The Megyn Kelly Show - 20201103_election-day-with-gov-mike-huckabee-and-joe-trippi
Aired: 2020-11-03
Duration: 01:27:20


=== Election Day Expectations (02:08) ===

[00:00:00]  Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
[00:00:06]  It's election day.
[00:00:08]  What should we expect tonight and into this week?
[00:00:12]  Two politics veterans from the right and the left will join us on the show today, Governor Mike Huckabee and Joe Trippi, two of my favorites.
[00:00:20]  This is going to be a good one.
[00:00:26]  Happy election day, everyone.
[00:00:28]  I'm Megyn Kelly, and this is the Megyn Kelly Show.
[00:00:31]  So glad to have you with us.
[00:00:32]  This is it.
[00:00:34]  Election Day 2020.
[00:00:36]  It has finally arrived as we always knew it would.
[00:00:39]  And I see this as a day to express your love for your country.
[00:00:43]  Whoever you vote for, you get in there and in effect, you're voting for the United States of America.
[00:00:48]  The way it runs its election systems, the people it nominates through a democratic process, that's what you go in there for today.
[00:00:56]  Yes, you may have your political preferences and that's fine.
[00:01:00]  But this is about more than that.
[00:01:01]  It's about expressing, exercising your responsibility, your right.
[00:01:08]  It's a gift.
[00:01:09]  We're all blessed to live here, and not everybody gets to do this.
[00:01:13]  Some people die in other parts of the world just for the one chance of getting into a polling station and casting a ballot like millions of Americans will do today.
[00:01:21]  I see this as your chance to say what matters.
[00:01:24]  This is it, right?
[00:01:25]  And I do think that if you don't vote, you really do sacrifice your right to complain.
[00:01:29]  It's like I tell my kids, if you're not going to do anything about your problem, nothing at all, even though you've been advised on the potential options, you waive your right to complain about it.
[00:01:38]  Right.
[00:01:38]  You have to be proactive in your own life, both in terms of what you do in your apartment or your home and what and in terms of what you do at the polling station today.
[00:01:47]  So go vote.
[00:01:49]  If you haven't, if you fail to register, at least make a note on the calendar to register for the next one.
[00:01:54]  Cause I know a lot of people start to beat themselves up that they miss the opportunity.
[00:01:57]  Well, there's always tomorrow.
[00:01:59]  Right.
[00:01:59]  Not for this particular election, unless you're committing voter fraud, but in the future.
[00:02:04]  I mean, I've been thinking a lot about what I wanted to say to you guys today because I've been thinking a lot about the last four years.

=== Voting Rights and Complaints (14:17) ===

[00:02:09]  And how we got to where we are.
[00:02:11]  We're incredibly divided.
[00:02:13]  There's so much hate.
[00:02:15]  There's breaking up of friends and families over their electoral politics, which is insane.
[00:02:22]  The press is at an all-time low in terms of its respect and trust.
[00:02:27]  And I've been thinking back to how we got here.
[00:02:31]  Four years ago, Americans went to the polls and they shocked the world.
[00:02:35]  They shocked the world by electing a reality TV star as president, a P.T. Barnum-like circus character.
[00:02:41]  Right?
[00:02:42]  Known for as much for his questionable real estate deals as for his extramarital affairs and his bankrupt casinos.
[00:02:48]  Trump.
[00:02:49]  Everyone told us he's not going to be president.
[00:02:51]  That's what everyone said, from Barack Obama to the pollsters to even some of my own Fox News colleagues who loved the guy, but just could not see a pathway to 270 electoral votes for him.
[00:03:03]  And then the electoral votes started to come in, the results, the actual results.
[00:03:07]  November 8th, 2016, boom, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina.
[00:03:12]  I remember that was a huge one.
[00:03:14]  Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, who the heck would have thought?
[00:03:17]  Pennsylvania, Iowa, and on it went until Donald J. Trump became the 45th president of the United States, right?
[00:03:26]  No one could believe it.
[00:03:27]  Very few people could believe it or had predicted it.
[00:03:30]  I remember watching an awe at Fox as we cut between the stunned looking Hillary supporters in an utterly dejected, sad, panicked looking Javits Center here in New York City where the fireworks never did go off.
[00:03:45]  The balloons did not drop from the ceiling.
[00:03:47]  And then, you know, cut to the exuberant crowd over at Trump headquarters where you saw kids who looked like they found the golden ticket, right?
[00:03:56]  A feat so spectacular, even they seem to struggle to actually believe it.
[00:04:00]  From day one, Trump's White House, it got off to a rocky start, right?
[00:04:05]  I mean, you know that they misled us about things from crowd size to hurricane paths.
[00:04:09]  We'd see that with the Sharpie.
[00:04:11]  Later, a pandemic's seriousness.
[00:04:14]  They denied virtually every piece of bad news, real and fake, which started to blend together over time.
[00:04:21]  And that was a Trump tactic that led the country into what we now call a post-truth world.
[00:04:27]  But it was one that worked brilliantly against a dishonest, biased, self-discrediting media.
[00:04:34]  That war between them, the press and the president, left us, the American people, as its casualties.
[00:04:42]  People who wanted truth, who believed in fact.
[00:04:48]  Time and time again, Trump has baited the press into self-humiliation.
[00:04:54]  He'd tweet and they would respond how high.
[00:04:57]  Any crumb he left, they followed and ate it.
[00:05:00]  They lost all ability to see and report on him clearly and objectively, and instead they put on their resistance hats proudly.
[00:05:07]  And took up rhetorical arms against the guy.
[00:05:10]  The media committed suicide during the Trump presidency, and Trump was their Kevorkian.
[00:05:17]  And the only remaining question was would the media return the favor as they took their last remaining breaths?
[00:05:25]  Today, we'll find out.
[00:05:26]  Trump's petty Twitter wars waged on incessantly.
[00:05:30]  You know that.
[00:05:30]  He has insulted women's looks again.
[00:05:32]  He's pushed conspiracy theories like Scarborough may have allegedly killed an intern.
[00:05:37]  Scarborough says it's not true.
[00:05:39]  I mean, this is crazy.
[00:05:40]  That people were told you must recoil in disgust and think Trump was awful in every way.
[00:05:45]  But every morning, the news would come that Trump, while he was doing all these nutty things, was actually getting results.
[00:05:52]  He was passing legislation that, frankly, exceeded most Republicans' wildest dreams.
[00:05:57]  That's not the story you would read in the press, however.
[00:06:01]  They have waxed poetically in the past days, weeks, and even years about how awful and tyrannical he has been, how dangerous his reelection would be, that we can't afford four more years of this.
[00:06:11]  They malign his supporters as bigoted.
[00:06:13]  As adults who don't understand this is a modern day Hitler.
[00:06:17]  And since so many of his supporters have been shamed into silence, and they have, I realize there are people out there with the MAGA hats and the trucks and the bumper stickers, but there are millions of Americans who no longer will say anything about Trump because they're afraid.
[00:06:30]  And that's what led me to want to take this word this morning on why millions of people will go to the polls and behind the curtain, they will pull the lever for Donald Trump.
[00:06:41]  No matter the result today, whether he wins or loses, they do not.
[00:06:47]  Deserve scorn.
[00:06:49]  Their vote matters too, and it doesn't mean they're bigots or awful or stupid.
[00:06:55]  The truth is that while Trump was out there tweeting and golfing and watching cable news repeatedly over his first term, he was also getting things done.
[00:07:03]  He was.
[00:07:04]  He cut taxes, he rolled back scores of regulations that had been crippling corporate America.
[00:07:10]  He helped America achieve energy independence, so that he worked to deter illegal border crossings, albeit with Family separations that continue to haunt us all.
[00:07:20]  I mean, the images of those children are terrible.
[00:07:23]  But that was in an effort to crack down on a real problem at the border.
[00:07:26]  And he did ultimately build at least some of that wall, though not enough, if you ask Ann Coulter.
[00:07:32]  He tried to restore due process for young men on college campuses who had been accused of sexual misconduct, who under Obama had virtually all of their rights entirely gutted.
[00:07:41]  They had no rights.
[00:07:43]  He rescinded a dangerous nuclear deal with Iran, which was but a mirage.
[00:07:47]  And he pulled us out of the Paris climate accords, which many Republicans in particular felt hurt American workers unfairly.
[00:07:54]  The one thing we haven't talked about a lot in this election is terrorism.
[00:07:57]  Remember four years earlier?
[00:07:59]  We talked about terrorism all the time, about ISIS putting people in cages, torturing people.
[00:08:04]  Trump worked with our allies to destroy the ISIS caliphate, including killing its leader, al-Baghdadi.
[00:08:09]  Remember that?
[00:08:10]  I don't know why he doesn't mention this stuff.
[00:08:12]  He dropped a bomb on Iran's general, Soleimani, who had killed hundreds of U.S. troops, despite many predicting that doing so would cause a war, which it has not.
[00:08:21]  Trump pushed for peace in the Middle East, moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, which many had said they do, but none did.
[00:08:28]  He helped convince countries like Sudan.
[00:08:30]  Bahrain and the UAE to sign historic deals that recognize Israel and which very well may be precursors to peace.
[00:08:37]  No one talked about it.
[00:08:38]  I listened to the New York Times podcast, The Daily.
[00:08:40]  I thought for sure they'd be talking about that.
[00:08:42]  Never mentioned.
[00:08:44]  God, they were down the rabbit hole on some obscure, boring, esoteric stories, but didn't even devote one little episode to that.
[00:08:53]  Trump, of course, appointed three jurors to the United States Supreme Court, originalists from the Federalist Society, some of those conservatives approved, and 220 conservative jurors to the lower federal courts.
[00:09:05]  He's also repeatedly cited as the most pro-life president we've seen in a lifetime.
[00:09:09]  I personally don't believe Donald Trump when he says that that's a heartfelt commitment he has.
[00:09:14]  I think he sort of blows with the wind on that issue, but there's no denying the results.
[00:09:17]  If you are pro-life, he's done more for your side than any previous president has.
[00:09:21]  Trump's passed legislation that should have delighted even the left, right?
[00:09:25]  Even the left.
[00:09:26]  The most significant criminal justice reform law in years.
[00:09:29]  He worked with Van Jones, and then Van Jones promptly got excoriated by the left for deigning to work with Jared Kushner. on such a legislation, but it was something the left should have loved.
[00:09:40]  And then the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act to protect exploited young women.
[00:09:44]  That was something the Democrats, AOC, and others refused to even applaud him for at the State of the Union after he got it done.
[00:09:50]  Meantime, his economy was booming by any standard.
[00:09:55]  Unemployment was at a low not seen in 50 years.
[00:09:58]  It was at record lows for Blacks, Hispanics, and women before the terrible pandemic hit.
[00:10:04]  The pandemic that would change the world.
[00:10:07]  The Democrats never let up on him, not for one minute.
[00:10:11]  From day one, they were calling for his impeachment.
[00:10:13]  That is actually true within hours of him being sworn in.
[00:10:17]  They and the complicit media pushed a BS case of Russian collusion that even the once very respected Robert Mueller could not ultimately make.
[00:10:26]  And then they impeached him over something else.
[00:10:28]  As soon as the Russia thing failed, they impeached him over something else for an odd and off, but not illegal, phone call with the Ukrainian leader that never did lead.
[00:10:39]  To a quid pro quo.
[00:10:40]  And as soon as they failed to convict him, they started in again, questioning whether they might give it another try on that or some other subject.
[00:10:48]  The New York Times published Trump's likely illegally leaked taxes.
[00:10:51]  No one seemed to have a problem with it, though they wouldn't print the Hunter Biden story.
[00:10:55]  Staffer after staffer turned on Trump, some we respected and loved and might still John Kelly, Mattis.
[00:11:02]  And yet, any of them, any of them were afforded media anonymity to bash Trump, no matter how far up his backside they'd been when their egos needed his love and approval, right?
[00:11:11]  And no matter how high or low, they really were on the D.C. totem pole, as we saw this week.
[00:11:18]  Trump never did find a way to talk about race or women or immigrants respectfully, though he did condemn white supremacy repeatedly.
[00:11:26]  And he never called the Charlottesville Klansmen good people, despite the media's dishonest reports.
[00:11:32]  He came with jagged edges that often cut deep, and anyone deemed an enemy for a day or a debate.
[00:11:41]  Has the scars to prove it.
[00:11:44]  But he also kept us safe from another terrorist attack.
[00:11:48]  He kept us out of war with North Korea, and he did not start unnecessary quagmires in the Middle East, as some other Republican presidents did.
[00:11:57]  How important were his tweets?
[00:11:59]  Really.
[00:12:00]  His thin skin nature, his occasional cruelty, his childish relationship with the truth.
[00:12:07]  The pandemic hit and he stopped travel from China.
[00:12:11]  This likely saved lives.
[00:12:12]  Joe Biden called it xenophobic, which he now denies, but his tweet came out within an hour of the policy or so.
[00:12:19]  We were told it was all Trump's fault, that his actions alone cost 220,000 Americans their lives.
[00:12:25]  But his European counterparts didn't do so great either.
[00:12:28]  And the same people condemning Trump seem totally disinterested in a Democratic governor here in New York who signed an order putting COVID positive patients in nursing homes where some 6,000 seniors later died.
[00:12:41]  But Trump, but Trump, they say.
[00:12:43]  Well, Trump, it's true.
[00:12:45]  He did not show a lot of empathy.
[00:12:46]  And we lost a lot of people we loved.
[00:12:50]  He didn't cry.
[00:12:52]  He didn't touch anyone with soaring rhetoric.
[00:12:55]  But the truth is Trump is not capable of empathy.
[00:12:57]  It's something I've been watching for in him for years.
[00:13:03]  He doesn't have it.
[00:13:04]  The truth is, that is an emotion beyond his range.
[00:13:08]  George Floyd was killed and the country burned.
[00:13:13]  A powder keg simmering already from a quarantine that had cost so many so much.
[00:13:19]  Trump poured fuel on the Black Lives Matter fire.
[00:13:23]  He allowed federal officers to brutalize peaceful protesters outside the White House so he could have a meaningless photo op across the street with a Bible.
[00:13:30]  That happened.
[00:13:31]  Eventually, he stopped simply tweeting law and order, which wasn't particularly helpful, and he did defend.
[00:13:36]  defend the police, who were called uniformly racist, brutal, and even homicidal.
[00:13:44]  He defended America, which these bully wokesters said was systemically racist and awful, and even founded with the express goal of preserving slavery, which was a lie.
[00:13:56]  He mocked the absurd calls to reject Abraham Lincoln and George Washington as American heroes as their statues were torn down.
[00:14:05]  And he condemned what those once peaceful protests peaceful protests, which, by the way, make America beautiful, had clearly become, which were riots, terrorizing innocents.
[00:14:18]  Trump said pigs in a blanket is no rallying cry, and that defunding the cops would get more black people killed.
[00:14:27]  He stood up to the woke know-it-alls, and he canceled the divisive critical race theory sessions being mandated by the federal government at which people who had previously been colleagues and friends were suddenly being shamed for their pigmentation openly and unapologetically.
[00:14:41]  Trump stood up for personal freedom, and he eschewed forever shutdowns and the unwillingness of schools to reopen and teach, no matter what the infection rate, no matter how safe the protocols.
[00:14:53]  But as is so often the case with Trump, he stumbled in the midst of it too.
[00:14:59]  Bob Woodward played us the tapes of Trump admitting he intentionally downplayed the pandemic.
[00:15:06]  He didn't arm us with the information we needed to protect ourselves.
[00:15:11]  And today he says, just wait, I may fire Dr. Fauci, and tells us we're turning the corner on a virus that's actually spiking, though with better outcomes than we had before.
[00:15:23]  And now, four years later, here we are again.
[00:15:27]  All the polls but one have him losing this election.
[00:15:31]  His voters are used to being condemned as bigots and fools.
[00:15:36]  But the pollsters say, why wouldn't they tell us the truth about how they're voting?
[00:15:39]  What do you mean, shy Trump voter?
[00:15:42]  Biden's heading for a landslide, they say.
[00:15:45]  Unless he's not.
[00:15:48]  Unless the night is P.T. Barnum's.
[00:15:52]  Unless he's put center stage again to conduct the show once more.
[00:15:57]  He dazzles.
[00:15:59]  And delights, he scares, shocks, he horrifies.
[00:16:05]  But in the end, he stands up to the menacing beasts around him for himself and his fans.
[00:16:13]  And the audience, having watched it all time and again, finds itself sated and possibly ready for more.

