Colbert Audience Laughs at CNN, Walz's Outrageous COVID Crackdowns, and Previewing Trump vs. Harris Debate, with The Fifth Column | Ep. 861

This episode of "The Megyn Kelly Show" tackles political controversies, including media portrayal of political figures and upcoming political debates, highlighted by a discussion on CNN, COVID measures by Governor Tim Walz, and a preview of the Trump vs. Harris debate.

1. The media's portrayal can significantly reshape a political figure's public image, often glossing over complexities or flaws.
2. Governor Tim Walz's COVID-19 policies and his military service record are subjects of controversy, with implications for his credibility.
3. The Kamala Harris campaign's strategy to avoid press scrutiny is criticized, suggesting a lack of transparency.
4. There is a broad discussion on the role of truth and accountability in media and politics, especially concerning public figures' past actions and statements.
5. The episode reflects a skepticism towards mainstream media narratives, urging the audience to critically assess the information presented.

1. Introduction

Megyn Kelly introduces the topics and guests, setting the stage for a discussion on politics and media influence. Megyn Kelly: "Welcome to a fiery discussion on media manipulation and political strategy."

2. Media Portrayal and Political Image

The conversation highlights how media portrayal affects public perception of political figures. Camille Foster: "The media can completely remake an image to suit certain narratives."

3. COVID Policies and Public Response

Discusses the impact of Governor Walz's COVID-19 policies on public perception and his political future. Megyn Kelly: "Walz's COVID crackdowns have been outrageous, affecting countless lives."

4. Military Service Controversy

Analyzes Tim Walz's military service claims and the broader implications for his credibility. Michael Moynihan: "Questioning the veracity of Walz's military record is necessary given the discrepancies."

5. Avoidance of Press by Harris Campaign

Critiques the strategic avoidance of tough press questions by the Kamala Harris campaign. Matt Welch: "The Harris campaign's avoidance of the press shows a strategic, albeit concerning, pattern."

1. Question Media Narratives: Always look for multiple sources to get a fuller picture of political news.
2. Engage in Political Discourse: Discuss and share insights with peers to foster a more informed electorate.
3. Critical Consumption of News: Evaluate the motivations behind how news is presented and what might be omitted.
4. Participate in Civic Duties: Stay informed and vote based on comprehensive understanding of candidates' policies and histories.
5. Support Transparent Reporting: Encourage and support media outlets that strive for transparency and accountability in reporting.

Megyn Kelly is joined by Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, co-hosts of The Fifth Column podcast, to discuss the questions surrounding Tim Walz’s military record and “stolen valor,” how Walz is barely addressing the controversy now, how the Harris-Walz campaign is avoiding the media, Walz’s draconian COVID policies could be the policy that hurts him most in 2024, how he jailed his own citizens related to COVID crackdowns, Gen Z TikTok'ers who say Tim Walz is their new dad, the latest 2024 polls that show a positive trajectory for VP Kamala Harris, Trump’s ongoing obsession with the crowd sizes at Harris’ rallies, why Trump needs to focus his strategy more on message discipline, the media’s insane coverage of Trump’s joke that Kamala looked like Melania on the Time Magazine cover, Stephen Colbert's audience laughing when he called CNN objective, Don Lemon questioning JD Vance's sexuality on his podcast, Harris’ best and worst debate moments from 2020, what we can expect when Harris debates Trump next month, Facebook censoring "Reagan" movie ads, and more.

People

Megyn Kelly, Camille Foster, Michael Moynihan, Matt Welch

Content Warnings:

None

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Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show, live on SiriusXM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show. The 2024 presidential race continues to tighten. New reporting from Cook Political Report this morning shows VP Kamala Harris has erased former President Trump's lead in virtually all of the battleground states. There have been some dramatic swings. Gee, I wonder how that happened. How could it have been that she had duped the electorate into thinking she is better than Trump on the economy, according to the latest financial Times poll. My God, could it be the media complicit complicity in completely remaking her image into something that is not real?

That plus Governor Tim Walsh of Minnesota, her pick for BP, responding for the first time yesterday to accusations of stolen valor without, of course, actually addressing any of the claims of stolen valor valor against him. But he did let us know that he's damn proud of his service to our country. Damn proud. Joining me now to discuss it all and much more, Camille Foster, partner at Freethink journalists Michael Moynihan and Matt Welsh, editor at large for reason. Collectively, they are the hosts of the fifth column. You can find all their content and support them@wethefift.com. dot Grand Canyon University is a private christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, and they believe that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the american dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you can impact your family, friends and community.

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Private Christian, affordable visit gcU.edu guys, welcome back to the show.

Camille Foster
Hey, Megan, thanks for having us.

Michael Moynihan
Thanks for having us.

Megyn Kelly
So, little known truth. If you're in trouble, politically or otherwise, I guess you come out to respond. Just keep saying damn. And that helps erase the controversy. Damn. Damn. God, no.

Didn't happen. Damn it. Here's Tim Walz and an example of said use of the d word.

Tim Walz
These guys are even attacking me for my record of service. And I just want to say I'm proud to have served my country, and I always will be.

I signed up for the army National Guard two days after my 17th birthday.

I served for the next 20 or four years for the same reason all my brothers and sisters in uniform do we love this country.

Then in 2005, I felt the call of duty again, this time of being service to my country in the halls of Congress.

My students inspired me to run for that office, and I was proud to make it to Washington. I was a member of the Veterans affairs committee and a champion of our men and women in uniform. I'm going to say it again as clearly as I can. I am damn proud of my service to this country. And I firmly believe you should never denigrate another person's service record to anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent. I just have a few simple words.

Thank you for your service and sacrifice.

Megyn Kelly
Damn does that.

And by the way, just, you know, apropos of nothing, it's very wrong to question anybody's service at all, even if there are whole sorts of reasons like Bo Bergdahl. Doesn't matter.

You're the problem.

You're the problem.

Camille Foster
It's very bad to question anyone's service, especially mine. Please don't do that.

Michael Moynihan
Thank you.

Megyn Kelly
You're a bad person.

Michael Moynihan
I mean, I do have to say I really enjoyed his response to this litany of charges, because all the charges said, tim is not proud. And he said, no, I am proud. No, no, you're not proud. It's like, literally, that's not the question. There are lots of questions about your service, some of which I think are overblown, some of which I think that you really have to respond to. But to say, damn, I'm proud, it's like, yeah, this is not a pride parade.

Nobody said that you weren't proud. People said, you're a bit dodgy about how you've actually handled this. And, you know, I mean, the thing I think that sticks the most is the number of people from his unit who have come out and said, well, you know, he bailed before the deployment to Iraq. I think that's something that you should respond to, particularly because there's people in your unit who is not just political operative. It's not just oppo research who said that this is, you know, wasn't the best thing in the world, so respond to it.

Matt Welch
And also, that's the only thing that actually attacks his service or questions his service. Everything else is attack might be even the wrong word. It's just saying the way that he characterizes service, you know, either directly or kind of as he makes comments about using weapons in war, sounded hyperbolic or exaggerated. And so it's depictions of your service, not your actual service.

So this, you know, and this happens every single time that anyone, uh, gets questioned. Also, George W. Bush, back when Dan rather was. Was hound dogging him. And it happens all the time. They always retreat to, like, how dare you question my service?

So I understand it as a purely defensive mechanism, but that's not even, like, more than about ten or 15% of the actual criticism, which is about his depictions. Like, clean that up. And they have cleaned some of that up kind of on the sly, you know, kind of edited things post facto.

And I doubt, because their model is to not actually engage with questions from journalists or other potential critics. So I doubt that they'll address that correctly. But if you actually wanted to address it, he would address forthrightly the way that he's depicted his service in the past and how it sometimes felt a bit exaggerated.

Megyn Kelly
I just want to add one thing to that, one thing to that, because I do think, okay, fine, we. Maybe we can get away with saying, I served in war with these guns was a misspeak. But there's been a pattern. We would discuss this. There's been a pattern of him saying, I served in operation and during Freedom, but that was the Afghanistan war when he didn't. So if I'd give him one, and we're all human, but there's a pattern. But the second point I want to make is overstating your rank is a hard. No, he's been overstating his rank. I mean, people can understand this. If I came to you and said I was a colonel and I was only a private, everybody would get that. That would be absolutely egregious. You're not allowed to do that. You didn't earn it. Other guys did. They put in the time you didn't. And that's what he's doing when he says he's a retired command sergeant major, which is an e nine, and he only ever made it to e eight. They gave him that title provisionally. You served in it temporarily because he had signed a long term renewal with the National Guard, and they thought he'd. He'd earn it. But he didn't. He quit early. He never did the training that would require him to actually earn that rank, and he knows that. But for all the years from 2005 forward, he's been calling himself a retired command sergeant major, which he isn't, and he knows that. And the paperwork to prove the demotion from that temporary higher title is all over the Internet. He can't deny it. He doesn't deny it.

He's just been lying about it. And now that he's caught, it's really wrong to question somebody's service. Camille.

Camille Foster
I mean, the details of this controversy are sufficiently nebulous that it kind of helps walls a little bit because it takes a little bit to understand all of those moving parts. But I do think that the way he's handling this controversy is an excellent illustration of exactly the advantage that the Harris campaign is able to gain by completely avoiding the press. I mean, it is a very different thing. And I've heard people like Michael Steele on MSNBC suggest that, look, she doesn't need to talk to the press. She's having a conversation with the american people going from city to city giving the same canned stump stump speech, or going up on stage and effectively waving your hands around saying, I didn't do anything wrong, I'm so proud of my service. While not addressing any of the material questions about your military record or really your pattern of, if I'm going to be generous, misstatements, but misstatements that always run in the direction of overstating what you seem to do while you were in service. It's completely legitimate to ask you questions about that. What I think is far less legitimate is this obvious, like, self serving proclivity on the part of the Harris campaign to just avoid the media so that they can get away with doing stuff like this.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, they're doing this. They're taking this approach because they know they can get away with it. They know the press is not going to say, we demand answers on whether this is a case of stolen valor and get in his face everywhere to the point where he would have to give an interview over it. Right? Like get in his face like they did at JD Vance over the cat comments. It was all over the media. They were sticking mics into his face, demanding that he comment on it. So he did give several interviews here first and then elsewhere and answered the questions about it. This guy, nothing. And now today, you've got this extraordinary piece. I don't know if you guys saw this. It was posted at the federalist by someone who calls himself cynical publius. And this is a pseudonym, obviously, of a retired us army officer who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne division. And the federalist notes that they do verify the identities of those who publish with them anonymously. So they know this is a real person and this is actually a vet. But this person chooses, for reasons we don't know, not to publish under his own name. God only knows. With military guys, you know, what their backgrounds are. One never knows. Um, and whether they have safety reasons for not saying their actual names.

