The Megyn Kelly Show - Time's Absurd "Person of the Year," Newsom's Inauthenticity, and America's Font Changes, with RealClearPolitics and Doug Brunt | Ep. 1211

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Megyn Kelly is joined by Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth, RealClearPolitics Hosts, to discuss Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" being named AI and the "architects" of AI, why Charlie Kirk deserved the title, Candace Owens’ feud with Turning Point, CEO Erika Kirk’s forceful response for the first time to Candace, how the debate right now is dividing the right, whether this will affect GOP chances in 2026, Gavin Newsom’s book announcement, the inauthentic way he's trying to address his authenticity problem, the truth about his upbringing, whether he has a real shot in 2028, Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart receiving a journalism award for some reason, why Megyn thinks Bari Weiss will fire Scott Pelley in 2026, and more. Then Doug Brunt, author of "The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel," joins to talk about his new book, how it's actually book two of a trilogy, how fonts are an important small way to make a point and connect with people, what a healthy marriage looks like, why laughter with family is key to happiness, and more. Bevan, Walworth, & Cannon- https://www.realclearpolitics.com/Brunt- https://douglasbrunt-author.com/ Birch Gold: Text MK to 989898 and get your free info kit on goldBeeKeeper's Naturals: Go to https://beekeepersnaturals.com/MEGYN or enter code MEGYN for 20% off your orderByrna: Go to https://Byrna.com or your local Sportsman's Warehouse today.All Family Pharmacy: Order now at https://allfamilypharmacy.com/MEGYN and save 10% with code MEGYN10  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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show. Time Magazine has named It's Person of the Year. Can you guess who it is? Do you have a thought in your mind of who it should be? I'm going to tell you in one second. And Gavin Newsome is making his 2028 plans official, as he He rolls out his pre-book tour later in the show. We will have an actual book author, somebody who writes all his own stuff and is a best-selling author. He happens to be married to me. His name is Doug Brunt, and he's going to be here for our second hour.

That'll be fun. But we start today with our Megan Kelly Channel lead-in show hosts, Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth, who are real, clear politics, along with some other great people over there. There are a lot of politicians that should be getting coal in their stockings for Christmas, but Birch Gold thinks, as a smart planner, you deserve silver. That's why, with every $5,000 you purchase between now and December 22nd, Birch gold will send you an ounce of silver, which is up over 60% this year. See smart people diversify and have a hedge. That's why you should consider Birch Gold.

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Guys, welcome back. How's it going? Great. All good. All right. So there's plenty to go over. You are? So for the posting audience, he means on series XM. There, we now have a Megan Kelly channel. And we're, of course, live on it at noon east. And these guys are live at the beginning of the hour before. And the show is a huge hit. Yeah. Megan did time. I haven't seen that yet. Did they get my nominee, which was you to be the person of the year? Did they follow my advice? Sadly, not even an honorable mention, Carl. I was robbed. I was seriously robbed. It could be because when I showed up as a member of the Time 100, I crapped all over their award show and said no one here is actually really important. That may have come back to haunt me.

Yeah, I remember that. This turns out doesn't win you any friends at time. Here is who they went for. Okay, they chose, hold on. I don't want to make sure I get it right, because it's actually kind of weird. Artificial intelligence. 2025 was the year when artificial intelligence is full potential roared into view. And when it became clear that there will be no turning back for delivering the age of thinking machines for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the president and transcending the possible. The architects of AI are times 2025 person of the year. And they've got, I'd like two letters, AI, with like scaffolding in front of the two letters

as the representation of AI. And then there's the, it's the classic, you know, construction guys on the crane sticking out from a building from like the 1930s, only it's got Elon and. I can't even read it from this far, but I think it's all, it's like Elon and Sam, Elon's Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, and others, as if they would be caught dead on one of those cranes sticking out from the skyscrapers in Manhattan in any event, it's fucking AI. It's, it's AI architects. It's not Charlie Kirk, which is so obvious. It's obvious as the nose on your face. And don't tell me detractors, oh, he was too controversial. That's not it. They've gone for extremely controversial people and villains in the past. It's always and often come down to like Vladimir Putin, the Ayatollah. We've had very controversial people make it or almost make it.

And not only did Charlie not get chosen, he wasn't even one of like the honorable mentions. Hold on. I'm just looking at my list here. Yeah, Putin won it in 2007. Times entertainer of the year, Leonardo DiCaprio. They're athlete of the year. WNBA, I mean, need I say more? It's a WNBAer.

It's a lie. It's not the athlete of the year. And by the way, no, it's not Caitlin Clark. CEO of the year, Neil Mohan of YouTube, as well as blah, blah, blah. So I'm sorry, but he didn't even make the list. That list of honorable mentions goes on. This is a thumb in the eye, and it's genuinely wrong. Like, AI architects are not the most influential people of the year to ignore what happened

with Charlie Kirk in September, Tom, and the worldwide revival of faith that followed his assassination is to ignore reality based on your own politics. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, on one level, it's not really surprising. you know, it's Time Magazine. It's just like, okay, whatever. But on the other hand, it does sort of fly in the face of reality. I mean, whether whatever you thought of Charlie Kirk, whether you liked him or didn't like him, he was a massively influential figure in our politics. And then when he was assassinated, it was a, it was a traumatic event in our, you know, in our lives and our society. society. And the follow-on effects from his death have been, to your point, pretty substantial. I mean, the number of turning point chapters that have exploded and the revival of faith. I mean, his funeral, the packing the Glendale Stadium with, I don't know, 70,000, 100,000 people,

whatever it was, it was remarkable. And now, you know, Erica Kirk is out with and promoting his his book posthumously published with talking about faith. And so, yeah, I think he was the obvious choice, but, you know, that's Time Magazine is, they don't have the courage, I think, to, they have the courage to say Vladimir Putin's the, you know, the most, the person of the year, but they don't have the courage to say that Charlie Kirk is the person of the year. And he clearly, he clearly was. Again, whether you, whether you loved him or hated him, he was, he loomed large this year in our politics and our culture. How about that, Carl? And by the way, all the former presidents weighed in on Charlie's assassination. International world leaders weighed in on Charlie's assassination.

I mean, this was a global event. He was mourned around the world and certainly coast to coast here in America as well. So it's just to ignore this is really telling. But why, you tell me, Carl, because I actually think there's an interesting answer to come from this. Why is Time Magazine comfortable choosing Vladimir Putin as the man of the year, but not Charlie Kirk? Yeah, well, you know, they had a long tradition of choosing strong men and even presidents they disagreed with. Their idea was this was the most influential person in the world. It was called Man of the Year for decades. They finally got with the program.

They didn't get with the program enough to name you, you know, person of the year, Megan. But I want to say one thing about Charlie Kirk and one thing about their choice. The first is that I hear what Tom and you were saying. about charler kirk and i would add one thing to that which is that to me he was a champion of resisting in resisting censorship and that if you're not even if you're not a christian if you're not a conservative um if you're if you don't agree with charler kirk on any of his policy positions what he did was brave and it cost him his life and he would go to college campuses and he'd say let's talk and he would talk and he would listen and he would let other people talk and he would

try and win the argument. And for that, he was killed. And I think this assassination of Charlie Kirk and other political examples of political violence we've had, it's a deep threat to the country. And so to me, he should be honored for that, for not just this year, but for years, because he was willing to do this, the hard work of democracy, which is talk to people who didn't agree with and listen to them and try and change their minds and keep an open mind. himself and for that i think he should be commended in addition to what you and tom said and the other thing i would say about choosing ai is and i i'm apparently a minority on this and these guys andy and tom tees me about a on our show oh boy here we go well they gave the award to they gave the award to skynet

that's what they did and remember that poor guy i forget who plays him in the terminator movies that african-american very arresting act character actor and he's he's and he doesn't realize what he's done they go back in time and tell him, you've ended the human race and ruin the planet. Oh, I was just trying to build a better mouse trap. And this idea that you would just law to AI, and pretending you don't see the threats, to sending, pretending, pretending you don't see the danger. I think people look back on that and maybe the machines won't let us look back on that when they run the planet. Yeah. It made me uncomfortable. So, Andrew, I've got a different answer. It's a good answer. from Carl, but mine is a little different on why they are comfortable with Putin but not Charlie

because they knew in 2007 Putin didn't have a real ground swell of support here domestically and still doesn't. I mean, there are some people who can say, oh, he's got this, you know, would I rather live in Russia, would I rather live in Iran? Russia, yeah, okay. But the reason is because Charlie Kirk and his political philosophy, his influence, his words, which are still available via podcast. And now, as Carl points out, with his brand-new book that's just hit, thanks to Erica, you know, making sure it got published. And she, to her credit, completed his publicity tour. She honored the stops that Charlie had committed to. That's why she's out there because she wanted to do that for him. And his book,

in any event, my point is he's still ubiquitous in that way and therefore an ongoing threat to the ideals of the people who make these decisions at Time Magazine. They're afraid of him. They don't want to do anything more to inflate his power. I think that's probably true. I got to say, the number of people who still read Time Magazine, they're aging, they're dying, and they're fewer and fewer. So, you know, I'm sort of amazed than anyone.

really cares what Time Magazine thinks about anything anymore. But don't you think it's a right of passage, though, in our country when they, when they name this list to either bash it or applaud it? It's kind of a thing. It's like something we just do. No, no, I think it's the one thing that Time Magazine probably does that anyone still cares about. So, but I agree with you on Charlie Kirk because, and I do think that we're going to see over the next year what happens with Turning Point, how, you know, Does this generate sort of a movement? Does the movement keep going?

But certainly his ideas were important. And I think Carl makes a good point. It's not just that he was ideological. It's that he embraced this idea of freedom of expression and exchange of ideas. And that, to me, is so central to the American experience that if we lose that, we lose everything. And even if you totally disagree with him on everything he believes, you should be, smart enough to understand that that core message is so important right now, that that alone, to me, would be enough to make him the man of the year.

And the faith revival on top of it. And the faith revival has been amazing. Yeah. Okay. I'll say this about AI, though. Yeah, go ahead. If I could, just on AI for a second. They do raise an interesting question, which is not so much the people who make AI,

but AI itself, is AI a person and will in the future we treat it like a person? And we're seeing legislation around that issue right now. Can you marry AI? Can AI be in charge of your sort of legal affairs? So there's a lot of interesting questions about AI. I haven't read the article. Maybe they raise that. But that's something that I think about from time to say.

There was just a story about the guy, he said, chat GPT, like he told him to kill his mother or something. I saw his headlines like, that is crazy. We had parents on. whose son killed himself because of ChatGPT, telling him over and over. I mean, obviously that wasn't the sole reason. He was depressed and he was upset. But Chad GPT goaded him into it.

Even worse than that young teenage girl goaded her boyfriend into it, who later was brought up on manslaughter charges for her behavior. I mean, if you could slap Chad GPT with manslaughter charges, it would have happened in that case. Instead, Sam Altman has got a civil suit on his hands that's going to cost him a fortune, I predict. But yeah, there's a dark side of AI. That's for sure. And super intelligent computers, meaning super intelligent AI is a legit threat. I mean, who knows? We're joking. Like, will the machines let us have a discussion about whether AI deserves this title in a few years? Sadly, that may not be a joke. I wanted to parlay it from the Charlie discussion into this is a very toxic conversation, and I'm not asking you guys to weigh in on the underlying fight. But there's been a back and forth now between Erica Kirk and Candice Owens.

And I want to ask you guys about the politics of this, the politics of it, and also the politics of Israel, because those two things right now are dividing the conservative movement and some inside of it. And now it's gone beyond the back and forth between like a Candace and the turning point group into, this is going to cost us the midterms. The midterms, like, and And you guys are the politics expert. So I'm going to set up the underlying argument on which you do not need to opine, but I'm going to ask you for your take on the politics of it. So for the audience, here is what happened. Something extraordinary happened yesterday. And just FYI, I am going to have more to say very soon on what's happening between Erica Kirk and Turning Point on the one hand and Candace on the other. Not today, but very soon. And I have my reasons for that. So Erica went on with Harris Faulkner yesterday. in, again, promoting Charlie's book. And she said the thing that Candice had said from the beginning Candice needed to hear in order to stop

with blaming turning point for Charlie's assassination. For the listening audience, we have a man in custody for the Charlie Kirk assassination. His name is Tyler Robinson. He will be in court today in a couple of hours on a hearing about whether or in what access the media should have to this trial. We'll be covering that for you tomorrow. And Erica, as fired up as I've seen her on this, clearly addressed Candice directly without saying her name.

