The Megyn Kelly Show
Tucker Carlson, Shawn Ryan, Bill Maher, Charlamagne, and More: Most Memorable Interviews From 2024
Wed, 1 Jan 2025
Megyn Kelly looks back at some of the most memorable interviews from 2024, including with Tucker Carlson, Shawn Ryan, Bill Maher, Charlamagne tha God, Riley Gaines, and Charlie Kirk from the Friday after Donald Trump won the election.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, and Happy New Year. Welcome, 2025.
And before we officially say goodbye forever to 2024, we do want to look back at some of the memorable moments that we had on the show together with you guys this year with some familiar friends and those who made their first appearance on the program. There was a feisty and fun and interesting interview with Bill Maher back in May.
Tucker Carlson's newsmaking interview during the Democratic National Convention on the eve of RFK Jr. 's endorsement of Donald Trump. And also my first sit down ever. with Riley Gaines. I also want to bring you one of the interviews I thought about for weeks and months after it happened with Sean Ryan. Oh, that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Love this guy. What a year he's had too.
We had Charlemagne the God on for a lengthy interview earlier in the year. And then to close this out, Charlie Kirk. He came on the Friday after the election, finally able to exhale after all the work he and his team put in to help Trump reclaim the White House. That was a great one. Enjoy, and we'll be back tomorrow with the conclusion to our True Crime Christmas series.
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This is probably something they won't be expecting. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. You and I are very similar. I feel like you're kind of a four and I'm a six on the ideological scale. We have a lot of overlap, but you're definitely still going to vote Democrat and I'm definitely going to vote Republican.
But there's enough commonality to make us shake our heads yes when the other one speaks a lot.
So you're going to vote for Trump?
I am going to vote for Trump. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I can't even understand that. And I understand that Biden is deeply flawed, but he does believe in our way of life. And, you know, I mean, I was the one who was saying from the very beginning when everyone was laughing at me that Donald Trump will never give up power. And he didn't. He still hasn't conceded the last election.
I don't know what could possibly be more fundamental to you or anyone than you have to concede elections. And he hasn't conceded the last one. He's plainly not going to concede this one. He now has all of his sycophants around him parroting his party line, which is when they ask them, will you abide by the election results?
Yes, if it's a free and fair election, which is another way of saying if we win. You really think this is a place this country should be?
I'm not going to defend the election denialism. I'm not one of those people who believes that.
But what's more important? What kind of country do we have?
How about my daughter not going into a locker room and seeing a man's penis?
That's important, too.
And I mean, how about young men on college campuses getting due process when they get accused falsely of rape?
Well, yeah, I think that's a false equivalency. I think these things. What do you mean? I think these things are important. And but you can you can handle these things through the normal due process of our system. But if we lose the system itself, come on. We didn't. We didn't so far.
They tried it. It failed.
Right. And now he's had four years to put in place people who will make it work again. I don't know if there'll be a John Raffensperger in Georgia, a noble Republican who stood up to him. He thought last time that he could count on someone being just a Republican.
to do his bidding and what he found out was that there are a lot of decent people who are republicans which is something i'm trying to tell the democrats all the time you can't hate you can hate trump you can't hate everybody who likes him and you certainly can't hate half the country and republicans is not a byword for bad people and a lot of them stood up i mean even ones who i don't like very much um
Mitt Romney, McConnell, obviously Liz Cheney, Chris Christie. There were Mike Pence. These are what I call as good as it gets Republicans for the people who don't like Republicans. They full-throatedly said Trump lost that election. No two ways about it. McConnell said it wasn't even a particularly close election.
A lot of people said it. A lot of people say, but look, I agree with you that the majority of the Republican Party doesn't believe that. But I do think there's a difference between it was stolen, you know, the nonsense with Dominion voting machines and all that versus it wasn't fair. What wasn't fair? Oh my, don't get me started. What wasn't fair?
How about the suppression of the Hunter Biden left-back story? Just for one.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Really? Oh, then we're not as alike as you think. That's a stupid non-story. Says who?
There are polls that show some 10 to 12 percent of the electorate says they would have changed their mind had they seen it, had they known about it.
It wasn't right to suppress it, but nobody gives a fuck about Hunter Biden's dick.
Nobody. You're talking about yourself. I'm telling you, there are data to show people did care. They said they would change their vote.
Nobody who was going to vote for Trump anyway or Biden anyway.
I mean, it wasn't about Hunter Biden's man parts. It was about the scandal of his corruption and his dad's corruption. Bill, I used to think that that Hunter Biden was a hot mess and Joe Biden was embarrassed by him, but had to deal. Now I really think he was doing Joe Biden's bidding. Joe Biden is the bad guy who sent his drug-addled son out there to collect money. That's what the laptop shows.
And that's more important than what I was bringing up about not abiding by election results, not respecting what always made this country great, the peaceful transference of power.
See, I don't disagree with you on that. You're not going to get me to say it was a great thing the way Trump behaved.
I don't have to get you to agree or disagree. You're obviously someone who looks at an elephant and a mouse and cannot tell which one is bigger.
I disagree. I know. That's projection by you because I look at Joe Biden.
That's how I see you. Well, let's talk about— Why are you telling me this? I mean, this is just typical right-wing talking points, the evil Hunter Biden and the evil Joe Biden. And look, do I like them? No, I don't particularly like them. I think they're very flawed.
Less than.
It's not nearly on the scale.
You're misstating my argument. You're misstating my argument. Hunter Biden just now on the laptop was brought up as evidence of how the election was not fair. He's not a reason necessarily to not vote for Joe Biden. The reason not to vote for Joe Biden is his policies.
You're not woke. He's as woke, at least his policies are, as they come. The open border bill. How could anybody vote for somebody who keeps this border open with the number of rapes and the number of murders and the numbers of crimes going on with these immigrants?
But again, these are the normal sorts of issues we've always had in this country that should be taken care of through the normal process we've had. You're talking about the difference between this and something fundamental, which is... Our democracy, the fact that you have to respect who wins an election or else you don't have the kind of country we've always had before.
I mean, I feel like we keep going around the Rosemary Bush about this and we're not going to make any progress. So let's stop talking about it. But, you know.
I just, I mean, you keep saying sort of I'm nuts because I don't see the difference between the elephant and the mouse. And I'm telling you, I identify them differently than you do. Hillary Clinton, of course, is the original election denier. I'm sure you voted for her in 16. Well, she's not an election denier. She absolutely was the OG election denier.
First of all, she came out before the sun had risen to concede the election to Trump.
And then spent the next four years saying he was illegitimate. He was an illegitimate president. She...
Okay, well, first of all, she didn't say he was an illegitimate.
Yes, she did.
Tell me exactly what she said.
She said those exact words repeatedly.
OK. I mean, she conceded the election. Whether whether you're interpreting her disappointment at losing it as the same thing as Trump not conceding it. I don't know that that's where you're getting it from. But again, it's a tremendous false equivalency. You could ask Hillary Clinton right now who won that election. She will tell you Donald Trump won.
Now she knows she has to because of what she came out that night. She conceded the election.
In her dark purple suit and conceded the election.
Correct. And then spent the next four years trying to convince us it was not legitimate. Just saying, look, it's not the same as Trump. What Trump did was far more severe. I'm not going to deny that, but don't try to tell me that Hillary Clinton wasn't an election denier and Jamie Raskin and a whole host of Democrats who are now in prominent positions on Capitol Hill.
Doesn't make it great what Trump did, but they don't have clean hands either.
But you bypass the immigration question. I mean, like, I'm not bypassing it.
I think it's a disaster.
So how would you put this guy back in there for four more years to leave the doors open?
And like it was so much better under Trump?
Yes, it was better under Trump. Are you kidding me?
It was somewhat better.
Oh, Bill.
It was somewhat better.
Go look up the immigration rates, illegal immigration rates for 2020, for 19 to 20.
I'm not defending Biden on immigration. I don't understand why it's so difficult in this country to stop people coming through the border. I don't. And I watched that 60 Minutes video. piece they did on it a couple of months ago, and they had films of people coming through this hole and the border patrol just watching them and basically waving. I don't understand why.
I don't understand why this country can't accomplish something like that. It doesn't seem like it's impossible. But so many things in this.
Well, that's what's so aggravating. We can accomplish it. We can we can stop what's happening at the southern border. We just won't under Joe Biden. And he keeps pretending like he has no agency on it, but he does have agency. There are a lot of executive orders he could do just like Trump did. He won't. And you know why?
It's because of the people who use the word latinx who are trying to lecture him that it's not humane to enforce our borders.
Yeah, I would agree with that. The left wing, because they're so afraid always of being called racist, they let that color every issue and very often wind up with terrible policies that wind up not helping people of color.
Don't you think that's what's happening to him on the trans issue, too, which is my big issue that I mentioned off the front?
Well, I think what Joe Biden is is a guy who does not want to fight with the left wing of his party. He sees that as I don't think he understands a lot of what's going on in the left wing. I mean, I doubt if he heard the word trans before he was president. But that's that's what he has chosen to do. He does not want to fight with AOC.
He thinks that's where the energy in the party is and he's not completely wrong. So he just kind of goes along with that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's that's one thing that's not great about him. But again, in this country, maybe gender is not binary, but politics is. You only get two choices. That's right.
You get Donald Trump, a criminal election denier who is going to transform this country into an authoritarian place like we've never seen before. Or you get Joe Biden with all his flaws.
Also a criminal.
Okay. What is his crime again?
Special Counsel Robert Hurst said he'd committed felonies, but he wouldn't indict him because he was a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. He couldn't get a conviction in front of a jury.
