The Megyn Kelly Show - 20230519_dan-bongino-on-his-fox-news-exit-tuckers-next-step

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May 19, 2023 - The Megyn Kelly Show

01:36:48

20230519_dan-bongino-on-his-fox-news-exit-tuckers-next-step

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Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show 00:14:13
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
	Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, and happy Friday.
	It's going to be a super fun show today with someone you likely know very well, but who has never been on this show before?
	Dan Bongino is here.
	I am so, so happy to be talking to Dan Bongino today.
	He's a former NYPD officer, turned Secret Service agent who put his life on the line defending Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
	When he left the Secret Service, Dan crossed over into the journalism space, where he has become one of the top podcast hosts in America.
	His quick wit and fiery commentary have won him plenty of fans and, of course, know-nothing detractors.
	Recently, he parted ways with Fox News, and we'll get into that.
	Plus, the state of journalism and 2024 as we get ready for what we believe will be an imminent Ron DeSantis announcement.
	Dan's got thoughts.
	Welcome to Dan Bongino, host of the Dan Bongino show.
	Great to see you, Dan.
	Hey, good to see you too.
	I haven't seen you in eons.
	We did an interview with Fox when you had the Nine Show when I wrote my first book.
	And that's the last time I've seen you.
	So I know I reached out.
	You're a great interviewer.
	I haven't been able to do these interviews.
	I said, you know what?
	If I'm going to do one, darn it, we're going to do the Megan Kelly show.
	So now here we are.
	I'm honored.
	I've been trying to talk to you forever, but you couldn't.
	When you're under contract with Fox, they won't let anybody come talk to us.
	But I'm so happy you're a free agent now and I can talk to you whenever I want, and vice versa.
	I guess that's as good a place to start as any place.
	You're gone.
	Tucker's gone.
	You know, there are a lot of questions over there now about what Fox is doing because they also cut ties with people like Laura Trump.
	And a lot of people wondering whether Fox is doing this intentionally without owning the fact that they're trying to cleanse themselves of people who were openly supportive of Trump or MAGA World or, you know, the new MAGA Republican Party that they're trying to get back to their quote establishment roots.
	Do you?
	What do you think?
	You know, I got a lot of thoughts on this.
	First, I want to hit this point.
	I think there are a lot of people, not just at Fox, but in the media in general, who really don't understand new media.
	And I use you for an example.
	I actually used you on my show.
	It was about two weeks ago or so.
	I did a whole segment on your show because I didn't want to make the story about me.
	And I said, you know, it's bizarre.
	They're writing nobody can survive outside of Fox.
	They said, look at Megan Kelly, who hasn't done much since.
	And I shook my head.
	I'm like, what a bunch of morons.
	Do they not understand?
	See, I understand the podcast space and I watch our rankings because I'm super competitive about everything.
	I know the audience you have.
	I can reasonably guess it.
	It's enormous.
	Forget even social or anything like that.
	I'm just talking about strict downloads and watches, right?
	So I'm reading these articles about how Glenn Beck, oh man, it's over for Glenn Bill O'Reilly finished.
	Megan hasn't done anything.
	That Dan Bongino and Tucker, they're going to be finished.
	And I'm thinking, these people really don't get it.
	And I'm talking about media in general, but I'm not sure some people at Fox really understand that.
	You know, they were good to me.
	I'm not going to knock them to me.
	The Tucker thing, I think, obviously was an enormous catastrophic mistake.
	I have friends over there still.
	I enjoyed my time.
	I love them to death.
	And I'm not telling you anything I haven't told them.
	I just don't think they understand that a lot of people in cable news, Megan, are fighting yesterday's war.
	They beat CNN and it's over.
	That fight is, they've been number one for 20 years.
	They're not the problem now.
	You're the problem.
	Podcasts, Rumble, YouTube, Twitter with Elon.
	That's the problem.
	The space has been totally disaggregated right now.
	People can go put Megan Kelly in a search engine and watch your show a thousand different ways.
	They can watch clips on Twitter.
	People spread it around.
	And I did this whole thing on my show and I did a simple internet search of Megan Kelly.
	I'm like, wow, totally irrelevant.
	They only wrote about her 10 times today.
	I'm like, what kind of idiot thinks?
	And again, you're in my time slot.
	So I didn't care.
	I really love the whole parallel media system and I don't give a damn.
	I want to see you succeed in everyone else.
	But I just think, number one, it was a huge mistake because they may say to themselves with Tucker, at least, getting back to that specific thing.
	Oh, you know, no sweat.
	Don't worry about it.
	You know, where's he going to go?
	Well, the answer is it doesn't matter.
	Wherever he goes, people are just going to go find him like they find you on Sirius, the internet, Rumble.
	It doesn't matter.
	The whole system's been broken apart.
	And I really think, just to wrap this up, for Fox's sake, because again, I have friends over there.
	And Megan, for as many issues as you and I may have, we need Fox.
	We need a healthy, conservative alternative.
	And Newsmax is doing great, not knocking them.
	Their audience is exploding.
	But it's still, even with people leaving Fox is in Fox's audience, we need them healthy.
	What are we going to do?
	Watch MSNBC or CNN?
	They need to explain what happened with Tucker.
	You can't leave this out there in the ether because people are filling in the blanks and saying, because of ABCD, you know, XYZ and filling in their own reasons.
	They got to explain this, or I think that the problems are going to continue.
	Well, Fox is in no danger of going out of business, but they're being taught a lesson right now by a very angry audience.
	And I support the lesson.
	You know, they've gotten too big for their own britches.
	They think they're the Fox News of 10 years ago and they're not.
	They're on the way down.
	They're not on the way up anymore in terms of audience share and popularity.
	And they no longer have a monopoly for all the reasons you just stated.
	So some humility would serve them well right now and understanding their audience is their business.
	That is their entire business.
	You thumb the middle finger at those people.
	Your business is over.
	They're your bosses.
	And to not even show them the courtesy of an explanation on their favorite host is absolutely disrespectful.
	And the audience is punishing them.
	It's punishing the whole primetime right now.
	And I think they're going to continue punishing the eight.
	They're now reportedly moving Hannity to eight and they're going to put Jesse at nine and they're going to put Gutfeld at 10.
	Laura moves to seven, according to the Drudge Report.
	I don't think that's smart right now because the audience likes Sean.
	He's been there for years.
	I know he's a good friend of yours.
	And I like Sean too.
	But they're punishing Fox.
	So don't take one of your biggest stars and line him up for punches in the faith because he's going to get it too.
	He is going to get it next.
	And it's just not setting anybody up for success.
	No, you're right.
	I mean, like Will Kane, for instance, was on this week.
	Everybody loves.
	Who doesn't like Will Kane?
	I mean, he's an impossible guy to not like.
	But the ratings are still not great.
	So your assertion there is absolutely correct.
	They're clearly not targeting them specifically because some shows have done okay.
	Like people in the five seems to be holding up reasonably well.
	But they really do need to provide some kind of an explanation.
	It's just, it's not going to work to keep it out there like that, that this didn't happen.
	I think a lot of people think this may be some kind of anti-Trump thing.
	I got to say, I don't, that wasn't my case.
	My, my deal with Fox, I haven't told the story anywhere else.
	You get the first kind of crack at this outside of what I said on my podcast, but I was not targeted.
	My show, they were dying to re-up for the, we negotiated for an entire year.
	So that I can't tell you like, oh, Fox got rid of me because they didn't.
	That's not the liberal, you know, jerkwads are going to, oh, Dan Bongino was fired.
	I just give them the middle finger.
	It's just stupid.
	They're just making it up.
	I was there.
	I negotiate my own deals.
	I don't have an agent.
	I do my own business deals.
	I don't need an agent.
	I do my own business, right?
	They wanted the show.
	I just had a different vision for my role at the network.
	And that's okay.
	I was not, I'm not the Saturday guy, Megan.
	I'm sorry.
	I can't work six days a week.
	I've got, I've got young kids and I'm not working six days a week.
	And even though we recorded the show on Friday, you know the inside baseball of Fox.
	What happens when there's breaking news?
	Which with Trump out there is all the time, you got to be on.
	So I'm on a boat with my friend.
	I'm having a few adult sodas.
	Maybe one too many adult sodas, not driving the boat.
	Don't worry about it.
	And all of a sudden you get a call.
	Hey, there's a balloon from China.
	We got to go live.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm not sure I'm in any condition to go live, but I'll give it a shot.
	And, you know, I mean, we not that I ever went on the air, but listen, it's hard.
	So I couldn't do it.
	And I said, I'm sorry.
	Like, that's not going to work out.
	So I definitely was not fired.
	Liberals are just making that up.
	But with the Tucker thing happening, a couple of people, you know, people call you and stuff.
	And I was definitely, you know, I'm not trying to, I don't want to put lipstick on this thing, but I'm not the easiest guy to deal with, Megan.
	I'm like a major PETA pain in the, you know, you can figure out, I just am because I've got my own stuff.
	I've got my own investments.
	I've got Rumble.
	I've got my podcast, my radio show.
	And the thing I think your success out there on your own has bought you is freedom.
	Money buys freedom.
	I hate to say it, but it's true.
	I know you're not in this strictly for the cheese, but let's be honest, you know, it buys you freedom.
	And I was in a position with them where I could walk away from a show on Fox and say, I'm sorry, that's not my vision and it's different.
	But someone told me later that, you know, in the end, it probably they weren't that eager the last few weeks to make this thing work because, you know, you could be a little aggravating to work with.
	And they're not wrong.
	And that's okay.
	Maybe I'm not a company guy in that respect.
	I'm sure they're regretting it now.
	It's just not.
	I mean, it's like, I've got to be, you're one of the people that could have slid into that eight o'clock time slot and won back over those angry viewers.
	So, I mean, talk about not planning out into the future when you make your employment decisions.
	But you and I both know, Dan, the truth is 95% of the people who are on those cable news lineups right now would do anything to be in your slot or my slot right now.
	They want what we have.
	They want to get out of the thumb from underneath the thumb of these big corporate cable giants who dictate what they can say, who most of them know the vast majority are platform players.
	They don't think that they could make it out here without the support of the Fox News digital platform and the, you know, the cable channel and so on.
	So it's not available to everybody.
	But even many of the stars over there will text me and say, like, I'm so envious because you can do it on your own terms.
	And people, you say that we're on the same time.
	Nobody even knows that.
	They just download the Dan Bongino show.
	That's what I do.
	And they can listen to you.
	They can listen to me.
	You can listen to on two-point speed.
	So you can get it fast, way more information than you would get if you were just sitting there watching freaking cable all day.
	Yeah.
	You are so spot on to your audience.
	Megan's not lying.
	I get these texts and phone calls all the time from people from other networks too.
	And they say the exact same thing.
	How do I do that?
	Do what?
	Get out on your own, establish a Rumble, a YouTube, whatever you want to do.
	Go out there and do your own show that you run, that you sell, that you have maybe a sales agent with it best, but you are the editor, editor-in-chief of your own show.
	You run your own business.
	And very few people would trade the other way.
	Now, having a show on Fox or Newsmax is still nice.
	There are still people who are not that tech savvy.
	I mean, my dad, he'd admit it himself.
	I had to coach him through Rumble.
	It's not complicated, but he's used to turning on what I call, Megan, the one-button problem.
	The advantage Newsmax and Fox still have over us is there's a generation of 40 plus, me included, who some of us are not that tech savvy.
	They are used to one button.
	They keep Fox or Newsmax on all day and they hit power.
	I call it the one button problem.
	The problem with Roku and other things, it's not a problem for the kids.
	They know exactly what to do.
	Bang, bang, bang.
	They're done.
	Easy.
	A lot of folks our age, you know, they're not used to that.
	Oh, what do you mean?
	I got to go to an app.
	Where do I find that?
	And they give up.
	That's going away.
	In 10 years, that'll be a non-issue with smart TVs.
