The Megyn Kelly Show - Leader Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Joni Ernst on the Crime Surge, the Border Crisis, and Bipartisanship | Ep. 120

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Joni Ernst to talk about the crime surge in America, police reform, and criminal consequences, the border crisis, the "woke" drift in the military, the need to focus on China, Tucker Carlson's critique of Leader McCarthy, bipartisanship in D.C. today, the state of the voting rights bills in Congress, sexual assault in the military, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today, there's a crime spree here in America. And slowly but surely, there are reversals on the defund the police calls. And these Democrats who pushed it and in many cities did it are not acknowledging it. They are just quietly refunding the police and getting a federal bailout to take care of it as well. So we're going to get into all of that and what it means with two lawmakers you may know very well. One, Kevin McCarthy. He's the House minority leader. He is a Republican out of California's 23rd district. And he's been pretty outspoken about this. And then we'll be joined by a senator I've always really liked, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa.

Super strong lady. She's a veteran. She served our country overseas. She's actually the first female combat veteran to ever serve in the U.S. Senate. And she's a Republican who's been dealing with all of this, you know, the For the People Act, where they're trying to federalize the voting system, which just failed this week and has been pushing back against some of these agendas. She was actually on Trump's shortlist for his vice presidential nominee, believe it or not. She didn't want to do it. She was going through a lot personally, and we'll get into some of that. But we're going to get an overview of where we stand legislatively. And what about the upcoming midterm elections? Are the Republicans likely to hold control or gain control, I should say,

in either the Senate or the House? The latest out of Larry Sabato in the Senate does not look so good for them. What does Senator Ernst think of that? We're going to get into it in one second, but first this. Kevin McCarthy. How are you, sir? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm great. Good to talk to you. Thanks for being here. No, no. Thanks for having me on. It's an honor. All right. So summer is upon us and so is the summer crime spree that everyone predicted would happen and that is underway in all of our major cities. And here's what I see happening. You tell me your take on it.

The numbers are up. The murder numbers are way up and the shooting numbers are way up across the country in our major cities. In places like New York, we've got a 77% increase in shootings, but I could go down the list in all the major cities.

And what's quietly happening now is these Democrats who pushed to defund the police are quietly refunding the police. And I'll just give you a couple of examples that I saw in the Wall Street Journal the other day. de Blasio in New York, quietly reinstating 92 million in funding for the cops. The Baltimore mayor,

who led efforts as a city councilman to cut the police budget by 22 million last year recently proposed a 27 million increase. Cut it by 22. Increase it by 27. In Oakland, California, lawmakers just restored 3.3 million of the 29 million they made in cuts to the police budget. And now the mayor wants to increase the department's budget by 24 million. OK, so cut 29, add back, and then add back another $24 million. So they're back. L.A. Mayor wants to increase funding by $50 million after cuts.

Minneapolis, they cut $8 million from the police last year. They just restored $6.4 million to hire new cops. All this amid mass retirements. There was an article in the New York Times talking about they surveyed almost 200 police departments across the country. Retirements are up by 45 percent. Resignations rose by almost 20 percent. In New York City alone, 2,600 officers retired in 2020. It was only 1,500 in 2019. Black Lives Matter and their dishonest messaging. And now people are getting killed. And you know who's getting killed at a disproportionate rate? Black people. Black people in the inner cities who are being killed at numbers that are greater than their population.

And no one says, boo. They just quietly refund the cops and hope for the best. You are 100% correct. But the worst part about this is just putting money back won't solve the problem. You have lost decades of expertise in these officers who've retired. And think about the recruits. Who wants to do the job? The community out there that you're working with criticizes you before you even take the job. They want to change the law so they can sue you. Here you are maybe making $50,000, $60,000 a year. They think you do one thing wrong, you're going to lose all your

house and everything else. And when you look at Minneapolis, they're doing the same thing, that they put more money into recruiting because they can't get people to take the job now. But every single weekend, I wish the media would just do one weekend of Chicago. How many people got shot? How many bullets were fired? And the identity of who was getting killed. I mean, there should be an uproar in this nation. And you just watched in your own hometown of New York City and this mayor's race. I mean, I think crime was the number one reason he's leading in this race because he was a former officer willing to stand up against them. And as I travel the nation, I would tell you, I pulled into Chicago the other day and they told

me over the weekend, there were 40 bullets fired one block from where you're staying in the hotel. When I go in through New York, it's a fundamentally different feeling, different look. And here we are right before the mayor's race. You watch those two young children being tackled by the man running from the other one shooting at him. And the person shoots at him as he's on top of the children. That's in America. We would not think that would happen anywhere. We've gone through this in New York City before until Giuliani came in to clean it up. Now we reversed all that advancement. And've gone through this in New York City before until Giuliani came in to clean it up. Now we reversed all that advancement. And what happens when this does, people are not safe.

So families leave, crime rises, investment goes away. It doesn't turn back around when you think, oh, I'll just put some more money in place. You are now talking another decade to try to clean this up. It's so true that that video out of New York City was so disturbing. And that father saying that his kids already, obviously, they've got PTSD from it was like a five year old and a nine year old being in the midst of bullets as an execution, an attempted execution happened right next to them, right in the midst of them. They're struggling to keep their yeah, they keep their arms and legs and torsos out of the line of fire. And this is just another day in New York now, which, you know, feels very good about itself because it painted Black Lives Matter on Fifth Avenue as it defunded cops, as it took away, I think it was a billion dollars. I'll go back and check from the police budget. By the way, Mayor de Blasio's Band-Aid isn't going to fix that. But the Daily Caller News Foundation had done a study and they took a hard look at who's getting affected by it. And in Chicago, they found that Black people have been the victims of roughly 81% of the

317 murders in the first six months of 2021. They were the victims of about 70% of the 295 murders committed in the first six months of the year prior. So they've gone from 70% of the murder victims to 81% of the murder victims. The uptick in violent crime across the country is disproportionately affecting people of color. Where are the protests now? Who's going to go protest that?

Yeah, why aren't they standing up to the mayor of Chicago? But think about this, Megan, you just talked about that one weekend of these two children walking in their own neighborhood, PTSD, because they're not just seeing someone get shot. It's on top of them. They're feeling the pressure from the bullets. They're hearing it. They're seeing the individual. And then you turn around that same weekend in Chicago, a man and woman pulled from their car, not that they were walking, not that they got into altercation, pulled from their car as the crowd comes over and shoots them both in the streets. Till you go back to New York, a volunteer in the mayor's campaign being stabbed as people are walking by. This isn't one little incident that happened unusual. This is one weekend in these cities. And what's happened, it's not just defund the police, they changed the police ability to engage the neighborhoods, right? It's not just making police retire. It's what they changed on how they can do their jobs. You're now watching this whole woke

community in other areas, removing the officers from the schools. Somehow that was bad. And then you have this woke community where you have people on CNN who said they felt unsafe during Memorial Day because they saw a bunch of American flags on cars. Unbelievable what is happening. You know, I mean, Chicago is such a mess. And this mayor out there, Lori Lightfoot, she just got eviscerated by this column posted by John Cass, who is with the Chicago Tribune for a long time. But now it's just been let go along with a lot of other journalists there. Just wrote this this excoriating piece about how awful she has been and about how the city, this beautiful city in which I live for five years in Chicago, is overwhelmed as the homicides and the shootings spike.

The tourists are being harassed, robbed, killed downtown. And that, you know, in this city, he writes, people there are conditioned to think a mayor can be ruthless or corrupt, but always strong enough to maintain order. Enter Lightfoot, who rather than maintain order, she undermines it. He writes and talks about how the other day, a young couple was pulled from their car after the Puerto Rican day parade and murdered on the street in this terrible video that's now gone viral. And, and what does she do? Nothing. She really does nothing. They're, they're focused there right now on what to rename Lakeshore drive. They're trying to find some woke name to rename Lakeshore Drive as people are being shot down in the street. And she's talking about only giving interviews to

people who are not white. And the people that are being killed on the weekends are people of color. You just watch Puerto Ricans pulled from their car, going to a parade to celebrate, literally pulled from their car and shot in broad daylight. And remember what Chicago, what they built to this, where mobs would walk up to Michigan Avenue and just storm a building, a store, and steal everything in it. And then you found people in government would say, well, they needed it. We're watching city after city that use these woke people elected to their district attorneys that they will not be prosecuted. You watch what's happening in New York. They will not prosecute the people who took over these buildings and stole because they're too busy dropped by the hundreds that have the numbers here. A hundred and eighteen arrests were made in the Bronx during the worst of the looting after George Floyd. Seventy three of those cases have been dismissed. Eighteen remain open. Nineteen have

