Did Comey Leak to NYT, Leftists Want More DC Crime, and Fixing CA, with John Solomon, Steve Hilton, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke

27:39So I stood down. Just to be clear, this is somebody trying to get you to report that Trump is a Russian asset, or there's some sort of collusion, and Russia and Trump are colluding to win the election. And the FBI originally is telling you there's no there there, John. Okay. October 31st, 2016, the FBI tells the New York Times the exact same story. They write a story basically saying this stuff isn't true. And then somehow it magically becomes true over the next six months in the New York Times. And I ask myself, you know, it is possible that the career people I talked to in the FBI lied to me, but I don't think so.

28:17And the reason I don't think so is every time I would call back and check with them in January, in February, March, because I'm starting to see the hyperventilation of the Washington Post and the New York Times. The career people inside the FBI, the people trained to know what the FBI is doing and to try to give the most accurate answer they can to the media without violating the law, keep saying, John, our answer stands to you from October. It's not true. Alpha Bank's not true. We don't think the Steele dossier is uncorroborated. We looked at it. It's uncorroborated. It's unfortunate that BuzzFeed put it out there.

28:48So I have to ask myself, was Michael Schmidt and the New York Times talking to the same people I was? Because history showed those people were right, and the New York Times and its breathless coverage are wrong. And there's one story that bothers me. The most early seminal moment in my career as an AP reporter was at the very beginning of the Internet era, when the Wall Street Journal, in the middle of the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, broke a story off-cycle. They weren't going on print edition. They did something on the internet. It might have been the first time. We're talking like 1997, 98, really early.

29:26We weren't used to the internet then. And most newspapers had a 24 cycle or you just did it once a day. So they break a story in the middle of the day saying that a steward told the grand jury, Ken Starr's Whitewater prosecutor grand jury, that President Bill Clinton was found in a compromising position with Monica Lewinsky in the White House theater, I believe it was, a bowling alley or theater. And, you know, I'm at the AP. My job is you better get that fast to match at Solomon. So everyone tells me it's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. To my credit, my boss is a great news leader named Sandy Johnson.

30:02She stood by her reporters and didn't make us report it. And we eventually wrote a story saying it's been knocked down. It's not true. The Wall Street Journal withdrew that story. On its front page, they retracted a story that they'd put out wrong on the internet. The New York Times in February 17 writes a story basically to the effect of that U.S. intelligence has proof that Donald Trump's campaign was talking to U.S. Russian intelligence campaign about hijacking the 2016 election. That story has, is, and never will be true. It has never been retracted. In fact, James Comey even said the story wasn't true in some testimony after he left as director.

30:43The New York Times has never retracted that story. Yeah, they've written stories having people criticizing it, but history has shown that story is wrong. It should be retracted. Those are the differences between the way you and I practice journalism and the way they continue to practice journalism today. Right. The other reporter whose name has come up time and time again is this Ellen Nakashima, who is with The Washington Post, and she appears to have been on the receiving end of these same leaks or related leaks. She was all over the news during the relevant time frame, pushing her BS reporting.

31:18Here's just a sample of that. The topic of the Kremlin's influence operations has a particular resonance for me because in June of 2016, I broke the story of the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee. And I distinctly remember at the time that this was a big front page story, sort of Watergate, you know, the Watergate break in all over again, but in the information age. It's not just the Russians that exploited all of this. We have internal domestic actors that put out divisive messages from the left, from the right, and Russia amplified those messages. When I talk to people inside the government, the sources, it's not even per se to have someone, oh, please leak me something classified.

32:16No, it's more this, the value I get as a national security reporter is in the relationship built up over time, One of trust in which I find I have developed a relationship with someone I consider to be authoritative and knowledgeable and well-meaning and who, if they have trust in me, can explain some things in terms of context, history, significance. Not so much an actual operation or something really highly classified, but rather the history behind things. So what about her, John? Do we believe she was also on the receiving end of the Jim Comey leaks or possibly the Adam Schiff leaks or where?

33:04In disclosure, I worked with Ellen when I was at The Washington Post. I didn't find her anything but a professional reporter in the newsroom. The documents I saw yesterday show that she published classified information and they couldn't determine who the provider of that information was. Now, I want to point something out in the documents I published this morning, which are the ones that went to the Capitol Hill. And you will see that there's large blacked out sections of some of these memos, large blacked out sections. In fact, the most tantalizing one is something to the effect of Mr. Richman told us, James Comey told them not to leak, but, and then it's all blacked out, the but.

33:48And you're like, what is there? I think I know what might be there. And unfortunately, the Trump Justice Department, Trump 2.0 Justice Department, made some redactions to these documents. They may have a legitimate reason. We're trying to press through and negotiate and see if there's some way for the American public to see this. But I believe in some of these blacked out areas, there are two more lieutenants of James Comey, not named Daniel Richmond, who may also have acknowledged their role in the leaking campaigns. And I think we should wait and see if we can get that information released by Pam Bondi of the Justice Department.

34:22If it can be lawfully released, I think it will create a more 360-degree stereo look at how Comey operated and how some of these leaks operated over time. Again, just because a reporter got a classified leak doesn't mean they're a bad person. I once got one of the most classified stories in the history of this country. No, getting the leak doesn't. No, that's right. it doesn't. Getting the story wrong and never correcting it does. That's right. That's exactly the thing here. And I haven't done an evaluation of Ellen Nakashima's reporting yet. I certainly am going to now based on these new documents because she's a new sort of figure in this.

34:58I will point out something about the Washington Post. And for a period of time when my old Associated Press colleague, Sally Busby, was there, I think they tried to clean up some of their Russia reporting. They did about 12 or 13 appendages and corrections to stories. And And Sally, I worked with at the AP, she was trained, I think, like you and I were, which is we stick to the facts. And when we get it wrong, we admit it. There's nothing wrong. The only thing wrong is not admitting you're wrong when you are. And so there was a period where The Washington Post cleaned up some of its reporting.

35:27But about four months ago, I obtained a document under, I believe it's under FOIA. I got it. And it is the confidential interview of the NSA director, Mike Rogers, saying that one of The Washington Post Pulitzer winning stories that claimed that Donald Trump said something to Mike Rogers during their meeting that was incriminating, Mike Rogers said was, quote, wrong. The story is wrong. And he debunks it in detail in an FBI interview, which means he probably wasn't the source of the Washington Post story because he was pretty critical of it. I went to the Washington Post. Sally Busby's no longer there.

36:05And I got crickets when I asked him, are you going to correct this story? I check back every few weeks. I haven't seen a correction. That is a problem, just like the New York Times story from February of 2017 is a problem. And I think you've, and I don't know if that's an Ellen story. I'll have to look. I don't think it was, but your point is right. When you don't correct when you're wrong, you've really deserved the public. Ellen's stories are about, for example, the Russians hacking the Democratic National Committee, which now it appears is wrong. It does not appear that they were necessarily behind that leak, or at least now we have information that it wasn't that leak.

36:40Let me address that one. Yeah. I really want to address that because it does get, even in the conservative media, it gets gobbled up a little bit. Everybody I've talked to, critics and believers in the Intelligence Committee, believe that John Podesta's emails, which were not the DNC emails, were hacked. And there's pretty good reason for that. And the FBI had prima facie access to the evidence. They could actually see what happened with John Podesta's email. So the Russians were involved in that. That's an influence operation. By the way, not uncommon. The Russians are famous for this, so are the Qataris.

37:12Many countries do this. The DNC hack is much more problematic for several reasons. On James Comey's watch, the FBI never demanded to get the servers from the Democratic National Committee. Instead, they used its former cybersecurity chief and his company to evaluate the servers for the FBI and give them an analysis. And then that analysis was put out to the American public saying, based on what CrowdStrike this vendor hired by the DNC gave us, we believe there was a hack of the DNC servers. About three years ago, four years ago, as Bill Barr was leaving, we were able to get the actual interviews that CrowdStrike's people did with the FBI.

37:54And in that interview, they said something very profound that has never been disputed since, which is the Russians gained access to the in-service. They did some probing. They did some escalations of credentials, meaning I hacked my way in. I could get myself to administrator level. But what CrowdStrike said that I think is so important for all of us to understand, that is a form of hacking. If you get to credential level, you've hacked yourself in. But what CrowdStrike said is they could never prove there was no evidence of exfiltration, meaning that the Russians, after they got their permissions on the servers, they didn't pull the data off and get the emails and leak them out.

38:30Now, that is a very important qualification. There was some hacking that got into the system, but CrowdStrike is very specific that we couldn't prove exfiltration occurred. Now, compare that to what The Washington Post and New York Times and others reported, and it's a little muddled, and I think that that's one of the stories we've got to get fixed in the next few months. Well, she also did the reporting on Carter Page, And what it appears to me, John, is that she and Schmidt and a lot of these others. OK, it's fine. I agree with you. It's not wrong to get a classified leak. I mean, that's that's on the person who's who's breaching the classified protections.

39:10Ellen has no oath that she's taken to protect that information. As a reporter, you can you can report and reveal stolen documents so long as you didn't orchestrate the theft. So in any event, but especially when it comes to leaks from three-letter agencies, you must make sure you're not being used. I mean, every reporter knows when one of those people reaches out to you, all hackles should be up. The likelihood of you getting used is very, very high, which I've said this before, but that's why generally news organizations will put someone who is a cynical mofo in that position, like at Fox, Catherine Herridge, who likes no one.

