The Megyn Kelly Show - Left Turns on Democracy, and Rise of Anti-Semitism in Culture, with Charles C.W. Cooke and Shadi Hamid | Ep. 442

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke, host of The Charles C.W. Cooke Podcast, to talk about Trump somehow having dinner with anti-Semite Nick Fuentes, the reality of who Fuentes really is, Kanye "Ye" West's relationship with Trump, what this dinner says about Trump's 2024 prospects, the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in our culture with Kyrie Irving and Ye, whether the 2024 GOP field will be large or not, media unsure how to deal with "non-binary" Colorado Springs shooter, attempts by the press to place blame on conservatives, and more. Then Shadi Hamid, author of "The Problem of Democracy," joins to discuss the reality of American exceptionalism and our democracy, freedom protests in Iran and China, the test of the Trump era and how some on the left failed, the inability for both sides to accept election results, how Trump drove some on the left crazy, an out-of-control executive branch, the problem with anchoring lives to politics, the need to not make political opponents into enemies, his viral debate on MSNBC over election deniers on the left, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Hope everyone had a great, great Thanksgiving. We traveled with the family out to Amsterdam. We went to Holland, and it was so fun. And I've got to tell you, so Doug, my husband is Dutch on his dad's side. And there were a bunch of people who look like Doug. I finally figured out why Doug looks the way he does. Tall, angular features, big, wide set eyes. There's a bunch of Dugs running around Holland. So ladies, if you're interested, you know, check it out.

Just saying there's a lot of them over there. Anyway, we had a great time. I had tons of fun with the kids and learned a lot. Actually talked to some farmers about the Dutch farming situation over there. You know, the government's cracking down on these farmers, telling them they all have to close it up because of emissions. And they've set guidelines that these farmers can never meet. It's really an example of government overreach in an area of the world that's known for being more hands off, right? That's why they have the red light district. They're very proud. It's Amsterdam. You can do what you want, except for farm that you cannot do because of climate

change. Anyway, the people were delightful. It was an absolutely beautiful city all on these beautiful canals. It's underwater. Michael Schellenberg has pointed to this city as an example of how it's not ideal to go underwater. But if with climate change and global warming, we have the oceans rise and certain cities wind up in that unfortunate position, there are ways to make it work. And those Dutch physicists and experts on how they did it there were called in to help New Orleans after Katrina and so on. They know how to do it. They're an example to us all. Anyway, highly recommend it.

Went to the Anne Frank Museum, went to the Van Gogh Museum, a bunch of other places. Watch, we made some cheese. We did, whatever. We had a great time and I recommend you check it out. Okay, back now today

and there's a ton of news to cover. Wow, a lot went on. We're going to talk about former President Donald Trump's decision to host Kanye, now known as Ye West, and Holocaustier, Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago Milo Yiannopoulos was also reportedly there, but Nick Fuentes, we've covered him on this show before we've covered him on, on Twitter as well. Um, he is a Holocaust denier though. He says it with a laugh. He has been targeting Ben Shapiro for years, and I've covered that on my Twitter. And we're going to get into all of it. How did this guy

wind up at Mar-a-Lago? It's absolutely disgusting that Nick Fuentes was at Mar-a-Lago, period, period. He shouldn't have been within 10 feet of the former president of the United States. It's deeply, deeply wrong. How did it happen uh we'll talk about it plus the latest from dr fauci he's still going he was forced to testify in our deposition and mr i am science i am king of the world and i run a six billion dollar agency suddenly lost his memory oh mr honesty and i am truth he can't remember anything now that there's dollars and cents on the line also we'll get to why n to why NBC allowed two of its top reporters to lie about key details in the Colorado nightclub shooting as they claimed the moral high ground as the only honest media arbiters in covering anything involving the LGBTQ

community. Okay, later we're going to get to Shadi Hamid, who's going to come on. You may remember he had a fantastic debate. People still stop me on the street to talk about this with Alan Dershowitz on Israel and Gaza last year. He returns in our second hour. But joining me first, Charles C.W. Cook, senior writer for National Review and host of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast. Charles, great to have you here. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me back. The pleasure is all mine. Okay, so let's just start with the Trump dinner at Mar-a-Lago. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that Nick Fuentes dined at Mar-a-Lago with the president. I thought for sure this is not true. I could believe that

Kanye dined there. Trump is all about, he only sees you through one prism and it is, how do you feel about him?'s it and so i wouldn't expect trump to care about kanye's anti-semitic comments despite the fact that trump has a jewish daughter and a jewish son-in-law um you know kanye as trump later said in a statement has been good to trump so trump is good to kanye and he had him at mar-a-Lago. But the fact that Trump's handlers or whomever or if there are no handlers, then Trump himself has allowed a system to be in place where Nick Fuentes could get within 10 feet, as I said, of the former president United States is downright alarming. for today. We've done a lot of reporting on him in the past. There is no question this is a raging, raging anti-Semite and white nationalist, though he denies the latter. And Trump is now basically saying, well, I didn't know him. So how are people supposed to process this before we get into the details on this guy? Well, he's a revolting individual. And I regret that I know who he is, or you know who he is, or anyone knows who he is, because his contributions to the United States and the world in general are next to nil. He should not have been near a former president. He shouldn't be anywhere near anyone who wants to represent the whole country, which is the role that the president is obliged to play.

But I would ask even those people who have defended Trump here, and I don't think their defenses are convincing, people who have said it's not his fault, he didn't know, this guy snuck past, or it doesn't matter why you continue to put all your trust and faith in Donald Trump when he just seems to cause endless distractions. What did this do for America? What did this do for conservatism? What did this do for the Republican Party? Once again, we are talking

about Donald Trump, not because he made a Supreme Court pick or said something anyone, everyone has been thinking or, you know, pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, and thereby engendered all sorts of criticism from the press. We're talking about him because he did something at worst terrible and at best careless. And I just hope that people have tired of this at long last. I don't know if they've tired of it, but I think people should understand that it's a very big deal. It is a big deal. I realize Trump is not sitting in the White House right now, but he's already declared his candidacy. He's an ex-president and he's beloved by huge sections of the country. And it does no one any good to pretend that Nick Fuentes is anyone other than the man we know

him to be, who is a 24-year-old aspiring David Duke. I mean, this guy's anti-Semitic and pro-white comments to the exclusion of all their groups go way back. And the thing about Shapiro is what first brought him into my orbit because I'm friends with Ben and it was downright alarming. guy playing the the game grand theft auto and someone in a yarmulke went by in the in the game and he ran him over and then i think there was a second video where he attacked that figure again and fuente celebrated it saying oh look i just killed ben shapiro and was gleeful about it and then he tried to get in ben shapiro's face wanting to know why Ben didn't want to debate him. Well, Ben's weird like that when you threaten his life and pretend to murder him. He doesn't really want to stand across from you on a stage, especially when no one knows who the hell you are at this point, and everybody knows who Ben Shapiro is.

So this is the history of this guy. And then you hear him going out on his own show and talking about the way he sees the Holocaust and the six million Jews who were killed in it. By the way, as I mentioned at the top of the show, just came back from the Anne Frank Museum, deeply stirring, disturbing, moving, and a firsthand reminder of what Jews in Europe had to go through as a result of that time frame and how so many people stood by and watched it happen. Nick Fuentes is still denying it, though he does it with a giggle. Here's a sample of this guy who dined with Trump last week, SOT7. Matt says, if I take one hour to cook a batch of cookies and Cookie Monster has 15 ovens working 24 hours a day every day for five years. How long

does it take Cookie Monster to make 6 million batches of cookies? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know. It certainly wouldn't be five years, right? The math doesn't seem to add up there. The math doesn't quite seem to add up there. I don't think you'd result in six million, maybe 200 to 300,000 cookies. My God, Charles. He's an idiot. The absolute least that anyone in any position of influence or authority can do is not hang out with that guy. And you focused quite rightly on his racism and his anti-Semitism. He also says utterly appalling things about women. He said in the past that the Taliban has it right,

and that women are essentially chattel. We have in this country a profoundly robust First Amendment, and we should. We, unlike most countries, are not going to arrest Nick Fuentes for saying what he just did. And I support that. As grotesque as I find everything he says and does, I support that. It's not illegal to be a racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic person. It's just illegal to make employment decisions and so on. But when you have the system that America has, when you allow pretty much all speech,

