The Megyn Kelly Show - 20240716_trumps-compelling-vp-pick-of-jd-vance-and-biden-re

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July 16, 2024 - The Megyn Kelly Show

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JD Vance: The Voice of the Rust Belt 00:02:15
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at Noon East.
	Senator JD Vance as his running mate, ignoring the DEI urges within his own party to go with a woman or a minority.
	In a minute, I'm going to be joined by Turning Points Charlie Kirk, who also spoke last night at the convention and was there for it all.
	I'm very excited to speak with him.
	But first, take a look at Mr. Trump's entrance last night, coming out like he was a UFC fighting champ.
	And I had to start again.
	Just my children have my purpose, and that is to elect Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States.
	He is here tonight to show his courage, his defiance against somebody who tried to kill him.
	You will not take this man down.
	He has the courage, the strength, and he will be the next President of the United States.
	What a way to begin.
	There is so much news happening, and we have a packed show.
	We're going to get into President Biden's interview last night with Lester Holt, where despite his own calls to lower the temperature during an Oval Office address to the nation, he did anything but.
	Even Lester was taken aback.
	But first, we have to talk about JD Vance.
	Now, I first met JD back in 2017, about a year after his book, Hillbilly Elegy, became a New York Times bestseller.
	The book dropped in the middle of the 2016 election cycle.
Hillbilly Elegy and a Traumatized Childhood 00:09:37
	It was JD's personal story of growing up in Appalachia, dealing with grave family turmoil, poverty, societal decay, abuse, family addiction, and eventually his path to a better life.
	Though not explicitly a political book, it did help explain to coastal elites some of why Trump's message to the forgotten men and women of middle America, to working-class Americans, helped propel him to victory.
	JD was quickly deemed the voice of the Rust Belt.
	He spent his earliest years in the backwoods of Jackson, Kentucky, a hillbilly born to a proud Hillbilly family, as he says.
	He writes that at various points, his family threatened to cut off his ear, stabbed and shot random transgressors.
	You got to read the book.
	And believed it was a sin punishable by grave bodily injury to insult someone's mother.
	When JD was still young, his family moved to Middletown, Ohio, a steel town north of Cincinnati, once booming, but eventually a casualty of globalization.
	JD watched as the jobs dried up and the basketball courts grew covered with weeds.
	My home, he writes in Hillbilly Elegy, was a hub of misery.
	Vance's mother and father divorced when he was just a toddler, his father up and left, abandoning him.
	His mother, Beverly, was addicted to drugs, eventually heroin.
	She brought man after man into the home, some abusive to her in front of her young son.
	JD's childhood was full of trauma, like this, which I asked him about.
	Being sworn at, insulted, or humiliated by your parents.
	Sure.
	Check.
	Being pushed, grabbed, or having something thrown at you.
	Check.
	Having parents who were separated or divorced.
	Check.
	Living with an alcoholic or a drug user.
	Check.
	Living with someone who is depressed or attempted suicide.
	Check.
	Watching a loved one be physically abused.
	Check.
	You're batting a thousand.
	Yeah.
	JD's mother, angry with him once after a fight, apologized to her son, and then after the apology, put him in a car, began driving erratically, and threatened to crash and kill her terrified little boy.
	As she began accelerating, JD jumped out of the car and ran for help.
	This is in the book, and he told it to me as well.
	The police were called by a concerned neighbor, and 12-year-old JD watched as the authorities took his mother away.
	I remember I was just really sad and felt very lonely because I'm sitting in the back of this police cruiser.
	They've just arrested my mom.
	The relief of having survived another day was gone.
	And then I just wanted, then I just wanted somebody to come and take me away.
	And that was actually Lindsay.
	That was who.
	Sorry.
	Why does that particular moment bring tears?
	One, it's just such a crystal clear memory.
	And so it's hard almost not to feel the same way that I felt as a 12-year-old kid sitting in the back of that police cruiser.
	But I also think that that moment is kind of a microcosm of my entire life, is that there was this brief moment of terror and of feeling really lonely.
	And then there was Lindsay.
	I would die for that kid.
	And I know he would too.
	Lindsay, JD's sister.
	She's five years older than JD, but at the time of that incident, she was only 17.
	It was after this that JD went to live with his strict, no-nonsense, gun-totin grandma.
	And we do mean gun-totin.
	She had 19 loaded guns all over her house.
	Known to the family as Mama, she was perhaps the most consequential in a series of strong women who saved JD from what could have been a dark path.
	Mamma, when she died, I think the number is 19 handguns loaded that we found in her house at various places.
	She also wasn't afraid to threaten using it.
	Yeah, she said, look, you're going to come and stay with me.
	And if anybody has a problem with it, they can talk.
	They can talk to my gun.
	Mama, who told JD never to believe, quote, these fucking losers who think the deck is stacked against them, you can do anything, was so iconic that Ron Howard made her character the star of his movie based on JD's book.
	She was played by Glenn Close.
	Jen, I never win.
	Well, if you don't like it, find some lame-ass loser to play with.
	You got to take care of business.
	You got to go to school.
	You got to get good grades to even have a chance.
	Mom was the best in her class.
	What's the point?
	I'm talking about a chance.
	You might not make it, but you sure as hell won't if you don't try.
	Why do you even care what I do?
	I ain't gonna live forever.
	Who's gonna take care of this family when I'm gone?
	It wasn't easy.
	There were many more ups and downs in his childhood, but JD's grandparents, Mama and his granddad, who lovingly called JD things like shithead and taught him how to take and deliver a punch. drilled into this little boy the importance of good grades as a pathway to a better life.
	And eventually, JD found his way.
	He enlisted in the Marines.
	He served overseas in Iraq, where Mamma and Lindsay wrote to him every day.
	He came home a more disciplined young man, slimmed down, motivated.
	He applied to and was accepted at Ohio State University, which he completed in two years, less than half the time expected, earning summa cum laude honors and completing a double major.
	And then the seemingly impossible admission into Yale Law School, one of the most competitive programs in the country.
	That is where he met his future wife, Usha, and another hugely influential woman in his life, his professor and my friend, Amy Chua, author of Battle Him of the Tiger Mother.
	Chua convinced J.D. to write down some of his incredible childhood stories in a memoir and also to consider marrying Usha, whom she could see was very, very good for JD.
	When I interviewed him in 2017, he had just returned from a post-law school stint in San Francisco, working for investor Peter Thiel, and was determined to do something locally now, back in his home area, to help his home community.
	I spent a fair amount of time with JD and Usha, just as she was about to have her first of three babies and simultaneously head off to clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts.
	She's an overachiever too.
	And I asked about whether politics might be in their future.
	What do you think?
	Should he run for office?
	I think someday if the time is right and if he really feels that that's the best way that he can contribute to his home, then I think that would be a great idea.
	Why do you get uncomfortable when that idea comes up?
	I just, I think that, you know, when people ask me if I want to run for office, part of me wonders, like, do they think I just give off a used car salesman five?
	Don't you think it's more born of hope that you could be a real change agent?
	Yeah, no, I think that's the optimistic take on it.
	I'm very flattered when people ask me and you never say never, but it's just not something that I think about doing right now.
	Never say never is right.
	Less than eight years later, he's in line to become potentially the next vice president of the United States and the Republican Party's future.
	The man who could carry on Trump's political legacy.
	His story is the definition of the American dream.
	It's inspirational.
	As with most stories like JD's, there are some realities to this path out of trauma that are not all rainbows and unicorns.
	And that led to what I think is the most poignant part of our time together.
	A discussion about how it's all affected him and his enduring bond with one of the women key to his survival of these traumas, his sister Lindsay.
	Do you think he's dealt with this stuff?
	I think that he thinks that he has.
	I think that this book, writing it, was a very good step.
	When I finished the book, I felt a little worried about you.
	I wondered if you had really dealt with everything.
	That's interesting.
	And when I met with Lindsay, she wondered too.
	What do you think?
	That's a really good question.
	I've never been asked this.
	I think that the honest answer is that I probably haven't dealt with everything, but that that's part of growing up and living your life is you're constantly dealing with this stuff and you're constantly working through it.
	The book is not an effort to sort of finally work through all of these things that happened when I was a kid.
	It's the beginning of an effort that will probably take me for the rest of my life.
	And I'm okay with that.
A 39-Year-Old Vice Presidential Candidate 00:09:41
	Wow.
	Yesterday, this was JD Vance on stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as he accepted the nomination for Vice President of the United States on the GOP ticket.
	Delegates and alternates, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce that Senator JD Vance has the overwhelming support of this convention to be the next Vice President of the United States.
	Wow.
	I'm not going to lie.
	That brought a tear to my eye.
	I have a very soft spot in my heart for this guy, 39 years old and the embodiment of the American dream.
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	Joining me now, Charlie Kirk, the founder and CEO of Turning Point USA.
	He's also the host of the Charlie Kirk Show and author of the brand new book, Right Wing Revolution, How to Beat the Woke and Save the West.
	Charlie, welcome back.
	I know you also spoke yesterday, but my God, JD, I'm thrilled that he's the pick.
	How about you?
	I couldn't be happier.
	And thanks, Megan, for having me.
	I was pushing for this for quite some time.
	You know, I was an early endorser of JD's Senate primary when he was at 1 or 2% in the polls in Ohio, and nobody thought he had a chance.
	And he was up against the establishment and tens of millions of dollars.
	And that's a story worth telling as well.
	I was getting very emotional watching that video because JD's a dear friend.
	And I hope your audience understands the more you get to know JD Vance, the more you're going to like him.
	His family is extraordinary.
	He is a good, smart man.
	And I put it in that order.
	He is a decent person of high integrity, wonderful family.
	He's in it for the right reasons.
	There are some really important similarities that JD Vance has with President Trump, such as being a class trader.
	It's important to remember, Megan, that when that book came out, he was so celebrated by the left-wing elite.
	He was the keynote speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
	He was on every major left-wing network being celebrated as the guy who can explain why Donald Trump has such a big following.
	And JD Vance, over a series of years, made a decision to forsake that type of popularity and to go in a, not just a career in politics, but to get into a pattern of advocacy that led him into politics.
	And it is an extraordinary rise.
	And you said it so perfectly, Megan.
	Only in America and only in America is it possible where a young man, and he's older than me, but he's relatively young in the modern political dynamic, can come from absolute poverty, be abused, raised by his grandmother, had all the odds stacked against him to become the nominee for vice president of the United States for the frontrunner and former president.
