The Megyn Kelly Show - San Fran's Reparations, Today Show COVID Freakout, and Gisele Fetterman's Vacation, with the Ruthless Podcast Hosts | Ep. 502

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by the hosts of the Ruthless Podcast, Comfortably Smug, Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook, to talk about Biden's "student loan forgiveness" program before the Supreme Court, San Francisco considering $5 million in reparation to Black residents, former Black Panther Angela Davis discovering her ancestors came to America on the Mayflower, the newest "Rachel Dolezal" case of stolen identity, President Biden's history of weird racial comments, the Today show's COVID freakout today, CNN's struggles at 9pm, John Fetterman's wife leaving the country for vacation, Marianne Williamson entering the Democratic race, the coming Trump vs. DeSantis war, Pete Buttigieg and the media's anti-Trump East Palestine spin, and more.Ruthless Podcast: https://ruthlesspodcast.com Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow 

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Tuesday. Do you have a snow day today? We have a snow day here in Connecticut and I am so happy for my kids. They don't do it like they used to do it when we were kids. You know, remember when we were back in my day, you had to wake up, turn on the radio and you had to wait forever. They used to go alphabetically through the schools. And I went to Bethlehem, Bethlehem Central in a suburb of Albany. And if you tuned in on like the, you know, the M's, oh, it was interminable waiting for them to go all the way through to get back to the B's. And you'd hear Bethlehem closed today.

So anyway, now they tell you the night before. So my kids were thrilled. We had such a nice night at home last night. Just the five of us. We've been watching Lost. You know Lost, right? Such a good show. It's great.

It's a little violent. So, you know, for the really young ones, maybe not. But our nine-year-old's taking it just fine. Anyway, we're in the last season. It's been so fun. Lit a fire, had some leftover lasagna. It was awesome. Hope you had an awesome night too. And here's to the joy of the snow day. My snow day's with you. And actually I'll tell you just an epilogue to it. My, uh, my son Yates said, mom, you never get a snow day. You know, you'd need like the power to go off. We have a generator, so that wouldn't do it in order for you not to be able to do the show. And I said, honey, I love doing the show. I look forward to doing my job. And he said, really?

And I said, yeah, get yourself a job like that when you get older. So starting the day in a great mood, happy to be with all of you and to kick off the news today. The U.S. Supreme Court, considering the Biden student loan forgiveness program, like some people get forgiven their debt that they willingly took on and others like, you know, some random truck driver who never took on those responsibilities because he didn't want them, will have to pay them. How's that going to work out? This is I do not believe this will be upheld. I think the Biden administration will be slapped down again for its extra legal behavior. But the court is listening to the arguments now and will have its say in June. This is the 2024 race heats

up. Ron DeSantis not yet declared. Come on. We know he's running, looking more and more like a potential candidate as he releases a new book out today. New polls indicating former President Trump is still in the driver's seat for the Republican nomination. Here to break down all the news of the day, John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and the man known as Comfortably Smug. Together, they are the hosts of the Ruthless program. Welcome back, guys. Great to have you. Hello, Megan. Great to be here. So you must love Supreme Court news given the way your podcast was named, Ruthless. It has a few different meanings, but the Supreme Court is now Ruthless.

And they're taking up the, it has such like the Inflation Reduction Act. Both are lies. And I do believe the Supreme Court will strike this effort down. And he will be like the dog that gets hit in the face with the newspaper yet again. But he does this just as a political. It's shameless. It's a politically shameless move. He knows he doesn't have these

powers and yet that's not how the media is reporting it the media is basically saying if the if these nine elite justices have the nerve to take away this forgiveness plan from these needy students there will be hell to pay. Oh, okay. He's wealthy, wealthy, privileged, uh, few, right? Apparently they didn't do a Google search on Clarence Thomas before they fired that one out. I think that was a headline from CNN, but you know, like back, back to the issue, honestly, Megan, I mean, I don't think you actually need to be F Lee Bailey to figure out that like when the government and the executive branch just appropriates a trillion dollars from one side of the community to the other without the legislative

branch, that seems a touch unconstitutional to me. Yeah. And then the whole the whole thing about it being a plan, they keep calling it Biden's plan or his program like this was something that he lobbied for and got through Congress. Yeah. Right. Like it's not just an executive order that with like a pen he can be like, oh, trillion dollars is going to these people, my voters. Right. The CNN tweet was as follows. The fate of Biden's student loan forgiveness program, again, misnomer that would impact scores of borrowers from a wide array of colleges and socioeconomic backgrounds. In other words, these are the poorest of the poor, not rich lawyers. Don't believe your loving eyes, right?

Okay. Lies in the hands of nine relatively wealthy people who graduated from a short list of elite private schools. Talk about missing the issue. It's unconstitutional, CNN. I get you like it, but it's unconstitutional. I mean, this is how the left sees the law, though, Megan, right? I mean, they don't ever argue the law or argue the facts or argue the constitutionality of something. It's whether it feels good, right? Whether this is something that befits an organization or people that we have sympathy for, right? I mean, it's mind-blowing to me also that they can constantly delete the presence of Clarence Thomas on this court. As if this is someone, if you've done even a cursory amount of background on, you understand that this is not a man from privilege. This is certainly not somebody who you could put in a in a thimble of elite in this country. Right. Probably the most unbelievable story to the rise of Supreme Court in the history of justices. I mean, smug. You've been all over that. That's the thing that really upset me about trying to describe these as privileged individuals. I've mentioned it before on the show.

There's a really great documentary about Clarence Thomas. And one of the things that you learn is at one point, all of his possessions fit in a small paper bag when he was moving from his grandmother's house. Everything he owned in the world fit in a brown paper bag. And the man became a Supreme Court justice. That's a triumph of this country. And now they're attacking him as being privileged and not these college kids who refuse to pay the debts that they willingly took on. And another point of when you try to make this a socioeconomic thing, the data shows the vast majority of people who would benefit from the student loan forgiveness are wealthy, liberal, white elite students. They've taken out massive loans at these schools for degrees that clearly can't generate any sort of an income

that would allow them to pay back such a massive loan. So why should the rest of Americans be on the hook for them? It's outlandish. It's unbelievable. And like you mentioned, Megan, what makes it so much worse is the way that the media has tried to portray this. There's one reporter who I saw this morning, Stephen Mazie, who's the Supreme Court reporter for The Economist. This is supposed to be someone who sticks to the facts. He's the worst. He's the worst. This is essentially an activist when he says that, you know, if these people decide not to go with student loan forgiveness, it'll make the Supreme Court, which is already being questioned, more unpopular. He's undermining the Supreme Court of the United States after a left wing lunatic tried to

assassinate Justice Kavanaugh. And they're continuing their attacks and saying that the Supreme Court is supposed to be some kind of a popularity contest by giving handouts to Biden voters. Right. You are out of the running for prom king. That's it. You author this decision. It's done. This is thomas's background is so inconvenient to their narrative and they knew this was coming i mean this is why joe biden worked overtime to block thomas from the supreme court back in the 90s they remember all the things they all the lies they told about him everything they did to try to stop him because they knew that his mere existence was completely debunked the

fiction of their narrative about everything in our society. And, you know, if you want to talk about elite private schools, just look at some of the Northeastern schools with $80,000 tuitions that maybe most listeners haven't even heard of with these elite students who come from Manhattan and places like Connecticut. Yeah, that's true. I prefer to refer to it as New England, if you don't mind. Extra snooty, but with fireplaces. No, but you're so right. And a nice leftover lasagna. To me, it's so aggravating. You know, it's like I did not come from a family with tons of dough. My dad died when I was in high school. My mom was a nurse. My mom had to put my brother,

my sister and me through college with my dad's insurance money. I had a lot of debt. I put myself through law school and I had $100,000 of debt when I got out of that school. And you know what I did? I got a job. I wanted to be a DA. That's what I wanted to do. But it paid $30,000 a year and I had a hundred grand in debt and I was tired of being poor. So I sold out and I went to the big law firm and I made $85,000 a year my first year out. It was amazing. I felt like such a success story. And I paid off my debt in five years. And I was very proud of myself for doing that. Now, yes, if Biden had swooped in, maybe I'd be a DA.

