Ben Shapiro Responds to Tucker Carlson, Plus Sydney Sweeney and Newsom, with Michael Knowles and Andrew Klavan - "Megyn Kelly Live" in FL | Ep. 1189

23:41And I do think there's an opportunity. I think in today's day and age, almost 2026 America, it would be so extraordinary if a young screenwriter went into that pitch meeting and was asked a question like that and then responded by saying, well, I'm a conservative, so I see things differently. I did it all the time. I did it all the time. But I kind of think they've been brought to heel a bit. They understand their Wokapalooza movie extravaganza was a nightmare. It failed. They lost money, which is their true God in Hollywood. And I think they're conservative curious now. There's two places. Because they want our dollars.

24:19There's two places where this is true. Apple TV, of all places, they have a sort of white man's lane, where suddenly they'll put George Clooney in a movie and you go like, oh, okay, I'll watch it. And it'll be like an action film or something. Meanwhile, he's not our representative. Pick someone else. No, but the movie will be pretty good. And the other is Christian... Vince Vaughn. Yeah, Vince Vaughn, he's great. But the other is Christian filmmaking, which I hated for a long time because I hate these happy, smiley Christian movies. I mean, it's a movie... Who doesn't hate happy and smiley? Well, our guy got killed.

24:57You know, it's a tragic religion. And I used to think these movies were terrible. But then I realized something, that they bring an audience, people like them. And when you bring an audience, that attracts talent. And now you have things like The Chosen, which is really creative. Yeah, it's excellent. And Sound of Freedom, which was a very, yeah. And I mean, the New York Times, Sound of Freedom is about the child, you know, selling children into sex slavery. It had the New York Times going, well, you know, these conservatives hate sex slavery. What's wrong? Thanks. But that's because the audience attracts the talent.

25:39And, you know, when the novel started out in the 18th century, it was supposed to be for, you know, women, go away, women, and read your novels. And then Jane Austen came along and took the form and turned it into an art because that's where the audience was. And her talent brings in Charles Dickens and all the other guys who come in and made the great age of the novel. And so building an audience is a good thing. And I think the Christians have done that. And I think that if conservatives will just get past the hurdles that are in front of them and start making stuff themselves and start making it on the Internet and start using AI to make it and start peddling it any way they can figure out.

26:20I think we can beat them. Listen, we beat them in the media, right? I mean, we destroyed them. And it was just, it was us. It was guys, little people. That's exactly right. Like the revolution, shooting at them from behind rock. It doesn't even have to be, you don't necessarily even have to make the film, although if you can, great. But you can go patronize films like Top Gun Maverick, which are not woke, which are pro-America, which have somebody who, I mean, I think we can safely assume Tom Cruise is a Democrat, a leftist Democrat. He was very, very pro-COVID lockdowns and mandates. But who cares?

26:51His movie was great and was right down the middle. He was not propagandizing us. We can support those films and send a message to Hollywood. You do that, we're open-minded. Our side always is open-minded. We have to be. Otherwise, we could take in no TV, no movies, no news, no sports. We couldn't work in corporate America. That's the beauty of being us. Okay. Kevin Sorbo. Yeah, great guy. Yes, Kevin Sorbo. Great guy. There's a bunch of them. I mean, honestly, they're coming out more and more now because they feel emboldened. All right, I have to leave it there for now. Thank you so much. It's wonderful to see you.

27:21Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you very much. Andrew Klavan, everybody. Thank you very much. He's wonderful, isn't he? If you've ever Googled yourself, you know how many results contain your personal information. And it's not by chance. Your info is available. Your name, your address, phone number, financial info, income, legal and health history. It can be sold and shared publicly without your consent. There are real risks here, including financial scams, identity theft, unfair targeting by insurance companies, and general safety risks. But I want to tell you about Incogni. Incogni helps you take control of your online privacy.

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28:45Michael Knowles doesn't give a shit if you don't like him. He says all the most incendiary things. It's hard to make my jaw drop and Michael Knowles does it regularly. And he does it by just being totally unapologetically, fearlessly honest, but with such intellect behind the points that it really is like chewing rubies in your mouth when you repeat his words and hear him speak. Here's a little quick intro.

29:18Outrage boiling over at the University of Buffalo. Hundreds of students and community members gathered in protest. Do you have anything else to say? Hello, I'm Michael Knowles. I'm a conservative podcast host. I am surrounded by 20 LGBTQ plus activists. I'm gay married. Who? Right? Like, you're not really married. I'm sorry. I'm going to outright call you a fascist. Oh, no. Permanently banned by TikTok. Every time you come on this show, Michael, you're in trouble. What'd you do? What did you do? I'm always in trouble. Plenty of those white conservative men that you like so much seem quite happy.

29:54Let's take a look at this clip. Joy Reid. She has just been canned. Kicked to the side of the road. Her show is over. Okay, well, we've got Michael there. Michael, anything you want to say to Joy? Joy, very nice to meet you. Now there's no longer a market for that absolutely vile content. And I think that's good for the culture broadening. And now we can all chat on Pierce's show. We build, they destroy. That has been true since the terms left and right entered into politics during the French Revolution. If they want to tear it down and knock it down, let them try their very best. Pay them no heed.

30:29We're going to keep moving forward.

30:50Megan, did you say talking to me is like chewing rubies? Yes. I want that in my Twitter bio. That's really good. I like that. You take all the thoughts I have in my head and make them sound so much more eloquent and informed. It's one of the many things I love about you. One of the first bonding moments Michael and I had, and you guys will understand why this is personal, is you were on Fox News, you said something totally reasonable about Greta Thunberg, and then Fox canceled you and you were never allowed to come back on. That did happen. I was on Fox and I was asked about Greta Thunberg, St.

31:26Greta of the Blessed Sailboat, who was... You're familiar with her. Okay, for those who don't know, she is a truant who thought that the sun monster was going to kill us all, and so she sailed a boat back and forth with, like, private jets flying overhead, whatever. So, anyway, I said... The girl was 16, 17 or something, and I said I thought it was wrong that the left would exploit a girl who was mentally ill because her mother wrote a whole book about how she had these mental illnesses, and I said that's wrong to do, and you shouldn't exploit kids for politics. and then they canceled me for that.

32:00Fox News decided Michael Knowles was too controversial because of that comment. I remember DMing you saying, what utter bullshit. I appreciated that. So wrong. And a beautiful friendship was born from that point forward. By the way, that's the only good thing that's come out of Greta Thunberg's activism is our friendship. That's it. Thank you, Greta. She's way off of that cause now. Now you know she's a globalized-the-intifada type. Yeah, there's no more money in the sun monster. She's got to put on the keffia. They switch it like that. It's amazing, right? You were born and raised in New York City.

32:35I was raised in the suburbs. I'm a suburban man. I guess I lived when I was really little. I was in the city. I lived in the city later on. After what occurred on Tuesday, I don't think I'm ever going to live in the city again. I know. I lived in Manhattan for 17 years. I can't say I'm totally shocked by what they did because they did elect Bill de Blasio twice, who is truly an idiot. I don't think Zoran Mamdami is an idiot, but Bill de Blasio is dumb as a donkey. Megan, I fear that Bill de Blasio is like Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan combined compared to Zoran Mamdami. Oh, God. I think this guy's clever, and I'm a little fearful of how clever he is.

33:19What do you make of his assent? A lot of people asked me when Zoran was running, they said, Michael, isn't this terrible that a Muslim is going to be the mayor of New York City? And I said, we should be so lucky if he were actually a Muslim. Look, I understand Christendom's had a little conflict with Islam for about 1 ,400 years now. So it's a tough situation. However, at least if he were actually Muslim, I could speak to the guy. He would believe in God. He would believe in a moral order. He would believe in an ordered society. We could have a conversation. It wouldn't be good, but we have a conversation.

33:52I fear it's worse than that. I fear when you look at the Muslim communists, Zoran Mamdani, he leans a little more on the communist side. I think he is a cringe millennial leftist who is every one of your worst classmates at university, he is like that guy and he is going to destroy New York City. Yep, I know. It's happening and that's what they voted for and we're all going to have to sit by and actually watch it. What does it say, though, about where the Democrat Party is? I mean, do you think he is the future? When they asked Hakeem Jeffries that, he said no. But Zoram Mamdani won by huge margins.

34:30And if you don't think there are other Democrats in other cities right now saying that's the way to win elections, you're wrong. Who else would the future be? It's not Mrs. Pelosi. After a very brief 64-year political career, Nancy Pelosi is retiring, it seems. Did you hear that news? She's not going to run for re-election. She's 85. I don't want to violate any SEC rules or anything, but if you are invested in the Nancy Pelosi tracking stocks, sure, sure, get out, get out right now. They're not, they're going to drop. Just like she does. That's right. So is she the future? Is Schumer the future?

35:06No. Kamala Harris, the former future president, was asked about this. Who's the future of the party? Do you have any leaders? Because for the first time in at least 25 years, there is no leading candidate for president. The Democrats in 2000-2004, the leading candidate with 25 % of the vote at this time in the cycle was Al Gore. After that, it was Hillary Clinton. After that, it was Joe Biden. There was always someone who had this role. There's no one right now. And Kamala was asked about this, and she said, oh, you know, and she kind of giggled and coconuts fell out of the sky. And then she said, And then she said, of course we have a future.

35:47I mean, we have Zoran Mamdani. She named him. We have Jasmine Crockett. Jasmine Crockett, can you imagine? We have AOC, whoever. And so, you know, you got it from the horse's mouth or some part of the horse. They're saying that this is the future of the Democrats. And I believe her. By the way, Zoran Mamdani cannot be president. He was born in Uganda, and he's Ugandan. And never stop Barack Obama. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Don't clip that. Don't clip that. You'll get canceled again. Who's smarter? Kareem Jean-Pierre or Kamala Harris?

