The Megyn Kelly Show - Maureen Callahan on Michelle Obama, Mark Halperin on Future of the Dems, Link Lauren with Zachary Levi: MK Media Highlights

Episode Date: June 14, 2025

Megyn Kelly introduces some highlights from the week of MK Media, featuring Maureen Callahan on Michelle Obama, Mark Halperin on the future of the Dems, and Link Lauren's interview with actor Zachary Levi.Subscribe to The Nerve with Maureen Callahan: https://thenerveshow.com/Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nerve-with-maureen-callahan/id1808684702Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4kR07GQGQAJaMNtLc9Cg2oSubscribe to Next Up with Mark Halperin: https://nextuphalperin.com/Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-up-with-mark-halperin/id1810218232Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2f0n8G4xqUo8aGxbbbtRjHSubscribe to Spot On with Link Lauren: https://spotonwithlink.com/Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spot-on-with-link-lauren/id1812663737Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2RPHR4jKTJqkruxJjn6kzn Riverbend Ranch: Visit https://riverbendranch.com/ | Use promo code MEGYN for $20 off your first order.Birch Gold: Text MK to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold  

Hey everyone, it's me, Megan Kelley. I would love to bring you some of the highlights from the MK Media Shows this week with Maureen Callahan, Mark Halperin, and Link Lauren. And we're soon to have another, just a little exciting tease. Enjoy these three, and we will see you soon. Father's Day is coming up.

Let's celebrate all the great fathers out there who have had such a positive influence on our kids and our nation. You wanna celebrate a special dad? How about brightening his day by giving him a gift of Riverbend Ranch steaks? Yes, anybody would love to receive this. Riverbend Ranch has been recognized by the team at Certified Angus Beef as having some of the finest quality black Angus beef in America. The difference in quality and flavor is not by accident. For the last 35 years, the Riverbend Ranch has been raising black Angus cattle with a focus on flavor and tenderness, carefully sorting the genetics to produce the absolute best quality beef.

And they raise their beef the old-fashioned way, without artificial growth hormones and without antibiotics. Riverbend Ranch is all about quality. Last year, the engineering news record named the River Ben Ranch beef processing facility as the best manufacturing facility built in the U.S. in 2024. Exceptional American beef grown and processed in America for a very special Father's Day order directly from riverbenranch.com. This is a great gift. Your dad will not be expecting this. This is like, what do you normally get him, a tie? This is a really cool one that he's really going to enjoy. And so are you. Riverbendranch.com. Use promo code Megan to get 20 bucks off your first order. Riverbendranch.com, promo code M-E-G-Y-N. Michelle Obama, before we get into this soundbite, which I just want to play because it's hilarious.

There's an email from a troublemaker. I don't know if you want to be named, so you'll recognize yourself. I think I figured out the Michelle Obama thing. This marriage is on the rocks and she is panicking. As much as she kvatches about the years in office and how she hated the hoopla, which we all know she loved it. I think she loved it. So does this troublemaker. I think she loved the adoration. She bangs on about her annoying husband because she is well aware that it is he who is beloved. Bang on, troublemaker. And without him, she's only famous for him. I think the pod, the book, the interviews are all to stake her claim before they part ways. You know, as the alpha in their relationship, she cannot stand that he is the favorite. And with every

flop of hers, that injustice cuts a little deeper. I love it. I think you're right. Okay. Let's listen to this piece of hilarity. So I'm at this stage in life where I have to define my life on my terms for the first time. So what are those terms? And going to therapy just to work all that out, like what happened that eight years that we were in the White House? What did that do to me internally? My soul, we made it through. We got out alive. I hope we made the country proud. My girls, thank God, are whole. But what happened to me? Right. Right. Right. And going through therapy, you know, is getting me to look at the fact that, yeah, maybe, maybe finally I'm good enough.

Oh my God, you guys, we made it out alive. You made it out to really fat deals with major book publishers. You and your husband got a $60 million joint book deal. Then you took yourselves over to Netflix where you got like another reported $120 million to produce films and docs that nobody watches. And now you're doing a podcast where you're bitching and moaning in this economy. And you were one of the most revered first ladies. This country gave you a tongue bath. You were the best first lady since Jackie Onassis, maybe better, which again, like nobody can touch my Jackie.

Sorry. But I just, she cannot stop herself. She cannot stop herself. And this monument that she has built to herself in the form of this coffee table book, which is out in November, I cannot wait to go through it with all of you. Okay. She, she's again, remember she's awesome, but she's miserable. You know? So that's a, that's a,

that's a, that's a real intellect at work because those things don't track. Okay. Now, Greta Thunberg, who, as we discussed on the mini was on a slow boat to Gaza wearing shorts and a v-neck short sleeve tee. I don't think she's familiarized herself with Hamas, you guys. I don't think she's familiarized herself with Hamas. Anyway, Israel said, don't do it because we're going to cut you off. We're going to block you from entering. And that's what happened. And then so Greta, again, another professional victim. The people who love being victims are so,

I find them equally fascinating and just like one dimensional. But they're always coming up with new ways to be victim. Anyway, okay. So then on social media, yesterday morning, this was one of the first reels I saw. Greta missed her calling. She should have gone to Rada or Juilliard. She could have maybe been a great, like, you know who she would have been great to play? Do you know the story of the,

it was recently a TV movie with, I think, Ellen Pompeo, who was treating it like it was one of the great acting challenges of her life. It was that adaptation of the story. I think this woman was named Natasha. And she's like the Ukrainian, I mean this medically, this term medically like a dwarf. And every family that adopted her came to suspect that she was actually like a grown woman who was running this epic con and was maybe quite seriously dangerous. And I'll never forget in the promos for this thing, Ellen Pompeo's like she was having like one of the Duplass brothers was in it or something. And the Duplass brothers elude me, but I digress. She's having a fight with her husband who refuses to believe that Natasha

is anything other but a small child. And she's like, no, this is like a really dangerous dwarf. And Ellen Pompeo whispers the unforgettable line of dialogue. She has adult teeth. Okay. She has adult teeth. You can't fight science. Okay. but anyway, so Greta could have done that role. I think she could have done justice to that role. But anyway, instead, she'd rather play an agitator on the world stage. Here was her update after the Israeli forces interrupted her pilgrimage. My name is Greta Thunberg, and I am from Sweden. If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces or forces that support Israel.

I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible. OK, this is not a kidnapping. Again, if only, as I said, Hamas would have lost their minds over this one. This one, this would have been a captive like no other, you know. And trust me, Hamas would not let you, like, blast your shit out to Instagram. Okay. It turns out that the Daily Mail ran these amazing photos of Israeli forces feeding Greta and her cohorts, Sammies and water. Okay. They got sandwiches and water. Now for causing the trouble they're causing, they are reportedly going to make Greta and her little team there, her little posse, watch the 43-minute long footage that the IDF put together of the attacks of October 7th. Now, I've seen this footage.

