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Oct. 26, 2022 - The Megyn Kelly Show
01:22:18
20221026_fettermans-debate-disaster-and-bidens-bizarre-canc
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Auditory Processing Observations 00:14:25
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Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show.
Your home for open, honest and provocative conversations.
Hi, Megyn Kelly.
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show.
Just a quick note before we get started.
I cannot do this show without thanking all of you so so much.
Thanking my friends, colleagues, former colleagues, friends.
I have been overwhelmed with the amount of beautiful outpouring of support that I've received with the outpouring of support in the wake of my sister's passing.
I don't know.
There was a saying that said something like the tears of today water the seeds of tomorrow.
And it's much more eloquent than that.
But that's kind of how I'm feeling: that all the pain you go through when you lose somebody brings in just your closest people, you know, your friends and your family and your extended network that you haven't been in touch with.
And all these people come out to show you what life's about and what matters, and that you're loved and you're supported.
And you wind up feeling such a silver lining in the midst of such great pain.
I know all of you who have lost somebody know what I'm talking about.
I've seen it.
I went to the YouTube and I looked at the comments and I was blown away.
And I was so grateful for all of you sharing your own stories of loss and how you got through it and got to the other side and even losses in particular of siblings, which I know can be diminished.
I mean, I know it's not certainly the same as losing a, God forbid, a child.
And you have a different relationship with your siblings than you did with your parents.
But thank you for helping me put it in perspective.
So, in any event, I want to do the news.
I'm excited to do the news today.
There's a lot of it, but I just want to say thank you.
And I want to say to all the people who I know who have texted me and emailed me, I am going to get back to each and every one of you.
I know I could just write thanks, It's not in me.
This is why I'm a bad texter because I always feel like it needs to be individualized.
And I like doing that.
It just takes time.
But thank you.
Thank you.
All right, let's talk about the news.
John Fetterman versus Dr. Metman Metmet Oz.
Did you watch this last night?
I was still at my mom's and I watched it.
She and I watched it.
My mom is a Democrat, but did not have good things to say about John Fetterman's performance.
Last night's debate in Pennsylvania is dominating the headlines today for the first and only time, only time America got to see the true extent of how Fetterman's stroke is affecting his ability to speak and think.
It was downright alarming at times.
We're going to play some of the key moments in context.
Meanwhile, right now, Fetterman's campaign is trying to blame the closed captioning system for his disastrous performance.
Okay.
All right.
So blame it on the closed caption, ladies.
It is the story that everyone's talking about.
But we are the only ones who have these four brilliant and hilarious political minds to help us analyze it all.
It's no accident we scheduled them for today.
Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to have the guys from Ruthless with us for the full show today.
John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and the men known to his Twitter minions as comfortably smug.
Welcome back to the show, guys.
Great to be here, Began.
Thanks for having us back and thanks for doing what you're doing.
I know it's a painful time in your in your family, and that's not easy on anybody.
And going back to work is not an easy thing, but you bring a lot of joy to a lot of people who are watching this on a day-to-day basis.
And so thanks for soldiering on.
Oh, Josh.
Thank you.
You guys are so sweet.
The audience should know these gentlemen sent me flowers, beautiful notes.
I really appreciate it.
And thank you.
Thank you for helping me today because I will admit, I'm like slightly fuzzy headed.
You know, it's been such an overwhelming time.
I'm slightly off.
So I'm glad I have you to help me on a day as important as this one.
Craziness happening.
I mean, honestly, like my mom, I would say she's center left at best.
You know, she's right kind of in the center, but she's a registered Democrat.
She's upstate New York.
And anyway, you should have heard her commentary during the Fetterman interview.
She's sitting there like, wow, my God.
Oh, my God.
My God.
It was pretty shocking.
That debate last night was shocking.
I expected him to, you know, flounder a little.
I didn't expect what we saw last night.
What did you guys make of it?
I guess we can all at least take salt in the fact that John Fetterman doesn't remember it at all this morning.
So he got that going for himself.
Well, I thought it was a little bit like a PGA tour event.
You know, like the entire Pennsylvania Senate race is coming down to a single stroke.
Oh, wow.
But I, I don't, I like, there were times, I will confess, I listened to Dr. Oz and my mind just kind of started to wander.
I'm like, I don't know.
He kind of, I lost my focus a lot while he was talking.
But when Fetterman talked, it was like he had my full attention, right?
You were like, oh my God, I don't know if he's going to make it.
Is he going to make it?
And many times he did not make it.
And while his campaign has been saying over and over, it's just an auditory processing issue, you know, like he needs to read captioning in order to understand.
It's clearly so much more than that.
He cannot speak.
He can't put the right words in the right order.
He mushes them together.
We did put together a little highlight reel for the audience who did not sit around watching that thing last night.
Here's some of it.
Hi.
Good night, everybody.
You know, he has never met an oil company that he doesn't swipe right about.
It's about supporting and helping, you know, young earners, excuse me, young, young, you know, students to give them a break.
I believe that supporting, I do support fracking and I don't, I don't, I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking.
It's just the same the way the university for degrees as well, too, but going to those kind of vocational schools, able to create a career to rate to way to, excuse me, to Wayne range a lot of a high salary and then supporting to reduce those costs are critical too.
I want to look into the face of every woman in Pennsylvania.
I believe if my doctor believes that I'm fit to serve and that's what I believe is appropriate, they all believe that I'm ready to be served.
So we can't be held, you know, ransom to somebody like Russia.
I mean, the opportunity to defend my community as the chief law enforcement officer there.
Everybody in Braddock, an overwhelmingly majority community of black community.
And I've always believed that the choice belongs women and their doctors.
And again, it's the odds rule.
He's on TV and he's lying.
I never, so I never supported any of that thing.
His family's company levied the largest fine for immigration hiring of immigrant illegals.
Oh my goodness.
This is more than just auditory processing.
Yeah.
I think that much is clear from the debate last night.
This guy has a whole host of problems beyond his performance last night, by the way.
And we'll get into all that, I'm sure, in the course of the conversation.
But I mean, just listening to him, it was just stunning.
The only thing that went right for John Fetterman was the merciful chime of the time bell.
You know, it's just like a boxer being saved by the bell.
I think his whole campaign team, his wife, everyone around him, the Democrat Party in Pennsylvania should all be ashamed that they're allowing this to continue.
This is not fair to do to him.
And I think that it's, it's, you're seeing them trying to have it both ways, where initially, and this is pre-Democrat primary, they told voters, oh, this is a small setback.
Everything will be right as reins.
He's going to be totally normal, you know, in very short order.
And now they're trying to keep saying that, oh, it's ableism to try to bring up the fact that he's very clearly incapable of, he needs to be focused on recovery.
See, but I'm being a senator.
I think, I think this is on him.
I think this is on Fetterman himself and his wife for continuing the spectacle.
When he had this stroke right before the primary or then after the primary, he could have bowed out of this race.
They had until August.
There was a deadline in August where his name would be on the ballot regardless.
That was the deadline.
They had plenty of time to make this decision and John Fetterman decided to stay in the race.
Yeah, I kind of agree with that, right?
I mean, my knee jerk when you watch something like that is to feel sympathetic for somebody who clearly has undergone something.
Yeah.
I mean, it was hard to watch.
It was very, very hard to watch.
But I have absolutely no sympathy when we spent an entire summer, his campaign and the Democratic Party telling the people of Pennsylvania and across the country, this guy didn't have a problem at all, right?
He's just, he's right as rain.
He's getting better every day.
Everything's going to be great.
And like clearly, by any objective standard, that ain't right.
Yeah, it went beyond just his campaign in the Democratic Party.
The mainstream media did everything they could to cover up this guy's actual condition to the point where they berated a normal reporter who was very fair in her assessment of the guy.
Charitable even.
Very charitable.
And she saw something that was amiss and she said what she saw.
And then everybody in the lamestream media piled on.
I think that's the thing is also the media should be held accountable for the dishonesty where when they attacked that reporter, numerous, numerous supposed journalists chimed in saying that I spoke with Fetterman a couple weeks ago and he was totally normal.
Kara Swisher, Stephanie.
100%.
Kara Swisher went out there saying, you know, he was 100%.
He was fine.
All these reporters.
No, he's not.
You lied and you knew we were going to get a look at him.
So, how long did you think your lie could be sustained?
It wasn't until the day of the debate that his advance team put out some statements saying, You might also hear words meshed together and started to get us prepared for what the actual truth was, still somewhat understating it.