36:30I will have you know, and I have this on good authority, Kareem Jean-Pierre is a black queer woman. No. Yes. No. I heard that on TV. How do you know? I heard it many times from Corrine Jean-Pierre. So it's a tricky battle. I mean, maybe she's like a fox, that Corrine Jean-Pierre. She held that job the whole time, and there was no actual president the whole time. So Corrine Jean-Pierre effectively might have been the president for like four years, three years. Do you view Kamala Harris as an intellect?

37:05You know, St. Thomas Aquinas shows us that all human beings are made up of, you know, matter and intellect. You know, we have will and intellect, and part of that is memory and part of that. So inasmuch as she is a human being, I suppose I grudgingly have to admit that she might have some intellect. But that actually, that's the first thing that's made me doubt Thomas Aquinas ever in my entire life. So, I don't know. same you had an interesting opinion recently on Sydney Sweeney now we talked on the show about the dress she wore well did you like the dress? split of opinion maybe so I came out against it I love her, I think she's great she's very brave but I didn't like the dress because I thought you went too far and it was Allie Beth Stuckey on the show that day who said can we draw the line at Areola?

38:01We're all for titillation. We love the return of actual women to these events as the headliners and so on. But like, headliner, good. Headlights, not good. There should be some modesty. But you had an interesting take on why the dress actually was kind of conservative in a way. It's a Straussian reading. It's an esoteric... I'm not recommending... I would never send my daughter out in the Sidney Sweeney dress. I do not recommend it generally. However, I have to point out, what was the event that she wore it to? The event was called the Power of Women Gala. And what do we know about Sydney Sweeney?

38:40We know that she's a registered Republican, reportedly. Love that. We know that just today some liberal journalist was trying to bait her into all these stupid answers about her jeans ad, and she just completely shut it down. She's got better message discipline than the entire Republican Party put together. We know that in a culture of androgynous they-thems with crazy hair and 15 septum piercings, that Sidney Sweeney looks normal, like a really, really, really pretty normal person. And so I thought there was this esoteric message, very anti-feminist, which she said, you want to invite me to the Power of Women gala?

39:18I am going to show you a big part of the Power of Women. and so I'm not saying it's conservative I'm just saying it's not feminist it ain't feminist for sure I actually love that point I take your point because I remember not to compare myself to Sidney Sweeney sadly I wish I could but no but it was 2016 and we were headed to the Republican National Convention and I was anchoring for Fox and it was a crazy time it was like Trump and just so tumultuous. And it was crazy for me at Fox because that day we had gone out to the Republican National Convention in Ohio. And that day it broke on the air that Roger Ailes was credibly accused by all these women and that I had been cooperating with these investigators.

40:08And it was just like my whole life was on the news. And then I had to go do the news. And I went out to do the coverage that night. And of course, all these leftists are like, She's a girl boss, that kind of thing. And I remember thinking, I'm not one of you. I didn't want any of this out there. I was dragged into this, kicking and screaming. I don't want this to be that. And that night, I wore this spaghetti strap outfit to do the news. And it was kind of that moment, you know what I mean, where I was like, I'm going to sauce it up and remind you all that I'm not on your team. I'm going to bring the heat as a woman who's not looking to be out here in pinstripes, like grabbing people by the balls and castrating them, right?

40:55You can do it all. You can be a news anchor. You can take yourself seriously, but you can also be sort of a saucy person who men find attractive and who you want to find you attractive, right? Because you're a regular American woman. So I kind of relate to what you're saying. Yes. You know, look, I'm all for modesty, truly. I didn't even see the dress at first. my producer said to me, he said, Michael, why aren't you leading the show and closing the show with Sidney Sweeney? You know, their ratings will be through the roof. I said, what? I saw some headline and pay attention. And then later on, it popped up in my Twitter feed, and I said, all right, got to get custody of my eyes.

41:28Hold on, let's see. Custody of my eyes. Hold on, I got to go to some other news website or something. But I thought, in a culture that is so confused as ours, in a culture that doesn't know the difference between men and women, it is a relatively conservative thing for a woman to really be a woman and really show everyone. We're going to talk about that soundbite that you mentioned of Sidney Sweeney a little later. We talked with Andrew a bit about his faith and his conversion from Judaism to Christianity. And you, so of course I know you're deeply religious that you're a Catholic, you're a devout Catholic.

42:03And I did not know until I was actually preparing for tonight that you like doubled down on your faith. You found like your true conservative Christian faith, your devotion to Catholicism, until you were at Yale? That's not a thing. Who goes to Yale and becomes more of a devout Catholic? I think they're going to rescind my diploma when they find out that was the consequence of it. Yeah, I was, you know, I always prefer the term, instead of devout Catholic, I always prefer the term practicing Catholic, because I'm going to keep on practicing until I get it right. Might take a long time.

42:39But, I was cradle Catholic raised, you know, the 90s were kind of a weak time for catechesis, generally. And then by the time I was 13, I was about to be confirmed, I said, I'm an atheist. Because I was a very clever little boy, and you know, Christopher Hitchens had that posh accent, and he was just so smart. And I thought I was smarter than everybody, so I said, I'm an atheist. And my mother looks at me, she says, ugh. She said, you're going through a phase. you should receive the sacrament of confirmation. You're going to come out of it. You'll regret it if you don't. I said, okay, all right, whatever.

43:11I trusted my mother. She was right. I was an atheist for about practically an atheist for 10 years. That started to weaken when I was 18. I get to Yale, as you mentioned, and most people are atheists, and I don't know, a ton of people are much smarter than me, many of whom are atheists. However, I noticed the most intelligent people were not atheists. They were theists. They were in varying degrees of practicing religion, and they presented me with intellectual arguments for the existence of God. It was pretty good. The ontological argument, later on St. Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways. Then I found other British guys who were clever and posh to counter Christopher Hitchens, namely C.S.

43:49Lewis, Owen Barfield from there, G.K. Chesterton. Only at a Megyn Kelly event. You get applause for Chesterton and Lewis. It was great. I love that. Thank you. I love that. And so by the time I was 23, I graduate. that was when I really reverted. I'm not a convert, but I'm a revert to the faith. And it's one of those things, what St. Augustine said, you know, how late have I loved you, you know, a love ever ancient, ever new. And it's kind of how you feel. You say, man, I really took the long route. You know, I talked to people who are cradle Catholic, you know, broadly religious. And I said, that was the easy way.

44:28That's what you should have done. And I took the long route, but hey, all's well that ends well, so I'll take it. What was the conversation between you and God after Charlie? You know, I was at work, and the morning that Charlie died, I thought about texting him because Charlie was very good at texting, and I am very bad at texting. I don't text anyone back. It's bad. Same. Yeah, I'm horrible at it. My friends, my family, very important people. And anyway, I thought, shoot, I owe Charlie a text. And it was a text, actually, weirdly, a little bit about religion. And then he was shot. And also, oddly enough, Charlie and I were supposed to do an event together at the University of Minneapolis 12 days after he was killed.

45:16And the last conversation we had on his show, he said, all right, Michael, I'll see you in Mogadishu. And it was a great, great observation. And so my first reaction, everyone was chattering about it on Twitter. I said, just pray for Charlie Kirk. But what I can know, I don't want to tell tales out of school, but I think a lot of this has become public. One, everyone knows Charlie was deeply religious. Charlie was wearing a St. Michael medal, actually, when he was killed. I opened the speech that we were supposed to have together with the prayer to St. Michael. And you don't believe it. I was talking to my wife who saw it.

45:53happily I didn't see the video, but she did. And she said, you know, it's a strange thing because I looked at it and I said, there's no way he's alive. And then at the same moment, I said, there's no way he can be dead. He's Charlie Kirk. You know, the guy would have been president. And everyone knows it. And it's a very difficult thing because it's all in God's providence, you know, and Charlie knows that better than anyone. And, you know, Charlie had certain faith in Christ However, there's this impulse afterward to say, well, we're Christians. We shouldn't be sad. Charlie's with his Savior.

46:29We shouldn't be sad. We should be happy. This is a very modern aspect of Christianity to say, don't grieve, don't mourn, just be happy-clappy. And that ain't my kind of religion. I don't know. Maybe I'm a little too traditional, but it is deeply sad. And we should grieve. And we should mourn. And it's a great injustice. And we should be indignant. I mentioned Thomas Aquinas earlier. He says it is a defect not to be angry in the face of grave injustice. And we should be absolutely furious about it. We should also have trust in God. We should also have hope as a theological virtue. We should also pray for Charlie and his entire family.

47:04But we should be really shocked and mourn. And it was a national trauma as much as it was a personal one. I know a lot of people were grieving. I thought, man, am I grieving because we were friends? And that was part of it? I would meet grown men on the street and they would be crying and they never met Charlie ever. It was a national trauma. It was a political trauma compounded by a second political trauma, which is when the Democrats celebrated it. And we should be furious and we should reassert some order to conduce to the common good as a national wake-up call. Amen. Michael Knowles, thank you.

47:40Thank you, Megan. Thank you to all of you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

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49:12Not waver on the truth. Next stop, White Plains, Jacksonville, Miami, and Atlanta. So go get your tickets right now before they sell out. MeganKelley.com. Presented by Y Refi and SiriusXM.

49:28Well, you may have heard of my next guest.

49:34Let me tell you, I'm just going to steal a couple minutes to talk about Ben Shapiro. so I first got to know Ben when I think he was 10 he's he looked 10 and I was on the air at Fox and he started coming on and he was obviously so smart right but he was so young and you were kind of like are people going to take him seriously like he's so young it's like but all you needed to do is spend two minutes with Ben Shapiro to realize oh people are going to take him seriously yeah we're good that we don't have to worry about that I quickly fell in love with this guy and his political commentary and started putting him on more and more and more and more and more.

