The Megyn Kelly Show
President Trump is Back, Major Executive Orders, and Biden's Last Minute Pardons, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 986
Mon, 20 Jan 2025
Donald Trump is President Trump again! Megyn Kelly is live from Washington D.C. and is joined by Emily Jashinsky, D.C. correspondent for Unherd, and Eliana Johnson, editor of the Washington Free Beacon, to discuss key moments from the inauguration, highlights from Trump's inaugural address, Trump’s important executive orders which will take effect on day one, his focus on immigration, gender, and energy, Biden’s pardoning spree in his last few hours of presidency, preemptive pardons for Dr. Fauci, Gen. Milley, the January 6 committee and his brother, JD Vance’s inspiring story and path to Vice President, his wife Usha and kids, Melania Trump’s iconic and classy style at the inauguration, Lauren Sanchez’s trashy look, and more.Jashinsky-https://www.youtube.com/@undercurrentsunherdJohnson- https://freebeacon.com/ Ground News: Use the link https://groundnews.com/megyn for 40% off the Vantage subscription to see through mainstream media narratives.DailyLook: https://DailyLook.com to take your style quiz and use code MEGYN for 50% off your first order.Hungryroot: https://Hungryroot.com/MK | Get 40% off your first box PLUS a free item in every box for life! Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. How happy are we? Today, we're broadcasting from Washington, D.C., where our prayers have been answered. It is official. Joe Biden is gone. Kamala Harris is gone. Everyone is cleaned out of the White House press office.
And Donald Trump is the 47th president of the United States. J.D. Vance, the vice president. Right now, it happened. The day began at St. John's Church where Donald Trump, his family, and incoming top officials worshiped and demonstrated that class and grace are back in the White House. Look at Melania, this incredible hat, absolutely stunning.
All right, so here we got a little fashion info for you. Lippis, it is a guy named Adam Lippis. who designed that beautiful dress. It was a navy blue coat. And then the hat was by Eric Javits, another New York-based designer. Lippis is 52. He rose to prominence as a creative director for Oscar de la Renta, but since 2004 has his own company.
He also used to design for Target, so good for her for getting a guy who is close to being a man of the people. Mr. Trump and Melania then took a brief visit over to the White House where President Biden was heard saying two words to President Trump. Welcome home. Good line.
This lovely little piece of jargon came just after Mr. Biden announced pardons for Dr. Fauci, the January 6th committee, General Mark Milley and many, many others to protect them from, quote, baseless abuse. and politically motivated investigations, because who would want to be the target of one of those?
And just before he pardoned five, count them, five members of his family with about 15 minutes to go in his presidency, Mr. Biden, for the last time, using his power to protect those around him. Yeah.
I mean, we did Hunter in advance and then he did brother Jim and the sister and the in-laws and basically anyone named Biden other than his daughter, Ashley, who, as far as we know, has a substance abuse problem, but no criminality in her life. OK, so at noon, his presidency did come to an end per the U.S. Constitution. Trump's began.
And take a listen to the reaction from Trump supporters in the Capital One Arena here in Washington. It's where I can't remember what they're called, but the hockey team and the basketball team play here inside. Thanks to the extreme colder. It is freaking cold in Washington as the new president entered the Capitol building on Capitol Hill. It's very cool.
So what you're seeing there is that they're not even they're not anywhere near the action. Right. The president's walking into the rotunda on Capitol Hill a couple of miles away. And so there were people who were in that room. Then there were people who were in the overflow room inside the U.S. Capitol building.
And then these folks in the Capitol one building, which is the sports arena, were overflow overflow. And you would have thought they were right in front of him. given those cheers. The enthusiasm in this town right now is palpable. I mean, palpable. And here is the moment it became official when Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, swore in Donald J. Trump as the 47th president.
Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear... I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear. That I will faithfully execute. That I will faithfully execute. The office of President of the United States. The office of President of the United States. And will to the best of my ability. And will to the best of my ability. Preserve, protect, and defend.
Preserve, protect, and defend. The Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations, Mr. President.
Wow. Shaking the hand of outgoing President Joe Biden, hugging his family. There was a moment there where Chief Justice John Roberts got started a little sooner than the family anticipated. So Melania had to step in sort of at the very beginning of the oath. And then you saw Trump's children come sort of like, oh, it's time, you know, like we got to get over there.
And Tiffany Trump was sort of in the middle. And it was kind of nice. Joe Biden kind of said, come over here and stand here. You could go a different way with it. You could go a different way, but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was just being a nice guy. The crowd inside the Capitol included Trump's predecessors, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Not Michelle, because she's not a phony and she hates him and didn't want to be there. We don't know why she didn't come, but of course, that's why she didn't come. The guys who made all the news and got the attention of all the news media were the tech titans.
Elon Musk of X, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and the Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg, who created Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and more, many more. Sundar, the guy who runs Google. They were all there as the president, delivered a message about unity, about optimism, and about always now putting America first.
As you will see in this soundbite, no clapping nor any standing ovation, however, from now former President Joe Biden or any of the Democrats sitting behind Mr. Trump, even when he discussed surviving an assassin's bullet.
Just a few months ago in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin's bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. Thank you.
I mean, I get it. They don't generally stand for the other side. If he hadn't finished it with Make America Great Again, they probably would have stood, I guess. I don't know. I'm glad we don't have to find out. But maybe we can give him that one. Whatever. Everybody else is on their feet, clapping away. And it was a beautiful moment. And Trump seemed contemplative and seemed a bit more serene.
He's definitely in a great mood. He's been working around the clock. And you can only imagine what that was like for him to return. You know, he talked about how they tried to kill me. They indicted me. And I'm back. I did it. I survived. But perhaps my own favorite moment from the speech was President Trump announcing the executive actions he plans to take today.
They're happening now, including that the federal government will only recognize two genders.
Today I will sign a series of historic executive orders. First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. We will drill, baby, drill. I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.
As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.
And wait until you hear how exactly he did that, because now we have the executive orders and they're a thing of beauty. I know so many, so many people who have worked so hard for this moment were rejoicing on that portion of the speech. And when you read the executive actions that he took on that, it's just absolutely huge. Thank God he won.
The speech had a fittingly Trumpian ending where he boldly declared that America is entering a new period of peace and prosperity.
Americans are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. The spirit of the frontier is written into our hearts. They were farmers and soldiers, cowboys and factory workers, steelworkers and coal miners, police officers and pioneers who pushed onward, marched forward, and let no obstacle defeat their spirit or their pride.
Together, they laid down the railroads, raised up the skyscrapers, built great highways, won two world wars, defeated fascism and communism, and triumphed over every single challenge that they faced. We will stand bravely. We will live proudly. We will dream boldly. And nothing will stand in our way because we are Americans. The future is ours. And our golden age has just begun. Thank you.
God bless America. Thank you all. Thank you.
First speech as the 47th president. CNN's John King called the president's speech dark. Of course, we always hear that when Trump speaks. And here's Gayle King over on CBS making it all about race.
Guys, I have to say, I'm looking at this crowd, I do not see many people of color. Does anybody else besides me observe that? I'm fascinated by why that is. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day...
Oh my God. You know what? Why don't you take a look at your own party if you're looking for absence of diversity, okay? See what happened to the working class because they fled your party, Gayle King, in droves. And they're not coming back anytime soon, you elitist snob who's obsessed over people's melanin. Nobody in the Republican Party thinks like that.
And by the way, there were plenty of people of color, both there and in the overflow room and and over at the Capitol Arena. And I saw them myself when I was there yesterday. So get over yourself. After his historic speech, Trump heading over to Capitol One Arena. And there, at this moment, he is addressing or about to supporters of all races.
And he's going to sit at this desk and sign his first set of executive orders on the border, energy, and more. I'm going to list for you what they are. Joining me now to react to all of this and other breaking news out of the Trump Second term now underway are the EJs.
Who better than this historic day to have Emily Jashinsky, DC correspondent for Unheard and host of Undercurrents, and Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon and co-host of the podcast Ink Stained Wretches. Trust in media is at an all-time low, and let's be honest, it's not without reason.
