The Megyn Kelly Show - 20221107_fettermans-faults-and-tomorrows-red-wave-plus-tiff
Aired: 2022-11-07
Duration: 01:33:09


=== Election Night Live Stream (03:11) ===

[00:00:50]  Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
[00:01:10]  First, wanted to let you know that in addition to our regular shows, we will also be live on Election Night from 9 to 11 p.m. Eastern Time on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111.
[00:01:20]  And for the first time ever, also we will be live on YouTube.
[00:01:25]  That's going to be so fun.
[00:01:26]  We're going to bring you the results as they come in.
[00:01:28]  An instant, unfiltered reaction with some of our friends who will be stopping by, a cast of all-stars, including Dennis Prager, Barry Weiss, David Sachs, Camille Foster, Emily Jashinsky, Ryan Grimm, and Larry Elder.
[00:01:41]  Not to mention, we've got all the polls covered closely by friends from Real Clear Politics from National Review.
[00:01:47]  Everything that you want will be right here in depth and with some personality, unlike what you're going to find most of the other places.
[00:01:54]  This will be our first election night where I'll be on air talking about the results while being allowed to curse and drink.
[00:02:02]  Maybe just curse.
[00:02:03]  So anything can happen.
[00:02:04]  Before we get to tomorrow night, though, there's a lot of news to get to right now, including the very latest on why NBC News expired.
[00:02:12]  Okay, this is a new, this is a first for me in reporting.
[00:02:15]  I've never heard that.
[00:02:16]  They expired their Friday reporting on the Paul Pelosi attack with absolutely no real explanation on why they just humiliated one of their long-term reporters who's gone totally silent now on Twitter.
[00:02:29]  Is he going to be disciplined?
[00:02:31]  What are they going to do?
[00:02:32]  If he was so wrong, it's so disgustingly off base.
[00:02:35]  What's going to happen to him?
[00:02:36]  Or is this just a case of them bending the knee to some angry staffer in Pelosi's office because they're not being specific about what exactly was wrong with the report that they quote expired?
[00:02:48]  Now, in the wake of this, the New York Times is claiming I am spreading misinformation.
[00:02:53]  What did I do?
[00:02:54]  What was so wrong?
[00:02:55]  I did it right in front of you.
[00:02:56]  You're the people I spread it to, allegedly.
[00:02:58]  Quote, I, this is how I did it.
[00:03:01]  I quote, raised doubts that all facts were being disclosed, end quote, on this attack.
[00:03:08]  I'm not kidding.
[00:03:09]  In the New York Times, we call that being a journalist.
[00:03:12]  You should try it.
[00:03:13]  It could work out really well for you.
[00:03:15]  Unbelievable.
[00:03:16]  And I'm not the only person being smeared as a misinformation purveyor for asking facts, literally just asking facts.
[00:03:22]  At no point have I suggested a conspiracy theory in the Paul Pelosi case.
[00:03:26]  I said the police appear to have egg on their face and that there appear to be more facts yet to be disclosed.
[00:03:31]  That's what Miguel did in his piece on Friday, which has been, quote, expired.
[00:03:35]  So we'll get into that.
[00:03:36]  We're going to do a deep dive into this story during the show, which you don't want to miss.
[00:03:39]  First, though, we are talking with two women looking to take down two top Democratic lawmakers tomorrow night.
[00:03:46]  They were once considered long shots.
[00:03:48]  Now they have a real shot.
[00:03:50]  Tudor Dixon is running against Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, and Tiffany Smiley.
[00:03:56]  You've heard her name mentioned over and over again by pundits on this show as a comer, you know, somebody you got to watch.

=== Tiffany Smiley vs Patty Murray (15:49) ===

[00:04:02]  She is looking to defeat longtime Washington State Senator Patty Murray.
[00:04:07]  And we begin right there with Tiffany Smiley.
[00:04:10]  Tiffany, welcome to the show.
[00:04:11]  Thank you, Megan.
[00:04:12]  Good to be on with you.
[00:04:13]  Yeah, it's great to see you again.
[00:04:15]  Many moons ago, I believe I interviewed you and your husband on Fox.
[00:04:20]  Yes, amazing.
[00:04:21]  It's good to see you again, Megan.
[00:04:23]  You've been very busy in that time.
[00:04:26]  Your husband is a veteran.
[00:04:27]  His story is very moving.
[00:04:29]  Your advocacy of his recovery after a devastating injury while fighting for our country is inspirational.
[00:04:35]  And so let's just start broad base for people who don't know you and haven't been paying much attention to Washington State.
[00:04:41]  What makes you think you can take down someone like Patty Murray, who is, I don't know how many times she's been reelected by the Democrats.
[00:04:49]  She's 72.
[00:04:50]  She's like about to take sort of senior status on all these important committees.
[00:04:54]  If she gets reelected, that can make citizens say, yeah, we want her.
[00:04:58]  We want the power for Washington State.
[00:05:00]  What makes you think you can do it?
[00:05:02]  Yeah, well, if power really mattered and seniority really mattered, then why did she not stand up for us and fight for us?
[00:05:08]  You know, why was my husband given a VA system that wasn't ready or prepared to give him every tool that he needed to be successful?
[00:05:16]  You know, I saw firsthand the roadblocks that government will put up in front of our heroes and their families, the red tape and the bureaucratic government systems.
[00:05:25]  So Senator Murray is a part of that system.
[00:05:27]  I was 11 years old when she was first elected.
[00:05:30]  And we are not in a better place.
[00:05:32]  In every room I go into, I ask them, you know, are you in a better place?
[00:05:35]  They say, no, we are worse off.
[00:05:37]  If seniority mattered, then we would be in a much better place.
[00:05:41]  And it's clear in every room I go into across Washington State, we are packing out rooms.
[00:05:46]  Hundreds of people are coming out to hear our message.
[00:05:48]  Washington state does not need seniority.
[00:05:51]  What we need is motivation and principle.
[00:05:55]  And the voters of Washington State know that that is exactly what I will bring to the halls of Congress when they send me there.
[00:06:03]  People want real results.
[00:06:05]  Policy cannot be based on intentions.
[00:06:09]  It has to be based on positive impact in people's lives.
[00:06:13]  It has to be based on results.
[00:06:14]  We're connecting on common ground with voters all across Washington State.
[00:06:17]  Connie Murray's been non-existent, Megan.
[00:06:19]  Like she's not around.
[00:06:21]  She's been phoning it in thinking she just had a hall pass, you know, to go to D.C.
[00:06:26]  And truly, all she does is rubber stamp vote, go along to get along.
[00:06:31]  That's what she is.
[00:06:33]  Yeah.
[00:06:33]  Let me tell you.
[00:06:34]  So to what extent, I mean, Washington State, Seattle in particular, has been facing a crime wave like much of the rest of the nation.
[00:06:41]  So, and I realize you've been running like most Republicans on a tough on crime platform, unlike Senator Murray.
[00:06:48]  But what can a senator do to help crime in Washington state?
[00:06:54]  I can understand if you ran for governor, if you ran for mayor of Seattle, what can a senator do?
[00:06:59]  Yeah, well, senator can do a lot.
[00:07:01]  Number one is lead.
[00:07:03]  And, you know, Senator Murray's dangerous rhetoric is not helpful to our police officers here in Washington State.
[00:07:09]  She actually went on the Senate floor June of 2020 and called for funds to be diverted away from our police force.
[00:07:15]  And then she disappeared and went into hiding as crime ravaged our cities all across Washington state.
[00:07:22]  So what I can do at the federal level is I will ensure that our police officers in Washington State have access to federal grants for $5,000 retention and recruiting bonuses.
[00:07:31]  So we retain and recruit good cops here in Washington State.
[00:07:36]  Another component that's important to address in this, Megan, as well, is our southern border.
[00:07:41]  Because when we talk about crime, we need to talk about drugs because that's the impetus that a lot of the crime that's going on, especially in Washington State.
[00:07:49]  We have a fentanyl crisis across the state.
[00:07:51]  So we need to secure our border, ensure that our Border Patrol agents and law enforcement agencies down at the border have every resource that they need, invest in technology and secure our borders, stop the flow of fentanyl state and killing our kids.
[00:08:06]  Seattle has persistently high crime.
[00:08:08]  It's dark.
[00:08:09]  It's not, the numbers are not good.
[00:08:11]  4,379 cases of violent crime so far this year, slowly encroaching on last year's total of 5,407, 42 homicides in 2022.
[00:08:22]  In all of 2021, there were 42.
[00:08:24]  So you guys are on track to surpass the homicide record.
[00:08:29]  And then there was a notable murder causing headlines as of August 2nd.
[00:08:32]  And I wonder whether this has played a significant role at all in your messaging.
[00:08:36]  A disabled 66-year-old being beaten to death with a metal poll in Seattle shown on footage.
[00:08:44]  And this was allegedly by a serial criminal who'd been freed by a local judge on a separate felony charge just eight days earlier.
[00:08:51]  This has caught a lot of attention.
[00:08:54]  Those of us over here on the East Coast and in the media, I mean, I think we think of Seattle as just far left, you know, let's go softer on criminals kind of people.
[00:09:03]  But this case is turning a lot of heads.
[00:09:06]  Yes, you're exactly right, Megan.
[00:09:08]  Just a couple of weeks ago, I was at an event in Seattle with Democrats and independents.
[00:09:13]  And they said their number one issue is their safety.
[00:09:16]  They do not feel safe.
[00:09:18]  And that's exactly why they are voting for me.
[00:09:20]  Many are saying you're the first Republican that I've ever voted for.
[00:09:24]  Homicide rates were so high just a few months ago that our hospitals were in a crisis of blood shortage.
[00:09:31]  And so our campaign actually hosted a two-day blood drive to help vote bolster that supply of life-saving, you know, blood supplements.
[00:09:40]  So there is a crisis here.
[00:09:41]  Senator Murray doesn't talk about it.
[00:09:43]  In fact, I filmed an ad on crime and I was standing in a parking lot where there were actual murders.
[00:09:51]  I had to have security with me when I was filming this ad.
[00:09:54]  Senator Murray came back and mocked me, basically said, there's no crime here.
[00:09:59]  I'm getting a cup of coffee.
[00:10:00]  Everything's fine in our communities.
[00:10:02]  And this is when everything started to backfire really in her campaign because she fails to address this issue.
[00:10:08]  She fails to be a leader and stand with our law enforcement and protect, truly protect the people of Washington state.
[00:10:16]  Per capita, we have the least amount of police officers per thousand people.
[00:10:21]  We're in a very, very dangerous place.
[00:10:22]  I'm talking to people all over Washington state.
[00:10:24]  You know, women just going to lunch at noon and getting violently assaulted and not enough police officers to even respond or even track down or, you know, investigate the case.
[00:10:38]  So there's real issues on the ground.
[00:10:40]  I always say these are not Democrat or Republican issues.
[00:10:43]  These are American issues.
[00:10:44]  This is about the livelihood and safety of our communities, the bedrock of truly who we are as a country.
[00:10:49]  It's law and order.
[00:10:51]  Yeah, no, the crime rate is driving Democrats all across the country to go to the polls tomorrow for Republicans, according to the polls, including in New York State, the state from which I hail.
[00:11:01]  In that one case I just mentioned with this disabled 66-year-old, the man who did it, who is accused, was arrested, as I said, eight days later, released by a judge without bail on a separate charge of felony harassment after he allegedly threatened to kill a local city worker.
[00:11:17]  And in a case that we've kind of seen in different forms time after time, the Superior Court judge released him on his own recognizance and asked him not to commit any more crime.
[00:11:31]  This is via the Daily Mail on the Seattle Police Crime Dashboard.
[00:11:33]  Unbelievable.
[00:11:34]  Asked him not to commit any more crime and ignored the prosecutor's request for $10,000 in bail.
[00:11:41]  The guy did not honor his commitment not to commit any more crime.
[00:11:45]  And now a 66-year-old disabled person was beaten to death.
[00:11:50]  I wonder what this is going to do because for me, as I understand it from over here, it all comes down to Seattle for you.
[00:11:55]  You need to get a certain percentage.
[00:11:57]  It's sort of like New York City, you know, here, like without a certain percentage of the New York City liberal votes, Lee Zeldon's not going to beat Kathy Hochul.
[00:12:06]  Without a certain percentage of the Seattle votes, you can't beat Patty Murray, no matter how well you do in the suburbs and the other areas of Washington state.
[00:12:14]  And this happened in Seattle, I guess.
[00:12:17]  But you haven't been doing a lot of campaigning in Seattle.
[00:12:21]  And according to the Seattle Times, they say that's going to be, quote, a huge mistake.
[00:12:27]  So do you feel like you should have done more to get Seattle's votes?
[00:12:32]  Well, I don't know what they're talking about because I have been in Seattle quite often.
[00:12:35]  I just mentioned the two-day blood drive that our campaign hosted to bolster the blood supply for a local hospital in downtown Seattle.
[00:12:42]  I've actually been in a lot of the homeless encampments in Seattle.
[00:12:45]  I visited the SOTO homeless encampment in the heart of Seattle, one of the largest, and was helping clean up dirty needles.
[00:12:53]  I was talking with the folks there.
[00:12:55]  And what's interesting is I was meeting with a group that's non-political group.
[00:12:59]  They're just taking action to help clean up the streets.
[00:13:01]  And when I was there in that homeless encampment, there was another woman there helping clean up and do harm reduction.
[00:13:07]  And she yelled my name from across the encampment and came over.
[00:13:10]  And she said, Tiffany Smiley.
[00:13:13]  And I said, yes.
[00:13:14]  You know, I don't know what attack ads you're watching, but I'm really, I'm really a nice person.
[00:13:18]  She said, no, no, no, no, I'm so happy to be here with you.
[00:13:21]  She said, I have always voted Democrat.
[00:13:23]  I've always voted for Patty Murray.
[00:13:25]  And this year I'm voting for you.
[00:13:26]  And I'm honored.
[00:13:27]  It was a real special moment because here we are in the heart of Seattle in the face of destruction where we're allowing people to poison themselves to death.
[00:13:35]  And here was a Democrat and Republican shaking hands, coming together, believing in something better for our city and for our state.
[00:13:43]  That's exactly why we are going to win this race, Megan.
[00:13:46]  There is no place that I will not go to talk to the voters of Washington State.
[00:13:51]  And I have been doing that for 18 months.
[00:13:54]  And the method is right now.
[00:13:55]  What percentage of the ground?
[00:13:57]  What percentage of the vote do you think you need to get for those of us who are going to be watching you tomorrow night and reporting on this?
[00:14:01]  What percentage of the vote do you think you need to get in Seattle?
[00:14:04]  Because I'll tell you this, the Seattle Times says if you're a Republican, you have to get close to 40% in liberal King County, which is where they are.
[00:14:11]  Otherwise, you're toast.
[00:14:13]  And they point out that in the primary, which was held just on August 2nd, you got just 19% of the King County vote and all Republican candidates combined scored only 24%.
[00:14:27]  So they're saying, you know, doesn't look that good.
[00:14:31]  You got to drive up those numbers because there's just not enough available vote outside of King County to bring you over the top.
[00:14:38]  How would you put the numbers?
[00:14:40]  Yeah.
[00:14:40]  Yeah, well, I'll say that, you know, the primary numbers, that's after Senator Murray went negative and started attacking me in June, two months prior to the primary.
[00:14:51]  And there were over 12 people on the ballot.
[00:14:54]  So I'm not looking at those numbers.
[00:14:56]  I'm focused on connecting with the voters.
[00:14:58]  So I, you know, I'm not, I would say, in King County to win this election.
[00:15:04]  And that's not, that's not a hard number.
[00:15:06]  We're campaigning hard in Snohomish and Pierce County as well, connecting with voters across the ground.
[00:15:11]  And we're right there.
[00:15:12]  I mean, the enthusiasm on the ground is real.
[00:15:15]  And that's what I'm going to continue to focus on.
[00:15:18]  I'm ending my race exactly how I started it.
[00:15:21]  And it's connecting directly with the voters of Washington State all over this great state.
[00:15:26]  We're barnstorming from one corner to the next.
[00:15:28]  Every single vote will count in this election.
[00:15:31]  And so we're encouraging people to get out and vote.
[00:15:33]  The enthusiasm is real, Megan.
[00:15:35]  What are they saying to you?
[00:15:36]  I mean, honestly, like the Democrat, I know what Republicans care about, but like the Democrats who are considering you, like what is bothering them?
[00:15:45]  Why would they abandon her?
[00:15:47]  Crime.
[00:15:49]  That's that's number one that I hear, especially in Seattle and Stohomish and Pierce County, the crime issue, the education of our children, in addition to the cost of living and gas prices.
[00:16:01]  We have some of the highest gas prices in the country.
[00:16:04]  We have a fentanyl crisis that is brought up in every single room.
[00:16:07]  Again, these aren't Democrat or Republican issues.
[00:16:09]  They're American.
[00:16:10]  In fact, a woman at the event that I just ran in on my bus to do this interview, a woman stopped me outside the bus and she said, I've always voted for Patty Murray.
[00:16:18]  I'm so honored to be voting for you because they want hope.
[00:16:21]  You know, we have got to deliver results.
[00:16:23]  Senator Murray is not talking about any of these issues or campaigning on any of these issues.
[00:16:28]  She's not talking about the crime that's affecting our families every single day.
[00:16:32]  So that's where we're meeting on common ground is addressing the crime crisis, fentanyl.
[00:16:38]  And, you know, Senator Murray was the champion for mandates, lockdowns, shutdowns.
[00:16:43]  She ran as the mom in tennis shoes who's going to fight for our children's education, and she abandoned our children in Washington state.
[00:16:50]  In a CNN interview, she basically doubled down, said she has no regrets with how they handled the pandemic.
[00:16:55]  They followed the science.
[00:16:57]  That was a slap in the face to every parent across Washington state.
[00:17:00]  So we are the campaign for parents.
[00:17:03]  And, you know, when you're talking about our kids, it doesn't matter if you're Democrat or Republican.
[00:17:07]  You want someone who will go fight for your kids to ensure that they have competitive quality education.
[00:17:13]  I'm a mom of three young boys who were in the public school system during the pandemic.
[00:17:17]  Senator Murray failed to address the issues.
[00:17:21]  You know, she says she's, you know, put all this money into the American Rescue Plan.
[00:17:25]  And my answer back to her was: if all of this was so great, Senator Murray, why is it not working?
[00:17:31]  You know, can I ask you a question?
[00:17:33]  Because Third Way, which is a sort of a left-leaning, but not far-left think tank, they did a poll of voters to try to figure out what's going wrong on the Democratic side.
[00:17:44]  They're, you know, they're Democrats.
[00:17:45]  They want the Democrats to win.
[00:17:46]  And they were trying to take an honest look at why it doesn't look like they're going to.
[00:17:50]  And one of the things that they concluded in their polling is, and I quote, this is on education.
[00:17:56]  They say, worse, even in areas where Democrats are trusted more, it is not clear that voters are sold on Democrats' approach or ability to get things done.
[00:18:06]  Jarringly, in a split test between which party will fund the education system and which will improve the education system, Democrats lead by 19 points on funding, but they trail by one point on actually improving it.
[00:18:24]  And just to be behind by one point for the Democrats on, you know, getting voters' approval on education is actually a seismic shift.
[00:18:31]  The voters used to just always go with Democrats when it came to education.
[00:18:34]  It was sort of like climate change, abortion, and education, net net.
[00:18:39]  The electorate would favor Dems.
[00:18:40]  But for them to be saying this Democratic group taking a hard look, saying, when it comes to the way we're actually going to do education, we now favor Republicans.
[00:18:48]  I mean, I think that what you're touching on is being reflected by these polls.
[00:18:52]  Even the Democrat moms, because you're running as a new mom in town, even the Democrat moms have had it.
[00:18:58]  Yes, yes, you're exactly right.
[00:18:59]  And I've been connecting with them over the last 18 months, you know, especially parents with special needs kids.
[00:19:05]  There's actually a lawsuit into the Seattle School District because those kids had no interaction for months.
[00:19:12]  I mean, this is exactly why we will win this race because we have solutions versus just money.
[00:19:18]  We don't have a money problem.
[00:19:19]  We have a solutions problem.
[00:19:21]  And Megan, I think it's also important to note that, and I get cheers all over Washington state for this, is that we have to decrease the stigma that college is for everyone and expose our kids, especially here in Washington state, to trades at a much younger age because there are multiple pathways to the American dream.
[00:19:42]  And we need to be ensuring that our children have access to competitive quality educations that will give them a hand up in this country.