	The grandkids come over and show them one time and they're good.
	So that's where people like you and I on our own and you got the people at the Daily Wire who are doing their own thing.
	That's when I think the cord cutting is going to be apocalyptic.
	I think they're going to be down potentially.
	Maybe Fox and others, you're going to see audiences and you know numbers better than anyone.
	Demo numbers below 200, you know, nightly numbers below 2 million.
	I mean, for shows that were doing three and a half and 4 million on a regular, on garbage nights, you know, 10 years ago, I mean, your show, 3.5 million was like, oh, man, that's a bad night, whatever.
	That's going to be your high.
	And that's the problem traditional cable news is going to have.
	And I think that's why I'm the most upset.
	Cause again, I still have friends over there and things.
	You know, I'm relatively young, 48.
	I mean, with all this stuff going on these days with health and fitness, you live till you're 2,000 years old.
	I mean, I could have been there for 20, 30 years.
	And Megan, honest to God, how many of us can do this?
	You just kind of hinted at it before.
	How many people can go out on their own and draw an audience of millions a day?
	The answer is, I would argue to you in the conservative political talk ecosystem, there's probably less than 10 people in the United States that can do that right now.
	And the numbers back it up.
	And when you get one of them, damn it, don't let him go.
	That's just, that's just bad business.
	Yeah, I agree.
	And like Tucker's a much bigger threat to them now.
	On the outside, he will draw audience.
	And if he pops his show up live, like on Rumble or someplace else at 8 p.m., then it's on.
	Then it's truly like game on because people will figure out how to download Tucker.
	He's got ardent fans and it's a different situation even from when I left Fox because I had a year at NBC and then I had a year on my couch.
	He's going right from the prime time with his audience in love to boom, he's going to be popping up on your screen.
	So I think his audience will follow him.
	We just don't know exactly when because he's still in the middle of his legal dispute with Fox.
Tucker's Threat to Media Giants 00:15:20
	But it is wonderful to have the freedom.
	I have to say, I would never change it.
	People ask me all the time, even with Tucker gone, people are not paying attention or like, do you want to go back?
	Do you want Tucker Spot?
	I'm like, are you crazy?
	There's not enough money in the world.
	I walked away from that deal the first time.
	I used to have those slots.
	I said, no, I just want this.
	That's not a fact.
	That's a fact.
	No.
	That's why I'm so annoyed when I see all these dopey liberals tweeting how I got fired.
	Like I said, I still got friends, but that's just factually inaccurate.
	That is totally.
	My show was number one on Saturday night by far.
	It wasn't even close in the demo and overall in prime time.
	I mean, we were destroying everyone across the board.
	Why would you walk away from that?
	The answer is because what you just said, there is a premium on freedom, not just for content, but just being able to like, no, we have, you know, you can go in, you can tape a little bit of your show.
	You could get a good interview.
	You don't have that luxury with a lot of these places.
	They're on their schedule, not yours.
	And, you know, just, you know, for you and I to be able to do all this, control the content, say what you want.
	You know, you drop an S-bomb once in a while in your show.
	You don't have to worry about FCC stuff or anything like that.
	It is.
	It is the greatest life.
	And that's why to your audience and my audience, I can't thank you enough for supporting Megan's show, my show, new media in general.
	This is absolutely the future.
	And you are way ahead of the curve in content consumption on that side.
	It's exciting.
	And you can't have a conversation like this on cable news, Dan.
	You know, it's like seven minute segments.
	If that, some nights on the Kelly file, I would spend an hour getting ready for a particular segment in the, you know, the blocks.
	And it would be a three-minute block.
	I'm like, I spent an hour preparing for a three-minute block.
	I got two questions out to the guy and it was over.
	There's just, it's just such thin gruel.
	Whereas in this- Can I let you know a little secret?
	We can, because I don't talk about this much on my show, but with you, because you totally get it.
	You're a very, very good interview.
	I watched your show.
	I've been watching Fox 20 years.
	I watched it every night.
	I watched you during the daytime at night.
	It's a skill.
	I'm not just kind of glossing you up.
	It's true.
	Interviewing people is a skill.
	And I don't say this to be funny or self-deprecating for effect.
	I mean, I suck at it.
	I'm just not good at it.
	I don't know if it's because I don't give a damn what people say.
	I do.
	I'm just, I suck.
	And I'm not good.
	And you look at, I had to learn the skill.
	You look at like a Howard Stern who, although the politics went off to the left.
	I grew up on Stern.
	Stern was never that good of an interviewer.
	Yeah, you know, if he wasn't asking a question about a woman doing something crazy, like it wasn't an interesting interview.
	And as he got older, his interviews got amazing where he's interviewing some guy who sells bagels on the corner.
	And you're like, holy crap, this is the greatest interview.
	I didn't know that went into bagels, you know?
	And you had that skill.
	I had to learn it because if you go back and watch, I was on for two years.
	You watch my first few shows.
	The interviews are just cringy.
	I'm not even asking questions.
	I'm just giving them answers.
	I'm like, hey, conservatives are really great.
	Governor DeSantis, right?
	You're really great too.
	Just tell us.
	I mean, it's really cringy.
	So I had to learn.
	I think it's because you're a lawyer and you're good at the back and forth.
	I sucked so bad at it.
	At the end, I got a little bit better.
	But man, you are being very hard on yourself.
	I just am a learner, really.
	I'm a learner for life.
	Like I want to be a learn it all.
	So if you get an interesting guest like you, it's easy, right?
	The tough interviews are the people who don't want to give anything up and treat it like a deposition.
	And then you're like, oh my God.
	I always say if you're the one who's all hour, that's what I'm saying.
	You're talking to him about the, is AI going to kill everyone on planet Earth?
	You wrote this interesting piece about it, sir.
	Explain.
	Yes, they will.
	Do you have anything else to add, please?
	Because two minutes we got to kill.
	That's the worst interview of all.
	But you've got to like go in there, you know, macho man savage style and rip out of them every single word.
	You're like, please, God, just answer a question with more than three words.
	That's happened to me a couple of times too.
	So many times.
	So cringy.
	Or you've got certain guests who are like the king or queen of the non-sequitur.
	Like you've asked something direct, like, what's your favorite fruit?
	And they're like, well, the couch was built in 1940 and then we exchanged it for over here, dear.
	If you could just over here, right here.
	Follow the shiny red object.
	That's happened to me too.
	And then you get these gems.
	Like we used to have Henner Gracie.
	He's a mixed martial arts fighter, expert in ground fighting.
	This guy was phenomenal.
	We'd bring him on every time there was one of these crime videos.
	You know, oh, here's this woman.
	She's horribly getting beaten up in the cell phone shop.
	That happened.
	How do you defend yourself?
	This guy comes on.
	Megan, all you had to do is turn the mic on.
	Heather, just show us what to do.
	It would be the greatest three minutes of your life.
	And you're like, oh man, I would try to fit this guy into any show.
	He's a jiu-jitsu guy.
	And it'd be a thing about voter ID in Georgia.
	Be like, Heather, was there a fight at a voting event in Georgia?
	Can you come on and demo that for us?
	He was so good.
	Those guests were gold.
	Can I tell you?
	So, we take a two-week vacation with my family every June.
	The kids are off from school and we go someplace big.
	And the first week, we offer like a week of tape shows.
	They're new, they're it's fresh content, but it's on tape since I'm traveling.
	And we're taping those right now.
	And we did one on MH370 and you know, the missing Malaysian airplane.
	And years ago, yeah.
	Dan, I was like, I didn't speak.
	I said two words the whole podcast.
	It was like, He walks you through exactly how he thinks it went down and exactly what he thinks happened to the passengers.
	And how none of us spoke.
	I didn't draw breath.
	It was like, Oh my God.
	I've already told my friends, you got to listen to this when I'm gone in June.
	It's like the best content.
	That is, it's TV gold when you get somebody like that.
	And they put you in this story, you know?
	It's like you're there.
	Like you're walking through, you're like, That must have been terrible on that plane.
	Like, you're there.
	And, but that's like the Stern story, right?
	Because I grew up in the guy again.
	He was so terrible, but he'll get these people to talk about anything.
	Like, you take a story like that, right?
	That story's what, 10 years old?
	I mean, I did a fox hit on that in DC when I lived in Maryland.
	I'm out of Maryland.
	And then maybe they asked me to come, you know, you know how TV works.
	They're like, you're a secret service guy, right?
	Yeah.
	Can you talk about the Downed Asian Airliner?
	Why?
	You flew on a plane once, right?
	Okay.
	And, you know, back then, you're desperate to get on TV for it.
	You run it for all of us.
	You're like, sure.
	And I'm talking about this freaking airliner.
	I don't know squat about it.
	And you know, you don't say no to anything.
	Then towards the end, then towards the end, you know, when you're an actual host there, you know, this is true.
	They're getting like some serious behind the scenes Fox stuff here.
	When you're a host, tell me I'm wrong.
	You don't want to do any hits for anyone ever.
	People call, unless it's like a personal call from Sean.
	It's a favor.
	You're like, I can't do it because you're like, I can't.
	I just cannot go onth.
	I'm so tired.
	And you don't want to do hits ever.
	And you have enough airtime.
	Yeah.
	You haven't.
	No.
	I'm good.
	And it's a gift.
	It's always actually like on election night.
	We would always put on our big prime time stars.
	You know, and I was, I was anchoring election night with Brett Baer.
	We'd always make sure we had O'Reilly, we had Hannity come on, and like they'd have to do it.
	And it was so great because they rarely would be on the opposite side where they would answer the questions as opposed to ask them.
	And they always did so well.
	Like the guys like that and like you who do a lot of radio talk for a living.
	There's just like a special skill that comes with practice.
	And I will say the best people to interview, the best are the ones like you who talk for a living and who have been doing it for a long time.
	Like those guys.
	I hope so.
	I didn't want to disappoint you.
	My first interview.
	So, and I tell you, I learned from the best.
	I mean, you know, Hannity, that's why if he called or his team called, I would always go on for them, always go on for them.
	And then, you know, Levin's another one.
	Like Mark, if Mark Levin, the godfather of the movie, he asked you to come on, you just do it, like out of respect.
	You don't say, ah, Mark, hold on.
	I got a pizza down.
	You just do it.
	You show up and you show up.
	I was going to do a show too.
	I just couldn't earlier.
	That was the only reason.
	Crush from afar on Mark Levin.
	I've always loved him.
	I agree with Sean that he's the great one.
	I listen to everything he says.
	I read his books.
	But like he, he only really likes the true believers.
	And I've always been just more of a journalist who's like, let me, let me hear both sides.
	I mean, whatever.
	So I don't think I'm his number one favorite, but I secretly from afar am like a Mark Levin stalker.
	You are a journalist.
	You are.
	And I respect that.
	I'm not, you know, like, I don't give a damn about journalism.
	I give a damn about activism.
	Journalism one has been destroyed.
	There's only like you, Taibbi, and Greenwald left.
	There's really no one else out there.
	Maybe Catherine Herridge, too.
	She seems to be shaking it up at CBS, which is bizarre.
	they hired her because I'm like, why would you want an actual journalist?
	Like, that's not what you do at CBS.
	So she's terrorizing them over at CBS by doing actual journalism.
	But I'm not a journalist and I'm always honest about it.
	You are.
	I'll agree.
	I mean, you've been on, you know, you ask questions and you've been pretty hard hitting.
	I don't like journalists, present company excluded, because I don't care.
	I'm an activist and I don't pretend to be otherwise.
	I don't give a damn.
	I care about the truth, but I'm not here to like ask you questions on the Democrat side to give you a fair hearing.
	I think you suck.
	I think your politics suck.
	I think they're trash.
	I think you're wrecking this country.
	I don't want to hear about cutting some kids' nuts off when they're nine years old.
	And I'm not going to give you a fair.
	Explain to me why castrating a nine-year-old is good, Congressman Hank Johnson.
