Truth About Kirk Investigation and Robinson Trial, Iran Questions, with Curt Mills, and Josh Duhamel on Keeping Politics Out of Hollywood | Ep. 1281

28:29I refuse to stop calling attention to this. I told you yesterday that Sheridan's mom, Jessica, we found out, is one of our Megan Kelly Show community members. She's one of us. She's one of us. She sat here day by day, just like you guys do. And God bless you and thank you. And watched this show and supported it and learned from it and participated in it and actually went so far as to show up at our White Plains tour stop in the fall, dressed in her red, white, and blue. She and her sister and her friend wearing the Charlie Kirk Freedom t-shirt. And that day, just like all the rest of the days, especially in the fall, we were all mourning the loss of Charlie.

29:11And clearly she and her family and friends felt it too in their freedom shirts and their stars and stripes. Her love of this country ought to be sustained and verified and we ought to be worthy of it and we ought to elect leaders who are worthy of it. Hakeem Jeffries, you're not it. Chris Murphy, not you either. Governor J.B. Pritzker, you are despicable. Despicable. Okay, I want to turn the page. I want to just talk about this one story before we bring on. a guy I've been wanting to talk to over a long time. His name is Kurt Mills. He runs the American Conservative, which is a publication that's all about being a conservative.

29:56But they're more non-interventionalists, so he's got some views we want to discuss. But before we get to that, something extraordinary happened yesterday with many friends of this show about Charlie Kirk. You know, not even indirectly, pretty directly. Michael Schellenberger, you know him. He comes on all the time. Love him. Great reporter. He interviewed Joe Kent, the now former counterterrorism chief who quit over the Iran war and has been making the media rounds, including on this show last Friday. And Schellenberger zeroed in with Joe Kent on Joe's suggestion that the Charlie Kirk investigation has been mishandled by the feds.

30:38It's in the hands of Utah state authorities now, but the FBI was very much involved in this. And he suggested to me, to Tucker, to others, that there were potential international connections to Charlie's murder around Tyler Robinson, in tandem with Tyler Robinson, unclear. He's not saying Tyler did not pull the trigger. That were not adequately investigated, in his view. We talked in part about a group chat that Charlie was part of prior to his death in which he lamented what was happening with the pressures being put on him by Jewish donors. He was angry. He wanted to stop. And he made clear that he was considering giving back donations he had received from Jewish donors because he was so sick of being pressured not to have people like Candace at his events, not to platform people like Tucker.

31:36And here is in part what was written in the texts that Joe has been discussing, Joe Kent, and that we now know were provided to Joe Kent by Andrew Colvett of Turning Point after Charlie's death. Because Andrew thought as well, this may suggest an Israeli link to Charlie's death, and I ought to tell the FBI about it, or in this case, the feds. I happen to know that Andrew sent this text chain, not just to Joe Kent, but to one other fed. So, you know, those of you who are like, that must mean Joe Kent is the leaker because it got leaked to Candace Owens. Not necessarily. It could have been somebody who worked for Joe Kent.

32:14It could have been Joe Kent. He denied it. And it could have been this other Fed who Andrew provided the text chain to. But here's what Charlie wrote. This is 48 hours before he died. Just lost another huge Jewish donor. Two million a year because we won't cancel Tucker. I'm thinking of inviting Candace. Ugh. Then Charlie writes, Jewish donors play into all the stereotypes. I cannot and will not be bullied like this, leaving me no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause. And then the person he's corresponding with says, please don't invite Candace. That might feel good short term, but it's not good long term in my opinion.

32:50Like all groups, you're going to get a wide variety of opinions that that nasty free will thing that God bestowed on us makes life frustrating at times and goes on. Okay, so this was turned over to the feds investigating Charlie's death. And in Joe Kent's view, the possibility of an Israeli connection of some sort, whether, you know, a domestic or an actual international, like an Israeli, an actual Israeli, was not adequately looked into. And I happen to know that there is at least one other lead on that front, which I'm not at liberty to divulge because it was given to me off the record and you cannot report off the record information.

33:28That's all I'm going to say about it. I have worked for a long, long time to get it on the record, and I cannot get the permission. That's fine. But I am guessing—I've never spoken to Joe Kent privately. None of my information comes from him. But I am guessing that Joe Kent knows of this thing that does raise questions about Israelis. Again, not to impugn Israelis at all. I'm just saying it's not completely made up out of whole cloth. There was at least one other suggestion that should have been run down. That's all I'm going to say. I don't believe the Israelis killed Charlie. I think it was Tyler Robinson.

34:03I think if he had help, it was by Trans Tifa. But I don't begrudge anyone asking these questions because I've read the Charlie text chain and I know some other things. and I just think it's prudent. It's prudent given how important Charlie was to the conservative movement and to the Israel issue and his evolving state of mind on the issue, which was a threat to Israel and those who support it, you know, politically, I mean, that you would have to look into that. You would. He was assassinated by somebody. So in any event, Joe Kent believes that too. And Schellenberger asked him about whether now he's made himself a potential witness for the defense, meaning Tyler Robinson, at Tyler's eventual trial for Charlie's murder.

34:57Listen here. I mean, have you thought about that that Robinson's defense attorneys may call you to be a witness? Yeah, no, I've considered it. I understand. I think it's just a lot of people that look at Tyler Robinson and go, this is not shocking at all. There's no there's nothing missing from this. There's no there's no evidence that he had accomplices. And now you're just kind of speculating. And and but more than because of who you are, that that could actually end up derailing the prosecution of the guy that murdered Charlie Kirk. Yeah, I'm sure that's fair criticism. uh i i just i from from my vantage point i i don't see i did not see i should say i did not see the the investigation being thoroughly done i i don't think what i'm gonna say is gonna knock the uh the defensive socks off or the juries so i am confident in in what i know and what i'm saying and if i end up having to go play that role then you know i'll do it but it seems to me that that, you know, your testimony, you know, will be incredibly important to the Robinson defense.

36:14Yeah, I mean, then honestly, so be it if it gets us to the truth. So he says he has no desire to testify for the defense in this prosecution, but if called to talk about what he knows in terms of whether the feds investigated this or not, he'll do it. Now, I just want to follow up with we asked Joe Kent when he was on about this issue. because the FBI was investigating this case along with the Utah authorities and kind of asked him what he had to do with it. Why was the National Counterterrorism Center involved? Because what happened was he apparently looked at some FBI file and got his hand slapped by Kash Patel, reportedly, who didn't want him butting in, like a turf war kind of thing.

36:58And I asked him about that. Here's a little bit of that exchange when he sat down with me less than a week ago and sought 25B. Would that have been your job, Joe, to consider that piece or Kash Patel's? A combination. But if there is foreign involvement, that's where the National Counterterrorism Center comes in. Because we have more robust and broad authorities to investigate the foreign angle, the FBI has the more broad and robust authorities to investigate the domestic angle. So who has the ability to shut you down from that? so really the way it happened was initially it was just like hey the fbi says you guys can't look into the case file and when the case file is kind of where all the data is and uh you're done you guys can't work here anymore you guys can't work on this case anymore um we argued that we should still be involved in that case and we won the argument we got kind of put back on the case um but then after a while uh the government has a great way of making things just die in process And so essentially all of our requests, our ability to investigate, it was cut off.

38:01Our requests to investigate were kind of taken away and sort of died in the process. So you get it. It would have been his job to investigate the international connection, if any, and Kash Patel's job to investigate what was happening domestically. And he felt that there was a bit of a turf war going on and that they were slow rolled right out of the case, even once they'd been restored as having permission to look into it. that the government has a way of making that very difficult for you. And he felt that that was done to him. Clearly he's speaking about the FBI. I haven't spoken to Kash Patel.

38:35I'm sure he would deny that though. I feel compelled to say. So Andrew Colvett and Blake Neff, who were also on this show two weeks ago, who worked for Charlie and are now doing Charlie's show in the wake of his death, were not happy with that exchange between Schellenberger and Joe Kent. And here's some of their reaction yesterday.

38:58Curt Mills:I'd be shocked if Robinson's attorneys don't use this. Well, of course, this is the obvious result of this. That's what infuriates me is he's like endlessly. He's like someone who's vague posting on Facebook where he's like, there's there's things I might know. People should know I might. I can't tell you what those are. I can't say what you actually think happened. This really does have a potential to not only taint a jury pool, but to undermine the very prosecution of Tyler Robinson, who I am 100 % convinced pulled the trigger and killed Charlie Kerch. I am for asking questions. This is why I shared the group chat with Joe Kent in the first place.

39:35Curt Mills:I'm not afraid of the answer to those questions. If Israel had a hand in killing Charlie, I want to know. What I'm telling you is that we've had six months plus since that time to track down all those leads, none of which have been corroborated, none of which have actionable evidence behind. You have to have facts, and the recklessness with which these accusations are being thrown out now has real-world implications. Okay. I completely understand Andrew and Blake being upset about this. They do not want to do anything to shore up Tyler Robinson's defense, and I grant them total and complete grace on that reaction.

40:12But as a legal matter, they really don't need to worry, okay? And I'm going to get to why in one second. But before I do, taint to the jury pool, that's always something you have to worry about somewhat. But in case after case after case, we have seen very, very ubiquitous media coverage, and it can be handled in voir dire by prosecutors. That's what they will do. That's what they would have done in the Brian Kohlberger trial, where they would have explored the many, many media exposés on the case and the many, many theories that were circulating all over social media that Kohlberger didn't do it.

40:51There's a large faction that maintains that to this day. They were very loud on social media and had all sorts of theories and podcasts and so on about how he wasn't the killer. Now he's, of course, admitted he was. But that that was something that the prosecutors were going to have to deal with. And prosecutors state to state in today's day and age have to deal with that anyway, because it's a true crime community now. You know, like I was just talking to my well, I'll reveal this news later, but we may have a little true crime news for you coming up. But it's growing and it's very popular. And it happens in cases that you know about in cases that you don't, where there are very strong local.