The Israeli embassy here in New York City was screening it for journalists. This footage has never been publicly released. You had to be a member of the media or you had to be a member of the government to see it. And I didn't want to see it. I had to see it. Do you know what I mean? Like I felt morally, if I'm going to be writing about this, I had to watch it. And I remember going up there, It was like maybe two months after the attacks. It was cold. It was New York City. And the layers of cops you had to go through and the layers of security you had to go through

to get up even into the embassy with all these protesters outside. And you're put in this windowless room. And I'm gonna describe a little bit of the footage to you so you understand. Because whoever put this together, whoever edited it is a genius. And you get, it puts you,

so the first scenes that you see of this footage is that morning and you see, it's footage taken from inside a car and the car is driving down like a two lane highway. And you, the viewer, quite literally are in the driver's seat. Okay. You don't see the driver or the passenger. You're just literally in the driver's seat. And this car is driving along. It's a regular morning where people are going to visit family members or go have brunch or go shopping or whatever they're doing. And suddenly there are these cracks in the windscreen, just cracks. And you're like,

what the fuck is that? And then you realize it's bullets, it's gunfire. And then you come up on these tanks and these armed men, and they're just shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting. And then you start seeing all these cars just going off the road, like in a movie, tanks and these armed men and they're just shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting. And then you start seeing all these cars just going off the road, like in a movie, like they're just like going off the road. And then you see Hamas go and like pull these bodies out of these cars and start mutilating them. And then if I, if I recall correctly, and I thought this was so smart, they cut to the kibbutz, the attack on the kibbutz and the first thing you see

and they used a lot of the body cam that Hamas terrorists were wearing because they were recording this for their own perverse enjoyment and trust me, there's something almost sexual about the ecstasy they take in this stuff. And the first thing we see is a barking dog, a dog that knows something has gone awry.

This is danger. And I swear to God, there were people in this room from every outlet, like the most liberal outlets, and you could hear them go, oh my God, oh my God. Because you can do whatever you want to human beings, but you harm a dog and you're a monster. And that was so smart of whoever edited this film to show the dog first because the dog is shot to death. And then we see them go into homes and we see the father of these two young boys rush them in his underwear.

He's only wearing like underwear out to like a shed where Hamas follows them and they throw a live grenade in and the father is killed and they go off and the two boys come out and they're in the kitchen and they're in utter shock. And one of them completely realizes like, their father is dead. Like, it's

amazing that, that he had the wherewithal to comprehend exactly what was happening. And it goes on and on and on and on. So I'm just going to say, Greta, this is what you deserve. Okay. I, you will never unsee that footage. You will never unsee the atrocities visited upon animals and people that you will see. So enjoy it, sweetheart. Okay. Now onto something much lighter, onto something much lighter. But it's something of another horror show. And just like that, the latest episode. Okay. I'm just going to recap briefly. You know, Carrie's living in this like $40 million Greenwich, sorry, Gramercy Park house. And she's got this pastoral garden in the back, you know, just like every New Yorker has. And she's using it to write her old timey book that takes place in like the 1840s.

Because now she's like truly losing her mind. And she thinks she's like a Victorian era lady. And her lover is like not just like jerking off in a pickup somewhere in like the fields of Virginia. But you know, I don't know, maybe he's off doing something of great import, you know, that is causing him to be so far away from her. So she's writing and she's wearing like her $1,200 shoes

as one does, just like, trust me, any writer, any real writer, you're in your most comfortable clothes because you don't want to think about how you feel. You want to be able to just have your head go where it's going to go. Anyway, a mound of rats come out, a mound of rats come out,

a mound of rats come out. And of course, so this is another, I think Sarah Jessica Parker may have it in her contract that she's got to have at least three squeals per episode. I think she thinks it's adorable when she squeals. It is not. It is the exact opposite. And so apparently they were real rats, I guess.

I guess these were not, you know, AI rats. You know, I guess we're still employing, you know, animal extras, what have you. And so, you know, there was this theory that came up in the last episode when we talked about the premiere where I posited that Michael Patrick King may be that type of dangerous gay man who like actually really hates women. He pretends he's an ally, but he really hates women. Now, I think I think I'm right. And I think you troublemakers who think the same are right to listen to Sarah Jessica Parker talk about that scene.

Yeah, I never had rats in the apartment, but we do live in New York and I am genuinely, that is not why Michael Patrick wrote that, but I really am very, very, very scared of rats. So, I mean, I think we have, if I, you know, I'm a prosecutor in my mind, that would be exhibit A. He's fucking with her.

He's trolling her. Secondly, you know, so Aiden shows up out of the blue in Carrie's house and she turns around to see him standing there and she screams, again, another shriek. But like this is treated in the show as a very cute, romantic gesture. I assure you it is not. And this is the kind of stuff that infects the culture and infects the way women are talked to by men about what they should deem

appropriate. I don't care if this guy is your fiance or your husband, like showing up in a house without announcing yourself so that you as a woman are taken aback by the sight of a man who is twice your size, who is suddenly in your house is terrifying. That is not a romantic gesture. Okay, so then they have their moment together and then they sit in Carrie's extremely tiny kitchen. None of this makes any sense. And she's got this little tiny half table

that's like affixed to the wall. Like again, we're just like an 800-year-old woman in our tiny Victorian kitchen. And she's got like a piece of toast on the windowsill and she's just so dainty. And Aiden is telling her the rules of engagement for her texting him, okay? So this is Sarah Jessica Parker in The Guardian.

I think this just came out this weekend. Oh, my favorite headline. I'm just gonna hold it up. I've been crucified, Sarah Jessica Parker. I've been crucified. Okay, here she's talking about, every time there's a new season, they talk all this garbage about

how these women are just like, it's a new chapter and they're so winning and it's so exciting to see them embark on these new things, it's a new chapter. And they're so winning. And like, it's so exciting to see them embark on these new things. And like, there's never any specifics. It's like Hoda Kotb. There's never any specifics because there's zero plot happening here.

It's a bunch of actors who get to dress up in $10,000 worth of clothing, shoes, and handbags and live in these, pretend to live in these lavish apartments and be dealing with all of these men who are just falling all over their feet. It is like fantasy land for underdeveloped actresses, I think, like emotionally, psychologically stunted actresses. Okay, so this is Sarah Jessica Parker in The Guardian

about why she's so excited about the relationship with Aiden. Quote, I was excited about the way the relate would sort itself out because there's a new maturity to both parties. Not so. This is not what is on display in your show. A guy who, as discussed in the premiere, who calls you, booty calls you in the middle of the night after saying you cannot talk for five years and says, I need to get my rocks off, but I miss you, but let's have phone sex. And then we see him lick his palm, jam his hands down his pants, and then tell her that he, quote, unquote, I can't even get the words out. He sharted a little bit. And she's saying this is a grand romance for the ages. Okay, this is how out of touch she is.