convictions, but all for lesser charges like trespass. They don't care. You can go loot to your heart's content in New York City. You're not going to face any charges and forget. Don't get me started on cities like Portland. Well, this is the point, though. Why do we think their behavior is going to change? Because now they know the police can't go and get them. They know they're not going to be prosecuted. So there's no value when it comes to private property. They can shoot you. They can take your, steal you. And it's not just happening in New York City and Chicago. You look what's happening in San Francisco. There was this viral video of a lady sitting in, I don't know if it's CVS or Walgreens. A guy rides in his bike in San Francisco, literally loads up in a bag and just rides straight out. Why? Because they will

not prosecute you if it's a thousand dollars or less. Now they have a district attorney elected in LA, won't even prosecute people even for murder. I mean, we- What? Yes. You have watched- What do you mean? You had a case of an individual that is up for murder and he did not feel that was the right approach to prosecute on. And we have found time and again that this individual now wants to release people. We had a shooting of a road rage that a person shot into a car and they shot into the car and killed a young boy about five years old. Fortunately, it happened in Orange County. We've got a DA down there who will prosecute there. In LA County, it won't happen. We are now trying to recall

the DA of Los Angeles. And how did he get elected? Soros. Right. Right. Of course. Who wants to get rid of bail in all these states because they think bail disproportionately affects people of color and keeps them behind bars for a long time while they wait they wait. We have that in New York where someone does a crime and they're released out because there's no bail and they do another crime later that day. That's exactly right. I mean, I understand trying to be more humane in our approach to law enforcement. I really do. I get it. But here's the reality. It's not about skin color. It's about criminality. It's about criminals. And when these people are getting back out on the street, they're hurting at a disproportionate rate other black people.

So, you know, we have to sort of be a little bit more racially blind when it comes to dealing with people who are accused of crimes. I understand the other side's argument, but let's look at who's being hurt. Do we care about that? Because right now, when you see these rising murder rates in these major cities up in many cases by 33 percent, you you look at the federal government, which has been pushing against cops. And what Joe Biden is saying is it's the fault of the firearms. What we need is to cut back on firearms. We need to tighten New York City. Is there a tighter firearm law in the in the country than we have in New York City? You can't carry in New York City. It's not the fault of firearms in New York City. It's the fault of

criminals who will get their hands on weapons and they want to hurt people because they understand the police are really not a force anymore. They're not a presence. You know, one of the greatest strengths of this nation is the rule of law. It doesn't matter the color of your skin. You want a safe neighborhood. You want safety for your loved ones, for your children and others in your own neighborhood, people being shot at. But there's a very good point you raised. This all started with the Democrats in the House to defund the police. They want to just not defund the police. This goes to the border itself. They want to defund the border patrol. They want to make sure that we have an open border that people can just walk across. And who are we catching along the border?

People on the terrorist watch list, people from Yemen, not from Central America, from Yemen. We didn't catch them on the same day. We catch them on other days. Why are they coming across? Who are they talking to? What do they have planned? I had this person talk to me the other day and he has his own small business where he goes out into neighborhoods to do inspections and others. And he goes, you know,

it's getting very scary now because of defunding the police, the crime is rising. And, you know, I've never felt that I needed to protect myself or carry a weapon because I thought the police were there. Now they're not. I need to get a concealed weapon. But now the Democrats are making it more difficult for me to even protect myself. First, they take the police away from me. Then they take the ability for me to protect myself away. Well, they're certainly circling it because we hear a lot now. And that's, I found it disturbing that that was Joe Biden's response to the rising crime wave is that, you know, we got to crack down on firearms. And by the way, to your point on who's, who's getting hurt in New York city, Eric Adams, who it

looks, we're not going to know for weeks, but it looks like this guy may have won the mayoral race. And he's the ex-cop who's running Brooklyn and the borough president there. And he won the majority in the Black and the Hispanic neighborhoods. He won the Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. He lost the majority white neighborhoods. Manhattan went for the more liberal places, of course, right? And that's the white people. Right. Because they live in the high rise buildings. They're not worried about it like people who live in the higher crime areas are. And so it's great for these limousine liberals and their Lululemon to go out there and protest BLM and shouted the black cops about, you know, their systemic racism while then they then sit there sipping their Sauvignon Blanc as the people in the real neighborhoods have to worry about crime rising. Right. And you tell me what you

think is what Biden is also saying is, yeah, we've got to crack down on the firearms. But he's also quietly saying, oh, by the way, all that three hundred and fifty billion dollars of covid relief money that I that I gave to you, you can use that to rehire cops back to the pre-pandemic level. So that's me. Seems like a bailout of these states for their own poor decision-making. I mean, frankly, why should, why should people in Florida have to bail out New York that defunded its own police? They shouldn't. And, you know, I was in Omaha recently and they just reelected their mayor. Now Omaha is a Democrat majority city. She's a Republican mayor and they, she's the first's a Republican mayor. She's the first

woman mayor of Omaha, and she's the first mayor to get elected to the third term. When they had Black Lives Matter, they had a really bad problem where people came in and just like other major cities, ransacked. And they had a shooting. They had a shooting of an individual that shot a young Black man in an uprising. But the way she handled it, she went out in front of the protesters. And you know what she did? She didn't defund the police. She gave them more money. She won by more than 60 percent of the vote in a city that doesn't want to elect a Republican. But it's based upon this issue. It doesn't matter the color of your skin or party. And this is what the Democrats in Washington don't quite understand. People want safe

neighborhoods and they have made them unsafe to every aspect. And just what you talked about in that race for mayor in New York, it's a crime that we don't know who won yet. Now they've gone so woke that it's a ranked system that you can't know for weeks on end. I mean, is there anything sacred in this country anymore that does not go woke to our elections that you can't know for weeks on end. I mean, is there anything sacred in this country anymore that does not go woke to our elections that you can't know when, who won or how they won? And let's just say of how I feel like 30% for one person, 10% for another. Maine does this exact same thing in their congressional race. The Democrat that is seated there didn't get the most votes. He didn't get the most votes.

But in the rank system, he got more votes than the person in picking. I want you to be the congressman or congresswoman. Are you this system is crazy? Yeah. Well, I mean, New York politics are bizarre and led to Bill de Blasio. need I say more. But I want to pick up on something you a point you made, which I think is important. And that is the demoralization that's that's happened in the police force. There was a there was a story out of the New York Times talking about why police have been quitting in droves over the last year, as if we didn't know. I mean, thanks to you, New York Times, and your biased coverage against them, portraying police as these hunters, these these hunters in the street trying to kill anybody with black skin,

which is a lie. It's just a lie. And they highlighted the story of a woman named Lindsay Rose, a police officer down in Asheville, North Carolina, who quit after seven years. Now, this is a liberal city and the median pay for an officer there is thirty seven thousand dollars a year. It's not a lot of money. 80 officers have left the force of a force that was 238 strong. The racial tensions have been heightened down in Nashville in the recent years. And after George Floyd died in the protest, what happened to this cop, Lindsay Rose, according to the article, is various friends and relatives stopped speaking to her because she was a police officer. During a protest in June, a demonstrator lobbed an explosive that set her pants on fire and scorched her legs. She was spat on. She was belittled. It goes on and talks about how she felt like a total failure. She became angry, disgruntled, unable to eat or sleep. These are

human beings. These are not, you know, just like our soldiers. They're human beings. They feel. And now she is working at a moving company started by another cop who also left. I mean, this is such BS. Why can't Lindsay Rose keep practicing, you know,

on the police force? Why can't we keep good cops? Because of a false narrative that's endangering the very people groups like BLM say they hope most to protect. We've watched it time and again. You try to demoralize the officers just because they wear a uniform. You want to say they're wrong. You want to judge them before you have any information. Time and again that we find if it was an involved shooting, people judge right off the bat that that

person is wrong. I was just in Denver this week, an officer was murdered going to a case. He worked in the schools, but because the schools are closed, he was out. He went to a domestic violence situation. They said someone shooting. In 15 minutes, he was shot and killed. This is going across the nation. But also think about how this is happening. I remember just a couple months ago, it was a college student taking a course, I think in community college on a Zoom. And he put to his professor that he honored the police. He respected the work they did. She criticized them. He literally said, what do you mean these people come when you're in time of need? And he literally asked her, well, what would you do if someone was breaking up? I wouldn't call the police.

That reminds me of, um, I had this young woman on the show from St. Louis, Missouri. She was only 17. She was a high school senior. She was getting harassed by her administration and another student because she had one of those. It wasn't even a blue lives matter flag. It was one of those flags that just shows support for the police, you know, with like the blue stripes. It was a sticker because she had law enforcement in her family and they were getting, you know, attacked a lot in the wake of George Floyd unfairly. In some in some cases, fairly, but in a lot of cases, unfairly, she put she put a sticker

on her laptop. She got called in by the school administration, told that was a racist flag. She needed to take it off that all of that. Just it it builds up over time. And the thing that's bothering me now about the quiet refunding is it's so cowardly. Why don't you come out and just say we were wrong, that we took the wrong approach. We wrongly besmirched an entire group of public servants who were not making a lot of money and a great living, right?

