Walter Kirn
Appearances
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Well, they can subpoena him and get it anyway. So what's the problem here? Why does the Trump administration have to go first? This feels like a giant advertisement for Signal to me. We find out that the CIA uses it and trusts it. Well, at least they went to Signal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Peter Stroke, the head of counterintelligence over at the FBI, was, you know, talking to his mistress about how he was going to disrupt the Trump administration on regular text messaging apps. At least they've scaled up a little here.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Except we three and we're pretty, pretty hip people who try to follow these things. And yet we have no idea. What's strange about it is I've never accidentally added anyone to a signal chat. That hasn't happened to me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Well, I would have thought that anyone of the other 19 might have had veto power over this and noticed it. That's what's strange.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
I have better tradecraft than Mike Waltz, I've learned from this story. Why should I here in Montana with my strange group of friends, which are similar to yours, I imagine, Megan, you know, from all over the place, take more care with who I allow to see the more sensitive parts of my communications? The truth is we actually don't know.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
And the more I think about this and the more I look at it, that the Democrats were ready to pounce on it suggests, hmm, I don't know that there might be more to it than we are hearing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
One thing that's interesting is that this is an actual war plan that everyone agreed with, except maybe J.D. Vance. I mean, Jeffrey Goldberg, it's not like they put Alex Jones on the chat. Jeffrey Goldberg, I'm sure, agrees with. Yeah, and that would have been interesting. But bombing the Houthis is not something that I think Jeffrey Goldberg disagrees with.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
I don't even think that the Senate committee disagrees with it. It's interesting that this is a policy that really there was unanimity on, except in the case of Vance. And when this first broke, it was an anti-Vance story. That was how it was being spun. You know, Vance and Trump are at odds that that didn't survive the first news cycle. But it was how they first headlined this thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
That would be or or what does Israel want us to do? Can somebody call them up? Right. Right. We didn't see evidence of that. See, I think Trump's management style or Putin. Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Can somebody call Putin and find out whether he's behind this? One time I almost burnt down a gas station I worked in. It created smoke and a terrible smell. I cleaned it up as best I could.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
The next day, the boss came in and instead of punishing me, he looked around, sniffed the air and said, I feel like something went on here. Carry on. It was the greatest act of discipline I've ever received. Because to withhold punishment sometimes is to show true dominance. And I think that's what Trump has done here.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
The ability to give grace in this situation is also in its shadow form, the ability to get rid of you. And I think everybody is going to shape up from now on.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
If the Democrats could design a security leak, it would be to Jeffrey Goldberg. Why are they acting like they're unhappy with this thing? Right, they're not.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Yeah, yeah. It's 100% because of their numbers.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Well, I'm an actual novelist, unlike Harwood, so I'll give my competing image of Tom Holman. He's like a bouncer in a very big nightclub and finds some guys who've been harassing women in the women's bathroom and kicks them out the back door. And when they want to come back in the front door... Doesn't allow it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
That is just a pure cheap shot on Harwood's part to act as though this is racist, that it harks back to the Southern past and so on. Doesn't apply in any respect. It's a bad image, a bad metaphor, and it's prejudicial on its face. He can say it, but it doesn't mean much.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Listen, I grew up with Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson movies. We haven't even gotten close to that level yet. In the early and mid-70s, after the chaos of the 60s and the early 70s, we had a series of heroes. Buford Pusser, the southern sheriff, speaking of southern sheriffs, walking tall, who went around with a baseball bat, getting rid of all the scumbag. Yeah, in his small town.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
We had a decade of vigilante movies where people practically stood up and cheered. And in one of those Dirty Harry's movies, it's interesting, there was a villain who ends up kidnapping school children who is let off earlier in the movie by a judge on a technicality, even though they have him. And then does even worse things. So America's in that mood.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
And cultural cycles, you know, as Andrew Breitbart said, politics is downstream of culture. And I think in a lot of cases that's true. In terms of cultural cycles, we're in a Tom Holman cycle, not a, you know, Tom Cruise upright Boy Scout cycle.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
OK, so let's. Yeah, go ahead. I have one last point, Megan. One of the reasons that Americans in general are so exercised about this issue is that they see it in the streets at home and around them. In other words, an insulated federal judge is one thing. But when you're, you know, driving down the street and you see the.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
indigent people or what look like troublemakers, or if you go to the gym and you undress and the guy next to you has a tattoo of bloody death on his back, or if you come across these gang members in any setting, you're going to be scared. You're going to be frightened.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
It's an existential issue for everyday Americans, especially working class Americans who mix in the kind of places that these people hang out. So they have a completely different perspective on this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
The New York Times has a hotline to the State Department. It's probably got a hotline to the CIA. It's got a hotline to every position of power. It has taken dictation for decades and decades. But the premise here is so flawed. The idea that everybody is waiting for a orders from Trump on independent media.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
The great thing about independent media now is that it's growing up from the grassroots and Trump is coming down from the presidency and they're meeting. And they're not meeting seamlessly. There's a lot of arguments. I mean, if... Conservatives, right wingers, libertarians have as many ways to argue with each other and disagree with each other as the left does.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
But they also have something that the left doesn't have right now, which is authenticity. And they're trying to claim that this is a top down phenomenon when it is absolutely the opposite. Yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
First of all, the reason that they can't adapt on the left is that they have an orthodox religion, which won't allow them to get over certain catechisms. Nixon, Jim Crow, etc. These have nothing to do with life in America 2025 right now. They're mourning a monopoly. They're mourning a period when there were three networks and basically three newspapers.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Now, they can't get over the fact that they've lost power, that the Internet goes from side to side, not top down, that it is indeed a net and that it's decentralized. The attempt in the last few years before Trump was elected and Elon took over Twitter was to make the Internet and social media resemble that old monopoly.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
They wanted to sit on top of it and use these academic misinformation organizations and State Department-sponsored disinformation organizations to curate it in a way that was really a losing battle in the modern age. Because the internet now is like water. It can flow around you. And it's not just Trump who can get his message out. It's all kinds of
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
