The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump Wins New Hampshire, But Haley Fights On, with Victor Davis Hanson, Comfortably Smug, and Michael Moynihan | Ep. 709

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Megyn Kelly is joined by Comfortably Smug, co-host of the Ruthless podcast, and Michael Moynihan, co-host of The Fifth Column podcast, to discuss former President Donald Trump’s victory in New Hampshire, whether Nikki Haley's 11-point loss could still be seen as a victory for her, Haley’s “cringe” and confusing speech that sounded like she won, the path ahead and fight moving to South Carolina, whether Trump is actually a moderate, Trump referring to Haley's speech after New Hampshire as "bullsh*t," Trump’s relationship with the “fake news media,” Trump's master marketing to co-opt the "democracy" framing, MSNBC freaking out about Trump's speech, Trump’s awkward comments about Tim Scott's engagement and "hate" for Nikki Haley, Scott's awkward response saying “I love you,” Ron DeSantis' more measured support of Trump after dropping out, and more. Then Victor Davis Hanson, author of "The End of Everything," joins to discuss new polling about American "elites" and how they see the world, why the elites hate and fear Donald Trump and oppose him so strongly, what Trump can do to continue building a wide coalition, the immigration crisis at our border, why Trump appeals to the working class, how his authenticity is the key to his success, CNN commentator Van Jones saying Biden isn’t a good “messenger" and should "stay hidden," Biden’s inability to debate and communicate, the mischaracterization of Trump supporters, and more.Moynihan: https://wethefifth.substack.com/Smug: https://ruthlesspodcast.com/Hanson: https://www.amazon.com/End-Everything-Wars-Descend-Annihilation/dp/1541673522 Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Former President Donald Trump lands a win in New Hampshire, but the GOP primary isn't officially over. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, kind of overperforming expectations. She overperformed some recent polls and vowing she will stay in this race. And now warning that a Trump nomination will lead to a Kamala Harris presidency, sharpening her attacks on Donald Trump. I mean, is it the 11th hour? It's like, you know, it's like literally almost midnight by the time you decided to hone in on your message. Trump calling Haley's move bullshit. Term I know and love myself. Later, I'm going to be joined

by Victor Davis Hanson with his perspective on all of this. But first, here with me today, one of the co-hosts of the Ruthless program, the man known as Comfortably Smug, and a co-host of the Fifth Column podcast, Michael Moynihan. This is so fun. This is like Battle of the Network Stars when they get like Laverne and Shirley cast together and the Happy Days guys there. Thanks for having me. Good to be back. It's great. It's great to have you guys. So, okay. Yeah, she outperformed the expectation.

She lost Moynihan. That's two in a row. She came in third. She came in second. And she's talking about this like, onward we go. Thank you so much. It's on. It's amazing. Both speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire,

I had to like double check that she lost because both of them, she made it sound like she won. She was like, this is amazing. And we're going on to my home state of South Carolina where I'm down 30 points. And if you lose that one, I mean, look, it's over. We have to be honest about this. And there's people in our position that try to make this much more interesting. And, you know, she's saying it shouldn't be a coronation. Well, it isn't a coronation. Republican voters want Donald Trump might get you, and the fairly high odds of this, I would say, a Kamala Harris presidency. That is the most convincing line that I've heard, by the way. Yeah, now we're talking. Because it made me shake a little bit. I was like, oh, wait, that's actually real. That actually might happen. So yeah, it's over in that sense. Donald Trump, one, she overperformed

some of the polling, but so what? Who cares? It's New Hampshire, by the way. 40 percent of the electorate in New Hampshire are independents. That was the only shot she had was New Hampshire. And she lost. So it's over for her. It's like smug. She overperformed in that the last poll said she was going to lose by 22. And instead, she lost by 11. It's a win. It's a win in this weird alternate. You know, it's not, it's a loss. It's a double loss. And she's about to get crushed in South Carolina. There's no path. I think essentially what you have right now is not a candidate as much as like a dream. Like there's always been the theory that going back to 2016, that if there's

one candidate that can go one-on-one with Trump, of course, that's, you know, the thing that Republican voters are crying out for that, you know, Rubio and Kasich and Ted Cruz, that situation didn't allow there to be a fair head, you know, heads up one to one. And voters finally have it in front of them. Granted, they got it, you know, like 24 hours before New Hampshire, but they got the one-on-one heads up. I think the theory going forward is she's already lined up a tremendous amount of fundraising events going into this week. A ton of money is going to be raised. Whether that's going to be enough to overcome Trump in South Carolina. I mean, I wouldn't bet on it personally, but you finally have. So many people in the press, so many of the never Trump conservatives have said that they wanted a direct choice one-to-one. It's here. And I would say, I'll give the benefit of South Carolina. You can have your case of this is my home state,

one-on-one. I believe Republican voters want to have an alternative. I say South Carolina. You know, you can have your case of this is my home state one on one. I believe Republican voters want to have an alternative. I say South Carolina is where you prove it. It's going to be tough to withstand four weeks of Trump coming down on you, especially when essentially every single candidate he beats lines up behind him. That's that's further convincing to his case that, OK, it's time for the party to come together. This is a wrap. I mean, I'm all for a one on one race for the Republican nomination. Trump's definitely got his fair share of baggage and then some that Republicans should be considering in deciding who to nominate. But the other one needs to be someone who Republicans like. And for whatever reason, the way this campaign has come down, they don't like Nikki Haley anymore. She's been sufficiently alienated from that MAGA

base. Maybe it was Vivek in the debates. Maybe it was Trump with his bird brain tweets about her, you know, whatever. Maybe she's just too neoconny for a more isolationist Republican party. It just hasn't worked. She won second place yesterday in New Hampshire, thanks to independents, Moynihan. That's who voted for her. She's doing great with the independents. That's terrific. The independents are an extra. the Republican to get the nomination. You have to win with Republicans and to win the general. You need all Republicans plus some independents. Yeah, I mean, that's Trump's weak spot there.

I mean, Kayleigh McEnany is on Fox News last night. And of course, Trump responds to her. He only hires the best people and then denounces them on Twitter or Truth Social after. But she said, you know, look, this is in a way a win for Joe Biden, particularly when it comes to things like independence. I mean, Nikki Haley, they can denounce her and say she's only winning independence. These people are crossing over. They're not actual Republicans. OK, fine. And that's why she is overperforming. But that's what Donald Trump needs. I mean, he is not going to win this election without those independents and he's not going to tack

to the center. He never does. And, you know, you could say that Nikki Haley is not impressing Republicans because she's a neocon and things like that. I don't really buy that. But actually, she does buy it in the sense that her last pitch in New Hampshire, she sounded like Christine O'Donnell saying, I'm not a witch. She's like, I'm not a warmonger. It's like, no, that's not how you do it. But this is all personality. She's bad at it. I'm sorry to say that on paper, I could like her policies and Ron DeSantis' policies more than Donald Trump. You know, Vivek was annoying. Everyone understood that. Ron DeSantis governed incredibly well in Florida, but had no kind of personality for it when it came to the actual race. And Nikki is just

incredibly unconvincing. That speech last night, it was just kind of cringe half the time. And you get to Donald Trump, who's saying the most insane things during his speech. But I am like, you know, entertained. And it's unfortunate that American politics is maybe always has been a battle of the best entertainers. But that is where we are. And that's why he won. It doesn't matter what her policies are. It doesn't matter. Donald Trump, if he was president, who knows what he would do with the Houthis? Who knows what he would do with Ukraine? These people who suggest that, you know, he's the anti-neocon candidate. I don't know. They loved him in Israel. You know, he sent 75 Tomahawk

missiles into Syria. It's unclear what Donald Trump's ideology is, but we know what his personality is. And that is somebody who can run a very, very good race. And, you know, if there's a debate between him and Joe Biden, I think we all know how that's going to go. It would be the most watched event in television history. Correct. It would really it would have Super Bowl plus type numbers just to see that just to see Joe Biden can't do it. And everyone knows. And Trump is so unhinged sometimes in the way he deals. Look how he did, you know, four or five years ago when they debated and Trump didn't let him answer a single question. Can you imagine him now when he knows Biden actually can't answer the questions? The most devastating thing he could do is to be quiet. Let's just see. There was a lot in there. So I

will say I think Trump is more moderate. I don't think if the Republicans, I think, would have been a little bit more dangerous going with Iran DeSantis, who is definitely established conservative. And I don't know, it's just like that's I think more alienating to independence than somebody like Trump, whose personal behavior is shocking to some extent. Right. It's still I mean, whatever is left of the shock ability. But who who's you know, his policies, he's not really, he doesn't support the six week abortion ban. He probably doesn't support any more abortion bans, to be honest with you. He'd probably sign a 15 week or if pressed, but I don't even know about that.

Even on the trans stuff, he wiggled a little, he's much more of a New Yorker, you know, like live and let live. And let's just worry about the economy. That's he's a transactional guy. So I think he would be more acceptable to moderates and independents. It's his temperament that people find problematic. So in a way, the Republicans have done themselves a service by when it comes to the independent vote. She won last night's mug with the independents. Yes, because as between Nikki and Trump, if you're an independent,

you're probably going to go for Nikki Haley. And they said they liked her position more on abortion and foreign policy. So there's some like neoconny stuff in there. But there's a question about exactly who was signing up to vote for her and why. Was it all independents who don't find Trump acceptable or was it sort of crossovers who are just trying to make her look stronger and Trump look weaker than the facts would support? I give you this guy who was over on MSNBC. If you listen to the New York Times analysis of this on their podcast, The Daily, their reporter said he talked to a ton of these voters, too. The MSNBC reporter said this person had talked to a ton of voters, just like the one you're about to hear from. It's anecdotal, but take a listen to this person in Stop 14.