And put themselves in harm's way every day. And now we see how important they are. And we want you to know communities. We want you to know how important they are. And so maybe this could be a healing moment. No, they cowardly take the quiet, secret, quiet refund route. And where do the cops go to get their reputations back? Nowhere. Up next, our vice president, our border czar, is finally actually going to go to the border. So what does Leader McCarthy think of that? Don't go away. I want to talk to you about the border. Finally, our vice president, our border czar, who's never been to the border, is going to go to the border. And I do think, you know, Trump is now saying he shamed her into it because he's about to go.

But I think it was more Lester Holt. Shout out to my former colleague at NBC who had this great exchange with her. Did you think he would even ask? No, I didn't. That was impressive. I didn't. It was so fun to watch. And it's worth rerunning now. So let's listen to Lester and Kamala Harris on the border.

Do you have any plans to visit the border? I'm here in Guatemala today. At some point, you know, we are going to the border. We've been to the border. So this whole thing about the border, we've been to the border. We've been to the border. You haven't been to the border. And I haven't been to Europe.

And I don't understand the point that you're making. Okay, so finally, she's going to go. And she's getting shamed already, because she's going to El Paso. She's not going to the Rio Grande. And I know you went in March, and I think you hit both spots. But what do you make of her trip? Is it enough? Is it well-timed? And is she going to the right place? It really concerns me for a number of reasons. This crisis was created not because we passed new legislation. It's simply what they did with executive orders. They knew it became a crisis. And what's the first thing that they did? You can't call it that. So we went a month with them saying, you can't say it's a crisis. Then what did the president do? He avoided

it and put it onto the vice president. Then the vice president avoided it for how many months? It's only grown bigger. When I was in the Oval Office a couple of weeks ago, I asked the president about this. I was shocked by his answer. He told me he inherited a border that was dysfunctional and now he's fixed it. It has only gotten worse. And the thing that people need to understand, it doesn't matter where she goes on the border, it's going to be terrible. El Paso is bad too. But as all these people come across and you talk to understand, it doesn't matter where she goes on the border. It's going to be terrible. El Paso is bad too. But as all these people come across and you talk to them, why are they coming? They're coming because what they heard from Biden and Harris, they literally told me that. And as these children come unaccompanied, you talk to these border agents, they will

tell you this one. He was like in tears. He said, I saw a three-year-old, a five-year-old, a two-year-old together. I said, oh, they came in a big group. No, they're all by themselves. Nobody around for miles. Nobody around. Nobody around. And you have that rancher who found one that was 11 months, three kids together, no clothes. And had he not found them, they wouldn't be alive today, the weather down there and others. But what happens when they're unaccompanied, the border agents are taken off the border to protect it and are caring for them. So it's less secure now even. And then they told me fentanyl has

increased by 300%. So if you're wondering if the border affects you and you're not along the border, yes, it does because they ship these people not being tested for COVID into your community, but more importantly, that's where the fentanyl is going. And when I went there, I think it was one of the first groups to go there this year, I was up at the one border station, and they told me that they have now caught people on the terrorist watch list with more than a hundred different nations, people coming across Sri Lanka, Yemen, and others. And I went down and at the press conference, I mentioned this, right? Because they had just told me this. My colleague, a Democrat, said I was lying, said I was lying, that he had more information, that he was also on Intel too. The next day, they showed the number of people that we've been arresting on the terrorist watch list. And we've now arrested more. I would thought. Wait, who said you were lying? He's a Democrat out of, I believe, Arizona. I'll get

you the name. Ruben Gallegos. Ruben Gallegos. So he didn't believe you? He thought it wasn't true? He didn't believe me. No, he called me a liar. He literally tweeted. He never apologized after he was proven wrong. But this is what concerns me the most. If you thought I was lying, then you found out the truth. As an American, wouldn't you be afraid? These people are put on a terrorist watch list for a reason. They're now coming across the border.

Why are they coming? They're not from Central America. What do they have planned in America? Why are there more than one? Why would individuals from Yemen on the terrorist watch list come across? And that's not the only one. We had 2,000 people from Romania the other day. This country, which I love so much about it because we all have this history of being immigrants somewhere in our family coming here. And what we have found is we do more than a million people a year become Americans. We are going to have now more than a million people this year coming across this border, breaking what I believe is a foundation, the rule of law, what we just spent a lot of time

talking about of people looting. You're going to break down society. Your numbers may not be wrong. They may not be wrong. Just looking it up, the border crossings are at a 20 20 year high right now. So Biden has not fixed 2020. Okay. So 180,000 people that you can feel the surge. You don't have to just look at the numbers. There's obviously a surge at the southern border and the majority of them are single adults. It's not families. It's people like you're saying who are trying to sneak across that border and the questions why. And as for the

families, you know, we heard so much about the sob stories and the, you know, the Trump administration was separating the children. Now, suddenly no one seems to care. But the Guatemalan president actually blamed President Biden for the increase in that, saying he considers Biden the root cause of what we're seeing right now at the border. And I'll quote, he said, the message changed to we are going to reunite families and we are going to reunite children. The very next day, the coyotes here in Guatemala were organizing groups of children to take them to the United States. So there's no accountability. And you're telling me that Joe Biden told you he fixed the problem. It's not just that president. The president of Mexico also said it was Biden

who created this problem, even at the very beginning that he was becoming the immigrant president. And what's happening is even the border agents will tell you they've never seen this before. A hundred minute one time rush, rush the border and go across. And the other dirty little secret here, the wall was working. And when did we stop building the wall? January 20th at midnight when he became president. But this is the other thing you have to know. We are paying people, but we have the material there to finish it. So in El Paso, I hope she goes to see it. It was supposed to build 150 miles of a wall. They're 13 miles short. And what happens is they took down the small barrier before, so it's wide open. So it's not just people coming across. You have cattle and others. But who's coming across? These are the gangs, and they're going into these ranches. They're burning down their houses. If you go to the border cities, they will tell you they have to shut down schools at times because these cartels are making more money, bringing people across. They're trying to influence the areas. And what we found, just like in New York City, where the mayor who could win was a former officer, we just found a Republican win in a city that's 85% Hispanic. He's not just a Republican. He was the chairman of the Republican Party. Because it's like everywhere else in America, they want secure and safe

neighborhoods. And they're not getting it with the Democrat policies that are happening. And that's what I've been putting into a lot of these American stories, because we've got to go directly to the people. The media has ignored the border. When Lester asked that, this has been going on for months. Why was it just now, 100 days later, the vice president being asked? And you know, every time she laughs, it seems like she's lying about something. Yeah, the laugh is deeply problematic. And I think it's one of the main reasons she didn't get the nomination.

That would appear to be much farther left politics than some people say she has. So I know that this is something you're launching called the, it's a new platform called the American story. And what I thought when I heard about this, because I said, well, I said, What is he doing? They said, my team said, he's highlighting the stories of sort of real Americans that he's met. And their stories sort of reflect what he how he sees the country and its issues. And I said, somebody needed to do that in New York City, right? Because the Democrats in New York, think that people want to defund the police, they think that people hate the cops, and that they're racist, and that the country systemically

racist. And then Eric Adams emerges as what appears to be the leader in this mayoral race, who is the is an ex cop and one of the only ones calling for a more robust police force. Even the Democrats in their leadership isn't getting what their actual members, you know, their actual voters are trying to tell them. And even Joe Biden's been guilty of this. He didn't get some huge mandate for sweeping change in America. He eked out a victory at the presidential level. The Democrats lost seats in the House and they barely got control of the Senate, basically just a tie breaker, thanks to Kamala. But they act like they have a country that's in favor of critical race theory and tearing down patriotism in the country's July

4th roots and instead saying we're all based on slavery and so on and all this stuff, getting rid of the cops and opening up the border. You need something like this, the quote American story to remind people these crazy politicians don't they don't speak for the country. There's a real disconnect. There is a large disconnect. And you're right. The Democrats, this is the first time since 1994, no Republican incumbent lost. Everybody said in

the House, Republicans would lose 15 seats. They got the number right, the party wrong. And you know what's interesting when you talk about this? And it's not about identity politics, but every single Democrat lost to a Republican woman or a Republican minority. It was the largest election. That's interesting. Is that true? I didn't realize that. Yes, that's 100% true. And you know what else? We elected more Republican women than in the history of the country ever. Young Kim, Michelle Steele, both born in Korea, right? Maria Salazar, Carlos Jimenez, one and both one in Miami, came from Cuba.

