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Oct. 23, 2020 - The Megyn Kelly Show
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Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show 00:01:25
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Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
Today, reaction and analysis of the final presidential debate before voting day.
The candidates, the moderator, and the state of the race.
We've got Eric Bowling of America This Week, very excited to have him here, and Crystal Ball, along with Sagar Anjetti of The Hills, rising.
Break it all down.
Hey, everyone.
I'm Megyn Kelly.
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show.
Today, we have a full reaction to last night's presidential debate.
the last one before voters head to the polling stations.
We're also going to talk about Trump leaking in advance of his 60 minutes appearance the entire interview with Leslie Stahl.
I've got a lot of thoughts on that one.
So we'll get to all of that plus our guests in one minute.
Analyzing the Presidential Debate 00:15:37
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And joining me now is the EP of The Megan Kelly Show, Steve Krakauer, who is not only my EP, but a media critic who's running the media website or the media newsletter called Fourth Watch, which is actually really worth your time and very fair and balanced.
Steve, last night's debate, I thought, was by far Trump's best debate that I've ever seen him in.
He wasn't as fiery as he normally is.
And I think some of his viewers, his fans, may miss that version of him.
But he was on point.
He was substantive.
He was in control.
He seemed presidential.
He was respectful.
He was sort of that version of Trump that The Republicans who are on the fence about him because of his personality had always wished they could have, but have seen too many rare glances of, too few rare glances of.
And I think as a result of all of that and the fact that Joe Biden really wasn't much of a player last night, Trump won and handily.
Right.
I think it was pretty telling.
Van Jones on CNN after the debate described it as Donald Trump's best debate ever as well, although he was doing it in the context of how low the bar was for him.
Look, I think that if If we're going away talking about Donald Trump.
After this debate, and that it was his best debate, clearly that is significant for the race.
Now, will it make a difference?
I guess we'll see.
But I think that that sentiment certainly resonated.
I would say today and on last night, you've been trending on Twitter because of your take on the debate, saying that Trump won handily.
I believe Donald Trump retweeted you as well on that sentiment.
Look, I think that this was, compare it to the first presidential debate, which I guess is the only one that we could compare it to in this cycle.
It was night and day.
I mean, it was just, it felt completely different and certainly significantly better for, you know, really for both candidates, but definitely for Donald Trump.
Well, clearly, clearly, Trump had received information that his performance in the first debate did not win him any fans amongst the groups he needs to persuade seniors and suburban mobs.
And, you know, his core supporters love him and they love him really in any form.
But he needed to make some inroads with those voters.
And clearly, he listened.
The guy wants to win.
Sometimes I've wondered, right, when he tweets out things like when he calls Kamala Harris a monster, I think, does he really want to win?
Why would he say that?
Like, why go there?
But he does want to win.
And he had it together last night.
I thought it was funny that I trended just for saying he clearly won.
He won.
He was in control and so on.
People are so blinded by their Trump derangement syndrome.
They really can't see him clearly.
And they're so shocked when you offer just objective analysis.
Like, yes, I've had my dust ups with Donald Trump.
It's not personal.
I've got nothing against Trump.
People can't understand it.
They're offended.
I'm not offended by him.
They're offended.
I can see when he does well.
You know, B list actresses like Patricia Arquette and I'm Kind with the B grade are directly tweeting to me, like, Have you hurt yourself?
Do you have some sort of a head problem?
I just have clear eyes on the guy.
I can see when he falls down and I can see when he does well.
And last night, he did well.
And I actually think it is going to change his poll trajectory.
I actually think his polls are better than they're showing, than they seem.
Yeah.
But I guarantee you he did himself favors with those two groups last night.
Yeah.
I mean, well, that's the point.
There's so much.
Clarity to the analysis, right?
There's an objectivity to it.
I think if people can say this was Donald Trump's best debate ever, but oh, it's such a low bar, you can't step back and say, if this was his best debate ever, this is clearly going to help him.
There's no ability now with the hashtag resistance media or even certainly on Twitter to be able to do that.
It's like, what were the takeaways from last night's debate?
It feels to me like it was Biden checking his watch and it was who built the cages, Joe.
And those are both bad for Joe Biden.
So I don't know.
I think it's actually my own view it's going to be oil and amnesty.
I mean, it's basically like, yes, I'm closing down the oil industry, which Joe Biden said in a moment where he clearly had just gotten tired and I guess decided to give up the gig.
You're like, yeah, I'm going to close down oil.
And within 100 days, I'm going to implement amnesty.
But we'll get to that in a minute.
I want to talk more about the process last night because I thought.
Kristen Welker did a fine job.
She was from NBC, and I thought she did well.
I do think I have to say it was biased.
I mean, I just think the topic selection from these moderators tends to lean left.
And if you look at the actual numbers, she corrected Donald Trump all the time.
She almost never corrected Joe Biden.
She had 13 follow-ups to Trump, six to Biden.
She interrupted Donald Trump 41 times, eight times for Joe Biden.
Like that's the kind of stuff that will drive Republicans nuts.
And I felt it a little myself.
Just because whenever Trump would get on a roll, she'd jump in.
That's how it felt.
Like whenever he started to really let her loose or start hammering Biden on a point.
It felt like she stepped in to save Biden.
Having said all that, I still give her a thumbs up.
It's hard to be out there and make sure it's perfectly even, but I understand the claims of bias that some are leveling.
Yeah, I'm not sure you're going to get much better.
You talk about low bar with any of legacy media outlets like NBC, CBS, ABC for a moderator at this point when it comes to Donald Trump four years in.
I thought she did a pretty good job as well.
I see exactly what you're saying, but you compare that to, say, some of the other experiences like.
For example, a 60 minutes of raw footage that we saw, I think that it was at least approaching fairness in ways that we don't normally see with some of the media interviews that Donald Trump did.
I agree.
And she was a pro.
She was composed.
She was in control.
She was a pleasure to listen to.
It was like contrast that to the town hall that Savannah did with Trump, where she sounded kind of whiny.
She sounded kind of like a little teenager at times.
And she was not projecting authority, which I think matters.
I think, especially, it matters for a female moderator, to be honest.
But anyway, I thought overall she did well.
And a couple of things she could work on before the next time, but I hope there is next time for her because I thought, as the options go, she was a great one.
Let's talk about the 60 Minutes thing because Trump is going on 60 Minutes this Sunday.
And he decided to tape his own appearance with an iPhone prior to the show and decided to release the entire 37 minute. interview with Leslie Stahl, which was fascinating.
I couldn't believe, like, I watched it and I have to tell you, I couldn't believe how Leslie Stahl conducted herself.
As a journalist who only sees the end product of Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes, I thought she was going to be so much more composed.
She sounded like a whiny, petulant, unprepared, like, newbie reporter.
In the tape.
My number one take, with all due respect to this woman, was the producers at 60 Minutes are so much better than I thought they are.
Right.
Right.
Because they're the ones responsible for making her look good in the end product.
Exactly.
We've got a 37 minute interview that was, you know, the raw footage that was dropped on Trump's Facebook page.
