The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump's Blockade Threat and Jesus-Like Truth Social Post, with Brandon Weichert, and the TRUTH About Swalwell | Ep. 1294

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Megyn Kelly opens the show by discussing the lengthy but ultimately unsuccessful peace negotiations between VP JD Vance and the Iranians, Trump’s new proposal to conduct a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, new reporting that the blockade will actually be related to Iran's ports, Trump’s major criticism of Pope Leo XIV as soft on crime and doing a bad job after the pope criticized the war, the AI image he posted portraying himself as Jesus, the massive backlash it received even from his supporters, and more. Then Brandon Weichert, host of "NatSec Talk" on Rumble, joins to discuss what will happen next with Iran as tensions in the Strait of Hormuz escalate, the risk of military strikes resuming, whether VP JD Vance was set up to fail with the Iran peace negotiations, Netanyahu's comments about getting reports from Vance throughout the negotiations, Fox News discussing the benefits of censorship to stop certain "narratives" from changing how people think about issues, the accurate framing that Israel did help lead Trump and America into the war with Iran, and more. Then Megyn dives into the story of Rep. Eric Swalwell and the alleged misconduct with a former staffer, his California governor campaign being torpedoed in what appears to be a coordinated hit by the Democrat establishment and corporate media, questions about the former staffer's story in her CNN interview, the truth about the stories being told now by alleged victims now, the facts many in the media are ignoring, and more.    Weichert- https://rumble.com/user/NatSecTalk   Birch Gold: Text MK to 989898 to join Birch Gold’s Learn and Earn event by April 30! Veracity Selfcare: Head to https://VeracityHealth.coand use code MK for up to 65% off your order Done with Debt: https://www.DoneWithDebt.com & tell them Megyn Kelly sent you! Herald Group: Learn more at https://GuardYourCard.com     Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow  Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show and happy Monday. Big, big show coming up for you today. There's a lot of news. One of President Trump's biggest critics in Congress forced to drop out of the California gubernatorial race. What's really going on behind the Eric Swalwell drama? But first, the latest in Iran. Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Pakistan along with Jared Kushner, and Steve Whitkoff over the weekend,

where he negotiated with Iranian officials for 21 hours, seeking to formally end the war and make this two-week ceasefire, such as it is, permanent. As you know, the ceasefire is kind of not a ceasefire because even though we agreed that Lebanon would be part of it, Bibi Netanyahu overruled us, and President Trump went along with his overruling and then turned around to Iran and said Lebanon was never part of it.

And Iran said that's not true. That wasn't our deal. That's not the deal that the Pakistani prime minister announced with our agreement after we struck it. And Iran started fighting back. So there hasn't really been much of a ceasefire. We're doing our part in not continuing to bomb Iran. But our close ally Israel is not doing its part. So we're trying to get the ceasefire enacted, first of all.

And secondly, we're trying to extend the ceasefire, such as it is, into a permanent peace. Despite the vice president and our two envoys' best efforts, there was no deal. Here's Vice President Vance explaining what happened to watch. We've been at it now for 21 hours, and we've had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That's the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement. And I think that's bad news for Iran much more than it's bad news for the United States. of America. So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We've made very

clear what our red lines are, what things we're willing to accommodate them on, and what things we're not willing to accommodate them on. And we've made that as clear as we possibly could, and they have chosen not to accept our terms. According to multiple reports, the Iranians refused to concede to the American's demands to end uranium enrichment, end it all together, and to remove any enriched uranium already in the country. That's an Israeli demand. It's actually never going to happen that they are going to agree to not enrich any uranium for all sorts of reasons that that's never been a deal point in all the prior negotiations that the U.S. has had with Iran over this issue going back several presidents. That's a new requirement comes from our special ally,

Israel that wants zero. Zero. It's almost as if somebody intentionally wanted to queer the deal by insisting that that be put in there. In response to the collapse of the negotiations, President Trump announcing on truth social yesterday that the U.S. would soon, quote, begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz. The president's messaging has been all over the board on the street. They can have it. They don't. Oh, okay, have it. And then what about, we'll leave and it'll open up naturally. What happened to that?

How come that didn't happen? How come we're no longer there? Then it turned into, okay, they're going to charge a toll. It's going to be a joint venture. It can be a joint venture. Now it's, there can be no toll. And by the way, if you go through a toll and you pay a toll, we will track you down on the high seas, high seas, and I don't know what we'll do to you.

But he's threatening that our Navy will find any ships to pay the toll and make them pay some sort of a price. What the messaging is all over the board. It is so slapdash. Every day brings a new significant threat, policy change or reversal, especially when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, which he was told, according to the New York Times by Israel, the Iranians would never be able to take hold of that they'd be so weakened by our initial strike.

We didn't have to worry about them taking control of the strait. What? That was wrong too. And it's very clear that we are struggling to come up with a coherent policy to get them to cede control of it and to get others to stop trying to use it. Because right now Iran has let it be open to civilian traffic, but not military, because they're making money now off of these ships going through the Strait of Hormuz. They never were before. You never had to pay a toll before. We invaded them. But now you do. And obviously, President Trump doesn't like it and the Arab nations don't like it. But, you know, all these countries that depend upon oil from this area of the world feel they have no choice. So they're, they're going to pay it

and they're going to use it. And now President Trump is trying to stop that. So what happens next? We have some diplomatic incident if, like, China pays the toll and tries to go through the straight. And what are we going to do to its ships? Are we going to have an international, domestic, diplomatic incident with China? I don't think so. So what do we do? Do we go make a ship from Spain, pay? If it goes through the toll and pays it,

but we don't make the ships from China do that? You see what's happening here, right? You see the dangers? Well, what President Trump said would be total closure of the Strait of Hormuz quickly got updated too, because our policy does appear to be incoherent at the moment. Shortly thereafter, because Trump said that yesterday, U.S. Sentcom, the group that our military group

that actually oversees the Middle East, clarifying that no, no, no, this blockade would actually begin at 10 a.m. today and that it would only apply to vessels entering or departing Iranian ports. Okay, so not the entire strait. You can go through the strait, but you can't leave an Iranian port or go into an Iranian port and coastal areas. Writing on X, quote, sent com forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports. Okay. So, I mean, are you keeping up with this? Like, is it any wonder that oil prices are now spiking back to over $100 a barrel?

And our friend Eric Bowling, who was in the oil business for three decades? It was like several, several years prior to joining Fox News. That's where he made a considerable fortune. It was not off of his Fox News job. So he knows something about the oil and gas industry. And he went on Steve Bannon's show over the weekend and said, it's not going to stop at $100 a barrel. Watch. This is really bad.

You know, Vance walked out. I had thought he was going to stay a lot longer and maybe trying to negotiate, keep the negotiations going. But he left after 21 hours and had it back here, I'm trying to figure out why. I mean, this is global oil. This is a global economy at risk. Can I just very quick, I'll tell you, the first thing I did is I called to a couple of my friends who were major brokers of international oil. And I said, what do you think? It feels like a lot higher. And they said, yes, I said 110. And the quote was very soon. So we finished Friday at about $96, $97 a barrel. So these people think at least

100, I do too, at least 110. It's not temporary. And we literally removed a president, President Biden, for bringing inflation up. The last inflation number we just saw, Steve, has inflation tripling, energy inflation tripling month over month from February to March. That's one month. And we started the month of March very low and worked our way all the way up through the month. I will tell you, I believe we'll have a 5% inflation, 6% inflation. So oil going up to 110 in all likelihood, he says a barrel and five or six percent inflation coming as a result because it's not just oil prices leading to higher gas prices. It affects the entire market. And we'll get to more of that in a minute.

Now, Axios this morning, reporting that all parties do believe a deal is still possible and that a new round of negotiations could begin before the ceasefire expires in just over one week. Let's hope that's true. Let's hope our good friend and special ally, Israel, allows it. Or what other tricks do they have up their sleeve to try to prevent it from happening? Meantime, President Trump has picked up a new feud with Pope Leo the 14th. seems like a great time to start a feud with a Catholic Pope. I will be the first to tell you the Pope has been critical of this war. I'm Catholic, obviously.

He's been critical of this war. And as he's been critical of it, it occurred to me that it was just a matter of time before President Trump would lash out at him. And he did. So it wasn't great. It was predictable. And no Catholic loves this, but you could see it coming. and it's hard to say that Trump is completely out of line because whenever he gets attacked,

whether it's by a journalist or a talking head or a Pope, he punches back. All right. You could definitely question the wisdom of doing this with, you know, President Trump leads a nation of 330 million people. Pope Leo leads about 1.4 billion Catholics across the world. But President Trump doesn't care. He doesn't, and he wouldn't even care if the majority of Americans were Catholic, which they're not. But he would, it's, this is what he does.

You know, if he perceives you as coming at him, he will come at you. So he lashed out last night at the pontiff on truth social, writing in part, quote, Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. I mean, he's not a politician. Okay, whatever. I don't want a Pope, writes Trump, who criticizes the president of the United States because I'm doing exactly what I was elected in a landslide to do. Are you, Mr. President, were you elected to start another Middle East war?

I don't think so. President Trump reiterating his criticism of the Pope at Joint Base Andrews last night, watch. I don't think he's doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess. He hit us think of it. He's worried about fear. What about the fear when the ministers and the priests and all of the, all of the, those great people that were arrested during COVID, and in many cases, they're outside 10 feet apart,

and they were arrested. So we don't like it. We don't like a Pope that's going to say that it's okay to have a nuclear weapon. We don't want a Pope that says crime is okay in our city. I don't like it. I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person, and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime. He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world. I'm not a fan of Pope Leo. Now, it's not entirely clear what spurred Trump's wrath, but it does appear the president was made aware, in addition, I'm sure, of the recent criticism by the Pope. Of a 60 Minutes report last night on the popes and the Catholic Church's opposition,

first of all, yes, to the Iran War, but to war in general, the Catholic Church has been pretty clear on that. No one's tried to sugarcoat the Catholic Church's opposition to war. They're pretty big on Jesus and his teachings, which do not include promotion of war. But here's a sample of what we saw in 60. This past week, he issued a rare condemnation of President Trump's threat to destroy Iranian civilization. The Pope called it, quote, truly unacceptable. He also took the unusual step of issuing a call to action. Contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war always. The Holy Father usually avoids calling out President Trump by name

or any member of his administration. But in a Palm Sunday homily, He appeared to reference the religious language defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who is Christian but not Catholic, often uses to frame the war. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. Pope Leo warned that Jesus, quote, does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. Okay, it is a little, it feels off that Pete Haxeth keeps praying. at these briefings that he's doing, as if it's all in the name of God, the bombing of Iran, in which, you know, 170 young girls were killed. That's not in the name of God, okay?

Definitely not in the name of Jesus. I wish you would just check the Jesus talk, the God talk, at the Pentagon briefings. All right? It's called the Department of War. I understand he has a job to do. It's not appropriate there. You pray on Sunday, pray every morning on your knees to God. But while you're updating us on the number you've killed, which necessarily has included

some civilians, we don't, don't mention Jesus. Don't talk about God. Don't act like he's sanctioning what you're doing, okay? And that leads me to President Trump's obvious misstep over the weekend. It wasn't the clapback at Pope Leo. I mean, I've been through this before. I was a Catholic back when he was attacking Pope Francis during his first run for office. And now it's Pope Leo.

You just knew it was coming. It was like TikTok, you knew it was coming. But what we didn't know was coming was this absolutely absurd, offensive meme, AI-generated version of a picture showing Donald Trump as Jesus. He tweeted this out, posted it on true social. I'm sure you've seen it by now, but if you haven't for the listening audience, it's, it is President Trump as Jesus with his hand on the head of a sick patient in bed and a demon behind him and a light glowing around him. It is obviously him purporting to be God. That is what he's doing.

And it is blasphemous by any definition of that word. I actually just looked it up, just to have it at the ready. I mean, blasphemy is a reverence towards sacred entities. But here's a longer definition. The act of showing great disrespect, contempt, or defiance toward God, sacred persons, or holy things, insulting, mocking, or slandering the divine. That's what he's done. It's completely inappropriate, and he knows it.

I don't know why the president's getting so desperate for attention that he feels the need to mock 1.4 billion Catholics. It's enough, okay? It's enough with this nonsense. I know you love getting a rise out of people. I know you're really enjoying being subversive. Are you upset all the right people? I get it.

But, you know, like, why? Last week it was Muslims. Now it's Catholics. Who's next? I bet you it's not going to be the Jews. It's not going to be the Israelis. I promise you that. That's not coming.

This is completely wrong. The president should take down. that meme, he should apologize, which is something he never, ever does, but he doesn't care. He won't. He's not going to apologize because he's not sorry. Now, he must be feeling some sort of blowback because it's literally just breaking now that the president deleted the meme. He must be feeling how much he's misstepped with that particular meme. So somebody got to him and said, take it down. You've offended 1.4 billion Catholics who have done nothing. to you. In fact, many of us have done nothing but support you, but support you when you get

attacked over and over and over. And we would appreciate not being mocked for our religious beliefs, something you seem to be increasingly fond of doing across most, but not all religions. I don't know what he's doing. But the president is spiraling downward in his poll numbers. He is on a downward spiral now. We'll talk about in a minute what's happening with the white working class. That's Trump's base. And he's now underwater with them. We saw one poll about seven to ten days ago showing it. And now there's another. There's no question. He's collapsed now with the white working class. My friends, that's it. Other than Fox News boomers, there's no one left.

