The Megyn Kelly Show - Trending Toward Trump, and Biden Says "Lock Him Up," with Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer, Dan Turrentine, and Dave McCormick | Ep. 924
Episode Date: October 23, 2024Megyn Kelly is joined by Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer, and Dan Turrentine, hosts of The Morning Meeting on 2Way, to discuss how the GOP is doing well in early voting and what that could mean for the ove...rall election, how this cycle compares to past elections and what lessons we can take, how early voting in Nevada can signal serious danger for Harris, The Atlantic's latest article taking aim at Donald Trump, John Kelly's new media tour speaking out against Trump, whether these kinds of stories matter to undecideds, why so many people who served in the Trump administration hate him, Kamala's recent NBC interview with Hallie Jackson, critiquing Jackson's questions about identity issues and whether this approach overshadows substantive policy discussions, the way abortion and trans ideology was framed in the interview, about Biden saying "lock him up" about Trump, Kamala's awkward stumbles when she was asked about Biden's cognitive decline, CNN's Abby Phillip shutting down discussion about the allegations against Doug Emhoff, the hypocrisy of the media to ignore this story but discuss other similar ones, and more. Then Dave McCormick, GOP senate candidate from Pennsylvania, joins to talk about the trends that are helping him potentially pull off the upset over Sen. Bob Casey, how his positions are resonating with those in Pennsylvania, Casey's negative campaigning, the trajectory of Trump's appeal in Pennsylvania, and more.Halperin- https://www.youtube.com/@2WayTVAppSpicer- https://www.youtube.com/@SeanMSpicerTurrentine- https://x.com/danturrentineMcCormick- https://www.davemccormickpa.com/Cozy Earth: https://www.CozyEarth/MEGYN.com | code MEGYNJase Medical: https://Jase.com and entering promo code MK at checkout Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon east.
Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show. We are in the homestretch now
of the 2024 election and like any election, um, but particularly one as wild as this one has been,
we should expect surprises, right?
We're going to get, I don't know what they'll be, but we're going to get them. We do every October, but will they matter? Can they matter in this race? Early voting is underway in record numbers,
even for the GOP this time around. And Vice President Kamala Harris's media tour
continues, this time with an NBC interview last night and a CNN town hall tomorrow.
Later today, we're going to be joined by Dave McCormick.
He's running for U.S. Senate in the crucial state of Pennsylvania.
He's running against the incumbent, Bob Casey, who had been favored to win this all along. But McCormick is tightening that race up and how
in the final weeks of this campaign and has a real shot at possibly taking another seat.
You know, the Republicans are accurately deducing that they're going to get West Virginia. It now
looks like a lock in Montana. So if they hold on to all the seats that they already have and take those two, they'll be in control. But they'd love to have some cushion because let me
tell you, two years from now, the map looks a lot worse for them. And they could lose maybe
Nebraska. They're saying probably not now, but they could. So they'd really want to keep the
numbers high by winning an additional state like Pennsylvania, which would
give them firm control in the Senate, 51-49. It's the other way around right now. Okay, first,
though, joining me to kick off the show, the three hosts of The Morning Meeting, a fast-growing
interactive show on the Two-Way YouTube channel, which was officially launched today, even though
I've seen it before today, but it's the official launch
today. Mark Halperin is editor-in-chief of Two-Way. Sean Spicer is a former White House
press secretary and host of The Sean Spicer Show. And Dan Turrentine is a former Democratic
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Cozy Earth from the Megan Kelly Show. Guys, welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having us. Okay, Megan.
Okay. So Mark, let's kick it off with you yesterday making news on two fronts.
One, you said if things keep going this way in terms of the mail-in vote, the early mail-in vote, I guess mail-in and early voting,
then we will likely know before Election Day who has won, suggesting it would be Donald Trump.
So what are you saying?
Why?
Where do you get that from?
Well, make sure you put the IF in all caps, because this was not like total theoretical
hypothetical.
But the point is, Republicans are off to a surprisingly good start in the view of Democrats,
independent analysts, and Republicans in how they're competing in the early early vote
mail-in and in-person drop box all that kind of voting the the the likelihood is Democrats argue
that things will even out that their lead will not be as big in the early vote as it was in 2020
but it would be big enough to withstand what everyone expects will be a superior performance
on election Day by the
Republicans. This is not the way it's been since time immemorial. But for the last few cycles,
Republicans have swarmed to the polls on Election Day. And the question is, do they have big enough
advantage on Election Day to offset the early vote? This year, because Republicans so far,
so far, are doing better on early vote. Some people believe that if the trajectory continues,
this would lead to an election day where the Democrats couldn't catch up.
I'm saying on this trajectory, it's not a prediction. It's not rooting for Trump.
And I don't think it's particularly controversial. The big question is, we've discussed in the
morning meeting all the time, is who's voting early?
Is it Republicans who otherwise wouldn't vote?
Or is it Republicans who are moving their vote from Election Day to the early vote?
Either way, Democrats are hoping to do better and need to do better.
But Mark, even if it is Republicans moving their vote from Election Day to the early vote, that's a good thing for Republicans, is it not? Because it's a it's a vote in the bank.
It's not dependent on weather or the kids getting sick, et cetera. And it allows the
people canvassing to focus their efforts on people who have not yet cast a vote.
A hundred percent. So that's one advantage for Republicans. Another thing to look at is
the percentage of the vote in Georgia, for instance, is lower in terms of black participation
in the election than it normally is. Will it even out? Is it possible that black voters will vote
what I like to call late early? Yes, it is. But all I said yesterday was if things stay the way
they are, then Democrats are in big trouble in most of the battleground states where we have early
voting data. You know, Megan, I spent two elections. It was a reaction to the extraordinarily
high numbers for Republicans on the early vote that we haven't seen. I get it. Go ahead, Sean.
I was going to say, I spent two presidential cycles at the RNC having to make excuses why
we weren't doing as well in early vote, right, that we were going to vote on election day,
that the other side, the Democrats were cannibalizing their election day voters and
just getting to vote early. I now know what it's like to be on the other side watching Democrats
use the excuses that I used for two cycles. The fact of the matter is Republicans have never
done well in modern history with these kind of numbers. You look at Nevada, for example,
both Clark County,
where Vegas is, and Washoe County, where Reno is, we're crushing it. Never mind the rural counties
where we traditionally do better. They're in big trouble. Republicans are up 12,000 votes in the
early vote in Nevada. That was the one state, the one state where I was really nervous was Nevada,
and not so anymore. This is great news for Republicans.
And to your point, Megan, there are some estimates that to get to contact a voter early on is about
12 bucks. If you have to keep pursuing them, it costs on average about 100 bucks. So the earlier
that a voter votes on the Republican side, we save about eighty eight dollars. That's money that can
be used to go after what we call low propensity voters,
people who only vote in one of four or two of four elections. Plus, you've got to get these
people who just registered out, which we're seeing really good numbers on in voter registration in
places like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona. So for Republicans, this is like the kid that was
getting an F suddenly getting a B plus or an A minus.
You're ecstatic as a parent. Dan, how are Democrats seeing this early voting data?
We'd rather be Sean Spicer right now than then. No one ever said that, Dan.
Look, I think Democrats are nervous. I mean, Megan, you said it, whether it's a new voter, a preexisting voter, we'd rather have them in the bank, in the in the column than not.
And what is concerning is that, you know, traditionally, the Democrats run up the score in the urban areas.
And so far, what we're seeing is urban turnout is low. And we've talked about it on the morning meeting. We've talked about it when we visited with you. Who's not turning up right now? Young voters, people of
color, young black men, Latinos in Nevada, as Sean was just saying. And so it's not that they won't
turn out, but it's you know, we would rather be in, you know, have the shoe on the other foot.
The good news, if there is some for Democrats,
is women are turning out at a much higher rate right now than men. The gender gap being what it
is. I think Democrats feel like they're going to do well with women and also the people running
the Harris campaign, David Plouffe, General Malley, Dillon. They ran Obama's 2012 campaign.
They are the best at getting out the vote.
And so I think the hope for Democrats, and it really is hope right now, is that while we may be struggling today, ultimately by the evening of November 5th, you know, our
voters will come home and turn out.
All right, stand by, because I want to talk about that more, but I got to go back to Mark
on his second piece of news last night.
So there I am getting ready to go to bed.
And I see everybody's adding me saying Mark Halperin says that he's been shopped a story within the last week that is about Donald Trump, that if true, would end Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
And everybody's like, what is it?
What is that? What is it?
Some people are mad at you for saying such a thing, you know, without backing it up. Um, and then everybody added me saying
it had already been quote debunked though. I hadn't seen you actually say what the story was.
So why did you say that without revealing what the story is in a way that could potentially harm Trump by just the looming,
I've got something terrible about him, but I'm not going to tell you what it is.
I contain multitudes. I'm an old fashioned journalist and I'm newfangled. Old fashioned.
I'm not putting this story out there that I haven't checked out. Newfangled transparency.
The point I was making was keying off of the Atlantic story by Jeffrey
Goldberg, making all these accusations against Donald Trump that I find very difficult to
adjudicate. But my point is this, go back to 2000. George W. Bush had been the son of a president.
He'd run for governor of Texas twice, and it had never come out that he had a DWI. And it came out
in the waning days of the 2000 campaign, leaked to Fox News by the
Gore campaign. And my point was, stuff is being shopped out there. It's being shopped to the New
York Times, being shopped to me, to the Daily Mail, to the New York Post, to the Daily Caller.
People who have a desire to affect the race with an October surprise through some packaged
opposition research are putting stuff out. The thing that came to me, I don't think it's true. Pretty sure it's not, but I'm certainly not
going to put it out there unvetted. And my evaluation is it's not worth my time to vet it
anymore. I'm pretty sure it's not true. And my point is seen it in the press yet. Like people
are speculating that it did drop in one way, shape or form yesterday or in the past couple of days. Has it?
I will have nothing to say about what it is.
And I don't have the best poker face, so I might have to hold this towel in front of me if you start to guess.
Well, you can't tell me whether you've seen it already in the press.
No, I'm not.
I'm not going to discuss the content of it.
My point is I was trying to fill people, my viewers in on this reality. Now you're thinking
about an October surprise and people talk about Israel or Martian invasion, whatever it is. The
most likely October surprise, if you look at history, is one of these things. And we saw
Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic launch one yesterday, I think to minimum effect for a
variety of reasons that probably everybody knows. What is surprising about the Jeffrey Goldberg piece, Sean Spicer?
So the audience knows Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic,
who's got a terrible history as a reporter.
I mean, just go watch Glenn Greenwald today.
Go watch Glenn's Twitter feed,
and he'll explain to you all the background of Jeffrey Goldberg.