12, 15 minutes will see the light of day on Sunday night.
So, yeah, I think there's a lot of process that goes into the editing.
I think what you said about unprepared was completely my takeaway as well.
I, you know, because Trump dropped it and said, oh, look at the bias and hatred of Leslie Stall.
I didn't really necessarily see hatred in it.
What I saw was someone who came in, was not really interested in substantive questions, and was not certainly prepared to have a substantive exchange back and forth.
There were times that Trump was trying to contextualize things like the coronavirus crisis.
Okay, well, if you look at it this way, all she wanted to say was, the numbers are up.
She actually said, Can you just say the numbers are up?
It's like, well, that's not an interview tactic.
That's not someone who comes in who has a real handle of the topics that they're approaching.
I know.
And really what he was trying to say is, the The numbers of, you know, we're testing more and therefore, of course, you're going to have higher numbers.
That's what he was trying to say.
But she just wanted to get her sound bite.
And the exchange she had with him over masks, like it was so frustrating to me because she was so whiny about it.
Like, but you, why don't you tell the crowds to wear the masks?
They'll listen to you.
You're very powerful.
Why don't you tell them to wear the mask?
And Trump just kept saying, some wear the masks, some wear the masks.
And you wanted him to say, Leslie.
I'm not their daddy.
They understand that masks are supposed to help prevent the virus.
People are individuals and they have the ability to make their own decisions.
And I am not the mask enforcer in chief.
She was so whiny about it.
I was like, oh my God, you sound like my toddler used to.
The whole thing about the how, honestly, it just came across like she was looking down on the supporters of Donald Trump, also.
I mean, she actually got fact checked by Newsweek already as a mostly false statement about what she was going about, how Trump was encouraging his supporters to chant lock her up about Gretchen Whitmer, which is completely not true.
That was called out on that.
It's a bad sign when before the interview airs, Media outlets are fact checking you as the interviewer.
Yeah, right.
Well, there were a couple of moments that jumped out to me where he says about Biden, he's in the middle of a scandal right now.
And she says, no, he's not.
And I thought, okay, this is so meta because the reason if Biden's not in the middle of a scandal right now, it's because of reporters like Leslie Stahl who refuse to cover what has broken about Joe and Hunter Biden over the past week.
The media's complete blackout of the story, which of course they never would have done if this had been a Trump story.
And so she dismisses it right out of hand as no, it's a nothing.
And the second point was 60 released a promo clip of their interview where he says, I created prior to COVID the greatest economy the country's ever seen.
And she says, You know, that's not true.
And that's how they phrased it.
Like, there she is, like correcting Trump on his lies.
And then you see the raw.
And it was embarrassing for her.
It has him saying, I created the greatest economy, her saying, You know, that's not true.
Trump then doubles down and says, It is true, and starts to rattle off a couple of stats.
And then she says, Well, I'm not going to fact check you right now.
But she had tried.
She had tried to fact check him.
And when he wouldn't back down, she didn't have her facts.
She was unable to do it.
And she looked bad.
Right.
It was a stylistic fact check and not a substantive fact check.
It was like, You know, it's not true.
Everyone knows.
Okay, let's move on.
Yeah, it's even the Hunter Biden stuff.
When she goes, that can't be verified.
And he goes, well, why not?
And she goes, because it can't be verified.
It's like, that's your story.
That's your line.
Is that the only thing that you have written down here?
Is I can't be verified?
Right.
It was just empty calories.
She wanted to sound tough for the 60 Minutes Exchange that we're going to see on Sunday, but didn't have her facts.
She couldn't actually make the case.
Clearly, Leslie Stahl was waiting for the producers of 60 Minutes to give her facts that she could then track in the anchor booth for the final piece so she would sound like she knew what she was talking about.
But boy, did the mask come down when you saw the actual back and forth.
It was like a single tear for me because, you know, she's been a strong journalist, but when we see what really goes on, it didn't make me feel good.
Okay, wait.
I have to ask you something.
Okay.
On the subject of there's no scandal, and because we just can't verify in any of the laptop contents, you know, this is the Hunter Biden scandal.
NPR is under fire today by some, some on the right, because a reader, a listener of NPR wrote in.
And said, Why aren't you guys covering this?
Like, what?
You're a news organization.
Why aren't you covering this?
And they responded online saying, Because, we don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, that are pure distractions.
And the assertions here just don't amount to much.
Now, this is a taxpayer funded news organization that has explicitly said here, This is a waste of time.
It's not a story.
It's a distraction, and it doesn't amount to much.
This is the same news organization that covered the Steele dossier about Trump and the alleged.
P tape with glee, with drool.
They were so excited over it.
And I think it's just another example of why people don't trust the media and are just disgusted by their obvious bias when it comes to covering a Republican versus a Dem.
Yeah.
I mean, I think the explanation is so much worse than, you know, it's like this dropping the curtain of the 60 Minutes raw tape.
I mean, there's one thing to not cover the story.
I will say David Fulkenflick, the media reporter, about six days ago did cover the New York Post.
Coverage of the story.
So it's not that they can't touch it, but it's we don't want to waste our time, waste our time or the listener and reader's time.
The implication, as you make clear, is that this is not, you know, it's not worth our time.
It's beneath us, it's beneath you, it's beneath our listenership.
It's just so revealing and it really is such a, you know, it just backfires on the media in general and just really clarifies the way things stand as we're in 2020 right now.
Fracking and Natural Gas Debate 00:15:22
I know.
And David Fulkenflick, when he covered it, was basically covering it to say, this seems like it smells really bad.
And the New York Post didn't have its sourcing lined up.
It's like, how about some actual efforts to report the news?
And I will give Kristen Wilker credit for raising the issue last night.
There was a question whether she was going to raise the Hunter Biden laptop allegations at all.
She did.
She only spent 30 seconds on it, which again, if this had been a Trump scandal, you can bet it would have It would have looked more like 30 minutes, not 30 seconds.
But Trump did his best to keep hammering it.
I mean, I will say that it got a fair amount of mentions, at least.
It wasn't really set up for the audience because I think, you know, my imaginary viewer, Madge, in Iowa was like, what?
Huh?
Especially because it hasn't been covered anywhere.
So people don't all, you know, people are living their lives.
They're not like watching it the way we are.
So anyway, it wasn't really set up well, but Trump did his best to raise it over and over and over.
Yeah.
And I know we're going to go more on the, I think there's a lot of Googling going on.
I know you're going to talk more with Eric Bowling shortly.
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And joining us now, my pal, Eric Bowling, host of America This Week.
Eric, it's so great to have you here.
Thanks for joining me.
Megan, I'm so proud of you.
I just looked at the top 10 podcasts in America and you've moved your way up.
You're approaching the top five.
You're number seven.
Amazing.
Congratulations.
Highly successful podcast.
We knew it was going to happen.
Thank you, my dear.
You are so sweet and so generous, as always.
Okay, so I'm very happy to have you here on this day of all days.
What did you think?
I thought we saw a different Trump last night.
