying, I'm trying to go fix a toilet between getting back for a vote. Life's a little hectic right now.
Michael Duncan
Megan. That's what you're seeing. And I think, look, there's an issue at the beginning of every administration in that what you would like to do is you take your political capital, take the mandate that the American people gave you and put your hardened opposition in a very difficult place. And I think Donald Trump has got the opportunity to literally break the Democratic Party. I mean, you look at all of the recriminations. It's Joe Biden's fault, it's Barack Obama's fault, it's George Clooney's fault, it's Hollywood's fault, it's Oprah's fault. They're all blaming everybody. They don't know. You hear people saying, oh, we've got to moderate on social issues or we've got to be more clear populist opposition to big business. They don't know what the hell to do. They don't have an identity at all. But the conversation that we're having right now is a conversation about Donald Trump versus Republicans. And I think if you're doing that for a prolonged period of time at the beginning of an administration, you're sort of missing the opportunity to sort of forever change not only the policy that comes after, but, but the political dynamic in which Democrats live in which they're very, very uncomfortable with, provided you have a united Republican Party that is absolutely beating the drum on them. And it just makes, it makes Dick Durbin's job easier. It makes Chuck Schumer's job easier when we're arguing amongst ourselves. And I understand what you're saying, Holmes.
Megyn Kelly
Is he can go provocative but he can't go full on nuclear.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, I think he can do whatever the hell he wants. You just have to know that in the backdrop of all of that is that each one of these United States Sen. Wake up every morning and see a President of the United States in their own mirrors. Right. All of them are elected statewide. Many of them were elected. Everyone that we just mentioned on this program were mentioned were elected before Donald Trump ever came around. Right. So like you have to try to figure out what is the best use of your political capital. And if it's Matt Gaetz, if they decide it's Matt Gaetz, well then it is Matt Gaetz and then we'll see how that whole thing plays out. But I just worry about sort of the underpinning of that.
Megyn Kelly
But you know, you mentioned, I think it was you, Duncan or Ashbrook, you mentioned the FBI. And that's another thing. I mean the FBI is within the doj and that's the organization that raided Mar A Lago and tried to humiliate him. That's the organization that spied on churchgoers under Joe Biden to see if we were wearing our masks. That is the organization that Biden pulled in to discuss whether parents objecting to the masks and the mandates and the school lockdowns were domestic terrorists. And that is the organization that most Republicans believe needs to be shredded down to the studs and rebuilt fresh from scratch to focus on only one thing, which is law enforcement and not these investigations and so on. That is probably part of this too. You know, there was a report, I think it was Politico today, I think. Where did you see the guy who runs Polymarket had an FBI, the FBI raided his house this morning at 6am and took his phone and other things. And apparently one source close to Trump world in an interview to I'll figure out was political or Axios, I get them confused, said he picked, it was Axios, he picked Matt Gaetz to stop shit like that. Like just to or look at what happened to James O'Keefe. Right. Like they're trying to harass him. The FBI showed up and raided his house too after he was reporting on the Ashley Biden diary. I mean we really had some rogue FBI behavior here. And I can see why they think you don't want a perfectly polite, you know, Queens English pinky out, tea sipping lawyer to run herd over these guys.
John Ashbrook
And that's the thing is I, it's frustrating that you have Republicans in the Senate who always wonder, oh, wouldn't this cost Some problems. And the Democrats never thought, will this cause some problems? When they sent Merrick Garland, when who wasn't fit for the Supreme Court, so he's not there. When they sent Eric Holder, who since running the Department of Justice has gone on to essentially start a dark money group that gerrymanders districts across America so conservatives can't have their voice heard. So we need to stop thinking about, oh, would this cause some problems? Am I going to have a tough press conference and think about what could we gain from having Matt Gaetz there? If he shows up day one at the FBI and says, anyone who has a problem with me, get up and leave, and you see half the people in that building leave, that's a huge win. That's a solution.
Comfortably Smug
Yeah. I guess at the end of the day, what I would prefer is that like the opposition, if, to use an analogy from golf, you're playing a heads up match against somebody, they take out the driver and they hit it into the water and they're out of bounds.
Michael Duncan
Pull the five iron.
Comfortably Smug
Pull a five iron and get it down the middle of the fairway and go and use your political capital on, I don't know, deportations, a 70, 30 issue in this country, fixing the economy, ending the wars. Those things are worth using your political.
Megyn Kelly
He doesn't need to. How does he, how does he, what do you, what do you mean? He, he already has the public support on those issues, so you don't have to burn political capital to do those things.
Comfortably Smug
Well, what I'm saying is the Democrats on the deportation issue will make it a circus. They're going to make it a circus on the Mac. Yes, but when, when what's his name, Homan, is not his nominee.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, like, oh, man.
Comfortably Smug
When all, when all this, when all that guy, when all that stuff starts to be implemented and put in motion, there's just an effect in, in washing three months into a new administration, six months, where the cement starts to harden and it gets harder to do things legislatively.
Josh Holmes
Right.
Comfortably Smug
And so if you get all of these things in process and in motion in the first hundred days, you're going to reap the political benefits into the future. I mean, I think the biggest question.
Megyn Kelly
How much, Wait, let me ask you this quickly. How much can they slow down? How much can the Democrats slow down this confirmation hearing? So, like, how long will this drama be going be with us?
Michael Duncan
Well, it's not really up to the Democrats to provide the pace. I mean, it'll be. Chairman Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chair, will set a timeline they'll obviously have to go through, you know, your background checks and your financial disclosures and all of that. And once they're satisfied with the information, then it sets a hearing date. You've got hearings and ultimately, you know, report on a committee and they'll set a date for a confirmation. So Democrats can't do a whole bunch about that, but what they can do is turn the Judiciary Committee into a big top circus, as we saw like during Kavanaugh, for example.
Megyn Kelly
Need a help?
Michael Duncan
Yeah. And the qu. The question is, look, everything that you guys have talked about in terms of the problems with the Justice Department, the problems with Merrick Garland, you know, Eric Holder, insane. The FBI, everything they're doing, nobody disagrees on that. I don't think there's any Republican that disagrees with the notion that we have to do something about that. I guess the question is whether or not you send RuPaul in to do it. Right. I mean, there's different, there's different ways.
Megyn Kelly
Out of Gates fan. I think we've determined Holmes is not behind the picks like him.
Michael Duncan
I mean, to be honest with you, Megan, my problem has never been with Matt Gates. In fact, he's kind of said some nice things about the ruthless variety program. So I have no problem with this guy. I have a problem with us just sort of pretending gravity doesn't exist. And I.
Megyn Kelly
What I really wish find out whether it does.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, I wish we would take the opportunity to sort of like study and understand how the most effective implementations of policy have happened because we don't have a very long.
Megyn Kelly
Does that sound like Trump?
Michael Duncan
No, it doesn't, but it doesn't. He ran a campaign that did though. You know, I mean, he ran a campaign that was technically.
Megyn Kelly
But this is his most sensitive area. This is like the crowd sized piece of policy for him, like Trigger, you know, like doj, FBI, imagine. I mean, I understand it for the reasons I just stated. Who has harassed Trump more than this string of dojs is his own to begin with. Jeff Sessions recused, handed thing over to Bob Mueller. Bob Mueller took over, made his life a living hell. And you know, then he had attorney general after attorney general who he couldn't stand, who he didn't feel was loyal to him. And even the New York Times is reporting about this this morning. Like, well, they were grownups who were loyal to trying to keep him in check. Well, he doesn't want that. The American public may say we like it, they may not, but Trump, he's not required to like it this time around. He got smart for what he wants. And he's like, I'm getting a loyalist.
Josh Holmes
Yep. Well, the problem was the first time around is this guy was elected president. And what Duncan pointed out about Jim Comey is that he started his job assuming that the government who worked for him and worked for the American people and the voters who chose him would carry out his mission. What he found out on day one is that the deep state is full of people who think they're in charge, not that the voters are in charge. And he learned that he has to fight them. And so at the same time that he has to have a smart plan and go up to the Hill and be realistic about what he's capable of achieving. He also needs to make sure that his sixes covered inside of his own administration. And without the right people who are going to fist fight these bureaucrats who think they're in charge instead of the voters, he's not going to be able to get anything done there either. So I think, like, maybe Matt Gaetz doesn't ultimately get there, but whoever Trump has at the Department of Justice has to be laser focused on making sure that the voter's will is represented rather than the bureaucrats will.
Michael Duncan
Yeah.
Megyn Kelly
And the other thing that Eric Holder's DOJ did, and this DOJ as well, is sick. The DOJ on police officers around the country, on entire police forces that aren't compliant with the DEI requirements, or that they basically come in and take over via a forced consent degree which isn't consensual at all. Like, we're going to make your life a living hell unless you let us basically run your policing towns like Ferguson, Missouri. And that harassment needs to end. And those are brutal fights, too. So you do need a fighter who's kind of a mother. Yes, you need that. That's Trump. And this is the guy. Like, I don't know. I kind of am curious to see if it could work out. Maybe I'll rue the words. Maybe he will get confirmed and he'll go in there. It'll be a nightmare. But I'm kind of curious to see what it would be like. I want to show the audience some of what we're talking about. First, we shall look at some of the controversy around Matt Gaetz, courtesy of cnn. Tattoo Donald Trump's selection of Congressman Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General sent shockwaves through Washington and the country yesterday. Gates has earned notoriety for a variety of political stunts over the years. Here he was on Capitol Hill sporting a gas mask during the COVID pandemic. But it's been his sexual, not political exploits that have landed him in trouble in recent years. He was accused of sleeping with an underage girl.
Michael Duncan
And there's a reason why no one.
Megyn Kelly
In the conference came and defended him.
John Ashbrook
Because we had all seen the videos.
Megyn Kelly
He was showing on the House floor.
John Ashbrook
That all of us had walked away of the girls that he had slept with.
Michael Duncan
He'd brag about how he would crush.
John Ashbrook
Ed medicine and chase it with, with an energy drink so he could go all night.