	How did we get here?
	Well, I mean, we got here first and foremost through divine providence.
	And I'm sure we're going to talk about that over the last week.
	Just the fact that this convention is still going on in its current form or fashion.
	But secondly, it's a testament to JD.
	JD did not want this, Megan.
	I hope everyone understands in the audience, you know, almost everyone who was going for vice president had like war rooms and they had, you know, lobbying campaigns and they were going after this to try to buddy up to Trump for the last nine months or 10 months.
	When JD's, his name was first floated to become Trump's vice president potentially in February and March, he's like, me?
	Like, what?
	It's like, yeah, I love Trump, but like, what?
	And this is a guy who didn't ask for it.
	He didn't plan for it.
	He's not full of that kind of naked political ambition that I find to be so disgusting and repulsive.
	Things just kind of come to him and people see in him the best of the Trump movement, forgotten America, someone who lived that story and who will fight for those voters in Washington, D.C. You know, I said this before to our audience here, and I said this isn't like a said in a romantic way, but my time with him, and we were there for a few days, led me to believe that this is a beautiful man.
	He's a beautiful man.
	And I think that opening shows you what I mean.
	He's thoughtful.
	He's soulful.
	He's reflective.
	He's introspective.
	And I happen to love the fact that his good character, his survival was shaped by women.
	It was his mama who got him through this, this childhood and her strength.
	His sister, with whom he has such a loving and dear relationship to this day, loved Lindsay.
	And then I love the fact that it's Amy Chua at Yale Law School, who's like one of the only non-woke, amazing, like normal professors at Yale Law School who would help him take the next step.
	You know, that she saw in him, this is not just the next generation of lawyer.
	This is a special guy whose voice needs to be heard well beyond the Yale Law School campus and the campuses of white shoe law firms in America.
	She helped steer him and she helped Usha too, who had two federal clerkships, including, as I said, for the Supreme Court.
	So to me, that speaks so well of him.
	Like that, the Republican Party, as you know, still gets demonized by the Democrats as like a bunch of just moronic, burly men, you know, toxic men who want to take away the rights to abortion.
	And like, yes, JD is pro-life, but that is a man who respects women and whose very character was shaped by strong women.
	Without a doubt.
	And I mean, it's important to understand that the men in JD's life failed him and who filled the void.
	As you went through the list beautifully.
	And so, look, and JD has a huge heart.
	He just, he, he radiates sincerity.
	And you know that because I mean, I'm going to run, look, honestly, Megan, I'm going to have to go through some sort of detox.
	I'm here at the RNC right now, and there are so many political creatures crawling around here.
	It's so disgusting.
	You know, it's always about an honestly, it's like always about an angle and I want something from you.
	And they just, they just ooze that sort of stench of, you know, I'm trying to game the system.
	With JD, it's completely different.
	And it's not just me.
	I'm going to tell you a true story.
	So this is in the middle of the Veep Stakes.
	We have our People's Convention in Detroit, Michigan.
	And we have nearly 10,000 people there.
	And I was like, hey, JD, we're doing a straw poll for the vice presidency.
	If you want to try to make it, you know, I think you'll do very well because the audience likes you.
	It's like, yeah, you know, it's my 10-year wedding anniversary.
	He's like, that's a top priority for me.
	He said, but let me see what I can do.
	So he prioritized the wedding anniversary and he texts like the day before.
	He's like, okay, I think I can make it on Sunday.
	I said, great.
	So my team calls me and they said, hey, JD's coming, but he's driving himself from Columbus.
	It's like, what do you mean he's driving himself?
	This is a U.S. Senator, Megan, who might be the next vice president of the United States or the selection for VP, who literally got in a car early on a Sunday morning, drove three and a half hours to Detroit by himself, staffed himself, was so warm to all of our staff, probably on almost no sleep, took every picture, signed every book that was asked of him, gave an amazing speech, got back in the car so he could be back at dinner in Columbus, Ohio.
	I mean, like, that's, that's so unheard of.
	I mean, there are people that come and speak at our events that are running for dog catcher, and they come with an entourage and a posse that makes, you know, most rappers look as if they're understaffed.
	JD Vance is, you know, driving himself.
	And it's just like, he's like, yeah, it's just like, I'm a regular guy.
	He doesn't think of himself as if he's, you know, better than you or that he's part of some sort of, you know, high society class.
	And I think that he adds a dynamic and an element to the Trump ticket that will grow as time goes on.
	People are going to deepen their understanding of what the MAGA agenda really is.
	And also there is a youthful dynamic, which I am so pleased that the data is screaming at us right now.
	Please put somebody on the ticket under the age of 50.
	Please put somebody on the ticket under the age of 50.
	And now you have Biden 81, Trump 78, Kamala Harris, either 58 or 59, late 50s.
	And now JD Vance, 39.
	I mean, that is a serious contrast who can really be a communicator to 35-year-old voters who are struggling to buy a home and struggling to build a family.
Trump's Pick vs. Willy Wonka 00:16:04
	And so I think this was the best pick that Donald Trump could make.
	And more than anything else, he has a decent and a good person.
	And that is so hard to find in American politics.
	That's right.
	When I interviewed him, it was seven years ago.
	He was 32.
	He wasn't even old enough to run for president at that point.
	And now here he is seven years later, you know, saying yes to potentially filling the most important role in the nation.
	God forbid something should happen to President Trump if this ticket wins.
	I do want to say, Usha, an absolute star.
	And not only is she brilliant, I mean, truly brilliant.
	She went to Yale undergrad and then she went to Yale law school and she might have done a stint at Cambridge too.
	I can't remember.
	But so she is a very successful lawyer in her own right.
	But when he talked about her, he talked about how she too was one of these strong women in his life who helped him in the next chapter.
	She helped him understand how to manage his emotions, how to find calm in the storm, how to not let anger dictate how he responds in any given moment.
	You know, he talked about how there was some, if he has road rage and he wants to get out and settle it, Hillbilly style, you know, Usha was kind of like showing him in the beginning of their relationship, there's another way, JD, and was teaching him like conflict resolution in a relationship and to sever what had become, as it does with a lot of people who grew up in a household like he did, almost an addiction to trauma.
	You know, like you need to recreate it, probably so you get a different result, but also because it gives you an adrenaline surge.
	You know, at first he talked about how, and he wrote in his book, how he was scared when he heard all the fighting going on on his house, his mother being abused and would cover his ears and cry when he was really little.
	And then he got to this point that's even more dangerous where he put his ear up against the door to hear it.
	And those scars needed to be addressed before he could have a healthy relationship with Usha.
	And so she helped him.
	You know, she's been helping him learn how to be, as they say, quote, in relationship in a healthy way.
	It's just, as I see this man stand out there last night, you know, slimmer.
	He looked great.
	I love the beard.
	He looks great.
	He's just more together.
	He stepped into his leadership role.
	I see the product of all these chapters of his life, which he's been very awake for and paying attention, you know, to where they're taking him and where his life could go.
	And I do believe he's on a journey of self-discovery that it would be an honor for the rest of us to watch unfold in its next chapter before the United States.
	This is, they don't come much better than this, Charlie.
	No, they don't.
	And there's so many similarities with Donald Trump and then so many differences.
	And so Donald Trump, of course, was born in a different life with a different upbringing, right?
	And in the same way, they're both class traders and they both see the world very similarly.
	And I just think it's this hopeful testament that you could still make it in this country and that there still is a fighting chance if you have at least one or two people that are willing to pour into you.
	I guarantee you, Megan, Mamma is going to get a mention in the vice presidential acceptance speech.
	I guarantee you.
	I get that.
	I get it.
	He dedicated his book to her.
	Yeah, we need more Mamma.
	The stories about her are unbelievable.
	I remember talking to him.
	He came on again and we talked on this show, but he, there's a story about how the grandpa, Papa, he was boozing and staying out too late and not treating Mamma right.
	And let me tell you, it's not a good idea.
	You should not treat Mamma poorly.
	And she said, if you do this again, I'm going to kill you.
	And he came home, her husband, drunk yet again and misbehaving, and she set him on fire.
	Now, this is not a recommendation, but he was okay.
	But this is just to underscore mamma was quite a woman.
	And this is JD's, you know, this is the person who made him tough, but also loving.
	You know, weirdly, I mean, she was the most affectionate and kind to JD, who I mentioned.
	She was calling him shithead, things like, but she absolutely adored this kid and would not let him set a low bar for himself, you know, helped him get a library card, made sure that he was getting access to the right books, you know, taught him morals, like the poor don't steal from the poor.
	That's the lowest form of low.
	Taught him how to take a punch.
	She, because there is in Hillbilly culture a thing and in other cultures, you know, you don't let certain things happen.
	You have to fight.
	And he writes in the book about how he was afraid of it.
	And so she punched him in the face because she and he was taken aback.
	And she said, was that so bad?
	And he said, actually, no.
	And she said, well, that's what it feels like.
	So he'll be okay.
	And the next day he went to school and he stuck up for a kid who was being bullied and he punched the bully in the gut and that bully never bothered him or the other kid again.
	So it's like, it's kind of street justice.
	And I know today people will be like, oh, but it produces someone of extraordinary character.
	And to me, it's exciting that he could be, you know, the vice president is an important position in some ways, but it's more about him taking the baton from Trump next gen. You know, Trump is term limited, obviously, if he wins again.
	And we need somebody else to be the standard bearer pretty soon.
	Yeah.
	And just honestly, let's, let's make sure we give credit to President Trump.
	There was a aggressive lobbying campaign against JD Vance, the likes of which.
	Yes.
	I could, I could write a short book and I have text messages to prove it because I was pushing for JD both privately and publicly.
	It's not a mystery.
	And I was using every ounce of political capital I had with President Trump and the team to try to make the case for JD.
	And I'll tell you, some of the worst people, as Tucker Carlson said, in this entire American political system were doing everything they could to prevent JD from becoming VP.
	Why?
	Well, because JD has a contrarian, but I believe correct view on the Ukrainian conflict, that we should not send hundreds of billions of dollars unrestricted to a foreigner.
	He had it early.
	He's not a Johnny from lately to that decision.
	No, he's not.
	And by the way, I think they're most angry that he's being proven right and that he has exposed them all as frauds and liars and that his whole perspective is let's stop the killing.
