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Episode Two Hundred Fourteen: Meet The Prez · The Death Of Journalism

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number two hundred and fourteen of the
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  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Szigler. I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host of today's show. Trump's first major post election
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: interview may have revealed a tell about Pete hegxstt's faith
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and guests who Hextat turned to for his crisis interview MM.
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  Speaker 1: The New York City assassination of an insurance CEO provokes
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  Speaker 1: an incredibly bizarre and telling public reaction, and the twelve
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: team college football playoff is set very predictably, there are
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  Speaker 1: several problems. We begin this episode of the podcast with
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  Speaker 1: President elect Donald Trump's first major interview since the election.
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  Speaker 2: Very interestingly, he chose.
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  Speaker 1: To do that interview with NBC and Meet the Press,
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  Speaker 1: their host Kristen Welker. I'll get to why I find
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  Speaker 1: that to be significant in just a bit. Overall, I
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  Speaker 1: would say that Trump was, especially by his standards, rather
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  Speaker 1: measured and thoughtful.
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  Speaker 2: Now it's important to put.
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  Speaker 1: Into context what his standards are, but overall, I thought
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  Speaker 1: it was a pretty good interview from Trump's perspective. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't like everything that he said, being an ardently anti Trump.
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  Speaker 2: Conservative, but it was a lot better than other.
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  Speaker 1: Interviews I've seen, and I think there's at least a chance,
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  Speaker 1: a chance that maybe Trump is going to be a
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  Speaker 1: different version of himself in this second administration than in
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  Speaker 1: the first. I don't know that it's a hope at
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  Speaker 1: this point. There's some evidence that that could be the case.
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  Speaker 1: There's also some evidence that that's not going to be
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  Speaker 1: the case, and that also was there in the interview,
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  Speaker 1: specifically his essential promise for blanket January sixth pardons. And look,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: this is not a surprise, especially post Hunter Biden pardon.
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  Speaker 1: It's one of the things that I predicted everyone else
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  Speaker 1: would be a cinch that because of the Hunter Biden pardon,
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  Speaker 1: this would give Trump the flexibility to do all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of things in the realm of pardons. And obviously the
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  Speaker 1: one at the forefront of his mind and his supporter's
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  Speaker 1: minds deals with those that were convicted in the January
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  Speaker 1: sixth riot insurrection demonstration, and whatever the hell you want
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  Speaker 1: to call it. I don't understand why it has to
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  Speaker 1: be blanket. That's the part of this that bothers me.
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  Speaker 1: I fully acknowledge as someone who was horrified by that
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  Speaker 1: day and the pictures and how embarrassing it was. However,
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  Speaker 1: I'm also someone who believes that both the media and
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party completely and totally overplayed their hand on
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  Speaker 1: what happened there. The truth of what really happened has
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  Speaker 1: been lost, especially when it comes to who actually died
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  Speaker 1: or was quote unquote killed that day. Only one person
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  Speaker 1: was killed that day, Ashley Babbitt, a Trump supporter, who.
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  Speaker 2: Was killed as she was unarmed.
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  Speaker 1: By a black police officer at point blank range. If
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  Speaker 1: the situation had been reversed, everyone would know her name
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  Speaker 1: with one d percent certainty. So I fully acknowledge that
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  Speaker 1: the January sixth story is very nuanced, not nearly as
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  Speaker 1: simple and one sided as the news media has made
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  Speaker 1: it out to be. That being said, I don't think
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  Speaker 1: the pardons should be totally one sided and blanket pardons.
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  Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who got way overcharged. However,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure there are other people that got pretty much
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  Speaker 1: what they deserved, and I don't think it's difficult, especially
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  Speaker 1: in this day and age, to be able to make
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  Speaker 1: a distinction between those two groups of people. But Trump
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  Speaker 1: is not really about nuance, and it looks like he's
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  Speaker 1: just going to blanket pardon almost everybody. If not everybody
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  Speaker 1: related to the January sixth, and I personally think that's
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  Speaker 1: a mistake, both philosophically and politically. There's some polling data,
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  Speaker 1: not that trump Care is a lame duck, but there's
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  Speaker 1: pulling that indicating that January sixth pardons are extremely unpopular
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  Speaker 1: with the general population. But it's obvious that Trump's going
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  Speaker 1: to do that, and that's one of the things that
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  Speaker 1: he promised in this NBC interview. Now, I want to
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  Speaker 1: play three or four different clips, actually four different clips
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  Speaker 1: from Trump in this NBC interview that I found to
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  Speaker 1: be of interest. The first deals with something that is
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  Speaker 1: somewhat similar to the January sixth pardon issue, where I
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  Speaker 1: disagree with him and I think he's on dangerous territory.
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  Speaker 2: Although I'm hopeful.
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  Speaker 1: That this is a classic situation where Trump is simply
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  Speaker 1: giving part of his base what they want and there
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  Speaker 1: won't actually be.
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  Speaker 2: Any action on it. I hope that's the case. I
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  Speaker 2: certainly don't know that that's the case, but I'm hopeful.
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  Speaker 2: I'm dealing I'm.
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  Speaker 1: Talking about the situation involving vaccines and RFK junior and
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  Speaker 1: whether or not vaccine means cause autism and obviously RFK
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  Speaker 1: Junior being the head of Health and Human Services, and
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  Speaker 1: Trump was asked about this whole issue, and his response was,
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  Speaker 1: I think, classically Trump, where he's gonna He says, we're
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  Speaker 1: gonna take a look at it. But he also, in
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  Speaker 1: my mind, gives a bit too much fodder for those
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  Speaker 1: in his base to truly fervently believe that there is
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  Speaker 1: this connection between vaccines and children and autism, something that
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  Speaker 1: to me has never made a whole lot of sense
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  Speaker 1: and has certainly never been proven.
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  Speaker 2: And by the way, I'm one hundred percent in favor of.
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  Speaker 1: Looking at anything where there is a weird connection, whether
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  Speaker 1: it's real or imagined. But there's a big difference between
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  Speaker 1: looking into something, researching it, and actually doing something based
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  Speaker 1: upon a faulty conclusion.
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  Speaker 3: And R. K.
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  Speaker 2: Junior is obviously not an unbiased person here.
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  Speaker 1: He's not an observer who's just looking at this, Gee,
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  Speaker 1: we ought to take a look at this. He's deeply,
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  Speaker 1: deeply invested in the idea. It's a huge part of
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  Speaker 1: his persona that vaccines are tied to autism or vice versa.
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  Speaker 1: And here's what it sounded like when Trump took on
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  Speaker 1: that issue on NBC's Meet the Press.
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  Speaker 4: Let me ask you about RFK Junior. He has obviously
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  Speaker 4: talked about his skepticism of vaccines. He's expressed opposition to
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  Speaker 4: childhood vaccines. Do you want to see childhood vaccines eliminated.
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  Speaker 3: If they're dangerous for the children? Look? So, possibly when
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  Speaker 3: you look at some of the problems, when you look
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  Speaker 3: at what's going on with disease and sickness in our country,
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  Speaker 3: something's wrong.
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  Speaker 4: Are you talking about autism?