41:28There's very strong local interest in it and becomes a podcast thing or Internet fodder in some way, shape or form. It can be dealt with taint. But the notion that it's going to go beyond that, that it's going to undermine the very prosecution of Tyler Robinson, as Andrew said, and he said, who I'm 100 percent convinced pulled the trigger and killed Charlie. Me too. Same. And Andrew and I have talked about it many times, privately and publicly. The notion that it's going to undermine the prosecution, I think, is incorrect. And I think in Andrew and Blake's defense, they were set up to get to this point by the way Schellenberger, who I love, presented this.

42:05He presented it as I've spoken with a constitutional law attorney, and that person says this is definitely going to play a role and this is going to potentially help Tyler Robinson at trial. I think Schellenberger spoke to the wrong person. He spoke to, sorry, yeah, he spoke to the wrong person. He shouldn't have spoken to a constitutional con law lawyer. He should have spoken to a criminal defense attorney or a prosecutor, criminal prosecutor. Talk to an actual criminal prosecutor or defense attorney. This is not coming into evidence. It's not coming into evidence. It's just not. The only way this theory about whoever, I don't even know who it necessarily would be.

42:44Is it Israel? Is it Jewish donors to Turning Point if you go off the Charlie text? I don't know who exactly the people who completely buy this theory think it is. But let's say it's one of those groups. The only way that's coming in is if there is actual evidence to support it. A text expressing consternation by Charlie is not going to open that door. It is not. Now, Joe Kent saying there were six major leads that pointed to the Israelis that were not pursued. And here's what they were and can get really specific at it. Maybe a pretrial hearing where they could get into that. Maybe that could open a door.

43:24That's not what he has. That's not what he has at all. In fact, Schellenberger really pressed him on like, what other evidence is there? And he didn't cite any. He wasn't able to say, trust me, there's a lot. He seemed to just be saying, like, I got shut down on the investigation. There was something there. I wanted to pursue it and I smelled something, but I wasn't allowed to do anything. Well, that's not going to be enough. I mean, I'm sure Tyler Robinson's attorneys are going to be sad that it's not enough. But my own instincts as a lawyer for 10 plus years, a litigator, and I've tried cases.

43:56And then I checked with Arthur Idala, who is a legit trial attorney, criminal defense, had one time been a prosecutor, and Matt Murphy, longtime criminal prosecutor. So I've got both sides weighing in with me and a couple of others who I called. All agreed, not one wiggled at all, saying there is not a chance in hell that this gets admitted by the Robinson defense. And even less chance that Joe Kent gets called at a witness. Unless there's some treasure trove of other evidence that Joe Kent remembers. Oh, gee, there were those six clues. It was the Israelis that I did send to cash and he didn't let me pursue.

44:31That's not what's happening, though, here. OK, so I don't think they need to worry about what's going to happen at the Charlie trial. And the last thing is, though, on this, I also don't think this settles the matter about whether someplace said clues might be present or why we haven't actually bothered to know. We haven't bothered to actually investigate. Because I believe, Joe Kent, that he was effectively shoved off of this. I don't know by whom. I believe it for many reasons. And I don't know why that happened. But I'll tell you that when I talked to Joe Kent personally, he talked about there being additional leads that were not investigated.

45:17And that's why when Andrew says, we've had six months plus since that time that I sent this to the FBI, well, to Joe Kent and maybe another Fed, to track down all those leads, none of which have been corroborated, none of which has actionable evidence. evidence, that presumes facts not in evidence, that there has been an investigation of this angle of the story. And I would submit we just don't know whether that's true. What we know from Joe Kent is there wasn't. And it's one of the many questions I think I still have about this case. Why? Why would you shut that down? It's not the only one. Where's the arrest of the trans-TIFA mob that clearly knew about this beforehand.

46:06Who's investigating that? Why does it take six months to figure out whether all the people posting that Charlie Kirk was going to get shot on September 10th, whether they, how they knew that? Like at least come out and tell us why, why hasn't there been an arrest? Have you investigated anybody? Who have you spoken to? How did they know this? Did they all just get lucky? All right. So it's not to stop with like the, it's an anti-Semitic. It's not fucking look at Charlie's texts. All right. It's just, let's, let's just know nothing should be off limits. So I love Andrew and I love Blake, but I think that they're not right, that everything has been investigated.

46:48And here's Joe Kent, again, less than a week ago, to me directly, 25A. And all I can really truly say is that there were additional leads that we needed to run down and fully investigate. And that just simply was not done. Basically, from the time that Tyler Robinson turned himself in and was arrested, and his fingerprints were found on the rifle, they basically, they being the FBI, said, hey, this is now going to go over to the Utah law enforcement, and we are not investigating anything further. And there was a lot of back and forth about that because there were still, and again, not just my opinion and the opinion of the National Counterterrorism Center, there was other leads for us to run down.

47:31And I even spoke with members of the FBI who were kind of at the ground level, and they agreed with me. We wanted to continue to investigate. And so all I can say with authority right now is that there were additional leads for us to run down. The scope that we had of foreign involvement, we did not get an opportunity to run down all of those potential leads. And I think Charlie Kirk deserves justice. I think people deserve the truth about what happened on that day. I'm not trying to be cryptic. What I'm saying is that there were things that we still needed to investigate that were not investigated.

48:07So to sum up, in my view, this is a matter of government accountability, responsibility, and open-mindedness to a real investigation that would cover any and all clues around who might have had involvement. But I do not think in any way, shape or form, as it looks right now, this results in any help to Tyler Robinson. You cannot just say there were things the government should have run down in my view, but they didn't and get that in front of a jury. That's not going to happen. So I think there was a level of alarm yesterday on this that was perhaps not warranted, though completely sincere and understandable.

48:53And I think we should take a deep breath on the trial of Tyler Robinson, which I think will be well handled. I think he will be convicted. There is a mountain of evidence against him. And the only questions I have are what's been done to investigate Trans-Tifa? and why haven't those leads that Joe Kent mentioned? Again, at least one of which I've been told about, not by him, off the record, why aren't they being investigated? Like where is the definitive answer on that? Because Joe Kent just left the counterterrorism a week ago. He left as chief a week ago and he would know if they'd been investigated.

49:34So the answer cannot be we looked into it because it was his group that would have been charged with it. His group would have been charged with it. And what you heard him say there was they were effectively shut down on it. Okay, so that's where that stands. Love to get your thoughts on it. Up next, I've never spoken to Kurt Mills, but I'm looking forward to. He is here. He is extremely smart and knowledgeable, and I think we're all about to learn a lot. If your dog is scratching more than usual, licking their paws or shaking their head, it might seem like normal dog behavior, but it turns out those can actually be signs your dog has allergies.

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51:55Thank you. Thank you.

52:25world stage by being called an anti-Semite, Kurt. Patterns repeat themselves.

52:31Curt Mills:Indeed, indeed. I would like to say that we improve as a species, but I think the jury's out. Yeah, the same. Let me kick it off with this. General Stanley McChrystal gave an interview to the New York Times. He was, for our younger audience, the guy who commanded our troops in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2008, and was very badass, was the one who really killed like the worst of the worst in terms of the enemy and was almost universally beloved by the troops, you know, Air Force guy like Army, and then ultimately commanded the Air Force. And he got booted by Barack Obama because he said something negative about Joe Biden, I think it was.

53:15I think he was actually ripped on the vice president and Barack Obama recalled him. In any event, very, very well-respected general. So he sat down and gave an interview to the New York Times and said something that really jumped out at me about people who are, quote, enjoying this war and what he says to them. Here it is in Sat 19. We could bomb Iraq pretty easily. We could even take Baghdad with relative ease. We could get rid of the existing government. But once we wanted to change the reality on the ground, who actually controlled things, how things worked, now you're not at 30 ,000 feet. You're at six feet.

53:56And you're the same height as your potential opponent. And I tell people about this war. If you like this war, enjoy this first part because this is the best part. Because everything after this will be harder. you see the reality that all of the resentment you create through what you do now at some point comes back to you i think that for everyone we kill in bombing iran they have a brother sister father mother and they are unlikely to go oh yeah it's okay you killed my father but yeah it was geopolitical necessity on your part, that's not the way we respond. And so sometimes it's necessary. I don't deny that some wars are just and required, but no wars that I'm familiar with are neat, clean, or produce the kind of outcome we actually want.

54:53They produce this messy thing that might be better than before the war, but it's not a lot better. so in short we're risking a lot and for what game and he seems to be asking that same question here similar question to what you've been asking let me ask it this way to kick things off how do you think it's going right now in iran um well look i think uh general mccrystal is a good

55:19Curt Mills:man um he's probably much more establishment than i am um it's very interesting to see how he evolved over the last 15 years. When he was ousted from the administration or from the leadership in the military, he was criticizing Barack Obama and also Joe Biden, really Joe Biden more than anyone else. Back then, Joe Biden, say what you will, fought internally against the surge that the Obama administration, the early Obama administration, was trying to do in Afghanistan, something that I think, you know, years, as the years have wowed on, it was something Barack Obama himself didn't really even really believe in.

55:52Curt Mills:And so I think it's big to see McChrystal say this. His contemporary at the time, David Petraeus, before the Iran war, warned against this war pretty much. He said that it was actually remarkable that the U.S. had been so lucky in the Maduro raid that no special forces members had been killed, that could easily have been killed. And so it is heartening to see, for better or worse, you know, the sort of general class, the retired general class, complain about some of the maneuvers here, which is not something that we saw nearly as much in the global war on terror, at least in the 2010s. General Mattis is also out there ripping on it.

56:31Yeah. You know, that was Trump's Pentagon chief. And he's also expressed major doubts about whether we can accomplish our goals in this war. Keep going.

56:38Curt Mills:I think, look, I think the war is not going well. If you define it as, I mean, the basic U.S. definition was we wanted everything in the world with no costs. You know, we wanted to kill the leadership of Iran. We wanted to replace it peacefully with our people. We wanted to keep Israel on side and we wanted to keep the MAGA coalition together. That was basically the White House's goal. And that's obviously failed spectacularly. The Iranian goal is survival. And then additionally, within the Iranian government itself, there are probably partners, sorry, there are probably forces within the Iranian government that are actually pretty happy by how this has gone, all things considered.