How would the left like that? Me as a DA in New York City, I don't think they would have liked that better. I'd love to see that. That would be that's what most people do. Yeah. And then, I mean, it presents a moral hazard question. We're going forward. If things like this are allowed, what's next? Blue states that voted for Biden, their mortgages, the rest of us have to start paying for them. There's no limit to what they're asking for. It was rent forgiveness, student loan forgiveness. They essentially want to turn half this country into a piggy bank for the other half because it benefits this administration politically. That's such a good point. That's such a good point. At what point are we going to talk when we talk about student loans? Are we going to talk

about the obligations of the universities and colleges? Yeah, huge, right? Huge. I mean, the idea that all of a sudden the taxpayers just sort of saddled with these enormous costs. Let's just throw the constitutionality out entirely. Let's just say this happens. All of a sudden, the American taxpayers saddled with these huge costs of higher education for this country, and nobody has asked for a price tag. There's not a single person who's like, you know, does it really cost $80,000 to educate a kid in this country? To redo your senior year. And let's have a look at these endowments for a second. Right.

$10 billion endowments. Maybe we could pay off those student loans with the interest off those multi-billion dollar endowments. Let's start taxing the shit out of those endowments. You know, if you want it, if you want it, then be careful what you ask for. Right. Yeah, that's exactly right. So meantime, speaking of spending money that we don't have with no accountability, it hit the news today that, you know, San Francisco and California, too. But San Francisco has got its own task force on reparations. And San Francisco's recommending its task force has recommended five million dollars for the black people in San Francisco. And California is going to follow suit. They've got their own task force about to make a similar recommendation, though we don't know the numbers

there. And the requirements to get it do not require you to show that you are the descendant of a slave because slavery was never allowed in California. You basically just have to be black or be identifying as black for the past 10 years. Just identifying. OK, plus one other random thing, which it's a very easy list. Most people are going to be able to say they qualify. And when pressed, how did you come up with 5 million per person in a city that has got a budget overload?

So does the state and so on. They're already not able to pay their bills with these. They're never going to be able to afford this. Their answer was. You're like kind of ballparked. Like California policy. Ballparked. Why not? Right?

So like, good. I feel like, I'm sorry. I think of like my, our friend David Sachs, you know, out there of the all in podcast.

I feel for somebody like that. I feel for Adam Carolla, you know, who's been raising his kids out there and he doesn't want to leave the state that in which he, he's been for so long. But like these guys are going to get screwed because that state and that city are going to do something like this and they're going to be doling out money to people who have absolutely no claim to anything close to reparations yeah well i mean i think everybody should start getting a dna test right i mean

there's no real qualification worked out well for elizabeth warren yeah start identifying immediately 186 there's something like that all of a sudden you got five mill bone that ain't bad yeah but i mean back to the the point of the david sax's world like you know california is looking at now taxing former residents of california who flee yeah i mean they're not even going to let you leave at this point before they get some of the money for the reparations. I feel terrible for those people. That ought to teach them. It is a fleeing.

Be careful what you have. Did you hear on the reparations issue? It's interesting because who pays the reparations and who doesn't? Who's a slave owner descendant and who is a slave descendant? It's trickier than you might think. I wasn't even going to cover this story today, but I did think it was kind of interesting, kind of ties into that news. Angela Davis, all right, racial activist, longtime member of the Communist Party, Black Panther. She's one of these Marxist leftists, Black Panthers who hates America, wants CRT taught in schools. Racism is embedded in the fabric of our country. One of her favorite

quotes was on the FBI's most wanted fugitive list. Of course, now she's a college professor. Sounds like a good call. The Resmay. The resume hit left-wing bingo there. Totally, right? She's now professor at University of California, Santa Cruz. Okay, so she went on the Henry Louis Gates show,

Finding Your Roots, you know, where he finds out, like, where do you come from? Where are your ancestors? You can't make this up. This is so delicious. I don't know if you guys have heard this story.

It's delicious. She was flabbergasted, according to PBS.org, to find out that both sides of her family were white and her ancestors were, great, great, great grandpa, whatever, was William Brewster, who was one of the 101 people on board the Mayflower. We'll fork it over, Angela. Where's the. Yes, exactly. Oh, we have a soundbite. Let's play a soundbite. Here we go.

Yeah, here it is from the show, Sat Nay. Any idea what you're looking at? That is a list of the passengers on the Mayflower. No, I can't believe this. No. My ancestors did not come here on the Mayflower. Your ancestors came on the Mayflower. No, no, no. You are descended from one of the 101 people

who sailed on the Mayflower. Oof. That's a little bit too much to deal with right now. Did you ever in your wildest dreams think that you may have descended from people who laid the foundation for this country. Never, never, never. Okay. Maybe she'd like to reevaluate all of her Black Panther and her BLM protesting.

America is a terrible country. All those racists who established it and that slave owners. You mean your people, your people, Angela. I mean, on the upside, that should get her country club membership to some places in New England if you're related. I bet she celebrates Thanksgiving a little differently. I bet she doesn't change a thing.

You end up with the Mayflower. It's like, and you're a daughter of the Confederacy. Spectacular. Right. So truly, like there's no sorting any of this out, California, nor will it try to. But truly, like, does she's in California. Right. You see Santa Cruz. Does she get the money or does she pay the money? How are we going to figure it out? Because she's got, you know, black skin, but she's part white and she's both descended from slaves and slave owners, though she was never like she's from California where we didn't have slavery and Mayflower.

So does she pay or does she cash the check? I mean, this highlights the idiocy so perfectly, doesn't it? I mean, the idea that somebody came from the Mayflower is now somehow subjected to reparation simply because of their worldview. It also highlights basically how people like her have used race as an organizing principle for ideological issues, right? Basically being a communist anti-America, all of the sort of left wing Marxism that has now come to fruition under the BLM banner is because people like this, they're just doing what they're doing is organizing around race. Right. I mean, and somehow using that as a justification for their views rather than their views, having any sort of justification for the betterment of the people they claim to represent. Right.

And it's it's I mean, it is it is an ugly past. But boy, that shot in Freud, if you've ever seen it. Yeah, it's incredible. So can I tell you guys, so my producer put this in front of me. I'm like, what do I care about Angela Davis? Again, mildly interesting. And then I'm like, wait a minute. She's in California. This is the state that's about to hand out these reparations.

Everyone there, all the left is so pro. And it's like people like her, these radical activists who are really pushing this. And so it just it really does put a pin in the idiocy of this entire exercise. And these poor it'sian who just was kind of stuck there because you were raised there and now you're your mom's there, your dad's there and your kids were, you know, it's like like Adam Carolla. He's stuck there. He's gonna be stuck with this lunacy. And we need to rest. We got to get our flowered van and go by and get him and David Sachs. I mean, at the same time, you have to consider there needs to be justice for Mayflower descendants. They've had a real. Landing on Plymouth Rock. Tough deal. They wear buckles on their hats.

