The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump's Noem and Cornyn Decisions, Newsom's Meltdown, and Oprah's Shock Weight Loss, with Jesse Kelly and Mark Halperin | Ep. 1267

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Megyn Kelly is joined by Jesse Kelly, host of "I'm Right," to discuss the high-stakes Texas GOP Senate primary between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, President Trump game-changing endorsement in the race, why this could be the chance for Texas to help drain the swamp, Gavin Newsom melting down when asked a simple question about his main political project, Newsom's ramblings about Gandhi and Mandela, Katie Couric asking Newsom if he's too hot to be president, how the current conflict with Iran is in the “break things” phase of war, the much harder questions of what happens when it’s time "make things" and rebuild, and more. Then Mark Halperin, host of "Next Up," joins to discuss the real reason Kristi Noem was fired from DHS, whether her rocky congressional hearing and relentless negative coverage became the final straw for President Trump, the truth about infighting with top officials in the Trump admin, why Gavin Newsom’s profile as a straight, white, Christian, tall man could help him win the 2028 Democratic nomination, his struggles explaining his political vision on his current media tour,  the growing trend of celebrities using Ozempic for extreme weight loss, why stars like Oprah Winfrey and others now appear shockingly thin, and more.   Subscribe to Mark's show Next Up: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-up-with-mark-halperin/id1810218232 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2f0n8G4xqUo8aGxbbbtRjH YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nextuphalperin?sub_confirmation=1   Kelly- https://jessekelly.com/   Ethos Life Insurance: Protect your family’s future with fast, online life insurance from Ethos—get a free quote in minutes at https://Ethos.com/MK Relief Factor: Break up with pain—Relief Factor targets inflammation so you can move better and feel better; try the 3-Week QuickStart for just $19.95 at https://ReliefFactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF. Dose: Support your liver and daily energy with Dose for Your Liver—get 35% off your first month at https://dosedaily.co/MK or use code MK at checkout. 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 Friday. We have the flu going in our house. Have you been hit by the flu? Flu, flu B, it's so unpleasant. You always forget our son has got it. You forget, you know, like a little graphic online.

Like, do you feel like you got hit by a Mac truck? No, it's not the flu. Yes, it's the flu. That's what we're going through. I hope you guys are avoiding. It always seems to happen this time of year, late winter, just when you have like the whiff of spring in the air and you're looking forward to like the blooms. We're seeing little buds in our trees, which is so lovely. And then whammo, some illness overtakes the household.

Anyway, sending you all happy, healthy vibes and hoping you don't have it. In the meantime, not so happy, California governor Gavin Newsom. He's continuing his media tour, apropos of nothing. You know, he wrote this book just because he wanted to get to better know people. and not at all having to do with presidential aspirations. He had a meltdown over a simple question about his political goals. Think, picture AOC at that Munich conference when she was asked about our Taiwan policy. That's what just happened to Gavin Newsom when just asked, like, about his political goals.

Like what his hopes are for the country? Wait until you see this tape. And then he swung by Katie Couric. And as you know, she used to be, like, at the pinnacle of elite media, the darling host of the Today Show. And then the female, first female to anchor the evening news broadcast alone over at CBS. And it was like, it was such a huge post, like hard hitting. Remember how tough she went on Sarah Palin? You know, wouldn't relent.

And she's different now. I'm not sure exactly what happened. but basically the interview boiled down to, you're incredibly fucking hot. You're hot, Gavin, and you might be too hot to win. How hot are you? Even hotter than I think you are? It was embarrassing, and we will discuss it. But we begin with some major decisions from President Trump.

First is ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam yesterday. Some online were questioning whether this really was a firing. It was a firing. Fox News up and down the board reported it was a firing. That's clear, by the way, but in any event, just in case you doubted it, those closest to the president have all said fired. And ahead, who he will endorse in the Texas GOP Senate primary, should he be getting involved at all? Or should he let these two guys, Ken Paxton, the state AG, and the sitting Republican senator, John Cornyn, hash it out amongst themselves? We're going to have next up host Mark Halperin coming

in the next hour, and he's got all the dish on everything political. He was with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday as the whole Iran announcement was happening, so that'll be really interesting to hear the back drop, too. But my first guest today has a very stark and direct warning for President Trump about any possible endorsement plans in Texas. That's because Jesse Kelly lives in Texas, is from Texas, and he's host of the Jesse Kelly show, cares about all the states, but a lot of lot about Texas. And you can hear Jesse's show right here on the Megan Kelly channel, series XM 111 every weeknight at 6 p.m. Eastern. Love having him as part of that lineup. He also has a new book titled Jesse Kelly's Little Red Book, which you can get for free,

which I continue to tell him is not, it's not a great plan. I don't think he's got a career as an author if he keeps giving him away for free. But nonetheless, that's how much he loves you. You can get it at jessieckley.com. When you bring a child into the world, your perspective changes overnight. Gosh, that's so true. Suddenly, you're thinking years ahead about child care, school, the future milestones. Part of loving your family also means thinking about their future, even in sometimes uncomfortable ways. And that leads me to the depressing part of this ad. Life insurance. It's not fun to talk about. No one wants to do it, but just you got it. You got to take just a little bit. Think about it. Take care of it. And then you move on.

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Megan, I appreciate you. And I know it's a terrible business plan. All my friends, including you in this business, are yelling at me about it. I'm never doing it again. I swear, but it's dumb. I know it's dumb, but I'm a dumb person. Like a nominal. Even like $4, you know, something nominal may.

I think people would want to support you. Okay, so let's talk. I confess, I don't know that much about Ken Paxton. He's the guy now who's in the runoff with John Cornyn, who's like Establishment Republican, capital E, establishment Republican. And Cornyn's been there since 2002. But now Ken Paxton, who seems like a very colorful character and seems notwithstanding some personal scandals to be pretty beloved, by most Republicans. He's kind of Trumpy. He's fun. He's fierce. He's a fighter. But he's in this knockdown, drag out with Cornyn. And now it appears that Trump, who doesn't want to

see a runoff between now, what is it, March 6th today and the end of May, he doesn't want to see the Republican candidate get all bloodied up before they have to face this incredibly woke, annoying Democrat who just defeated Jasmine Crockett, Tala Rico. He wants the GOP candidate to be a little cleaner, you know, with not as many fistprints all over him. He seems to be getting ready to endorse. And I think a lot of people are like, okay, we get it until he said the person he was going to endorse is John Cornyn. And a lot of the Maga Faithful did like a whiplash. Like, wait, what? Because they don't like John Cornyn, even though he's a Republican. And you are one of them. So explain to us why. All right. So John Corning, because this is really

mostly about John Cornyn and, frankly, the United States Senate. It's not even really a Texas story, although obviously Texas is part of it. John Cornyn, I mean, everybody talks about rhinos and draining the swamp and Washington, D.C. corruption. I mean, John Cornyn is the face of all that. John Cornyn, as a Texas senator, is an amnesty guy. He's talked about it multiple times how he wants to do an amnesty deal for illegals. After that horrible Yuvaldi school shooting, John Cornyn was the one who worked with Democrats to pass gun control legislation. John Cornyn has screwed over the right time in time in time again. But John Cornyn is insanely powerful. He's a very high-ranking Republican, and he keeps the swamp full. He keeps it as swampy as possible. So along comes Ken Paxton.

He's currently Texas's attorney general. He's won statewide races multiple times here. He's well-known. It's one of the most difficult things in the world is to primary a sitting senator because they raise so much money and they overwhelm you monetarily, as you know. So, it's very rare you can do this. We have a very rare opportunity to send a message, not to John Cornyn, screw him, to the rest of the GOP, that we are done tolerating, you betraying us every chance the senators say screw us over for four years. And then the last two years, when they're getting ready to run for re-election,

they act like, I'm Mr. Trump guy and all those things like that. John Cornyn does this. We have an opportunity to send them a message that we're done taking that, that we're done taking that. And if you do that, we're going to primary you. This is an opportunity to make the rest of the useless GOP afraid to screw us over. This is an opportunity to actually drain the swamp because John Cornyn fills it up. Donald Trump ran on draining the swamp.

Talks about draining the swamp. Talks about these things all the time. If, if, and he hasn't done it yet, to his credit, from my understanding, he's having hesitations now, if Donald Trump steps in and kneecaps the effort to actually drain the swamp, It will be by a mile the biggest betrayal of his base and the biggest mistake he has made in his presidency. He has some swampy loser dorks around him telling him that he should. That's why he's even getting involved at all. These people stand to make a lot of money.

If he gets involved in John Corrin wins, and they're whispering in his ear that he should do this. He doesn't have to do anything. He doesn't have to endorse Paxi. He doesn't have to do anything. Just sit there and let us let us stay out of it. Yeah, just stay out of it. It would be the dumbest own goal at a point where he's got a lot of things he's juggling. It would be beyond belief to me that he does it.

And I really hope that cooler heads prevail. Why do the swampy loser dorks want Cornyn? Money. John Cornyn has been there, like you said, since 2002. And John Cornyn's one of these guys who keeps a lot of pockets full in D.C. Of course, it's always taxpayer money. He finds a way to get money spread. on Washington, D.C., like so many of these long-established senators do. And then miraculously,

when he comes up for re-election, instead of having a normal war chest, you know, United States Senate runs going to cost you $20, $30 million. John Cornyn had $100 million to spend on the primary alone. Why do you think they did that? Because they love his winning personality. They did that because the guy spent 20-plus years funneling money back to them and he's going to spend the next six doing the exact same thing. And some people around President Trump, these political consultants who get 15% of all these ad buys, $100 million, 15% of $100 million, this is a lot of cheddar cheese, they stand to make a whole lot of money if John Cornyn keeps winning and keeps spending money. It's all about money and power. It's everything gross that grosses normal people out about

politics is this exact race right here. And we don't need Donald Trump kneecapping the efforts of decent people who want to drain the swamp. Now, as I understand it, the argument against, against Paxton is he's less likely to win in the general. There's a big dispute even among Republicans on this type of argument. You know, like Anne Coulter, she maintains that if you don't nominate the candidate who enthuses Republicans, you're going to lose. Like, it never works to go for the one who would play better with the general electorate. And there are a lot of Republicans who feel that way. like there's going to be a pissed off contingent in Texas if it's not Paxton who refused to pull the lever for Cornyn, which could hurt the Republicans.

