The Megyn Kelly Show - GOP Debate Stakes, and Progressives Refusing to Condemn Hamas, with Charles C.W. Cooke, Michael Brendan Dougherty, Josh Hammer, and Seth Mandel | Ep. 679

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke and Michael Brendan Dougherty to talk about why this week's GOP debate really matters, the latest on the Trump trials and if Trump could be in jail come November, if there will actually be any general election debates, NBC pressing DeSantis on dropping out, what each candidate can gain and lose from tomorrow's debate, Nikki Haley's appeal and "boomlet," if Haley needs DeSantis in the race or out, The Atlantic's new hyperbolic anti-Trump issue, the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to "democracy" and "norms," the reality of Trump's first term, Sen. John Fetterman using George Santos to troll Sen. Bob Menendez, and more. Then Josh Hammer of Newsweek and Seth Mandel of Commentary join to talk about the hypocritical administrators like Harvard's Claudine Gay when it comes to anti-Semitism and free speech, continued outrageous anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses in America, the flawed solution of putting Jews under the DEI umbrella, Rep. Jayapal's embarrassing CNN interview trying to change the subject about Hamas atrocities aimed at women, those who refuse to simply condemn Hamas, the faulty oppressor and oppressed framing, the true anti-Israel politics of progressives in Congress today, and more. Plus Megyn reveals big news about her husband Doug Brunt's book, "The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel."Cooke- https://podcast.charlescwcooke.com/Doughtery- https://www.nationalreview.com/author/michael-brendan-dougherty/Hammer- https://www.newsweek.com/josh-hammerMandel- https://www.commentary.org/

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, coming to you live from the University of Alabama, where tomorrow night I will be co-moderating the fourth Republican presidential debate. And frankly, this could be the fourth and last Republican debate. It could be the fourth and last debate entirely in the entire election season. We'll talk about why in a minute. We are here in the spin room where the Megyn Kelly show will be live today, tomorrow, and then also with a special post-debate election show tomorrow night. We've got a great lineup of guests for you this week, including a few on-set surprises.

With the Iowa caucuses less than six weeks away, tomorrow provides a crucial opportunity for the presidential hopefuls to set themselves apart. We can now tell you who will be on the stage. And it is the smallest number of candidates to date, meaning you can expect a much more substantive conversation. Those who made the cut? Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. We do not expect former President Trump to attend, but you never know.

Anything could happen, especially when it comes to Trump. He loves Alabama. Mr. Trump, we're here. We can come up with questions for you. Trust me. It'll be saucy. It'll be fun. But don't count it.

Yesterday, long shot candidate and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum dropped out of the race. Goodbye, Doug. We'll miss you. He actually could have a shot in future elections. I think a lot of people opened their eyes to this guy in a way that they hadn't prior. But for now, he's gone back home to North Dakota and is not thinking about presidential politics. Joining me now to discuss it all to my favorites from National Review, Charles C.W. Cook, senior writer and host of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast, and Michael Brendan Doherty, also a senior writer at National Review.

Guys, welcome back to the show. It's getting kind of exciting now, 24 hours out from the next big debate. And I'll tell you here in Tuscaloosa, you can feel the energy already. The candidates are coming in. Everyone's getting ready. They're peppering, you know, all of us here on the rules and where everybody's going to stand. And we at the debate team, I'm co-partnering with News Nation and the Free Beacon, are figuring out who goes in the center. Thankfully, now we have four candidates, so there's no exact center. But there are all these sort of power dynamics in setting up the stage and getting ready that are fun to be immersed in. So Charles, let me ask you, because a lot of people will be asking themselves going into this fourth debate,

does it matter? Could it matter? Is there a reason to pay attention to this? Obviously, I've got my own thoughts on it because I'm here. But what's your take? Well, I think it matters. I think that the race at the moment has been frozen for a long time. And as I've suggested before, the big question now is whether or not that freezing is real. If it is the case that Trump is 60 points to the good and that everyone else is fighting for scraps, then no, the debate's not going to matter. But if people aren't paying attention or there's an incumbency factor for Trump, then yeah, we need to know who's going to be left standing. And in that scenario, people are still going to be looking for answers to questions in choosing their candidates. So yeah, it matters. It also matters in the sense that it has been

a useful winnowing exercise. And the debates have obviously changed the way that people see the candidates. Tim Scott, for example, was just not really there at the other debates. People noticed it cost him momentum, it cost him funding, it cost him support, it cost him funding, it cost him support, and he dropped out. The fact that you still have, especially Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis,

on the stage shows you that whether or not they can beat Trump, they have some sticking power. I'll tell you another reason why it could matter, MBD, and that is, you guys know in National Review, our mutual pal Andy McCarthy just posted a big piece on how Trump has been denied for now an argument that he's immune from this criminal prosecution by the federal government in Washington, D.C. in front of Judge Chutkin, who is not a Trump fan, it is safe to say. And so he lost that battle with her and now he's going to try to appeal it. And he's going to try to take it up to the U.S. Supreme Court saying, I can't be put through this criminal prosecution. There's a question about presidential immunity. These are for acts I took as president and so on. And the point I'm getting to about Andy's piece is he

points out that Judge Chutkan might very well, if Trump gets convicted in that D.C. federal case, he does not think it's likely that she would stay imprisonment pending appeal. He said, don't bet on it. So if if he gets tried in D.C. and this is a federal case, but you're still pulling from D.C. for all of your jurors, a town that went over 92 percent for Joe Biden in the last election. The odds of him being convicted in front of such a jury are extremely high for obvious reasons, especially with this judge. You really are looking at a scenario where the likely Republican nominee could not only be a convicted felon by Election Day 2024, but thanks to this judge, could be sitting in jail on Election Day. And that really could be a break glass in case of emergency moment for the Republican Party, especially if that happens prior to the Republican National Convention this summer at a point where potentially they could still switch out the nominee. Yeah, there is. It's strange that for many months we've been proceeding as if this were going to be a normal election.

And there's like an even lower level of interest, I think, than there had been in the last two presidential election cycles, when in fact this one is by far potentially the most explosive, where, as you point out, you could have someone in prison. You could also have someone in the morgue by election day 2024. These are highly unusual circumstances. In effect, we shouldn't be here. I mean, Joe, people that are prosecuting Trump under bogus legal theory should cease doing so. It's dangerous to the republic. I mean, Joe, people that are prosecuting Trump under bogus legal theory should cease doing so. It's dangerous to the Republic. And perhaps candidates who are under so many indictments should get out. But here we are. We may need to break an emergency option.

We also... These debates matter because these debates are a time for people to hash out disagreements within the party the effect there there are other implications too even if you think trump has got the nomination sewn up perhaps he's going to look at nikki haley and decide this person is a good vice presidential candidate for me that has enough appeal to suburban voters or to women voters that I need to make up for in 2024. The debate, you know, we're talking about real issues that affect Americans, the border, inflation, seeing how the audience responds to these questions and these candidates can shape the race next year, even if the four participants you have tomorrow night are not among the candidates next year. So, you know, it absolutely matters.

We need more debate going into 2024, not less. So, you know, this is a public service, and I'm glad you're the one doing it. Wow, thank you. Co-moderating with Elizabeth Vargas of News Nation and Eliana Johnson, our pal from the Free Beacon. And we just came from a debate meeting. We're ready. I'll tell you that we're ready. It's going to be a spicy couple of hours as long as the candidates show up ready to play, you know, which I have every every belief they will. Charles, the reason I said this could be actually the last debate entirely is you've got not only, you know, if Trump keeps going up, right, if this debate does nothing to change the trajectory and let's say Trump goes from 50 to 60 percent up on these folks to 70 to 80. I mean, at some point, the RNC is going to say we're not doing this anymore, because at that same time, the votes are going to start to come in, in Iowa, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina. So all those two points could come together at the same time. So let's assume, just for purposes of argument, that nothing happens to change the early races

and the trajectory and Trump wins those races. There's no way Joe Biden's going to debate Donald Trump, I think. Some people disagree with me, but I just don't think Biden can do it. He's going downhill. We'll get to some of his latest snafus at the Kennedy Center Honors, but I don't think he can do it. So I really think he'll say, I'm not debating an insurrectionist. I'm not debating a convicted felon, an accused felon, an imprisoned felon, whatever, wherever Trump is in that process. And so we may actually have an election in November 24 without either candidate having sat for even one debate the entire cycle, which feels deeply wrong. Well, it feels deeply wrong per se. I'm not sure it feels deeply wrong if the two candidates next year are Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I would like to see an election in which ideas were batted around. But if you remember back to the 2020 election, the debate that we got between Biden and Trump was not exactly substantive. It really involved them throwing pies at each other and disgracing the nation. If we could have two different candidates, then a debate would be