=== Understanding Trump Supporters (02:37) ===

[00:16:27]  That's what we're going to find out today.
[00:16:29]  And those are some of the reasons people will go and pull the lever for Trump, and it doesn't make them awful.
[00:16:34]  And it doesn't mean you need to be one of those people.
[00:16:38]  All I'm calling for is an understanding, an understanding of them.
[00:16:42]  No one shames the Joe Biden voters, and the Trump voters don't deserve that either.
[00:16:47]  Trump's a complicated man, not all bad, not all good, like most of us.
[00:16:53]  He's not a Hitler-esque person, and neither are his supporters.
[00:16:59]  Democracy's on the line today, and you will support it no matter who you vote for.
[00:17:05]  I'm looking forward to the results, and I personally just hope they come soon.
[00:17:16]  Coming up in one minute, we're going to be joined by Mike Huckabee with his take on what to expect today.
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[00:18:55]  Join me now, Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, former presidential candidate, and now host of the People's Podcast on Quake Media.

=== Custom Window Treatments (15:56) ===

[00:19:05]  Governor, so good to have you here.
[00:19:07]  Thank you for coming.
[00:19:08]  Hey, Megan, it's great to be on the podcast with you.
[00:19:11]  And I got to tell you, I've missed you.
[00:19:12]  You know, I used to see you like Like every week, mostly in New York, and enjoyed visiting with you.
[00:19:18]  I always liked your savvy approach to things, and I'm glad your voice is fully charged back into the workspace again.
[00:19:28]  Thank you.
[00:19:28]  I've missed you too.
[00:19:29]  We always had such fun discussions.
[00:19:32]  You were always so gracious because you were somebody who was obviously partisan, you know, no mystery there, but really kind.
[00:19:41]  Everything you ever said, it almost never came from a place of meanness.
[00:19:46]  I feel like our politics.
[00:19:47]  They've gotten so mean.
[00:19:48]  And you were always able to laugh at yourself, at me, at our weird world.
[00:19:54]  And I liked that.
[00:19:55]  That always played well for me.
[00:19:57]  Well, I miss that.
[00:19:59]  That mindset in the public space today, because it seems like everybody is angry.
[00:20:05]  People have lost their sense of humor.
[00:20:07]  And I can be snarky.
[00:20:09]  In fact, I enjoy being snarky sometimes, especially on Twitter, because I think that's where snark lives.
[00:20:15]  But I'm not mad about it.
[00:20:18]  And I don't try to go out there and hurt anyone.
[00:20:21]  I really don't.
[00:20:22]  I'll point out some flaws that I see in people on the other side who can't seem to see themselves in the mirror.
[00:20:31]  But I have fun with it.
[00:20:32]  A lot of the stuff is tongue in cheek, but I find that people who can't see things tongue in cheek want to put a fist in my cheek over it.
[00:20:41]  And I'm just disappointed in that because I can disagree with people, but I enjoy the conversation with them.
[00:20:49]  But I can enjoy a conversation with people who substitute volume for substance of thought, or when they move from what facts are and they only want to talk about what I think, what I believe, what I feel.
[00:21:06]  Feelings are fine, but ultimately it should come back to something a little more objective than that.
[00:21:13]  Yeah.
[00:21:13]  Well, it's, you know, it's when the facts are not good for your side, you tend to switch to something else like feelings or your lived experience, which isn't all that probative.
[00:21:23]  All right.
[00:21:23]  So let's talk about today.
[00:21:24]  This is an exciting day.
[00:21:25]  I feel excited.
[00:21:26]  I just feel excited about democracy and the United States of America doing what it does and showing the rest of the world how it's done.
[00:21:33]  May have some warts on it.
[00:21:34]  We all know that, but it's still the best system in the world.
[00:21:38]  And it's underway.
[00:21:39]  This is it.
[00:21:39]  Millions of Americans doing their civic duty, going to the polls, having their say, whatever their say is, it always makes me feel uplifted.
[00:21:48]  But people are not going to feel uplifted if their side loses, because as you well know, enormous dejection comes to one side inevitably on a day like this, or maybe over the next couple of days, depending when we get the results.
[00:22:01]  What do you think now on actual voting day?
[00:22:04]  What's going to make the difference today?
[00:22:07]  This is a turnout election without any question.
[00:22:10]  Which side gets their voters to go and vote?
[00:22:13]  How many of those people have already voted?
[00:22:15]  I mean, we know that 100 million have, which is stunning, more people than voted in all of 2016.
[00:22:22]  That in itself is significant.
[00:22:24]  But we don't know was that because the Trump voters were determined to go vote, people like me?
[00:22:32]  Or was it because the Biden voters who can't stand Trump were going to go and vote against him?
[00:22:38]  I don't think anybody, I've not seen any indication that people are voting for Joe Biden.
[00:22:43]  You just don't see people saying, boy, his message really makes sense.
[00:22:48]  Because half the time it's gibberish.
[00:22:51]  They don't even, he doesn't understand what he's saying.
[00:22:53]  But there is a very strong hate Trump atmosphere that exists out there that is driving the Biden voter.
[00:23:03]  On the other hand, the Trump voters are fully energized, engaged.
[00:23:07]  Nothing is going to keep them from voting.
[00:23:10]  All of the attempts to say, well, the polls are showing overwhelmingly Biden is going to win, 91% chance says 538, they don't care.
[00:23:19]  They're going to go vote anyway.
[00:23:21]  So I see the energy that's out there, but it's really a referendum on Donald Trump and his presidency.
[00:23:27]  But I would even say it's really not his presidency that's on the line, it's his personality, which is unfortunate because honestly, there are things about his personality that can be off putting, even to those of us who love him.
[00:23:42]  You know, he'll say things and tweet things that are cringeworthy.
[00:23:46]  But I'm not looking at someone to be my room mother and bring cupcakes to the class.
[00:23:52]  I'm honestly looking at someone who will implement policies that will be better for my grandchildren.
[00:23:58]  That's where this comes down for me.
[00:24:01]  It's funny because I'm sure if people had been more transparent, we'd realize we've had a lot of pricks as president.
[00:24:09]  I just think most people hide it better than Trump.
[00:24:14]  It's like Hannity used to say Trump's problem isn't that he lies, his problem is that he tells the truth.
[00:24:19]  He doesn't hide enough.
[00:24:20]  Yeah.
[00:24:21]  Well, and I think what you just said is very true, part of which is because the press historically, Has given presidents and really all politicians a certain layer of protection.
[00:24:36]  Did the American public know about FDR and his dalliances or JFK?
[00:24:42]  No, they just simply were never told about those things.
[00:24:46]  People made their minds up about these presidents because of what they did, not because of the things that maybe were going on behind the scenes that had nothing to do with their job performance.
[00:24:56]  Now, tonight, when The shows get started and we start to see the anchors come out to the anchor desks.
[00:25:02]  Here's the thing I'm going to be looking at as somebody who's done this for years.
[00:25:06]  What happens usually at Fox News at 5 o'clock on election night, we would always have a pre-show meeting with the pollsters, with the decision desk people who were, you basically get two per news company.
[00:25:19]  They get invited to look at the exit polls.
[00:25:22]  They are sworn to secrecy.
[00:25:24]  They won't tell you anything.
[00:25:25]  They wouldn't tell me anything, even a heads up prior to sharing it with the group.
[00:25:29]  Because they are just, you know, they're Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
[00:25:32]  So you sit around and they tell you, and I'll never forget last time four years ago, they sit around and they said, it looks like it's going to be a very good night for Hillary Clinton.
[00:25:41]  And that's what the exit polls were showing at that point.
[00:25:43]  These are not partisan guys.
[00:25:45]  They truly have no dog in the hunt at all.
[00:25:47]  So it's going to be a very good night for Hillary Clinton.
[00:25:49]  So that, of course, turned out to be wrong.
[00:25:51]  But what I look for as you see the anchors go on the sets on Fox, on CNN, on MSNBC, on all of them is, they'll telegraph something.
[00:26:02]  They'll be saying something like, you know, will Hillary Clinton be able to pull it out?
[00:26:08]  Early signs are positive.
[00:26:09]  Anything could happen.
[00:26:10]  But, and there'll be a tell in some way of more than they're allowed to share at that point as to what the exit polls are showing.
[00:26:18]  Now, it doesn't mean it's going to turn out to be right, but the anchors are limited in what they can say, but they can sort of telegraph with their overall tone where they think the night is going.
[00:26:27]  And we'll see, right, whether tonight is more accurate than last time.
[00:26:30]  What are you going to be looking for when things get underway?
