The Megyn Kelly Show - Matthew McConaughey and Dave Portnoy - Megyn Kelly's "Double Feature" of Fascinating Interviews

Episode Date: May 31, 2026

Megyn Kelly brings you two of the most fascinating interviews from the Megyn Kelly Show archives in this Sunday "Double Feature" episode - with actor and author Matthew McConaughey, and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.     Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow  Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show in today's double feature mega episode. All right, Matthew McConaughey is one of the biggest stars in America, but he doesn't live in Hollywood. He lives in Texas where he was raised, and there's a really good reason for that. It turns out some of the things that make us gravitate toward Matthew come from his down-home nature in his refusal to succumb to the glitz and glam of the Hollywood weirdos. And in this interview, I think you'll come to like him even more than you probably already do.

And then there's the bar stool sports founder, Dave Portnoy, who's got some very sharp elbows and some very sharp takes and is always entertaining to listen to. So we have a fun pairing for you. I spoke with Dave in person together at Sirius XM. It was a great conversation. enjoy both, and I'll see you Monday. I'd never been on stage. I'd never done acting before. Any of that? Today on the Megan Kelly Show,

from small town Texas to the bright lights of Hollywood. Matthew McConaughey burst onto the scene with a line that became legend. All right, all right, all right. From Breakout Star to King of the Romantic comedies. Do you ever think about that night in the park? They're nice guy rolls, and nothing wrong with that.

I was so successful at him that any dramas I wanted to do, Hollywood was not offering me. Even if I took a huge pay cut. They're like, no, no, no, McConaughey, stay in your lane. At the height of all that fame, he walked away. I was ready to do more dramas in life. I was ready to stand up for things that I believed, didn't stand against things I didn't. There's no parachute boy, you might just written yourself a ticket out of Hollywood. Only to return to greater glory.

And the Oscar goes to Matthew McConaughey. That's when I started becoming more of a good man. redefining himself as one of the most compelling voices in film. We all got good wolves and bad wolves in us. It's our choice to which wolf we want to feed. I'm trying to do my best to be the good wolf, knowing that the bad wolf's still hungry. Today he's here to share the lessons from that incredible ride.

This is a rodeo. If you want to get into this, I'm not saying you've got a thick skin, but you've got to know what's important to you. Knives are going to come out at you whether you deserve them or not. Fair has nothing to do with this. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. We have a first-time guest on the show today who you likely know very well, or think you do. Matthew McConaughey is an American actor and an Academy Award-winning one at that. He's also a best-selling author. He's a husband. He's a proud dad. And he's a deep thinker who is out with a new book in which he shares decades of reflections. Poems and prayers is the name of it. And it's out right now. Matthew McConaughey, welcome to the show.

Megan Kelly, good to be here. I love the book. I thought it was so thoughtful. It made me stop, reflect, and be more thoughtful about everything from faith to my own life philosophy in terms of getting after it or downshifting into a lower gear. And I didn't realize how much I had in common with you, Hollywood man, because you're really more of a Texas man who's been through a fair amount. Let me kick it off on sort of a somber note. one thing we have in common is we both lost our dads at very young ages. You, by my calculations, were 22. I was 15. They went suddenly, thanks to heart attacks. And in both of our cases, it changed, of course, our lives, but also our life choices and our life philosophies. Can you kick it off there? Like the you before you lost your dad and the you after. Yeah. So,

Oh, I don't know that's you, but I, at that time, I mean, I didn't think my dad could die. You know, I mean, I knew practically he had to one day, but I thought he was the bonnetful snowman. And, uh, well, I didn't, I didn't, it wasn't any lead up to it. There was no fair warning. There was no like, oh, it's times coming. It just happened and happened the way he said it was going to happen. I said, boy, when I go, I'm going to be making love to your mother. And it was a brisky Monday morning at 6 a.m.

And that's what happened. And that's how he moved. moved on from a heart attack. I remember the call. And I remember my knees dropping out from my mother. She said, your dad moved on this morning. And it was very unbelievable. I didn't think it was possible.

And then dealing with that, you know, going back to the wake with the brothers and my mom and hearing stories where you find out that, oh, the message maybe was a little different than the messenger, which I was quickly able to forgive because I understood that to just be a reality. But the loss, just keep living. My phrase came from that because I remember when I went back to work six days later, I was on the set of days confused, my very first film.

And I was talking with the director of Richard Liglater at Magic Hour, Sundown. We were walking around at the football stadium. I was like, you know, he's physically no longer here. But spiritually, I think I can keep calling him. I can talk to him whenever I want. I can pick up the bone. Got to keep him a spirit alive. And that's what just keep living came from.

Add it on top of that, look, I was scared because he left. My crutch was gone. He was, to me, what was above the law, above government, above religion. Boy, if I was in a pension, really need someone to have my back that was going to be my dad. And now that crutch is gone. Now that parachute's gone. And so I quickly was like, okay, boy, talking to myself, better quit acting like the things your dad taught you to do and be. and start becoming the man that he taught you to be.

And that's been a process that I got kick started in right then, very hardcore, but I've tried to maintain throughout my life. Did he want you going into acting? You had just started. You weren't like the big star yet, although Dease didn't confused was a hit, but did he want you to do it? Well, this was before, and I want to say this,

there's a very graceful thing in hindsight about his death. He was alive for the first five days of me shooting days confused. He didn't come to the set or anything, but he was alive for me to start. His final son to start something that wouldn't be just a fad, that wouldn't just be a hobby, start something that became a career. I've always seen some grace in that. But the call that I had with him, two years prior to that, while I was headed towards law school at University of Texas, and it was a Tuesday night, I planned it.

I said, I'm going to call him at 7.30 p.m. It won't be Monday because there's too much stress back, getting back to work. It'll be Tuesday. End of the day, he'll be on the couch. I'm going to be with bomb. but it'll be a great time to tell him that I want to go to film school instead of law school. I made that call 7.36 p.m. and he answered. He said, what's up, monkey man? I said, hey, pop, got something I want to share with you. He said, what's that?

I said, I don't want to go to law school anymore. I want to go to film school. And there's a long pause. And I was like, oh, here it comes. He's about to go, you want to what? And he didn't. He said, you sure that's what you want to do? I said, yes, sir. Another long pause. And he said, well, don't have acid. So he gave me more than license. He gave me rocket fuel to go do it. Did he have any reason at that point to believe in you? Had you been the big star on the high school stage?

No. No, I'd never been on stage. I'd never done acting before. Any of that. I think what he heard, though, is something I think we all want to hear from our kids, is a time when they're asking us or telling us, I wasn't really asking. I was going to do it, right? And I think he heard that in my voice, the way I said,

Yes, sir. I didn't stutter. I didn't blink. I didn't whisper. He heard the security of my voice that I had gone through to make this decision. And hearing that from me was I think we was like, okay. My son's asking, but he's not really asking. And I think we all want to hear that from our children at some time after we give them guidelines. But if they're going to break out of those guidelines to go their own way, don't come a bluffing. If you're going to do it, do it. And he heard that. And that's where he came up with telling me, don't have acid. But where did you get the confidence for that because there are millions of kids out there right now who would love to be a Hollywood star. They're from Texas. They have no connections to the industry. It's a pipe dream. It's not, odds are overwhelmingly against you. So how did you think, yeah, why not me? Well, so I started off. I wasn't courageous or confident to say I wanted to be in front of the camera yet. But I was at that time courageous enough to say I want to go into the film, the storytelling business. So I went to film school straight behind the camera. All right. And I had been writing, short stories at that time.

I had a buddy of film's clue and said, these are really good short stories. You might be able to turn these into moving pictures. It wasn't until a year later that I was in the right bar at the right time. I got cast and days confused and got in front of the camera. And three lines turned to three weeks work. All right, all right, all right. And I'm getting paid $320 a day.

And people are telling me I'm good at it. And you please come back tomorrow and do it again. And I was like, hell yeah, I'll come back again. Is this even legal? I'm having so much fun. And you're telling me I'm good at this. I could make a living doing this. That's where I got the confidence.

And then continued on. And look, Megan, I didn't go to Hollywood and have the long story of having to wait the tables for so long. I actually went to Hollywood. In the first two auditions I went on, I actually got the job. It was Angels in the Outfield and Boys on the Side. So I had some dry spells later on in my career. But, boy, when I first got out there, I knocked out the first two auditions. You got them.

Well, I'm not surprised to hear that you were a writer. because when I read poems and prayers, it was obvious. And the thing that's special about the book is that it's a collection of poems and prayers from back when you were a teenager. When you were like 18. Yeah. And I wonder, like, I have been an avid journal keeper for most of my life. But when I occasionally pull out the ones from that period, it's awful.

It's very humbling. And now you had the courage to put it down in paper and publish it. So how does that feel, reading back on the early? years. So I went back and saw the early ones and looked, you know, even in writing green lights. Part of that was going back and looking 35 years of my journey. And I looked at some of that stuff and I was like, oh, good gosh. The shame, the guilt going on, are you kidding me?

Look at the arrogant little brick you were. Who do you think you? But then after a while, started to chuckle at those things. And that's why I added this point, that poem in this book, which isn't a bad point, but it's a very self-serious poem of an 18-year-old boy asking some big existential potential questions when you would think he would just be having a great fun time summer and under the sunshine. And I added it because it was a time. I gave a damn at 18. I still give a damn. I'm still working on trying to be a better man. I'm still questioning what's going on in the

world. I'm still, you know, pointing out stuff that I think is mendacious and not fair in the world. And I'm asking those questions, and I still do. So to see that I was doing that at 18, I'll mind you, you could tell I had a thesaurus near. I use some words in there that I'm like, You don't know what that meant. And I still don't know what that word meant. Give it a shot. Add us the tourists near me, you know what I mean? But when I read the early writings, I think, this is obviously an artist.

Like, this is an artistic person. It should be no surprise that this person did not wind up in law school and instead wound up in the arts, really telling stories and bringing characters to life. So it's kind of funny to me to think of you going to law school. But you talk in the book, you write in the book about your previous, maybe current, commitment to logic and reason and how much that has appealed to you for your first 55 years, but now you're kind of in a different phase. So it does make some sense. It's just not that common to see both the strong logic and reasoning thread coupled with the artistic and

creative ability and Jones. So when I was in kindergarten, I was standing on the street corner outside of the school and the head principal came out and I was, I was sitting there looking up with the sky at this cloud. And I said, Mr. Mayor, Is that a cloud as big as the world? And he goes, yes, Matthew, it is. So in my, whatever, kindergarten, how old I was, five-year-old mine, six-year-old mom was like, well, if I can see the edges of that cloud and it's as big as the world, and I know that that road trip we took from Texas to Pensacola took whatever 15 hours and it was just that long on a map, if I can see the edge of that cloud, that cloud must be so far up in the sky that it's not even worth dreaming about. So I'm going to put my head down. Forget Air Force, I'm Army.

That was went through my head. I was like, you got to deal with what's right in front of you because what's out there's too far away. So for 15 years, I just put my head down and dealt. Didn't dream. You know, at 16 years old, I take my first flight, commercial flight, and in 10 seconds, I'm in the middle of that cloud. And I'm like, either this cloud goes a billion miles an hour or that cloud is not as big as a world is like Mr. Mayor told me it was. Well, so I then come to learn, oh, clouds aren't that big. They're not that far away.

And all of a sudden, I was like, oh, well, so what's over the horizon is actually worth considering. What's out there that you don't see right in front of me is worth dreaming about. But still, the fact that I've always dealt and looked to logic, you know, us doers, always been a doer. And us doers, we climb mountains. Well, we're good climbers. But because we got our head down, we don't always climb the right mountains. Us dreamers, you know, look up and are always kind of measuring in the landscape, which doesn't make us.

very good climbers, but we picked the right mountains. So dovers can help dreamers, you know, climb more mountains and dreamers can help doers climb the right ones. But I didn't start dreaming until I moved to Longview until I was about 16 years old. So something, you've made some good choices with that combination because I look at you and you seem to me very much like an outlier. We talked about, you know, the writing ability, which not everybody in Hollywood has. A lot of people just want to be on camera. A lot of people just want to be a star in my industry, too. Poems and prayers is the name of the book, for those listening. So you've got writing ability.

You move out to California. You get cast in the first two things that you apply for, your try out for, audition. You become a star pretty quickly. And then unlike virtually everybody who follows that path with success, you leave Hollywood, you go back to your native Texas,

you choose to raise your children there, you get married, you're in a long-term marriage. Like your marriage works, which is rare in your industry. By the way, you're not the first McConaughey, I've interviewed. Your lovely wife came on my show when I was at NBC. There we go. And so all of these things suggest you're of a different mold and model than the average person out there that you have to me a different value set. And I think that's embodied in your book because what I see in here is you love America. You're a man of faith.

But like most of us who are people of faith, you struggle with it. What does it mean? How far can it take me? How humble, you know, how can I humble myself in order for it to really mean something to me? You love your children, you prioritize them over your job and realize they're both important, but one is clearly the winner. So I wonder whether that's all the job of the parents and Texas and whether you think all of this would have happened for you if you hadn't pulled up out of Hollywood and gone back home. Hmm. So the main reason I came back, one of the main reasons I came back home is I did go out there at Hollywood long enough I wanted to get myself established. You know? Yep. Enough credentials to say, oh, you can't just rock my boat and I'm gone, you know, and also enough credentials where, you know, if they want me, they know where to find me.

And if they want me, I will plan my routes out to Hollywood and line up meetings for. two weeks and just go knock them all out. You know, along the way, it was also my mom's here. My brothers are here. As soon as Camilla and I decided to have children, I wanted them to be raised here near my home and around their family. I wanted them to be raised with the, maybe what you could say is a little more common sense values that I feel is around here, where a mile feels like a mile, 60 minutes feels like an hour.

It was a natural coming on for me. It was also at that time, I was doing romantic comedies, and I was the rom-com guy, and I love doing them. And I hope to do more later on. Wedding Planner with J-Lo, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days with Kate Hudson. Hi, Benjamin Barry. Andy Anderson. Oh, you are already falling in love with me.

Sarah, Jessica Parker in one. Figure to launch, yeah. I had a nice time. I did too. Good night. Good night. I was rolling in the rom-coms, successful, enjoying the heck out of them. At the same time, I was so successful at them that any dramas I wanted to do, Hollywood was not offering me.

Even if I took a huge pay cut. They're like, no, no, no, McConaughey, stay in your lane. Like, okay, well, if I can't do what I want to do, I'm going to quit doing what I'm doing. So moved back down here, dropped out. You didn't see me in any rom-coms. You didn't see me shirtless on a beach. She didn't know where I was. And I knew it was going to be a bit of a desert I was walking into because I was like,

I might have just wrote my one-way ticket out of Hollywood. And Camilla and I prayed on it and said, I'm going to do it. I'm going to stick to the decision. And she goes, you know this might last a long time. You don't know. There's no parachute to pull her. You might just written yourself a ticket out of Hollywood. And I was like, yep, but it's non-negotiable.

This is what I'm going to do. Well, months went by and nothing. Six months go by, nothing. A year goes by. I talked to my age. He goes, Matthew, I haven't even heard your name. You know, luckily at this time, Camilla's pregnant, and we've got a first child coming on, which really anchored me to have a little significance, you know, at a time when I was feeling

very wobbly without anything any work to do. 18 months go by, and I remember this, the script comes in, there's romantic comedy, $8 million offer. I said, no, thank you. $10 million offer, I said, no thank you. $12 million offer, I said, no, thank you, 14.5 million dollar offer. I said, let me read that again. And let me tell you, it was the same words.

It was the same words of the $8 million offer, but it was better. It was more well written. I could see this working for me, you know. But ultimately I said no. And I think that sent a little bit of an invisible message to Hollywood. Oh, McConaughey's not bluffing. He's on to something here. He's actually playing offense and affirmatively where he is.

And cut to four months later, all of a sudden I get the calls for the dramas that I want to do. and I just attacked them. So that was a step out of Hollywood where I needed to rebrand and unbranded, really, before I rebranded. And then when did Dallas Buyers Club come? 2013. So that's about four years, three years,

I think, into that run after the two-year hiatus. 30 day. I'm sorry. Fuck this. Shit. Fucking 30-day, motherfuckers. Let me give you all the newsflash.

