The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Instant Action on Illegal Immigration, CNN Cuts, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Ruthless Podcast Hosts | Ep. 990
Thu, 23 Jan 2025
Megyn Kelly kicks off the show joined by John Ashbrook, Michael Duncan, Josh Holmes, and Comfortably Smug, hosts of the Ruthless podcast, to discuss the remarkable culture shift surrounding President Trump's return to office, the fading anti-Trump media narrative, Politico's editor writing that Trump is the "greatest American figure of his era," CNN cutting hundreds of jobs, Jim Acosta’s recent meltdown on CNN in face-off with a GOP Congressman, Acosta moving to midnight or completely out of the network, Trump's immediate actions to fix illegal immigration in America, the Laken Riley Act passing through Congress, Trump taking steps to push back against sanctuary cities, the last minute hail mary by the left and media to smear Pete Hegseth and derail his confirmation, the key details about the latest accusation being left out by the press, the Democrats' obsession with Project 2025, whether Project 2025 will actually be implemented now that Trump has won, the latest details about speculation over the Obamas potentially getting a divorce, Jennifer Aniston’s alleged involvement, whether the Bidens might be planting the stories, a man who transitioned to woman being nominated for Best Actress, the absurd musical about a male drug kingpin who transitions, and more.More from Ruthless:https://ruthlesspodcast.com/Learn more at https://www.ElectronicPaymentsCoalition.orgFirecracker Farm: Get 10% off with code MK at https://Firecracker.Farm/Tax Network USA: https://TNUSA.com/MEGYNFollow 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
I can't
It has that feeling like, yet another thing I really wanted that's going to improve my life and the life of my fellow countrymen has happened. And not just one thing, but a whole swath of things. The goodness just keeps on coming in droves. It's totally delightful. And for once, covering the news is... Uplifting. I always think covering the news is pretty fun. I mean, almost always.
But it's not always like uplifting, but it's totally uplifting right now. Let's ride it. We deserve it. A new day in America, everyone, as President Trump takes swift action during week one back in the White House. And to coincide with all this good news, CNN is... basically imploding. I mean, its implosion is becoming more official by the day.
I mean, I'm sorry to see people get laid off and it's happening by the hundreds over there today. But I'm not sorry to see potentially chief Trump antagonist Jim Acosta lose his job. I'm not sorry. He deserves it. He had promise as like a tough but fair reporter back in the day, and he completely sold his soul to be TDS example number one.
I mean, is there anybody who's got worse Trump derangement syndrome? I mean, he's got ties, Rick Wilson, Lincoln Project, you know, Jennifer Rubin, but like I don't know if he's got somebody worse, like masquerading as a straight news reporter in the mainstream media. Olbermann, obviously he's terrible, but he's not masquerading as objective.
Plus, we've got to spend a minute on the Oscar nominations. They didn't get the memo. about the massive shift in our cultural landscape and about how we are done. We are done with the gender madness crusade. So we'll go over how they are sending their countercultural message to us with the fellas from Ruthless who are here today for the full show.
Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, and the man known to his minions as Comfortably Smug. You can find all their work at RuthlessPodcast.com. As President Trump begins his new administration, one of the top Democrats in Congress is aiming to undermine the Trump agenda. And his name is Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.
According to our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, Senator Durbin has a new scheme, a government takeover of your credit card. Oh, joy. Today, Americans have thousands of choices in credit cards, but they say Senator Durbin's plan will result in less competition and less security. And that means more risk for your credit and your identity.
Learn more at www.electronicpaymentscoalition.org and consider telling your senators to stop what they say is Dick Durbin's government takeover of your plastic, your credit card before it's too late.
Guys, welcome back. Oh, Megan. So good to be back. It's just a good day. Golden era here in America. Golden age.
Do you agree with my feeling of like you open up X in the morning and you're like, ah, come on. It's wonderful.
Totally. It's like Christmas presents each and every day. And his first full day. I mean, what a jarring culture change just in D.C. and the way the government works. Right. I mean, we heard eight good words out of Joe Biden for six months. You never saw the guy. If you did, he was kind of like shuffling or stammering around. They were hiding him from press. First full day Trump's there.
He does not one, but two totally free, unwielding press conferences where he's asked and asked and answered literally every question anybody could come up with. It was incredible.
It's like the vigor is back in the White House. Not only did Joe Biden do the shuffle and the falling upstairs, downstairs, across the beach, but like then so sores and J.D. Vance and Trump is like it's just vigor. Vigor has returned. I don't know how Trump does it. He's 78 years old, but you can tell this is like. He truly could run all of us under the table with his energy level.
I truly don't understand it. He's superhuman in this way. This is not fangirl, sycophant, cult member talk. It's an objective fact. There's something very odd about how this man is able to withstand enormous amounts of pressure and enormous amounts of time commitments and energy zaps without falling apart.
Yeah, it's not just it's not just energy, Megan. I mean, he has all of these impromptu flourishes of showmanship. Did you see how he handled the signing of these executive orders? He pulled his staff secretary into the frame and had him describe, hey, just tell us a little bit about what I'm signing here. Oh, yeah, that sounds great. That sounds great. OK, what's this one?
Oh, this is a beautiful one. People have been asking about this one for years.
It was incredible. And the press is like, oh, this is not how it's supposed to work. The staff secretary is supposed to be seen but not heard. We shouldn't be the ones talking, not Trump. And it's like, no, idiots. Trump is here and he is different. He's exactly what people wanted.
And today they beamed him into Davos so he could give that great speech. And then he just opens the floor to Q&A.
That's the wildest part, right? You're doing it. It's one thing to do the American press corps, but you're like three days into a new administration. You're like, you know what? Let's take the world's biggest economic leaders. What you got?
What's on your mind? No, it's amazing. It's like, I wonder... as a member of the media, whether they're starting to feel like, you know what? This could be a lot of fun. Maybe I don't have to hate this fake Hitler. Maybe I could really enjoy covering this guy for the entertaining person he is, who clearly loves the country and has an agenda that now has wide swaths of report.
I was just looking at the RealClearPolitics average for Trump right now. His approval rating currently is at 53. 53, you guys. This is three, four days into all these executive orders crushing DEI, crushing the gender madness, crushing the green energy excesses. He's at 53.
I think, you know, you pointed out on X this morning, there was even an article in political where they said, it's time to admit Trump is a great president. There has been a significant shift. I think a lot of the smarter people in the media have picked up on when someone wins a landslide victory and the popular vote. Clearly, the people have spoken.
And if you're a journalist, there's nothing left to try to grift your way into a book deal saying that this is Hitler or anything. The people have spoken loud and clear. And you look at the guy. He's having the time of his life. It's because I think part of it is he's reflecting the energy right back at people. I was struck when we were done recording our episode yesterday.
I'm driving past the White House, and I just smiled. And it struck me, it's been a while since I was excited about where our country's going, the people we have in charge. Good days are ahead. That kind of optimism had been completely crushed by the American people for four years. The American people are ready to be happy.
I'm like running over to my kitchen table in the morning to see what's in the New York Times, what's in the Washington Post, or what's in the Wall Street Journal, what's in the New York Post. I can't wait to see. And just getting on X and seeing, and we'll go through for the audience what Trump did yesterday and all the greatest executive orders that are still coming and what he's doing.
But let's just start with that political piece because my jaw dropped smug. I'm like... What is this? From Politico? I thought it might be a spectator piece when I first saw the language grab from it. No, Politico's John F. Harris with a post this morning. He is the founding editor and global editor-in-chief of Politico. This is not some low-ranking occasional columnist.
He kind of is Politico, founding editor, global editor-in-chief. And this is what he says. The headline is time to admit it. Trump is a great president. He's still trying to be a good one. Then he goes on to say as follows. All right. The second occasion of Trump taking the oath of office put him in an entirely new light.
For the first time, he is holding power under circumstances in which reasonable people cannot deny a basic fact. He is the greatest American figure of his era. Let's quickly exhale. Great in this context is not about a subjective debate over whether he is a singularly righteous leader or a singularly menacing one. It is now simply an objective description about the dimensions of his record.
He began a decade ago by dominating the Republican Party. He soon advanced to dominating every discussion of American politics broadly. Now his astonishing comeback after his defeat by Biden in 2020 and the notoriety of the January 6th riot makes clear there are certain things he is not and one big thing he is. There's more which we'll get to, but let's just stop there.
What does it mean to you guys to see this kind of a piece in Politico?
Well, John is one of the few and rare journalists, kind of the old school, who observationally understand, right? They don't deny reality, right? The sky is blue. And I think if you talk to the people who covered Trump for a long time, they kind of all come to a similar conclusion, which is this guy won a popular vote. Everybody knows who he is.
I mean, there's not a single American wandering around who doesn't have an opinion on Donald Trump one way or another. And the majority of this country wants him. Right. So the fluke is gone. And that did burden him, I think, for the first four years. What a very different path.
And the thing that I find so interesting about this one is his lack of fear and his lack of hesitation to pursue exactly what it is that he said himself.
he would do there's no nuance there's no sort of sanding the edges to try to make things a little bit more politically nice for some edges of the of the electorate he's just doing his stuff and he's doing what he said he was going to do and like there's a confidence that exudes from that and you know with all of those executive orders and we can talk about you know them specifically but they all just basically are what the american people wanted to have happen yes
And so, you know, if you're a journalist, what's not to understand about it?
Right now, I think the headline is a triumph. And I think it is because Trump earned that. I mean, if you think about all of the ups and downs of the last 10 years, nobody in some like back room decided that they were going to engineer Trump into that job. No, everybody was against him the entire time. And he kept coming back and he kept fighting.
And now he's got the press basically crying uncle on the front page. I think it's a triumph.
Yeah, I think the media definitely wanted to think he was a fluke, right? Oh, for sure. It was like a unique moment in time.
Hillary was so weak.
Yeah, and that's how they covered him. But it's undeniable now, not just his comeback to the White House, but the way in which it happened, and Ashbrook alluded to it. I mean, this guy was indicted in three jurisdictions over 40 times. He was, you know, two assassination attempts, one that put a bullet through his ear, and he overcomes all of that to be returned to the White House.