what characters that they would consider fringe. We've entered a new age and the New York Times can't believe it's not still 1974. And then invoking Nixon can't scare everybody from, you know, speaking up. But if you either get with it, people and Jim Rutenberg, or you're going to be left behind and you have been.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Megan, they're on a nostalgia trip. Right now on Broadway, George Clooney is playing Murrow, okay? And good night and good luck. CBS can't get over its glory days. New York Times can't get over its glory days. But they all go back to the 70s. It's like when my father insisted on playing music from 1955 when he was a high school football player. He just had to revisit it obsessively.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
And going back to Nixon and other moments when they had the power that they lack now, it's not our fault that there's no Walter Cronkite. It's theirs. If they had someone as talented and trusted and charismatic and frankly, objective seeming as Cronkite, bring him forth. I don't see it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
It was like a boy band or a band that had been assembled by a casting agent. They have a person who represents each part of their demographic or their constituency, and they play the role to the hilt. But the biggest difference these days between Democrats and Republicans is this. On the Republican side, people claim that they should have power because of what they've done. I'm Elon Musk.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
I shoot rockets into space. I administer Twitter. I'm Donald Trump. I built skyscrapers and developed real estate around the world. On the Democratic side, it's what was done to you that's important. You know, this is what happened to me when I was young, when I was in college. I was a victim. Now, I just think in America, claiming that victimization is an accomplishment is a period that's over.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
She's still at it, but I don't think it flies.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
It's middle class and upper middle class people pretending to be poor. And nobody wants their children to grow up and be poor. She's playing a role. And when she's relaxed, she stops playing it, as we just saw. In fact, when she's drunk, she sounds like a kid who went to private school.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Well, what I found curious is that if I were a somewhat hostile journalist and were added accidentally to a group chat that included the vice president, the secretary of defense, and a national security advisor, I would lay low for a while and not blow my cover. I would say, oh, wow, I just got an accidental pipeline into the very heart of the security state.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
Maybe I'm not going to come out the first time I get a little bit of news. So it was interesting to me that Goldberg decided to sort of blow this once in a lifetime chance to surveil the inside of the White House. He could add a four-year scoop. Oh, exactly. I'd have been writing a book. I'm waiting for the World War III war plan, not the bombing of the Houthis, which isn't all that controversial.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
No, that's a good point. As you say, I think it made Vance in particular look good. He can't be he can't be construed as a Trump toady after looking at this. You know, he had some principled differences with Donald Trump. He said this conflicts with our messaging about Ukraine, with our general anti-war stance. Also, as he as you mentioned, it seems to favor the European interests over our own.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Bizarre Group Chat Details, Media Compares Trump to Nixon, and MK Media Launch, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1034
If there were if we're going to play games with conspiracy theories and 40 chess, it's J.D. Vance, I think, who comes out looking best because it shows that he's both in the loop, independent, thoughtful and nobody's fool. At the same time, he plays with the team. All I know is that I'm Jeffrey Goldberg sitting there going, wow, I had I had a bug in the White House. Now I don't.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Well, the next time Delta Airlines refuses to upgrade me to a seat in the front of the plane, I'm going to cry censorship. Riding in the back of the plane is not being censored. Strangely enough, Matt and I, when we applied for credentials to the Democratic Convention, weren't allowed to go in at all. So they protest too much.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
The fact is that censorship has to do with your ability to say things, not the place from which you listen to things.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Where does AP think the names of bodies of water come from? God? They're political designations. You know, a lot of these places in America have had three names. They had a name when we first got here. The American Indians named it something. Then the next group of settlers named it something else. And then when the place became a state, it was named something else. Uh,
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
It is government that gives names to large features of geography. If the AP wants to dispute that and has some other policy about names and where they come from, that's fine. But the fact is they decided to have a tantrum, and they got a tantrum back, and now they're crying.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Well, I live in Montana, about as far away from the White House briefing room as you can be. But as a younger journalist, when I first went to Washington, just after Bill Clinton was elected the first time, I did a story on the New Republic magazine, which was a very inside publication, very popular publication. with the Democratic establishment at the time.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
And I hung around their offices for a few days. And everybody of note, cabinet people, top advisors of the president came through and gave off the record briefings. And as I sat there like a fly on the wall, I realized that the journalists were married to the press secretaries of the people in the administration. Everybody's kids went to school together.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
They gathered that night at parties and bars. They were, in fact, one social group, a very tight knit social group. And I completely agree with you that proximity can become a form of corruption because as a journalist, when you're socializing with people, you're constantly hearing things that you can't report.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
And after a while, you're living in a world where you know way more than you are allowed to tell your audience. And that makes you part of them, in other words. That's right. You're keeping their secrets more than you're telling their secrets. And your job is to tell their secrets.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Yeah. And to Megan's point, you made a great point about Joe Biden and his condition and how well it was hidden. The AP was sitting in the damn front row. OK, they had their front row seat. They were able to see him shuffle in and shuffle out and be taken in and out by nurses and aides and so on. What good did it do the American people that the AP was in front? None.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Their access, in fact, was probably predicated on. on them keeping the secret. Maybe from the back row, as an outsider and a little with a chip on their shoulder, they might have told the truth. But as an insider feeling like they had the golden ticket, they kept their mouth shut just like everybody else. Now, that is a form of self-censorship in the name of currying favor with power.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
They're victims of their own profligacy. They dropped a prosecution that involved President Biden because he was too old and didn't have a good memory. They they went after Trump for documents inside Mar-a-Lago. And I still don't know why. Really, do you? What were the documents and what was the urgency? We don't know. Prosecutorial discretion is recognized.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
A recognized thing because we could probably be prosecuting half the people on Capitol Hill for something at any one time all day long, all year long. That's generous, Walter. It's more than that. Yeah, exactly. As Mark Twain said, Congress is the only Native American criminal class.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
And so that he decided to not follow through on the prosecution of a mayor of New York City at a time when New York City is facing practically a crisis with migrations. And he has been grappling with that more fully maybe than any other big city mayor. I think it's completely appropriate. It's a political decision, a political risk, and he took it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
No, it's not working. And that's because trying to make America feel something for the bureaucrats who made their lives hell during COVID and paid no price themselves, who got to go home, work from home, and stayed home ever after, sometimes taking other jobs, those are not the people that in traditional left-wing politics we are out to support.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
