The Megyn Kelly Show - Progressives Fail, and January 6 Theater, with Comfortably Smug, Josh Holmes, and Michael Duncan | Ep. 338

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by Comfortably Smug, Josh Holmes, and Michael Duncan, the hosts of the Ruthless podcast, to talk about the successful recall of progressive San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin, the run...off ahead in the Los Angeles mayor's race, Nancy Pelosi's husband getting a DUI, the crime in San Francisco and other cities, one Virginia school district's plan to punish kids for using the wrong pronouns, January 6 theater is coming in primetime, what's really behind the Democrats' focus on a riot 17 months ago, what Americans are actually interested in, Liz Cheney's political future, CNN considering "cleaning house," The massive Washington Post HR drama playing out on Twitter, Biden mad at his staff, the decline in the media, 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

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 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. Political shockwaves in California overnight as voters say thanks but no thanks to far-left policies in some of the nation's most liberal cities. First, big news out of San Francisco. We talked about it yesterday where progressive D.A. Chesa Boudin is out. The son of domestic terrorists who spent their lives in prison after they helped kill a cop. Well, three of them actually was booted. Overwhelmingly recalled voters there rejecting his soft on crime policies.
Starting point is 00:00:44 But he's vowing the fight is not over yet. P.S. Yes, it is. It's over for you. Further south in L.A., the mayor's race is now headed for a runoff with pro police and one time Republican turned Democrat Rick Caruso leading Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass, who was so popular not long ago, she was rumored to be the choice by Joe Biden for his running mate and had considered it to be largely a favorite in this race. Not so much. Now they've got to have a runoff with a guy who was a Republican about two minutes ago. So what does this tell us about the bluest of blue states? And what does it tell us about America that this state is rejecting far left ideology. Tried it, didn't work out. Joining me now for the full show, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and the man known to his Twitter minions as Comfortably Smug. Together, they are ruthless. welcome guys hey how are you megan i'm good i'm excited about the california news i'm so
Starting point is 00:01:50 mad at what happened to those poor people in san francisco who tried to you know take a chance on this guy which wasn't smart don't get me wrong but like people lost their lives because of his soft on crime ideology and he deserves to be booted in a humiliating defeat. What do you make of it? Yeah, I mean, look, San Francisco is easily the most progressive place in the entire country, right? Except for the fact that it has been an absolute hellhole over the last two years, largely related to their voting and who they've elected.
Starting point is 00:02:22 And in this case, Chesa Boudin, who was, I mean, got to be the poster child for progressive unenforcement of the law. It was all it was all there and not in Megan's intro. Right. I mean, the son of domestic terrorists like and he's the D.A. like only in America, only in San Francisco. Would that be possible. Yes. And the thing is, is that his position was less soft on crime and more just legalizing crime. Yes. I mean, it's horrific what's been done there. And it's not like it's an isolated area of San Francisco. Or as soon as you land, as soon as you leave the airport, you start seeing what's become.
Starting point is 00:03:00 It used to be a beautiful, vibrant town that you'd visit with your family. I remember my family would go and visit. You could go to Alcatraz. You don't feel safe anywhere. It's proof that the liberal dream of this, you know, progressive, you know, criminal justice reform is a failure. And it's and that cognitive dissonance for the left has been really difficult to accept. And last night you saw a lot of that on Twitter where you had all of these, you know, liberal influencers saying, well, actually, San Francisco is a very conservative
Starting point is 00:03:28 city. It's all because of these tech pros and GOP operatives that Chesa Boudin got recalled. It's just they cannot accept it. Oh, yeah. Conservatism alive and well. Literally six point seven percent of San Francisco is Republican. 6.7%. This was a recall by Democrats of a failed experiment in your exactly right smug non-law enforcement. The guy, he worked as a translator for Hugo Chavez. His parents were domestic terrorists known as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn, who were the heads of the Weather Underground, a group that bombed United States facilities like the Capitol Building for several years. And people died as a result of their activity. So what I mean, you do have to ask, what were the San Franciscan people thinking putting him in? But a lot of people say they didn't quite realize they didn't quite do their homework. It was like, oh, OK, I'll just go with him.
Starting point is 00:04:29 And people started dying. And the most recent case that got a lot of attention, two women died. They were killed in a DWI accident by a convicted felon who Chesa Boudin let walk with a slap on the wrist for a bunch of other felonies that he had committed. And Chesa looked back and said, you know, gee, you can always sort of use the 2020 hindsight to say, I wish I'd made a different decision. No, he didn't promise any changes. He loved letting the criminals out and not punishing them. And of course, the results of that were always and remain predictable. Yeah, I mean, look, it's been a long slide for San Francisco towards embracing this kind of thing. And you've seen nationally, right, with the defund the police and everything else, how George Soros has funded this network of prosecutors that basically don't enforce the law in localities across the country. We saw that terrible tragedy in Wisconsin, where the guy with the parade was somebody who
Starting point is 00:05:18 was convicted or at least charged and then released by a prosecutor that was similarly minded to Chesa Boudin. I mean, look, there's a huge case of buyer's regret happening across this country right now with many, many places. But he's so stark in San Francisco because, you know, what was it? Six months ago, we had that school board recall. We had a whole bunch of people that prioritized renaming your schools over actually teaching your kids. And that was, you know, kind of an eye opener. I would have thought Chesa Boudin would have maybe taken a clue from that.
Starting point is 00:05:54 But no, I mean, he continues on his way of not enforcing the law. And here he is recalled. Well, here's what he has to say about it in his speech last night when it was obvious he was going down. We have two cities. We have two systems of justice. We have one for the wealthy and the well-connected and a different one for everybody else. And that's exactly what we are fighting to change. People are angry. They're frustrated. And I want to be very clear about what happened tonight. The right-wing billionaires outspent us three to one. They exploited an environment in which people are appropriately upset. Voters were not asked to choose between criminal justice reform and something else.
Starting point is 00:06:40 They were given an opportunity to voice their frustration and their outrage, and they took that opportunity. Now, look, we know over the next couple of days, the vote count is going to narrow. And we know that people were writing the obituary of this election before our campaign even started. But we are just getting started. Oh, Chessa. It's over. I mean, the thing is that he makes a good point.
Starting point is 00:07:08 I have to agree with what he said. There are two systems of justice in San Francisco. There's wealthy Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and her husband. And then there's the rest of people
Starting point is 00:07:18 who have to live with the consequences of these liberals and progressives where, you know, this guy can get a DUI. We haven't seen a mugshot. Imagine if any. Talk about Polly P here. Yeah. Nancy Pelosi's husband. Tell the audience what happened. So he gets a DUI. And what's really interesting is you had some journalists look into it. So there was something like a four hour gap between when he
Starting point is 00:07:40 gets arrested and when he gets booked and they take his like blood test to determine his levels in that four hours, I mean, those numbers can change. The information still hasn't been released with his mugshot, which every other person's is released, especially if they're somehow connected to Paul. Are you saying they were driving,
Starting point is 00:07:55 driving them around town, maybe to Taco Bell for fourth meal. Yeah. See if we could work down that blood alcohol level. Yeah. Get some bread in him. Let's see how we can get you out of here. Get them a cup of coffee.
Starting point is 00:08:06 And then there's the system of justice that other people in San Francisco have had to live under where you go into a drugstore and you're watching it getting ransacked before your very eyes and you walk down the street. You can't take your kids on the subway anymore because it's basically become a den for people to shoot heroin. Yeah. Well, the other thing I really liked about what he said that what Chester said is he he fails to understand, like the basic mechanics of an election. And that is like when you are in the incumbent, very often it's a referendum on
Starting point is 00:08:35 what you did in office, you know, and he says there, oh, well, people didn't get to choose between criminal justice reform and something else that they were angry and they voted. Yeah, that's called the referendum on you, on you. The way it works. You're responsible. You know, it's yeah, this was a really bad recall. It's a recall. Right. It's literally a recall. They can't even wait to get rid of you. Right. We're so mad. You have to be fired right now. You know, people people are dying and he takes no responsibility. And I love the billionaire, the Republican billionaires. OK, that's what did it. Who got this started? Who? people are dying and he takes no responsibility and i love the billionaire the republican billionaires okay that's what did it who got this started who where did who did the signatures come
Starting point is 00:09:10 from and by the way you couldn't vote in this election unless you were a san francisco resident as i pointed out san francisco is only 6.7 percent uh republican so that's a lie and you know the democrats proceed with this lie at their own risk, you guys. I mean, you tell me because I listen every morning. As you know, I try to listen to my left wing and I try to listen to my right wing podcast and consume news, print news as well from both sides and NPR. Their take was, OK, well, he you know, he lost, but it's a runoff in the L.A. mayoral race. You know, she's still in it. Karen Bass, the Democrat. And, you know, in California at large, like it's still the Democrats game. And this doesn here, clearly away from progressive base politics, which get played all the way from the local level in San Francisco and L.A. to the White House. Right. I mean, there is only one brand of democratic politics right now,
Starting point is 00:10:15 and it is off the left hand side of the map. And it starts in California. And it starts in California. The listeners, the minions in California will always tell us is like what's happening in California will be happening to the rest of America in 18 months. Yep. Yeah. And so stopping it in California is really, really, really important. Yeah, no, it's super important. But I also don't want to give people false hope about like California becoming a red state, right? No, no. I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that there was in the governor's election, you know, I mean, you had a couple of guys, Schellenberger, who I know I think you've spoken to before. Love him. Megan, I know we've spoken to this is like an incredibly smart
Starting point is 00:10:50 individual who has some really unique ideas to try to get out of this progressive commitment to ruining cities and try to re-empower the people of California. And he gets like three percent. Right. And so a distant third and the Republican came in second now. So that's who's going to take on Gavin Newsom in a state that is not going to go red at the state. You'll get waxed 70 30. Right. So like there's still some still some work to do. But I think in terms of national trends, it's unmistakable. That's the thing, because it's like the point is not that California is going to go red. The point is that in the most blue of blue states and cities, the Democrats have stood up against their radical flank and said enough is enough. We tried your crazy ass suggestions. The people in San Francisco are just leaving their cars unlocked with signs saying nothing inside. So at least they don't get a smashed window as somebody breaks into it. There were more deaths from fentanyl last year than there were from COVID. So they've said, we tried it. We tried it. It's over. And Chesa Boudin sitting there saying,
Starting point is 00:11:58 this is about a movement. This is a movement. He's not entirely wrong. You know, thanks to George Soros and these other DAs that were watching in city after city. They really are on a mission to open the doors of the prisons, like Black Lives Matter has said from the beginning. It wants no more prisons, they've said. Abolish prisons. Good luck with your donations, people. And to just not prosecute crime in general unless it involves an elementary school child saying the wrong pronoun that they're totally in favor of punishing. Yeah. So I mean, I've tried taking a macro look at what's become of the political environment.