Not to mention Thanksgiving. I mean, we're crying out loud. Here's the perfect segue into why people do what they do. People like Raquel Saraswati. Okay. You may not know that name, Raquel Saraswati. You might know her as Rachel Elizabeth Seidel, which was her real name for a long, long time until she decided she was no longer going to be white. Yes. I remember this. This woman is, you could see her picture here. She looks Muslim. She has darker skin. She's got the drawn in eyebrows with the headscarf. She is white as

the driven snow. She's whiter than I am. She is as white as they come. Here's the pre. Here's the pre. And in case you're thinking she looks like italian i don't think she's even italian in her pre-transformation photos she is british german she has a little italian they said okay but mostly british german and you would never know that if you saw her resume let's say two weeks ago before this scandal broke she's the new rachel dolezal this woman um likes the lasagna of course was was the chief inclusion officer she's the chief dei person at the philadelphia quaker founded social justice firm um wait is that her on the bottom that's her the daily mail has her little girl picture she looks like a kind of like a boy i

have that same haircut no no offense intended but she's as white as they come that she's white she is white she's white as the snow on my front lawn right now and then she transformed herself into um okay hold on i want to make sure i don't miss any of the things. Okay. Let's see. Checking a lot of boxes here. Got to make sure to get this one right. I'm going to get a letter. All right.

Hold on. Because the Daily Mail has been all over this. And so actually, was it the intercept that broke that first thing? Okay. She represented herself as multi-ethnic, as a queer person of color who happens to be Muslim. She said that she was, I think, Latina and Muslim and gay and something else. And the only thing, it does appear she's gay. She was in a gay marriage, though they divorced.

But this woman, looking at her background, she's like two steps away from me growing up. She had basically the same upbringing I did. She went to the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, which is this very tony, pricey private school that I couldn't get into. I went to public school not long, not far from where she went to her fancy school, private boarding school. She wound up living nearby in Wyndham, which isn't far away at all. Um, she had blonde hair. She was visibly pale. She, when she was a junior in school, in high school, decided that she might become a Muslim because her roommate was too. And she was, uh, she was excited by that. And by the way, when contacted by her family, they said she's chosen to live a lie. We find it very, very sad. We have no idea why she is doing this. Like they've known forever. But you guys know exactly why she is doing this, why she decided that being Rachel was no longer good and she had to be Raquel and that Rachel Elizabeth is now Raquel Saraswati. You know exactly why she did it, because there's so much currency

in being a person of color, a minority. And she wrote it all the way to the top of this organization. What do you make of it? I mean, the problem with the left is they've turned demographics into qualifications. So of course you're going to end up with these frauds because it's a fraudulent system to begin with. Martin Luther King said you shouldn't judge people by the color of their skin but by the character of who they are. And

looking at this article describing situations as Oscar Peter Castro, who helped hire Saraswati in June 2021, says he feels conned as her ethnicity played a role in her recruitment. Great. A person of color, a queer person of color who happens to be a Muslim. It's a woman, all these things. And someone who seemed to get it. Those are the qualifications they were hiring on. Yeah. On whether someone was capable of doing the job. And so, of course, you're going to end up the same way that people on resumes will be like,

yeah, I'm proficient at Word and Excel, even though they've only opened it once in a while. She'll be like, oh, yeah, I'm a queer person of color. Now she's going to get in her car and move to California, become a millionaire. Yeah. I mean, it's the brand new. Just have to identify. Just identify as in 2017. Listen to this. She told Philly Magazine all too often progressive and well-meaning people ally with organizations and individuals in marginalized or targeted communities without consulting those on the margins of those communities. Like LGBTQ, SIA people, dissidents, women, minority sex, racial and ethnic minorities, etc. Of course, she's referring to herself. She's mad that that, you know, progressives allying with people in marginalized communities like Latinx, whatever, and like the Muslims are forgetting the queer Muslims and Latinx

like her, which is a lie. The whole thing is a lie. Then on her Facebook page. But that's what this whole DEI thing is, right? All of it. The whole DEI thing is really a jobs program. That's what it is. Well, they didn't pay the toll.

Right, right. It's what's offending her. Exactly, exactly. I'm qualified to be, just give me a salary, right? And it's like what Smug said. It's like when you create fake qualifications, of course it's going to be a magnet to people who are fakes who want to exploit that for their own ends.

It's incredible. When you're a hammer, everything's a nail. Well, what's, what's to stop? I mean, truly what is to stop with this racial obsession, um, at colleges and so on. Some kid from just being like, yeah, I'm black. I am. I'm in the same way. Angela Davis didn't know she's white and descended from the Mayflower flower. I turned out and black. You just can't tell. And I am descended from slaves. So I want my money in California and I want a preferred admission at some school like they don't do DNA tests. Why wouldn't you gain this system when it's so unfair and it's so absurd? Yeah, I mean, they would. Right. I mean,

I think that's what we're seeing is that all of these people who have basically faked their resume, fake who they are, trying to get involved in a fake profession, quite frankly. But once she's there, she's also then moving this entire movement forward to try to create new identity politics amongst whatever profession she's overseeing. Right. It becomes worse and worse and worse. It gets more fraudulent as it goes along. And they've created this this I don't I mean, what is a cottage industry at this point in corporate America of trying to adhere to this fake set of criteria of of credential right it doesn't have to stop with this news article it doesn't have to stop in corporate america she can move to massachusetts and run for senate and then run for president and you know then she'll be famous and that's even more famous this entire system is is built upon basically white liberals trying to make themselves feel better,

making themselves so they can feel like they're saviors, like they're helping save the planet somehow. There was an article that NBC put out yesterday that said, diversity officers hired in 2020 are losing their jobs, and the ones who remain are mostly white. That tells you everything about what this cottage industry is focused on, is it's to help white liberals have good feelings, that I'm a good person, you you know i'm enforcing my beliefs found grounded in nothing not facts and qualifications of whether an individual is capable but on a system of where we can divide and conquer and

that's what the system is based on and oh by the way we certainly oppose school choice because we wouldn't want any of these kids to actually get an education. Oh, yeah, absolutely. No, no. It's never about helping you. I mean, at all costs. Did you, speaking of the white liberals who feel the need to do that smug, did you happen to catch Sally Fields at the SAG Awards the other night? I did not. I did not. He's not a big SAG Award.

I don't know. No, nor am I. I did not watch the SAG Awards. My great team gives me the highlights if they think they will be interesting. And this one was. So Sally Fields gets up there and I think Sally feels just like in her eighties now. I mean, she, she's like, she lived a long time. She's accomplished a lot.

That's why she got the Lifetime Achievement Award. And this is how she chose to use her time. I was a little white girl with a pug nose born in Pasadena, California. And when I look around this room tonight, I know my fight, as hard as it was, was lightweight compared to some of yours. I thank you and I applaud you. Get it? Little white girls don't have real problems compared to anybody who's a person of color. So I just let me let me make clear I have zero privilege arriving on this stage, irrespective of what little white girls are going through across this country right now.

You're dirt. You don't matter. You have to apologize. Whatever you accomplish, you have to make sure you subjugate yourself to random persons of color whose background may be far more impressive than your own, by the way. Just assuming that they're all victims who have had a shit life that they've had to overcome is racist, Sally. But that's where we are. Yeah. By the way, you got to hit the swear jar again. You're right. Oh, I did it again yeah well i mean it's also super cringy to watch right i mean she's standing on stage like with a lifetime achievement award saying well it really wasn't much of anything it's it's you you you random black guy sitting in the front row that's having a struggle. I mean, it's just so it's absurd. It's bonkers. It totally demeans and diminishes any person of color in the audience

to try to say that everyone here is a victim of circumstance. I mean, I would just be so offended. It's just it's so patronizing. But I think that's sort of the price of admission in the liberal society now is if you are a white person who's had success, every speech has to begin with a struggle session about how you don't deserve to be there. You know? Yeah. It's unbelievable. Oh, it's so in vogue to put down your white skin or the fact that you're white and you need look no further than the president of the United States who thought this was an appropriate comment yesterday. OK, yesterday, where he was speaking to a group of black.