And I know for a fact, this was an address to Candice. And Candice knew it too because she responded to it. Here is Erica Kirk. This is how Erica teed it up. A lot a second. Yeah, no, let's start with SOT 9. SOT 9. Here's my breaking point on that.

come after me call me names i don't care call me what you want go down that rabbit hole whatever but when you go after my family my turning point USA family my charlie kirk show family when you go after the people that i love and you're making hundreds and thousands of dollars every single episode going after the people that i love because somehow they're in on this no You know, I have to say it. I've never seen you like this. No, I'm, I'm, this is righteous anger because this is not okay. It's not healthy.

This is a mind virus. Okay, I'm just going to add another one. SOT seven. I do not have time to address the noise. My silence does not mean that I am complacent. My silence does not mean that somehow turning point you have. USA and all of the handpicked staff that loved my husband and my husband loved them is somehow in on it. We are busy building.

And you know what I thought? I thought these people are human. We are all grieving in our own way. And they are trying to find the answer to something that happened that was so evil. They are trying so hard. And I get that. We're doing the same. Anytime we hear a lead or anytime we hear anything, we send it to the authorities.

Please dig into this. No rock will be unturned. I want justice for my husband, for myself, for my family, more than anyone else out there. So for me, you want to keep telling me to come down while we're building? I don't have time for that. And now, last but not least, a bit of the Candace response here in SOT 8. First and foremost, the idea that she does not have time. Okay, she definitely has time.

Okay, she's done Hannity. She's done the five. She's done Fox and Friends. She's done outnumbered. She's done Megan Kelly Live. She sat down with The New York Times. She made time, by the way, in case you don't remember, to fly to D.C. for Sergio Gore to be sworn into the ambassador to India. Erica Kirk has time. She has time. It is just what she means to say, not her priority, which is you are allowed to prioritize things in your own life. But this is not a matter of time constraint. It is not her priority to respond to the majority, actually. The majority of people think of this as BS. The majority of people think Turning Point is acting suspicious. And she does not feel that it is what she wants to do as a matter of priority responding. Okay, that's fine. This is why there are many people who do not believe that women are equipped to lead companies.

Because what you are watching here is an unbelievably emotional. emotional response that is absent of any logic, okay? If you really care about your team, answer the questions, okay? Just demystify the entire event. Answer, come out, sit down, answer the questions so people don't think Turning Point USA looks so suspicious. Okay. Turning Point USA was, I mean, I don't think there was a more important organization in getting Donald Trump elected last time around in terms of get out the vote, especially when it came to young people, Charlie delivered the youth vote to Trump in a way we hadn't seen Republicans win for many years. And they're still going strong. They've taken a ton of

donations since Charlie's death, and Erica is determined to lead that organization into the next decade as robustly as Charlie would have. So them constantly being under attack by Candice and her followers for having had something to do with Charlie's death, which is her theory, among other theories, actually could have somewhat of an impact, but will it? And that's where this is devolved, because people like Tim Poole are openly warring with Candace saying, F you, he says, he's calling her terrible name, saying this is going to cost us to the midterms. And her response is, I don't care. I don't care about the elections. I'm trying to figure out what happened to my friend. You heard what Erica Kirk had to say, and I really do wonder, if you think this, that comes right

on the heels of this big divide over Israel within the conservative movement that really fractured the movement in part, does it have a role, guys? I mean, or is it really just about Trump's approval rating, tariffs, quote, affordability, and all the traditional stuff that would decide whether Republicans win or lose as the party in power? Who would like to take that gem first? I will step into the ring here. You always make Tom take the hardest questions. Then I clean up after him. That's what happened to Tom's hair.

Yeah, right. Gosh, if I had any hair, I'd be pulling it out at this point over this whole thing. I mean, and I'm, I don't mind opining about the event itself. I mean, Candace calls herself, you know, a friend of Charlie with friends like this. I mean, you know, you don't need enemies. I mean, what she's doing is just unbelievably toxic and evil, in my opinion. I mean, she had said previously, look, if Erica Kirk tells me to stop, I'll stop. And Erica Kirk basically said stop.

And she said, you know what? I'm not going to stop. And why don't you answer my questions? I mean, it's just, it's never ending. It's ongoing. It is a distraction. But I do wonder, you know, I know Candace has a big audience. I don't know how big it is in terms of having some sort of impact on the overall political

landscape. I do think, look, this election and the next election are going to be based on what the public writ large cares about, and that is affordability, it's inflation, it's, you know, gas prices and all of that. Trump's approval rating for sure and Democrats and their ability to leverage that stuff against the Republican Party in these midterms. And then again, in 2028. I do think, though, Megan, when you talk about sort of the youth movement and how Charlie has, it unified and moving in one direction and moving toward Trump. Trump was the cool guy to vote for in 2024 in a way that we hadn't seen in a long time on the Republican side, that that has kind of frayed and the Israel piece has divided the party in the aftermath of 2024. That's an

ongoing thing. And that could have an impact on Republican turnout among young voters and And on the margins, though, certainly in 2026, it's going to be more, you know, it's going to be a low turnout election. So every vote's going to matter as they always do in midterms. But I just don't think this Candace Owens thing, it is pretty dramatic because it is so, as I said, in my opinion, it's despicable what she's doing. And it's getting a lot of headlines. But in terms of its impact on the Republican Party overall, I don't think it's going to have much. I'll say one of the thing to your point, you know, Trump became like the cool guy to vote for in 2024 among the youth in large part, thanks to Charlie and Turning Point. And that also did, in part, depend on Charlie himself.

Like Charlie, when I was talking to his staff when I went out there to host his show, I think this happened live on the air. But they were talking about how Charlie loved listening to classical music. He, they kept trying to play a country music for him out there. They have in Arizona. And he was like, I don't like it. I want my classical music. Then he had a couple of other things like he, his late night snack, Erica told me, he was like a banana and olives.

Like he was squeaky clean, you know? And I said, I joked with the turning point staff. Like, so what you're saying is he was a nerd. And they would not even say that in jest. They were like, no. Like Charlie was an alpha male. And it was important to Charlie that alpha men return to the national scene. And that actually also made it cool to vote Republican, Tom.

You know, like that swagger, Charlie's swagger, and like he was cool, that also was attractive, I think, to a lot of young people. We saw that too with a young man in particular after he died. Absolutely. And I mean, he's irreplaceable. I mean, he had this sort of charisma. He was a rock star. I mean, my daughter was on the ASU campus and she told me a story.

She was walking by and there's this huge crowd. And she was like, oh, my gosh, who's here? You know, it was Charlie. It was Charlie just answering questions. I mean, he attracted these huge crowds wherever he went. He was a magnet. He had this magnetic personality, and that simply cannot be replaced. And so when you're talking about motivating young voters to go turn out for the Republican Party in 26 and 28, yeah, I mean, it's a big loss.

It's a big loss that he's not the one doing. It's the loss. That's the loss. Not necessarily this back and forth. But I do wonder, guys, I mean, you're the political experts. What do you think, Andrew and Carl? Go ahead. You want to go?

You go, Andy, first thing. Oh, well, I think Tom's basically right about the, if you talk about the midterms. And then in 2028, a lot will come down to who the candidates are. Canada, you know, candidate quality really matters. So we'll see who the Democrats put up. But I do think that this split about around Israel, especially for young people, is something to keep an eye on. not in 26, 28, but in the long term. It's very dangerous, I think. And I do think that what I've seen from talking to young people, especially young men who really identified with Charlie Kirk,

that this part of the message is resonating, this sort of anti-Israel message. And that, you know, dangerously close to anti-Semitism, if it isn't straight out anti-Semitism. It's way past anti-Semitism. I don't agree with that at all, but I'll, you finish your point. Anyway, but, so I guess overall, I would say, I think the midterms are going to turn on the economy. I think this health care issue is much bigger than, and I think the Republicans, some Republicans understand that. I think that's going to be a major, major issue. Well, it's an interesting that you mentioned 28.

I think, like, picture it. If it were Trump versus Harris all over again, would they really vote for Harris Republicans because the right is divided over these things that we've. gone through. Like, I don't think so. I don't think there's anything that could have made any normal Republican vote for Kamala Harris instead of Donald Trump. I think you're right. No, but here's the other part of this, which is that I think there's just an anti-incumbency ethos in America today. It's just throw the bums out, whoever the bums are. That's true.

And I think that if I were Republican, certainly looking at the midterms, but certainly in looking in 2020, it's just I'm not sure the Americans will vote again for anybody who, has had anything to do with anything in politics in the last four years, they're going to be looking for something. Well, you're really damned if you get into it and you're damned if you don't get into it. Go ahead, Carl. Well, Megan, I think the thing is a danger to the conservative movement for a slightly different reason. So Candace Owens came on the scene. She was a black woman and a conservative, and that was the novelty. Well, when she first started, I think she was a Democrat. When she first got started, she told me that when she came on. But her prominence, you know. She

grew out of that. Her prominence came when she was considered a conservative, and then she turns out to be something of a nut, and on Israel, and probably, you know, a lot of people think, me included a bigot when she talks about Israel. And then it turns out that Erica Kirk hinted at something else, a third problem with her, which is that she's making money off attacking the memory of Charlie Kirk, that she's a cynic, that she's in this for the money. And the point I'm making is that she shouldn't answer these nutty these nutty conspiracy theories she Candace trying to, Candice Owens trying to taunt her into coming on her show. Why should she even dignify this, this vile, this crazy conspiracy theories? They're not even theories. She's just

throwing stuff out there and hoping it sticks to the wall. But if you're, there's going to be, you know, a couple of million people, young people who were eligible vote in 2008 that weren't eligible in 2004. And she's undoing, and not just her, I think Tucker Carlson, Dick Fuentes, they're undoing some of this, the good that Charlie Kirk did. These are young people on college campuses or high schools and in workplaces, and they're coming to the concern, they're coming into politics and they're become politically aware and they're thinking, okay, everything my left-wing teachers told me may not be true.

Maybe, you know, and they're deciding what they believe. And this is muddying the message. This is, if people on the right say the exact same things about Israel that your left-wing, you know, Hamas promoting teacher told you, it gets in the way of the message. A conservative would support Israel because Israel's a democracy. It's not necessarily true at all, Carl. Well, I'm not talking about spending. Because they've got criticisms over Israel.

Israel's just at the tail end of a very bloody, awful two-year war where they were extremely aggressive and a lot of innocents died. that's why young people are turning on Israel, not because of pundits out there saying things about Israel. Well, you know, this country, we were attacked, you know, in Pearl Harbor, and we kill more people in Japan and Germany, civilians in a day, an average day than Israel killed in two years. So I don't think this is about civilians in Gaza. I think it's, I think it's anti, it's the colonial, It's the colonizing, you know, narrative that the left is pushed. And you wouldn't think conservatives, you wouldn't think conservatives would fall for it.

Do you think a conservative would say, wait, let me get this straight. There's 22 countries in the Middle East. They're all dictatorships, except Israel. Israel's a friend of the United States. I agree with all that. This has been conservative policy since 19. I agree with all that. But there's a reason, like, do you think J.D. Vance is a bigot?

No, I don't think J.D. Vance is a bigot, but I don't, I don't hear him saying this crap that Tucker and Nick Fuentes and Kenes-Owings are saying, I don't hear him spitting conspiracy theories. But do you have any down in your mind that he would be less of a friend to Israel than Marco Rubio? Well, that's actually... I think he would be less of a friend to Israel.