Starting point is 00:12:34 And I think the issue for progressives here is they got about half of their plan done for progressivism, which is essentially renamed socialism for it to succeed. They have to have a total control over what people are saying. And they've done a great job of enforcing speech in this country, but they haven't been able to maintain total control over acceptable speech. A great example is they were able to maintain it during the election to make sure that any news of Hunter Biden was considered Russian disinformation. But you had this situation where over the past week, you saw a lot of publications try to pump up Chesa, like the New York Magazine had an article a couple of days ago being like,
Starting point is 00:13:13 San Francisco has a conservative history. There have been elected Republicans, and you can see conservative history's influence. It was over 50 years ago that any Republican was elected anywhere near San Francisco. But the fact that they couldn't maintain total radio silence against any dissent is a problem because you saw, I mean, people who work in tech who are far left progressives were fed up with what the conditions were like living in San Francisco. They have for progressivism to work. You have to just part of their message is don't trust your lying eyes right when you see the results of progressivism in front of you chaos crime drugs when you see all of that they have to keep their you know supporters on message and say listen
Starting point is 00:13:57 listen listen if you talk about it it's racist and and to what this portends for the for the midterms and back to i think what megan think, what Megan was talking about earlier is like, that's what Biden and the White House are expecting you to do when you go to the gas pump every week. Exactly. You know, when when you look at the shelves on the store and you see the prices are three times what they were a year ago. You know, so the same problem that Chesapeake Dean has with the open air drug markets is the problem Joe Biden has at the gas pump. And that's what's going to happen with the voters in November. So can I tell you on the point you were making, Josh, about, you know, racist and so on? Kyle Smith writes today, the Democratic Party's pathological need to demonstrate that it feels
Starting point is 00:14:37 guilty about historical racism is the direct cause of the filth, crime and disorder that have come to define large sections of San Francisco. It's like bleeding heart liberal no longer even comes close to encompassing what they're doing when it comes to law enforcement and keeping our cities safe. And they need to work out their guilt about what happened in America 200 years ago on someone else, not on the innocent citizens of San Fran. Well, look, I think at its core, liberalism, what it's supposed to be is about caring for people that are disadvantaged, right? And making sure that people aren't marginalized and things like that, a worthy goal. But what's been perverted over the years is what you just said.
Starting point is 00:15:19 It's this guilt that replaces helping people with hurting other people, right? So if you can bring down everyone to a point where the lowest common denominator, where you've got crime in the streets, you're not teaching your children, nobody has the opportunity to succeed in your society. That's basically the platform that they've run on now, right? And you're seeing, I mean, it's a good thing that we are in America. Right. I mean, we have a healthy history of distrusting power, even in places like San Francisco. And so speaking up as long as we have that pesky First Amendment is going to be a real problem for these guys. And I think of a huge problem, progressivism. Yeah, it's absolutely
Starting point is 00:16:02 rooted in guilt and it's misguided. They try to make it seem like these policies are compassionate of enabling people to remain addicted to drugs by providing safe shooting sites, by not prosecuting dealers of fentanyl and heroin, not prosecuting them in San Francisco. And they think it's compassionate in that sense. And it's a complete misread, not just on the electorate, but if they feel that they're fighting racial injustice. The great examples, I think it was Pew who had a poll drop yesterday where they asked Americans whether they want more police or fewer police. And something like 91 percent of Republicans said that they wanted more police, something like mid 60s Democrats wanted more police. But over 80 percent of black Americans wanted more police.
Starting point is 00:16:48 Right. So the last breakout of that, the last breakout of it, the healthiest portion of lack of no police was the wealthiest liberal. Because because progressivism. His name is Mr. Pelosi. But Polly P. Progressivism really is just like an indulgences for wealthy white liberals. That's what it is. It makes them feel better about the fact that, you know,
Starting point is 00:17:12 there's people who are poorer than them, basically. But also, it's not just that. It's also wrapped up in identity, right? It's like we can feel bad for certain people who are, you know, poor, if they're black or a person of color, but white working class people. No, they're privileged because their skin is white. It's incredible. Asians, Asians in San Francisco. They were behind a lot of this push because they were getting killed. Like all the crime against Asians in San Francisco was actually shocking in its in its numbers.
Starting point is 00:17:43 And they they went to the polls and they pushed this they must be secret republicans all of them um on the subject of cops jumping down to the la mayoral thing which again now is going to be a runoff in a race that had been at one point considered hers the democrat um he caruso pledged to hire 1500 new police officers within his first term and to build 30,000 shelter beds in his first 300 days. Her plan to reduce crime focused on criminal justice reform. OK, so it's like the same thing. She's going to she's going to do what Chesa Boudin did. And I really feel like this will be an interesting one to watch because L.A. too is incredibly blue now. But he Caruso's got the
Starting point is 00:18:23 endorsement of a lot of well-known stars. Elon Musk, yes, one of them. Snoop Dogg endorsed Caruso. I don't know if I should mention Kim Kardashian. Are we citing her endorsement now? It's like a thing. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:18:39 I love it. A lot of these well-known celebrities are actually going behind, as I said, the guy who was a Republican about two minutes ago and clearly just switched his party affiliation because you can't, you know, you can't win mayoral races in L.A. if you're not. So that one's going to be an easy and interesting one to watch. Can we just detour for a second on the free speech point you were making, Smug?
Starting point is 00:18:57 Sure. That Fairfax thing really is disturbing. That Fairfax County schools in Virginia, a state that used to be red, now is really blue. I don't even know if we can call Virginia. I know they just elected Glenn Youngkin, but I think Virginia is blue. It's not purple. It went red real fast. And I'm sorry, blue real fast.
Starting point is 00:19:14 They are now proposing in the Fairfax County Schools. It's under consideration at this moment. Punishing kids as young as kindergarten if they don't use the proper pronouns selected by their classmates, or if they quote dead name, somebody were like Leah Thomas, for example, the transgender swimmer on UPenn's team is, you know, lived the first 20 years of her life as a man named Will Thomas and was swimming for UPenn as Will Thomas and was 554th. Now, Leah Thomas, 12 months later, is number one in the women's races. So if you were in school and you said Will Thomas to the equivalent in second grade, you would be punished. And it's the same
Starting point is 00:19:56 punishment that you would get if you had like if you were fighting, if you punch somebody out in class, they're going to mete out these punishments to kids as young as six and seven now. And parents there are rightly saying this is a free speech violation. You know, it's a religious rights issue for a lot of parents. You cannot compel my child to say she, he, they, Z, whatever it is this kid wants and then punish him if he doesn't. Oh, look, it's also a form of child abuse in my view. I mean, look, it's so absurd from so many reasons. But the fact of the matter is that these kids, if they use the wrong pronoun,
Starting point is 00:20:36 it's not out of malice, right? I mean, I don't know if you've seen the lives of TikTok videos or whatever where these people are giving their pronouns and using it in a sentence, and it's like an alphabet soup of misunderstanding. I have no idea what they're saying by the end. It's like another language. Yeah. It's like not an English language. And you're telling me that my kid has to be concerned about this kid's identity at an age of seven. They're just trying to figure out their own lives at that point. They're trying to read, write. They're trying to learn math. They're trying to figure out their own lives at that point, right? They're trying to read, write. They're trying to learn math. They're trying to figure out how to get along with their classmates.
Starting point is 00:21:07 They're probably not interested in being mean about anything. They're just trying to get along. And also, we just spent like a year, 18 months with these schools closed. And all the studies are coming out now about how far kids are behind, not just in their arithmetic or science or math, whatever, but also their emotional development, stuff like that. Let's focus more on that than what people's pronouns are going to be. I'll tell you what the end result of it is going to be. It's the exact opposite of what they intend to happen. What they want is to have everybody accepted. That's what
Starting point is 00:21:44 they say they want. What's going to end up happening is the kids won't end up associating with kids who have changed their pronouns for whatever reason, because they're just kind of nervous about the whole interaction altogether. Right. And what does that do? If we're afraid of kids who are different being bullied in schools, does that help? Is that something that works? And I think it tells you so much about what the priorities of a lot of these teachers and school systems has become is not making sure that this kid develops the necessary academic skills that they need, but because of the ideology. Right.
Starting point is 00:22:17 I mean, the lives of TikTok account exists basically to show what's become of our school system. Yeah, you see these hand over by activists. You see those handouts that it's like, where is this coming from? It's coming from these teachers. It's not coming from the kids. And again, it goes with what I had been saying earlier of how for progressivism to work, they have to be able to have total control of speech.
Starting point is 00:22:37 And exactly. And they're saying of like, you know, speech is violence, right? Equating it to violence is how they're able to control it, is how they're able to demand that it be equated to fighting. Which is what we saw at the Washington Post recently with that whole spat.
