The Megyn Kelly Show - Vivek Rises, DeSantis Untouched, and Trump's Arrest, with Michael Knowles, Emily Jashinsky, Comfortably Smug, and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 614

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Megyn Kelly begins the show by breaking down what the moderators did and didn't do well at the GOP debate, how the candidates performed, and the Trump factor. Then The Federalist's Emily Jashinsky, Ruthless Podcast co-host Comfortably Smug, National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke, and The Daily Wire's Michael Knowles join to talk about the highlights and lowlights from the GOP debate, how Vivek Ramaswamy was “the star" by getting involved in so many fights, how DeSantis was mostly untouched by his competitors, why Tim Scott lost the debate, whether Vivek vs. the GOP establishment will help him gain ground in the primary, Mike Pence’s role and his messaging at the GOP debate, how the candidates reacted when asked about pardoning Trump if he gets convicted, DeSantis trying to figure out whether to be who he is or who he thinks he should be, Fox News not asking about racial gender ideology but asking about UFOs, former President Trump's interview with Tucker Carlson, the truth about the "hundreds of millions" of views, Trump's presence and humor, whether Tucker Carlson’s interview with Donald Trump was successful counter-programming, how he hilariously roasted Biden and Harris, and more.Jashinsky: https://thefederalist.com/author/emilyjashinsky/Smug: https://www.youtube.com/@RuthlessPodcastCooke: https://charlescwcooke.comKnowles: https://www.michaeljknowles.comFollow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest and provocative conversations. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Here we are post the first GOP presidential primary debate of 2023. Did you watch it or did you watch Trump on Tucker? I watched the debate and then I watched Trump on Tucker today. That's the advantage of the Tucker forum. You can watch it when you want. Query whether that works as a counter-programming measure, right? Because you don't have to watch it live. And the debate was interesting. It was interesting. It was bizarre for me personally because, of course, I was out there with Brett Baer for all of his past GOP presidential debate primaries. We used to do

them all together. And so I had a lot of sort of inside knowledge on what they were doing, what they weren't doing, changes that they've made. Some I like, some I didn't. I'll tell you my number one thing in terms of the formatting of the debate. Get to it. Get to it. Everyone's been waiting. We don't need to hear the national anthem at the beginning of the debate. You play that right before the debate gets started. All due respect to the national anthem. You guys know I love the national anthem, but we don't need to waste three minutes of the primetime debate with that. That can be played before we actually start. We don't need the long video wind up trying to get people excited. They're

already excited. Let's go. And we need a strong first question that kicks things off with a boom. All due respect to Oliver Anthony. We've been covering that story, too, in his song. That was the wrong first question. It was a sleeper. It was such a gimme. It invited the stupid opening statements that Fox was trying to avoid. No, get in and get out. A precise hit. And I will also say this. There is nothing wrong with the reporters in the room at a presidential debate, the hosts being slightly antagonistic to the candidates. It works. It's our job. We're supposed to be slightly antagonistic to them. We're not supposed to be cheerleaders, bootlickers, rooting for them. I'm not calling Brett and Martha that, but I'm reacting to some of the things I've seen on Twitter.

Real journalists are not fucking bootlickers. Go out there, be skeptical, press them, push, be hard, have an edge. That's our job. We're not supposed to love them. We're supposed to love truth and the audience. And so I was missing some of that last night. But having said all that, I enjoyed it. I actually really did enjoy it. And I thought the best parts of it were where the candidates mixed it up directly with one another, where they started rhetorically punching one another. And in those moments, as the moderator, you just want to shrink down to nothing. I'm not even here. I'm not here. You guys go. You do your thing. No one wants to see the moderator. And they did, for the most part, a good job of that. A couple of times, I thought the moderators

stopped good exchanges in order to bring in Doug Burgum. I mean, is it Rupert Murdoch who loves Doug Burgum? Because there was absolutely no reason to interrupt great TV with, let's hear what Doug Burgum thinks. Nobody, literally nobody in America was thinking that, except for maybe Rupert. Nothing else would explain the continuous tossing to Doug Burgum at critical moments. There were lots of punches thrown. The winner, I say, I tweeted this out last night, was not in the room. Former President Trump had to be the winner because, in my view, nobody changed the game last night. While some did well, some did less well, nobody had the huge knockout blow that would have elevated them to anywhere near striking distance of Trump.

Who, as I said, had done a pre-taped interview with Tucker, which aired on X, formerly known as Twitter. Today, Trump is preparing to head to Georgia, where he is expected to surrender at the Fulton County Jail on felony charges connected to the last presidential election. We expect him to do it later in the day. They're saying it's going to be a primetime appearance. So he's going to he's not dumb. You know what he's trying to do? He's trying to drive all the evening news coverage to to cover that instead of the debate i mean you cannot say the man is dumb he has great political instincts and he's turning the lemonade into lemons in a lemonade i guess to the to the extent you can turn a criminal indictment into anything good

we do expect to see a mugshot at least as of now it's ridiculous absurd do not need a mugshot, at least as of now. It's ridiculous. I do not need a mugshot of Donald Trump. The mugshot is so that you have something you can show if he absconds, if he takes off, you can post it on the FBI's most wanted list. He's literally the most famous man in the world. Stop with the mugshot nonsense. Just makes you look like even more harsh partisans than you already are down there. Those who are going after him. Some of our favorites are here on the show today to break it all down for you in just a bit. National Review's Charles C.W. Cook will be here. Plus, we'll talk to The Daily Wire's Michael Knowles, who had my favorite tweet of the night. But we begin today with Emily Jashinsky, culture editor at The Federalist and Comfortably Smug, co-host of

The Ruthless Podcast. Those guys were live on the scene doing the pregame. Great to have you both here. So you heard my sort of overall take on, you know, the Fox format and how they handled most of the evening. My take was Trump was the big winner because I didn't see any I didn't see anybody just rise is that the biggest star that's going to threaten Trump, which I think makes Trump remain the winner with his 46 points ahead. But what do you guys think, Emily? Well, in 2016, Republicans had that two tier system where like the JV squad was debating each other. This entire debate table, JV. Yeah, it was the entire debate was the kiddie table, exactly because of what you said, Megan, which is that Donald Trump has a 40-point lead, not a 10-point lead, a 40-point lead.

In Iowa, according to the RCP average, he has about a 26-point lead. Basically, nothing that could have happened at that debate last night could have changed that margin, which is why I actually think Ron DeSantis' strategy to just sort of blend into the background was really smart. I think he realized he was the varsity guy on the JV team. Vivek realized that he was the freshman guy trying to make it onto the JV team. So he was dunking every time he could. Even if he missed, he's trying to show that he can jump. And with the other guys, when you have the former vice president of the United States, Mike Pence, just kind of looking like he's begging for airtime, trying to interject into every exchange, asking the moderators to go to him. It looked like a varsity guy going to the JV team and

dunking on all the kids. It just was a really bad look, especially when the guy who's up by 40 points is not in the room. So I think if it's a win for anyone, it's a win for Trump and Vivek, who did exactly what he needed to do, which was generate head times. According to New York Times, he got the second most time talking, the second most time talking, which is pretty remarkable for Vivek there. So big win for him on his terms. But for everybody else, the only thing that could come out of last night was really a Trump win. And that I would have shut up. And then he would have shut up, too. He was it was borderline rude because they were going back to him. They gave it they gave him his 30 seconds to respond. And then he would jump in anyway. And it was like and then he doesn't understand the meaning of rap. It's like the double bell is there for the

respect of the audience and the process and the number of issues that are important that you have to get to. It's just so rude. It's all about me. But I have more to say. I have more to say. So I'm going to blow off your bell after you've come back to me twice. Like, be quiet, be quiet, be respectful of the people in this room. It's not all about you. I was going to say, Smug, you know, a feisty Mike Pence was not on my debate bingo card.

Like what? Did not predict that. But your your overall take on how it went last night yeah i mean i i think he definitely realizes that yes he's he's the vice president he needs to kind of have that kind of gravitas and demand that kind of respect i think he could have maybe taken a better tack towards accomplishing that um but i do have to agree with the overall take it ended up working in trump's favor of not showing up, making it look like everyone else is essentially fighting for table scraps. And there really wasn't any kind of like a knockout blow where one of these candidates could consolidate the non-Trump vote and actually post kind of a challenge to the dominance that Trump has already established.

But seeing the interactions between all the various candidates was really interesting there were a lot of surprises for me seeing it happen and I think a lot of them realize how critical that debate is going to be um I don't think we're going to end up with a very long primary season of a bunch of debates I think there's you know the field is going to win out very quickly hmm um Vivek was a star, probably, I think, the star of the show last night because, well, many of us thought that the other candidates would spend their time going after Ron DeSantis since he has been the leader of the B team from the beginning, you know, Trump being the only one in the A team. He has been going down. DeSantis' poll numbers have been falling and Vivek's have been rising a little.