57:18Curt Mills:There were basically two views on Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. View number one, he was keeping the system together. And view number two, which I'm more persuaded by, which was that he was an 88 or 87-year-old jaredocrat that was in the way of more ambitious, younger people, including maybe his son, depending on his position. I mean, basically, the Iranians have developed into a junta. They are run by the Revolutionary Guards. and they have discovered a new toy, which is that they can shut down the Stratet of Hormuz. They always theoretically knew that, but it's one thing to renew something in theory and to see it in practice.

57:56Curt Mills:So as I zoom out here on March 25th, it is hard to see how the United States is better off for this war. And if that is the goal, if the goal of a war is to have strategic gains, this war was a clear error. It seems like notwithstanding some of these setbacks, because this drone program that the Iranians have has been incredibly pesky, to put it mildly. We're getting ready to double and triple down. Now, there's the big question. The big question right now is whether Trump is actually going to use all the ground troops who are currently en route to the Middle East. Today, it's been reported that the Pentagon is expected to order roughly 3 ,000 troops from the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East in the coming hours, according to the Wall Street Journal.

58:44Um, and then there was another unit that had been dispatched. We had Marines already and sailors on route. And what people are asking is, are we actually going to use them? Or is this just a scare tactic by Trump to improve our hand at whatever negotiating table we may or may not be at? Remains unclear exactly who's negotiating with whom and how, but do you think we actually are going to start unleashing thousands of American ground troops in Iran?

59:17Curt Mills:I think at this point, given how this has gone, every time that President Trump has mobilized military assets, he's eventually used them. It might take, you know, he initially started mobilizing these assets in January. He used them by the end of February. So I think, base case, we are going to do it. I think that there is a mobilization and an effort to try to potentially take this thing called Card Island, which is, you know, in the Persian Gulf right off the coast of mainland Iran, I think his military value and financial value is dubious and overstated. But I think hawks on Iran are going to persuade Trump to try to, you know, take it piece by piece.

59:56Curt Mills:And I think you could see it be a potential mass fatality event. What is mass fatalities? I mean, there could be hundreds of Americans killed and trying to take this thing. Yeah, it's very, very, very, very worrying. I'm not sure the decision is made. I think Trump probably changes his mind on how to approach this war hour by hour. He's a day-to-day player. But I think the base case that there is going to be some movement. I think they keep trying to move the over-to-window on this. And I think at the beginning of the war, they said that, well, maybe we do a little ground troops. And remember, before the run-up of the war, that was always seen as, oh, only the realists and the restrainers are making all this noise about ground troops.

1:00:39Curt Mills:No one's talking about ground troops. No one's talking about ground troops. Well, lo and behold, March 1, the administration was talking about ground troops. And I think they were for a reason. It's mission creep. That's what people are worried about on this. It's the very same term my husband texts me when I'm inside the grocery store. And I said, I only had to go in for one item. And 45 minutes later, he's still waiting for me outside. Mission creep. Only here we're talking about life and death. And there is a real question about, no, it's just a minor incursion. You know, basically the small excursion is how President Trump phrased it.

1:01:13And now we've got literally thousands of American troops on their way to Iran. And, you know, there was another former military guy. This is former CIA officer Mark Polymeropoulos, who is making the rounds on podcasts. And he said this yesterday, similar to what you just said. Here it is, top 20.

1:01:32Curt Mills:There's some very good open source intelligence sites that we've seen a flow of the special operations commands, kind of lead elements. Army's Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, the Task Force 160, that's the U.S. Special Operations Aviation, 75th Ranger Regiment. They also have been going to the Middle East on C-17s, multiple flights over the last 48 hours. So we're seeing the deployment of what are ground forces. And so I think that's something that, you know, one should take note of, in particular, because in the past, when Trump has done this, whether it's the Venezuela operation with Maduro or the initial kickoff in Iran, you know, when he moves military assets, he actually uses them.

1:02:11Curt Mills:And in particular, we also have to remember that the Marine Expeditionary Unit, the one coming from the Pacific, that will be on station by Friday in the area, too. So that's another contingent of Marines. So there are forces, there are ground forces flowing to the region. The reason I think Trump would not do it are mostly political, right? That he, the polls are overwhelmingly against this, including Republicans. Only a smattering of Republicans want to see ground troops unleashed in Iran. So Trump knows that. And also, I think, notwithstanding the fact that he seems to have been dazzled by the presentations made to him by the military industrial complex and its supporters at Fox News and elsewhere.

1:02:54I do think that he's fundamentally anti-war. Like, I think he got excited about what happened in Venezuela. He got excited about what we did in Iran in June. He had people he trusted and watched too much on Fox News get in his ear about how amazing this could be for us. But I think like at his core, I think he is anti-war. And does he really want to be the guy that commands three to five thousand American ground troops in Iran where he knows that death toll and those Dover, you know, dignified transfer ceremonies are going to go up in a way that will be truly difficult for the nation and him.

1:03:28Curt Mills:Look, I'm very concerned. I would have agreed with you fully a month ago. But I think at this point, structurally, what is going on here is that until President Trump tells Israel and he tells Benjamin Netanyahu, no, this war will not end. And so you alluded to it. There's a potential Islamabad track to negotiate a settlement of this war. But the reality is the Iranians are not going to agree to the exact same package they turned down a month ago. They are they feel I don't want to say strengthened, but emboldened by how they've done the last three weeks. And if Trump is not willing to broker an America first peace deal with the Iranians, then I think he will have to go to war.

1:04:19Curt Mills:He will have to keep he's already at war. He will have to escalate in the war. And that's just my concern. And, you know, I'm not sure it's the die is cast. I'm not sure it's fait accompli. You already have elements within Israeli society clearly anxious that Trump is going to cut bait. You have neoconservatives in the United States, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, certain members of the Fox News, basically the Murdoch machine that are nervous about it. So, like, you know, I think it's always very dumb to think that history is written. But I do think that unless he tells Netanyahu no, unless he tells Israel no, they're going to keep marching on this.

1:04:56Mm-hmm. No talk of Israeli troops on the ground, by the way, just the Americans. Here's, I want to run this by you. Victor Davis Hanson, who we love, who went through a very scary surgery recently for a cancer scare he had involving his lung, is now getting back out there. He's going to come on the program soon. He's not yet healthy enough to do like a full hour sit down with us, and he will be here just as soon as he is. But he's done bit pieces, you know, where he's appeared here or there for 10 minutes. And we got to hear him just a little bit on Hannity. This is on Thursday. So it's a few days old.

1:05:30But here's how he described how things are going. He's an honest broker and he's a war expert and we love him. So I wanted to get your reaction as a more skeptical person around this war to what he's saying. It's not 22. And when people say, well, we didn't have an imminent threat, we didn't have an imminent threat when they took our hostages, when they blew up our barracks. Nobody said we better attack Iran because we need an imminent threat when they blew up our embassy. They never they always acted spontaneously with surprises and we never knew what they were going to do. So the idea you have to have a telegraphed imminent threat.

1:06:02It's not the nature of that regime. It's lying, disguise and dissimulation. And that's their pattern for the last 47 years. But nobody's taken them. Every president said we're going to deal with this. All seven of them and all seven of them did not. And then all seven of them, when they got out of office, said, I regret that I didn't. There's enough evidence to see how things are really going. Europeans would never agree to go anywhere near Iran unless they thought the tide was turning and they think that we're going to win. Otherwise, they would keep still. And the reason that the Pepto nations of the Gulf survive is they have their finger in the wind and they're very attuned to the climate.

1:06:42And when you have Al Jazeera praising the United States bombing campaign and saying that it's been underestimated and it's brilliant and effective, you get the feeling that they think not only should the United States finish the job, but it can and will finish the job. And then when you start to see tactical aircraft like Warthogs and Apaches, that means that they're offering almost ground and sea support to to hit targets. There's there's nothing there's no defense at all when you have that type of aircraft flying at will in Iranian airspace. So you put it all together. And I think it's pretty clear that this rope-a-dope strategy that they have that we're going to tire before they are is dependent on just public opinion, the midterms in the United States.

1:07:30And if Trump sees it through, and I think he will, I think they're going to fall pretty soon in two, three, four weeks. What do you make of that, Kurt?

1:07:39Curt Mills:Yeah, I hope it gets better. But I think that's a dissembling and inaccurate portrait of what's going on. I mean, first of all, there's just basic facts he got wrong. I'm not aware of any president who has been president during the Iranian Islamic Republic's existence that stated that they regretted that they didn't go harder on it. In fact, it's the opposite. Carter's presidency was destroyed by a failed special forces raid. Carter's presidency was destroyed by trusting the Hawks and not working on a pragmatic deal with the new leadership in Iran. Reagan didn't say anything of this sort. Clinton ditto.

1:08:12Curt Mills:George W. Bush fought the Iran hawks, to his credit, in his second term after making a mess of the world in the first term. Obama signed a deal with the Iranians. Biden, while probably more hawkish on Iran than Obama, didn't say anything to the contrary. And his relationship with Netanyahu helped undermine him with the Gaza protests. So, I mean, if anything, it was Trump who was the first president to relent to Israeli pressure on Iran. So I don't know what he's seeing there. You know, secondarily, like, look, you know, passes some prologue, and Mr. Hansen's a nice man, but he was a vociferous champion of the Iraq War.

1:08:51Curt Mills:You know, he's the opposite of Pat Buchanan, the founder of our magazine. And, you know, I think military historians occasionally can lapse into becoming war fetishists. And I think his strategic analysis is just wrong. I think he knows a lot about World War II and about ancient history, and he gave you way more details about those battles than I can. But his prescriptive analysis is atrocious. I mean, we would have done a lot better the last 25 years by just doing the opposite of what Victor Davis Hanson wanted geopolitically. Oh, my beautiful VDH took a beating there, but he'll be back on and we'll ask him directly.

1:09:29Now, I take your point. You're basically saying he's way more hawkish than you are and that one quarter of the Republicans are and that he hasn't always been right, like backing the war in Iraq, which I also did and have lived to regret. In my defense, I knew nothing. I was a young Fox News anchor. I did as instructed by my bosses who are still pushing war on us all these years later, not to excuse myself, but just to contextualize it. The consequences to Trump politically are already being felt and they are significant. And, you know, as somebody who is an American conservative, I imagine you're alarmed about what I'm seeing and what you're seeing in these polls as well.