Parker says that she was, quote, shocked to discover that the character of Che Diaz was so widely reviled. And you know why she's shocked? Because she doesn't pay attention to any of the publicity surrounding this show. Sure, sure. We are also introduced to a new word in the lexicon. Brace yourselves, you guys. Heteropessimism. Not going to describe it. I think it's a garbage word. She also says that,

so the crucifixion, crucifixion rather, I was raised Catholic. I should know better. The crucifixion of one Carrie Bradshaw. I would like to ask any of you artists out there who work in mixed materials. It's a nerve challenge. I would love for someone to come up with a Carrie Bradshaw nailed to the cross. I dare you. I know someone out there can do it. We're creating sort of a little bit of an art thing happening here. We'll clue you in later. Okay. Now, so she has been, she believes, blamed vis-a-vis Sex and the City for imparting this idea that, like, if you're young, creative, you want to have a glamorous life, just move to New York and everything's cool.

And she's saying, you know, she's not going to take the blame for that, but she really laments how it's, quote, beyond a concern. New York has become impossible for artists, whether ballet dancers, photographers, whomever. We haven't had the kind of political support in our city to really be smart and innovative about affordable housing. OK, this is a woman who. within the past few years, put one of her three townhouses on the market. These townhouses in Greenwich Village are extremely covetable. They are coveted.

They are rare. They are multimillion dollars. Just cost of entry, $12 million. She and her husband, Matthew Broderick, have two side-by-side townhouses. I believe they still do. They did at one point anyway, which is really weird. And then she had a third townhouse.

And when I tell you what this was used for, I mean, the nerve. She used that townhouse as her closet, okay? Her closet. And then when she put it up for sale, the Rob Report ran a huge story about how she used this multi-level townhouse as her freaking closet.

So she wants the taxpayers of New York City who are already overly burdened to figure out a way to foot the cost for young creatives to live here. I don't know, Sarah Jessica, maybe you could put up some of those like strivers, hustlers that you love in, you know, one of your empty townhouses. OK.

Anyway, as always, very cathartic, very cathartic. Next up, the Democrats in 2028 spend a lot of time talking to Democrats about what they need in a presidential candidate for the next election. Some say, well, they're going to be the favorite to win in 2028 because they think Donald Trump will be a failed president. And without Trump on the ballot, they don't think anyone, including J.D. Vance, can really be a strong candidate. And they might be right. There may be some Trump magic. Before Donald Trump, Republicans had a hard time winning presidential elections, winning the popular vote, which Trump, of course, did one of three times. But there's a lot of Republican advantages. And smart Democrats I talk to are concerned that there's a gap. Not only do Republicans have what appears to be,

as we've talked about here before, a very strong frontrunner in J.D. Vance. But they've got some institutional advantages. And there's something special about this Trump second term as compared to most second terms. Most second term presidents, term limited lame ducks, they don't think much about politics. They don't think much about fundraising. They don't think much about building a political machine. It's just not true of the Trump-Vance operation. They're very focused on the midterms, and they're very focused on using the leverage of the Oval Office to do the kinds of things that are institutional, that can help one side or the other, one of the two parties, win a close presidential election. After every presidential cycle, I will typically do a survey to say, who's got technological superiority in the digital age, registering voters, turning out voters.

That is a mechanical thing that involves a lot of understanding of social media, digital technology, communications. And I usually, after the end of the cycle, I can tell you, here's the side that has the advantage and here's how big the advantage is. We don't know. We don't know that this time. Why don't we know that? Well, the Democrats aren't talking much because of their, I believe, belief that they're not that strong. And second, they're not talking much because there's no one to talk. You went from a Biden campaign that was behind the eight ball because of the weakness of their candidate to a hundred day sprint from the Harris campaign. Why don't we know how strong the Republicans are?

Because the people who helped build what they built, James Blair, who was the political director, now works in the White House, people like Charlie Kirk, outside groups that worked under the law with the Trump advance operation to build the kind of data driven operation needed in this age. They're not bragging. Typically, you see the winners get credit for winning through superior technology. This started in basically in 2008 with the Obama campaign and their much wanted digital operation for registering voters, turning out voters, communicating with voters. This group of Republicans isn't talking. They're barely taking credit for what they did,

and they're not doing these long interviews where they explain the advantages that they had because they figured out the technology. I think the Republicans have an advantage here based on everything I know, but there's not a lot of meat on that bone to explain it. The challenge for the Democrats is the Trump-Vance political operation is up and running. They're fundraising. They're building on their technological experiences. They're registering voters.

You see that in some of the states where data is available. The advantage of spending four years focused on the general election through the RNC, through the White House political operation, through these outside groups is massive because what's happening on the Democratic side, there's about 30 people mentioned as candidates. None of them are very active. Some of them will do podcasts and TV, but no one's out there fundraising into a super PAC or building a massive operation. This is the stuff that in a close election makes a difference. And in our system, as you know, in recent history, we've had a lot of close elections. We haven't had landslides. We've had folks win narrowly in the popular vote, narrowly in the electoral

college. So what's happening now, three years before the next presidential, could be decisive. One side, stronger in the last election, building, building, building, taking advantage of what they had and continuing to quietly build on it. That's the Republican side. What's happening on the Democratic side is a bunch of two dozen or so potential candidates who are. Thinking about it and they're thinking about building things up, but they're thinking about building things up for themselves in terms of technology and donors and hiring the best technological wizards against other Democrats. Because winning that nomination in 2024, in 2028, is going to be tough. It's going to be competitive. There is no front runner. And I doubt there will be for a long time because we don't have an incumbent. Even if Kamala Harris runs, we don't. No one sees her as clearing the field or becoming this titanic front runner if she does run.

So historically, I've been looking at the question, talking to Democrats, what could be done? How could Democrats try to cut the technology gap, the voter registration gap, the fundraising gap now before they have a candidate, because chances are there won't be a clear nominee at the earliest until 2028 in the winter, in January, February, depending on when their primaries and caucuses are. That's a long time to wait. That's a long time to not have a frontrunner who can start building a general election operation. We know even if the Republicans don't nominate J.D. Vance, there's going to be an operation on the Republican side. So

look at history and say, well, where could this come from? Could come from outside groups, but it's hard for outside groups to lead. Most of the outside groups that Democrats have started to build now with millions or tens of millions from donors are focusing on messaging. They're doing focus groups. They're doing studies. They're writing papers. How do we speak particularly to working class voters, Hispanic voters, young voters, black voters? That's not the process, the technical process of trying to close the technology app in a way that can actually deliver votes. When did this happen? When have Democrats out of power figured this out? You have to go back to 1991. Now, the comparable year in this cycle would be 25, or 27, rather. So they have time if they want to replicate the model.