But as you know, your minority status only counts if you're a Democrat. They don't consider Clarence Thomas even Black, right? It's like, none of that matters unless you vote the right way. Well, what about Brian Donalds, a freshman coming from Florida? The Congressional Black Caucus won't let him join. Oh, that's right. I just pitched this story to my team. How insane is that? He's like, I have some different ideas. I think I'd be a good voice for you guys. They said no. So they literally want to pick you based upon the color of your skin, not the content of who you are, not your character itself.

They think if you don't think the exact same way, and this is exactly what you're talking about, why the Democrats are wrong. They have gone so far left. I mean, you watch what happened with AOC, Tlaib, Omar. And you're right about Joe Biden. It is a 50-50 Senate. When he came in as vice president with Obama, they had 60 Democrats. They had a 40-seat majority in the House, and they lost both of them.

What they are doing, and I think the biggest elections that are going to happen across this country are going to be mayors and school boards. This critical race, I don't care what party you are in. When you become a parent, the most important thing is your life is the opportunity for your children now. It's not what you become. It's what opportunity they have. And people are rising up.

What happened was these left Democrats got elected in 2018 to these school boards. There's people that don't even have children elected on these school boards. And they thought exactly like defund the police. Let's change the history of America. Let's tear down our statues. I think America's waking up

and it's not based upon party. It's based upon country. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right and it's not based upon party. It's based upon country. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. What we saw in Loudoun County, Virginia, where the all these parents showed up and were they were angry about what's being taught. They don't want their kids to be taught to hate America and they don't want kids to be taught to hate people based on skin color. It doesn't make it any better just because now the skin color is white and it used to be black. Both are wrong. And these parents who, if there's one benefit of all the Zoom school we've had, it's that the teachers have been exposed. That radical

agenda has been exposed and now they're kind of owning it. You know, I mean, you've got school boards defending it. You've got the military forcing its Navy seamen to read Ibram X. Kendi. I can't believe that. And I saw Congress giving them a hard time yesterday or this week about it. But it's spreading like wildfire. And I do wonder, is it too late? Are these uprisings too late to make a difference? Well, remember what has gone on with our schools, our universities

for a number of years. I think we're just waking up. I never believe it's too late. Remember, we are not a perfect union. We are a more perfect union. We strive for it. We should teach our past and we should teach the things that were wrong, but what we improve. But you don't judge people now for something their forefathers did in the process. But remember, you know, we're conceived in liberty and dedicate the proposition that we are all equal. There is no other nation in the world conceived that way. And somehow they want to teach our children that you are wrong based upon the color of your skin.

This is what drives me crazy. And now you put it into our military. Our military is the greatest in the world. People volunteer for it. But what you want to prepare for is war. And you want to be able to have the shortest and you want to be able to have all the materials that you can so you protect the individuals. If this is what they're focused on, I will promise you Russia and China and Iran are not focused on this. They're focused on killing Americans. It was crazy to see this exchange where they're basically defending, making our soldiers read this stuff, this critical race theory and read Kendi and then sort of playing the victim when

questioned by some of the lawmakers who are saying, is this an appropriate use of our of our soldiers time? Shouldn't they be working on like Tom Cotton did a whole bit like there's a lot we could shore up when it comes to military strategy and some of the mistakes we've made militarily. Shouldn't they be focused on that and not Kendi, who hates America and wants to get rid of capitalism? And the response was indignant. You know, it was indignation. It was how dare you?

The troops can do both. And we're going to we're going to we're going to teach what we think is appropriate. And here it is. It is important that we train and we understand. And I want to understand white rage and I'm white and I want to understand it. So what is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind here, and I do want to analyze it. It's important that we understand that because our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians, they come from the American people. So it is important that the leaders now and in the future do understand it.

I've read Mao Zedong. I've read Karl Marx. I've read Lenin. That doesn't make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend? So you tell me whether the military is going woke and what we can do about that. What concerns me is what do our adversaries think? They plan day in and day out to try to defeat America. This is exactly what they would want to happen to our military to become weak. And the people who are challenging this, the Tom Cotton, the Dan Crenshaw's, these are

individuals who serve. Dan Crenshaw was a Navy SEAL. He lost his eye and he has a weakness in the other for this nation. He knows what it takes to go to battle. And when he watches this happening, he's fearful for his fellow colleagues, the women and men who are in the military, that he's fearful for them going into battle. They're not going to be best prepared to fight it, being based upon what's being pushed upon them. Why are we putting woke into the military, into our schools, into our politics, into everything? It's like if you look back in history, the Soviet Union

thinking they would defeat America by not shooting one bullet at us. Because why? They tear us down from within. And that's what we've got to fight against. Well, and shouldn't it be, I mean, aren't we about uniting our troops? They're supposed to be a united force when they go out there. It's not about dividing them between themselves based on skin color or dividing them from America, which is which is what Kendi wants. Kendi hates America. He wants to dismantle all of its systems. Why would we be teaching that to soldiers who it's important that they have a cohesion?

I just like I don't understand how this stuff gets started, because I feel like if Trump were president, this wouldn't be happening. But maybe I'm wrong. You know, maybe this guy, Milley, wouldn't be in charge and he wouldn't be pushing an agenda. That sounds like something out of AOC's wish list. Remember what soldiers are. They have to carry out orders. Milley was in with President Trump, but he didn't do this then. Why? Because it wasn't the order coming down from the president. The other thing too is, even in the days where America needed to learn about race, it was the military that taught us more than others. It was the military that desegregated faster than the rest of the nation, right? Because we knew people were equal and they're defending one another, fighting with

one another, united against the evils of the other nations. And now we're trying to change that. But it's not just within the military. Think about what they've been trying to do to our schools, taking the name of Lincoln or Washington or Jefferson off the names of schools, trying to say everything about America was wrong. Really, when you think about this, America is exceptional from that point. We can improve time and again, and we do, and we have. But the idea that you're going to teach kids this, and you're going to be in a military, and you're going to identify people by the color of week, the Washington Post put out something demanding that we have white accountability groups and that white people sit and reflect on their own shame. I think we have that soundbite. Listen. A living embodied anti-racist culture does not exist among white people. White people have got to start getting together specifically around race.

White accountability groups are really helpful in terms of having a place to process, having a group of people whose responsibility it is to call me on things or to challenge me. Most of us in doing this work have experienced this, where there's a period of deep shame for being white and for acknowledging the harm that our ancestors have caused. And that's a very legitimate piece of this work. And we can't ask people of color to hold our hands through the shame piece. That needs to happen with other white people. When you do that for one, two, three, four, five years, right, you end up with actually a community that is aligned with each other. We're going to have to take your word for it because I don't think most of the white people

I know are going to sit around in accountability groups, beating themselves up for stuff that happened 250, 250 years ago. Meanwhile, it's, it puts, it puts people in such an awkward position because I think to your point, Republicans are fine teaching real American history, teaching Tulsa, teaching all of it. They just don't want people to be taught to hate America or to have our kids walk around shamed for stuff over which they have zero control. They had no choice of how they were born. But now we're going to shame people based upon that. That goes against everything that we fundamentally believe. The one thing I will tell you, when you think about what they're doing to the military,

the military shouldn't be focused on the color of people's skin. They should be focused on China. More than 600,000 Americans died from a virus that came from China. More than 3.8 million people in the world died from that. China, while we're focused on this, they just put a new space station up. They're focused on taking Taiwan. They just shut down the Apple Daily newspaper that's been for 26 years in Hong Kong that spoke about democracy. And those 3 million people out of 26 years in Hong Kong that spoke about democracy. And those 3 million people out of 8 million in Hong Kong that would come out on weekends and bring their umbrellas in the rain because what they do, they craved one thing, freedom of speech, are those 1 million kids who went to Tiananmen Square more than 30 years ago. And they made that lady of democracy. They looked like the

Statue of Liberty that stood across from Mao or that young kid who stood in front of the tank. And when the tank moved left, he did. Then he moved right. Then he climbed on top of it. We don't know his name because he's probably not alive today. All they craved was freedom of speech. China was concerned about growing and becoming the number one superpower. And we're sitting here worried and teaching our military something different. That's why they think they can be stronger. That's why they believe they can defeat us. I had a member tell me before COVID hit, they went over to China and they met with their military. It was a US senator. The military general over there told him, America's weak.

You know why you're weak? Because you believe in God and you take fentanyl. You know where fentanyl comes from? China. And you know where it comes into America from? The border along Mexico. And you know the increase in it this year is 300% because people can cross that border with no problem. And that's where people are making money. And it doesn't matter what city you're in in America. You just check your numbers. You're going to have a higher death rate with younger people that have taken some drug that they didn't know was fentanyl for one time and had died. That's what's happening to our nation. We're focused on the wrong things we need to get back

to what the foundation of what we believe the foundation of freedom of safety of security of opportunity instead of blaming each other for the color of their skin and whatever past happened in this nation so wise up um i've got to ask you i know i don't have you for too much longer but can i just ask you about the the weird the weirdness between you and Tucker Carlson? I don't totally understand what's happening. Here's what here's what I understand happened. Then you tell me what happened. There's something called the Ending Platform Monopolies Act.