But I would say, you know, if you want to say who's got momentum, you'd have to put Vivek over Ron DeSantis, at least according to the most recent polls. So either the candidates saw that or they have some internal polling that shows Vivek is a threat because they were all like to Vivek. And that's good for Vivek. You want you want attention at the debates. If you talk more, that's better. If you the Nate Silver, he was posting that the vague is rapidly becoming better known and that the Google search traffic over the past 24 hours among the leading non-Trump candidates shows the vague with the biggest spike, people Googling his name, people Googling his age, whether you loved him or you hated him. That's good. That's good attention for him. So I would say, I mean, you tell me, Emily, but I would say Vivek gained the most of the candidates who are

out there. Yeah, I would say the exact same thing, and especially because he's an unknown quantity. So when when voters don't know you at all, I mean, so even like Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, definitely Mike Pence. These are known quantities with the vast majority of voters. Ron DeSantis, people know what they're about. They feel pretty comfortable. A lot of these people have been around for a really long time. Vivek is new to a lot of voters. So that means he has more room to grow. So he's already just barely behind DeSantis in national averages. So almost, you know, getting to margin of error territory in some polls. And in that sense, if you also have a lot of voters who are just being introduced to you and you come out and put on a performance

like that, I'm sure he turned some people off. But I actually think a lot of folks in the Beltway looked at Vivek and were like, he got crushed by Nikki Haley. He got crushed by Chris Christie. But to a lot of voters who are in the Trump camp, they might not be persuadable. They might not want to vote for someone else. But for a lot of people that are dissatisfied with establishment politicians, which is a good chunk of the Republican base, they're going to look at Mike Pence denigrating him for having no experience, which, by the way, is what every candidate did to Donald Trump unsuccessfully in 2016 and say, yeah, that's exactly what we like about him because he doesn't sound like a typical Republican. So if that's his first introduction to a lot of voters, he did a good job. I agree. He gained the most of everyone. Smug, who do you think gained the most of everyone?

Well, I'm going to the vet for a second, I think a question I have in my mind for him is, you know, you see him show up outside the courtroom with like a petition whenever Trump has an indictment, essentially acting like a Trump surrogate. I want to know who's the person that's going to show up, you know, to vote and is going to say, I'm picking Vivek over Trump instead of just voting for Trump. Why go the indirect route? I think a lot of Vivek's message is essentially just echoing, hey, like last night when he says Trump's the greatest president of our lifetime, it's like, OK, well, then why are you running against him if that's the case?

Seems like he did a great job and might as well just have Trump. So I really want to see what kind of differentiation there is in the minds of any voters of why would I vote for Vivek over Trump if I, like Trump, is the best president ever? I think there was a lot to gain, actually, surprisingly, by Ron DeSantis, because Vivek's surge in the polls came right before the debate. So all the crosshairs from the other candidates were on Vivek. Ron DeSantis, you know, most people thought someone's going to try to, you know, knock him down, take over. He kind of got to blend into the background and watch everyone else go after Vivek. So that helped him a lot. He didn't make any kind of like a major mistake.

There were all these stories about the super PAC had released this memo for what he should do. So he definitely had a lot that he was probably thinking about, like, am I saying something that was on that memo? Now all these journalists are gonna point it out, but by just blending into the background, I'd say he served himself best.

Hmm, all right, now what what about who lost ground last night? I mean, who do you think lost ground, went in and, you know, better off than they emerged, Emily? Yeah, I think it's a really easy answer, and that would be Tim Scott, somebody who has a lot of money and resources behind him who has put in a big ground game in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and flubbed basically every major opportunity he had to make his mark in that debate. There are a lot of donors. I agree with you. Sorry, keep going. I'm so enthusiastic about your point. I was like, what's happening? Where is he? Keep going. I was just I was gonna say he's he's so talented as a politician. Nikki Haley also, by the way, is very talented as a politician. And she made the most of a lot of moments that got tossed to her. The best that she can do is a kind of never Trump Republican candidate in a field, in a voter base

that's not super open to that. But just sort of theatrically, she did a good job taking, seizing some of those moments. And Tim Scott did not. He has a lot of money behind him. A lot of big donors really were putting their hopes on Tim Scott. And if you want to have a chance in a field where Donald Trump's up by 40 points, DeSantis is even up in Iowa, you know, we're close to him in any poll. If you want to have a chance, it has to be in these debates. It has to be in these moments where you're making a huge splash. And he didn't come anywhere close to that once last night. You know, Smug, I know a lot of very well off Republican donors, a lot of them. And they've been asking me and talking in social circles for a while about Vivek and Tim Scott, who who's most likely to be Trump's VP out of those two. And for a long time, they've been saying it's got to be Tim Scott, right? It's got to be Tim Scott because Vivek just wasn't as well known and they didn't have as much buzz. I think after last night, if the race is to be Trump's number, you know, number two, Vivek surpassed Tim Scott easily.

Yeah, I mean, David Sachs actually recently just hosted Vivek at his home in L.A. for an event. So I think a lot of the donors started seeing that. Tim Scott has been essentially in witness protection for the past couple months. You haven't seen him in public much. And then in the debate last night, just solidify that in everyone's minds. He disappeared. It didn't seem like he was even that interested in trying to make a mark and actually compete for the nomination. So he lost the most ground in my mind, for sure. OK, so I want to talk about some specific moments, including like the best one liner. And I would say the best I think the best

one liner and the best comeback are all in the same exchange. The two men involved were Chris Christie and Vivek. We've got it teed up as SOT1. People are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change. Governor Haley, are you bothering me? Hold on, hold on. Listen, listen, listen. No, wait.

Hold on, hold on. I've had enough. I've had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here. And the last person in one of these debates, Brett, who stood in the middle of the stage and said, what's a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here was Barack Obama. And I'm afraid we're dealing with the same type of amateur standing on stage tonight. Come on, give me a hug. Give me a hug just like you did to Obama. And I'm afraid we're dealing with the same type of amateur standing on stage tonight. Give me a hug just like you did to Obama. And you'll help elect me just like you did to Obama too. Give me that same type of amateur. Hold on. Hold on.

So it almost sounded to me like Vivek knew that was coming because it was a pretty good, you know, like he gave him a big hug. Come over here and hug me. What did you make of it, Smug? I'll start with you on that one. Yeah, I mean, that was a pretty good line, the chat GPT thing. One thing I will say about Christie's performance is it felt like, you know, he doesn't have the same fastball anymore because he didn't really get a kill shot. Like he got that good little hit in on Vivek. And then later when the opportunity presented itself to, you know, go after him some more, it just got muddled.

And then eventually the audience started booing. It was a good one liner. And Vivek actually then tried recycling the line that's been used against Christie before, like, come give me a hug. And previously, Chris Christie would have the response where he said, well, the only hugs that I care about are with the families of the 9-11 victims. And so I was surprised he didn't even try using the opportunity there with the whole message of like, okay, now Vivek's a 9-11 truther. So I'm really surprised he didn't capitalize on that. Oh, that's an interesting point. What did you make of it, Emily, that moment? Because it got

a lot of play. Yeah, I thought actually Vivek had the better in that moment because it was a pretty clever comeback. What Christie said was clever, but then to be on your toes enough to retort that, I thought that was really good. I agree with Smug. I thought Christie was going to be throwing fastballs all night, not just at the other candidates, but specifically at Trump, which is one thing that, again, theatrically, if you're not a pro-Trump Republican, you probably would find some appeal in Christie doing that. There aren't a lot of non-anti-Trump Republicans out there. There are some, not a ton. But that is to say, even with that crowd, he generally does well. So it was really lackluster from him and somebody who came in with a whole lot of swagger

and even got bested, I think, by Vivek in that exchange. Yes. I think the problem for Chris Christie was our expectations were very high, you know, based on what he did to Rubio. We played that soundbite the other day. It really was spectacular. I mean, he was like a surgeon with his precision in taking him down and leading the trap that Rubio walked right into and then seizing upon it, being smart, being nimble, seeing it when it like it was great stuff. So the expectations were super high for Christie and he didn't meet them. Even his general demeanor. I will say I thought the Fox lighting on the on the candidates was kind of crappy. The candidates did not look very good.

You know, when you're in TV, you need good lighting. Trust me. The anchors look good, which that's number one. But the candidates could have looked better. And Chris Christie, to me, his skin looked a little gray. He looked kind of he was hunching over, you know, which you don't want that. He looked a little tired. And I tweeted out, is it just me or has he lost something off of his fastball? I think he I think he's lost a little something off of his fastball because that was the best he did smug.

Like he didn't that was the that was his number one line, was it not? Yeah. And also, like you just said, that the expectations he's in a tough situation because now anytime he takes the debate stage, everyone's like, well, he's going to end a campaign. You know, so, I mean, that's pretty tough to always pull off. But at the same time, you know, there wasn't the same kind of spark where it's like, okay, Christie's going to talk and everyone gets nervous. And I think a lot of the candidates, I think Vivek definitely prepped for that is that, you know, the reputation of Chris Christie is he's going to go after somebody and there's a great chance he'll go after the person surging in the polls. So I think Vivek definitely prepped for that. But that moment didn't really show up. There was no kill shot from Chris Christie last night. And I think a lot of people are disappointed because that was the whole point of like, OK, well, get Christie on the stage.

He's going to body bag somebody. It's going to be entertaining. We didn't get that moment. Can we just spend one minute on the chat GPT accusation? I get it. I actually understand what Christie was saying. Vivek, for all of his talent, he's only 38. He's not a politician. This is his first presidential run, obviously. He was only eligible to run three years ago. He's young. I get what he's saying. Vivek can sound rehearsed, canned lines. A number of people, including my former colleague Bill O'Reilly, were commenting on like he clearly had some teeth whitening done. His teeth were, like, almost distracting. They were gleaming so much. O'Reilly said he looked like a game show host. There was something oddly, like, a little falsely polished, I would say, about Vivek that came off to some as, like, inauthentic or, you know, a little just too, not to steal a name, smug. Emily, what do you make of it?