1:10:12Like, I don't think it's all about the Iran war. I think it has largely to do mostly to do with the economy. But being looking like you're distracted and focused on, you know, Iran instead of Illinois is not a great thing for any American president. And Harry Enten over at CNN just did a rundown of the numbers and in particular the numbers on American men and how it's going for Trump with American men. Hold on. We have it here. SOT 12.

1:10:41Curt Mills:Donald Trump and Republicans won in 2024 because of support from male voters. The only way they can win, given the gender gap in this country, is support from male voters. And male voters are abandoning Donald Trump. In November of 2024, he beat Kamala Harris among them by 13 points, by 13 points. Look at where he is now on his net approved rating. Down he goes. It's a 20-point shift away from Donald Trump. He is now seven points underwater at this particular point among men. I think it is very difficult for Republicans to do well in this midterm cycle if Donald Trump is underwater with men. And look right here.

1:11:18Whoa! Yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes. Men under the age of 25 on Trump. He won him in 2024 by five points. Look where he is now. The net approver waiting way down there. Down we go to negative 19 points. That's nearly, what is that, nearly a 25-point switcheroo against the president of the United States. When it comes to men under the age of 45, those men that had switched their allegiances over to the Republican Party are seeing what the president is doing.

1:11:47Curt Mills:They don't like what the president is doing, and they have very much soured on the president of the United States. That is no bueno, Kurt Mills. No, I mean, it's a stake in the heart of what Trump is supposed to be about. And, you know, it's not as if he should advance the concerns exclusively of men under 45. But no one can really deny that that was in a lot of ways his base and why he was reelected in 2024, why he did better than he did in 2020 and why he did better than he did in 2016. And I think it belies, sorry, it reveals how sort of radical the war contingent actually is. It's basically older Americans, older conservatives who, again, supported a lot of these mistaken wars in the 2000s and in the past.

1:12:33Curt Mills:And frankly, it is a bunch of cynical careerists and a lot of foreigners. This war is extremely popular in Israel. It's over 80 percent support in Israel. It's under 30. It's under 40 percent in the United States. And as you mentioned, for any escalation, ground troops, et cetera, et cetera, it gets dismal. It gets dismal from there. The numbers just go down even further. Last night, there was a special election in Florida in a House district that includes Mar-a-Lago, State House District 87 in Palm Beach. And it's a local election, like a state house, not federal. And it's been vacant since August of last year.

1:13:11Trump won this district at the presidential level by 11 points last November of November 2024. Last night, a Democrat won. She's a business owner, a military spouse running for office for the first time. She defeated the heavily favored Republican John Maples, who John Maples had received Trump's complete and total endorsement. And her own explanation on why she won was everyone's feeling the affordability crisis And the last thing Florida families needed when they're struggling is$4 gas. That's the problem. That's the other problem for Republicans, whether you want this war or support it or don't, is you don't want to lose the midterms and you really don't want to lose the White House over to the Democrats in 2028.

1:14:00And the harbingers at the state special election level are all bad, universally bad across the board. like multiple red cities that Trump won in November of 24, now going Democrat in these special elections by double digits, sometimes as much as like 19 or 20 points to the Dem in a Trump won district. So these are warning signs that we need to pay attention to if we don't want a bloodbath in November and then the following presidential election. And they're not getting better thanks to this war. Yeah.

1:14:30Curt Mills:I mean, I also I think people are underrating to the degree to which Americans are increasingly independent, like literally registered independence. I believe the numbers are approximating about 40 percent, depending on what surveys you believe. So even if you see the polling of just, quote, Republican voters, it's a smaller and smaller slice of the country than ever before. Same thing with Democrats, smaller and smaller slice of the country than ever before, at least in the modern era. And so, you know, that's how you're going to get these wild swings where Trump can win a district by 11 to 15 points and lose it by five points less than 14 months later or less than 16 months later.

1:15:06Curt Mills:And so, you know, I would not be sitting pretty and sanguine in the White House that Trump is commanding a majority of Republican supporters on any given issue. The reality is George W. Bush left the presidency at 22 percent approval rating. What does that tell you? Over half Republicans supported him, even as the economy tanked and he lost two foreign wars. It's just sort of the nature of partisanship. Over 80 percent of Democrats backed President Joe Biden in June of 2024. and the Democratic leadership cooed him 30 days later. So these surveys of support are interesting only so far as they go.

1:15:45Curt Mills:There are tons of Americans who want to trust the president. There are tons of Americans who are glad that Kamala Harris is not the president. But I think mapping the enthusiasm for this war, mapping the enthusiasm for$6 gas is a tricky business. And I would not be overconfident if I were President Trump's political advisors. Well, that's the problem because you don't win election with just your party only. And even if you just look at Republicans, the latest pullout today from Reuters shows one in four Republicans opposes this war. It only has 75 percent approval rating across the entire Republican Party.

1:16:22So that's not even even if you got every single one of those, you know, three quarters of Republicans to go out there and vote for him. That doesn't win you an election. You need all of the party and some independents generally to win. And what we have here is he's got 25 percent of Republicans now opposing him. We saw a poll the other day saying also 25 percent of the electorate that put him in office, which does include independents, are against this war. So it's like he can say that the MAGA loyalists love the war, but he needs more than that to stay in office, to keep Republicans in office.

1:16:56So you've got 25 percent of those who put him in office opposing the war. You've got 25 percent now of Republicans who are opposing the war as it goes on. And you have 69 % of independents opposing the war. 69 % of independents. Obviously, 93 % of Dems oppose. They'd oppose anything he does. But you cannot win an election with 69 % of independents and 25 % of Republicans opposing you.

1:17:22Curt Mills:I think the independent numbers, by some surveys, are worse than the Democratic numbers. numbers. There is a contingent of basically older Zionist sort of, I don't know, Biden-wing Democrat, basically. You see it in the leadership choices of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. They're a little loath to over-criticize the Iran war. You would think the congressional Democrats would be all in on opposing this, but they're actually not. It's actually the independents that are driving the opposition, I think, most vociferously in the country. They just don't have representation in Congress, unfortunately, but they do vote.

1:17:58Curt Mills:They do vote and they vote in the midterms and they vote in the presidency. Yeah. They have a representative sitting right here. I've been a long-term registered independent for many, many years. Likewise. Same here. Yeah. I always say I would not put on anybody's team jersey. I just, there's too many like scoundrels in each party who don't represent my interests and nor do I sign on to anybody's uniform party platform. I like being able to say, I'll make my decision, you know when it's time what you're what you're seeing right now is that you have a sort of empire strikes back moment of the bushwing republican party and they're using trump as kind of a figurehead and mascot it's a it's a mega drag act and you know these yes these forces very much want to you know once mr trump leaves the scene once he doesn't run for that third term you know they thank him for his service they thank him for the iran war and then they want to knife jd vance and then they want to put Marco Rubio up or Ted Cruz up and go back to business as usual circa 2015.

1:18:55That's exactly right. I mean, the nerve of Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, both of whom are two original never Trumpers, to now cloak themselves in MAGA gear and act like they've been with Trump all along. And really, Trump is just doing the bidding of the Republican Party when Trump ran as a restrainer, as somebody who is against war. And now they look at people like you and like me who believe Trump on that and who would really like to hold him to it as some sort of turncoats, you know, unpatriotic, disgusting. It's like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're we're still where Trump said he was the entire time he ran and governed the first time.

1:19:33Curt Mills:Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I mean, it is it is heinous and disturbing for the country that the command center, the nerve center seems to be of the White House's media operation at this point are people like Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Barry Weiss's media outfits. These are people who also siphersly oppose Trump. They oppose Trump more, in my opinion, than Hillary Clinton. The Clintons wanted Trump to be the nominee, right, to their to their error politically. But the Never Trumpers actually burned their party cards, sometimes literally, not actually an analogy.

1:20:14Curt Mills:They actually burned their party cards and they opposed Trump. And why? Because, you know, it wasn't so much they said it was about his character and the bankruptcies and the divorces and all this stuff. But I think they would have lumped it if he had been with them on foreign policy. And he was loud, rude and unsparing on the mistakes of the Bush presidency, on the Iraq war, on the necessity, the lack of necessity of these foreign wars, how America was getting ripped off on the world stage, how it was wasting its time in the Middle East. He was unsparing on that in 2016. And he was unsparing in 2024 as well.

1:20:47Curt Mills:In a lot of ways, Trump is best as a politician as an insurgent. I mean, that 2020 campaign was pretty lame, honestly. The 2016 and 2024 campaigns were better because he was articulating this message. And it is a complete act of retroactive continuity to try to argue that he always ran as a sort of Marco Rubio circa 2015 Republican. The two hated each other. Feeling sluggish, bloated, not quite like your self, life constantly bombards us with silent threats, processed foods, artificial light, nonstop stress, all of which can disrupt gut health, drain energy, and weaken immune health. When that happens, it's not that your body is broken.

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1:22:20Well, you know what people will say. Well, he always made clear that Iran couldn't get a nuclear weapon. Sure. And that's really what led to this war.

1:22:27Curt Mills:Well, yeah, but I mean, there's been a willing conflation between no nuclear weapon and everything else that was on the table. So number one, the guy that he just killed, the supreme leader of Iran, not to trust him, but he had issued a fatwa in the early 2000s against nuclear weapons. So we just potentially removed the most major impediment within the Iranian system to them actually launching for a bomb. His son or whoever is running Iran now, this sort of junta of eight or nine people in the IRGC, they may just lunge for a crude weapon at this time or even try to buy it from North Korea or something like this.

1:23:01Curt Mills:So number one, we've made it more likely that the Iranians will get a nuclear weapon. Number two, there was a willful conflation in the negotiations by the Israelis, by the neoconservatives, by opponents of any diplomacy. And I would include the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who cast a lot of doubts on diplomacy throughout this process. There was a willful conflation between no nuclear weapon and no nuclear enrichment. The Iranians wanted to maintain a pittance of enrichment to basically save face with their own population, somewhere around 3.5 percent, lower than Obama's JCPOA. That is well, well, well below weapons grade, approximately 90 percent.