Christian, who did you vote for and why? Yes. So thank you. I voted for Nikki Haley. It was certainly a strategic vote. I think the DNC is fairly resolute in their nomination for Joe Biden. And while I wouldn't vote for her in a general election, particularly on our differences with climate change solution, a woman's right to bodily autonomy or incarceration rates, I think a vote for Nikki Haley helps diminish Trump's influence in the RNC and their nomination, but does also vote towards democracy. And Christian is emblematic of so many conversations that I've had here throughout the day. So what do you make of that, Smug? Do you think Trump is as weak with and Haley's as strong with independence as those numbers suggest? So I think that is a major issue that is playing out. We've seen in polling for a while now that

Nikki Haley of the Republican candidates performs the best in a general election. You can have the same body of voters polled, likely voters and registered voters. We've seen a number of polls that have been done on this, and Nikki Haley ends up performing the best when you include the entire body of voters and not just Republican primary voters, which I think is going to end up becoming an issue when a lot of Republican primary voters are once again motivated by a sense of being wronged. And they see a lot of that in Trump, who they see as being wronged with all these frivolous lawsuits. And that's when you saw Trump's poll numbers take off. If you go back and look at the cleave that began between the

polling numbers that he had and his lead that grew eventually over Ron DeSantis when DeSantis first announced, when the lawsuits became the main issue of essentially the Democrats are out to get President Trump, that's when Republican primary voters kind of came back to Trump. And that's when his numbers start to surge. That seems to be one of the largest motivating factors right now for Republican primary voters. And that's absolutely not a motivating factor for independent voters in the country right now. There's a significant number. We saw, you know, Dean Phillips is putting up 20% on Joe Biden. That's insane when Joe Biden is the sitting president. There's a lot of disaffected voters, whether they are Democrats or they identify as independents. And losing those voters is what cost Trump the election previously. He had alienated suburban

moms, for example, a very powerful voting group. And I think he's going to have difficulty, again, reaching them. Earlier, it was mentioned that he appears that he's going to be more of a moderate on abortion. That's going to be probably the top issue that Democrats try to hammer because they can't run on Joe Biden's got a great economy. Voters absolutely don't feel like it's a great economy. But when you had Donald Trump at a town hall say, I'm the one responsible for Roe v. Wade being overturned, I'm the one who picked those justices, I'm the one who got Roe v. Wade killed, that's going to be the message that Democrats put front and center to make sure that suburban moms stay in the column for Biden. Yes, they will. And Trump had to say that because it's true and Republican voters tend to love it.

But I mean, it's very easily handled on the campaign trail when you've switched to the general, which is Roe versus Wade was an abomination. It was a terrible decision. Even liberal scholars admitted that. And it had no business being on the books. I'm the one who got the Supreme Court justices appointed who said, forget it. It's like it's bad jurisprudence. Let's give it back to the states. Now it's a state by state fight. I'm going to keep the federal government out of it. You know, it's it's up to your state. I'm not the best he can say that what he should say is I'm not going to interfere. There shouldn't be a federal ban because if you ever get a Democrat back in this office, then they'll institute a federal permission slip that'll go all the way up through the ninth month. It's not the Fed's business. It's the state's business. Would you be confident in Trump's ability to prosecute that case is the

thing is, can he stay on message? You know, if Biden in a debate brings up, do you believe the election was stolen? He's going to veer right into that path that independent voters absolutely do not want to hear about stolen elections. It's amazing to me that the number of like, I mean, he's completely convinced the Republican Party that the election was stolen. It's crazy. Like the numbers, they're big. I mean, they did they say legitimate? Was he legitimately elected? And that's that's a little different than stolen. But the question was, do you think Joe Biden legitimately won the presidency? And this is all this is the New Hampshire voters yesterday in the GOP primary. So half of the electorate says, yes, he was legitimately elected. Forty seven percent.

Fifty one percent said no. A majority of New Hampshire. These are not the blood, you know, red meat eating. Fifty one percent said no. He was not legitimately elected. Those who were saying he wasn't were overwhelmingly Trump voters. Those who were saying he did legitimately win were overwhelmingly Haley supporters. So I don't know Moynihan. He's right. He's not going to be able to prosecute the abortion issue the way I said. He's going to say what he said at that

town hall, which is, or it was the thing with Brett and Martha, where he's like, everybody's going to be happy. We're going to strike a deal. Everyone's going to be happy. Yeah. I don't, I don't know about that. Yeah. I don't think he's going to be very, yeah, go ahead. Here's the thing about Trump. What we see in that number, like that he's even convinced half the majority of Republicans in New Hampshire that he actually won is a testament to Trump's disciplined messaging on the things that matter to him. The wall, the wall, the wall, China, China, China. It was a perfect phone call, a perfect phone call. You know, crooked Hillary, now crooked Joe Biden. And I guess on abortion, it's going to be you're going to be happy. You'll be happy. You'll be happy. He's very good at it. He may not be that good at like

temperament stuff. But the reason we all knew Donald Trump, you talk to all the businessmen in New York. It's not because of his amazing business skills. It's because of his amazing marketing skills. That's I think what's won him these elections and has just secured his nomination yet again. I found myself annoyed last night because Matt Welch and Camille Foster and I, my co-hosts at The Fifth Column, we were watching this and recording at the same time. And I found myself annoyed when MSNBC, because we had to watch MSNBC, would, of course, cut away because there was a lie, says the woman, Rachel Maddow, who is convinced the world that Russia is controlling the White House or was controlling the White House. It's cut away. And I found myself disappointed and not

I'm somebody who doesn't really like Donald Trump in so many ways, but I love watching him speak. He is magnetic. He is a great personality. I don't think that's what the quality for, you know, the best president should be. But to your point, by the way, about his moderation, and I think that's right. And I think it's an underappreciated point. You know, the Christian conservatives, the religious conservatives have not performed well and have not. I mean, you think of people like Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, in a way, I mean, and Ron DeSantis this time, I mean, the six week ban and stuff. Donald Trump not only attacked that, but also attacked him for going after Disney too much. I mean, that is not the, that's not a culture warrior guy there. He's setting himself

up in opposition. And of course, he's going to take any opposite position of Ron DeSantis when he's running against him. But he has the ability to be kind of the person who doesn't. He is the New York conservative who is not very conservative. I mean, it's very hard to be a conservative in 2024. He gives in the most hilarious way, gives Vivek Ramaswamy a minute. You have a minute, which is which is like sort of partially humiliating. And he gets up there. And the last, the only thing that he says when it comes to policy is, I am not going, well, he talks about Ukraine, of course, but I am not going to allow them to,

or he's not going to allow them to touch Social Security. I mean, have you heard a Republican running for any office in the past 40 years who didn't make it a primary talking point that the growth and the spending on Social Security is going to bankrupt us? He's on the other tack there. So if you're like a traditional conservative, they're in a victory mode. They're talking about how they're going to spend more money or at least not cut money or reform Social Security. It's a very, very weird time to be a Republican or to be conservative. He would never say that he would cut Social Security or Medicare. And I don't think he ever would do it, Smug, because he understands that that would hurt his electoral prospects.

And that's what's most important to him. I mean, that's the thing about Trump. He will say whatever he needs to say to get elected. And then once he gets in there, he'll govern as he sees fit. But the thing is, he governed pretty darn well the last time around. We actually have a track record to look at this time. And most Republicans were very pleased with the way he did while in office. So I really think the Democrats scaremongering that we're about to go through for the next 10 months is not going to work when they talk about, oh, my God, his extreme policies and the ultra MAGA. If you want to go back to January 6th and talk about denialism. Yes, that's real. And independents hate it. So they're smart to get ready to tee that up. But like the policies and him being an extreme right winger, I don't think so. Yeah, I mean, I think that's something there's been almost like a sort of sea change that's been occurring culturally where the

scaremongering that the Democrats had going for them for so long is kind of like losing its effect. The whole idea that they've been pushing that you know trump represents white supremacy and he's going to destroy the country and democracy is under danger and everyone's going to die you know we've had years now in this country under joe biden and you've gotten enough time that you can compare what a trump administration what a trump presidency looks like compared to a biden presidency and it's very easy for folks to look back on the Trump years and remember, you know what? The economy was much better. We did not have chaos around the world where missiles are being fired in various countries. And I have to be aware of, okay, who are the Houthis now? Apparently there's this group who

doesn't like us and they're firing missiles at us. Every day you have to read a new primer on, this is a new group that's attacking us. And with Trump, it was like he's brought a dog to the White House because it killed a terrorist. OK, you know, it's a much better environment to be in that than feeling kind of like an existential dread of, OK, what am I going to hear about today? Is inflation going up? Is a new terror group coming? Is Israel being attacked by terrorists? So voters definitely can make a choice in terms of what the presidency looks like. And the scaremongering, like the DEI thing falling apart so quickly has been central to keeping the progressive movement marching forward. And if they're not able to use that fear mongering, what do they have left to convince voters that, hey, look, we're the better choice?