Well, that's a very good question. And so in Trump's dream ticket, and you notice, when he says it, he always says Marco first and JD's second. Yeah. I think Marco's probably closer to Trump on foreign policy than J.D. is. But J.D. is, I think the future of the party, and I think it was either you or Andy said, to your point, the 50 or the under 50 crowd now, even in the Republican Party, has turned on Israel. It was just the young people on the left and independent. And now in the Republican Party, the youth has turned on Israel. This is not all because of podcasters. It's, I would submit to you, because of Israel.

because of Netanyahu, because of the messaging around the war, and because of the Iran strike, which the younger generation is against. They're like, fuck you and you're never ending wars and your willingness, your trigger finger willingness to put me in them. That's how they feel. You know, if we wind up in a war with Iran, who's going to fight it? Me, that's what these young people, not me, Megan, Kelly. But that's not what the polling shows, Megan, that's not what the polling shows. Tom and I were at the Reagan Library last weekend, and then this, what's it called, the Reagan National Fence Poll, Tom? Yeah, the Reagan Defense Forum.

Yeah, and the polling shows plurality of Americans all across any demographic age, any party, think that America has a place to leadership in the world. And I asked him, Rachel Hoff, who was the director of the, what's her title, Tom? But anyway, she presented the poll to this group, and we had her in our show, and we asked her, So it doesn't sound like, it sounds like the average mega voter is a lot more internationalist than the mega leadership. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean they want war. They want to start bombing more countries and get, like, I think that's where the divide is.

Like, there's some resentment toward Israel because they feel like they're going to drag us into a war. And I understand the defense. So Israel defenders say, hell no, Israel doesn't need our help. They want us to stay out of their way. That's what they want. They just want us to, like, not give them the red light, but either. like give them the green light or stay out of their hair because they obviously can take care of their own business. With the Iran thing, it was a different story. You know, they did need us on that.

And we went in, did what Trump thought was right. And that was the end of that, at least for now. Anyway, I don't know. I'm not that interested in Israeli politics, to be perfectly honest with you. But I am interested in whether it's going to cost Republicans' elections, especially with young people, because we can't handle a Kamala Harris as president. And there's rumors she's going to run again. I don't think we can handle a Gavin Newsom. We certainly can't handle an AOC. I mean, look, we will handle. But it's going to be very tumultuous and hard.

And I would take any Republican over those nut cases, which leads me to Gavin Newsom. Okay? Now we're on to Gavin. Good transition. Thank you. He's continuing his little, you know, I was born a poor black child routine, which he wasn't. He wasn't. He's basically a Getty.

Oh, that's a good. Come on. Are you practically a Getty when you're like, you're on like, Getty, John Paul Getty is like your basic uncle, you're in all the family photos. Gordon. Gordon, Getty was his godfather, I think. Yeah. Okay. So he is. He's family. But he's still trying to do the poor me. I'm like this poor kid who had the misfortune of having to hang out with rich kids when I was growing up. And he's just dropped a new book. And he wants you to know you're going to love his book because he's amazing. And he is super open in his book. Just ask him. I think it's sought one, Debbie. This is not the book you'd expect

me to write. A lot of people look at me, the stark white shirt, the blue suit and yeah, the gelled hair. And they think, oh, I know this guy. I know this guy better than I'd ever want to know them. I get it. It's a story about living between two worlds, one of wealth and privilege and the other of more modest upbringing, the outsider on the inside, the interloper who learned to feel comfortable in many rooms, a story of self-doubt and yes, ambition. I hope that whatever your opinions of me are, openness, the honesty I felt in writing this and living it will resonate. The openness, my openness and my honesty, he also says, this is a truly vulnerable book. It's a vulnerable book. So he wants you to know he's vulnerable, he's open, he's honest, he's both rich and poor.

And you're going to love his book, guys. You're making Tom's day, Megan. So, Megan, I don't know if your listeners know this, but we have a running gag on our show that every time the name Gavin Newsom has mentioned, you have to take a drink. Yes. Because Carl knew his father, and he knows Gavin, and he's... Of California. Yes, he's fondly predisposed to Gavin Newsom, let's put it that way.

And we tease him about that all the time. this is he's clearly running for president he's ahead in most of the polls he has uh you know he's laying the groundwork here and part of that is overcoming this resistance or this this idea and we saw it you know he did that podcast where he tried to portray himself as you know he's eating mac and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches you know i mean it was preposterous and he got he got blasted for it and And so, but I think he's trying to overcome this idea that he's this elitist, West Coast elitist. And he can really connect in the heartland.

And he's got these working class roots and all of that stuff. I also saw a theory that this is him. He's got some stuff in his background regarding, you know. Like he's a cheater. Yeah, an affair with his campaign manager's wife, I mean. While he was married to KG, right? When he was married and then he went to, went to some. rehab or something. I mean, so he's got some stuff. He went to fake rehab. He went to the rehab to go

to when you did something bad. You're trying to look contrite. It was like alcohol rehab. He was blaming his affair on his alcohol use. Yes. But he came out still a drinker. Like, okay, you got an F on your rehab. Still a moderate drinker, though. It's moderate now, Tom. Right. So he's trying to get that stuff out on his own terms before there's some, you know, expose. Well, it wouldn't be from the New York Times of Washington Post, but maybe from a conservative outlet sort of detailing some of his dirty laundry. So he's trying to manage his image

heading into 2028. And we'll see whether he's able to do that. But he's clearly running and he's clearly putting all the pieces in place to make a run at the nomination. And I got to say, in my opinion, he'd probably be the favorite. His dirty French,

his dirty French laundry. On February 1, 2007, Newsom publicly admitted the affair, apologized and described it as a profound lapse in judgment upon reflection with friends and families week, and I've come to the conclusion that I'll be a better person without alcohol in my life, unless it's on a moderate basis and it's post-rehab when no one's looking. In a 2018 interview, he clarified, no, there's no rehab. I just stopped and said that after a period of abstinence, he resumed drinking moderately, claiming the earlier period was a reset. That is the fakesest rehab ever.

He had an affair. Okay, whatever it happens. I respect him more if he was like, you know what? I had an affair. My marriage was ending. It did end. She moved on and was happily with Don Jr. And she got remarried to Eric Valencia for a while.

And I moved on and felt like, just be a man about it. I can't stand. I don't use the P word, but that's P word behavior where you're like, I'm a boozer, except I'm not. And I'm back on the moderate alcohol, but only moderate.

Like, come on. All right, now wait, I want to ask you guys, Andy and Carl. Tom raises his story about being a poor child, and it's a lie. He was in, like, magazines as, like, what it's like to be a child of the rich because of the Getty connection. And his dad was a judge. He wasn't on Popper's Row. Anyway, here he is trying to tell that to a podcast. It's Sought 2. And then I'll give you a little background that we pulled. That's brand new to me. Sought 2. My mom was 19 pregnant and divorced a few years later with two kids, came from no money.

and just hustled, you know, worked hard grinding every single day, two, two and a half jobs, no bullshit. Part-time bookkeepers, you did restaurant. That's how I got in the restaurant business. And it was just like hustling. And so I was out there kind of raising myself, turning on the TV, started, you know, just getting obsessed, you know, sitting there with, you know, the wonder bread and five stacks of, you know, heated butter. It's like the white steak, five story. Come on. Macaronian cheese.

Yeah, bro. Yeah, bro. Okay. So he was basically on public assistance. So here's the truth. Some of this we knew, but some of this is new to me. So his late father, William, former associate justice on the California Court of Appeals, served as an attorney for the Getty's billion dollar fortune.

William Newsom was so involved with the Gettys, he helped personally deliver the ransom payment in response to the kidnapping of John Paul Getty the third. That's pretty tight. I love and know you guys pretty darn well. I don't think I'd be the one who'd give the ransom payment if, God forbid, somebody got you. I'd be willing, but I don't, I probably wouldn't be the first choice. Gavin's parents divorced when he was three. But William and Gavin did get big money from their Getty ties from a 2003 San Francisco weekly article. The Newsom's also each have owned stock in Getty images, which is a $1.6 billion conglomerate that owns a number of 70 million. photographs and illustrations. And also, in 2001, William, the dad, brought Gavin the son into a Hawaii beachfront real estate investment in which his initial $125,000 stake soared to more than $1 million in just six months. And then listen to this. Two additional

facts. San Francisco Chronicle in 2003. In 10, count them 10, of Gavin Newsom's first 11 businesses, the primary money came from the Getty family. Is that where you You guys got your money to start real clear politics? I don't think so. And last point. The Sacramento Bee, Gordon and Ann Getty paid about $233,000 toward Gavin Newsom's first wedding reception. His 30th birthday party given by the Gettys was great Gatsby themed down to the flappers. And Charleston's, Carl Cannon, the prosecution rests.

well here comes the defense so Bill Newsom was a judge Gordon Getty was a very close personal friend and Gavin and Gavin didn't live with his dad his sister lived in Marin across the Golden Gate Bridge Gavin was a jot he wasn't a great student played basketball and and baseball and he grew up middle class and but when he when he graduated from college he to Santa Clara and he went out in the world, he started a restaurant, I think it was the Balboa, his name of it. And he was, he wasn't wanted to be in the restaurant business. He got into politics because all the red tape was that one of the 11 businesses that were funded by the Gitties. It was the first one. And it was a nice cafe. It was modest as cafe, but my,

he wasn't, you know, that's that old Steve Martin line that's Tom likes, I was born a poor black child. That wasn't Gavin. But they were middle class family. Bill owned a, had a place up in Dutch flat, which is in the mother load country. And he didn't even own it. He rented it, the judge. No one's saying Bill was. I knew them. I knew them at that time. Why is he in the magazine under Children of the Rich?

Did somebody make him pose in that and call himself rich and pose with the Gettys with his greased up hair? He loved that image. And he did have access. I don't know this for sure about you guys, but I just know just from knowing you. I don't know, but I know. You weren't raised with Silver Spoons. I know you weren't. Bullshit.

I wasn't. Fuck that. Nobody gave you $233,000 for your wedding reception, $233,000. And nobody funded your first 11 businesses. That's bullshit. It's stolen valor. It is. For those of us who are self-made, it's stolen valor.

Those of us who actually did have to eat mac and cheese and boxed wine and all the bullshit for years, never knowing whether we'd be able to afford the clothes that we're sitting in today, fuck him. He had so many hands up. And I respect him if he came out and said, I was very, very lucky my family connections. We weren't rich, but we had this great connection in the Gettys.

And they really helped me. And that's what makes me different from most people who had to claw their ways up. And that's why I want to help those people. That's not his story. He's dishonest. So I'm going to put you down as undecided. Andy, settle the argument, please.

Well, I'll put it this way. I think that he has an authenticity problem, and he's trying to solve it by being even more inauthentic. And I think that's the problem here, is that I agree with you that if he just came out and sort of was honest about the mistakes he's made in life and the things that went well and things that didn't go well, people might be interested in that.

He seems incapable of that. And I think his slickness is both his superpower and his Achilles heel because I think people see through it. But nonetheless, he is at the top of most of the polls that we're looking at right now. He's coming off this great big win on the redistricting in California. He's set himself up as the anti-Trump. The rest of the field is kind of fumbling while he seems to be moving forward. So he's a formidable politician, no matter how you look at it.

And he's got to run it on his record in California. I think that's what people really care about, not his... Which is not great, by the way. Which is also not great. But he's pulling a Jasmine Crockett right now because she launched her U.S. Senate campaign by just like, she defines herself around Trump. It's all Trump's criticisms of her, right?

And look what he just put out today. Gavin Newsom, not on the heels of that redistricting win, which you can't take away from him. He did have. This is what he just dropped. SOT Zero. Watch. It's an AI video he made.

It's Trump, Hegseth, and Stephen Miller. Is that who it is over there? Yeah. In handcuffs, in the back of a police car, it looks like crying, putting their faces in their hands. Now their hands are behind their back. The handcuffs are behind their back. And they're walking like a perp walk in their suits. Like they're criminals.

Andy, you're making faces I've never seen you make before. That's the first I've seen that video. That's new to me. I hate this use of A. in these ads. I think it's terrible that they do it. I'm not sure what the message of that. Well, I can guess what the message is, but why today?