you have a heightened responsibility to oppose the people who speak like that. You have a heightened responsibility to refuse to associate with them and to call them out. And that doesn't just apply to former presidents or CEOs or radio hosts. That applies to everybody. We in America are supposed to do with our society what other countries try to do with their laws. And Donald Trump has spectacularly failed here. He has rendered himself, in my view, ineligible to be the president of the United States again, just with this act. This guy is revolting. He's a repudiation of the pluralist country in which we live and in which we aspire to live. And, you know, if nothing else should convince people

that Trump is now really living out a little soap opera on the margins that is divorced from the movement he claims to represent, it should be this. A little bit more on this guy Fuentes. He's been labeled, forget the Anti-Defamation League, forget the Southern Poverty Law Center. Those are those have become these far left groups. But the Justice Department, which I realize has got its own controversies, but randomly throwing out labels until the the recent controversy with the parents hasn't typically traditionally been one of them. They have labeled this guy a white supremacist. The New York Post has called him a Holocaust denier. He's cheered on the January 6th riot. He he opposes liberal values like feminism and LGBTQ rights because he views them as the quote, the bastardized Jewish

subversion of the American creed. OK, he adamantly claims not to be a white supremacist calling the term an anti-white slur instead positions himself as a Christian conservative, though there's nothing Christian or conservative about those views we just discussed. He tries to pepper it all in just joking manner, as you heard in the cookie sot, uh, which is somewhat stomach turning too. There was, um, uh, a question question a taping of his show in which an audience member asked him about how to respond to the guy's wife getting out of line quote getting out of line and fuentes this 24 year old moron who knows absolutely nothing about anything responds by saying quote why don't you give her a vicious and forceful backhanded slap with your

knuckles right across her face disrespectfully and make it hurt just kidding of course just a joke i would never lay a hand on a woman unless she had it coming to your point about the misogyny he referred to daily wire columnist and podcast host matt walsh as a shabbos gov race traitor because he works for jewish people like ben shapiro uh and on and on it goes. So here's the thing. I believe Trump when Trump comes out and says, I didn't know who that was. I believe him because most people have no idea who Nick Fuentes is. I'm in media. You're in media. I've covered him because he went after my friend and it was dust up on Twitter. Most people have no idea who that is. And Trump's been kind of busy the past six years. So I believe he didn't know him, but he knew what Kanye West has said recently.

He had absolutely no screening process in place to make sure whoever Kanye was bringing was not deeply problematic. Milo Yiannopoulos is a little controversial too, for the same reasons, similar. And it is alarming to me the prospect that Trump might have somehow been intentionally fanning a certain flame for a couple of reasons. First, because he is not a random guy. If you host a party, you say, let's meet at a restaurant and a friend of a friend brings Nick Fuentes along. Maybe that's okay. You say, I didn't know who it was. I'd never have invited him. He doesn't represent my views or my values in any way. It's a little bit different when you're the former president of the United States. You do have an obligation to screen your guests a lot more carefully than Trump did. And I, for what it's worth, think that should have included Kanye West as well, given his recent behavior. That's right. It also matters because the justification that he didn't know who he was, notwithstanding, this isn't a problem that seems to befall other people.

It's not as if we wake up every morning and we read, oh, no, another white supremacist got into Greg Abbott's mansion and had dinner with him. Oh, no, Governor DeSantis was caught once again with a known anti-Semite. You know, Donald Trump is declared for president. He is therefore eligible for a great deal of public scrutiny and comparison with his peers. And his peers aren't doing this. This is a problem that even if accidental only seems to happen to Trump.

And that is a problem given his declared interest in becoming president again. What's going on with the rise in anti-Semitic comments and figures lately? I mean, to me, Charles, it's like it's getting disturbing because the embrace of Kanye West, despite the numerous anti-Semitic comments he's made now. I mean, he can't stop making anti-Semitic comments. He has shown us who he is. Kanye West is an anti-Semite. He is. Or he's just playing one on TV because every interview he gives, he says something that is anti-Semitic. Kyrie Irving, we had a long debate about him. Jason Whitlock came on the show not long ago and said, look, you know, what did

he do? He's not the same as Kanye. He tweeted out a link to a movie that has some anti-Semitic comments in it. That's not the same. And I gave him that point. It's not the same as Kanye. However, we've had some time now. We've gone back. My team, I had somebody, one of my producers watched the whole damn movie. God bless Lauren uh she watched the whole thing she gave me a line by line on it and there is no question that this film is anti-semitic to its core kairi irving's defense of well under pressure and under threat of being kicked off his team or being suspended he came out and said well i don't agree with the anti-semitic parts well guess what they're it's entirely anti-semitic the whole film is about is anti-semitic it's about how um blacks are the real

jews and all these europeans pretending to be the real jews are are fakers and they've subjugated the black race and i'll just give you a couple more just so you understand because i don't want to make you have to go back and watch it um but it's absolutely disturbing. And hold on. I'm trying to find my my little memo where I or my my team outlined it. In any event, it goes on and on about the Jewish race and about how there was no Holocaust, that that's just what the six million dead Jews is one of the many Jewish lies. Kyrie Irving tweeted out a move, a link to this movie. And then under pressure says, well, I don't agree with the anti-Semitic parts. Oh, which one? About the six million dead Jews? About the Adolf Hitler quotes, which may or may not have been real, but are very anti-Jew.

So you've got Kyrie, you've got Kanye, you've got Kanye tweeting out pictures of Kyrie Irving, and you've got tens of thousands of people liking it. Now you've got Fuentes and Milo and Kanye going to meet with the former president. I don't know what's going on, but it's unsettling.

Yeah, that Hitler quote that I endorsed wasn't actually real. There's not much of a defense. Look, I think we ought to put this into some context and then also look at where what's happening doesn't fit that context. Conspiracy theories are as old as time. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are as old as time. Unfortunately, it is one of the world's oldest prejudices, if not the oldest. And America has always been a hotbed of conspiracy theories on the left and on the right. As time progresses, the nature of the theories and the people who buy them changes. But really, if you go back to the founding, you'll find a tendency toward conspiracy theories for precisely the reason that I mentioned earlier, and that is that we do have this big rambunctious country with free flowing information and not a great

deal of superintendents from the government or from the elites. But I do agree with you that it is alarming that at the moment, this one does seem to be on the rise. I'm not an expert in this area. But the one reason that I always arrive at is that people can now find these ideas quite easily on the internet in a way that they would not have been able to 20 or 30 years ago. And often they're packaged, which they weren't 20 or 30 years ago, in a really slick way. You just you just described a movie. You know, I haven't watched it. But that movie is probably pretty well produced, because it doesn't take a great deal now to put out a product that looks legit. All you really need is a 4k camera camera and a copy of Final Cut Pro,

and you can present your ideas in a manner that seems high quality. Whereas if you look back at the sort of fringe conspiracy theories, especially fringe anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the 70s, 80s and 90s, they would come on badly photocopied paper, or they would be typewritten, or there'll be one guy at a meeting who wasn't especially eloquent shouting about it. It's a feature of the modern world that we can now process information that is indistinguishable from what would previously have been sort of elite, contrived information very quickly and very easily. And I just don't find it especially surprising. I find it extremely alarming and sad, but I don't find it especially surprising that one of the main veins of conspiracy theorizing

that has come back to the fore, given that change, is anti-Semitism, because it has been there for thousands of years. I found my cheat sheet from Lauren on the film, and just a couple of highlights, lowlights, what have you. Kyrie, in defending himself for tweeting it out, came out and said, I respect all walks of life. The movie may have had some unfortunate falsehoods in it. Some things that were questionable in there, untrue, some things. But then went on to say, I cannot be anti-Semitic if I know where I come from. OK, you look at the

actual movie, you know what it says? It has a quote, again, falsely they say, according to the ADL, this is falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler. I guess they know all of the Hitler quotes, who the hell knows? But the point is, it appears in the movie as a real Hitler quote. And this is what it says, because the white Jews know that the Negroes as a real hitler quote and this is what it says because the white jews know that the negroes are the real children of israel and to keep america's secret the jews will blackmail america they will extort america their plan for world domination won't work if the negroes know who they are okay again back to back to krie. I cannot be anti-Semitic if I know where I come from. He's clearly been influenced by this movie and its lies. And they've got a quote on the