And what was that crime? That was the— Classified documents.
All over his basement, his garage, everywhere.
Well, OK, again, a false equivalency. They both had classified documents. Here's the difference. Immediately, Biden, he shouldn't have had them. Immediately, he said, oh, sorry, my bad, and gave them back.
That's why he didn't get charged with obstruction. But Trump has two classified documents, pieces to his case. One is you had them. And the second is you obstructed justice when we demanded them back. So, OK, against Biden, you don't get charged with obstruction.
But number one, where's the classified documents charged against him? He's also a felon.
You got your story. You know, look, if you see it that way, that's what I have to deal with.
You're asking me why I see it differently than you do. The contest between the two of them.
And I'm telling you.
It's not convincing. Fair enough.
I mean, they both should not have had classified documents. One by the toilet, one by his Corvette. Okay.
One?
One.
Multiple. Many. No, I'm talking about one person. Okay.
One of them.
Okay. I'll copy. Right.
One Trump, one Biden. They both did that. The difference is Goofus and Gallant. Goofus said, anything I touch is mine forever. Go fish. Go fish. And the other one said, oh, yeah, my bad. And I immediately returned them.
That's very funny. You're taking me back to my childhood with that reference. But why can't the difference be one actually had the ability to declassify documents and keep them because he'd been the president and one didn't because he should have been looking at documents only in a skiff while a sitting U.S. senator.
And clearly he stole classified documents that he wasn't entitled to and never had the ability to declassify them.
Yeah. Maybe you know more about that than I do. I don't remember that part of it. And I always don't trust anything I hear until I vet it from the other side because everybody sort of has their one-sided view of it. And narrative is more important than truth. I know this is the right-wing narrative.
I'm not like that, Bill. I care about facts. I practiced law for 10 years. I want to get the cases right. The reports are that you and Don Jr. and maybe one other have been working behind the scenes to convince RFKJ that there's no path forward for him in this particular race, which is, I mean, whether you tried that or not, that appears to be the case.
And that he should drop out and endorse Donald Trump and potentially get a role in his administration. He has announced that he's going to be making an announcement on Friday. And when asked about this, he just refused to confirm or deny for now, but did say, I'm not going to say anything about Donald Trump when asked to condemn some of Trump's comments on climate change.
So what would you like to say about these reports?
Well, I mean, I definitely didn't broker anything. That's not my role in life. I'm not good at that. I would never, I just wouldn't do it, you know, go to... Bobby and say, you know, you can get this and go to Trump and say you should do that. I mean, you know, my only role just in general is knowing a lot of people, liking a lot of people. I always try to connect people just in general.
You know, you should meet so and so, you know, so that but I'm not a political actor, not good at it. I don't really understand politics. Most of my Political predictions are wrong. You know, I stay at 35,000 feet, which is the only place I'm comfortable or competent. And the second, you know, I've been lured into saying, oh, this race and this state is going to go that way.
I get humiliated because I don't really understand it. Same. So, no, I didn't. I didn't broker anything. I know them both well. And I really like Bobby Kennedy. I always have. I don't agree with him on everything. Right. obviously, but I like his spirit, which is inquisitive, pretty honest, I would say, actually, for a politician, very honest, brave.
I share a lot of the concerns he's articulated about health and the environment. I really care about the environment. I think climate change is not human-caused. I disagree on that. I think that's ridiculous, actually. Climate is changing, but we're not doing it. But I'm very concerned about the quality of the air and water and the soil. Very concerned. I think we all should be.
And the more you know, the more you are concerned. I'm really concerned by some of the drugs people put in their bodies. As a 22-year-long sober person, I really love sobriety. I went to an AA meeting recently with Bobby Kennedy, had the best time ever. And I'm a sportsman. I love hunting and fishing, and so does he. So we have just a lot in common personally.
And that's the basis of our friendship and of my affection for him. On the political question, I've already said I have no idea what I'm talking about, and I really don't. But this is my one insight, which I do think is true, is I have no idea if he does endorse Trump. And these are two big personalities, so I'll kind of believe it when I see it.
But if that happens tomorrow, I think it'll help Trump probably. I don't really know. But I know for a fact that Bobby running third party would hurt Trump. because there is a big overlap in their voters. And it's not on all the issues. They disagree on a bunch of issues.
But anyone who thinks the current system is corrupt is not voting for Kamala Harris, because she is, of course, the physical embodiment of corruption. And so you're voting for Bobby Kennedy or Donald Trump. That's the bottom line. And so I think if he stayed in the race, it would definitely hurt Trump. That's my analysis for what it's worth.
There's a New York Post report out today that, no, two days ago it hit, talking about how Bobby Kennedy's affecting this race between Harris and Trump. And it's very telling. They're looking at some recent polling and saying that, take Arizona. Trump leads Kamala Harris by one point in Arizona and Bobby Kennedy there taking 5%.
So, I mean, important enough that he could definitely sway that race in Michigan. Yes. Showing Trump. It's basically tied 45 to 44. Kennedy drawing 4 percent of the vote. Nevada, another nail biter, saying Trump leads Harris. They are 43 to 42. 6% behind Bobby Kennedy. North Carolina, 47 to 44 in Trump's favor, 2% backing RFKJ. So it is really interesting how tight it is.
Pennsylvania, Harris leads Trump by two points. And Wisconsin, she leads him by four points. Kennedy's at 4% and 3% respectively. So the This guy, he may not have the votes that he had maybe six months ago when he was polling more like 11%, but he truly could swing this election if the people getting ready to vote for him did what he asked them to do and voted for, let's say in this case, Trump.
Yes, I think that's right. And there's a whole kind of demographic in this country that's meaningful in numbers. And it's non-liberal nature people, kind of old-fashioned hippie types. They're not all into neoliberalism, actually. A lot of them still believe in civil liberties. They appreciate nature. They don't want to see it despoiled with chemicals.
They don't think Monsanto is like a great company necessarily. And they look at Kamala Harris and... who's not even a real person. I mean, it could be anybody, but they look at that machine financed by the banks and pharma, and they think to themselves, you know, I don't have anything in common with these people. And they maybe look at Trump and they're like, who's that guy? He's weird.
I don't like him either. But there are a lot of like right wing hippies, actually, particularly in rural areas. They have guns. They live in rural areas. Of course, they use guns. And so I think those are all potential Trump voters. There are some style problems that turn them off to Trump, but they're definitely not on the side of like BlackRock.
at all and bobby kennedy and i live near a lot of people like this i share a lot of their views so i i'm very familiar with this demographic and i think that bobby kennedy is a is a pretty good way in to voting for trump for them he has credibility with them and for good reason
I share your concerns about what's happening with the environment and the toxins and the food supply and all that. And I, it's funny, Tucker, you'll laugh because I, so I recently decided that I was going to stop getting pedicure. Like I get a pedicure, but I don't get toe polish. I don't get toenail polish. And I'm like that, you know, I don't want the top. Would you look at me?
Would you look at the number of toxins I have on me right now in my hair? Not to mention the Botox. What a charlatan I am. But, you know, it's like around the edges, Tucker, we do what we can to try to minimize the toxins coming in. That's totally right. That is where I draw the line.
No, I mean, if I'm being honest, I come from a family like that. Like, what's in your toothpaste? What's in your deodorant? I mean, I, you know, I'm 55. I grew up in California in the 70s where people were really concerned about this stuff. A lot of them were kind of dippy liberal people. people that we made fun of. And, you know, I still make fun of them.
On the other hand, those concerns turned out to be absolutely real. And if you look at the rates of chronic illness in this country, I mean, it's destroying the country. And I had a conversation last week with a woman called Casey Means, who's a physician.
She's Callie's sister, right?
Callie's sister, Callie's a friend of mine and a wonderful guy, a wonderful guy. But his sister is one of the most powerful people I've ever interviewed in my, you know, in 33 years of interviewing people. I've met very few people like Casey Means. First of all, she has the credibility, the authority. She's top of her class at Stanford Medical School.
She's a surgeon, okay, which is the highest level of medicine, obviously. And she left it all because she thought the system was so corrupt. But the compelling part of the interview for me was just the litany of health statistics that she threw out there. And the country's actually dying. And I sense that.
I've read about it before, but I've never seen those stats collected in one place in the way that she did. And it's an emergency. It's an emergency that I would say supersedes all other emergencies. Sperm counts are down to zero in a lot of men. Like you can't continue the species. So what is causing this is the obvious question.
Autism rates out of control to a much higher level than I ever realized. And so for all the people who said, you know, how dare you speculate about what causes autism? Okay, I don't know what causes autism. I will freely concede that. But something is causing autism, actually. It's not just that the measurements have changed and we're counting autism cases.
Like, no, no, the absolute number of autism cases is to an emergency level. And that's true for a lot of chronic conditions. And nobody cares. And so I'm just saying as a political matter, there are a lot of people who care. And we put that interview up the other day. It's kind of an obscure topic. It has nothing to do with the election or the Ukraine war or inflation.
And the response that we got suggested to me that a lot of people sense this is going on and they want someone to talk about it. And I hope if Bobby endorses Trump, and of course I hope he does, that he'll spend the next couple of months talking about this stuff in public because somebody needs to.
This is one of his favorites. I mean, for sure, this is, he's come on the show many times and I've argued with him about why he doesn't pick up my favorite culture issues and he tells me what his favorite issues are. And that's important too. You know what I mean? What he's pushing, he's right. Nobody else is really talking about.