I thought it was like if that Trump had been at debate number one and if there had been a debate number two with that guy, I think even these polls, which I do think are biased against him, would be even higher than they've been.
I think he really did manage to change his trajectory last night.
He did a terrific job, and I'm going to give credit to his debate prep.
Team who realized that the first time they probably let him go, and that really worked in 2016.
Because remember, we were all like, How's Trump going to be?
and he wasn't a politician, so he was just kind of a bull in a china shop, so to speak.
And America is waiting for something different other than a polished swamp rat politician, and he was that.
Now he's got four years under his belt, and they now realize with what's going on in the streets, with the racial tension going on in the streets, with the pandemic, the COVID going on, they need a leader.
Last night, I think his debate team said, You know.
That worked in 2016 won't work this time.
Didn't work the first time in the first debate.
And they toned him down.
And the issues on the team, Megan.
Who is it?
Because last I heard, after the team had COVID and disbanded, Chris Christie was in the ICU for seven.
Who actually was prepping him this time?
They're still there.
It's the same group.
And it's Christie, it's Giuliani, Kellyanne.
Stepian's there.
Hope Hicks is there.
Hope has been there since the day he came down the escalator.
She's kind of a.
Um, not many people pay a lot of attention to Hope, but she's one of those really important people to his election and his re election, also.
Let me tell you what I like about Hope Picks she's like this incredibly smart, incredibly beautiful, incredibly poised person who never seeks the spotlight.
That is very rare, right?
Usually, you've got all those tips, they're like, maybe a little spotlight would be okay, but not only does it see the Megan, she pushes away from it.
When she first said, you know, after three years with Trump, with the campaign, and then Trump, she wanted to go.
Explore some other avenues.
I really pushed to bring her on the show, even to bring her to become part of a show.
She wanted nothing to do in front of the camera.
She doesn't want to spotlight her.
Whenever I look at Hope Hicks, I'm like, if I looked like that, I would do everything in my power to be on camera as much as possible.
But she's built differently.
So anyway, okay, he's lucky to have her, is the bottom line.
So he comes out last night.
He's, I think, speaking more to the seniors and the soccer moms who he needs to get on board.
But what did you think on substance was the biggest takeaway from last night?
He killed it.
I think there were a couple of things.
Number one, Trump did very well, and there were a couple of moments.
Number one, when he put Biden in the corner and said, Talk to me about fracking.
Joe Biden fell apart at that moment.
And I think this is the election just turned in favor of President Trump because of what his comment was.
His answer to Trump about fracking and the oil industry.
Forgive me for interrupting you.
But this is your business.
This is how you made your real money, not in television.
But can you just give us a line explaining fracking and why it's important as an electoral matter?
Nine million jobs are in the oil industry in America.
And the old oil industry was purely drilling into the ground, pulling oil out of the ground, refining and put gas in your car.
What's evolved over the last 15, 20 years or so, we've moved away from that dirty business, that dirty fuel.
There's a lot of emissions that happened in the whole process, plus we're drilling into the ground.
Fracking pulls gas out of the ground with one drill, usually into the ground.
Sometimes it's a couple, but it's a very clean burning fuel.
And we've taken a A dirty industry and cleaned it up massively with gas fracking.
We're turning gas into power in the form of gasoline, in the form of electricity.
So fracking has cleaned up the oil industry.
Megan, not only 9 million jobs in America, 9 million very high paying jobs in America.
And Joe Biden last night, when pushed into the corner, said, I'm going to eliminate the fossil fuel industry, which includes fracking.
And then Trump very wisely said, Joe, where are you on fracking?
And Joe said, I'm not against fracking.
So now he's contradicted his own comment with the prior line, but also lied because there are countless opportunities on tape of Joe Biden saying he's against fracking.
There will be no more fracking.
Last night, Joe said, I'm not against fracking.
So you're in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas.
Some of the other Midwestern states are heavily, heavily reliant on the oil industry and fracking.
You go, wait a minute, this is the next president.
He wants to eliminate the industry.
I put the food on my table because I'm part of it.
I think he lost Pennsylvania last night with that comment, and that will be the demonstration in the election.
This is like what they talk about when they go, and I confess, I don't totally understand fracking.
I understand it's a means of extracting energy in a new way, and that it's important to a lot of Americans as an industry.
It was the first I ever heard Joe Biden go so far.
And I thought, is he tired?
Why would he?
So here's a soundbite of him, Trump's pressing him on whether he plans to close down the oil industry.
So let's just listen.
False.
Would you close down the oil industry?
By the way, I would transition from the oil industry.
Yes.
Oh, that's a big statement.
It is a big statement.
That's a big statement.
Because I would stop.
Why would you do that?
Because the oil industry pollutes significantly.
I see.
Here's the deal.
But it's a big statement.
Well, if you let me finish the statement.
Because it has to be replaced by renewable energy.
And then he goes on to say, Trump goes on to say, Ohio, Pennsylvania, are you listening?
Please listen.
Yeah.
And again, swing states of Pennsylvania.
I honestly, if Trump wins Pennsylvania, it's over.
I think the people in Pennsylvania would be looking at here's fracking in a nutshell, Megan.
Instead of drilling down miles into the earth's crust to locate pockets of oil, the physical oil, the slippery stuff, crude oil, we can drill a lot lower, a lot cheaper, a lot.
Shallower drills and they're a lot less invasive to the environment.
And the fuel that comes out is a gas.
It's a natural gas rather than an oil.
And when you refine the natural gas into power, it doesn't spew a lot of emissions into the atmosphere.
So the move, natural gas is a much clean, much more clean burning fuel than crude oil is.
So we're cleaning that and the process is on the way.
The problem is the left and Biden want to do this.
At one point, Biden said by 2025.
I think he made a mistake.
He meant to say 35, but he said 25, whatever it is.
They want to do it quickly.
America and the world will move towards a cleaner burning fuel, maybe no fossil fuels whatsoever in time when the economy says it's time to do it, when the markets are ripe for it.
We're not there.
So, if you immediately disrupt that industry, 9 million high paying jobs, just the jobs, can you imagine the economic activity surrounding those jobs?
All those people who have those high paying jobs spend money going to movies, going to restaurants, going on trips, have to buy a lot of goods.
The economic impact to eliminating the oil industry rapidly.
Is a massive, massive risk to the economy.
Massive risk.
And they don't get it.
They just don't understand that the economy is a huge risk.
And now today, his campaign's already trying to walk it back, saying, oh, he misspoke.
But he was pretty explicit on camera last night about declaring war on oil.
And his comments on fracking, as you point out, have been well documented.
Can I ask you about immigration?
Because he said explicitly, within 100 days, I'm going to send to the U.S. Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented citizens.
And I mean, I thought Trump was going to start hitting him on amnesty, but instead he kind of came at him from the left.
And, you know, why didn't you achieve it when you were vice president?
And I think.
The world were like, what?
But the Biden statement, you know, as a standalone, that was the farthest left I'd heard him go on amnesty for all the illegal immigrants in the country, undocumented.