Yes, Vivek was more uncomfortably smug, not quite so comfortable in the smugness. I think there's truth to that for sure. I also think that when people in DC look at Vivek, they're sort of uncomfortable with him and and just in and of himself because he's so different. And I'm not saying he's Trump. Nobody will be Donald Trump. But there are echoes of how the Beltway reacted to Trump in the way the Beltway is reacting to Vivek, which is to say the public, going back to Ross Perot, actually really does like a business guy. They like a business outsider. And he does not talk like a politician. And sometimes it's really cringe. Like one of my favorite tweets last night.

I think he does talk like a politician. I think he does talk like that. Oh, see, I've seen people say that. He can be non-political, like all the tweets of him doing the burpees and playing the tennis and all that. I mean, we've debated him back and forth. Net, net, I like him because it shows like he doesn't take himself too seriously. He's very, very smart, but he's not stuffy. You know, he's he's young and he's vibrant. But I do think he sounds maybe his substance isn't what you'd hear from your average Republican, that's for sure. But I actually think he's he's getting a little too boxed in on these like rhetorical talking boys like that's not how he really is. And I don't, I don't know why he's doing that. Go ahead.

Yeah. You don't want to sound like karaoke. And I definitely see what you mean on that. I guess I meant in the substance where he starts talking about like, uh, growing up in a two parent house, being a privilege when most Republicans to the question he was asked when he gave that answer, wouldn't think to like step outside of the box and in substance sort of bring different things into their responses to questions like that. I think that is, is, and when he said, I mean, I didn't like his line about going to the Pope Zelensky in Kiev, but I actually think that probably plays well with a chunk of the Republican electorate. And he, it's, it's just a different kind of rhetoric than what you see from Mike Pence and Nikki Haley and Tim Scott. And so I think some of

that actually plays better than we realize necessarily. So he's got something there, but I agree that he does go into karaoke mode sometimes. Yeah. I mean, for first timer though, you got to say, I mean, for first timer, you give him a solid A on that performance. My God, he's, he can only improve after time one and he'll look at the tape back. He was too smiley in the beginning. There was it was too much. You want to smile a little to show them you're a nice guy. You know, the moms at home want to see this is a nice person. But it was too much.

And Ron DeSantis, even worse. He was fine on substance smug. I agree with you. DeSantis was fine. He didn't have any misstep that way. But my God, the weird I own apology to Canadian Debbie, my producer, who yesterday I mocked because we looked at the debate against Andrew Gillum and DeSantis had this crusher answer when he Gillum accused him of being

a racist. But then Debbie looking for, you know, to be fair and balanced about what what could be the pitfalls found tape of DeSantis elsewhere in the debate with kind of weird smiling. And I said, oh, I don't I think you're being too hard on him. I was wrong. This was a potential weakness. We'll take a look at the DeSantis like delayed smiling, almost like someone was in his ear going, please smile. Look at it. I pledge to you as your president, we will get the job done and I will not let you down. Thank you. Smug. Why?

It's so tough. It is a really tough situation that he finds himself in. When I think it was the New York Times or the Washington Post who had that story of like, why is Ron DeSantis weird? And can weird Americans actually relate to Ron DeSantis because he's a weird guy, too. So, you know, whenever he's on the stage, he's got to be so self-conscious of like, okay, am I putting my hands in the right place? Am I smiling at the right time? I can only imagine all these questions going through his head when he has to contend with all these other candidates. It's almost kind of like Hillary Clinton had that issue where she was constantly worrying if she's likable enough.

Is she smiling at the right time, if she's smiling at the right time, if she's expressing herself in the right way. I wonder how much of that kind of head game Ron DeSantis is finding himself in now. He could be much more forceful, by the way. I did think, having watched the Andrew Gillum debate, DeSantis, to me, last night like a little polished versus the real guy. Like, I actually think that the bare knuckle brawler who's like I saw in the old debate, like, what the hell? And and like the guy we saw during covid, like, get up, get away from it. Like, I kind of like that guy. I I'm not sure I want the new polished version. Is it just me? I think everybody's in the same boat. And I think that's part of the problem with his poll numbers is that when you launch a national campaign, people feel, candidates definitely feel, like you have to be boxed in and very, very careful in the way that consultants are sort of scripting things and you are not making this wrong turn at this exact moment. It is so calculated that it would be

impossible to not let that get to your head unless you decided to throw the old campaign playbook out the window, which I think is what a lot of people thought DeSantis had done in Florida when he just threw off all of the party orthodoxy about the culture war. But it's a different time. It's not 2023. Nobody mentioned woke, as my colleague Crystal Ball at Breaking Point said, I think astutely, I think maybe Nikki Haley mentioned it once in passing the word woke because 2023 is just a different time. And I think Ron DeSantis is trying to adjust to that different time. He's trying to meet the moment of 2023 with like a man who was really popular a couple of years ago and it's all in his head. It's in his's head, and they can't get enough distance from the situation to feel really comfortable with Ron DeSantis just being who he is. They don't have to be using that old campaign playbook, but they are

still welded to it, handcuffed to it for some reason. He went back to the Fauci well, DeSantis did. I mean, it's interesting to me. This like I, this is anecdotal, but we're still into on this show, holding the COVID lunatics accountable. I'm into that. You know, I like it when news comes out, proving all the lies we knew Anthony Fauci told were in fact lies and we'll cover it. But just anecdotally, that stuff doesn't actually do that well for us. You know, we do it because we think it's important and I'm into it, but it doesn't do that. You can see on the numbers, like what the viewers respond to what they don't um and i think that this is related to ron desantis's problem like this is why people fell in love with him for the way in part

you know at first he handled covid but code's over and we all want to move the hell past it like we don't we don't we don't even want to spend any time thinking about it but we don't want to give credit to the ones who like we just want to forget it. It was traumatic the way that our rights were squashed and so on and our kids were hurt. So he went to the Fauci well again last night because this is one point he's got on Trump. To me, it sounded a little rehearsed. I'm not going to lie. Here's what he said. Why are we in this mess? Part of it and a major reason is because how this federal government handed covid-19 by locking down this economy. It was a mistake.

It should have never happened. And in Florida, we led the country out of lockdown. We kept our state free and open. And I can tell you this. As your president, I will never let the deep state bureaucrats lock you down. You don't take somebody like Fauci and coddle him. You bring Fauci in, you sit him down, and you say, Anthony, you are fired. It was good in the beginning.

The first two thirds were good. The last, it was like, oh, I don't, you know, I sell the line from The Apprentice. I get it. But that's what made it feel rehearsed to me. What do you make of it, Smug? Because right now, COVID's coming back. COVID hawks are already starting to push mask mandates again. That could work to his benefit, ultimately. I mean, if they bring COVID the polling, they aren't as interested in COVID or woke as an animating factor when they're going to vote like they did a couple of years ago. And that is, I think, a large part of why Ron DeSantis doesn't have the strength in polling that he would if it had been taken two years earlier and when he had won so massively

re-election. So the audience and the voters have kind of moved on from that as a subject. And, you know, like you mentioned, honestly, the sad thing is best for Ron DeSantis would be if the left tries pushing COVID again. It brings back the tension of like his greatest strength. But right now it just isn't animating voters the same way. Let's spend a minute on Trump before we go. Trump was speaking to Tucker. I want to say I everybody knows I love Tucker. The numbers being circulated online are not real. People need to know that Tucker's show, I'm sure, is doing very well. I'm sure there are many, many millions who watch that interview, almost certainly more than watch the Fox News debate. However, the numbers of people like 90 million people watch.

That's not true. You get a view on Twitter if you hover over the over the like icon for just a couple of seconds. That's one of the frustrations of being on on the new X. You actually don't know we as the consumers don't know how many people actually watched it. Just as a point of clarification, there's no I'm sure the numbers are good in their actual true raw form. It'd be nice to have those. We don't need to falsely inflate the numbers in order to show Tucker's power or Trump's. Trump was over there. And I have to say, I watched the whole thing this morning. I really enjoyed it. It was not like hard hitting him. It wasn't like Trump was Tucker was trying to hurt him, but it was fun to watch. I'll give you just one exchange that they got to talking about Chris Wallace in the general election debate. Both of these guys were cracking me up at stop 15. When I debated him, I said, how come? And this was in front of

probably not a friend of yours, Chris Wallace. He was the moderator. Not a friend. I said, why did why is he wants to be Mike? But he doesn't have the talent? It's one of those. Bitchy little man. He wanted to be his father, but he didn't have the talent of his father. His father was great. His father. Little fussy man. His father interviewed me in 60 Minutes. It was actually a 10. Can you believe it? No, I told you. His father had talent, at least.

