Charles C.W. Cooke
Appearances
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Yeah, so I agree with everything you just said about Pete Hexeth, and I was strongly in favor of his nomination. But let's just a thought experiment assume that instead of choosing Pete Hexeth, Donald Trump had chosen someone that all three of us thought was an absolute moron. It wouldn't matter because Donald Trump would have won the presidential election.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
He would have taken hold of, after his inauguration, the commander in chief powers, and providing the Senate had agreed, his choice for secretary of defense would have been installed in the Department of Defense. When this case was argued, that person, this hypothetical moron, would have been able to make these decisions.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
One of the criticisms that we on the right very often make of progressives is that they don't really want a democratic system. What they want is rule by experts. And what this judge is trying to do here is prove us right. Because her argument was, I don't like the expertise or credentials or opinions of person A, the person who is actually in charge.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So I will instead try to sustain the opinions of person B, who is no longer Secretary of Defense and who was serving at the pleasure of a president who... was out of office and whose would-be successor lost. There is no rational basis review in this area. I know that she lays out what would satisfy it, but there is no rational basis review.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
There is no mechanism by which she gets to decide whether or not she respects the person who won the election or the person who the Senate agreed to put in the Department of Defense. None of that happens. And with animus, I agree with you, it's not really dripping with animus, but again, thought experiment, let's assume that it were dripping with animus.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
In most cases in the law, there are a few exceptions, but in most cases in the law, having the court try to decide the emotional state or mental motivations of people who are promulgating rules, especially within the military, is just inappropriate. That's not how law is supposed to work. We write down our laws and we decide whether or not they have been satisfied.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So even if she personally detects animus in that or thinks that it was hateful, with a few exceptions that absolutely do not obtain here, it doesn't matter. She doesn't get to make that call.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Well, a few things. We're talking about the Alien Enemies Act because Donald Trump has invoked it. In other words, he has conceded by doing that that he needs a power to be conferred upon him by Congress, and that's the one he's chosen. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So I guess I'm just belligerent today, Megan, because I disagree with you both on this as well. First off, Schumer did. After Schumer made that terrible statement about the whirlwind, Roberts did put out a statement. He condemned it and made a similar statement to the one he made yesterday. So he does have a history of doing this. Yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So first off, I think it's consistent with the way that he's acted as chief justice. Second, if it's inappropriate for someone who doesn't work for the legislative branch to opine on impeachment, then it's inappropriate for Donald Trump to do it. So if Donald Trump comes out as the head of the executive branch and says we should impeach justices,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Well, it's reasonable in response, in my view, for the head of the judicial branch to say, no, you shouldn't. Why? Congress is, of course.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Right, but John Roberts did not say that it is illegal for Congress to impeach it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
No, what he said was actually correct constitutionally and historically. It's not that Congress cannot impeach justices or judges if they... want to, it's that they should not do so on the grounds of pure disagreement.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
I mean, we presumably all think this because we, the three of us, spent four years railing righteously against the Democrats for trying to pack the court simply because they didn't like the opinions of the majority. Congress can pack the court. It's allowed to do that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
But it's totally reasonable for people to say, don't pack the court just because you don't like Clarence Thomas or you don't like Alito. So I think for the judiciary to say, hey, we don't do that. We don't impeach people based on their opinions only for being wildly corrupt or what you were.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
You'll find no argument from me if you want to criticize some of John Roberts's opinions. But I think that if you look at the presumption undergirding our constitutional order, it's that ambition will counteract ambition and each branch will protect itself. And actually, the big problem that we have at the moment is that that is very often not true.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So to me, when I see someone like Trump criticize the judiciary, although I think he's sometimes wrong on the merits and I don't often like the way that he does it, that's fine. When I see, I wish we'd see more of it, Congress criticizing the president, including the president's use of powers that the president has and indisputably is able to exercise, I think that's fine.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And if I see the judiciary defending itself and saying, actually, no, even if it's not true, Actually, no, this judge is good and we don't talk like that. And you should not impeach us for our opinions. I think that's fine. I think that is Madisonian in nature.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Now, if those branches usurp the power of others or interfere in ways that are extra constitutional or unconstitutional, then I will have a huge problem with it. But John Roberts chastising Chuck Schumer in 2020 or responding to criticisms of Boasberg and calls for his impeachment, that just doesn't bother me. I think it's very different.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Yes, this is one of the worst Trump law cases I've ever seen. for a whole host of reasons. First off, there's simply no constitutional or statutory basis for this decision, and therefore it's void.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
I think Marco Rubio's reasonable determination will prevail here. I do suspect this might take a while, though, because there are a bunch of complicated questions that will gum up the works. One is whether or not what he engaged in was speech. I think a lot of it was not. But the... Half the country thinks it was. And then there's the fact that he has become a green card holder.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And a green card holder is a U.S. person. They can still be deported. But the criteria for deportation is much narrower. And of course, he has an American wife who is pregnant. And I think she's eight months pregnant. So in one month, he's going to be the father of an American citizen. No, well, it is and it isn't. It's going to gum up the works, though, I think. But I think Marco Rubio's...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Second, the fake constitution makes an appearance here where the, as Rich says, core powers, core competencies, core allocations of authority to the president are subject to these supposed standards of kindness. niceness, which simply don't exist in the law in this area.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Well, it doesn't. It doesn't in that we've been discussing some judges who are bad and who are willing to put themselves in the way of the Trump agenda based on flimsy pretexts. And until you meet a panel of judges who is not doing that, then this is going to grind on. I mean, I think it could take a year as it winds its way through the system. And I think some of
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
The questions and we'll find out who's right, I suppose. But I think some of the questions that are going to be litigated here are what constitutes the rights of a US person, which is a green card holder, whether it matters that he was a US person after the various actions were taken.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Correct. But for example, and I'm not actually arguing with you here, even if I sound like it, but for example, a U.S. person is allowed to own a gun. I know this having been a U.S. person before I became a citizen. You can own a gun. And the Supreme Court has ruled that right of the people to keep in bare arms applies to U.S. person. So there will be a judge. I promise you this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
There is going to be a judge who looks at this, says the First Amendment supersedes Marco Rubio's argument, and that as a U.S. person, he is protected. Oh, yeah, there could be a judge. And I should point out that one of the reasons that...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
There are some circumstances where rational basis review, for example, might obtain, but you don't get rational basis review in the military. The president and the secretary of defense can decide who serves and why with effectively plenary reasons. power.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