	I don't care about your stupid answer or the fact that you think freaking Guam is going to sink because you're a moron.
	I don't want to hear it.
	I don't pretend to be anything different.
	I'm not going to be a journalist.
	I'm not interested in fair questions.
	Matter of fact, to any Democrat who ever came on my show on the rebuttal, I'm sorry.
	Let me just tell you now, because you are being set up.
	I was using you as the resident idiot of the show.
	The fact that you morons agreed to come on is your problem.
	But every single one of them, from Hawk Newsom to that dumbass who didn't know there are more guns now in Australia than before the gun ban, we used you as an idiot.
	You would ask fair questions and give them a shot.
	And I respect that.
	You are.
	You do a good job.
	But that's not me.
	I don't give a damn.
	These people are enemies of the United States.
	And I don't give a rat's ass about any journalistic crap or giving them the time of day.
	I'm there to make them look stupid using Alinsky's rule of ridicule.
	And if you want to be fair and talk about honest, cool stuff, like, hey, how do we reach a middle ground on this and that?
	I'm cool.
	But if you're going to come on the show and tell me, hey, you know, we're going to cut some kids' nuts off and not, and there's, no, no, I'm not talking about that.
	You're not going to get a fair shake.
	I'm going to make you look like the moron you are.
	And that's it.
	So to all Democrats, don't come on my show if you're going to say stupid stuff because you won't get a fair share because no chance.
	It's absolutely beautiful.
	This is what people love about you.
	This is why you're so compelling to listen to.
	It's so refreshing.
	No, okay.
	So now, so people could tune in and listen to Dan Bongino do that, which is super fun.
	Or they could turn on CNN, which has somebody who feels as vehemently as you do, but over on the liberal side, far left side, up and down the primetime lineup and the daytime lineup.
	But they say they're journalists, right?
	They masquerade as straight news people.
	And that brings me to Christian Amampour.
	Christian Amampour, who's, you know, one of the faces of CNN.
	And she gave a graduation speech where she was at Columbia University, of course.
	School of Journalism, no less.
	Oh my God.
	Like Rogers rolling over in his grave.
	She goes over and she's, you know, everybody at CNN is self-flagellating over that town hall with Trump, as you know.
	And I know you had him on your show since then.
	But they're so mad at each other that they had this.
	They hate Chris Licht for agreeing to it.
	And I just want to give you like a flavor.
	We cut a couple of sound bites, but they're worth it.
	Here she is addressing the graduates about that town hall, Satwan.
	I understand that the town hall a week ago was for many an earthquake.
	I met with CNN CEO Chris Licht at our New York headquarters because my management believes they did the right thing, a service to the American people.
	I still respectfully disagree with allowing Donald Trump to appear in that particular format.
	I would have dropped the mic at nasty person.
	But then that's me.
	Maybe we should revert back to the newspaper editors and TV chiefs of the 1950s who in the end refused to allow McCarthyism onto their pages.
	His influence gradually decreased with all but his fervent cliques and cults.
	Okay.
	I would have dropped the hike.
	There's so much in there.
	So let me just start first by saying this.
	Noticeably, she leaves out the fact that the New York Times covered for the Soviet Union via Duranti for decades while Ukrainians were being literally starved to death and buried in mass graves.
	The New York Times, it's a historical fact, it's not my opinion, was an active collaborator in suppressing the horrors of the Soviet Union.
	I don't notice how she mentions McCarthy, but she leaves the other side of that thing totally, completely out.
	But think about this.
	Now, let's put our heads on straight and not do the spinning Reagan exorcist style head thing that she just pulled.
	She works at CNN and she's got the cojones to be talking about journalism.
	Megan, they promoted a pee-pee tape.
	Do you know what kind of a level one dipwad you need to be to bring, no matter how bad you think Donald Trump is, to believe there's a tape of him getting peed on that no one has seen but the Russians, it's amazing.
	And the tape was being used to steal an election while he was giving Putin back rubs.
	You have to be so freaking stupid that in a draft lottery of idiots, you're the number one pick.
	And they promoted this thing for five years.
	And Christiana Monpour, who, by the way, if you've never seen her getting wrecked by Liz Harrington on her show about this stuff, it is epic.
	I suggest you put it in a search engine that she dares to complain about Trump being on the network, who could very well be the Republican nominee while working there.
	And then one more here.
	I got a prop.
	I don't usually do props, but check this out.
	This is the receipt of the Hunter Biden laptop.
	After they fell for the pee-pee tape that didn't exist, they told you that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation.
	The freaking laptop was signed by Hunter Biden with Hunter Biden's address, with Hunter Biden's phone number, with emails from Hunter Biden by a guy who ID'd Hunter Biden with a computer that had a Biden family sticker on it that the business partner said were authentic emails.
	And they said, nah, that sounds like it's Russian to me.
	And you're lecturing us about journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism?
	Listen, ma'am, with all due respect, you got a cool accent.
	Sounds terrific.
	Go sit down.
	Hard pass on your advice.
	That's why I tell, I'm not a journalist.
	I'm not, I'll never be a journalist.
Evidence and Conservative Claims 00:15:29
	I don't want to be a journalist because of people like her.
	What an excuse.
	That nonsense about how I would have dropped the mic and walked away if he had called me a nasty woman.
	Bullshit.
	Bullshit.
	You're on the national stage.
	You're hosting the CNN Town Hall.
	Who is she kidding?
	She would have needed to say her face on TV too badly to actually do that.
	She just wants to sound tough because, of course, as we both know, the seven-foot center does not tell you how tall they are, right?
	It's like she's got to sound it because she actually doesn't do it.
	And she's riding high in her reputation of old when there was no competition in the business.
	Now, here's another one because this is so fun.
	She decided that the town hall audience, of course, was disgusting because it was all Republicans from New Hampshire and people couldn't get past the fact that they laughed.
	They laughed at Trump's humor and when he made fun of a sexual assault victim.
	Here's just a little bit of her thoughts on that in SAT2.
	I believe it is our home and therefore there is plenty of town hall and presidential and other televised debate precedent to insist that our invited guests behave themselves.
	Chris Lick told me he agrees that the execution was lacking a little and that I am sure we will not witness that same appalling appalling behavior in future town halls.
	I mean, again, with the left, you hear this all the time, right?
	Believe all women, right?
	It's like a hashtag, believe all women, which is fascinating because Tara Reed comes forward and says, I've got some serious allegations of getting groped by Joe Biden.
	You know, this is like really serious stuff.
	No, we don't want to talk about her.
	The weirdest thing is ruined her.
	And my and my principles, I've actually defended Cuomo on this, Andrew Cuomo, not because I like him, but because as a former law enforcement officer, I don't believe all women.
	I believe all evidence.
	There is a difference.
	You don't believe all.
	What is believe all women?
	What if a woman comes forward and throws out some story about I was, you know, Joe Biden sent me to Jupiter on an excursion out there to go find more tax dollars for Jupiterians?
	Believe all women.
	You believe evidence.
	You believe evidence.
	If you can't.
	We just, by the way, Dan, we just had a woman on Stanford University campus who accused a man twice of raping her, of like kidnapping her in the parking lot, dragging her behind closed doors or down into a basement, saying that he raped her.
	It was terrible.
	They didn't reveal it was the same woman accusing the same man who just magically raped her twice in two months.
	Like she was, it was all a hoax.
	She tried to ruin this guy's life.
	We still don't know why.
	Believe all women is nonsense.
	Believe evidence.
	You're a lawyer, Megan.
	People do things all the time.
	They're motivated by all kinds of intentions.
	You have no idea.
	People used to walk into the precinct and say, hey, listen, this guy next door to my house is slinging crack.
	You find out later, they had a civil dispute over a fence in the backyard.
	The guy was doing no such thing.
	You believe evidence in a civil society, in a functioning constitutional republic.
	You believe evidence.
	You do not try a case on someone's word just because they said it.
	And Donald Trump, regardless of anyone's personal feelings about him, I know the guy differently.
	And I get it.
	Like the tweets, we could clean up a lot of stuff.
	That's for another day.
	You want to talk about?
	We'll talk about it.
	I don't really care.
	I'll talk about it anyway.
	But I know the guy differently.
	The guy has every right to say, I don't know this person.
	I don't know this person.
	Can you provide me any evidence?
	She couldn't even name the year.
	So Christiana Mampour's suggestion is he shouldn't be able to defend himself in a town hall.
	He should just say, no, I'm guilty, even though I'm not.
	That's absurd.
	What kind of society is that?
	You're 100% right.
	And the thing about the sexual assault allegations is so galling because Trump has denied it from day one.
	And they want, it's as if the jury, a civil jury, where the standard is 51% more likely than not, did he do this?
	A jury said, okay, yeah, something happened between them.
	Like he assaulted her in some way, but no rape.
	So that's all we have.
	We don't have a criminal conviction.
	We don't have beyond a reasonable doubt.
	We have one jury in a borough that went 87% for Joe Biden that said, okay, I think it's more likely than not that he did something to her.
	That's it.
	So they want Trump to go out there and cry in his soup.
	What they want is, I guess, I respect her.
	I think she believes it.
	My heart goes out to all sex.
	No, he's like, she's a liar.
	He behaved totally consistent with a man guilty or innocent who is saying this person is a liar and is to be mocked.
	I will mock her because the story is mockable.
	And the audience clearly believed him.
	So they didn't think they were mocking a sexual assault victim.
	They thought they were laughing along with him at the absurdity of the story as this woman told it.
	This is how the left operates.
	You see, they don't really believe any of this stuff.
	When you have a woman that comes forward and says, I was in a changing room in LA and a guy who came in claiming to be transgender exposed his junk right in front of me.
	And we find out later that the guy has a history of sexual assault.
	That woman, forget her, throw her in the garbage.
	But Megan, that's not the only example.
	This is what the left, this is what drives me nests.
	This is why I'm so happy like I'm out on my own because I don't want any, I don't like people telling me, don't tell me what to do.
	One, I'm not going to listen to you anyway.
	I'm going to tell you to kiss my ass and it's just going to cause a problem.
	I don't want to be told to, I don't, don't ever tell me what to do ever.
	Don't tell me what I'm going to talk about or not.
	Oh, if a woman says this, you got to believe it automatically, no matter what, despite zero evidence.
	No, because you don't do it.
	You don't do it.
	You're a big freaking phony.
	They do this all the time.
	I'll give you two more examples, quick ones, right?
	Remember Alexander Vinman?
	You dare not criticize decorated military officers.
	You cannot.
	He's in the military.
	He's even in uniform.
	Look at him.
	He's ate a few Twinkies, but that's okay.
	He's innocent.
	Don't you dare criticize this guy in uniform.
	Really?
	That's interesting.
	You got Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, more than decorated guy, who, matter of fact, called out intelligence agencies for years about the problems we were having.
	Mike Flynn, throw him in jail, hang him by his toenails.
	And in the Vinman case, again, whistleblowers.
	And then remember the other whistleblower?
	You couldn't even mention his name.
	It was verboten.
	They would pull you off platforms everywhere.
	And yet today, just today, or whenever this airs, whatever, you got these FBI whistleblowers, real patriots attacked by their own government for blowing the whistle on the FBI.
	And what's the left doing?
	Pulling up random Twitter accounts like that idiot Linda Sanchez from California that don't even belong to the agent.
	And she doesn't even care.
	She just keeps going.
	Are you Marcus Allen, 72245?
	No, ma'am.
	That's not my account.
	Well, Marcus, I want you to answer for the account anyway.
	You want me to answer for an egghead on Twitter with 12 followers?
	What is this serious?
	Yours is Capitol Hill, right?
	I mean, they're total phonies.
	And that's how they get people to shut up.
	They said, oh, don't mention a whistleblower.
	Ah, that's bullshit.
	I went on my show whistleblowing.
	Apple pulled the show down.
	Fine, pull it down.