And so it would be fascinating to see him come into a Trump administration with his unique views and experience. I mean, he made his bones as an environmental lawyer Yes. And he's a true expert on that stuff. And I think Trump would listen to him on the things that he really is an expert on. And maybe we would have a different approach on some of this stuff. So we'll know soon.
I think it would be a great move for him. Well, we got 24 hours or so to figure it out. Okay. I got to talk to you. So much has happened since you last came on. J.D. Vance became Trump's running mate. I also heard you had something to do with that. That is brilliant. And I totally support that move.
I know some Republicans are still they have their noses in a joint, but hopefully they're seeing what a great pick he was now when he's so deftly handling the media. He's everywhere. Last night he was in five different You know, and meanwhile, Tim Walz will only go in front of the golden microphone with her, as you say, not even real people.
So what do you make, though, of the media pile on against J.D. started with an interview he gave to you a couple of years ago or with a childish cat lady? Right. Comment. Nobody wanted to report the context, you know, a snarky remark. But, you know, we went back and played the whole thing. context of the original remarks that he'd made, what you guys were discussing. Nobody does that though.
So now they've demonized this guy as a woman hater, even though all his major role models and mentors and the people, the loving people in his life have been women. And as just a, he hates IVF, even though he's on record as saying he's pro IVF, he's against the, like all the stuff that they've been doing to him has been particularly nasty. So what do you think of it?
Well, I mean, the childless cat lady thing I felt bad about, I'm pretty sure I haven't went looked at the tape again, but I'm pretty sure I egged him on to say something like that. And I think it's a mean thing. I think I'm responsible for that. And. I have a tendency to get way over my skis and get mean. And I regret that. You know, it's very ugly.
And I'm I'm I'm ashamed of the many, many times when I've said nasty things like that. I feel sorry for childless people, whether they have cats or not. And I mean it as someone who has four children who are the root of my happiness. You know, I really feel compassion. And the whole point.
Well, the intended point, I may have distorted it in getting cable newsy and being nasty to people, but the whole point is we should be encouraging people to experience the things that make them the happiest. And I think any parent will tell you, as hard as it is having kids, that is one of the main sources of happiness for people from the beginning of time.
And if we're discouraging that or making it impossible for people to have kids, that's on us. That's a major sin, and we should try to make it better. So I just want to say that, that I felt bad about that and many other nasty things I've said over the years where I diminish people or make fun of their appearance. That's that's totally wrong. So I'm sorry. But I would say of J.D.
Vance, it was hilarious because he's so weird. He hates what he's like, one of the only politicians I know. And I know a lot of politicians who has a happy, normal marriage. He actually cares what his wife thinks. She's his partner, like actual partner. She's very smart and a really nice person, a cool person. And he isn't like a normal happy marriage.
If you brought I've actually been around it in private. If you brought a camera into J.D. Vance's household, you would see like a husband who loves his wife, a father who loves his children like you really would. You can't say that for almost any other politician on either side. And I don't want to be mean. I've already said I don't want to be mean. But like that, that Walls guy is a creep.
I'm just telling you that as someone who went to boarding school in the 80s, like I know exactly who that guy is. And I'm sorry. It's just, you know, I hope I'm wrong. I don't think I am.
And honestly, Tucker, why is he so obsessed with transing children, making it possible for them to separate from their parents and have their body parts chopped off? Hello.
Yeah. Well, I lived in a boys dorm in a New England boarding school in the 1980s with a lot of guys like Tim Walls. OK, so I saw that guy. I'm like, oh, wow. I know exactly. You're a creeper, as we used to call him, for sure. And, you know, I guess I probably shouldn't. I definitely shouldn't. suggest what I'm suggesting without evidence. I don't have evidence beyond what I've seen.
So I just want to say that I'm probably again, you mean like a pervert?
I got it. When you say creepy, I just there's something wrong with that guy.
He's a weirdo. He's a weirdo. And you can tell watching him. And I'm sorry, I just lived long enough that I know that your gut level perceptions are rooted in truth. They're not always precisely true. I've gotten many things wrong, like the details are unknown to me. But I look at that guy and I'm like, you're a weirdo. And everyone's like, no, it's so normal. No, not normal. Sorry.
And so there's another thing. There's another thing about Tim Walz that hasn't gotten as much airtime. And it's true. He actually did remove they were coming up with the Minnesota human rights law and revising it, renewing it. You know, this class is protected. You can't discriminate against these people and you can't discriminate against gays and lesbians. And the law had said, to be clear,
pedophiles get no protection under this law. Pedophiles do not fall under the definition of a protected class. And they removed that language. They removed that language under Tim Walz. that the pedophiles, so it made it more ambiguous. Now, some of the LGBTQ community said, well, we removed that because we don't want to be associated with it.
We don't need to say that right after you're talking about gay people. We shouldn't even be in the same breath as pedophiles, but it did make it more ambiguous. And some objected saying, why would we take this out and make it less clear that we're not trying to protect pedophiles? In any event, it remained out and Tim Wall signed that bill. I'm not saying he's a pedophile.
I'm just saying you don't hear about this stuff in the mainstream media because they're so determined to tell us he's our dad.
And by the way, what is he doing in a high school setting with children talking to them about their sex lives?
Tell us about mental toughness and how your dad made sure you had it.
Well, I am so fortunate to have, I didn't realize this at the time, but of course, as you get older, I realize now how fortunate I am to have two amazing parents who love each other very much, who taught me how to be an independent thinker, how to call out an injustice when you see it. Um, so I could not be more grateful for my parents who were both high level athletes.
Uh, my mom, she was a division one softball player. My dad, uh, he's an sec hall of famer football player, uh, went on to play for the Eagles. Um, it's been a good bit in the NFL. And so, um, them having that background inclined, uh, was a big part in me playing sports, I But when I was young, probably eight years old, my dad, he did some different business endeavors.
And so I went with him on a business trip to Memphis, Tennessee. And I will never forget. We are at this hotel. I normally, of course, you know, never really traveled with just my dad. It was always all of us as a family, but it was a fun little bonding trip. So we're at this hotel and he says, Riley, come, come down to the lobby with me. And I'm like, okay, you know, what are we doing?
He takes me to the pool at this hotel. It's outside. It's in the middle of December. And he's like, jump in. I'm like, dad, I'm not jumping in that pool. It's freezing. He pulled back the tarp. He said, no, you're going to jump in. This is your first lesson of mental toughness. You're going to jump in and you're not going to say you're cold. You're not going to, to shiver.
And I'll tell you when you can get out. I'm like, dad, this is child abuse. You can't make me do that. I'm calling mom. Um, but I listened to him. I jumped in, uh, confused, you know, what is this for? Finally, after five minutes or so of treading in the water, he said, okay, you can come out. And then we go back to the room. I'm still shivering. I'm like, dad, what was that about?
He said that, like I said, you need to learn mental toughness because physical toughness. Yeah. It's important, but mental toughness will take you further. Um, there's no such thing as cold Riley. He said, there's such thing as an absence of heat, but there's no such thing as cold. It's a mental state. You think you're cold. He said, you're not really. And I will never forget that.
It has stuck with me since. And every time when I was swimming or practicing and I began to, you know, your legs burn, you feel your body filling with lactic acid. You're tired. You're in pain. I thought to myself, pain isn't real. Just a feeling that I'm having. It's fleeting. It's in the moment, but Not real.
So this is the difference between you and virtually everybody. I mean, I remember talking to some Navy SEALs about this and that's how they get through training. Like, I don't feel the pain. I don't feel the lactic acid. I tried that at my very next workout and it was not true.
It's not true. We mere mortals do feel pain. But it's those lessons that I learned when I was young. My dad was right because they have transcended beyond athletics.
Um, I'm able to do what I do now with a smile on my face with an incredibly light heart, not worrying, not caring, not feeling anxious or stressed about, um, what we're up against because I know what I'm standing for is the right thing.
This brings me to something I've always wanted to ask you. So my audience knows I used to be on the wrong side of this whole issue. You know, and I played clips of myself at NBC feeding into all of this. You know, I was still in the mindset of be compassionate. It's a very small group. They're very badly bullied and using the pronouns, even when I launched the show.
Not so much on the other side, but on the pronouns I was still using.
When I launched the show and then I started, you know, I remember when you like it was a defining moment for me to watch you kind of go off on. It was it was very powerful. It was very fiery, but I needed to see that. So I don't know if you know just how many people you've inspired and influenced since taking that stand.
That was a big decision for me to turn on the pronouns naturally. And, you know, like you, there have been so many women who have inspired me. You're one of them. But Kelly J. Keene, Helen Joyce, Abigail Schreier's book, there's just been all these other great women who were to this party nice and early and have been waving the flag saying, hold on, hold on, hold on. J.K.
Rowling, how brave she's been, all of it. But I always wanted to ask you about when you were swimming and Leah Thomas, you found out you're going to have to swim against him. So how did your mind work at the time to say, I'm going to do it?
So we found out in about November of 2021. Actually, let me take you a little further back. So I finished my junior year at University of Kentucky, ultimately placing seventh in the country, which it wasn't the best time, but I was proud of this. You're top eight. You're an All-American. It's a pretty high honor, but I knew I was capable of more.
So it was kind of right then and there that I placed seventh my junior year that I set a goal for my senior year to win a national title. And so... I'm right on pace to achieve this goal. About midway through my senior season, I was ranked third in the nation in the 200 freestyle, trailing the girl in second, a girl I knew very well, by a few one-hundredths of a second.
But the swimmer who was leading the nation by body lengths, might I add, was a swimmer that none of us had ever heard of before. Not me, not my teammates, not my competitors, not my family, not my coaches, none of us. It was the first time we became aware of a swimmer named Leah Thomas. Lots of red flags at the time.