	And also the homeland must be prioritized above foreign abstractions.
	But President Trump, you know, he gets knocked a lot.
	And I think this last week has really been hopefully a clarifying moment for people of the media has been lying to you about Donald Trump repeatedly.
	You know, how many times have we heard, oh, Donald Trump is a coward who can't stand up for himself?
	Okay, he got shot and the way he responded when he got shot was one of the most heroic, unbelievable just moments in American history.
	We're always told that, oh, Donald Trump is going to choose people around him that just confirm him because, you know, he's not willing to stand up for what he believes.
	And wow.
	I mean, he basically said, look, I want to now create a multi-generational movement that goes beyond me.
	That's a big deal, Megan.
	I mean, that's not a light decision.
	Think about it.
	He could have chose some of the other people in the running that were closer to him in age, that had no charisma, that could raise a bunch of money, and that were interesting as watching paint dry.
	You know exactly who I'm talking about, right?
	These finalists.
	Okay, that would have been the safe pick.
	But then honestly, there's no guarantee that the movement, excuse me, that Donald Trump built would continue, that it would survive.
	What Donald Trump did, and this is why they were howling and screaming, these neoconservative, neoliberals, that wing of the party that I just can't stand, because now they know that all of a sudden there has been a cementing of this worldview.
	And for someone who's 30 years old, who has been trying to make sure that this change in the Republican Party is permanent, not temporary, this is one of the biggest deals imaginable.
	So credit to President Trump.
	He stood up to some very, very powerful people.
	He understood it and saw the game 10, 20, 30 years down the path.
	And he picked an extraordinary man.
	And he trusted his gut, his instinct.
	And he trusted it.
	I don't know, it was a month or two ago on the show because all things for me relate back to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, my favorite movie.
	And I was saying this pick for Trump could be like Willy Wonka needing to go outside of the industry to find a child, not an adult who would want to do everything his own way, not that JD is a child, but I was making the point that like you could get somebody who you who would take the baton and continue the traditions as you've established them in this very successful venture, or you could bring in somebody else who would want to do everything their own way.
	And I think ultimately he chose somebody who would take the baton and continue the MAGA tradition and the way that Trump has created it.
	And I think that was, that's exactly what the party needed because I think the rest of the Republican Party is going to and already is coming home to Trump as they did in 16.
	And I do think, you know, he should do something to keep A, the movement alive, but also to win back some of the male slippage that he suffered in 20 versus 16.
	He did not need to get a big boost with Hispanic men or black men.
	He's doing very well with those.
	He does well with white men too, but there had been some slippage from 16 to 20.
	And for once, you had a leader who said, I see that and I actually care.
	I care about white men.
	I want them to feel invigorated and see the future.
	I'm not doing a diversity pick.
	I'm not doing a woman because people tell me I have problems with suburban women.
	I'm doing what I think is right.
	So credit to Trump.
	I've got to keep you going, but I have so much else to get.
	I love it.
	The fact that you have to pick based on affirmative action criteria is stupid.
	And Trump basically threw out the whole DEI worldview by saying, no, competence and merit over characteristics that don't matter.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So already the media has got the knives out for JD and they're thrilled, right?
	Because they would have been terrified of one of these more establishment picks who they secretly, you know, would love instead of Trump.
	So with JD, they know what you and I know.
	They saw what we just discussed.
	They know his life story is extremely powerful and will resonate with a lot of voters.
	So they're trying to make him into some demon, you know, scary conservative, which he's really not.
	He's nationalist, populist, and he's conservative, but he's, I don't, he's not like a Ted Cruz conservative.
	Not there's anything wrong with Ted Cruz.
	And already Joe Biden's out, you know, the new and reform Joe Biden, who's going to lower the temperature, is out with an ad about JD.
	And it happens to use a piece of my interview with JD Vance that we just excerpted from back from when I was at NBC.
	Let me show you.
	It's just a six second clip.
	Here it is.
	Absolutely.
	I've criticized a lot of Trump's rhetoric and I'm not a big fan of some of the things that he said, but there were.
	Okay, I'm not a big fan of some of the things that he said.
	First of all, the campaign tweeted out that what he actually said was, I'm not a big fan of his, a big fan of Trump.
	That's not what he said.
	There is a distinction between I'm not his fan and I'm not a big fan of some of the things that he has said.
	So just for clarity.
	But secondly, take a look at the longer clip in this exchange between yours, truly, and JD.
	Do you think that it explains why when the so-called coastal elites were getting very upset over the many offenses that Trump caused, some of the sexism, some of the foul-mouthed language, that this was not particularly shocking because a lot of these folks had grown up around that?
	Absolutely.
	I've criticized a lot of Trump's rhetoric and I'm not a big fan of some of the things that he said, but there was almost a sense where people were offended by Trump, not because of the substance of what he said, but because of how he said it.
	Good society people should not talk in this way.
	And I just never quite understood that criticism.
	Completely bastardized by the Biden campaign like that, as are half of the things they're saying about him.
	However, having said that, Charlie, he was critical of Trump in 2016 because virtually everybody was critical of Trump 2016.
	The media wants to pretend there's no evolution on Trump from 16 to 24.
	I think that this was act.
	And I, I, in my private and public lobbying campaign for JD Vance, I decided to lean into the negative as one of the leads because I, of course, going to come up.
	So I was talking to the president multiple times about this.
	And I said, Mr. President, everyone around you is going to say that JD said bad things about you.
	I think that's exactly why you should select him.
	He said, well, what do you mean?
	I said, because there's a lot of people in the country that have said negative things about you that have grown and seen who you are and they want you as president again.
	And now you have a VP that can connect to them and say, I was a skeptic, now I'm a believer.
	I was someone that wasn't sure.
	And now I am a committed devotee, not just someone in DC who always just has perfectly tailored talking points.
	And so I thought this was actually a differentiator that was an olive branch to the part of the country that might have said, oh, I know, who's this Trump guy?
	I don't get it.
	And all of a sudden they would look and they'd say, wow, maybe all of my operating assumptions have been incorrect.
	Maybe I have been focusing on the wrong things where Trump micro might bother me.
	Okay, Trump might say words I don't like and tweet stuff, but Trump macro is the best president of our lifetime, where we have peace and prosperity and we have a border and we don't have men's and women's sports, all this stuff.
	And I think JD Vance is a perfect person to be able to tackle that.
	Because if we are being honest, if we want to beat Joe Biden in November, I think that having a vice president who can kind of joke and be like, hey, how many in this audience have been Trump skeptics before?
	Megan, I bet a lot of hands would go up.
	And he can, because he, because he's that talented.
	Yeah, exactly.
	JD Vance is that talented.
	He's that smart.
	He can like shrug it off and say, hey, if we were only going by people that were behind Donald Trump when he got down the escalator, we would not win many electoral votes, right?
	Politics is about addition, not subtraction, multiplication, not division.
	So I think it's actually a potential huge positive for the campaign.
	It's amazing when you look at, you know, now they're trying to paint him as like this, as I said, crazy, crazy guy.
	We pulled just the bills that he sponsored that are in committee right now.
	Let me give you a list, all right, quickly.
	He's only been in the Senate for a year and a half.
	The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.
	It's obvious from its name what that's about.
	Protecting minors from medical malpractice, meaning these surgeries that we're performing on underage people cutting off penises.
	He's against it.
	Same.
	Protect Children's Innocent Act to present to protect children from some of these crazy drugs that are sterilizing them.
	The Border Safety and Security Act of 2023.
	Yes.
	Suspend the entry of aliens in order to achieve the operational control of the border.
	Correct.
	The Death Tax Repeal Act.
	Thank you.
	Yes.
	If we want to pass money to our children upon our death, shouldn't we be able to without the government taking half?
	Yes.
	The English Language Unity Act of 2023 to declare English as the official language of the U.S. Kids Online Safety Act to protect children on the internet.
	End Endless Wars Act.
	Correct.
	Cates Law, Stop Illegal Reentry Act to increase penalties for individuals who illegally re-enter the U.S. after being removed.
	Secure the Border Act, Schools Not Shelters Act to stop people from using schools as a shelter for aliens who are not here lawfully.
	The Lake and Riley Act to require the Homeland Security Department to actually force these sanctuary cities to cooperate.
	I could go on.
	These are not extreme.
Gender Issues and Radical Conservative Smears 00:02:05
	I've virtually everybody listening to the show, and I have plenty of people who are not Republicans listening, would agree with all of those, Charlie.
	Totally.
	And this is what's important is that JD Vance is going to be smeared as this like radical conservative.
	Okay, yes, he is a conservative, but he's someone that is not as ideological as you would imagine.
	He wants a restoration of the normal, and that's why he's so well liked in Ohio.
	So wait, what do we just go through the list of?
	Okay, we believe in borders, that we should have a unified language.
	We believe that men should not be in female sports and that children should not be victims of unproven and medieval medical experiments.
	And no endless wars.
	Yes, and no endless wars.
	And also, this is what's really important is that those are things that we know are losing issues for the Democrats.
	And it's a fun and important new wrinkle to the MAGA agenda that is beyond just what we saw in 2016 and 2020, specifically the trans issue with the children, men and women's sports.
	And I think you're going to hear more about that, Megan, in the coming days at the convention as this culminates.
	And so, yeah, and look, he's only been there for quite some time, but you know what you saw in all that legislative pattern?
	A pattern of moral clarity.
	That JD Vance was not going there to try to get committee assignments, that he's there to do a job and that he's there to fulfill the mandate from his voters, and he's there to do the right thing.
	And he will do that as vice president, and he will be steady and wise counsel to Donald Trump to reinstitute Title IX the way it should be.
	There will be no men and female sports.
	I mean, just imagine the first week of a Trump Vance presidency.
	The 90% of this executive garbage that Joe Biden has done with the men and female sports, all that will be undone.
	And JD Vance will make sure it happens.
	And Trump has fully come on board to where you and I are on the gender stuff.
	He's gotten it.
	I think he just wasn't paying attention to a lot of that stuff early on, but he's there now.
Secret Service Failures and Left-Wing Promises 00:11:07
	And you hear even the New York Times is doing a thing on Trump saying, yeah, on the gender stuff, he's going to crack down.
	But LGB rights are safe under Trump.
	He's not going to mess with LGB.
	But yes, on this trans stuff with minors and girl sports, Trump is on Team GOP fully, which is good.
