Best of the Week: Hollywood Bias with James Woods, Kamala's Coronation, Whistleblowers Emerge
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. It's been a busy week, well, busy month, and we had some fascinating conversations on the show. There may not be a former Democratic politician who is as closely connected with the failed 2020 campaign of Kamala Harris as Tulsi Gabbard.

She basically ended Kamala's campaign before it really began on a debate stage in 2019. Well, she joined me this week to talk about the new coronation of Kamala Harris this week. And she's got some really interesting thoughts, as you might imagine. Senator Josh Hawley was on with me to discuss what he's hearing from whistleblowers directly about the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, including why someone was on that roof that the shooter took shots from

successfully, unfortunately, but left it. That's what the whistleblowers told him. And he tells us this conversation.

Meantime, legendary actor James Woods was here on the program. He almost never gives interviews and he shed some light on what it's really like for a conservative in Hollywood and what they did to him in particular, which is horrifying, but not totally surprising knowing that. And our friends from National Review, Charlie Cook and Jim Garrity joined me to talk about what Kamala Harris's record really looks like. Back Monday. See you then.

Hi there. I'm a PBM. I'm also an insurance company. We middlemen are often owned by the same company. So, hard to tell apart.

We control what medicines you get and what you pay at the pharmacy. That's why today, more than half of every dollar spent on medicines goes to middlemen like us. Middlemen are driving medicine costs, and you don't know the half of it. Get the whole story at phrma.org slash middlemen. Paid for by Pharma.

President Biden's selfless decision has given the Democratic Party the opportunity to unite behind a new nominee. And boy, oh boy, are we enthusiastic. When I spoke with her Sunday, she said she wanted the opportunity to win the nomination on her own and to do so from the grassroots up.

not top-down. She would work to earn the support of our party, and boy, has she done so in quick order. So now that the process has played out, from the grassroots bottom-up, we are here today to throw our support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. I'm clapping. You don't have to.

It's a happy day. What can I say? And they didn't clap. And for the listening audience, while he's doing this bit, he's pumping his fist like, yay, we can do it. Both fists together, swing swaying, bottom up grassroots, just in case you didn't hear. Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly show. Who better to talk about all of this with than my next guest, Tulsi Gabbard.

Uh, she was a 2020 presidential candidate on the Dem side and she is author of the book for love of country, leave the Democrat party behind. So you know how things went over there. Tulsi, great to have you back, especially so soon, but why shouldn't we given the monumental developments since you were last on, this was a grassroots bottom up quote process that was really given to the voters. Just in case you weren't aware, definitely not top down. True.

Yeah, sure. If you buy what Chuck Schumer is selling, which I don't for a second. I was laughing as you played that clip, Megan, because, gosh, it's just so telling in so many ways, ending with him being the only guy clapping. In front of loyal Democrats and campaign operatives, nonetheless.

Exactly. Exactly. It really said it all about who's actually made the decision here. And it's not the rank and file Democrats. And we got to go all the way back to when the Democratic presidential primaries were supposed to occur. Start contrast to when I ran in 2020.

in that presidential primary where you actually had primaries and there were a lot of different choices from voters to select from. How that that pre-curation and pre-selection process occurred between the Democratic Party and the mainstream propaganda media back then is another topic for

for another conversation, but at least there were many names on the ballot and voters had the opportunity to go and cast their vote for the candidate of their choosing. In this election now in 2024, many states didn't even have primaries.

We actually had a few people who stepped up to run against Joe Biden in the primary election, and their names are not allowed to be on some ballots in these states. So to say that, first of all, there was even a Democratic process to select Joe Biden to be the nominee is a pure lie. And that lie is continuing on now as they try to create this

this new narrative and this facade of how the Democratic Party is going to the grassroots from the bottom on up to select Kamala Harris as the nominee. None of that has happened. What are we at? It's Wednesday now. This announcement was just made that President Biden was not going to run on Sunday. Where was the bottom up

grassroots voices being heard and votes being cast now for Kamala Harris to be the new Democratic nominee. It's a lie. It hasn't happened. They have decided that she will be the nominee, but they're trying to pretend as though that this is a decision being made by the American people or certainly Democratic primary voters to try to bolster her position rather than seeing it for what it actually is, which is a coronation by the Democrat elite who've been calling the shots for

for Joe Biden, who's been a figurehead for the Democrat elite for the last three and a half years. And now they see in Kamala Harris someone who will continue to be a figurehead and who will do whatever they tell her to do.