There's no one left in the original MAGA coalition. White working class? I really look forward to the people who purport to speak for the white working class. People who have written whole books about the working class and what's important to them. People who have been ripping on the so-called podcast class for being critical of this war and how they're completely irrelevant and no one listens to them. I really look forward to those people updating their reporting to tell us what's actually happening among the Trump base now.

Because they want him to focus on the economy, on inflation, not on Iran. That's what they want. They don't give two shits about the street of Hormuz, about Karg Island, about blockades in the Middle East. They care about their pocketbooks and being able to pay their mortgages and their grocery bills and their car payment without getting that. sickening feeling in their stomach. They don't have unlimited funds.

You know, I was watching Tim Dillon over the weekend talking about the Melania piece that we talked about on Friday where she was like, we had the same social circus with Jeffrey Epstein in New York and Palm Beach. And he was making the point that, yes, she's trying to tell you she's rich and you're not. He was saying, you go to a party, it's your sister's. He said, your fat sister's retirement party. He was like only Tim can. Anyway, that's where most of us travel.

Those are our circles. And she has a very different social circle, and so does the president. And it would do him very, very well to remember not the people who buy the buildings from him, but the people who build them. That was always Trump's magic gift. It was his special sauce. It was like the thing that made him invincible is that he came from money, but he could understand a relate to the working class, and they loved him for it. Get back to that for the love of God. Stop waking up thinking about how you can bomb the Iranians, send troops in on the ground,

and offend 1.4 billion Christians across the country and the world. Okay? I just, I don't know what he's doing. I don't know why he's doing this other than he's acting like a cornered animal. You know, when you feel like you're cornered and things are out of control, you lash out. You lash out at your most ardent supporters and treat them like they're the enemy. You lash out at a bunch of Catholics on and immediately after Easter and also Orthodox Easter. And you continue to ratchet up the rhetoric, like saying you're going to do something like bomb Iran's desalinization. plans, which he's doing again, raising that, as though that would be an acceptable means of upping the ante if he doesn't get what he wants. It's not okay. So the president's on a downward

spiral. And I think it's because he listened to the wrong person, Bibi Netanyahu. He believed his lies over the objections of the vice president, the secretary of state, the chairman of the joint chiefs. He knows that it's his decision that got us here based on faulty intelligence, which was manipulated by Netanyahu and was tried, who tried to sell it to president after president after president, Trump's just the first one who bought it. And so he's probably feeling embarrassed by that. He doesn't like being attacked by Pope Leo. I get that. But you don't, the answer is not to blaspheme an entire faith. The answer is never really to blaspheme an entire faith or double down on your attacks against Christians. So what happens now? Now,

we're blockading, which by the way, military experts will tell you that is the effective equivalent of boots on the ground, like actually sending ships to blockade a body of water or in this case Iranian ports so that they cannot enter or leave that body of water, which has been run by Iran and Oman forever. It's, you know, along their boundaries. So what happens now? And what happens if a ship coming from China wants to port, you know, make port an Iranian port. What are we going to do? And where is this going? Are we in the middle of Professor Pape's escalation trap?

Remember when he told us that? Not long ago. Here to react is Brandon Weikert. He's senior national security editor of 1945.com and host of NatSec Talk on Rumble. When the dollar's convertibility into gold ended in 1971, gold was fixed at 35 bucks an ounce. Fast forward to today, and the U.S. dollar has lost more than 85% of its purchasing power. Gold, on the other hand, has increased in value by over 12,000 percent. And that's why major firms like Vanguard and BlackRock hold significant positions in gold.

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That's MK to 9898-98-98 today. Great to see you, Brandon. Thanks for coming back. So your take on the collapse of our 21 hours of talks and now the revised blockade, not just of the entire straight, but of the Iranian ports therein. And I'm getting ready to drop a deep dive on the economic situation as well at NatSek Guy at emerald. TV. It'll be dropping in the next 24 hours. Basically, the entire situation that we are facing is a disaster of our own making. We are now escalating.

You were right to bring up Dr. Pape's theory on escalation trap. The United States is choosing rather than de-escalate. We are choosing to escalate. Now, I was initially surprised that the president wanted to do a counter blockade, which is what this is. We're blockading their blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. And the reason I'm surprised he's doing that is, first of all, you're right. It has the same impact as does landing forces on a place like Karg Island in terms of the international legal scenario. It's an act of war under international law.

But second of all, and this is very key, a blockade is a protracted. engagement. It basically, it's all the worst aspects in terms of the economic and political fallout from saying landing troops or or even doing an even bigger air war, but it has none of the immediate positive effects. There's no positive effects that will come out of this, because as you rightly note, this thing is going to now involve us potentially stopping the cargo ships and container ships of other countries. And notably China, Now, I just want to say something right here. I don't believe for a second that the United States Navy will, in fact, stop Chinese-owned vessels from transiting the Strait of Hormuz, from picking up oil that the Iranians have produced for China and leaving the Strait of Hormuz.

I think there's a lot of ragged notion. Just to be perfectly clear, and I'm definitely going to let you finish your point. What Trump said, and I'm quoting, I'm quoting is, I have also instructed our Navy to seek an interest. every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran. So if you've paid the toll he wants to interdict, and now there's the question of us closing the Iranian port to any vessel en route to Iran or leaving the Iranian ports. Well, they might be able to stop the vessels from crossing the Strait of Hormuz in terms of just not letting them through. But I really am suspicious that we're seriously going to board.

a Japanese vessel. We know the Japanese paid the toll, right? I seriously doubt, and, you know, past his prologue here, the Americans, when we were doing our blockade of Venezuela in January, there was an opportunity we had to seize a Panama-flagged, Hong Kong-owned container ship, and ultimately the president told the Navy, don't touch it, because, of course, he's trying to get a deal with Xi Jinping on the larger trade. formulation. So ultimately, I have a deep suspicion that when it comes to a country like China or an ally like Japan, I'm very skeptical the president will honestly do that. And if he did that, particularly to China, not only would he lose any ability to get a deal with China on these other outstanding issues, but now we're talking about a real World War potentiality here because now

we're going after truly, directly, Chinese trade with Iran and the greater Middle East, which the Chinese military has already— Let me ask you, Brandon. So what we have here, so there's two things. There's President Trump, well, SENTCOM, narrowing the blockade that Trump announced yesterday. Trump said the whole straight. Sentcom this morning said, no, the Iranian ports. And in clarifying, Sentcom said,

Sencom forces will begin implementing a blockade of all maritime traffic. entering and exiting Iranian ports. The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, all of them. So they said, no one's coming in. Like my favorite movie, Willie Wonka,

nobody ever goes in, nobody ever comes out. That's how it's going to be at the Iranian ports. Okay? And on top of that, you've got the Trump statement that anybody who tries to pay a toll and then leave the Strait of Hormuz has been instructed by our Navy, seek and interdict every single vessel that does that in international waters. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas, says our president. So there's two things he says it's going to happen there. You tell me, though, because I agree with you. I'm very skeptical that he would do this to China,

who he knows he has to negotiate with and who obviously is our biggest threat. So what does he do? A Chinese ship starts coming in. They start coming down the Strait of Hormuz. and they want to port, you know, make port at an Iranian port. Pull in, I guess I'm not a boater. My husband is. Pull in an Iranian port. We're not going to stop them. I don't think.

But we're going to stop, like I said, we're going to stop, what, like the Spanish ship. I don't like any other ship. We're just going to start choosing. Yeah, we might start enforcing it on, for instance, I mean, you're already seeing we're having this fallout with Spain over, you know, related separate issue, though. and the president is already going hard after Spain telling the Chinese, don't you dare continue doing trade with Spain because of these other issues we're having with them over their support for NATO or lack thereof, over their support or lack thereof for the Iran war and some other

trade issues with Spain. So I could foresee the president to make a point goes after one of our nominal allies like Spain stops their ships. I would be very surprised if the president actually goes ahead with stopping a Chinese flagged vessel. I really don't think he's going to do that. I think he'll let it pass. They'll probably try to cover the incident up, not let it get out publicly that had happened. But I'm deeply suspicious.

Because ultimately, let's face it, if the president really does this and he starts stopping up Chinese flows, which, okay, it might have a temporary hit on the Chinese economy, but ultimately we know that China has had ample time to prepare themselves for such a contingency. So the entire idea that we attacked Iran to harm Chinese energy access, it hasn't really panned out that way. The Chinese have had time to build up their own strategic reserve. They've had time to diversify their own assets. They're increasing what they're bringing in from nearby Russia.

They're getting it from elsewhere, the energy sources. And then what we're finding out is that after 15 or 10 years of developing their alternative energy structure, their infrastructure, it turns out the Chinese are actually well positioned to lead the pivot that the, you know, the left has always wanted in America. But the Chinese might actually lead the pivot to renewable alternative energy sources because they've spent the last decade building up their infrastructure to prepare for this very eventuality where the Americans might try to blockade their access to energy. So I'm skeptical the impact will be the desired impact by Trump, which is to hurt China economically and energy-wise. I don't think that will happen anyway. And I also think, again, the president has to get a deal with China on these other outstanding trade issues. There will be no deal if we start interfering in their flow of goods. Lastly, I'll just—

That's just what another—it's yet another problem of this, of the war and the consequences of it. this is supposed to be an easy takedown of the Iranian regime. We're in, we're out, mission accomplished, Venezuela style. Now we're talking about blockades of China from getting its oil. I mean, this is next level. And any ship, any ship from any country. So it is part of the escalation trap that we've been talking about from Professor Pape. And we have that queued up.

He was on here last week a week and half ago. And here's how he phrased it. And that's why I laid out before the war started these stages of escalation that we were going to go through, where stage one would be the smart bombs would hit targets, they would kill leaders, but they would not achieve any meaningful strategic outcome. You wouldn't get the enriched uranium. You wouldn't topple the regime. And that would then lead to stage two, which is where the opponent lashes back.

That's the horizontal escalation campaign. And that then leads to them getting whore moves. And that happened. And again, I'm laying out these stages before the first bomb fell. Now we're at stage three, which is the ground operations are nearing. This is truly the red line, Megan. It gets harder to get out of. And once we cross into the next phase of ground operations, oh, my goodness gracious, Megan.

And you've seen already how we reacted when we lost 13. dead in the extraction from Afghanistan and all that motion that was brought out, imagine you have a hundred dead paratroopers coming into car or 100 dead Marines going on the beach. That 36% is going to be extremely committed more than ever because that 36% that supports the war, they're going to think in their minds, they're dying for me. Yeah. So right now, Brandon, we don't have boots on the ground, but we are getting closer with this blockade.

The only thing I will say that gives me a glimmer of hope in this is that clearly whatever the president ordered two weekends ago with the, you know, whatever, the supposed rescue of the airmen in the heart of Iran near Isfahan, one of the suspected nuclear weapons sites. whatever happened went so badly that the U.S. military, we were able to get our people out of there, but it was a very tense situation. There seemed to be a moment where the president had a moment of clarity, like, I can't go forward with this. Can you elaborate on that? Because there's a question about whether it was being told the full truth on that rescue of the

two pilots. Yeah, and just to be clear, I have no idea for sure what happened. We live in the most censorious age imaginable. So getting the truth out is very difficult. But I believe we probably did save our pilot, and that was, oh, this weapons officer from the downed F-15 strike eagle. I don't know if we did it on the day that the situation in Isfahan happened. We might have done it before. It might have been done, you know, that plus some kind of uranium hunt in Isfahan. It was a massive force that we sent in there. We landed C-130. Rand Paul was raising this question online, suggesting we weren't being told the full story behind why those pilots were where they were and that all these planes there were not all sent just to get a pilot out, our second, the whizzo, whatever.

They were sent because it was part of an attempt to get the enriched uranium out of Iran and it didn't go well. This is unconfirmed, but Rand Paul and many military experts have been all over X suggesting that's the real story. story and it's not being told that is unconfirmed and is denied by the administration it is and if you but if you do look at the way they arrayed those forces and the kind of you know the kind of troops we brought in the numbers of equipment and whatnot it certainly didn't seem like only a rescue mission uh if you were going to do a uranium hunt you would need to land those transport planes on a site near the the suspected wmd site you would then need to flow in more forces that's exactly how it played out uh in two weekends ago outside of Isfahan.

Again, my understanding is, despite the loss of the equipment, we got everybody out and it was okay. But what I'm getting at here is there was a moment it seemed like where the president kind of came out of his stupor and said, oh, I can't, I can't land guys. That's when you had the context of we're going to talk about ceasefire. Seasfire obviously didn't go well. I thought for sure after the ceasefire collapsed, Trump was going to order troops somewhere into Iran. but the fact is he pulled the blockade out, the counter blockade, which is bad. But it actually indicates to me that there is a lot of hesitation on his part to actually follow through on deploying troops, I think, because he knows this thing could go upside down fast.