We are all seeing how stories can be shaped or even buried depending on who's in charge. But there is a platform that doesn't play by those rules, one that prioritizes transparency and lets you see the full picture. That platform is Ground News, an app and website that gathers related articles from around the world in one place, highlighting each source's political bias and corporate influence.
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They're independent and supported by subscribers, not corporate interests. Check them out at groundnews.com slash Megan. That's ground, G-R-O-U-N-D, news.com slash M-E-G-Y-N to take back control of the news you consume.
Great to see you. Great to be with you. How are you feeling? Good. Eliana is just keeping it short right now. Yeah. I mean, how could you? Look at the golden ages upon us. The sun is shining through the windows.
I apologize for your half-lit face. It's just sort of we're here, and it's like we're dealing with the sun. It's nice to have some sun, but it's freaking cold outside. Yeah, it's freezing. Right? Oh, yeah. It's freezing. I mean, I don't know how they honestly could have done the inauguration outside.
Because it's one thing if you had to show up for one hour and stand there, but you had to get there... The orders to get there began at eight. So that's the latest you could have shown up at eight in the morning for a 12 o'clock ceremony. It would have been a nightmare.
Well, you know, it could be 75 degrees and I wouldn't want to stand outside for in a crowd like that. But for this Minnesota girl, I was like all bundled up this morning, ready to track. I was afraid I was going to have to walk five blocks to get here. It's not cold out. Oh, come on. It's cold. 20 degrees. It's fine. But it feels like seven with the wind. Yes. But anything above zero.
For us hardy Midwesterners, again. Upstate New York and Wisconsin. I was going to say. I don't want to be out there, but it was not as cold as I thought it would be. We get it, Eliana. You're very tough.
Yeah. I did feel bad, though, because, you know, while they fit 20,000 people into the Capital One Arena, they, like, that's nowhere near of the people who wanted to come watch this inauguration. You know, it would have been hundreds of thousands. And many had purchased their tickets. And the people who wind up not getting in are, like, the hardcore ranking file.
Normal people. Yeah. Of course. In fact, like, Joe Rogan, he's going to make it in. Yeah. But, you know, Joe Schmo from... Minnesota is not going to make it in.
You know what happened with us is we went to the Capitol Arena with Trump yesterday. And I spoke at his event there and saw much of the same cast of characters as came today. And my whole family went. We had a great time. We did not get invited to the inner inauguration, which is fine. That was for mostly his top, top surrogates and donors.
But they did invite us to go back to the Capitol Arena in a VIP thing. And we just said, you know what? You should give those tickets to somebody else. Because we had the whole day yesterday Let somebody else do it so we can get more like people who really, you know, regular people who don't have VIP access.
But I think no matter how many people did that, you know, you needed 10 times the number of stadiums.
There is a cool thing about Trump supporters. Anytime you go to a rally, they love the fellowship with each other and they can find it anywhere. Like the hardcore Trump diehards. They don't mind standing outside and getting rained on because they meet people from around the country who are just like them. And for a long time, they couldn't find other people like that.
And they were like a little bit of fright. So there were 220,000 inauguration tickets granted when it was supposed to be outside. You can fit about 20,000 in Capital One Arena. So there is a big gap. But what I've seen just walking around the city in the last couple of days is a lot of people finding fellowship. They're thrilled.
Do you guys know, did you ever watch Fox and Father? It's Lawrence Fox and Father Calvin Robinson. They're UK guys. They're awesome. They got unceremoniously canceled by GB News, which is supposed to be conservative, but in any event. So they were trying to get, I guess, to the Capitol Arena today and either couldn't or something happened.
So they wound up watching it with Kid Rock in his hotel room. A lot of those things have happened, you know, and people, you can hear the cheering. We saw it and our hotel room and you could hear the cheers when Trump was actually, when he took the oath of office, as soon as it was done, like all over the hotel room, down in the lobby, just people are feeling so jubilant.
And I'm sure everybody listening to this has had their own experience of that.
You know, one striking thing about this inauguration, 2024 versus 2016, is crowd size would not have been a problem this go-round. So that's too bad for Trump. But then even when you look at who was inside, it was the CEO of Google, CEO of Meta, every corporate CEO, the CEO of TikTok, CEO of Amazon, and his wife, who I know we'll get to. But what's striking to me is that
America's top corporations and their leaders, they want to be associated with and want to be seen with this guy, which is a really striking contrast from eight years ago. It was not the case. They want to be associated with him. And then I think it will be quite different depending on how this term goes for people working in the White House and coming out of the White House.
I mean, those were tough times for those folks, but this is a very different environment for Trump.
Did you see over the weekend, Oscar de la Renta was tweeting out their own looks.
For Ivanka, because they did Ivanka's dress.
And they did Usha Vance. Oh, Usha, that's right.
Who looked amazing. I mean, honestly, after Melania, she was his close second on best dressed. Yeah, she looked incredible.
Melania is the class of one. None of us wants to compete against Melania.
Usha was my one. She was your number one. She just is the nicest person. I've met her. I spent a little time with her. She's genuinely kind, warm, friendly. Like she's perfect for JD who is also nice and like kind, but I think she's sort of a softer place to fall. You know what I mean? Like she's just that sort of loving.
Yeah.
And he's also like more of a fighter. right? She's like the brainy Supreme Court clerk, brilliant lawyer, but also this loving mom. And like every smile, look at that smile. She's got the thousand watt smile. She looks so happy. She was so cute when she was holding their daughter Mirabelle with the The three Band-Aids on her fingers? Yes.
You know, we don't know why she had the three Band-Aids on her fingers. Sucking her thumb. Well, some kids, yeah, she was sucking her thumb, but some kids actually like those for security blankets. I have a friend whose daughter loves Band-Aids. They just make her, it's like a, it's like a lovey for her. Or maybe she just gets her fingers hurt a lot. I don't know what's going on.
But it was adorable. And it was so... Any mom is like, yep, been there. It's such an easy gimme. Sure, you want to wear them? You're good. Yeah. Anyway, Usha was a star. Okay, let's get to the executive orders. And then we got to get to what Joe Biden did. Because the executive orders are truly a thing of beauty. I'm so happy about these.
I mean, there are going to be legal challenges on these within two minutes, some of these in particular. But let's just talk about what they are. All right, this is a summary. On the border... Close the border to asylum seeking migrants. Resume border wall construction. Declare an end to birthright citizenship. Now, that one's going to be tricky because it's in the Constitution.
Trump thinks that there's a loophole in it because it says you have to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in order for this to apply. And there's a legal argument that you're not if you're just born here to somebody who's here. That's going to play out for the first time. You know, once and for all, conservatives have been wanting to have this fight and they're about to get it.
Involve the U.S. military in border security. This too is going to draw immediate legal challenges because we have strict limits in our law for how our military is used. Declare migrant crossings across the U.S.-Mexico border to be a national emergency.
The Wall Street Journal noting that this would allow Trump to unilaterally unlock federal funding for border wall construction without approval from Congress, etc., designate drug cartels as global terrorists. That CBP1, this app that Biden's been allowing these illegals to use, offering 40,000 supposed appointments a month.
We're supposed to allow the border to be open because these people are gonna go through this orderly process by using the app and then show up to their asylum hearings. it hasn't worked at all. It's we've opened the door. We let them loose. They don't show up to the asylum hearings. We never follow up.
And even if they show up to the asylum hearings and we say you don't get asylum, they just leave and we don't arrest them. We never even try to track them down. It's a nightmare. That's over. It's no longer available. And existing appointments have all been canceled right on. Okay. Gender and diversity. This is the one, hold on.
Cause I have, I have a better description of it on my phone than what I have here in my and I want to make sure I get this one right. Standby. Okay. All radical gender ideology, guidance, communication, policies, and forms are removed. How great is that? There is now a government-wide recognition of the biological reality of two sexes. Clearly defines male and female.
Woman is defined as an adult human female. Hallelujah. Controversial stuff. It never should have been hard, but it was thanks to Biden Harris. Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination. Great.