50:09And in the ratings game, which is cable news, you can see how somebody does. Like, do they rate? And you can see it minute by minute. Does the audience go up when he's on? Does it go down when he's on? Does it hold steady? And we'll take either go up or hold steady, but if it goes down a lot, then you never see them again. And every time Ben was on, you could see it skyrocket, because people were learning something. He's got the gift of gab. I mean, he's completely articulate and can make his points without any stuttering, without any ums and ahs, without any hesitation, but he's always substantive, right?

50:38And you always learn something. Agree, disagree, doesn't matter. You learn something from Ben Shapiro because he's always done his homework, right? You never think, oh God, that guy's going to come out empty-handed. He's got that big brain. He's got the legendary IQ. It can be very intimidating talking to him at first, but I'm proud to tell you I'm now one of the very few Americans who listens to the Ben Shapiro show on 2.0. It's not easy to do. You can listen to the Megyn Kelly show on 2.0 or the Ben Shapiro show? Megyn Kelly, fine. Benchipro, no. You have to be an expert. So we became friends over those years.

51:12And then, of course, I left Fox. I went to NBC. And everybody knows what happened there. So there I was, sitting on my couch, feeling sorry for myself, licking my wounds, thinking my career is destroyed. Literally, everybody's calling me a racist. Nobody wants to hire me. I'm a joke in the industry. I've gone from like the top of my game to someone everybody is laughing at and treating with scorn. And who reached out to me? Who actually reached out, sent me a text, and said, we need to talk? Ben Shapiro. He saw I was down. He saw I was hurting. And instead of what most of us do, honestly, what I do too often, and just kind of say, oh, that's sad, move on.

51:56He actually reached out and said, I want to help you. And you need to get off that couch. He didn't have to do it. His life was great. His show was completely crushing it. The Daily Wire was on fire. He was a busy man. He did not have to take two minutes to think about me. And it wasn't like I had done him any extraordinary favors at Fox. He was a star. He was brilliant. Anybody could have seen that. I wasn't some special spotter of talent. So he said, MK, you need to come out here to the Daily Wire in California, where they were at the time. Now they're in Nashville. And see what we're doing.

52:29and see whether you think you could see yourself doing something like this. And he wasn't like, you must work for the Daily Wire. I want to make money off of you. I think you're a commodity I could buy into the Daily Wire. He was like, you need to do this, and the country needs you to do this. So I did. I flew out there, which was a big step for me because I was really just stress-eating at home most days. And showed me all around. And not only did he show me all around the Daily Wire and show me exactly how he was doing his show and how one could do his show, but completely, he was like, here are our financials.

52:58What do you want to know about us? Like, here's exactly how it, here's what this costs. Here's what the advertising is. Here's how you could do it. This is how much it would cost you. Like, it was amazingly transparent on somebody who, like, he didn't have to do any of this. It was like the amount of trust that he put into me, having me out there and showing me, I was like blown away by it. And I left the Daily Wire that day and Ben saying, this is what I want to do. He inspired me fully and completely. And I didn't totally know exactly what my next move was or how I'd get into it or who I'd hire or from where I would do it or any of that.

53:31But that was, I think, December of 19. And I had made the decision that that would be my next move. And then we got into the fall or the spring of 2020 and COVID hit. Spent that in Montana with my family. And then George Floyd of Palooza hit. And by September of 2020, the Megyn Kelly show was born.

53:52sometimes we joke with Glenn Greenwald who's one of the most frequent guests on the Megyn Kelly show that he's the godfather of the Megyn Kelly show because he comes on so often that that's true but I think you could make a fair case that Ben Shapiro is the father of the Megyn Kelly show and I will be forever grateful to him you know he's a total juggernaut he's his show, it's in a league of one. He's reinvented this entire industry and lane. He started the Daily Wire, which gave us geniuses like Clavin, Knowles, Matt Walsh, who we love, who just talked to two days ago, and many, many others. And I have nothing but unending love and respect for Ben Shapiro.

54:34Take a look at this, and we'll bring him out.

54:39Ben Shapiro, go to hell! What's happening today's college game? What explains the fear? Ben Shapiro went out, made a speech. Some students who didn't even go to the speech have made appointments with a therapist to deal with the trauma. That was the crowd that greeted conservative writer Ben Shapiro as he was attempting to give a speech. And I was told by the police officers, if you do that, there could actually be a riot. Look at me. I mean, do I look like a physical threat to anybody? It's not rude to say that someone who is biologically a male is a male. Facts don't care about your feelings.

55:12You cut that out now or you'll go home in an ambulance. That seems mildly inappropriate for a political discussion. No, I know. You're going to criticize the meritocracy as an outgrowth of white supremacy, then you're going to have to tear down the system that you've succeeded in because you have merit. Joe Biden, there's only one thing the guy is good for, and that is being wheeled out in front of a parade that's already moving. He's like, oh, look what I'm, oh, I'm here. I'm here, yeah. And Ben Shapiro, Ben Shapiro. Really enjoy your work, Ben Shapiro. You used to love Ron Sanctis. I think you're going to love us a lot more.

55:41I think you're going to really enjoy being with us. Okay, Mr. President, appreciate that. Fox News just called it. It's over, gang. This election is done. It's toast. You can put it in the fridge. It's finished. The greatest political comeback in American history. American history. Un-effing believable. I mean, this is a huge victory. A huge victory against a woke left that needed to take it directly in the team. Well, folks, I just got back from the theaters seeing Barbie. This movie is not just a piece of shit. This movie is a flaming piece of dog shit piled atop an entire dumpster on fire. It is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

56:15And you said, I may have a desire to sleep with many women, but I do not. I agree with me. Yes, that's true. Congratulations on your, yeah. Charlie's voice is not silent. We're going to pick up that bloodstained microphone where Charlie left it. And to those who would intimidate, who would seek to stop us, who would seek to end free discussion and kill people who speak freely, we are not going to stop. And I have two words. F*** you.

56:54Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Yes! The man, the myth, the legend, the one and only. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Megan. How about that walk down memory lane? That was great. Right? Yeah. I'm so happy you're here. This worked out so well. You've been in the news lately. Yes. Yeah, you've seen that? Yeah, a little bit. How's your last year been? The last year has been interesting. Obviously, huge victory for President Trump, which was the big news of the last year. All the transformative policies that he's put into place, that's been wonderful. I've had the opportunity to see him do some of these historic things in person.

57:37I happened to be in Israel for the Jewish holidays when he was giving that historic speech at the Israeli parliament, which was unbelievable. I mean, it was truly tremendous. And then, obviously, you figure after an election things are going to cool down, and then things don't cool down. And so, you know, it's been busy. Obviously, since Charlie's murder, which, you know, I think all of us reacted in precisely the same way, the security threats went up dramatically. I've had, obviously, personal security since, I believe, 2017, maybe 2016. I've had about 10 years of personal security. The last six years has been 24-7 security on me as well as on my four children.

58:18and that's been accelerated even more so in the aftermath of Charlie's murder. So on a personal level, that's been not fun. The good news is that the security guys are very sweet and my kids get along with them great and they have lightsaber fights with them and they think that this is kind of normal, but it isn't normal and I wish that the country would go back to normal, but it seems like it may be a while. You've been dealing with this for a long time and I've seen it personally. I mean, I've seen you surrounded by teams of security and I heard you say, and I mentioned this last night, that if, God forbid, something happened to most of the Daily Wire guys, we would know exactly who did it immediately.

58:54If something happened to you, God forbid, it would be like an Agatha Christie mystery. There's so many possibilities because you're loathed by the far left and you're loathed by what we used to and maybe still do call the alt-right. And I remember we used to talk about this on the Kelly File because some people called you alt-right and you would explain, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not alt-right. I'm loathed by alt-right. So what is alt-right, and why do they loathe you? So there is a group of people in the United States who are rooted in an idea of grievance against the system that they believe has put them underfoot, and those people believe that essentially they are underfoot because of their white status, and thus they must take revenge on anybody who is disproportionately benefiting from the system that tends to, in their own minds, be Jews.

59:44And you see this mostly refracted right now through a young man named Nick Fuentes. He's 27 years old. He is the leader of a movement called the Groypers. I don't know if any of you are familiar with this. But he says and believes truly awful things. I mean, truly awful things. Not just about Jews. I mean, he has said, for example, that the vice president of the United States, there's a direct quote, I believe, is a fat gay race traitor married to a jeet. That's a direct quote about the vice president. And upset that he named his son Vivek. Yes. He also has suggested and spent years trying to destroy Charlie Kirk's organization.

1:00:19Charlie, in texts that have now been revealed, called him vermin for exactly this reason. It had banned him and his followers from TPUSA because he believed that Nick Fuentes and the Groepers and white supremacy didn't belong as part of the conservative movement. And so the alt-right is, it became this, or they are two sides of the same coin or they're parts of the same sort of broad movement. And unfortunately, I think that they've gained a foothold in sort of the Internet subsystem. I don't think they have a foothold in mainstream America at all. And I think one of the mistakes that people make is to think that the Internet is real life.

1:00:54The Internet is absolutely not real life. And the first thing people need to do is turn off X, which is poisoning brains and making people think that not true things. It's basically like war games. They think the missiles are real. The missiles are not real. The things happening on X are not a reflection of real life, but they can bleed over to real life if enough people take them seriously. So you and I have talked about Nick Fuentes many times over the years and our many appearances together, and that's how I knew about him because he was saying absolutely terrible things about you. And I am going to show a video, please forgive me, of one of my first introductions to this guy Nick Fuentes and what he was saying about Ben.