He's really a... a testimony to that old adage that the only way to lose is to quit trying. Yeah. You know, I mean, he really, I mean, if you think about it that way and in context of everybody's lives, I mean, this guy had every reason in the world to walk away.
And every excuse. Yeah. You know, living a great life, very successful, playing golf every day. The desire to continue living.
You know? Yeah. You give me that option to play 18 at Mar-a-Lago every day. I'm not sure I'm walking back into 1600.
Or the place in Scotland. No, I know. I mean, it's very becoming very clear that the great comeback tour is far more beneficial to Trump and the country than anything. A straight eight would have been for him because he was able to flush old staff that was not working well for him and bring in new blood and come in with, as Don Jr.
said in this show, when he was predicting what would happen if his dad won. Yes, people who are loyal. It's important to Trump, but also people who are competent. And he said the first time around, we kind of just went for competence. And we forgot about the loyalty piece. And that's how you got deep state actors whose mission did not align with Trump's, you know, Rex Tillerson being one of them.
You know, obviously there were others like Mattis, Millie, John Kelly. They had their own agenda and their own thoughts on how it ought to be handled. And nobody elected them to do anything. You know, they elected Trump. So now he's got it. And everybody it's like I'm reading today about how we're sending all these troops to the southern border.
And it's going to require a fair amount of cooperation between the military, ultimately Hegseth, and DHS, ultimately Kristi Noem. Those two will work together. because they are totally on board with enacting Trump's agenda. There won't be turf wars. There won't be, you know, getting your backup because somebody wants more than you're willing to give.
Everyone will be there in service of the mission, which is Trump's mission, which is our mission, the people who put him in office.
There's no question about it.
Yeah. I think you're a hundred percent right is that that was the missing component. And also for the American people, even when Trump came to power just now, there was a bit of kind of like lowered expectations because you're like, I remember the first time there were all these people stabbing in the back, there were all these lawsuits, everything got bogged down.
You had issues with like the house and the Senate garbling up his agenda, slowing it down. You have none of that this time, and the difference is loyalty. Everyone's on the same page.
They learned so much from that first administration, how the media would treat them, how people that were brought in just because, oh, well, he's got the right resume, not necessarily that they are 100% loyal to Trump and his agenda, which the American people resoundingly support. So there's no need to lower expectations now.
We've seen in the first 48 hours, breakneck speed, he's delivering exactly what the American people wanted.
Yeah, and there's no better damage.
And what he said he would do. Exactly.
Yeah. No better demonstration of competence with the fast start. I mean, those executive orders didn't just magically print and perfectly embossed fonts right off of the printer on day one. I mean, there were a lot of people who nobody will ever know their names who worked so hard to put that stuff together and thought about, oh, this is how the deep state's going to react against us.
How are we going to structure this so that we can have the most success possible in you're never gonna know their names, but what they- And withstand the legal challenges, Ashbrook.
It's a great point because also, clearly the person who wrote, well, it's a bunch of people, but the people who wrote these executive orders foresaw the legal challenges that were coming and wrote the appropriate defensive language right into the EOs. I heard the guys at Commentary talking about this. I noticed it too. In the DEI order, you know, like no more DEI. We're done.
If you're taking federal dollars, whether you're a university or you're a subcontractor of the government, if you're pursuing a DEI agenda, you're out. We're not you're not getting our money anymore. And they had an exception on the universities for pointing out that to criticize the policy is totally fair game. Go for it. Like we're not trying to curb free speech.
on a college campus about the government, its policies, its anti-wokeness. You can do that all you want, but you push DEI agendas. That's a different story. We don't have to give our money to you. It's been done very, very cleverly, again, by people who learned from just not only those first four years, but then watching what the Democrats would do when they had power.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, there's something to be said about
having a frame of reference in knowing what you would do differently and i i think you said it really well if this is a much better outcome in many ways than a straight eight because you can't like reset midterm right if he's elected to a second term this way i mean not only did you get the separation of four years of people like stephen miller spent the last four years
you know, thinking about how you would do all of these things a lot more constructively. It also extends to Trump himself. Look, that stuff that he was talking about on the campaign trail, he didn't overpromise. He talked about a whole bunch of things that he knew he could do with the power of the executive order because he was there before.
So when he talks about shutting down the border or ending DEI or all the various things that he's done over the last 48 hours, he knew he alone in his administration, if competently executed, could do it.
Yeah, I think the way I described it on our episode on Ruthless today was 2017 was like a pop quiz, you know, where you're putting together the airplane while you're taking off. But this is more like a take-home test. We know what to expect from the other side. We know what the deep state's going to try to do to stop Donald Trump.
All those executive orders written in a way to be legally just and their strategy is just so much better. And it's just it's just proof. And you sort of said it at the top, Megan. But like personnel is policy. If you want to accomplish all these things, you have to recruit well for the positions that are open. Yeah.
So he's doing all these mass firings, which is wonderful, too. Everybody's hard to file civil servants, but he's paying putting while on paid leave. Get out. Get out. We pulled that Davos that you guys just mentioned. Here's some of that Trump zooming in.
My administration has taken action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense. And these are policies that were absolute nonsense throughout the government and the private sector. With the recent yet somewhat unexpected great Supreme Court decision just made, America will once again become a merit-based country. You have to hear that word, merit-based country.
And I've made it official and official policy of the United States that there are only two genders, male and female. And we will have no men participating in women's sports and transgender operations, which became the rage, will occur very rarely. It's amazing.
It's amazing. It's perfect because he deeply understands it. Right. I mean, it's one thing if you're some politician who's told this is very popular amongst the American people and you're just trying to figure, you know, OK, I had to check this box because I said I would. Now, the way he explains it, he deeply understands it. It is not only divisive, it's racist. Right.
It's illegal.
Yeah. Right, right.
We decided to forget that.
Go ahead, go ahead, Duncan. He doesn't have to couch it in some philosophical term or some beautiful poetry or language. He just speaks in the plain terms that Americans understand. Nonsense. This is nonsense.
I mean, it's like he's not quite as plain spoken as Javier Malay of Argentina, who got up there and really went for it. It's in Spanish, so he didn't cut it. But man, he's always worth clicking on. If you see a clip from that guy, he does not hold back. All right.
Let me get back to this political argument article, because it's just we have to spend some time on Politico admitting all of this stuff. He goes on to say, OK, his opponents. cannot push Trump to the margins. His opponents have no choice but to acknowledge he and his movement represent a large historical argument and then rally similarly large arguments to defeat it. He says the following. Okay.
Trump has already demonstrated some familiar signatures of the most consequential presidents like influential predecessors. His arguments have shifted the terms of the debate in ways that echo within both parties, in this case on issues such as trade, China and the role of big corporations.
Like other large presidents, Trump has been a communications innovator and exploited technological shifts more effectively than his rivals. In that sense, his use of social media recalls FDR's mastery of radio, JFK's and Ronald Reagan's mastery of television. One more signature shown by the most consequential presidents, uncommon psychological toughness.
Have you ever known someone who is facing legal hurdles? In many cases, even if people ultimately win the case, they end up being consumed and shrunken by the searing nature of the experience. So true, by the way. Imagine running for president amid huge civil suits, criminal prosecutions, and even felony convictions, and then emerging from this morass as a larger figure than before.
No one needs to admire the achievement to recognize that Trump is possessed by some rare traits of denial, combativeness, and resilience. And here we go down to the end where he's now quoting a historian. a liberal historian. Quote, great presidents are unifiers mostly in retrospect.
Most great presidents, he later wrote, this liberal scholar, divided the nation before reuniting it on a new level of national understanding. And back to the political commentary. This is the same sentiment uttered by FDR, quoting FDR. All our great presidents were leaders of thought and at a time when certain ideas in the life of our nation had to be clarified.
God, that totally encapsulates Trump, his rise, his movement, his popularity, his gut instincts, and why they resonated so strongly, especially on the heels of four years of Biden-Harris with this huge piece of the American electorate.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's really well said, really well put together. I think, you know, there's there's one sort of lasting lesson that I think, you know, anybody who's interested in running for president any time in the future should learn a lot from from Donald Trump is that in order to be a leader, you actually need to do all those things.
It's not enough to just sort of check boxes on a poll of what issues are above 50 and I'm for that. You actually need to move people. You need to create atmosphere in the American democracy where people identify with it and want to get on board with it. There's no way to make substantial change whatsoever unless you build a movement that moves a block of voters who you think are here.
to here because then the lesson is for people who were in opposition category is, well, you gotta wrap your mind around that too. And that's how change is made in this country. It's intentionally very difficult, but Donald Trump has really led a movement to take a look at China, to take a look at DEI.
I mean, look, we're four years removed from people being terrified to even say the letters DEI in a negative connotation for fear that they would be canceled. And now you got a president of the United States signing an executive order, banning it, saying this is racist. Well, it's been racist all along, but it's everybody was afraid to talk about it.
I think the thing that's really interesting there on like DEI or like critical race theory or transgender ideology and all of these things, I think the idea that these were, you know, a divisive debate we were having in the country is entirely a manufacturing reality. you know, by academia and the media itself. I mean, I think Trump is uniting all Americans on these issues.
I think we were united all along. I think the only people- But afraid to talk. Right. The only people who are ginning it up were the media who are like, well, on this side and on this side, and we're going to, you know, and it's like, no, like- You know, I think we actually talk enough about the racial trauma in America in our history books and in school and stuff.
We don't have to be, you know, having critical race theory, academic philosophy for legal scholars applied to kindergartners across this country. Right. No, I mean, it's well said.
The the folks are not getting it. I mean, CNN and Politico admits this, right? Like he's a great leader. He's a great president. We're going to have to deal with that. CNN, reportedly the boss there, who is the former a former New York Times guy, reportedly said to the staffers at some all hands on deck meeting. please try not to prejudge Trump.
Like let's just not do knee jerk trashing of Donald Trump. He would like his job to continue, which requires viewers, which is why he said that. Then Tom Bevin of Real Clear Politics tweets out the following with the headline, CNN has not learned a thing. This is their homepage. I'll just read you a couple of the headlines.