Keep in mind, we hadn't seen a photo of this person or else things probably would have been a little more clear. But we really continued to stay in the dark until an article came out disclosing that Leah Thomas is actually Will Thomas and swam three years on the men's team at UPenn before deciding to switch to the women's team. Whereas you said ranked... was mediocre at best.
He was a less than average male swimmer. Still competing at the Division I level, so obviously he was a good swimmer.
Yeah, but just not compared to the other men.
But not when it came to national rankings or achievements. When I found out about this, naturally, we were shocked. But really, when I think about how I felt, it was like this overwhelming sense of relief. Like, oh, that makes sense. Duh, it's a man. That's why he's beating everyone in the country by so much in multiple events. Duh.
And I didn't think much about it because I thought, surely, I mean, it didn't even cross my mind that the NCAA wouldn't see a problem with this. They won't let him compete with us at NCAAs, the pinnacle of our sport. They'll put a policy in place. I'm sure they already have one in place. This isn't really an issue. He's a man.
So I was very relieved until I found out that the NCAA did not see it that way. They didn't see it the same way that me, again, my teammates, my coaches, anyone with any amount of brain activity saw this issue. They saw no problem with it. But even still, those three weeks, I mentioned how we found out about three weeks before that meet in March of 2022.
Even after finding out leading up to that meet, I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I still felt this sheer sense of curiosity, almost intriguement. What is this going to look like? Is he as tall as Instagram pictures make him look? Is he going to sandbag it? Will he be in our locker room? I mean, there were so many questions that we didn't have answers to that there was a sense of intriguement.
But I'm ashamed for feeling intrigued. I really am, because upon getting to that meet,
Um, seeing the tears that I saw from the girls who placed ninth and 17th and missed out on being named an all American by one place, seeing the tears from the moms in the stands, watching as their daughters are being obliterated in the sport that they once loved, feeling the extreme discomfort in the locker room, hearing the whispers. Cause that's what they were.
They were whispers of, of anger and frustration from these girls who just like myself had worked our entire lives to get to this meet. I remember specifically actually when my feelings really shifted because this was like a week-long meet. You swim prelims in the morning. You have to qualify top 16. You come back that evening. You swim finals.
And that's where you'll achieve your overall national ranking. And so that first day of competition, I'm watching prelims of the 500, which is the event that Thomas would that evening go on to win a national title in. And I'm watching prelims. There's about eight heats or so. My team was sat next to Virginia Tech. One of the swimmers from Virginia Tech, she swam in one of the earlier heats.
She had just finished. She came back to the pool deck, stood by me. I knew her. I didn't know her that well. I really only knew her name and what event she swam. We're watching the final heat swim. This is the event where she knew she was right on the cusp of making top 16.
final heat concludes thomas is swimming thomas dominates she looks up at the scoreboard and she realized she placed 17th and i will never forget because she looked at me again not even really knowing her and she grabbed me my hand with tears running down her face and she said riley i just got beat by someone who didn't even have to try I mean, I have chills telling it again.
I have chills listening.
And that's when those feelings shifted to utter heartbreak. And I realized the severity of what we were dealing with. This wasn't just a circus or a funny ha-ha, like, SNL skit moment anymore. This was real life. And that's when I decided... What cowards we have leading us are coaches, even coaches who I love and respect and who knew this was objectively wrong.
And that it was very hard for you to say anything about it as the competitors. They knew what would happen to you. Of course.
Yeah.
But they were more worried about their own heights.
Of course. And again, I understand because the risk and the threats, they're real. I'm not sitting here saying that it's easy. Well, actually, I am. It is easy to say that. that there are two sexes. That's not hard to say.
But very few have said it, right? Paula Scanlon spoke out. You, Penn Swimmer, you spoke out. But almost no one else that I know of.
No, there's been very, very few. Very few. People think it's either, of course, they're terrified, they're scared, they believe it when their universities or administrators tell them they won't get a job or they won't get into grad school or they'll lose their friends. Or people genuinely think it's not their problem. They think, oh, well, I'm done competing. It happened to me, but...
I'm moving on. It's on to the next thing. It won't happen again. Really?
It basically felt like I was surrendering to evil and and I was trying to convince myself to be fine with it. So we're staying in this nice resort in Sedona. They had a guarded gate and I pay attention to that kind of stuff because of my background. And a lot of the guys knew me that worked in there for from from my podcast and and wanted to talk. Well, this we're there for a week.
The last day I walk through and it's this old, old man in there and he's wanting to talk to me. Me and my wife had gone up to a hike because I was like, I just got to get the hell out of here. Maybe a hike will make me feel better. Walk back down and and this guy starts trying to talk to me. It's dark at this point. I had already kind of surrendered like I'm done.
i didn't feel good but i kind of made my decision like i'm not doing this anymore and um i'm kind of looking at him over the shoulder like i'm i'm not in the mood to like strike up a conversation and but my wife starts talking to him and i'm like shit i just want to go to my room so i turn around and this guy this guy read my mind from front to back. And I mean, like I've never had that happen.
It wasn't, I mean, it was descriptive. It scared the shit out of me because I was like, how are you in my head? And he started rattling off all these thoughts that I was having on that entire hike. And he's like, this stuff that's going on in China, that's not your fight anymore. And this stuff that's going on with the kids, that's not your fight either.
And this stuff that's going on with the trans community, that's not your fight anymore. and i my i had shut down i was like well how was this guy in my head right now so freaked me out we're walking back to to our bungalow we were in a place where it was like kind of like a duplex and um we're on one side somebody else on another side we got there we got when we got to sedona uh
My best friend that I was referring to earlier, his name's Gabe. He died of a heroin overdose later on. But Gabe was a SEAL. Gabe was a pro hockey player. Gabe was a fighter. We was into MMA. Gabe was at the agency with me. And no matter where Gabe was, Gabe was always known as a protector. Like no matter what unit he was in, no matter what, Who he was with could be the manliest of all men.
Like, everybody knows Gabe has got you. And he was my best friend. Well, we get there, and we see this guy, and he looks identical. He could be Gabe's identical twin. I mean, you could see differences, but same brow line, same jaw line, same build, same walk, same three-day shadow, same everything. Muscular. And me and my wife are both like, man, that looks exactly like Gabe.
And everywhere we would go, this guy was at. If we were at the pool, this guy was at the pool. If we were going on a hike, this guy was coming back from a hike. If we were out in town getting dinner, he was out in town getting dinner. And we had always thought it was weird because I kind of had a breakdown on the plane to Sonona. And so I was in a vulnerable spot. My wife knew it.
I was in a vulnerable spot. I knew it. I was with my buddy Dave and he knew it. And it was just odd that Gabe, who's always known as a protector, is like every this guy that looks identical to him is everywhere. Well, it turns out right from that gate, we walked to. our bungalow. And it turns out this guy and his family is staying right across the, the thing from us.
And we hadn't seen him all week. And I'm like, that was weird. And on the way back, I'm telling Katie, I'm like, holy shit. Like, I think, I think that was God that was reading my mind. And she's like, yeah, Sean, that was God. And I'm like, I can't believe this. Like, how is this happening? And, and she's like, Sean, God's always been around you. You just don't make time for them.
And I knew that to be true. So we get to the bungalow. Gabe's staying across the way or the lookalike, whatever you want to call it. We find out he's staying right across. This is all within like 10, 15 minutes. Then we go in and I am...
i'm crying and i'm like i can't believe this is happening and right before also right before we went to zona uh a good friend of mine uh his name was dan cirillo died uh he was kind of the only he was a seal uh and a businessman and he lived in franklin and i don't have a lot of people that i can relate to uh where I live now in Franklin. And Dan is one of those guys that...
he's very successful. He owned a couple of hospitals. He owned a, a, a big security business. And he's like one of the few people that I can sit down with and talk business and talk friends. And he doesn't need anything from me and I don't need anything from him. And those, you know, those relationships get hard to come by. And, uh, so we hit it off really fast.
And then he died on a hunting trip with his son, had a heart attack. And, um, and, uh, but Hey, I mean that if there's a way to go, uh, good on him. But, uh, anyways, his daughter who I had never met, I'm having this breakdown in the, in the hotel and, uh, his daughter, I heard my phone go, go off while I was talking to Katie.
And as soon as we kind of finished what we were talking about, about what was going on, I checked my phone and it's from his daughter and, and, uh, It's this text. I'd never even met her before. And she says, she must have got my number from her dad's phone. And she said, hey, Sean, this is Taylor, Dan's daughter.
And I just walked into my dad's gun room for the first time since he had passed away. And he grabbed me by the arm and told me that I needed to contact you because you knew a side of him that nobody else knew. And that he wanted me to tell you that he loves you just the way that you are and that you're doing exactly what you should be doing. And then...
uh, I'm trying not to lose it right now, but, um, but, uh, so that was like the third thing all within, like I said, 10, 15 minutes. And I was like, Holy shit. Like there's no to die on this one. And, uh, and, uh, yeah. And so, you know, I grew up Catholic and never really took church seriously. Uh, I never did. And then when I left home, I never really went back and had kind of lost faith.
And I'm not saying I wasn't a believer. I just didn't really care. I didn't think about it. And I had definitely no time for God. And so I took that as a, I mean, that was like a slap in the face. And I, I decided I needed to get serious about faith and at least look into it. And so I started looking into it and, and it's, and it's been great.
And, and, you know, to be honest, it's the only thing I can find that makes any damn sense anymore. And it's all, it's all in that book. Everything we're seeing happening right now is in that book.