39:48Which is good. That's good. That's exactly who you should have in that role, who cannot be charmed or wooed into writing what you want her to write. That's right. And instead, what it appears to have been is people like Ellen, people like Michael Schmidt heard all the things they already believed about Donald Trump from a source they trusted, like a Schiff or a Comey or a Brennan, and with glee ran to their keyboards. Yeah. Megan, you just did, that was like the perfect description of what our obligations are and what we often fail to do in our industry. There's a moment in my career where I went through this.

40:21Probably one of the biggest scoops I ever had in my career was at the Associated Press when I got the interrogation reports of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9-11. And we learned from those interrogation reports that he actually planned to do 10 planes on two coasts, and then bin Laden scaled it down. It was a worldwide exclusive. But we had that document for seven or eight days from our sources, and we did lots of reports because you didn't know if someone was trying to make somebody look good, or this was only one of 30 interrogations. And we did a lot of work before we pulled the trigger on writing that story.

40:53And that's important because we all know that people have motives when they give us something. And we have to take those motives into account and rule out that we haven't been misled before we pull the trigger. And too often in the internet era, that idea that I was trained on and that you were probably trained on, has been lost in the internet era where the moment I can get a click now if I go out with this is the only reward you get. And I think that being right or wrong has been less important than getting that click. And I think it's so important that journalism take a deep breath at some point and wind ourselves back to, let's find out the motives.

41:29Let's make sure we haven't been misled before we report something. John, before I let you go, have you been following the difference of opinion on these reveals that have been coming out between, say, on the one Camp, you, Matt Taibbi, Molly Hemingway, and others, Aaron Monte, Glenn Greenwald. And on the other, many in the so-called mainstream, yes, of course, who I don't really listen to, but I do listen to Andy McCarthy over at National Review and respect his opinion. And he did write a whole book about Russiagate, but he still is just not, well, he hasn't written about it in a while because he's been on vacation, but he did not think there was any there there on the initial reveals here.

42:06and he really thought this was a nothing burger, like what Tulsi was revealing. So have you been following that difference, and do you have a thought on it? Yeah, listen, I try not to evaluate whether something's nothing. I try to just give people facts that they can make up their own mind. My goal now, he obviously writes op-eds, so his goal is to help people come to conclusions. I've tried throughout my career to just give people data points and let them make up their own mind. I do think that what you do see and what we've learned is that inside the intelligence community, the roles of the intelligence community were broken to come up with a story that Putin helped Trump, even though the evidence said otherwise.

42:43The most damning evidence from all the intelligence experts I talked to, and I derive my knowledge from people who are professionals, I'm not an intel professional, is that the intelligence community's belief that Putin didn't try to help Trump was based on the most significant moment in October of 2016, which is Russia ended its active measures and did not try to interfere in the election in October 16. Why is that important? Everybody knows, including Russian intelligence, most Americans make up their mind in the last few weeks of the election. Russia had all sorts of dirt they could have dropped on Hillary Clinton to possibly take him out, and they didn't do that.

43:19That is what we call a passive decision, meaning intelligence community saw them having the capability to do something to damage a candidate and deciding not to do it. That's a very powerful piece of evidence in the Intelligence Committee assessment. And it's why Congress on November 29, 16, is brief that there was no preferred candidate. That's a pretty good reason to believe that. You have to look at what happens after November 29 to realize how badly the community was hijacked. Maybe Andy's looking at it from a prosecutor. Could I prosecute someone from what happened here? No. But from an integrity standpoint in our country on how we're going to protect ourselves about the future of this country from counterintelligence threats, from counterterrorism threats, the ability to take good intelligence and turn it into a bad conclusion affects all of our safety.

44:10And I think from that perspective, there is a reason why we should be reporting on this. Whether someone gets prosecuted or not, I don't know. I've been hearing about prosecutions for 10 years. Haven't seen a whole lot of them. So I'm pretty jaded in expectation. but I do think these things matter for you and my safety. When those two intelligence officers came to my driveway in March of 17, which set me on my path to unravel this story, the first thing they said to me when I asked them, why are you coming forward to me? Why me? And what are you trying to me to do? And he's like, you gave us these tools after 9-11 to protect you from terrorists and from counterintelligence threats.

44:44And if we lose them because we've abused them the way we do, you will not be as safe at night as you have been the last 10 years. That's what drove those two whistleblowers to come to my drive at 11 o 'clock at night in the spring of 2017. I think the professionals know that the abuse of these tolls risk them being taken from them or being corrupted, and we're all less safe. And that's a matter of public interest that goes beyond prosecution. John, as I listen to you talk, all I can think is we need a full episode of John Solomon and your background and your stories. Because even just in that brief recitation, I learned facts about you I didn't know.

45:19What a fascinating guy you are. I love to do that, like just you, and we'll talk for a couple hours. Listen, I don't listen to many podcasts. I listen to you often. You do such a great job, and you inform the public with such integrity. So anytime, I'm there. Thank you. Thank you so much. To be continued, we'll stay on it. We'll continue refreshing just the news. Coming up next, our friends from National Review. Speaking of National Review, Rich Lowry's here, along with Charles C.W. Cook. Let's be honest. America can still be a dangerous place, and you cannot afford to wait for help. Sure, you could use a firearm, but in today's America, defending yourself with deadly force could have legal consequences.

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47:57Joining me now, Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cook of National Review. You can find all of their work by becoming an NR Plus subscriber today. We will get Andy McCarthy on to talk about his views on Russiagate once he's back and well rested and ready to talk again. He's been on vacation at exactly the wrong time, Rich Lowry. But in any event, let me ask you this, because I want to pick up on the media angle that we were discussing with John Solomon. Interesting fact, the New York Times' Michael Schmidt, who we just discussed, who won a Pulitzer for his Russiagate reporting, and now, of course, is downplaying all the latest revelations by Tulsi Gabbard, is married to the woman whose soundbite I am about to run for you.

48:43And you'll be shocked, shocked to hear that she also doesn't seem to think there's much to the latest Russiagate allegations. Play SOT 5. Some more news breaking this hour to tell you about. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered a grand jury investigation into the so-called Russia-gate conspiracy allegations made by the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. These are unsubstantiated and largely debunked allegations by the Trump administration that former President Barack Obama and his aides in the intelligence community ordered a probe into the 2016 Trump campaign's connections to Russia to ruin his chances of becoming president.

49:25We'll stay on top of that story. Thank you for letting us into your homes. We are always so grateful. all. That's MSNBC's Nicole Wallace, who constantly sounds as though she's just getting over a three week battle with the flu and she's been forced to do the broadcast from her near deathbed. She constantly she sounds so sick and that is unsubstantiated. But I will tell you this, Rich Lowry, you run a news organization. If I ran MSNBC, there is no way I would let the wife of the journalist who received the classified leaks at issue report in any way, shape or form on this controversy? What say you?

50:04I was just going to say, this is one of the big problems with the media, right? The media, a lot of it, Democratic operatives and certain people in the so-called deep state are the same. They're married to one another. They're dating one another. They go to the same cocktail parties. They are the same blob. And this is just an indication of that. And Also, it's highly irritating to have her say this is much ado about nothing when she, besides Rachel Maddow, was perhaps the person with the biggest media platform plying all this nonsense for years about the walls closing in and it was going to be established or had already been established that Trump had colluded with Russia with zero remorse afterwards.

50:45words, never any one moment of modesty. Oh, I got caught up my partisan passions. I should have I should have been a little more careful. None of that. Now she's still lecturing to us about the matter. It's a good point, Charlie. I mean, who if Nicole Wallace weren't allowed to report on these allegations, what unstained reporter could they find at MS to replace her? Yeah, I call it the Rachel Maddow extended universe because there is this whole world of essentially untrue ideas that is believed by MSNBC viewers. I think the straw that they're clutching onto is that Tulsi Gabbard has made some implications that aren't true.

51:34For example, that Barack Obama is going to end up being criminally punished for his role in this. But to take that hyperbole and then to conclude that all of the unraveling of Russiagate is illegitimate is ridiculous. We lived through this for a couple of years. The aim was at first to prevent Trump from becoming president, and then it was to waste his presidency. You'll remember if you look back, it was fairly common, including on MSNBC at the time, to hear people say that he should not allow to be used to use his presidential powers while he was under investigation and so on. So I think what they're doing is they're taking the hyperbole around the edges of this and they're trying to discredit the rest of it, which simply will not and should not work.

52:27I'll tell you what, she has a literally a vested interest in upholding this reporting, thanks to the things she has said, but also the things that her husband has written that were award winning. And there is really no question that she should not be allowed to sit in that chair and opine on whether these are legitimate or not legitimate allegations that directly involve her husband now and the veracity of his reporting and his reputation. The National Guard troops that President Trump dispatched to Washington, D.C. arrived yesterday. They showed up in droves. And I guess, you know, to say that the Democrats are not grateful would be an understatement.

53:09The mayor has waffled between kind of being grateful and saying, you know, you can say crimes down. Try telling that to the victims, family members and getting pushed by her fellow leftists into saying, but he's authoritarian. And, you know, of course, we hate him, but the troops, they're not such a terrible idea. In any event, they've arrived. And Judge Jeanine Pirro, who's the U.S. attorney now for the District of D.C., was asked yesterday about the troops and the allegedly falling crime rate. And here's how that went. What this makes clear to me is that there is a whole community that is suffering because of the violent crime in this district.