Not much. Well, I mean, now you're making the argument I have that concerns me about Trump, because I think DEI is falling apart for a number of reasons, but I doubt that it'd be falling apart if Trump were president. I think the left is more motivated to hold on to their sacred cows when they have a boogeyman like Trump in there. And when it's Biden, the right is more motivated, and they're looking at what he's doing to the country and they're saying, tear it down. This is bullshit. That does worry me a little. Let's listen to a little bit to what we heard last night. And I'll play that Maddow clip in a second.

It was gold. Here's Trump pushing Nikki Haley on. You know, she basically declared herself the winner. At least that was the tone of what she said. She did congratulate Donald Trump. I said, you know, he won. So good for him. But it's not over. And I'm in it.

And this is the first state. It's not the last state. And here was Trump in response and sought one. She's doing like a speech like she won. She didn't win. She lost. If you remember, Ron was very upset because she ran up and she pretended she won Iowa. And I looked around, I said,

didn't she come in third? Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and, like, claimed a victory? She did very poorly, actually. I find in life you can't let people get away with bullshit, okay? You can't. You just can't do that and when i watched

her in the fancy dress that probably wasn't so fancy come up i said what's she doing we won and she did the same thing last week but he was much more angry about it than i was i said get up there and you let him know the vague he's's motioning to. I love that he switched into Joan Rivers fashion critic there for a minute. What was that? The dress wasn't that fancy. I don't even know where to go with that. I mean, Donald Trump is, you know, he is. And before you get to the Maddow clip, it's actually funny that you said this about the DEI stuff is that it does. I think you're right about that. But there are diminishing returns here because, you know, four years plus in this in the plus is the Biden administration. If you watch MSNBC in the past like two and a half years, you wouldn't even know that Joe Biden was president. I mean,

it is the constant drumbeat of the fascist at the door who's going to be Mussolini 2.0. It's like, wasn't he already president? Did he do it that time? But the thing about it is that, I mean, we were talking on the podcast the other day. Somebody said, do you ever go back and listen to the things that you recorded four, five, six, seven years ago? And I said, well, you know, I don't. But if I went back, I probably would have said something about the Russia stuff and said, well, you know, there's a little smoke here. It's kind of suspicious. And that's how we all were at the time. And then after time, like, is this is just a concerted effort to try to destroy Trump in a way that is not electoral.

And there are people that are incredibly fed up with this stuff. Independence, too. It's like you cannot keep on crying wolf and saying democracy is over. Everything is over. I mean, Donald Trump says, I don't like bullshit. I mean, he's the king bullshitter. Come on. We know he's a bullshitter. We know he lies about the election and this. He said, oh, I won every possible time in New Hampshire. It's like, that's not true, et cetera. He's bullshitting then. But at the same time, you can denounce the fake news media, but you need the fake news media because as fake as they are incredibly beneficial to you, because I've met so many people who say, look, I don't like the guy. I don't like his temperament. I don't like

his tweets. This was a common refrain when I was at Trump rallies, but the way they treat him is so horribly. And they find that this is like, you know, they don't care that he's a billionaire who had a television show that was number one. They're like, he's being unfairly treated. He's not a Russian stooge. He's not this, you know, fascist that they're portraying him to be. And I have to say, I went to a Trump rally in Detroit a couple of months ago, and I love the fact that Trump flipped it around and now he's using the word fascist. He's like, Joe Biden's a fascist. It's just like, yeah, everyone is gone and saying yeah election interferers i mean he's like they're they're they're anti-democratic because they're interfering with the election

that's anti-democracy if you care about democracy vote for me that's again back to his marketing skills he knows how to use them they're actually quite effective so now the term fake news itself he co-opted from them when they correct like that was hillary clinton there were these fake news itself, he co-opted from them when they were like, that was Hillary Clinton. There were these fake news farms in Europe, which got elected. And then he just co-opted it and he called them the fake news. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. So I don't know what Nikki Haley is going to do.

I don't know if she's actually going to get out before she gets humiliated in her home state where he's beating her by 30 points. Or if she's just going to kind of stick around kind of collecting random delegates, because even if you're not the winner, if you're still in it, you can get a delegate here or there, so that if Trump goes to jail or, God forbid, dies, something like that, she can be like,

here, I have the next most delegates, as if that would entitle her to be, that's not going to be how it works if one of those things happens, but I have no idea what she's doing, but it's over. She's done. So we can pretend as long as she wants. It's just it's obvious what's happened here. He's won. So now what's happening around him in the messaging is kind of interesting.

So I'll give you a couple of examples. Jim Messina, the guy who got Barack Obama elected, he had a tweet that he put out that reads as follows. I wake up every morning and drop to my knees and pray him and set him up to fall once he hit the general electorate. Because you look back at, for example, the New Hampshire polling and the question among the New Hampshire electorate voting in the Republican primary. Again, these are largely Republicans and so-called unaffiliated, believed to be independent voters. The question was, if he were to be convicted of a crime, would you consider him fit to be president? Yes, 54 percent. Forty two percent said no. Forty two percent of those voting in the GOP primary yesterday in New Hampshire said if he gets convicted, he's not fit. And that's why Jim Messina is hoping that Trump will be the nominee, which he which he is, which he's going to be. So I have to say, I've got real questions about whether they should be hoping for this smug,

because I know they say, I'm reading the polls. If he gets convicted, it's a no. I'll change my opinion. But I really think given the amount of coverage that's going to come this next year and coverage, not just from MSNBC, but from you and from you guys, Moynihan on the fifth column and from me and from Ben Shapiro, people who are not bought and paid for by anyone, but can see what's being done to him, even if you're not a huge Trump fan, that that will permeate. You know, I would venture to say, like, I know between the three of us, we actually have a fair amount of independents listening to us. You know, Moynihan, your podcast is more libertarian. You're more sort of standard Republicans mug, you guys. I'm center right, but I got a lot of center lefties listening. They're going to hear the truth.

And I am just not convinced that when push comes to shove, these valuable independents who he does need are going to be so horrified at a, quote, conviction. Because I think the truth about Jack Smith, already about Fannie Willis, never mind Alvin Bragg, is going to come out. It's coming out. Yeah, I mean, I think an issue here is you've seen Democrats really breach this kind of unprecedented approach to what they think elections should be like. For some group that has essentially made their platform that we are defending democracy, saving democracy, the use of lawfare essentially to secure an election victory, it's unprecedented. This is a new tack that's being taken and I think they have not considered the long-term ramifications of this. This is almost seeming like Harry Reid again getting warned by Mitch McConnell that you're going to regret this sooner than later.

Now we've got a conservative Supreme Court as a result of that. The fact that Democrats are counting on we want to be able to sue someone into losing an election, that that's the approach, that they want to be able to control voter perception through the use of elected officials who run on, I will sue Donald Trump. That's a very new kind of way to approach elections. It's an extremely cynical approach to voters, and I think it will really poison, you know, for all this talk of we need a leader who can bring back a divided America together. That's the best way to cleave almost irreparably the electorate, where you make it that we will win elections by any means necessary. They've already shown their willingness

to try and have members of the four CIA and FBI people saying, oh yeah, this Hunter Biden thing, it's classic Russian disinformation. Ahead of an election, they wanted to withhold information from voters and then afterwards they're like, oh well, what are you gonna do? It was real. We already won. So the cynical approach that Democrats have taken is starting

to catch up with them. I think the polling among independent voters is very real. They are still, you know, if Trump is convicted, they're gone. They will flee. And that's pretty much ballgame. But I think going forward, making that, you know, a part of their election campaign process of just suing their opponents into submission, winning elections by any means necessary is really going to cleave the country. I just don't know. I read the polls. I do not deny that's what the independents are saying. Conviction, it's a no. I just have a hard time believing they actually will follow through on it. I think that the next year and look, let's let's be honest, we don't even know whether the trials are going to

get underway, never mind get concluded before November now. I mean, they've been kicked back in a couple of jurisdictions. They're having massive problems in a couple of others. So it's possible that the news will not be as dominated as we once thought with his criminal trials. But Moynihan, they will be dominated by Trump. Trump is about to come. You know how like when he wasn't president or at least sometime there, we had some time where we weren't talking about Trump all the time. We weren't thinking about Trump all the time. And let's be honest, that was kind of a nice reprieve. Like I'd rather think about my own life, my own problems than think about Donald Trump's problems all the time. And let's be honest, that was kind of a nice reprieve. Like I'd rather think about my own life, my own problems than think about Donald Trump's problems all the time. Um,

yeah, I look, I, yeah, he's about to come back in a national review and in a big way. And I'll just play the Nikki Haley messaging on this now. Cause she is starting to get it means Kamala Harris. What? And then this is the second line she's been using lately in SOT4. Biden too old. Trump too much chaos. A rematch no one wants. There's a better choice for a better America. Her story started right here. America's youngest governor, a conservative Republican. And boy, did she deliver. It's a great day in South Carolina. All right. So that's her first ad she's running in South Carolina. But it begins with Biden's too old and Trump is too much chaos. Trump is too much chaos. That's the risk over the next year

as he's in the news every day. I mean, that line is right, actually. It's the rematch that nobody wants. I mean, this is every time. And how did we get into this situation where every poll suggests that Republicans and Democrats don't want their nominee? And it's like, oh, no, not this again. Groundhog Day with 2020. It's like, do we need this? And as you said, it's like you get a reprieve from Trump and you feel kind of like you can exhale a little bit. And, you know, to the point of independence, I mean, I think you're right if they're educated independence,

if they're engaged independence. If the people are not that engaged, I mean, the specifics of Fannie Willis and Alvin Bragg in some of this stuff eludes people, not because they're not clever and not bright. They're just not paying that much attention. But I think that, you know, they have lives. And, you know, what Smug said is also right, is that, you know, this what really drives people crazy is this idea that to save democracy, we have to smother elements of democracy.

