The Megyn Kelly Show - Brutal Reality About Putin, and Biden Sounding Like Trump, with Buck Sexton and Jason Whitlock | Ep. 273

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by Buck Sexton, co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, and Jason Whitlock, Fearless host on BlazeTV, to talk about wishful thinking about Ukraine and the brutal reality about Putin's war plans, the West's role in pushing Putin to this point, talk about the historical context to this Ukraine invasion, the truth about America's Russia relationship, the truth about NATO, the push to declare Putin a "war criminal," Biden sounding like Trump at the State of the Union, what Biden didn't say about January 6, Phil Mickelson's brutally honest Saudi Arabia comments, elite hypocrisy from all sides, who gets redemption and who doesn't in our current culture, the latest on Lia Thomas, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. We begin today with reports that Russian forces have captured their first city in Ukraine, a town of 300,000 called Kherson. One week into the conflict, what happens next? And if Russian President Vladimir Putin feels like he is losing, what is his next move? My first guest today is a man you know well, Buck Sexton. He's co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. He's also a former CIA analyst. He completed tours of duty as an intel officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other hotspots around the globe and led intelligence briefings for senior U.S. officials, including former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Buck, great to have you back. How are you doing? I'm good, Megan. Thanks for having me. So there's so much to talk about with this story. I mean, from the split within the conservative and Republican side on how to handle this and what to do with respect to Putin and so on, to whether Putin's losing his mind or this is all part of a long game calculation and he's the chess master some believe him to be. So let's just start with the latest sort of round of headlines, which is queries about why it's taking Putin so long, about why it hasn't gone as well as at least the West thought it would, about why we're one week into this with only one city surrendering, or at least in Putin's control in Ukraine. Well, Megan, I think the dominant narrative on this is wrong. I think that people who are focused in too much, a lot of the analysts, a lot of the news coverage seems to suggest that Russia is almost in an unsustainable position already and that the Ukrainian resistance, and I don't want to say this because I would very much

like it if this war would end as we're speaking and with the Ukrainians maintaining their sovereignty, their independence, and defeating this Russian incursion. That all said, the overwhelming narrative that I've seen in the last week is look at how the Russians have been slowed. This is a disaster for Putin. There seems to be a bit of wishful thinking, I believe, in how they're assessing the ability of the Ukrainians to continue on in this fight. I mean, I could go through if you want. I mean, I've done some wargaming of this on my own and also with other people I know who are national security experts specifically about what's likely to happen the days ahead. But the Russian capitulation is unfortunately not even a little bit of a possibility at this at this stage, based on what we're already seeing.

The Russians are actually moving really fast. And I think most of this is going according to Putin's plan. What how so? Right. Because I think a lot of us thought it wouldn't take a week. Right. And that they wouldn't be losing Russian soldiers at the rate they reportedly are. I mean, who knows what to believe when they repeat these numbers? The Russians lie. The Ukrainians lie. We don't know what's real in terms of the losses match, you've got a heavyweight who is much larger than the opponent, right? The Russians are the bigger, stronger, heavier boxer than the Ukrainian forces are fighting against. And absolutely came out with a big swing and tried for a knockout right away. way, that doesn't mean that now that it goes 12 rounds, that you're not going to see something that is unfortunately favoring the larger, stronger opponent, which is, I think, where we are. Yeah, absolutely. Putin, and I think that whatever, you know, the intelligence assessments are still classified, but what's made it into the press seems to be there was a belief among the Russians that he could, among the Russian leadership, among Putin and his top advisers, that he could probably do this in a few days. OK, he also planned for it not to go a few days. That's why he only deployed maybe 10 percent or so of his actual forces gathered on the Ukrainian border in the first week. So when you look at that, I mean, if he were, if the whole plan were to just go and knock out the Ukrainian resistance and either have Zelensky flee the country or be captured, whatever it may be, in a week, he would have gone with everything

he had or something close to it. He went with a small portion of it to see if maybe he could. Exactly. I mean, this is, when you look at other military campaigns. Sure. Would we have loved it if Saddam Saddam Hussein had been capitulated or even died in an initial strike of shock? And all? Yeah. But there's a reason why we had hundreds of thousands of troops ready to go and not just what was already in country or the airstrike. My concern, Megan, is that the Russians are going to and this is, I think, part of the when I say the plan, I mean, everything is dynamic, right? There is that great line by Mike Tyson that no plan survives. Sorry, everybody has a plan until they get, that's a different line I was going to quote.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. That's the reality of all warfare, all conflict. And, you know, no plan survives first contact with the enemy is the other famous line. So the, uh, the Russians, I think are, are prepared for this, which you're going to see likely is the encirclement of Kiev and a major air campaign. And this goes to where the Russians, whenever you're invading another country, you're on someone else's turf. We saw this in Iraq. We saw this in Afghanistan. It's very hard to do ground operations, stability operations, because you're invading another country, you're on someone else's turf. We saw this in Iraq. We saw this in Afghanistan. It's very hard to do ground operations, stability operations, because you're just vulnerable. You're in convoys. They can see you coming. They know unfortunately, is going to be pretty indiscriminate and high level casualties. I mean, Chechnya, if I think very few people in America have an understanding of the recent Russian history in Chechnya, that's the closest.

When you say Chechnya, this is what I think of. I think of a scene from Bridget Jones, where Renee Zellweger is out with Hugh Grant and she's trying to make conversation with him. And she says, isn't it horrible what's happening in Chechnya? And he says, Jesus, Jones, I couldn't give a ffff. I'm giving up swearing for Lent. So that's the thing. Like people are like, who? What?

Where? I actually haven't seen Bridget Jones. Oh, my God, Buck. What am I going to do with you you've been out like advising all these presidents on wars and cia matters you haven't been doing the important stuff yeah uh yeah so i i have to add that one to the list um but yeah as as for chechnya um and it's interesting because it actually would be much more i think it's better known in the european context just because of the geography and you know closer closer in the neighborhood but the russians went in twice uh under yeltsin 1994-1996

the soviet union dissolves and you have all these independent soviet former soviet republics popping up and some of them did so i think the line from yeltsin was something like you know you can have all the sovereignty you can stomach or something like that. Right. Like, go for it. You want to break off and the economy's a mess. Go for it. Except for Chechnya. And that had to do in large part with it being a an enclave of, well, radical Islam, jihadism. And there were concerns that this would be something that could stretch well beyond Chechnya if they were allowed to have this as a stronghold. At least that was the Russian point of view on it. Anyway, they went in. Actually, the Russians effectively lost the first incursion. The Chechens, I always think this is interesting,

you know, hill people, whether it's the Scots or it's the Hmong in Southeast Asia or it's the all the tribes in Afghanistan, hill people tend to be pretty fierce and into resisting central authority. Same thing is true in Chechnya, where the Chechens have a centuries long history of being fighters, essentially. Bandits, fighters, honor society where they will die before they submit, that kind of stuff. So they fought the Russians, actually beat the Russians well enough that they maintained some degree of independence then putin comes along which is i think the interesting part of the of the quick history i'll do and this is i think 1999 or so and putin comes in they fake using fsb agents uh some apartment bombings kill a whole

bunch of russians and say oh that was the chechens who did that one so now we've got to go on with everything we've got and megan they basically leveled Grozny, which is the capital city or the primary city in Chechnya. And that was a very bloody, very bloody fight where they brought in and Putin was willing to just use artillery and airstrikes to beat them. And finally, after 10 years of fighting in 2009 or so, it was considered over. So although it still goes on in little pockets here and there. So Putin is the guy who came in and is like, whatever we have to do. And that's how he rose to power. People got to remember this. That was in the beginning, right? So Putin, I think, has

both the mindset and also the experience to elevate things dramatically in Ukraine to get his way. That's what I think is going to happen. And again, this is one of those times I really hope I'm wrong. I hope the Russian casualties, which are high, are such that Putin is getting pressure from home and all this sort of stuff. I just don't think that's the way it's going to play out. He's not typically a guy who bends under pressure. It's not exactly what he's known for. Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you just in my own life here, you know, talking to moms who are only keeping one finger on the news cycle, you know, they don't have the full pulse covered. We'll say like, could they win? You know, I'm

praying for the Ukrainians, like, maybe they can do it. And I think sadly, we're confusing hope with, you know, predictions. We would all like to see the Ukrainians and Zelensky managed to pull out a W. It's a sovereign nation. It's been invaded. You don't want to see the invaders conquer. But it doesn't look like it's going to go that way, especially with the more time that goes on. And now they're saying some people in the intelligence and defense communities are saying

this thing could go on for 10, 15 years, that where you have basically an insurgency going on within Ukraine. The fighting never ends. Ukraine is completely destroyed as a country. And even if they wind up getting it back after all that time, what are they getting back? And we're seeing it destroyed brick by brick on the news every night. So we don't there's not a lot of hopeful outcomes that are realistic right now with Ukraine. But let's get to how we got here and how we should

be thinking about it, because it's been fascinating watching the factions divide on this story. The left seems very pro. I don't know if it's fair to say they're pro intervention, but they're the ones that have all the Ukraine flags and their avatars on Twitter. And they're sounding a lot more pro-invasion or certainly pro-war than they have in a long time. And the right, they're all over the board. There's that faction that says we should be going in and we should be doing a no-fly zone. There's the faction that says we shouldn't be touching this. There's a faction that says we caused it and we have only ourselves to blame. And Putin's in the right, even though they don't like what Putin's doing. They'll say, like, he's not wrong in his outrage.