Starting point is 00:22:54 Oh, we will get there. I have listened to the whole Ruthless episode on this. It was the greatest thing I've ever heard. I want to redo it here, but to our audience, you should also download
Starting point is 00:23:05 yesterday's Ruthless because it was awesome. The fun you guys had with that was second to none. But yeah, you're right about the speech. I want to say, look at the difference between Florida and Virginia. You know, Florida, you've got Ron DeSantis saying you will not put sexual identity or gender identity lessons in curriculum in school. That's not an appropriate subject to be discussing with K through third graders. And thereafter, it should just be age appropriate. The state wanted that. The state supported that. Both parties. You go up not that far north to Virginia, and they're basically saying you must discuss gender identity with kids as young as kindergarten because they need to be told to use the proper pronouns and
Starting point is 00:23:45 not to dead name anybody. Otherwise, they're going to get a stain on their permanent record and adjudge bad people. I think there is a provision under the draft consideration that it would have to be considered malicious. But does anybody trust these finders of fact to be reasonable in that interpretation? And even if it is malicious, I can maliciously in the United States of America say, Will Thomas, Will Thomas, Will Thomas. I can do that. It's not a nice thing to do. It's not something I would normally do. But this is ridiculous. It's America. I can say what I want. If I want to offend you, tough shit. That's how our country works. I love based Mac. It's my absolute favorite. Look, part of the reason why Governor Glenn Youngkin is Governor Glenn Youngkin is because of Fairfax County schools. Right. It is
Starting point is 00:24:36 because of all of you. Like the reason that he was elected in the last he was trailing throughout in the last five weeks, he closed the door because Terry McAuliffe stood with the teachers unions and these school boards by saying, yeah, all this stuff is more important than your kids' education. He had one message and his message was, we're not going to do that. My guess is, is that this governor is going to begin, you know, you only have one term in Virginia, right? There's no real, real like my guess is that yonkin is probably going to make some pretty aggressive moves on this and for some reason why is it always i saw this head the this headline about fairfax county schools why is it always fairfax county schools like what is going on over there you always hear the horror stories of what
Starting point is 00:25:19 new like progressive nightmare teachers are trying to throw upon the kids always coming from fairfax county like yunkin needs to just send the national guard and have a takeover of the school board over there well by the way speaking of uh terry mccullough the guy who you know became infamous over the past year for saying parents have no right to dictate what their kids learn in the classroom and they really have no rights in the schoolroom at all. That's the guy who's on the shortlist reportedly to take over as chief of staff. There are rumors that Ron Klain is going to leave the White House. And literally they're saying maybe Terry McAuliffe is like top three amongst the choices like, oh, that's the right message to send to America. That's that's what we got a hilarious bit on this which is like democrats in power never have anything new there's never any new name there's never any new idea like the permanent
Starting point is 00:26:13 establishment democratic party within washington dc has recycled the same tired ass names since the beginning of time right if it's not going to be McAuliffe, it's going to be Anita Dunn. If it's not Anita Dunn, maybe we can find a Podesta out there somewhere. Susan Rice. She was on the list. Over and over. Get Axelrod back off TV.
Starting point is 00:26:35 Paul Begala. Exactly. That's a perfect example, right? Where's Carville when you need him? Although he's now too conservative for them. It's so funny because I had the ladies from Red Scare on the podcast on Monday, and they're very interesting, these gals. They just have a totally different way of looking at everything. And one of the things they had said, not on the show, but in reading up on them before was the Democrats produce no interesting people. If you look at the Republican Party, you know, you've got characters like Steve Bannon and Ann Coulter, and it's like J.D. Vance. Like, these are interesting people.
Starting point is 00:27:10 Like, what's happening there? What are they saying? Why does everybody focus so much on them? Why do they upset everybody so much? The Democrats really don't do that. They're just not as interesting. And you can see that in the choices of names you just mentioned. There's so much more to go over. You know that January 6th theater begins tomorrow night. Instead of Masterpiece Theater, it's January 6th Theater. And we don't talk about that one. Talk about CNN looking to a reportedly clean house. Who's going?
Starting point is 00:27:37 Who's staying? And much, much more. Don't go away. So January 6th theater is tomorrow night the fact that they've moved this to prime time just to get more eyeballs on it is such a move of desperation it's like they were like no one's watching no one's paying attention anymore i need eyeballs and they're like i've got it we'll move it to primetime, which literally is kind of how this unfolded. And so now tomorrow night that all the Nets, except for Fox News Channel, have agreed to air January 6th theater live on primetime. They've brought in because
Starting point is 00:28:17 they realize they're terrible at TV. They're boring. No one wants to watch a congressional hearing about anything. Never mind this. Something happened two years ago. We've moved on to other things. They brought in Tom Goldston, James Goldston, who used to run ABC News. And he's the guy who kind of took GMA from what was a more substantive morning program to very light, very fluffy. It's basically about car crashes, bad weather events and celebrities now, which rated. That's how they started giving NBC a run for its money. So the guy knows how to do snazzy television. Not so sure he knows how to do in-depth congressional testimony. But that's their goal is to get him to snazzify it, you know, to sex it up so that people will watch and be as horrified as Adam Schiff is. And I guess vote Democrat in the fall? You tell me what the purpose of this is. Well, I mean, they really opened the full kimono and gave us the
Starting point is 00:29:11 full look underneath on this deal. I mean, they gave away the game. And there was that piece in the New York Times yesterday that talked about how they were hoping it would, I mean, basically, the framework of the entire piece was they were hoping it would reframe the midterms, right? Like people were not going to pay attention to inflation, gas prices, immigration crisis, war overseas, crime in the streets and everything else. What they're mostly concerned about is Adam Schiff's view on what happened two years ago. It's ridiculous. If they looked at a single poll,
Starting point is 00:29:45 they would understand that the American people don't want to watch it, and that's why they haven't been watching it. Putting it in primetime, I just asked the question, do you know anyone that would waste a night watching something like this? No, of course not.
Starting point is 00:30:00 But this is sort of the death knell, I think, of what Smug was talking about earlier, which is the liberal dream of command and control over speech in this country. And so you've got places like The New York Times who are sort of pre-writing what they hope the outcome is from these hearings. Because, I mean, what they want is to be able to decide what's important to voters rather than voters tell politicians what's important to them. Right. Right. And it's like, well, the you know, the voters of Georgia came out and turned out in high like historic numbers in the primary just a few weeks ago after Kemp passed an election reform bill that you said was Jim Crow 2.0. And then we had a national conversation for weeks about this and all turned out to be
Starting point is 00:30:40 a lie. So like, no, people don't care about the January 6 hearings. They don't care about what Joe 6th hearings. They don't care about what Joe Biden says about Jim Eagle or Jim Crow 2.0 or whatever. They care about gas prices. They care about their, you know, their kids' education, things like that. So, I mean, I think it's indicative of what we've been talking about here already. And I and it was, I believe, Yamiche Alcindor, who's who's a journalist for, I think, NPR. She might be at NBC now.
Starting point is 00:31:06 She switches around a bit. And she said, it is our job as journalists to make Americans care about this primetime hearing more than they care about gas prices or inflation. Wow. That's your job as a journalist? Your job as a journalist is to state and report the facts. Right. And right now, Americans are seeing the facts before their very eyes every time they go to the gas pump, every time they go to the grocery store, there was a photo that was on Twitter last night of someone at a grocery store that had put a drape over where
Starting point is 00:31:33 you could get the section where they had chicken because there's no chicken. There's no chicken at the grocery store. I mean, this is like something you'd hear about Venezuela five years ago. And you said, oh, that's awful. I feel bad for people, but as well, they can't get chicken in a grocery store. It's happening here. And of course oh, that's awful. I feel bad for the people of Venezuela. They can't get chicken in a grocery store. It's happening here. And of course, Americans care about that. And the fact that the left
Starting point is 00:31:49 is trying to pressure, they're like Fox News, why aren't you carrying it? They're putting it on Fox Business, which already gets more ratings than, you know, MSNBC and CNN combined. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:57 The fact that they're trying to force it upon people shows it's a political maneuver. It's the thing enforcement. It's thing enforcement. We used to debate this all the time. What we talked about with the disinformation board, right? Like that Nina Jankowicz woman was going to be like chief thing. Show two tyrant.
Starting point is 00:32:16 Right, right, right. That's great. I love that, Megan. It's not mine. It's from Chris Ruffo, but it's awesome. But like whatever our media betters declares the thing that we need to discuss that week, they have these enforcement mechanisms now tell us, no, no, no, you can't care about these other things. You have to care about this thing. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it's not just the Yamiche Alcidor. It's it's it's everyone. Everyone in the media now says that, you know, they're not just reporting history. They have to shape it. And like that's that's this is the result. There was no primetime hearing for 13 service members who died because of Joe Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Starting point is 00:32:51 There's no hearing for how much the price of gas has almost doubled. It's gotten close to doubling since he's taken office because of his policy shutting down Keystone and domestic energy production. There's no primetime hearing for why inflation has gone up when his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, I thought it might be a bad idea to just make it rain dollars. Maybe that'll cause a bit of inflation. There's no primetime hearing over any of this, which affects every single American. Instead, they have political theater of where they're trying to relive two years ago, hoping it'll save them in this midterm where they're seeing disasters because of all the issues they're ignoring. And who wants to see more of Adam Schiff at this point? Are you kidding me? That guy hasn't had enough TV time over the last four or five years. And he's just an unmitigated, unrepented liar who lied from day one on Russiagate, still lies after the
Starting point is 00:33:43 fact, even though he spent months saying, oh, you know, I've had this. I've seen this evidence of collusion. I can't show it to you, but I've seen it. It goes in primetime. And then Mueller report comes out and it's like, oops, no, none of that was real. And then he goes back on TV to defend himself. You got the old man worked up. It's true, though. You have no primetime hearing, by the way, on Black Lives Matter riots and, you know, the 2000 plus cops who were hurt during that. They couldn't care less, not to mention those who were killed. No, not not worthy.
Starting point is 00:34:10 But this is worthy. But I will say this. When I was at Fox News, we dominated in the primetime just like they do now. And we used to have debates on this kind of thing all the time, because when a big event would happen in the primetime, we never wanted to give up our primetime shows because they crushed. And everybody else had these loser floundering numbers. So they'd be like a hearing a live event and you'd always see CNN and MSNBC go to it. And we would never do it because we were already winning. It's really about money. And so I agree and with and I'm not surprised by Fox News Channel's decision to keep their winning primetime lineup on the air. And if the Democrats want to get on there, then they can buy ad space, you know, on 30 seconds a pop and it
Starting point is 00:34:49 won't be cheap and they can bring their message that way. But I'm sure Fox News Channel feels no need to to give free airtime to Adam Schiff and this theater. National Review called it an infomercial. Somebody else there said it's more like a summer rerun. You know, we've seen this. What's the new information? What is the purpose? terms of the ads and the messaging. But actually, these are elected representatives of the people. And can you imagine just for a moment, these people are paid taxpayer dollars, they're elected to try to take care of their constituency at some level, and they ignore it to the point where the most important thing to them is something that happened two years ago over the absolute incredible economic distress that their people are actually suffering under. I mean, just that, just that alone is horribly irresponsible.
Starting point is 00:35:51 If you're a parent in your car driving from Walmart to a Target looking for baby formula and you turn on the radio and you're being told, hey, you need to tune in to our primetime event talking about January 6th. Are you like encouraged? Do you feel better? Is that going to feed your kid? Honestly, it's not even like they've arrested hundreds of people. The trials are going on.