But what did these reporters think?
We were never going to get to hear him speak, that his campaign was going to wise up and pull him.
Well, we see the truth now.
We know Dasha Burns of NBC was, if anything, understating the problem.
They knew what they were doing, and they did it for a very good reason, is because here we are now.
It's been early voting for three or four weeks, and this is the first time voters have been able to get a look at exactly how dire his situation is.
And journalists knew that.
That's why they did it.
That they berated this reporter for being like, he has some issues.
Early voting was already underway, and they were all defending that he's in such a state.
That's why they did it.
They understood the vote was underway.
They understood they had to keep him under wraps for as long as possible and get as many votes banked before this October 25th debate as they could.
And now the jig is up.
We've seen for ourselves that the guy is not all there.
It is not just an auditory processing issue.
It is not the fault of the caption, the person doing the captions.
It is the fault of John Fetterman and those around him who weren't honest with us.
And the moderators, the bell, actually, I felt uncomfortable with the bell.
I was like, because again, I felt kind of bad for him.
I mean, he's been lying to us, but still, just a human, you're like, oh, God.
And then he's like, just beginning rolling.
And it's like, ding.
You're like, oh, God.
I can't take anymore.
And then the debate moderators asked him specifically, for the love of God, will you release your medical records?
The question was more important than ever.
This is Soundbite 3.
Here's how it went.
You released this note from your doctor saying you can work full duty in public office, but you have not released your detailed medical records.
Will you pledge tonight to release those records?
To me, for transparency, it's about showing up.
I'm here today to have a debate.
I have speeches in front of 3,000 people in Montgomery County, all across Pennsylvania, big, big crowds.
I believe if my doctor believes that I'm fit to serve and that's what I believe is appropriate, they all believe that I'm ready to be served.
Follow up.
I didn't hear you say you would release your full medical records.
Why not?
You have 30 seconds.
No, again, my Dr. L believes that I'm fit to be serving, and that's what I believe is where I'm standing.
Fetterman's Difficult Circumstances 00:16:21
Oh, my God, you guys.
And I think that's also an interesting point to bring up is that the media has treated this note from his doctor as if it's some sort of a medical document and not something signed by a donor to his campaign.
Right.
That's who signed up, who happens to be a doctor.
Someone who has donated to his campaign is saying, yeah, I think this guy should run.
And journalists with no question are like, okay, that's a medical document now.
I got a couple of observations about this.
First of all, like, hats off to Oz here, right?
Because I don't, look, I've been around a lot of debates.
They're all sort of difficult to figure out how you interact with the opposition, depending on who they are and what their attacks are likely to be.
But like, I don't know what he expected because they've not been in the same room.
I'm not, I don't know what he expected to see.
But like, as this disaster is unfolding next to him, he's very professional, keeps it to the camera, makes no observations about the self-immolation that's happening next to him, sticks on the issues, and it just sort of drives a point.
That's a tough thing to do.
I mean, that takes an awful lot of just sort of restraint.
Yeah, total restraint.
It's like driving down the highway and there's a car pulled over to the side that's lit on fire and you have to keep your eyes on the road.
That's what was happening there.
He had to do it because he would have looked like such a prick bully if he even commented on it.
And he didn't need to.
That's the thing.
It was so in your face.
He did the smart move by like, I'm not going to touch it.
People will see it on their own.
By the way, I'm just seeing that you have facial hair now, Duncan.
That's new.
I like it.
This is my playoff beard.
This is for the election.
It's actually just for our Instagram, Megan.
We're planning on some kind of a calendar shoot around election day, and this is our cover point.
I'll wait for the big reveal.
I like it a lot.
Yeah, I'm into the facial hair like everywhere these days, and I like it.
So anyway, yeah, Oz did the right thing.
The one answer that's getting a lot of attention, and it was the one that caught my attention the most too, was on fracking.
And it was like, I realize he reversed himself clear 180 on fracking.
Okay, on any other given day, that would be what we talk about.
My God, he reversed himself.
It was a clear 180 and he lied and he got caught.
No, that's not, that's not why it's relevant.
He like was a robot who got stuck on repeat and he couldn't rejigger the system.
And it was, it was truly one of those like, you got this.
You could do it.
And then you're just like, oh my God, get out of bounds for the love of God.
You know, just as a human.
Here it is.
Fetterman on fracking.
Mr. Fetterman, I absolutely support fracking.
But you have made two conflicting statements regarding fracking.
In a 2018 interview, you said, quote, I don't support fracking at all.
I never have.
I've always supported fracking and I always believe that independence with our energy is critical.
We can't be held, you know, ransom to somebody like Russia.
But I support how critical it is that we produce our own energy and create energy independence.
I must correct the record here.
Just a second, Mr. Oz.
I do want to clarify something.
You're saying tonight that you support fracking, that you've always supported fracking.
But there is that 2018 interview that you said, quote, I don't support fracking at all.
So how do you square the two?
One miss.
I do support fracking.
And I don't, I don't, I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking.
He fracked that sentence into five or six pieces.
Talk about fracking that one out.
There's so much in there.
How about like even we can't be held ransom to Russia?
We already have a leader who can't get the word straight in talking about things that matter.
Held ransom to?
Okay.
And then he goes on.
He won't acknowledge the flip.
So even on a substantive basis, he's incapable of defending the earlier position.
I mean, any politician would have an answer ready for that.
You know, his team prepared him.
It was in writing, right?
The clear 180.
But again, separate and apart from that, he was stuck and he couldn't get out.
How do people think he's going to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate under these conditions?
There's just no way he can.
And he can't advocate for constituents.
I mean, his press secretary last night, I don't know if you guys caught this.
He was complaining about the questions, complaining about the closed captioning.
Obviously, this is a statement that Fetterman made in the past, but it was surfaced two weeks ago by CNN.
It's not like it was pushed by, you know, the right or something.
This was surfaced by mainstream news because it's a legitimate question that he presumably would have an answer to because this is a gigantic business in the state of Pennsylvania.
It's one of the things that actually the voters were deprived of last night, as big a spectacle as it is.
And I think, you know, obviously there's a very clear choice for most people just based on what we saw.
But you want an answer to that, right?
When somebody says, I've never supported fracking, and then I've always supported fracking.
That's incompatible, right?
I stand, I don't, I frack, frack.
Like, that's not an answer to that question.
There is two polar opposites.
You've got to figure out how to take us on the journey that led you to this spot.
He doesn't begin to do that.
He did the same when he was talked to when they were talking about the offense with the African-American, where he pulled a gun and put the gun to the guy's chest.
He had no answer, right?
He couldn't explain.
It was like fumble, fumble, community, protect, fumble, fumble.
Ah, and I'm like, we have that actually.
He needs an answer for that.
Let's play that and then we'll talk about it.
There's one person on this stage who's broken the law, we believe.
John Fetterman took a shotgun, chased a unarmed African-American man, and put the gun, apparently, according to that man, to his chest.
I made the opportunity to defend my community.
I was the chief law enforcement officer there.
Everybody in Braddock, an overwhelmingly majority community of black community, all understood what happened.
You know, they understood what happened and everybody agreed that.
And nobody believes that it was anything about me making a split-second decision to defend our community as well.
My God.
What?
First of all, was he a mayor?
He was.
And so actually, incidentally, the Washington Post this morning ran a story about how he actually never showed up for city council meeting.
So it's very interesting that all of a sudden he's the chief law enforcement officer protecting the citizens.
And he never even showed up for the meetings.
I didn't know he was also chief of police.
But even so, in his party, that does not give you a pass for pulling a gun on an unarmed black man who was guilty of running while black.
This is one of those cases.
The guy did nothing wrong.
He pulled a gun on him.
He held him at gunpoint.
You know, this is according to the public reports about it.
And there was no crime committed.
I mean, for a Republican, that's all they would do is run ads about it.
For him, it's like, and blah, gobble-guk, goggle-liguck, and bye.
Yeah, he says that the community understands.
I think that's what he was trying to say.
It's impossible to understand what the heck he's even trying to say.
Nobody understands, John.
Nobody understands.
Nobody understands what it is that you're saying.
The community of black community.
Yeah, makes no sense.
I think you hit on the most relevant point.
Imagine just for a moment that there was a Republican in the Federman camp at this point.
Like the Republican had the kind of debate performance that Fetterman had.
And this question comes up, right?
And it is a question about whether or not this guy pulled a shotgun on a black man simply because he was a black man, right?
Which is the open question that's been a part of this debate.