53:52All members of the minority community here. I am here today to tell you that on behalf of all of these victims, all of these families, that they're going to be accountable, that we are going to make a difference. And I guarantee you that every one of these individuals was shot and killed by someone who felt that they were never going to be caught. And I want to send a message that we are going to catch you. You said it's guns on the street that's causing this problem. Are you concerned that the DOJ's funding cuts to gun violence prevention programs undermine the effort? We are putting all kinds of resources onto this street.

54:30The drop in crime rates at the end of the year. What changed? It's never enough. This changed. This changed. It's never enough. You tell these families crime has dropped. You tell the mother of the intern who was shot going out for McDonald's near the Washington Convention Center, oh, crime is down. You tell the kid who was just beat the hell in back with a severe concussion and a broken nose, crime is down. No, that falls on deaf ears. And my ears are deaf to that. And that's why I fight the fight. Thank you. Boom. And she dropped the mic. Not literally, but she should have. Rich, well done by Janine Pirro.

55:15And there really are some horrific stories. I suppose you could find them in any large metropolitan area. But D.C. in particular has got some awful ones like that one about the intern. I think it was 19 years old. They're doing an internship in Washington. It's like a kid's dream going out to get a McDonald's and gets killed. We could spend all day going through these. She had the pictures of a lot of those young victims in particular up on those boards right up in the face of those reporters saying, how dare you? It's never enough. Don't tell me, don't tell the family members of these dead people, crime's down so we don't need more law enforcement.

55:49Yeah, I'll say a couple of things. One, I have no use for Mario Bowser. And she has vacillated a little bit here. But I think basically, though, from where she's coming from, a fairly constructive attitude. Right. She's saying, yeah, crime's down. We don't need this. But if we're getting more federal assets, let's use them to reduce crime. And if that had been the message by Democratic mayors all around the country about ICE, you know, saying, oh, I don't like these tactics. I don't think it's really necessary. Maybe you're going too far. But yes, thank you for coming and getting the criminals off our streets.

56:19I think that debate would be in a much better place. And I don't think the National Guard troops make much of a difference. They basically guard federal buildings. Maybe they free up some police resources to do other stuff. But certainly the sheer presence. If you're a young woman jogging on the streets of D.C., you're going to enjoy seeing those guys. You're going to feel a little safer seeing those guys, men and women in camouflage, staying there. But I think the key thing is the driver of most of the gun violence, very small group of guys who've already been involved in the engaged in the criminal justice system, have long rap sheets, have probably been in prison already and are largely known to authorities.

56:55Can you, working with the local police with additional DEA and FBI resources, really in this 30 day period, try to move the needle in arresting more of those guys and making them worry about consequences? That's huge. And then the carjackings, which are so awful, you know, they're 14 year olds carrying these things out. So you need, as Janine was saying, you need them to to believe they're going to be consequences. That involves, I think, changing the laws. Congress has a role here. The D.C. City Council probably can't be done in 30 days, but you can move the needle. And I hope there's an incentive created here for D.C.

57:28to say, no, we don't need this federal intervention. We're doing fine because we're going to get tough. And these, you know, in ways X, Y and Z. That would be a very constructive outcome. The cops have been super grateful for it, Charlie. The cops union came out and said, thank God we need help. We actually cannot handle this on our own, which went unreported by The New York Times's daily podcast yesterday when they took their deep dive into local reaction. They forgot to mention that the police are really grateful for it and say it's necessary. But here's just another example of what was on the two boards she was showing pictures of victims.

58:01She said, look at these 45 victims, all 19 and under, all killed by gunfire in the last 18 months in D.C. And you tell me crime is down. Two of the victims, Charlie, were three years old. One little girl's name was honestly Cheadle. It happened last month via the local NBC. Police arrested a man who they say fired shots that killed a three-year-old girl as she sat in a car with her family after Fourth of July fireworks. They believe the shooter intentionally targeted the family's car. She was taken to a hospital and died days later. And then just today, I retweeted someone named Maddie Karen, not to be confused with Maddie Kern, who says as follows.

58:44I was called into court, she's a D.C. resident, to give a statement about a man who had exposed himself to me on the Metro. He had over 200 charges to date. Court was delayed four hours for him to, quote, calm down after calling the judge the C-word. Once he had, she dismissed the new charges and let him go. That is what so many crime victims have faced. if the police do arrest the perpetrator and charge with the right charge as opposed to a downplayed charge, which is what is allegedly happening within the D.C. police. They're downplaying the charges so that they can make it look like crime is down.

59:22But if they get charged adequately and then get into the court system, you run into a judge like this who's really not particularly impressed, maybe unless you've actually murdered a three-year-old. And even then, questionable. Yeah, I haven't heard a good argument against this move yet. It may be true that crime is down. Perhaps a lot of that's the artifact of reporting, but it may be true. It's irrelevant, though, because crime is still very high. If you look through the reports, it is at an unacceptable level. I'm not a fan of the idea that we can make paradise on Earth. Sometimes when you hear the phrase, for example, if it saves one life, I think, well, no.

1:00:04We live in a free country. You cannot completely eradicate bad things happening. That's not what we're discussing here. We're discussing a city that is a mess, a city in which people are assaulted and killed and victimized all the time. And the fact that it may or may not be relatively down from its absolute high a few years ago is immaterial. The question is, is it acceptable? And the answer is that it's not. And that it's not is largely a choice. we're not talking here about a hurricane or a tornado or an earthquake we're talking here about government policies that don't work you mentioned one of them which is letting people off another is treating crime as if it's some sort of charming foible of the city you sometimes hear this in discussions of new york oh do you remember back when uh is as if it was some sort of you know fun thing you would do in the 1970s between seeing Led Zeppelin and going to watch Star Wars, you get a knife in the back, but a charming knife.

1:01:05That's nonsense. People hate crime, and there's no reason they should be subject to it. And the arguments made in its favor are ridiculous. The other bad argument is that crime is worse elsewhere. First off, that's irrelevant too. But you hear this, well, it's worse in New Orleans, or it's worse in St. Louis, maybe. Those are cities and states, though. And under our system, the burden is much higher for the federal government to get involved. But Washington, D.C. is a federal district. The district clause in the Constitution gives plenary power to the federal government to take care of it. If it wants to, it can delegate some of that power out to a city council or a mayor or whatever apparatus it desires.

1:01:52But it doesn't have to. And if it is the case, as it clearly is here, that the delegated authority is just not doing a very good job, then it's entirely reasonable for the federal government, which runs the federal district, which incidentally is the capital of the United States, there is an interest here in making sure that it's not a hellhole, it's embarrassing that DC is the way that it is, to step in. And there's nothing that Trump has done thus far that has violated the law. And there's nothing he's done thus far that would require Congress to act, although Congress probably should take control back.

1:02:24So I don't see any good arguments here that don't amount to either it's not so bad, it is, or crime isn't too much of a problem anyway, it is, or this is racist, it's not, or this is an overreach from the federal government, which is ridiculous, given that we're talking about Washington, DC, which is run by the federal government. All good points. You've got morons like Eric Swalwell. Well, that's really my only point. But in this particular instance, he decided to try to make a thing out of a recent crime event where a man, according to NBC for Washington, they posted a man is dead after a shooting in D.C.'s Logan Circle neighborhood, officers looking for a suspect.

1:03:14This moron, Swalwell, tweets it out. Trump owns it. So now every crime that happens in D.C. is Trump's fault because he's tried to supplement the law enforcement. I mean, do we maybe we'll give it 30 seconds. Which of you would like to take it? I can see both of you, actually. I mean, what does that even mean, Megan? Like, if somebody takes over custody of a child whose parents are unfit to look after them, and then the child falls over and scrapes her knee, you wouldn't say, ah, well, there you go. That just proves that the custody changed. I mean, obviously, that's not what's at stake here. and if even maybe 10 years you had the same people running things and there was no improvement sure point that out but that is just that's that's actually I needed 30 seconds but just give me a moment that actually is why I say that there are some people who are functionally in favor of crime because either they have some ideological opposition to fighting crime that they believe is rooted in history and is usually completely incomprehensible or they are so polarized against those who don't like crime, that they end up effectively siding with crime.

1:04:30And we've seen a lot of that over the last week. A lot of the coverage here has just been Trump wants to do it, therefore it's bad. Trump wants to fight crime, therefore crime must have something going for it. And it doesn't. It doesn't have something going for it. I think the average person watching this thinks it's lunacy. That's so well said. All right, wait, I've got a couple of examples of that teed up for you guys. Here's Simone Sanders, who undoubtedly is earning millions over at MSNBC, where she co-hosts one of the primetime hours. I think it's the one vacated by Joy Reid. And she appeared on Morning Joe with Scarborough and had the following exchange, SOT10.

1:05:08You don't think more police make streets safer? No, Joe, I'm a black woman in America. I do not always think that more police make streets safer. When you walk down the streets of Georgetown, you don't see a police officer on every corner, but you don't feel unsafe. So what is it about talking about places like Southeast D.C., right? Ward 8, if you will, that people say, well, we need more officers to make us safe. I think we have to rethink what safety means in America. Rich? Rethink what safety means? What is it? Does anyone not know what safety is, right? It's being able to walk down the street without looking over your shoulder or let your kid go out and play without worrying about him or her being harassed or shot.

1:05:51It's very basic. And if you showed that clip to the average resident of a dangerous neighborhood in southeast D.C., they would think she is crazy. Right. That's only that's a luxury belief right there. And that that famous phrase, she can say that because she safely goes from green room to green room and from Democratic fundraiser, Democratic fundraiser or whatever else it is. and doesn't have to worry about crime. And, you know, the counter argument that, look, we shouldn't do this because violent crime is down 25 percent in D.C. or whatever it is. Talk to anyone who lives in D.C. and ask them how they feel.