The American left was a party of the working people, not the people who work at the DMV or the IRS or the U.S. Treasury, but the people who work in factories, fields and actual jobs. And trying to make those people a victim class is just not going to work.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
I would have said if I really wanted to drink and get away with it at the podium, I'd be drinking vodka. You know, it's nice and clear and I can have as much of it as I want. In fact, I won't be drinking as much of it, though, as Winston Churchill drank by the morning, who led us in World War Two and was absolutely wasted the whole time. He should have just thrown it back at them.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Every time Donald Trump used to wipe his nose.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
in the first trump administration they said he was snorting adderall i don't know if you remember that um yeah or snorting you know everybody wipes their nose is snorting coke everybody's drink catches the light is drinking whiskey meanwhile if you really go up to capitol hill and you go to the senate you hang out a lot of them are getting wasted during the day okay
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Right, right. Just recently, yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Touch your nose.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Well, everybody in the audience was trolling her with their oohs and aahs. They didn't feel those for a second. They were putting them on. She is the queen of pseudo-prevendity. If she hears the word yes, she said, we say yes to this, but no to that. If we're for this, we're against that. She's always trying to make some sort of oratorical Ciceronian point out of absolutely nothing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
But I do think she was drunk, and I think she had a mixture of – You know, now that we're allowed to speculate and not be libelous. Sure. Pete eggs. Open the door. Yeah, she was drunk and I think she had a little bit of a stimulant on board that was giving her the confidence to talk at all. And the drunkenness was giving her the absolute mindless stupidity when she talked.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Well, if nature abhors a vacuum, now we know why she wasn't elected, because we do, too. But she's always she's always she talked about a vacancy that needs if there's a vacancy, it needs to be filled there. It's very Freudian. This concept of emptiness seems to be on her mind a lot.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Rebels and outsiders like the Trump administration and the people around Trump. have access to a vocabulary of outrage and sometimes obscenity that they have to use back to fight back against authority. But when authority starts, when the administration starts going after Animal House using the same language, It just looks ridiculous. You know, it's like the U.S.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Cavalry picking up bows and arrows because it's been shot at by, you know, the Sioux Warriors. And it says, I don't know how these things work, but they seem to be really good at killing people. Boing! You know... Learn to say dick and learn to be convincing and sound like you're in a bar room.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
But when you're doing it from the cable desk, like you say, Megan, all you're doing is lowering yourself. And they won by getting you to use the weapon of the outsider. And they did it badly.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Or maybe a blog. Maybe they should try getting a blog.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
Can I jump in, Matt? First of all, why does using a Southern accent exempt you from all the charges of stereotyping and so on? You know, he gets to use a Southern accent and it's across the board a pejorative, something we're supposed to recoil from. That's the racism, if you want to look at it. Second of all, I didn't even know that Tom Hanks would stoop to this kind of thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
It's terrible writing. It was a terrible skit. And he was the big loser. I see people all over social media going, I don't think I'm going to be watching him again anytime soon.
The Megyn Kelly Show
CBS vs. Free Speech, Elon Baby Drama, and Shocking Plane Crash, with Michael Knowles, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn | Ep. 1009
But he just he just pulled Forrest Gump down the river. He did a Forrest Gump imitation. And now he's now he's a racist. He just all that good work went away.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Yeah. I mean, I think it's going to be critical to determine what exactly the motive was here. Um, you know, very often in these cases when people do extremely destructive things, including things like school shootings, a significant percentage of those folks are, um, you know, sociopathic predisposed to violence of some kind or another.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Um, and people attribute motives to them that they assume because of the way they dress or because of what music they listen to or that, that sort of thing. Uh, so in this case, you know, all we have are, are some superficial indicia, right? We, uh,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
we see a person who is associated with a lot of traditionally left-leaning causes targeting a democratic governor who, you know, maybe stands out on one or two particular issues as, um, you know, as being something that kind of traditional liberals or socialists might not be happy about. But we can't assume that that's the reason.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Frankly, on the foreclosure front, as somebody who's covered foreclosure courts, I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more violence of this kind dating back to the mid-2000s because I've seen how enraged people are by being thrown out of their homes. a significant percentage of those people are tossed out kind of unfairly. You know, we don't know.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
But but I think, you know, Walter's right to talk about the lionization of Luigi and how we're in this space now where a big segment of the media is kind of intellectualizing violence as a logical response to things. And that is very scary.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
I mean, there's so many things that are crazy about this that one doesn't even know where to start. Walter and I, just a couple of weeks ago, we did a segment on Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find because it was the 100th anniversary of her birth. And here's Taylor Lorenz, who is probably the most anti-literate person in media. Making a reference to a good man is hard to find.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
She's someone who, if you handed her a hardcover book, would be tempted to bite it, I think. She's probably never read anything in her life. And I think if she did know that story, she misunderstood the point of it, clearly. But this idea of Luigi Mangione as a morally good man. I, I just, I don't know how that goes over and how, what, what CNN is thinking, putting that on the air. It's crazy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Yeah, oddly, this ties back to the Taylor Loren story because she was famous, among other things, for a piece she did years ago where she sort of hit out in the new app Clubhouse and claimed to overhear Marc Andreessen using what she called the R slur. Yes, good memory.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
She posted a tweet of all the people who didn't do anything when the R slur was used. Now, it turned out that it wasn't Andreessen who used the word. And it was actually a quote, a self-referential quote involving a group of Redditors who described their sort of GameStop stock ploy as like the... revolution of the retarded or something like that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And so the question was, what do we think about this retarded revolution or something along those lines? And so the whole thing had to be kind of retracted, corrected, clarified, et cetera, et cetera. But what's interesting about that is that at the time,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
There was this concerted effort to define the harm standard as even using this old word in a private setting, essentially, was somehow not even acceptable. Like the argument was we can't have apps like Clubhouse because people will be doing this all the time behind closed doors. We go from that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
to it's okay to shoot people in broad daylight if, you know, and that's a morally good person who does that. So there's harm over here, which she later described as the reaction to that is destroying her life to, you know, to this thing, which is a completely different idea about what harm is. It's mind boggling.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Oh, that was, that was me. Yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Thanks for having us on. Great to be here.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Yeah, it was really an amazing thing because what they did is in response to the popularity of the Netflix show adolescence, uh, which Keir Starmer is now going to, uh, mandate that every secondary school student in the UK has to watch. Um,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