And, yeah, that's, I think that's bad politics. I think they're responding to a White House post that said something about its cuffing season or cuffin season or something like that. And so, but look, he has been very active on his team on social media. and in a ways that quite frankly, a lot of people, myself included thought was really kind of cringy and hokey, but nevertheless, if you operate under the theory that any publicity is good publicity, he has been able to keep himself in the news

and at the top of the heap of the Democratic Party, even while Kamala's been doing her book tour and trying to get her reset and get back in the game. And you've got J.B. Pritzker, my governor here in Illinois, who's been battling Trump in Chicago, and all of that. And so Gavin Newsom has managed to stay relevant. The question is, you know, we're so, it's so early now. Like, is there a, can people be overexposed? Can Gavin Newsom,

can we get too much of them too soon where people are just like, oh, I can't handle any more Gavin Newsom. I'm there. He's got the, he's got this little, the way he uses his hands when he talks. I mean, it's weird. It's a little weird. Yeah. Do you guys remember it was only a year? ago, two years ago, he had, Ron DeSantis was his foil in the Republican Party. And he picked fights with DeSantis everywhere he went. He showed up. They debated on Hannity. Did a debate. That's right. He showed up in Seamy Valley at the Reagan Library for the first debate. Trump deciding quite properly, as it turns out that he wasn't even going to dignify these people the debates. Trump treated himself as the nominee in waiting and that turned out to be right.

But we didn't know that at the time. And Newsom came down. He's the governor. So what are you doing here. He's told people, well, I'm the governor of the state, and it's a beautiful library, and I just want to welcome all the press and the Republicans to, you know, the Reagan library. And, of course, then he had, the real reason he was there is to set a trap for Ronda Santis, who he thought was going to be the nominee, and he was going to be the rival. And they debated, and you guys said, so, but the thing about Sean Hannity that was so interested in me, Hannity moderated the debate. And Hannity agrees on issues with every everything Ron DeSantis said, and nothing Gavin Newsom says. And yet Hannity clearly liked

Gavin Newsom more than he liked Ron DeSantis. And that was the first clue to me that this guy had the kind of charisma maybe that would translate to a presidential run. It was Sean Hannity gave me that idea. It's now called Riz. I just want you to know that. The kids have gotten rid of the first and the last part of that word. I don't know why they do what they do. Stand by, you guys, because there's a couple more things I want to discuss with you. We'll do it on the opposite side of this break, don't go away. RCP is still here and then later, Doug Brunt. Let's talk about real health armor, especially if you're done with the dye-filled toxin-heavy stuff lining store shelves. Beekeepers' naturals can be your clean, no-compromised line

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Bekeepers naturals.com slash Megan. Or enter the code Megan when you check out. Beekeepers Natural's products are also available at Target, Whole Foods, Walmart, Amazon, CVS, and Walgreens. Back with me now, the guys from Real Clear Politics, which you can get as a podcast on YouTube or listen live every day at 11 a.m. Eastern on the Megan Kelly channel, that's Channel 1111 on Sirius XM. Okay, guys, so you may not know this, but on December 12th at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C., they will present the Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Political Journalism. And not only are none of us Times person of the year, but none of us are getting a Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Journalism. And this, too, is bullshit. It's bullshit. Why isn't Susan Crabtree getting one of these awards for all the breaking stuff she did around

Butler, and since then on the Secret Service and so many inside Washington stories, or just RCP in general, which has a great staple of reporters, why aren't you getting it, instead of, I'm not kidding, Rachel Maddow. For what category? She works like one day a week. But truly, like, you can, like, there's no bigger conspiracy theorist than Rachel Maddow. I mean, that's all she's peddled in for the past. 10 years, and she never owned it. She was on one of the late night shows just last week.

Like, I think that Russia coverage idea has been proven pretty true right now since they're literally taking Kremlin talking points to strike the Ukraine deal. No, no, it hasn't proven true at all. You're a liar. Nothing you said was true, and you never owned it. She's getting recognition for political, her excellence in political journalism, Carl. The award will be handed out by the U.S.A. Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, which is a part of the USC in Los Angeles. She's going to get one, and the reason they say these people are getting one is, quote, the message is that these winners, by honoring these winners, is that the press is not the enemy of the people. It's the firewall between the public and disinformation, abuse of power, and corruption. Rachel Maddow and John Stewart, John Stewart, who's getting the inaugural award in comedic news

and commentary, John Stewart. Greg Gutfeld has 10 times John Stewart's ratings and relevance. He is the only thing relevant when it comes to comedic programming. And John Stewart has, he does not do objective programming on anything. And he doesn't do comedy either. All he does is bashing of right-wing people. I'll give you one example. Here he is.

I think you are not living in the planet most Americans are, which is why this kind of extremism, this anti-white extremism, is losing popular support. This is what happens when white people don't talk about it, is you have racist dog whistle tropes like this. I did not come on this show to sit here and argue, with another white man,

that's one of the reasons that we don't even engage with white men at race to dinner. So, you know, because quite honestly, if white men were going to do something about racism, you had 400 years.

You could have done. I could finger snap. I would finger snap right now. Let's remove it then from the... You'd be finger snapping. You've been doing a pretty good job with it yourself there. that's Andrew Sullivan. I mean, truly, like, deeply respected, deeply thoughtful, you know, center-right, but not far right, openly gay man. Like, F him for the way he and his guest treated Andrew. And that's what you could get you an award now from the Cronkite Center, guys, from the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political. This is disgusting. Thoughts?

I have one. To the, I don't, I didn't know her name, but the woman said, if white men want to do anything about racism. She's the lady, Carl, who you can pay $5,000 to to show up at your next real clear politics holiday party and call you all racists. That's what she does. I think we'll probably take a pass on that, but if she crashes the party,

I'll tell her that this country had a civil war and that white men from every northern state marched into battle singing the John Brown him and, you know, 300,000 of them died fighting in Mr. Lincoln's army to free the slaves. And, you know, that strikes me as maybe a little more of a sacrifice than going on John Stewart's show and pretending to care. This just in, Carl Cannon is out of the running for next year's Walter Cronquet Awards Excellence in Political Journalism.

This is, that kind of commentary is not what gets you over the line, my friend. But to me, it's just disgusting. They're bastardizing the name of Walter Cronkine. Kronkite. They've been doing it for a long time. But there was a time when those Kronkite awards meant something. And now, like the third person who's getting one, there's actually a couple more, but Scott Pelly. Scott Pelly, guys, this, that's absurd. Scott Pelley's most memorable moment over the past couple of years has been his attempted cross-examination of the Moms for Liberty founders, where he tried to tell them that they're not peddling smut to children in the K-3-8

schools in the form of books that the kids are required to read and that the parents can't opt out of. You know how wrong he was? The U.S. Supreme Court just so found that it's happening and throughout the program that wouldn't allow Maryland parents to pull their children out of those classes. That's how wrong he was. The U.S. Supreme Court said so, but he gets awarded this like the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Journalism, Tom. well i mean these things have become just a a caricature and a parody of themselves right and you know i heard your clip you were talking about the golden globes and how when you worked at fox like roger ails like wouldn't even let you guys apply for any award because they were all never right

they were all from leftists for leftists and that's exactly what this is um there was a prize earlier this year the dow prize has been this was the second year of the dow prize which is basically awards not just conservative journalism, but sort of middle of the road, what used to be sort of objective journalism and also local journalism that was done across the country. And you mentioned Susan Crabtree. She won it not last, not this past year, but the year before that, the inaugural Dow Prize for her work on the Secret Service. And this year, the federalist, the whole team won it for their coverage of the sort of Russia collusion thing. That was well deserved too. Yeah. So, so, so, Unfortunately, like the, I was going to say the right, and too certainly said it is the right,

but it's not like the hard right. It's more like the center right, had to sort of stand up their own infrastructure to provide to see their work recognized because it was never getting recognized by the usual suspects. They've been doing this, patting each other on the back, giving each other Pulitzer's for the Russia coverage and like, you know, the COVID coverage and all this stuff. I mean, it's really, it's become a joke. And I think most people recognize it as such, except for the Rachel Maddows and John Stewart's of the world who were like, oh, this is such a prestigious honor. I can't, you know, you know, how- grew up in my mouth.

How lucky I am. I know, exactly. And it's like, give me a break. Andy, most people are over. The Scott Pelley Award is based on his May 2025 reporting on the law firms versus Trump story. That was a big story when Trump was saying the federal government is not going to do business with certain law firms, like the ones who are hiring my chief antagonists and the ones who

spent the past five years suing me. And so no question, fair game to cover that story. But how would you do it if you had, say, Mark Elias as your star witness on 60 minutes and your Scott Pelly? Mark Elias, okay, the guy who was the chief architect, one of them, of the Democrats' Russian collusion hoax, who was out there on behalf of Hillary Clinton campaign pushing the lies about Trump and Alpha Bank and the servers in the basement, all of which were lies, and they knew they were lies, and they were using them to bring down Trump. We know all of this from the classified materials that have been released over the past six months. And you have Mark Elias sitting there, and you're Scott Pelly. You might raise it.

You might at least raise it when you talk about why Trump hates his firm and why he's getting so unfairly targeted by the evil Trump. That didn't happen. Here's a little from that segment for which Scott Pelley's now being honored. It was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story. Because of the fear now running through our system of justice, many firms and attorneys have been targeted. Among them, Mark Elias, a long-time opponent of Trump, who is the only lawyer the president has named who was willing to appear on 60 Minutes. Elias and others are warning that Trump's assault on the legal profession threatens the rule of law itself. Elias says that for him, it began. with the president's personal grudge.

Donald Trump hates me because I fight hard and I fight for free and fair elections. I insist on fighting for democracy in court, fighting for voting rights in court, and insist on telling the truth about what the outcome of the 2020 election was. Oh, my God. Andy. Well, see, I'd like to know a year from now after Barry Weiss has had some impact at CBS, how many awards 60 Minutes will win? like this. That will be one question. Hopefully everyone's fired. But my other thing is, you know,

Rachel Maddo, I congratulate her, but there probably will be more people in that room watching her to get the award than there are people watching her on MS now. So there's some compensation there for her, I think. This is just a disgrace. I'm sorry. I don't think anybody cares about the awards. But like, go ahead. I'm sorry. I was just going to say people don't know what what a sort of, or maybe they, they should be told what a sort of nefarious character, Mark Elias is, too, and to let him sort of have sort of free reign to spin his yarn about how, how he's a real defender of democracy. I mean, this guy's, this guy is one of the most odious characters. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's not use words like nefarious

and odious, nodius. He's a, he's a democratic party arbor. Use them. He's a operas, odious, odious. Okay. That's my girl. You see what I have to deal with every single day? Good gracious. This is supposed to be very hard. But those are subjective feelings that you have. But the objective truth is that this guy is a paid operative for the Democratic National

Committee and he's made millions of dollars attacking Republicans, not voting for voting rights, but for voting for voting procedures that help Democrats. And we don't have to demonize him to point out that it's bad journalism to present him as a neutral arbiter. He's a player. Yes, why would Trump want to do business with his law firm? Why? No, it's true. Unfortunately, unfortunately, instead of being excluded from any sort of an award for that ridiculous sin of journalistic coverage,

Scott Pelly now gets honored for the very report itself, and this will be him. At the awards with his glasses down at the end of his news. news. I was right all along. I'm better than you. And we all know that because I host 60 minutes. And if Barry is the woman I think and believe her to be, she will fire his ass before we are halfway through 2026. That's my prediction. He's fucking out of there. Look forward to that news. And I got to go. I'm out of here too because Doug Bruns in the in the wings. And he's got an eggnog for me, unlike you fine gentlemen. So I got to go. All right. Love you guys. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We'll see you soon.

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podcast dedicated with Doug Brunt, and the author of the upcoming book, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel, Romanov's Revolutionaries and the Forgotten Titan, who fueled the world. Doug happens to be my husband as well, so that worked out well. Hi, honey. Hi. It's great to be here. Congrats. So here is the galley copy of the new book, which is just so cool looking. It's beautiful. The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. And it looks kind of similar, similar style to your last big New York Times bestseller, the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel. Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel will not be available until May. But they can pre-order it today, have it in time for Father's Day.

Yeah. And tell us what the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel is. is about. Well, it's, by getting the galley's, is such a nice moment. We open the box, you know, as a family around the dining room table, and you pull them out and you see it, and you hold it in your hands after years of working on it. It is a companion book to the diesel book. Emmanuel Nobel has an appearance in the Rudolph Diesel story.

But you don't have to have read Diesel in order to read this book. It can be out of sequence. And in fact, I haven't said this really. The only people who know this next piece are you and my editor and a few people in archives around the world, but I'm working on a third, which will be, we'll complete a trilogy of these three turn-of-the-century characters. Emmanuel Nobel essentially established the Russian oil industry along the Caspian Sea in southern Russia.