	I want to move on to Trump and the assassination attempt, which has almost disappeared from the mainstream media 72 hours after it happened, Charlie.
	It's amazing how the left-wing press has moved right on.
	They do not want anything that's going to make Trump look strong, look sympathetic, look good, look heroic.
	Certainly not.
	And in the wake of the media reporting, we are getting some shocking facts on the Secret Service failure.
	Now, the latest headlines are that the shooter was spotted by law enforcement nearly 30 minutes before the shots were fired.
	We show the audience the video yesterday showing the people being like, he's up there, he's up there, he's on the roof.
	But now we know it was nearly 30 minutes he was spotted before he actually unleashed fire.
	And the Secret Service, while saying that local law enforcement was told of a suspicious person by rally attendees, it's unclear whether or when this was relayed to the Secret Service.
	So there's still more questions than answered about how this massive failure took place.
	What do you make of it?
	I hope it's incompetence, Megan.
	And we are flirting with potential either gross negligence or malevolence.
	And so let me just read this reporting from Sean Davis, who's legit from the Federalists, by the way.
	This guy is, he's the real deal.
	Secret Service had snipers inside the building the assassin used.
	They took pictures of him.
	They watched him pull out a rangefinder to get the exact distance to Trump.
	They radioed the Secret Service command post about the assassin.
	They all knew that he was there.
	Who gave the order to do nothing until the assassin shot Trump, killed an innocent man on stage and fired a round after round after round?
	This is a mainstream reporting now where multiple Secret Service agents were indifferent about an assassin climbing on a roof and having an unobstructed 120-yard shot of Donald Trump.
	We keep on hearing that it's incompetence.
	That's pretty hard to believe at this point.
	Were there people that just didn't care about the protection of Donald Trump?
	Are these people that are that stupid?
	I mean, is this really, is this, we're supposed to just believe that this is just a failure of intellect or that this is all DEI?
	And so here's a very simple question.
	As soon as there is commotion or chatter, why don't you pull Donald Trump offstage?
	Put him in a vehicle.
	You should say, hey, put him on stage right now.
	We got some weird stuff going on.
	In fact, they're saying we're blaming local law enforcement garbage.
	That is nonsense.
	And still, we have no resignations.
	We have no firings.
	We probably have a great cover-up going on.
	And I am incredibly cynical and jaded in the short term when it comes to this.
	Nobody was fired.
	No one was fired from the Afghanistan withdrawal.
	Nobody was fired with our handling of COVID and all the lies associated.
	The opposite.
	All those people are making more money than ever and they've ascended in high society.
	No one was fired or held accountable from the signing of that letter for the Hunter Biden laptop or the cover-up that ensued there.
	Why should we believe that anyone should be fired?
	When Donald Trump got shot Megan, I was watching a lot of mainstream networks.
	What the the calisthenics that they have to go through with their diction and their vocab choices to not say the term Trump got shot is, is unlike anything I have ever seen.
	I mean, it's as if, or the a-word assassination.
	That's right.
	They're saying um yes, at the incident uh oh, oh the incident.
	CNN said that he fell on stage when this happened.
	Yes these, these are bad people.
	Okay, the media is full of bad people.
	They're not incompetent, they're not just partisans.
	These are bad human beings who, deep down many of them if you could read their private thoughts they wanted Donald Trump to actually die on that stage, and only by the grace of God and by divine providence and the turning of a head and a slight gust of wind did it just hit his ear, I would.
	I wonder how many registered Democrats in this country actually know that Donald Trump got shot, not just had shrapnel at him.
	I, I actually I think that would be a very interesting thing to find out.
	But Megan, actually have Keith Oberman out there suggesting he wasn't shot at all and that he's made up.
	These, these people are just are I keep on using that word they're repulsive.
	They are the lowest of the low and again, I just there's so many elements here to unpack.
	You have Barack Obama and Bill Clinton also.
	You know thoughts and prayers.
	Oh really, you said he was Hitler.
	Basically, many of you like, if Hitler got shot at, would you say thoughts and prayers for Vlad?
	You're for for Hitler or for Vladimir Putin?
	You guys compared him to Putin repeatedly, so which?
	So one of those is a lie, either he's not Putin or Hitler, or you actually don't mean thoughts and prayers for Donald Trump and you hope that he got his, his brains blown out.
	This was we were.
	We were anywhere between one inch to two inches Megan, from Civilizational chaos.
	Yeah, we were one.
	I mean they.
	They seemed a civil war.
	No yeah I I, I hope you were.
	I hope you're wrong and I think you're right.
	They say football is a game of inches.
	The civilization is now a game of inches.
	It was.
	It was scary on so many levels.
	I I want to say this, all the reporting we've seen so far is that it was local officials in that building and not the Secret Service.
	I realize Sean is reporting.
	It was Secret Service.
	We had a Secret Service former guy on the show yesterday and a security expert with ties to all these folks who are, you know, investigating this and involved and they seem to say it's it was the local authorities.
	But they were not giving the Secret Service a pass.
	They were saying nonetheless, the local authorities and the area outside the perimeter is ultimately the responsibility of the Secret Service as well.
	Just because some pieces get delegated doesn't mean it's still not on the shoulders of the Secret Service, whose main mission is to protect the life of the president.
	Uh, so we'll find out.
	But yes, now the reporting is pretty universal that there were at least three agents of some sort local or secret um inside the building.
	And people were calling attention to this guy and nothing was done until a moment before he fired the trigger at Trump.
	You know, one cop hoisted another cop up who looked on the rooftop and got threatened with the gun and went back down as opposed to taking on the gunman, which I realize easy for me to say, but I'm not in law enforcement.
	I'm not courageous like that.
	That's why I sit at an anchor desk all day.
	How did he get on the roof?
	I mean, well, there's some reports.
	I don't know whether this is true, but that he climbed a ladder that may or not, may or may not have, doesn't look like there was a ladder there because why did the cop have to hoist somebody?
	Did he have help?
	All this needs to be investigated.
	Yes.
	And so, first of all, I don't trust any of the investigators.
	I bet they're actively covering things up and destroying evidence because that's what they do.
	The Secret Service director, who's another DEI pick, where her experience before this was protecting Pepsi cans and potato chips.
	Not an exaggeration.
	She was the head of the.
	She was Jill Biden's favorite.
	Yeah, Jill Biden's favorite, who is a DEI pick, and she has been more concerned about diversifying the Secret Service.
	You saw the people around Donald Trump.
	They're not exactly people that you would want to be protecting a president of the United States.
	They can't holster a weapon.
	They weren't even strong enough to be able to bring Donald Trump to the vehicle.
	The Secret Service director, Kim Cheadle, says this.
	Snipers weren't on the roof where Thomas Crook shot because it was sloped and unsafe.
	That's where that is something that she should be fired immediately.
	Well, of course, even if she's fired, she'll keep her pension and she'll go get hired at a corporate job for security.
	Her goal was to make 30% of the Secret Service female.
	And I want to just make one more point here, Megan.
	You were so kind to me when I made my remark about DEI and black pilots, which got taken out of context.
	You gave me an opportunity to defend myself and the media came after me hard and you were very kind to me.
	The point I was making back in February is the same point now.
	DEI will get people killed.
	Okay.
	This is not a joke that the fact that you start hiring based on characteristics that don't matter is one of the reasons why Donald Trump fell two, was two inches away from getting his brains blown out and this country on the brink of a second American Civil War.
	It's terrifying.
	I still can't quite believe that it happened and that the media wants to move on so quickly, even from this, but I understand why, polling wise and electorally speaking.
	Now, Charlie, the news is that they're stuck with Biden.
	They're going to keep him.
	They know they can't push him out now because the GOP is completely united and they can't have divisions within the Dem party.
	I think that's still good for Republicans, for Team Trump.
	What do you think?
	Because there is some polling coming out now.
	There was something from Morning Consult showing that Biden actually went up post assassination attempt of Trump.
	And 538 is reporting that Joe Biden is ever so slightly more likely to win than Donald Trump.
	So how do you stand on all of that?
	Yeah, I mean, it's probably a good thing to run against Joe Biden.
	Remember, we have not really had an opportunity to take the case against Joe Biden recently.
	He's had a lot of uninterrupted TV time.
	I think that we're going to be fine when it comes to that kind of contrast.
	I still give us a 50-50 shot of winning this election.
	But let me tell you one thing that we need to be cautious about.
	And we predicted this on our podcast last week, and we are proven correct.
	You're going to see Joe Biden, the Bernie Sanders populist.
	He says that he's going to freeze rents at 5% across the country.
	He's making some very radical left-wing promises.
	Why?
	The donors are turning on him.
	The oligarchs of the Democrat Party are turning on him.
	But the people that aren't turning on him is AOC and Bernie Sanders.
	They're giving him counsel.
	And the council is lean in to the most revolutionary, radical ideas of the Democrat Party, which will reinvigorate your base, expand your margins, and be able to have two populists running in this election.
	That's my biggest concern, Megan, is that Joe Biden starts promising free stuff, starts doing mass amnesty before the Supreme Court can reverse it, starts giving out loan forgiveness before the Supreme Court can reverse it.
	That is the biggest concern, is that Joe Biden no longer being puppeteered or controlled by his donor masters is a Joe Biden that politically could be far more dangerous than I think people realize.
	Charlie Kirk, a lot to think about.
	The battle's not over.
	Four months to go, and there's a lot yet to be done.
	Great to see you.
	We'll see you out in Milwaukee.
	We're on our way.
	Thank you.
	Talk to you soon.
	Thanks.
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	It's a big week.
	Tomorrow, we will be coming to you live from the RNC in Milwaukee.
	And boy, do we have some great interviews lined up for you?
	This, as the GOP celebrates, and President Biden finds himself on the defensive, trying to re-energize his campaign.
	He had a testy exchange with Lester Holt of NBC News last night.
An Unusual Republican Convention Strategy 00:16:06
	We'll get to that.
	But the bigger issue for Team Biden is still voter sentiment.
	A brand new New York Times poll taken after the debate, but before the president's news conference after NATO last Thursday and before the assassination attempt against former President Trump, finds the Biden campaign is struggling in two must-win states, at least.
	In Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump is ahead of Joe Biden 48 to 45.
	In Virginia, it's the reverse, President Biden leading former President Trump by three points, but this is a state Mr. Biden won by more than 10 points in 2020.
