The Megyn Kelly Show - Need for Pelosi Attack Transparency, Media Hypocrisy, and Left Abandons Free Speech, with Sen. Tom Cotton | Ep. 423

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by Sen. Tom Cotton, author of "Only The Strong," to discuss what we know about the Paul Pelosi attack and the need for more transparency about it, media's absurd hypocrisy about "political violence," attempts by the press to connect the Pelosi attack to January 6, the truth about the mentally unwell Pelosi attacker, freakout over Elon Musk taking over Twitter, left abandoning free speech, censorship and suppression over the Lab Leak theory, the danger of China and the "China lobby" in America, the uproar at the New York Times over his 2020 op-ed, fallout still happening now and some journalists realizing they messed up, state of key midterm races in Georgia and Pennsylvania, the danger of Biden's misstatements and gaffes, Trump vs. DeSantis and a viral Megyn video, Cotton's military career and the state of our military today, whether he'll be running for president in the future, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, and happy Halloween. There's a ton of news to get to today. We've got a great guest with us for the full show who can comment on all of it. We've got a lot more information this morning about a story we first brought you live during Friday's show regarding Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, being attacked with a hammer by someone in their home early Friday morning, 2 a.m. Friday morning. We are learning more about who the intruder was, but many questions remain about the circumstances of this crime, which police have been fairly tight lipped about and actually contradictory as well. And the media, I mean, of course, they're so disgusting. They're disgusting, rushing to make this about right wing political violence and not just that,

not just right wing political violence. This is about January 6th. Don't you know? This is about January 6th, like everything needs to be for the Democrats today. Not homelessness, not crime, not mental illness. January 6th, back to that. They will use it for all it's worth and then some. Plus, Elon Musk has officially taken over Twitter and already started to make some changes. And the midterms, of course, now just eight days away. What is the state of the key races across the country? My guest today has been involved in a lot of them, trying to help folks get elected in various states, Republicans. He's Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. He is the author of a new book out tomorrow called Only the Strong, Reversing the Left's Plot to Sabotage American Power. Tom, welcome back to the show. Senator, great to have you here. Thank you, Megan. It's great to be back on the show senator great to have you here thank you megan it's great to be

back on the show with you this is so crazy this thing out in san francisco there it broke while we were on the air hit the san francisco papers and we talked about it this lunatic breaks into her house he's attacking the husband with a hammer. Seems to me the San Francisco police put out information saying a third party was in the home who answered the door that Paul Pelosi called the cops himself from a bathroom. All sorts of speculation broke loose about whether this man was there consensually. San Francisco police then put out a tweet saying, no, only two people were in the home, Paul Pelosi and the attacker.

Conspiracy theories had already taken off. You know, did they know each other? San Francisco PD saying they did not know each other. And now here we are on Monday morning where we know this guy was some lunatic. He was a lunatic. I don't know if there was a greater relationship than that, but I know this guy was a lunatic, 42 years old, connected with some famous nudist out there who herself is a child molester who tried to kidnap a 14 year old. I mean, like on and on it goes. And yet the press has gone deep, dark down the rabbit hole of trying to say this is all this all about January 6th

because the lunatic's latest iteration of craziness was focused on some QAnon theories and things along those lines, notwithstanding his BLM flag and his LGBTQ flag out in front of it. I mean, honestly, Senator, can you help us make sense of what's going on here? Well, Megan, I write a little bit in Only the Strong about how the media has become essentially the press adjunct of the Democratic Party and the progressive left in America. You see that first and most notably during the Vietnam War when the media campaigned so aggressively against the war effort. That continues today. I know Elon Musk ruffled a lot of feathers, you might say, on the Twitter platform by sharing a speculative article that doesn't fit with the mainstream

media's story. I think what we'd all benefit from under these circumstances is just more transparency. They should release the 9-11 tape. They can release security camera footage, which I'm sure the Pelosi house had. They can release body camera footage. But the media is not inquiring about that. In the same way, for instance, that they almost never inquired about what was happening on the January 6th committee interviews. We never have had transcripts of those interviews, only selective nuggets. You saw something similar during both impeachment inquiries of Donald Trump. The media's famous inquisitive nature somehow kind of disappears when they're dealing with a story that may not reflect the Democratic Party's preferred storyline. So I think the San Francisco

Police Department would be well served. It would help everyone just put out all that information. In the meantime, I wish Paul Pelosi all the best in recovering from this terrible crime, a crime that we see too much of all across America today because of soft on crime policies and failures to put mentally ill people into institutions where they can get the care they need. I feel like at a minimum, the SFPD has egg on its face because even under the most generous story to Paul Pelosi and to the San Francisco police, they were in the house when this guy attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer. I'm not sure how that happened. How do you have police officers on site and an 82-year-old gets attacked with a hammer in front of you when you have a gun as a police

officer? It's one of the many questions here. As you point out, there are security cameras all over that house. You can see them from the outside where they turned on. If not, why not? She's the speaker of the house. Far less known public figures than Nancy Pelosi have taken extra security measures in and around San Francisco, given how high the crime rate is there. It would be insane for them not to have their cameras on. And you point out the body cam, the body cam. Right. So if if he walked in there and he heard something on tape or if there was a third person, which now they're saying there wasn't again contradicts what they initially said. Let's see it. Let's see it all. I don't know what went on. I know enough to smell a rat. There's something going on here that they're not telling us. I just don't know what it is. What's disgusting me is the media reaction. And I'll

give you this. OK, so yesterday, that was October 30th. CNN comes out with an article entitled Why Some Democrats Are Trying a Previously Unsuccessful Strategy in a Last Minute Campaign Push. And it talks about how they're focused on a rush of targeted ads and direct door to door outreach focused on what inflation. That's something they haven't tried before to try to address that crime. That would be new. That could help them talk about crime, convince voters like our governor in New York's trying to do last minute. She really cares about all these subway attacks and so on. No door to door outreach focused on January 6th and the threat to democracy, hoping that it can anger and scare enough of their own base and peel off still undecided voters to counter the momentum they sense moving toward the GOP. It's right there from CNN that this is the strategy to hope with a rush of a last minute push to scare

and anger enough of their own that January 6th is still a threat to democracy. And the Paul Pelosi attack for them plays right into that. I don't know if we have Mika Brzezinski yet, but let me tell you, we're cutting a soundbite. I'll just read if we have Mika Brzezinski yet, but let me tell you, we're cutting a soundbite. I'll just read you the highlights of her this morning on MSNBC. The central political headline of this story, says Brzezinski, is that years of Republican propaganda and Trump-fueled fascism led 42-year-old David DePape to break into Nancy Pelosi's home, seemingly with the intent to harm her. The chyron reads, this is courtesy of Newsbusters, how far right demonization of Pelosi led to attack.

Then Mika Brzezinski goes on, Senator, what connection, what connection? He was just deranged, right, in an isolated way. And and I'm trying to read my own writing. And the voters should look over here. Look over here at crime. Crime is up far away from the parallels to January 6th. You know, Megan, we're hearing more and more as the election approach about the Democrats claims of being worried about threats to democracy. I think the Democrats are actually worried about threats from democracy because in eight days, the American people are going to

repudiate the Democrats and their radical agenda because they can't afford food. They can't fill up their gas tanks at the gas pump. They're worried about paying for their kids' braces or sports leagues or music concerts. They see 5 million illegals streaming across our border, bringing with them fentanyl, which is a terrible drug epidemic. So I think the Democrats are worried about threats from democracy, and they're going to get repudiated by the voters next week. So in effect, they're trying to say that Republicans should simply cease all campaigning. I mean, from everything we know about Paul Pelosi's attacker, he appears to be a deranged lunatic. I don't think

that he broke into their house because John Boehner 12 years ago pointed out that Nancy Pelosi helped pass Obamacare or that Kevin McCarthy points out that Nancy Pelosi has passed $5 trillion, which led to this record high inflation. Well, not just that, but you look at the hypocrisy between the messaging now in the wake of Paul Pelosi being attacked and the guy who showed up outside of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house. And I know you're just as a reminder to our viewers, you're an accomplished lawyer, Harvard Law School clerk for one of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, was in private practice, all of it.

So you've got a legal background in addition to your time in public service. So this guy shows up outside of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house. And today the story is zip ties. This guy has zip ties who attached Paul Pelosi. They didn't seem to care that Brett Kavanaugh's attacker would be attacker had zip ties to that. He was ready to kill Brett Kavanaugh. In fact, what we heard from Nancy Pelosi herself after that was the justices are protected. They're protected and no one's in danger. The New York Times thought that that story, the attempted attack on Brett Kavanaugh's life, warranted not front page mentioned, not page two, page 20. They put that on page 20.

This time, Paul Pelosi front page below the fold. In order, by the way, the Brett Kavanaugh threat make the front of the USA Today newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, MSNBC primetime ignored it. It didn't make any one of the Sunday shows except for the Fox News Sunday show. I mean, wall to wall for all those outlets. This one much bigger, trying to tie it to Republicans writ large, eight days in advance of a midterm. It's no accident. Yeah.

