The Megyn Kelly Show - Could Biden Be Replaced, Trans Sports Receipts, and Cuomo's COVID Lies, with Emily Jashinsky and Matt Welch | Ep. 636

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Emily Jashinsky, The Federalist culture editor, and Matt Welch, co-host of The Fifth Column, to discuss whether the GOP debate without Trump actually matters, who might see a bump after they take the stage, Trump's dominance in Iowa and New Hampshire polls, some details in the polls that give hope to the other candidates, if Trump going to prison could affect his poll numbers, Democrats wanting to replace President Biden, Biden’s decline and new reporting about his team being terrified he may fall, Biden calling minorities “boy” and if this could affect his support from certain groups, the visible decline in Biden’s appearance and health, Andrew Cuomo lying about his mandatory COVID lockdowns, business closures and mask mandates, now claiming it was all voluntary, the media allowing Cuomo to get away with his COVID lies, how COVID revisionism is bipartisan with Trump trying to change the record too, the absurd story about The Washington Post creating the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” slogan, the media getting aggressively worse in the Trump Era when it comes to reporting the truth, Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness crying about "trans misogyny" in an interview with Dax Shepard, the truth about trans athletes in women's sports, and more.Jashinsky: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/federalist-radio-hour/id983782306 Welch: https://wethefifth.substack.com 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, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. It is GOP debate day in America, except the guy who is 30 to 40 points up won't be there. So what will happen tonight and will any of it matter? We'll see in just a few hours as the second Republican presidential debate gets underway this evening at Reagan National Library in California. In the meantime, we have a lot to get to, including President Biden spending like two minutes at least on the UAW picket line before jetting off to a fundraiser. Of course, many on the left reacting like the second coming happened last night.

Plus his dog biting the 11th person. Yet another Secret Service agent gets bitten by commander. And Joe Biden doesn't seem to give two dams about what's happening to these Secret Service agents around. It's ridiculous. Today, two great tastes that taste great together. Is that like a coffee, Sam? I'm not sure. What is that? Peanut butter and jelly? A Fifth Column co-host plus an EJ. Joining us now, Matt Welsh of the Fifth Column podcast and editor at large for Reason, and Emily Jashinsky, culture editor at the federalist and host of the federalist radio hour matt emily great to have you here how you doing doing great hi megan who's the peanut butter and who's the jelly matt's the peanut butter millennials can't eat peanut butter we have peanut allergies that's true okay so do do we care about tonight? Like I am wildly interested. I'm going to say that I'll

probably watch some of that. I'll definitely watch the highlights, but it does feel a little like, you know, the Miss congeniality contest at this point. Am I, am I wrong, Emily? No, not at all. I mean, again, what is going to change substantially at a debate where the front runner who continues by the way to open his his lead grows uh over time you know there might be some dips here or there if you look at the rcp average but he's been expanding his lead over the other candidates and he's up so much i mean we're talking double double digits right we're talking he's he's up by what 40 points uh so as long as he's not there it really i mean you're jocke, I mean, you're jockeying for second place,

you're jockeying for third place, which matters a lot if you're down by single digits. It might matter a lot if Iowa was down to five points, but it's not. So again, we're looking at a VP tryout for the most part. It's like the JV stage at 2016, where you literally had a JV stage, five people that were not able to make the first stage. That's what this entire debate is. The reason Matt Walsh, Walsh, I think it's Walsh is a different Matt. I always do that. Matt Walsh, not to be confused with Matt Walsh. The reason it is interesting, and I would definitely host a debate like, I mean, even though it's the B team, the reason it's interesting is number one,

something could happen to Trump, you know, putting aside the fact that he's 77 years old, um, something could happen to him. Like he could be locked up before November, 2024. Incredibly, it's a realistic possibility. I don't think it will happen, but you know, I was talking to Mark Levin last week and I was saying that's not likely to happen, you know, that he could actually get tried, that he could get convicted and that somebody would throw him in jail before he exhausts the appeal in the event that that happens. And he reminded me, look at the judges that we're dealing with here. Look at Judge Chuck in Washington, D.C. You can tell this woman hates Trump. Look at Fannie Willis down in Atlanta.

She's already trying to put this thing on a fast track. That's not gonna be a favorable jury. So it is possible that Trump could be in jail. I do think that's gonna change his polling numbers. It's come to that. It's like the comments about the Gold Star families, that's gonna change. No, the comments about whatever that judge being a racist just because he's Hispanic. No, didn't. But like actually convicted and sitting in a prison. Matt, Matt, that could change things. And therefore, the GOP debate actually does matter. Could change things.

We've all lost confidence about every scenario in which affection for Trump is lessened than the Republican Party, which is interesting in itself. What I'm fascinated by is that the last debate, I presumed because of the dynamics that both of you guys are talking about, that no one would pay attention to it. But it actually got pretty good ratings. I mean, Trump was counter-programming with Tucker Carlson, and still a lot of people tuned in. So what were they doing? I'm exactly sure uh because uh yes trump has widened his lead since then and most everyone else has stayed the same except for nikki haley she kind of uh almost doubled her support in the meantime she had a very good debate performance

so she might you know have another good debate performance and become the uh largest person in the very small lane of kind of elected normie officials who don't like Trump, that is a 15% lane. So if she somehow manages to elbow out Mike Pence and Chris Christie and Tim Scott and everybody else, she might get all the way up to maybe 15%. There has to be someone who can attract Trump supporters. People are kind of in denial about what. Vivek got a little bump after the first debate and he attracts Trump supporters. Absolutely. So like if you look at Vivek and Trump and Ron DeSantis as a as a block and DeSantis

is the only one who has a foot in kind of both camps. He's an elected normie official on one level but he also can plausibly attract some MAGA support those three guys in every single poll with the exception of New Hampshire are going to get 75 percent of the vote so it has to probably come from from one of those three people DeSantis has been free fall since basically January maybe he has bottomed out so I think he definitely has the most at stake today, and he's the one who's going to compete hardest or has the biggest chance of success in Iowa,

which can still presumably slingshot people. But precisely because he's in this weird spot, because he's plausible to both camps, that makes him kind of unattractive as a person, which is to say he's aware, consciously, you can see it on his face,

that he is trying to run against Trump while still getting some of Trump's support. And it makes him awkward. It makes him seem less like his own man, in direct contrast to the way that he actually governs Florida, where he seems supremely confident. So he has a lot to gain, but also he's in the really awkward spot. So I guess tonight we'll see if he's able to figure out a way to come out not looking awkward in that spot and chip away at some of Trump's support. But I don't I wouldn't bet on it. No, it's so tricky. And part of what's interesting about watching these debates is the trickiness of it. Right. Like that's, it's kind of interesting and

entertaining, frankly, like how are they going to navigate? I don't really care what, you know, Doug Burgum does. I think he's interesting just because he's espousing normal Republican ideas. And it's like, good to be reminded that not, not all Republicans, you know, are in agreement on every issue. And it's good to hear different points of view, you know, coming in from the more conservative side, the more traditionalist side, the traditionalist side, the more populist side, you know, MAGA Trump. I like hearing that. That's that's good. And it's good, I think, for the country, including Democrats and independents, to hear Republicans up there talking about their ideas and why they would work. I think that's an advantage to Team Red over

Joe Biden. It's good for the Republicans. Now, if they get really nasty, maybe, maybe not, right, with one another. But it is entertaining. I'll say this. The latest poll, we're just looking at CBS News poll, Trump leading in Iowa and New Hampshire by 30 points over DeSantis and 37 points over to DeSantis, who's in second position in both of those, according to the CBS poll. All right. So latest CBS out of Iowa, Trump 51, DeSantis is in two at 21. Latest out of New Hampshire, Trump 50, DeSantis 13. Nikki Haley's right behind him at 11. She's right behind DeSantis in Iowa, too, according to this poll. So anyway, that lead is huge. OK. However, what's interesting here is they say in both states, most voters are still considering multiple candidates. In fact, just a fifth in Iowa and a quarter in New Hampshire

are considering Trump and no one else. So the vast majority of the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are considering somebody other than Trump, even if they like Trump. So that's interesting. That's there's some, you know, gleam of hope for these GOP years tonight. And these voters, they say, are more likely to say they are supporting Trump with some reservations. In both states, only Trump voters, you know, the people who will only vote for Donald Trump, are outnumbered by the one third of the electorate who are not considering Trump at all. So there are more never Trumpers in each of these states than there are only Trumpers. And again, they are saying most voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are still considering someone other than Trump.

So I see, Emily, what the point is tonight. They're looking at this same data saying, so you're saying there's a chance. Well, and they're not entirely wrong because they know other people around them have reservations about Donald Trump. And I think it partially explains what you mentioned earlier about why the ratings were higher than some people, including myself, actually, where they expected them to be in the first debate. Now, of course, this isn't the first debate, so it's not the spectacle. But there's so much interesting stuff happening with the dynamics back and forth. It's why I think all of us wish that Donald Trump were a part of it, because it's healthy to see this contrast and you just can't lose at that game uh but on the other

hand there's really no reason for him to strategically look like he's on their on their level it just makes more sense for him to totally stay out of the fray do his own events that he can control uh the other interesting thing who's watching these donors and where the money goes is going to make a difference in that sort of second place lane. And after that first debate, there was a lot of reporting that people who were DeSantis curious, Tim Scott curious, then turned and gave money to Nikki Haley or decided to stop giving money to Ron DeSantis. And so you're balancing on the one hand wanting to appeal to those Trump voters with reservations, but on the other hand, needing to appeal to the donor class that is totally in tension with those Trump voters that just have reservations about him personally.