The story is basically about a beatific young boy who is moved to knife crime or murder against a young girl because he listens to Andrew Tate, basically, sort of misogynistic online content. And so they regurgitated this whole interview they did two years ago.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
about the dangers of that kind of content and this expert on online radicalization by the way who where do you go to get that job um expert in online radicalization anyway isis Yeah, it's so bizarre.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And the whole thing was about how the first thing you have to do is make sure is monitor your children for any signs that they are laughing at inappropriate humor or calling things that really aren't funny, funny. Like, for instance, finding Hitler's mustache.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Everything is funny. And they singled out Hitler's mustache, which Walter, I don't know, or Megan, actually both of you, I would think is one of the funniest things that's ever existed is Hitler's mustache.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Yeah, absolutely. If your eight-year-old boy doesn't think Hitler's mustache is funny, that's one I would call a psychiatrist, actually.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
I love the color commentary, though. It's, you know, speaking with knowledge as if they know what this is like generally.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
It's crazy. It's like, you know, when you go to get a Chevy Traverse test drive, you come out more like a family than like, you know. Somebody who just took a car. I mean, they're talking about getting in and out of a car.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Uh, they, they are, um, I was actually told, uh, at the end of that month. So they, that happened on, I think March 9th of 2023. Uh, by the end of the month, they told me that I was in the clear. They actually owed me a lot of money. Um, and the, uh, And the investigation had been started up on the same day as one of the main Twitter files reports.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And once the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Treasury asking basically what the deal was, they sent over a whole bunch of documents and conceded that there was nothing there and then informed me personally that I was in the clear. So I'm not being investigated anymore. And then thanks to Jim Jordan, actually, they changed the policy about personal visits to people by the IRS.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
So that was actually a positive outcome to that whole thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Clearly not. You know, I think we can go back through history and find many examples of people who've been investigated, you know, at least the DOJ has been nudged in the direction of somebody. I mean, I think that's been a feature of almost every presidential administration going back to Nixon. Am I wrong about that, Walter? I can't think of anybody who hasn't been in trouble for that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
But, you know, That whole thing that Miles Taylor, you know, he's a character, right? He was a significant character in the Twitter files. We didn't do a lot of the reports on those. Um, but I know that there was talk about investigating him even, um, even before the end of Trump's first term.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
I'm a little bit confused about the political meaning of toplessness now. You know, we saw there was that demonstration in Paris where all of the demonstrators were topless. And I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to look, not look, look furtively. Also... what exactly the meaning of that was supposed to be. Was it supposed to be erotic, de-eroticizing? Yeah, it's a very strange message now.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Well, when this story first came out in 2017, it's based on a single passage in a book that I co-wrote with my former co-editor in Moscow. And it's completely fictional, like almost everything else in The Exile. I mean... The Exile was a satirical newspaper where everything was basically backwards. The whole idea was an un-newspaper.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
So like, for instance, the corrections always referred to things that had never actually been in the newspaper. Most of the bylines were of fake people describing fake adventures. And in one passage, Mark described something that it didn't happen. It's a massive exaggeration of something. And so all the people who were involved were eventually contacted at that time. They recanted.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
There were corrections at the time. I was in litigation with some newspapers at the time. That's all been done and finished. And nobody's ever accused me of sexual harassment here or in Russia.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
None of that stuff. I'm one of those people who goes straight home from work, doesn't socialize, nothing. But I knew in the hearing, as soon as she said that, I thought about the speech and debate clause, and I realized that she's allowed to say that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And then on the way home, I saw that she was retweeting this, I think in an effort to try to get a rise out of me because she said something along the lines of, you know, my silence in the hearing was telling. But I think that the privilege is penetrated once you go outside Congress and start retweeting on X and blue sky.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And I'd had enough at that point, uh, of this thing, this thing did major damage to my life and career. And it's not true. And so, uh, you know, for her to drag this up seven years later, it's, I, I just, I just ran out of patience.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Well, I probably can't get into that publicly, but what I will say is that there was a lot of positive response about this. And part of that was from other journalists because, you know, I don't know if you agree with this, but I think there's been kind of a laissez-faire attitude toward outright libel in the last eight, nine years. People just say such crazy things online.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
I think it's supposed to be something about empowerment, but it comes across as mostly confusing to me. I know. So, I don't know.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And there's this attitude that we don't have to back it up. We don't have to make notations when we make corrections. We don't have to leave it on the page to tell people that we made a mistake before. We can say what we want and get away with it. Most people won't sue. And I think you have to because that's the argument for not censoring is that this other system actually works.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And as somebody who's very against censorship, I think when people do that kind of thing, you have to try to hold them accountable.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Okay, moving on. From the very beginning, when I testified about the Twitter files two years ago, the Democrats treated me almost like I was worse than a Trump supporter. To them, they think of me as some kind of apostate, but I've been a lifelong supporter of the First Amendment. I've been a Democrat most of my life. I'd probably agree with them about some things if they...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
wanted to open a discussion about what's appropriate for online regulation, but they decided to go completely in a different direction. And the political sense of that escapes me. I just don't understand why they do that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Walter! It's a little glands-like.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
We're not in the government. No, it's incredible. And it's a source of frustration for me because I think all of us in media, we often get asked to respond immediately to things that happen outside our areas of expertise. Certain kinds of issues. So if you ask me a question about digital censorship right now or, you know, First Amendment online questions, I probably answer to that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
But if but if it's about immigration law, you know, there's a huge. mountain that you have to climb to know even the basics. And there's lots of stuff that is not terribly well known, like changes in the Patriot Act to the Immigration and Naturalization Act. These are all little tiny things that you have to know about the difference between what's legal and what's not. And it takes not...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
days or weeks, sometimes it takes months or years to have a clue. So for these reporters to act like they know what they're talking about, it's a huge window into the general cluelessness of the business about these things.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