Megyn Kelly
Oh boy, that's a Republican. That was Senator Mark Wayne Mullen last year.
Michael Duncan
Not just a Republican. I mean, that's one of Trump's most aligned Republicans in the entire conference. I mean, that is a MAGA guy through and through.
Josh Holmes
Right.
Megyn Kelly
So what you're saying is that the confirmation hearings are going to be NC17, like we should not let our children watch.
Michael Duncan
Is that where we are from perspective? I don't know that we can ask for anything more.
Comfortably Smug
I think it's going to be must see tv.
John Ashbrook
This is the same playbook that they pulled on Trump. They said, gosh, all this salacious stuff about him. There's this Access Hollywood, oh, and there's this porn star who now owes Donald Trump money for lying about him. It's like, when are we going to learn that you can't compromise with these people? Trump tried to compromise. He tried to play nice. He had Diana Feinstein show up at one of those press conferences. He had Sheeran Pelosi show up at press conferences and all they did was try to stand in his way and obstruct and now try to put him in jail. Why should he compromise on anything? And Republicans shouldn't be focused on, oh, is this going to, is this, can I compromise to get some more political capital? No, we got to steamroll them. We got so many electoral votes. We got the popular vote. It's not time to worry about political capital or anything. You just steamroll everyone your way because that's what the American people wanted.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, you have 100 days to get shit done. And then you're kind of like already if you're a one term president closing in on lame duck status. Let's take a look at Matt Gates. I show you do some of the negative allegations against him though I, I posit that the gas mask incident is a positive for him. I applaud it. I fully support that. It was absurd what we were doing and that's what he was trying to point out. Let's take a look at the Combative Matt Gaetz versus someone who is loathed by center. Center. Right. And right along as well. Merrick Garland, do you ever have a.
Josh Holmes
Family member profit off of the notoriety.
Comfortably Smug
Of any case that you settled?
Michael Duncan
Say again? You're asking yes or no? You're asking me to comment on a case currently.
Josh Holmes
Well, it seems you're connecting the dots, Mr. Attorney General.
Comfortably Smug
I'm just asking you as to a general principle.
Josh Holmes
But you are aware the Judge Marshawn's daughter was profiting off of this prosecution. You are aware that that creates the appearance of impropriety.
Comfortably Smug
You know, the very reason there's a federal rule against judges giving donations is.
Josh Holmes
Because it is the very attack on the judicial process that we're concerned about.
Michael Duncan
I'm sorry, I don't agree with anything you just said.
Comfortably Smug
The judge is making money on it. The judge is making money on it. The judge's family is making money on.
Megyn Kelly
It for stuff that you yourself wouldn't do. You know, no one's going to buy this.
Comfortably Smug
No one's going to believe it. It's going to create great disruption.
Josh Holmes
And I am saddened by it because, like you, I have given my life to the law. I care deeply about the law, and I think that the law fare we've.
Comfortably Smug
Seen against President Trump will do great.
Megyn Kelly
Damage well beyond our time in public service. Let me tell you something.
John Ashbrook
Any Republican senator go after Merrick Garland like that?
Megyn Kelly
That's right. And he's going to be a handful when they try to embarrass him at his confirmation hearing.
Michael Duncan
Oh, yeah, no, no question about that. I mean, he's handled himself in committee rooms just about as well as anybody. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. Look, if it comes down to a rhetorical battle, I feel pretty confident that he's going to do just fine. The question is whether he gets to that or not.
Megyn Kelly
Who are the likely no votes outside of Collins and Murkowski?
Michael Duncan
Guys, I think there's about a third of that conference that wants this thing to be taken care of, where they actually have to do anything about it. I think. Look, what do you mean?
Megyn Kelly
What do you mean?
Michael Duncan
I think if you had a vote within the House of Representatives, which, thankfully for him, you don't have to do, but amongst Republicans in the House of Representatives, I don't know that he'd get more than 30 votes. Like, I think this is somebody who, people, it's not an unknown quantity. You know, we're talking about the at gates as though, you know, he's just sort of showed up and he's President Trump's pick. He is that. But he's also spent the last six, seven years around a whole bunch of people who now determine his fate. And that is not an irrelevant piece of this puzzle. I mean, if you have Mark Wayne Mullen of all people, expressing deep concern about his character, that bleeds over into a whole bunch of people. And again, they're not going to be.
Megyn Kelly
Worried, Josh, about crossing Trump.
Michael Duncan
Well, I do. I think that's why there's a whole bunch of people who have not discussed whether or not they'll be supportive or not. Unlike Pete Hegseth where people ran out right immediately and they said, well, what a controversial pick. And people are like, well, I think it's a great pick. I think, Pete, I mean, enormous amount of Republican senators that came out for a very uncontroversial pick. And I do not just. Once again, I don't want to conflate two things. There is nobody in the Republican conference in the Senate who thinks you ought to have a Merrick Garland led doj, or that what the FBI did was great, or that the law fare against President Trump and his allies is fair game. Like nobody thinks that. Everyone thinks that this place needs an incredible amount of work. The question is whether this is the guy who is not only most capable of doing it, but could do it at all. And that, as I think, is what's going to be litigated. Now, there's a chance he could get confirmed here, but he's got a lot of work to do is my only point.
John Ashbrook
And what I would consider for a lot of these Republican senators, especially the ones who voted to confirm Mayor Garland, is how about you rethink your thinking on what you would support for an Attorney general. Were you wrong in the past? Maybe you should go with Trump. He's been right to the point that so many Americans. You have. The Democrat Party AOC removed the pronouns from her bio today on Twitter. Okay, they're on the run.
Megyn Kelly
What?
John Ashbrook
They're on the run. And it's because of Trump. It's not because a bunch of Republican senators.
Megyn Kelly
It's shocking.
John Ashbrook
No, it was Trump. And so he knows what he's doing. You gotta get on board with this agenda. The American people have said that they wanted it. Why would Republican senators stand in the way of the mission that Trump is on that the American people have put him on?
Megyn Kelly
And honestly, and it's not like the DOJ is such a vaunted institution currently in November 2024, that we have to maintain how Pristine it is. We can't have untoward hands touching it. Please. It has its reputation, is in tatters thanks to its own behavior. Merrick Garland ruined it. Absolutely ruined the doj. He'll have to account for that with his God when he eventually meets him. Okay, you mentioned Chuck Schumer, who is now the minority leader, and get a load of this guy. My God, it's amazing to me to watch these guys go. It's Sat seven. To my Republican colleagues, I offer a word of caution in good faith, take care not to misread the will of the people, and do not abandon the need for bipartisanship.
Michael Duncan
After winning an election, the temptation may.
Megyn Kelly
Be to go to the extreme. We've seen that happen over the decades, and it's consistently backfired on the party in power.
Michael Duncan
So instead of going to the extremes.
Megyn Kelly
I remind my colleagues that this body is most effective when it's bipartisan. Democrats will never abandon our values, but neither will we reject an opportunity to move the ball forward to make people's lives better when we can. The question is now whether or not Republicans are willing to do the same.
Michael Duncan
To my colleagues on the other side.
Megyn Kelly
Once again, do not abandon bipartisanship.
Josh Holmes
Yeah, that's different tune than when he was threatening Supreme Court justices when they.
Megyn Kelly
Were like, here, listen, Ashbrook, we have it. Sad 8.
Michael Duncan
I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price.
John Ashbrook
There's a bipartisan. You won't know what you do if.
Megyn Kelly
You go forward with these awful decisions. Wow.
Josh Holmes
Just perfect timing.
Comfortably Smug
I think that's the only time Schumer was surprised. It's the only time a crowd has cheered when he opened his mouth. You know, not exactly. Not exactly a great.
Michael Duncan
The worst. The worst. He's so shameless. It reminds me of a story, Megan. Back in 2016, Democrats were absolutely so certain that Hillary Clinton was going to win and they were going to sweep in a Democratic Senate. In that point, it was a Republican majority that Schumer called McConnell the day before the election, and he said, you know, Mitch, this may not turn out great for you. I sure hope we can count on you and we'll work in a bipartisan fashion. But I hope I can count on your cooperation. And like, sure enough, the results come in and it's like a red wave the size of the mountains. And so amazing. Just called him back and was like, you know what, Chuck? I think that was a good idea. I think that could make A lot of sense to be cooperative.
Comfortably Smug
Yeah. You know, I mean, the Democratic Senate majority, you know, they are all about making D.C. a state and Puerto Rico state and eliminating the Electoral College and eliminating the filibuster. And I wonder on that last one, eliminating the filibuster, there's still to that. You know, now that, now that we control the chamber, you think about, guys, why?
Megyn Kelly
Well, why don't we do it just for abortion? That's what Kamala Harris said she believed in, that we should eliminate it just for abortion. Okay, why don't we do that now? Let's eliminate minority rights in the Senate just on abortion, so that the Republicans with a 51, it's going to be 53 seat majority can push through whatever national abortion legislation they want. How do, how do we feel about that? It's so hypocritical. These people are so dishonest. It's absurd and they're not going to do it. To their credit, you will not see Donald Trump or these Republicans in control of the Senate and House even try that. It's a liberal pipe dream and shame on her for even pretending that it was a reality. It's not going to be. I want to spend a minute on Tulsi Gabbard. So Director of National Intelligence, which has gotten a lot of people upset as well, by the way. Was it the greatest trade to get Tulsi for Liz Cheney? I mean, that. I don't think you could improve that. I'd make a sports analogy, but I don't know any. So they're upset. They don't want her to do this. They're actually back some corners of the Internet with she's a Russian spy. Like she's somehow rushing it because Hillary Clinton put out that nonsense when Tulsi was so effective in that 2020 presidential debate. In any event, what is going to happen with Tulsi? Will she be confirmed as Director of National Intelligence?