Trump sends shockwaves through the government and around the world in a flurry of activity happening almost too swiftly to follow. Trump is giving critics every reason to think their worst fears will be realized. OK, then there's fact check. Trump litters Oval Office interview with false claims. The gloves are off. Trump appears poised to cash in from his presidency in new ways. Okay, let's see.
Going over here, moving over. Hegseth's ex-wife gives new statement to FBI amid scrutiny over his nomination. Musk bashes Trump's AI project, undermining a $500 billion investment. Kara Swisher has a theory on why Musk seemed to undermine Trump. No, Trump did not become an overnight crypto billionaire. The latest on the Trump presidency, and then whatever.
So I don't feel like CNN has gotten the message. I'm going to take a quick pause, and we'll come back and get you guys to react to that, because there's more news out of CNN as Jim Acosta, sad single-tier Jim Acosta, has lost his spot in the lineup. And now, according to reports... maybe quitting. More of the Ruthless right after this.
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So, guys, Jim Acosta reportedly losing his key spot in the CNN lineup. I actually have no idea where his spot is, to be perfectly honest. But they are trying to move him to midnight, which they reportedly sold to him by saying it's primetime on the West Coast. And now there are reports that he's getting ready to quit because he is too big to take this kind of demotion.
And the reason he is too big is because of moments like this, where he showed true grit and integrity at CNN when Republican lawmakers from Tennessee had the nerve to come on his show. And exchanges like this that happened last night took place.
Do you defend what Donald Trump did, releasing these people from prison, pardoning them, commuting their sentences? Yes or no?
Congressman, I asked you a yes or no question. If they were truly violent, no. But do I know that they were? I don't know that they did. back the blue. Jim, why don't you just give an editorial and not let me come on? What happens if one of the gatekeepers of the Proud Boys goes out there and hurts somebody? I would say if they're Trump-appointed judges, they will go to jail.
But if they're Joe Biden-appointed judges or Soros-backed DAs, they'll probably walk. We saw during the Black Lives Matter marches. We saw in the riots all across the country. Those people walked. Nobody went to jail for that. Millions upon millions of dollars of property was damaged. You all didn't raise a finger, didn't say one word about it.
Congressman, that's just not true. That was covered on CNN. What you're saying, this is not Fox, Congressman. You can't just spin a tale and pull the wool over people's eyes. This is CNN. This is the news.
We're asking you to come out and tell the truth. And that's why more people are watching the Cartoon Network Spongebob reruns right now, Jim. You just can't stand the fact that he won and that America spoke. God.
How great is he? Okay, so Congressman Burchett of Tennessee. This is CNN. This is the news. You can't just pull the wool over people's eyes, sir.
Yeah. Thanks, Anchorman. We've heard the Democrat talking points before. We don't need you anymore.
Yeah, they definitely covered those riots. Remember the Chiron, mostly peaceful? Yeah. Police was on fire behind the guy.
This is, of course, on the heels of the Clarissa Ward report where they... You know, they used some guy who was apparently connected with the with Bashar al-Assad and pretended that he was in some prison. That's how it looks for months. And he came out, you know, clean fingernails, clean clothing and did this whole like, oh, oh.
only to have it revealed that he was connected with the very people he claimed were imprisoning him and then wouldn't respond to CNN's calls when it came out that he had given a false name. And we have no idea what CNN sold us. They haven't done a mea culpa. But this is CNN. This is the truth. You can't just pull the wool over somebody's eyes here, sir.
God, it just, you know, I don't think I'd be truly happy until Acosta is like selling cubic zirconiums on QVC.
No, no, no, no. I want him on CNN. I want him to have to go through that humiliation every single night because I think, I mean, I think complaining about your time slot on CNN is like complaining about which, which circle of hell you got sent to CNN.
I mean, he shouldn't be completely glum. He's got a shot of being number one in the demo in Hawaii. Do you see what this is?
Some woman gave this to him and he kept it and he talked about it on the air the other day. I march for Jim Acosta and the free press. He kept it and he showed it. This is from the women's march, I think, in 2016, 2017. Look at him. He showed it on the air so that we could all celebrate him.
I'll tell you what, Megan, I'd like to know the chain of custody on that because I believe that he made that at his house.
it's true, but you know, but even if he didn't, you know, maybe it's a good rule of thumb for journos when somebody is wearing a P hat and it's got your name, uh, that they're celebrating, that's probably not fair.
That's probably where you need to, I have more to do on the press when we get to what they're doing to Pete Hegseth in a minute, but I want to start more with what Trump is doing today. Cause it's just such good stuff and we got to get to it. So the, um, executive orders and the crackdown on the border is really where we're going to start. I'm just going to read you a couple. All right. Um,
First, the Lake and Riley Act passed. It passed the House, and then it went to the Senate. They made some modifications and went back to the House last night, and it passed. And it passed with a lot of Democratic support. Of course, there were some 46 or something Democratic lawmakers who wouldn't sign it, so the Democrats are still crazy. There's some portion that's still crazy.
But they passed the Lake and Riley Act, which really says, like, you must detain an illegal person who commits shoplifting or something you consider a lesser crime, never mind the more serious crimes, you may not just return them out into into.
into society, requires ICE to arrest illegals who commit an offense of theft, burglary, larceny, shoplifting, or of course, something more serious, and mandates that these aliens are detained until they're removed from the United States so they cannot re-offend.
Then on top of that, because keep in mind what happened with Lake and Riley was this criminal in New York City committed a couple of crimes here, including I think shoplifting was one of them, and then got released by New York City, which is a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state. And then he went down to Georgia and killed Lakin Riley. And if we had just done our job in New York state,
well, I'm in Connecticut now, but I'm from New York, this guy would have been behind bars or deported, as he should be now under Trump. So they're trying to crack down on this. And then there's a second piece of the Lake and Riley Act that reads as follows.
It enables state attorneys general to file lawsuits against the Homeland Security Secretary if the government fails to enforce immigration laws. This is for the next administration. This is Trump saying, I won't be president forever. And I am empowering Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis and all border state governors to sue the derelict federal government if the next guy refuses to enforce the laws.
Oh, thank God. And that's exactly what we were talking about is he's had folks around him like Stephen Miller, who had four years to get ready for this moment, who saw the kind of nonsense that the bureaucracy does to keep Americans unsafe. And so now they're hitting the ground running ready for stuff like this.
Also, it's important to note this is a very American tradition, putting in checks and balances to ensure that America is a safe country of laws. It's a wonderful day for all Americans.
Yeah. Yeah. And hats off to Katie Britt and others who are the champion of that bill for the last couple of months. I can't believe there was opposition to I mean, it just shows you how crazy people are.
And you've got overwhelming Democrat support for this for this policy of deporting, never mind of punishing the criminals who are here and making sure they don't hurt more Americans, but of deporting all illegals, all of them. But before I get to Harry Anton over on CNN talking about that, let me show you AOC's reaction to the Lake and Riley Act.
If a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they will be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and signed and sent out for deportation without a day in court. without a moment to assert their right and without a moment to assert the privilege of innocent until proven guilty.
That is what is inside this bill, a fundamental suspension of a core American value.
Okay. She's very worried about the due process rights of illegals accused of murder.
That's the thing is, so the thing is, the Bill of Rights applies to citizens, right? I think you learned that, what, third grade? Is that third grade?
This is underpants gnome logic. You know what I mean? Like, imagine sitting there and being like, well, if you're even a Q, you may not have even done something wrong. Except for the fact that you're illegally here in the first place. That's the crime, right? I don't care if you mean shoplifted. Sure. Now we know who you are. Get the hell out of here. That was the whole point of everything.
The crime, the underlying crime is that you're here illegally.
Right. Well, unfortunately, Smug, the Constitution does apply to people who are in the country, whether they're legal or they're illegal. But the point is what Josh just says, which is if you're here and you get arrested, and I don't care what you get arrested for, we find out you're an illegal, you're out. I don't really give a shit.
It's not about your due process laws on the crime you've been arrested for. It's about your underlying crime of sneaking into the country unlawfully. Get out. That's what we're worried about. It's not like whether you're going to get all your bill of rights once you actually get to trial. It's you're illegal and you got caught.
And right now we're bending over backwards to accommodate you so that you don't have to leave so that you can let your legal rights play out here. Get out. We already established you're an illegal. Go. You're Venezuela's problem now. But here's more.
Yeah. Well, and not for nothing, but like as far as due process goes, you know, everyone who's come to this country over the past four years with some B.S. asylum claim has a court date in like seven years and like seven years.
And we never find them. If they don't show up, we don't we don't look. All right. Here's here's another one. Um, on top of that, which is an actual law, those are the ones we like the best, right? They can't be undone by executive order by the next president. Uh, DOJ released a memo directing federal prosecutors. Now I'm getting into the more executive actions.
DOJ released a memo directing federal prosecutors to investigate and potentially prosecute state and local officials who do not cooperate with immigration orders. So once again, This is a crackdown on sanctuary cities that you could get prosecuted if you are a state or local official who's not complying with an ICE detainer.
You know, there's an ICE detainer on some bad hombre who gets arrested for shoplifting, let's say, in New York City. And he's sitting behind a bar and there's a detainer, which means New York officials are supposed to call ICE and say, hey, we've got this guy you're looking for. And they don't.
Instead, they defy that and they let the guy free and he goes down to Georgia and murders a 22-year-old nursing student. So this is saying you local officials who do that, you're going to get your asses prosecuted. It's not just about the act which mandates it with Lake and Riley. We're going to come after you criminally.
And this is very necessary because there's a lot of already very troubling things that are happening. The other day it was reported that the Denver public school system, taxpayer funded, is sending out emails advising illegal aliens and their families how to avoid ICE. That's taxpayer funding that's going towards breaking the law.
So things like this are incredibly necessary when you see across this country that institutions that we ourselves are paying for as taxpayers are trying to help individuals break the law, which can lead to things like innocent people getting murdered. So it's wonderful seeing how focused the Trump administration is on making sure that is dealt with.
Bad news for old Newscum.
All right, let me give you a couple more on the border. The Pentagon announced it will begin deploying as many as 1,500 active duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days. They will join the roughly 2,500 U.S. National Guard and Reserve Forces already there. That makes 4,000 troops along the southern border.