And this is a bill that would crack down on Amazon and Apple, other big tech companies, not necessarily in the way that people are thinking. This isn't the one that would stop them from silencing speech that they don't like and sort of break them up in the way that the lawsuit from the 49 states is pushing. But this this basically wants to stop them from pushing their promoted brands and apps on you so that it would make a little bit more fair for small businesses to compete against them. They say this would be huge for small businesses because right now, if you Google ice skates, Google will make sure that it's an ice skate company, that if they have any ownership interest in it, it'll come up first. And that hurts small business who then can't compete and so on and so forth. That's very pedestrian explanation of it.

But that's my understanding. So Tucker does a hit piece on you saying your top outside advisor is a guy named Jeff Miller, a registered lobbyist for Amazon and Apple, and that this guy Miller has been calling offices on Capitol Hill saying, don't support this thing. Don't support this thing. And he's your buddy and you're listening to him. And you should be in favor of this because it helps the little guy and you're not. And your roommates with Frank Luntz, which took a turn, it took a turn, who he thinks, you know, is sort of a weak need, never Trumper who you might be listening to for policy advice. So

long wind up. I'll give you the floor. Great, great windup. So let me walk you through everything there. When it comes to this legislation, I'm probably one of the first ones that came out and said, we need to scrap section 230. And remember what 230 is, it's liability protection for these companies or platforms. So what it means is if someone says anything on your platform, you won't get sued. Now on a newspaper, they could be sued, right? We've watched these papers when they went after Hulk Holden, right? Shut them down, rightfully so. But what we've now found these platforms are doing, like Twitter and others, they're kicking

conservatives off. There's nothing in this legislation that protects it. In my belief, and you'll see legislation that we come out, if you want to allow a platform where anybody can say anything, I'll give you liability protection. But if you want to pick and choose what people can say on that, you lose it. Why? Because then I can have a right of action. I can go to court and I can hold you accountable. I get freedom of speech. The number of bills that are put up are put up by a Democrat, Cicilline, and Nadler. And what they do is they actually give more power to the FTC. Who did they appoint to the FTC? Nadler and Cicilline's Democrat staffer. They're going to

get all the power instead of the attorney generals who can sue. Now, what does Cicilline and Nadler say? They thought Trump should have been kicked off Twitter months before. They don't think Fox should be on TV. They don't think Republican voice should be able to be heard. Now, I'm one who fundamentally believes Google is a monopoly. 90% of everyone who searches in this world goes through Google. Google can determine what is seen. Right before the primary election in California, if you Googled the California

Republican Party, the ideology about it was Nazism. Okay? I am the one who's led that and brought that on. I don't understand where Tucker came from, from this position, because if you watch this, this is Cicilline Nadler. There are three of the managers who impeached the president are the author of these bills. Do you think they care about what conservatives say? And I think if Tucker had spent a little time seeing what the FTC person that he thinks empowers would be better for us. Look, what we are happening to is their censorship with conservative view. None of this is stopping that.

We need to stop that. This is focused on something else, for sure. This is definitely, this is focused on a different problem, what I was saying about them promoting their own stuff. I don't like the idea of them promoting their own. I mean, I would work towards not allowing that. What I have found with these companies, they've become so big. When you have a smaller company coming up, they crush you or they buy you or they don't let you there.

That's right. And it takes too long for you to get to the Supreme Court. So it's 10 years in the making, right? Microsoft never got there. Could a new Google come up and compete against them? That's the real question. And I believe that's not having the case because they're crushing the ability to do that. That's why we need different legislation to allow that to go. I do not believe Cicilline is going to allow that. What he's going to want, he crafted a bill that has more government. What does government do? They create a utility. So they guarantee Google's going to be there,

but government's going to tell you what you can say, what you can pay and what you can afford. I've watched that failure in California time and again with PG&E and others. That is, I want innovation and I want competition. So I want somebody to be able to compete with Google and take them out. And from the standpoint, if they're 90% of the monopoly, well, that's against the monopoly. That gives a natural way to break up. And Apple can't sit there and have Parler and kick them off their app so you can't find it, but can only have Apple apps on Apple. You got to be able to open that up. But can people hear about that? Well, if you're kicking the conservative voice off Apple, off Facebook, that on Facebook, you couldn't talk about it came from Wuhan, China, this virus,

that somehow that was wrong. Nothing in this legislation goes to change that. So I really believe if Tucker would have called me or Tucker would have sat down with me, we probably would have been on the same page. I think he wants to fight for those exact same things. So I'm not quite sure because I didn't get a call from him. I didn't get asked a question. No one asked me where I stood on the bills. I'm not on this committee. If the bills could improve, I might even support them if they dealt with these issues. But I've been one of the first one on the forefront to make sure about section 230, about competition. When I was majority leader, I brought in the CEOs of these companies. Nobody else had done that before. Yeah, because something has to be done. As much as I think Republican voters too are capitalists

and want generally to let the free market reign, and there are a lot of libertarians in the GOP, they've gotten so big and with so much power over our speech and how we communicate and how we make purchasing decisions. It's just they're ubiquitous that you'd like to think somebody's looking at, you know, drawing it back to some extent because they have too much power right now. And I do think we need honest lawmakers to take a look at it. Now, wait, what's the deal with Frank Luntz? I know Frank. I've known Frank for many, many years. And when they say you were roommates,

I picture like where you were like braiding each other's hair. What was going on there? No, I've known Frank for 30 years. I met him when he was writing the contract with America. And if you know Frank well, his health, he took a turn on his health like a year or so ago. And, um, Frank has an apartment inside DC and I rented a room from him.

Um, and one of the reasons I did it, Frank had a stroke and, uh, you know, Frank doesn't have family. Um, we, there's times we disagree on our politics. That's fine. Not talking about that. But, uh, one thing I did want to make sure that, uh, he'd disagree on our politics. That's fine. Not talking about that. But, uh, one thing I did want to make sure that, uh, he'd go on his walks and he'd make sure to take care of his health. And, um, but we had happened in, in DC with the COVID and others. I, I did rent

a room for him for a number of months, but I didn't, I, many people rent different rooms in different places. I didn't know that was critical. Um critical. I didn't know that. I didn't know that Frank suffered a stroke. Yeah. Frank had a stroke more than a year ago. And if you know Frank well, he doesn't have family. And I don't understand in America today, I don't have to only have Republican friends that only believe in a certain Republican way, I believe. I may be more concerned with other friends, but I have friends who are Democrats too. And I also have friends, if they have a health issue, a family issue or others,

I'm gonna be their friends. And I think this country has become too much that why do we all have to believe 100% of the way to be friends? And I think that has destroyed this nation. It's what can we watch on TV? We can't watch a different channel. I can't be challenged about my own personal beliefs.

There's family members that aren't Republicans that I have. I wasn't born into this party. I chose to be in this party. I have a strong belief. Yeah, you come from a family of Democrats. Yeah, my father was a firefighter and he moved furniture. I was in days off. I started my first business when I was 20 years old.

But why is it that that's news? Why is it that that's wrong? Why is it that that's wrong? Why is it that I can't have friends of different beliefs? And I don't go, you're the first person I ever told that I was there because Frank, I want to make sure he took his medication, right? Yeah. Did I rent a room? I rented a room. I have slept the entire time since I've been in Congress, except for the first year renting an apartment on my couch. I can't believe, I mean, I know a lot of guys do that, but it still seems hard to believe.

Are you telling me when you were the majority leader, you were the majority leader and you were sleeping at night in your PJs on your couch, the couch I saw when I came to visit you, when I interviewed you? Yeah, because I work all the time, then I fly home or I'm on the road. And-

It's not very glamorous. I think we pictured something more glamorous. No, it's not glamorous. And, you know, but look, I'm not going to complain. I run for this job. And I feel very fortunate to have the ability to do this job. Was Frank's house more glamorous? Because he does have a house out in California that has an exact replica of the Oval Office. Now, does his Washington house have that? It doesn't have an Oval Office. But if you know Frank, Frank loves politics and it's like a museum.

It's not the place I would want to stay. So I rent a room. How much did you pay? If you know, it's about I'm up early in the morning here and I work late into the night. And then you have your whatever, your events and your dinners and your others. And you come home around 10 o'clock at night and go to bed. Yeah, you're never there. Yeah, you're never there.