There ain't nothing out there. kill fucking Ron Woodruff in 30 days. Which led to Academy Gold. Was that before and after for you? Or like, was that actually a game changer or no? Because you'd already rejiggered and relaunched. Well, look, it was a game changer in that, hey, there is my peers saying we deem your performance the most excellent male lead performance of the year.

That meant a lot to me. Sure as hell did. It wasn't something that I've ever been out to prove or anything. thing, but to get that from my peers in the craft, a lot of them who I respect, that felt really good. Now, one of the things that's funny about winning an Academy Award is that things you say afterwards, especially immediately afterwards, the things that used to be in small print are now in bold print. Even if you're repeating something you said 10 years ago, all of a sudden it's a bold print. And they're like, wow, that's original. I go, man, I've been saying that

for 15 years. Now it's in bold print. But it did open up, it opened up. It opened a up a lot of opportunities for me that I've tried to, you know, take advantage of as responsive as I could. Well, hey, I think to go be in the craft and get that trophy. When Robert Downey Jr. won, I think it was best supporting actor this past, like, a year ago, I think, if memory serves. I'm not as into it all, but I loved his opening line, which was, I'd like to thank my unhappy childhood, which is like, so good. And probably true for a lot of actors, right? Like, that's where you get all the stuff that you can draw on,

the stuff that you could put into a book like poems and prayers. but is it true for you? No. No, it's not. And, you know, I had a time where right after I called my dad and said I was going to film school, and he said, don't have acid, I get into film school. I'm a frat guy. I wear jeans and press my shirts and they're tucked in. And I go see blockbuster films on the weekend.

I got into film school on my GPA because at a 3.82 GPA, I didn't have a piece of art. So I get into film school and everyone's in. And they're wearing black and they're got got a tan. Here I am. I got a tan frat guy, jeans, you know. And I'm questioning, wait a minute. Do I need to be this sort of Amlesian, you know, problems in life to be an artist, you know?

And I remember we have Mondays where you'd come back to the class. You talked about what you saw that weekend. And I'd always come back, go, hey, man, I just saw Die Hard, you know. And they'd come back and go, I saw the Eisenstein thing at the independent, you know. Anyway, every time I'd bring up the blockbuster, like, I saw Die Hard. They'd all go, oh, that shit. That's corporate bullshit, man. It's not all right. And I'm going, oh, man, I'm getting hammered here. Maybe I'm not an artist. And then one day I came in. One day I come in and I say the blockbuster it was. And actually the one I'd said this day was diehard. And they go, oh, man, that's bullshit. And I said, hang on a second. Hang on just a second. I go, did y'all see it? And they go, well, no, no. I mean, we're just saying. And I was like, oh, bullshit. No, you can't just say because it was populace. It. came from a big studio and it played in a blockbuster, that it's, that it's crap. I enjoyed it. And that's when I went, I'm going to keep my shirt tucked in. I'm going to keep my house.

I'm rolling. If I want to go spend the weekend watching Shark Nato, why should they be allowed to stop me? Come on. It takes all different kinds of tastes to keep the movie industry going. What do you think of that? Because there's been, I'll say, I just gave my own complaint on it. And you saw the New York Times movie critic resigned two years ago saying, I can't, I can't. I can't with just just like the nonstop action hero movies. Like, I miss plots. I miss drama. I miss like real crescendos and decrescendos

and plots that expose human frailty. Like, what happened to those movies? And you and I grew up at exactly the same time. I know you know what he's talking about and what I'm talking about. Can we get back to that? I've heard Matt Damon do a riff on this suggesting the way the studio system set up now, no.

What do you think? So here's what I've noticed it happening. As we're going into streaming, like I've got this, I've got a film coming out at the Lost Bus. Is there anybody that can go and pick these kids up? It is a film built for the big theater, for the big stream. We have a two-week run, limited screens in L.A., New York, and London before we stream straight to Apple Plus. That's where it's going. And I feel like the streamers want to go, let's forget the even the two-week theatrical release.

It's just go straight to streaming. Now, the problem with that is that you've seen it. Everyone sees it. You go on one of these streamers and you see this catalog of films. I don't know about you, but I'm like, when did they make that? It's one of my favorite actors. When did they make? I didn't even see it. I didn't even hear about it. So everything's kind of dropped down to a low common denominator in a library. So there's no exclusivity that you get of a precious, oh, it's come out in the theater. Oh, if we want to see that actor or actress or director's film, we have to go out on Friday night when it opens and see it. It doesn't have that as much. And I hope. we can maintain that. What's also happening is in this abbreviated attention span capacity that we talk about that people have, what studios are first cutting is the first acts of films. Now, the first act is where you set up the world for the viewer that tells you, you may know where this story goes, but you've never been there with me.

So it's going to be specific. I'm going to set you up with an original show. The conflict that starts in Act 2, which is usually on page 13. Now it's on page 11. It's like, start it, meet you, hi, know what you do, bam, conflict, let's get on with it. No one wants to wait around, or the studios don't believe they want to wait around for an interesting first act. It's what was so pleasurable about doing true detective. I'll help your ass, Cole.

Why'd you do your own fucking leg work, you rat fuck? Say it again, mommy. Hey. It was a eight-part series. For three and a half hours, I get a first act, which is an actor's dream because that's, That's where I get to go, here's how you could go on this journey with me that you've never been in, or this relationship that I have with Marty Hart. And I hope we don't keep abbreviating, getting to know characters and relationships that are specific and original.

Because if we do, everything's just going to feel like somewhat the same movie. I can relate to this, believe it or not, just going from cable news to podcasting. It's much the same in that, only like the reverse, right? Because the cable news, you've got to get up and down on it quickly and move on. there's no chance to establish the character's background or fall in love with them or what have you, just got to get, you know, what's the news, in and out? Whereas in podcasting, you can build the story. You can help the audience get to know this character before you zero in on really why they're here.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, you'd know this. You just said it. I mean, and I didn't learn this for 10 years from doing press for a film or a book. You know, you're going on, and I remember the first time I went on like, Leno, you know, you get four minutes up there. And I want to go, well, you know, the thing, you're already, uh-uh, zap, this is not the format for the long term. So you learn, you pick your spots about what's my message, what's my window, how do I hit it?

But for people that are interested in stories, I want to, I don't ever want to lose the longer for that. And will there be a rebellion back to people going, I don't want a short snippet. No, I want the longer format. I want to take the time. They can hear it on audio now. They can drive it and listen to it or watch it. Yes. They're consuming information differently, which I think will lead to a desire for more meaningful

conversations. I just think it's, that's why these other models are, they have limited shelf lives. And no offense to these superhero action movies because there's definitely an audience for those, but longer form storytelling is still an art form that many of us thirst for and would absolutely consume with, you know, a lot of dollars. Now, in the lost bus, you have an interesting situation because you have your, son. Your son, Levi, is starring in it, 17 years old. And I've actually, so I'm kind of drafting behind you on the childhood front because my kids are almost your kids' ages. They're 15, 14, and 12.

And now that they're getting to be like real humans, you know, like they're on the cusp of adulthood, I've asked myself this question about nepotism, the nepo baby. And, you know, when you're the mother of a kid who's, you know, through no fault of. of their own is born to you and you might be a public figure. It's hard to call it that, you know, as opposed to like, well, if my kid wanted my help getting into my industry, I'd probably give him an open door and then let him take it. And you were recently in this position. Can you tell us what happened?

Yeah. And that nepotism questions are really good when because I don't want my kids to ever feel entitled at the same time. Do I believe with people in my own life outside of my family that if you want to know where the arrow's going look at where it was shot from um and so there's real practicality to that my son as i pitch films that i'm into my family all the time my son comes to him and he i knew that there was a role as a young boy to play my son he says how old is that kid i said he actually he's about 13 14 which was levi's age at the time and he goes can i read for it and i was like

hmm kind of just straight-faced him and walked off i wanted to see how much he wanted it if it was just a whim on. He comes up four more times over the next week. Can I read for it? Can I read for it? Can I read for it? Okay. You want to read for it? Let me tell you what this acting thing's about. This is not just a little, hey, hey, what if? I'm going to teach you something about this. You got to revere this craft and you got to work at it. So let's work on this character right now. We'll get a read. We did. I put it on camera. I saw it on camera. He's got presents. He can hold a frame. He's being honest in front of the camera. That's good instincts. Okay. I sent it to the casting director. And I said, Francine, I said, Francine, I said, Francine, I I think it's maybe good enough for a callback. What do you think? And she wrote back and said, I think it's good enough to send to the director. And I said, oh, okay, will you do me a favor? Will you pull his last name off?

Because I just don't want it preceding, you know, anyone's opinion to help or to help or any. She goes, yes. Right, you don't want to send the message. I'm phoning in a favor here. Hey, you know, Conahe, it's playing my son. If you do me a favor, I would not make that call. And I'm not going to make that call. Again, open the door.

But once you get in the door, son, daughter, you're. you go handle, but I did open a door. I had access to get his read to the cast director. Well, the director sees it and says, that's the kid. She goes, well, that happens to be Matthew's son. He goes, even better. So he got the role, which makes, I'm very proud of, and he did it on his own merit and his own talent. Okay, but now let me ask you about part two, part two. So then he, so he stars in it is, it's about to launch. And now I think at this point in the process, I haven't yet gotten there. None of my kids that said they want to go to media. I'm just saying like I would help them. I think I'd be living in terror of bad reviews, of nasty internet trolls.

It's one thing when they come for us. Who cares? We're used to it. But come from my kid? I mean, that's the kind of thing I might toss and turn over at night. I have not tossed and turned. And maybe that's because I said, get ready for it. It's going to happen anyway.

I said, your last name is going to get you praise in places. Maybe you didn't deserve it. It's also going to get you slammed in places you don't deserve it. So this is a rodeo. If you want to get into this, I'm not saying you got to have thick skin, but you've got to know what's important to you. And you've got to be ready to hit knives are going to come at you whether you deserve them or not. Fair has nothing to do with this. So if you love doing the craft enough and you're good at it, you stick your, put your head down and do that.

And the rest of that you've got to have thick skin about because that's going to happen. Fair has nothing to do with this. That's a great life lesson. In the book, you write in poems and prayers, you write, I wrote it down. Your number one job is helping your kids become who they are, not who you want them to be. Shoot it into my veins. It's exactly right. So many people don't get it, Matthew. They think the kids are a due over. And you've come to the same realization that Doug and I have, which is that DNA thing has a lot to do with how they show up. A lot more than I thought. We just kind of fool ourselves that we're the big maestros about where it's going.

But that was the biggest surprise to me about having children. I thought it was 90-10 environment culture to DNA. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, it's closer to the opposite. Yes. Yeah. Totally. But that's, I mean, I would imagine, especially in Hollywood, that's not a lesson everybody understands. You know, because it's a very hard charging,

granted me to dump on Hollywood nonstop, though I'll be honest. My audience can't stand Hollywood. But it's a very hard charging group of people. that have made it in a very competitive industry. Like they've made it at the top. So they've got to be somewhat cutthroat. But then you have a kid. And everybody out there is probably facing a similar challenge,

which is how do I maintain my kid's competitive drive, notwithstanding the fact that they've been born into a life of luxury and privilege, et cetera, right? And like, I don't know. I think too many parents would default to, I'll make him a killer, as opposed to, I will sit back and figure out, let him figure out whether he wants to be a killer.

Well, you know how it is. I mean, it's, there's a lot of parents, and you probably know them as well, that for my money, I think, become or want to be friends with their children when they need to be parents to them. And that friend to their children is sometimes a bit of that do-over, hey, maybe you can pick up where I left off and become a better version of me.

which is that's not what a child's asking for early on. You know, do-overs. I think that kids want us to be apparent to them early. Are you more traditional, dad? I mean, I know you're married to a Brazilian woman, and I have a lot of Brazilian friends. I know they tend to like a more traditional man, and you're from Texas,

so I kind of feel like you'd be more of a trad dad, but are you? Well, look, I call it, and this is not a political term, but I call it conservative, very liberal late. I want my kids to know how to block and tackle, know your manners and graces and arithmetic and respect before we're going to go fly a freak flag and say, whatever. So I think art emulates life. I want them to learn who they are and who they are not in life before they're going off into imaginations. Now, you can create whoever it is you want to be. Let's have a foundation that we understand about how we act and how we treat ourselves and each other before we go off into, you know, la-la land of dreams and creation.

Again, how I grew up, learned a deal before I learned a dream. That's how that's sort of my look at it. I believe in consequences. I believe in discipline. I also believe that sometimes as I'm learning right now, I did not know, Megan, that I always thought you went from father to later on a friend. And I did not know that there's a bridge in the middle there called Big Brother. as a father. And I'm able to be a big brother, especially now that my kids are teens. And I can kind of put my hand on their back and maybe not judge him as quickly and go,

I know what you're talking about. Let me tell you this story about when I was in high school. And the other great thing about teenage kids is I don't have to edit my good stories as much to them anymore. Now, which period of your life are the best stories from? Oh, I mean, I've got some starting back from when I was eight. I think the best stories were probably, oh man, every decade had a great story. I would say, I could pick them out all over the place. There's things I look back at that I did when I was younger that makes me happy to be here alive. But there's been some great stories, which I cataloged along the way,

and mostly in Greenlights and somewhat in poems and prayers. I think there's been some pretty good stories along the way. Well, you don't seem risk averse. You've outlined it, leaving Hollywood and saying, I'm just going to do it differently. That was a huge. But your life philosophy does not, as reflected in poems and prayers, does not seem to favor safe spaces. It seems to favor take the big risks and don't die in your bed saying, I never got hurt. Right. Well, that's a constant thing to measure, isn't it? Because especially after getting successful, having a family, things that I've built that I want to maintain that I'm not going to be foolish with. At the same time, I don't want to get complacent and safe and go, okay, this is it.

Everyone just huddle up, put you know, keep everything else out. I still want to take risk. And that's also, you know, something that I know, women, I'm sure they do too, but men go through in middle age. You're at the bottom of the horseshoe. Like, are we taking the risk anymore? How do we still take a chance with the right kind of risk? And I still want to take the right kind of risk, but I don't want to be foolish with what I've built because some of the stuff I've built. is non-negotiably going to be on my table and in my life until I leave this one. You know, I have that passage in poems and prayers. I'm curious, you know, is God happier if we take eight major risk in life and pull off seven of them?

Or is he happy when we take 100 risk and pull off eight? You know, it's like a little bit of that, you don't want you coming back with his money. You know what I mean? Right. I think he's saying if you did take enough risk, maybe maybe that's, maybe that's. That's the sin. You know what I mean? Yes. And if you didn't, it's, it's, you know,

the sin comes from an archery term to miss the mark. That's what the word sin comes from, to miss the mark. We miss the mark all the time. And I don't want to quit taking the chances to miss the mark. I want to make, want to hit the mark, but don't want to go out going well, I never shot. It's even harder when you've reached your level of success, because now you do have a lot to lose.

So, you know, to keep challenging yourself, to keep making yourself go out, there and take the big risks, it gets even scarier, right? It's one thing when you're up and coming is like, what the hell, or even when you're on the middle of the ladder. But when you're the top of the ladder with all the things, a lot of people would say, I'm going to stay, I'm going to hold. Yeah, I'll hold. You don't see, you don't feel that way. I hope not. Look, I've been told by many people that are close to me that my biggest asset is that I take risk. I also think that that's what I need to take more of, that I don't take enough. So as it is, what could that look like now?

What could that look like for Matthew McConaughey at 55? Putting my cards on the table of who I am in this big movie that I'm living. That action was called the day I was born in cuts called the day I'm leaving this life. The documentary that I'm living that we're all living, putting it on and going. And it's what I'm doing a bit up now and a civil ways to go. I'm creating characters that I believe in and want to play in my own life and saying, what are you doing live? What's happening?

The cameras rolling. It's been rolling since the day of you're born. Why do you have to go off to do someone else that's something else? Someone that's something else wrote and is directing and is put it into cinematographer and then editing. Get rid of those filters. What am I doing live? Who am I live in life? That's what I'm pressing myself on for the, mainly for the last six years more so than any time.

