James Woods on Biden's Farewell and Political Bias in Hollywood, and Jim VandeHei on the Trump Era Media and More | Ep. 848

This episode examines the political shifts in America, focusing on President Joe Biden's farewell speech, allegations of media bias, and the implications of Kamala Harris's rising influence.

1. James Woods criticizes the media's handling of Biden's farewell, suggesting a narrative crafted to shield Harris.
2. Woods discusses Hollywood's political bias and his personal experiences with industry blacklisting due to his political views.
3. The conversation reflects on the media's role in American politics, particularly around presidential figures and critical national issues.
4. Jim VandeHei provides insights into media responsibility and the challenges of maintaining journalistic integrity.
5. The episode highlights the complexities of political reporting and the influence of personal biases in media.

1: Biden's Farewell

Woods and Kelly analyze the coverage of Biden's farewell speech, criticizing the media for a perceived bias in handling the transition to Harris. They discuss the implications of the speech and the media's role in shaping its reception. James Woods: "Unity is so important when you call half the country MAGA degenerate Nazis."

2: Political Bias in Hollywood

Woods shares his experiences with political bias in Hollywood, discussing the consequences of his outspoken political views and the broader industry's stance on diversity of thought. James Woods: "I've had my career destroyed because of it."

3: Media and Politics

VandeHei joins the discussion, offering perspectives on the responsibility of the media in political discourse and the challenges faced by journalists in an era of heightened polarization. Jim VandeHei: "I think most reporters, despite their own personal politics, do try to get to the closest approximation of the truth."

1. Critically Evaluate Media Sources: Encourage listeners to assess the bias and reliability of their news sources to form a well-rounded understanding of political issues.
2. Support Freedom of Speech: Advocate for supporting diverse opinions in all fields, including Hollywood, to enrich societal debates.
3. Educate on Media Literacy: Suggest resources or workshops that enhance understanding of media influence and teach how to spot bias.
4. Engage in Civic Discussions: Motivate listeners to participate in civic discussions, ensuring a broad range of perspectives are heard.
5. Promote Political Engagement: Encourage active involvement in political processes, from voting to participating in local governance, to ensure representation of diverse views.

Megyn Kelly is joined by legendary actor and producer James Woods to discuss Biden’s speech to the nation last night after dropping out of the race, how he didn’t address his health conditions, the media fawning over "hero" Biden, his incredible career as an actor and producer, why he loves America and how he stays so patriotic, how he stays friends with liberal Hollywood stars like Rob Reiner and Whoopi Goldberg, how conservatives are forced to stay quiet today, how Hollywood silences conservatives today, his personal experience with "Oppenheimer," how he isn’t afraid to speak his mind and the second act he's having now, and more. Then Jim VandeHei, co-founder and CEO of Axios and author of “Just the Good Stuff," joins to discuss the state of the media, how political bias seeps into coverage, the past month and coverage of Biden's cognitive decline, the "border czar" controversy, the impact Trump has had on the media over the years, the importance of finding sources and networks that you can trust, the most important states and demographics in the 2024 election, why Harris will likely pick a white male VP, the swift coronation of Harris by the left, and more. Plus, Megyn addresses the insane antisemitic riots happening in Washington D.C., the ridiculous and dangerous pro-Hamas protestors and their radical views, the brave Americans protecting our flag, and more.

People

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, James Woods, Jim VandeHei

Companies

SiriusXM, Axios

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

James Woods, Jim VandeHei

Content Warnings:

None

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. What a show we have for you today. President Joe Biden giving his farewell address of sorts last night. An eleven minute scripted, campaign like speech that was, as the New York Times described, delivered, quote, with a rasp and a slight slur in his voice, speaking sometimes haltingly. Remember all those descriptions before he dropped out? Before this became an issue by the New York Times when they would point out how he was obviously deteriorating before the debate. No, me neither.

Now we're going to be super obvious and on the nose and all over his deterioration because he's a liability and he will be the dumping ground for everything in order to inoculate her. In any event, the speech gave no indication why he stepped aside as the nominee. I guess we're not entitled to know. I guess it's just going to remain a mystery. It's up to our little imaginations, but still somehow is fit to remain president other than the clear implication that this was all done for political purposes only. Duh. But the point is why? What made him a political liability? Was it the fact that he's non compass mentis but still remains as our president? I guess we're just supposed to skip past that.

His replacement, Kamala Harris, is getting a massive assist meantime from the compliant media. My God, they're disgusting. They're so disgusting. So busy memory holing her actual record this week. I mean, it's everywhere. It's ubiquitous. The number of media outlets that are running cover for her, fawning like a, like a high school sophomore as to the prom by the football captain, and also scrubbing all the records of that football captain's criminal history or his run ins with the law, whatever. I can't think of the analogy of what Kamala Harris has done. Saying dumb things, being super political one way, so much so that they dubbed her the most liberal person in the Senate. That's been memory hold as well. It's just absurd what they're doing. There's no better person to talk to about this than my first guest, who is someone I have never spoken to before. But I'm super excited to bring to you today. He doesn't do many interviews, although his ex account gives a good idea of his point of view these days and is a must follow. Legendary award winning actor James Woods, Grand Canyon University, a private christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes in equal opportunity and that the american dream starts with purpose.

GCU equips you to serve others in ways that promote human flourishing and create a ripple effect of transformation for generations to come. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's online on campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal and professional goals. With over 330 academic programs as of September, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private Christianity affordable visit gcu.edu so happy.

James Woods
To be on this show. You have no idea. By the way, it's been years probably since I've done press. I don't want to do press, usually, and for the obvious reasons, because they are now, by and large, the propaganda organ for the DNC, as you and I and any rational american knows. But here we are now facing the fact that once again, they've marshaled their forces to jam through a candidate that is not only not really qualified for what the majority of Americans would like for their country, but is actually, I think, a danger to this country. Her progressive, uber leftist ideology is something that will literally, if not, bring this country to its knees.

And we'll get to that later as well, then certainly we'll cripple it for a while. But I swear, after four years of Biden and with the possibility of four or eight years of Kamala Harris, I don't think this nation, after 248 years of its existence, could actually continue in any way, shape or form that we recognize it to be. And good morning.

Megyn Kelly
Good morning, and thank you for doing the show, notwithstanding the fact that you don't do many. And I know that it really is amazing how she's been elevated to the nominee without a single vote being cast. For her first time in my life, I've agreed with BLM, which is tweeting nonstop about that, saying, this is undemocratic, what you're doing.

James Woods
I was shocked when I saw that. I mean, I find myself, and I'm sure you are surprised by this as well, in the unenviable and surprising position of agreeing with BLM and Bill Maher and so many people who, organizations that may have their own particular attitude about how things are supposed to be in this country, and we are now finding ourselves converging with a common ground of common sense.

Megyn Kelly
So last night, did you watch the remarks?

James Woods
Oh, of course. Of course I watched it, yeah. And I was. Look, I have to give you a caveat on my position about Joseph Biden. I. First of all, he's not Joe Biden. He's not some happy, cheerful uncle. He's a hair sniffing child curious person who's been a bagman and a political hack for 50 years. He has never done anything but service himself and his family, who has been a puppet for somebody, I don't know who, for the last four years and has been a political hack for 46 years before that. But here's the problem.

He clearly has dementia of some kind. I don't know if it's Louis Bottom. I don't know if it's Alzheimer's. I don't know if it's frontal lobe dementia. I don't know what is afflicting him. But I have a cardinal rule about these things. I think it is cruel, it is unkind, it is incorrect, and it is not fruitful in any way to torture a person who is mentally, I won't say mentally ill, but who is suffering from cognitive decline at such a rapid and alarming rate as he is. So from the time he got sick, which was probably before he was even elected, but certainly by his first year in office, he, as the person he is now, is no longer fair game. I believe, however, the loathsome, disgusting political hack that he was for over four decades in this country is certainly fair game. What he did to Justice Clarence Thomas during those hearings was so, was so vile that how any, you know his famous statement when he was talking to Shaman Dagan, if you don't vote for Joe Biden, you ain't black. It's like he's the most racist president we've ever had since before Jim. Oh, I mean, it is amazing.

Megyn Kelly
And you've got him. He tried to take down Clarence Thomas. His vice president, Kamala Harris tried to take down Brett Kavanaugh on flimsy allegations that she used to make herself look tough. But you're right, because we are being gaslit right now about both of them. Since the strong arming worked to get him out last night, I'll play a little bit of his remarks just so the listening audience knows what we're talking about, and then I'll play you some of the reaction discussing him as just this selfless man who loves democracy. Okay, so let's just listen to Biden last night in what turned out to be a very harshly partisan address from the oval office. Take a listen.

Joe Biden
I revere this office.

I love my country more.

It's been the honor of my life to serve as your president.

But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think is more important than any title. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America's future, all merited a second term.

But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy.

That includes personal ambition.

So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.

That's the best way to unite our nation.

You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life.

There's also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices.

And that time and place is now. Ben Franklin was asked as he emerged from the convention going on whether the founders have given America a monarchy, republic.

Franklin's response was, a republic if you can keep it.

A republic if you can keep it. Whether we keep our republic is now in your hands.

Megyn Kelly
So it was all really. He was using his eleven minute farewell to stick the dagger in Trump.

James Woods
But honestly, it's a, it's staggering. Unity is so important. Unity. When you call half the country MAGA degenerate Nazis and their candidate is Hitler, which they said 10,000 times in lockstep themselves.

The most nazi esque behavior you could ever imagine. You know what Nazis do? They imprison their political opponents. They marshal their lawfare, army, and they go after you and try to destroy you when you're in office. They create false mandates, they create false fictions.