Well, in other words, we need 11 million more Democrat votes, is basically what he's saying.
And, you know, those tricks, those packing the court tricks or getting state status for DC or Puerto Rico, those are all, and also allowing amnesty for illegals, 11 million illegals.
A pathway to citizenship, which gives them a vote.
These are all ways that the left is trying to stack the deck for future elections.
And frankly, if any one of those were to happen, this would probably be the last.
If Biden wins and does this, you'll probably never see another Republican president, certainly in our lifetimes, and maybe ever, because then it's such a fine.
Look what happened in 2016.
President Trump won the electoral college, but he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes.
That means 3 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than him.
If you add 11 million, In undocumented or illegals who become citizens, or states in Puerto Rico or DC, those were highly, highly dense Democrat populations.
It's almost a foregone conclusion that you'll have a Democrat president going for you, probably will have all three branches Democrats going for Senate, House, and president.
Now, so let me ask you quickly about the COVID response because Joe Biden came out and I thought forcefully and seriously said Trump is responsible for the 220,000.
People who have died in this country.
It was a somber moment.
That's the word I'm looking for.
It was a somber, serious accusation.
And my response to it was I understand what he's saying because the Democrats want to blame COVID and all the fatalities on Trump.
I have yet to hear them really explain what exactly Trump didn't do, because it's a virus.
Trump's got a lot of powers, but preventing the virus from coming into the United States sadly is not among them.
Now, yes, could he have been more straightforward with us?
Yes, clearly, because he admitted that to Woodward, you know, that he wasn't telling it to us straight when he knew how bad it was.
But I just, I did wonder whether the average American sitting at home is actually going to blame Trump for that.
And his response last night was, I do take responsibility, but it's not my fault.
It's China's fault.
What did you make of it?
Well, I think Trump misses the mark on some of this stuff.
In fact, I had a town hall with him on Tuesday of this week, and I gave him that opportunity.
I said, if you had a mulligan, if you had a do over on one thing, Anything surrounding your COVID response, what would it be?
And his answer was not much.
And I think there's an opportunity to say, you know what?
It's not my fault.
I can't, there's no way I could have stopped China from spreading a virus.
We tried to stop them.
I did everything in my power, but I could have taken it more seriously.
I could have looked at some of the things that the doctors were telling me and maybe, but the problem is he doesn't like to do that.
President Trump doesn't like to admit to doing anything wrong ever.
Some people find that charming.
Some people say he needs to show a little bit of empathy.
So I think there's a better answer to that.
Look, we got 12 days left.
So I doubt that that's going to change very much.
This is the answer.
But he does, he did have the opportunity, especially after he got COVID himself, to say, look, it kicked my butt.
I didn't think you.
I thought it was kind of like the flu.
And it's not the flu, it's worse.
It's a real problem here.
And I didn't see it.
And you know what?
Going forward, I'll take this a lot more seriously and let's move on.
Let's save some lives.
It's tough for him to know because his adversaries, and frankly, the sort of far left in general, they're constantly demanding that not only he, but Most Republicans apologize on any day ending in Y for everything.
So it's like, is this another attempt just to get him to kneel at the altar of wokeness and leftism, or is this a legitimate thing he needs to apologize for?
And I think Trump, you know, his just instincts are not to do it.
Okay, let's talk about Hunter Biden, the media story or the story that's been completely blocked out by the media.
It's starting to get a little bit more traction.
Fox News is on it now.
The journal's on it now more.
And the reporting's just getting a little bit wider.
What we learned yesterday is there's two things just for the audience.
The Hunter Biden Investigation 00:10:42
Hunter Biden is Joe Biden's son.
He was basically grafting off of his dad's name by getting paid $50,000 a month by this Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.
Even though the guy had no gas expertise whatsoever.
And now we find out he was trying to strike some deal in China that would have given him millions of bucks potentially.
And there was a reference in some of his emails to, hey, you know, maybe I'll save 10% back from what you pay me for, quote, the big guy.
And now a partner in that attempted venture in China has come out.
The guy's name is Tony Bobolinsky.
He's come out and said that did mean 10% for Joe Biden.
And Joe Biden's not telling the truth when he says he never dealt with.
His son Hunter on these foreign deals, which is something the campaign continues to maintain.
And these guys are not being upfront about their attempts to use the Biden family name to earn money, spread influence.
And it's stuff we need to know if this guy's going to be the next president of the United States.
And before I get you to react, Eric, let me just play a soundbite because Trump brought Tony Babalinsky to the debate last night.
This is a guy who served as a lieutenant in the Navy, had a high security clearance, comes out and says, I've, I've, I'm not political.
I've only made a few donations in my life.
If I have, they've all been to Democrats.
This is about, you know, I like Democrats, but what they're saying about Joe Biden not having anything to do with any of Hunter's dealings isn't true.
Here, listen.
I've heard Joe Biden say that he's never discussed business with Hunter.
That is false.
I have firsthand knowledge about this because I directly dealt with the Biden family, including Joe Biden.
I have also heard that Vice President Biden said on Tuesday, That Senator Ron Johnson, the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, should be ashamed for suggesting that Biden family sought to profit from their name.
Well, here are the facts I know, and everything I'm saying is corroborated by emails, WhatsApp chats, agreements, documents, and other evidence.
And the American people can judge for themselves.
So that's, you know, somebody who was in on that proposed China deal directly saying this was a family operation.
Joe knew about it.
And I mean, my question to you, Eric, is is that going to be enough to get the media to show some interest in figuring out what happened between the Bidens and Burisma and the Bidens and this Chinese energy company?
Probably not because the media is in, I want to say in the tank.
The media leans left hard.
And as we know, we've been around this long enough.
So it's just atrocious, crazy, in fact, that this is a story.
Look, it's not about Hunter Biden.
He has his demons.
God knows I'm no one to call out anyone with a son with things going on.
But it's about how he tied the vice president to all these deals.
He clearly made a ton of money because he was son of the vice president.
And there's enough ties.
We don't have to tie them together any more than they're already there.
But it's a problem that Joe Biden, number one, the problem is denying it.
And that's not even a real big problem because there's enough plausible deniability in it because there is no actual email or conversation of Joe Biden with anyone at Burisma.
So he can go ahead and say, look, I go ahead, go for it, check it out.
I did nothing wrong.
But the problem is the media is covering for Biden.
They won't let that investigation happen.
They won't let the American people decide if they still want to vote for the guy, given what is going on.
My guess is.
It wouldn't have changed, what, two or 3% of the vote or less?
I don't think it would.
But the fact that the media covered up is problematic and may actually get more Republicans to come out and vote because the media was covering.
But the other question, Megan, the 64,000, the big question, the elephant in the room is where the hell has the FBI been on this?
They've had this information for a year.
The FBI and Christopher Wray have been sitting on this information even prior to the Democrats impeaching President Trump.
For exactly this, for asking the Ukrainians to look into the Biden case.
So, let me show the audience what you're talking about.