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  Speaker 3: Well, if you take a look at autism, go back
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  Speaker 3: twenty five years, autism was almost nonexistent. It was one
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  Speaker 3: out of one hundred thousand, and now it's close to
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  Speaker 3: one out of one hundred.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, what's.
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  Speaker 3: Happening if they can find it now? I did something
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  Speaker 3: the other night that was a little unusual at mar
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  Speaker 3: A Lago. I called the drug companies, the top drug companies,
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  Speaker 3: and I called RFK Junior and doctor Oz and some
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  Speaker 3: of his people, and I said, let's all get together
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  Speaker 3: and let's figure out where we're going, because we're going
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  Speaker 3: to do a lot of things. Number one, we're going
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  Speaker 3: to reduce prices because the middleman makes more money than
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  Speaker 3: the drug companies, and all fairness to the drug companies.
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  Speaker 3: There's a middleman that nobody even knows who they are.
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  Speaker 3: And you look at our drug prices, they're much higher
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  Speaker 3: than the prices for the same medicine, for the same stuff.
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  Speaker 3: So we met, and we were met for a long time,
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  Speaker 3: and we talked about pricing, and we talked about vaccines,
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  Speaker 3: you know, in terms of what happens. We talked about pesticides,
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  Speaker 3: We talked about everything. And I think a lot of
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  Speaker 3: good things are going to come from him.
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  Speaker 2: And he's.
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  Speaker 3: He's not going to upset any system. He's not going
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  Speaker 3: to upset this out. He's not looking to, you know,
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  Speaker 3: to reinvent the wheel totally. But when you look at
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  Speaker 3: the numbers, we really don't have a very healthy country, sir.
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  Speaker 4: Going back twenty five years, studies show that there is
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  Speaker 4: no link between vaccines and autism, and yet it sounds
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  Speaker 4: like you are open to the possibility of him looking
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  Speaker 4: getting rid of I.
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  Speaker 3: Think somebody has to find out if you go back
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  Speaker 3: twenty five years ago, you had very little autism. Now
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  Speaker 3: you have it.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, well, they say, because they're better at identifying it.
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  Speaker 3: One in one hundred thousand, and now it's one in
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  Speaker 3: one hundred. That's that's a pretty bad number.
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  Speaker 4: Childhoo vaccine Ian.
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  Speaker 3: Something is going on. I don't know if it's vaccines,
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  Speaker 3: maybe it's maybe it's glorying in the water, right. You know,
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  Speaker 3: people are looking at a lot of different things.
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  Speaker 4: You know, childhood vaccine wants them to look at everything. Everything.
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  Speaker 4: So childhood vaccines have prevented about four million deaths around
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  Speaker 4: the world everything.
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  Speaker 2: I think.
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  Speaker 3: I'm all for it. I think it's great. Hey, look,
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  Speaker 3: I'm not against vaccines. Vaccine is the greatest thing. If
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  Speaker 3: somebody told me get rid of the folio vaccine, they're
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  Speaker 3: going to have to work real hard to convince me.
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  Speaker 3: I think vaccines are certain vaccines are incredible, but maybe
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  Speaker 3: some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to find out.
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  Speaker 3: But when you talk about autism, because it was brought up,
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  Speaker 3: and you look at the amount we have today versus
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  Speaker 3: twenty or twenty five years ago, it's pretty scary.
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  Speaker 4: We'll again scientists say that's because they've gotten better at
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  Speaker 4: identifying it and there's no link in stuff.
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  Speaker 3: The drug companies are going to be working with RFK Junior,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, he's he's been an interesting guy to me.
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  Speaker 3: I've watched him for twenty five years and he's been
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  Speaker 3: an interesting guy.
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  Speaker 1: Again, I got no problem with you want to have
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  Speaker 1: rfgag Junior take a look at it, but you have
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  Speaker 1: to understand Rfgage Junior is extremely biased here, and I'm concerned.
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  Speaker 1: I'm concerned that maybe Trump is a true believer here.
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  Speaker 1: I can't tell whether or not Trump is just placating
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  Speaker 1: part of his base or whether or not.
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  Speaker 2: He actually really believes it.
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  Speaker 1: To me, it's totally unproven and there's a whole lot
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  Speaker 1: of other explanations for this. My you know, blink reaction
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  Speaker 1: to this whole issue is you have autism, something that
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  Speaker 1: was grossly underdiagnosed for a long period of time, then
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  Speaker 1: it becomes a thing now it's grossly overdiagnosed, or now
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  Speaker 1: we have you know, all sorts of different stages of
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  Speaker 1: the spectrum. It's actually even become somewhat cool to be autistic.
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  Speaker 1: It's a great excuse if your kid's not behaving properly.
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  Speaker 1: You know, got aspergers, which is something that people actually
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  Speaker 1: want to have because it's associated with seemingly being smarter.
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  Speaker 1: So societally, there's a completely different perception now of autism
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  Speaker 1: and in the medical community and in the academic community.
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  Speaker 1: And I know this firsthand. My my wife is a
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  Speaker 1: special edature.
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  Speaker 2: You know this. This has become the go too.
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  Speaker 1: So, yes, there's been an explosion in people that have
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  Speaker 1: been diagnosed with autism, and I guess that's somewhat correlates
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  Speaker 1: with expansion of vaccines. But to me, I've never fully
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  Speaker 1: understand the direct correlation and certainly no evidence of causation.
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  Speaker 2: So but you.
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  Speaker 1: Look at it, fine, But there's a whole lot of other,
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  Speaker 1: much simpler explanations for why we have this explosion in
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  Speaker 1: autism that has absolutely nothing to do with the vaccines.
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  Speaker 1: And as far as Rfkge Junior is concerned, I think
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  Speaker 1: it's important to take a moment to just fully realize
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  Speaker 1: how totally insane it is that rfkge Junior a person
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  Speaker 1: who I think is a nutjob, a guy who was
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  Speaker 1: a heroin addict, a guy whose first wife committed suicide,
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  Speaker 1: a guy who's a serial philanderer, a guy who has
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  Speaker 1: just done very little in his life other than lived
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  Speaker 1: off his name. I understand he's done some interesting things,
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  Speaker 1: and I don't think he's a stupid guy. But if
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  Speaker 1: his name wasn't Kennedy, no one would give a shit
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  Speaker 1: about him. During this campaign, his third party run completely
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  Speaker 1: collapses in a way that should have been humiliating. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: he thought he had a chance to win the presidency
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  Speaker 1: and his campaign totally collapses, especially after Biden is forced
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  Speaker 1: out of the race. He can't even get a meeting
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  Speaker 1: with the Harris people because they don't want his endorsement.
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  Speaker 1: He comes hat in hand to Trump, who takes his endorsement.
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  Speaker 1: There's no evidence that I could tell other than the
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  Speaker 1: fact that Trump ended up winning, and so therefore anybody
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  Speaker 1: who endorse Trump gets I guess some semblance of theoretical
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  Speaker 1: credit for that, But there's no evidence I've seen that
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  Speaker 1: RFK junior endorsement was a big factor in Trump's victory.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't hurt obviously, since he won, but I don't
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  Speaker 1: see it you can make any really strong arm argument
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  Speaker 1: that Trump won because of RFK Junior's endorsement. During the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: middle of this presidential campaign, it comes out that reporter
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  Speaker 1: Olivia Nuzzy, who was engaged at the time, was apparently
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  Speaker 1: involved in an online.