1:23:45Curt Mills:It's a fake issue. And they knew, in my opinion, that Trump is not a details man. He said it himself. The deal can be a page long. And there was a conflation between no enrichment and no nuclear weapon. They don't, they can, they've been enriching since the end of JCPOA for years and they haven't gotten a nuclear weapon. Right, exactly. And so now we don't know. It's not an imminent threat. It's running Iran right now. It's not an imminent threat. I mean, I mean, VDH is wrong. If it was an imminent threat, then it's been an imminent threat every day since Ayatollah Khomeini, you know, came down the plane in 1979.

1:24:16Curt Mills:And I'm 35 years old and I haven't lived in mortal fear of the Ayatollah all 35 years of my life. Yeah, he hasn't been in front of lobe. for you. It hasn't been for most people. I got through the 90s, the 2000s, yeah. What do you make, Kurt, of the very active campaign to silence any critics of this war as anti-Semites? Because not a day passes where a detractor, somebody who's got questions about this, doesn't get called that word. The latest yesterday was the despicable Josh Hammer decided to take a shot at Tulsi Gabbard. I mean, seemingly out of nowhere because he found out that she had Joe Kent working for her as her chief of staff for a period of time and therefore decided to go for her.

1:25:02Here it is in SOT 23. Multiple people around the same time, last fall on the exact date, that Tulsi Gabbard, who is the director of national intelligence, and she was Joe Kent's boss as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, he works under Tulsi Gabbard. I was told by numerous people who are very much part of the conservative ecosystem in D.C. These are well-sourced people, strong connections to the White House. They told me to be strongly on the lookout for Tulsi Gabbard and her office. They basically said that Tulsi Gabbard is running something of a shadow operation from her office, that she is personally – I was told this – I've met Tulsi, you don't know her well.

1:25:42I was told she's personally actually very anti-Semitic and that she is heavily involved in a lot of the anti-Semitic influencer operations. As a woman who watches the MK show and came to one of my tour stops, the redheaded libertarian set on X, I was told by people close to the White House that you are a gay vampire, Josh Hammer. So, I mean, let's just go with that. Like, I've been told I've been reliably told she's an anti-Semite and she's running an anti-Semitic op out of the DNI's office. I mean, what is this, Kurt?

1:26:13Curt Mills:Yeah, I mean, look, I hope VDH gets better. And I know that Josh is not well. I mean, that he presents with the visage and the self-control of an insane person. That was like a vintage Alex Jones segment, but at least Alex Jones is hilarious. Josh is - And smart. And Josh is charmless, unfortunately. And most of his columns are a declaration of war against the English language, and this is no exception. So, I mean, look, it's just factually inaccurate. it. Number one, I mean, the story of Director Gabbard, unfortunately, is he just hasn't been terribly effective. She doesn't have a strong relationship with Trump.

1:26:53Curt Mills:I think that's part of why Kent resigned. The idea that this woman is anti-Semitic is just, well, you're right, there's a conflation of any criticism of Israel with strategists towards Jews, but it's just not who she is. If anything, honestly, and this is maybe a bit in the weeds, if anything, her views on Middle Eastern politics are actually a pretty hard line against Sunni political Islam. I mean, if you listen to her speeches over the years, she's basically backed the Israeli line vis-a-vis Hamas. And, you know, like, it's just not accurate. He is just doing a character assassination of her.

1:27:35Curt Mills:And, you know, to what effect? I mean, I don't actually think ODNI is actually that effective. They didn't stop the war. I think that's why Kent left. Well, it's also an indictment, an attempt to indict Joe Kent, right, who's become very inconvenient for the Josh Hammers of the world, who they've dubbed him an anti-Semite. There's an active campaign underway to try to cancel yours truly. And the sin that I have committed is I'm friends with Tucker Carlson. I mean, literally, like you can get canceled now for your refusal to cancel somebody. It's like they've gotten really desperate. And especially since the war started, it's gone times 10 to try to silence any critics of it, which is very weird.

1:28:19Like I listen to you. I listen to a lot of critics of the war. I am a critic of the war. I'm still a Trump supporter. But I have no problem hearing people who support the war justify it, say why they believe in it. Like I there are two sides to it. I totally get that and respect the other POV. I don't share it. But what's with the attempt by people like Josh to try to cancel, diminish, smear anyone he perceives as less than full throttle and support?

1:28:48Curt Mills:The story is older than I think you're implying, frankly. I mean, it's interesting that the free press is now the home of sort of anti-woke, anti-culture, cancel culture. That's how it was founded in 2020, 2021, 2022. But the reality, if you look at someone like Barry Weiss's career, she actually came about on the scene at Columbia University by trying to cancel and get defrocked pro-Palestinian professors. I mean, this is an old, old, old, old playbook that goes way back. This happened to the magazine, our magazine's co-founder, William Buckley, who I'm sure is still liked by a lot of conservatives.

1:29:28Curt Mills:I'm not a fan. Bill Buckley oversaw something called In Search of Anti-Semitism, which is basically a witch hunt book that went after Pat Buchanan and Gore Vidal just for their criticisms of Israel. and this is the early 90s early 90s it's it's ubiquitous right now and what you mentioned barry weiss at columbia there's a debate amongst some in the american jewish community about once we saw the explosion of anti-semitism actual anti-semitism post 10-7 and so many of the college campuses i mean like the ripping off of people's yarmulkes they're getting in the faces of jewish college students who are trying to cross the quad screaming you know globalize the intifada that was crazy ass shit, pulling down the pictures of the hostages who are still fighting for their lives.

1:30:14That was crazy. That was deeply wrong. But we have seen a debate unfold in the wake of all of that about whether the answer is to put Jewish Americans into the category of DEI, like keep DEI and just put Jews in there too. So it's like blacks and gays and trans and Jews. And then And there were many of us who said that's the last thing we should be doing. The answer is to eradicate DEI, DEI and dividing us by skin color or religion or that. That's the problem. And the solution to the problem is not to enlarge the problem itself. And to me, it seems clear that we lost that debate that, you know, being Jewish or forget Jewish, it's about like being pro Israel, making Israel like a huge thing in your life and judging others by their opinions on Israel.

1:31:07that's kind of gotten shoved into like a DEI category where now you get called an anti-Semite. We were always told we criticize Israel and it wasn't anti-Semitic, but it turns out, it turns out that's just not true, Kurt.

1:31:18Curt Mills:I think the administration and facets of the administration are basically doing DEI for Jews only actually, that they've, they, they are preserved. They are preserving the DEI playbook and tools, but just for, just for Jews and just for, uh, against critics of Israel's wars. And I mean, I think case in point, I believe the administration is re-suing Harvard. And like, look, every single thing that happened on the campus protests in the past years is not defensible. There's obviously above zero anti-Semitism in the country, but it's a country of 330 million people. There's the First Amendment. There's the right to protest.

1:31:55Curt Mills:Sometimes protests get out of hand and trying to smash these, I think is going to be hugely counterproductive. It's not working. Israel's approval rating goes down and down and down and down in every survey. And the Republicans, I mean, base case, one of the huge reasons they got thrown back into power that Mr. Trump was reelected president was that people were fed up with the woke cancel culture of the early 2020s. And for this administration to come in and now to try to, you know, pseudo criminalized speech critical of Israel, I think, you know, doesn't pass the laugh test for the American people.

1:32:33Curt Mills:And there's going to be a major lane, in my opinion, for anti-war Democrats who want to run against this. And then also, in my opinion, eventually right wing anti-war critics as well. I think the administration is making a huge error on this. And I think, you know, look, I don't I'm not sure it's so much being driven by Trump himself. But, you know, he's he's a coalition manager. He's a sort of boss tweet figure. And there are elements of his coalition that want to do this. And like, look, I don't want to start a huge fight with this, but like, you know, there's someone like the Laura Loomer woman who's, you know, an utter fanatic and basically just has some sort of operation that is just trying to get people fired for their views on whether or not the Americans support should support a foreign war.

1:33:15Curt Mills:A war, by the way, that she criticized when Trump criticized it two years ago. I just think shows how cynical and nasty and stupid, but also I'm very confident on the wrong side of history of all this is. The Israeli hardline is running out of time in the United States, and they know it. I hope you're right, because I tell you, this is not good for American Jews. And I mean, truly, I know it's like cliche, but look, literally, virtually all of my closest friends are Jewish. I mean, it's 80 percent of them. And to a person, even the ones who are really pro-Israel will say, these people don't represent me.

1:33:52I don't judge people by how they feel about Israel, never mind how they feel about this war. And I don't need everybody and their mother to get sued over anti-Semitism because they have the wrong poster board. Like, I just don't think that normal American Jewish people are running around thinking, how does it affect Israel? And how can I shut down other people's viewpoints that I find mildly offensive, even about Judaism? You know, it's like I had a long talk with a friend of mine. I was like, look, you know, the number of like very, very conservative men I've had on this podcast. I mean, I like too many to count.

1:34:26Do I think all of their views are perfectly equal when it comes to women? And there's absolutely no sexism in their worldview. No, I do not think that. I don't give a shit. Like, who cares? Like, okay, so we differ on a couple of issues. You may be more this way and I may be more that way. And neither one of us is perfect. Nobody has the perfect, absolutely lovely worldview on everybody. The point is, like, when do we start shutting down speech, shutting people out of the national conversation, and hurling the nastiest allegations as defining of one's personhood? When do we do that? And against whom?

1:35:03And for what purpose? And what we're seeing right now is that allegation, the same way it was weaponized by the BLMers in 2020 to be, you know, everybody's racist, is being weaponized right now by a certain contingent of Israel firsters to shut down any debate about this war or the Israel lobby, AIPAC, in America and their influence over our Congress. No doubt.

1:35:24Curt Mills:I mean, I think you're picking up on a macro dynamic, which is the increasing separation of the American Jewish community from the interests of Israel or from the Israeli community, frankly. And this has been going on for a number of years. You know, people like Mr. Hammer are in a minority of Jews, a minority of Jews vote Republican. And then within that, a minority of Jews vote Republican are inclined towards these types of politics, in my view. And it is a cynical attempt. I mean, by the way, it's not just driven by Jews. I mean, people like Senator Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, they clearly revel at the opportunity to call someone racist for once.