So what that means is we're going to have to endure a counter blockade. Yes, and the counter blockade, though. That's one blessing in this whole thing, is that every representation that Netanyahu has made to him continues to fall apart. And I think the president is starting to distrust his partner and realize, he's been misled and that it's not going to be anywhere near as easy as Netanyahu suggested it would be and he's starting to get more cautious as he sees how unpopular this war is over here not just with the left but with the right yeah and my hope is that maybe if this i mean the counter

blockade's going to do a lot of economic damage to us uh but my hope is is that in a few weeks the president realizes i can't possibly stop chinese ships without this becoming a world war possibly it's no benefit to the American people. It's certainly no benefit politically for Trump and the Republicans. Hopefully at that point there's some kind of an off ramp. But I think he's going to go through this counter blockade, partly to satisfy, you know, whatever he's doing with Netanyahu to show, hey, I'm still engaged. But ultimately, it's not going to have the impact they think it will, partly because I don't see how they're going to enforce this blockade on the Chinese. And if they do, well, the Chinese are going to do something. They're not going to just not. do anything. They're going to respond in some way. And I would just also point out, we now know that

the Israelis were bombing over a week ago. They were bombing in Iran and their airstrikes, a very key railway that has since been rebuilt, I'm told. But that railway connected Iran to China. It was through their Belt and Road initiative. That's a key strategic linkage overland to Beijing for Tehran. It is not inconceivable that if we did really make this blockade serious, the Iranians would likely find a way to transport their energy supplies over land into Central Asia, into China, and the Chinese would continue flowing in their weapons and material to help Iran better resist us. So, yeah, there's, now we're getting too deep in the weeds, but I got it, I got it. But as far as the economic consequences to Americans,

We played the one Eric Bowling soundbite on $110 oil, which translates into increased energy prices from gas and diesel and beyond here in America. He was predicting 5 to 6 percent inflation possible. Here's another one from bowling responding to a Mark Levine claim that, you know, the economic effects on Americans, it's just going to be a short time thing. Just short term. Here, listen here to Sot 6. He is completely wrong on this. and I will tell him this, and I'll have this conversation with him or debate him on the economic effects of what's going on.

He wrote it off as the American people are going to feel the price of a gallon of gasoline for a little while. That is frankly BS, my friend. Everything is fuel related. Everything is petroleum-related products, transportation. And when you have this situation we're pushing $110 a barrel here, $130 a barrel for Brent, $150 a barrel for mini-eastern crudes, all prices will go up. They have to go up and they'll continue to go up. So a temporary blip is insulting to me.

It's frankly insulting. I'd love to have this conversation with you directly. Here's why. It's not temporary. And we literally removed a president, President Biden, for bringing inflation up. The last inflation number we just saw, Steve, has inflation tripling, energy inflation tripling month over month from February to March. That's one month.

Yeah. Yep. And is that what you're showing to? Yeah, no, I think we're, we're. slated for a minimum of 4.5% inflation rate by the summer. I know bullying was saying it's going to be higher. It might end up being higher. There's going to be a very awkward moment here for the United States because Trump wants to get rid of Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman who's very, very serious about keeping inflation down. So he combats that with higher interest rates. The president has wanted to

replace Powell with this guy, Kevin Warsh, who's very, very anti-high interest rates. I don't like interest rates being high either, but the reason you raise interest rates, this is basic economics, is because you have to bring down inflation. Inflation is the destroyer of any semblance of wealth in the country. It's the destroyer of the currency. It's a destroyer of the economy long term. If you let it run free, you get the Weimar Republic from the 1930s Germany, which of course is not good. So my fear is that we are doing this counterblock which is yet it's going to completely increase the price of oil, which will then increase inflation. And it's not going to be a blip. It's going to be the rest of the year. Just as an FYI

for the listening audience, the U.S. inflation rate right now is at 3.3 percent compared to 2.4 percent last month and 2.4 percent last year. So you're talking about over four bowling suggesting could be as high as five or six. You know, under Biden, we were looking at double digit. And we were still suffering greatly under Biden when it got down to nine. And people were, that's, I think, where it was when we evicted him from the office. But we definitely are going in the wrong direction. We're going in the wrong direction. And even if it's a temporary blip, how supply chains work is it will have cask.

Let me just remember the supply chain disruptions in COVID. You know, when we ultimately reopened, those supply chain disruptions, higher prices, higher inflation rates were with us for years after we reopened in 2020 from the COVID shutdown. So this notion that, oh, yeah, it'll be a temporary blip, even if the price of energy came down, those knock on second and third order effects are still going to be rippling through the entire economy for months and possibly years to come. So we're talking about now entering into recessionary, you know, a recession possibly coming in the fall. I just also want to say, Kevin Warsh, the guy that might be replacing Powell,

if you lower interest rates while inflation is increasing to the numbers that I and bowling think that they're going to be at, you're actually going to create a longer-term economic crisis in the form of stagflation, which is basically everything's going to be devalued. And it's going to be a very tough economic times. Think back to the 1970s during the oil crisis, those people who were alive back then. I'd rather not. Right. Right. And so that's where this is headed. But the bottom line, The bottom line is, all of the polls, all of the polls show what the American people want is for the president to focus on affordability on their wallets. That's right. Doing something about the inflation, doing something about health care, doing something about the enormous cost that they're facing.

And not only is he not, but he's doing something that's going to worsen all of those problems, which brings me to the polling that I mentioned. This one just came out from CBS News slash UGov. and it shows, first of all, they ask Trump's handling of the situation with Iran, 36% approve, 64% disapprove. Those are not good numbers. One third of the populace approves. Two-thirds say they disapprove of how this is going. They were asked about his, a whole civilization will die tonight, truth post that Trump made. How do you like this statement? Fifty-nine percent said they dislike it, either somewhat or strongly. gas prices have been financial hardship or difficult. A majority say, yes, they have been a financial

hardship for me or difficult. His overall job approval rating, 39% approved, 61% disapprove. Inflation, 31% think it's okay. Sixty-nine percent of the American populace disapproves of where inflation is, the very thing that you and I are discussing right now in Eric Bowling, too. Here is more behind the do you approve of Trump's job? 61% saying we disapprove of how he's doing. He's underwater with independence by 42. 42 points. He is underwater with Hispanics by 30 points.

Underwater with blacks by 66 points. Underwater with whites by 10 points, who are the ones who put him in office. Underwater with young people, 18 to 29 by 40 points, underwater with 30 to 49-year-olds by 30 points. And underwater with the white working class by four points. What do I mean by underwater?

I mean, 52% disapprove, 48% approve. So if you, you know, subtract the disapprove from the approve, you get a minus four number for white working class. It's minus 42 and so on for the others as I just went through. But that's Trump's base right there. That is Trump's base. Down four percentage points with the white working class. That's a 40 point swing since February of 2025. 40, 40, Brandon.

That is why this main news over the weekend, when J.D. Vance had to come to the mics to say, no agreement reached. President Trump went to a UFC event and tried to do the hero's entry with Dana White, where normally that's his base, they go crazy when he walks in. This time he walked in, you did hear some applause. what you really hear is they had to crank up the kid rock soundtrack to muffle the fact that there weren't there weren't that many applause there weren't that many cheers people weren't going

nuts and you could hear some booze and that's that's the problem i don't know why we cut it without the music but that's what happened trust me it's not overwhelming booze it's just the absence of overwhelming people going nuts. It's not working for him. The people in that room know what I'm talking about without me telling you the numbers. They feel it. There's an anger. There's a disapproval about his focus nonstop on Israel instead of Iowa. Yeah, no, I agree. And this is going to have, now my concern is that these prices are baked into the cake, even if, let's say, the Strait of Hermuz completely reopens in the next 24 hours, it's not going to. But let's say the best case fantasy scenario is it's completely reopened, everybody goes back to their neutral

corners happy and squared away. Those disruptions now are already, it's the butterfly effect, right? They're already rippling elsewhere. They're already baked into the cake to mix metaphors here. And ultimately, I think that we are now on an irreversible course to a some kind of economic downturn going forward into the midterms, which of course will have negative consequences for the president's party, which the president is not necessarily on the ballot, literally, but his policies are. And if he loses the majorities in Congress and the Senate, what will happen is in very short order, the Democrats will move to impeach. And they're not just going to move to impeach against him, which might be more difficult than it sounds. They're going to move to go after people like Pete

Heggsett. They're going to claim that he committed. They've already been saying this, that there have been war crimes committed. They're going to, at the very least, completely gut the administration with endless investigations that will slow down their ability to actually focus on things like affordability and to address the concerns of the Maga base. So that's where this is headed because of the decision to attack Iran, which again, I'm still, as an analyst, very confused what the logic was, why we had to go in on February 28th, the way we did. That argument has never been properly presented to the American people, and I would argue

the alleged intelligence that was used was never adequately vetted by our intelligence people. We were simply handed something by Israel. We had opposite intelligence. We had opposite intelligence, which the president ignored, saying Nikki Haley, he doesn't care what she says. Meanwhile, she briefed him, this threat does not exist. It was obliterated in June. And what's happening now is not only are we increasingly, I mean, it feels very much like

the House is gone. But today there was a massive Cook political report moving several states, from Leans Republican into toss-up. So we're getting, our position on the Senate is getting weaker by the day. But not just that, 28 is increasingly endangered. Yes. The vice president's numbers are going down precipitously. And for what?

He was against this war, but he's been sent now to be the front man on the negotiations. One wonders why that is. And here's what Harry Enten just reported on how that's going. SOT 11. J.D. Vance is not doing too hot. to trot at this point. Look at this. Okay, J.D. Vance's net popularity, this should actually be a plus. There we go. Plus three points. Then we go to minus 18 points at this point. That is a 21-point swing in the wrong direction. J.D. Vance started off his vice presidency in plus territory,

and now he is in negative territory. Down he goes. J.D. Vance getting dragged down along with the president of the United States. Yeah, you look at other vice presidents. Look at this. At this point in their vice presidency, historically the worst, worst at this point in a vice presidency. Kamala Harris was at minus 13. Mike Pence was at minus seven. Joe Biden was at plus four. Dick Cheney was at plus 37. This might be part of a longer trend of vice presidents becoming unpopular, but we can say J.D. Vance is historically the least popular vice president at this point in their vice presidents. Go ahead, Brandon. Yeah, I was just going to say that the, I think there was a reason that they

put vice president uh vance as the head of this this ceasefire because i actually think the ceasefire was never a serious commitment by the president i think he was trying to buy time uh to get forces in position either to do a blockade or god help us an invasion uh and i think that he is trying i'm worried that he's sabotaging or his team is trying to sabotage vance who has always been opposed to these these foreign entanglements going back to his days in the senate and i think that that's that was some kind of a poison pill that they gave him. Hey, take this in the negotiation. And there's evidence of that. There is evidence of that. We'll talk about it on the opposite side of this break. Where did the first hour go? I have no idea. Brandon stays with us. We'll be right back.

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eyes of the world. You know, there's a running joke that, you know, whenever he, he meets with the, you know, the Pope, there's memes about that. There's these memes about how he's basically has the opposite of the Midas touch. And so this is another thing to add to that growing set of memes. It's unfair, I think, what they're saying about him. But ultimately, perception is power. The president and his team understand that. And I think the, I think there are people around the president, maybe the president himself, who didn't like that the vice president was clearly not on board. I mean, the vice president was dutiful. You know, he, was doing what the president asked. He wasn't publicly disagreeing, et cetera. He was very, you know,

he was, he was very almost obsequious to the president in public when it came to the matter of the Iran war, which we all know he did not support. So I think that basically the president and his team did to J.D. Vance, that which President Bush and George W. Bush and his team did to Colin Powell. When they made Colin Powell, who did not support the Iraq war, go before the UN and make the case for the Iraq war, and that has forever been just asked retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who worked as the chief of staff for Powell. That was something that dogged Powell for the remainder of his life was the fact that he... Or when Joe Biden took Kamala Harris and made her the borders are. That's right. That's right. Yes. And so this is a common tactic.

Because Brendan, what was impossible about the terms? Like to me, I read the what NBC News, what Fox News is reporting were the actual terms that we demanded. And I thought my first Of course, you're never going to agree to any. This is never, this is a non-starter. They can't enrich uranium at all. And I think a lot of our listeners are like, well, why would we want to allow them to enrich uranium? We all know what they're going to do with enrich uranium.

But that actually is an impossible deal term. Can you explain why? Yeah. Well, basically the Iranians, first of all, the Iranians have escalation dominance. They've proven that this entire war. The fact that we even decided to talk to them about a ceasefire or that we haven't until the last 48 hours attempted to put our ships into the Strait of Hormuz, indicates that the Iranians are not as defeated as the Secretary of War has been claiming. It's just not the reality.

They are able to meet us on every escalation rung, and they're able to give as good as they've gotten. And so the idea that we were going to be able to go in with a set of demands like get rid of uranium enrichment was a non-starter, especially because for the regime in Iran, and I don't. don't want them to have nukes either. I think that's a horrible outcome, but it's going to happen now, no matter what. The Iranian regime has wedded itself to the idea that it has to at least possess the capability to enrich to weapons-grade uranium as a sign of deterrence against the U.S. and Israel, and also as a symbol of legitimacy. And I would remind everybody that in 2003, there were many people who believed Saddam actually had WMD's nuclear weapons because he was telling

the world he had them. And the reason he was saying that was because he didn't want to appear as weak, because if you're weak in that part of the world, you lose legitimacy and you're ripe to be overthrown. Ironically, of course, it ended in his overthrowing anyway. But the point is in Iran, something similar. There's a similar calculus. So unless we're going to so decisively defeat them in combat, which we haven't and we probably won't, then that means they're not going to come in a conciliatory manner, they're going to come and meet with us as wanting to be seen as equals. We cannot demand they give up something like uranium enrichment because it for them is essential to their vision of being seen as legitimate in the region and powerful and having a deterrent

against us. Otherwise, you wind up like Gaddafi getting dragged through the streets in Libya because you're no threat. They know you have no nuclear weapon and the next thing you know you're getting sadomized and murdered in the street. That's not what they want. And yet they don't, you know, they basically want to suggest they've got the power

to go nuclear and you shouldn't mess with them. Officially they're saying they want the ability to enrich uranium for a nuclear energy program. But there's no way, given the success they've had in dragging this war on, in controlling the straight, in imposing political costs on President Trump, that they're coming in there, tail between the legs, which is how President Trump

is describing, you know, what he thinks they ought to be doing. Like, he thinks we've won and they should just be surrendering. And you need look no further than his main outlet, his number one favorite broadcaster, Mark Levin, to understand that. Here's a bit of what Levin was saying on Saturday night about how this thing should end. Sot 8. I have in front of me, though, you know, the Potsdam Declaration, July 1945, I wasn't even going to mention this, but I have it.