So, just quickly, what happened was there's this guy who runs a computer repair shop in Delaware who says Hunter Biden dropped off this laptop a long time ago and that he never came to reclaim it.
And the guy finally took a look at it under his policies.
It becomes the store owner's laptop after 90 days.
And he took a look at it, and it's got all these correspondence on it with Hunter and the Ukrainians and the Chinese, and it references the vice president.
And it's got a lot of other very deeply troubling things with Hunter on camera as a personal matter.
And he contacts the FBI and they got the laptop in December of 19.
So that's your point.
Like we're almost a year later.
The only reason we know about it is because the guy, after several months, got kind of scared and said, I don't know what's going to happen here.
I don't know what's going to happen to me.
And he contacted Rudy Giuliani's attorney because he just said, This is somebody who will get it out.
So I'm protected.
It's just, it's crazy.
You know, spy show kind of stuff, but doesn't mean it's not true.
And just by way of one example on the media, one of the allegations is that we glean from these laptop emails from Hunter is that he introduced Burisma's number three guy to the then sitting vice president, Joe Biden, that they met, and that within a year of that meeting, Joe Biden made sure the Ukrainians fired the prosecutor who was looking into Burisma for possible corruption.
That's the allegation.
Then we get the Biden campaign on Fox News Sunday.
They say it's not true.
There was never such a meeting.
It never happened.
Then in a follow-up statement, I guess Politico, which actually did to its credit inquire, they get them to say, well, maybe there was an informal interaction.
It's like if the media would just dig, we could get to the bottom of this.
I would like to know if Joe Biden met with the number three Burisma guy a year before he made sure Burisma didn't get prosecuted.
That is relevant.
That's relevant to corruption, pay to play, the way Washington dirty politics work.
We're not going to get to that.
We got two weeks to go.
All likely, but not necessarily enough to indict.
But the point is, the media covered up for this whole thing.
And more importantly, people were saying deep state, the FBI, people within the administration, the intel community hated Trump and was trying to get him out.
If the FBI had this information prior to the impeachment on Russia, and They could have opened that up.
They could have given that to the Senate Judiciary Committee and let them know about that.
And likely none of this would have happened.
We would have saved the taxpayer $50 million, the Trump family a lot of heartache.
And we could have moved on, maybe even given the media an opportunity to vet what Joe Biden's role in Burisma and in Hunter Biden's massive amount of liquidity.
And, you know, it looks like unearned liquidity is all about.
If Joe Biden wins this race, and I know he said that he won't be involving his son Hunter in anything.
That better be true.
Hunter Biden can't be anywhere near the White House, anywhere near it.
This guy's got enough shady business dealings in his past that that would absolutely have to be assured.
Okay, let me ask you about the polls before I let you go, because I keep looking at them.
I only look at the swing state polls.
The national polls are meaningless.
And what I see is in states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Ohio, Hillary Clinton at this point in 16 was up more than Joe Biden is right now.
And so that just is a constant asterisk in my mind to be careful before you declare Trump done based on what's usually the sweeping national lead that he holds in these national polls.
But realistically, Eric, understanding you want Trump to win, realistically, what's your take on the state of the race?
So, and again, it's the same thing in 2016.
Here's what happens, Megan you walk around, people whisper to me because they know I'm a Trump.
I prefer President Trump than Hillary, and I prefer President Trump than Biden.
They'll say, you know, I'm going to vote for President Trump.
And they'll whisper in my ear, like, okay, we'll say it.
So the media has created this, and the left has created this world where if you say you like Trump, Trump, you're a xenophobe, you're a racist, you're a sexist, you like people who do bad things to women.
And so it's almost an embarrassment to say it in public.
So, what do you think happens when someone that you don't know who's calling, CNN, poll, or even Fox News, whoever, and they say, Who are you going to vote for?
Well, people will either decline or they're going to say Joe Biden instead of saying, I'm going to vote for Donald Trump.
Same thing happened in 2016.
They made it so embarrassing to say you're pro Trump.
No one wanted to admit it.
And so the polls are always going to skew that way, besides the fact of the methodology of polling, which means how many Democrats you poll versus Republicans, it's always skewed to the Democrats.
Besides that, that's something we know and live with.
It's that other secret factor that no one really talks about.
Now, I'll never forget being at Fox in 2016 and doing daily, daily doing the path to 270 electoral votes to become president with the brain room outside of my office every single day telling me he's got no path.
And me telling him, oh, yes, he does.
I'll never forget those days.
It feels the same to me right now.
It feels like you're going to see, I don't think it's going to be a landslide, but I think President Trump prevails in 12 days.
What percentage chance would you put it at?
50 50, 60 40?
What would you put it at?
When he got COVID, I would have said it was probably 60 40 against, because I think that was a surprise, a shock, the October surprise.
But I think now, in the fact that he bounced back so rapidly, some of the things that are there, Come out that have come out in the last couple of weeks.
I would say it's 64 in his favor.
Before I let you go, how are you?
I miss you.
I miss you too, Megan.
I will just, I'm going to leave your wonderful audience and you on this note that my wife and I have clearly had the worst heartache tragedy any human being in humanity could experience.
Russian Disinformation Tactics 00:17:05
And Megan Kelly, you guys, Megan Kelly was there talking to me, holding me up and propping my wife and I up from day one.
From day one through now.
And I'll never forget that.
Megan, I so appreciate you.
Oh, Eric.
I mean, the fact that you mentioned me, I'm talking about the death of your son, which was so wrong and so sad.
I will say, watching the way you guys handled that, stayed together, stayed strong, I have chills just thinking about it, was an example in strength, grace under fire, just refusing to stay lying down, which Eric Chase would never have wanted for you.
Never have wanted for you to just give up, throw in the towel, and sit on your couch for the next 40 years.
I know I can say firsthand that you are a beautiful man and you are an amazing dad.
And I'm sure he's looking at you from above with all the work you're doing on the town halls, on the.
Opioid crisis and thinking, I'm proud.
Megan, every day it's a struggle.
It's an accomplishment to make it through.
And it's friends like you who absolutely are the reason I'm able to do that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
To be continued.
I hope to speak to you again.
Absolutely.
In one minute, we're going to be joined by Crystal Ball and Sagar and Jetty of The Hills Rising, which is a great show.
It's very fair.
If you haven't checked out, You should.
But first, before we get to that, I want to tell you about Palm Industries.
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Okay, before we get to our guests, I want to talk to you about our latest feature, which is you can't say that, right?
You know what's happening in our country.
You can't say that.
You can't think that.
You can't be that.
Oh, wait, this is America.
That's how I respond.
There's a gal named Catherine Lauer, and she's at University of Kansas.
You know how it is.
You go off to college, you join a sorority, you want to make friends.
It's a good way of sort of short forming all the, I don't know, all the effort it takes to find a posse.
Well, poor Catherine might have wanted to keep looking.
She has been placed on probation by the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority there for showing unbecoming values.
What did she do?
Did she punch somebody out in a fight?
Did she bully somebody?
No.
She likes Trump, apparently.
Maybe.
I don't know.