1:01:33This is a video of him showing himself playing Grand Theft Auto, a video game where you shoot people, and he's pretending that this character in the video is Ben. Let's watch. Oh! Oh!

1:02:02That's funny.

1:02:14oh that's funny yeah that makes me laugh and laugh that's a funny one what a chance encounter that was i think i just saw ben shapiro And it goes on. It goes on. I mean, I would hate for people to believe that the Nick Fuentes sort of, my problems with Nick Fuentes are about me because they really are not. They are about the fact that Nick Fuentes is a truly horrifying person who believes truly horrifying things. And again, there is a reason why Charlie Crick despised him. There's a reason why every mainstream political commentator has been highly critical of him. It's the reason why. These are not arguments.

1:03:00This is not a person who's making arguments. He is a Hitler-loving troll. And I say that advisedly. He literally says on his show that he loves Adolf Hitler. So the reason this has come up in recent weeks is because Tucker, your guest last night, decided to have him on last week and to completely gloss him, in my opinion. And you can make up your own opinion as to what you think Tucker was doing during that interview, but I know what it looks like when Tucker Carlson decides to be an aggressive interviewer, when he decides to ask difficult questions of people. Tucker is eminently capable of doing that, and he did it to Ted Cruz quite thoroughly.

1:03:32But he decided for any number of reasons, and I try not to attribute motivations to people, that he was going to treat Fuentes with kid gloves, that he was going to not ask him about any of the things that I've just mentioned, literally any of them. and to essentially normalize Fuentes, act as a sort of gateway drug or as a, what I've called Tucker, as an ideological launderer of bad ideas over the last couple of years. And this is not coming from a place of animus for Tucker on a personal level. I've known Tucker for a very long time. Tucker, whenever we're in personal situations, we get along great.

1:04:06I saw that Tucker talked about how we were at Charlie's Memorial in the vice president's box together, and he's correct. I mean, we saw each other, we said hello, we talked, it was very friendly, and all of that. And it's also true that a couple of days after Charlie's murder, he reached out and he called me and he said, listen, I know that we're at odds and we've been at odds for a number of reasons, mainly political. I mean, again, on a personal level, I'd go fishing with Tucker any time. The real question is, for me, I got into this business because I care about the ideas and I care about the ideals.

1:04:36And so when you're determining what is conservatism, what should the future of America look like, and where do you draw the lines? Those are the questions that I need to answer in my job. For me, my business is really not about friendship. I have lots of friends, people who I love, with whom I disagree in politics and don't believe they should be leaders in the conservative movement, for example. And that to me is the real question. In any case, Tucker reached out. He said, you know, we've had a bunch of disagreements and, you know, what if we could put those aside and align toward the DSA in particular, is what he mentioned.

1:05:07And I said, you know, Tucker, you're totally right. Let's do that. That would be great. In fact, the TSA, the DSA, DSA, the Democratic Socialist of America. Why the TSA? How did that bring you together? The Democratic Socialist of America. No, that I know. Yes. And the reason I'm taking out my phone. TSA only divides people. Is because, yes, the reason I'm taking out my phone is because I don't just, you know, I like to evidence what I'm saying with, you know, actual evidence. So I texted him and the text exchange was very nice. I mean, here's what the actual text exchange went like after the call.

1:05:39So I texted him and I said, thanks so much for calling. It means the world. It truly does. Should we do a show together talking about the DSA threat, Democratic Socialist of America threat, and orienting in the same direction? Happy to do whatever it takes to bring everyone back together for the fight that matters. And Tucker then wrote back, thanks, man. I appreciate it. I'm going to spend the next week or two thinking about how to be most effective. The country is clearly on the brink. I reached out repeatedly. After that, nothing happened. And again, I thought it was a good idea at the time.

1:06:08I think I felt differently after I saw what he did with Nick Fuentes and after he proceeded, in my opinion, to spend the subsequent weeks doing literally nothing to fight the left. Again, I say this with sadness because Tucker used to be, I think, a deeply important part of the conservative push to win. The number of times that Tucker Carlson has mentioned Zoran Mamdani since October 5th on his show is once. And it was in the context of Marjorie Taylor-Green and Tucker Carlson talking about the appeal of Zoran Mamdani. Just by way of contrast, not because I'm a perfect representative here, but because you've talked about Zoran Mamdani a lot.

1:06:45A lot of us have. Since October 5th, I did 17 separate shows on Zoran Mamdani, including four in the last week before the election. Because when you're orienting against the left, you really should orient against the left. Okay, so a lot in there.

1:07:04I think, just to be clear, so the breakdown from the detente after Charlie was him interviewing Fuentes. Was that the next thing that happened that led to the blow-up? I mean, yes. I had not spoken a word. So wasn't that he attacked you like you had something? No, I don't care about people attacking you. I don't think Tucker cares about people attacking him. I mean, again, we're professionals. We're in a business where people comment on what we say publicly. Again, this is why I think you and I differ on our angle with regard to, for example, Candace Owens. I think that what Candace Owens is doing right now is evil.

1:07:38It is evil what she is doing right now. Okay? And I say that, again. But what... Because it is evil. I didn't opine on whether it's evil or not, but my position is it's really none of my business. I have a question. Why is it none of your business? I mean, you comment on these things for a living. I'm not mother of the internet. No, but if this were on the left and somebody were accusing Charlie Kirk of his wife having murdered him, I assume that you would be talking about it. Is that what Candace is accusing Erica of? Yes. Of murdering her own husband? She's accusing TPUSA insiders and other members of the right wing, including Seth Dillon, of being involved in the murder of Charlie Kirk, yes.

1:08:16Okay. Like I said, I don't take in that content, which is an honest statement. I don't have time to watch Kennedy Show. No, I believe you. I believe you. But the point that I'm making is that... What I understand Candace too have been doing. In our business, I think it's important. Listen, I'm... No, and Candace and I are not friends. We don't even know each other. I understand, but even with Tucker. Friendship should not trump our manifest requirement to speak out when people do and say things that are both detrimental to conservatism and morally wrong. Okay. So I don't totally disagree, but I think the way of handling that, at least for me, is much different.

1:08:46So I saw things go south between you and Tucker, at least from my vantage point, when you disagreed on Israel. That was obvious. Well, let me just make my point. So he was saying things that were critical of Israel and our policy towards Israel. And then you did one show where you did what I thought you should have done, if you disagreed with him, which clearly you did, which is say what you believe and what you think is factual and like educate your audience on what you think are the real facts and give them the evidence for it but you named him and it felt like an attack and that to me was the beginning of the end where he was like now it's on because he felt personally attacked by you as opposed to just challenging his idea i think you named him and you you kind of diminished him and you know he's an 800 pound gorilla and if you mess with a gorilla he's gonna fight and to me that's where it started to go south and because i remember that day being like, oh shit, I don't want to see this.

1:09:38But here's the thing, I would urge everybody to go back and listen to the show that you're referring to where I criticized Tucker's ideas, not Tucker as a person. Tucker then responded by claiming that I do not love America, that is a direct quote, that I do not love America because I was spending too much time covering the October 7th attacks, and then proceeded in January to then say that I wanted his children to die in a foreign war. Okay, so those are different... That's a rhetorical point. No, it is not. I'm sorry, it's not. It's an An attack on motivation is a very different thing from an attack on an idea.

1:10:07His point was that you were sounding like a neocon, and he's upset with anybody who wants us to get too involved in Israel's conflict because he feels it endangers American children. Okay, the idea that, number one, the idea that I want the United States to be directly involved in Israel's conflict is not true. I get it. No, I know that, Ben. I've been urging Israel to get off of American aid for literally as long as I have been active in politics. But I'm making clear what his point was. No, no, no, but my point is that that's not his point. And again, none of this blew into— So we disagree. Well, no, we disagree on the interpretation of what Tucker has been doing for the past two years.

1:10:41And it's very difficult for me to believe that Tucker is merely anti-Israel when, for example, today, in his newsletter— I mean, I can directly quote it if you'd like. In his newsletter today, he claimed that Zoran Mamdani is not anti-Semitic. This was his newsletter today, this morning. I mean, I'm happy to read the text. It's a little extraordinary. Because, again, it is kind of shocking stuff. So here is what Tucker Carlson wrote in his newsletter today, or what his newsletter says under his name. He said, is the incoming mayor a fan of Israel? Does he want America to fight its wars? Not particularly.

1:11:17But a Jew hater? That's a different conversation. We've never seen anything to suggest he falls into that ugly camp. If we're talking about fighting the left, defending Zahra Mamdani, who literally said that Hamas, he has no opinion whether Hamas should disarm, who posed alongside the 1993 World Trade Center unindicted co-conspirator who went on to so globalized the Intifada, who suggested that whenever there's a New York Police Department boot on somebody's neck, it's an IDF lacing the strings, to suggest that that's not anti-Semitic in any way, no way. Okay, but listen. Or when he... Listen, I'm going to give you a defense of Tucker here, and I don't need to defend Tucker because I'm not Tucker.

1:11:50Tucker can perfectly well defend himself. But I'll just say, I think in general, because I know him, and I listen to him, and I understand generally where he's coming from, he would say his problems are with Israel, And he would say that that shot that Mamdani laid against the IDF is a shot against the IDF and Israel and how he thinks they're pro-war, not against Jews. And I think— All I can say is when Tucker Carlson finds himself in complete alignment with Zoran Mamdani, it is very difficult for me to believe that he does not agree with Zoran Mamdani. is in a place right now of the same place that Charlie was getting to toward the end of his life.

1:12:23The same place that some people had tried to drive me. Which is, you're under withering, non-stop accusations of being something you know you're not. But from some people who you love and who you've been protecting, at least in my case and Charlie's case, for two years, who you've been completely defensive of. And Charlie and I both felt, because we talked about this on my show, like what's happening here? Why are they dropping charges of anti-Semitism against us when we love Jews and we're both open Semites? We're Zionists. So Megan, you may notice. I'm just talking about me here. Are there people who are overzealous?