What was it? They were celebrating Black History Month. I know, but I don't remember like what specific group it was. In any event, we'll get it. And he's talking about the Divine Nine, by the way, which is a group of historically black colleges. So let's listen to how he refers to the fact that he's white. By the way, you know, I'm not, I may be a white boy, but I'm not stupid. I know where the power is. I know where the, you think I'm joking. I learned a long time ago about the divine nine. Okay. I may be white,

but I'm not stupid. What? That's a laugh riot. Okay. Yeah. I just, what was the thing he said a few months ago about how he grew up? It was a little,

uh, was it a little African American boy or something like that? He said a line where he was like, I grew up in a Polish community and I used to go to black churches. And none of that's been found to be true. He's had a very tenuous relationship with race in his public comments over 20 years. I mean, it's basically the most intemperate stuff that you've ever seen. Yeah.

Well, and then remember corn pop. That's the thing. They think corn pop would give this sort of like apocryphal story about the public swimming pool. And, you know, the kids would touch the hair on his legs. Weirdest thing I've ever heard. Yes. I think.

We just did this. I think it was the New York Post. They did a flashback of his awkward remarks. January 2022. Told students at historically black colleges in Atlanta that he was arrested during the civil rights protests. That's not true. 2020. Sparked an outcry when he said

African-American voters ain't black if they support Donald Trump. Months later, took heat for saying blacks were less diverse than Hispanics in terms of political thinking before asking a black journalist if he was a junkie in the same interview in which the reporter asked if he had taken a cognitive test. How did I miss that? That's a good question. Very good question. Also falsely claimed during the 2020 campaign, he had the great honor of being arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela later admitted that wasn't true and said he was thinking of being separated, being separated during a congressional trip one time, though a Democratic colleague who was on the trip disputed that account as well. Biden also received criticism during the 2020 campaign when a tape surfaced from 2017 of him

reminiscing about young black children playing with his blonde leg hair, as you mentioned, while he was a lifeguard. Of course, who could forget in 2007 when he described Barack Obama as the first, okay, the first sort of mainstream African-American who's articulate and bright and clean. The very first. Oh, yeah. I think he said that in the Senate near a bank of elevators where all these reporters sort of gather around. He said it to a bunch of people at the time. Everybody just sort of got.

It's amazing. The guy notoriously puts his foot in his mouth. It was also, it was in that same context. This would begin a long line of vice presidential runs that would begin with the vice president

calling the would-be president racist. He, or actually be racist. Right, one or the other. Go ahead, sorry. Unlike any of them. What were you going to say, Holmes? Oh, man. No, I was just going to say, I man. No, just get it.

I mean, I think there's the same context he had. He was at an Indian American, uh, sort of group and said that he related, uh, to everybody very well because of the seven 11s in his community. I remember that. I mean,

it is unreal. It's like, you can't go into a seven 11 without seeing an Indian there. It's like, right. Who the hell is this guy? Who invited him? Reparations.

Reparations. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, I am going to play a clip for you showing some drama over at the Today Show this morning. Stuff's brewing over there. We'll get into it in two minutes. Stand by. The guys from Ruthless stay with us for the show. So guys, drama over at the Today Show, where there's something going on with Hoda. We don't know what's going on with Hoda. I hope she's okay. But she has been off the air, offset, without explanation for, by my count, going on, today's the seventh day. The last day was Friday, February, I think it was 17th. So she missed an entire week and then she missed two more days. And instead of saying she's on vacation or she's on whatever, they just say Hoda's out today. Hoda's out today.

She's out today. And she's posting kind of cryptic posts from her Instagram, like about dark clouds, but like finding the rainbow or what. So I don't know what's happening there, but it's very unusual for them not to say what the person's doing when they're not in the anchor desk. Um, Savannah meantime is co-hosting the show, uh, as normal. She goes out there today at seven at seven 30, she leaves the set, doesn't come back the entire show. Well, surely surely thereafter according to what i read online around i don't know a while after savannah left they explained what happened on this clip for the listening audience um you've got her co-anchor um who was it trying to remember who was it uh whatever we'll watch it.

What you need to know, for those of you who can't see it, is Al Roker's on screen left, easing off the screen. He's trying to get himself off screen as you hear the other anchors talking. Listen. It has been an interesting morning for us. As we said, Savannah left early. She wasn't feeling great, so she took a COVID test.

It came back positive. So, of course course as soon as we found out she rushed home to rest up so savannah we love you wishing you a speedy luckily well chanel was sitting between me and uh where are you at oh my gosh yes do you believe they're they're like canceling her anchor she She's running home from the set. COVID. I mean, at this point, seriously? They're getting pretty low on the depth chart.

I mean, we're going to come back from commercial break and Matt Lauer is going to be back. Is anyone still even testing for COVID? I love that Al Roker is disappearing like the Homer Simpson meme into the head. And the cameraman didn't know, does he want me to follow him? What's going on? He's left a little. He's like, this guy's just trying to dip out.

Like, I'm pretty sure if you get COVID, like if Chanel got COVID from Savannah this morning, you're not able to then transmit the COVID within two seconds of inhaling the COVID from the first person. Pretty sure. Someone's going to have to fact check me on that. But I mean, it's amazing to me. These guys are leftists. And it's amazing to me to see how the leftists still live, like under the grip of COVID, terrified. She's got to leave the set immediately, even to even to say, like, I'm going to take the COVID test. Who I don't I don't test for COVID anymore. Who's testing for COVID stuff? I mean, I think I'm going to take the covid test. Who I don't I don't test for covid anymore. Who's testing for covid stuff?

I mean, I think I think Roker kind of had a good move because he knows that if he catches it, they're going to have to jab him again. He's going to have to tweet out. Yes, I have covid. However, I am grateful that they're safe. And the fact that my life and millions of others yeah well by the way this is reportedly savannah's third bout of covid and i guarantee you she's had all the vaccines and the boosters because you won't be able to go into 30 rock without them there's zero chance nbc is not requiring all the boosters and this is the third bout of covid i mean all of it is just such a perfect indication of how the

left and especially the left in new york continues to live. I'm also a little bit curious if that was the first time Roker knew what was up. They just told the anchor that this is the announcement we have to make. And they're like, hey, by the way, he's got COVID. He's like, oh, boy. But back to Megan's point, the thing that's most amazing to me in that is like, you know, we've been over three years into this now. And Roker still has no idea how the transmission of this virus works. Like nobody's coughing in your face, dude. Like you're going to be OK. But their inclination, their knee jerk reaction all these years later is still like, oh, my God, burn the witch.

She has COVID. I want to know details of what happened did they have a hazmat team go in cover savannah and like plastic wrap and airlift her out of there like the way that they're just terrified just give a bath of purell and send her on her way in fairness megan michael does not have the most sensitivity towards this sort of i have zero He could have COVID all the time and think that it's totally appropriate to go to a stadium event. I'm with him. I'm with him. I'm just trying to share my natural immunity, okay?

Yes. Well, that's the thing. We all have it. And I got dollars to donuts that Roker's there in an N95 tomorrow all day on set. Who's going to take me on? No way is he showing up without the N95 tomorrow.

If he shows up at all, right? I mean, there's got to be a quarantine process, as we all know. 10 days if you're exposed. That's right. Doesn't matter what the CDC says. A cloud of like skies, rainbows.

Like that's going to come to you. Not the weather folks. You just got to look for the bright line. Now, speaking of media news, over at cnn we get an announcement that they're they're unable to fill the very big shoes of chris cuomo the void left by chris cuomo was just two big guys and they have ceased in their effort to replace him as far as i know the don lemon spot is still open as well, even though it was definitely 100 percent of promotion when they pulled him from that job and put him on the morning show with co-anchors.

OK, it was 100 percent. So now they really are. Originally, it was reported maybe they were going to do variety programming like that. We like a good variety program. We like that. Totally stealing your act. Stealing the Ruthless Program Act. And now it's, they're just going, instead of having an anchor be the star, they're going

to have the news be the star. And they're going to do a series of town halls, which I will tell you right now won't work. They should start calling me. I'll give you that advice for free. That's not going to work, Chris Licht. You should call me. No, I don't want to join CNN. But I got all sorts of ideas for you.