Starting point is 00:36:14 This has been taken care of. They really just want to get Trump somehow disqualified from the next election. And it's like, why don't you just battle it out with Trump? If Trump declares that he's running, you can bring all of this up. You don't need primetime specials. Well, maybe you do, right? Maybe you can't defeat him. But this is just a waste of our time. I mean, they're really they're going over the edge on this, in my opinion. Peter Navarro was arrested
Starting point is 00:36:38 and says he was strip searched earlier this week for not complying with the january 6th subpoena they had him in cuffs like he's el chapo um like steve bannon same also got you know criminally uh in trouble for not complying with these subpoenas i i realized at some point they're gonna have to do it but there are court proceedings that are gonna play out that can determine whether they must whether they're in contempt to strip search p Peter Navarro over a January 6th subpoena seems a little bit extreme to me. But Liz Cheney says it's necessary. Liz Cheney says, don't worry, this is bipartisan. And Liz Cheney says they're really onto something. Here's soundbite three. I have not learned anything that has made me less concerned. Well, what's made you more concerned? Well, I think the extent, the expanse,
Starting point is 00:37:29 how broad this multi pronged effort was. Was it a conspiracy? I think certainly, I mean, look, if you look at the court filings, you look at- Do you believe it was a conspiracy? I do. It is extremely broad, it's extremely well organized, it's really chilling. Do you believe it was a conspiracy? I do. It is extremely broad. It's extremely well organized. It's really chilling. I mean, oh, can I go in on Liz Cheney for a minute? Go right ahead.
Starting point is 00:37:56 They're lining up right now, the three of them. How disappointing. Yeah. Does she know what Dick Cheney had to go through for her to be handed over that seat? Like that guy did not have it easy. He used to have a drinking problem. He was hanging up electrical wire in Wyoming. He had no future.
Starting point is 00:38:11 He clawed his way to the top of power. I don't even know what all he had to do. You know, Dick Cheney had to do some hardcore stuff to be able to get where he did, right? To be like in the situation room on 9-11, making the call, whether a jet should be, you know, shot down. He had to go through a lot. And now this is what she does with what she's been handed? This is what she does? It's not just the January 6th stuff.
Starting point is 00:38:28 I saw a tweet from her a couple of months ago, maybe a month ago, about how white supremacy in the Republican Party or whatever, just embracing the left-wing talking points from the media
Starting point is 00:38:39 on all this stuff. Like she's auditioning for MSNBC. Like it's absurd. I don't know. I mean, she might be because her seat is is gone she knows her political future is over she thought she would get some kind of see a problem with a lot of of republicans who think that if you just go along and get along with the dems right maybe if i'm nice to them you'll get a head pat yeah
Starting point is 00:38:59 they'll write something nice i'll be their nice little conservative pet yeah they'll be nice to me no no adam Kinzinger got gerrymandered out of Congress. He's the other Republican on the committee. She's going to get boat raced in her re-election. I don't see the Lincoln Project putting up ads for her. I don't see any of these George Soros dark money
Starting point is 00:39:17 groups cutting ads for Liz Cheney. She's just going to lose. What's the actual award for these people who turncoat on the Republican voters? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except maybe some plaudits from the New York Times.
Starting point is 00:39:29 Let's go back just for a second to the substance of that, of what you were saying. I mean, I love the question and answer. Like, is it a conspiracy list? Is it a conspiracy? As if there's any American walking the planet that's confused about what happened, right? That Donald Trump did not want to leave office, felt like this election was stolen from him. Like I personally, my personal view is that it wasn't, right? There was a whole bunch of stuff that happened that was
Starting point is 00:39:56 completely ridiculous in terms of unilateral changing of voting procedures to accommodate a pandemic. And that could have very well caused him to lose that election. It wasn't some sort of like rigged voting machine in Venezuela, right? The summer before when all these governors, especially in a lot of- And Dem legislatures.
Starting point is 00:40:15 And Dem legislatures. Without any input from Republicans, were changing unilaterally. All these crazy voting laws. Yeah. That's when, you know, we should have had our eye on the ball and been like, hold up.
Starting point is 00:40:23 This is a problem. This is gonna be a problem for the election. That's not being able to stop it. But it's not like a secret of what happened. My point is, like, you're investigating something everybody already knows. Everybody knows. Everybody already knows. Is it a conspiracy?
Starting point is 00:40:37 But also, but also there's this Hobson story. It's like, oh, you either go along with this ridiculous charade to try to like arrest peter navarro and whomever else and all this like use of government or uh you're embracing you think january 6th was a great idea yeah that's exactly right i actually think january 6th was terrible i think it was an awful day in american history do i think that we've solved all that do i think the judicial proceedings are taking place every day i I know that. I know that. Read that in the newspaper, right? The biggest outrage for me in terms of like the Peter Navarro situation, I'm sort of an article one guy. I think you ought to comply with the congressional subpoena,
Starting point is 00:41:20 but why is it only enforced against him and Steve Bannon and not Michael Avenatti during the Kavanaugh hearings when he was lying to Congress and everybody else about a systemic rape culture that didn't exist? Or Eric Holder when he got put in contempt. Eric Holder. Exactly. During the Obama administration, nothing happened. James Clapper. Right. Yeah. That none of that happened. Right. That's right. No strip search for those guys.
Starting point is 00:41:43 It's only thanks. Maybe. Yeah, it's a good thing. How about Hillary Clinton? I saw you tweeting about this smug tweeting out about Fox News not airing it. They're going to air it on FBN, as we pointed out, but not FNC. They won't air the January 6th hearing, she writes, because they prefer their sedition made fresh on site. My God. And the gall of her where after losing an election because she's probably the most disliked individual in human history,
Starting point is 00:42:13 her ratings were the worst among anyone selected to get the Democrat nomination. But no, she doesn't accept her loss. She says Russia stole the election, creates this narrative. Her and your tandem came up with
Starting point is 00:42:25 this idea that like, OK, we're going to come up with this idea that Trump is a KGB agent. And now like her campaign manager, I hope he's gotten security. Her campaign manager said, yes, I was directed by Hillary Clinton to put up this story. On the stand under oath at the Sussman trial. He admitted it, which we already knew. But it was extraordinary to hear him actually admit that this was all Hillary's doing. Her idea that she made up Russiagate and the media ran with it. That's the truth in a nutshell. Right. Summarized. And now she wants to talk about, you know, acts to her in a primetime hearing. I mean, there's a lot of crime she could be called up for. Well, is there any I mean, has there ever been more public information damage done to this country than that? engaging in a multifaceted four-year-long campaign that ended in impeachment of the president and 40 some odd million dollars spent on an investigation that bankrupted a whole bunch of people who were targets of this investigation to ultimately come to the point where we find out
Starting point is 00:43:36 it's all bullshit like every single newspaper treated this to the front page for two, three years. Right. Russia could never have been so successful. I mean, they in their wildest dreams. They're the best PR campaign. Like I keep saying this, Russia wasn't even top 12 GDP on Earth. Right. This is a country with very limited capabilities. As we're seeing now, they're getting whipped by Ukraine. They can't a country much smaller than them with a much less armed you know
Starting point is 00:44:05 army military they're getting their ass whipped by this country they have no capabilities but it was built up by hillary clinton to be like oh wow russia is this great threat that could absolutely destroy our country they've taken over our elections and this was fed to the public and and journalists made millions with their book deals you saw so many of these like uh journalists come up. Natasha Bertrand's a great example who now is what, at NBC? Has gotten book deals? Everything she's written about Russia now,
Starting point is 00:44:32 now we know was just completely made up. David Korn, who wrote that article that was one of the... She's at CNN now. He's at CNN now. He wrote a book called Russian Roulette. None of it true. None of it true.
Starting point is 00:44:43 They haven't ripped that off of Amazon. But know, but what Megan was saying about, you know, the sedition on Fox, it's incredible how casually liberals now will call Republicans racist and traitors to the country. I mean, just like gutter, gutter stuff. Yeah. You know, it's just it's wild to me that that's become so commonplace in our in our politics is to call people white supremacists and call people traitors to America. Come on. Meanwhile, especially given the damage she did to our country, to our unity, to our belief in institutions, she unleashed this hell on us. The FBI, you know, the White House under under her watchful eye and under suspicion for two plus years and totally unnecessary first impeachment,
Starting point is 00:45:32 you know, and then we can get to the second one. She orchestrated all of that and now has the nerve to think we still want to hear from her. Her HRH can go away. Her Royal Highness, she can go away. I don't want to hear. I don't want to see her fake crying over her stupid loss or hear another word about her thoughts on the election or Donald Trump. She's done. But Megan, Megan, think of the content. Think of the content. It would be so great to have her back just for the content, though, in the last. I mean, I agree with you. Look, i agree with you look i i agree with you 100 it'd be horrible for our country but think about the humor of her holding on dear for dear life thinking she's still relevant you know and then her cheerleaders in the media and on twitter
Starting point is 00:46:14 would be like yes it is her turn again i'm with her again it's all fun and games till somebody ends up on the side of the gw parkway look it could be it could be happening if you read, you know, and we're going to get to this next. But the NBC report on what's happening with the current Democratic president is not good. The White House is adrift. Biden is mystified over his poll numbers. He feels alternately frustrated, annoyed, rattled and unhappy. And that is where we will pick it up after this very quick commercial break the ruthless guys are with us for the whole show today
Starting point is 00:46:51 and remember folks you can not only find the megan kelly show live on sirius xm triumph channel 111 every weekday at noon east but you can find us on podcast and on video if you want to watch the show which is a fun way to consume it go to youtube..com slash Megyn Kelly and subscribe. If you prefer to listen to it as you're running your errands or you're putting your makeup on or what have you, just follow and download the show on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcasts. It's free. And there you will find our full archives with more than 330 shows, including the very first time the guys of Ruthless were on. And that's episode 194. So Joe Biden said that he doesn't understand what's happening.
Starting point is 00:47:37 Why don't they love me? Why don't they like me? NBC reporting, as I mentioned, this is a White House that is adrift. Biden feels his aides are failing him. He's mystified over his record low poll numbers. He's, quote, twisted about the fact that his poll numbers are lower than Donald Trump. He doesn't understand how that could be. He feels he does not get enough credit for his accomplishments and that the GOP does not get enough blame for what it does. Alternately frustrated, annoyed, rattled and unhappy, upset aides cannot dream up a winning message for the Democrats this fall. Oh, and by the way, does not appreciate all the corrections to what he says by his staff. So great. That is a really good synopsis. That is a really good synopsis. We've done multiple episodes on this, Megan. And the funny thing is, is that the media's first goal is to try to rehab Biden himself by portraying him as a victim of all of this, right? That he is a person without any sort of agency whatsoever, despite the fact that he is president of the most powerful country on earth. With unified control of Congress.