The funny thing is I was under the impression that most astronauts were basically mostly women or at least half women now. They probably are. Yeah, I didn't. There was nothing. Was that part of their critique that there aren't enough?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Really? Because it seems like there are quite a lot of female astronauts.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Well, in addition to being an honest broker and I think believing what he says and like Walter, I've been on his show and I've talked to Bill many times after the show and always enjoyed talking to him. He's also a natural comic.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And I think one thing that he really struggled with in the last eight years was the sheer quantity of laughable stuff that came out of the quote unquote left that he was told he wasn't allowed to laugh about. I think that was a big factor for him, sort of being told that there are things that are off limits.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And the not-so-veiled threat that if you even entertain the idea of calling Donald Trump sane or a normal politician in public, that your career is going to be over. Now, Bill is just big enough that he can avoid the fate that most everybody else who went there experienced.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
And I think, you know, this thing that he did, I think it's a significant moment for for media, because now there might be some other people who come out of the woodwork and say, you know what, I'm just tired of saying the same stuff over and over again and not really fully believing it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Absolutely. Thanks, Megan. Thank you, Megan.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Yeah, it was a little far out space nuts, a little bit. A little space nuts.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Or one giant step forward for reality shows. Yeah, that's true. It could be a great concept. Like, you know, dumb celebrities in space. I would watch that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Horrifying CNN Celebration of Luigi, Sanchez in Space, and Maher's White House Trip, with Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi | Ep. 1048
Yeah, the more supplicating that goes on, the more uncomfortable you usually get. And there was a lot of that in this one. I guess they did prove that Botox survives reentry into the atmosphere, though. It's good to know.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And I've even seen people say, well, they're trying to solve immigration by killing all the people that would immigrate here. I mean, it's going to be hysterical like you haven't seen before.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Wow. Frankly, I have tears in my eyes, not this moment, but I did, because I'll tell you why. The price of drugs, especially drugs that are for limited or sort of small diseases that don't create a big market, you know, where the cost can't be spread across a lot of patients, can be absolutely ruinous. You say $1,000 a prescription. Let's talk $200,000.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
I mean, there are drugs for things like hepatitis and for various cancers and so on that are shocking. There are Rolls Royce. And we're going to change lives here. We're going to prevent families from going into bankruptcy. We're going to cut the budget. And. Lastly, there has been talk about pharma ads on TV. It is not just Congress that pharma controls, Megan.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
It's MSNBC and CNN and Fox and the other cable news networks that we're all familiar with through carrying about 70% of the weight with their advertising in some cases. Now, that influence totally deformed our COVID response and maybe guided it to some extent, if you really want to be.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
serious about it that influence is gone you can't advertise if you don't have the money and that money that big giant pot of profits that was on a five dollar drug uh you know 995 dollars it goes or whatever is not going to be poured into these influence operations going forward except in the short term because there's no way they want this to come to to come to pass
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, here's a case of a non-American company, a Danish company that's stiffing the United States, but not the country next door, Germany. Why is that?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, but, Megan, they have been acting poor and developing almost since World War Two. And for a while they were they were devastated by war, you know, for several decades and trying to get back on their feet. But the truth is we have been subsidizing European socialized medical programs. In other words, and in so many ways we've been doing that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Our military payments and our undue support of NATO has allowed them to not have militaries of their own. and pour money into social programs. The social programs themselves have been subsidized in ways like this, where they negotiate, they get good prices from companies, and we don't. In other words, we're carrying the weight for the world.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And this, in this case, has nothing to do with development. The recent certain development isn't going on in the United States. We're simply paying for it. Now, how they got that deal and through what influence, is something we should investigate later, but that it should go on is something we need to deal with yesterday.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
They can still have their profits, Megan. It's just that the subsidies for them will be more evenly distributed between countries and customers.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Listen, I don't understand why they're still paying development costs and research costs on a drug that they've already developed. And frankly, which is a rather simple substance compound. And as far as, you know, manufacturing and gearing up to make more of it because of the overwhelming demand.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, what other industry tells you that in order for us to gear up to meet the demand, we need crazy, almost unlimited ability to charge you? If Ford had a hit car and it said, We've got to build new factories to turn out the number of cars that people want to buy. And we've got to keep those prices really high in order to do that. That's the opposite of what I just heard.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Isn't there something called economies of scale? The more you sell, the cheaper and the more you have to make, the cheaper it is to manufacture each unit.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Let me launch a rather elaborate metaphor, but a colorful one. The United States is like a member of a family who hits it big in Hollywood and they suddenly become rich and they have a big house and, you know, money coming in. And all of a sudden, all the relatives say, hey, man, can you help me? Help me with my car payment. Hey. My son just got sick. Can you help with his hospital bills?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And then after a while, that arrangement becomes institutionalized. Meanwhile, all the greedy relatives are doing quite well, but they decide we have to cry poor in order to keep living off our movie star cousin. At this point, the movie star is about to lose his mansion. He's mortgaged it 10 times. And he's got problems of his own. And it's time for the rest of the family to step up. Yes.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
If we go down to paying 400 per dose and they go up from 90 to paying 400, the pharmaceutical company actually hasn't lost. They can go do its precious development and research all day long. But what's happened is that there is once again some sort of fairness in the family.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
So only Trump, only Trump, Walter. Is he going to go on Broadway after he finishes his presidency? Because I saw I saw Jackie Mason on Broadway back when and he had nothing on Trump. This story. But this storytelling side of him is really effective, just like I just tried to use a colorful story to explain things.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Trump, from no tax on tips to other policies, often seems to come to his brilliant, uncontroversial, outrageous ideas by talking to people who are affected by the policies. Oh, my Lord, what a revolutionary way to do politics and to, you know.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
research policy not go through a 10 billion dollar think tank but ask the waitress you know if she gets to tax too much on her tips that's right or ask his very fat friend who's on the fat drug the fat shot he's on the fat shot what i love is that embedded in that megan is he took a shot at the drug itself he said it's not working it's not working
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