=== Solutions Over Money (02:42) ===

[00:19:52]  Senator Murray does not address this issue.
[00:19:54]  She funds the system.
[00:19:55]  She's a go-along to get along.
[00:19:56]  And the parents of Washington state know that.
[00:20:00]  All right.
[00:20:00]  Donald Trump lost Washington State to Joe Biden by 20 points, 58 to 38.
[00:20:07]  And so what role, if any, does Trump play in this election?
[00:20:11]  He's in the news today for hitting Ron DeSantis as Ron DeSanctimonious.
[00:20:16]  Some Republicans are angry about that.
[00:20:20]  Where do you stand on Donald Trump and whether you want him to be the party nominee in 2024?
[00:20:25]  You know, this campaign here in Washington State, we will shock the country because I have been so successful in this whole campaign because over the last 18 months, there's one endorsement that I am focused on, and that's the voters of Washington State.
[00:20:37]  And they know that.
[00:20:38]  You know, Senator Murray has spent millions of dollars to use a picture of me and the president and smear me across Washington State.
[00:20:46]  And it's really backfiring on her because she doesn't show the voters the picture of me and her.
[00:20:52]  And she doesn't want the voters to hear her talking about me on the Senate floor in 2018, saying what an incredible, effective advocate I am.
[00:21:01]  But that's who I am.
[00:21:02]  And the voters of Washington State know that.
[00:21:04]  I will work with anyone to deliver results.
[00:21:06]  When I met with the president, I was fighting for every Democrat, Republican, independent service member in their family.
[00:21:11]  That's exactly what I will do for Washington State.
[00:21:14]  And we are surging in the polls because my main focus is the voters in Washington State and delivering results.
[00:21:21]  Would you back Trump if you were the party nominee?
[00:21:24]  I mean, would you back him as the nominee?
[00:21:27]  I'm just trying to win in Washington State, and that's what I'm focused on, bringing our country together and moving forward.
[00:21:33]  That is clearly what we need here in Washington State, and that is my main focus.
[00:21:37]  We need to retire Patty Murray.
[00:21:39]  Tiffany, all the best to you and to your husband, too, for his honorable service.
[00:21:44]  And I know the whole family serves.
[00:21:45]  And you've been through a lot.
[00:21:47]  His injury is absolutely devastating, but he continued on.
[00:21:50]  They wanted you to sign his retirement papers while he was still in the hospital.
[00:21:54]  You refused.
[00:21:56]  And I believe he became the first serving blind active duty member, right?
[00:22:03]  Thanks to your refusal to sign those papers after all that.
[00:22:06]  Yes, absolutely.
[00:22:08]  That's what I tell everyone across Washington to say that's exactly who I am.
[00:22:12]  I was the first person to not sign that paperwork to transition Scotty into the VA.
[00:22:18]  I believed in a better purpose.
[00:22:19]  I believed in his life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
[00:22:22]  And that's what I'm fighting for for all of Washington state.
[00:22:25]  You guys are, you truly are American patriots, and it's a pleasure to meet you.
[00:22:29]  Good luck tomorrow.
[00:22:31]  Thank you, Megan.
[00:22:31]  Appreciate you having me on.
[00:22:33]  All the best.

