Rich Lowry
Appearances
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah. One of my favorite parts of that moment, you don't know, but when DJ's talking to the head of the Secret Service right afterwards, he imagines, so what do I get to do now? What are my responsibilities? How do I get on the job? But this is a tradition that goes back. I think Reagan was the first to do it, and there was a terrible Air Florida crash.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And at Washington National Airport, it wasn't Reagan then, of course. And there's a guy who I think might have been an off-duty fireman or just a bystander who swam out of the icy Potomac River and saved someone. And Reagan had that person in the balcony recognize his heroism and sacrifice, save this person. So everyone's done this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Trump's taken it to a different level, though, because things – it's not just recognizing someone to make a point or to honor their – He makes something happen with Limbaugh. Right. He awarded the Medal of Freedom right there. You know, has a secret head of Secret Service come down. So things are happening. So it just goes to he's a showman. Right. And he he envisions this as a show.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And to quote another John Pedort's tweet from last night, it's like it's a version of Oprah. You almost think Trump at some point is going to ask every member of Congress to look under there. their seat there and find their gift. Right. So they can go out happy. At least Republicans would go out happy. Democrats would reject the car. They got a free car last night just on principle.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Now, this one, there's real ideological component. It's not just Trump derangement the way it is with DJ. They hate talking about victims of illegal immigrants. They just don't don't want to hear about it. They won't do it. The only time I can remember any Democrat ever addressing it basically is Biden was heckled into saying Lake and Riley's name incorrectly in a State of the Union.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And Kamala Harris asked by Brett Baier about it, grudgingly says, you know, this is terrible. They just they just can't. It doesn't compute for them. They think it's inherently hateful to point out that this this happens. All crimes are terrible, obviously, but as an extra layer, if it's someone who just shouldn't shouldn't have been here and they don't they don't get that, they won't admit it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And the best line for Trump the whole night, obviously, was that we didn't need a new immigration policy. We just need a new president, which has been absolutely ridiculous. True. He obviously overpromises sometimes and overpromises on how quickly he can do things, but this is something he fixed instantly.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Just one, just the deterrent effect of Donald Trump being president again convinces a lot of people, well, maybe we should wait and see what happens. Two, they just ended catch and release. Now, they need more resources. There's more policies they need. They need some help from Congress. But he's just turned off the faucet almost instantly. So there's less strain on cities.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
You have Roosevelt Hotel, which has been housing illegal immigrants closing down for that purpose. You're going to have less criminals just by sheer math, right? If you're illegal immigrants coming in, the fewer illegal criminals you're going to have. And he did that instantly. And Joe Biden could have stopped this from starting in the first place by not reversing all the Trump stuff or –
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
done it himself, but he didn't want to. And they don't want to be faced with the consequences of what was a deliberate failure.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah, and I was going to say also, get up and clap for the fact that the border's closed, right? They all say they want to address illegal immigration, but they really don't, right? They should be happy that this has happened, but they're not because if they wanted this to happen, Biden would have done it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Again, they think there's something wrong with doing this. They think it's hateful and xenophobic to highlight these cases. For ordinary people, these cases obviously are a gut punch made much worse by the fact that the horrible criminals who perpetrated these crimes shouldn't have been here.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
So saying, look, this terrible thing happened, and I'm going to stop it by stopping these people to come in isn't a 70% or 80% issue. And it's a huge reason that Joe Biden – I mean, Joe Biden, if it hadn't been for the Afghan pullout, if it hadn't been for inflation, hadn't been for the border, he wouldn't have lost. You throw an age there. But Kamala Harris probably would have won.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
These are huge issues. And Trump, you know, something he highlighted earlier. coming down that escalator in 2015 when it seemed very extreme what he was saying. It seemed it was just Steve Miller and Steve Bannon. They believed that. No one else did. It couldn't sell. It would alienate Hispanics.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And here we go where he's actually implementing it or re-implementing it from what he had figured out the first time around and is hugely popular. That's just been a sea change in American politics.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
it's a psychological malady. It's literally sick. I mean, you look at that from a rational perspective, you're like, okay, that must be a deep fake of what Nicole Wallace would say in such a circumstance. Say it's a lovely moment. Say the kid's a hero. His dad's a hero. We wish him the best. And yes, we want research to get
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
cures and therapies to to make kids in such circumstances long lives as possible and move on right to connect it to january 6th how do you even how does that even come into your mind a cancer survivor a kid in a police uniform that's the first thing you think of it's it's mind-boggling