That's one of the reasons I slept on my couch, because I could be more productive. And that's fundamental. So how long were you guys living together? I'm there right now for the first six months. Cause I agreed I'd live six months in the place. Oh, 2021. Yeah. Okay. So you're there. So it, and is he okay? Is he doing better? He's doing better. He's got to take his medication. He's got to keep, uh, what he eats and others. Yeah. Um, well, look, you're speaking my language. Um, I feel the same. I have lots of friends who don't share my political leanings and

I know Frank's taken a lot of guff because he's not a President Trump fan. And you know how the party's gotten, you know, you can sort of get kicked out and excoriated for not being a Trump. It's complicated. And Frank puts himself out there publicly. He can take as good as he gets and give as good as he gets. But I like what you said, like, whatever. You were very supportive of President Trump. Frank was not. He doesn't have an obligation to be. We can have friends of many stripes. I'll leave it to somebody else to figure out whether the housing situation was in any way problematic. But I think it's good you took care of your friend. Yeah. No, I mean, that's the point. But look, what I see

the Democrats are doing, I watch what they're going woke from our education to our military. They won't even have a hearing to know where the Wuhan virus came from. When I sat and worked with the Democrats last year trying to have a bipartisan task force on China, they said yes at first and the day before we'd announce it, they denied us the ability to have it. We continue to go forward. We just put out eight pillars on holding China accountable. Shouldn't the public be able to sue them? Shouldn't we declassify the information? But that's not going to go anywhere. I mean, you had really interesting proposals, but none of it goes anywhere since the Democrats control the house, right? You know, it's only a five seat majority, the smallest they had in the last hundred years. I believe there's an opportunity we can. Should every single Democrat vote no on that? More than 600,000 Americans died, more than 3 million people in the world, and they don't want to hold China accountable? And these aren't crazy. I mean, the one waiving Chinese sovereign immunity so that they can be sued,

that's really interesting. But a lot of these are... We did that after 9-11. Yep. No, a lot of them are, I feel like they're no-brainers. Requiring declassification of information on the origins of COVID. Prohibiting gain-of-function research in and with China. Yes, that makes sense now, especially. Prohibiting the NIH from funding malevolent foreign governments like China.

I don't know. Some of these don't seem all that controversial, but I mean, realistically, it's not going to happen. They're not going to do it. They don't, they're barely now just admitting that there's something to investigate on the COVID lab theory. Yep. And how much information do we have before?

And then we had Facebook telling us we couldn't talk about it. You know, that's when it goes back to the censorship of why that matters so much. And none of had Facebook telling us we couldn't talk about it. You know, that's when it goes back to the censorship of why that matters so much. And none of this legislation deals with that. And I think that's fundamental. We cannot trust the major media that we're going to get all the information out. We got to go directly to the people. And that's what we're trying to do. Our last question on that front, midterms right around the corner. What are the chances that the Republicans retake the house? We're going to retake the house. You watch, there's so many parts, your level of confidence. A hundred percent.

Oh, wow. Is that, does that just bluster? That sounds like bluster. It's the same thing people would say to me last time when they said, we're going to lose 20 seats and we didn't lose one seat. We, we Democrats. Now, history would say last time we should have lost. What history says this time, last cycle, you only had, of the targeted Democrats we went after, only one retirement. We already have five on the list this time. You have redistricting, where people have moved to different states based upon the policies, what happened. So Florida gained seats. California, for the first time in history, if you really want to see what woke has done,

is going to lose a seat. Illinois is going to lose a seat. New York is going to lose a seat. Texas is going to gain two. So do the policies matter? Yes, they do. Then when you sit and watch of what's happening, you've got an open border. You've got inflation that you haven't seen in decades. You've got Democrats doing woke on almost everything they're on, spending trillions of dollars. I believe on policy alone, we're going to do quite well. And if you watch the party in Congress, look at the names, look at the faces. We are finding conservatives, and it doesn't matter the color of your skin, there's an

opportunity for you. And if you believe and want to help and make the next century ours, we want you to join with us. We're not going to judge you on the color of your skin. We're going to judge you on the ability. Do you believe in the constitution? Do you want to have a part of this? And I just think the Democrats are now controlled by AOC, Omar. They believe America is equal to Hamas, that Israel is equal to Hamas and the Taliban. That's not what we believe. That's what Ilhan Omar said. Yeah. That's not what we believe. That's what Ilhan Omar said. Yeah, that's not what we believe and that's not what we understand

and that's what we'll fight against. I should mention, was forced to sort of dial back and say, well, I didn't mean that. So last question, where can people find the American stories that you're posting? Well, it's on our website,

republicanleader.gov. We'll definitely check it out. And as always, really appreciate your time and the talk. All right. Take care. Up next, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa. And we'll ask her, after the Democrats suffered a defeat this week on their For the People Act,

their effort to federalize the voting system in America, whether that's going to get revived by Joe Manchin. Her thoughts on that next. But before we get to that, I want to bring you a feature we have here on the MK show called Sound Up. This is our feature where we bring to you some sound that we feel you must hear. And today we're talking about a trailer for a movie that came out this week that New York Magazine has dubbed. And this is New York Magazine, quote, the worst trailer you've seen. Now, this is good. You know, when something's so bad that it unites the left and the right in the country? Something's going on.

Something's happening. You should pay attention. What's the name of the movie? One word. Karen. Listen. Tell me about your new neighbors. They're black.

Do you mind keeping it down? If you don't comply, I'll tell the manager. Somebody's taking home security serious. Hi, I am Karen Drexler. I'm your neighbor. You need to be taking your trash cans off the curb right when the trash is picked up. So absurd. Whose idea is this, right? Like who? It is like a parody abby was saying that keep in mind though this is not a parody it's a real movie in this very 2021 film a black couple moves into a new neighborhood where their neighbor is yes karen and she is all the sorts of karen you can imagine just a nosy racist white lady wait a minute we have a white entitled neighbor named Karen. Karen. Enjoy yourself.

There she is slaving away in the kitchen. Slaving away. Get it? That's what Karen says. That's a Karen for you. This actual real movie is directed by someone named Coke Daniels, whose previous credits include directing the film Who Made the Potato Salad? And according to IMDb, is attached to direct the movie Parking Lot Pimpin'. In the starring role of Karen is Taryn Manning, who you may know from such TV shows as Orange is the New Black and films like 8 Mile. But you may not know that Taryn Manning posted on social media in support of Donald Trump and even QAnon last year. Taryn just wants to work like most actors. Well, apparently Taryn Manning has found a way to repent for those social media sins because now she tells Deadline, I felt a social responsibility to take on this role. Even if I had to play the villain to effect change around the globe,

then I was more than willing to step into the role. Oh, who's she kidding? She wanted to see her face on the big screen. We're onto you, Taryn Karen. Now she gets to play the ultimate Karen in this terrible movie. Want another clip? Here's Karen's daughter

talking to her new black neighbor. She doesn't like black people. We have a search warrant. Well, I'm black. I know. She doesn't like black people we have a search warrant well i'm black i know she doesn't like you either karen karen hates all black people that's the premise of the of the film karen doesn't yet have a release date let's hope it never gets one but in the words of one twitter reviewer hollywood is doomed and that is Sound Up for today. Now back to Senator Ernst right after this.

Senator, how are you? Good morning, Megan. Thank you so much. I'm good. Let's start with the implosion of this For the People Act this week, or at least that's how it appears that this attempt to federalize voting in America has failed. All eyes had been on Joe Manchin. Will he cooperate in some way? At the last minute, it seemed like he was proposing an alternate that might save it. But did this thing ever really have a chance? It did not have a chance, Megan.

And I'm a former local elections commissioner, So I really get and understand all of these different voting systems. But I also know the importance of keeping elections run at the state and local level. And that's what many of the Democrats were hearing. Joe Manchin was hearing that as well. This is not up to the federal government to administer elections. It is up to our state and local jurisdictions. That's the thing that bothered me about it from the beginning is we're a federalist system and the powers are supposed to rest with the states. And more and more what we're seeing from the left is an attempt to wrest control from the states, put it in the

federal government and have these sweeping measures that the Democrats think are fair, quote, fair, imposed on the states by the federal government. And that's really what this was. I mean, from the beginning, we've had states set the standards on their voting as it should be. Yes. And this was just basically a power grab by the D.C. Democrats. And while they called it the For the People Act, if you

dug in a little bit deeper, it was actually the Fund the Politicians Act. You know, it did things like take taxpayer dollars to pay for campaigns. It allowed ballot harvesting, you know, just so many bad, bad ideas, even going so far as to basically overturn state laws that required voter ID. The Democrats don't want to have voter ID. But again, it comes back to protecting the integrity of our election system. And we feel that's important. We feel that our local elections officials are the ones who administer this. They know feel that's important. We feel that our local elections officials are the ones who administer this. They know when there's anomalies in their elections. And how would D.C. bureaucrats know that? So anyway, we rejected S-1 and hopefully we don't see it come back in a different form. Well, now, because that's Manchin did start to to waver. Right. The most powerful he in cinema, really the most powerful members of the Senate right now saying, look, I've got an alternate proposal that I wouldn't neuter the state voter identification laws, but I would preserve other measures and I would expand early voting. This is his measure. I would make Election Day a federal holiday. I would make it easier to