And Megan, I want to be clear up front. I mean, my position on Paul Pelosi's attackers, my position on the would-be assassin of Brett Kavanaugh, we should throw the book at them. But the contrast is stark, as you say. And there are differences in the circumstances as well. Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House. Of course, people are going to campaign against the left-wing ideological agenda that she's promoted in the House of Representatives for all these years, just like she campaigns against Donald Trump or back in the day, she campaigned against George Bush. It's a different situation where you're dealing with the Supreme Court justice. It's not normal to single them out

for kind of aggressive political campaign style rhetoric. And say Chuck Schumer did on the steps of the Supreme Court when he called out Brett Kavanaugh by name and said that he wouldn't know what hit him if he went forward decisions that Chuck Schumer didn't like. Second, there were foreshadowing of this kind of attack on Brett Kavanaugh's home. You had left wing agitators for weeks protesting outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices in direct violation of federal law. Yet Merrick Garland and his politicized Department of Justice refused to enforce this law, refused to arrest these agitators for obvious criminal violations of federal law, thereby sending the message that the United States government was not going to take

steps to reinforce security for these justices. So the situation with Brett Kavanaugh is actually more unusual. It's more dangerous. Yet, as you point out, the media largely ignored it compared to the attack on Paul Pelosi. Both heinous, both criminals should have the book thrown at them. But the media views them very differently because of their partisan leanings. And you think about like the attacks by the papers on Brett Kavanaugh and the other conservative justices by the mainstream papers, by the mainstream press. And yet today you've got two days ago dated Washington Post attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband follows years of GOP demonizing her. All right. I'm sorry. As if the

Washington Post hasn't demonized President Trump, hasn't demonized Brett Kavanaugh, Sam Alito, all, you know, give me a break. Right. And in their piece, they have a quote from Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat from California, saying, sadly, this attack was inevitable. Political violence is on the rise. And instead of GOP leaders condemning it, they condone it with silence and even worse glorification. Meanwhile, I remembered this guy. I remembered this guy when Kavanaugh was up for confirmation and the left was coming for his jugular through Christine Blasey Ford at him and all the rest of it. And Senator Collins of Maine hadn't yet said how she was going to vote. And she's a more moderate Republican. She was under enormous pressure to vote against him. And she made it public that she was being threatened. Her life was being threatened. Voicemails, emails and so on before the Kavanaugh vote. And Swalwell came out and tweeted as

follows. Boo hoo hoo. You're a senator who police will protect. Who's going to protect his sexual assault victims and so on? The backlash to him was significant and he had to apologize and delete his tweet. But that's where his mind was. Boo hoo. And you're stupid little threats. You weak-kneed Republican. Now, this attack was inevitable. Political violence is on the rise and these GOP leaders refuse to condemn it. Give me a break. Yeah, absolutely. You can see how opportunistic these Democrats and their media friends are. They're desperate to kind of change the story, leaving this election that's

about inflation and crime and our southern border. I mean, it's always been the case, Megan, that campaigns draw upon rhetoric of warfare. It's just a fact. It's a metaphor. It means nothing more than that. You've got the air war on television. You've got the ground war trying to get out the vote. You've got battleground states. You've got targeted races. Even the term campaign comes from military campaigns. That's just normal political rhetoric. Yet the Democrats are trying to essentially say Republicans should not be allowed to campaign for the final 10 days of this election because a lunatic broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and committed a heinous crime. He should be held accountable for his crime

just as all those agitators and the would-be assassin outside of Justice Kavanaugh's homes were held accountable for their crimes. And in contrast to what the Democrats would do for most crimes, all criminals who are pushing people in front of subways or assaulting random civilians on the street, committing heinous acts of violence all across America should have the book thrown at them as well. That's the reason why the Democrats are going to lose. And that's why they want to change the topic to these so-called threats to democracy when what they're really worried about is threats from democracy. Here's a little sampling, again, courtesy of Newsbusters, of the reporting on this matter

this morning. I think it's, let me make sure it's MSNBC, ABC and CBS News. Listen. That years of Republican propaganda and Trump-fueled fascism led 42-year-old David DePap to break into Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco home, seemingly with the intent to harm her. Though specific motive has been identified. The circumstances are eerily similar to the January 6th attack. Some bringing zip ties into the Capitol, attempting to find officials and take them hostage.

Oh Nancy, Nancy. Pelosi, one of the targets that day and Friday. This is an incredibly toxic moment that has been building for years and only getting worse. Threats against members of Congress have more than doubled since 2017. Fundraising requires lots of conflict. You don't get a fundraising email that says,

oh, the other side has a point. You get a fundraising email that says the other side is at the door ready to ruin your life and all that you believe. That has amped up the temperature. Stoking the flames, if you will. Stoking the flames. There's always been political violence, but now what happens is you have a system that

structurally incentivizes more and more heated rhetoric. While there have been victims in both parties, targeted Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, the structure of the Republican Party more recently with the advent of Donald Trump has put a person at the top of the party who has consistently advocated violence and who has created a market within his own party where it's fun to joke about violence. John Dickerson there in the last soundbite. And then, Senator, just to add on, so you're not confused about exactly how this is linked to January 6th, here's Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House spokesperson on MSNBC this weekend. The thing that is probably the most haunting about when we hear the reports of this assailant of the attacker that you were we were speaking of is that he was he was yelling out the things

that we heard during January 6, which is where is Nancy? And, you know, again, we need to end this type of rhetoric. It needs to stop. And it is incredibly, incredibly dangerous. Got it. Back to the CNN report. We will scare them and we will anger them by putting January 6th in their face as often as possible. The cynicism of trying to exploit this attack into a January 6th redo is obvious and disgusting. Yeah, again, it's because the Democrats don't have any other issue on which they campaign. The January 6th Capitol riots had many terrible crimes. I think most Americans, though, remember most about January 6th, 2021, that gas was $2.40 a gallon, or that they could afford groceries at the end of the week, or they could pay their rent and their utilities at the end of

the month. And that's what they want to have again. The Democratic Party, their adjuncts in the media are simply trying to focus on other stories in the final days before this election because they have no compelling argument to make about their stewardship of the economy or their protection of our border or their building up of our military, which on all those things, they've weakened us. And as I say, I don't want to be strong. They've weakened us intentionally to pursue their own ideological agenda. Now they're about to pay the economic or the electoral consequences of pursuing that agenda. And they want to change the story.

So even Gavin Newsom came out and tried to blame this on politics and the GOP. Gavin Newsom, who, you know, he was San Francisco mayor, now is California governor. His state is nothing less than a hot mess when it comes to their economy, when it comes to the homeless problem, the drug problem in San Francisco in particular. OK, this guy, he completely ignores all the facts that have come out about this guy in trying to blame basically you and your party, the GOP, for this. Here's a little bit from Michael Schellenberger, who's an honest journalist. He's I trust him implicitly. He's been he wrote the book Apocalypse Never on the environment. He started out on the left. He's he came to his views very honestly. been he wrote the book Apocalypse Never on the environment. He started out on the left. He's he's came to his views very honestly. And he wrote the book San Francisco recently about

the homeless crisis, homeless crisis out there, as well as the drug crisis linked, of course. And he went out there and actually got knocking on doors and doing some old shoe leather reporting on this guy who attacked Pelosi. And here's what he posts on his sub stack. Pelosi attack suspect was a psychotic homeless addict estranged from his pedophile lover and their children. He goes through a few of the examples in the past few years. He has shared videos of Disney films altered to make it look like the characters were swearing. He has claimed Jesus is the Antichrist. By the way, another report that this guy, this attacker,

thought he was Jesus for at least a year. That he lived with a notorious local nudist in a Berkeley home with a BLM sign in the window, as I mentioned, that they lived essentially in a homeless encampment in the midst of an open drug scene. There was a yellow school bus out front, which neighbors said he occasionally slept in. They described him as a homeless addict.

The neighbors did with the politics that was until recently left wing, but of secondary importance to his psychotic and paranoid behavior. One neighbor said he had been living in a storage shed. He talks to angels. It goes on. Hold on. Tons of drug use, mental instability, screaming, calling the police about hearing conversations that were never had, wailing at night that there was frequent nudity before his nudist girlfriend got locked, locked up. There were sex dolls drying on the back porch that they assume she bought for her sons, two of whom she shared with him. And she told the neighbor that this guy had abused her children and that she didn't basically didn't do anything about it.

She claims to have called the police and claims they did nothing. But she claimed that he had raped or molested her own children. And she, I guess, decided to stay with this person. This guy was a sick, sick dude. And it's obvious from any of the reports because there are lots of reports about just how sick he was. And this is how you get the media when confronted with that information. OK, you get that. You got to wrestle with facts. Here's how that happened on NBC, courtesy of reporter Ben Collins the other day. Listen. The question is, did the mental issues arise because of what he read online or were they there before that?

And really, does it matter at this point if it's politically motivated? At this point, it simply does not matter. The problem is people keep egging these people on. There are people on the television across the street from us that egg these people on to talk about cabals and stuff and people secretly running the world. And it's kind of like women either. So that's happening right now. And then on top of it, you have political figures. You have the previous president of the United States

posting about QAnon on his social media platforms. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day because right now there are people advocating for these conspiracy theories out there. So of course people who can't, you know, who don't know this is a game to these politicians are going to take it out on real people. You see, it's still the GOP messaging, which they make a reference to across the street. They mean Fox, MSNBC and Fox are right across the street from each other down in Washington, D.C.