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  Speaker 2: I guess you would call it romantic affair with rf
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  Speaker 2: K Junior.
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  Speaker 1: She loses her job, she breaks up with her fiance
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  Speaker 1: a rf K Junior, to my knowledge, has never even
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  Speaker 1: really been fully confronted about it. I don't even know
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  Speaker 1: his side of that story other than he's denied it.
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  Speaker 1: He gets no blowback, he's still with his Hollywood wife.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's unbelievable how teflon this guy is. And
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  Speaker 1: then through it all, here we have the President elect
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  Speaker 1: of the United States carrying water for RFK Junior on
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  Speaker 1: his number one issue, this whole connection between autism and
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  Speaker 1: vaccines on Meet the Press. It's really an absolutely mind
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  Speaker 1: blowing story. I mean, f K Junior, how in a
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: weird way, I almost got to give him respect because.
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  Speaker 2: How the fuck did he do this? How the fuck.
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  Speaker 1: Did he get the president elect of the United States,
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  Speaker 1: a Republican, to be carrying his water on this vaccine
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  Speaker 1: autism issue.
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  Speaker 2: When his campaign collapsed, he could have easily been humiliated.
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  Speaker 1: There was all sorts of revelations during the campaign. Forget
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: about the Nuzzy affair, but all sorts of other things.
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  Speaker 1: It should have discredited him for all time. Again, there's
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: no evidence that his endorsement did anything all that significant
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: for Trump, and now he's going to have a major
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  Speaker 1: position in this new administration. He's a lifelong super liberal Democrat,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and this is an allegedly Republican administration. It's really an
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: amazing story. It's an absolutely amazing story. And for better
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  Speaker 1: for words, r F. Kate Junior has influence over the
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  Speaker 1: President elect of the United States, who's the led Republican.
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  Speaker 2: I will just say one last thing. I just I
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  Speaker 2: hope and I think I think this is Trump playcating
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  Speaker 2: RFK Junior, But I can't tell from the clip that
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: we just played, so I'm a little bit concerned about it.
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  Speaker 1: One of the more interesting moments in the interview occurred
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: when Kristin Welker tried, I guess you might call this
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a gotcha question about whether or not the twenty twenty
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: election was still stolen. And you know, look, I understand
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: why the media is obsessed with this question. A lot
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: of Trumpsters say, oh, why won't you let it go. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. History matters, and if we don't know whether
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: or not the twenty twenty election was stolen, that's really
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: significant in trying to perceive future events. I say this
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: all the time. If you believe, you know, going back
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: to Kennedy, if you believe JFKG you know JFK.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Not JFK Junior.
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  Speaker 1: If JFK was assassinated by the CIA, if you really
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: believe that which didn't happen, evidence that it did. But
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: if you believe that your entire worldview is going to
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: be dictated by that, you're going to perceive other events,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: especially those involving the government in general, the CIA in particular,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: through the prism of that perception. Well, it's the same
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: way with a presidential election. If you believe that the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty election was stolen, which it was not.
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  Speaker 2: You know, if you use the.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Traditional definition of stolen or rigged, it was not stolen
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: or rigged.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: It was manipulated. I will say forever and ever that.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: The COVID panic was used and manipulated as a weapon
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to take Trump out one hundred percent, both politically as
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: well as the rules of that election. I have no
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: problem with people who say that. But that's not the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: same as well. A lot of people still believe, even
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: though Dadeshdasuza has had to apologize for his his Mule
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: documentary for getting things wrong, which was a huge source
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: of information for people that claim that there was an
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: actual rigging, a stealing. You know, where fake votes were manufactured, encountered,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and counted on behalf of Joe Biden against Donald Trump.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: There's no evidence that that happened in a widespread fashion
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that dictated the outcome of the election. But if you
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: believe that, that's significant. So I have no problem none
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: with the news media trying to get to the bottom
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: of this. And you know whether or not, you know,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Trump believes this or jd. Vance really believes this, And
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: at times Trump is actually let the veil fall where
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: he has acknowledged the actually lost, and then he goes
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: back on that.
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  Speaker 2: The reality is it was not a rigged election. So
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Welker says, okay, well, that twenty twenty was rigged against you,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: then how do you explain twenty twenty four because you
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: won as someone who wasn't even an incumbent. I've said
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: this exact same thing. How do you explain this? So
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: he's the incumbent president in twenty twenty and they rig
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: an election against him.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: The people, the party that's out of power, they rig
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: an election against them, including in a place like Georgia
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: where all the election officials and the governor were Republican.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: How does that happen?
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And then when you're unemployed, you're a convicted felon, you're
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: out of power. You not only win, but you win
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a healthy victory. How does that make any sense? That
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: was basically Kristen Welker's question, and Trump's response was typically
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: rather trumpy.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: And here's what that sounded like.
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  Speaker 4: So why didn't they steal this election since they have
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: more power now?
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Because I think it was too big to rig? So
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: you won't too big to rig.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: To the people who say that you're now directing your
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Justice Department to investigate twenty twenty they want to move.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Is going to be precious resources?
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Is what you're to do, I have the right to
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: do that, but I'm not interested in that.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: You're not.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not interested. I have the absolute right.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: I'm the chief law enforcement officer. You do know that.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: I'm the president. I'm the But I'm not interested in that.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: You know what, I'm interested in drilling and getting prices
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: down and stopping people from pouring into our border that
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: come from prisons and mental incities.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: So Trump's basic response to this very legitimate question is, well,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four was just too big to rig, too
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: big to rig, too legiti quit too big to rig.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. It was not too big to rig. Wisconsin
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: was very very close. They apparently rigged it for the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Democratic Senate candidate in Wisconsin, just like in Michigan was
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: almost as close as Wisconsin. And the same thing happened
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: with the Democratic senatorial candidate in Michigan. So they quote
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: unquote rigged it, I guess, for the Democratic senatortorial candidates
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin and Michigan. But they didn't bother to rig
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: it against Donald Trump on the presidential side in Wisconsin
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: or Michigan. How does that work? How does that work? Pennsylvania? Again,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania was a little over two percent and the Republican
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: senatorial candidate won a very close election against the Democrat
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Bob Casey.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: But by the way, how does that work? So Pennsylvania
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: was somehow.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Willing and able to rig the twenty twenty election against
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but they didn't bother to keep Bob Casey
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in office in twenty twenty four. It was just too
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: big a victory on Trump's part for them to be
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: able to rig it. In Kamala Harris's favorite, come on, people, there's.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: No evidence in that, there's no logic of it. But
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Trump is.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Clinging to that because that is a narrative that fits
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: his self interest.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I would love to know if he really believes that.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I would love to know that.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I honestly don't know what Trump really believes. I just
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: think that he is very big into ego protection, and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: he's very big into giving his base a narrative that
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: they like that can rationalize any failures that Trump experiences,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: either real or perceived. But I am very confident that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: by the definitions that normal people would use, the twenty
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: twenty election was not rigged against Donald Trump, not stolen
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: against Donald Trump, and the twenty twenty four election actually
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: proves that, although hilariously and ironically, and Trump even says
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: this in an NBC interview, somehow, in his mind, twenty
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: twenty four proves that twenty twenty was rigged, which logically.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Doesn't make any sense to me.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure this is based upon this now discredited
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: graph that went viral, including you know, thanks to Joe
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Rogan and Elon Musk, this graph from the morning after
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the election that showed how many many millions of votes
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: short of twenty twenty were cast in twenty twenty four,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: which then of course led everyone to say, well, wait
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a minute, where are all these missing voters?