And then we have the instrument of surrender by the Japanese September 2nd, 1945. And in order to implement the Potsdam Declaration and get them to surrender to the terms that the Allies wanted, we dropped two atomic bombs. Now, I'm not encouraging it. I'm asking you about the law. Is that legal today under the law of the war or not? I think it would be very helpful to go back and read the terms of surrender for the Japanese, for our envoys to read it because The Japanese were dug in, even after the dropping it to atomic bombs. And it took a lot of pressure, even after that, to get them to surrender. Wow. They had an absolute lunatic as their ruler who would, there was no amount of Japanese sacrifice that would ever have satisfied him. He didn't care. It took two nuclear bombs. And even

then there was a question. But why is he even bringing that up if he's not advocating it? Well, and that's a great question. Obviously, he's implying that this is where it needs to go. And just to be clear, there's a lot of debate among real historians today as to whether those two nuclear bomb drops actually ended the war or if it was really the threat of the Soviet Red Army. By this point in the war, the Soviet Red Army had defeated the Nazis and they were repositioning Zhukov's famous forces that defeated Hitler. were sending them back to the Eastern Front to basically take on the Japanese and try, they wanted to invade Northern Japan and do to Japan what they did to Germany, split it in half between us and them.

And we dropped the bombs partly to get out ahead of the Soviet invasion. But the real question always was, did Hirjito, the Japanese ruler, did he surrender because of the bomb blasts? Well, he didn't after the first drop. Did he surrender after the second one because of that one? Or was it because he realized if I don't surrender to the Americans and give everything to them, the Soviets are coming in, and I'm more frightened of them than I am of the Americans. And so there was the one-two punch. It was the two bombings. And but the real clincher was the

threat of Soviet invasion. So, you know, unless... But you tell me whether we are in a position to demand, quote, surrender right now of the Iranians. No, we are not. Like I said, the Iranians, and I say this as an opponent of the government there, the Iranians have... Yeah, we both are. Right. The exact, of course, of course, yes. The Iranians have a, effectively, been able to meet us at every turn. This is a professional military. You know, you have to give, you have to give a little bit of kudos here because everybody, I think, thought that the military was going to be like the Iraqi military was going to fold upon first contact. But that has not been the case. This is a very, these guys are cool as cucumbers. And

they were ready and they were prepared for what we were going to throw at them. They anticipated every move so far, which is why you're seeing the president having these outbursts, you know, we're going to maybe annihilate the entire civilization. That's not what an American president talks like. He's talking like that because he's frustrated because the Iranians are not complying with how he thought things were going to play out. And when it comes to the negotiations, the same thing. The Iranians came in with their set of demands. We had our set of demands. And the problem the Iranians had is they said the Americans added the new demands, that these were never originally discussed. And furthermore, the Iranians made it clear. The only way they were meeting with us

was based upon their 10 points, not ours, and the Iranians were surprised that we even met with them because they were not offering to meet us and talk about, you know, enrichment. They wanted to talk about their 10 points only. We said, okay, it was never going to work. This is what I was saying at the time. There's no way. There's no stasis in the argument. Which, again, makes you wonder why the vice president, who is leading all polls right now to be the next Republican nominee for president, was sent over there as the front person for the negotiations.

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't make any sense otherwise. He's, yes, he was a detractor on the war, but what, we didn't go over there really hoping to end this. Not with those points. Not with, you can't do any uranium enrichment. And you have to give us all the previously enriched uranium that's buried deep in those sites that we hit.

That's another one of our must-haves. And reportedly, President, Trump said, don't negotiate on anything. Like, these are the points. This is what we want. Total surrender, thanks to his friend Mark Levin. So not surprisingly, I'm surprised it took 21 hours. That's all I'm surprised.

I think that's not surprising that failed. That indicates that I think the vice president was very genuine in trying to figure out a way to make it work. But he was obviously being overruled by the president. And we know that he was talking constantly with the Israeli prime minister, which, you know, on one hand, you say, well, we know that from the Israeli prime minister who, who said that J.D. Vance, our vice president, was calling him repeatedly to report to me. Right. He said, as they do every day, his two, you know, what he thinks are his two puppets at the top of the United States government. The way he spoke of our president and our vice president was actually

deeply offensive. Yeah. And but, but does it reveal a fundamental truth about who's actually calling the shots here? Well, I think it reveals, it reveals, it reveals the exposure, uh, that the entire Republican Party in particular has. to this particular ally. Again, they are partners with us in this war, so on some level there's going to have to be coordination between us and them just because of the nature of the conflict. But the question is, why are we calling every day?

Why is it like how they're describing it? That is not the norm. And there does need to be a greater understanding that, yes, we have shared interests right now, but there are real differences in what we're trying to achieve and what they're trying to achieve. And the fact that we... That's why you don't partner with somebody in a war. You don't, like, go in jointly holding hands and pretends one thing to have an ally in a war. It's quite another to launch it jointly and pretend that you're equal partners. Here's exactly what Netanyahu said, quote, J.D. Vance reported to me in detail, as this administration does every day about the development of the negotiations. Well, good for you. But J.D. Vance reportedly called Netanyahu from his plane after leaving his Llamabad. And reportedly, J.D. Vance called President Trump. multiple times during the negotiations.

It wasn't that JD was empowered, according to the reports. It was President Trump at every turn saying, no, no, no. He wants what he wants. Wait, I want to keep going here. I got to get to this. So President Trump calls into Maria Bartor Romo's show yesterday. And once again goes to the, we might bomb their desalinization plants. Now, it is one thing, and I've defended the president on this,

If you want to talk about bombing some of the electric plants, if they're dual use, if you can make a good faith argument that they're being used to fuel the military, military, that you can at least make the argument that this is not civilian infrastructure. That's a war crime. But you cannot say that about water plants that are keeping the Iranian people alive. Not the Iranian government, not the Iranian military, the Iranian people alive. And yet, once again, he raised it. Here it is in Sot 1. We've wiped out their whole country, essentially. The only thing left, really, is their water, which would be very devastating to hit. I would hate to do it. But it's their water, their desalilion plants, their electric generating plants, which are very easy to hit.

We can hit them. We could have them all down. And I mean, down like you couldn't have electricity for 10 years because it takes you 10 years to build those plants from scratch. You'd never probably be able to build them again. And the bridges. So that's really the only thing. We still have some more missile manufacturing plants. We know every one of them.

We will do that. Your thoughts. Well, I remember in 2021, I was asked. to speak to the C-Bs, the Navy's, you know, engineering group. And I went out to their base out in California. And I actually met with the CO at the time of the C-Bs. And after my speech, we were kind of chatting after the event. And he started recounting how the C-Bs in Iraq went in and took out Fulugia's energy grid and water supply, you know, in the run-up to the Battle of Fulugia.

And he looked at me and he said, you know, he, he would, you know, he would. He said, we did good work, blah, blah, blah. But he said, you know, I start to worry about, you know, what happens when an enemy does that to us? And he said, would we like that? Would it be considered, you know, fair game? And it's always stuck with me. And when I heard the president on Barteromo show yesterday, I used to do her show occasionally. I could tell she was uncomfortable with what he was saying.

It seemed like. And I think that the president, I don't think the president understands that we are not fighting a bunch of savages in the desert. We're fighting a highly skilled enemy, and the Iranians have a very robust cyber warfare capability. I was told a week or so ago by a friend of mine or a contact of mine who is involved with cybersecurity for the government. And he said that the, and I think this has since been reported, I think in Politico in the last week. But basically that we are seeing an uptick in Iranian cyber intrusions directed specifically at U.S. energy and water supplies. And we're stopping them, but they are getting very deep inside the system before we detect and stop them increasingly so. So that indicates to me that they are mapping the

battlefield Iran is getting ready for this next wave of escalation. And it is not a guarantee anymore. I don't think that Iran will only keep their ire focused on the Arab states in Israel, they might try to kick something off here if we go after key civilian infrastructure in Iran, which is, again, matching us as we escalate. Every time we escalate, the Iranians are right there with their own, you know, match. So I would encourage the president to not go down that path. It's a very dark road. It will affect our Arab partners. Definitely. We know the Iranians will assuredly knock out the Arab states desalinization plants. They'll probably target Israeli ones as well. but what will stop them from potentially doing that here in the United States?

And I can guarantee you all that it will be catastrophic for this country, especially at a time when we're already economically hurting and all these other things are going on. It will be absolutely catastrophic. Our infrastructure is not ready to handle what happens after a massive cyber attack on our electrical grid, on our water supplies. Well, and let's not forget, you know, their ally is the Chinese. which has got superior abilities in that department. And that's already been quietly helping them in the ways that it feels comfortable. So that's another threat to us.

And if I can just add there as well, Megan, I just saw the comments from the Chinese Emerald that you were referencing at the start. It sounds to me like if we did try to interdict any of these Chinese ships in our counter blockade, they will escalate in some other way. And I think you're right. They might use their very powerful cyber warfare

capabilities to hit us somewhere in our infrastructure that will be catastrophic. Remember, the transformers that make up the physical power grid here in the United States, 80 to 90 percent of them come from one company in Tianjin, China. And so if those systems are taken offline or if they're physically damaged, which is very possible because they're a fifth columnist here in the United States, if those systems are taken offline in abundance, we're going to have to hope the Chinese are kind enough to give us the replacements because we don't have the replacements on hand here in the United States. So this is a real slow rolling disaster if we really do go after China in the counter blockade.

That is chilling. That is a chilling warning. Meantime, you've got, you know, our close ally and partner Israel, which at every turn has been trying to get us into this war, trying to foil our chances to get out of this war temporarily or more permanently. And now, Still, there is a faction on the right, the neocon right, that continues to try to diminish any doubters about the war or those of us who would like to be honest about Israel's role in pushing us into it as anti-Semites, conspiracy theorists, and so on. Here's a taste of that with Jackie Henrich, who I believe was in for Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, and Ben Shapiro yesterday.

Issue, I do think that there is a wing of the conservative base that has become essentially the grievance party, mirroring a lot of the concerns of the left, seeing politics through the same grievance-based conspiratorial lens, suggesting, for example, as Candice Owens did over the weekend, that the president is a slave to Israel, or that Israel is manipulating this president. The president, as anyone who has watched him for the last decade knows, makes his own decisions. And the conspiratorial horse crap that is being promoted by Tucker Carlson or Megan Kelly or Candice Owens or Alex Jones, that the president is acting at the behest of a foreign nation is nonsense. The president knows its nonsense.

So does the Republican base. So much of that gains traction on social media. What do you do to stop terrible narratives like that from taking hold and, you know, changing people's minds and informing their thought about things? I mean, obviously, I think that the algorithmic disconnect is quite real. You see it particularly on X, but you also see it on TikTok and other social media. People need to touch grass. What do you do to stop these terrible narratives that form in people's thoughts? That's a Fox News anchors question.

By the way, I was corrected by and by EP. That's her own show. That's, I guess, what gets you your own individual show these days at Fox News. The questions of how do you stop terrible narratives like this war was done at the behest of Israel that gets into people's thoughts as they're forming, something that, Ben Shapiro had no problem with. He didn't recoil. He, yeah, that is a real problem. Thanks to the internet algorithm, Brandon. How do you stop things like that from happening? Well, I told you we're living in the most censorious age. I think in the history of the United States, maybe World War II

is more censorious. But again, that was a world war. And we were thrust into that conflict. We were not thrust into this conflict in the sense that we followed Israel's lead. but we're not in a declared state of war. We are in a conflict right now, not of our own making, but the idea that we're going to censor people online. I always tell people who push back on me, I say, look, find where I'm wrong. Find the evidence that refutes the claim.

I can back up what I'm saying. Let's talk about that. Okay, let's just talk about that. I just pulled a couple of the headlines. We've been talking about this for weeks. March 2nd, The Guardian. U.S. strikes on Iran triggered by Israel's plan to launch attack, Rubio says. We all remember the Secretary of State and the Speaker of the House saying we did it because of Israel.

Okay, April 7th. And their defenders would say the timing of it was because of Israel, the timing of it. It was well beyond the timing. Benjamin Netanyahu went to the White House seven times this past year to try to convince President Trump that this was the right move. There was an in-depth April 7 piece in the New York Times, how Trump took the U.S. to war with Iran. In the Situation Room on February 11th, Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell suggesting that Iran was ripe for regime change going on from there. March 3rd, Axios exclusive the Trump-Netanyahu call that changed the Middle East. Last Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called President Trump with a stunning tip.