That's exactly right. She's going to owe them. She's going to owe them big. It's right on brand, though, Tulsi, for the Democrat Party and what we've seen recently, where we've just been through years of them telling us not to believe our lion eyes when it came to Joe Biden's decline. And then when it was no longer, you know, they were no longer capable of hiding it. And Kamala subs in. Don't believe your lion eyes that this looked like a top down effort. You know, she was made the nominee by Fiat. Yeah.

You guys really actually voted for it. This came from you, the grassroots. And I have to say, of all the ones who object, finally, you see BLM coming out and saying, this is not okay. She's been placed in there. We object to this. We do not support her. And shouldn't there be at least the semblance of democracy here? I mean, this might be the first time I've agreed with the messaging coming out of that group.

It is very telling, again, and it's a continuation of two things. Number one is across the entire Biden-Harris administration, they have consistently shown that they believe if they say something, that it is somehow true.

and number two, that we, the American people, are stupid enough to buy what they're saying and not pay attention to what they're doing. We've seen this dramatically with their open-border policies. Over and over again for the last three years, President Biden, Kamala Harris, Secretary Mayorkas, over and over again telling the American people

The border is secure. The border is secure. There is no crisis at the border. Don't worry about this. There's nothing to see here, folks. And then all of a sudden, because they see voters are looking at what's actually happening, they're not buying their lie. President Biden does this last minute political election year executive order to try to crack down on the on the border and actually acknowledge, well, actually, no, it wasn't secure, but it's the Republicans fault and it's Trump's fault.

It doesn't make sense in any way, shape or form. They did the same thing with our economy. Bidenomics is working great. It's one of our greatest success stories. The economy is going to be great. The recession is not going to last very long. It's just a temporary thing. Don't worry about it. Nothing to see here.

Meanwhile, everyday Americans are noticing that they can afford less and less every time you go to the grocery store, recognizing that our economy is not doing very well. Everything costs more now. And when are these prices going to fall? When is inflation going to go down in enough of a way that makes it so that people can not have to be so concerned about how to cover the basic expenses of everyday life? We're seeing the same thing happen here.

I think this statement from Black Lives Matter is very telling because they're speaking the truth, first of all, but second of all, also that it shows that they expect Black voters to fall in behind Kamala Harris lockstep, once again, playing the identity politics game, rather than actually looking at what are the issues, what are the issues that are of concern to African-American voters, to different demographics and constituencies alike.

across our country. They're not actually focused on solutions to the real challenges we face. Once again, focused on what they say and hoping we fall for the lie and the optics of what they're presenting that are not reflective of the truth of the world and country that we live in today.

So on the subject of the economy, I believe that this is one of the reasons Democrats are struggling so mightily. And I think it's so far we've seen Harris as well. It's only been days. So take it with a grain of salt.

with young people because they're being directly affected. They can't get into the economy. They can't get anything close to a running start. They're dragging. They can't find jobs. I also happen to believe the over the top DEI messaging that these young people have grown up with and been immersed in in high school and college has turned a lot of them on these Democrats. They don't want their skin color and their gender and their whatever shoved down their throats.

But look at this report from CNN. I've got two sound bites here from this guy, Harry engine, who watches the polls carefully for them. They're very interesting. Tulsi we'll play the first one and then we'll go to the second watch.

Joe Biden won voters under the age of 35 by 21 points. What do we see with Kamala Harris? Well, she's still ahead, but the margin here is significantly less than what we saw with Joe Biden back in 2020. She's up by just nine points. You may make the argument that was better than Biden was doing before he got out, but compared to that Democratic baseline, where Democrats have historically in presidential elections, at least this century,

been carrying that young vote by 20 or more percentage points. She is way down from that. Democrats say they're more motivated to turn out after Biden left the race. Well, we do see a significant portion of Democrats who say yes, 39%. The thing I was interested in was it disproportionately younger voters who said that they were more likely to turn out or more motivated to turn out

And what we see here is it's 42%, not a big difference between 42% and 39%. So this idea, again, that the vice president has unique potential to dig in and get young voters to turn out, John, it's just not there in the numbers despite all the Internet memes that are going around.