That's a cross between cabaret and the Hunger Games, what we just saw there. That is truly a man singing for his supper. And his supper is provided by Pfizer. And if you go over to the actual news channels right up in the corner, it will say sponsored by Pfizer. You know, the COVID death count sponsored by Pfizer. Anderson Cooper is not going to like this. Rachel Maddow is not going to like this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
None of those people, but they're going to have to be very creative in finding a way to question it or oppose it. So I make a prediction. At first, they'll try to have their cake and eat it too. They'll applaud the sentiment, the goal, the idea in general, but they'll tell us the execution is terrible and is going to lead to disastrous consequences. for the very poorest among us.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
I mean, especially they'll set the damage in places you and I won't ever go, you know, East Africa and so on. And tell us over there, it's just... wreaking devastation. But the fact is that finally they're going to have to come down on one side or the other, especially the politicians. And they're going to come down on Farmer's side if that's who's supporting them.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
I mean, this is a kill shot against the rhetorical hypocrisy of Democrats and Republicans who always can be for something that will never happen. It's easy to be for lower drug prices when you happen to know from the meetings back at your office with the Merck president that it's never going to happen. Now it happened.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Great to be here.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
We'd love to lower prices for Americans, but the Constitution won't allow us, so just shoot me. It's not going to work this time. This is a slightly different deal, too, Megan. This isn't exactly what he tried before. This has to do with... Other organizations that set drug prices, these intermediaries that raise the price. It's a little bit subtler and it's more gamed out than it was before.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Do they not yet know how Trump works? Have they not yet cracked his algorithm? Every week, every few days, in case we run out of outrages, Trump does something that I call throw the media a chew toy. This is a chew toy. It allows them to sit by the fire and bite, lick, slobber at some non-issue. which causes total distraction while he does something like end a war.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Now, we'll be talking about this Qatari plane all week, I can tell you. And by the end of the week, we'll find out that the Ukraine-Russia war ended or something while we were on our... You know, slobbering over our chew toy. But but, you know, so in a way, it doesn't matter the specifics because they're always outrageous to be a chew toy. It has to sort of be borderline bad taste.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And is it legal and is it constitutional? And in some ways it has to be gauche, too, because it's Donald Trump. Right. I mean, the plane has to be over the top. People will be looking at, oh, my Lord, you know, solid gold toilet paper holders. Yeah. First of all, he's going to guarantee more attendance at his library if he gets that thing parked in back than any other president in history.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
He may also not have to build a whole wing on it. People will just it's a 747. People will just use that as that could be the library. It could be the library. But it gets us talking about issues that in a weird way, in the same way, remember how he did an AI or somebody did of him dressed as the Pope a week before we got an American Pope?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And it got us talking about the Pope and thinking about it in all sorts of ways. And just because that was the chew toy that week. It was that AI of the Pope. And then it gets us ready for the main course. Now, gutter, whose name I can never pronounce.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
You know, it's going to be in the news and part of a lot of negotiations probably coming up. It's for better or for worse, a power player in the Middle East than in the United States. And suddenly we know who it is. We know what gutter is. Most Americans without this plane wouldn't, They still can't place it on a map, and they still can't pronounce it. Look at me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But at least they're aware it exists. Yeah, and they're aware it exists suddenly. How interesting is that, Megan? Yeah. I'll make a prediction. Two weeks from now, for reasons other than the plane, gutter will be in the news, but Americans will already recognize that they're talking about a country when they hear that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And Megan, that's what I first thought too. What he's really doing is he's trolling Boeing. You can't finish your damn planes. And he just trolled Boeing in the past. You can't get your astronauts down off your space stations. They're a mess. Why do we have to keep bailing you out? This is really aimed at Boeing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
That was like a satire, like Running Man or something like that, where they have everybody in the game show where somebody dies. Brought to you by Pfizer. And not just by Pfizer, because I always look at the subliminal message. Brought to you by the oval blue pill that Pfizer is famous for, Viagra. I mean, in other words, that's the subtle message there. Pfizer helping America.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
you know, get it on. But I mean, that is a helpful drug.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, here's the thing. It's been pointed out that pharmaceutical advertising isn't really to the customer because you and I can't go out and buy those things, can we? We have to go through a doctor. Those are influence ads. Those are ads meant to own the media so that in the general flow of events and issues, Pfizer's lobbying and Pfizer's agenda are at the top of the news.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
The fat shot.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
I thought he was talking about Pritzker the whole time. Me too.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
That's what I was picturing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Yes, exactly. Well, Trump has that magical ability to put pictures in your head, even if they're not the ones that are intended. That's so true.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
like when he said it didn't work and he took sort of shots at it and he said his friend's neurotic he um painted a picture that's just indelible and and uh i don't think america now has a better comedian salesman troll and politician than donald trump he's taken all four hats
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, if I don't have any thoughts on tariffs, that means I'm the only person in America who doesn't because we had more experts grow up overnight on tariffs than almost any other issue in my lifetime. So you were humble enough to say, I don't understand what this has all been about since the beginning. I sort of understand it. My job is to educate myself on these things. And I'll say this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Have you ever negotiated anything? Of course you have, Megan. You've negotiated salaries. You've negotiated contracts, book contracts. Even I have done that. And at the beginning of negotiations, a lot of things are said that cause people to go, oh, no, it's going to break down. This is going to destroy everything. I won't get a book published at all.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Oh, I won't get in the movie if I play too tough. But negotiations are the beginning of a game and a rough game when it involves China and the U.S. and trillions of dollars. That we're doing it at all is a plus. You know, that we're examining this at all, that we're at the table, that we're playing this rather rough, you know, contest, I think is good. Number two.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Both Trump and China have one thing in common. They like to save face. It's thought to be a perennial feature of certain Asian cultures that saving face is almost more important than actually winning things. And in Trump's case, being able to brag and thump his chest and beat Donald Trump is also very important.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
So you've got two very proud and very vain partners in this negotiation who are finding a way for each other to save face, but they both have real objectives. On Trump's part, he wants to bring back manufacturing to some extent. He wants to reduce this trade deficit. And he wants to kind of bring back especially very vital industries, chip making, various defense technologies, and so on.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