fruitful. I was somewhat dismissive, at least in its effects of the contest between Ron DeSantis and Governor Newsom from last week. But actually, that is the sort of debate that Americans ought to have. That is a fight between two different visions, between people who have taken dramatically different decisions. And within reason, I thought DeSantis did a much better job than Newsom, are willing to hash them out. But I don't think we would get that from Biden and Trump, even if both Biden and Trump were with it, which certainly Biden is not. I think you're exactly

right. He's going to use any excuse he can not to have to debate Trump because he can barely get through a press conference or a gaggle at the moment. Trump doesn't seem to want to debate anyone either. I wouldn't be too surprised if Trump tried to underscore the advantage he has in virility by saying, I am leading in the polls. I'm the front runner. I'm going to win in a landslide. Why would I bother debating Joe Biden? So, yeah, it's a strange scenario, but I think it's more the product of it being a contest potentially between Biden and Trump than it is the debate itself. That DeSantis Newsom debate reminded me, did you guys ever see the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow, where she kind of has the opportunity to see what life would have been like in another set of, you know, an alternate universe. That could have been our politics, right? We could have had two young, vibrant leaders hashing out policies for the future

of the country. I honestly, I thought Newsom came across just so grating and irritating, but fine, the left likes him. So that's who they want to put up. Then that's who they, no, we have two very probably elderly men who are going to maybe hash something out, maybe not, but who are going to be in the contest. And the American voters, if you look at the overall numbers, they don't want this. This is not the contest they want. On the subject of Joe Biden, the Kennedy senator honors the other night, and they honored Billy Crystal, Queen Latifah, Barry Gibb, Dionne Warwick, and Renee Fleming. And Joe Biden couldn't make it through without

multiple mistakes. He continued to refer to Dionne Warwick as Diane. Now, guys, we're like, I think I'm I know I'm older than Charlie and MBD and I are a little closer, but this we all know who Dionne Warwick is. But Joe Biden really knows or should know who Dionne Warwick is. She's from his era. This is not like Taylor Swift or, you know, one of these Olivia Rodrigo, like somebody who maybe he's not familiar. Dionne Warwick, he should know, repeatedly called her Diane. Diane, truly a gift to us all, Diane, to where that poor White House transcript man or woman had to continue like doing strikethroughs, Diane, and put in brackets, Dionne. Same thing happened with Barry Gibbs.

He continued to call him Billy of the Bee Gees. Same thing. These guys were big in 1970. Joe Biden still was like somewhat vibrant back then. That was 50 years ago. You know, it's Barry Gibb. It's not Billy Gibb. And he did it over and over. Same brackets, man. Had to keep fixing it. Then there was the moment he paused to honor Queen Latifah. And we have a little bit of what happened there, cut. And by the way, with other movies and movies, she's earned a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy. Enemy. That's me. Primetime Emmy. Primetime Emmy. So this is with scripted remarks, you guys, at the Kennedy Center Honors. How on earth could they putting him out there as president of the United States? I mean, the debate is a courtesy to handle Bibi Netanyahu to prevent a war in Gaza from becoming a regional war across the Middle East. I mean, he has grave responsibilities beyond being a host of a little award show. So I'm just astonished

at how this is going on. And I'm waiting, you know, for years, years from now, we're going to get real journalism about what the Biden White House was like, how it operated day to day. Same. And I'm waiting for that, you know, the way that Americans had to wait for Woodrow Wilson, you know, the revelations about Woodrow Wilson and how his wife basically was running the country while he was in bed. I mean, this is an astonishing scandal altogether. And yet it's held, you know, just as, you know, in a way Biden is holding up Trump, Trump is holding up Biden. And, you know, it's these two old is holding up Trump, Trump is holding up Biden.

And, you know, it's these two old men leaning on each other. And that's the only reason that they're still standing as far as as candidates for next year, because people are so afraid of what it would be like to have four more years of the guy that they don't like. I mean, it is seriously afraid. That leads me to The Atlantic. OK, so The Atlantic, their January slash February 2024 issue has 24 contributors, 24 contributors considering what Donald be shocked to learn would be much worse than the first term. Now, that may be true. However, it's no surprise that Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic is saying it will be. Trust us. All while trying to tell us that they are a nonpartisan magazine. Here's just a little. It's not a sure thing that he could win the Republican nomination again. But as I write this, he's the prohibitive frontrunner, which is why we felt it necessary to share with

our readers our collective understanding of what could take place in a second Trump term. I encourage you to read all of the articles in this special issue carefully, though perhaps not in one sitting, for reasons of mental hygiene. Okay, but it's not a partisan magazine. You got it? Our term of brilliant writers makes a convincingly dispositive case that both Trump and Trumpism pose an existential threat to America and the ideas that animate it.

The concern is that the Republican Party has mortgaged itself to an anti-democratic demagogue, one who is completely devoid of decency. Now, these are points that you could read from a lot of Republicans who don't like Trump, but this is what we're in for for the next, what, 15, I don't want to do the math, months. If one of these guys on stage tomorrow night does not unseat Trump in this nomination, it's the ratcheting up of rhetoric. I mean, they've already thrown out terms like Hitler. And Charles, I know you don't like Trump, but you know that it's going to go so sky high on the rhetoric. It's going to try to scare people.

And I really do think, you know, we're in a, we're going to be in a world of hurt. We're going to be looking at riots if Trump were to win. But even in the next year, and maybe even from the MAGA right, if Trump is convicted, if he's thrown in jail, like this, all of this is at stake in some way here in Tuscaloosa. Yeah. So as you said, I don't like Trump. That's correct. And I think he should have been impeached, but that doesn't mean every criticism

that is advanced against him is correct. And I think one of the problems in reading through some of the essays in The Atlantic, which I did yesterday, is that the authors, they make three mistakes as far as I can see. The first one is they level their criticisms of Trump, many of which are true, but they then glue them to policy preferences. For example, McKay Coppins wrote an essay in which he suggested that Trump's desire to have people around him who are willing to implement his agenda is somehow sinister. That Trump's desire to be able to fire people within the executive branch that he heads up, which is the only elected member as a president, is sinister. That is false. We need to keep our criticisms of Trump, and I have many within the right frame. The second thing is there is a profound inability on the left,

and you see this in the Atlantic's package, to reckon with the anti-democratic or illiberal behavior of their own friends. And we have seen this with Biden over and over again. Biden has ignored the Supreme Court. He has ignored his own lawyers who have told him his behavior is illiberal. He's reversed himself on court packing, on the filibuster. He has tried to stage a federal takeover of elections. This is not a purely Republican problem, and yet there's nothing in there about that because it is apparently only the case that Donald Trump is a threat. And then the third problem I have is,

while I think that Trump has disqualified himself from consideration and should have been impeached, I think that our system works. Trump did not succeed after he lost the election in staying in power. The vast majority of Trump's initiatives in office that went beyond his authority under the Constitution or the law were swatted down. He's not Hitler because America is not Germany. And this is a problem that I have with progressives in general, is that they simultaneously describe figures such as Donald Trump as Hitler, while trying to get rid of the guardrails in our system that prevent anyone from pushing it too far. All of the institutions that checked Trump, as they've checked Biden and Obama and Bush and everyone else, are anathemic to progressives and

have been since the time of Woodrow Wilson. So I find it very, very odd that you get this sort of hyperbole at the same time as the one thing that prevents it from becoming a reality remain under attack from the same people who write the hyperbolic statements. You know, to that point, so true, Charles, to that point, some of the things that they're predicting under, you know, a Trump presidency MBD, the things that are really upsetting some of the left in these think pieces that we're starting to get now is the following. I'll give you a couple of this is from The New York Times, the radical agenda that we can expect from President Trump.

He'll reevaluate NATO's purpose and mission. So reevaluating. He'll order the military to attract to attack the drug cartels in Mexico. He'll use the military on domestic soil to keep law and order. He'll purge undocumented workers. He'll expand presidential power. OK, to the point Charles just made, he's going to be the culprit who does that. And here's the last one. This is the best. MBD, they are very concerned at The New York Times that Trump would use the Justice Department to wreak vengeance against his adversaries in a naked challenge to democratic values. Who would ever do that? Were they alive during the first Trump administration? I ask seriously because I remember the first Trump administration. And the problem was that half the time Trump wasn't president. Trump would go out, he would tweet something like,

we're putting a ban on transgender persons serving in the U.S. military. And then the Pentagon would announce, we're providing services for transgender persons serving in the military. Trump would announce, we're withdrawing all troops from Syria. And then the White House, quote unquote, would announce weeks later, actually, we're putting 300 more troops into Syria. When Trump was in the White House, everyone knew Trump kind of wanted to reopen the country in the early months of COVID. He talked about reopening by Easter. But no, Dr. Fauci decided the terms on which most Americans would live. And the implicit threat was, and you better elect someone else other than Donald Trump or we'll keep you locked up after the election.