She just can't do it, can she? All she has to say, all she's obliged to say as the citizen of a free republic is it is never acceptable to firebomb cars because you don't like the guy who owns the company. And she can't do it. Joe Biden, by the way, nominated her. for a federal position. Thankfully, the Senate shot it down. Joe Manchin, I think, saw sense, but she cannot do it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And that is because at the root of modern American progressivism is the suspicion at best and the conviction at worst that violence is sometimes justified, that riots are necessary, and that all these power dynamics and hierarchies of grievances that we've been treated to for years justify what we see on the streets often and hear at car dealerships.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
The third reason it's grotesque is if you read all the way to the end, as I did last night, you sense a certain underconfidence in the judge because she lapses the conclusion into all this mawkish nonsense where she starts thanking people for their service and talks about the military as if she's making a speech on Veterans Day.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
It's absolutely astonishing to me that she can't do it. And the newspapers, incidentally, have published headlines over and over again that run a little bit like Neera Tanden's answer there, which is, suggesting that Elon Musk has angered people and therefore that they can't be held responsible if they resort to violence.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And then she says, this, of course, will cause all manner of public debate and disagreement in the country, which is a good outcome. Why? You're a judge. The creation of debate is totally irrelevant to the job description. It's not good or bad either way. Your job is to follow the law. So this really struck me when reading it as the work of a politician rather than of a judge.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Yeah, well, I'm glad you used the word expert because for years now, there's been this back and forth in the courts between the law as it was written by Congress and the EPA's interpretation of it. Thankfully, many of the cases have gone the way of congressional will in recent years.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
But every time they do, we get these dissents from people like Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in which they lured Congress. the experts in the community and say we should just be giving them carte blanche to do whatever they want. And then we see one on television absolutely beclowning himself. And we realize why we have the system that we have. It's very, very embarrassing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
It is also what happens when for years, you know, the media is on your side and just will reflexively back you and publish your talking points as if they were facts. You become lazy and flabby. I think, you know, the average press secretary for a Democrat is worse than the press secretary for a Republican because they're just not used to. doing the work.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
They're just not used to the hostility that sharpens people. That was a good example of it. And I'll just use this opportunity to say, Lee Zeldin is one of the best of the nominations that Donald Trump made, and seems to be doing an incredible job at EPA, not only in policy terms, but in making sure that all of the work that he's doing is legitimate and the eyes are dotted and the T's are crossed.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
I think when this administration is over and we look back on the story of it, we will say that the EPA appointment and conduct was probably one of the best parts of the whole thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
The other thing, aside from being borderline child abuse in its content, it's so overwrought. It's embarrassing. That's what I would write as a parody. If you told me there are people who do this, come up with the letter, I think I'd be nervous about publishing that for fear that it seemed unbelievable.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
He's a terrible writer. Also, was he trying to do a Churchill thing? I mean, that was right at the end. He was trying to paraphrase Churchill.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
No, he said never before, which is a line that Winston Churchill used after the Battle of Britain, an air campaign that quite literally saved Britain from Nazi invasion in 1940. So he's transplanted that into a description of the inauguration of, I presume, Joe Biden.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Oh, Barack Obama. Okay, better. Of course. That is such a great example, though, of how these people's priorities are all out of whack. Literal existential survival of the British Empire gets moved over onto the same plane as Barack Obama becomes president. Just insanity.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Absolutely. No, definitely not.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Right. So I believe that all men are created equal. You can't see it, but just over top my desk is a copy of the Declaration of Independence in a frame. And that maxim, which really is the foundation of everything I write about, has absolutely nothing to do with this question. It is also true that people who grow no taller than four foot five are equal. They're not inferior.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
They shouldn't be treated differently under the law. They also can't or shouldn't be able to join the military in the same way as a six foot five Navy SEAL should. What we're talking about here is not the usual questions of how citizens are treated by the government when the government interferes with the liberty or property or lives of the citizenry.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
That's when all of the maxims in the Declaration and the premises of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, equal protection, and so forth, apply. We're talking about what should be a lethal fighting force. We have always very... partially discriminated within the military for the sole reason that the military exists to fight and kill and die. This is absurd.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And I can't think of a better illustration of what Pete Hegseth said during his hearing that the military has left its historical presumptions and come to see itself as some sort of social club or social experimentation society than this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
You will not find, Megan, someone who is more willing to wave the Bill of Rights around or demand equal protection or call for the original understanding of the Constitution
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
than me but the original understanding of the constitution simply does not involve judges enforcing what they think is equality within the commander-in-chief's purview and that is ultimately all that matters or should matter to a judge that's right she she goes on to say um
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, there's ambiguity there. There's an argument about it. Probably need Congress to do it rather than do it by executive order, even if there is an opening there to say illegal aliens, their children aren't natural born citizens. But just the last 24 hours, complete show of force and completely what we were told was going to happen.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And I think there's just been this through line of consistency on pretty much everything Trump said over the last year or two that he's going to do, what he said in his inaugural address he was going to do, and what he did. Now, maybe you can say, you know, J.D. Vance and others, Pam Bondi said there was going to be a case-by-case evaluation of the January 6th defendants.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
I think that would have been a better idea. Instead, it was this sweeping pardons. But you can't be surprised that he pardoned these people in some form or the right, because it's exactly what he said he was going to do. And by the way, this is not the first time that J.D.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, no, just the deeper point, though, is that you're not surprised, right? He said he was going to do this. So he campaigned on what he wanted to do, and now he's doing it. Probably sets a new standard, right? The old FDR standard is what are you going to do in your first 100 days? Now the new standard will probably be what are your first 100 executive orders? Yeah. going to be.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And maybe it'd be better if we still had to focus more on what you're going to get through Congress in the first hundred days. But the energy is unstoppable. I remember someone, a reporter who's significantly younger than Trump, traveled with him in 2016. It was just totally exhausted, dragging around. And he recounted there was just one moment
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
where he saw a little bit of fatigue on the part of Donald Trump. He'd done a rally in Las Vegas that was stopped at 2 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, where they'd started the day or something like that. When they got in the car leaving the rally, Trump said, this guy don't speak and closed his eyes to rest us briefly. But he's a complete force of nature. He's unstoppable.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, well, they wanted to get the 8000 number right or thousands to try to pretty up the one that this was all about. Hunter Biden and the family business and by extension now the other family members. But they wanted to create the sense that this just extremely merciful person.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