He has dropped more stuff about John Kelly thinking Trump is Hitler, admires Hitler,
wants to be like Hitler, wants the generals to be like Hitler in specific. We've heard all that.
We, we know all of that. John Kelly's been jumping up and down ever since Trump fired him
trying to tell us that. So other than now there's audio,
like what is the surprise of the Atlantic piece? Nothing. And I think that's, you know, if you're a
Trump hater and you were never going to vote for Trump, you're like, oh my gosh, he's exactly the
person I thought he was because Jeffrey Goldberg has this story about, uh, this soldier that, that,
um, this family that had to deal with a funeral, et cetera, et cetera,
that's somehow novel and is being denied. There's nothing new. I mean, that's the bottom line is
that Goldberg is basically going to the well and saying, I don't like the trajectory of this race.
What can I throw out at Trump right now to get people more fired up? But I don't, as Mark said,
it's, you know, a lot of it is not credible. It's not verifiable. And there's plenty of people who are debunking it. And there's nothing in that
story that I, I think anybody's going, God, that's new. Um, so I mean, I think it's all in the eye
of the beholder at this point, if you hate Trump, it's one more piece of evidence why I don't like
the guy. But if you've seen the movie, this is sort of like scream eight. Like you have a feeling that, you know, goat's face is going to go after them at
the end. It's, it's, it's so predictable what's happening. The other piece of it is the John
Kelly thing. John Kelly also was on CNN and he spoke to the New York times. We've got the audio
of his claims, which I mean, I've heard them. I've heard these claims many times. I think only
leftists think now adding his audio or his face to it, Dan, is going to change things for people.
This has all been baked in the cake. The second piece of the story is that Trump allegedly
offered to help with the funeral expenses for this military family.
And then when he was allegedly billed $60,000 for the funeral expenses, said something like
it doesn't cost $60,000 to bury an effing Mexican. And he and his people have denied it.
The family is still standing by Trump and doesn't they're
taking issue with this reporting. Look, I just you tell me, Dan, what is the Democrat thinking
behind this is going to do it like for the people who can't pay their rent, their electricity bills,
their grocery bill, this language, even if true, John Kelly's opinion that he wants
generals like Hitler, if true, is going to do it. I don't think it will. I think it's great
cocktail chatter. It's gossipy. It's salacious. You know, I don't think anyone who's reading
either The Atlantic or The New York Times at this point doesn't know who they're voting for.
To me, where I think the Harris campaign is starting
to focus, and I think it is worthy of discussion, is it is unprecedented, whether in a presidential
or gubernatorial or a Senate race, for so many senior people who served a leader to speak out
against him or her. That, to me, is much better terrain for the party, and I think worthy of someone to
consider in their vote. But all of this, look, Trump has a potty mouth, and he says wild and
crazy things. To your point, I believe this is well baked into the cake, and it's not going to
move somebody in suburban Philadelphia or Milwaukee at this point. Megan, can I make one quick point that Dan's,
what is unbelievable, and I never,
I am always reluctant to give the Democrats any advice,
especially this close to an election.
But to Dan's point, the strategy,
sometimes you want to jump through the screen
and say like, you guys have so missed the mark, right?
When she does these interviews,
like the one she did yesterday was asked,
what would you do differently?
Or what's one policy that you would change? And her answer is, well, I don't want to criticize seen this many people this close to a president not want to support him?
They can't even do the basics on the messaging.
And I scratched my head over and over again saying, why do you guys not get this?
Megan, I'll get you to me.
And I do want to just add this because in defense of President Trump, Mark Meadows, he tweeted out the following on X.
I was in the discussions featured in The Atlantic's latest hit piece against President Trump, Mark Meadows. He tweeted out the following on X. I was in the discussions
featured in The Atlantic's latest hit piece against President Trump. Let me say this.
Any suggestion that President Trump disparaged Mrs. Guyen or refused to pay for her funeral
expenses is absolutely false. He was nothing but kind, gracious, and wanted to make sure that the
military and the U.S. government did right by Vanessa and her family. Go ahead, Mark.
There are two things that run parallel. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens
believe that Donald Trump is morally unfit and disqualified from serving as commander-in-chief
because of the mindset and the conduct that the Atlantic article purports to illustrate.
Parallel to that, the vice president has decided that her closing argument is not i will help middle-class families achieve their economic and other dreams but rather
donald trump is a bad guy whose character disqualifies him from serving for president
that's the liz cheney argument it's what donald it's what brock obama has focused on it's what
a lot of their advertising is about now that's where where their focus is. And the power of the Atlantic piece is simply that in one news cycle or maybe two,
that's what the dominant media is leading with. Is that going to persuade undecided voters?
Maybe. Is it going to inspire the base? Definitely. And they've got to do both right now. So I think
I think it's a mistake from Democrats I've talked to who are very skeptical.
This is the message Joe Biden ran on. It didn't work for him. For whatever reason, they've turned
to this as their message. And so if you're running this campaign in particular, the Harris campaign
really likes to play off what's in the news. So they spent two days attacking Donald Trump for
going to McDonald's. They want things in the news that speak to Donald Trump's character.
And that's why the Atlantic story, suspiciously timed for two weeks before Election Day,
gives them 24 hours to talk about that, dovetailing earned media with their chosen
message. That's why it matters. One day with two weeks to go, they get to dominate the news with
this thing. Well, and what's interesting for them to keep that McDonald's story running,
though, such a good story for Trump. The smart political move is ignore it,
ignore it, ignore it, move on. I don't want to reinforce that great image for him. Go ahead, Dan.
Yeah. Well, what's interesting, too, is the Democrats research both the campaigns and
an outside group supportive of the campaign have really shown that when surrogates make the attacks against Trump, they fall flat.
The only thing that apparently moves the needle is when Republicans themselves speak out.
So unless John Kelly and all of these people are going to show up at rallies and look into the
camera and really detail this, there is no qualitative or quantitative data that this
moves votes. And that's frustrating. Hey, Megan, since you name checked McDonald's, can I make one quick point on this? Because it's
blowing my, the idea that a Saturday visit for like 20 minutes to McDonald's is still blowing
minds on the left. McDonald's put out a statement, which is awesome because you have people like
Garrett Haik and Hallie Jackson and NBC News using the phrase, Trump without evidence falsely
claimed she worked at McDonald's.
This is McDonald's statement. Though we are not a political brand, we've been proud to hear former
President Trump's love for McDonald's and Vice President Harris fond memories of working under
the arches. While we and our franchises don't have records for all positions dating back,
like they can't even corroborate that she worked there. And that
doesn't, I mean, this, this, they, they've now piled on and I know that McDonald's trying to
get out of it, but like this story, which should have just been left by the left, they've dug
themselves into a deeper and deeper hole to the point where McDonald's has to put out a statement
saying we have no record of her working here. Right. I, why would you do such a thing? But now here's this. So John Kelly
doing the media tour, trying to own the cycle. I get it. And I get that he hates Trump.
He was fired. I mean, I'm not trying to impugn his ethics, but he was fired. And so one doesn't
know exactly what went down between the two of them behind closed doors. Clearly, Trump doesn't
like him. Trump's made very disparaging statements about John Kelly, who served his country honorably in the military
and his son died serving our country. So we respect that and honor it. Here is in part what
John Kelly told the New York Times. This is audio on the Hitler point. This one's for you, Sean.
Thanks. He would, uh, he comments more than once that, you know, that Hitler
did some good things, too. And of course,
if you know history,
again, I think
he's lacking in that.
But if you know what his, you know, Hitler was all
about, it'd be
pretty hard to make an argument that he did anything
good. So what would you say
when he said to you that Hitler did a lot
of good things? Well, I tell him that. I said, first of all, you should never say that.
But if you knew what Hitler was all about from
the beginning to the end, everything he did
was in support of his racist, fascist
life
philosophy,
so that nothing he did you could argue was good.
It was certainly not done for the right reason.
And, but he would occasionally say that.
What would he say when you would lay that out to him?
He'd just, you know, that'd be the end of the conversation usually.
He goes on to say, Sean, that Trump's, it seems like Trump's raising, if he did,
the issue of Hitler was because Trump had admiration for how Hitler's generals
did as they were instructed, that he wanted compliant generals doing what he wanted them to do.
And that Kelly was informing him that
members of the military, members of the administration took an oath to defend the
Constitution, not to do just whatever the president tells them to do, because then he
gets into how he told Trump some of Hitler's generals tried to kill him. Actually, they
weren't that loyal. Tom Cruise made a whole movie out of it called Valkyrie.
That's true. But for the most part, they did do what Hitler wanted them to do,
which is it's become a famous meme about how they say the best general that the allied forces had
was Hitler because he was so backwards in his strategy and his approach. And most of the generals did do
what he wanted them to do, which is why they lost because he wasn't a great military strategist.
Anyway, this is just back of the envelope stuff on, you know, historical Hitler facts.
But I'm just trying to give the context. It seems like this came up, if at all,
in Trump's frustration that his generals were not doing as he wanted them to do.
It's true as a principle that they take an oath to the Constitution. But can you please explain
for us why so many people in the Trump administration have turned on him? You were
you were there. Why does John Kelly hate him so much? Why? Why have all these guys turned on?
It's an interesting question. I think there are
some unique circumstances regarding some of these cases, why certain individuals, they were fired
in some cases, their advice wasn't taken, they were undermined by somebody else.
You know, the one thing, and we talked about this in the morning meeting that I think is fascinating,
there were several instances during my tenure where there'd be a story, whether it's
Politico or the New York Times or what have you, where they'd say, you know, in a meeting that
occurred, this and this happened. And the four people in the meeting all agreed that that never
happened, that never was discussed. I'm not trying to impugn General Kelly's integrity or his comments,
but I'm just saying that I always find it fascinating the stories that occurred during my tenure that never occurred, that had five sources, none of which were in the room that got printed.
Let me just add something on that. But then I want to and spoke on camera and on audio is he's most disturbed that Trump is talking about unleashing the military on the American
people. And that is not what Trump said. What Trump said was that we have a great enemy within
people like Adam Schiff, who he thinks are undermining democracy and who's an enemy of Trump's. And he said when asked by Maria Bartiromo about Joe Biden's prediction that there could be
chaos on Election Day by Trump voters, Trump responded, no, there won't be, not by Trump
voters. And she said, well, what would you do if there were rioting on Election Day? That's what
she's asking him. And he's saying, I'm not going to allow that.
I would unleash the National Guard and if necessary, the military. It's the Tom Cotton
piece in response to the BLM riots. But my point is not to rehabilitate Trump on that.