This was not a subtle threat. And so to me, the problem is not that Trump was a dictator. The problem was Trump was hardly in charge at all after 2016. And that kind of lack of oversight by him and lack of control through the White House is a danger, but it's the exact opposite danger of what they're warning against. And so I just don't know what planet they're living on. Robert Kagan wrote a similar op-ed in the Washington Post saying, the chances of a Trump dictatorship are rising and we have to pay attention to it. A dictatorship? I mean, the guy could not dictate to his own chief of staff at the White House without being undermined. That was the problem. And it's going to continue being a problem going forward. I mean, like you both said, I mean, if Trump is elected again, I expect not only will Congress check him as they did before, they didn't pass

all of the MAGA agenda, they passed the agenda that Paul Ryan was ready to pass. The courts, they blocked his immigration orders, sometimes under pretty shoddy legal reasoning. They gummed up the works. But worst of all was that the executive branch itself was in rebellion against the president. And that's a serious problem. And I don't know if Trump is the one to, you know, lead a kind of draining of the swamp, like he said, because he was swallowed by it in his first term.

Can I just add one thing? Yeah, go ahead, Charles. I was just going to say that the list that you read prior to Michael's answer is a perfect example of what I mean when I say that the criticisms of Trump fail to distinguish between the things that he actually did wrong and policy disagreements. I'm a big NATO guy. I really like NATO. I don't want to reevaluate NATO. I think NATO is a force for good. But that is a big NATO guy. I really like NATO. I don't want to reevaluate NATO. I think NATO is a force for good. But that is a debatable question. That is actually well within the political realm. Likewise, illegal immigration. I'm not a fan of illegal immigrants. In fact, the vast majority of Americans are not. That is not a question of democracy. That is a political matter. If the Congress decided to, it could open the borders. It hasn't decided to. If it decides not to open the borders, then we're supposed to have border enforcement. But that is a question that should be debated by the people like trying to rewrite the Electoral Count Act and the 12th Amendment so he could stay in power,

is absurd and it massively weakens their case. And it makes it sound as if all they're trying to do, which many of them are, is stop a Republican from becoming president. Joe Biden has done the same thing. At that speech he gave with the weird red lights behind him, where he looked angry and almost dictatorial himself, he made some good points about the things that Trump did wrong. And then he said that pro-lifers were equivalent

to this attack on America. I mean, this is crazy and it doesn't help. And I hope that those arguments against Trump that win the day, if they do in the Republican primary, can distinguish between those two things because they really need to be separated. It jumped out of me that half of this list are things that Republicans would like to see Trump do, but that he didn't when given the chance as president. He's promising again now that he will. But, you know, it's one of the complaints Ron DeSantis has been raising about Trump when he says, I'll use the military on domestic soil to keep law and order. DeSantis and his supporters have said repeatedly what you really did in office when we had BLM anarchy all over the streets was tweet law and order, law and order without actually doing anything. It was Senator Tom Cotton who wrote an op ed in The New York Times, we do need to disperse the National Guard to keep order. And then that led to a complete meltdown inside the Times, which cost

one senior editor his job. But MBD, you know, a lot of Republicans looking at this same list that the Atlantic, the nonpartisan magazine wants us to believe that actually that's the New York Times wants us to believe is, you know, cause for alarm that he's he's going to be a dictator, a fascist, whatever. And they'll say, this is our wish list. Great. Thanks for the free promo. Trump's probably thinking. Right. You know, meanwhile, by the way, the same people that want this list, if they're empowered again in a second Biden administration, what are they going to do? They're going to try to rebuild the disinformation project that sicked the intel agencies on Americans who disagreed with COVID policy or had a different idea about the origin of weaponizing the Justice Department. I mean, what is what do you think Merrick Garland is doing right now? who's most likely to be the nominee into a situation where they can withdraw, they can draw testimony from him according to a political schedule that benefits them.

I mean, this is just, and they have no compunction about it, that this is going to stir up in people crazed feelings, both left and right. And as you said, Megan, the biggest fear is that what the elite journalists are doing and the elite opinion makers are doing is creating a permission structure for extra legal and violent political action around the election next year. And you're going to see it. If Trump is elected, even if he gets a popular vote majority, you will see the city of Washington, D.C. occupied for months on end by scores of thousands of activists trying to bring him down or prevent him from being inaugurated. If you see Trump in jail, I'm sure you're going to see slightly more disorganized and crazed action on the right, on the far right. This is a very dangerous and heady time. It requires real

leadership. And we have total absence of it, both politically and intellectually. Well, I'll tell you one thing. If you're, I know, as we discussed, you're not a huge fan of Trump, you should be rooting for him to win Charles in particular. You should be rooting for this because if Trump doesn't get the nomination or if he does get it and runs and loses, he's probably going to try again in four years. We're going to go through this whole thing over and over and over again. There's only so much the country can take of this storyline, I think. We'll see. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Charles and MBD, stay with us.

My guests this hour, National Review's Charles C.W. Cook and Michael Brendan Dougherty. We are here in advance of tomorrow's big Republican.W. Cook and Michael Brendan Dougherty. We are here in advance of tomorrow's big Republican presidential debate. It should be very spicy. We're trying to keep it spicy as we come up with these debate questions. And I've said to the press interviewing me on it, you guys, that I think what you'll see different in this debate versus the other debates is we've worked very hard to make the questions, you know, 90% of the questions, A-plus level questions that are hard questions, as opposed to just, what would you do about this? What would you do about that? Right? We're trying to make it tough for them to just give us talking points

that we've heard them say a million times before. And especially because we're the fourth debate that we've heard them say on the debate stage multiple times before. And we're trying to foster actual debate. You know, one of my biggest frustrations with that NBC debate was it wasn't a debate. It was Kristen Welker and Lester Holt and at times Hugh Hewitt asking questions that they wanted the answers to, which there's room for that. But there was no debate. And when debate broke out, they stifled it. So it's like, I can I can see Kristen Welker do this on Meet the Press every Sunday. I don't need to tune into a debate to watch it, you know, get get her questions answered. I need to hear them fight. Because by the way,

they're not allowed to do this in between the debates. Vivek, DeSantis, Nikki, they're not allowed to debate each other on Fox News or anyplace else in between the debates. So this is literally their only chance to have it out with one another. So you'll see that on our, on our debate tomorrow night. Join, not find, joinnn.com. My apologies, News Nation. I always forget that. Joinnn.com, joinnn. Okay. So going into tomorrow night, let's talk about who's got the most to gain. I think it's probably all of them. And who's got the most to lose and how you think it's likely going to them. And who's got the most to lose? And how do you think it's likely going to go down between them? Because, you know, these are some silverback gorillas going out there who need to sort of take down a couple of the other ones who are costing

them points in various states. Kristen Welker, speaking of her at NBC, had DeSantis on Meet the Press this past Sunday and really, really, really wanted to know when he's gonna drop out. Take a listen. Are you committed to staying in this race through the Iowa caucuses? So I don't think anyone's ever done an Iowa caucus with this amount of institutional and grassroots support. And it's only gonna build for here. And we look forward to being victorious on January 15th. so just to be clear you are committed to staying in the race through the caucuses of course i am i mean it's absurd that i wouldn't be on caucus night if you don't come in at least second would you then drop out

of the race how critical is iowa well we're going to win the caucus we we're doing everything that we need to do it. But what if you don't, Governor? And I've said from the beginning, we're gonna win the caucus. Bottom line, is Iowa do or die for you, Governor? We're gonna win Iowa. I think it's gonna help propel us to the nomination. Okay, I'll tell you my own take on that is it was rude. You can ask once. You can definitely ask him, you know, are you getting ready to drop out? Your poll numbers don't look so good, whatever, however you want to put it. To badger him like that is you're pushing your agenda. You're desperate to make a news headline to the disrespect of the candidate. Charles,

what did you make of it? Well, I agree with you. I think it's rude. I think it's agenda driven. I also think it's pointless because what it's agenda driven i also think it's pointless because what's he supposed to say unless he's going to drop out now of course he's going to stay in until iowa and his aim is to win iowa and if he wins or does really well in iowa then he's going to continue i mean as you say maybe you could ask that once just to see what his reaction is it makes more sense to ask that of, say, Chris Christie, who really does seem to be competing for just one state. But OK, ask Ron DeSantis if you have to. But what is he supposed to say after that? The way she asked it, too, was really irritating.