That's a good point. Go ahead, Matt. little bit of a grain of salt because they remind me a lot of the polls that you see all the time and you'll see in the cycle too of like large numbers of americans sometimes the majority uh say say that they are willing to entertain the possibility of voting for a third party i'm someone who's covered third party candidates for a quarter century so i'm aware of this um americans are third-partyists you know in the streets but not in the sheets i guess is the way the phrase goes um when it when it comes down to it they uh they will uh they will go back to a more predictable place so i'm sure there's a lot of people who say no no i'm definitely gonna think about other candidates besides trump but then when push comes to shove it's usually what happens to trump is that anytime he's really in the news he's in the crosshairs of the legal system or something else, people, Republicans will, at least in the presidential primary, will flock toward him,

not away from him. Because part of his selling proposition from the very beginning was the way he makes the media mad. He makes the left mad. And that is a value proposition. So it's sort of this little cycle. It is. And I mean, people react to politics emotionally in many senses. And so it just helps. We haven't yet seen the place. We did for a moment during the Access Hollywood tapes in the late 2016, in October 2016, I think it was. That was sort of a micro moment when the reason that everyone was getting mad at Trump was actually affecting his poll numbers. And we've, you know, memory hold it now, but I think what, 10 senators, Republican senators at that time withdrew their support for Trump. Like it was a big problem for a week and a half for Donald Trump, but then support ended up

rallying for him. And since then, there haven't been many external factors that have dulled Republican willingness to vote for him, let's say, if not quite a super open fondness. So, you know, it's going to be hard for there to be any extraneous factor, I think, that will kick people off. I think it's more internally to him. If he decides that he's really going to run and be in it to win it, does he have the energy to do it? He's got to spend a lot of energy fighting criminal activity right now and legal problems. So I think it's like realistically and just to throw a couple numbers at you before I get to my realistically ending. There was another poll just out morning consult shows Trump up. This is just a national poll shows Trump up 43 points over his next closest competitor, who is DeSantis 58 to 15,

43 points. My God, 58 to 15. That is just, it's insurmountable unless something absolutely devastating happens to Trump. And so what I was going to say a moment ago was the thing about the theory that, you know, I discussed with Mark Levin, right, that he actually could be in jail at the time of the election or shortly before the election. That all would happen post Iowa, post New Hampshire, post Super Tuesday. So we are down a path at that point. Like, I don't even know if playing the long game is a realistic option for these Republicans who are going to be on the stage in Simi Valley tonight, Emily, because these decisions get made this winter into this early spring about who the Republicans are going

to go for. The trials will not be done. I realize she wants a trial, Fannie Willis, March 4th and so on. But realistically, best case scenario for these rabid prosecutors, maybe they get maybe they get him in jail by June. Well, we won't have had a nominating contest by them, but we will have had votes in all of the major states. We will know who the nominee is going to be. So practice as a practical matter, I really don't know how it could work. And I think that's a big question for Democrats right now, too. And I actually think that's why you see both Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis agreeing to debate each other on Fox News, because they both want to set themselves up in this lane.

And I would be curious to be a fly on the wall, the RNC and the DNC, as they're like sort of digging through what I imagine are like bylines and having their lawyers pour over what happens in the case of a serious problem, a health problem, a prison problem. By the way, it's possible there's something out there that prosecutors are working on, that the Justice Department is working on as it relates to Donald Trump, or that some attorney general is working on as it relates to Trump that would result in more immediate action. It's hard to say. We don't know. But certainly, we've seen different things crop up. So it's just genuinely difficult to say. And I'm sure both parties right now are actually trying to figure out what the avenue is should something happen come June of 2024. And again, I think that's why you see both

Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis and the people who are now fighting to overtake Ron DeSantis. And it's just this like cannibalism to see who can take Ron DeSantis down a peg, create themselves as the heir apparent, which I don't know if it's possible because they're all sort of running in similar lanes, except for Mike Pence. They're trying to do that because for the exact reason you mentioned, nobody really understands what happens when you get a free for all because something happened to the leading candidate after the majority of primary votes are cast. You know, I want to tell you guys that we're actually taking a deep dive into all of this right now, and we're going to

be doing a show in about a week. You know, we're making sure we've got all our facts on exactly how each person can be replaced. How would it work if it's Trump or Biden? If it needs to happen, how could it happen? How late in the process could it happen? And what are each of these teams, DNC and RNC, actually doing to prepare for it? So I'm really looking forward to that. I asked my team to get this ready a couple of weeks ago, and we've been working hard on it. So we are going to take a deep dive into how. Because for the first time that I can remember, it is a realistic possibility that they're going to need to replace one and possibly both of the guys who get nominated or who win the early nominating

contests and who have emerged as the one to be nominated with the most primary and caucus votes. It's crazy. Matt Walsh is crazy. But let's let's talk about Joe Biden, because every day we get new reports about his his failing. I don't know if I guess it is health, but just, you know, the loss of what's the, what's the noun for being robust, you know, like the loss of vigor, the loss of verve, the loss of the capability to put two sentences together without failing to make sense or saying something racist. Um, that's him these days. And you can see his team is on eggshells. And now it's emerging

on the heels of these polls, which we saw earlier this week. Two, two polls, NBC News and ABC News, three quarters of the electorate believe he is too old to do a second term. Almost two thirds of Democrats want someone else. Those are the realities. They're not those are not outliers. Those are backed up by repeated polls. The American electorate thinks he's too old for the job, whether it's his age or his infirmity. A far lower number think Trump is too old, but over 50 percent think he's too old, too old, too old, too. But they look at Joe Biden and they know he can't do it, Matt. I think we all know he cannot do it. So the left is pretending that he can because they're terrified of Trump. This is all happening as Axios drops this little report yesterday that kind of puts a fine point on it about how now he's switched to just sneakers. You know how like your mom at this point, I'm 52,

but so it's like my mom. But like when I was a little younger, my Nana, she died at 101, God bless her. But like when she got into like the eight late eighties, she switched over to the trainer, you know, the sneaker. There was no more little flats or shoes, certainly not high heels for her. My mom's now in that category. I'm sure I'll wind up there eventually. He's in the trainers. He's in the sneakers now in that category. I'm sure I'll wind up there eventually. He's in the trainers. He's in the sneakers now, our president. No more shoes for Joe Biden. We already did the story on how he's only using the short steps to get on Air Force One in the belly of the plane. His staff is on complete alert for any sandbags used in every television setting to hold down the mic stands and the light stands. It's a safety matter. That's why they do that.

Those things fall on you. You're dead. You get a gash in the middle of the forehead at a minimum, but now they can't because he tripped over one. And then there's a deep dive in the precautions that they're taking, the physical therapy they're putting him through, Matt, to make sure he doesn't fall and to try to improve his balance. Axios reporting that his doctor has recommended exercise for balance, which he calls proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers. Then to Axios's credit, they go to Professor James Gordon, associate dean and chair of the physical therapy department at USC, who says, I have never heard of that term. I do not know what proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers is.

This is not a clinical thing. That is not a thing. But the point is, they're terrified he's going to fall. And with that fall will come the downing of any chance of the Democrats holding on to the White House. There are the five alarm fire in the polls right now. It's not even the outlier from the other week that Trump was ahead 10 points in the head to head matchup. But he's been at basically parity. They've been 50 50 in these matchups. But here's the thing that's in all these polls. Trump is leading Biden among independents that I would not have ever really bet on because Trump beat Hillary Clinton maybe by a percentage point among independents back in 2016. And from that moment forward, that was the last time that even a plurality of independents

favored Donald Trump because they were appalled by his behavior and some of his actions and et cetera. And I thought that that would stick because you can't woo them back. He hasn't necessarily wooed them back, but independents have soured so completely on Joe Biden. And they see him more often than they see Donald Trump. He's in office. You can watch him stumbling around and figuring out which way not to walk after he gives a speech in the podium and not remembering to shake the hand of the foreign dignitary. Just all of the things.