The Russia hoax led by that pencil neck geek who, unfortunately, is one of the representatives in my state, Adam Schiff, by the way, what happened at the standard, Adam, another question.

Ed Buck's buddy, Adam Schiffde, they, who is literally one of the few people in the history of the United States House of Representatives who has been censured for being a liar, okay, that they try to destroy, and none of it works. Then one of their minions, one of their insane followers, who's been fired up by their hateful, hateful non unity rhetoric, decides to try to put a bullet in the leading candidate for president of the United States.

And a third of them, according to polls, say that they wish the assassin hadn't missed.

Megyn Kelly
That's right.

James Woods
You tell me if that's you. You tell me if that's love you talk about. This isn't a dictatorship. We don't have emperors and kings here. You got a candidate now who's going to be running for president of the United States, who's never gotten a single vote in a caucus for her from her party.

Okay.

Megyn Kelly
What we've seen with her is the closest thing we've seen to a coronation since we broke off from old Great Britain. But because it's important to give him his payment. Right. His payment for withdrawing under duress was, we'll make a king out of you and then she'll be the queen. But we'll, we'll make a lion out of you. You'll get your library. We'll say the nicest things. You'll be the greatest thing since George Washington and the media did its part. They understood that was the deal. They lived up to the deal. I give you a sampling from last night after the speech. Top five. This was a speech for the history books. This is the type of speech that will be replayed for decades to come.

Unidentified Speaker
This moment puts him, you know, with a bunch of american greats. You know, the sort of George Washington.

Megyn Kelly
This was selfless. This was selfless on a level. I think that's important in a way that we talk about George Washington being selfless and saying, I could keep doing this for me because I think I can.

James Woods
Does character still matter? Well, it does. Tonight, dust tonight.

The kid with a stutter did good. He did good as a good man. He fell on the sword. He had somebody sitting in that chair, and he wouldn't give up power.

Megyn Kelly
No matter what.

James Woods
Wouldn't give up power.

Let there be an insurrection. Wouldn't get out of that chair. Even when the people voted for you to get out of the chair, he wouldn't get out the chair.

And you've got somebody who's sitting in that same chair.

Showing that character does matter.

Unidentified Speaker
Gratitude is the word for so many.

Megyn Kelly
People in this country pointing to Joe.

James Woods
Biden now and calling him a patriot.

Unidentified Speaker
Who stepped in when democracy needed it.

Megyn Kelly
Unbelievable.

James Woods
I mean, to hear anyone in his or her right mind compared to George Washington is just laughable.

It's laughable. And it's painful to think that we have to deal with this. You know, I'm in an organization, a wonderful organization called the Sons of the American Revolution. I'm a direct 9th generation descendant of Gustavus Reeb who fought at the Battle of Cowpens, which was the. A battle that was featured in the wonderful movie that Roland did with Mel Gibson called the Patriot. Great patriot ancestor was wounded there.

When I see what this country has become under Joe Biden and is destined to be further eroded under Kamala Harris. If lightning strikes five times in a bottle and people end up being stupid enough, honestly to believe the lies about her and from her I can't imagine that my ancestors are not spinning in their graves. You know, I lost my dad when I was twelve years old, God rest his soul. He fought in two wars. He had two purple hearts in World War two, fought in the korean war and he passed when I was twelve because he got the wrong blood transfusion at a military hospital during a surgery. When youre a child and you lose a beloved parent, you have these fantasies of what would it be like if he came back for 1 hour? What would you do? Its that kind of field of dreams thing about playing catch with your dad out in the field of dream. But I always thought what would my dad and I talk about?

And I thought recently its almost like you have to imagine what would he ask?

And if he said to me, what's happened since I've been gone?

And I said, well, you know, now they cast straight five year olds because they have an illusion that because they like the color pink, that they're really a woman trapped in a five year old male body. They do that it's okay to have men march naked down the street with their genitalia flopping around in San Francisco to celebrate a month of pride. Pride because they engage in certain different sexual activities. It's when you say it out loud and in some objective way, it sounds like such rampant madness that it's almost impossible to comprehend. Trying to tell a person who had spilled blood for their country that yes, you can stand in Washington DC just yesterday and watch palestinian people, supporters, not Palestinians, supporters of a terrorist organization dedicated to the eradication of the Jews that Hitler didn't get. Okay, and tear down the american flag, gleefully burn it in our nation's capital, which they still have a right to do, believe it or not, because of our glorious bill of rights that allows free speech and free expression, free assembly nonetheless, and then hoist the palestinian flag over Union Station.

Megyn Kelly
It's unbelievable.

James Woods
It is.

It's disgusting what people have done to this nation that I can't even grasp it. I just, I don't.

Megyn Kelly
That's infuriating. Look at that. We're looking at it right now. They are low. They lowered the stars and stripes in front of Union Station and they're cheering as a palestinian flag goes up. These same people, the same Palestinians who would throw the gaze off the roof are going to celebrate their culture, their background, their flag in front of Union Station in Washington DC, our nation's capital, and everyone's just sitting around watching it.

James Woods
Oh no, they're not sitting around. They're actively participating. And here's the problem. When they say from the river to the sea, ask them two questions. Which river? Which sea?

They don't even know.

You know, they trip these mantras that are provided to them by the mainstream media, the legacy media, the corporate media. Oh, let's just face it. The fluffers for the abominable abortion that news media has, they have become. They're a joke. I mean, the New York Times won the Pulitzer Prize for the Russia hoax, which their own guy Mueller said, no, it wasn't a hoax. It didn't exist. It waste of taxpayer money. And it interfered with our president trying to serve us during his term and fulfill the promises that he made that we voted for. But instead he had to be distracted by all of this ridiculous nonsense. But you know what? The Hunter Biden laptop doesn't exist according to our intelligence sources. And let me speak to that for a second, if I may.

I have several friends because I've been had my life threatened more times than I can tell you from my political views. I've had my career destroyed because of it. I had an agent who probably was 20 bears deep when he did it on the 4 July, send me a text and say, I'm feeling patriotic today. I'm going to drop you as a client. Let me rephrase that. Here's what he really meant.

You vote differently from me in the United States of America, so you don't deserve to have the career that you worked your ass off for for 40 years. And I'm going to destroy it and blacklist you.

And that's what this piece of shit did. Pardon my French. Okay. Now the good news is he lost his. Yeah, he lost his biggest client and so on. And then I said, well, I've got to find a way to pull myself up by my bootstraps. And thanks to two wonderful people in my life, David Wargo, my friend from MIT and my glorious best friend for my entire career in Hollywood. And, man, I helped get into the business. Chuck Rovin.

The three of us together, David and I brought Chuck a book called American Prometheus and said, do you think you can call your associate and friend Chris Nolan, see if you can get him interested in this project that we've been trying to get off the ground for five years?

And he did, and the rest was history. And I was able, thank God, by my bootstraps. And, you know, and it was wonderful when Chuck won the Oscar and the first thing he did was thank myself and David.

Megyn Kelly
First thing that was sweet. Justice, even for me, James, even where I was just to see them have to thank you and see you back. The award winning, I mean, it won every award Oppenheimer did. And they had to thank. That was sincere. But like, everyone in Hollywood had to bow down and say, this was a great idea.

James Woods
Yeah. And, well, the nice thing about it was, look, if you can put anything in Christopher Nolan's hands and he says, yes, they have this open up. He's a remarkable, great cineast.

His wife and producer partner, Emma Thomas. Wonderful Woman. And Chuck Rovin. Do you know that I'm the executive producer of Oppenheimer? And, you know, I did it all on a handshake. We all just shook hands and we made that movie. And we, we didn't make the movie. We watched the movie, Chuck and of Nolan made the movie. But we were able to put that together because these are decent people. By the way, Chuck is more liberal in his politics than I am.

Never interferes. We can talk about anything. We don't have to hate each other. I'm going to say something on your show that's going to shock you.

I'm going to lose a million followers on Twitter right now.

I love Whoopi Goldberg. I hate her politics. I think she's insane with her politics. But I worked with Whoopi on a movie, Ghost in Mississippi. I got an Oscar nomination. It was a great experience. I got to meet Van Evers, and it was just a remarkable experience. Whoopi and I had the best time together. She was such a sweet person. We became great friends. I like her. And if Whoopi Goldberg and I sat in a room, I sit down and go, who wants to start first? Because no matter who starts first, the person who starts is going to say, why are you so nuts?

But here's the difference between, I think, look, people say you're a conservative firebrand. I was a Democrat for 20 years. I'm not a conservative firebrand. I am a centrist. I believe in the constitution of the United States of America. I believe in the laws of the land. And you should obey the laws of the land if you're a citizen, and you should honor your oath of office to support and enforce the laws of the land if you are an elected leader.

I don't believe that somebody like Gavin Newsom can say, well, you know, the state of California voted for the death penalty, but I'm just not going to enforce it. I said, okay, great. Then I'm not going to acknowledge your gun laws. I'm going to run around with AK 47 shooting up the sidewalks? Of course not. You don't get to disobey the laws selectively, but Democrats do.

We don't do that.

Megyn Kelly
Can I ask you about this? Because I love this. I also have so many friends who are Democrats, who are liberals. I don't really have any woke friends, but I do have a lot of dear, lovely Democrat friends. And I read that you're actually friends with Rob Reiner, too, who is one of the most drunk critic. That's a. But you worked very early on together. I understand you maintain the friendship.

James Woods
Well, it was the same movie. But let me say something about Rob. Okay. Rob Reiner, boy, this quote is going to hear it. Rob Reiner is a patriot.