Michael Duncan
Yeah, I think she's got a different set of criteria and that most people do like Tulsi Gabbard. And I think she's spent an awful lot of time over the last couple of years explaining her journey from, you know, being a Bernie Sanders supporter essentially all the way to Donald Trump and the Republican Party and where she's gone from an int perspective, she's got a resume that, that works amongst anyone you'd want to see there. She's a veteran, she's very smart. She spent a lot of time on these issues. I think there will probably be some pretty serious questions. I Mean, this is what the nomination process should look like by the way. I mean you're going to have Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas who's now number three in leadership, who will lead the intel panel in the Senate. And he's got some very specific ideas when it comes to intelligence, national security that he's going to want some assurances and be address upon. She's going to have that opportunity. And I think provided she handles those confirmation questions well, I can very easily see her getting confirmed.
Megyn Kelly
Well, can I ask you another question? By the way, credit to Greg Price for that Tulsi for, I mean for Cheney line. He tweeted that out earlier. Can I ask you a question? So she's going to get in there. I don't think Tulsi is an expert in national intelligence. I don't see anything in her resume that would suggest she is. But she's an honest broker. She served our country in the military. Obviously she was a congresswoman. I think he's hiring her for her judgment and her loyalty and her sensibilities. So is that good enough? I mean, she's going to be surrounded by a team that will help her understand the issues. But am I wrong? As long as she's got a team that can say here's what we're looking at, here are the decisions we need to make. She can do this job.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, yeah. I mean, no question she can do the job. I do think she's got pieces of her resume that do fit this and I think she spent an inordinate amount of time on national security issues in her career and sort of understands it. There's one set of questions that is going to be most significant amongst Senate Republicans and it comes down to a libertarian viewpoint of data collection and information collection of our intelligence agencies. This has been a battle going back to the Bush administration. Democrats used to be for it and then they were again that Republicans have always sort of had this viewpoint of what we ought to be collecting on foreign adversaries and the more libertarian leaning side of the Republican Party think like Rand Paul has always had a problem with that and she sort of aligned herself with the Rand Paul view of a lot of that. That is not where the center of that conference is. But I think when she listens to these arguments and understands fully, you're right, she's an honest broker. I think she has every capability of providing assurances that she's not going to like shut down the intelligence apparatus of the United States as some people would want her to do. She won't do that. And I think that she's not going.
Megyn Kelly
To go spying on civilians though.
Michael Duncan
She's not. And that's look, that is where this whole thing has gone astray and where people have tried to figure out where those lines are. It's a very complicated process, but it's one who somebody like that with integrity could help get the base of the Republican party back to a one view of how you handle intelligence collection from our agencies.
Comfortably Smug
I think the one thing that mentioned earlier which is 100% true and I think is a through line on all of these picks is like Donald Trump wants people he can trust in all of these departments to execute his agenda and vision for America. And that means they have to have loyalty to that vision. Whether it's Matt Gaetz or Pete Hegseth or Tulsi, somebody with different view who reflects the mandate that the voters gave him on election day is and is there to disrupt the status quo and the failed bureaucracy. I mean, and it's not just Tulsi, it's not just Matt Gaetz. I mentioned Pete Hegse. You remember for the four years of the Trump administration it be like the idea of a deep state became a joke in liberal media. They're like ha ha, that doesn't exist. And then the second Donald Trump's administration was over, you had tiktoks full media reports about how people in the Pentagon slow walked his policies that he wanted to implement, which I don't know, feels like a fireable offense.
Michael Duncan
Yes.
Comfortably Smug
That they weren't informing the President of the United States that when he told them, hey, this is how I want to plan the step down withdrawal in Afghanistan, they would ignore him and they'd slow walk it and they would hope he would forget. That's why these picks are so important for Donald Trump. He needs people that he can deputize at these departments to fulfill his objectives.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's right. I gotta tell you this. So yesterday we talked a little bit about Kristi Noem, who I admit was not my favorite after the puppy killing incident and the reports about her and Corey Lewandowski. I'm not gonna lie, I changed my opinion of her. Even though I really liked her when she came on the show to promote her book. But if she gets confirmed to this very important position, we are going to have to support her. And I will. The more I thought about it, the more I kept thinking along the lines of Tulsi for Liz and what a good trade this was. Who in their right mind wouldn't take Christy Noem over Rachel Levine, which is one of the senior most HHS or department of whatever. He's over at HHS officials that we have, like, look at this. At least we're now replacing the fake women with real ones at the top of government. And I was thinking about some of the freaks who have been in the Biden administration. Remember Sam Brinton, the luggage thief who was stealing the women's clothes? But even before that came out, he was parading around our government with his bald head and his big red lips and his weird clothing. This essence, this. They hired him to work on nuclear regulatory stuff. I guess I'm just sort of feeling like there's only so much Trump can do to shock me at this point. Right. And then also puts in a Care about the picadillos.
Comfortably Smug
It puts it in perspective. Megan, and I'm so glad you mentioned this because, like, you know, everyone's going to have a debate internally in the Republican Party about Donald Trump's picks and which ones they like, which ones they don't like, and what the confirmation process is. But in that montage you just played, it's important perspective for everybody listening. If you're watching this, anybody Donald Trump puts up is going to be a vast improvement on what we have now. That's 100% true.
Michael Duncan
No trans luggage stealing that I know of.
Megyn Kelly
Right? No. And. And I. I'm an adventure. It's going to be mostly like real women and real men. You're not allowed to not hire somebody because they're trans. That's what the Supreme Court said. Justice Gorsuch was the deciding vote. Even if they're in a position where they have to interact with people who might be, you know, very against the belief that one can trans one's body, notwithstanding what God has done to us. In any event, that's a Gorsuch thing that he. He. Okay. In any event. But we're certainly not gonna have people parading around with bald heads and blue lips and S and M gear. At a minimum, I think President Trump will reinstitute a dress code if we get that kind of a nonsense, which is just a return to normalcy.
John Ashbrook
That's the thing, is how could any Republican senator stand in the way of President Trump when we've gone through four years of this and like, the front lawn of the White House was full of trans people who are getting topless during an event President Biden's at like, yes, yourselves. What is your ego thinking? This is not how things are done in Washington. What have you Seen for the past four years, President Trump is the real return to normalcy.
Michael Duncan
Tom Homan would look pretty with the, with the blue lipstick.
Megyn Kelly
Oh my God. Can imagine Tom trying to make conversation with Sam Brinton at a cocktail party. It's kind of fun to think about, but think about. So put the Kristi Noem dog thing aside, right? I mean it's like it wasn't a good controversy and it did cost her the vice presidency potentially, but so she's paid the price. But here she comes back and now she's going to be, if she gets confirmed running dhs, compare her to mayorkas.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, totally.
Megyn Kelly
Oh my God. We're gonna get somebody in there who actually does care about the border. Trump wouldn't put her there if he didn't think she cared about the border. I mean it's going to be a vast improvement and she's gonna have Stephen Miller and she's gonna have Tom Homan. So I'm starting to feel really good about that whole lane. You know, I mean, I think we're gonna see changes there really quickly and there's nothing, I mean that we know of at least that could stop the Christy Noem's confirmation.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, really, really well said. I agree with you on all of those points. She also has the experience, Right. She spent an enormous amount of time in the House of Representatives. She's been an executive as a governor, two term governor of a state. And she spent an awful lot of time around Donald Trump to know exactly what it is that he wants to do on the border and cares deeply about these issues. I think it's a no brainer. I don't see anything that stops that.
John Ashbrook
Look how she handled a puppy. That was a problem. We think she's going to do cartel.
Megyn Kelly
Well. Yeah.
Comfortably Smug
So that's the one wrinkle in. This is new. We have a new senator from West Virginia, Jim Justice. If Jim Justice's dog, he's gonna want insurance.
Michael Duncan
He's gonna want.
Comfortably Smug
He's gotta be sure that you're not.
Megyn Kelly
Coming after baby dog. Oh God. Duncan. When they mentioned Kristi Noem was the choice, the Internet, God bless X it resurrected all those scary dog pics from. They're eating the dogs from that phase of the campaign. They were all over X like Christine Dome.
John Ashbrook
Very funny.
Megyn Kelly
Very, very funny. Okay, I want to play this out for you. It's not on immigration, but it's related. It's about the crime in our major cities. And here is the New York Times, Ezra Klein talking to the guys over at Pod Save America about that. Listen, the thing that surprised me least.
Michael Duncan
About the election was the sharp red shift in these big city.
Megyn Kelly
Because if you just talk to anybody.
Michael Duncan
Who lives in them, they are furious. And this idea that, like, oh, no, the economy is actually good or crime is actually down, this is all just Fox News.
Megyn Kelly
Like, shut the fuck up with that.
Michael Duncan
Like, talk to some people who live near you. The rage I just hear from people in New York, this is partially Greg Abbott busing huge amounts of migrants here. But that does mean, by the way, there were enough migrants that Greg Abbott could bus actual human bodies to New York City. And it was a big enough problem.
Megyn Kelly
That New York City was not able to effectively deal with it.
Josh Holmes
Right.
Megyn Kelly
It does show that what was going.
Michael Duncan
On on the border was much worse. I think the Democrats were letting themselves.
Megyn Kelly
Accept the sense of disorder rising. Right?
Michael Duncan
Not just crime, but homeless encampments, trash.
Megyn Kelly
On the streets, people jumping turnstiles in.
Michael Duncan
Subways, crazy people on the streets. You just talk to people and they're mad about it. You have to be able to govern well.
Megyn Kelly
People don't follow politics, but they live.
Michael Duncan
In the place they live. They see if prices have gone way.
Megyn Kelly
Up, as Al Klein says, shut the fuck up. To people who say it's not a big deal.
Josh Holmes
Yeah, it's so refreshing to hear something like that from the left. And I gotta be honest with you, Megan, it is vindication for a guy like Stephen Miller, who's been preaching about this problem for at least a decade, if not more. And everybody's like, oh, Stephen Miller, he's just complaining about immigration again. The guy understood it from the earliest days. He and President Trump worked their asses off in the first time around to try to do something about it. And now he's in a position to execute on the problem that he has seen for so long. And I think that's one of the great things about having Trump back is he get Stephen Miller back, too.