Yeah, it really is incredible, the hypocrisy and opportunism here, Megan. I tell a story, and I'm really strong, about the San Francisco Democrats, which is what our great U.N. ambassador, Gene Kirkpatrick, referred to the Democrats in 1984 as. They'd held their political convention in San Francisco that year. They sounded like a parody of left-wing ideologues. Unfortunately, there's a new class of San Francisco Democrats, people like Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris and Chesa Boudin, the Soros-backed soft-on-crime prosecutor, who was so bad the people of San Francisco removed him from office just a few months ago. But look at what they've done to a great American city. If you've been to San Francisco lately, you know

that it's just ripe with homelessness, with drugs, with crime. No one deserves what happened to Paul Pelosi. No one deserves to be the victim of crime. Everybody in San Francisco should be able to live safely. They should be able to walk the streets and take their kids to parks without worrying about being accosted by drug addicts and homeless people and criminals. Yet, because of the Democrats' soft on crime policies, it's happening not only in San Francisco, but in many great American cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles. If even a fraction of that record that you read to us is true about Paul Pelosi's assailant, he's obviously a deranged lunatic who should have been locked away

in prison or in a mental health institution where he'd get the care he needed. Yet Democrats let people like him back on the streets every single day all across America. Pelosi's been villainized for years and big surprises gone viral and it went violent. We need to make sure we're not electing more election deniers who are following Donald Trump down this road. We have to do something about this amplification of this election denying hate speech that we see on the Internet. I mean, I presume she's talking about Stacey Abrams and that this is obviously an endorsement of Brian Kemp. The Democrats feel so strongly about election denial that they've only denied every Republican president who won the election in the 21st century had actually won. Remember, in 2001 and 2005 with George Bush and then 2017 with Donald Trump, you had members of Congress rising up during the electoral count certifications to object that these presidents had been legitimately elected.

So the Democrats can spare me their talk of election denial. Can we spend a minute on Elon Musk? I mentioned him in passing. He's now officially bought Twitter. He's taken over. He's fired a bunch of the executives, which seems like a good thing. In particular, one of the lawyers, she seems like she'd love to censor anything right wing. But he's fired the CEO. he's fired a bunch of people. And one of his things that he did over the weekend that got some attention was he retweeted a quote conspiracy theory about the

Paul Pelosi attacker. But from some publication, I don't even know this publication, Santa Monica Observer, something like that. But in any event, they were speculating. There is, I'm just going to say, speculation online that Paul Pelosi knew this guy, that maybe they were involved in some sort of a gay relationship. Zero actual evidence for that. Okay, that is a conspiracy theory at this point. But in any event, or that he may have been a prostitute and so on. So Elon Musk tweeted out that theory like, well, there may be more to this story. He's since deleted the tweet. Of course, cue the, oh my God, this lunatic. He took over Twitter. He's going to allow everything. The next thing you know, the new Hitler's going to

rise on Twitter because we have this lunatic conspiracy theorist who's going to allow literally anything to be said. Elon has said that's not true. He won't be allowing anything. He doesn't want it to be that kind of a place. But what do you make of all those developments and Elon Musk, the new head of Twitter? Well, I wish Elon well in his effort to try to turn Twitter into a fair, neutral, public square where genuine debate can happen. I think America is stronger when we all respect the free speech rights of every American to include, and perhaps especially our political opponents. Unfortunately, the left has not done that for years. I mean, they call for people to be censored or to lose their jobs when they say that there might've been questions about the last

election, the way it was conducted in certain states, or that even if the climate is warming, we have the ability to control those effects with fossil fuel production and the prosperity it creates, or that maybe the COVID vaccine is not necessary for young, healthy teenage boys. Again, these are all things about which reasonable people can disagree and debate. Yet if the left had its way, you would be censored from platforms like Twitter and you would lose your job. So I wish Elon very well in trying to turn Twitter into a genuine, neutral and viewpoint balanced platform where all Americans, if they wish, can engage and debate. In contrast, say just two years ago, Megan, two years ago,

leading up to the 2020 election on Twitter, you could not repeat what I'd said, that the coronavirus most likely came from a lab in Wuhan, not from some dumb food market in Wuhan, that there was most likely a leak where they were studying bat-borne coronaviruses in those Wuhan labs. That was considered dangerous misinformation. Likewise, you couldn't share a New York Post story about Hunter Biden's notorious laptop, which apparently documented with video and photo evidence every crime he's ever committed. Again, dangerous misinformation. But now we know both of those stories were true. And that just goes to show you again how the left has abandoned its

commitment to free speech in America. They'd rather censor viewpoints with which they disagree and certainly viewpoints that cause them any political harm. Yeah, we had RFK Jr. on the show last week, and he was talking about how I think it was his Instagram got shut down after he tweeted out a study done on monkeys on the first vaccine, the first version that attacked the original strain of COVID we all were facing. And he said, you know, not to be the bearer of bad news, but this study of this vaccine on monkeys showed it does not prevent transmission. And for that, he got censored on social media. And I think it was in particular Instagram at the time. So and that, of course, we now know is true.

We heard that one of the heads of Pfizer admit exactly that to the European Parliament, that they hadn't even tested that. It was never one of the promises. And of course, the numbers show that it didn't turn out to be true. I'll give you one final example of this guy, David DePepe, before we go to break. The this is from, again, Rich Lowry over at National Review, who I think he's quoting WAPO. This guy believes that he was being targeted by invisible forces. If he writes in his review of what DePepe wrote in his blog the week before the attack, Washington Post found he thought that, quote, He writes, used by a fairy. They have lots of fairy houses, he wrote, this guy, DePape, but none of them are

made for fairies. Before his posts were load, readers would see an image of someone wearing a giant inflatable unicorn costume. Yet we have NBC telling us none of that matters. All that matters is that Republicans and their rhetoric need to know that lunatics like this are out there and they may be incentivizing them. Contrast that to the guy who showed up outside of Brett Kavanaugh's house, who clearly was having mental issues himself, and the whole thing was dismissed because of the fact that he was having mental issues. It was not the left's unhinged attacks on the Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh placed him in danger and the left needs to be more responsible because lunatics like this guy who showed up with his weapons and his zip ties

outside of Brett Kavanaugh's house, we need to understand that they're out there. Not at all. It wasn't beside the point. It was the entire point, the mental illness. Now it's all about the GOP. Why? Because we are a week plus away from a midterm elections in which the Democrats know their political fortunes are dwindling by the second. And as CNN reported, they see one way out of it, and that is to scare and anger based on January 6th. More with Senator Tom Cotton after this on his book, and it is a barn burner. Only the strong. Don't go away. Senator, I'll give you one more kind of fun reaction to Elon Musk buying Twitter. The biggest loser in all of this is the guy who owns Parler. He's married to Candace Owens. And that's a bummer because if you're developing Parler,

you really don't want Elon Musk taking over Twitter because it's going to be more fair and balanced. In any event, Taylor Lorenz, now Washington Post reporter, tweets out, it's like the gates of hell opened on this site. Well, I mean, it goes to show you these hysterical reaction, not just from Democratic politicians, but from supposedly neutral, disinterested, objective so-called journalists, they're aghast that Elon Musk is now going to allow conservatives to express themselves on that platform. Just how much they relied on the censorship and the content moderation and the policing of anything that was deemed inappropriate conduct. Again, as I detail in Only the Strong, social media tried to suppress my very simple common sense observation in 2020 that the story that

the Wuhan coronavirus originated in some stupid food market just didn't hang together based on the facts that we all knew, not any kind of secret classified information, that rather it almost certainly came from research projects into bat-borne coronaviruses at the Wuhan laboratories. But again, you couldn't say that. It was a conspiracy theory. It was dangerous. Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi all said that I and the former president and others were spreading misinformation and xenophobia and racism, when now most fair-minded observers accept the fact that this virus almost certainly came from those labs in Wuhan. I'll give a little show plug while we're on topic.

This Thursday, we're having one of the doctors who was in communication with, and we believe under pressure from Fauci, who switched from this looks like a lab leak to suddenly, this was a natural source market situation. He's coming on the show. We're going to have a debate. He's going to represent that side. We've got another doctor who's going to take the opposite view. And now we all know some of the reasons why you would have had those suspicions. You know, we were funding gain of function research on bats at the Wuhan lab. And so so you may have been in a position to know some of this stuff, whereas your sensors

weren't. So what happened to you? Like when you did say early on, I think this may have come information. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a doctor, but I know enough not to trust communists, especially when their actions and their words don't match up. So I saw a Chinese communist saying that everything's under control. It's just an ordinary kind of seasonal outbreak of some respiratory virus. Don't worry, nothing to see here. At the same time, they were literally sealing people in high-rise apartment buildings by welding the doors closed. They were building field people in high-rise apartment buildings by welding the doors closed. They were building field hospitals in a matter of days. They were locking down populations larger than the entire West Coast of America. So that's when I really began to dig into what was happening in Wuhan, what they claimed happened at that food market.