Reports out today it could go as high as 10,000 to make sure that they're not sending the military down there in a law enforcement capacity. You're not allowed to use the military like that. They're not going to be shooting illegals. They're just standing there. and they're happy to put the illegals in the truck and drive them back across the border. That they can do. They can't arrest them.
That's the job of CPB. But this is an amazing show of force, which is having incredible effects already. I'll were canceled for so-called refugees who were slated to travel to the United States. Up here in the Northeast, we've been getting a ton of these flights in Westchester in the middle of the night, canceled, go back home.
Biden's been bringing them in by the plane load to various communities throughout the United States. Trump canceled all the flights, at least 10,000 so far. Bye, sorry, you're somebody else's problem. Texas reinstalled massive floating, the massive floating buoy barrier along the Rio Grande.
Remember, there was that huge barrier down there, and Biden went down there and sued him to take it down because they said it was dangerous for the illegals who were trying to swim across the Rio Grande. He lost in court.
Ultimately, the Fifth Circuit ruled for Greg Abbott, but they hadn't yet reinstalled it, and now it's going to be fully reinstalled, and Abbott plans to extend the barrier further. Further, in Florida, there is new Coast Guard protection.
In response to Trump's executive orders, the Coast Guard is announcing it will immediately surge boats, cutters, aircraft, specialized forces to the southern border around Florida to prevent mass illegal migration from Haiti and Cuba. This is just so beautiful. Number six, the Department of Homeland Security, in a memo, permits ICE to raid so-called sensitive areas.
Trump's DHS issued this memo immediately rescinding Biden's 2021 through Mayorkas policy, which limited ICE from enforcing our immigration laws if if they found an illegal near a, quote, sensitive area like a school, a church or a health care facility. And Team Trump is saying this. go for it. Go ahead and do it. Those are the most important areas to secure from dangerous illegals.
Why would we give them a free pass so they intentionally go live near a school or a church or one of these healthcare facilities? So that's been revoked. And this is just a little bit of color because there's so much here I'm drinking from the fire hose. But
Just a just a look into the effect this is happening, having as ICE goes to arrest a Haitian criminal illegal migrant and Fox's Bill Malusian was there. And this guy found his English for a second. Take a listen.
I'm not going back to Haiti. One of those threats is this illegal alien from Haiti. Ice says he's a gang member with 17 criminal convictions in recent years.
You feel me? Yo, Biden forever, bro. Thank Obama for everything that he did for me, bro.
There it is. Oh, there we are.
What more is there to say?
Oh, yeah.
No, it turns out maybe they're not sending their best. And it's right there. Everyone understood. We had we've been saying for a while when when there was a Democrat primary happening in 2020 and they asked during a debate, will you provide, you know, free health care housing for illegal immigrants? Raise your hand if you did, if you do. And every single one of those people did.
The message was heard loud and clear around the world. Get across the border. Break the law. It's free stuff all the way. Those days have come to an end. So many Democrats are saying, no, no, that's not the message. Look, we had Kamala say, do not come. That means that we were serious about this.
The second important thing to point out is you hear all these nonsense rules that were put in place by Mayorkas of, oh, there's these sensitive areas. You can't enforce the law here. Oh, you have to take down these barriers and let them come in. This was willful. This invasion was willful. This was part of the plan that they had in place. There needs to be lawsuits against Maricus.
He didn't get a pardon. He didn't get a pardon. This didn't just happen in his watch. He enabled and encouraged this to happen. There needs to be accountability.
Yeah, and there won't be. There won't be. And by the way, it's sad because Trump's going to do his level best to get as many of these folks out as he can. And I know the administration is very happy and I'm thrilled to see that some 300 to 500 now illegals have already been captured by Homan. But we have maybe 20 million. I mean, it's just not it's not doable.
It's that they're going to remain here. If we can get out a million or two, it will be miraculous. But we are not going to get the vast majority of those illegals who Biden Harris allowed to enter this country out.
Yeah, well, I keep going back. I mean, remember at the beginning of the Biden administration when Biden appointed the intellectual heft of Kamala Harris to identify the root causes of illegal immigration and like, you know, you never got any answers. She didn't even go to the border for like three years.
And then you think about it and it's like what you said about the flow and all this gets easier once people know you can't come and you don't get stuff. I'll tell you what, if you're going to look for a root cause, it's when you put a green light at the border and you tell people you're going to fly them to up to the northeast and resettle them.
It's a green light to the cartels, by the way, to traffic humans all the way up from Central America in order to do it. And they make a ton of money doing it with drugs, with human trafficking, all kinds of different things. By putting these things in place, remain in Mexico, solidifying the border, all this other stuff that he's doing. I think we're going to find out. People are like.
Well, maybe we can't go there anymore.
And also beyond that, I know for a long time it's been a punchline, and rightfully so, the whole self-deportation idea. But when you take away things like birthright citizenship, there's no longer a reason to stay here. You got to go. There's nothing left. If you show up here hoping to just have a child and that's a U S citizen, and then they can get you a green card and you can play that game.
That's been going for way too long. You take that away. And all of a sudden there is no point here because eventually I'm looking for you. Yeah.
Listen to this guys. Um, border patrol. Now these are the numbers. I think this is from Fox's Allie Bradley reporting this. Okay. The data was obtained through a DHS source. Um, Okay. On January 17th through 19th, right before Trump was inaugurated, the encounters between migrants and Border Patrol were at 4,000.
Then OFO, which is a different—that's basically the people running the CPB1 app appointments— it was about 5,000. So about 9,000 encounters with, you know, attempted migrants entering the country a day from one 17 to one 19 Trump gets sworn in on one 20 and one 21. So this is this past Monday and Tuesday, it fell to 1900, call it 12, 2000 and nine 30, call it 1000. So that's down to 3,000, right?
So we go from basically 9,000 to 3,000 overnight and then 122 as of approximately 8 p.m., which was Wednesday. It's down to 440 with Border Patrol and 45 with the UFO, down to 500. We went from 9,000 encounters with migrants at the border on 117 through 119 to 500 yesterday.
I mean, that's it's as good a proof as you can get that the deterrence works. Another thing that they did, Megan, is they shut off that CBP one app that CBS was so happy about during the J.D. Vance debate. That stuff works and it actually is having a material impact right away.
A federal government app to tell you how you can get here illegally.
So here are your rights right there. The data shows a drop of 95 percent right there. The initial reaction from the media, I remember on Monday, you had 50 journos taking video of, oh, this is a migrant who's trying to get in and they're crying now. Oh, isn't that horrible? They're crying.
Every one of those journalists got played because Monday was also Martin Luther King Day and the DHS is closed. There are no appointments that can be made on Martin Luther King Day. But if you're a migrant crying, your word is golden. The Constitution of the United States, that's how immigration works. Oh, that's necessary. We have someone crying and telling journos a lie.
Megan, you like that Smuggles did the math on all that? Yeah, he did that quickly. It was well done. I'm glad somebody else did it. It's just like, you're going to give me the number.
We have more. I want to show you what Trump said about this on Hannity last night, and then I'll get to that Harry Enten report showing what the American people want. In fact, I'll just play that now. Play Sot 4, and then we'll go to break.
That's what I really think you see. You see real uniformity. Deported all immigrants who are here illegally, 55% of the New York Times. Marquette, 64%. CBS News, 57%. ABC News with a slightly different question, 56%. So what you're seeing essentially here is a very clear indication that a majority of Americans do in fact want to deport all immigrants who are here illegally.
There's no arguing with these different numbers because they're all essentially the same across four different pollsters.
That's the truth. And the media is going to have to accept that fact because it's the people's will. And that will is going to be done. You guys, ruthless day with us. They'll be right back. And so will I. Are you overwhelmed with back taxes or unfiled returns?
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To schedule a complimentary consultation, call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com. Don't let the IRS's aggressive tactics control your life. Empower yourself with Tax Network USA's support and take charge of your financial future. Visit tnusa.com. Just to correct my numbers on the Lake and Riley Act, it was 33 Democratic senators who voted no, 156 House members, Democrats, voted no.
It was 46 Dems who voted yes. So that's where I got the 40s number from. Anyway, so you got 46 Democrats who were sensible and are listening to their constituents, and you had 156 House Dems saying they're not on board with the Lake and Riley Act, which doesn't really help them with the populace, as you heard in that Harry Enten report.
All the polls, all of them across all networks, across all pollsters are showing in the mid 50s to 60 range with Democrats who are in favor of throwing all illegals out, all, not just the criminals.
Yeah. I can't even imagine the justification for it.
I mean, you just read what the thing does. I mean, the good news is congratulations to CLF and the NRCC. Your ad is ready to go for the midterm for $156,000.
Seriously, you could get pretty deep blue in some of those districts with that kind of take. I just don't understand.
You've got AOC, like with the Saab story, like, no, you're going to deprive them of their due process rights, these poor illegals who are committed, who are accused of committing crime. And just look like 180 on the other side. So that's, she's over here, 180 on the other side. Here's Trump talking to Hannity last night in Saat 6. I think it's six.
Why would anybody that even likes, you don't have to love our country, you have to like it. Why would anybody that likes our country, the Democrats, allow that to happen? And even now, I watch them on television, they're trying to justify it. You can't justify it. The only reason it can be is two reasons. You're stupid. And I don't think they're stupid.
I think anybody that cheats that much and that well is not stupid. You're either stupid or you hate the country. I won't get into it, but you can look at them and you can say, could be trouble. Could be trouble. There are people coming in. There are people with gang tattoos on. There are people coming in with tattoos all over their face. Their entire face is covered with tattoos.
Typically, you know he's not going to be the head of the local bank.
Post Malone, very concerned.
Like you said, it's just sense. It's back to the political argument. He has a way of communicating with regular people that they all get on an instinctive level. There's no combating that. No AOC high soaring rhetoric is able to combat that. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, and, you know, not only is he plain spoken about it, but but I think he gains power by the outrage. So after that clip aired, there was a whole bunch, you know, take to X, the journos and everybody saying he can tell by somebody is a criminal by looking at them. He's racist. You know, this, that and the other thing. But like that only builds power with Trump.
