The Megyn Kelly Show - 20230808_nbcs-failed-abortion-fact-check-and-bidens-gold-st
Aired: 2023-08-08
Duration: 01:37:57


=== NBC News Faceplant (02:12) ===

[00:00:50]  Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
[00:01:12]  And once again, it's all in the family.
[00:01:16]  And NBC News apparently is not aware of the abortion laws in America, nor the Democrats' position on abortion laws, as they try and fail to catch Governor Ron DeSantis in a lie.
[00:01:28]  This was such a faceplant.
[00:01:29]  We'll show it to you.
[00:01:30]  Also, it is NR Day here at the show.
[00:01:32]  We are glad to have Rich Lowry, an MBD, here with us, Michael Brendan Doherty.
[00:01:38]  You can find their great content over on National Review.
[00:01:41]  Do yourself a favor, become an NR Plus member to get even more content with fewer, well, really, basically, no ads.
[00:01:49]  It's worth your time and listen to the editors as well because it's a great podcast.
[00:01:53]  Guys, welcome back to the show.
[00:01:55]  Hey, thanks for having us.
[00:01:56]  Great to be here.
[00:01:57]  The last time we were together, we were wearing colonial costumes and eating jello shots.
[00:02:03]  Is it drinking a jello shot?
[00:02:05]  Consuming jello shots that were red, white, and blue on July 4th.
[00:02:09]  Yeah, colonial outfits on a hot day in July that they lose their charm after about 15 minutes or so.
[00:02:15]  A lot of sweating was involved, but it was fantastic.
[00:02:18]  Only a true patriot would do it, Rich.
[00:02:20]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:23]  Well, MBD, one of the most memorable things about that day, besides the marching band, was MDD's conclusion to the Declaration of Independence, bringing it like an old school.
[00:02:33]  He put his heart into it.
[00:02:35]  Like that was not half-assed MBD.
[00:02:38]  You asked for big.
[00:02:39]  I did.
[00:02:40]  I did.
[00:02:41]  And you took the instruction well.
[00:02:44]  Okay, so speaking of big, big exchange by Ron DeSantis over on NBC, and good for him for getting out there and doing more media.
[00:02:51]  I mean, that was my impression when he sat down with me: he's actually quite good at this.
[00:02:55]  There's nothing to be afraid of.
[00:02:56]  He should get out there more.
[00:02:58]  So he has this exchange with Dasha Burns, who people may remember that name.

=== Democrats Push Limits (15:36) ===

[00:03:03]  She was the one at NBC who had the temerity to report that John Fetterman was not well off-cam.
[00:03:09]  And then all the left rained down on her, and then she spent the next six months trying to make it up to them.
[00:03:15]  So now she sits down with Ron DeSantis and tries to do a real-time fact check of something he said on abortion.
[00:03:23]  The shorter clip is playing in some circles.
[00:03:26]  I'm going to play the longer clip.
[00:03:27]  He did push back on her in the moment.
[00:03:30]  And after the interview, his team is pushing back even harder.
[00:03:33]  But check this exchange out.
[00:03:35]  It's SOT 7, which aired on in part on NBC Today Show yesterday, and then I'm MSNBC.
[00:03:44]  No, no, I want no, I don't want six.
[00:03:48]  I'm arguing as Steve Kraken.
[00:03:49]  Oh, whatever.
[00:03:49]  My team's overruling me.
[00:03:51]  Just play the long exchange.
[00:03:54]  I would not allow what a lot of the left wants to do, which is to override pro-life protections throughout the country, all the way up really until the moment of birth in some instances, which I think is infanticide.
[00:04:08]  Actually, I got to push back on you on that because that's a misrepresentation of what's happening.
[00:04:13]  I mean, that 1.3% of abortions happen at 21 weeks or higher.
[00:04:19]  There's no evidence of Democrats pushing for abortion.
[00:04:22]  But their view is, is that all the way up into that, yet there should not be any legal protections.
[00:04:28]  There is no indication of Democrats pushing for that.
[00:04:33]  No indication of any Democrats pushing for that.
[00:04:36]  So Team DeSantis, after the fact, comes out with the following montage proving that there are many Democrats pushing for that.
[00:04:45]  Here's the example, SAT 8.
[00:04:47]  Do you support any restrictions on abortion?
[00:04:51]  I don't.
[00:04:51]  I've always been.
[00:04:52]  Even in the third trimester?
[00:04:54]  Do you think there should be any limitation on abortions?
[00:04:57]  No, I do not.
[00:04:58]  Where it's obvious that a woman is about to give birth.
[00:05:01]  She has physical signs that she is about to give a birth.
[00:05:05]  Would that still be a point at which she could request an abortion if she was so certified?
[00:05:09]  My bill wouldn't allow that, yes.
[00:05:11]  Do you believe that a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy up until the moment of birth?
[00:05:16]  Look, I think that that happens very, very rarely.
[00:05:19]  But at the end of the day, I believe that the decision over abortion belongs to a woman and a physician.
[00:05:28]  My question was about any limits to abortion at any point, you know, late term, anything?
[00:05:34]  You got to leave it up to the woman.
[00:05:37]  Up till now, my understanding is there wasn't a limit on when in a pregnancy a woman could receive an abortion.
[00:05:44]  Have you set any limits?
[00:05:45]  There are no limits.
[00:05:47]  No limits.
[00:05:48]  No limits, Rich.
[00:05:49]  And yet, Dasha Burns, on behalf of NBC News, and let me tell you, having worked there, they pour over your questions with a fine-tooth comb, but this was her trying to do a live fact check and it was an utter fail.
[00:06:00]  What do you make of it?
[00:06:02]  Yeah, so first of all, just at a pure tactical level, this shows why Ron DeSantis needed to do, needs to do, needed to do interviews with legacy, mainstream, corporate, whatever you want to call it, media, because we're talking about this hit in a way we wouldn't if it was just another friendly segment on Fox News, because there was conflict and we cover conflict and he performed well, which is, which is good.
[00:06:24]  So on the merits of it, Dasha Burns, as far as I know, the only, she only came on my radar screen on the incident you mentioned that we talked a little bit on the show, the exchange with Eric Fedman or her report afterwards that, sorry, that Senator, now Senator Federman, yeah, sorry, didn't fully understand what she was saying during the idle talk before and after the interview and the world came crashing down on her head.
[00:06:51]  As far as I know, she's a good reporter and a well-informed person, but it just goes to this massive ideological blind slot, a blind spot that everyone on the left of center has on abortion, where it just doesn't compute that this is the position of a lot of Democrats.
[00:07:09]  And there's not as though the Democrats are hiding it, right?
[00:07:12]  You ask them this question.
[00:07:13]  They're not often asked it, but they sometimes are asked it.
[00:07:16]  Many of them will tell you, no, we don't support any restrictions on abortion through the entirety of the nine months.
[00:07:22]  And since that is Democratic fanaticism and extremism on abortion, it's just not something that they can fully integrate into their worldview.
[00:07:34]  So in real time, she's like, no, you must be lying.
[00:07:36]  No Democrat would be that crazy to support that position.
[00:07:40]  Of course, they do.
[00:07:42]  It's like, just take a little time to look into it and you'll see it's very true.
[00:07:45]  And as you say, they're on the record on camera saying it's true.
[00:07:48]  And these are not unknown Democrats.
[00:07:50]  You know, the Brett Barron who go Tim Ryan, you know, he was really making a go of it in Ohio for in his run for Senate.
[00:07:57]  Bernie Sanders on the New York City mayor Eric Adams was in there.
[00:08:01]  We could go down the list.
[00:08:02]  NBD, you guys at NBC have, I mean, National Review have a post today, which people should check out.
[00:08:09]  It was dated yesterday, I think, called NBC's Faulty Abortion Fact Check, pointing out: okay, so Dasha Burns wants people to know that 1.3% of abortions happen at 21 weeks or later.
[00:08:19]  So that 1.3% of 930,000 total abortions in the U.S. equals 12,000 babies who were, you know, in which the pregnancies were terminated at 21 weeks or later when babies are capable of feeling pain and sometimes capable of surviving outside the womb.
[00:08:39]  And for all those sitting at home thinking, oh, that's only severely deformed babies who would have no chance of living outside the womb, that's not true either.
[00:08:48]  Right.
[00:08:49]  Right.
[00:08:50]  I mean, we have data from the Goodmacher Institute and from Planned Parenthood themselves basically saying that these are abortions of choice, most of them, even in the very late term.
[00:09:01]  There are very few that are caused by these medical conditions, thank God.
[00:09:06]  And the Democrats are currently campaigning to keep them legal.
[00:09:10]  I mean, they're currently campaigning in states like Ohio for constitutional amendments that don't say in any explicit way, we're authorizing or we're making a late-term abortion a constitutional right with all of the gross medical descriptions that could go with it.
[00:09:27]  They're just hiding it in the euphemism of rights language and privacy language.
[00:09:34]  And it's because they don't want to talk about the details of this.
[00:09:38]  They don't want to talk about the actual numbers.
[00:09:40]  And they don't want to talk about the success of pro-life laws.
[00:09:43]  I mean, we've seen stories throughout the past couple of months from the New York Times and others profiling young families who could not get an abortion in, say, Texas or Florida after a certain number of weeks.
[00:09:58]  They went and had the child.
[00:10:00]  And now, you know, the father and mother got married.
[00:10:03]  The father enrolled in the army and is earning more money now than he was when the two were just dating.
[00:10:09]  And they're actually forming families.
[00:10:11]  And the New York Times is portraying this as some kind of disaster when, in fact, it's actually a kind of heartwarming story.
[00:10:17]  And that's happening for scores of thousands of babies that have been saved by these pro-life laws that have passed since Roe was overturned.
[00:10:26]  And Democrats are campaigning to reverse that, to go back to Roe state by state through these constitutional amendments.
[00:10:33]  And they're doing it right now.
[00:10:34]  So there's no excuse for NBC to screw this up.
[00:10:37]  I mean, they should know what Democrats' position is.
[00:10:40]  They've made it abundantly clear.
[00:10:43]  It's ideological bias.
[00:10:45]  Here's a little bit of the longer exchange.
[00:10:49]  Okay, we played you the short clip that they played on the Today Show of that interview between Dasha Burns and Ron DeSantis.
[00:10:55]  It went on.
[00:10:57]  He did come back on her just a bit.
[00:11:00]  I'm, what do you, my producers are back in my head, in my ear.
[00:11:05]  No.
[00:11:07]  Debbie, be quiet.
[00:11:09]  Canadian Debbie took a week off and now she's throwing me off.
[00:11:12]  SOT 7 is the longer exchange.
[00:11:16]  Are they done it in California?
[00:11:17]  They've done it in other states.
[00:11:19]  They have not instituted that policy.
[00:11:21]  Yeah, they have.
[00:11:21]  Yeah, they have.
[00:11:22]  They basically will say that, you know, if there's some type of like it, they'll use like different ways to really have a wide acceptance.
[00:11:30]  1.3%.
[00:11:31]  And in those circumstances, they're typically extremely emotional decisions.
[00:11:35]  No, I mean, I don't say that that's the norm in terms of this, but I do think that the left in this country has moved on.
[00:11:43]  Okay, so here's the reason I play it.
[00:11:46]  He did fine.
[00:11:47]  He did push back, but he can do better.
[00:11:50]  and he he should do better.
[00:11:51]  He needs to do better.
[00:11:52]  He's the underdog to be charitable about it.
[00:11:56]  And he needs the big moment, Rich.
[00:11:58]  He needs the in-your-face.
[00:12:01]  This is what you Democrats do.
[00:12:03]  This is what the media does.
[00:12:05]  They take this hot button issue and they mislead on it.
[00:12:08]  By the way, do you not care about the 12,000 babies?
[00:12:11]  You don't think that a nine-month baby in the womb has the right to be born?
[00:12:16]  That's up to the mother, Dasha, right?
[00:12:18]  Like, I'm not sure, because we know he's capable of it.
[00:12:22]  I'm not sure why he's not swinging for the fences here and in other exchanges.
[00:12:27]  Yeah, so I would say a couple of things.
[00:12:28]  I was talking to someone who knows him well the other day after the Lincoln dinner in Des Moines, where all the candidates spoke and then they had receptions afterwards.
[00:12:38]  And the DeSantis team shared this clip from reception where he was drinking of Coors Light, not a Bud Light, of course, Coors Light, and he was toasting with some people.
[00:12:47]  And it just felt so unnatural and so forced.
[00:12:50]  And I was just remarking on this to someone.
[00:12:53]  He's like, yeah, he's just not good in those settings.
[00:12:55]  Where he's really good actually is being combative with reporters.
[00:13:00]  So that's another reason they should get him in these sort of settings.
[00:13:03]  Now, I agree with you.
[00:13:04]  He could obviously use a big moment, but you have to be careful trying to force it, right?
[00:13:10]  And the thing is, if he's, sorry, I'm going to use a sports analogy, Megan.
[00:13:13]  If you're out there, you're getting the at-bats, you know, you're getting singles and doubles.
[00:13:18]  Maybe this was a double.
[00:13:19]  You're not necessarily swinging for the fences because sometimes that can backfire on you.
[00:13:24]  Eventually, you're going to have probably the kind of moment you're talking about.
[00:13:29]  So I would say the polls are horrible right now for DeSantis, for everyone else in the field besides Trump.
[00:13:35]  But I do think the last couple of weeks, you can see how DeSantis could learn and could improve.
[00:13:41]  And maybe he is on the campaign trail.
[00:13:44]  But obviously, something needs to happen to Trump first.
[00:13:47]  And that is nowhere in evidence.
[00:13:50]  Well, we'll get to Trump in one second, but I'll suggest something else without evidence for the record, MBD, and that is he's across from a young woman.
[00:13:58]  She's kind of soft-spoken.
[00:14:00]  You know, as a lawyer, we always used to be taught, you have to match the energy of the witness.
[00:14:05]  If you go in there and you're the killer and the witness is soft-spoken, even if he's a lying jerk, the jury could hold it against you if you're meaner than the witness seems.
[00:14:16]  But having said all that, all of Ron DeSantis' base enters that exchange hating NBC and the reporter.
[00:14:23]  So I think you can take a little bit more of a risk.
[00:14:27]  You know, this isn't just a woman.
[00:14:28]  This is a reporter who's misleading on an issue that happens to be near and dear to the vast majority of the Republican base.
[00:14:36]  Right.
[00:14:37]  And he can go, he can even do a little verbal reframing of the exchange, right?
[00:14:43]  He can say, I just want to be clear for all your viewers that this is wrong, right?
[00:14:48]  That I'm not, he can, he doesn't have to frame it as a direct attack on her, or he can reframe it and say, like, this is what the media does, rather than having a direct confrontation with the person.
[00:15:00]  And he should, he should learn too, from Donald Trump's success in 2016.
[00:15:07]  Part of it was the bond he made with values voters in the Republican coalition because he was the first Republican candidate on stage when asked about abortion to describe it graphically and express genuine physical disgust with the act itself.
[00:15:27]  And that is what got the attention of Leonard Leo at the Federalist Society and so many others and got him into a position where he could make this pledge about judges that helped cement his candidacy, right?
[00:15:40]  That he'd already won over a lot of moderate Republicans who wanted a businessman.
[00:15:44]  And then he was able to speak to social conservatives about abortion in a way they've always wanted to be spoken to about it by their Republican candidates.
[00:15:53]  And Ron Santas can still do that.
[00:15:55]  And he can do that as someone who just signed a law that a lot of pro-lifers in Florida wanted to see sign.
[00:16:02]  And he signed it in the face of basically the most pro-choice red state in the country.
[00:16:08]  So he's shown political courage.
[00:16:11]  He should show in these interviews the same moral courage that he's shown politically.
[00:16:16]  And yeah, I think he'll benefit tremendously from that.
[00:16:19]  Then there's the matter of Donald Trump.
[00:16:22]  Rich, you mentioned the polls, and there's been no sign of Trump weakening at all.
[00:16:28]  So DeSantis, to me, seemed to shift slightly in his messaging on Trump.
[00:16:33]  And, you know, everybody's been wondering, how do you get around the gorilla, as I call him?
[00:16:37]  How do you get around the gorilla?
[00:16:38]  He's 40 points ahead of you, maybe 40 pounds ahead too.
[00:16:43]  And he's immovable.
[00:16:45]  He's not wrong that every indictment makes him stronger.
[00:16:48]  He's just been, he's just been immovable in those polls.
[00:16:51]  So DeSantis, I thought landed the best answer he's landed so far when asked about the setup at this New Hampshire town hall was, what are you going to do about the nicknames that he calls you?
[00:17:02]  But he could have taken that anywhere, right?
[00:17:04]  That could have gone anywhere.
[00:17:06]  And he's tried to answer that question about the nicknames a number of different ways.
[00:17:09]  You call me whatever you want, as long as you call me winner.
[00:17:12]  That one's not going to work anymore because he's 40 points behind.
[00:17:15]  You know, it's petty, whatever.
[00:17:17]  But look, look what he did here.
[00:17:18]  And you tell me whether you think this is going to make a difference.
[00:17:23]  So here's the thing.
[00:17:24]  These insults are so phony.
[00:17:28]  These insults are juvenile.
[00:17:30]  That is not the way a great nation should be conducting itself.
[00:17:33]  That is not the way the president of the United States should be conducting himself.
[00:17:37]  And, you know, one of the things I think about the former president, and I appreciate he did do a lot of great things and I was a big supporter, but he's running in 2024 on the things that he promised to do in 2016 and didn't do.
[00:17:50]  He said he was going to drain the swamp.
[00:17:52]  He did not drain the swamp, not even close.
[00:17:54]  We ended his presidency with Anthony Fauci running the country.
[00:17:58]  You couldn't even fire Fauci.
[00:18:00]  And so now you're going to go drain the swamp.
[00:18:02]  Give me a break.
[00:18:02]  He said Mexico was going to pay for the border wall.
[00:18:05]  Do you see the border secured?
[00:18:07]  I see people coming in infinitum.
[00:18:10]  He said that he was going to lock Hillary up, just like he's now saying he's going to do a special counsel for Biden two weeks after the election in 2020.
[00:18:18]  Ah, forget about it.
[00:18:18]  Don't worry about it.
[00:18:19]  And then he actually said he was going to eliminate the national debt.
[00:18:22]  He added $8 trillion to the debt.
[00:18:25]  We've paid down our debt in Florida.
[00:18:30]  Pretty good, Rich.
[00:18:32]  Yeah, I think it was cogent.
[00:18:34]  It was delivered with conviction.
[00:18:36]  He's still, you know, he's got this straddle, right?