Starting point is 00:48:47 Yeah, he's got the House, he's got the Senate, they got the White House. Yeah, that somehow the problem is either it's a bad message, a bad message to jurors, or that they just got bad advice, right? That this is, everything would be great if not for all of these external factors that have happened.
Starting point is 00:49:05 Life has just sort of happened to Joe Biden. Like never mind the fact that like inflation's happening because of Joe Biden. Gas prices are happening because of Joe Biden's policies, right? The border crisis is because of Joe Biden. Even Ukraine, you could make a strong case, is linked to Afghanistan. Not only that. Yeah, exactly. As you just said, the entirety of the chaos that we have across the globe is a direct
Starting point is 00:49:35 result of the vacuum he created with Afghanistan and the ridiculousness of the way he pulled out of Afghanistan, emboldening China, emboldening Russia, emboldening Iran, all of these different places. That's what he has done. It has not happened to him. But that's the framework we're working with here. Right. It's like Joe Biden's driving the car and you're in the passenger seat and he drives it into a wall and then he leans over and he goes, well, do you have any ideas to crash the car? You know what I mean? It's like we had a year and a half of pent up demand of the economy because of COVID and everyone was stuck in their houses. And then he spent five trillion dollars and we got inflation. And now you've got reporters and you've got the Biden administration being like, oh, these Republicans don't have any ideas.
Starting point is 00:50:16 And it's like, I don't know how about a time machine? You know, unbelievable. True. I love the fact that now the media just like, these things are happening to Joe Biden. Passive voice. My gas prices are just happening to him when he shuts down domestic energy producers. He shuts down Keystone. His day one mission, as soon as he's in office, he's like, shut down Keystone XL. We have to cripple our country's energy production. And for the media to be like, these horrible things have happened to joe biden
Starting point is 00:50:45 and and and his aides aren't serving him well because we all know joe biden would never allow these disasters these policies that he put in place he'd never allowed to happen here's the confidence of joe biden when he's left to his own devices he tries to start world war three by saying you know putin can't remain in power yeah you know he he he says we will defend taiwan and which of course i know i think we would but the fact he he he says we will defend Taiwan and which, of course, I know I think we would. But the fact that he's saying that on foreign soil and then and then his staff has to clean it all up. We were supposed to be ambiguous about it. Reach a policy. These are very tense situations. And you've got a guy who's, you know, I think he's in decline sundowning, if you will.
Starting point is 00:51:22 Sundowning. We have a we have a thing megan we call bracket man and bracket man's the busiest man in the biden administration because bracket man's job we talked about this i feel like i might have been there for the birth of bracket man discussion it's like it's just gonna clean up the transcripts what he's upset by right he's now mad that bracket man exists no you should have left my my remarks and like everyone in the state department's like bracket man you got to get on this ace i love the thought i'm sorry forgive me but i do kind of love the thought of biden you know saying like yes putin needs to go receive change and then seeing the staffers go out and be like, no, no, we're not changing policy and being like, mother.
Starting point is 00:52:10 Like, then they go out again on Taiwan. Like, I was told I was in charge. I think I keep doing this to me. And like now, like, you know, we always see this in these presidencies that falter. What really they need to do is just put Biden out there. They just got to put him out there and let him communicate the way only Joe Biden can do with the voters directly, you know, so that they can see him and they can understand who that is not the solution. Currently, I imagine there's like some White House aide whose job is anytime Biden is actually allowed to speak for a couple of minutes. He stands off on the side with like a Werther's. So as soon as Biden's done, he's like, hey, you know, I got your Werther's here.
Starting point is 00:52:49 They walk him out and then the aides can come do the cleanup with all the journos. He didn't mean that. The Werther's blast is one of my favorites. I mean, they've tried this before. They tried it on the election, you know, Jim Crow 2.0, the election reform bill in Georgia. They put him out there to talk about it. Remember the event that nobody would show up at? Stacey Abrams wouldn't show up at even though, you know, the president of the United States is coming to
Starting point is 00:53:13 do an event that didn't work. Now they're into this January 6th hearing. That's not going to work. They're going to put Joe Biden back on the campaign trail. That's not going to work. The reality is the reality they won't say is all these problems they can't solve. And Megan, they know that they can't solve them. They can't say that. So what they got to do is they got to redirect the attention to the American people elsewhere. And none of it's going to address the actual problems that motivate them and animate them to vote on November in November. Maybe Terry McAuliffe has the answer.
Starting point is 00:53:39 Democrats are facing is that no matter what they try to say, they want to make this about messaging. No matter what they say, right before election day, every American is going to go to the grocery store or they're going to go to a gas station. Right. And that's going to help decide how they vote. Yeah, it's true. And there's no primetime summit on that, as you point out, primetime theater. Now, you mentioned the press because, of course, they are circling the wagons. The NBC piece was somewhat fair, which is unusual to see that like any sort of negative coverage of the Biden administration. But now most of them are just running cover. Like, it's really not his fault. These events happened to him. Poor Joe Biden, who could deal with this? You know, like he just inherited these problems and they were all brand new, which is actually what happened to Trump on COVID. You know, Trump actually wasn't to blame for COVID, but that's not how they talked about that happening to Trump. Now talking about Biden, it's like all those poor things, they just happened to him. And I would submit to you jurors that this is why, in part, the ratings of CNN and MSNBC are had their worst week and this is indicative of May as well it's not just the week but they had their worst week this past week
Starting point is 00:54:50 in the key demo which is 25 to 54 year olds that's what they based advertisement fees on so that's what's important in cable news in 23 years and I think their worst May in 23 years their average in that key demo was 58,000 people.
Starting point is 00:55:10 58,000. Just by way of like comparison, when I was in the primetime at Fox, we get around maybe 3 million in the overall and about 600, 700,000 in the key demo, six to 700,000, 58,000 in the key demo at MSNBC. Not much better at CNN, 96,000 in the key demo at MSNBC. Not much better at CNN, 96,000. Fox averaging right now, 203,000. This is average across the day. These are dreadful numbers.
Starting point is 00:55:33 The American people don't want to hear this. They don't believe these narratives. The Democrats are too depressed to watch television. And it's having an effect on the entire left-wing business model. Well, I mean, I was just saying saying it actually makes me feel sort of good. We're like three chuckleheads sitting in the middle of a conference room here and we're trouncing CNN. Imagine what we could do with a couple billion liberal bucks.
Starting point is 00:55:58 Yeah. Can I just tell you something? That's going to make you feel even better. I'm not going to say who, but I did learn recently that a very well-known face from a very well-known cable network recently complained to this person's agent that they wanted to do more in digital media. They needed to get off of this just one trick pony of cable news because no one's watching it and there's no future in it. And it's not buzzy and it's not relevant it's not driving the national conversation anymore and i thought yeah yeah i always like to tell my mom we have more listeners and cnn has viewers but i mean it's heartbreaking that she doesn't get that
Starting point is 00:56:34 that's not that great you're gonna have to start adding more networks because cnn's numbers it's like no longer impressive but cnn's gonna turn it around guys cnn's gonna turn it around right you read that news they're getting back to the news and this is like an audition period now for the anchors who completely telegraphed to america for five years during the run-up to 2016 and thereafter that they hate republicans that all republicans are racists that if you voted for donald trump you're a racist. That that was said. They have like a grace period to try to convince America it was all an act. They don't really hate half the country.
Starting point is 00:57:18 And if they can now be fair, they might live under the new leadership and keep their prime time posts and other other posts, because it's not they say that the two most on eggshells, you won't be surprised to hear are Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter. Basically, not Don Lemon or like Brianna Keller or whatever her name is. So anyway, this is what's happening at CNN now. They're trying to get back to news and people have a grace period to prove that they could actually be news people again. Well, it's it's funny. I mean, all this news breaks in Axios, which by the way, Axios must have an embed at CNN because almost every story about this network comes out through Axios. But I will say the new management over at CNN is saying the right things in terms of what they should do. right? The first is, can you imagine a scenario where these people are actually auditioning for their job and now it's like the January 6th hearings? Stelter's head's going to explode if he's going to try to comply with the new directive. He's just physically unable to do
Starting point is 00:58:15 that, right? So if he's there on Monday, that was all nonsense. If St if the stelters in new york on set monday morning this didn't mean anything uh good point but secondly here's the other thing we looked at the headline when this came out we looked at the headlines that they had across the cnn website you wouldn't believe it i mean it was like six stories about donald trump in january 6th yeah oh my lord that's what they're talking about so like that's a lot of talk but i'm not seeing a ton of action here. Well, it's like like how could this fraud ever be perpetrated on us? You know, I mean, you cannot come out and say you're all racists. The Republicans in this country are a bunch of racist, sexist bigots who are too stupid to know what's good for them. That's what we heard. Need I reference the Wajahat Ali clip
Starting point is 00:59:05 and Rick Wilson clip on with Don Lemon? Like, yeah, Ukraine, what they think it's a crane. They can't find it on the map. Like the yokel, stupid ass Republicans out there. They're now going to ask those people to say, we're good now. I'm back to the news. Trust me, I got you. I'll cover news that affects your life in a very fair and impartial way. With the same voices. Yeah. Right. That's the thing about a reputation. It takes a lifetime to build, but only a moment to destroy. And what CNN has done, this is the station that, you know, for folks who are old enough to listen to. You remember, it really came up during the first Persian Gulf War.
Starting point is 00:59:44 Wolf Blitzer. Wolf Blitzer standing there in the middle of the desert with sc War. Wolf Blitzer. You had Wolf Blitzer standing there in the middle of the desert with scuds flying over his head. And you're like, oh, wow. Like these people are actually doing their job. Their foreign correspondent worked in Ukraine has been great. But that's, you know,
Starting point is 00:59:56 if it's going to be Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter fronting this network, it's never going to work. You're going to have to clear, clean house. Yeah. No, I don't. I mean, maybe I'm crazy. I feel like Wolf Blitzer, he might be salvageable.