=== Refusing Retirement Papers (14:55) ===

[00:22:34]  And we will be right back with Tudor Dixon, GOP candidate in Michigan.
[00:22:38]  And I just got back from a weekend in Detroit.
[00:22:40]  And let me tell you, everyone was talking about Tudor Dixon.
[00:22:45]  That's next.
[00:22:51]  Our next guest is Tudor Dixon, Republican candidate in the Michigan governor race.
[00:22:56]  In the months leading up to the election, there was a wide polling gap between Tudor and the current governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
[00:23:03]  But in the last few weeks, the gap has narrowed considerably, leaving the competitors neck and neck.
[00:23:09]  It's now at the point where real clear politics is actually suggesting this is going to be a GOP pickup.
[00:23:18]  Wow.
[00:23:18]  What a reversal that would be.
[00:23:20]  Tudor Dixon, welcome to the show.
[00:23:22]  Thank you so much for having me.
[00:23:24]  I mean, that must like, I know you've been working hard, but you've been way outspent.
[00:23:29]  And your opponent is the clear favorite, according to the polls up until recently.
[00:23:35]  So you must have been taken aback when you saw now you're the projected likely winner by Real Clear Politics.
[00:23:41]  What did you make of it?
[00:23:42]  Well, we've been watching the excitement grow on the ground.
[00:23:45]  We think that the movement of people that have decided they don't want Gretchen Whitmer back in office is growing and growing.
[00:23:51]  Parents are more and more upset that the education system is failing in the state of Michigan.
[00:23:56]  So over time, I'm not surprised.
[00:23:58]  She did come out with a lot of money.
[00:24:00]  They have so much money.
[00:24:01]  It's crazy.
[00:24:02]  She's come out with over $25 million in attack ads.
[00:24:06]  I think that her spend through the end will be closer to 50 million in attack ads.
[00:24:10]  And people said that there was really no way to overcome it.
[00:24:13]  But it's been interesting because I think what happened is that there was a lot of anger around surrounding who Gretchen Whitmer was and her policies, but people didn't know who the alternative was.
[00:24:25]  So she spent all of that money and that increased my name ID to over 90% in the state.
[00:24:30]  Then we got to have the two debates and what she defined me as, people really got to see, well, that's not actually who she is.
[00:24:38]  When we see her debate, we understand what her policies are.
[00:24:40]  We understand who she is.
[00:24:42]  And that just really changed the trajectory of the race.
[00:24:44]  So I almost credit Gretchen Whitmer with getting me where I am.
[00:24:48]  Abortion, abortion, abort.
[00:24:50]  I mean, it was everywhere.
[00:24:51]  I was in Detroit this whole weekend with some friends and prop three, prop three, prop three, prop three.
[00:24:57]  It was all over the place.
[00:24:58]  And as I understand, prop three, this is basically, you know, we could, if the voters want to, we can just kick it back to the Roe versus Wade standard on abortion.
[00:25:06]  If the voters want to write that into Michigan law.
[00:25:09]  And you've said, if that's what the voters want to do, I'm not going to mess with it.
[00:25:13]  You know, I will accept the voters' decision.
[00:25:17]  This is not how you've been portrayed by your opponents.
[00:25:20]  Barack Obama came out and said you're that Governor Whitmer's opponent, you, that you think politicians had the right idea back in 1931.
[00:25:34]  I mean, she probably thinks if she watched The Handmaid's Tale, she's thinking, well, what's the problem?
[00:25:40]  Obama said.
[00:25:42]  This forced rapes, forced sterilizations.
[00:25:45]  During the Republican primary, Dixon had praised the law and said saving the life of the mother should be the only exception.
[00:25:51]  So he's saying your earlier position certainly sounded more extreme than Prop 3 would allow.
[00:25:56]  So what do you make of Obama suggesting you are big time in favor of what you saw in Handmaid's Tale?
[00:26:02]  When you have to bring Barack Obama into the city of Detroit to try to campaign there, you know you have a problem getting out your base.
[00:26:09]  Now we see them in this desperate mode of attacking Republicans for things that really have nothing to do with policy whatsoever.
[00:26:16]  And it's interesting that you bring this up because there is Prop 3 on the ballot.
[00:26:20]  It is really extreme.
[00:26:21]  It's abortion up to the moment of birth.
[00:26:23]  You don't have to be a doctor to have an abort to perform an abortion.
[00:26:27]  It takes away parental consent for a minor wanting to have an abortion.
[00:26:31]  And if you botch the abortion, whether you are a doctor or not, you are legally immune to any recourse from the patient or from their patient's family if you do something terrible.
[00:26:40]  So it is the most extreme proposal.
[00:26:43]  The only other two places in the world that have something like this are China and North Korea.
[00:26:48]  But the more interesting part about this is that Michigan has already had a judge that has ruled in this matter and said there will be no ban on abortion because that would be unconstitutional.
[00:26:57]  So we're already at Roe.
[00:26:59]  That's where we are right now in the state of Michigan without anybody having to vote on this extreme ballot measure, without the governor weighing in.
[00:27:06]  And the governor won't weigh in because this has been decided in the courts.
[00:27:10]  But it's still what she's running on, which tells you she has nothing to run on because she's been in government for 20 years.
[00:27:17]  Governor for four of those has done nothing for the state of Michigan to grow economic development.
[00:27:22]  We are losing automotive day by day.
[00:27:24]  You see more automotive shops starting up in Ohio and Indiana and Kentucky and Tennessee and North Carolina, but not in Michigan.
[00:27:32]  She knows that she's losing automotive.
[00:27:34]  That's our legacy industry and she doesn't want to talk about that.
[00:27:37]  She doesn't want to talk about the fact that the schools are now in the bottom 10 in the nation, and she hasn't done anything to get our kids back on track after COVID, after the lockdowns.
[00:27:47]  She lied in the debate, said our schools were only locked down for three months.
[00:27:51]  Parents are angry.
[00:27:52]  I'll get to that one a second.
[00:27:53]  I do want to get you away on that.
[00:27:54]  Barack Obama campaigning for her on something that has nothing to do.
[00:27:59]  And my goodness, to come out and insult me in that way, boy.
[00:28:02]  I mean, it's almost a compliment that he has nothing else to say.
[00:28:05]  Yeah, can't handmaids tell like they use that against Amy Coney Barrett, too, because of her Catholicism.
[00:28:09]  I'm like, okay.
[00:28:11]  Wait, but I did hear you criticize Prop 3 quite strongly in there.
[00:28:15]  And I had heard you say before that there are, quote, no laws that I will decide not to follow if that is what the people want.
[00:28:23]  So you will uphold Prop 3 if Michiganders vote for it.
[00:28:28]  Absolutely.
[00:28:29]  I am not Gretchen Whitmer.
[00:28:30]  She has come out and said there are laws that I will pick and choose what to follow.
[00:28:34]  If that is what the people vote for, that's what they vote for.
[00:28:37]  This is our process, our system of government.
[00:28:39]  We have to respect the system.
[00:28:41]  The system is that if you put a proposal on the ballot and people vote for it, the governor then, and especially, this is a constitution change.
[00:28:48]  The governor doesn't get to say, you know what, I'm not going to follow the Constitution in this area.
[00:28:53]  If the people vote for this, then absolutely, that's what I will uphold.
[00:28:57]  That is what I'm being elected to do.
[00:28:59]  Okay.
[00:29:00]  How about if the people vote for Joe Biden?
[00:29:03]  You'll accept that he's the legitimate winner of the state of Michigan because you've been a little waffly on that.
[00:29:07]  Did he win Michigan fairly?
[00:29:09]  I've said that once an election is certified, that is our president.
[00:29:12]  And I have said that he is our president.
[00:29:14]  I don't like the fact that our Secretary of State, you know, she in Michigan, it was kind of unique.
[00:29:19]  She ended up having a judge come out and say two of the things she did in the election were unlawful.
[00:29:24]  So she changed the rules right before, just weeks before the election.
[00:29:28]  And she changed it so that our signature match was not, you didn't have to have the same strength in the signature match.
[00:29:34]  She also sent absentee ballot applications to every person in the state on the taxpayer dime, which she legally wasn't allowed to do.
[00:29:42]  So I've said, look, there's a lot of reasons people question it when you see the Secretary of State break the law during the election.
[00:29:48]  So of course people are going to say, we want her to run a lawful election.
[00:29:52]  And if she does that, then we won't have a problem.
[00:29:54]  But we have a lot of people on the ground.
[00:29:56]  We feel confident in this election.
[00:29:58]  We know people are watching her now.
[00:29:59]  And a judge is not going to allow her to get away with changing the rules without that going through the proper channels.
[00:30:05]  What about, I mentioned this to Tiffany Smiley, but Donald Trump was out there this weekend taking a shot at Ron DeSantis, calling him Ron de Sanctimonia.
[00:30:13]  Some Republicans thought it was out of line.
[00:30:15]  What did you make of it?
[00:30:17]  You know, right now, we want everybody focused on these midterms.
[00:30:20]  I really do.
[00:30:21]  I want people to look at the midterms and say, this is the election that we have this week.
[00:30:26]  It is key that we get Republicans in.
[00:30:28]  So that my focus is there.
[00:30:30]  I want everybody's focus to be there.
[00:30:32]  You want the Trump supporters.
[00:30:33]  You want the DeSantis supporters and you want the Tudor Dixon supporters more than anybody.
[00:30:37]  Fair enough.
[00:30:38]  Let's talk about crime.
[00:30:40]  Crime in Michigan is a problem, just like it is in virtually all the other states.
[00:30:45]  What do you think you can do differently than what Gretchen Whitmer has done?
[00:30:49]  Well, Gretchen Whitmer's record on crime is to, first of all, she came into office and her goal was to raise taxes.
[00:30:56]  So she wanted to raise the gas tax by 45 cents a gallon.
[00:30:59]  And when she didn't get that through the legislature, she decided to cut secondary road funding for sheriffs.
[00:31:05]  And so we know that right off the bat, she was cutting funding to police.
[00:31:10]  She also vetoed funding for corrections officers.
[00:31:13]  So we so desperately need help in our corrections department right now, but she decided to veto funding there as well.
[00:31:20]  Her history is to take money away from policing, but also marching with folks that had those defund the police signs.
[00:31:27]  She marched with those folks.
[00:31:28]  She also came out and said she supports the spirit of defund the police.
[00:31:32]  This has been catastrophic for the state of Michigan.
[00:31:35]  We currently have four of the 20 most dangerous cities in the country.
[00:31:40]  Barack Obama, when he was here, kind of joked about crime.
[00:31:43]  He was in Detroit joking about the fact that this happened.
[00:31:46]  And we should probably blame Trump for this.
[00:31:49]  But think about the optics of that.
[00:31:50]  You are standing in the second most violent city in the country, joking about crime.
[00:31:56]  The people of Michigan don't think that this is funny.
[00:31:58]  They realize that.
[00:32:00]  She has taken her support away from the police.
[00:32:03]  In the last couple of weeks, she's come out and said, no, no, I do support the police.
[00:32:06]  Of course, because she sees an election in the future.
[00:32:09]  But we have heard from police across the state saying, we just can't keep people in the position because they are too nervous that they're either going to get arrested or they're going to get killed on the job in the state of Michigan.
[00:32:20]  And they don't have the support from the chief executive officer.
[00:32:23]  So we know that that has caused us to have a lack of folks in the police force.
[00:32:28]  That's a huge problem.
[00:32:29]  There was an article a few weeks ago that said, this year, we have lost a police officer a day in the city of Detroit leaving the force because it's just a position where they don't feel they're honored.
[00:32:40]  They don't feel they're supported.
[00:32:41]  So the opportunity to create safe communities is wide open in the state of Michigan.
[00:32:46]  It's going to take funding.
[00:32:47]  We want to put a billion new dollars into policing to recruit and retain police, to bring honor back to the position, to bring people up out of their communities and rise them up into the police force once again.
[00:32:59]  And then I believe that we will be able to combat some of these issues that we have.
[00:33:02]  Even our local crime labs are telling me if we could put a little bit more focus on what we're doing in these labs, we would be able to prevent a lot more crime.
[00:33:11]  We need to.
[00:33:12]  We are fifth in the nation for rapes per capita.
[00:33:15]  We've got to get more protection under sex crimes.
[00:33:18]  We've also got to face the opioid epidemic in a different way.
[00:33:22]  I'm sensing a theme here as I listen to you and your fellow candidates.
[00:33:26]  COVID is the biggie after abortion in Michigan, I think, for a lot of Republican voters, especially.
[00:33:32]  She was the lockdown queen.
[00:33:34]  And now she's denying it.
[00:33:37]  Now she's really engaging in some revisionist history.
[00:33:41]  You mentioned it a second ago and I said we'd get to it.
[00:33:43]  Here's the sound bite of her at your October 25th debate trying to, I'll tell the audience, this is my factual correction on her, trying to minimize what she did with schools in Michigan during the COVID period.
[00:33:58]  Here it is.
[00:34:00]  We've also had some historic challenges over the last few years, I think to put it lightly.
[00:34:05]  You know, Ms. Dixon says that I kept students out longer than any other state.
[00:34:09]  That's just not true.
[00:34:10]  I worked closely with my Republican and Democratic governors and kids were out for three months.
[00:34:17]  Were they?
[00:34:18]  No.
[00:34:19]  And that was, you know, I was shocked by that.
[00:34:22]  As I've traveled across the state, so many parents have said to me, it wasn't just shocking for us.
[00:34:27]  Our kids were in the room and they had an audible gasp saying, we weren't out of school for three months.
[00:34:32]  I've had kids at rallies.
[00:34:33]  One of them yesterday in the morning yelled out, I was out for eight months or nine months.
[00:34:37]  Another kid yelled out, I was out for a year and a half.
[00:34:40]  So we have anywhere from really nine months to two years that kids were out of school.
[00:34:46]  Ann Arbor, Flint, and Detroit.
[00:34:48]  All three cities still had schools out in the beginning of 2022.
[00:34:53]  So we have a significant amount of learning loss in the state of Michigan.
[00:34:56]  But it's not even that she lied about it.
[00:34:58]  It's that smug smile, the laugh beforehand, acting like this didn't happen.
[00:35:04]  And I think it really took people back to all those days when Gretchen Whitmer would come out.
[00:35:08]  We would be waiting to hear what she was going to take away from us that day, if we were going to get any freedoms or liberties back.
[00:35:15]  And she would come out and just speak to us in such a condescending manner.
[00:35:18]  In the middle of the pandemic, she came out one day and she said, don't go to Ohio to get your hair done.
[00:35:25]  If you want to get your hair done, then Google how to cut your own hair.
[00:35:29]  I mean, just talking to people like this and Just the audacity of saying if you cross the border into Ohio, then you're going to bring COVID back here.
[00:35:40]  Well, why do people in Ohio think it's okay to have salons open?
[00:35:44]  She crushed our salons.
[00:35:46]  She killed our restaurants.
[00:35:47]  Our restaurants were closed longer than any other state, eight months, 3,000 restaurants gone right off the bat.
[00:35:54]  We're still losing restaurants every single day because people can't come back from these policies.
[00:35:59]  And now she's saying, well, that didn't happen.
[00:36:01]  Well, it did happen.
[00:36:03]  And the people who suffered from it know full well that she's not telling you the truth about that.
[00:36:08]  She, here's just a couple of facts for the audience.
[00:36:12]  Schools in Detroit and Grand Rapids remain closed for most of the 2020-21 school year.
[00:36:18]  All right.
[00:36:18]  That's the next year after the spring of COVID, the whole next year.
[00:36:21]  While students at Ann Arbor and Flint entered 2022 with remote instruction, Governor Whitmer rebuffed calls from the state Republicans to require Michigan school districts to offer an in-person learning option, at least for K through five students.
[00:36:37]  She wouldn't do it.
[00:36:38]  During the 2020 through 2021 school year, Ann Arbor offered in-person instruction a mere 11% of the time, according to the data analytics company, Burbio.
[00:36:49]  So, I mean, and by the way, Lansing was closed more than Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo students learned via Zoom all year.
[00:36:56]  So it really is bold.
[00:36:57]  And as the mother of young school children myself, I find it outrageous that she's trying to like, defend your record, stick to the facts, defend your record.
[00:37:05]  Tell us why you thought that was okay.
[00:37:06]  But she's trying to change the record.
[00:37:08]  And by the way, she was also pro-masking.
[00:37:11]  The state did not lift the recommended school mask mandate until February 2022.
[00:37:15]  Can I just ask you one other thing about the COVID thing?
[00:37:18]  She's a Cuomo.
[00:37:19]  She's somebody who ordered COVID positive patients into nursing homes despite the obvious risks of doing that that were called to the attention of these sitting governors at the time.