screen early on in the movie saying that the Jews have established five major falsehoods, which work to conceal their nature and protect the stat, status and power like the jews are israelites jesus christ was a jew six million jews were killed in a holocaust during world war ii boom just listed as one of the many lies that we've heard from jewish people that all races are equal a lie told by jewish people that the jews are just another religious group um and talking about how the jewish slave ships brought our western african negro bantus ancestors to slave ancestors to slave ports owned by the jewish newport world center of slave commerce off the east coast of north america the jews falsified the history of the holocaust in order to conceal their nature and protect their status and power

i mean i could keep going it's disgusting the the debate about Kyrie is over. As far as I'm concerned, the debate about Kanye is over. The debate about Nick Fuentes has been over for some time. In my view, these people should be shunned. They should not be given a public forum. If Kyrie Irving wants to believe this stuff in his head and play basketball really well, that's his business. But given the platform that he has, if he's going to tweet this out, he ought to be held accountable for promoting these kinds of views. I don't see any problem with doing that. And Kanye, same. By the way, the reports are that Kanye is running for president. And the thing that really pissed off Trump in that meeting was he asked Trump to be his number two. He wants Trump to be the vice president, which Trump isn't interested in, Charles. I'm going to assume you don't want

that as the GOP ticket. I think that is a fair assumption on your part, that I don't want that as the GOP ticket in either configuration. Kanye Trump or Trump, Kanye is out. Doesn't matter. There are many Republicans now sort of sniffing around the possible the possibility of running. We had Rick Grinnell on the show not long ago. He's a Trump, you know, loyalist. And he was saying, we see you, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, you know, others. I'm sure you could listen, you know, Mike Pence, whomever. We see you denying to us that you're running, but we know you're raising funds and you're getting ready to do it. And he was basically saying, don't do it because you'll

get crushed and it's going to hurt. And you have a column up that doesn't say it exactly that way, but you do say, don't run, don't do it. To me, it seems addressed to pretty much most of the GOP other than Ron DeSantis, you tell me. But you're making a very good point, one that I've been making too, which is anything close to a fractured GOP field outside of Trump and Trump wins. Yeah, it's not limited to DeSantis. I certainly wouldn't do that. As I've said on my podcast, we don't know yet if DeSantis can make

the jump. I suspect he can, and he has shown a great skill in leading Florida. But it's always different being talked about as a presidential contender and being a presidential contender. It's unclear whether or not DeSantis will be able to move to the national level with the same aplomb he moved to the governorship. It's unclear what his views are on certain federal questions, foreign policy, immigration, trade, and so on. And it would be premature to anoint him as the non-Trump nominee. What I was doing, though, was saying, if you are peripheral, if your ceiling as a candidate is likely to be two or desperate to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee, which is a cause that I share. But who, if they were to run for president and fracture the non-Trump vote, as it was fractured in 2016, might end up making it much more likely that Trump would be the nominee. If Trump had between 35 and 45% of the primary electorate,

for example, and the field was 17 to 20 people strong, you could see how that could split in a way that put him back in the race. So my argument was, look, if you are the popular Republican governor of a blue state who has no constituency outside of that state, don't run. If you are somebody who was a hero on the right 10, 15 years ago, but has done nothing of consequence since, Don't run. And if you're a really good person whose friends have convinced him or her that all it takes is to be a really good person, don't run. Now, some people read this and they pretended that what I was saying is a good person can't win the nomination. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I was saying is that it's not enough. Being morally upstanding is not enough if you don't have a likely base of support in the Republican Party. Of course, I want the person who eventually emerges as a nominee to be morally upstanding. But it's not enough just to say, well, I'm a good person. Donald Trump is not a good

person. So I'm sure people will rally around me. In fact, what is more likely to happen is that you and the 10 to 15 other people who decide to run without having a path let Trump back in. And that's what I want to avoid. I do think, and I'll reiterate, that we do have to have a proper nominating process, though. And that means that those within the party who have a constituency, have proven themselves to be electable, who've governed well or legislated well, who speak for a particular wing or philosophy should absolutely get in and duke it out. But it would be a huge institutional mistake at the moment for the

Republican Party to throw another 20 people at the stage in the hope that this time it will turn out differently, because I really don't think it will. Your comment to, of course, we want a good person to get nominated and win, it reminds me of, we're talking about Trump and we're talking about Kyrie and Kanye and Fuentes. Who could forget the Barack Obama days? and in whose living room he, quote, launched his presidential campaign. Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist who bombed America repeatedly and lives were lost 100 percent. And a cop was killed and a judge's home was attacked in the middle of the night. And I interviewed the then little boy who was in that house at the time. That's Barack Obama's buddy. Not to mention Jeremiah Wright. Goddamn America, and so on. Not to mention the influence that Louis Farrakhan reportedly had on him and so on. You know, so it's like, what is a good person? What is good character? What is the test? Is there anybody who we have who, you know, who's not going to, it's not going to emerge that they have connections with these nefarious characters or that they've allowed, you know, I don't know. DeSantis, we don't know yet. He hasn't been thoroughly vetted. Glenn Youngkin,

I'd be shocked to hear it. But who knows? He was in corporate America for long enough. You can see him having sold a little bit of his soul. I say it baselessly at the moment, but I'm just like, what is a good person? What are our standards now? Well, I would say that conservatives quite rightly criticized Barack Obama for all of those associations. And I think that that criticism should be maintained. We don't want people who hang out with terrible anti-American figures or with people who reject American pluralism or with people who have fringe conspiracy theorizing views. Now, I do understand that after a certain point, if one side gets away with it, the other is going to throw up its hands and say,

I don't care. And as I've said before, on your show, I comprehend perfectly why when the question was Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or Joe Biden, why a lot of people pulled the lever for Donald Trump. I also understand for what it's worth, why people in 2020 pulled the lever for Joe Biden, even if in every other respect, they're more conservative leaning. The difference here is that we are now in a position in which we don't have to do that. We don't have to say this is a binary choice, or well, when it comes down to it, I didn't really have any other option. We have a nominating process in front of us at which the questions that you just posed can be answered. And at some point as a country, we do have to break this cycle of accepting people who are compromised, simply

because the other side is worse. There is no good argument in my estimation for going back to the Trump well right now. And what we just saw Trump do with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes is yet another reason why when it comes to evaluating all of the options that are on offer, we ought to weigh that in our calculation. I'll say this. In Trump's defense, at least he only had the one meeting. You know, he didn't sit in Jeremiah Church's, Jeremiah Wright's church for years. He wasn't tight with Nick Fuentes the way Barack Obama was with Bill Ayers. All of that was so disturbing. And they still hold Barack Obama up like he is the next coming. I mean, they lionize this man

on the left in a way that is totally disconnected from the facts and about the way that Barack Obama, according to the way he governed, feels about America. You know, first thing he did was go on an apology tour. His wife is still out there bashing the United States at every turn. Now we're too racist to have accepted her hair the way she wanted to wear it. She's been she was first lady for eight years. If she ran for president, she would win. She knows it. And still, given the microphone, what does she do? She bashes America. Too racist to accept my natural hair. Nope, not ready. It's just they get a total pass. And this is what this is why people get pissed off when Trump gets, you know, raked over the coals for having dinner

with people who are controversial. It's like the same people criticizing him on the left in these papers made excuses for everything I just listed. You know, there there's a small sliver of people who have criticized both and who can sort of hold on to that ideological consistency. All right, stand by, Charles, because I want to get to, speaking of the media, what they've done in the wake of this Colorado shooting. It came out that the shooter says that he's non-binary. Well, the media has no idea what to do with this because it was supposed to be somebody who hates the LGBT community, who listens to Tucker Carlson every night. And it turns out we don't appear to have that as the shooter. Suddenly, they're no longer interested. Charles C.W. Cook stays with us

over the break. Charles, last week, there was a shooting in Colorado at an LGBTQ nightclub at which five people were killed. The left and the media spent the week telling us that this was a hate crime that was driven by people like Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire, which is an outright slander of Matt Walsh, who has been standing up against mutilation of minors before they reach the age of majority by overzealous parents

who want them to have sex change operations when they're too young to even drive or vote or drink or have a cigarette. So they tried to blame it on the right wing, Tucker, Matt, usual suspects. And it was actually pretty outrageous what they were doing. And Chris Ruffo, also in the New York Times, smeared as having led to this. And then it comes out late Tuesday. The defense lawyers for this person who is a man it's a biological man say that this person and we don't name mass shooters on this program is actually non-binary and then they say that this person prefers using the pronouns they and them okay they and them so now so i'll just give you a sample of how the media who like, all you need to do is say like a whiff of like Demi Lovato.