And I hope I'll continue to press on myself to do that. that, okay, that leads me to one of my favorite pieces in the book, which is on page 77, it's good man. And you write as follows, there's a difference between a good man and a nice guy. A good man stands for certain ideals. And when those beliefs are contested, a good man is not a nice guy. No. I love that.

Can you talk about how you came to that realization? Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, part of it, I think of the best example would be around that time I was doing nothing but the rom-coms. You know, those were, those are nice guy rolls. They worked. I enjoyed them. I was getting paid well. They were easy to do.

They felt like a Saturday. They're nice guy rolls. And nothing wrong with that. But I was ready to do more dramas in life. I was ready to stand up for things that I believed, didn't stand against things I didn't in life. and I wanted to also find roles that I could do that in. That's when I started becoming more of a good man. And that means you're going to run into conflicts.

That means you're going to have to go against the masses at certain times. That means you're going to have to lead when you'd rather just sit back and watch sometimes. That means you're going to have to run towards crisis instead of away from it sometimes. That means you're not going to be poverty. That means you're going to receive the blades in the back. And it's okay. If it's easier too, I know for me when my faith is stronger, because I can slough those things off because I'm going, no, no, no, I'm playing an immortal game here. That's the game. Don't worry about the mortal game.

Worry about the immortal game. So to have the courage to do that and what you stand for and don't stand for. And I always like to say this to people that are, as we're finding ourselves, especially young people. It's harder to say, oh, who am I and what I want to do. It's easier to go, well, let's define who I'm not. what I don't want to do and eliminate those people, places, and things and habits that we have in our life that are not paying us back. Get rid of those. And by sheer mathematics, you'll have more things in front of us that do feed us. And hey, we all got good wolves and bad wolves in us. It's our choice to which wolf we want

to feed. I'm trying to do my best to feed the good wolf, knowing that the bad wolf still hungry. Okay, speaking of the wolf of Wall Street, how fun was that role? I've got to ask you. This is an amazing role. What can I bring for you on this glorious afternoon? Well, actor, here's the game plan. You're going to bring us two absolute martinis. You know how I like them, straight up. And then precisely seven and one half minutes after that, you're going to bring us two more.

Then two more after that every five minutes until one of us passes the fuck out. Excellent strategy, sir. I'm good with water for now, though. Thank you. This is first day on Wall Street. Give him time. first time to work with Scorsese,

first time to work with Leonardo, I'm getting called him for a day's work. I'm a little nervous. I get there. But this character, oh yeah, I still get nervous, no matter what I'm doing. I get nervous every single day at work,

just the right amount. I don't want to lose the butterflies yet. And I go in, and one of the things I do, not only on that show, but on all shows is before I'll do a scene. I'll start banging my chest and find some sort of,

tune and I'll hum it out and everything. And it's to relax myself. I'll do it before interviews sometimes. Relax stuff. Get out of my head, find the rhythm and then come into the scene. Well, I was doing that before the scene with Leonardo and Wolf of Wall Street. But then as soon as you know, action, I'd stop and we do the scene. We do the scene four times. Got it. Funny. Perfect. Let's move on. Marty says, let's move on. It was Leonardo's idea. Leonardo raises And he goes, hang on a second. He goes, what's that thing you're doing before every take? And I told him, what I just told you to relax and get my voice down and everything? He goes, what if you did that in the scene? I was like, great. And the next take is the one you see in the move.

Oh, no way. Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing. Well, that's a great thing about you. You truly do have range. I mean, like, it's not every guy who can do both the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, that scene. in Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Byers Club, and True Detective, right? And speaking of True Detective, I got to ask, who is your best friend in Hollywood, and why is it Woody Harrelson? Woody has been a great friend of mine for a long time. I mean, anytime I get younger, anybody who spend time with Woody's,

one of the last Wild Men, a perpetual eight-year-old, has no context of time. And, I mean, he can frustrate the heck out of you. But he may show up three days late. He may show up barefoot, three days late. your wedding. But you can't get mad at him because if you showed up a week late for his wedding, he don't care. So what do you always like to say, hey, even if you're going to the Oscars, it's probably best to bring your bathing suit. I can't imagine like the cast of characters that has been in and out of your life. I wondered, though, like thinking about, yes, who do you

hang out with his friends? Anybody in Hollywood? Like, are you friends with the Hollywood people or no, you're friends with the Texas people? Well, I'm friends. I've got some, I've made some very good friends in Hollywood. I mean, but also some friends that I'm still friends with people that I was friends with in college. I've made, I'm still friends with my buddy Cole Houser was just in town. He and I met on days confused. He's having a great time now career-wise with his role as RIP and you and yell us to. We're developing a project together. I still talk to Rory Cochran who I met on Days Confused. And these are all friends in mine who are actors that I met in 1992. I've also made –

Holder was also in Goodwill Hunting, which is like crazy, that that was him. Yeah. Yeah. Young Cole Kinney, there's red with the short red fro. So I made friends along the way and met some wonderful people in the – in Hollywood as well. That remained friends. Okay, but here's where I wanted to take it. Is there anyone in Hollywood who you really admire, like whose values you admire?

I'm sure you admire the work of many people. But like, is there somebody who's living in a way that you think, yeah, that's hashtag goals right there? Well, I always looked up to a way Paul Newman led his life as a talented actor on screen, married to Joanne all that time, the only marriage throughout, the way he was able to be completely in the spotlight, but also live his own life. I always admired that. And like you also then gave a bunch of time and money to charity, like didn't just rest on his morals, gave over $100 million to charity. thanks to call him and Fran. And made that that was a part of his life. That was on his proverbial desk every Monday morning in his life.

He made that a part of his life. And that was his choice. You know, people always go, yeah, but you've succeeded. You have the responsibility. I think that's an easy place to go. Don't go to responsibility. If you got the chance, you have the choice and the ability. But choices give us a lot more ownership than saying, oh, it's his responsibility.

I ought to do it. But he did. He did. So I've looked up to his life. You know, I learned something, though, from some people, and I won't say their names. They were elder men in the business. And this is when we first had, Camilla and I first had children. And I said to them, they had children.

And I said to them, hey, you know, you go on the road. You go on set for three months, five months, whatever. Do you take your family and your kids with you? And they said this version of this. Look, it's either their friends or their dad. and all of them that I talked to said they chose to let their kids stay back and have their lives and their schools and be with their friends and not come to work with that. And all of them said, if I could do it again, I'd have made them come with.

And she used to be with dad. And so when Camilla and I had kids, before she pulled the goalie, she said, if we're going to do this, one condition, you go. we go. And so it's been a real privilege for me as a father and a husband and the head of the family that anytime I go to work, the family comes with. And that's been a major sacrifice for Camilla, but one that she would openly say it reaps more rewards than it does deficits. And it is getting harder now. And you're seeing this with your kids getting older. It's getting harder because they're older. They have social sort of circles and rhythms and

teams. They're apart. And I don't know what I'm going to do the next time. You know, this last one, I just did what I could to get it to shoot in my hometown of Austin because I didn't want to take them away to another. You've got to cast more of the kids. More of the kids need to go into the next movie. That's it. That's it. Pass more the kids and shoot more down the road.

The other thing is, as they get more into the teenage years, the friends do become more important. And I was told by a very smart guy, do not, do not, Dr. Leonard Sachs, do not bring kids friends on family vacations. The family vacations, the family outies are for you, for you five. Not for you five plus their three friends. If you bring the friend, your kid's going to be talking to the friend at dinner and at breakfast and at lunch.

And like that's your time. It's like to bond. But now as they get older and the friends, but I'm going to, I'm going to hold to it. And you should hold to it too. Like, that's the time for bonding. Working on it. We had this last night. Look, it was first day of NFL football Sunday and Austin FC, our local soccer team,

that I'm part of owner and was playing. It was getting close to time, go to bed, and then we wanted to eat dinner, and it was like, oh, well, let's keep the game on. And we said, no, let's turn that off. And as soon as we turned it off, you can tell that it wasn't like anyone missing out that much, but all of a sudden, we had an hour and a half where it was just us, the five of us. And we caught up on everyone on the last week, and everyone started swat up his stories about this week and boys and girls in school.

And it wouldn't happen unless we turn that tube off. Yeah. We had a blackout on Saturday here where we live. There was like a weird storm that came through. It was like a monsoon that just came and parked over our neighborhood. And it was great because, well, what happened was all the power went out. And I said, oh, my God, wait a minute. We got a generator.

We're good. And the generator kicked in. I was like, this is amazing. What a luxury. And then the generator died. That's its one job. And you got candles. It's your one, yeah.

But I mean, like being an actor. Like you're the understudy on a Broadway show and the stars out. There's your big chance. And you're like, I can't do it. That's what happened to my generator. Anyway, we sat, we wound up playing a trivial pursuit with the kids. It was so fun. You know, it's like you don't do that that often anymore.

It was like, such a good time. You know what I hear. If you heard this, I don't know what you do with your kids in social media. And we don't, we've allowed Levi when you turn 15 to dabble on the grounds. and such and the other kids not yet. But all their friends have it, the TikToks and Instagrams and everything. But I've talked to them and their friends. And I've said, so if you could choose if socials were just not available to anyone,

or it is as it is now, what would you choose? Every kid, even the ones that have the TikTok, they're like, oh, if I have to be on it, but if it wasn't available, I take that. Yep. Very interesting. They're all saying, I mean, I have to, I feel like I have to be on it to say socially current. But if it was an option for it not to be available, oh, please.

Well, look how we grew up. Look, I mean, like, look how we were in the 70s and the 80s. We didn't have any of that. Like you ran around. Your parents didn't know where you were. You spent your day with your friends. You had to come home when the street light went on. That was it.

You didn't have to worry about. And bullying was like the old-fashioned style. If it didn't happen while you were in school. it wasn't going to happen. They couldn't get you at all hours of the day, you know, like on a little device that's in your pocket. It's very complicated for these kids,

but I do think they get more sophisticated earlier and they're going to need these skills at some point to navigate the future that's coming, you know, like AI and everything's online. It's like we're a bunch of dinosaurs, our generation. I know. I'm trying to navigate not being a dinosaur, but still holding on to the traditional things

that will never go out of style. You're still thinking about, like, value. like values. You're writing about values and existential thoughts. I don't think those are going to go out of style. I hope they don't. And I think we need to fight for them because I think they stand the test of time of any weather. And then when I hear these AI sort of atheists say that, oh, AI doesn't need to be what's best for humanity. It's just the next link in evolution. And we'll create machines and a digital God that'll make us extinct. And that'll be great. I'm like, I'm not ready to go there yet either. No, sir. No, please. Well, I mean, it's got to be scary as an actor. You know, Justine.

Bateman has come on this show, talking about how dangerous it is to the whole acting industry. But these roles, I mean, and even your voice could be repeated exactly by AI. You know, I could be like, and Matthew McConaughey is the new voice of the Megan Kelly show. Here's Megan. And you'd have nothing to do with it. And it would be lawful. Yep. You know, I've been one of the earlier ones to trademark and patent, my voice and likeness. on a federal level and we'll see where that holds up if and when it needs to. But it is, it is, it is something that is scary because we're not that far from someone being in India tonight and saying, well, I want Megan Kelly and Matthew McConaughey here.

And I want Megan from 2014. And I want Matthew from Days Confused. And I wanted to be here at the party. And we're going to hologram them in right here. And there, we're hosting it. We're not that far away from that. There's some wonderful things that you can do with it with speaking, I'm doing it with the with the newsletter, speaking, trading it in different languages where I, my voice is sharing. It's my voice reading in Spanish and Portuguese and French and German, you know. That's very cool.

So there's wonderful things to be done with it. But it is, we'll see. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to see if we can go out of it. I don't think you and I will see directly. I think we might have, we'll probably transition over to the other world with our dads. You think we're on the other side of it? I do. I think so. these are made our kids' problems, so like we have to worry about it a little, but I think they're smart enough to handle it. All right, question for you. What do you think? Yeah, you go.

What do you think if you, your children, forgetting what they're in, what they like right now, but if they were going to college, what degree do you think in a university, do you think will prepare them for what's going to be most necessary in the job market later? No, nothing. There isn't one. There's nothing. I mean, really, frankly, they don't need to go to college. want them to go to college to have fun. It's an additional four years where you can mature a little

and have a good time and home, your social skills, which is important. But in my view, it's not about learning or preparing for life, unless you're going to med school where you actually do have to learn a few things. I just don't think that's what it's for. So I'd just say get a classic, you know, liberal arts education. Like all the sciences that are exploited, like I feel like those are in serious danger thanks to AI. Like math and science are being quickly taken over by the computers. So, yeah. So I almost feel like the dreamers are becoming more and more important.

So don't do anything to kill your spirit. Don't overwhelm yourself with, like, too much dogma from anybody in particular and keep your hope alive. That's what you're going to need on the back end of those four years. But I think you can learn whatever you want to learn in college on the internet. You can learn it from this conversation, from podcasts, whatever. So I don't know. I just don't think it's about that. I think it's about like maintaining your integrity.

learn how to be a good person. Don't be just an SAT score. Learn the skills that'll make you an actual leader who can make good decisions in tough situations no matter what they are as opposed to like this formula or that. That's how I look at it. You might be right. I like your point of view on it.

And also who the hell knows where it's going to go? So why waste too much time thinking about it? All right. Now listen, I got to read this one. This is you on page 44 of Palms and Prayers, the latest book by Matthew McConae, which everybody should read. It's actually make a great present in particular. I think this would be a very nice gift for somebody around Christmas time. You can buy it now. You can buy a couple copies. Here it is. Covet nothing but your superior self. Seek transformation over transaction.

Individuality over conformity. Recognize your inadequacies. Then make one step at a time in the right direction and endure. It will be harder than you think because you're a long, road has no arrival until you die. I love this so much. Covet nothing but your superior self is exactly, I mean, you could read nothing other than that line on page 44, and you would be a better person if you could just remind yourself of that every morning. I always say this. This is actually from Dr. Phil, but it's a great saying. The only difference between you and someone you envy is you settled for less. So when you covet, when you feel envy, when you look at somebody's life and you say, oh, I want it or I begrudge them for having it. It's exactly the

wrong focus. It's a tell to you to focus back on what is it about me I'm unhappy with. And how can I change it? That's exactly what you're saying there. Do you, like, I don't, how do you teach that? Can you teach that? Well, so, so much of our consumerism and all those social features. that our kids are inundated with are all about comparison and not living up to and coveting something that someone else has because they're telling you it's the right way or more popular or what um i don't know i think to teach that there's it's all mark everyone's marketing all this stuff marketing's bullshit just can you read through and ask yourself what do i really want what do i who i'm

might not to have a foundation. Again, I don't know if you can teach anyone out of it now, but can you have someone deal? Can you help children deal with the foundation of who they are so they're not getting schooled so they can use that tool and these tools to do the schooling? That's why you take the family with you. Right. Play your game in that business. Don't, don't, don't, don't let that game become your business because then you're just going to get and it changes so quickly. And you look back and all your friends you thought you had and everything you thought you could rely on is poof. It was it was fairy dust.

So if you can sit there and go okay, because I don't want to say don't ever go on social media or don't go on AI. No, go, you need to check this out. We've got to educate ourselves here. But let's read through the BS here and see that the algorithm selling something to make some of this, okay? At your expense, know that it's a game. Just know that to tell my, we try to tell our children that. And so just to be aware that, no, that's not real. That's commerce.

There's an algorithm selling that and putting in front of you what it thinks you want because of your traffic and your history of where you've already been. Just to understand that that's happening. That's part of the game. You want to play it? Just be aware that that's the rules. So you have a good handle on these problems and societal ills. I can hear it. And the U of July of 2024 considered doing something about it in the form of possibly.

running for Texas governor. Didn't happen. Your team did not want me to get into politics, but I just wanted to finish with who exactly did you vote for in the 2024 presidential election and what? No, just kidding. Just kidding. But is politics potentially still part of your future, your story?

I don't know. Could be. It's something, look, I've the last six years been studying different categories of where I could be most useful. where I could, what leadership roles? Am I equipped for? Look, it's inherently not my language. I'm more of a poet philosopher.

And I'm dealing with values here, which I believe, and belief, which I believe are true progress above the political sphere of left and right battling. That's the space that I'm in now. I am aware that the issues matter, that politics and legislation all matters. So I have not canceled it out, but I've given it and still will continue to give it some real consideration to measure myself. That's the right place where I can be the most useful.