Michael Duncan
One of the things about. Yeah. Oh, no question. I mean, one of the things about this election that's so interesting if you take the, like, border security and immigration deal just as itself in history, it's been a base Republican issue. This is the first election in my lifetime where it has bled into the center and center left. Why is that? He talked as recline, just talked about it. Busing. What Desantis and Abbott were doing of sharing the problem that they had with the places in the country that wanted to pretend like it didn't exist. Sanctuary City changed the conversation in a way where people were like, oh man, that is a problem. And you saw it electorally change this map.
Comfortably Smug
Yeah. I guess I would just say as a caveat to all of this is like Ezra Klein feels comfortable saying that now. Yeah, now because it's after the election and all these liberal journalists and I saw it in Washington D.C. you know, they would to mock the idea that the city had become lawlessness and there was too much crime. They'd take pictures during the day in park and be like, oh, I'm so scared to be here in D.C. and so they were making fun of the American people for the last four years about this problem. The American people showed up on election day spot on. And now suddenly they're having to come to Jesus, which I don't, I don't buy at all.
John Ashbrook
That's right, Duncan.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Where was your honesty when it counted? Stand by. So much more to get to with the fellows. We'll do it right after this quick break. This holiday season, millions of families across America will rely on credit card rewards to visit their loved ones. But according to our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, D.C. politicians are trying to pass a bill that would lead to the end of credit card rewards. They say the Durbin Marshall credit card bill would mandate credit cards run on alternative networks, not the trusted and stable networks that you probably use today. And that there's no guarantee that the convenience, zero liability, fraud protection and rewards programs you know and love will remain. The Electronic Payments Coalition says corporate megastores are going to make more money while you sacrifice your payment, convenience, rewards and peace of mind. Find out more for yourself@guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card while you're at it. And oppose the Durbin Marshall credit card bill. Learn more@guardyourcard.com when work gets crazy, I like to stop by the bar after, have a few cold ones. I don't drink at all until 4:00.
Michael Duncan
We limit ourselves to one bottle of wine a night.
John Ashbrook
Excessive drinking has a way of sneaking up on us. A few drinks, a few nights a week, it can add up and suddenly we're at greater risk for long term problems like heart disease, cancer and depression. Reason enough to ride. Rethink the Drink more@rethinkthedrink.com no HA initiative.
Megyn Kelly
I gotta get your reaction because you guys are all Senate know everything's John Thune won. Yes, yes we are. John Thune won for a majority leader. He's going to be taking the role that Mitch McConnell said he would retire from. This is despite A last minute effort by Rick Scott, the entirely pro Maga loyalist, versus the other two who are conservative. Cornyn and Thune, who are in the running, but I guess slightly less pro Maga. I mean, they're fine with Maga, they're just not like Rick Scott. So Thune won, and then after all that, Rick Scott got 13 votes, so it didn't go very well for him. So what does this mean? Because some of the Cora Maga are fretting that John Thune is going to be somehow against Trump or try to try to thwart his agenda.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, I don't think that's going to be the case. In fact, I don't think there was a dime's worth of difference between Thune, Cornyn, or Rick Scott in terms of their energy that they're going to expend trying to get the Trump agenda done and his nominees in place. I think the biggest issue when you look at it is what are you hiring for within the Senate? And the way I've tried to explain it to people is if a Trump Tweet gets you 47, who is that is best positioned to get you the last four to get to 51? And it's all about relationships within that building. And, you know, the external pressure that you can put on a House of Representatives is significant. They're up to every two years, these people are up every six. A lot of people were elected, you know, before President Trump came down the escalator, and they built their own coalitions and their own constituencies. And so ultimately, it is about which leader has a relationship with their colleagues that is able to cajole them to get to a point where they are a yes on these nominees, where they are a yes on the tax bill that's inevitably coming. All that stuff's gonna be super contentious, and you can bet there's gonna be 46, 47 votes that Trump's position alone is good enough to get there. But 46 or 47 doesn't get you to 51 to make law. And I think John Thune is uniquely able to have those conversations. He's had these relationships with senators for a very, very long time. He knows what it is that they care about, and he can make deals to figure out how to get these things over the finish line. So I think that's ultimately the good news for people who are maybe fretting about, you know, is this guy all in versus somebody who they they perceive as being all in? He's definitely all in. There's no question about that. The question is, how can you be effective? And I think he's going to be tremendously effective.
Comfortably Smug
And just brass tax. I mean, Jon Thune has had the job of vote counter. He's been whipped, you know, so like this is a guy who has that experience of building all those relationships and knows what these members need. And to Holmes point, like, you don't make law if you don't get to 51. So like.
Megyn Kelly
Well, 50, 50 now. Right, 50 now.
Michael Duncan
50 now.
John Ashbrook
Which is good because you'd have JD there.
Megyn Kelly
They can lose three. So they can lose three. So on any given piece of legislation, let's say, let's say Trump really wants to get a border bill through and he doesn't want to do this all by executive order this time. He'd like to get law on the books that requires the guy to do it the way Trump's doing it. Who are likely to be the squishes in the Senate because, you know. Well, I guess, I mean he's got a, it's going to be tight in the House too. They've got a four vote margin, we expect. And now they're losing Congressman left and right, the elevated Stefanik Walls, the other guy for CIA. And now Gates is out. I'm, I'm assuming we're, we're guessing these people will also be replaced by Republicans, but it could take a while. But so, so we've got Murkowski and Collins. Mitt Romney's still in the U.S. senate. That's three right there who don't always vote, you know, in line with Trump's ideals. Let's say we can anticipate. How many more does he need to worry about? Yeah.
Michael Duncan
So Romney's done actually in January and his replacement has arrived. But I think you look at it in terms of, yes, there's an ideological issue when it comes to the Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowskis. But always is the case with any piece of legislation, there are pieces of parochial concern.
Megyn Kelly
Right.
Michael Duncan
And you saw that play out like in the 2017 tax bill where Republicans all wanted it to get done, but they had different pieces that they were concerned about. I remember Ron Johnson, Steve Daines were vitally concerned about the idea that you had this huge corporate tax cut, but small businesses didn't get any piece of it. And so they had, they were a no until they came back to them and started to work through what a small business tax cut would look like that's going to show up. And it has nothing to do with ideological components to it. It's like, what do I need from my constituents? And it doesn't matter.
Megyn Kelly
We get that. We get all that. They all have their weir little things. But like, you can look at Collins and Murkowski and predict, you know, they're soft, they're, they're not going to vote the way the normal Republicans are. They're kind of, they're almost Democrat light, Republican light. I don't know where you put them, but is there another. Like, who else comes to mind is like, be, be wary. Well, some.
Comfortably Smug
Sometimes it's on off the other side of the spectrum as well. Like, especially on an issue like immigration or border security, where you actually end up in trouble with the conservatives like a Mike Lee or a Ted Cruz. I'm not saying they won't get there. I'm just saying it's not always the squishes, the Collins, the Murkowski they have to worry about in some of the situations really does depend on the issue.
Megyn Kelly
Right.
Comfortably Smug
Because there was a lot of fear of that when we had those contentious SCOTUS confirmation fights where, I mean, some of these people, like a Cory Gardner comes to mind who swing state people who don't think he was as conservative as some of these other people, but came out and supported those judicial nominees. Susan Collins comes to mind in that, too. So, like, it's a little more complicated than it's like these three votes on every issue that we have to be concerned.
Josh Holmes
And you also got to remember that sweeping legislation on something like immigration will take 60 votes. So you're going to start counting Democrats to get.
Megyn Kelly
Now if we get rid of the filibuster just for this one issue, Ash.
Josh Holmes
Just for this one, you can address immigration narrowly through. Josh mentioned the 2017 tax bill. They used a process called reconciliation for that that allowed the bill to be passed at 51 vote thresh. And so you can do some things on immigration under reconciliation, but not as much as you. You would like to.
Michael Duncan
Now we're going to break out the blue books and give you a big legislative lesson for you and your audience.
Megyn Kelly
I mean, starting to get interesting because actually, like, we could get some reasonable things through once and for all and you know, we'll see. But I mean, Chuck Schumer is totally in favor of bipartisanship, so it's exciting. I think he's on board with the MAGA agenda. Guys clearly trying to telegraph we got to spend a minute on Trump on Capitol Hill yesterday. Oh, my God. So he goes, Hitler himself walked into the White House and shook hands with the guy who'd been telling us he was Hitler, and it seemed. I think Joe Biden likes Hitler. He's pro Hitler. Now, let's just watch some of the video because it's really fun to see. Here's some pictures. Look at this, you guys. They're all smiled. Have. It's been a long time since I've seen Joe Biden this happy, my friends, that right there on screen, right, is a Trump voter. Am I wrong? Prove me wrong.
Josh Holmes
You're not wrong. I think they're planning a tee time at that moment.
Michael Duncan
Yeah.
Comfortably Smug
They really should do that. That would be incredible.
Megyn Kelly
Memes out there were like, you know, having Trump say. And then I went to McDonald's, and then I dressed up as a garbage man. Brilliant. It was brilliant. See how I helped you out by calling people garbage?
Michael Duncan
Anyway, we were marveling over the airplane logs in. That fireplace behind that is roaring. That is about. Can you imagine? It must be like 400 degrees in that room.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, it looks amazing to me. You know, me with my 76 degree studio, I'm really wrestling with the whole thing because on the one hand, I love to see it. You do love to see it. You know, it's the way it used to be. Peaceful transition of power. They say mean things during the campaign, but we always come together. Trump blew that apart in 2020, which was no bueno, but here they are back at it. But I just feel like it's also so disingenuous because Joe Biden's DOJ has been trying to put Trump in jail for the rest of his life, and his entire party has been calling Trump Hitler, even after he took a bullet to the head. So it's just. To me, it's very hard to look at that guy on screen, right, and be like, yes, shake his hand, Trump. You know, rah, rah. Yeah.
Michael Duncan
I mean, I'm certainly not like, in the forgiving mood when it comes to how they've treated President Trump throughout this campaign, but it is kind of nice to have them watch them sort of grovel at this point.