Here's what he says. The ignominy of master. Is it? Ignominy, ignominy, ignominy.

Matt Welch
Yeah. Who knows?

Megyn Kelly
It's a tough of master Sergeant Timothy waltz. Like, shame. The shame. Let's go with shame.

He writes that his ex account has seen the most traffic it's ever seen, as he's discussed this issue on it at lengthen.

He writes he knows firsthand that the veteran community is fired up over this issue, but he senses from the non vet community that many do not know what to think, given the competing arguments from both sides of the political aisle. It's exactly what the mainstream press wants.

They do this on every issue. That's how we began our show on Monday. Tim Waltz isn't tampon. Tim, he didn't mandate. Yes, he did.

Emain Khalif did not text XY. Yes, he did. Like, all these things they just try to like, no, it's not true. It's not true to where people just leave. Like, I guess, I don't know, whatever. Moving on.

Um. He says a command sergeant major is the senior non commissioned officer in the army battalion. He is the battalion commander's most trusted advisor. He is the standard setter for every other non commissioned and junior enlisted soldier in the battalion. All eyes are on him. He's as close to a God on earth as a soldier could ever be.

More importantly, taking on the duties of a CSM is a sacred trust. The 500 plus soldiers in your battalion are trusting you to train them and hold them to a standard where they can fight, they can win, they can survive in combat.

Those soldiers put their faith, trust and lives in your hands. I'll say it again, this is a sacred trust.

Someone asked me in good faith whether or not walls simply left one kind of service for a higher level of service. In Congress. I thought long and hard about an appropriate analogy as an answer to that question. Finally came up with one what walls did is the moral equivalent of a mother dropping off her five preteen children at an orphanage in the dead of night so she can run for Congress. Yes, it's that bad.

Waltz's problem was more than just abandoning his troops. It also reflects some sort of personal deficit in his character and makeup. For almost every professional soldier I have ever known, the idea of not going to war with his or her unit is a hateful thing.

True military leaders are like that. The most dishonorable thing imaginable is to not go to war with your comrades. But not Tim Walz. He was a battalion command sergeant major, the most senior and important NCO in a battalion, and he bailed, ran, and hid rather than deploy with his soldiers to Iraq and do his duty.

And then he finally says, I know right now I can hear my Democrat pal shouting, what about cadet bone spurs?

To which I usually say, Trump did not serve neither to Clinton nor Obama nor Biden nor Harris, but cutting and running in the face of the enemy and abandoning the troops you were sworn to lead as their senior non commissioned officer is a thousand times worse than never serving at all.

What do you guys make of that?

Matt Welch
That sounds inflated. A thousand times worse than never serving at all sounds inflated to me. It just honestly does. I don't begrudge the opinion at all and the emotion of the anonymous writer. I do begrudge the continued use, especially in the conservative side of the aisle, of latin pseudonyms for things. Can we just, like, be like, you know, Jackson Pollock or something? I don't know, something different? An american sounding pseudonym, please, next time. But a thousand times worse problem with this line of thinking, and again, that's the strong opinion of someone, and I take it seriously, is that I feel like every single time that somebody who has a military record runs for president or vice president, it doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat. There is a heightened scrutiny of the military service in a pretty partisan way. Every time I've seen, in response to this proper scrutiny of Tim Walz's record, people say, well, Tom Cotton has been overstating what he did, and JD Vance wasn't really in the theater in Iraq, which I think is even more of a bogus attack. I think JD Vance served honorably. My default, especially as someone who's on the outside, is to thank people for their service and to want there to be not, like, extra scrutiny on people who served in the military, but extra appreciation of people who served in the military. I'm not saying, like, we have that.

Megyn Kelly
Give a flower to timber liar.

Matt Welch
Yeah, I recognize that. And I'm just saying that it happens to everyone. This was my response to George W. Bush 20 years ago about deferments, which sounded plausible. At the same time, you know what? He did serve and I did not. And I, it makes me uncomfortable. I think the scrutiny is, is absolutely valid. This discussion is valid the thousand times worse to me. I can't sign off on that. As somebody who did not serve, I feel like that is adding that extra.

Megyn Kelly
That's why my reaction to you is, you know, I asked you for your reaction, but I now reject it because how do you criticize this guy? This guy. This guy fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, retired, literally. Army officer, 80 seconds criticized of pseudonyms.

Matt Welch
That's it. Megan, I made that myself clear. I don't know, but I'm not.

Megyn Kelly
You weren't one of these enlisted guys who was depending on your command sergeant major to see you through to battle. He's the guy. Fight, shoot a gun, defend yourself, make sure you live. And when it's time to actually go put those things on the line, he pieces out because he wants an office on Capitol Hill. F off. That's how a lot of these guys feel. We've spoken to them ourselves. And this guy's giving voice to the feeling of abandonment that they didn't have. To quote president Bones, who, which I totally appreciate.

Matt Welch
Megan, I'm just saying I'm not going to use stolen valor myself in saying yes. What he said is I know it to be true. I can't know that to be true. I can't because I can't feel it. That's all. That's the distinction that I'm making here.

Megyn Kelly
Is there anyone more reasonable on the panel? I'm moving on from anyone?

No, there isn't, is there? No, I can't.

Michael Moynihan
No.

Megyn Kelly
I live with Tarry and friends here today.

Michael Moynihan
I am always more reasonable than Matt Welch.

Camille Foster
Always.

Michael Moynihan
I mean, Megan, you just have to learn to come to me and then cut Matt out of certain discussions, this being one of them. No, I think on the political.

I think that on the political side of this, I mean, that piece makes something clearer, which is, let me make an analogy for you, because the average person actually doesn't understand this. And I'm one of those people like Matt. I haven't served. I don't actually understand what that means. I mean, I read enough about it and I can say, well, look, I get where they're coming from. This seems terrible, but as a political attack, I mean, I'm really interested to see how JD Vance handles this in a debate as two people who served. And I think that, as Matt said, I'm really, to put it very mildly, underwhelmed by the attacks on JD Vance for saying, well, he was a media liaisons operative in Iraq within the Green Zone. It's like if you've ever talked to a journalist that was ever in Iraq, they tell you that they were in Iraq and they were probably within the Green Zone. And that's a heroic thing. Like they served and they were a war correspondent. It's like afford him the same kind of honor in the sense that nobody wants to be in the Green Zone in Iraq. It's not a nice place to be. But I just think that when it comes to the political attacks here and whether or not this will work, I think it depends on how they respond to this. And that is how. Cause Tim Waltz, Kamala Harris are not sitting down for the scrutiny of an interview, which I don't even suspect they would get from somebody at NBC or CB's or any of them. If they sit down, they're not going.

Megyn Kelly
To give kid glove treatment over this.

Michael Moynihan
They would give them kid glove treatment on this. But Matt brings up George W. Bush. It's like, remember all of that and remember Dan rather and remember the phony documents and what happened as a result of that? Well, Dan rather had to kind of disappear for a bit, and then they made a Hollywood movie about it called truth, in which who was actually scammed by fake documents becomes the hero of a Hollywood movie. So we see in the long run, depends on who you're questioning and what party they're in. But I think that the 20, just as a sort of a political analyst, shall we say, what you have to do from the Trump campaign is this stuff is complicated, as that piece recognizes. Trying to explain this is analogous to this situation because most people who serve don't understand that. Is that what other people will see? WashinGTOn, 24 years of service is a lot, you know, and, you know, maybe he left at this particular time, but that's a long time to serve. So I think that's what they have to deal with because, you know, as you point out at the beginning of the show, Megan, the poll numbers for the Harris campaign keep on going in the direction that is very beneficial to the Harris campaign. And I think that's for two reasons. One is not talking to the media and the media not being very exercised about this, not even being upset about it, and saying, yeah, we're going to play along with this, you know, and, you know, not answering any questions, and the complicity of people in the media who are nothing, pushing hard in this stuff, they will push hard on a fake JD Vance coach story and, you know, repeat that, make jokes about it.

But this is not a question that they're asking.

Camille Foster
Yeah, I can.

Megyn Kelly
There's another thing about Tim Wallace's statement where he's like, I. You know, I. And I thank you for your service. And I think JD Vance for his service. He said, I'm like, that's great. You can thank JD Vance for serving. There's no controversy over JD Vance service. He enlisted in the Marine Corps. He went to Iraq when he was called and served his country honorably. And that was that. By the way, I love your newfound respect for JD Vance, who you smeared literally days ago from the stump in your very first public appearance as the VP nominee with this couch lie. So forgive me if I'm not really buying your all dignity and respect as owed to JD Vance, because you haven't been living that in your seven days as the VP nominee. Go ahead, Camille.

Camille Foster
Yeah, I mean, look, I'll be very succinct. Clearly, the sofa fetish stuff, the drag story that Drudge has been trying to get to trend for a couple of days now, like these, just to bring that to everybody.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah. You know, the sofa fetish, that's a lie, right? That's the lie we're talking about. And there's a picture. We mentioned this yesterday of JD Vance in. I don't even know if you call that drag, but he was wearing a woman's wig and a skirt at some sort of a law school party.

I don't know if it was a costume. I don't know what it was. They said it was on Halloween. So in any event, go ahead.

Camille Foster
Yeah, well, I mean, these days, that shouldn't be a deficit for him at any rate. Anyways, it's not a defect in the candidates just fine. It's how things are done now.

But at any rate, I do think that there is something about walls that is even more damning than the kind of military service questions. The military service questions are clearly going to play with a particular demographic. If you've served and you have strong opinions about this, that might be a deal breaker for you. But for me, when I look at walls, the thing that stands out to me is the complete abject failure of leadership during the pandemic, and specifically around maintaining law and order during that summer of 2020. He was an absolute, abysmal failure. That alone ought to be disqualifying. The thing I am most astonished by with respect to this pic is that the Democrats seem to have chosen someone who is the absolute epitome of failure with respect to the thing that they are most ignominiously remembered for. With respect to the last, like, ten years of democratic governance and leadership nationally, I can't think of a single thing that is more damning for Democrats than the fact that they, quite frankly, in my opinion, were very clearly on the wrong side of those issues. Setting up bail funds for the people who were protesting, but that necessarily were going to help people who were doing all manner of awfulness in the streets, terrorizing Americans at a time when they were already very afraid of this global pandemic. I think that alone is disqualifying where walls is concerned.