So, for instance, the hilarious thing of Rachel Maddow saying, we don't want this dictator and this anti-democratic. We're just going to you can't hear him. You're too stupid to actually hear him. I teased it twice. Let's play. Yeah. Yeah. Top five.

We're expecting Trump to speak momentarily. We are going to go to those remarks to see how he uses this moment. At least at first, we'll see how it goes. Again, this is a decision that is one that we consider to be an open-ended, live

decision. Let's go to Trump headquarters right now in Nashua, New Hampshire. You know, we won New Hampshire three times now, three. We win it every time. We win the primary. We win the generals. So there we go. So this is part of the issue here. The former president has opened his remarks tonight once again by proclaiming falsehoods about previous elections. This is what makes it hard to take him, his pronouncements live. We'll try again, though. Here we go. You have the very. Oh, Moynihan. No, I want you to cover your children's

ears. I know a lot of eight year olds are listening to Megyn Kelly's show, but how the fuck... Actually, I have some. I know. How the hell, let me correct that. Do you run a cable news network that is based on politics and showing politicians speak and cutting away when they lie? I mean, as Mary McCarthy once said about Lillian Hellman, every word she says is a lie, including and and the. This is what happens with politicians.

They lie. But why are you so specific about protecting us from this person? It is so condescending to listeners, to viewers, to voters that you can't make up your mind. I, Rachel Maddow, can make it up for you because I'm going to tell you. And by the way, when you're talking about the end of democracy and as Smug said, you have a couple of things going on here. We want to keep somebody off the ballot. We're going to prevent you, never been convicted of a crime, but we think it's probably real. So we're going to keep him off the ballot. If this keeps going in the Supreme Court, we're going to stack the Supreme Court. We have to make it bigger. The last person to try to do that was FDR in 1936. I mean, imagine all of these things that we have to correct the errors of Americans. We believe

in democracy insofar as people vote the way we want. And if they don't, we have to go about trying to correct it and talk about misinformation, disinformation, et cetera, words that have ended up meaning absolutely nothing at this point. And so I don't need Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O'Donnell or Chris Hayes telling me what I can and cannot hear. And I can adjudicate for myself and people that I know can do the same thing of what is true and what is not true. Stop trying to be the paternalist in the TV studio in Manhattan. It's so true. My mommy, my mommy in black, Rachel Maddow with your, you know, my mommy, not turtleneck. It's an open ended live discussion. It's an open ended live decision on whether we're going to stay with this. And now you see why we had to cut away. We're going to try again. We'll give him

another chance, but he's going to lose that snack forever if he once again doesn't listen to mommy. I mean, that's smug. It really does. That's smug and karma. It's a very odd kind of like paternalism, but at the same time, it's fundamentally based on the idea that democracy is when the party in control decides who's allowed on the ballot, which is just the wildest ever possible definition that is being defended right now by the Democrats every single day of where they're saying that like, okay, well, we have elected officials who ran specifically on that. They would sue Donald Trump. And the outcome of that should decide whether a candidate is allowed on the ballot. On the face of it, it's just, it's absolutely stunning. And then to try and portray the candidate that they are punishing in such a fashion as a fascist is unbelievable.

And when's the last time we decided, okay, this guy's a dictator because he got elected. We're voting for the dictator or the democracy. This is not how any of this works at all on its face it's complete absurdity but they have to be able to corral their audience in such a fashion to be like well we don't want you to be able to hear this we need you to keep you know on board with the talking points we've been pushing on you saying that at any day now the fascist is going to show up and he's going to ruin your life as long as you don't support the party we tell you to. It's unbelievable. It's really not hard. It's true that Trump, I've said it many times, does not have an adult relationship with the truth. He just doesn't. If I were anchoring that speech at the Fox News

channel, I would listen to it. I would make a note to my control room. What's his track record in New Hampshire? Could he possibly be talking about the general? How did he do in the primaries? How about that one? What do we know about this? What do we know? Right. And on the ones that mattered, right. Maybe I'd have five things that I needed to address on the back end. And I'd say for what it's worth. And then I'd offer without affect or enthusiasm the truth on any items. And then I'd move on. Like you don't have to have fucking meltdown. Sorry, eight year olds for over the fact that he might say some things that aren't true. And by the way, if you're going to do it to Trump, then do it to Biden to do it to yourself,

Rachel Maddow. Yeah, do it yourself. He and his team lie all the time just about different subjects. Yes, I think Biden would tell the truth about which primaries he had run because he probably couldn't remember and he'd just read off of what was in the prompter. But I mean, this administration and his previous boss, Barack Obama's administration, he was responsible for lie of the year. You know, we can go back over. Anyway, if you're going to do it to one, you have to do it to both. Stand by. Quick break. Much more to discuss with the guys, including a shift in tone from Ron DeSantis. What's happening there? The corporate media is basically saying that they're, you know, for for once they were saying, you know, Trump's a juggernaut. He's going to he's going to he's leading Biden.

Now they flipped almost on a dime. I mean, I thought they would give it two weeks. They haven't even done that. They're now saying Trump is bleeding moderates and some traditional Republicans that have voted for him twice. And they're really hammering this point. I did observe that. I mean, I observe voters who are conservative voters who voted for Trump in 16 and 20. And he said, you know,

they're just not doing it again. So it's a huge warning sign for Republicans nationally, based on what we saw in Iowa. I ran because I thought that my candidacy represented a way to break through that where we could win a clear cut victory. So he's got to figure out a way to solve that. I think there's an enthusiasm problem overall. And then I also just think there's there's some voters that have checked out at this point that you've got to find a way to get them back. Oh, boy. Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly show. Comfortably smug. And Michael Moynihan are with me today. Not exactly bullish on the prospects of Donald Trump. Maybe we're expecting too much of him smug because he's probably still licking the wounds, right? Just got out, so much effort expended. But that, I'm sure,

did not go over well at the Trump home camp. Yeah, definitely not. I mean, he also, I think it was probably the first tweet he had out since uh dropping out where there's uh a bill that's been put forward in florida of having taxpayers pay for uh some of trump's legal fees down there and and he tweets out that like well i'd veto that if if you know it came to my desk so he i think unlike a lot of the camps that you saw behind it was like the weirdly floating tim scott behind trump which i thought was just an odd image you know the whole bakery speech lot of the candidates that you saw behind it. It's like the weirdly floating Tim Scott behind Trump, which I thought was just an odd image, the whole bakery speech. I think unlike a lot of those candidates on the stage, Ron DeSantis was actually trying to beat Trump. Vivek was essentially like

a one-man super PAC for Donald Trump through his entire candidacy. Tim Scott did a better job saying why Trump should be president than he ever described why he should be running for president. So I think it takes longer than, you know, 10 minutes to jump completely on board the Trump train, even though he did endorse relative to the other candidates that you're seeing there. But I think, you know, DeSantis does have a lot to be mad about. And I don't think it's Trump that he has to be mad about.

I think his campaign is what failed him. He had a great track record. He had that massive win. And coming off of it, just these missteps that before his campaign could even be done. Yeah, but he's pissing on Trump's chances there. There he's pissing on Trump's standards. And I think that comes directly from just the anger of seeing his own failed campaign. He had know, he was, he had so much potential essentially, and to see none of it realized whatsoever, especially after such a massive victory, you know, coming off of that polling showed he was almost neck and neck,

but then, you know, Trump got the charges, the base came back to Trump and then his campaign. Well, I mean, I'm sure he'd say, look, it's straight analysis of how I see Trump's challenges ahead, right? He's got, there's going he'd say, look, it's straight analysis of how I see Trump's challenges ahead. Right. He's got there's going to be an enthusiasm problem and he's got to win over moderates. I've got to play the soundbite with Tim Scott last night because you referenced him. And it really was. I was like, what just happened? Tim Scott was behind him, Trump, as he was doing his victory speech. And then came this moment in SOT3.

Did you ever think that she actually appointed you, Tim? And think of it, appointed, and you're the senator of his state, and she endorsed me. You must really hate her. No, it's a shame. It's a shame. Uh-oh. I just love you. No, that's why's a shame. It's a shame. Oh, I just love you. No, that's that's why he's a great politician.

Oh, my God. I'm feeling so uncomfortable. I'm yeah, I don't know what to do after. It was kind of a funny humiliation ritual for Tim Scott, too, because then he said, can you believe he got engaged? Did anyone think that would actually happen is the guy was there on stage yeah he basically called him gay by the way i don't know if anyone else was he's like can you believe it i didn't believe it i didn't see that coming it's like why didn't you see that coming you know we all know we all know and then saying like you i cannot believe you just stabbed her in the back, right? Right? Yeah? You don't like her? And he comes up and he's like, I love you. It's like the ritual humiliation and the people just go through with it.