They've only gotten a three point bump with young voters on enthusiasm since they announced her. Let me play the second one, because this speaks more to party identification. And you and I both know you used to be a Democrat. I did, too. When you're young, that's when the Democrat Party is kind of usually most appealing. Not necessarily right now. Look at this.

I want to look at party identification. Again, voters under the age of 35. Go back to 2020. This is the Pew Research study. This is one of the best studies that we have. And look at that. 56% of young voters said that, in fact, they were Democrats. They identified as Democrat or lean Democratic. You look down at 2024, it's

49%. Look at the Republican jump from 39% to 49%. So when we say that Harris is doing worse than Biden, it's not that she's uniquely bad. It's rather she's fighting uphill. She's trying to fight against a wave that is going against the Democrats among young voters. And Harris may be unique in some ways. Maybe she does slightly better than the generic Democrat, but not all that much.

So for the listening audience, it shows that the, the Republicans used to be at a significant disadvantage in getting young people to vote and register Republican. And it's been completely erased. And Democrats have gone from having 49% of the young, uh, voters registered as Democrat to just 30. They've lost 10 percentage points on, off their share. So you explain that one to me, Tulsi, because that's, that's a problem for them.

You know, what's, what I think is, is, uh, encouraging of what we're seeing here is that you have young people who are, are questioning. They're not just accepting whatever they're being fed. Again, we can't cast a broad brush and say all young people, this or that, but, but it's encouraging to see that there are more young people who are not just accepting at face value what the democratic leader saying when they say, Hey, uh,

A boy can become a girl simply by declaring that it is so, and that boys should be allowed to compete in girls' sports. I think people are actually, I mean, this is young people, but I think across the board are recognizing the literal and pure insanity

of these woke radical ideologies of the Democrat elite are not only advocating for, but pushing and mandating in our schools. The fact that in some schools now, for example, a track team in my home state of Hawaii, a girls track team now has half of the team, half of the entire team are biological males competing on a girl's team, taking away those opportunities from our young women and girls.

Every I think every rational open-minded person would look at this kind of example and just say this is insanity It's crazy. And so this you mentioned some examples with regard to the economy you look at examples related to our open borders and how it's not just the border states now that are feeling the effects and impacts of the almost four years of open border policies under the Biden Harris administration and

It's, it's small towns, it's rural communities. I was in Montana recently and was talking to some folks there. This is Montana. You couldn't get farther away from the border on any coast or, or, or the Southwest than Montana. And even there, they are being impacted by the illegal immigration crisis and an increasing presence of criminal activity by the cartels who have taken a stronghold there. Uh,

It is harder for everyday Americans, young people who are usually not affiliated, attached to an affiliation of one party or another from a generational standpoint. So it's encouraging to see how people are using their common sense, being critical thinkers, being independent minded thinkers about, okay, well,

well, which party and which candidate is more accurately representing common sense and what is actually in the best interest of themselves, their families, their communities in our country. It's absolutely insane, Megan. It's insane. Here's what the whistleblowers, the latest whistleblowers, we've had a number of them come forward

Here's what the latest said just yesterday, that in fact, law enforcement had designated at least one individual, maybe more, but at least one whose job it was to be on the roof, not in the vicinity, not around, on the roof. And this person, I don't know if it was a he or a she, but this person, according to the whistleblower, decided, oh, it's awfully hot that day. And so they abandoned their post.

never went back to the roof, and that is why the roof was left wide open. It wasn't because of the slope, contrary to what the former Secret Service director said. No, it was because this law enforcement individual just didn't want to be on there. But, Megan, there's more. Whistleblowers also tell me that law enforcement were supposed to be patrolling the perimeter of that same building. I've been there, Megan. I've seen it myself. I went last week.

It took my own team because I don't trust any of these people to give us the truth. It's American Glass Research Building No. 6. Megan, it's a low roof. You've seen it. We've all seen it now in pictures. It's a low-slung building. There was supposed to be law enforcement patrolling the perimeter. They weren't doing it either. Instead, because of the heat again...

Whistleblowers tell me that law enforcement went inside the building. So you got the roof abandoned, you got law enforcement inside the building in the air conditioning, and you have the building essentially open. Megan, sometimes it's hard to see from the pictures, but I can tell you having been there, there are air conditioning units, really large air conditioning units on either side of that building.