Iran's Supreme Leader and his top advisors were all set to meet at one location in Tehran on Saturday morning. It answers the question that lawmakers, magas skeptics, and world leaders have all been asking since Saturday. Why now? They go on from there. March 20th, Washington Post, Netanyahu's months-long campaign to convince Trump to attack Iran and so on, so forth. We could be here all day doing the headlines of how it was indeed at Israel's behest been. And literally, no one other than crazed neocons who are Israel firsters are even questioning that at this point. No, it's true. And again, you're right to point out Rubio's comments on Capitol Hill. right after the war began. I mean, he said, that mean, that's what we did. Remember, Trump has said repeatedly over the last three weeks, or I guess more than that now, he's said repeatedly that, you know, if I didn't act, there would be no Israel, which clearly, that's again, the Israeli line is that they are one heartbeat away from an Iranian nuclear Holocaust. And again, I can understand

where the Israelis are coming from, but I don't think it's that dire yet. And I think there was plenty of time for us to do something other than starting a catastrophic war that neither we nor the Israelis are now winning. There was a thousand other things that we could have done and tried before going into war, not just negotiations. We could have enhanced the Abraham Accords. We could have brought the Israelis closer together with the Arab states and told them we're not starting a war. We're going to do a containment strategy like we did to the Soviet Union. There are dozens and dozens of alternatives that would have been less costly and less damaging to the United States than what we're doing now. And what you're highlighting here, Megan, is the truth. And they

don't like the truth, which is, yes, we did this because we were helping Israel. But ultimately, it's not helping Israel any more than it's helping us. In fact, Israel is now seeing severe economic damage. They're seeing severe political fallout. The first day of the courts in Israel, resuming normal functions was a week ago or last week. And the first thing they did was continue the indictment and investigation into Netanyahu for corruption charges. So this is not benefiting anybody in Israel. So even the idea that we had to do this for Israel, it's clearly not panning out for any of the neocons who supported it. This is a terrible, disastrous conflict. And it needs to end now, like right now. And here's what's happening at home. Not only

are we seeing the inflated prices of gasoline and diesel fuel, but the actual prices will follow, as they always do. And you heard our discussion at the beginning of the hour and Eric Bowling's predictions could be up to 5, 6 percent by the summer. But we're losing politically, which is what had yours truly up in arms when this thing first started, which, because I saw it, I knew it. I understood we were already precariously perched to lose the house and possibly, to keep an eye on the Senate, and now it's getting worse by the day. Just today, Cook Political Report has moved three races closer to the Dems in the Senate races. Okay, so here's the story. The Democrats have to keep Michigan, Georgia, and New Hampshire and also flip one other Senate

seat in order to take control of the Senate. They need four net seats in the Senate, which is a tall order and still is not the best outcome to bet on. If you're putting money on it, you'd still have to vote on the Republicans keeping the Senate. But it's less likely by the day. So they need to keep Michigan, Georgia, and New Hampshire, and then flip one additional seat. Could be Maine, could be Ohio, could be North Carolina, could even be Alaska. Those are the ones. All right? So think about those first states that I said, Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire. that the Democrats have to keep. Georgia was a toss-up, now it leans dem.

North Carolina was a toss-up. Now today, it leans dem. Okay, so that's bad. That's at least two of the ones that the Democrats have to keep that are now going more and more Democrat. They're looking more and more Democrat and like the Republicans cannot flip them.

And Ohio was, leans are, now it's toss up. North Carolina was toss up. Now it leans D. All of these, Alaska was solid red. Now it leans R. Nebraska is now potentially in play. It too was moved from solidly red over to leans R. Every single movement in all of some seven Senate races that were watching, every single one has been moved closer to the Democrats winning it, Brandon. I mean, this is, if any of this actually winds up manifesting in November, it will be catastrophic for the future of the Republican Party. If you look at the lineup of states that are up in 28 for Republicans, it's far worse.

Like, Republicans are projected to lose more seats in 28, far more than they are, they have more at risk in 28 than they do in 26. So 26 should be a year in which they lose maybe one, you know, God forbid two. But you're talking about four. now they've lost control of the Senate and then it doesn't get better two years later. Right. And now we're diminishing the heir apparent J.D. Vance with these failed negotiations. And there's a lot of political fallback from that. So we're already damaging the likely next heir apparent as well for 28. I would just say I live in Florida. There were two special elections in

the last month, one of which for the Mar-a-Lago district, the Republicans were supposed to win that. They lost significantly. And the reason they lost, it had nothing to do with, you know anything other than the fact that there are double the amount of Republican or just about double the amount of Republican registered voters here than there are Democrats in in the state of Florida and yet the Democrats outvoted the Republicans they're having presidential start to turn out levels in their primaries in their special elections so far and the Republicans are I think the Republicans are heartbroken right now I think the Republicans really

are hurt emotional they are trying to process psychologically, and that is having a dispiriting effect on demoralizing the vote, and that's why you're not seeing the turnout, even in solidly red states like my own state of Florida, Megan, and this is going to keep playing out the longer the economy collapses and the harder things get for average Americans, because a lot of MAGA voters are looking around going, what did we do it all for? And not only that, you have the fact that this MAGA movement has been with us for 10 years. So it's been. been a decade since Trump first came down the golden escalator and was the guy and for the

Republican Party. So there's already the movement getting a little long in the tooth. You've got to constantly reinvigorate it. We're not reinvigorating it. You mentioned the youth vote. You know, last year at this time, we were talking about how the youth vote was pivoting away from the Democrats, at least a sizable portion were, and coming on with the Republican Party. Now it looks like those numbers have completely reversed because if you're a young person, America, it's very hard for you to make it. It's darn near impossible. And that's if you're even with your doing everything you're supposed to be doing, having a job, putting your money, you know, in where you're supposed to and playing the game the way that your parents and grandparents

did. Unfortunately, it no longer passes muster anymore. You can't get ahead. So all of these things are compounding and you throw in the war, which is causing all of these dislocations throughout the economy, it's not going to translate to a win for the Republicans. at this point in November. And if they don't win again, I think that's the end of the Trump presidency. Whether he's removed from office or not, that's the end.

He's gonna become a lame duck overnight. Yes, he will. That's how I feel extremely disappointed. I'm really genuinely sad about it. I like, I kind of can't believe he did it. I can't believe the betrayal of starting a Middle East war. Like the one thing you really believed he would never do, and he did it.

And now we're stuck. in it and the escalation trap manifests bit by bit because among other reasons, we have this partner who won't let us out, who continues to bomb Lebanon to the point where Iran isn't willing to settle, create new terms where we have to have zero uranium enrichment, which was never a thing. And we are now, okay, now we're going to take over the Strait of Hormuz or at least the Iranian ports in it. And what does that mean for us and our other allies of ours, you know, who now we're going to be confronting on the high seas or at the ports. It's just every day, it's more bad news.

And the electoral chances that we're hoping for as people who lean right get diminished and dwindled, the American people, the base. I mean, that white working class number is just so alarming. But, Brandon, I feel as they do. Like, I love the President Trump agenda domestically. I want him to come back and do it. I want him to be focused on us. I don't hate President Trump.

I haven't really turned on President Trump. I'm very against this war. And I hate the way it's being conducted. And I don't like the way he's talking. I don't like the way he's, like I said, like a cornered animal lashing out at like possibly striking the desalienization plans. Wiping out civilization in Iran tonight. That stuff's crazy.

The depiction of himself is God, which is what his detractors are already saying about him. He's not God and he can't act like God. and to stop trying to pretend he is God. And guess what just happens? I mean, he did something he never does. He deleted that post of himself clearly as Jesus. And Brandon, he's now spinning that that's not what it was.

This just happened while you and I were on the air. Look at this. Look at this soundbite of him trying to claim he, for listening audience, he imposed a demon behind him in this picture. He took it from an artist online who does these often. And he changed what was a soldier in the sky behind him into a demon, into a Satan figure, and put himself in the main role. There's a woman praying at like his altar, his right hand. And he's got the glowing white light in the left hand.

And there's a glowing light all around him. He's very clearly trying to paint himself as Jesus. And now he's claiming he was just trying to paint himself as a doctor. Listen. Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ? Well, it wasn't a picture. It was me. I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor,

and had to do with Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake news could come up with that one. So I had just heard about it, and I said, how do they come up with that? It's supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better. As an example, the 11,000, I understand your husband's going through treatment. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. He's going to do some very serious cancer treatment. So this goes a long way. Yes, sir. It sure does. Okay. That's just, okay. By the way, Trump didn't personally do the artwork.

He posted it. He reposted somebody else's handiwork. Why did we have to have a Satan behind you if you were a doctor? Why is someone praying at your right wrist? Why is there a glowing white light in your left hand? Why do you have the robes of a Jesus-like figure and not a doctor's coat on? It's just, I'm sorry, Brent. I'm sorry.

This is the stuff I can't stand, and then we get lied to about it. It's an obvious, obvious lie. I'm just glad he took it down, to be honest with you. And, you know, because it was very offensive in more than one way. but I you know I can't comment on what he was thinking I don't know how you could think that was the first aid worker but you know and then the demon I didn't see I didn't notice that when I saw the picture so it could be that it was AI that it looks like that's an AI generated image maybe he tweaked it and I don't know but but the point is I don't care that he tweaked it I just care

that he tweeted it out at the same time he's attacking no I agree the pope you know it's very obvious and he's under criticism by many saying, who do you think you are? You think you're God? And this is Trump's way of being like, you know what? Yeah. How you like me now? Well, it's certainly his personality. My hope is that Russ Vaught, who is, you know, in the administration, I know him to be a

believer. My hope is that maybe he's the one that kind of quietly asked the president. I don't know. I have no insight information. But, you know, I do know he's a believer. And so I hope that maybe this could this could lead to some ministering, getting the, getting the proper word in front of the president rather than Paula White's word. But, you know, we'll see. She's a crazy-ass advisor of his, that she's a lunatic.

She's definitely, I would argue, she's heretical, that's for sure. I don't think there's any truth biblically there. But, and I'll pray for her as well. But, you know, I do think the president is, as the kids say, spiraling. And I think he's doing that because I think he realizes he's in a pickle. And again, it's a disaster of his own making. But there is an off-ramp still. The president can still say, okay, so he's going to do the blockade. I think he's going to follow through on some level in terms of putting the ships out there and threatening everybody. But he could, at the end of the day, he could say, okay, I've done the blockade for a week. I'm good.

We're good. We're going to de-escalate now. He basically can still de-escalate until the local parties, Israel and the Arab states, you guys are going to have to figure it out now. We've done everything we can to stymie and contain. the Iranians and we're going to have to work out a new deal. If I were him again, I would pivot. I would try to get the Russians who are partners with the Iranians, but also want to do business deals with the United States. There is a chance here. He could go to Moscow and flip the whole

script and say, I'm going to use the Russians to get a deal on the Iranian problem. I'm going to use the Russians to get a deal on the European problem. I'm going to use the Russians to get a deal on the problems with North Korea and China. There is still a pathway forward. it doesn't seem clear but it's there but he's got to feel his way out of this and if he at the end of the blockade the counter blockade if he is convinced to land troops then it's all over then we're truly in you know we're not in a regional war we're probably in the very very deep you know world war three uh because it's going to suck the oxygen out of everything it's going to become all consuming uh so my hope is that the president he's obviously going to do the counter blockade for a

period of time. My hope is he doesn't really do it seriously. And then he just says, okay, I'm going to Moscow. I'm going to work with Putin. We're going to figure out a way out of this. I'm going to work with whoever I need to to mitigate this thing and ratchet it down. It's not going to feel good. It's not going to be as cathartic as blowing up things and looking like the big man. But I think, you know, there is a way forward still, but he's got to be the hero and take it. As much as I'd love to see that happen, it's very. This is just crossing the wire. via the New York Times. Speaking of the possibility of using Russia, I'm thinking this next thing is not going to make

them happy or put them in a mood to help us out on the Iran situation. Trump, talking to reporters at the White House, reiterated his threats to take military action against Cuba, calling it a failing nation. Quote, we may stop by Cuba after we're finished with this, he said outside the Oval Office, referring to the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. That's not a thing that the Russia. want or are likely to facilitate in any way, shape, or form. And it doesn't sound like, I mean, a possibility.

Like, how could he, there's no political goodwill left for Cuba, none. Yeah. That was something Marco Rubio, if you wanted it done, it needed to be done before this. Yeah. There's no goodwill left. The only thing I would say is the Russians want. a world, multipolar world in which there are various spheres of influence. And the Russians have consistently said they envision a world where we have a sphere of influence in our part of the world. The Russians have a sphere of influence in theirs, the Chinese, et cetera, et cetera. And the only

thing I would say is the Russians might be willing to let the Cuban thing slide if they know they're really going to get a deal out of us on these connected issues in Eurasia, Ukraine, Iran, and dealing with China. And we again, here there's the Western Hemisphere Defense Strategy. This is what the president's team outlined in the national... You're saying it's not the 1962 Communist Party. Well, I think in terms of, in terms of my... Yes, I think in terms of Cuba, I think the Russians would be willing to let that go

the way we want it to go or the way Trump wants it to go. If he can seriously sit down with them and be genuine about, yes, I'm going to work with you to get a deal to end all of these. crises across Eurasia very quickly. Cuba is seen as peripheral to Russia, I think, and therefore, I don't believe that the Russians would use Cuba as anything other than a cat's paw to give us headaches because we're giving them headaches. So if we could kind of mutually de-escalate, I think the Russians would say, okay, the Western Hemisphere is your sphere. We're going to have our sphere in our part of the world, and we're going to let the Chinese carve out some sphere for

themselves and this is the new world order going forward one of of spheres of influence where we mind our own backyards more than we mind the backyards and front yards of others the don row doctrine the don row doctrine and this is something you know i was very loud and proud about that i thought this is where we were going which is why i was so angry about the middle east excursion because it's become more than an excursion obviously it's it's real it's it's a quagmire and um so i do think there is a pathway forward even with the Cuban issue but If we continue to escalate in Iran like I'm fearful of doing, then yes, the Russians, the Turks are now sending a nuclear ship to give energy, nuclear power to Cuba, which is directly against what the United States wants. Turkey's a NATO ally.