But in any event, the theory behind, go with Cornyn is the Texas electorate has sent him back to the Senate time and time again. And he'll be more palatable to a Texas electorate that, let's face it, over the past 10 years, has gotten a little bit more purple than red. Yeah, I've heard this argument and it's a complete crappy argument and I reject it. all the way. First of all, I've been living in Texas for about 15 years now, a little less than that, about 15 years now. And ever since the day we walked into this state, I have been warned that Texas is turning blue and Texas is turning blue and Texas is turning blue and not a single Democrat has won a statewide election since I got here. Texas is not turning blue. That's one. Two, that weird little fruit came. That's a relief to hear, by the way. It's not turning blue.

This is nice to hear that there are still states towing the line. Oh, yeah. Not only that, we're getting redder. Megan, people talk about why we don't want Californians moving to our state and stuff like that. And with all due respect, the people who flee places like California and come to Texas, we pull all these things here in Texas. They're all Republicans. We get redder when the Republicans move into Texas. Texas isn't turning blue. That's one. Two, that fruitcake the Democrats chose to nominate that weirdo, James Tolarico who looks like he's never even had to shave a day in his life. That guy is not going to appeal to red-blooded Texas voters. He's on camera saying some of the kooky,

Dodd as non-binary and things like that, saying the cooiest things in the world that are going to be all over the airwaves, my dog could beat that guy running as a Republican in Texas. That guy's not going to be elected United States Senator. I don't care who we nominate. And three, this is the go-to trick that the swamp rat rhinos use every single time.

There is a hardcore person who actually shares the values of the electorate. They use the exact same trick, the same line. I swear they just all have it memorized. Well, he can't win the general. Well, he's too far right to win the general. This guy is too far right to win the general. Tarle Rove and these goobers have been trotting out that line for as long as I've been alive. Anybody who won't keep their pockets lined and keep the swamp swampy, there's too far right.

It won't be able to win the general. I'm so tired of hearing that crap. Any Republican who wins, Cornyn or Paxton, any Republican who wins the primary is going to be the next senator from Texas, and everybody knows it. All right. Now there's reports that there might be a deal in the works, whereby Cornyn will be the nominee. Paxton will drop out. But Paxton could make an announcement saying, I'll drop out if you get the Save Act a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate, you know, the act that would require ID and citizenship verification before people can

register to vote. And Paxton, you know, if he wants a long future in Republican politics, he doesn't want to cross Trump. So it's possible the theory goes that he might agree to that. Now, having said that, this is what he said to just the news, and our pal John Solomon, his organization, just two days ago on Wednesday. Here's Sot 1. And what message do you want to send to the Republican base day? President Trump said he's going to make an endorsement. Whoever he does endorse, you drop out. I have a funny feeling you don't drop out under any circumstance. No, I understand this race. I owe it to the people of Texas. I've spent a year of my life

campaigning against John Cornyn because John has not represented the people of Texas. Well, he's been against Trump and both of his elections said he shouldn't run last time. His day had passed. Okay. So he's saying no. And then just wanted to add this, Jesse. Okay. Trump gave an interview just by phone. to Dana Bash of CNN this morning. And there was a question about whether he's about to endorse Cornyn. She reports as follows, I'm quoting.

The president says his top priority, other than the war, is the Save America Act, which he now wants to include trans issues, banning surgeries on kids and procedures and boys and girls sports. He told me this in response to my question about endorsing Corning. Quote, I'm making a decision fairly shortly, but I want and then I feel very strongly that we have to have the full and complete Save America Act, okay? I want the Save America Act. It's more important than everything else we're working on other than the war, he told Danabash.

Quote, I've got to have the assurance of you have a big story here, come to think of it, but I'm just telling you, I like John Cornyn, get along with him very well, get along with both of them very well. But we have to go in with the Save America Act, which I, I don't, that sounds to me, Jesse, like it's along the lines of what I was just asking you, are they cutting a deal behind the scenes where they keep Cornyn, they get a vote on Save America, they somehow, I mean, I don't know how they're going to get a vote on the Save America Act if they don't get rid of the filibuster. But in any event, and that's how the president avoids this bruising primary and gets rid of Ken Paxton by having Ken saying he did it for the good of the nation to get the Save Act, a vote. Yeah, I think Donald Trump is being very clear.

clear there and frankly Ken Paxman's being clear as well get to say if you want John Cornyn I need to save act. Obviously it's a political deal that's being cut. Donald Trump is not a moron as many of the people on the left seem to think he is. He's not a moron at all and he has heard

the loud screaming from people who are his most loyal supporters over the last 48 hours at the thought of him endorsing Cornyn. So if you're going to do something unpopular and he knows it would be extremely unpopular Donald Trump's a very transactional always has been. He wants something for it. He believes the Save Act is necessary, and I believe

it as well. It's necessary to win elections, to keep Democrats from cheating in elections. He wants to say back fast. So that's the deal. I'll back John Cornyn if you give me the Save Act. There is a major problem, though. You say it would involve ending the filibuster, and of course it would, but even if you ended the filibuster right now, we still can't pass a Save Act, and John Cornyn has no control of that whatsoever. John Cornyn is already a yes on the Save Act. Our problems are that loser John Curtis from Utah, the senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and probably most importantly, Mitch McConnell, who just wants to screw Trump one more time on his way out the door as he gets wheelchared around the United States Senate. The people holding up the safe act, none of them are named John Cornyn at this point in time.

So how's John Cornyn going to make that happen? He's not going to be able to make that happen. I don't know. I don't understand the logic. Well, the logic is simple. my opinion, this is my opinion, because I'm not inside the man's head, and I don't have Donald Trump's cell phone number, and no, Mr. President, I'm not asking for it. In my opinion, Donald Trump is asking for something he knows they can't deliver. John Thune, we know this, because John Thune has admitted it. John Thune has been in Donald Trump's back pocket for a very long time, begging him to endorse John Cornyn, and Donald Trump has refused to do so. I think this is Donald

Trump firing back after the last 48 hours of anger. saying, okay, you've been begging, you want John Cornyn, give me my law. I want a law pass. And if you can't do it, I think this is more about John Thune than anything else. If you can't whip the votes to pass a Save Act, then screw John Cornyn, you can go run on its own. In my opinion, that's what Donald Trump is doing. And if it is, I applaud him for it. Good for him. Wow, it's getting tricky. All right, well, that's something that we need to watch. In the meantime, whoever it is, Paxton or Cornyn, will have to run against this Talarico, who already is the gift that Jeep just keeps on giving.

I don't even know where to begin. We didn't get to a lot of these yesterday, but here's one. This is, sadly, this is the Nancy Pelosi theory as well. There are a lot of liberal Democrats who feel this way who happen to be Catholic. Here he is in SOT 4. Being Christian and being pro-choice are absolutely consistent

because Christianity is a feminist religion that Jesus Christ himself was a radical feminist. I don't claim to know what Jesus thought about abortion. He never mentions it either, which maybe that should tell us something right there. But what I do is that Jesus believed a woman is a full person. And that's the definition of feminist. Jesus Christ was a radical feminist, and he has no idea how he felt about abortion, Jesse. Megan, all right. So, sorry, I'm about to filibuster on your show. Just shout at me and cut me off if I go on too long, but I have to lay this out for people. So in the Soviet Union after the Bolsheviks took over, the Soviet Union was obviously Russia before that. And their Orthodox Christianity was the religion of Russia at the time. And of course, communists are demonic beasts. And so immediately they start doing what they do everywhere they take over. They started killing the pastors and raping the nuns and doing the worst things.

the history of the world and burning down the churches. But they ran into a problem. The problem was the people themselves had such a tradition with the Orthodox church that they couldn't just get rid of all of them. They figured out, we have to leave them some church. And so what they figured out they had to do was, yes, you're going to kill some pastors and stuff like that. That's just what you do. You're a dirty communist. But you co-opt the others. So eventually you will get pastors standing in front of the pulpit telling the Russian people about the glory of the state and how Lenin is our guiding us. And of course, Jesus said as much. And this is a common communist tactic. They have employed this tactic over and over and over and over and over again. And here in the state of

Texas, Palo Rico is doing that thing where he knows Texas is red. He knows by and large a lot of Texans do go to church. And so he's doing something that happens often in the United States of America with these tranny pastors. This happens a lot of these black liberal liberation theology churches where they're not preaching the gospel. They're preaching communist revolution and cloaking it in the gospel. And Tolariko has been doing this on camera for a very, very, very long time. And it's why he is so insanely screwed in this general election. He has, he has co-opted, pretending to be a pastor, telling everybody that Jesus would want the communist revolution, trying to use this verse and that verse, and it's very obvious to anybody with brain cells more than an amoeba what he's doing,

and it is not going to land well. It may land in some fruity blue district in the state of Texas. Statewide, oh my gosh, he's going to get, well, if you'll pardon the pun, he's going to get crucified for that. I mean, I would respect him so much more if he just came out and said, obviously, abortion is a sin. Obviously, Jesus wasn't pro-abortion. People are going to do what they're going to do, and then I beg you to seek forgiveness. I mean, like, that would at least be honest, but this notion of like, gee, we have no idea how Jesus felt about abortion. Maybe that tells us something.