	So he's up, but not by much.
	Joining me now, Hogan Gidley, former National Press Secretary for the Trump campaign.
	He's now vice chair at the Center for Election Integrity.
	And David Plough, who's a former White House senior advisor to then President Barack Obama, he now hosts the Campaign Managers with Kellyanne Conway and David Plough.
	Hogan, David, great to see you both.
	David, it's been so long.
	Thanks for coming on.
	Good to see you.
	It's great to see you, Megan.
	Okay, so there's a lot going on today.
	Can I just ask you, let me kick it off here, Hogan, because the RNC is still underway.
	We got another big night tonight.
	And what I'm seeing in the news right now, people reacting pretty strongly to people like Amber Rose, who got up there.
	She's a rapper in her own right.
	She's, I think, best known for being Kanye West's ex-girlfriend.
	She's got 24 million followers on Instagram.
	She is of mixed race, which is relevant to her appearance at this RNC because she got up there and talked about how she used to hate Donald Trump, thinking he was a racist, and then rethought it.
	I'm going to get your reaction to her first, SAT 25.
	And I believe the left-wing propaganda that Donald Trump was a racist.
	My father said, no, he's not, Amber.
	What are you talking about?
	And when I insisted, he said, prove it.
	So to prove my father wrong, I did my research and looked into all things Donald Trump.
	I realized Donald Trump and his supporters don't care if you're black, white, gay, or straight.
	It's all love.
	So I let go of my fear of judgment, of being misunderstood, of getting attacked by the left, and I put the red hat on too.
	Thank you.
	I want to thank my father, who's in the audience tonight, for opening my eyes.
	She served over 20 years in the U.S. military.
	Thank you for your service, Dad.
	Okay, so Hogan, what did you make of it?
	Because I've seen Van Jones say this was very effective for the Republicans and scares him as a Democrat.
	But then I've seen commentators like the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh saying, why would you have, he called her, I think, a slut like that up there at the Republican convention.
	Well, look, first things first, when she came into the hall, there were a lot of people around me who said, now, who is this?
	They had no idea, despite her 25 million followers, as you just pointed out still.
	To be honest, same.
	Yeah, it's just a million more than me.
	So that's fine.
	But listen, she was so dynamic in her conversation with the people in that hall because like so many out there now, she was on the side of hating Donald Trump.
	And if there's one thing Donald Trump loves more than a day one supporter, it's a convert.
	He loves the convert because he can tell that story.
	And putting her up there was so savvy politically.
	But I'll tell you, some of the biggest applause lines of the night came from her when she was talking about her switch and being tested by her own father, pushing her to actually defend her position.
	She couldn't do it.
	And she went down the rabbit hole and started figuring out what Donald Trump was about.
	She realized the commentary from the left, the accusations didn't have any merit at all.
	And it was a really interesting conversation to have in that hall because as you know, that doesn't happen much on the Republican side to see someone like that.
	And while the Matt Walsh's and others are offended by it, and I get a lot of the opposition to it, Donald Trump doesn't will never.
	He does it now, but will never have more political capital, I think, than he does right now.
	And working to use that to try and broaden out that tent and get voices on his side that he hasn't had before that the Republican Party hasn't had before, I think is really savvy.
	Van Jones, the quote was something to the effect of she's a bunker buster for the Democrats.
	That's what he said about her.
	I'm trying to find the exact language, David, but he was saying that she's a threat because she's appealing to disaffected Democrats who are not in love with Joe Biden and still might be flirting with, I like Trump, but I'm afraid to say it.
	Right.
	So having been responsible for conventions in the past, I think sometimes we can, they all seem big in the moment, the speeches.
	And then the question is, is there any lingering?
	I always look at it as, is somebody going to vote or behave differently based on an event?
	In this case, a convention speech.
	So I think it was a smart pick.
	I think generally politicians don't break through on social media because most people are going to witness the Republican convention, at least up until Thursday night through podcasts, through social media, through TikTok and Instagram.
	So if someone like that is now going to be posting frequently between now and the election day and both messaging, that can be effective.
	So I think, you know, that was always our challenge in the conventions I was part of is, you know, obviously the networks want to cover the big names, but it's the real people, particularly when it's a somebody who surprises people.
	Like I'm surprised that person's at the Republican convention.
	I'm surprised that person's at the Democratic convention.
	And to Hogan's point about growth, I mean, that's necessary.
	You know, Megan, you and I talked a lot back in 16.
	Donald Trump won that in kind of a black swan event, but he won it with less than 47% of the vote.
	Obviously, a terrible 18 for the Republican Party.
	He lost in 20, again, not getting over 47% of the vote and a bad 22 that he was in part responsible for.
	So I think the question is, no, I don't think JD Vance has a selection that suggests he's focused on growth, but that has to be where it is.
	And his poll standing now is stronger than we've seen in the last two elections because there are polls, they could be wrong, but he's at 47, 48, 49, as opposed to 45, 46.
	So just speaking as a practitioner, particularly when you have some wins behind your back, and I agree with Hogan that he does, that's the moment when you want to capitalize and give people a permission structure.
	Because, you know, this race, my guess is will tighten.
	We'll talk about whether it's Harris or Biden or somebody else.
	I don't think it'll stay this wide, but Trump has a real lead right now.
	It's the most significant concern, I think, for Democrats in a presidential race since 1988 to caucus George H.W. Bush went way back.
	So Trump should do everything he can right now to solidify his gains.
	There's no question one of his strengths right now is with black voters, particularly men.
	He's over 20% in most polls.
	Hispanic voters, he's over 40 in some.
	Young voters doing better.
	What's interesting about that is, of course, he's outperforming Republican candidates pretty dramatically.
	Biden's underperforming Democratic senators candidates pretty dramatically.
	So I think for Trump, he's probably most focused on locking in some of those gains with younger voters and voters of color, but probably wants to see some of that transfer to his party as well in the weeks to come.
	You know, Frank Lunt's longtime focus group runner.
	He was on Fox News a bunch of times and now he's been everywhere.
	But he does that.
	He makes his living by polling groups of voters and having them react live to various events.
	He does both.
	And he just sent out a post on X, which struck me.
	He writes, last night, voters saw a Republican Party that they and I have never seen before.
	A stage filled with hardworking taxpayers, African Americans, working women, union members, and delegates dancing in the aisles.
	Speeches bashing corporate America and the status quo.
	We witnessed the realignment of American politics, Trump style.
	Hashtag GOP convention.
	Hogan, I think he's exactly right.
	I mean, it's pretty extraordinary to see those groups as described at the Republican Party versus just four to eight years ago.
	Well, I guess it would have to be eight years ago.
	Yeah, there's no question.
	And even the rhetoric Donald Trump had back in 2016 about people coming across the southern border, so many Republicans in the establishment said it's going to kill him with Hispanics.
	But we saw gains with Donald Trump over someone like Mitt Romner or even George W. Bush.
	And now it's gotten even bigger.
	People are looking at Donald Trump and realizing, regardless of your race, religion, color, or creed, the policies are what matters.
	And when you see exorbitant prices for gas and for groceries, that happened because we had a change and a shift in economic policy from the Trump administration to the Biden administration.
	And when you start to see so many different faces and so many different attitudes and beliefs show up at a Republican convention, you realize what Donald Trump has done to build out and broaden out that tent.
	We were joking.
	I had some friends who were talking about backstage that we'd never seen anything like this before at a Republican convention.
	And that's true.
	I don't think anyone could have done it except for Donald Trump, but he's willing to go into these places.
	We've seen how many campaign stops in areas that no Republican would dare trod.
	Never would you see that before.
	And he goes right in there and people love him and people hug him.
	But David's right too.
	What does that mean ultimately for getting out the vote, getting those people to turn out to the polls?
	Because all of this stuff, and Donald Trump has had a string of incredible victories.
	The Republican Party has had a news cycle like I've never seen in my 25 years in politics.
	So I'm just waiting for some shoe to drop at this point, if I'm being honest.
	But it continues to kind of snowball.
	It's that Haley Barber thing.
	The good get better and the bad gets worse.
	The good is getting better right now for Donald Trump.
	And to showcase everything, after an assassination attempt, you see a big victory in court.
	Now we're at this convention.
	The first night was a home run.
	And you mentioned single moms who couldn't make ends meet.
	A person with on fixed income and he was having trouble with the prices.
	Anne Barrose, you had the head of the Teamsters Union, for heaven's sakes, coming here and talking directly to Republican voters.
	You're seeing the shift.
	It really has been impressive.
	Let's claim that because the Teamsters president showed up at the Republican National Convention.
	And it was very interesting to listen to him talk about Trump.
	He had the old like, whether you like him or not, kind of, you know, precursors to his remarks, but he landed it.
	It was kind of fun to watch Trump's reaction to watch 24.
	No other nominee in the race would have invited the Teamsters into this arena.
	You can have whatever opinion you want, but one thing is clear.
	President Trump is a candidate who is not afraid of hearing from new, loud, and often critical voices.
	And I think we all can agree whether people like him or they don't like him.
	In light of what happened to him on Saturday, he has proven to be one tough SOB.
	And then Trump smiled after he said that last part.
	David, what did you make as a Democrat of the Teamsters president showing up at the RNC?
	Well, again, it's a moment.
	And I think one question will be, what does the Trump campaign do with that?
	Are they going to advertise using those words?
	Are they going to try and reach union members, Teamsters, and others?
	We'll see.
	That is going to be an important battle.
	You know, I think the service unions, Democrats still dominate in terms of electoral performance.
	You know, some of the building trades unions, it's more competitive.
	And so Biden's numbers right now, as challenged or they are, you know, are being held up in part because he's doing really well with seniors, including, you know, white seniors, you know, middle-aged voters, including a lot of union members.
	So that's been a place where you've not seen the erosion that we've seen amongst younger voters and some voters of color.
	Although, you know, there's plenty of union voters who are voters of color.
	And, you know, that's going to require a lot of sophisticated data analysis to see what's happening there.
	But listen, I'm surprised because I've been studying Republican conventions for longer than I'd like to admit.
	And I don't remember a single one that was really focused on growth, you know, speaking to people who may disagree with you on a lot of issues.
	Really going back, Megan, historically to the 92 convention, which is such a disaster with Pat Buchanan and George H.W. Bush.