The reason they're doing this, I think, is because they want Israel to be reigned in, and we won't rain Israel in. And so they're sending this ship to Cuba to try to complicate our lives and say, hey, if you don't take care of this problem in our backyard, We're going to mess around with problems in your backyard. And so this is all leverage getting to try to get us to do what probably should be the right thing, which is we de-escalate in these other parts of the world, which is what Trump said he wanted to do when he was elected the second time around. He wanted to focus on the Donne Row doctrine. No one cares about the Straits of Harmoos. I certainly don't.

People are worried about themselves. This should be somebody else's problem. Brandon, thank you so much. It's always great to get your POV. We would love talking to you. Brandon Weicker, everybody. Yeah, we'll do it again soon. There's a lot more going on in the news today.

You know, it's like every time you think you're going to talk about other stuff besides Iran, it dominates the headlines because it's a war. It's a war that we've involved ourselves. What we've launched and we are involved in and we can't seem to think of a great way to get ourselves out of it. It's not going to be, quote, surrender by the Iranians. It's not. They haven't lost. Surrender is what you do when you've lost.

They haven't. just because there are navies at the bottom of the ocean, which Trump keeps mentioning, he's very proud of the fact of 156 ships or however many it was, that's not, they've figured out, thanks to this war, that they have a weapon far more powerful than ships or planes. They have control over the Strait of Hormuz. And it's a massive economic weapon that has effectively brought us to our knees. We haven't been able to figure out how to take that weapon away from them. now we're at the point of having to send these destroyers over into the straight and threaten

our allies, you better not come into these ports or else if you pay the toll, you're going to get it. Why are we threatening our allies? Thought this was about Iran. They've managed to spread it beyond just them, which is a win for them. They have leverage, not all of it. We're still the strongest, most powerful military in the world. I'm sure ultimately they would like to negotiate a stopping to the bombing. But we don't have all the cards like Trump is pretending we do. And we cannot go over there

and effectively demand the equivalent of quote, surrender. No uranium enrichment, period. And go down in the bottom of these three sites we bombed a smithereens in June and find the enriched uranium and turn it over to us. Something Trump himself told us

was not really possible about two weeks ago. That we'd see it via satellite that it's all buried. This is another Israeli dream. Now, the stuff about, hey, you know, you need to stop interfering with Israel and other allies in the region. Yeah, we can get, we can get them to agree to that. I'm sure we can.

And you need to cede control of the strait. I don't know. I don't know. Hopefully we can. That's, but if we can't, you know, and we leave it to be somebody else's problem, okay, I'm okay with that too. I want to get us out of there. I don't want to do anything escalatory at this point. that Cook political report was dark people. It was dark. I mean, Kamala Harris is announcing

she's thinking about running again. And we laughed about it on morning update, AM update, because it is kind of laughable. Are you kidding me? That idiot, she's going to come back. She thinks she's going to do better this time around. But my friends, if these numbers hold, the approval numbers for Trump, the numbers for JD, who doesn't deserve this blowback, this was not his decision. Anything's possible. And we will not be laughing if we have a Kamala Harris presidency

in three years. We will not be laughing. We'll be crying in our soup. She actually, she's the frontrunner right now on Team Blue. Like, you can't rule it out. Like, there's no way she can do it. So we need to take this very seriously.

we need to find a way out of this. Trump, I really hope he finds a way to wrap it up and to take himself off the scene for a while and do nothing other than focus like a laser on the domestic situation. That would be great. Because let me tell you something,

other than this Wall Well situation, which clearly was generated, I think, by Democrats to narrow the Democrat field so that they could get one Democrat in the top, you know, that California gubernatorial election, the top two out of this wide primary field will go on to the general election, irrespective of party. And right now there's a Republican in first and third, and Swalweb is in second.

So it's not that they want both of the Republicans to win. It's that they want support to consolidate behind a Democrat, and he was the most vulnerable. So now you've got Steyer and you've got Porter who are next position. So I don't know which one they want to push over the edge, but clearly they wanted to divide the Democrat support so that it would foster behind at least one of them, driving at least one of them into the final two. That's my own theory on what's happening there. But other than that snafu and that story, they've been very disciplined about not interfering

with the Republicans as they hurt themselves. They've been amazingly disciplined these past six weeks and just letting the Trump poll numbers dwindle, letting the Republican Party submit to the infighting, which was naturally going to happen. the Democrats have not been leading the charge against this war. They're just, they're too weak. And by the way, they're too owned by APEC. We're going to talk about the Swalwell situation next. First, we're going to take a break. We'll be right back. Let's talk about what's really happening right now. New data shows that financial stress is at an all-time high for some. Many Americans are at a breaking point. Debt maxed out, no extra dough, no room to breathe. And some people are running out of options. Listen, if debt

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Share your situation and find out what's possible. You don't have to stay stuck. Go to done withdebt.com. That's done with debt.com. Our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet and that now they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack

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Find out more at guard your card.com and consider to telling Congress to guard your card. Hey everyone, it's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM. It's called the Megan Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth, unfiltered, with no agenda, and no apologies. Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Dyshinsky, Jesse Kelly,

Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news. Only on Megan Kelly channel, Sirius X. 1-11 and on the series XM app. Okay, we've got to get into this Walwell situation. This is, I mean, boy, he was quickly dispatched of. I mean, it was like, they decided he need to go and he went. It was just a pile on from all corners.

And of course, Queen Pelosi said he had to go and that was the end of him. Boy, when she turns on you, you're done. Stick a fork in you. Here's what happened. He was in the second position. Steve Hilton, our old pal from Fox News, 14.7%. He's been leading. Swalwell right behind him, 13.7. This guy, Chad Bianco, in 13, so right behind Swalwell.

So really, like, two of the top three in California for this gubernatorial race are Republicans, which is extraordinary. But that doesn't mean they're going to win because there are one, two, three. of the top five, three are Democrats and all have double-digit support. So if you look at it, that's, you know, some 35% supporting Democrats and some 25% supporting Republicans of this electorate. And then I don't know where the other percentages are, I guess, just divvied up amongst the smaller, lesser candidates who have no chance.

So two of those are going to move on to the general election. and when it's a head-to-head Republican to Democrat, I think we all know what the state of California is going to do. Unfortunately, I'd love to see Steve Hilton win this thing. I would absolutely love, but they have no Republicans in national office in California. So what's the reason for that? They vote blue there. They do it just as soon as they breathe the air, they vote blue.

But I guess they decided they didn't want to take any chances at the top two, because the runoff will be between the top two, no matter who they are, even if they're both Republicans. They wanted to make sure that it was a Democrat that was in there. So that means somebody's got to go, and it looked like Swalwell was the most vulnerable. And I guess now they want all the real support to go either to Steyer or Katie Porter. Word on the street is it's Steyer, who they want. Katie's got her own issues. Get the fuck out of the shot.

She doesn't control her temper well. Personally, I'd like to see her get it. If it has to be somebody other than a Republican, I'm for Katie Porter. I would like to cover that for four years. I bet she'd give us a lot of content. But that's just the news person in me talking. Okay, so let's just talk about how they took him down. It's actually fascinating.

Like, clearly this guy's disgusting and very creepy, really gross. But whether he actually raped a woman, is a different question entirely. So it looks like there are about four accusers, but there could be much, much more. I have no idea. There's like, it seemed to be women coming out of the woodwork right now.

He is married. He's 38 years old. Is he 38 now, or was that when he allegedly raped the woman? Okay. When he allegedly raped this woman, it was 2019. So, what, six, seven years ago? Okay, he's 45 now. By the way, today's April 13th, 2026, and it is Strudwick's birthday, just as an aside, happy birthday

Strud. He's finally becoming the old dog we really hoped he would be. No evidence of that aging or mellowing, really, in our daily routine. Pretty sure yesterday he ate some sort of an animal and was on some natural high as a result of it, a squirrel maybe, I don't know, bird, possibly a rabbit, because we let him outside for a while and he came in like he had like cocaine bear. He was so ramped up. Not sure what happened there, but the high has not subsided. So he's super happy on his birthday. Okay, but I digress.

Back to Swalwa. Another kind of animal. This guy had two pieces drop on him, one in the San Francisco Chronicle, and then another, which had clearly been ready to go at CNN because they already had these women like on the record. and in one case, in shadow on camera, telling their stories. The same woman is at the heart of both pieces. The CNN piece has three other women who back it up with also gross accounts, but not as disturbing as woman number one.

And she's the star of the San Francisco Chronicle piece as well. So this woman says, I'm going to get into the specifics with you. Stand by. She says that. Okay. Here it is. She's a former junior staffer on his team. You know, he's a House of Representatives member.

That she was a junior staffer working for him, and she was just 21 years old in 2019, and he was 38, and he was married, and he's got kids too. And she claims that they had at least two physical interludes. It sounds like there may have been more, but two, that she is deeming non-consensual, it sounds like due to extreme intoxication on her part in which she was unable to provide consent. Now, in both her allegations and those of another woman, there's like a strong implication,

though nothing explicit about maybe a possible date rape situation, like a drug. They talk about how they were drinking with him, and then suddenly they blacked out and don't remember anything until the next day. But they both admit to being heavily intoxicated. so it's not clear. And they certainly don't explicitly say, I think I was given, you know, slipped a Mickey by this guy.

So it's just to me, in reading the reports, and I think to many others, there was like, are they trying to suggest that? Unclear, I think not, not explicitly, but keep an open mind

of that coming out as an allegation later because the foundation has been laid. She says that the two began messaging each other on Snapchat when she was working for him.

He began, she says, he was the first to make sexual comments, and he sent her photos of his penis and of him shirtless. As one does when one is the boss of young 21-year-old girls in one's congressional office. He also asked her to send him photos of herself, including nudes, which she did. As one does when one is a junior staffer working for a congressman and he asks you for nudes, of course you strip down and send them. No one behaved well here. She said she found his attention flattering, and she also felt nervous because he was her boss, yes, which would lead most people to try to get out of the awkward situation, deftly, politely, laughing it off, but not to take off one's clothes and send the nudes.

So this gal has got a lot of explaining to do and just really a lot of self-reflection on her own behavior. her mother told CNN that her daughter told the mother some months later that Swalwell had been communicating with her over Snapchat, Snapchat, and the mother and her husband found that inappropriate, but she did not tell her parents at the time that the messages were sexual because the messages on Snapchat were automatically deleted. She has no screenshots of the exchanges. Now, I'm just going to say that is a little suspicious because I'm going to say if you are a young person on Snapchat and your boss, who's a U.S. Congressman, sends you a dick pick, you get a friend to, like, photograph it over your shoulder. But it's possible you didn't have that at the ready

when the picture came in, when the Snapchat came in. I don't know. I'm kind of wondering why there's no evidence of it. But he's disgusting, and this seems to be a pattern for him. So I give her the benefit of the doubt, not him. So CNN does an on-camera interview with this accuser, this junior staffer, who was 21 at the time they began these nude pictures. And she explains the first exchange that they had that led no place good. She says she was driving to an event. That was her job to drive him around.

And here's where it went from there. Take a listen. It was in 2019. I was, again, driving him to an event. This was my job. And you were 21 years old. And I was 21 years old. We see some sort of parking lot, and he says to pull over.

He pulls out his penis and instructs me to give him oral sex. And I started to, again, I felt incredibly uncomfortable. And I stopped. And I said to him, this feels really uncomfortable and anyone could see us right now. And he said to me, you're right. It's probably not good for a congressman to be caught with his pants down. Did he ask you to send him nude photos? Yes.

And did he ever send nude photos? Yes. He would send short Snapchat videos of him rubbing his penis through his pants while on the airplane. The staffer says she liked Swalwell's attention at first and nervously went along with it, which included sending back nude photos of herself. Okay. So what do we have here so far? It's obviously technically sexual harassment because she was a subordinate to him in his office and he was taking advantage of his power over her and asking her to submit to a sexual relationship. Could she have said no? Yes, she could have. But there are a lot of women who feel disempowered in that situation, not excusing her saying yes or going along with this. I'm just saying technically in the eyes of the law, this could amount to sexual harassment,

and the power differential between them. It's definitely cheating on one's wife and disgusting. So he's gross. And you shouldn't vote for Eric Swalwell. And he was right to bow out of the California gubernatorial race. And, you know, he's got some amends to make for behaving this way like a disgusting cat. It's not like he was 39 and she was 39. You know, she was a lot younger, a lot younger, almost 20.

years younger and a junior staff around. I mean, think about it. Come on. What guy that you know would take a girl who is 20 years his junior, who was barely old enough to drink legally and ask her to give him a blowjob and for nudes while he sent pictures of himself rubbing his unit? I mean, he's a disgusting pig pervert. He denies the charges. If one word of this is true, he's a disgusting pig pervert. But there is a less. in here for, you know, young women, too, which is like, even when no does not feel like an option, it is. It is. And like, she shouldn't have done it. And the thing is this woman's story is complicated because she continues to talk about how flattered she was that he was into her. And she seems to

have had stars in her eyes for him. And she played the game. You know, she did. I mean, you can understand the guy's confusion when she willingly sent him nudes. and I'm sure that there were some messages on her part too encouraging this guy. So as a man's, you know, headspace goes, you can understand what he felt encouraged and thought she might want to perform the oral sex when he asked for it. So the whole thing is just fraught. And it's like, I kept thinking when I was hearing the story about Heather McDonald, who talks about sort of regulating sex, desire, love, whatever you want to call it, in the professional space. and how men are sort of built to pursue, and this is a fraught, tricky business.

And it's, you know, controversial view, and it's directly opposite to the one that was birthed in the Me Too movement, which is, no, finally we're holding them to account. Can't do this. Power differential. The power differential is everything. It's all that matters. And I think the truth is someplace in the middle. It does matter, the power differential.