It went on from there. There were like huge news making moments but it's fun they're fun to watch right that's like one of trump's gifts and and even my my intern here today who's with me young gal was like i just felt like there was something fun and dynamic that was missing from the debate i'm like is his name donald Trump? Yes, that's the truth. So what about that element, right? Trump's over there. And when you get a look at him, you're reminded, oh, wait, there's that guy. Oh, wait. Oh, that. And he's almost 50 points ahead. And it makes sense. When you see that, it makes sense. And basically, none of the other candidates are serving up the same thing that got him to the position

that he's in right now. Some of them are trying. I would say DeSantis and Vivek are trying to sort of deliver in the way that Donald Trump became such a clear front runner. They know that there's some things you can do to differentiate yourself from Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, but nobody can bottle what Trump has. So long as you're running against Donald Trump, you can't out-Trump Trump. And right now, like it or not, there's a big group of the Republican electorate that likes Donald Trump. I mean, we're talking at this point like 60%, 70%. It's a really, really big number. Some of that I think is persuadable, but to get that below 50%, I don't know, something major is going to have to happen because his numbers are going up as the indictments mount and as the lawfare continues, he's getting stronger, Everyone else is getting weaker. And again, I think that

was on full display in the Tucker interview where Trump was just relaxed. Tucker was relaxed. I love adversarial Trump interviews. I also love relaxed Trump interviews. You get something different out of each of them. But there is something valuable to just having him sort of riff on Chris Wallace, riff on Fox, riff on whatever. It's true. You know, I agree. And but my point at the top was the debate should be adversarial. Like when you're out there, it should be adversarial. It should not be a love fest. You know, they as I always say that they want George Washington's job. It's on. Let's go. This is going to be fun. Right. And the best ones want it. You know, like I liked when Chris Christie was like, I'm getting the UFO question. Like, come on, this is bullshit. I don't blame him. That didn't have any place in a debate. Why? How do we ask about UFOs? And we didn't ask about the gender transitioning that's being forced on children. This is absurd. OK, I'll save that for a later segment. Emily,inski and Comfortably Smug, thank you both so much. Thank you so much.

We are coming right back with Charles C.W. Cook. What does he think about the winner last night? Joining me now, Charles C.W. Cook, senior writer at National Review and host of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast. Charles, great to have you back. So who was the big winner last night? Well, I'm not sure there was one in the sense that I don't think the race was shaken up. Trump didn't show up. He's still the front runner.

DeSantis didn't lose, which was pretty important. He wasn't really the target of many attacks. Much of the attention was lavished on Vivek Ramaswamy, but I don't think it was positive attention, and I'm not sure he helped himself. And then the people who I thought substantively did really well, I don't think have a shot at the nomination. I thought Nikki Haley had a good night and Mike Pence had a good night, but I don't think they're going to make it. So it was an odd one in the sense that it didn't actually change anything. In one sense, I think DeSantis probably came out of it best because the attacks that he expected from Chris Christie did not come. They were aimed at Vivek. I mean, I agree with some of your substantive criticisms of DeSantis' performance,

but he's still treading water, which is where he needs to be. I think DeSantis only got attacked once. I think when the New York Times did a running tally of who got attacked the most, and DeSantis only got attacked one time, they were very, very focused on Vivek, which I think I would be delighted at if I were Vivek. Right. It's like I'm the center of attention and there's going to be all this buzz about me tomorrow. There was there was the moment where Nikki Haley came at Vivek on foreign policy and she's dismissed by some in the party as a quote neocon. You know, she's a little too pro war. She's a little too pro intervention.

That's the criticism. Well, she didn't shy away from any of that. She basically took it to the vague saying, you don't know what you're talking about. All of these sweeping policies that sound like panders to a certain portion of the Republican base. You don't know what you're talking about. All these sweeping policies that sound like panders to a certain portion of the Republican base. You don't know what you're doing. Here's a bit of that. Stop five. I wish you well in your future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon. But the fact of the matter, and, you know, Boeing came off of it, but you've been pushing this lie. You've been pushing this lie all week to go and defund Israel. You want to get let me address that. I'm glad you brought that up. You want to go and give you

I'm going to address each of those right now. This is the false lies of a professional politician. There you have it. Under your watch, you will make America less safe. You have no foreign policy experience

and it shows. And you know what? The foreign policy experience that you all have. So that, everything she said, and you could hear it from some of the people in the audience who are allegedly you know the big donors of the republican party would have gone over huge with any large republican audience as recently as six seven years ago right the party is changing it's

changing and there's a question there about how many republicans are still on Team Haley when it comes to foreign policy and how many are more on Team Vivek, which looks much more like the Trump foreign policy. Yeah, I don't think that the party is quite where Vivek Ramaswamy thinks it is. And I think this is a problem that he has. I've written critically about him in the past and I stand by it. He is the sort of person I've noticed who, while he's talking to a crowd, scans the room to see whether the message is working and then tweaks it in whatever direction he intuits. It's certainly true that the party is less interventionist than it was, although there's not a particularly high bar given that what we're really talking about is opposition post hoc to what the United States did

in Afghanistan and Iraq. But I think that the Republican voting base and also the broader public is quite open to argument and debate on this point, which is why Nikki Haley scored big on that. Part of it was the attack on Vivek, who doesn't know a great deal and was putting everyone down. Part of it was that Republicans still like the American hegemony. They like American military strength, and they are open to the United States taking a leading role in the world. Now, they don't want that to mean preemptive invasions of other countries, but there's a very big gap between reiterating the mistakes of Iraq and making cheap jokes at Nikki Haley's expense

about sitting on the board of Raytheon or Boeing. It's simply not the case that when Donald Trump came into office, he turned himself into some sort of 1970s McGovernite or into Rand Paul. He, quite early on in his presidency, dropped however many missiles into Syria. I remember Van Jones famously said this was the night that Trump became president. He took out Soleimani. Trump's a Jacksonian, really. But Jacksonians are not opposed to all force they're not opposed to asserting American interests they just recognize that alliances are fluid and and they want limited

and overwhelmingly emphatic uh enforcement of American interests and so I I understand why um this term neocon gets thrown around I mean I'm not I not a neocon, so I don't have a brief for neocons. I just don't think it's a very useful frame. And I think Hayley resonated there because she pointed that out. The other question is, who is the biggest loser? And in the last segment, I think Emily Jasinski and I were both agreeing that it was probably Tim Scott. Because there was so much promise around him. He had a fair amount of buzz.

He has a ton of money, a lot of big donors. But Charles, I had the team pull just I mean, we could have pulled this from any one of his answers, but they sounded so generic. They sounded just like, you know, pro-America talking points where you're like, that's my view. Here he is. America can do for anyone what she's done for me if we focus on restoring hope, creating opportunities and protecting America. If we want the environment to be better and we all do, the best thing to do is to bring our jobs home from China. Okay, so what we need to do is restore hope and create opportunity. I mean, come on, this is not going to get it done.

So I like Tim Scott a lot. And I think that the optimism and forward-looking approach that he's taken is necessary. I wrote about this recently. I do think Republicans need to cheer up as a whole. The Democratic Party is full of unhappy people. This isn't me saying this as a conservative. The statistics are actually extraordinary. The polling shows it. The medication use shows it. But the thing about optimism and forward-looking rhetoric is that unless it is coupled with really specific policy steps, then, as you say, it does sound vague and even hollow. I am a big fan of Ronald Reagan. I absolutely depart from my fellow conservatives when they say, we're in a different time.

We don't need that anymore. Actually, a lot of the challenges that Reagan faced were quite similar to ours. We had a resurgent and threatening communist country on the horizon. Then it was Russia. Now it's China. We had runaway inflation that had been met with high inflation, interest rates, sorry, therefore high mortgage rates, and so on. We had a general loss in patriotism and belief in the American system. But if you go back and you look at Reagan's speeches, he was very sunny. He had that Tim Scott quality that I like. He was also unbelievably specific. Half of his speeches, he would cite these statistics about unemployment and oil production and international trade and troop numbers. And it wasn't just a generalized,

vague appeal to the American experiment. And that's the bit that Tim Scott was missing. His affect's great. I like watching him. He's extremely likable. But he's going to have to put a lot more meat on that bone or he's going to get rolled. And I do agree with you. I like watching him. He's extremely likable, but he's going to have to put a lot more meat on that bone or he's going to get rolled. And I do agree with you. I do think he was probably the loser from last night's debate. Yeah, it was definitely missed opportunity for him. So, you know, he's going to have another opportunity, I think, if he qualifies for the next one. But I think the money may move. It may move from Tim Scott over to Vivek. And then, of course, what we're going to see, Charles, is what we are just starting to see a little but haven't really so far, which is the

media is going to turn on Vivek. No one's done like the deep dive oppo piece on Vivek because he's been kind of a non-factor. They're not they're not seeing him as a threat, but it's coming. But I do wonder whether he's kind of moving into the Trump territory of untouchable. Like the people who like Vivek seem to me to be largely the MAGA base because he doesn't touch Trump. He's saying a lot of the same things Trump said. And so I do wonder whether even the media attacks that are undoubtedly coming on him are going to work. Well, maybe, but what's the upside? You said the money is going to move over to him.