You should have an answer for that, right?
Imagine if a Republican in that situation were to just say community, community, blah, blah, blah.
Nobody understands blah, blah, blah, community.
Like that's, I mean, it'd be disqualifying, right?
It's the end of the campaign and nobody would talk about anything else.
And here, to your point, here's what actually happened.
Okay.
The media is completely running defense for Federman today.
They're still in denial about his condition.
They're still accusing people of ableism.
I have a soundbite, but before I get to it, I'll just give you an example.
This is Charlotte Alter.
She's a senior correspondent for Time tweeting out, okay, ahead of the debate tonight.
It's worth remembering a couple of things.
Fetterman's never been a good debater, right?
Here we go.
He's never been a good debater.
Even before the stroke, he's always been a somewhat wooden debater.
He's not Pete Budajej.
And she goes on to make a couple of other points.
For Dems, there will be some relief tonight that he is not brain damaged.
Oh, challenge, Ms. Alter.
I don't think there was relief.
I don't think that's what was proven, right?
For ours, his flubs will create fodder.
They can spin into ads suggesting he's worse off than he is.
I find that people who are just paying attention to the Pennsylvania Senate race now seem to think that before the stroke, Fetterman was some master orator like Obama or a Butige.
This is supposed to be a straight news reporter here.
Master orator like Pete Buttigieg.
Hello.
Couldn't be further from the truth.
His strength has always been in his ability to talk like a normal person.
That's not what he was doing, madam.
Not even close.
And here's a little sample of the post-debate reaction to what we all just witnessed.
It was certainly an example of such remarkable transparency.
There was such intense scrutiny, often ableist scrutiny.
John Fetterman tried his best under difficult circumstances.
Mr. Oz, as a doctor, I think literally violated the Hippocratic Oath.
And I think they admire Federman for showing up.
I think he lost the battle, but may win the war.
You got to admire him just for showing up.
He violated the Hippocratic oath by debating his opponent.
It's just stunning.
These people are remarkable.
It's it really, you know, sentence fragments aside, like I think this debate really laid bare what's stunning hypocrites and how shameless these Democrats are.
You know, on the issue of the fracking thing or, you know, pulling the gun on the black man, you know, the stroke may have impacted his ability to lie.
And so it really, I think, laid bare for voters, like, what an insane person he is.
Yeah.
No, I mean, that's a really good point.
I mean, he had no context.
He couldn't.
It's like he was debating with one arm tied behind his back, right?
So like he couldn't lie around his neck or he couldn't lie his way out of it, right?
And so I think that's going to be laid bare just as much as his physical limitations.
Well, that's the question.
Does it move the poll numbers?
Because this is the one race, RCP politics.
They're putting it in the GOP category.
They're saying the GOP will keep Pennsylvania.
So they're saying Oz will win, despite the fact that Oz has been behind in, if not, if not every, I think it's every poll.
I think every poll has put Oz behind.
But it's tightening.
It's getting closer and closer and the voting's underway.
So what do you guys think?
Is it a game changer?
Yeah.
I mean, there's no question it's a game changer.
For one, as we mentioned, it's the first time that people in Pennsylvania have actually gotten to see this guy, right?
They've been operating under the impression that there's no difficulties whatsoever.
That clearly is not the case.
But also, if you look at just the texture of the electorate and who likely votes early and who votes late and your late deciders and what they ultimately choose, this is a less ideological bunch, right?
You know, the Democrats, I mean, they're going to vote for anything.
They'll vote for anything.
They'll vote for Fetterman.
It doesn't matter if he showed up or not or if he was in a handbasket.
Yeah, they had that stamp licked for their mail-in ballot a month ago.
It didn't matter what whose name was on it.
Right.
Right.
So like they're going to vote who they're going to vote for.
And a number of Republicans are kind of in the same camp.
But these late deciders, they don't always vote ideologically.
And oftentimes the way that they vote is who they think can represent them the best, right?
And on that question, after what you saw last night, there can be zero question about who is capable of representing the people of Pennsylvania and who's just quite frankly not.
Yeah.
And by the way, here are the poll numbers.
Fetterman right now is plus 1.3.
One month ago, September 23rd, Fetterman was plus 4.2.
On August 17th, Fetterman was plus 8.7.
Okay, so in the span of two months, we've gone from 8.7 percentage point advantage for Fetterman down to 1.3 percentage point advantage for Fetterman.
And that was before the debate.
And that is why you've got the Fetterman camp out today.
I mean, literally blaming the captions.
Like, now I will give them this.
I will give them this.
In that one soundbite that we were playing about him on the fracking, the moderator, this isn't about captions, but the moderator who was following up with him, like, hey, you didn't respond to your 180.
Like, I'm asking you about your 180 fracking or no fracking.
She called him Mr. Oz.
So I will acknowledge he had a reason to sort of pause and be slightly confused about who the hell she was referring to.
Is it Mr. Fetterman or is it Dr. Oz?
Who are you?
And then it became clear to him, as it was to the rest of us beforehand, that she was just trying to press him and she just said Oz instead of Fetterman.
And he did answer.
But his problems cannot be dismissed by the delayed captions.
Yeah, I was just going to say, Megan, I mean, look, he's trying to get a job in the U.S. Senate here, right?
I mean, this is not like a toll booth worker.
I mean, his job is to attend very high-level committee hearings and persuade colleagues for answers and to try to make the best policy on behalf of his constituents in Pennsylvania.
What confidence does anybody have?
If the debate moderator in trying to fend off one is talking to another, it confuses him to the point where he can't recover.
What the hell is going to happen in the context of a judiciary committee hearing?
And I think that's the thing is you're seeing how much the media and the Democrats are trying to obfuscate the issue.
They're trying to talk about a captioning machine.
They're trying to talk about ableism.
The central issue, which has become very clear in this race, is, is Fetterman capable?
Well, that's a very easy question to answer.
Let's get a medical report.
And their unwillingness to release a medical report tells the answer to that question is they know for a fact he's incapable.
Or else they would, if they had a medical report showing that he is capable to execute the job, they'd have that on the front page of every newspaper in this country.
That's exactly.
But they're not able to do that.
So they're talking about this is a closed captioning machine, which has attacked John Fetterman or this is ableism.
Any kind of excuse that they have, they're trying to cook up to make voters think about anything but the central issue, which is that Fetterman very clearly can't accomplish this job.
Well, the other thing is I wonder how the closed captioning worked because I would, if I were a debate moderator and I knew I was walking into this situation and it's my team, you know, putting this whole thing together, I would probably submit some of my questions in writing to the closed captioner so that it could be handled.
Like, I don't know whether there was an actual person doing it or whether it was done electronically, but I would think at least the questions could have been put in there properly in advance.
So I think there would have been a higher likelihood of accuracy on the questions as opposed to doing the answers, which are a flyby night.
Here's what his campaign said.
We're thrilled with John's performance.
He did remarkably well tonight, especially when you consider he's still recovering from a stroke and was working off of delayed captions filled with errors.
John won countless exchanges, counterpunched aggressively, and pushed back on Oz's cruelty and attacks.
This, to me, is so sad.
It's like saying to your, you know, little kid who got just absolutely crushed on the football field, like, you know, well, you, your form looked good, honey, and you, you got out there.
Campaign Cover for Errors 00:13:47
You didn't sit out any plays.
You know, your uniform looked crisp.
You know, it's like, for them to be coming, what debate team comes out and says he counterpunched aggressively and he won many exchange.
Like, come on.
So, well, let me just give you the second half of this.
So Nexstar's chief communications officer said in a statement they were responsible for the broadcast and the closed captions.
It's unfortunate that Mr. Fetterman is now criticizing the closed captioning process.
Both candidates agreed to the technical setup for the closed captioning process weeks ago, which was implemented at the request of the Federman campaign.
Both candidates were offered the opportunity for two full rehearsals with the same equipment used in tonight's debate.
Mr. Fetterman chose to do only one.
In fact, our production team went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the effectiveness of the closed captioning process and to accommodate several last minute requests to the Fetterman campaign.
The closed captioning process functioned as expected during rehearsal.
And again, during tonight's debate, we regret that Mr. Fetterman and his campaign feel otherwise.
I mean, it's like they're not going to get away with this.
When you got them, when you got the closed captioning team attacking you for attacking us, it's like, not good.
You know, one other thing that broke right before the debate started was that the Fetterman team was pushing to get journalists and everybody in front of the closed captioning process so they could see how it worked.