It's this sort of smug, knowing way of asking that suggests to me, once again, that the press really would love for Donald Trump to be the nominee and for everyone else to drop out. That does seem to be a narrative they're interested in developing. Either way, I agree with you. The latest narrative, MBD, is that Nikki Haley, some have described it as a boomlet, you know, she's having a boom, a boomlet, um, that she is, you know, the favorite. Uh, there was a piece suggesting he, he DeSantis can't recover now because of her surge, trying to find it in front of me, but suggesting that, um, it's a death knell to the Ron DeSantis campaign, that he's not going anywhere in the polls. She's now giving him a run for his money, even in Iowa, where his

lead has been cut to, I think, three points and suggesting that that's not recoverable for Ron DeSantis. But the truth is, while Nikki Haley is beloved by a certain wing of the party, she's loathed by a separate wing. Right. So I don't know that her boomlet is the death knell of anyone. What do you think? So The New York Times and Siena College did a poll of the GOP earlier this year, and it showed that there was like a 20 to 25% portion of the GOP that were implacably anti-Trump, right? They're anti-MAGA. One of the other notable things about them was they were super pro-supportive of Ukraine and arming Ukraine and defeating Russia. And what you're finding is Nikki Haley is the candidate of that passionate minority in the party.

But the fact is, when you dig deep into the polls, she doesn't seem to have strong appeal beyond that yet. Whereas Ron DeSantis, when you look in the polls, you find out, oh, well, half of his supporters are looking at Trump. And well, gee, half or more than half of his supporters are looking at Trump and well, gee, half or more than half of Trump supporters are looking at DeSantis as potentially their second choice. So, you know, what you're really looking at is so far she's been able to activate that passionate anti-populist pro-Ukraine sector of the party, which is real and which has real muscle and organization um you know even

americans for prosperity and the the coke organization came through and endorsed her which means you know a gusher of money coming through but that doesn't mean the voters are there um and so far she hasn't shown an ability to appeal very far beyond that core. And the rest of the party can sniff it. They detect in her that her rise is somehow a rebuke of them. So I just don't think it's going to fly. You know, she might win. Maybe she can win New Hampshire if Chris Christie got out of the way. You know, I do think one of these early

states wants to give Trump a spanking, you know, for not doing the debates, for not working as hard as the other candidates are working. But I just don't see her appeal nationwide. You know, what she's offering other sectors of the country, you know, outside of Northern Virginia. We talk about win New Hampshire. I mean, all these are after Trump win New Hampshire amongst the undercard. I mean, no one has a great chance of beating Trump in any state. I understand DeSantis is hoping thanks to the endorsement of the governor there and of Bob Vander Plaats that he actually could leapfrog Trump in Iowa and Trump is stiff-armed Iowa.

So, yeah, we're talking about beating the rest of the undercard. But what about that, Charles? Does Nikki Haley need to try to take out Chris Christie at this debate tomorrow night? Because she actually is potentially in a position to, again, win, in air quotes, behind Trump in both South Carolina and New Hampshire. But it would be much easier for her in New Hampshire if Chris Christie were no longer there. Yes and no. I mean, obviously, he is an impediment to her in New Hampshire. And as we saw in 2016, when you have too many people going for the same votes, it helps Trump. But the ultimate problem is that Trump's polling at 50 or 60 percent. So I think really what Nikki Haley needs to try to do is take out Ron DeSantis in the long run,

because the race, if it's not going to be Trump, is going to be not Trump because it came down to Trump and a not Trump, if that makes sense. That was very Monty Python-ish. But you're going to have to have a head-to-head at some point where people are clear as to what their alternative choice is. And they're making the decision to back someone else because Trump's in legal trouble or they're tired of him or he's too old or they're just bored of all of the drama or they don't think he can win. So, you know, yes, I suppose if we're getting down into that level of detail, then she should want to take out Chris Christie. But the two candidates that have a chance of becoming the not Trump are DeSantis and Haley. And that's why we're seeing so much money being spent by Nikki Haley

going after Ron DeSantis, because she understands that. And also why DeSantis MBD took a shot at Nikki Haley on Newsmax, I think yesterday, saying she's not conservative. He said she opposed protecting girls in bathrooms and locker rooms when a bill on the trans issue came up when she was governor of South Carolina. He said she opposed me on Disney, inviting Disney to move to South Carolina when I tried to push back on them for criticizing the sexualization of children in school. And his third example was she said Hillary Clinton was her inspiration to get into politics. Now, she said she disagreed with Nikki Haley, I mean, with Hillary on policy, but she did say she was her inspo. So he's coming right out with it. She's not a conservative and has no business becoming the GOP nominee. But it's my point is there's

an escalation for sure between those two. Absolutely. And there needs to be. I mean, DeSantis needs every type of voter he can get if he wants to challenge Trump. Any Trump challenger needs every type of vote. And if Nikki Haley's support is primarily because she's like the full package anti-Trump, well, if she's ever knocked out of the race, those people will be searching for someone who is not Trump and they may settle for DeSantis if that's the best that they can get. So of course that makes sense. I mean, I would be worried if I were Nikki Haley though, that if I knock out Ron DeSantis too early,

that the bulk of his supporters go to donald trump and trump just romps through these early states by unbelievable margins i mean um you know nearly half of half or more of ron desantis's supporters would go to trump if desantis is out so you know if she manages to somehow you know sneak up on him in Iowa, I mean, I think in a way it could be a disaster for her, you know, it would be the end. That's interesting. That's such an interesting point. You're right. If she takes him out, who benefits? Not necessarily Nikki. So she does need to, I mean, she's smart. I'm sure she's doing all this calculus behind the scenes herself, but that'll be one of the most fascinating things because,

you know, you can tell these debates who's ganging up on whom, who's trying to take who out and for what reason, you know, we, we saw that, I mean, who could forget Chris Christie and Marco Rubio, Charles. It's like, it's very obvious when one of them makes up their mind that the other is their prime target. I have to say, I'm a little bit of a skeptic of this sort of thinking, as you may know. And I think Donald Trump illustrates why. You remember back in 2016, we heard so much about lanes, these lanes in the Republican primary. And we were told that this poll, if you dig down, the third choice in this state is that person. And so this will break that way. And look, Donald Trump is unique. He's sui generis. He was before he became a politician, one of the most

famous people in the world. He's probably the most famous person in the world now. So he is a little different. But I think that momentum has a great deal to play in our politics. And I'm just not convinced that the minutiae of polling represents accurately how people actually think. I think people get excited about candidates. I think that they tend to follow the herd. And I think that if Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley were to break away and make it a two-person race, then a great deal of the analysis that we're seeing would be rendered moot and replaced by much more human instincts, such as a desire to follow the crowd or back the right horse or get excited about someone who is different or move on,

or perhaps just to vote for Donald Trump once again, as Republicans have done now for eight years. So I'm a little bit of a skeptic. I do agree with you that you can tell at a debate what each candidate thinks they have to do to win by who they're attacking and on what grounds. I'm just not convinced that that's actually how human beings engage in politics.

Hmm. I mean, there's no question the debates have had an effect, at least for Haley. Her numbers have gone up in a way they hadn't even come close to doing prior to the beginning of this thing. She's been very animated and active out there. DeSantis hasn't. That's one of the things I want to see. Is he is he more aggressive on the debate stage than he's been? All right. Let's take a look in the time we have left at what's happening on the other side of the aisle, because, I mean, what's going on with John Fetterman? I feel like those of us who have been very critical, it's not like people hate John Fetterman, but just, you know, the fact that he's in this office, notwithstanding his multiple challenges, I think are paying new attention to this guy as he's proving very willing to cross factions of his own party on certain things. Number one, Israel. Number two, he's now going after Bob Menendez, U.S. senator from the state of New Jersey who's involved in yet another alleged corruption scandal.

And he went, Fetterman did, on The View on Friday and said this. We have a colleague in the Senate that actually did much more sinister and serious kinds of things. Senator Menendez, he needs to go. And if you are going to expel Santos, how can you allow to somebody like Menendez to remain in the Senate? And, you know, Santos is kind of lies were almost, you know, funny and like, you know, he, you know, landed on the moon and it got kind of stuff. Whereas, you know, I think, you know, Menendez, I think is really a senator for Egypt, you know, not New Jersey.

Pretty bold. What did you make of it, MBD? I loved it, to be honest. I mean, he's dead right. I mean, George Santos is a comical person, and some of his scandals, like fencing puppies or whatever, it is the strangest stuff and he go he was expelled from congress because he annoyed his colleagues but feneman is right that bob menendez is being charged with really grave crimes of corruption of office and he's he's right to go

i think the babylon b joked uh weird man becomes more conservative as he gains brain function. And I think that's about where it is. I'm excited to see this Fetterman. I mean, maybe he just has decided he's his own brand and can get away with whatever he wants to and become a little bit of a legend in politics in the meantime. He also, Charles, hired, you know how you can pay certain people to do these cameo videos? He hired George Santos, Fetterman did, to do a cameo video for Menendez. I'll show you just a little bit. Let's check it out. Hey, Bobby. Look, I don't think I need to tell you, but these people that want to make you get in trouble and want to kick you out and make you run away, you make them put up or shut up. You stand your ground, sir. And don't get bogged down by all the haters out there.