What? The nonsense. Jesus was a radical feminist, and then there was this on Joe Rogan in Sot 2. I say all this in terms of, in context of abortion, because before God comes over Mary, and we have the incarnation, God asks. for Mary's consent, which is remarkable. I mean, go back and read this in Luke. I mean, the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do, and she says, if it is God's will, let it be done. Let it be. Let it happen. So to me, that is an affirmation

in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create. Creation is one of the most sacred acts that we engage in as human beings, but that has to be done with consent, it has to be done with freedom. Like God did with Mary. Yeah. Yeah, James Tala Rico is going to burn in hell if he doesn't repent. And I'd hate to say that because it's not my role to send anybody to hell. But there are, I mean, look, it doesn't exactly take a Rhodes Scholar to read the Bible and see the endless warnings from Jesus Christ himself of what is going to happen to religious leaders who pervert the gospel

and lead the flock astray. James Tolariko has problems that extend well beyond losing a Senate race in Texas, which he's going to do. If he does not stop doing what he is doing in that video, he is going to burn in hell and it's going to be freaking hot. It's way more than a political game he is playing. I hope somebody in his life will pull him aside and let him know that you are playing with fire sun, and it ends very, very badly. Very badly. It does seem to me the pastor thing is not for you, it's not for you, James. This is not your gig. You've grossly misinterpreted literally everything about Christianity. It doesn't get much better if you staying in Texas, look over to what's happening in Jasmine Crockett's

house seat. All right. So her district was redistricted with what Texas did. And it was changed radically. But since she left the House seat to run for Senate, which now she's lost, there's going to be a contest to see who fills it. And whoever the Democrat nominee is is going to win because it happens to be a heavily blue district, the particular seat that's up. And they have their nominee. It is a guy named Frederick Haynes, who was her, I guess, is her pastor. He's her, yeah, pastor. Frederick Haynes III. He announced his bid to take over her seat shortly after she announced her now failed bid for U.S. Senate, and he won the primary. And here is a dose of what we're getting with Pastor Haynes in SOT 5.

This is him in the Sunday sermon after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. A white Christian gets killed, murder, not assassinated. We're going to tell the whole truth today. Martin King got assassinated. Malcolm X got assassinated. Medgar X got assassinated. Don't compare Kirk to King. Ain't no such comparison now.

What Kirk said was dangerous. What Kirk said was racist, rooted in white supremacy, nasty, and hate-filled. But he still should be alive. Oh, thank you. There was a bone there at the end. I'm not sure. I think I might have preferred Jasmine Crockett. I'm already starting to miss her.

Well, first of all, Megan, I swear on my life, I didn't know you were getting ready to play that when I talked about the Black Liberation theology pastors doing the exact same thing James Tilariko does, perverting the gospel to push the communist revolution. I didn't even know you were going to play that, but well, thank you, Megan. There it is. It's laid out for you. You know, Jesus, what won't you? Thank you for teeing it up.

To smite Republicans, all this ridiculous crap, these people say. And what's worse is my girl, Jasmine Crockett lost. Megan, I'm so heartbroken. In general, because I'm just a radio and TV host, I don't ever endorse candidates. It's just not something I do, but Jasmine Crockett got my full-throated endorsement in that Democrat primary.

I was pulling for her so hard, but sadly she was not able to overcome James Talarico. But the good news is it looks like we're going to replace her with the male version of it. And the ugly truth beyond all the joking is that we don't like that the United States House of Representatives oftentimes accurately represents the district. That's the fact.

I mean, we can rage against people like Ilhan Omar and AOC and all these other losers in the United States House of the representatives. But the truth is, those people accurately represent the losers in their district. And Jasmine Crockett's district is full of scumbags. That's why they elected a scumbag before. And that's why they'll elect a scumbag again this time. And we don't like that because no one likes to look in the mirror and see a pimple. But that's the fact.

We have a lot of places in this country are full of scumbags, and they elect scumbags. Even in the great state of Texas, we've got scumbags and swampy loser dorks. So that's not ideal. I expected better of our Texas brethren. He's likely headed, you know, to Congress, and he'll find a lot of other loons to hang out with.

But I have to say, now having just gotten introduced to Tala Rico, I think he's worse than Jasmine Crockett. I really think the Republicans should be thrilled that this guy got the nomination because, first of all, a black woman running on the Democratic ticket does tend to inspire.

Democrats to make sure they get out to vote. You know, that's their core constituency. Not as much with the white, effete, male who's saying Jesus may have loved abortion. Like, I don't, Texas is still God-fearing country. I don't know whether this guy's going to play. I don't think he will. And I think they took a real risk here. She had the name ID as well. He doesn't. I feel stronger than ever that the Republicans are looking good in that Senate race. And now I think the more interesting contest is what's going to happen over on the other side. This business of like, whether Charlie was assassinated, by the way, this is becoming a thing on the left.

We saw some loon in Florida standing up and railing about this. They think it was in Florida. Like, again, and it was a black woman. I don't know if she was into the same liberation theology. But she also took issue, like taking issue with the use of the term assassinated because they think it elevates his murder beyond a point that they're coming. comfortable with because he he wasn't a reverend because he wasn't an elected leader, but he was a leader. He was a thought leader. He was a leader of a movement, a faith movement.

Do we have it, Deb? Do we find it? Yeah, we have it. Here she is. Watch. I'm pretty sure this Florida. I'll get you the information on it. Watch. We want to talk about exercise and free speech. Let's ball. So the First Amendment protects free speech. We don't need this day of remembrance for a man that was mediocre and racist. And I say mediocre at best. When we hear assassination, That's typically related to a person and a political position. Charlie Kirk died from gun violence. Okay? We continuously advocate for gun policy, legislation,

that would ensure that people that probably shouldn't have a gun don't have a gun. So was his passing tragic for those who love him? Absolutely. There is no denying that. But he was not assassinated. And words being accurate matters. It was a death by gun violence. violence. That is an issue here in the country that we should all be on the same page with addressing.

And if we want to talk about free speech, you know, a lot of people say that was some white-on-white crime. Why aren't we addressing it in that regard? What are we doing about white-on-white crime? Unbelievable. This is Florida State Representative Gant-G-A-N-T. By the way, she said words being accurate matters. I'm pretty sure. sure. We're going to say words matters. We should we should actually live up to that and have subject verb agreement, Representative Gant, but obsessed with it's not an assassination. It's about white-on-white crime and gun violence. Jesse. Do you remember when Joe Biden gave his state of the union address and Marjorie Taylor Green was heckling him so bad that he got flustered as he got flustered from time to time he ended up calling an illegal immigrant and illegal? He actually

used that word illegal. Joe Biden was there. the president of the United States of America and he had to go on a media apology tour for using the term illegal words are weapons to communists they always have been they always will be they carefully select their words they select their words because they're trying to always deceive they're always trying to cloak what is true their their words are hands selected they poll test them they select them on purpose and then after they select the words then they carefully police everybody including then president of the united states joe biden they carefully police everybody and demand everybody use those exact words because the words have been carefully selected to to deceive people charlie kirk

was obviously a political leader and a wonderful martyr and god bless his his freaking widow and their kids and just my heart breaks when i think about those people and of course communists Charlie Kirk because Charlie Kirk was insanely successful at waking young people up to what is true in this country. And he spoke unapologetically about politics, about Jesus, about everything else. He was wonderful and he was assassinated. But for the communists, dirtbags like these people, you can't use that word, don't use that word. You have to use this word instead. Always a red flag, by the way, when someone's trying to police you with what language you are and aren't allowed to use.

They're always trying to control you. Always trying to put you in a little box. Mm-hmm. So, by the way, Miriam Webster defines assassination as murder by sudden or secret attack, often for political reasons, the actor instance of assassinating someone such as a prominent political leader. How was Charlie anything other than that? You don't have to be an elected political leader. He, Reverend King wasn't. He, Charlie was the leader of a faith movement that continues in full swing post his assassination. He was the leader of a political movement that delivered the youth vote to a president in numbers we hadn't seen in recent history. They just don't like it because it elevates him in their weird, bizarre worldview. This is very sick the way they are. I mean, these are like not well people. And it's worth keeping a spotlight on them just so we can laugh at them.

That's important. It's important to mock and laugh true insanity when we see it. All right, let's keep going. While we're on the politics front, I do want to play that Gavin Newsom soundbite for you. Okay. He was on the Adam Friedland show. I'm not familiar, but I'm assuming it's a left-wing podcast. And he was asked a very simple question that any politician should be able to answer. Look at how that went. Sot 16. What is your defined political project? Like what throughout your career?

I love that. Right now. Like, what is the thing you want to, like, you want to accomplish, like, politically. You know, I don't have, like, a brand. I don't have a tag, make America great, or, you know, the great society or, you know, something like Medicare for all the billionaires. But I, you know, but for me, no bullshit. It's just standing up for ideal, striking out against injustice. It defines my wife and every way, shape, form. Stand up for ideal, strike out against a justice. I'm a Sarge Shriver Democrat. I'm into that whole 60s, the vernacular of the 60s, solving for ignorance and poverty and disease, and the spirit of the 60s and the spirit of king, and you know and how the non-by-the-movement and Gandhi and you know

Havel and you know Mandela that whole that moral authority not for that space that's the zeitgeist yeah and and that's that's that so that's me that's my dad that's my mom that's the book and that's my why so if you had to define it like I need your help to define and you get you tell me you're better at this I don't know I don't know who you're just gave you my why but how do you translate that into human what so if you say like Make it appeal to a voter, right?

Say, if you vote for me, you get X. Like, what in a, in a kind of concise, tangible sense, talking to a regular guy? Yeah, no. What is that odd? I've struggled with to be able to communicate. I told you what my why is and why I'm here. And I mean that. And that's a grain in every aspect in my life.

And it connects a diet. You tell you do it. I don't know what your shit is by Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and Sard Schreiber and Zykegeist. And I'm not good at this. Jesse. Megan, it's not going well. I see, this is the thing. I can't put myself in the mind of a Democrat.