Where do you fall? I just draw a bright red line on this is not America's fight. And so we shouldn't. And by that, I mean, we should not send in troops. And the moment you are squaring off against, remember, we didn't even do this during the Cold War. We were not, we're not shooting Russian or Soviet at the time planes out of the sky. So this would be something that we haven't seen in, call it a roughly a hundred, a 100 years or so of dealing with the Soviet Union and now the remnants of it through Russia and Putin's authoritarianism. So when I think you put it in a historical context, it's easier to understand why that kind of escalation is so frightening and also just unwise strategically and terrifying from a human loss perspective. I think the left, I mean,

I can, I'll start on that side of it for a second. I think they just back the regime. I think that they've been conditioned. I mean, you know, our reigning regime. Is that what you mean? I mean, I mean, the by sorry, the Biden regime, I think they just back their people in power. And so, you know, if all of a sudden Joe Biden said that it's really important for humanitarian purposes for us to invade fill in the blank country. I mean, look, we saw this with the Obama administration, with Hillary Clinton in Libya. All of a sudden, it's we have a humanitarian need. We've got to back an air campaign. And we essentially did an air campaign without a grand ground campaign and let that country dissolve into into civil war and a failed state. That was the legacy before. So I think the left just goes, oh, OK, well, this is what we're supposed to do now, according to the people that we trusted to tell us to double mask outside alone, because God forbid you breathe fresh air like a normal human i think they go along with it on the right it's a little bit of a more complicated discussion um there are some where there are some voices on the left i mean there's glenn greenwald and uh matt taibbi and

and some others were saying you guys know we shouldn't go to what like we spent 20 years learning why we shouldn't go to war in places we shouldn't go to. So maybe we remember that lesson, right? There are some voices on the left. On the right, I think it's actually almost, it feels like more of a reversal where you have very few people that want any kind of military intervention. I don't think anybody in the conservative base respects what Congressman Kinzinger, for example, has to say about honestly anything. And I mean that a lot of people live. Just as an aside, that's a whole other outrage about how they forge forward on January 6th with him and Liz Cheney. And it's whatever comes out there is going to be a joke because Trump basically has no defense.

You know what happens when a prosecutor goes into a court of law and the defense doesn't get to stand up and has no represented representation? The prosecution wins. What a shock. Sorry. Go ahead. No, no. Look, it's so important people realize that the Democrats could be serious about certain things. We could have full scale hearings and actually look at security failures on that day,

look at who did what, but they want to turn it into a circus. And that's what they've been doing from the very beginning. So I think on the on the on the right, people recognize that. I mean, I put myself in this category. We got to stop fighting wars for other people that we aren't even sure what the strategic with the long term strategic goal is. I mean, in the case of Ukraine, sure, it would be Ukrainian independence. All right. But how do you get there and how much are you willing to do? And if you don't have answers to these questions, we're not would be Ukrainian independence. All right, but how do you get there? And how much are you willing to do? And if you don't have answers to these questions, we're not even willing right now, it seems, to fully sanction Russian energy sector, Megan. So how much can we talk about? I mean, when you're talking about a no-fly zone or troops or anything, I mean,

that's orders of magnitude beyond even what we're not willing to do on a bipartisan basis right now. So I think Joe Biden, just for the record, Joe Biden has been saying and said the other night at the State of the Union, we will not be sending troops into Ukraine and seems to be ruling out any explicit or open use of the military. Yeah, no, that that is there's a basically a bipartisan consensus as much as one can be right now about that. I think that's important to establish. But it's a lot easier to establish that or rather that is much more. It seems much more, they're going to take a city and this is going to be, you know, this is not nowhere near to say it's nowhere near over is really a statement of the obvious. But we had all this focus on the like patriotic fight in Ukraine and all these fake stories were coming out. The ghost of Kiev shooting all the planes out of the sky that kind of stuff um but it's becomes very different when people start to see uh buildings leveled um hospitals on fire little girls being pulled out of the rubble that's going to eternity wards bombed yeah and that's going to happen um

the russian military the r Russian security apparatus is ruthless. It truly is ruthless in a way that is not, I think, reflective at all of the general will of the Russian people, which is another distinction that I think gets lost in a lot of this. They're not voting. They're not actively voting for this or supporting this. The Russian people. I mean, I've been there quite a few times. It's they're lovely. They're lovely. They love Putin because he's a strong man. And Russia's had a rough 20, 30 years. And so they like somebody who talks about Russia in strong terms and sort of tries to build it back up.

But they're just like any other person. They're lovely. They care about their families. They don't want bombings. They defer to their leader because he's gotten them through some tough times and he loves mother russia and so do they but i don't believe that they're in favor of this bombing campaign they just they're not in control yeah i i think it's it's interesting that that is the the um the separation that i think people should know of which is that there's not there's not direct

support for this i think if you were to get polling, you can't get polling. I've talked to pollsters about it. You can't get real polling in Russia about this issue, for example. It's just not really possible to do. Not in a meaningful, by-the-data way. But it is worth noting that there's support

for Vladimir Putin generally, as you said, inside of Russia. And it's much broader. Putin was turned because of the Trump thing. And this is a whole other component of this. And it clouds so many people in positions of authority, it clouds their thinking. Putin was turned into this cartoon villain, helping Trump, Trump's the puppet, stealing the election, all this stuff. And, you know, and they don't really have an understanding of, OK, well, who is this guy? What does he want? And does he have the support of a large portion, at least of the Russian people

and the Russian security apparatus? Because the answer to that question is actually yes. He does have support. He does have support, you know, whether he would win a free and fair election, you know, probably not. Maybe. Who knows? I mean, well, he probably would because he controls the media. Right. Like that's another. Well, that's what I mean. What's a free and fair election in Russia? I mean, he's kicked out all the international NGOs that were kind of saying, hey, you don't even have basic civil society poisoning his chief rival. I mean, like there are certain places we won't go here but this is this is always i remember i i had uh i sat down uh over lunch with a a guy in new york who's big and very very big in the art scene a long time ago and this is when i was uh this is when i was you know still in my kind of government phase he's like what's going on with this guy who got poisoned uh with the polonium and everything? He asked me this question.

Navalny. I just said to him, the Russians send a message. This isn't that they're, this isn't sloppy as in they didn't know, they couldn't think of a better way to do it. The Russian security apparatus, they're all remnants of the KGB and the KGB was effectively an evil and

godless security service. So that still is very, those, we think of the deep state in this country, the deep state in the former Soviet Union and Russia is a whole other level. So I think that's important to know. But Putin did shepherd people, the people of Russia, out of, it was humiliating. I think that's an important part of this too. I mean, with the collapse of Soviet Union, we all view it as the victory that St. Reagan gave us, which is great. But the truth of it is that for the people that lived there, they were impoverished in a way that I think very few people in the West really have any understanding of. And it was truly humiliating. And so Putin came along as and Yeltsin was also

an embarrassment. And Putin came along all the time. You know, he's drunk. I mean, the guy's drunk all the time. And it was like it was he was a late night laugh line. Truly. Right. I mean, still is to this day in a lot of ways. And Putin comes along, he's like, no, there's something called Russia and it's serious. And, you know, we are a real people and we're, you know, manly and tough and all this stuff. And also built a Russian middle class. Now we did it with fossil fuels that were there before he got there, but there is a Russian middle class of some kind that didn't exist before. So it's just more, and I think there's some elements on the right, Megan, right now in our conversation, bring it back to that,

who are more aware of the complexity of the Russian situation, of Russia's view of what NATO is. And I think they're also sensitive. And this I agree with them on, they're sensitive to shutting down discussion, to squashing discussion about important policy issues, because what we saw during COVID was just, was a national shame of shutting down important discussions.