And I realized by the end of January, early February of 2020, that the facts just didn't add up. And that because the Wuhan labs dealt with bat-borne coronaviruses, because Chinese laboratories are notoriously unsafe, it's almost certain that the virus came from those labs. And immediately, the mainstream media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, all condemned me, said I was peddling false conspiracy theories, that this is somehow xenophobic and going to foment attacks on Asian Americans. They were all carrying water for Chinese communists. They were all running interference. They were basically saying that I and anyone else who subscribed to these common sense views should just shut up and salute

and not do anything to rock the boat or certainly not to offend the Chinese communists. And I explain in Only the Strong, that's actually what the American left has done for a long time, whether it's communist in China now or communist in Russia during the Cold War. Can you put it in perspective for our audience? We talk about China sometimes on the show, but we're not neck deep in it. And now it looks like Xi Jinping is president for life. He runs the Communist Party. He runs the military. He's the political head. And he seems to have gotten rid of the one guy who was like slightly more democratically minded in his new administration, if that's even the right term. So what do you make of what's happening in China right now? I mean, I worry about all the

them buying up all the land. They've taken over Hollywood. They've taken over huge segments of our economy. None of our basketball players will say anything about them. They really are getting their hand over our mouths like a muzzle, and we're going along with it. So can you just give us a few minutes on China and what they're doing and why we need to be concerned? Well, communist China is probably the gravest threat we've ever faced, more grave even than Soviet Russia was, in part because China already is so entangled in our economy and in our own way of life at home in a way that Soviet Russia never was. If you go back into the ancient mist of history, China kind of always was and has been, unlike nations that we

know their origins. China has always been a large and great civilization. You know, it conceived of itself as the Middle Kingdom. And to put that in concrete layman's terms, that means that it was the middle of the earth and every other nation, every other people kind of revolved around it, that it was the master of all things under the sun. Then when you graft a godless globalist ideology like communism onto that nationalistic worldview, you get a nation that was obviously going to be a threat to America. One of the worst mistakes in our history was starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially under Bill Clinton's presidency, as I lay out in Only the Strong, that we enabled China's rise by essentially outsourcing our prosperity, our jobs, our factories to China, allowing them to grow so rapidly, which of course

they then turn in to a stronger military and to a totalitarian police state. There was a period of time when Chinese leaders followed Ding Xiaoping's maxim, which is hide your strength and bide your time. That period is over. Under Xi Jinping, China is now flaunting its strength and probably views itself as not having much time. We're in a very dangerous moment now with Xi Jinping just having secured an unprecedented third five-year term in total control in a way that no Chinese leader has had control since Mao Zedong, and faced off against Joe Biden, who I believe he views as weak and hapless, and that this may be a window of opportunity in which he can press

China's claims around the world, most notably in Taiwan, probably the most dangerous flashpoint in all the world for a clash between the United States and another major nation. So it's all very dangerous. It's very dangerous here at home as well because of the threats to our prosperity and because of the threats to our freedom. As you laid out, as I explained in Only the Strong, there's something that I call the China lobby in America that tries to suppress all these facts. Many people think that it's just maybe multinational corporations that have had factories move to China. It's much worse than that. You cited, say, LeBron James.

He wants to make sure the NBA has access to the Chinese market. He wants to make sure that his movies has access to the Chinese market, as does every other major Hollywood studio. Silicon Valley wants back into China. For those companies that aren't there, companies like Apple want to maintain their operations there. Even in places that you wouldn't expect it necessarily, like university colleges, sometimes even private boarding schools, they act as de facto lobbyists for the Chinese communists because they depend so much on full freight tuition paying Chinese nationals. I can tell you, I hear it all the time in Congress, people coming in to de facto lobby for Chinese communists because of the economic entanglement of our two countries. That's yet

another reason, in addition to our health and our safety and our prosperity, that we try to decouple our economy from China to the greatest extent possible, especially in strategically critical sectors of our economy. But it's it's the fact that it's not yet a priority that we're actively working on is really concerning. And I don't know if we get that if we get a Republican president next time around who understands the threat. But to me, it seems like priority number one, priority number one above Russia, above above anything. And you write about only the strong. We're looking at that threat rising. At the same time, we're looking at what in particular the left has done to our military.

And this is an ideological commitment, what they've done to our military. And you were in the military. Your story is actually your backstory is amazing. And you write about it in the book the book too but you you're this rising star brought up on a cattle farm in arkansas your parents are democrats but you found your own politics you decide that you're going to get yourself into harvard one of only two kids from arkansas as i understand to get into that class you get in you wind up going to harvard law school as well and then 9-11 comes and you volunteer you you sign up, you go, you fight in Afghanistan, you fight in Iraq too, you get a couple of bronze stars, at least one,

and all sorts of other medals. I mean, it's really incredible. I have to say it's very incredible to leave that very cushy white shoe path you were on to volunteer to go fight, and you did. So you've got some thoughts in the military. You've never been shy about expressing them. So how does that parallel track against the threat of China? Describe that for us. Well, thank you, Megan, for the very kind words. Just one bronze star

and one tour in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan, one tour at Arlington National Cemetery between those two. Now, I wouldn't be remiss if my parents would be upset if I didn't point out that while they were Democrats, they were always conservative Democrats, like so many Arkansans. I think it's now fair to say that they and most other people have seen the light and joined me in the Republican Party. But that's pretty typical for a lot of places in America. Like Ronald Reagan, like Jean Kirkpatrick, they didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left them in part because the Democratic Party is at best ambivalent about America. And they are openly hostile to American power. And what's the hardest edge of American power? It's our military. That's not the only source

of American power, a strong and prosperous economy and our sovereignty, other parts of power as well. The last thing we want to use our military, but it has to be the foundation. Democrats recognize that. And because they are hostile to American power and ambivalent about America, they consistently, when they take office, like birds traveling south in the winter, cut our defense budget to dangerous levels, as we saw by the end of the Clinton administration, by the end of the Obama administration. They also have doubts and skepticism about the military and its culture. Sometimes the Democrats are called the mommy party because of their focus on softer or nurturing or caring issues. There's few figures in American culture that are less identified with

mommy than our drill sergeants. And therefore, they're more worried about drill sergeants using the right pronouns than they are giving our warriors the training they need. They're more worried about training social justice warriors than training warriors who are ready to kill for our nation. So they engage in all kinds of social engineering and voice politically correct training sessions on our troops, something like out of Mao's cultural revolution. I can assure you this is a distraction at best from our military when they should be focused on the kind of tactical training that gets them ready to fight and win wars. More likely, it's actually costing us a lot of troops. I hear from hundreds and hundreds of troops from across the services who want to leave our military because they don't like the turn it's taken under Joe Biden. We can turn all that around, but it's going to take a big victory next week and then a new Republican president and secretary of defense to get our military both the funding it needs and the single minded focus on fighting and winning our nation's wars.

You have a fascinating story in Only the Strong. It's in chapter four. And you write about a story about Donald Trump that I had never heard before. And it reminded me of all, you know, he took it during the campaign because, you know, he always said things that were controversial. And one of the things he said was, I know more than the generals. I can do a better job than the generals. Right. And people were like, you never started in the military. What are you saying? But the truth is, that's Trump and his rhetoric. And when it comes to Trump, you always have to make the distinction between what he says and actually how he governed. And I would submit he fares much better if you just look at the latter without connecting't believe how President Obama tried to micromanage the generals and

the troops when it came to, for example, taking out terrorists. Yeah, I had witnessed this when I first got in the Senate in 2015. I was on the Intelligence and Armed Services Committee. So I saw the way President Obama tied the hands of our military when we were going after terrorists in places like Iraq or Syria or Yemen or Somalia. Our military out on the front lines was engaged in great painstaking efforts to track these terrorists, identify chances to take them off the battlefield. Yet they had to get prior approval all the way up in some cases to the White House. What we call back when I was

in the Army, the 5,000 milemile screwdriver, being micromanaged from Washington, D.C. on simple targeting decisions. So in the early days of President Trump's tenure, he called me about a nominee that he was considering. He'd heard I had some doubts about it. And I shared those. And then we just had some small talk and asked him what else was going on. And he told the story about being woken up in the middle of the night to approve a strike against a known terrorist. And he was kind of flummoxed that this was happening. Why were they calling him in the middle of the night? He didn't know who this person was. And he said, well, you wanted us to at least temporarily to maintain your predecessor's policies in place. And he required that kind of approval for this kind of target on the battlefield.

And as I say, and only Strong, Trump immediately approved the strike. But he also said correctly, next time you don't have to call me. There should be some major or captain or colonel overseas who's been following this guy for weeks or months who should be able to authorize this kind of strike. It would be as if when I was leading patrols in Baghdad, if I had to call back to my company commander or my battalion commander every time I wanted to engage a bad guy who was shooting at my platoon. But it just reflects the democratic mindset about the military, deeply mistrustful of it as the fundamental source of American power, always looking to impose excessive, needless political controls over even operational decisions on the other side of the globe. It makes America less safe. And unfortunately, it's happened again. Joe Biden,

Barack Obama's understudy, has once again begun to hamstring our military on exactly those kinds of strikes overseas. Well, and you take the reader through it. You go through what Carter did. You talk about Bill Clinton and about how under Bill Clinton, the defense budget fell every year as a share of the economy reaching levels not seen since before World War Two. The book is backed up with facts and evidence on each of these points. It's not just soaring rhetoric that's anti leftist. It's got real data from which the reader can make a conclusion. Senator Tom Cotton stays with us for the entire show today. It's a pleasure to have you here, sir. Stand by. And remember, folks, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel, 111 every weekday at noon east. The full video show and clips are available at youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. If you prefer an audio podcast, the form in which we originally launched, follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. And don't forget my husband, Doug Brunt, just launched a new podcast. It's called Dedicated with Doug Brunt. And he interviews really well-known, great authors about their books

and their writing process. Got a lot of great feedback on it. And you can leave him a comment because he's so sweet. I saw him reading the comments. He's writing down suggestions on guests. So would love for you guys to check it out and let us know what you think. We've talked a bit about the media and their role in the left's plot, as you put it in the title, subtitle of your book. You know more than your fair share about that. And, and in particular about the New York Times, you've had a couple of interactions with them that are pretty interesting. When you were young and fighting abroad, not that you're not young now, you took issue with them revealing some details that endangered our troops. And you spoke out in a way that I think was it put you on the national map and would lead to you ultimately getting elected as a House representative for your term as a senator.