=== Trump's Entertaining Persona (05:07) ===

[00:18:39]  He needs to make an anti-Trump case where he can't sound like Chris Christie.
[00:18:43]  It can't be a never Trump case.
[00:18:44]  It can't be the guy who has low character and is unsuited for the presidency.
[00:18:47]  He's just grace.
[00:18:48]  We should never hear from him again.
[00:18:49]  He can't do that.
[00:18:50]  But he needs to make an anti-Trump case or he's never going to win.
[00:18:53]  So he does it basically on, you know, I support most of what he did, but he was ineffectual and he lost.
[00:19:01]  And we can't do that again.
[00:19:02]  So that's a good argument.
[00:19:05]  I imagine as we get closer to actual caucusing and voting, it'll become even harsher and more emphatic.
[00:19:12]  But the big problem he has is I think there's this argument about Trump all along and certainly after he lost in 2020.
[00:19:21]  What was Trumpism?
[00:19:22]  Was it mainly about issues, whether they're economic or cultural?
[00:19:26]  And there's a debate about that itself.
[00:19:28]  Or is it more about his persona?
[00:19:31]  And I think we're learning it's more about the personas.
[00:19:34]  Not like the issues didn't matter.
[00:19:35]  They did, especially in the 2016 primary campaign and the 2016 general.
[00:19:40]  But you look at that New York Times poll a week or two ago, had Trump way ahead, as most polls do, and it asked about candidate qualities and the two qualities that Trump was smashing DeSantis on, strong leader and fun, right?
[00:19:56]  And these just both go to actions Trump has that are almost impossible to replicate.
[00:20:01]  People associate him with strength because he plays by no one else's rules.
[00:20:04]  We see it in all these legal disputes.
[00:20:06]  All the lawyers are telling him, shut up, sir.
[00:20:08]  Don't criticize the prosecutor, sir.
[00:20:10]  Don't criticize the judge.
[00:20:12]  And he's like, to hell with that.
[00:20:13]  You're coming after me.
[00:20:14]  And he said this explicitly in a post the other day, right?
[00:20:17]  You're coming after me.
[00:20:18]  I'm coming after you twice as hard.
[00:20:20]  That's strong.
[00:20:21]  And then while he's doing this, he's entertaining.
[00:20:24]  So it's one thing to have leadership qualities and be boring.
[00:20:27]  It's another thing to be really interesting and not having leadership qualities or things that people associate with leadership qualities.
[00:20:33]  That's kind of the norm to have both, to have the strength and to be entertaining.
[00:20:39]  That's just really hard to match.
[00:20:40]  And if Trump just walks away with this without it ever becoming a competition, I think that'll be the reason why.
[00:20:47]  That's the thing, MBD.
[00:20:49]  The guys from the Ruthless program were laughing, I don't know how many months ago, after Trump sat down with Tucker.
[00:20:56]  Tucker was still on Fox.
[00:20:58]  And they talked about a meeting he had with the Chinese leader.
[00:21:01]  And Trump said, I just pulled it up just to remind myself.
[00:21:04]  He's talking about Xi and how he's a big leader and blah, blah, blah.
[00:21:08]  And then he says in this interview about Xi, he had an incredible, I'm not allowed to say it because it's very impolite and very politically incorrect, a beautiful female interpreter.
[00:21:20]  The guys on the ruthless program were like, that's the thing about Trump is like, you're like, oh, I was like to meet with a Chinese leader.
[00:21:28]  And he's like, the translator was hot.
[00:21:30]  And most people are, he makes you laugh.
[00:21:33]  And you're like, I like him.
[00:21:35]  He's entertaining.
[00:21:36]  That's something I would say in an exchange.
[00:21:39]  You know, a lot of guys are thinking like, I want to have a beer with this guy, even though Trump doesn't drink, but I want to sit down with him.
[00:21:43]  I want to, you know, I like the show.
[00:21:46]  I like somebody who's humorous and doesn't take himself or life too seriously.
[00:21:50]  And the more we get from the drama of his four years actually in office, which were exhausting, the less people remember that and they focus back on the show and the fun, as Rich said.
[00:22:03]  Yeah.
[00:22:03]  And it's, it's, this is going to sound like a very juvenile comparison, but there is a way in which like Donald Trump is the Bugs Bunny figure and Ron DeSantis is the Daffy Duck, right?
[00:22:14]  Where Bugs Bunny always gets the funny insults, always expresses himself freely.
[00:22:20]  He does things that seem totally improbable that aren't going to work, like sticking his two fingers into the end of a shotgun and somehow it blasts back on the person firing it.
[00:22:31]  And then there's Daffy Duck, who's earnest, who's trying hard, who's plotting and planning and plotting, and his beak gets spun around his head in the end of every clip.
[00:22:42]  And that's the problem every Republican candidate is going to have is that Donald Trump is having review day, right?
[00:22:50]  For these sophisticated cultural references.
[00:22:52]  I appreciate this.
[00:22:53]  Thank you for taking it down to my level.
[00:22:54]  I get it.
[00:22:55]  Yeah, I was a child in the 70s.
[00:22:56]  That's all we had to watch.
[00:22:58]  Exactly.
[00:22:59]  But Bugs Bunny has fun and he doesn't mind oggling a woman in front of you.
[00:23:04]  He doesn't mind making a joke at the expense of the people that are trying to shoot him or persecute him.
[00:23:10]  And he's just totally unflustered by it.
[00:23:13]  And that's the kind of strength Trump communicates.
[00:23:16]  And that's the strength that his voters, what attracts them to Trump is he's the biggest personality.
[00:23:23]  He's the most forceful.
[00:23:25]  He's the most hated and the most willful.
[00:23:28]  And so they famousize about putting all of that willfulness into the arena on their behalf.
[00:23:36]  Now, it doesn't always work out the way they want it to, right?
[00:23:40]  Like it doesn't always, you know, sometimes he's more Tasmanian devil, right?
[00:23:44]  He's just wrecking the joint.