It is relevant, and it does turn it into sexual, harassment if it's unwanted on the young woman's part. If she wanted it, then it's just an office affair, you know. But too often what we see is the woman did want it. She felt hot. She felt special. She felt loved. He was so powerful. And then he does something later to upset her like dumps her or doesn't give her their promotion or starts dating somebody else. And then she reviews the behavior in a less favorable light and suddenly turns what was completely consensual and happened irrespective of the power difference, like she felt empowered, and turns it into something that was non-consensual. And that's not okay. You know, sexual harassment requires that the woman,

that it be, quote, unwanted. It requires that it be unwanted. There are plenty of scheming young women for whom it is wanted. And that is at the heart of figuring out some of these allegations, right? So it's like, you cannot just go with 20-year-age difference and he's the superior. in the workplace setting without asking that other question, was it unwanted? Now, she's saying it was. So again, because he's got a pattern of this, apparently, like I give her the benefit of the doubt, but it's just given the excesses of the Me Too era, it's important that we keep these other questions in mind.

The days of just burning men at the stake are hopefully behind us. That was a period of excess that went too far and we learned from it and we should keep those lessons in mind, even if it's a disgusting man like Eric Swalwell. who none of us likes. Like, I literally almost never talk about Eric Swalwell. Almost never, because I find him so abhorrent and always have. I'll talk about AOC. I'll talk about Rashida Taleb.

There are certain people in Congress who I find just so disgusting. I almost never talk about them. And he's been one of them. But he's been in the news lately. We've been reporting to you, especially on AM Update, that this was likely to come. Like we had heard in some trusted circles that this was coming his way. And sure enough, we were right.

and if you listen to AM Update, you were smart and smarter than most when this dropped. You knew that this was coming. So she goes on to then describe a 2019 encounter with him after a night of heavy drinking, which is the theme of this woman's story. She's apparently a very heavy drinker, or at least was during all the time she was with him. And that is another thing for which she needs to take responsibility. She needs to take responsibility. Don't put yourself in this position.

And my friends, she did it twice. She went back to a night of heavy drinking with him after this interlude in which she claimed she blacked out. They had sex. And by definition, it was nonconsensual because she remembers none of it. Here's her describing that to CNN. The five of us were having some drinks. At some point, it was time to go home. I got in an Uber.

I was taken to the aloft Dublin. um, Pleasanton where he was staying. And I don't remember what happened that night. But I know that we, there was sexual contact. Because when I woke up in the morning, I could feel that there was. And, um, he said as much too. What did he say? That last night was great. Um, it didn't feel great to me because I didn't remember it. And so you blacked out and you end up in his hotel room and wake up with him. Yes. Okay.

So if she had sex with him when she was blacked out, that's non-consensual and it would legally constitute rape. Men, you should know that. If you are about to have sex with a woman who's completely passed out, blacked out drunk, there's no consent. You're a rapist. Don't do that. Absolutely do not do that. If the woman later complains and can prove she was blacked out, you're effed. So that's what she's claiming.

but her behavior after the fact wasn't really supportive of believing she was somebody who thought she'd been raped by this terrible man. The reporting is that later on Snapchat, she did say to him after he said to her how nice their sexual encounter was, I said to him, I really don't remember it at all, she claims. And he was like, well, next time we have to make sure you remember it. She then moved to a new job in Swalwell's Washington, D.C. office. So she did not quit. She did not say, oh, my God, he raped me.

She did not go to the police. She stayed working for him for another year and then did go on to take another job. But they stayed in touch, recommending her for jobs, messaging with her from time to time. She said she tried to stay in touch with him because of his status as a congressman. This can happen. you don't want to ruin your career. He's your only recommendation. He's your first job. You need him to say good things about you. But you can also make the case that it's not the behavior of somebody who would felt raped by this man against her will while passed out and unconscious, right? That it was more a case of maybe Sunday morning regrets than it was of a sexual assault victim. I don't know what the truth is, people. I have no idea. He's gross. That's the minimum. Just trying not to get ahead of my skis because he's a Democrat we can't stand.

Okay, so let's fast forward to 2024. They stayed in touch over the years. He was giving her recommendations. They continued with the texting. Don't know the nature of it. But here comes 2024 in April when the former staffer is now 25 and Swalwell was invited to speak at a gala in New York City that she attended. The woman said she decided to get drinks with Swalwell. because he was a powerful person in her field.

Now, I'm just going to say, if I felt raped by somebody, I wouldn't go for drinks with them. So I think there's an implicit admission here that that first encounter did not amount to rape in her head. She thought maybe things got out of hand. Clearly, she had moved past it because she went for drinks with him. And not just did she go for drinks with him,

she made it happen. She says that the two got drinks at Swalwell's Hotel and a nearby bar and Swalwell was totally professional. Okay, so they got drinks at his hotel and a nearby bar. He was totally professional. And then she says she had sent Swalwell a Snapchat message inviting him to get another drink. So I'm not sure the sequence of the events that night, but clearly she reached out to him and asked him to have drinks with her after he had been totally professional around her.

This is after the alleged night of being blacked out drunk. where he took advantage of her according to her. I'm sorry, but like, that's a devastating fact if you were to bring this case into a court of law. They did go out for another drink, and I guess he came and picked her up in a car. He put his hand on her leg. I said, no funny business.

Like, that's not what this is, she remembered. And he was like, okay. But then over drinks, he told the former staffer he'd been obsessed with her. He'd never cheated on his wife except with her. Oh my God. This poor girl, she's young. She doesn't. I'm like, that is such an obvious lie. Now we know that it's a lie. You should, this was 24. All these women coming out saying 2021, he was doing this shit with them. It's 2024. I'm like, I'm sorry for the wife, but it appears he has a serial prolific cheater. He denies the allegations. And this poor young girl, oh my God,

you're my first. My wife doesn't understand me. Ladies, do not believe that bullshit, no matter who spins it to you. These are what we call lies that you should resist. Okay, so you're just so hot, you're so hot, and you're the only one I've ever cheated on. Then she says again, I guess I liked the attention. This is a dynamic that continues to pop up in this young woman's life. She likes the attention and she drinks far too much. And that, my friend, is a dangerous combination in a young woman. It definitely does not allow you to later go back and say something was non-consensual when it was consensual. and I really hope that's not what she's doing here.

But you have to control your own drinking when this appears to be a pattern for you. You, you are responsible for your drinking. Now, if there's a possibility of a date rape drug, that's a different story. Again, unclear. She says as the night progressed, the two went to another bar. I don't know how many bars they went to together. and continued drinking. She said she was, quote, heavily intoxicated

and doesn't remember leaving the bar. The next thing the former staffer remembered, she was in bed with Swalwell, in his hotel room, and he was having sex with her, she said. She said she remembers flashes of that evening, of him on top of me, of me pushing him off, of him grabbing me. I was pushing him off, saying no, she said.

He didn't stop. Now it's very convenient. that she doesn't remember a thing, except for the one slivered in time in which she said no and pushed him off and he wouldn't. I mean, like, that's very convenient. She doesn't remember a thing. Doesn't remember leaving the bar, doesn't remember the actual sex, but does remember saying no. That's what she claims. Pushing him off from me, saying no, he didn't stop. Sorry, Deb, do we have this described in Asat? Let's listen. I decided to ask him to meet me. for a drink. And I did this because I was so far removed from what had happened in 2019. I felt

safe because I was established. I had a partner. I felt more secure that I could have a strictly professional relationship with this person. After that bar closed, we went to another. I went to the bathroom and I don't remember anything after that. You don't remember anything. I remember the next day. I can see flashes of that evening of him on top of me, me pushing him off, him grabbing me. It was a lot more aggressive. It was aggressive. Did you say no?

Yes. I said no. In my flash that I can recall, I was pushing him off of me saying no. And what did he do? He didn't stop. He didn't stop. And you woke up the next morning. I woke up the next morning, naked, alone in his hotel room.

I, for a moment, didn't even know I was in his hotel room. That's how intoxicated I was. I'm sorry. She said she thought she could keep it strictly professional, but she got falled down drunk with him and then went back to his hotel. This is like, I mean, like, I, I'm not trying to defend Eric's Wall Well, trust me. But ladies, we need to be responsible for our own decisions. Strictly professional does not include going to multiple bars with someone you've already gotten fall-down blackout drunk with who took advantage of you, according to you, when you were 21 and he was your boss. That's not strictly professional.

strictly professional is, I'm not going to drink with you because we work together and there's a massive age difference and a history. Strictly professional is I'm not going in a car alone with you. When I have a partner, which she also reveals to CNN, that by this point she's got a boyfriend. Okay? Like, it's not a great idea to go alone in the car of somebody with whom you've already had sex in the past whose behavior you'd, don't trust while you're fall-down blackout drunk, I don't think my partner would appreciate me behaving that way, and I wouldn't. I'm just saying, like, women, the days of just being able to make terrible decisions, one after the other, and then blame everything that happens after you make

them on a man are over. This is not okay. Like, she doesn't even seem to have shame in recounting her half of this. Again, if he then took advantage of her while she was falled down drunk, or, God forbid, gave her a rape drug. He's to blame, but she should never have put herself in this situation. I feel very strongly about this. I hope you'll email me with your opinions. You can do that. Megan at Megan Kelly.com. So she says she wakes up the next day, has no memories,

except for her of her saying, stop and pushing him off. She says she quickly called her mother, who confirmed the account in an interview with CNN. She says she knew that she had had sex because she was supposedly bleeding out of her wherever. I don't know. I mean, like, that happens to women once a month and sometimes in the interim,

but I'm not sure what she's referring to, whether it was like, you hurt her. But she does go on to say she had cuts and bruises on her body. She could see bruises were his hand had been on her rib cage, on her legs, and near my thighs. I would like to know where the pictures are of that because I guarantee you any woman who woke up after an interlude with a congressman

who had already allegedly sexually assaulted them. and suddenly finds bruises all over her, like in a handprint, would 100% photograph that. 100%. This is 2024 and she's 25 years old. She's obsessed with her phone. Obsessed. She's all over Snapchat. You know that. Like, where are the pictures of that? There is zero chance they don't exist if this happened to her. Zero. Did CNN see them? She says he messaged her later on Snapchat that day, said the previous night was great. He hoped she remembered it this time and told her not to tell anyone. She did tell her partner that Swalwell had assaulted her.

I'm getting Pete Hexeth vibes here. Was this turned into an alleged sexual assault because you have a partner? I don't know what's happening with this woman. I'm just saying her behavior is not great when she returned home that day. Her partner confirmed that in an interview with CNN saying she was just so distraught, quote unquote. Well, I'm sure in speaking to the partner, she was for a multitude of reasons. She also told two other friends about being assaulted by Swalwell over the following days, according to screenshots of text messages she shared with CNN.

Several days later, she went to a health clinic and got an STD test providing screenshots that showed the appointment to CNN. She says she told her medical provider that she had been assaulted by a congressman and the provider referred to her as a survivor in an online message about her test results a screenshot shows. That proves she told the provider something. That's all. She said she never confronted Swalwell directly about the assault.

She never confronted him, and she never reported it to the police, in part because she believed him when he told her he hadn't made sexual advances toward other women. So she thought this was not a pattern and therefore didn't come forward. I, okay. I need to know more. Okay. Keep going here. Let's see.

This is, I think, the same. Yeah. Now, here she is complaining to CNN, that nobody protected her in this process, which is interesting. Listen. I kept figuring out ways to blame myself. I shouldn't have reached out to him at all.

I should have left. I should have done this. Well, Eric shouldn't have raped me. There is another me out there. There is another young girl who dreams of working in this field and believes in him and could fall into this trap. And that's why you're speaking out. Yeah. You want to protect others like you when you were young. No one protected me. Sorry. Oh my God. No one protected me and I don't want to. someone else to suffer because I know what I know. I mean, I think many women have been very young and sexually harassed by a boss. It's not right. It's deeply wrong. It threatens your whole career.

You think your whole career is flashing before your eyes. But many, many women, most I would venture to say find a way to say no. They don't send nude pictures of themselves. They don't send flirty, naughty texts. They don't go back to the hotel room. They don't get completely inebriated with the man. They don't, after getting completely inebriated and being allegedly sexually assaulted, call the man up and ask to see him again, then get inebriated again, go from bar to bar, get in his car, go back to a hotel room with him. They don't do those things.

You at some point need to protect yourself by making good judgments about how not to place yourself in danger. I'm sorry. Like, as you guys know, I am very. empathetic to women who complain about being me-toed. And I famously have had that situation happen to me. And I will tell you, my boss had complete control over my entire future and was literally the most powerful man in news. Eric Swalwell was not the most powerful man in Congress, but he would have felt powerful to a 21-year-old staffer for him. I grant you. But my point is

simply, when this happened to me, I said no. I said no. I understood that no was an option and I took it. And they're like ladies, you, you have to say no. And at a minimum, at a minimum, you don't repeatedly put yourself in danger by making terrible decisions one after the other. I'm sorry that this woman now feels used and assaulted and all the rest of it, but to cover this story as the media is by just painting her as this terrible victim. woman and him is this disgusting serial rapist ignores the facts of the story. Not defending him. Not saying he's not a creep.

There are other women coming out of the woodwork talking about how gross he was with the dickpicks and so on. But it's 2026 and we've learned a thing or two from the Me Too overages. Okay. And that's just the way it is. Okay. Another accuser comes forward. She's age unknown. She had an interest in Democrat politics.