1:12:58Sure. Have I ever attacked you? No, no, never. Did I ever attack Charlie publicly about any of this? No, no, no, no. He and I had disagreements behind the scenes. I'm just saying it's a mentality, right? You get defensive and I think Tucker's feeling defensive. By the way, I waited to attack Tucker until he glossed Nick Fuentes who is, that has nothing to do with Israel. Nick Fuentes hates Jews. I'm not saying you didn't have a right to go after him. I mean, I think you did what you thought was right. And he mentioned you a few times in his interview with Nick Fuentes. He did, but again, I don't think it's about that.

1:13:26Because if he had not mentioned me in that interview with Nick Fuentes, I still would have said something about it. Because again, glossing people who are white supremacists is bad electorally on a pragmatic level. A right wing that embraces its own fringes will end up in the same position as the left wing that has embraced its fringes. That's why I want to get into it. He embraces. Yes. So now having spoken to Tucker, I actually see that interview very differently. And I did listen to the interview, and I knew what Nick Funtes was. And I think he did show himself to be who he is. It wasn't his most vile stuff, but you got the feel for what this guy was.

1:13:57But I really think Tucker was talking to him, Ben, to put like a bumper on this guy. Because what Tucker was urging him the whole time was to understand that collective punishment for any one group of people is wrong. It's deeply immoral, and it's anti-Christian, which this guy is supposed to be, and reminding him of how deeply immoral that is, that you should not be looking at a group of people, whomever it is. The left does it to everyone, whites mostly, but like this collective shame, white men in particular. And there's a group of people like Nick Fuentes that does it to groups of Jews. And he was making the case throughout the whole interview in the way that Tucker does.

1:14:38He's not like you or me. He's not like pointed and cross-examining. That is not true. And was making... That is fundamentally untrue. No, no, no. Ask Senator Ted Cruz whether that is true. He gave it to Ted Cruz because Ted Cruz is a politician. That's... Oh, hold on. Hold on. So only politicians get cross-examined? You don't... Well, look. It depends on the person. Tucker would never cross-examine a person who is not a politician. That's his rule? Tucker has excoriated public figures who purport to speak for us and represent us for many years. Nick Fuentes is a podcaster civilian. Okay, I just have a question.

1:15:10We all in our industry are constantly excoriating people who are in our industry. It happens all the time, every single day. Okay. We're talking about his interviews. Again, we can agree to disagree on your interpretation of what Tucker was doing there. I think everybody should watch and determine for themselves what they think Tucker was doing in that interview. And I urge you to watch it back to back with the Ted Cruz interview to determine whether you think that that was an aggressive Tucker Carlson interview. And you can judge yourself. I didn't say it was aggressive. I didn't say it was aggressive, and I don't think he would say it was aggressive.

1:15:39I think his point was, this guy, first of all, he's become a behemoth, sadly. He's got 5 million viewers on Rumble. He's got a million followers on X. I agree. This is all before Tucker Carlson. And he was platformed, I hate that verb, but he was platformed by Patrick Bet-David. And he went on Dave Smith's show, and he went on another big show. He's been getting more and more purchase in the political ecosphere, including right wing. And I think that's bad. Patrick Bet-David has a huge show. I know, but did you know that Patrick Bet-David had him on? Did his life blow up? Patrick McDavid did a significantly more aggressive interview with Nick Fuentes than Tucker did.

1:16:12Okay, but my point is simply, he's growing. He's growing in stature. And so what I saw Tucker do was not whitewash his ideas, but try to put bumpers up on the guy. I know Tucker well, and I think that was his approach. And the way, if you want to put a bumper up on Nick Fuentes, is it helpful to say, you're fucking vile, you're an anti-Semite? No, it isn't. Yes, it is. That doesn't put a bumper up. Yes, it is. No, it isn't. That makes the audience feel good because you have hand-to-hand combat, but it doesn't help change that guy's view or his extremeness at all. Okay, I'll tell you what doesn't change Nick Fuentes' view.

1:16:45Tucker Carlson with his arm around Nick Fuentes, grinning for the camera while Nick Fuentes tweets out America first and then triumphantly goes on the air the next day to explain that he has essentially used Tucker Carlson as a vehicle for manipulating other people. Okay, that's what Nick Fuentes is saying. Not me, Nick Fuentes. Okay, and Nick Fuentes, and by the way, I will again say that Tucker Carlson, when you say to somebody in an interview, do you condemn anti-Semitism? And then the person says, sure, which is what Nick Fuentes said. He said, I'm not an anti-Semitic, which is blatantly untrue.

1:17:18A responsible journalist would then follow up demonstrating that that is false. Tucker did not do that. He allowed him to get away with that. And then he allowed him to talk about, quote unquote, organized a jury, followed by Nick Flantes being treated to a disquisition by Tucker Carlson about why Christian Zionists of all human beings on earth are the people that he hates the most. He took that back. You can't take that back. You can't do. How do you take that back? He did. How? He went, he spoke. Then he should explain why it was wrong. He should explain why Christian Zionists are actually wonderful people.

1:17:48Tucker is very quick to self-flagellate, and he went on with Dave Smith the next day, the next week, whatever, Monday, Tuesday this week, and said, that was stupid. I didn't mean that. He said, I'm angry at people like Lindsey Graham. I'm angry at people like Ted Cruz because he thinks they run headfirst in these conflicts, and they don't think about what's going to happen to American kids. Wait, wait, hold up. If we're talking about firing inside the tent, what everything Lindsey Graham, okay, and I'm not a huge Lindsey Graham fan. He votes with the President of the United States 100 % of the time, and Tucker spent yesterday's show excoriating him as a psychosexual death worshiper.

1:18:20Does that sound like firing outside the tent? Again, these are the questions. I've got to say, I'm not offended. Again, the questions that I'm asking here, I'm not asking you to do anything, Megan. No, I know. Okay, I'm not. I know, our beef is not with each other. I'm not, okay? When I draw a line with regard to what I believe Tucker Carlson is doing to the conservative movement and what he is fomenting, That is because, that is my influence, and everyone can make their own decision as to whether they think that I am right or whether I am wrong and where they choose to draw the line with regard to the conservative movement.

1:18:45The question for me is always whether somebody's statements are forwarding moral values that I think are worthwhile. I did not get into this business for the money or for the clicks. You didn't either. Neither did he. What was that? Neither did he. I mean, he may not have. That's fine. I certainly did not. I'm only going to speak for myself. and what that means for me is that if I see somebody breach basic moral values by having on a Nazi and in my own view, you can take your own view, in my own view, gloss the Nazi, then I'm going to speak out about that and I'm going to point out that there is a long pattern of him ideologically wandering terrible ideas over the course of the last two years ranging from traveling to Russia to sniff the bread and explain why the Russian regime is actually wonderful to saying last week that the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro is actually not that bad because they're being attacked by, in his words, Globo Homo.

1:19:40Tucker's made the point, I'm not going to be Tucker's defender, but he's made the point that Maduro is culturally conservative. Who gives a shit? The guy's a communist dictator. Everyone in his country is eating dog. He's shipping fentanyl to the United States to kill Americans. Why do I give a shit whether he's anti-LGBTQ you right? This is the number one thing about Nicholas Maduro? You know how far down the list you have to get before you can get to anything remotely recommendable about Nicholas Maduro? I did ask him yesterday about the criticism that he didn't give Nick Fuentes a hard time, right?

1:20:15He didn't bring up the stuff that we were talking about. No, he didn't. And here's what he said. It seemed to think that we've way overstated the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. He's ripped on poor Usha Vance in the most offensive terms. So what do you say to those people? Why didn't you raise any of that? Do your own interview the way that you want to do it. You're not my editor. Buzz off. I don't know. You want to go yell at Nick Fuentes? I'll give you a cell. Call him. Then go sit and yell at him and feel virtuous or whatever. That's up to you. I agree with him. I agree with him. I agree with him.

1:20:52He did the interview that he wanted to do for a reason. Here's the other thing I want to say. We all have different approaches in this industry. And there's been a lot that people in podcasting have said that I disagree with, including many of the names that we've discussed tonight. And we disagree too. I mean, yes, of course. I mean, yes, rarely, but sometimes we do. But my own personal approach, generally when it's someone who's on what I consider to be my side, the side of sanity. And this is the entire question, is whether I consider Tucker Carlson to be on my side. I got it. I got it. But I would just say, just for the record, my own general approach, and this is my audience here so they know, is in general, I will take on a position and I will make clear how I feel.

1:21:32For example, I've been asked, and some of my audience is mad at me for this, but what do you think happened to Charlie Kirk? And I believe a man named Tyler Robinson shot and killed Charlie Kirk. I believe he was influenced by trans Tifa, radical trans activists, that he fell in with a lunatic that goes by Lance Twiggs, that that guy was extremely radical and that he and possibly a band of others convinced this guy that violence was the answer, then I believe others knew about it before Charlie was killed. That's what I believe. And until you can show me cold, hard proof that it was something other than that, that's what I'm going with.

1:22:05And I don't want to do or say anything that will jeopardize the FBI investigation and prosecution of that guy to make sure he spends the rest of his life either behind bars or on the wrong end of a firing squad. But that's... So I feel like I can make these points without attacking people who generally are on my side in fighting the deranged leftists who are killing us. But my point is, so two points. One, you have to define your side. You do. There are limits to the side. All the people who don't want to kill others based on their political ideology. So I would agree with that, except for the fact that, as you showed, Nick Fuentes wants to kill others based on their political ideology.