Stay strong. Merry Christmas. Oh, my God. Charles, I'm sorry, but that's a brilliant move. That's the best two hundred200 he's ever spent. Yeah, I admire the fact that he is willing to buck the trend, be it partisan trend or normal political behavior. I don't want to be churlish, but he is going to annoy the hell out of conservatives most of the time. And we oughtn't to forget that when it comes to judicial nominees, legislation. We're having a moment of levity, sir. We're not endorsing the entire politician. Yeah, I know. No, I know. But I just sometimes think we ought to remember that on the right, because we're very quick. Anyone who says anything

that remotely aligns with what we believe, we jump on them. Yes. Oh, my goodness. You, you are great. You're president. I still going to annoy the hell out of us. Well, it's like RFK Jr. You know, people are like, yes, I agree with him on the vaccine madness or on the military-industrial complex. And then you get a look at his social policy. Wait, what? Wait, okay.

Guys, such a pleasure to see you. We'll talk after the debate. And thanks for coming on. You, good luck. Thank you. And don't forget, we are going to come back right in two seconds. We're going to catch up on a lot of the madness that's happening on campuses and in the country on Israel with Josh Hammer and Seth Mandel. In the meantime, subscribe to the show debate tomorrow on news nation it will air live at 8 p.m eastern i'm freezing i'm always so cold they keep these events just like the tundra it's got to be 50 degrees here in this little spin alley tomorrow there'll be this will be

filled with reporters trying to get interviews with the candidates and their surrogates and all that. But why must it always be so freezing? I'm telling you, either I'm just getting too old for this crap or they're trying to freeze me out. I don't know. Either way, I cannot be frozen out. I will be here. You're going to be able to see my breath shortly, however. All right, now back to the news. Anti-Semitism on college campuses is the focus of a hearing today on Capitol Hill. And it's really interesting. One of the university leaders called to answer questions. Harvard University's Claudine Gay. This woman's been a nightmare. She's been an absolute disgrace. She's been getting criticized by former presidents of Harvard like Lauren Summers, a bunch of donors have pulled. She's all over the board on her messaging. She's in love with DEI unless you're a Jew. That's the bottom line with Claudine.

Well, she testified that she has seen a dramatic and deeply concerning rise in anti-Semitism. OK, first of all, that's obviously just window dressing from her because she clearly did not give two shits about rise in anti-Semitism until she was made to by their rich donors. But in any event, questioning continued, in particular from Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. And she refused to say students calling for the genocide of Jewish people is against Harvard's code of conduct. Now watch this. Let me ask you this. You are president of Harvard, so I assume you're familiar with the term intifada, correct? I've heard that term, yes. And you understand that the use of the term intifada in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel,

including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews. Are you aware of that? That type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me. And there have been multiple marches at Harvard with students chanting, quote, there is only one solution, intifada revolution, and, quote, globalize the intifada. Is that correct? I've heard that thoughtless, reckless, and hateful language on our campus. Yes. So do you believe that type of hateful speech is contrary to Harvard's code of conduct, or is it allowed at Harvard? It is at odds with the values of Harvard. Can you not say here that it is against the code of conduct at Harvard? We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful. It's when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying, harassment. Does intimidation. Does that speech not cross that barrier?

Does that speech not call for the genocide of Jews and the elimination of Israel? You testify that you understand that is the definition of intifada. Is that speech according to the code of conduct or not? We embrace a commitment to free expression. Wow. Joining me now, Josh Hammer. He's editor at large for Newsweek and a host of the Josh Hammer Show. And Seth Mandel, who is now senior editor at Commentary and doing a great job over there. Guys, welcome. Great to have you. She's been honestly among the worst. Is there somebody, like is there a university president, maybe Liz McGill of UPenn who was also there, but Claudine Gay has been an

absolute disgrace. And the irony of listening to this woman talk about her commitment to free speech when Harvard ranks, I pulled it up, number one for the worst. So it is the worst and fires college free speech rankings. Unless you're saying kill all the Jews, in which case it's very important to be able to express yourself because I don't know, Josh, you tell me. Yeah, I mean, how many examples do we need, Megan, over the past 10, 15 years of conservatives being shouted down on university campuses for saying such anodyne things as, you know, maybe if you are a biological male that you should not be able to compete in women's sports that, oh, maybe the unborn child in the womb might actually have an inalienable right to life. So obviously, these universities, the Claudine Gays, the Liz McGills of the world, their recent rediscovery of this absolutist commitment to free speech, which, you know, by the way, isn't actually necessarily what the First Amendment says. That's actually a whole another kind of constitutional conversation. But even taking that at face value there,

the timing of it obviously stinks to high heaven and reeks of hypocrisy. It ultimately is nothing whatsoever about procedure. It is not about neutrality. It is not about free speech for all. It is about free speech for some, but lack of free speech for others. And unfortunately, you know, in your remarks there, Megan, you alluded to DEI, which is the reigning orthodoxy on prestigious. You know, I wouldn't even call them prestigious on the most expensive university campuses these days. According to the tenets of DEI, the Jews are an oppressor class. Therefore, they get less privilege. They get fewer rights than the other groups get. And what

that translates to, what that cashes out to in concrete terms, is that when you call for genocide of them as these intifada revolution moral cretins, these pro-Hamas jihadist sympathizers are doing at Harvard, Penn, Princeton, elsewhere, ultimately, then you get free speech. But, you know, dare you say, of course, that, you know, Riley Gaines is correct. University of Kentucky swimmer, that biological men should not compete against her when it comes to NCAA swimming. Oh, then you're a transphobe and you have no right to free speech. It's just awful. Wait, before I go to Seth, you actually, you had a piece on this, was it? No, it was actually, this was Seth.

I will go to you on it, Seth. You had a piece on commentary, which I saw a truly terrible idea on campus antisemitism, which was about this issue that we just teed up, which is the answer to this is not to file the Jews inside of the DEI protocols and to have them latch on to these people who are running these programs at these universities. The answer is to break these DEI monopolies in our schools, which are pernicious, rabid forces that only foster

difference and fighting and division. That's the word I'm looking for. Go ahead, Seth. Yeah, look, the piece that I wrote was after Hillel International and the Anti-Defamation League put out a report saying all this anti-Semitism has been going on on college campuses. It's as bad as you think it's been. Half the survey was from before the October 7th Hamas attacks, and part of the survey was after. And it showed that was their way of showing the spike in what they call incidents. But the end of the report, none of that was surprising. I think we've all seen this going on. But the end of the report asked one question about what to do about it all. And the question was not multiple choice and it was not open-ended. It was, should DEI include Jews? So there's one solution you're giving to students here and you're saying,

do you want this too? And so of course, 70% or whatever it was said yes. But this is this is precisely the wrong way to go, because DEI, first of all, it can't be molded to include Jews on campus because Jews are considered by DEI, by animating ideology to be white or white adjacent or white enough, whatever it is. And as Josh said, that makes them the oppressor. So there's no way to have, you can't have the two coexist, DEI ideology and the idea that Jews are considered a put-upon minority. The two cancel each other out. But the other point that I made in the piece is that, why would you want that anyway? Let's say DEI could be expanded somehow, the umbrella could be expanded so Jews could stand under it. But why would you want that? Look what it's doing

to campuses across the country. It's tearing them apart. It's completely resetting our idea of higher education. It's infiltrating studies that would have normally nothing to do with any of these social issues. And they're being made into, these courses are being made into requirements. So everybody has to go through it. And it's teaching people to see those around them based on the shade of their skin color and therefore to put them in a specific box on what that means for their privilege and how many minutes they should liberal arts education, which is to learn, to be open to ideas, to hear new things, to be challenged and to challenge others. This is just sort of a racial hierarchy spoil system. Jewish community, people of the book wanting to be part of this, you know, opting in to essentially help deconstruct real education and replace it with, you know, some sort of racial protection racket, no matter which of it they're on. And it's too late. It's too late anyway. The DEI crew has already branded the Jews whites, and that's the end of the game for them.

It's too late. You saw that Gallup poll that came out more than six and 10 Democrats, 63%. Let's see. Hold on. I want to get it. Okay. Disapprove of Israel's military action in Gaza, 63% of Democrats. And you, you break it down, you know who it is? It's adults younger than 35. 67% of the younger adults under 35 oppose Israel. 64% of people of color, 64% disapprove. And so do the slight majority of women, 52% are not in favor of Israel's actions in Gaza. So it's too late. Those are the groups most affected by the DEI ideology. They've been captured and there's no battling it once it's sunk in. So I really, I think the move is the Chris Ruffo position. You don't go DEI light. You don't try to get more groups included in DEI.