	I'll do whatever I want.
	You don't tell me what to do.
	And that's how the left boxes people in and suckers fall for it.
	This kind of, I think Gutfeld calls it like the prison of two ideas.
	You know, either you do this or you're the bad guy.
	No, no.
	No, you're going to tell me, believe all women.
	I'm going to tell you back.
	I will when you show me evidence.
	Matter of fact, I'll be your biggest advocate.
	You show me evidence that something happened with some conservative out there.
	You show me the evidence.
	I'll be the first one to talk about it.
	But they don't want to do that.
	They want to just pigeonhole you in.
	This woman, Eugene Carroll, who was accusing Trump of raping her in a, you know, Birkdorf Goodman 30 years ago, maybe, maybe 31, maybe 32, maybe 40.
	We don't know.
	She, her best evidence was she had two witnesses who she told that this happened at the time, right?
	Two other women who come forward and say, Eugene told me this happened right after it happened.
	Well, the left love that they love that.
	They love to tell us who the women were.
	This is exactly what they said.
	What kind of a woman would tell her friends right after if she was just making it up?
	That is literally the same thing as Tara Reed.
	Tara Reed had two friends she told about the alleged Joe Biden assault at the time.
	One was right after and one was like a year or so after.
	And they utterly ignored it, Dan.
	It was like Believe All Women was out the window.
	They were combing through her bankruptcy records, trying to say she's a dishonest.
	Remember, they tried to say she didn't actually go to the college.
	She didn't quite get enough credits to graduate, but she said she had graduated.
	Then she testified as an expert witness.
	It was a lie because she made it in one credit short.
	I mean, they ruined her, the believe all women crowd.
	They don't, it's because it's not a statement of principle.
	It is a statement of political tactical weaponry.
	It's not a serious statement from them.
	They don't believe it.
	That's my biggest beef with the left.
	My biggest beef with the left is that people often think, oh my gosh, if we expose the, and I'm not talking about all Democrats.
	I want to be clear.
	I don't stereotype people like that.
	I'm talking about liberal.
	If you profess a radical leftist ideology, I'm sorry, you're just straight up anti-American.
	There are a lot of Democrats just have different ideas.
	Fine, whatever.
	But the thing people mistake about the left, matter of fact, today on my radio show, some guy, I talked to the audience on Facebook.
	They messaged me.
	And some guy during the break, ah, Dan, you yell too much.
	You're not trying to convince.
	You're never going to convince the liberal.
	His name is Jeff.
	I said, bro, you think I'm trying to convince liberals?
	Because let me tell you something.
	Don't listen to my show.
	You're not former.
	I don't care.
	I'm 48 years old.
	I'm filthy stinking rich.
	I don't give a shit if you listen to my show or not.
	Here's what I care about.
	The radical left sucks.
	And I am going to call them out of my show every single day.
	To same Democrats, you are absolutely welcome on my show anytime.
	The fact that you have an open mind, the deepest of respect out to you.
	I get it.
	Not everybody follows politics like we do.
	Some people are confused.
	If you're a radical pro cutting the nuts off a kid at nine years old, I don't want you on my show.
	You will be ridiculed and humiliated all the time.
	And then others, people say things like, well, with the left, you know, we got to expose their hypocrisy.
	They don't care about hypocrisy.
	Totalitarians, Megan, just look at history.
	They don't give a damn about hypocrisy.
	When Shea Guevara was putting the enemies of socialism up against La Peren, the wall, and shooting them, he didn't care that he was fat, dumb, and happy living off the free market he created for himself with his food and all this other crap.
	He didn't care that it looked hypocritical.
	They care about power.
	It is hierarchy to them.
	It is not hypocrisy.
	It doesn't matter.
	Now, I point it out to ridicule them, but I'm under no illusions at all.
	We're going to convince a single liberal to come to our side.
	So why do you do it?
	Why do you, fair enough question?
	I do that because when I was running for office, I learned a lot.
	I ran three times and, you know, got close once, horseshoes and hand grenades, close don't matter.
	But the race I got my ass kicked, the worst I learned the most.
	Because I went to a seminar one day and the guy said, when you're arguing with the liberal, you're not arguing with him.
	You're arguing for the third person.
	Who the hell is the third person?
	He says, anyone listening.
	You're never going to convince the liberal.
	They're convinced they want to destroy the United States as you know it.
	Economically, educationally, you're never going to convince them.
	But there's always a third party listening.
	And then when I was running for office one day, I was up at the Maryland County Fair.
	I'm talking to this teachers union rep and we're arguing loudly about school choice, something I passionately believe in because I'm a product of it, passionately, but I wouldn't be speaking to you in coherent English sentences without it.
	And the woman, of course, I never broke through there.
	I didn't intend to.
	But we argued for a good 10 minutes.
	Guy comes over a few minutes later.
	He's like, listen, man, I'm a Democrat, not really into the whole school choice things, but I got to say, you held your own.
	He said, you did really well and you got me thinking.
	And I never ever forgot that third person theory.
	But make no mistake, these liberals have no principle.
	Believe all women, believe all whistleblowers.
	They don't believe any of that stuff.
	They believe in one thing, destroying the United States, collectivizing power, controlling the means of production, controlling the kids, creating division between the kids and the parents, and using any vehicle whatsoever to get you to believe that capitalism is subordinate to collectivism.
	If it's environmentalism, they'll use that.
	If it's race, I'm thinking about class warfare, they'll use that.
	They don't believe trans women are women, and they don't believe Black Lives Matter either.
	Take a look at Chicago.
	Take a look at Detroit.
	Take a look at Baltimore.
	These are just slogans.
	Wait, stand by, hold that thought.
	I teeted it up.
	And I'm just going to leave it there as an air balloon as we take a quick break.
	So people will come back and listen to more of Dan Bongino right after this, our guest for the full show today.
	So Dan, you are not the only person who only wants to talk to one side.
	Unfortunately, when it happens in the U.S. Congress, it feels a little icky.
	So they had a hearing.
	Of course, the House is now controlled by the Republicans.
	And they had a hearing on left-wing violence.
	And Dan Goldman, representative from New York.
	I used to interview this guy on NBC on like the morning show.
	He was kind of soft.
	He was kind of sweet.
	Then he ran for Congress and got just activated.
	Now he's like an AOC type in his rhetoric and the way he behaves.
	It's actually really kind of galling.
	So he has his chance to ask some questions and he goes after Town Hall senior writer Julio Rosas, who's been on this show.
	This is a guy who goes all over the country covering the stories that the mainstream media ignores.
	Antifa violence, the border, you name it.
	And by the way, Rosa, he's also, he's a Marine.
	So he's covered the stuff.
	He's been in the midst of Antifa.
	He's a Marine.
	And he gets up there to talk about the left-wing violence he has seen.
	And then Dan Goldman gets a shot at Rosas.
	And this is a bit of how that went.
	You're trying to get us, gaslight us up here as if Antifa, which Mr. Rosas, apparently the expert now in organized terrorist activity, has overruled the FBI director who says, there's a headline, says Antifa's an ideology, not an organization.
	No, no, no.
	Let's not listen to the FBI director.
	Let's listen to, sorry, what's your title?
	Senior Writer at Town Hall who is going to tell us that the FBI director is wrong.
	And I'd like to introduce, there's no question.
	I think it's funny to be to be lectured by an heir to the Levi Strauss Corporation.
	And honestly, that's probably why he doesn't consider property damage to be that big of a deal, because not only does he have that, but he also has what some would describe an impossibly good stock portfolio.
	Oh, arrogance, right?
	The arrogance.
	And by the way, he didn't let Julio respond.
	He had to do that later in the exchange because Eli Goldman was like, I'm not taking questions.
	Yeah.
	I can't watch that clip enough.
	I love Julio.
	He's an amazing guy.
	And just a couple of quick takeaways from that.
	You know, first, because Congress has no real power anymore, they've ceded all their authority to the bureaucracy.
	That's just a fact.
	I mean, that's why they're so panicked about chevron deference.
	That's what they want.
	They don't want to have to actually vote on anything of importance.
	The problem with Congress is they can't actually do anything.
Liberals Throw You Under the Bus 00:15:22
	So they all want to be social media stars.
	So that's where you get Jamal Bowman, AOC, Dan Goldman.
	And Republicans do it too.
	That's it.
	That's what they do.
	And the second point is, you know, it's kind of weird.
	Again, I just told you before in the last segment that liberals don't actually believe in anything.
	It's weird because just a few days prior to that, Joe Biden told us that the most dangerous thing in America at an HBCU was what?
	An idea.
	White supremacy.
	White supremacy, right?
	So I don't get it.
	Is an idea dangerous or is it not?
	Because you're telling us ideas are the most dangerous threat to the country.
	And yet we bring up Antifa.
	No, no, ideas are no problem.
	No sweat.
	You guys are all line.
	Anyone else catch that?
	I mean, I think I was one of the few people who brought that up.
	You can't have it both ways.
	The absolute gall of him to look at Julio, who's actually endangered himself to bring us the news, going into these melees at risk to himself and to dismiss him as Dan sits in his upper whatever side apartment.
	It's probably some penthouse giving his money and has the nerve to actually judge this guy.
	Like he knows nothing.
	Oh, I'm sure like the FBI, sure, the FBI is totally credible, totally trustworthy on all matters.
	Just ask any Republican in the nation who the FBI hates.
	All right.
	Dan's got more to say and so do I. Another quick, quick break.
	Back with Dan.
	Don't go away.
	Can you believe what happened this week when it comes to Dianne Feinstein and John Fetterman?
	I mean, the Democrats do this to themselves, Megan.
	I mean, they knew this is not a mystery.
	They knew Dianne Feinstein was having significant health issues, right?
	So, because Dianne Feinstein's developed a lot of political cachet in a large bank account, I don't mean money.
	I mean she's developed a political bank account in terms of favors that have been done and done back.
	Everybody kind of left her alone, but they knew this was going to be an issue.
	And then with Fetterman, he has this stroke.
	And listen, I say, having gone through some serious health stuff, it shouldn't have to be said, but liberals attribute so many malicious motives to us.
	I don't wish ill on anybody.
	But Megan, let's be honest here.
	This guy is one of 100 members of a voting body, split 50-50, who could determine the course of the country economically, foreign policy-wise.
	He could be the swing vote.
	I'm very sorry this happened to him.
	But my gosh, brother, you need to step aside.
	They need to get someone in there who can function.
	I mean, I'm genuinely concerned.
	We got a war in Ukraine, the strait heating up with Taiwan and China.
	You've got North Korea doing nuclear detonations.
	You've got now former allies in the Middle East inviting the Russians in.
	Just go look at what the Abraham Accords are going to fall apart if two more years of this guy.
	And you've got a guy in office and a woman who cannot physically function.
	I mean, this is the kind of thing you think the Democrats, the coexist tolerance crowd, would have thought of before.
	But now we're stuck.
	They're not going to resign.
	There's no chance.
	The John Fetterman clip is alarming.
	I think the Die-Fi situation is even worse.
	I'll show the audience a little bit of what we're talking about.
	Here's SOT4.
	By the way, the audience has asked many times, what am I saying when I say SOT?
	It's short for sound on tape.
	Sound on tape.
	Insider jargon.
	I know I do it all the VO.
	What's a VO deal yell sometimes?
	Sometimes on my podcast, I know you want to play the clip, but sometimes on my podcast, I'll forget it's a VO and I'm sitting there, you know, and I'm not saying anything.
	And Guill be like, VO, you got to talk, bro.
	There's no sound on this.
	This cannot hear anything today.
	Sorry, this is a sat.
	I'll call for this.
	Here's a sat, John Fetterman.
	There we go.
	Is it staggering?
	Is it a staggering responsibility that the head of a bank could literally crash our economy?
	It's astonishing.
	That's like if you have, I mean, like, and they also realize that now they have, it's in a guaranteed, a guaranteed way to be saved by no, again, by no matter by how.