And by that I mean he is passionate about ideas that he believes in. Hey, it's the United States of America. You can believe what you want. And the things that he believes in are, to him, the way to make America great again.

Now, it may not be great in the way that some of the ideas I'd like to see to make America great again. It may not be that we may not have an equivalency there, but I believe that he truly cares about this country, and it's one of the reasons he's so passionate. I think he's very wrong about a lot of his social progressive ideas, but he's entitled to that. What's magnificent about this country is that Rob Reiner and I can be friends and completely disagree about just about everything, quite frankly.

But you know what? Rob fought for?

Studio didn't want me for Ghost of Mississippi. And I promised him, I said, if you take the chance and hire me, I'll get you an Academy Award nomination with my performance, because this is an important story. And it was. It was about the assassination of Medgar Evers, you know, and while hateful people. Good. I'm glad I got shot. Let me tell you a wonderful story about that one. We were filming in Jackson, Mississippi.

I'm all made up in this make up. Be like Byron de Labekwith. Byron de Labekwith happened to be kept after he was convicted for murder for life instead of being in the state prison where he would have been murdered.

The state of the commonwealth of Louisiana, is it a commonwealth state whatever of Louisiana has a responsibility to protect their prisoners. So they put him in the jail, Jackson, Mississippi, in the county jailhouse, which is above their, I think is above their city hall and so on. So he was in the jail, in the hospital part of the jail, looking down on us. When we were filming the story, and I walk out of a limousine and I'm looking at the crowd and I look up and there's Byron Diller Beckwith in the, in the jail window, hospital window, looking down.

And I got a note to come into the, into the courthouse. And a lovely lady, she was one of the corrections officers that was assigned to oversee him. And she said, mister Woods, I think she was actually a deputy sheriff as well, or police officer. I'm not sure what her exact, but she was a law enforcement personnel, very robust black lady serving her community.

And she said, mister woods, it's a pleasure to meet you. Mister de Labekwith has asked if you might want to meet him. She said it very cordially and I said, could you tell Mister Dibekwith that I declined the invitation.

And as an amendment to that thought, I hope he rots in hell and has his gizzards eaten out by rot by wild dogs.

And she says, you know, I always thought I'd like you, you married.

Megyn Kelly
Did not see that coming. Well done. Well, wait, this is. So I've got to, I gotta follow up with this because I'm driving to something.

You, among your many theatrical accomplishments, you were in one of my, and I venture to say most american women's favorite movies ever.

A little film in 1973 called the way we were. It was a very young James woods playing opposite Barbra Streisand. You were pals on the college campus and you weren't Robert Redford. You didn't have that role, but you were pretty prominently featured in this movie. And one of the things that you helped her in was her on campus protest. She was a communist. And you guys were young and believed in these leftist, you know, commie ideals.

James Woods
Correct?

Megyn Kelly
And we pulled a little clip of it. And then I'd love to ask you whether you've maintained with Barbara what you've maintained with Rob. Roger. Watch up, Katie.

James Woods
Yeah, all the way to Moscow, you.

Joe Biden
Can still take communion and like the Soviet Union.

James Woods
What's drinking in the Kremlin, Katie? The Kremlin is worried about the civil war in Spain.

Megyn Kelly
Are you?

James Woods
Thousands of spanish citizens are being bombed.

Joe Biden
And machine gunned and murdered.

James Woods
Only one country is sending help. One country, the Soviet Union.

Megyn Kelly
Katie, be my c c c comrade.

Unidentified Speaker
Oh, ka ka khdem.

Megyn Kelly
Okay, just a little snippet, but she's gone pretty far left too. And I wonder whether there's any relationship there.

James Woods
You know, I bumped into her a couple of times, and again, you know, it's funny, in our business, when you bump in to everybody, it's, I want. When I. Social media sort of changed things a lot when I was kind of focused on social media as a more conservative person, been blacklisted because of that agent's behavior, vile behavior.

I went to an opening of a film a friend of mine had produced who's kind of new to the business. I said, okay, I'll go. It was at the academy theater, and you come down the stairs, and the place is mobbed. And I thought, oh, mandy, I felt like I'm just, you know, I felt like that one guy in the famous pictures and everybody's saluting Hitler, and he's not saluting Hitler. I thought, well, here I am. I'm at a meeting of the communist party, and I'm half that room. People come up to me and go, hey, I just, you know, I just want you to know I'm with you. But I, but, you know, I just don't want to say anything. And I said, and don't say anything I said, because people really are dangerous. They will, you know that these casting directors now will look up your social media history. They'll see who you follow and so on. Yeah. You know, I say to my friends, I won't say who it is, but a very patriotic, great American who does wonderful things for people in this country, supports veterans. And a wonderful guy. He said, you know, being just moderately conservative in this country, just being conservative in America today is like being gay in the fifties. It's almost like you have to whisper. I see people say to me, we'll be talking. They go, I'm thinking of, I'm voting for Trump. But I go, you don't have to whisper this. This is the United States. You don't have to whisper that. You're going to vote for the most popular person in the country right now, in terms of the polls, to be the next president of the United States.

You actually don't have to apologize for exercising your first amendment rights, and we've got to stop doing that. You know, but if you ever want.

Megyn Kelly
To work again in Hollywood or if you want to make a career there as a young. Oh, you have no different, different story.

James Woods
No chance.

Megyn Kelly
You must be. Keep quiet.

James Woods
Oh, yeah. You have no chance. I mean, look, it's really funny. When Oppenheimer came out, there was a discussion about my Twitter.

Megyn Kelly
Oh, geez.

James Woods
And it was gently suggested that I basically remain invisible, which was painful.

On the other hand, I'm a pragmatic person, and I thought a lot of people put their effort into this. So I'm just going to be an invisible pariah because the people who are going to be voting for oscars, which is very important for a film to get oscars, because it does help with the financial reward in the historical archive in which it will rest forever. Academy award winning best picture, Oppenheimer. You know, I don't want to deprive those people. I don't want to have some nutcase come out of the woodwork, fabricate some ridiculous story about me. I've had a million of them said, they're all lies. I don't want that to happen. And have the clickbait story be James, what is the executive producer? Oppenheimer, we're not going to watch that movie. So, you know, I just. I stepped back and basically, you know, took one for the team and just. You wouldn't even know. I wasn't even invited to the producers Guild award. I'm a producer on the picture, and I was not invited to go to the producers Guild award, which is fine. Awards, by the way, won. But, you know, it's not. That environment was not the one that my father shed blood for.

It's not the one that I see as the America I would like to see my late brother, God rest his soul, my late brother's children. And they're now their children, not the future I see for them. I'd like you to be able to vote for wherever you want to. And people say, you know what? You have a right to do it, man. I disagree with you, Steve, but come have dinner and so on. And I just don't know why.

There's this vicious underlying cancer that has destroyed our business, and here's where it comes from.

By the way, I got a little secret project coming out soon, in October. Can't say anything about it.

If you go to my website, jameswoods.com, there'll be a little hint of what it might be, but I can't say another word about it because it's going to.

But some things are going to kind of come out because. Because I decided to embrace the second act. Oh, look at you. You are such a little devil.

Megyn Kelly
I couldn't figure it out, though. I have the picture, but I don't know what it's telling me.

James Woods
Yeah, you're gonna have to think about this now for the next couple of months, but we're gonna be teasing stuff out. If you sign up, give your email on the website, you'll be given updates on it.

It's a project that's just unbelievably near and dear to my heart. And the good thing is I'm doing more stuff now. I'm involved in the production of Oliver Stone's new movie. I love Oliver. He's difficult. We disagree on everything. We fight all the time. And he came to me and said, hey, Jimmy, you think you can help with this project like you did with Oppenheimer? And I said, I think I can. And luckily, I've got Chuck and Alex Gartner and of course, Fernando Sulacin, who's Oliver's producer. And the four of us are together on a handshake, kind of just trying to get this beautiful project put together. And we will, and it's going to be fantastic. So F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, there are no second acts in american lives.

But my second act is shaping up pretty well. And I give all the credit to somebody who's sitting there off camera.

My absolutely beloved, brilliant wife Sarah, who is. She's like this extraordinary photographer. Oh, there she is. That was just the night of the Oscars.

Everybody tries to get into the Vanity Fair party.

We were living at the time in the wonderful Lermontage hotel. If you ever stay in Beverly Hills, stay at the Lermontage. Wonderful people there. We were staying there while we were renovating the house we're in now. And for some reason, there was.

Our local Internet provider gave us a hard time. So I had the camera set up in our living room. So beautiful. Now I'm sitting in front of the refrigerator because we're near. Sorry. The connection was bad because they were doing some.

But there we are. Anyway, so my beloved wife, like, I'll be watching poker on tv, and she'll be in another room. She'll be doing stuff. And I figure out she's probably watching the Kardashians or something. And along the way, all of a sudden, I said, what are you doing?

You know, my book. I said, what? I said, what? My book.

I said, your book. What?

What book? She goes, I'm, you know, I'm writing a book. Well, first of all, she's a little scary. She's an unbelievable expert on every murder ever committed.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, she's my kind of gal. Yeah, I'm ready to. I'm ready to solve crime with Sarah.

James Woods
Oh, great. Let's have a threesome so you can both stab me to death after you duct tape me to a chair. That'd be fun.

She can't believe I just asked Meg and Kelly on air to have a threesome. Anyway, okay. Anyway, no, I said, I'm sorry, what's your book about? She goes, well, I've got a few chapters. You want to read it?

And now I go, now I gotta read my wife's book.