But they've got a problem. The Democratic chairman of the National Committee in the 80, in the cycle that ended in 89, went through Bill Clinton's election in 92, was a guy named Ron Brown. Okay. Ron Brown was a titan. Ron Brown figured out how to build a national party apparatus so that whoever the nominee was could win. Because Ron Brand saw that in terms of fundraising and voter registration and focusing on the battleground states, the Democrats were way behind the Republicans. At that point, they'd lost to Reagan twice, to Bush 41 once. They didn't seem to have a way to win. There was what was called a electoral college lock. Back then, you younger people won't know,

Republicans won New Jersey, California, all the Midwestern battleground states. Democrats didn't see a way to win. So what Ron Brown and a guy named Paul Tully, who worked for him at the Democratic National Committee, today's your history lesson, what they did was they said, what can we build that whoever our nominee is for president in coming up in a year can inherit, can just turnkey operation so we can raise the money, target the battleground states?

How did Ron Brown and Paul Tully do this? I wrote about this in my book that I wrote called How to Beat Trump based on interviews with a lot of Democratic strategists. This was back in 2019 where they said, Democrats said to me, we got to figure out how to beat Trump because we lost to him in 2016. We got to figure out a way to do it. So I interviewed a lot of Democrats and many of them pointed to this extraordinary event that occurred in Virginia in June of 1991. There was a woman named Pamela Harriman. She had an incredible life. She was married, amongst others, to Winston Churchill. She was the big donor of the Democratic Party. She was like the Elon Musk of her time.

And Pamela Harriman had a big estate in Virginia. And Ron Brown and Paul Tully said, we need to build something. And so what they built was a meeting where they invited all the people who might run for president, all the top fundraisers, and they had them to a meeting and they said, here's the deal. If we do nothing and everybody fights on their own to build what they're going to build, we'll never beat Bush. We'll never beat the incumbent Republican because nobody will have time to build a sufficiently large thing. So what we need is for all of you to work with us together. Help us build it. Get your donors to give to the DNC. You support the DNC. Knowing that unless you win the lottery and you're the nominee,

you're not going to benefit from this. But knowing that if you don't contribute and you're the nominee, you will never have a chance. So they had a big meeting over a couple days. They laid out the case of how they could use the money and the political support to build the kind of infrastructure that could win a presidential campaign. And then the press was quite interested in this because you had all the leading candidates there, including Bill Clinton. Ron Brown came out and he spoke to the media after the meeting and he explained to some extent what they were doing please roll b2 we have had an extraordinary meeting a historic meeting for the democratic party

where there was absolute consensus that we're on the right track and getting ready for the 1992 general election campaign early on it is clear to us that George Bush is very vulnerable in 1992 because this administration has absolutely no domestic agenda. It is not speaking to the needs and aspirations and goals of average, everyday working men and women and working families in our nation. We've developed a strategy, a preliminary strategy for the 1992 general election campaign. The essence of it is to have our party leaders and our prospective candidates and our national party working together as a team. That guy, I think, is the greatest chairman, at least in the history of the Democratic Party. He had experience across the party, relationships across the party. And you heard him there say, well, before the general election, we've got a plan and we're going to build this plan

with the help of everybody and we'll be ready. And we'll hand this off to the nominee. So as I said, amongst the people who were there were Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton and his folks. At that point, Bill Clinton was not an announced candidate, wasn't sure necessarily he would even run. But he came to the meeting and his folks got the joke that if they supported this effort and he won the nomination, he would inherit an unprecedented good operation that would help register voters and turn out voters. Here's Bill Clinton. Again, this is from June of 91 at the same event after the meeting.

This is B3, please. I will say this. I believe that the research confirms what any workaday politician would find who went out and just talked to real people, that they have real problems, real concerns. They don't think they're being addressed at the national level. And if we can come up with a message that brings people together around these concerns, then the Democrats have a chance to win in 92.

All right. That guy, a political stud, he might have won without the help from the DNC. But if you ask people who worked in the Clinton campaign, how much did you benefit beating George Bush and Ross Perot because of the groundwork laid by the Democratic Party? They will tell you quite a bit. Otherwise, they would have had to win the nomination, which, as you know, Bill Clinton struggled to do because of his personal problems on the draft and Jennifer Flowers and other issues. Big benefit. OK, so I look now every day, I look and talk to my sources, look in the press. What are the Democrats doing to build something like that? Because there's no doubt in my mind that they're at a disadvantage today because of what the Trump Vance operation built in 2024 and what they continue to aggressively build. They are registering voters today in the battleground states. So one place to look would be the DNC, the current Democratic Party. Ken Martin is the chair of

the Democratic Party now. He is not Ron Brown. I say that with respect to Mr. Martin. Ron Brown had national experience with labor unions, with business. He became, after Bill Clinton won, he became commerce secretary, tragically killed in a plane accident. Ken Martin was the chair of the Minnesota Party. Nice guy, but not building anything. And in fact, over the weekend, it was reported by Politico that instead of focusing on building the party and being confident that he can create something to hand off to his presidential nominee, there was a meeting of Democratic officials. And Ken Martin talked about this guy, David Hogg. David Hogg is the vice chair of the DNC, and he has created a massive controversy by saying that he's going to raise money from an outside super PAC to try to beat Democratic incumbents.

It's kind of like the opposite of what you're supposed to do if you're the vice chair of your party. But he's doing that, and it's caused, obviously, a bunch of controversy. There are people who say, no, you cannot be DNC vice chair if you're going to try to beat Democratic incumbent candidates. There are some who say, great, the party needs something that shakes things up. In any event, here is Ken Martin in a secretly recorded Zoom session with David Hogg and others lamenting what's happened to his chairmanship of the DNC because he's dealing with this David Hogg controversy. This is B1, please. I'm just quite frustrated to be in this position because what you've done, whether you like it or not, or know it or not, David, is I'm trying to, no one knows who the hell I am, right? I'm trying to get my sea legs underneath of me and actually

develop any amount of credibility so I can go out there and raise the money and do the job I need to to put ourselves in a position to win. And again, I don't think you intended this, but you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to. So. Nobody knows who the hell I am. You've destroyed my chairmanship. I mean, you'd never hear Ron Frantz saying stuff like that.

But that's the state of the current Democratic Party. The apparatus is distracted. Ken Martin, who by his own acknowledgement there, not very well known, not an influential figure, even in political circles, let alone with the wider country, is dealing with the kind of controversy that a strong chair like Ron Brown would have never allowed to happen.