=== Defending School Safety Records (07:35) ===

[00:37:29]  It's not like they had no idea what might happen to the elderly if they did it.
[00:37:33]  Is that an issue there?
[00:37:34]  Because I mean, in New York, that helped lead to the downfall of our governor, Cuomo.
[00:37:38]  That's why Kathy Hochul's the governor now.
[00:37:40]  In Michigan, it doesn't seem to have been such a big deal.
[00:37:44]  No, and this has been a frustration that the media has not hit her harder on this, because this is something that I came out and talked about in the debate too.
[00:37:52]  She did get a few questions on that afterward, and she has doubled down on this lie because she lied about that as well.
[00:37:59]  She said, oh, I didn't force COVID positive patients into nursing homes.
[00:38:03]  Well, she did.
[00:38:03]  In fact, when Governor Cuomo backed off of that, she doubled down and she kept putting people in.
[00:38:09]  A third of our deaths were seniors from nursing homes.
[00:38:12]  It was outrageous, the policies that she had.
[00:38:14]  But now it's even more outrageous that, like you said, why isn't she coming out and defending this or saying, you know, I talked to the experts and they said this.
[00:38:22]  Instead, she's saying, I didn't do that, which is completely shocking and outrageous.
[00:38:27]  But we have this leftist media in Michigan that isn't saying, wait a minute, you definitely did do this.
[00:38:34]  We have the numbers.
[00:38:35]  In fact, they tried to alter what they considered long-term care and nursing facilities so that the numbers would look a lot better than they actually were.
[00:38:43]  And when we had an outside auditor come in and do the actual numbers, they were much higher than even what the Whitmer administration was willing to put out.
[00:38:51]  And she won't talk about it.
[00:38:52]  Now, to this day, she is lying about that policy and saying she didn't do it at all.
[00:38:56]  We lived through it.
[00:38:57]  My grandmother was locked into a nursing home.
[00:38:59]  The bizarre thing was you couldn't go see your family members in a nursing home.
[00:39:04]  Even if you had a negative test and they had a negative test, you were only allowed into a nursing home if you were positive for COVID-19.
[00:39:11]  It was outrageous and it caused way too many deaths.
[00:39:14]  Yeah.
[00:39:15]  You know what?
[00:39:15]  The difference is with all due respect to the GOP messaging, you didn't have Janice Dean there.
[00:39:20]  Janice Dean, my pal at Fox News, who's both of her in-laws were killed.
[00:39:25]  They died of COVID in New York State nursing homes around the time of this order by Governor Cuomo.
[00:39:31]  She was on them like a dog with a bone and was really the person who changed the conversation in New York about it.
[00:39:36]  And there wasn't such a famous person in Michigan.
[00:39:38]  It's sad.
[00:39:39]  You know, you shouldn't need a famous person to have two dead relatives, right?
[00:39:42]  Well, I will say that we have one man, one journalist here, Charlie Laduff, who pushed really hard to get that out.
[00:39:48]  And Janice Dean did share a lot of his stuff, a lot of his reporting, a lot of his research.
[00:39:53]  So we are grateful to Janice Dean for doing that.
[00:39:55]  Good.
[00:39:56]  Me too.
[00:39:56]  Yeah, I love her.
[00:39:58]  So let's talk about Colbert for a minute because we played this on Friday.
[00:40:02]  It was just so nasty and typically just uncharitable of him.
[00:40:07]  You got out there and called attention to a Democrat who had come up to you and said, I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I'm getting ready to vote for you.
[00:40:14]  In particular, because of the weird sexualization of children books that we're seeing, literally the Democrats call this a conspiracy theory.
[00:40:20]  This is yet another conspiracy theory.
[00:40:22]  The Republican parents are the independent-minded parents of the Democrat parents who are like, why are you sexualizing my kid in elementary school?
[00:40:29]  For the love of God, keep the books.
[00:40:30]  Remember, we were in school with Winnie the Pooh, or maybe like Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe, but you did not have this stuff.
[00:40:38]  He basically called you a liar in the following clip.
[00:40:41]  I'll play it.
[00:40:41]  So three.
[00:40:42]  Dixon's not the only one worried about this issue.
[00:40:44]  So is this guy she totally made up?
[00:40:47]  I had a gentleman come up to me just a few nights ago and he said, I found content in my school library describing how to have sex to my son.
[00:40:56]  I went to the Democrats and I said, I cannot believe that this is in there.
[00:41:00]  Okay.
[00:41:03]  Fine.
[00:41:04]  That happened.
[00:41:06]  But even if it did, if someone found a book they didn't like at the school library, why would they go to the Democrats?
[00:41:13]  That's like saying, excuse me, is this Chuck Schumer's office?
[00:41:16]  I didn't like the finale of House of the Dragon.
[00:41:19]  Also, this natural peanut butter is way too oily when it's in the cupboard, but it gets too hard when it's in the fridge.
[00:41:26]  I'm voting Republican.
[00:41:27]  Good day, sir.
[00:41:28]  Then for reasons all her own, Dixon continued.
[00:41:31]  What these parents are talking about are not textbooks that will help children learn about themselves.
[00:41:38]  These are books that are describing to children how to have sex.
[00:41:42]  She's right.
[00:41:42]  We looked it up and there are a lot of classic children's books teaching kids about doing it.
[00:41:47]  There's Where the Wild Things Bone, If You Give a Mouse Some Nookie, and Green Eggs and Butt stuff.
[00:41:57]  Well, it turns out you were telling the truth.
[00:41:59]  And the man, Khalil Offman, has spoken out saying, I am very real.
[00:42:04]  I am the Democrat who went to Tudor Dixon.
[00:42:07]  And a simple Google search would have revealed me to you.
[00:42:10]  I want to give you an update.
[00:42:12]  Stephen Colbert, quote, apologized for the error on his show in the snarkiest way possible.
[00:42:21]  Here's a little bit of this on, I think, Thursday or Friday night.
[00:42:25]  Therefore, I, Stephen Colbert, acknowledge that you exist and ask that you forgive me.
[00:42:31]  He goes on to say, if this person, and he means me, did his due diligence and started researching or had his team do a little bit of research of who's this person who attended Dixon's rally, they will be able to find my name right away easy on social media.
[00:42:47]  Just Google it.
[00:42:48]  Okay, fair enough.
[00:42:49]  But I will point out that Dixon never said your name.
[00:42:52]  So what am I supposed to search for?
[00:42:54]  All she said was, I had a gentleman come up to me and he said, I found content in my school library describing how to have sex to my son.
[00:43:06]  He says that should be enough.
[00:43:07]  So let's Google some keywords from that sentence.
[00:43:11]  This guy claimed to be a Democratic politician, but switched after he lost his primary and packed up his toys and went off in a huff to support an election-denying, transphobic, COVID-19 conspiracy theorist.
[00:43:24]  What a wonderful example for all of our children.
[00:43:28]  By the way, fella, if you didn't know that about Tudor Dixon before you supported her, you should Google it.
[00:43:37]  What do you make of his apology?
[00:43:41]  You know, this is actually great because we have so many people saying this is the elitist left that is coming out and belittling parents who say they're concerned about this stuff.
[00:43:51]  I'm a mom of four girls.
[00:43:52]  I'm concerned about this too.
[00:43:54]  Khalil and I have bonded over this.
[00:43:56]  And it's been very interesting to see a community.
[00:43:59]  He said to me, you know, I was told the Republicans don't want me at their rallies, but I bravely left and came to your rally.
[00:44:06]  And he said, you talked about all the things I cared about.
[00:44:09]  And I said, you know, it's funny because we were told that your community didn't want us to come in.
[00:44:13]  Here is a Muslim American who is saying, at this point, I'm putting aside everything else.
[00:44:19]  This is not a partisan thing.
[00:44:20]  This is about him and me fighting for our kids.
[00:44:24]  He gets it.
[00:44:25]  I get it.
[00:44:26]  We are going to fight for our kids and we're bringing people along with us that the Democrats just thought that they always had.
[00:44:33]  But now we're talking about things that matter so deeply to our crime we have left because we're up against a heartbreak.
[00:44:39]  Let me ask you, what's your message to Stephen Colbert?
[00:44:41]  What's he not getting?
[00:44:42]  You are not understanding the people of the country.
[00:44:45]  You're not understanding the heartbeat of America right now.
[00:44:48]  And that is to make sure that our kids are protected, that they have a future, that they have safe communities.
[00:44:54]  When you belittle parents who are concerned about their child's safety, no matter what the safety issue is, you are losing people for your own party and we welcome them to ours.