1:06:26Actually, I give Joe Scarborough credit. He's been reading these anonymous missives from Democrats who are saying, why didn't this happen sooner? I don't feel safe in the city. We talked on the editor's podcast with our reporter, Audrey Fahlberg, who's down there in D.C., says routinely harassed and menaced on the Metro and that everyone knows someone who's been mugged or gotten hurt. That is totally unacceptable. ABC anchor just the other day, right, said that she she was mugged. Kira Phillips. Outside the ABC studio. Yeah, not a not a what shouldn't be a dangerous part of town, kind of near Jupont Circle, right, right across the street from a luxury hotel.

1:07:02I forget the name. It might be the Mayflower. I forget. But should you go there and you're like, is this really dangerous? But it is if you're there at the wrong place at the wrong time with the Willard, I think she said. The Willard, yeah. So everyone knows, even if the numbers have gone down, it's still not a place where you feel safe. And it doesn't matter what Simone Sanders says. Everyone knows that. It's a little bit trying to – spinning crimes, a little bit trying to, like, spin the economy. It doesn't matter what you say. People know what their pocketbook is, and people know what safety is.

1:07:35Simone is a joke, Charlie. This woman 100 % rides to and from work in a Lincoln town car driven by a driver. When she gets to MSNBC, there is security there waiting for her. She gets escorted into the building. I know a thing or two about working in cable news. For her to be like, I feel totally safe, except when I see a cop because I'm a black woman in America, is a lie. Keep going. Well, sorry, we don't even have to assume. Can we just take a second to focus in on her argument? The actual logical chain that she offered up there was policing doesn't improve things in areas with crime, because in areas without crime, there aren't many police.

1:08:21what kind of argument is that that's like saying that food doesn't help people who are hungry because people who already have lots of food don't need any more like yes obviously there aren't police all over georgetown it's a relatively wealthy safe area what the hell does that have to do with people who don't live in georgetown i mean that is she said that you said she makes millions of dollars a year why she said that on television what what kind of argument is that that's what i'm talking about the fetishization of crime the defense of crime and she says as a black woman in america what does that mean like does she have any real arguments but that she is pro-crime not not in the sense that people use that in the sort of archie bunker way but she would rather have more crime than fix it for whatever ideological reasons that she has come up with this she's willing to go on television and say well it's fine for me in georgetown come on it's she's not she's not the only one um i don't know if you're aware of anand giri dardis he's a professor at nyu yeah and he goes he goes on msnbc all the time and he's got the following concerns Sat Na.

1:09:39I think it's really important to be clear about what is going on here. And a relatively small crime problem is being used for specific authoritarian purposes that we know and understand. So let's be clear about D.C. does have a really one really big crime problem, which was the January 6th insurrection incited by the current president of the United States And his first act in coming back was pardoning all the people who tried to overturn constitutional republic order in Washington, D.C. When I go to D.C., I'm not afraid of losing my wallet so much as I'm afraid of losing my vote. I'm not afraid of losing my wallet so much as I'm afraid that my children's freedom to breathe will be stolen in a world where climate change policy is nonexistent.

1:10:33rich you're in dc a lot is that is that what you feel that your your children's right to breathe is being stolen said second by second and that's what you worry about when you walk down the streets of dc at midnight again it's very easy to say up up until the time you get mugged right and i didn't i didn't like january 6th i think there people committed none of us officers don't like sweeping pardons but that doesn't mean that that people should be unsafe in D.C. and what constitutes a small crime problem and a big crime problem to him. Again, this is something where I give Muriel Bowser credit.

1:11:05She said, oh, the numbers are going down. Maybe she's right. Maybe she's wrong. But she said it doesn't matter to you if you're the victim of crime. Right. And you see the fourth highest homicide rate in the nation. Yeah. Higher or state higher than any other state. And you see it in public places. Right. We talked again on the editors yesterday about Union Station just feels like a blasted out barren zone because homeless people took it over. So you couldn't have one place to sit because a homeless person would build a mini encampment there. Right. And they and the authorities gave in to the homeless.

1:11:37So I think this is another thing that could happen actually in 30 days. The homeless encampments are getting cleared up and they're going to homeless people now. That's where you're wrong, my friend. That is where you are wrong. You that's your luxury belief that the homeless are going away thanks to law enforcement, because here's what's actually happening. The resistance is fighting back to keep the homeless in Union Station. And I'm not even making this up. We have videotape here and a soundbite of a liberal woman who is taking that problem on herself. She does not want the homeless removed from Union Station.

1:12:07She does not want your damn benches back. Rich Lowry, you can stand. And here is her plan to stop those guard troops from doing it in SOT 11. It's August 11th. I am outside Union Station in D.C. where folks on the ground are telling me that they are about to start rounding up unhoused people tonight. The folks here at the encampment in front of Union Station are handing out these whistles to give to unhoused folks. That way they have a way to call for help if they are kidnapped by federal law enforcement. So if you're in the area and able to swing by right in front of Union Station, they have tons of these bring them back to folks in your community so they have a way to call for help because this is how a fascist authoritarian regime starts

1:12:55the homeless people are going to blow into the whistles and love whistles well people love whistles for some reason who is going to come who is going to respond and where are they going to take them so that they don't have to leave go ahead charlie i know i'm a little obsessed with these arguments that people are making, but we've just had three arguments in a row, two from the MSNBC guest, one from her that inspire the follow-up question, and then what? Yes, right. So look, I am a big critic of January 6th. You've heard me say it a million times, I don't need to re-rehearse it for you. Including right after January 6th on this show.

1:13:33But January 6th was bad, right so if january 6th was bad what would more crime be i mean what is the argument there that because trump did january 6th we can't also not have other crimes and then the unspoken argument from the same guy and then from her about authoritarianism what does that look like like what is the next step so we clear out homeless people from public places where they're not supposed to be and then what America becomes a dictatorship I don't understand what is supposed to happen next here it's never said it's just it's just implied it's floated out there as if we all understand but that's not authoritarianism there's no authoritarianism inherent in cleaning up a city or stopping people being criminals if anything the greater threat of chaos and anarchy and the destruction of freedom and ordered liberty comes from crime.

1:14:38So I never quite know what it is that these people want or think is about to happen, and they never explain it. Okay, but the other question raised by her whistle plan, and for the listening audience, it's a bunch of plastic whistles in neon colors, is what happens, forget like she's arguing leave the homeless alone. What happens if they if she does the whistle plan and the homeless do what they're supposed to do and they blow into her little neon pink whistle? Then what? Who's coming? That 19 year old girl with the blonde braid? She's going to stop the National Guard. And then what? Is she going to take them back home for dinner?

1:15:18What? She's going to take these homeless people back to her house because it doesn't seem to be a big appetite in D.C. to, you know, have these people move in to the domestic housing. So what's her plan then? Like she's going to fight the National Guard so that they can have the corner of Union Station that they've staked out. Ah, it's a win. You sit there. That's your corner so that they can defecate all over the floor of Union Station, which is what your reporter was talking about stepping in the other day. Rich, like what is the plan? How is it a win to get the homeless like like Rose on the door at the end of Titanic to blow their little whistles?

1:15:52Come back, come back or go away, go away. It drives me crazy because they think they're being compassionate to homeless people by letting people who are seriously mentally ill and not getting treatment or have substance abuse problems or some of them just kind of perversely like the lifestyle sleep on grapes at night. Right. And and someone crapping in Union Station is terrible for when Union Station is not great for that person either. And given the amount of money that D.C. spends on homelessness, if there's not enough shelter for these people, that's a scandal on its own. So they should be rousted out of public places.

1:16:28The ones that are mentally ill or have substance abuse problems, you try to get them help, but they shouldn't be sleeping outdoors. They shouldn't be out of their minds harassing people or attacking them. It's bad for everyone. And they just can't get their heads around this. and they think they're doing the right thing. They think giving a schizophrenic a whistle so they can sleep in a dirty blanket in the corner of Union Station is a good thing. It's infuriating. It's amazing. All right, so I want to ask about something else now. So Caroline Levitt, the press secretary at the White House, tweeted out earlier today, for the third straight month, there were zero illegal aliens released into the country.

1:17:10Under President Trump, the border is the most secure it's ever been in American history. I think that's objectively true, at least in modern American history. And he's continuing to try to get the illegals who are in the country out of the country bit by bit. And they're making some progress on that, although clearly not as much as we would like. Nonetheless, the leftist narrative is that it is a day and night struggle for those who are here illegally to get through their days as they cower in fear of Tom Homan. I don't know whether that's true or not. I doubt it. But even if it is, I don't care.

1:17:49You're here illegally. The people, the immigrants who are here illegally have nothing to worry about. And the ones who are here illegally need to go home. And there was data released just this week showing that the number of people living in the country who are illegal, who are here illegally has gone by down by 2.2 million since January. And the belief is that they are self-deporting because they are worried about Tom Homan. So that is something I think to be celebrated. We're still up. I think it's 8 million over where we were back in 2019 under, under, or 20, whatever, under the Joe Biden years.

1:18:22So we're still net up almost like 8 million. Okay. My point is simply, you would think most people would say, all right, well, that's, you know, it's a good thing. Enter John Oliver and Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky decided to weigh in on the illegal immigrants and what they must be going through and how she can relate. Take a listen to Sathwa. I have to remind myself now with all these stories going on. I mean, it's so hard. It brings something out of you, right? It's that anxiety that I thought I'd moved past that day that I got my citizenship. I thought it would be gone then. I didn't feel that.