They had that much confidence in the process that they agreed to ahead of the debate that they wanted the whole world to see how it was going to work.
And yeah, because they were nervous about just the closed captioning being there, right?
They thought that they were going to take heat by the fact that he needed closed captioning.
So they wanted journalists to come in and look at this wonderful, sort of easy, transparent system that they'd all set up that allows him to cleanly answer the questions.
Right.
They were so pressed.
Yeah, so proud of it beforehand, but then he blew it and now they now they're blaming it.
And meanwhile, riddled with errors where?
Like, were the questions riddled with errors that he was getting?
Or was it his answers, which were incomprehensible to all of us?
Never mind a computer that generates the answers from hearing the voice or a person who had to transcribe what he was saying.
However, that works.
So, I mean, let's get more specific.
What exactly was he confused on?
And it all begs the question, are we going to closed caption his entire Senate career?
Like, how is he, how do they propose this is going to work if he gets elected?
So I think that's the thing is they're trying to portray any sort of a debate as being cruel, as being ableist, as letting voters actually have the transparency to see what state he's in as being unfair to him because they just want to get him across the finish line.
And my thinking is they just want to sweep his wife in.
You know, a couple months in, he says, you know what?
I actually can't do it.
But guess what?
We've got someone right here who can, who's already called himselves the de facto candidate, who multiple times over multiple years has given answers to the media saying that like, I'm actually the brains of this outfit.
Direct quote, I'm the brains of this outfit.
So I think they're just trying to, they're angry that they had to have this debate in the first place.
They were wishing that they could just run up a scoreboard on some early votes, not let voters see exactly how bad the state is, and then sweep his wife into power when they wanted.
Well, I mean, look, Democrats have a pretty good track record about this, right?
They kept Biden in the basement for two years.
We didn't know the extent of the problems that he was having.
I mean, they won with it.
There's no reason to believe they couldn't get away with it again.
Unfortunately, they had this stumble for them.
But like back to your closed captioning piece and whether that was responsible for all this, recall the fact that he opened this debate.
Hello.
Good night.
Right.
That's not on the closed captioning.
The closed captioning isn't responsible for the words that come out of his mouth or lack thereof.
I hope not.
I'm going to go with that.
I'm actually going to do that from now on.
Whenever I say something stupid, which is often, I'm just going to blame it on whatever somebody popped up on the board on the trio.
It wasn't me.
Don't believe your lying ears.
And by the way, Giselle Fetterman owes that NBC News reporter an apology.
She wanted her disciplined for saying he really struggled to understand me in our pre-interview banter.
And also, Kara Swisher and many others attacked the reporter.
Oh, you don't know.
Maybe he just wasn't listening to you.
Maybe you were just bad at small talk.
That wasn't it.
She was trying to raise an issue that people should consider.
And now we can all see why.
But that reporter will not get an apology.
And Giselle Fetterman will be the last person to say anything.
One of the commentators online said, this is Jerry Callahan, Giselle Fetterman is a cruel, heartless, power-drunk woman.
A decent woman couldn't do this to the man she loves.
And Sagar and Jetty said, if anything, the NBC News reporter understated his condition.
All right, stand by, you guys.
You mentioned Biden.
I don't, his closing midterm message makes Fetterman look like a smooth orator, like Reagan, you know, the gifted communicator.
We'll talk about that right after this when the gang with Ruthless stays with us, guys.
One thing I wanted to follow up with you on: I heard you guys say on your show the other day that at least in Pennsylvania, the Fetterman campaign hasn't gotten so desperate because they're bringing in Biden finally.
They're bringing in Obama, that they would bring in the vice president, Kamala Harris.
Oh, contra, they've gotten quite that desperate.
Uh, the headline today is that they are bringing her in too.
Biden, Harris, and uh, Obama are all going to be campaigning for Fetterman in Pennsylvania.
I'm sure that's going to make all the difference.
She's going to show him what truly great oratory looks like.
I think that somebody's got to make him sound competent.
Well, I mean, honestly, you line up Kamala and Biden and Fetterman on the same stage.
Wow.
I mean, that is linguistic parade, Murderer's Row.
Honestly, I think that might be a smart play.
All of a sudden, Fetterman looks like the most capable person on stage.
You know, you're right.
Now that you think about it, yeah, Murderer's Row is a reference to the old, well, I know it is a reference to the old 60 Minutes gang, Mike Wallace and others who just were totally unsparing in their interviews.
So, speaking of Joe Biden, he had his chance to make his closing argument before we go into these midterms.
And I love it.
He too is out there.
He's like, I've been invited by like 16 or 17 or 18 different campaigns to go out there and campaign.
Well, why is your schedule totally clear except for this one appearance in Pennsylvania?
Why aren't you actually doing that, Mr. President?
He decides to make his closing argument about inflation, about immigration, about abortion, even.
That's a good issue for the Dems.
Not exactly.
Here's what he said.
A lot of Americans began to wonder whether we can still do anything.
Whether we're still we've always been.
We are.
And everybody thought I was nuts when I had asked the question: if I could do one thing, what would you do?
I'd do something that didn't answer any of the real questions we just had, but just demonstrate we can still do anything.
If I could wave a wand, I'd cure cancer.
Why?
Because no one believes it can be done.
But we're starting to do it.
There's nothing beyond our capacity.
I mean it.
Not a joke.
Not a joke.
That is terrifying.
I mean, that is just so wild.
I thought, did anybody else think that he was like at the next step, just going to swallow the camera?
I mean, it was.
What the hell is he talking about?
Hey, Jones, what is he doing?
He looks like Jim Jones at the end.
You know, after the Kool-Aid.
Somebody starts stirring that Kool-Aid.
It's like this is days after the interview with Jonathan Cape Part of MSNBC, in which he clearly like he appeared to fall asleep when asked whether Dr. Jill Buddha, Dr. Jill, so ridiculous, wants him to run again, couldn't like basically couldn't keep his eyes open.
And then here's another whopper he just delivered.
There's no contact with the facts anymore.
Speaking of Kamala Harris, talking about her approval rating.
Listen to this one.
The vice president of the United States, Vice President Harris.
How's she doing?
You're almost two years in.
How's she doing?
She's doing great.
She is a first of all, she's smart as hell.
She has a backbone like a ramrod, and she has enormous integrity.
And but if you take a look out there, there isn't any public figure that is, you know, 60% rating.
No, we don't know, Joe.
He isn't in your administration.
I can guarantee you that.
What is he?
He's suggesting she's there?
I don't like, whatever.
She's got, I think, 39% approval rating, according to the latest polls.
She's right around where he is.
I think.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Debbie.
But yeah, what's he saying?
She's at 39.
Yeah, no, I mean, her average on 538 is like 36%, right?
But there was like a Quinnipiak poll last week that had her at 28.
I mean, she's historically unpopular, unquestionably about that.
What I appreciate is the hard-hitting journalism there.
I mean, that's really taking the president to death, throwing it open, what he thinks about the vice president.
I mean, did you guys talk about the setup?
Like to say it like four different ways so he knows Kamala Harris is the vice president.
Did you read what Jonathan Cape Hart wrote after the interview?
Sort of like this after action report he filed with the paper.
Here's what he wrote, quote, folks, listen to me.
Biden is just fine, more than fine.
In fact, I came away with two overwhelming impressions.
Biden is totally going to run for reelection in 2024.
And he doesn't just like being president.
He loves the job of president.
Oh, my God.
I mean, that's the thing is like for the majority of Americans who don't see this, the Demps have an entire apparatus of the media to run cover for them, to make it sound like, oh, it must have gone great.
You know, like he can be as disastrous as staring at the at the reporter for like five seconds with no idea what he's about to say.
And then you're going to see reports saying that, oh, it was totally fine.
The same way that you had all these journalists covering for Federman, you have all these journalists who've been covering for Biden.
The guy can't talk about the economy.
He can't talk about crime.
He can't talk about Americans struggling to get by.
Americans being terrified to walk out of their homes to be a victim of violent crime, which is just up double digits in basically every part of this country.
He can't talk about that.
So he goes off the reservation and starts saying, hey, I'll cure cancer, guys.
And we're supposed to accept that this is totally normal.
And a lifetime supply of chocolate.
I heard you guys talking about this on your show yesterday, the AP article by Zeke Miller.
To your point, Smug, it was one hug and one selfie at a time.
Biden's mission to connect.
The lead line of the article, one handshake, one hug, one selfie at a time.
If President Joe Biden could greet every American this way, longtime allies say his approval ratings would soar.