=== Today Show Paul Pelosi Story (07:30) ===

[00:45:05]  All right.
[00:45:05]  Prediction for what's going to happen tomorrow?
[00:45:07]  There's a lot of energy on the ground.
[00:45:09]  You probably hear the rally in the background right now.
[00:45:11]  We think we're going to have a big red wave in Michigan.
[00:45:14]  Wow.
[00:45:15]  We will be watching and reporting on it all.
[00:45:17]  Thank you so much for being here, Tudor Dixon.
[00:45:19]  It's been a pleasure.
[00:45:21]  Thank you.
[00:45:22]  We loved it.
[00:45:23]  All right.
[00:45:24]  We'll be right back with much, much more.
[00:45:25]  We got lots to cover, including that NBC retracted reporter expired like it died, like it died a cause of natural death.
[00:45:37]  The Paul Pelosi story took a strange turn on Friday morning when NBC's Today Show revealed new details about what took place right before the assault.
[00:45:47]  And then NBC expired the video, making it no longer available to view without much of an explanation.
[00:45:56]  Our own executive producer of this show, Steve Krakauer, has got another job where he writes a newsletter, which I love and I highly recommend to all of you called Forthwatch.
[00:46:07]  And he took a deep dive into what went down and is here to help explain it.
[00:46:12]  Steve, thanks for being on the show.
[00:46:14]  Hey, Megan, anytime.
[00:46:15]  Absolutely.
[00:46:16]  Yes, my side dude.
[00:46:17]  Yeah.
[00:46:18]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:46:19]  So, all right.
[00:46:20]  So you set it up in the news letter very nicely.
[00:46:22]  You talked about how, okay, the Democrats dispatched of this story in the media very nicely.
[00:46:26]  January 6th, this was January 6th, part two, despite the fact that the guy believed in Jesus.
[00:46:32]  He was Jesus for a year and in little fairies.
[00:46:34]  They were like, no, Trump can, Trump caused it.
[00:46:38]  January 6th, right?
[00:46:38]  It's like they had dispatched of this.
[00:46:41]  Of course, yes.
[00:46:42]  The focus was not on the blogs about how he's communicating with fairies and he has to build a wooden space to get to communicate with his fairies.
[00:46:50]  No, it was focused on certain blog posts which had to do with election integrity, election fraud, COVID, some of the other, you know, the QAnon talking points.
[00:46:58]  And they said, okay, well, that's what it is, right-wing political violence again and move on.
[00:47:03]  And that really was how the story was for about six days, all the way up until Friday morning.
[00:47:08]  Just to underscore it for our audience, as opposed to a homeless guy on drugs who is reportedly in the country illegally, thanks to California being a sanctuary state and San Fran being a sanctuary city, breaks into a home and yet another evidence of crime run rampant in San Francisco.
[00:47:26]  That's the other possible narrative, right?
[00:47:28]  Like, so that one, no, they dispatched of that and they settled on Jan 6, Republican messaging, and we're good.
[00:47:34]  Okay, great.
[00:47:36]  But then nasty little reporters like yours, truly, and others started to ask more questions.
[00:47:41]  Like, well, it doesn't make sense.
[00:47:43]  Like we said on our show last Monday, why would the police open up?
[00:47:47]  Why would Paul Pelosi open up the door and look at the police officers?
[00:47:50]  And the police officers are standing there and the defendant is like, all good.
[00:47:54]  And they're just standing there having a combo.
[00:47:56]  And then they started arguing over the hammer and then the police jumped in.
[00:48:01]  The guy hurt Paul Pelosi right in front of the cops, which jumped out at us as odd.
[00:48:06]  And we said, this smells funny and we want more facts.
[00:48:09]  Others went further and jumped into full conspiracy theory, which we did not.
[00:48:14]  But the blowback has been no questions should be asked.
[00:48:18]  None.
[00:48:18]  So we'll get to that in one second.
[00:48:19]  Enter NBC, which is also a conspiracy theorist, as it turns out, because one of their very well-respected and trusted correspondents did what?
[00:48:27]  Yeah, Miguel Almeguer on Friday morning on the Today Show, a very prominent perch.
[00:48:32]  This was not, you know, OAN or something that this was going on.
[00:48:35]  It was on the Today Show talking to Craig Melvin, gave a report on, quote, new details that he had learned from several sources on what happened when police arrived at the Pelosi residence.
[00:48:46]  And he did reveal, I mean, we're going to, we've got a Sada on it, but he revealed some very interesting new information, not jumping to conclusions and notably also making it very clear that the attack did happen.
[00:48:57]  Police witnessed and attacked Pelosi when it was hit in the head with the hammer by DePap.
[00:49:01]  It was all of that is true.
[00:49:03]  But the question is, what were these odd circumstances that happened?
[00:49:06]  And some new also timeline questions as well that he put out there on Friday morning, it started blowing up because the Today Show tweeted it, because they put it on their website.
[00:49:15]  It was a story that, as I would imagine, anyone would be proud of because it was new details on a very important story that's in the news.
[00:49:23]  He's California based and thus presumably had the connections too to break such news.
[00:49:27]  Here is just a little bit of the now expired report.
[00:49:31]  After a knock and announce, the front door was opened by Mr. Pelosi.
[00:49:35]  The 82-year-old did not immediately declare an emergency or tried to leave his home, but instead began walking several feet back into the foyer toward the assailant and away from police.
[00:49:48]  It's unclear if the 82-year-old was already injured or what his mental state was.
[00:49:54]  Say sources.
[00:49:55]  According to court documents, when the officer asked what was going on, defendant smiled and said everything's good.
[00:50:03]  But instantaneously, a struggle ensued as police clearly saw David DePapp strike Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer.
[00:50:12]  Investigators have previously said Pelosi did not know DePap when the 42-year-old broke into his home.
[00:50:19]  Why Pelosi didn't try to flee or tell responding officers he was in distress is unclear.
[00:50:26]  Fear takes over.
[00:50:27]  Fear freezes people.
[00:50:29]  Law enforcement officials tell us the bottom line here is this was a terrifying situation.
[00:50:33]  We still don't know exactly what unfolded between Mr. Pelosi and the suspect for the 30 minutes they were alone inside that house before police arrived.
[00:50:42]  Officials who were investigating this matter would not go into further details about these new details.
[00:50:47]  You point out, Steve, in your newsletter, that timeline is important.
[00:50:52]  Yes.
[00:50:52]  So the timeline, we know that the phone call to the police took place at 2.23 a.m. and we know police arrived at 2.31 a.m.
[00:51:00]  We didn't really previously know when the supposed intruder went into the house.
[00:51:05]  We now know that it occurred, I guess, at 2.01 a.m.
[00:51:09]  So there was a now 22 minute period where we know that there was interactions between Pelosi and the intruder before the 911 call took place.
[00:51:16]  That's not something that had previously been that delineated before this report.
[00:51:22]  And we were all, those of us who are curious journalists, had been asking questions like, and you outline these in your piece as well.
[00:51:30]  How was Pelosi able to call 911 in the first place?
[00:51:32]  Why did the assault only happen after the police arrived, which is what we were asking last week?
[00:51:36]  How was Pelosi able to open the door for police while being essentially held hostage?
[00:51:40]  Why wasn't there a security system with an alarm that went off after the glass broke at the back door when it was opened at 2 a.m.?
[00:51:46]  Instantly alerting to the police to a break-in?
[00:51:48]  I would add.
[00:51:49]  Why?
[00:51:49]  And how was he able to leave the bathroom that he went in to call the police as well?
[00:51:53]  Why didn't he run into the arms of the cops when they opened, when he opened the door and he saw police, why didn't he run into their arms?
[00:52:01]  You know, they were right there.
[00:52:02]  They have guns.
[00:52:03]  Like all these are good questions.
[00:52:05]  And San Fran PD has been like, you're not getting the body cam footage.
[00:52:10]  You're not getting security cam footage and really has been holding the cards close to the vest.
[00:52:16]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:52:17]  And that last point, the one about why did he, when he opened the door, I mean, that was really, I think, the most eye-opening part of Miguel's report.
[00:52:23]  Why didn't he, once the police opened the door, because we now know Pelosi himself opened the door for the police.
[00:52:29]  Why didn't he just say, I'm being held hostage here or run away?
[00:52:33]  We don't know.
[00:52:33]  And that was what was raised in the report.

=== Police Spin on Assault Report (08:59) ===

[00:52:35]  And that is, as we, as you've mentioned a couple of times, that is what essentially we think caused NBC to, quote, expire this video, not just delete the tweet that they had put out from the Today Show, but to literally remove it from their website to where now when you go to that link, it says this video has been expired, which is worse than that.
[00:52:55]  As you point out in the newsletter, it gets worse than that because not only did they delete it, and I said this, Janistine and I were actually talking about this over the weekend.
[00:53:01]  She's a star of today's show.
[00:53:03]  I was saying what's weird about it is normally, if you realize you've made a mistake in a report at NBC, you would post, here is how we were wrong.
[00:53:13]  We apologize for misstating the following facts.
[00:53:16]  We got it wrong.
[00:53:17]  And here's a full clarification.
[00:53:19]  They didn't do that.
[00:53:20]  They just said it wasn't up to NBC's reporting standards.
[00:53:24]  What does that mean?
[00:53:25]  That sounds a lot to me as a reporter, like Nancy Pelosi's office called and yelled at them and they bent the knee, right?
[00:53:31]  That's what you would say.
[00:53:32]  That's how you would cover it.
[00:53:35]  So other reporters called NBC, including you, to try to get an explanation.
[00:53:39]  And as your newsletter makes clear, you say they're basically, they tried to release a little to the inquiring reporters and then they tried to launder information through willing reporters like the Washington Post to try to get out more damaging information about their own report.
[00:53:56]  Exactly, right?
[00:53:58]  As you mentioned, the editor's note said did not go up to reporting standard.
[00:54:01]  The quote that was given in NBC source, which I got, which the Washington Post, which CNN got, is that a source for the story, a key source, the main source, was deemed, quote, unreliable.
[00:54:11]  Unreliable is a really interesting word because I pressed NBC multiple times.
[00:54:15]  What was inaccurate?
[00:54:16]  Was anything inaccurate?
[00:54:17]  And it was very easy for you to say the report was inaccurate in this source statement.
[00:54:21]  They notably did not do that, only that the source was unreliable and that the report did not meet reporting standards.
[00:54:28]  So if there was anything wrong at all in the story, why didn't they just say that in the actual, you know, in any of these venues that they could have?
[00:54:35]  Instead, as you mentioned, in the Washington Post in particular, there's all of these unquoted, unattributed explanations about, well, there were lots of inaccuracies that people think, well, what were they?
[00:54:46]  Why doesn't anyone say that?
[00:54:47]  If that's the case, they're not going on the record.
[00:54:50]  And I checked again this morning to say anything was inaccurate at this point.
[00:54:54]  And the reporter has gone completely quiet as well.
[00:54:56]  Yeah.
[00:54:57]  And Paul Farhe, who wrote it up in Washington Post, clearly being given some background information on what a shitty reporter Miguel is, right?
[00:55:04]  Because they're throwing their reporter under the bus.
[00:55:06]  He got it wrong.
[00:55:07]  The things they won't say publicly, they're kind of like, it appears to be leaking to Paul Farhe of the Washington Post.
[00:55:13]  He asked the question, is he going to be disciplined?
[00:55:16]  Good question.
[00:55:17]  If he's this bad, if he's screwed up this badly on a story of this magnitude, let's see.
[00:55:22]  What are they going to do to Miguel?
[00:55:24]  Well, and of course, they haven't answered that either yet.
[00:55:27]  They haven't answered any of the other questions.
[00:55:28]  And you have to imagine some of this is the timing.
[00:55:31]  You know, obviously, the election is tomorrow.
[00:55:33]  I don't think that this is a story that NBC wants to be paying a lot of attention to from any of their angles right now because the election is what they're trying to focus on.
[00:55:43]  And that's unfortunate because I think that eventually we'll find out more of this about this story.
[00:55:47]  If at the very minimum we find out what was wrong about Miguel's piece, you know, what was it?
[00:55:51]  Just let's let's find out why was it expired from the website?
[00:55:54]  That's not going to be happening anytime soon.
[00:55:56]  It doesn't seem.
[00:55:57]  And even despite all this, so you think like this is a good reason to ask questions about what else is there?
[00:56:04]  Why maybe the police?
[00:56:05]  Maybe it's as I kind of floated in there, maybe what happened is that the police are trying to kind of spin this because obviously they didn't do their job that great because they actually witnessed the assault before the assault ever happened.
[00:56:17]  That's not great either.
[00:56:18]  And then the report sort of raises doubt and gives them a little bit of deniability of, oh, well, we didn't really know it was the Pelosi's house.
[00:56:24]  We didn't really know it was this big scene.
[00:56:26]  Maybe that's part of the story.
[00:56:27]  We don't know any of that.
[00:56:28]  And now everything just gets painted as quote misinformation for even daring to ask why we don't know more about this circumstances here.
[00:56:36]  This is what I was trying to ask last week.
[00:56:37]  How the, I said explicitly the SFPD has egg on its face because it was standing there within feet of these guys when the guy raised the hammer and slammed Paul Pelosi in the head, requiring brain surgery.
[00:56:50]  So that should not happen with two police officers standing within arm's length of the assailant and the victim.
[00:56:56]  So why weren't they releasing the body cam footage and so on?
[00:56:59]  These are the questions that we were asking on this show.
[00:57:01]  What does that get you?
[00:57:03]  It gets you labeled a misinformation artist by the New York Times, which instead of asking questions about this, trying to get more info, decided to do a big piece that hit, I think today, called How Republicans Fed a Misinformation Loop About the Pelosi Attack.
[00:57:21]  They say within hours of the brutal attack, activists and media outlets on the right began circulating groundless claims, nearly all of them sinister and many homophobic, casting doubt on what had happened.
[00:57:34]  So, first of all, fuck you, New York Times, for suggesting there was anything sinister or homophobic about what we said.
[00:57:39]  We said the San Francisco PD has egg on its face.
[00:57:42]  So you can pound sand.
[00:57:44]  Second of all, here's what I and several others, not just me, here's what my alleged sin was.
[00:57:48]  And I quote, raised doubts that all facts were being disclosed.
[00:57:53]  Steve, is this what the New York Times has become?
[00:57:57]  This is the only way they get to their 21 elected officials and prominent media figures is by including things like asking questions about, hey, maybe we don't know all the facts and including that, grouping that in with people that, yeah, sure, legitimately spread what it's what appears to be conspiracy theories.
[00:58:11]  You know, this was staged.
[00:58:13]  This was like a false flag attack.
[00:58:16]  Those are apples and oranges, obviously.
[00:58:18]  And yes, the New York Times is just trying to paint anything that is even a remote amount of skepticism as somehow misinformation.
[00:58:27]  That is so damaging to the credibility of the New York Times that it, you know, I don't even think they get it.
[00:58:32]  I don't even think they get that people see this and think, what are they even talking about?
[00:58:36]  It doesn't make any sense.
[00:58:38]  Right.
[00:58:39]  Again, it's not just me.
[00:58:40]  There's several others on here committed the same sin.
[00:58:42]  Michael Pete Hegseth is one raised doubts that all facts were being disclosed.
[00:58:47]  I remember back in the day when most reporters would approach stories like this, especially involving an elite hall of power like the Pelosi household or the couple and say, all right, powerful people, rich people, SFPD, they don't want to be embarrassed.
[00:59:02]  Somebody's spinning me.
[00:59:03]  Someone's spinning me.
[00:59:05]  Right.
[00:59:05]  The police.
[00:59:05]  How about we just don't take the police department's word for things?
[00:59:08]  I mean, we've seen that in multiple stories a lot of times from places like the New York Times that would say, oh, yeah, the New York Times or the police department would spin for their own narrative.
[00:59:16]  That's essentially what we were doing as well in this last week.
[00:59:20]  That's now apparently misinformation.
[00:59:22]  Honestly, like maybe I should sue them.
[00:59:24]  I should sue them for defamation.
[00:59:26]  Guess what?
[00:59:26]  I would win because this is a total misstatement of what I did.
[00:59:30]  But who the hell wants to be distracted by that nonsense?
[00:59:33]  It's more fun just to point out how dishonest they are.
[00:59:36]  Steve, what a pleasure.
[00:59:37]  Go now.
[00:59:37]  Go back and do your real job.
[00:59:39]  Hi.
[00:59:40]  Yeah, we have an important segment coming up right now.
[00:59:42]  Analysis of the main event, and that is the midterms.
[00:59:45]  Biden, Trump, and Obama were all on the trail this weekend in Pennsylvania and throughout the country.
[00:59:50]  But man, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania.
[00:59:53]  Will it make a difference?
[00:59:55]  Joining me now, Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, and Chris Steyerwalt, contributing editor at The Dispatch, now also senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
[01:00:05]  That's fun.
[01:00:06]  And together they host the Ink Stained Rutches podcast.
[01:00:09]  Eliana, Chris, welcome back to the show.
[01:00:12]  Good to be with you.
[01:00:13]  Do you care to comment on the ridiculousness of the New York Times, what you just heard?
[01:00:17]  I mean, the sin of reporters like yours truly.
[01:00:21]  Literally, all I said was about this SFPD.
[01:00:22]  They're not sharing all the info.
[01:00:24]  It was none of this conspiracy stuff about Paul Pelosi and his alleged relationship with the guy.
[01:00:29]  And I and others are being accused of raising doubts that all facts had been disclosed.
[01:00:33]  This gets you labeled a misinformation artist by the New York Times, guys.
[01:00:39]  No, I find it so interesting, Megan, that reporters are supposed to question people in authority.
[01:00:46]  And this piece is essentially sliming those who dare to raise questions about what we don't know and of the narratives that we're getting from those in authority.
[01:00:57]  In this case, from the San Francisco Police Department, you talked a little bit about what we've heard from them.
[01:01:03]  And what we've gotten, frankly, is an incomplete picture of what happened here.
[01:01:07]  And the idea that raising questions and asking for a fuller picture of what actually went on here, this is an important event that happened.
[01:01:15]  It's important to the public.
[01:01:16]  It's important to our understanding in politics.
[01:01:18]  And the idea that asking to know more or suggesting that we don't have a full picture of it is akin to peddling disinformation or poisoning the politics, I think is far afield and really undercuts what journalists are supposed to be out there doing.