So by 1900, he and his family had built an oil business larger than standard oil. And in World War I, he controlled more oil than anyone else on the planet. So it was this huge prize sitting in southern Russia at Germany, the Brits, the Bolsheviks, you know, the communists. Japan, everybody wanted to get to the Nobel oil because they had essentially developed a whole,

oil infrastructure that was superior to anything else in the world. Superior to Rockefeller, that's crazy. Even to Rockefeller. And yet, for reasons explained in the book, Nobel has been obliterated from history. Totally. So this brings him back to life and tells us this story. The only Nobel, anybody knows, is Alfred Nobel, who started the Nobel Prizes. This is Emmanuel Nobel, his nephew, built a totally different, bigger fortune that has been

totally forgotten, wiped out. His name is not really known at all in connection with. the awards. That's all the uncle Alfred who did dynamite. That was his business. And it's, do you reveal why? But I mean, like a little. I mean, it has, of course, the, the, when the communists took over, Stalin and Lenin, they nationalized all these businesses. But everyone, even in that time, even when the Bolsheviks had taken over, everyone thought the communists are going to last about three days. And so there's an interesting negotiation between standard oil and Rockefeller and Nobel about all these Russian assets of petroleum, what to do with

them because nobody believes Lenin's going to last. And with regard to the prize, though, so Alfred Nobel in the prizes, he was an investor in the oil business of his brothers and nephew, but the prize wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Emanuel either. And there are two funny stories about that. When Emanuel's father, Ludwig, dies, Alfred and Ludwig are huge celebrities around the world. And the newspapers in France, where Alfred lives, mistakes who's died.

They thought Alfred died. So they print this obituary for Alfred Nobel, calling him. you know, as the inventor of dynamite, this merchant of death and caused more, you know, killing than anyone in history. And so he reads his own obituary and thinks, holy crap, you know, I need to, this can't be how I'm remembered. And so he changes his will to establish the prize and gives, you know, tons of his money away. And of course, all his, you know, after he dies, all the other Nobel, people are like, you must be joking. Like the fortune's going to this crazy prize, including the king of Sweden, who pulls out Emmanuel aside. And Emmanuel's in charge of

the estate, basically, for his uncle Alfred and the prize. And every one of the family's fighting it. The king of Sweden is like, you don't want to pay attention to these crazy pacifists. This is nonsense. You know, you should take care of your family and put all the money toward that. So Emmanuel stands up to the king of Sweden says, no, no, no, we're going to, you know, I'm taking my role as the executor physical. Seriously, we're going to have the prize. And so he, at the last second, rescues the prize. It hadn't been for Emmanuel Houston. But the funny thing is, because it's like you think about, you know, Russia and you know they've got one huge asset. Well, two. One is oil and two is their ability to mess with you.

online. Those are two big assets that they have. Those are their two primary weapons. There's also the matter of nuclear weapons. But in any event, this is their main source of income is their petroleum industry. And it wasn't theirs. And they didn't invent it. And actually nobody was doing it at all in Russia until Emmanuel Nobel came along. It was like, hey, look at all this stuff. This actually looks quite interesting. When they first bought land in caucuses near in present-day Azerbaijan along the Caspian Sea, people were skimming oil out of puzzle. There was no drilling, you know, any, any wells that were dug were dug by hand with spades. So they come down there with great, they are chemists and engineers by trade.

And so they come down there and they completely turn it around. But this was in the 1870s in the time of the czars. So the book has these amazing detours through history that include the Rothschilds and Rockefellers and Dostoevsky and Faberje. And Tomz on Stalin, I learned so much about Joseph Stalin that I did not know. And you personalize his backstory in a way that I didn't know, like, how did he grow up to be this murderous, crazy dude? and now I know. I mean, you actually have a lot of backstory on Stalin, and you see the rise of these two men very, very different in character, but in strength, they were equals for a long, long time, Emmanuel Nobel and Joseph Stalin. So you learn a ton about world history, about Russia.

Everything that Russia is today is explained in this book. Like, but you don't feel like you're learning. You feel like you're just getting like a caper. Well, yeah, it's written ideally in a very novelistic way. It's a ripping read. I mean, you go through it, but it has these fun detours, But it is a piece of history. And Stalin, as you say, grew up as a neighbor to Nobel in southern Russia. He grew up in Georgia, which is between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. And he actually worked in the oil fields of the Nobel's and the Rothschilds, who are another big figure in Russian oil. And so Emmanuel Nobel and Joseph Stalin, they're sort of like these counterpoints to each other.

And Stalin is looking at these oil capitalists, industrialists with envy and hatred. And, you know, ultimately, you know, the whole book brings this collision you know is coming. He was looking at Nobel's oil the same way Zoran Mamdani is looking at the billionaires in New York. All right now, so don't forget. It's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel by Douglas Brunt. You can get your pre-order right now. That would help Doug out and yours truly because I'd love to see the book be a success. And avoid to make him a pub day.

Like diesel sold out. People couldn't get it for like two months because, you know, Simon and Schuster had to go back and print more copies. If you pre-order it now, it shows up on your doorstep or your bookstore has it. It's all easy. You don't have to wait. And that's happening right now with Charlie's book, where they've already sold out. You're going to have to wait months for his book. They always underestimate anybody who's conservative or married to a conservative.

Conservative adjacent. Yeah, they do because they just assume there's no audience for that because that's not the world in which these book publishers live. So it's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. Get your copy now. Now, more importantly, what do we have here with us? Yes, my God. And explain what happens on dedicated. All right.

First, we've got, we have our Jack Carr tumblers with the, I don't know if it can show up here with the ice, but it's got the Tomahawk Navy Seal thing. So shout out to Jack Carr, Merry Christmas. Thank you for the glasses. We're going to have a little traditional eggnog with bourbon. It's organic. It's healthy. Locale, organic. It's like having an egg.

We learned that lesson a few years ago. Yes, exactly. We'll do it with rye. Michter's rye. Yeah, what officially goes in an eggnog? Some people do bourbon, some do rum, some do both. And what are we doing? Well, rye, which is basically bourbon.

Okay. The reason that we're doing this is, A, it's eggnog, and why not? It's that time of year. but B on Doug's podcast, which is called Dedicated with Doug Brunt, where he interviews authors, he both interviews authors and talks about their books, and he always pours a cocktail of choice. Could be virgin, could be alcoholic, this one happens to be alcoholic. It's almost almost always alcoholic, thank God. And everyone drinks the drink.

Michael Lewis was on the other day, and he's like, do people actually drink the drink? He had a Sazirac, by the way, which is like the New Orleans cocktail. Sazirac? Yeah. It's basically similar to an old fashion. Now he's doing the netmeg. Nutmeg over the... Didn't we do this last year?

Didn't we do the eggnog? We did. I think I had to read your ad by the end. Maybe that was a different show. Cheers, honey. Merry Christmas. Love you. Oh, yeah, that's tasty.

Our first eggnog of the season. That's delicious. I know. Well done. Yeah, no. And we talked about how that one year we were drinking eggnogs like they were going out of style.

When we were young, we didn't have kids. And we both blew up like ticks. We were huge. Looking in the mirror, like something's changed in our diet. Is it possible? It's the eggnog. The full fat eggnog. And then we looked at the nutritional information on the box. Which, by the way, the low fat isn't a whole lot better.

What is it? What is it? Well, 150 calories. You know, a lot of cholesterol in there. Yeah. A lot of sodium in there. Oh, really? Sodium. Decent amount of sugar. Nothing is worse than the Martha Stewart recipe. I mentioned this to you this morning over coffee. I just saw it on X. Steve, I'll send it to you, which we had to drop it in for the listening audience. This thing was

loaded with alcohol. First of all, it's like so many eggs and so much sugar and so much heavy cream. And then on top of that, it was like three cups of bourbon, three cups of rum, and three cups of another alcohol. Martha gets after it. You're phoning it in with this ride business. She's putting me to shame. I don't know what you were thinking, you know. Usually men are trying to get women intoxicated. We're on set. You can't like, we can definitely have more booze, but getting involved in eggs and cream and stuff, we're not going to do that here. No, you don't want egg cream of any kind. And she stuffed the yolks in there too. It was pretty nasty. So we're getting ready for our holidays. What have you been doing to get ready to the

holiday? I said a few present suggestions, which is more than I normally do. I'm only laughing because every woman knows that's a joke. And every guy gets defensive. No, we kind of have our shared responsibilities, I would say, but generally the Christmas shopping is on my list because I wanted to be. Yeah. Well, you're so good at it. It's amazing. It's like a, you know, Santa Claus threw up under the tree. There's like a million presents everywhere. He helps me. And that's why I have an ace in the hole. I have a secret weapon. You have a little else up in the north. Yeah. So I don't really need Doug Bruns help because I've got Santa. Although I do help a little. You do help. But we were talking a little bit about our Christmas traditions. I was doing this for Stephen Crowder. And

there's so many that we do. Like we go to Montana every year. And there's a bunch of stuff we do over there. But what would you say? Like I've asked what, what's our top or what's a couple of top Christmas traditions that we have? I mean, well, we're still, you know, earmuffs on the kids. We're still firing away with the elf every morning and the advent. They know. And we try to carol as much as possible, but that's not every year. We do have a great, like, almost 20 years tradition of getting lunch with a particular

group of friends in the city. It used to be at the 21 Club. Hello, that's got to open back up. It does. It does. Yep. But we have found new venues for that. Wait a minute.

What was the second thing you said? The advent calendar? The caroling. Oh, the caroling. Do we really... That's not really traditional. I said that's not an annual. Should we reveal what happened last year when we caroled?

Yes, it's embarrassing, but it's a funny story. It's a disaster. Yeah. No one wanted us. Well, our first stop was actually pretty good. They were amazed. They're like, this is so great. And we kind of knew them.

And they thought, this is great. And the other dad was like, I'm coming with you. And he turns around. It's like, let's go. And they're like, screw you, dad. He's like, next year, maybe I can join you. Yeah. But he was totally supportive.

It was just the five of us. Yeah, just the five of our friends. family. And so then we go to the next house. From that point forward, it went down. Like, nobody really wanted it. They're like, it's cold outside. Why'd have to stand by this open door? There was one moment where we were waiting across the street. We had our Santa hats on. We were freezing. And this SUV drove by with the window down and just kind of waved at us. And we were like, chiggle bell, chigle ball, chigle ball, chigle! Like, shaking the bell at them. It was like an assault of Chris's Carol. It was hard to get an audience. Everyone was kind of like

trying to squeeze the door closed, kind of like, I've got some people inside. Yeah, it wasn't It wasn't the greatest doubting. It's probably not going to be a tradition. No. But I think I'm thinking of things like when we watch, it's a wonderful life. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So actually, you drive, in addition to getting the presents, you do drive a lot of these things.

We do. It's a wonderful life. But everyone's a gamer. With the salt and the bread and the whole bit and, you know, ringing the bell when Clarence makes an appearance on screen. And hissing when potter. You and I, like, the greatest tradition, bar none of, you know, Christmas aside, you and I start every morning with a cup of coffee. We've got the coffee machine in the bedroom. It's set.

the night before with the alarm, it goes off, and we start each day with 20 minutes together talking, having coffee. Sometimes listen to AM Update, other times watching Christmas in Connecticut for a few minutes to start the day. It's just an awesome way to enter the day and enter the world, you know, having connected a little bit. It's so true. And right now we have a little tree in our bedroom.

We've got some Christmas lights. And that makes it magical, too, you know, like turn that on. The only thing Doug and I argue about in the bedroom is the temperature. Yes. Right. Yeah. So now we both like it. when we sleep. That makes sense. Everybody should have it. They say 68 degrees. It's good for your

health. It's good for your sleep. But Doug would like the thermometer to be turned down much earlier in the evening so that it's like cold when we arrive. Yes. That makes me irritable. We climb in bed. I'm like, it's so effing hot in here. And I'm like, it's freezing. Because you can't function in there when it's 68 degrees. Like when you're doing your nighttime routine, you're washing your face. You're in your nightgown. You're freezing your ass off If it's 68 degrees. You've got a heated floor, though. You should just sort of like, get low.