And so now what you see is the specter of, you know, who are the people most active? People like J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois, Pete Buttigieg. If you think he's going to run, maybe the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. But mostly what those folks are doing is building up their own name ID. Again, they're going on media. Are they are they gathering names for for their social media, from their social media to raise money? Are they meeting with big donors? They're doing some of that, but nothing at the scale that I believe and my sources believe is required to really take on the Trump Vance machine. Now, again, if Donald Trump has a failed presidency, if Vance is part

of an administration that's not popular and he does become the nominee, of course it will be easier for Democrats to win. And perhaps they won't need to close the technology gap, the voter registration gap, the turnout gap. But chances are, unless Trump's administration is a disaster or somebody runs against Vance and beats him, who's who's too weak to win. Chances are Republicans are going to continue to build on the advantage they have now. And as I said, in a close election, these things are an edge. states he won without the extraordinary efforts, still somewhat opaque, of Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk and others who figured out early on that the way to spend money is not on TV ads or digital ads. The way to spend money is to build a digital first operation that reaches voters where they are and

registers them and turns them out to vote. The Democratic Party right now talked about this before. They don't have a great leader. It's not Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries. They're decent at the inside game, but they're not outside. They obviously don't control the White House. And the folks who are thinking of running for president have good moments and bad, but no one has a daily megaphone. And none of them, and I've said this before, none of them is politician of a generation, a political talent like Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. And when people say, well, did you know about Barack Obama three years before the 2008 election when he won? Yeah, we did. Because he spoke at the 2004 convention and gave the keynote address. And for decades before that, he was touted as

one of the great political talents on the Democratic side. Same with Bill Clinton. People say, well, did you know about him in 1992? Yes, because for 20 years, he was touted going back to Georgetown. But when he first became an elected official in Arkansas, he was touted as a great generational talent. Now, can one of these 24 or so Democrats win even if they're not part of being touted as a great Democratic talent for generations? Sure, they could. But their chances of doing that without an effort like Ron Brown's, either by the DNC or by an outside group, I think are much lower, because if you look at where they are right now, they're going to have to fight for the nomination in the winter of 2027 into 2028.

And winning the nomination is different than winning the general election in terms of infrastructure. You're talking about different states. You're talking about a different electorate. You're talking about a different set of databases. Is there going to be some Democrat who runs for president with the financial backing and discipline and foresight to say, I'm going to simultaneously figure out how to reach, you know, South Carolina Democrats to win the primary and Michigan independents to win the general? Not the way politics typically work. You'd have to you'd have to have a big head start to do that.

And if somebody's smart now, my Democratic sources say, they should be thinking about those general election voters now and trying to figure out, can they get the ability to deal with that challenge? It's hard and it's expensive. Part of what the Trump organization's doing now with Vance is they're raising a lot of money and they're putting that money where their mouth is. They're saying we're going to continue to consolidate the advantage. Data begets more data. Money begets more money. The people and the systems that help Trump win the six battleground states on the ground in 2024 are just going to grow. They're not letting their they're putting their taking their foot off of the pedal. What's happening on the Democratic side? You've got a chairman who's who's on a Zoom with 20 people. I'm sure he didn't suspect it would leak. But on a Zoom with 20 people, he's basically

saying his chairmanship is being held hostage to the vice chair, who's a young guy who's got a lot of ambition. This is a this is not a recipe for having the DNC help them figure this out. Could the outside groups do it? I suppose they could. But as I said, most of the outside groups seem focused on things like messaging and research, as opposed to the very challenging task of building things up. Now, there have been in Silicon Valley a big switch, as you know. Silicon Valley, for most of its existence, has tilted left, has tilted to the Democrats. George W. Bush made some inroads there. But now Silicon Valley is tilting Trump. They like Trump better on issues like AI. They like Trump better

on issues like crypto. They like Trump better on regulation. And so you have this weird challenge for the Democrats, not just who is going to be the organizer of closing the technology gap, but where are they going to get the propeller heads, the geniuses, the tech gurus? Where are they going to get them from? Sure, they could still get them from Silicon Valley, but that's less likely. And then within the Democratic Party, they have a generational problem. You look at the people who worked on the Biden and Harris campaign at the top levels. They're people who've been around a while, some back to Clinton, both Clintons, some back to Barack Obama. But that next generation of folks who are dedicated to the Democratic Party, who have the technology knowledge, who have the political knowledge,

right? It's one thing to build technology to sell widgets or to build a social media platform. It's another to do that in service of politics to understand how to win elections. And I look again and I say, it's not the DNC. It doesn't seem to be the current outside groups. It doesn't seem it's going to be Congress. It doesn't seem like it's going to be any of these two dozen Democratic candidates. But someone in the party is going to have to figure out in the next year or so, the sooner the better, because the Trump people are going full throttle. How do they close the technology gap? I will tell you, when we get to the summer of 28, and you all are listening to me talk about the issue of who's got the edge in the campaign. On the trajectory we're on,

the answer will be, whether it's J.D. Vance or someone else, that the Democrats have a technology gap. It's like any gap in, you know, between competitors. You got to the sooner you start trying to close it, the more likely you will be to be able to close it. And I will tell you, if you're a Democrat and you care about winning the 2028 election, you better get to figuring out who's closing the gap, where's the money coming from, who are the geniuses, and how do you do it in a way that all the presidential candidates buy into it the way Ron Brown got everybody to buy into it in 1991. It's a tall, it's a big order. It's a tall, it's a tall challenge, but it's one that if Democrats don't meet, I can tell you their chances of winning in 2028

go down maybe substantially. And the problem right now is I don't see the person or people or organization who are going to get together and make this happen. Now, I could not be more excited to bring in this next guest. We're kind of brothers in Maha, except that we've never met before. I can't wait to bring in actor and Wildwood Studio founder, Zachary Levi. You might know him from the show Chuck.

You might know him from the Shazam movies. They were huge hits. They made hundreds of millions of dollars. I personally haven't seen them, but I know a ton of you love them. He was also on Megyn Kelly's show a few months ago. Without further ado, let's bring in Zachary Levi. Hey, Len. Good morning. Hey, how are you doing? I can't believe we haven't met because I worked on the Kennedy campaign, and I remember you were going to host a boat cruise fundraiser. Do you remember this? You

were going to do a boat fundraiser? I do yeah yeah i i was excited about it too i mean listen i i wanted bobby to be president so bad right and i know many of us did um but obviously that's not how everything worked out and so that's ultimately you know the boat cruise was all kind of you know part and parcel of that but i'm very grateful that regardless of how things all you know came about bobby is where he's at now and he's doing the work that he's doing. And very proud of him, very proud of the team that he's assembled. And maybe one day we'll get that boat cruise. Who knows?

No, exactly. For the people who don't know, maybe we can find the flyer. It's going to be like you, Drea from Sopranos, Metta World Peace, some other people. And I think it was God's plan for that boat cruise not to happen. Bobby ended up endorsing Trump last August in Arizona, and the cruise did not end up happening. But you going out on a limb and saying, I'm going to vote for President Trump because of the coalition he's building was really kind of shocking in Hollywood because everybody's scared to come out of the closet and say they voted for Trump. Isn't this a theme you've noticed?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, it's an unfortunate theme that's been in Hollywood for a long time because Hollywood is traditionally a much more liberal industry and town. And listen, I have lots of friends that are of that ilk and that's where they lean. And I have loved them regardless. I believe that we're all supposed to be able to hold the values that we hold and vote accordingly. And so, yeah, it definitely was a pretty massive coming out party, as it were a political coming out party. But to me, the stakes could not have been higher. We had, you know, unfortunately, every single election, we're left with two options. And oftentimes of those two options, you're having to eat the chicken and spit out the bones.