She has posted something critical of Black Lives Matter and that repeated something Candace Owens said.
So she's in trouble.
In fact, she has been placed on probation.
Okay, so what did she post?
Number one, she posted some pro life thoughts, which apparently is not okay for Kappa Alpha Theta.
They think that's hurtful, I guess.
And they didn't like her post on Black Lives Matter, which she retweeted a Candace Owens post saying, And I quote, Black Lives Matter is an organization of white men using the faces of dead black people to raise millions of dollars toward electing white Democrats into positions of power.
She also added, how Owens did, that it's the most flagrantly racist organization in America.
Now, there's no question Candace Owens presses buttons and is controversial, but that's her opinion.
And it may indeed be the opinion of Catherine Lauer.
We don't know.
All we know is she reposted it.
That's apparently not okay.
She's been told she must take a social media posting holiday.
Do a personal reflection and cleanse.
What does that even mean?
You know, like I know about the cayenne pepper drink you have to drink when you want to lose 10 pounds.
What happens when you want to lose your affinity for Candace Owens?
I don't know what that cleanse looks like.
But I find that offensive, that they're trying to cleanse her mind of thoughts they find obnoxious.
She also had to watch a video selected by the sorority's diversity, equity, and inclusion committee, because, you know, they're all about diversity and inclusion unless it's the diversity of thought.
And they want her to have a dialogue with the sorority's COO about getting a broader education of America today, because she was, quote, hurtful.
So Lauer tried to appeal.
She failed.
They told her no.
She actually says she supports the idea behind Black Lives Matter, but she doesn't agree with where it's money.
Is going.
And when asked whether she has any knowledge of others in the sorority being punished for their social media posts, guess what?
No, she hasn't heard of anybody being punished, despite many postings that are very aggressive in terms of taking down Trump.
They're aggressively anti Trump.
To me, this is so upsetting because diversity of opinion is what makes this country great, even if you're offended by the opinions you hear.
That's what makes America special.
You're allowed to say offensive things.
And the answer is.
If you don't like somebody saying something, if you find their speech offensive, is not less speech, it's more speech.
There's an old George Orwell quote that reads If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
That, people, is how you grow.
Hearing other people express divergent viewpoints from your own, maybe you'll try to convince them, maybe you won't, but it's always good to have your own thought processes tested.
So, Kappa, I think you're on the wrong page here.
I don't think Catherine did anything wrong.
And I think if you want to get Any Republicans in your sorority, and maybe you don't, you need to rethink your own policies.
Catherine, if they don't, if they're not open to your viewpoints, you should move right along and just find friends on the quad.
Okay, now I want to bring in our guests, Crystal Ball and Sagar and Jetty, co host Rising on thehill.com.
Their show's getting millions and millions of views, and it's well worth your time.
Guys, thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having us, Megan.
Great as always to talk to you.
Good to be back, Megan.
All right, so let's get overall thoughts on last night.
Crystal, let me start with you because we just did a long segment with Eric.
Bowling, who is a conservative.
You are not.
What was your takeaway?
So, if we're giving awards for most improved, Trump definitely won the night.
I think this was the type of debate where, look, the energy from the president was radically different from debate one.
It was, in a lot of ways, a very effective performance.
And I think, frankly, if he had this kind of tone and affect more often on the campaign trail, he'd be in a much better position right now.
But if you look at the reaction after the debate, basically, people who like Joe Biden thought Joe Biden won.
People who like Trump thought that Trump won.
And with Joe up in the polls, that's a fantastic result for him ultimately.
So even though I think very little changes coming out of this debate, and we can talk about some more of the specifics, but even though I think very little changes, that is actually a very consequential event because this was one of the last opportunities for President Trump to really change the game here.
And he's significantly down and continues to be, I think.
I like your, you know, the most improved.
It's making me think of the beauty contest Trump used to.
Organize and run.
Who would get Mr. Congeniality?
None of the above, maybe.
No, no one on that stage last night.
No, and let's not even go to the swimsuit competition.
Okay, Sagar, what did you think was your overall impression of what we saw last night?
I thought I really basically agree.
I actually thought it was the best performance that President Trump has had in any of his major presidential debates, including with Hillary Clinton.
But I also thought it was Joe Biden's, frankly, best debate performance.
Of 2020.
I mean, he had horrible debates in the early primary campaign.
Even against Bernie Sanders, he did okay, but he was a bit shaky.
This one, I mean, near the end, he was beginning to fade, but he got across what he needed to get across.
And so, when you're 10 points down, like Trump currently is in the state of the national polls, and with larger margins in the swing states, places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, you need to return to some of the things that got you that win.
And I didn't see enough of that on a policy level and on the critique of Biden.
That I think he needed to do to really drive this thing home with only like 12 days left until the election.
Crystal, why do you think he, you know, A, was talking about the amnesty he wants to offer, you know, 11 million undocumented immigrants are going to be made citizens within the 100 days.
And then he was talking about how he's going to basically gut oil and really made some statements that could hurt him with some of those swing state voters.
Why did he do that?
You know, the undocumented immigrant thing was interesting because he was very specific there in a way that.
He is often loath to be.
Now, I will say, you know, the polling on comprehensive immigration reform is fairly popular, and this is a position that Democrats have long held.
But what I actually read into that, Megan, is one of the groups, the group that Joe Biden has underperformed with the most, is Latinos versus Hillary Clinton's performance back in 2016.
Now, if you actually ask Latinos what their top issue is, it's not immigration.
It's like everybody else, it's coronavirus and it's jobs and the economy and wages.
And yes, immigration comes in there as well.
But I think he had some consultant in his ear telling him basically, you know, you need to make this explicit pledge to the Latino community to try to drive up your numbers there.
So that was what I made of that.
You know, on the oil comment, there's no doubt a place like Texas that's going to get replayed.
Obviously, the Trump campaign trying to make a lot of it is inartful in his expression, but it also is consistent with his position, which is that he wants to transition away from fossil fuels over time, not that this is going to happen in any one particular day.
Been asking you guys for your moment of the night when you've come on after the last couple of town halls or debates.
Sagar, what was your moment of the night?
My moment of the night remains this on this Hunter Biden story.
It's just, I'm agog that the moderator and the media and everybody else is just letting Biden get away with these outright lies.
I mean, what he said last night is that Hunter Biden never made any money in China.
I mean, that is just false, according to Hunter Biden himself.
And it's just unbelievable that there's no follow up from the moderators themselves, there's no actual reportage.
In so many of the mainstream outlets.
I just can't believe that the case is not at least being examined properly by people within the media.
And, you know, I got to say, President Trump did not handle it, I think, the way that he should have.
He should have pressed him, not just on the money that he was receiving, but also on whether he met with this Hunter business associate or not, because that's a direct and total turnabout for Biden if it is true.
Well, and we have a little clip on one of the last exchanges they had.
Of the night that touches on that a bit.
Let's listen.
Joe, they're calling you a corrupt politician.
Nobody's talking about race.
I want to stay on the issue of race.
We're talking about the issue.
I'm a laptop from hell.