The executive order directs that government identification like passports and personnel records will reflect biological reality, not self-assessed gender identity. let's see, ends the practice of housing men in women's prisons and taxpayer-funded transitions for male prisoners, ends the forced recitation of preferred pronouns in schools and in government settings.
Your school can no longer make you say... he is a she when you know he is a he. And you don't have to say it's my religion or I don't want to, right? They're just not allowed to do that anymore thanks to this Trump executive order. It's a thing of beauty and I cannot wait. Okay.
Tariffs and trade, directing federal agencies to begin an investigation into trade practices, including trade deficits, unfair currency practices, counterfeit goods, and a special exemption allowing low-value goods to come to the U.S. tariff-free. Assessing China's compliance with the trade deal. Okay, I'll skip some of that, but it's a stump on tariffs. Energy, okay.
There's some great ones in here. Declare a national emergency on energy, which could allow Trump to unlock powers to speed permitting for pipelines and power plants. Order the federal government to roll back regulations that impede domestic energy production.
signal and intention to loosen the limits on tailpipe pollution and fuel economy standards, which Trump refers to as the electric vehicle mandate, roll back energy efficiency regulations for dishwashers, showerheads, and gas stoves, open the Alaska wilderness to more oil and gas drilling, eliminate environmental justice programs across the government which are aimed at protecting poor communities from excess pollution,
It's not on here, but one of the ones in the original list is pulling the permits on all federal lands for those terrible wind farms. That is huge. Let me tell you, down where I go in the summer in New Jersey, this is a huge issue for us. They are going to put in this huge wind farm like nine miles from shore. where they will ruin the Jersey coastline. You will hear them.
They will torture the sea life, including the whales. One of those things breaks, and you cannot... The ocean gets ruined. The toxins that fall in, that's what happened to Martha's Vineyard in Nantucket last summer. It is... absolutely huge that Trump said no more.
And the only reason these were about to go through in New Jersey, among other places, is because the feds gave the permit and Trump just pulled it. I love that. It's all so good. He will sign an executive order reinstating service members who were unjustly expelled from the military for objecting to the COVID vaccine mandate with full back pay. Oh my God, I'm feeling euphoric.
He will end remote work policies for the federal workforce, and he will order many agencies back to the office four to five days a week. And he's renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and reinstating the name Mount McKinley to our highest mountain, which is in Alaska, because they changed the name thanks to wokeness under Barack Obama. God bless President Trump. What's your favorite?
Which one do you want to talk about?
You know, what I thought was so interesting is these are some of the ones he highlighted in his address. What we read in the news over the weekend was that he's going to sign between 100 and 200. Not totally clear. And I think there were mixed messages coming out from the Trump folks, how many exactly there were going to be.
The ones he chose to highlight in his inaugural address were ones, these things probably have 70% support from the American people. So he was clearly strategic about what he chose to highlight. The gender and DEI won. That's the issue that he probably won the presidency on. I mean, his most viral ad was, I'm for you, she's for they, them. Yes.
And about Kamala Harris's support for taxpayer funded gender transitions for illegal immigrants and prisons. The birthright citizenship one will be controversial. But overall, like these are things that the, you know, broad segments of the American people support. So I'll be interested to see which other ones come out tonight.
And like, do they get lost in this big shuffle of doing 100 as opposed to.
He said in his post inaugural address to his address in the overflow room, some people wanted me not to announce them all right away. I think he said this. I either said it there or I read it. But yeah, he said they didn't want me to announce it all. They wanted me to trickle it out. I said, no, we're doing it all.
You know, he'll never be more powerful than he is today.
Yeah, you know what? You're right. So much goodwill, momentum. It's a good idea. People are like, yes, change. What's your favorite in there, Em?
Well, I mean, it's got to be DEI because that's the catch-all. That's the umbrella term. They even sneak gender stuff under the DEI umbrella. So, I mean, between those two, I think people understand, regular Americans understand how sweeping that is. And it's huge. But I was also struck. I mean, I got the press release of the executive actions from the White House. They wasted no time.
They sent it out, I think, at 12.24 p.m. Mm-hmm. And I am looking at this and I'm thinking to myself, if somebody had sent this to me in 2012, I would have had an out-of-body experience saying, why do we need to do any of this? So much of this is actually just rewinding the clock.
Obama's administration is what changed Title IX to completely radicalize our regime on sex and gender, to conflate gender identity and sex. He also put men in women's prisons. Like so much of this stuff came out of the Obama administration. Trump was able to tweak some of it. Biden comes back in, reinstates all of it. And here we are, day one of the Trump administration.
We're just rewinding the clock on so much of this in ways that it's like it's not even him creating new ideas. It's literally just him rewinding the clock to sanity.
It's so true. One of the questions that raised in my mind, actually, is it puts Democrats in an interesting position for the 2028 campaign. And if anybody cares to ask in the media, so where do they stand on these executive orders? Are they going to campaign against them? Will they undo them on their day? King's not going to ask about it. You know, Trump's not running again.
but it does put them in an interesting spot.
You mentioned where the American people feel, so here's a couple of numbers to support that. There was a New York Times Ipsos poll that just came out on the gender, well, no, on a few of these issues. First of all, on mass deportations, 55% of the American people support them. for all illegals, all of them, not some, all of them, 55%.
63% support deportations for those who arrived illegally in the past four years. 63%, two thirds of the American public wants you out if you got here in the past four years and a majority, healthy majority, 55, wants you out irrespective of when you got here if you're here illegally. 87% support deporting illegal immigrant criminals.
And then on, let's see, on like foreign engagement with like the foreign wars, 60% support less foreign engagement. On trans issues, here we go. Listen to this. They said, do you agree or disagree? Society has gone too far in accommodating trans people. 77% agree. Accommodating. They even rigged that question. Right. They even rigged that question.
62.
Trans women, agree or disagree, trans women should not be allowed in women's sports. Trans women, which is a fake term. That's men pretending to be women. Should not be allowed in women's sports. 79% agree with that. 79, 94% of GOPers, 67% of Dems. I mean, that's how the hell are they going to challenge Trump on this executive order? How the hell are the Dems in the Senate?
going to stop a vote on the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act that just passed the House, like they did when it passed the House under Biden's administration. It passed the House under his administration, it got to the Senate, and they stopped it. But now, yes, the GOP controls the Senate, but you need 60 votes to get cloture on a vote.
You need 60 senators to be able to have a vote on it. And good luck. You're telling me that all those Dems are gonna say no in response to 67% of their voters saying, we're against this. It's going to be a huge issue. And then last but not least, minors should not be able to get puberty blockers, agree or disagree. 71% agree they should not be allowed. 90% of the GOP, 54% of Dems.
We've won on that issue. We've won. That battle's over, whether they know it or not.
I think the media is framing this. The video clip you showed of John Carl calling this dark. They're framing this. They're really trying hard to shoehorn this back into the American carnage narrative of Donald Trump being an aggressive fascist. He is aggressively instating fascism around the country.
And to most Americans, they look at this and they're like, this just feels like we're returning to something normal, like a baseline. And that's not what the media senses with this at all. They think this is something that's like pushing in a different direction. But for a lot of people, it just feels like stability and calm.
Can you can we talk about that for one second? Doug and I were watching this this morning and we were talking about just how extraordinary it is that Trump is our president. that he became president, that he's now been returned to the presidency. We were talking about just how awful Barack Obama was and how radically he changed the country with his far-left progressive agenda.
And not with Congress. No, no, with his pen and his phone. Remember? His pen and his phone. And, I mean, it was infamous. Like, he was more dangerous than... Any politician that's followed because he was so affable and he had his folksy way of talking and, you know, people were like, I like him. And they felt good about themselves. They're voting for the first black president.
So it was like he had all his momentum as his agent of hope and change, like a great slogan. And they felt good about themselves. And then he did things that should make you feel good about yourselves. You know, when it comes to changes in race, changes in the gender approach, he's the reason we're doing these sex changes on these prisoners and so on. Yep. A hundred percent.
And then you get Trump, the wrecking ball, you know, crass and impolite and a fighter. And America's like, we want him. And that was just never understood. They thought it was all about the working class, which it was in part, but it was also like, we're We don't want any of this radical radicalism.