And that is, I guess, when people say there's a culty nature to the MAGA movement. It's like, all right, I guess I see it now. And to DeSantis' point is like, he's not wrong. I mean, that is actually a totally normal analysis of what Trump is up against in the general. The problem is, is that Ron DeSantis, you know, it's like being a baseball player, a professional that is very good in the field, but can't hit. He was very good in Florida. He governed in a way that the Floridians were very happy with. He won by like two votes against Andrew Gillum and then stomped to victory against Charlie Crist. And because, you know, he did very well with COVID. He did very well with, you know, many, many weather events that he responded to in a national campaign. And one of the things he didn't do, which I think people should have done and people in his team should have made him do, because I know no one in his team liked Donald Trump because I talked to them about this, but is to differentiate himself and to go after Donald

Trump. They were always expressing fealty in some ways. And so it doesn't surprise me to see Tim Scott up there being like, oh, you just called me gay, but I love you. That was amazing. I was amazing when you called me gay. That was my favorite bit of your speech. It's like, dude, seriously, have some self-respect, please. I mean, as Smug said, Vivek was doing, Vivek was doing the whole time he was running to be Trump's friend, if not his VP. But that was never, but no one wanted to differentiate themselves. I mean, even Nikki didn't do it very much. I mean, she said, at one point, because of polling, she went on the abortion thing, you know, after Republicans lose in, you know, Kansas and various other, everywhere in every sort of conservative state, you know, and then she comes out and says, you

know, I'm not, you know, on board with like the six week stuff. And then she differentiates herself a little bit from Republicans, but not even from Trump and that. And no one did that. They were not running against him. They were running against each other as Donald Trump looked on saying, look at you fools. And that's what happens. Yeah, it worked out perfectly. Here's a little bit more from DeSantis. Tell me what you think of this. I think we have time. Number eight. Well, we'll see what kind of if we have a country left by 2028. I mean, I think I agreed with you, Steve.

I view 24 as really a hinge point in American history. And if we don't get it right, I don't know what it's going to look like in the future. So who knows? We'll be active. We'll be exercising leadership down here in Florida and holding down the fort for freedom. And so we'll see what what the future holds. Hmm. It's getting some hit on that. Like, will you run in 28? The proper response is, you know, I'm going to do all everything I can to make it work for Trump and the country in 24. Not like we'll see. We have a country left. That's a bit of an odd response. But I mean,

I was like, wait, who is he talking about? And I guess I guess, oh, he did. He didn't endorse Trump, but he left it open. He didn't say if Joe Biden wins and we don't have a country left, it's kind of interesting. My prediction is we're not going to see a lot of Ron DeSantis on the campaign trail smug. I think like those resentments run deep. Yeah. I mean, he, you didn't see him at all in New Hampshire as a, you know, one of the supporters on stage that Trump was taking turns with. Um, and I don't think you're going to see him. Uh, it's going to take a while for those wounds to heal. Again, he was, he was supposed to be the golden boy and, you know, the successor to Trump. And he just ended up, you know, falling to the wayside. It's, itside. It's tough. It's

going to take time for him to lick his wounds. I mean, maybe at the end, maybe he'll get a speaking slot at the convention. Usually they do that for like the top runner up. But he better, it's going to have to be sincere between now and then, or he's going to get a Chris Christie convention speech. Me, me, me. And back to me. Remember that one? And then there was the Ted Cruz one, which was like vote your conscience uh you got to pick the right people who are true believers who really love guys really love you too thanks so much for being here smug morning to be continued and we'll be right back with victor davis hansen vdh don't go away

join me now for more analysis of new hampshire and the 2024 race as well as what is happening right now at the southern border victor davis hansen senior fellow at the hoover institution and author of the new book out this may the end of everything victor welcome back to the show so what did you think of last night's results well i, I think Nikki Haley, you know, she always wanted a two person race and she got it. And she got the ideal state in which more people voted the Republican primary who weren't Republican than were Republican. And yet she lost by 11 points. So I think she's trying to say that coming in second in these primaries to come is not coming in last, but it is. And the Republicans have a finite amount of money, and they're going to be outspent like in 2020, three and a half, four to one. is other than dividing these limited resources. I guess it's one of four. She has four choices, Megan. She can do the Ron DeSantis and avoid being wiped out in South Carolina, her native state,

or maybe drop out at some point right after that and endorse Donald Trump and then hope for a high level appointment in the Trump administration. Or she can do the George H.W. Bush 1980 tactic where you keep running and you keep losing, you win five or six maybe primaries, but you do so in a very positive way. You don't attack, like Bush didn't attack Reagan, she doesn't attack Trump. And she impresses the Trump team

by bringing in independents, renegade Democrats, the way George H.W. Bush. And then the impossible happens in which Reagan asked Bush to be on the ticket. He did. He got vice president. He served well. And he was the front runner and was nominated and won in 88. Maybe that's an alternative for if she did that. Or she could just be limp along as a rope-a-dope perennial second-last candidate and say that she's the backup in case Donald Trump finds himself in real legal jeopardy in the summer and might be jailed or have a felony conviction that might hurt him. That's a possibility. The fourth and worst choice, though, Megan, is to go the full Neil is never Trump and get angry and start really lambasting Trump and almost suggesting that she's going to bolt the party. And that would blow up her career.

I don't think she's going to do that. But those are the alternatives that are open to her. Well, here is what she sounded like last night. If I had to put this soundbite into one of those boxes, it would probably be number four. Take a listen to Saw 3. With Donald Trump, Republicans have lost almost every competitive election. We lost the Senate. We lost the House. We lost the White House. We lost in 2018. We lost in 2020. And we lost in 2022. The worst kept secret in politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump.

A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency. You can't fix Joe Biden's chaos with Republican chaos. The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election. So we're going home to South Carolina. You know, the interesting thing, Victor, is she spoke before Trump and then Trump got up there and took some shots at her,

her dress, and just in general, he was just kind of ticked off. And all the headlines today are angry Trump, you know, red-faced, irate, rageful. It's like,

listen to what she said. She said it with a smile. She has a nice tone. But those are serious insults and barbs at the man. Of course, he's going to fight back. It's Trump. Yeah, and I mean, I know that he's had some cognitive issues lately, confusing Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley, but more or less, he gives these one-hour long monologues without missing a beat. It's pretty amazing that a person at that age, and when she starts attacking age in general, rather than differentiating people who are not cognitively alert at that age, she kind of

insults people that are septuagenarians or octogenarians who are voters. That's not a wise thing, I think, necessarily. But I don't know what the strategy is in doing that. When she runs like that, does she really think she's going to get traction in South Carolina? She's a native daughter of the state. I don't think she is. And it's going to alienate a lot of people. And I don't know what she thinks the end game is. I thought the end game was that she wanted to be politically viable in 2028 and endorse the ticket like Zysantis did and have mild criticism and maybe stay in there just as I said, as an inert candidate that might be a backup if something happened or campaign and do pretty well, get within five

points, but not really win. And then they become a viable vice president candidate. But it doesn't seem like she wants to do that. The never Trumpers are completely taboo among the MAGA base. They're despised, Megan. And if you want to get into that group, I don't think it leads anywhere. We know what happens to people, both pundits't think it leads it anywhere. We know what happens to people, both pundits and politicians that went that way. We know what happened to Lynn Cheney. I mean, where, I mean, where does that go? Yeah. Liz. Yeah. No, she's, she's a hero, heroine to the left,

but only the left. And she says she's still a conservative Republican. Okay. That's fine. You can do that, but you're not going to be holding office. You're not going to be a party leader and you're not going to be an important voice for your own party. So that's Nikki Haley needs to watch it. She's already kind of been relegated to very much otherized by the Republican base that doesn't the MAGA base, which doesn't like her. So maybe she feels like that's already lost, but I don't know. I still think she has a shot of being someone important to Trump, given that she could. I think, you know, that's what's sad about it, because she she does resonate with these donors that have been on record. They don't want to support Trump. But when they look at what Biden

has done to the country and they say to themselves, do I want a repeat of 2017 to 2020, which was Trump, or do I want a repeat of 2021 to 24? I think most of the donors who are backing Haley look back at the Trump four years and see it as vastly superior to the Biden four years. So for all their protests, they're volatile, and they could go back to Trump, and she could be a valuable agent in seeing that done. And I think she would be rewarded politically for that if she could be of help to Donald Trump in some capacity. And I think she could. She appeals to people that Trump does not appeal to. And he's going to need that three to five percent, given that what's what this election will look like. I don't think we're up for this election, to tell you the truth. They're going to outspend him three or four billion to a billion and a half. And there's going to be 60, 70 percent voting not on Election Day in these swing states. And Mark Zuckerberg and the Silicon Valley money is going to be, I think, there in greater number even than in 2020. And if you remember that Molly Ball time essay that she outlined the plan, it was pretty scary what she admitted to post facto.