And then they say in the piece, there can occasionally be awkward moments, such as when a presidential quip lands poorly, that in today's partisan environment are often broadcast online by his political rivals, but they are outnumbered by the positive interactions that have defined Biden's career and tested the stamina of his aides.
Adding, standby is the last part.
He outlasts us.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff General Malle Dillon told the Associated Press of Biden's penchant for spending 30 minutes, an hour, sometimes longer, shaking hands.
Give me a break.
This is all lies.
Lies.
I've learned one thing from this moment in time is hopefully many years from now, when I'm incapable and I am all over the place and my children want to put me in some kind of an assisted living facility or a nursing home and I don't want to go.
What I'm going to do is hire a Democrat communicator and I'm going to left leaning journalist and I'm going to have them make my case for me because clearly, clearly they are like, it seems like a new profession in the Democratic left now is trying to explain the inexplicable about your inability to actually operate as a human in this world.
They talk about Joe Biden like he's an elderly member of their family going through dementia and you got to explain why he still loves us, you know?
Like it's, it's so sick, this whole thing.
It's, and they're also kind of repackaging, I think, what they packaged for Biden's appeal in 2020.
And that is like, look, it's Grandpa Joe.
You know, his son died and that's why he didn't run last time, but he's got such a good heart and he felt called to do this because Trump is so abhorrent, you know, to our norms and he's going to restore these norms.
But it was, you know, long on the soaring rhetoric and short on the details.
And to Smug's point earlier, that's how it is now.
He can't talk about crime.
He can't talk about inflation.
He can't talk about the border.
He can't talk about gas prices.
But you know what they can write a thousand words about?
The hugs he gives.
Maybe he hands out candy to kids still.
The dementia's not even remembers their name.
How he has perfected his selfie arm, the products of which are widely shared on social media.
Oh my God.
It's embarrassing.
It ain't going to work again.
You know, the people can't have the wool pulled over their eyes again on this.
Bail Plan Flouting Issues 00:04:02
No, I completely agree.
I mean, it's catching up with him.
It's why he's got an approval rating in the mid-30s.
It's why nobody trusts the media anymore.
They don't take the accounts that they see in their newspapers as fact because, I mean, quite frankly, there's nothing about that that was a fact.
Right.
But more importantly, if you're struggling with 10% unemployment, you can't afford groceries and crime is terrible in your neighborhood.
Why do you give a shit whether or not he throws a good hug on somebody?
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's just not what we hired you to do, pal.
And I would just say, if you're trying to run cover for Joe Biden, don't use the term Joe Biden and hug in the same sentence.
It brings up a lot of negative imagery.
You're one in there.
Okay.
So let's talk about New York.
I'm so into this race.
You know, having spent the vast majority of my 51 years in the state of New York, it's just so exciting to me the fact that this, like the thought that it's going to be tight, you know, I know we've had Republican governors before and Republican mayors in New York, but it's by far the exception, not the rule.
And Kathy Hochul, who is totally unqualified for this post, totally unqualified, is getting nervous.
She had the debate last night with Lee Zeldon, her Republican challenger, who he could win.
He could win this race, despite the fact that, okay, I gave like the poll tightening for Fetterman.
Listen to hers.
On September 1st, she was plus 18.
On October 1st, she was plus 12.4.
And as of yesterday, she was plus 6.1 from 18 up to 6 up and still time for him to close it.
And the big debate in this race and the reason it's getting so tight, among others, but the number one is crime.
Our state has gotten disgusting thanks to her no bail and soft on crime policies.
And Lee Zelda couldn't stop in the way that we heard like abortion, abortion, abortion from people like Charlie Christ at the Florida debate.
We heard crime, crime, crime from Lee Zeldon, the Republican challenger to Kathy Hochlin an exchange that made her look totally out of touch.
Listen here.
It's about getting the guns off the streets.
That's the first start.
Kathy Hochul believes that the only crimes that are being committed are these crimes with guns.
And you've got people who are afraid of being pushed in front of oncoming subway cars.
They're being stabbed, beaten to death on the street with hammers.
My opponent thinks that right now there's a polio emergency going on, but there's not a crime emergency.
Different priorities that I'm hearing from people right now.
They're not being represented from this, this governor, who still to this moment, what are we, halfway through the debate?
She still hasn't talked about locking up anyone committing any crimes.
Okay.
Anyone who commits a crime under our laws, especially with the change we made to bail, has consequences.
I don't know why that's so important to you.
All I know is that we could do more.
Well, when I say I'm speaking.
We could do so much more if there was a nationwide ban, but certainly a state ban on teenagers be able to get guns.
I don't know why that's so important to you.
The crime rate.
It's interesting.
She's flouting her bail plan, too, right?
It's like, yeah, no, they definitely have consequences with the bail plan.
They're going to miss like daytime TV one afternoon.
They'll be right back at it.
Just incredible.
Smug, this is kind of your backyard, though.
Yeah, I mean, I think Zeldon did exceptional.
And I think bringing up that subway incident, which I think a lot of folks, especially in New York, saw a video of where there was this guy in a subway station was just waiting around looking for a victim to push in front of a subway track, push the guy in front of the subway track or push him onto the subway tracks.
And then you get word that he's been let out of jail something like 20 times because you have a system now that Kathy Huckel is responsible for and signs off on, which lets criminals out with zero repercussions with no bail so they can go right back out to the streets to hurt people.
These are her policies.
I can't believe I don't know.
Like, could Lee Zeldon win?
I guess he could.
If it happens, it's going to be a complete political earthquake and it's going to be a red tidal wave on the midterm night.
All right, standby.
Nevada Race Pickup Potential 00:04:44
We're going to get to some other states, including a close look at the Nevada race out there, which Josh has been really closely involved in.
And so we're going to get you all the information on Nevada, on Arizona.
Don't go away.
The ruthless guys are staying with us.
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Check it out.
Ruthless has been enfueg lately with great guests with really their finger on the pulse of what's happening in these midterm elections.
I've been learning a lot from them.
And so I want to start with, and you're involved in some of these because as you say, like your real job, your day job is actually in politics as political operatives.
And this is your moonlighting gig.
But let's talk about some of them.
Let's go through Colorado, Michigan, and Nevada.
Colorado described as a sleeper race for the GOP, a possible sleeper race.
Hasn't been getting as much focus because everyone just assumed that the incumbent, the Democratic Senator Michael Bennett, was going to win.
But he's got a challenger out there, Joe O'Day, who had been CEO of a Colorado construction company raised by a Denver cop, who's, he's a comer.
And I know you guys had this guy on your show who was like, you know what?
Let's look at this.
This is a possible, you know, pickup for the GOP.
And then after he left you, I don't know if it was you guys who did it, put up, put $1.25 million into this race.
So what's going to happen in Colorado?
Could O'Day actually win this race in which Michael Bennett, the Democrat, is up plus 7.5?
Yeah.
So we've had Joe on a couple of times.
The first time way back in the primary when basically nobody knew who he was and Democrats were funding a primary opponent against him because they didn't want him on the ballot.
And they recognized what I think our audience recognized in about 15 seconds is that this guy is very authentic.
And the contrast to Michael Bennett like could not be greater, right?
I mean, what's the thing you say about Michael Bennett?
He's softer than Giza Sheets, which he is, right?
And all he's ever done throughout the course of his career is nod along with his party leadership, whether it was President Obama, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, whomever, he has just followed orders and he's never really stepped out.
Remember, he ran for president?
I've forgotten that he should be disqualified for that reason alone.
The very idea that Michael Bennett looks in the mirror and thinks he could be president is insane.
Insane.
But even though he ran for president, he still looks a lot like a generic Democrat.
And that's not something you want to be this cycle.
And the tricky thing with Colorado is that the right track, wrong track number in the state and the Biden approval in the state has actually remained a little bit more favorable to Democrats than it is in other states around the country.
That's changing now within the last few weeks.
Probably a lot of it's due to Joe O'Day, who's just a tremendous candidate.
Yeah, he really draws a striking contrast.
He's been running a really aggressive, very good campaign, got a good campaign staff.
That thing's closing.
Look, is it at the outer reaches of where Republicans would like to be in November, right?
Sure, but it all depends.
I look at these races as they break one way with late undecideds late in the month.
It's either a two to three point break, three to five point break, or on one occasion in my career, it was five plus, and that was 2014 on a statewide basis.
If it's two or three, it's very, very difficult, right?
But if it is a five-plus situation, Joe O'Day's coming to Washington.