1:19:02The relief didn't feel enough. I've had a sense of understanding a tiny, tiny bit that I empathize with the immigrants who are going through the crisis right now, right? Ice fuckers. Yeah. And just of feeling hunted, like a feeling unsafe of like something could happen at any moment. Now, for me, the hunting was the consequences of that were nowhere near with their suffering. But I've had that of, you know, be whether it's being recognized or a paparazzi, there's something a feeling of unsafety, wherever you are. And probably a lot of women feel that in general, I'm not sure I'm making sense right now.

1:19:46But no, I think you're making total. Okay, I think that idea of attention being weaponized, it feels like there's a lot of crossover there. God. Okay. Ice fuckers, she says. Okay. So there's only one person involved in this story on that set or in the topic that's known as a fucker and it's not ice. It is you, madam. That's how you got famous. And you've never stopped trying to parlay some sort of a career out of that moment. She hasn't moved past it. If God forbid this ever happened to me, if I were a 19 year old girl, I made a very stupid mistake and had an affair with the president of United States who was married and the odds of it were coming out were pretty much guaranteed.

1:20:23I would take my humiliation. I would express public regret for a terrible decision I'd made. And then I would go become a lawyer or an interior designer or a writer. And I would never talk about it again because it would be the biggest shame of my life. It's like when Doug and I and the family went to, I can't remember whether we were, I think we were in Sweden and we were in this museum. and it was the construct of this huge ship, which they were very, very proud of 100 years ago. And they set it afloat and it sank. And they had reconstructed it and put it in this museum. And they were making the comment that Japanese tourists would go through and be like, you made a monument to your greatest failure?

1:21:01Like in our culture, we get ashamed about our failures and we try to move past them and never talk of them again. This, Monica Lewinsky needs to be more like the Japanese. Instead, she's tried to create an entire adult existence out of her blowjobs to the sitting president of the Mary of the United States, Bill Clinton, who is married. So now she would like to parlay that experience into expertise on what it's like to be an illegal immigrant who feels hunted because she's had the paparazzi following her around. and if memory serves, she's from a very well-to-do family. She's got a nice set of parents and income.

1:21:40She's been writing for Vanity Fair nine times out of 10. It's about her experience or some related thing. So now it's crossed over to she's calling ICE a bunch of fuckers. She empathizes with the immigrants feeling hunted because she's a woman because you're hunted as a woman in America. And she's had photographers who want to take her picture, Charles. And by the way, That's not even to say anything about John Oliver, who's more in your circumstance, Charles, who came legally and then legally became a United States citizen. Yeah, I mean, that was all nonsense. I am a legal immigrant and naturalized citizen.

1:22:19I came from the same place as John Oliver. I think I like America a lot more than John Oliver, but we went through the same process. I have never felt for a second as if I'm about to be deported because I'm a legal immigrant and naturalized citizen. No anxiety like he says he had? No, I don't. But I also don't feel that it is a problem if people who are here illegally feel that they might be discovered and deported because that is the law. We have a system in place. so one thing I did feel before I was a citizen was that I didn't want to break any laws not deliberately but inadvertently because I really didn't want to be deported which I could have I actually I won't bore you with the whole story but I called up the IRS because they sent me too much of a refund and I sent them back 450 dollars and the lady on the phone said to me you're the only person in my 30-year career at the IRS who has ever called up and offered money to us and And the reason for it was I thought, oh, no, if I get this wrong and they discover it, they'll never let me become a citizen.

1:23:22But I think that feeling of wanting to do the right thing is good. It's not bad. It's not a problem. It's not the occasion for expletives. More broadly, you said at the beginning that the border is probably more secure than it's ever been in American history. That's probably true. And that is a choice. You can't perfect this area. But the difference is night and day because the last president, Joe Biden, did not want to enforce the border. And the current president, Donald Trump, does. And I was put in mind of this over the weekend. I was away on a trip and I drove back to Florida and the freeway was closed because of an accident.

1:23:57So I had to take this sort of back road. And I came through into Florida from Georgia in this tiny town. There can't have been more than 180 people who lived in this town. And the sign said, welcome to Florida. and then 100 feet after it, the sign said, in Florida, we use E-Verify. That is a choice. That wasn't on the freeway. That was on the entrance to Florida from Georgia in this tiny town. That's a choice. Florida has decided that they're going to try to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to stay in the country. And when you do that, you don't get rid of all of them, but you get rid of a lot of them and you enforce your laws.

1:24:34And the fact that this is being compared to the Gestapo, that Monica Lewinsky says that she feels that these people are being hunted, that John Oliver says that he doesn't feel secure in his own citizenship, is complete lunacy in the eyes of 70, 80, 90 % of the public, which has been radicalized on this question of deportations because the government has refused to do the basic things that it can do. So I think that was an insane clip, but I almost feel like that was a missive from another world 10 months ago before things changed. The part of it that rings true to me, Rich, is him saying like and her saying like they feel anxious over what these illegals must be going through, because this is what leftists do.

1:25:23Right. They they try to take on other people's problems and pretend that they're happening to them. Remember that video of Selena Gomez, like my people, like this multi, multi, probably hundred millionaire. Like, would you stop? Right. Like this is what they do. They see a problem out there and they try to get you to feel sorry for them because they are so upset this is happening. Yeah, that. And they also love the idea. They love the thrill of being threatened by fascism or supposed incipient fascism. Right. So that the National Guard in D.C. is a classic example of this. What did the National Guard do in L.A.?

1:25:59You know, they showed up, they stood in front of the federal building. And then when things calmed down, they mostly left. Right. They'll do the same thing in D.C. It affects no one. They're not arresting dissidents or seeing what you say or believe about Donald Trump and harass you on a basis. None of that. They're standing in front of federal buildings. Right. But they love the idea. They love the word. They love the anxiety. It makes them feel important, makes them feel alive. And this is another example of this. They're not going after John Oliver. Monica Lewinsky's experience had nothing to do with this.

1:26:28And I will say these numbers about the number of illegals that seem to be leaving are really heartening and surprising me on the upside. You know, I was a little critical. They need to do more. You know, you just can't pick off the criminal aliens. Yes, you should try to do that. You need to go broader. But if you do have this and it feels harsh to say, but if you do have a certain level of anxiety among illegal immigrants in this country, maybe my job's not secure. Maybe I could get deported. Maybe it's easier to go home. That's the golden ticket to really moving the needle. And this trend continues.

1:27:00I mean, we're going to see the first large scale negative movement of people out of the United States instead of into the United States since, I don't know, Eisenhower. I mean, it'll be a historic accomplishment on top of what he's doing at the border. I was critical of Kristi Noem and her photo op at that El Salvadoran prison. But I mean, the deterrent effect may be legit and real. And Tom Homan making himself available to any news outlet that asks and being unapologetic about his efforts. Also helpful, like all the people see these things and they they have an effect. All right. Last topic, because we're on the subject of these, you know, the privileged beliefs, right?

1:27:41These luxury beliefs, Rich, as you put it, which is a term that brings me to. And this is like this this hits on a particular sweet spot for me. But it brings me to actress Christine Baranski, who I happen to love. She's very funny. I fell in love with her when Sybil Shepard had her own eponymous show called Sybil. And she was quoted in like in this show where she had to give advice to an unborn baby. And everybody who was giving advice to the baby said things like, be a good person. be nice to others, do unto others, et cetera. And they get to her and she was already playing this sort of snooty character.

1:28:21And Christine Baranski looks at the unborn baby and she says, when you're sitting on the airplane in first class and the coach passengers get on, try not to make eye contact.

1:28:37So I think she is hilarious. It was a character thing, but anyway, she's very funny. So she's in a new HBO show called The Gilded Age. And she was doing a promo interview for it. And she, this is a risk for anybody in Hollywood, given how powerful Jeff Bezos is. Okay. She took a risk when she, when the topic of everyone's favorite astronaut, Gayle King, and her fellow Blue Origin astronauts came up. Listen to this in SOT19. One of the reasons I'd love this show to continue is because I think there is such an exploration to be done in terms of the corruption that goes on, the buying of government influence, which is happening now, excuse me.

1:29:24And the, you know, grotesque displays of wealth sending women into a spaceship for what? So they can, you know, do their makeup? What the fuck? Don't get me started. I'm going...

1:29:43please do get her started. I, it had the same effect on her Ridge as it had on all of us. And I, I would submit to you that it's one of the reasons why Gail King is reportedly not going to get her contract reviewed at CBS. The thing was an unmitigated disaster on many levels for many people. Yeah, totally a luxury trip, right? This, what, how's this advancing space travel, exploration, science, anything. It's just a joyride for a favorite group of people who can pretend that this was a groundbreaking and historic event, right? What Elon Musk is doing in space is really going to make a difference.

1:30:21And it may be something that's talked about 100 years from now. This is just buttering up celebrities. Yeah. And just to me, it taps into something people are feeling in the country, Charles. Some people feel it and they're going to vote for Zora Mandani. Some people feel it and they applaud the murder of a health care executive. So there are lunatics who are reacting to this so-called income inequality and these, you know, out of touch gazillionaires in very negative ways. But do they have to add fuel to the fire? Does Jeff Bezos have to send his vapid fiance to space with Gayle King, who then insists that we call her an astronaut and tells us how inspirational we are.