1:22:43He's not on my side. He's not with me. My point is that Tucker treated him as though he was on his side. I see it differently. I think he did an exploratory interview where there was a possible attempt to put a bumper up on this guy. I think that we don't have to go over ground that we've already covered. We can agree to disagree on that, and everyone can make up their own mind after going and watching the interview yourself. Why don't we do the Larry David? I disagree to disagree. By the way, is it gloss or glaze? I've heard it both ways. A gloss, like a glossy... You have kids who do the brain rot talk?

1:23:11That's what they call it, brain rot, those terms. Like he's got Riz. I don't know. I've got two teenagers and a 12-year-old. I mean, listen, my original verbiage is that Tucker was fluffing him, so I guess that was more G-rated. That's a porn reference, right? It is. It's a porn reference. Yeah, he's not afraid to say it. So let me ask you this. There's some risk to both of you in this. You know, it's like Godzilla and King Kong having this battle. There's some risk to both of you because you both have very large shows, very large audiences, and there's probably some overlap, or at least there would have been two years ago.

1:23:42So is this in any way, did you feel any reluctance to have this? Okay, so I was reluctant because, again, he and I had texted about the idea of orienting in the same direction, and then I decided that we were, in fact, not oriented in the same direction. But am I worried about the career risks? No, because to me there's sort of a Laffer curve when it comes to influence. So famously when it comes to economics and the Laffer curve, the idea is that if you tax everybody at 0%, you receive zero tax revenue. If you tax everybody 100%, you also receive zero tax revenue because everyone stops working.

1:24:14I think there's an influence curve as well, because I thought about this a lot before. This is so, Ben, who goes to the laugher curve to bring home the point about, this is so smart, but then he knows that we don't know what he's talking about, so he defines it. So if you have no influence, if you have no influence, but you speak out a lot, then you have no influence. If you have tons of influence, and you don't speak out when it's appropriate, you also really have no influence. And so for me, the question becomes, when is it important to speak out. And Megan, you and I have been talking behind the scenes about many of these same issues for a very long time.

1:24:45And so you know that I actually, you've known me for a very long time. I'm pretty good at conflict, but I don't like conflict. I really don't. You've been trying to put this one behind you guys for a long time. A very, very long time, consistently for a very long time. In fact, for two years, I mean, I can read older text messages. After that initial blow up where Tucker was suggesting I have dual loyalty and all of this, I literally texted him And I said, Tucker, we seem to have gotten crossways somehow. I would love for you to come on my show. I'd be happy to come on your show. We'll do it. And he proceeded to ghost me for two years.

1:25:18He was not in a headspace. I didn't talk to him about this, but my assumption is he was not in the right headspace to have a good time. For two years is a long time to be not in the right headspace. But look at the two years we've had, right? Look at the two years. It's all related to Israel. It's all related to Israel. I do not agree. I disagree. I fundamentally disagree. He wasn't picking fights with you before the Israeli conflict. It wasn't about picking fights over Israel. Okay, again, you're trying to turn it into he picked a fight with me or I picked a fight with him. For me, the question is the principles.

1:25:46It blew up over the past two years. I don't think that it's a coincidence that, obviously, anti-Semitism simultaneously blew up with the war of October 7th. Yes, but also so has conflict and controversy involving feelings over Israel. Of course. And now the war has been over for several weeks. And Tucker Carlson is writing newsletters about how Zoran Mamdani is not an anti-Semite. What does that have to do with Israel? I think that's a hangover from being called an anti-Semite at every turn and feeling angry about it. You know what? I'm a little tired of the excuse that if you are called something enough, that justifies all of the subsequent activity.

1:26:18I've been called every goddamn name in the book. Every name in the book. We all have. Wait, but I have not shifted my positions because people call me names. That is a childish thing to do. Ben, with all due respect, you did not have an entire country call you a Nazi for the past week. I think he's in a defensive place right now on charges of anti-Semitism. I'm not interested in his psychotherapy, Megan. I am. I love him as I love you. Well, you know what? And that's why I started this off by saying you're empathetic and you're a wonderful person and you're a good friend. And I think that, you know, there's a reason why in the medical industry you don't operate on your friends or your relatives.

1:26:55But you're telling me I need to. I'm not telling you. That's what I'm trying not to do. No, Megan, actually, I haven't said that one time here. I said that's why I'm doing it. I know, but there are many people who are like... And you're urging me not to. And I'm saying that that is not a move that I can make because Tucker has already closed the door to the idea that we are on the same side. Ah, but he hasn't closed the door to detente. Let me show you another soundbite. Let me just show you one more. But is there any way that you and Ben Shapiro can actually find your way to detente? I'm not against Ben Shapiro.

1:27:29He did like a 40-minute thing yesterday calling me dangerous and all this stuff. It's like, I didn't watch it, because why? But I got a lot of texts about it, and it's like, I'm not, I don't think Ben Shapiro is driving a lot of this stuff. I don't consider him, like, the world's greatest force for evil. I don't feel that way at all. I don't actually think about him ever. So I don't want to have a war with Ben Shapiro. I don't know if, does he really think that me doing an interview in which I explain that anti-Semitism is wrong to one of the lead purveyors of anti-Semitism, that that somehow makes me a Nazi?

1:28:01Like, what is the argument here? I'm going to ask him tomorrow night. I don't even understand what the argument is. All I know is that the right, and I've been on the right since before Ben was born, is acting like the left in such an amazingly precise way that I'm like, what the hell is going on? I agree with Tucker that the right is in fact acting like the left by, again, massaging its radicals in the name of some sort of faux unity. That does not sound detente. Because, again, I'm not, again, trying to turn this personal is a mistake. I know, but can it happen? Like that person who sent those texts from your end, is that person still willing to sit with him and work something out?

1:28:43When Tucker changes his positions, then sure. If he does not change his positions, then no, because I'm not in politics to be friends with people. I have children, I have a wife, I have a dog, I have an extended family, and I have friends outside of this. He doesn't want to be friends with you either, Ben. It's about uniting the right so that we can fight the right enemy on the left. And Tucker is of the right. And Tucker has been fighting for a lot of these ideals for a long time, and he's changed this country fundamentally for the better. I'm not saying Tucker has never been a wonderful advocate for anything on the right, because I don't think that's true.

1:29:13I think in the past, he was a great advocate for many things on the right, particularly on the immigration issue. For sure. I'm saying that's not what he is doing now. I do not think he's advocating for right-wing positions. He's not conservative than I am by any stretch of the imagination on any possible issue. And when it comes to the question as to whether he is actually making the conservative movement more likely to lose by attacking inside the tent significantly more often than anyone else on the right while simultaneously massaging again. Watch the interview. Massaging the nation's leading white supremacist.

1:29:45I'm sorry, there's no detente with those positions. Forget about the person. There's no detente with those positions. Fair enough, fair enough. Was this a good discussion?

1:29:57I mean honestly I give you tons of credit for coming And doing this, it's such a crazy thing for me That I had him booked last night And I had you booked tonight And then you guys wound up in this But part of me loves that I can talk to both of you, but part of me hates this Because I don't like it I hate it too This idea that I'm seeking conflict Again, I'm not It's idea driven If the ideas are bad, I am against them If the ideas are good, I am for them End of story I get it. And he would say the same, right? He feels very much America first and that, you know, we need to prioritize what's happening in our country and Israel's not on that list and so on.

1:30:34You guys can listen to that interview if you want to hear Tucker's full thoughts. It aired today. You probably heard it. Okay. We're going to take 20 seconds and surprise, we're bringing Andrew and Michael back out here. It's the one time of year that Birch Gold Group gives away free gold with every qualifying purchase. That's right. For Black Friday, when you convert an existing IRA or 401k in whole or in part into a tax-sheltered IRA in gold, Birch Gold will send free gold to your home for every$20 ,000 purchased. Gold started this year around$2 ,600 an ounce. By October, it was over$4 ,000 an ounce.

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1:32:56That's SiriusXM.com slash MKShow and get three months free. Offer details apply.

1:33:07We'll have a group discussion starting out. So, what I missed... You gave us all the easy questions. I like that. We had a lot of fun. All right, let's actually have fun. Let's kick it off with the Sidney Sweeney moment. Not the dress, sorry. But with the moment, an extraordinary moment she had today where she was asked quite a question by GQ magazine about that infamous or famous, depending on your point of view, American Eagle Jean's ad and how she handled it. The criticism of the content, which was basically that maybe specifically in this political climate, like white people shouldn't joke about genetic superiority.

1:33:55Like that was kind of like the criticism, broadly speaking. And since you are talking about this, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically. I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear. like a boss that was actually sexier than the dress what an extraordinary moment right it's great that's watershed stuff up there it's the new meme you know there's a meme on the internet of like anakin skywalker talking to his wife and then really he sort of doubles down and it's this like dark right wing that's the new version of that she's the new spokesman for the american right and i'm willing to go so far as to say right now I'm formally endorsing a ticket of Vance Sweeney, 2028, the greatest message discipline in the Republican Party.

1:34:45The message discipline, exactly. But what a thing to hold your own and say like, no, I won't be making news for you today on that. It's so great. And she understands the game, right? Which that the lady was after clicks. And if she comments in any way, it'll make a huge headline. She's like, you know, no gas, no gas for the car. And now where are you going to go? Smart. That plus that Jennifer Lawrence moment, right? Drew is like, they're starting to get it. Oh, listen, Hollywood is out of work. When I say that, I mean they're all out of work. You could make a movie about white supremacy and they would show up because they are out of work.

1:35:17This is true. The business has shut down. Only the Christian people are making movies. A couple of movie stars who can still make movies. The business has closed. And, you know, the unions are enforcing racial quotas on the films and you cannot win an Oscar if you don't have a certain racial quota of the people involved. And all of that is kind of just coming apart at the seams. It's kind of delightful. It is. It's wonderful. Well, this is not least because this is the Democrats' bench. Like, this is their A-team to get them elected, right? This is who they bring out. This is who they parade out.