I'm non-binary. I'm they, them. Immediately. They, them. She, he, whatever. They're totally respectful because you're Demi Lovato. You're a star. But when you shoot people and they really were counting on you on being a right wing white supremacist kind of person, they're really not so sure whether your nine non-binary thing is real. Look at Alison Camerota and her guests on CNN.

In a footnote to a motion asserting legal privileges, the public defenders say, quote, is non-binary. They use they them pronouns and for the purposes of all formal filings will be addressed as mix. So in other words, not Mr. or Ms. I don't know what to say about that. I mean, that's not anything that we had heard from his background. You know, people have been looking into his background and I don't know if anybody here. Are you guys lawyers? I don't know what to say about that. I mean, that's what he's now saying. It sounds like they're trying to prepare a defense against a hate crimes charge. That's the least of his problems, legally speaking,

but it looks like they're trying to build some kind of sympathy or at least confusion on the question of whether or not this was purely motivated by hate. I mean, that is what it sounds like. Oh, really? Oh, they have misgendered this person as well. You're not allowed to say his or he once the person has declared themselves as non-binary. It's fascinating

the situational ethics that come up. It's astonishing. That is astonishing, given that we have been told that all it takes for it to be objectively, cosmically true is for somebody to declare it. And now we learn that perhaps that's not the case. I find this whole tendency depressing. I've been complaining about this for a decade. I think the correct person to blame in acts of political violence is the person who committed the act of political violence. This is, as I've said too many times probably on this podcast, a big and free country. If you want to, you will always be able to find some connection between something somebody somewhere has said

and something somebody somewhere has done. But in almost all cases, you should not. You should not for a couple of reasons. First, because people who are mentally ill, as the shooters often are, not always, but often are, are going to glom on to something as a means by which to justify or explain their actions. Now, sometimes it's very obviously beyond the pale. The shooter at the Navy Yard, for example, thought that the government was sending him messages through the wall from a microwave. Sometimes it's quotidian political content of left or right, they pick it up. It doesn't mean that it actually influenced them in any meaningful way. It just means that they found it. And in their insanity, they absorbed it. The second reason is that ultimately,

the purpose of pointing fingers is to shut people up. Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times wrote the most astonishing column last week in which she said at the outset, we don't know what the motive was. The police have not established a motive. And then having got that out of the way, she wrote a couple of paragraphs in which she blamed people by name.

She mentioned Ben Shapiro. She mentioned Matt Walsh. She mentioned Chris Ruffo. Despite there being no motive, these people explicitly were to blame. Now, the reason that she did that, it's not because she has any evidence that one led to the other, not because she can draw a line between the two, not that it would even be fair to draw a line between the two, but because she wants those people to be quiet. She wants to add in a little friction. So the next time they think of saying what they believe politically, in it must be said, an area that has absolutely nothing to do with shooting up an LGBT club, they hesitate for a moment, and her side of the political aisle, ideologically or politically,

or on a partisan basis, gains some advantage. And this is not only revolting in and of itself in a free country, but it's so transparent because it's never done the other way around. The most obvious connection that we have seen in the last five years was between the anti-Trump, anti-Republican rhetoric that cropped up in early 2017 and the shooting at the congressional baseball field where actual Republican lawmakers were targeted and targeted because they were writing, debating and voting on a bill that had been demonized. And I wrote at the time that the shooter there still should be held responsible exclusively for what he had done, because the alternative is telling people who disagree with the Republican Party in Congress

about matters of great import that they need to be quiet. And this is just not an acceptable way to run a free country. We cannot have a system where people are expected to stay silent in case somewhere out there on the fringes, under a rock, there is a madman or a zealot. If you stand up and say, look, I think this person should be killed, sure, you could be criticized for that. If you are, what's the word? If you are emphatic in your politics, you obviously should not be held liable. Right back to the beginning of this country, we have had emphatic politics. We used to burn people in effigy, for goodness sake, for their foreign policy views in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. So I think this is just an absolutely

revolting habit. I think that it is the worst sort of advantage taking. And I wish to goodness that it would stop. But if it's not going to stop, which it probably isn't, it just has to be ignored. The one thing that many, many people who are just reasonable have criticized that they're now railing on is these drag queen shows for toddlers, you know, for preschool, for young school age children, because this LGBTQ facility was going to have some sort of drag queen show the next day. And it is true that the names you mentioned, I, many people at National Review and others have been critical of drag queen story hour for kids in the single digits who don't need any example of sexualized anything in front of them and certainly not of cross-dressing transgenderism and a lot of these

shows are sexual in their presentation so yeah a lot of parents have said you know what if you're when i lived in chicago there was this great transvestite bar that you could go to. And I'm telling you, you'd leave there very confused, male or female. These are biological men who did a show dressed as women, and they were totally gorgeous. That's fine. Why take issue with people who are doing adult entertainment that's kind of fun, it's kind of saucy, it's racy? We're talking about kids. That's what the Daily Wire guys are talking about. Chris Rufo. That's what they're talking about. And yet you get people like NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins blaming the right wing for the Colorado shooting because you're not allowed to object to that because you himself in false glory for his own approach to his reporting and at his wits end that people critical of these things won't just shut up here he is i do want to say though um am i doing something wrong here here are some headlines that i wrote the last six months fueled by internet's far-right machine anti-lgbtq threats shut down trans rights and drag events and i'm just wondering what could i have done different seriously as reporters what can we do different i am trying to thread this needle here i'm trying to say this is happening this targeted stuff has real life impacts but i think we have to have a come to jesus moment here uh as reporters are we more afraid of being on breitbart for saying that trans people deserve

to be alive or are we more afraid of the dead people because i'm more afraid of the dead people you're doing your job you're uncovering the truth these bodies are not in the ground yet yeah and they're being used as political props right now. Well, that last line was true. Except he's got the perpetrator wrong. I mean, look, if Ben Collins wants to improve himself, he should quit his job and go and live in a monastery. The guy is a clown.

I would just ask what the mechanism is supposed to be here to prevent this. As I've said, I don't see a line between A and B, but let's assume that there is one. And let's take a much more clear-cut example, because as you pointed out, when people say that children should not be exposed to sexualized drag queen shows, they are not saying that drag queens in adult clubs should be shut down. But let's take a much more clear cut example. Let's say abortion. So I think abortion is killing. Now, if somebody hears me say that, as they will, given that this show is going out to America, and then they shoot up an abortion clinic, what am I supposed to do to prevent that?

The only conclusion I can come to is that I'm not supposed to say it, which is crazy. And it's very self-evidently crazy to progressives when the tides are turned. When somebody walked into the Family Research Council and opened fire, it would, of course, have been preposterous to say, well, as a result, progressive groups are no longer allowed to talk about the importance of gay marriage. When the congressional baseball shooter showed up at that field, it would have been preposterous to say, well, there is no longer any justification for the Democratic Party to oppose the Republican repeal and replace plan for Obamacare. I think it's just as ridiculous here. I said this a few

weeks ago with the Nancy Pelosi story. There was a piece in the Washington Post written by Ashley Parker and others that said, well, it was inevitable that Nancy Pelosi's husband would be attacked by a crazy nudist with a hammer, because in 2010, the Tea Party vilified Nancy Pelosi. Okay, let's assume that's true. It's not. It's absolutely ridiculous. But let's assume that that is true. Then what?

Then you're not allowed to run emphatic ads against the Speaker of the House, the most powerful position in our constitutional order. This is extremely silly. And ultimately, if you tell people who have strong, legitimate political views, that say they're pro-life, or they don't want sexualized content being fed to minors, that they need to shut up, or they will be blamed on television for violent acts, I can promise you they're not going to shut up. Because will be blamed on television for violent acts, I can promise you they're not going to shut up. Because the alternative is essentially just to give up on life, give up on politics, give up on free speech, give up on democracy, and it's not going to happen.