1:31:04Like those people really are part of the problem. And those of us who have absolutely no problem with billionaires and actually may think it's wonderful that we live in a country where if you come up with a great idea and you can execute on it, you can become one. I think a lot of us would still like them not to be so absurdly out of touch by going on what would be a$300 ,000 a person, quote, space flight. And then when they come back and tell us they're an inspirational astronaut and we say no, not respond by saying, well, have you been? No, literally no one's been. It costs three hundred thousand dollars for a seat.

1:31:44Yeah, I think you are more upset about this than I am, although I do agree with you that the calling themselves astronauts part is completely miserable. I'm very pro Gilded Age, not the HBO show, although it's fine, but the actual Gilded Age. I think we have a totally unreasonable historical view of it that has been corrupted by the left, which has decided that the Gilded Age was bad. And they call the people who are in charge of it robber barons. I actually love the Gilded Age. It was a period of great American entrepreneurship and industry and explosion of art. And everyone got much richer, including people right at the bottom.

1:32:25So if I ever write a book, Megan, I think about history, I think I'm going to write a book defending the Gilded Age. So I don't particularly care about what Bezos did there. I do find the people who went on the trip quite annoying and the way that they've treated it afterwards. I think that the disconnect is less between Bezos and me. Obviously, he has lots of money. He can do what he wants with it. He wants to burn it. It's fine with me. And more with the people who went up in that. spaceship who don't seem to realize that they were the playthings and beneficiaries of a billionaire, that they are not astronauts, that they were not doing anything groundbreaking, and that they look rather silly.

1:33:07That, to me, is the big disconnect. It's not with Jeff Bezos. We've always had these eccentric billionaires in our country who do things that we find extraordinary. Some of them are ostentatious with their wealth. Some are not, but whatever. I love that Christine Baranski had the nerve to say it. I have to say like it, it took guts because, you know, Jeff Bezos is one of the main, Justine Bateman gave a very interview, a very interesting interview the other day talking about how, you know, the studio system is basically down to a few billionaires now, like Tim Cook, who runs Apple and Jeff Bezos, who runs Amazon.

1:33:42And that they're, the movies are all secondary, that the main castle is their tech business and that the moat around the castle to keep it protected is their movies on Netflix or on Apple or on Amazon that like kind of keep people interested and they fund, you know, different projects that will keep them interested in an Amazon or in an Apple or in technology. But those are all just secondary to their main business. And it's dangerous. She had a good point. In any event, it's dangerous to criticize Jeff Bezos for someone like Christine Baranski, who makes her living acting on stage. So I give her credit.

1:34:18Once again, she's done a very strong, interesting, amusing thing. Guys, thank you both so much for being here. Thanks so much. Always fun. Go now. Subscribe at NR Plus so you can get all their content. And if you sign up for NR Plus, you really do get almost no ads. I love it. And I listen. National Review has my favorite feature on any news site. Very few have it. The Wall Street Journal has it. National Review has it. Sometimes the New York Times has it on some of their articles where it says, listen to this article. and you press listen, and then you can do whatever you want. And National Review has a very nice AI voice over there.

1:34:53And you can listen to your news, you know, piece by piece. And I do it all the time. I'll just do like a running tally of the NR articles in the morning. Very, very helpful stuff. Okay, coming up next, Steve Hilton. Our old pal Steve Hilton is running for governor of California and wait until you hear where he is in the polls. It's kind of stunning. Do you have cooking and grilling anxiety? You know, that moment of truth when everyone sits down at the table and you brace yourself while they cut into their meal. Will there be raw chicken drama? Did I just ruin$100 worth of steaks? I've been there.

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1:37:32Let Tax Network USA handle your tax issues. Exterior Remodels, Inner Monologues, brought to you by Power. The house looks good, like really good. That siding, stunning. The roof, elevated. Windows, I mean, wow. The process, smooth. The neighbors, jealous. Choose Power Home Remodeling, and remodel how you think about remodeling. Schedule your free quote on windows, siding, roofing, and doors at powerhomeremodeling.com. Power, our work shows. Welcome to Omaha, where work and play meet. Where productivity meets the after party. Where downtown convention space and hotels are within walking distance of 90 restaurants, pubs, and unique shops.

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1:39:39When Kamala Harris announced last month that she would not be running for governor of California, the conventional wisdom was that it was opening up an opportunity for another Democrat to lead the nation's largest state. But could a Republican, I said it, actually take the reins of the Golden State for the first time since Arnold Schwarzenegger left Sacramento in January of 2011? Steve Hilton, who is running on a campaign to make California golden again, is trying to make that happen. And a new poll from Emerson has him currently in second place behind former Democratic representative Katie Porter.

1:40:17She's at 18. He's at 12. All the others are down by like four or five. My God, what's happening? Steve joins me now. Steve, what is happening? And Katie Porter's got a long list of problems. So like I feel like you could close that gap. Yeah, exactly. It's great to be with you, Megan. I'm very excited about closing the gap. There was another poll, actually, that our campaign did to full disclosure, but actually had me leading. So whichever way you look at it, we have this ridiculous top two system in California. Don't get me started on that. But you've got to get the two candidates. There's not a Democrat primary or Republican primary.

1:40:53The top two candidates in next June's primary go forward to the general election and all the polls so far showing that it's me and Katie Porter. So there you go. By the way, can I just say one thing, Megan? You've had back to back naturalized citizens today on the show. And I can confirm that I also don't feel anxious. I'm walking around. You didn't run around feeling anxiety about whether you're swearing in what happened or not and whether you'd get hunted. It's insane. So by the way, one thing, I actually, I hadn't really, I don't think I've spoken about this publicly before, but it just brings it to mind.

1:41:31I got my citizenship 2021. So we moved here, my wife and my two sons in 2012. Took quite a while to get through it. 2021 got my citizenship. The first time I went back to the UK afterwards, I guess out of habit, I had my British passport and I used it in those electronic gates. We went back to Christmas time to see friends and family and it didn't work. So I thought, wow, it's really happened. I got out my US passport. It worked. I sailed through and I thought that was the end of it. And my British citizenship had been cancelled. Turns out you actually have to proactively do that and renounce as a sort of paperwork process you have to go through, which I'm in the middle of doing right now.

1:42:12So very soon I will be 100 percent proudly American. So Tom Homan might be watching this. He might come get you if it's not. It's been no renouncing. No. So I think it's very bold of you because California is a hot mess and they don't really like Republicans, although they like them more than we knew. In the wake of this redistricting battle that's happening in Texas, and now Gavin Newsom's threatening to retaliate, it's come out that there's actually a significant portion of the state that is Republican. They're just not reflected in the congressional districts because of gerrymandering, because of the very thing Gavin Newsom is being so hard on Governor Abbott in Texas for what he says he's doing.

1:42:58Exactly. I mean, this is a point I've been making for years, and it's highly relevant now. Everyone talks about, including Gavin Newsom, we have an independent districting process in California. It's true that in 2008 and then in 2010, the voters chose an independent system. They chose to take the power to draw the maps away from the politicians and put it in the hands of this commission. But classic California, the Democrat machine got hold of the process and said, you know, we're going to do what we can to favor Democrats. So, as you say, I'm pretty much constantly for the last 20 years or so.

1:43:35There's been a 40 percent or so Republican vote in California, 40 percent. But in terms of the congressional representation, it's 17 percent. And it's the same sort of pattern to the state legislature. That's why I've said when I'm governor, we're going to restore the integrity of the system. And if Gavin Newsom goes ahead with his scheme to steal even more seats, I announced last week that I'm going to be filing a lawsuit to block him because he hasn't thought through all the legal obstacles. And I just don't think he can do it. Yeah, he's they've tried to tie his hands from doing it with this legislation that you mentioned, which was passed.

1:44:10And he's going to have to live up to that. So his threats do sound a little empty. Just for the record, Gavin Newsom can't run again because there are term limits in California. So this really is going to be an open seat, which leaves a big, big opportunity for you. So he's been trying to get his swagger going over this whole redistricting battle and act like a tough guy. Because he obviously wants to be president, and that's where his eyes are focused. So he's been sending out these bizarre tweets. First, he just started threatening. Like if you do this in Texas, which, by the way, they they did have to do.

1:44:46We went back and actually looked at it more seriously. The districts in Texas had resulted these few that they're targeting as a result of racial lines being drawn unfairly to try to group blacks and Hispanics together and exclude whites. And the DOJ said that's illegal. You have to redo them. So they're redoing them. And we are going to wind up with five net new seats in Texas. and that state will reflect its voting block appropriately as a result of this. California already has an imbalance in favor of Democrats, where it has almost no Democratic representatives. And Gavin Newsom is acting like a spoiled child because he needs attention.

1:45:27He wants to look tough. So here, but I just want to read a couple of the tweets because it's getting he's getting weird. All right. So he tweets this out and he signed it. G.N. So this one came from him. Donald Taco Trump, as many call him, that taco, according to leftist, stands for Trump always chickens out. Ask Iran if that's true. Missed the deadline. Now, by the deadline, he means his own declared deadline for Donald Trump to back down in Texas. Gavin Newsom said, you have till Tuesday to stop it. And Trump blew him off like the flea that he is. He missed the deadline. California will now draw new, more beautiful maps.

1:46:09They will be historic as they will end the Trump presidency. Dems take back the House. This is in all caps with an exclamation point. Big press conference this week with powerful Dems and Gavin Newsom, your favorite governor, that will be devastating for MAGA. Thank you for your attention to this matter. G.N., an obvious attempt to sound like Trump in Trump's truth social posts and totally missing the reality, Steve, that there's only one Donald Trump and he cannot be copied. I know it's so embarrassing. I mean, I mean, you know, my as my teenage sons would put it, cringe of the highest order.