1:36:10Curt Mills:Like, I mean, I just think I think we shouldn't use this conversation at all. Not to imply that there there aren't genuine bigots and racists in this country. And and frankly, some of them are pretty separate or pretty strident critics of me because I try to advance a principled criticism of Israel, principled non-interventionism. And I think there are people who actually want to agree with Benjamin Netanyahu, that they want the conversation to be about Jews. And I think that plays into all the wrong people's hands. And I think you can totally criticize the government of Israel. You can totally argue that the United States should have nothing to do with this and that does not make you a bigot.

1:36:54Curt Mills:In fact, some of the most brilliant and principled critics of Israel for decades now are Jews and have been Jews. Yeah, I do think that they try to make an example of certain well-known people as a warning to others. It's losing its effectiveness. Better stay the hell in line. It's losing its effectiveness. It is. I mean, to go after Tucker Carlson, who we both know, this is going after the second most important conservative in the country. It's not going to work. And I mean, and Tucker's power only grows as a result of it. Like his show is on fire. People are thirsting for an alternate viewpoint.

1:37:35And I think I'm sure he has a lot of independents and Democrats listening, too. But I think there's a large strain of Republicans who would like to hear their own opposition to this war embodied by, you know, smart conversations. And I'm I don't focus on Israel anywhere near as much as Tucker. I just don't have the interest. But I'm also a critic of this war. And it's been interesting. We've had some audience say, I'm not interested in this. And we've had tons of new audience come and say, oh, I'm very interested in hearing this discussion.

1:38:03Curt Mills:I'm a bit of an Iran nerd. I like I like talking about this stuff. But the reality is it's not us driving this. This is all the administration is doing because of our relationship with Israel. Right. I mean, this is an administration that's ostensibly supposed to be about immigration and trade protection. And yes, there are people working on that. But what is sucking up all of the oxygen is the Iran war, is Israel issues. And it wasn't just a Trump story. It also happened to Joe Biden. This relationship is bipartisan in being, I think, a pretty bad bag of goods for whoever the president of the United States is unless we make a clean break with the Israelis.

1:38:42So, Kurt, last question. What do you think is going to happen this week? Do you think Trump actually does unleash these troops or do you think he takes the off ramp because he's feeling the pressure at home with the gas prices and these politics that we went over and just declares a victory and gets the hell out?

1:38:56Curt Mills:I think we're probably going to do some sort of military operation unless Trump is able to will into existence this potential Pakistan side dialogue. And I think there's basically one man, a lot of it's rumor at this point, but there's one man that potentially could come in as a sort of due ex machina. And that is VP J.D. Vance. If he does meet with some of these Iranians in South Asia, I think that's a game changer because the Iranians are done meeting with Wyckoff and Kushner. Yeah, that's right, because we bombed them the last time they were in the midst of those negotiations, and they therefore no longer trust them.

1:39:33Kurt, great, great discussion. Thank you so much for coming on. All right. And coming up next, I'm going to keep the party rolling with actor Josh Duhamel, who is here live. Can't wait to talk to him. When you bring a child into the world, your perspective changes overnight. Suddenly, you're thinking years ahead about childcare, school, the future milestones. Well, part of loving your family also means thinking about their future, even in sometimes uncomfortable ways. Life insurance. Yes, that's what we're talking about. It's not a fun topic, but it is one you need to think about. Ethos makes getting life insurance so fast and so easy.

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1:40:56The people that we serve, people that this is all about, are now asking the right questions. They're pressing for answers. And quite rightly, their expectations are getting higher and higher. And that's a good thing. Because what that is doing is it's pushing the system towards increased transparency as we all work together to answer those questions. Hey, it's Dan Cummins. If you're into the weird, the wild, and the downright bizarre, check out my podcast, Time Suck. Each week, I dive into shocking stories like the rise of the NXIVM cult, the origins of conspiracies like QAnon, and the San Francisco witch killer murders.

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1:42:13on the Megyn Kelly channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.

1:42:22From small town North Dakota to the bright lights of Hollywood, actor Josh Duhamel first rose to fame on the daytime soap opera All My Children before making the jump to the big screen, starring in everything from romantic comedies to the Transformers franchise. But these days, life looks a little different. As a father of two with another on the way, DeMell has traded the hustle and bustle of Hollywood for a quieter off the grid life in Minnesota, embracing the role he says matters most being a dad. And now he's channeling that real life experience in his latest project in his new film Preschool, which he directed and stars in.

1:43:02He plays one of two fathers locked in an over the top battle to secure a coveted spot at an elite preschool. The film spirals into a hilarious and relatable look at just how far parents will go for little junior. Here's some of the trailer. I will make absolutely sure that you have every opportunity that life has to offer. Welcome to Pugsy's Academy of Excellence. We only accept the best here. A prepared child is a successful child. Oh my God, excellent. Unfortunately, this year, we only have one slot. I know they have a strategy. I just have to figure out what it is. We need to know what Dylan's up against.

1:43:43We are a brilliant team. There isn't a single problem we can't fix. We're just getting started, Doc.

1:43:53He's been in fights.

1:43:57What's best for our children?

1:44:02That is amazing and very real. He's also here to break some news about the business he founded, Gatlin. We'll get into that in just a bit. Josh, welcome to the show. Megan, I'm so happy to be here. I've been hoping to meet you for a very long time. So here we are. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's great to have you. Big fan. And I'm an even bigger fan of your lifestyle and character choices. I feel like you are one of those few rare beings in Hollywood that gets there, makes it big and says, what the hell is this? I'm out. Like you keep your career going. But when it comes to passing on values to the next gen, You've decided on something more sane.

1:44:42So let's start there. Why are you not raising your family in Los Angeles? Well, we do spend part of our time here. I have a 12-year-old who lives in Los Angeles, but he also comes with us out to Fargo, North Dakota, and the cabin that you see there all the time. We spend most of the summer out there, and a big part of the winter, too. It's just, you know, to your point, it was like, you know, my wife is from North Dakota, very much a family girl, very close to her family. I am the same. And it was just a chance for us to, I don't know, give them something else besides the big city. You know, I grew up when I bought that place 17 years ago.

1:45:22It was a way for me to sort of relive my youth in a way, because I grew up in the outskirts of mine at North Dakota, out in the woods like Huck Finn. And so when I bought this property, I think it was that was the initial impetus for it. And then as I went on, I had Axel and now Shepard, and we have a little one on the way after a little girl on the way in June. It's, you know, I really want them to be able to experience the things that I did to get dirty, to, you know, figure out things on their own, to get off their iPads and to just explore. And I think that that's, it's really been a huge blessing.

1:45:58It's our happy place out there. And I could live out there year round if I could. So what you're saying was the draw to Minnesota was not Tim Walsh. No, it was not Tim Walsh. It was not Tim Walsh. Thank God. Then we can continue getting to know each other. Thrilled to hear that. All right. So you start off as this rural kid and grow up, you know, dirt under your fingernails, like I did actually up in Syracuse, New York, too, like in the creek a lot of the time and making mud pies. And I think that develops a good person on a number of levels. But then you decide to try your hand in modeling first.

1:46:37So I'm told, and I'm told you actually made it so big that you beat Ashton Kutcher for male model of the year back in what, the mid 2000s? That was the late nineties, but I didn't actually make it big. He did. The late nineties. Okay. It was, it was, I won a competition that was sort of like Zoolander in a lot of ways. When I, when I really look back at it now, it was, it was ridiculous, but But it was what I thought was my, you know, my rocket to stardom. And it didn't turn out so much that way. It was four years of grinding and, you know, I won the thing. And I thought that I was going to go on and, you know, do great things.

1:47:14But it didn't turn out that way. Ashton, on the other hand, went on and did that 70s show and got a Calvin Klein cam. And just a bunch of different things. So I was pretty bitter at him for a while. But we buried the hatchet. we laugh about it now. Well, you have the chiseled good looks, which will always help you as a male actor and a male in general in life. And it's no accident that you started on All My Children, right? Where it's like, back then, I'm sure they were like, he's hot. If he can act at all, he's hired. And it would turn out that you could do it all. And then, which is why he became a big movie star.

1:47:50But I do want to take us back as somebody who used to watch All My Children a lot back in the day. Not the more, yeah, sure. When I was growing up, I loved All My Children. I watched General Hospital. I had a few that I really liked. But here you are in the following stop, 52. Good morning, Rosalie. The meal and the company were so charming the other day. I thought I'd see what your breakfasts were like. Did you happen to bring a different credit card this time i'm afraid not no huh but you were so clever about it before i don't dare manager's here today what a shame i mean we had such a great time when you talked about tuscany i felt like i was there yeah i started telling you about switzerland you were asking me about skiing in Chamonix.

1:48:45Because I've read about Chamonix, but you've been there. Oh, well. Wait. You don't have to go. I got paid this morning. This will be on me. I couldn't let you do that, Rosalie. Be my pleasure. Really. You talked me into it. And of course, I can return the favor sometime. I'll be right back with the menu. Oh, my God. That's hilarious. That's amazing. So many stories. Okay, so that scene was the most impressionable moment of my, or easily my late 20s into my mid-30s. Even now, I remember that scene like it was yesterday. I couldn't tell you what I said in a movie last week or anything that I did recently.

1:49:37But that scene, because I was so nervous, I knew I was going to be on TV for the first time. All I could think about was, oh my God, I'm going to be on TV. All my friends back home are going to see this. What am I going to do? So I would just, and I was the breathing. I couldn't, I feel it now. It's like, it's like I regressed back to that moment because that was like the one time in my leather duster and my mohair mock turtleneck. With like one too many buttons undone. It was like, and so I remember just being so nervous that I had to remember these lines and I was going to be on TV and it was just terrifying that the girl by the way is elizabeth banks do you know who that is i thought that was elizabeth banks i i i was like that looks exactly like elizabeth banks who also of course is went on to become a huge star that was her first job too which we we also laugh about that because we were so oh thanks for bringing that one out megan holy crap i was not expecting that well it's funny Because I could be wrong, but I think I spent last week with Elizabeth Banks, where we went on vacation for our kids' spring break.