president, it just happens that his son was one of the thousands of people who benefited from his pardons and commutations. And, you know, I would think if you're a Fauci or a Milley, you wouldn't want the pardon. It's not formally a statement of guilt, but there's an odor of guilt about it. But both of them actually said they did want it just for peace of mind.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
But the better way to do this, if in the off chance they were getting prosecuted, was just fight it. Right. What what crime? I think he's hasn't been honest in front of Congress and the gain of function stuff was was bad. But is he really committed a crime? You know, what crime is Liz Cheney committed that that this speech and debate clause wouldn't cover even if there is a crime there?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
So it's just typical of what we saw the last four years. The guy is warning about the rule of law and what a threat his potential successor is going to be. to it is not playing by the rules himself at all.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And one senior Dem state legislator from out west texted me and said, you know, he literally just let his private militia out of jail. He said he's instilled a sense of loyalty. These people feel loyal to him. And their lawlessness is now going to go unchecked. And he can now call on them again to do what they would like.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, I'm open to the idea there's over sentencing here and overcharging the charge of parading. Right. It was basically walking through the Capitol seems to be stretching the law just to find an offense. But these pardons cover people who fought with cops, assaulted cops.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And anyone who does that, I don't care whether they're on the right or left in between political, not political, deserves to go to jail. And, you know, you can look at the sentence, but that should involve a case by case evaluation.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, it's totally hypocritical. They were insistent that there's an insurrection, right? Almost immediately, that became the mandatory way it had to be described. The term was used thousands of times just in the initial days after the riot. And
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
The truth is, you know, it wasn't Nancy Pelosi's fault, but if someone had had the National Guard there or 100 more police officers or just more of a show of force, it never would have happened. It never would have happened. It was a riot that ran out of control. Doesn't mean that there weren't a lot of bad actors.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Doesn't mean that there weren't people who, a very small group that really wanted to do this and was determined to do this. But a riot, an element of a riot, just the crowd psychology is there are a couple leaders who get it going and then everyone else kind of loses their minds. There's a great book written about this English soccer thugs. And the author pointed out things are kind of,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
under control until there's the sound of shattered glass. And that immediately just sets off this atavistic instinct in people. Okay, all the rules are gone. Now, that doesn't make riots good. They're bad. I don't want anyone who's... punching cops with their Antifa or a J6 loyalist to Donald Trump getting off scot-free. So again, I would have done a case-by-case evaluation the way J.D.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
and Pam Bondi were talking about, but now this is done, and it's not going to be popular, but there's so many other things that have happened in the last 24 hours, I think it kind of gets buried.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, there's no way he knows. And a lot of people repeat the lie about Charlottesville and Trump who just don't know. And I was struck, Megan, by an interview with Pete Buttigieg on Squawk Box several months ago, and they were pushing him about the border Joe Kernan was, and why did you reverse all this Trump stuff that was working? And he said... No, we only reverse child separations.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Child separations happen for about 10 days. Then they are stopped in reverse during the Trump administration. So everything that was thrown out the window by Biden was totally different, was working and was humane and not immoral. But he didn't know. And he's supposed to be one of the smartest Democrats in the room because they live in this information bubble.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, totally. So, look, I sympathize with migrants. They're desperate people. And that woman thought she was going to get in the United States and win life's lottery. And that was pulled away for her. Now, for good reasons, right? I'm very strongly supportive of a secure border and interior enforcement. And this app was way around our laws that the Biden administration fashioned.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
So they could say the number of illegal immigrants was zero. going down, the same time they're getting exactly the same people into the country through a pretext that they came up with through this app. Trump invoked these emergency powers. He's going to be sending troops to the border. That's not really the issue. More manpower helps at the margins, but you have to change
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
The policy is that let people into the country to abuse our asylum process and never leave. So you need to exclude them. So that's why remain in Mexico was so important. That's why these so-called safe third country agreements were so important. Right. If you say you're politically persecuted in Honduras, what we would say is, oh, well, Guatemala will take you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And then the person from behind doors would say, actually, maybe I'm not that politically persecuted. I'll just stay home. So all that work needs to be reimplemented. Now, those countries might not be interested in doing it. Certainly Mexico isn't. But that's where the tariffs and other cajoling and bullying comes in to get them to resign on the dotted line and cooperate with us.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, an institution that's been disproportionately influenced by China and wasn't playing it straight on the origins of COVID. I just have to say, going back to the Paris Accords, it's just it's so enjoyable to think about all these European observers being so outraged, one that we're pulling back out. and two, that this American president is doing it in front of a roaring and cheering crowd.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
It was also amazing to watch Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have to sit within feet of Donald Trump when he completely excoriated their miserable misgovernance over the last four years.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Now, every president, when a president of another party is coming in, it's no fun to be at the inauguration, but to be within feet of him when he speaks of what they've done in such harsh and unsparing terms was kind of another of the incredible spectacles we saw yesterday.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
approach to lighting and you should be able to choose right choose what you want it's the same thing with electric vehicles people don't have anything against electric vehicles they just hate the idea that they're going to be forced to buy them and look thanks to elon musk and others they found a market it's a niche market affluent people buy them as their second or third car you know they they can be great products but they're not practical or affordable for most people and
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And if you look at climate change in general, if we're going to beat climate change and the climate is changing, there's a manmade element. It's going to be adaptation. It's going to be more greater technical technical proficiency. The greatest thing we've done to reduce emissions is a technological innovations fracking. Right. This opened up more reserves of natural gas.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
That's that's the fundamentally American response to this kind of challenge.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Over to Charlotte.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
What's that?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
What didn't you like about it, Rich? Because it did seem like a way, a weird way to kind of hide. Look, she looks great in anything. And she's a real style horse, right? And I thought her, I'm not a dress guy, but the inaugural dress was stunning with that Z, white Z on the black dress. But I wasn't a fan of the hat. Certainly notable.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Megan, this would be a sign that the vibe shift is really deep. We have these entrepreneurs behind Trump. We have Coke giving him commemorative bottle, Meta changing its policies, all that. But the real sign of the vibe shift would be if a glossy magazine actually put the model, who's the first lady of the United States, and looks fantastic on a cover. It didn't happen the first time.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Maybe it'll happen this time around.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
This goes to what a fascinating and weird and dynamic place America is, right? If someone had told you in 1977, when they came up with an idea of a disco band that would cater to gay disco fans, called the Village People to invoke Greenwich Village, and then