Starting point is 01:00:08 Jake Tapper, fine by me. I don't know about Anderson Cooper. Don Lemon definitely has to go. That Keilar lady, she's got to go. And Acosta, obviously. Stelter, obviously. The morning team over there seems openly biased. I think Chris Licht could put potentially save CNN maybe,
Starting point is 01:00:25 but it really will require mass layoffs. I saw the numbers about a week ago and Tucker's rerun at 1am puts up better numbers than Don Lemon. Yeah. I mean, you got to clean house. I love hearing it. Yeah. Well, so they're not the only news organization having trouble. And that leads me to your favorite story and mine. And I know you said on your show, it's inside baseball. It's a little inside baseball, but the audience will appreciate it because while it's an inside baseball story about media, it's so indicative of the larger media and what consumers are feeling and seeing when they read the paper, when they see television and they think, who is writing this nonsense? Who is pushing this bullshit on me? And I, and that brings us to the Washington
Starting point is 01:01:10 post. So as you guys discussed on your show, this all starts with like interminable pest, Taylor Lorenz, who once again caused trouble at the Washington post. And then things just proceeded downhill from there. So Taylor Lorenz, once again, is back out there. She wrote a piece on people on YouTube and on the internet who benefited from the Johnny Depp Amber Heard defamation trial. And in her piece that went to print, she said she had contacted two of the YouTubers who she named in the piece. The two YouTubers fought back and said, yo, that's not true. You never contacted me. And then instead of being like, so sorry, that was my bad. We tried or whatever the real reason was. She blamed her editor that was inserted without my permission. It was a
Starting point is 01:01:55 miscommunication. And, you know, they were only they were not the big features mentioned in my piece. My piece was about many more important things than them. Just fucking say you're sorry and shut up. Stop it. Yes, Megan. Yes, Megan. Yes. Exactly right. And then she's replaying the editor then even CNN,
Starting point is 01:02:17 Oliver Darcy, the far left guy, even he's had enough of her. He weighs in saying, yeah, she's like claiming you know sort of playing the victim here hold on i have it written down here someplace and uh you know kind of she did it okay here's what he called her out on that her series of tweets blaming the editor and she was claiming when she blamed her editor she was the victim of a bad faith campaign here she's the victim of course because she's always the victim. And she responded to Oliver Darcy with this.
Starting point is 01:02:45 No, no, actually. This type of coverage is so irresponsible and dangerous. Not speaking about herself. I'm speaking about Oliver Darcy. It's misrepresenting my words to amplify a manufactured outrage campaign by right-wing media and radicalized influencers. Here we go. Which is driving a vicious harassment and smear campaign against me. And CNN is gleefully piling on. Same woman, right? She outed libs of TikTok and then
Starting point is 01:03:14 claimed she was the victim there. Went on MSNBC, said she's pulling out her hair and she's plucking at her skin because she was near suicidal because Tucker Carlson once said something not flattering about her. Online hate unleashed against me. She's in the business of generating it, but she can't take it when it comes back her way. She recently claimed that the Drudge report was doxing her and harassing her. And then Matt Drudge actually contacted her and said, who? And she was like, never mind. It didn't happen.
Starting point is 01:03:41 I was a lie to made up, just made up lies. Yeah, right. So that so you guys take it from there. Well, so not only was that a lie, what she said about the judge report, she also showed up on the doorstep of the family members of Libs of TikTok, an anonymous Twitter account. Think about that. There's so many layers. Basically, my favorite way to handle this is the way we handled it.
Starting point is 01:04:05 I don't know. Last episode is just stick a quarter in smug and wind the toy. I mean, it's a very long saga. Number one for her to say. So she says that Tucker Carlson started a hate campaign because he used her name on air. He said her name on air. She considered that like a hate crime. Right.
Starting point is 01:04:20 Yeah. When her job is not only giving people's names who want to remain anonymous. She in an article posted the address of where lives of TikTok lived. crime right yeah when her job is not only giving people's names who want to remain anonymous she in an article posted the address of where lives of tiktok lived and we all know why it's because she wants to send a mob that's how the left works and then they stealth edited it and claimed it never happened yeah again lying and and so yet again she portrays herself as a victim in the aftermath of doxing lives of tiktok where she does this news piece saying that oh my goodness it's like the worst people on the internet find out where you live and they come after you and
Starting point is 01:04:50 it's horrible and that's basically her business model that's what she does for a living and then in the aftermath of that interview where she famously like attempted to cry you know when everyone starts making fun of it of isn't that what you do all day you you you know reveal where people live and try to send mobs after them she says it was very insensitive of that cable station i think it was cnn yeah the way that they portrayed me again making herself she's a victim and so it was msnbc and she's throwing editors under the bus being like i'm the victim here of of poor editors she did the same thing when she was at the new york times they must be so happy that they're rid of her and she's doing the same thing again at was at the New York Times. They must be so happy that they're rid of her.
Starting point is 01:05:26 And she's doing the same thing again at the Washington Post. It's incredible what these publications will put up with from her. She's always the victim of every single article that she wrote. It's unreal.
Starting point is 01:05:36 It's unreal. And then she clearly made an error here. She did not contact these sources. And her paper said that she did. In her piece, it said that. And then when she's called out on it by media critics, by lots of people, even there, she plays the victim. But as you point out, that is her M.O. We never go to air without it. Here is that piece where she cried on MSNBC about how mean people online are. Stand by. I've had to remove every single social tie. I had severe PTSD from this.
Starting point is 01:06:12 I contemplated suicide. It got really bad. You feel like any little piece of information that gets out on you will be used by the worst people on the internet to destroy your life. And it's so isolating and terrifying it's horrifying i'm so sorry it's overwhelming it's really hard that is like if you watch the whole piece they all were like i'm me too i'm a victim too and i'm my journalism overacting because i mean that was just this poor attempt yeah trying to cry you almost want to say okay amber
Starting point is 01:06:50 and that's the thing is so this latest instance of where she in the in the article claim that she reached out to these people she made the unfortunate mistake of of two things number one these are two attorneys these are attorneys who are giving their like opinion as lawyers on a trial on a trial johnny depp which which comes a lot more credit than some you know just a middle-aged lady who i think they might have a better idea and handle on this right and and so she says that uh she's the victim somehow the problem is these people and and the way that the media is going in general, you know, Taylor counts on being at the Washington Post, an institution for journalism. This august institution.
Starting point is 01:07:32 Yeah, that she can just do this to people. Well, they've built their own audiences online. They have their own communities and they're fortunate for that because they can get out their side of the story and how Taylor lied normally. And what Taylor does to many people who aren't in that position, she finds a regular person who doesn't have their own audience that can, doesn't have a platform, doesn't have a megaphone and she attacks them and ruins their lives.
Starting point is 01:07:55 And nobody's letting that person back on TV to talk about their PTSD from losing their job and livelihood. Nobody cares about them, but Taylor Lorenz gets to go on national TV and cry about how unfair her life is. This is someone who went to a Swiss boarding school. And she had a tweet about how she's like, as a middle-class individual, she went to an 80,000-a-year Swiss boarding school.
Starting point is 01:08:15 If that's middle class, I mean, I want to hang out with your friends. You know what year she graduated, Smug? Sometime in the 20s, right? Unbelievable. Wait, it's funny because she tries to like paint herself as this ageless she wants to be like gen z or and she's not she's like i think she's a boomer i don't know what she is but she's she's at least in her mid to late 40s according to most reports
Starting point is 01:08:41 but she refuses to just say what her age is and so now it's become this like continuing thing where it's like just tell us what your age is. My producer is saying mid to late 30s. See I don't know. That's the thing about Taylor. She's like erased all records. We said this on the episode two days ago I think Megan that
Starting point is 01:08:59 somebody on Twitter said that Taylor Lorenz has this same birth a medieval king in or about this 10 year period. It's because she said her age is one thing to like the New York Times. Yeah. She says her age is a different thing. The Washington Post. And like even on the Internet Archive, she has sent a letter to them to remove.
Starting point is 01:09:20 They can't archive any reference to Taylor Lorenz. It's insane. Yeah. So she tries to remove any trace of herself on the internet, but her job is to try to go through everyone else's internet history. It's a protection racket. And the whole media reporting industry, like Oliver Darcy and these people,
Starting point is 01:09:35 and God bless him for trying on Taylor Lorenz, but it's such an insular world. It's getting really hard to get serious media reporting about media. And that's why shows like Ruthless and You, Megan, are so important really hard to get serious media reporting about media. And that's why shows like Ruthless and you, Megan, are so important for people to hear because these folks won't really criticize each other. They won't hold each other accountable. And that's the real problem with their industry. This method of you being the wrongdoer and then claiming that you're the victim when people call out your BS, your errors, your errors, your your bad behavior is so trendy. And that brings us to stage two of the Washington Post meltdown, which is the greatest. It's like you didn't see this one coming, think it was you, Smug, who said something about like this Felicia woman who's behind this whole like Washington Post is being exploded from the inside. You're like, I love her. Go, Felicia, go.
Starting point is 01:10:31 She's an absolute hero. She's holding accountable the like, you know, systems of power and injustice within the Washington Post. So tell us what happened. Start with step one of that saga. There was a retweet by this guy named Dave Weigel and explain what happened. Oh, so Dave Weigel has this retweets a tweet that's on the Internet. It was it was like all women are by bipolar or bisexual. You just have to figure out whether it's polar or sexual or something like that. Like clearly a joke. Right. He's at WAPO.
Starting point is 01:11:06 Yeah. Yeah. He's also a Washington post journalist, uh, who happened to defend Felicia. So I'm as when she got herself into some hot water about tweeting about, uh, Kobe Bryant's rape allegations as the helicopter is still on fire.
Starting point is 01:11:22 Right. And just like the most tasteless thing. Then this is where Felicia comes in. She calls him still on fire. Right. And just like the most tasteless thing. And this is where Felicia comes in. She calls him out on Twitter. Right. For retweeting. He defended her. Now he comes under scrutiny because he retweeted, you know, a stupid joke.
Starting point is 01:11:36 It's fine. And instead of like just being silent or whatever, she she piles on. She tries to create a shit storm for him. I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who are terminally offended by everything else that somebody else does. Like, just take care of yourself. But let's just, we live in a world
Starting point is 01:11:53 where everybody's permanently offended. So let's just pretend you are offended by this. Most people in their workplace would go to that person and say, please don't do that. It's offensive to me. I feel like it demeans women, what have you. If that didn't work or please don't do that. It's offensive to me. I feel like it means women, what have you. If that didn't work or you didn't feel comfortable about it, I guess you'd talk to an editor or something like that and be like, hey, can we just try to have an
Starting point is 01:12:14 internet policy or something so we don't have this kind of thing? That's what most people would do. Not this lady. She's like, it's time to burn. I'm taking this fucker down to the studs and not just and not and not not just quote tweeting him and saying i don't think this is appropriate like saying i can't believe this is allowed in my workplace she's like i love working somewhere like yeah yeah and she shared a byline with him like a couple weeks ago i mean that's just beautiful yeah that's how i knew okay we got we got we got this is a live one. Yeah, this is going to be a problem over here.