It's to say John Kelly appears to have an understanding of Trump's statements that is
akin to something you might
find if you watched MSNBC all day, which makes me not trust him or his lens through which he
receives information when it comes to Donald J. Trump. Go ahead, Sean. No, I think the context
that you just provided is super important, right? Because you did what the media won't. They just
were playing his clip. She asked him specifically what you just
said, which is how would you respond if the following happened? Now, remember, just to keep
this in context, Trump was criticized for not immediately calling the National Guard on January
6th, according to the Democrats. Right. So they want him to use it at certain points. They don't
want him to use it at others. Trump was very clearly responding to Maria Bartiromo's question about what he would do. I said all that. Get back to my my hard question,
which is why are there so many administrative administration officials who hate him,
have quit and are leaking to the press about how bad he was?
Again, as I said, I think some of them just have a personal animus towards him because of how they
personally were treated or the advice that they were given. I watched it constantly in the Oval Office. Two
people would come in, give him two versions of a policy, and then he would choose one person.
The other person would walk out of there and say, fine, I'm going to find people to undermine your
argument. I'm going to leak it to the press. People around him have big egos. And when he said,
I mean, I watched him bring in a bunch. We were talking about Afghanistan policy one day and he said,
I want 10 enlisted soldiers to come in that have served in Afghanistan. And he sat around a table
and said, tell me about your experience. And it pissed a lot of people off that he wasn't taking
the advice of the more senior people and asking the actual enlisted folks, tell me what your
experience has been. Did you understand the mission? Are we winning? Are we moving forward? Were you getting the
equipment and the tools that you needed? They hated that. They hated the fact that they came
in, gave their PowerPoint presentation, and they were being undermined by a guy who didn't just
sign off on it with a blank check. So I think Washington is full of a lot of guys with a lot
of big egos that don't like the fact
that when they come into a room, everyone doesn't just say, oh, great idea. Let's move forward.
Some of them didn't like that. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of people. I watched it all the
time and Trump would blow up and say, we're not just doing the same thing over and over again.
And I think for people who are used to the system that said, oh, well, this is the way it's always been. They were pissed.
I mean, to me, this plays into, Mark, something that many people in the GOP base and frankly beyond who are sick of the forever wars admire in Trump, which is he did not bend the knee to
the generals who we now we would later learn couldn't stand Trump, that he they do tend to be like the
surgeons. You know, the surgeon wants to cut. The general wants to go to war. And Trump is much more
of a pacifist. I mean, he's not fully, you know, a peacenik, but he's much more of a pacifist than
the neocons of the Republican Party of old, who absolutely like Dick Cheney would have said to the generals,
how can we extend wars and continue them? That's really kind of unkind about Dick Cheney,
but it's kind of right. And this, I'm just looking at this story like this kind of makes sense to me that Trump would be frustrated with these generals. As Sean said, he would have brought
in enlisted folks who actually fought and gotten their perspective to the great frustration of people, even like John Kelly. And we're what we're watching play out in the media
right now is that dynamic and not Trump wanting to be like Adolf Hitler. So I'm very ambivalent,
nuanced view of this. I as a human being and as a journalist, I find it hard to side with either
side. I find I find it incredible that Trump would say the things. I find it incredible he'd lie about
it. I find it incredible they would lie about it. But something's got to give, even accounting for
mushy middle, Rashomon, sort of different memories. Here's a fact. People in the military,
we honor their service. People in the intelligence community honor their service.
What's also true about them, they're liars, they're leakers, and they're bureaucratic infighters. And those instincts
come out when they're going against Donald Trump because they don't like Donald Trump,
and he threatens them. I'm not siding with them. I'm not saying they're all liars, leakers,
and bureaucratic infighters, but a lot of them are. The 51 intelligence officers who signed the
letter about Hunter Biden's laptop, that characterizes them in that action.
And so I think figuring out this for history, let alone in the next two weeks, it's going to be a big challenge because the motives and the and the interests of this group are adverse to Donald Trump.
There's no doubt that the people who are telling stories about what they say he said, they don't want him to be president. So they have the motive to do what they can to stop him,
to take their credibility and to say things to stop him. Does that mean they're lying?
Absolutely not. Is it possible they're lying? Absolutely.
Well, meantime, Kamala Harris, Dan, continues her just ill-fated media tour. It isn't getting any better.
Last night, she sat down with Hallie Jackson of NBC.
And while Hallie Jackson did her level best to try to help Kamala Harris with the line of questioning, she couldn't.
There was no new position taken that would possibly change her trajectory in this race.
I will give Kamala Harris one kudos. And that is,
even though Holly Jackson tried three times to make her talk about being a woman and identity
and how much it mattered, Kamala Harris did not do it. And that's exactly the right move.
That was smart. And I give her kudos for not doing, I mean, it was just pathetic though, how obvious Hallie Jackson was like in trying to get her. So I'll give the audience a sense of
how this went. Okay. She comes out with, uh, the economy, the cost of living. That's what's really
upsetting people in this race that more voters think the Biden policies have hurt rather than
help them are the last four years, obstacle. That's a fine opening question.
And Kamala Harris did fine. She said, this won't be a continuation of the Biden administration.
I have my own experiences. She talked about groceries being too high, price gouging,
cost of housing, her $25,000 down payment. She was on message here with her same three things
she always says, nothing new. If you don't want to buy a new home for the first time, if you're already a homeowner,
if you don't have a child that was born this year, and if you don't think that her price
gouging plan is going to lower your groceries, you're not going to be helped by what she
said.
Then, okay, why is it not landing with voters?
In fact, it's the opposite.
Trump leads you on this issue.
Fine. She goes on with banal stuff about how well I've got to earn their vote.
But I'm focused on the middle class and he's focused on the billionaires. That's generic
Democrat stuff. Hallie Jackson, the last time when you were running for president in 2019,
the you said the elephant in the room was whether the country was ready for a woman and a woman of
color to be president. Do you think we're ready? Kamala says, absolutely. We're ready.
And then she moves on past that. And she goes on to give her a whole, she's been saying this over
and over. I started as a prosecutor. I never asked a victim of a crime, a witness to a crime. Are you
a Republican or a Democrat? Can I just say a minute on that? No prosecutor would ever ask anybody involved in a crime that question.
You would be kicked out of office that day. Obviously, a victim of a crime's politics are
entirely irrelevant, and that would be so far beyond the pale. I don't know why she wants us
to give her credit for not asking that question. It doesn't show that she's nonpartisan. Okay.
Then she goes back again, Hallie Jackson, you've been reluctant to lean in to talk about the historic nature of
your candidacy. Why? And to her credit, she doesn't do it again. She says, I'm clearly a woman.
There's no need to point it out. The point most people care about is can you do the job?
Then she goes back to, and I kid you not, what we're doing is addressing
people's concerns, challenges, their dreams, their ambitions, their aspirations. Dan,
then Hallie Jackson goes again. Again, she says there's a big gender gap in this race.
Fewer men support you than they did Biden. Some of your allies have suggested there's sexism at play. Do you think
there's sexism? She can't get off of it. Dan, what is what's happening here? Is this that
important to Democrat voters that Kamala Harris played the identity card?
Yeah, I was really taken aback that she kept going back at it because throughout this
short campaign, I to your point, Harris has been really
good about not focusing on that saying I have to earn it. You know, the country is not going to
look at whether I'm a woman or a black, they're going to look at whether I'm qualified. And it
was surprising that Hallie Jackson kind of kept trying to get her to open up about that. But,
you know, as Kamala Harris likes to brag, she has good message discipline. And she did so in that instance when when pressed.
OK, but follow up to you, Dan. So, by the way, the next question by Hallie Jackson,
do you not see sexism as a factor in this race at all? My God, which G. Hallie, do you?
Is it possible you see that as a I mean, my God. Okay. So four questions on
the gender thing is absurd, but here's what's interesting, Dan. She did this the other day too,
out in, I think it was Pennsylvania when Peter Alexander was questioning her of NBC. Now,
Hallie Jackson has asked this sexism question and Kamala Harris does this again. She says, you've come to my events. You will see
there are men and women at these. OK, good thing there is an other. Yep, right. She says,
so the experience that I am having is one in which it is clear that regardless of someone's gender,
they want to know that their president has a plan to do the following great things.
So I don't understand this either, Dan. I think the answer that any Democrat would say,
I think, would be, yes, there is a gender gap in this race. And women are heavily favoring me,
and some more men are favoring my opponent.
And I've got to earn the votes of those men.
And here's why I think they should vote for me.
You know, like they would.
Why won't she own what everybody knows is the case about this election?
Yeah.
You know, sometimes Trump's real bluntness is his beauty, right?
He's like, I'll be great for women.
I mean, he just kind of blurts it out.
And then, you know, he goes on to talk about it. And, you know, this has been an issue. I mean,
we talked about it when we were on last when Barack Obama was like, the reason black men
aren't voting for Kamala Harris is she's a woman, which was just incredibly patronizing. I, I, I,
I don't know, you know, why she won't just admit it, why she won't kind of try to turn on it. But, you know, her message discipline has been very intense.
She has stuck to her kind of narrow set of talking points to the point where I think she's offended some voters.
I hope they haven't thrown their hands up and locked in for Trump.
But it is something you see.
You know, we hear it on our show. You see it in the data, both the campaigns and what's out there publicly, that there is frustration that she is so scripted and so tight in her answers.
And I think some of her best moments on the campaign have been when she's leaned forward and had passion and energy and kind of gotten off the talking points, which really the one issue where we see that is when it's anti-Trump. Like you can tell she dislikes the guy so much. It really probably is
the animating reason why she's running. I think if you ask the average voter, why does Kamala Harris
want to be president? She just hates Trump. I don't know if that's going to be successful or
not, but it's the only place that she kind of lets the guard down, lets the hair down and really
shows who she is and how she feels.
And voters like that's right. What they love about Trump.
OK, then we get five count on five. We had four sexism questions.
Now we have five questions on abortion. Five. This is like, OK.
And by the way, the questions made no sense either. She's like reproductive rights,
abortion access, what specific, and then she says, if you win, it's possible Congress will
be controlled by Republicans. So what specific concessions would you be willing to make in order
to get something done on abortion access as soon as possible? So here she ignores that this has
become a state's issue, right? Like what concessions to what?
Because what are we negotiating?
What has Kamala Harris,
which she wants to restore the Roe versus Wade regime,
but whether a president or the US Congress has the ability,
I mean, the constitutional authority to do that,
to regulate abortion at the national level
is very much in doubt.
Trust me as a lawyer, that is very much in doubt. So I guess the presumption is that they do and that Kamala
Harris is going to get a Roe versus Wade regime restored with the help of Congress.
I'll give Holly Jackson the facts that are not actually presented by her. What would you be
willing to do in terms of concessions to make that happen on abortion access? She doesn't answer.