First of all, develop a bench. Get some sort of rising fucking talent who you can put into the main job. Where, Jack? Sorry. Is that your buzzer? That's your buzzer. I think we've inspired your team with the buzzer. Yeah.

Yeah. I've never heard the buzzer. Anyway, there's no bench. He has no stars and they're wrong the news yes okay during the trump era the news could leave could lead every night the news would draw people in but the reality is as you guys know in especially during the lean biden years the news isn't that exciting every day you cannot rely on a stupid town hall to make people tune in every night. This guy, I'm sorry, he's a nice guy like Chris Licht, but he's failing so far.

Well, the news could be exciting if they decided to cover it. You know, if they decided to hold the Biden administration accountable, the news would actually be very exciting. But they view the Biden administration as their bench. Jen Psaki got her job at MSNBC. Now, Corrine Jean-Pierre is just waiting for her spot to to in CNN primetime. Maybe she's going to lead the lead the variety show. Smash bringing out the mallet today. But I agree with you, Megan. I think this will be as interesting as the call in line on C-SPAN. You know, it's just not going to work. It's just not going to work.

At least that's unpredictable. If nobody actually is watching, do you actually have a vacancy? I mean, how many people they have watching primetime CNN now? No, I count. Like 100? It might be 100.

Yeah, no, it's way, way fewer than watch the program or this program. So there was one report that he's really trying to get Gayle King because, you know, keep in mind, Chris Licht, who runs CNN now, used to do the CBS morning show with Gayle King. And with all due respect to Gayle, Gayle hasn't solo anchored a program and put numbers on the board. She was put in an ensemble cast in that morning show and it did okay. That doesn't mean she can do CNN primetime and get a number. It does not mean that. And there's actually a report that he's also trying to get Charles Barkley to go over.

Now he's interesting. He's actually kind of interesting. I might watch that. Yeah, very funny. I was going to say, I put more money on that than I would on Gail solo anchoring a primetime show on CNN. But the problem is that CNN's audience has fled. And now you're seeing the rearranging of the deck chairs on the boat as it goes down. Yeah. A hundred percent.

I mean, it was a tough product. I mean, this is all back to Zucker, right? I mean, he basically recreated the entire network to make it an opinion show with subpar talent. You know, Chris Cuomo. I mean, imagine thinking in your head that we've lost it all. Yeah, like he's our franchise player. But to your point, they've done it to themselves over a period of years where they just lied to their audience and took their audience for granted day after day after day, little by little people leave and they're not coming back. You can put Charles Barkley on. The guy is very funny. He's got he's got interesting set of politics. I think he would bring a breath of fresh air to the to their

nighttime lineup. But you could you could you could do all the song and dance routines that you want. People who were lied to over and over and over again are not interested in being lied to again. Ashbrook, that's so true. And that brings me to Stephen Colbert. You guys saw the report, of course, yesterday, Department of Energy Now, and not just the Department of Energy, but like this super stealthy group within the Department of Energy that's an expert on labs was tasked specifically with taking a look at whether this was a lab

leak that started COVID or something of natural origin and came out. They said, all right, low confidence on it, but it was a lab leak. It was a lab leak. And this follows the FBI saying it was a lab leak, moderate confidence. And it also follows in-depth investigations by folks like ProPublica and the House Republicans who got all the Fauci emails with the virologist saying lab leak, lab leak, until they got browbeaten by Fauci and Collins and then in 24 hours did a 180. So here's Stephen Colbert grappling with that news. Now, if like me, you're wondering why the Department of Energy is the one making this judgment, it's because that agency oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.

No, no. Bad energy department. No bio labs until you finish building your electric car charging stations. Stay in your lane. You don't see. You don't see. You don't see. You don't see the Census bureau building nukes but whatever who am i to say they're the energy department i'm sure they're smart

they wouldn't release these findings unless they were absolutely confident what's that they made their judgment with low confidence. I mean, there's no I don't I miss the apology for all the misleading he did. I mean, that's the dedication to dogma. It's a religion for them. They can't give up the fact that they lied to people. They didn't let the truth get out. They silenced and harassed people who tried to talk about the truth.

They just can't cope with that. Yeah. And they try to make a joke about it and it falls flat. Colbert used to be very, very funny. His material is getting old and it's just not as partisan and dumb you know i mean it's just completely ridiculous but you know chris licht also produced colbert so i'm just to continue i didn't know that didn't know that either he did but the absurdity of this megan is that they find it impossible to believe that the department of energy has come to a conclusion here, yet they're very, very well convinced that pangolin bat soup is the thing that took over the world, right?

I mean, this is, oh, I just don't even know where to begin. But it shows you their dishonesty, right? Like, I've said this before, but you can tell when somebody's just making an honest mistake or has a dishonest ideological agenda by whether they correct their mistakes, whether they own them and evolve as new information comes. No, they don't. He won't. He'll just keep mocking it. I don't know what it would take for people like Stephen Colbert to actually admit if this thing looks like it came from a lab.

He's the one who had Jon Stewart on who said it's sort of like when the chocolate comes out of Hershey, Pennsylvania, with all the chocolatey goodness, you kind of know where it originated. But still, even from his friend, can't hear it. And that is why his audience is gone, too. Yeah, it's ridiculous. The New York Times owes us a war type headline that says, I'm sorry. That's what I want to see. I won't be satisfied because people, you know, the Fauci lied. People died. That thing's real. All right, let me pause you there. The root of

the skies. Stay with us. There is so much more to get to. Don't miss a minute of it. And don't forget, you can find the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. The full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. If you prefer the audio podcast download wherever you get your podcast for free and there you will find our 501 shows this is 502 today okay oh and by the way when you're on the youtube you can check out the shorts those are a big hit including with my mom linda who says i love the shorties which is close but not exact mom. All right, let's talk politics guys. This is your bread and butter. And John Fetterman, you may have heard is seeking the help he so desperately needed and getting his depression,

um, worked on inpatient care at a hospital. So this is serious stuff for, we have no idea how long. And I don't know about you guys, but if this were happening to my husband who had just had a serious stroke within the past year, and now my husband's back in the hospital for the second time in a month, because Fetterman had to return to the hospital before the depression for stroke complications of some sort, I'd be right there. I would be with him. I would be at least swinging by every day. Maybe I'd be bringing him his favorite candy or just holding his hand. Well, you're not if you're Giselle Fetterman. Duncan, I saw you having a particularly interesting reaction to this online. Just so the audience knows, Giselle Fetterman has decided to not go to the hospital, but go to Canada. She has taken her children. She has gone to Canada

and she is posting pictures and videos of them ziplining over Niagara Falls. We have a soundbite of it? We pulled a soundbite? That's even better. Let's watch. One zip lining over the falls. And August got stunned. They're trying to rescue him now. Good times.

So fun. John who? I mean, this is such a pattern that you see with her where I mean, it almost became a running joke of every photo that she would take with Fetterman was a selfie of herself. And then maybe a little bit of Fetterman's head in the photo. OK, we're doing great. And like whose first instinct when their husband is admitted to a hospital is round up the kids, get the passports, leave the country, and then says, you know, I want my privacy respected. Here's selfies of us going over Niagara. Right, right. See, that's that's the thing.

It's one thing to abscond with your children while your husband's battling depression, inpatient in the hospital, but then to document the whole thing on social media and clout chase off the fact that your husband who had a stroke, who had to be admitted for chest pains or whatever, and then back for clinical depression. And you're at Niagara Falls. It's absolutely incredible. And I think the comment I made on Twitter and I'm not a lawyer here, Megan, so, you know, let me know if this is possible. But any good prenup, I would think this sort of behavior would annul the marriage. At least if I had a prenup, this would definitely be in there ironclad, because if you're not with me in the hospital holding my hand after I've had a stroke or something like that, it's gone.