1:50:44Justin Timberlake was 100 % there. He's married to Jessica Biel, who we also saw. And she was with a hot blonde who looked remarkably like Elizabeth Banks. And those two just starred together in one of those Netflix, you know, docuseries. Not a docuseries, but like a series that was really good. And she looks amazing. If it in fact was Elizabeth Banks, she looks awesome. Probably was. And so you guys have both made it big. Probably was. Yeah. I don't know. But all right, so then you parlay that into a movie career. And so like you could act. You got a bunch of Emmy nominations, won one. And then you decide there could be bigger things in store for me.

1:51:21I'm going to try my hand at the big screen. And not only do you get cast in big movies, but like the Transformers, like you can't, Is that just an actor's utmost dream? Any man on earth would love to star in this, no? Yeah, it was a big decision actually to leave all my children because I did it for three years. It was for the first time I felt like I had something. I felt like I belonged in some way, although it took me forever until recently to actually feel like I belonged in this business because I felt like an outsider for so long. But to leave all my children, because it was the first time I was in New York City, straight from North Dakota.

1:51:59It was like I was making a little money for the first time. And they offered me a contract to stay for three more years. And I decided, you know what? No, I'm going to go try my hand and see what happens. And I left and moved back to Los Angeles. And shortly after that, I got Las Vegas. And then I got a win-a-date with Ted Hamilton. And then shortly after that was Transformers. So, you know, it was, you know, I guess I just trusted that I could do it. It was a, it was a scary move at the time, but, um, you know, I, I guess if I were to give advice to any young person out there, just believe that you can go do it.

1:52:38You know, you just gotta, you really gotta just trust. But was that the before and after like that, the transformers thing had to be like, where, okay, now everybody knows you. That was, that was a big one because that production was gigantic. It was, uh, you know, Michael Bay had all the toys, the helicopters and all the cameras. And we had jets flying over. We had DOD involved. And we were on, you know, it was just because my stuff especially, because I did all the military stuff. And so it was a big sort of collaboration with the U.S. military to pull all that off. And they were really helpful in doing all that.

1:53:16So it was that stuff in particular. And it was like massive explosions everywhere. And it was it was unlike anything I'd done before. So at the time, I felt like it was I felt like a tiny cog in a giant machine. Looking back at it now, it was 10. I did four of them. See, one, two, three. I did four of them. And, you know, it was it was it was a huge boost to my career, to say the least. Well, of course, since we subjected you to the All My Children clip, we will do the honor of now playing a Transformers clip, the later version of Josh. Here it is.

1:53:56F-22 is still waiting.

1:54:03Mama!

1:54:08Incoming!

1:54:41with these arms Okay, for the listening audience, Josh is decked out in his camo with his bike and so on. And the question I have for you coming out of that is probably not the one you expect. But it seems to me if you get cast in a film like that, which is testosterone central, and you feel like such a badass with the military and the guns and the camo and the hogs, and you're making it big in Hollywood at the same time with the recognition going through the roof, It might be a time for like church, God, a normie romantic partner, like something or someone to ground you and remind you you're human.

1:55:19Don't get too big. Don't indulge too much in the excesses that are now going to become available to you. Did that happen to you? Wow. What a question, Megan. So I'm so glad I'm here today. um it it uh yeah the truth is there are a lot of pitfalls in this business and you know it it i'm not gonna say i was perfect you know but i did know that i that none of this was real you know fame can come and go as it can it can go as quickly as it comes i did know that and i have a really tight-knit group of friends back home and family that I leaned on heavily during those times. So I always stay very close to North Dakota, very close to my friends.

1:56:05I got a group of 20 friends that were still every day on a thread. So I think that helped me stay grounded. It helped me sort of keep perspective on everything. But you're right. It can be a lot. And thankfully, if you go back to all my children and the bit that I did before that, it wasn't like it all happened immediately. It was like it was sort of a slow burn and still feels like a slow burn. I don't feel like not any of it happened quickly. But yeah, I mean, in God, family, friends, home, those are all things that really sort of kept me and I think still keep me in this business today because it's easy to burn out.

1:56:50Well, I I ask it because I spent a fair amount of time talking over the past year to Charlie Sheen. And he's been so honest about his rocket propulsion to super fame and how he didn't really have that force to ground him and really started to feel like I can do whatever the hell I want. There are absolutely no limitations on me, which was not good for him. Right. He's still dealing with the fallout from that. So why? Why, though, the temptation was there for you? didn't you succumb in the way my pal Charlie did, Charlie Sheen or others, you know, who are less able to say no to those indulgences?

1:57:30I don't know. I'm probably not the, you know, the, the, the spokesperson for it, but I, but I, I, I've had enough experience in this business now to know that I was again, very lucky to have a very tight knit group of friends, uh, very, a family that wasn't afraid to put my ass in check if I needed to be. There you go. But it can be a very enticing and intoxicating thing, you know, because you got a lot of stuff thrown at you. And if you don't keep some kind of perspective on what reality is, and I always knew this, and I watched this growing up. This was before I even wanted to get into the business, is that I'd see guys rocket to stardom and then burn out quickly.

1:58:17And I didn't want to be that guy. I wanted to try to stay as humble and as appreciative. And I also had a lot of jobs before this. I didn't get into this business until I was 27 or eight years old. And so I worked construction. I worked in warehouses. I worked a lot of like grunt labor jobs for a long time. And I think that that real life experience is great as those jobs are. I didn't want to go back to them because I was, I felt so lucky to even be in this position. I still do. So I think that. And it just reminds you. Yeah. It reminds you what real life is like. Exactly. It's not a lot of real life experience.

1:58:52One of the things I've noticed, you know, what happens in Hollywood, if you, if you succeed is not only do you, you know, you become recognizable and the fans love you and all that money, but then you get like an entourage that surrounds you with the most obsequious, absurd messaging about how amazing you are, which I also think is a damaging force, right? It's like your agent and your manager and whatever. It just seems like such a fawning, ridiculous. I think the thing you said about having a family that's ready to kick your ass, that's the best possible influence, no? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that could, it's a good message for a lot of people in the entertainment business these days.

1:59:32I just feel like, you know, because you have a platform doesn't mean that you get to preach to everybody. Oh, thank you. Tell that to the Oscars. I honestly believe that we're very fortunate to be in this position. And I spend a lot of time in the Midwest, so I get to see what they actually think about us. And they're not afraid to tell me. And I have this – I'll never forget this. I was going to play golf with a buddy in Georgia about 10 years ago, and he meets me at the airport with a T-shirt that says, nobody cares what actors think. And I was like, damn, that's really funny. That's really good.

2:00:19And that always stuck with me because it's true. I mean, my job, and that's why I don't really take, I don't really, I have real strong opinions about things, but I don't really talk about it because it's like, why? You know, why would I, you know, alienate half my audience? Because I respect their views on things. But I'm not going to preach to them. they can believe what they want to believe. I'm just here to, you know, make cool stuff. I mean, speaking for people who are more, you know, on the right side of the aisle, I feel like that's all we want. We, you don't need to share our points of view on the big issues of the day, but we do definitely do not want to be lectured by Hollywood leftists.

2:00:58I don't think you're a leftist, but in any event, we don't want to be lectured about how we're worse than them because we don't share their values. You know, it's like, I think more and more, they're starting to get it. You know, you like a couple of actors and actresses have made public statements about how, like, I don't want to alienate, you know, Jennifer Lawrence said it and she's been an outspoken progressive, but she's like, I'm going to stop doing that. Cause I don't, I don't actually want to alienate my fan base. I'd like my art to speak for me. We saw Sydney Sweeney, you know, declined to get drawn in when they made a controversy around her jeans ad it's the, and then we we've seen it a couple of the award show, not really the Oscars, but maybe it was the Globes before that.

2:01:35A couple of the actors on the red carpet being like, I just want to act. I don't want to talk politics. Do you think this is a growing trend? It should be. I mean, it makes perfect sense. I mean, why would you, if you really want to be successful in this business, why would you make half of your audience despise you by your political beliefs? Maybe they don't care. I don't know. I mean, I look at it as a business decision. You know, I want, I want, I'm here just to make cool movies, cool TV. I'm here to make cool stuff. And that's my, I'm the court jester. You know, if I want to, if I want to preach to you about what I believe politically, I'll go run for office, which I'm not going to do, by the way.

2:02:18Yes. Thank you. Or you can just email me. It's fine. It's Megan at MeganKelley.com. In the midst of this crazy, successful career and life, you found time to marry one of the most famous people on earth, uh, the singer Fergie. And how did that change life for you? Uh, it was, it was, it was a big, it was a, you know, it was, it was a huge sort of shift because suddenly I was, and she was a massive star at the time. And, and so it was a, it was a big adjustment for me if I'm being honest. Uh, but you know, Fergie is a very normal person at the end of the day. Good mom. Uh, we have a great relationship.

2:03:02Do you have to navigate the like whose star is bigger and how does that make the other star feel like a lot of Hollywood actors who are in a, you know, a joint relationship have spoken of that dynamic. Yeah, probably. It's, it's probably my own ego more than anything. I don't think it bugged her as much as it probably did me. Um, but you know, she was, uh, she was a massive star at the time and it was a, it was suddenly you're sort of in that shadow a lot of times. But at the same time - Is there the same fear? When you're a man married to a female singer who's such a star, is there the same fear as like a woman would have when married to a male rock star?

2:03:44Like he's going to cheat on me because he has thousands of women throwing themselves at his feet. Is it like that when the spouse is a woman? Like, does that happen to the female stars? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. It never crossed your mind. I don't know. This is what's good about being Josh D 'Amel. You're like, we're good. Trust me. Listen, Fergie and I have a great relationship. We parent our son, Axel. She's a great mom. I'm extremely happily married now to my wife, Audra. We have a beautiful son and a little girl on the way. And they have a great relationship, which is what I really care about, is making sure that everybody's just copacetic.

2:04:29You know, I just want peace, and I don't want to be infighting between everybody. And I think that, you know, they've all been thankfully very civil in the way they approach this whole thing. Well, it says a lot about all of you that you've managed to navigate that one because that can be, it can go another way, as you know. It can be ugly, but thankfully it's not. Yeah, that's amazing. So now you've got a new baby. This will be your first girl coming in June? Yeah, I got a little girl on the way. All right, so how are we feeling about that? Terrified. And about the pony?