	McCain, I didn't think, did a good job of that.
	Romney did not do a good job of that at 12, although he probably would have been a good candidate to do that.
	But it was really talking to the base.
	And Trump, I think, is in a place right now where he's got to worry about turnout for sure.
	But you're less focused on the base right now.
	You're more focused on growth.
	And so any voices that, you know, I think add to that ability to create a permission structure is smart.
	Now, Democrats will have a response.
	Most importantly, in the campaign, most of the unions are supporting Biden.
	Almost all of them are.
	They're going to spend real money out there, you know, driving a message both for Biden and against Trump.
	So again, we don't want to overreact, in my humble view as a practitioner, to a moment like that, because we'll see what effect.
	Really, the question will be is what does the Trump campaign do with it?
	You know, that's interesting.
	That's fascinating to listen to somebody who's actually helped get a guy elected twice talk about, okay, this is how significant it is versus could be if it's used properly.
	Next, what's going to happen next?
	Randy Weingarten shows up.
	I was like, what?
	What's happening?
	This is an unusual Republican convention.
	In the meantime, I want to shift a little and talk about Joe Biden because there was a report by CNN's John King yesterday that I thought was very interesting about the polls and how it's going over on Team Blue.
	And I'm trying to find my sheet.
	Here it is.
	Okay, so it's the headline piece on CNN is private efforts by private efforts to nudge Biden to step aside continue.
	And he's gotten his hands on this, well, reports about polling memos from quote seasoned and respected Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, sharing his take that Biden is on track to lose the election and that these polls by Stanley Greenberg, these memos are being shared with top Biden aides and indeed maybe Biden himself as the private efforts to get Biden to step down continue,
	reporting that the public calls have quieted since the assassination attempt on President Trump because the Democratic Party wants to look unified and it's just the timing feels off now in the wake of that.
	But that behind the scenes, the effort remains robust.
	Quote, lose everything is how one Democrat described a polling memo Greenberg sent to Biden's inner circle.
	Quote, devastating was the one-word answer of a second Democrat close to the White House who's familiar with the Greenberg memos saying, look, he's not going to win.
	And the vast majority of the party does not see him as up to serving for more years.
	So do you know this guy, Stanley Greenberg, David?
	And what do you make of this report?
	I do.
	If I recall, Stan was pretty critical of Barack Obama and his election prospects.
	So I take it with a grain of salt.
	That being said, as a Democrat, obviously you don't like where the race is right now.
	And I don't think we should engage in something that I think we've seen Republicans, not Hogan and Megan, you guys are the exception, but engage in, you know, cherry-picking polls.
	I think on balance, the public polls that are, I think, trustworthy, and then certainly the private polls that have been covered, and I certainly see some are concerning.
	Now, when I talk to Kellyanne Conway, she'll be the first person to tell you, and Kellyanne knows this electorate quite well, Joe Biden could still win.
	We had Jason Miller from the Trump campaign on our podcast a couple of weeks ago.
Lester Holt Interview and Voter Sentiment 00:15:25
	He said the same thing.
	Why is that?
	Well, it's because we live in a divided country and Donald Trump is still a challenged political figure, even though he has had a good few weeks here politically.
	The debate really, I think, changing the race most dramatically in the near term.
	But he still has a pretty low ceiling.
	That being said, I think what you're seeing is Democratic candidates for the Senate, Democratic candidates for the House, other folks running for state and local office have seen erosion at the top of the ticket.
	Now, do I think that Joe Biden is going to lose Pennsylvania by five to seven?
	I don't believe that.
	I think it will be closer than that.
	But at the end of the day, the deficit here is real.
	And it's not just the head-to-head.
	As you know, his approval rating is in the 30s, anywhere from 70 to 80% of the public's concern about his fitness for office.
	We don't have a lot of energy for young people.
	This doesn't bring me any joy in saying this, but I've always believed in life, but certainly in politics.
	You know, if you don't face the truth and admit where you are, it's hard to smartly course correct.
	So I think that debate will continue.
	I agree with you.
	It probably settles down this week publicly, maybe through Thursday.
	I think you'll then see more people come out.
	I mean, right now, I think Joe Biden is the odds on favorite to be the nominee.
	There'll still be folks raising questions.
	So we'll ultimately see.
	And the question for me is: if Biden is the nominee, the thing that stresses me out is the calendar, as it always did when I used to run campaigns.
	And by the way, people start voting in Battleground States in about 80 days.
	So you don't have to November 5th.
	You got to change the structure of the race between now and early October, and you can't waste a day.
	And so I think the Lester Holt interview last night, you know, though Biden had some good moments.
	But I think when he was talking about Lester not asking him questions about issues and things, listen, every candidate gets frustrated by the press.
	Donald Trump certainly gets frustrated by the press.
	But a good candidate takes a question, can respectfully answer the question, and then move it to the message you want to drive.
	And right now, we're stuck in this dynamic where I think Joe Biden's on the defensive.
	Most incumbents around the world, I don't care who you are in today's politics, cannot win a referendum.
	You've got to turn it into a choice and a Syrian choice.
	Joe Biden failed to do that in the debate.
	A little bit better, I thought, in his press conference last week.
	Last night in the interview, I didn't think great.
	So that's the question is, and I think Democrats are continuing to wrestle.
	And I'll just end here, Megan.
	As most weighted decisions in life are, it's not like there's a good option and a bad option.
	There's risk with change.
	So if Joe Biden were to step down, let's say Kamala Harris is the nominee or someone else.
	I think she would be the odds on favor to replace him.
	There's no guarantee.
	The one thing we learn every presidential cycle, you've covered a lot of them, is there's candidates that look on paper like they will walk into the White House, Ron DeSantis being the latest example.
	And this presidential stage chews people up.
	Very few people come out stronger.
	Right.
	I mean, it's just the graveyard is littered, Democratic and Republican.
	So we'll see.
	But the one thing I'd say is a different Democratic candidate, you know, may not do as well with seniors as Joe Biden, and that's a big issue.
	They may not do as well in some working class areas.
	So there's risk.
	But again, there's a delta right now between Democrats running for Senate and Joe Biden with younger voters, with black voters, Hispanic voters.
	So I think that's what a lot of Democrats are wrestling with is, is that something that gets better if we had a different candidate?
	But at the end of the day, only one person with the voting shares here, one, and it's Joe Biden.
	Hogan, David mentions Joe Biden with Lester Holt last night and the answer where he kind of got all over Lester and tried to dodge on his own debate performance and instead turn it around on the media for not making that debate about Trump.
	Here's that soundbite watch.
	In your last TV interview, you were asked if you had watched the debate and your answer was, I don't think so, no.
	Have you since seen it?
	I've seen pieces of it.
	I'm not watching the whole debate.
	You seeing what they saw, which was moments of, frankly, that appeared to be, you appeared to be confused.
	Lester, look, why don't you guys ever talk about the 18 to 28 lies he told?
	Where are you on this?
	Why didn't the press ever talk about that?
	I just asked the question because the idea that you may or may not have seen what some of these other folks have seen, you're not on the same line.
	I'd have to say I was there.
	I had to see it.
	I was there.
	By the way, seriously, you won't answer the question, but why didn't the press talk about all the lies he told?
	I didn't know anything about that.
	We have reported many of the issues that we'll provide you with them.
	God love you.
	Okay.
	Here's probably the problem with that, Hogan, as I see it.
	Not only is it obviously a Dodge, but you can't attack Lester Holt because Lester Holt is not a hatable figure.
	He's a sweet guy.
	You know, trust me, even I had a very negative experience at NBC, but not with that guy.
	He was actually very sweet to me the whole time.
	Like you can't make a villain out of him.
	That's not going to be an option for you when you're on the ropes like Joe Biden was there.
	And he says, you know, I don't have to watch it.
	I was in it.
	The question that was asked was, did you watch it?
	That's what Stephanopoulos asked him.
	And he said, he wasn't sure.
	So it's now he's landed on, I didn't have to watch it.
	I was there.
	But you couldn't even remember days after whether you'd seen it.
	Anyway, what did you make of it?
	Well, so many things wrong with that, obviously.
	Listen, to watch someone of the left like Joe Biden complain about the media is so rich on its face.
	The left has been coddled by the mainstream media, the press, the legacy media, whatever you want to call them, especially Joe Biden.
	I mean, the guy's been in office for half of a century.
	They've been carrying his water that entire time.
	They've been covering up for his mistakes, his problems, his bad policies for the last four years.
	And that problem on the debate stage was now the veneer was off.
	The American people saw it with their own eyes and the press kind of had to pretend as though they didn't know anything about it.
	And that this is all new information for them when it obviously wasn't.
	And so to watch Joe Biden attack someone like Lester Holt, and you said, yes, he's a very likable figure.
	I was with him this week.
	A more sweet man there is not on this planet.
	And Joe Biden couldn't say, hey, I called those things out on stage because he didn't.
	The issue in that debate was the way Joe Biden looked, the way he responded, the slack jaw, the staring off into the distance.
	That has long been his problem, but it was on the main stage for all the world to see.
	And you talked about falling off that presidential stage.
	Yes, no lights burn hotter.
	No stage is bigger than that of the presidential.
	And in all deference to my good friend Rick Perry, you can oops yourself off that stage in a hurry.
	There's a long way to go, though, between now and the election.
	David's absolutely right.
	A lot is going to change.
	There will be ebbs and flows, of course.
	But moments like this for Joe Biden do not help him.
	Yes, he had some flubs in here.
	Yes, he had some mistakes.
	We know he's frail.
	We know he's feeble.
	We know he's fragile.
	That to me is not really the issue.
	Because while the American people see that, they're more concerned about how his policies have impacted their lives and how their own economies are bad because of him.
	And when he goes up on a friendly like George Stephanopoulos or like Lester Holt and botches that simple task, 93% of the news coverage on Donald Trump by every available measure and every available data point was negative, 93%.
	And this guy has one bad cycle and he's complaining about it.
	I just find that to be so rich.
	He's totally brought upon himself.
	That's not a media generated controversy.
	Yes.
	It's his fault.
	And I'll say this because as we look at this convention, and I'm here and people are walking by, so if you hear something, I'm sorry.
	They're just loud and they're excited.
	But watching Republicans try to expand and grow this tent is fascinating because we're in July.
	Joe Biden is still trying to shore up his base.
	He's still going to black churches and trying to say, hey, remember me, I'm Joe Biden.