And when Trump lost because he behaved badly around January 6th, the left thought it had a new mandate with Joe Biden to just triple down and then some on Obama's radicalness. And that's why he held his head in shame as he exited office today.
Well, there's some real differences between Joe Biden and Barack Obama, which is why I don't think there's much love lost between the two. You mean one is a sort of sentient being. His brain is functioning. There's that. Let's say Joe Biden at the top of his game and Barack Obama at the top of his game. All right. Let's just let's make that comparison, which is that.
Barack Obama is a genuine once-in-a-generation political talent. And so is Donald Trump. And they both tug on real parts of the American character and things that the country wants to believe it is. And now they're both two-term presidents. And I think you could see at the Carter funeral that these guys have grudging, if genuine, but genuine respect for each other as political athletes.
You know... Obama, the country, I think, wanted to elect a black president and Obama played on those things. But like he's a real rhetorical superstar. And and Trump is, too, in a completely different way. And America likes an underdog story. And to Trump's credit, his genius was flipping so much of the conventional wisdom of the Republican Party on its head. Yeah. Oh, he remade the
party and the country. The immigration stuff you talked about, that was not the position. You know, when he ran in 2015, we were coming on the heels of, and you were at Fox, Megan. Yeah. When I remember out of 2012, it was like comprehensive immigration reform. And even, you know, I remember like the prime time at Fox was like, we got to get behind it. The autopsy, Mitt Romney. Oh yeah.
And Trump was able to pierce through that and say, like, people don't want that. And
By the way, I watched a little bit of CBS this morning, which is when I heard Gayle King, like, where are the people of color? While he's rolling back the DEI stuff because of his mandate to do that. Yeah, right. She's obsessed. I mean, there's no getting her off of that horse. But on CBS, that was how they were spinning the immigration reform. Like,
oh, well, the Republicans aren't going to get behind this, you know, because they're Chamber of Commerce Republicans and they like these workers and so on. Like, yes, there is still a small contingent of the Republican Party saying that. But this is Trump's Republican Party, CBS. Great job just trying to stir up trouble, you know, like find a way of saying he's going to fail.
Trump's not going to fail with these immigration reforms that he has a mandate from Dems and Republicans. Look at those numbers we just went through.
But that tells me they're not listening to anybody who actually supports Donald Trump. Like, that's what you hear if you're still talking to the Chamber of Commerce guys. And that's your sort of Republican source. Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney. Oh, no, no, no. But I mean, this is the thing, like, even on the sex and gender stuff. Trump, of all people, totally changed the paradigm.
This is the guy who was inviting Caitlyn Jenner to go use the bathroom at Trump Tower back in 2015, I think that was, maybe 2016. And yet I went back and looked at the news coverage, and no offense to Betsy DeVos, but she even reportedly at the time was wavering about rolling back Obama's Title IX stuff on sex and gender identity. I think this was according to the Washington Post.
And you go back and you think to that time period, early 2017, yeah, it was really tough. to be an American who actually said what you thought, let alone in Washington, D.C. And so Donald Trump, of all people, was the one who gave a shot in the arm to the culture war. I mean, it's incredible to think about.
Yes, this is like the point I was trying to make yesterday at the Capital One Arena because they asked me if I would speak about culture. Like they give you an assigned topic so that they don't have the same topic being discussed over and over.
And like maybe no more comedian snafus. Oh, yeah. I don't think they want any jokes about Puerto Rico.
So they asked me. You should have slipped one in.
They know I'm into that, right? So they're like, oh, shit. Sorry, I lost my ears. They said, can you talk about culture? So I did. So, I mean, this is obviously an issue near and dear to my heart. But this is one of the points that I was trying to make is that, you know, the DEI.
battle has been hard fought and it's gone on for years now, but it took a lot of human sacrifice to get to the point where we're all, I mean, not the entire country, but the majority of the country's back in the same place of, we don't want this. We, we object to race essentialism. We object to the trans mania. We object to the trans activists who are the most ardent bullies in America right now.
And I, I went through some of like the, the people who sacrificed themselves to get us here. And we, I think they cut a sound by, can we listen to some of that? I don't have my ears in, but like, let's play it. And then you had Oprah herself, Oprah. She'll interview you if you pay her a million dollars, too.
Yeah, it's a low, low fee of a million dollars to sit down with Oprah Winfrey, apparently. That's what the Harris campaign paid her production company, she says. And for that, you know what you get? You get Oprah yelling at you. Come on, Harris! Why are you doing that? Calm down, madam. My favorite was the preacher accent. Joy cometh in the morning. And she wasn't wrong about that.
It came at about 1.22 a.m. on election night when the election was called for Donald J. Trump. All of you wearing the MAGA hats. It used to be an act of civil disobedience, right? Yes, sir. Defiance of a registered order that didn't want to hear from you. But wearing that hat for much of the past eight years has been an act of courage, too. Those battles, one after the other, have been fought.
And this anti-DEI momentum has been built brick by brick. Thanks to all of you. And you who listened to Donald Trump, who, when a reporter asked him at a presidential debate in 2015 about some of the language he used, responded by saying, What I say is what I say. And if you don't like it, too bad.
So I thank all of you for being part of the Trump movement and for bringing these changes upon us and for bringing Donald Trump back into the office. And a reminder before I go, stay strong. We haven't won the war. We're winning. We've won a bunch of battles. But he's going to need all of you every step of the way. We're going to have to be patient. We're going to have to steel our spines.
Do not bend. Never bow. What I say is what I say. God bless you. God bless President Trump. God bless the United States of America. We finally figured out how to lower the screen in here so that we're not in full sun. That was my point, right, is that it's been a lot of people.
And I went through in the longer speech of examples like Jody Shaw of Smith College, who I think, you know, I don't know that she ever was able to rebuild her life because she picked to fight with them over what they were doing on DEI and they tried to ruin her life. And there's so many beyond her.
Part of me thinks that this this stuff started like in the 90s and it's taken a generation or a generation and a half that it's been that long that the country's lived with this. And it's trickled down from the country's most elite institution into the public schools. And that was why that was when and why people really revolted against this, because when it doesn't touch you.
What does it matter? You don't quite know what it is. And that's also with the gender ideology that started to trickle down into the public schools.
Did you see that poll that showed that 67% of people under the age of 30 are enthusiastic about Trump's term, about Trump taking off? More than any other age cohort, the young people are the most enthusiastic about Trump. And I do believe all of this is very much part of it.
Totally. Those are the people who will pay the biggest costs in applying to colleges, applying to jobs. Um, you know, like we're, we're set up. I mean, more or less we've been through the ringer and I think about it, you know, with, we think we look at our kids and think, Oh, I, at least I do. Like I wouldn't want to be them going through all of this. Good luck kids.
Best of luck. Uh, but I mean, by the way, the free beacons hiring she does, she's not as cold as she sounds.
Oh no, she's way colder.
A great editor. A great editor. Amazing. Everybody says it too.
But, you know, I do think it was living with us for 30, 40 years.
Yeah, I think that. And I mean, I worked in the conservative youth movement when I first graduated college and I was like a college conservative myself. And if someone had showed me those numbers when I was in college, my jaw would have been on the floor. I would have been like, what happened? Tell me what happened.
It would have been astounding because the tides, especially with millennials and then early Gen Z, you looked across polling. It was like everyone was with the far left in these generations. And what's sad, Megan, my favorite line, I was watching that at home, was when you said it was brick by brick. Yeah.
What's sad is that a lot of those bricks are people with real lives who had to go through this over the course of years.
I mean, people like Chloe Cole, who she I had her in my draft. I just forgot to mention her.
Unbelievable.
Yeah. I mean, she's she's a detransitioner, as as we call people who, you know, go down that path and look at like the physical changes to her. They're on. They're irreversible, as Abigail Schreier said.
And by the way, Jeff Bezos is on the dais. Amazon did not let Abigail monetize, put ads for that book on Amazon back in the day. Exactly right. Here's Jeff Bezos while Donald Trump is announcing the gender, like the sex, men and women, executive order. Jeff Bezos is right there.