=== Biden Needs Trump (15:45) ===

[00:23:46]  But he, they fantasize about that strength being put to work for them.
[00:23:52]  And then they look at DeSantis and it's like, okay, I like this guy.
[00:23:55]  I agree with him, but he's just, it's just politics as usual.
[00:24:00]  It's, it seems too normal.
[00:24:02]  And they want someone that's really going to disrupt the system that they think is persecuting them.
[00:24:08]  So Donald Trump is still the choice.
[00:24:11]  And until someone knocks the cool and charisma off Donald Trump, I don't see how anyone else is going to win.
[00:24:20]  That's the thing.
[00:24:21]  So they look at, I mean, a lot of people say, Rich, that the moment Trump stood behind Brett Kavanaugh was the moment they came home to the Republican Party, despite their doubts about Trump.
[00:24:33]  And they turned and they said, this is my guy.
[00:24:35]  I will support him.
[00:24:37]  The strength it took to stand behind him, because it wasn't just the Dems.
[00:24:41]  Some Republicans too were like, this guy's not worth it.
[00:24:44]  We can't put an accused rapist on the U.S. Supreme Court.
[00:24:47]  And I mean, it's true that most politicians would have folded.
[00:24:52]  You know, there's a lot of great talented justices or judges on the circuit courts of appeal you could choose from.
[00:24:57]  You did not have to go with Brett Kavanaugh, but he stood by him, even with the onslaught of all the pouring on, you know, allegations in the media and all the protests and so on.
[00:25:08]  I think Republicans are worried anybody else might not do that, right?
[00:25:11]  Like you do need somebody who's as strong as Trump, who can stand in the face of Jack Smith and Jack Smith and Fannie Willis and Alvin Bragg and Joe Biden and all the rest of it, and just keep standing and just keep punching and just keep tweeting or truthing or what, like he doesn't show any signs of, you know, falling.
[00:25:30]  He doesn't show any signs of falling, so so it's like it's almost like he doesn't.
[00:25:34]  I know we're not talking policy right now with Trump.
[00:25:37]  We're not.
[00:25:37]  We're talking about Jack Smith.
[00:25:38]  We're talking about you, come for me, I'll come for you, but the message is there every day.
[00:25:43]  I'm the strongest one here because they've they've tried every way they know to take me down and I'm still standing.
[00:25:49]  Yeah, so I was writing after the 2020 election, when it just it's.
[00:25:53]  It's still kind of unfathomable when it, when I really think about it, but that he's remained so strong despite losing a presidential election and going down this.
[00:26:00]  This whole rabbit hole has just been terrible.
[00:26:03]  And I was talking to a friend, what, what accounts for this?
[00:26:05]  What, how do we, how Republicans, get in this place?
[00:26:08]  And and he said to me something I think that's uh, that was correct.
[00:26:12]  What, what he heard from from all his friends was.
[00:26:14]  This goes back to what we're talking about with Dasha Burns and how you think DeSantis should have pushed back stronger.
[00:26:20]  The 2012 foreign policy presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama near the end.
[00:26:26]  They're talking about Benghazi.
[00:26:27]  Mitt Romney is slamming Obama from Benghazi in a truthful and correct manner, and Candy Crowley in retired CNN anchor.
[00:26:37]  She pops up, she's going to do the fact check in real time which is not definitely not your role as a moderator of presidential debate and gets it wrong.
[00:26:45]  I forget whatever the detail is, but she did.
[00:26:48]  He call it a Terrorist attack.
[00:26:50]  Yeah.
[00:26:50]  So she gets it wrong.
[00:26:51]  And then Romney just shuts up and looks like he's humiliated.
[00:26:55]  And he was right.
[00:26:56]  And my friend said, you know, after that, I just think Republicans realized they need an animal, right?
[00:27:02]  They don't need a polite, respectable, responsible person.
[00:27:06]  They need an animal.
[00:27:07]  And that's what they got.
[00:27:09]  And Trump, now there are major downsides to being an animal.
[00:27:12]  There are all sorts of them.
[00:27:14]  But like the Kavanaugh thing is, I don't care what the other side says.
[00:27:17]  I don't care what lies they're telling.
[00:27:19]  I don't care how many people they have swarming the Capitol.
[00:27:22]  No, I'm standing by this guy no matter what.
[00:27:25]  And there are various other key episodes in the Trump administration where you point to the same quality being important.
[00:27:32]  The problem is the downsides.
[00:27:34]  And I think DeSantis actually is a stand-up guy.
[00:27:37]  I think he does have political courage.
[00:27:40]  I think he'd be a really good president.
[00:27:42]  But convincing people that you have that quality when you're wrestling with this proverbial 800-pound gorilla is really hard.
[00:27:49]  And just final thing on this MBD talk about knocking kind of the charisma and cool off Trump.
[00:27:55]  I think the only way you do it is by beating him somewhere.
[00:27:57]  You know, you beat him in Iowa, maybe it does come off him.
[00:28:00]  But then you guys have circular thing, right?
[00:28:02]  He's cool and charismatic until such time as you beat him.
[00:28:05]  But how are you going to beat him when he's still cool and charismatic?
[00:28:08]  Well, I mean, DeSantis could win Iowa.
[00:28:10]  Remember, Ted Cruz won Iowa.
[00:28:11]  He did not win the nomination.
[00:28:13]  But the conventional wisdom developing in the Republican circles, at least the ones I read and listen to right now, is Trump's going to win the nomination.
[00:28:20]  He's going to lose the general because he's too alienating to independence, right-leaning independence in states like Georgia, Arizona, and so on, like all those swings in Michigan, Wisconsin.
[00:28:34]  I don't know, MBD.
[00:28:35]  I understand that logic.
[00:28:37]  I get it.
[00:28:38]  You know, I can use my intellect and see that argument through.
[00:28:41]  Andy McCarthy, our mutual friend and your colleague, has been saying it.
[00:28:46]  But that New York Times poll showed them tied, Trump and Biden, tied, tied.
[00:28:51]  And Trump's thrice indicted, twice impeached, as the Democrats like to say.
[00:28:55]  They're tied.
[00:28:57]  And, you know, the ties usually go to the Republican because the Republican voters don't always tell the pollsters how they're actually feeling.
[00:29:04]  So, and Trump's been underestimated before.
[00:29:07]  I think Trump's stronger right now than he was in 2020.
[00:29:09]  He's stronger right now than he was in 2020.
[00:29:12]  He doesn't have COVID around his neck.
[00:29:13]  The country's not suffering like it was.
[00:29:15]  In fact, it's suffering in a different way that they're holding the Democrat accountable for.
[00:29:18]  Direction of the country is blamed on Joe Biden right now.
[00:29:21]  So how do we know?
[00:29:23]  Like, how do what makes us really think he'll lose and that those voters in Wisconsin or Arizona could get behind Ron DeSantis, who's not John McCain?
[00:29:35]  He's not moderate.
[00:29:36]  Like, what makes us think this?
[00:29:38]  Right.
[00:29:39]  Well, a lot of people say, oh, well, look at the record in 2018 and 2022 in these midterm elections.
[00:29:45]  The congressional candidates that were associated with Trump all flamed out or the governor candidates.
[00:29:52]  They say this.
[00:29:53]  And the thing is, Trump's coolness and charisma and reputation is not transferable to Carrie Lake or to Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, right?
[00:30:05]  Doug Mastriano does not have casinos and hotels and golf courses named after him all over the world and other luxury properties, right?
[00:30:15]  Trump does.
[00:30:17]  So Trump turns out people.
[00:30:19]  And you see in some states, like where there were moderate Republicans running and Trump was on the top of the ticket.
[00:30:24]  So someone like Susan Collins in Maine, she got her best ever result because she brought her voters.
[00:30:31]  And then all the Trump voters came out in Maine and voted for her too, down ticket.
[00:30:36]  And, you know, some people thought she would lose and she won by 13.
[00:30:39]  So Trump is stronger than his reputation electorally.
[00:30:45]  And, you know, Biden is a lot weaker now, right?
[00:30:48]  Biden, the whole promise of Biden that was attractive to people was: we're going to end the hysteria, right?
[00:30:54]  I'm, you're going to not think about me for weeks at a time, right?
[00:30:57]  Because I'm disappearing into my hidey hole of a basement for weeks at a time.
[00:31:02]  And you're going to go back to normal.
[00:31:03]  And it's not going to be like a you're not going to turn on the news and it's a code 11 about the latest tweet or you know, fear-mongering that somehow Donald Trump's going to give the country away to Kim Jong-un in some summit in Malaysia.
[00:31:18]  It's just going to get normal again.
[00:31:19]  And it didn't get normal.
[00:31:20]  We had masks on children for a year.
[00:31:23]  We have inflation that now the house that you would have bought in 2020, now the mortgage on it costs twice as much over the lifetime of the mortgage than it did in 2020.
[00:31:35]  You know, the raise you got at work was completely eaten up by your grocery bills, by the increase in prices of just everyday items, of insurance, of health care.
[00:31:48]  You know, so Biden has all of his weakness on him now and his age.
[00:31:52]  I mean, he looks worse and worse.
[00:31:54]  And even Democrats are admitting it.
[00:31:56]  He looks worse and worse.
[00:31:57]  And comparatively, Trump looks vigorous.
[00:31:59]  I mean, he, you know, it's hard to call a 78-year-old man vigorous, but he's still like a human tornado compared to most people over 50 years old.
[00:32:10]  The amount of energy he kind of communicates with his presence in a room.
[00:32:15]  And yeah, if he's on a stage with Biden, it's going to look bad for Biden.
[00:32:19]  And people might, independent voters might just be, I'm going to go with a guy who looks more, you know, compos mentis.
[00:32:26]  Well, and the other thing about Trump is, isn't he 77?
[00:32:29]  Did he have a birthday?
[00:32:29]  Didn't turn 78?
[00:32:32]  He'll be 78 soon.
[00:32:34]  He is a natural extrovert.
[00:32:36]  And, you know, an extrovert comes alive when they're with people, when they're with others.
[00:32:39]  When he enters a room, you can see his chest inflates.
[00:32:43]  You know, he loves it.
[00:32:44]  Look back at celebrity in practice and all that.
[00:32:46]  He loves to be adored.
[00:32:48]  It's his oxygen.
[00:32:49]  And that helps him in his vigor and the way he interacts.
[00:32:53]  And people can sense that.
[00:32:55]  I wanted to say this.
[00:32:56]  You guys may have seen this.
[00:32:57]  Kelly O'Donnell, chief White House correspondent for NBC News.
[00:33:01]  Last week when Trump was arraigned on the J6 charges in DC, he had to go up to Washington, D.C. and appear in this federal courthouse in front of his judge who's not in his camp.
[00:33:13]  So she tweets out.
[00:33:15]  He's flying back because you're talking about how DeSantis and Biden, none of them, they don't have hotels.
[00:33:21]  They don't have a plane.
[00:33:22]  And look at this tweet, you guys.
[00:33:23]  She tweets out a clear sign because she's showing Trump's president on the Trump's airplane on the tarmac.
[00:33:29]  A clear sign he is not president anymore.
[00:33:31]  Despite all the motorcades and perks, his plane has to wait to taxi.
[00:33:36]  Air Force One gets immediate clearance.
[00:33:40]  The responses to this were absolutely.
[00:33:43]  Here's just one from Matthew Marsden.
[00:33:45]  Yeah, what a complete loser.
[00:33:47]  His own 757 has to wait its turn to take off.
[00:33:53]  Yeah, with his name.
[00:33:55]  Isn't it amazing?
[00:33:57]  Yeah.
[00:33:58]  And, you know, this is the indictments help for many reasons, but one of them is just right, the sheer matter of amount of attention they give him, right?
[00:34:10]  His motorcade is followed and covered like he's president again.
[00:34:15]  We don't pay attention to what any other candidate is saying, except to the extent they're commenting on Trump.
[00:34:21]  Oh, well, DeSantis is a little tougher.
[00:34:23]  Well, Pence seems to be going all out.
[00:34:25]  You know, the vape wants to pardon him tomorrow, but it's all about Trump.
[00:34:29]  So it's all to the good.
[00:34:31]  I would say on the electability thing, he definitely could win.
[00:34:35]  I might even say, you know, it'd be kind of a coin toss at this point, but there's no doubt he's the riskiest choice among the plausible Republican contenders, but that's hard to, you can't make the case against him in a primary based on him being riskier.
[00:34:48]  You got to say, oh, he'd actually lose.
[00:34:49]  There's no way he can win.
[00:34:50]  I don't think that's correct.
[00:34:52]  I also think Democrats are making a big mistake by thinking, you know, Biden is this unique Trump killer.
[00:34:58]  You know, he won in 2020 in the midst of a pandemic, barely.
[00:35:02]  You know, it was just as narrow, maybe narrower than Trump's victory in 2016.
[00:35:07]  I think it's a little bit more like Biden needs Trump because maybe he couldn't beat anyone else because Trump will somewhat, even though he's more extroverted and feels more vital, you know, kind of mutes the age issue because he's old too.
[00:35:20]  Trump has his ethical problems too.
[00:35:22]  So mutes the Hunter Biden stuff.
[00:35:25]  And Trump's really unpopular at the same time.
[00:35:27]  Biden is unpopular.
[00:35:28]  So it may be that Biden can beat him.
[00:35:31]  He definitely can beat him, but Trump would be propping up his making up for his weaknesses.
[00:35:40]  You have news today that DeSantis has gotten rid of, I don't know the polite way of putting it, his campaign manager.
[00:35:49]  She's out, Janeira, and in is a guy named James Uthmeyer, who is his chief of staff.
[00:35:57]  It was, I think a genera pack was her last name.
[00:36:00]  And so she's going to remain chief strategist on the campaign, but she's no longer the top dog.
[00:36:05]  And he's bringing in his chief of staff for his gubernatorial office.
[00:36:08]  So this guy's worked for him for a long time.
[00:36:11]  I think that's smart.
[00:36:12]  I mean, I don't know Gennara, but, you know, obviously you've got some real raw political talent there in Ron DeSantis.
[00:36:18]  And I don't know that it's been properly channeled.
[00:36:20]  And I think, I mean, as I have been making clear on this show, and I'm sure you guys, you know, feel the same, the DeSantis campaign has not been well run.
[00:36:29]  It's not all the indictment that makes him 40 points behind.
[00:36:33]  He's got some responsibility for all of that too.
[00:36:37]  So, but, you know, it's like, is it teaspoons in the ocean, MBD?
[00:36:41]  You know, it's like, okay, how much can James do that Gennara couldn't given the guerrilla and the lead?
[00:36:51]  Yeah, I mean, I think the campaign, you know, in some ways, we talk about, oh, DeSantis has fallen behind for several months.
[00:36:58]  And that's true if you look at these national polls.
[00:37:01]  But there's no contest in the, there's no electoral contest in the world like a U.S. presidential primary where you have these discrete momentum changing contests in small states like Iowa, where the winner of Iowa is going to get showered with more media attention and more money than anyone's put together in the past six months.
[00:37:24]  And that will change the dynamic of the race.
[00:37:27]  And that's why I think in some ways, like all these stories we're talking about are prelude to that moment when, if we get it, when Trump and DeSantis are on a stage together and a moderator puts them into conflict directly with one another, unmediated.
[00:37:44]  That's when the campaign really begins.
[00:37:46]  And it may be the moment the campaign ends, right?
[00:37:48]  We may see it right then and there.
[00:37:50]  Whoever wins that first exchange is going to walk away with all the momentum from it.
[00:37:55]  I mean, it's just, you know, and that's why DeSantis has to moderate his attacks in the media, because he can't be seen to be spiking the volleyball that Mika Brzezinski has just served to him.
[00:38:07]  That's going to make him look like a traitor to Republicans, not like a strong contender against Donald Trump, right?
[00:38:14]  So he has to be on a stage with Trump, looking him face to face and challenging him directly.
[00:38:20]  That's the change, but he can't take Trump out in one exchange.
[00:38:29]  It would have to be, you know, I'm sure there's some boxing analogy that would come to mind if I knew anything about sports, but it would just have to be that one.
[00:38:38]  It's the Buster Douglas, it's the Buster Douglas fight, right?
[00:38:41]  Which was Buster Douglas against Mike Tyson in Japan.
[00:38:45]  No, but it's a very famous fight because if you look back at it, Buster Douglas was this big upset winner, Mike Tyson, and the commentators couldn't even see what was happening as they were watching it.
[00:38:56]  They're watching it.
[00:38:57]  They're waiting for Mike Tyson to just break out like he has in the last 25 fights, hit him with one big punch, and it's over.
[00:39:04]  And it takes them about seven or eight rounds to realize, oh my gosh, Buster Douglas is beating this man in every round.
[00:39:11]  They can't even see it while it's happening in front of them.
[00:39:13]  And that's what it's, if someone's going to beat Donald Trump, it's going to be like that.
[00:39:17]  It's going to be they're scoring points consistently round and around.
[00:39:21]  And it's taking a long time for people to realize that Trump is getting gassed in some way.
[00:39:27]  And if that happens, then the aura of invincibility comes off of Trump.