Megyn Kelly
I think the biggest reason you're seeing Kamala's numbers go up notwithstanding this scandal, is because he's not at the top of the ticket. I think if he were at the top of the ticket, this would be affecting the numbers, because even though we're totally divided as a country politically, military families matter and they run the spectrum on their politics. Um, there are many Democrat military families who would recoil if presented with these facts. And maybe they have been, maybe they haven't, depending on which news outlet they watch. But he's not the guy. He's not really running to be the commander in chief. She is. And it's his scandal, not hers yet. You know, I mean, we'll see. Like, if this grows and grows and grows, it's going to become her. Scandal notwithstanding. We've got three months to go where you're going to see ads like this one. This was not put together. Bye, team Trump. It was put together by a guy named Western Lensman who does the GOP ads, these, like, of his own, as far as I can tell, on Twitter, on X. And they're always very good. I don't know why somebody doesn't hire him from Team Trump, because this guy's ads are always amazing. Here's his latest on the stolen valor claims.

Tim Walz
Tim Walz wants to be a heartbeat.

Megyn Kelly
Away from commander in chief. But Tim Walz has lied about his military record for years. He's used the rank that he never.

Michael Moynihan
Achieved in order to advance his political career.

Megyn Kelly
Walls lied repeatedly about his rank.

Tim Walz
Retired command sergeant major, retired command sergeant major, command sergeant major, retired command sergeant.

Megyn Kelly
Major Walz lied about being in combat.

Tim Walz
Can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war, that I carried in war.

Megyn Kelly
Walz dodged deployment by retiring when he knew his national Guard unit was going to Iraq.

Matt Welch
Everybody knew they were going to train and go. The warning order basically stated it.

Michael Moynihan
And two months later, after he knew.

Matt Welch
It, that's when he retired.

Megyn Kelly
Walls disparaged Minnesota National Guard soldiers.

Tim Walz
Mayor said, I request the National Guard. We're going to have massively trained troops. No, you're going to have 19 year olds who are cooks.

Megyn Kelly
That same Minnesota National Guard that he disparaged, unlike Walz, served heroically in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tim Walz is not fit to be anywhere near the office of commander in chief.

Walls is guilty of stolen valor.

Michael Moynihan
He abandoned us. You know, I mean, what the hell kind of leader does that?

Megyn Kelly
I mean, pretty effective.

Michael Moynihan
MOYNIHAN it's a good ad, particularly because, you know, I pay very, very close attention to this stuff. And until I saw that, and I had seen that ad a few days ago, I think, on twitter. And that last bit about the National Guard is, I think, really, really bad. I mean, that is amazingly insulting. It's not only the National Guard, it's the national Guard of your own damn state. And you're saying they're 19 year old cooks who don't know what the hell they're doing. It's like, well, you should have called them in during the rioting because the 19 year old cooks would have done a lot better than the people that you deployed because you told the police to stand down and the police station was overrun and told people to abandon the police station, et cetera. Yeah, I think that's an effective ad. And look, I mean, I'm always mystified by the lack of smart and good political ads. I mean, when Joe Biden was running, I remember saying on the fifth column, and this was like a year and a half ago, saying that if you wanted to have an effective ad, somebody should just take it upon themselves to put together all the times that Joe Biden didn't know where the hell he was and didn't know what the hell he was saying and was just getting alternative. And that's, of course, what ends up dislodging him from the ticket is the debate. But yeah, I mean, those kind of an ad like that, I think, is extremely effective because it just kind of strings it all together and makes, I mean, particularly the rank stuff.

And I would say the one bit the National Guard stuff was new to me, but stringing the rank stuff together is like, well, you know, that that's not true. I mean, I can accept that he misspoke and weapons of war, in war, et cetera.

That is five times in a row, six times in a row, saying that this is your rank when it's not your rank. I mean, come on.

Megyn Kelly
But I think to Camille's book, he endorsed a book saying he served in Afghanistan and, like, stood up there and promoted it. Didn't, didn't say I didn't serve. Nancy Pelosi introduced him, like, same. Didn't. Correct. You know, these military guys, you guys, they're constantly, if you overstate what they did, they will interrupt you and say, no, actually, in support of Afghanistan. I never went to Afghanistan. That's what they'll do for their brothers in arms.

Michael Moynihan
And one quick thing to interrupt, Matt, is that our friends, former congressman Peter Meyer, who himself served in Iraq, said, look, I think this is maybe a bit overstated, these attacks on Tim Wells. And he tweeted his stuff as he was looking into it. And just look at Peter's tweets. They get progressively more concerned in saying, well, okay, now there's this other example. This is actually looking kind of bad. And you see somebody who actually served in the military and served honorably and is quite proud of his service, seeing, saying, well, actually, I thought that perhaps that this was just a few things taken out of context. He said, you don't always correct somebody when they're introducing you and they're giving the wrong rank. And then as Peter was actually looking at this stuff in kind of live tweeting it, it's pretty interesting to see his opinion of it change.

Megyn Kelly
The eyes open. Go ahead, Matt.

Matt Welch
I just want to reiterate what Camille was saying. I do think that where walls will be most vulnerable is not the military stuff, but rather his glaring 2020 record, because that will remind people to the extent of which this is going to be discussed, and it will be, it will remind people of the very worst things that they remember in their own states, in their own lives about 2020, which was incredible.

Authoritarianism in many states, particularly democratic run states, mean dystopian in Walz's case of having a tip line to rat out your neighbors for being insufficiently locked downish. Holy cow.

It is like absolutely ineffectively dealing with and sending out crazy messages about the violence in the streets that happened after George Floyd. And that's literally his state. So people can remember that and the double standards that come with it. And then also, along with the COVID stuff comes this really kind of hysterical anti free speech element of using the patna. That's probably not how you pronounce that of science.

Megyn Kelly
Tina. That one we know.

Matt Welch
Thank you.

Michael Moynihan
Wow.

Matt Welch
Mispronunciations today, giving Camille a chance to shine, but of saying, oh, you know, the science says that you're wrong and you need to have your speech suppressed. Everyone remembers those things. We had a guy call in on our Zoom call, monthly Zoom call with our listeners from Minnesota. He could barely get through the sentence, so, still angry. He was fuming at how walls and his words destroyed his family or Covid authoritarianism, shut down his business, screwed up his kids. It's bad. And so, I mean, 2020 is this kind of PTSD thing in the american psyche. And Democrats still haven't learned the lesson about this at all. They haven't learned the lesson of why Glenn Youngkin is the governor of Virginia, which used to be a blue state. It was because of their horrid, horrid Covid governance. Walls is a poster child for that, along with Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and the fact that Kamala Harris felt like, well, I'm going to do a sop to the left rather than a sop to the majority of Americans who remember this and remember it really badly and don't require much to get angry.

Megyn Kelly
All over again here. Your guy on the fifth column was not the only one. More and more Minnesotans are coming out to say, this guy destroyed my life during the COVID lockdowns with his overreaction, his panicked overreaction. And I do actually think this is all part of a theme, to be honest with you. It's like when the going got tough, he ran. He cut and ran on his army national Guard team. When the going got tough in Minneapolis, he froze. He didn't send in the National Guard. Why? Because he thought there are a bunch of loser cooks who couldn't get the job done. Same, same units, you know, who went to Iraq and Afghanistan, as the ad points out, some three of whom trained under him and were killed. Okay? But whatever, he froze. Then Covid came. He didn't see through the bullshit. He reacted in a panicked, fear stricken way, shutting down businesses at the drop of a hat and then jailing his own citizens when they didn't comply with his orders, including a grandmother who is out there. This clip is making the rounds. She spoke to Fox Digital about what he did to her. Listen to this.

Lisa Hansen
You know, we're just law abiding people, like most Americans are. I went to court for the criminal charges and for the civil charges, there have been. I've incurred tens of thousands in court fees. In legal fees, there have been upwards near 100,000 levied against me in fine. This is a story that America needs to hear that Tim Walls is not some cuddly, joyful coach. Liked all the things that the MSMs are calling him or some of the things that they're calling him. That is not who this man is. This man would like to take your rights away. He will take your rights away because what happened to me could have happened to anybody. What happened to me will happen to you if we don't get things turned around in our country. While I was in jail, I missed out on Christmas with my family. I missed out on my wedding anniversary, and I also missed out on the birth of one of my grandchildren. So let America know. You do not want Tim walls as vice president. You do not want tyranny at this level.

Megyn Kelly
Hmm. Just a little background on her, you guys.

Her name is Lisa Hansen, mother of eight, grandmother of 18.

She said beside a speeding ticket. She's always been a law abiding citizen. She's the owner of interchange wine and coffee bistro outside of Minneapolis. Opened around 2012, was eventually forced to close after being harassed by Tim Walls and jailed and subjected to very high legal fees. She initially complied with the shutdown order in March of 2020, but then she reopened in December of 2020 as so many Americans wrestled with, because this is how they pay their bills, this is how they live. She has a family to support. She reopened, and this is all, you know, it's like March. She was closed for the better part of a year. December, she opens back up, and within 24 to 48 hours, she said, quote, the state came down on us with a vengeance event, eventually bringing about a half dozen civil and criminal cases against her. She was convicted in December 2021 on misdemeanor charges and served 60 days in jail.

That's criminals justice.

Camille Foster
Yeah, I had not seen that before, and that is a very potent indictment, I think. And it's interesting, I can almost all already hear, like, the defenses that some people would offer. Oh, you know, it was a very uncertain time. They didn't know exactly where the threat was coming from or what to do. So a lot of decisions were made very quickly and in the heat of the moment, and sometimes those decisions weren't always great. The difficulty for walls is that in his recounting of events or in his addressing his failures, he has been, so far as I'm concerned, insufficiently thoughtful and careful.

He doesn't seem to express nearly enough regret. Someone talked to him about learning loss wherever children were concerned in his state. And the response was something like, well, what about all the people who died?

Megyn Kelly
And he denied it. He denied learning loss. He rejected that.

Matt Welch
He said that he learned Zoom. They learned Zoom. It was great.

Camille Foster
And he, like Governor Cuomo, has defended this policy of putting people into nursing homes who were sick, and again, has defended those policies as reasonable. There were critics of those policies at the time. I think there's a great many things for people to be concerned about, and the fact that it was some years ago doesn't matter. It is certainly still fair game to have conversations about Donald Trump's conduct after January 6. Democrats will do that. It will be a question during the debates. And in much the same way, so far as I'm concerned, there ought to be very serious and sober questions about Walz's conduct and whether or not it is something that ought to be taken into serious account when people are going to the ballot box.