	You know, so it's, it's, you know, isn't it appropriate that those kinds of, this kind of control should be or stricter to prevent this kind of thing from going?
	Or should we just go on and start bailing and sailing whoever bank, regardless of how, how their conduct is?
	Oh, my God.
	You know, Megan.
	Oh, my God.
	Dan, is it over?
	You've been on both sides.
	It's over.
	I know.
	It's cringy to, I know.
	Matter of fact, the guy he's talking to doesn't even understand the question.
	I feel bad for him.
	But you having seen both NBC and Fox, you're in a unique position to comment on this.
	I would make the case to you strongly that the Fetterman story isn't even so much about Fetterman.
	It's about the media.
	That honest journalist, a female, forgive me, I can't remember her name, who said, listen, I interviewed this guy and I'm sorry, but he's just not right and just got pilloried by the left.
	I mean, if that doesn't speak to the problem-like, and I use my words very carefully, nature of our current media that wasn't at least willing to tell, you just should have said, hey, she's right.
	He's troubled, but okay, we like him better than Oz.
	Oh, fine.
	You're allowed to vote.
	It's a free country.
	You can do whatever you want.
	If you want to vote for a clearly compromised individual having issues, that's your choice to do that.
	But don't lie about it.
	Tell us the truth and that they attacked that woman.
	One of the most disgraceful episodes I've seen in modern media.
	And believe me, those words are doing a lot of work in that sentence.
	And you know what?
	She, she, they got her in line.
	It worked, Dan.
	What they do is they try to shame the young ones out of honest reporting.
	And nine times out of 10, it works because they read the blogs about themselves.
	They get only the feedback from their bosses that you would hear from others in the media.
	There's no fair and balanced person above them saying, no, nice job.
	And so since then, every tweet from this girl is like, heart goes out to Fetterman.
	Hashtag brave.
	Hashtag, you know, you go guy.
	Great for being honest about your mental health.
	Like, it's like, okay, Dasha, we get it.
	You stepped out of line.
	You got pilloried.
	And now you're getting back in line.
	But this is how they do it.
	I mean, it really is interesting to watch sort of the crafting of a left-wing journalist from somebody who started off pretty fair.
	And we are seeing it with her.
	But what's happening with Die Fi kind of puts the lie to all of it because they know Fetterman is incapacitated.
	They know that and they're covering it.
	They know DyFi is incapacitated and they're starting to go after her.
	Why?
	Because it's a safe seat that they can control this go-around when they fill it and then next go around, which is what they're worried about with Fetterman on the next go-around.
	And so the wheels are starting to come off the Die Fi bus as she returns to the Senate.
	I mean, utterly incoherent.
	She has been caught now saying she didn't know she was gone.
	All right.
	So she was interviewed by, I guess, Slate, Jim Newell, and he writes as follows.
	I asked her how she was feeling.
	Oh, I'm feeling fine.
	I have a problem with a leg.
	A fellow reporter asked, what was wrong with a leg?
	Well, nothing that's anyone's concern but mine.
	When the fellow reporter asked what her response was, what the response had been from her colleagues since she had returned after a few months out, the conversation took an odd turn.
	No, I haven't been gone, she said.
	You should follow the, I haven't been gone.
	I've been working.
	When asked whether she meant she'd been working from home, she turned feisty.
	No, I've been here.
	I've been voting.
	Please, you either know or you don't know.
	After deflecting one final question about those who have called on her to resign, she was wheeled away.
	This is continuing the article.
	It is true Feinstein has been in Washington and voting for the past week, but it is not true that she has been here in a physical sense for two and a half months.
	She didn't even know that she wasn't in the Senate.
	I'll give you one other thing, because this broke just yesterday from the Times.
	The title is Feinstein Suffered More Complications from Illness Than Were Publicly Disclosed.
	We were told she had shingles, Dan, which can be painful, can be unpleasant.
	But this is what the New York Times now reports.
	Ms. Feinstein's frail appearance, I mean, the eyes, you know, she's got like the one eye.
	It doesn't seem to be working at all.
	Her frail appearance was a result of several complications after she was hospitalized for shingles in February, some of which she has not publicly disclosed.
	The shingles spread to her face and neck, causing vision and balance impairments and facial paralysis, known as Ramsey Hunt syndrome.
	The virus also brought on a previously unreported case of encephalitis, a rare but potentially debilitating, potentially debilitating Dan, complication of shingles, according to two people familiar with the senator's diagnosis who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it.
	So this is another incapacitated senator, and they're running that story a little differently because they know it's a safer seat.
	It's not going to be in jeopardy in a few years.
	It's solidly blue state, unlike Pennsylvania, which still has some purple.
	Yeah, I mean, you just have to do a simple principles check here.
	Again, so the left, the left's point on Feinstein is what?
	This is why they can never debate.
	And I love welcoming them on the show to just humiliate these idiots because they can, you can't debate if you don't have a rigorous set of principles.
	If your principles change every time, all I've got to do is all I have to do is ask you the principal and then ask you a different question where you'll change your mind.
	So when you say to them, okay, about Diane, I'll do it with you right now.
	Okay, liberals, liberal Joey Bag of Donuts, I get it.
	You have very serious concerns about the health status of members of the Senate.
	I do too.
	We need them.
	We need them to work.
	Even if they're not Republicans, we need them to show up.
	Good.
	You're very concerned about, yes, extremely concerned.
	Is that a blue state?
	Yes, sir, it is.
	Okay.
	Should Fetterman resign?
	No, no, no, definitely not.
	He should not resign at all.
	Well, why shouldn't he resign?
	Oh, wait, wait, wait.
	That's a swing state that Donald Trump won back in 2016.
	It's a, you know, it's so easy with them when you just peg them down on simple things.
	You ask them about, you know, I have to get off your topic, but, you know, oh, we want to hike taxes on the rich.
	Okay, great.
	Do you voluntarily pay any additional taxes to the government?
	Why would I do that?
	Well, why wouldn't you?
	You're telling me that taxes and it's a form of benevolence and philanthropy.
	It'll make the world a better place.
	I don't have to pay charity, but I give money to charity because I think it's going to do good things.
	So why don't you give more money to the government?
	Oh, because you don't actually believe that.
	That's why, because you're full of it.
	That's why.
	You can never trust these people.
	This thing with Diane Feinstein, and just a warning to liberals out there too, other liberals, they will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat when hierarchical, power-hungry, collectivist liberals see you're not politically and tactically useful to them anymore.
	If you think you're safe, you are insane.
	They would throw Obama under the bus tomorrow.
	They worship him like the golden calf in the Bible.
	They love Obama.
	They would throw him under the bus tomorrow if it would benefit the continuance of power.
	That's just a fact.
	Conservatives, we got to, they don't generally do that.
	Conservatives, you know, we have a set of principles.
	And if you align by them, we'll stick to you thick and thin, not libs.
	They'll throw you overboard in a heartbeat.
	What about George Soros?
	Not George Soros, George the Liar.
	Santos.
	Santos, thank you.
	Well, the liar could actually kind of cover.
	It's not really helping.
	George Mitty.
	Yeah, George Mitten.
	He's a congressman, right?
	He's a hot mess, Dan.
	I really think I know that the Republicans need the seat, but that guy's got to go.
	He's an embarrassment.
	What do you think of him?
	I don't think he should resign right now.
	And I'll tell you why.
	Because as I said to you before, I'm not a journalist.
	I'm an activist, okay?
	But I do have principles.
	My principles already won the seat.
	Clearly, he was good enough to get in there, maybe mistaken, lied about some stuff.
	The guy's clearly an epic level fraud.
	He's Walter Mitty.
	He's the modern day Walter Mitt.
	He guy's got more stories than Teddy Ruxman.
	You stick a quarter in his back, he'll tell you, I was G.I. Joe back in the 80s.
	He's an embarrassment.
	I said on my show, and I will say again: Santos, do not run.
	Please do not run.
	You don't belong in the Congress.
	He is not a good guy.
	However, when Joe Biden resigns for telling everyone he was raised in the Puerto Rican community, the Jewish community, the black community, was arrested to see Nelson Mandela, is a trucker, finished at the top of his class, was the outstanding student.
	When he's done with his lies and he resigns, then George Santos should resign.
	Other than that, I don't want to hear Jack shit and Jack left town about George Santos resigning until the biggest fraud liar in the history of U.S. politics, one Joseph R. Biden, resigns.
	When he resigns, I'll come back on your show and demand Santos resigns.
	But he definitely shouldn't run again.
	He's not a good dude.
	Yeah, it's a good point.
	All right.
	So you raise Joe Biden.
	That brings me to 2024 and presidential politics, which I'm dying to discuss with you.
	So Donald Trump came on your show this week.
	I mean, we'll get to what you guys talked about, the Durham report and so on.
	Oh, that's so juicy.
	I just feel like it's so outrageous and it's being totally ignored.
	But let's talk politics first because now we understand that DeSantis is probably getting in this race next week.
	Originally, it was going to be exploratory committee.
	Then he changed that.
	He's like, come on.
	I hate the exploratory committee period of this whole consensus.
	Yeah, I know.
	We all know what you're doing.
	It's just such a like a certain male gesture comes to mind.
	But in any event, he's going to actually just come out there and announce it.
	He's going to own it.
	And it's odd.
	You know, to me, it's exciting as like somebody who gets to cover this stuff.
	I'm excited to see it start going in earnest.
	And it's still very tricky, very, very tricky for him.
	He was desperate to get that, you know, Trump base, and they only have eyes for one man.
	And he, you can see him struggling with how to wrest them away from him.
	And to me, it keeps coming back to the Bill Marg statement: why would they go to see the cover band when they could still see the original right there?
	Like the original's there.
	Yeah, you, you, you can't, you can't.
	I mean, you're not.
	Listen, I live in Florida, so I have a really, not obviously not unique for 20 million people, but I'm probably the well, Shapiro's down here too, but I get both sides of it.
	Ron DeSantis is hands down the best governor I've ever seen in my lifetime, anywhere.
	I've lived in Maryland, New York, Georgia.
	I've been all over.
	There's never, I've never seen a guy come in and change a state so rapidly.
	I've been down here eight years.
	When I first came down here, this was, make no mistake, was absolutely a swing, if not swinging blue state.
	That's over.
	The state is now, nothing's permanent, but for now and in the distant, not too distant future, is in the red column, right?
	That a lot of that is due to DeSantis and Trump.
	So getting that out of the way, because I'm not one of these guys on the radar that has to this stuff on Twitter with pro-DeSantis and pro-Trump people.
	I had to mute like 100 people.
	I can't take it.
	I'm not really interested.
	I think primaries are a good thing.
	I've been in them.
	I think they keep candidates frosty.
	I mean, I've got the evidence, right?
	I mean, remember President John McCain?
Trump as a Deal Maker 00:05:59
	No, you don't.
	That's right.
	Because Bush was in a primary with him and one.
	You remember President Hillary Clinton?
	Oh, that's right.
	You don't remember her either because Barack Obama was in a feisty primary and one.
	Remember President Markov?
	Oh, you don't remember that either because Trump was in a primary and one.
	So a primary is a good thing.
	I'm not getting into the back and forth with him because I love both guys.
	I support President Trump.
	I have, and I've got good reasons for it.
	I met the guy.
	I know the guy differently.
	I'm not name-dropping.
	I don't give a damn.
	I don't need to do that.
	What do I need to name drop for?
	Who cares?
	I got my own show.
	I'm just telling you: the guy is ferociously loyal.
	And that doesn't matter.
	Because I don't want to date the guy.
	I want a conservative.
	A lot of people out there, I think he's Ron DeSantis, has an amazing political career.
	Amazing.
	And I'll tell you right now, if it wasn't for President Trump, I would be donating to the guy and knocking on doors for him.
	I just think it's Trump's time now.
	And I'll tell you why.
	Are there flaws?