vote by mail and so on and so forth. Could this thing be revived in that form and pass? I know that Joe Antonez is trying to do this very delicate tightrope walk, but a lot of what he was proposing, the Democrats on the far left simply won't go for. And of course, a lot of what he was proposing at the Democrats on the far left simply won't go for. And of course, a lot of Republicans won't go for that either. So while he was talking a good talk and I appreciate that he works with us on some of these issues, I just don't think it's pragmatic. OK, now you mentioned the voter ID laws, and this has actually been kind of funny to see because, you know, politicians going to politician and some of the loudest Democrats who objected to things like the Georgia voter I.D. law and really went off on it as Jim Crow 2.0

have now seemingly reversed themselves, although the press would describe it as evolving. They evolved. But I'm talking about people like Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, the secret governor of Georgia, saying she could absolutely support Manchin's proposal, even if voter ID was a part of it. Warnock spoke at great length about how he believed voter ID laws were racially suppressive before, but now has done a 180 telling NBC, I've never opposed voter ID laws. And that is because the polling has come out showing the American people, including people of all races, overwhelmingly support voter ID requirements. Associated Press

poll conducted in March said 72% of Americans support voter ID laws. Monmouth poll just released June 21st showed 80 percent of the American people support voter ID, including Black people who people like Stacey Abrams said, you know, we hated these laws and that and we're being suppressed by them. Well, they don't seem to see it her way. This is astounding to me that people operate off of these polls. We have for many years had a voter ID law in the state of Iowa, and we have not seen any suppression of votes. Matter of fact, we have had greater voter turnout in recent years than we have in the past. And one thing that Iowa has done is if you don't have a voter ID or a driver's license, you know what, we will provide a voter ID, a photo voter ID to you for free. So there really is no excuse not to have voter ID in many of these states. And as you pointed out, Megan, across the country, this is extremely popular. It's 63% of Democrats support photo ID at the polls. As you

pointed out, people of color support photo ID at the polls. So what's the problem here? Of course, it's so pejorative to them, you know, like that. Candace Owens had said something like, believe me, I know how to pull out my ID. I'm OK. I can do this. So can other black people. And but the Democrats keep using black voters as as a wedge. They use them. And you can see it now on this on the rising crime in our cities, right, where it was like we have to protect black Americans from police who are killing them in the street every day. And it's like, you know what's happening now?

Black people are being disproportionately affected by the soaring murder rates. And where are those same politicians now? Where's BLM now? They don't care about these black lives being snuffed out because there's no police presence, because they're the dishonest media coverage has fractured the relationship between the police and the communities. It's completely silent. Why? Because they do this for political reasons. And George Floyd happened, sadly, in an election year. And it was ripe for, you know, to be exploited. with even our capital policemen. And not all that long ago, one had told me just in a private conversation, he said, you know, I'm tired of feeling like a pawn. You know, we have these politicians out there and one minute they're saying defund the police,

defund the police. And then in the next breath, they're saying, oh, we need you and we support you. And we have to have this big commission, you know, to take care of you. And honest to goodness, I think a lot of our folks in blue, they see through the rhetoric. They just they just want to do their jobs and they want to protect and serve. That is what they are here for. They don't need to be used as political pawns.

But of course, it's happening. Now, let me ask you about that, about the police on Capitol Hill, because there was this big push for a January 6th commission and, you know, get to get to the truth of what happened that day. And I saw Sonny Hostin on The View. She was she was going after you for why don't you want to find out the truth? Because you weren't in favor of this. Why is the is the one one6 Commission not a good idea? The reason that the January 6 Commission was not a good idea is because it was politicized. And it became a political exercise on Capitol Hill,

all the while having many other commissions and investigations ongoing. We know that DOJ, the FBI, is already investigating those that rioted and broke into the Capitol on January 6th. And we had a bipartisan group of senators working through the committee process, doing proper oversight on the Hill. And the same week that we took the vote on the commission, they released their findings. So if we really do want an unbiased view, if we really want to find the truth, that is how you do it. You do it in a bipartisan manner. You do it with independent agencies. You don't do it with politicians who are preening and posing and just trying to make this a political exercise. And that's what we saw with January 6th.

And that's how many of the Capitol policemen felt, that they were just being used as tools rather than actually wanting to get to the truth. Well, of course, because we saw, I mean, the police had been bashed for months by a lot of these Democrats who suddenly saw them as these, as these heroes to be celebrated after January 6th. It's like, well, which is it? Right. And there was some hypocrisy on the Republican side too, and saying, you know, protect the police, the police are honorable, you know, and then, you know, not seeming that interested in going after the people who endangered them on January 6th. This is the kind of stuff that disgusts people.

And I feel like Iowans are sensible people. They're they're like me. I do. I believe this, that they're they're sensible. They're not particularly partisan. They just don't want nonsense. And you tell me whether now because now Nancy Pelosi saying she's going to appoint a special committee herself.

That's not that's not going to do anything. I don't know what's going to come out of this. I feel like people have moved on from January 6th who aren't partisans. They understand it was a bad event, that the criminals who partook in the events are going to be held to account. And, you know, some deep forensic examination of how people got there. I think we know how they got there. They don't trust the media.

They believe Trump in his rhetoric about, you know, it all having been stolen. And, you know, things went from bad to worse after they were forced offline and sort of came up with these plans and these dark sites to go and take our country back. And, you know, we've kind of watched it unfold. And it was a horrible day. And I just want to say thank you, of course, to the U.S. Capitol Police, because they really did do an extraordinary job, a few members in particular. But it was a horrific day. But at the same time, you know, it's time we move on. We need to understand what happened. We had the committees in the Senate that were doing a deep dive into that, again, bipartisan, and came out with a committee report so that we

can understand the failings here on Capitol Hill and know how better to prepare ourselves should it ever happen again. I hope to God not. But then we have the DOJ that's doing their independent investigations. And those people that broke into the Capitol, they will be held accountable. I think we need to know that and understand that because we've seen rioting all across the country where people haven't been held accountable. And I think no matter the situation or circumstance, those that are doing wrong, they should be held accountable. Can we talk about what's going to happen in 2022? Because I think a lot of Republicans who were very sad to see Georgia go red in those two Senate runoffs put their hopes in 2022 saying, OK, you know, the Republicans are going to take back the Senate when people get to see the Biden agenda.

And he's definitely been more radical than he promised he would be when he ran. But just reading the analysis that that's out there now, it doesn't look good for the Republicans to take back control of the Senate. There's that the Republicans are defending 20 seats compared to the Democrats defending 14. North Carolina and Pennsylvania are rated toss up races where Republicans are seeing two retirements of seats that they hold. And Larry Sabato's website. And I like Larry. He's got analysis now saying that Dems have a nine point lead on the generic ballot and a lead of that magnitude would predict a Democratic gain of two seats in the Senate, giving the Dems a 52, 48 seat majority in the Senate. But it's expected to be very close there and in the House in 2022. So what's your read on what's likely?

And Megan, I will preface this with I'm always a little bit of a Pollyanna. So I always have a very optimistic outlook. I know that the Senate for Republicans will be tough in 2022. I still do think we have opportunity. All we need is to hold our own and pull up one seat. I think we can do that. But of course, we also look across the rotunda and we see a very good pathway to gaining the majority in the House. So the concern about the Senate, while I am polling, I'm working hard. We're looking at different candidates across the country and just hoping that they do well. But we also had the fallback that at least if we can gain one chamber,

it does slow down some of the very radical proposals that are coming from far left and from the Biden administration. So, you know, while I'm optimistic now, we're going to work as hard as we can to regain the majority in the Senate. And we will do whatever we can to assist Leader McCarthy over in the House as well. If the Republicans control the House, but not the Senate, it seems to me the Biden sort of far left freight train still has a lot, a lot of room that they can cover if they just control the Senate, because they don't really effectively now. I mean, they have Kamala Harris to cast the tie breaking vote. But if they if they get more numbers, I don't know. You tell me whether we're going to see things like packing the Supreme Court and trying to abolish the Electoral College. I mean, what can they do without the House if they lose the House?

Well, they still have to have the House. So a lot of nominations run through the Senate, of course, having Biden as the president. Should we see retirements off of the Supreme Court? If they have 51 or greater, yes, they are going to proceed with that. But a lot of measures, too, we will push back on as much as we can. silent Democrats in the United States Senate that don't like or appreciate the direction that Joe Biden is going. They do not appreciate the far left members of the Senate or the House. And they will remain silent because, of course, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, while they are out there speaking, they're getting praise from some, but they're also being really wrenched and twisted by the folks on the left. And they want to stay out of that fray. So if they can be silent and allow Manchin and Sinema to take the beatings for them, they're going to do that. But if they start to see things go a very radical direction, we continue hoping that those other five, six violent members would come forward at that time.