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: That must have been fake votes.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: That's the only way to make any sense to this
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: That Biden got eighty one million votes in twenty twenty.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Harris didn't get anything close to that. So where did
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: all these voters go? And the first thing about that
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: graph you need to know is that there were many
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: millions of votes still to be cast, especially on the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: West Coast, which skewed very heavily towards Harris. As it
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: turns out, the twenty twenty four election is going to
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: have several million. I don't know what the exact number is,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: but it's I think in the three to four million range.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Votes short of what happened in twenty twenty. But that
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: makes total sense. Twenty twenty was the ultimate outlier year
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: in every way.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It was easier to.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Vote a lot of states in twenty twenty. People were
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: far more agitated in twenty twenty because of the COVID
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: panic in both directions. You had the BLM situation, with
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the George Floyd circumstance that exploded. There were a whole
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: lot of reasons for twenty twenty to have the largest
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: turnout in presidential history, and the fact that twenty twenty
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: four was statistically slightly lower than that shouldn't surprise anybody,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and it certainly doesn't prove that twenty twenty was somehow.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: A fraudulent election where the election.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Was stolen and or rigged, and so Trump is full
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: of crap on that. There's another subject that I want
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to play a clip from that is something I've dealt
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: with on this podcast before, and I think this is
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: really interesting and telling in a subtle sort of way.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: But it deals with the FBI director and the fact
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that Trump is effectively going to fire Christopher Ray, who
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: he hired just to go through the history again. James
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: call Me, FBI director in twenty sixteen, effectively helps Trump
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: win by reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation ten days
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: before the election. Trump loves Call Me because of it,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: because it's all about Trump. To Trump, you know, he
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: basically hugs Call Me. He doesn't rehire him, but he
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: allows him to keep his position. Then he sours on
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: him when Call Me starts asking the wrong questions and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: isn't clearly on his side. They have a mob boss
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: like conversation at that point, Trump decides to fire James
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: call me under really inappropriate circumstances. Trump hires Christopher Ray,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a Republican, to a ten year term, and that ten
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: year term is not up yet. And now Trump announces
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the Cash Batal is going to be his new FBI director,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: which of course means you got to get rid of
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the current FBI director, Christopher Ray. So Kristin Welker asks
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: about this, and okay, what's the justification for firing Christopher Ray.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I played a clip from a Republican US senator from
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: South Dakota that was very, very supportive of Christopher Ray,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: and that was on national television. And you know, to me,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: for a Republican senator to do that in this environment,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: they had to feel really, really really strongly about this.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I know Christopher Ray fan And in fact, I even
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: referenced a couple of things that Trump references in his
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: response to Kristen Welker as to why it's appropriate to
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: fire Christopher Ray. But what I found to be interesting
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: is not just that it's what I already suggested. It's
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: that it's all about Trump. It's how Christopher Ray treated
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Trump personally, not how he did his job overall. Although
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I can understand, you know, if you screw things up,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and with regard to me things I know an awful
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: lot about things I care a lot about. Okay, I
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: understand that that might mean that you're doing a terrible
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: job overall.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: But it's very telling.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: To me that Trump focuses in on things that directly
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: relate to him, specifically the investigation into him and the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: raid on Moral Lago, as well as the way Ray
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: described the assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: And here's what that sounded like on Meet the Press.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: Are you going to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Ray,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: who you appointed.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: Well, I can't say I'm thrilled with him. He invaded
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: my home, I'm suing the country over it. He invaded
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: mar A Lago. I'm very unhappy with the things he's done.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: And crime is at an all time high. Migrants are
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: pouring into the country that are from prisons and from
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: mental institutions. As we've discussed, I can't say I'm thrilled.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say. I don't want to again.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: I don't want to be Joe Biden and give you
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: an answer and then do the exact opps we talk about.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: So I'm not going to do that. What I'm going
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: to say is I certainly cannot be happy with him.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: You take a look at what's happened. And then when
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: I was shot in the ear, he said, oh, maybe
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: it was shrepnel. Where's the shrepnel coming from? Is it
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: coming from Is it coming from heaven? I don't think so.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: So we need somebody to strain it. You know, I
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: have a lot of respect for the FBI, but the
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: FBI's respect has gone way down over the last number
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: of years.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Don't you have to fire him in order to make
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: room for Cash? Matelity is in fact confirmed?
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean it would sort of seem pretty obvious
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: that if Cash gets in, he's going to be taking
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: somebody's place. Right now, somebody is the man that you're
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: talking about. Now.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Again, I agree with what Trump is saying there, I
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: don't know that it rises to the level of.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Firing an FBI director.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm uncomfortable with the idea that it's all about
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Trump that you get fired because you raise a question,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a stupid question.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I said at the time it was a stupid question.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: But you raise a question about whether or not the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: president was actually hit by a bullet during an assassin
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: nation attempt. You know, obviously, if he had said that
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: about some other assassination attempt that had nothing to do
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: with Trump, Trump wouldn't give a shit. But it's because
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: it's all about Trump. To Trump, it's the worst thing
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: you can do. And that's why Ray is going to
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: get fired. I don't think it's appropriate. I don't think
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: that it sets a good precedent, especially when you hired
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Ray to begin with. But unfortunately, this is the world
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: we're now living in. It's a race to the bottom,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: and I don't think this is healthy at all. But
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump wants his own FBI director who's really
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: going to be full on maga. Christopher Ray is clearly
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: not full on maga Cash bettel Is, and that's who
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: apparently we're going to get if the US Senate goes
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: along with it.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Now, there's one other.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Subject that I want to play a clip from this
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: interview regarding, and that is the I guess you would
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: call it TikTok ban. I don't understand why this is
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: being called a TikTok ban because my understanding is that
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: what the US Congress has done is said that the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: current owners meaning effectively, the Chinese have to divest from TikTok,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and then it would if that doesn't happen, it would
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: be banned in the United States because it's apparently a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: security breach with regard to all of the data and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: information the Chinese can accumulate on US citizens. And look,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I understand that concern. Although I am now a pretty
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: avid consumer of TikTok, I get a lot of my
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: news from TikTok. Some of the clips that we play
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: on this podcast are from TikTok, So I don't have
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: any knowledge directly about the security risks of TikTok. To
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: me that that horse seems like it's out of a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: barn already, but I understand it. I'm fully willing to
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: listen to that, and I would love love, for instance,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: a US company to take over TikTok. I mean, that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: would be the best scenario possible, depending on who that
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: owner was. So I have no problem with this idea
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: that you try to get it out of Chinese hands
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and you use leverage to do that. However, Trump has
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: flip flopped all over the place on this topic, and
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: much like is always the case, it seems to be
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: not because he has changed his mind philosophically, but because
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: his own perceived personal self interest has shifted and the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: people close to him have changed, and those who have
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: donated to his campaign may have an influence on his
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: shifting positions. On what should happen to TikTok, Kristin Welker
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: asked about this. His answer was incredibly vague, but once again,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: much like with Christopher Ray, what does Trump see as
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the most important issue regarding TikTok, How it relates to him.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: How it relates to him, and whether or not.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: At how much it helped his campaign? How awesome his
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: campaign wasn't using TikTok. By the way, NBC, when they