It's over. It's you're definitely out of the will. Right. You are out of the will. You left the country. Death or Niagara Falls could do us part. Right. That's what it is. Like she literally left the country. You're right. It's the thing that it looks like a pattern because he was suffering very clearly in the aftermath of that stroke. And this woman seemed to be power hungry. She seemed to be dragging him across the finish line along with these other Dems who were going to get that seat come hell or high water. And now they have the nerve to talk about the Republicans as though they're being really cruel about this whole Fetterman thing. Like they're being really heartless in even raising any questions at all about his mental health or his health in general. And it's like, I was reading this thinking the Republicans are being cruel. First of all,

the Republicans are not mocking Fetterman for having had a stroke or having depression. They're wondering whether he was properly elected, whether he should have been dragged across the finish line or whether this is just a pack of vultures around him. And you've got instead the the the Democrats looking at the Republicans like, how could you? How dare you? What Democrats always gloss over is the fact that they had plenty of time to find another Democrat to run for Senate in Pennsylvania. It didn't have to be him. They could have taken better care of him. And they could have put somebody else up for that very, very stressful experience between the summer and the fall. And the truth is they probably wanted to, right? I mean, there was no public reports that would

indicate that, but they actually recruited a challenger to Fetterman who they thought was, as a sitting congressman, Conor Lamb, a much more formidable candidate against Oz or whomever than Fetterman himself. And so I'm certain the conversation was had, which makes all of this so much worse, right? Because you expect at some level, the Democratic Party and Chuck Schumer and all those folks to be soulless, completely power hungry idiots without the best interest of john federman in mind what you do not expect is that john's weather federman's wife would be down for the ride which she clearly was throughout you know and and now you see this post-election after the everybody assured us that he's totally fine and he's wandering the halls of the senate i mean literally incoherent reporters can't ask him questions he can't go to committee hearings they're trying to figure out ways for him to like be able to read and follow along, but there's no clear indication that that's even true.

And that's, I mean, I think this is conjecture, but I assume him grappling with his own limitations, many of which could possibly be permanent, is where this clinical depression comes into play. Because like when you have a stroke, there is a six month window where you can get back cognitive function and ability.

After six months, if you read any medical journal or anything, after six months, it gets much, much, much more difficult. After six months is pretty much where you're going to shake out, back with your cognitive function. And so I think he has to wrestle with the fact that he could have ruined his chances to gain back more function by continuing on with this very stressful job of running for the united states senate and maybe his wife had something to do with that i don't know but it's i mean it makes you just feel shitty about the whole thing

and the way the media portrayed it like folks like caris swisher say that this is no different than someone needing eyeglasses oh yeah he's not facing any kind of a setback that you know in six months he'll be completely normal and what he he has, like, because during the debate, which I mean, I think that debate told you everything about what the condition was like and like how outlandish it is to force this guy to continue running. Journalists said that, oh, this is completely normal. He's being given, you know, special allowments like he can read what is being said during the debate. It's no different than if you needed glasses or a hearing aid. We're seeing that is quite different.

Right. Quite different. They may have permanently mentally crippled this man to win a Senate race. That's what that's. I mean, that's psychotic behavior. Like what led us into all of this. I expect that from Chuck Schumer. Yeah, I expect that from the leaders of the Democratic Party.

What blows my mind is that you've got this lady who claims to be, you know, in love with this guy who's been along for the ride the whole way. And then the moment he checks himself into Walter Reed, which, by the way, if you're checking in inpatient for depression, a very serious thing is going on here. Right. And she is all of a taken to canada to go ziplining with the kids like look i understand as a mom as a parent you have an obligation to try to keep your kids mentally and and you know prepared for what's happening to their father i get that but then selfies and doing the instagram and all of that by the way they're in pennsylvania pennsylvania's got like the greatest water parks on earth like go over over to Kalahari, do some fun zip lining there, which you can do some skiing. It's actually an amazing resort. You can ski, you can zip line, you can do water park, water rides. Second to none. I love Kalahari. I do not care about the

feces in the pool. It's not a Kalahari thing. It's a water park thing. Anyway, I mean, they ask Giselle, like your husband's just been admitted to Walter Reed. What are you going to do next? And she says, I'm going to Disney. That's not the tip of the response. Right. It's like, but why remove your children? Like anybody who's sad, any parent who's sad, you know what makes you happier? Your children, like just getting a glimpse of your children or your lover, your loved one, you know, your sweetheart. You know, if I ever have a stroke or if I'm in the hospital for severe depression, bring my sweetheart by. Let me sit with Doug for a little while. He'll know exactly what to do. You put on a little My Cousin Vinny or you put on Overboard or you put on Wonka, whatever. One hour of that stuff. I already feel better. Um, not Giselle Fetterman

off of the zip line. And so funny while I complain about the media being in my driveway, I'm going to post my Instagram selfies of not just me, but my children too. And this as Dick Durbin, he's the one who said it. Um, he comes out with, uh, hold on, let me find it. Oh, I really wish his critics would show a little bit of humanity as if the Republicans are out there like, ha ha ha, he's depressed. That's not what's happening. fighting for his life during the course of a campaign, knowing that you were talking about like a six month window for him to actually recover, putting him in the probably the most stressful environment you can have as a professional in this country and then coming out the back end in a in a bad spot, being checked in. And all these guys are like, oh, he's a Republican. How the hell do you make that a partisan issue?

That's the thing. It's like so much of the left wing now is just emotional blackmail. If you don't do what we say, you are cool or a racist, heartless. So they did this whole charade during the campaign where they said, if you ask any questions of whether this man is fit to serve, you're cruel. You're a bad person. You're not allowed to ask that question. Voters, people, Pennsylvania, Americans, you're not allowed to ask those questions. Now we're seeing the result of the same playbook. They're like, you're not allowed to question him. This is very cruel.

There's something about Niagara Falls that makes the truth come out. Like you can ask those questions from the falls while on a zip line. Well, I can't we'll get the rules straight by the end of his his time, hopefully in the hospital. OK, let's talk about while we're on the subject of Dems, Dems in 2024, because so far we believe Joe Biden is going to run again, but it hasn't been confirmed. Originally they said he was going to announce in February. Well, it's the last day of February and we don't have an announcement. Um, now they say maybe more like April, but we do have Marianne Williamson, Marianne Williamson, who has announced she is going to challenge Joe Biden for the nomination. Marianne Williamson is a self-help guru who was Oprah's guru. And she came on this

show not long ago. I don't know, sometime in the last year or so. And I thought she was very interesting. I remember her from the Dem debates and she was all about love. I'm like, I like love. I'm in favor of love. Right. And she would be kind of critical of this, her party elders. And I like that, too. And she was kind of of critical of, this is her party elders, and I like that too. And she was kind of fascinating. And then we started to peel back some of the layers of that onion and things got slightly less pleasant.

Here's a little sampling. How does Brett Kavanaugh ever have a beer with the people who accused him of gang rape with zero evidence? It's so hard. And I know you believe he should. Well, you know, the other side would say, how does how does Katonji Jackson, Brown Jackson ever have nice comments to say about Cruz and Hawley and.

They asked her about her policy positions. Both sides, you know, that's not that you cannot compare that to Justice Kavanaugh at all, Marianne. That's not that is not a fair comparison. My point is that you and I, you know, we have to do it like right here. OK, like right here. So I. Marianne, we're having a debate. You drew a false equivalency.

This isn't a friendship. This is an interview. And I'm challenging you on your false equivalency. My false equivalency. So tell me where my false equivalency is right now. That asking Katonji Brown Jackson about her rulings on people who look at child porn is in some way comparable to calling Brett Kavanaugh a gang rapist. You cannot put those two things even close to in the same category. I'm talking about the tone with which she was spoken to. Oh, it's the tone.

Oh, the tone. Oh, now we got it. Emotional blackmail. Episode 288, if you want it. But do you believe that? Like, love, love, love, love, love. Except if you're going to challenge me, then you can F off. That was an incredible exchange.