And, you know, I said, sarah, you know, I'm a professional producer. I'm. You know that, right? She goes, yeah, honey, I know that. I said, so do you want the. Oh, darling, this is wonderful. It's so cute. You want that? And she said, nope. I want your straight answer. I got a book. Got a manuscript. Why don't you to read it like a producer?

I said, okay, what do you have? Seven chapters. Shit. Okay.

I read the seven chapters and I put it down and I go, I say the three words every writer wants to hear and which are almost a guarantee if you write a thriller or a mystery to get your movie made or your book made into a movie.

What happens next?

She goes, what happens next? She goes, well, I'm working on it. I got it. Yeah, but you can tell me, I'm your husband. She goes, no, mister big shot. I'm a producer. I'm going to give you the answer. No, you'll get it when I'm ready. And I said, I can't believe it. You've been sitting in there all this time writing a book over the past, whatever. We've been four years in this whatever. She goes, that's sort of accurate.

Megyn Kelly
You'll get it when I'm ready, by the way, is sort of the cardinal rule of marriage. But go ahead.

James Woods
No, no. Here's the punchline. I said I wasn't writing a book. I said, oh, I'm confused. I wrote four books.

Megyn Kelly
What?

James Woods
I said, we've been married almost a decade, and in the process you've managed to write three and a half novels.

And I didn't know about it. Cause, you know, I'm Hercule Perot. I know what's going on around here.

2200 square foot, house on the beach. There's no way she can ever get away from. Hey, what are you doing over there? And, you know, she's writing, like, novels and her photography, as you probably know, if you follow her online. I mean, everybody on X loves Sarah's pictures. In fact, on my website, we're thinking maybe in the future we're going to. So many people have asked. She's. I'm just gonna do. We're gonna publish a book of her photography and let people be blessed with the experience of seeing that. I love my wife. She's just.

Megyn Kelly
Well, I love that, honestly. And I think James especially in your position. I can speak to this to some extent myself. When you're under attack all the time, having true love in your life makes it all tolerable. It's like you have this other source in your life where, like, this is what matters. This is what makes me happy. This person's opinion matters to me, and none of the others does.

James Woods
Well. And by the way, you can now extrapolate out from that and say, right now, you know, it's the honeymoon period, and everybody. Oh, Harris. Oh, my God. She's the new queen of America and all this stuff. Yeah. She's a person who wants mandatory buyback of your guns. She doesn't care that the border is open. Basically. She doesn't even want the fact that if you break the law and come across this fictional border that we no longer have. Look, you know, she wants to get rid of fracking, offshore drilling. She wants to have everybody drive golf carts the rest of her life. It goes on and on and on. She's the chairman Mao of America, and she's masquerading in some little outfit like she's some little liberal doll who was, you know, you know, taking care of law and order in California. Yeah. Putting black men in prison for smoking marijuana. And I can say this blunt. You don't think Kamala Harris has smoked marijuana? Have you ever seen some videos?

Megyn Kelly
She admitted that she has. She admitted on Charlemagne, the guy that she has. She thought that was super funny, but didn't have much laugh for the people she put in prison for it.

James Woods
Well, the people who were murdered in prison, probably because, you know, when you go to a prison, a lot of times you get murdered for other things because you aren't in the right.

The gang or whatever. But she doesn't care, and they don't care. And look, when I was on Twitter, it's a funny thing. Elon Musk has blocked me, and I love Elon Musk.

Megyn Kelly
You got in a fight with Elon.

James Woods
I mean, he's one of, like, the greatest ever, but he had wanted to take away the blocking feature, and I fought against it.

So he thought he'd be cute and blocked me, and I said, thank you. You're proving my point. People have a right to block people. I don't think it would have been great had he banished me from X. And he didn't, to his credit, but he blocked me, which I think was kind of his loss, in a way. I saw the point he was trying to make because he and I share so many ideals that we believe in.

Megyn Kelly
He's probably temporarily irritated. I don't see that lasting.

James Woods
And this is really important.

I don't care if he unblocks me. I don't need his approval. What I admire him for is that he didn't ban me when Jack Dorsey and the cabal were running Twitter. I got banned from Twitter for seven months for paraphrasing Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I basically said, if you try to kill the king, you better not miss. And they said, oh, that's violent. And they said, we won't let you back on unless you retract it. At the time, I had 2 million, 3 million followers. And I said, fine, I don't give. Fine, I don't have to go back on Twitter. Everybody says, oh, my God. It's like, I don't care. I don't need to.

Megyn Kelly
No, but we missed your account. We were happy that it restored.

James Woods
I know you may have missed my account, but here's what you don't want, Megan. You don't want my account with me. Look, it's the same with these people who want to defund the police. If you worry about being murdered, rape, carjacked, whatever, in Joe Biden's or Joseph Biden's America, and it's going to be that way. Kamala Harris's America. God forbid, if she's ever elected. God forbid that ever happens. You know, then you might want to rethink your position of defunding the police because the police cannot defend you when they have their hands tied behind their backs.

Okay.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah. As the whole country was learning the hard way. Wait, I've got to get something. This is in the news, and I want to get your thoughts on it. It's a Hollywood thing, kind of in your wheelhouse. So yesterday, this week, JD Vance is under fire for a comment he made a few years back on the Tucker Carlson show in which he said, you know, there are these childless cat ladies who are miserable, and they want you to be miserable too. And he was pointing out some of our elected officials who don't have children, saying, you know, that they have no stake in the future. It was a sort of, you know, tongue in cheek comment, whatever. It was passing reference. Well, now all this shit has run, has rained down on him like he hates women and he hates people who have no children. And that's not true. But one of the people who weighed in was Jennifer Aniston, who writes on her instagram as follows. All I can say is, Mister Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option, because you are trying to take that away from her, too, which is not true.

But I'll say this, James, to the point we had, we discussed earlier. Where was Jennifer Aniston standing up for little girls who are getting their breasts chopped off for political purposes by people who are shoving this gender ideology down their throats without figuring out that they might just be temporarily depressed, or who are being forced to compete against boys and in high school sports to the point where they wind up partially paralyzed and permanent nerve damage from the. I didn't see her sticking up for that. I'm perfectly happy to see her on board the women's rights train. But you know what? I haven't seen her there ever before on any of the key issues that don't involve a passing reference and a stupid joke.

James Woods
First of all, I have kind of a cardinal rule that I don't specifically say anything negative about other people in Hollywood because it just becomes clickbait.

So I'm not going to address a particular person, okay. I mean, I'm just being safe about it.

And, you know, when you're a man, you have to be very careful about how you address women's issues. Because I. Look, my dad died, God rest his soul. When I was twelve, I watched my mother. My mother would have been the first woman president of the United States if there were fair elections. And she were living in this era because she loved this country. She knew how to make things better for people. She would be appalled at what they're doing to girls today because she had two granddaughters and she loved them. I have a sister, my brother's two daughters.

We have a girl on the way in our family, and look to see a child, a child of 1213, 14 years old, have a mastectomy because of politics.

The Salem witch trials were about hysteria.

When people believed in witches, you could stir people up. And mass hysteria is one of the most dangerous phenomena in the history of the world. Mass hysteria has been more responsible for wars, for concentration camps, for mass murder by dictators, pol pot, Stalin, whatever. When you introduce sick, evil, medically, psychologically, socially, humanistically corrupt, cancerous ideas contrary to human nature and all human value and try to make it seem normal, when it's nothing, you are creating a whirlwind of destruction that can lead to horrific results. Look, when you first discover your sexuality and somebody, a coach, whatever, gives you a library book for a boy, oh, it's okay to have anal sex or whatever and so on. And the kid does it, and then the rest of his life is teased for being, you know, and I won't use the words, the derogatory words they use. That is a cruelty beyond imagination. And the longer these people keep doing it, the more the rest of us will band together and say, we have got to bring this country back. And if going forward means more castrations, destruction, evil by the progressive lunatic left, then I'm very happy.

And I don't use this mantra ever, but I would like to see America fulfill her greatest dreams and ambitions, and that will never happen under this cackling clown we have now. And it certainly didn't happen under this gentleman who has cognitive decline and is currently in the White House while the world's at war, which is another thing we could talk about for another hour. I can't tell you how much I am honored and overjoyed to have been here with you. I admire you. My mom would have loved you.

Megyn Kelly
That is a high compliment. Thank you so much, James. I really hope you come back. I know you don't do a lot of press, but we'd love to be one of the outlets. You do do.

James Woods
My wife has never missed one. She, you know, she's the one who's responsible. I said, you know, I don't do press. She goes, you gotta do Megan. I go, you're right, you gotta do Megan. I hope she tries to beat me up, but you gave me a pass this time. Next time.

Megyn Kelly
Well, next time we'll get into it. But I can't because I actually. I love what you say and I love how forcefully you say it. We need a 10 million more just like you.

James Woods
Thank you so much.

Megyn Kelly
All right, see you soon. That was just fun. Oh, wow. It's great to hear a reasonable voice who says it like it is. A lot more of that coming your way. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Do you ever think, how can I work this hard and still be in debt? The piles of overdue bills, the threatening phone calls, never having money to do anything. If you are trapped in debt, done with debt can be a way out. They have developed aggressive new strategies to end your debt permanently. Done with debt stands between you and the harassing, annoying bill collectors who wants to deal with them. They tirelessly negotiate with your creditors to lower or even forgive what you may owe. And they do it all without bankruptcy or new loans. One client said one phone call saved us a fortune. I only wish we'd done this long ago.