Wow.
That would be huge.
I mean, do you think that would be one of the biggest political upsets after New York, after New York and the governor's race?
Yeah, I mean, no question about it.
It's very akin to, you know, Glenn Young basically winning the state of Virginia last year, right?
It thought to be absolutely impossible with a generic D plus 12 environment, and he won.
So, yeah, no, stranger things have happened.
And I think also coming out of COVID has made a lot of these blue states more gettable for us, right?
Because, you know, these voters have lived under, you know, these tyrannical restrictions and the lockdowns and the school closures and all of that sort of stuff.
Teachers Drive Poll Tightening 00:06:57
And this is now finally their first opportunity to make their opposition to those things known in the ballot box.
We saw it in Virginia.
A lot of voters around the country have just had all this pent-up frustration with nowhere to put it except writing on Facebook or showing up at a PTA meeting and getting tagged as a domestic terrorist by Merrick Garland.
That reminds me of two things.
So that takes me to Michigan, okay?
Because I agree with you, COVID retribution is at play, whether it's polled for or spoken aloud or not.
And the culture wars.
And I know you guys talked to Tudor Dixon.
So Michigan's getting really interesting.
Gretchen Whitmer, I mean, everybody just thought for sure she's got this.
Again, to take a walk down memory lane, in August, Whitmer was up 17.6 percentage points over Tudor Dixon, her challenger.
October 1st, that had fallen to up 10.
Now she's up 3.2.
I mean, from 17.6 to 3.2.
So it's even worse for her than it is for Kathy Hochul here in New York.
And I think, having listened a bit to Tudor Dixon, who I know you interviewed, in part it's because Tudor Dixon is amazing on culture war issues.
I mean, you get her talking about critical race theory in the schools and all this nonsense, and you just want to sit back and pop the popcorn.
Yeah.
And then you look at the studies that are coming out now that, you know, kids are basically two years behind on math and science and reading.
And, you know, they're talking about drag queen story hour and, you know, pronouns and gender affirming care.
And, you know, so it's no surprise.
And you're absolutely right, Megan.
I mean, she's like smart as a whip and she's so sharp on these culture issues.
And it's going to matter.
It's going to matter a lot to parents, you know, who are going to make a disproportionate part of the electorate in the midterm.
And I said, for example, go ahead, Smock.
I think it's starting to become like really apparent to Dems that the policy decisions that they were responsible for, like Duncan said, they're going to be held accountable for.
This is the first election where they're going to be held accountable for the decisions that they made in Whitmer's case, keeping schools closed for years.
And then last night on the debate stage, Gretchen Whitmer lies and says that, oh, I only closed schools for three months, which is demonstrably false, which is, which is, you know, there are a number of her own tweets where she says, yes, I'm going to keep schools closed until Thanksgiving.
And then in the meantime, it's also important for voters to remember, March of 2021, when she's keeping schools closed, she flies to Florida for vacation.
So the hypocrisy and the lies from Gretchen Whitmer is something that voters are waking up to.
And that's why you're seeing the polls tighten to the point that this is a winnable race.
So I have a very good friend, one of my closest friends, lives in Michigan, right outside of Detroit.
And she is a true blue Democrat.
I mean, she voted Democrat in every election her entire life.
And she is so not on board with this woke crap.
Like she, she's a normal Midwesterner.
You know, Midwesterners are pretty cool.
They're not extreme.
And I really feel like the Democratic Party has lost sight of that.
They've forgotten that even their team is not on board with this crazy 10% or whatever it is on the far left of their party that's pushing all this insanity on us.
And to me, it was outlined by CBS recently did a focus group with a Dem, a GOPer, and an independent.
And they got on this topic.
And we pulled a soundbite just to show you what happened.
Listen to this.
Biggest concerns about raising children in America right now.
John?
The whole woke culture affecting our children.
All these elementary schools and middle schools having woke culture pushed on them from the LGBT plus community for sexual identity and gender.
We should be pushing the actual school studies, math, social studies, science.
I can also agree with some of his points.
I really will say sex education.
I feel like some things are brought to the children's attention they wouldn't even think about.
And you have eight kids.
I imagine you have some pretty specific ideas in your mind when you're speaking about this.
Yes.
The children are, yeah, they're really influenced.
You can teach them one thing at home, but when they go to school, they're just as much influenced by their teachers and their surroundings.
And we should have more input, the parents.
I agree.
Often when we do these focus groups, we have people from different party affiliations disagreeing with each other, but I'm hearing all of you echo a lot of the same concerns and agreeing with each other.
Yeah.
And if you agree on those issues, you tell me who do you vote for?
Yeah, you have one choice, right?
I mean, it's a Republican candidate because the Democrats, honestly, this is their invention, right?
And I mean, it was a secret to Virginia and Glenn Young, but it's also fused into almost every campaign throughout the country at this point, right?
The schools issue, the COVID issue that gave rise to it and a greater understanding of the curriculum that these children were being taught and the school boards that somehow have more of an allegiance to activist communities than they do your children's education has just become one of those ties that bind.
And you've seen everything from the left center all the way to the far right sort of put an umbrella around it.
And yeah, you only have one choice in this election if that's your concern.
I mean, that's the thing is like, you know, you saw the teachers unions and these schools essentially, you know, set up their own fall where they wanted to keep schools closed.
But as a result of teaching classes on Zoom, parents saw, you know, they're not teaching math, science, social studies, history, you know, at this kid's school.
They're teaching this woke garbage.
They're asking, you know, second graders, third graders to talk about sexual identity, which is insane to be asking and talking to children to.
And anyone, I think, talking to someone underage about that should be arrested.
But this is coming from teachers.
And it's insane.
It's insane that the Democrat Party has on issues like COVID or, you know, gender theory or critical race theory.
They've let their party get hijacked by that extreme you were describing, Holmes, and they pander to it.
And that becomes the policy of the party, which is just so wild to me.
If you looked at the median Democrat voter, they're the furthest thing from all of those things.
And for whatever reason, that furthest left thing becomes the policy they expect the entire party to toe the line on.
Wear two masks, wear three masks, 10 boosters forever for the rest of your life and mandate it.
Vaccine Messaging Shifts 00:08:25
Like that is not where your average Democrat is.
I've got family in Michigan.
They are normal people.
They are not super partisan people.
And they look at this stuff and they just shake their head.
Well, Democrats are facing the consequences for this all over the map.
And they're facing the consequences with working class people of all stripes because the working class in this country are very concerned about the economy.
I mean, paying for their groceries, paying for the gasoline, paying for their housing, paying for whatever.
And all they're hearing from Democrats in Washington is culture, culture, culture.
You're seeing it in every single state.
You're seeing it in Colorado.
You're seeing it in Michigan.
And Megan, you mentioned Nevada.
You're seeing it in Nevada in spades.
All right, we'll get to Nevada in just one second, but on the subject of COVID and the messaging, because Whitmer was the worst.
I mean, she truly is like, she's the anti-DeSantis.
She was a lockdown queen.
The White House has a new message in advance of Monday's upcoming Halloween holiday on COVID.
Since we're talking about the vaccine and the messaging and the shot and its never-ending commitment and fealty to it, listen to how they are now trying to push what they're, well, I'll let this the ad speak for itself.
So listen to how they're now messaging on the COVID vaccine.
Since you can't see it, but you can hear it.
Unbelievable.
Get your annual.
I can't read it from here, but I know it says, oh, it says, get your annual COVID vaccine shot.
Your annual.
Get your annual vaccine shot.
So they couldn't, somebody said, get rid of the term vaccine because it's not one, I bet.
And then somebody else said, are you insane?
We call it a vaccine.
And so they settled on vaccine shot.
But annual probably exactly what happened?
Annual.
Masterminds of the White House Communications Department, right?
So how many are we going to get?
Right.
How many are going to get?
Like, oh, my Thatcher, he's, he's nine.
You know, God willing, he's going to have a nice long life.
So how many does he have?
He has like 91 shots in store for him.
Oh, right.
Well, I mean, look, it's born out of a total dishonesty about all of it, right?
And the reason that people are reluctant to get COVID shots is because they were told that they prevented infection, right?
I mean, you remember the whole pandemic of the unvaccinated, right?
Oh, wait a minute.
All of a sudden, if you're vaccinated, like three weeks later, you can get COVID again.
Well, nobody told us that.
And then you hear later that they never even tested whether or not you could get it after you get vaccinated.
And so it's that skepticism that's built into that.