=== One Indictment Needed (04:38) ===

[00:39:32]  And, you know, it's, it's a fresh, fresh contest right from there.
[00:39:38]  But it's going to, it's going to take something like that for it to happen.
[00:39:42]  And like I said, it won't happen until there is this direct conflict.
[00:39:48]  We know that the Fox News executives Suzanne Scott and James and Jay Wallace went to meet with Trump the night that he found out he was indicted again.
[00:39:57]  They were with him in Bedminster, reportedly trying to give him the sell on showing up at the August 23rd Fox News hosted debate.
[00:40:06]  He's left that door wide open, but he is not committed.
[00:40:10]  And, you know, I don't know what they could say to him that could make him do it.
[00:40:14]  If he doesn't think it's in his interest in winning the presidency, he's not going to do it no matter how much it would help Fox News.
[00:40:20]  For the record, it would be unethical to promise better coverage if he came to the debate.
[00:40:27]  I don't know what was promised, but what could they possibly promise him to make him change his mind?
[00:40:32]  You know, this is a political calculation on his part on, you know, how best to win this nomination.
[00:40:37]  One other point I wanted to make, then I'll squeeze in a quick break.
[00:40:39]  On your point, Rich, about the earned media in 2015 and 16, that's how Trump won, right?
[00:40:44]  He was in, all the rest of us were like, how could he keep, how is he leading in the polls?
[00:40:48]  Look at it.
[00:40:48]  He attacked John McCain.
[00:40:49]  He did all these crazy things.
[00:40:50]  He attacked the Gold Star family.
[00:40:53]  But he was in the media dominating every day, every day, every day over the controversies.
[00:40:57]  If you think about it, he couldn't do that this time because we're used to him saying the outlandish things.
[00:41:03]  It's not, it doesn't drive the national news cycle the way it did back then.
[00:41:07]  But the indictments do.
[00:41:09]  And so it is like a gift.
[00:41:12]  You know, it's a new way of dominating the news every day.
[00:41:18]  Unfortunately for Trump, however, he may have to pay for this news coverage from prison.
[00:41:25]  And the country loses, not that the Democrats care, because we're not talking about the economy.
[00:41:30]  You know, we're not talking about immigration.
[00:41:32]  We're not talking about crime.
[00:41:33]  We're not talking about any of the things that matter because we're just talking about Trump versus Jack Smith.
[00:41:37]  And that's the preview of how it's going to go for the next year.
[00:41:40]  Quick thought on that, Rich, and then I'll squeeze in a break.
[00:41:42]  Yeah, no, I think that's a great insight.
[00:41:45]  I hadn't thought about it that way.
[00:41:47]  So the media was a tip of the spear in terms of getting Trump attention in 15 and 16.
[00:41:51]  Now it's the law enforcement system with the media kind of coming in behind.
[00:41:55]  I kind of think Trump, I thought Trump wouldn't go to the debate.
[00:41:58]  I still think he won't, but if he does, it'll just be the allure of that stage.
[00:42:03]  Because if he's there, this is the biggest political show on earth, right?
[00:42:08]  If he's not there, you know, it's still interesting.
[00:42:10]  And if he's not there, by the way, the other guy who can take him out in one punch potentially, it's not DeSantis, it's not just Trump, but also Chris Christie, who can't stand DeSantis, will be loaded for Bear.
[00:42:21]  We'll want to take him down because he'll be the biggest guy on the stage, you know, the de facto frontrunner being in clear second place as opposed to the rest of the field.
[00:42:31]  So, if I'm Trump, I let it go and I let these guys fight like a scorpion in a bottle and hope someone takes down DeSantis further.
[00:42:39]  I will say I am glad Chris Christie is there.
[00:42:42]  I understand why people find him annoying, but I think it's good to have these guys punched up.
[00:42:47]  You know, let's see how they do.
[00:42:48]  Punch him right in the face, throw all the stuff.
[00:42:51]  He's basically kind of, you know, the things he's saying are like Democrat things.
[00:42:55]  And so, it's almost a preview of how a general election debate would go.
[00:42:58]  I think it's very good for all the Republicans to have Chris Christie out there, and he's very good at it.
[00:43:04]  So, it'll be exciting to have him, no matter who shows up.
[00:43:08]  As we go to break, I'll give you this one thought on Trump and the way he sees the legal crackdown, the warfare, the lawfare that's being unleashed on him.
[00:43:18]  Listen: Every time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls.
[00:43:24]  We need one more indictment to close out this election.
[00:43:28]  One more indictment, and this election is closed out.
[00:43:33]  Nobody has even a chance.
[00:43:36]  That may not be just hyperbole, that actually might be true.
[00:43:40]  More with Rich and MBD right after this.