I can't see why. My criticism of Vivek from the beginning has been he's not running for president. He's far too complimentary of Donald Trump. You saw this. Donald Trump came out after the debate and said, well, Vivek was the winner because he praised me. Sure, he did. You know, if anything, Vivek's running to be Donald Trump's valet, or perhaps vice president or a cabinet member. There was a moment last night that exhibited this perfectly, where Vivek said, well, Donald Trump was the best president of the 21st century. Well, if that's true, why are you running against him? What is the point in you being there? Trump is running again, and he's leading in the polls, sometimes

by 40 points. You know, I know why Chris Christie's running. I know why Mike Pence is running. I know why Ron DeSantis is running. I don't know why Vivek is running if he believes that and if he is a circle in the Venn diagram that is Vivek Trump presidential candidate 2024. So I'm just not convinced by him. Certainly, he may benefit from some of the same dynamics that have made Trump very difficult to touch among Republican primary voters. That is a defensive quality, but it doesn't help you offensively. It doesn't help you distinguish yourself and move away from Trump and become the nominee. Unless your game plan is, as you point out, being his number two or being in his

cabinet, or you're banking on him going to jail and you being the Trumpiest candidate left standing. Yeah, I mean, I can see that. I can absolutely see that. As you know, I don't being the Trumpiest candidate left standing. Yeah, I mean, I can see that. I can absolutely see that. As you know, I don't want the Trumpiest candidate left standing. I'm a policy guy. I want someone who does not have the profound moral and personal failings that Trump has and who can get things done. And I don't see Vivek as being that guy. And and somebody I like what you always say. I want somebody who's as boring and hands off as possible. Like, let's shrink the down to what it what it was meant to be. As opposed to like, let's just keep empowering, you know, this random person with more and more authority. We've seen how that's gone over the

past few years. Just just look at the pen in the phone. Start of it with Barack Obama. It doesn't go so well. All right. Stand by because there's so much more to get to. I have my thoughts on who needs to leave and who needs to stay. And I have new thoughts on why Mike Pence is in this race that I'd love to get into. I do think he's serving a valuable purpose. I think there's something like therapeutic going on there, almost cathartic that the

nation needs to go through. We'll pick it up there right after this, and we'll show you a bit more of Trump on Tucker, some extraordinary comments on whether we're headed for civil war. You might find that interesting. And I would love to know your thoughts on the presidential debate last night. Did you watch it or did you watch instead the Trump Tucker thing live? Email me Megan, M-E-G-Y-N at megankelly.com. I would love to find out whether you think who the big winner was, right? Do you agree that we think, you know, what I thought, which is Trump's is the winner, that what our opening panel thought Trump was the winner because nobody else changed the game. And did anybody change your mind,

right? Like, did you go in last night thinking, oh, I hate this person and leave thinking, I love them or the opposite. Let me know. Megan at Megan Kelly.com. All right. Meantime, Charles stays with us in just a bit. Michael Knowles joins us as well. And remember folks, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM triumph channel one 11 every weekday at noon East, the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. And if you prefer to get your news via audio,

you can check out our podcast, follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. There you're going to find our full archives of the show with more than 600 shows now Now we've been working for a while for you going on three years. So Charles, looking around last night,

I was trying to ask myself, what is the justification for each of these candidates? Vivek, I get it. You know, young, new blood, Trump, Trump, young, you know, Trumpy, but younger, more vibrant next generation. That's how he wants us to perceive him. At least Ron DeSantis, conservative, like traditional, but maybe not that traditional because he's different on Ukraine. He's different on a couple of things, but conservative fighter. Right. Chris Christie, he's there to fight. Like he has to attack Trump. He wants to be he's like there for the never Trumpers, the people who hate Donald Trump,

who aren't necessarily never Trumpers, but just are very mad at Trump and not really inclined to vote for him. And I think Mike Pence has a role out there. I think Mike Pence is helping the country work out the conscience around January 6th. I think that it's kind of actually important, at least for last night's debate. He doesn't need to stay forever. But just to be reminded of what was at stake on that day and what was done to Mike Pence, and just to be reminded, it may not be a deal breaker for you at all. And I realize it's not for some 70% of the Republican Party, who's apparently either open minded to or ready to vote for Trump. But we do need a little bit of closure, I think, on what happened with the Republican Party at the end of the 2020 election. Here was Trump, I mean, sorry, Pence providing a bit of that last night.

You know, it's not about looking back at January 2021. It's about January 20th, 2017. I put my left hand on Ronald Reagan's Bible. I raised my right hand. And I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And it ended with a prayer, so help me God. It was a promise that I made to the American people, but I also made it, it made it to my heavenly father. Every day for four years, I sought to keep that oath. What do you make of it? And I think he and Nikki Haley are both there as a little bit more of the conservative traditional

Republican that we're used to, but only one of them is really necessary. Burgum's got to go. Ace has got to go. I think Tim Scott is going to go. I know you disagree, but I think it's over for him. But what do you make of it? Well, I think it's profoundly important. First off, I do think Mike Pence would make a terrific president.

I don't think he's going to be president, but I think if you parachuted Mike Pence into the Oval Office right now, he would do an excellent job. That's one rationale for his running. But the main rationale, as you say, I'd put it a little bit differently. He's telling the truth about what happened in 2020. Trump lost the election and Trump won't say that and unfortunately many of the other candidates won't say that either DeSantis whiffed on it last night disappointingly and Pence does he put it perfectly there he took an oath to uphold the constitution he kept that oath it is simply not true as conservatives were supposed to believe what is true it is simply not true that mike pence even if he had wanted to has some freestanding power to reverse congress's ratification of the election process. That's right.

Trump keeps saying otherwise. Trump has criticized Mike Pence for his refusal to do something that he could never do. And Mike Pence hears this from voters quite often and I think has been admirable in calmly and politely and correctly pushing back at it. You need someone on the stage, preferably Mike Pence himself, but someone at least who is going to say that, that this is not how our system works and that is not what happened in 2020, and that if we are going to spend our time relitigating the past instead of looking forward to the future, then we need to do so accurately.

So I'm glad Mike Pence is out there saying that, mostly because it's true. Yeah. They went down the line and asked, did Mike Pence do his duty on January 6th? And I think most of them said yes. Vivek did not answer. And Ron DeSantis was sort of pressed into saying, I got no problem with him. He did his duty. It wasn't it was not a forceful defense of Pence, of course, because DeSantis is still his game plan seems to still be somehow I will rest the Trump supporters away from Trump, which leads me to the next thing that happened. They were asked if Trump is convicted on one of these, in one of these cases, the four now that have been brought against him,

will you commit to pardoning him? Now we're going to show the video. So for the listening audience, I'll try to describe it. Vivek's hand shot way up. I mean, he truly is like the kid in class, the teacher's pet, like he picked me, picked me. DeSantis looks around and then barely raises his hand. Charlie, this is not a good look for DeSantis. And by the way, everybody else's hand went up. Chris Christie did raise his hand, but then seemed to kind of second guess it. Asa Hutchinson did not raise his hand, but everybody else, their hand went up. Not as high as Vivek, who was up here. DeSantis looks around and then raises his hand. And he's getting some flack for that.

Like, pick a lane. Is it a yes or is it a no? What did you make of the moment? Well, I think that this is closely tied to the conversation that you had with one of your previous guests about DeSantis's odd little smile. The best advice that I think anyone could give Ron DeSantis right now is you've got nothing to lose, be yourself. Foibles included, flaws included. Ron DeSantis is a very intelligent man who is clearly irritated by a lot of the machinations that he has to go through as a political candidate. Now, some of those have to do with Donald Trump, and I empathize with them greatly. There is so much nonsense that Republican politicians and other prominent conservatives have to put up with because of the cult of personality around Donald Trump.

Some of that, though, is just normal politics. DeSantis does not have the affect that our most electorally successful politicians tend to have. He does not have that Reaganite affect. He doesn't have Bill Clinton's love of people. He doesn't have Barack Obama's charisma. He has his own thing. And if he's going to become president, then it will be on the back of that own thing. It will be on the back of his saying, look, I am a middle class kid from Tampa, who became the governor of Florida, did a really terrific job at it, bucks the conventional wisdom, and now I'm running for president to deliver for you. I'm not saying, Megan, that's going to work. I think at the moment, it looks like it's not. But if he's going to get there, he's going to have to be Ron DeSantis. And that moment that you just showed is another good example of him

trying to work out what is expected of him rather than going with his gut. So is the little smile. You know, so is so much of the campaign strategy that he's exhibited thus far. And he's getting caught in the middle as a result. Either you put up your hand like Vivek and you just commit to the part. You're a phony. You're proud of it. You know what is expected of you in the audience.k and you just commit to the part. You're a phony. You're proud of it. You know what is expected of you in the audience.

And so you just do it or leave your hand down. Yeah. Or you, you are an enthusiastic phony anyway, or you leave your hand down and you deal with the consequences. When you're asked about it the next day, you say, you know what?

My job is not to play Donald Trump's lawyer. My job is not to get into the Oval Office and immediately contemplate whether or not I will use the pardon power to help the last guy. Here are the things that I'm running for. I'm not saying that would be a good strategy. Don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that he's caught in the middle, and you can see it over and over again. When he made that emphatic statement and then tried to do the little smile, he was caught between who he actually is, which is a guy who likes to machine gun the opposition and then get things done, and who he's been told he should be, which is a politician who smiles at people and has a softer side. And I don't believe, well, I don't believe it as a general matter

that getting caught in the middle of who you are and who you're supposed to be works out for people. But I don't believe specifically that DeSantis is capable of doing it. I don't think that what we have seen thus far suggests that he is going to be able to run as a hybrid. I just think at this point, he has to take off the gloves and do what he actually wants to do and be who he actually wants to be and see how it plays out. All right, I'll say this in defense of Ron DeSantis. I don't

know whether this is true, but this was after the moment where he objected to the whole hand raising nonsense. So it was good possible. It was very good. I will play it. We're talking about this is not three. Human behavior is causing climate change. Raise your hand if you do. Look, we're not schoolchildren.

Let's have the debate. I mean, I'm happy to take it to start. I don't think that's the way to do. So let me just say to Alexander this. So that was good. He was like, I'm not I'm not raising my hand. This is nonsense. Let's just talk about it.