And, you know, kudos for holding her to account for such an insane. Yeah, you had an extra cup of coffee going on. That was nice. It was my glasses, my powerful glasses. It was right before my LASIK. I mean, what was done to Brett Kavanaugh is horrific. You know, that moment of seeing his wife in tears behind him during a moment, which is something that he'd worked so hard an entire

life to accomplish with her help with her at his side, something that they've accomplished together. And it was turned into an insane circus using that lawyer who who stormy Daniel's lawyer Michael Avenatti

who's currently in prison right yep was completely destroyed by the hand they hand wave past all that though it's just like complete lunacy like we we need to watch this because i do think there will be some republicans and some independents who start embracing marianne and her message again like love yeah she's a more reasonable democrat she criticizes biden she critic the establishment. Ladies and gentlemen, that's what you're dealing with. You're dealing with somebody who thinks it's the same thing when Katonji Brown Jackson gets pressed on the wisdom of her rulings from the bench, in particular on child porn issue, that that's the same indignation and hostile treatment as Brett Kavanaugh got.

OK, I mean, that's OK. Well, you know, I mean, she's a Democrat, right? I mean, this is it kind of goes with what we've been talking about all along. Yeah. And it's not it's not just on on issues like Brett Kavanaugh. I feel like this is the price admission into the modern Democratic Party. I mean, you go go go back to the issue of like election reform trying to strengthen the security around elections like you know brian kemp in georgia and you know or you know a a reasonable reform that a republican might make would be like you

know you have to show a driver's license you know if you'd like to vote you got to prove who you are that is super or or maybe people shouldn't be able to campaign next to a polling location. They got to be 100 yards off and they can't be handing out swag. And the response from Joe Biden is that is Jim Crow. You are a racist. And so how do you have a rational argument with people who think those are equivalent things? It's just the modern left as it exists today. It doesn't matter where it's Marianne Williamson, Joe Biden. And it's real zero to 62. It's not like they really believe if they get there first, then they win. I look forward to them trying this on the national stage, really.

Like, I mean, any moderator, debate moderator worth his or her salt who doesn't call out nonsense like that should be fired on the spot. But we'll see. And speaking of debates, interesting news on the Republican side, too. Right. And I do want to ask you whether you think what what's Joe Biden doing? Like, when are we going to find out? But on the Republican side, Rona McDaniel made news this week talking about whether Trump will sign the pledge saying he'll support whoever the nominee is. I mean, we've been through this before. It doesn't matter what he signs or doesn't sign. He's not going to. OK, sorry.

He's not going to. He's Trump. He was asked. He was asked, will you support recently whoever wins the nomination? And he said, it depends on who it is. Me or someone else is really what he meant. But here's Ronna McDaniel talking about how Trump is going to play ball on this issue on CNN. Will candidates be required to sign a pledge saying that they will support whomever becomes the nominee in order to get on that debate stage?

We haven't put the criteria out, but I expect a pledge will be part of it. It was part of 2016. I think they're all going to sign it. I really do. I think the voters are very intent on winning and they do not want to see a debate stage of people saying, I'm not going to support this guy. I'm not going to support this guy. You can't see a scenario where Donald Trump would just skip the debate if he's forced to sign something. I want to be on the debate stage. I think President Trump would like to be on the debate stage. I think President Trump would like to be on the debate stage. That's what he likes to do. Wow. Let me tell you something. I was anchoring those debates in 2016. If there was a requirement that they sign a pledge that they'll support the ultimate nominee in order to get on the debate stage, I wasn't made aware of it. And you may

recall that now infamous debate between Chris Wallace and Brett Baer and I hosting the debate in those first 10 candidates. That was the first question Brett asked. Raise your hand if you will support the Republican nominee, whoever it is. And there were two candidates who were squishy on it, and it was Rand Paul and Trump. Trump, he's not going to. Why are we spending time on this? He's going to do whatever the hell he wants. I'm pretty sure that you've got to understand Donald Trump's background.

Like, you know, he, he came up in the real estate game where, you know, your goal was to leverage a bank so that you're in a relationship with them, right? Like this guy doesn't give away stuff for free. And if he has millions of voters, even if he isn't the one with the most votes at the end of the day, he's going to want something for that. He's not going to just roll over and give it to you for free. And if he has millions of voters, even if he isn't the one with the most votes at the end of the day, he's going to want something for that. He's not going to just roll over and give it to you for nothing. That's just the way his mind works and has worked since he was in business, you know, 40 years ago. Yeah. He doesn't he doesn't approach this like like a typical politician does that, you know, there's something gracious about, you know, uniting the party like that's just not the way his mind works.

You know, I mean, she's go into that with eyes wide open. She must know that. So why does she even engage in this debate pushed up at her by the CNN anchor? You know, why not just say, like, I have no idea. This is for the voters to figure out. We're not about pledges. We're about putting up the best candidates, letting them duke it out, and we'll go from there.

Like, why engage in this farce? I think she knows that. But, I mean, look, a whole bunch about the RNC is quaint and antiquated. And, you know, the idea that there's 168 people that run around and set the rules that all these people need to adhere to. I mean, of course they're not. I mean, none of it. All the platforms and all this stuff. Like, Donald Trump's going to do whatever the hell Donald Trump wants to do.

I don't care what the platform says. I don't care what 168 people want them to do. I don't care if they have pledges or don't have pledges. I don't even care if he signs the damn thing. He's probably not going to adhere to it, right? So we can run around and act like we've got all kinds of pageantry. And I think Ronna knows that. But I think she also has to play the role as a chairwoman for the party.

And she has to reflect the concerns that these 168 people have. And they still think these things sort of matter, I guess. That's a good point. That's a good point. She's not just representing Trump and his constituency who would like her to give the middle finger to Dana Bash. It's a bigger party than that. And speaking of which, Ron DeSantis hasn't made any announcements yet.

He hasn't said a thing, but he did just release a book called The Courage to be Free, Florida's Blueprint for American Revival. One could almost surmise that this is sort of a blueprint for the path to the presidency. going on, as far as I can tell, a mostly Fox media tour with a bunch of conservatives sort of in his sights and kicked it off last night, I think, with Mark Levin. Book is published by HarperCollins, owned by Fox and so on. But right now, if you look at the real clear average of all polls, Trump has 43.2, DeSantis has 30, 30. So he is still struggling to take over Trump. And of course, there are still lots of names over on the right

hand side of the ledger who are likely to get in. So far the only ones we know of are John Bolton. Ish. Is that for real? I didn't know he announced. He announced it on Good Morning Britain. Said he's running. How'd you miss that? Jeez didn't know he announced. He announced it on Good Morning Britain. Said he's running.

How'd you miss that? Jeez, come on, Holmes. And then you got Vivek Ramaswamy, who has announced it. Even his announcement is foreign adventurism. It's so good. Yeah, no, I didn't know that. That's fantastic. Well, you know, and you had Nikki Haley announced, so... Oh, yeah,'t know that. That's fantastic. Well, you know, you had Nikki Haley announced. So, you know, she I forget Nikki. But, you know, I mean, look, DeSantis, I think from his point of view, you know, the great challenge of running for president is you got to announce and throw this big rollout together. So people actually show up and cover you and you can be a part of that conversation. He's not had to do that. Right. I mean, everywhere he goes, he steps out of the governor's mansion in Florida, there's going to be a hundred cameras there listening to what he

has to say. And so anything that he's trying to do from a messaging standpoint is sort of indistinguishable from what he would do as an announced candidate in any way in terms of trying to be a part of the national conversation. So I don't think that like the delay here is hurting him. But I do think at some point you're going to see these candidates and Trump has already done this. I think to a certain extent, Nikki Haley and others have started gauging him. Right. And and that is where it gets a little bit more tricky if you're not a candidate. I should clarify that Rand Paul was not actually squishy on whether he'd support the nominee. It was something we suspected behind the scenes at Fox that it could be Rand

and Trump who would be squishy on that. But ultimately it was only Trump. Well, Trump is actually running. Trump has announced and Trump is back in the news. You guys saw he went to Ohio last week. That was good. He was in handing out the McDonald's and making jokes about himself and his love of McDonald's and all that, which many people thought was a good, was a good move. Ohio back in the news, of course, and Pete Buttigieg, who's been taking a beating as our transportation secretary for being a little slow to get out there. No, it's not about whether there was a fatality on this freight car. It's about the danger to a whole swath of Americans who are being, we think, misled that their water's clean and their air is clean as the animals and

the fish are dying around them. That's what it's about. He keeps pointing out like, well, Trump never went to the site of train derailments. Trump never even said his transportation secretary. Like what? How is this the issue? But here's Pete Buttigieg talking about this issue rather than just like owning it. I should have gotten out there earlier.