=== Pennsylvania Race Toss Up (11:49) ===

[01:01:35]  Yeah, it's crazy to me.
[01:01:36]  I mean, I could see Salon doing a kind of piece like this.
[01:01:41]  You know, that James Bennett came out after he got canned by the New York Times for running the Tom Cotton piece and said, they want to be Mother Jones, which is a far left publication.
[01:01:51]  And an article like this shows they're becoming Mother Jones.
[01:01:54]  And I realize to a lot of our listeners, there's no distinction between Mother Jones and the Times, but there used to be.
[01:01:59]  And it was an important distinction.
[01:02:01]  And it's fading away by the second.
[01:02:04]  And it does matter.
[01:02:06]  It upsets me.
[01:02:07]  All right, let's get to politics.
[01:02:08]  Let's get to Pennsylvania, Mr. Steierwalt, where, okay, just looking at the latest real clear politics average of all polling as of today.
[01:02:18]  I think this is the latest.
[01:02:19]  Hold on.
[01:02:20]  This is the updated.
[01:02:22]  It shows Oz up 0.1, which is somewhat significant because he's been behind by, you know, little percentage points all along, but now it shows him up 0.1.
[01:02:36]  So where does that race stand in your view right now?
[01:02:39]  Well, it stands as a total toss-up.
[01:02:42]  And we don't know who is going to be coming out to vote in what numbers and who has been coming out to vote in what numbers.
[01:02:47]  We know this is an extraordinarily high turnout election.
[01:02:51]  We have lots of evidence in polling and also in the participation in early and absentee voting that both parties are highly energized.
[01:02:59]  Everybody's turning out to vote.
[01:03:01]  And these races are going to tip on a relatively small number of persuadable voters.
[01:03:06]  And in Pennsylvania, like in Georgia, a lot of those are going to be ticket splitters, right?
[01:03:11]  How many people who in Pennsylvania, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Doug Bastriano, is suck and wind.
[01:03:18]  He is.
[01:03:19]  The bottom fell out for him a while ago.
[01:03:21]  Yeah.
[01:03:22]  So, Josh Shapiro is riding high in Pennsylvania and seems like he is bound to keep the governor's mansion there blue.
[01:03:29]  How many 10.7 points?
[01:03:33]  How many of those folks are going to switch over and vote for Oz?
[01:03:36]  How many of those folks are going to stay on the Democratic column and vote for Fetterman?
[01:03:41]  I guess here's how I would think about Pennsylvania, and I would say the same about Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, which is there's going to be a breeze.
[01:03:51]  We don't know which direction the breeze is going to go.
[01:03:54]  And most of the races, and this is true in the House too, are going to flop in the same direction.
[01:04:00]  The polls will be wrong.
[01:04:01]  We don't know by how much, and we don't know in which direction.
[01:04:05]  And so we'll just be waiting for those first votes to start coming in in Virginia and elsewhere to see what the climate is really like.
[01:04:11]  So for Pennsylvania, it's a toss-up.
[01:04:14]  It's a pure D toss-up.
[01:04:16]  Meanwhile, Fetterman continues to give interviews and go out on the campaign trail, and he makes no more sense than he made at that debate.
[01:04:23]  In fact, I think you could make the case that he's getting less sensible.
[01:04:26]  Like, I don't, I don't even understand half of his sound bites.
[01:04:29]  And I'm trying to.
[01:04:30]  I'm trying to give the guy a fair shot.
[01:04:32]  I understand he's been through something traumatic.
[01:04:34]  I'll give you as one example.
[01:04:36]  He gave an interview on CNN on Tuesday of last week.
[01:04:40]  This one had escaped my notice, but I bring it to you here.
[01:04:43]  Listen.
[01:04:44]  Well, let's talk about inflation because that's a big concern for voters.
[01:04:47]  What do you think the biggest cause of inflation is?
[01:04:50]  And should the Biden administration be doing more?
[01:04:55]  I just do.
[01:04:56]  I think that simply is also let's talk about the trillions and massive tax tax cuts to the corporate tax structure as well.
[01:05:06]  True.
[01:05:07]  You know, trillions of dollars that have added to the deficit.
[01:05:10]  And now they still want to support those as well.
[01:05:13]  True.
[01:05:14]  I think in terms of being very serious about addressing inflation is making sure that those rates are brought back into a line with what they should have been, where they're able to fight the deficit.
[01:05:30]  Is it over?
[01:05:32]  Did it stop?
[01:05:33]  I can't.
[01:05:34]  It's right.
[01:05:35]  Cyrwolf for the listening audience has got a face like he just had to eat a full lemon.
[01:05:41]  It's not good.
[01:05:42]  It's not good.
[01:05:44]  It's upsetting.
[01:05:47]  I have found an interesting new piece of notoriety because I was the analyst on screen after the Fetterman-Oz debate.
[01:05:57]  We hosted it at News Nation, and I said it was hard to watch.
[01:06:02]  And of course, some Republican clipped that into the first part of an ad that they put a bajillion dollars behind around Pennsylvania.
[01:06:07]  So I'm getting to hear from all my yins or friends.
[01:06:09]  I see you on TV 10 times a day.
[01:06:12]  And it's hard to watch, right?
[01:06:15]  John Fetterman is hard to watch.
[01:06:17]  And your heart goes out to the guy.
[01:06:18]  You really feel for this person and you understand how for his personal narrative of redemption, and I'm going to fight my way back from this debilitating stroke and I'm going to do all this stuff.
[01:06:28]  But if you have the doubts that were raised in that debate, you look at that and you say, man, if Oz is just basically good enough, right?
[01:06:37]  And you notice Oz had Susan Collins in and some other, and I say this without trying to be pejorative, squishy, moderate Republican to come in and campaign with him to tell suburbanites in the Philly suburbs and in suburban Pittsburgh, hey, I'll be okay.
[01:06:56]  I'll be cool.
[01:06:57]  You can cross over.
[01:06:58]  You can vote for Shapiro and come vote for me.
[01:07:00]  Because with Fetterman doing this kind of sounding that way, it instills no confidence.
[01:07:05]  All right, here's my question for you, Aliana.
[01:07:09]  When I look at the pretty solid support for Fetterman in the polls, even after the debate, it's not like he cratered.
[01:07:15]  He did not collapse.
[01:07:18]  I wonder whether this is Republicans January 6th.
[01:07:23]  Like they're like, look, this is an issue.
[01:07:26]  For the love of God, would you listen to this guy?
[01:07:29]  But the Democratic faithful in Pennsylvania are like, eh, fine.
[01:07:33]  He'll get over it.
[01:07:34]  He looks like us.
[01:07:36]  He kind of acts like us.
[01:07:37]  And I can't relate to Dr. Oz at all.
[01:07:40]  I don't even understand what planet he's on with the crudité and the Wegners and the drink and the wine at the tailgate.
[01:07:45]  Like, I don't get it.
[01:07:46]  And I don't care.
[01:07:48]  I wonder whether it's that.
[01:07:50]  Like, you can get yourself as upset as you want about those weird soundbites.
[01:07:52]  I'm still voting for him.
[01:07:54]  Well, a couple of things, Megan.
[01:07:56]  We were joking around in the free vegan offices here and somebody said, you know, Biden must have gone out to suburban Philly.
[01:08:02]  Biden and former president Barack Obama were out there this weekend because Biden makes Fetterman look good by comparison.
[01:08:09]  He's not exactly speaking in complete sentences.
[01:08:13]  So articulate.
[01:08:14]  You know, I think the question you ask is a good one.
[01:08:17]  It's true.
[01:08:18]  Like it's amazing that Fetterman has not created in the polls, but it does speak to the hyper-polarized environment that we live in where, you know, 40-some percent of voters are voting Democrat, no matter who's on the ticket, you know, literally in the case of Fetterman this time.
[01:08:34]  And the same is true of on the Republican side.
[01:08:36]  There are very few persuadable voters.
[01:08:39]  And to the question you raised, people were making this argument about Fetterman after that disastrous debate performance.
[01:08:46]  They were saying on Twitter, like, don't look at what you're seeing in this debate.
[01:08:50]  He's a reliable Democratic vote and he has a hand that is able, that he is able to raise or like, you know, to push the button to cast a Democratic vote.
[01:09:01]  And that is all that matters.
[01:09:03]  That was the narrative coming from top Democrats in the wake of that debate.
[01:09:08]  You know, the New York Times podcast, The Daily, they had an interesting piece on the dynamic around Fetterman and how he's, he's like, what exactly would Dems were looking for?
[01:09:16]  Somebody who could get the white working class vote in Pennsylvania that had previously voted Democrat, but went for Trump.
[01:09:21]  And they needed somebody who acted like them and sounded like them and, you know, looked like them and dressed like them.
[01:09:27]  But and that's Fetterman, but he's pretty far left.
[01:09:30]  Like he's not your, he's not like a moderate Democrat, but you got to think of those guys, you know, those guys sitting there and they're looking at Dr. Oz and they're like, I mean, I like Dr. Oz.
[01:09:41]  Don't get me wrong, but I can see why he's not resonating with them.
[01:09:44]  I'll give you an example on the other side.
[01:09:45]  Here he is with his latest sort of elitist gaffe.
[01:09:48]  This is really more like he's not from Pennsylvania and they know it.
[01:09:52]  Made a mistake on the Steelers.
[01:09:53]  I'll play the soundbite and then I'll tell you what the mistake was.
[01:09:55]  It's SAT 8.
[01:09:56]  Tomorrow morning, when you awaken, I want you to contact 10 people.
[01:10:02]  Do it at church, do it before the Steelers game.
[01:10:06]  Just find the time.
[01:10:07]  Here's the question you're going to ask them.
[01:10:10]  Are you happy with the way America's going?
[01:10:14]  Chris knows what the mistake was.
[01:10:16]  This was on Saturday.
[01:10:17]  He said this.
[01:10:18]  What was his mistake?
[01:10:19]  Steelers have a bye week.
[01:10:21]  They lost to the Eagles and they've got a bye week.
[01:10:23]  They don't play again until next week.
[01:10:25]  Wow.
[01:10:26]  And he did that in La Trobe.
[01:10:28]  He did that in Latrobe PS.
[01:10:29]  Fetterman tweeted it out immediately and he's like, the Steelers have a bye week, bro.
[01:10:33]  Can't do it, man.
[01:10:34]  Can't do it.
[01:10:36]  That's the thing.
[01:10:36]  When the contest is over, look, if he were, if these two were having a campaign for Upper West Side voters, well, no, that doesn't work.
[01:10:44]  But anyway.
[01:10:47]  Here's the counterpoint.
[01:10:48]  Here's the counterpoint, Megan.
[01:10:50]  I think Fetterman would have been really helped.
[01:10:55]  He does look like a blue collar voter.
[01:10:57]  He has that kind of attitude, but he hasn't actually been able to articulate a coherent message because of his issues on the issues like inflation and like crime that are resonant in this race.
[01:11:09]  And if you listen to Oz, though Oz has like a very John Kerry-esque, wooden, out-of-touch quality and bearing to him, he has tried to portray Fetterman as the radical.
[01:11:20]  And Oz actually can deliver a message, like he's able to talk.
[01:11:24]  And so I think Fetterman really has been hurt.
[01:11:27]  His campaign has been hurt by his inability to talk coherently about the issues that those blue-collar voters he's trying to reach care about.
[01:11:35]  Let me offer one contra point to this, which is the Democrats had a really good nominee available to them, Connor Lamb.
[01:11:42]  Connor Lamb, the congressman from Western Pennsylvania, would be beating Dr. Oz soundly if the Democrats had not given in to their emotionality and nominated Fetterman, who made them feel good, right?
[01:11:54]  He had an attractive narrative.
[01:11:56]  It was different.
[01:11:56]  He's not a guy in a Brooks Brothers suit.
[01:11:59]  He's something different and something special.
[01:12:01]  And by the way, very progressive.
[01:12:03]  And what the argument Fetterman made in the Democratic primary was we can't send the squishy moderate to Washington.
[01:12:11]  We need a bold progressive.
[01:12:13]  And then after he had his stroke, the argument for him going was the same, right?
[01:12:18]  We have to have John Fetterman because somebody, if the Democratic Executive Committee replaces him with Connor Lamb, button down Connor Lamb, it's no good for the working families of Pennsylvania.
[01:12:27]  We've got to stay in this fight.
[01:12:29]  And the truth is, by the time he got to that debate stage and subsequently, he sounds, he's saying the same kinds of stuff that Connor Lamb would say, talking about getting the deficit under control, talking about his newfound love of fracking, talking about law enforcement and the need to get crime under control.
[01:12:45]  So the tragedy of this and what's really evil, and I use the word advisedly here, are the consultants who continued to take millions of dollars to keep John Fetterman in this race, given from hardworking Americans, when what they should have told him months ago was, we can't be part of this.
[01:13:05]  I understand why you can't, but the Democrats have a good candidate we could put on the ballot and win this race.
[01:13:10]  And this is all hubris and greed and it's very sad.
[01:13:14]  We can't be part of this.
[01:13:15]  Exactly right.
[01:13:16]  It would have been such an interesting race if we had, well, what it was originally supposed to be.
[01:13:21]  Okay, let me jump because I want to talk about it was reported in Axios.