But I'm not going to bend my back to force myself in it. I will get in deep enough where if I'm in it, I'll look up and I won't be able to help it. It'll be, I'll just be there. I will be pulled in. But, you know, it's a very conscientious, just heads. space to ask yourself, and I think it's something important if we all to ask it, what if I was the leader of a state, of a nation, of a war? It's a great question to ask us. Because you call yourself on some of your bullshit, go, what decision would I make? What are my own beliefs? And where do

they transfer to what I would believe for the masses? Now, we all know in politics, they're not all doing what they believe, but they're doing. And I would not want to go being anything where I would need to betray myself. And there's a lot of betrayal that comes with inherently in politics. And I work hard enough to try and get a good night's sleep, trying to win the fair games and fair fights, which are already hard to win. And so for right now, I got my three kids, want to get them out of the house as healthy as possible,

and hopefully as much individuals as they are possible. And then when that opens up after me being on-site father that I am and try to be, I will be open to considering what my next avenues are. I love it. I've said about President Trump, you know, he's under a lot of pressure when it comes to his foreign policy decisions in particular from different factions. And I've said repeatedly on the air on something like that, whether you're going to add to a war and the weaponry of it, whether you're going to start a war, whether you're going to push to end one start one. He has to come to his own decision. Like that is playing with people's lives. and he knows that, whoever the president is,

they deserve a wide berth in coming to their own decision about what to do, because it's easy for you or me or anybody else sitting in their armchair to say, this is how it should be, we're not actually going to be responsible for ending lives, like the president. And those calls, massively responsible. And those calls, correct if you're wrong,

those are the president's sole calls, 4 a.m. by yourself, in solitude calls. Are they not? Yeah. Yeah. That's scary. Like, that's the highest order. You better have your spiritual ducks in a row.

And what may help you is this book, Poems and Prayers by Matthew McConaughey, which will rejigger your headspace around your life, what matters in it, and what your daily approach to it should be, as you say, playing this long game. Starring in your own movie that starred for a couple of us about 55 years ago. Not quite. I'm not quite there almost. I'm right behind you. It's been a pleasure. I wish you all the best with this, with the lost bus, the movie with your son, and with all of it. Thank you, Megan Kelly. I sure enjoyed it.

Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show. Just back now from Washington, D.C., literally just an hour ago, got back, where I interviewed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard late yesterday. You can find that interview on YouTube.com slash Megan Kelly and our podcast feeds right now. They posted this morning. And there's a lot to unpack. from that interview. She made a ton of news. Plus, there are reports today, broken initially by our pal and now part of the MK Podcast Media Network, Mark Halprin, that National Security Advisor Mike Wals is out, that he's being forced out of the Trump administration. We will break it down for you. But today, I am here live in New York City at the Sirius XMHQ, the Worldwide

HQ, where we have an incredible show for you with Barstool Sports founder, Dave Portnoy cannot wait to spend two hours with Dave. We've got to talk about Bill Belichick and his 24-year-old hostage-taker, I mean, girlfriend. But most important of all, and even Dave hasn't seen this yet, we have the latest trailer for our own worldwide premiere tomorrow of our new film, Blonde, not to be confused with Blue, origin. Blonde origin. It debuts tomorrow right here on the Megan and Kelly show. Here's our latest trailer. gravity resulted in zero clue.

Have you been? Have you been? Three women were brave enough to answer the call. Tomorrow, special coverage of the launch of blonde origin. Tomorrow! On the Megan Kelly Show! How far will we go for a troll? Tomorrow!

Don't call it a ride. We're going to get to all this now with Dave Portnoy. Very far is the answer. Yeah, very far, clearly. Very far. To the moon in back, some might say. Where was that? And like, obviously, a zero-gravity chamber of some sort?

You'll have to tune in tomorrow. I can't talk to you unless you've been. Have you been? To where? The moon? Just to the special places I've been in space. No, I haven't been there. I haven't been any of those spots.

Then we can't discuss it. I'm going to have to go back to Gail. Fine. She's the only one who understands me. Okay, fair. Okay, there's so much happening right now. Let's talk about Mike Wals, because while the average audience member might not think Dave Portnoy is the perfect person to discuss this news with, they are wrong because you actually called for his ouster. I said somebody had to go, yes.

Yeah, after the Signalgate controversy broke. Well, Signalgate was crazy to me. Still crazy to me. Then there was follow-up there. There was more of a single gate with Hesketh, right? Hesth. Heseth. right with like telling his wife and somebody was someone else his personal lawyer and

reportedly many others on that second chain so i mean to me that's not the single stuff is nuts i don't if that's why he's getting pushed out seems pretty late like in the game and like single gate to me sort of passed um but is that the point that didn't draw as much attention no i don't think that's how well i never know how trump thinks you see here's the thing he doesn't like giving the media a scalp right like a credit for anything yeah but it also depends on how you look at his mind frame, which I don't know anybody else. Well, it also, if he did it almost instantly, it could be viewed as, uh-huh, we have, we have accountability here and there's a mistake made and I rectified it instantly. So do you think, I don't know,

do you think it is directly? That doesn't sound like Trump. Do you think it's directly then single gay? I don't. No, I, I think it's probably, and this is complete speculation, I do not have any inside information on this, but I think it's probably he's to Neo Connie and the, the strong, strain within MAGA right now is the more, they call them the restrainers. Yeah. The ones who are not hawks. They don't want us rushing into war with Iran. We had a long talk with Tucker Carlson about this the other day, not involving Mike Walsh, but Mike Walses has got a long history in the Congress, which made him some people's darling and some people's foil on this

front. He was always more Nio-Kani. And he's got a very important post. And there was a report in the New York Times about a month ago saying Tulsi, J.D., Pete Hegseth and Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff, Trump stopped him from getting on board that train as it was pummeling toward war with Iran on behalf of or in connection with Israel. So who was on the other side? Who were the administration officials saying, let's do this, what Netanyahu wants, like back them in bombing Iran or give them the bombs or will do the bombs. The realistic truth was we were going to have to participate very meaningfully in that bombing campaign. We would have been at war with Iran. So it would have been an enormous thing to do.

And I do wonder whether that played some role. Yeah, so like 99% of that, to be frank, it went right over my head. Like, I may have like been glazed over. The thing I know about. Back to signal gate. Yeah, like I didn't even know, like I knew he was. But the signal gate's the one that caught my attention. Again, I think it's a delayed response.

So your scenario of what you just laid out could make more sense. I'm probably the wrong guy. I'd be like, yeah, all right, that's it. It's possible. The signal gate to me was just you can't, can't have people using signal and basically sending, you know, war plans to reporters or their wife or any of that. So to me, that was a fireable offense. So the Signalgate, it may have played a role. We don't know. I mean, here's what Mark Halperin said. When did this happen, by the way?

Just now. It's happening right now. Like as I came in. Yeah. You didn't miss it. So Mark Halperin is part of our new MK Media Network, which I'd love to ask you about because you run a very successful media network. And he had his first show on Tuesday. And his second show is today. He also does a show on YouTube called Two-Way, and he broke this news earlier today. Here's some of it with some more context, I believe, SOT 7. Three different people have confirmed that the plan now, by the White House, is to remove the National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, who was on Fox News this morning, just not that long ago, and his deputy Alex Wong and much of the member current staff team at the National Security Council because of unhappiness throughout the national security establishment of how they're doing.

This was around before Signalgate. It was widely reported that Signalgate ironically may have saved Waltz's job, as I understand it from my sources, a general belief that it's not being run efficiently in an organized way. It may happen as early as today. It may not happen ever because it's Donald Trump. But the plan is for it to happen soon, maybe, maybe this weekend. So very interesting. He's saying they wanted to dump him before Signalgate, but Trump didn't dump him after that because he didn't want to look like he was being reactive to the nasty. Well, he'd be reactive.

I feel like if he's not enough, who knows. I mean, I can see this still not happening. I feel like I see reports of things happening that never does. And then they'll jump on and be like, shame on you media for reporting this. So who knows? I just looked at X. It's the number one thing. Yeah, shocking, I guess.

But I'll believe it when I see Tim Walt's number one thing. Well, we're definitely getting to that. Mike Walz has left the chat. Is he your man speaker? Who? Tim Walz? Do I? No, he is not.

What do you mean? What do you mean my man speaker? You know how he said he came out yesterday and said he was the man that Kamala selected elected to speak to guys like you, white men of America? Well, that's crazy. I didn't see that, but no, he failed miserably in that realm. You didn't connect with him in that way? Nobody connected with him.

Nobody did. Here's what he said. Let's watch it. We'll go from Mike Walls. I can't believe he's still talking. To Tim Walls. Here, let's watch. I was on the ticket.

I would argue because we did a lot of amazing progressive things in Minnesota that improved people's lives. But I also was on the ticket, quite honestly, you know, because I could code talk to white guys watching football fixing their truck doing that, that I could put them at ease. I was the permission structure to say, look, you can do this and vote for this. And you look across those swing states, with the exception of Minnesota, we didn't get enough of those votes.

But you could be giving them permission. on TV every day. You could have been messaging that way and that isn't necessarily how it chuck out. Well, yes, but I also said, I understand myself. I said, I think I'd give you pretty good stuff, but I'll also give you 10% problematic. And so somebody's got to make the decision here to handle some of this stuff and to make it. And those are just decisions that were made. Boy, that's delusional. I mean, that's wildly delusional. I even thought that. I mean, I knew he had the football thing, but he doesn't speak to a normal guy. He doesn't act like a normal guy. his mannerisms weren't like everyday guy.

There was no part of him that connected to what a normal guy is talking about or interested. And by the way, normal guys can see through that pretty quickly. When you're trying to play the normal guy, you're not. I mean, I remember hearing that he was like a football coach, but even that was a strange coach, the story behind it. So it didn't really work out. And anybody, by the way, with a brain could have screened him for five seconds. Been like, this is the guy that we're, I don't know.

who they have in the party, by the way, that would have done that. But you could have screened him, and anybody could have said that right away. But that is one of the problems with the Democrats. They don't see that. They're going to, like, the Pete Buttigiegs of the world to say, is this a man that regular American men can relate to? And he's like, yes, that's our guy. I'm trying to think who on the Democratic side, I would be like, yeah, that, that's the

guy that resonates. I mean, you could run it by a man like James Carvel. He's got the ability to say that. that's not going to resonate with middle America. The old Massachusetts governor, Baker, he was a pretty normal guy. I don't know when I went to the NCAA, but I would say he was a normal speak-to guy. So you don't think the jazz hands is like- Jazz hands is not the thing.

I mean, he had a lot of things going. He was one of the worst candidates. The whole ticket was bad. Yeah. That's why they lost. But yeah, that, that is, and that's not even a political thing. That's just if you, if you asked, if you just pulled a group of guys out of a bar and we're like, is this, are you going to, be friends with that guy. Most would probably be like, no, we're not. And that is, again,

has nothing to do with politics. It's just the vibe he gave off. Yeah. Well, on top of all that, what does it say about the Democratic Party that they thought the guy who would speak to white guys in America is the guy who mandated tampons in boys' rooms throughout Minnesota? They're off. The Democratic Party is lost. So I don't know. It's interesting because I never, I didn't even know that they were. trying to speak to people like, I guess me or our crowd. If you want to say that's like who Trump spoke with, I didn't even know they were attempting to do that during the election.

That didn't seem like something they were interested in. So I didn't know that was why he was brought on to do that. Remember he put on the camo hat and he did some video where he was gaming and apparently he stunk at it? But he went out with a gun and was going to go hunting. And it was very obvious to all Second Amendment people. He was not familiar with a gun. He couldn't load it.

Yeah. I remember the one when I thought it was Kamala. They asked her what kind of gun she had and she didn't answer it correctly. But that's very politics 101. That's, I mean, all the way back, the mayor of Boston was called like Sammy Sousa and all the wrong names. Even I know that one. Yeah, they pretend to play a character that they're not, which I don't know who gives them that intel. I think people would much more respect if you don't pretend to be something you are not.

All right, but that's politics. So let's say they come to Dave Portnoy next time around and they're like, how do we reach regular guys and convince them to vote them? I mean, you can't demonize them, I would say. Like, they're, they've been doing it for a long time. But if you're saying men, and when people are asking me that, I think they generally are talking like white, middle class, people working in financial districts.

there's a shame that that comes across of saying you earn a frat and by the way not all frats are good but wanting to make money want to have a good job want to spend money be rich all that stuff is not necessarily bad i think that has been a message that comes across like yeah we should be kind of ashamed of being a white guy that doesn't that i don't think what they fail to understand that doesn't discount that a white guy like me or any can care about a lot of the issues that Democrats care about. But I'm also not really going to apologize for being like a white guy in this country who wants to have a good job, make money, go to college, do all those things. And that is a message that seemingly like you can't be both. They've never like, I mean, Biden all the way

through, it felt like a lot of the issues that get blamed and problems America are always like our fault. Yeah. And we don't want. Remember, even when the black vote wasn't going as strongly for Kamala as the Dems wanted. And Barack Obama showed up at that polling, that campaign office and was like, you're a bunch of sexists. Yeah, right. Well, and they've said it. They're deplorables.

And like, you know, if you vote for Trump, there's, you're a Nazi and things like that. I don't know if that's exact. But things. No, that's literally what's been said on CNN by people like Don Lemon and his friends. And then it's like, well, you know, you're talking about more than half the country. It's clearly then you should move if you truly believe that. and that's the messaging that we've gotten from them. And somebody like me who, I'm always in a weird box because I don't consider myself political,

but I'm talking about more and more. Like I could easily take out the candidates. I grew up in a Democratic household. Same. My father, I've said a million times, hates Trump. I am somebody who you would think would vote Democrat. But as I got older, especially like running business and doing stuff, they just kept pushing me, pushing me, pushing me.

To the point this election, it wasn't, like, I wasn't wavering who I was going to vote for. I was voting for Trump. And even, I would still re-vote for Trump. No questions asked. That's how much I hated the other ticket. You may not want to see this, but Kamala Harris is also back in the news. And you tell me whether we dodged a bullet with this woman where she took to the stage last night at this group that's pushing to get more females involved in Democrat politics running for office. And here's how she sounded.

I heard about this. watching. In fact, please allow me friends to digress for a moment. Okay. It's kind of dark in here, but I'm asking a show of hands. Who saw that video from a couple of weeks ago? The one of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo during the earthquake? Who are you not seeing it? Well, yeah, this is... So that scene has been on my mind. Everybody's asking me what you've been thinking about these days. Well, So in the video, for those who I've seen it, here those elephants were. And as soon as they felt the earth shaking beneath their feet, they got in a circle and stood next to each other to protect the most vulnerable. Think about it. What a powerful metaphor. The lesson is don't.

don't scatter the instinct has to be to immediately find and connect with each other and to know that the circle will be strong oh my god

well yeah that was a lot more of our campaign speak in which he sent a whole lot of something but really not saying anything and also the moral superiority which even in that comes through is another, like the way they lecture. And they're, I don't like politicians in general. Like I think probably if you had 100 politicians in room, maybe like two are like truly in it for the right reasons.

But the moral superiority when like what they did in the election, which the way they all lied about Biden is mental health for for years. And then they waited so there's no, like she would never win. Well, she'd never won election. But she would never win a fair primary with the dem. That to me was their biggest mistake because who knows who could have come out of that. But it's lecturing people like they're angels. Like they're perfect. They know they know better than anybody like what's best for you and that we're stupid because we see what the Democratic Party does.

And that's it's just such a turnoff and say whatever you want about Trump. And people may say other. I feel like he's him. And like even with these tariffs and stuff like he campaigned on tariffs. Yeah, he was clear. So then to be like, what are you doing these tariffs? And I'm like that because I'm in the stock market. It's like I want my stocks to go up.

But it's like he said he was going to do it at least. So they're just, if you did authentic and took the Democrats and the Republicans, to me, it's not even close. And that's part of how I end up voting Republican. She's so annoying in her mannerisms with her little hands in tight. And she starts giggling at her own thought. What she's saying is not even purportedly funny. There's nothing at all funny.

there's no joke coming. She's just giggling at her own little aside. She's not a great public speaker. No, the only time it gets funny is when she lands her point and you realize there's nothing there. And she's built it up like this huge profundity only to let us down once again. I don't even know what she's doing. Is she running for what?