DEI must go away. It must be crushed at every level. Even at my daughter's school, she's in seventh grade. You can run for next year for, you know, various positions, you know, president, class president, vice president of this. There's vice president of DEI. I mean, this is starting at very young ages. You can get PhDs and bachelor's degrees and so on in DEI. It's become a whole cottage industry,

and you can guarantee virtually all of them are against the Jews because, as I said, you've been classified as white. I do want to raise this issue, though, Josh, on the question of the intifada chance. Because to me, as somebody who is generally a free speech advocate, doesn't mean there are no consequences to your free speech. But generally in America, you're allowed to say hateful things. Hate speech is allowed. Now, college campuses, it gets a little trickier because any place where you can disrupt education, the schools are allowed to crack down more, though that's generally more of a K through 12 thing. So what's your position on that? Should the should students be able to march across a campus, given at least Stefanik's definition of intifada and shout that they're in favor of it? No, Claudine Gay is dead wrong in saying that Harvard University students have either a First Amendment right or a Harvard Code of Conduct

right to chant for the mass slaughter for the genocide of others. First of all, I mean, it is well-established First Amendment case law that you do not have a First Amendment right to imminently incite violence. Now, that goes back to 1960s, and the court has kind of watered it down a little bit. So you really have to kind of directly try to incite violence, which is one of many reasons that I and others have tried to dismiss the allegations that Trump himself on January 6th imminently incited violence because his speech was not literally calling for a certain action. But it gets a little lawyerly. But when you are literally using the word intifada, there is one solution intifada revolution. Well, first of all, I mean, just the first half of that phrase, the one solution.

I mean, where does the mind go, Meg? When you hear one solution, what do you think of? You're obviously thinking of Hitler and the final solution. And then you finish that phrase with intifada revolution. Well, Israelis paid the price of the first intifada and the second intifada. And that price was the deaths and the maiming and the slaughter, the Sbarro pizza bombing in Jerusalem in 2000, thousands of Israelis dead. The biggest modern slaughter pre-October 7th was the second Intifada. So you don't have a First Amendment right to save these

things. And again, what's good for the goose has to be good for the gander. So there is an element of hypocrisy here, too. But I think it's a dangerous road to go down to say that you have a First Amendment right to imminently call for the slaughter of others. That is not our tradition. That certainly is not what the what the free speech clause, the First Amendment, which is ultimately there to have an exchange of ideas to ultimately arrive at the truth. That is what Aristotle would have called the telos, kind of the overarching purpose of the free speech is to get at a conversation to arrive at truth. If you're chanting for the death of others, you are not contributing to a principled discourse, a principled discussion, ultimately arriving at truth. I think that can be said for sure.

So this one is bothering me because I'm very pro-Israel and absolutely want them to annihilate Hamas. However, when it comes to saying controversial things, I'm in favor of saying controversial things and I'm in favor of then the Jewish group shouting right back, you know, F off. It's different, though, if the college code says all students have a right to feel safe on campus, which is the way they've been approaching free speech till now. Safe spaces. You can't say hateful things. Otherwise, you can't even join the university. Never mind march around the quad saying the things. And it's not that I have any empathy for the message about Intifada. It's just this is America and you are hate speech is constitutional. Incitement is a very, very, very high bar and almost no speech reaches it.

So I don't know, Seth. I mean, I I recognize what a hypocrite Claudine Gay is. I don't believe one word of her out of her mouth was sincere. She couldn't give two shits about free speech. But I also wonder, is it the right place to go to start cracking down on the words coming out of people's mouths, even if they're really awful? Generally of the opinion that you want to hear what awful people have to say. So I err on the side of letting people be idiots, in part because this conflict, especially this conflict and its aftermath, have been revealing, right? I mean, this has been, this really tells you who cares about what or anything at all. And so if you're,

you need to know who people are and what they think in order to move through the political world and in order to navigate your life, you have to know who you can trust. And we got a lot more information about a lot of people about a lot of people and a lot of organizations since October 7th that tell you who you can and who you can't.

And I think it's illuminating. And I also think that there's strategically, you don't really want to be in the dark. And that's one thing. Another is that when you push speech underground, it doesn't go away. It just sort of ferments and grows in an environment that has no sunlight. And that's, you know, less healthy than leaving it open air and debating those ideas. And also in terms of constitutional, what's constitutional. I just think that on campuses, if you have rules, they should be applied to everybody. And if they're bad rules, you should get rid of them. So what this may be showing is not that people shouldn't be allowed to chant their Israel slogans, but maybe that the rules that are preventing others from chanting what they want to chant, maybe all these rules are bad to begin with. Right. I mean, it's telling you that if you can't apply them evenly, then perhaps we should move far beyond this idea that your comfort on college campus is paramount and that the rules should be structured around people not hearing things

they don't want to hear. And so the frustration with college presidents is that nothing actually changes. They don't enforce the rules that they have in place evenly, and they don't get rid of the rules that they see obviously needs to be changed. And so there's no solution. They don't actually do anything. They don't take steps in either direction. I would prefer, in general, the direction that they take would be in the direction of free speech. But they don't actually take that direction, and they don't actually take the anti-free speech direction. They just kind of sit on their hands and say, oh, well, this is really too bad. And what it's exposing is that the way these college rules

and norms are structured is a complete and total mess and completely at odds with, in some cases, constitutional speech, in some cases, just the general academic project and academic freedom. So do something about the rules if you don't want to apply the rules. Yeah, we have seen person after person shouted down at Harvard. I'm just looking at a quick list from FIRE, which is a great organization.

They fight for free speech, no matter your partisan connection. Just a couple, in 2022, Harvard disinvited feminist philosopher, Devin Buck Buckley from an English department colloquium on campus over her views on gender and trans issues. So that's one person who is going to go to a little gathering in the English department and offer her views on gender. It's a no, no, said Harvard. But the whole masses out on the quad shouting about intifada, we're really committed to free speech. So I can't stand the hypocrisy, and we see right through her. But I look forward to going. I really want to get Kelly J. Keene, and I want to get Rebecca, I mean, and I want to get, uh, Riley, Riley Gaines and, uh, Helen Joyce.

And I want to go to the Harvard quad and I want to chant a man cannot become a woman, make women female again. There's no such thing as chest feeding. And anyone who tries it is a sick child abuser. I'm going to say all of that. And I can't wait to see Claudine's protection of my free speech. Let's meander from Harvard over to Cornell, which I don't surprisingly to me, I don't know. I just kind of am surprised that Cornell is like one of the hotbeds of the anti-Semitism movement. I went to Syracuse, which is 45 minutes away. It was a stone's throw away. And it's many of the same people. It's not just like I'm surprised they've lost their mind to this extent. So the students there, the pro-Palestinian students, have decided to protest now while their fellow students are trying to study. My information is that you pay sixty two thousand dollars a year to go to Cornell and Ivy League school these days.

And this is what you're going to have to deal with. Take a listen to SOT 14. OK, so this is once again Students for Justice in Palestine, which is truly just the most abhorrent group of the things that they stand for. Absolutely horrific to me. But they're everywhere and they are walking into the buildings. They're disrupting the students who you can see at the cubicle studying for their finals. And this is according to David Bernstein reporting on Twitter saying that when complaints were lodged with the dean's office about this, the response was that the protesters have the right to express themselves so long as they don't get too disruptive. So you can disrupt. You just can't get too disruptive. They said with 20 to 30 minutes being considered acceptable. Can you believe this, Josh? Well, unfortunately, I can believe it, Megan, because I literally lived it three weeks ago. I was speaking at the University of Michigan. I was giving a YAF, Young America's Foundation, talk on this conflict.

The title of my talk was Israel's Righteous Fight Against Jihadism. And within three minutes of my talk, it was shouted down by 20 to 25 well-organized pro-Hamas protesters. And there were University of Michigan campus police and building administrators standing right there in the room. And what did they do? They did absolutely nothing. So you had the guy who was the university's man who was in charge of the building, went up to the podium, he kind of shoved me aside, and he tried to remind them of this, of the code of conduct. You couldn't hear a word he was saying because they were shouting so loud, shouting all the things that you would expect them to say from the river to the sea, blah, blah, blah. So long story short, what happened to me was this whole thing lasted about 35 minutes, if I had to guess, maybe 40 minutes at the most, at which point they went outside.

They were banging on the doors. By the way, they had painted all their hands in red. And it's a very nice lecture hall at University of Michigan. Beautiful campus. So you kind of get outside the hall and they left these filthy red handprints on the wall. So this literally happened to me. So what you're reading, you know, you have 30 minutes to go with your heckler's veto. That's exactly what happened to me. Unfortunately, Megan, though, I'm not surprised that this is happening at a school like Cornell. Actually, I was just there. I was there at both Cornell and Syracuse in late September. I spoke at the Federal Society chapters of the law schools on both campuses.