	You think?
	I mean, everybody gets that.
	He gets it himself, right?
	But here's the thing: I've been with this guy.
	I've been with dinners with him.
	I've been in the Oval Office with him over and over.
	He is a deal maker, man, and he gets it.
	And I mean this in a material, tangible sense, not some kind of otherworldly non-existent deal makers.
	No, no, no, forget when someone gets in his ear and says to him, and some people take this as a downside.
	I don't because I'm sick of being lied to by people who win the presidency and then do Jack.
	Okay.
	When they whisper in his ear and go, hey, Mr. President, the conservatives got you elected.
	They want you to show up at the pro-life rally.
	Here's what he doesn't do.
	Can we take a poll on that?
	No doubt the man loves polls, but if the right people are in his ear, he will do conservative stuff.
	And he doesn't listen to anybody if you tell him otherwise.
	And he takes advice from some people who, yeah, some weren't, but most of the people he takes advice from guide him in the right direction.
	I'll give you one quick example of what I mean.
	Why is it we've had Republican presidents, Bush, Reagan, all of them, we've never had the Abraham Accords.
	Why?
	I'll tell you why.
	I'll answer the question.
	I've traveled all over the Middle East in my prior line of work.
	We were told for decades by idiots in D.C. who weren't outsiders like Trump, you're never going to get peace without a deal with the Palestinians.
	Don't even bother.
	John Kerry's on tape saying totally forget about it.
	Don't even, you can look it up.
	You guys can watch it yourself, right?
	Don't do it.
	Trump came into office and said, why not?
	Well, because it can't happen.
	Well, why not?
	Well, because everybody says it can't happen.
	Yeah, but I don't really give a damn what I'm just going to go cut a deal myself.
	And he did it.
	He was told the same thing about tax cuts.
	You're never going to get that.
	Reconciliate too much of a pain in the ass.
	Let's focus on other stuff.
	The economy grew at 3% for the first time in eight years.
	Listen, is the guy a doctrinaire conservative?
	Megan, you've interviewed him.
	You know he's not.
	Is he sitting there, you know, reading old books by, you know, national review writers back in the 80s?
	No, he's not doing that.
	But the guy is always looking to cut a deal and he's good at it.
	And I think he deserves another four years.
	The guy got screwed.
	Yeah, but and I'll tell you something I've told him personally, and he knows that.
	I'm not sharing anything at a turn.
	We got to get a hold of the tweets.
	And it's distracting.
	And the story I told his team, and I'll tell you, is it's it's not that I personally mind it.
	I don't care.
	As you can tell, I just say what the hell I want.
	So I don't really give a damn.
	It doesn't bother me at all.
	The problem is I got to defend this stuff.
	So you were at Fox.
	I was at Fox.
	Before I was a show host, I was a contributor.
	So you're going on, Megan.
	It's let's say the Trump tax cuts pass and they're like, hey, Dan, it's Cavuto, whatever.
	Can you come on and talk about the Trump tax cuts?
	Yeah, cool.
	That's great.
	Total policy win.
	And then a tweet goes out about something like whatever, Kanye, and you're like, oh, hey, Dan, a different topic, Kanye.
	So I would tell him, I'm like, Mr. President, it's not that it's hurting you, not me.
	I'll go on to talk about whatever.
	I don't care.
	I don't know anybody anything, but you're distracting from your agenda.
	So that's kind of the downside.
	But having said that, have we had a more conservative four years?
	I can't, not with Bush.
	We got Medicare Part D and all this other crap.
	I mean, this is the first guy to show up and actually do stuff.
	So, and the regulatory reform and all that.
	And you know what I like about the next four years?
	People say it's a downside.
	Oh, he's not going to be running for reelection.
	Great.
	Great.
	You've got DeSantis on the bench and a bunch of other ringers.
	And then you've got a guy who doesn't have to worry about re-election.
	We clean the entire federal government.
	I told this guy, I said it to his face and on my show the other day, fire everyone.
	If you have not pledged allegiance to the Constitution, I don't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, I don't care about your politics.
	I was an agent with Democrats who did a great job.
	If you cannot do that and your right hand goes up, I pledge allegiance to the Democrat Party or any party.
	Get them out of the government right now.
	Fire everyone.
	Fire their dogs.
	Fire their kids.
	Fire their kids' kids.
	In your will, make sure you leave to Don Trump Jr. the will to run for president and fire their kids' kids later.
	And you send a message and we'll clean this mess up.
	But I think there's another shot.
	A Trump DeSantis ticket would be so interesting for Republicans because, yes, it's Trump.
	So even the Never Trumpers would, well, not the Never Trumpers.
	They're Democrats now, but the National Review type Republicans who are real Republicans, but don't like Trump.
	They'd be interested in that.
	They'd certainly vote for that over a Joe Biden ticket.
	And then you're setting the other guy who you love up for a term, you know, in the not too distant future.
	You know, yes, it's two white guys, but Republicans don't care about that.
	So that could be very interesting.
	And we'll see whether DeSantis is, I think Trump is open to it.
	I don't know about DeSantis.
	I don't know.
	I'd be shocked.
	Yeah, I'd be shocked.
	I don't think it's on the Trump end.
	I don't.
The Case for DeSantis-Trump Ticket 00:05:35
	He just likes him too much.
	I don't.
	Yeah, I just think that, well, no, and here's the thing about Trump.
	Like I told you before, he's a deal maker.
	The one thing about Trump, and I think you know this too, you know him in a different way in the audience, kind of like I know.
	The thing about Trump is, you know, for five or six years, you can go on Twitter and call Trump the worst names possible.
	And the minute you say something nice about him, it's the right he will forgive you.
	It's the, everybody thinks he's like this asshole who holds grudges.
	But trust me, he does not.
	He is a deal maker.
	He had dinner with Mitt Romney, was considering him for secretary of state after Romney just pilloried this guy.
	What Ted Cruz said about him.
	Right.
	They hated each other.
	Hated.
	They hated each other.
	And what happened?
	Trump is not like that.
	People don't understand.
	They think of him as this like out of control, blood dripping from his fangs, nuts.
	That's him dripping from his feet.
	Nut job.
	He should have said, nut job.
	You might say he has blood coming out of his wherever.
	That he's not right.
	Yeah.
	I watched that in the movie.
	That was great.
	That's Charlize the Rome, by the way.
	Totally nailed it.
	If you listen to that with the TV off and just the sound of the speakers, you're like, holy Moses, that's Megan Kelly.
	Oh, see, this is where Doug would step in and say, you're wrong.
	Doug was like, she looks a little like you, but she doesn't sound like you at all.
	It was a little bit baritone, maybe.
	She kept doing it.
	She sounded a little Elizabeth Holmesy.
	You know what I mean?
	You could tell she was trying to get on you.
	I don't want to get off the topic, but because they did the debate thing.
	They did the debate.
	I watched that movie probably five or six times.
	The movie, if you work at Fox, is a thousand times more interesting because like the stuff makes sense.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like you see the players, like there's Diana and Irina.
	And you're like, you know these people.
	And the Judge Janine actress would look nothing like Judge Janine, by the way, at all.
	But when you're watching this movie, right?
	And you're thinking to yourself, like, holy Moses, that really happened.
	You're watching this at home.
	I'm Mike Hijack in your show.
	I'm not supposed to be asking a question.
	Are you wow?
	This was a major deal because this was like had the whole world's attention.
	It was crazy.
	I mean, I hate the term, but I use it.
	It was somewhat triggering.
	You know, it just brought on because it wasn't just about battling with Trump, which with whom I wanted no battle.
	I just wanted to ask him that tough question.
	Like I asked everybody up there tough questions and move on.
	Like to me, it wasn't a new thing.
	I'd been anchoring primary debates for a while.
	Just didn't expect it to be so explosive, right?
	He just, he, he made it so explosive, but it caused so many problems in my life and with my colleagues.
	It blew up my work life.
	You know, it was just traumatic because people inside the building were mad and Roger was mad.
	And it was just, it set off like a course of events.
	But I'll tell you the most emotional moment for me in the whole thing, Dan.
	I remember I was in New Jersey where we spend the summers on the shore.
	And I had nothing to do with the movie, right?
	So I didn't know anything.
	I never read a script.
	They never consulted with me on what was going to go in there, whatever.
	And up on my phone, it was like one text and then about 40 others came and it was the trailer.
	And remember, it had that creepy music boom?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	It was like a Halloween movie or something.
	It was creepy, but it was also good.
	It was kind of compelling.
	But anyway, there I am.
	That's me.
	And I'm in the elevator with, you know, the person supposed to be Gretchen Carlson and this other composite character on going up to the second floor, which actually happened with me.
	I mean, a million times I went to Roger's office.
	We were actually very close, notwithstanding all the weirdness between us.
	And it just was so jarring because there, it's me, but it's not me.
	And they're putting me back in this position that actually more than once was very unsteady for me, you know, going in there and you know what's going to happen.
	You know, he's going to put back on the table, you know, the clear implication, like sleep with me and your career is going to go much better.
	And you don't want those to be the stakes for which you're playing at all.
	You know, when it happened to me, my career was on the rise.
	I was doing well.
	I was covering the Duke LaCrosse case really well.
	I was getting on Hannity every night.
	It was amazing.
	I was like, I'm doing this.
	I am making it.
	And then, and he saw that too.
	And then suddenly he just switched the whole like stakes.
	He just switched the terms, you know, like, no, the way you're going to get it, you know, ahead is if you sleep with me.
	And, and then he told me about a very well news anchor who I, a well-known news anchor who he knew I loved.
	And he was like, she was smart.
	She slept with her boss.
	That's how she got to the top.
	All these things.
	I mean, it's all been well documented.
	So anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying the trailer was the thing that threw me more than anything.
	And it's got to be that whole thing had to be kind of horrifying because you know, like, you've probably heard it before.
	Real estate on Fox is hard to come by.
	And when you're working at Fox, to get a show is a big deal.
	You know, and for me, you just, you know, walked away from it.
	I wasn't naive to that fact.
	I mean, I'll never forget interviewing early on with Suzanne and Jay, the CEO and the news division head.
	And they were cool with me.
	This is, I don't know, it was like eight years ago or something like that.
	And I just went in there with a pair of like moose balls and I was like, yeah, I want a show.
	They looked at me like, what do you want, crack?
	It was funny.
	Like they were cool about it, but I wish she kind of looked at Jay like, did he just say that?
	And she was so diplomatic, Suzanne.
	She's like, there's really not a lot of real estate.
	That was me.
	I just walked right in there and I'm like, I think I want to trade some.
	Megan, I had like 10,000 downloads on my podcast.
	That was it.
	It was like a mid-level show at best.
	And I'm just telling them I want a show on Fox.
Walking Away from Fox News 00:04:12
	My wife's like, how did it go?
	I'm like, I don't think too well.
	I told them I wanted a show and they looked at me like I was smoking a crackpipe before I came in, but I did it.
	I went in there and did it.
	And that's how I feel that this has worked for me my whole life.
	When I started filling in for Hannity on the radio, my biggest break ever, I had done one radio guest host job at a local station in Baltimore, WCBM, and it was horrible.
	I knew nothing about radio at all.
	I just went in there and riffed for three hours on a morning show.
	I call up Linda, his producer one day.
	I'm listening to Neil Borts guest host on the radio in my basement lifting weights.
	It's like 12 years ago.
	I said, Linda, can I guest host for Sean?
	My wife's like, are you crazy?
	You can't ask that.
	This guy's got 700 radio stations.
	She's like, can he come up next Thursday?
	I'm like, this life is great.
	Ask nothing, get nothing, right?
	So I mean, I reached out to you, did I not?
	I reached out on Twitter.
	I said, Megan Kelly, I'd like to come on your show.
	I think you're great.
	I want to do my first interview.
	And here we are.
	Oh, you know, but you got it.