Is that how you started just reading the Bible?
I did. I did. I started trying to read it from front to back and, and, uh, I wasn't really getting anywhere.
Some shocking stuff in that Old Testament. Yeah. If you go that way.
Yeah. But then turns out, as it turns out, my entire team, I'm really close with my team, my podcast team, the guys that work for me and make it what it is.
and uh turns out one guy's was raised southern baptist super well versed in the bible my editor darren uh grew up a jehovah's witness and uh escaped escaped it but but knows i mean knows that book from front to back um my it guy adam uh devout catholic knows it all everything elijah my production manager he's the southern baptist guy
and they kind of started pouring into me and and a lot of my buddies that were in the seal teams uh eddie penny really kind of paved the way for all of this i think uh eddie penny was uh we were team two together and then he went on to dev group and uh just like oh ma like i mean
not who you would expect to come to faith but he was my christmas episode a couple years ago and ever since he came on and gave his testimony of how he came to everybody that's been on the show has brought it up and um and he became kind of a mentor of mine so i called eddie and told him and i said hey this is what happened really know where to start. I don't really know what this means.
And we had a conversation. And he goes, who he was like, Oh, man, he's like, a lot of us have been praying for this to happen.
Wow.
And that kind of freaked me out. I was like, well, what do you mean? And he's like, we've been waiting for this. He's like, you have a big voice and this needs to happen. And so that was at about midnight. Now I'm getting into some other kind of weird synchronicity coincidences. And so about 12 hours later, I had a meeting that Adam, my IT guy, had scheduled with me at noon. And
eddie was telling eddie was telling me during the conversation he was he was talking about guardian angels and all this other stuff that was spiritual warfare stuff that i know like nothing about well fast forward 12 hours i'm talking to adam i didn't know what this meeting i thought it was about email marketing or something and uh he wanted to talk to me about spiritual warfare and guardian angels wow and i was like
It was literally like almost the exact same conversation as I had had with Eddie Penny.
You're like, that's not on the drop down menu of message manager. I know.
And they're not friends. I mean, Adam is with all due respect.
They hadn't coordinated? Those two guys? No.
Eddie is a built like a shit brick house, a dev group operator. And Adam is a it computer nerd who I love to death. And, uh, so no, they don't, they don't, there's no cross pollination. They're not friends. I've never spoken exact same conversation at noon, come home for lunch from my studio to be with the wife and kids. And, um, Adam, uh, And anyways, I go back to work.
I look at my clock in my truck and it says it's 444. I look at the odometer. It says 444 miles left to E. And this is four hours and 44 minutes after my conversation with Adam about guardian angels. So I look up the meaning of 444 and it is your guardian angels want you to know that they have got you. And
i'm just i'm like holy man like we just had two conversations about guardian angels and now i'm seeing 444 everywhere within gabe yeah and and and it's in the meaning of it supposedly according to google is your guardian angels want you to know that they've got you And and so I've been in it ever since. And and I've had some great mentors and started going to church that didn't last very long.
And and now we have we have a group of there's four families, including us, a lot of trust, very close friends of ours. And we we just have a discussion every week, every every Tuesday. So when I get home today, that's that's that's what we're doing. And it's cool. You get to ask the tough questions. You don't need to be embarrassed. You're not going to offend anybody.
You don't feel judged like you're going to church. You know, I always feel like I'm being judged.
Hello, we're Catholic.
Built in. And there's none of that. And, man, you know, when you kind of take all of the BS that religion kind of injects into your journey of building a relationship with the Creator and Jesus, It's really interesting and it can be a lot of fun.
I know what you're saying. My audience knows I've been having a not unrelated struggle on that exact score.
Really?
Yeah, yeah. I'm Catholic, lifelong Catholic, and I started the process of having my first marriage annulled. And instead of like bringing me closer to God or setting me in a path that I thought would land well, it really has kind of alienated me. And it's caused a bit of a crisis of faith, you know, like who are these middlemen I have to go through in order to have a clean relationship with God?
That doesn't make any sense to me. I think God loves me and God sees me in a loving marriage with three wonderful kids who have two great parents who are in love and he's thrilled and he will accept me into his kingdom when it's all said and done. And if he doesn't, it's certainly not going to be because I didn't get a paper.
I got a paper divorce from Dan, but I didn't get an annulment from a priest, you know, and then Mary dug in a Catholic church. It doesn't make any sense to me. So that's sort of where I am right now. I'm still wrestling with it. I got tons of great feedback.
By the way, thank you to my audience because so many thoughtful emails on it, you know, from Catholic listeners, but also just Christian listeners who don't believe in that, you know, middleman thing either. I haven't resolved it.
Well, I'll give my opinion to myself. Why? The middleman is a lie. There are no middlemen. It's just about you and your relationship. And that's it. I'll let you know that. And when you think like that, I mean, it gives me a sense of peace, you know? And then you start looking at all the stuff that's going on, like Trans Visibility Day being declared on Easter Sunday.
Like, you can't tell me these aren't signs, you know? And this is all, like I said, this is all in there. I'm still reading through it. I'm not through it all yet. I don't claim to be an expert, but...
but you know i see things i have a team to lean on who's well versed in this stuff and very fortunate and uh and it's everything we're seeing happen is in that book and when you can when you come to that realization it's really odd but all the stuff that like all the stuff that was bothering me and it still does bother me
but at the same time, it makes me stronger because up that was supposed to happen, you know, up that's in that book up like really like trans visibility day, a confusion of genders on Easter Sunday, making a mockery of the resurrection. Like that was in there.
Yep.
And, uh,
And so... So how do you feel now? Do you feel a difference physically, emotionally now versus during the Chinese trial balloon period, which was dark?
Definitely. I mean, I'm at peace with it. I mean, I'm still going to fight the good fight and I'm still going to bring truth and uncover corruption and tell these stories and I'm not going to bend a knee to anything and...
and but you know it it but seeing it all happen it's it is actually making me stronger because i found something in a world of nothing that makes any sense at all not a damn bit of sense this makes all the sense in the world it's it aligns with the values that i've always had or maybe i align with its values you know but um
but it yeah it's helped me and uh and then you start learning about you know maybe forgiveness is for you and not for the people that
did something bad to you that was unjust you know it's it's it's for your sense of peace not for theirs you know you can you can go on and waste all that bad energy hating somebody and talking about them and you know complaining you know i got screwed over and i'm a victim but the minute you forgive them that's off your plate and it just it it's it's it's like a cleanse
Amen. God bless you. Thank you so much. I saw you on The View yesterday where they were trying to zero in on you and Biden and this presidential race and those ladies really, really, really wanted you to say that you endorse him. You didn't want to do it, but eventually you admitted, okay, it's kind of a binary choice here.
I mean, it's basically a binary choice and that you're not going to vote for Trump. So why wouldn't you just be explicit about it? I wondered about the hesitation.
Um, simply because I'm, you know, I'm not, I'm not a fan. And, you know, I don't think that, uh, you know, an endorsement, like people think that me not wanting to endorse means that I'm not voting, which I think is the strangest, strangest thing ever. There was another moment in that conversation where I even said, hey, that's third party candidates.
Whoopi told me she'll beat my behind if I bring up, you know. third party candidate. So I just think it's kind of strange where we are as a culture and as a society, where it's almost like there's either one of two extremes.
And if you're a person who just, you know, simply chooses to be objective, simply, you know, chooses to look at, you know, both candidates and say, Hey, I think there's some right things here. There's some wrong things there. There's some good things here. There's some, you know, good things over here. Like just me being able to explore, uh, Both options are all options that are out there.
For some reason, it bothers people. And I don't understand why.
Yes, they were really pressing you. They were like, do Biden a solid. They wanted you to go to your audience and say, vote for Biden. And it was very strange. Like, you know, you've got some magic wand that's going to turn this thing if you just say, I endorse. Can I ask you about third parties? Would you consider RFKJ?
I mean, I've looked at all of them. I've looked at RFK. I've looked at Marianne Williamson. I've looked at Cornel West. Like, I've looked at all of them. I've been looking at third parties since, you know, 2016. Like, you know, like 2016, people would say we didn't have the best options, right? But I felt like Hillary Clinton was, you know, overly qualified to be president.
But it's not like I didn't explore everything. I explored everything. After President Obama, I explored everything. I explored conservatives. I explored the Green Party. I explored Democrats. I feel like that's what you should do as an American citizen. I don't think the two-party system has been the best thing for us here in America.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with exploring everything. I'm actually shocked that there hasn't been a third-party candidate that's been able to come along and like... really galvanize people, especially being that America seems to be, you know, so disappointed in the choices that we have now.
Do you think that there is more pressure on you to, quote, endorse because you're black and there's a presumption that you have some influence with black voters who not by huge margins, but by some margins are migrating from the Democrat to the Republican Party or at least from Biden to Trump?
I think people, I don't know if people are necessarily, and I see the numbers, like I think I said, what, 22% of people, 22% of black people may vote for Donald Trump. I think that number's overstated a little bit, but my guy, Tim Ryan, you know, who used to be a congressman in Ohio, Tim Ryan always, well, senator in Ohio, I'm sorry. Tim Ryan used to always, he talks about the exhausted majority.
And I think that's what most people are in this country. We're the exhausted majority. So it's not even just about being tired of, you know, Democrats or being tired of Republicans. People are just tired of politics, period. You know, and I think that's what you're seeing a lot of now. Like even, you know, having the conversation about, you know, who I'm choosing to vote for.