I think we're closer to getting those things than we were before. And you said both sides are waving the white flag. Well, that's logically impossible. You can't have double surrender.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Megan, it was only years after the Cuban Missile Crisis that we found out that Kennedy made a deal with the Russians to withdraw missiles from Turkey. The Cuban Missile Crisis for many years was portrayed as a total American win. We backed down the Soviet Union and they took their missiles out of Cuba. We later found out that we made a huge concession in order to get that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
So the thought that we can look behind the curtain and know who's won what and who's getting what and where it's leading at this early date is folly. But I think it's important for both sides that the things that they do concede, they're not embarrassed by.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
I've seen some of it, whether it's accurate or not. And it's pretty modest given the voracious needs of the U.S. Treasury, you know, and spending. It's not something that's going to replace the income tax, certainly tomorrow. Right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But at the same time, the principle of raising money off of people who want to trade with us and just as in the drug pharmaceutical drug issue, creating a little bit more of a level playing field after, you know, years of what Trump contends is being taken advantage of. You can be content with marginal gains if you're moving in the right directions. And also. This negotiation isn't over.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
It'll probably be going on in some fashion for the first half of his administration.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Don't wear red if you plan to be an aggressive rioter. This is rioting 101. I could follow every move. Everybody else was in dull green and uniforms and so on. And here's this big scarlet cardinal throwing her weight around. And I mean, we've been talking about weight loss drugs, but she had a lot of heft to throw around. And, you know, that matters in fighting. That matters. They do. It's true.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
You know, arrange fighting by weight class.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Yeah, she she was in the upper classes of the weight class thing there. OK, so. You know, since January 6th, we've been told that any form of unruly behavior on the part of people who, you know, are protesting government policy is it is terrible. Interaction tantamount to overthrowing the Constitution. But, of course, this isn't. They want a special category for this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
They're just doing oversight. It looked like Black Thursday, Megan. Everything in American politics is starting to look like Black Thursday, you know, as people try to get that cheap Walmart TV before the rest of the people that are. That our civic life and Congress people are adding to this has degenerated into some kind of Donnybrook that you'd see outside, you know, a Best Buy on Black Friday.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Right. Is really sad. And I hate to be I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but they were there knowing this was going to happen. They were there. They wanted the attention. They were there to get in people's faces. And she wore red for it the same way you wear red to an awards dinner, so you'll stick out.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And AOC's You Lay a Finger, all this kind of Jenny from the block, you know, I'm just Bronx rock. girl telling you, you know, what's going on. This, this, I, I hate to put it this way, but this kind of, you know, streetification of our politics where everybody's acting like, you know, they're a crip or a blood or a, you know, Latin King or whatever. Yeah. Jasmine Crockett is, is,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
It's not an orchestrated plan, but it seems to be something it seems to be a temptation that they're all giving into. You know, maybe this kind of works on TV. Maybe American voters are at the point where we can just turn this into, you know, wrestling, not not like wrestling, but wrestling.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Oh, obviously it got attention. This is the Democrat version of Trump's chew toy. They're going to have to stage a Donnybrook, a free for all, you know, hit each other with chairs on the stadium floor every couple of weeks because they use it to illustrate social problems. They think that they get the best of this because they send an anti-authoritarian message. But
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But from what I just saw there, the ICE agents, the last thing they want to be doing is getting body checked by big ladies in red dresses. They are not acting aggressively. Their job is not to go after Congress people. It's to act as police and guards in this facility. Unless you're going to question the right of the facility to exist, then why come bashing in there? I mean...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
America has institutions which are policed, prisons, detention facilities, all kinds of things. And you come running in there and trying to
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
start something and i don't think the first thing that the ice agent wants to do is come out of that the bully um they seem to be backing up all over the place and when you look at the crowd shots they're in the minority they're outnumbered the um spokesperson for uh
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
I think it pays no dividend at all. One of the talking points for the Democrats has been that Trump ushers in chaos. And so in order to reaffirm that with the people, they have to keep stirring chaos. So expect this to keep going on.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
That's a good point. But going back to the Luigi killing, what we've seen since Trump was elected was an inability to prevail at the ballot box, followed by this kind of renaissance in direct action at the street level, civil disobedience, all the way to David Brooks writing in the New York Times, it's time to have an uprising or Or J.B.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Pritzker the other day saying, you know, it's time for civil disobedience. They've been calling for this directly and we're seeing it now. So for them to suddenly proclaim themselves innocent, passive victims after their leaders have been saying, get out there, do what you can, get in their face is... ridiculous.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
The whole dancing thing, of course, crested during covid with all those propaganda nurse orchestrated dances that were meant and teachers and teachers and so on. We really have gotten the body, the human body into American politics and the way the rest of the world must be just looking at. I mean, is there any other country in the world where they do this much dancing?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
The reason they do all this dancing is because they don't have any arguments. They can't speak. They can't converse. They can't argue. So the person who are we going to have a dance off for the U.S. president next time? I mean, it looks like it might come at least in the next 20 years.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But OK, so the other night I was I was on the Greg Gutfeld show and we were doing a bit about how the press is complaining that Melania isn't spending enough time in the White House. She's only been there for 14 days during this whole term so far. But.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
What happens with every first lady after they get out of there is they tell you how much they hated living in the White House, what a trap it is, what a prison it is, how how absolutely suffocating the role of first lady is. You know, here's Melania just saying, I got other things to do in other houses to live in. And they're criticizing her.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But, you know, on the other hand, we have Michelle telling us about this long incarceration and her marriage and her role and her White House and so on, while she dances finally free of the dude, of the house, of the place. And No wonder she has no audience because nobody likes to tune into a podcast to hear somebody's sad stories about themselves.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
She didn't used to talk like that. And they call it code switching. And they've given it this big rationale that you have to, when you're a member of a certain community, be able to talk to the street and be able to talk to the people
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