My parents are 83. One might vote Republican more, one might vote Democrat for. They're varying states of their own kind of cognition. Both of them say, my God, he's too old. And he's not as old as my dad in terms of where he's at. But they can recognize game in this case. And when they don't have game um that is terrible for biden and it should induce all kinds of panic among democrats because you're not going to get that back and let's remember why did biden win last time anyways is it because americans like suddenly tapped into this long gestating affection for joe biden who's been trying to run for president since

i was about 16 years old and i'm 55 um no it's because they thought he could win they needed to they needed someone who seemed normal enough to beat trump and that just figured out okay look joe's been around forever he talks about the lunch bucket and tells weird stories about scranton that probably aren't true but uh he seems like a normie he can win unlike you know uh beto o'rourke or somebody. So that works. And that's great until the moment when you stop thinking he can win. And then his entire value proposition evaporates. There's an attempt right now. Franklin Ford has a new book out that wants to posit him as this sort of last politician. And he's a lot. Everyone underrated him, but he's really great and all this. Americans are not going to buy that. He won president because they thought that he could win. And now that they know or suspect that he can't, that's going to collapse. Democrats are going to have a come to Jesus moment at some point during this campaign. Gavin Newsom does every morning when he kisses himself in the mirror. And you can bet that he's going to do whatever he can

to get there. But it looks really, really bad for Joe Biden right now. It does. And even you say the come to Jesus moment. We heard James Carville making headlines yesterday because he went on Bill Maher's podcast and they had you know, these are both Democrats. Bill Maher is a Democrat. He's not woke, which is why a lot of us love listening to those bits. But he is a Democrat. And he and I talked about this. a lot of us love listening to those bits. But he is a Democrat. And he and I talked about this. I've gone on his show a few times. And he said, you know, you seem kind of like me, like a person without a party. And this is I always laugh. And like when people call me a rhino and I'm like, if you only knew not not even in name, not not even

Republican rhinos, Republican in name only, not even a name. Hate to tell you, not a Republican. I'm registered independent. And thank God I wake up every day saying, thank God, thank God I didn't throw my lot in with either one of these parties. I don't, I will never wear a team jersey of either one of these. Yes, my sensibilities are more aligned with the Republicans, but many times they're not. And I'm just thrilled to be in my own little lane. Anyway, Bill Maher, James Carville, who I love listening to. I love James Carville. He's he's come in this show, too. You know, we don't agree politically, but I I think he's a valuable voice in America. And he is sounding the alarm as, you know, a guy who got Bill Clinton elected as somebody who knows what he's talking about. Here he is. Let's assume the election was November the 3rd of this year. And they said the candidates of Joe

Biden, the Democrat, Donald Trump, the Republican, Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan, no labels and Cornel West. Trump would be a betting favorite. Yes. If I told you I would give you even money, you would not take that bet. All right. And so somebody better wake the fuck up. It's good. He gets right to it. He's got it, E.J. Yeah. I mean, I think, again, this is Gavin Newsom. And it's interesting that you have the governor of California debating the second Republican presidential candidate on national television, on cable television, because there are establishment Democrats, we now know, thanks to all kinds of reporting, who are panicking for all of the reasons you and Matt just laid out, which is that the value proposition of Joe Biden was that he could ride both lanes. He could sort of wink and nod at the woke lane while also sort of being coded as somebody

who just privately did not like the woke lane and was going to hold them at bay while also being this kind of old school, you know, he was on the UAW picket line yesterday for, as you mentioned, a couple minutes and then went to a fundraiser. He's able to do both of those things. And that's what everyone saw is this makes him electable.

And at the very least, it makes him more electable than somebody like kamala harris or elizabeth warren or bernie sanders who they feel like has steered fully into one lane or the other so with that gone it means there's going to be some organizing behind the scenes because it's a it's total panic mode um and james carville was one of the people in 2016, fall of 2016, was looking at what was happening. And like Bill Clinton, sort of realized there was a problem, a cultural gap for Democrats. And that's another big issue for them. There's a lot of media about if not Trump, then who? Because DeSantis originally seemed like somebody who was the only person that could

do it. He was plowing this new lane. Republicans are reportedly trying to get Glenn Youngkin to run because they think he can do it too in a way that Ron DeSantis hasn't. Well, they should start having that conversation about Democrats. Because if not Joe Biden, who? Is it one of the people that has come out and put their pronouns in their Twitter bio? Is it one of the people who has done has gone all in on abolish ICE, defund the police, and is going to have to atone for that on the campaign trail? Good luck. And Democrats haven't really had to reckon with that either. And if Gavin Newsom is your best bet, you are in trouble nationally. I've got and we'll get into this when we do our rundown and how they could replace, you know, the guys that win. I got I like Glenn Youngkin a lot. I'd vote for him. I'd vote for him for anything. But is Cora Maga ever going to vote for Glenn Youngkin? I mean, I actually hadn't looked that deeply into his background, but he's the Carlisle Group guy. He's like made five hundred million dollars. He's he makes Mitt Romney look like he failed in business, right?

With being capital. I don't see Cormac. He also signed a BLM letter. When he was at Carlyle Group, this has not gotten a lot of attention, but he signed like a donation to BLM when he was at the Carlyle Group. So, yeah. All right. So that's going to come back to haunt him.

And just Cormac, they're very suspicious of these big corporations and how they look down on the working class. They want to exploit them, but they, you know, for votes and for their work, but how they look down on them and they're part of the elites. And Youngkin is definitely an elite. Again, I mean, I vote for him, but like I just don't see somebody like that resting anything away from Trump. But I guess the thought is if Trump only has a core, you know, true, true believers, 30 percent of the party and some, you know, 50 to 70 percent of the party is like, I like him, but I'm open minded. Could he be the one to consolidate? You know, that's the thing, Matt Walsh, because why do I keep doing it? Welsh, Welsh. It's Welsh.

Matt Walsh is over on the daily. He's on the Daily Wire. He's trying to figure out what a woman is one of these days. He didn't even ask for our pronouns. Okay. So anyway, if you look at like the numbers, if all the candidates got behind one, if all the voters got behind one person other than Trump, like let's say tonight they, they surprised us all. They go out on the stage in Simi Valley and they say, we have an announcement to make that the six or seven of us who are up here, the only one who didn't make the dance is Asa Hutchinson. The surprise announcement is

we're all dropping out and we're all putting our support behind Nikki Haley. Okay. Let's just take one. She's rising. She's right by DeSantis and all the polls. Then it would be on. Then we actually might have a horse race because the non-Trump vote, if you add up all the percentages of Haley, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, you know, Christie, Pence is big. It's still behind the Trump vote, but it's big. So, so maybe you'd have something. And that's what they're thinking. I think with Glenn Youngkin, if we're, they're not going to do that tonight. So I think the thinking in Republican circles is underdog comes in to save the day. He hasn't been in the fray. He hasn't been taking shots at

anybody. He's like, I'm doing it because my country needs me, because Trump's sitting in jail or whatever it is. I will serve. I'm reluctant. I love MAGA. I love establishment. I love money. And I will serve. Is that a winning plan? No. I mean, there's no the only reason Glenn Youngkin is even a thought for anyone is because Ron DeSantis didn't do as well as was hoped by a lot of people. It's the same lane. They were competent and to the point of surprise levels of effectiveness in managing the school's issue during COVID. That's what they both did especially well. DeSantis did even more because he's had a lot longer time in office than Youngkin has. And Florida is more of

a Republican state, especially now. DeSantis has self-pushed it that way. Virginia has been more of a Democratic state, so it was more of a surprise that he won. But there's nothing that Glenn Youngkin can add that Ron DeSantis hasn't already done. And DeSantis has also spent a lot of time trying to appeal to conservatives nationally, not in ways that I particularly have fondness for, but it has been politically effective, I guess, to some degree when he goes to war against Disney and when he's fought more national cultural battles. Glenn Youngkin hasn't been doing any of that. And I can't imagine him doing that in his little nice sweater vest or whatever. It's just there's at this late stage, it's a pipe dream. It's a reason for another person to get a talk show three years from now or to build up some kind of war chest. I think he has a really zero chance of going anywhere with that. The

number that is really shocking to me, talking about both Biden and Trump, is that Trump has a crowded field of people that he's running against. And right now, nationally, he's averaging north of 56%. Joe Biden is running against two pretty marginal characters, two people that Democrats themselves don't necessarily love. And he's got 66%, right? It's a non-crime field against the fringe. And he's only polling nationally at about nine percentage points within his own party, more than Trump is within his. That, again, should tell Democrats something that's very, very important and useful that they need to know.

Republicans need to know that they do need to consolidate behind one person per each lane, maybe. And sooner rather than later. But I can't imagine that the same people who like DeSantis are going to suddenly rally around Mike Pence, for example. And and Vivek Ramaswamy's vote i don't think is applicable uh to chris christie or whatever so uh uh it's really hard to imagine anyone but trump at this point super quick i can i also want to say joe biden yeah go ahead now well i was just gonna say i remembered it was the uh because the young people are going to be upset about this it was a letter to the spl urging carlisle Group employees to donate to the SPLC, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,

the Equal Justice Initiative. It wasn't explicitly BLM. So to be precise. SPLC is basically BLM. I mean, a Southern Poverty Law Center. They've never seen somebody they don't think is a racist unless they happen to be a Democrat. And then you're good.