That's an interesting parallel. I hadn't yet made that connection. You're right. Because you know what, when I hear, I don't want to say that people are blaming America exactly, but there's been a fair amount of talk about what we did and, you know, prior to the invasion over the past 10, 15 years in Ukraine. And, you know, there were some people who talked like that after 9-11 and it was absolutely verboten. I mean, that kind of talk was not going to be tolerated with 3,000 Americans dead, little kids losing their parents who just went to work one day, finding out that they no longer had a dad or no longer had a mom and little kids themselves getting burned up on airplanes that were used as missiles. And we were not going to talk about our own foreign policy. And it was like blaming the victim. It was like blaming the victim. You know, it was like blaming the victim. It's like when the woman gets killed, who's in a domestic violence

situation, you go after the man. That's it. You put the husband in jail, period. You don't say, well, what does she do to annoy him? You know, and I do think the 9-11 situation is a little bit more like that. There's not a lot of good to be spent talking about what do we do? Because it's us. It's our world beliefs. It's the way we view the world. It's our commitment to freedom and so on that Osama bin Laden hated. It's not like we irritated him and we're sorry. This is not that. This, we actually did do some provocative things that he was warning all along would have devastating consequences. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, even Bill Clinton. You know, there's a history. Anyway, that's where we're going to pick it up right after this break. I'd love to get your reaction

to what I just said and then take it further. This is an important conversation. I want to have. So glad to have you here today, Buck. Don't go away. Much more to do. Okay, I'll let you take it from here, Buck, in response to what I said before the break. Sure. I mean, look, and this is tough because there's a sense of mobilize. There's outrage and there's mobilization underway right now. So we talk about what are the U S and when I say the U S what are the, essentially the West Europe, uh, what was done that was, even if you want to say exploited by or seized on Putin, it's, it's at least worth being aware of what happened that, that pushed

it to this, this place. Um, and, and place. And look, I would argue that the Russians have been running, that Georgia was effectively a dry run for this and the setting up of the two autonomous zones of south of Ossetia and Abkhazia, where they just decided, okay, well, these are Russian speaking enclaves in a internationally recognized country. They're now not. There's something that the Russians are. They're Russian puppet states, client states. So the Russians have been angling for this for a while, too, to be fair. This is, you know, Putin is not a guy who's sitting around thinking about how he can get along better with the international community and be a moral actor. He thinks he's being a great game, power, strong man actor. Well, that's worth pausing on too. First of all, so Georgia happened in 2008 and then we did nothing really afterward. But that's another important thing. So Putin,

people who are having a love affair with Putin in our country, I mean, there is a certain faction that really they love the guy because they think, well, I don't know, he's not woke and he's a strong man. OK, let's not confuse ourselves. Those those things are true. But Putin is not rooting for the United States of America at all. Putin would love to see the American experiment fail, has done his level best to try to make it fail without necessarily leaving fingerprints on all of his efforts. What he really wants is chaos. He'll take the Black Lives Matter messages and have his bots promo that all over social media. And then he'll take the sort of the more right wing response to it and promo that all over social media. He doesn't care which side wins. He cares that

we're fighting. He's absolutely trying to subvert unity within the United States, criticize capitalism, and would love to see the United States, criticize capitalism, and would love to see the United States in a weaker, more submissive position. So people shouldn't get confused about what Putin wants with respect to us or our country. Yeah, I think that's all true. And I think that's important context for all of our thinking about what he's going to do and also what we should do and have done up to this point. So that's it's worth remembering. He is zero sum with the U.S. Yep. And you have to when we see it this way or when people think of it this way,

I think it's helpful, Megan, that the when he says what the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union. I mean, this is a mentality that is not, you know, you have to be aware of it in the Russian context to understand that they view all of this, that the creation of these other republics, the carving up of the former Soviet Union, Putin views this as unjust and something that should be corrected. He views the separation of Russian speaking peoples as a result of these national boundaries as an affront to the dignity of the Russian people. I mean, there's a whole history here as well, I think is not well understood in the West of the Russians thinking of themselves as the latest incarnation, if you will, of Rome.

And I know this is, but Russian Orthodox Christianity is an offshoot of Eastern Orthodox or Byzantine Christianity. And they view themselves as the defenders and the, not just the heirs, the inheritors now of that legacy. And so there's all these, these stories of not just national, but civilizational pride that go into the Russian thinking about who they are and what their role is in the world and trying to, trying to get that back at some level after the collapse of the Soviet union. But there, there, believe it or not, there is a thread that it's, there was the ancient Rome that we think of. And then there was, which obviously became a Christian empire. And then there's the Eastern Orthodox Christian empire out of Constantinople, Byzantium. And then it moved to Russia. And they're the final inheritors of the legacy of Orthodox Christianity and the defenders of it. And that's why the Russian Orthodox Church is, you know, the separation between church and state does not exist there. The Russian Orthodox Church is very much a part of a lot of what Putin's nationalism

and narratives are. So in all that context, I think when you look at what the U.S. did or how we how we handled this up to this point, you know, it should have been we should have seen this coming at some level. I think I do believe that there was a sense that he wouldn't do this, that there was a oh, no, he won't attitude about Ukraine. That was ignoring the trajectory and ignoring the recent history. Can we talk about what specifically we did? You know, can we talk about what I mean, the United States, the some call it a soft coup to 2014, trying to remove this pro-Soviet leader of Ukraine. The Maidan Square. And that's what they called it, the Maidan Revolution. But, you know, Putin would say

whatever you want to call it was the United States basically deposing the pro-Russian leader of Ukraine and replacing him with a pro-Western leader of Ukraine and our expansion of NATO. Forget Ukraine, but our expansion of NATO prior to Ukraine and at least talking about whether Ukraine could be part of it and putting troops, you know, closer and closer to his borders, which he said, you know, you guys didn't like that in Cuba and I don't like it here and you better stop it. And there's no reason for it. You know, World War Two is a long time ago. The Soviet empire fell. What are you doing? It's provocative. And I will respond. And Crimea happened because of the 2014 change in leaders. And that was one of the things he did. There was Crimea and then there were the two separatist areas. In any event, how do you see our own manipulation of Ukraine? Because some are now looking, you know, one of the things I said early on in this controversy was Ukraine did nothing to deserve this. And I think that's still fair to say.

They did nothing to deserve what he's doing to them. But maybe it's too simplistic because they and the West have been maneuvering in a way that's been provocative to Russia. Again, none of this is to justify his behaviors. It's just background. Yeah, I think understanding the full context is necessary for sound decision making. If we allow emotion and there has been a lot of that and I think a lot of the analysis, I mean, I'm seeing people that I know who are people that that have real military experience, including at the at the command level, going on TV and saying, oh my gosh, the Ukrainians are just kicking Russian ass. And this is going to be, if we keep going here, I'm looking at this saying, there's no way, but they're caught up in the emotion, right? They're forgetting what they already know and what they've experienced in

the past, which is the way a military campaign like this would unfold. So just as a point of point of prefacing, I think that's important. And then as to what we've done, I mean, the why does NATO exist? I was in Afghanistan right before the first time I actually ever did your show, Megan, back in the day, I was in Afghanistan and people forget it. That was a NATO mission. But everyone's kind of sitting around saying or, you know, our NATO allies were there. We're saying, well, wait, is this is NATO now a global peacekeeping force? Is that why the answer is no, not not really. I mean, it's actually supposed to be about Russia or was about the Soviet Union.

And so the continuation of this military, it's a military alliance. If anyone attacks anyone now, people say it also keeps the peace in Europe because this way, you know, France won't invade Germany or whatever stuff that obviously historically was a big problem. Used to be a thing. Yeah, used to be a thing. Definitely. with Russia and you have to say, okay, so now it really is about creating a military buffer and essentially make sure that Russia stays outgunned on it, not just when it comes to invading NATO countries, but even on its own periphery countries like Ukraine and Georgia and areas that were, now the Baltics are under the NATO umbrella, which is a huge sore spot for putin and russians who think like him but you know we were thinking about taking a military alliance that does thoroughly outgun the russians in a conventional military sense uh right up to the

borders of his country and that was under active Again, this is not the, you know, this is not to be a Ukraine's actions have resulted in this discussion. But just to understand how we got here, I think people underestimated in the West, Putin's resolve about this and how much, you know, he views it as a provocation. He also views it, I think, at some level as an opportunity. I mean, he does want Russian client states because, of course, he does, because he thinks about this in a zero sum way. He doesn't care about democracy. He doesn't care about the the day to day folks who live in Ukraine or Georgia or the Baltics or you name it. It's just whatever is best for the project of Russian, dare I say, in his mind, Russian greatness or the reconstituting of Russian greatness. Gary Kasparov, who's on the show earlier this week, you know, a famous world famous chess player and Putin critic, and he's Russian, been pushing for democratic reforms there

for years. And he said that you're asking, I said, why, why would he do it? He said, you're asking the wrong question. It's not why it's why not in Putin's mind. Yeah, there's no moral compunction. This is a KGB guy, truly a KGB guy. Now it's broken up and you have the GRU Russian intelligence for the military. You have the SVR foreign intelligence, you have the FSB domestic intelligence.