You're having to look at a candidate and say, like, OK, which one of these two candidates, even though I might have issues with either or both of them, which one of them still represents or is at least, you know, talking about implementing policies that are most in line with what I believe are necessary for where we're at as a country. And in this moment, particularly when it came to things like our borders, you know, things that we're still even now with, you know, what's going on with ICE and in Los Angeles, which is absolute frigging chaos. And I know we want to talk about that, too. You know, what's going on with ICE and in Los Angeles, which is absolute frigging chaos. And I know we want to talk about that too. You know, that is an existential threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to our jobs, to everything else. And I do think that, you know, it comes down to triage. It's one of the things that I learned early as a child. I think it was like in elementary

school and we had some, you know, EMT or somebody come to school, and they would tell you about triage. It's like, hey, if there's an accident, you got to find the people that are, you know, there's going to be people that are just a little bit injured, and there's people that are moderately injured, and there's people that are really injured, and you got to focus on the big injuries and then work your way down. And so when it came to the policies that both candidates were talking about, or, you know, I don't know that Kamala was even really talking about a lot of policies that, you know, most of what the democratic platform was based on was just hating Trump,

which in and of itself, I was like, Hey, what are like, give me something, give me something of substance. So I know what it is that you want to do with it. You want to implement. And I don't think most of us got that. And I've made it very clear that, you know, I didn't vote for Trump the first two times he ran. In fact, I voted third party both those times because I was very disheartened with the options that we had. But I do believe that, you know, a few things happened. The miracle in Butler, you know, Trump moving his head just ever so slightly and avoiding getting assassinated, which is insane. And I think in that moment, there was a humility that he experienced that he had yet to that point in his life ever experienced. And that's an important thing, particularly for somebody

like him and particularly for someone who's going to be the president of the United States. And when that happened, we know now, obviously, Callie Means was a huge part of connecting those two, Bobby and Trump. The Democrats were doing everything they could to make sure that Bobby had no chance of ever getting anywhere in that election, which was also criminal. The fact that they didn't hold the primary was criminal. And so for Bobby and Trump to connect, for them to really see that, hey, listen, a coalition could be very powerful, could really help all the movements, MAGA, MAHA, all of it. And again, as you said, we were very much in the MAHA camp. And, you know, and I care about that. We care about that.

Like, to me, that's one of the biggest parts of the triage. Yes, we can talk about lots of different groups or you know groupings of people that had issue with this or that but it affected let's say that group of people our health and wellness is everybody how our our food is being grown and processed and delivered to us how are the pharmaceutical industries are completely out of control this is affecting every single american it's not just this little group or that little group. It's everybody. And it's our children. And that's our children's children. I mean, this is genetics. So I was like, this is a no brainer to me. And so ultimately, I became friends with Tulsi Gabbard, who's a wonderful human being. And Tulsi, I was explaining, listen, I love what you're doing. I

love what Bobby's doing. I think that if you guys are really genuinely doing the, you know, need you to tell me beyond a shadow of a doubt that this isn't just some political play this isn't just some you know whatever but you you believe with everything in you that he means what he says that we're going to actually get some effective change and good positive change um and uh and that you that he's a man of his word in that regard um and they both said yes we really genuinely believe that and that's why we're doing this two former democrats who completely i mean that you know that says volumes really says absolutely and so i said okay i didn't vote for that guy the last two times but if you are telling me that he means it and you're

all in on what this is, then I will be all in on that. And I will cross this Rubicon and I will, I will suffer whatever slings and arrows are going to come my way. And, and there have been, but I knew that was going to happen and I didn't do it, you know, without a lot of thought and a lot of prayer and a lot of weighing out what those consequences would be. And, you know, I've always been very disheartened with my industry anyway. I think that it's been broken for a really, really, really long time. And that's why I have felt compelled to create a new system, a new ecosystem, a new studio that is Wildwood Studios. By the way, if anybody is interested, you can go to Wildwood Austin. By the way, it's Wildwood, W-Y-L-D-W-O-O-D,

austin.com. And please let us know if you're interested in investing and helping this vision. But the vision is genuinely to take back our entertainment industry, to create a place that's safe for all artists, where you don't have to tow

this woke, agended line, where you can speak your truth. And whatever that truth is, I'm not, this isn't a conservative studio. It's not any, it's just trying to be, I'm a libertarian. I'm just trying to create a place where people can be themselves and speak truth and have common sense and reason and actually make content that's uplifting, that's redeeming. And more than that, you know, one of the things that I weighed in my decision to go and support Trump and knowing that there could be some jobs that I might lose was that I could see the writing on the wall when it comes to AI. AI is coming at us like a freight train. And it's not just my industry. It's everybody's industries. And so we need to be very, very, very cognizant of this

and very mindful about how we are going to be implementing it. I don't think that AI in a vacuum is an evil thing, but how humans will decide to use AI and the massive amounts of unemployment that's going to come from that, including in my industry. And so I thought to myself, well, what am I really afraid of here? I'm afraid that I'm not going to get hired for jobs that aren't even going to exist in a few years because the studios, knowing the way that they operate, knowing how most industry operates,

they're all about bottom line. They're all about margins. We want to make more money so that our shareholders are happy, so our CEOs have better salaries. I mean, that's how it all works. And just wringing out the working class so that they can make more and more profit. And so once AI becomes the shiny new tool that they can use in order to just keep making more money and unemploying more and more people like myself, regardless of our political beliefs, to me, it was kind of a no-braer. It's like, all right, I got to go all in. I got to make sure that I can do what not just my own vote, but I have to go and try

if I can to reason with people and say, I understand your aversion to Trump. I understand he can be brash and cocky and arrogant and all of those things that the Trumpiness of Trump. I get it. I'm not a fan of that stuff either. But the guy at the very least is he's not a career politician he is a he's a wild card he's somebody that isn't captured because he hasn't been in that system like a joe biden had for 50 plus years and like

kamala had been and so and but but with that and then also this incredible coalition that he put together with J.D. and Bobby and Tulsi and his now former, maybe, I don't know, friend, Elon Musk, you know, but still all of that and Vivek and, you know, all of it. That is something I can get behind. But the Democratic Party was not offering anything close to that. So I had to go fight for it. No, absolutely. I think what happened in this election was people said,

we're tired of being put in silos of Democrat, Republican, Independent. We just want common sense. And I think because of people like Bobby and Tulsi and these former Democrats coming over, that is what helped President Trump win the election. We don't know. We could slice and dice the information and the data anyway. But there were a ton of California women who were typically like granola crunchy moms who were passionate about their kids' health who said, you know what?