John Ashbrook
Yeah.
Michael Duncan
Like, there is a. I think there's an element of schadenfreude to the whole thing.
Megyn Kelly
Oh, yeah.
Michael Duncan
You're just like, oh, man, he's got to sit there. But you know what? He actually looks like he enjoys it. I mean, I don't know about the White House staff. You know, he looked fun.
Josh Holmes
Well, the White House staff did scramble out, so when Trump was walking in, they were flocking to the steps just to catch a glimpse of him. So you've got the most famous man in world history walking in, and nothing proves that the king has returned quite like Biden's staff just trying to catch a look.
Megyn Kelly
Okay, but what do we think is really going on? Because do we have the video, you guys, of Jill Biden and Kamala Harris sitting next to each other in the Veterans Day ceremony?
Michael Duncan
Right.
Megyn Kelly
Pull it over, pull it over. Because that was amazing. Right. Like we'll drop it in, but it's the two women sitting next to each other, and it. You could feel the tension. You could cut the tension with the knife. And it seemed clear. Although we watched a longer version of the tape, and at one point we saw them smile at each other. But in the moment where Kamala Harris comes in and sits down, it is frosty to say the least. So what? Why would Jill Biden hate Kamala Harris? Which is what the tape looks like.
Josh Holmes
This is how Kamala Harris treats all Trump voters. She has always been bad to Trump voters like this. And you gotta.
Comfortably Smug
I understand.
John Ashbrook
It's actually really interesting. The pathology behind the hatred of. Of this goes back to the Biden and Obama camps hating each other.
Michael Duncan
Yeah.
John Ashbrook
You had Michelle Obama, who was very friendly with Hunter Biden's ex wife. And so they never liked Hunter Biden. And of course, Joe and Jill are pretty fond of Hunter Biden. So there's always been this chilly relationship. And as we all now know, it was Team Obama behind dethroning Joe Biden, throwing him to the wolves, and then throwing in Kamala instead to be on the ticket. It. So those two sides have never liked each other.
Michael Duncan
Discouraging. Just remember they were discouraging Joe Biden from a 2016. Yep. They. They basically cleared the way.
Megyn Kelly
But that explains the Obamas versus the Bidens. This is VP on P. Blood. This is Jill Biden hating Kamala, which I'm just going to say, if you believe the narratives we've been fed, Kamala was not behind the coup. Kamala was a reluctant comer to the nomination. She did nothing until Joe Biden surprisingly called her that Sunday to say, I'm bowing out and I'm going to endorse you. And her. She said, thanks a lot, my good friend. And then she ran. And she didn't crap on Joe Biden. You know, she had opportunities. She didn't do it. So why does Jill Biden stare at her like the devil just showed up up in the seat next to her?
Michael Duncan
Well, of course, it's all a bullshit story, right?
Megyn Kelly
I mean, the idea there. There it is.
Michael Duncan
You know, like, look, she was. She was eagerly anticipating the opportunity, shall we say. And it didn't start that way of her actually defending Joe Biden at all. If you looked at their convention, it was like, all the problems that beset the American people, just as old guys responsible for all that. And I just showed up and I'm going to fix it all. It was a very much changed message until you started getting these stories out of the White House, these process stories about how irritated the Bidens were with that brand of messaging, which I honestly think contributed to the ultimate gaffe of all gaffes that she made on the View, where she's like, oh, I can't think of anything I would do differently because of that sensitivity that had begun to set in because she knew the Bidens were so pissed off at the way she was handling it.
Megyn Kelly
The other thing is because now that she's lost, I mean, everyone on her team is like, Biden first. They're like racists and sexists and Biden. Right. So I think they're. Jill is probably like, f. Right off Kamala.
Comfortably Smug
I mean, I don't think they really wanted her in the first place. Like, I think this goes back to 2020 and, you know, basically the coup in the Democratic presidential primary that Biden executed with Clyburn from South Carolina. He got boat raced in Iowa and New Hampshire by Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. And then you get to South Carolina where Biden's going to do well, and suddenly all these people who beat him decide to get out of the race and endorse him. And endorse him. And part of that deal was, I'm going to pick a black woman to be my vice president. Lo and behold, he picked probably the worst one in America.
Megyn Kelly
And she's not even black. She's not even black, as it turns out. J.K. i don't.
Comfortably Smug
That's Trump. You go back and read the reports out of the first three and a half years of this administration about. About how she handled the job as vice president, the shouting matches she would get in with staff, the reams of research papers they'd prepare for her. Then she wouldn't read. She'd do poorly on. On camera and then complain to the staff.
Michael Duncan
She had, like, a turnstile in the office.
Comfortably Smug
I just think Joe Biden is smiling now, and Jill Biden is angry because, like, you know, he's a very old Irishman and a very old Irishman who's that stubborn, loves being proved right.
Megyn Kelly
It's True. And he's. He's telling himself, and she's telling him that he would have won, that this was all unnecessary. He was right all along. She was, of course, always gonna lose. And he could have won this thing. To my point of like, they welcomed Hitler. You know, talking about, how did Trump do it? How did he walk into that. Into that White House and shake his hand and magnanimously be like, you know, politics is rough, but today's a nice day, and shake the hand of the guy trying to put him in jail through his doj? How did Joe Biden do it if he genuinely believed, believes all the things he and his team have been saying about Donald Trump? It's a question raised by Charlamagne over on his radio show, and he, too, has said that Trump is a fascist. He was. And he made Kamala say that Trump is a fascist. And now he's really wondering why no one actually meant it. Listen.
Michael Duncan
Well, I just don't understand the White House visit.
Megyn Kelly
Now, granted, you know, I'm glad it's.
Michael Duncan
A peaceful transition of power, but what happened to the threat of democracy talk?
Megyn Kelly
What happened to the fascist talk, by the way?
Michael Duncan
I know I've said those things about Trump as well, but I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about his political opponents, like President Biden. When they say it, it holds way more weight than me. I'm just trying to figure out, how.
Megyn Kelly
Do you go from he's an extension.
Michael Duncan
Threat to democracy to welcome back. He was happy, too. He was happy. He was smiling, he was grinning. He was cheesing. Say cheese. He was saying he was cheesing, bro.
Josh Holmes
I'm just say cheese.
Megyn Kelly
Man's got a point.
Michael Duncan
He got a great point.
John Ashbrook
And that's the thing is, I think it's become very apparent to the American people that the Democrats actually believe nothing except power. They just want to accumulate power. They have no core beliefs whatsoever left in this country. And so when you have Trump show up and the whole public sees Joe Biden being like, oh, yeah, this is just a normal day. Well, I mean, weeks earlier, Joe Biden got in some trouble saying that, like, we should put Donald Trump in jail.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, Right.
John Ashbrook
So. So this shows that the Democrats were completely disingenuous their entire campaign. The cornerstone they made it was that Trump is a fascist. Fascist Trump is an existential threat. Well, clearly he wasn't. If they're willing to welcome him back. This is not Germany in 1933. That's just what they do now is they malign their political opponents, even after someone tries to assassinate.
Comfortably Smug
But this is one of the instances in which I think Donald Trump is at his best because he could return served and he could be rhetorically as negative as they were the entire last political campaign, but he chooses not to. And why? Well, because there's nothing great in humiliating a defeated opponent by making them shake your hand and smile in pictures with you. I mean, it's just the greatest thing in the world.
Michael Duncan
Cherry on top.
Megyn Kelly
There was. Did you guys see. The New York Times followed this focus group of, I think it was 13 young voters since August and was asking them, how are you going to vote? And they had. They were all over the board. They had. Some had voted for Trump last time around, some vote for Biden, some hadn't voted at all. And the vast majority of the voters voted Trump this time around. I'm sure to the New York Times shock and to the shock of some of the young people who were there, who were a part of the group. And listen to this woman. Her name is Lillian. She's 27, she's from Virginia, she's white. In digital advertising, she did vote for Donald Trump in 2020. And this time around, she said, I voted for Trump. And I made the decision the same day the mainstream media was having a meltdown after the MSG rally. I also saw an ad from Democrats about abortion misinformation. And that really made me upset. I said, said, you know what? I'm going to vote for Trump. Everybody hates him.
Michael Duncan
Yeah. Yeah. And look, it's the most powerful tool that he has and that he has all the right enemies. I mean, the people that are the most despicable people in public discourse all hate him. And when you see them so upset and rhetorically over the top, it's like, oh, man, you know, I gotta. I kind of love that. I love. And the MSG thing was such a perfect example of that. Right. They would have the American public believe that all of a sudden, if you are of Puerto Rican descent, that a roast comedian overtakes your concerns about the border, about the economy, all that stuff. Because a roast comedian did a bit at Madison Square Garden. Like, it's just disingenuous and ridiculous. And if you listen to that as a voter, you're like, man, I'm not for any.
Comfortably Smug
Well, because it's insulting your intelligence as a voter, Right? And, like, you see those abortion ads that lie, and you're like, wow, that's insulting my intelligence as well. And so then you're going back in the catalog of Things that the media has told you about Donald Trump and you're thinking, well, maybe those are lies too. Because if they're willing to lie in the ads, if they're willing to lie about this rally, what else are they lying about? So they did it to themselves.
Michael Duncan
You don't think her passion was small businesses?
Megyn Kelly
You don't think she eats. No. For breakfast?
Josh Holmes
Not only did Trump win despite that, but now he has Democrats questioning whether their identity politics tactic is worth pursuing any further. I mean, you have the Clinton, the wokes internally in a way that we haven't seen in quite some time. It is. It's one of the best outcomes of this election.
Megyn Kelly
What's your, what's your prediction on that? Because, you know, you mentioned aoc, that she took her pronoun pronouns out of her bio, which is amazing, apparently. My crack team tells me two years ago she also took her pronouns out of one of her bios on one of the social media sites. Sites, and then promptly posted this.
John Ashbrook
Oh, I'm sorry about that.
Michael Duncan
They used to be on there.
Megyn Kelly
Let me go in and check and.
John Ashbrook
See if I can add them.