Oh, Sundar Pichai is there, who runs Google. Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg. Ladies and gentlemen. Exactly. No, I mean, it's like all these guys, it's great. They're coming on board because they bent the knee to Trump. I'm totally in favor of it. But they are absolutely hashtag part of the problem on how we got here. Never mind what they did on COVID. I know we don't talk about COVID.
We just don't talk about COVID anymore. I don't know if you knew that. We really don't talk about it when it comes to Anthony Fauci, who's now free as a jailbird just out on parole.
Yeah, we got to get to that.
We got to get to that. But in any event, they were hashtag part of the problem. So we'll see whether they change their tune now. We'll see whether on YouTube now I can say they're mutilating the bodies of children in the name of this pernicious ideology and whether YouTube will allow my video to live and not be demonetized because you're not allowed to say that word on YouTube. But I've said it.
Now Trump is president and we'll see. Let's do, we'll go back to Trump too, but let's go to the pardons because this is just egregious. Everybody under the sun. I mean, the J6 committee members, his entire family, right? Mark Milley and Dr. Fauci. And by the way, the pardons go back, especially Fauci. Go back to 2014. It starts in 2014 forward. What the hell was he doing in 2014?
It's because he funded gain-of-function research. It's because he was behind the problem that caused the damn pandemic.
I read it differently, actually. I thought he was just trying to normalize the date he set for Hunter. And he's like, oh, yeah, Hunter's went back to 2014, so that's going to be the date for everyone. Because I think... his families did too for the crooked brothers and the in-laws. Like that just became the date for it did. But like the sister-in-laws, I don't really know.
Um, but the statement that went with the pardons for his family, I mean, I got to find it. We got to assume like Biden didn't write this, but, uh, We can't expect him to have any level of self-awareness, but I just pulled it up on my phone where he says that he's protecting them against baseless and politically motivated investigations.
And he says they wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances. That is, and he called it the worst kind of partisan politics.
Coming from the ostensible leader of a party that pioneered and used lawfare as its primary electoral strategy, it really is galling. It's just shocking. And for them to think that They always said Trump was going to do it. And he may have egged on his crowds to say, lock her up. But he then actually didn't sick the Department of Justice on his political enemies when he got in there.
And I think said to advisers, like, I'm not actually going to do that. But now. What leg do they have to stand on if Trump wants to go in and preemptively pardon his entire White House staff and go after his political enemies? He should.
He should do that.
But to me, that's not even the point. The Hunter pardon and this pardon are shockingly bad.
Hypocritical. Yeah. Agreed. Go ahead.
I was going to say, Biden literally campaigned on not doing that. There are soundbites of Joe Biden in 2020 saying, as he's being asked on the campaign trail, I will not pardon my family. Donald Trump is going to do that. I will not. I mean, it's part of how he convinced Americans to vote for him. It's just disgraceful. It's disgusting.
Let's see. Hold on. We have in SOP 15, I think, some of that. Yeah, here's Biden, December 2020.
President Trump is reportedly considering a wave of preemptive pardons. Does this concern you? All these preemptive pardons?
Well, it concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice. You're not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons.
You're not? Really? And they were all saying it. By the way, Adam Schiff was on camera. He got a pardon because he was on the J6 committee. Liz Cheney got a pardon. And all the staffers. Yeah, all the staffers. Kinzinger. Right. He was just out two weeks ago saying, I wouldn't take a pardon. By the way, they don't have to accept them.
That's right. They could say, I did nothing wrong.
There's a question about whether it's valid if they don't accept it. Right. Yeah. Right. Like there's I mean, there's a legal debate on whether you must say I accept. And I think most lawyers say, yeah, you do. You have to say I accept it in order for it to be valid for you. And there's but I really think so.
The Fauci one is the one that has me most ticked off because I really do think Fauci lied repeatedly to Congress. And Rand Paul certainly thinks that and I think was preparing to go after him. And I don't know what else Fauci did. I mean, we've never been able to find the smoking gun evidence that he actually was behind the COVID virus, the wanted issue.
But he definitely funded gain of function research, which is very dangerous, including in the Wuhan lab through this Peter Daszak group. And we just were never given the information to close that last loop. It would be wonderful to get it under the Trump administration. None of these guys can plead the fifth if they're called the four Congress. So that's the silver lining.
They all have to testify fully. They cannot plead the fifth. And, and by the way, it doesn't stop any investigations whatsoever and, or civil lawsuits. And you know what else it doesn't stop state lawsuits, state prosecutions, state prosecutions. You can be prosecuted by the state. A federal pardon does not. That was Trump's problem. Remember? Right.
We were saying like he could pardon himself, but only for the federal crimes, not for those state prosecutions in New York or in Georgia. Well, guess what? Dr. Fauci and J6 committee members and General Milley, you're all in the same position. And, you know, somebody was pointing out online. Let's be real.
If they were prosecuted by the feds in Washington, D.C., not a one would be convicted of anything, given the jury pool here. Nothing. So, I mean, it's galling. I agree. But realistically, they weren't going to get convicted. Biden made the point that they wouldn't be convicted.
The process is the punishment.
I know, but in a way, but to your original point. So. what did we really lose? Cause we weren't going to get convictions of any of those people. And yet now Trump has cover to pardon all of the people who actually are in danger in this jurisdiction. All of them.
Yep. And what's, I think even just from a big picture perspective, we don't want to lose our sense of shock at this type of like banana Republic behavior. And James Biden, I had actually like in the Biden tornado of corruption over the last half decade forgotten that he had completely, he's obviously lied to Congress. And James Comer recommended that he be prosecuted.
He recommended it to Merrick Garland's Department of Justice. So obviously dead on arrival, but would have pursued it had James Biden not been pardoned because James Biden said he said straight up that Joe Biden did not meet with their business partners while they were seeking a deal with these Chinese businessmen. We know that that is not true. That is a lie.
He lied to Congress, and now he's pardoned for it. But that was a lie to cover up corruption. That was a lie to cover up corruption on behalf of the president, not just his relatives. He didn't pardon himself, which is interesting.
And I'll tell you the one thing that jumped out at me was Mark Milley, who issued a statement saying—hold on a second. I have it here. Okay. He said, Really? How are you any different from Donald Trump, who's 78 years old and really didn't want to spend the time he had left fighting for his freedom in four different jurisdictions? Right.
All of these Democrats, I assume I don't know what Milley is, but he certainly sounds like a Democrat. He behaved like one at the end of Trump's term, want such sympathy for themselves. Like, poor me, the evil Trump. They have absolutely no empathy for him or take no responsibility for what they did, what they've been doing to him for years now.
And their own role in it, right? Like they don't it doesn't occur to them that they may have contributed to the problem. They're still unwilling to admit that. And that's what I saw from Gayle King, too, when she's out there waxing poetic about how she doesn't see any people of color at Trump's inauguration. It's like you're missing the entire point. You were still missing the entire point.
The host of Celebrity Apprentice just beat you in an election twice.
twice. Yeah. How did that happen?
And it didn't clock. I mean, it's still, it's still not registering.
You know, you can't say these people who are obsessed with race, you cannot save them from themselves. Like, I don't think they can be cleansed of this illness. The ones we're going for are the ones who are faking it just to keep their jobs and go along. Yeah. The CEOs, right. Exactly.
Or like those guys who work at the banks on wall street, who just kind of went along with, no, I definitely want to hire another woman for sure. Even though The three weakest people on my team happen to be female.
A woman driver, you say? That sounds wonderful.
I mean, yeah. Like, we are great at many, many things. We don't have to be great at driving. No, but honestly, that's why there was such a backlash to Caitlin Clark owning her white privilege when she was recognized as Time's Athlete of the Year. What I heard from everybody, my audience, my friends, my colleagues, was... We don't have to do that anymore.
We want a whole presidential election and a House and a Senate so that we don't have to do that anymore. And that's why Trump is just such a breath of fresh air. He comes in and he's like, you know, he dropped some swears yesterday at the Capital One Arena. I think he said bullshit. You know, he infamously called Ted Cruz the P word.