If Bobby's going in there and he's going to try to fix the chronic disease epidemic, we're going to pull the lever for Trump. But you mentioned something about career politicians like Biden and Kamala and Newsom all over the news right now. We're seeing the ice raids in Los Angeles. You live in Los Angeles. What do you make of Karen Bass, Gavin Newsom, and these leftist failures we're seeing? Because no major city should allow people to run amok and burn cars and take over freeways, Zach. Yeah, yeah. Well, so fortunately, I actually

don't live in Los Angeles anymore. I am, yeah. So I grew up in Ventura, California, which is about an hour. Well, now the traffic is about an hour and a half north of L.A. And I'm here now. I just welcomed my son into the world out here because my family's still here. So thank you. I appreciate that. But listen, I lived in L.A. for 15 years. And obviously, I still frequent it and have a lot of friends there.

And there's still business it and have a lot of friends there and there's still business to do in Los Angeles. But even as a native Californian who loves California, I saw the writing on the wall a really long time ago, because when you have leadership in states like California and cities like Los Angeles, who ultimately I don't think really care about the people, their constituents. They care about the power that they can hold and wield and the money that can be made through their position, which is exactly what's gone down. And this has happened in California and New York and Illinois, Chicago. I mean, if you just look at the cities that have the highest crime rates, the highest level of homelessness, the most insanity going

on, these are typically democratically held states and cities. Now, this is not an indictment of the everyday voting Democrat, right? Like, I think this is one of the problems that we're running into is that we have all been pitted against each other, the voters, the people, and we have got to, we have got to stop doing that. I don't have a problem with democratic voters. I have a problem with democratic leadership who actually, I think doesn't even care about their voters. And what's happening in Los Angeles right now is absolute insanity. We have millions of illegal immigrants who illegally came here. Okay. Now I have a lot of empathy for a lot of those folks. I understand that many of those people are not serial rapists and murderers and wrong evildoers. They are people that were

genuinely looking for a better life. And yet there is a legal way, a proper way, a fair way for them to come into this country and assimilate into this country. Because if you want all of the benefits of the United States and yet you hate the United States and you go and you wave your nationals, you know, a lot of people are in L.A. right now waving these like Viva La Mexico flags. Listen, I love Mexico. My brother-in-law is mexican is mexican i love him i love his family i have lots of mexican friends but you if you want to could you imagine if as americans we were going into mexico and taking advantage of their illegally going there and taking advantage of all that they have to offer and then trying to to burn down Mexico city, waving American flags, we'd be shot in the streets dead, not with rubber bullets, not with tear gas. Like that would be, and I, we would never do that because that's, we, that would not be respecting that country. So I find it really,

not just fascinating, but really sad that a lot of these folks don't understand that you cannot go and want all of the benefits of that country and despise it. Like that doesn't, that doesn't work. And so what's now happening, Karen Bass, for her to encourage people, literally encourage people to interfere with what ICE is trying to do, which, and I me be clear about this, I think that we must find a better balance. Same thing with, you know, with Doge, with ICE, with any of it, right? We need to be able to do it as effectively and as surgically as possible. Are there people who are being detained and deported that might actually, like there are, there are few, but very few cases of people who actually are here legally

and they got looped into the whole thing and they got taken out. And those people should not be dealing with that. They should not be being detained. But that's very few people in a much larger group. And that larger group of illegal immigrants, lots and lots of them are in fact criminals that have come here, not just criminals because they came here illegally, but have a criminal past

and record and continue to do crime in this country, including, as you know, there are multiple myriad cases of murders, rapes and murders that have happened in this country. And I don't see a lot of these protesters showing up and being like, hey, wow, we should be upset about that too. It's like, they don't even care. It's like, well, that's just what happens. It's like, that's just what happens? No, that's not what happens.

And as Americans, we should not be tolerating this at all. No, absolutely. People don't want another Lakin Riley, another Jocelyn Nangari, right? And if we hadn't had the failed open border policies the last few years, if people have had to come in and get vetted, we wouldn't have criminals and rapists running amok on the streets right now. And people voted for President Trump because he was talking about doing deportations. President Trump ran on mass deportations. The New York Times had a poll,

a majority of Americans supported mass deportations. I know we're not supposed to say that out loud. So what we're seeing is a president who's actually following through on what he said he was going to do. And I think that's making Democrats' minds go crazy. So it doesn't sound like you think Gavin Newsom has a prayer in 2028, because these are the best campaign ads for Republicans. These pictures and these videos, do you think Gavin has a chance, Zach? Brother, I don't know i mean listen i mean the the rational logical mind in me would say absolutely not but how did how is he in office right now how did he not how did he not get um when they uh you know when when they uh the fire hydrants no no no well yes all of that for sure but no when they recall they recall the recall, when they recalled them, how did you know?

And I've heard some weird things about maybe there was some screwy things going on with some of that and the voting and whatever. I don't know. I mean, that's a whole other conversation. But listen, unfortunately, as a this weird duopoly that we live in and one that we should not be living in. I think that we should have a far different system of political system where we have more options. You know, some people say rank choice. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of different things that we could be talking about, but we've all been pitted against each other so poor, so, so badly. And so Democratic voters, even when they're looking at somebody like Gavin Newsom, they go, yeah, well, but at least he's our guy, even though he's failed over and over and over again, even when Karen Bass has failed over and over and over again. And it's so obvious when Gavin Newsom is going and telling everybody in California, you've got to stay in your home and you've got to mask up and you've got to go put these vaccines in you. Never mind that I'm going to go have my private parties at French Laundry and have dinners.

And then he gets caught and he's like, oh, you know, he's making all these excuses. You know, they tell us what we should do and then they don't even live by their own rules. That's the man that these voters put into office. One would hope that that would have been the end of it. But no, because the propaganda is real. It's big, man.

And they have so much money to put into commercials and they will do everything they can to keep twisting people's minds. I hope that voters in California do not forget every single failure that this administration has put them through. And it's been many, many failures. And this is just the most recent of them. But, of course, there's going to be a lot of voters that think right now that what's going on is actually good. It's good that we are intercepting ICE and making sure that they're not deporting these good people, that even if they came here illegally, they're still good people and we need to treat them with dignity. Listen, as somebody who believes that we're all children of God, I actually agree that we should

all be treated with some amount of dignity, right? But you're also dealing with full-on criminals. You can't just be like, oh, well, let's just talk. Let's just see if they're going to change their ways and maybe they're going to be good people that are putting back into our community. You can't reason with people like that on that level. But I will also say, even if this wasn't a matter of actual criminals and murderers and rapists and all that stuff, one of the most insidious things that has gone on is we have actual American citizens in places like Western North Carolina, for example, that were devastated. People in Lahaina, Hawaii, devastated.

Every single time, Americans, not illegal immigrants to America, but actual Americans who have grown up their entire life in the United States, paying taxes their entire life, are left with a check for $700. And yet USAID and all of these other little Machiavellian little, you know, agencies and what are taking our tax dollars and putting these immigrants into hotels and feeding, giving them debit cards and cell phones and traveling them around the country on our dime while we are leaving our own citizens hanging out to dry.