The governor of California? We don't know. She's weighing either that or another presidential run. That's crazy. They'd never do that. I don't know. I'd never say never. I've been a very good person this year.

It's possible the Lord, the Lord will give this to me. Maybe. Maybe. Well, there's AOC. aren't they saying her? Yes, I just think that, like, the party still loves her. They have no chance to win if she was. I completely agree.

No chance. But there are some people out there, oh, gosh, I don't know if I'm going to be able to find it, but there are people out there talking about her right now, like behind the scenes, an off record, they don't want to put their name to it, about how, you know, she's really formidable, like the party really needs to hear, they have a hankering to hear from her. Hold on a second, I have it here. They use hankering? No, they say, here it is, clamoring.

There is a clamoring for her voice right now, said a former Harris senior advisor. Meanwhile, I'm like, is he named Pug Clemhoff? This is clearly like her husband or somebody very close to her. And they say, because they were granted anonymity to speak candidly, meaning really falsely. Quote, no one can better prosecute the case while inspiring a call to action than the former vice president. I mean, we already went down that road. Are they just saying she didn't have enough time or something? And you can't get over the fact she knew that Biden wasn't fit to be president.

Just lied about it. I mean, you can't get, I don't know. It would be crazy, but they're already nuts to me on who they put forward. We're already in crazy town. Yeah, to do it again would be insane. I mean, that's the exact opposite of what we're just discussing. Like, how do they get, you know, the typical male vote? I mean, that's the opposite.

That's not going to do it. So I mentioned at the top that I sat down with Tulsi Gabbard. last night. And we had a bunch of discussions that were really interesting, I thought. And it's quite the move going from her to me. And then blonde origin. I mean, it's been that kind of a week, Dave. But here's one thing I wanted to pick up on that we started the show off with, like this push to get us into another war with Iran by these forces behind the scenes. And I'm not blaming that on Mike Wals. That was just speculation on my point that maybe some perceive him as on that side. But she did speak to because she's anti all that. That's one of the reasons Trump chose her. And I was asking her, like, do you feel it? You feel like people pushing you towards, you know, all things military, all things war. And here's what she said and sought to.

There was a New York Times article within the past month saying you, he, J.D. Vance, and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, were all together in urging him to not go too far on our actions against Iran. And President Trump did not do it. not give Netanyahu the answer he wanted. I know you're not going to get into the specifics of what you advise the president, but can you explain your view of the dangers of barreling toward a potential conflict with Iran? Yeah. The New York Times article was a result of an unfortunate, unauthorized and illegal leak of a very private conversation. between the president and his advisors.

I won't get into the details, but it was a very robust discussion that really speaks to President Trump's care and thoughtfulness as he makes his decisions. Do you feel the push, Tulsi, the push of this strong neocon strain that's still within the Republican Party and probably in these agencies,

that's much more hawkish on an issue, including war in the Middle East, which we've just done for 20 years. Yeah, of course, the pressure's there. The leaks have to end. If the president can't have the confidence that he can sit in a room with his closest advisors without it leaking to the public, then that is something that really undermines his being best served. So she's talking about, Dave, how they sat there, she was basically confirming, in a private meeting with just the president,

with those officials I name, with the vice president, with the director of national intelligence, with the secretary of defense and his chief of staff. And what she's saying without being explicit about it is, then she believes none of them leaked, but then they have to talk to their staffs about what happened and what needs to happen.

And at that top, top level, someone's leaking to the New York Times and saying, how are they supposed to function like this? You got to start planting fake stories. Yeah, right. You got to do that and weed it out. I mean, that would drive me insane. That would drive anybody, regardless of whether it's the president of the United States, obviously different table stakes.

But any CEO, any leader, you can't have that. Yeah, I like that idea. Yeah, you got to do that. They do that in. What movie did they do that in where they plant like a fake piece of gossip and see who bites? You narrow it down. Right? You would narrow it down.

Something juicy that they throw it. Just do it one with each of those departments, if that's where they think it came from. Yeah, I hope they're watching. I'm going to make sure they see this. Got to do it. It's a very good idea. Yeah. Because it's happening to Tulsi.

It's happening to Trump. It's obviously happening to Heggseth where like bit by bit they're undermining the whole administration with these leaks and like. Or maybe he's just sending it on his signal chat. Yeah, right, right. That also opens. You know, she said. You know, she said.

Well, you guys are idiots and you're texting reporters by accident. She also told me that the Biden administration used signal. And she said without naming them, she said some of the very exact officials. who are dumping on us for being on a signal chat. She was one of the ones. Use signal and she has proof of it. Well, that's the most unsurprising, like, comment ever. I mean, they could have sent it to that same reporter in the Atlantic, and he wouldn't have

said anything. That's right. But you very much don't want to send it to somebody you know openly hates your guts. Yeah. So, yeah. Then you're going to have to live with it. You're telling me it's, uh, they're being hypocrites. That's not surprising to me at all.

Not surprising at all. Here she is a little bit more on these leaks coming out of the administration. Me too. Here's Sot 3. You've referred three people now to DOJ for criminal prosecution. Do you think they will be prosecuted? That's the goal. That's the goal. The only way we bring about accountability is by doing the work of conducting these investigations. The Department of Justice and the FBI obviously have different tools that they can use

in order to find the truth and to seek out that evidence so that we can actually prosecute. These crimes are. Do the people know they've been referred? Like are they, do they still work here? In some cases, uh, in some cases they know in other cases they are likely not aware. I mean, that's kind of badass, frankly, because what she's doing is she's not telling everybody that she, like I know it was you, Fredo. You're right. She's letting Fredo just continue. Yeah, try to scare them. And then the next call they get is going to be from somebody saying the DOJ is here, or the FBI is here to arrest you. they did it differently over at the Department of Defense, where Pete or his team, his investigators, investigated these leaks,

and then fired three guys who immediately went to the media, including yours truly, to say, we're not the leakers. None has been arrested. We don't know whether they will be arrested. They all deny they did it. I have to say, as between the two, this is probably the better course

because it's like they're not twisting in the wind as leakers who can speak out about it. They're in cuffs by the time we learn their names. Yeah. I mean, it can't be obviously it's a major crime at that level to be leaking information. It's also the last thing they should be worrying with like they're running the government. That's the thing.

To be worrying about internal leaks seems like there should be a better use of time, but you can't ignore it. That's the thing. It's so undermining. All right, one other point on Tulsi. Where were you on like the COVID lockdowns and the overreach by Fauci and all that stuff? So I was very much

on the side of you got a let small businesses decide whether they want to stay open or not. Like, we're all kind of adults here. And if you want to be open there, so I hated the lockdowns. We started a gigantic, like, fund for companies that were shut down. We raised like $50 million. That's right. We covered that, actually.

Yeah. So we were very much trying to help small businesses who were basically going out of business through no fault of their own. What do you think of Fauci? I mean, I see all the stuff that says he's a criminal. He should go to jail. He hit it. I haven't delved enough. I mean, my knee-jerk reaction on the guy when I see him is I actually find him to be believable when he's speaking on camera, but you see all this stuff. So I want to convict him without any hard evidence. You may be like, well, I have hard evidence, but I think the whole lockdown thing was handled horribly. Well, I asked her about it. This is one of the first things we covered, and I think it was probably the biggest piece of news to come out of the interview. Well, let's watch the exchange and then I'll fill in the blank cirrhosis. We already know that EcoHealth Alliance was partnering with this Wuhan lab to create, to do gain and function research.

That's right. We just have never been able to have somebody say, and it was that exact experiment that led to this COVID bug. But have we gotten there? What's the new thing that you're digging in on? We are working on that with Jay Bottacharya. I mean, that would be extraordinary because just so the audience knows, if that's true, if it was Peter Dazek's research with the Wuhan, so-called bat lady that caused this pandemic, then we did fund it. Then Anthony Fauci helped fund the pandemic. The thing that he denied over and over and over to Senator Rand Paul's questioning. That's right. Under oath. It, it, under oath, exactly. So is, is it any wonder that he sought

a preemptive pardon for anything during a certain period of time by President Biden before he left office? That's the director of national intelligence, clearly intimating that they're about to tie Anthony Fauci and this group EcoHealth Alliance that he funded to the actual COVID virus. Yeah, which is insane. So then what is it? It's a giant cover up that. Yes. So that's crazy. That's a... That's huge. That's a link. We've never been able to close. We've funded EcoHealth Alliance. They partnered with the Wuhan Lab. They did gain of function research on bat coronaviruses. But we've never been able to make the leap to. And it resulted in this. coronavirus. And that's what she says she's intimating is about to come.

Yeah, it's crazy. If that's... If that's true, he lied under oath repeatedly. Yeah. And he needed that pardon. I mean, everybody got pardoned pretty much by Biden, right? Like, for the most part. But I mean, the fact that the guy running this huge piece of NIH was perjuring himself, allegedly, we'll find out, to the point where it wasn't just a courtesy pardon to prevent harassing, like he actually may have committed felonies here. It is huge.

Yeah, it's crazy. Again, I was very anti-lockdowns. I didn't like Fauci. I criticized Fauci. Maybe my gut reaction whenever I see the guy is he doesn't scream arch-criminal to me, but maybe I'll be wrong. Like, does he give you those vats? 100%.

He does. Yes. So he's a supervillain to you. Yes. Like he's the supervillian that you. don't know is the super villain until the end of the movie yeah well i mean in the middle of the movie it became obvious but yes i i hate him with the passion of 10 000 sons i think he's completely dishonest he didn't intend you're not saying he intentionally launched covid you're saying

no i don't think he wanted no one's suggesting that the intel community no one's saying that and then it happens and then he's like oh crap i got to do this giant and he happens to be the like the guy who's publicly speaking about it so it's it's basically two different things. He launched it, created it. I shouldn't say launch, created inadvertently, but he's also the guy who's going to be in charge of controlling it. And then you got this, he's basically running interference to keep himself from being the guy the entire time. Bingo. Yeah, it's literally a sci-fi movie.

And at the same time, we know from his internal emails that the House Republicans got at the time, well, a couple years after the COVID-Mania, that he was actively working to smear doctors, who were coming out saying, this thing looks like it came from a lab. We've never seen this particular virus before in nature. This looks lab made. And he was all over the place. Like, tamp that down.

Get that out there. That's fringe. He made sure that narrative couldn't live. It would, it's an insane full, full, and maybe I'm just naive in thinking like. You still trust the officials? I don't trust a lot of officials. He just comes across as like a grandpa to me.

You've got to spend some time with my. husband, Doug, because I am terrible at judging character. I'm always like, he's fine. See, I feel like I'm pretty good. And my husband's really good. And he's always onto people before I am, but even I saw it with Fauci. Was he onto? Yeah, he, yes, he knew he was bad. I don't know. I think some people just have a knack for this. I'm usually like, they're good. What do you mean? I mean, Trump didn't know. Yeah, no, he was under Trump. Yeah. For the beginning, for the actual peak of COVID. Like, he's doing a great job. Yep. I know. That was one of Trump's failures. I mean, a lot of Republicans blame him for a vaccine that wound up hurting a lot of people, too.

Trump stands by the vaccine, but it's got some problems. There's no question. Yeah, I didn't know that people blamed him for that. I mean, the vaccine was a way to theoretically open up the country. They wouldn't open it up without that. Well, that's what people who don't live in places like New York don't get is like, I lived in New York and this was going down. And it's like you couldn't go anywhere.

No, nowhere. That's when I moved to Miami. Like, during the COVID, I was in New York, moved to Miami. I basically stayed there. You were like a hostage in your own apartment if you didn't get the damn vaccine. Well, I regret it, though. I wish I had gotten one of the fake cards. That was such the obvious solution.

I'm like a goodie two shoes. I don't know why I didn't do it. I was fake card city. Shit. Yeah, like, duh. Well, you just did it yourself? Well, luckily I work in a media company. I still don't know.

That's how afraid I am. I'm like, yeah, I never had it. But yeah, I just said we have graphics team. So we just got a copy of the actual card and made fakes. You know, my doctor said to me at the time, I'm like, what do I, should I be worried about these MRI? vaccines and he goes, would you take the MRNA vaccine if it could prevent pancreatic cancer? Because that's a future, which was a don't be worried.

Yeah. And so I was like, I trust my doctor. You know, so I did it. And I regret doing it. I wasn't so much worried. It's just like, I don't want to do it. I'll get the card. I was worried there was rumors at one point that they were going to start scanning the barcodes,

in which case the fake would have no longer worked. But yeah, I was traveling and working in a lot of places you could, but no one looked at it closely. It's like, whoop, boop, boop. Yeah. It's all very easy. Okay, on the subject of the Kamala Harris soundbite where she said, we've got to be like the elephants to protect the most vulnerable.

Right. The most vulnerable. The larger context of her remarks are about illegal immigration and what's being done right now to deport these alleged gang members. What's so insane is they are not the most vulnerable. We are the most vulnerable. In particular, women and children who tend to be the victims of these gang members.

People like Lake and Riley down in Georgia, like Jocelyn Nangaro, 12-year-old, down in Texas. We've seen the names in the media. Those are the most vulnerable. That's what Trump is trying to do to protect the innocent Americans that are the prey of these people

who are being deported. And I did ask Tulsi about the screening that's being done because the Democrats would have you believe it's willy-nilly. Right. It's like you've got brown skin and the wrong tattoo you're out.

And she explained that they are identifying these Trenda, Aragua, and MS-13, and even Sinaloa cartel members, largely with the help of the DEA, which is up to its neck in gang information 501. They know who these guys are.

They track them. They monitor them. All it needed was for somebody to call them up and say, who are they? And where are they and figure out which ones are foreign, they're not all foreign,

and which ones are American. And on top of that, they have lengthy FBI investigations of these people. So I thought that was interesting, too, that it is not just like, gee, you're brown, you're out. But there was news about their most famous poster boy, Abrago Garcia, Kilmar Abrego Garcia yesterday, you know, the one who Chris Van Hollen had margaritas with. It turns out this guy, we knew that he had been accused of beating his wife by his wife. Well, a second report came out of the same, more beatings, in which she saw a protective order,

not just as previously reported in 2021, but earlier in August of 2020, she moved for a protective order back then. The details reveal a fight they had with this woman, his wife, alleging that he took her phone, demanded her car keys before flying into a rage. She went upstairs to cook breakfast for the kids, but he shot off the stove, locked the children in their bedroom. They were crying. She got her phone from the car, called 911. He locked her out of the house. He smashed her phone. She checked the boxes for acts of abuse, including kicking, slapping, shoving, mental injury of a child, detaining against one's will.

She could hear the babies crying as he locked them in and he was after her. Me and my kids are afraid now. He kicked me. He pushed me. He slapped me in the face. He threatened me. I have photos of all the bruises left in my body. Police came. He acted violent with them, broke my phone in front of them. I have a recording. He told my ex-mother-in-law that even if he kills me, no one can do anything to him. in March of 2020 we now find out. She said he pushed me against a wall. He broke a phone to TV and damaged the walls. November of 19.

He grabbed me by the hair in the car. December of 19. He grabbed me by the hair in the car. He dragged me out of the car, leaving me in the street. And then she rescinded the motion for the protective order as virtually all domestic violence abuse victims do. And on top of that, there's another document from 2018 where her ex, so this is Abrago Garcia's wife now,

but in 2018, his girlfriend. She had an ex-husband. His name is Edwin Trejo Ramos. He's currently incarcerated in Maryland. This is all a very nice crowd. But he at the time sought an emergency court hearing to get custody of his children with this woman, saying she tried to kill herself.

She left the kids with an 11-year-old to take care of them, and I'm afraid of my kids' lives being in danger because, quote, she is dating a gang member who was at that time, we understand, Abrago Garcia. So this is the poster boy, the most vulnerable, Kamala Harris might say. Yeah. So in this case in particular, to me, in a weird way, crystallizes some of like what I go through with like the politics because I actually get to a degree of the Democrat. Now, not him.