Megyn Kelly
But here's what you have instead. You have, he's folksy. He's the football coach, he's the teacher. He's your dad. He's your daddy, which is working with a certain segment of the population. I'll give you one example. Here is some gal named Pamela on TikTok.

Michael Moynihan
He represents the dad that a lot of liberal women lost. A lot of us had moderate to conservative, educated, sensible fathers that we lost to Rush Limbaugh, that we lost to Fox News, that we lost to Donald Trump. And the cult of conservatism that has grown and grown and grown has driven a wedge between millennial women and her fathers. And seeing Tim Wall, seeing that he was an educated conservative, that saw the party getting weird and changed his mind, shifted his mind. He's just chill and normal and kind and sensible. He has empathy. He represents all of those qualities that were stripped away from my normal father by this cult. And it makes me sad to see him because I think, what kind of person would my dad have been if he didn't fall victim to this nightmare?

Matt Welch
Don't do this.

Michael Moynihan
Don't do that. Oh, my God, man. I'm on her dad's side.

Camille Foster
Good lord.

Michael Moynihan
If that was. If that was what I was dealing with, a crying person on TikTok talking about how Tim Walls is the second coming. Good lord.

Yeah. By the way, this is a sort of, I mean, I always talk about this, of the kind of ideological dementia that kind of, you know, takes over certain people at certain ages. And I just want to say, yesterday I had a conversation with somebody who, not somebody I know, not political, and said they've lost their mother to Rachel Maddow.

It's bi directional. I mean, people who get very political late in their life, it's an incredible thing that people think that this is your mom's life.

Megyn Kelly
You haven't lost her.

Camille Foster
Yes.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah. It's not like the Taliban has kidnapped your father or something.

Megyn Kelly
That's how they're making Rush Limbaugh sound like he was like a jihadi going out there taking out all these.

Michael Moynihan
I don't agree with my father anymore, so I need a new one. It's like, all right, if you're that shallow, then great.

A couple of things about this. To the point, by the way, about COVID listening to Donald Trump talk to Elon Musk. Elon Musk at some point suggested, let's start a blue ribbon commission to just look at government spending and how government wastes money. And Donald Trump said, I can get behind that. I have been saying for a very long time now that if we want to have some commission, because we have a lot of commissions on Capitol Hill, whether they're about misinformation or about technology and about Facebook, et cetera, there has been none about COVID And I think that if we had some sort of truth and Reconciliation Commission, because we actually know a lot. Now, Camille is also right to say that, yes, we were kind of groping in the dark, but we did know quite a bit at the time.

Matt Welch
By December 2020, certainly we knew a.

Michael Moynihan
Hell of a lot more, 100%.

Matt is absolutely right. By December 2020. And, like, if you go back and listen to fifth column, we were really right on a lot of this stuff. But by that point, you had a number of people that were wrongly being called dissidents. They were just people looking at the numbers. I mean, we saw the numbers recently from Sweden, which was no lockdowns, no mandated masking. Schools stayed open. People said it's this murderous, genocidal country. And we've just seen in, I think, a Lancet study or it was some medical journal that came out, the study that said, look, they did better than almost anyone in Europe. I think they did do better than everybody in Europe. So go back, look at this stuff. So then we can actually have the record here because people don't know. We have not looked backwards on this because it was a traumatic period. People want to forget about it. But at the time of the 2024 election is our first election since. Right there's a lot to reckon with at this point. We know a lot now. And I wish we had somebody or some commission or some did say, this is actually what happened. These are the numbers. How many kids died?

Megyn Kelly
I don't think it would.

Michael Moynihan
I don't think it would either.

Megyn Kelly
But enough truth tellers come out, talk about it. You know, look at Jay Bhattacharya and, you know, his group and doctor Vinay Prasad, doctor Marty Makary. There have been a lot of real. I know I'm missing tons. Truth tellers who are not even arguably partisans. These are doctors, medical professionals from the most elite institutions that the left should respect and would respect if they were saying something different.

They, they just get tuned out, they.

Michael Moynihan
Get silenced, they get sick, and they're framed as partisans. Megan. I mean, that's the important.

Megyn Kelly
Anything that they said that was pleasing to the four of us would be rejected as manipulated, not trustable.

Matt Welch
Speaker one, we got to start somewhere.

I don't disagree with your pessimism on it, Megan, but, like, there, you know, Richard Feynman once led a very good commission after the first space shuttle blew up. It is possible to reach for that muscle memory again and I begin some kind of rebuilding process. I wouldn't look to Washington to solve this or any other problem necessarily. But, like, as a country, we need to actually insist on this. And this is one thing that makes me actually angry about Kamala Harris's pick of Tim walls. She didn't have to pick him. She didn't have to pick someone that had a really lousy 2020 record. Josh Shapiro doesn't have a really lousy 2020 record. Wasn't really an office in 2020.

JD Vance doesn't.

Megyn Kelly
He's so jewish. That's the thing, is so very jewish.

Michael Moynihan
You're being sarcastic, right, Megan?

Megyn Kelly
Sarcasm. We all know what happened to poor Joshua. I was listening to commentary. You know, the guys on commentary, and they're very pro Israel, and the three hosts are jewish. And they're like, we all literally know three people named Joshapiro.

But it's not really. It's about. It's not about Josh Shapiro. It's about his I religion. Go ahead.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah, well, I will pick this up and say that to Matt's point. I mean, you do have to start somewhere. And I think that if we had. I mean, you can't hide bodies, right? I mean, you can. We had those extrapolations. Do you remember the extrapolations at the beginning that said, you know, 2 million people will die, et cetera? I mean, if you talk to people now, how many kids died? How many kids under ten, under twelve died of COVID I don't think most people know because, I mean, if you had a sort of blue ribbon bipartisan commission. Yeah, I absolutely, Megan, share your skepticism of this and they'll find a way. But you can't lie about the fact that kids weren't dying of COVID during the time. It's like everyone said that this was happening. They're transmitting it to teachers. They could. And we have global examples of this not happening. And I wish that people knew that. Do I expect that people would if there was a commission? No, but I think it would be the step in the right direction because there has been.

Megyn Kelly
Even if they won't listen, I will.

Michael Moynihan
Say, yeah, we need an option that.

Megyn Kelly
We'Ve done on this show since we launched in September of 2020. So, I mean, right in the mix of all of that, one of the ones that stands out, right? When people say, like, which ones stand out? And I always say with a fifth column, obviously is number one.

But then I say, after all the interviews with those guys, short list, that really stands out. And this one woman whose name is Lindsey Graham, who goes by Patriot Barbie, is one of the ones that really stands out because Patriot Barbie wound up at the Capitol on January 6 and she came out, we didn't even have video back then. This is just an audio show at the time. And she explained, like, how she got there. Right. Because I think that's one of the very interesting things about J six. What drove the different people there to do the different things that happened that day. And there was a wide array. I mean, I actually know some people who went there or just, just normal Republicans who were upset and they wanted to express their support of Trump and they didn't go in the Capitol or any, you know, and so there's that end and then there are people who hurt cops, which is a very different end. But then there's such an interesting spectrum in between.

And I would say Patriot Barbie is in between. She did not go in the Capitol, but she's like a normal mom living in Oregon in the lead up to that day who got completely effed by the COVID policies she built from one into a chain of businesses that she owned, stores, storefronts, like they were salons where you could get your hair done. I think she might have had a couple of gyms in there and she didn't have like 20. I think she had like eight. But she built it by herself. And she had just had a baby. Right. So it's a new mom.

And here's just a little bit of what she explained happened to her.

Lisa Hansen
I received a notice from Oregon health authority that if I didn't shut down and cease service, that I would be issued a $50,000 fine or $5,000 a day plus a class C misdemeanor.

Megyn Kelly
They released the full power of the organ state government.

Lisa Hansen
They did, yeah.

Camille Foster
And then.

Lisa Hansen
And this is the most, most shocking. And this is, you know, kind of what shocked America. And it still shocks me. But. But three days after I opened, Oregon's child protective services showed up at my home, and they interviewed my child without me in the room. They did a full inspection of my home based on a complete, complete fabrication of a report to me. It was like they tried everything to shut me down and intimidate me. And the last thing that they were going to do was come after my family.

Camille Foster
Wow.

Megyn Kelly
Right? So this is why you look back, Camille, and you think, I don't know if a commission gets it done or what, but you. I agree with Matt's point about why would she pick this guy who's, like, the poster boy for the COVID overreach that actually really hurt a lot of people? Patriot Barbie was in Oregon. But I played you the videotape of the woman who was in Minnesota. And there's so many. There are thousands more. By the way, the mainstream media has zero interest in discussing how somebody like Patriot Barbie chose to go on j six. It's just. You're effing bad. No fly list, no book contracts, no reprieve. Jail, jail, jail. No. No interest in discerning, you know, between, on that scale, what you did. It's just all so unjust.

Camille Foster
Yeah, I mean, I'd say very quickly just that the reason why we talk about these kinds of things, this kind of existential, extraordinary circumstance is that's precisely the kind of thing that you ought to be thinking about when you're electing someone to office.

You're voting for them for precisely those moment when the shit is hitting the fan and everything seems out of control and we're on the precipice of something dangerous.

Can I trust your judgment? In those moments, are you likely to adhere to principle, even when it's difficult?

During that early period of the pandemic, if people just wanted the opportunity to fight for their business? I can remember retailers, like, small retailers close to where I was staying in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, who had hardened their facilities. They put up plexiglass all on their own. They were doing everything they could to both keep their customers safe and keep their businesses alive. And so many of them failed in trying to do that. But at least in some places, you had a shot at trying to do it without having to worry that the local governing authorities would come in and try to destroy your life for simply trying to save your own life, for save your own mechanism for putting food on the table for your family.

And again, I just think this is an urgently important matter, and it is the sort of thing like the questions about the election after the race in 2020, it would be totally appropriate and reasonable for us to just have sober, not at all partisan conversations about what happened then, to try and address people's concerns and fears that would do a great deal to bring the country together, which is a sentiment that I certainly hear politicians express all the time without seeing much evidence that they're actually interested in that particular outcome.