That's the one that labeled Ben Carson a terrorist or whatever the extremist word was that they labeled on him. But I was thinking like the Democrats are looking at Joe Biden like he's he's the only one that asked us to the prom and he's no, like they're waiting for the quarterback to come ask them to the prom. And like the quarterback has left the building. There is, it's not happening. Only the nerd wants to go. So they may wind up going to the prom with the nerd, but that doesn't mean you put on false eyelashes or false anything else. It doesn't mean you put your Spanx on to hold everything in. It doesn't mean you get the hottest dress or the highest heels. It doesn't mean you really go out on the hair and makeup. It doesn't mean you have any enthusiasm for the evening whatsoever. And that's the position they're looking at. You need enthusiasm in your voting block to win a

presidential election. Don't believe me? Ask Hillary Clinton. All right, stand by. When we come back, we've got a butted soundbite that I promised to the audience on Joe Biden and his frequent use of the term boy when referring to African-American men and other racial minorities. So I just want to show you a couple of things before we get to the soundbite that I promised. We cut this video. It's not dramatic, but it does show you just here's what I want to talk about. And I hope that the listening audience will go and watch this segment on YouTube. I want to ask you what you feel when you watch this video of Joe Biden coming down the steps of Air Force One from I think it was two days ago yesterday. That's yesterday,

him arriving in Michigan. For the listening audience, you can see him going down. He's holding the railing. He's going down the short steps of the Air Force One descending. And he stumbles. You can see his footing. He slips. And you can see the jerk, you know, that happens when you, and he catches himself and keeps going. What do you feel when you watch that, Emily? He walks the way he talks.

And I don't say that to be funny. It's all on that same level of stumbling. He stumbles through sentences and he stumbles physically. And it seems actually almost unremarkable. Like it's the same Joe Biden we see when he's walking to Air Force One across the White House lawn, when he's in front of foreign dignitaries, world leaders, the press corps. It's the same thing, whether he physically walking or talking he's he's frail and uh is in absolutely no position to um be running a chick-fil-a franchise let alone the leader of the free world let alone the united states of america it's just it's tragic and it's

it's sad for him on a personal level but it's really sad for us just as Americans. It's really hard to watch. Matt Welsh, I'm scared. I watch it. I'm like, if I saw you come down those stairs and you stumbled, I'd be like, whatever that happens, you know, but with him, you're like, you know, it's like, you don't want, I don't want to see the president of the United States embarrassed. I really don't. I don't want to see Joe Biden embarrassed. And it's, it's just a matter time before it happens, before he actually goes down, coming down those stairs or some other stairs. There's only so much the trainers. And by that, I mean both the sneakers and the personal trainers can do to prevent it. And when you fall and hit

yourself at this age, bad things always happen. you know um my dad went to sit on a bench that wasn't there um five months ago and it's been a pretty bad uh time for him ever since then you look at him and and you have this sort of sense of you know like when you have a friend who's in a band or a comedian and they're not really good and you gotta watch them and then like tell them that they're really good or like find a way to talk about it. And you sort of feel this in this cringe building up inside of you. It's like that because you can see that he is really focused. Not going to fall, not going to fall, not going to fall. And the entire White House team, as that Axios report, which is just painful to read, is illustrating is that they're just trying not only to have the bad thing not happen, but to have the appearance of the bad thing not show.

So they can plausibly say, no, I mean, he's working 17 hour days and he's forging peace and managing our allies with Ukraine or whatever the story is going to be. And it's the look of someone who's trying to keep it together when it's not together. And you feel embarrassed for him. But then you're also like, wait a second, this is our country. What people who are kind of a little bit more fit and less like trying to cover up their own deficiencies. We're kind of in a long bad place politically on the national level in this country. And he's a sign of that. I'm in the same boat as you are. You know, my mom is 82 and I worry about her all the time. She does fall occasionally and it's terrifying. And, you know, I am comforted by the fact that usually the most complex decision she has to make in a day is whether she's going to watch Seinfeld or

Gunsmoke reruns. And that's good. That's a good thing. It's a tough call. Gunsmoke, so rando, but she loves it. He's, you know, the leader of the free world. So it's a lot more fraught. We've got a whole war going on in Ukraine that he's managing to some extent. We could go down the list. Here's a story that brings both of these threads together, the story about his age and infirmity and the story about his electoral chances and how he's going to motivate people. There was an interesting piece. Let's see, what was this? At the intersection, the intersection, Steve? Why Trump lost Georgia? It was a very lengthy piece.

And it says the following, okay? Steve Krakauer, my crack executive producer, got it to me. The bottom line is that this guy is saying Trump can only win Georgia if he flips enough black voters toward him and more black men in particular. Can he do it? And the thought in this piece is he might, he actually might be able to flip enough black male voters in Georgia to win Georgia. I mean, he only lost by 11,000 votes as we now infamously know from that phone

call. He might be able to do it because not only is Joe Biden the nerd at the prom and Trump is anything but nerdy, Joe Biden cannot stop himself from slipping both actually in his feet and his legs and rhetorically when it comes to what is clearly some innate racism in the guy who was born 80 plus years ago. And this is evidenced over and over and over. Just get Victor Davis Hanson on your show and he's got this photographic memory. He could go down the list of every racist thing Joe Biden's ever said. And it's long. It's long. But as of late, he's really revived an old bad habit of referring to black men and other minority men as boy, boy. Now we know he knows this is

wrong because I'll give you just one example, but I'm going to play you another. In 2019, Cory Booker, Senator who is black rebuked Biden for downplaying the use of the word boy to diminish black men. Biden was defending some racist that he managed to do business with by saying he never called me boy. He called me son. And Cory Booker was like, well, that's a dumb ass thing to say. The use of the term boy for a white man has a very different implication than it does when used for a black man. We anybody who's spent two minutes in the United States and knows anything about our history knows this. And he said, Booker later did, that he had had a constructive conversation with Joe Biden about his use of this term, adding, this is about him invoking a terrible power dynamic

that he showed a lack of understanding or insensitivity to by invoking this idea that he was called son by white segregationists who, yeah, they see him, in him, their son. But of course, the implication is in somebody like me, Cory Booker, they see something very different and use a very different term. He wasn't the only one to confront Joe Biden about this. Al Sharpton did, too. And I'm going to show you that confrontation, which happened in 2019 before the Biden presidency. And every soundbite that comes thereafter is post these conversations with Cory Booker and Al Sharpton. Watch. Well, it hurts when you talk about boy. I mean, something different to us.

I do understand the consequence of the word boy, but it wasn't said in any of that context at all. But you understand they would never call me son. No, no, no, no, no. But but they call Bob, they call Teddy Kennedy boy. Look, as you know, Rev, you know about me in Delaware. I came up in that community. I came up in the black church. I came up because that's what we sit down to organize to go out and march. The great artist of our time representing the groundbreaking legacy of hip-hop in America, LLJ Cool J. By the way, that boy's got, he's got, man's got biceps bigger than my thighs.

I think he's a hell of a new governor in Westmore, I tell you. He's the real deal. And the boy looked like he could still play. You want to come and make a speech? Hush up, boy. As my mother would say. You've got a Japanese boy coming over here. And guess what? He won the Masters. He won the Masters. He won the green jacket. I mean, do we need to go to the if Trump did this place like it's very interesting to think about what could happen with the black vote and the feelings on the economy

coupled with Biden's obvious racism on the other side, Emily. And it would be even more interesting if the media, I think, would give any oxygen to this in the same way. It's not just about the double standard. It's about the fact that there are real consequences to giving people a pass on all of this stuff. And actually, I may have been sort of like, if I had just seen one of these clips or the other one of these clips, you know, he's older,'s older he's from a different generation maybe he slips up time and again um and afforded him some grace but when you see the pattern it's pretty damning uh and and if the media gave oxygen to him the pattern that he just demonstrated recently again like we're not talking about something five ten years ago these are what people in the business call news hooks and And the news is not biting on any of these hooks. Now, of course, new media is going to cover it. Places like this are going to cover it. And so a lot of people will see it in those spaces because they're not paying much give him the the the criticism that he deserves in this case.

And I think that's a real benefit to him and a real sad story about the media. That same feeling that we had, Matt, when he was coming down those stairs and he stumbled, the stumble. That's what his staff has every time he speaks, because they know not only is he likely to screw it up but something like this is more and more likely to come out it is another big risk for them between now and november 24th we at reason uh had a did a video a little parody video remember the uh uh the uh the real man genius ads. I forget what it was for, like Budweiser or something.

So we did that, but did it for Joe Biden. And this is back in like 2008 or nine or seven when he was running as a vice president because we found it hilarious that of all people

were going to appoint Joe Biden, who's been kind of a clownish character in American politics for a long time, a successful one. But like he's been sort of a clownish character in American politics for a long time, a successful one. But like he's been sort of a punching bag, a punch line in American politics. He's been doing this thing the whole time.

Look at what he said about Indians working at 7-Eleven. That's not very cool. Talk about corn pop down at the swimming pool. That's super not so great. You know, telling... Barack Obama. Barack Obama, too. He has this...