ambassador and go back and forth all of that tells me you have no self what we used to call that was chameleonism and it meant that you are completely driven by impressing whoever you're trying to sell something to such that you'll completely change your personality the idea that she is and aoc does this and a lot of politicians do this Oddly, Trump doesn't.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Trump always talks like Donald Trump, no matter how inappropriate, no matter how inappropriate it is. Trump could be out in the woods talking to loggers and he's still Donald Trump. And frankly, I and I think that's one of his great advantages in this era of code switching and chameleonism and, you know, targeted personalities.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And the problem with Michelle Obama is that she has no natural constituency, but You know, where's Barack? He made her famous and now she's turning on him. She's obviously on some really long runway to divorce or a breakup. Maybe maybe their fortune is such that they can't get divorced in the way you and I can by just walking out the door and saying, hey, buddy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But they don't you know, she doesn't have to soften us up forever. If she wants to go spread her wings, just do it, you know.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Misery loves company, Megan. And if you've ever been in a small town when somebody gets divorced, you know, if a woman initiates a divorce, she wants all her friends to get divorced too, you know? And then the minute she is, she's telling everybody how great it is and what a good time it is. And now she's got all this time on her hands.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Listen, Michelle, if you don't believe in women attaching themselves to powerful men, then why did you attach yourself to one of the most ambitious Chicago politicians with national ambitions ever? I mean, we would not know your name, I'm sorry, if it were not for the fact that you married Barack. And now you want to become the spokesmodel for doing it your own way without a man?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
It's so true, Victor.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
You know, I can't believe that as recently as last fall, people were hoping for the coming of the Democratic presidential messiah, Michelle. Oh, they're going to sweep her in at the last minute at the convention, you know, over and over as though she was going to come down like the second coming and rescue everybody.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, I think we know why that is, because the more you see of her, especially in these kind of public settings and doing her thing and you know, trying her different masks on. She's not a very persuasive or compelling person.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
You're about to Cannes revamp.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, let's hope it's her vag. And number two, let's hope it's her.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, yeah, I'm sorry for the interruption. I get one-on-one time with Megyn Kelly in front of the country, and then the damn internet goes out. Terrible luck. Halle Berry, she looks terrible. She's trying to prove she's sexy and not a robot. That means she is. That means she's very anxious about her appeal. I stood in line with her once at a seafood joint in Malibu.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
She was a beautiful, flawless woman, very, just absolutely radiant. She looked terrible there. The guy who participated in that should be ashamed of himself. I mean, what an exploitative thing to do. It reminded me of like Star 80, one of those movies about, you know, a model who goes downhill because a boyfriend wants to get famous. What an awful way to get his mug shown around the world.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
That was sad. It was... I'm sorry she's so anxious about her sex appeal. She's one of the most beautiful women in the world. If she's not good in bed, that doesn't matter. A woman doesn't have to be good in bed. She just has to be beautiful, lie there, and available with nice lighting and say you're good in bed. The secret of a woman being good in bed is to tell the guy he is.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
No guy has ever complained that some beautiful woman just – radiated her sex appeal and what she's supposed to do, climb around, swing from the ceiling. That's his job.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Right. And just say, I've never seen a man like you before. And you're the best in bed we've ever had.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But also, why do they need lube? Why do they need lube? They're both, you know, in other words, unless there's something really unnatural going on, they shouldn't need lube.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But isn't that, isn't it the exact message that she doesn't want to send? I mean, she was telling us that she's a sex goddess a minute ago, and now she's telling us she needs lube. I want to know what flavor it was. That's all I want to know.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Is this a country of politics or a country of issues? Because in this case, Bernie and Trump agree. And Bernie has been loud on this matter for a long time. He should get his butt over to the White House and show some solidarity on this because they're going to need it against the greatest lobby in American life next to the, I suppose, military industrial complex.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Okay.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
The fact is that drugs like Zempik, and this one in particular, are not that complex. It's a peptide called semaglutide. It can be bought cheaply as the peptide itself. In its patented drug form, it's made more expensive. But the excuse that... The U.S.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
has to pay higher prices, vastly higher prices in order to subsidize the research and development of these drugs so that the rest of the world can benefit from lower prices is ridiculous. But it has been the fig leaf, the massive fig leaf that they have used to cover their profiteering for decades.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Really, under Obamacare, there was a real conspicuous omission because the supposed aim of the bill, of the legislation, was to lower prices for American healthcare, but it did not include negotiation with drug companies for lower prices. Everybody noticed that at the time, that carve-out, as it were, and now Trump's ending it, and frankly,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
This is a demolition job on mere partisanship because just as you quoted the Young Turks person, if we can't get together on this, then we can't get together on anything.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Megan, you and I both attended the RFK Jr. confirmation hearings, I happen to know. I was only one row away from you. And I think we saw there both Bernie and Elizabeth Warren hectoring. The man who wanted to pressure big pharma and challenge them on all sorts of fronts, from the effectiveness of their drugs to testing drugs like the vaccines and so on and prices.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And they were acting like they were lawyers for Pfizer. Well, everybody's a lawyer for Pfizer if they're getting paid by them. And I'm afraid Bernie, you know, he makes it a little complicated. He gets a lot of money from them. He gets it from their employees, and he claims that he gets it one little bit at a time, and it doesn't represent management contributing to his cause.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
But it's a massive set of donations to him and to the Democrats. He can prove his independence, if you'd like, by coming together with Trump. And if they think there are some problems with this executive order, the particular way that it's going to happen, that's fine. But the principle has been agreed on, as you say, by the horseshoe for a while.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
So it's time to do something for the American people. And we must transcend TDS in certain cases. I wish we did in most cases or all. But if we can't do it here, I don't know where we're going to start.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
Well, it's not only clever, it's absolutely essential in a time of budget cutting, particularly to do something like this, because the biggest client, the biggest patient in the United States, so to speak, is the United States government. It's the taxpayer who pays for these drugs in so many cases, you know, through all kinds of programs.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
And it's going to save us collectively a lot of money and individually, but you know, untold amount of money in family budgets. I just think that it was time that Trump really held their feet to the fire on the social issues and the populist programs that they claim to support. And I think it's a masterstroke. I did a little reporting on it last night. They've kept it very close.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump Takes On Big Pharma with Historic Drug Prices Exec Order, and Michelle Obama's Bitterness, with Walter Kirn | Ep. 1070
We were all taken by surprise. I'm shocked that it didn't leak. And pharma's counterattack is going to be interesting because it will be somewhat deceptive. Already, they're trying to argue that somehow this is a blow against the third world, which will no longer have the benefit of our subsidized drug research.