Listen, I've said it over and over what I think about both candidates. Right. And it's it's only me. I don't know what's going to happen between now and November. I don't think much is going to change. But if these people want people to be if these parties want people to be more energized about their candidates, maybe they should just run better candidates. I don't think it's rocket science.
In the book, you write about your background. You grew up pretty poor in a single wide trailer and spending most of your time running around through the woods and had a very hardworking mom, had a more complicated relationship with your dad. Did you ever think that that kid who was learning how to catch a rattlesnake in his spare time would...
be in the position now where it's like your magic words of I endorse this candidate would be so important, right, to political TV shows and pundits.
No, not on that aspect. I always knew that I was... you know, here to do something. I always felt that in my spirit. I used to be in my grandmother's yard in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, and the field, like, there used to be a field in front of her yard that used to separate my grandmother's house and, like, my cousin Gloria's house.
Back when I was smaller, the field seemed so big, but it's actually not that big. But I used to always be acting like I was on a stage, and I used to be acting like, you know, I was performing. And it was always like I was in a rock band. And then as I got older, it was like I was a rapper. So I always knew that I was... supposed to be delivering some kind of message.
And this is, might sound kind of crazy to some people, but I remember meeting a medium back in 2006. And, you know, he, he said to me, he goes, you know, he was just talking to me and he said, you know, you're going to achieve a lot of your goals relatively easy, but I just want you to know that, you know, when you get the way you're supposed to go, you're here to deliver a message.
And that same medium told me that he saw like a microphone in my future. And he was talking about radio and he said, he, He was naming different radio personalities. And it was not spooky at the time, but it was just like, hmm. He even told me I was going to have a daughter. And that was in 2006. I didn't have my first daughter until 2008. So long story short, I always knew.
Yeah.
You know, I think I read the book and I really enjoyed it. And I think what makes you special is your extreme ability to be introspective, reflective about your life, to keep challenging yourself, to keep changing, keep growing. And you're very, very honest about
what you perceive as your own shortcomings, whether it was early on in your marriage, something you addressed, whether it was the life lessons you took from your dad and your uncle and you're sort of growing up, which you realized as an adult, weren't so great, or even right down to, we don't have to get into it, but like the size of certain man parts that you just like Howard Stern style, put it out there, Charlemagne.
I have to say you're a brave man.
I don't know if you call it brave. I think that we lack self-awareness, man. And I think that one of the main reasons that, you know, a lot of people just aren't being honest with themselves, which is why the book is called Get Honest or Die Lying, is because it's so easy to be real with other people, but it's so hard to be real with yourself.
And, you know, they have all of these cliche terms, like, I keep it real. But usually, the people who keep it real can only do that with others. But man, when that mirror gets in front of them, it's very hard for them to have those super honest conversations with they self. And my whole life, that's what I've challenged myself to be, just honest.
Because my dad used to always tell me something when I was young. He was like, man, when you lie to me, you're not lying to me. You're lying to yourself. And that's something that just always stuck with me. And you can kind of tell the people who are lying to their self in our society. And I went away on a spiritual retreat earlier this year, me and my wife.
And one of the things that came up for me during that time away was stop lying to yourself and stop volunteering those lies to other people. And that's literally what I wrote this book for. I wrote this book for people to stop lying to themselves and stop volunteering those lies to other people.
All right, I've got to read you this because my fourth grade boy was at an end of year ceremony just two days ago. And my husband and I went and their fourth grade teacher read to this class of boys the following poem, which speaks exactly to what you're saying. I cried. I'm not going to lie. You're a dad. You can be able to relate. But it's called That Guy in the Glass. It's by Dale Wimbrow.
And it goes as follows. When you get what you want in your struggle for self and the world makes you king for a day, then go to the mirror and look at yourself and see what that guy has to say. For it isn't your mother, brother or friends whose judgment you must pass. The person whose verdict counts most in your life is the one staring back at the glass.
You can go down the pathway of years receiving pats on the back as you pass, but your final reward will be heartache and tears if you cheated that guy in the glass. That's exactly what you're saying. That's a theme of your book in some ways.
Powerful words. Whoever that was who wrote that, they remixed Michael Jackson, Man in the Mirror. I just want you to know I'm talking about the man in the mirror.
Man in the mirror. Yeah.
I'm asking him to change his way. That's all that is. But whoever wrote that is absolutely positively true. The hardest thing for us to do is look in the mirror every day and be honest with ourselves. And I literally challenge myself every day. I wake up every day. And before I'm honest with anybody else,
before I'm telling anybody else about, you know, what I think they may be doing wrong, or if I give them compliments on what they're doing right, I talk to myself first. Like, you know, that inner voice in your head, the things you tell yourself are really the most important. And that's what I do every morning.
It's it's something you've worked at. You've cultivated. I you talk in the book about the therapy you've been through all the way down to I don't know if this didn't exactly come from your therapist, but you have a spiritual guru in your life as well. And the tree hugging, you're a tree hugger, but not exactly in the Green New Deal sense in a different kind of way. Yeah.
Yeah, it's a chapter called Tree Hug the Block.
And, you know, I just talk about the benefits of, you know, doing things like forest bathing, you know, walking around in your yard with your shoes off and your socks off and just doing grounding exercises, you know, going up to trees, putting both hands on the trees, putting your forehead on the tree, taking a few deep breaths, you know, saying a prayer, you know, sometimes, you know, just sitting shirtless with your back
to the tree, you know? Me and one of my spiritual advisors, her name is Yadi Alba, we laugh because, you know, she always says, you know, lay down in the ground, face down, ass up, right? And just let the earth, just feel the earth.
And man, you'd be surprised how when you're stressed out or if, you know, you're battling like a bout of depression or your anxiety levels are high, you'd be surprised how that just brings you right back to center. And, you know, we used to laugh, you know, back in the day at the people who used to consider themselves You know, tree huggers, you'd be like, oh, man, they just high.
Everything is great when you're high. And guess what? Megan, they right. You know, when you're walking around doing some grounding in the backyard, or even when you're not high, it really does feel great, and it really does bring you back to center in a real way. I like the beach, too. I like walking barefoot on the beach. I would hope I'm...
I would hope the only time you're walking on the beach is barefoot, but walking on the beach barefoot, going in the ocean, you know, you know, being in the ocean, looking right up at the sun, saying a prayer directly from the water to the sun, man, all of that brings you back to center in such real ways.
I know you say in the book, if you, if you're feeling self-conscious about hugging a tree of actually hugging a tree, putting your face up against the tree, start small, maybe just sit with your back up against the tree. So people don't think you're crazy, but you could kind of graduate to a full five minute hug of a tree and it actually could be transformative.
That's such a beautiful way of dealing with anxiety, which you admit you have dealt with for years versus just taking a pill, which is what the medical community will push on you these days.
Oh, absolutely. You know, I'm not against, you know, anybody who needs medication, you know, for certain things. But, you know, personally, I've never had to use it. I remember my father, even when I was young, when they were trying to put me on like Ritalin as a child, you know, my father was like, no.
You know, back then, though, it wasn't, you know, he don't need Ritalin because he don't need to just be on medication. It was he don't need no Ritalin. He needs Asbeat. Right. But even now, it's like I don't we don't we don't necessarily medicine shouldn't be the first thing.
option all the time you know i feel like you know this is a glorious earth that we that we're on and like there's a lot of natural remedies and holistic remedies that we could be you know tapping into that bring us a those same results a lot of those uh things in the pharmaceutical pharmaceutical world do
So how did you make it so big in radio and now podcasting too with the kind of anxiety that you suffer from? And as you were growing up, you talk about how it was very much social anxiety. How did you get over that? How do you deal with that to this day?
That's the strangest thing about anxiety, right? Like anxiety creeps up on you at weird times. It's those times when you're just literally laying on your couch at home and then all of a sudden you get up and you start checking to see if all the doors are locked, right? Or, you know...
Like, you can be laying on the couch and there's a ceiling fan going and you just start thinking to yourself, what if that ceiling fan, you know, flies off and, like, cuts my head off? Like, it's just the stupidest, strangest things. But when it comes to, like, getting in front of a microphone and talking to millions of people, yes, there's a level of anxiety there.
But for some reason, it doesn't give you, you know... those same panic attacks of just going through regular everyday life.
I have no idea why I'm able to get in front of a microphone and talk to millions of people effortlessly, but I can't be in a party with 50 people without wanting to go home, because I'm already having a panic attack, because I'm thinking about the worst possible scenarios happening.
I am too, but it's usually that guy over there is going to come over here and talk to me. It's not about the ceiling fans.
Oh God, I don't want to deal with him. That is actually another reason I wrote this book. That's why I think small talk sucks because I don't think they understand when you're a person who's already dealing with anxiety and you've had to say prayers and do breathing exercises and put your beads on, right? And all your other things just to show up in the world.
The last thing I want to do is have a meaningless, conversation with a stranger. At least come into my life or come up to me and bring me a conversation of value that may ease whatever it is I got going on. I tell a story in the book about I tell a story in the book how I was at the airport and, you know, I'm a person who's been attacked in the street a couple of times, right?
Like right here, right here in New York City, you know, just for things that I've said on the radio. Like, you know, back in the day, though, not anything recently, but like over a decade ago. But you still have that PTSD from things like that. So I'm at the airport and this guy comes up to me and he's trying to talk, but he's like... not really saying anything, so automatically I'm on alert.
And then he finally goes... He's stuttering, and he's telling me that he has a speech impediment. So he's asking me to bear with him while he gets out what it is he's trying to get out. he cut the small talk, you know? And he told me exactly what it was from the beginning. So that one little moment eases my anxiety and lets me know, okay, this person isn't a foe.