	Like, in order to make it in competitive businesses, you've got to find a way of asking for what you want.
	You know, for me and Roger was actually just going back to that whole thing.
	He was, he was giving me opportunities.
	Like, and I was taking them and doing the most with them.
	So that was like, there is this moment where, you know, you get like the switch in your head where, and you know me, Dan, I'm not a feminist.
	I'm not one of these like the patriarchy fucking sucks.
	That's not at all what I'm talking about.
	Just like talking about that moment where you think you're getting ahead, you think you're doing well and like your elbow grease is earning you kudos.
	And then like the switch flips where you're like, oh, wait, this guy just wants to sleep with me.
	Shit.
	Fuck.
	That's, that's how it is.
	Like, God damn.
	Well, and the thing is, then you try to navigate through it and get back on path.
	You're so talented.
	Like the French have that whole, you know, the jet of Saqua, right?
	If we knew what it was, we would bottle it and sell it.
	But you're, you're right.
	Like when you're in that business, you feel the big, the big mo is a thing in politics.
	Momentum, it's real.
	You can feel it.
	I mean, yeah, you can't touch it, but you know, momentum when you see it.
	It happened after the Twinkies, Alvin Bragg, you know, arrested Trump or tried to.
	The momentum, you can feel it.
	Like the campaign just changed altogether.
	But it's the same way in the news business.
	You're not something to your something and then you're something.
	And like something just happened.
	It's not Twitter tweeting about you more.
	It's not an article.
	It's just this thing you feel.
	And then to have someone like, right.
	And exactly.
	And then to have someone like try to just rip it from you or even worse, make you question yourself where you're like, wait, did that happen because of this or because of that?
	That's got to be the worst part, you know, because you're like, wait, I knew everybody knew you were like the next thing.
	Everyone could feel it.
	It's like with Tucker.
	He was doing Fox and Friends weekend, right?
	And then all of a sudden he's doing what?
	Like the seven o'clock show.
	And then like the nine o'clock show.
	And then he's doing four million people a night at eight after O'Reilly leaves.
	Like everybody just knew it.
	But to have someone question that and the worst part is to get you in your head thinking, is that what it was?
	But in your case, everybody knew you were, I mean, everybody knew you were talented.
	Nobody at Fox ever questioned that.
	If whether, you know, friend or foe, everybody knew you were the real deal.
	Well, well, thank you.
	I mean, it was a very tricky situation where you got it, like, got to get the plane back on course where it's like, wait, we're not going to go there, but we are going to judge each other on, you know, our performance.
	And we did.
	We managed it.
	We got through it.
	And, you know, we had a great relationship until Gretchen.
	Yeah.
	You know, I want everybody to watch the video of me interviewing with Megan because I was kind of like a new jack back then.
	And she was Megan Kelly, like rocking it at nine o'clock.
	And I come on, you know, I'm still a little timid up at Fox right now.
	So yeah, this is a story on my show the other day.
	So everybody knows it.
	And it's about my book, my first book.
	So I tell your producers, I'm like, just do me a favor.
	Just don't ask any questions about Obama personally, because back then I just didn't want to get into it.
	And the first question is like, hey, how's Obama personally?
	And I'm like, you got to go back, folks, and watch the, it's on like, I think it's on Rumble or Screwtube somewhere.
A Coup at the Network 00:09:24
	Go watch it.
	And you'll see after that question, I'm like a deer in headlights because I'm so, this wasn't your fault.
	I'm sure they didn't tell you.
	No, I wouldn't have done it.
	No, I know you wouldn't.
	I know you would not.
	I know when you like it.
	I know you wouldn't have done it.
	But the whole train ride home, because I took the train up for you.
	That's how much I never take the train up from Maryland.
	I always do remotes.
	I'm like, Megan Kelly, I'm getting my ass up there.
	And the first question, how's Obama?
	Or some question like that.
	And watch the rest of the interview.
	You know me now.
	Like, I'm never a deer in headlights.
	It's the only interview I ever did that I just sucked so bad because I was so caught off guard.
	So now you see the whole thing.
	This is one of the best interviews I've ever done with you.
	So this is.
	This is so fun.
	It's so fun talking to you.
	Yes.
	No, generally, certainly on somebody like you was saying something like that.
	I would definitely, I would always accede to your wishes.
	It's only when the politicians say, I don't want to talk about this, right?
	And I say, oh, no, we don't make any problems.
	If that's the way you operate, don't come on because it's no holding part.
	All right.
	Stand by.
	One more break and back with Dan Bonginho.
	I'm having a great time.
	I hope the audience is too.
	Well, after looking at the report and after seeing, and don't forget, I did a house.
	I fired a lot of people, but the deep state goes deep.
	Hey, firing Kobe was not, you know, that was, and I fired him very early.
	You know, a lot of people said, why did you wait so long?
	He was fired very, very early.
	And it was a great firing.
	I'm telling you, they were looking to do real bad.
	This was a coup that they were looking at.
	These are sick people.
	And that was former President Trump on the Dan Bongino show.
	My guest today is Dan Bongino.
	So, Dan, Trump came on your show to talk about the Durham report, which is being almost universally ignored.
	It's a true travesty that it's being ignored.
	And it's genuinely infuriating.
	You know, to me, as a newswoman, who I openly admit, I'm more right-leaning and more likely to support any Republican than I am Joe Biden.
	I still can cover Trump fairly.
	I can see what his flaws are.
	I can do it.
	But this is absolutely disgusting.
	And I have to say, I know Trump's prone to rhetoric, but that word coup is applicable.
	It actually is applicable.
	He didn't say violent coup.
	Yeah, he said coup, which is an unauthorized, illegal, illicit overthrow of a governing body.
	How does that not apply?
	It tautologically applies.
	I mean, again, the lefties, I disregarded, you know, they threw that out.
	I saw media, you know, left-wing organization go after him for that.
	But, you know, you say it from a journalist perspective, and I believe you, you know, that this does matter to you.
	I absolutely believe you.
	But think about it from my perspective for a moment.
	So, you know, you're a young Secret Service agent, right, on the Obama detail whose, you know, daughter's crying at the door at, you know, nine years old because you're on your 300th trip to whatever in the last two years.
	You haven't been home in weeks.
	And you have to hide the suitcase in the garage so your daughter doesn't see the cab and the suitcase going out.
	And you've done that for a Democrat, not only a Democrat president, but a Democrat president, you're absolutely convinced, really hates the Constitutional Republic as it's constructed.
	But not only do you do your job, you do it well because it matters.
	And I swore an oath and we're not some third world republic.
	And then as the thing about the Secret Service is we have two jobs.
	We're protection agents, but we're also federal investigators.
	I have never once in my life went to my boss and said, hey, we should or shouldn't arrest this guy because he's a Democrat or a Republican.
	So we're doing all this.
	And then I'm reading this report.
	And I think the most damning piece of the report, Margot Cleveland wrote about this in the Federalist the other day.
	Margot Cleveland wrote, the most damning part is the fact that Durham says, we don't need new rules.
	We don't need new rules.
	We need the FBI to act with integrity.
	That's a short.
	Think about what he's saying there.
	You have the most powerful federal law enforcement body practically anywhere in the world with a commission book, a badge, and a gun to take your life, your freedom, and your property.
	And a special prosecutor with no dog in the fight who no one's questioned his bona fide before is saying they've got an integrity problem.
	What the, what, what are we, North Korea?
	Like, that is unbelievable that he put that in the report.
	He must really believe that.
	So, you know, I'm a solutions-oriented guy.
	That's why I asked the president that question.
	Because, Megan, you use logic and reason in journalism.
	I use it in law enforcement and in content production space now.
	If you're telling me integrity is an issue, integrity comes from people or the lack thereof.
	You're telling me you have a person LHR problem, correct?
	Which means you correct it by getting rid of the human resources and replacing them with other humans.
	So that's why I asked him that, because you're never going to fix that problem.
	I mean, I'll tell you, just can I just quick story I told my radio show today.
	Here's why rules don't matter, okay?
	You're a lawyer.
	You'll understand this better than anyone.
	When I first got in the Secret Service in training, we were told when you're doing a site, a protection thing, there's a protest zone.
	The protesters got to stay in that zone.
	Megan, this went on for decades.
	We trained agents to do this.
	Finally, some very smart citizens said, wait, just because I got a paper sign, why can't I walk over there?
	No, no, that's a protest zone.
	Yeah, but he can.
	And he sued.
	And the judge was like, what are you guys crazy?
	There's no protest.
	America's a protest zone.
	And we lost.
	To the Secret Service's credit, the next day, an email went out to the entire service.
	There will be absolutely no protest zones.
	They sent supervisors out to be sure because they had integrity.
	And they said, we screwed up.
	I don't know why we were teaching this.
	It was just ridiculous.
	And they fixed it.
	But that's what good people do.
	You're telling me the FBI needed to be told, hey, we got an allegation from Russia about a pee-pee tape or something.
	Has anyone seen it?
	No.
	Does anyone have a hotel receipt?
	Nope.
	Do we have a witness?
	No.
	And the response was, let's spy on the president of campaign.
	And that's reasonable.
	And you're telling me a new rule.
	You need a rule for that.
	Just to be clear, the rule is what?
	If you can't produce the actual pee-pee tape, you needed a rule for that.
	You got to clean out the FBI.
	And I'm glad the president, at least on the show, and I have no reason to disbelieve him, said he was going to, were you at Fox with the Comey firing?
	I'm not sure what timeline was.
	Yes, you were.
	I was.
	Yeah.
	Megan.
	I still believe in Comey.
	I still, when they fired him, when he fired me, I still believed in the whole, you know, Comey Mueller brothership.
	These are noble public servants.
	I was still in the Fox FBI is good frame of mind.
	You remember what?
	No, no, no, no.
	I remember being like, oh, you know, I think he's a good man.
	But I had questions about how he was handling Trump.
	I could see he was irregular and he seemed like an egomaniac, but I thought, no, he's nobly served the country.
	You know, defer to him.
	Wrong, wrong, wrong.
	Yeah.
	Well, that's, that's very noble of you to say that.
	Most people just try to cover up theirs.
	I don't.
	I screwed up a lot of things.
	I say on the show all the time, you know, I'm a sinner, man.
	I am.
	I'm like Charles Barkley back when the Reitgard commercials or whatever.
	Like, I'm not your, don't look to me for some moral code, man.
	You'll see me out in the Stewart Sandbar with Tequila on Saturday, like partying with the best.
	I'm not your moral guide.
	I'm not.
	I tore it up at the Morgan Wallen concert last week.
	I'm not your, but I do believe in this country and I love this place.
	And I admit when I make mistakes, and yeah, I'm going to be straight with you.
	That was a huge mistake.
	I mean, I had the same feeling about Mueller.
	I'm like, all right, if they're going to appoint someone, former Marine, like nobody really thought Mueller was a bad guy.
	But Megan, I'm really sorry.
	The guy was a bad guy with all due respect to his servants.
	He knew from the start that this, they had no evidence.
	Durham's made that crystal clear.
	Read the report.
	There was not any evidence in their holding any.
	And a little bit.
	And he did it anyway.
	And he just dragged the country to three years of hell.
	And I don't believe history is going to be kind to Mueller.
	I know liberals write the history books, but you know what?
	Here's the thing about that.
	Liberals write the history books in New York.
	I'm a New Yorker.
	And after a while, even the liberals had to admit that David Dinkins was an awful mayor.
	3,000 people were being killed a year in the crack wars.
	They eventually had to come around and go, all right, Giuliani might have been crazy, but he was better than that guy.
	I don't think history is going to be kind to Mueller, Comey, or Brennan.
	Comey's about to go out on another book tour, too.
	So we're going to have to see a whole other round of that nonsense, although it could be fun to cover it, you know, in our jobs.
	Let me shift gears because you made a reference to it and I'm really wanting to talk to you about your health.
	So right around the time I launched this show, September 2020 is when I remember this happening.