And this is where I go on this. Like for the Democrats and the guy from Maryland to fly down and meet with him and then make this guy the poster child, which I think most intelligent people. can be like this is a bad guy he's not a citizen i've no problem i want him out yeah that that that is what we want out of this country it doesn't matter the color of skin if you're not uh an american citizen and you have this rap and this track record and you've been deported yeah like he had an order of removal they just said just not to el salvador now so i agree with all that so it to me when i saw the maryland guy going to say i'm like why why is this guy the guy you're going to take a stand for and fight for because we don't like he's a bad guy but at the same time i can all that research i can

understand it even with something like this if you hit a thou you got a hit you got about a thousand if you're going to pick somebody and deport them and if you just pick the wrong guy once with no due process nothing that's a major issue like you append somebody i don't even care you say they're an legal, but they're like a great person and they're actually contributing to me just picking them up, getting rid of them, that, I'd have a problem with that. But you want them to have a hearing? Something due process. So where is that?

The fact, like, I'm not sympathizing with Democrats or the guy from Maryland because you're using the poster child of what Trump ran on and we want him out. And he got a hearing. Yes. He got a hearing when we deported him the first time. But when you're doing it mass after, you just can't ever make a mistake. So I understand that logic a little bit, just not with this guy. No, you're reflecting the view of most Americans, according to the latest polls, where they are in favor of Trump's plan, but they do want to see some due projects.

And it's hard. And how do you do that with so many people and without close? So one of the things about politics, it's not always the easiest thing to come up with like an answer because you got to run a country and it's backed up. So what would happen? But I do, the Democrats constantly like, okay, this is an issue. I sort of, the logic behind it,

but you're not being sincere when this is your poster child. Because take out politics. There's nobody. You see this story a lot. All right, you can do this. You can go meet with them. Do you want him to be your next door neighbor?

Right. Do you want him to be your next door neighbor? Or do you want him out of the country? If that was it, you're either living next door or he's deported. Everybody. Do you want him on the trail? when your 18-year-old daughter goes for a run by herself?

Exactly. And that is not, that's based on his rap sheet. Nothing more in the gang stuff. So that's where they lose me because it's the, find me a way to make sure we can get 100%. But that guy is 100% based on the, on the rap sheet. And why this is where they put their flag in the mud and be like, when the only dispute about this guy is the fact that he technically wasn't supposed to be deported to El Salvador. But he was ruled deported. The only reason he wasn't deported is because we were lame, we didn't have the resources, and we didn't do it, which is the truth for 20 million illegals. The only controversial piece about this guy is that his order of removal said, just not to El Salvador because he's claiming he'll get killed by gangs there.

That's it. That's what they've thrown there a lot behind. I do want to get to the larger issue, though. You're right over the target, how Americans are struggling with. Well, what is required? Because we know there was no due process when they came into the country for us. when it comes to our rights to be safe and not have to put them on the public dole

and pay for their lives and their health care and all this. However, here's the thing. They don't get the same due process as an American citizen would before we took away their liberty in any way, whether it's trying to deport them for some reason or putting them through the criminal justice system. And what appears to be true in the immigration context,

what is true is it's a much lower level of, quote, due process that they're entitled to. And what most people don't know, including Terry Moran, who was one of the lead anchors over at ABC, and I'm going to show you the soundbite of him and Trump, is that in many cases, no due process is okay. None. It's under this thing called expedited removal, which all presidents have used. Trump expanded expedited removal. And you don't get any hearing under it.

It was used even under Biden to say, at the border, okay, if you show up, we can just turn you around. We don't have to give a hearing. And the only reason you, the only way you get a hearing is if you say, no, no, no, I'm an asylum seeker.

Right. And that's true under Trump too. But let me just show you, Terry Moran, because who clearly has waited in to legal matters that he is not qualified to speak on him because he tried,

understanding what I just explained to be the law, watch him try to pin down Trump. And Trump, I'm telling you, Trump is a clever mofo. Just when you think he's, like, focused on, like, the UFC and, like, his polls.

He knows the nuances, even of laws like this. Watch where he dodges on this attempt to pin him down. He knows about expedited removal. He knows about the lower standard on due process. And he doesn't allow Terry Moran one inch. It's sot nine. Do you acknowledge that under our law, every single person who gets deported gets a hearing first to make their case? Well, are we talking about people that are citizens of our country or not?

No, you are deporting citizens at this point. Well, let me ask you, did they get hearings when Biden allowed 21 million? Because I think the number is 20 million people to flow into our country. Did we give them a hearing when they came in? Well, the law requires that every single person who is going to be deported gets a hearing first. Do you acknowledge that? I'll have to ask the lawyers about that. All I can say is this, if you're going to have 21 million people, and if we have to get a lot of them out of $21 million?

The law is the law and you're sworn to uphold it. The law doesn't say anything about trials. No, not trials. Hearings. These people came in. They're not citizens. They came in illegally. They came into a country illegally.

We have to get them out. There's a legal process for that. I can't be sure. And we follow the legal process. I can't have a trial, a major trial. Every person that came in illegally. We have thousands of murderers that came in. We have to get them out.

They're bad guys. They're bad guys. But in our country, even. Even bad guys get due process, right? If people come into our country illegally, there's a different standard. These are illegal. They came in illegally. But they get due process.

Well, they get a process where we have to get them out. Trump was right with every word. Yeah. Terry Moran was in the wrong. I don't know whether he's a lawyer or not. I am. I practiced law for 10 years and covered the Supreme Court for three. It is not true that everybody gets a hearing.

It is not the law. Just Google. Go ahead and take it. my word of Google expedited removal. To me, it's not even necessarily a legal issue. It becomes a little bit, for me, a human issue in the sense of, I get it. They came in the country illegally. But that's our fault. That's our fault to a degree for not having the right setup. And if I'm having a horrible life somewhere else and I know I can get into this country and it's like, well, the guys before me, they were wrong. Like they set this.

up and you didn't get in fairly. And you've been living a very productive life here and you've made the most of it to append it and send. And I'm not saying that's what we're going through. That just goes back to my, you better be right. And I'm not saying that's the legal. Like we, Trump may have every legal argument to be like, sorry, you're gone. But reversing time to be like, well, you shouldn't have gotten in here.

And even though you came for the right reasons, the American dream and all this. stuff. Now you're gone because the last guy shouldn't. That's where I get. So you're just got to be right. And I don't know how to do it because he's right. The trials, the time, all of it. And it's just a moral issue that I wrestle with a little bit. I hear you. I'm definitely further to the right than you are on it, but I totally get your point. I'll also say that this is another reason why Trump is using the Alien Enemies Act because under the Alien Enemies Act, the amount of due process one would get before being ejected is down to its most minuscule level. And even the Supreme Court intimated that. The first

first time it looked at this saying some level of due process. They, they clearly understand it's not going to be as robust as the ACLU wants it to be. And even full circle to the original, the guy, the gang guy who got El Salvador, hearing how I feel, you just heard and you're like, well, I'm more right than you are. The way they've treated that guy has once again pushed me right. It's like, that's who I want out of the country. And if you're going to fight that, well, like, you're losing somebody who theoretically get is more maybe center almost leftish but i want those people out of the country so to for the democrats to again make a circus and just political this what are you doing going to meet with this guy like yeah that's what drives me crazy and yet you didn't

go and meet with the family of rachel morin who was killed in your state and they're not standing by a different illegal you didn't here is uh stephen miller took to the white house podium uh yesterday and spoke about the Jocelyn Nungari case, which I met to the 12-year-old girl in Texas and just ripped it. Watch. Most of your papers never covered her story when it happened. To the extent that you covered it at all, it was because President Trump forced you to cover it

by highlighting it repeatedly over and over again. He had to shame you into covering it. And each and every one of you that sides over and over again with these MS-13 terrorists, to the extent that you have the financial means to do so, you all choose to live. in condos or homes or houses as far away from these kinds of gangbangers as you possibly can. If I offered any one of you a rent-free home with no taxes to pay in any of these gang neighborhoods,

and I said your neighbors are MS-13 terrorists or Mexican mafia or Sinolawa cartel or train to Aragua, I couldn't pay you to live there. But yet you, with your coverage, are trying to force innocent Americans to have these people as their neighbors and that one day their daughter may be abducted from their home and raped and murdered. So you're not going to get an ounce of sympathy from this administration or President Trump for the terrorists who've invaded our homes in our country. He's so good. Yeah, I mean, it's a fair point. That's soften you at all?

I'm so with him on that. No, well, that goes back to when I said. If you said they're your neighbor, there's a lot, there's a lot of hypocritical. It's easy when you're sitting in your white ivory tower to say, you know, your idealistic world of way you want the world to exist. But when the rubber meets the road, they would probably privately say a lot of different things or do different things. Rachel Moran's mom was talking about how she went for a jog on a trail that they always walk together.

It wasn't like some risky trail. It wasn't the dark of night. It was during the day. They'd done it a thousand times together as a family. It's like our way of life is actively being changed, corrupted, ruined. And her mom's life is changed forever, right? By these people. And so it's like, I have to tell you, I have like zero empathy.

And I'm sorry that the ones who came, even though it was illegal and didn't hurt anybody, but like actually tried to like blend in and get jobs have got to go too, but they do. I think they all have got to go. And then if they go, Trump said, if you go now, you could come back in. But if you just, if you stay and then we find out that you overstayed, you're never coming back into the country. And then you're in serious trouble. Okay, I got to take a quick break. Be right back. Dave's with us for the whole show.

When zero gravity resulted in zero clue. Have you been? Have you been? Three women were brave enough to answer the call. Tomorrow, special coverage of the launch of blonde origin. Tomorrow on the Megan Kelly show. How far will we go for a truck? Tomorrow. Don't forget, tomorrow's the big day

where we will show you the world premiere of our film, now that we've been, with special guest stars who you will know very well and will thoroughly enjoy. Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show, everyone. Here with me today, Dave Portnoy, president and founder of barstool sports, otherwise known as El Presidete.

Katie Perry, among others, receiving major backlash. not for taking the flight, but for how they behaved afterward, like they actually were Alan Shepard and Neil Armstrong. And so she's come out to say she's feeling battered and bruised by the backlash via variety, that the internet is a dumping ground for unhinged and unheeled people. But she has resolved, Dave, to keep looking to the light because she doesn't want to be further damaged by these unheeled people.

She's right. The internet is filled with unhinged lunatics. But when you do this little outer space mission, that can happen. And I'm not going to lose my sleep worrying about Katie Perry's feelings. But she is right. It's filled with unhaged lunatics. It is. But those are not the ones who are attacking her.

No, I'm sure she's getting at all sides. And I'm not getting like, what are you going to do? To me, it's just so it's just right on brand to go up there and act like you're Alan Sheppard. And then when people are like, would you calm down? You took a vanity flight to, Outer space, thanks to Jeff Bezos, that costs a million dollars a seat. And stop saying, Gail King, have you been?

Literally, no one's been. It costs a million dollars. Shut up. And then when people have that reaction to you to act like, I will not be bruised by you broken people, I will go toward the, just stop talking. Just stop. But somebody like that is so out of touch with, like, reality because they've been a star and big. I feel like if you get a celebrity like that, what, one or two is going to have any ground in any reality?

They're living in like a fantasy world. So nothing is real. I'm actually surprised the internet can actually get to them. I didn't know what are they on X checking like comments. That surprised me a little bit. Almost certainly. Yeah. So that is a little surprising.

But yeah, you get to a level of coddled superstar status where you just lose track of reality. We have some news. We have some news on Megan Markle, which we'll get to in just a bit. We'll do some force with you too. But before we leave hard news, because, yeah, Katie Perry's hard news. But I forgot to mention this. thing about Pete Hegseth. So there's been a lot of speculation that he's going to go. Mike Wals, for those just joining us, is reportedly out as National Security Advisor,

along with his top deputy, Alex Wong, a man who's been underneath him there since he was sworn in, and some others too. You heard Mark Halpern reporting that it's going to be a lot of the staff, that there's reportedly disarray over there. We don't know what the full story is, but we will. So the speculation about whether Pete Hegseth is going to be forced out as Secretary of Defense. and I wanted to say this. So I love Mark Halpern, and he's been doing great in his new podcast. But he reported yesterday on Hegset, and there was a bit of information in there involving yours truly, and I want to speak to it.

So watch this. Pete Hegeseth, okay? The stories about him, there's still some ambiguity about the facts. But people in MAGA pretend there's not a problem. And he's done a very good job of playing by the rules that the president expects of being aggressive. what I can report here today is that his standing in the administration is not as solid as some people believe. And as the president and the White House press secretary have tried to signal.

There are people at the senior most levels of this administration, not counting the president necessarily, but the senior most levels under him who believe that the next time Pete Hegseth makes a mistake or is exposed to have made a mistake, he needs to go. And there are already plans underway to figure that out. Now, what are the public clues to that? Because MAGA has been pretty supportive of Pete Hegsett. Two people who are part of the very strong outside support group of the president, Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly here at the Megan Kelly Network, they've both now done interviews with the advisors who were forced out of their Pentagon jobs and who both have said things about Pete Hegsett that are not fully supportive. They like him. They're close to him. But they both have been. made it clear that they see real problems in his governance and his stewardship at the Pentagon.

That's a clue. And I keep being pointed to that clue by folks to say, if two allies of the president and two people very close to Pete Hagseth, Megan and Tucker, are doing these interviews, something is afoot. Okay. Fair enough. I understand why people are making that calculation. Are you in that category? You're a very public strong. Are you like? Yeah. I'm a friend of Pete's and I supported his nomination and thought what they were trying to do to him. And Trump's. Yeah. Trump too, totally. But I just want to say, in my case, I can't speak for Tucker, but that's not true. Like I, in no way put on Colin Carroll, one of the fired, accused leakers, he denies being one completely, in an effort to undermine Pete or get rid of Pete or because my Amaga connections

or sensitivities are telling me Pete's teetering and I'm trying to push him over the edge. Totally not the case at all. I'm just a newsperson. And they actually came to me and asked me if they could come on. Originally it was all three of them. And then two of them got tapped on the shoulder by their lawyers, which I understand. But Colin was like, I'm doing it. So I'm fine, great.

I mean, I'll interview Pete. I'll interview the guy Pete fired. I'll interview pretty much anybody you want to put in front of me unless I have a personal loathing for them. So just to make it clear that no one should be reading anything into what I know or what I want based on the fact that I interviewed. That I was a pretty big 180. They just publicly, like, last week, weren't they like it's all,

there's no, all the room. are false and he's in great standing. Yeah. Well, and even Trump, in that Terry Moran interview, he spoke to what, well, you tell me what you think of how he answered the question on Pete. You've got it, Deb. We'll watch it here. You said the other day that you had a talk with the secretary.

Did you take him to the woodshed? I had to talk with him. And whatever I said, I probably wouldn't be inclined to tell you. But we had a good talk. He's a talented guy. He's young. He's smart, highly educated, and I think he's going to be a very good defense, hopefully a great defense secretary, but he'll be a very good defense secretary.

You have 100% confidence in PX? I don't have 100% confidence in anything, okay? Anything. Do I have 100%? It's a stupid question. Look, it's pretty important position. No, no, no. You don't have 100%.

Only a liar would say I have 100% confidence. I don't have 100% confidence that we're going to finish. this interview. That to me was, by the way, that's why people like Trump the way he answered that. But he definitely took him to the woodshed. He definitely took him to the woodshed and probably said if you embarrassed me or the administration on a major level one more time, you're gone. I don't want to.

I think he likes him and does not want to get rid of him. But he's clear like you're out of your strike two has happened. I think that would be the vibe of the conversation. I think that's fair. Yeah, that's fair. And that's a fair way, by the way, to talk to somebody. Yeah. I've had to fire people at Barstall who I like.

But if you're just dumb and you keep screwing up, I'm not going to lose sleep over your incompetence as much as I want to keep you. I'm not saying that's Pete, but I'm saying as a leader. At some point, it doesn't matter your personal feelings. If you keep screwing up, you got to go. What will get you fired at Barstall? You really have to. You really have to be super, super dumb. very few things

like we recently teetered there was a big news story like there was a vicious rumor of old miss like co-ed slept with her her boyfriend's dad went crazy viral crazy viral we had an idiot

who talked about it as though it was fact I knew it wasn't fact right away I actually thought we were keeping it off but we posted it for seven minutes gets us in all sorts of trouble this kid's a moron shut out Nikki smokes no redeemable value really to us. But I do like him and he tries hard.