So just, as I said earlier, it's going to get ignored and it should be. Glenn Greenwald had a barn burner of a piece saying on Twitter, what NBC permitted Ben Collins to do this week in exploiting the corpses in Colorado Springs with lie after lie, one baseless claim after the next is repugnant. It sickens me. He doesn't see LGBTs as humans, just weapons and mascots to exploit for his own aggrandizement. He goes on to say that every poll shows media corporations and journalists are hated. This is why. Ben Collins won't be punished for trampling on these corpses with lies and baseless claims to get on TV. And along with his colleague, who did something similar, accused political enemies of murder. That's their job, and

the public knows it. So good. So well said. Much more to say, too. Charles, what a pleasure. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. And remember, folks, that you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel, 111, every weekday at noon east, and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. If you prefer to get your news via audio podcast, you can follow and download. Got to hit the download button. Do that for me, would you? On Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts for free. Good deal. Democracy has been a focal point in political talking points recently, like

from Democrats claiming democracy may die as a result of the midterms this year. Ta-da! It's still alive because the Democrats did not lose both houses. Well, our next guest is Shadi Hamid, and he knows a thing or two about democracy and rationality. He's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the new book, The Problem of Democracy, America, the Middle East, and the rise and fall of an idea. Welcome back to the show, Shadi. Good to have you here. Hi, Megan. Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure. And I just want to remind the audience that you are the person who was on the

opposite side before we had video of Alan Dershowitz in what remains, I think, the favorite debate ever had on The Megyn Kelly Show. i have people stop me to this day random both sides of the aisle saying that was the single greatest debate we've heard um on the middle east on any program anywhere and it's thanks to you and alan but that's great to hear um to be the best debate that you've had yeah i really enjoyed it so thanks for having me on again and wait i should tell people what episode was it steve crack hour uh we We have a clip of it. It's episode 104. You know what? We have a clip cut just for old time's sake. Let's take a walk down that lane before we get down to business. People can listen to why people loved it so much. When we want to understand the current crisis,

as you mentioned, Megan, the key turning point is the very heavy-handed police raid that we saw in Al-Aqsa Mosque. As you mentioned, rubber bullets, stun grenades, so on, more than 300. That was the excuse du jour. That was the excuse du jour. That was not the provocation. This would have happened if there had been peace in Jerusalem. A mosque does it every few years. They just wait for a an excuse. And they're smart, and they're pushed by Iran to do it. So they're going to keep doing it. There's always going to be an excuse. Go ahead, Shadi. Okay, but fair enough, Alan. But I think I would, at the very least, we should be able to condemn what Israel did. These are extremely aggressive acts that we know are going to be extremely provocative.

Good stuff. All such good stuff. You know, it's interesting to me because I read you suggested in your book that America's kind of lost interest in the Middle East. Why do you think that? Yeah, it certainly has. And I think, you know, part of it is the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I think maybe even a bigger part is at the start of the Arab Spring, you see this optimism, euphoria. I think Americans were looking to the Middle East for the first time and saying, oh, we can relate to them. They're fighting for freedom and democracy.

They're out on the streets. And you might recall that 24-7, if you turned on the TV in 2011, people were talking about this really optimistic moment in the Middle East. But then it went dark. It went downhill. And now when we think about the Arab Spring, we think about a depressing thing that didn't work out. And there isn't a single surviving democracy from the Arab Spring. We've seen the return of dictatorship throughout the Middle East. So I think for a lot of Americans, they feel exhausted and they don't quite understand what went wrong and why. And I think that at a basic level, the Middle East is complicated. It's hard to understand. There's a lot going on. And sometimes it's easier to look away. I think

the second thing, though, is that we have our own problems here at home with the question of democracy. So I think Americans generally, they're just looking inward. And it's hard to focus so much of our attention to other societies and other cultures when we feel like we're under threat right here in America. You know, I think about the Arab Spring and I think about a lot. I think about what happened in Egypt where it was like, yeah. Oh, wait, no. What are we getting? Wait, what's happening? We may not like the outcome of the democratic process. Hold on. I also think about Lara Logan, what happened to her, you know, that for me as a journalist, just watching my fellow journalists get so attacked, trying to cover this movement in an earnest, honest way, and then to be subjected to that awful violence. It was just such a reminder that, you know, not everybody shares our exact values. And not that those thugs spoke for all people in the Middle East, but just it was an

example of how women fare in the Middle East in many places. And I have been thinking about it lately in connection with Iran and this weekend in connection with China, you know, two places that have abysmal human rights records, but both of which are crying for freedom right now. Some collection of the citizenry crying out for democracy. Literally in China over the weekend, that was the word that they used. I wrote it down. We want freedom. Don't want dictatorship. Want democracy.

Calling for Xi Jinping to step down, step down Communist Party because of the crazy COVID zero policies there, which are once again going into authoritarian lockdown and effect. And it just to me, it's it's it's inspirational to see these Chinese people come out and speak out against a government that would absolutely hurt them, would absolutely hurt them and is threatening them right now for doing that. Same thing in Iran, where the people are being threatened and being told, you better watch it it you people who are speaking out in the wake of this young girl being being well i mean her supporters say she was beaten to death and the iranian uh authorities say that this young woman had a heart attack after she was punished severely for not wearing her hijab

the proper way in any event same thing happening in both countries and same wrestling match with like, but the human rights record. Oh, but look at these real life human beings who want change. What's our role? Well, I think it's a reminder to all of us as Americans that we have our flaws as a democracy. We have our imperfections, but I think too often we take it for granted. And I think it's useful to see what the alternative actually looks like, because that clarifies the mind that for all of our flaws, America is better. We are, you know, I'll just say it outright, morally and politically superior to any dictatorship anywhere in the world. And it troubles me a bit. Some folks on my side of the spectrum, I still consider myself to be left of center, although I'm a little bit heterodox. But anyway, I think there was a lot of, I think, envy towards the Chinese model at

the start of the pandemic, where people were saying, look how good the Chinese are. They're getting things done. They're building these instant hospitals in four or five days. If only we could be like them and having a strong, efficient leadership that takes COVID seriously. And I think that if you look at the medium to longer term, dictatorships are fundamentally weak because they can't alternate their leaders. So when the leader is doing something good, people are happy. It's great. It's working well. But then when the leader starts making irrational decisions or starts going in an absurd direction like zero COVID, there's no way for citizens to undo the damage because there is no way to vote. There is no way to meaningfully choose your leaders. And I just wish that we as Americans could really take that on board. It's good to be self-critical. We've done terrible things in our

history, as we all know, but we've also done pretty bad things abroad. And I'm very critical of how the US has dealt with the Middle East, that we support authoritarian regimes in the region, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the list goes on. But we can be self critical without falling into self doubt, where we're always kind of self flagellating and saying, well, we're not in any position to talk about freedom and democracy abroad because we don't have our own house in order or because Donald Trump was the president. Then we have no moral authority. We can't be moral leaders and talking about these issues. And that's absurd. We should be able to do two things at once, acknowledge our faults, but also say that our model is better.

Why? Because we are a democracy. And I hope that now when we see these images in China and Iran, that people democratic outcomes and in entrusting the entrusting them and putting your trust in them. And I could relate very much to what home at maybe three in the morning. And I was supposed to appear on live with Kelly Ripa. I don't even remember who her co-host was at the time. I think it was Strahan, but he wasn't there that day. And so it was moments after to me, moments after we had just announced that Donald Trump was president. And I went on that show and she was very, very upset prior to air that he had won. You know, her husband is Latino and he had said very controversial things and she was feeling under threat and her children and so on.

So we talked a bit backstage about it. And then I went out onto the stage and said exactly to the public what I had said to her, which is there's a whole faction of Americans who feels heard now for the first time in years after having been ignored, really ignored. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing for America. That's that bodes well for the outcome of America long term, no matter how you feel about it short term. And your dad, who's Muslim American, and also Trump had said some controversial things about Muslims. And there were a lot of minority groups who were feeling like, oh, what does this mean for me? Women too, right? What does this mean for me? He had that same long range perspective that net net, this is going to be a good thing. And democracies work. Take us take us back to that moment. Yeah, sure. So as you said, my dad shared some wisdom with me the morning after Trump won.