Done with debt has unique strategies to get you out of debt faster and put more money in your pocket every month. But you need to hurry because some debt solutions are time sensitive and you don't want to miss out. Visit donewithdebt.com talk with one of their debt relief strategists for free. What do you have to lose? Accept your debt. Go to donewithdebt.com that's donewithdeb.com.

Unidentified Speaker
When it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. With indeed, don't search match indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. If you need to hire, you need indeed. You can even use indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging to connect with candidates faster. 93% of employers agree that indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent indeed survey. And since indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, the more you use indeed, the better it gets. Join over 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use indeed to hire great talent. Fasten plus listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@indeed.com. sxm. Just go to indeed.com sxm rightnow and support our show by saying, you heard about indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you. Need indeed.

Megyn Kelly
Full on chaos in our nation's capital as thousands of pro homologous Hamas and anti american protesters take to the streets. And yes, I do mean pro Hamas. Their own flags and statements make it clear this is not just pro Palestinian voicing opposition to israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress. Nearly two dozen people arrested, many just been released. The protesters defacing american monuments, ripping down the american flag in favor of Hamas's, and clashing with police. As of this moment, we have yet to hear anything directly from President Biden. His senior deputy press secretary managed to put out a comment saying, quote, identifying with evil terrorist organizations like Hamas, burning the american flag or forcibly removing the american flag and replacing it with another is disgraceful. Every american has the right to peacefully protest, but shamefully, not everyone demonstrated peacefulness. Good.

But what kept the president from issuing a statement directly condemning what we saw yesterday in Washington? I think we know the answer well, last night, President Biden delivered his eleven minute speech quitting the White House, explaining why he's quitting his bid for a second term, making brief mention that he will continue to call out hate and extremism and, of course, bringing up January 6. That was followed by an ice cream social with his staffers on the White House grounds, as noted by NBC's Peter Alexander. As for Vice President Kamala Harris, shortly before we went to air, she finally issued a statement on the unpatriotic protesters. Only once she was under fire from JD Vance and others for saying nothing.

In the statement, she condemns individuals, quote, associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, and condemns the burning of the american flag. Meantime, on Capitol Hill, roughly half of their democratic colleagues, roughly half in Congress, skipped the address by Mister Netanyahu on Wednesday, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Jim Clyburn, and, of course, AOC, one who did choose to attend. Michigan congresswoman and squad member Rashida Tlaib, who wore a palestinian flag pin as a sitting american member of Congress and a kafea and repeatedly helped up, held up a sign reading war criminal and guilty of genocide. As Mister Netanyahu spoke outside, it was just bedlam and disgust.

I just can't believe what I saw in the nation's capital yesterday. The terrorist sympathizers making comments like this one to Fox News is Griff Jenkins.

Unidentified Speaker
You said you would support Hamas.

Megyn Kelly
Are you saying you support genocide?

What does the mosque have to do with 20,000 babies and children massacred and butchered, women and families?

James Woods
400 universities flattened.

Megyn Kelly
Schools flattened. Hospitals flattened, thousands of hospital workers murdered. Do you think that has anything to do with the mosque or humanity? It's human rights for human rights and mosque.

James Woods
What about the hostages?

Unidentified Speaker
What do you say about the hostages that are.

Megyn Kelly
On October 7, most of those people.

James Woods
Were killed by israeli forces using the Hannibal directives.

Megyn Kelly
Hello. Wake up.

Unidentified Speaker
All right, so that's obviously not been proven to be the case, but the protesters are getting very passionate out here.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, she seems nice.

Tim cast news also capturing this protesters burning the american flag, chanting Allahu Akbar. Hello. You're not allowed to do that when it belongs to the federal government. You want to burn your own flag? Go for it. That's the beauty of living in America. You can do and say stupid, offensive things, but stealing federal property and burning it is a no no. We used to refer to that as a crime. They also, you could see, had put up an effigy of Benjamin Netanyahu.

One guy grabbed the burning flag and made a run for it, trying to save it. It was actually pretty great. Then this crazy ass mob ran after him and tried to attack him even once they ripped the burning flag back from the guy. They wanted to hurt him. Nice group of people.

Those american flags were ripped from their rightful place outside of DC's historic union Station and burned. How did the media respond? Well, apparently Politico was upset that Republicans were upset. Quote, Republicans pounce after Netanyahu protesters burn us flags and wave hamas ones instead. That was an actual tweet sent out by Politico. What are you doing, politico? That is the wrong headline.

Republicans pounce. They know this is a thing. Why do they keep doing it? Yet another example of how out of touch they are. Real clear investigations. Mark Hemingway put it a very different way, and I think he's closer to the truth. On one side, he has. In his post, former President Trump bloodied fist in the air with old glory waving behind him. On the other, anti american protesters burning our flag, as he puts it. The ad writes itself, when the dust settled yesterday, american patriots took matters into their own hands. And good for them. There was a very sweet scene after it all settled down involving former FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who. I really love this guy. So reasonable. He's such a nice twitter follow.

He had biked over. He wasn't looking for attention. He was doing this privately. But Breitbart was there documenting the scenes and they saw him do something that the others weren't doing, which was he biked over to place his own personal flag at the scene. Breitbart captured it. Good for them. Clearly did not realize who they were talking to. And listen as he explains why he felt it was important to do this.

Unidentified Speaker
Sir, I see you putting the american flag there. Just wondering why you're doing that. I'm an american citizen. I'm proud of my country, and I don't like the fact that the flag were taken down. So, just happened to be visiting DC today or. No, no, I lived in the DC area. I was in the government for a long time and served for many years, including the prior administration and the FCC.

And I love this country and everything it stands for. I'm as strong a believer in the First Amendment as you'll ever find. But I also do not like the fact that our nation's capital has been defaced and defiled in certain ways, and in particular, the flag being taken down. So I thought the least I could do is take the one flag that I could move from my house and bring it here to make sure that the Star Spangled Banner still waves over the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Megyn Kelly
God love him.

Isn't that amazing? Again, not looking for attention. Just did it privately because it was important to him. And I'm right there with you, Jay. Thank you for doing that.

When darkness fell, several lawmakers went out there. This is a great piece of the story. And restored the american flag to its proper place at DC's Union station. Congressman and former Navy Seal Dan Crenshaw among them. Good for you, Congressman. He's been on the program before as well, writing that a group of them, including the speaker of the House and many veterans, went out there and restored stars and stripes to their rightful place, saying it took a while to get it done because the Hamas supporters broke the connections on the flagpole with the lines. But DC police helped them out and got them zip ties to get it up. I love that. Look at this.

It's great video.

They did the best they could on finding the flags to put up. They said they're going to replace them with better ones and, you know, I guess newer, but what a great gesture.

What a great gesture. Restores your faith in humanity.

Okay, so that was a remarkable story yesterday. And I have to say I've had enough of the lawlessness and the disrespect of our country.

I don't want to listen to Allahu Akbar watching an american flag burn in our nation's capital as they threaten patriots who try to protect the flag. That is, that's not us. I don't know what that is.

But we need to fight against it. We need to call attention to it, and we need the media to understand that the headline is not republicans pounce. Okay. The headline is people supporting a terrorist group that right now have american hostages in their custody, came to Washington, burned our flag, and chanted Allahu Akbar, and then tried to attack american citizens and cops.

That's the story.

It's not that hard.

Meanwhile, speaking of the media, the Democratic Party, its bigwig donors and media elites have fallen in line and in love with Vice President Kamala Harris. Oh, the honeymoon continues. Honeymoon or coronation? Or you can pick any of those words. Even the New York Times called it a coronation. And it, and it has been this. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said this week. Oh, boy, oh, boy. Are they enthusiastic. Yeah, it's ground up, grassroots.

One name. And those who have rushed to endorse Kamala Harris, so far, at least, has been missing. And that's former president Barack Obama. The New York Post is reporting, citing one source who they say is close to the Biden family, that Mister Obama has not yet endorsed Harris because he doesn't think she can win. Apparently Mister Obama was hoping that the nominee would be Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, according to the Post. Now we should say NBC News is reporting today that Mister Obama and VP Harris have spoken and that he will soon endorse her. But what are we to make of the delay? He is sort of an outlier at this point. Everybody, everybody, all the top democrats have. And if true, does the former president actually have a point about Senator Mark Kelly, who's getting more and more buzz, at least as a possible VP candidate to Harris at the top of the ticket? Joining me now, Jim Vande Hei. He's the co founder and CEO of Axios and he's also the author of the recently released book just the good stuff, no b's, secrets to success. Tim, welcome to the show.

Unidentified Speaker
Great to be here. I don't know about that intro. You know, I started Politico. I don't work there anymore. Now I've started axios. So I'm gonna throw myself to the wolves. All right, let's go.

Megyn Kelly
Well, I don't blame you for politico's tweets these days. We can talk about axios later, but the political thing, it's so annoying. Republicans pounce. How does that kind of annoying fucking headline wind up? Forgive me, Jiva. How does that, how does, how is that the headline?

Unidentified Speaker
I watch this stuff unfold all the time, right? I think people underestimate how at news organizations, like a tweet gets sent out. It's often like a young news desker who's looking at a piece that runs on the site and they're figuring out, how do I get people to engage with this? And they throw it up there. I think people assume one. Sometimes there's more thought put into it than there was. And that too, there's some kind of agenda because it was a crappy tweet or a clumsily worded tweet. What I always advise people on is like, listen, I think people get really hopped up about the media. I think there's a lot of things the media does that can tick people off, but that for the consumer, what you should do is find some sources that you follow that you authentically think, try to get to the closest approximation of the truth on a routine basis and deliver on that and follow them and maybe not get so hopped up and assume that there's a conspiracy between every bad tweet or every dumb thing that an entity does.