And she says, again, it's a question of pragmatism. What concessions
would be on the table? Religious examples, religious exemptions, for example. Is that
something you would consider? Hallie, exemptions to what? You need to use more words to make
yourself. No one knows what the hell you are talking. I am in news and I don't know what you're talking about. Religious
exemptions to what, for whom, in what context? Kamala Harris, I don't think we should be making
concessions when we're talking about a fundamental freedom. So I think what she's saying is
Catholic doctors have to perform abortions in Catholic hospitals, period. But she's not saying
it explicitly because she wasn't asked to explicitly presumably because maybe she wanted to run cover for her and not get that detailed.
Then she says Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Hallie Jackson would back something like this
on a Democratic agenda if if Republicans took control of Congress. She says, would you offer
them an olive branch or is it off the table?
An olive branch? Like what? What are you? So we have five questions on this nonsense back and
forth that nobody can follow. It's a waste of time. And then Kamala Harris finally says, I'm
not going down this rabbit hole with you right now. I'm like, thank you. I agree with Kamala
Harris again, except for the second time in this interview. Then we switched to the trans issue
and Hallie Jackson,
not surprisingly, comes into it on the trans side. We've got multiple questions on it where
she did press her. And because Hallie wanted her to say something nice about trans people
and trans rights versus women rights that would diminish women. She comes at it multiple times.
The way she starts is, do you believe transgender Americans should have access to gender affirming
care in this country? That whole term is a non-sex, it's nonsense. There's no such thing
as gender affirming care. You don't need gender. Gender affirming care is a woman going to see an
OBGYN. It's a man at his annual physical having to turn his head and cough. That's what gender
affirming care is. The stuff that we're doing to children to cut off healthy body parts is not. Anyway, watch what happened. Very broadly speaking here. Do you
believe that transgender Americans should have access to gender affirming care in this country?
I believe we should follow the law. I mean, I think you're probably pointing to the fact that
Donald Trump's campaign has spent tens of millions of dollars. They're trying to define you on this. I'm asking you to define yourself, though. Just broadly speaking, what is your value?
Do you believe they should have that access? I believe that people, as the law states,
even on this issue about federal law, that that is a decision that doctors will make in terms of
what is medically necessary. I'm not going to put myself in the position of a doctor,
but let's also understand that Donald Trump is running tens of millions of dollars in ads
to talk about two cases to distract from the fact that his policy and plan
is also to take away the Affordable Care Act.
But I don't know that I heard a clear answer from you on the issue of gender-affirming care.
It sounds like what you're saying is there should be something between trans Americans and their doctors.
It feels like that's a long way from we see you and we love you, which was your message to trans Americans in May.
What do you want the LGBTQ plus community to know as they're looking for a full-throated backing from you for trans Americans?
I believe that all people should be treated with dignity and respect,
period, and should not be vilified for who they are and should not be bullied for who they are.
Okay. One more point, then I'm going to give it back to you guys. The correct follow-up
to that nonsense first answer is not, what do you want the LGBTQ plus community to know as they're looking for a full-throated backing from you
for trans Americans? The correct follow-up is you say that you will follow the law.
That's what you want people to know, that you will follow the law. You actively worked to change the
law when you were the attorney general of California to make sure that the
policy was changed to cover these procedures for trans individuals. They weren't. You objected.
You got the policy changed. You bragged about it to the trans community. You didn't just follow
the law. You thought the law was unjust and you worked to change it. The question is whether
you're going to do the same thing at the federal level. And beyond that, if the law mandates these procedures, which are very
controversial on the taxpayer dime, do you promise that you will work to change the law back to where
taxpayers do not have to pay for this? In case you didn't see it, here is Kamala Harris bragging
about changing the policy as California AG back in
2019 to a trans interviewer. When I was attorney general, I learned that the California Department
of Corrections, which was a client of mine, I didn't get to choose my client, that they were
standing in the way of surgery for prisoners. And there was a specific case. And when I learned
about the case, I worked behind the scenes to not only make sure that that transgender woman got
the services she was deserving. So it wasn't only about that case. I made sure that they
changed the policy in the state of California so that every transgender inmate in the prison system
would have access to the medical care that they desired and need. And I believe it was not only,
I know it was historic in California, but I believe actually it may have been one
of the first, if not the first in the country where I pushed for that policy.
There it is. She's on camera admitting it. Go ahead, Sean.
I've been in politics for 30 years doing campaigns. I've heard a lot of weasel words
and weasel phrases. This, I'm going to follow the law, takes the cake, right? The whole reason you
run for office is to change the law. Like, I think taxes are too high. I'm going to lower the rate. I'm going to vote for a change to these regulations. That's why we elect people to either change the law in
one direction or another. If your goal is just to be a caretaker, then why are you running? I'm just
going to follow the law. Well, then you're not going to do anything. That's the biggest cop out
I've ever heard in politics. She clearly doesn't want to just adhere to the law.
As you point out on myriad of other issues, she has no problem talking about how she's
flouted the law, how she's enforced the law, how she sent people to prison.
So this is the cop out of all cop outs.
If Kamala Harris loses, one of the reasons is going to be she's very liberal.
And I think, you know, whereas some
candidates would triangulate, I think she believes it. I mean, I think even on this issue, most
Americans respect an individual's privacy, whether they're gay, lesbian or transgender,
where there's not consensus and where it's controversial is stuff like men who are now
women playing women's sports, you know, the government providing surgeries
and things of that nature. And I think the reason Harris won't speak against it,
she's giving very lawyerly kind of mealy mouth answers, is she believes in, you know,
providing transgender care and other things. And there's a reason that she keeps kind of
complaining about the tens of millions of dollars of ads being run against her.
They're working. They're effective. Trump is hitting a spot where the majority of the country
currently stands. One of the great tests of a political leader is if they have an unpopular
position, whether it's unpopular within their own party or unpopular in the broader electorate,
and they're willing to defend it and they're willing to spend time and capital and their own
ability to talk saying, hey,
let me try to convince you.
If you don't agree with me, let me at least show you where I am on this.
She's chosen not to do that on almost any of these very liberal positions that she's
had, whether she repudiates them kind of in a surface way or not.
And I think, again, if she does lose, and she's right in the race, so it's not a foregone
conclusion by any means.
But if she does lose, Sean's right. This is, so it's not a foregone conclusion by any means, but if she does lose, Sean's right.
This is a battle with Weasley. An answer is you'll get.
But it's of a piece with she simply does not want to take on the hard task of saying, hey, I'm for this because it's a human right.
And let me explain why. She just wants to speak in platitudes.
She and her advisors seem to think that's the path to victory.
When I talk to undecided voters, it seems just the opposite. They find her posture towards this unforthcoming or a secret key is handling this issue, which I think they accurately
deduce as well, is hurting her. We saw Jonathan Martin piece in Politico saying the clock is
ticking on her message. Like it's not resonating and she's got precious little time left.
So what's happening? Are the media, are the Democrats starting,
you know, why are they openly expressing their frustration with her?
What's happening?
Right, so I always look for asymmetries, right?
So one asymmetry is Republicans are confident
and Democrats are not, okay?
Republicans culturally tend to be more confident,
but they're more confident based on the data that they see.
I could cite 10 things that say,
can't straw in the wind of why it looks like it's going in Trump's direction, including
Senate candidates in the battleground states embracing Trump. Very few things you can cite
about why it's going her way. What's happening is another asymmetry. If Trump loses, it's going to
be because of his personality and the country doesn't want four more years of him. There's a
hundred reasons why Democrats will cite while she lost, including gender, which is why I think Hallie Jackson was asking about it.
But another one is the wrong message expressed orally. And that, I think, is why you're seeing
Democrats panic because they think it's off track, but they think if they pressure her publicly,
there's still time to fix it. Not much. I am going to ask you about those Senate candidates
when we come back in just a minute, and we'll get to what happened with Obama on the campaign trail yesterday and
the meltdown over the Doug Emhoff allegations. Stand by, more with the guys right after this.
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A couple of things that I want to get to, um, where to begin Obama and Eminem in Detroit,
where Eminem is from, by the way, where's Kid Rock. I mean, I know he was at there,
like he's from Detroit. Why isn't this like a battle of the rappers? I want to see Kid Rock
doing like a dueling rally with Trump. He'll be back. So Obama gets out there. Eminem
introduces him and Obama gets out there and does this in SOP 14.
You know, I have done a lot of rallies,
so I don't usually get nervous.
But I was feeling some kind of way
following Eminem.
And I noticed
my palms are sweaty,
knees weak,
arms are heavy,
vomit on my sweater already, mom's spaghetti.
I'm nervous, but on the surface, I look calm and ready to drop bombs, but I keep bomb forgetting.
Dan, do you get a little single tear when you watch that person?
I do. It's great to see someone let their hair down, have a little fun tear when you watch that person. I do. It's great yet to see someone let their hair
down, have a little fun up there, you know, just like when Trump's dancing on the stage. I think
it's great. I love it when candidates do this. The problem is he's not he's not the candidate.
That's the problem. Like it almost just embarrasses by contrast. He clearly, he's an extrovert. He is fed by the crowd. He
loves it. He comes alive. That same for Trump. That is not true for her. She is afraid. It's
almost a little dangerous to have the surrogates be that good.
Yes. I mean, look, it's one of the things that I've thought here this whole time,
which is the more interviews that Harris does, the more rallies she gets, the more comfortable you get, the more you're likely to get a moment like that where you're just kind of feeling it.
You're in the groove and you're kind of willing to be an entertainer a little bit.
And yes, to your point, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, it's unbelievable.
It's so natural.
And they look like they're having fun doing it.
OK.
He also spoke with Tim Walz at a rally in Wisconsin.
Former President Obama did and said one of the most clue.
I mean, I think every Republican or right of center person on Earth did one of these like, oh, my God, with a with a forehead into the palm.
Take a listen to SOT17. I don't understand how we got so toxic and just so divided and so bitter.
And I get why sometimes people just don't want to pay attention to it.
And we all have friends like that.
We have family members who are just like, ah, you know, it's all a circus out there.
I get that.
Honestly, like to me, guys, that is so clueless having lived it. You know, you guys lived it,
but it's like, why don't, why don't we take Obamacare? Something you've shoved down the
throats of the American people without majority support. The first major overhaul to an entitlement
ever in decades, at least without majority support. And you just said elections have consequences, John, when John McCain tried to say, this is very divisive. You're going to
take away people's doctors and health care. And you lied to us for a year about being able to
keep our doctors. That had us really divided. People were worried about dying and you lied
for a full year. You got in there, started commenting on legal cases like Trayvon Martin,
which we had never seen a U.S. president do before. You injected race into it, saying if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.