And so you go back to The New York Times in June of 2020, weeks after George Floyd. And you spoke out, wrote out about the lawlessness going city to city in America. And it was very brave of you because this was a time at which there was only one right thing to say. And that was what happened to George Floyd was wrong. The lawlessness is a just reaction to what was done. And if you don't see it that way, you're a bigot. You're a racist. So for you to write this piece took guts. To remind the audience, here's just a sampling of what you wrote. The New York Times opinion, the op-ed board titled it as follows. Tom Cotton, colon, colon, send in the troops. That's not that doesn't represent what you actually said. You were talking about bands

of looters roving the streets about the businesses getting smashed and emptied by these folks and being allowed in by feckless politicians who wouldn't do anything. Rioters running over officers with cars on at least three occasions and so on. An orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic and so on. Then you wrote, one thing above all else will restore order to our streets, an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain, and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what's necessary to uphold the rule of law. You go on. The pace of looting and disorder may fluctuate from night to night, but it is past time to support local law enforcement with federal authority. That was

your position. Support the locals, like the National Guard, etc. That's something that we can do at the federal level. It was not send in the troops, martial law, the army's going to take over your city. That's how the left reacted to it. All hell broke loose after this thing got published. The guy who was basically ahead of the New York Times editorial page, James Bennett, was forced out. They forced the guy to hand in his resignation. He's the editorial page editor. He was forced to resign. Dozens of Times journalists voiced their opposition to them publishing the piece, tweeting out the headline, the caption in a form of the phrase and said as follows, quote, running this puts black at New York Times staff in danger.

Just your opinion, put them in danger? James Bennett, forced to resign, said, I hadn't even read the essay before I published it. And then top editors of the Times apologized to the Times staff in a long, tense internal meeting, acknowledging that they had invited you to write this piece because the Times, although always left-leaning, used to at least try to include differing opinions. So what was your reaction to that at the time? And then I'll get to what James Bennett is saying now. Yeah, there were some amusing ironies in that episode, Megan. As you say, I didn't even propose to write that op-ed for the New York Times. I proposed a

slightly different op-ed. I'd expressed these sentiments on Twitter, as we were discussing in the last hour, and some anonymous low-level Twitter function just have to stand up for themselves to some social media giant. I proposed to write about that and what Twitter had done trying to censor my views. The New York Times asked me to write about the content of the argument that I'd posted on Twitter, which was very simple, that although law enforcement is primarily a local and state function, if you had local police forces that were unable to get control of the rioters and the looters and the arsonists, or in some cases, unfortunately, they were not allowed to get control of them by Democratic mayors and Democratic governors, then the president had an obligation. And he had the power under what's known as the Insurrection Act to use federal forces to restore order to America's streets. The Insurrection Act is one of the oldest and most venerable laws on our books.

It goes back to the founding era. It's not commonly used, but it's been used multiple times in American history, most recently in the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. It was used in my home state whenever Orval Faubus, our racist Democratic governor, refused to integrate Little Rock Central and Dwight Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to ensure that those Black kids could go to school and get an education, despite Orval Faubus and the Democratic Party's refusal to allow schools to integrate. But as you say, the headline is the most incendiary piece of the whole story.

And I didn't write the headline. As you know, as a lot of your viewers may know, authors don't write their own headlines. That headline was chosen by the New York Times. I think that contributed to a lot of the meltdown at the New York Times newsroom because you had people who didn't even read the article itself. They just responded to the headline. My reaction to it- Oh, wait, let me ask you something on that. Let me ask something on that. I posit to you that they would have reacted exactly the same way had they fully understood what you were saying. tearing down statues of our heroes, condemning America and our police forces as systemically racist, saying that we're an awful country, that we're founded not in freedom, but in bondage. We're founded not in 1776, but in 1619. I mean, it was really a mob mentality. And you saw the

mobs playing out in the streets. Now, again, I found the whole thing slightly bemusing to watch all of these social justice warriors at the New York Times melt down. But most disappointing was that the leadership at the New York Times didn't have the nerve to stand up to its own 20-something workforce. Jim Bennett, the op-ed editor you mentioned that lost his job, is not really a villain here. He's expressed regret that he agreed to the editor's note on my piece, which you can still read today. He was forced to do that by the Sulzbergers, the owners of the New York Times, who are the real villains, along with the woke workforce at the New York Times. Now,

one funny story about that editor's note, and I like to tell this story on the campaign trail, always gets lots of laughter, is that they said, without citing any factual problems, because there are no factual problems in that op-ed they said i didn't meet the new york times standards and and i agree with new york times for once i did not meet their typically very low standards i far exceeded their standards in my quality of argumentation that's um right they made they made him attach an editor's note drawing into question their decision to publish it. They said, OK, this is just an example of what they posted. It's long, but I'll give you some highlights. We have concluded that this essay fell short of our standards.

It should not have been published. The basic arguments advanced by Senator Cotton, however objectionable people may find them, represent a newsworthy part of the current debate. But given the life and death importance of the topic, the senator's influential position and the gravity of the steps he advocates, the essay should have undergone the highest level of scrutiny. Instead, the editing process was rushed and flawed and senior editors were not sufficiently involved

and so on and so forth. And they go, I mean, they pull out like these, there's a bunch of BS objections that they try to come up with. Well, what's interesting now is that I'll get to Jim Bennett and his thoughts on this. I think it's very interesting. Now he's come out and hit the Washington Post. I'm sorry, the New York Times for doing all of this.

But Eric Wemple at the Washington Post has come out with a really thoughtful admission and piece on all of this. This is just on, I guess it was Thursday, 1027, whatever that was, and says James Bennett was right. He's talking about James Bennett ripping on the Times for how it handled this now. He says it's long past time to ask why more people who claim to uphold journalism and free expression, including the Eric Wemple blog. This is Eric Wemple writing, did not speak out then in Bennett's defense.

It's because we were afraid to. And he goes on to say, citing somebody who I guess used to work in your office, that that they believed that the guy basically had the guy when they reviewed the piece to try to find something wrong, they had a gun to their head to try to find something, anything. And even Eric Wemble writes, the review did not deliver the factual bloodbath alleged by critics. At best, it flagged a misquotation that should have been rendered as a paraphrase. Heaven, heavens to Betsy. And he goes on to say, this is what The New York Times did. They published an opinion by a U.S. senator and possible presidential candidate advocating for a lawful act by the president. And Eric Wemble writes, our criticism of the Twitter outburst comes 875 days too late.

Although the hollowness of the internal uproar against Bennett was immediately apparent, we responded with an even-handed critique of the Times' flip-flop, not an unapologetic defense of journalism, which is what the situation required. Now, all this time later, James Bennett, too, comes out, Senator, and says, the publisher, Sulzberger, blew it. He blew the chance to make clear that the New York Times does not exist just to tell progressives how progressives should view reality this was a huge mistake and a missed opportunity for him to show real strength he still could have fired me but he didn't need to handle it this way he says I regret that editor's note my mistake there was trying to mollify people and goes on to say the Times wants to have it both ways they want the applause and the welcome of the left and now there's the problem that on top of that, they signed up so many new subscribers, he means during the Trump leaning. Certainly Jim Bennett is. Come to Jesus on this issue. You know, the one guy got canceled. The other guy feels bad about not being honest about it. All this time later, they're starting to see the light.

Yeah. You know, as I said, I mean, I don't really fault Jim Bennett. I wish he had not agreed to run that editor's note or at least not agreed to be associated with it. But he regrets that as well. The real villains here are the owners of The New York Times, Sulzbergers and their workforce who don't want to hear anything contrary to their own doctrinaire progressive worldview. My views in that op-ed are not just that the president should take a lawful act if necessary to restore order.

They were also supported by a wide majority of Americans at the time. I just point out a couple of things. I mean, the New York Times is like the high cathedral of liberalism in America. Every lefty kid who ever wanted to be a journalist dreamed one day of growing up to work at the New York Times. The Salzburgers could have easily told all of those whiny little social justice warriors, you'll get back to work and there'll be no more discussion about this or you'll be fired tomorrow. And if they did say that, there'd be 10 more people, maybe 50 more people equally qualified, lined up for any person's job who is willing to quit over that op-ed.

Second, about this Washington Post story, which does a pretty good job of laying out what had happened behind the scenes. It talks about how we went through a rigorous fact-checking process with New York Times, just like I did with my two previous op-eds in the New York Times that talked about the advantages of buying Greenland to the United States or why we killed Qasem Soleimani, Iran's terrorist mastermind. Same exact process. It really was a kind of witch hunt trying to find something wrong with the op-ed, which they obviously didn't do. But finally, two years later, after you have these writers on the left coming out and saying, we were scared, we should have said this at the time, we didn't agree with this, it just raises the deeper question, what are they suppressing today? What news are they not publishing? What viewpoints are they not allowing onto their pages? Because they have the same kind

of partisan filter on their news and their opinion pages that they don't want to do anything that will upset the progressive left in America. I think it's well worth asking, what are they censoring and suppressing today if they're admitting they were doing it two years ago? That's such a great question. Like perhaps on some dangers associated with the COVID vaccines, like perhaps the downside of mutilating minors with these aggressive, quote, gender affirming surgeries, which actually are leading to a lot of damage that these kids wind up severely regretting and suing over. Right. Like like the race essentialism that we're baking into every elementary school and middle and high school program now teaching children that skin color matters. And it might be everything that you're at certain disadvantages depending on your melanin or advantage. And so, like, I don't think we've found our spine on any of those. No, the left certainly hasn't. In fact, as we discussed in the first hour, they would rather suppress all those viewpoints. I think it's the official position of all these journalists and Democratic politicians who are screeching about Elon owning Twitter that you should be able to lose your job or you should be cens mastectomies. If you think the COVID vaccine may not be necessary and could even be potentially harmful for your teenage boy. If you think the effects of climate

change can be controlled by more fossil fuel production, more prosperity for America and the entire world. These are just a few of the things that the left wants you kicked off social media, wants you to lose your job, wants you to lose your bank accounts over, as opposed to engaging on their own terms and trying to win the debate in the arena of ideas. Have you ever talked to Jim Bennett? I did, actually. Jim Bennett came to see me a few months ago. At first, it was a private conversation, but since he has said publicly exactly what he said to me privately, now I don't feel that it's constraining on me. I can say that he expressed to me the same regret that he's expressed in the articles as of late.