And I think increasingly what we saw through his political prosecutions and all of these things, every time somebody just sort of winds up against Trump and tries to explain how he's a racist, a degenerate, a criminal, all these things, more and more of America is like, no, I heard what he said.
It's like the Voltaire quote where he said, I ask God for but one wish that my enemies be absurd. And he granted it. And Trump has been given that in spate. The more that they try to sound crazy and say, just because someone's covered in gang tattoos and breaks the law entering the country doesn't mean they're a criminal. Actually, that's exactly what it means.
And when you're wearing a flag that says, I'm a member of a gang, you're probably a member of a gang.
Exactly. And when that tattoo is on your face, times 10. Yeah. Very aggressive. No secret there. Yeah. That was actually another line in the political article that the FDR said, I'd ask one thing, but to be judged by the enemies that I have made, judge me by my enemies. And I think Trump feels the same. He's thrilled to have AOC out there saying things like that about him. Okay.
So moving on, there's a lot, there's a lot of other stuff we got to cover, including what they're doing to Pete Hegseth. So Pete Hegseth is, I think, still on his way to being confirmed. We've been watching McConnell, Murkowski, Collins and Ernst for Republican senators who should vote for him, but have reportedly been on the fence. Those first three have not said how they're going to vote.
Ernst has said she will vote to support Pete and she did vote him out of committee. So we're still question marking those three. But we don't really care because if that's the only three he loses, then it's a tie in the Senate, which J.D. Vance would cast the deciding vote on and Pete would get in. But as the Senate slow rolls the final vote, the Democrats are saying we need more information.
We need more time on Pete. You get an 11th hour submission now from. want to make sure I have it right. Pete has a brother. He has a couple of brothers. This is the lesser known brother and the brothers, not the brother's wife, but the brother's ex-wife who is a far left Democrat. I've talked to people who know her, um, who never liked Pete.
comes forward to say he was some sort of an abuser of Pete's second wife, who's not her sister. They both married into the family. So this woman was married to the one brother of Pete, and Samantha Hegseth was Pete's second wife. And this woman says he's an abuser, and I know that because my some eight years married to the brother mostly overlaps Pete's marriage to Samantha.
And Samantha had—it was to the point where Samantha had a code word— where she would text it to me if she thought she was in trouble, like inside the house. And in fact, she did text me the code word one time. And so Pete, and that signifies that she was afraid of Pete. Well, okay. Like, Let's hear the rest of the story. What happened next? Did you call the police?
Did the police visit Pete's house? Did they arrest Pete? Was there a domestic violence complaint officially made? And most importantly, what does Samantha Hegseth say? Because we don't know you, weird ex-sister-in-law who's a far-left progressive Democrat trying to stop Pete. But... The ex-wife, Samantha, certainly does know Pete. So what does she say? She denies it. She denied it to the FBI.
Now, she said he never physically abused me, which left me as a lawyer saying, is she leaving the door open to emotional abuse? Now, that comes with all sorts of question marks because... You know, a couple divorcing, they're going to fight. They're going to have a lot of arguments. He cheated on her. I'm sure they had some very volatile arguments when that was revealed.
He impregnated Jen, who became his third wife. And, you know, he wound up with. So I'm sure there were some very brutal rhetorical fights, but that's not necessarily abuse. And so I don't know what the truth is there. So then I went digging further and saw the divorce papers and the order issued by the judge in the divorce proceeding, which makes really clear what actually happened there.
And that judge said, said nobody is alleging abuse and there's been absolutely nothing that tells me that there was abuse of any kind. He says there's no probable cause whatsoever to conclude that there was abuse in this marriage one way or the other. I'm trying to find the exact language. I can't find it in front of me right now. So what do we get?
We get the media running with the headlines, Pete's accused of abuse. Pete's an abuser. He's accused of abuse. And in some publications, they don't even print that the actual ex-wife says that's not true. And in places like the New York Times, they stick that in the 18th paragraph of their story. I mean, because they want to do the damage to him without actually getting into it.
Okay, here, hold on. Without actually telling the truth. Here's the New York Times. The main article on Tuesday, the headline was Hegseth ex-sister-in-law tells senators he was abusive to second wife. The sub headline, a woman once married to the brother of Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary nominee, submitted a sworn statement to the Senate in a late hour complication to his confirmation.
His lawyer denied her account. His lawyer? His lawyer denied it. How about mentioning that the alleged abuse victim denied it in your sub headline, New York Times? And then you've got the CBS Evening News in a report from Nicole Killian, who's got exactly the right last name because that's what she's been trying to do to Pete Hegseth.
made no mention, no mention of Samantha Hegseth's disavowals of the allegations in this ex-sister-in-law's affidavit. So CBS News didn't even want to tell its audience that the ex-wife, the alleged abuse victim, has denied it on the record. And by the way, back to what the Minnesota Family Court judge said in the divorce proceeding, he said...
Neither Pete nor Samantha Hegseth claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse. He said he was making no determination whatsoever that there was probable cause to believe that one parent has been physically abused or... threatened with physical abuse by the other parent.
Now, I think the alleged hiding in the closet, using the safe word, texting the sister-in-law that you feel unsafe would qualify as feeling that you'd been threatened with physical abuse. But this judge found that did not happen. And when asked recently by the FBI whether she was abused, Samantha Hegseth said no, no physical abuse. So This is where we are, guys.
I mean, you tell me whether this is, you know, the Hail Mary pass by Jack Reed and others.
Megan, I will tell you my first reaction to this is that the legacy media learned absolutely nothing about what they saw over the last year that's happened to their industry. People are running away from them in droves because they're tired of being misled. by basic articles.
They open up a newspaper because they want information, not because they want some somebody's editorial opinion fashioned as a news story.
It's immoral. It's intentionally deceitful. They know the facts. It's in the story. So they know the material facts about the alleged victim of the abuse, denying the claim that's made by, you know, brother's ex-wife. I mean, it's just it's absurd. It's it's Kavanaugh all over.
It's important. That's right.
And I think Holmes is exactly right. This is the playbook that the left and especially Senate Democrats go to again and again and again. They did to Clarence Thomas. They did to Kavanaugh. They had some sketchy lawyer show up and say, oh, I think that there was a gang rape that this guy was taking part in. And the media ran with it like it was gospel.
And we find out that lawyer goes to jail because they're crooked.
I mean, look, I'm hesitant to give Democrats advice on this because what they're doing and what the media does is the best whip operation a Republican leader could ever have. Right. I mean, there are more. Look, Pete's going to get confirmed. I don't know if there's going to be those last three senators that vote for him or vote against him, but I think he's got 50 in the bank.
He's going to get confirmed. Had Democrats run a real confirmation hearing, keeping this nonsense out of the public discussion about the job of Secretary of Defense, about his view of our status of forces agreements, about what are we to do with Ukraine and American military and
Taiwan and American, you can get into a scenario where Pete would have a bipartisan concern if you ask the right questions and he was unable to answer it. This is not it. I mean, if those three didn't vote for him, I can promise you it's not because of a story like that.
You know, so like by going back to that, well, time and time again, all they've done is make Republicans react to everything that comes out like this in a way that you circle the wagons. Yep. You know, no more questions. I don't need to hear any more. I know what you're trying to do to him. You did it to Brett Kavanaugh.
Right.
Exactly right. So they're but they're, you know, they're obsessed. And these reporters, like I mentioned, this woman, Nicole Killian at CBS, who has been so unfair to him from the get go with the alleged rape allegation, which now just gets short formed by all of these media outlets to accused by rape and signed a settlement. Accused of rape, denied. They mentioned he denied it.
They don't talk about any of the holes in this woman's case. The fact that the police chose not to pursue it after doing a full investigation. The fact that she claimed she was given a date rape drug, but was seen on camera and by three independent witnesses and her husband on the back end within a period of two and a half hours, totally fine, sober and not drugged.
That's not how the date rape drug works, people. None of that gets mentioned. It's just, think about it. As a man, you get accused by this woman in what appears to be an obvious lie, an obvious made up claim of rape. And then every publication, as you get the nomination of your lifetime, just short forms it to accused of rape and paid a settlement. Accused of rape. He was accused of rape.
Disgusting. It's so unfair. So anyway, this Nicole Killian has been doing this to him from the beginning. I'll just give you an example of this woman's reporting who decided to omit the fact that Samantha Hegseth has denied it from her CBS News report. Here's an example of her on the rape allegation.
I don't know the young lady. Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen said Hexeth addressed the allegation in their meeting.
I don't think there's any way in the world you can say that this is a sexual assault. What makes you so confident about that? Have you read the report?
I actually have.
I've got it right here. I read the report, too. It's pretty clear what took place. It was pretty clear that she definitely wasn't broke to her room. It was two people flirting with each other. Well, it also said she couldn't get out of the room. Well, that's one person's opinion.
Look how smug she is. Unbelievable.
Sorry. Right here. No, like she's somehow got greater expertise than a prosecutor, detective in a sheriff's office. You know, they decided that this was in fact a false claim. They weren't going to pursue charges. I mean, it's so it's unbelievable. It's immoral.
It is immoral.
It is immoral. And I don't but I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon. I just don't. If they haven't learned the lesson in November of doing all of this, what would lead them to believe that they're not going to just keep on doing it?
Here's the thing. I don't think they will ever change. I really don't. I mean, I worked as a press secretary for my entire career. I do not think they will ever change because the culture of newsrooms in New York is so far left. It's unfixable. The only thing that will change and is changing right now is the movement of audiences away from legacy media and towards media like
Your show, Megan, people want to know that they can get information. It's reliable and that you actually ask tough questions and you actually get the facts and you're not satisfied until you get that. And that's that's all an audience wants is reality.
There's a little bit more color on this. The NBC News reporter who was behind this original report on the sister-in-law is named Julie Serkin. And there are two others, Sarah Fitzpatrick and Courtney Cube.
And, um, this circuit once called journalism frightening because of Trump, the greatest challenges was realizing that I was entering the business at a frightening time in almost every single speech I logged from Donald Trump's presidential campaign. There was a jab at the free press. which makes it frightening for her to join the media.