Megyn Kelly
Well, I think you're probably right. This is probably a young staffer because it was sent out via tweet. But I think the, you know, young people in DC are overwhelmingly left wing, as you know. I mean, overwhelmingly so. Those three things are not coincidental. You know, this is how she saw the story. She saw the story or he as, it's a republicans overreacting story as opposed to, my God, what, what is happening? What are they doing?

You can always glean a reporter's sympathies in the way they style the piece. So you're right, though. Media selection is part of shielding yourself from. I think that's true, audience.

Unidentified Speaker
I think it is true. I think it is true that if you took every single newsroom and put people on true serum, there's more people who probably have a liberal background than not. And so I don't think that that's an unfair critique. I think what's an unfair maybe critique or not generally known, would be, listen, I worked at the Washington Post. I worked at the Wall Street Journal. I started politico. I've started axio. So I have a pretty good sample size of reporters. I think most reporters, despite their own personal politics, do try to get to the closest approximation of the truth and try to do it in a clinical way. Are there times where they screw it up or maybe because their background, they're not as familiar with faith or they're not as familiar with the gun culture or the hunting culture?

Yes. But I do think, in general, I wish that people, readers in particular, didn't assume the worst about every single news organization and every single reporter, because I feel we then go down this dangerous road where nobody believes anything. And in a world where nobody believes anything, you have, like, intellectual anarchy. And within intellectual anarchy, I think bad things will happen. And so I think the media has responsibility to try to be as clinical and as fair as humanly possible. We certainly try to do it at Axios. I encourage anybody at other news institutions to do the same. And then I encourage people on the consumption side to just know your sources and maybe try to find things you trust and not get so hopped up.

Megyn Kelly
I completely disagree.

I didn't want to start it on a disagreeable note, but I totally disagree with all of that. I think that the agenda is so patently clear. And I do want our audience to know Steve Bannon was on the show a couple weeks ago singing your praises. I mean, Politico and Axios are just incredibly powerful news organizations, and they're yours, you know, like, not politico anymore. But you started it. Without you, we wouldn't have had it. And you were this kid who I know had a crappy GPA at Wisconsin and said, you know what they're telling me I have no future, but I'm going to go create one for myself. And boy have you. And I appreciate everything you've done. However, just completely disagree on the bias in the media. I just think it's in your face every day. What's happening with the borders are whitewashed. Today is just today's example of it. But I mean, let's go bigger. Let's talk about what they've been doing with Biden.

Everything about his health was downplayed. People were attacked. The White House reporters weren't reporting on it. They didn't even know that the Parkinson's doctor had been visiting the White House. They didn't care to check or, you know, look at any of that. And then they stuck the knives in him for months, well, weeks I guess, since the debate. And then as soon as he left screen, it's like, he's the greatest. He's wonderful. Joe Biden is a patriot. It was like you all stuck the knife in him because he was no longer useful.

Unidentified Speaker
Okay, I'll take that. So what I would say, going back to find a source that you trust, if you go back and look at axios coverage, which is the only one I can really defend with personal knowledge, we've written a lot about that, like an extraordinary amount. To the point, to the point where.

Megyn Kelly
You did a great job in covering his post.

Unidentified Speaker
Friction with the White House. I don't give a crap if we have friction with any White House. We're trying to get to the truth. So there was a source of truth, would have been axios in this case where we were reporting on that. It was out there. And I agree that other news institutions weren't as aggressive on a topic that you could see with your own eyes. And it's a very valid topic.

Megyn Kelly
Cheap fakes, they said.

James Woods
Pardon?

Megyn Kelly
They were saying cheap fakes. It wasn't just, they weren't aggressive. But I mean, you had NBC and CB's and CNN and MSNBC saying the evidence that we were watching before our eyes was not what we know it was.

Unidentified Speaker
Yeah, again, like, I can't defend other news organizations. I can say there were people in the mainstream media, us, I would put on that, listen, who were covering it aggressively. And that's what you need to find. You need to find sources of truth that you believe that are trying to get to the truth and get to the closest approximation of it. Doesn't mean we get every single thing right or that there aren't things that I would critique that we do. It's my job to do that all the time and to recalibrate. Just make sure we have the right people doing the right coverage. But it is out there. And I do still think that people take these outlier cases and then assume that everything the post or NBC or times rights is crap or it's partisan or it's biased. I just don't think that to be true. Like, I read a lot of these publications quite religiously, worked at some of them, and I would argue at a lot of those places. They have some really good reporters and the ones who are really good on topics I care about, I try to follow because I find it edifying. I find that I walk away with it knowing something I didn't know. If someone kind of reeks of bias and they exist, you and I both know that I don't follow them. I just don't. And, like, the test for us is, like, you, steve bannon, right? Like, I know he's a reader of axios, and I'm sure there's a lot that we write. He'll jokingly, like, text us and say, you're a damn communist. And, like, but I know he's reading us every day because he believes that we are getting to the closest approximation of the truth.

And that's part of the job. And it's, again, it's like the, it comes with the gig, right? Like, media is just, it's front and center. It's part of everybody's life, and everyone has an opinion on it.

Megyn Kelly
I don't think axios is anywhere near the worst offender. I mean, I, you probably wouldn't even be on the show if you were right, because you wouldn't want to talk to somebody like me.

But I don't agree with, in giving the mainstream media widely a pass or an assumption that they're all operating, most are operating in good faith. That hasn't been my experience. And I've been on more conservative type media side for all of my career, so I've seen it through a different lens entirely.

I know you were with the Journal, but it was a short stint. So I've been 20 years in conservative media. And it's just when you're a conservative and you see your ideals being bashed at every turn and reduced to a pounce, when you say what you know, like, then you develop these opinions. But since we're going there, let's talk about axios, because the example that's in the news today.

And I'm looking here at a free press piece by a guy named Peter Savodnik.

He's calling you guys out in particular for this border czar thing. And he takes us back to March 2021, where you guys publish a story with a headline, Biden puts Harris in charge of border crisis. Biden puts Harris in charge of border crisis. And it was done by your politics reporter, Steph Kite, k I g h t, who? She informed us in that piece that Harris would be addressing the migrant surge at the US Mexico border, that Harris would lead the efforts with Mexico and the northern triangle, meaning Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, to manage the flow of unaccompanied children and migrant families arriving at the border.

And we understood at the time that this was a big deal. President Biden had said that he was going to turn to Harris for his biggest responsibilities, and this was one of them. Then today. Well, yes. Yeah. Today, right. Today's July 24.

The same reporter, I guess that was yesterday. Yesterday, the same reporter, the same outlet, yours, put out a story headlined, Harris border confusion haunts her new campaign, reporting that, in fact, back in 21, Biden enlisted Kamala Harris to help with just a slice of the migration issue.

And now there's confusion around the VPS exact role and that early media misfires and the rapidly changing regional migration crisis has made the issue a top target for the GOP trying to define their new opponent. Meantime, she had said the same. And then I, you guys added a note to your own earlier report saying, we Axios were among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris borders are in 2021 after all the blowback. So, Jim, what, like, people look at it. They're like, this isn't even being even. Harris isn't talking about this. She wasn't out there saying, they'll call me a border czar. So what made you go back and amend your earlier reporting again?

Unidentified Speaker
Okay, so I wasn't personally involved in this, but it's my company, so I will talk about it. So when, like, when you talk about a czar, there's a czar, which is like an official appointment. Like, you, we have a car.

Megyn Kelly
You don't really have czars.

Unidentified Speaker
Well, people have used that term in the past when they put appointed somebody to have basically specific control over a portfolio. Right? And so to me, like, this whole argument about whether she's a czar or not a czar is like a. Is a semantical thing, right? It's not actually a substantive thing. Like the truthful thing is, was she involved deeply in the Biden Harris immigration policy and what happened at the border? Absolutely. Was she fully responsible for their immigration policy and border control? Absolutely not. She didn't. I don't think she had the trust of the administration at that time to be able to control that entire portfolio. Were there parts of it where she had say, and I think the president himself even said, she speaks for us or speaks for me on parts of this portfolio? Absolutely. Should she have to explain and defend the immigration policy and the border issues under the Biden Harris administration? Of course she should. Like, why shouldn't she? She is the number two in the us government, and we have an issue at the southern border that is arguably the biggest topic in the swing states that are going to decide the election. So whether you call her a czar, don't call her. She was intimately involved in the policy, undoubtedly is going to have to defend it and will have no choice but to defend it because it's one of the top couple of issues that voters care about. Certainly, it's not just republican voters. There's a lot of Democrats and independents who care about it and see it as a legitimate crisis.

And they want to understand between the two candidates, what are you going to do about it? If we have all these people trying to swarm over our border and we have people here who are here illegally, how are you going to take care of that problem and the derivative problems that flow from it, whether it's crime or the economic effect of having people here or not having people here? So to me, this is one of those topics where people's heads explode and they spend it. Is it a czar? Is it not a czar? And you're actually losing focus on who gives a crap at the end of the day, what the official term is. At the end of the day, what is the policy?

Can she defend the policy? Does Trump have a superior policy? What would the effects of those policies be? And then for me, the voter, now that I know those things, if that issue is what I care about, how do I make a really educated decision come election day on who I should vote for based on that topic?