I have tried before, the Democrat voter. I mean, I've tried before. And I just, I guess if I thought like one, I would be one. I can't decide if Gavin Newsom is somebody who we should be afraid of because this guy could easily win the White House. Or if he just is too slick and too. rehearsed into just what you just played right there. It's like Gandhi, man, is that really appealing to people? I mean, obviously, I find it to be so gross and stupid. And like, I mean, you're laughing. Me too. I couldn't stop laughing. I'm sorry, I was laughing over your

clip. It's so hilarious and dumb. But oftentimes, Democrat voters like that kind of thing. I don't know what to say. To me, I look at this guy and I think, I think he's failing to launch. I don't think he is taking off and he's going to be the nominee the way so many, myself included thought he probably was maybe six months ago. I'm watching this podcast circuit and he comes off as too cute by half. He never says anything with the hand motions. It's like Gandhi and King, man. He used to the word zeitgeist who talks like this.

You know who he reminds me of? I told this story before about there was a woman that they hired at Fox News who shall remain nameless. stunning, absolutely stunning, very beautiful woman. And she didn't have the reporting chops to be hired at Fox, but she was gorgeous. And she was on the air one time, and she referred to Greg Jarrett, who she was introducing, and she was supposed to say, and it was in the prompter, defense attorney, like Fox News, anchor and defense attorney, Greg Jarrett. And instead she said, Secretary of Defense, Greg Jarrett, which, no, he isn't.

and never has been. And then a makeup artist once told me about a story about how she was getting ready in the makeup room one time getting ready for a show and they were overwhelmed with the amount of paper that they were bringing her to read. She's kind of in a panic. And my makeup artist was like, sweetheart, you give me those papers. We are putting those papers down. You don't, you don't look at those papers. You just go out there. You be you. You look great. And you charm everybody. And it was great advice. Honestly, hair and makeup, they're a bunch of geniuses. They know. They're the best producers in the industry. And they knew, like, she wasn't ready for prime time. That's not why Fox hired her, by the way. She was there to

read the prompter and not to do in-depth interviews or try to really provide smart analysis. Perfectly lovely person, by the way. And that's the vibe I get off of Gavin Newsom. Sweetheart, you give me those papers. You just keep saying zeitgeist. You went on the wrong podcast and your team should have better served you. Well, one thing, I mean, there's There is something that I do know that applies to everybody, Democrats and Republicans. I understand politicians try to not really, they try to not have to take a position on anything. So you don't want to put something bad on camera, your opponent, you don't want to turn people off. You don't want to put something bad on camera.

Your opponent's going to run in commercials. I got that. I get the game. Everyone here listening gets the game. We all understand the way the game is played. At the same time, though, you do have to. You have to give the people something that makes them inspired. You know, Donald Trump, Donald Trump's actually a great example of this.

You knew you knew you were going to get deportations with Donald Trump. He never played anybody, never played any games with that. He stood up at every single rally. We're going to get mass deportations. We're going to get mass deportations. We're going to get mass deportations over and over and over and over again. He may have been a little wishy-washy on this issue or that issue. but every voter in the United States of America knew people were going to get deported if Donald Trump was elected.

Everybody knew that whole thing. You have to take a stance on something or nothing inspires people to go vote for you. You're not running on zeitgeist and Gandhi and walking into the White House. It's not going to happen because your opponent's going to probably be J.D. Vance. And he's going to be standing up there talking about manufacturing jobs and deporting foreigners and things like that. And you're going to be, hey, Gandhi, man. And it's just not going to work. Oh, my God. It's so great. I mean, it's lovely to see these previews

of how things are going to go for us over the next couple of years. That's why it's interesting to watch. Here's a little bit more on his book tour. And this is the best one. This is the best. He sits down with Katie Couric. And this, I mentioned at the top of the show,

and she used to be one of our most respected journalists in America. She was the anchor of the CBS evening news back when that mattered for five years. She was the darling of the Today show. And things have changed. Here she is across from Gavin on Thursday. Do you have a Zoolander problem?

No, Jesus. Yeah, Zoolander. Are you just ridiculously good-looking as folks said? No, seriously, what do you do about that? You don't do anything about it because if you're going to do something about it, then you're bullshitting people. You know what?

I am who I am. It's fine. You don't have to like me. Or maybe you like a slick person. I don't know. Whatever. It's okay. But the reason why I brought it up because of, because you talked about being authentic.

And I think it sometimes works against you. Yeah. It's just who I am. It's just who I am. It's just who he is, Jesse. He's just too good, ridiculously good looking. Maybe he stumbled upon his slogan. Maybe that could be the thing that is his, what you want to accomplish your defined political project.

Too good looking to run. He did, yeah. He did the job. interview thing, Megan, where the boss asks you when you're trying to get the job, you know, tell me something negative about you. And you're like, I just care too much. You know, I work too hard. Maybe that's the thing. But you know what's wild, Megan? Think about this. He's doing the Kami podcast circuit now where he could be more frank about things. Because this is a long race. It's a couple of years until 2028. Now is the time where you could be frank about this or that or

whatever your policy positions, whatever you're going for. And even now, you can't drill the guy down on anything whatsoever. I don't understand the strategy. I don't see how it works. You tell me, because I feel like any normal man would know how to answer that question, which is you should be self-deprecating. You should say something modest about yourself to make yourself not seem like an arrogant, vain prick, which is how a lot of people view him. But instead, he went with,

It's just who I am. Not it. I'm just going to, how would Jesse Kelly? Well, Jesse Kelly compliments himself jokingly all the time, but this is part of your schick. This is not a part of a Gavin Newsom schick. How would you have advised Gavin Newsom to answer that question? I would advise Gavin Newsom that he's not going to win Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin. If the normal guy who's not a Republican, he's not a Democrat, he's just a normal dude watches football on Saturday, if normal guy can't relate to you at all and doesn't find you appealing at all, you have no chance whatsoever. Donald Trump throwing on a hard hat or a McDonald's apron and handing out fries, these may be a bit ham-fisted political stunts, but they made normies, normal people in critical swing states feel like,

okay, at least he cares enough to pretend to be a little bit like me. Gavin Newsom is going to have to drop the hair jail. He's going to have to drop this slick California style, and he's going to have to spend a lot of time in the Midwest. And look, I love being in California, too. The weather's beautiful. The food is great. But you're going to have to leave, and you're going to have to spend some time in Iowa and

get dirtied up a little bit. that way, Megan, because this is not going to work. These kind of podcasts interviews, well, I'm just too, I'm too ravishing. I don't know what you want me to do about it. This is the kind of thing that is going to turn people off. It's the kind of thing that's appealed to the voters who are already voting for Gavin Newsom. The young, 25-year-old, mentally ill woman on Adderall, she's already voting for Gavin Newsom. He already has her in his back pocket.

She's not going anywhere. He doesn't need to win her over. He has two years to win over those Rust Belt Swing voters, the guys who eat out of a luncheon, pail, and that ain't going to work. You don't like hot Gandhi as an approach to one's presidential campaign? I love it. So far, he's been the gift that keeps on giving. So I say, Gavin, you stay out there.

You keep talking. We appreciate it greatly. Okay, there's more to do. I've been interested to get your take on the Iran war. I saw you the other day, and you seemed kind of concerned but open-minded. where would you say you are on the Iran war? I'm cautious, is how I would describe it right now, cautious. And here's what I mean.

Everybody is enjoying this part of it, myself included, especially now because we all have a cell phone and we all get to wake up. I mean, we got to wake up and we got to see an American submarine torpedo an Iranian ship and sink it to the bottom. Who doesn't cheer for that kind of stuff? And right now, because we're America. And you're a veteran, I want to point out.

Yeah. And we're America, because we are militarily superior, and because nobody likes the Ayatollah or the dirtballs who run Iran, right now is the feel good portion of this whole thing. We're bombing them into Smytherines. We were taking out the Ayatollah, anyone else who has any authority there. Now is the feel good portion of that. And look, I'm swept up in that myself. I get that as well. The problem is it's easy for us, a military like ours, to break things.

This is the easy part of it. And I say that with all due respect. I realize we already lost some soldiers in this. But this is the easy part in it for the United States military. The hard part is going to be making things. Breaking things is easy. Making things is difficult. Who is going to run Iran that will, A, be, serve our interests because we're the ones

expending all this stuff over here. And B, that will be acceptable to the people of Iran. And I don't know the answer to that question. And then the Trump administration's not full of morons. They're asking that question. They're talking about it already. Right now it's the fun part. The less fun part is trying to install a government that's friendly to you and acceptable to the people.

And this is why regime change is a very, very dangerous game to play that it can work out and it can go sideways on you in a real, real, real big hurry. And look, I'll just put it this way. No matter what, whoever ends up sitting in the throne, if we're going to call it that over the, there, they're going to do so with our backing, and they're going to be on video having killed people. You're going to have to kill people to take the throne. That's the way it works. There's going to be internet video out there. Whoever the guy is who ends up being in charge, there's going to be internet video out there of him firing a bullet in the back of someone's head on the side of an Iranian road. How's that going to land? How's that going to work?

Right now is the fun part of my point. Right now, you know what we're doing, Megan? We knocked off work on a Friday. We stopped by the bar and we're empty stomach drinking whiskey. I got to know, this is not whiskey, but we got a cup full of whiskey and it's going down good and I feel warm and tingly. And I think I'll go dance with my wife by the jukebox. Now's the fun part. Tomorrow morning when I wake up, since I'm 44 now and no longer 24, it might not be quite as fun. Right. Now it's whiskey time. Yeah, yeah. Hang over time. I appreciate getting the window into your planned evening ahead. I just said this to Matthew Kachuk, who is part of our Olympic gold winning men's hockey team. There is a product called Party Smart, which my friend Nancy loves this thing.

If I go over to her house, we have dinner and we have a couple glasses of wine. She'll give you one of these. You get it on Amazon. And I'm telling you it actually does make you feel totally fine the next day. Now, I've never had more than two glasses of wine, but I mean, I have, but not in recent years. But if you have two glasses of something, you don't feel it. anything the next day, even at our advanced age, if you have one of these little party smarts. So there you go. You can have that with your empty stomach whiskey later today.