So that night, like a lot of people in D.C., I was at an election party. And what started out celebratory turned very dark and, you know, people started crying. Um, I got back home pretty late and I talked to my brother on the phone and basically our biggest concern was our parents. Um, it wasn't so much about me and my brother was about what might happen to mom and dad. My mom wears the headscarf. Um, my parents are visibly immigrants. They, you know, so, um, and as you said, Trump did say some crazy things. It's easy to forget just how focused Trump was on Muslims. He had a sort of preoccupation with us and he had even, you know, entertained some really frightening things that thank God didn't actually come to pass and was just kind of campaign rhetoric, but, you know, making reference to registering Muslims in a database, refusing to condemn the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. And then you start to wonder like what might actually happen to us as American Muslims. So, so I cried that night talking to my brother, thinking about, you know,

my parents and our future in the country. And then I talked to my dad the following morning, and he was just so chill about it because people who have been here for generations might lose sight of, which is our democracy has worked and it probably will continue to work. It'll come under tension. There'll be there'll be points where we doubt ourselves, but our democracy is resilient. And I actually experienced the four years of Trump with a kind of sigh of relief. I mean, I thought Trump was pretty bad, but the worst case scenarios didn't come to pass. And we got through it. And then Americans decided to make another choice and they voted for Joe Biden. And that's the way, I mean, that's exactly how it's supposed

to work. There's alternation of power. You see someone for four years, then you assess the performance and then you can go a different direction. So that's why I think that I when I talk to, you know, fellow liberals, you know, I always say, well, look, Donald Trump won fair and square in 2016. We don't have to like it, but we have to respect the outcome instead of trying to delegitimize it through Russiagate and through all the other things that were going on in those first couple of years where at some basic level, we as liberals were not able to come to terms with the reality of Donald Trump. And we let him get in our minds and we became obsessed with Donald Trump. I think still many people are, right? And I think for me, I draw a lot from my experiences in the Middle East, because as you alluded to earlier, at the start of the Arab Spring in a country like Egypt, there was that euphoria. But then in free and fair elections, a right wing religious movement, an Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood won consecutive elections. And then I saw my relatives in Egypt. I mean, I'm born and raised in Pennsylvania, they said basically, well, we like democracy in theory,

but if democracy produces a right wing religious party, then actually, maybe we don't like democracy anymore. And this is the danger of judging democracy solely on its outcomes that you only like democracy or accept it if your own party wins or if it leads to outcomes of progress and liberalism or gender equality, whatever it might be. These are all valuable things for many Americans, but democracy won't always lead in that direction. And that's the whole point of democracy. You don't know what's going to happen before people vote. People can choose to go in other directions depending on their preferences. So when I come back to the U.S. in 2014 after being in the Middle East during the Arab Spring, I try to bring those lessons with me because I think there's something really important there that we have to come to terms with election results that we don't like. That is the test of democracy. And Trump and Trump really forced us to contend with that. And and how we'll get to that one second. But I one one point I wanted to make is this is why I think it's so important to have the executive

branch be small in power, as the founders intended. They never wanted a strong executive. They had fled that. They didn't want another king. And the legislative branch seeds fights over student debt, loan, quote, forgiveness, and COVID emergencies, quote, unquote, never ending at its own peril. It is meant to be a very strong, robust branch of government. And it's also one in which we have so much more say over which we have so much more say, right, because we elect those House of Representative congressmen and women every two years. They answer directly to us. They come from our town. They're supposed to represent our values, the Senate longer, but still powerful, important positions. And we should not be electing a king.

And when there is executive overreach, which there certainly was during the Obama administration, and I would say to a lesser extent, but still present during the Trump administration, we must revolt. We must stand up and say, no, you're small. You are the least important figure in this government, not the most important. And we're letting that go under president after president. It's getting dangerous. Yeah, I totally agree. And this is part of when the state is so strong that it it makes every election feel like the most important election of your lifetime. And that's something that we heard in the lead up to our own midterms a few weeks ago, everyone was freaking out, or at least a lot of people were freaking out, especially on Twitter saying democracy would die.

And there was only one choice at the ballot box and all of this. And part of the reason people feel that level of intensity is because whoever does win control of the Senate or in 2024 control of the presidency really does have a lot of power to change things and to try to transform the broader culture of the nation. So we have to find ways to lower the stakes. Elections shouldn't feel so existential. And then the question is, how do we find a way to maybe not so much weaken the state, but let's just be careful. Not everything should be about the federal government, because that is going to mean that we're perpetually afraid of election outcomes. We're always going to freak out if the other party wins. Most things should not depend on the federal government. The vision was that the entire

federal government would be small. The executive branch within it would be the smallest and the least powerful, but that for the most part, the powers would be reserved to the states. And we have these 50 or at the time 13, whatever labs, laboratories, where we could each find a way to live within our own, whatever value judgments, cultures, approach to legislation, the police state and so on. And that's what we've been doing, right? That's why New York is so different from Texas. But somehow we've gotten, we've ceded authority to this you know no particular man i'm thinking

of but just this sort of out of control executive monster who's king-like and his approach to everything and we're allowing it we're allowing it to the point where we get this scared we ran this by not long before the election this is michael beschloss presidential historian on msnbc who lost his mind lost his mind in advance of the midterms. Chris, six nights from now, we could all be discussing violence all over this country. We could be six days away from losing our rule of law and losing a situation where we have elections that we all can rely on. 50 years from now, if historians are allowed to write in this country, and if there are still free publishing houses and a free press, which I'm not certain of, but if that is true,

a historian will say, what was at stake tonight and this week was the fact whether we will be a democracy in the future, whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed. We're on the edge of a brutal authoritarian system, and it could be a week away. Shadi, wow. Okay, I'm speechless. I actually hadn't seen that clip before, so I'm glad that you shared it. I mean, I've seen, I saw some crazy talk in the lead up. I did not see that. That is that's ridiculous. It's bonkers. He's historians, whether historians will be allowed to write in the future, whether our

children will be arrested or even killed. But I think that even though that might be an extreme example, that general vibe was actually quite mainstream. And that's why, you know, I tell folks, if anyone tells you that this is the most important election of your lifetime, you should immediately be skeptical of that person. That person has lost their sense of proportion and reality. And this is, I think, part of what Trump does to people. He just like burrows himself into your mind and you can no longer analyze things objectively. But I think people also like the thrill of having an enemy. So Michael Betchloss there, he probably felt like he was a revolutionary. He's actually facing the possible

end of the American Republic. That can be an exciting feeling that you're actually standing up and you're the one along with your, you know, with your compatriots, you're going to save America. That is an exciting thing. And people want enemies. That's how they increasingly define themselves. They find an opponent. They delegitimize that opponent. They talk about how the world is about to end. And democracy shouldn't actually be that way because in a two-party system, Republicans will eventually win, either on the presidential level or retaking the Senate in the future. So when people say, well, oh, if only we could have a permanent Democratic majority, that's also a red flag. No one should want a permanent majority from the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, because that would mean one party rule. And democracy at its core is about alternation of power. You have different choices every four years. So it's just really troubling to see that kind of rhetoric. And I hope that now that we've seen that democracy didn't end with the midterms, and I don't know if you felt this way, but it felt kind of anticlimactic. People were raising all these worst case scenarios. And then the midterms went along. There were no major,

major issues in terms of voter intimidation, voter suppression. Oh, sorry. And people, yes, agreed with you on the voting processes, but also people voted for the status quo. There was actually no major change. Yes, Republicans won control of the House, but just barely. The American electorate was like, we're just going to hold. We're pretty much going to hold. We don't want to blink check anymore for President Biden, but we're not ready for some big sweeping change the other way. And I do think that part of that vote was based on election denialism, which is one of your things. You didn't like it when the Democrats did it to Trump. You didn't like it when Trump did it to Biden. And there certainly we saw from the exit polls

was a was a pushback by the American people saying we're over that. Again, I want to get to that one second. But before we do, let's hit this point. You have made the point when you say like when somebody says it's the most important election of our lifetime, stop listening to that person like that. That's rhetoric that isn't true and you don't need. And you make two other similar points, which I thought were interesting. Number one, don't be like Shadi. Don't cry over an election. That's you saying that. You should not be crying over an election. And that politics should not be your life. That that's not a healthy thing. Can you expand on those points? Yeah, yeah. Now, look, so I do feel a little bit sheepish that I that I cried that night when Trump won. No, no. I mean, look, no. And it's not because I think that men should

cry as much as they want. But my issue was I shouldn't have cried over an election because that's not what you shouldn't define your life around a particular election result. You should be nervous about elections, concerned. You should do whatever you can to help produce a better outcome by voting and organizing. But at the end of the day, if your fellow Americans go in a different direction, you don't have to like it, but you have to respect it. So I think that, you know, as I said, like when I talked to my dad the following morning, he was just chill. He's also generally a kind of chill person. That's just his general demeanor. But I think

that's a good way of living your life when it comes to politics, that life is elsewhere. The things that you should cry about are, you know, family, friends, love, the things that really matter, the things that orient your life. And those shouldn't be midterm elections, especially a midterm, like, you know, so when you're defense, you didn't cry over the midterm. So you're true, true. That is true. Exactly. That's a bridge too far. And Yeah, yeah. So I think that it goes back to this. People are looking for meaning in their lives. They want to feel like they're part of a tribe, that they belong to something bigger than themselves. And increasingly, politics gives them a way to feel that. And I think part of that has to do with the decline of traditional religion in America. It's a bit of a different topic, but it is worth noting that as our country has become more secular and for the first time in recorded American history, church attendance has gone below 50%. So a growing number of Americans don't have any way to anchor themselves, to orient themselves around something bigger.