Megyn Kelly
I hear you on all of that. But the bottom line is the media said, I mean, I'm looking down the list of the publications we've got, Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, Axios, CB's, USA Today time, those, that's just what I found before air, all of whom called her a border czar. That's when he announced this back in March of 21 that they all went with that. I mean, I'm reading the president himself said, I have asked her, march of 2021. I have asked her to lead our efforts in stemming the immigration to our southern border, the migration to our southern border. I have asked her to lead our efforts in stemming the migration to our southern border. That was how he announced it. And then now that she's become the top dog, it's like Czar. Who said czar? That's not an appropriate term. It's not just axios. It's not just political. Wait, let me run the sound bite. And then you take it. I'm going to give it to you after I show the audience what we've heard from the television news reporters.

James Woods
Watch, quote, unquote, border czar.

Vice President Harris was not a border czar.

Megyn Kelly
Meantime, vice president and border czar Kamala Harris facing some backlash.

James Woods
What he said about Harris and immigration was nothing. She was never appointed border czar.

Megyn Kelly
And this will be her first visit to the US Mexico border region since she was appointed as the border czar by President Biden. People have to counter the misinformation. You already hear folks talking about the border czar. She wasn't the border czar. President Biden tapped Kamala Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris to be the border czar.

Unidentified Speaker
Now, she wasn't the border czar.

Megyn Kelly
That's what Republicans labeled her. They were very critical of Kamala Harris, especially in her role as border czar. Now what she's up against is folks lying about her border record calling her a border czar.

Unidentified Speaker
Kamala Harris, who was appointed as the.

Megyn Kelly
Border czar, the Biden team didn't declare her the border czar. They wanted her to work on kind of the root causes of immigration. There has been so much criticism against Kamala Harris. You know, she was the border czar.

James Woods
Calling her sort of the border czar.

Megyn Kelly
It's pretty amazing. Newsbusters put that together. Go ahead, Jim.

Unidentified Speaker
Yeah. My point on that is it's still like a semantical battle. Was she czar or not czar? I don't even like, if you're a voter, like, what do you care? Like, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.

Megyn Kelly
Then why is the media doing it?

Unidentified Speaker
I think, I don't know. What was the root of it yesterday? I'm sure it came up in some context or someone used it. And then I'm sure, like, even our story was like trying to explain the nuance of was she technically a czar? Because in the past, some governments have actually appointed someone to be the czar that have the official accountability, the official authority over a specific policy.

Megyn Kelly
We have that interrupting you, but we did have that. It was Roberta S. Jacobson before Kamala Harris. And when she was stepping down, she said she was happy to see Miss Harris assume the work of stemming migration from Central America. This, she was thrilled in the Washington Post was reporting the same time describing this move that she was taking on the lead role on the overall border and regional issue. I mean, it's just to me, if the semantics don't matter, then why is the media now, just as she's been elevated, rushing to change the label?

Unidentified Speaker
I've not seen, you played a bunch of clips that I have not seen. What I do know, I don't know if anybody or nobody should be denying, was she intimately involved in the administration's immigration policy? She was. Whether she was czar or not czar, what should matter to anybody is not, was it called a czar? Not called a czar. To me, that's the kind of silly stuff that people get distracted with, spend an entire day hyperventilating.

Megyn Kelly
I agree. I totally agree with you partly on you.

Unidentified Speaker
Like you, I'm going to critique you. So you critique me being a representative of the mainstream media. What I don't like about conservative or really liberal media is to assume that everything that the mainstream media produces is not on the level. And then to hunt every single day to find some example of it with no recognition of maybe 99.9% of the content that was produced by those same organizations yesterday might have been really helpful. Might have been totally on the level. Might have been things that you'd say, yeah, that was a well done story. Well reported. That's helpful. Boy, that's helpful happening in the environment or boy, that's happening.

Megyn Kelly
I mean, Jim, on this program, you haven't watched the Megyn Kelly show because we've, we've cited Alex Thompson a lot. We cited axios a lot. As I said, we gave you a shout out just recently.

Unidentified Speaker
Agreed.

Megyn Kelly
Axios on.

Unidentified Speaker
I'm trying to defend the other people.

Megyn Kelly
Well, but I'm not gonna there. You will not find me defending MSNBC. I think Politico has gone much further to the left than axios has. I mean, you left the organization. I know you had some critiques of clickbait media and so on. So I'm, I'm not, I'm not coming down on axios in particular. In fact, this was, I think, one of the more egregious examples because I think in general, it's one of the least offensive publications, which, trust me, for me, as a compliment, because I generally don't love most of our media colleagues in the way they approach the news.

Unidentified Speaker
But my general, my concern is, right, is because of the way that people treat media. And I'm not saying that the mainstream, I could give you a thousand things. The mainstream media has gotten wrong and things that I wish didn't happen and didn't happen. To this day, what I worry about is if we have most people spending most of their time trying to figure out why everyone's full of it and why everyone has some kind of agenda, what happens when we live in a society where none of us have any kind of common understanding of, like, I'll answer that.

I'll tell you, come across the border. Is that a problem? Yes. How do you solve it? What are the options? Well, there's a, there's a physical fence. There's, there's, there's non physical fences. There's more aggressive policing on the other side of the border. I wish more people paid attention to that. And I think, like, where you and me, well, we come at it, you come at it with a very specific show and you have your view. I come at it with a very specific company trying to do things our way. Like, where I feel like we can help people, where I try to serve people is just try to get to the closest approximation, try to be clinical, admit, like, that there's things that we get wrong. Like, what I don't like with the mainstream media is like, pretending like we haven't gotten anything wrong, or pretending that when that reporters went on there and suddenly started to betray their biases, I hated that. I think it destroyed, it's destroyed part of the soul of mainstream media. But I don't think, therefore, the soul is totally gone. And that there's no truth. That's emanating from a lot of really good news organizations that are full of people trying to do the right thing.

Megyn Kelly
So I take your point. I still disagree. I think the soul of news media, I don't know if I can say the soul is dead, but I think that the organization, like the entity, has completely changed to the point where you really do have to figure out who you trust. And that is not the fault of the consumers, the readers, the viewers. It's our fault. It happened.

It was happening even before Trump. But Trump completely broke the media, and they allowed it, wore their, their biases on their sleeves. They leaned into them, they declared him a unique threat, and began every report by pointing that out, calling him names, sexist, racist, but this, that the other thing and telegraphed for, you know, now it's been eight years that they not only loathed him, but they loathed people who supported him, which, as it turns out, is half the country or more. And that's what broke media. That's what led people to go down rabbit holes in the most extreme cases and follow just online strange sites that would mislead them, or in better cases, I would argue. And that's not just because I'm a part of digital media, decided, go someplace else, decided to realize I can't trust CNN. Not only do they mislead me, they hate me. So I blame the media for the choices they made. In particular, once Trump became a national political figure.

Unidentified Speaker
I don't totally disagree that a huge trigger of both, like a hyperventilation on behalf of the media and then a reaction to it was triggered by Trump. I do agree with that. I don't think where I disagree is, I don't think, therefore, because that happened, you can't trust media. Again, I'll go back to Axios, which is the only thing I could take ownership of.

We've interviewed Trump a bunch of times. I know he reads us. I think he thinks we try to get it, doesn't love everything we write, different times he's tweeted or put something on true social that he doesn't like us, but, like, we seem to have a pretty good line into them. We're able to break a lot of news. Like I said, we've interviewed him, spent time with him.

And the way that we've done it and the way that I would encourage other people in the mainstream media to do it is one, get the hell off of Twitter.

We ask all of our employees, not just our reporters, to not express their opinions in public settings because we're trying to regain the trust. We're not perfect, but we try to do that. And then when we report, report clinically, we don't even have an opinion page. I don't want it. I don't want it to get, I don't want it to be muddied for the people who might trust the content that we have. And then I try to hire really experienced reporters who can break news and tell you things that you didn't know. And again, all my only ask of you or of any other buddy who might be an Axios consumer is like, let's say we screwed something up. Let's say we got yesterday wrong.

Don't just then assume, like, everything Axios writes is crap, like, we're human, right? We're human like anybody else. And what I would say with us.

Megyn Kelly
Or the journalists, you are. But for many, it is a pattern, Jim. For many, it's a pattern. And they don't deserve our good opinion or the benefit of any doubt. I'm not putting you in that camp. But I mean, we've been covering this long enough to know there's, there are many dishonest brokers who just, they not only hate Trump, they hate Republicans. And you can see it in their reporting and their headline choices and their content choices. And okay, enough about the media, where there's navel gazing, right? We're obsessed with ourselves. But you, you have been having a lot of good scoops in connection with the whole Biden problem and now Kamala's elevation, and I really want to get to that with you. Let me squeeze in a quick break and we'll come right back with Jim's inside look into the White House and what's happening there. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM. 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 SiriusXM 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 Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the Sirius XM 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.

James Woods
Go to siriusxm.com mkshow to subscribe and get three months free. That's siriusxm.com mkshow and get three months.

Unidentified Speaker
Free offer details apply when it comes.

Unidentified Speaker
To hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. With indeed, don't search. Match indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. If you need to hire, you need indeed. You can even use indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging to connect with candidates faster. 93% of employers agree that indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent indeed survey. And since indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, the more you use indeed, the better it gets. Join over 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use indeed to hire great talent fast. Plus, listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your job's more visibility@indeed.com. sxm. Just go to indeed.com sxm right now and support our show by saying, you heard about indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you. Need indeed.

Megyn Kelly
This morning you have a piece called behind the curtain, the new 2024 campaign foretold.

And you argue in here that these two, Trump and Kamala, are going to unleash their attacks in seven states, but three will decide the winner, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. So explain that to me. Why Miss Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania instead of everybody's talking about Kamala's chances in the Sunbelt, you know, Nevada and Georgia and Arizona?