Again, I don't view Jim Bennett as a villain here. I agree with him that he shouldn't have agreed to run that editor's note under his own name. But the real villain, his boss, the Sulzbergers who fired him and all those employees who rose up demanding his head. This is not a right wing guy. You know, this is he he's written some things that have gotten him sued for the Times by people like Sarah Palin and so on. His his opinions have not in any way been right leaning, but he was apparently in favor of publishing your piece because he did have this old school commitment to offering divergent points of view because the belief that used to be in our country that that would help people process an issue and decide which side they're on and so on. Do you think his politics have changed at all?

Like in talking to him? I don't know. I mean, he now has a column in The Economist magazine, so we'll be able to judge for ourselves his politics on it. I will say Jim Bennett is far from a right winger. I mean, his brother, Michael Bennett, is a United States senator, well, soon to be an ex-senator when he loses next week. But, you know, he's written for The Atlantic Monthly. He was the editor of it for a long time. He is a true Times man in the old tradition of The New York Times. I mean, he was a war correspondent overseas. He's actually reported in danger. I have a lot of respect for him as a professional, even if I disagree with some of his political and philosophical views. But it just goes to show how radical today's Democratic Party has become. As I write about Knowing That Strong, they are the true inheritors of the blame America

first Democratic heritage that started out in the Vietnam War. They always seem to blame America first. They always excuse our adversaries. They always condemn our allies. They think that America is always a source for the world's ills as opposed to the greatest source of good, not only for our own people, but for all of mankind. All right. Let's talk a little politics since you raised that. And I know you've been out there helping in certain races trying to get the the GOP chances shorn up in particular the Senate, your your chamber, but the House as well, I'm sure. So how do you like where you are right now? Eight days out. And I know the momentum is with the Republicans. The Dems are going to try to stop it with January 6. Paul Pelosi, do you think that has any chance of succeeding? No, we're going to win these midterms. We're going to take back the House. We're going to take back the Senate.

I wouldn't want to hazard an exact prediction. I'll leave that to pundits and the media. But we're going to win majorities in both the House and the Senate. And I don't think they're going to be small majorities either because the American people are fed up with the consequences of Joe Biden and the Democrats' radical ideological agenda. They can't afford food at the grocery store. They can't afford to fill up their tanks at the gas pump. They worry about their kids walking to school or going trick-or-treating or playing in a park and the threats of crime and homelessness and drugs. They see our wide open southern border. They want to put some checks and balances in place in Washington.

They don't want unified Democratic control anymore. They want Republicans to help restore some sanity and order to this country. So I'm very optimistic about this upcoming election in eight days. Just in the last couple of weeks, I've been in Ohio and Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Later this week, I'm looking forward to a West Coast swing where Blake Masters is going to win in Arizona. Adam Laxalt is going to win in Nevada. Tiffany Smiley is going to win in Washington State against 30-year failed career politician Patty Murray. And the Democrats know this as well. You can see what the polls say. Some polls are more accurate. Some polls are less accurate. But the bottom line is the Democrats are now trying to protect career incumbents like Patty

Murray or House members who represent districts that Joe Biden won by 10 or 12 points. They wouldn't be doing that if they thought that they were on the verge of victory. They know they're on the verge of failure. They talk about things like threats to democracy or January 6th or abortion because they can't say anything else. What is Michael Bennett in Colorado going to say? He was a great champion of sending out no strings attached welfare checks without any relationship to work at all last spring, which helped contribute to the inflation we have. They have no answers for the runaway inflation. They are in many cases the cause of it. Not only do they not have answers for the crime wave we have in America, they are the cause of it through their reckless, soft on crime policies. And of course, Joe Biden is the reason our southern border is wide open and so dangerous. Well, we're getting there on an explanation on economy. We're getting as close as we've gotten. I think this is Karine Jean-Pierre speaking about why the numbers on the economy are as bad as they are

on MSNBC. This is SOT2. Poll after poll shows show that voters trust they say they trust Republicans more than Democrats when it comes to the economy. What's the administration's response to that persistent view among the elect? So first, we have always said we understand what the American public is dealing with. We understand that there are high costs and we understand that they're feeling very squeezed right now. The president always says this, and you hear him say this all the time, that he wants to make sure that we give Americans a little bit more breathing room, which is what his dad used to say when he grew up in Scranton and dealing with these kitchen table issues. So when the president walked into this administration, the economy was in ruins. It was an absolute ruins.

There it is. It was Trump's fault. Yeah, I think most Americans remember in January 2021, they were able to fill up their tank. Gas was only $2.40. Eggs were only a couple bucks a dozen. They weren't seven bucks a dozen. But they could afford their kids braces or put their kids into a little league or into music lessons. That's not the case now. In fact, recently, my five-year-old son asked me and Anna if we could buy something. And we said, well, I don't know, it's kind of

expensive. And he said, is that because Joe Biden has made everything cost so much? So I guess he's been listening to mom and dad at home when we talk about what we face as a family, what so many Americans face and what dad has been talking about at the office. We have inflation because the Democrats spent trillions of dollars that we don't have and frankly, that we didn't need as the economy was recovering in early 2021 from all those democratic lockdowns and from the Chinese communists that almost certainly were responsible for this virus coming out of one of their labs. Joe Biden always likes to blame the pandemic for inflation. We had a pandemic for a year and we didn't have inflation. As of late, he started talking about Putin's price hike. Well, we had inflation well before Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine. If the Democrats want to know

where the blame lies for inflation, all they have to do is look in the mirror in the morning because they're the one that spent trillions of dollars that we don't have. At the same time, they took steps to constrain supply, like energy production. As I explained in Only the Strong, it's one of the essential sources of American power. It literally is the power. You know, when your lights go out, you say the power is out. Yet the Democrats have done everything they can to make your gas and your electricity and your utility bills cost more because they have an ideological axe to grind against fossil fuel production. The Democrats are to blame for this inflation and the American people are going to get responsibility for this inflation next week. And then we pretend that we have to go to the Saudis for a solution when we don't have to go to the Saudis. We have the solution. We just won't unleash it. On some of the races that you were just mentioning, there was an

they thought it was off mic, but it was on mic moment between Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden on the forecast for these midterms. And Schumer said something to the effect of we're going downhill in Georgia. He didn't like how things were going in Georgia between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock, the Democrat, but said in Pennsylvania, it doesn't look like we were hurt too badly by that debate between Fetterman and Oz. And a lot of people have been saying like Fetterman, he's going to win, notwithstanding that disastrous debate performance, because Oz is just too slick or he's not conservative enough. And people just, you know, as a TV guy, I don't know, like the Carrie Lake thing is one thing. It's helping her TV presence and experience in Arizona. I don't know that Dr. Oz's TV past is helping him so much.

So there's kind of like a wall he's been up against. First of all, do you agree that they're going down Democrats in Georgia and that the Pennsylvania debate did not hurt the Democrats too much? So, yeah, Harsha Walker is going to win in Georgia and that the Pennsylvania debate did not hurt the Democrats too much. So, yeah, Hershel Walker is going to win in Georgia. Raphael Warnock has been a rubber stamp for Joe Biden's voted with him almost 100 percent of the time. The people of Georgia gave Raphael Warnock a trial run, if you will, an abbreviated two year term in the Senate in 2020.

I think they're very disappointed with the results they see. They want to return a conservative Republican to represent their conservative values. In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman is going to lose that race and it has really nothing to do with his medical condition. Look, I deeply regret that he suffered that stroke. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone. I wish him all the best for his recovery, but frankly, it's the least of my concerns. I'm much more worried about public safety if John Fetterman is in the United States Senate. This is a man who said that we could release a third of all prisoners from prison and it would be fine. This man who voted repeatedly to let murderers out of prison. Someone who said

he wants to decriminalize all drugs at a time when Pennsylvanians are facing a drug epidemic of unprecedented proportion. Or when I was with Mehmet Oz in Western Pennsylvania at a natural gas pad, hydraulic fracturing has allowed Pennsylvania and other parts of the country to become not just America's energy supplier, but much of the world's energy supplier. John Fetterman, for ideological reasons, would ban that incredible technology that allows us to unlock the resources that God put under our soil. These are the issues that are going to cost

John Fetterman the race. That was the infamous answer from the other night. No, I'm for fracking and I'm for fracking and I'm for fracking and totally ignoring the fact that just a couple of years ago, he was on the record saying he was against it. So, I mean, you tell me what the Pennsylvania voters are going to do with that. My own experience, my husband's from Pennsylvania, his mom is still in Pennsylvania, is that they take their responsibility as a swing state pretty seriously.

And a lot of Pennsylvania voters are actually up to speed, especially on issues like fracking, because it really does affect them. I feel like they will care about what his position is on it. Yeah, I think they will. And they won't take his word in this election eve conversion. You know, his new supposed support for fracking reminds me of an old political story about a young man who died early and went up to heaven. And St. Peter said, well, we weren't ready for you yet.