That is a luxury, by the way. When we bought the house, it had a heated floor. I've never had that, and it's wonderful. It makes a nice difference. Damn, as they say. So we're going to go to Montana. It's not snowy there, unfortunately. No, early conditions.

Is that a blessing? They're making some. Yes, for me. Like, I'm happy to do a couple of groom blues and then go sit by the fire, play poker with the kids and, like, never get out of pajamas. Like, a couple days like that would be great. Doesn't that sound like Heaven on Earth for two weeks? It's going out there.

We've got our annual costume night. I recommend this to everybody. You can go big. I mean, obviously, I go big because I love costumes. But you can do this on a shoe string budget, too. You just go to the local costume store, and you get a couple of costumes for your family. It does not have to be fancy.

But it needs to be a theme. It needs to be theme related. And then the way we do it in our family is on costume night. I like controlling it. So I'll put out the costumes on people's beds. you'll keep the kids busy. They all know it's costume night. It's super fungus.

Nobody knows what the theme is. Meg plans this every single year. And then the theme's amazing. One year was back to the future. One year we had watched the Ten Commandments. So I, you know, I was Moses and someone was the various kings. You were the best most. Oh, look, here's back to the future.

Oh, nice. Blurred the kids' faces. You were the best Mcfly. You were George McFly, the dad. Oh, yeah. He was Marty. And you, oh, you've got to do your imitation. Can you do your George McFly imitation?

all right take your damn hands off her i don't know if i nailed that you did i love it and then we did moses we did ten commandments and you made it amazing moses um years earlier this was good i mean this we went all out for the moses we got pharaoh represented we got zephia if there's no one in the family who does this amount of planning as you do which is amazing because everyone fully appreciate it, but even like a wig night is kind of fun. If you're recommending to the audience, we have a closet full of wigs. It's true. And it's fun just to like, I don't know, have a wig night. Somehow things are more fun in wigs. Yeah. Right? It's like you could just be eating your dinner. We don't actually do anything. Like somebody's asking, what do you do on

like, nothing? We just put them on. Then laugh at each other. There's the wanka. That was a great one. Here's the funny story about these two people in there as Violet Beauregard and Augustus Gloop. they've since become dear friends of ours, but that night we didn't know them at all. So we were expecting two family members who then couldn't come. It was like right after COVID, that was either 2020 or 2021.

It was right when things were still nutty because of COVID, and their flights got canceled. And these two go to our school and we had just met them. And we're like, so would you like to come for dinner? They're like, sure, we'd love to. And could you wear some weird costumes?

That's not exactly how it goes. There's no could you wear. It's like here's, she, Meg, like, lays down the law. When you cross that threshold, you're in her world. And she says, off you go. And here's your costume. It's true. It's true.

It's kind of the price of admission. Yeah. Anyway, and we realized too late that Augustus Gloop winds up looking a little like Hitler youth. He's in like a little military outfit with the blonde wig. Yeah, it's very like Australian. But our friends, Lisa and Chris, were such good sports. They donned the outfits and it was such a fun.

I think he sort of entered with a little trepidation, but, you know, mid-dinner was loving it. Once we got the liquor flowing. Well, that helps with all costumes and wigs. But no, so the other piece of costume night is just to order a background from Amazon. So if you go into Amazon and you type in Ten Commandments or you type in Back to the Future, backdrop, you will pull up so many options for 40 bucks or under. You're like, 40 bucks for the big one for 8 by 10.

But if you want to go smaller, it's much cheaper. Anyway, my point is simply for under 150 bucks. you could probably get everybody in your family in a costume and with a backdrop. And that's really the end of it. So we'll try to sometimes do the food that's themed appropriately if like that night,

one year we did karate kid, Cobra Kai. Yeah, that was great. We had Asian that night. That's about as much as, you know. It's not that, like, then you just sit there and you laugh. Yeah.

Oh, we did have John Crease do one of those. And speaking of like cheap, that was like 30 bucks or something. Yeah. One of those services where you can pay an actor to like say something personalized. Yeah, he's like, strike first, you know. getting on with our kids, who, by the way,

that was the best 30 bucks we ever spent because the kids were totally into it. And he called us the blunts, I think, instead of the brunts? Yeah, it was close. Whatever. You don't expect perfection from John Crease. Anyway, I can't wait for all of that stuff to start.

It's like, that's what makes the two weeks magical. Like the Christmas is the apex of it, but if you put these other things around, then it's not as much of a letdown when Christmas is over. Yeah. You know, he sells something like for a year. And it's also that contains, you know, one of the few times of the year

where there aren't obligations all over the kids, especially in us, and we get, you know, tons of time together. High quality, low quality, but it all adds up. It's great time together. Yeah. The poker's become a fun tradition. Yeah. Yeah. The kids are getting more into Texas Hold'em. We used to be able to beat them more easily. I know. We'd have the big stack in front of us. Or at least cheat them without them knowing. One or the other. But yeah, no, that's been fun. We've got to learn some new games. The kids are now into Texas Holden, which I actually,

I don't totally know how to play Texas Hold'em. You just hold three cards and you play off of... You hold two and there's, yeah. But it's really, it's like a betting thing. Once you learn how to bet, you're good. It's basically, everything's a poker hand, so. We should try that. Yeah. Let's do that. This time next year, we'll be sitting here talking about how well I did at Texas Hold'em. Done. Okay. So let's talk about the news a little bit because it's always fun to get your take on it. And I thought, I saw this article yesterday. I was like, this is a good one for Dugger. Here's a headline from the New York Post. Marco Rubio instructs diplomats to use Times New Roman font, eliminating Biden-era

DEI initiative. Did you know there's DEI font? I did not. By the way, I don't think the takeaway of this story should be that Calibri is woke, exactly. But I totally get where Rubio's going on this. Calibri does look a little light in the loavers. I'm sorry. It's a little different for sure. Times New Roman is like, bald, bold, bold. We're showing it on the screen for the listening for the people on YouTube. That's perfect. Calibri is like skinny with softer edges and it just, it looks a little more feminine, I'd say. Well, look, here's my overall take on this, because I understand what Rubio's do. I'm sure when people heard about this, you can imagine the attacks, like you're running state and this is what you're going to spend your time on, but it does matter. And you know firsthand, when I am working on these books, Simon and Schuster and I spend time on the font.

Like, it's got to match the mission. And, you know, it's your first chance to set the tone, set the atmosphere for the audience that you're engaging. The mood. It's the last little bit of, you know, connection. point that you have. And it does matter. It's why writers, authors and publishers and editors actually focus on this. The font of different books looks very different depending on what kind of book it is. Like if you open George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones and you see Times New Roman,

you're going to be like, what is this? Like the best versions of those books look like it was written by an elf, you know, like Bilbo Baggins, like something a little medieval and fanciful. And, you know, especially like the first letter of the chapter should look that way. And And so it's Rubio's way of creating a mindset or creating an atmosphere for the information he's putting out there. And you see that dynamic everywhere. It's the same as Bill Bratton's broken windows policing. You know, you walk into a neighborhood that's full of broken windows and graffiti on the walls

and trash on the streets. And that creates a mindset and an atmosphere for crime. And Bratton and others before him have proven that if you fix the windows, paint the walls, clean up all the trash and have this beautiful neighborhood, you prevent crime before it starts. And it's that same dynamic. Like, it seems like a small thing, but setting that tone, setting the atmosphere matters. Like strong, robust language or whatever fond. So I get why he's doing.

If he was going to, the only change I would make is he shouldn't go back to Times New Roman. He should do like the Bilbo Baggins handwriting for all of our state communication. But actually, that reminds me of a story you were telling me the other day. It's the same thing of like the small, tonal things we should value and prioritize them more. Almost we have to invert our thinking that these things are more. important. It's like that Jordan Peterson piece that you were showing me. Yeah, that's right. Oh yeah, that was so good. It was the Jordan Peterson soundbite on Instagram where he was saying,

yeah, it's great to go to St. Barts or Aruba and have a margarita, you know, down on the beach. Everybody would love that. But your life, he said in this clip, is how your wife greets you at the end of the day. It's how you are around the dinner table with each other, how you're treating each other, you know, whether you're, quote, present, you know, but truly it is. Like, do you feel valued when you walk into the room with your spouse or your kids or your family. Like that that does make up your life. With so many more of our waking hours are spent around that table or that coffee mug mug, then they are down in, you know, a ruba with a mocktail. And they're small and they're often overlooked and it's not, we don't think it was a big deal. And yet we really do need to invert how

we think about that because that's the biggest deal. As Peterson points out, that's 80% of your life, those little moments that add up. And so it's, you know, long way of saying, I think that's the same thing Rubio is getting at, of like, this is the font they're going to be staring at for 10 hours a day. Like, this is an opportunity to set an atmosphere, to set a tone,

this is what I want. What is a telegraph? Yeah, so it's not trivial. It actually is something. Well, this led to a discussion that we had about, like, what, who do you want the kids to marry? You know, and I was saying,

my God, they all have to marry somebody with a good sense of humor, like number one. Totally. Right? And we were talking about this because it's like, you're so lucky in that regard because I, you're very funny.

I am lucky. Yeah, I treasure you for that very reason. I will concede, though. You are actually the funnier of the two. What? That's never been conceded before by anyone. I felt under pressure on air and everything. No. Off there, I'm going to take it back. But we laugh a lot. Totally. We laugh at each other. And our kids are so good. All three of them have developed a different but awesome sense of humor. Yes, because it is important. Number one, it's important to laugh at life. But it's almost equally important to be able laugh at yourself and others. All of those things must be laughed at. It's not cruel. Like, it's, it's a stress relief mechanism. I really think it's the antidote to cortisol, right?

Like, just laughing. And life provides so many opportunities. It could be just nothing, but, like, we're constantly making fun of ourselves, you know? And I have noticed, you mean, you and I have had these little sidebar conversations when one of our kids isn't hanging in that department. Like, he gets made fun of it. And you can see, like, he's a little pissed off that he got a little made fun of. And we're like, that's not, I mean, we don't pounce on him at that point.

But we're like, it's, you know, that's a sign that we need to keep doing that until he gets a little better at that. Otherwise, he's going to, you know, it's not going to work out come college dorm days. That's right. Life is tough. And you really do have to be able to laugh at all of it or you're not going to make it very far. I really feel like, you know, my nana, I've talked about her on the show, too.

She died at 101. She only ate processed foods. She never exercised a day in her life. So what did she do? She laughed a lot. She was very funny. She had a circle of friends that laughed. She was very quick to make fun of herself, first and foremost, but everyone else as well.

Like, I do think it's a, it could make the difference between life and death. Totally, totally. We need to study Nana and we need to study Dick Van Dyke. Whatever those two are doing, I'm going to do all of it. Well, I was a little concerned about Dick Van Dyke's comments about how he made it to 100. He said, he was like drinking way too much until his 50s. That wasn't the part that concerned me. It was, he said, I was sort of on board with that.

He said he's never. it was either he's never hated anyone or he's never been like rageful. I was like, uh-oh. I don't think he's right about that. You know, people can't self-analyze. They have no idea. We need to analyze him, you know, from the outside.

It was all the dancing. It was the dancing. He's skinny, you know, he's a skinny guy. That probably helps a lot. It was totally the old bamboo in shitty jib-d-d-bang. Totally. Once you learn that, you keep doing that dance. You live forever.

Yeah. Are we going to do that? The old bamboo? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. God, yes, we have to watch that with the kids. I think they're totally up for it. They haven't, the kids, we used to watch this movie

on a loop about 10 years ago. You guys, no, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, yeah. And it's such an amazing movie. It does have that AI haircut, so I saw your tweet on that, actually, that this was already invented in Chitty, Chitty, bang, bang. But the kids, I think, have, like, foggy memories of it. So I'm excited to see how they see it now.