	It's July.
	People will start voting in a few months.
	And so when he has opportunities to try and turn the narrative, when he has an opportunity to try and say, no, I promise I'm a steady hand.
	I can make this country better.
	I can make your life better.
	He doesn't do it.
	He complains.
	And it is a serious issue, not just for Joe Biden, but for the Democrats writ large.
	80 days.
	That is the phrase I'm going to be taking away with me today.
	80 days.
	It's such a short window to turn an aircraft carrier around if we believe that, you know, I'm mildly interested in these national polls, but I'm much more interested in the likely voters in the battleground states, which have been consistently strong for President Trump.
	And I have yet to see that changing, especially in the Blue Wall states in, you know, Michigan and Wisconsin, Minnesota, that whole region there.
	And then Pennsylvania, where, you know, JD Vance is from.
	That's basically his territory.
	Ohio is right next to Pennsylvania.
	That's where he grew up.
	And that's another play that's going to work well there, that white working class in those states.
	I think they're going to respond well to J.D.
	And I know the media is jumping all over him about, oh, you know, you didn't like Trump.
	You said terrible things about Trump, which he did for sure.
	He did not like Trump.
	But his life story, I think, is a big part of why he was chosen.
	It's absolutely inspirational.
	I think all those people, once they hear that, are going to be very moved, as I was by JD Vance.
	He's an inspirational figure.
	Now, the media, let's see if they let that through, but I want to stay on Joe Biden for a minute.
	So here's the thing.
	There's a bit of a quandary right now for the Democrats, David, because forgive me for putting it this way, but because of the assassination attached, because they want to continue slugging Donald Trump as hard as humanly possible, but it's a little hard because the nation's sympathies are with him at the moment.
	We all saw what happened on Saturday.
	I think most humans were inspired by the way he handled it.
	And then you had Joe Biden come out in the White House and say, we've got to lower the temperature, lower the temperature.
	So, but then he goes on with Lester, and it didn't seem like a lowering of the temperature moment.
	He brought up a lot of tropes about Donald Trump that have been debunked.
	So you tell me what they're supposed to do with this.
	Let's watch a little bit of that.
	There's no place at all for violence in politics in America.
	None.
	Zero.
	For example, you know, the January 6th, you know, the attack on the Capitol.
	I watched what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.
	He said there were very fine people on both sides.
	Have you taken a step back and done a little soul searching on things that you may have said that could incite people who are not balanced?
	My opponent is engaged in that rhetoric.
	He talks about there'll be a bloodbath if he loses, suspend the sentences of all those who were arrested and sentenced to go to jail because of what happened in the Capitol.
	This doesn't sound like you're turning down the heat, though.
	We've talked about the news.
	No, no, no, no.
	Look, when I'm turning down, we have to stop the whole notion that there are certain things that are contrary to our democracy that we're for.
	So what can you and what will you do?
	At least things you can control to lower down the temperature, the rhetoric out there.
	Continue to talk about the things that matter to the American public.
	It matters whether or not you accept the outcome of elections.
	It matters whether or not you, for example, talk about how you're going to deal with the border instead of talking about people being vermin.
	I mean, those things matter.
	That's the kind of language that is inflammatory.
	So, I mean, just for the record, the fine people thing has been debunked over and over and over, including by left-wing fact-checkers.
	Not what Trump said.
	The bloodbath thing was a comment made by Trump in the economic context, where he was talking about how China wants to take advantage of us by building plants in Mexico and hurting American workers and that if they if they think they're going to get away with that, they're not and if he's voted in, it'll be a bloodbath for the economy.
	He was obviously talking about the automobile industry and and the tariffs that he was going to bring and Biden wouldn't, but he continues to misuse those things.
	I don't know that.
	The average American knows that.
	I don't know.
	What do you make of this pickle of which I speak?
	Well Megan, i'm i'm sorry to disagree with you on your program, but listen.
	You only know please, do you know?
	Basically an eight-year-old's google search skills to see, really for the last, I mean even going back to the 80s with Donald Trump and some of the things he did in New York, but his rise has really been fueled by, you know, personal attacks uh, kind of abrasive violence.
	I remember back in 2020, there were some folks in Texas trying to run the Biden campaign bus off the road and Trump tweeted, God love Texas.
	I mean, this is someone comfortable with you know, kind of visuals of violence.
	Uh, you know, attacking immigrants, attacking Muslims.
	So you know it's a little rich for me, but but I think where Trump would like to turn the race certainly his team is is basically, hey, we need to be more unified, so stop attacking me.
	That's how he'll define unity.
	And I think Democrats, you know you want criticisms and and attacks, in contrast, to be within bounds.
	But you know, on things like, should we have a peaceful transfer of power?
	Should the person who, like if Joe Biden loses this election, he will say I lost the election he'll call Donald Trump a, concede to him and cooperate with the transition.
	Donald Trump didn't do that in 20 and he said he likely wouldn't do it this time.
	Jd Vance's vice president said, unlike Mike Pence, he would have not done his constitutional duty.
	So these are real issues and I will tell you in the research i've seen, yes, inflation is an important issue.
	Healthcare, by the way, a place where Democrats have a large advantage is an important issue foreign policy, immigration but the notion of basically the person who gets the most votes shouldn't win.
	If you think about the swing voters and when I say swing voters, you know this election is a little bit different.
	You've got the traditional suburban women who are swing voters.
	You've got some Exurbid men and women that are swing voters a little bit older.
	You also have swing voters who are in their 20s and early 30s, who are of color, but that is something that's problematic.
	So I think what Biden has to do and the Democrats have to do is, you know, be within bounds, but listen.
	One thing that has struck me, just as an observer of information for the last couple decades, is how quickly these major events and they're important and they still, you know, deserve a lot of coverage, and obviously we want to know exactly what happened with the shooter.
	You know, i'm not sure, by this weekend is Donald Trump going to be out there, you know, basically giving a peace and love speech?
	I, I highly doubt it.
	So I think this election will remain spirited.
	I hope everybody who's got a microphone, particularly elected officials and those seeking office, take a beep to say, okay, we can disagree about issues uh, without perhaps maligning people's motives to the extent that that might have been the case pre-saturday, but I think this is going to be a fierce debate and I I do think what worries me you're right, J.d Bance, I think is a is a talented communicator, obviously a very good writer.
Democrats Fear Trump's 48-Year-Old Rhetoric 00:03:40
	I do think that he is now the heir apparent to Donald Trump.
	Things he has said about the Constitution, about abiding by election results, I think are deeply concerning, not just to people like me, but to voters.
	So that'll be interesting.
	But I would just say this as a practitioner, the vice presidential candidate really matters very, very little unless you make a massive mistake.
	It is, it's the thing that the media, right, left center spends a lot of time on.
	And it's incredibly important from the governing standpoint.
	And by the way, Donald Trump's 78.
	So it could be from an actual standpoint.
	His nominee, JD Vance, becomes president.
	So it's important to kick the tires.
	But in terms of the campaign, it's very much about the two contenders at the top of the ticket.
	In this case, actually more than two, because you've got third party candidates.
	And I would just say that's important, Megan, which is what's the win number in the state you mentioned, Pennsylvania, Michigan.
	It's not going to be 50.
	And that's what concerns me as a Democrat is if Trump really is at 47, 48, 49, that could be enough to win.
	So Joe Biden has to get him back down to 44 to 46 to have a chance of a win.
	That's such a, but Hogan, the thing is, and he look, there's no question, Trump has said incendiary things too, and his supporters have too, but Trump is the one who got shot in the face.
	You know, I mean, that's just the reality of the situation.
	And as we go forward now, you know, Joe Biden says he's going to be kinder and gentler and all that or lower the temperature, but it was literally days before the assassination attempt that he was out there calling Trump a racist.
	Sorry, rapist, rapist.
	Sure, he's called him a racist too, but rapist, which is about as incendiary as one can get.
	So I do still think he's not going to get away with that.
	Like there will be media calling some attention to him going to places like that.
	I sure hope so because they haven't in the past.
	Listen, milquetoast Mitt Romney, Joe Biden said would put black people back in chains.
	He said Mitt Romney was going to re-enslave black people.
	So this guy is not some, you know, soft-handed, genteel gentleman.
	He is a tough, bare-knuckle political brawler and says stuff all the time, quite frankly, that isn't true.
	You just talked about this, showing the clip from Lester, where he says, no, basically, look, Trump, he's Hitler.
	He's a racist.
	Charlottesville, he said there's going to be a bloodbath.
	There's going to be fighting.
	He incited a riot.
	But we need to bring the temperature down, guys.
	You just did it.
	Had he said, listen, everyone needs to bring the temperature down, starting with me.
	I'm going to do it.
	I'm going to be the leader here.
	On top of that, I'm going to make sure the president of the United States, former President Donald Trump has a lot of secret service.
	I'm going to make sure JFK has it as well.
	It would be more RFK, RFK, correct.
	It would be more, it would be better for the American people to see that kind of Joe Biden, but that's not who he is.
	And the left has a real problem here because for so long, they've been saying, Donald Trump, Republicans, we're a threat to democracy.
	We're Hitler.
	We're racist, all these things.
	But now, if Joe Biden is going to abide by his own standard, which is bringing down the rhetoric, what does he have to run on?
	All he does is go around saying that the right is full of racists that are threats to our very democracy.
	If he's going to lower the temperature, he's got to be the Larry Hagman character in primary colors.
	Like you actually have to go out there and have measured tone and be, you know, and this is all ignoring the thing that, you know, I think many of us can't get past.
	And it's not just that Joe Biden is old.
	It's that he does not appear to be all there.
	He cannot put two sentences together.
	You see it every time.
	It's like, oh, look watching the tightrope walker.
	Like, oh, this is scary.
	There was another moment with Lester just last night.
Done with Debt and SiriusXM Promo 00:02:40
	I'll play it short.
	What happens if you have another episode like we saw during the debate?
	What happened?
	What happens if you have another performance on that bar on that level?
	Let him plan that in life first.
	All right.
	I tell you, my heart goes out to Lester.
	So awkward, uncomfortable.
	Happens every day when he sits, right?
	So whether it's Stephan Lafayetteopoulos or Lester or these other interviews, he gave one to another gentleman there was a very awkward exchange about Zionism.
	We could go on.
	Although we can't write this second because we have to take a break.