But that's just essentially like taking the different components of what was the KGB. A lot of them, a lot of the same people actually running it and saying, okay, well now, you know, you're moving the acronyms around, but it's effectively. Still spells KGB ultimately. Yeah. You add it all together, it kind of still does spell KGB. It's close enough. And I think that, you know, when we, we're still forgetting in many cases how much that legacy, that mentality lives on. I mean, when you have the head of the country, he was set up so that the great enemy and to the point of of the the belief that there could be the annihilation of the Russian people in a nuclear exchange. The enemy was America and Europe. That was the this is a guy who his formative years were spent learning that we were the bad guys yeah and that's you know you don't you don't shake that you know i mean i don't know i'm sure

people listening to this my grandfather fought in world war ii in the pacific theater and you know it was a very different japan you know he passed about 10 years ago but he still had some feelings about that part of the world that he never shook that. I mean, when you spend your 20s thinking that someone and fighting in somebody as the enemy, it can really affect your thinking over the long term. In the case of Putin, I think he still feels it. Well, I mean, let's just let's go out into a truly fantasy wing and say the Taliban somehow decides to run Afghanistan in a kind, gentle way. And they've managed to provide food for people and provide jobs for people in a way that's definitely not happening now because there's mighty suffering. In 20 years, will anybody who

lived through 9-11 and the war there be looking at, oh, yeah, OK, I've softened on the Taliban? You know, like, no, we will not. We know who they are. We lived it firsthand for years. Yeah, I mean, that's that's that's really exactly what I'm saying here. I mean, I was a CIA analyst, so wasn't a door kicker, wasn't a ground pounder like the guys in the military over there, but I was in theater trying to figure out and help them find the bad guys and try to tell the policy community what was really going on. And Taliban was the enemy, straight up. And it's, you know, that my thinking on that is, is always, it's always going to be colored by that at some level. I mean, and seeing what was being done and the fighting that,

that our guys were doing over there. You know, it's tough to shake that. And so I think people should remember that in Putin's mentality, we're the bad guys. That's how he sees us. And by the way, you know, not to disjustify it, but I'm saying, but if you look back at sort of the 1980s, which I remember, all of our movies, you know, the Russians were always the bad guys. We always demonized them too. And during the Cold War and the escalation of the nuke buildup and so on, it was we at every turn wanted to demonize the Russians. And he lived through that, you know, at a much older age than I was and remembers it. So he's not a fan of the United States.

He's not a fan of pro-Western democracies. He he wants Mother Russia to be returned to its old glory. And right. So your point is well taken that he's got a couple of goals here. He's mad about what we've been doing that he finds threatening. But he also again back to Kasparov. Why not? Because this is well along the road toward what he wants anyway. Yeah. And anybody who does a risk reward calculation in the West, I think quickly realizes that, I mean, how much do we really look? We want to believe, and I think this is hard for a lot of people to hear right now, we want to believe that we'll do whatever it takes to defend sovereignty of a democracy and human rights and human life anywhere in the world.

Yet when you ask people, okay, are we going to completely cut ourselves off from the Russian energy sector? Just do that. Most people go, well, hold on a second. Does that mean I'm going to be paying what? 50% more at the pump. The US economy goes into a recession. Everything is more expensive because energy people, I think a lot of folks should be reminded half of petroleum, half of oil goes into products. It doesn't even go into transportation, gasoline, fuel, et cetera. It actually goes into things that you need and rely on for your day-to-day life to make them. So, you know, just in the manufacturing process. So I think that when we're not even willing to

take maximum economic action, we have to realize, no, there are limits to this. And we should be, I just think we should all be adults in that conversation. And I do think there are some voices on the right who are trying to say that. And I think there's some other voices that get into weird Putin fanboy stuff, which is gross. That's much more rare, though. And by the way, the so I, you know, I interviewed the former president with Clay last week on this. And they said that the whole focus was that he called Putin a genius. He was saying Putin is a genius in the context that the whole focus was that he called Putin a genius. He was saying Putin is a genius in the context of the strategic maneuvers that he's making against vis-a-vis Biden and the ineptitude of the administration right now. He also said-

So overblown. So overblown. He's not saying he's amazing and we should admire him. He's saying, recognize what his talents are and judge for yourself whether they're being well executed and better than our own policies are yes you get that right this is what actually was this is what actually was the was the communication that he was he was having with us at that time and it was just amazing to see people who think of themselves as serious and honest brokers in the news i mean remember that that's a laugh line or not, completely misrepresenting it as the he's a Putin fan. He's not a Putin fan. And I wish I could say the stuff that he was saying to us off the record about Putin before, but obviously it's off the record before the interview, because I can tell

you he's not a Putin fan at all. But, you know, there's this they want to I think at some level, Megan, there's also a desire to come up with Democrat side of things right now that, oh, it's not really he's not the embarrassment. It's Trump who likes Putin. Trump's not even in office. He's never been running for office. Why are they even talking about his view of Putin? What does that even matter for right now? Right. What are they going to say? Run the clip from 2019 of Joe Biden saying Putin doesn't want me to be the president because I'll well, it turns out, you know what it's like. It's a little like the way they use January 6th against Trump and Trump supporters is not it's not dissimilar from the way they're using the Ukrainian invasion now because they demonized everything Trump did while he was president. Everything. And while they were doing that, they pushed a fake, completely invented Hillary Clinton endorsed theory about Trump somehow having some back channel, some nefarious back channel dealings

with Russia that made him president. And when that completely collapsed, they didn't acknowledge it. They didn't admit it. They didn't apologize. They just switched to the awfulness that was January 6th and said, you see, Trump is evil. We've been trying to tell you all along he's evil. And now it's like they, while demonizing Trump all that time, they were demonizing Putin, right? And Putin has done some bad things with respect to America. We covered some of that, but he's their other villain in that story. So now it's like, he's terrible. He's terrible. He's an enemy of the state. He worked with Trump. He did all the bad stuff. Okay. That falls apart. They don't acknowledge what they said about him with respect to that piece, you know, this alleged cooperation and Alpha Bank and all that

nonsense. But now he does something truly awful. And it's like, we feel justified. You know, the end story shows you this was a terrible person. So in a way, it gives them comfort for the misrepresentations they've been telling us all along. Yes. Yes. I think that's completely accurate. I mean, I would endorse your whole theory of their mentality here because I think that is what's going on. And I would add to it that right now there's got to be some sense of, I think they're, the Democrats are a little bit, at some level, at least unnerved by the recognition that their God Fauci was a false God, that a lot of what they were told and went along with, and were really kind of vicious little marionettes of those in power about when it came to COVID. Anyone who's honest would have to admit now that the apparatus, as I like to call it, which is, by the way, a Soviet kind of a Soviet reference. almost entirely destructive and almost zero benefit from all the stuff that they put us through.

Not not not entirely, but 90 percent of it was either useless or actually made things worse. And I think that now there's a desperation for, oh, and defund the police is horrible and resulted in more people, disproportionately more young black men being killed in this country in criminal incidents after undermining police and progressive prosecutors. You see, spending too much money turns out causes inflation. Oh, what a shock. It's apparently a shock to Biden and the people around him. So there's a desperation. He's like, I've got the solution. We're going to spend more money. We're going to spend more money. Exactly. The inflation is going to get better, when they spend even more trillions of more Great. And you sit here and I think Democrats in general, and I know a lot of them, they emotionalize their politics and internalize it where it's really, really hard for them.

Like sometimes as a Republican, I'm like, wow, maybe was I wrong on that? Or I just think we have a different a different mentality on the right about this stuff. They're desperate for a narrative of they're the good guys. And so by pushing for Ukraine, they say, ah, see, we're the good guys again. And by demonizing not just Putin, but also Trump, it's those are the bad guys. They're making this a point of psychological comfort for themselves at a time when the Democrat Party in the last year or so is responsible for a lot of really bad ideas with COVID, with crime, with the border, with go down the list. Objectively bad with with bad results that folks should be kind of embarrassed about their belief that Biden was going to be a good president. I'm just going to say that. I mean, you know, you can disagree with what Trump did in a lot of ways.

And I know there are people even on the right who do. But he was kind of what you, you know, he was sort of what was voted for. Rather, you know, people knew what they were getting. Joe Biden has a steady hand on foreign policy who unites the country and is going to bring back a roaring economy and everything's going to be great and pleasant. We're all going to get along. This is lunacy. This is a delusion. There's a reason he has a 38 percent approval rating lower than Trump's was going into his first state of the union, lower than Trump, who is a far more controversial figure. And what it tells you is that he has no support amongst independents. It's 30 percent support of independents and that his own party is actually starting to flake off that they're even they are starting to waver on what's going on. Is he there?

Is he all there? And is he capable of this job? All right, let me pause it. One quick break back with Buck Sexton. Great, really enjoying this whole discussion. Very illuminating after this. And don't forget, folks, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel, 111 every weekday at noon east.