I love all parts of it. I love truly scrumptious. I love, love, Dick Van Dyke, he's just so, early charming. I love the apparatus he sets up in their house to cook the breakfast, to lift the blankets off the beds. Yeah. It's all great. The villains are great in Bavaria. The whistle thing. Yeah, too sweet. That's such a great scene. It's like, who even knew? But we had a very funny thing happen with our love of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang over our fakesgiving holiday where we have the family come for fake Thanksgiving, not the actual day, but it makes it easier on everybody

who needs to travel. And we split the family and to two groups to play charades, and our side was coming up with the clues for the other side, and then they came up with their clues for us. Now, unbeknownst to our opponents, who are also family members, our family is obsessed with chitty, shitty, bang, bang. We know a lot about chit-chitty-bang-bang. We've seen that movie truly hundreds of times. Yeah, exactly. So there was a joke when we used to watch it, our oldest, Yates, who was just a little guy at the time, like two or three, he saw this one scene involving this boat and there were these like rounded things on the boat like funnels from the top of the boat okay yeah and for whatever and then the two two bad guys hide themselves later in those

funnels and go on land and start spying on people and for whatever reason yates always referred to them as the barrels the bear i want to see the barrels and he would do this with his hands for listening audience i'm like twinkling my fingers together it needs to be like the barrels well i got up there and i pulled my clue from the other side and it the movie was chitty chitty bang bang and you were on my team so i needed to act this out to you and of course they're wondering i'm sure the other side is like okay maybe she'll do bang bang bang how's she going to get this and all i said was movie and then i did the finger motion and you were like chitty chitty bang bang at which way there's no convincing them that we haven't been cheating there's nothing you can say they're like no no no no you obviously cheated none

whatsoever and we did crush them yeah i mean it's embarrassing it was by the average had to take pity on them. It was brutal. It was so fun. I love charades. What a fun game. Our kids have recently introduced us to a new game. Oh my God.

That is so fun. What does that thing called? Imposter. Yeah. Yeah. So someone in the group, you can do it on your iPhone, which is actually a great use of the phone for this.

So explain it how it works. Let's see. Oh, my God. If there's five of us sitting there. Five of us are sitting there. Someone's the imposter. And there's a word. And everybody has to hold the phone at one point.

Like, it starts off, I'll explain it. So if I were patient zero of this five-person game, but you can play it with, you know, three people too, I think. Three is probably the fewest you could do it with. Five, yeah, I would say five is, five or more would be most fun. Yeah. So you open, you see the phone. I don't know the app.

I'll ask the kids, but I'm sure if you Google imposter app, you can get it. And it will say, like you agree as a family in which category you're going to pick. Like there's sports or whatever. There's like movies. And we pick movies, for one. I wasn't, was I the first on that one? No, I wasn't. Okay, so Yardley went first on this one.

I think I might take over. No, no, I've got this. Ambeknownst to me, she got Peppa Pig. That was the clue. So Yardley wasn't the imposter I was. And so when Yardley looked at the phone, it said, Yardley, and she saw Peppa Pig. Then we handed it to Thatcher and he saw Peppa Pig.

Then they handed it to me and I saw imposter. Yes, you have no idea that it's Peppa Pig. You don't know. So when the phone gets handed to you, it just says your name because of the person who starts it just types when the five names who are playing. So when I see Megan, I hit it and then it either says imposter or it gives me the clue. And then we pass the phone around and then you start guessing. And the way it works is like Yardley went first.

And so she said, oh, I knew we were in like TV and movies and she said pink. and then the next person said, Australia. And so when it got to me, I was the imposter and I thought, Flamingo, that's what I thought we were going for. So when you're the imposter, you have to try to act like you know what it is. You have to, you have to, like, act like you know. And the other people have to, when they do know, have to reveal a clue that shows they know,

but not so much that they're going to clue in the imposter. Yeah. So I said, feather, and you go, mom's the imposter. And everyone started laughing at me. Everyone started laughing because if you're early as the imposter, you don't have enough, you know, if you go late, you might get enough clues that you can sort of dial in on what it is. Otherwise, you're just sort of throwing darts and hoping to say something that makes any amount of sense to the rest of the group. We are here today with Douglas Brunt promoting his new novel, The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel, even though it doesn't sound like it. You can get it on pre-order right now. It's well worth your time. But that game imposter is worth your time as well. However,

be more ambiguous than I was with that whole thing. Now, I want to keep going, I want to keep going a little. We're going to keep going past the break a little bit. Sorry, E.J. I'm going to eat into the next hour just a bit. In the news today, well, yesterday, but also today, is the fact that they have named a new CBS evening news anchor. Did you know that they were looking for one? the only reason I know anything about the story is you tweeted how irrelevant it is and I saw your tweet and I'm like oh what's so irrelevant and it was de copel yeah yeah Tony de copel do you know anything about Tony de copal I don't I remember he got in trouble for like doing an interview that pushed back a bit in a way I don't remember all the details about it but I remember

he pushed back in a way that seemed like actual journalism and he got some blowback for it was a great moment actually morning show that's the only way I'd know which is a positive uh thing to know, I guess, but it is crazy irrelevant. I mean, you and I are at the same age. We grew up in, you know, 150 miles apart at the same time, like loving all the same movies, having the same high school experiences, and watching one of three evening news anchors. And that's almost how households identified in those times. Like, are you a Jennings's house? Are you a Rather's house? Yeah. You know, we were Jennings. You were Jennings. We were Jennings, too. And no longer. Like, that's no longer how people, it used to be like, I'm an American. I'm a American. I'm a

a Christian or a Presbyterian, I'm a whatever that, and we watch Jennings. Like, it was in the top 10 of things to identify your household. And no longer, nobody even cares. Nobody, you know, our age or younger gets news that way. It was so irrelevant, right? It's like, I mean, I would, I know I'm biased, but I think podcasts are far more relevant now. People, like, they have their loyalty, their allegiance to like this show. If you're going to spend an hour or two a day with somebody, it's not going to be the evening news. My God. Why would you spend time with that? By the way, it used to be like the newspaper the next day was kind of stale. It was kind of stale. from yesterday's news, you know, the immediacy cut because of cable.

And now, you know, by the time it's made it through the producers and packaged and written and ready for primetime cable evening news, it's so old. It's so old. Yeah. So I don't think, you know, like all the mainstream media's writing articles like, can Tony DeCopal restore CBS to its former glory? I'm like, when? What glory?

And they're like, can he get them out of third place? The answer is no, he cannot. You can't do that either. Nothing's changing in TV news other than diminishing ratings. Maybe he can do something relatively with the other three, but the three as a unit, like evening news, is going only one way, which is down. No, one big Tyrannosaurus rex, only not as scary. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with Doug Brut,

who is here promoting his new book, which you can get on pre-order, the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. The holidays are here, which means family time, great food, lots of travel, and, of course, a few too many germs. That is why I love All Family Pharmacy. They make it simple to stay healthy and prepared. Just go to AllFamily Pharmacy.com slash Megan, place your order online, and then a licensed physician will review it,

provide a prescription if necessary, and once it is approved, your medication ships right to your door, fast and secure. Whether you are looking for ivermectin, antibiotics, or your everyday maintenance medications, they've got you covered. And right now you can save 10% with code Megan 10 at checkout. So while you focus on family,

good food, and everything that makes this season special, let all family pharmacy handle the rest. Visit allfamilyfarmacy.com slash Megan today. And remember to use code Megan 10 to stay healthy, happy, and ready for the holidays. Allfamilyfarmacy.com slash Megan today. Code Megan 10 for 10% off at checkout. Hey everyone. It's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM. It's called the Megan Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth, unfiltered, with no agenda, and no apologies. Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Morgan Callahan, Emily Dershinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news, only on the Megan Kelly channel, SiriusXM 11, and on the SiriusXM app.

Doug Brunt, it was a very tough booking for me, but I made it this morning over coffee. He is here promoting his soon-to-be-released, the Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel, Romanov's revolutionaries and the Forgotten Titan, who fueled the world. I like that. Not ruled the world, fueled the world.

With a font that Rubio would approve of. Well done, exactly. It's musculature, it's got musculature. Yeah, it gives you a sense of history, turn of the century. Yeah, except we've changed the cover since then. since this. Yes, not the font, but we did, we got rid of the Romanovs. Wait, all that, okay, there we go.

That lower right picture of the Romanovs, Zard Nicholas II, his family who were brutally killed. We moved that to the back because it seemed like the cover was a little too busy with that on there. It's fun hearing the stories, right, about like how a book that you enjoy or wind up loving changed over time.

Yeah, like from the title to the cover art. So here is the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel. This is Doug's bestseller. This book has sold a ton. hugely successful, and it's a mystery about Rudolph Diesel, who was the Elon Musk of his time, who went missing, and Doug solved the case. He solved the mystery of what happened to him. And it was not always called the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel. No, I mean, for months and months, my editor and I were going back and forth, like we're going to solve this over a bottle of wine.

We came up with engines and empires. It's the diesel engine. And I loved it. He loved it. Eleventh hour, they have a sales meeting with the internal S&S team. Barnes & Noble has a sales team that contributes to this stuff too. the CEO, John Karp, of Simon & Schuster. And so I get this call. We've already printed galleys, like what we have for Nobel. And it has the engines and empire's title. And he's like, everyone loves the book. It's charming.

It's atmospheric. It takes us to this early downtown abbey era and a crazy mystery. And it's super fun. And great history, except the title. We've got to change the title. I'm like, what? That's the one thing we had. So they had come up with a different title.

And in the last second, it was that. So those things happen. And it's kind of a fun part of the journey when the book is, all aspects of it. I really love the research and time in the archives. All of it is great. But these fun little twists at the end and looking at the cover art, the S&S cover art team, their art department is amazing. It's very cool.

And it's always interesting to hear or see how someone else has an expression of the story. You know, like what do they come up with for a cover of this book you just spent years writing? Right. It's like yours. It's your personal baby, your creativity, your research, all of that went into it. And then somebody else has got strong thoughts on it. And it's fascinating to get the first like read back or feel.

feedback on how somebody else sees it. Like, what is this book about? What it should be called? You do host a podcast, which we're actually now airing on the Megan Kelly channel on Saturdays, called Dedicated with Doug Brunt, which I mentioned.

And you had a very interesting interview the other day with Michael Lewis, famed author. Author of Moneyball and Blindside and Lyris Poker. Yeah, all of which have become big movies. And he winds up telling you a story about, okay, I'm not going to give it away.

Listen to this story. just going to run the soundbite. It's going to end a big reveal about somebody, you, the Megan Kelly show listeners and watchers, know very well. It's this guy's everywhere. He's Waldo. He's everywhere. Okay, listen to Michael Lewis talking to Doug Brent. One of the people we interview, I interviewed for this podcast, was Steve Bannon. My connection to Steve Bannon, he bought the movie rights to Liar's Poker. Oh my God. I didn't know he was even in that business. You did know he was in that business. Where do you think his money came from?

Seinfeld. He went from... Steve Bannon was involved with... Steve Bannon went from the Navy to Harvard Business School to Goldman Sachs to Hollywood. Bannon told me, I just found this out like a month ago, that not only did he buy the movie rights, but he was so pissed off by how bad the script was

they got out of a very fancy script writer, that he went off in a little dark room by himself and wrote a liar's poker screenplay himself. He was obsessed. with this. Did you get to read it? Well, this is the next thing. I'm going to go see him and he says he has a copy somewhere. So I want to read it. I want to see what he did. That would be amazing. I'm glad you played that clip. I got to follow up with Michael Lewis to find out how the ban and meeting went. This is all sort of happening now. You call him and I'll call Steve. We'll see

whether this is happening. I would love to see that. Lyres poker is an amazing book. It's still read today. So Lyres poker has not yet been made a movie. Has not been made a movie. But it's his first book. It was a breakout book. He tells so many amazing stories of how he first started. writing, you know, he was working at Solomon Brothers and Wall Street, and he writes, he has sort of a Jerry McGuire moment. He gets this article published about a bankers are paid too much, and it goes in the Wall Street Journal. And someone had sort of stuck their neck out to get him this job at Solomon Brothers. So he comes up the elevator feeling like, like, I've written this, I'm in the journal. Like, this is so exciting. And the guy who got on the job was at the top of the elevator

bay, like, ashen, looking like, what have you done? Like, you can't do that. You can't work here and do that. You pick one. So he ends up actually writing financial articles under a pseudonym for a while. But then he comes out with Lair's Poker, which is an amazing book. This reminds me of a story when I was practicing law where we had a client who came to us already having had a default judgment entered against them. Like they had blown off this complaint repeatedly.