1:35:48And more and more, they're going to be getting a no. Because if they can hurt the career of Taylor Swift, they can absolutely hurt anybody else. And by they, I mean us. So they're learning that we have real buying power and that we can hurt you if you get too political. and we will. We don't use it that often because we're conservatives and we kind of let people live and let live, but when they try to push Kamala Harris into the White House, we stand up and we fight. We find our spine. So I feel so encouraged by that. I don't feel encouraged at all about anything that happened this week, but I feel encouraged by that.

1:36:16And there was really no blowback to her either, which is sort of the impressive thing. So you remember back in the 90s, Michael Jordan famously was asked about why he didn't start making very loud political statements, and he said, because Republicans wear sneakers too. And everyone went nuts on him. This was considered terrible at the time. And then, of course, the NBA decided that LeBron James was the great face because he was so much better than Michael Jordan because he was political. She said this, and I think all of us cheered, and the entire left kind of backed into a corner. They really did.

1:36:42They're afraid. They're like, oh, shit. I think that's right. She can't be pulled around. But you said something earlier, Megan, that people have to show up for the people who make rebel films and rebel books and all that stuff. There was a film on Apple TV with Tom Hanks where he was a guy fighting Nazi submarines. All he does through the entire movie is read the Bible and kill Nazis. And I thought, everybody should be watching. We should be subscribing to Apple TV. The movie's called Greyhound, by the way, and it's terrific. It's terrific, yeah. Let's talk about 2028 and Team Blue. Who do we like?

1:37:16Who do we think is actually going to pull this thing out? Gavin? I guess, yeah, the leading candidate right now. If you had to put your money on it. If you forced me today, I would say, no, it's going to be a Bill Clinton-like figure in 92. It's going to be someone who maybe we don't know yet because no one's over that 25 % threshold. Probably it is American Psycho, Governor Bateman, you know, Newsom over there. Probably he's the leading candidate. The problem for him, though, is he doesn't know who he is. So he's a very far-left mayor. He was doing gay marriages in San Francisco in, like, 2003, long before that was legal.

1:37:52He is very, very left-wing. Then he tries to pivot and be the new Clinton Democrat. So he tries to be friends with Charlie Kirk. He tries to be friends with Steve Bannon. He's going to cut this middle ground. That doesn't work. Then his press team is tweeting threats at Stephen Miller, and they're going far, far left shortly after Charlie was murdered. So he doesn't know where he stands. And it's just a party problem. The party problem is the future of the Democrat Party, per Kamala Harris, there's Jasmine Crockett and Zoran Mamdani, all these far left communists. and he understands that no one is going to win a primary as a white guy who's a moderate who's friends with Steve Bannon and no one's going to win a general if she's Jasmine Crockett who sometimes can speak the English language and sometimes apparently can't.

1:38:35But I saw you say on your show, this is why you believe Gavin Newsom is actually going to run and he is going to run as the next black president. And the reason Michael predicts this is because of this soundbite, we've got one more soundbite for you, that comes from an interview he did with two former NBA players last week. But also, you know, it was also about paying the bills, man. And it was just like hustling. And so I was out there kind of raising myself, turning on the TV, started, you know, just getting obsessed, you know, sitting there with, you know, the Wonder Bread and five stacks of, you know, Like the White Stack Farm Story.

1:39:16Come on. macaroni and cheese every day in the backyard just bouncing the basketball throwing the ball against the wall until the ball is just like fraying man and your arms fall off that's it, whole thing and then this student that was a shitty student in the back with his head down all of a sudden started throwing the baseball a little faster than everyone else and started to make a few free throws because I was sitting there practicing 500 of them every damn night and in high school I look up in the stands my dad's back up there. Okay. And it's like, man. And then he's bringing his friends and you're captain of the team.

1:39:53And you're like, geez, you know. And it just saved me. And it got me into college. He's got my vote. Thank God. Michael said he was born a poor black child. I was waiting for him. And I, you know, listen, I'll tell you fellas, smoking blunts was a daily routine since 13. Chubby fella on the scene. He is such an unbelievable lizard person. When you watch him, you can almost see the ridges under his skin kind of moving. Yes, the hands. And you're waiting for him to unzip and just the dinosaur pops out. How about the working class lie? It's such a lie. It's unbelievable. He said, you know, he goes, well, my pops went out to get milk.

1:40:37You know, he didn't come back. And finally, my dad's came around. His dad was the financial advisor to the billionaire Getty family. And he was a judge. He was a judge. That was his other judge. My dad worked two jobs. Yeah, you were a financial advisor and a judge. He was featured in a magazine spread as a teenager with a caption, Children of the Rich. I was like, Wonder Bread and Mac and Cheese. You know, I'm going to go a little bit off the board in terms of 2028 picks for the Dems. I think everybody is underestimating AOC. Yeah, me too. I do. Who? Underestimating? AOC. Really? Yes. Well, that's scary.

1:41:10Because if I look at the order of the Democratic primaries, it goes Iowa, super progressive. New Hampshire, super progressive. And you get to South Carolina, and that was sort of the firewall for, quote-unquote, normie Dems last time, right, because Bernie won both the first two states, and then the entire Democratic Party decided to deprive him of the nomination by all getting together in James Clyburn saying, it's got to be the dead guy. And so they all mobilized behind Biden. I think that it's harder to do that with AOC, because what she represents is Bernie, but ethnically diverse. and that is not a horrifying pitch inside the Democratic primary electorate, actually.

1:41:45And hot. She's cute. Get it. He is. Come on, Drew. I'm sorry. Stop it. She is. She is. Just stop it, Drew. Drew, no. Yes. No, Drew, no. Stop. She's no Sidney Sweeney, and I think we can all agree. She's no Sidney Sweeney, but she's got what Sidney Sweeney's got. My own personal opinion is you can't be, like, that constantly angry all the time and, like, really penetrate the lens. Ben is right. The eyeballs are like half out of your eye socket all the time. Ben is right. She's a good campaigner. She's good on the... All right, so would you put money on AOC? Like, would she be your front runner?

1:42:17Yeah, I'm looking at the polls right now. I think that she is... If she's not... I think right now it's Newsom and her, but I think Newsom fades. I do. He's got the same feeling about him that actually I kind of felt about a guy who I really like, Governor DeSantis, in the early primary going in the Republican Party in 2024. I love Governor DeSantis, but in 2023, the idea was that he was definitely going to be the nominee in 2024. And then, of course, Donald Trump just swamped him and swamped everybody. And so I could see a world where the Newsom moment kind of fades. He feels like he's peaking early.

1:42:49In all these races, there's somebody who kind of peaks early and like, oh, man, remember that Tim Paul Lindsey guy? Remember, there's like a hot moment where everyone's like, oh, Tim Paul Lindsey. I like Tim Paul Lindsey, but come on. You remember? Okay, but what about like an outsider like Stephen A.? Okay, first of all, I really like Stephen A. As a human, Stephen A's great. We all like him. But a Democrat. And so Stephen A, no. He's moderate. He's diverse. He's from the outside. He's very good on camera. That would be fun. I would love it. With love. With love. No? What do you mean? To run as a Democrat?

1:43:21We could do no better. On Team Blue. To get a normie running as a Democrat? Where our worst case scenario is Stephen A? I feel like that's pretty good. I totally agree with this. Totally agree with this. Vance is going to be the next president no matter what happens. Vance. Vance and Rubio. Okay, so here's a question for you. Unbeatable, unbeatable. Here's a question. If it's Vance, how does it happen? Like, do they do a convention? Does Trump, like, pass a baton? Well, I think that, I mean, the hot rumor is that Rubio's going to sign on as Vance's VP right after the midterms, basically. Right?

1:43:53And then that makes a lot of sort of political sense for Marco, right? There are a lot of people who are trying to say that the Secretary of State should run against Vance. If you're just doing a game theory thing here, it doesn't make a lot of sense for Rubio to do that. If he runs against Vance and he loses in the primaries, he's toast. We did the Laffer curve, and now we're doing the game theory. Okay, keep going. If you're evaluating his options, what you would figure is he runs against Vance, he loses, and now he's toast. He runs against Vance, and then Vance doesn't pick him for VP, and then Vance becomes president, he's toast.

1:44:18The only way that works out for him is somehow if he finishes second, but he's better off then even if Vance picks him as VP and then loses. So that's definitely Rubio's best option. So I think they probably run a combined ticket. I think they foreclose primaries. I think no primaries. But if they sort of come out and say, we'd love to be president and vice president, how is that going to resolve it? There are other very ambitious Republicans in the Trump administration who might have a problem with it. There are plenty of people who want to be president, like every United States senator, every governor, everyone basically.

1:44:50But who's got the juice to do it? You make the point, Ben, that maybe Newsom is kind of like DeSantis was in 24. and I see it, but the difference is there was Trump, and really, I know there was a primary in 2024. DeSantis is great. I love DeSantis. I never really thought for even two seconds that there was seriously a primary. Trump was a fait accompli. He was the man. He was the one they were prosecuting. He was the one they were raiding his hat. He was the man, you know, and they jilted him, and he's just this world historic figure. There's nothing even close to that on the left right now. And so, as a result, Trump remains the man.

1:45:26He's basically endorsed that ticket of Vance Rubio. And I think it is, look, you know, there are plenty of people who want to repeal the 22nd Amendment, name Donald to be, you know, Donaldus Magnus, Emperor the First, have it passed to Baron Octavian Augustus Trump, and, you know, so on and so forth. Assuming that doesn't happen, Trump can crown Vance and Rubio, and I think that's the end of the story. All right, all right, but now I have a question for you. Okay, I have another question for you. because we are in November of 2025, so it's a long time before the actual race kicks in. And in between now and then, we might have the tariff scheme collapse, depending on how the Supreme Court rules.