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: put this clip on TikTok, Holy irony Batman, they actually
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: put up a graphic fact checking Trump's claims about having
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: won the youth vote, which he did not do. He
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: did much better in the youth vote than people expected
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: or other Republicans have done in recent times. That's true,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: but he lied about the actual data. NBC had to
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: fact check him on TikTok as they posted this video
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: about him talking about a potential TikTok ban on TikTok
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: itself and here's what that sounded like.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: This week of federal court upheld a law that could
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: result in TikTok being banned. You said you're going to
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: rescue TikTok when you get into office. Are you going
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: to take steps to protected.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as you know, I used very successfully in my campaign.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: I have a man named TikTok Jackie. Was very effective
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: obviously because I won youth by thirty percent. All Republicans
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: lose youth. I don't know why. Maybe it's changing. And
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: last time we were down thirty percent with youth. This
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: time we're up thirty five percent with youth. And I
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: use TikTok, so I can't really you know, I can't
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: totally hate it. It was very effective, but I will
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: say this, if you do do that, something else is
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: going to come along and take its place. And maybe
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: that's not fair what they're doing. And really, what the
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: judge actually said was that you can't have Chinese companies.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: In otherwords, they have the right to band it if
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: you can prove that the Chinese companies own it.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: That's what the judge asked.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: Are you going to try to protect TikTok just very
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: quick once you're in office?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I'm going to try and make it so that other
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: companies don't become an even bigger monopoly, okay, because that's
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: what happens. Now.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Once again, I am not a hundred percent sure what
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: should happen with TikTok.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: I use it. You know I'm going to do I'm
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: going to be trump here in my world.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I don't want TikTok to go away because I use it.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I find it to be an interesting and important tool.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: At times, there's a lot of TikTok that's just absolutely
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: ridiculous and absurd.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: This is the TikTok that my twelve year old daughter
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Grace loves.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: But that's partially why I'm on TikTok because you know,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: occasionally I'll see a video that she might like and
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I'll share it with her, and I guess it helps
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: our bonding between a fifty seven year old dad and
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: a twelve year old daughter. There's not many things that
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: can do that in this day and age, and I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: guess TikTok does.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: So.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I don't want to see TikTok go away, but the
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: most beneficial scenario would be for it to.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Survive, but not in Chinese hands.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I honestly don't know what Trump's true position on this
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: is and whether or not He's going to be able
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: to impact that result. But his answer, I thought was
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: both vague and telling simultaneously. What was also vague and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: telling simultaneous was Trump's response to the topic of Pete
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Hegseth and his bid to be the next Defense Secretary,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and the way this went down, I thought was really
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: interesting and could definitely be in the realm of Tea
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Leaves as to what's really going to happen with hegstaff.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Now I'm going to preface this entire part of this
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: podcast by saying, look, the last time I thought I
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: was reading Tea Leaves, I was wrong, And that was
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: just before the election, and I thought I was reading
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Tea Leaves with regard to Kamala Harris not responding to
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: a question about how she voted on Proposition thirty six
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: in California and the fact that she took a knee
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: on that, I thought, man that they were confident that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: they were going to win.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: By the way, that still could be the case. She
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: might have been confident she was going to win.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe her closest advisors were confident, but clearly they were
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: wrong in that confidence. And my guest now is that
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: that was a non answer simply because they were competent,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, she didn't want to answer the question
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, and maybe she didn't know how to
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: answer the question. So I was probably giving way way
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: too much weight to that, and I acknowledge I was
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: wrong in that tea leaf reading situation.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: I'm fairly confident, not one hundred percent.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I'm fairly confident that we can discern a lot from
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: what went down in this NBC interview regarding Pete Hegseth.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: First of all, I.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Found it incredibly telling potentially that Trump even agreed to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: do his first major post election interview with NBC because
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: that decision was announced.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know when it was come to, but it.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Was announced after after NBC had put out that highly dubious,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: potentially totally bullshit story about Pete Hegstad and his situation
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: at Fox News Channel, claiming that ten Fox News Channel
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: employees seven past three present had witnessed him dealing with
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: alcohol related issues on the job as a weekend anchor
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: host whatever on Fox News Channel.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: I talked about that story quite a bit.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I played a very minor role in helping Fox News
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Channel host Will Cain, who's a big supporter Petex at
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: the co host of Petex Says on the Weekends for
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: many years, both publicly and privately, you know, suggesting, Hey,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you got to round up everybody at Fox News Channel
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: and not only get there their observations about the story
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: and their relationship with Pete on the set, but also
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: most importantly, you need to get people on the record
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: as to whether or not they were ever even contacted
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: by NBC News, because that was my first question to Will,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: and Will said, no, I wasn't And I said, well,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: if you weren't contacted, that means that a lot of
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: people at Fox News Channel that should have been contacted,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: that have direct relationships with Petex Seth also were not contacted.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: And my instincts were right on that, and that's what
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: ended up happening, was that a whole bunch of Fox
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: News Channel personalities made their public testimonials, testimonials combating and
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: contradicting the NBC story, saying that they've never observed anything
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: like that about Petex death and that they were not
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: contacted by NBC, which in my mind, completely obliterated the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: credibility of the NBC story, especially when nbcvers were relying
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: on ten anonymous sources. I'm sorry, in this day and
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: age of partisan media, and you're NBC and you're going
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: after Donald Trump's defense secretary, you can't have ten anonymous sources.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I was very confused at the time as to al
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: NBC could be this stupid as to go after Fox
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: News Channel, because I obviously there's gonna be blowback. You're
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: dealing with a major news outlet that has a huge
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: incentive to combat what you're saying, especially if it's not true.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: And so the NBC story, in.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: My mind, I have no idea if there's anything to it,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: but it's clearly not a credible story from a journalistic standpoint.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: It doesn't even come close to reaching basic journalistic standards,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: especially in this day and age. So when Trump announced
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: that his first major.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Post election interview was gonna be with.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: The news outlet that did this to his Defense secretary
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: nominee Pete Hexstath, I'm like, hmm, okay, that's very interesting
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: because there's only really a couple of options here. Either
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: he's gonna go on NBC and confront them about this
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: bullshit story in a very trumpy way, which you know
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: would be the one the direction you would want this
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: to go if you were a pet hext fan or
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Trump doesn't think the story was all that bad. It
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: certainly wasn't bad enough to disqualify NBC from getting a
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: major interview like this, because, I.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Mean, in Trump world, this is the way he looks
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: at this.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Why would you give NBC this major plum, you know,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: newsmaking first major post election interview if they just went
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: out of their way to lie, in your view about
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: your defense secretary, It doesn't make any sense in Trump world,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: especially unless you're gonna use this as an opportunity to
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: defend hextat and attack NBC because this is you know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: this is a big softball in Trump world. If you
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: are really believing that hegstat has been totally wrong, there's
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: no alcohol issue. You're one thousand percent behind him. You're
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: gonna do everything you possibly can to make sure he's
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: the defense secretary. This is a tremendous opportunity to make
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: a stand on his behalf.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: But that didn't happen. Nothing really close to that happened.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Interestingly, when the interview first occurred on Friday.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: NBC and Meet the Press put out a story.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: The one headline story that they put out on that