And I think it's going to be enhanced in 2024. So Trump is going to need all the help he can get. And it's too bad she's going to do the same so she can hold on to whatever relationship is left right now between her and the core Republican base and possibly get an administration post, which, you know, right now she's not set up for anything. She has no job. So it's no, none that I know of. Anyway, she was on the Boeing board. She's sort of been in corporate America here and there, but not without with a principal role. So maybe she makes up with Trump. She campaigns for Trump this next year, tries to get those moderates on board and winds up with some sort of cabinet post. The independents in New Hampshire voted for Nikki Haley. The people with a college degree voted for Nikki Haley. Everyone else voted for Trump. He won with the old people, with the young people, with the men,

with the women. I mean, across demographics, he won. Even associate's degree, he won. And he lost bachelor's degree people narrowly to Nikki Haley. Then she beat him solidly with people who have an advanced degree. He also won with everybody making under $100,000. She narrowly beat him with those making over $100,000. This brings me to a discussion I heard on the VDH podcast the other day where you were talking about this Rasmussen poll looking at the elites and how they see the world. Like there is a reason, Victor, that the people doing well financially over a hundred thousand dollars a year,

the people with advanced degrees voted for Nikki Haley and probably are not going to vote for Donald Trump no matter what. The way they see the world is extremely different from the way the other people I just ticked through see the world. Absolutely. I'm speaking from my farm in the Central Valley and the per capita income is about $13,000. And I work each week in Palo Alto where it's over $150,000. And I work with people with PhDs and MBAs and JDs. And then I'm here where I don't see very many people with any... Most people don't have a high school diploma. And yet they're very competent. They're very hardworking. They're very good people. Mostly they're Mexican-American citizens and so-called illegal immigrants. But it's a dichotomy. And when I go drive that 200 miles, I see what globalization did and enriched the Bay Area. And it impoverished people who were

involved in muscular labor. In other words, what they did could be Xeroxed in other countries, both their labor or the whole company could be outsourced. And the people in the Bay Area, they take this example, the B-coastal elite, they woke up around 2000 and their market was no longer 300 million. It was 7 billion in law, insurance, tech, finance, banking, corporate. And they've created a level of wealth that is just unprecedented civilization, which is OK. It enriches all of us. But the problem is

that they became utopian and they came up with these crazy ideas about education, about energy, about race. And it was all predicated that the real life consequences, whether it was critical legal theory, critical race theory, the green theories, they never were subject to the consequences of their own ideology. They never were subject to the consequences of their own ideology. They just experimented on the losers of globalization. And that's what Trump understood. And so he was trying to create an ecumenical class party that wasn't predicated on racial differences. And he may be successful when getting the highest number of Latinos and blacks in the next election if he's careful than we've ever seen for a Republican. But this wealthy group hasn't really been examined. And

because they own the media and academia, K through 12, entertainment, the corporate boardroom, the popular culture, they're really exempt from really introspection on who they are, what their values are. But I think they've been a very pernicious influence on this country. And they're very selfish people. And we don't say that because they have all of these degrees, they have the right zip codes, they have the right 401ks, they have the right professions. And they have high self-regard for themselves. And I see them on the Stanford campus hourly. And, you know, it's just a relief to get away from them because they're very judgmental. And yet they're very proud of their generation and they're very critical of the dead. And when you look at what they've accomplished, and I don't see San Francisco better than it was 30 years ago or 50 years ago.

And I don't see the universities, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, as pillars of intellectual inquiry and freedom of thought compared to 1940 or 50. So I don't really see what they're basing their high self-regard on, given what they've done to the country. Yeah, they're in their own little bubble. Here's some of the data from I heard you discussing, and it's a very interesting Wall Street Journal article that you were taking up. It's by Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal. She writes it on January 18th, and it's entitled The Them vs. Us Election. She's basing the piece off of polling from Scott Rasmussen's RMG Research

and how this subset of Americans feels about the issues. And it's fascinating. It's fascinating. Listen to this. So those with a postgraduate degree earning more than $150,000 a year and living in a high density area, these are, which are considered elites for the purposes of this poll. All right. Postgraduate degree, more than 150 K living in an urban area. Among these elites, 74% say their finances are getting better compared with 20% of the rest of voters. The share is 88% among elites who are Ivy League graduates. Their finances are getting better. Yeah, it's awesome. Life under Biden. We love Bidenomics. The elite gave President Biden an 84 percent approval rating compared with 40 percent from non elites. Again, this is not left right. This is based on those three criteria criteria just listed. Eighty four percent approval rating. Large majorities have a favorable view of university professors.

Eighty nine percent approve of what we're seeing on college campuses with these professors. 79% love journalists and what the media is doing. This is like an alternate universe. 78% give a big thumbs up to lawyers and union leaders. And 67%, even like members of Congress. I mean, it's incredible because every year you hear Congress has the approval rating of like maybe 6%, at most 13%. So this is a very tiny sliver of America, but they drive major industries. I'm going to keep going. Two-thirds say they would prefer a candidate who says teachers and educational professionals, not parents, should decide what children are taught. Nearly 50% of elites believe the U.S. provides too much individual freedom, as if that's something we get,

they just give to us, and we've been given too much. 77% of these elites support strict rationing of gas, meat, and electricity to fight climate change versus 28% of everyone else who would support that. And finally, two-thirds, more than two-thirds of elite Ivy League graduates favor banning things like gasoline-powered cars and stoves and inessential air travel, all because they want to support the environment. These people, no wonder they're freaked out by MAGA and Trump. They have absolutely nothing in common with regular people, real regular people. They don't. I work in the San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Stanford triad, and I see them every day. They're very

peculiar people because they insulate themselves from the consequences, as I said, of their ideas. So they hate teachers unions. I mean, they love teachers unions. They hate charter schools. They hate homeschooling. And yet their kids are not in the public schools. They hate jet travel for poi poi, but they love to be, you know, tag along on private jets. And they want kilowatts up to 30, 40 cents, you know, 40 cents for a kilowatt for heating and cooling, yet they live in a Bay Area environment

that's about 65 degrees year round where they don't even need air conditioning. And yet, every once in a while, you see a chink in their armor, or you get a glimpse into their soul. And by that, I mean, sometimes, on rare occasions, the consequences of their ideology hit them. And we saw that with illegal immigration. They praised illegal immigration. They loved their maids. They loved their nannies. They love their landscapers. But every once in a while, it hits them when people go to Martha's Vineyard or the red state governor say, why don't you share the burden in New York or Chicago or Seattle? Then they show that they get angry about what's happening to them. You also saw it with the DEI

and the effect on kind of what I would call repertory admissions where to take one case where I work, 20% of the incoming Stanford classes the last two years have been so-called whites. And that meant there's not enough room for brilliant white kids, especially white males with perfect SAT scores, which SAT was dropped as a requirement, or perfect GPA. And they don't have, they are not, you know, not all of them are billionaires that can buy their way in. And not all of them are kids of rich alumni or legacies or administrators or faculty.

So a large number of straight A kids with high test scores, optional, they submitted, did not get into places like Harvard and Stanford. And all of a sudden, these people were furious. They said, this is unfair. This is racist. This is horrible. In other words, they never thought it would happen to them, just like with immigration. And that really shows me when you see these contradictions come home to roost to them, and they get irate, but they never quite see that they created these situations that have hurt people for generations. And now they just barely start to affect them and they go hysterical. And if the Republicans are coherent and they can create a large, lower, middle, middle, and upper middle class coalition that transcends race and starts talking about, you know, not equity,

but a quality of opportunity in the real sense and starts, you know, addressing these. They could win really big. They could do a lot of good by winning the House and the Senate and the presidency. And it requires a lot from Trump because, you know, that speech he gave in Iowa, I thought it was brilliant. And it just drove the acceptance speech, it drove the media crazy. They didn't want to cover it. It was much better than the one he gave in New Hampshire. And when he set aside that I'm not a vindictive person, I don't hold grudges. Anytime he does that, he smiles, got a twinkle in his eye. And so he's

capable of doing that. And everybody said he can't do it. He's Trump. You know, Trump, he goes in. No, I don't believe that. I think he can do that. And if he were to do that, he could win a Reagan 1980 type revolutionary election. And that's the hope, I think, that we all have. But I don't know if it's going to come to fruition. They have to unite. There's so many things against the conservative mega movement. There really is the institutional opposition, the cultural opposition, the international opposition, the financial opposition. And the only chance they have is to unite. Yes. And the voting system, the way they changed it in 2020, it hasn't been unchanged. It hasn't. You know that all these swing states, as I said, they're all going to vote 70, 60 percent non-election day.

And so they have to unite. They have to raise money. They have to be disciplined. Trump's got to be ecumenical. And that's a lot of ifs. But if they were to do that, they could win and they could really make things better for everybody. There was the Supreme Court ruling this week saying that it's complicated, but the sum and substance of it is Texas put up barbed wire and a flotilla of that looks sort of like a barrier to entry at one of its busiest entry point for illegals because the feds are doing nothing. I mean, it's truly just they they're doing what they can to try to protect their citizenry. And rather than just leave well enough alone, the Biden administration saying, you know what, we didn't do it.