[00:26:33]  Well, I'm going to be looking for some early results out of places like Pennsylvania, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, and North Carolina.
[00:26:40]  I think that's going to be a key.
[00:26:42]  If Donald Trump doesn't win Florida, then he's in trouble and he's got to win Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, and probably Wisconsin and maybe Arizona.
[00:26:53]  I mean, that's going to be a big one.
[00:26:55]  But if he wins Florida and he wins Pennsylvania, I think it's lights out.
[00:27:01]  I really do.
[00:27:02]  I think the others start falling in line.
[00:27:05]  I remember four years ago, Megan, I had for weeks said Donald Trump was going to win.
[00:27:10]  And I had arguments, maybe even with you.
[00:27:13]  I don't remember specifically, but I had arguments on air with a lot of our Fox anchors and others who said, and here was the big catch line there is no pathway for him to win.
[00:27:26]  And that was the line no pathway.
[00:27:28]  I said, well, I'm going to tell you something.
[00:27:29]  There is a pathway and he is going to win.
[00:27:33]  And people thought I was nuts.
[00:27:35]  But I based it on what I was seeing.
[00:27:38]  Once I left New York and Washington, and I was spending most of my time out in the hinterland on the campaign trail with then candidate Donald Trump and out there on my own.
[00:27:50]  And what I was seeing was not a campaign, it was a movement.
[00:27:54]  It was people who were tired of being subjugated.
[00:27:58]  To the back of the political bus, who were sick and tired of being denigrated as deplorables, as people hanging on to their religion and their guns, and dismissed as rubes and yokels, treated like dirt when it came to trade deals.
[00:28:14]  Their jobs had disappeared, their wages had stagnated for 40 years.
[00:28:18]  They were angry.
[00:28:19]  It was not an electorate that was interested in solutions as much as it was.
[00:28:25]  They wanted to take the institutions of government that had crushed them into dust.
[00:28:30]  And they wanted basically to say, let's tear that down and start over.
[00:28:36]  And Donald Trump was the change agent to deliver that.
[00:28:40]  I honestly believe he will win.
[00:28:43]  And it could be a significant victory, one that will blow polls completely out of the landscape forever.
[00:28:52]  Now, why?
[00:28:53]  I agree with you because if he wins tonight, polls are done.
[00:28:56]  Other than Trafalgar and Robert Kahale, they are done.
[00:29:00]  Because I will go back to that four years ago.
[00:29:02]  Well, actually, let's go back eight years to Mitt Romney.
[00:29:05]  And I believed the polls.
[00:29:09]  The polls said that he was going to lose, and he did.
[00:29:12]  And I believed the polls.
[00:29:13]  Then we get to 2016, and the polls said Donald Trump was going to lose.
[00:29:17]  And I said, I believe those too, right?
[00:29:18]  The polls, you're supposed to trust the polls.
[00:29:21]  And the polls were wrong.
[00:29:23]  And I think we all learned an important lesson through Trump.
[00:29:26]  And I don't know if it holds for future Republicans, but certainly for the Donald Trump vote.
[00:29:33]  It always has to have a big asterisk next to it because people do lie to the pollsters when it comes to him.
[00:29:38]  They lie to their neighbors.
[00:29:39]  They lie on Facebook.
[00:29:40]  They lie to their employers.
[00:29:41]  They lie to their friends because the media has done such a good job of saturating the airwaves with, you're a bigot if you like him.
[00:29:47]  You're a racist.
[00:29:48]  You're a transphobe.
[00:29:48]  You're sexist.
[00:29:49]  You're whatever.
[00:29:50]  And people don't want to be called those names.
[00:29:53]  They're smart.
[00:29:54]  They tend to telegraph what the other person wants to hear just to avoid conflict in a lot of cases.
[00:30:00]  So we're in that same boat right now.
[00:30:01]  We don't know how many of them there are.
[00:30:04]  The polls are showing Biden up.
[00:30:06]  More than Hillary was over Trump, including as recently as today.
[00:30:11]  And so, how do you think that factors in that there is a shy Trump vote, but Biden is up more over Trump than Hillary was?
[00:30:19]  I think there's two factors.
[00:30:20]  You know, you talk about the shy Trump voter, and I believe that there are people that don't want to put a yard sign or a bumper sticker on their car because they don't want their car stretched up, but they don't want their home egged or worse, burned down.
[00:30:32]  They don't want people breaking down their doors.
[00:30:35]  And they see, you know, this mass of violence going on around the country.
[00:30:40]  People, Being sucker punched because they were wearing a MAGA hat.
[00:30:44]  And people just don't want to have that.
[00:30:46]  They don't want to have arguments with their own family members.
[00:30:48]  They don't want to be disinvited to Thanksgiving dinner because they dare vote for Donald Trump.
[00:30:52]  So they just keep their mouths shut.
[00:30:54]  They may even lie and say, I'm voting for Biden, yeah, just to keep kind of an even keel in the conversation.
[00:31:01]  But when you see these rallies at airports and 57, 58,000 people show up on a cold night and they stand, they stand.
[00:31:10]  It's not seated.
[00:31:12]  For hours, so they can hear Donald Trump give the basic same speech that they've heard on television a dozen times.
[00:31:18]  And Joe Biden has a quote rally.
[00:31:22]  He gets up on a little stand in a parking lot with a dozen cars.
[00:31:26]  He squints his eyes and he screams at cars for 20 minutes and then he disappears.
[00:31:33]  And there are 20 cars, a dozen cars in the parking lot.
[00:31:36]  They may honk their horn just to stay awake.
[00:31:40]  And that's his rally.
[00:31:41]  Yeah.
[00:31:42]  I mean, no, when you see his rally, it is like, I understand now the basement strategy.
[00:31:46]  That was probably better because, with all due respect to Joe Biden, those rallies just look sad.
[00:31:51]  I mean, they just look sad.
[00:31:52]  And I feel like what's even sadder is to see Barack Obama in front of those rallies or standing in front of four people because.
[00:31:58]  You know, it's just a far cry from Invesco Field with the Greek columns in 2008, where it was like the second coming has arrived and people went nuts.
[00:32:07]  I realize it's a COVID world, but it did make me rethink my judgment of their basement strategy.
[00:32:13]  But so I get it.
[00:32:14]  There's enthusiasm behind Trump.
[00:32:16]  They are saying, though, right now that the enthusiasm, if you had to look at it, it's actually greater this year on the Democrat side.
[00:32:25]  But Gallup always points out enthusiasm doesn't necessarily predict.
[00:32:29]  Who is going to win the election?
[00:32:31]  But the Democrats are way more enthusiastic this time than they were last time around.
[00:32:35]  It was like 50% of Democrats were enthusiastic about Clinton in 2016.
[00:32:41]  75% are enthusiastic, at least to vote in 2020 on the Dem side.
[00:32:46]  For Republicans, it was actually lower as well.
[00:32:50]  In 2016, it was 53% were enthusiastic, and 2020 is 60%.
[00:32:54]  So they've gone up as well because some GOPers have actually come to like Trump when last time around they were suspicious of him.
[00:33:01]  Anyway, so we'll see whether enthusiasm translates.
[00:33:04]  But what do you think is going to happen?
[00:33:07]  I mean, as the days go on, as they could, as we wait for possibly Pennsylvania, because you could mail in your vote there.
[00:33:15]  And even a vote that gets postmarked today has to be counted.
[00:33:19]  So they have to sit around and wait.
[00:33:20]  If it's close in Pennsylvania, we're all screwed.
[00:33:24]  What is the likelihood of litigation and of shenanigans when it comes to a state like Pennsylvania?
[00:33:30]  If it's close.
[00:33:31]  In a state like Pennsylvania, and it has to be recounted, or maybe there's a challenge of the validity of certain ballots, I think it's going to get ugly.
[00:33:42]  I truly do.
[00:33:43]  That's why, if there's going to be a victory, I hope it's overwhelming.
[00:33:47]  Even if it's a Joe Biden victory, I hope it's decisive.
[00:33:51]  I hope that there's no question about the results and we don't have to wait three weeks or six weeks to find out who won.
[00:33:59]  I still think Donald Trump is going to win.
[00:34:01]  But let me be very honest.
[00:34:03]  If he doesn't, I'm not going to take to the streets and loot some store and go grab television sets and burn cars and throw bricks at police officers over it.
[00:34:14]  I'm going to suck it up and say, hey, you know, this is what an election is.
[00:34:18]  Now, if we find that there were certain types of shenanigans, even then, I'm not going to burn anything down.
[00:34:24]  I'll just say, let's get to the bottom of it, make sure we have the results right.
[00:34:29]  But I really do fear that if Donald Trump wins, whether it's by a landslide or by a small margin, We're going to see the kind of things that we saw in Minneapolis and Seattle and Portland and Kenosha and Atlanta in New York and major cities.
[00:34:48]  And I just, I dread that.
[00:34:49]  I think it's a destructive thing to happen, not just to these cities, but to our processes of a peaceful transfer of power, which we're supposed to be able to accept.