Megyn Kelly
But here's the problem. So, I mean, as I said, the left won't accept it. You know, they've got skin in the game. They were wrong about virtually everything. And so this would really require them to come to the table willing to admit that, and they're not. And that dovetails perfectly into our discussion, which is, that's one of the reasons she doesn't care about his Covid overreaches. She was doing the same thing with her boss from the White House. They were in favor of all of those draconian measures, and she still would be. I mean, I think if we had, like, Omicron's on the loose again, Kamala Harris be donning that mask tomorrow. So would tim walls. They'd be happy to do this to us again. And the left, I mean, I lived with these people. You guys still do. In Manhattan on the Upper west side, it was Covid central with their masks that read vote they. Those are the people who are rushing to support her. They don't care about stolen valor. They don't care about COVID overreach. They don't care about not calling in the National Guard on rioters burning down police precincts.

You tell me, what do they care about? Why don't they care about all those things?

Michael Moynihan
I think that particularly on the COVID stuff. Let's start with that one, because Matt says, rightfully, why would you pick somebody who is the poster boy for government overreach and kind of lockdown authoritarianism as your VP candidate? I think that the answer to that is pretty boringly simple is that they don't think it was wrong. They don't think that they are wrong to this day, Megan, if you go to the upper west side of the Upper east side, and those people, many of whom, by the way, are still masked, I can attest to this. You see it quite frequently on subway. You can see people outside. It's absolutely bonkers to me. But they don't think that there was anything weird about locking down schools, despite the fact all of the evidence suggests that not only was it harmful, but that it was unnecessary. Because what you do when you reframe these things. And I think that's why it's important that people like John Ioannidis and Jay Bhattacharya, both from Stanford, were rechristened as these right wing lunatics. Is that any questions that you had about COVID Where in their mind some version of plandemic, some version of Bill Gates is putting microchips in you with the vaccine? There's a small, small number of people that have these views. And these are people that say you can't amplify these horrible voices. You can't platform people. They amplified all of these people to suggest that any opposition to this was some sort of lunacy bordering on conspiracy theory. Was there some of that?

Of course. But the majority of it were people like the guy that you had on people who wanted to keep their businesses open, people wanted to keep their kids in school. It's not complicated, but they make it complicated because they know they were wrong.

Megyn Kelly
Who still haven't, haven't been heard by them, and they're not interested in hearing from them. That's why we have Tim Walz and Kamala Harris on this ticket. Stand by. Be right back. Quick break. If you're tired of the same old coffee from those mega corporations pushing their woke agendas, listen up. It's time to take a stand and support a brand that truly embodies american values. And that's blackout coffee. They stand with hardworking Americans who believe in family, faith, and freedom. They roast some of the most incredible coffee you will ever taste using only premium grade beans, roasted and shipped to you within 48 hours. And for the cold brew fans, Blackout coffee is excited to announce the launch of their two new ready to drink cold brew coffee latte options. Don't settle for less. Make the switch to blackout coffee. Head on over to blackoutcoffee.com mk. Or just use the code mk when you're checking out to get 20% off your first order. That's blackoutcoffee.com mk. The code again is mk. Join the movement. Taste the difference. Remember, with every sip, you are supporting a brand that stands for America. Be awake, not woke.

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Megyn Kelly
Okay, guys, so the polls are not going in the right direction for Team Trump. And I understand that Trump's defenders would like to say they're oversampling democrats and all that. Look, it's across the board. I mean, he's fallen in left leaning polls. He's fallen in right leaning polls. The Cook Political report report takes the best polls and tries to make projections based on its best data. And they'll do that if it's good for Trump, just like they've been doing for Trump over the past few months, or if it's good for Kamala. And right now, it's good for her. Very good. This is reality. And the Trump team needs to deal with reality if it wants to win. There is zero purpose served in pretending that reality is other than what it is. This, there's three months to go, so there's time to adjust and make different choices. But I don't understand the people who are like, it's not happening. It's not. Oh, all right. If that's going to be your strategy, good luck.

Here's what cook is showing.

It's a swing state project survey from May overall in May, or it's a swing state project survey in May. It showed the Trump overall led Biden by three points. Today overall, Trump is behind Harris by one point. All right, so it's been a four point swing in her favor. And listen to these swings state to state. In Arizona, there's been a five point swing in the Democrats favor. Trump was up three. Now Harris is up to 48 46. Georgia, they're tied. Trump was up three. So it's a three point swing. Michigan, Harris is up three. That's a five point swing because Trump had been up to Nevada, Trump is up three, but he was up nine.

So that's a six point swing in favor of the Democrats. But still Trump up a bit. North Carolina, Harris, North Carolina. Harris up one. Trump was up seven.

That's an eight point swing in the Democrats favor. And if you don't believe me, me. Donald Trump is going to North Carolina and holding a rally either tonight or tomorrow. And they go where they know there's work to be done. I mean, he wouldn't be going there. He's not going to Oklahoma. He's going there because he's seeing what we're seeing. That's good. He's going there. Pennsylvania. Harris up one. Trump had been up three. So it's a four point swing. Wisconsin. Harris is up three. Trump and Biden had been tied. Why? Cook political report says Harris's success in consolidating the democratic base, which had been unenthused about Joe Biden, increased support among independent voters.

56% say she represents a chance to turn the page on the Trump Biden era.

Her favorability rating has gone up considerably. It has improved by 13 points. We all know why. Way, uh, the issues that she still is laboring under, she is seen as too liberal to govern.

According to 53%. 49% say she's too unserious a person to govern this country effectively.

And the problems for Trump, 59% of the battleground state voters are concerned he's too focused on personal retribution. 57% think he is too erratic and out of control to govern effectively.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah, predictable.

Megyn Kelly
Jerry for the day, by the way. Can we just put that down and the transcript person can just write down long Cy.

Michael Moynihan
Exhale.

Matt Welch
Megan exhales if Trump spends more time complaining about depictions of the crowd size at Kamala Harris rallies, that's really going to seal the deal for him. It's going to turn it, that's going to get the swing state voters.

Not just that, but he's still audience.

Megyn Kelly
He's claiming that the crowds, the big crowds outside of her airplane and elsewhere are AI generated. And, and it's just, there's just no proof of that. I mean, like, it was a conspiracy theory. Theory somebody started. There were all these other pictures from people who are actually there that showed the huge, like, are they all in on it? Is that, like, everyone who showed up got an AI filter that they put. What? Okay, so stupid. Just focus on the damn border. Sorry, go ahead, Matt.

Matt Welch
He's been spinning out pretty, like, obviously, the last couple of weeks, we have talked about previously together, about how there's been whole stretches where his campaign has been disciplined and smart, including by keeping him away from cameras and stuff, when that was a useful thing to do. And it just hasn't been that the last couple of weeks. And he's actually reminding people of the things of the reasons why he so far has never shown he's able to get even 47% of the popular vote in this country when he still, he's still on about stop the steal and, you know, million of illegal immigrants voting and things that he's been saying for a really long time, but people kind of forget about. But he's playing those greatest hits in addition to ones that actually might have a chance of persuading swing state voters. There's an element, there's an x factor that I want us to consider a little bit, which is that Robert Kennedy junior is being, starting to be disqualified from ballots. It started in New York, which doesn't really matter as an individual state. But the New York case, which is based on him not being declared a residence of New York, could make him vulnerable to be kicked off of states, as many as 18. It won't be that many, but they will challenge because they'll say that he's a resident of California and that his vice president, Shultig Nicole Shanahan, is a resident of California and that's therefore illegal. And so they'll try to kick him off the ballots. What's interesting is that Democrats have been leading that charge, which made sense back when Joe Biden was the nominee, because when Joe Biden was the nominee, Kennedy was pulling more from Democrats than from Trump.

But now that Kamala Harris is the nominee, and as you mentioned, Megan, she's getting pretty good bump on Trump and independence, she's pulled a lot of third party voters to come back home to her side.

So now Kennedy in the race pulls more from Trump than pulls more from Kamala Harris just at the snapshot that we're in. So by trying to kick him off of the ballot, particularly in swing states, the Democrats might be doing a dumb thing even as we speak.

Megyn Kelly
Matt, who are you going to vote for if he gets bumped off the ballot?

Like your whole plan?

Matt Welch
Listen.

MEGYN Kelly, I will tell you that people from New York tend to love to lecture the rest of the country, particularly Georgia, which had to suspend the major league all star game or major league ball star game, left Georgia over their, you know, horrible rules that have subvert democracy. New York is going to be the only state in the country if this latest ruling is upheld in the upper courts. And it might not be, but it would be the only state in the country with just two printed names on the ballot. Do not lecture the rest of the country slash New York state and New York people about democracy. You are horrible at it.

Megyn Kelly
Wow, look at Matt defending RFK J and his ballot access. Good for you. Principal won't actually get your vote.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah, go ahead. He didn't answer the question, Megan.

So we can just imagine who he's going to vote for, the american party or something, right?

A few things about this is that, you know, I think it was on your show, Megan, when I'm a listener to your show, unlike the two other guys who just kind of show up here. And I think you have, I think it was a clip of Peter Navarro. When you have somebody like Navarro who says rock ribbed a maga, I mean, went to jail for Donald Trump to not testify on what he was doing on January 6, coming onto I can't remember what news program, but saying, look.

Megyn Kelly
He was on Steve, what are you doing?

Michael Moynihan
It was on Steve Bannon's forum, who's also in jail. No, it's like, what are you doing? Remain focused here on a couple of issues. I mean, when you see these numbers kind of a predictable bump in some ways and then other ways, you're just completely shocked by them, particularly the poll that shows it even close with Kamala Harris on the economy. I mean, she's up a point or so in some of these.

Megyn Kelly
That's an outlier. It was a Financial Times poll, but is obviously an outlier. But it's amazing that it even got generated.

Michael Moynihan
It's an outlier that there shouldn't be an outlier poll on this issue. There's no way, no matter how you frame the question, should she be even within five points. But she is right. And this is a very simple thing. I mean, when Donald Trump was disciplined during that debate, it was amazingly beneficial to him in the short term. It was actually worse for him in the long term because Joe Biden dropped out. And now the democratic nominee is competitive. But that kind of discipline when you don't like he's going to North Carolina because of those numbers, he's going to have a rally. I think the rally model is pretty played out at this point. You're talking to committed Trump people. I have been to so many of them. And I'll tell you what happens. Every time I go, I laugh my ass off because the guy's really funny in his like, you know, I tell people to go and look up what he said about John Tester recently, which I was like weeping over because it was so funny. But that's not what the party needs right now. What they need is him to be very disciplined on a couple of issues. You, so I think you or Matt said economy and immigration, if you stick on immigration. Hammer. Hammer. Hammerhead summer, not on crowd sizes. And keep in mind that when Donald Trump won in 2016, when he won, he was disputing the crowd size during the inauguration. It's this constant obsession with this stuff. It makes him look small, and it's something that we don't need from a presidential candidate right now. I think it's also true.