Megyn Kelly
Sorry about that.
Michael Duncan
They used to be there. I guess they fell off, but I'll.
Megyn Kelly
Put them on right now. They fell off? What?
Michael Duncan
They fell off.
Megyn Kelly
What happened? How do you pronounce fall off of your bio anyway? Right. We don't know if it's real.
Comfortably Smug
That's the issue. Right. Is that like the base of their party is that. And it's less people than it is us. And that's why they lost that election. But they have a very strong enforcement mechanism with people like AOC on the Internet. There is a litmus test for these people and includes putting your pronouns into everything. And yeah, they are having a little bit of a come to Jesus moment here and starting to think internally about what, you know, they've done on social issues or whatnot. But that's only going to last so long as there's a vacuum in the information flow for all of their supporters and with Donald Trump putting up all these nominations and a listener to Ruthless mentioned this in a comment on today's show. But like, with all this going on, they're going to get right back into the breach with the craziest woke takes because they have to, because they have to keep the base of their party happy. And I think ultimately that's going to be their undoing.
Megyn Kelly
Let's talk about the postmortem that the Dems are going through right now because they're blaming everything but Kamala frankly, and I'm going to have more to say on that soon. But there's a big piece out now that, let's see in the nation that Liz Cheney was an electoral fiasco for Kamala Harris. And they go through the places where Liz Cheney appeared with Kamala and she drove up the Trump vote. She did not help Kamala at all, which comes to the surprise of no one sitting here. Politico did a, did a piece talking about how, let's see, Muslim leaders in Michigan who are out there stumping for Trump, interviewing people and talking about why the Muslim vote went Trump's way. This is a quote from one leader there. What really pushed me over the edge is when Kamala Harris brought Liz Cheney to our backyard. Liz Cheney didn't help, but can we fairly blame the loss on her?
Michael Duncan
No. I mean, she's certainly part of it. The constituency, as we have found out, for the Liz Cheney's of the world and like the Tim Millers and the Bill Crystals and this sort of bizarre Never Trump movement that like, is somehow went from conservative to very liberal and then tried to pretend like it was all the same, like a constituency doesn't exist.
John Ashbrook
Yep.
Michael Duncan
And you know, you could see them when they were watching the reelection returns, the realization on their face that they.
John Ashbrook
Literally speaking to like, oh, no, is our grift over?
Michael Duncan
Yeah, it's like, that's in part. But I mean, I also posit that when you're like putting white papers out about tax breaks for, you know, black men in the last week of your campaign, like, you're just not exactly where you ought to be from a messaging standpoint. They just never got there.
Comfortably Smug
I don't think you can blame Liz Cheney for Kamala Harris losing. What you can blame is their fascination with the Never Trump movement as a constituency, distracting the Democrats from answering the questions about the simple pocketbook stuff that decided this election. And they couldn't figure out how to do that. They couldn't talk about the border. They were talking about, you know, Liz Cheney. And like, the distraction is ultimately what cost her.
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
Josh Holmes
And with any luck, we'll face Kamala Harris again in 2028. I mean, I don't, I don't think they will learn their lesson. And one good indicator of the way that party is headed is what they did with the state of Iowa. Remember, on the Democrat side, just as the same way as on the Republican side, The state of Iowa used to be the first vote that everybody in a primary had to go through. They removed that from their calendar. So that people from California and people from the east coast who want to be president on the Democrat side don't have to talk to voters in flyover country. And as long as they don't have to check a box or learn how to talk to people from Iowa, they are absolutely going to keep nominating lunatics.
Megyn Kelly
I have maintained on this show in the past week and before, there's no they can't excise wokeism from their party. It's too ingrained. It has metastasized. It's stage five. It's sorry, the honest oncologist will tell you it's over for you. So there's going to have to be some sort of a separation. That branch of the Democrat Party is going to have to become like the never Trump branch of the Republican Party Party, exiled, irrelevant and a joke. If Democrats want to win again, you just, you're going to have to forge on without them. You will not be able to convince them to stop saying their crazy shit.
John Ashbrook
I mean, I think that's the thing is they've become so insular. I've called them. They're a single issue, single gender party that doesn't believe in gender. So that's not exactly how you build the winning coalition. And I don't think they're going to moderate. I saw a clip the other day from the Daily show where Jon Stewart said, okay, here's what the problem is. And then he ran some ads that you saw in swing states where Democrats who were running were trying to say, I do see that the border is a problem and that, you know, the economy isn't great. And him and his audience were shocked. And they're like, no, they should have been running further to the left. Yeah, that's their diagnosis from getting shellac. They're like, no, we didn't go far left enough.
Megyn Kelly
He's as woke as they come. I mean, I don't know if you caught this exchange. I don't run Jon Stewart clips on this show because he's too big a prick. And that's saying something because I run a lot of prick thoughts on it, but no f him. And I don't recommend you click on his videos on the Internet either because it just endures to his benefit. Here is a clip from CNN yesterday. This involves a woman who I actually don't know who she is. And also Nicole Hannah Jones is in it. And the valiant Scott Jennings once again trying to be the voice of reason, explaining to them why she lost, why it's not a good thing that the military is woke. And I believe the longer discussion was about why peak Hegseth will be a good choice to sort of clean some of that up within dod. So take a listen to this piece of the conversation.
Comfortably Smug
Did you see the election results?
Megyn Kelly
I did see the real results.
John Ashbrook
But if you put the biggest multiracial coalition together.
Megyn Kelly
Let me ask you a question. When you say anti woke, when you say woke, do you think about a certain class of people, a certain group of people outside of yourself? I'm just asking you that question. It sounds like that to me because I am a black woman. I'm speaking from my experience. So I'm asking you from your experience, when you hear anti woke or woke, does that identify a group of people? That's all I'm asking you. Because I'm asking you to help me understand. So I know what you're saying.
John Ashbrook
I mean, I tend to think about.
Megyn Kelly
Hyper liberal people who have a fundamental.
Michael Duncan
Disregard for, you know, the underpinnings about.
John Ashbrook
Founding of our country and who want.
Michael Duncan
To fundamentally change our society in ways that are not in line with a vast majority of the American citizens.
John Ashbrook
That's what I tend to think about.
Michael Duncan
I mean, Republicans.
Megyn Kelly
My point is, My point is both of whom are black men in the highest levels of the military. And a lot of the arguments is that they're woke, at which to Carrie's.
Michael Duncan
Point, it sounds like.
Megyn Kelly
It sounds very much about a group of people, that it's cold. It sounds like dog whistle politics.
Michael Duncan
It sounds like you're talking about a group of people.
Megyn Kelly
Like people.
John Ashbrook
I keep going. Just keep it up.
Megyn Kelly
Good luck getting that out of your party. The, the anchor, the guests, Carrie Champion is her name, former sportscaster. But you. Because they want Lloyd Austin gone, they're anti black. When they cite the fact that he's woke and he's pushing a woke military, that makes you anti black.
Michael Duncan
Just as an aside, that's the best comedy on television today. I don't know if you've seen every day there's a or seven different clips from that show where it is an.
Megyn Kelly
Absolute circus and still no one's watching it. By the way, it still has terrible ratings. The clips are just circulated amongst people like us to make fun of.
Comfortably Smug
I like to call it the CNN Therapy Hour. The downside is. The downside is there may be a side effect to consuming this drug. And that is.
Michael Duncan
You don't want prolonged exposure. That is for sure.
Megyn Kelly
What did you. Did you say Ed? Because that probably comes to. No.
Comfortably Smug
I said cte, you know, from.
Megyn Kelly
Although. Although Maybe you could make the case.
John Ashbrook
It's amazing that, like, you see these clips and Scott Jennings is like, here's my advice. Be normal. And they're like, no.
Megyn Kelly
Racist. It's so bad, it's amazing. I got another example of it. Now. This person is not a politician and she's not a newscaster, but she's pretty famous and she's been in the news for bad things over the past couple of years as far as the right half of the country is concerned. Her name is Rachel Ziegler Zegler. I don't know Ziegler. Okay, there's something wrong with this person. She's also known as the star of Snow White and the Disney movie. Remember, she was out like a couple years ago being like, there's certainly not going to be a prince rescuing me, I can tell you that. And then Disney, even Disney got on its heels and they're like, we're going to reshoot the movie immediately. Like, we're going to make some changes because there was so much backlash to her arrogance and just inanity. Well, she's back and she's very, very upset about the Trump win. Okay, here is. This is a post she made on X. Here's what she posted. And by the way, she's starring right now on Broadway's Romeo and Juliet, so don't go see that. Okay?
Michael Duncan
She's.
Megyn Kelly
She writes, I find myself speechless in the midst of this. Another four years of hatred. Leaning us towards a world I do not want to live in. Leaning us towards a world that will be hard to raise my daughter in. P.S. she has no daughter. She has no children at all. Leaning us towards a world that will force her. Who's her? Your daughter who doesn't exist. Okay. To have a baby she doesn't want. Talk about borrowed worry, fellas. Leaning us towards a world. World that is fearful. Yeah. 23 years old, no kids. I shouldn't be this shocked, but I am. I am heartbroken for my friends who awoke with fear this morning. And I am here with you to cry, to yell, to hug, to wax poetic on how the left continues to fail us in forging a new path forward. This loss should not have been, and it certainly should not have been by so many votes. Votes. I echo Ethel Kaine statement more than anything. May Trump supporters and Trump himself never know peace. What the f. How? Then she discusses the deep, deep sickness in the country. There's no help, no counsel in any of them. She attacked Twitter and Elon and finished with Fuck Donald Trump.
Michael Duncan
Oh, man.
Megyn Kelly
Delo. Disney, you're going to have to redo your film again because this woman is a pig. And you fired Gina Carano for far less than this nonsense.
John Ashbrook
That's the thing is so Disney. I mean, this saga, like you said, goes back a very long time. So she initially comes out, and Disney's first film that they ever won an Academy Award with was Snow White. It's beloved by, you know, children and parents all over the world. And she says that that's actually a very creepy story. A woman doesn't need to be rescued by a prince and just attacks the film. That is the cornerstone of everything Disney's built. They have this, like, PR move where she goes on. She's like, no, actually, I love Snow White. It's a very nice story. And she steps in it again. And this comes at a time when Disney stock keeps going down and, like, please just do not say anything.