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
There are other things that you can object to that Trump said, if you're Nicole Walsh. Lots of them, in fact, but not DJ.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
very evil. Yeah, what we're talking about in Capsule here is the debate over who's normal, right? And for them, it's just a theological matter that Trump is not normal. Look, he's unusual in a lot of ways. In some respects that we've talked about, some good, some bad. It's an unusual stay of the union or address a joint session of Congress.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
But if you just look at the reaction to DJ, a president hailing this kid, a nice gesture for this kid, everyone standing up applauding, wiping tears from the eyes, that's Normal. Sitting grim-faced and not reacting to this story or connecting it to January 6th is not normal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And this obviously is a reason why Trump won the elections, a reason why he's thrived, at least in relative Trump terms so far politically, is because he's occupied the normal ground in American politics. And they're spun off into outer space somewhere.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
But we know that over 2,000 cops were severely injured during those riots.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah, I'm a Ukraine hawk, but what Trump is talking about in the polling is is popular and most people are going to strike them as common sense. Let's strike a peace deal. And again, it's another thing that we've had this weird reversal where
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Any other person saying, oh, I'm going to try to forge a peace deal in this long-running war, or at least war has gone on for three years, more than a million casualties, the atom all up probably, and this is a bad thing, right? So the tactics of getting there I don't necessarily like. I don't know what's going on. going on behind the scenes.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
But we established Russia is not going to win the war and the sense of taking Kyiv and toppling the government and creating a Russian puppet state out of Ukraine. And Ukraine is not going to win the war in the sense of regaining all their territories. So it's time for it to end. And again, this is a commonsensical position, one that a lot of Americans would consider normal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Again, I don't think necessarily the way we're getting there is not normal. That Friday Oval Office confrontation with Zelensky was not normal. It's like something we haven't seen before. But the goal, let's stop killing, is not something that ordinary people are going to recoil from. It's something they're going to think makes sense.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
This was a shocking breach of decorum. The worst we've ever seen. There was some heckling of Biden from Marjorie Taylor Greene and Boebert, which I didn't like and thought was wrong. And there's Joe Wilson, who was a great guy, by the way. And I think was, if I remember correctly, was
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
was an unplanned interjection you know it's kind of just popped out i think he regretted it afterwards and when he did it there were gasps in the the chamber so to have someone just stand there and shout and wave a cane at the president of the united states and have to be forcibly ejected i thought for a while he might resist right they might have to carry him or something at least he he walked out and expressing no regrets afterwards and saying it was a great thing to do is shocking
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
It's it's it's another step down in terms of our politics and a terrible moment for for Democrats, because this will be one of the most replayed moments of the night. And it's a 77 year old angry man waving a cane saying, get off my lawn to the president of the United States, which is not not a great look.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Towards the end, there was like a look of irritation on Trump's face where you're like, okay, is he going to go there? But he did. And he just said thank you very much after Speaker Johnson handed it back over.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah, yeah. I think so, but probably just because this is an unprecedented thing. You're the Sergeant of Army. Yeah, it wasn't code pink. Expect to just kind of stand there with your hands folded, not to have to go eject an unruly member of Congress, but –
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Total breach. This will be when when Al Green inevitably offers the next articles of impeachment being expelled during Trump's address to the joint joint session will be one of the articles we can assume.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
I thought it was okay. As you know, I mean, this is just an impossible task. The only good response ever was the late, great Fred Thompson, who was an actor and sat on his desk and gave a response in the 90s that was fantastic and very memorable. And it's like, great to talk of a presidential run. But this is a very hard assignment.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
I think what you sought there, that's a critique you can make of Trump. I don't think it matters for most people. I think the best thing for Democrats to say is his priorities aren't your priorities, and you're going to pay the price, and he's not doing enough to reduce prices. I think that's where they should go, and it should be kind of a traditional Democratic strategy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Argument against a traditional Republican president. He's he's helping his rich friends. You know, I think that makes sense for them. All the other existential threat to democracy stuff is is not going to get them anywhere.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
I don't think we're going to know the future of the Democratic Party for a very long time. I don't think the opposition and Congress really figures out how to react to a presidential loss. You just hope things go wrong. They do. Inevitably, events happen. Capitalize on those and then hope you get a decent presidential candidate who figures out something new.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