=== Fear of Legal Challenges (14:08) ===

[00:35:01]  But let's face it, Megan, the Democrats never accepted the results of the 2016 election.
[00:35:06]  And they couldn't accept the situation.
[00:35:08]  Nor of the 2000.
[00:35:10]  Well, that's true.
[00:35:12]  But there was at least a clearer picture in 2000 in the Florida votes.
[00:35:18]  A lot of that was because of where I live now in the Florida panhandle, which people counted the votes in East Florida, which is in the Eastern time zone, failing to remember that in the panhandle, in the Central time zone, those results hadn't come in.
[00:35:31]  The county where I live voted 84% Republican.
[00:35:36]  84%.
[00:35:36]  So, the panhandle is always where the Florida votes start really swinging to the right.
[00:35:42]  Yeah.
[00:35:42]  You can't call Florida before you have the panhandle votes in.
[00:35:46]  Right.
[00:35:46]  You can't make any predictions because it's such a hugely Republican Western area there.
[00:35:51]  Yeah.
[00:35:51]  No, so I agree.
[00:35:52]  There's a real chance of, well, either president, because, you know, if Trump loses and it's close, he's going to try to delegitimize Biden entirely.
[00:36:00]  He's going to say they stole the election.
[00:36:02]  He's already saying that.
[00:36:03]  So I don't know about riots.
[00:36:05]  You don't see Republicans do a lot of riots and throwing bricks through windows when they lose, but there will be complaints and delegitimacy accusations.
[00:36:15]  I mean, I don't know.
[00:36:17]  I hope legal challenges don't resolve this election because we all saw how that worked out.
[00:36:22]  But I do think they're likely, especially given all the changes we've had to make in the electoral system thanks to COVID, the number of mail-in votes, the oddities.
[00:36:31]  In 22 states, you can postmark your vote.
[00:36:33]  As of today, and still mail it.
[00:36:34]  So, most of them aren't swing states.
[00:36:36]  We don't care.
[00:36:37]  But if things go south in Pennsylvania, it's going to get weird.
[00:36:42]  They say your state, Florida, is pretty good at counting votes and pretty good at counting them early.
[00:36:46]  And so, I think the polls close in Florida at 8 p.m.
[00:36:51]  7 30 is North Carolina.
[00:36:52]  That's the bellwether where, you know, it should be really interesting to see.
[00:36:56]  And Ohio closes at 7 32.
[00:36:58]  Last time around, we didn't call the election for Trump until I think it was, it was 2, let me see, I checked my note, 2 39 a.m. Eastern Time.
[00:37:06]  That's when we called the vote for Trump.
[00:37:08]  It was tight, but it was clear.
[00:37:10]  Well, it was clear.
[00:37:11]  I mean, on the electoral college, which despite what Hillary supporters wanted to say, that's how we elect a president.
[00:37:18]  I mean, and I'm glad we do.
[00:37:20]  The founders of the country were brilliant in coming up with a system of an electoral college.
[00:37:25]  Otherwise, only about five states would elect the president, and the rest of America would essentially be stuck with whoever those five states picked.
[00:37:35]  Can I just jump in and tell you something on that?
[00:37:37]  And I'll let you finish your thought.
[00:37:38]  So, my kids are in school now.
[00:37:40]  I have a first grader, a fourth grader, and a fifth grader.
[00:37:42]  My fourth grader's studying the election, the electoral process.
[00:37:45]  And I mean, there isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't come home and repeat to me what she's being taught in school, which is how unfair the electoral college is and how it should really be the popular vote.
[00:37:56]  I'm like, oh, honey, let me try to explain to you why your teachers are saying that and what that would actually mean for America.
[00:38:05]  But, you know, what's frightening about that is to take fourth graders and rather than educate them, trying to indoctrinate them on a particular worldview that goes against.
[00:38:16]  The very essence of the Constitution and how it was created and designed for a purpose.
[00:38:23]  Now, I think it's fine to have the discussion and even say maybe the founders were wrong, maybe we should have a popular vote.
[00:38:30]  But you can't have that discussion fairly and accurately if you don't explain what the Electoral College was intended to do.
[00:38:37]  The same way that we have a Senate, by the way, the Senate should still be elected by the states.
[00:38:44]  It was 100 years ago that we changed it to a popular vote.
[00:38:48]  It was a huge mistake and we paid the price.
[00:38:51]  For having a popularly elected Senate as opposed to a Senate chosen by the state legislatures like we had until the early 1900s.
[00:39:01]  And it really created the massive federal government that we have.
[00:39:05]  As a governor, I saw the results of senators who didn't care about what was happening in their states.
[00:39:11]  That's very frustrating.
[00:39:13]  So, speaking of the Senate, and I'll ask you, President, as well.
[00:39:16]  I know you think Trump's going to win, but I'm curious about whether you have an electoral college prediction in terms of the numbers.
[00:39:22]  But what do you think is going to happen in the Senate?
[00:39:23]  Because, I mean, there is a scenario, obviously, in which the Democrats win it all, and we have one party rule at every branch of government.
[00:39:30]  But there's another scenario in which some of these disaffected Republicans who just don't like Trump, they can't get back on board with him, some of these women and so on, say, I don't like him.
[00:39:40]  I'm not going to put him back in there, but I'm not giving over the Senate to the Democrats as well.
[00:39:45]  There should be one branch of government that is still, you know, makes us divided.
[00:39:49]  So, what do you think the odds are that the Republicans lose the Senate?
[00:39:54]  I think Republicans keep the Senate.
[00:39:56]  We've got several key states that are up for grabs.
[00:39:59]  We may lose Colorado with Cory Gardner.
[00:40:01]  I don't have a good feel for that.
[00:40:03]  But I think Joni Ernst will win in Iowa.
[00:40:07]  I think Lindsey Graham holds on in South Carolina despite $100 million poured in against him.
[00:40:14]  And I want to believe that Martha McSally, who is a wonderful senator, a strong woman, I don't know why anyone would not want to keep her.
[00:40:24]  If they knew her story, if they'd read her book and recognized all the obstacles she's overcome to shattered glass ceilings.
[00:40:32]  In her case, with an A 10 Warthog combat fighter, the first female combat fighter pilot in America.
[00:40:39]  And boy, did she have to go through some tough experiences to break those barriers.
[00:40:45]  They'd want her there.
[00:40:46]  And it's interesting that Mark Kelly, her opponent, is an astronaut.
[00:40:50]  This is Arizona, by the way.
[00:40:51]  Right, Arizona.
[00:40:52]  But a group of fellow astronauts came out and endorsed Martha McSally instead of their own colleague, Mark Kelly.
[00:41:00]  That was very revealing.
[00:41:01]  You know, the thing about Martha McSally, Is she's not a great retail politician.
[00:41:05]  You know, she's a fighter pilot.
[00:41:06]  I don't know that they're the best at gladhanting, you know.
[00:41:10]  And Mark Kelly, Mark Kelly is, he's pretty charming.
[00:41:13]  I had him on my show at NBC and he talked about becoming an astronaut and how he was a D student and really didn't think he had any business being selected for this role.
[00:41:20]  Very self deprecating, pretty charming.
[00:41:23]  You know, I think that he's got some sort of, he's got a better retail sales case than she does.
[00:41:29]  But Arizona would then have two Democratic senators, which is, you know, this is a state that has a lot of red in it.
[00:41:36]  You know, it will be surprising if they have two Dems, but he is favored.
[00:41:40]  By the way, don't you think Corey Gardner's got a good political future ahead of him, even though it does look like he's going to lose this race?
[00:41:46]  Yeah, he's a very smart guy.
[00:41:48]  He's got a great attitude.
[00:41:50]  He's not a bomb thrower.
[00:41:53]  You know, he's a thoughtful legislator, which is something we need a lot more of.
[00:41:57]  He's in the mold of a Mike Rounds that never gets a lot of attention, but is a very effective go to legislator.
[00:42:03]  You know, there's some people that just don't like to do TV wall to wall, so they may not be as famous.
[00:42:09]  Are as notorious, but they're effective and they know how to build coalitions with people from the other side toward issues that need to be resolved and, frankly, can be resolved when people are in power.
[00:42:20]  Well, but as you know, you don't always get rewarded for that.
[00:42:22]  I mean, look at Susan Collins.
[00:42:26]  She's the most moderate Republican in the Senate.
[00:42:28]  And now they're like, Screw you, you're out of here.
[00:42:30]  You voted for Kavanaugh.
[00:42:32]  And, you know, I don't know.
[00:42:34]  She's probably, she's pretty vulnerable, but what's your prediction on her?
[00:42:38]  I think she has a really good shot at losing.
[00:42:40]  And here's part of the problem.
[00:42:42]  A really good shot of losing.
[00:42:43]  Yeah.
[00:42:43]  I mean, here's the reason, though.
[00:42:45]  She voted for Kavanaugh, which, you know, kind of gave her some grace with Republicans, but made the Democrats angry.
[00:42:52]  But then she didn't vote for Amy Coney Barrett.
[00:42:55]  Yeah.
[00:42:55]  And that kind of chilled the Republicans.
[00:42:57]  And they said, well, heck, if she's not even going to vote when we have somebody as qualified as Amy Coney Barrett, what the heck?
[00:43:03]  Might as well have a Democrat.
[00:43:05]  Same vote.
[00:43:05]  It's like pick a lane, pick a lane senator.
[00:43:07]  And she could have easily on Coney Barrett come around and said, You know what?
[00:43:10]  I listened to her.
[00:43:11]  I'm convinced that the process, while not perfect, gave us a qualified nominee.
[00:43:15]  And I don't want to deny that woman my vote now, having listened to her.
[00:43:18]  There was a way.
[00:43:19]  Politicians can weasel out of anything if they want to.
[00:43:21]  Can I just ask you?
[00:43:22]  I got to let you go, but I want to ask you about this.
[00:43:24]  Speaking of the deplorables and the messaging being even worse now on Trump voters, Maxine Waters, she never disappoints in her nasty rhetoric.
[00:43:34]  Democrat from California.
[00:43:36]  She's just come out promising to never, ever forgive Black Trump voters, saying, They will go down in history as having done the most despicable thing ever to their communities, to their mothers, to their grandmothers.
[00:43:54]  They're crazy, she said.
[00:43:56]  These are crazy people.
[00:43:58]  Trump's a racist.
[00:43:59]  And he won't help them.
[00:44:00]  He won't, quote, do anything for us.
[00:44:02]  That's how she put it.
[00:44:04]  I think, like, to me, if one remark could embody why people don't really want to telegraph their vote, she's shaming the black Trump voters.
[00:44:13]  Imagine how the white Trump voters feel.
[00:44:17]  That comment was so beyond the pale, in part because you may not like Donald Trump or his personality, and a lot of people don't.
[00:44:26]  But if you look at what Donald Trump did with the First Step Act, and I was a part of that, I worked on that with people from the White House.
[00:44:33]  And by the way, there were people on the far left, people like Van Jones, who was very intimately involved in helping bring this up.
[00:44:39]  This is criminal justice reform.
[00:44:41]  That's exactly right.
[00:44:42]  And it was historic.
[00:44:44]  It was absolutely historic.
[00:44:45]  So many people were put in prison.
[00:44:47]  As my prison director used to say in Arkansas, we're locking up a lot of people because we're mad at them rather than because we're afraid of them.
[00:44:55]  And we need to lock people up that we're afraid of.
[00:44:57]  But we've locked up people for nonviolent offenses because they didn't have a good lawyer.
[00:45:03]  And if they'd been an upper middle class white kid, they would have had a plea agreement.
[00:45:07]  They would have gone to Harvard Law School and made a couple of million bucks a year.
[00:45:12]  But because they were poor and they were black and they lived in the projects, they had a public defender who didn't have time to do much more than do a plea bargain.
[00:45:20]  So they pled, they have a felony, and now they can't get a job changing a bedpan in the nursing home.
[00:45:26]  And I'm not saying that facetiously because we passed all these three strikes, you're outlaws.
[00:45:33]  And then we passed laws that said if you didn't pass a background check, you couldn't.
[00:45:36]  Be a janitor in a school, and you couldn't work in a nursing home.
[00:45:40]  So they literally could not change the bedpan of the nursing home or sweep the floor of the school because they had a felony conviction that was really nothing to do with the safety of the public.
[00:45:53]  And it was a horrible public policy.
[00:45:56]  Joe Biden voted for it in 1994 in the crime bill.
[00:45:59]  It was a disaster.
[00:46:00]  And it was Donald Trump who fixed it.
[00:46:02]  And if that alone isn't enough to cause African American voters to say, you know, maybe this guy.
[00:46:09]  Is not so bad for us.
[00:46:11]  And the unemployment numbers for African Americans prior to COVID was the lowest in history.
[00:46:16]  Same with Hispanics and women.
[00:46:17]  You can't argue with those numbers.
[00:46:20]  Those are facts.
[00:46:21]  And they may not be comfortable for people like Maxine Waters, who lives, by the way, in a very nice home behind a gate in a gated community.
[00:46:30]  And a lot of her constituents, they don't live like that.
[00:46:34]  And I don't begrudge her.
[00:46:36]  I just begrudge the fact that she thinks that she has a right to tell people who would like to move up the ladder.
[00:46:43]  That they can't do it if the person helping them up that ladder is Donald Trump.
[00:46:48]  No, it's like the same as LeBron James.
[00:46:50]  I mean, I saw an article, I think it was in People magazine last week, showing the dollhouse, like the playhouse that LeBron James had built for his child.
[00:46:59]  And it's nicer than most people's actual home.
[00:47:02]  I mean, it looks like a Kardashian built it.
[00:47:05]  And this is a guy who's out there calling to defund the police.
[00:47:09]  He wants to take the money away so that the inner city black people cannot get protected by the cops.
[00:47:15]  But LeBron's not going to have any problem.
[00:47:17]  Trust me, his kid lives in a fortress when the kids go to play with the dollies.
[00:47:22]  But if you're in the inner city, you don't get protected because LeBron James wants to make a point about cops.
[00:47:27]  It's absurd, the hypocrisy and the unwillingness to acknowledge reality and what life is really like.
[00:47:33]  I mean, I think about how hard black voters have it who might lean conservative.
[00:47:38]  Good God.
[00:47:39]  I mean, I think about somebody like Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal, who's so reasonable in his approach and to be lectured to.
[00:47:45]  The guy grew up in Buffalo.
[00:47:46]  He thought for himself.
[00:47:47]  He got himself.
[00:47:48]  A great education.
[00:47:49]  He writes for the Wall Street Journal.
[00:47:50]  He's an author.
[00:47:52]  Now he's got to be lectured to by Maxine Waters about what a despicable person he is if he happens to pull the lever for Trump.
[00:47:59]  And just my own belief is that is why, on a day like this, we need to keep an open mind as to how this vote comes out.
[00:48:06]  Because when people go into that voting booth, it's between them and their God what they do.
[00:48:11]  And they don't answer to Maxine Waters.
[00:48:14]  And thank God they don't.
[00:48:15]  You know, and another person comes to mind is Charles Payne, who's on Fox Business.
[00:48:20]  And he grew up in the projects of Harlem and didn't have a dad and grew up so poor.
[00:48:26]  And yet he wanted to be something, he wanted to do something with his life.
[00:48:30]  And at 13, he started.
[00:48:32]  Carrying a briefcase and dressing up in a suit so he could look like he was going to be somebody.
[00:48:38]  And, you know, I just love stories like that because it means that they overcame all of the things that were surrounding them.
[00:48:45]  And they shouldn't be punished because they want to think for themselves.
[00:48:50]  Yeah.
[00:48:51]  Okay.
[00:48:51]  Final prediction got an electoral college number you want to throw out there?
[00:48:56]  I say Donald Trump with 316 electoral votes.
[00:49:02]  Wow.
[00:49:02]  You think he's going up from last time, which was three out of six?
[00:49:04]  Yes, I do.
[00:49:06]  You heard it here, folks.
[00:49:08]  Governor Mike Huckabee.