That is insanity. So these are the things that we have to remember when it comes to when we're doing these Doge cuts and these USAID cuts. And when we're also trying to ask ourselves, well, how does this work with illegal immigration? Like that can't be the way. We have got to take care of, we must. And if you were to ask any Democratic voter, if you were to just bring it down to the most localized level and say, OK, let me ask you a question. It's your own home. Just forget about the country, for example. The country is all of our home, right?

But let's talk about just your home. Would you want anyone, particularly people that have a criminal record, to just have carte blanche access to your home to just be able to move in whenever they want? Of course they would say absolutely not. I don't want that. Well, now just expand that out because that's what's going on. If you don't treat this country as if it's just a larger version of what you are trying to protect in your own life, then really what you're saying is, well, it's good for thee, but not for me. I've seen these like kind of viral comedy videos where people go knocking on doors and they go hey we have a petition for you know these illegal immigrants and they want to be able to be in our country

and they go oh yeah i'll sign that they go great well we got 10 of them right here can they move in and they go uh no i i we can't you know and they don't know what to do because they're more than willing to pass the buck pass the buck pass the. If you're not willing to do it yourself, then don't expect everyone else in this country to be footing the bill for that. That's just not acceptable. Well, that's what was happening with Kilmar Abrego-Garcia. All these Democrats, and especially Senator Chris Van Hollen,

we have to bring him back. What's happening is wrong. We have to keep these criminal MS-13 gang members on the street. Mark my words, all of these elite Democrats sitting around in their fancy homes, they do not want MS-13 moving members on the street. Mark my words, all of these elite Democrats sitting around in their fancy homes, they do not want MS-13 moving in next door. They wouldn't want their apartment complex being taken over by illegal migrants, but it's the rules for thee, not for me. They want to sit in their ivory towers and preach and proselytize to all of us how we should live and what we should

be okay with. And Americans have said enough. So everything you have said, Zach, is music to our ears and what we talk about all the time. said, Zach, is music to our ears and what we talk about all the time. I was thinking, is Gavin Newsom at French Laundry last night? Because nobody was hearing from him or seeing him. And he's pretty much MIA missing in action, Zach. But we could not be more grateful to have you. We will not keep you any longer. I couldn't be more excited for Wildwood Studios also, because I'm from Dallas. I love seeing Dr. Phil come into Texas and so many people building complexes. Maybe you guys should connect.

Are there any stories or movies that you're building now or any stories you want to tell with Wildwood Studios that you can sort of give us a precursor to or where are we going with this? I mean, man, so many. I mean, the reality is we'll have stories forever, right? Like there are so many great ideas. There are so many scripts that

i read and and projects that i am a part of currently and developing for future um but the most important thing is that we must build the arc like and that's really what this is like i i have to build a place that is safeguarding human art and entertainment, certified organic free range artists like that. That's what's this about because we can keep developing more stories. That's not a problem. But if we don't actually have the place to hold the line, then those jobs are all gone. Right. So, so, you know, I can, I can talk for hours about some, you know, new movies or TV shows or video games or music, things that I have a passion about creating. But I would say that, you know, the through line for all of it is just making sure that it's all stuff that's actually entertaining, that's actually excellent. The vast majority of

the leadership in Hollywood for far too long has not only not valued the artists, right? And that's very obvious because they don't, they love to screw with the creative process and take a lion's share of the money and then leave whatever is left over for the rest of the cast and the crew. But also the vast majority of the leadership in Hollywood hasn't cared about excellence, which means they don't care about the audience.

If they really cared about the audience, then they would have processes where they really refine these movies first through the writing process, then through the shooting process, and then through the editing process. And, but instead what they do is they say, well, you know, we, we were targeting to release this movie, whatever, you know, big movie X, a Star Wars movie. They go, we know we're going to release this in October of this year. And then they go, well, we must release it then. So that means regardless of what form it's in, we have to release it at that point. And we'll just, we'll fix it in post. We'll market it really

well. And by the way, it's Star Wars. So, you know, the IP is so strong that people will watch it anyway. Well, then you have a lot of Star wars fans myself included who want to go to these movies and want to love the movies but then you see them and you go what happened what happened between now and then that they didn't understand even who their audience is that this is what's come out of it right so it's it's a matter of getting all of that nonsense out of there, getting the power back in the artist's hands so that we – because we don't need a lot of these executives. Man, it's a lot of middle management, just gatekeepers. And that's not necessary. Plenty of writers, directors, producers, actors, crew, department heads are very capable of telling these stories without a whole bunch of undue influence that's coming in.

And sorry, to tangent back, just one thing you were saying, and just to me, what was an incredible example of, you know, rules for thee and not for me. But even though they weren't even MS-13 gang members, in Martha's Vineyard, Martha's Vineyard was a perfect example of,

oh, let everybody else handle this. But Martha's Vineyard had illegal immigrants that were being sheltered in Martha's Vineyard. And those folks lasted like two weeks. And then everybody in Martha's Vineyard was like, no, they can't be here. It's Martha's Vineyard. And we don't want these people here. That is a perfect example of the elite class because only the elite live in Martha's Vineyard. This is not like, you know, and for them to just dispose of those people and yet still wanting to champion them

is a perfect example of this nonsense. So anyway, there's so much that we need to take care of, but as an actor, as somebody who really cares about other actors and artists of all ilk and knowing where AI is going and knowing that this is also a perfect opportunity as Hollywood is imploding and burning, that this is a great moment for us to really take that power back and to really, truly value the artists again, if not for the first time, and really, truly value the audience and make sure

that we are doing everything we can to just make excellent content. And that can be excellent stories. They could be more liberally leaning or conservative leaning, like as long as they're not agended. I don't want like in the same way that people are like, I don't want to go watch that like hardcore Bible thumping Christian movie. I agree. I don't want to watch that movie. I'm a deeply spiritual person, but I don't like it when people are just like infusing agenda into something and trying to preach to you about something. And the same has been happening in Hollywood for far too long when it comes to more woke liberal agenda. It's like, you want to go see a movie and the next thing you know, you're getting lectured about somebody's pronouns within the movie. What are we doing?

That's totally unnecessary, completely unnecessary. No, we could sit and talk for hours. We have to have you come back on because there's so many shows I've seen recently, especially on Netflix. They somehow have checked every single box of like trans, non-binary, this, that, like they somehow hit,

they have pronouns I haven't even heard of. And I'm a gay guy who's Gen Z and went to NYU. I'm like, how have I never heard of this? But Zach, you mentioned Star Wars. May the force be with you. I am so excited. I think maybe you should run for office someday. But thank you so, so much for coming on.

And congratulations. And we wish you love and health with your new baby boy. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, Link. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for all that you're doing and everything you're fighting for. This administration is working very hard to try and fix this country. But while they're focused on fixing the country, they can't fix your personal finances. That's really up to you. And that's why thousands of Americans are turning

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