One other quick question on Trump and our foreign affairs, because he gave that interview to Dana Bash. And he said something about Cuba. We've been keeping one eye on Cuba. And this is what it was. This is Dana reporting it earlier, 27B. He quickly turned to Cuba. He said, without being asked, Cuba, is going to fall pretty soon, by the way, but Cuba is going to fall. They want to make a deal so badly. And I asked how so. He said, they want to make a deal. So I'm going to put Marco over there and we'll see how that works. But we're really focused on this one now, meaning Iran, we've got plenty of time on Cuba. Okay. She didn't say anything about military intervention there, so that's good. But what do you make of that?

I like it. They're 90 miles off our shore if we're going to reassert the Monroe Doctrine and Donald Trump has talked openly about that where we control our hemisphere. Cuba has to be part of that. We can't have a hostile country 90 miles from our border. We are running into a problem and they've spoken about this. We don't know, again, dissimilar to Iran. We don't know who's taken over. It's one thing to break things. It's another thing to make things. But economically, they're collapsing. They're isolated. So something's going to happen in Cuba, probably something spicy. I'm not talking about the sandwiches. Could be Marco. He could probably handle it, actually. He's doing great. Yes. He's spread thin. But he could potentially.

do it. I'll tell you something else. This morning on NPR's up first. I listen so you don't have to. There was a positively jubilant report about how well it's going in Venezuela now. How happy the people are there, how like trade is opening up and like they see promise for the first time without Maduro there. I mean, like, it was very promising development. So I'm very open-minded on what could potentially happen in Cuba. Jesse, great to see you. Megan, you're the best. Appreciate you. What a guy. Mark Halpern's here next. He was a at Marilago last week, and we'll talk to him about it. Ever been in a bad relationship?

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discussing today. Mark Halperin, great to see you again, my friend. So what was that like on Saturday? I mean, I assume the president did not give you any more of a heads up than he gave the rest of the nation. But when you realize you were right in the middle of the biggest news story in the world, what went through your head? Well, as you know, Mar-a-Lago can be kind of a weird place. It's like a cross between Claude Switz drama and a Fellini film because there's so much going on, even when there's a matter of national security. So I was there for lunch and then back for dinner. And at dinner, there was a massive wedding in the ballroom and on the lawn. The president was doing a fundraiser for his super pack.

He was going in and out of the makeshift situation room. And the regular members were there having dinner. So it was kind of a four ring circus and there were lots of familiar faces, both from the national security team and the political team. and the political team all around the club. And just a fascinating look at a president, unlike anyone I've ever known or covered. He was, he toggled back and forth between all those things just with calm and equanimity and energy. Well, yeah, what kind of mood was he in? Sumber but upbeat and, you know, stopped and chatted with club members about, you know, all manners of things.

But there was a somberness to it. But it was not, he was not sort of like distracted or just completely consumed with dealing with the war. said, he went to a long meeting of his political action, of a political action committee, where his political team was talking to some of the donors there, and he talked to club members. I don't know that he went by the wedding. He usually, if there's a wedding at Marilago, he usually goes by and was a daughter of a member. I'm not sure he did that, but he tended to the other three pretty dutifully. That's pretty sweet.

I mean, imagine getting married there and having the President of the United States swing by to say hello, if it happens to be one of the weekends he's there. We'll get back to Iran in a minute, but I want to start with Mullen and Nome. Christy Nome's out. Fox News, many others reporting that she was fired from the position. She was demoted, basically, to another position. And Trump, to his credit, gave her a soft landing.

She'd been loyal to him, so he didn't just fire her unceremoniously out of the position. But some online today, his diehard fan saying, she wasn't fired, he didn't fire her. Was she terminated from the position or not, Mark? Yeah. She was made it clear that she was not going to be allowed to. stay in that job. And as you said, pretty generous of him to let her have a soft landing. It's amazing to me, given that she was picked for a job that many people at the time said she wasn't qualified for. How many enemies she and Corey Lewandowski, her top consulari,

how many enemies they had at the highest levels of Team Trump? These were not kind of like low-level snipers. These are some of the most senior people in the president's orbit who didn't want the two of them around. And all the mistakes that she made, it's amazing she lasted as long as she did. So I sort of twist the question on his head. How did she get fired all of a sudden? Again, testament to Corey Lewandowski and Secretary Nome that she survived as long as she did. What were the reasons? Because I know he was mad about her saying he blessed that $220 million ad campaign she starred in.

But this had to go beyond. To me, that was the final straw. But many reports that he was unhappy with her well prior to that and didn't want it, especially after Minneapolis didn't want it to look like he was giving the left a scalp. But what do you think it actually was that turned Trump on her? Well, I think it's the drumpede in negative coverage, right? He doesn't like negative coverage of his team. He doesn't like negative coverage that obscures what he wants to get done. And as you know, objectively. But they all, none of them has good coverage. They hate the media hates Pete. They hate RFKJ. They hate her.

Her negative coverage was directly getting in the way. of his getting credit for the accomplishment, for instance, of shutting down the border, or of going into these blue cities and saying to the blue cities, we're going to, there's a different operation going on in here, and we're going to deport people from your blue city. Her performance was blamed by the president and people around the president for distracting from that. In addition, he doesn't like when his team loses a congressional hearing, particularly when the Republicans gang up on his team.

And so you see other cabinet officials like Pam Bondi, who has some detractors in the administration as well, going to the hill and owning the lives, right, doing a really good job theatrically of standing up the Democrats and getting favorable questions from the Republicans. She did not perform well in back-to-back hearings, both on the issue of those paid ads, also on the allegations regarding her personal life. And I think the president just, he just doesn't like that. He doesn't like to see his team lose in a congressional hearing. And it was compounded by the fact that some of the hardest questions came from Republicans and not just from Tom Tillis, who now habitually goes after Trump administration policies, but from Senator Kennedy of Louisiana, just knowing the president, I just, it doesn't like to see that kind of performance. I actually wondered whether that the Senator Kennedy questions came from the White House.

I mean, it certainly could have come from allies of, of Senator Kennedy who are not friendly to Senator Nome for sure, because I just can't emphasize enough for even before she took office, the number of people at a high level in Trump orbit who do not like Cory Lewandesky at all is quite something. And again, I'll say it's testament to the bond he has with the president because he was the one arguing she should stay on for several weeks, even after the president was clearly looking to make it change. The bond he has with the president is strong, and his ability to convince the president of things is strong. And these people, these people, they did their best to get them out by leaking stories to the Wall Street Journal and others, to Daily Mail and others.

And it finally culminated again in something that even Corey Lewandowski could not turn the president on. Here is Harry Enton on the Nome termination with some actual numbers around what she was doing for the president. SOT 12B. And the American people wanted a fire. They wanted her removed. She was a political nightmare for the president of the United States. I mean, just take a look at this. Wanted Nome removed as DHS secretary.

Overall, last month, Kwinipiac University found the majority of Americans. 58% wanted her to be adios amigos. Goodbye. See you later. Among independents, you can see it right here. 62% of independents were talking more than 3 and 5 independents wanted to kick to the curb. So Donald Trump here making the politically popular move because Americans were simply put sick of Christy Noem. Christine Oams' net popularity rating during Donald Trump's term, positive in none, zero, nada, none of the polls did she have a positive net approval rating?

In all the polls, she was underwater swimming in the deep blue sea. she had a negative net popularity rating in every single poll conducted during Donald Trump's second term. Simply put, Americans did not like the job that she was doing as DHS secretary. Okay. Now I have a point I want to make and then I want to give it to you. If you, you can absolutely say that same thing about RFKJ and Pete Heg-Seth, both of whom have had universally negative coverage, universally, absolutely no positive coverage. I mean, on Fox, of course, and independent media, but. I'm talking about mainstream, so-called media. But they're doing their thing.

RFKJ is getting things done at HHS. Obviously, Pete HECS is too in terms of what the president wants from him. And their negatives are not so great and their news coverage so big that they are hurting him. I think she hurt him with the behavior in Minneapolis, you know, calling Alex Pready a domestic terrorist and saying he went there to try to like, you know, know, interfere with law enforcement and, like, overstating. What he did was bad enough. It was clear he interfered with law enforcement, and that's why he wound up dead. But she overstated it and made ICE as a result look bad.

And that turned into a negative story around Trump. And sure enough, Trump's numbers went down after Minneapolis. And that's the reason why he pulled her and put home in there. So I think she started to creep into his numbers. And then that thing with Senator Kennedy was just like the final example of it. even if Trump had approved that ad campaign, and I believe him that he didn't, he did want her to do ads and photo ops calling attention to the deportations. I've been told that. But $220 million, probably not. But even if he had approved it, Mark, the underling doesn't say, yes, the president

told me to do it. The underling says, no, it was my call, Senator Kennedy. Like, or they dodge and just say, the decision was mine. I'm the one. Like, they protect the president. And she didn't. So it just to me, it seems like a whole slide of like she didn't protect the president. She was a problem for the president. Her negatives hurt him. And we see that still in his numbers. And therefore, she had to go. I agree with everything he has said. I'd only had two things. One, my friend Harry talks awfully loud on TV. Not sure what producers in his ear. But, man, I've, I've dinner with Harry. He doesn't talk that loud. So entertaining. Yeah. It's a schick. Love the accent. I agree with everything you said. All I'd add is this. like Bobby Kennedy is really important for MAGA for the midterms and MAHA for the midterms, rather.

Pete Hicketts is in the midst of a war and has done a lot of the things the president wants done regarding reforming the culture of the military. And doesn't, neither of them have the kind of scandals and controversies that Secretary Nome has in this respect. There's relentless coverage of her and her decisions about contract, about those ads, about her personal life. And then it all came into sharp focus at the hearing. The other two have controversies, but they've avoided having these kind of very high-profile set piece moments. The president thinks of his life as a movie with big scenes and characters.