Starting point is 01:12:48 Yeah. And so this fight where like every blue check on Twitter jumps into the ring. I got to pick a side. You know, the thing is that Weigel, you know, he's been at this game for a while. So we mentioned on the show he used to be at The Washington Post and was let go because he was part of this group called Journalist when President Obama was running the first time in 08. There's a listserv that basically allowed all these
Starting point is 01:13:12 left-wing journalists to coordinate talking points and help elect Barack Obama. Their purpose, their state purpose was to elect Obama. Journalists. And so when this came to light, Dave Weigel was let go. And so he had to go to other publications, whatever, and then he makes his way back to the Washington Post. Of course, he can getel was let go. And so he had to go to other publications, whatever.
Starting point is 01:13:27 And then he makes his way back to the Washington. Of course, can get rehired after that. Yeah. A funny little wrinkle about that is his job was as a conservative to cover conservatives. Right. And when he was fired, guess who he was replaced by?
Starting point is 01:13:39 I get Jennifer Rubin. So they got a real hot hand over at the Washington post. Get a conservative visionary. But what happens, so they got a real hot hand over at the washington post with getting conservative visionary but but what happens here is that it's not just like a one-off thing she proceeds to go on like a steve schmidt like twitter tirade over like 72 hours where she's laying waste to dave weigel all of her editors or colleagues. People are chiming in like, please, for the love of God, stop. And she won't. Her bloodlust is unquenchable. I mean, she's still going. I think now she was at least last night. And I mean,
Starting point is 01:14:18 like other reports, you know, like, first of all, Dave Weigel deleted it. He apologized for it. He's groveled on his hands and knees to be like, please just stop she's like no more the entire institution must burn and so then weigel gets he gets uh unpaid sent away for for a month from the washington post they they they give him a suspension one month no pay over the retweet yeah for the retweet and then uh she's like okay who's next and there was a co-worker who put out this string of tweets where he was like okay okay, everyone, just calm down. At the Washington Post, he's a journalist there. He's like, everybody, just calm down. Jose, right? This is Jose.
Starting point is 01:14:51 Jose Real. And then she retweets him, and she's like, how dare you? How dare you tell me to calm down? Don't you realize this is just more abuse for me? And then she gets the blue checks to come after him. He has to delete his account.
Starting point is 01:15:08 This guy deletes his account. But first he's like, Hispanic and gay, stop it. And Megan, all he's saying is like, can we just be kinder to each other? That's the offensive thing he said. Super offensive. And so she's like, here's
Starting point is 01:15:23 how I'm kicking off Pride Month. He says I'm the only gay Mexican reporter at the Washington Post or something. She's like, happy Pride Month. I'm going after you next. And so she sends a mob after him. And now she's continuing it. She's keeping, she quote retweets him again and again. She's like, oh, wow, he blocked me.
Starting point is 01:15:44 What an abusive place this is the washington post like yesterday the washington post yes get to that because that's a fun piece yeah so the washington post basically sends like an internal email their editors of like we demand a like collegial friendly environment we demand and then you see at like the exact same time all the reporters of the washington post they must have been told they're just like tweeting from a script. Yeah. They're like, I enjoy working at the Washington Post. While not the perfect institution, I enjoy the collegial environment.
Starting point is 01:16:11 It is collegial and it is. It's like hold up a copy of today's newspaper and blink twice if you're alive. It's like at gunpoint, they're forced to send out these hostage letters of like, I enjoy working at Washington Post. So true. Very collegial. point they're forced to send out these like hostage letters of like i enjoy working at washington post yeah so okay to fill that in a little um sally busby is the executive editor for the washington post and she sends out a dear colleague's letter in this newsroom we share many important common values i believe in the power of journalism hatred of racist or sexist behavior language or systems and blah blah blah blah we do not tolerate this is quoting from like the handbook we do not tolerate colleagues attacking colleagues either face to face or online respect for others is critical to any civil society including our
Starting point is 01:16:53 newsroom we also do not tolerate violations of the policy prohibiting workplace harassment and or discrimination and so on and then she goes on and um, please be constructive if there's an issue with your colleague and and collegial. If you have a question or concern about something that has been published, speak to your colleague directly, which, by the way, Felicia apparently also did that. She she lit him up on her private email on the internal slack publicly like she she did have the flamethrower out. And then to your point about the weird, stepparty tweets. I'm just going to pull from there's like eight here in front of me. I'm deeply proud to be a part of the Washington Post.
Starting point is 01:17:31 The Post is not perfect, but I love coming to work almost every single day. My colleagues are collegial. There's the word, collegial. They are collaborative. They are fun humans. No institution is perfect, including the Post. But the place is filled with many terrific people who are smart and collegial. There it is again.
Starting point is 01:17:46 I am proud to work here. Another person. I am proud to work here. Another person. Collegiality and collaboration long have been hallmarks of the post culture. It is filled with good and talented people. I'm proud and lucky to work here.
Starting point is 01:17:57 Another person. The post newsroom is filled with collegial, collaborative respect. What the hell? I very much enjoy collegial work with fun humans. I mean, that sounds very normal. Meanwhile, she's like, fuck that. I mean, what's so amazing is like Busby puts out this thing where she literally is like, please, like we do not tolerate workplace intimidation.
Starting point is 01:18:27 Well, she's tolerating the shit out of this because Felicia Sarmaz is absolutely flamethrowing the entire staff. I mean, literally, there's nobody standing. It's incredible. It's just incredible to me that a newsroom could just become a daycare so quickly. I mean, this is just like some of the most childish behavior from people who are supposed to be adults and professionals at the serious publication. And this is why I enjoy it so much and why I back Felicia in this
Starting point is 01:18:51 is because this has been a long time coming. This infantilizing of journalism where all these editors now are terrified of the Zoomers and the Slack. They're scared of the kids in the Slack who are all like unionizing like, oh my god sitting at your laptop is not being a coal miner you don't need to be a member of a union right
Starting point is 01:19:08 you're not a long you're not a longshoreman yeah and then also like this goes back to the new york times in the slack after tom cotton had that that opinion piece right i believe people who commit crime should be in jail should be in jail jail. Right. And they had a slack revolt against. The editor quit. The editor quit. And now we're seeing the continuation of that here at the Washington Post. And yeah, I mean, I I didn't agree with it at the beginning, but Smug
Starting point is 01:19:36 has convinced me to his side, let it all burn. This is fantastic. We love I want Felicia to continue on this like just tear burn the whole place down. I think it's like Highlander where it's just going to be in the end, her and Taylor. There can only be one. That brings me to my question. So Dave Weigel, who retweeted this like one line tweet of all women are bi, either whatever, racial or not racial, sexual or what's the other one?
Starting point is 01:20:03 Polar. Polar. Thank you. Because of that, he lost. He can't go to work for a month. He gets paid leave for a month. Right. Paid.
Starting point is 01:20:12 Did anything happen to Felicia, who clearly has violated the policy on collegiality that is outlined here that you are not supposed to um attack colleagues online you were not supposed to attack so she's has anything happened to felicia yet and has anything happened to taylor lorenz for person that we kicked it off with no i mean the inmates are running the asylum at this point right i mean the backstory on felicia is interesting because after the kobe bryant thing where she inspired just a ton of outrage and people were talking about how insensitive it was to send out allegations of rape during the like seconds after we learned that kobe and his daughter died right yeah i mean it was it was it was terrible
Starting point is 01:20:54 which and so she got suspended for that she ultimately i mean at that time did the same exact play to the people who suspended her right Right. And she was doing it throughout. And then ultimately she sued the Washington Post for discrimination and it was thrown out of court. Right. So all of that backstory, she's still working there. It tells me like, I don't think they're I don't think they have the guts to do anything about any of it. Like she's going to destroy their entire newsroom. And I'm not sure they have anything to say about it. Yeah, they're not even going down swinging. And apparently Sally Busby was like, if you could keep this confidential, you know, that would be the appropriate. And like two seconds later, it was all over the Internet. He's like, you journalists, right? They're
Starting point is 01:21:39 literally incapable of keeping a secret. That's like their job. Where this ends, nobody knows. But it will be interesting to see how long the post puts up with Taylor Lorenz's nonsense. I mean, that's that's really the test case. I think you're probably right. They've probably had it with trying to discipline Felicia because it doesn't end well for them. Even a lawsuit that gets thrown out is a pain in the ass to deal with. And they certainly don't want another one. But there is a disparity in how they enforce their policy against Dave versus how they enforced it against Felicia. And it's like if you're fighting for wokeness,
Starting point is 01:22:12 even if you're wrong and you're violating policy, you'll be protected. If you're on the wrong side of the woke, you'll go down in flames. Bye Felicia. And that's 100% it. Stand by. Stand by. Wait, what'd you say
Starting point is 01:22:27 Kelly? Oh, it's unpaid. Okay, my producer Kelly McGuire said he's unpaid. He gets unpaid leave. Wow. So he actually lost dough over this. Felicia, not so much. She's losing no sleep. She's losing no dough. She's just losing her fingernails as she
Starting point is 01:22:44 burns. Ruthless is staying with us. There's a lot more to go over. Don't miss our last segment with the guys. Picking up my point earlier about how the gals from Red Scare were saying that the Democrats produce no interesting figures. You know, there's no there's nobody interesting to watch. I mean, au contraire, when you look at I believe she goes by AOC, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. She is, you may be aware, Latinx. I didn't have to correct the pronoun. And would really like you all to call her that and would like you to call every Hispanic person Latinx. And if you don't, you can just go pound sand because here's her message. Despite the overwhelming polls showing
Starting point is 01:23:31 the Latinx people hate this term, she will speak for them. Listen to her. If putting a little X on your campaign literature is what you think is the difference between winning or losing an election, you need to talk about healthcare more. You need to raise people's wages. You need to talk about more issues that also matter to people. That being said, why are people opting for trying to use Latine over Latinx? Well, Latinx can be convenient in written form because you just put down an X and people can kind of mentally put in whatever vowel they identify with. But it's kind of hard to say. So Latine, you avoid the
Starting point is 01:24:12 masculine O, you avoid the feminine A. Latine, E is a little more neutral, so it could be more inclusive to people. Shut up, get to the end. What are we doing? That being said, if you don't want to use it, no one's forcing you to. But for people who enjoy trying to figure out language and have it meet the modern age, that's kind of where it's at. That's fascinating. It's so fascinating and so tortured, right? Because she's trying to have it both ways.