The first clean, articulate black man. The source of that meme. He's been doing this forever. And another thing that I was just noticing, looking at that clip, right? Did you notice the difference between 2019 Joe and the two years later, Joe? It's visible. It's visible. That's not so great. Every president looks a hell of a lot worse after four or eight years. Everyone gets gray. Everyone gets a bit haggard around the edges. But the thing that's happened to Joe Biden in just two or three

years is very, very noticeable. And one thing that you will see over the next few months is a lot of people in the media trying to tell you that's not what you see there is not happening. And to focus on it is what about is because Donald Trump is bad. It's going to be a really bad season for journalism, I'm afraid. But they know they know, Emily, that Carville Sott they know. And they're faced with a very tough decision now. I know the ABC News Washington Post poll was an outlier showing Trump now up 10 over Biden. But more and more, we're seeing polls that show Trump up over Biden and the race tightening in the general in the critical swing states. And even those Trump voters in that poll I was citing a minute ago, the CBS poll that said,

well, I'm open minded to somebody else. No one's saying that their problems with Donald Trump are that they don't think he can win the general. That's not their objection to him anymore. It used to be that was Ron DeSantis, his main reason for running. I'll win and he won't. The Republicans don't believe that anymore. And I do think it's in large part because what they're seeing happening to Joe Biden, not even to Trump. All right, wait, stand by. There's so many great stories. We need a three-hour show today. I want to get to you what Andrew Cuomo is now saying about his revisionist history on the pandemic and much, much more. Stay with us. Okay, guys, we've got to talk about this COVID revisionism. I got some from Trump when I interviewed him, and now we're getting some from Andrew Cuomo. I'm going to take them in reverse order because Andrew Cuomo just made these comments that made my head explode. He's such a

liar. He has tried to rebrand himself just like his loser brother as some sort of a moderate. Now, you know, he's like a fair and balanced Democrat. He's trying to reinvent himself and reinvent history and his behavior when it came to the covid lockdowns. And on his podcast, he had CNN's favorite doctor, Leanna Nguyen, who never saw a lockdown she didn't like or a mask or a vaccine mandate. And they're going over, you know, how reasonable they both were during the pandemic. And he drops this on it. I lived in New York for the entire pandemic. Right. It's one of the reasons we left and came to Connecticut, his overreach.

But I lived in New York. Everything, as it turns out, I know you did too, Matt. Everything, as it turns out, it was all voluntary. None of it was mandatory. OK, all those businesses, they didn't need to close the schools. That wasn't thanks to him. The mask mandates, not his doing. He was just this sort of gentle idea, suggesture at the top. Listen to this in SOT 14. Government had no capacity to enforce any of this. You must wear a mask.

And people wore masks in New York. But if they said, I'm not wearing a mask, there was nothing I could do about it. You must close your private business. I won't. Well, there was nothing I could really do about it. It was really all voluntary. And it was extraordinary when you think about it, that society acted with that uniformity voluntarily. Oh my God. Can I just tell you one quick story? Just one quick story. So I have a very dear friend who is a single mom who had a dance studio and a company in Manhattan. And she was making it. She really was making it. She had a lot of young girls who were loving her instruction and they, they performed at the UN. They performed overseas. Like she was getting a bunch of gigs for these young girls. One of them went off to Princeton. I think it was another one got cast in a Scorsese movie. Like these, they were making it

and everything was shut down because of him, because of this man. And it wasn't just my friend. It was a lot of people. This is just one industry. We could go through any one of them. But the dance industry, for one, you weren't allowed to dance during COVID. Couldn't offer in New York State, New York City. You couldn't have a dance studio. It wasn't allowed. And I actually went back and just pulled the New York Times article on some of the complaints in that particular industry, just as one example. And it was talking about how frustrating the existing guidelines were, that they seemed to conflate dance studios with gyms, and gyms had a much longer period in which they were not allowed to open at all. But dance studios were also ordered closed for a period. One studio owner

received clearance to reopen from the Department of Health. Another called the Department of Health and was told she could not open her dance studio. Another reopened and was shut down by the city sheriff's office. So what would happen, Andrew Cuomo, if anybody tried to defy your executive orders, was the sheriff would show up. People were not free to disregard your vaccine mask or business or school closure mandates. They had to comply. It was not some miraculous handholding. Let's unify and bow down to the dear leader in Albany moment and the nerve, Matt, to suggest otherwise on camera on the record. He in August of 2021. All right. This is the guy who made his nut in the spring of the pandemic somehow became the love gov. And everyone was really interested in what he had to say. And he

was calming and soothing. He was portrayed as sort of the anti-Trump or the counterpart to Trump. And so, you know, if we're going to follow the science, we're always going to follow the science, right? Remember that. August of 2021, he was warning that if we open up schools, public schools again, that they might become a super spreader event. We had had a lot of science in between March of 2020 and August of 2021. We had a lot of examples all around the world of what happens when you open up schools. And it turns out what happens is then the schools are open and the kids can learn and they're not going to based in their own dysfunction and social isolation and have a lot of problems that have, among other things, driven a whole lot of people away from the public school system in the city of new york like me now i'm paying way too much money for private schools for my dad there's a separate story maybe but it's all kind of related uh it's ridiculous this

sense of revisionism and we're going to see a lot of it because none of that's popular um gavin newsom right he's the one who said like i'm you know we're going to look back and we're going to uh see what and where we went wrong and and uh now that we know a lot more i actually appreciate the gesture but i want uh him to know and everybody else that that's not doesn't mean that we're going to forget that you put yellow tape on outdoor playgrounds in california in december of 2020 which is absolutely insane, is so counterproductive to every public health thing that we know. So both of those characters, New York has a special sauce in which because of progressive era, like meaning 20s and 30s

governance reforms, no one knows who's in charge of anything, right? Somehow the governor is in charge of the subways in New York City. It's all weird and doesn't make sense. There's these quasi-governmental authorities like the Port Authority. So I'm sure he could hide behind like, well, it wasn't me who could enforce this particular mask mandate. It was actually the city. But if you're a resident of New York, all you know is that government's around you at all times. A health inspector can come at any minute and close down your business for any reason. You're aware of it. You follow the law or the threat of the law. And what that meant in New York was really severe lockdowns, way too severe lockdowns. And we're still climbing out of that. And it's going to take a long time for us to.

We've been covering that what happened with the church out in California. David Zweig's been doing great reporting on this that that held services, notwithstanding the lockdowns there and the mandates there. And the FBI infiltrated the church. And now that church has been forced to pay all these fines pursuant to their state policy. There are enforcement mechanisms. He's lying. He's full of shit. This was not voluntary.

People were forced to go along with it by state health authorities and at some level federal authorities. I pulled some of the New York Times background on this just because we all lived it. And here's what here's the New York Times piece. In recent weeks, the governor has repeatedly made it clear that he believed he had no choice but to seize more control over pandemic policy from state and local public health officials and because he didn't think they understood how to how to force people to comply. seize more control over pandemic policy from state and local public health officials. And because he didn't think they understood how to how to force people to comply. Here's another one. State health officials said they often found out about major changes in pandemic policy only

after Governor Cuomo announced them at news conferences and then asked them to match their health guidance to the announcements. So that's what would happen. Then the state health authorities would issue these mandates or, quote quote guidelines that the schools had felt that they had no choice but to comply with, that businesses had to comply with. And then in some cases, law enforcement would run around enforcing on everybody, Emily. And here's one more. Here's one more before you comment on it. I would be remiss if I did not mention my dear friend Janice Dean's, you know, reason for being over the past three years. And that is what he or admission to nursing homes

because they tested positive or were suspected to have COVID. What it essentially did was render testing of incoming patients inappropriate. And therefore, COVID's who were her patients who are COVID positive were put into the nursing homes by the thousand. And it led to some 10 to 15,000 deaths of the most vulnerable elderly populations inside these nursing homes. He then went on to lie about the number who died because he knew he had blood on his hands and he didn't want the responsibility. All of this is backed up by the Democrat Attorney General Letitia James. He gave the order. He gave the order. It wasn't voluntary. People are dead because of what he did. And I'm sorry, I realize COVID's over. They're trying to bring it back, but it's over. But accountability is important and calling out

these lies is important. It's one of the clearest cut examples from the pandemic of a policy that, as you pointed out, was an order, not a voluntary suggestion leading to deaths. You can connect A and B more clearly with Andrew Cuomo than almost this specific policy decision, more clearly than almost any others. It is really the perfect example of COVID evil and incompetence. And on the incompetence point, first of all, the man wrote a book that celebrated his legacy during COVID as the media was celebrating his legacy during COVID. He got taken down by Me Too stuff, not by his gross mismanagement that actually led to deaths during COVID. He wrote a book because the media allowed him to get away with mismanaging COVID because the that is actually having life and death consequences for as long as he did without a complicit and incompetent and ideologically compromised media? Absolutely not. So did Andrew Cuomo absolutely lead to life and death consequences? Yes. Did the media's enabling of Andrew Cuomo also have life and death consequences? Absolutely, yes. Looking straight at CNN, by the way, who allowed him to get away with all of this stuff, but so did everyone else.