The full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. And if you prefer an audio podcast, you can subscribe and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora pandora stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts for free buck um there are some now saber rattling about more being done by the u.s and ukraine starts to get you a little nervous. Former NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark gave an interview saying he wants, I think, no-fly zone and saying what

we really need to do, like the number one thing we need to do is to declare Putin a war criminal because it will make him a pariah on the world stage. There are some talks about that suggesting or talking about the murder of civilians. And Joe Biden was asked about that by reporters, I think, yesterday. Here's how that went. Listen. Russia is committing war crimes. We are following it very closely. It's early to say that. They're intentionally targeting civilian areas there are over 2 000 civilians his last statement was it's clear they are targeting civilians so what do you make of that strategy not the airstrikes I know you're against I mean airspace you're against that but

um declaring him a war criminal well here's the the truth and I mean we can go back and clip this uh clip this segment of the interview Megan I think it'll look pretty prescient in a year or two. Putin will be back at the United Nations or, you know, he'll be back in these international meeting meeting spots, whether, you know, wherever they go, a G7, all this matter of time. Russia is too big, too economically because of its fossil fuel reserves, too economically important. There's no North Korea in Russia, if you will. That's just not going to happen. That's that's that's an unserious view of geopolitics, in my opinion. So we're going to have this guy back on the world scene at some point. And so it's just a question what we're willing to do now to get this fighting in Ukraine to stop. I mean, I think that you're going to have Kiev surrounded and unfortunately pummeled really hard. And then there'll be, and they'll also take other major

cities in the weeks ahead. Then there'll be some kind of negotiation, probably with, you know, maybe with a third party intermediary involved between the Ukrainian government and Putin. And he's going to say, effectively, everything from Kiev East is a protectorate of the Russian Federation. And the Donbass region is now an independent country, as in it's part of the Russian Federation. It's Russian soil for all intents and purposes. I think that's where this is heading. So my guess is he's going to cut the country in half. And that way, he still has, he'll essentially say, well, the Ukrainians speaking Ukrainians, because there are some

linguistic separations. People speak Russian and Ukrainian usually, but the more pro-Western folks within the country will consolidate in the West. That's what I think is going to end up happening. So the make him a pariah, yeah, make him a pariah in the short term, go after the pressure points that you can economically, of course, that should be done. But it's all temporary. And he knows, Putin knows that. And that's why he's willing to go and do this and escalate everything else,

because there is no future in which Russia is not a part of the international community at some level as a country with a huge nuclear arsenal and enormous fossil fuel reserves. And that stretches across like what, six or seven time zones like there's there's no way that they're just told you're not a player anymore. That's fascinating. You can't North Korea-ize Russia. That's very, very sound. Buck, this is the best discussion I've had all week. I really appreciate your insights on it. As always, I've been doing it for how many years now?

It's a pleasure talking. Have me back so we can talk about fun stuff sometime. I know, I will, but this was good. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Up next, Jason Whitlock's take on President Biden and the State of the Union. Politics and sports collide again as we dive into a series of controversial stories. Golf great Phil Mickelson in a world of trouble over comments he made about Saudi Arabia and an alternative to the PGA Tour.

Then there's a football coach out of a job now before he could even start it. Is there a double standard in how the woke social media mob treated him versus these famous, famous athletes that have had trouble with the law? And is Joe Biden morphing into Donald Trump? What? My next guest says it's so. Jason Whitlock is co-host of Fearless with Jason Whitlock on The Blaze TV and a columnist with The Blaze. Jason, so great to have you back again. I got to start with that. What do you mean he's morphing into Donald Trump?

Say what? Did you not listen to the second half of his speech, the State of the Union address? Or I'm sorry, State of the New World Order address at the beginning. And then after he talked about Ukraine and unity among NATO countries and all that, then he pivoted to all of or many of Donald Trump's talking points, bringing manufacturing jobs back, make it here in America. The Democrats chanting USA, USA, like they're at a Trump rally. Secure the border. Yeah. Fix the border.

Fund the police. Yeah. So I think he stuck his finger in the air. His pollsters did and said, oh, my God, we're about to get crushed in these midterm elections. We got to go back to pretending like we love America and having sold out all the way to China. And so he did his little best little Trump impersonation that fell flat, inauthentic, obviously. But, yeah, I think that the Democrats are realizing they've gone too far with their demonization of America and their anti-American sentiment.

And Joe Biden tried to walk that back a little bit on, what was that, Tuesday or Wednesday? Wednesday, I think. Yeah, no, I don't think you're wrong. I was on, went on my pal Eric B Bowling's show on Newsmax yesterday and, and basically said the same thing. I was like, what he basically did was take on all of the policy positions that Republicans have been advocating for years now and say they're right without admitting that's what he's doing. I mean, to have Joe Biden of all people, when we have record illegal immigration now attempts across our Southern border to talk about how we really need to secure the border. And with these illegal immigrants saying they're coming because of Joe Biden's policies, they're coming because they know he's soft on the border to actually look us in the eye and try to tell us this is one of his concerns was a joke. And the defund the police and now his

term is fund the police is a lie. I mean, it's not only has the Democrat Party been the one that's been defunding the police across the country, Jason, but they haven't been pro-law enforcement. The Democrats have been anything but pro-law enforcement, and they put cops in a terrible spot for two years. And now he's just going to breeze past the demonization of police at every turn like it didn't happen with three words, fund the police. Let me tell you what I found interesting about that, Megan, is he talked about, I think, a New York police officer that was gunned down and meeting with that guy's family. And what I think he left out, because again, you know how the State of the Union works,

they bring in special guests to sit in the audience so they can point them out. And when he didn't have anybody from law enforcement or that man's family there, that to me says things aren't right with Joe Biden and law enforcement or that man's family, or they would have been sitting in that office, been a special guest, you know, at the State of the Union. And so it just screamed inauthenticity, inauthentic, inauthentic to me. It's it's the audacity of Biden and the Democrats to do what they did Tuesday night, because, again, I believe all of that is orchestrated. I think there was a script about, okay, we're going to chant USA, USA at this point in the deal. They were trying to put on an hour-long television commercial for the midterm elections and try to communicate to regular Americans that, hey, we haven't abandoned you. And look, Joe Biden has always been a relatively inarticulate speaker. But I think his and he's always loved the word folks, folks, folks. But if you really go back and examine his speech after the Ukrainian stuff, he was trying to

sound like Trump at a Trump rally. And I mean, the folksy way he was trying to talk. And, you know, he really leaned into that. And, you know, at some point, all of America is going to have to deal with the fact that even though Trump put out mean tweets, even though Trump didn't do everything right, he was right about a lot of things that would have put America in a better position right now. We look so weak and so divided right now. I think that's why Putin feels so emboldened and why China feels emboldened is because we're so weak and divided. Well, I mean, it's no accident that, you know, who was missing from the State of the Union was any family member of the 13 fallen Marines and service members who were killed in that debacle of a withdrawal from Afghanistan. This enormous

success that Joe Biden told us he had, if it was so enormous, why didn't you mention it? Why didn't it come up even one time? Why did you pause to pay tribute to your own fallen son who died of cancer, Beau Biden? And you said maybe because of toxins from a fire pit while serving overseas. And you didn't have the courage or the kindness to mention those fallen Marines and service personnel. Why not? Why? It was a lie.

Let me give you another enormous omission, in my view, based off the way Democrats have behaved over the past year. Joe Biden was speaking at the Capitol, the site of Pearl Harbor 2.0. January 6 allegedly is, you know, a date that will live in infamy. You know, our democracy, our republic almost went down. Never said a word about it. And again, Democrats have defined that day in this moment as historic and they've used it to beat up Trump supporters and define them as racist, insurrectionist. And so here he is at the scene of this great historic crime. Doesn't mention it, doesn't say a word. It's suddenly dropped from their talking points. And that was him not doing that is the first hopeful sign, because January 6th is one of the days I'm most passionate about because I think we've put a bunch of political

prisoners in dungeons who were mostly for nonviolent crimes, for trespassing. And I'm a big defender of those people and think it's reprehensible the way they've been treated. There was one guy that just committed suicide after his continued harassment from the Department of Justice. Ashley Babbitt was assassinated in cold blood, posing no real threat to anybody, shot and killed by this Michael Byrd. I'm never going to let that go and quit talking about it and quit. I'll never not say that these people have been treated very unfairly, particularly when you compare how we treated, how Kamala Harris and LeBron James were offering bail money to people,

rioting, looting, killing, causing chaos in the name of George Floyd. And to see these people thrown in dungeons and treated like the worst people on the planet sickens me. And so I just thought it was very hypocritical. Somehow that talking point must not be working. And that's why it was not used at the State of the Union. That's a good point. Hadn't considered that, but I think you're probably right. There was the first guilty plea to, quote, seditious conspiracy by one of the January 6th protesters. He's from one of these sort of far right groups. So they got their one that they've genuinely under threat? It was a very chaotic situation. I don't want to make excuses for the January 6th rioters over the summer. And the, you know, more than 80 protests that turned into riots where buildings were burned, lives were taken, cops were hurt, and these Democrats didn't give two shits. And not just any Democrats,

our vice president, Kamala Harris, had the nerve to stand up and clap when he said fund the police. She is such a hypocrite. She's not in favor of funding the police. As you point out, she was out there getting these rioters out on bail. This is a person who went and visited Jacob Blake after he resisted arrest, threw punches at cops and then drew a knife on a cop, which is what got him shot multiple times in the back when the cops finally realized he was armed and coming for them. The only thing I would add to that or just my point of view, I actually think that Kamala Harris is for funding the police now that they are under her control and totally under the control of the left.