She said she began messaging with him online in 2025 and responded to one of his Instagram stories. A couple days later, he followed her and encouraged her to get involved in politics. He later sent her his phone number. They began texting over several weeks, screenshots of messages that she shared with CNN. In the spring of 2025,

he and she met for dinner and drinks at a steakhouse. Okay, we all know where it's going now. She said she told her mother about the meeting and Swalwell, with Swalwell, in a day. Vance, her mother confirmed that in an interview with CNN, because that's two moms now who knew their daughter was contacting a married lawmaker. Not great. Hopefully, the mom said, not a good idea. You know, don't go for a dinner. Maybe you meet over lunch for coffee, something like that. So while took the woman to another bar where they sat in a back booth. He was sitting against me,

so I kind of moved away from him. And every time I would move away from him, he would get closer to me. He touched her leg in order to drink for her. Bad move. The woman said she tried to turn the conversation to her partner. She too had a partner. And Swalwell's wife and children, but Swalwell continued to touch her. That's when you get up and you walk out. That's when you get up and you walk out.

I repeat. That's when you get up and you walk out. She began to get more intoxicated and felt really dizzy, really fuzzy. Again, don't get intoxicated. How many drinks did you have? That's a bad idea. If you really have a partner and want to be faithful to him, don't keep drinking with the man who's touching your leg in the back bar booth

and won't talk about his wife and children when you raise them. Get up and walk out. Claim you don't feel well if you don't want to offend him. Claim you got a phone call. There's been an emergency. Get out. After she returned to the booth, he kissed her. She said she told him it was wrong and didn't want to burn a bridge,

but didn't want to burn a bridge with a prominent congressman. So she stayed at the bar even though she was getting more. and more intoxicated. Sensing a pattern here. The woman said, she then ended up in his hotel room without any memory of how she got there. So again, are they implying date rape drug or is just a pattern of women making terrible decisions of getting blackout drunk and then going back to this guy's hotel rooms? She said her memory of what happened in his hotel room is a blur. She wound up leaving the hotel at 541 a.m. according to a screenshot of an Uber receipt. The next day, Swalwell sent her disappearing iPhone voice messages saying he wanted to ensure that his wife did not find out.

She felt emotionally vulnerable, distraught in the following weeks, telling her mom about a month after what had happened, later telling two close friends. All three confirmed that to CNN. She said she told Swalwell that she felt really disgusted and ashamed about what had happened, but he continued contacting her, including offering to use his position to help her renew her passport or saying he could write her a letter of recommendation for her law school applications. I'd like to see her responses to those. Did you take the application? Did you ask him for them?

Did you take the help renewing your passport? Like, I just don't think you can have it both ways. You just, I was, I had my partner and I loved him and I didn't want to be in that bar. And the only reason I didn't leave was because it was awkward. And I really just wanted to talk about his wife and children, but after our alleged encounter, which I have no memory of, but definitely wasn't consensual because I was blacked out, I got his help with passports and law school applications and definitely stayed in touch with him via text. I just like, these are not great facts.

A few days before he announced his gubernatorial bid in November, he asked her, he texted her, asking how she was, obviously he's getting nervous. She's going to come forward. According to a screenshot, she provided, she responded, all you did was harm. me, she says. He writes back, I won't bother you again. Sorry. The woman said she then continued to stay in touch with him after that, exchanging some friendly messages in what she likened to Stockholm syndrome. In the cease and desist letter to the woman, Swalwell's lawyer argued that some of these text messages, including one in which she said, you would be an amazing governor raised out about her

account. Indeed, we can't keep doing this, just running to, he's gross, we want the Democrat out and therefore we accept everything without questioning whether it actually was a rape, a non-consensual sexual encounter, a Me Too sexual harassment situation. Number three is an unnamed accuser who works in marketing, says Swalwell first reached out to her on Twitter in April of 2021. Remember when he was only cheating with the one girl? When she was in her late 20s, after she liked several. of his tweets. Then they began messaging on Snapchat. The conversation became flirty and sexual after about a month. He often requested swimsuit or nude photos of the woman, which she sometimes sent.

I mean, I've never sent a nude photo in my life, nor would I, upon request, even from my husband. Okay? Like, this is not a good idea. But she sent them. He sent her several videos of his penis, which she did not ask for. Well, I'm a little. little less offended than the headlines would have led me to be. Because you sent nudes of yourself, sister. Like, if you're sending nude photos to him, he can send you a dick pick, solicited or not. And it changes the context entirely. In one flirty exchange reviewed by CNN, he complimented her on a swimsuit photo. She'd chaired on Insta. Said it'd been too long since they last message. According to screenshots, he wrote that swimsuit. Fuck. You like it? She responded? Yes, very much like,

he wrote. Obviously, she's flirting with him. You like it? CNN spoke with two friends who said the woman told him about Swalaw while sending her images of his penis and sexually explicit messages. I wonder if CNN asked them if she told them she had sent him nudes. The woman said she felt embarrassed and kind of exchanged, ashamed about her exchanges with him. When you're getting unsolicited dick video sent to you,

it just makes you feel like I'm lesser than a person. I just wish I'd never answered him. You sent him nudes. I it's relevant. It's really relevant. Like, they make it sound in the headlines like he just sent her an unsolicited dick pick, which you might have done. Okay, there's another story coming. But this report by CNN says she sent him nudes. Uh, okay. Number four. This gal goes on the record, Ali Samarko. Social media creator age 24 back in 2020. when he was only cheating with the first girl on his wife, she said she first connected with him after messaging him on Twitter that he was using social media to connect with 21-year-olds.

What a sick, disgusting, pervert, fucking loser, cheater, terrible person who shouldn't be the governor or a congressman. He's too disgusting. Conceded. 2021, asking him about his history of growing up, I guess he was from a Republican family. He sent her friendly messages on Twitter. Screenshots provided a CNN show starting in September 21. They started exchanging messages every day on Snapchat.

He became very inappropriate, like saying about how hot he thought I was insinuating we should get together and hook up. He was always like drunk texting me saying, oh, I'm having a drink. What are you doing? And I'm like, I'm out with my friends like I'm 24. The congressman sent her selfies of himself in bed or shirtless as well. well as unsolicited photos of his penis, she seems really proud of. That's me, editorializing. Swalwell asked her where she lived, then ran by her apartment building several times, stopping by to say hi, giving her hugs, but coming, but not coming inside. Their contacts fizzled out

when she met her boyfriend, now her husband in December of 21. He tried multiple times to message her on Snapchat, and I just, like, won't respond. So what happened there? They maintained some contact in the subsequent years. Again, why? Like, why? He's sending you unsolicited dickpicks. It's a no. It's over. The chapter closes, as does the book. You move on. I just got so much more to say about it, but you get the gist. And now he comes out with a denial of the most egregious stuff. He basically is saying there was never anything not. consensual. The other shits between me and my wife, and on that, my friends, he may be right. However, if he's lying about the non-consensual stuff, he's up Schitt's Creek without a paddle. Here's his

denial. A lot has been said about me today through anonymous allegations. I thought it was important that you see and hear from me directly. These allegations of sexual assault are flat, false. They're absolutely false. They did not happen. They have never happened. And I will fight them with everything that I have. They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the front-winter candidate for governor in California. I do not suggest to you in any way that I'm perfect or that I'm a saint. I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past. But those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position. I also apologize to you if in any way you have doubted your support for me. But I think

think you know who I am. For over 20 years, I have served the public. As a city councilman, as a member of Congress, and as a prosecutor who went to court on behalf of victims, particularly on behalf of sexual assault victims. That's who I am and have always been. He's disgusting pervert. That seems clear. But here's what's interesting. So first of all, I think there's more coming. Do you remember Martin Screlli, the guy who got accused and I think convicted of fraud when it comes to, like, medical stocks? Steve, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to say he's been convicted of fraud when he hasn't been.

But I'm pretty sure he got convicted and went to prison. He tweeted out the photo of what he says is Swalwell. Multiple people are in it, or in, not a photo, a video of him grabbing this woman. who is reportedly in the sex worker trade on a video. This is while he's married, reportedly, he's kissing her. She's sort of frolicy with him. She doesn't seem upset. There are others in the room.

You can see, like, they're not alone. There are multiple people here. And this is kind of shocking to see with his shirt way too unbuttoned. And on top of that, you've got Nick Shirley, you know, Nick Shirley, who broke the Minnesota Somali fraud story wide open with his video. here is what he posted. Hi, Representative Swalwell. This is over the weekend.

I wonder what will happen if I soon published a recording of you admitting to illegally pushing to subpoena Ivanka Trump because she's, quote, hot as fuck, end quote, letting lobbyists get you drunk off your ass at a D.C. restaurant. And then you asking them to help you find a woman to cheat on your wife with

because you, quote, only F tens, meaning, you know, one out of ten, a tens, end quote. Will it help or hurt your members in California? Are the voters as deviant like you are? We may find out in a few days if you are still on the race and haven't dropped out. And then he did drop out. So that was posted by Nick Shirley.

Nick has not released that video, but late last night, Eric Swalwell did drop out of the race. All those allegations by Nick Shirley, unconfirmed, presumably denied. But it's a threat by Nick Shirley, who's, you know, been a very celebrated journalist. this year of what he allegedly has of Swalwell on tape. And we'll see now whether there are other women who come forward, as we've seen in so many of these cases. No comment from his wife. That poor woman.

I mean, I certainly hope she didn't know. I mean, she's married to Eric Swalwell, so it's already really bad. And then she finds out this. At least if you're going to marry to this disgusting guy, you hope he's going to be faithful. I mean, that's a bare minimum you can ask for somebody this disgusting, just in general, outside of the sex stuff. He's just been the worst. Oh, and by the way, by the way, not a bigger proponent of believe all women. Listen to him during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Listen to this. Sott, I think it's 20.

It's very easy to isolate one incident and, you know, shine inaccuracies or inconsistencies on that case. But the more and more cases that are separate and independent that look the same, pretty soon a prosecutor starts to say to a jury. And this, this is a case. is not a jury, but it's allegations that the arrows are pointing in the same directions. And what are the chances that three or four women independently who never met each other would have similar experiences with one person? So either Ari, this person committed these horrific acts or he is the single unluckiest person in the world. Oh, okay. Forget everything I said. Let's hold him to that exact same standard.

Guilty. That's how it works, right, representative? great. What's good for Kavanaugh is good for you. Fine. How can there be this many women and it not be true? What are the chances? Several women would have the same stories. You tell me, sir. What are the chances? And why is he still in Congress? Clearly, this was Opal research that was lurking out there because as soon as San Francisco Chronicle dropped this. And by the way, that gubernatorial race is June 2nd, but the early voting starts, I think, May 5th. So we are now two weeks away, two to three, from voting starting in that. gubernatorial race. They needed to kneecap this guy. They knew if this came out in a general in which it was Swalwell versus Hilton, they'd be effed. So they clearly knifed him before that point. This is my speculation, but it's obvious. So who, which one did it? Who did it? Who knew? And kept it quiet. Because all this time they've known, in my humble opinion, allegedly reportedly, he's been a U.S. congressman. Why is he fit to be a U.S. congressman, but not the California governor? Would someone like to let me know? Because these alleged sins were all committed in that role.

And by the way, it's just breaking now that there will be an ethics probe by the House Committee on Ethics over these accusations. The committee has begun an investigation and will gather additional information regarding the allegations that he violated the code of official conduct or any law announced the panel just moments ago. So why can he be a congressman? Because he hasn't resigned from that, but not the governor of California. Seriously. Why are you ethical enough to be a congressman, but not the governor? So clearly, I believe this was released on him to get him out of that gubernatorial race because he was likely to be the top dem. And they couldn't have it, and they couldn't have this come out after it was a one-on-one against him between him and

probably Hilton. And so I'd love to know exactly how this went down and who knew and why they didn't say anything, because their hands are dirty too. I mean, when did you know? Did you know in 2024? Because that's when woman number one says the second sexual assault happened. Why didn't you come forward before that? You could have saved that woman. The other woman, she was more recent too. I think she said 2025, the woman who went on the record.

Why didn't you save her? Why did you keep it quiet? And up your sleeve, whoever it is in the Democrat cabal who had this information. When did CNN find out? When did the San Francisco Chronicle find out? Why does CNN have that whole report ready to go, like seconds after the San Francisco Chronicle dropped it? Like, when did they do all those interviews?

I'd love to know more. How many people have been running cover for this guy? Because whether he committed a sexual assault or not, he's been hate, he obviously behaved like a disgusting pervert who has no business whatsoever being U.S. Congressman, never mind governor. So who knew and how long and why didn't they tell us? There are questions about his pal Ruben Gallego, who is with him in some of these videos of him online as a friend, as a supporter.

like to know what he knew and when. That's that the ethics probe should go beyond just Swalwell to find out who knew and why they didn't come forward. Not the women themselves, but the media and Democrat elites. Nancy, Nancy, when did you find out? You got your finger on the pulse. Why didn't you come forward immediately? I'm really curious.

How about you, Hakeem? What about you? How about Adam Schiff? He's got his finger on the pulse, too, in California politics. What did you know and when did you know it? Love to have those questions answered. We'll see whether we get it. That's it for now.

This story's not done. It's just beginning. And it does affect the California race. We'll see how. Love to get Steve Cilton's reaction, which we will because we know him and we love him and we will reach out. For that, you'll have to wait because we've got to say goodbye. We're wrapping it up on Sirius XM and wrapping it up on our pod and YouTube back tomorrow with much, much more. And thank you for all of you for listening and watching.

Back with Ruthless and The Fellas. This is time tomorrow. Until that. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.