He's just dumb. That almost got him fired. Oh, my gosh. He's working for you and you're talking about it like this. Well, that's the truth. This is somebody who you stayed, who you kept. Yeah, he works for us. No, it's good to be benevolent on a big mistake, though,

because if you can be, he'll never do something like that again. Well, unless you're so stupid that you can't prevent it despite your best. Right, right. Like, we're not hiring the Secretary of Defense. These are where, we're, where Barstles, sports. We're blogging talking sports. So sometimes, you know, intelligence isn't necessarily the top requirement for us. It's being entertaining. I got it. Fair enough. Well, it's a world that's very foreign to me, very foreign to me. So you're going to have to walk me through our next two

segments here. We got to talk about Bill Belichick. You ripped them. Okay. I mean, I thought it was elder abuse. I like, honestly, what I saw there was Dr. Jill. I had Dr. Jill vibes, this overly aggressive younger partner who's in this like apparently he looked infirm to me the way he was answering those questions like man who's being a take advantage of and all I could think was his family needs to do an intervention

and get this woman off of his back but can you set the stage for us on like what what's happening with this guy I'll start by saying I am a diehard New England Patriots fan yeah you're from Boston die hard I love Bill Belichick he's like my guy has brought so many championships I know him personally he lives on

Nantucket I live on Nantucketucket I've met Jordan. So it's a very awkward thing to see. I also watch that show, CBS Sunday morning with the interview. It's like my feel good show. I just like it. I like nature. There's some politics, whatever. But for the most part, that is a drink your coffee, eat your bagel, feel good show. So I was not expecting this interview. I was squirming. I don't know what to expect. I don't know what to think about it. It certainly was awkward. I've heard people say, you know, is she taking advantage of him? Well, he's taking advantage of her. He's sleeping with a very attractive young girl, 50 years younger. I don't know why she's so involved. Like, I really don't. I've met her.

She's nice enough. She's running the whole show. I've known that a couple months ago. How so? Like, she, every, every piece of Bill Belichick business goes through her. Like she is basically, she would act. Like if that was maybe not in a romantic relationship, and that's his PR manager. Or like an agent. Yeah, nobody's blinking at that. Like that happens, I'm sure, a lot with celebrities.

We're not going to talk about it. Now, you combine it with Bill Belichick, who's gruff with the media and generally always handles himself. It's just a very awkward situation. The age gap is huge, clearly, but she runs the show. There's rumors, hard knocks for HBO was supposed to do. North Carolina. She shut that down. That's where he's the coach now.

Yeah, he's the coach there. So it's just a, it's such a juxtaposition of a guy who seemingly had no media savvy, but was always just straightforward, no time for the media now having his life run by a 25-year-old. It certainly is eye-opening for a guy like me. I also know I'm going to run into probably them in Newtuck in, not only me carrying my watermelon out of stop and shop, and I don't want it to be an awkward conversation. She's playing it all on me.

Yeah. But it went super viral. I mean, it's all anybody's talking about. It's all, because it's just such a departure from how a sports fan, Patriot fan, everybody thought of Bill Belichick. So explain that to me because we watch the, I come into this like at a left field.

I know who he is, of course, even I know who Bill Belichette is. It's greatest coach of all time. But I don't follow his, you know, I didn't know about the girlfriend and all that. to me he looked out of it like he seemed confused but i've never ever seen him give an interview yeah so i've seen a lot of people yeah he's wearing a holy sweatshirt that's what he does like that that is his look does he talk like that like does he look confused generally he generally if he doesn't want to answer a question he grumbles and he says i'm not going to answer that he's famous for not answering questions he's never media savvy him going on a book tour which is what he was

doing seems like the last thing he would ever do in a million years. If she wasn't there, I would anticipate him just being like, I'm not going to answer it. He's rarely conducting interviews that he has no interest. And he just doesn't care for the media or what they think. The thing that he said that was the most accurate is probably like, I don't care what people think about me. And clearly he doesn't. But I've never seen him defer to anybody.

Like that is the most shocking. you know, like, if someone else is speaking for him, that never happens. He speaks for himself loudly through his actions clearly and is always like a general in the commander of the room, really. So to see him basically give what appears to be control of his life to her is shocking. Most the audience is probably seen the clip by now, but just in case they haven't, let's play it for them. Let's play the one where she interrupts.

This is Bill Belichick on CBS this morning with anchor Tony Docapul and his. his 24-year-old girlfriend, who's 49 years younger than he is, interrupting the interview. Watch. The other change for Belichick is 24-year-old Jordan Hudson, his creative muse, as he writes in his book. Jordan was a constant presence during our interview. You have Jordan right over there. Everybody in the world seems to be following this relationship.

They've got an opinion about your private life. It's got nothing to do with them, but they're invested in it. How do you deal with that? Never been too worried about what everybody else thinks. Just try to do what I feel like is best for me and what's right. How did you guys meet? That's the truth. I'm not talking about this.

No? No. It's a topic neither one of them is comfortable commenting on. Okay, so now she's how did you meet? And she interjects, not commenting about this. And there are reports that she actually interjected multiple times. CBS only chose to show the one just to give the audience a true sense of how this thing went down. And it's about the book. And to CBS's defense, that quote that he, she is the muse is in the book.

It's in the book. Yeah, exactly. So now this fight started unfolding online. This is via the Daily Mail involving Belichick's daughter-in-law. She's married to his son. And her name is Jennifer. She's married to his son, Steve Belichick. Some people were defending. Jordan, the girlfriend. For example, somebody posted, oh, former New England Patriot star Julian Edelman. Saw that. You know him. Yep. Stuck up for her saying she was merely acting how any PR person would. Comedian Nikki Glazer also defended Hudson saying 100%. She's acting as his publicist. Publicists do this during interviews. People are out for blood. And first of all, I'll tell you what Jennifer, the daughter-in-law said, but I have done countless interviews. countless I've both given as the subject of them and done, conducted, literally has this, never. I've never seen this happen. Never. The PR people will come to you before the interview and they will beg you not to cover this. Or ask after for it to be cut. Yes, exactly. That's their job.

As a journalist and Tony Docapul is a journalist, you would say, thank you for your input. That's it. You would never make a promise ever. It's literally considered unethical to say, I won't ask about that. At most I've ever heard somebody say is, we can't make you any promises, but we're not that interested in that subject, like a wink in and out. But never, never has a PR person ever

interjected into an interviewer. It's very unusual. We get people asking, if someone doesn't want to talk about it, we generally want, because people generally want to talk about what you are asking not to talk about, so we won't do it.

It's strange. I don't agree with that. It was strange. It's different rules. If it's like a host, you know what I mean? If you're sitting to somebody doesn't consider themselves a journalist. Very different.

And by the way, this is how talk shows get away with it all the time. I've been asked to go on a bunch of talk shows, including Tamron Halls, like five years ago. And her executive producer said, we'll give you all the questions in advance. I'm like, I'm not doing that. I felt like I don't want that. Yeah, right. So she got away with it because they consider that a talk show, but she's not, I guess, calling herself a journalist anymore, at least wasn't for that show.

Okay. So then Jennifer, Belichick's daughter-in-law, weighs in, and says publicists act in a professional matter and do not storm on storm off set delaying an interview yeah so i know them too this is like uh and that probably tells you everything you need to know about how the family and that's natural there's a story that came out in the new york post i think yesterday that she accumulated like 10 million dollars of real estate very quickly so i'm sure the family based on that quote is a little like what is going on here and it's just this is a guy that is not a pushover he has built his reputation on being like a gruff kind of guy who needs everything particular and

detail oriented. It's just very strange to see. He's the guy Tim Walsh was trying to convince us. He was. No jazz hands. Yeah. Football. I don't even know if even he was the guy. Man. Yeah, he was trying to, I think, be more like a gronk guy, but who knows? Well, there's more. So he, you know about this because I say you commented on it. So Bill Belichick posted a statement on the UNC, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill is where he coaches, right, Chapel Hill? And he wrote as follows. I agreed to speak with CBS Sunday morning to promote my new book, The Art of Winning. Prior to the interview, I clearly communicated with my publicist. So he's not even saying he told Tony Docapul or the CBS publicist. I clearly communicated with my publicist at Simon & Schuster that any promotional interviews I participated in would agree to focus solely on the contents of the book.

unfortunately that expectation was not honored during the interview. I was surprised when unrelated topics were introduced, and I repeated the express to the reporter, Tony Docapul, and the producers that I preferred to keep the conversation centered on the book. After this occurred several times, Jordan, with whom I share both the personal and professional relationship, stepped in to reiterate that point and help refocus the discussion. She was not deflecting any specific question or topic, I'm sorry, Bill, but she was, but was simply doing her job to ensure the interview stayed on track.

Some of the clips made it appear as though we were avoiding the question of how we met, what we've been open about the fact that Jordan I met on a flight to Palm Beach in 2021 and goes on for them saying these are just selectively edited clips suggested a false narrative that Jordan was attempting to control the conversation, which is simply not true. Yeah, I'm like white knuckle in the table. In my years following Bill Belichick, I would say my knowledge of him,

there's roughly zero percent chance he wrote that. But he just doesn't care generally what anyone thinks about him. So to go write that, that my guess would be Jordan wrote that the fact it is on the North Carolina website is insane. Right. It's just insane. It's shocking. Again, it's, I'm speaking to all Patriot fans, Boston people, this guy, like, if you could have predicted this, people who say you're living in a bizarre world. It's just so strange in this long email crazy, the public statement, crazy.

But I'm not even sure he knows that was written. You're right. Like, he may not. He may not. I really don't know. So the Daily Mail had a comprehensive piece, and they cited the New York Post as reporting, even before this past weekend's interview, Belichick's friends shaking their heads about his relationship with Jordan.

Quote, they're talking to him about her, but very gently because they know how deep in it he is. she saw an opening and she took it and insider added of how she has inserted herself into every aspect of his life and career consensus among people around Belichick another sort of said is that this relationship is alarming and Hudson is a runaway train however they include one person

defending them saying when it comes to the situation it is just a moment in time he and Jordan are fine nobody should be concerned at this point but then they also say multiple reports say UNC is growing uneasy with her involvement in everything

Yeah, so there's an adage in sports, winning, cures everything. If North Carolina wins, people are going to forget this. Yeah. And North Carolina will be happy and look the other way. If North Carolina has a bad season, it's going to get very rocky. It is not, I don't think, normal for a relatively new relationship with this age gap, with the A, of someone coming in running his entire life and like CBS and hard knocks supposedly got canceled. because of her. It's just shocking. It's just shocking. And there's all being fought in headlines and

rumors and back and forth. And by the way, to Jordan's credit, she's, if you want to say credit, she's not taking a step backwards. Like every time a story comes out, she's pushing forwards. Like she is, she is not a tame flower. She is not running from this at all. She's running from how they met. That seems clear. And in my opinion, they did not, quote, meet on a plane. See, I think they did because they- No, I think they laid eyes on each other in person for the first time on a plane, but she's so defensive about it, there's something more to the story. I don't know what it was.

Was it only fans? Was it some set up by a matchmaker? I think they're telling the truth. I just think she's in control in her mind. She's like, we said we're not talking about that. We're not talking about it. Because from the second I met them, the story has been told the same to me. She posted

how they met a long time ago. I know. You think that's a front? Well, then she's fouchy to you. She's a criminal. She's like, criminal mastermind. No, I mean, listen, I view her the same way I viewed Anna Nicole Smith. Like, everyone understands what the deal here is. He's an older guy with money and power, which some women find, if not attractive, worthy

of being with. They can upgrade their lifestyle. They're going to travel the world. And the old guy gets some young, beautiful woman on his arm and probably a lot of hot sex he otherwise wouldn't be having. Yeah. I mean, could he not? Could he not just get hookers if he didn't want?

I don't know. I mean, Anna Nicole, I don't remember that. That guy was like on his desk door. He was like 200 years old. Yeah, he couldn't even get up. Belichick is still outside of this seems to be normally functioned. I wouldn't know 24-year-old girl wants a 74-year-old man. I mean, that's not what you're attracted to.

To me, it's an obvious attempt to be with power and money. Look, a lot of women do that. Yeah, maybe she's legitimately attracted to it. I don't know. The whole thing, the whole thing is. Makes you uncomfortable. It's just, it's stunning. Okay, wait.

Before we leave the topic of the Patriots, I remember asking you about this the first time you came out. You were on one other time, a long time. I think we only had audio at the time. Do you hate or love Tom Brady? Love. Love. Okay. Yeah. I may have spoken with you when he went to the box.

Okay. I was mad at him. Maybe that's what happened. Yeah, but he's the greatest of all time. Okay. There's no question in your mind. No question. He's number one.

Yes. And how is he doing as a sports commentator? Bad, awful, not good. Oh, why? He just stinks at it. Wait, what do you mean? I mean, not everybody, he's the greatest quarterback. Not everybody is born to be a great announcer.

I just, I don't find him to be good at announcing football. Now, he's brand new. It's his first year. They gave him a gigantic contract, but he certainly didn't come out of the gates like a natural. Didn't he have all such a training? I'm sure he did for the amount they paid. But again, maybe anybody can eventually become a good announcer. I don't know.

It's not the easiest thing to do. he just didn't come out of the gates. He's almost, to me, too elevated. He's so great, like the way he talks, but no, I didn't think he, he did not come out all guns firing. And again, it's his first year doing it, so maybe there should be some leeway, but they paid him a ton of money. Oh, yeah. I mean, a ton. Almost $400 million, I think. Yeah, it's a big time deal. Okay. Shadur Sanders. Yes. So this is Dion Sanders' son. Yep. Dion Sanders, such a big football star, even I know. that name.

Who did Deon play for? And the pros, he played for the Falcons, Cowboys, and 49ers. Okay. And he is the one. I quoted Deion Sanders before because he had some great quote, which was something to the effect of, if you look good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good. Yep.

Which I love. That's very clever and cute. But his son, who was many expected to go, like, well, you tell me where in the draft? What was the expectation? I think earlier in the season, a lot of people were saying early first round, top 10 pick, and then as they got close to the draft, it started sliding. And you heard maybe end of the first round, second round is probably what people thought going into the draft. Because he's a big college QB. Yes. Okay. And then the draft comes,

and walk us through how that unfolded, because he was like the story that night. Yes. So the draft comes, first round comes and goes. He's not drafted. Not totally shocking. Mel Kuiper, who is the draft guy, expert. He's rant and raving. He should go. And then round two comes nothing. Round three comes nothing. So he slid, I believe, into the fourth round. How many rounds are there? There's

I think six, six or seven, six or seven. Oh, so now he's down on the bottom. Shocking. Shocking. And players who, quarterback's going, who I think anybody would say, well, Shador is better than him, not drafted. And it became the story and it kind of took on a life of its own

with people all over the internet, chiming in, why isn't he getting drafted for various reasons. That was a story. So I love Dion. He used to work for a barstool. He's one of my favorite guys I've ever met. There were innuendos.

It's race. It's this, it's that. To me, it was none of it. It was Shador Sanders and the Sanders are one of the great publicity machines of all time. Like Dion's heavily involved. Dion's saying, hey, I play in the NFL. We're picking what team we're going to.

He's going to be the starter. this, that. So there's a lot that comes, including you could say a circus. When you draft your door, you're putting a tent on the thing. For NFL teams, there's nothing they hate more than distractions. They're like the most, everyone's focus. We don't need the distractions. Having said that, if they think a guy

can help them win, you could be a murderer and they draft you. That's happened. Literally. That's all they care about. But in evaluating, there's a fine line between, is this guy the guy? And can we win was Shador. And is he the franchise? If teams thought that, they would have picked him instantly. None of the other stuff would have mattered. But he was kind of in a weird area where a lot of teams like this isn't, he's not going to be a 10-year star. He's not Tom Brady. And if he's not that,

do we want him fighting for a backup job? Do we want microphones in his face? Because that's a circus, the last thing you want. That's what I believe happens. So if you didn't think he was the starter in a top five pick, do you want him in your locker room creating a circus environment? And he kind of got caught in the middle. And that's when he dropped all the way to Cleveland. Now, if you're Cleveland or any team dropping him fourth, fifth, drafting him fourth, fifth round, and you're like, you know what, enough. We're getting microphones. He's not who we think he is. You just cut him. It's not the end of the world because you didn't waste the top draft pick. If you take them early and it doesn't work, you're stuck with them, really, because you can't waste a draft pick. So I think that's what happened.

the other innuendo around it is garbage to me. Why, why is President Trump involved? He tweeted somebody should take him or what happened there? He must be friends with Dion. I mean, yeah. During the draft, he tweeted. Yeah, when he was slipping, Trump, I mean, Trump loves talking football. You own a football team. He likes jumping in in these discussions. I think sometimes Trump just can't handle like having X in front of him. He's like, how are they not? He's like a fan. He's president, though, so. But I don't think he thought anything. He's like, oh, I'm friends with Dion and I'm going to, I'm going to say he should be drafted. Is it inappropriate?