Because go look up in Canada and the way Justin Trudeau used the police to break the truckers and the freedom convoy. And so the Democrats are not anti-police. They just want them to be completely under their control, executing their game plan. And so Kamala Harris, now that they're in control and are able to use the FBI, law enforcement of all kinds to exert their power and punish their opposition, yeah, she's for funding the police. Well, and Joe Biden's administration wants to do the same thing that Obama's administration did, which is have the DOJ take over various law enforcement departments one by one so that they actually are in control. It's not just theoretical. They want federal control. And again, it's they want federal control, law enforcement, no question about it. That's another way of, you know, sticking their hands in individual states and taking control away from the people.

It's a group of the states. The police powers, they belong to the states. Yeah. And again, the people in the state have to they report or have to answer to the local people there, their local voters and constituents. We're trying to gather up and all the power in one little location federally among elites, and they control everything. And that's just never what America has been about. And I get we had a civil war and a just one that was, you know, where states were trying to claim, hey, we got state rights and we can have our own little rules about slavery. That's an exception. rights to run things the way that that populace sees fit, as long as, you know, there's not the kind of human rights abuses we had before the Civil War. But yeah, it's important, you know, as someone who moved from California to Tennessee in the past two years, I did that because I like

the way the state of Tennessee is run in comparison to California. I, you know, I'm one of the many people who have fled California and, you know, government overreach. I'm a New York expat myself. I've fled to Connecticut, which is not red like Tennessee, or at least, you know, reddish. But it's less blue than New York, I can tell you that. The governor here is definitely a Democrat, but he's not one of the lunatics. He's not like totally insane, like Kathy Hochul, who took over for Andrew Cuomo. I'm not saying I miss Andrew Cuomo, don't misunderstand, but this new person is a lunatic. I mean, my problem with her is actually she's just not very smart. She's not a smart person. And we're stuck with her for at

least the time being in New York. Okay, let me shift gears and ask you about something else that was said at the State of the Union. Of course, Joe Biden took a moment to tout his latest Supreme Court pick, his only Supreme Court pick thus far, Katonji Brown Jackson, who was on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. He's now nominated her. He wants her to be the Supreme Court justice, replacing Justice Breyer. And she'll have to go through the Senate confirmation process and in all likelihood appeals. He's now nominated her. He wants her to be the Supreme Court justice, replacing Justice Breyer. And she'll have to go through the Senate confirmation process and in all likelihood will be confirmed swiftly and without too much controversy. So Tucker discussed this last night on his show. I know you were on his show. Tucker Carlson discussed this on his show

and said the following, which is being attacked by many corners today. Listen. So it might be time for Joe Biden to let us know what Kentucky Brown Jackson's LSAT score was. What else you do in the LSAT? Why wouldn't he tell us that? That would settle the question conclusively as to whether she's a once in a generation legal talent, the next learned hand. It would seem like Americans in a democracy have a right to know that and much more before giving her a lifetime appointment. But we didn't hear that. you. She is the real deal. I've never heard tie too tight. I guess that's her cute little name for Tucker. Ask about LSAT scores for other nominees, but typical of those who feel a bit quote inadequate. And then you've got Ellie Mistal. We mentioned him virtually every other day. He's always writing these tweets. I think he's with the nation. He tweets out the kind of racism Tucker's throwing at KBJ happens to black people all the time in the legal profession. We're constantly asked to reprove that we're qualified by white people who are never satisfied. No way. Not to mention Nicole Hannah Jones. I mean, you can imagine what she said and so on. Your thoughts on it, Jason?

Well, I was Tucker's first guest, listened to his mono, and didn't bat an eye at the comment. And I just want to be crystal clear on this because I'm actually writing a column about this today for The Blaze. I scored an 880 on the SAT as a high school junior. That is not impressive at all. I graduated from Ball State University, magna cum hungover with a 2.23 grade point average. And so I was not a serious student and, and I regret that in life. And, and it made me, I had to get, when I did graduate from college, I had to get in the back of the line. I had to take a $5 an hour part-time job at a very small newspaper in Southern Indiana, because I just wasn't that serious of a student. And so I'm not. And so no one saw my rise in sports journalism come. So I'm not a big proponent of, hey, what people scored on a standardized test 20 or 30 years ago has any relevancy. But I don't think Tucker's critique is remotely racist. And again, that's because I have an understanding of politics. Politics is a contact sport.

Politics is old school tackle football. The Dick Buckus generation of football. It's not this new stuff where you can't hit people over the middle hard. And so to sit here and pretend like because this man has asked a question about something about her qualifications that whether you think it's relevant or not, it's still a fair question. And in terms of the kind of hits that we see in politics, the dirty hits we see in politics, what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, what happened to Clarence Thomas. We can remove the conservative side of it. The Clintons, people are very fond of saying that the Clintons are involved in every murder

from Abraham Lincoln to Jeffrey Epstein, and they just have to deal with that. Politics is a blood sport. This isn't even really a hard hit. Tucker Carlson just tried to pull her down by the back of her jersey. This isn't even a hard hit in politics. Call me when they're digging through her high school dating and what happened at a party when she was 15 or 16 years old, and they're trying to use that to take her down. Call me- And calling her a serial rapist, a serial rapist, like they called Brett Kavanaugh. It's a blood sport. Yes. And so liberals, whether black or white, have this belief that black liberals should be immune from the contact of politics, that black people, black liberals can't play tackle football. They can't play political football. They must play flag football where

there's no contact or it's racist. And so that's what bothers me. Either we want to be in this political game in a real way with the same rules as everybody else and the same tough skin as everyone else, or we don't. And it's like, do we have a layman's understanding of like what people will do in pursuit of power? There's nothing they won't do. There was the TV show Game of Thrones. I don't know if you ever watched it, but you know, a lot of the fake kind of sorcery stuff I wasn't into, but I love the show because it was an explanation of what humans will do, man or woman, what they will do for power. And there's nothing they won't do. Stannis Baratheon burned his young daughter at a stake, killed her, trying to get the throne. Let people throw out their ethics and do crazy things. That's politics. And so someone asking what her LSAT scores were, that's not racist.

That's politics. Well, I mean, listen, I will say as an Albany Law School grad, you know, Harvard Law is not exactly Albany. But, you know, LSAT scores, whatever. I mean, you're right. Tucker's making a point about let's see her qualifications. You walk us through it. You told us why you picked her. You know, I mean, you sort of you call that you were the one who injected race and gender into it, undermining her credentials because you told us you were picking her based on something

else. I mean, like Joe Biden is the one who kneecapped his own nominee before he even named her by doing that. But I think Tucker would be the first to admit that, you know, your LSAT score. I mean, let's just say it doesn't necessarily predict legal greatness or folly. Either way, I can speak to that firsthand. Okay. Jason Whitlock is staying with us. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I got it. Jason's staying with us because, now, I don't follow golf that closely or at all, but I'm very interested in what's happening with Phil Mickelson. I mean, he was caught in sort of a brutal honesty moment talking about this new golf league that Saudi Arabia is trying to put together to compete with the PGA. And now, boy, oh boy, he is apologizing, apologizing and apologizing more. Jason, will or will not let him off the hook? Stay tuned to find out.

All right, Jason, so explain to me what is going on with Phil Mickelson, 51 years old. He made some comments about this. I guess the Saudis are forming a competitive league or tour to the PGA here in America. They want to get some cash in on some of the big dough that these golfers can make. That's my understanding of it. But he stepped in it. How so? Well, his comments to Alan Shipnick with Sports Illustrated or who formerly was Sports Illustrated is writing a book about Phil and Phil and he were having a conversation over the phone and Phil talked with Shipnick about like, hey, I know the Saudi Arabian government is brutal and that I'm crawling into bed with some scary mofos, his own words. And he's very aware of their human rights abuses and how they murder gay people or sentence gay people to death. And Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi. He's aware of all of that. And so to me, Phil represents the elite hypocrisy that drives me crazy. The PGA Tour has made him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Bobby made another $200 million to $400 million in endorsements from his golf career. And he's a very wealthy guy who loves to gamble and has lost a lot of money gambling.