He's the main character, other characters. She had a horrible day in two straight days in the news cycle. And I think, although he was having questions about her previously, it's just too relentlessly downside negative about her, as you said, affecting him on one of his signature issues. And as I said also, Secretary Kennedy's Secretary Hankseth, they have detractors in the administration, but not like she has, not like Corey Lewandesky has. Kennedy had this scandal with, you know, the reporter. But he never got asked, but never got asked about it. He never got asked about it.

And she didn't work for him. Yeah. That, like, the reason that Democrat felt comfortable bringing it up with Nome is that Lewandowski works for Nome. Yeah. And so this is somebody who's on the public dollar, you know, reportedly living with her. I mean, the reports are that they basically live together in that apartment. And so that's what made a fair game. It would have felt really sleazy to bring it up, just ad homin in it at some Kennedy hearing where there's HHS oversight to Congress.

Totally agree. And the Democrats, I think, did a good job of explaining why it was relevant. Yeah. I know. She was clever to put that in. And then Nome was all over the board. It's like, Gnome, look, I think we all believe it's 100% true. So she was in a tough spot because she, I'm sure she did not want to lie under oath. So she went with the, this tabloid garbage. I'm shocked you would allow this. And Trump, of course, saw through that in two seconds. And Trump, trust me, and I know you know this too. He knows all the gossip of his administration.

All of it. There isn't anybody better informed on what's happening. than Trump is. So he 100% knows about this. And I'm sure it's like, you can keep it quiet and keep it out of my business, not a headache of mine, fine. If it's my headache, I'm going to deal with it.

Okay, so now we have Mark Wayne Mullen. Yeah. I was just going to say, it builds on the point you just made. He knows all the gossip, but he's got a game respects game thing. If you've got dirty laundry, he wants you to be able to handle it

the way he does. Like, I bet he thinks it's awesome that Bobby Kennedy has never had to answer questions. she put herself in a situation where she had to answer them and then answered them in a way that everybody thought was was not good. And he just, he wants, he wants, he's fine with people having messy lives. He just thinks you got to have the skill to handle it and not let that messiness splatter onto him. Yeah, and maybe be somewhat discreet about it. Yeah, that too. So Mark Wayne Mullen

is now the new nominee to take over Homeland Security. This is what a lot of people, people remember Mark Wayne Mullen for he's from Oklahoma. He's a former MMA fighter and wrestler. And he had this infamous exchange with the Teamsters president, Sean O'Brien, who wound up, remember not endorsing, which was a huge deal because the Teamsters and the unions always go for the Dem, but this guy clearly liked Trump. And he came on the show and was a great interview. In any of any of any, these two didn't get along then. Reportedly, they do now. But here was November 14th, 2023. In the U.S. Senate at a here, hearing chaired by Bernie Sanders.

I sure remember working pretty hard in long hours. Pretends like he's self-made. What a clown. Fraud. Always has been. Always will be. Quit the Tough Guy Act in these Senate hearings. You know where to find me.

Any place, any time, any time, cowboy. Sir, this is a time. This is a place. If you want to run your mouth, we can be to consenting adults. We can finish it here. Okay, that's fine. Perfect. You want to do it now? I'd love to do it right now. Well, stain your butt up then.

You stand your butt up. Oh, hold it. Stop it. Is that your solution every pulling? No, no, sit down. You're a United States senator. Sit down. Okay. You know, you're a United States senator. Act it. Okay. Sit down, please. All right. Can I respond? Mr. Chairman. Hold it.

So, he's a fighter. Trump would like that. I did see Ann Coulter's not happy. She wrote as follows. She pulled a headline about Mullen that reads, there is possible conversation about legalizing some who are in the U.S. illegally. Her comment was great. There are 47 people who would have been better to lead homeland security, hard to avoid the impression that Trump doesn't care about immigration at all. That's, of course, her number one issue. Everybody is judged through that. But this, I mean, he is heading up HHS. So, sorry, DHS. So it does matter. His position's on immigration. What do we make of the choice and his chances of getting confirmed? Well, he's good on TV. And he can be confirmed.

by his colleagues, even if he doesn't get a ton of Democratic votes, I think he'll get some. And he's available now. And he's got a good leadership quality to him that a lot of people respect. He doesn't have a ton of experience in this. But being a cabinet secretary in the Trump administration, a lot of it is about messaging and about leadership and about running the department as opposed to being a super policy expert. So I suspect he'll be confirmed. I suspect he'll get at least some Democratic votes. And, you know, for the sake of the security of the country, I hope he throws himself into this and does a really good job. But he's not going to have the same number of enemies because he's very well liked as the current, the incumbent in the office has. And I think he's going to

have an opportunity to build on the successes that she did have and correct some of the problems that she had running the department. He is taking shots from the elite media because he, doesn't have a bachelor's degree. He's the only senator without a bachelor's degree. Meanwhile, here's his actual resume. He attended Missouri Valley College on a wrestling scholarship. He later dropped out of school at the age of 20 after his father, Jim, fell ill, and he needed to help the family with their plumbing business. He went back to school in 2018, eventually achieving an associate's degree in applied science and construction technology from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. He has a wife of nearly 30 years. They have a family business. He was an

undefeated MMA fighter. He was inducted in the Oklahoma Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016. And they have six children, which I think your average American would stand up and cheer for that resume mark. I think the media's they're off, they're off, they're offbeat. They don't have their finger on the pulse of what Republicans want or regular working class Americans want. and no one, literally no one, is asking, does he have a bachelor's degree? I don't know if he'll be good at it, but he could be. And regarding immigration, Ann Coulter doesn't think the president's tough enough on immigration. So I don't know that her fight's really going to be with the new secretary if he's confirmed,

but it's really more with the president. I find him to be a very charismatic and impressive guy, his colleagues in both parties like him. And like I said, I don't know that he'll be good. He's never been a cabinet secretary. He's never run anything this size. It's larger than his plumbing business. by a factor of many hundreds. But I think he'll be confirmed, and I hope he does a great job for the sake of the country. I like him, too. I've watched him in some of these confirmation

hearings, and he's always entertaining. He's reasonable. And he seems like in command of himself, notwithstanding that moment with the Teamsters president, but you kind of got to respect that. I don't know. There's something. I like to see a little testosterone. You know, it's in short supply in D.C. these days. He's got a little more than a little. Yeah. Here he is with Bernie Sanders in a different exchange. This is February 25th. Sauten. Well, we can agree that it is absolutely not affordable. 100% not affordable. Yet it was supposed to be affordable. That's what we sold by Obamacare. So how about we work together and say, hey, scrap ACA, admit it doesn't work. Admit you guys made a mistake and let's work at

something with President Trump to make affordable health care healthy and affordable for everybody. But there's zero chance you guys could do that. Zero chance. Yet everybody we bring up here, you guys chastised for trying to make changes. God forbid we change and go after us and try to fix our broken system. Anyways, I ranted too long. Let's talk about some. Yes, you did. I'm sorry, I didn't ask your opinion on that. And if I cared about your opinion, I would ask you, but I don't care about your opinion. You're part of the system. You're part of the problem. You've been sitting here longer than I've even been alive. This is your problem. You should have fixed this a long time ago. You've been rel on it so long. I decided not to run for Sergeant General. You're the

nominee. I've decided to accept that nominee. That is definitely something we would never accept. This is at the Surgeon General Confirmation hearings for Casey Means. That was amazing. Like, that's, Trump likes that, Mark. Yeah. I mean, he's a really nice, relaxed guy, except when he's not. And, you know, he's going to be a very energetic presence in the job. And I agree with you the president would look at that and think that's awesome. Yes. And then he was also the.

one who at the state of the union pulled that sign out of Representative Al Green's hands. Al Green showed up with a sign that said something like black people aren't apes, which everyone knows that. And President Trump didn't say anything to the contrary, but he was trying to impute it to President Trump because of that video controversy where that picture of the Obama's as apes auto ran at the end of a reel that President Trump had promoted. And it was Mark Wayne Mullen, who pulled it. He pulled it out of his hands. We're trying to get it queued up and we'll show it. But he tried. He tried to grab it. And ultimately, it was Steve Scalese who got it. But that's exactly how you get the notice of the president. And frankly,

he loves fighters. President Trump loves fighters. Physical, actual fighters, like he loves UFC. He likes MMA. And this certainly would not ignore in any way other than to his benefit as Trump was evaluating who's worthy of being in his cabinet. You have to be a fighter. They're going to come for you all day, every day, especially in this position. President likes people, as he says, from central casting. And this guy from central casting to be the head of Homeland Security. Now, do you feel that Gavin Newsom is from central casting? Because you talk to him on Tuesday.

I mean, for a certain category, people, I will say you showed earlier in the program that clip with Katie Kirk. Sometimes I'll see something in the media, and my first reaction will be, oh, Megan's going to play that on her show. And as soon as I saw the Katie Kirk thing, I was like, Yeah, Megan's going to play that on her show. Such a dereliction. Yeah.

Gavin Newsom is an interesting guy in a lot of ways, and the book is an attempt, I think, that he wrote, is an attempt to give people more of a view of him that he thinks is accurate. I get such a big reaction when I interview him, when I talk about him, people across the country, across the spectrum. He really, not at the Trump level, because there's nobody at that level, but as much as any of the, Democrat around today, more than AOC, more than Chuck Schumer, more than anybody, people really react to the topic of Gavin Newsom. So I don't know that he's from central casting for anything germane to this conversation. But in terms of people responding to him positively negatively, he's as a hot button as anybody else I know of and I talk about. Okay, so you mentioned the Katie Couric Exchange. I'm sure you saw the other one,

which we have to play again, because you and I have got to dissect this like a patient on the table. This, again, is the Adam Friedland show. Let's take it in together because we all enjoy it so much the first time. Sat 16. What is your defined political project? Like what throughout your career and like right now? Like what is the thing you want to, like, you want to accomplish like politically? You know, I don't have like a brand.