Comfortably Smug
And yet again, it's so simple. It's like we took all these beloved things that everybody loves and we ruined them. And we're shocked that we lost this election, but people, you know, revolted against them.
John Ashbrook
Yeah. No.
Josh Holmes
There are a variety of responses that come to mind when you hear her post, but it is music to my ears. And I'm not sure which part she's playing in Broadway's Romeo and Juliet, but I feel like that sets her up for a leadership position in the Democrat Party, and I would like to see her on a major party.
Megyn Kelly
Totally. Of course. She's Juliet. Of course. And I have no problem with this. Can you picture a Broadway actress who issued a post saying, f. Biden supporters may Biden or Kamala never have a moment's peace. That person would be fired so fast, it would make your head spin. They wouldn't last one more minute in any Hollywood role. It's. This is truly like, she has to go. I'm sorry, Disney. She has to go. Right now, they're dealing with the controversy with ABC with one of their biggest stars, Michael Strahan, who refused to put his hand over his heart for the anthem and the blowback, just for that. He stood there with his hands in front of him even though he's the son of a military vet. The blowback has been enormous. It is dominating like the Daily Mail now for a week, for four days now, since whatever, since Veterans Day, for that. And you're going to put out a Disney film with Snow White, a beloved, beloved American character with a woman who hates more than half the country, the half that just elected Donald Trump. This is an Incredible pivot point right now. We'll see which way the woke Disney decides to go.
Michael Duncan
Yeah, no, no question about it. I also think it's sort of a microcosm of this larger issue that Democrats and progressives have had in that they literally need to implant brain damage into people. And you see it like, I mean look at that quote that you just read from her. I mean just completely insane. If you're going to destroy millions of people from a failed economic policy, open borders, things that demonstrably make their lives totally worse, the only way to do that is to give them actual brain work. Right. It like really pollute their information flow to the point where they, they don't know how to handle themselves in public. And like you just don't see that on the right hand side. Yeah, you know, it's like you can have huge disappointments but it's like ah, you know, life goes on for them. It's like no, it's the end of eternity because I've, I'm surrounded by this information flow that has convinced me that literally is coming back. And it's just, it's sad honestly.
Josh Holmes
Right. It's no wonder that institutions like Disney and ABC are so out of touch with reality when you consider the fact that they 80%, 90% of the people who work in both of those organizations think exactly like she does. And until they have a 5050 split, they're not gonna understand a 5050 like half Republican, half Democrat. Until they have that, they're not gonna understand how to talk to regular people.
Megyn Kelly
Ashbook There's a report out today about how these so called mainstream meaning corporate media dinosaurs are in a full blown panic right now trying to find people who actually understand Donald Trump and his voters to come and be commentators on their shows like the View. Then there's this whole debate about is somebody gonna get fired? Cuz already believe it or not, they have two purported conservatives on. Now I know you don't know that but they all hate Trump. They all hate Trump. So it's like well do they bring in a seventh chair under the already crowded table or do they fire somebody replace with an actual Trump supporter? I'll be shocked if they find an actual. Even Meghan McCain was never a Trump supporter, she was just a conservative. They haven't had an actual Trump supporter on there I think ever. So that's the same network. So they're worried about how to get a conservative, a Trump supporter on the View that's going to put out this with this star who hates us Who's a woke Snow White. Like they don't know what to do. They, they have no conservatives in their lives. They, they aren't out of the echo chamber. They're in the same echo chamber as this Rachel Ziggler is. And that's why they can't figure out how to fix anything.
Josh Holmes
Right. And you don't solve the problem with window dressing. One person sitting on the desk at the View having a conservative point of view view is not going to change the problem because they're going to get bullied to kingdom come when they get, when, when the cameras go off. They need to change culture of these places. It has to be half Republican, half Democrat just like the rest of our country. And in the case of ABC, I think they should hire 50.2% of their staff.
Comfortably Smug
There we go.
Josh Holmes
As Republican to look exactly the way the popular vote looked last.
Megyn Kelly
I mean I guarantee you the crew over there is already Republican. The crews tend to be more leaning. They're the best piece of network news. I love all the crew guys I work with. Even at NBC, the on air talent and the producing staff and the administrative staff is a different story. So they're not going to. And that's the problem. It won't work. You're right because look what's happening on cnn. We just played the clip with the great Scott Jennings who's been a one man, you know, band over there trying to take down these liberal talking points. It's entertaining for us to watch. He's not saving CNN. CNN's ratings are in the fucking toilet. Sorry, they are. So it's not gonna save you unless you actually change, change the way your network is set up until you actually get the big first sit down with Kamala Harris and you send a real journalist in there, not you, Dana Bash, to ask actually hard questions with followups that are pressing. It's not that hard. It was a mere 10 years ago that you had journalists over there who would do it. You let it slip away too fast. All right, wait, let me take a break. We're going to come back and we've got to discuss what happened today that is making me really, really happy. Trust in media is at an all time low and for very good reason. Stories can be shaped or even buried depending on who is in charge. This is why Ground News exists. A platform prioritizing transparency, allowing users to see the full picture without filters. Ground News is an app and a website that aggregates related articles from around the world, highlighting each source's political bias and corporate influence. It also reveals stories under report by one side of the political spectrum. For example, Ben Shapiro recently accused the New York Times of trying to Silence Conservatives on YouTube and left leaning media shockingly barely covered this. Ground News shows that over 75% of the coverage came from right leaning sources. Ground News has an entire blind spot feed with stories like this revealing how media narratives shape the conversation. This year they are offering a 50% discount on their Vantage plan, giving unlimited access to their website and app. Check them out at groundnews.com Megan that's groundnews G-R-O-U-N-News.com M E G Y N to take control of the news that you consume.
John Ashbrook
If you could hear love, what would it sound like?
Megyn Kelly
Son, can we talk about your drink? Yeah Dad, I think we should helping.
John Ashbrook
Those closest to you think about their excessive drinking. Maybe that's what love sounds like. More@rethinkthedrink.com An OHA initiative have you met All Modern?
Megyn Kelly
All Modern brings you the best of modern furniture and decor and right now through November 20th, you'll score up to 50% off during their early access to Black Friday. Simplify your holiday entertaining with deals on plush sofas, modern tabletop essentials and more. All on sale at All Modern. Then get them delivered for free in days. You heard that right, days. That's modern made simple. Shop All Modern's early access to Black Friday sale now through November 20th at allmodern.com I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a 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 any anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the Sirius XM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.
Michael Duncan
Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and get three months free.
Megyn Kelly
That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free offer details apply. The reason for doing it and kissing goodbye my 1.9 million followers over there is because I hadn't been posting for a long time. I just didn't want to contribute content once it was purchased by its present owner. But just having it there, I was only holding onto it because I, you know, really didn't want someone trying to take over that name and using it for nefarious purposes. I was a little bit worried about. The name of Joy Reid on X is what she's referring to. She's peaced out from X, guys, and this makes me thrilled. Goodbye. We won't miss you. Take care. And she is not the only one. I'm going to give you another video. This one too is going to bring a little single tear of joy. Watch. I have loved connecting with all of.
Michael Duncan
You on Twitter and then on X.
Megyn Kelly
For all of these years, but it's time for me to leave the platform. I believe that it was a place for honest debate and discussion, transparency and free speech, but I now feel it does not serve that purpose. Starting this Friday, November 15, X is implementing new terms of service, which, among other things, states that, quote, all disputes.
Josh Holmes
Be brought exclusively in the US District.
Megyn Kelly
Court for the Northern District of Texas or state court located in Tarrant County, Texas. Now, as the Washington Post recently reported on X's decision to change the terms, this quote ensures that such lawsuits will be heard in courthouses that are a hub for conservatives, which experts say could make it easier for X to shield itself from litigation. Sure. And punish critics. I think that speaks for itself.
John Ashbrook
Oh, my God.
Megyn Kelly
And she's out. And he wants us to believe it's because of the forum selection clause in the new. As opposed to the fact that everyone hates him.
Michael Duncan
Yes.
Megyn Kelly
She's only been there, guys, because she didn't want someone to seize her name and misuse that. Okay, sure. I mean, these people. This is a rash. It's a rash of. Of. Of Twitter exits. Jamie Lee Curtis quit. Bette Midler deleted her account, the Guardian, the. You know, the paper left X. It's been absolutely delightful to see them run.
John Ashbrook
Well, the hilarious thing is if you look at the metrics, there's more people who are joining. And the metrics in terms of the number of tweets, the people who are on there keep hitting new record highs. And it's not an airport. You don't have to announce your departure like, no one cares. People leave if their lesson from, like, wow, looks like we didn't know what the American people are actually concerned about. Are we in an information silo? Let's all leave and create our own, like, danger bubble.
Michael Duncan
Super great takeaway from not knowing what people think is like, oh, no, I need my own Information Silo. This has gotten way out of hand. But also take it away from the.
Megyn Kelly
People who might help me, like Joy Reid.
Michael Duncan
To her, she was squatting on her account basically because she was afraid somebody would take it and use it for nefarious purposes. Just as a resident ex expert. Smug. Is there anything that we could do with that name that would pollute the Internet more than Joe Friedman?
John Ashbrook
I mean, I would. Absolutely. I mean, we could start having, like, using her name to send out normal tweets and people are like, what's going on?
Megyn Kelly
You could throw out like a few. Like a Chief Justice John Roberts. The way to stop discriminating by race is to stop discriminating by race. People be like, what? What? So she got hacked here. Mark Andreessen, he posted the following in response to all this. Needs a dramatic exit button. It's so true. Like, to your point, I'm leaving. I'm leaving. Dramatic exit. Here I go, everybody. Here I go. It's like the Irish goodbye. When you. When you announce your Irish I'm Irish goodbye, it's happening. I'm leaving. Irish goodbyeing. You completely undercut your whole point. They just want attention. And you know what else? They'll be back. Because Joy Reid can't stand to lose her 1.9 million. And Twitter is the best. It's the best news source there is.