=== PureTalk Wireless Service (02:00) ===

[00:49:09]  So good to reconnect.
[00:49:10]  Thank you for being here.
[00:49:11]  Let's do it again.
[00:49:12]  I look forward to it, Megan.
[00:49:14]  Thank you.
[00:49:14]  Great to reconnect.
[00:49:15]  All the best.
[00:49:18]  In just a minute, we're going to be joined by Joe Trippi.
[00:49:21]  He's a pal of mine from Fox News and actually has his own podcast now, too.
[00:49:25]  But this is a guy who knows what he's doing in Democratic politics.
[00:49:28]  He's worked on the Ted Kennedy campaign, Walter Mondale, Dick Gebhardt, Howard Dean.
[00:49:34]  And we've known each other for a super long time.
[00:49:36]  Very trusted guy.
[00:49:36]  He's going to give you sort of the other perspective on today and likely outcomes.
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[00:51:05]  Okay.
[00:51:05]  Now I want to bring in Joe Trippi.
[00:51:07]  Joe, so good to have you here.
[00:51:09]  Thanks for coming on.

=== Pennsylvania Voter Trends (15:24) ===

[00:51:10]  Oh, no.
[00:51:10]  It's great to be with you, Megan.
[00:51:12]  All right.
[00:51:12]  So Joe's got his own podcast now called The Trippi Show.
[00:51:16]  And I like that.
[00:51:17]  You had so many possibilities with your last name, like tripped out.
[00:51:20]  Yeah.
[00:51:21]  You know, I don't know, tripping.
[00:51:24]  Since high school.
[00:51:25]  Yeah.
[00:51:25]  Since high school.
[00:51:26]  Yeah.
[00:51:26]  I've been getting hit with all those.
[00:51:28]  So I decided to play with that.
[00:51:29]  Yeah.
[00:51:29]  I like it.
[00:51:30]  I like it.
[00:51:32]  All right.
[00:51:32]  So let's start with the big headline.
[00:51:34]  Everybody wants to know who's going to win tonight and what's the electoral college number going to be?
[00:51:38]  Well, I think Joe Biden's going to win.
[00:51:40]  I think it'll be pretty big.
[00:51:43]  It's going to be, I think, could reach high 300s, you know, 368 electoral.
[00:51:50]  Votes are even higher.
[00:51:52]  Wow.
[00:51:53]  So that's big.
[00:51:54]  That's seriously big.
[00:51:55]  Why?
[00:51:55]  Because, you know, we've been talking on the show.
[00:51:57]  Obviously, all the polls say.
[00:51:59]  He's going to win.
[00:51:59]  Biden's going to win.
[00:52:00]  But, you know, we do talk about the shy Trump voter, and I believe that's a real thing.
[00:52:04]  I don't know how big it is.
[00:52:05]  That's my one caveat to the Trump supporters.
[00:52:07]  I don't know how big it is.
[00:52:09]  Well, look, I think all of us, you know, have been looking at this through the wrong lens.
[00:52:16]  I think everybody has been looking at this like, you know, through the lens of 2016.
[00:52:22]  And I don't, this isn't 2016.
[00:52:24]  And, you know, I've been involved in nine different presidential campaigns going back to 1979 when I was.
[00:52:33]  Like 20, 25, 26 years old.
[00:52:39]  And it left a big wound, a scar that year, because we had double digit inflation, double digit unemployment.
[00:52:48]  The Iran hostage crisis was going.
[00:52:52]  Every night, TV, all the TV channels were, and Ted Koppel on Nightline was talking about day 341, and they were counting the days.
[00:53:03]  Network had numbers up on the screen about how many days it was.
[00:53:07]  And Jimmy Carter's failed presidency was in a tatters.
[00:53:15]  Reagan was very close to Carter.
[00:53:17]  And then at the end, all the undecideds broke away from Carter, broke to Reagan.
[00:53:22]  And on election night in 1980, 12 Democratic senators lost their Senate seats.
[00:53:30]  So I have enough.
[00:53:33]  Yeah, well, I've been around.
[00:53:35]  Long enough to remember that and actually have enough long term memory to know where I saw it.
[00:53:41]  And so I think Reagan, for the record, got 489 electoral votes over the course of the two.
[00:53:49]  Right.
[00:53:49]  That's exceeding.
[00:53:50]  And he only got 51% of the vote.
[00:53:53]  So when you see Biden at 51, 50, 52, depending on what the national polls are showing, and you see the, again, what's happening in the country right now.
[00:54:07]  Uh, the wrong track and all those kinds of things.
[00:54:10]  No, but wrong track, I think this is better.
[00:54:12]  Are you better off than you were four years ago?
[00:54:14]  Is better for Trump.
[00:54:15]  That's what confuses a lot of us.
[00:54:16]  Is like, well, people are saying they're better off.
[00:54:19]  56% are saying they're better off than they were four years ago.
[00:54:22]  And we're very shocked and scared by like the not being able to trust the pollsters.
[00:54:28]  It's like a scary thing when you can't trust anybody.
[00:54:30]  You know, that's why everybody on both sides is so on pins and needles.
[00:54:34]  So, why do you, why are you so confident?
[00:54:36]  I know you say 2020 is not 2016, but like, specifically, why?
[00:54:40]  What do you mean?
[00:54:42]  Well, I mean, let me give you one.
[00:54:44]  We track every night in Alabama for, I mean, every single night except Saturdays and Fridays and Saturdays.
[00:54:51]  When we won that race in 2017, Donald Trump's favorable was 68%.
[00:55:02]  We track every, like I said, for a long time, every day or just about every day.
[00:55:09]  On Thursday night, Trump's favorable was 53% in Alabama.
[00:55:15]  And by the way, it wasn't like some cataclysm had happened off a cliff.
[00:55:18]  No, this is like from 2017 to today, each month, you know, 63, 59, you know, 57.
[00:55:28]  And it's been just going down and he's losing.
[00:55:32]  And we all know that you've seen it talked about, you know, suburban Republican women, younger Republicans, some business Republicans, but Holding on to a lot of his core support.
[00:55:46]  And the last one that we started to see with COVID were a number of seniors that started to move away from him as well.
[00:55:56]  Now, I'm not, he's going to.
[00:55:59]  Blow out Biden in Alabama.
[00:56:02]  That's not what I'm saying here.
[00:56:03]  I'm just saying that if he's declined that much in Alabama, you know, he beat Hillary by 28 points and he got 63% of the votes.
[00:56:14]  She got 35.
[00:56:16]  Let's say he beats Biden by 15 in Alabama.
[00:56:21]  So he cuts, his margin in Alabama is cut in half.
[00:56:26]  Yet, big win.
[00:56:27]  Give him that.
[00:56:28]  Not saying that.
[00:56:29]  Then you got to start asking yourself in places where he won by 11,000 votes, what's going on?
[00:56:34]  You know, in 44,000 in Pennsylvania.
[00:56:37]  And then you see these polls that we're looking at.
[00:56:40]  And that's what I'm saying.
[00:56:41]  So it's kind of real life experience in a place I've been working hard in for three and a half, four years.
[00:56:48]  That he has no cushion.
[00:56:50]  He doesn't have the cushion to lose that kind of percentage point lead.
[00:56:54]  Yeah.
[00:56:54]  I mean, he has that huge cushion in Alabama.
[00:56:57]  He doesn't have it in the other places.
[00:56:58]  But if you play in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Michigan.
[00:57:02]  Exactly.
[00:57:02]  That's where my confidence comes from.
[00:57:04]  So, by the way, I look back and so Reagan won 489 electoral votes, Carter 49.
[00:57:10]  That's crazy.
[00:57:11]  Think about that.
[00:57:12]  That's a bloodbath.
[00:57:13]  It won't be that bad, but it'll be, it'll be, it could easily be 350, 368, something like that.
[00:57:20]  So, can I ask you in a nutshell, because there's so many things.
[00:57:23]  At the top of the show, I sort of went through why Trump voters have reason to support him, because I'm so tired of people dismissing all of his supporters as bigoted and awful and stupid and racist and xenophobic, all of it, right?
[00:57:35]  There are very good reasons to support Donald Trump if you're a Republican or even, you know, center that have nothing to do with all that stuff.
[00:57:42]  But can you just say, like, why is he losing so much support?
[00:57:46]  Why have, obviously, Democrats never liked him, but why is he losing these core groups of people who did vote for him last time?
[00:57:55]  I think it's his personality.
[00:57:57]  I'm not, I don't think his, you know, on the policy positions that he's lost a lot of ground.
[00:58:04]  I don't think that at all.
[00:58:05]  I think there are quite a few people who, Who like his policies, but have just tired of the chaos and his sort of recklessness at times, his language and things like that, Twitter, those kinds of things.
[00:58:20]  And what you see, a lot of presidents get here, by the way.
[00:58:28]  It usually takes all eight years, but towards the end, everybody's sort of tiring at W, or they're tiring of Obama, even.
[00:58:36]  I mean, there are a lot of Democrats that were starting to get tired of Obama after eight years.
[00:58:40]  Had he really done enough?
[00:58:41]  What did he do?
[00:58:42]  You know, to help progressives, whatever, you know, the naysayers were starting to come out.
[00:58:48]  Most presidents, it takes two full terms to get there.
[00:58:51]  And I think part of what's happened here is that Trump got there in three and a half years.
[00:58:56]  So much so that even some of his own people, his own supporters, are starting to get tired of the act.
[00:59:03]  I mean, one of the problems of being sort of the reality TV show president is at what point do people decide they want to change the channel?
[00:59:12]  Not because I mean, just because they've seen it, the act over and over and over again.
[00:59:17]  Well, it's interesting, Joe.
[00:59:18]  I remember hearing somebody talk about narcissists.
[00:59:22]  And look, there's no question Trump is one.
[00:59:24]  I think you have to be a little bit of one to want to be president.
[00:59:27]  I do.
[00:59:27]  Yeah.
[00:59:28]  You just kind of do.
[00:59:30]  But there's regular narcissists and then there's sort of Trump level.
[00:59:34]  And I do think there have been studies looking into how long the average person who's with a narcissist can stand it.
[00:59:41]  Like after time, it gets too grading, too dejected.
[00:59:47]  Too tiring to allow it to go on.
[00:59:49]  And if I'm not mistaken, I remember somebody telling me it was on average like two years.
[00:59:54]  So I don't know.
[00:59:55]  I mean, with this campaign, it's been going on a lot longer than that.
[00:59:58]  Yeah, but that's what I think is going on.
[01:00:00]  We were seeing in focus groups Republican women who literally say things like, I just want to stop the chaos.
[01:00:09]  I feel like I'm hanging by my fingernails from the edge of a cliff.
[01:00:15]  They just want to change the channel.
[01:00:17]  And I think that's him.
[01:00:18]  I mean, he's done that to himself, regardless of his.
[01:00:23]  If he had the discipline, I think, to run on his policies and stay on them.
[01:00:29]  I think he would be doing better.
[01:00:30]  Unfortunately, I don't think he has that in him.
[01:00:35]  It's just not, he's not going to change.
[01:00:37]  So, as tonight gets started, what's the first thing you're going to be looking for?
[01:00:42]  And what's the earliest you think we'll know anything real?
[01:00:46]  I think we're going to know pretty early what kind of night it's going to be.
[01:00:50]  The first place I'd look is Sumter County in Florida.
[01:00:53]  Look for the early returns there.
[01:00:56]  It's a huge stronghold of Trump's, it's where the villages are in the state.
[01:01:02]  56% of voters are over the age of 65.
[01:01:09]  Obviously, a vast majority white voters.
[01:01:14]  I mean, it's the Trump older voter place to get a quick look.
[01:01:20]  When those early returns start coming in there, if Biden has closed the gap that Trump had over Hillary in Sumter County, that should tell you.
[01:01:33]  First of all, it means.
[01:01:35]  That the erosion that the polls are talking about with older voters is actually happening.
[01:01:40]  And if that's happening in that county in Florida, I don't think it signals that Trump's in trouble.
[01:01:47]  If Trump's holding that margin there, then I think we could be in for a long night in Florida, obviously.
[01:01:56]  And there are other places around the country I'd start to look.
[01:02:01]  But I think, look, Florida counts very, very fast.
[01:02:04]  They closed the polls at seven o'clock.
[01:02:06]  Last time, if I remember right, they were.
[01:02:08]  They had the vast majority of their precincts all counted by 8 30.
[01:02:12]  It's very quick.
[01:02:13]  So, Florida, we're going to know if Trump loses Florida, you know, that's what I'm saying.
[01:02:20]  We could at nine o'clock tonight know he's done.
[01:02:23]  So, I'd look there first.
[01:02:26]  North Carolina closes at 7 30.
[01:02:30]  They count quickly as well.
[01:02:32]  But the place I would look early to is Lackawanna County in Pennsylvania.
[01:02:38]  And I'll tell you why that's Scranton.
[01:02:41]  Obama Biden.
[01:02:43]  Beat Romney there by 25,000 votes.
[01:02:46]  Hillary only beat Trump in Scranton in Lackawanna County by 3,000 votes.
[01:02:52]  So the question is, and by the way, Biden's there right now as we talk.
[01:02:57]  He's in Scranton this morning.
[01:02:59]  And the question is, that's half of what she lost Pennsylvania by.
[01:03:05]  It was 23,000 votes.
[01:03:07]  She lost by about 44, 46,000.
[01:03:11]  So half of it's in that county, and it's where Biden was.
[01:03:16]  Was born and raised.
[01:03:17]  Yes, I'm from Scranton.
[01:03:19]  Right.
[01:03:19]  And so, exactly.
[01:03:20]  So, does he pull away like the Biden, Obama Biden ticket did against Romney in 2012?
[01:03:30]  If he does, he's already closed half of what Hillary lost Pennsylvania by before you even get to whether the turnout's higher in Philly or any of these other places.
[01:03:42]  I see.
[01:03:43]  And he's got an obviously better shot in Scranton, although those are voters who would be traditionally more working class Democrats, right?
[01:03:50]  That's why they went for Trump, but Biden can play with them.
[01:03:53]  He can play with them.
[01:03:54]  Exactly.
[01:03:55]  And does that happen there?
[01:03:56]  That's where I'd look for that first.
[01:03:59]  And then, like, I don't really think we have to wait for a lot of the polls to call.
[01:04:04]  I mean, you know, for let's wait and see, you know, as they're counting votes in Wisconsin and in Michigan and Ohio, what's, you know, wait for anything to come in.
[01:04:17]  What I would look at there is you don't need me pick a county in the Midwest, two or three counties in the Midwest that have that are majority just white voters.
[01:04:28]  And And then look at what the margin was against Hillary with Trump and what the margin is against Biden.
[01:04:36]  If Biden is closing that margin, I think it means that all those Midwestern states are in the blue wall is going to hold.
[01:04:46]  If Trump is growing his margin, that means this is your secret, this is your shy Trump voter.
[01:04:54]  That would mean that more people are coming out for Trump.
[01:05:00]  Than did in the past.
[01:05:01]  And that's why he's growing his margin in those counties.
[01:05:04]  So I would look at counties like Armstrong County in Pennsylvania, 96, 98% white.
[01:05:12]  It's a rural area.
[01:05:15]  I happen, my mom's side of the family comes from Armstrong County.
[01:05:19]  And I remember growing up every summer watching the big coal trucks roll by.
[01:05:26]  If they're going to be shy or a surge of Of Trump voters that weren't there, and that should grow.
[01:05:36]  Or does Biden, is he doing better with those kinds of voters?
[01:05:40]  So he'll wait.
[01:05:40]  Can I ask you a question about that?
[01:05:41]  Sure.
[01:05:42]  Can I ask you a question about that?
[01:05:43]  Because I frankly don't know the answer to this, but wouldn't the shy Trump voter not be in the rural white county?
[01:05:52]  Wouldn't the shy Trump voter be more of a suburban housewife?
[01:05:56]  Like, sure.
[01:05:56]  I don't know if this, if the rural white people are getting shamed the way the suburban Republican women are.
[01:06:02]  No, no, that's true.
[01:06:04]  And to get a sense of that, I'd go to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
[01:06:10]  It's a suburb of Philadelphia.
[01:06:12]  It's the third largest populated county in the state of Pennsylvania.
[01:06:18]  It's a bunch of commuters, kind of the people who commute to Philly or to Delaware, Wilmington.
[01:06:31]  It's down in the southern part of the state below Philly.