1:46:49What is he doing? And this has been going on for a while now, actually. They've been using that account with these ridiculous parody posts. And it's not funny. I mean, we'll get into it. I mean, especially when you think about all the problems, the real problems, like it is the worst run state in America, California. He's got a lot to deal with right here in California. The fact that we have the highest unemployment rate in the country, the highest poverty rate, the highest cost for everything that matters, housing, gas, electricity, water, you name it. The worst business climate in America. Everything is a disaster.

1:47:22I mean, never mind homelessness and crime and everything else. And then he's doing this kind of thing. Exactly as you say, this idea that Texas started it is ridiculous. If you just look at the raw numbers and you say, what would it look like if we did have fair representation in California, just on the congressional districts, we would have from California an extra 12 House seats for Republicans, 12. So they've already taken 12. Now he wants another five or six. I mean, it's just completely ridiculous. And he's running around doing this kind of thing on social media. It is utterly pathetic. I really, I'm on the road the whole time since launching my campaign at the end of April.

1:48:03People are so angry and fed up with the way things are going. They're fed up with the struggle, the cost of everything, the hassle of everything. I honestly believe we, of course, you know, I'm not saying it's going to be easy to win. at all. It's going to be very difficult. Their machine is very powerful. They got their unions, all of that. But I really think we've got our best shot in at least 20 years. People are desperate for change. And, you know, that's the plan. I mean, we've got to deal with these real problems. You mentioned the homeless problem in California. I've experienced it myself.

1:48:35I've been out to LA a few times over the past couple of years. You literally have to step over the homeless encampments like the tents and like just to get from A to B. It's so ubiquitous there. It's really seriously problematic. You toured a homeless encampment near the San Jose airport. And this is some video you posted to your ex account on Monday. Here it is. It's at 41. Just here right by the San Jose International Airport. And you get off the plane. It's the capital of Silicon Valley. They brag about this being the world's fourth biggest economy. And there, look, this is what you get this is what you get this is what you get from democrat one party rule it's an absolute disgrace how have we allowed this to go on for so long look at this after tent after tent just from garbage i mean as far as you can see and let's go across here yeah just look it's unbelievable just walk down here a bit this for the listening audience this is gavin newsom's california this is democrat run california it stinks of piss and shit unbelievable yeah so that what were those trailers and the second like were those campers steve like parking out what was what was that in part two it's a permanent encampment i mean that the i i described it as the kind of third world slum conditions it's not the favelas in in rio de janeiro it's san jose they brag about being the capital of silicon valley it is so shameful and it's this has been there for years and years and years and it's it's right across the state well by the way it doesn't even have to be like when i went to the um the premiere of mr bircham which was my fun little cartoon i did with adam carolla which was at this like swanky place where they're you know it's like a very nice neighborhood same it looked the same as that.

1:50:31So you don't have to go out like very far to find this. 100%. It's everywhere. And the smell is a real, that's why I always make this point. I was covering the protests in LA when you were the ice stuff going on and the riots and all of that, right there reporting on that and talking to people and making the case for, let's not get into the specific argument about what was going on. But there too, I mean, we saw the chaos and the crime and the lawlessness and setting cars on fire, all of that. But throughout it all and days afterwards and all of everything else had been gone, you were left with the stink.

1:51:03In LA, our second city about to host the Olympics, everywhere you walk in downtown Los Angeles, it stinks of piss and shit. That's the truth. And it is so shameful. It's been like this for years and they've done nothing about it. And these are the people, these Democrats who go on and on about lecturing everyone about equity and social justice and how compassionate they are. It's just beyond belief. On a lighter note, though, I have to say I'm very happy that you showed us the whistle lady earlier, because now I think maybe with the, you know, the Californians are sitting around thinking there's this audit a few months ago saying$24 billion of our money spent on homelessness.

1:51:45No one can track where it went. The problem just got worse. I think we know now they bought whistles, neon whistles. Right, plastic and neon. Very cute, very cute. I'm telling you, my 12-year-old would love that. But not to mention, speaking of money disappearing, we just did a story on AM Update earlier this week on the California wildfires. All these big stars came out to raise money and made promises that the money would go directly, go directly to the Californians whose homes had burned. It didn't. We're trying to track down$100 million now, which appears, according to the reporting that we did, based on some local sources, to have gone to a combination of like immigration groups, random leftist causes, as opposed to to rebuild homes.

1:52:30You see these aerial shots of what's been rebuilt in the Palisades and nothing. The answer is nothing. Absolutely nothing has been rebuilt. And Gavin Newsom is worried about doing parodies of Trump tweets online. It's exactly right. I mean, it really illustrates so many of the deep problems of California. I'm there often. I was in Altadena the other week. Palisades, I was there for the six month anniversary on the same day that Gavin Newsom at a press conference was bragging about this being the fastest recovery effort in history, historic speed of recovery. He was talking about. I did my press conference standing in front of a pile of rubble in the middle of Pacific Palisades that was kind of flowing out onto the street and onto the road.

1:53:12He couldn't even clear the sidewalk. He promised six months ago a I mean, this is classic Newsom. He just runs around saying things. Nothing happens. He promised a Marshall plan to rebuild Palisades. It's just a joke. But the point about the missing money is very, very deep, actually, because this is exactly the serious answer to where the 24 billion dollars of homeless taxpayer money has gone is exactly where the fire aid money has gone. This unbelievably corrupt network of non-profits and charities, so-called, and all these groups and activist organizations that form part of this system, the Democrat industrial complex, I call it, because that's the same story for everything.

1:53:56This is why we pay the highest taxes in the country, but have some of the worst outcomes on everything, because the money just gets funneled into this Democrat machine. There's something that is rarely discussed, which is something called VMT, vehicle miles traveled, which is this thing they came up with, part of their extreme climate agenda. Talk about luxury beliefs. The climate extremism is a classic example of that. And they are they just put this fictional amount of charge for the amount of money, amount of miles that are traveled for any new road project or housing project, anything you want to build.

1:54:33They put this allowance in for vehicle miles traveled, how much traffic is going to be generated. And then they charge taxes on that. Guess where the taxes go? It's called mitigation for climate impacts. And it goes right back to the NGOs and the climate activists and all these organizations. This is what goes on in California. This is what you get with 20 years nearly of one party rule. This kind of corruption. There was news on that just today on California's extreme climate measures, which is just over the top, but we all need to worry because it's true that as California goes, so goes the nation when it comes to that stuff.

1:55:07They adopt these very restrictive carbon emissions requirements. And lo and behold, the Biden administration was adopting the same ones. Now it's all being undone by Trump, but there was news in Politico today, which the headline is as follows. Another one of California's Trump proofing planks just broke. And what they had tried to do in the Biden administration before Joe Biden left was to try to get truckers out there, heavy duty truck manufacturers and their trade associations to promise that they would continue meeting the state's zero emissions sales targets. And so it was like, no matter what Trump does, you've promised that you're gonna do it so that he's strong-armed them into doing it.

1:55:48And the Federal Trade Commission under Trump just declared those agreements unenforceable. So now these groups are free to, yeah, there's gonna be some emissions, There's going to be jobs. There's going to be purchases of these kinds of vehicles, and they're going to be used and more efficiently, and it's going to get done. In any event, it's not working. Biden's last minute attempt to get wind through everywhere, that we're going to have a full report on that, this with the trucks in California. But they're so focused on, you know, everything's got to be green, green, green, green, green. You know what kind of a damage people suffered to their lungs and their health as a result of those wildfires?

1:56:22Because there wasn't adequate planning, Steve. They didn't have competent administrators. Everything. Look, the climate stuff is the main reason that everything is so expensive. Because of all these policies, it makes housing more expensive, gas, electricity, everything. Highest in the country. That's why people can't afford to pay their bills. You can't afford to buy a house in California. The California dream has been destroyed. That dream of owning your own home and building your life that used to represent better than anywhere else. The American dream. It's the climate extremism more than anything else that is destroying that.

1:56:58That's why I've pledged to reverse it. And so I've said also that it's not enough, I think, for us to. I mean, of course, it's great that we have a federal administration that's pushing back on all this, but we can't just rely on the federal government to save us in California. We have to fight and stand up for ourselves and get this common sense change that we need in California. And that's what my plan is all about, is to lower people's costs, reduce the hassle of doing anything, whether that's running your life, running your business, whatever it is. It's just endless, bloated, nanny state bureaucracy, making everything so complicated and costly right across the board.

1:57:36That's what we've got to get rid of. And that's why I think it's not just that I can lay out the policies. I mean, people may know me from Fox, but before I did that, you know, I taught at Stanford and I started a business here. I was a policy advisor, senior advisor to the prime minister back in the day in the UK, David Cameron. I've done this right. I've I've been there at the heart of a government, you know, fighting the bureaucracy, not with the kind of success I would have liked. I wasn't the boss. I wasn't in charge. But I know what it's like to take on a bureaucratic system. And that's why I'm doing this, because I really know that we can get this done.

1:58:12We just need you talked about competence and just people who know what they're doing for so long in California. We've had these machine politicians. Their only skill is navigating the party machine. Like Kamala Harris. Exactly. You were talking about it just last week. I really thought of this when you were talking about Kamala Harris and all these people. But they're all the same. Newsom, Karen Bass, whatever. We're sick of it. The results are so painful for people. And we've just got to get in there and shake it all up and get. The other thing that really reminded me when you're talking about, you know, Sydney, Sweden, I know it sounds, of course, it's a different topic.