And so he wants more, more, more from the PGA Tour. You know, he's not satisfied. And maybe the PGA Tour is heavy handed. hand. But turning to the Saudis is no different, in my view, than I'm looking at Nike, the NBA, and NBA players turn to China. It's never enough. There's the disease of more, more, more, more. I got to get wealthier. They got 1.4 billion people over in China. I could care less what they do to Uyghurs. I could care less they're a communist country. I could care less that they smear the United States as irredeemably racist when China is a thousand times more racist and brutal than America. So these athletes, these elites, these Americans who get rich off of our system eventually wind up in their pursuit of cash, getting in bed with foreign governments and serving them. And so I wrote a piece and talked on my show. Phil Mickelson is no different

than LeBron James. He sold us out. He has a problem with the organization, the American organization that helped make him rich. He's going to the Saudis to get leverage over them and trying to start a rival league. And it's disgusting. And this is what I think it's a prime example of just how our elites, regardless of color and regardless of politics, Phil Mickelson, I would imagine based off interviews I've read and what he insinuate, he's a conservative. But for money, he will sell out the PGA Tour and his peers on the PGA Tour who are very upset with him, who don't think he's gone about this in the right way. He will sell us out. And that's and so when people think of Trump and the America first thing and people think of like, hey, this globalism thing, this is a problem that that we don't get to hold on to our traditional American values that created all this freedom and opportunity that we all enjoy here in America. This globalism thing is taking our uniqueness away and imposing China's values on us. And so we got to all be a part of this global society.

We can't be uniquely American anymore. And so when you look at our movies and how they bend over backwards for China and change things up so they can reach the 1.4 billion people over in China and why the messaging in much of our television and movies is so anti-American. It is. Oh, no, we did a great segment not long ago on how the Chinese have totally bought Hollywood. Everything you're being fed from Hollywood is you're being fed it by the Chinese Communist Party. And they're trying to manipulate the way you think. They'll decide

what's entertaining there. They have pro-China messages and anti-American messages in our Hollywood greedy elite. Just go along with it because they want the dough. And to your point, I mean, Phil is complaining to this reporter one word about the alleged off the record nature of the conversation. You're dealing with a guy who's writing a book about you and you want to have an off the record conversation. You better make damn sure the reporter knows this particular conversation is off the record. And anybody in Phil's position, if they were smart, would have taken out their little iPhone, which we all know has a recorder on it and said, I'm going to record this. This part is off the record so that you have a record of the fact that you said it's off the record

and you don't find yourself in this position. And by the way, the reporter who undoubtedly recorded the conversation should be releasing the beginning of it so that we can see whether Phil said anything to that effect, you know, because if it's off the record, it's not fair game and we shouldn't be having this discussion. Anyway, here's what Phil said. He said the PGA is exploitive and he's talking about how I know I know the Saudis are bad. In his word, they're scary MFers. Again, trying not to swear. It's Lent. To get involved with. We know they killed Khashoggi. They have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this

is a once in a lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They've been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice a guy as PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won't do what's right. And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage because they're offering these eye-popping salaries. The Saudis are, not surprisingly, they're going to go way above and beyond. They have to. Otherwise, nobody would do business with them. He says, I'm not sure I even want the Saudi league to succeed. But just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the PGA tour. And apparently the PGA's Monaghan has warned the players, if you jump ship, you could be banned for life from the PGA tour. He's talking about leverage. That's what Phil Mickelson is talking about leverage. However, you raise the issue of the gambling. I also did not know this, but they say he has, or at least had, massive gambling losses that are also going to be detailed in this book. Notwithstanding the fact that he earned almost $100 million in PGA Tour earnings, second only to that of Tiger Woods, he had to sell, he sold his Gulfstream jet in 2019, someone had said, quote, he loved that plane so much it was like his fourth child. And it does raise the question about whether this is not really about improving leverage, but covering gambling losses that resulted in the loss of his airborne fourth child with very lucrative Saudi deals. Megan, this entire conversation ties together, because if you listen to what Phil Mickelson said and his expert, this is a once in a lifetime

opportunity to reshape and to reshape things and to seize more power. And so that's the same mindset that the Democrats used in terms of Antifa and Black Lives Matter. We're going to look the other way as you terrorize these cities, because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to seize power and to reshape America. And it's the same mentality if I'm Nike, some of the things that Phil was saying there in terms of, oh, we don't have leverage and it's hard to work with the restrictions here in America and American workers cost so much. And so this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to take our manufacturing over to Asia and where their workers aren't unionized, don't have rights. Some of them are slaves. Some of them are children. This is a once-in-a-lifetime

opportunity to reshape and re-energize and to make Nike more and more powerful and richer. I really don't want to do this. I really don't want to get in bed with China. I really don't want to get in bed with Saudi Arabia. I really don't want to get in bed with Black Lives Matter and Antifa, but it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. Screw America. And so that's what I just sit here and just wonder how John F. Kennedy, JFK, asked about what you can do for your country. And we've completely lost that spirit. No one thinks about that. We're all so fat, happy, and greedy that all we can do is think about how we can enrich ourselves and screw America. Well, it's not working out so well for him because he's been dumped by KPMG cutting ties with him,

Amstel cutting ties with him, Callaway cutting times with him or ties with him and then of course we get his apology i used words i sincerely regret that do not reflect my true feelings or intentions uh it was reckless i offended people i am deeply sorry for my choice of words and goes on and on and on talking about how my i've always tried to act in the best interest of golf and my peers and my sponsors and my fans um blah blah blah blah blah, blah, blah. These were taken out of context and says, I've often failed myself and others to the past 10 years. I have felt the pressure and stress slowly affecting me at a deeper level. I know I have not been my best.

I desperately need some time away to prioritize the ones I love most and work on being the man I want to be. I accept that and I hope that's true. So, you know, wishing him well and a chance to rethink these decisions. All right, let's talk about, you know, as I talk about my Lent vow, I did swear during the Buck Sexton. How come none of you told me when I was talking to Buck Sexton? I'm going to have to go confess that this weekend. I'm working on it, people. Oh, Steve Krakauer says it was just the S word, not the F word. Well, take it up with the Lord. I will on Sunday. All right, let's talk about,

is it Bryles? Art Bryles, Jason? Yes, ma'am. Okay, so he's a football coach, 66 years old, had been hired just last week by, I guess, the head coach, Hugh Jackson of Grambling State to be the team's offensive coordinator. Grambling State is a historically black university in Louisiana. Great. He's off to the races. He's going to be an offensive coordinator. And apparently he's very good at that job. It's problematic because he used to work in that same job, I guess, at Baylor, where he was booted eventually back in 16, because a bunch of sexual assault allegations had been made against students, including but not limited to football players. And this led to the head of Baylor, the president, Ken Starr, yes, the one from the Ken Starr report, being booted as the head of Baylor.

And it also led to Coach Bryles losing his job now, and now some are outraged that he's having a second act over at Grambling State. And it worked, the outrage, because now he says he'll no longer be a coach. He says, thanks for giving me the opportunity to be part of the coaching staff, but I think my continued presence is going to be a distraction, which is the last thing I want. What do you make of it? Well, Art Browse was this amazingly successful high school football coach in Texas. And eventually he transitioned into the college ranks and was first, I think, an assistant at Texas Tech. Then the head coach of the University of Houston took them to unprecedented success in a five-year deal, five-year span. Then went to Baylor for seven or eight years, and Baylor was an awful program.

He made them a nationally ranked program with his spread offense. He had this quarterback, Robert Griffin III, who won the Heisman Trophy. It was an amazing story what he did at Baylor. And his offense kind of revolutionized college football and had an impact on NFL football that got super successful and offensive guru as a head coach. This Baylor hires a law firm, Pepper Hamilton, to examine their university or campus about sexual assault. And

Pepper Hamilton says they've uncovered a hundred or more sexual assault allegations on the Baylor campus and five of them involve Baylor football players. And so the real problem for Baylor was wide open for lawsuits. They had more than 100 cases.