He saluted the village people and the assless chaps. Oh, incredible.
We have to talk about the village people. What a moment. Somebody tweeted out. It was a Democrat. We've officially lost the gays. Like the gays have officially lost the village people. We lost those five gays. And I didn't realize that the village people is like the globetrotters. We're like, I guess they just keep getting replaced because those guys were not.
The village people came to fame in the 70s. They're not 80. These guys are young. They were so entertaining. My favorite was the Native American, but it was tight. It was tight. It was hard to pick a favorite. And Trump dancing... With the village people to YMCA. This is the most iconic. That's the Doug Mills New York Times shot.
That is a good shot.
Doug Mills is a genius because that is gold. That will live forever. And for the listening audience, it's the Native American with a huge headdress coming down in the back of him and the huge Y, you know, his arms up in a Y. And Trump in his like signature dance move, like the fists out and his hip out to the side. And like the Indian guy looks so happy. Like he just looks so jubilant.
It's such, I don't like, what is it that's so attractive about that photo?
I just don't know how Republicans got the upper hand in the culture war. Again, like 2012, it was the Republican autopsy was saying that you needed to moderate in order to win voters. And here we are, it's 2025. And Donald Trump, a man who spent his life as a Democrat, has completely shifted the cultural tide to what Eliana was saying.
All of these, it came to be called wokeness, but all of this sort of cultural progressivism, some people call it cultural Marxism. had started stacking up slowly in our institutions. It did come from the campuses. It came from postmodernism. And then it was slowly taking over society. And then it happened all at once in 2020. It felt like the snowball had rolled down the hill.
And it's Donald Trump. It is Donald Trump in the year 2025. It's not Mitt Romney. It's not some conservative standard bearer. No offense to Ted Cruz. It's not Ted Cruz. It's Donald Trump. He was the only one who could come in and just melt the frost that had settled over the culture. It's very, very honestly surreal.
When you think about what's happening on our college campuses, most of them do receive some federal money. How are they going to stop this? Because the executive order can only apply to schools that accept federal money. You can't control state schools. How is it going? How are they going to deal with this? Like the women's studies departments that have completely sold out to the trans lobby.
How are they going to handle the fact that they can't insist on preferred pronouns, that there's an executive order saying there are only two genders. He should have said two sexes, but fine. I'll give him, I know where he's going. I don't think he wrote it.
No, I don't think he did either, but it'll be like how these things actually get implemented and the pushback legally and culturally and as a practical matter. are still a big question mark for me. That's going to be a big storyline over the next coming weeks and months as Trump actually gets to work. And of course...
the immigration thing is going to take top slot on the news channels because already today, already today they are showing and circulating videos. Have you seen it of the so-called asylum seekers, you know, alleged asylum seekers being told CPB one has been shut down. You cannot use that app anymore. And the media is showing them crying like, Oh, but I want to get in.
I'm sure you do want to get in. I'm sorry. It's not your country. We have no obligation to let you in. And this process has been so disgustingly abused by so many others before you. You can't come in. You're going to have to go someplace else. There are people from your country who are in line, who you're trying to skip.
Right. I mean, there was no sense of order. It was complete chaos. It has been for like a decade. And so there has to be a process. Most Americans agree with that. We just went through the new New York Times Ipsos numbers. So those those images, I think they may ultimately have a little bit of you may see that showing up a little bit in public opinion polling.
We saw that back in 2017 during the kids in cages false narrative. But I don't think it's going to work the way the media thinks it will.
I wonder, is there definitely not in favor of closing the border or finishing off the border fence?
But Trump didn't lose because he had restrictive immigration policies in 2016 or 2020. He didn't lose because of kids in cages. And I think now he knows how important it is. I'm not sure those images will be particularly damaging to him. You said today at the after party. They show he's actually doing something. He's having a real impact.
He said today at the after speech, immigration was the reason. It was the number one reason. Hmm. He said, I know I know, you know, inflation was important, too. But he's like immigration was huge. And like he said, there's only so many times you can tell people what the price of bread is. But, you know, you see what's happening at our border.
And look, you know, the reason I think somebody like, you know, Tucker Carlson, who's obviously a big fan of Trump, is so devoted to him is he is. expects to see that border closed, like his top surrogates and closest people to him and including his family members. They want that border closed.
And it's not just happening at the border. As we've seen in the past four years, it's happening in New York City and it's happening in Chicago and it's happening in Colorado. And that's why I think he got coast to coast support for this policy nationally is that like DEI and the gender ideology that trickled down to touch all Americans, so did this immigration crisis where it was everywhere.
and continues to be. And that's why the other piece of this is Tom Homan, who's heading up the deportation force. He said that he, there were, there was a report that he was going to start in Chicago, but the administration is being cagey about where they're going to start because they don't want all the illegals to flee from one city to the next. I think they want some element of ambiguity.
Yeah, right. Exactly.
Like we used to have in Taiwan. Um, But I bet they're starting right now. I guarantee you Tom Holman is either at his desk or in the field working on deportations at this moment. That guy was chomping at the bit. And I do expect the media to make a huge sob story out of this. Like, oh, poor... But they're setting the stage. You know, Holman and others now have been re...
jiggering the narrative to there's no such thing as family separations the families are welcome to leave with the illegal it's not our obligation to leave the illegal here so that he or she can stay with their family who may or may not be here lawfully that is that's the choice of the family and i heard i think it was christy noam say at her confirmation hearing
When somebody gets arrested and they have to go into prison, we don't talk about family separation. It's like, right, you're going to have to leave your family because you did something wrong. Like, that's on you, madam or sir. And I think the media is going to... They're not going to embrace that narrative.
They're going to be playing the heart strings like, oh, look at the poor family separations and the rest of us who have hearts and may feel sorry in watching some of these videos have to remember why it's happening. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, make no mistake, all of these stories are heart-wrenching. I mean, you talk to people at the border and it's like, my God, that is terrible. I know you just want a better life for your child. And they are really sad stories, but they also are encouraging more people to cross the Darien Gap.
If you let them in, you're bringing more and more people through the Darien Gap where women are getting sexually assaulted, young girls are getting raped, they're being impregnated, they are all trafficked by cartels. Every single person pays. Plenty of sources can tell you that. If you actually talk to people on the border...
So when you see these sob stories, they are representing even worse stories when you let them in. I mean, we have to have a process. And Tom Homan is somebody who came out of the Obama administration to the conversation we were having earlier about just rolling back the clock to before Obama dramatically upended the way that immigration worked in this country via executive orders in particular.
But he's someone who's a great example. Like the Trump administration is. isn't necessarily aggressively devising these innovative policies. They're literally just going back to a baseline in some cases.
Yeah, what it used to be. My team has pulled a soundbite that they think we want to see. It's Rachel Maddow talking to NBC's Jacob Soboroff, who is very- He's terrible on immigration. He's very, very woke on immigration. Let's watch.
Does it feel like an emergency where you are standing? Feels no different than 20 minutes ago or 30 minutes ago or an hour ago when we got here early this morning, Rachel.
The one practical change that we do know that has gone into effect here is that that CBP1 app that was put into place by the Biden administration, part of their effort, stated effort to have a more fair, safe, humane, orderly process at the border has been discontinued by the Trump administration and President Trump.
So he said no change. Like, it's fine. She's waiting for him to be like, families are being ripped apart. He's like, it's the same. We're good. Yeah.
But he'll get to it later. But you know who you know who I want to hear from, who I think has his finger on the pulse of, you know, all immigration changes is probably not him. Not him at all. He thinks he's subject of a defamation lawsuit at NBC over coverage of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. So maybe not him. The uterus collector. That's right.
I saw that and then I never followed up on that.
I'm thrilled to hear that.
He's not a good person.
He's such a jerk. He is one of the guys who was on my set the day of my blackface comments and couldn't throw me under the bus soon enough. He was like, Back it up over her, 10 times over. Semi. I was like, F you. Sending you back to Mexico.
So I hope you lose in your defamation case, and I hope you have to stay at the border a nice long time so you can meet my friend Tom Homan and see what he's doing. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be back with the EJs right after this. Life is busy, and finding the time to shop for clothes can feel impossible.