Starting point is 01:24:44 And you notice this a lot, Megan, with like the Bernie Sanders left. These are folks who are more about solidarity than identity, right? Like they care less generally about the Latinx stuff or the sort of social issues. They care more about class issues, right? shoes. Right. And so for people like AOC, it's really tough because she doesn't want to be that person who's Latin X all the time. But she has to be because there's an enforcement mechanism in progressive politics now that if you're not on board with all of it, you're the other, you know. And can I can I tell you that the beginning there where she sounds somewhat reasonable and she's like, yeah, if you're worried about the X, you should have a better health care program. She's not saying that for people who don't want to put it on or for people who do want to put it on there. She's basically saying that the lead into this is about how if you have a problem with this term, you don't like Latinx, screw you. Like get a better health care policy then. Like if you think your use of that
Starting point is 01:25:46 term is undermining your campaign, you're wrong. You need better policy. So she's really she is pushing. She wants the term to be used. Oh, yeah. Kind of mocking politicians who are like, I'm not using that. Hispanic people hate it. And she's basically like, use it and make them hate you less by having better health care. This is our term. Well, she the funniest part about this, right, is she's reacting to Democrats who have viewed polls that show Hispanics, 80 percent of some odd Latino voters hate it. Right. And they don't have their they wonder where the hell it came from. They say straight up. They don't not want to be called 80 percent of Latinos. And't call me and so her colleagues have been like we're not doing that same thing that they did with like defund the police right they're like no
Starting point is 01:26:29 no no like we'll all get beat if we do stupid stuff like that because nobody wants to do it and she campaign expert uh aoc who somehow is a democrat mine uh can get elected in an 80 percent democratic district is giving the advice to her colleagues in swing districts that the hell with what they want. Call them Latinx or Latinx. Latinx. I say Latinx. I believe it's Latinx.
Starting point is 01:26:51 Yeah. You can say it either way. For sure. He'll go with that. But she said, do that. Just do, you have to come up with better other stuff because if they're deciding on that, so be it. I mean, nevermind if you're a Democrat
Starting point is 01:27:04 in an Hispanic district, right? That might be enough alone. Well, this is it's interesting because there is a representative, Ruben Gallego, Democrat out of Arizona, who said he does not allow the people in his office to use this term Latinx in any official communication. And he said, when Latino politicians use the term, it is largely to appease white, rich progressives who think that is the term we use. It's a vicious circle of confirmation bias.
Starting point is 01:27:30 So it's rich, white progressives who want people to use that terms and AOC, who's, you know, as far as you can go left on the woke scale at the Democrats peril. Like, good. I hope they listen to her. She should partner up with Felicia and get people policing all the speech everywhere in every newsroom and every congressional office and see how that works out. Yeah. She is, for me, what Felicia is to smug. I love AOC. She is my favorite. I can't get enough of AOC. If she was on all day, every day, I'd be the happiest man in show business. There is nobody, and I mean nobody, who can puzzle middle America more quickly than this lady. So true. Yeah. She's interesting to watch.
Starting point is 01:28:13 I'll give her that. Also interesting to watch, Maverick. Now, I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, this sort of sequel to Top Gun. But my little eight-year-old did. He went to a birthday party on Monday. And so in preparation for that, we had not yet shown him Top Gun. So the family watched it. And it really is an amazing movie. Top Gun is a great film. It really is great. And Tom Cruise is like one of the original big movie stars from the 80s. He's a star of a different caliber than
Starting point is 01:28:42 all these guys, even than The Rock, who's arguably, you know, better known today. But I mean, he's just in that collection of stars who are just untouchable. They don't give interviews all the time. They don't Instagram. They don't need daily stroking. They're just huge stars. Any picture they touch typically turns to gold. And I appreciate that. I mean, he's very bizarre guy. Don't get me wrong, but I appreciate that. I mean, he's a very bizarre guy. Don't get me wrong. But I appreciate that. Anyway, he makes this follow-up. And as of Monday,
Starting point is 01:29:11 I'm sure it's much bigger now, but it had premiered 10 days earlier and it had $548 million in the bank already. It was his biggest opening weekend ever in his own career, which is saying something. He refused to release it anywhere but in the theaters.
Starting point is 01:29:30 He wrote, that was never going to happen ever. I make movies for the big screen. Again, I kind of like that. I don't know. I get the problems with Tom Cruise, don't get me wrong, but I like that.
Starting point is 01:29:38 It's just a little swagger, you know, the way we used to like our movie stars. The film refuses, refused in the process to go woke it's devoid of virtue signaling there are no trans fighter pilots there are no drags drag performances at the top gun school there's no monologues about white privilege and on and on it goes we were reading some of this from daily wire and elsewhere but it relies on quality
Starting point is 01:30:02 storytelling and action scenes that are real and not computer generated. And this is why The Federalist is calling this sequel unabashedly patriotic, free of token left-wing social and political propaganda. And I would submit to you guys the reason why it's already earned half a billion dollars. What do you mean? I mean, absolutely. First off, Top Gun, I'd say this unironically, is the greatest movie that's ever been made in the history of cinema. I probably watched it 100 times, if not more. It is fantastic in every way. So when I had to wait 36 years or something for the sequel, when this thing came out, I came out, I watched it the moment I could.
Starting point is 01:30:41 I saw it. It is incredible. Tom Cruise is everything you want more. They give you everything that you loved about the first one plus some because the action fighting with the planes and everything, it's unbelievable. To be honest with you, I'm going to go watch it again in the theater because it is the highest and best use of my time. It is so good. I got to see it. I cannot say enough good things about this. Well, I got to see it, too. But I think, you know,
Starting point is 01:31:10 well, Hollywood, listen, right, like with the implosion of Netflix and its sort of corporate memo, like enough with you wokesters, we're going to do films and movies that appeal to everybody in this country. If you don't like it, you can walk. And, you know, the struggles that they're having now that nobody watched any of their woke films, they were disasters. And now you see Dave Chappelle's special over there, kicking butt, same with Ricky Gervais. And not to mention what happened with Yellowstone, the series. Will they listen now to what normal people want, which is not to be lectured to by this disgusting group of people. Sure seems like they should. I mean, I think there's evidence to suggest that there is some of that happening, right? I mean, Netflix canceled a whole bunch of things, including Barack Obama,
Starting point is 01:31:53 if I'm not mistaken. Michelle Obama and Meghan Markle. Right, right. And it looks to me like they're repackaging a few things. But I mean, you did a good job of running down all the successes that all of these different films and shows have had lately. It's incredibly clear what the consumer marketplace wants here. It's just a matter of whether or not Hollywood will follow. Like for anybody who's watched the Oscars or even a piece of the Oscars over the last 10 years, what they're celebrating is, I don't have any idea what they're talking about. Yeah. Right. Like it's basically, if it's in English at all, I don't understand what the plot line is.
Starting point is 01:32:28 You know what I mean? It's like esoteric wokeness. And now you hit something like this with Maverick. Ah, what a breath of fresh air. I think it's also been like a long time coming. You know, it's a great analysis of how Netflix is canceling all this. Like they felt that they had to cater to a woke audience because they thought, OK, the country shifting that way. You know, culturally, every star is pushing this garbage down our throat.
Starting point is 01:32:53 That's where folks are. But they didn't get the audience that, you know, they were promised that if you tow the line with with with the left demands, the audience wasn't there. The audience doesn't want that. They want to actually enjoy their time. Where you'd see stand-up comedy when it's like a left-wing comic versus a normal comic. The left-wing thinks comedy is like, okay, you say left-wing talking point and audience claps.
Starting point is 01:33:19 Like all the late night shows. Everyone claps like a seal and it's really just a lecture. It's not humor. It's a lecture. People want to be entertained. You go to a lecture. People want to be entertained. You go to the movies, you want to be entertained. You see a comedy special, you want to laugh because there's jokes.
Starting point is 01:33:30 And people are sick of it. And the other thing, you mentioned Netflix in particular. Some of these entertainment companies are starting to push back on their employees and changing the employee culture. I would love to see that at the Washington Post. It can go ahead and burn. But wouldn't that be nice if maybe they stopped listening to these children and put the business interests of the Washington Post first? But Netflix is doing that. They had this memo to their employees being like, look, there's going to be some content
Starting point is 01:33:56 that you object to on our platform. There's going to be content that you like on our platform. If you can't serve our community, then don't work here. It's tight to economics where we're entering a phase, especially because of Joe Biden, where a lot of folks are nervous about we're headed into a recession. A lot of companies are making cuts already. Netflix's stock is down like 75% so far this year. They're going to have to make decisions based on what's economically sound, not what the Hollywood liberal mob wants them to do. What you come to understand real quickly when times are tough and dollars are short is that
Starting point is 01:34:29 wokeness is a privilege in and of itself. That's the irony of it. Well, it's kind of a continuation of the discussion we've been having all show of like what happened at the Washington Post and what's happening with CNN and MSNBC and where this kind of crazy ideological commitment gets a company. And yet it's still expanding. You know, these these corporations that are woke now that are weighing in on abortion, that's happening a little bit more and like conditioning their dollars like Blackstone and so on. And whether you have the appropriate DEI program, they better pay attention. They really better pay attention because I realize what they think the future is. I think it's something very different. And frankly, we're banking on it, that the reasonable middle will make these companies
Starting point is 01:35:15 pay for trying to act holier than thou as they turn their noses up at normal people in America who just want clean air. Yes, they do. And a safe environment in which to raise their children. And they don't want to go on the subway and have to worry about needles being everywhere or somebody grabbing them as we've seen. And they don't want to watch the January 6th freaking theater with the Werther's. That was the greatest reference ever. Cashews, Matlock, Werther's. Who hasn't been there with an elder friend or person in their life or they can choose not to and leave it to Megyn Kelly and the ruthless variety program that's right we're on it you guys are the best it's so always so so fun Duncan Holmes smug thank you so much for being here of course tomorrow we are turning our focus to an important topic that is
Starting point is 01:36:02 not spoken about enough and that is President Biden's mental fitness. You heard the guys talking about whether he is, quote, sundowning. We are going to have a full show from all the angles on this topic alone. Don't miss that. Download The Megyn Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify and Stitcher. And also at YouTube dot com slash Megyn Kelly. If you'd like to consume the show visually, which is always kind of fun. Thank you so much for listening and for watching. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.

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