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
You know, 40 decades, 40 years later, whatever it is, the right wing president who's supposed to be a cultural warrior troglodyte, according to his enemies, would adopt their song as his anthem, make a dance craze around it, and they'd be performing at his inaugural events. Who would have thunk it? It's amazing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah. So what's the theory that this libertarian American entrepreneur is a secret Nazi? So he accidentally did a Nazi salute when he was just being very emphatic or that he's just trying to make this a thing. He's just openly a Nazi. What is it? I mean, both are completely different. absurd. It's poisonous. It's beneath contempt. By the way, he was just showing enthusiasm.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
That's been one of the amazing things about Elon since he entered that rally in Pennsylvania where he exposed his midriff jumping into the air like a Kool-Aid commercial or something. Just how into this he is. He's a grown man. He's extremely accomplished. He's founded several companies that any one of them would be world historical on their own.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
He's done multiples and there might be more to come. And he's just so joyful and ecstatic about this election and this political phenomenon. It's amazing to see.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, it's tired. It was tired 50 years ago. They always use this. And the honorable thing to do is to say, I don't like Elon Musk. And I think he's run his platform in a disgraceful way. And he shouldn't be on board with this crude and reactionary president. But he didn't do a Hitler salute. Right? That's the honorable way to make their case. But they can't.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And they're stuck in this mode of thinking where some of them believe it, as we were talking about earlier, because they're in an information bubble. And some of them just think it works. And it doesn't. Not sure it ever did, but it certainly doesn't now.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah, so any politician or anyone else who does kind of an extended wave when you're sticking your arm up, if you happen, as Elizabeth Warren did there, to turn your palm down, you can be accused of a Roman salute. At least Rachel Maddow did say, I don't know whether this is what he meant, right? But she still says, in effect, that's what he meant or insinuates it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And by the way, MSNBC, between Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid, has employed two of America's most prominent prominent conspiracy theorist over the last several years. And these are the people who they claim to be all about the facts and hate election denialism and conspiracy theories, but that's what they serve up in huge heaping servings every night in primetime.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Now, Rachel, for some reason, doesn't have to do the show most of the time, but Joy Reid does more than enough herself.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Peak Episcopalian right there. I hate to say that's an Episcopalian sermon. I'm sorry, but you're right. Invading against Republican policy. I imagine she's she thinks she's speaking truth to power, but that's not the time or the place. And it's just bizarre to hear a Christian minister or bishop going on about gay rights like that. But again, that's that's transgender children.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
It's a very, very Protestant insight.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yeah. He's just – he's so funny. He's so entertaining and spontaneously too, right? You get some politicians who can say funny lines because someone writes them for him or her and then he or she can read them. This is a guy just sitting there and the way he reacts, it could have been lost for years. It could have taken us years, Peter, to find it. It's hilarious, right? And he's just coming up –
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
with that spontaneously. And again, as we were talking about earlier, just the contrast with Joe Biden, just this total openness, just hanging out with the reporter, signing executive orders and making it work for him is just, it's a total contrast that we've seen in the last four years where Biden had to be controlled and his underlying condition had to be hidden.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
As she explained to me when she came on, I was I was on board with this, you know, systemic racism is is bad and it's a real problem. And I have white privilege. You know, I had all these voices in my head. I had another voice that was telling me, no, you know, this is this is racial discrimination.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
But I actually approached my director about a month before and I said, you know, I'm not comfortable discussing my race. And I think I said, I'm not comfortable discussing my race or any other protected characteristic at work. And she said, no problem. Just, just say that at the meeting, just say you're uncomfortable. And so I thought, okay, great.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
So I went to the meeting and, you know, the hired facilitators who presumably have authority in this area asked us to discuss, I'm paraphrasing, please talk about your understanding about your race slash culture, right? as if they are one and the same. In the context of your childhood years or your adolescent years, it was like a three-part question. So everyone went around the room and did so.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And I was the last person to respond. And I said, I'm not comfortable talking about that at work. And so later in the presentation, one of the facilitators said, I want to be clear that any white person who expresses any discomfort in discussing their race when asked to, I believe she said that, you might feel like you want to comfort them because they seem uncomfortable, but don't.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Because what they're doing is they're displaying white fragility.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Well, the whole time I'm thinking if, you know, I hope they investigate this complaint thoroughly because clearly nobody was even denying that these things had happened, that I was alleging in the complaint. And, you know, I hope things can change. But in my mind, I thought that was kind of my, the last gasp or the last thing
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
thing I had that I could pull out because I know the college does not like publicity, especially around anything having to do with race.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Yes. I mean, yes. I'm divorced.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Well, I am going to be working in, I'm going to be doing maintenance. I'm going to be painting sheds and removing snow and learning a trade, basically.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Because I actually have two kids. It's really for them. I don't think I would be doing this if it wasn't for them. Because I'm very, very worried, Megan. I'm very worried about... I do know a little bit about history. I see something forming that seems dangerous to me. And I have two white boys, you know, and I want them to know that who they are is more important than what they look like.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
And I want them to grow up in a world that, you know, rewards their hard work and not what they look like.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Thanks, Megan. By the way, your recounting of what it was like last night in Washington is why I got jaded about inaugurals a long time ago. Too cold, too crowded, too inconvenient. And the coat checks are always a nightmare.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
They've been nightmares for decades. No, if Trump's really going to be effective in Washington, he'll he'll fix the coat check situation at inaugural balls. But I think that's even beyond his powers, Megan.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump's Action-Packed Day One, and Ridiculous Media Spin on Elon "Salute," with Charles C.W. Cooke and Rich Lowry | Ep. 987
Buckle up.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And on the merits, I think the argument that's being made here is really odd in that the executive branch has been delegated a lot of authority in the realm of spending. Now, I don't think it should have. And I would go as far as to say, as you probably know, Megan, that some of that delegation is illegal. I'm a non-delegator. I think the Supreme Court has allowed this to go too far.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
But it's been doing that since the 1930s. This did not start yesterday. If it was legitimate for Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Barack Obama or Joe Biden to make spending decisions, not whether or not the money was allocated, not whether the department existed, but decisions within the department, then it is legitimate for Trump to do so.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And all that's happened thus far is you've had essentially an audit. where Elon Musk and others have looked through the spending under the supervision of the president who is in charge of the executive branch and said, here is what's being spent. There hasn't been an attempt to shut down or consolidate or move this agency. If there is, there will be a genuine constitutional question.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And if the administration ignores the courts, maybe a constitutional crisis. But this just strikes me as being wildly premature.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