I am fascinated by how what he's saying now is probably in conflict with his own book. He is telling the story. And again, they will let him get away with it. He will get away with it. There's no question about it. And that's why he feels comfortable doing it. And that is why the media's idiocy has, again, real life or death consequences. It's not just this abstract conversation about fake news. It actually, like the bigger conversation is that Andrew Cuomo shouldn't be able to show his face in polite society without apologizing and explaining why his voice still is relevant and legitimate because he learned from the pandemic and made

all of these major mistakes. Why should we trust you or care what you say unless you are groveling and saying what you did wrong? Now he's just able to reenter and talk like it never happened and that he was the hero and he's just going to get away with it. We're not even having the conversation about what it showed in terms of his character and competency. No, when Janice Dean, who lost both of her in-laws in nursing homes at this very time, went public saying, you gave the order, you did this, you're misleading about the number of deaths.

He lied. And there was reportedly correspondence between Andrew Cuomo, then the sitting governor, and his brother, Chris Cuomo, who was still fronting a primetime show on CNN about that weather bitch, Janice Dean, the weather bitch. That's what led me to get a shirt that read, I stand with the weather bitch. F these guys and their revisionist history. They're fucking liars. They're liars. And you're right. I don't know whether he's got some dream of like running again for New York state governor or somehow finding himself on

the Democratic ticket if Joe Biden implodes, because that was discussed last time when Biden was running. It's not gonna to happen. That's I mean, Janice alone will make sure it doesn't happen. But those of us who are paying attention to his history will make sure to. And for that matter, Trump also Trump also did some revisionist history on what he did on the pandemic in my interview with him, because he senses now this is plutonium in the Republican Party to what he did with the lockdowns. And I understand you can go back and say, as he did a different part of the interview, we didn't know what was happening. People were dying. Body bags were stacking up in China and here. It was a difficult time. That's one thing to do. But to

say you never did it and that you didn't support lockdowns is another. And it's also not true. So here's what he said to me in our interview, 27. I asked my audience, what would you like me to ask President Trump? These are your fans. This is the number one question they wanted me to ask you, that you shut the country down for six weeks in spring of 2020. Operation Warp Speed.

Excuse me. Rushed through. I didn't really. Let me ask the question. This is my audience's question. I gotta get it out. But I let the governors shut down. Some did and some didn't. So it wasn't me. It wasn't me. Here he is, March 17th, 2020.

Americans to take action for 15 days to help stem the outbreak. So it's a 15-day period. I guess now I would say it's a 14-day period. We're asking everyone to work at home if possible, postpone unnecessary travel, and limit social gatherings to no more than 10 people. If we do this right, our country and the world, frankly, but our country can be rolling again pretty quickly. April 13, 2020, he tweeted out the following for the purpose of

creating conflict and confusion. Some in the fake news media are saying it is the governor's decision to open up the states, not that of the president of the United States and the federal government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect. It is the decision of the president. And for many good reasons. Uh, and then he goes on to say, with that being decision of the president and for many good reasons. And then he goes on to say, with that being said, the administration and I are working closely with the governors and this will continue. A decision by me in conjunction with the governors and input from others will be made shortly and we could go on. He criticized Sweden for not locking down, saying they were paying heavily. So the revisionism is bipartisan.

Emily or Matt, let me go to Matt on that one. Yeah, he the two weeks to slow the spread. Again, it's in the line of fire. It's in the heat of battle, whatever. One thing that the playbook that both major political parties and their politicians and certainly the CDC tore up and you could see they had a big guidance in 2005, 2006 about what to do in the next big pandemic. And they stressed above all, what you have to do is have very calm information that is factual, including to the level of the degree which we say what we don't know, right? You don't have a sense of a false. Oh, definitely masks work or definitely they don't. Just tell them what it is and trust people to make good decisions for that. Obviously, Anthony Fauci was not interested in that guidance, nor was Trump. Trump, remember, he had the daily press conference he was having there for a couple of weeks during the beginning of the pandemic. Trump is not a disaster in any context who is going to be

the source of calm, cool, collected, just the facts information. That's just not what he does. He's got other value propositions. He could have receded. Then he didn't. It stands to reason that he zigged and zagged during the pandemic. He did, for example, a very good thing in my estimation in July of 2020, although it backfired politically when he and Betsy DeVos said, you know what? Schools should be open in September. We know enough now where that seems to be true. It's not the virus is not spreading like wildfire among the kids and they're disproportionately, thank God, not affected by this. We should open up the schools, even though it's not the federal government's call. Definitely not in that case,

but they can make recommendations. That was great. And then the Democrats took over the we're not going to follow the science mantle, including, you know, Governor Cuomo issuing a masking two to four year olds order, which stayed in effect until 2022, including people who are going to speech therapy. I have friends who are have gone insane with rage because of just that order. So, yes, Trump, Zig and Zag. And it's Trump. He's when called on. He's going to do it. Excuse me. And he's not going to cop to it. This is the line that Ron DeSantis has on Donald Trump of attack to chip away at at his and it would resonate with people. We'll see if DeSantis actually tries to draw blood on that. There's a lot of people, it doesn't take much to scratch into the anger that we all feel about stuff that happened during COVID. So you don't look

to politicians to start telling the truth all of a sudden, but people know what happened. That's the only reason Glenn Youngkin is governor, for crying out loud, in the state of Virginia. And it really is Ron DeSantis' main selling proposition that he kept his head during a time he was called Death Santus by the media and everybody else at that time. And he said, I don't care what you say. We're going to do this. And most of what he did in that context was correct. Trump zigzagged. He did good. He did bad. And, you know, it's Trump. He's not going to, like, come at his record in a super was correct. Trump zigzagged. He did good. He did bad. And, you know, it's Trump. He's not going to, like, come at his record in a super honest way. No, it is very much to DeSantis his credit that he held the line. He closed Florida for basically a month and a couple of

small lingering things thereafter. But Florida was open and he's produced a memo he got from the Trump White House Coronavirus Task Force headed by Anthony Fauci as late as I think it was January 21, saying you will mask up. You will issue a mask mandate in Florida. And Ron DeSantis said, no, we're not doing that. So, I mean, not only did he not, you know, decide to impose these lockdowns and mandates. He pushed back when others tried to force him. So, you know, he's got a lot of evidence. It's ridiculous for Trump to attack DeSantis on covid. There's plenty of other things he can he can attack him on. That's just not one. That's not one. I do want to shift to the media, though, Emily, because you raised it a couple

times in the show, rightfully, and they are complicit in all of this. They made Andrew Cuomo a star and Anthony Fauci as well. We all know what they do to any Republican, especially one named Trump. But there was a very interesting piece in The Atlantic just yesterday, 926. And it's titled How We Got Democracy Dies in Darkness, which became the Washington Post's slogan during the Trump years. And anybody who was in the media who wasn't a leftist understood immediately when this came out what a joke it was. Talk to somebody like me and Matt, you know, we're older, about how dark democracy was over at the Washington Post when Obama was spewing the lies about if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.

I didn't hear much from the Washington Post. In fact, what I heard was them defending Barack Obama. That would later be dubbed the lie of the year by even left-wing sources because it got to the point where it was totally undeniable he had lied. And it came out that actually he knew, he knew it was untrue when he said it. So the word lie is okay. A deep dive based on Marty Baron, who used to run the Washington Post, his upcoming book about the Washington Post talking, I mean, at length about how they came up with this wonderful slogan. The number of alternative slogans that were bandied about. Bezos had given them their marching orders, Emily. He said, I want it to be both aspirational and disruptive, not a paper I want to subscribe to, but rather an idea I want to belong to.

We love this country, so we hold it accountable. They went through slogan after slogan. Months of meetings were held. Frustrations deepened. Outside branding consultants were retained to no avail. Desperation led to a long list of options venturing into the inane. The ideas totaled at least a thousand. A bias for truth. No. A right to know. You have a right to know. Unstoppable journalism. The power is yours. Relentless pursuit of the truth. Facts matter. It's all about America. Spotlight on democracy. Democracy matters. A light on the nation. Democracy lives in light. Democracy takes work. We'll do our part. Apparently, they settled on a free people demand to know. And Jeff Bezos's ex-wife,

Mackenzie Scott, who was a novelist, said, that's a Franken-slogan. Too many words. It doesn't work. And then we needed Bezos to take unilateral action. Are you getting the chill up your spine? Are they getting the tinglys yet? Finally, he did. Let's go with democracy dies in darkness, he decreed. It had been on our list from the start. It was a phrase Bezos had used previously in speaking of the Post's mission. He himself had heard it from the Washington Post legend, Bob Woodward, and went on from there. Oh my God, I've never heard anything so self-aggrandizing and so false all in one from a newspaper head. And then The Atlantic is publishing it, too, without any self-reflection. I mean, the Trump era is now in the rearview mirror and we can look at exactly what the media's failures were. Even the media, okay, so the Washington Post

has a long series right now, basically about how it allowed democracy to suffer in darkness throughout the Russia collusion hoax. Like they actually allowed one of their own journalists, media critics to go back and look at how they got so many stories wrong. Eric Wemple, he was like the only honest man over there. Keep going.

Yeah, Eric Wemple did it. Yep, absolutely. And it's in their own paper. And the sad thing is that it's true. Like, the reason you can go back and look at what the framers of founding fathers wrote about the importance of a free press. And they didn't have the same mass media and neutral press that we got used to in the 20th century.