=== Trusting the Results (15:35) ===

[01:06:34]  But it is by far.
[01:06:37]  The, you know, a swing.
[01:06:40]  There would be a lot of those kind of voters.
[01:06:42]  There are a lot of GOP suburban women.
[01:06:45]  Could we know that early with Pennsylvania's weird vote in, I mean, mail in stuff?
[01:06:49]  I can't believe it.
[01:06:49]  Like, it does seem a little odd that you can postmark your vote on Election Day.
[01:06:53]  It's kind of a, it's really just an irritation for me because I want the answers.
[01:06:58]  But do you think we'll know what's happening in Montgomery County or Armstrong County, given how many mail in ballots we're going to be waiting on?
[01:07:05]  Well, I think in places, in a lot of the places I'm talking about, like, Uh, Ross County, uh, Ohio, uh, Armstrong.
[01:07:15]  I don't think it matters when their votes came in, in other words, whether they voted early, whether they mailed them in.
[01:07:21]  You're either going to see a but we're waiting on some of them, but I'm saying we're a lot of them in Pennsylvania, we won't yet have, so I just don't know.
[01:07:29]  I don't like, yeah, go ahead.
[01:07:32]  What I'm saying is, in Armstrong, where Trump was getting like you know 69 of the vote, uh, if the first batches are 69 and the next batch is 60, I don't think anything's going to change there, right?
[01:07:44]  It's Too monolithic a county.
[01:07:46]  Same with Ross County.
[01:07:48]  You know, Stark County, Ohio has been a bellwether within a half point every year, as far back as I can remember.
[01:08:00]  It may get who won wrong.
[01:08:01]  I mean, in other words, it could be a half point, you know, for Biden and Trump actually wins the state closely.
[01:08:10]  But I'm saying that some of these, like Montgomery County, it's the margin difference.
[01:08:15]  It's not, you know, like you've got to say.
[01:08:19]  I get it.
[01:08:19]  I got it.
[01:08:20]  How much better is Joe Biden doing over Trump than Hillary was, or vice versa?
[01:08:25]  Okay, just back to Florida for one second since it does come out early and we should have actual answers.
[01:08:31]  God bless Florida for giving us real answers early.
[01:08:33]  Yes.
[01:08:34]  What if what you see is that Donald Trump is winning it strongly, easily?
[01:08:40]  Oh, no.
[01:08:41]  Look, if Trump is winning Florida easily, one, it means that a lot of what the pollsters think they're seeing with seniors can't possibly be right.
[01:08:53]  I mean, depending on where we're seeing that against Sumter County, would tell us something about that.
[01:09:00]  But so it means, look, that path for Biden's closed, it makes Pennsylvania massively important at that point.
[01:09:12]  Because if Biden wins either one of those states, it's over for the Trump campaign.
[01:09:21]  But having headed Biden off at the pass in Florida quickly and strongly, if that were to happen, that's not a good indicator for Biden of where maybe North Carolina or Georgia.
[01:09:36]  Would be going.
[01:09:38]  So you've got to go back and look, start immediately if you're a Democrat, start freaking out about the blue wall and having the, you know, the thing I say about Democrats is the entire party's haunted by the ghost of 2016, by the ghost of election pass.
[01:09:55]  And so that would immediately trigger, I think, a lot of anxiety and a lot of drinking, a lot of value.
[01:10:05]  Yeah.
[01:10:06]  And for Trump supporters, they should take that as a Big strong shot in the arm that Trump is in it.
[01:10:13]  So I like that a lot because, you know, we may be sitting here for days trying to figure out who won this election, but there's also the possibility that we'll get a very strong indicator very early in the evening about how this is actually going to shake out.
[01:10:27]  So that, all right, that's good.
[01:10:28]  Before I let you go, the Senate, any chance that Republicans hold on to it in your view?
[01:10:34]  No, none.
[01:10:37]  Zero.
[01:10:37]  I just think, yeah, there's no way that's going to happen.
[01:10:40]  I think Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Even North Carolina, even if Trump wins Florida, I think those four are probably, I would be shocked if Republicans hold on to them.
[01:10:54]  Same again.
[01:10:55]  Can you say, can you list the states again?
[01:10:57]  North Carolina, Arizona, what else?
[01:10:59]  Colorado and Maine.
[01:11:01]  Oh, okay.
[01:11:02]  Yeah.
[01:11:03]  And then I think if I'm right about it being 1980, I would tell you that you're going to see two, three, four other seats that people don't really think are.
[01:11:16]  Possible, maybe Kansas.
[01:11:20]  Even Mike Espy in Mississippi could shock Cindy Hyde Smith.
[01:11:25]  You know, in Alabama on Thursday night, like I told you, we track a lot and our track on Thursday night had us up one point.
[01:11:39]  It's up one point, and that doesn't mean that we're there.
[01:11:47]  Obviously, we're getting out our vote today and all those kind of things.
[01:11:50]  But I'm saying if this is sort of a mini wave, Where the undecided, that's what happened in 1980 was the undecided in the last days moved away from the incumbent president.
[01:12:07]  So if we're seeing that, if that's starting to happen, what I expect to happen is not Florida signals a strong Trump win.
[01:12:15]  I think it would be that Biden is winning Florida and it's called like it, you know, 9, 9 30.
[01:12:22]  And if you see that, then I start looking for the wave to happen, which might be Tillis goes down to North Carolina.
[01:12:29]  Purdue starts to have real problems in Georgia.
[01:12:32]  You start to see a guy like Doug Jones, who was only up by one point, 46 to 45, on Thursday night.
[01:12:41]  We haven't tracked since.
[01:12:42]  We just turned it off and we started putting all our time into getting it out.
[01:12:46]  But that's how this starts to happen, where you, in 1980, 12 Democrats lost their Senate seats.
[01:12:55]  They were giants, by the way.
[01:12:56]  It was like Birch Bayh, George McGovern.
[01:13:02]  I think Frank Church lost that year, if I remember right, but big, big giants in the Senate.
[01:13:08]  And I think if this is 1980 redo, you know, redone, then I think we could be sitting here tomorrow and looking at five, six new Democrats in the Senate or held Doug Jones and picked up four or five seats.
[01:13:30]  If it happens, Joe Trippi, I'm going to be giving you credit right here this same time tomorrow.
[01:13:35]  Thank you so much.
[01:13:36]  For your straightforward analysis.
[01:13:38]  Always appreciate you calling it like you see it.
[01:13:40]  No, Megan, thanks for having me.
[01:13:43]  It's really good to be on with you again.
[01:13:45]  We'll do it again.
[01:13:46]  I look forward to it.
[01:13:47]  Joe Trippi's a great guy, everybody.
[01:13:50]  Listen, now you've heard it from both, you know, you've heard so many different predictions, right?
[01:13:54]  You're just like everybody else.
[01:13:55]  You don't know what's going to happen, but you've got like the Trafalgar guy saying Trump's going to win it.
[01:13:59]  Mike Huckabee saying he's going to win it.
[01:14:00]  He's going to go up in his electoral vote.
[01:14:02]  Trippi, who's, you know, he kind of does this for a living, actually assesses how the races are going to go.
[01:14:08]  And so does Trafalgar.
[01:14:09]  Saying it's completely the opposite.
[01:14:11]  So hopefully, we won't have too long to wait.
[01:14:14]  Listen, we asked you yesterday to write into the show with some questions that you might have about the election.
[01:14:20]  And this is a feature we offer on the program called Asked and Answered.
[01:14:24]  And Steve Krakauer is my executive producer here on the MK show.
[01:14:27]  And he has got some of your questions.
[01:14:29]  And hopefully, Steve, you and I have some of the answers.
[01:14:32]  We'll try.
[01:14:32]  Yeah, we got a lot of great questions.
[01:14:34]  So thank you to everyone.
[01:14:35]  We'll always be doing these segments.
[01:14:37]  So questions at devilmatecaremedia.com, keep them coming.
[01:14:40]  The first one is from Carter, who describes himself as a 23 year old gay conservative who is a huge fan of yours.
[01:14:46]  And he wants to know Do you think there will be riots regardless of who wins or only if Trump wins?
[01:14:51]  And do you think Trump will concede if he does lose to Joe Biden?
[01:14:54]  So we're seeing obviously lots of boarding up in cities all across the country.
[01:14:59]  Riots regardless, he wants to know.
[01:15:01]  It's insane here in New York.
[01:15:02]  I mean, Madison Avenue, one of the nicest streets with all the fancy stores, is completely boarded up.
[01:15:06]  Looks like a war zone right now.
[01:15:07]  It's crazy.