I like it. Like, do people think he was putting inappropriate pressure on teams as the president? No, I, I kind of like it. It depends what he's doing, but that's, that's Trump. I mean, I thought it's funny. The law tries to make a controversy out of everything Trump does. Okay, but back to this. So Stephen A. Smith was on the show not long ago, and he posted something that I know

you disagreed with, but explain it to me. So he posted, someone just texted me this message and they're absolutely correct, quote, this is a bad look for the NFL. This feels like Kaepernick level collusion. All the hard work the NFL League office puts into eradicate these kinds of perceptions only to turn around and watch as the owners look like they're colluding, messing up everything. What has been done to Shador will outshine everything else in this draft will never believe this is just about talent evaluation again. And that does seem to be a reference to race. I mean, I don't know why you'd bring in Kaepernick and what they're trying to, to me, I don't know why he didn't put the word race. That's what it sounded like racism.

That's why I responded. That's an insane take to me. That's just the owners and the NFL are arguably the most competitive group of like billionaire, successful people. They don't like each other. They want to win. They would never collude. They never collude. If they thought Chador could get them a Super Bowl, they would do whatever.

So to me, that just an absolutely insane take. It's just when you're drafting guys, not just strictly talent. you're looking at all the things that are surrounding them. Who is the first draft pick this year? It was Cam Ward as a black quarterback. Okay. So it's like, I mean... And then I read that in the last three drafts, including this year, yeah, black quarterback went number one overall.

Yeah. So it's not... It has nothing to do with race at all. Who thinks the NFL is racist? What's that? Who thinks the NFL is racist? When he says the Kaepernick stuff, he's going back to take in knee and there were some teams taking a knee, some not.

I mean, Jerry Jones came out. So he's going back to that. And by the way, there is similarities to me in the Kaepernick situation in which teams just viewed Kaepernick and said he's not good enough to have a circus following. Yeah, yeah. This is a distraction. Yeah. So do you think Dion ultimately hurt his son by being such a big personality who they thought they were going to have to deal with more than they wanted to? And strictly in where he got drafted, like would he have been drafted quicker if Dion, if it was Dion Jones, who was his dad.

absolutely. If you ask Dion and you ask Shador, are you glad Dion's there? 100%. He probably wouldn't be getting drafted at all. He's this huge media. Like, I mean, he's partying. He's getting millions of dollars

and endorsements and all this stuff. So it's a package deal. But if you're just saying, would teams have drafted him without? I mean, Dion, before the draft is like, don't draft my kid if I don't like you because I'm not going to let him sign with you. Oh, wow.

When he's not the first one did that. The Manning's did that. Oh, really? Yeah, Eli Manning, they said to, I believe it's the Colts. So if you draft him, he's not coming. And they didn't draft him. So they bullied their way.

Did one of them go to the Colts? No. One went to Denver. Giants. It was Eli went to the Giants instead of the Colts. The Colts had the first pick up. Did a Manning play for Denver? Yes, at the end of his career.

When he had no, he had no army. All right, but I did it. You were right. No. A Manning played for the Colts. Peyton played his entire character. You were right. Was it the Colts?

I don't know. Whoever, I forget now that you say it, because Peyton played for the Colts. wherever Eli, whoever had the first pick, maybe it was San Diego. Oh, wait, they're telling me Peyton played for the Colts.

Peyton played for the Colts. Somebody had the first pick when Eli came out and Archie Manning, who played in the league, did what Dion essentially did without as much pomp and circumstance that if you draft him,

he's not going. And they didn't draft him. And John Elway has done it. So it's not, Dion's just was much more loud in this era of endorsements and stuff. It's the circus. And if you don't think he's great,

I probably won't want him on my team either, Because I don't want that to be the focus of what everyone's talking about. Well, now we'll see, right? Yeah. Now the rubber will meet the road. I think he's going to be great. So we'll see. Are the Browns any good?

My friend's a diehard Browns fan. He's always complaining about how bad they are. Worst franchise, arguably, in sports. Oh, gosh. So he's not going to be happy about this. Well, who knows he could be the guy. Maybe he's the future. But they have the weirdest QB room.

I'm getting deep. But they have Deshawn Watson, the guy who had like 9,000 illegal massages. Oh, they paid him a ton of money. They drafted another quarterback before. They have a wild QB room, wild. Very Cleveland. I don't know. That's fascinating.

That's more for your next appearance. QB room with multiple massages. Okay. Very different from our job. Stand by. More with Dave right after this. We've covered ground that's more in my wheelhouse. And we've covered ground that's more in Dave's wheelhouse.

And we finish on a note of solidarity that we both have strong feelings on. And that is Megan Markle. Yeah. So she has done the world premiere episode of actually being on someone else's podcast. And the someone else is the is, her name is Jamie Kern Lima. Now, I have actually interviewed this person, but I didn't realize I'd interviewed this person because she founded IT cosmetics, which I remember interviewing her at NBC. I think it's the same lady. I could be wrong.

She looks a little different. But anyway, she was a news anchor. And she realized that you have a need for like cosmetics that are a little bit thicker because of the cleeglites and all that. And her brand became a billion dollar brand and she sold it to Loria. offer $1.2 billion in 2016. All for news anchor eight? Yeah. Makeup?

Yeah. No one offered me makeup at all here. It's good stuff. We sold you down the river. So she now has a podcast and is also apparently friends with Megan. And in the world premiere of podcast, Megan, Duchess of Sussex, she pulled out all the stops. Here is the intro of the episode. Look at this.

Megan, Duchess of Sussex, in her first ever. podcast interview. It's happening. It's not about the grandeur of a gesture. It's about I see you. I'm nurturing you and I see you so deeply and I love being able to see your growth. Of all things, it's making emotional. I have full body chills right now.

For them to be able to look back and go, oh my gosh, she just loved us so much. She's an American member of the British Whale family, an entrepreneur, author, actor, founder of the lifestyle brand as ever that just sold out of stock completely in the first hour of its recent launch into the world. She's also a mom to her two beautiful kids, Prince Archie and Princess Lillibet and wife to husband, Prince Harry Duke of Sussex. Oh my God. Why don't you like her? I just threw up a little in my mouth. What?

Let me count the ways. There's nothing I like about her. Do you know her? No, but she is a malignant narcissist who cannot get enough of herself while she simultaneously plays the victim. My castle's too small. The queen is mean to me. They won't let me call myself her royal highness anymore, but I put it all over my stationary and on the gifts that I give to my friends while she never stops whining.

And at the same time, I'm getting all worked up. I'm a founder. I'm over it. She's not important. She married for money. It's very clear. She bagged the elephant. She was thrilled.

She became a, quote, princess. Well, you can map. It was planned from the beginning. She denied being interested in the royal family, which she totally was. I know someone who knows the ex-husband who said she had a vision board with Prince Harry on it. Before they met? Yes. And she wants to pretend.

That's impressive. You got to admit that is impressive. She nailed it. Yeah. Because a lot of people probably did that. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. With all that self-help talk, he had, he was no match for her. So I

As we unpack like an onion Some of the things I'm interested I actually like the royal family I think it's cool So That's another thing She killed the queen She did kill the queen

I agree with you I can't have someone Marry into the royal family And be like Woe is me Of all these attention or whatever You're getting from being No kidding

It's the royal family I can't believe I'm not getting paid for this all this stuff. And then they, didn't they renounce their royalty, but they still want the royalty? So it is hypocritical to get into that situation and then want nothing to do with it, but you do want anything to do with it. I don't have a strong of feelings as you do for her. I don't care for her. I wouldn't put her in a hate category of mine. I don't like her. I didn't see that interview. But yeah, I'm a royals guy. So I like the royal. I think it's kind of cool, the history, the pageantry, and just come in and kind of blow it up. and then cry, it's like, whoa, whoa, what was me?

And she's a bully. I mean, the reports were uniformly from inside the castle that all the young women in particular who work for her quit in tears. She so wore them down and was so nasty. Then when she started her own company, similar reports coming out from Montecito about how knowing can work for her.

She's a nightmare behind the scenes. And not toward the betterment of her staff, just because she's an insecure person who takes it out on other people. What was up with the no makeup? That had to be an intentional move. That's another thing. Maureen was saying this on her, Maureen Callahan has a new podcast.

We're part of our network. With the makeup lady. Yeah, and exactly right. And it's bullshit. So first of all, she had the hair blown out. It was perfect. I do not believe that she was makeup free there. She didn't have eye makeup on, which is a different thing.

But that's her being relatable, Dave. Yeah, right. The intentional relatable. Yeah. So here she is talking about the joy. Is she on like your top 10 hate list? Oh, yeah. She's top five.

All right. The joy of working hard. I'm sure she's really toiling. away. Take a listen. But to the world, it's just what has she been doing? Does she work? As opposed to, oh my gosh, I work so hard. And I appreciate what hard work looks like. I like working hard. And I'm still working hard, right? The moment that everything sells out, it doesn't mean that we're done. It means we're working on replenishment and what are the next skews and what's the next tranche of products and what's the timing on that and writing the newsletters and writing the social media captions and making

sure that all that feels in line and what's the cadence of it and what's the photography that we want to do and what do I want to wear for those shoots while also editing all the time-coded notes for season two of the other lady and then being an edits for the podcast and making a smile and being a mom and a wife and a friend those are all jobs I mean I love being that busy but I do think it's really interesting when people have no sense of what goes into the thing yeah and then when the thing seems like it's like you're like two ferns almost the way she's hosting it the thing's not done right the finish line was really the starting line okay we get it yes go that that that that would infuriate me like as someone who's trying to start a business struggling because like you can't fail like you're you're if you're selling i don't know what she's selling candles i don't know what she's selling jam like you're in the royal family so to this head start that you have and then complain about working hard It's like you're in the royal family. So to complain about, oh, the business.

You don't have to, if you don't want to show up, if you don't want to do the schedule, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You're living in a fan, literally like a fantasy tale of, but the other, the host. What's happening with her? If you actually didn't, if people didn't know who was who, I think people would be focusing on the host. The weirdly. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't hate her as much as you, but. It's really, it's like a love to hate situation. I don't have actual hatred for her.

I have that for very few people. It's a small list, but she's not on it. But I just can't stand her. I just think she's such a phony. I love to make fun of her because she continues to give me so much material. She comes across as a phony in that. I've got to show you one more on that. Okay, look, this is a short one.

SOT 29. Look at this ridiculousness. Your close friends and family, so many of them call U.M. and Harry H. Yes. How did that start and tell me about that? Probably at the beginning of us dating when everything was in code. Code, yeah. People didn't know we were dating for...

Talk about memory lane. So long ago. I mean, it'll be our seven-year wedding anniversary soon. I couldn't tell anyone who I was dating and he was keeping. So I think we were just on a letter basis. Yeah. And then it stuck. It stuck.

It stuck. It was their code. Their super stealthy code. M and H. Like when I call Doug, bug. It's ridiculous. That's like choosing your alias as a famous person.

And it's John Smith. Will that podcast have like crazy numbers because she's on it? Like does she move the needle like that? I have no idea. But if it does, it's going to be at least two-thirds hate listeners like me. Yeah. I mean, I actually, again, I think it'll be over.

shadow by the interviewer who is looks like on outer outer space yes and so bizarre with a weird blush and makeup to no makeup so speaking of podcast success do you have any advice for me you you've grown this huge yours is killing it right well i only have two in the mk podcast network so far oh you're getting you're talking adding yeah adding like a network like you know you have a network at barstool yeah so do you well are you focused on news yes news culture you know everything related to news. Yeah, I don't know. Not sports. So we've always just looked for different things like that, that try to find something, talented people and find things that I haven't seen necessarily before. So like call her daddy, which I'm surprised I don't see the big signs around here. Yeah, you found that.

Yeah. She went on to become extremely. And I hadn't seen anything like that. Like it wasn't my cup of tea, but it was like, oh, this is different. And we've been very successful for that. But it is trying to get out of, I guess, a network sense. It's like, and I'm sure it would be similar with you, if I see something and it catches me for more than a minute or two, it's like, I'm interested in this. That's a good start. We've certainly been wrong a lot.

It's a band label for us, kind of like a band label, sign a bunch of little bands, hopefully one or two hit, and that kind of is the model. And how long do you wait until you, you know, cut bait or declare them as success? We sign them for contracts. So it's generally like two to three years. So like a band label. not different from Van Label once they become successful, they're very difficult to deal with.

Like then they want the money. They see what's going on. And so the talent business stinks. Yeah. Because once the talent becomes big, they don't need you anymore and they may be under contract. But you got to, they generally, if they, if we can't re-sign them, they leave. And we built a lot of very rich superstars in this digital age from Alex Cooper, Pat McAfee. A lot of people make a lot of money. and then we just got to refill the pipeline and find the next and it never ends and that sucks. I feel like, you know, I have good people. I have faith in them. We have a good relationship, but famous last words, I take your point.

So, I mean, your company now is huge, right? I read that in like 2002 you were filing for bankruptcy, and now you're talking about the Trump terrorist costing you like $20 million. That's just what it cost you. Yeah. So you're obviously hugely successful. Yeah, we've done well. Has that changed?

That bankruptcy thing, by the way, this was a New York Times hit piece. I did, but it was like my dad told me in college, and I hate the New York Times. Anyhow, that wasn't a business thing. So, yeah, we sold Barstool in 2016, 15% of it for about $12 million was the valuation. Then we sold it again for $600 million was the valuation. And then I got it back for a dollar. So now I have the whole thing again. That was so crazy.

Yeah. So it's been a wild ride. So what, like, now that you have all this money, do you live differently? Are you different? I don't think I'm different. and I certainly live differently, things that I've always been interested in, like horse racing, Kentucky Derby's this weekend.

I love horses, love. So I would go to the track growing up, and now instead of being, you know, in the bleacher section or with the riffraff bet in two bucks, I can afford to own the horses. So things like that have changed, but it's still my core interest. I don't think I've changed.

I guess you'd, I mean, a positive thing about Barstool, a lot of the people who started with me are still there. So, you know, I, that's- your rider dies. Yeah, a rider dies. Or we just treat our employees like well. And I don't think anybody would ever say about me. They may be like he's a jerk or he's blunt,

but nobody would be like he's dishonest. I'm pretty straight in all my dealings with people. And that's helped get us. I mean, we've been around now over 20 years, so that's helped. Well, I find it entertaining. I go over there, not really for sports, but when commentary comes into the news world. Political.

I love it. It's a cheat code. You go viral. I mean, I try not to because whatever you get, in politics, people, and both the right and left. If I, like, I criticized Trump the other day because his line about the stock market is not

his stock. It is. Like, you have affected the stock market because of tariffs. End of story. It's, it, you can't say it's not. Like, you can't blame that on Biden. It's yours. By the tariffs, it's yours. And if I say that, suddenly all the people

like me on the right hate me. They're like, oh, yeah, but it's like, I have to call out how I see it. You're saying how you actually feel, which is, that's That's the name of this game. Right. That's for sure. By the way, my team tells me that this YouTube show for this Jamie lady, this squeaky-voiced makeup lady, is there at 251,000 views after three days, which is terrible. Yeah.

For her. For having the Duchess success. That's... I thought you're going to say like 250 million. No. Or like at least 2.5 million? No one has any interest in actually hearing her talk about how hard her life is or how hard she's working or her secret code for H. H&M, whomever could they mean?

Who's going to crack this? It literally looked like a spoof, like an SNL spoof. Dave Portnoy, great to have you. Thanks for being here. Yeah, hope we see you again. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.