We're adults. And this the second question, raise your hand if you will commit to pardoning Trump, if or whatever it was after if he gets yeah, if he gets convicted, came after he said, we're not doing the hand raising thing. So it is possible that he was basically like, aren't we done with the hand raising nonsense? Whatever. Either way, you have to lead your own course. That would have been a good time for him to grab the lectern and say, as I already told you, we're not doing that. Move on. That would have been a great moment for him. But to your point, he's caught he's caught between another moment that I did think depends on, you know, like all this is a litmus test all over Twitter last night. You saw it through the prism

of the the person you're supporting. Right. It's like that crushed or Ron DeSantis crushed or, you know, this is one of those moments. Ron DeSantis was answering on Ukraine and he did waffle on Ukraine. And you guys at National Review have talked about it quite a few times where he gave Tucker a statement calling it a territorial dispute. And then he kind of got hit by more, I don't know, establishment Republicans, whatever you want to call it. And he expanded his answer on Ukraine in a way that distanced a little bit from territorial dispute and then said he'd been mischaracterized. So he's been a little, you know, wishy-washy on Ukraine. And he gave an answer last

night where he said it was another raise your hand. And he was like, I am not committing to spending more money, America's money on Ukraine. And then they pressed him a little like, what do you mean? And he tried to say it's going to be Europe's money. And Vivek, you're going to see his hand in the shot doing I think it's like this. I can't exactly tell, but the full video we're going to show you shows what Vivek was doing to him. Watch. I will have Europe pull their weight right Right now they're not doing that. And I think our support should be contingent on them doing it. And I would have support in China to be able to take to be able to take China and do what we need to do with China.

And Vivek, for the listening audience, sort of licks his finger and puts it up in the air like testing the wind, whichever way the wind is blowing, with a big smile on his face, clearly enjoying sort of rubbing DeSantis' nose in it. What did you make of it? I mean, I think for Vivek Ramaswamy to advance that criticism of anyone else

is one of the most preposterous things I've ever seen. And if I were Ron DeSantis, who is a serious person, I would be irritated by it. I'm not wild about DeSantis' view on Ukraine, although I will say this in his defense, Megan, I am not sure what I think about Ukraine either. You must have heard me say this over and over again. I am very interested in hearing debate on this. Normally Normally I know what I think. I'm not one of those voters normally who says, well, I just want to wait for the two candidates and see what they think.

You know what I think. But with this one, I mean, I had Noah Rothman on my podcast. I've also had Elbridge Colby on my podcast. They're diametrically opposed on this. I read something about it from someone who is critical and it persuades me. And then I read something from someone who is much more hawkish and it persuades me. And then I read something for, from someone who is much more hawkish. And we had Rod Dreher and we also had Gary Kasparov.

I mean, it was like, you know, we're just trying to highlight all the views so people can make up their own minds. This is a very, very difficult issue. So yes,

same Charles, keep going. Well, and, and I mean, I'm not to just clarify, I'm not in any way drawing a moral equivalence between Russia and Ukraine. I want Ukraine to win the war. But what policy should be from the West and what

implications that has, for example, toward the Pacific, is something that I just don't know enough about to judge properly. And I think DeSantis is in the same position on this in that DeSantis is much more interested in the Pacific theater. He said so when he sat down with Jake Tapper, that this is where we should be looking now, that we have a almost holdover fixation on Europe for understandable reasons because of the 20th century, not just the Soviet Union and the Cold War, but before that, the First and Second World Wars came from Europe. So I don't know if he's pandering there or not. He hasn't been clear on it, though. And that is a big problem. And whether he hasn't been clear, because he doesn't know what he thinks, or he's just trying to play to the audience, I don't know. But it's unlike him. It's unusual for

him. And it therefore seems odd. You know, Ron DeSantis is a guy who always seems to know precisely what he thinks and is direct about it. And on this one, he's given five different answers and sounds as if he's trying to have it both ways. But I really just do not want to hear criticisms of that from Vivek Ramaswamy. Well, Ron DeSantis didn't stack the cannon with his own ammo. He just, he kind of ignored Vivek and that's a strategy, but certainly he could have prepared a hit on Vivek. Like, what do you do? How dare you raise your finger at me? Like I'm following wherever the wind blows. Here are the five times you've done that, right? Here are the reversals that I found on you in the past hour before I got out here. You've got to have some sort of offensive ammo against the guys who are going to come for you if they're legitimate threats. And Vivek is becoming a legitimate

threat. I mean, he's got more momentum behind him right now, I think, than Ron DeSantis does. And I'm not sure, maybe it will matter, maybe it won't matter. In that Nate Silver article I pointed out, he said, if you look at the past history, Vivek is going to have a spike in the polls. Whoever gets the most Google hits and so on and the most attention in a debate will have a spike in the polls. It tends to last for around six weeks. And then they all flame out.

He went through the list like Rick Perry had one. Newt Gingrich had one. Herman Cain had one. So Vivek is probably on his way to a spike right now. I don't know, like Ron DeSantis has been a little bit more steady, but his poll numbers aren't good. So you tell me whether he needed to stack the cannon a little bit more and be ready for his attackers. I'm actually not sure that he did with Vivek. As I said at the beginning, I think in some ways you could see this debate as having been quite good for Ron DeSantis in that he stayed where he was. I expected there to be an enormous amount of focus on DeSantis.

I thought everyone would attack DeSantis. They didn't. Instead, they attacked Vivek. And if you're DeSantis, perhaps you just don't feel a great need then to go after the guy. And perhaps that will change. I mean, I actually agree with Nate Silver. I do assume that that's who Vivek is in this race. There always seems to be one.

The Democrats had one last time around with Pete Buttigieg. Yep. There always seems to be one. The Democrats had one last time around with Pete Buttigieg. And then he dipped down and ended up as one of the worst transportation secretaries we've ever had. So I'm really in two minds about it. My bigger advice, as I say to DeSantis, is you know who you are, be it. And maybe it's not what people want. And that will obviously be very disappointing for him. But he probably, of all of the people on that stage, knows who he is the most. And I see him trapped at the moment.

And I see him unsure as to how to run. And it's very strange as a Floridian, a Floridian who's criticized DeSantis on a bunch of issues, but who never doubted his resolve on them, to watch that because that's not how he ran in 2020 too. Last time around, we won by 20 points. He's feeling unsteady. He's lost his mojo.

Like he's not sure exactly what to do and the answer in those circumstances is always just go back to true north like who are you just let it let your free flag fly and they'll love you or they won't but like that's the answer let me ask you before we go what is the purpose of asa hutchinson or doug bergham i really i grew resentful because it was like every minute that goes to those guys who have zero chance and aren't even offering something different. It's not like I like, you know, love him or hate him. I understand why Chris Christie's there. I understand why Pence is there.

I understand why Vivek is there. I don't understand why those two guys are there. They know they have no chance. So what did you make of those two? And how much longer do you think they're going to be in there? Well, I think that Doug Bergen can be in as long as he wants because he's worth about $2 billion. Look, but they shouldn't be there.

That's not a criticism of Doug Burgum, for the record, who I think is a really good governor. Again, if you parachuted him into the White House, I'm sure I would like him a great deal and he'd do some good things. But he's not going to be president. A year or so ago, I wrote a column titled Don't Run. And it was aimed at precisely those sorts of figures. And it was not a moral judgment on them. It was just saying, look, there is no path. There is no lane. There is no rationale for these candidacies just don't do it go and do something else with your life um and i guess those two didn't read it or read it didn't care about it

but that is precisely who i had in mind they don't need to be there they're not adding anything that they should not it's not like the debates of like 2012 when Ron Paul would come and you'd say, OK, everyone knows Ron Paul has no chance. But he clearly has a very clear agenda that he's advancing and he's trying to bring attention to his libertarianism. And, you know, vote for me because I see the world in a different way. And you get a conversation started and represented a faction of the Republican Party that was different and interesting. I don't I don't get it other than like I think Rupert likes Doug Burgum. I think that's why I don't know. And Asa, zero clue. I don't know. That's the one that is inexplicable. I mean, as you say, there are some people who even though they're not going to win, they stand on the stage and they make a difference.

I didn't realize how well he was going to do. But I encouraged in 2015, 16, Bernie Sanders to run because I just analytically, because I said, Look, you really fundamentally disagree with everyone else on the stage. So that's a really good idea is to run, make your case if you can change the party. Now, unfortunately, for me, who's about as far away from being a socialist as you can get, Bernie actually did manage to change the Democratic Party by doing it. But that shows your point, which is, even though he didn't win in either race he ran in, he achieved what he wanted to. What would an Asa Hutchinson infused Republican Party look like? I mean, what is that? I don't know. I think it would involve a lot of trans kids. True. That's the other thing, right? He's not even been able to stand up on the one thing

all Republicans seem to agree on. Exactly right. And that didn't come up at all last night, which I'm going to discuss with Michael Knowles when he comes on in a minute. Charles, great to see you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Up next, Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire. He's got thoughts you won't want to miss. Now, without further ado, Michael Knowles, host of The Daily Wire. He's got thoughts you won't want to miss. Now, without further ado, Michael Knowles, host of The Daily Wire's Michael Knowles Show. Michael, great to have you. What was your overall take on last night? My overall take, I'll give it to you in 30 seconds, Megan. Vivek helped himself the most because he went from an unknown to now someone who everybody's talking about. And he had a good debate. DeSantis did not help himself. I felt he met expectations,

but the expectations were moderate. They'd been moderated down from the high expectations he had when he got in and he didn't break through. Pence did a little bit better than I think people were expecting. He was aggressive. He was lively. It's not going to matter at all, but he slightly outperformed. Some of the second tier candidates, Chris Christie, I felt got his usual zingers in, but they fell flat. It wasn't the full marker Rubio treatment. And when he tried them against Vivek, Vivek had pretty good zingers back at him. So that didn't work. Among the other candidates, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, both basically met expectations, which again is not good enough when you're in the single digits.