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: in the immediate aftermath of this interview was about Trump
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: supporting Hegsath. But the support was it was strong, but
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like Trump be strong, you know, it was
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: it was by Trump's standards.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: In my mind, it was pretty benign. I wouldn't call
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: it week.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: It was supportive, but it wasn't really out there and
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: there was no indication. And I had, just for the record,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I had tweeted this, I think, on a
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: couple of different occasions, So this isn't twenty twenty hindsight
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: on my part.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: When the interview was.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Announced, I said, We're going to find out a lot
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: here about Trump's true view on hegstat.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Because of the reasons I just gave you.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: This is a tremendous opportunity for him to attack NBC
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: to their face for what they did to him with
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: this bogus story. But when NBC put out that initial
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: you know, tease, there was no indication that Trump had
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: pushed back on the NBC story. And then when NBC
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: aired the interview, and it's important to point out the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: interview was.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Apparently well over an hour long.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: This was an extremely extensive interview with Donald Trump. The
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: hegstat stuff was dealt with partially, if not mostly, by
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Christen Welker dealing with it on camera, not even showing
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: what Trump's and there's zero indication.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I would be absolutely stunned.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I guess it's theoretically possible at this date and age,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: but I really don't believe it. I would be stunned
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: if NBC did not air Donald Trump pushing back on
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: their own story about Pete Hegstad and his problems with
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: alcohol at Fox News Channel.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: I can only conclude that it did not happen.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: By the way, in case you're thinking, well, maybe Trump
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: was trying to be nice to NBC and you know,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: create a new tone for this new administration and not
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: take on the fake news directly, well he absolutely did
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: that during the interview for reasons that didn't even make
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me. When he was asked
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: a fairly simple question about Millennia, he absolutely went after
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: NBC and then made up some interview that didn't even exist.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: That he must have.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Gotten confused about, some interview that he thought Kristen Welker
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: did with Joe Biden.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: It was super soft. He attacked NBC for their nasty
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: and mean.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Questions, so it was it like he was trying to
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: play nice with NBC. Yet he does nothing to attack
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: NBC to their face on this Pete hegss story. Now,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: does that mean that Trump isn't really supporting Heckstad. Nope,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean it for sure, but it certainly raises
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: a very legitimate question as to how much Trump is
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: really supporting Hegset, and I I have grave questions about
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: that right now. Hit Now the bass, the Trump basse
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: is very much supporting Hegset. The Hexset campaign has done
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: a great job of making this a loyalty test in
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the US Senate that if you're not with HEXTT, you're
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: with the you're you know, you're with the establishment. You know,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: you're a Rhino, You're a couck, uh, you're a neocon,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: you're a warmonger, whatever it is, whatever word.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Phrase you want to use.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: The people that are supportive of Pete heigs Death, who
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I like, by the way, and there's a lot of
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: good things about him.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Those people that.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Have supported of Pete Hexstath have done a great job
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: of shifting the narrative away from his vulnerabilities when it
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: comes to infidelity and alcohol use and maybe lack of
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: resume for someone who wants to be the Defense secretary,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: which is a massive, massive job. They've done a great
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: job of shifting the narrative away from that stuff and
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: instead making it a loyalty test that if you go
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: against Hexstath here, you're going up against Trump and you're
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: you're not giving him his defense secretary. He's already lost
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: out on his Attorney General with Matt Gatez. Maga took
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: a loss on that, So you know, the Heckstad people
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: are banking that Republican senators aren't going to want to
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: give Trump a second loss on a MA pick in
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: his administration. And it's a it's a really good possibility
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: that that strategy will work. There's a really good possibility
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: that it will work. But it is my interpretation currently
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to get to why this is as
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: we move along here, that Trump really isn't that invested
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: in heccess nomination. I think it's quite possible that the
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis proposal to make him the Defense secretary probably
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: came from Trump himself. And that that was posed because
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Trump is already considering other options if the heg Seth
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: nomination fails. My sense is that he doesn't want to
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: be the person that knife heg Seth. He's going to
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: allow Hegseth to just go on his own. He's out
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: on his own now. He is the perception of Trump's backing,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: which is critical. But I think he's on his own here,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: and I think that the Trump team is based saying,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: all right, if he makes it through on his own, fine,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: but if he doesn't, that's okay too, because that'll force
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: some Republican senators like Lindsey Graham or Jony Earns or
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: somebody like that, along with Murkowski and Collins to use
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: up a lot of their political capital in going against
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. You can only do that maybe one time,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: and it's got to be for good reasons. And so
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that's my sense here. Now, why is that my sense?
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I kind of jumped the gun and giving you my
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: final conclusion. But I'll have some more thoughts on that
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: in a second. It's not just based on what happened
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: at NBC or what did not happen in the NBC interview.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I often think that what does not happen is often
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: even more significant than what does, and this is a
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: classic example of that.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: So Hextad did.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Do an interview of his own and who did he
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: go to? Well, I was not surprised at all when
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the person he went to to do his crisis interview
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: was Megan Keller. And I've talked numerous times now about
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly VISIVI Pete Hegstatt because I think Megan Kelly
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: has proven herself to be a total hypocrite on multiple issues,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: specifically the issue of sex abuse, because this is a
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: huge part of her brand going all the way back
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: from her days at Fox News Channel.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I've mentioned many times there.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Was a movie about Roger Ayles where her character was
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: played by Charlie Starron. The whole bit about me too,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: her attacking my friend Matt Lower with absolutely no evidence
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: or logic and never apologizing.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: It's a huge part of who she is.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: And yet because she knows Pete hegstats, she likes Pete Hegstav.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Hegseeth is a.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Good looking guy, which clearly has an impact on all
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: women in general, but specifically on Megan Kelly. And because
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Trump picked Hegseth and is still publicly backing him. Megan
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Kelly's incentive structure is to support Pete Hegstat, so it
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: did not surprise me in the lead when Hegstat decided,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: you know what, Megan Kelly's the perfect person for me
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: to do an interview with because she has obvious street
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: cred in the conservative community. She's not perceived as a
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: total trumper because of her past, but she is now
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: a total trumper. And obviously she has enormous street credit
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: on the issue of sex abuse and me too and
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: everything related to that. Plus they have some sort of
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: relationship from her days at Fox News Channel. She's been
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: publicly supportive of him. She makes sense for him to
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: do this interview with her in every possible way. But
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: what he said I thought was somewhat, if not significantly problematic.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: And I'll give Megan Kelly a little bit of credit
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: for very gently posing an important question. Now she she's
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: defended them on the rape charge. I've defended hex stuff
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: on the rape charge. I think she's being a hypocrite
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: based upon her standards that she's used in the past,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: specifically with regard to my friend Matt Lauer, former Today's
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Show host at NBC.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: But you know, she didn't.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Really press him on that at all. She does, however,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: press him on the stuff that's not in question, which
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: is the infidelity. The pete Hegstath has had a major
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: problem with infidelity in his three marriages, and very gently
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly pressed heg Seth on that issue, and heg says,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: answer to me was very, very problematic. And here's what
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: it sounded like when Megan Kelly asked the question about
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: infidelity and Hegstath played the Jesus card in response.