And one final comment on this. I've talked to a lot of Republicans that I know who are voting for Trump, and I think that there's a lot of desire amongst them, too, to turn the page on the Biden Trump era. And they would love to see the back end of it because there's just too many unforced errors. There's not enough.

No, no. With Trump, they're like, they'll vote for him, but they're just tired of all of this and want a little more discipline in the party. So, like, they're not going to vote for her. But I think that there is an overall feeling if that's infecting people that I know who are actually maga types and that will vote for them. I mean, I just imagine what it's like for the rest of the country.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, we, I just think, look, Trump is who he is. And I've said yesterday he was, he's too rambly. He's not, like, hitting the points to where it's, like, digestible. And the people at home know, like, China, the wall, the way he did in 16, that he was getting away with that when he was across from Joe Biden, it was just like, well, look at the alternative. Now, the moment requires message discipline. It requires it, and not for nothing, but Trump's freedom likely requires it because these lunatics are still determined to put him in jail. I mean, Judge Marshawn is going to have a hearing on whether the immunity ruling by the Supreme Court saves Trump from actually receiving a penalty or seeing that conviction through in New York. But he, you know, this guy, he might say it doesn't save Trump. And on September 18, he's supposed to sentence the guy.

Jack Smith could still find a way to refile those j six charges if Trump doesn't win. And I don't trust these Democrats to abandon their charges against Trump if Kamala Harris wins, I think they really want Trump in jail. I don't think it will be enough for them that Trump loses. So anyway, there are all sorts of reasons why Trump really needs to get serious about listening to the very smart advisors around him when it comes to messages, discipline. Go ahead, Camille.

Camille Foster
Yeah, just the swings in attitude in this campaign have just been completely insane. I mean, we often talk about the most important election of our lifetimes. This is clearly the most frenetic election of my own lifetime. I can't remember a situation where there seemed to be just these wild swings with respect to just the vibe, but with respect to these specific issues around kind of Trump month and messaging.

He's running in many respects the same campaign he has always run. He's been a little more restrained at different moments.

It was much easier to get away with all of this stuff with Biden, but they're very much kind of the dog who caught the car.

They ran a pretty effective campaign. Biden implodes and they don't have a strategy for dealing with Kamala beyond hoping that she'll actually talk to the press and kind of make a clown of herself and cover up or paper over some of Donald Trump's defects as a candidate. And they are material. It's not like if the two of them were on stage together, you would get really clear kind of distillation of their particular policy opinions. A lot of this is just about how you feel about this person. It's funny, I can remember seeing Greg Gutfeld on the five, like, giving this, this not even an impassioned defense of Trump as the candidate, the guy to choose, but giving his rationalization for it, essentially saying, look, he's an asshole, and he's a little unsophisticated and crass and boorish, but he's your asshole and that's the guy you want in the room, that's, to me, that might be the best argument you can make for him. But when he just kind of seems stale and ordinary, even in his boorishness, that's not a particularly persuasive case. And it's a particularly unpersuasive case against Kamala, who at this point is just kind of being lionized and isn't feeling any sort of material pressure when it comes to kind of the national press and questions about her own qualities with respect to her ability to serve.

Megyn Kelly
I'm really getting to the point where I feel like we have to stop complaining about the fact that she won't do any interviews and like, it's outrageous, it's deeply wrong. But we have to stop complaining about it because Trump is going to lose this election. If the plan is just to bitch and whine about her inaccessibility and the biased media, that is not a winning plan. He's going to have to forge on without that. And let's be honest, at this point, with the stakes this high, she's probably going to do pretty well. When finally is sitting down for an interview, whether it's with 60 or Stefanopoulos or MSNBC, she will have a general idea of where they're going. Her flip flops, the tips, things she stole, waltz's military like she's going to generally know. And she will prepare. If you look back at her Pence debate she prepared, she had her canned answers. They were fine. They weren't stellar, but they were fine to put all the eggs in the basket of. She will implode if she just starts talking.

Seems foolhardy to me. He has to control the messaging. He has to dominate the news cycle. He's got to keep. And if he wants to do all the earned media coverage, then he's got to come up with some new shticks because they're, they're no longer shockable. They're no longer putting him on the evening news every night when he says the shocking things, they're kind of yawning about the things. Now he's got to find a different way to be in the news every day. By the way, we did pull the tester comments, which were funny. Here they are.

Michael Moynihan
His name is John Tester.

Megyn Kelly
And.

Michael Moynihan
And I don't speak badly about somebody's physical disability.

Matt Welch
No, no.

Michael Moynihan
But he's got the biggest stomach I have ever seen. I swear.

I swear that's the biggest stomach, I have never seen a stomach like that because he doesn't look that heavy. You're not allowed to use the word fat. So if you use the word fat, you can say obese, you can say anything, but you can't say fat. That's the end of your political career.

I said it the other night. Somebody in the audience said, chris Christie is a fat pig. And I said, sir, Chris Christie is not a fat pig. You should not. And we argued about it for three or four minutes. So that was, nah, he's not a fat pig.

Camille Foster
It's the three or four minutes.

Michael Moynihan
Three or four minutes. I missed this three or four minutes. And by the way, it only goes to first, my theory that anytime Trump says the word sir, what's going to follow is a lie because he's always like he said to me, sir, and it's just some total made up thing. But that was very funny, I have to admit.

Camille Foster
I think, I think NPR, this is another funny moment.

Megyn Kelly
This is another funny moment which the press is totally misunderstanding. It was from his exchange with Elon the other night. And he's making a remark about that ridiculous Time magazine cover showing Kamala Harris, like, oh, God. Yeah. Like Joan of Arc up there. I mean, it was ridiculous, the depiction of her. And here's what Trump said. And then I'll play you the media reaction.

Michael Moynihan
Listen, but she's getting a free ride. I saw a picture of her on Time magazine today. She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live. It was a drawing.

And actually, she looked very much like our great first lady, Melania.

She didn't look. She didn't look like Camilla. That's right. But of course, she's a beautiful woman, so we'll leave it at that. Right.

Matt Welch
So since when does he sound like Buddy Hackett?

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, there was a problem with the audio. Then they released the original audio because he was saying something and it was better. But listen. Okay, my take on that exchange, he's obviously suggesting Kamala Harris is not attractive, but was made to look attractive by this sketch artist who put her on the COVID of Tom. Like, he's like, they. They made her look like Melania, for the love of God. And he's like, right. That's what he's saying.

And then listen to how the media reacts. I think this is Julie Roginski on CNN.

This is the same kind of misogyny we talked about before, right? She's dumb.

She's terrible, but she's hot.

In other words, let me say. So I guess she's gonna get a free ride because she's hot. Because women who are hot, in his words and his terms, get a free ride. I mean, this is a woman who's a former prosecutor. She's a former attorney general. She's a former senator. She's a sitting vice president. She's accomplished. You may not agree with her. You may not think that her policies are the right policies, but she's accomplished. And yet he's reducing her down to her looks and basically saying that she's dumb. She's not so smart, but because she's a good looking woman, kind of like my wife, Melania, she's gonna get a free ride from the media.

Oh, my God.

Matt Welch
I like Julie. Julie's usually pretty smart, and she. Wow. Whiffed badly on that one.

Michael Moynihan
That's not real song, right?

Megyn Kelly
Talk about that's how little they understand this guy. In no universe does Donald Trump think Kamala Harris is hot is gonna get a pass.

Michael Moynihan
No, he's clearly saying that this is Time magazine's kind of visual hagiography. And they made her look like Melania, who's really hot, and that's not what she looks like.

Camille Foster
Can you imagine Donald Trump's using the phrase visual hagiography?

Matt Welch
I just was.

Michael Moynihan
Yes, he said that. I said sir.

I said, sir. That's not what she looks like. She's not Melania, bless her heart. Yeah, that's an insane reaction.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, yeah, I know. But this is, you know, of course, again, what Trump is up against. And I don't know the solution other than message discipline on the subject of the media. I got a couple of other for you guys. Guys, you've probably seen the viral Caitlin Collins clip on Stephen Colbert. She is on CNN. She goes over, you know, to get the lovely treatment from Stephen Colbert on how amazing she is and how amazing CNN is. And the left wing New York City audience brought some truth to the matter. Watch.

Trump has kind of been thrown on.

Lisa Hansen
His heels by this, and he's not really sure how to go after Vice President Harris. He knew his attack lines on President Biden. He really has struggled with how to, how to go after someone who's 20.

Megyn Kelly
Years younger than him, who is a different gender, a different race.

Lisa Hansen
It's kind of been this moment where.

Megyn Kelly
He has not been able to coalesce.

Lisa Hansen
Around a single attack line.

Matt Welch
I know you guys are objective over.

Megyn Kelly
There that you just report the news as it is. Oh, I know CNN makes that note. That's supposed to be a laugh line.

Matt Welch
I wasn't supposed to be, but I guess it is.

Camille Foster
Oh, that hurts.

Michael Moynihan
Unbelievable.

Megyn Kelly
How humiliating and good for that audience.

They knew that was a farce.

Michael Moynihan
What is the number of trust in the mainstream media? Something 17%, some vanishingly small number. It's, I think it might be lower. So I think that the audience, even in New York City, knows that that's a ridiculous, I mean, it is. Stephen Colbert is a great example of this. Right? I mean, a comedian, if you go back and look at the late night shows of the Leno, Conan O'Brien, Letterman era, you would have occasional political jokes. They never turned into cheerleading for one political candidate or one side, which is what, it's made it so boring. I mean, you look at the ratings they have, which are low. Stephen Colbert, I mean, everyone remembers the unbelievably embarrassing vaccine dance. Do you remember this?

Matt Welch
Oh, yeah.

Megyn Kelly
All the shots on stage dancing.

Michael Moynihan
I mean, it's like, what is happening? It's like north korean television, but less funny.

Camille Foster
That was, I would seem to encounter, like, clips of him on the Daily show, just old Daily show segments back from its flurry days. And there were so many times where they were lampooning the left and lampooning the right. Even with Kamala Harris, quite frankly, up until until somewhat recently, was not so surprising to see them lampooning her. But that sort of thing, in a moment like this, seems far less likely to happen.