Right.
Well, especially when we knew that we knew so much of this and they kept telling us the sky was purple rather than it was blue.
Knew it was a low, you know small c coronavirus, that the flu is also a coronavirus, that you get a flu shot every year because it doesn't prevent you from getting the flu.
And if they're both coronaviruses, you follow the logic to say well, this vaccine isn't going to prevent me from always getting covet.
That's not how this is going to work.
Yeah, I mean podcasters.
Why is it that we're figuring this out finally?
We figured this out like a year ago, right?
I mean, it's insane.
It took the NEW YORK Supreme Court to hand down that ruling where they demanded everyone who was fired for refusing to get uh the Covid shot uh be reinstated in their jobs and be given back pay because of the fact that this is from the NEW YORK Supreme Court, that the the covet shot does not prevent uh infection.
So it took this long when you had the White House for years attacking Americans saying that's a pandemic of the unvaccinated uh.
Meanwhile, Pfizer just announced that they're raising the prices on that because now they have support from the government to ensure that it's mandated among even more people and they can increase their profits.
And now they want to mandate it for kids.
There you go, make it part of the vaccine schedule.
We got to talk about that.
So just two points.
Yesterday we had an interview with Rfk Jr and he was great on the, on the whether the vaccines have ever prevented transmission and how he raised very early on this study that had been done on monkeys that showed the monkeys spreading the, the virus post vaccination, and he raised it, as he always does, on instagram and he was shut down.
He was shut down because he said, I don't think this, even the original vaccine prevents transmission.
And then we saw the Pfizer executive, in that exchange with the European Parliament, admit exactly that they never even tested for that, they never even posited that.
But Anthony Fauci was out there saying it would prevent transmission and Joe Biden was out there saying prevent transmission.
And all these policies were put in place and schools were shut down and the anti, the unvaccinated, were shamed by our entire administration, federal and Democratic state leaders, for not getting vaccinated, including Whitmer, including Hochle, including all these people we're talking about.
So it's absolutely outrageous.
And and just to clarify, the NEW YORK State Supreme Court, that's the trial court, so it's going to go up on appeal.
Weirdly, we call our highest court here the Court OF Appeals.
But so you got.
You got the the trial, you got the Supreme Court, you got the Appellate Division, you got the Court OF Appeals.
So that's going to work its way up.
But I think that Supreme Court judge came to the right conclusion about those back pay and and not firing any more public service workers who don't have the vaccine.
It's ridiculous.
At this point I knew we had a lawyer around here somewhere.
Yeah it's uh, it's outrageous.
But on your point about the kids vaccines, you know I did a whole thing about this last week because i'm very angry about this that that that the CDC would recommend the Covet vaccine to go on the annual list of recommended mandated vaccines, which of course these rubber stampers are going to do.
And then the CDC says, oh, it wasn't us, it was your local authorities.
And the local authorities are like, oh, it wasn't us.
The CDC said we ought to do it.
Um, here's Hokel And Lee Zeldon, the Republican challenger, talking about exactly that thing.
And listen to how she leaves herself the wiggle room.
She's not honest enough to say she's going to do it.
Sorry um, here it is.
Soundbite, soundbite eight.
Will you follow the Cdc's, CDC's recommendation to add COVID vaccines to children's vaccine schedules?
Not at this time.
My opponent just said she will not mandate COVID vaccines at this time.
Let me be clear to all the parents who are out there.
I will not mandate COVID vaccines for your kids ever.
Thank you.
That's clear.
There you go.
Clear contrast.
Clear contrast.
Yeah, I mean, look, this is such a big deal, right?
And what I don't understand is, you know, I'm not a, I don't know anything about this stuff, but I do know it takes an awful long time to get something on a mandated schedule, particularly for children.
And it both to the efficacy of it, but also what it is that you're trying to prevent, right?
And what we're trying to prevent in like polio, for example, is a debilitating disease that killed thousands of Americans back in the day.
And there is a legitimate reason to do that, right?
It has proven efficacy over 60 years of taking care of this problem, nearly eradicated the problem.
Well, what's the problem with the coronavirus?
Do we still, is there, is there, is it killing children?
Have we gotten to the point where it's killing children?
Like, no, I don't think it is.
Are you mandating that because of what then?
The only other purpose could have been that it's going to prevent community spread, which we already know is not doesn't do.
So there's literally no justification for it.
These kids are not in danger.
Getting the vaccine is not going to prevent community spread at all, as we've seen.
And so it's bonkers.
It's absolutely crazy.
It's yet again another example of the group who is least susceptible to facing consequences of this being held to the worst and most rigorous standards.
We had kids kept out of school where we're now seeing, and it's become universal.
Countries that had these lockdowns and kept kids out of schools, their kids are two, three years behind on education and will probably never catch up to where they should be.
And now you've got the White House using the term.
They're susceptible from being hurt.
Now they've got the White House saying annual.
Annual.
So you got to give it to your kids.
It's going to be on the recommended list of vaccines.
And it's not just, okay, like the one time when you get your baby, you know, the MMR and all that stuff.
It's going to be annual COVID vaccines that you will be forced to mess with your kids' immune system, kids who have already had COVID, kids who are likely to get COVID again, and getting the vaccine and then getting COVID is not a good combo for your immune system.
Even the CDC and Anthony Fauci have admitted that.
This can't happen, but it's going to unless people fight.
All right.
Hispanic Community Political Shift 00:06:58
Let me get to Arizona.
I mean, Nevada, because you guys have been involved in that.
And I really, I'm interested in this.
I don't know that much about this race, but I know it's hugely important.
And that if the GOP wins this one, it's going to be pretty earth-shattering.
Biden won Nevada by 2.4%.
Clinton won Nevada by 2.4%.
The last GOP president to win Nevada was George W. Bush in 2004.
We've got Catherine Cortez-Masto, a Democrat, against Adam Laxalt, a Republican.
And right now, he's leading.
He's point, he's plus 0.8.
She was up in August plus 2.6.
And she stayed ahead until September 13th, but he took the lead and he hasn't let it go since RCP is projecting this is going to be a GOP pickup and it would be a hugely important one.
Holmes, you've been involved in this.
What are you doing?
And how are you feeling about it?
Yeah.
So every cycle, our company, John and Michael and I, we have a political consulting company.
We pick one or two races that we feel like make a significant difference, right?
They could be the difference between minority and majority.
And we knew Adam Laxalt both in a friend capacity and a professional capacity and knew that he was just an incredible potential candidate.
So we recruited him pretty hard to try to get involved here because we felt like it really could make the biggest difference.
Well, he decided to run and it's been an incredible race.
They've spent, what, $60, $70 million trying to smear him.
I mean, everything from like attacking his family to somehow suggesting that his 401k is responsible for gas prices going up.
I mean, you like, it's just truly hilariously laughable stuff.
But they've thrown all this stuff at him and he's run a really disciplined, really good campaign, extraordinary candidate.
I think, I think the best in the country.
And that's not just because we work with him.
I mean, he's really, really done great work.
But yeah, we're now down to it.
And like you said, Nevada is a very purple state, right?
This is a very, very narrowly divided place, but it just so happens to have conditions, both economic and otherwise, that make a lot of voters in that center left, center right, and particularly in the Hispanic community, much more open to the Republican view of the world right now than they had been probably for the last 10 years.
Yeah, this is one of those states where Democrats have absolutely overlooked the economic situation that people are in.
This is a working class state.
These are people who, you know, you hear about 8% inflation nationally.
Inflation in Nevada is 16%.
You hear about gas prices.
Democrats are saying, oh, they're coming down nationally.
They didn't go down in Nevada.
And this is a state where people are driving to work every day, 15, 20 minutes.
So what does that mean?
Why is that significant?
Because they're filling up their tank every week just to earn a paycheck so that they can get home, figure out how to pay the high grocery prices that Catherine Cortez-Masto and Joe Biden have given them, figure out how to pay for the gas prices they've been given and figure out how to pay for their housing.
People are dissatisfied.
This is a referendum on poor leadership in Washington.
This is an election where people just simply want change.
And it spans every single demographic.
It's Latinos, it's white, it's everybody.
And Laxall has two advantages that Dr. Oz doesn't get in Pennsylvania.
Number one, he's running against an incumbent, right?
And Catherine Cortez-Masto has rubber stamped all of the failed economic policies of the Biden administration.
So she's responsible for all of it, not to mention, you know, rising crimes going on, the borders in chaos and all of that sort of stuff.
So there's that.