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: But then come the flurry of allegations about your personal life.
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: And I think it's admitted, at least in your divorce
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: proceedings that you did cheat on your first two wives.
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: You're on your third marriage to Jen, a former colleague
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: of my own at Fox and Yours, and you're hook
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: up with this woman in Monterey. Happened when you were
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: with Jen. So that's three right, And there are a
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: lot of women at home and men who will be like,
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: it's a no right, he's too much of a serial cheater, Like,
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: how can we put a guy in this position who's
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: a serial cheater? So is that a fair characterization of you?
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: I think it would have been. It was a fair
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: characterization to be before I truly was changed by jen
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And I mean that,
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: I mean people cannot believe that if they don't want to.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: Now. Look, I grew up as a Catholic.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I refer to myself as a recovering Catholic, someone who's
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: recovering from being Catholic. I you know, my whole family
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: was Catholic. I know a lot of Christians and a
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: lot of different denominations. I've lived in a lot of
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: very Christian areas of the country. I've lived in Nashville,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: the belt buckle of the Bible Belt. I've lived in Louisville.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I've lived in Raleigh, North Carolina. I've lived in Jacksonville, Florida.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: I've spent a lot of time in the South.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: And I'm sorry, I have known a lot of men
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: who have gone through this exact evolution when it comes
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: to infidelity and then finding Jesus. And I'm extremely cynical
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: about it, extremely cynical. I'm sorry your penis does not
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: find Jesus.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: That's just the reality of it.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Now, you may find Jesus because your penis has gotten
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: you in so much trouble you can't get out.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Of it anymore.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: And it's a hell of a way to be able
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: to convince the women in your life that this is
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: why you have changed, this is why you now have
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: your penis under control. But your penis hasn't changed. I've
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: never heard of a penis that found Jesus ever. I have, however,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: seen a lot lot of guys who pretended to find
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Jesus in over the top ways because that was the
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: only way to keep their marriage alive. That was the
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: only way they could get away with the infidelity because
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: their wife was very into Christianity, or was at least
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: willing to believe that narrative.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: And it worked.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Now I have you know, I don't know whether it
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: works in the long run, but I've seen it firsthand,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: and this felt way too convenient for me. I mean, frankly,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: even heg said himself, says, well, you know, basically.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: You can believe me or not. I can understand why
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: you might not. And that's a.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Paraphrase of what he says. I mean, he wasn't even
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: convincing in the way.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: That he said it. That was to me very problematic.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Don't don't don't give me that.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Don't don't give me that, because I don't believe that
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: at all. Now, maybe you've learned your lesson and you
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: realize you got to knock that off, because if you're
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: going to be Defense secretary, you are easily blackmailed by this.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, by god, a honeypot situation would be very
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: dangerous to Pete Hagstad because he's a good looking guy.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: He clearly likes to have sex with women who are
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: not his wife, and if given the right temptation, then
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: he might cave into it. And if he caves into it,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: as Defense secretary, you can blackmail him because he's just
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: put his entire reputation on the line saying no, I'm
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: done with that because I found Jesus. So that is
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: not the situation you want your Defense secretary to be in,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: or anybody, especially Defense secretary, but anybody that high up
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: in the federal government. That is very problematic. But to me,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: the biggest problem. I think there's a blackmail issue. But
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: to me, there's an authenticity issue. I'm just not buying it.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: I think that's a lie. Could I be wrong about that?
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Pete Huck's death.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: But to me, in my experience, my understanding of humanity,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: my understanding of men having lived it, as I've already
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: suggested in various areas of the country, I.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Don't think he's telling the truth there.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: And it's also problematic to me that Pete Hegg's death
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: is latching on to the Brett Kavanaugh narrative.
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: Now.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: I was one of the very very few anti Trump
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: conservatives that went to The Matt to defend Brett Kavanaugh.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: To The Matt, I wrote a ton about it for Medite.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: I was as out there as quickly as anybody in
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: saying these allegations are bullshit. I did a lot, I
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: think in debunking the allegations against against Brett Kavanaugh. And
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: I was very glad that Trump stood Cavanaugh, and I
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: agreed with that, and I have given Trump praise for
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: that on every occasion that was appropriate. Trump deserves a
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: lot of credit. In fact, it's one of the things
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: I give him the most credit for in his first
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: administration was sticking by Brett Kavanaugh.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: He was right to do it.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Only Trump would have done it, and if he had
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: not done it, that nomination would have failed. And there's
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: a very good chance a much worse candidate would have
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: ended up becoming a Supreme Court justice, and so.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: All kudos to Trump.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: That was one of the most important and prominent situations
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: were having Trump be Trump and be as trumpy as
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: he is, and given his own history with what he
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: says are false allegations and I tend to agree with
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: him false allegations of sex abuse against him, for him
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: to be in that position to stick by Brett Cavanaugh
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: was signific. It was praiseworthy, and he won the day,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and I think the country is marginally better because of it.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: But I'm uncomfortable with the idea that Hexstat, with Megan
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Kelly's help, is latching on to the legacy of the
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh situation, effectively portraying himself as Brett Kavanaugh two
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: point zero. Now, this is a little bit of a
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: nuanced view on my part. There are absolutely similarities. I
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: have already made similarities between what happened with Kavanaugh and
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: what's happening with Hexstat. I think the NBC Fox News
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Channel story is a classic example of that that I've
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: already referenced to Jane Mayer from The New Yorker was
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the author of one of the hit pieces on Pete Hexstath,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and she was, along with Ronan Farrow, one of the
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: reporters that went after Brett Kavanaugh on what I've called
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the bogus Yale urban legend story that either wasn't true
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: or didn't involve Brett Kavanaugh, or both.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: And so I fully understand this narrative. However, there's a
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: lot more.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: To the allegations against Pete Hegstad, many of which he's acknowledged,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: especially in the realm of infidelity and somewhat in the
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: realm of alcohol use, than anything close to what was
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: the case with regard to Brett Kavanaugh. And I think
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: it's dangerous because I've seen this happen time and time
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: again now to where anybody who gets attacked by the
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: left wing media is automatically seen as a better.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: Candidate because of it.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: We did a podcast recently, you know, where the title
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: referenced my analysis that just because the man is after
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: you doesn't mean that you're the man. I understand why
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: that's the knee jerk reaction, especially among Trump fans now,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: and sometimes that might be true, but it's not always
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: the truth. And it's not always one hundred percent the truth,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: but the pex death and people around him understand how
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: powerful that narrative is, and they're latching onto it for
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: dear life.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: And here's what.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Happened when Meghan Kelly made the comparison between what's happening
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: with Hexstad and the left wing media and what happened
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: to Brett Kavanaugh and he's death, jumped right into it
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: and embraced that narrative. Basically, one, do you think you're
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: being Kavanaugh right now?