I do care. Here's all the things I'm doing. Here's his messaging on it. I'm SMBC on Thursday. You take down regulations, you water down regulations, you weaken the power of the administration to deal with freight railroad companies, and then you show up wanting to be a great friend of the people who have been impacted by a rail disaster. You know, this is somebody who, as far as I know, never went to a derailment site when one of those happened on his watch. What do you think?

Incredible. I think, well, first of all, first of all, I don't know if you've noticed, but Mayor Pete has been criticized in the mainstream press lately. Have you guys noticed that? You know what? I did. And one of the things that we know to be true about the mainstream press is the only time they criticize a Democrat is when another Democrat stands to benefit. And Marianne Williamson might be the only announced challenger to Joe Biden,

but Mayor Pete wants to run for president, too. And Mayor Pete looks terrible. I mean, even though he showed up in East Palestine in costume with the orange vest and the hard hat, pretending to act like he knew what he was doing. Like Michael Dukakis in a tank. Like John Kerry crawling through the space suit. Remember that? Yeah. He looks awful. And the only person who is laughing harder than us or our audience or Megan's audience is Joe Biden. I truly believe that Joe Biden wanted Mayor Pete

to be at the Department of Transportation because he knew about Mayor Pete's ambitions and he knew that that's a difficult place to manage and he knew that he would crumble just like he is. Yeah, it's just like when he made Kamala border czar. Exactly. It's like, here's this problem. We refuse to fix.

You're in charge of it. The guy can't put a sentence together that's an amazing work the inside game yeah he's got a it's ruthless to steal a term the washington post had an article and it was incredible how they framed it they said you know sadly we haven't been able to say that trump and his deregulations were responsible for this so number one they're actually yeah their whole purpose is we haven't been able to find a way to pin this on trump we're going to keep at it we're going to keep the opposition research continuing but we can't we haven't pinned it on it yet so number one pete is lying he's trying to pass the blame

and he's acting like he hasn't been on the job for over two years now right but also what the hell kind of answer is that i mean this is an actual person that's in the government who is charged with trying to make people's lives better in one form or fashion. And you're criticized about your response to. And by the way, there wasn't like an atomic cloud over any city in America when President Trump was president in a rail disaster that caused it. But his first reaction, rather than saying, we got to get this right, I got to get there, we got to figure this out, is to say, well, well, you know, they didn't blame Elaine Chao like this. Yeah. It's what about it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just it blows my mind. You didn't think that way. It's because he cares more about the optics than professionalism. He cares more about the politics than the people in East Palestine. We know this. Everybody knows it.

Mayor Pete is not qualified for the job he's been Palestine. We know this. Everybody knows it. Mayor Pete is not qualified for the job he's been given. Absolutely unqualified. And maybe, just maybe, all of these calls for resignation that are bubbling up around Congress will be heard. And maybe this is his last year on the job.

Hopefully. Here's how Trump responded. Trump sent out a truth on Truth Social. Speaking of that Washington Post piece you referenced where they said, Trump's not to blame for this. Wow. Is the Washington Post becoming legit? They just reported that the weak and totally ineffective secretary of transportation, Pete, but edge edge. It's but capital B, capital U, capital D, D. Then lowercase edge, edge. You walked us right into that. How would you suggest we respond

to this, Megan? I don't know what to say about that. I'm sorry, but we're going to miss him when he's gone. I mean, it's so good to have this situation of Mayor Pete has just looked terrible

throughout this entire crisis. And President Trump shows up in a massive plane like it's Air Force One looking presidential, shows up and listens to the people. He doesn't have,

I saw all these video clips of Mayor Pete surveying the ground in East Palestine and he had basically guard dog comms people surrounding him, pushing away folks who are trying to ask questions. Yeah. Meanwhile, Trump looks like FEMA, like they're to rescue with water bottles to McDonald's

and starts handing out food. He waded into the crowd. I mean, the contrast could not have been starker. Yeah. Did Pete drink the water without hesitation? He led. And even now some democrats are saying like biden needs to get there this is ridiculous like in a presidential politics type

environment where we are already don't let the other guy lead and but still so this this this soundbite kind of wraps up our entire show right of dis actual disinformation the media that is ideological and doesn't care what the facts are. They're just agenda driven, uh, spooning you stuff that's not factual. And that leads me, of course, to joy Behar of the view who decided to weigh in on this understanding that even the beloved Washington post has said, you cannot blame this on Trump. Nothing he did and rolling back regulations had anything to do with this crash or what happened here or would have prevented what's happening in East Palestine.

Enter that scholar, Joy Behar. I don't know why they would ever vote for him because for somebody who, by the way, he placed someone with deep ties to the chemical industry in charge of the EPA's chemical safety office. That's who you voted for in that district donald trump who reduces all safety oh my god pointing pointing at the people in east palestine who are suffering that's who you voted for that's you did it oh i i gotta point out the thing begins with just a cacophony of back and forth. Like, how is this good television? It's like I'm getting a migraine just listening to it.

It's so sexist. It's just like a food fight in the middle of the day. Like, who gets up and is like, you know what? I want to watch that today. Unbelievable. It's like there's a lot of fighting, but they're attractive and they're fun yeah well yeah joy behar i don't think that's that criteria real housewives of miami that's where it's at last two seasons amazeballs um but yeah it's disinformation at its best it's insufferable

and to actually look at these people in east palestine and say that's who you voted for like take a step back, respect what they are going through. I mean, literally, we're hearing reports of people's pets dying when they leave them outside in the front lawn for too long. And they're having to put their babies in bathwater that they don't know if it's safe. So just stop with your nastiness for two seconds. Could you stop for two seconds and think about somebody who's not a multimillionaire sitting her ass on the set of The View and judging people in middle America for voting for somebody who might be a little different? That's what they did when they put Trump in.

But it sort of reminds me of whenever there's some sort of tragedy, a tragic shooting or something in the country, every Dem Oppo group in the mainstream media tries to spend the next hour researching whoever the shooter is to figure out if they voted for donald trump right i mean the first inclination isn't the horrible tragedy that's happened to real people real people with lives and jobs and families it's who can we blame this on right and that's the sort of cynical nature of of liberal politics that we have we see it every single day when you couple that with the fact that they just don't care about East Palestine.

Yeah. Joy Behar doesn't care about Ohio. She lives in New York. She lives a nice life. She's super rich. You know who else doesn't care? Joe Biden. Joe Biden didn't even go there.

We talked about that on the show. He's he's happy living in a White House. We're not surrounded by his rich friends. Nobody in the mainstream media and in the White House actually cares about these people in East Palestine. It's just the truth. They just they just like a day away from from Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Joy Behar ziplining across Niagara Falls like a day away. Guys, always a pleasure. Together, they are ruthless and well, well worth the listen.

Great to see you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Tomorrow, Mark Stein is on the program. Plus, we're going to have the latest on the Murdoch trial. Thank you for being with us today, you guys. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.