President Trump, I'm talking about race right now, and I do want to stay on the issue of race.
President Trump, I'm not going to.
Now, you have to respond to that.
Please.
Because, look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this he's accusing me of is a Russian plant.
They have said that this has all the care.
Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage.
Nobody believes it except his and his good friend Rudy.
So, what did you make of that?
It's just amazing, right?
I mean, 50 former national intelligence officials, oh, by the way, many of whom have endorsed Biden, say that it has the quote earmarks of Russian disinformation.
Well, the director of national intelligence says it's not true.
And I don't always trust the intelligence community, but I do trust them to leak something if the director says something that isn't true.
And there hasn't been a single leak and not a shred of evidence, nothing to say that this is Russian disinformation.
So this is just a clear example.
The media pushes this fake Russian disinformation narrative.
Biden uses it as an excuse, and he's just outright lying.
I mean, that Hunter Biden has said he would not have had any of these deals if he was not, if his last name was not Biden.
He admits to holding.
10% of a Chinese private equity fund, which was funded by the Chinese government.
These are, again, these are outright facts.
And he just denies and lies about them.
It's amazing that he gets away.
It's been funny.
I was just mentioning earlier that, you know, originally his position on the meeting with the number three guy at Burisma that the Hunter emails suggest did take place was the schedule doesn't show that, which, you know, we all pointed out, well, that doesn't answer the question.
And I'm like, my schedule doesn't show I'm having this conversation with you two right now, but I am.
And then the campaign told Fox News Sunday there was no meeting.
But then the next statement to Political was, well, they might have been an informal gathering.
Like, could we just get a straight answer?
Like, could somebody show some interest so that we could get a straight answer from the campaign on whether the sitting vice president met with the number three executive of this corrupt organization that wound up, you know, pleading to the U.S. to have the prosecutor pulled off their back, which Joe Biden did a year later?
Crystal, your thoughts?
Yeah, I think that's all highly relevant.
And look, no one's saying here that the president hasn't been corrupt.
We cover Corruption from all sides on our show and make sure to do that.
But part of the issue here is too that the Biden campaign won't answer whether the emails are real.
They want to throw on all this, oh, it's Russian disinformation.
And I really hate the Russian crap.
They use it as an excuse for absolutely everything because they don't want to deal with the underlying issue.
Look, the Trump campaign's very excited about this stuff.
They thought this would be a game changer.
They've clearly seized on it.
I don't think that this is going to change anyone's votes when we're in the middle of a pandemic and with the economic situation as it is.
So, this is no longer really an electoral issue.
But if we are going to have a President Joe Biden, the American people deserve to know what those relationships are going to look like?
What are those business relationships going to look like?
Can they have confidence that he's not going to have a swirl of people around him who are profiting off of his name and off of the presidency?
Look, I don't think that what we've seen from Hunter has been illegal, but that does not make it right.
And it doesn't make it something that the American people want to accept ultimately.
I'm going to start just using that.
Whenever I get in trouble for anything, I'm just going to be like, that's Russian disinformation.
I'm just going to keep slapping that against the board, see if it sticks.
You know, but you're right, because the one thing we didn't hear from Joe Biden last night, which would have been so simple and would have answered so much, is for him to just say, there is no laptop that belongs to Hunter Biden.
My son did not drop off a laptop with this repairman in Delaware who we've never met, never heard of.
Those emails are not real.
That would have gone so far, and people are smart enough to realize there's a reason he didn't say that because it isn't true.
We all know it was Hunter's, it was his signature.
The guy has no reason to lie, and the campaign would have long denied it before this point if they had the basis to do so.
All right.
I have to ask you, Crystal, your moment of the night.
So, there was a moment that to me was very revealing in terms of the difference in how Trump is running this time versus how he ran back in 2016.
In 2016, on a lot of issues, he wasn't in line with the Republican orthodoxy, especially on economics.
So, he bucked conventional wisdom, bucked the Republican line, in particular on things like The minimum wage.
So the minimum wage, the federal minimum wage, came up last night and he was arguing against it, which is the polar opposite again of his position in 2016.
And I thought that was.
Pretty remarkable.
Hold that thought.
Hold that thought because I want to get your reaction to what he said, but let's listen to what he said first.
Trump's Shift on Minimum Wage 00:09:50
Businesses, as well as the schools, need the help.
But these guys will not help them.
It's not giving them any of the money.
We are going to move on to immigration.
But I want to get to that.
You said we have to help our small businesses by raising the minimum wage.
That's not helping.
I think it should be a state option.
Alabama is different than New York.
New York is different from Vermont.
Every state is different.
It should be a state option.
You said very recently, it's very important.
That sounds like standard issue, Mitt Romney type political rhetoric.
It could have come out of the mouth of Paul Ryan.
And look, you can agree or disagree with that, but it's polar opposite of how we ran back in 2016.
And look, on the merits, if you ask American citizens, increasing the minimum wage is wildly popular at this point.
And minimum wage increases have even passed in deeply red states.
That's how popular it is.
So I thought it was just a glimpse into how different, how much he's adopted the Republican orthodoxy on economic.
In particular, in a way that has ultimately damaged him in his presidency and in his reelect.
The minimum wage thing, I mean, I confess I haven't spent that much time studying it, but I do know that when it gets mandated, like here in New York City, they mandated it for restaurant owners, I think last year.
And then a bunch of restaurant employees started to get fired.
And, you know, like the small business owners were like, yeah, that's kind of how it works.
We only have a certain amount of revenue coming in.
And then I remember there was a push to, you could only fire the restaurant owner or the restaurant workers for cause.
Which is not really how life works.
All these at will employees can always be fired for any reason at all.
So, those laws can be problematic for even the people they mean to help.
But I see your point because Trump's always been more of a populist.
Right.
And there was a big, you know, in Seattle, they were the first ones who moved forward, I think, around the SeaTac airport with a $15 minimum wage.
And there was a lot of like, oh my God, this can be the end of everything.
And actually, it didn't cause a job loss.
And we haven't seen that in terms of the research across the country.
Again, there are a lot of ways to feel about the issue, but in terms of the positioning of Trump and how he differs this time around from 2016, he's not only saying in that answer, I don't support $15, he's saying, I think it should be a state option altogether, not moving forward.
Yeah, sounding like Paul Ryan has never been his goal.
Can I ask you about the cages, you guys, the cages exchange?
Because the thing that really had a lot of the Democrats and CNN and MSNBC talking.
After the debate, the cages and the kids, the 500 plus kids who are now being held without being able to get reunited with their parents.
Trump was basically saying, Look, their parents sent them up here with coyotes, and they're in cages that were built by the Obama administration.
And Biden is basically saying they got separated from their parents and their caregivers thanks to your policies.
And it's criminal, he said.
So, what were your thoughts, Sagar?
Let me ask you on that and whether that moved the needle.
Well, you know what's funny to me is actually it connects very much to what we were just talking about, which is that you could have given the answer to the no minimum federal mandated minimum wage from a populist perspective, which is what Trump and his administration used to argue, which they could have said, look, with less immigration and competition for American wages, you don't need to mandate a federal minimum wage and you will have tight labor markets, which will lead to higher wages for all Americans.