What do you think that did you? Because I remember I remember being shocked as a lawyer to see a U.S.
president comment like that on race on a case like that where you didn't know the full facts and
wound up getting them wrong. Actually, we could keep going, Sean. But Barack Obama is
amazingly given a pass for being this unifying president as he
notwithstanding his apology tour on behalf of the American people, the open door policy with Iran,
whom he was refunding. And then you get Joe Biden and Dark Brandon.
And yes, Trump was in there, too, who was very divisive. But Trump was a response to Obama.
Trump was a response to divisions that were so during that guy's presidency.
Yeah, look, I think the policies that you brought up, you know, created a lot of this, but also the personality.
I mean, Obama gets up there and just rails about Trump and Trump supporters.
How that's not unifying.
Joe Biden goes up there and says,
lock him up, right? And the response to the left was, well, Trump said it about Hillary.
Wait a second. If it was wrong for Trump, then you guys can't claim the mantle now and say,
but it's okay if our guy does it, right? So the double standard is unbelievable. But Barack Obama
loves to just chastise everyone on the right, Trump supporters, whatever, and then say, but let's get together. I don't know how we got here.
And it's like, dude, because you helped create this problem. Megan, this is literally the biggest
problem with the left. I have this conversation with folks all the time that says, we could get
together. We need to tone down the rhetoric, but here's where you're wrong. The left inherently, big tech, Hollywood, big corporate America, all of government,
academia, they love to their ideas.
If you only agreed with us more, we'd have less.
We'd have less vitriol.
It's just agree with us more.
You admit you're wrong.
Be subservient to our ideas and our way of life and our leftist policies.
And we'll all be
OK. That's not how it works. The censorship that we saw during this administration throughout the
covid lockdowns as people's businesses were being destroyed, we weren't allowed to talk about what
was really happening or doubts about vaccinating our children who were getting myocarditis,
a devastating health condition with the heart, a heart infection that leads to permanent scarring, and in some cases
has led to death, all this stuff. You can't just say, how did we get so divided? I mean,
I know that the left wants to say Trump, Hitler, Trump, Hitler, Trump, Mussolini, Trump, but that's
just, anybody who's not a committed leftist understands this has been a process and he does not have clean
hands in the process. Mark, you heard Sean reference a comment by President Biden.
He is hitting the campaign trail. Did he go to Arizona or Pennsylvania? Did he go to Michigan?
Did he go to Wisconsin? One of those critical blue wall states? He went, checks notes, to New Hampshire and a campaign office by himself and still managed to screw up the news cycle by saying the following.
This is a guy who also wants to replace every civil servant, every single one thinks he has a right under the Supreme Court ruling on immunity
to be able, if need be, if he, if it was the case, to actually eliminate, physically eliminate,
shoot, kill someone who is, he believes to be the threat to him. I mean, so I know this sounds
bizarre. It sounds like I said this five years ago, you'd lock me up.
We got to lock him up.
What?
Political lock him up.
Lock him out.
That's what we have to do.
Like he said, lock him up.
And then he tried to change it to, oh, I mean, politically, as if lock him up politically
is a thing. Megan, I'm a little bit disappointed in you that you can't recognize a brilliant
Biden imitates Dana Carvey imitating Biden. It was fantastic. It was fantastic. Hopefully this
Saturday we'll have Dana Carvey imitating Biden imitating Carvey. When Kamala Harris a few weeks ago did an event in New Hampshire,
I said to everybody in both parties, like, what's going on? Because she's spending a day
campaigning in New Hampshire. They said, oh, no, she's got a fundraiser in Boston.
She's given a national speech. It's got nothing to do with being worried about New Hampshire.
And in fact, the private data in New Hampshire shows her with a pretty substantial lead. Joe Biden back in New Hampshire yesterday.
And so there's a school of thought.
I'm not predicting Trump will win the landslide.
I'm not rooting for Trump winning the landslide.
But there's a school of thought that says Trump's going to go to Albuquerque to try to win New Mexico.
He's going to go to St. Paul to try to win Minnesota.
He's going to go to, I don't know, Richmond to try to win Virginia.
And then he's going to go to, I don't know, Richmond to try to win Virginia. And then he's going to go to New Hampshire.
And I was told yesterday, someone showed me an email saying that the Trump campaign is doing last minute hiring, paying a pretty robust sum for folks to do door knocking at the last minute.
So watch that dynamic.
Let's see.
It could be a mistake.
But again, Joe Biden went there. Now, in terms of what he said, I don't think the four of us need to review the reality of Joe Biden's cognitive decline for the last 10 years. But it's amazing that he's out there doing these events. Did it ruin her chance
of being president? No, but it's not great for the news cycle. And of course, it undermines one
of the strongest high horses
the Democrats have and feel they have in the media fields they have, which is that they're
not using loose rhetoric the way Republicans are. He tried to take it back, but it's not a great
thing to say, both both in terms of the photo op and the moment, but also as a sitting president,
he just shouldn't be saying stuff like that. And I'd say that about a president of either party.
And he is at this moment trying to lock up Trump.
I mean, he is actually trying to lock up Trump at this moment.
There are two federal prosecutions.
One is on appeal, having been dismissed by the judge in Florida, and one is still awaiting a trial date.
So it's not a good look. And interestingly, Kamala Harris has avoided mentioning the lawfare for the most part on this latter half of her campaign. I think she realized that's only helped Trump, that the American people do not like it. They don't want to hear you tout it. And apparently Biden did not get the memo. But Mark, you mentioned Biden's mental acuity. That was one question that Hallie Jackson asked Kamala Harris about,, which I appreciated and pressed her a bit on.
And here's how that went. Listen to top five. Can you say that you were honest with the American
people about what you saw in those moments with president Biden, as you were with him again and
again, repeatedly in that time? Of course, Joe Biden is an extremely accomplished, experienced, and capable in every way that anyone would want if they're president.
Have you ever seen anything like what happened at the debate night behind closed doors with him?
It was a bad debate. People have bad debates.
He is absolutely—
But that's the reason why you're here.
And he's not running for the top of the ticket.
Well, you'd have to ask him if that's the only reason why.
What do you think?
I am running for president of the United States.
Joe Biden is not.
It's a judgment question.
That's why I ask.
Can the American people trust you in these moments, even when it's maybe uncomfortable for Americans to have to level with Americans in that way?
So that's why I ask. And it sounds like what you're saying is you feel like you never saw anything like that from President Biden.
I have worked with Joe Biden, whether it hours and hours and hours over these four years, whether it be in the situation room or the Oval Office. Joe Biden is the one who was able to bring NATO together during a crisis where,
for the first time in 70 years, Europe saw and has seen war. I speak with not only sincerity,
but with a real firsthand account of watching him do this work. I have no reluctance in saying that. No, of course I don't.
Okay, Mark. So you're the one who was all over the Biden is getting forced out story.
And you, first of all, can I just tell you,
I have no doubts. He's extremely capable. Whenever the voice goes up, we know it's a tell. That's nerves. Take it from me,
Phil Houston, spy the lie. He's the human lie detector, CIA, 25 years.
It's not how someone responds when they're like, I got this. I'm fine with this question.
Extremely capable. And then when also doubling down, I have to say, I speak with sincerity. That's that's this is another line you should not use when trying to be perceived as a truth teller, Mark.
I've said before, the cover up between the people in the administration and the press is the biggest media scandal, I think, in modern American history.
And it continues to be ignored. Now, you know,
people are covering the presidential campaign, but there was no accountability of the cover-up.
There was no recognition. And I don't know exactly what her role in it was. I suspect she was not
central to the execution of the cover-up. But I find it humorous and sad when people say, what did you see behind the
scenes? She didn't need behind the scenes. She just needed to watch C-SPAN. And therefore,
the question isn't, what did you see behind the scenes? Although there may be more to that.
It may be Joe Biden didn't step aside because Nancy Pelosi said your poll numbers are bad.
He stepped aside because they told him you're not capable of coming back because of your loss of acuity.
So I think that that that is it the biggest issue in this race or should it be?
I don't think so. But for a lot of Americans, I think it's a question for her and for everyone who served in the administration.
How did you sit back and think this was okay? And of course, if she loses,
as I said, there's a hundred reasons Democrats are going to give for why she lost if she loses.
One of them would be, and will be at the top of the list for a lot of Democrats,
Joe Biden should have never run. There should have been a proper competitive Democratic nomination
fight. And the belief amongst most people in the White House, including I believe the president was
Kamala Harris would not have emerged victorious
from that nomination fight.
And so I think, again, the question is,
you were left trying to run a 90-day campaign
for the White House.
Didn't you think the country and the Democratic Party
should have moved earlier?
Now, I'll say one last thing.
She's admirably loyal.
I think loyalty is a great thing.
And she is vice president because Joe Biden chose her. And he has treated her because of in part, it's because of loyalty. And so I give her not a pass, but I understand
why she would be reluctant to be the one out there saying, moment, God, the guy's totally
lost it. I can't believe he's still president. Hey, Megan, can I just there's a weight of
leaking that. Go ahead, Sean. I want to pick up on a point that Mark made a moment ago about some
of these, you know, New Hampshire, et cetera. So I go through every Wednesday on my podcast,
the road to 270, what's changed from the week before, et cetera. The last couple of weeks,
I sort of said Nevada's the seventh state that I don't think that Trump's going to have the
hardest time winning the battleground states. That I think we talked about earlier in terms of
early vote. I believe that's solidly in Trump's camp now. I think that the
interesting thing that's going unreported right now is the shift in the dynamic, right? Coming
out of the convention when she kicked Biden out and she went in, there was this vibes and joy,
and she was riding a sugar high and people were talking about how competitive it was and could
Trump stay competitive, et cetera, et cetera. We've shifted from that to not only the battleground
states, but I talk about this tonight in the podcast, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Virginia, New Mexico,
and I think to some extent, potentially Nebraska too, are all now back in play in a way that we
wouldn't have talked about four weeks ago. Just trust me on this. I think that there is a scenario
in which Trump could actually get to 350 electoral votes. I don't think that it's possible. I'm just telling you, look at the data. Look at what's
happening in each one of these states. It went from outside the margin area. Each one of them,
each one of them is trending in Trump's direction. Does he get all four? I don't think so.
But I think that they've gone from assuming that the blue wall, Michigan, Pennsylvania,
and Wisconsin were going to be the toughest to now saying what else could we pick up? But I believe at the very least, we pick up one of those four other states that I mentioned.
He's going to go to Albuquerque. He's going to go there and he'll go to Minnesota.
He wants Minnesota in place so bad.
That I mean, unlike the best case projections on the map, when you like make it most favorable
to Trump, Minnesota remains blue. So I mean, that would be truly a power move. Dan, what do you make
of Sean's analysis? Well, I don't know if Trump is actually going to end up winning those states.