I actually took an Uber ride from Ithaca to Syracuse. It's very pretty in that part of New York. But a university like Cornell, they're drawing so heavily from these elite prep schools in New York City, in Boston, Philadelphia, and cities like that. You're going to have kids who have been indoctrinated their whole lives. I think one of the great fallacies that many, you know, conservatives, people who are center right tend to think is that, oh, the kids are totally fine until they're 18

years old. And then they go to these universities and they're totally brainwashed. That's totally nonsensical. Look, my mother was an elementary school teacher, a third, fourth grade teacher for 20 to 25 years or so. I have it from firsthand experience or secondhand, I guess, from her. The extent to which these kids these days are being brainwashed the entire time. Just yesterday, actually, I was speaking with Jason Rance out in Seattle on his radio show. He had this 47 slide elaborate PowerPoint presentation from a local high school out there in Washington state. And he wanted to bring me on to talk about it. It was, well, they called it a history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I will tell you

that it was one side's history. It was one side's truth. It didn't bear much of a resemblance to the actual truth. It was a lot about the Nakba, not a lot about the 1929 Hebron massacre where the Arabs murdered the Jews of Hebron and things like that. But again, they don't care about the facts whatsoever. They will never let stubborn facts get in the way of their pernicious ideology, which ultimately is all downstream of the Christopher Ruffo woke capture of the institutions and all of that. My God, these are annoying, snot-nosed kids who came from exactly the institutions you just suggested. And you see their behavior at Cornell and you know it. So the greater context of what I just showed you for the audience watching is

they decided to have like an occupation of Cornell. They're mad that the president of Cornell isn't entirely on the side of Hamas and they want certain concessions. Otherwise, they're going to continue their occupation or they decided to have a, quote, trial for Cornell president Martha Pollack. By the way, by the way, the Cornell Sun, the university on campus in reporting on their antics, quote, chose to blur the faces of participants in the photos due to safety and doxing concerns. They blurred the faces. We're not going to blur their faces, but they blurred their faces because they don't think that they should have any accountability for what they're doing. It's completely non-journalistic, that decision, Cornell Sun.

So you really need to work on your journalism before you proceed with your activism on the Palestinian side. So they decide to hold this mock trial for the Cornell president. And not surprisingly, they, I think, found her guilty. Yeah, they did. They found her guilty on a bunch of things, including genocide and apartheid. She's guilty of genocide, just sitting in her office because she hasn't given them all the things they want when it comes to Cornell's position. They want divestment from Israel. They want Cornell to support disarming they wanted because she, the executive vice president of Cornell, promised that they would at least discuss pathways to divestment through revisions and alterations to the endowments at Cornell. Unbelievable. So they're getting what they want with these antics, Seth. top of all that, back to the snot nose piece, they, after their little protests and occupations were asked by the administration to move so that they could close the building for the night.

And guess what they did? They went to Willard straight hall where they met and posted everyone's in good spirits. And some of us have started playing super smash brothers, allies in the community, super smash brothers, allies in the community, Super Smash Brothers allies in the communities and from the university have donated pizza, sandwiches, chips, drinks, and even homemade cookies to us. That's, I mean, we are, we're a far cry from the civil rights movement where African-Americans had to face down dogs in the street while they just tried to stand up for their rights. They're playing Mario, whatever, Super Smash Brothers and having pizza and cookies while they want us to see them as these fierce social justice warriors.

Well, look, we don't we don't know if Martin Luther King had access to a Nintendo Switch, if he would have played it, maybe he would have played, too. So, you know, you can't really judge based on that. I was too hard. You know, you can't really judge based on that. I was too harsh. You know, this is, this is just, this is progress. We just have more technological improvements since then. It's innovation. But yeah, the thing that really comes out of me when you talk about that specific situation is that, let's go back to the, I should feel comfortable on campus thing, and my comfort is paramount, the presence of Jews, presence of people who support Israel, that's what's making them uncomfortable. They need

someone to bake them cookies and to play Nintendo Switch late into the night just to get over the fact that they share a campus because they're not running from a counter protest. They didn't duck into Nintendo Hall, you know, on the campus to escape, you know, some sort of like angry Jews, you know, pitchforks and torches or something like that. No one's actually getting in their face. They have no threat. Nothing's making them feel uncomfortable except literally the existence of Israel, the Jewish state. And that is part of the key problem here, which is that it really does fit into the comfort mold because it's just not speech. It's just our existence that makes them uncomfortable. And they have somehow arranged the situation in a way that they get sympathy for it. I'm sorry you have to share

the campus and your state and the planet and the universe with people who support Israel. And of course, Zionism is at its core, essentially a civil rights movement itself. I mean, that's an oversimplification, but Zionism at its core just asks for Jews to have the same rights as everybody else. And so what you're seeing is a counter civil rights protest that is so upset by the fact that the school is not totally on their side, that they have to eat cookies and play video games and stuff like this. So the tantrum is beyond just, you know, it's one thing if somebody were making them feel unsafe, but they're the ones making others feel unsafe. They're the ones, you know, a lot of these protests, you know, we're seeing reports of I know people of kids in the city who've, you know, had to run the other way when a smoke bomb comes, you know, they're like shooting off smoke bombs and stuff like that, these protests. I mean, I guarantee you, you know, the nine-year-old kid on the Upper West Side

is not chasing 500 pro-Palestine protesters. It's, you know, it's surely the other way around. So the people who have been taking, in some places virtually every day or every other day, the opportunity to make people feel unsafe are the ones saying, you know, I don't feel safe or I don't feel comfortable because I'm not allowed to. Yeah, I need my cookies after a long march of throwing smoke bombs at nine-year-olds. You know, on the point about anti-Zionism, one of the things they're upset about, that their last demand that was not, quote, 100 percent met, and they're mad about this, but they're feeling like they can go back on it, was for the university to publicly recognize

the clear theoretical and political distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. But they believe that they might make progress because Cornell has promised negotiations are in process on that. And I know very well from listening to commentary and I'm reading a lot that that that's a hard no to to separate anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism. And there's a reason, Josh, that they're making this a requirement for Cornell in order for these snot nose brats to get out of the lecture halls and let the students who just want to work get their expensive education that they're paying for. So, look, the gold standard for the definition of anti-Semitism nowadays is what's known as the IRA definition. That's IHRA, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. And according to them, according to Natan Sharansky, according to U.S. State Department policy for many, many years now,

applying a double standard from the rest of the world, as you would apply to Israel, which is one definition, we might say, of so-called anti-Zionism, that is itself anti-Semitism. Obviously, these campus radicals, these progressives, these Stantinos Brats, as you are accurately describing them, they want to redefine anti-Semitism so as to not include this one particular component of it. But modern anti-Zionism is, there's simply no other way of viewing it as anti-Semitism. The exact same way that hundreds and hundreds of years ago, whether it was for the communists or the fascists

or anyone in between, the Jews were the scapegoat of all. They were the one kind of tiny minority group that was the root of all the world's evils. That is exactly the exact same framework that these idiots apply to the state of all the world's evils, that is exactly the exact same framework that these idiots apply to the state of Israel today. If Israel has to kill Hamas in Gaza, and because Hamas, you know, ever the cynical jihadist outfit,

they hide themselves within civilian infrastructure, they are complicit with UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency there, they fire rockets from schools, from mosques, from inside hospitals for God's sake there. So fire rockets from schools, from mosques, from inside hospitals for God's sake there. So because of the way that Israel is forced to conduct war fighting, that there are, you know, I'm not sure what the exact number is because we don't have reliable statistics, obviously, but call it eight to 12,000, somewhere in that range, innocent civilian

deaths, because there are tragically some civilian deaths that under international law are solely attributable to Hamas. Therefore, Israel is the root of all evils. Well, you know, where are these same people over the past decade in Syria where Bashar al-Assad and the result of the Syrian civil war has killed half a million Syrians? Where have these same people been in Yemen over the past nine years? Has the Saudi-backed faction and the Iranian-backed faction have had a horrific civil war there in Yemen with tens, hundreds of thousands of deaths. You know, back in Iraq, Saddam Hussein obviously gassing his own people. I mean, like, where does this stop? Obviously, when the Arabs killed the other Arabs, we default to no one in these campuses caring anymore. But somehow you get some Jews involved and, oh, they care a lot. And if that's not anti-Semitism, I'm not sure what is.