Then she went on to say how challenging it was for her to balance emotional involvement and objective journalism. Well, I'm not sure she's doing such a great job of that over at NBC News, where she files this report on Pete and what's obviously an attempted political hit. And so impressed was NBC Nightly News with her reporting that they did not even include it in their nightly news broadcast.
CBS runs with it, but omits the sister-in-law's denial. NBC looks at that turd of a report and said, we've got bigger things to cover.
I love that they engage in just full-on character assassination at the same time they act like they're dismounting the boats at D-Day. It's like, oh my gosh, what we go through to cover this guy. And by the way, that guy's a rapist.
Also, how much more obvious can you get you're in the wrong line of work if you say, I have a challenge being objective? Okay. You just said you need a new job. Get out of there. Maybe a columnist. Yeah.
Yeah. No problem. So many other things you can do. Like I always say to people who don't like the long hours or the weird hours of news, there's KeyBank. It's right down the road. Nobody bothers you. You work nine to four. It's nice and easy. I'm sure it's got its own set of challenges, but overall, it's far easier than working at news. You don't have to do this. That's it. Fine.
go do something else. It's no problem. All right. So the important thing is we think that Pete is going to be confirmed. I have a prediction. It is now Thursday. They're saying possibly Friday night or the wee hours of Saturday morning that, that because Thune is basically saying, we're not leaving, get your cots. We're going to have a vote on Pete and these others.
He's the Senate majority leader now. And, um, I have a prediction that Jack Reed slash Tim Cain, et cetera, they're not done. They're going to try to pull yet another rabbit out of their hat on Pete because they're really desperate to stop him. I think they smell blood in the water on that one. And they really just want to get one. And I think he's their favorite to get right now. But good luck.
Good luck. Because you got to
They're going to try. They're going to try, Megan. But we said it during the hearings. Once they presented the way that they did, they were so underprepared to know what it was that would divide Republicans and imperil this nomination. I mean, Johnny and I used to do this for a living.
We would put together strategies and plans to try to figure out how to kill Obama nominees that we thought were just wholly unfit to hold cabinet positions. And to do that, you have to do some examination of your targets. And what would drive a Republican away from doing that? What they did in terms of executing a strategy was unify Republicans. And the only thing was unify Republican.
And so like, you know, they want to take out Pete. Sure. They want to take out Pete. They're not going to get them. And the reason they're not going to get them is because of the strategy that they have executed upon. They only have themselves to blame.
They're not doing any better with the OMB nominee, you guys. This may be my favorite story of the day. I don't know if you saw this, but, you know, OMB stands for Office of Management and Budget. And Trump's nominee, a guy named Russell Vogt, V-O-U-G-H-T, he goes over there to submit himself to questioning.
And Democratic senator from the state of Washington, Patty Murray, gets this number crunching, you know, accountant type guy who's going to be managing the budget. That's a big responsibility. She's got him in her crosshairs. And where does she go with this extraordinary opportunity to cross-examine him? She goes here.
You are a lead author of the Anti-Abortion Project 2025. When it comes to abortion, you, quote, want to get to abolition. You don't believe in exceptions for rape, for incest, or life of the mother. Is that your position?
Senator, my views are not important. I'm here on behalf of the president as his nominee to restore fiscal accountability.
I'm asking you a question under oath, sir, because you want to be director of an office that will advise the president and we have a right to know your views. Will you answer the question?
I will, Senator, because it's consistent with the views that the president ran on repeatedly, made his views very clear on abortion.
Even in the case of rape, incest, life of the mother.
That is his view. And I will strictly abide by the president's view. There it is.
Oh, my God. Well, she's on to a wrong target. She she she figured it out. She finally got it. And, you know, sadly, she's going to have to register her menstrual cycles here soon with the Office of Management and Budget. That's right.
Project 2025. It's amazing to me. Okay, so he's got views that are controversial on abortion. He's going to be the number cruncher. He's the guy with the little green visor who's going to be doing addition and subtraction. He is not going to be running federal abortion policy, which is not really a thing.
Yeah, but I think it's important to remember, Megan, that these Democrats are entirely captured by these ideological nonprofits and institutions that run the Democratic Party and finance it. And that's one of the reasons back to the Pete Hegseth thing that they chose character assassination rather than actual like foreign policy where maybe they could find some fissures in the Republican Party.
They're not actually interested in success here. They're interested in placating the billion dollar donors that run their party who care about abortion.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. I mean, clearly it has to be. And their little echo chamber. Yeah. Right. I mean, you listen to MSNBC and this is all they're talking about and all of their C4s and make work fail sons. Yeah. Not they're pushing papers their way, saying character assassination is the only way to go. Right. And Project 2025 alive and well.
Wait, stand by on that because stand by because Senator Whitehouse, he weighed in on this, too, and cross-examining vote. Watch.
Do you have knowledge of where the executive orders were drafted?
I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of where the executive orders were drafted.
Do you have any knowledge of where the executive orders were drafted? Do you know, for instance, if some of them came out of language from the Center for Renewing America or some of them came out of Project 2025 or some of them came out of the Heritage Institute or some of them came out of the American Petroleum Institute? Do you know an answer to those questions?
I can't imagine they came from Project 2025. The president disassociated himself repeatedly from that. But no, I can't give you a comprehensive answer.
I mean, I'm told by a reliable source mug that you've got breaking news on 2025. What's the story?
So that's the thing is the funniest joke we ever pulled on the Democrats was convincing them that Project 2025 wasn't real. Yeah, that's exactly right. And to, I mean, Russ's credit, he's perfectly composed at these hearings. I don't know how he maintains the composure to not just come forward and be like, it's over, we won. Yes, we're going to do Project 2025. And here's the thing is it's good.
And he's going to be managing OMB. So one of the things to consider is everyone thinks Project 2025 only has to deal with abortion. When you're managing the budget, there's tremendous economic benefits. I've been told by reliable source, for example, There's going to be so many jobs created because all the red robes and bonnets are going to be made here in America. So many jobs will be created.
Can you imagine if you went with it like that?
Yeah. Excellent. It's amazing, the obsession. They have obviously no points to score against this guy. He already was OMB director under Trump one. And they just decide to use it as a showcase for one of their favorite ponies. Like, oh, yeah, let's talk about abortion. Here's an extremist. Let's make the American population hate him. That's fun. Let's bring up all of our old favorites.
Project 2025 and abortion with no exceptions. Good times, right? Like that's all they have at this point. I want to talk about this. On the subject of people we no longer trust or should trust, Trump is yanking the security clearances of various officials. And it's frankly kind of delicious, including those 51 so-called national security officials or intelligence experts who
who signed the letter suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, which was a coordinated effort between those guys and the Biden campaign to save Joe Biden's ass from that laptop. And so Trump has pulled their security clearances, including people like John Brennan, James Clapper, Leon Panetta. And he also pulled the security clearance of John Bolton.
And I think also pulled John Bolton's Secret Service protection, which I did not even realize he was getting while he was traveling. Molly Hemingway pointed this out from media outlet to media outlet to bash Trump and make sure he wasn't reelected. The Secret Service was following him. Why were they protecting John Bolton instead of Trump adequately at the Pittsburgh rally?
That's a question I'd love an answer to. So what do you make of the pulling of the security clearances of these folks? Because CBS's Margaret Brennan, she's very concerned. Here's what she tweeted. President Trump revoked the security clearance of a long list of former intelligence officials. This makes it hard for his own team to seek informed counsel from them.
Yeah. Informed counsel. You're going to get informed counsel. All right. I mean, what? And this is so overdue. Yes. Because a couple of things. It's not just that they signed that letter. That was egregious in and of itself. Should have been enough right away. In fact, if you were being fair in a in a Democratic administration, you found out something was that wrong. much of a lie.
You couldn't trust them with America's secrets, right? So you'd have to do it, but of course they didn't. The bigger problem here is that there is a cottage industry that both CNN and MSNBC and those three networks, which is why Margaret Brennan is upset about this,
engage in, in that they put all of these folks under contract to talk about, quote unquote, national security issues, except for the fact that they have security clearances. And so they can give you sort of half truths and knowing nods. And well, you know, this is the case all through Russiagate. It was like, well, we've seen information that compels us to take action.
And I think that the right thing to do is to go through with a Mueller report and all of this and the other. when they hadn't seen shit. And this was all a partisan charade right from the very beginning. But you, the viewer, are watching this as a former CIA director, clearly still has his national security clearances. You're looking at, like, of course, he can't tell me the whole thing.
They can't give up America's secrets. But he's giving me that knowing nod, saying that this guy is guilty of all sorts of treason. So... You know, what choice do I have to believe him?
That is really and that's the crime. That's the critical thing is this was these people were incredibly corrupt because they used the fact that they had access to that intelligence as a meal ticket. They signed these contributor contracts so that they could say, oh, you know, Clapper, he has a security clearance and, you know, he's a paid contributor. And he says this bears the hallmarks.
Of Russian disinformation. So he can just use the fact that he has security clearance to get himself a nice little picture. You're the viewer.
You're saying, well, the CIA director said it bears the hallmark. He surely knows what the hallmarks look like. Nonsense. It turned out to be all bullshit. But if you watch, if you really watch these people on the air, it is so much more sadistic than that. Yeah, because they take it into each and every little thing that they disagree with. Trump is obviously the target.
But even like foreign policy discussions where Trump is immaterial to the conversation, they give you information right up to the point where you're like, all right, we'll show us information. And they kind of give you the wink and they're like, we can't talk about all of it. Yeah, yeah. You know, because they're pushing the agenda. It is deeply, deeply problematic. I'm really glad he did it.
Yeah, this guy, General Michael Hayden, he's one of them. And twice, at least twice, he openly compared Trump to Hitler. Why would Trump allow this guy ongoing access to anything, anything? Never mind our national security secrets. This is obviously a dishonest broker. So good for him. More controversial is news today that he's pulling Secret Service protection for Mike Pompeo.
And I wonder your thoughts on that. I mean, I, you know, I have nothing against Mike Pompeo. I understand he's controversial within some MAGA circles, but I don't want him to get hurt. And I realize he was in an important position and actually, you know, could be exposed. I think he may have money to protect himself. I don't know. I'm not sure whether that factored in or not.