If you read the law, you won't find any of the items that you just read out. The USAID program was started in the 60s by John F. Kennedy as an executive order. It then existed for 37 years, and eventually Congress got around to writing a law that codified it in 1998. Now, that law has certain parameters. The president can't use it, for example, to invade France.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
He can't use it to build wind turbines in North Dakota. But it doesn't contain any of the provisions that you just... outlined, those are discretionary. Now, again, I don't think they should be. I would like Congress to pass laws with bullet points in them that allocated down to the minute level, all of the funds that it wants to spend. I think Congress has got out of the habit of doing this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
I think Congress has started to write the president shall or in the judgment of the secretary or in the opinion of the agency and all of that. I've been arguing this for years. I have not changed my view on this. But it hasn't done that. That is not what that law from 1998 or the executive order from 1961 says.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Now, if those things aren't listed in the law, that means the president can't do them at all unless there is another part of the law that says that the president gets to decide how the money is spent, again, within the broad parameters. That's what that law says. It's what it does.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
We cannot have a constitutional order that only allows non-Donald Trump or non-Republican presidents the discretion that Congress has accorded. I think that the administration has to abide by the judiciary. I am not arguing otherwise. But insofar as there is a proximate cause of any constitutional tension at the moment, it is from judges who are ruling
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
that the president of the United States is unable to exercise the discretion that Congress has granted him. That's the root problem. Now, yeah, they have to wait. They have to elevate this up the chain. I think they're not gonna like the results when the Supreme Court finally looks at this, which I hope is sooner rather than later. But for now, the problem here is not the president.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
It is the other entities that are trying to tell him what to do. And one final thing on this. The secondary argument that you get is, well, okay, but Trump does have to spend money. What he can't do is say, I am no longer spending money on USAID. But there's a time component to that, right? Trump has been president for what, 20 days?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
So suppose that you come in as a new administration and you want to evaluate what your predecessor has done and you run an audit, which is what Doge is in effect. you might, for a while, stop all payments. You might say, well, we're not gonna spend any money until we've worked out what we want to spend it on.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Now, at that point, perhaps you are obliged to empty the coffers and say, right, we are gonna do what Congress has asked us to and spend this money on X, Y, and Z areas. But you don't have to do it on day one. You don't have to say, I'm cutting two and a half million here, so tomorrow I'll be spending it on something else. So this whole thing seems wildly premature to me, wildly selective.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And to call it a constitutional crisis of the executive branch is just bizarre to me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
No, they completely ignored it. Biden did two things that were bad in this area. The first thing he did was manipulate the courts at best and ignore them at worst. You mentioned the eviction moratorium. You go back and you look prior to the announcement of the continuation of the eviction moratorium, which seems to have been the product of Cori Bush lying down outside the Capitol and crying.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Quite literally, that seems to have been what turned the tide. The Biden administration said over and over again that it could not do it. There are great quotes about this from Biden himself where he says, we've crossed the T's and dotted the I's. I've had my guys check it three, four times. We don't have the authority.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
They already had at that point a memorandum from Justice Kavanaugh in which he said that Congress would have to authorize it further. And they did it anyway. And they told Philip Wegman, Biden himself told Philip Wegman that he was doing it because it might take time to litigate and therefore he could at least buy people a month or so. That is a flagrant violation of the court order.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And he went into it knowing what he was doing was illegal. That was awful. Another example of that was the OSHA regulation, the vaccine mandate for large companies. He knew that was illegal. Jen Psaki told the press corps that they couldn't do it six months before he did it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
With the student loan thing, you had a slight wrinkle, which was that Joe Biden was desperate to persuade the public that he was violating the law, even though he wasn't. He had violated the law with his order. He knew when he issued his student loan executive order that it was illegal because everyone knew that it was illegal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Nancy Pelosi had said a year before that the president did not have the authority to do it. Donald Trump's education department had said at the end of his first term that the executive branch did not have the authority to do it. Every expert who had weighed in had told him, you're not allowed to do this. He did it anyway. That is a massive violation of his oath of office.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
He then gets his order struck down by the Supreme Court. He moves to two different It wasn't that he kept doing the one that had been struck down. He moved to two different ones that would never got looked at by the courts because they were too long. And then he ran out of time. But he told everyone that he was ignoring the court.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
In other words, Biden wanted the American public to believe that he had ignored a court order. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
It's funny you mentioned your experience with the Roosevelt. The Roosevelt's actually where I took my wife for a drink at the bar on our first date. Yes, it's got a good bar. Yeah, and I used to stay there when I would go to New York for TV or other events. I think my sister stayed there before
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
So it really is astonishing as someone who like you was used to that being a hotel and a nice-ish hotel too with a good bar to see it now as a repository of illegal immigrants. So you mentioned the popularity of some of Trump's early actions.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
As a rule, I don't like it in politics when people use the phrase common sense, because they're often trying to steal a base and pretend that their personal politics are common sense and their opponents aren't. But really, there are so many things on which the Democrats have inexplicably seeded ground that are actual common sense.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And we disagree on lots of things in this country, which is why we have two political parties and why we have elections and we have debates and so forth. And a lot of those things aren't going to go away because they're just the product of different philosophies. But then there are the things that you just described.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
I mean, earlier, all of that spending on foreign aid that I think 90% of people would think sounded crazy. Men in women's sports, spending $59 million to put up illegal immigrants in hotels. There's a suicidal instinct in the current Democratic Party that has created this opening and Trump has just walked into it and he's benefiting from it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
On the specific FEMA point with the Roosevelt Hotel, that is a perfect example of how many people in the bureaucracy have come to see themselves. this myth that was developed over time and that is so often parroted by the press, that the executive branch within itself has separation of powers or checks and balances, that the Department of Justice or the FBI are independent.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
When you accept that false premise, you get to this point at which bureaucrats who operate at the pleasure of the president, who is the only elected official in whom power is vested, can make decisions on their own judgment. They can't. They exist to do what the president wants them to do. But that is not the same thing. as saying that the president has unlimited power.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Of course he doesn't because Congress has most of the power. But when it comes to decisions such as that one, the president gets to make that call. So these people should be fired. There should be an example made of them so that it doesn't happen again. That money should be clawed back. And anyone who complains about it should be given an eighth grade civics lesson.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