And also, you know, people are waiting to build families, to have kids, and sometimes they're not even doing that. So there is a real vacuum. And what are people filling that vacuum with? Increasingly, with these new political ideologies, whether it's anti-Trump resistance or hyper-wokeism, the list goes on. But also on the right, you know, whether white nationalism and these kind of nativist approaches that are very, in my view, contrary to the American idea, which is not about being part of a particular ethnicity, it's about believing in the American idea, and that should be open to everyone. But the fact that we see right and left going in these somewhat crazy directions, it shows that people feel that something is wrong, and they don't know how to express it, and they don't

have the normal channels of religion, family, and community to absorb those feelings. And I think that's a real problem. Obviously, there's no solution to that unless we have a religious awakening, but that's where we're at. I mean, I hope we do. I think you're right. This vacuum that's been created has been filled with a bunch of false idols. And it's no accident that depression and anxiety and suicidality are at all time highs. People are feeling that void, the absence of relationships, friendships, things that matter, church values. What is church? What do you get out of church every week? Yes, a connection to God, a chance to be closer to, for me, Jesus, but whoever it is that you're there to talk to and what you believe in,

but also values. Your church, your mosque, your temple. They tend to reinforce a set of values that you then hope will imprint on your children. You hope will back up what you've already been teaching your children. You don't do any of that. What do you have? Your kids sit on the device every every day of worship instead of being with his or her family, taking the walk there or the drive there, doing the donuts or the brunch afterward or whatever it is, the Shabbat dinner. It could be anything, but these rituals take time and they require thought, consideration, to some extent love,

and you remove all that at your own peril and at the peril of the larger community, not to get started on the bowling leagues and the Boy Scouts and the, you know, whatever clubs, Elk Club, all those things, which are in the rear view now, too. This is why one of the reasons why I love your writing, Shadi. I love reading you on Twitter and I love the book because you're a deep thinker and you raise these issues and give us reason to just sort of pause, like your comment that you need to think about your people across the aisle with whom you disagree as your opponents, not your enemies. I want to pick up on that and we'll get to this election denialism and how important this is with a very viral exchange that you had on MSNBC right after this quick break. Don't go away. So Shadi, on the subject of your adversaries on the political front are your opponents, but it's not particularly instructive or helpful to think of them as your enemy, as your enemies. And you had an interesting exchange. This is not

the viral one. I'll get to that one in a second. But you had an interesting exchange this is not the viral one i'll get to that one in a second but that you had an interesting exchange with jen saki about this very issue and the left has very much been i mean the dark brandon speech where the president of the united states basically said everyone's an ultra maga person on the right and demonize people who are pro-life and just the sweeping rhetoric which then bit by bit he kind of tried to dial back, but it was too late. And, you know, Hillary Clinton, the deplorables and all that stuff. You had an interesting exchange with Jen Psaki about this. It's not 14. So there's what, 74 million Trump supporters, voters. We can't just wish them away. They're not going to disappear. So then we have to find a way to live with them, even if we think they're bad people, even if we think they're a threat to everything we hold dear, because what's the other option

that's in front of us? I would love to hear how the Morning Joe panel responded to that. Well, what do you mean? What are the other options? Let's give it some thought. Yeah, well, you know, what's interesting about that clip is that I was attacked on both sides. So, you know, some folks on the right thought that I was saying that all 74 million Trump voters are bad people. What I was trying to say is that even if we think they're bad people, you know, I'm on MSNBC. So I'm speaking primarily to a left leaning audience. And I want to drive home, I think a very fundamental point is that people are allowed to be bad. They're allowed to have ideas that you think are abhorrent. That doesn't, that doesn't

take them outside the fold of being American. They're still our fellow American citizens. A lot of people think I have bad opinions. I'm pro-choice. Some people think that I might support killing babies or whatever it might be. Still, that's fine. People can believe their deeply held convictions without saying that you are like you're outside of the American circle, so to speak. And if if someone is an American citizen, they have a right to vote, they have a right to express their preferences. And, and this is something I really, you know, I really try to emphasize in my work and in the book in particular, which is in a democracy, you shouldn't see your opponents as enemies. I mean, as you said, once we start to see them as enemies, then we start going along a dangerous path. Because if you see them as enemies,

then you want to defeat them. You don't think in terms of coexistence. You think that we need to accumulate power to defeat the other side, whether it's through dominating the media, or having only one basic approach in universities of making sure that a Trump supporting person isn't hired for a faculty position. You start to see things in that way or that you shouldn't date Republicans or have them in your friend group. And I don't want to see that happening because that's not going to work. That's not a sustainable solution. We are a divided society. There will be Republicans and Democrats, and that's the world that we live in. And we disagree on foundational issues. And that's okay. I don't want consensus or unity. And this is actually one thing I get a

little bit worried about, too, which is when people say that democracy should produce unity or consensus. It should only produce those things if there is a consensus. But clearly, we as Americans don't agree on on some pretty basic things. And that's OK. We have to learn to live with deep difference. OK, because let me ask you, so it sounds good in theory, but let's put it into practice picking up on a story that we reported in our first hour when it comes to the Colorado shooting mass shooting last week in which five people were dead and some 19 others injured at an LGBTQ nightclub. I discussed with Charles C.W.

Cook how some on the left totally irresponsibly blamed people like Matt Walsh, who did the film What is a Woman over at the Daily Wire, to the point where they've now had to retract their reports that were so egregiously wrong. I'll give you one from the Daily Wire to the point where they've now had to retract their reports. They were so egregiously wrong. I'll give you one from the Daily Kos that published a false report last week. The writer Lauren Sue published a piece with the headline, Matt Walsh only upset, quote, more people weren't killed at Club Q. Twitter takes highlight GOP hypocrisy. So that's Matt. Matt Walsh did not say anything of the kind in her

little quote. She was quoting a critic of Matt Walsh's who was also grossly misrepresenting him. The critic said he's not upset that someone shot up a gay bar. He's upset more people weren't killed. He has a bloodlust for the murder of LGBTQ people. He's doubling down on it and wants more of it. That's absolutely disgusting. It was a quote by a civil rights attorney, Alejandra Caraballo. It's made up. It's a lie and it's defamatory. And if I were Matt Walsh, I would sue that person immediately, immediately. And she would be terrified because I'd win and I wouldn't let up. There'd be no settlement. She would she would go down submissive so that I understand why Matt Walsh was very angry. And the Daily Kos was they wound up having to retract that report because it was so wrong. So while Walsh tweets out the following.