=== Weather Channel Interview (05:22) ===

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[00:45:18]  Today, President Biden has decided to improve our country and his hopes of being re-elected by sitting down, not with NBC, not with ABC, not with Fox, not with CBS, but the man who's given fewer interviews, I think, than any modern president will be sitting down with the weather channel.
[00:45:40]  Sitting down with the weather channel to talk about climate change.
[00:45:46]  This reminded me of when he was going to sit down with not Brett Baer on Fox News when Fox had the Super Bowl, but with Fox Soul with one of his surrogates who had worked actively to get him elected.
[00:46:01]  This is not going to be the hardest-hitting interview, I'm guessing, MBD.
[00:46:05]  What do you make of it?
[00:46:08]  Yeah, I mean, this is.
[00:46:09]  I mean, if you thought Ronda Santos was afraid of the media before, I mean, you haven't seen nothing yet.
[00:46:15]  I mean, this is very controlled, very soft touch.
[00:46:20]  I mean, the weather channel is not going to be asking him any tough questions about inflation.
[00:46:25]  I'm not even going to ask him tough questions about climate policy, to be honest.
[00:46:30]  It's just, it's just basically, I think what Joe Biden's strategy is going to be is just trying to remind people, I'm a nice old man.
[00:46:41]  I'm harmless in a fundamental way.
[00:46:44]  Right?
[00:46:44]  Like, I just, I love my son.
[00:46:47]  I love my country.
[00:46:48]  I've been around like a piece of furniture you can't get rid of and you inherited from, you know, three generations ago.
[00:46:57]  And, you know, you just can't imagine the house without me.
[00:46:59]  That's going to be his strategy for winning reelection.
[00:47:03]  And it's not a bad one, but it's certainly not one that honors the American people as far as giving us a chance to scrutinize his first term in public and have a real debate about it.
[00:47:15]  I'm a piece of furniture.
[00:47:16]  Re-elect Biden 2024.
[00:47:19]  You can't imagine the house without me.
[00:47:20]  That's hilarious.
[00:47:21]  So ask Tuesday today why the president is choosing to sit for an interview with the weather channel.
[00:47:26]  White House officials, Rich, said it's important to meet voters where they are.
[00:47:32]  What?
[00:47:34]  Yeah.
[00:47:34]  Well, this also goes a big partisan divide where Democrats are totally freaked out about climate change and Republicans aren't.
[00:47:41]  And there's this big effort in the media every time there's a heat wave or an extreme weather event to portray it as solely the responsibility of global warming, which is unscientific.
[00:47:55]  And this just goes to with COVID, we learned that all this, you know, you get a paper somewhere that said if a kid wore an N95 mask perfectly all day long, which was never going to happen, it might diminish his or her chances of getting COVID or spreading it by 5%.
[00:48:09]  And then the advocates would get that and get reported in the media and cable news is report fines.
[00:48:15]  Kids must wear masks.
[00:48:17]  And I'm not an expert on climate change, but I know that the very same thing has to be going on with the so-called the science and the so-called science of this phenomenon.
[00:48:27]  There will be absolutely no challenges.
[00:48:29]  No one's going to ask him about Hunter Biden, about whistleblowers.
[00:48:32]  I mean, we saw him sit for a major interview.
[00:48:35]  I think it was on NBC or MSNBC.
[00:48:38]  Forgive me, but my team will check me.
[00:48:40]  Shortly after some of that broke, and they didn't ask him, oh no, it was CNN, wasn't it?
[00:48:45]  Wasn't it Farid Zakaria?
[00:48:47]  And asked him not one question.
[00:48:49]  It was supposed to be about foreign policy.
[00:48:51]  That's fine.
[00:48:51]  As a reporter, you can agree to that, MBD, but they didn't ask one question on Hunter or the controversies.
[00:48:57]  This is going to be the playbook going forward.
[00:49:00]  Avoid those questions like the plague.
[00:49:02]  Yeah.
[00:49:02]  Well, I mean, the media wants to avoid them because the media was complicit in suppressing the story in the first place in the 2016 election.
[00:49:09]  I mean, it's egg all over their face that all these facts have come out, dripped, dribbled out over four years, basically, about Hunter Biden, that the laptop was not Russian disinformation, that the media was taken in by a handful of ex-spooks, and that this turned into a censorship regime led by social media.
[00:49:30]  So they're going to avoid it like the plague.

=== Avoiding Hunter Questions (13:38) ===

[00:49:33]  Yeah, and they have been.
[00:49:35]  This whole thing, though, sitting down with the weather channel reminds me of that Hillary Clinton tweet recently where she blamed the weather on Republicans.
[00:49:42]  Because remember, she tweeted out, hot enough for you?
[00:49:45]  Thank a MAGA Republican.
[00:49:46]  Or better yet, vote them out of office.
[00:49:49]  I mean, the power of MAGA.
[00:49:51]  Who knew we could...
[00:49:53]  Well, Republicans are responsible for loneliness too, according to her recent, her new Atlantic essay.
[00:49:59]  It's amazing.
[00:49:59]  There's no limit to their power.
[00:50:02]  If only they could actually win a presidential election, then we'd really feel it.
[00:50:05]  Rich and MBD, stay with me.
[00:50:07]  And we've got some new thoughts on Megan Rapino and new tape as well.
[00:50:15]  So guys, we are officially in August and on August 26th, we will be at the two-year mark of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal and the bombing, the suicide bombing that took place thereafter, killing 13 U.S. service personnel.
[00:50:29]  And as we approached that dreadful anniversary, Gold Star families gathered in Escondido, California at the invitation of Darrell Issa, a Republican, to tell their stories.
[00:50:42]  And it was a remarkable event.
[00:50:45]  These parents are angry.
[00:50:47]  They are angry at the Biden administration for not taking responsibility for that withdrawal and what happened to their sons and daughters, for completely ignoring them after it happened, not speaking their children's names publicly, trying to move on past this as soon as humanly possible because it was bad for Biden politically.
[00:51:07]  But we listened to them and it was heart-wrenching and a very stark reminder of not just what happened that day and how poorly it was handled, but how they've been treated.
[00:51:18]  I'm going to kick it off with Cheryl Rex, who had some thoughts on her exchange with Joe Biden.
[00:51:24]  She's the mother of Lance Corporal Dylan Marola.
[00:51:28]  And she talked about the moment they did meet with President Biden after her son and the others were killed.
[00:51:34]  Listen.
[00:51:35]  When Joe Biden, our elected president, entered the room, when he approached me, his words to me were, my wife, Jill, and I know how you feel.
[00:51:47]  We lost our son as well and brought him home in a flag-draped coffin.
[00:51:52]  My heart started beating faster and I started shaking knowing that their son died from cancer and they were able to be by his side after this encounter.
[00:52:01]  I have never had any personal correspondence, nor has my son been honored or his name spoken by this commander-in-chief or his administration.
[00:52:12]  How could so many people pay their respects, but nothing at all from the president of the United States on something he had conducted?
[00:52:22]  It's pretty extraordinary.
[00:52:23]  And, you know, MBD, he's told that lie many times.
[00:52:26]  Boe Biden did not die in Iraq.
[00:52:30]  He may have died from this brain cancer, perhaps related to the burn pits that he was exposed to in Iraq, but he did not come home from Iraq in a flag-draped casket.
[00:52:41]  And just the inappropriateness of saying that to a mother who had just lost her 19-year-old over there as a result of Biden's command, it's obvious to any thinking, feeling person.
[00:52:57]  I don't know why Joe Biden thinks he can lie about the most grave and intimate details of his life.
[00:53:04]  And he's made a habit of this with the story of his first wife's death.
[00:53:11]  He's falsely accused the other person involved in the car accident of having had drinks for lunch and being a drunk driver.
[00:53:22]  It is a revolting thing.
[00:53:25]  It cuts against his biggest strength, supposedly as a politician, which was this power of empathy.
[00:53:33]  But when it's an empathy that is based on a lie, it becomes just so sinister in his mouth to utter that words or in a sense to, in a sense, he's almost like we talk about stolen valor, but in a way, he's like stolen suffering from these Gold Star mothers.
[00:53:56]  It's a really sick quality about Joe Biden that tears at this image of integrity and soulfulness that he tries to portray.
[00:54:07]  And he could have handled this so much better.
[00:54:12]  I mean, all he had to do was the things that they are mentioning in those testimonies, speak their names, speak truthfully with them, honor their sons and daughters.
[00:54:25]  Politically, you know, the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was made by the Trump administration, which had negotiated a withdrawal.
[00:54:36]  And Biden delayed it.
[00:54:37]  He did not have to take full responsibility beyond anything.
[00:54:42]  except how it went that day.
[00:54:45]  And he could have done so and done so in a manful way, in a way that took responsibility that, you know, the commander-in-chief has to take these decisions that risk the lives of young men and women in uniform, our bravest, our best, the flower of our youth, and that these terrorists are responsible for their deaths.
[00:55:11]  And he just couldn't do it because it was too politically embarrassing.
[00:55:16]  And they saw immediately in the polls that the American people ultimately lost confidence in the Biden administration that very day.
[00:55:23]  They decided this administration is incompetent in a fundamental way.
[00:55:28]  And then Joe Biden's age is layered on top of that, that his incompetence is due in part to potentially his senility or to some reduced capacity he has as an octogenarian.
[00:55:42]  And so it is awful.
[00:55:45]  And I imagine we're going to be hearing more from these families when the general election campaign comes around.
[00:55:51]  Yeah.
[00:55:51]  And this month, as we hit the two-year mark, you know, Rich, when you and MBD were on your way here to the Jersey Shore to join me for that 4th of July party we were talking about, the State Department on the eve of July 4th weekend released a scathing, right?
[00:56:08]  A scathing report on Afghanistan.
[00:56:11]  So they knew they had to do it, but they buried it on the Friday before a holiday weekend.
[00:56:16]  And it blamed, yes, President Trump's administration, but also the Biden administration for a precipitous decision to end the military mission there without contemplating or even considering sufficiently worst case scenarios and saying it had serious consequences, those decisions and the failure to make them.
[00:56:39]  And saying, even though planning for the evacuation of Kabul began sometime beforehand, the State Department was hindered by the fact that it was unclear who in the department had the lead.
[00:56:50]  They didn't even know who was in charge when it came to evacuating our personnel and so on.
[00:56:55]  No one understood who was in command.
[00:56:57]  And the person who is the commander in chief is still in the job right now after that bombing on August 26th, where we lost 13 service personnel.
[00:57:05]  I mean, a week after August 31st, Joe Biden came out and said this, and the families were not happy about this.
[00:57:13]  Listen to him in SOP5.
[00:57:15]  Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history.
[00:57:25]  The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.
[00:57:39]  It was a lie.
[00:57:40]  It was a political lie.
[00:57:41]  It was inconsiderate and heartless toward the family of those who had just died days earlier, not even a full week earlier.
[00:57:47]  And it was raised yesterday by Christy Shamblin, who is the mother-in-law of U.S. Marine Nicole Gee.
[00:57:54]  Listen here.
[00:57:55]  When our leaders, including the Secretary of Defense and our Commander-in-Chief, call this evacuation a success, as if there should be celebration, it is like a knife in the heart.
[00:58:15]  I live every single day knowing that these deaths were preventable.
[00:58:19]  My daughter could be with us today, and that wasn't just one decision, it was many decisions many times over.
[00:58:29]  It could have been stopped.
[00:58:31]  So to call it a success is an ultimate disrespect.
[00:58:42]  It's a pattern with him rich it to call his failures successes and just hope the American people are too distracted to understand.
[00:58:52]  Yeah, so the the Bo Biden thing is just really weird, and it's either he's lying about it or he doesn't know the reality of it anymore.
[00:59:00]  I'm not sure what's most disturbing, but like just just a basic life lesson is when someone has experienced some unbelievable, heart-wrenching loss, even if you know what it's like, you don't say you know what it's like, you say there are no words.
[00:59:17]  Right the the, uh.
[00:59:18]  The bible tells the story of of Job and and the the the wisest uh friend of Job is the one who just sits there and says nothing because there's nothing you can say and that that's, that's what you do.
[00:59:31]  You don't say, oh, this happened, my boy Bo, especially when it didn't.
[00:59:35]  So what these families want is uh commiseration uh, they want recognition for the, the sacrifices of their, their children, and they want the truth.
[00:59:45]  And that shouldn't be too much to ask for from the United States government.
[00:59:51]  And just to portray this as as a success was a um, a terrible lie.
[00:59:57]  Everyone knew it's a lie, so it didn't even have.
[00:59:59]  You know, it didn't even work for them and, as Md points out, you know these families aren't going to get satisfaction on, unfortunately.
[01:00:07]  But Biden did pay a price for this.
[01:00:09]  It put him on a fundamentally a different trajectory.
[01:00:12]  His reputation for competence such as it was just disappeared after this withdrawal.
[01:00:18]  Never to, never to return.
[01:00:20]  But it's just a.
[01:00:21]  It's amazing how just very rarely he's called on the lie about Bow Biden.
[01:00:25]  You know the most of the press just ignores it like.
[01:00:28]  This is something normal when it's uh, when it's really weird and disturbing.
[01:00:33]  You're right, it's stolen suffering, exactly right.
[01:00:36]  This is not, and you shouldn't.
[01:00:37]  You're right.
[01:00:38]  When somebody says, oh my god, this horrible thing has happened to me, the response is not, something horrible happened to me too.
[01:00:43]  Let's talk about me in response to your tragedy, especially if you're the commander in chief who put that person's child in harm's way to begin with and, as his own State Department is concluding here, handled it horrendously.
[01:00:55]  So what's interesting to me in part about this MBD is I think Darrell Isa, a Republican House member, probably did this to honor the families I.
[01:01:02]  I don't take away his sincerity there.
[01:01:04]  But also it's a terrible political item for Joe Biden and um.
[01:01:09]  I'm sure he can understand that reminding people of that disastrous withdrawal is not gonna not gonna be a good thing for Joe Biden and his reelection chances, chances.
[01:01:17]  But to me yes, it underscores the incompetence of it all.
[01:01:21]  But it also underscores the heartlessness of Joe Biden, because you know, as you point out, he's the piece of furniture you can't get rid of me.
[01:01:28]  You know it's comfy and non-threatening, but look at like the series of things we've seen in the news over the past couple of months, the refusal to acknowledge his own grandchild, until it became a media issue that the NEW YORK Times was writing about.
[01:01:42]  Right, the um, the dog we talked about this the other day the dog that bit what like seven secret service members to the point where they had to go to the hospital repeatedly.
[01:01:52]  He does nothing about, he doesn't give a damn how many of his, the guys and gals who protect his life.
[01:01:57]  How many of them have their blood drawn by this dog commander?
[01:02:01]  This German shepherd, who's nothing to be trifled with, doesn't care.
[01:02:05]  Um the fact.
[01:02:07]  Forget the bribery allegations against him.
[01:02:09]  You know, we don't know whether those are true, but the fact that he had Hunter out there sitting on the boards of you know this Ukrainian company and dealing with the Chinese, when he knew he was an active, active drug addiction and didn't care how badly this reflected on him, his boss, Barack Obama, the administration, what might happen to the American people as a result of it, just didn't care.
[01:02:29]  He's just a purely political animal who looks out for number one.
[01:02:36]  Yeah, you know, you see it in those statements that they made upon the withdrawal about the success of the withdrawal.
[01:02:43]  Now, i'm sure that Joe Biden's speechwriters and speechwriters for the leaders of the Pentagon thought hey, we're honoring the sacrifices that were made over 20 years and we're not.
[01:02:58]  We're not gonna imply that any of that was made in vain, and that's.
[01:03:04]  They wanted to make that point, but in a sense, that's all.
[01:03:10]  That's as far as they went.