Then you got Vegas.
You've got a hospitality industry that was disproportionately impacted by the COVID lockdowns and all of that.
And they're still dragging themselves out of the ditch, right?
And so you add those two things in.
And even though the state was won by a larger margin by Joe Biden, the situation for Democrats is perilous.
The Latino vote you just mentioned, this is how Time magazine put it.
This is a signpost to the future of American politics.
A crucial test, this Senate race we're discussing, a crucial test of whether Democrats can hold on to or Republicans can peel off the voting block that could determine future elections for a generation or more, which is why both candidates are making an aggressive play to appeal to Latinos, a voting group that is key to victory in Nevada and maybe up for grabs in a brand new way in that state.
It's weird because his entire family is against him.
It seems like every day you hear about some other nasty family member who's like, Adam sucks.
Well, you know what's super funny about that?
So, so like every family, Laxol family is a big family, right?
Your family is mentioned that your mom's a Democrat.
My family, both my parents were Democrats, right?
I mean, in every family, you've got Republicans and Democrats.
And, you know, you go down the line.
And like the core part of Adam's family are all incredibly supportive of his candidacy.
And then you've got Democrats, right?
That don't want to vote Republican.
And so surprise, surprise, every cycle where his name has ever been on a ballot, they roll these people out as if it's some kind of a character assessment of Adam Black Salt, which I find.
I mean, look, it's politics.
So I expect the bottom of the barrel, but it's pretty darn close to the bottom of the barrel.
But I wanted to touch on the Hispanic piece that you mentioned, because I think that's the most important thing that's happening here.
We watched, and I know you've probably talked to Myra Flores in South Texas and what's happening down there during the course of the primary elections and then that special election.
But there's this distinct shift that's happening across this country with the Hispanic community.
Part of it is the cultural issues that you talked about.
Part of it is the economic issues that no longer resonate with them at all because they're suffering under it.
And then the other piece is the crime, right?
And contrary to the conventional wisdom that Democrats have fed us for 20 years, the Hispanic community is incredibly, incredibly pissed off about the border situation, right?
Their communities in large part are the ones that suffer the greatest consequences, whether it's human trafficking, whether it's drugs, what have you.
And so multi-generational Hispanic communities in this country have flipped.
And there is a big, massive shift.
You know, Cortez Masto won Hispanics by 40% in her last election.
It's basically a neck and neck deal in Nevada right now.
And I think that that is only a good thing for this country, certainly a great thing for Nevada.
But I think in the larger, much larger context, when you see South Florida, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, this vote share is now actively being competed for by Republicans up and down the ticket.
And that is an excellent thing for this country.
Georgia Momentum and Surprises 00:06:32
I want to give, I saw you retweeted this, Josh.
This is fascinating.
So GOP strategist Jeremy Hughes tweeted out data from the first weekend of early voting in Nevada.
And this is, why are you giggling?
Do you know Jeremy Hughes?
What is that?
Yeah, we know Jeremy Hughes.
Awesome guy.
Okay.
I thought it was like, is it a GOP strategist is always so amorphous.
It's like, what does that mean?
Who's that?
That's going to be like some 21-year-old sitting.
No, he knows what he's talking about.
He's one of the very few that know what they're talking about.
Great guy.
Okay.
There's a backstory here.
I'm going to have to get to it and I'll bring it to my audience members when I get it from you.
So he tweets this out.
I love the information on the early voting.
It's like getting a sneak peek.
It feels like you're not allowed to know, but he tweets out the following.
Here's some data from the first weekend of early voting and mail ballots in Nevada.
Definitely like red alarm fire for Democrats and good stuff for Republicans.
So he's looking at 2022 so far, comparing it to what happened in 2020 in the mail-in ballots at this point, saying, and pointing out we don't have rural numbers at this point, which tend to be more Republican-leaning in general.
In 2020, after the first batch of mail was tabulated, Democrats led by 37.8% in Clark County.
In 2022, after the first batch of mail was tabulated, Democrats led by 23.15% in Clark County.
So from 37.8% to 23.15, not doing as well as his point.
Let's go to, is it Washoe County?
Yep.
Okay.
In 2020, after the first batch of mail was tabulated, Democrats led there 29.5% up.
In 2022, 16.6% in the same county, from 29 down to 16.
In Clark County, back in 2020, Republicans lost the early vote on Saturday and Sunday.
They won both days in 2022.
It went from losing to winning.
And finally, in 2020, Democrats had a lead of 36,000 in Clark and Washoe County at this point.
Now it's a lead of 7,907.
Bottom line, things are looking very good for Republicans.
Anything could change, but those are dramatic falls.
Those aren't small falls.
Those are big.
Yeah, it's good.
It's good news, but it's also very early and that vote tabulation is pretty light.
Was a light first weekend in comparison to maybe some expectations, but we clearly did better than 2020, for example, when it was only a two-point race at the top of the ticket.
I think the most important thing for people who are in Nevada is that this is an election where you got to all get involved, right?
It's we've talked about it in every one of these states, but if you have friends and neighbors that are interested in changing the direction, you got to do it.
You got to get out there and you got to walk the door-to-door.
You got to put up a sign.
You got to go talk to friends and neighbors about it because they're counting on apathy, right?
Democrats have this machine where they like to turn, they call it the culinary union, right?
And they think that they can just sort of turn over all of the votes of the culinary union as they have in years past to a Democratic candidate.
Now, I have some reason to believe that that's probably not going to happen the same way it has in years past because of some of the things that you were talking about earlier with the hospitality industry and the way that Democratic governance has worked.
But the point is, they have a formidable turnout machine.
And so, Republicans are going to have to work real hard to put that one in the bank.
But I think we're heading the right direction.
All right, before I let you go, let's go down the line.
Predictions on Senate on the Senate.
Will the Republicans take it?
And if so, how many seats will they wind up with?
Let's start.
Johnny, you want to start?
Uh, never like to do this, but I'm going to say 51.
I think, I think Republicans do take the Senate, and I think we protect all of our real estate.
I think that Oz wins in Pennsylvania, we win Ohio, we won Wisconsin.
We keep all of the seats that are in our hands right now, and we pick up.
But not Georgia, not Georgia.
Well, I think we could, I think we could pick up in Georgia.
I know, it could, but like if you had to put money.
Here we go.
I think we could pick up in Georgia.
You caught him being a politician there, man.
All right, Duncan, let's have it.
What do you say?
Um, I think 51 on election night with a runoff in Georgia.
Well, that's that's where I was headed with this.
I, I, I think we've got 51 on election night.
I definitely think that there is going to be a razor-thin issue because Georgia has that 50% threshold you have to hit or you go into a runoff.
We all experienced that nightmare in 2020.
I think the likelihood of that repeating itself is somewhat, somewhat certain.
But, but I will say, if Pennsylvania and Nevada go in the Republican category and we hold everything else, you know, the majority is not at stake at that point.
It's about adding to 52.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then no one cares about Georgia at that point.
Smug, what do you think?
52.
I'm going with 52.
And also, I have a really good feeling.
Arizona is starting to feel like, you know, you see the momentum that Carrie Lake has gotten.
You see how well Blake's campaign has been doing right here at the close.
I think there's going to be a lot of surprises.
I think you look at the way that polling's closed and the direction it's going in the past month.
There's a lot of momentum, but that doesn't mean Republicans should let up.
Like Josh said, you got to go out there, you door knock, make a plan to vote, get your friends involved.
So on your 52, that would mean you think the Republicans are going to keep Pennsylvania, I assume, and they're going to gain where?
I think they take Nevada and they take Arizona, they take Georgia.
That takes us 53.
53.
Look at that.
Look at that.
You buys your own mask.
I'm not going to have you doing the vote test.
All right.
I'm not going to hold you to it, but it's always fascinating just to see how you're feeling about it.
And traditionally, I mean, especially when it's not your party in power, these last two weeks, as Josh was touching on, would be even greater momentum builders for the party out of power.
Like the way these momentum is right now in the Republicans' favor.
And if you look at past history on midterm elections in the past, in the last two weeks of the race, it goes even more in the direction of the challenging party.
So we shall see.
We'll know soon.
You guys, such a pleasure.
Thanks as always.
Always great.
Great to see you, Megan.
Thoughts and prayers with your family and loved ones.
Thank you.
Lots of love.
Tomorrow, Sean Parnell is going to be with us.
He was originally running in this Pennsylvania Senate race until he had to drop out due to personal matters, matters he's never talked about publicly until now.
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
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