Leftists are using a mass shooting. This is all he actually said, are using a mass shooting to try and blackmail us into accepting the castration and sexualization of children. His big thing is with children, messing with the children and gender. These people are just beyond evil. I have never felt more motivated to oppose everything they stand for with every fiber of my being despicable scumbags now this is not in the in the shoddy school of political discourse i see but i also feel for matt walsh and understand fully his anger and need to retreat to his corner of you know of the fight right so it's like when you're looking across the aisle and that's who's staring you down, telling the world that you want dead people in the LGBTQ community, just making up lies. Right. So how do you because like you're you're at the 500 feet level or 30,000 foot and he's down like street fighting saying sounds good in theory, but that's not the way it actually works. Yeah, look, it's understandable, certainly, that he would be very exercised about this. And this demonization is something where people are basically tying you to a killing. It's hard to get a lot worse than that, right? And you can think that Matt Walsh has terrible ideas without saying that he's somehow vaguely responsible for the broader environment in which a killing happens. So, you know, I totally

I totally get that. I guess I would say to folks like Matt Walsh is, you know, you have specific critics. They are a small minority who say these egregious things about you. Don't generalize that to everyone who's woke. I'm very critical of the woke myself, but woke people have a right to express their wokeness. And if they win elections on a local level and they want to promote these ideas, then the only solution is to beat them at the ballot box. We can't just say that this whole group is despicable because once you think they're despicable, then I worry then it's not too far of a step to say that you won't accept an election result if a woke person wins an election. Let's say we think he hasn't done that. He's being attacked. And it wasn't just by these lunatics at the Daily Coast

or this so-called civil rights attorney. I'd like to see her what she's actually done. But the New York Times went after him by name. And so did many others on the left try to blame. Meanwhile, there's absolutely zero, zero, zero, zero proof that this shooter ever read a single word produced by Matt Walsh or a movie that he made zero. What we know about that shooter is that they are allegedly non-binary. We know that this person had a father who was very anti-gay. The quotes are awful from this person's father. But that's all we're you know, he's advocating for something way outside the mainstream. We're already outside the mainstream as America. Like I get his anger and I I don't I don't I could never look at Matt Walsh and say, you got to take the high road. Don't demonize your you've been demonized, but you need to not demonize and extrapolate these attacks, which came from many corners on all of the woke, right? Because like, I could just I feel his pain.

I mean, very valid point. I guess I just wouldn't want people to extrapolate and think that this is representative of the Democratic Party. Well, that's true. I just worry about generalizations. But of course, people can generally we do generalizations all the time. And certainly. So sometimes people criticize me for extending too much generosity to my opponents. So if I'm talking about, you know, MAGA Republicans, I say, well, you know, we got to talk to them, listen to what they have to say, understand their grievances. And then they and then my critics say, well, Shadi, they would never extend that generosity to you. They would never give you the benefit of the doubt. So why are you taking this high road? Or why don't you fight fire with fire? I mean, at some point, we have to break the chain. And I'm not asking Matt Walsh to do that. But on the national level, if we're talking about groups, and organizations and voters on a collective level, I think each and every one of us has to do whatever we can to lower the stakes. And you know, I could just as easily I think, you know, I do tend to focus some of my ire on the left of center,

because that's generally the audience that I'm primarily speaking to. But, you know, when I talk to folks on the right, I think it is worth reminding people that a majority of Trump voters still believe that the election in 2020 was stolen in some way from Donald Trump. So there is a majority of Republicans, not not just Trump. It's not even just the MAGA core. It's Republicans. Yes, exactly. So clearly, you know, as much as we want to criticize the left for being bad and woke and all of that, if you're some, you know, if if someone's on the right, they should focus on their own side because in the end we have more influence over our own families, communities, and friends. Those are the people more likely to listen to us. So at some level, self-criticism is the way forward. Self-awareness where we say, is our own side willing to accept democratic outcomes if the other party wins? So if Biden or Kamala, well, that's almost impossible to imagine happening. But whoever

wins in 2024, if a Democrat wins, Republicans also have to get better when it comes to saying if Biden or someone like him wins or some woke lefty, if they win fair and square, then that is something we have to live with. We have to respect it. It's legitimate, just as I say to folks on the left, if Trump wins, God forbid, in 2024, fair and square, then we have no choice but to accept that result. So I think each side has- Well, I get that. But I think you also point out in the book, it's a chance to regroup. You have to be patient. That's the beauty of democracy is you get another bite at the apple. It's not elected president for life or congressman or senator for life.

So it's your chance to reorganize, double down and work to get that person out. And he's more at the street fighting level, like making sure that these people don't don't get elected he i've never heard a street fighter yeah no no no and there are there's a place for everybody depending on what your skill set is i i talk about this with my friends at church you know like here i'm on this show and i'm dropping f-bombs and i'm i am occasionally attacking you know usually i don't do whole groups but i'm not a fan of the woke people um and then i'm in church you know and i wonder if there do whole groups, but I'm not a fan of the woke people. And then I'm in church, you know, and I wonder if there's an inconsistency there. I have I've thought about it, but I actually have settled on the fact that there isn't like there's a role for

what I do, even within my own religion. But let's talk about election denialism, because I do think this is interesting. There's no question the Republicans have been doing it. They were sent a message in this last midterm election. Will they listen? Remains to be seen. Do you think it's interesting? The whole party's not rallying behind the Carrie Lake thing. Most of like moved on. That's her fight. They'll let it play out. But you don't hear about that on Fox News all day. dispute, a debate, I should say, with Mehdi Hassan back on MSNBC about whether he would accept the election results if Trump or someone like him wins in 2024. It's like about a minute 30. So it's a good clip. We cut it long for a reason. Listen to this. What are you actually suggesting we do if Trump wins fair and square? Let's forget about any foul play or anything like that. If he wins in 2024, what are you going to do? Are you going to respect that result? I mean, I don't accept the premise of your question. If he wins in 2024, let's forget

the foul play. How can I forget the foul play when right now the Republican Party is trying to change state legislature rules, voting rules. Shadi, right now they are taking steps to make sure that the 2024 election is not a free and fair election. You keep pushing that away. You're not willing to accept that outcome then. That's concerning to me. Hold on. I'm willing to accept an outcome of a free and fair election. Shadi, as of right now, do you believe the 2024 election will be a free and fair election if black people are denied the right to vote, if there is racist gerrymandering continues? Black people are denied the right to vote. If an election workers are threatened with death.

Black people have been, the vote has been taken away from them. I mean, this is very exaggerated. This is exaggerated rhetoric that is, that it's raising the existential stakes. And what I would like each of us to do is try to lower the temperature. You're not willing to do that. OK, when you raise the specter of a fascist threat, it justifies taking extraordinary measures to suppress that threat. And that's why sometimes people like the idea of suppressing democracy in order to save it. We think that so much is at stake that we have to do anything it

takes to prevent Trump or someone like him from winning in 2024. That can lead to overreach. I worry your rhetoric can lead us to do things we shouldn't do in a democratic context. So good. Well done, sir. Thank you. Did you get blowback on that exchange? Oh, yeah, certainly. I mean, some people liked it a lot. And it was like an interesting sort of Rorschach test in that respect

that depending on what side you're on, you might think, oh my God, Shadi doesn't acknowledge that Black people are apparently being taken away, the right to vote is being removed from them. But then obviously, more reasonable folks understand that it's not right to say that Black folks don't have the right to vote. And that that exaggeration doesn't help anyone. But yeah, I got attacked a lot after that. And just listening to that exchange again, that was it's intense. It's intense. But look, I mean, Maddie and I, we've been friendly in the past, it got a little bit tense. This time, I get where he's coming from. I don't want to doubt that he feels very strongly about these

things. And he's in this state of alarm. A lot of people are. But that doesn't mean it's right. And that doesn't mean that it's the right way to approach politics. And what can I say? I mean, that's why I was so surprised when he would say something like, oh, well, black people are being denied the right to vote because then then the election results aren't going to. Then you're already deciding ahead of time that 2024 is not going to be a free election. You're saying that already the results are are going to be tampered with because it's an unfair playing field, so on and so forth. So it only leads to one conclusion, which is not accepting the worst case scenario for him and for me, too, which is Trump winning in 2024. He sounded just like Stacey Abrams. And of course, you know, black turnout in Georgia was at record levels despite all these threats that we heard,

despite her lawsuit claiming that black voters had been entirely disenfranchised by the laws down there. He sounded like Stacey Abrams, who was the original election denier, she and Hillary Clinton. But then there's no question Trump took it next level. He took it next level as he does everything and amazingly wound up convincing the majority of the Republican Party that he did not, in fact, lose the last election. I don't know what it's going to take to make people move on from that. Even if you like Trump, that issue is a killer. That is a dead issue.

It's a bad issue for Republicans. We'll see whether they listen as we approach now the presidential politics season. Shadi, well done. Really appreciate talking to you. Love every exchange we have. And the book is well worth the read. It's called The Problem of Democracy, and it's available right now. Hope to see you again soon. Thanks for having me, Megan. I would love to hear from you guys and your thoughts on today's show. Email me, Megan at M-E-G-Y-N-K-E-L-L-Y.com. This week, we're going to have the Ruthless Guys back. Plus, our friend Dan Wooden will be here to talk Harry and Meghan and more. Download,

follow us on YouTube, and we'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Meghan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.