	It was right out.
	I remember we were still just doing audio, no video on the show.
	And I couldn't believe you seemed genuinely scared and I was scared for you.
	And you got this bad diagnosis and it was very alarming.
	So tell us what happened and where you are now.
	Well, listen, I'm going to try not to get, I'm a real big whuss when it comes to this.
	So I'm going to do my best.
	There's only two things I can't talk about, which are this and my mother-in-law because I get choked up.
	Not that I can't talk about it.
	I have no problem talking about it.
Living with a Neck Tumor 00:08:37
	It's hard for me because, you know, my entire life, I have committed to doing the right thing by the body.
	The body's a temple, man.
	God gives you one of them.
	Don't disrespect it.
	You know, I, you know, I party a lot now.
	I'll drink some during the weekends, but never done drugs, definitely never done any like hard drugs or anything like that.
	I haven't even thought about it.
	You know, I can lecture my kids with a pure heart on that kind of stuff.
	Work out religiously six days a week, cold plunges, sauna.
	I mean, you know, I got this aura ring on.
	Everybody goes, oh, why do you wear your wedding ring on the wrong hand sometimes?
	Because it's not a wedding ring.
	It's a biosensor ring.
	Like I'm obsessed with health.
	And then I'm grappling one day.
	And my grappling coach, the jiu-jitsu guy, we did some private lessons because I got tired of, you know, the young kids trying to like beat up the Fox guy.
	So when Down says, he chokes me out pretty good.
	So, I mean, really good.
	Like, I'm out, like stars, you know, I'm like, whoa, what just happened?
	So, the next day I wake up and I'm getting ready to do Fox and Friends.
	It's like eight o'clock in the morning, whatever, and I'm shaving about seven o'clock.
	You know, when you shave your face, you turn your head and I'm like, what the hell is that lump on my neck?
	That's kind of weird.
	I started going back to Instagram and I'm like, gosh, that's been there for a long time.
	So, I never go to doctors.
	I'm like, ah, no big deal.
	It's probably a fatty tumor.
	I got tons of them.
	But I decide maybe I'll go to, you know, when you're on Fox, like everybody wants to help you out, which, you know, so you never have to wait for doctors anymore, which is one of the cool things about notoriety.
	You know, for every one person that drives you crazy in public, 50 people want to help you.
	So I go to this local doctor.
	This guy, Steve, he's the head neck surgeon.
	I said, hey, man, I got to pop in.
	Can you just, you know, feel this thing?
	Tell me what it is.
	He's like, Amigo, I think we got a problem, but I'm not sure.
	So I'm not worried about it.
	I think it's a fatty tumor.
	He goes, I'm going to get you in the Cleveland clinic right away tomorrow.
	COVID's going on.
	So remember, nothing's open.
	He's, I'm going to get you in there tomorrow.
	And you're going to get an MRI.
	So the MRI, the oncologist, the radiation oncologist is a Fox guy too.
	It's guy Todd.
	He's like, don't even worry.
	I don't have to read it.
	I'll go there in live time.
	I'm like, okay, great.
	Meets me there.
	I go in the machine.
	You know, they roll you in the MRI, big sound.
	You know, I'm in there 20 minutes, whatever.
	I come out and my head's in a cage because it can't move because they're looking at my neck.
	And I look up at Todd and I said to him, I see his wearing it all turkey up.
	Every time because it's such a like a life-changing moment, I say to him, I said, Doc, it's a fatty tumor, right?
	And he says, you need to get dressed and come inside.
	And I'm like, what the fuck?
	Like, what do you mean?
	So I go inside and there's a little room and he's reading it live.
	So I don't have to wait, you know, and he's like, a fatty tumor would be gray or white.
	He says, that's your neck.
	And I said, well, that's pitch black.
	And he's like, yeah, it is.
	I said, what is that?
	He said, I don't know what it is.
	I can tell you what it isn't.
	It isn't a fatty tumor.
	And I just, I don't know, man.
	I just lost it.
	I went out and I had, I got to go.
	I just had to go.
	And I walked outside and I got my wife on the phone.
	I'm in my truck outside.
	And I said, I have a tumor in my neck.
	She's like, a fatty tumor, right?
	I said, no, no, it's not.
	It's not a fatty tumor.
	And I don't think I, I was devastated.
	I mean, I couldn't believe it.
	And, you know, I went up and had it removed.
	It turned out to be a seven centimeter cancerous lymphoma tumor in my neck, which is a huge, enormous tumor.
	And, you know, I mean, I write this whole story in my next book.
	I mean, it's kind of, it's a long chapter, but I, I think it's the best one because I writing it brought back all these memories.
	But that's a hard thing.
	Yeah.
	Oh, thank you.
	Yeah.
	And then it didn't, Megan, it didn't really hit me any of it because God forbid this happens to anyone.
	If it happens, I pray to it doesn't happen to anyone listening because it's just, it's such a life-changing moment.
	But it comes at you so fast that, you know, the day before, Megan Kelly's worried about her interview tomorrow.
	And then the next day, like, you know how this is, right?
	You're like, oh my God, am I going to be alive next year?
	So I'm coming back.
	Sean Hannity, by the way, helped me out.
	Sean, if you're watching this show, if someone sends this clip to you, I can't, I probably wouldn't be alive without Sean.
	I'm not even kidding.
	Sean called probably every doctor in the tricycle.
	He's incredibly generous.
	Oh my gosh.
	People have no idea the other side of this guy.
	None.
	Zero idea.
	I had so many doctors calling me.
	I had to start ignoring the call.
	He was calling everyone.
	He gets me up into Sloan Kettering.
	They cut this massive tumor out of my neck.
	Thankfully, they don't nick my vocal cords or anything.
	He gets the whole thing out.
	And this is a weak whirlwind.
	I never missed a podcast, by the way, which is totally bananas.
	Like, cause I'm so crazy.
	I know I'm totally nuts.
	My wife did.
	I did it from the hotel room.
	You can go back and look.
	They're still out there over there.
	So I'm coming back on the plane.
	And you know, you know, the look in public, you know, you're famous, right?
	You know the look where they recognize you, but I want to say, you know, the look, right?
	They give you like the nod, you know.
	So I'm getting on the plane.
	And this guy, we're driving, we're flying back to Maryland.
	And this guy next to me to the right gives me the look, the fox look, like, hey, brother.
	And so he knows him if he doesn't say anything.
	And about halfway through the flight, I started reading about lymphoma.
	And it says 80% of people with lymphoma will live more than five years.
	Now, if you got cancer, you're probably like, wow, those are great odds, 80%, right?
	That's not how I read it.
	I read it as 20% of people are dead in five years.
	And it hit me for the first time.
	Like, holy shit, I could be dead in five years.
	And, Megan, the waterworks, man, I just, I'm not talking about like a little cry like at Gone with the Wind or something.
	I'm talking about like, I'm like, Paula, just give me like, take your shirt off or something because my face is so John Boehner action.
	Oh, John Boehner action going.
	I mean, it's like turned to Faustina.
	And the guy looks at me, man, and he gives me the nod.
	Like he knew the story and he said, I got you.
	So I thank that dude in the book.
	I never met him.
	He didn't even say anything, but I just thought about the weirdest things going home.
	It struck me for the first time that I could die.
	Like, I just thought I was like immortal.
	I know that's dumb.
	We all have an expiration date, but I don't want to know what it is.
	And I'm driving home to my house and they're building this movie theater complex near us.
	And the first thing that came to my mind was, I'm not going to see my youngest daughter ever get out of grammar school or have a boyfriend or anything like that.
	And I'm not going to, this is like so weird when you think you're going to do the stupid stuff that comes to mind.
	That's like the most serious thing ever, right?
	And then it occurred to me next: wow, I'll never see what that movie's going to look like, a movie theater.
	Like, this is the crazy shit that goes through your head.
	And it changed my life.
	So, you know, people ask me now, they say, Hey, you know, you're pretty cavalier.
	You do your own thing on the radio.
	You got these beef sauce people.
	It's because, pardon the language, I give zero fucks.
	I really don't.
	I don't care what you say to me.
	I'm living my life.
	I'm doing what I think is right.
	If I it up and it's wrong, I'll fix it.
	And that's fine.
	But I'm not taking advice from some dumbass at some company.
	Oh, you need to say this or be diplomatic about that.
	I don't need to be diplomatic about shit.
	I got through that.
	And let me tell you, my life has never been the same since.
	You know, seize the day, man, because you have no idea how many you have left.
	When you come out of that MRI machine and God forbid someone tells you what that guy told me, that whole, you don't give a shit about your guests tomorrow on your podcast.
	You care about your kids, your life, your dog, your husband, and everything else.
	And that changes everything for you.
	Dan, clean bill of health now?
	Yeah, I'm, you know, the chemo, unfortunately, is really bad.
	I had ABVD chemo and it rips up your heart pretty good.
	So my heart was never the same.
	I mean, my HRV score was a hard thing, whatever, but I follow all this stuff.
	I mean, I went from the higher numbers, the better.
	I went from like a 60 and a 70.
	I had a man, CrossFit type stuff.
	It's like a 12 or a 15 now.
	So your heart, you're always at risk.
	And I've had so many scans, you actually run a risk of getting cancer from the scans.
	So now I'm at that point in my life.
	I've been two years clean and remission now with this, where you have to start making like devil's bargains.
	You know, do you get a scan that could actually give you cancer or, you know, do you chance it and just hope you'll live?
	But I'll tell you what, Megan, you see, now I'm getting such a great.
	My producer Key's like, gosh, she's so freaking good at this.
	You know, you are.
Continuing Service with Charlie Kirk 00:01:57
	You're very talented.
	Now, I don't think you're giving me the credit.
	You're doing all the work.
	No, no, no, no.
	You just, you got to pull it out of people.
	You know, I don't worry about it.
	I don't worry about it anymore.
	I don't.
	And I don't say that with some faux bravado.
	I'm not chest puffing, but I don't need to do that.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I'm living the life I want to live.
	And you know, everything.
	I believe in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
	And if his mission for me is over soon, then you know what?
	It's over, man.
	And I went out and I did it like Frankie Sinatra, man.
	You know, I did it my way.
	And that was it.
	And I'm good with that.
	Dan, I have a feeling you're going to be with us for a long, long time.
	And I forgot to be so grateful.
	You've always been a dear friend.
	You're a great, great newsman, commentator, pundit, activist.
	Thank you for your service to our country.
	And thank you for continuing that service.
	That's what you're doing every day.
	You're continuing that service.
	Love you.
	Love to your family.
	Wait, before we go, I just want to say on the record, that is the most enjoyable interview I have ever done in podcast, TV, news, radio, written, print, skywriting.
	Unbelievable job.
	That was awesome.
	Thanks for having me.
	Thank you.
	Thank you so much.
	See you soon.
	Oh my gosh.
	He was amazing.
	That was so great.
	I'm going to have to sit with that one for a while.
	It's so good to see him again, be able to talk to him.
	Very frustrating.
	We couldn't talk when he was at Fox.
	They have the weird rules.
	So this is the beginning of something new and fun now that he's a free man.
	And speaking of free men, on Monday, we have another first-time guest who is another huge new media voice.
	And that is Charlie Kirk.
	First time on the program.
	I've been on his show.
	He's never been online, but he will appear on Monday.
	We're looking forward to that.
	In the meantime, have a great weekend.
	Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
	No BS, no agenda, and no

Chapters

00:00:35 Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show
00:14:48 Tucker's Threat to Media Giants
00:30:09 Evidence and Conservative Claims
00:45:38 Liberals Throw You Under the Bus
01:01:01 Trump as a Deal Maker
01:07:00 The Case for DeSantis-Trump Ticket
01:12:36 Walking Away from Fox News
01:16:49 A Coup at the Network
01:26:13 Living with a Neck Tumor
01:34:50 Continuing Service with Charlie Kirk