=== Responsible Commander Fails (03:47) ===

[01:03:11]  It was this completely superficial thing of what we say now.
[01:03:16]  What would a responsible commander in chief do so.
[01:03:18]  Responsible commander in chief would take that report that came out before july 4th.
[01:03:24]  He'd be waiting for that report to hit his desk.
[01:03:27]  He'd be talking about how there was a culture of lying and of butt covering in the military in Afghanistan for almost the entire mission, that there was a constant pattern of self-deception about.
[01:03:42]  You know, winning hearts and minds.
[01:03:44]  These color-coded maps, these false promises and new dawns that every new general brought with them earned their stars and then walked away from this mission.
[01:03:55]  And he would say, i'm going to fix this culture, because it's this culture that led to the confusion and disaster of that day, that i'm and i'm responsible to fix it.
[01:04:06]  And he hasn't done any of that.
[01:04:08]  And it's driving military families nuts and it's killing military recruitment because the military relies right on military families for continuing recruitment, generation after generation.
[01:04:23]  This is an exhaustible resource and the past four administrations have been totally careless with the military and those families.
[01:04:34]  And now we are reaping the whirlwind because we have to lower standards for the physical entrance exams, for the Asvab intelligence exams, and we're still not making bare minimum recruitment numbers at a time when the Chinese and Russians are are sending flotillas three times bigger than what we can respond with in Alaska, I mean,
[01:04:58]  this is a serious, serious problem, and it reflects, it goes much deeper than just failing the PR of the death of these 13 service members.
[01:05:09]  It goes directly to Joe Biden's totally self-satisfied, neglectful leadership style, which is evident not just in his family, but with his presidency.
[01:05:21]  The military recruitment point is so good.
[01:05:24]  There was a Babylon B headline the other day that said something to the effect of military leaders can't understand why young men won't sign up to go die for this racist country.
[01:05:35]  Right.
[01:05:36]  Exactly.
[01:05:36]  Well said.
[01:05:37]  And the fact is the two years post-Afghanistan and that withdrawal, no one's been held accountable.
[01:05:44]  No one has been fired.
[01:05:46]  It seems to have been a point that Darren Hoover was getting at yesterday.
[01:05:50]  His son, Marine Staff Sergeant Darren Taylor Hoover Jr. died that day, August 26th.
[01:05:57]  And here's what he had to say.
[01:05:59]  I'm calling out Secretary Blinken, Secretary Austin, General Milley, General McKenzie, Lieutenant Colonel Whited, who could not give the order to the snipers to take out the bomber before he detonated his vest and ultimately the president.
[01:06:25]  Do what our son did.
[01:06:28]  Be a grown-ass man.
[01:06:31]  Admit to your mistakes.
[01:06:33]  Rich, can you go back to learn from them so that this doesn't happen ever, ever again?
[01:06:43]  You all need to resign immediately.
[01:06:47]  Our sons and daughters have more integrity in their little toes than every one of them combined.
[01:06:56]  He's saying what you were saying, Ambidi.
[01:06:58]  I'd vote for that guy.

=== Soccer Team Emotions (08:40) ===

[01:06:59]  You know, who is the person who said we'd be better off just finding some random citizen to serve?
[01:07:04]  Like, I'd vote for that guy to go in there, somebody who's willing to take responsibility.
[01:07:08]  I haven't seen that in the office in a long time, Rich.
[01:07:12]  Yeah, well, we have this.
[01:07:13]  This is one reason we have a deep distrust almost of every institution in the country because it seems as though no one ever takes responsibility or pays a price for failure, except for if you transgress against woke ideology, you know, and you're a general, you're out the next day, right?
[01:07:30]  We can be assured of that.
[01:07:32]  But if you have some role in botching a major military operation, well, then that's a different matter entirely.
[01:07:40]  It's galling and infuriating.
[01:07:42]  I'm going to draw the parallel to the U.S. women's soccer team.
[01:07:46]  Megan Rapino is the Mark Milley of soccer.
[01:07:49]  She couldn't execute.
[01:07:51]  She was too focused on her wokeism.
[01:07:53]  It trickled down to her troops.
[01:07:55]  And now they're losers.
[01:07:57]  That's what they are.
[01:07:58]  They're losers.
[01:07:59]  That's what happened.
[01:08:01]  I remain infuriated by it.
[01:08:03]  I couldn't care less that they lost.
[01:08:05]  In fact, I'm thrilled that they lost.
[01:08:06]  And I remain hopeful that they will take a lesson from the fact that they have allowed themselves to be led into oblivion, the oblivion of being a loser by a woman who's much more concerned about her Nike checks and subway checks than she is about getting the big W. There's more video that surfaced yesterday.
[01:08:28]  Saw her laughing after she failed to score on the penalty kick.
[01:08:32]  You know she came nowhere near and I said on the show yesterday, okay, you know, emotions are weird things like there's a fine line between laughing and crying.
[01:08:40]  So I don't, I don't know what this is about, but and we talked about it with my team like why do we care?
[01:08:44]  Like about the laughing and they, because there's more video of her laughing again.
[01:08:48]  I'll show it to you and then i'll, and then we'll talk about it.
[01:08:49]  But here she is with her hugging her family after the loss.
[01:08:53]  You can see she's upset, the big hug and then once again, when she pulls away from the family member, it turns into laughs.
[01:09:02]  And my team asked me, can you imagine Lebron James losing an Nba final and laughing like, can you imagine the Miracle ON ice hockey team I mentioned them yesterday laughing after they lost right to they, wouldn't they?
[01:09:19]  They took it so deadly seriously.
[01:09:21]  They understood they had on the stars and stripes and that the entire country was watching them for a reason like she's able to laugh.
[01:09:28]  It's all about her.
[01:09:29]  The whole thing has been and it trickled down to where, other than three girls who half-assed the national anthem gentleman, it was not like the MBD rendition of the declaration, other than those three girls they, they wouldn't sing they, they didn't, they refused to honor the country.
[01:09:46]  So it's turned into this big debate now because the left is mad at conservatives who are celebrating this, and the conservatives, I think, are feeling a touch of karma here.
[01:09:56]  What do you think Rich?
[01:09:58]  Yeah I, i'm glad they they lost, felt zero investment in this team because too many of them didn't seem to feel investment in their, their country and that uh, that's ingratitude.
[01:10:10]  On on the laughter, I will um give her a break.
[01:10:14]  As you alluded to the, the fine line between you know, laughing and crying, I think that's derisive, sardonic laughter and there's just no accounting for how certain people process emotions.
[01:10:25]  You mentioned uh uh, miracle on ice 1980, us at hockey.
[01:10:31]  Uh, team I I watched the, the end of that game against the Soviets, like at least, probably every six months.
[01:10:37]  You know it was one of those formative sports in my life.
[01:10:40]  Um, my kids once once said to me, why don't we never, never see you cry?
[01:10:45]  And then one day we were bored and I was like, let's watch the.
[01:10:48]  The Herb Brooks um speech from the movie when he's uh escorting his, his exhorting his team prior to the uh, the game against the Soviets.
[01:10:56]  And then my daughter looked at me, daddy, why are you crying?
[01:11:02]  That coach who delivered that wonderful speech, they win that game, he walks away he.
[01:11:07]  He does not celebrate, he just he couldn't handle it.
[01:11:10]  For whatever reason, he's a button-up guy just walked off the bench, went into the locker room.
[01:11:14]  No one saw.
[01:11:15]  So how people could process emotions uh, is different.
[01:11:19]  But um this, you know, when she was asked what she was proudest about wasn't, wasn't a game, wasn't a moment in a game, wasn't a victory, wasn't being with her teammates, it was equal pay.
[01:11:30]  So what mattered to her most was a social cause she identified, perhaps unfairly, you know, I don't think all the members of the team are as woke as she is but she identified it with with a divisive social cause, when these national teams should be a great unifying thing for the country.
[01:11:46]  So, you know, she's going to remember that penalty kick that sailed, didn't even come close the rest of her life.
[01:11:54]  And I can't say I'm particularly sad about it.
[01:11:58]  Yeah, it was a miss.
[01:11:59]  It was a loss.
[01:12:00]  And it was the end of her career and good.
[01:12:02]  Goodbye.
[01:12:02]  I won't miss her or her leadership.
[01:12:04]  This is a person, MBD, who said she'll never sing the national anthem again.
[01:12:08]  She's so disgusted with our country, this country that made her a multi-millionaire, that let her don the stars and stripes to go out there and represent it and all that it stood for and all the sacrifices made by men and women like the 13 who gave their lives two years ago this month.
[01:12:23]  She did not feel the need to honor any of them.
[01:12:25]  That's what makes her different from a LeBron James who's playing privately, who doesn't bear the stars and stripes, who's not out there representing America.
[01:12:33]  You're going to take that job.
[01:12:35]  Certain responsibilities come with it.
[01:12:36]  And it's not to bash the country that you've been sent out there to represent.
[01:12:40]  And it's a pattern.
[01:12:43]  She's all about herself.
[01:12:44]  Piers Morgan tweeted this out the other day.
[01:12:47]  And here she is.
[01:12:48]  Look at this.
[01:12:48]  It was an awards ceremony that she attended in 2019.
[01:12:51]  Look at this little boy comes up to her with soccer ball.
[01:12:53]  She won't even look at him.
[01:12:55]  She won't look at him.
[01:12:57]  She signs it.
[01:12:58]  She never even looks the child in the eyes.
[01:13:02]  She's too big.
[01:13:03]  She's too important, you see, working on her, what, equal pay or her bashing of America.
[01:13:09]  Screw the children, screw the country.
[01:13:11]  Let me go cash my millions.
[01:13:14]  Yeah, I mean, what you are expressing, I feel like this is, you're actually, Megan Rapineau is wrapping up the theme of this show.
[01:13:22]  The whole show is this theme where you felt like I want them to lose.
[01:13:26]  You've betrayed this institution, a national team at a fundamental level.
[01:13:32]  You've corrupted the enterprise you're in.
[01:13:35]  And so I want to see the whole thing fall apart.
[01:13:37]  And I think that's that is becoming a common feeling.
[01:13:41]  It's why people are withdrawing their trust from the military.
[01:13:44]  It's why this whole contest with, you know, between Jack Smith and the Justice Department and Donald Trump is going to polarize our politics like nothing before, right?
[01:13:55]  Because it just, it tears away all the specifics of the issue.
[01:13:59]  And it just says, okay, we're going to pit the corrupt, captured, woke institutions against the people.
[01:14:07]  And we're just going to have a straight out contest about who runs the country.
[01:14:12]  And a lot of people look at these institutions and say, I want you to fall apart.
[01:14:18]  You're no longer serving your purpose.
[01:14:20]  You're no longer serving, you know, what you were founded and funded and patronized to do.
[01:14:27]  So to hell with you.
[01:14:29]  And it's pure loss.
[01:14:34]  And you see sports leagues suffering from this nonsense where the fans and the people who run the sport are from completely different cultural and political worlds.
[01:14:49]  And the sport is being torn up because of it, right?
[01:14:52]  I mean, like the, and half the players aren't even on the side of the executives and owners or the managers that run the marketing departments.
[01:15:02]  I mean, we saw this with the Dodgers this year, where you have a marketing department that markets this anti-Catholic group, and you have a Christian pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, trying to salvage something of his own self-respect and the team's reputation with fans by trying to institute something to honor Christians on another night.
[01:15:24]  So this is this is just a pattern repeated throughout our culture, and it's not going to go away until you take the less toys away from them or until they're until they are chastened again, like they were earlier, like in the Reagan era.