[01:15:08]  I mean, people get it together.
[01:15:09]  I realize you may be upset with whatever the result is one way or the other, but rioting and throwing rocks through glass windows is not the answer.
[01:15:16]  Looting, all of it.
[01:15:17]  People always wind up getting hurt or worse.
[01:15:20]  This is no way to manage one's anger, and it doesn't say anything good about the people who resort to that kind of behavior.
[01:15:27]  My impression, as I mentioned with Huckabee, is the Republicans don't generally riot in response to things like this.
[01:15:34]  It tends to be the Democrats, or you see it sometimes at sporting events where it's nonpartisan.
[01:15:40]  And I do think, given the level of hatred for Trump, That the Republicans don't feel for Biden.
[01:15:44]  They may not like him, but they don't hate him.
[01:15:46]  And there's certainly nobody calling him, you know, a Hitler esque type figure.
[01:15:51]  I do think you're going to see riots.
[01:15:52]  And I think it'll, it's, it's, I think we'll be fine if Joe Biden wins.
[01:15:56]  And I think it's going to get.
[01:15:58]  Very ugly, very ugly if Trump does.
[01:16:01]  What do you think, Steve?
[01:16:02]  Yeah, I tend to agree with both you and Governor Huckabee on this, which is that, you know, if Donald Trump wins, I think that there could certainly be riots.
[01:16:10]  If Joe Biden wins decisively, I think that there will not be riots.
[01:16:14]  But if it's really close, I worry about both sides, frankly.
[01:16:18]  And, you know, I guess that also kind of dovetails with Carter's second question, which is do you think Trump will concede if he does lose to Biden?
[01:16:26]  And which, you know, Carter's question, it's kind of loaded.
[01:16:29]  I saw reporting from Axios this morning that Joe Biden.
[01:16:32]  Plans to give his victory address, even if Trump has not conceded, if the media has called it for him, which I guess makes sense.
[01:16:41]  But it's also, you know, what does it mean if he loses to Biden?
[01:16:44]  But I guess the question is, do you think Trump will concede?
[01:16:47]  I think Joe Biden should offer a victory speech if the media has called it for him.
[01:16:51]  And even if Trump hasn't conceded, I would do that too, right?
[01:16:54]  Wouldn't you?
[01:16:54]  It's like you're not going to wait around for Trump to determine whether you won or lost when the numbers are in.
[01:16:59]  I think the question is, can you trust the media if they call it for Biden?
[01:17:02]  And I think you can.
[01:17:04]  Here's why I think you can trust the media.
[01:17:06]  It's not like they didn't get it wrong before.
[01:17:08]  As Huckabee was pointing out, in 2000 in Florida, they projected Florida before they had gotten the panhandle votes in, and those are Republican, right?
[01:17:15]  And they went for George W. Bush, and that's why we had some period of time where we thought Al Gore won.
[01:17:19]  And it was far more complicated than that, hanging Chads and all the rest of it.
[01:17:22]  It was very, very close.
[01:17:24]  So it's a tough state to call.
[01:17:26]  The media can get out over its skis.
[01:17:28]  But I think you can trust tonight the calls of the states, because that's not run by Don Lemon, right?
[01:17:37]  And in Really, in defense of the other side, Tucker Carlson doesn't make those calls on Fox News, and nor does Brett Baer.
[01:17:44]  Those calls are made by the decision desk.
[01:17:47]  And I've worked years and years and years with these guys.
[01:17:50]  They are as straight as they come.
[01:17:52]  These are straight arrows.
[01:17:54]  They want only one thing, which is to get it right and not screw it up.
[01:17:59]  And they will make damn sure, especially in the wake of 2000, where they all got, they still are close enough to that they feel egg on their faces still, that they do not project a win in a state before they are ready.
[01:18:11]  I will.
[01:18:12]  100% trust what the Fox News decision desk tells me tonight.
[01:18:16]  And it will be announced by Brett and Martha, but they will not be the ones who have reached the conclusion.
[01:18:23]  So anyway, if they say Trump won or Trump lost, I think you can trust it.
[01:18:28]  And I think Trump will only concede quickly if it's a bloodbath.
[01:18:33]  And I do think no matter what, if he loses, he's going to grumble about an unfair system rigged, rigged, rigged, he'll say.
[01:18:41]  He'll say the mail in voting was rigged.
[01:18:44]  That's why it would be nice.
[01:18:46]  Whoever wins, if it's a crushing defeat, right?
[01:18:49]  Either side.
[01:18:49]  So the other side can complain all at once, but we don't really have to trust it or listen to it for long.
[01:18:55]  But I do think there's a chance of actual shenanigans that we have to be open minded to.
[01:19:01]  This election is high stakes, and both sides are really pumped up, and the Democrats loathe him.
[01:19:12]  So you have to get a little worried about people thinking the ends may justify the means if it gets really, really tight.
[01:19:17]  Right.
[01:19:18]  Yeah.
[01:19:18]  I think that there's that.
[01:19:19]  That's why it's so interesting about the different scenarios that were laid out really by both guests, because there's certainly a scenario where Pennsylvania won't matter.
[01:19:27]  Maybe Donald Trump will lose regardless, but he'll concede and then fight Pennsylvania and then use that as this, you know, example to set for what it could be in other ways.
[01:19:38]  So I don't know.
[01:19:38]  I guess we'll see.
[01:19:39]  So many different scenarios.
[01:19:40]  Let me ask you one.
[01:19:41]  Here's, wait, I'll give you one last thought.
[01:19:43]  Here's if Trump loses, if they say he lost and Trump is fighting it, the first person to concede will be Melania.
[01:19:49]  I'm done with this.
[01:19:50]  I'm going back to New York.
[01:19:52]  I do not want to decorate for the fucking Christmas again.
[01:19:55]  Sorry.
[01:19:56]  Off to Mar-a-Lago.
[01:19:58]  Enough of this.
[01:19:59]  Yeah.
[01:20:00]  All right.
[01:20:01]  Last question.
[01:20:02]  Let's bring this one from Kelsey Stevens, who describes herself as a political newbie.
[01:20:06]  She wants to know that's a good question.
[01:20:08]  How much of America do you think has chosen their party because of demographic political exposure they're surrounded with, as opposed to independently reflecting and researching their own stance?
[01:20:18]  Most of it.
[01:20:19]  That is a good question.
[01:20:21]  Most of it.
[01:20:21]  I don't think people realize how much of the boiled frogs they are, you know, where you're just in the pot and you're swimming and it's a nice pot and you enjoy the water and suddenly it's kind of warm and then before you know it, you're boiled.
[01:20:33]  I just think that, sorry for the animal lovers, of which I am one.
[01:20:38]  I just think you get influenced by the media and your parents and your friends and your schools and your surroundings in a way you might not otherwise know.
[01:20:45]  And I would say it reminds me of something Roger Ailes asked me when I was young.
[01:20:50]  And I was actually interviewing at Fox News.
[01:20:53]  This was back in 2004, I guess.
[01:20:55]  And he said, how does a daughter of a nurse and a college professor from upstate New York wind up fair and balanced?
[01:21:03]  And he didn't mean Republican.
[01:21:05]  He just meant open-minded.
[01:21:06]  I was open-minded to truth and facts and so on.
[01:21:09]  And it was a good question.
[01:21:11]  He was basically trying to say, you've clearly been indoctrinated in left-wing thinking.
[01:21:15]  How do I know you're not going to come here and not give Republicans a fair shake?
[01:21:20]  And I thought about that.
[01:21:22]  And the answer was, I was not raised in an ideological family.
[01:21:26]  My parents were both Democrats, but we weren't particularly ideological.
[01:21:30]  And we were Catholics.
[01:21:31]  My parents were pro-life.
[01:21:33]  So even though we were Democrats, we were not down the line with what's sort of taken as Democrat ideology.
[01:21:40]  And then I graduated.
[01:21:42]  I put myself through law school and I started to see what was happening to my paycheck.
[01:21:46]  Started to get really concerned about these high taxes that they would smack on even young people saying we didn't pay our fair share.
[01:21:53]  And then I worked at a big law firm where I was exposed to sort of chiefs of industry and CEOs and learned sort of how demonizing them and taking all their money and cracking down on them with regulations doesn't always lead to good results for the workers.
[01:22:06]  And just sort of started to see, oh, there's another side to a lot of these stories I've been told.