They weren't following federal guidelines. And eventually, Baylor decided, the people in power, the Board of Regents, to kind of save themselves, is we're going to scapegoat the football program. Again, there's more than 100 sexual assault allegations. Five of them involve the football team in this original report. And so they decided, hey, Art Browse and the football team, we can point the media that direction. We get rid of Art Browse and we've made this gigantic step in cleaning up the toxic culture at Baylor. Come to find out, several of the players that were accused but were found guilty in court or had their convictions overturned, some were never charged. I think one was convicted of sexual assault. Art Browse was a scapegoat. And they used him to cover up for the entire university. Art Browse is a Christian man. Art Browse is someone who stood by some of his players

because the players had convinced him, hey, these allegations aren't true. And a couple of them were vindicated in that. And the media wants allegations to be enough to eliminate people. And they were bothered or fell for the trap of, well, Art Browse is defending. And as it turned out, the football players that had these allegations were all Black. And it came, this is from the white assistant coaches and Art Browse. They felt like, and I have having really dug deep in on this story, the university scapegoated black football players and art bros for a campus wide problem. Like most universities, there's an alcohol, drug and fraternity problem on most of these campuses. And again, not to say that the football players, the athletes were uninvolved and not a part of the problem. But you can blame, you can point to the athletes and ignore all the malfeasance and assaults and things that go on.

Because I know there was at least one guy, Tevin Elliott, who was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. So certainly some were found guilty and held to account. But your point is that they focused on the football team with particular vigor. One of the Art Brawls' lawyers pointed out, hey, in these allegations, there was this terrible assault inside of one of your fraternity houses. Did the head of that fraternity, the overseer of that fraternity, are we firing him? Does anyone know his name? Is he being scapegoated? Is he being blamed for the pattern of abuse that was going on in that fraternity house? No, he's not. And so why are we doing this to Art Browse? If they did this to every coach

in football, basketball, baseball, that any of their players have allegations and therefore we're blaming the coach and you must be eliminated. There's going to be a lot of coaches without jobs. Well, it's interesting who the media, who the left, who the Democrats decide gets a second act and who they choose not to, right? It's like, I was thinking about it when I was watching the Super Bowl and it was like, I know that guy. I remember when he had problems with the law. And that guy, he got arrested for attacking women.

But it's like, no problem. OK. But this guy, who actually didn't do any of the attacking, but was the offensive coordinator or a coach of a team that had problems at a school that had even more problems, he's not allowed a second act. He was the head coach at Baylor. He's been over the last five, seven years. He can't get a head coaching job.

He was trying to be a $150,000 a year offensive coordinator at Grambling University. He has fallen very far since being dismissed in 2015. The guy probably at Baylor was making $5 million, $6 million a year. How much punishment is enough, and should the man be allowed to work again? We're talking about being the offensive coordinator at not even a Division I school, Grambling State University, but one of Grambling's most famous alums, Doug Williams, the first Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, without having spoken to Art, without having spoken to the head

coach, Hugh Jackson, objected to Art Browse being hired. And that kind of took on a life of its own. Well, I know you pointed out, Jason, what about Michael Vick? I mean, I covered that case in depth and what he did to those dogs was absolutely inhuman. No problem. The best example to me is Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant was accused of rape in Colorado, I believe in 2003, 2002, I can't remember. He eventually works his way out of the criminal case. He reaches a financial settlement in the civil case. He never stopped playing basketball. And he is a basketball deity at this point. He's worshipped at this point. Everybody moved on. And I mean, obviously, he had suffered a tragic death. But even prior to that, your point is- That was prior to that. No question about it.

It was not held against him. No. And so, I want to say this. I don't know what happened with Kobe Bryant. And so, he has a version, she has a version. We know what happened with Michael Vick. We know. I mean, he was found guilty and he served time. Yeah, and got to resume his career. And trust me, I'm in defense of all that. I believe that Michael Vick deserved that second opportunity shot at redemption. Joe Mixon, running back for the Cincinnati Bengals, just played in the Super Bowl, one of their best offensive players. He's on camera beating up a woman, on camera,

and got to play football at Oklahoma, in the NFL, no problem. This is the land of opportunity. This is the land of second and third chances. Art Browse, seven years after the Baylor thing, is worthy of an opportunity at redemption. And quite frankly, I don't think he's guilty of anything other than being loyal to his players. I don't think he set a tone within the football program where sexual assault was prevalent. He was scapegoated to cover up for the entire university.

Well, and I'll tell you what, you could certainly make the case that now, having been through what he's been through, he'll be the most vigilant guy you could hire if a sexual assault or harassment allegation were to come up. But yeah, we we're not a very charitable mood these days, uh, for whatever reason, when it comes to certain people and these people like there's, he's not, it's not like whatever media where you can go out and launch your own situation. If you're a coach of a football team, like there's only, you gotta, you gotta have an organization believe in you and be willing to give you that second chance. Don't go away. Cause we got just a little bit more, uh, that second chance. Don't go away because we got just a little bit more right after this. Don't go away.

Jason, Leah Thomas of the UPenn swim team, transgender swimmer made a bunch of headlines over the past few months is speaking out, giving an exclusive interview to Sports Illustrated. It just hit. And it kind of supports what we've been hearing about Leah Thomas all along, that her fellow swimmers who have spoken out anonymously to OutKick and other publications have been saying, Leah doesn't mind this at all. Leah's loving the attention. Leah parades through the women's locker room with male genitals like it's not a thing. And if the other women feel uncomfortable, Leah doesn't seem to give a darn. I'm getting there. And this interview says as follows. OK, this is just a

couple of highlights. OK, I just want to show trans kids and younger trans athletes. She paints herself as a hero, that they're not alone. They don't have to choose between who they are and the sport they love. Thomas says she has ambitions to compete beyond college,

beyond college, which could set her on a course, writes Sports Illustrated, to be Katie Ledecky's teammate at the 2024 Games in Paris. So Leah could be on the U.S. Olympic team when we go to Paris in 24 and perhaps

challenge Ledecky's Olympic records. Leah is going to compete in the NCAA championships in about two weeks that they happen in March and could break some of Ledecky's records there. Leah says, quote, I'm a woman. I am a woman just like anybody else on the team. I've always viewed myself as just a swimmer. It's what I've done for so long. It's what I love. Um, and then goes on to say a couple more highlights. Um, she went on a hormone replacement therapy a little bit more than two years before competing as a woman noticed that her strength wasn't the same fat had also been redistributed within her body she shrunk about an inch uh and holding her own practice paces was an impossibility this is them trying to convince us why it's okay for her to

swim against the biological women here's the end part regarding those who support her transition but not her swimming for the women's team she She says, there's no such thing as half support. Well, somebody says there's no such thing as half support. Either you back her fully as a woman or you don't. Thomas quote, the very simple answer is that I am not a man. I'm a woman. So I belong on the women's team. Trans people deserve the same respect every other athlete gets. Your thoughts? My initial thought is I'm not going to be critical of him. I'm going to be critical of the parents of the other women at the University of Penn. And I'm going to be critical of men, whoever's leading Penn, the school. They need to step in here.

Penn has been dreadful. The leadership, the man or a woman. And shut this down. You've got a man running around naked in a woman's locker room pretending to be a woman. And I get however he feels, but we can't have a world based on feelings. We have to have some agreed upon established facts, or we're going to have, or we're going to continue to have total chaos and division in this country. And I get and this will if we have a world just based on feelings, there are so many things that I feel that I have no right in Leah's defense. Gender dysphoria is a thing. I mean, it is a recognized. I don't want to say disorder. I know that they will. They'll recognize anything, Megan. I know. But I mean, there are four. I have a food dysphoria, but I don't want people feeling sorry for me. I love fast food. Well, I don't think it's no good for me they're not asking for for sorrow and i can defend leah as a transgender person who identifies more as competing with girls i agree

with that but i mean it gets dicey when you refer to her as a man like say she's she is a man still he has a penis it's not chopped off and even if it were i mean there are questions about whether in the sports arena that would make you you you know, more of a woman, like somebody who's because like even if she's lost an inch in height and so on. She's like 6'4". Yeah. This is an outrage. You still have long femurs. You have longer arms.

You have a greater wingspan. You have broader shoulders. It doesn't make you a woman to go on two years of hormones. Well, I can tell you this. If this is the standard, I want to be let into some women's tennis locker rooms so that I can run around naked

and call myself a woman. You don't really want that. Yes, I do. That's not a joke at all. You lie. You do not want to do that. But if you do, could I be your first interview after the national news? I have to say something in defense of the parents of the female swimmers with whom she swims, because they have spoken out. These poor parents have come out both on the record and behind the scenes, and they can't get any help from UPenn, which has been disgusting. UPenn referred the female swimmers, if they objected to this, to therapy. Therapy, right? And the parents, they understand what they're

up against. But I have to say once again, for the record, the women at UPenn who object to this, the swimmers, must speak up on the record. And if you don't, you will regret it for the rest of your life. If you want to do with me, Debbie, my producer, keeps saying you can email us at questions at Devil May Care Media. She's so proud of me now. And I'd be happy to do the interview. But in general, you must speak out or rue the day you fail to. Jason Whitlock, always interesting. Thank you so much for being here. Tomorrow, we have Rod Blagojevich with us. This is going to be spectacular. He's the former governor of Chicago. He then went to prison for almost eight years.

President Trump commuted his sentence. Fascinating guy. You do not want to miss this one. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.