This is not how our government works. Trump has been abundantly clear on this. There's no ambiguity. He issued these orders on day one or day two of the new administration. It is just crazy to me that there are people in the government who think they have the authority to spend $59 million against the wishes of the guy who's in charge.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Yeah, it is more important, but I don't like it. I think they're two separate questions. I absolutely want to end this horrible tendency of spending huge amounts of money to house illegal immigrants in hotels. And I think that Eric Adams, although I'm not a big Eric Adams fan, is an improvement over Bill de Blasio, because who isn't?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
But I do worry a bit about this tendency of people who are under... the threat of legal action or have been convicted of crimes to try and find common cause or solidarity with Donald Trump, who I think really was treated badly by Bragg, and use that to get a pardon or a commutation or their case dropped.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
It's just not the case that our system is irredeemably corrupt or that every case is exactly the same. And the information I read about Eric Adams suggested he did something pretty bad, as had It did not look good. No, and we've seen a bunch of these. I mean, Rod Blagojevich just got his full pardon.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And what was the first thing that Bob Menendez, the New Jersey senator who also committed terrible crimes, said once he was sentenced to 11 years in jail? He said, now I understand how Donald Trump feels. Come on, dude. You did it. You took money.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Right, right. So I don't like that, and I don't like how susceptible to it Donald Trump seems to be. But sure, I mean, if we're separating those questions out... Eric Adams is preferable to Bill de Blasio and insofar as the new administration can work with municipalities and states to stop this, that's good.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
What is, I think, fundamentally important here is that the bureaucracy responds within the law to the president's instructions. And we're seeing a whole bunch of signs already that it's not. And that is an attack on democracy. The left talks a great deal about democracy. Sometimes I agree with him. As your listeners know, I didn't vote for Trump because of how he behaved in 2020.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
But democracy does not mean things progressives like. There are consequences to Trump's having won. He gets to run the executive branch. And this is an example of him running the executive branch. So I...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
I just despair when I read about this because what you're essentially defending, if you defend those employees who sent this money, is there being some fourth branch of government out there that is accountable to nobody and that is spending your money as a taxpayer based on its own preferences.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
That's literally the opposite of it. Right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
My life is so boring compared to that. I've never done that, I have to say. No, I mean, you can't see it, but if you look just to my left is my desk and I've got all my 1099s on there and my W-2s and doing my taxes. And it never occurred to me to send that cash out into Bitcoin as the precursor to leaving the country and maybe a non-extradition nation and fleeing federal oversight.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Never occurred to me. Maybe I should up my ambition.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Yeah, I mean, I do think that when you're evaluating whether or not someone is a flight risk, just the fact of them being an extremely high stakes gambler probably bolsters the chances that they are. I had a friend at university who, yeah, he was a professional gambler. And in our first year at university, he won 300,000 pounds playing poker.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
What he would do is he would go down to these big London clubs. sort of gambling calls, and he would wait for Chinese businessmen to run in who just didn't care whether they won or lost, they just wanted entertainment. He was an amazing poker player, so he would just win, right? So year one, he makes this huge amount of money. We're all students, we just can't believe it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And then in year two, he loses 150,000 pounds on net. And I said to him, I said, I don't know how you could have carried on to the point at which you lost money. Because if I'd won 300,000 pounds out of stock, right, instead of keeping going and losing half of it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And he said to me, well, it's a stupid thing to say, which it was, because if you had stopped, you'd never have won it in the first place. It's just not how gambling works. You have to be prepared to lose everything you have at any given point. And that's true. And I've always remembered that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Well, if this guy's playing $29 million stakes poker, I think the federal government might be onto something when they think he could leave the country on a whim.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Well, first off, it is completely insane that the federal government gets to tell us what straws and light bulbs and shower heads that we can use. This should never have happened. But... It did take that power and then it delegated that power to the president. So he's completely within his rights to do this. I think it will be wildly popular.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
The most annoying argument that I've seen against this from the left is why is he focusing on this? You know, why, when there are so many issues, is he worrying about straws? Which is a silly question. Why did you worry about it in the first place such that he had to reverse it? You can't have it both ways.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
If it doesn't matter what straws people use or what light bulbs people have or what shower heads or dishwashers people are allowed to buy, then you should never have started issuing executive orders and agency rules in the first instance. You can't blame the guy who, with the backing of the public, comes in and reverses your rules and then say, it's so weird, why does he care about that?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And that is, of course, what they've done across a whole bunch of issues, what they did with the trans issue as well. We had two and a half thousand years of sports in which men and women were not regarded as the same thing, in which the risks were understood. The left came in and said, hey, Maybe men should be playing in women's sports and anyone who disagrees with a bigger...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
People stood up and said, I don't think that's a very good idea. And they said, why do you care, you weirdo? It's just so cynical. So this would never have happened if they hadn't tried to regulate this in the first instance. So to go after Trump and say, why isn't he worrying about bigger issues, I think is really unfair. This is something that people are annoyed by because of over-government.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
What I would like to see, and I don't think it's going to happen, but what I would like to see is having issued these orders and got these rules through, is for Congress to step in. and pass a law saying this is no longer the preserve of the presidency. And that if the federal government's going to regulate this at all, it can't be changed until such time as Congress changes it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Because you're never going to get a groundswell in America that wants Congress to outlaw plastic straws or LED light bulbs. This has to come from the bureaucracy because people hate it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Thanks for having me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Well, I don't think there's a constitutional crisis. If they ignore a court order, there might be, although... There are a lot of checks and balances within our system that declaring anything a constitutional crisis at the first hurdle is often premature. The issue here in most of these cases is that a judge has indulged what David French used to call Trump law.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
In a sense, they said the executive has these powers, but Trump's not allowed to exercise them. The way you deal with that as an administration is you take it to higher courts and you make your case. I think it might have been good politics if J.D. Vance had added one line at the end of his tweet saying, and we will win this at the Supreme Court.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
But not doing so doesn't constitute a constitutional crisis. But I thought Sheldon Whitehouse, of all people, Suggesting that criticizing the court system as J.D. Vance did is beyond the pale. Are you kidding me? This is a guy who has spent the last five, six, seven years arguing that the Supreme Court is bought and paid for is illegitimate.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