So we're going to give you a choice. So he got in the elevator and they went down to hell and everyone was partying and having a great time and dancing and the devil was very inviting. And they went up to hell and everyone was partying and having a great time and dancing. And the devil was very inviting. And they went up to heaven and all the angels were on the clouds playing harpsichords. And it was nice, but it was kind of quiet. And then St. Peter said, well, where do you want to go? And the fellow said, you know, I know what I'm supposed to say to St. Pete, but I think hell is more my speed.

And St. Peter said, are you sure? And he said, yeah, I'm sure. So he sends him back down the elevator. The door is open. The devil's waiting for him. He sees the cries of anguish and despair of all the lost souls, the infernal heat. And he says, whoa, what happened here? Two hours ago, you're having a party. And the devil said, yeah, two hours ago, I was in campaign mode, bud. And I think John Fetterman and a lot of these Democrats are in campaign mode right now. But we can see what they've said in the past about crime, about drugs, about our southern border, about their big spending ways.

And Keystone staters have a lot of common sense and about how his bad judgment is getting dangerous, in your view. So many things that the White House minions run out to reverse him on. You make the case are actually really dangerous and are compromising American security. The Taiwan relationship with America, what he has said about the Chinese, what happened in Afghanistan. But you're really pointing out that he's gone from somebody who had controversial to be charitable foreign policy views to someone who is now in a serious position of undermining our safety with these erratic, random, seemingly statements. Yeah, Joe Biden's kind of extemporaneous outbursts are extremely ill-advised and dangerous. I have said time and again that he should only stick to scripts. He

should not do extemporaneous speaking. He really shouldn't even take question and answer anymore. If he'd be willing to do that, I probably wouldn't criticize him for not doing question and answers because it's so dangerous. Look what he's done with Taiwan, as you suggested. We've all had a very nuanced, subtle relationship with Taiwan since 1979 when we shipped our diplomatic relationship from Taiwan to mainland China. Part of that is that we have never said explicitly that we would come to Taiwan's aid if the Chinese communists on the mainland try to invade and annex it. Now, I think that policy was right at the time, perhaps, but it's no longer right. We should be explicit about it. But Joe Biden now four times in 13 months has said just that, only to have anonymous White House aides immediately contradict him. And sometimes he himself walks his own words back within a matter of hours or days.

This is incredibly dangerous and it undermines our national security. You get all the provocation of the Chinese communists, but none of the deterrence of simply saying it and backing it up with strength and resolve. Or take what's happened since the war with Ukraine began. You know, he said in a speech in Warsaw at the end of the speech that Vladimir Putin can't remain in power. Look, I think that we need to stand up and support the Ukrainians. I've supported giving them weapons. This war should have never happened in the first place. It happened because Joe Biden enticed or tempted Vladimir Putin to go for the jugular in Ukraine. And she really always says, but Joe Biden was in effect calling for regime change in Russia, a very dangerous proposition, something that Ronald Reagan,

who was always tough on communism, never said about Brezhnev or Andropov or Gorbachev. Joe Biden's intemperate extemporaneous outbursts are just a grave threat to our national security because they undermine America's credibility, which has a deterrent effect that is vital to preventing war. And that's really one of the main points of American national security policy is to prevent war rather than have to win wars once they start. Do you think he's in control of his faculties? Do you have faith in his mental wellness? He's obviously declined a lot over the years, Megan. You can just go back to video of him as a senator, even video of him as a senator in

2016. Now, is that right? Not only the strong, there's no doubt that he is still fundamentally in charge of the biggest decisions, most notably the Afghan fiasco, because no one could have screwed that up as badly as Joe Biden did. And he did it because he had a chip on his shoulder that Barack Obama didn't listen to him in 2009 about withdrawing from Afghanistan. Is Joe Biden in control of their day-to-day minute details, whether it's foreign policy or his legislative agenda? No, he's not. Oftentimes, presidents are not directing

things on a minute level of detail, especially when dealing with Congress. But on the big questions, no, I do believe that Joe Biden is running the show because few people could screw things up as badly as he has. Do you have any interest in taking him on in the next presidential election? We'll see what happens after this midterm. I think there are going to be many people running for our nomination. There may be many people running for the Democratic nomination because many Democrats, not just Democratic politicians in Washington, but rank and file Democrats, if you look at the polls, don't have confidence in Joe Biden serving the next two years, much less being their standard bearer in 2024. But before we get to the 2024 election, we really need to run through the tape

in this election and make sure that we're electing Republicans in sufficiently large majorities in Congress, that we can put the brakes on Joe Biden and the Democratic Party's ideological agenda. You know, that reminds me of something we were talking about the COVID inflation, right? The inflation that we suffered as a result of these relief programs that by that point we didn't need, but that was that were pushed through thanks to Joe Biden. And one of the crazy things is whether you believe it started in a lab or whether you believe it started in a market, you got to at least entertain the possibility that it could have come from the lab and that it came from gain of function research, something

we're still funding. We just gave more money, Fauci did, to this Peter Daszak and his group EcoHealth Alliance, which were the ones when we say that we funded gain of function, we're talking about Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance working with the bat lady in the Wuhan lab. And we just did it again. We just did it again. I don't, can that get undone by a Republican Senate, a Republican House or a Republican president? Or we just stuck with that now because Fauci blessed it on his way out. And, you know, unless we get a non-Fauci in there, somebody who disagrees with Fauci on this stuff, we got to live with it. These are exactly the kind of things that a new Republican Congress could put a stop to. You know, Congress's central power is our spending power. We're tasked under our Constitution to spend taxpayer dollars, not the president,

not the administration underneath the president, but your elected representatives in Congress. And I saw in the final two years of the Obama administration, I was new to the Senate, that can be effective. For instance, in one of those spending bills, we're able to lift the 40 year ban on the export of American oil, which, of course, made American oil more valuable, produce more oil here in America. We can use our power. How would you get at this? How would you get at this money that's already been allotted for one year? It's a three-year grant, but only one's been allotted. Well, if a grant has already gone out, no, you can't peel that back. But going forward, we can stop all of this nonsense, whether it's grants to Chinese labs researching dangerous

coronaviruses or to other countries to promote transgender ideology, which our Department of State does as well. Because that spending tax dollars, the core function of the Congress and our constitutional system, we can put a stop to a lot of this nonsense. And then, of course, we can end it completely with a new Republican president and a new Republican administration two years from now. Okay. I want to ask you a question because on the GOP side, I had a discussion recently with Dave Rubin. I was on his show and he was asking me about who's likely to be the GOP nominee. And he was asking me in particular about Trump versus Ron DeSantis.

And I gave him my analysis of how that was likely to go, I mean, for what it's worth. And it went totally viral unexpectedly to me. I just thought I was like speaking sense because I spend my days talking to people, you know, the callers call in and the viewers write in and blah, blah, blah. So I have a finger on the pulse of how GOP voters are feeling. And it went so viral that former President Trump actually sent it out himself on Truth Social

with a message saying, I agree. So what a difference a few years make between Mr. Trump and Harris Jr. But in any event, I'm going to play it for you. And I'm I'd love to get your reaction on my analysis. Here it is. If they got on a stage, you don't think that DeSantis is crafty enough or stands enough? Really? No, I don't even think that a little. I think Trump sucks up all the energy in every room, no matter what. And even someone as skilled as a politician and smart policy-wise as DeSantis can't overcome that. He can't.

You really think the hardcore MAGA is going to abandon Trump or DeSantis? They're not. They like DeSantis, but they don't think it's his turn. They think Trump was screwed out of his last election, that he was screwed out of his first term by all the craziness and the Russia gate and so on. And they think he is entitled. He deserves another shot at it. Like the hardcore Trump faithful. He's unshakable.

They like DeSantis, but they would never cross Trump for him. And they think that DeSantis owes his political career to Trump. If forced to choose, they will choose Trump. So DeSantis can't take him down. It's like the line in war games. The only winning move is not to play. DeSantis has got to either be crowned by Trump or he shouldn't run. He won't win over Trump. I'll stand by that. You can play it against me if I'm wrong, but I won't be.

Sped up and put out there by at Greeks for Trump. Where am I going wrong? Well, Megan, I don't want to play pundit about the presidential race. I'll leave that to you. You're a very capable analyst, like many others in the media are as well. I'll say this. In any presidential race, you have many well-credentialed, accomplished politicians. Donald Trump obviously has a strong legacy and a lot of accomplishments on which to run during his four years as president. I've known Ron since we were elected to the House of Representatives 10 years ago. Ron obviously has built a strong record in Florida as well. I think he and Marco Rubio are going to win smashing reelections in the Sunshine State. I'm sure there may be other aspirants as well. I probably served with a lot of them in the Senate. You've got new governors like Glenn Youngkin, who won in a Democratic state last year, who's had off to a great start in the legislature as well. That's the reason you end up running these campaigns. I think in most campaigns, you end up being surprised that someone emerges as a very formidable candidate that maybe wasn't considered a front runner at the beginning. I mean, Donald Trump in 2016 would be a great example of that. Or consider my former governor, Mike Huckabee,

in 2008. When he first stepped foot in Iowa, he said to me that no one knew who he was there. He had to say that he was from Hope, Arkansas, like Bill Clinton. He just wanted them all to give Hope a second chance. And the Democratic Party, the same thing. I mean, who would have expected Bernie Sanders to almost dethrone Hillary Clinton in 2016? So I'm sure the campaign next year on our side, probably on both sides, will be vigorously contested. And we'll see who decides to run after these very vital midterm elections next week. I think a lot of people who decides to run after these very vital midterm elections next week. I think a lot of people will decide to run, but there's an 800 pound gorilla that's not going to let anybody get any oxygen until he's decided what he wants to. That's my that's my