Yeah. Suddenly they're very clear on who's to hear. Real issues, tough questions, every contender. Because if you want to be the leader of the free world, you better be ready to give America the answers they're looking for. Live from the University of Alabama, the News Nation

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See you on the debate stage. To find NewsNation on your TV, go to joinnn.com. I have busted out the hand warmers. If you could only feel how cold it is in here. My nose is so cold. I'm just going to do the show like this. Thank God I have long sleeves for tomorrow night's debate, because I don't think it's going to be any warmer in the debate hall. All right, guys, taking a more somber shift in the coverage, it's been absolutely dark to watch some of these, in particular, squad members come out with their messaging on the horrors coming out of Israel and the reporting. And this Representative Jayapal, my God, I'm sure you saw it, went on with Dana Bash on CNN, and like so many of her Democratic colleagues, seemed to want to refuse to acknowledge the use of rape as a weapon of war and the atrocities, the sexual violence that was unleashed against Israeli women. I mean, this is just a bridge too far. It's one thing to be

gaudy and gay and finally find free speech right on your campus. This is something else entirely. It's just what kind of a person can't look at the reports of what was done to those women in Israel and say anything other than I am horrified, horrified. This will be condemned immediately. But it took the U.N. two months, the U.N. women's group to say anything. And now Dana Bash tried to get Representative Jayapal to say something about it and watch her resist. I've seen a lot of progressive women, generally speaking, they're quick to defend women's rights and speak out against using rape as a weapon of war, but downright silent on what we saw on October 7th and what might be happening inside Gaza right now to these hostages. Why is that? I mean, I don't know that that's

true. I think we always talk about the impact of war on women in particular, and I've condemned what Hamas has done. I've condemned all of the actions. Absolutely. The rape, of course. But I think we have to remember that Israel is a democracy. That is why they are a strong ally of ours. And if they do not comply with international humanitarian law, they are bringing themselves to a place that makes it much more difficult strategically for them to be able to build the kinds of allies, to keep public opinion with them.

With respect, I was just asking about the women, and you turned it back to Israel. I'm asking you about Hamas, in fact. I already answered your question, Dana. I said it's horrific, and I think that rape is horrific, sexual assault is horrific. However, I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinian soldiers. And it's horrible, but you don't see israeli soldiers raping um well

dana i think we're not we're not i don't want this to be the hierarchy of oppression oh my god seth my god now now we don't want this to be the hierarchy of oppression convenient timing you know there was years ago there there was a there was an article written in Academic Ease that was making the point that the lack of Jews, lack of Israelis raping their victims among the Palestinians was actually a kind of bias in itself. And so, you know, this is that's what it makes me think of that you really, there's literally, there's literally nothing you can do. But also that you have to understand how people decide, find a way to bring it back to criticism of Israel, absolutely, no matter what. And I think it's horrified a lot of people who they can't, you can't actually defend anything that Hamas did, right? So you have two options. You can deny it, or you can what about it. So what abouting it is very tough, which is what

she tried to do there. Because, you know, well, Israel is going to have to build alliances and it's not going to build those strategic alliances. If people don't think it can fight fairly and stuff like that. I had a question about rape. And and I think that what you're seeing is there's just a total loss for words, because what do you do if you are part of a progressive movement that holds that Hamas represents the oppressed and the Jews represent the oppressors? And what did you think decolonialism meant? Did you think it was just a theory? You know, as people like to say. So if you believe- That tweet endorsed by the Washington Post's Karen Atiyah.

This is what decolonization looks like. Endorsed, it is not some fringe. The Washington Post, Karen Atiyah, keep going. Yeah, it's not fringe, that's right. And so if you believe that, if you believe that the uprising itself is justified, then you have to be able haw and um and um your way around to Israel's conduct and its need to build alliances. But you saw something similar with the UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency official, who was asked about the fact that we got a report that a United Nations, a member of that agency, a teacher, held a hostage in Gaza. So he was asked on national TV, seems like one of your guys may have been involved in holding Israeli hostages. Your teachers hold hostages. And he kept bringing the question back to bringing flour and other essential goods to the Gazans. And all I could tell you is how we keep track of the flour and providing the

flour. And it looks absurd because there's no way you could possibly answer the question itself. You have to just completely change topic and make excuses and all that because you're defending the indefensible. And all you need, if you're a member of Congress and you're being asked on TV, something like that, what you need is for the person sitting across from you to stop saying what Hamas actually did, because you don't that it's somehow Israeli propaganda, even though a lot of the video Hamas actually took and disseminated themselves while they carried out the attacks. These people are trying to stop you from learning what's actually happening and seeing what's going on. If you can't see posters of hostages, if you can't see the footage of what

Hamas did, then you can deny it or you can say, I'll wait for an investigation or something like that. And so what you realize is that their entire response to this rests on preventing the public from actually knowing public information about and verifiable information about what Hamas has been doing to Israelis. It's unbelievable. These are obvious war crimes. There should be absolutely no hesitation, even if they are at war, even if you accept in their view of the world that the war has been ongoing and that 10-7 wasn't a terrorist attack. It was an act of war against someone who's unleashed war on you. That does not include putting babies in ovens. It does not include raping women, cutting off their breasts

and playing with them before the woman has died. This is sick effing stuff. And for an American woman, a representative from the state of Washington, to have any reaction other than I am horrified by this, period. No, but no, however, to try to contextualize human torture through the use of sexual violence of women. Josh is absolutely disgusting and is a game changer. I knew they were radical in the squad. This is a game changer in the way I see all of them. So Congresswoman Jaipal is the chairwoman of the House Progressive Caucus.

So I think we can reasonably infer from that that she roughly speaks on behalf of the Progressive Caucus. She speaks, if we can extrapolate perhaps just a little bit, she speaks on behalf of what the modern progressive elite like to think. Now, if you go back to September 2018, when Brett Kavanaugh was going through his trials and tribulations, Congresswoman Jebel had a very straightforward stance on the Christine Blasey Ford allegation.

She literally put the hashtag Believe All Women. That was the hashtag of the day. Apparently, in retrospect, they should have added an asterisk to the end of that tweet, and the asterisk on the bottom would have said except for the Jews. But this just gets back to what we were saying earlier about the DEI construct. They don't actually believe in liberal rules of neutrality. They do not believe in a free speech construct that actually applies to all Americans. They do not believe all women, no matter what their race, creed, color, ethnicity, religion, or so forth. They only support free speech for some, and they only believe some women. How do you decide who to protect free speech-wise? How do you decide who to believe, who to give due process to? Well, it gets back to the oppressed versus

oppressor status. It's really ironic, as Seth pointed out, that she began her response to Dana Bash by saying that I don't want to get into this hierarchy oppression. That's all these people actually believe in at the end of the day. Mm-hmm. And in part, it's what got our country

and its bizarre reaction to what happened to the Israelis into this mess to begin with. Josh, Seth, thank you both so much. Really appreciate you being here. Thanks so much. Thank you, Lincoln. All the best, thank you both so much. Really appreciate you being here. Thanks so much. Thank you, Lincoln. All the best, guys.

All right, and before we go, I want to tell you some exciting news. And that is, you guys remember when my husband Doug Brunt came on the show to promote his book, The Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel, the guy who invented the diesel engine that requires your diesel gasoline.

You see his name every day when you fill up your gas tank. Well, guess what? Diesel is crushing it. I'm super proud of Doug and I'm super grateful to all of you because I know a ton of you went out and bought his book. You can see the Amazon rankings go way up, you know, after he came on and he was so thankful. So just a word of what's happened with diesel since Doug came on. Diesel, of course, made the New York Times bestseller list repeatedly. Diesel, happy to tell you, has now sold, Doug has sold the book to film rights. Yay! So it looks like Diesel is on its way to potentially becoming a movie. You know, Hollywood, it takes like 20 yeses before that actually happens. But the first round

went well and it was in much demand and he sold the rights for it to go book to film. So it'd be super fun to see. And I wrote down so I wouldn't forget a couple of things that have happened to It was just voted one of Apple's best books of the year. One of the top 20 books of the year says Apple, which is a high honor. Audible, same. One of the best, best books of the year. One of the top 20 books of the year, says Apple, which is a high honor. Audible, same. One of the best, best books of the year. Rave reviews from the New York Times, from the Wall Street Journal, a starred review in Publishers Weekly called The Greatest Caper of the 20th Century. Equal parts Walter Isaacson and Sherlock Holmes. Love that one. Superb biography, an indispensable book. So the reason I'm

mentioning it to you is to thank you and to say that your efforts in supporting it have worked. It's been doing really well. And to remind you, as we go into the holiday season, it really does make a great gift. So if you're wondering, what do I get mom or dad or nan or pop or aunt and uncle or a friend or your boss? It's a great book because you learn a lot about history. It's nonfiction, but it reads like a thriller. And it really is a mystery that Doug has solved. So all the best to all of you and all the best to Duggar. Go Diesel, Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel. Thanks to all of you for joining me today. We're going to be back with full coverage in advance of the big debate tomorrow night. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

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