It was pretty partisan. But when mass media came along, they had to appeal to as many people as possible. So they had this sort of neutral stance for the ad money. And that's when we came to this idea that journalists were just out there being objective, neutral. And some people really did try for years to do that because you do need a free press to be able to shine. Otherwise, politicians have no incentive to behave and no incentive to do the right thing. So it's absolutely essential. They're right. Democracy does die in darkness. They are time and time and again the source of the darkness. They are shielding it. They are intentionally. It's not just that they're missing

things. They are missing things to continue torturing this metaphor but they are also shielding things from light actively they are helping the government censor things uh you can look time and again and there's just absolutely like the collusion it's the missouri v biden i mean this stuff is like actually in court right now uh that they were working in concert with big tech and uh media and the biden administration and joan didion absolutely skewed bob woodward woodward in the new york review of books in like 1991 it's just like a beautiful thing um looking at how he was basically allowing democracy to suffer in darkness for years so it's it's not new but the trump era is what accelerated it not what solved it in in this telling from Marty Baron. And it's staggering, staggering, because it's so untrue that they are still not reckoning with it. They are sprinting further in the other direction.

The media is not getting better. It is getting aggressively worse. And this is a great example of why. Matt, you've got Glenn Kessler over there, the king fact checker who is wrong all the time. Philip Bump, Jennifer Rubin, Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post. Oh, my God. I mean, that's what a joke this once revered paper has become. I'm sorry. It's become a joke. Its circulation is down to record lows. It's absolutely abysmal, both online and in terms of the actual delivery. And I went back just to look at just a couple of my favorites. Here is Washington Post, October 2020. The Hunter Biden laptop could be fake or it could be real. We may never know. That was their democracy dies in darkness approach one month before a

presidential. Yeah, tomato, tomato. Then by March of 2022, when everybody had verified it, after extensive forensic analysis, the Washington Post was able to determine that some of the data on the laptop appears to be authentic. Some, you know, some, but not all. OK, Hunter Biden's literally filing a lawsuit right now saying the whole thing was his and that they were wrong to steal it from him and put it, gave it to the papers. So that's just a couple of examples. And then let me give you one more. February 17th, 2020 headline, which they then had to revise. But it was Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus fringe theory that scientists have debunked. I'll give you one guess what his fringe

debunked theory was about. Do you have any guess, Matt? Well, Matt Welsh, what do you have any guess? Something about a lab leak, perhaps. Nailed it. Nailed it. His debunked theory, fringe, was that COVID was somehow connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China. He referenced a laboratory in the city. Right, I'm getting to that.

But there is, quote, ready for it? No evidence, says the Washington Post. There is no evidence. Where have we heard that phrase recently? Cotton is referring to a well-known lab in Wuhan.

Numerous experts dismiss the possibility that the coronavirus may be man-made. This isn't true. They go on to cite some expert, quote-unquote, to say it's very harmful.

It's very dangerous to stir up suspicion, rumors and spread them among the people. For one thing, this will create panic. Another is that it will fan up racial discrimination, Emily, xenophobia and so on. Their expert goes on to say these kinds of conspiracy theories are unhelpful and borderline irresponsible. It's a conspiracy theory. It's and he's peddling it. So that's our democracy dies in darkness. Let's hold the powerful, accountable newspaper of record, Matt. Yeah, the people can't handle the truth. This is the longstanding idea about a lot of media critics

or media thinkers over time is that we have to be so careful. We have to massage. We have to be careful not to platform the wrong people because the consumers are these inner sheep. And if they get the wrong ideas or even bandy around the wrong theory, they're going to do horrible things.

We can't even imagine how bad these sheep like consumers are going to be activated. It's interesting about Marty Baron as a character in this is that and this excerpt is from a book, forthcoming book that he has. And maybe they match together like a Frankenstein slogan of a book about the origins of the democracy dies in darkness. And he's sneering. It's like, yeah, Trump thought it was about him, but far from the truth kind of thing. As if it has nothing to do with Trump. We know what you're doing. We know it. All right. It's really obvious that it was. And it was a source of a lot of industry snickering and rightfully so, because it was very dramatic and kind of silly the second half of this book excerpt is about how marty baron was fighting an increasingly lonely battle

within his own newsroom and in fact it's why he left earlier than he planned to um he was fighting against people who had gone completely like woke crazy there's taylor lorenz was in there felicia somniz um all kinds of interior struggle sessions at the Washington Post. But he's fighting a lonely battle to hold on to that old timey sense of neutrality and and pursuit, you know, imperfect pursuit of objectivity. He's written quite a lot about this and he recognizes that he's outnumbered. He was outnumbered at his newspaper by the likes of Margaret Sullivan, the very bad press critic over there who now works for The Guardian.

He doesn't see the connective tissue between the two things, right? You created a slogan, a very dramatic one, that was an idea you could belong to that sounded like you were going to be the rallying cry against Trump. And that's how your newsroom therefore behaved. That is why you lost the objectivity fight. And also not incidentally, that is why you've lost 500,000 subscribers since Trump left office. If you became essentially an opinion journal magazine, journalism magazine, you became the nation during George W. Bush's presidency. The nation got a lot

of subscribers then, and then Obama won and that's over. So you created the pendulum swing. You leaned into the idea that we can belong to. You chose a team, your newsroom, the younger people who worked there said, great, I love it. Moral clarity at last, despite one of the things

that they love to talk about these days. And what happened is the quality of the journalism got worse and they got more obsessed with the idea of who can be platformed and who cannot. They went after, and I'm sure you've talked about this on your show, the food critic went after the barstool sports guy for his pizza thing. They tried to get it. I love that story. It's insane. What are you doing here? You're trying to stir up a boycott against someone because he's not the good person. And you don't know what these sheep people are going to be like if they watch his one bite pizza taste test because he

might be a racist or something. It is ridiculous. They have created their own problem. Marty Baron was there. He couldn't fight it. And it's amazing to me that he doesn't see the connection between this thing that he's celebrating and the one thing that he claims to be fighting against. He lost the war. And that's why he's no longer working in mainstream journalism. It's well said. Oh, my God. The thing with Dave Portnoy and Barstool Sports is just so epic. And he did such a great job. He did us all a favor by taping that food reporter saying this is how you get people to respond to you. You have to lie about somebody else. You basically have to defame somebody just so you make a tantalizing for your target to respond to you. No, madam. no, that's not how journalism is performed. You're going to have to go back and check your little

rule book. Maybe you didn't learn that at Columbia Journalism School, but you learn it if you're an actual reporter and you actually go out there and work the beat and write honest stories. And then they use, you know, Molly Hemingway of The Federalist, I think, pointed this out, Emily. They use the passive voice in their piece, like, when they finally wrote about Dave Portnoy. It was like, critics respond to allegations about Dave Portnoy. It was something, like, so generic. Like, you were the one who made the allegations. Nobody else made allegations.

You did. What are you saying? It's amazing. You generated a whole fake news story. It doesn't matter if you're a neutral reporter, a conservative reporter, a liberal reporter. Like, actually, my part-time job is National Journalism Center. Like, we train students in journalism,

and now we can say that this is actually a textbook example of what not to do because I immediately added it to our curriculum for students to listen to the phone call and actually see exactly what you don't do as a reporter. By the way, she knew she was being taped. That's how shameless these people are. She knew, she knew, she knew, and she didn't care because all that matters at these Beltway cocktail parties is Manhattan, whatever book events, all that matters is that you stood up against Dave Portnoy. It doesn't matter if you dropped your journalistic ethics in the process. It's you against him and you have to be against him. That's so right. Whose side are you on? That's

all they want to know when hiring at The Washington Post. And it's not just The Post, but The Post has become the worst. I mean, I have to say, I think they're worse than The Times and The Times is bad. But I mean, like there there's no one to read there now. It's they've at least I can read some Brett Stevens at The New York Times. I do think Eric Wemple, you know, maybe usually I don't want to vouch for all of his journalism, but I've seen quite a few fair pieces from the guy. I'll just give you a little reminder as we go to break. Washington Post headlines, March 31st, 2017. Trump campaigns, Russia ties.'s involved September 8th, 2017,

the case for the Trump Russia collusion. We're getting very, very close February 17th, 2018 Trump's Russia hoax turns out to be real. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. More with Matt and Emily right after this quick break. There is a guy named Jonathan Van Ness, who is one of the co-hosts of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and I don't know, some other shows too. He co-hosted something with Dylan Mulvaney that was a hot mess. And this guy went on Dax Shepard's popular podcast. Dax Shepard, I like. He calls himself, I think, like an unapologetic independent, something like that. And he pushed back very gently on the idea of boys being able to participate in girls' sports, men participating in women's sports.

And Jonathan Van Ness didn't like it. Van Ness is a man who uses they, them pronouns, but also he, him. It's totally clear. Sure. Good luck with that. You spend some time talking about Jonathan. Um, and I guess Jonathan didn't really enjoy the conversation because he decided to cry, I guess, to end it, to engender sympathy for him because he knew he was losing the argument. Here's a little sample of what happened when he was on Dax's podcast, Armchair Expert. Do I wish that the trans woman athlete had access and could play and follow her dreams? I do. Will I elevate her rights over women?