=== Ben Shapiro's Advice (04:22) ===

[01:22:10]  I should listen.
[01:22:11]  Maybe I'll learn.
[01:22:12]  That was my basic mindset when I went into Fox News.
[01:22:15]  But if I hadn't done that stuff, if I had just taken a job, let's say teaching in my hometown, which academia tends to lean very left, I don't think I would have wound up fair and balanced.
[01:22:29]  And I think people really need to work to get themselves out of the echo chamber that they grow up in.
[01:22:34]  Yeah.
[01:22:35]  You think?
[01:22:35]  Yeah.
[01:22:35]  No, I do.
[01:22:36]  Although I look at it now and the corollary in 2020 of the media, people, the barrier to entry is so much.
[01:22:44]  Easier now, right?
[01:22:45]  You can go, people think of podcasts and YouTube shows, people that listen to this show or listen to Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan and Tim Pool, and that's how they get their news.
[01:22:57]  Crystal and Sagar, who are going to be on with us tomorrow.
[01:23:01]  And then those are the kinds of sources that open their mind, that get them thinking.
[01:23:06]  Social media has got a lot of negative sides to it, but it also has some positive sides about how things get shared and discovered.
[01:23:13]  So I do wonder if there's a bit of a shift that we're starting to see now.
[01:23:17]  Which I think is a good thing.
[01:23:18]  People think for themselves.
[01:23:20]  I hope you're right.
[01:23:21]  And honestly, that's why I wanted to do my little talking points thing at the top of the show, because I've been sitting back the past couple of years, and even while at NBC, I didn't do a ton of political coverage, frustrated because facts are knowable.
[01:23:36]  And there are truths to get your arms around.
[01:23:41]  For a long time, Steve, I looked at the media in the Trump era.
[01:23:48]  And to me, it reminded me of the line from the movie War Games the only winning move is not to play.
[01:23:56]  That.
[01:23:57]  The only options available to me are places that are biased one way or the other, and I just don't want to play.
[01:24:03]  And that's why I'm so grateful to Ben Shapiro for saying, MK, there is like a meaningful avenue over here in digital, in podcasting, where you can really reach a wide audience and say what you want to say.
[01:24:17]  And that's really, that's what my goal is, right?
[01:24:20]  To be able to just say like, this is what's real.
[01:24:22]  Trump has had screw ups.
[01:24:25]  He has lied, but he's also done a lot of good and he doesn't get any credit from it.
[01:24:31]  For it from this incredibly dishonest, suicidal media, you know, that they're on a kamikaze mission to take him down and themselves with him.
[01:24:43]  Yeah.
[01:24:44]  Well, that's what's going to be so interesting.
[01:24:45]  I mean, you know, this time tomorrow, when we're doing another show, we'll know some stuff.
[01:24:50]  Hopefully, we'll know a lot.
[01:24:52]  But, you know, we're going to see a lot of answers in the next 24 hours.
[01:24:57]  Oh, we hope so.
[01:24:58]  I think so.
[01:24:58]  I feel better after Huckabee, don't you?
[01:25:00]  Yes.
[01:25:00]  I mean, not Huckabee, Trippy.
[01:25:02]  Yeah.
[01:25:02]  Yeah.
[01:25:02]  I mean, you know, Trippy made me feel like we're going to know stuff.
[01:25:05]  I think we will.
[01:25:06]  Hopefully.
[01:25:06]  Yeah.
[01:25:07]  It may or may not be what you want to know, but I think we're going to know stuff.
[01:25:09]  Trippy convinced me that when we see the early signs in Florida and some of these key counties, we'll have some inkling one way or the other.
[01:25:16]  And I'll take an inkling at this point.
[01:25:18]  Steve, thank you, sir.
[01:25:19]  Yes.
[01:25:20]  Back again tomorrow.
[01:25:21]  And I want to say thank you to all of our guests to Joe Trippy, to Mike Huckabee.
[01:25:25]  He's such a good guy.
[01:25:26]  You know, before I let you go, there's a funny story about him.
[01:25:28]  You can see it on the internet.
[01:25:29]  But he came on my show one time, and I was reading the intro in the prompter, and it said, joining me now is Governor.
[01:25:38]  Mike Huckabee of Huckabee, whatever the show.
[01:25:42]  I can't remember exactly how it went, but it was of Huckabee.
[01:25:45]  That's how I had to say it.
[01:25:46]  And you know, I spoke a little too fast.
[01:25:49]  And what came out was, join me now as Mike Fuckabee, which I really thought for a time might stick.
[01:25:58]  It's kind of a cute little nickname.
[01:26:00]  No, it didn't.
[01:26:02]  But it was the only time I've used the F word on television.
[01:26:07]  And you will laugh if you see the clip online.
[01:26:10]  Anyway, my thanks to Governor Mike Huckabee.
[01:26:13]  And to Joe Trippi and to all of you for listening to us on this important day.
[01:26:18]  I want to tell you that today's episode was brought to you in part by Blinds Galore.
[01:26:22]  Get the custom blinds and shades you've always wanted.
[01:26:25]  Visit blindsgalore.com today and choose the Megan Kelly Show at checkout to learn more.

=== Show Closing Remarks (00:48) ===

[01:26:32]  Again, folks, appreciate you being here.
[01:26:33]  Don't forget, we have another show tomorrow.
[01:26:36]  We've got everything covered for you, all the results tallied so far, and any ongoing drama that may be ongoing.
[01:26:45]  Love your country.
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[01:26:50]  Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
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