1:58:52But that reminded that returning to normalcy, right, that that's true in the cultural arena. But in California, it's also needed in the policy arena. We've got these crazy, extreme ideological policies that are just making everything ridiculously expensive and complicated. The answers to these things are not complicated. It's just normal, basic, competent government that focuses on the pretty people's lives. It requires courage by the politicians and it requires boldness by the voters when the actual voting day comes along. I do want to show the audience, you out there in front of the fires, well, in front of the spot where the fires were, and what you found um this was posted on july 7th sat 43.

1:59:38hi everyone thank you for coming today i've just been listening to gavin newsome bragging about the response of his administration to the devastating wildfires we saw here six months ago to this day i'm quoting him now the fastest response in terms of debris removal in modern history

2:00:06six months and this is still here gesturing behind you um for the listening audience it looked like it looked akin to 9-11 i mean the devastation behind you that hasn't even been removed never mind rebuilt Toad music Look, this is everything that we're talking about. The luxury beliefs, climate policies, the incompetence, the inability to really do anything, the sort of promises that never get delivered. It's all because you've got these are not serious people. They don't understand how to get anything done. And they assume they're not going to get a challenge from the other party. They're so arrogant.

2:00:48All they care about is saying the right things to pander to the activists and the unions who fund their campaigns and so on. And that's why we have this massive mess in California. And that's what we've got to get away from. This kind of attitude that you just say things to pander to the internal audience of our party instead of just focusing on what it is. Possible, Steve, you know, because my my feeling way over here on the East Coast is these Californians are never going to do it. They're they love feeling like a good little liberal. They're never going to actually, when voting day comes, put a Republican governor back here, back in there.

2:01:27It's a long time since 2011 in Schwarzenegger. But it's a lot worse. It's a lot worse for people. I mean, just, you know, I'm on the road, as I said, the whole time. And the word that captures what I'm feeling from people, you know, we do hundreds of events, thousands of people. And you just see it in their eyes. And I feel it so strongly. The word that represents better than anything else what's going on is struggle. Just the struggle, the pain of just existing, of trying to feed your family and pay the bills or run your restaurant. You know, I ran a restaurant back in the day in England. I know what it's like to start and run a small business and the pain that people are going through.

2:02:13And so I think it is part of what I'm trying to do. And I'm running a very active, energetic campaign. And some people are saying they haven't really seen anything like that so early. But the reason that I'm doing it is because we've got to give people hope. It doesn't have to be like this. That is the message. We don't have to live like this. It's a choice. And you can choose common sense. We're not even talking about the cultural issues, and California has gone so radically left on that under Gavin Newsom. I don't care what he told Charlie Kirk on his, you know, it's a question of fairness, man, when it comes to boys and girls.

2:02:49It was a lie. He doesn't believe it. Just today in the news, there's an article, this is weak, I guess I should say, that this one trans athlete, which means a boy participating in girl sports, who won all these events like the high jump and the long jump at the state championships in June. He was honored. He was honored by California lawmakers, including California State Senator Sabrina Cervantes, who thought it would be great to honor this this young man, A.B. Hernandez, not the women, not the girls who competed against him, Who were forced to and found it, you know, tested their metal and actually got out there and did it.

2:03:30Him. He's the only one who got the honors. And I'll give you a feel for how their celebration of this guy sounded and saw it. I think it's 16. This says certificate of achievement presented to A.B. Hernandez. The Harupa Valley City Council is pleased to recognize A.B. Hernandez for winning CIF state track and field championships. Your preservation and dedication are a testament to your motivation to succeed. So congratulations on this outstanding accomplishment. And just wanted to take a moment this evening to recognize A.B. Hernandez for their grit, their passion, and their dedication to the sport.

2:04:09We have two certificates of recognition on behalf of the California State Senate for your CIF championship. Of course, second place in the long jump and first place in the high jump and triple jump. I am just so proud that you continue to prevail despite all the noise out there and you're focused on your goals and your dreams and your aspirations. We know how difficult it is to get to that level, to be an athlete at that level. And so, again, my dedication and passion is an inspiration to so many. Oh, my God. So that was Cervantes. The mayor was the first one there. the nerve to talk about his first place and the amount how hard it was to get there yeah for the girls for the girls steve okay so let me just i was there i went there to the championships in june to announce what i would do to end this obscenity by the way i'm just i'm going to show you that people won't be able to see you aren't watching here's a bracelet protect girl sports save girl sports which i've been wearing ever since that day it was given to me by a brave campaigner that I stood there with to announce what I'm going to do.

2:05:18And just to be really clear why this is happening, this all goes back to, and it's not even the competition in a way, it's, you know, it's everything. I mean, you've talked about this so much and been such a powerful voice, but it's the, it's the locker rooms and it's the, you know, even field trips. It's just girls, their spaces being invaded. There was a, there's a story that made me so angry for a few months before these championships in the central coast of California. You may have seen it, the the teenage girl telling the story in front of a school board about how she was in the locker room with her friends and a male walked in and as she described it started completely naked in completely intact that was her word and she described what she saw with her friends like just right next to her she complained about it she was punished she was punished for calling it out and then she went to the school board to tell the story and the school board silenced her and gaveled her out and said you can't say that so this is it all goes back to a law that was passed that ab 1266 passed in 2013 and so however outraged we are we got to know we got to realize the law is the law so i immediately said what it's not enough just to be outraged what can i do about it as governor and i one of my team is actually governor pete wilson's legal um advisor who did great work with Governor Wilson.

2:06:38I said, look, we've got to change this. How can I do this? Because the legislature won't overturn that bill. Well, actually, as the governor, you have the power to challenge legislation that you think violates the California Constitution. And we think that this bill does in two particular areas, Section 28, which guarantees safe schools, and Section 31, which bars gender discrimination. What is this if it's not discrimination against girls? So my plan very clearly, and I said it there at those track and field finals, will be to overturn this obscene legislation. And I mean, as you say, that's just one of many of these unbelievable extreme cultural things that they do.

2:07:19There's another one that just popped up, AB495, which allows any adult stranger to take custody of somebody else's child just by signing a few forms without any background checks. It's just unbelievable. That's coming up for a vote. That's on the illegal immigration front, right? Am I wrong? Like if somebody's about to get deported, they basically let anybody step in and be like, I'll watch her. I'll take the child. But it's like, that's part of how we got into this mess. Yeah, take custody, because we already are doing that with unaccompanied minors who crossed the border, not under Trump, but under Biden, giving them to unknown people who have maybe no connection with them.

2:07:56and it's come out in the news. Many of these people turn out to be child molesters who are, of course, the ones who are going to line up to take an unaccompanied child. The vetting system was piss poor under Biden. He didn't care. And so now you're saying California's got a law that's basically going to allow the same kind of thing with very little screening to happen out there. To anyone, not just anyone who's been involved in the immigration system, all children, all parents. It's a state law. I mean, it hasn't been voted on yet. There's a big pastor, Jack Hibbs, who's a good friend of mine and one of my supporters, you know, was rallying supporters to try and get them to vote this down.

2:08:37Because it's just when you think they can't get more extreme, they come out with something like this. That any adult can take custody of anybody's child? It is just unbelievable. But this is part of the, this is again, I come back to it all the time because this is what happens with one party rule. They get so arrogant. They get so inward looking. They get so captured by their own ideology. And they just forget about regular, normal people who see this kind of thing and say, you've got to be kidding me. So that's why I think we're going to win next year, because I mean, look, I used to do a show on Fox News.

2:09:14It was called The Next Revolution. I always say when next year we can have the California Revolution. And that's what it's going to feel like. But actually, it's just regular people saying, please, can we just end this far left insanity? Well, I mean, the governor race, the presidential race, that those are still areas in which Californians can be heard. California Republicans can be heard. You may not get the congressional reputation or representation that you deserve, but you can make your voice heard on a statewide level or the national level. And you should. Steve, we'll have you on many times between now and then.

2:09:46Good luck. You know, we're rooting for you. Can I just say one last thing? I've got to say it to you. Do we have a minute? Yeah, go ahead. We've talked a lot about California, but there's one other place that I have to mention when I'm on with it. I've been saving it up because you will understand this better than anyone. And the minute I say the word, you'll know where I'm going with this. Sussex. Sussex. So as we discussed, I am now proud American, naturalized. My parents were Hungarian immigrants. I grew up in England, born in London when I was very young. they moved down to a town called Brighton.

2:10:20That's where I was born and raised. It is on the south coast in the county of Sussex, East Sussex. So when I see your favorite jam company founder running around calling herself the Duchess of Sussex, no, not my Duchess. It's got to really irk you. It irks me too. And her royal stationery, even though she's not a working royal, constantly requiring people to call her, you know, the right titles. Do you believe that King Charles or possibly more realistically in the future, King William should strip them of their royal titles? This could make or break you as the governor. I don't know what I can do about it, but like, what are you talking about?

2:11:06You trashed the royal family. You ruin the great queen's last month with your ridiculous evil assaults on her character and integrity in the family. And you do everything you can say, we don't want this. And then you run off to America and say, oh, by the way, yeah, we do want it if it helps us make money. Unbelievable. And no, she is not my duchess. The biggest grifters in California, and that's saying something in a state that has Hollywood as one of its hubs. Steve, a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming on. Of course, Megan. See you soon. Thank you. All right. And we're back tomorrow with Stu Bergeer.

2:11:44We'll see all of you then. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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