He's not any type of opposition in any way, shape, or form. He just has something he wants to say to me, and it's hard for him to get out. And if that individual who has a speech impediment can let me know that, we can do the same thing. We should be able to tell people, hey, man, I don't want to talk about that right now.
I never linked social anxiety to the hatred of small talk. I have to say I too hate small talk and have a fair amount of social anxiety, not anxiety in the regular lane, but social anxiety. And I had never linked the two. This is actually an insightful thought that one is causing the other. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM.
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Charlie, congratulations.
Thank you. Well, as Kamala Harris would say, we did it, Joe, but we did it, Megan. And your speech was awesome, by the way. Thank you for your support and how amazing that was. I really believe that moved votes and not to mention just your podcast here. I think it held the line.
with sane women in this country and gave them an understanding of the stakes and gave them an understanding of really what we are up against and so you deserve a lot of credit too megan uh because this was really a coalition um there's so much to unpack from this election uh part of it is also how alternative media was able to crush uh the major propagandist networks
And you look at four years ago during COVID, all of our alternative media was largely censored, but we won this time. Podcasts and shows like this one, Joe Rogan, my show, the All In podcast, the left couldn't keep up with it. And President Trump, to his great credit, built a once in a lifetime unity ticket, which I think the media completely underestimated from Bobby Kennedy to Tulsi Gabbard.
And then finally, of course, It cannot be repeated enough. God bless Elon Musk. I mean that guy put it all on the line. I mean it wasn't just like he wrote a check and hoped it would get better. He lived in Pennsylvania the last 45 days of the election. He personally would host town halls across the state of Pennsylvania.
He was giving away a million dollars a day to random citizens to help encourage citizen participation. And so there's a lot of people that deserve credit. We all kind of played a small role. And that's why it feels so different than 2016. 2016 was just lightning in a bottle, took them by surprise. It was a movement. This was really fantastic.
30 or 40 different people that went all in that we just called the bluff of the Democrats and we beat the most powerful thing ever to exist in the history of the world. It's pretty awesome. Praise God.
Oh, it's amazing. And you are so generous and kind to be giving me any credit when you truly deserve actual credit for getting Donald Trump elected. I mean, truly, you're one of a handful of five that really made the difference. And we need look no further than the youth vote. That wasn't the... exclusive reign of your influence. But man, when have young people come out for the Republican?
I mean, like never. And especially in today's day and age where he's been totally demonized all over TikTok and the sources of information that they use. But you reached beyond I mean, obviously, there's not that many people voting in this election. I mean, the number of views of your videos going out onto these college campuses, you know, challenging them, saying, go ahead.
Like, why are you voting for her? Let's walk through it. That would go viral every time. We have to look at some of them because, like I said, it's just so fun right now. Here's one woman who was very much determined to believe that Donald Trump is a racist. And here's Charlie dismantling her. Sought to.
You've got to give me a good reason, at least two, why you don't like Trump.
He's racist. Oh, my God!
Yup, boomy. Can you define what does it mean to be racist?
Do you want me to look up a definition?
No, no, I want you to... You said he's a racist, so you must have a definition of racism in your mind. Tell me what that definition is.
Okay, so... Ooh, I'm gonna make you guys wait on this. Ooh, zero knowledge.
Guys, please don't heckle.
It's hatred towards another race, right?
So when has he ever exhibited that? Give me clear and specific examples.
Um, well, yeah, I heard someone say he told, uh... Yes!
Okay, but let me just help you out here. What, you think he's a racist because the media has told you he's a racist? Because you can't give me an example off the top of your head, and even when you phone a friend of the audience. I'm not criticizing you. Maybe the media is lying to you.
Wow. Truer words were never spoken. How many exchanges do you think you had like that on college campuses?
I mean, we had hundreds this semester. That particular video, by the way, received over 60 million views on TikTok alone. And that's just and so we tallied it up. It was, again, billions of views. That means that target young voters were watching our content six, seven, eight, nine, 10 times. And so, Megan, we do these tours.
I visited 25 college campuses this semester, which is the most I've ever done. And over the summer, we said, how do we make a difference? And we were doing these videos in the spring. And I came up with the idea. I said, man, I think the election is going to be as hot as a pistol. I think there's going to be a lot of interest. Why don't we do the most tours ever?
But instead of the traditional evening events, why don't we do these kind of dialogues and these exchanges to try to see if we can – show the world the contrast of ideas and to see which ideas are better and to kind of create this digital movement of people that want to make up their mind. And Megan, it was way more successful than I could have ever imagined.
And part of it was how unscripted it was. There was there was no anyone could come up at any time. a professor, a professional debater. You could bring notes. You could bring 10 friends with you. There's no rules, right? And so that's very interesting to an audience, both digital and in person. And it was so real when so much of this campaign on the Democrat side was fake and synthetic.
And so here we were with the most real thing you can do, which is set up a table and talk to people that are 180 degrees opposed to you. And so we started doing these events in early. The first one we did was University of Wisconsin-Madison, and we drew 2,000 people. And I said, I've been doing this for 12 years. Okay.
I've done more on college campuses than I think anybody in this space, not, you know, belittling anybody, but it's been the fields of which I've been working for 12 years. We'd be lucky to get like a hundred people and a lot of protesters, right? We drew 2000 people in Madison is our first one in September. And I turned to my team. I said, is this an anomaly?
Is there something happening at Madison that I don't know? And all of a sudden we did three or four more and it was becoming the rule that And I said to my team, I said, guys, something is happening on these campuses. And the media was ignoring it.
In fact, we were mocked on social media by all the intelligentsia of the political establishment right and the left saying, oh, you know, the polls show that younger voters are going to go for Kamala than ever before. And I said, well, maybe not. But what I'm seeing is unlike anything I've ever seen before.
And not only that, Megan, our ground game and our ground team was registering these kids to vote. We were getting thousands and thousands of these first-time voters. So it wasn't just like, okay, let's put on a show and we leave. We were translating the support into votes, which is kind of the – was the operating thesis. It was our theory of the case, if you will, as we were going into this.
And then finally – As a kicker, you know, we had Mark McKinnon go to one of our campus stops, who's a fair guy, but he's definitely not a Trumper. And he was a Bush guy. He did the circus. And I've always had respect for him. And he started to see this stuff on social media. And to his credit, to his credit, unlike anybody else, he's like, I need to see this.
I don't believe he was almost like, I don't believe it. So he went to the University of Georgia and we drew 5000 people, Megan, 5000 people at the University of Georgia. And he went, he was like. I said that Kamala was going to win, but now I'm second guessing myself based on what he saw. I was like, yeah, Mark, I mean, there's something happening here.
And now the exit polls, we won the youth vote in Michigan. We almost won it in Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, we don't know, but we almost flipped Center County, which is Penn State. We got within one point of it, which usually it's a 20-point Democrat victory there. And we went to Penn State and did a massive event. We did five events in Penn State, by the way, this cycle for obvious reasons.
And it's tempting to say that it was a landslide, which it was. However, let me kind of humble the audience a little bit. Donald Trump won by less than a point in Wisconsin, about 28,000 votes. He won by a point-ish, 1.2 in Michigan. And then he won by one point in Pennsylvania. And so, Megan, it is conceivable that without this record movement of youth vote, He doesn't win.
And I'm not saying that because I'm, you know, in that space, but we're talking about a point and a half across three states. Now, the Sunbelt states were more generous and were more decisive. But as you know, everyone was saying, if you can't win a Rust Belt state, Kamala is president. So you could say that the kids are all right and the kids put Donald Trump back in the White House.
It's incredible. I mean, no one's really paid that much attention to them before. It's one of those things where Republicans have always assumed they're not gettable. And then along comes Charlie Kirk. I mean, I don't mean to go totally biblical on you, but I really feel like this is destiny. And I've been thinking about you this past week so much because I know we talked about this in 2016.
You were like Don Jr. 's assistant. You were a help. helping him with bags.
I was getting diet Red Bulls for, oh, no, no, sugar-free Red Bulls for Don Jr. I had no Twitter followers. We had Turning Point, but it was a small thing. And yeah, eight years ago, I was a bag carrier.
It's incredible. Okay, so this is what made me think of you, among other things, the obvious. I know you saw this clip. Her disgusting, gross elitism and her complete out-of-touch nature with respect to the rest of the world. Sonny Hostin goes on The View.
and decides now would be a great time to dump all over the so-called uneducated, not non-college educated, the uneducated, which is what you are in Sonny Hostin's view, including you, Charlie Kirk, because he's conflating, right? People who didn't go to college with people who are uneducated. We've got to look at the clip and then I need your reaction.
What we did not have is white women who voted about 52%, right? For Donald Trump, uneducated white women is my understanding. You have Latino men actually voting more for him. And you have, and black men was not the story. We're not the story here because they voted almost 80% for the vice president. So why do you think that uneducated white women voted against their reproductive health freedoms?
And why do you think Latino men voted against in favor of someone that says he's going to deport the majority of his community.
I don't think white women like being called uneducated white women. I think the economy matters, national security matters. But when you put people in these boxes, I think that's a takeaway from this, right?
OK, it's amazing. She's specifically there referring to the women. But of course, it's the non-college educated men as well who voted for Donald Trump and the nerve of this woman to whom the country has given so much to try to dump on people who didn't go to college. Look at you. Look at your achievements. How do you like the so-called uneducated now, Sonny?
Yeah, and by the way, rarely do you get the answer to a question in the question. And her whole question is exactly why there was a rebellion against them. Listen, just because you didn't go to college doesn't mean you're stupid and it doesn't mean that you don't have wisdom. I always differentiate between knowledge and wisdom.