I felt that Asa Hutchinson outperformed expectations in as much as he did not trans a child on the stage. So that was good. I was pleased to see that. And Doug Burgum proved himself to be the single worst candidate in the entire race, maybe in any race that I've ever seen in my entire life. And yet somehow also possibly the most likable person on that stage. So what does that mean? Where does that leave you? that broke out enough to overcome what is now a 41 point gap between Donald Trump, the frontrunner, and the number two guy, at least as of now, Ron DeSantis. That's according to the Real Clear Politics average. Some polls have it as an even bigger gap, which means that the winner of the night without even showing up was Donald Trump. Yeah, I loved your comment, Asa Hutchinson.

I thought that was the tweet of the night. You tweeted it out. Maybe laugh out loud. Our viewers may remember he in this discussion with Tucker in Iowa defended his unwillingness to sign to sign a law that would have banned the transing of children as minors. These medical treatments, the drugs, the surgeries and so on. And he defended the drugs in particular, like completely not understanding that they sterilize children. He was like, well, I think that's a different matter. Anyway, that was kind of the end of Asa Hutchinson for a lot of Republicans. So, yes, I take your point very well. Can I just ask you, can you believe that they spent time on UFOs and on Oliver Anthony's song and a question about general patriotism and did not ask one

question about this massive cultural issue and what we're doing to young children? Of course. I loved Christie's answer. It was the only point of the night or the last five years where I thought Christie might win me over. And it's when he laughed at the moderators. He said, you're asking me about UFOs? Are you out of your mind? But to your point, Megan, this is an issue where all Republicans seem to agree from the most populist nationalist types all the way to fairly establishment types. The problem is, though, that the debate was being moderated by Fox News and Fox is pro-trans. And Fox has made that stance clear. Fox will use the fake pronouns when they refer to

men who think they're women as she. Fox has even run segments lauding the transing of kids. So he who pays the piper calls the tune. Not too long ago. Not too long ago. They did that relatively recently. Right. And so because they were running the show, that issue didn't come up. It was obviously a huge omission. I think it shows you the increasing gap between political elites and the Republican Party base and the conservative movement. But even if that issue had come up, I'm not sure it would have done very much. I watched the whole debate. I watched the whole Trump interview with Tucker, and I came away with it thinking, OK, some of that was entertaining.

Some of that I did just because it's my job and other people aren't going to watch it. But ultimately, it just did not change a single thing. Yep. Can I ask you about the Trump interview on Tucker? I liked it as a counter program in that it's a middle finger to Fox and both of those guys have every right to do that. But no one's really talking about it. You know, it trended on Twitter, which is where, well, X, which is where it lived. It's not dominating. I haven't even seen any of it anywhere in the news today.

You know, I wonder, like, I don't know if there was a way for Trump to counter program away from the debate, but I don't know that it actually worked in terms of detracting from the attention. I think turning himself in today in Atlanta will. But what do you make of it as a strategy? Conversation was two friends chatting on air, which was perfectly fine, but it's not going to grab headlines. The big counter-programming is going to be the mugshot. The counter-programming, in as much as people are supporting Trump increasingly because of the indictments, because the liberal establishment is wielding the political order in such a way that is unheard of in American history, obviously unjust. It is a recommendation of his candidacy. So it was a fine middle finger to Fox for both of those guys, and also an expression of where Trump stands. Trump is just different

from basically anybody. He's an American original, but he's different from a lot of Republicans too. And the medium is the message often when it comes to Trump. And so if you had to ask right now, where is the conservative base? Do they support Fox News or Tucker Carlson? Obviously they support Tucker. And so it made perfect sense for him to do it, but it was never going to grab headlines. If Trump wants to grab headlines, he's got to get confrontational, but he just doesn't have to because he's got a 40-point lead. The person who should have learned that lesson is Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis has been playing the safest campaign I can imagine, and it's going to safely make him a loser in 2024. The only way that he has any chance, and frankly, I think the die is probably cast and the bizarre circumstances of this primary where for the first time since 1888, we've got a former president

running for a non-consecutive second term. Probably the circumstances mean nobody can beat Trump. But if you want to have any chance at all, you've got to get bold. You've got to take bold positions. You've got to go on media that's going to be hostile to you. The one candidate who has done that so far is Vivek Ramaswamy, who nobody had heard of six months ago and who now might soon be the number two guy in this race. That's right. He goes everywhere. And it's not only has it exposed him and gotten his name out there, but it's honed his debate skills. I mean, you can see he's very practiced. He's very skilled. He enjoys the back and forth. It's made him better. So the rest of the candidates could take a lesson there for sure. The Trump interview on Tucker did have some classic Trump moments, which I

would just kick myself if we didn't get to some of them. Trump on Kamala Harris. Watch this. She has some bad moments. Her moments are almost as bad as his. I think his are worse, actually. 16. the bus will go here and then the bus will go there because that's what buses do. And it's weird. The whole thing is weird. This is not a president of the United States future. By the way, we pulled a little of that. She did do a little bit on school buses. I don't think she rhymed, but here it is. 19. Who doesn't love a yellow school bus, right? Can you raise your hand if you love a yellow school bus right just there's something about the and and most of us many of us went to school on the yellow school bus right it's part of you know a nostalgia and a memory of of the excitement and joy of going to school the school The school bus takes us there. Inspiring.

Trump nailed it. Wow. Trump has this odd ability because people point out that he's very clumsy with his words because he says things that are offensive and sometimes grammatically incorrect. He's really actually pretty precise with his words. He's got a kind of poetic diction. That's why he stumbled on that great slogan, Make America Great Again. And it's why all of his nicknames tend to stick, and they're really biting and cutting. So I love that of all the things Trump could talk about there, he says, hey, you ever notice the way that that lady sounds like a sing-songy preschool teacher? And he's totally right. And it was as important as anything else he could talk about in this interview for which the stakes were just so low.

I think he's just reminding everyone why they like him. And here's more of that in SOT17. You don't think he's going to make it to November of 2015? Well, I think he's worse mentally than he is physically. And physically, he's not exactly a triathlete or any kind of an athlete. You watch him and it looks like he's walking on toothpicks. I think he looks terrible on the beach. He looks terrible on the beach.

Skinny legs. Well, he can't walk through the sand. And there's somebody in there that thinks he looks fabulous at the beach. I think he looks horrible at the beach. Plus, the beach doesn't represent what a president's supposed to be doing. He's supposed to be working. Good stuff. Who else would say that stuff? Like only Trump and people. Those are the kind of conversations you and I would have, you know, over a drink one day. We'd be like, yeah, what's he doing with those skinny legs on the beach? No one wants to see that. Right. But only now do we have a president and candidate who says the

stuff. Exactly. A couple of weeks ago, Karine Jean-Pierre got in trouble because her Twitter account sent out a tweet that was supposed to come from the president's account. So it said, you know, when I ran for president, blah, blah, blah, you realize it was all being run by staff. And it doesn't really matter. It's a minor gaffe, but it does reveal part of the reason why people like Trump, because Trump is a real person. You can't deny it. He's not focus group tested. He wasn't bread in a petri dish at Langley.

This is a guy who is presenting to you exactly who he is, warts and all. I know that there are some Republicans who want to pull their hair out over this because they think that he has a surplus of personality. But this is democratic politics, lowercase d. It's about people. It's about the way that people feel. You know, a pal of ours likes to say that facts don't care about your feelings. And that's largely true.

But politics almost exclusively cares about your feelings. This was what was so unfortunate for DeSantis last night. I sincerely like Ronon desantis i i think he's a good guy he's been a great governor he's a really admirable figure he just wasn't able to connect last night and he hasn't been able to connect and people want to dismiss this and say well who cares he's he's got the charisma of competence let's say okay sure that in a buck 50 is going to get you a pumpkin spice latte in about two weeks because you need to connect with the people on the trail if you don't do it then the number two guy is about to

be vivek ramaswamy yeah you got like they're too far behind to be this cautious the the predicament that they are in requires a swing for the fences. You don't, Roger Ailes used to say to me before I'd go out on the big nights, just hit a single, just hit a single, right? He was trying to take the pressure off me. There's no reason to go for the home run. That's not true for them. They actually do need a home run. They do need to change the entire trajectory of this race. My only thought is perhaps they're banking on a conviction that will change or a year plus of criminal trial coverage that will change the mood of the electorate. What what else explains the strategy of these guys? If that's what they're

thinking, they're out of their minds. If they're waiting for a conviction to change the mood of the electorate, they might be right. It's only going to increase Trump's support. That's why he said a week ago that he's one more conviction away from clenching nomination and winning the election because people know it's deeply unjust and the vast majority of Americans agree, including many independents and Democrats. So, you know, just holding your ground or just saying the right polite focus group tested thing is simply not good enough, really in any hotly contested race, but certainly not in this one, which is unlike any primary we've ever had.