2:05:05What's scarier about raising a girl? I grew up with three sisters. So I knew that, uh, I, I just figured I was, I was going to have girls, you know, I had, I had, I had, my dog was a girl and my three sisters were a girl. I was, you know, everything around me was female. And when I found out that I was going to have a son, Axel, it, it almost surprised me. And then again, when I had shepherd, I was like, well, I'm a, I'm a boy dad. So when we, when we found out that we're having this little girl, I think that it was, I'm just I'm just I just can't wait to meet her you know I just there's I think there's something about girls that is so different than boys you know um I think that you know she's got a great mother Audra's an amazing mother and you know I'm just excited to to meet her and you know I don't know what to expect you tell me you have you have two sons and a daughter right yeah I expect you to be putty in her hands my daughter's the middle child But I expect, yeah, I expect she will rock your world.

2:06:08And I've, in my experience, at least, girls come into the world knowing a lot. Like she will know a lot and have strong opinions, probably at an earlier age than your boys. They get there, but it takes them longer. And I don't know, she's sort of like arrived as sort of a boss, you know what I mean? Like together and with strong opinions and like good advice to give. And it's just totally different than the boys. You know, I think you'll find it a completely different experience. Of course, it's still parenthood, but like girls are very different and well, they're more fun in their own way. Now, my girl's about to turn 15.

2:06:44So she's at like that age where like they get more assertive and, you know, the parents are more of a liability than they are. But like, we're still good. And it's it is very different from the boys. So I'm so thrilled you're going to have both experiences. Yeah, me too. You know, I feel like boys are just girls are just more evolved than boys. honestly boys are like little cavemen my little two-year-old is truly a cave you've seen the movie the last dinosaur spike that little caveman yes yes right you know and i think that you know girls just have they're just they can sit and they can play and they can focus on things where boys are just like all over the place well i was thinking the movie parenthood where the the little one is like ramming his head into the wall with a bucket on it you know your boy will definitely do that.

2:07:30You don't totally understand why, but somehow it's meaningful to him. Meanwhile, your girl's doing like trigonometry. So I look forward to that experience for you. Now, speaking of girls, is that your inspo? Because you started a company. You didn't need to do this. You're sustaining your lifestyle, I'm sure, with your acting. But you started like a wellness brand focused first on men. And now just in time for your baby girl, you're expanding it to women. So tell us what is the brand? What has it been doing for men and why the expansion? Yes. By popular demand, we are now offering to women. And so the way the company started was, it's called Gatlin.

2:08:10And a friend of mine, my co-founder, Fabian Calvo, came to me with this idea. At the time, it was just a testosterone replacement therapy company. And I was like, no way, no way am I going to be in the face of a testosterone replacement. Oh, I do it, but I'm not going to tell people that. It's my dirty little secret. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, you know what? This has really improved my life in a lot of ways. It's helped me stay young and active and all the things that it does. And I thought, why not be the guy that shines a light on this thing and makes it okay for people to talk about it?

2:08:48It doesn't have to be something taboo. And we've built this beautiful company. We've got, you know, it's fully concierge. The website just dropped, the new website just dropped today. We're now fully concierge. So you have fully guided, licensed medical experts there to help with whatever questions you have. And what's the website? It's called Gatlin.com. And Megan, The beautiful thing is I watched you and FDA Commissioner Marty McCary talk about HRT for women. And that was one of the impetuses for us to get into the female space because I didn't know all this stuff. I didn't realize. And also there was a girl that I work with on Ransom Canyon who was having troubles with testosterone, believe it or not.

2:09:38And some of her hormone levels were low. And she talks about this to me. She doesn't tell anybody, but she talked to me about it when she knew we had this company. and how that changed her life. And I just thought, you know what? We got to get into this space because there's so many women out there that can benefit from this. HRT, you know, whether it's estrogen or progesterone or even testosterone for women, you know, naturally these things that we produce start to taper off as we get older. And there's so much science behind it now that it really can prolong your youth. It can keep you young.

2:10:12It can keep you active. It can keep you looking good. It's cognitive, it's bone density, it's weight gain. It's all these different things that they found that actually can really improve your quality of life. And I think that that's really why I got into this was why not spread the word about it? Yes, the brain fog, also sex drive. I mean, this is like, I know you're married to a young woman, but I would say like, when you get into your 50s, this can be an issue for a lot of women. It doesn't tend to ever become an issue for men until much later, but like there can be a mismatch and it's hormones, like go regulate your hormones, talk to a hormones doctor, go to Gatlin, look into whether, you know, what are your levels?

2:10:56How's your estrogen? How's your testosterone? Cause women have a certain level of testosterone that wanes as we get older. And there's lots of things you can do. You can do like a cream there's, but if you get even just your estrogen and your progesterone back to like good levels, the drive can be restored and that issue can not just be something that you have to live with. These are things that we don't talk about enough. But I want to stay for a second on the testosterone for men because one of my guys who works security for me, he's also a huge fan. Now he's younger, he's like 41 and he loves it too.

2:11:31What do you love about it? Like why should a man be thinking about going on testosterone? Well, I think it's the same for all of us. As we get older, these things that we actually naturally produce taper off. And a lot of guys, starting in their late 30s, those levels start to fall off. And you can supplement that with testosterone replacement therapy for women. It's estrogen, progesterone, and even testosterone. And you can actually maintain that youthful vigor that you had in your 20s, in early 30s. And you can, you don't have to go through what is traditionally seen as perimenopause. I mean, eventually everything happens, but you can definitely prolong it.

2:12:16And for me, testosterone, you know, muscle, it helps you keep muscle on. It keeps, it helps me stay athletic, sex drive, you know, all those things that just make me feel. Because I got, like I said, like we just talked about, I got young kids. I want to be able to roll around in the dirt with them for as long as possible. I need to stay as young as possible for them as anything. You know, I want my career to go as long as possible. But, you know, for my kids, they need me. And I need to be as present as possible. Yes, I love it. I have to say, so I'm doing HRT and I love it. And I will say, like, it's resolved so many things like that were going wrong with me that I had no idea were hormone related.

2:13:04Like I had very annoying dry eye and it's gone. Like it's completely resolved the dry. It was like crazy. Who knew that that was related to hormones and other weird things that suddenly are no longer present. You feel better, you look better, your skin is better. You feel more vibrant, the brain fog. Like there's so many advantages to it, but people don't wanna talk about it because I don't know, it's a sign of getting older or for some, you know, you say testosterone and you're like, what's going on down South? Well, no, like it'll help you everywhere, including there. But like, there's no shame in getting older and having these things happen.

2:13:39And you saying, no, I refuse. I'm going down swinging. Yeah. Well, I mean, you look amazing, Megan. I mean, if anybody was the perfect poster child for HRT, it's you. You really do look incredible. And I think that it's, you know, it's true. I mean, all those things you just mentioned, you can actually, there's science behind it. The data is there. This stuff works. And, you know, get your levels checked. Find out exactly where you're at. We have a whole fleet of licensed medical experts, the best in the world, that can walk you through this. Because, you know, it's a scary thing to get into in the first, you know, just to step into it for the first time.

2:14:25So, you know, we're fully concierge. We can we can walk you through this. We have all the products. All the products are made right here or compounded right here in the U.S. too. So you're getting what you're buying, whereas some of these companies you don't know. And that's why I think the FDA is coming down on some of these companies is because you can't just click and just have, you know, GLP one center. You got to have a doctor sort of guiding you through this and helping you making sure that you're getting what you're ordering. And so we have the best products. We have the best experts to help them through it.

2:15:00And I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that you are an advocate for women and a proponent of this stuff, honestly. Don't you think that we are – it's the dawn of a new day. Like the days of accepting your traditional medicine doctor being like, you're getting older, deal with it, are done. Like, no, there are all sorts of options when it comes to hormones or peptides or what have you, supplements, that can actually make you feel better, look better, and weirdly, actually be biologically younger. I mean, it's what, what's his name? Brian, why can't I remember his last name? the crazy guy online, he's been on the show who's refusing to age.

2:15:43But there are real life Johnson, Brian Johnson, real life options for you to fight. It's not to say we're all winding up in the same place eventually, but you can look good and feel good for so much longer thanks to this sort of, I don't know if you'd call it alternative medicine. I think it's regular medicine that's just been looked down on for so long. And I'll tell you something else, Josh. you know, you have to get the mammograms as you get older. And I, one of my doctors said to me, like, you know, getting older is not a disease. Okay. I accept that. But you also don't have to go down without a fight.

2:16:23Like you can actually stay looking, feeling, and in a way being younger for even longer. If you just do a little research, check out Gatlin, talk to a hormones doctor, what have you, right? I mean, you're feeling it and so am I. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I couldn't have said it better myself. That's amazing. It's, you know, and the beauty of it is, is once you, once you get your levels checked, you find out that you're low in whatever, and you get, and you regulate to where you were in your twenties or thirties, whatever it is, you start to look better. You start to feel better, which makes you want to eat better.

2:16:53It makes you want to work out, which makes you a better sister, brother, mother, son, daughter. It just, it just elevates you, in my opinion, because you feel so much better about yourself. And because of that, you're willing to do the things you have that oomph that you didn't have, that you've been sort of falling off of for the last several years. So yeah, I recommend people get their levels checked. Come to Gatlin.com and we can get you back to the you you used to be. Next thing you know, you too could marry someone like the 32-year-old Audra. this is all you have to do. Go to Gatlin.com and your life is going to improve.

2:17:36Josh, I loved meeting you. Um, I want to tell the audience that you, your team has given our audience a special offer, uh, for, to get 20 % off your purchase. If you use the code MK at Gatlin.com when you check out. So that's great. You get 20 % off. Thanks so much for being MK 20, MK 20. Thank you so much for being here. Megan, what a pleasure. I've been a fan for a very long time. Oh, I'm grateful. And good luck with the movie, too. Everybody's got to check that out. Preschool was just released on St. Patrick's Day. What a guy, right? What a great guy. Thanks to all of you for joining us today.

2:18:09We will see you tomorrow. We'll do it all over again then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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