=== Conspiratorial Thinking Rises (14:16) ===

[01:15:39]  There were a lot of liberals who had out their opinions on American foreign policy, on American domestic policy, in all sorts of positions of cultural influence.
[01:15:49]  But they knew that they were a minority and they knew to respect the sensibilities of the majority as much as possible.
[01:15:56]  And they don't do that anymore.
[01:15:58]  So until they suffer another humiliation, it's just going to get worse.
[01:16:03]  So I'm very, I'm very into this whole discussion.
[01:16:05]  I've been thinking a lot about this lately.
[01:16:07]  The burn it all down piece of what you said and how Trump is the burn it all down guy.
[01:16:13]  It's not enough to have a fighter like DeSantis in the eyes of a lot of Republicans in particular.
[01:16:17]  You need the burn it all down guy because the systems are not fixable.
[01:16:20]  They have to be taken down to the studs.
[01:16:23]  And the scary thing is we're at this peak level, I think, of distrust of, for good reason, of law and order, right?
[01:16:33]  The justice system, of the FBI, right?
[01:16:37]  If you want to get down more granular level, intelligence, CIA, of public health.
[01:16:42]  You know, look at Anthony Fauci's just been referred to the Justice Department by Rand Paul for lying.
[01:16:47]  And he did.
[01:16:47]  It seems clear to me he lied.
[01:16:49]  Will he be held accountable?
[01:16:50]  I think he'll go the Hunter Biden route.
[01:16:53]  And so people more and more, they don't trust public health.
[01:16:55]  They don't trust the Intel services.
[01:16:56]  They don't trust the Justice Department.
[01:16:58]  They certainly don't trust what comes out of this White House.
[01:17:01]  And so trust is dwindling.
[01:17:03]  It's going down the toilet, you know, in that sort of the downward spiral.
[01:17:06]  And what happens when trust dwindles like that in government institutions?
[01:17:10]  Conspiratorial thinking rises.
[01:17:12]  That's a historical fact.
[01:17:14]  And that's, we are not, you know, three people who use that word, oh, he's conspiracy theorist to dismiss anything and everything like the left does.
[01:17:24]  But some things are conspiracy theories.
[01:17:26]  You know, some things do deserve to be called out as a bunch of BS.
[01:17:31]  And instead of that happening, I think our future is going to have more and more and more of conspiratorial thinking as everybody wants to be the smart one who sees the truth, capital T, about every institution rich.
[01:17:45]  And it's very dangerous.
[01:17:47]  There needs to be some level of trust in these institutions, which help bind us together as a society, as a country.
[01:17:55]  Yeah, you absolutely need that blue.
[01:17:58]  There's no doubt about it.
[01:17:59]  I would say, unfortunately, and I think you're using the word loosely, but say we've kind of reached peak distrust and law enforcement.
[01:18:06]  I'm not sure we have.
[01:18:08]  We have more to go as this Trump case and other things happen.
[01:18:14]  But people in charge with a lot of responsibility repeatedly have abused their trust on COVID origins.
[01:18:22]  I know NBDs follow this one closely too.
[01:18:24]  There was this proximal origins paper, right?
[01:18:27]  That dismissed the idea that it was a lab theory and said it had to come from nature.
[01:18:34]  And we've gotten all these revelations of the messages and texts between the scientists who wrote this paper.
[01:18:41]  And one of them had a burner phone.
[01:18:43]  Why does a scientist have a burner phone, right?
[01:18:46]  Does that make any sense?
[01:18:47]  And they were saying prior to the publication, well, we think a lab theory is quite plausible and maybe more likely than not.
[01:18:54]  And then when they get into print, it had to be natural.
[01:18:58]  It's not even possible as a lab theory.
[01:18:59]  The editors wanted it to even be stronger saying it's natural origins because they worried about the effect of if there was any room there for us saying it was from the lab because conspiracy theorists believe it was from a lab and it would hurt China's relationships.
[01:19:14]  And then you get our relationship with China and then you get the back and forth and the scientists are, oh, the people are going to peer review it.
[01:19:20]  They know us.
[01:19:21]  They're favorable to us.
[01:19:22]  So the peer review wasn't really legit.
[01:19:24]  And this was a conspiracy, right?
[01:19:27]  It was a kind of conspiracy.
[01:19:29]  It doesn't mean all conspiracy, you know, everything's a conspiracy.
[01:19:32]  Lots of conspiracy theories are nuts, obviously.
[01:19:35]  But this is what you do if you actually want to.
[01:19:38]  It's not what they want to do, but what they've ended up doing if you want to undermine trust in authorities, trust in experts, trust in institutions, and have a society where no one believes what anyone says.
[01:19:52]  Right.
[01:19:52]  It's so ironic, right?
[01:19:54]  They dismissed the lab leak theory as a conspiracy theory while they themselves were engaged in a conspiracy to hide the fact that it was very clearly from a lab and not from natural origin.
[01:20:06]  And those papers you just referenced are extraordinary.
[01:20:09]  I think my audience is up to speed on this because we've discussed it at length on the show.
[01:20:13]  But just to refresh, that proximal origin paper, you remember that right before COVID really hit, it was February of 2020.
[01:20:22]  You know, the sort of these so-called experts knew it was coming.
[01:20:24]  And we had the incidents in China, but we hadn't shut down here in the United States yet.
[01:20:28]  And behind the scenes, we know that Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins worked with the top virologists in the country and outside of the country, some 11 or 12 of them, to shape opinion for a piece that would hit publicly.
[01:20:40]  And it was either science or nature.
[01:20:41]  I always forget which one it was.
[01:20:44]  And those scientists came, those virologists came to Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, we understood, believing that it was a lab leak.
[01:20:50]  They had seen various facts, including some of the genome sequences that suggested it had this so-called furin cleavage site inside of the virus, which tends to be a man-made thing.
[01:21:01]  They've never seen it before.
[01:21:02]  And this kind of bat virus that wasn't inserted by a human.
[01:21:08]  And yet their paper said, absolutely not.
[01:21:11]  It didn't come from a man, didn't come from a lab, came from some animal.
[01:21:15]  The animal will be found.
[01:21:17]  P.S. 80,000 animal examinations later.
[01:21:19]  They never found it.
[01:21:20]  So now we are now seeing the actual exchanges.
[01:21:25]  We saw a couple early on, did a long talking points memo about it, but we're seeing more.
[01:21:30]  So Christiana Anderson, this is one of the paper's authors and one of the top guys on this, wrote a Slack message.
[01:21:36]  We've gotten our hands on Slack messages here, thanks to the U.S. House Select Committee on the coronavirus pandemic.
[01:21:42]  Again, please, people, keep divided government.
[01:21:44]  If you're going to vote for Joe Biden again, please at least keep the Republicans in the House.
[01:21:48]  We wouldn't know any of this if it weren't for them.
[01:21:51]  He wrote a Slack message to his colleagues saying, quote, the lab escape version of this is so friggin likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario.
[01:22:06]  He would later go on to say, and Fauci would go on to say, it wasn't from the lab and they weren't doing this kind of work.
[01:22:13]  Well, which is it?
[01:22:14]  Because internally in Slack, you said both.
[01:22:16]  Then there's Robert Gehry.
[01:22:17]  He came on this show, spewed a bunch of nonsense.
[01:22:19]  We had a very robust exchange.
[01:22:21]  Recommend people go back and listen.
[01:22:23]  He wrote, it's not crackpot to suggest this could have happened, meaning the lab leak, given the gain of function research we know is happening.
[01:22:33]  Ian Lipkin, yet another co-author, emailed on February 11th that there was the possibility of inadvertent release at the Institute in Wuhan.
[01:22:43]  Given the scale of bat coronavirus research pursued there and the site of emergence of first human cases, we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess.
[01:22:56]  And yet you'd never know that from the paper they released days later after Fauci and Collins massaged it.
[01:23:03]  Something they denied touching.
[01:23:05]  Rand Paul tried to zero in on that with Fauci too.
[01:23:07]  He wouldn't acknowledge that he had massaged it, worked it, overseen it.
[01:23:11]  And yet we see now in this correspondence, they were thanking Fauci and Collins for their advice and leadership as quote, we have been working through the SARS-CoV-2 origins paper.
[01:23:24]  Fauci replied two days later, not saying to Christian Anderson, what are you saying?
[01:23:28]  I had nothing to do with it, but replying, nice job on the paper.
[01:23:32]  They were so close to these guys that the pair was referred to as, quote, the Bethesda boys.
[01:23:38]  And of course, we also know that Christian Anderson. and others were in the midst of applying for millions, multi-million, $8.9 million in the case of Anderson grant that had to be approved by Fauci and Collins at this very time.
[01:23:51]  And it was approved two months later.
[01:23:53]  I mean, the whole system is disgusting.
[01:23:55]  It's corrupt.
[01:23:56]  And what are we talking about here?
[01:23:58]  A virus that killed millions of people.
[01:24:01]  Not as many as they say, but it did kill millions of people.
[01:24:04]  And they don't give a damn.
[01:24:06]  They're not after the truth, Rich.
[01:24:07]  They're not after the truth.
[01:24:09]  They're after covering up their own asses because of China, because they wanted to keep working with China and cashing the checks that we get from China.
[01:24:17]  It's so cynical and corrupt.
[01:24:20]  Yeah, no, no, absolutely.
[01:24:22]  And also, it's just there's the corrupt motive, but then there's also the, you know, we're quasi-secretary of state's motives.
[01:24:31]  We're diplomats now where we need to micromanage how people regard China because it'd be bad for the world if they had a dimmer view of China, which just isn't their place, right?
[01:24:41]  You're a scientist.
[01:24:43]  You're supposed to be disacting, focused on the facts.
[01:24:47]  Give us the facts.
[01:24:48]  And at the end of the day, it all came down to they thought people couldn't handle the truth.
[01:24:52]  They thought people couldn't handle the nuance.
[01:24:55]  They thought people would draw the wrong conclusions from certain facts.
[01:24:59]  So they weren't going to be shared.
[01:25:01]  And they have set a torpedo in the bow of their own institutions as a result.
[01:25:08]  MBD, I realize people are kind of over COVID, but we can't be so over it that we don't hold these people accountable.
[01:25:15]  I mean, Fauci's right now this lauded professor at Georgetown, at the med school.
[01:25:21]  And what's the other school he's teaching at there?
[01:25:24]  Hold on.
[01:25:25]  The School of Medicine and the McCourt School of Public Policy.
[01:25:27]  He's still a superhero.
[01:25:29]  He's still cashing checks.
[01:25:31]  He could still get a government grant.
[01:25:33]  He was pushing for billions of dollars to study vaccines as of this time last year.
[01:25:38]  Right.
[01:25:38]  And it is a it, Fauci is a product also of the system, right?
[01:25:44]  I mean, the system, we decided to centralize the funding of almost all scientific pursuit through two agencies, NIH and NIAID, run by during the pandemic, Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci.
[01:25:59]  So almost every science professor working in the country depends on the good favor from Fauci and Collins for their basic research budget, which they have, which their colleges and universities make them apply for from the government.
[01:26:15]  And, you know, this system makes it impossible to have independence of thought.
[01:26:22]  And it's not just the medical industry.
[01:26:25]  Like, like I was saying, this ethos that is stirring up populist revolt everywhere is everywhere.
[01:26:35]  I mean, it is as if almost every institution was under threat by wokeism, right?
[01:26:43]  Which is this idea that basically you can always serve a woke purpose, even above the interests of the institution you work for, whether it's the New York Times and you're criticizing the Tom Cotton op-ed, whether it's Netflix and you're criticizing Dave Chappelle's comedy special.
[01:27:00]  People expected to behave in ways that would normally get you fired, but to get away with it because they were serving this higher purpose.
[01:27:08]  And in fact, they were serving the party interests, right?
[01:27:11]  The higher party.
[01:27:12]  And this is what distinguished the free world from communism in the Cold War was that the free world had free institutions that pursued their own goals based on the standards of those professions, those avocations, those enterprises, artistic, scientific, business, et cetera, that they don't have to answer to a party official.
[01:27:38]  But we've had this spirit invade our institutions of, no, there's this higher goal of serving liberalism or serving progressivism that's corrupted all these institutions and it makes people nuts.
[01:27:50]  It makes people anxious to believe these conspiracy theories.
[01:27:56]  And it makes people inside these institutions conspire across them, right?
[01:28:00]  To violate their own ethical guidelines for their professions and their institutions.
[01:28:07]  It's happening to serve this higher purpose.
[01:28:10]  It's happening right now in the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
[01:28:14]  All of these folks are betraying their oath to protect children and be honest about, you know, hormones and cross-gender sex hormones and so on.
[01:28:24]  They're lying.
[01:28:25]  And more and more, you're seeing whistleblowers, for lack of a better term, come out and say, like, this is wrong.
[01:28:30]  What we're doing is wrong.
[01:28:31]  And of course, once again, the UK and other countries overseas are seeing reason before we do and being honest about it.
[01:28:38]  But we like it.
[01:28:40]  There's so many institutions that have just bent the knee to, as you point out, wokeism or some higher message that someone on high has told them that they must deliver.
[01:28:51]  And of course, the irony in the case of the Fauci and the virologists and the lies about the lab leak is those same, many of those same virologists came out, I mean, within days of saying it's friggin obvious what this is and called people who said that racist.
[01:29:05]  They used the word racist.
[01:29:09]  These people, they cannot be trusted.
[01:29:11]  But you, here's one of my, I got to take a break, but here's my concern.
[01:29:16]  I do not believe in lizard people.
[01:29:22]  I do not believe in shapeshifters.
[01:29:24]  I do not believe that there is a child sex ring being run out of a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. by Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton.
[01:29:31]  And I do not wish to get to the point where I have such distrust in these institutions that I start to believe those things, right?
[01:29:38]  So you have to regulate the pull of like these crazy theories that becomes more attractive to you the more you distrust what used to be sort of the common threads that we all could trust, right?