I think what's hard as a Democrat is you would hope that there would be some states that you
would be talking about for you, where maybe Trump is on having to play a little bit of defense, a little bit of rear guard.
And it's just not the case. And, you know, go to 2020, even 2016, up until Comey,
you know, at this point, the Clinton campaign was talking about maybe Arizona and some other states.
Joe Biden was beginning to talk about Georgia being like real. We may win it.
It's just at this point, you're playing defense everywhere and hoping that you can pull out 270.
Dan, how are you feeling about the Senate races? Because, you know, we've been talking about,
for example, Texas, I think, is a closer than the Republicans would like.
Florida is a little closer than Republicans would like. Nebraska is closer than Republicans would
like. I realize there than Republicans would like.
I realize there's another story on the other side as well.
You know, we can, we're actually having
Dave McCormick on in a minute from Pennsylvania.
But what, how do you see the balance
of power in the Senate going?
I think it's really a question of how far
to the Republicans does it go?
You know, there was some optimism,
I think two or three weeks ago
about Texas, Florida, and Nebraska.
It seems like the Democratic candidates have stalled now. You know, there was some optimism, I think, two or three weeks ago about Texas, Florida and Nebraska.
It seems like the Democratic candidates have stalled now.
They got to within maybe, let's say, three or four points.
And, you know, you would need now to see it maybe a two point to keep that momentum and trend line going.
Look, Democrats are nervous.
I think a month ago they did not think Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin or Elise Lotkin in Michigan were really in danger. Now they're
very much in danger. Your guest coming on soon is probably feeling pretty good right now about
where the trend lines are heading. And I think what's most concerning is this is about the time
where a candidate, if they think they're going to lose, does whatever they think is necessary to try
to turn that around. And usually that means when there's a presidential election, you try to hug the candidate that is in the lead in your state.
And my hope would be that they would all the Senate Democrats would be hugging Kamala Harris.
But what we're seeing, Bob Casey, Tammy Baldwin and others are starting to run ads that, you know,
hug Donald Trump. And those ads, that is not a kind of like off the cuff statement at a press
conference where you maybe misspoke. Those are produced. Those are booked on air. They are often
run by people in Washington, D.C., who will kind of give you their blessing a little bit.
And that tells you everything about the state of a lot of these races. Unfortunately, Mark,
you're chuckling. Why are you? Oh, yeah. Go ahead, Sean. And then I'll do. No, no, he's right. They're on defense.
Dave McCormick's going to win. I think Mike Rogers in Michigan and you look at Eric Hovde. This isn't
look at the trends in all three of those states. They have continued to move slowly and shortly
in the direction of each one of those Republicans. This isn't just a guess or a vibe.
Look at the public polling, never mind the internal
polling. All of it shifts to the right. And it's McCormick in Pennsylvania. It's it's Havdi in
Wisconsin and it's Rogers in Michigan, all flowing the same way. And the Republican side, you've got
all of those three races, Nebraska, Florida and Texas all shored up. Mark, I want to get your
thoughts. And I also want to just ask you, as I toss it to you,
many times on this show, you've said there's plenty of time. There's plenty of time.
Is there still plenty of time? At the presidential, you mean, or at Senate races?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, both. Well, well, I mean, I think Republicans will be anywhere from 52 to 56 seats at this point because there's a lot there's a lot still that could fall their way or
not. I was I was laughing about about the ads featuring Trump because of two things. First of
all, it's not it's not uncommon for someone who's trying to win over voters who like bipartisanship
to say I worked with the president of the other party. But there's two things about that in this
case. One, I don't see a lot of Republican Senate candidates saying, I worked with Joe Biden
and Kamala Harris.
It's unimaginable.
And Donald Trump is not a normal former president, right?
I mean, you wouldn't see them do an ad saying, I worked with Satan.
You know, I got stuff done with Satan.
But it's the equivalent of that.
And you go back to Chuck Schumer sitting next to Donald Trump at the Al Smith dinner.
Like, they're being forced to confront Satan. that. And you go back to Chuck Schumer sitting next to Donald Trump at the Al Smith dinner.
They're being forced to confront Satan. You think about if the war ends in Ukraine,
is the American president going to meet with Putin? It's like that for a lot of Americans.
And so I was laughing because it's a big step, which as Dan pointed out, it's not an offhand remark at a press conference or in a debate. They're producing ads like, give me a flattering
image of Donald Trump to put in my ad to show that I work with him. Is it too late? It's not. Because Kamala
Harris still has abortion, the female vote, the ground game, and Trump fatigue. Those four things
could power her to victory. As I said, I can list 12 things going on right now, episodic or trends
that are positive for Trump in terms of his chances.
I can't really list any for Harris, but those four mainstays are real.
Those are real things.
And I think I think that as long as they can keep it close and so far, with the possible exception of Arizona, I don't believe he's blown any of these states out.
And so she's in the ballgame and a combination of ground game,
October surprise and a hidden female abortion vote. She could still win and not it's not some
long shot. It's still a very real thing. The New York Times reporting today that
on the gender gap and just how strongly anti-Trump young women are in particular
and pro-Trump young men are, but saying, at least according to the
numbers they ran, the young female vote is turning out in amazing numbers. And that's something for
Kamala Harris to feel good about. Like those women are so far getting to the polls. I think the men
will get there too. I guess they're suggesting maybe not in the numbers that would equal the
women so far. I mean, you know, technically we're not at election day. Not if there's a good game on TV.
Not if there's a good game on TV they won.
Is there on a Tuesday?
I don't think, there's like football on so many days now.
Monday night football, Sunday night football,
Sunday football, Thursday.
I was talking about it.
I don't think we're good on Tuesdays.
I was talking about Xbox.
That's always on, yeah.
Okay, okay.
Last but not least.
So the Doug Emhoff accuser, the ex-girlfriend who says he slapped her across the face out
in the open in 2012.
I mean, this was months before he got together with Kamala.
This isn't 30 years ago or even, you know, 20 years ago.
So she has given, she hasn't spoken directly to the Daily Mail, but they've reported on the story with great detail and witnesses supporting her story, et cetera.
She's got more corroboration than Christine Blasey Ford had.
I will tell you that having covered both cases carefully.
The issue comes up on CNN where poor Scott Jennings does battle against everybody.
He's the lone Republican over there.
And this is what happened.
Look at the reaction.
Sot 16.
This rapper, who I fully admit sold a lot of records.
If you've read some of the things he has said about the promotion of domestic violence.
No, no, no.
He said if you're famous, you can grab him by the.
Bakari, I listened to your entire filibuster. If you could just give me
13 seconds. I give you 12 because he said grab them by the. And so, and so when you, when you
think about the things he has said in order to sell those records, and you also consider some
of the questions that are swirling around Harris's own husband in this regard. Oh my God. I find.
Okay, you don't even get 12 seconds. I find...
I'm not going to let you go
into the far end of BS.
I'm just telling you...
Scott, you can't...
Listen, I can't represent you
in the defamation case.
We're going to stop here
for a second.
I just want to talk strategy.
Yeah, I thought we were
on like a polling strategy.
I just have to say,
I'll take those concerns seriously
if you also express concerns
about the allegations,
he's been found liable for rape. Donald sexual assault. That's the same thing.
OK, so that that's also that's also true. So we're not going to litigate those other things.
But you can't you can't just pick and choose which. And I know.
No, you cannot just pick and choose. And some of us don't. Some of us report on both candidates
and the nasty things that come up against them because there's a possibility that they're true.
And some of us have a history of doing that, Abby, unlike you, who wants to sweep this under the rug. Sean, this is unbelievable to hear them say,
oh my God, it's BS. You're going to get sued for defamation. I thought we were going to talk
strategy. Let's get back to strategy. We're going to stop this. He's been found liable for rape.
Rape's the same thing as sexual assault. No, it isn't. It's a different, entirely different
cause of action and thing. And then the indignation by the CNN anchor that you just you cannot talk about the Doug Emhoff allegations if you're not going to talk about E.G. and Carol.
Show me where you talked about the Doug Emhoff allegations one time, Abby Phillips. Show me. I'll wait. Go ahead, John. I remember I'm old enough to remember when we used to believe all women. Remember that? That was a good moment in time. I guess we're past that now. But the thing that's
funny is, I mean, CNN probably spent days, if not weeks, covering the allegations against Donald
Trump. Now a credible allegation comes up against Doug Emhoff and it's we can't talk about it. You
will be sued for even mentioning this.
Like, think about this. They don't want the conversation to exist. Nevermind. If they want
to defend him, that's fine, right? That's their right and their prerogative. But to say that we
can't discuss it because it's defamatory. Now I'm no lawyer, but I believe that you spent a lot of
time talking about Donald Trump, every accusation that he's made on a whole host of
issues. But we can't talk about Doug Emhoff. I mean, and remember, by the way, this is one that
Jen Psaki on another network talked about. It's the new definition of masculinity. I don't think
there's a masculine person that would ever condone the behavior that Doug Emhoff has been accused of.
So, I mean, it is so rich for these folks to take this posture at this point.
I was talking about this with my husband, the good Doug, last night. And he was saying,
you know, he was saying, like, he doesn't even know a guy who has slapped a woman across the
face. Like, this is a hair trigger. They were out having a nice night together. The Daily Mail reports they weren't in an argument.
And he was irritated that she put her hand on the valet's shoulder to get a taxi and cold clocked her.
Dan, this is fair game for exploration and further reporting. And you and I both know that if these allegations were against anyone on Team Trump, they would be fully discussed, notwithstanding the fact that right now the accuser remains anonymous.
But she has a contemporaneous ear witness, which is more than E. Jean Carroll had.
E. Jean Carroll said she called, that's the woman they were talking about who sued Trump for sexual assault.
She said she called a friend after the fact. This woman, according to the Daily Mail, called a man within seconds of being hit
because she was afraid she was going to get hit again. That's much closer than E. Jean Carroll
had. This woman had an ear witness and other friends. E. Jean Carroll didn't have any witnesses.
Anyway, my point is, and by the way, Christine Blasey Ford had no witnesses, nothing, nobody. And how long did we spend on that?
The double standard stinks.
And I don't know.
I mean, you tell me, Dan, I realize he's not the candidate, but should we care that we
might be putting in as, quote, first gentleman, somebody who's got a hair trigger and likes
to smack his women around?
Yes, I mean, of course, if this weren't the shoe, if the shoe were on the other foot, this would absolutely be a story. And not just in a presidential race. If you were running, you know, if Bob Casey's wife was accused of some aggressive action, it would be a topic something that ultimately he will probably have to, you know, answer for.