=== Democrats Admit They Are Screwed (04:16) ===

[01:13:25]  The full report is also available and I printed it out.
[01:13:27]  Third Way, the center left think tank backed by some of the biggest names in Democratic politics, sounding the alarm, quoting now from Axios, sounding the alarm about deep-seated party flaws based on its own new polling from Senate battlegrounds.
[01:13:41]  So I pulled the report itself.
[01:13:43]  This is not good.
[01:13:43]  This is the Democratic introspective look a day in advance of the midterm saying we're screwed.
[01:13:50]  They say if the Democrats manage to hold on to the House and Senate, it will be in spite of the party brand, not because of it.
[01:13:55]  This is what Third Way itself is writing.
[01:13:58]  Despite a roster of GOP candidates who are extreme by any standard, voters see Democrats as just as extreme, as well as far less concerned about the issues that most worry them.
[01:14:09]  They go on to say they are seen as out of touch on priorities, out of touch ideologically, and out of touch on values.
[01:14:19]  Democrats are underwater on issues voters name as their highest priorities, including the economy, immigration, crime.
[01:14:25]  And voters question whether the party shares essential values like patriotism and the importance of hard work.
[01:14:32]  Even in areas where Democrats are trusted more, including education, it is not clear that voters are sold on Democrats' approach or ability to get things done.
[01:14:42]  I find this fascinating.
[01:14:44]  I agree with every word of it.
[01:14:45]  I feel like we've been seeing this.
[01:14:46]  All my Democrat friends are complaining about all of this.
[01:14:49]  And that's why they're ready to pull the lever for Lee Zeldon in New York, a state that hasn't gone blue in 240 years.
[01:14:55]  No, it hasn't gone red.
[01:14:56]  It has gone.
[01:14:57]  Not recent.
[01:14:59]  So what do you make of the third way report, Sarwalt?
[01:15:03]  It's correct and it's tracking with Liz Smith had a op-ed in the New York Times, Sunday New York Times saying basically the same thing.
[01:15:13]  You've got to match candidates with voters, right?
[01:15:17]  This is something Democrats used to understand in the Rahm Emanuel, Driple C era, certainly in the Bill Clinton era, which is every district in every state needs a different kind of Democrat.
[01:15:28]  And there can't be a one-size-fits-all progressive utopian approach to politics.
[01:15:34]  You've got to size it right for the state.
[01:15:36]  Joe Manchin works as a Democrat in West Virginia, doesn't work in Oregon.
[01:15:41]  That's one of the things about living in a republic.
[01:15:43]  One of the other things, and I wrote about this in my column for today, which is Democrats have been hectoring the American people that democracy is on the ballot and a vote for any Republican.
[01:15:55]  Speaking of how the New York Times did a category error and lumped you in with kooks, that's what they did in their report on election denialism in the Republican Party.
[01:16:04]  They give away this huge report, 370 Republicans on the ballot this year, election denialism, blah, You have to read two-thirds of the way through the story when it's like, well, actually, fewer than a third of them are actually of the rank kind.
[01:16:18]  Some of them were people who said we should let the system work and had questions about mail-in ballots prior to January 6, 2021.
[01:16:26]  But they just put everybody together to make a bigger number.
[01:16:28]  That kind of approach and hectoring approach and trying to delegitimize Republicans and saying there's no difference between, you know, Carrie Lake and Susan Collins, right?
[01:16:39]  It's all just one party.
[01:16:40]  Everybody's exactly the same and they're all election deniers.
[01:16:43]  Democrats think that American voters believe in them and have high confidence in them.
[01:16:48]  Look at the Gallup numbers on this.
[01:16:50]  35%.
[01:16:51]  The two parties are tied.
[01:16:53]  The American people have 35% approval for both of these parties.
[01:16:57]  Not good guys.
[01:16:58]  And Democrats need to understand where they are with voters and who they are, really, really.
[01:17:03]  And this own look, Eliana says, most of these voters, because they're polling Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
[01:17:08]  This is not just them polling Democrats.
[01:17:10]  And they're saying most people ideologically fall.
[01:17:12]  You know, I always talk about it too, between like a one and a 10, or this one's zero to 10.
[01:17:16]  Zero is like the far left libs.
[01:17:18]  The 10 is the far left conservatives.
[01:17:21]  And they say most of these people would average out to a 5.8.
[01:17:24]  And this Democrat report acknowledges the country's center right.
[01:17:27]  It's 5.8.
[01:17:28]  And that they do see Democrats as extreme and they see the Republicans as extreme, but they are closer.
[01:17:34]  They think the Republicans are less extreme than they think the Democrats are.
[01:17:38]  They see themselves as more closely aligned with the Republicans.