Megyn Kelly
Oh, gosh, never. I mean, look who, who were the faces of CNN over the Trump era?

Jeff Zucker was running it. We all know about him. He's ruined CNN. Chris Cuomo. Ok, that didn't end well. Well, he's obviously a Democrat partisan masquerading as a journalist, just like Stephanopoulos and Don Lemon. Now, Don Lemon ultimately got forced out because he made one too many stupid sexist comments. And so they turf the guy. But I'll just give you a little sample of Don Lemon and how he's covering the news these days. The guy who was the face of CNN for all these years. Take a listen. We meandered over to his podcast. We're the one.

And we found the following in depth discussion.

Michael Moynihan
I think you're right.

Camille Foster
It's.

Michael Moynihan
Is it clock?

Camille Foster
Because people are like, oh, you know.

Michael Moynihan
How the kids say.

Camille Foster
The kids call it being sus, right?

Michael Moynihan
Oh, he sucks.

Camille Foster
Whatever. It's fair, JD, to be questioning JD Vance's sexuality or because, you know, when they say, thou doth protest too much, I'm just one. I'm not saying he is or he isn't. Some people are like, you know, I have great gaydar and I don't know.

Megyn Kelly
What do you think, Alejandra?

Michael Moynihan
What?

Sorry, go ahead. No worries.

Megyn Kelly
I think with some of my friends.

Michael Moynihan
In the group chat that were like, kind of being like egg vibes, question mark.

Megyn Kelly
Which, like, for folks out of the trans community, like, egg means like, someone who hasn't come out as trans yet, but gives off, like, a lot of vibes. Like they're trans.

Camille Foster
Listen, one of my friends who is trans is in the chats, in these here chats is playing Monroe Flaine. Let me know what you think in the chat. That's what I want to know. I want to know what you think.

Michael Moynihan
About all of this.

Camille Foster
Do you think it's just fun? What do you think?

Michael Moynihan
I hear people, you know, I see.

Camille Foster
People are putting up the egg emoji.

Megyn Kelly
Or what have you.

Camille Foster
Remember when he thought the plane, like, it maybe disappeared into the Bermuda triangle or UFO? Is it, is it, is that crazy? Is it a UFO that's giving off the same vibes to be there?

Michael Moynihan
Don, how much was he making a year?

Megyn Kelly
I'm just asking if JD Vance is gay or trans. I'm just asking. That's all. Just ask him.

Camille Foster
Yeah. Is it fair to ask? Because I don't know that. Good. Great. Gaydar.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Right. I mean, I'm just asking whether Tim Walsh is a pedophile. I'm just asking.

It's ridiculous.

Camille Foster
Punching his in the mouth. Doesn't he look like the kind of guy who could punch his wife in the mouth?

Michael Moynihan
I mean, maybe, right?

Megyn Kelly
I mean, it's insane. This is. Of course, they will not be doing those segments on Tim walls, although they're actually speaking of pedophile.

There is an interesting story about him that is kind of disturbing. I don't know if you guys have seen this, but, you know, he is about as far left as you can get on the transde stuff, making Minnesota a trans refuge state. You can send your. Your kid there. If you won't affirm your kid's identity and let him chop off his penis at age 13 in Wisconsin, he can go to Minnesota. A court will take custody of him. All he has to say is, my parents won't let me do it. They won't affirm me.

The court will take custody and let him do it in Minnesota. Thanks to Tim Walz. 100% true. The media got all excited when I first said it. Ready to fact check me on it only to find out I'm right. It's in writing. Look up the law.

That's just one of many. He did put tampons in boys rooms as a mandate. I could go on.

However, one thing that hasn't gotten as much coverage is there's a human rights law in Minnesota that he revised and he took out of said human rights law a comment that pedophiles do not qualify for the protections of the human rights laws. They cannot use, you know, anti discrimination laws to protect their conduct as pedophiles. So the law said that explicitly before, and he removed that. He removed that line, which led many to say, what are you doing? Why would you make it anything but perfectly clear that pedophiles don't have protection under the human rights laws? And the answer is unclear. Clear because there's a Republican who was part of the Minnesota legislature who went online and did a long thread on all of this. I'll get you his name. It's someplace in my packet. And he said, let me explain to you. Originally, there were some lgbtq people who were like, we don't want that line in here because there's no, it's not necessary. LGBTQ people are not associated with pedophiles, and even putting that in there is offensive to us. You know, like, you don't need to say that. And then there was pushback by this Minnesota Republican and others saying. Saying, we get that, but we actually really feel the need to make this clear, because removing the line that they're not protected could have legal implications in further proceedings where somebody comes forward to say, I'm a pedophile and I do have protections. Look how they removed that one line from the human rights law and that the line was removed.

He ultimately, the Minnesota lawmaker, said, I actually felt great because I thought we actually had reached an agreement. His name is Minnesota state representative, Representative Harry Niska. Niska. And he said, for a while there, I thought, okay, reason has prevailed. We're going to keep the line in there to make very clear they get no protections whatsoever. And he said, then the Democrats had a closed door session. No Republicans were allowed in the conference committee. The Democrats made the clarifying language just disappear and disappeared. It still is, he wrote. Someday, he said, I worry. I worry that an enterprising lawyer or nonprofit will bring a case arguing that, quote, minor attracted status. That's how they're trying to rebrand pedophilia. Just. You're just a map. A minor, attractive person. You're not a pedophile. Pervert fits into the statute. He writes, I won't help lay out the playbook, but the statutory interpretation arguments are there. I hope and pray that the Minnesota courts would reject that argument, but we'll see. This is another thing, like the stolen valor. Valor. Guys, every time Tim Waltz may takes an action in this realm, it's to go more radical, to make things more problematic for children to get hurt in all these realms, whether it's in the trans realm or in the bathroom, where little boys should not be having to look at tampons and ask themselves why they're in there or having there be any ambiguity around pedophiles and the fact that they are not protected by LGBTQ protections in the law.

Michael Moynihan
That's the first I've heard of this. But I think to the point of how one attacks Tim walls. I mean, if this stuff. I mean, I'm taking your word for this. I haven't seen the story at all. But these types of things, I mean, I don't know how well certain culture war issues play, but I think the stuff that you're talking about, particularly when it comes to trans stuff, people tend to be on the side of reason. And on the side, when you say tampons in the boys room, is it the most important issue of the world? Probably not, but it's also something that jostles people and says, I don't know if I like the drift of the culture in this direction. So, yeah, again, I think back to Trump and message discipline, and I'd like to see how this stuff comes up in a JD Vance debate with Kamala Harris.

Megyn Kelly
He needs to do his homework.

Michael Moynihan
He needs to do his homework. He's a very good debater, by the way. I disagree with him on a lot of stuff, particularly economic issues. But I think he's a very, very bright guy and very good at it.

Camille Foster
JD Vance.

Michael Moynihan
JD Vance. And I will say this to what Megan said. I watched the debate between the vice presidential debate last time around with Mike Pence. I watched it with Steve Bannon.

I went and shot something, and Steve Bannon and I watched the debate together.

No, this is, yeah, he was just preparing for prison at that point. This was, you know, 2020. And like, wait a minute.

Megyn Kelly
Okay.

Michael Moynihan
I remember, yeah, I mean, it'd be a great idea. I remember him saying that like a.

Megyn Kelly
Like a screen in there.

Michael Moynihan
It's a country club prison. And the smuggling was easy.

But, yeah, I remember him commenting to me that she performed well and she acquitted herself well. And I know that you went back and watched it. I've gone back and watched clips, but these are issues, I imagine, that will come up. And JD Vance better be prepared to have a good debate about them. And I think that'll be the most interesting thing for the remainder of the campaign because a Trump debate is all, it's a lot of drama and it's a lot of fireworks and it's a lot of theatrics. And I think that to the JD Vance Tim Wall's debate will be something that'd be slightly more traditional in the sense that you would see in debates. And I'm actually looking forward to it.

Megyn Kelly
One of the things, I don't think it's scheduled. We cut a bit of it. I want to say, look, she's not Newt Gingrich, so let's, like, be real about what to expect. But she's, she's not her normal self either. She's not like the cackling Kamala. She's not the school buses. And I love the Venn diagrams. And this is space and this is Ukraine. She's not that in the debate. She gets it together. We cut a little bit. I think you're about to find yourself slightly irritated by her. But you will also be able to say that she's not the school bus Venn diagram version of her. So people need to know what to expect. Here it is.

Kamala Harris
Let's talk about respecting the american people. You respect the american people when you tell them the truth. You respect the american people when you have the courage to be a leader, speaking of those things that you may not want people to hear, but they need to hear so they can protect themselves. We now know Donald Trump owes and is in debt for $400 million in. And just so everyone is clear, when we say in debt, it means you owe money to somebody.

And it'd be really good to know who the president of the United States, the commander in chief, owes money to, because the american people have a right to know what is influencing the president's decisions. But I think this is supposed to be a debate based on fact and truth. And the truth and the fact is, Joe Biden has been very clear. He will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year.

Michael Moynihan
Tax cuts.

Kamala Harris
Mister Vice president. I'm speaking.

I'm speaking.

Michael Moynihan
Be important if you said the truth.

Kamala Harris
I'm so glad we went through a little history lesson. Let's do that a little more.

In 1865.

Michael Moynihan
Well, I'd like you to answer the question.

Kamala Harris
Mister vice president. Speaking. I'm speaking. We are talking about an election in 27 days where last week the president of the United States took a debate stage in front of 70 million Americans and refused to condemn white supremacists.

Michael Moynihan
Not true. And not true.

Kamala Harris
It wasn't like he didn't have a chance.

He didn't do it, and then he doubled down.

Camille Foster
Yeah, it's just not true. That fly on his head.

Yeah.

Megyn Kelly
So annoying.

Camille Foster
Marca Kane, she has had some pretty awful moments on the debate stage too. I mean, I thought that I was. That little girl thing was pretty cringey. But also there was that moment where she's talking to Joe Biden during the primary, and Joe corrects her and says, well, that would be unconstitutional. Says, well, you gotta try.

I don't know that you'll get that moment. I don't know that you'll get that.

Megyn Kelly
I like the Camille invitation of Kamala.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah, it's a good complex invitation, Camille.

Camille Foster
I'll work on it some more, actually. I'll refine that.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, perfect. Your bit. Yeah, you could see, like, she wasn't a completely vapidae debater, but she was annoying.

I don't know that the left is capable of getting annoyed with her. You know, so far, all that Mister vice president, I'm speaking.