And if nothing else, you know, I hate to say this as a Democrat, but in 2020, when we had the allegations of the Hunter Biden laptop,
you know, count me as someone who thought it was a Russian plot to disturb the election.
And we later learned that was not the case. And so to just knee jerk, say there's nothing to see here and we can't talk about this. If you're being honest, you know, yes, you would want to talk about this. Right.
It is laptop. I should point out Doug Emhoff has denied these allegations through a spokesperson,
a campaign spokesperson to the Daily Mail saying the report is false. Doug Emhoff has never and
would never hit a woman. He has not, however, produced the woman, which is exactly what
any man would do if truly innocent. He would call the ex-girlfriend and say, I'm sorry to bother
you, but could you please issue a statement saying what is true? And that would be very easy to do.
And most women would be happy to do. She's reportedly a Democrat, would be happy to come
out and say, this is daily male nonsense. He never laid a hand on me. It
hasn't happened. And I would submit that there's a reason. Mark, you were shaking your head no
a second ago when Dan was talking. Why? Just about the double standard. I mean,
you know, I wish this weren't in the Daily Mail. I don't mean to disparage them, but it gives the
the pro-democratic press a little bit of a pass. I do wonder how much the Washington Post and New York Times and others have spent investigative
bandwidth on trying to confirm it.
Same.
You know.
I know.
I know.
Yeah.
Well, no, I don't know.
I don't know.
Sean's got the big zero up.
But again, he's been out there, as you said, with Jen Psaki and other forums.
He's been out there talking about being a champion for women's rights.
And, you know, if you just take that, if you assume the Daily Mail story isn't made up,
it has, as you said, it has a lot of elements of corroboration.
And it seems like if this were a Republican, the candidate would have been asked about
it and he would have been asked about it in more detail than he's been asked himself.
He's been asked, it's been raised, and he's just dismissed it.
You know who should be investigating this the hardest?
Jen Psaki.
If that were me and I interviewed a guy and I'd gotten that wrong, and let's face it,
reporters get things wrong.
It's not like everyone's required to have a spotless record.
But when you find out that there's this allegation and that you've now run cover for this
guy, you've presented him as this ally of women, and then you find this out, I would be up day and
night using the resources of NBC to find out whether I got it wrong, whether this guy is a
turd, and whether I need to update my reporting so that I can maintain faith with my own audience. The audiences do not expect or require
100% accuracy on all stories. They expect and require honesty. And when you get it wrong,
that you say you've gotten it wrong. And I look forward to seeing what, if any, efforts at all,
Saki and NBC and the New York Times and all of these outlets have done to see whether we are about
to elevate this guy into the White House, who has an alleged history of abusing, physically
abusing women.
By the way, he would be married to the first female president.
Not for nothing.
Guys, always a pleasure.
It's it's an emotional roller coaster whenever you're on and love the show.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks, Megan.
Thank you.
OK, it's called The Morning Meeting.
You can watch it every weekday live and even participate in it on the two way YouTube channel.
Up next, Dave McCormick.
You heard his name mentioned over and over.
He is running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. be the guy to unseat the Democrat incumbent and either give Republicans the majority in
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We've been reporting on Donald Trump's momentum in the polls, but we've got to tell you about
what might be the tremors of a brewing political earthquake in the Senate race in Pennsylvania.
Bob Casey is the Democratic
incumbent. He's running for his fourth term. He's considered political royalty in the Keystone
state. His father was once the governor and his previous three Senate elections were blowouts.
But that is not looking like it's going to be the case this time around. The Cook Political
Report this week moved this race from lean Democrat to toss up due to Republican Dave McCormick's surge in the polls.
And get this, Mr. Casey, Senator Casey, is getting so desperate.
You heard the guys mentioned a moment ago.
He is pointing to his work with twice in the impeachment trials and votes with President Biden's position over 98 percent of the time, is highlighting to Pennsylvanians about the times he sided with Trump.
I'm a Republican and I'm a Democrat.
Our marriage, pure bliss.
But in politics, we just don't agree.
Except for Bob Casey.
He's independent.
That's right.
Casey's leading the effort to stop corporate greedflation and price gouging.
Casey bucked Biden to protect fracking, and he sided with Trump to end NAFTA
and put tariffs on China to stop them from cheating.
So in this house, we agree. It's Bob Casey who's doing right by Pennsylvania.
I'm Bob Casey, and I definitely approve this message.
Oh boy.
Joining me now, GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick.
Dave, welcome back.
Good to see you.
Hey Megan, how are you?
So you must be feeling good about that.
I'm feeling great about it.
I think it's a good sign that Senator Casey's polling is showing what my polling is, which is the race is closed. It's a tie or
maybe even a little more than a tie on my behalf, but the momentum is clearly on my side. And the
reason for that is that people are seeing that this is really a choice between change and the
status quo. And 75% of Pennsylvanians think the country's going in the
wrong direction. And Bob Casey's a 30-year elected office. You said he's a political dynasty. It's
true. Somebody asked me on television the other day, what about the dynasty? And I said, well,
the thing about dynasties are they all end at some point. And this guy has been weak,
you know, when Pennsylvanians need strength. and he's voted, as you've said, for increasingly liberal policies.
So in Pennsylvania, you know, this isn't this doesn't fly when he votes for all the reckless spending that's led to inflation.
He's voted for sanctuary cities against the wall, against funding for the Border Patrol. He's been part of the defund the
police movement. And and he's he's voted to have biological men be able to compete in women's
sports. So the contrast between me as a combat vet, a West Point grad, a business guy, an outsider
versus a career politician is it's resonating. And I think that's why we're seeing the movement
in the polls. What do you say to those who believe Pennsylvania is fool's gold for Republicans, that you've got two Democrats in the Senate from Pennsylvania?
You've got a Democratic governor that it's been, you know, Trump won it in 16.
But prior to that, it had been I don't know how many years.
I think it was H.W. Bush was the last Republican to win it prior to Trump in 16.
It just feels like it's always just, you know, they run and they believe and then Lucy in the football.
A little out of reach. Well, I think structurally you have to pay attention to what's happened. So
when President Trump won in 2016, there were a million more registered Democrats Democrats than Republicans. Today, as of two days ago, it's 298,000. So 700,000 movement
in registration. That's because the cities are losing Democrats who are moving out of state.
We're registering rural voters who didn't vote in the past. And many Democrats are becoming
Republicans. So structurally, the state is much more Republican.
And then we've invested a lot and there's been an enormous effort. The Trump campaign and my campaign have been very coordinated on mail-in ballots. So when you look at the numbers, Megan,
on mail-in ballots, there's been an enormous shift. The Democrats will probably still win
mail-in ballots, but it's going to be five, six, 700 hundred thousand less than they have in the past. So those two factors alone would, I think, create a very different macro environment.
Then on top of that, just the level of discontent.
You know, I think Biden, Pennsylvania may have been the one state where President Biden would have been a better candidate than Kamala Harris.
But, you know, Scranton Joe, he'd been campaigning there for 50 years, knew every union leader,
every county commissioner.
This Kamala Harris agenda, in her own words, you've heard her say it, ban fracking, legalized
illegal immigration, confiscation, mandatory buybacks of guns.
These positions may work in San Francisco.
They are completely out of touch with a Pennsylvania that's moving to the right.
And I think those are the factors that just sort of make this structurally better than it's been in the past. And then I'm running against a guy who hasn't done much. He's got the name,
but he hasn't delivered. He's become increasingly liberal. And so he's not been tested. He's got the name, but he hasn't he hasn't delivered. He's become, you know, increasingly liberal. And so he's not been tested. He's not been challenged. And I think
very few of any of his bills have ever become laws. I don't exactly know what he's been doing
other than voting with Joe Biden 98 percent of the time. I do want to say you don't have to take
Dave McCormick's word for it or Megyn Kelly's or Cook political report. Listen to Chuck Todd.
I know my audience doesn't. But listen, listen to Chuck Todd talking about this race on October 11th. It's SOT 43.
What do you think about Pennsylvania, Bob Casey? You know, this is the race that I think is if when
I look at which one, which one of these swing state Senate races can defy the presidential,
right? We have seen there's been, since the rise of Trump,
only Susan Collins has been able to break this mold
where she could win her Senate seat
while the other party won the presidential in her state.
She did that in 2020.
There was so much money for McCormick.
Casey is being outspent.
And there's something missing for Casey this time. It feels you can sometimes feel when
a candidate you think that Harris could win Pennsylvania. But Casey, I think that this I
think the Senate race has been slightly separated in that state a bit from the presidential. I think
of all the ones I think Michigan and Wisconsin can no more than one or two points from the
presidential. Pennsylvania is the only one I think differently.
Pretty interesting.
Although I will say your opponent spent just about as much.
I mean, this race is hugely expensive.
He's he's thrown a lot of money at it, too.
He spent more that that actually Chuck had that wrong.
You know, I think this summer I was outspent something like five to one. I had 50, 60 million dollars of attack ads
that came against me. And during that period, the polling closed. And I think, you know,
listen, it's hard to know what's going on in voters minds. But I think what's happened,
the negativity. I mean, this is a guy who's been in office. You're saying that the polling
deluge against you helped you. I think so. And I attribute it to two things. One,
this is a guy who has been in office for 18 years. His entire campaign is about attacking me.
So he's not running on what he's accomplished. He's running on attacks. And then second,
the ads I have done, I've put my face on the camera and I've talked about my service in the 82nd Airborne Division deploying to Iraq.
I've talked about, you know, being a wrestler in high school and college and in Pennsylvania, wrestling is a religion.
It's in the bloodstream. And I've got my, you in Pennsylvania, so I've got a family farm.
So the lies were – and the lies have proven to be – been proven to be lies by independent sources.
The Washington Post had a big article last week, which is typically not a conservative-leaning publication, that a lot – that ad that Casey ran saying that I was going to cut Social Security and Medicare was a complete fabrication.
And that's been the whole approach. Yeah, WAPO gave it four Pinocchios.
Exactly.
So I think people are like, wait a second, this dark, ominous music.
And I get up there and say, listen, these are lies.
Let me tell you about the kind of leadership we need for Pennsylvania's future.
Bob Casey's had his shot.
He just hasn't delivered.
I think people see the genuineness of that. I was looking for the goods on you. I, I,
of course I would give you a hard time. Um, as far as I can tell, anything that's holding you
back would be abortion, which is a difficult one for a lot of Republicans in swing States.
And they're saying that you're a carpetbagger because you've got a presence in
Connecticut where I am, in addition to your home in Pittsburgh, and they want to paint you as like
an outsider, kind of like a Dr. Oz type. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, yeah, but on both of those,
listen, abortion is polarizing across the country. You know, I'm someone who thinks it shouldn't be
decided by judges. I think it, I think the people should decide. And I think it's a state's rights issue. And the people in
Pennsylvania decided that we have a law, uh, that, uh, allows abortions up until 24 weeks.