He's the great white hope. Rich, great to see you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah, I think for the ordinary viewer, there's nothing you heard last night that you necessarily disagree with. I don't know, maybe tariffs or some things, but largely he emphasized things that are popular. And the headline of that speech, the headline of the first two months is Trump 2.0, the sequel, more Trump than ever. So it was longer, it was more combative in some ways, more entertaining.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And it These aren't really speeches so much. They're performances, right? So George W. Bush used to give speeches. He had the speechwriters, Mike Gerson, the late Mike Gerson, my friend Matt Scully, right? These eloquent speeches that he'd deliver. You can't do that with Trump. It has to be in his words and his way of speaking, which it is.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
How many times did he say, like, we've never seen before, right? No speechwriter sits down and writes speeches. like we've never seen before. And the point you're just making a minute ago is as apt, you know, a comedian, a really good comedian, you can say his lines as an ordinary person and they're not funny, right? Or they're not as funny.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And 80% of the things Trump said last night that were entertaining, you could say them, I could say them, someone else could say them. They wouldn't be funny because they're Trump because it's uniquely Trump. So I don't like State of the Union addresses. I prefer a State of the Union to be a 20 minute eloquent, thematic speech. But that speech does not exist.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
No one's ever given that State of the Union. That's not what Trump did last night, but it works for him. Now, it's it's not hugely important. But by Saturday, you know, two or three other major major news stories will have happened. But it was a good night for him.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah, just the way it says LBQIA+, it is funny, right? There was a great meme last night of Al Green waving his cane, and the caption was, they promised me trans mice, because one of the items he, of course, mentioned was his experiment to try to create – Trans mice. I don't know whether they're successful or not.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Probably if they're in the San Francisco school district, those mice, they would be certainly be trans. But that was hilarious. People hate that stuff. And it's memorable as well. It's something if people are listening at the bar, they'll take away and remember the next day.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah, exactly.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah, it was pathetic. So either just sit there and be civil. And by the way, clap at the nice moments. There's no reason for any American not to clap when DJ has this amazing experience of instantly being made an honorary Secret Service member. Or just leave in mass and just do it. I think that would be bad. I don't think it would play well for them. But they got this in-between play.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
So it was just pathetic. And it just advertised their cluelessness and their powerlessness. So and Trump, obviously, he did this a lot in the first term as well. But last night was really explicit. I'm going to call you out for not applauding anything I do.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And then I'm going to have these wonderful people in the in the balcony who are cancer survivors or victims of parents and loved ones of victims of terrible crimes. Or I'm going to announce that we got the guy. who blew up our 13 service members at the Abbey Gate. And I dare you not to clap. And they didn't. They took the dare. So they look grim. They're checking their phones. Just clap politely.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
You're not going to lose anything. But he got the reaction, exactly the reaction he wanted.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah, totally. And they just believe, and they have believed for a long time, that there's some way to delegitimize Trump such that he'll go away. In the media, on MSNBC, they had this constant debate whether they were going to platform him and show his speeches live. That was going to make a difference one way or the other, whether it was on MSNBC.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
And they seem to think that holding up their little auction paddles somehow is a gesture that's going to be meaningful to someone. There is a famous intellectual, Lionel – Frilling in the 1950s had this line about conservatism at the time, which wasn't in a great state, that conservatism is just a series of irritable mental gestures. And that's what progressive is at the moment. Maybe not mental.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Maybe that's giving them too much. Or mental maybe in the psychological sense. But all they have at the moment is irritable gestures, and that's what the paddles were.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Feels like there should be an SNL skit on the medicine that addresses irritable gesture syndrome.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
Yeah. And he told them what he was doing. Right. He was banking on them not reacting to even things that are unquestionably good or moving or endearing. And and they just they couldn't bring themselves to do it because Trump is literally Trump saying it. Right. It's Trump derangement syndrome for everyone to see on live TV shows. and mass, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Funny and Powerful Address, and Dems' Embarrassing Response, with Rich Lowry, Mark Halperin, and Alvin Lui | Ep. 1019
If anyone else said, here's this adorable kid who's gone through this horrific illness in a police outfit being lifted by his father so people can see him, they all would have stood and applaud for the kid, but nothing to do with Trump, for the kid. And they couldn't bring themselves to do it because Trump said it.