	All right, we'll be right back.
	Hogan and David stay with us for the remainder of the show.
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Streaming the Show on SiriusXM at Home 00:10:15
	Happy birthday!
	Don't miss Trump next time.
	Speaking of divisive rhetoric, that was a big example.
	Yesterday, when that video went viral, people believed, and we said, that it was actor Jack Black.
	Turns out Black wasn't the one who made the actual comment, don't miss next time.
	He was standing next to a bandmate who said that.
	And that bandmate was a guy by the name of Kyle Gass.
	In response to the controversy, and you can hear Black did not fix or attempt to in the moment, Black released a statement after the fact, reading in part, I was blindsided by what was said.
	I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form.
	Mr. Black then said he's made the decision to put the band's upcoming tour on hold.
	Good call.
	Back with me now, Hogan Gidley and David Plough.
	You know, you spend two minutes on TikTok or Insta or whatever, and you're going to see a lot of people saying exactly what that bandmate said.
	Why'd you miss?
	Take better shooting lessons.
	You know, it's just, it's so disheartening.
	It's kind of depressing, to be honest.
	There is something interesting happening in the media, though, over at MSNBC.
	And Hogan, I wanted to start with you on this one.
	So Joe Scarborough's show was pulled yesterday morning, and NBC had told Scarborough and the world that that was because they were going to stay in rolling, breaking news coverage, which is the thing you do.
	We used to call it rolling thunder over at Fox News.
	You just stay in Rolling Thunder where there's breaking news and, you know, all bets are off on what the previously scheduled programs were.
	And they claimed that Scarborough had agreed to it along with his wife and co-host Mika.
	Now today, we hear something very different because what happened after Scarborough was they went back to their normal lineup, which, you know, makes clear they pulled just Morning Joe and for a reason.
	And here was an extraordinary moment on his show this morning.
	We were told in no uncertain terms on Sunday evening that there was going to be one news feed across all NBC News channels yesterday.
	The today's show would be Lester Holt, other people you worked with on Sunday, and that that was going to be one news feed across all NBC News channels.
	That did not happen.
	We don't know why that didn't happen.
	Our team was not given a good answer as to why that didn't happen, but it didn't happen.
	We were very surprised.
	We were very disappointed.
	And if we had known that there wasn't going to be the one news feed from NBC News across all NBC News channels, Willie, we obviously would have been in yesterday morning.
	Why don't we just say, next time we're told there's going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our show.
	Yeah.
	And the news feed will be us or they can get somebody else to host the show.
	Oh, my God.
	I have secondhand embarrassment for how awkward that was.
	AF, as the kids would say.
	So Hogan, what do you make of MSNBC basically admitting they've got a host on in the morning who is so incendiary, he can't be trusted to take air a day and a half after a presidential assassination attempt.
	And following, of course, the Ronald McDaniel debacle as well, this is not obviously a good look for MSNBC.
	And what you're hearing kind of is that peek behind the curtain where why did they really do this?
	And then all these kind of leaks start coming out that they were afraid someone on that set was going to say something about that assassination attempt that would make it appear as though the network or Morning Joe itself condoned an assassination.
	That tells you a lot about what you need to know as it relates to the mainstream media.
	And it also tells you a lot as it relates to bringing down that rhetoric that Joe Biden is talking about.
	And while both sides are going to say, no, you do it, no, you do it.
	There are problems in the media.
	There are problems with politicians who make claims all the time that are way over the top and that obviously bring the temperature to a point that is set to boil over at any moment.
	But this particular instance, I think, at MSNBC kind of encapsulates so many of the complaints on our side of the aisle that say, wait, in a time where a former president was almost shot through the head and killed on national television, you chose to pull your number one rated show because you were afraid the cat would be let out of the bag.
	I think it's a really bad look.
	And I think it is a very impactful, important statement about the overall tone and tenor of the mainstream media.
	David Pluff, if Joe Scarborough really does walk from that role, they should hire you tomorrow, who could do that show in his sleep, honestly, and with insightful analysis from somebody who's actually been in the business of getting presidents elected.
	I think we should all call their bluff.
	And then you should slide right in.
	Well, that's kind of Megan.
	I'd have to get up too early.
	And listen, that's a great point.
	I'm an MSNBC contributor.
	I don't have any visibility into the decision.
	By the way, a decision to say we're just going to have one feed, you know, I could support that, right?
	You kind of want to have it.
	You do it sometimes.
	It's people who are, you know, have good sources and law enforcement and you've got people on the ground in Pennsylvania.
	So I think the challenge here was, of course, it wasn't one feed.
	It was just one program.
	And perhaps that they changed their mind as the day went on.
	That wasn't communicated.
	But you've got to trust your talent.
	That's something I've learned in any kind of organization.
	You got to trust your talent.
	I will say this back to our previous discussion about civility and what's in bounds.
	Like as a political practitioner, I think what the Trump campaign likely will do is very transparent to me, very cynical, which is they want to silence arguments against Trump.
	Because in the research I've seen, they heard him.
	Project 2025 is interesting.
	That's, by the way, Donald Trump, I mean, Hogan knows him well, doesn't tend to run away from things.
	He's running away from that like Hussein Bolt because he realizes the elements of it, which I think will make up the blueprint for the Trump second term, you know, are very, very anathema to voters.
	I think, you know, his position on healthcare, getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, 20 million plus people losing health care.
	There's real challenges.
	Now, those tend to be issues.
	I do think, you know, respecting the results of election, that's not something we should shy away from talking, even post-assassination attempt.
	But I think you'll see that an effort from the Trump campaign and other voices to say, hey, you shouldn't be criticizing this guy.
	And again, my guess is we'll see what Trump's speech is Thursday.
	By the way, if Trump, I'd be curious, you know, Hogan, your view on this.
	Like if Trump were to say Thursday night, listen, I've reflected on this.
	I can't believe I lost to Joe Biden.
	I still can't believe it.
	But you know what?
	He won the election.
	That's why I'm running to defeat him.
	I think I'll defeat him.
	What that would do is swing voters.
	And listen, Trump has the base.
	He can say anything.
	That's not going to happen.
	I know.
	Hogan, do you disagree with me?
	He doesn't disagree with me.
	Of course he's not, but he should, because if you're working.
	Of course, but we've all been saying things about Trump should for eight, nine years and he doesn't listen to us.
	But my point is, Megan, if you're in a window where you might have a permission struck through the voters that previously weren't available to you, okay?
	What I used to write.
	I get it.
	I get it.
	But if he were in that state of mind, we'd be talking about vice presidential candidate Glenn Youngkin, Nikki Haley, or Doug Bergham.
	He's definitely not, I think.
	Right.
	In that state of mind.
	Sorry to rush you out, but I want to play this soundbite.
	We just got it on tape.
	Charlie Kirk referenced it earlier.
	And the head of the Secret Service, Kim Cheadle, did give an interview to ABC in which he did make a remarkable explanation for why they didn't have snipers on the rooftop that was right there, 150 yards or less away from Trump.
	Listen to the sloped roof excuse.
	The roof have been secure, period.
	That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point.
	And so, you know, there's a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on a sloped roof.
	And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building from inside.
	I mean, oh my God, that's just like, that's why we're going to have weeks and months of hearings now, Hogan.
	Like, I don't, there are many people who think that this was a conscious decision.
	The Secret Service somebody hated Trump.
	I am not one of those people.
	But that level of incompetence is why people are scratching their heads.
	They don't understand that.
	Well, I worked with the men and women of the Secret Service for years in the White House, as you know, and more brave people.
	I mean, I was humbled by their performances every single day when someone stormed the treasury.
	They came in and got staffed too.
	I mean, they're everywhere all the time, but there's no question this is a systemic failure by the Secret Service at this point.
	If there aren't some serious questions asked by journalists, if there aren't some serious questions asked by Joe Biden, his FBI, and others, I don't know that we're ever going to get to the bottom of this.
	But I can say what's interesting was as soon as this happened, I thought to myself, it didn't seem right to me right off the bat.
	And typically in years past, I would even say pre-Trump, this thing may have gone on for months without anyone really offering too many questions substantively.
	Within minutes, people were like, now, hold on a second.
	How does this happen?
	Why was the guy this close?
	How come these other people with the video we shot, these other snipers, it looked like they had the guy in his sights, but they let him fire the gun.
	All of these things kind of come up and they bubble to the surface.
	And it really does go to kind of a bigger concern that this rhetoric is really hot and this does boil over in these ways.
	An attempt of an assassination on a political person is so unforgivable in today's world.
	You cannot do that.
	To watch Donald Trump, though, go down, stand up with blood on his face and put his fist in the air and yell fight, fight, fight, to let the American people know he was okay.
Assassination Attempt and Hot Political Rhetoric 00:00:49
	That is going to be a statue.
	That is going to be a t-shirt.
	That is going to be a poster.
	That to me is one of the most iconic images this country's seen really since George Bush took that megaphone at 9-11 saying the whole country hears you and the world's going to hear us soon.
	The people who tore these buildings down.
	Really, really impactful.
	Thank God he was okay.
	Only wish we could say the same for all of the attendees and a prayer to those who are still suffering.
	I gotta, I gotta write apologies, guys.
	I'm up against the clock.
	All the best to you both.
	Hogan, great to see you again, David.
	Please come back and we'll see you soon in Milwaukee ourselves.
	Tomorrow on the show, we've got Ruthless, we've got Vivek Ramaswamy, and we've got Elise Stefanik.
	The fun begins in Milwaukee.
	Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
	No BS, no agenda, and no

Chapters

00:00:30 JD Vance: The Voice of the Rust Belt
00:02:46 Hillbilly Elegy and a Traumatized Childhood
00:12:23 A 39-Year-Old Vice Presidential Candidate
00:22:05 Trump's Pick vs. Willy Wonka
00:38:09 Gender Issues and Radical Conservative Smears
00:40:14 Secret Service Failures and Left-Wing Promises
00:51:21 Grand Canyon University: Find Your Purpose
00:53:30 An Unusual Republican Convention Strategy
01:09:37 Lester Holt Interview and Voter Sentiment
01:25:02 Democrats Fear Trump's 48-Year-Old Rhetoric
01:28:43 Done with Debt and SiriusXM Promo
01:31:23 Streaming the Show on SiriusXM at Home
01:41:38 Assassination Attempt and Hot Political Rhetoric