And the Republicans and Democrats have voted for it. And the guy who signed it into law was a guy
named Casey, Senator Casey's father. And so, um, and so,
and you have Senator Casey who ran as a pro-life Senator 18 years ago and has signed, has voted
for legislation that would allow abortions up until, uh, up until the due date and federal
funding for them. My position is state's rights. My position is that I I'm in favor of the three
exceptions. My position is that we shouldn't
have a federal legislation or a federal mandate or ban. And listen, no, you're not going to make
everybody happy on any of these positions. As you know, I'm a father of six daughters.
And so I've spent time talking about this with them. But that's the position that I think is
common ground. And most Pennsylvanians can get their head around it.
How about the state thing?
Yeah.
Connecticut piece, you know, I've lived most of my life in Pennsylvania. I grew up in Pennsylvania.
I went to the Army for nine years.
After the Army, I went to grad school.
I came back to Pennsylvania.
I ran a company.
I helped create hundreds of jobs.
Went back into public service.
And then I did live in Connecticut for 12 years.
I ran one of the great investment firms of the world and moved permanently back to Pennsylvania
in 2021.
And I don't own a home in Connecticut or anything like that, but I do have a daughter.
I'm divorced and remarried.
My sixth daughter, my youngest, everybody else is in college or out of college, but I have one who's a senior in high school. So I do go to Connecticut to visit her,
uh, be a good dad. And, uh, you know, 50% of Pennsylvanians are divorced. So
they understand that. I am going to figure out whether you are really from Pennsylvania right
now. I happen to be married to a Pennsylvania. I'm going to figure out whether you're a Pennsylvania.
Okay. Here's the test. Repeat after me. Say, say the word O V E R.
Oh, over. Okay. I'm going to give you one more. Yeah. Say the word O N U S.
O N onus. Yeah. Okay. I heard it on the first one. I'm going to get, I'm going to say yes.
They, all my friends in Pennsylvania and my husband and my in-laws, they say like, ooh.
But where's he from?
He's from the mainland, from right outside, like Newtown Square.
See, I grew up in the, I was born in the West and moved back to the West.
So the difference between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, it's like China and Japan.
I mean, these accents.
Well, that's why I heard it on one. Oh,
but not the second. I've always said, why are you saying your ooze like that? Like,
ooh. And then when I saw mayor of East town, it finally made sense to me, Dave.
He's just from Pennsylvania. Okay. I get it. All right. So now tell me this.
How do you see the stakes of this election? Because, you know, to Chuck Todd's point,
there could be ticket splitting Trump Trump, we don't know.
Trump's looking a lot better today than he did even on October 11th in Pennsylvania.
But they might like divided government given how purple that state is.
So what could you make a prediction?
Like, what is the most likely outcome?
I honestly feel a real shift for President Trump.
You know, when Kamala Harris became the nominee, there was definitely like this euphoria, excitement and all the media attention.
And, you know, when you're on the ground, people are responding to that. But I think the more they see of Kamala Harris in her own words, the more she's unable to lay out a vision in her interviews. I think the more
those people that are up in the air are moving towards President Trump. So what I feel is a lot
of support for President Trump. You know, I think it's going to be close, but I definitely feel the
people that are the swing voters moving. And I feel the same for me. Can we talk about this,
this crime story that's in the news out of Pennsylvania today, in which an off-duty
Pennsylvania state police officer, specifically liquor control enforcement officer, died from
stab wounds on Monday. And KDKA Radio and other outlets are reporting that the suspect was released on no cash bail by a notorious far left local judge. 25 year old Anthony
Kaysen is accused of killing 44 year old Benjamin Braulier near a trail in the Pittsburgh suburbs
on Monday. And the allegation here is that the accused, who goes by the transgender name Antonia Kasem, was released on no cash bail by Magisterial District Judge Xander Orenstein after Kasem was arrested in June of 2023 for felony robbery. The other twist to this case is the judge themselves
identifies as, quote, non-binary.
And now there's a controversy over whether this judge
is too far left to be managing crime cases
on the bench in Pennsylvania.
Yeah, he sort of can't make it up.
You know, this is indicative of a problem we have across Pennsylvania. Yeah, you sort of can't make it up. You know, this is indicative of a problem we have
across Pennsylvania. We have this in Philadelphia with Larry Krasner, who's this incredibly liberal
judge, Soros-backed prosecutor. We have this with some of the judicial appointments. And it's the
reason that violent crime in Philadelphia is near all-time highs. It's the reason that violent crime in Pittsburgh is moving into the suburbs.
And it's a huge issue for Pennsylvanians.
And so there's multiple problems.
One is these liberal judges and liberal prosecutors.
The other is that our police forces, our law enforcement in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,
are deeply undermanned.
The whole defund the police movement, which Senator Casey has been
affiliated with, has been endorsed by, has contributed to a huge recruiting crisis.
And in Pittsburgh, where I live, we got about 650 cops, where we used to have 1000 in 2020.
And so the actual patrols in my neighborhood are about half what they were four or five years ago.
So this is a pervasive
problem across Pennsylvania. I think it's part of the reason that the Fraternal Order of Police,
44,000 men and women in uniform have endorsed me. They switched their endorsement from Bob Casey
because he stood behind all these liberal policies, liberal judges. He thought the
problem in our police force is systematic racism. He hasn't stood for
qualified immunity. It's a pervasive problem. We need leadership to stand strong on these issues.
And that's what I'll do in the Senate. This judge has got a very questionable
pass. Just in April, per CBS News, the Allegheny County presiding judge removed Judge Orenstein,
quote, from hearing all arraignments for an
indefinite period of time effective immediately after the judge released several high profile
criminals on no cash bail, criminal defendants on no cash bail. This is a big leftist thing
that they think bail is racist, that you can't make bail if you're a minority.
And so they're eliminating it, which basically just a revolving door for people who are arrested to go right back out in the streets.
Now, a law enforcement officer is dead. There are some state senators in Pennsylvania like
Devlin Robinson saying that they're going to ask House members to introduce articles of
impeachment to remove this magisterial judge. Do you think they should? Yeah. Devlin's a neighbor in Pittsburgh and a great, great senator in Pennsylvania. And
that's absolutely the kind of things we should be doing, as well as, you know, essentially putting
new prosecutors in place. I mean, Bob Casey stood behind Larry Prasner. So, you know, the problem
is both the judges and the prosecutors want law and order and and our cities are deteriorating as a consequence of it.
OK, so let me ask you this in the news today, John Kelly, with supposed bombshell reporting that we've been hearing for years, to be honest.
But now it's audio and he's on cam saying that Trump had some admiration for Hitler, that Trump said Hitler wasn't all bad or that he did some good things and that Trump didn't understand why his generals couldn't be more like Hitler's generals.
In response to which you say what?
Listen, I've I've spent, I don't know, a dozen visits with President Trump over the last three or four months.
I've heard him talk about the military and every one of them.
And he has only talked with the greatest regard and respect for the men and
women of our armed forces, puts them on an enormous pedestal. At the same time, he has criticized,
where I think they deserve criticism, the generals, many of the generals that have been put in place,
particularly under Biden, Harris, and Casey, who have introduced all this woke prioritization, DEI, within our armed forces that are, in my opinion,
contributing to a reduction in warfighting capacity.
I think they're contributing to the recruiting crisis.
So I have no doubt in my mind the admiration that President Trump has for our men and women in the armed services.
And I also think he's right that we need new leaders in the Department of Defense, new generals.
We're going to be warfighters.
They're going to go out there and make sure all our adversaries in the world know we're tough and strong.
And I think that's going to make Americans safer.
Right now, they think we're weak, and that's why they're testing us around the world.
Last but not least, Elon Musk hit the campaign trail with you, trying to encourage Pennsylvanians to get out and vote for you.
Here's a little bit of that in Sat 44.
It's absolutely essential that we win the Senate and the presidency in order to affect change.
That's important. And to protect the Constitution, which is under attack by a lot of Democrats,
which is shocking, actually. And frankly, it's a sedition. And yet they sort of really openly advocate overturning elements of the Constitution,
especially the right to bear arms and freedom of speech.
It's open sedition, and nobody does anything about it.
But that's why we have to have a clean sweep of those who believe in the Constitution.
Those who will in the Constitution. Those will uphold the Constitution.
John Fetterman says you better be careful because Elon Musk will be very attractive
to a demographic that we need to win on the Dem side.
Josh Shapiro, the Dem governor,
is saying law enforcement should get involved here
and look at how Elon Musk is giving away
a million dollars a day to a lucky voter who registers for his PAC. What's your
reaction to all that? Well, listen, I think it's I mean, it's great that he's on the ground in
Pennsylvania. You know, Pennsylvania is a keystone state. It'll determine the presidency. And as you
said, the majority in the Senate or adding to the majority in the Senate. So I think he's making a
big difference here. And there's definitely a demographic that he's bringing to the table that is very exciting for us as Republicans
to encourage a lot of these younger voters to get engaged. And this election really is the most
important of our lifetimes and it affects them. In terms of the million bucks, I was there when he
handed it out to a young woman from the audience who was totally caught by surprise. And the only
thing you need to do to apply for the million dollars is to say you want to protect the Constitution.
And that seems like a great, great incentive to me.
I can't imagine there's a legal problem with that when George Soros gives billions of dollars to Democratic candidates.
Seems like a million dollars to somebody who wants to stand up for the Constitution is probably a pretty good thing.
I think he's going to be fine. I looked at the language carefully, and I think he'll be fine
because he's not actually paying people to vote or to register to vote. It's for supporting,
in particular, the First and Second Amendments through his PAC. Dave, good luck to you. Thank
you for coming on. Thanks, Megan. Great to be with you. Thank you. All right. And everybody
can find out more about Dave's campaign. He's got the best ads of any candidate out there. I mean,
we've played numerous of them on this show because they're just so good.
Remember, he dropped that first ad on Kamala Harris before even Trump did when she was elevated.
And it just it defined the race for the first six weeks that the snippets he put together of her.
Anyway, you can see that one and his latest one, which is six minutes of Kamala Harris being dangerously liberal,
which he just released a couple of days ago. Find it at Dave McCormick. It's M-I-C-K McCormick, PA.com. Dave McCormick, PA.com. And thank you to all of you for joining me today.
Tomorrow, Democratic Representative Ro Khanna will be here. That will be feisty. It'll be fun.
Plus, I'll be fun. Plus,
I'll be breaking down the Kamala Harris CNN town hall. See you then.
Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.