=== Midterm Temperature Shifts (15:02) ===

[01:17:41]  And they do care greatly about inflation, about the economy, about immigration, about crime.
[01:17:49]  They are against Biden's student loan forgiveness.
[01:17:53]  They think the Democrat Party is too woke and too preachy by majorities.
[01:17:59]  So this is like their own, what was her name?
[01:18:02]  Jackie Spamberger moment.
[01:18:03]  You know, remember, she was the Virginia Democrat.
[01:18:06]  It was like, what are we talking about?
[01:18:07]  Defund the police.
[01:18:08]  We're going to get killed.
[01:18:09]  Right.
[01:18:11]  In any event, so this is them saying all that.
[01:18:13]  And Starwalt makes the point about crime.
[01:18:16]  And at this point's making the point, they care about crime.
[01:18:19]  Like, this is a real issue.
[01:18:20]  Stop talking about fucking democracy.
[01:18:23]  Like, just make a point about you're going to live and your family's going to live.
[01:18:28]  Listen to what Bill Clinton, the off message, had to say about this past weekend, 18.
[01:18:38]  He makes it sound like Kathy Oboe gets up everborn, goes to the nearest subway stop, and hands out billing clubs, baseball events.
[01:18:51]  Everybody gets on so many.
[01:19:03]  And for the listening audience, he said, well, he, meaning Zeldon, and then he made like big muscle arms is this as if Lee Zeldon.
[01:19:08]  Just to correct Abigail Spanberger, not Jackie.
[01:19:11]  So they're not getting it.
[01:19:13]  Their party is telling them, please try to get it.
[01:19:15]  Please get on message.
[01:19:16]  It's not happening.
[01:19:18]  Right.
[01:19:18]  I think the bigger question, the third way analysis is, you know, is obviously on point.
[01:19:24]  But the bigger question is, will anybody in the Democratic Party listen?
[01:19:28]  And it's funny that you mentioned Abigail Spamberger, who your reference was to what she told her colleagues after Republicans made far bigger gains than expected in 2020 in congressional races.
[01:19:39]  And she told them, stop talking about defunding the police.
[01:19:44]  You know, there have been voices who have tried to speak up and they have not, you know, their calls for moderation have not really been heeded.
[01:19:52]  The other person who comes to mind is David Shore, the progressive data analyst who worked in the Obama, who worked on President Obama's campaigns, who has tried to tell his fellow Democrats that they are perceived as radicals and need to rein it in.
[01:20:06]  But it doesn't seem to me that the powers that be in the party, be they in the Biden White House or in Senate leadership or in House leadership, have been able to quiet the younger and more voluble left-wing flank of the party that, by the way, controls a lot of district attorney's offices who control crime all over, you know, who have a lot of say over how crime is handled and prosecuted all over the country.
[01:20:35]  And many others at the state level.
[01:20:37]  You played a clip of Bill Clinton campaigning for Governor Kathy Hochul and mocking voters' concerns about crime.
[01:20:44]  That's not going to be helpful, I don't think, in that race.
[01:20:48]  But the far bigger question to me is, is there an audience ready to hear this message in the party than is the message correct?
[01:20:55]  That's a very good question because the reason when I flew back from Detroit, I flew in last night and our airport bags, they got to, it's a long story.
[01:21:04]  I did carry on for those who are worried about my airplanes luggage disaster.
[01:21:08]  But then it's a long story.
[01:21:10]  It had to come through the luggage terminal delivery thing anyway.
[01:21:13]  We're standing there.
[01:21:14]  We've got 45 minutes extra delayed because Biden was landing.
[01:21:18]  Why was Biden landing?
[01:21:19]  Because he was going to Yonkers to give a speech.
[01:21:21]  I think at Sarah Lawrence.
[01:21:23]  Why is he doing that on behalf of Governor Hochl to keep her job?
[01:21:26]  Because they have no young people who are excited by this Democratic Party.
[01:21:29]  They're already like the numbers amongst Democrats in terms of enthusiasm and the young people are at terrifyingly low levels.
[01:21:37]  So you raise a good question.
[01:21:38]  What would happen if they went out there and told him the truth?
[01:21:40]  What if they actually said all the stuff that Third Way is telling them to say?
[01:21:44]  I don't know that the numbers would go up, Chris.
[01:21:46]  Well, I mean, there's also another reason why Joe Biden was campaigning at Sarah Lawrence College.
[01:21:53]  It's he can't do any harm there.
[01:21:55]  The places where, I mean, they sent Kamala Harris to campaign in Boston.
[01:22:00]  Now, if they send you, if you're a Democrat and they send you to Boston before a midterm election, this is not a vote of confidence.
[01:22:08]  This is not your party saying, you got it.
[01:22:10]  You are a powerhouse.
[01:22:12]  Game changer.
[01:22:13]  They've been looking for places to put Biden to keep him busy and do stuff either in races that are lost, like Florida, right?
[01:22:22]  You know, Val Deming is going to lose.
[01:22:24]  Rick Scott is, or not Rick Scott, Charlie Christ.
[01:22:28]  Charlie Christ is going to set a record.
[01:22:29]  I believe he is the only person to have lost statewide office under three different party banners as a Democrat, a Republican, and an Independent.
[01:22:39]  So congratulations, Charlie Christ.
[01:22:41]  Yeah, you've done it.
[01:22:43]  But Sarah Lawrence College ain't a hotbed of nothing, except for probably a lot of the woke, you know, overeducated, blah, blah, blah.
[01:22:52]  So this is kind of stashing Biden someplace so that he can feel busy.
[01:22:56]  Yeah, so this is not the place to walk in, though, and say, we've really got to secure the border.
[01:23:00]  We need to fund the police.
[01:23:02]  We've got to get rid of this no-cash bail nonsense.
[01:23:05]  This is not.
[01:23:06]  Yeah.
[01:23:06]  I get it.
[01:23:07]  And the thing is that Biden, when he was in his prime, could carry that message.
[01:23:12]  I mean, he mangled it frequently, but he could carry it.
[01:23:15]  And the reason that he was on the Democratic ticket in 2008 was because voters like that, people who John Fetterman says that he can reach in Pennsylvania, people that Lee Zeldon says he can reach in New York, the middle of the middle class, a lot of white working class voters in the country believed Joe Biden and he had a message that he could carry.
[01:23:36]  But a lot of the story of his struggles and the Democrats' struggles in this cycle are about a wasted year and a half that Biden engaged in sucking up to the progressive left and his party, trying to get renominated in 2024 and trying to appease people who are never going to be appeased.
[01:23:55]  They will not be appeased.
[01:23:57]  Yeah, they will never be appeased.
[01:23:59]  Chris Starwell has an interesting prediction about what is likely to happen to Joe Biden on Wednesday.
[01:24:04]  On Wednesday, that is where we will pick it up after a very quick break and a quick return.
[01:24:08]  Eliana and Chris, stay with us.
[01:24:12]  Before we go to predictions and so on, I want to ask you about New York.
[01:24:16]  So interesting.
[01:24:17]  So many big names coming to New York State.
[01:24:21]  Trafalgar has Zeldon up by one, but another poll has her up by a lot, like nine.
[01:24:28]  I can't remember, Stywah.
[01:24:30]  Is New York, is this a Lucy with the football situation or does Zeldon actually have a chance?
[01:24:35]  So you know the truth that these races are all interconnected, right?
[01:24:41]  That there is going to be a temperature in the country that is somewhere between a maybe think of it this way.
[01:24:49]  There are possibilities for a Republican real wave wave.
[01:24:53]  That's the best case scenario for Republicans is a wave wave.
[01:24:56]  But then there's a ripple that flips enough just over the edge, right?
[01:25:01]  They win a bunch of close races with a little breeze behind them.
[01:25:05]  So a ripple that gets them a bunch of seats and a majority in the Senate.
[01:25:09]  And then there's the converse on the other side for Democrats.
[01:25:14]  Which of those scenarios will tell us a lot?
[01:25:17]  Now, New York has a different story to tell, because in the case of New York, there isn't another big race on the ballot, right?
[01:25:25]  There isn't some Senate race that's driving the discussion.
[01:25:28]  And yes, there are certainly competitive house races in New York, no doubt, but New York City doesn't have anything to go vote for, right?
[01:25:34]  There isn't their issues, of course, are settled in the primaries.
[01:25:40]  So this isn't an election that really involves New York City.
[01:25:44]  So weird stuff can happen.
[01:25:46]  I would say that Hochel is hockey, is favored.
[01:25:51]  I would give her the edge, but not by much.
[01:25:53]  And it wouldn't take much of a good Republican climate to put Zeldon in.
[01:25:59]  Eliana, nobody voted for her.
[01:26:01]  I mean, she's lieutenant governor, was and now is the governor, but nobody voted for her.
[01:26:06]  I think that the New York Democrats would be much more motivated if Andrew Cuomo were still on the ballot.
[01:26:10]  I realize they got rid of him and supported that and the whole thing.
[01:26:13]  But speaking of Janice Dean again, but she's just not, she's not an Obama.
[01:26:19]  She's not a Cuomo.
[01:26:20]  She's totally uninspiring.
[01:26:22]  She's pretty wooden.
[01:26:24]  And there's something happening in New York.
[01:26:27]  Like you see the Zeldon signs everywhere.
[01:26:30]  I went upstate New York to visit my mom everywhere.
[01:26:33]  And, you know, we're in the suburbs of Albany, which is blue.
[01:26:36]  Most of upstate New York is largely red.
[01:26:38]  Albany's blue.
[01:26:40]  So I don't know.
[01:26:42]  I feel like something could happen for him tomorrow, notwithstanding that latest poll that showed her way ahead.
[01:26:47]  I do think she's struggling from never having been at the top of the ticket before.
[01:26:51]  She doesn't have the political skills, obviously, of somebody who's run an intense, high-profile race, and that's clear.
[01:26:59]  And the other thing I think she's really suffering from is being a Democrat in New York, where you don't really face formidable Republican opponents too often.
[01:27:08]  And she clearly, and you can hear it in her campaign messages and in the messages of the surrogates, you played Bill Clinton coming to some for her.
[01:27:16]  They're not used to running in highly competitive races.
[01:27:20]  And I think the whole infrastructure of the state reflects that.
[01:27:23]  And she's on her back heels as a result of both of those things.
[01:27:27]  It's tough when, you know, every other day someone's getting shoved in front of a subway train.
[01:27:31]  Like, this is fine.
[01:27:32]  You're good.
[01:27:32]  No, enjoy New York.
[01:27:34]  Love the big apple.
[01:27:36]  Okay.
[01:27:36]  So at the top of the hour, we were joined by Tiffany Smiley in Washington State and Tudor Dixon, who's running for governor in Michigan.
[01:27:45]  I'll ask your take on those two races, Chris.
[01:27:47]  Do you think either one of those women has a real chance?
[01:27:50]  Well, certainly a better chance in Michigan.
[01:27:53]  Whitmer has been divisive.
[01:27:55]  Whitmer and Michigan is a lot more Republican in its demographic makeup than Washington is.
[01:28:04]  And so I'll put it this way: we're talking about waves.
[01:28:07]  For the wave to be strong enough to take out Patty Murray in Washington, the Republicans would have a close, they'd be looking at 57 seats, 58 seats, because there's a lot of other states that would have come.
[01:28:20]  There's a lot of other races that would come in before that one.
[01:28:24]  That is a title wave.
[01:28:26]  Yeah.
[01:28:26]  And I don't think the Republicans are heading for a veto proof or a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.
[01:28:34]  Oh, my God.
[01:28:35]  I don't think so.
[01:28:36]  But in Michigan, look, here's the thing.
[01:28:39]  Voters treat gubernatorial races, and this is true in New York and it's true in Michigan.
[01:28:44]  It's true in a lot of places.
[01:28:46]  Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maryland, very Democratic states, all have Republican governors.
[01:28:51]  Why?
[01:28:52]  Because voters are able to disassociate their votes on state issues from federal issues.
[01:28:58]  They don't mind sending a koop to Washington, right?
[01:29:01]  They don't mind sending a weirdo to Washington because it gets them out of their hair.
[01:29:04]  But then when they say, oh, I got to deal with this person, this person's going to be in charge of making sure the snowplows run and the schools open and all of that stuff.
[01:29:13]  It's a different thing.
[01:29:14]  So there is an opportunity here for Republicans.
[01:29:17]  I think Tudor Dixon has a chance.
[01:29:19]  I would favor Whitmer, certainly, but I think she's got a chance depending on whether it's a ripple or a wave.
[01:29:26]  Right.
[01:29:26]  Are we talking title?
[01:29:27]  Are we talking just a great wave for surfing?
[01:29:29]  Are we talking a little ripple that you would even let your toddler swim in?
[01:29:32]  Or nothing at all.
[01:29:33]  Maybe it's going to be nothing at all.
[01:29:34]  I doubt that, though.
[01:29:35]  So, Elio, what do we think in terms of like last week, the week before the trend started to go heavily toward Republicans, the Democrats' advantage that they'd built up over the summer after Dobbs in the wake of the Trump Mar-a-Lago stuff, they were doing so much better.
[01:29:49]  Then we get to September and the bottom fell out.
[01:29:51]  So far, you know, one day before the election, I don't see a trend the other way.
[01:29:56]  I don't think the Paul Pelosi thing, like nothing in advance of this election day has shifted the tide back to blue.
[01:30:04]  Or am I missing something?
[01:30:06]  I think that's right.
[01:30:08]  And just to piggyback on what you and Chris were talking about about these races in Michigan and Washington State, one of the things I think is really interesting is that Republicans struggled with candidate quality, which is why you heard a lot of downbeat Republicans in June, July, August.
[01:30:27]  You know, I think they thought Dr. Oz wasn't the greatest candidate.
[01:30:30]  Blake Masters wasn't the greatest candidate in Arizona and worried that races they considered winnable were now imperiled.
[01:30:38]  One of the really interesting things is they fielded fantastic candidates for these really reach seats.
[01:30:44]  I would include Tiffany Smiley out in Washington, who put seats on the map that like we would have never even been talking about in a normal year.
[01:30:50]  And the other one I would mention is Joe O'Day in Colorado.
[01:30:54]  That's a really difficult race, but the candidate quality in some of these like very high level of difficulty races for Republicans is really quite good.
[01:31:03]  And I would keep an eye on those seats because the candidates are better in those seats than in some of the tightest races.
[01:31:10]  And I think that will be an interesting dynamic to watch tomorrow.
[01:31:13]  All right, now, Starwell, what happens on Wednesday if the red wave comes?
[01:31:16]  Title, surfer, or toddler can swim in the ocean?
[01:31:20]  Yeah, any one of those, what happens to Biden?
[01:31:22]  Well, I mean, look, they're going to blame Joe Biden.
[01:31:26]  And that's a fact because they were not happy with him in the first place.
[01:31:32]  And they were blaming him in the springtime when they were unhappy.
[01:31:36]  They'll blame him again.
[01:31:38]  And he's going to have some very hard choices to make.
[01:31:40]  He's a proud man.
[01:31:41]  He's going to have some very hard choices to make.
[01:31:43]  He says he's determined that he wants to run again, but he hasn't made a final decision.
[01:31:48]  But if Democrats take a shellacking, if they get knouted, it's going to be hard for him to convince his party that he's the guy.
[01:31:56]  He's going to run.
[01:31:56]  He's going to be run right out of town and run right off on his ticket.
[01:32:00]  And it's not going to be the run he expects.
[01:32:03]  Last question.
[01:32:04]  Trump, Ron DeSanctimonius.
[01:32:07]  Ron DeSantis fans didn't like it.
[01:32:09]  Trump reportedly, I take it with a huge grain of salt because it comes from Gabe Sherman, who in my experience at Fox, 50% of the time was right on the money.
[01:32:16]  50% of the time was completely making shit up.
[01:32:19]  But he's saying that Trump that DeSantis has been telling donors he will not challenge Trump if Trump runs, that if Trump runs, he will not.
[01:32:29]  So what do you make of Ron DeSanctimonius and Trump seeing to try to elbow Ron out of this thing?
[01:32:35]  I think DeSantis would be a formidable opponent for Trump.
[01:32:39]  And he's tough, he's smart, and he's disciplined.

=== Trump vs DeSantis Donors (00:25) ===

[01:32:44]  And it would be quite a race.
[01:32:45]  And Trump knows it.
[01:32:47]  And I think the reason he's under his skin is because of that.
[01:32:49]  All right, I got to leave it at that because I got to run.
[01:32:52]  But it was always a, it's always been a pleasure and it will continue to be a pleasure.
[01:32:55]  And I thank you both.
[01:32:57]  We got you covered tomorrow.
[01:32:58]  In addition to our regular show, we will be live on Sirius Triumph Channel and YouTube tomorrow night, starting at nine.
[01:33:03]  See you then.
[01:33:05]  Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
[01:33:07]  No BS, no agenda, and no