We're pretending that women aren't the ultimate marginalized class throughout history. People who have written cervix have her. And she goes, no, no, no. There's a name for us. You can't steal my identity to help your cause. There isn't legitimate questioning going on. There is like a public targeted onslaught towards queer people. It's a boogeyman to make us feel

that our girls are being attacked, that their things are being taken away with fairness and sport. Honestly, I just, I wanted to come like chat about my podcast like other shows. Yeah, we're gonna do that. We're gonna do that.

I did not intend at all to get into a debate with you about this. I didn't want that at all. I adore you. I think you're hysterical and talented. I didn't want that at all. I adore you. I think you're hysterical and talented. And I love that you're an activist. I could just like cry because I'm like so tired of having to like fight for little kids because they just want to be included. I wish that people were as passionate about little kids being able to like be included or grow up as they were about fictitious women's fairness in sports.

I have to tell you, I am very tired. You know what, Jonathan? Same. Same. I'm so tired too. I'm so tired. I'm tired of having stand up for my daughter's right to play sports with other girls. I'm tired of having to stand up for the volleyball player down in North Carolina who got hit so hard in the face that she has permanent damage thanks to a boy who is allowed to play on the girls team against her, Peyton McNabb. Here's the video just in case you didn't happen to see it, Jonathan. Watch. Permanent damage to that girl. And we could go down the list. Apparently, Jonathan is too busy dressing other people to realize that there are girls like this across the nation who are having titles taken away from them,

scholarship opportunities taken away from them, the joy of winning taken away from them because they're being forced to perform and play against biological boys, against boys. And he goes on in this interview to say, the science we have now says that transgender women do not hold an unfair biological advantage over cis women. Number one, that's a lie. That's bullshit. Number two, the reason we don't have 10,000 studies is because we can see it with our own eyes and we don't need them. And number two, it's because anytime somebody actually does try to put this science out showing it, they get a shit storm rain down on them from the very active, abusive trans activist community, Emily. And those are the

only reasons that you don't have hundreds of studies saying it's obvious. But you don't need that. Look at Leah Thomas in the pool, 38 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor, 38 seconds. This guy wants to go out there and say, I bet you Jonathan Van Ness has never competed in a sport. It seems quite obvious to me. Final 50 yards of the 1650 yard women's freestyle of the 2021 Akron Zippy Invitational. Leah Thomas has no one in the rear view. No one. Because these women couldn't do it. After 15 minutes, Leah Thomas and Lane Fyme has lapped every swimmer once and some twice. That's just one example. And I'll just give you one more. Okay, I'll give you one more, Emily. Then this guy has the nerve, has the nerve to use the term trans misogyny.

How dare he? Listen to this. I'm not calling you a transphobe. You cannot be transphobic and still have thoughts that espouse trans misogyny and espouse transphobic ideologies or beliefs and not be transphobic. No, no, you do not get to use that term.

Misogyny does not affect or describe any man, a man posing as a woman, any man. Just for kicks, I went and looked it up. We all know that misogyny means woman hatred. But just here's the definition. Hatred of women and girls, a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men. He's talking about men, men competing against women, men in women's spaces, trying to say it's misogynistic for women to say no. This is so bass-ackwards, it's infuriating. He, as a man, has the audacity to smear women, women who have these concerns as misogynists and bigots and haters. And it's like the I'm-so-tired, I'm-so-tired narrative. Well, you know what? A lot of people are tired.

I'm tired of having to talk to moms and grandmothers whose kids are put in horrible, unsafe situations and who have their lives permanently altered, in some cases clearly destroyed, at least for now, until they're able to sort of climb out of these horrible dark holes that they're thrust into by this broken culture. I'm tired of talking to people like that. I'm tired of talking to moms, grandmothers, dads who have had their children in situations like that. And so it's this weaponization of his exhaustion as though we can't have this conversation. Dax, you can't raise what you rightfully referred to, Megan, as mild, the most mild form of criticism of this movement, which, by the way, when Jonathan Van Ness says, oh,

you know, I am just, I wish people had the same amount of energy for protecting kids that they have about these fake stories, which are obviously not fake, but I wish, I just wish people had that energy. Well, you know what? People did have that energy about, quote-unquote, protecting kids because they bulldozed our culture just quickly in a matter of months. I mean, if you look at the time the Obama administration sent their dear colleague letter to how this completely consumed our culture, it happened in a matter of months because people did have the energy to protect kids. And guess what? It didn't protect every kid.

We ran the experiment. People realized that it was wrong and that children were guinea pigs in the process. And Jonathan Van Ness, I think, genuinely doesn't realize that the science that he claims is capital S science is wrong because the media spreads that science. The media tells people that those stories are fake. The media tells people that that so-called science is real. It's just it's so like you said, Megan, it's completely backwards. It's offensive.

And Dax Shepard was right. One thing that he injected into that conversation that we never hear is that this is very specifically, very specifically undercutting the advances that women have made and women have historically suffered misogyny and sexism. They're probably going to change that definition in the dictionary because we live in 1984 after you highlighted it. But seriously, this is men do not have. It's just amazing the audacity that men have to inject themselves as the victims in these stories. Oh, my God. How dare he? How dare he use the term misogyny in referring to women standing up

for women and girls trying to keep men out of our spaces? It's a no, sir. I don't care how often you cry in your soup. I'll make you cry all day long. We'll be doing this for years. I couldn't give a shit how upset you are about these imaginary kids you're referring to. By the way, the littles are allowed to play against one another. It's post-puberty that it becomes a problem, which is documented by the science trademark. Then he goes on, Matt, and actually tells more lies, this one about Leah Thomas. Listen to SOT25. Even if you look at the very limited number of trans people who have been allowed to play around elite sport or elite competition, if you take Leah Thomas, for instance,

none of her numbers were record setting. None of her height, weight measurements were out of portion in all of the pictures on the podium where they're like, look at how much bigger she is. If you take her and look at it at an Olympic level,

she wasn't outside of the realm of possibility for someone who was assigned female at birth. All right, he's an idiot. This guy's an idiot. He's an a-factual idiot. Let me just give you a couple,

okay? A couple. February 2020, Leah Thomas won the 200-yard freestyle race at the Ivy League Women's Swimming and Diving Championships in a minute and 43.12 seconds, setting a new Ivy record. Hello, Jonathan,

record, a new Ivy record, a woman's record. March 2022, Thomas is now an Ivy League champion in women's swimming after winning the 500-yard freestyle event with a time of 4.37.32. Her time is the fastest ever recorded at Harvard University's Blodgett Pool. Fastest time recorded. That's a record, Jonathan, in women's swimming. December 2021 at Akron Zippy Invitational won the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 141.93, a time that was good enough to set, wait for it, school, pool and program records and marked the fastest in the nation. Congratulations, sir. You're now the fastest woman in America. And this idiot goes on with Dax Shepard, who I believe is an honest broker, but wasn't prepared for these lies and spews a

bunch of bullshit with his tears to try to pull the sympathy away from the women whose opportunities were denied and championships were denied and put it towards this guy who we know from his social media posts is an autogonophile who was getting off, meaning he was turned on by wearing women's swimsuits amidst the ladies. And they're going to have to deal with him getting off in the women's locker room while they're running to change in some closet so that he couldn't look at them and he they didn't have to participate in his sexual fetish. Matt, I've had it. I invite people to think about the rhetorical two step that was used in this case, because we see it in a lot of places. It's not just in sort of trans issues spaces a lot of activism does this too first step call you a fill-in-the-blankist or a fill-in-the-blank

folk could be homophobe could be racist could be some some kind of bigot second step when that fails if that fails is to do the i am so tired from doing the work i am emotionally exhausted i might cry or i might not. It's actually a tactic. There's a thing in the legal realm, as Megyn Kelly knows well, being a lawyer, called strategic lawsuits against public participation, SLAP, with two Ps for short. It's what usually corporations do, but sometimes rich people do. They will file kind of a nuisance lawsuit against a critic. And in many states, I think majority by now, there are statutes, anti-SLAPP statutes, because they can see this rightly, they're trying to sue

their critics away, right? I see, and I've seen this for now for five or 10 years, activists do this in a lot of realms, in my realm in New York City, in school equity policies. If you object to it like a normal person might object to it, they will call you a fill-in-the-blankist. Sometimes it's a racist. And if you are not a public figure, that is a heavy accusation. You will shy away from participating in public discussions

because you don't want to be called a racist. If you power through it anyways, you will get the tears and the I am so tired. They are trying to get you to not participate and to not voice objections, recognize it for what it is and plow through it. I was joking in repeating his language. I'm so tired. The truth is, I'm not tired at all. I'm completely energized for this fight. It's on. I don't care how much you cry or whine or spew bullshit. I will be here. So will these guys. And so will millions of Americans over almost, I think it's

over 70% of which, according to the latest poll, who are on our side about keeping men and boys out of women's and girls' sports. Again, it's a no. Matt, Emily, thank you. Very spicy two hours. Really loved today's discussion and appreciate you both being here tomorrow. We will break down all the storylines from tonight's big GOP debate. See you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.