whatever it's worth punditry. Let's talk about Washington. Can we so you've been there since this is your second term, right? When were you elected? I was elected to the House in 2012, two years there. And then this is my second term in the Senate. So I'm eight years into my term in the Senate. What's it like? Is it awful? Seems awful. I just feel like spending my time every day with people, politicians, they lie all the time. It's like dishonest brokers everywhere. Had this great conversation with Tulsi Gabbard about it. Of course, she had left already. So you're in a more awkward position on this question, but what's it like for you? No, it's not awful. I mean, I feel greatly honored and privileged that the people of Arkansas elected me three times now to represent them in the Congress. Are there days when I'm frustrated at the lack of progress, that I'm amazed at some of the insane things the Democratic Party says

or proposes to do? Yes, of course. But being able to work on behalf of Arkansans, especially interact with Arkansans when they go visit me in Washington or when I'm home during recesses or on weekends, be able to talk to them. It's one of the great inspiring parts of the job, being able to meet so many people from so many different walks of life and to hear their concerns, their aspirations, to be able to work hard for them. I feel greatly privileged and honored that I have this chance to serve our country again as I served in uniform. What do you make of the lunacy that gets bounced around so frequently nowadays, especially in the Senate? Like talk of getting rid of the filibuster, which really, I mean,

you put it in perspective that that would end the Senate as we know it. That would reduce the Senate to a little more than the people over in the House. And the Senate is supposed to be a more august, austere body where, you know, the piping hot saucer goes to cool. It would reduce it to nothing much more than the House where there'll be no minority rights. And that's what Fetterman and Oz were debating the other night. You know, there was an accusation that Fetterman wanted to stack the Supreme Court and he kind of said, well, no, but he is in favor of getting rid of the filibuster, which is what they would need to do in order to stack or pack whatever the Supreme Court with, you know, God knows how many justices that would really fundamentally change America as we know it. That's your body. So it's crazy to me that we're even seriously having debates over this. Yeah. So the filibuster is not part of our Constitution, but it's directly downstream

from the Senate's design. The reason the Senate is smaller while we have six-year terms, while those terms are staggered into three different classes elected every two years, while there's only two senators from each state, no matter its size, is because our founding fathers wanted it to be the sober second thought from transient and shifting winds of opinion from the House of Representatives or public opinion. Our constitutional system is set up that if the American people want something strongly enough and longly enough, they're going to get it. It may take an election cycle or two to deliver the message, but they'll get it. But at the same time, we want to have stability in our laws

and in our practices. That's what the Senate was designed for. That's what the filibuster from the beginning has provided as well. The Democrats want to eliminate that. And it's not just John Fetterman. It's every Democrat running for Senate this year because they want to pursue their ideological agenda. I talk a little bit about this in Only the Strong, that they put power above all else. And by eliminating the filibuster, Megan,

they're not doing that to try to raise taxes or pass the Green New Deal or make you pay with your tax dollars for other people's abortions, not to cut the military. They would do all those things, don't get me wrong. But the main reason they want to eliminate the filibuster and pass everything by a simple majority vote is to change the structure of political power in America. They want to make Washington, D.C. a state so they'll get two more Democratic senators in perpetuity. They want to pack the court system, maybe even the Supreme Court, so courts will simply rubber stamp their unconstitutional laws and executive actions. They want to federalize our elections. They want to take all these steps to ensure that you would never have once again what you had in years like 1994, 2010 or 2014 or 2016, a revolt by hardworking Americans against this progressive left wing ideology.

That's why it's so important that we repudiate these left wing radicals next week at the election. Do you want to see how quickly the filibuster elimination talk goes away? important that we repudiate these left-wing radicals next week at the election. Do you want to see how quickly the filibuster elimination talk goes away if you guys win back control of the Senate and they're in the minority again? It'll be so fun to watch the reversal as we go to those same senators and ask them whether we should get rid of the filibuster now if they wind up in the minority. I mean, it's all just so cynical. All right. Who's your best friend in the Senate? Who do you hang out with? Well, I'll say that friendship in the House and friendship in the Senate is a little bit different. You know, in the House, you have a lot of people like me when I started there in their 30s or their 40s with kids in the House.

In the Senate, I'll say that I don't have any age appropriate peers. Most of them are grandpas or great grandpas, not parents of young kids. You're not hanging out with Dianne Feinstein? Yeah, I don't socialize a lot in my off hours when I'm with my wife and with my kids. But I do have a lot of good friends across the eras of the Senate. I always have great fun on the campaign trail with Chuck Grassley, who I think now is 87 or 88. I've got some friends who are from, say, my generation. Cory Gardner was one, unfortunately. He's gone from Senate now. Tim Scott is one of the kindest, most decent, hardest working senators you could ever hope to serve with or just people you could hope to know. So we have a lot of great senators with whom I'm good friends. And I look forward to a big incoming class, not just in some of these

battleground states, people like J.D. Vance in Ohio, Blake Masters in Arizona, Tiffany Smiley in Washington, Adam Laxalt in Nevada. But some of the races are a little bit undercover, but you're going to have other great new senators like Katie Britt coming in from Alabama. We're going to have a great new class of vibrant senators. And I look forward to working with all of them as I look forward or as I have been working for eight years with my colleagues in the Senate. All right. Even though you don't want to play pundit, you did it on a couple of like Senate races. And so I'm going to ask you to do it on the governor's race in New York. I'm in Connecticut now, but I'm following that race closely. I'm into it. I spent most of my 51 years as a New Yorker, not New York City, but some of those years, 20 years in New

York City. So do you actually think that there's a possibility that Kathy Hochul, the Democrat, could go down? It was something like 17% percentage points over Lee Zeldin, the Republican. And now some polls have it as close as three. I can't even believe it. I can't even believe I'm saying this to you. But do you actually think the red wave could be so big it's going to sweep somebody like a Lee Zeldin into office in the governor's race? No, I don't think there's a possibility that Lee Zeldin is going to win. I think it's an almost certainty that Lee Zeldin is going to win. New Yorkers are going to repudiate Kathy Hochul, an accidental governor, and the Democratic

Party's failed ideological agenda. Look, you can't go on a subway in New York City without worried about being assaulted or pushed in front of a train. And then criminals are turned around and released the very next day because Democrats wanted to eliminate the bail system. In New York, voters like they're all all across America are going to repudiate the Democrats ideological agenda, which has caused crime to spike, drug deaths to spike, inflation to surge. Lee Zeldin, who I know well from my days in the House, is going to be a great governor of the state of New York, and he's going to restore law and order to its streets. You know, that's another guy, Republican, who got attacked in the course of campaigning for this role that we're talking about right now. It was like a half day story for the people in the press, you know, in the in the right wing or the I should say the left wing

press, which is all the press other than the small, the small conservative niche. His attack was like barely covered and then it was gone. Mary Catherine Hamm was on the show recently complaining about the same thing happening after the congressional baseball shooting of the Republicans, Steve Scalise and others. A couple of years ago, Ron DeSantis also chimed in on that. Those politically motivated shootings by unwell people got a mention and then they moved right on. And they're going to try to build this Paul Pelosi thing into a narrative for at least eight days and possibly beyond. I mean, it's so obvious what they're doing. And it's one of the reasons why what is like 60 percent of the people absolutely loathe the press and something like nine percent actually trust it.

And it's why the voters can see through it. And they'd much rather have a governor who's going to stand up to criminals and protect innocent civilians. That's what Lee Zeldin will do in New York. And look, the Democratic Governors Association just started spending money to prop up Kathy Hochul. They wouldn't be doing that if they didn't know that she was in grave trouble. Wow. What's your other favorite sleeper race? Tiffany Smiley in Washington State. Tiffany has a great story. Her husband, Scotty, was blown up in Iraq and blinded permanently the year before I was there. She cared for him, nursing back to health, stood up to the Army bureaucracy that wanted to medically retire him. They've been great advocates for veterans ever since. Patty Murray is a failed 30-year politician who's been a rubber stamp for Joe Biden. I think Tiffany Smiley is going to shock most of Washington, D.C. when she upsets Patty Murray next Tuesday. I'm going to have to have a discussion with my nine-year-old about this because we were talking about how Malcolm Gladwell's book posits that if you name your kid winner, he's going to wind up being a loser. And then Thatcher, my son, was like, well, should I name my son loser then? And so I'm going to talk to him about the possibility of a smiley, smiley. And is she actually going to be exactly the opposite? I guess all we really care about is how will she vote? Senator Cotton, what a pleasure. Good luck with the book. So happy

that you came on to talk about it and all the best to you. Thank you, Megan. Thanks for having me on. Anytime. So wishing all of you a very happy and safe Halloween tonight. I'm excited. I still have young kids, so it's super fun watching them go out. I think my my Yates is going to be a football player. Yardley is going to be an M&M. And Thatcher's going to be Pennywise, which is freaking terrifying. If you don't know what they're from, it's terrifying. I don't want to look at that all night. Thunder's going to go as Lightning.

And Strutt, of course, will go as an angel. He's going to be in deep disguise. And I'll have a full report for you tomorrow, where we'll also dive into the Paul Pelosi story a bit more. Plus, we've got a great guest on Harry and Meghan. Wait till you hear what they've been up to. Meantime, download the show and subscribe at youtube.com slash Meghan Kelly. And thank you so much for listening. Thanks for listening to The Meghan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.