A member of a party that spent the Biden years contending that the Supreme Court was not legitimate. in fact, an equal branch of government, but was a stain on the system that could only be remedied by court packing, an idea so crazy that even Franklin Roosevelt was repudiated when he tried it in the 1930s. So as of yet, there is nothing that gets close to a constitutional crisis.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Yeah, and cover-up's the right word. That's what we're in the middle of discovering. And this is, of course, why David Axelrod said what he said, because he wants to stop that process.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Now, if this were irrelevant to the political scene, it would be an awful thing, and everyone would just say what we should say nevertheless, which is that this is a terrible development for Joe Biden, and I hope he beats it. But it's not.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And if you go back to when John McCain announced his diagnosis, it was true then that had he been elected in 2008, he would have been in a second term when he had cancer. But no one really talked a great deal about it because he hadn't lied about it. But with Biden, this is not a distraction from the Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson book you'll be previewing tomorrow. This is related to it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
So we know two things. Obviously, I'm not a doctor, but I just heard one. I've also had a family member who's gone through prostate cancer. We know two things. One is that the transition from not knowing that he had prostate cancer to the description of the cancer that was put out yesterday is is just too short not to raise flags.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
I mean, prostate cancer, thankfully, is detectable, especially in older men. And we, in America, especially look for it in older men really relentlessly. It's thankfully not too fast, a cancer. There is time. Those PSAs develop over time. You don't start at a Gleason score of nine.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And I personally find it quite difficult to imagine that someone with the medical resources that the President of the United States has at his disposal would not have had some signs before it had reached this stage. That's the first thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And then when you combine that with the fact that they've been lying and lying and lying and going after anyone who has asked questions, I think it's a totally fair topic for public debate. And the lies that they told were not minimal. I mean, for example, one of the things that came out, and I think is in the Tapper and
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
had discussed between themselves the possibility that he would have to be in a wheelchair in the second term. They had become fully aware of the fact that he didn't know the names of his cabinet or his friends or even George Clooney, one of the most famous men in the world. These aren't minor things. deceptions. So it is not beyond the realms of possibility that they hid this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Now, I don't know, obviously, any more than anyone else does, but I think it is totally reasonable for a public that is in the midst of finding out one of the worst political cover-ups in American history to say, okay, and were you lying about that too? And to ask further questions.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Yeah. And I think Rich said there are two options here. And I agree. I've said that myself this morning. But in a sense, they are related in that if it is the case that in the course of his many medical exams, which I assume, given his history, he's had brain surgery.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
he's had skin cancer, I believe, he's 82, would have been more intense than say my annual checkups, which I still get and everyone should go and get. If in the course of all of that medical attention that as the president of the United States he was receiving, this was not caught, then it seems unlikely that that was unrelated to the ongoing coverup.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
By which I mean that that in and of itself was a choice.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Yeah. I have family members who have had this, and they live in England. And the health care that they get is not as good as the average American gets, because the National Health Service is not especially good. And it is certainly not as good as the President of the United States gets. I don't mean this to disparage them. They're my family, and I love them. But they are not famous.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
They are not in high profile jobs. They have had their conditions discovered in the course of the normal annual checkup that you give to men in their 70s and their 80s. So if it was the case that this wasn't found, this genuinely was not found, then I have to conclude that it wasn't looked for and that this was part of an ongoing attempt to What's that word?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Plausible deniability to give us little information about the state of the president as possible on the understanding that he was not in good shape.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
I don't think he knows. The other being who's the president.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
You know, every time I hear Brian Stelter, I always think that the Beatles would have been thrilled to have fans as hysterical as he is when any journalists are involved. He loves the press so much. And every time the press gets worse, Stelter loves them more. It's revolting. So what he's doing there, of course, is trying to inoculate the press against any criticism, which is what he exists to do.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
I mean, if... If they knew, then the most likely cynical explanation for the timing is going to be sympathy. It's going to be to make people who are talking about this look mean. We are going to, whether it was intentional or not, see a great deal of that over the next week.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Anyone who says, as I have, that it would be ridiculous to stop talking about the issue of Joe Biden's many health problems that were covered up purely because we have learned about another health problem we didn't know about is going to be told that we are partisan or that we lack human emotional dignity or sensitivity and so on. And of course, that isn't true, but it will be effective soon.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
with some people. And so it will be tried. That I think is also what David Axelrod was doing. Now, whether or not that is deliberate on the part of Joe Biden, I don't know. I suspect that what explains the timing as much as anything else is that the cancer is really bad. I mean, it's a horrible, horrible report. It is a horrible piece of news.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And if you read between the lines of the press release, it doesn't say that the treatment will be effective. It says that they are going to try. It's pretty grave. And I suspect that you would want to get ahead of that if you were a diagnosis about you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
That's the word though, management. And that's because management also means, for example, hospice care. I'm not saying that's what is going to happen, but it covers almost every possible eventuality. And so it did occur to me that maybe this is why they announced it is because before too long, it will leak or it will become obvious that something serious is wrong.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Yeah. Well, it's a softening that nevertheless manages to stay perfectly within his frame of reference, which is what's good for the Democratic Party. So he is saying that. once again, that the Democrats suffered from Biden not stepping out of the race, which is why he pretended Biden was fine two years ago, because he didn't want to hurt the Democrats.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
All that has changed there is the self-serving calculation. And I don't believe him. I don't believe him. I don't believe any of the other Democrats who are close enough to Biden to know. I don't believe the vast majority of journalists who operate in Washington, D.C., including your guest tomorrow, Jake Tapper. I think that they're full of it. I live on a beach in Florida.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
I know almost nobody in Washington, D.C. I know nobody in the Biden family. Shockingly, I was never invited to his White House or anywhere near it. And I could see as early as 2022 what was going on. with my own eyes. You know, there's another person in America who got this right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
It was, oh yeah, a super majority of the population who managed to look and see from afar, whether it be on television screens or on YouTube or what you will, and could detect that Joe Biden was not only sick in some way and unable to do the job, but... was going to die soon. That is not hyperbole.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
That is literally what the polls showed, that a majority of Americans thought that if Joe Biden was reelected to a second term, he would die during it. They didn't have sources to lie to them. They didn't have friends who covered it up or used euphemisms when they should have been plain spoken. They understood it because they're human beings and they have above average intelligence.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
So I just do not believe it. If I could see it, if people who have nothing whatsoever to do with politics could see it, then so could those who are heavily involved, but they didn't do that. Megan, they didn't see it and announce it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
What they did was attack the people who saw it, accuse them of falling for cheap fakes, say that it was insulting to the elderly and might cost them with older voters during the election, and be ruthlessly dishonest to the point at which we are now sitting on your show and discussing, I think absolutely reasonably, whether or not Joe Biden covered up a cancer diagnosis. So no, I don't believe