John Ashbrook
Right.
Comfortably Smug
Check the amount of followers she has, which tells you everything you need to know. They're just vain people who love attention. They love to be dramatic. Just like that woman who made the Instagram post. She's in theater. They're in theater, too. They'll be back because they love a crowd.
Michael Duncan
There was one that really did break our heart because it goes to the core of the game that we play on the ruthless riding program King of the Hill, Jennifer Rubin. Yeah, that's going to be a real content hit for the bride. Yeah. You know, I mean, using her stuff for years and I don't know what we're gonna do.
Comfortably Smug
Well, I mean, that's the thing, Ashbrook, that we should name the King of the Hill trophy after her. Just like, you know, in the NFL, the Super bowl trophy is the Vince Lombardi trophy.
Michael Duncan
It would be the Reuben.
Josh Holmes
Yeah.
John Ashbrook
Only Dawn.
Megyn Kelly
Well, here's what she said, though. She said she's gonna. She's gonna post work on X, but she's no longer going to communicate on X. And now she's protected her tweets. And this guy at Politico, Adam Ren, posted in response, you can find my statement on why I'm leaving X and all my answers to replies about why I have left X and all replies to replies about why I've left X, as well as all my future posts exclusively on X.
Comfortably Smug
That's pretty good RT that. Now jump on that.
Megyn Kelly
But on link leaving, I'm gone. You won't have me to kick around anymore, just all my content. But not me personally, except occasionally when I have something important to say. And then you won't even be able to reply to me unless I think it's a really good post and I want to open up the replies to see how many clever ones I get and then. But other than that, I'm done. It's over. I'm off X. Guardian, like this is a news source and it tweets out. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we've considered for a long time that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse. This is supposed to be a news outlet that can't take news it finds upsetting.
Josh Holmes
Right?
Michael Duncan
It's the exact opposite.
Megyn Kelly
Right.
Josh Holmes
It's supposed to be a news outlet.
Michael Duncan
It's the shaping is what they're concerned about and the fact that they can't do it anymore because you've got people on X where free speech is actually back again. And the thing that they loved about Twitter, Twitter, its predecessor, was that they would shape it and you just wouldn't see any opinions that they disagree.
John Ashbrook
And just Compare it to 2020, where then ownership of Twitter and the regime that they had in place would ban and block people who posted about Hunter Biden's laptop doing nope, this is disinformation. I got banned for a week for zooming in on a picture that Hunter Biden's from his laptop of him on a bed with hookers and there was some like stuffed animal on the bed. And I just zoomed in and tweeted the picture of the stuffed animal and I got banned for a week. Pervert where it used to be. And they're not these for a news organization. They're not comfortable in an environment where people can freely discuss ideas. That says the problem right there.
Josh Holmes
One thing that's kind of funny, over the last couple of years there have been these left wing alternatives to X that have stood up and somebody went through them over the last week and they said, you'll notice every single post is complaining about X. Oh, no way.
Megyn Kelly
I mean, I do believe it. That's, you know, I Look at this. And I think these people wouldn't last one day living the way right leaning people live in this country where everything around you is controlled by the other side. The messages are uniformly against your worldview. The messages your kids get at school, the ads you see while riding the bus, the. The advertisements for the new movies on Netflix, the papers that arrive at your house, the cable news anchors, the debate hosts, the sports arenas, everything is against you. They wouldn't last one day living in our shoes.
Michael Duncan
100%. Right?
John Ashbrook
Yeah. I mean, they're like, well, we control Hollywood. We control every single media publication in this country. We have control of the government. Merrick Garland will kick indoors if you disagree with us. Why is Twitter the one place we can.
Megyn Kelly
I'm out. I'm out. And now they go. They're over at like Jack Dorsey who used to run Twitter has started his own new thing. And good luck getting any conservatives to go over there because we're all still over on X, which is the greatest newsfeed in the world. That's why all these liberals will remain. It's only these far left lunatics who are leaving. Although Don Lemon has principled reasons. He really doesn't like the form selection clause and doesn't want to go down to Western Texas. Sure. Don't sure. So it's going to be yet another echo chamber. There's absolutely no need for this. Mark Zuckerberg already created threads, which doesn't appear to be doing very well and this one won't either. The reason most people use it, because they get their news there and it's a great place to do that. Guys, it's a pleasure. It was just as great seeing you as I knew it would be.
Michael Duncan
So fun. Thank you for having us.
John Ashbrook
Thank you so much.
Megyn Kelly
Till the next time, don't forget to check out the fellas on their YouTube feed. Well worth your time. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda and no fear. When work gets crazy, I like to stop by the bar after, have a few cold ones. I don't drink at all until 4:00.
Michael Duncan
We limit ourselves to one bottle of wine a night.
John Ashbrook
Excessive drinking has a way of sneaking up on us. A few drinks a few nights a week, it can add up.
Megyn Kelly
And suddenly we're at greater risk for.
John Ashbrook
Long term problems like heart disease, cancer and depression. Reason enough to rethink the Drink more@rethinkthedrink.com an OHA initiative.
Megyn Kelly
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Podcast Summary: The Megyn Kelly Show – Episode 944
Title: Trump Pick Gaetz Throws DC Establishment Into Turmoil, Tulsi's DNI Perch, and Don and Joy Quit X, with Ruthless
Host/Author: SiriusXM
Description: The Megyn Kelly Show hosts open, honest, and provocative conversations with influential political, legal, and cultural figures. This episode delves into the tumultuous nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Tulsi Gabbard's appointment as Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and significant departures from the social media platform X.
Timestamp: [01:00]
Megyn Kelly opens the show by addressing the chaotic post-2024 election news cycle, emphasizing the intense scrutiny surrounding President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet selections. The primary focus is on the recent nomination of Congressman Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, a decision that has unsettled both parties and stirred considerable debate.
Timestamp: [03:49]
Overview of Matt Gaetz:
Matt Gaetz, a controversial figure within the Republican Party, has been nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Justice (DoJ) as Attorney General. Known for his aggressive political tactics and loyalty to Trump, Gaetz's nomination has sparked significant turmoil.
Controversies Surrounding Gaetz: Gaetz has faced multiple allegations, including accusations of sexual misconduct with a minor and sex trafficking. Although no charges have been filed, these allegations have overshadowed his political career. Gaetz has consistently denied all accusations, calling them baseless and politically motivated.
Discussion Among Hosts:
Notable Quote:
Megyn Kelly [04:36]: “I would describe it as God tier level trolling to just trigger a full.”
Timestamp: [07:41]
Comparisons to Past Nominations:
The hosts compare Gaetz’s nomination to Pete Hegseth’s earlier controversial pick for the Defense Department, illustrating a pattern of Trump selecting fiercely loyal and unconventional candidates.
Political Capital Concerns: Michael Duncan raises concerns about Trump potentially overusing political capital on controversial nominations, which could limit his ability to achieve broader agenda goals.
Internal Party Dynamics:
Notable Quote:
John Ashbrook [12:53]: “The American people have said that they wanted it. That's why he has the popular vote on top of the Electoral College in his victory.”
Timestamp: [35:05]
Qualifications and Controversies:
Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman and military veteran, has been nominated as DNI. While praised for her honesty and military experience, some doubt her expertise in national intelligence.
Host Discussion:
Potential Confirmation Issues: Concerns revolve around Gabbard’s stance on data collection and surveillance, particularly aligning with libertarian views that may conflict with the broader Republican consensus.
Notable Quote:
Megyn Kelly [39:27]: “But I'm kind of curious to see what it would be like. I want to show the audience some of what we're talking about.”
Timestamp: [44:23]
Significant departures from social media platform X include prominent figures like Joy Reid, who are leaving due to perceived biases and unfavorable changes in terms of service under new ownership.
Discussion Points:
Notable Quote:
Megyn Kelly [93:26]: “But Joy Reid can't stand to lose her 1.9 million. And Twitter is the best. It's the best newsfeed in the world.”
Timestamp: [47:17]
The hosts critique mainstream media outlets for promoting "woke" agendas and failing to represent diverse political viewpoints, arguing that this bias has contributed to electoral losses for the Democratic Party.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
Megyn Kelly [77:16]: “I have maintained on this show in the past week and before, there's no they can't excise wokeism from their party.”
Timestamp: [47:39]
The episode delves into the surge in crime and disorder in major cities, attributing it to Democratic policies and ineffective handling of immigration.
Discussion Points:
Notable Quote:
Josh Holmes [48:38]: “You have to be able to govern well. People don't follow politics, but they live.”
Timestamp: [53:13]
The hosts analyze the recent election outcomes, suggesting a significant shift in voter sentiment away from Democratic progressive agendas towards more conservative values.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
Michael Duncan [53:13]: “John Thune is uniquely able to have those conversations. He's had these relationships with senators for a very, very long time.”
Timestamp: [99:28]
Megyn Kelly wraps up the episode by reflecting on the overarching themes of political realignment, media bias, and the challenges facing both major parties. She emphasizes the need for transparent, honest discourse and warns against echo chambers that undermine bipartisan progress.
Final Remarks:
Notable Quote:
Megyn Kelly [101:02]: “People don't follow politics, but they live. They have to be able to govern well.”
This episode of The Megyn Kelly Show offers a thorough exploration of the challenges and controversies surrounding Donald Trump's cabinet nominations, particularly Matt Gaetz as Attorney General and Tulsi Gabbard as DNI. It also addresses significant shifts in media landscapes, including high-profile exits from the social media platform X, and critiques mainstream media's alignment with "woke" agendas. The hosts provide insightful commentary on the implications of these developments for the Republican Party, Democratic strategies, and the broader American political environment.
For listeners who haven't tuned in, this summary encapsulates the critical discussions, key insights, and nuanced perspectives presented by Megyn Kelly and her panel of hosts, delivering a comprehensive understanding of the episode's main themes and conversations.