I don't have a tag, make America great. I don't, you know, the great society or, you know, something like. Medicare for all the billionaires. But I, you know, but for me, no bullshit. It's just standing up for ideal, striking out against injustice. It defines my why in every way, shape, form. Stand up for ideal, strike out against injustice. I'm a Sarge Shriver Democrat.

I'm into that whole 60s, the vernacular of the 60s, solving for ignorance and poverty and disease, and the spirit of the 60s, the spirit of king and, you know, and how the nonviolent movement in Gandhi and, you know, Havel and, you know, Mandela, that whole, that moral authority, that whole space, that's the zeitgeist. And that's, so that's me. That's my dad. So it's my mom. That's the book.

And that's my Y. So if you had to define it, like, vote for me and you get X. You tell me, you're better at this. I don't know. I don't know who you, what you're saying is. I'm just getting my Y, but how do you translate that into human? What?

So if you say, like, make an appeal to a voter, right? Say, if you vote for me, you get X. Yeah. What in a, in a kind of concise, tangible sense, talking to a regular guy. Yeah, no. I've struggled with to be able to communicate. I told you what my why is and why I'm here.

And I mean that. And that's ingrained in every aspect of my life. And it connects the diet. Okay. First of all, I hate how people are saying this. That's my why. I really can't stand to that. It makes my skin kind of crawl.

That's my why. And to have a politician. The question, what do you want to accomplish? Mark, we went through Gandhi. Mandela, King, his mom, his dad. I need your help to define it. You tell me you're better at this. I don't know your shit, says the great Adam Friedland.

I want to play. If there's a play with Adam Friedland as a character, I want to portray him. I think I could own that role. Yes. With the right way. We might have to take you up on that as part of our MK Media parody series. I would love to play that guy. Look, he talked way too fast.

the governor did. And he's trying really hard on this book, where he did in his conversation with me, to give people a sense who he is in a way that's not superficial. And I think for some people, ironically, he's having the exact opposite impact. I put, that's my why right up there with don't yuck my yum. I just don't want to hear anybody ever say it. I just don't, I just don't want to hear anybody ever say. Or my truth. I don't want to hear any of it. I don't want to hear my truth. I don't want to hear that's my why. It's so weird, crunchy. I agree. I don't want to hear any of that. At the same time, in this very, very weak,

prospective Democratic presidential field, that passes for an A game, by the way. Oh, does it? Yeah, it does. Maybe not that moment, but in general. I'm starting to take another look at Pete Buttigieg. I am too. We did a little real, we posted it on Insta.

Yeah. Right? Because, like, now he's getting more masculine than Gavin Newsome. Like, wouldn't that be ironic? because he's like kind of a feat, but not more so than Gavin. Pete is openly gay. Gavin is allegedly straight with a wife and children. And second wife now, his first wife is a pal of mine. And Pete Buttigieg, like, he can talk policy. He can sell himself. He can have a substantive conversation. Not to mention somebody we haven't discussed really much at all, Rahm Emanuel,

who will run circles around this guy intellectually. How is he? going to win a primary, Gavin Newsom, next to people who actually, they may not share my own politics, but they're smart, and they can stay substantive. Well, a lot there. First of all, Gavin Newsom is not dumb, and I'll take a bunch of heat for saying that, but I know I've known him pretty well for a while. He's not dumb. He says he is. I know, but he's not. He plays dumb. Okay, just for the record. So I'm working on my next eight for 28 coming up next week on next up. And it's very difficult to come up with eight slots these days because most everybody's moving down. He's going to be almost certainly be number one by default.

I am moving Buttigieg up, but I will say this. A lot of the people who are talked about are women, women of color, gay men or Jewish men. And I think it's going to be very difficult for the party to nominate anybody in any of those categories. And then I haven't even talked about short men, of which there are many too. and the two you named are both pretty short. So these immutable characteristics, Jewish is, I guess, semi-immutable. These are things that the Democratic Party normally would not reject. A lot of Democrats would be offended if you'd said about their party.

They're not going to nominate anything but a straight white man, a Christian straight white man. But I really do think there's a lot of sentiment in the party, including amongst women of color to say, we got to go safe. and safe as heterosexual white man who's a Christian. And on my list of eight, there's nearly no one except for the governor of California who is those things. How tall is he? Tall enough. I forget how tall. He's maybe 6-1, 6-2.

I forget. All right. But he's tall enough. He's up there. He's taller. When you say those two men, all right, you're talking about Pete and Rom, they're not tall. They're not tall, and one's gay and one's Jewish. And they're really not tall.

I forget how tall they are, but they've never been introduced to six feet, let alone cleared it. They're really not tall. Okay, I've never heard of phrase quite that way. But yes, you are right, and it matters, right? Haven't we, like, always had tall presidents? It is a thing. The taller man, we've only had men win so far. The taller man has won every time there's one exception. I think Ford was taller than Carter by a little bit. but otherwise the taller guy typically wins. Hmm. In the TV age. You have J.B. Prisker shooting himself up with those Zempik like three times a week because

you also can't win if you're morbidly obese. And that's also true. Yeah. I can't do anything about your height, but you can do something about your weight. Yeah, but he's Jewish. But he's Jewish too. Pritzker? Yeah.

Pritzker is? Yeah. Okay. But we say this because the Democrat Party is anti-Jewish now? Like what is the, why is the Jewish? Like Kamala said she couldn't pick a Jewish person. It's a two for. One is the energy in the party is anti-Israel.

And even though all of these Jewish prospective candidates have taken positions at times in criticism of Israel, you know, it's going to be a challenge for them to get past the wing of the party that's really hostile to Israel. And then second is just, you know, worried about prejudice, worried that you put your, you maximize your chances of winning in a nation that's, got some anti-Semitism by not picking someone who's Jewish. They would say it's not that we're anti-Semites or we're homophobes. It's that those evil independence we need to vote along with us are. So we have to get somebody palpable to them. It's not irrational because if you look at the sample space of presidents, there's never been a Jew, there's never been an openly gay person.

There's only been one person of color. You know, so. And there's never been a woman. And there's never been a woman. has never been a short person, you know, particularly short person in the TV age. So these are not irrational things. So you were back to Gavin Newsom. You need to be tall. You need to be a male. You need to be white. You can't be Jewish. You can't be gay. Yeah. I see by process of elimination how we got here. That's a preview of the next for next up,

the eight for 28 because you go down the list, almost everybody on the list is at least one of the three, or one of the five, I mean. Hot Gandhi it is. Could be hot Gandhi. It could be the towering Christian heterosexual governor with a hell of good hair. All right, Mark, I want to ask you about something that's not involving a presidential candidate. And that is, speaking of Ozempic, Oprah Winfrey. I know you go on all these podcasts. Everybody wants your political opinion because you're very genius when it comes to

all things politics. But you and I need to talk about Oprah for a second year. And then we'll take a break. Oprah Winfrey and Gail King arrived at, Paris Fashion Week, Chloe's Paris Fashion Week show, and got filmed by, I don't know, who is it? TikTok, it's on TikTok. I'm not sure who's taped this is. Paris Match.

Look at this. Oprah is skinnier than I am now. She looks like next to skin and bones, Mark Halperin. Wow. She is a Zempic too far. And by the way, Gail in the background is kind of similar, but I would not have recognized this as Oprah Winfrey if it were not labeled as such by the videotaker online.

Is that what you in the media called Today Video? Yes, that's Today Video. Wow. Wow. And by the way, this comes on the heels of, did you see Demi Moore at whatever event that was last week where she was in the full leather with a little dog? She looks like she weighs 90 pounds.

she looks like she could get blown away if a good spring breeze came through, not to mention what's happening with Kelly Osborne, who is not even recognizable. And I don't want to say more because I love Sharon Osborne, and they've been dealing with a lot with the loss of Ozzy. But you tell me your take, Mark, because I know you do keep your finger on the pulse of all things cultural, why people, so many people in the public eye,

cannot seem to manage their OZempic to a point where they stay looking, like a normal human as opposed to someone we need to have an intervention for. I mean, I blame the doctors, too, but I don't get this. I just think, you know, go to the gym a little bit more, lay off dessert for a while, don't drink wine. Like, there are ways to lose weight. Now, it's harder for some people than others, and Oprah and I are the same way. Oprah and I run heavy. But I just, I'm just amazed. I wouldn't say you run quite as heavily as Oprah ever has. Yeah, I have. But I just, I mean, I see people around my neighborhood.

Same thing. It's just these fallen faces. Like, people ask, people tell me to do it. And I'm like, why don't you tell me to, like, solder my eyes shut? Like, this is not proven that this is a healthy way to live. And you don't look good. And I know you have a friend who's a ballet dancer who says, nothing tastes good as being thin feels. And I, I get, I.

Yeah, that's the Cape Mace. Yeah. I get that. I get that. But, but I mean, I just don't understand making this life choice for anybody, particularly if you're well off enough to, you know, order in some healthy food. You don't need to eat at Bojangles or McDonald's. Order in some lean protein and some vegetables, do some portion control, go for a five-mile run and just work it out. But to take these injectables are now pills, if you're Oprah Winfrey, I just don't get it. I just don't see how you possibly take that risk with your life. I just don't at all. I also feel like, okay, you're going to take it for your appetite control. Great. Why do you have to become anorexic? Like why they become

like the, they look almost non-human. Like there's no fat in their face, although there's rumors that like Kelly Osborne may have gotten that bucle fat, whatever removal from her face. But they're going full skeletal. And I was looking at Oprah, who, who she's not skeletal, but she's extremely thin for Oprah. And I have to say, I miss heavy Oprah. Like not, I don't need 300 pound Oprah. Yeah. But I miss somebody with like a little weight on her body.