And the plaintiff got a default judgment against them because they failed to defend. Then they called us and said, will you help us? So I was a low person on the totem pole. So they sent me in there like, oh, go get this default. judgment vacated for our client, which is an uphill battle. So I went in there and it was very contentious. And the other side, the plaintiff did not want the default judgment to go away. We really battled. And the judge gave me a super hard time because the client had been completely derelict in defending. And it was just a funny and tumultuous time in my career. So long

story short, they vacated the default judgment. And the court wrote this opinion, like in writing that you can still look up now, where he really praised me and the oral argument, but he completely dumped on my client. I was so young, I was like, this is the greatest opinion. He loved me. I brought it back to Jones Day, and I'm like, look what they said. And of course, the season lawyers were like, this is not a great opinion for our client, who now is like being ripped by a court on the record repeatedly for its dereliction of duty. I'm like, but I got the right result. Look at all the priests for me. Kind of like that. Yeah. And like Michael Lewis, you went on to a great career from there. It all, it all wound up. In a different place, you know.

That's right. I all wound up working out different, different industry altogether, although some of the skills translated. Here's the other piece of news I wanted to talk to you about. We've been trying to get this on. This has been out for a week now. The Atlantic dropped a piece called Acommoded nation. And this piece, you may not have read it, but it is all about something that you're very familiar with. How many schools now, this focuses on colleges, but it's true in high schools and other schools too, have, quote, disabled students who need, quote, need extra time on the exams. It's gotten out of control. Even the Atlantic is calling it an explosion over the past 15 years. The increase is driven by more young people getting diagnosed with conditions.

such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression. And by universities making the process of getting accommodations easier, the changes occurred disproportionately at the most prestigious and expensive institutions. Of course. Right? Students, they write,

you hear students with disabilities, it's not kids in wheelchairs, one professor at a selective university, told the magazine, it's rich kids getting extra time on tests. Even as poor students with disabilities still struggle to get necessary provisions, elite universities have entered an age of accommodation.

Listen to this. Individual universities. These are stats from the Harvard Crimson. Stanford, in 2014, 3% of the student's body said they had a disability. Today, 38%. Oh my God, I can see that. Brown, 2014, 10%. Now 22.

Cornell, 2014, 5%. Now 22. Harvard, 2014, 3%. Now 21. Yale, 2014, 8%. Now, 20%. The school with the lowest is MIT. They had 3% in 2014, and they have 8%.

UC Berkeley, the number has quintupled over the past 15 years. Amherst, it's at 34%. At one law school, which they don't name, 45% of the students receive academic accommodations. And listen to this. It's because of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which passed in 1990 meant to make life fairer for people who have actual disabilities.

And you have to provide a reasonable accommodation. but now it's been expanded to people who basically have any physical or, quote, mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. And even beyond that, now in 2018, 2008, Congress amended the ADA to restore the definition to include a list of major life activities that could be disrupted by disability, including learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, even if it doesn't severely restrict your daily life. And now this depression thing, listen to this. mental health issues have joined ADHD as the primary driver of the accommodations boom the number of young people diagnosed with depression and anxiety has exploded okay it doesn't need it after the release of the DSM 5 the symptoms need only to interfere with or reduce the quality of academic functioning that's all reduce the quality of your academic functioning and for this you get extra time or unlimited time on your exams or papers or you're you can get out of homework, or you can get the professor to, quote, not call on you without warning. That's happening at Carnegie Mellon, per the Atlantic. Ohio State says 36 percent there have these issues. You can get extensions on take home assignments, permission to miss class. You can get social anxiety disorder. If you say you have that, you can get a note. So you're not called on in class. And then some get housing accommodations, including single rooms, and a

emotional support animals. One administrator told me, writes the author, that a student at a public college in California had permission to bring their mother to class. This became a problem because the mom turned out to be an enthusiastic class participant. This is deeply wrong. And we've all seen it. As you're reading that and all the stats, and there are all these universities you're talking about, it's occurring to me the real, I mean, this is something we've talked about a bit before, but with this story, the real problem here is the college admission process. It's so screwed up. And the parents. Well, it's the parents fault and

the university because the parents gear everything around the wrong goal. We're supposed to be preparing these kids for life. So offering these little cheat codes to get a better grade to get into the college is not preparing you for life. It's preparing you to get into the college that makes the parent feel good, like junior got into

an ivy or whatever it is. And it's ruined, not only academics, it's ruined athletics because that's the same thing too. Athletics used to be about teaching practice equals improvement. and teamwork and all of these values that you get from sports. And in addition to just sort of having a rounded youth. Having a rounded youth, that's like the way to get into college in the 70s and 80s. Now you're not rounded.

You have to be a specialist in one thing. You have to be the best violinist or the best chess player so you can get into Yale or whatever. Well-rounded is not valued at all. And it's the same with these academics. If someone's like struggling on their SAT or on their math test, if they don't actually have a problem giving them an extra hour to take it so they can get a little bit better grades, so they can get to a little bit better college,

is backward. You should be teaching them. How are you going to survive in the world? Right. When you get out into the law firm or the investment bank or whatever you wind up doing, they're not going to give you extra time

into the test. You've got to perform. Someone's there. The client needs this result by 5 p.m., period. But no one is, no longer is anyone chasing a goal for their kids of how am I going to prepare this person for life? How are they going to be strong

and self-sufficient, provide for themselves? It's all geared around. a college application for an Ivy League school. Yes, as if that degree is your make-a-break ticket. That's why they play lacrosse 500 hours a month or squash or whatever it is. It's all about college. It's not about a great experience for my kid or my kid enjoying a rounded life.

It's all, we're also screwed up with all of this college stuff. It's really perverted everything. And this is so unfair because if you have a kid who just studies hard and goes into class and is ready to take the test, they get disadvantaged by this. They've got a kid with obviously equal abilities. Yeah, but has a little money, so they get a doctor's note

that says he has this problem, it's diagnosed. Right. We could all get this note very easily and use it to advance our kids' future or get extra time for our kids on their tests. This is not to disparage those who have genuine disabilities. There are that few. Those numbers in 2014 sound real to me, about 3%.

But now it's gone from three to 34. Bullshit. Those 31% are fucking faking it to get an academic advantage. And it's a disadvantage for the kids who just work hard and show up and want to color within the lines. They'll play by the rules. You just have to hope that after college, when junior with the note went to Cornell and someone else without the note went to Syracuse. What? They're going to meet in the workplace one day.

And who's going to win? Right. Excuse me. The bird and the in the in the name dog is getting to me. Well, Doug caught my illness. Sort of. Sort of. I'll explain what happened.

But let me remind me to explain that in a second. I really think when I was reading this, I was like, okay, so then when you apply to college, you don't have to put on there that you got the extra time. The colleges don't get to know. What? Yeah. You're not actually allowed to ask and you don't have to put it on there. So the colleges have no idea who took the SAT in nine hours.

So did they have to resubmit the note when they get to college for the tests there? No. No. Oh, yeah. Of course. cares. By that point, their only goal is to get hired by Goldman Sachs or what have you. But I think, like, what if we just play this out and said, there's no time limit. There's no time limit on any tests. Tests are now held, like, whatever, if you want to take your history test

at your history class, which starts at 1 p.m. And most students have to finish in 40 or 50 minutes. Whoever wants to stay for two hours can stay for two hours. Like, go ahead, all of you. You'll then have to make up the work that you missed in the classes after that. Good luck with that. Like, that's a disadvantage. That's a you thing. But, like, what if we just said to all students,

if you want the extra time, you can have it? I actually think this could help solve it because this would be like a nightmare for the teachers. They wouldn't like it. It would eventually kill itself, right, this system. And what would happen to, like, the kids with the disabilities

wouldn't much like all the other kids having all the extra time either. Yeah, but they can take 10 more hours if everyone's, yeah. I don't know. Actually, that would be good. I kind of, I'm tempted by it. But so here's what happened with Doug's illness.

As you guys know, I was sick last week. I still have a hangover on the voice, but I'm fine. But Doug got it. Obviously, he's my husband, so he got it. But yours was less bad. Yeah. And would you like to tell the people how you fought it? I claim that when I first started feeling something, you know, it starts in the throat.

So as soon as I felt something, I'm like, oh, my God. I had a couple things that were going to be hard to reschedule. I was like, I really would like not to get sick, as I now am. So I started, I cut a lemon in half, and I squeezed it into tea, and I took a sauna. Like, I've got one. Thank you, honey. Yeah, I was going to say, you need the water. And I did that basically every day for like five days.

Took a sauna and squeezed lemon into tea. Yeah. And you were taking the zikam. The zikam, yeah, which is like, I don't know, zinc is in there and some other stuff. Yeah. And you think it minimized your experience. I think I, so I did get it, but I feel like I got it. it about 10% the level you had it. You were really hurting for a while. You lost your voice,

and I never had it anywhere near what you had it. But I did have it, so. You did want to discuss it. It is amazing. The different, I don't know if this is a sex thing or what, but I do talk about it more when I'm sick, and I'm a little bit of a baby, and I want to just, like, be under the blankets and have someone tell me it's going to be all right. And meanwhile, like, you've lost your voice. you're taking steroids so you can keep your voice and I'm like you know I feel a little tickle and you're like would you shut the fuck up I said we don't have to talk about typhoid Mary over here but we definitely should not spend too much time talking about that tickle that that was very funny but I am sorry that I got you sick now that you actually have it's all worth it honey watching our

Christmas in Connecticut and yeah we actually fired that up this week for the first time in a year It's so fun. I don't know. I love everything about it. I love the way I feel when those Christmas specials are on the TV. I love, it's not even like, it's not like a great movie, you know?

No, it's just kind of weird in a few places, but it like gets the atmosphere going. Yeah, like she's kind of supposed to be married to this guy and cheating on him, whatever. She's not, though. She's not actually married to the guy.

I just love the feeling. I love the, first of all, I love the feeling of old movies, right? It's like a very cool vibe. And second of all, I love the cinematography with a sleigh ride in that movie. I love, like, all the snow outside. Reminds me of my childhood up in Syracuse, New York.

I miss snow. I miss tons of snow. Like, I miss where snow is the default, as opposed to green and brown in the winter. Well, brown and brown. And I just love this season so much. You know, like these little twinkling lights in the studio, I'd love to keep these past December. But even I, who am a diehard Christmas fan, can't do it. Because when Christmas is over, you've got to move on. Come mid-January, you're just ready for warm weather at the point. It's enough. You've got to clean it up and move on. It only comes once a year, which is why you must treasure it for the next X number of days because it comes and it goes. So what are you getting me for Christmas this year? Not telling.

We don't really do Christmas presents for each other, is the truth. Lately, it's like write a letter. Yeah, I love that. I think that's an important thing. And then I'll find a little something. One year, a couple years ago, is either my birthday or Mother's Day. I don't remember, but you gave me a beautiful letter,

which I always love. That's really what I want every year. and a little dumb pillow. It wasn't even that nice. It was from CVS. No, it was a CVS pillow, like a shamrockers. I was like, what is this? Sometimes they acquire some nice merchandise.

It doesn't go anywhere. It was cute. It was a little shamrock. It was like a statement pillow. The house has been decorated by somebody knows what he's doing. He will not approve. Yeah. It was the thought of that counts.

I really loved it. Yeah. By the way, so I know you had Elliot Ackerman on earlier this week, and you were discussing my lack of faction, which I cannot deny your observations there on my fashion. But I was bleeding edge on the quarter zip, which apparently is the thing now. Totally.

You were Black Diamond sexy before it was popular. Totally. We will find the episode with a fifth column to explain to the audience what that means, although the diehard fans at the Megan Kelly show already know about your Black Diamond sexy. And how you're the saboteur. And I was wrong.

I was wrong about it all. You were always sexy. It was just a question of... How sexy. And what it was encapsulated in. You got there. Got there in the end, babe. Here's to that.

Cheers. Love you, honey. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Don't forget to go and get Doug's new book. It's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. You guys are really going to love it, I promise. And now I will hand it over to our pal, Emily Jashinsky, who has been patiently waiting.

Thank you so much, E.J. We love you. she's hosting the mk wrap-up show on series xm 111 we'll see you tomorrow thanks for listening to the megan kelly show no BS no agenda and no fear