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Okay, that was my favorite moment of the whole thing. Yes, Mirabelle was adorable, but what I loved about that was a couple things. But number one, it was his mom. His mom, Beverly, who just hit 10 years clean from her heroin addiction.
And I got to tell you, like, this actually kind of makes me kind of emotional, but like the way she looks kind of reminds me of my sister, you know, who was also an addict recovering like Beverly. But, you know... like a little weathered, like beautiful, but a little weathered. You can tell this person's not had the easiest life. And look at her, you guys. It's so sweet.
She's there seeing her son sworn in as the vice president. If you know his story, and I know it well now, but he suffered. He suffered so mightily. His dad abandoned them. His mom had man after man in the house. His mom had a history of abuse. And he writes all about the time she drove him 90 miles an hour in a car and threatened to kill them both. And he was terrified and the police came.
He heard a lot of domestic violence in the house. He never knew what pajamas were. He slept in blue jeans, as he said most Hillbilly kids did, most of their upbringing. He had Pepsi in his baby bottle. So he had a weight problem most of his life. He still struggles with it. He had absolutely no signs that something wonderful would happen in his life. None. None whatsoever.
And he had the blessing of some strong women around him. His mamaw. chief among them, who became a national figure when he wrote Hillbilly Elegy. His sister, Lindsay, with whom he has a very close, loving relationship. She's five years older. Amy Chua, professor at Yale Law School, who really is one of the reasons he is up there today.
She saw him as something special and helped him, encouraged him to write that book, which changed everything. Usha, who he met at Yale Law School. And Inside this abusive environment was a really smart, gifted kid. And Mamaw saw it. She kicked his ass. She was merciless on him. She made him work hard and keep his marks up and so on. And he wound up using the military to go to college.
He went to Ohio State. And he did really well. Like he crushed Ohio State in two years with a double major. And the next thing you knew, he was like, you know what? What the hell? He applied to Yale Law School and got in. And that, I'm sure, was the biggest game changer of his life, you know, getting into Yale Law School. And he served. And he served.
He served as a Marine for five years, I think it was. And like to see him up there and to see his loving mother... who I'm sure this is by far the greatest accomplishment she's seen in her own life. You know, I mean, her, her daughter, Lindsay's great too, but this is remarkable. Be alive for it. You know, like be able to take it in because JD Vance is young. J.D.
Vance just turned 40 a few months ago, which is why he has toddlers up there with him. And that's another piece of the wonderful moment, which is we're going to have him for, God willing, decades to come. And if all goes well, he could be the person to whom Trump passes the baton in four years to keep this whole thing going. So anyway, for me, by far the number one moment.
You know, there's another aspect of that. I looked at it and saw something different, which is interesting, but there were a lot of storylines colliding in that moment, which is that he chose Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court Justice, to administer the oath to him. And his wife, Usha, clerked for Kavanaugh, I believe on the D.C. Circuit, and then she clerked for John Roberts.
So she was a clerk to the two guys who were up there administering the oaths of office. I had a conversation with J.D. way back when, before he ran for any kind of office, who relayed the impact that Kavanaugh's ordeal had on him and sort of the way he saw things. Well, Trump played a big role in sticking by Kavanaugh and getting him elected to the court.
And Kavanaugh is also a longtime friend of Amy Chua's at Yale. And her daughter, I believe, also clerked for him. So he's sort of a central figure in all of this. And it was really nice to see him up there sort of tying it all together. Totally agree.
No, I thought the same thing. And I thought... Both of those guys have come under serious fire from leftists who are out to ruin them. J.D., there was a period where even the Republican Party was saying he's not going to make it, that they're going to pull him after Trump named him, that he wasn't going to survive childless cat lady.
And by the way, for the record, I said from the beginning, you people are fools. That is not going to happen. He will remain the nominee. And... Trump stood by him, too. Trump did not waver on J.D. He did not waver on Brett Kavanaugh. And so there was a poetic justice to Kavanaugh being the one to administer the oath to J.D. today.
Well, and I think if you told venture capitalist author J.D. Vance that in 2025—
brett kavanaugh like tell him you know what what year was that 2018 when the kavanaugh stuff happened tell him in november of 2018 that in just seven years you will have your hand on the bible and brett kavanaugh will be the man swearing you in as vice president of the united states i mean jd vance's story is so irresistible that even ron howard made a netflix movie about it and as we were just before he was a known republican trump supporter
Right. And it just it gave me chills as you were walking us through his background, Megan, because, you know, that doesn't get to have that doesn't happen to a lot of people. It actually doesn't happen to a lot of people in our politics anymore because of the way upward mobility and things have gotten stagnated. And he beat the odds. And there he is.
He has the story that I think the press would be slobbering over right now if he were a Democrat. And we're hearing none of it.
Not to mention he married a woman who happens to be brown and he has mixed race kids, which they would be celebrating too. But instead they tell us he too is a white supremacist who's working for a white supremacist now. It doesn't count.
By the way, I literally heard that on NPR as I was coming over here. Oh. Yeah, in the car. They were talking about how Donald Trump stands for white supremacy.
Not a lot of people of color except second lady of the United States.
In fact, you guys, can we pull over the soundbite of J.D. Vance in my interview of him in 2017 when I said, are you going to run for office? And his reaction to it. I think you guys can probably find it. We've played it before, but it's a great one. When I interviewed him back then, so I feel like we can almost... say exactly what he would have said.
He wouldn't have believed that, you know, there was, it was clear when I sat with him in 17 that he was possibly contemplating a future in politics because he had just left Peter Thiel and working for him in Silicon Valley.
And he told me one of the reasons he left is here he is, you know, this Midwestern guy from Ohio who didn't have a lot of travel in his life growing up, if any Kentucky, as we know, down in the Hala, but he goes out to San Francisco and he said, people are openly defecating on the streets. He's like, I got to get out of here. Like I, I can't survive in this. If this is San Francisco, I I'm out.
So he comes back home and he started, you know, this sort of initiative where he was going to help people like him get out into the workforce and it never really went anywhere, but it always seemed like a placeholder to sort of rejigger the next step. Um, and he and Usha were just starting their children, their, their family. She was super pregnant.
His wife was clerking too and had a newborn baby while she clerked for the court. And he played a big role in helping her out while she was doing something else.
That's why it's so insane when people are trying to say that he doesn't like women. It's like, what kind of a husband... who's very accomplished in his own right and went to Yale Law School and worked in Silicon Valley, would be that supportive of his very busy wife, who's pregnant with their child, who then is clerking on the Supreme Court. Obviously, he's a very evolved man.
And, you know, again, if he were Democrat, they'd be calling him a feminist.
He would have gotten the Emhoff treatment. Totally.
Oh, that's such a good point. The wife guy. Yeah. Yeah. The wife guy. He's a girl dad. He's a wife guy.
Without the cheating and abuse. He's totally, yeah. He's just like Doug Emhoff. We have it, Deb? Oh, she's looking for it. Okay. When we have it, we'll drop it in for the listening audience. Okay. So that's That's J.D. Vance. I want to go back to Melania. I have to say it's a delight to see somebody who is incredibly stylish and sophisticated and classy resume this role. I am sick.
of the vogues of the world, trying to make Corrie Jean-Pierre and her alleged style a thing. Jill Biden, who I grant you, you know, has been a lifetime partner to Joe Biden. I can't say good partner given that she allowed him to run for re-election, but prior to now, she seems like she was okay, to his infirmity, trying to make her into a fashion icon.
Melania Trump, an actual supermodel who is about six foot four in this video we're watching now. Never in Vogue, never on the cover of Vogue. And man, just the elegance of that. My favorite thing, though, were like the memes about the hat. Because they were like, she's taking a list of all the enemies. She's under that hat, like, and you, and you, and you.
And then people went wild because Trump, when he came out to be sworn in, tried to give her a kiss. Yes. And he couldn't get to her face. Or maybe he was just doing the polite thing that sometimes our men do or like you're all made up and they don't totally make contact. But here it is, that video. It's almost there. It's very tough. It was the hat. It was the makeup. But look at her, you guys.