Unidentified Speaker
Because the reason that even coming out of the RNC, or you'll see it coming out of the DNC, the reason that the polls don't matter that much right now is the election is going to be super close, right? How do we know? Because the last several elections have been super close. You move 50,000 votes last time around and Biden loses. You lose 78,000 when Trump won and he loses.

We are just a 50 50 country, and there's only really seven or so swing states.

The truth is, if you just look at the map in terms of the states that are authentically in play, there are many more ways for Donald Trump to win than there are, would have been for Biden and that there would be for Harris. And there's almost no map that works for democrats that doesn't include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. You lose three, they call them the blue wall for a reason. You lose those three, it's really hard to sketch out a scenario where democrats win the White House. It's one of the reasons that it was crystal clear almost instantaneously after that debate debacle that Biden had that he wasn't going to survive because you could see almost instantly that those states in particular were taking a hit for democrats, and they realized if it collapsed, the whole thing was over. And so one of the reasons I think that the pick will likely be almost certainly be a moderate white male, maybe from one of those three states, is they're not stupid. They know that they have to win those three states. And that to do it, they have to appeal to a broader set of voters than Biden was appealing to. And so I wouldn't be surprised at all if Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania is the pick, because Pennsylvania, you could argue, is the most important state in this presidential election. And so when you're watching the election, paying attention to it, national polls are irrelevant. And to be honest, if you live in about 42 or 43 states, you're probably irrelevant in terms of determining whether or not who's going to win the presidency.

It's really those seven swing states. And even inside of those, it's about 6% of the people who are truly persuadable, who are undecided, who right now are saying they won't vote, but might vote. It's really that narrow. And even within that 6%, you talk to the campaigns, they're looking at the same people. They're looking at black men who suddenly are much more receptive to Donald Trump. We saw that with the election results last time. It's continued. Hispanics generally, for whatever reason, Trump has been appealing more and more to them and has had more success. And I would argue any president, certainly since George W. Bush, and then young people, which, especially when it was Biden versus Trump, young people moving really decisively towards Trump. And you even see it on TikTok, where much more engagement with Trump content than you would see with democratic content. And so they're really focused on those micro groups. And if you, the point of the column today was if you really want to understand everything they say and do, look at it through that lens, and you'll start to understand why they talk about the things they talk about, why they visit the places that they visit, why they put out the videos that they put out of.

Megyn Kelly
So she, those are the three groups that typically would vote overwhelmingly democratic, certainly black voters, young voters, and, you know, up until recently, hispanic voters. But Trump's been eating into all those margins and was alarmingly so for the Democrats when Biden was still the nominee. So now we just did a show with Emerson, polling on their latest poll, which shows she's gotten the numbers up already a little bit in those groups.

Young people, she did see, they did see some improvement for her. And they said, in particular, young minorities have come back a little bit more for her. And so the question you're saying now, between now and November is how much can she get those numbers up, the young people, black voters, hispanic voters, and that this race is going to be all about improving those margins for sure.

Unidentified Speaker
I mean, you think about it. So just think about it as a numbers game.

You can safe to assume anyone who was going to vote for Biden, especially a damaged post debate Biden, is going to vote for her. That's not enough to win the election. So then there has to be something that's additive. It's why Emerson's taking a look at, well, young people, which is good news for her. The bad news is young people don't vote. And even when they were jazzed about Barack Obama, they didn't really vote. So you can't count on that being enough. And then you have to look at what are historically, I mean, really, really, really reliable voting groups. Hispanics and African Americans. Huge, huge, huge. Like you're talking 92% for a lot of candidates with the black vote. So when you start to see Trump getting 2030, we're talking about the Hispanics 50 50.

That's alarming. Alarming. And it's not new. It's not new. So if you go back to the last election and you look at the results, yes, Trump lost, but Trump did better with black men than any Republican had in some time. It didn't better with Hispanics. It just happened to be that Biden did better overall and had enough votes to be able to win, especially in the pivotal swing states that we're talking about. And that's the reason that post debate, I knew within 20 minutes that debate, Biden was going to get forced off the ticket. He didn't realize it, but he was, because Democrats knew that if Biden goes down, the whole damn thing goes down. Meaning they're not going to win the Senate, they're not going to win the House. The Senate is the map for the Senate, very favorable for Republicans, doesn't guarantee they're going to win it, but they should win it just based on the states that are in play. The House, very much a toss up. But if you just look at the dynamics of it, if you would have had a really bad top of the ticket, everything went down. And that is why almost in a shakespearean way, you saw post debate, all of these people who I think they love, Joe Biden, I don't think Barack Obama necessarily loves him, but I think he likes them and I think that they're. But Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, their silence echoed very loudly the minute that they didn't say definitively, knock it off, he's our nominee. No scenario, we're swapping it. It gave everyone license to say, let's get the guy out.

And little by little, she went on.

Megyn Kelly
Morning Joe and said, we'll wait for his decision, after he'd already decided. That was a big tell. Let me ask you quickly about the Obama report in the New York Post, they cite one source close to the Biden family as saying Obama didn't endorse her because he doesn't think she could win. Do you put any stock into that?

Unidentified Speaker
I would have a hard time as a reporter writing something based on one source who's not close to Obama. I don't think that that is the reason. Do I think kind of telling that.

Megyn Kelly
Maybe a source close to the Biden family thinks so.

Unidentified Speaker
Now you're getting into some tricky personal politics.

Biden and Obama have a very complicated relationship. You saw that a lot of people around Obama helped push Biden out, and it is very accurate.

Democrats don't want to talk about this now. But one of the reasons Biden ran for reelection and one of the reasons he refused to step down is he did not think Vice President Harris can beat Donald Trump. That is certain. Like that. Our reporting is certain on that. There was deep, deep reservations, not just by him, by people around him. Eventually, he endorsed her. He has to. It's his vice presidential pick. But that for all the Democrats who are feeling euphoric, and there is a euphoria, they felt like, we're screwed before. Now we have a chance.

The thing that should give them pause and that they should reflect on is what was it about her in the White House that gave the people with the closest proximity to her the belief that she can't beat Donald Trump? You got to start figuring out, then reverse engineer that. I think a lot of it is she over prepares. She doesn't have a lot of people who've been with her a long time. So there's like this curious lack of loyalty. What is it about her and how do you offset that enough to be able to win a presidential election? And so we're not done with the twists and turns. This is like one of the craziest, wildest, where our kids, kids, we'll see that Trump photo on a history book, and we're going to be reading about the debate debacle, arguably the biggest debate debacle in the televised debate history. Right? Like 22 minutes ended a presidency. Then you have a candidate getting shot or getting almost assassinated, and then you have a president stepping down and then you have his vice president coronated instantly. This is not over. There are going to be more wild twists and turns. And that's why we did the column today, is just try to ground people to take a deep breath. Like, these are the things you need to be watching for. Realize it's going to be close. It doesn't mean that the media is skewing polls or that polls are wrong. It means that we live in a really divided country, very tight, and there aren't that many people who are that persuadable. I mean, I always joke with people.

I was like, who's the last person you met when you said, hey, Donald Trump, what do you think of him? And they're like, I don't know. Jury's still out. That person doesn't exist.

Megyn Kelly
You either love, you could go to some african village, they'd have strong thoughts.

I read online the other day somebody had a joke saying the only way we'd have an October surprise that was truly a surprise this year is if actual space aliens come down and somehow mess with the election. I think that's about right. Quickly, before I lose you, because we're about to end. Get with the computer.

Summer speculating the best VP choice might be Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. He's not in one of those states you mentioned, but he's the son of two cops, the husband of Gabby Gifford. He's obviously spoken out about gun control, which Democrats like but owns guns and also was a NASA astronaut and a fighter pilot. I see all that. I kind of like that argument. But you're saying, don't bet on it because Arizona is not one of those three states.

Unidentified Speaker
I mean, Arizona is one of the seven states. So it could he, with his addition to the ticket, plausibly take a state that I think right now leans Trump and turn it into a toss up or a liens Democrat. It doesn't seem to me that his popularity is such that it would, he by himself on the ticket would get it. That doesn't mean he doesn't get it. Like he fits the bill of what they're looking for. They want a white, moderate male on the ticket with her. And I think if it's somebody who has good ties to the business community, has faith in their background, they're looking at the same map we are. They're looking at the same persuadables that we are. They understand the skepticism that swing voters have about Joe Biden and have about the Democratic Party. And so I don't think it's a coincidence that it's Rory Cooper, that it's Mark Kelly, that it's Shapiro in Pennsylvania, that walls in Minnesota. It's not a coincidence about that. These are the people that are under Bashir in Kentucky, that they're the ones that are under consideration. And I would be very, very surprised if it's not one of them. I'd be pretty surprised if it's not either Kelly or Shapiro.

Megyn Kelly
Wow. I mean, that's yet another thing we have to look forward to. And it's going to happen soon. It's going to happen. Actually, it can happen really soon because it looks like the Democrats are going to have a virtual vote now, earlier than expected. So if you want to jump in against her, I think you have like 72 hours left. It doesn't look like that's where this is going. Jim, listen, we appreciate you coming on. Please come back.

Unidentified Speaker
Thank you. It was great. I appreciate it. Fun conversation.

Megyn Kelly
All the best. Likewise. Okay. And thanks to all of you for joining us today and every day. We greatly appreciate it. If you want to get more of our content, you should go to meganandkelley.com. you should sign up for my one email. I don't bother you. I check in once a week and I will give you all the news you need to know from the whole week in 60 seconds or less. Go to Megan kelly.com.

thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show, no bee, no agenda, and no fear.