But no one's going to hold us hold it against us if we don't interfere with Texas's attempt to protect itself. We're going to go down there and we are going to interfere and we're going to sue them. And we're going to try to make them take all that down because we're in charge of immigration, which they are. The feds are in charge of immigration, but they're not doing it. So they did go into court. And after a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Texas's favor, saying that the Border Patrol should not should not interfere with that barbed wire unless it was a case of an emergency, so that Texas had won, the feds were being kept out, went up to the Supreme Court, has to still be heard on the merits,

but a temporary decision was handed down by the high court saying, while the case is pending, the feds win. Basically, they can interfere. They can do what they want. They're in charge of the border. If they want that wire down, they can take down that wire. And Texas, you can't stop them. Well, something extraordinary is happening right now. And I told the audience yesterday, I oppose it. We're getting some disobedience from Texas saying we're not going to let them. And as much

as I'm on Texas's side, and I know you are too, Victor, you can't have it. Supreme Court, the orders must be obeyed. They have to be obeyed if we are to have a country. The rule of law is what holds us together, whether we like it or we don't. We really don't want to set a precedent that you can blow off their opinions when conservatives have finally amassed a six to three majority for the first time in decades. And the principal case has not yet been decided. It could still go Texas's way. This is not worth it for the next six months to disobey the order and set that precedent. And yet they appear to be doing it. However, this is, I want to get your thoughts on that, but this is my real question to you.

What is going to happen? So far, the feds haven't done it. So far, the feds haven't gotten down. They just came down the other day. They haven't gone down there to try to pull down the fences, the wire, the barrier, all that. You get videotape of the Biden administration chopping down the wire fence, getting, removing it. I mean, it's the essential rolling out the red carpet. As the news comes out, like we just saw today, again, God bless Bill Malugin of Fox News. Here's just one guy who was arrested Sunday, as in a few days ago. Cartel member with 40 plus illegal entry attempts. Just one of those is a federal felony that should land you in jail for two years.

This guy has 40 over the last two years during the Biden administration. We don't enforce the law. We let them come in. He's a cartel member of one of the most dangerous. They're all extremely dangerous, but one of the most brutal enforcement wings of the most brutal cartels. And you're going to have video on loop by Team Trump, Fox News, people like me of Biden taking down the wire fence that would have kept this guy out. I just wonder whether they'll do it, whether Biden will do it. Well, I think they will, because I think they see it as a January 6 hysteria to capitalize on. And you're right. You can't oppose the Supreme Court ruling. Although I would note that the left and academia, it's now illegal to use affirmative action. And all these universities are doing right now, and I can attest firsthand, are coming up with strategies to vitiate or

cancel the Supreme Court's ruling. And they will. That won't affect them at all. Even if they're sued, they'll keep doing it. But what was really bad about this was, at first glance, you say, you know, this is a crazy state's rights, and the states don't have jurisdiction over a federal matter. But when you look at it closely, Texas has the same border as the federal government. It's our border, but it's also their border, number one. And number two, Texas was trying to enforce a federal law and the federal government was trying not to enforce and break the law. So Texas was saying to the federal government, we're going to help you enforce your law. And the federal government is saying, we're going to break the law and force you not to enforce our law. That was one thing. The second thing was asymmetry because, Megan, there's 550 sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide, state, local, county, civic,

and they nullify federal law. In other words, if you go to Fresno or Modesto or San Francisco, and you're an illegal alien, you could commit a felony and you're detained and ICE wants to deport you and has a right to do that, those jurisdictions will nullify the federal immigration statutes and not turn that person over. And they're really saying the left is, we're going to be like South Carolina in 1832 or 1859. We're just going to thumb up our nose at federal law. And you know what would happen if counties or cities in Utah or Montana said, okay, we're going to have a sanctuary city for the endangered speeches list.

If we see that little rat with two spots on its tail and it's endangered and it's going to hold up an office building, we're just going to smash it. We're not going to follow that statute. Or if we're going to want to buy a Glock and the federal gun registry says we have to register, wait 90 days, except we're not going to do that in Wyoming. We're going to nullify it. This is a free zone. And so you can see what I'm getting at. The left is so asymmetrical. There's sometimes states, Confederate, almost neo-Confederate, the way they interpret states' rights. And then suddenly when it's an issue that they don't really, they don't support, then they turn into, you know, ultra hyper-Federalist. And you can't have it both ways. And so I think they're baiting and egging on Texas to protect themselves and therefore clash with the federal government. And then they'll take MSNBC and CNN will have pictures of a standoff between Texas, you know,

border patrol officers and federal border patrols. And you'll get clips of January 6th insurrection and they'll get a quote from Trump. That's what they want. Because anything, any of these hysterias, COVID, the lockdowns, the George Floyd thing, that is all they have, and they exploit it so brilliantly because they don't have 50% support on the agenda. Nobody supports their crime, border, economic, foreign policy, energy agenda. Even in New Hampshire, illegal immigration was the number one issue for voters on the Trump side. It was. It was. Again, when it's unaffiliated, at least half of these folks are unaffiliated. It's not all Republicans. Number one, over the economy.

As far north as New Hampshire, thanks in part to this busing plan that Greg Abbott put in place where that makes sanctuary cities and as a result, the areas around them feel the pain of these illegals, too. Yeah, I don't think people realize what's happening. I live in a county in an area where people are bused in. So about a year ago, I had an allergic reaction of all things to a bee sting and I had to go to the ER. I was completely passed out. I almost, you know, 70 over and I just passed out. Ambulance came. There was not one person in the ER that spoke English of the patient.

I was the only person. And the doctors were trying to do their best, but they were just overwhelmed. And when I go to my specialist for a problem, say two years ago, there were eight or nine people in the waiting, there's 30. And when I drive down my avenue, there used to be a little litter, but we have so many homes now with people who are living illegally and they don't have trash pickup. I'm talking about whole appliances. I'm talking about car seats. I'm talking about bags and bags of wet garbage. I'm talking about everything from dead cats to human feces just thrown throughout, just as if it is in Mexico. And when you say this to people who are not experiencing it, then they get angry and say you're racist.

Then all of a sudden, Eric Adams says, well, wait a minute, there's parks in New York where there's human feces, excrement. We can't believe this. What's happening? Well, it's coming home. And that's what all of us have been dealing with for years. But now it's at the point where it's not sustainable. And it's really hard on a lot of minority communities because they've tried so hard to get advanced placement in their schools. And suddenly when you're inundated with people who don't speak English and some of them don't speak Spanish, they speak an indigenous dialect, you have to have bilingual education again. Or your grandmother's at a dialysis clinic and she's got an appointment and suddenly there's 50 people clamoring for that one machine. And that happens all the time. And the people who,

the Biden family and the people around them are never, they never worry about this. It's like they had the same attitude on this as they did East Palestine. And these are losers and racists. You know, as you know, it's not just limited to the Democrats, this sort of old school Chamber of Commerce Republicans. I hate to say it. It's the Chamber of Commerce, big corporation, Wall Street Journal editorial page. That's who they are. Honestly, if you try to get your information on what's happening in Texas or any place else from the Wall Street Journal, you are going to get spun right into how bad all those border efforts Texas is doing are and how, you know, it's really no one likes it. It's dangerous. I mean, it's you might as well just read MSNBC.

Meanwhile, I mean, the Babylon Bee, which is such an important cultural voice, right? Like they just kind of get these things and make an attempt to humor out of them, allow us to laugh a little bit. But the reason that Texas suffered this defeat, temporary though it may be, in the U.S. Supreme Court was because three liberals joined with two of the conservatives, Chief Justice Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, to say the feds can interfere with the fence. And then the Babylon Bee tweets out the following, Victor, Amy Coney Barrett says ruling for open border has nothing to do with landscaping work she needs done this summer. Yeah, I mean, they're not wrong. And people on the court who are on the left have absolute rigid discipline. There's never a dissenting boy. And they all say that this they don't.

No one ever says to the the three and the minority or when there was four or even when there was they had a majority. No one ever says that lockstep, complete discipline, every liberal cause is somehow wrong. But when the Republicans or the conservatives on the bench do it, it is. And so that puts enormous pressure on conservative justice. They live in that environment in Washington. Everybody wants to be liked. They like to look in the newspapers and see that they're praised as sober and judicious and ecumenical. And so it's just really depressing to see them rule like that when they should move out of washington this is back to my husband's theory my husband's theory is that we should not have any attractive supreme court justices that they get pulled into the georgetown party circuit they're they're you they're kind of it's important to them to be loved and have the affirmation of people around them because that's what being attractive your whole life has gotten you and i will say say, you know, Amy Coney Barrett, she's lovely. And Chief Justice Roberts, he's a good looking man. Those are the two.

Well, I mean, same with Justice O'Connor was the same way. She was a very charismatic person. Reagan appointed her and pretty soon she wanted to be loved. And she was, she was a very nice person and good judge, but she wasn't a conservative by the end of her career on the bench. And she ruled one of her worst rulings was to affirm another 20 years or something of affirmative action. Republicans have in general, just to take off on that point, that they don't have these institutions that communicate with us and the methods of journalism or reading or video or audio communication. And they want to be liked and they want to be accepted. And they can't face the tragic reality that if you are going to support the customs and traditions of the United

States and what made us exceptionally unique in a very bizarre postmodern world that we live in, you're going to be hated. And these institutions are going to try to destroy you and discredit you and defame you. And you have to accept that as a price of trying to save the society and the culture and the civilization. And that's what really gets, I see it so often with pundits, you know, or book writers, they want a good book review in the New York Review of Books, or they want to be, I don't know, PBS or NPR, but it's not going to happen. Because they don't want you if you're genuine and authentic in your views. And we never can accept that because to accept it is kind of tragic. It's going to say, if you try to tell the truth about the civilization where we're headed, you're going to be despised in your own time. And all you can say is, well, maybe in some future day, people will appreciate that there were some of us trying to warn where we were going.