1:46:06It was ambiguous yesterday. It wasn't perfectly clear two days ago that it's going to go Trump's way. We might have eliminated the filibuster, which will be extremely controversial. And you're in favor of it? The time has come. I would say, if you ask me, the time has come. You have to do it. And actually, the proof of it, look, I'm like a big defender of the filibuster and standards and norms and slowing things down. I've loved the filibuster. But politics is applying eternal principles to changing circumstances. The Democrats will do it. There is no question. The only reason they didn't last time is because of Manchin and Sinema.

1:46:42They're gone. These are people who celebrated when the most prominent proponent of civil debate in America was assassinated in 4K. These people will stop at nothing. and you get a real advantage if you're the party to do it first. They've been creeping toward it for years. It pains me to say it. I kind of like the filibuster in principle. Do it. Nuclear option. To quote George W. Bush, nuclear. Get rid of the filibuster. I have sort of a happy medium counterproposal, and it was actually put forward by our friend Jeremy Boring. I thought it was quite brilliant. What he suggested is that what Republicans should do, he said this a year ago, what Republicans should do is they should say to Democrats, let's do a constitutional amendment to enshrine the filibuster permanently and if you won't do it, then we'll nuke it.

1:47:23I like that. Because that's like, okay, either we're all on board or nobody's on board. We're not going to play this kind of take them on faith game, which I think is quite smart. I am terrified about the loss of minority rights in the Senate. I agree with you. Our team is going to be there soon enough, and we are going to be terrified at what those Dems are going to do to us. It does give a big advantage to having a president who is of a different party than the Senate, which the public will catch on to eventually, so he can start to veto bills. It's going to mean a lot more of things getting stuck in Congress, which I'm totally in favor of.

1:47:57The less they can do, the more I like it. Well, that's the thing. That was built in by the founders. They didn't want things to move quickly through the Senate. They wanted conflict. They wanted it to take forever. They wanted it to be really hard to pass legislation. They thought it would lead to strong-arming and trying to get bipartisan compromises done, and we just don't do that anymore. I think it's related to Citizens United where money talks and that's what everybody answers to. Who got them elected and what do they want? They don't compromise anymore. So maybe you're right. Maybe different circumstances require different measures.

1:48:26But I really do not favor getting rid of the filibuster. What do you guys think? Do you want to get rid of the filibuster? Or no? How many do not want to do it? These are very wise, good-looking people. They understand. This is Nuket.

1:48:43They got a lot of that. The Marxists will destroy us. Don't pay Congress through the shutdown I heard out there. It makes perfect sense. Whatever, maybe. So what is the biggest threat to a J.D. Vance-Marco Rubio ticket actually winning? What's the biggest threat to them actually winning? The biggest threat is an economic downturn. It is not even close. So I'm very, very uneasy about the state of the economy right now. In fact, I think the best thing that could happen for the president is likely the Supreme Court striking down the tariffs. If that were to happen, then what you will actually see is some reduction in prices.

1:49:17You will see an explosion in investment not in the top of the market. Right now, virtually all gains in the stock market are going to Magnificent Seven, those top seven stocks. If you take out the gains from the Magnificent Seven, the stock market has been flat for several years at this point. Everyone in the investment community is pouring money into AI. and I don't think it's going to pay off the way they think it's going to pay off. I think AI is a bubble. I think that Trump is doing something really visionary and I'm not sure he's doing it according to a philosophy or just instinctively, but I think he is rearranging the American economy to be able to face off with China, which is going to be huge in about three years, if not shorter.

1:49:56The problem is, as he's doing that, he's not paying attention to this one thing that always is a president's layer, which is inflation. and he has not paid attention to that. And so the economy, it's hard to read the economy. His numbers are bad on it. Yeah. It's really bad. So he's getting blamed for Bidenflation, basically. And that's what I think had, it played into a little bit in that election, not as much as people say. But I think that that's the thing. Will he turn at some point and say, we've got to bring down prices, we've got to stop it? Because inflation is not high. He has to at least look like that's his number one priority.

1:50:29Absolutely. And right now he doesn't look like that. That's why people are punishing him and all of us with people like Epical Spamberger. I call her Melba. She's Melba Toast. I told her, how did they elect Melba in Virginia, of all places? And not to get us started on Jay Jones, right? I mean, let's end it on this. And you can use my mic to answer it. But, like, where do we stand now when we've actually seen... Here, I'll take it, yeah. I don't know why that's not working. Where do we stand now when two months after Charlie's assassinated, the Democrats have elected somebody who's calling for assassinations of Republicans and their children.

1:51:07How do we ever get along with these people? Do we try to get along with these people? Do we have dinners with these people? Do we try to compromise with these people? Do we just steamroll these people and do everything in our power to get Republicans elected here? So, you know, I think that we should define who these people are because obviously I don't think every single Democrat is a person who wants to slit our throats. I mean, I think we all have extended family members who are Democrats. I'm sure we all have friends who we work with who have voted the other way. But there are certainly an enormous number of people.

1:51:36You're just too close to me, dude. Move away. I want to get closer to you. I want to get closer. I don't know. I know. You're like Clavin with AOC. I don't know what's going on right now.

1:51:48I can dream, can I? But it seems to me that when we talk about they, one of the big obstacles to the possibility of a comedy and politics of people getting along is being too broad about who we're labeling. There for sure is a segment of Democrats who absolutely 100 % celebrated Charlie Kirk's murder. We all saw it. We all know who they were. That's absolutely true. I don't think every single person who voted for Jay Jones was celebratory about his text in the same way that I think that people, when they vote, tend to overlook terrible things that their own side has done when they get into a binary race with another side.

1:52:23Again, that's not an excuse for voting for Jay Jones, who is a complete and utter piece of shit. But that is to say I'm hesitant to malign every single person who votes in an election one way by saying that's the reason they voted for that specific thing. And so I think that it's incumbent on everybody to basically right and left say that people who do violence, obviously, are doing acts of evil. And it's evil. And honestly, before the J. Joe, before Charlie's murder, I think that you saw this bizarre moment when Luigi Mangione murdered the United Health care CEO, where there are a group of people on both right and left.

1:52:57It was almost entirely left, but there were some people on sort of the populist right even who were saying, well, you know, health care really is a problem. We should understand his points. I was like, no, we should absolutely not. We absolutely should not. And these permission structures for violence really need to end. Yeah, I certainly agree. I know it's fashionable to say we need to hear all voices and we just need a totally open marketplace of ideas, but I'm a conservative man. You know, I'm pretty traditional, and I just don't agree with that. I think that we need to get much more serious about standards and norms in the country.

1:53:30So when someone is threatening people, that's not protected speech. When someone's seriously inciting violence, their whole manner of speech are not protected. Fraud, obscenity, fighting words. And so when that happens, we need to prosecute that. That's prosecutable for a reason. I'll go further, though. I like a thriving marketplace of ideas, but you can't have a marketplace of ideas or any other thing if bandits keep shooting up the marketplace. And so, you know, we saw after Charlie was murdered, it was people who are very liberal were eight times as likely to defend political violence as people who are very conservative.

1:54:05Almost 30 % of young liberals would justify political violence. Many, many times what you saw for young conservatives. This is not sustainable. And so the people, whether they be in Congress, whether they be on TV, whether they be that girl you went to high school with on Facebook, if they are defending and celebrating the murder of an innocent man who just wanted to talk it out, they need to be ostracized from society. They need to lose their jobs in many cases. They need to be excluded from polite society. I'm with William F. Buckley Jr. I love William F. Buckley Jr. One time he was having a debate on Firing Line with a guy named Leo Churn.

1:54:39And Churn said, well, Mr. Buckley, I think we can all agree an open society is conducive to all that we want. And Buckley, in his real, like, Buckley way, sort of all over this way, He said, I don't agree with that. He said, I want society to be considerably more closed. You know, I'm an epistemological optimist. I see no reason to defend the speech of a Nazi or a communist. And I'm with Buckley, and I think we ought to do it. I actually think it's free speech that's going to save us. I think the thing that happened after Charlie, it was immediately exposed. The violence of the left has been hidden and masqueraded by the press.

1:55:18That power is gone. They have lost that power. And as long as we can disprove what they're saying in real time, which we now can, people are going to see pretty soon who is calling for death, who's calling for murder. But aren't they going to elect Jay Jones, too? You know, I'm not so sure about that. You know, so much goes into these local elections that I think, you know, he kind of rode to power on the coattails of the governor. But the polls do show that some 30 % of liberals think political violence is appropriate in some circumstances. Absolutely. But I think as that comes out, they're going to start losing more elections.

1:55:55I'm actually really, I hate to say it, but I'm actually really optimistic about what's about to happen and what's happening now. I know. I know. You're the one? Is it because of Sidney Sweeney? As I've said many times about Clavin, as Clavin draws closer to the death, he sees more light. I've got 10 minutes left, you guys. Listen, I gotta say this. I think everybody here has really stepped up in the wake of Charlie's assassination. I've watched you guys do it. We've done it ourselves. And that is something I feel really hopeful about. Everybody on our side of the aisle and all of you in showing up here tonight said, F that.

1:56:29We will not be silenced. We will not start talking about these ideas. We'll say and double and triple down on all of our most controversial thoughts just the way Charlie would have wanted. And I think he would be really proud that we're all here together tonight. Thank you. Thank you guys. So grateful. Thanks a lot. Thank you Megan. Thank you all of you. Thank you. We love you. Thank you Jacksonville. To be continued.

1:56:56Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.