And we didn't really hear that.
And I think that in general, that's always been a problem for the Trump administration, they have not What Trump connected with is he connected immigration in 2016 with populist economics.
So, whenever you strip that away and you make it about child separation at the border without any of the populist economic message to underscore that what the core argument of the administration.
Is that we need less immigrants in America to compete for American jobs, ergo increasing American wages and cracking down on corporate welfare, then that's actually a majoritarian economic and political position.
But as it was, Trump wasn't returning to that, especially on that issue, on the minimum wage, and more.
So I see it in a broader context of Trump and immigration, which has just been missing from this entire campaign from him.
Yeah, it's been surprising.
Build the wall, build the wall.
That was like his number one applause line four years ago.
And he never hits it now, he never really hits immigration.
Um, and it's been such a popular issue for him, but I will say, Crystal, maybe this is why because the you know, those suburban soccer moms we've been talking about don't like the kids being alone in the cages without the parents, even if they're ticked off that the parents sent the kids up, you know, with or without them with coyotes, which obviously nobody supports, no one thinks that's a good idea.
But you don't like the thought of kids not being able to reunite with their parents, no, of course not.
And, um, and look, you're right, uh, if you look at the numbers.
The Obama administration deported way more people than the Trump administration has been able to do.
There's a variety of reasons for that.
And they did, in fact, build those cages.
But when you're faced with the statistic about more than 500 children who may never see their parents again, who have been permanently potentially orphaned by the US federal government as a policy of intentional cruelty, and the answer from the president is, oh, well, they're being well taken care of, I don't think that that's sufficient for really anyone.
That was not his best moment.
I mean, honestly, it's like, even I think Trump supporters are looking at that like, well, that can't be the plan, that they're just going to be, quote unquote, well taken care of in the cages for the rest of their lives.
And I realize Trump didn't create that problem.
They came and they needed to be dealt with.
And in his effort to crack down on this problem, he started separating the families.
But something satisfactory is going to have to happen there because I know that issue tugs at the heartstrings.
I just thought that was one missed opportunity for both of them.
All right.
So now here we are.
I don't know how many days now, less than almost about two weeks out.
Let me exit the question to you both whether what percentage chance you give Trump to win at this point, Sagar?
I think Trump has probably got about a 15% chance of winning.
And I know that's low.
I think it's low, but look, I think that his core strengths, like we were just talking about on immigration, on economics, he failed to deliver on a stimulus package.
Now, look, we got 12 days to go, but We all know, Megan, you know, Nancy Pelosi and Stephen Nishin have to come to a deal.
Then you got three days in the House, and then the Senate has 30 hours of floor time.
The odds of a large stimulus package passing before the election are dwindling to the day.
And actually, it's a failure that we don't even have a stimulus already, that we didn't pass one again and again and again over the last several months.
These are the things I think could have won Trump re election, taking coronavirus more seriously in March.
And even with that, passing large stimulus packages in April, May, and June, corralling The Republican majority and making them go against their Republican Senate majority and making them go against their more deficit hawkery instincts, which again, he ran against in 2016.
Basically, of all times to stop his spending instincts.
I know.
It's crazy to me.
I mean, he basically buckled to them at a worst possible moment.
I said this on your podcast before, he became a true Republican at the worst possible moment for his presidency.
And I do not think that bodes well for his election chances.
What do you think, Crystal?
What do you give Trump a percentage chance of winning?
I give them about a 10% chance, I think.
And I'll play devil's advocate here, though.
Look, at this point, the polls would have to be a lot more wrong than they were last time around.
You'd have to have a really pretty wild polling error.
For him to be able to pull this off, and there are dwindling opportunities for him to change the game.
50 million plus people have already voted, and this race has frankly been remarkably stable for months and months and months, in spite of wild swings and what is happening in our country.
But okay, wait, but can I ask you before you get to the book?
Because I mentioned this before you came on at this point in 2016, Hillary was up more than Joe Biden is up right now over Donald Trump in states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Ohio.
So, why so certain that?
You know, he's done.
Well, one of the differences has been that Biden has been consistently over 50.
It's been very stable.
And certainly the national polling average, he's a lot further up than Hillary was at this point.
I mean, 10 points, 10 point national average at the Real Clear Politics average is a lot more than she was able to achieve at this point.
But to play devil's advocate, look, if you were ever going to have a wild polling swing and just have, you know, be caused by uncertainty, caused by, look, People are voting in a way they've never voted before through a method that they haven't used before.
The turnout model, if it's a little off, and then you have more Democratic ballots coming in mail and getting tossed out because they weren't done properly, like that is in the realm of possibility.
Do I think it's likely?
No.
Is it possible?
Sure.
It's still possible.
And last time around, 11 days before the vote, Comey came out saying they'd found more Hillary hidden documents on Anthony Weiner's laptop that he shared with his wife, Uma Abedin.
And that was.
I mean, basically, what we're seeing is back in 2016 and 2020, we've had a laptop from hell.
We've had, as Trump put it last night, that is what winds up making an appearance in the final moments of every campaign the laptop from hell.
Just don't buy one.
Just stick with your iPhone.
And if it breaks, you just throw it away, people.
You don't need to get it repaired.
Election Turnout Model Concerns 00:02:46
You guys, great to talk to you as always.
Thanks, Megan.
Great to talk to you, Megan.
Be well.
My assistant and I were just going through this, my assistant, Abby.
It died.
It just died.
And she was like, well, you know, we can wipe it and we can donate.
I'm like, oh, that sounds nice.
And honestly, after this whole Hunter Biden thing, we're like, maybe we'll just smash it.
But just smash it.
Not that I have anything on there of interest whatsoever.
I mean, I'm smart enough at this point in my career not to take naked photos of myself.
Not really because I think you're going to find them, but because I've had three kids and there's really no reason for anyone to see that.
But I think we're going to wind up smashing just to be on the safe side.
Listen, I want to thank all my guests today.
It's so good to reconnect with Eric Bowling, who I just love as a friend.
Crystal and Sagar are always, aren't they interesting?
They just, they're young and they come at these issues from a different point, from a different entry point.
You always learn from them.
I also want to tell you that today's episode was brought to you in part by Pure Talk USA.
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That is a great deal.
Listen, thank you so much for tuning into us today.
Go ahead and subscribe to the show, download the show, rate the show.
And review the show.
Super fun reconnecting with everybody.
I am still reading them, and I love, love, love hearing from you.
If you've got thoughts for the show, you can also email them to questions at devilmaycaramedia.com.
And don't forget to tune in next week when, among others, we're going to have Piers Morgan.
Thanks for being with us, everybody.
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
The Megan Kelly Show is a devilmaycaramedia production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.
You can see our talent.
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For mobile net health, net bread the bill, I'll make Chromecast bo tilt even at a strand dog for Granca.
Stream Flex 2 Streaming Tips 00:00:28
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