But I do think in general, we have too many ex-government officials who have Secret Service protection, given the fact that we have a Secret Service that is obviously undermanned and feeling slightly overwhelmed.
Yeah, I think there's two separate questions that your last point is is right. And I think that all of that requires review. Look, we know Mike Pompeo, the reason that he had and typically secretaries of state don't. But the reason he had Secret Service protection is that they were very credible agents. very realistic threats on his life from Iran.
And given the role that he played in the first Trump administration with a very aggressive posture towards Iran, those were real. And we don't know anything that's at all classified, but I can tell you that it was a thing. Now, whether it's no longer a thing, I don't know. And I don't know what would cause them to pull it. I honestly don't know that he was...
ever at a point where he was sort of anti-Trump. So maybe this is a security.
I sat two people down from him at that Pittsburgh rally that I spoke at for Trump the night before the election. So he showed up there. He was in the good graces of the president. But I mean, and I would think as the former CIA director under Trump, the former secretary of state under Trump, he Maybe he does have some security threats. I mean, you can see that.
But I know that there's a very strong strain within the top MAGA echelons that really pushed against using him again in this administration because they think he's too much of a war hawk. They think he's just a little too neoconny, which is fine. They got their way.
But I don't totally get other than if they've had a falling out, in which case that would be petty by Trump or in if Trump is basically just trying to rein in the costs of this enormous service that I mean, John Bolton, like how many people have it? How many family members have it? Like how long will Hunter Biden have it? You know, it's just, this is an American taxpayer expense.
And I just wonder, given how undermanned they are, whether we should be realistic about our abilities to pay these fees.
That's the right question. Those are the right questions. And I think, you know, given what we saw over the summer, threats on President Trump, I mean, getting shot and all the failures of all of that, it does require an open review of all. And I don't know the answers to those questions, right? I mean, we don't have any idea.
about what Secret Service details are out there and on whom and how far it goes back. Clearly, former presidents need something. But beyond that, you've got to make a justification. What I hope, Megan, is that the decision on the Pompeo Secret Service was based on an assessment of the security situation and nothing else. Because if it's nothing else, it's tough.
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Before we get to the Oscars, got to spend a minute on the Obamas because there seems to be some momentum picking up in the rumor mill about their marriage. All right. I'm going to bring you what I know. First, on January 15th, in the sub stack of Jessica Reed Krause, also known as House and Habit, she's well connected in some circles and worked for RFKJ for a time. Right. Didn't she?
She was close to RFKJ. Right. close to, she posts the following. And she's been right about a lot, this gal. Michelle Obama's absence at Jimmy Carter's funeral certainly raised some eyebrows, but yesterday's announcement that she won't be attending Trump's inauguration confirms something is definitely going on between her and Barack.
She said whispers about cracks in their relationship have been circulating in D.C. for over a year now, but this feels like the first public proof of a marriage on the rocks. The question now is an if but when. If I had to guess, they will wait until after the inauguration to announce it. Timing, you know, is everything. And yet the story doesn't end there.
For months, I've heard Jennifer Aniston's name tied to Barack. At first, it seemed ridiculous, but the rumors have remained steady among New York and L.A. circles. I should reiterate to the audience that Aniston has denied it, saying, I don't even know him. I've seen Michelle more than I've ever seen him. Then Jessica cites a DM she received the day before. Quote, He's with Jennifer Aniston.
My old manager, now a friend, is connected to her inner circle. At a gathering with Jennifer's friends, the affair came up casually. Jennifer herself admitted it. They were sitting with a psychic, which makes it sound surreal, but it's definitely not a secret among her closest friends. Then yesterday, Meghan McCain had a discussion about this on her show, suggesting she is hearing the same.
Um, she had on Tara Palmieri, who's a reporter saying fast and furious loud. I've been hearing this rumor about the Obama's getting a divorce from reputable people. I'm not talking about TMZ. She says, I'm talking about very serious journalists telling me they are hearing that the Obama divorce rumors are true.
And Tara, who's a senior political correspondent for Puck says, I've certainly heard it for a while too. Even before Michelle said she wasn't coming to the inauguration. I do not know whether this is true at all, but if it is true, it truly would be a political earthquake in Democrat circles. Never mind America. I don't remember a presidential divorce in modern history.
What do you guys make of it?
So I started hearing murmurs about this a while ago, too. And I guess so Ash Ashbrook and he confirmed because he was a psychic there. We did it with a psychic. Yeah. And so that's the thing is how awesome must have that situation been that the psychic was like, I see a president in your past that you're currently dating. And he's like, oh, it's Barack. You're right.
And like through the crystal ball, it's like, I'll be there for you. Jennifer Aniston. Yeah.
Jennifer Aniston, it was her circle of friends there allegedly discussing it. I mean, we don't know. We don't know. But I know it's true. Is it so hard to believe?
When a woman tells another woman, yeah, you can tell me I'll keep a secret. The phone's already out. Now it's about to hit a group chat. So that is, to me, the most conclusive piece of evidence.
Some of you are married. Did you see the post he put out to celebrate her birthday? Was it her birthday or their anniversary?
He did. He chose...
the least attractive photo of her that's ever been released. I mean, this is just wrong. Michelle Obama can look very nice in a photograph. This ain't it. She's got the kerchief on her head. They're about 20 feet apart in this intimate dinner. And he looks great. This is classic, right? He's like, this is a great picture. He's got the thousand-watt smile. And she's terrible.
Why would you do this?
I can tell you, Megan, if I posted that photo, I certainly wouldn't be dating Jennifer Aniston. You'd be a dead man? I'd be a dead man.
I've only been married a year, but I've already learned you take the photos, you show it to the wife and then you distribute it.
Well, no, no, no. The way it works is you take the photo, you show it to the wife, you retake the photo and then, and then you get, and then you, and then there's always a couple of, you got to get the principal to sign off. Yeah.
Let me ask you for real, like for real, do you think this is true?
No. So here's the thing. And this is one of the theory of the case. Maybe Jennifer Aniston is is the Biden's answer to George Clooney here. Right. I mean, maybe this because I'll be honest, I have heard this sort of thing around in D.C. And there's some connections there with the like people what you would call reputable people because they served in an administration.
Maybe they served in the Obama administration. They certainly served in the Biden administration.
And that's the thing is, so the Bidens and Obama hate each other because Michelle Obama is very good friends with Hunter Biden's ex-wife. So that's led to a significant problem where they don't like Hunter. And if you don't like Hunter, Joe doesn't like you. So I would not be surprised if Holmes is right on with this of like, oh, well, why don't we do this?
It's like, oh, man, you give us problems. Maybe you can have a problem or two. Bingo.
But I'll tell you what. next level.
Just to be clear, you are suggesting that maybe there is something going on between Barack and Jennifer and the Bidens are leaking it.
That could be. Go ahead, Ashbrook.
If it is true and he leaves Michelle Obama high and dry and she's dissatisfied, I cannot wait to learn about all of these secrets that Barack Obama has kept hidden over the years from Michelle Obama and her pals. Because, you know, there's a whole past on Obama that nobody has written about. But she could be a first person witness.
Here he is alone at the Trump inauguration, which really was, it was stark. All these former presidents came in with their wives and then there he was.
It was jarring. All alone.
It was jarring, wasn't it?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, just the spectacle of it all and then seeing him alone. I mean, it really did. Like, as a viewer, you knew she wasn't coming, but then you saw the visual of it and you're like, hmm. And then the Clintons were there together.
I mean, the Clintons can be there together. What is going on with the Obamas?
And I talked about this with Maureen Callahan, but the fact that Michelle did not go to the Carter funeral, it really is kind of shocking because she said, her team said she had an appointment. She had a scheduling conflict. Like what could possibly be a conflict that would keep you away as a Democrat from President Carter's funeral? and then the inauguration.
It's like, I don't, and somebody was, was it Maureen? Maybe she's having plastic surgery, right? But she, but then he posts that picture of the two of them. Well, she wasn't having plastic surgery. So what the hell's going on?
And that's, it's clearly not a partisan thing. Like Michelle is not trying to resist. So she skipped the inauguration because she also skipped the Carter funeral. There's something happening there. There's something there.
They did a fist bump. I mean, that's, that clears everything up, right?
I mean, there's not to add insult to injury, but there's a Daily Mail report out today saying Kamala Harris's marriage may be on the rocks. Like everybody's everybody's on the rocks again. It's I will say I love the Daily Mail, but the sourcing appeared weak. It was like people who know the couple.
But like, I don't know if they're saying she's blaming him in part for her loss because he turned out to be such a hot mess liability. You buy it.
Oh my gosh. Well, we do know Dougie Emhoff's got a bit of a temper, right? I mean, there's some stuff that was problematic. I also think like this is a guy who is so used to running his own world for so long. And then all of a sudden he's just sort of like, basically a bag boy during the course of the six month election. I can't imagine that went over terribly well.
The second gentleman. I love the idea that it wasn't the economy or the open border or like Joe Biden being a dementia patient or like you going on The View and saying, I wouldn't change anything from the last four years. That isn't the reason you lost. It was Dougie.
I'm all for marrying people named Doug, but she blew it somehow. I don't know. Okay, let's move on to the Oscars. And I'll tell the SiriusXM audience, I don't know if we're going to be able to get to the end of this before we say goodbye to you, but... I'll keep you guys over for just a couple of minutes. If you give me a couple extra at the end, we'll get it all in a podcast.
And I'm into the Oscar situation. So as you saw, as you know, from Javier Millay with his firebrand speech at Davos to Trump and his firebrand speech at Davos to Trump's winning Trump's executive order, the polls overwhelmingly showing that the American people feel we have, quote, gone too far to accommodate the transgender stuff.
there's been a clear message sent, not just by Republicans, but by Democrats as well. Holly Weird hasn't received said message because the Oscar nominations came out today, you guys, and I know you're big theater critics, so I saved this for you. Among the people nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role is a man, A man, I tell you.
He used to be known up until he was like in his late 40s as Carlos Gascon. And now he goes by Carla Sofia Gascon. He is 52 years old and transitioned in 2016, so-called transitioned. And for this, he was rewarded with the lead role in this movie, Emilia Perez, which has been, I think, also nominated for Best Picture.