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Chris Murphy, I think it is telling that the only thing that he can really say there is that it would have been better for the Democrats if they had made a different call, because that's what this was about. They would have been perfectly happy for Joe Biden to win reelection, having refused to divulge any of his infirmities to the public and then die.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
from a wheelchair, if needs be, so that the Democratic vice president could take over. That is all they cared about. And they got punished for it. And they deserve to be punished for it. But their mea corpus will fall on deaf ears with me because I just don't believe them.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Yeah. I should... end forever the public reputation of Kamala Harris, that when Robert Hurt published his report, she came out and made the statement that she did. We have that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Well, I certainly agree that we should have a higher level of integrity. I just don't think that Robert Herr was guilty of violating that standard. I mean, that is pathological lying. And anyone who hears a single word that comes out of Kamala Harris's mouth from here on in should know that she is capable of that sort of performance in the pursuit of whatever she wants to achieve that day.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
That is... Just extraordinary. It was extraordinary at the time. If anything, Robert Herr downplayed it out of respect and probably because he understood that his role was not to end the presidency of Joe Biden, which he could have done if he had decided to sacrifice himself, smuggled the tapes out and released them to the press. That would have been it for Joe Biden. But he didn't do that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
He wrote a fairly kind report, which stayed within the bounds. of the remit that he had been given. Joe Biden is as bad as Harris in the first clip you play. He is trying to find a way to escape the fact that he is unfit for office, and he is doing it with mawkish bullying. And I don't feel... thrilled about having to talk about this, Megan, because it must be terrible to lose a son.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
But what he is doing there, which I'm afraid he did quite a lot, in his presidency is using the memory of his son and the real hurt that his son's death created to get himself out of a political jam. And I would not be doing my job if I didn't acknowledge that, if I gave in to the attempt. Over and over and over again, Biden inappropriately talked about Beau's death.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And he did so there, and in the process, he slimed and slandered Robert Herr. And tried to make her look like some sort of dishonest, partisan, motivated hack. And really what had happened was that Joe Biden had been put in front of a tape recorder with no one there to edit. his words or twist the circumstances or cover for his inadequacies.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And he had given another person irrefutable evidence of his infirmity. And let's not pretend that what is on that tape, I listened to a lot of it over the weekend, let's not pretend that what is on that tape was not echoed in cabinet meetings, in one-on-ones with senators and others.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
I was told off the record by a senator in about 2023 that Biden's performances in some military meetings that he was obliged to have were alarming. This was not... a unique event. So it's scary.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
But what is just as scary, I think, is the confidence and the indignation with which both Biden and Harris and many of their acolytes in the press and the Democratic Party tried to bury it and cast it as a lie when it was anything but. It's a disgrace. It's a scandal. It's a massive chapter in American history that should not be forgotten or bullied away.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And this is as, as the sitting president.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
It's astonishing. And I suspect that if this were the other way around and the prosecutor had been a Democrat and the president had been a Republican, that prosecutor would have been a whistleblower, would have released the information, been turned into a resistance hero and then got a nice gig on CNN.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
that Robert Herr not only didn't do that, when he must have been personally horrified and alarmed by what he saw, but downplayed very kindly the report of what he had seen. in his written documentation, essentially limited it to the question he was being asked, which is should you prosecute him or not, is admirable.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And I think it must have been, just on a personal level, really terrible for her because he knew this thing that the public suspected but didn't know with evidence and didn't know...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
in the scope that he knew it, not only was he unable to say it, but he's then brought in front of Congress and all these people on live television are telling him that he's a liar and a chancer and an opportunist when he's been precisely the opposite. So I think, you know, really people have started asking when does Robert Herr get his apology as a meme?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
You know, it's a phrase we bandy about in the language. But I think it should be taken literally. I think there are 100 people in our politics and our media who genuinely owe Robert Herr an apology, who should stand in front of a television camera and say, I am sorry for what I said about this professional who behaved with dignity and honor.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Because the Joe Biden that you hear there sounds like he is in a nursing home. It sounds to me... Like some of those recordings that you sometimes hear of someone who say survived the Titanic. Yes. And they've been caught just before they die by an enterprising reporter or biographer who has said, hang on a minute, we're running out of people to interview about this. Let's...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Let's go and put a tape recorder in front of this 93-year-old woman who got out in 1912 when the boat sank. It does not sound like somebody who should be in charge of the largest and most important military in the world.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
In the clip you played of him talking about Robert Herr and saying that he shouldn't have asked about Beau, which he didn't, he almost said it. You could see he was gearing up to say, you know, I was going to fight him or I thought that I should have fought him or hit him or something.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Because I've heard Beau speak so many times and he did all of the preparatory work and then he looked out at the audience and thought maybe it wouldn't be a good idea. So instead he just said it was inappropriate. But What you heard there, Megan, is Biden on autopilot, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
That's what people of a certain age, especially if they have issues with dementia, do is they go on to autopilot into the stories that they've told for years, many of which might not be true or have been embellished and increased over time. And they can do that. Those are deeply sunk into their minds. But the details...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
that are requested of them, as was the case in that Robert Herr interview, elude them. And I don't think that's surprising to anyone who's followed Joe Biden. Joe Biden is a bullshitter. He's always been a bullshitter. But what he was essentially left with by 2023 was only the bullshit, only the stories he told 30 times in which he was the hero and no ability to process anything else.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
And so you hear that. In his interview, he didn't want to talk about all the difficult memories that were hazy. He wanted to just go back into the bullshit.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Yeah, so that's obviously a stupid thing to say, but you know what struck me more about that is that she used the words handmaiden to the patriarchy. Hillary Clinton is somebody who actually has a much better understanding of normal Americans than she has exhibited in the last 10 years. She was married to Bill Clinton. She saw politics in Arkansas. It was an asset to her in 2006, 2007.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
I'm not a Hillary Clinton fan by any stretch of the imagination, But I think there were a lot of things about Hillary Clinton that could have been successful had she become president. And now she's talking like some sort of MSNBC, Tumblr resistance, Gen Z influencer. That just shows you why she lost. I'm serious. Again, I'm not a Hillary Clinton person.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
I didn't want Hillary Clinton to be president. I disagree with most of her politics. But Hillary Clinton actually knows deep down, why a lot of people who don't like her don't like her. Because she saw them with her husband two times as governor of Arkansas, president of the United States for two years. He won a bunch of now red states.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Biden Cancer Cover-Up Questions, and Jarring Hur Tapes Leaked, with Dr. David Samadi, Rich Lowry, and Charles Cooke | Ep. 1075
Why is she talking like that?