That's interesting that they're just sort of letting them take the beating, but they're secretly behind them. And that's probably, I'm sure Manchin and Sinema know that and sort of they're fine because they're in relatively safe districts for the positions they've taken. They're not in far, you know, in very, very deep blue states. Now, notwithstanding some of the partisan discussions that we're having here, you know, in terms of the Dems and the Republicans, you are somebody who's reached across the aisle. You will work with Democrats and you're actually working with a senator from my home state, New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, on a very interesting piece of legislation right now. Can you tell us about that? Yes, absolutely. Sexual assault has been prevalent in the United States military for a very long time. And it is something that we have tried to work on. I work on many efforts with Senator Gillibrand on this particular topic

and serving as a senator that is the first female combat veteran to serve in the United States Senate. I served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and retired from the Iowa Army National Guard. You know, seeing some of the issues that we have had, sexual assault, sexual harassment in the military, I've tried to find ways to make our military stronger, to protect those survivors. But we haven't found that magical answer yet. We have not seen the rates of sexual assault decrease in the military in spite of all of the prevention efforts, the changes, modifications that we have made to the military code. So Senator Gillibrand has been pushing very hard to take these hard felony-type issues out of the chain of command's purview and sending those cases to a special military prosecutor. So that would include things like murder, sexual assault, rape.

All of those things would then go to a special military prosecutor. I didn't agree with that for a very long time. The problem is we're still not seeing a change. So I worked with Senator Gillibrand. We changed the language a little bit. And now I have joined in her efforts to remove these felony type cases out of the chain of command. We have 66 co-sponsors in the United States Senate. So we have enough members to move this piece of legislation on the floor, but we're still running into roadblocks at every turn, it seems. But it is a significant issue. So you've got the support of Ted Cruz, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Josh Hawley.

We've all rallied around the same bill. But then you've got guys like Jack Reed of Rhode Island, James Inhofe of Oklahoma. These are this is a Democrat and Republican, respectively, who say they want to wait. They want to wait on results of a 90 day study on sexual assault by a Pentagon commission. That's a dodge. Right. I mean, we know. Right. We know that there are thousands of sexual assaults in the military every year, only a very small percentage of which wind up in conviction. So that seems to me they don't want to do it. So that's the question, right? If you've got, you say 66, I mean, is it a done deal if you can just get a vote on it?

So right now the House has introduced the bill as well. Again, a wide variety of Republicans and Democrats in the House. And so we do want to see that. Now, maybe the House moves on. Speaker Pelosi actually attended the press conference at the introduction of the House version of the bill. So if she moves that bill on the floor and it comes over to the Senate, we have greater opportunity just to take it up as a standalone bill on the floor of the comes over to the Senate, we have greater opportunity just to take it up as a standalone bill on the floor of the Senate. Okay. And just to be clear on what the distinction is, because you say you want it, it would still be a military tribunal that would hear the case. So it's not like giving it to a civilian court. That's good. But what's happening now when you

say outside the chain of command, is the commanding officer one of the triers of fact? Yes. The way it works is the 06 level commander, the brigade level commander in the army would be the one to decide whether it moves forward with prosecution or not. And by moving it to a special prosecutor, they can make that determination and the case can be taken out or not, depending on that military prosecutor who has been specially trained in these types of intimate crimes and felony level cases. So yes, in the chain of command, you can, as a commander, make that decision that this is something that moves forward. This is not something that moves forward. And that's where a lot of survivors, those that have undergone these traumatic situations, maybe feel that, oh, my commander, he likes my, you know, my perpetrator, likes the man that

assaulted me. And so I'm not going to see justice. By removing it from the chain of command, it takes that doubt away from those survivors. We're back with the end of our show in less than one minute. You've written about this in your book, which I know I think is coming out in paperback right now. Yes. Yes, it is. Daughter of the Heartland, my ode to the country that raised me. I love that more people should be writing odes to the country that raised them, Yes, it is. college. Then later it came out that you'd been in an abusive marriage as well. And you talked openly about the military and how, look, with all due respect to our men and women in the military, it is an old boys club. The women have massive challenges there. And even you as a commanding officer felt undermined more than once. So, I mean, I'm looking at you now on this bill thinking

the sum of your life experiences made you the perfect person to submit this and to actually get something done for the women coming up behind you. Yes, and thank you for that, Megan. And I do write about a number of very difficult situations that I faced both as a young woman and as an adult woman, as a spouse. And it came to fruition through a very painful divorce while I was serving in my first term in the United States Senate. And I was just so ashamed of all of these situations and things that while I had no control over them, they're not things that you talk about in polite society, which is unfortunate, I think, because we carry those scars and those pains for so long. But I had a woman that came to me after a little get together. And she said, Joni, she said, you served as a battalion commander. You are a United States Senator. She said, you need to talk about this because women or others,

men are raped and assaulted too. But she said, other people need to know and understand that there is light after all of this darkness. And she was right. And I have been able to find joy in my life. I've been able to move on from those very dark periods. And I've had support along the way. And I'm extremely grateful that I am where I am today. But, you know, I've had to overcome a lot of those personal challenges to be who I am today. But that's what I want people to take away from some of these stories in my book is that while things may be dark for you at certain times, you should never allow other people to define who you are. We will define ourselves. And also being a team player, which is what you're raised to be in the armed forces, doesn't mean taking abuse that you know crosses especially a legal line. But the way the military is set up does make it murkier because, forgive the term, but some abuse is expected and part of the routine.

So I think there's probably some confusion, especially for the young women there who don't want to be the ones complaining for all the obvious reasons as to where you draw the line. Absolutely. And of course, I can think back to my time at Fort Knox many, many years ago and drill sergeants screaming at me, you know, making me do more push-ups or flutter kicks, you know, run faster, you know, all of those types of activities, you know, certainly very uncomfortable situations, but that's part of developing a young soldier. But there are situations then that go over the line where people in points of power have really abused subordinates.

And that is absolutely unacceptable. So whether it is physical altercations, whether it is sexual advances, assault, that is never, ever to be tolerated. Well, and I think you're one of the reasons you're a good person to speak on this is we know you're a badass. We know you're tough. We knew it when we first got to know you in Iowa, when you ran and you did that great ad about how you castrated pigs. And, you know, you're just not afraid to get your hands dirty.

As you point out, you're in the Army National Guard and you served in Kuwait and you were the first woman ever, first female combat veteran ever to serve in the U.S. Senate and on and on it goes. So to those people and I forgive me, I like Eric Trump. I actually think he's a nice guy. But he came out and said his sister Ivanka would never be sexually harassed because she's too strong for that. And that was just such a misguided comment, because you can be harassed, you can be raped, you can be abused and be a really strong woman. It's just a it's a confusing, fraught situation. Absolutely. It is, Megan. And that was another point is that, you know, I have been a battalion commander. I was a company commander overseas during the

first part of the Iraqi war. And you will see women, and even Martha McSally, she has shared that she has been assaulted. So you can look across the spectrum here in the United States of America, and you will find abusive situations with stay-at-home moms. You find abusive situations with CEOs and leaders in the military. And again, it's something that we don't talk about openly. And I think that because of that, there is that misconception that it's only those who are weak and vulnerable who will be assaulted or picked on at some point in their life. And that is untrue. You know, I loved my spouse very much. I tolerated much more than I ever should. And that is understanding the difference between what is a healthy relationship and what is a toxic relationship.

So it goes much further and deeper and very complicated situations. But what I would say to women that are in that situation, please find a way to exit from that relationship. Do it for your own good and do it for your children's good. Absolutely. Listen, I know you have a vote, but thank you for being so open about it and for pushing it. And we will definitely continue to watch that one as it winds its way through. God bless you, Megan.

Thanks so much. And listen, don't forget to tune into the show on Monday because we've got our legal dream team, Mark and Arthur, coming back. Arthur Aydala, Mark Eichlarsch. And we've got a bunch of interesting, kind of fun legal cases to go through. Number one, some college students are pushing back on these mandatory vaccines. Good for them. Is it okay for the college or even your K-12 school to mandate that you get these vaccines. It's not like the vaccines that, you know, measles, mumps, rubella.

This is experimental. This is the long form of these vaccines hasn't received sort of the bigger FDA approval. So how can they mandate that you get one in order to continue your education? We'll get into that. Plus, Britney Spears, she finally spoke out this week on this conservatorship and the weird dad and what is going on there. Plus, we're going to get into Lori Lightfoot and whether her push to allow interviews with only people of color and so on. She's coming under fire now. Is any of that legal? We'll talk to the Legal Dream team about it in a fun episode on Monday. In the meantime,

have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures. you