And it's about a drug lord who's a Mexican cartel boss who's a male who really wants to transition as a Mexican cartel drug boss and does so from male to female. And of course, this is like tailor made for awards in Hollywood at the Golden Globes. Amelia Perez won for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy. I guess it's got music in it, too. He called for trans people to stand up to bigotry.
And now he has been nominated. He has taken one of the five coveted spots for Best Actress. Best Actress. So my basic take is all these Hollywood women deserve this, and I don't feel sorry for them. But what do you think?
Well, as you know, we take works of film very seriously here on the Ruthless Variety program.
I do.
And we exhibit most of our expertise through our resident thespian, Michael Duncan. So, Michael, I'd be curious as to your take – on the arts writ large and whether it is comporting itself with the electorate that is now seemingly unwelcome to their advances.
Well, you know, I don't think any of these films really comport with most of the electorate, if I'm being quite honest with you. I do love the idea of a transitioning cartel boss, though. I would love to know how that went down, like in the meeting with your capos and your consiglieres. Like, by the way, I want to be a woman. Like, I think that's actually pretty wild.
So I'm sure it's an interesting story.
That would be the end of your time as the boss.
Yeah, right. But I mean, one movie that was actually nominated a bunch of times that I actually really enjoyed was Nosferatu, the remake of the old classic. It was fantastic. It was by that Eggers guy who did that witch movie. It's an A24 movie, which I know is a little more artsy. You see it, Megan? You see why we do this?
I don't even understand anything you just said, Holmes.
The reason why I bring it up is Johnny Depp's daughter, Lily Rose Depp, in that movie is fantastic and definitely should have been nominated for Best Actress, and it's a shame that she wasn't. He's not doing this ironically.
This is genuine. This is a genuine review.
What was the name of the movie? Emilia Perez. That's the train movie.
Such a lost opportunity because the cartel boss gets a little choppo.
Well done, Smug. Well done. Wait, just in case you didn't see it, you know, I'll give you a little preview. Zoe Saldana's in it, among others. This, as I said, is apparently a musical. And we pulled a little from the movie, a little scene of, well, you watch.
Hello, very nice to meet you. I'd like to know about sex change operation.
I see, I see, I see, I see.
Man to woman.
No.
What would you like to know about it, madam? I want to know it all. What is the protocol? The techniques and the risks. How many operations? How much time do you need?
Mamoplasty.
Yes.
Vaginoplasty.
Yes.
Rhinoplasty. Yes.
Nominated for an Oscar.
Mamoplasty. Yes. Vaginoplasty. Yes. Rhinoplasty. Yes. Laryngoplasty. Yes. Control laryngoplasty. What is that? Adam's apple reduction.
Yes, yes, yes. Sure aside, Jesus is coming.
My God.
How come they're not trolling? Like, this is not satire? No. We checked. We thought this was parody. It's real. I want to make a movie that's just so blatant. Like that's, I mean, like that has to be a show. It feels like the South Park guys could have come up with that.
The other thing is, Robin Williams was robbed because his performance as Mrs. Doubtfire was unforgettable. So if anybody should want an award, it's him.
Robin Williams, posthumous, the best actress.
How is a movie, right? Double check me team. I think it's nominated for best picture with Vaginoplasty, yes. Mevoplasty, yes. Rhinoplasty, yes. How is that nominated for Best Picture? This person, Carla Sofia Gascon, at the Golden Globes in January, spoke after this movie won Best Picture in a musical, whatever, there. And here is what he said.
You come and maybe put us in jail. You come beat us up, but you never... can take away our soul, our existence, our identity. And I want to say to you, raise your voice and say, I won. I am who I am.
Okay. No one's putting transgender people in jail for being transgender. That's not a thing.
Makes himself sound like he's Jim Valvano. You know, making the cancer cannot take my soul speech.
Right? He's on the stage accepting an award for best picture. Nobody feels sorry for you. It's ridiculous. And now, honestly, I get that. Oh, here are the other actresses, okay, nominated in the best actress category. Fernanda Torres from I'm Still Here. Demi Moore for The Substance, which I'm told is absolutely terrible. Cynthia, is it Erivo? Yeah, she's from Wicked.
She's the co-star in Wicked across from... What's her name? Yeah. Yeah, Ariana Grande. And Mickey Madison for the movie Onora. So he's... I don't know if he's the favorite, but you tell me. I feel like these women are probably really... pro his presence in the Oscars and his presence in the movies.
And not one of them will speak a word about the fact that an already very limited field, it's hard to get one of these nominations, is now even more limited because there is a man who was a man and presenting as a man all the way up to 2016 who's probably going to win.
It couldn't happen to a better group. We were pontificating between the breaks, Megan, about whether or not this was just like the best joke of all time. Like whether or not this entire project was- Keep going home, sorry. Whether or not this project was financed by like Leonard Leo or something like that, where they're like, I bet we can get the Academy to say- It's conservative. Yeah.
Yeah, like maybe they will recognize what is, of course, an entirely ironic presentation. Like that song in and of itself really did look like a Matt Stone, South Park-like production.
Like remember when Peter Boghossian and his pals came up with those fake papers, like, is my dog a racist? And all these colleges published them and then they revealed it was a hoax.
Is this like Matt Walsh's secret movie? Is he actually behind this?
It like definitively breaks the Academy Awards because they've just like fallen for the... Okay, so I'm not done.
It's not just that movie and this guy. Now I'm kind of rooting for him. I hope he wins. I really do. I hope he wins the whole thing. I'm going to try to vote. I am, I think... I don't know if I'm a member of the Academy. You know, I'm an actress now. I'm in SAG, thanks to my appearance in Mr. Burcham. Yeah, I was a cartoon star. You may have missed it. It's possible.
Anyway, that's not the only controversial thing going on in the Oscars. Here is a clip of one of the best actor nominees. See if this looks familiar to you.
Listen, Judy, about 100 reporters were crawling up my ass to get this interview, and I gave you the exclusive.
Uh, yes, hello, Judy. This is Donald Trump. Very excited. Very excited to talk to you.
Donald, now that the lawsuit is behind you, what do you want to do next?
Uh, well, I intend to acquire the Commodore, and I'm planning on making it the best and the finest building in the city. Maybe the country. In the world. Judy, in the world. It's going to be the finest building in the world. It's going to be a spectacular hotel. Absolutely spectacular. First class.
That sounds very ambitious. Where do you get the drive? You're still so young, Donald.
I've got flair and I'm smart, so I think that's going to make me successful. But I also want to stay humble.
Sorry, Judy. Listen, let's do the rest in person and bring a photographer, okay? Sorry. No, I mean, listen, it's your life. You got a ways to go, but you're learning.
My God. Both of those guys nominated the guy who plays Trump, Sebastian Stan, as best actor. Jeremy Strong of Succession fame nominated for best supporting actor in a movie nobody saw and nobody liked. But they mocked Donald Trump. So you're in.
It's incredible, right? They're just so predictable. Also, it seems to be a prerequisite, the unwatched movie. Yep. Like, it seems like the last, I grew up, you know, when you grew up, you'd watch the Academy Awards with your parents. You know, I remember doing that and you'd see all the movies and be like, oh, we need to see this. We need to see that.
It's been like, basically my entire adult life where like, I never watch it, but if I ever like stumble through it and you see it on TV, you look at the nominees, you know, I have no idea what any of that is.
And it's sort of ironic, right? That the distribution of media and films has become so broad and so easy to access. And the Academy's focus has become so narrow and obscure.
Yeah.
It's a great point. Think about that. Think about how hard it was to see the Oscar films 30 years ago, but we all did. We saw the ones that got nominated. Now it's like, there's no chance. Well,
It was like Forrest Gump.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? Like Schindler's List, Braveheart. These were films that won and had huge audiences. What a wild business model for Hollywood to try to turn a profit. Now, when it's easier than ever to get your film in front of people's eyeballs, they could stream it. Still, people choose not to watch this and they're like, oh, because it's too good of art.
Tom Hanks would have had to transition midway through in order to get a nomination. Yeah.
It's just like, you're right. You've never even heard of these actors and you've never even heard of these movies. And they're just like smaller and smaller and smaller, as is the audience. Guys, thank you. Thank you all for being here. Great to see you.
Thank you. You're the best. Thank you so much.
All right. And before we go, I want to tell the audience the route this guy's had to run. But one more thing on the Oscars. Of course, Conclave got nominated. Of course, of course, they nominated Conclave for Best Picture, the one that mocks the Catholics. Spoiler alert, okay? I hope you don't see Conclave.
So, and I think you probably already know the spoiler if you listen to this show, but it's about the Pope and choosing a new Pope and the Conclave that the Catholic cardinals have. And big reveal at the end, they choose a Pope who's secretly a woman, right? who's so-called intersex. And here's a little bit of that.
The truth is, there simply was no reason to think I was physically different from the other young men. Then, in my late 30s, I had a surgery to remove my appendix. And that was when the doctors discovered that I had a uterus and ovaries. Some would say my chromosomes would define me as being a woman, and yet I'm also as you see me.
All right, so Ray Fiennes, he's nominated for Best Actor. This film, of course, will be celebrated because they mock the Catholic Church. Ha ha, joke's on you, you have a female priest.
And don't take my word for it, because if you watch the thing, it's all about Stanley Tucci as a bishop who appears to be from New York or a cardinal saying like, I will not abandon my position that we need more women's rights in the church.
You know, he's one of these leftist Catholics who's trying to take a stand, and they lionize him, and they make a mockery out of the Italian cardinal who's more conservative and who's more traditional, and they make him into a fool, a buffoon. And that's what they do to the entire Catholic Church by making surprise their new pope into... a woman. It's just ridiculous.
So you can see exactly what they're doing. This is their night to stand up and celebrate how much they hate Catholics, how much they believe men can become women, and how much they hate Donald Trump. Whether they say it explicitly or not, perhaps there will be a directive not to make the speeches political.
Much like the Golden Globes, the underlying content that will be rewarded that night tells everybody who is right of center, they can't stand you. Maybe keep that in mind when you're deciding whether or not to watch it. Thank you guys for watching. We are back tomorrow with Piers Morgan and more. See you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.