=== Cuomo Sister Accusers (08:02) ===

[01:29:55]  Yeah.
[01:29:56]  So you should have a posture of radical doubt, but it shouldn't flip around and become credulousness about other theories, right?
[01:30:05]  We have a posture of radical doubt.
[01:30:06]  Well said you doubt what the authorities are saying, you doubt what certain right-wing influencers are saying and try to decide for yourself based on fact and reason as best they can be ascertained.
[01:30:19]  Can you say that again?
[01:30:20]  I like what you just said at the top of what you said.
[01:30:23]  That's good.
[01:30:25]  Yeah, so you should have a posture of radical doubt, but not just about one thing or one set of people.
[01:30:32]  Because they might be selling you a bill of goods, the authorities, we know that that's been established, so-called experts.
[01:30:38]  But then there are also people out there who make a good living shooting at what those experts are saying and authorities are saying, who also might be trying to sell you a bill of goods.
[01:30:47]  So good.
[01:30:48]  Positive radical doubt.
[01:30:50]  Trust no one and nothing.
[01:30:52]  Just like a memento, right?
[01:30:54]  What the guy write on the Polaroid pictures?
[01:30:57]  I like it.
[01:30:58]  That's news we can use.
[01:31:00]  Stand by.
[01:31:01]  You can trust Rich and MBD and they'll be right back after this quick break.
[01:31:07]  Andrew Cuomo back in the news, thanks to not Fredo, his brother, Chris, but the sister.
[01:31:15]  The sister has been doing all sorts of things that the New York Times found out about and to its credit reported on.
[01:31:23]  It's such a juicy piece.
[01:31:24]  I recommend everybody go read it.
[01:31:26]  It's called The Secret Hand Behind the Women Who Stood by Cuomo.
[01:31:30]  And it ends with, it's his sister.
[01:31:33]  Her name is Madeline.
[01:31:34]  She's, I think, the youngest of the Cuomo siblings.
[01:31:36]  And it turns out she's been manipulating this group, the pro-Andrew Cuomo group called We Decide New York.
[01:31:43]  So she has been during the entire time like women were coming forward and he was under investigation, manipulating this group of women in their 50s, 60s, and 70s to do hit pieces on each of the women who came forward to do rehab pieces, not just on Andrew Cuomo, but on Chris Cuomo as well, who she convinced them to portray as some sort of a superhero.
[01:32:06]  And this woman sounds absolutely vicious.
[01:32:10]  She, there's an attack on a woman named Charlotte Bennett.
[01:32:14]  One of she's a former aide to Andrew.
[01:32:16]  She sued him over sexual harassment claims and she was one of the first to come forward.
[01:32:20]  One of the messages read, your life will be dissected like a frog in a high school science class.
[01:32:27]  Well, this was a post that was part of a thread written by a leader of We Decide New York and secretly ordered up by Madeline Cuomo.
[01:32:38]  They have got the actual texts and they go through them.
[01:32:42]  So this is an exchange.
[01:32:43]  There's an example.
[01:32:45]  This is Madeline Cuomo.
[01:32:46]  Good morning.
[01:32:47]  Just spoke and he thinks a distraction could be helpful today, referring to Andrew.
[01:32:52]  She suggested posting, quote, photos of Charlotte in her sex kitten straddle, taken from Ms. Bennett's Instagram account, potentially alongside, quote, more austere professional ones of loyal Cuomo aides.
[01:33:04]  She adds, no respectable woman would ever pose like that when on bimbo photos, really despicable, unsophisticated girls.
[01:33:13]  Oh, bimbo, really?
[01:33:14]  Because I remember the left after yours truly asked Donald Trump a question about using that word, freaking out about the fact that he had used it.
[01:33:22]  And yet, I don't think they're going to have the same reaction to the sister of the disgraced governor calling these women bimbos and having been behind a months-long campaign of smearing all of them.
[01:33:36]  She now claims without Andrew's notice, but all the text messages say she's in contact with him and he's giving all these ladies a big thumbs up.
[01:33:43]  So what does this tell us about media and politics today?
[01:33:47]  MBD?
[01:33:50]  Well, it hasn't changed in some ways.
[01:33:52]  I mean, this is a replay of the strategy that was deployed on Monica Lewinsky, right?
[01:33:59]  Was, you know, Bill Clinton had subordinates like, you know, Blumenthal or others go out to the media and try to smear her as some like money-grubbing, sex maniac, maniacal, you know, femme fatale and to smear her in the media.
[01:34:19]  A White House intern.
[01:34:21]  The wrinkle in this one is it's in the family.
[01:34:23]  It's the sister doing it, which is even more hilarious and reminds me of the, you know, the long-term, you know, cancer that is that are these political families in the United States, you know, the Kennedys, the Cuomos, they enable each other across generations and across, you know, family, nuclear family lines.
[01:34:44]  I mean, it's absolutely outrageous that he's, that his sister is like basically running this scheme and then asking these other ladies, delete my text messages to try to cover her tracks.
[01:34:57]  It's super comical, though, because in a way it shows how exposed and empty politicians really are.
[01:35:07]  In fact, like all the loyalty they have is conditional on their success, except for the, you know, maybe a few family members that stick by them through the muck and the mud.
[01:35:19]  But I don't know.
[01:35:20]  It's fun to see the pigs in mud.
[01:35:22]  I mean, I took my kids together.
[01:35:24]  Especially because this is the believe all women crowd, Rich.
[01:35:29]  Chris Cuomo was out there digging up dirt on the accusers.
[01:35:32]  Now we know Madeline Cuomo was out there trying to slut shame the accusers.
[01:35:37]  What do you mean?
[01:35:38]  I thought we were supposed to believe all women in UC every day.
[01:35:40]  That was all a bullshit lie.
[01:35:43]  Yeah, the thing is, though, I think if you put Madeline, that's her name, if you put her, subject her to a lie detector test now and ask whether she's fanatically in favor of Me Too and the ultimate feminist, she'd say yes and probably.
[01:35:57]  There's just like a total lack of self-awareness or awareness of her own hypocrisy.
[01:36:03]  And there's a great phrase from social science, amoral familialism, which is like loyalty to your own family is a good thing, right?
[01:36:11]  It's the basis of morality in many ways, but you can take it too far.
[01:36:15]  And I think the, I'm forgetting the name of the social scientist who came up with this phrase, but I believe was studying southern Italy, where there's a total lack of socialist trust, a total lack of investment in institutions, you know, major theme of this podcast over the last two hours or so, but a fanatical commitment to your own.
[01:36:32]  And that's what we've seen with the Cuomos, with Chris and now this sister doing it you can behind the scenes to maneuver to try to save a reputation that wasn't worth saving.
[01:36:46]  Hold on to power.
[01:36:48]  Another text she writes, because one of Andrew's accusers was an unnamed state trooper.
[01:36:53]  She writes, I think we should use current sentiment around police and authority in our favor to undercut her troopers, her credibility.
[01:37:00]  Can you run the Chris Cuomo soundbite?
[01:37:02]  I think we have time to run it really quickly.
[01:37:04]  Run it, run it, run it, run it.
[01:37:05]  Listen.
[01:37:07]  People in power want to keep it.
[01:37:09]  Now, for good and bad reason.
[01:37:12]  Good reason?
[01:37:12]  Well, they believe they can use it to the advantage of their constituents and maybe more.
[01:37:16]  The bad reason works for them.
[01:37:19]  Power is good to have in America.
[01:37:22]  Get things done, gives you advantage, gives you respect, gives you legitimacy.
[01:37:27]  Yeah.
[01:37:28]  Just ask a Cuomo because they were all in on it together.
[01:37:32]  Guys, it's been an absolute pleasure.
[01:37:34]  Thank you for coming on.
[01:37:36]  See you again soon.
[01:37:37]  The pleasure was all mine.
[01:37:38]  And thanks to all of you for listening today.
[01:37:40]  Tomorrow, we're actually doing something a little different.
[01:37:42]  And I'm excited to bring this to you.
[01:37:43]  The first of a series of shows on sexual health.
[01:37:46]  Yes, we're starting with the men.
[01:37:48]  Then we'll move on to the women.
[01:37:50]  So tune in.
[01:37:51]  We're going there.
[01:37:53]  Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
[01:37:55]  No BS, no agenda, and no