The DeSantis campaign right now seems to be running the Cruz 2016 strategy. People revise history and they think that Cruz was always doomed in 2016. He ran a very good campaign. He's an excellent politician, very smart guy, and the base largely likes him. But the campaign was a little bit cautious with regard to Trump and that caution did not pay off. I can see why a strategist would have made that decision in 2016 to run a campaign that's going to totally solidly get you into number two. But we know how that played out. We already saw that seven years ago. So to do that again,

it's the definition of madness. I just think if I were running against Trump, I would, understanding how the GOP base still loves him, I'd say, I get it. He did so many good things for us and he's highly entertaining. I completely get it. He changed the Republican Party in a way that was absolutely critical. However, let's talk Turkey. Let me go through the poll numbers in Wisconsin, in Arizona, in Georgia, in these in Michigan, in these critical states in Pennsylvania and give you the reality Republican primary voters of what's coming down the pike. What's coming down the pike are independent voters who are not as in love with Trump as you need them to be. And they're never going to be as in love with Trump.

And this is what the numbers show there. Nothing's going to change. They know Trump. There's nothing he can do between now and then that will change their view of him. So as much as you love him, you may have to let him go if you actually want to win back the White House. I know you want to destroy the party. He's done all he can do. I will continue the legacy for him.

Trust me on that. I will bust up all these same things, but you will lose. I'd say something like that and I'd have real hardcore data on the polling and the independence in those states. Whatever. I'm not a political consultant, but that's what I would do. One of the issues there, though, Megan, is in order for that to be effective, I think you've got to say it to his face. I think you've got to get Trump on the debate stage and give him a chance to answer that or not answer that. And the problem is Trump just came out a couple of days ago and said, not only was he not going to go to the first debate, he's not going to show up to any of the debates. And he gave his reason why. There's an

asterisk there. NBC News then followed up and said, it's just the first two, we think, after speaking to Trump's people. So it's ambiguous. But he sent out a truth, his kind of Twitter posts, and he said, the people already know me. They already know who I am, which is the first line that he said that makes me think this kind of a promise might not be bluster. Because as you just said, everybody has an opinion on Trump. Every single person and their grandkids and their dogs have opinions about Donald Trump. We've known who he is since the 1980s. So there's no benefit to him really showing up to these debates unless his poll numbers crater, but they just don't show any signs of doing that. They needed a different debate to make the poll numbers

crater. I had a very interesting, I heard a very interesting discussion. It was on The Federalist yesterday with Molly Hemingway. And she was telling a story. She's a conservative pundit and she goes on Fox. But she was telling a story about a guy she knew in Republican more solid and reliable than Kavanaugh, but whatever. But then when they accused him of being a gang rapist, like it happened for so many people in the country, it flipped the guy entirely on Kavanaugh. It was like, I will fight to the death to make sure Kavanaugh gets confirmed and started to see Trump in a different light, too, since he fought for Kavanaugh. And she was saying this guy and others, you know, looked at Trump this time around and said, maybe that we need somebody new. Yeah, I don't like what he did. Good justices. But like, maybe it's time. And then when the indictments started piling up, he had the same flip like Trump has to win. He has to be the nominee and he has we have to get behind him because the fate of the of the republic is at

issue right now that no less than the fate of the republic. What we're turning ourselves into must be fought. And I know so many conservatives who feel that way. It's almost just bigger than Trump. Of course. I mean, you see this in Fulton County right now. It's not just Trump being indicted on a campaign donation in kind in New York and on, I don't know, tweets or something and recommending TV shows on Twitter or whatever. In Georgia, it's him and 18 co-defendants. Some people who are being brought up on charges, Jenna Ellis, I was just speaking to her an hour ago on my show.

Jenna is being arrested simply for being the president's lawyer, for providing legal counsel, which everybody last I checked is entitled to, murderers, rapists, serial killers, but not the president of the United States. For that reason, she's being charged like she was a gangster in New York under a RICO statute. 18 co-defendants, it's an expression of that meme that Trump sent around that got a lot of currency in 2020. And the meme is they're not coming for me. They're coming for you and I'm in the way.

Well, the Democrats are proving that now because they're going after everyone around this guy, the activists. They're going after the lawyers just as they went after the January 6th Midwestern grannies who they threw into solitary. Meanwhile, they let the BLM terrorists off the hook. I think ordinary people are realizing, oh, wow, even if I don't like this guy's personality, the left is not going to stop with Trump. They're already moving past Trump. Right. They need to be taught a lesson about what the country will do if they want to pick these kinds of fights. This just coming in right now as everybody is going down and turning themselves in down in Atlanta. Trump later today doing the same. Fannie Willis, the prosecutor down there,

has just proposed a trial date. Remember, she had said March of 2024, just a few months before the presidential election. She just upped it to October of 2023. This is OK. Here's what I have to say to that. OK, ready? Here's what I have to say to that. Sure, Jan. It's not going to happen. She's got 19 defendants in a RICO case. Complicated as all get out, including one against the president of the United States, the former and leading contender to become again. It's not going to happen. I don't know what she's doing, but this is an absurdity. Megan, it takes me two months to schedule dinner with my friends. You think you're going to get 19 defendants in front of you by October. Impossible. Right. That's literally two two months away. One of the defendants asked for a speedy trial and she says she wants to try them all together. That's not how this is going to work. So more on that as we get it. I want to play one other soundbite of Trump talking about Tucker was

pushing him on. I mean, it's a legitimate question. It's a scary question. But does he worry about being assassinated if he if he wins? Like they've done everything to stop him, not even if he wins. But like, you know, they impeached him. They indicted him four times. Like, does he have real fears about that? And does he have fears about a possible civil war in this country, depending on Trump's future?

And here's how he answered. It started with protests against you, massive protests, organized protests by the left, and then it moved to impeachment twice, and now indictment. I mean, the next stage is violence. Are you worried that they're going to try and kill you? Why wouldn't they try and kill you, honestly? They're savage animals. They are people that are sick, really sick. You have great people in the Democrat Party. You have great people that are Democrats. Most of the people in our country are fantastic. And I'm representing everybody. I'm not just Republican. But I've seen what they do. I've seen the lengths that they go to. But these people are sick people. These are

people that I think they hate our country. You want to know the truth? Do you think we're moving towards civil war? There's tremendous passion and there's tremendous love. You know, January 6th was a very interesting day because they don't report it properly. There was love in that. There was love and unity. And I've also never seen simultaneously and from the same people such hatred of what they've done to our country.

So do you think it's possible that there's open conflict? We seem to be moving towards something. I don't know, because I don't know what it, you know, I can say this. There's a level of passion that I've never seen. There's a level of hatred that I've never seen. And that's probably a bad combination. You don't have to take his word for it, Megan. Judge Michael Ludig, who was once a very respected conservative judge, he's now unfortunately been driven insane and spends his time playing Ed McMahon to every hack host on MSNBC. But Mike Ludig came out and he said that he predicts in 2024, secretaries of state might not list Trump on the ballot.

And I'm trying to think of the last time we had a major presidential candidate not listed on ballots in states. And it was right before the Civil War. So you might say Donald Trump is hyperbolic or Tucker Carlson is catastrophizing. Well, you're also hearing it on MSNBC from never Trump judges like Mike Ludig. This is a real fear. And as my friend Andrew Klavan pointed out just last night, you know, Abraham Lincoln was saying we have no enemies, only friends. We'll all come together.

And that was two months before Fort Sumter. Things in the political order can decay very rapidly. Not done, but just want to remind the audience, call in 833-44-MEGAN, M-E-G-Y-N, 833-44-M-E-G-Y-N. That's 446-3496. Call now. We'll get you on the line after Michael goes in a few minutes. They've been parading the mugshots of Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, his lawyers, Trump's lawyers out of Atlanta over on MSNBC like they're eating popcorn at the fair. They are loving it. And by the way, I made a comment on the lighting at the Fox News debate. My God, the lighting at the Atlanta at the Fulton County, I guess, sheriff's office is the worst. It's terrible. I mean, Rudy Giuliani, let's face it, he's been going downhill in his looks for a while here, the hair dye and all. But he looks like himself,

a mobster. The mugshot looks like he's playing to type on the RICO claim. Jenna gave a nice smile, which is probably the move. They say Trump is going to be mugshot today and they say it'll go everywhere. It'll become viral. People will have T-shirts. His supporters will have T-shirts of it to try to turn it around. I don't know. To me, I just feel sad. I feel kind of depressed that the former president of the United States is going to get fingerprinted and mugshotted and forced to turn himself in for arrest today. It's another before and after moment for all of these people megan i you know i grew up in new york in the 1990s rudy giuliani is a hero to me i

don't care what wild things he says or how much hair dye he uses that the man is a hero and to see what they've done to him to see what they've done to john eastman a very respected legal scholar very serious and wonderful man to to walk him in there like a perp. It's so disgusting. It's such an obvious political persecution to say nothing of what they've done to my friend Jenna. So I agree with you.

It's terribly sad and most sad to see a president of the United States and frankly, more importantly, leader of the opposition being brought up and mug shotted. I also agree with you. The smile is the way to go. And there's two thoughts on this. One is look defiant, look angry at this injustice. That's what Rudy was doing. That's what a number of the other defendants have been doing. I'm with Jenna and I hope Trump smiles too, because this is an unjust persecution and good people have been unjustly persecuted before. And in the evils of the Roman Empire,

you would have Christians smiling and dancing while the lions ate them. I think that they can arrest us, they can throw us in prison, they can take our mugshot, but only you can give away your joy. Yeah, I'm starting to rethink the Kim Kardashian glam team at the DMV.

That's what Rudy needed. He should have brought them to turning himself in. You know what? Smile your way through it. Hopefully they'll have the last laugh because while I don't defend the conduct, I certainly don't think these are criminal acts. It's absurdity. Michael Knowles, a pleasure as always.

Great to be with you, Megan. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show no BS no agenda and no fear