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: I had a member not forty five minutes ago, looked
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: me in the eye in private, just he and I
• 58:44
  Speaker 6: and say, that's what they're trying to do to you,
• 58:46
  Speaker 6: all anonymous, all innuendo, all rumor, nothing sourced, no verification,
• 58:52
  Speaker 6: and they're just going to keep doing it because you're
• 58:54
  Speaker 6: a threat to them. And and and I know that
• 58:58
  Speaker 6: he knows that in firm on that it's not difficult
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: to just continue to fight. So, yeah, we saw what happened,
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: But guess what happened. Kavanaugh stood up and he fought
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: and he won. And hopefully Republicans have learned that lesson
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: and try them and Trump stood by him. Right you're
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: seeing right now with me is the art of the smear.
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: It is the classic art of the smear. Take whatever
• 59:23
  Speaker 6: tiny kernels of truth and there are tiny, tiny ones
• 59:26
  Speaker 6: in there, and blow them up into a masquerade of
• 59:30
  Speaker 6: a narrative about somebody that I am definitely not.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: So I get it.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: There are absolutely comparisons between kavan on Hegstead, but there
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: are differences as well, and one of those differences was
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: exposed in what I thought was a pretty dramatic and
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: potentially telling way by a guy who has been a
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: guest on this podcast before.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: That's News Max anchor Greg.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Kelly, a guy who I can se or a friend,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: although it's a kind of an odd friendship. We've never met.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: We've had a lot of conversations off the air. We've
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: done a couple of interviews on the air. He used
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: to have me on his show, but you.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: Know, I'm way too anti Trump for him to have
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: me on his show now, which I'm fine with it.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: I don't care whatever, but he's, in my view, he's
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: a good guy. He's an interesting guy. He's a different
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: kind of Trumper.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, he is full on Trump, full on Maga
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent, but he's a different kind of guy.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: And look again, I don't know him all that well,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: but I've had good interactions with him. He's been nice
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: to me, both privately and publicly. And Greg Kelly did
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: something I thought was really amazing. He went on Newsmax,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: not even on his own show, and went on a
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: very long, detailed and devastating commentary against Pete Hegstad, and
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: I was like, whoh okay, holy t leave Batman.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's all sorts of possibilities.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: Regarding what's really going on here, because Greg Kelly is
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: someone who's very well connected in Trump World and Magaworld
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: and as I've said, extremely.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: Supportive of Donald Trump.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: And for him to dramatically condemn Pete Hexstad and basically
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: say he doesn't believe that he should be Defense secretary,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: I think he essentially says that that he he you know,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: says that he should not be the nomine He likes
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: him personally, but that he's you know, essentially I don't
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: want to put words in his mouth, but basically there's,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: you know, the idea that Hexss has some issues, some demons,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: some problems, that he is blackmailable.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: This is a big issue for Greg Kelly.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Uh and that he should not be the Defense secretary,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: and for him to do that on Newsmax, which is
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: way trumpier than Fox News Channel, and to do so
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: in a very dramatic way. This was not an offhand comment.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: It's one thing to say, well, you know, I don't
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: think hech Seth should be the nominee. Maybe they're better options.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: That would be one thing. But this was a very
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: well thought out, very concise, very detailed, devastating takedown of
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Pete Heggsteth, and Newsmax did not shy away from it.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Newsmax shared it on all their social media platforms. Greg
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Kelly did not shy away from it.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: I mean Greg Kelly got crushed on Twitter.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: Greg Kelly's name was I think one of the top
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: two or three trending news stories on Twitter for an
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: extended period of time after he did this on Newsmacks air.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: I mean he got crushed by his own supporters of
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: MAGA because MAGA has absolutely bought into this idea that
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: heg Seth and Kavanaugh are the same, and if you
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: give up on heg Seth, you're gonna give up on
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of other nominees.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: Which could be the case.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Although I've already made the argument that in a weird way,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: I think the Trump team is looking at this in
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: the opposite direction that if you lose on Hegstath, you've
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: actually forced Republican senators to use up their political capital,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: and how many times can they take out a Trump
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: nominee in this environment. I think that might be the
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: way that the Trump team is looking at this. Again,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but that would make some sense
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: to me. So I was stunned when Greg Kelly did this,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: and I decided to reach out to Gregor. And I
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: haven't talked to Greg in a long time. I don't
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: think we talked once during the entire general election period.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: And he got back to me and actually was having
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: this conversation with Greg while my family and I were
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: walking the Christmas lights, which we do about eighteen times
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: during December in our neighborhood. And it was, as usual,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: a very interesting conversation, and I promised Greg that it
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: would be off the record, so I'm not going to
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: quote him, but my takeaway from my conversation with Greg
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Kelly was one, he's totally sincere about this. Two I
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: don't think he was doing anything close to you know,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: working on behalf of like the Trump team in a
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: clandestine fashion to take out Pete Hegstad because they don't
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: want to have to do it themselves. I don't think
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: that was even close to what was really going on here.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: I had theorized at the time, because I know Greg
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: is a very Christian guy. I had theorized it in
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: my own mind that what was happening here was that
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: Greg didn't like the clip that I played for you,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: because he would have thought that was disingenuous playing the
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Jesus card.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: And I said to Greg, it was that part of
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: what made you come to your conclusion.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: And again I'm not going to quote him, but he
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: did not agree with that assessment. He understood that assessment,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: but he did not agree with assessment. His objections to
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Hexseth are much more I think substantive with regard to
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: the issue of blackmail, which he has said publicly, and
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: you know, some other things that he mentioned that I'll
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: keep between him and me.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: As I promised that I would do so.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: But my takeaway from my conversation with Greg Kelly, which
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: lasted about fifteen twenty minutes or so, was that I
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: think I still think heccess in trouble. I think heccess
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: on his own, and that doesn't mean he can't get confirmed.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: That's going to be up to the Republican senators. But
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: if the Republican Senators like Ernst and Lindsey Graham and
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Murkowski and Collins, if the four of them decide no,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: which would be very heavy lift.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: It would be heavy lift.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Especially for Ernston and Graham. If that happens, I don't
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: think Trump comes in and saves him. If Trump was
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: going to come in and save him, Trump would have
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: gone after NBC to their face on the Meet the
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: Press interview regarding what they did to Hegstath with that
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: bogus story involving Fox News Channel and alcohol.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: That's just my current take.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: Obviously that could be wrong, but you know, I find
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: this to be very interesting.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: I think it's we're in the in.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: The fifty to fifty forty five fifty five realm when
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: it comes to Hegsteth hex Seth and whether or not
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: he's going to be the next Defense Secretary, and of
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: course the idea that he could be replaced by Ron.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: DeSantis, which I do think is not made up. I
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: think that's real.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Whether that would ever actually happen is another story that
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: obviously brings into into play all sorts of other fascinating scenarios,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: but we'll deal with those if and when that actually happens.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show.
• 1:06:59
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• 1:07:02
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• 1:07:26
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