And, you know, to some extent, that was the tragedy of Donald Trump, that he had this methodology that came in and did great things. And once the thing started to work, people looked at the methodology and said, oh, my gosh, I voted for this guy. He tweets, he's vulgar, not in my name. I can't take it any longer. And then we got Biden. where we were before when people are going to have to grow up and say, he has the ability as a gunslinger, a Shane or Magnificent Seven to come in and get rid of the cattle barons or the banditos, whoever they are, and fix things. And then he'll ride off in the sunset. But I don't think people can accept that, especially the donor class. They just fixate on his crudities and forget all the good things he did while he was there.

Well, that's because somebody was just asking me this. I gave an interview to the BBC and they were asking me, why is it that Trump resonates with the working class and he grew up with a silver spoon and has all this money and Joe Biden, who's from Scranton, Pennsylvania, doesn't. And one of the things I was saying was, you know, on a number of levels, Trump speaks the same language as the working class. He grew up in construction in New York City real estate. He's got the New York accent. It's just something endearing about it. And he gets the way they talk and what some might discuss is his vulgarity, which, you know, let's face it, I have it too.

Many people find endearing and it's the way they talk and they're not even in the least offended by it. But the other piece of it is his policies have been very pro working class. It's the major piece, right? China, immigration, the wall, manufacturing. And on top of all that is the thing that scares them the most, Victor, which you just alluded to. And that is he's got the credibility to be able to say, I know I'm one of them. I can tell you how the game is played. That's that's what we do. We take money from this Republican and from that Democrat and whoever's the highest bidder has the most access, you know, to somebody like this politician here. And I remember you, you came to me and you asked me for a donation. I gave it because I wanted to buy. That's exactly what I wanted. You're quoting verbatim how he kind of in one line destroyed who I like, Rand Paul,

but he destroyed his candidacy when Rand Paul said, you're the problem of money in politics. He said, yeah, you came into my office and you wanted $10,000 and I gave it to you and it'd been good to me ever since. And nobody ever heard me, but he said anything like that. And so the thing about him was the attraction. He was authentic. You know, he came to Tulare, California. I couldn't go and I talked to everybody. And I said, so did he come and he have the straw in his mouth? Did he have the caterpillar hat?

Did he have the jeans? Did you have the sets with the hay bales and the John Deere tractor? And it was amazing. This was in 2016. They said, no, no, no, no, no, no. He came and it was very, very hot with a black suit and a tie that went all the way down to his zipper. And he had polished shoes. And I said, well, did he do the Hillary, you know, hey, you all, and I'm so tired or the Obama, the modulation of the voice and a phony way for the, no,

he said he had this bizarre queen's accent that nobody had ever heard before. And he was sweating like a dog. And I said, well, did he at least get rid of the comb over? No, no, no, no. He was more Trump than ever. So I said, everybody thought he was just a city sicker. And they said, no, no, they loved him because he was authentic. And that was what he was. He was what he was. And, you know, it's a commentary on all these politicians. They all, you know, it's so sickening to see Hillary or Joe Biden or Barack Obama go, you all. And they insult the audience when Joe Biden said they was speaking to were upper middle class professionals. And he was acting as if they were first generation 1870 blacks living in the South. And it was so condescending, just like his corn pop stories. And yet the left doesn't see anything wrong with that. But authenticity, if you're authentic, it's very valuable.

This is what we're banking on. The country, the country's banking on, forget the left. They're not going to vote for Trump, but for those independents he needs to see it. I am going to say, well, I'm going to take a break and then I'm going to come back with what Van Jones said Biden should do now. I mean, I agree with Van Jones. I think he's pushing the right strategy here, but I'd love to know what you think. Quick break. Right back. Victor Davis Hanson stays with us. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch the Megan

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free. Go to SiriusXM.com slash MK show to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply. So, Victor, here was Van Jones with advice to Joe Biden on what to do over the next 10 months. What is the campaign going to look like? Are there going to be debates? It is going to be. I think that's an open question. If I were Biden, I would stay hidden.

And I'll tell you why. He doesn't inspire confidence. And he's not a great messenger for himself. There's something wrong with this campaign where we're somehow expecting Joe Biden, who frankly he hid during the last campaign, to come out now and be Flash Gordon and save his own campaign. The people who are benefiting from the Biden economy and they exist should be empowered to speak. Stay hidden. It's good advice, no?

Yeah, he's right. And he could have added that it worked the first time because of COVID. And that was the excuse. And now he doesn't have the excuse of COVID. So it's going to be a little bit more problematic. I don't know what he means when he says the people who benefited from the economy should be speaking given mortgage rates are 7% and the prices for staple food, gas, rent are about 20 to 30% higher. And they have not gone down even though the annual inflation rates gone down. i don't see anybody out where i live that's better off they all detest the economy and what's happened to them especially when they even now there's they're paying over four dollars a gallon for gas so i i don't see that i don't think he wants them but i guess what he's saying is that

i think that subtext of what he was hinting at is that there should be an intervention, because if you're saying that he can't campaign and you're not going to have an excuse, then Harris, but it might be the intervention of Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom or somebody. Because I think Biden is declining at a geometric rather than an arithmetic rate. And I think it's getting worse by the week. And the time that he's not in the White House is increasing. I don't think we've ever seen a president that is working three to four days a week maximum and not all day. And just a few hours a day. Let me show you an example of the latest, Victor. He was on Tuesday in Virginia trying to say something about don't mess with the women of America. But take a listen to what it sounded like. We'll teach Donald Trump a valuable lesson. Don't mess with the men of America unless you want to get the benefit. What? Every day with the marbles in the mouth. You can't understand. I mean, when Van Jones is being very charitable when he says he's not an effective messenger, it's so far beyond that.

Yeah. I mean, I think what he's saying is, look, when we had high inflation, I covered for him. When the interest rates went up, I covered for him. When we see all the stuff going on in the Middle East and Afghanistan, I covered for him. When we see the crime going, I covered for him. When I saw the open border, I covered for him. When he's hidden in the basement, I covered for him. But at some point, I'm kind of like the 51 intelligence authorities that lied about the lab. At some point, I can't do this any longer. And we've got to do something. He's got to get out there and debate, but he can't get out there and debate. And yet we can't keep telling everybody that he's perfectly cognizant and there's no problem.

And so I think he's trying to warn people either that he's not going to do it anymore and or that they shouldn't do it anymore or that Biden shouldn't do it anymore. Right. It's everybody talks about some more effective messenger to really bring it home. Yeah. But really, the campaign is going to be based on scaring the electorate about ultra MAGA. That's very clearly what they're going to do. Can't say I disagree with the attempt, right, because you can't keep touting Bidenomics or the border. So it's going to be trying to scare people. But I will say credit to Dean Phillips, who is this Democratic challenger to Biden. He really only had a play in New Hampshire where Biden wasn't on the ballot for all sorts of reasons.

Dean Philip was. He wound up getting 20%, which was, okay, got 20%. I mean, Dean Phillips doesn't have any shot, but he's a nice guy. He came on the show, and I think he's an interesting man. He's a centrist, so I like centrists. And he, listen to what he said about the Trump electorate and what his party is not understanding in Sat 9.

I got to tell you guys, I went to a Donald Trump rally a couple of nights ago. Never been to one. I had an event across the street. I saw the line of people waiting in the cold for hours. And I thought, what the heck? I'm going to be a leader who actually invites people, doesn't condemn them. Met probably 50 Trump people waiting in line, every single one of them, thoughtful, hospitable, friendly, all of them so frustrated that they feel nobody's listening to them but Donald Trump. A diverse crowd, people who had never been to a Trump event before. My party is completely delusional right now. We have a. Right. They're completely delusional in characterizing these people as something to be afraid of, silenced, defeated, avoided.

They do better to listen to them and try to address some of their concerns, which, by the way, would not include cutting down the razor wire. They don't get it. Dean Phillips is right. No, I mean, at five this morning, I talked to a guy who was shredding brush on the almond orchard. I had talked to a plumber yesterday and I went to a used car guy and talked to him. Just normal business. You know what's so strange about they were all for Trump, but they're not judgmental people. They're open minded and they just are voting for him, not because of some cosmic theory, but because they feel that things were going their way three years ago and they're definitely not going their way now. But the irony is when you go up to the Silicon Valley people or the people on the Stanford

campus, they are ideologue. They're set. They're intolerant. You try to talk to them. They get angry. They get ad hominem. And I think that's what Phillips was trying to say is that you people don't understand that these people that you demonize as ultra-MAGA and semi-fascist, when you go talk to them, they're very rational, logical people. They're just trying to find a way out of the dilemma that we're in. They want to be able to they want their kids to be able to buy a house. If their son goes into the army, they don't want them to be exposed to woke. They're tired of all these generals that are going in the revolving door and then lecturing people about how illiberal they are. They're tired of all this. And they have they have a point. And we are the people who are judgmental, not them. And I thought that was pretty brave of him to say that. I really did. It was it was insightful and it was brave. And I think the

guy's got a future ahead of him in politics if he wants it. Hopefully the Democrat Party won't punish him too hard for daring to challenge President Biden. Victor, always a pleasure. Thank you so much, my friend. Great to see you. Thank you for having me, Megan. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.