She is stunning.
Unbelievable. I'm curious, actually. We talked earlier in the show about how Oscar de la Renta was sort of openly posting on social media about how they addressed Usha and Ivanka. And if I'm remembering correctly, it was only like Dolce and Gabbana that would dress Melania during the first term, something like that.
And now I'm so fascinated that these brands actually want to be associated with, right? Like they're not just saying like, oh, hey, we did this, but don't tell anyone. Like they're going out there and posting it to their own marketing platforms. That's the vibe shift if I've ever seen one.
Who wouldn't want to buy a dress from the designer who does Melania's clothing?
what cracked me up was um jfk's grandson a great grandson i don't know how to tweet yeah that was like oh she's more beautiful than jackie o and somebody was like that's your grandma dude what seriously that's weird that is weird that's really weird i don't know what that is about um
Okay, so while we're on the subject of fashion, you knew that Lauren Sanchez was not going to make it through this show without a mention. She dresses like a prostitute. She looked like a hooker at the inauguration. She wore a corset and she had her boobs on display. I can't with this woman. The girls were out. Look at this. Look at this. I can see the middle of her boobs.
I can see her under boob, like right there. This is absurd. She couldn't even keep them covered up for a day. And all over at the X was a picture of Mark Zuckerberg sitting next to her. Sneaking a peek. He knew where the action was at. Sneaking a peek. I don't blame him at all.
That's exactly what she wanted. You can't look away. You can't look away. Oh, I can't. It was like bombs out in the rotunda. And we were joking before the show, like, are we going to? No, it's not going to happen.
i mean who could blame him that's why she did it are we gonna get it is it is washington post style section coverage of the lauren sanchez get up i'm gonna guess no it's amazing the first thing that uh megan and eliana started talking about when we walked in was lauren sanchez it was like the headline out of
No one could believe it. It was the cheesiest thing ever. I'm sorry. It is. Plenty of people write about John Fetterman in his shorts, which is fine. I don't agree with that either. But how many people are going to write about her showing her breasts at the inauguration?
The Washington Free Beacon. We'll be writing about that. I love the Beacon. Okay, we have full fashion analysis. No, woman of the year.
Can I tell you something? They're vicious because Jeff Bezos runs the Washington Post, owns it, and owns Amazon, of course. And I will tell you, this is not my first time saying she dresses like a hooker because she does. And we had to deal with some Hollywood PR firm. I can't remember who we were trying to get, but we tried to avoid those people, but sometimes you can't.
And this PR agent went off. on our Booker. They're so angry because they represent her or they do some business with her and she had talked to that, whatever. It's like those two don't like to be made fun of. He's done a lot to change his look. He looks nothing like he looked 20 years ago. I don't think she's seen a doctor if she doesn't want to go under the scalp. I mean, you tell me.
That's not natural. No. And that's fine if that's your choice, but have some dignity and some respect for your setting in your circumstances. No one should be talking about your tits. Sorry. They should be talking about the inauguration.
Well, they're totally out of touch. I mean, out of touch with the moment. They're trying really hard to get back into touch. I mean, this is the thing with Jeff Bezos, right, is suddenly you go from what we were talking about earlier, like censorship on Amazon, proud censorship on Amazon, to to flipping and being behind Trump as he denounces censorship at his inauguration.
I mean, they're slowly trying. I'm not saying their motives are good. I hope to God their motives are pure. I doubt it. But I think what she was trying to do is actually make a statement. Like, I'm not of this city. I'm not of this movement. We picked up what she was putting down. Yeah, we did. It wasn't subtle.
Think about it, because you look at, I mean, Melania Trump, she's got a breast. She's got... I tried to say she's not. Just say it, Megan. She's curvy. Okay. But look how she dresses. She's the epitome of class. She could wear that outfit and get even more attention if she wanted to. When she's not at the inauguration, she doesn't dress like that.
She does not run around showing off all the assets. Yes, back in the day, she took nude pictures. I know that. Trump is reportedly the one who leaked them to the New York Post. Yeah. Hell yeah. This is a long time ago before they were in presidential politics and it certainly wasn't at a presidential inauguration.
That's...
The right response, actually. Okay, so before we end, predictions for the next three weeks on what we're about to look at.
It's going to be a wild ride.
That applies to the next four years.
Oh, yeah. No warning, by the way. Megan did not give us warning for our predictions. So now we have to. I'm just thinking like stupid enough to make a lot of lawfare. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think the birthright citizenship one is the one to watch. I actually think some of the biggest fights behind closed doors in this administration are oddly enough going to be over antitrust.
I know that sounds like a silly thing, but a lot of these young staffers spent the last decade talking about how corporations like Amazon and Facebook were too big. meta. We're too big. That's probably why they were there. Yes. And I think, yeah, exactly. I think they know that. And so that to me seems like one of the big battles to watch.
I think we're going to see some of the consequences early, but the birthright citizenship thing is going to be tough to hold up.
I'm watching TikTok because that was an executive order too. That was a 90 day reprieve. Trump wants to work out a deal where it's 50% U.S. owned. You're already hearing Republicans push back. Tom Cotton in particular, who is a Trump ally. I don't know that you can undo a
a law that's been duly passed by Congress and signed by the president by executive order. Like that's like, I am not against TikTok necessarily, but I don't think you can undo a duly passed law with an executive order.
Biden saying, I'm just not going to enforce this was another example. You signed the law.
We didn't talk about Biden declaring a new 28th amendment.
yeah oh right yeah that i don't want to hear equal now by tweet and then the american bar association and georgetown law celebrating it like it was real it's insane states have rescinded their support for the era like six of them have rescinded their support so it's like the most extra constitutional bullshit that you can imagine and yet there's yeah nobody cares There are only 27 amendments.
That's that. You cannot do a 28th amendment by tweet. And they better accept that or Trump's going to start doing it every day. Two genders and 28 amendments.
27.
27 amendments. Yeah, sorry.
It's crazy. Okay. We'll end the show on this. Uh, my team did find the JD Vance exchange with yours truly. When I talked to them now, I guess it was, well, three, eight years ago. Just, it doesn't seem that long, but he looks so different. And in many ways he was so different. Certainly his life was to watch.
What do you think? Should he run for office? I think someday if the time is right and if he really feels that that's the best way that he can contribute to his home, then I think that would be a great idea.
Why do you get uncomfortable when that idea comes up?
I think that when people ask me if I want to run for office, part of me wonders, do they think I just give off a used car salesman vibe?
Don't you think it's more born of hope that you could be a real change agent?
Yeah, no, I think that's the optimistic take on it. I'm very flattered when people ask me, and you never say never, but it's just not something that I think about doing right now.
Never say never. That's our vice president. Crazy, right?
He looks so different.
So different. He's grown up in a lot of ways. I had to say I'm wishing him all the best. I have been praying a lot for those two, for the cabinet members. I really hope the Senate does the right thing, gives Pete Hegseth a vote soon and doesn't let him twist in the wind and that Trump's nominees get in there.
We have so much important business to do, and this is no time to jerk around in the Senate. He needs his full cabinet. We all know he's going to push his agenda through. If you guys don't want to vote for the nominees, you don't have to vote for them, but they deserve a vote. And we got to get going. This country overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump and they support his politics.
Even the polls that I just read, like the New York Times showed, they support his policies more than they support him personally. Either way, you can't get in the way. Stop getting in the way of those policies because the American people voted for them.
So prayers up for the Trump family and the Vance family and for the country, which I feel like is on the right track for the first time in a long time. Thank you both so much. Dealing with the traffic. Just to get over here is like you can't move in D.C. right now. I don't know what's going to happen.
I've never seen anything like it. Right. And, you know, there really are a lot of people here. Pray for everyone to get home safe because people have the time of their lives. It's fun. It's fun to see. I don't even care if it's left or right. Yeah, it's just fun to see.
No, they're having a good time, including us. All right. Lots of love. Let us know what you think. You can email me. Megan, M-E-G-Y-N at Megan Kelly dot com. We'll see you tomorrow with N.R. Day. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.