Matt Welch
Can't do that with Trump.

Megyn Kelly
That's turned into a Yas queen moment out there on the campaign trail. All these young girls are like, oh, yeah. I mean, it's so annoying. It's not. That's not from a position of strength. And by the way, it's damn debate. He's allowed to jump in and be like, you voted against this, right? Like, it's not. Everything is a disrespect.

Michael Moynihan
I mean, also, I'll correct you on one thing, Megan. She did do the wheels on the bus in the Ukraine thing in one bit. She explained to us what debt was. I was like, well, thank you. Thank you for that condescending moment. It worked a little better. And I also noticed that there were, between two slabs of plexiglass, which I had forgotten about. I didn't remember that that was like the COVID debate. But, yeah, I mean, I think that it's a slightly different vibe when she's on stage. But those canned lines. I mean, the Reagan line, I mean, a number of Reagan lines, the youth and experience line, in particular from the 1984 debate, was delivered so expertly that no one could tell if it was pre planned. Right? And there's a number of those throughout Reagan's career. You know, I paid for this microphone, et cetera. That stuff just looks so canned. And that's something that, in politics, that's what Trump's great advantage when he's stalking behind Hillary Clinton, in which I think is probably one of the greatest moments in debate history. And he says, you'd be in jail like that. She thinks that the I'm speaking thing empowers her. Look really good. It's like, no, it actually makes you look like a very bad actress. And I cannot stand it. It makes me cringe every time I hear it.

Megyn Kelly
I know, I know. I hear you. I include that because those, I think, were her worst moments. It was annoying. And honestly, I think you could get away with it once, like, let me finish that.

Michael Moynihan
Let me finish.

Megyn Kelly
Let me finish. But not like, I am speaking and I am Yahweh. You know, her approach to it was just so holier than thou. Like, okay, speaking of Reagan, my friend Mark Joseph has this amazing biopic on Reagan coming out August 30. I'm telling you, truly, truly, truly run, don't walk to the theater. It's so good. It stars Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller plays Nancy. It. I watched it with him. I was thrilled to get a private screening and didn't know what to expect, right? Like, maybe it'll be good, maybe it won't, my friend. I hope it's good. I actually cried. I was really moved by the whole thing. I just makes you feel patriotic and you really respect the man, his service. It's like a history lesson about our country to a different time when you could actually could get along across the aisle.

Guess what's happening now?

Well, I'll tell you right after this break. Sorry, I gotta squeeze in a quick break.

Camille Foster
Stand by.

Megyn Kelly
We'll come back with the trailer and I'll tell you what's happening. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Doctor Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn and Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now, get your first three months for free.

Camille Foster
Go to siriusxm.com mkshow to subscribe and get three months free. That's siriusxm.com mkshow and get three months free.

Megyn Kelly
Offer details apply.

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Megyn Kelly
There's nothing a retired governor can do about the Soviets.

Michael Moynihan
But a president?

Now, he can do a thing or two.

Megyn Kelly
Welcome to your life.

Michael Moynihan
I was a lifeguard on a river.

Megyn Kelly
There's no turning back.

Michael Moynihan
And I learned how to read the currents.

Not just the ones on the surface, but also the ones deep underneath the water.

I am about to start the biggest war of this century, and I'm not gonna fire a single shot. You're gonna blow up eight years of diplomacy.

Megyn Kelly
Well, if you think that got their own decent one, you just wait.

Michael Moynihan
What did the president know. And when did he know it? What would you have me do?

Megyn Kelly
I want you to fight.

Camille Foster
Everybody wants to.

Michael Moynihan
Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

Megyn Kelly
It chills just watching the trailer. I'm telling you, it's amazing.

Programming note, we're actually going to have the cast on this show at the end of August, so very much looking forward to that. But here's what's happening with Facebook.

They are censoring the promotion of this movie. That. Here's what's happened.

There was a post containing the title of the movie and an image of Dennis Quaid along with a quote from Ronald Reagan, don't let anyone tell you America's best days are behind her. That the american spirit has been vanquished, reads the quote. We've seen it triumph too often in our lives not to believe it. Now Facebook allowed the post, but refused to let the marketers boost it by way of a paid advertisement because they think it's too political.

Video clips of Quaid discussing the movie on tv and podcasts that were posted to the Reagan movies Facebook page also caused the social media platform to temporarily suspend their account at least twice, according to notices reviewed by Newsweek. The letter says that when attempting to boost the post containing a quote from Reagan, but they couldn't do it because it mentions politicians or is about sensitive issues that could influence public opinion, how people vote and may impact the outcome of an election or pending legislation. Dennis Quaid responded, the last time Ronald Reagan's name was on the ballot was 40 years ago.

This is insane.

Michael Moynihan
Insane and totally predictable. I mean, predictable as a result of these insane campaigns against Facebook that suggested that Donald Trump won the election because of meddling on Facebook. So what does that do retroactively? Nothing. You can't go back and say, well, we'd take these things away, that we allowed this b's about russian misinformation on Facebook, by the way, I recommend that people go back because I think that really lodged in people's head that that was something real. And you see that these things did exist and they were viewed by almost no one. This is Politico a long time ago, did a breakdown of all the actual ads and the number of page views and impressions they got on Facebook, which were negligible. But being hauled in front of Congress, the weight of the government being brought down on Facebook and public opinion, they then are overly cautious, I would say, because, because they don't want to be blamed for anything anymore. Because the original blame was bullshit, of course.

Megyn Kelly
We can't look at World War Two, now we can't look at anything that makes Lincoln look good. He was a Republican.

Michael Moynihan
It makes zero sense. But the etymology of it is because of a lie that Facebook actually essentially changed the results of an election because that's what happens when you lose an election in 2016. You try to make up a bunch of reasons that you lost, and it wasn't you. It was fake news. Fake news, remember, was initially a Hillary Clinton thing.

Megyn Kelly
When confronted by Facebook, they're like, oh, it was a mistake because of the algorithm. Sure it was. Sure. Because even they know that they're going to get slapped for trying to censor a biopic about a us president from decades ago. This isn't like they're doing this big laudatory piece about Trump. You know that. I guess Facebook could censor saying, we don't do that anymore. But this is ridiculous, you guys. All right, I don't have that much time left, and I've got to get to this next story.

The Democratic National Convention is their account on x is tweeting out, like, exciting things happening at the convention next week. And somebody made a boo boo and released the list of influencers who invite, who have been invited by the Democrats to go to the convention. And while they're not speaking on the stage necessarily, they're going to be used behind the scenes to generate buzz and so on. And one is this guy, Jeffrey Marsh, who I've long seen on Twitter and exwhere else he's basically Dylan Mulvaney.

And here's a little compilation of who the DNC would like to highlight next week.

Michael Moynihan
Hey, kids. There are people who are not boys and not girls. Me, I'm non binary. Biological sex is faith. I love. Here are three reasons why sex is difficult for you. Hi, love. Here are three ways to disrespect your elders. If you have no family, you can be in my family.

If you needed to go, no contact or limited contacts.

I love you very much. Your parents screwed up.

It's okay to say so.

That's why I made a patreon, so that we could talk about it, so that we could connect in a way that has more privacy.

And I am not a danger to children.

I am a danger to parents, though you're welcome here in this family, on this page, we will love you unconditionally.

Megyn Kelly
You stay away from me and my children. I think I speak for the mothers of America there.

How on earth does that person get invited to go be a representative at the DNC?

Michael Moynihan
The representative of what their party figure out their party.

Megyn Kelly
He's probably going to be like Tim walls.

Camille Foster
Yes.

Megyn Kelly
You're my hero.

Michael Moynihan
I don't even know what to say to that. I honestly. I honestly don't. I can't say anything generous.

Megyn Kelly
It's the Maya Angelou. When someone shows you who they are, believe them. This is the Democrats showing us who they are. Camille.

Camille Foster
I'm confident that this is them trying to do the whole inclusion. Inclusion thing. The reality, though, is that you could almost certainly find any one of a million better representatives than that particular person. I mean, the appeals with respect to, like, I'm not a threat to children, I am a threat to parents. You're welcome here. I know what you're going for. The vibe, however, is incredibly creepy. That all of it seems to suggest, like, your family isn't there for you, but I am there for you. I will keep you safe. I'm the one. Here are ways to disrespect your parents. And clearly this montage is not necessarily curated in a way to make him look the most interesting. But I've certainly seen him online, and I think that's actually pretty representative of the genuinely perspectives and the tone that he offers in a lot of his online content. And, yeah, no, this. It seems to me that that is a mistake. I wouldn't suggest that the RNC hasn't made its own mistakes with respect to its kind of curation of people that it brings to these events. But I think democrats have made a real mistake with trying to place some of these issues and some of these personalities front and center. I mean, there are so many ways to be inclusive without picking the most.

Megyn Kelly
Like, inflammatory, centric person trying to win back black men. Black men tend to be Christian. They tend to be more conservative in their social beliefs.

Is this the way Jeffrey Marsh is the way to win back the black men who are migrating towards Trump?

Camille Foster
I would certainly suggest that I know exactly what you're talking about with respect to the tendencies in the. These particular demographics, and I don't know that that's going to be terribly helpful to them, but that's probably why he's invited and not placed on stage.

And maybe Jeffrey should fight for the opportunity.

Yeah.

Michael Moynihan
Camille, what precincts of the Internet are you hanging out with? I've never seen this stuff before in my life.

Megyn Kelly
No, I'm in the dark because I don't have people.

Camille Foster
Once in a while, I have to check. I have to know what the kids are paying attention to. And apparently Jeffrey, who is going to.

Michael Moynihan
I just want everyone out there to know that I have started a Patreon. So you can just tell me your secrets and we can have our own private communication for $10 a month. Stay tier it's not an onlyfans, it is just a Patreon. But pay me and we can have a chat.

Camille Foster
Don't tell mom. Don't tell mom.

Michael Moynihan
Don't tell mom because they will betray you.

Megyn Kelly
You're going to break the Internet. This is going to be just as broken as when Elon started his thing with Trump.

They're flocking there right now. Guys, a wonderful time as always. Great to see you.

Michael Moynihan
Thank you, Megan. Thanks, Megan.

Megyn Kelly
And guess what? You can see the guys from the DNC next week. Maybe we'll check in with them and see how they're faring. Maybe they'll run into Jeffrey and have a little conversation with him. That could be fun to watch. And you find more of their work@wethefifth.com. thank you all for listening to we are back with Maureen Callahan and more. See you then.

Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No B's, no.