You can go to college and get a bunch of irrelevant facts about how men – Can allegedly give birth or whatever they teach. I mean, it's about North African lesbian poetry. Okay, that's fine, I guess. But I said this to our team. I said working people, the muscular class, including working women in the sense of waitresses and women that work for Amazon.
And there's a lot of women delivery drivers there. They are so in favor of Trump and they don't want to be called stupid or uneducated. And I've said this for so long and it's finally manifested, which is that it is laced into how we do our public opinion polling. And she played into it perfectly because I've said this for a decade.
And finally, I have a piece of evidence to show this more than anything else, that we look at how we elect our leaders in two buckets, stupid and and smart. And the stupid people are the people that don't have a certificate from Yale. And the smart people are $200,000 in debt because they went to Drake.
And so the breakdown though, is that Donald Trump, which by the way, is just smart politics because there's more people that didn't go to college than did go to college. And I know that's really hard for the Democrats to realize because everyone in their circle went to college, but the majority of the country actually does not have a four-year college diploma.
The majority of the country are people that have two-year technical degrees or community college, or they just went into the workforce right out of high school. And so Donald Trump gave these people a voice because they're tired of being told that they're stupid just because they didn't go into debt to go study something that doesn't matter to find jobs that don't exist.
And these people, by the way, Megan, Both men and women, we call them, as I said, the muscular class. They are the ones that kept the economy alive to great personal risk for themselves and their family during COVID.
They're the ones that delivered you your Uber Eats for three months on straight while you in the laptop class were able to keep on doing your job by opening your laptop in the comfort of your home while the Amazon trucks were still delivered and the supply chain went uninterrupted. those people have felt belittled. They have felt talked down to.
And Donald Trump communicated with them better than any candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1988. And the final point I'll say is this, is Sonny, Do you guys thought that abortion was going to be this like quasi zealot religious issue? I'm pro-life. If people in the audience aren't, that's fine.
What I'm saying, though, what gives me promise, and I think we can all agree on this, is that there are other issues that should animate and drive our politics. other than this very divisive one. And I was really encouraged by that, Megan, very encouraged because the media was forcing this as an up or down vote on a referendum on a highly complicated, very emotional, very personal issue.
And it turned out the American people were like, yeah, actually these other six things matter more and good for them.
By the way, Sonny Hostin, I think, went to Notre Dame. Her son's at Harvard. Her daughter's at Cornell. She's married to the Ivy League. And that's why she looks down on everyone else as a bunch of stupid losers who didn't vote the right way because they're not as smart as she is. I spent many years across from Sonny Hostin on the set of Bill O'Reilly. She is not as smart as she thinks she is.
In fact, I defy you to show me one debate we ever had that she won. There isn't one. So I'm not done with the Charlie Kirk homage. Oh boy. We put together a little bit of you on your college tour, just so the audience can see some of the hard work you were doing. Let's play Sot One.
Can you tell me her greatest accomplishment? No, I can't. Can you tell me a single accomplishment? I cannot. I want to leave. What is Kamala Harris's greatest accomplishment?
Could you please explain why under a Trump presidency would be more beneficial to me than a Harris presidency?
I want to try to win you over as a liberal for Donald Trump. Why should I vote for Trump? There's no guesswork in this election. We know the type of president that Trump was and that he will be. There are three things I want you to think about when voting for Trump. Homeownership, border, war. Three objective things.
When I decide, just in case, can I have a hat?
You can have a hat. So which way are you leaning?
Can I get a hat?
How are you leaning this election?
Well, after what you said, Trump.
Let's go!
All right, and two points on that, Charlie. So we had a bunch of kids from my son's high school here with me in studio on election night. And, you know, maybe like, whatever, 15 of them. And they were all Trump supporters. There was no screening. Like, we're only taking the Trump supporters, but that just happened to be how it worked out. And that third point, war... was a big one for all of them.
They're actually really worried about this neocon strain in the Democrat Party because they're the ones who are going to have to go fight it. And so you were tapping into exactly the right thing. And then one other cute point. My kids are in school all day and therefore do not listen to my show every day. They listen to it here and there and they get clips on social media.
And we were talking this week about who I had coming on today and I told them, Charlie Kirk. And my... My son and my daughter, she's 13, he's 15, go, you know Charlie Kirk? I'm like, yes, I know Charlie Kirk. Yes. Could we meet Charlie Kirk? I'm like, I think I could arrange it at some point. But that's how young, you're like a 13-year-old girl. She's seen your clips. She's been influenced by you.
They watched you on that show. Where do they surround you when you debate all the people? Jubilee. jubilee they watched you there i mean you you're making a huge difference not just in today's voters but in the next up and coming ones who are going to be voting four years from now charlie it's huge i do feel there's something divine going on you were chosen for some reason
Well, I'm humbled. And I said this. Well, thank you, Megan. And I'd love to meet your kids. And I just I said this on election night. God gave us grace as a nation. I'm humbled by it. I say praise God. I'm just a small part. And he used what we were doing. I mean this. I had zero expectation that what we were going to do was actually going to move the dial this much. We did it out of obedience.
We did it out of, hey, let's play the role. You know what it's like on a campaign, right, Megan? Oh, if we can move, you know, a couple hundred people and do your part and it all adds up. I had no idea that this thing was going to set off the way it did. And I mean, we look at... we look at these youth vote numbers, it's not normal. It's the best performance by a Republican since 1988.
And allow me to say one other thing about the youth vote that I think you'll really appreciate, Megan, which is the Democrats underestimated how much pent up rebellion energy was there because of how they were treated and lied to during COVID and the political correct regime that coupled with COVID. So they lost proms, graduations. They had to wear masks. They were on Zoom class.
And then during it, they were propagandized with the most ferocious, aggressive, misleading left-wing propaganda on race, on sexuality, on gender, on America that we've ever seen. And so now, four years later, this Gen Z was like, you know what? You guys in charge, the same people that were trying to lock up Trump, you guys materially messed up my life, and I don't like you.
And I think the Democrats misread the vibe. They're about the vibe. They misread it. And we happened to read the room. We saw it. And again, these kids were disproportionately punished for doing nothing wrong during COVID for extended periods of time. And the Democrats just shrugged their shoulders. Oh, kids will get over it. Think about it, Megan.
You know, you remember probably years 13 through 17 more than years, you know, 23 through 27. Those are your formative years. And they were they were robbed by these kids from these kids. And so we played into that in the best possible way. And Donald Trump. became this ascendant symbol of we're going to take back the country so that you can have a better future.
And as I said, at almost every campus stop, you guys represent the first generation since George Washington to have it worse off than your parents. It is a breakdown of the social contract. You are the most depressed, anxious, suicidal. Drug addicted, psychiatric drug addicted, alcohol addicted generation in history. You guys deserve better.
We do politics basically for one reason, to leave a better future for our kids. I mean, all the other stuff is fine, but that's really why we do this, right? So that you can keep this beautiful experiment going. And we failed in that. And this next generation had a say to try to make sure that they could also have access to the American dream like their parents. And they spoke decisively.
And every Democrat right now is scratching their head, going through precinct by precinct, wondering why their safe spots of college campuses like Dane County, Wisconsin, like Center County, Pennsylvania, like Arizona State, like University of Arizona in Tucson, why they move 20 to 25 points in Donald Trump's direction.
It's amazing just the right combination of recognizing what the issues were as created by the Democrats and then getting in there and doing the work to exploit them to reach out to these kids to say, let me let me give you the proper framework for it. You know, I mean, I feel like that's half of what I do on this show.
Let me give you the framework for what's being done to you right now, because it is. they just take out their fire hose and they, they train it on you. And most people are just like on their heels, getting completely pummeled by the fire hose of information about what terrible people they are and why they have to believe boys can become girls or whatever your issue is.
And it does help to have somebody like you go on and say, Let me put in perspective what you're feeling, like the stuff about the anxiety. That's not normal. You don't have to live like this.
That's right.
This has been done to you. I do want to show you something that's happening on college campuses, a few things. But before I move on to that, this is worth playing. At the moment, Trump announced or that it was announced that Trump won SOT3 and Charlie's reaction.
Let's go. There it is.
Everybody should remember this moment. Look, I'm going to echo Charlie from earlier. Remember where you were when this happened. Remember where you were when you realized that the unit party and all of these, you know, just the establishment, you said it's time to actually participate. And look what you guys have done.
And if anyone deserves to get tears in his eyes, it's Charlie. I think we all agree.
No one has worked harder than Charlie for this. We got to hear some words here from you, Charlie. You put all this together, my man.
Let's hear it. I am just humbled by God. It's all God. It's all God.
That is emotional to watch. I share your feeling, Charlie. I felt it that night, too.
I just – I was humbled and blown away because I – throughout this entire thing, I'm getting emotional thinking about it. And I'm sure you agree, Megan. I said there's no way they're going to let us do this. That something's going to happen, right? And again, call it paranoia. Call it – Just trying to be ahead of the curve. And I'm sitting in a seat right here where I saw Trump got shot.
And like they tried to kill him and indict him. And it's like at every turn, I'm like, here we go. The regime is striking back. Right. And it's just you don't think you're actually going to get there because we've been programmed to just say that like powerful people get what they want. Right. And. It's yeah, he was one millimeter from this whole country just going into bedlam.
And what if one of these trials would have went differently? Right. What if Jack Smith would have rushed his cases? And I mean, like a million different things. Right. And there you go. And you hear the words that Donald Trump is president elect. I just again, glory be to God is all I can say.
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