I don't know what this is. Like, she's going for hot at 72. Yeah. Like, whatever. She, her whole thing was always like, she was like a Mother Earth character who you could like hug and who would feel your pain and you could cry on her couch. And now she's gone full like, you know, Demi Moore.

Like that's what she's going for now in her 70s with the tight braid and the super tight outfit. Like, I don't like it. Do you know the one that really bothers me is Megan Trainor? Because her biggest hit, her biggest hit song, all about that bass. Megan, you've given up the base. You've gone all treble. Like, you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to give up your theme song, but she has. It was a lie.

It was a lie when she told it and it remains a lie. Okay, actually, let's just do it on now. We'll take a break afterward. So you were with the president on the day we launched the war in Iran. Now, just today, we've had news break on that, thanks to Dana Bash, who spoke with Trump. He told her, we're doing very well militarily, better than anyone could have dreamed. He said on, because we have a report today of low unemployment numbers, lower than expected, job losses, and also rising gas prices. Gas oil's going way up, and gas prices are going way up, too.

and the president said, that's all right, it'll be short term, it'll go way down very quickly. When asked about the next leader of Iran, President Trump said, it's going to work like it did in Venezuela. And when I asked if he's okay with having another religious leader, he said, I may be. Yeah, he added that the next leader needs to treat the United States and Israel well. And we've reported an AM update this morning that he said it's going to be somebody who he helps select because he doesn't want to have to keep going over there every five years. So how do you think the Iranian thing is playing politically and will play out over the next whatever, eight months, how many ever it is until we get to the November midterms? I think how it's playing now politically is not germane because there's no election.

And because it's too soon, I think, for the American people to reach a conclusion about whether it was a good idea, how it will play out, depends on how long it lasts, what it does the economy, what the loss of American life is, how much it costs. I think it's pretty clear what the variables are that the American people will use to evaluate whether this is a good idea or not. I think people are kind of lulled into a sense that the president is kind of now hostage to the situation. He's really not. I don't think. I think you could stop it today if he decided it was a bad idea for him politically or a bad idea for the country. What he wants is the same thing he wants in Cuba and Venezuela and Greenland.

He wants the United States and Ukraine and Russia, really. he wants the United States to get into business with everybody after bringing them to their knees politically. And I think if he can do that with Iran, he'd love to. He'd love to start taking some of that oil profit for the United States. But if it can't be, because the Iranian people don't rise up as he's urged from the first day to change the nature of the government, and it ends up being a theocracy that's just as hostile to the United States, but has been decimated in its capacity for nuclear, missile, terror, and naval, he'll say, okay, well, that's what I said we were going to do. And I think it would take a lot for him to fail on the very metrics of success that Caroline Levitt laid out. Caroline Levitt didn't say it has to be someone friendly to the United States. All she said, and these are big goals that previous presidents didn't

accomplish, no nuclear, no missile, no terror networks, no Navy. And I think just in a week's time, the United States has gotten pretty far down the road on all four of those. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I would love to see Trump declare to win and peace out of there very, very soon. He could, though. He could spare the lives of the American soldiers and cut the losses. We did do a lot in one week's time. I mean, I think there's an opportunity here for him. I mentioned in the first hour, NPR is up first this morning, did a report on Venezuela that you would have thought you were listening to Fox and Friends as you listened to it. I had the team go back and pull it while you and I were chatting. Listen to this.

what's it feel like to be in Venezuela? It is absolutely surreal because you land at the airport and the signs are in Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese, which tells you just where this country was facing a few months ago. And then you go out on the streets

and people here tell you that they feel like a weight has been lifted. For the first time, in a long time, there are street protests, opposition groups are holding public meetings. I was at the Justice Department building yesterday and there was a group of protests calling for all political prisoners to be released.

I mean, you and I both know what it would take to make up first do a report like that. It's time to declare the Venezuela situation a resounding success. And if Trump could get to anything close to that between now and November on Iran, then he would persuade even the doubters, I think, that this was the right thing to do. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. And again, you go back to Trump's philosophy about this. I've talked about this on Next Up. The critics, I think, it's incumbent upon them to say, what would you have done? Joe Biden didn't want Maduro there.

Joe Biden didn't want O'RON to be a menace in all those dimensions. He didn't do anything about it. He thought about it. He talked about it. He assigned Tony Blinken and others to work on it, but he didn't get it done. And Trump's really into asymmetrical advantages, where he, as a business person, had an asymmetrical advantage. He would leverage that. And he feels that way about the United States.

What's one of our asymmetrical capacities? We have the best military ever, ever in the history of the world, and better than anything on the planet today. So if you can fix a problem in Venezuela or fix a problem in Iran, use the American military in a way that doesn't involve nation building, explicit regime change, quagmire, endless war, of course he's going to use it and use it with confidence and with some due diligence on the front end.

People think he does this haphazardly or with that thought. No, he's got a lot of briefings about what the chances of success are, how to mitigate the negatives. And what he did to get Maduro out was unorthodox. Some people would say it was illegal, bothers the heck out of Rand Paul. But Maduro is no longer running Venezuela. And as that report suggests, the Venezuelan people and the United States at the same time seemed to be better off for Trump having acted than they were before.

Doesn't mean there aren't risks. doesn't mean that there aren't tens of millions of Americans who don't like it. But he was elected to get stuff done. And he's getting stuff done with the exact method you would expect from a guy who uses asymmetrical advantages. Well, I was not in support of the Iran action. But now that it's underway, I do feel it's my patriotic duty to support the troops and support the president and root for and very much hope for the best. And so far, our troops are doing an amazing job over there. Yeah. Mark Halburn, how many layers are you wearing? How cold is it where you're sitting?

In honor of the MAGA on MAGA fighting over Iran, I'm dressed like Steve Bannon today. It's not Halloween, but this is my Steve Bannon costume, right? Layer upon layer topped by a vest. Yeah. You can't see it, but I've got a three-day growth here. And I'm trying to look wild-eyed. Oh, like a little Pete Buttigieg action. No, no, no, Bannon, just all Steve. All Steve. All Steve today. Multiple layers, layers, colors that don't really work together. I got four layers. You can't even see the fourth layer.

Very banning. Very banning. That's what's going on. He's going to be thrilled that he is your fashion idol. I hope so. I'm going to text him as soon as much. I like, send him a still photo of this on cinema screen grab because he'll appreciate the notion of the colors. This is a big banning color.

There's people listening to the podcast. I don't even know. What is this? This is like an orangey. I don't even know what color it is. But only Bannon would wear this color. It is orange. Yeah, I don't know what it is.

Okay, I'm going to put that. And always topped, there we go. There we go. Okay, I got it. I'm going to text me. And Steve, Steve will appreciate the homage. That's what it's, I don't know how, I haven't left the house today. So I can't tell you what the temperature is.

This is too much. I'm a little warm. But I had to, I'm going on a costume party later as Steve Bannon. So I have to be practicing for the part. All right. So we've gone from hot Gandhi to hot Bannon. We run the full gamut. And I think that it's officially time.

the weekend. Thank you. Thank you, you later. Great to see it. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye. You too. Okay, I've got a little bit more for you on the back end, but I'm going to do these ads first. Don't go away. At a certain point in life, you realize you're responsible for a whole lot of things, but the most important is your health, because without it, nothing else matters. We may not think about our liver very much, but it's our body's daily filter, processing everything you consume. It performs 500 plus daily functions. Think energy production, digestion, fat metabolism, vitamin storage, and when your liver is overworked, you will feel it.

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networks, with weaker security and fewer protections. Find out more at guard your card.com, and consider 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 and people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Dishinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news.

Only on the Megan Kelly channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the Sirius XM app. Okay, I've got to talk to you about Megan Markle because our pal, Brit Mayor, sent me Megan Markle merch. She sent me this box of her chocolates. This is what the bars look like. Abby and I agree, the packaging is pretty. I have to give her that. I like the flowers. You know, that's her big thing. You get to edible flowers on everything that, you know, may or may not actually be edible. Don't try this at home. And so the presentation on the chocolate bars was nice. I did something that I never do when somebody gives me a gift, but I did it because it's a new story now. And that is I looked up how much the shit costs. And this pretty box with just four chocolate bars in it cost $62.

Britt, I'm so grateful that you thought of me, but $62 on this crap. So I tried the raspberry spread sea salt dark chocolate first. And I'm not going to lie, it was disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. Cannot recommend you stay away from it more strongly than I do. Then I went to shortbread cookies, bee pollen, milk chocolate. I mean, shortbread cookie sounds good, right? So I opened it up to see what this is all about.

So it's more chocolate with like some sort of orange spread on it. I guess that's the bee pollen. Also disgusting. Don't recommend. So thumbs down on the $62 chocolates. Then Britt included two, count them two as ever little jam packages here. One is strawberry. One is raspberry. I know that our pal link Lauren tried the apricot, I think, and thought it was disgusting. I'm going to try. I mean, it's not a very, look, this is the raspberry. It's kind of gross. It's coming out of the jar. I'm going to try it.

See if we like this. Yeah, it's good. It's your typical raspberry jam. The problem is she's charging $12 a jar for this, and you can get jam that tastes just as good, if not better, for $4. You're paying all that extra money so you can get Megan Markle to send you a stupid little card that reads, enjoy in her lame little calligraphy on one side. and as ever on the other with, I don't know what that is, if it's a royal seal or what, but it's

got a palm tree on it, so I'm guessing not. Then there's the cheesy little packaging for the jams, which I have to tell you is in a very cheap little cardboard circular thing. I guess she was trying to be fancy, but it was a fail. And again, the as ever thing, I've just got to say, it's so, it's used. It's not clever. It's not a play on words that you find fun. It sounds like, someone who's trying to offer this like ephemeral brand to like entice you into another world that doesn't get you there. So big thumbs up on Brit Mayer, not on Megan Markle. And sadly, Netflix has officially cut ties with Markle's polarizing lifestyle brand as ever per page six. We all agree. Thanks for joining us back Monday. Have a great week.

Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.