It's easy to get on that roof. I mean, it really is. It's a single story. Any able-bodied individual could hop up on the air conditioning unit and hop up right onto the roof. You wouldn't even need a ladder. If you had a ladder, it would be super easy. Any 20-year-old kid, which is what the shooter was, who he was, could certainly do it. Law enforcement, according to whistleblowers, Megan, left the building totally, totally defenseless.

Oh, this is awful. When we say law enforcement, do we mean local law enforcement as distinct from Secret Service?

Yes, so this is the whistleblower said to me that Secret Service had asked local and or state law enforcement to handle this and that they failed to do so. Now, I will just note, Megan, that there is a lot behind the scenes here and not so behind the scenes in public. There's a lot of attempts at blame shifting, and I'm even getting it from whistleblowers. We've got whistleblowers from Secret Service world who are coming forward and saying it's the locals fault. And then I've spoken to local law enforcement whistleblowers that don't blame us.

it's the Secret Service's fault. The Secret Service didn't even show up the way they were supposed to for the walkthrough plan with local law enforcement. So it is unclear to me. This is why we need the facts. This is ridiculous. You've got law enforcement on both sides pointing the fingers at each other. You've got a former Secret Service director who would take no responsibility. But bottom line is this. Somebody was supposed to be on that roof. Somebody was supposed to be guarding that building. Nobody did either.

So the local law enforcement is delegated this task and Secret Service, for some reason, put it outside the perimeter of the responsible area that Secret Service would have to look after. And then it seems like they washed their hands of it. I mean, we had a former Secret Service guy on the show a couple of days ago who was saying it doesn't matter whether it was inside or outside the perimeter. Ultimately, it is the Secret Service's responsibility. And if you're going to delegate it to local law enforcement, it's still your responsibility to make sure that

that it's well protected. That plus the fact that we know Kim Cheetah lied about the reason they weren't up there was a sloped roof isn't safe.

tells me they're running scared. They know it was on them. And then we get her performance yesterday, which yes, ultimately led to her being forced out over her strong objection. But why wouldn't she give any names? It's, I realize there's probably going to be a public pile on when we figure out who put the area outside of the, you know, secret service perimeter and so on, but that them's the facts like that's life. So why can't we get actual specifics?

Well, we need actual specifics. And the reason I think is, is that nobody wants to be responsible for anything. Secret Service doesn't want to be responsible. DHS doesn't want to be responsible. Let me highlight something else that a whistleblower has told me, Megan, and that is there were more DHS, Department of Homeland Security, more Homeland Security personnel there that day working the rally that day than Secret Service agents. And this is because Secret Service is so overstretched. They had so many other events going.

that they didn't have enough people to actually cover the rally. So the most of the majority, the preponderance, most of the agents there that day, the federal agents, were from Homeland Security. They weren't prepared for this event. They were not ready to do their jobs. They were supposed to be doing things like

using canines at the entrance to sweep people going through the crowd. They were supposed to be guarding the area around the platform. They were supposed to be coordinating with locals. And whistleblowers tell me they weren't doing any of these things. So, Megan, we've got failure at every single level. I mean, every level you look at here, Secret Service wasn't coordinating this properly. Secret Service allowed Trump to go on stage. Secret Service didn't have the right plan in place. DHS was unprepared.

They didn't know what they were doing. State and local law enforcement officials were just out there on their own, not sure what they were supposed to be doing, maybe not doing their job. I mean, it is every piece of this is a total disaster. The House Oversight Committee

hearing yesterday saying that the officers involved at that particular facility were Butler emergency services and God knows what their training was, who knows whether they had the training or the experience to understand how to protect a former president who we knew was under threat or who they should have known was under threat. Um, so now you have Kim Cheadle forced out as a result of the embarrassing performance yesterday, in addition to the failures that kicked this whole thing off. Um,

And you've got Joe Biden's reaction as follows in a paper statement. Who knows whether this is really from him. She has selflessly dedicated and risked her life to protect our nation throughout her career in the U S secret service. We especially thank her for answering the call to lead the secret service during our administration. We're grateful for her service to our family as a leader. It takes honor, courage, and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs ever.

in public service. And then they go on to say the independent review to get to the bottom of what happened on July 13th continues. And I look forward to assessing its conclusions. That's pretty remarkable. He does not come anywhere near throwing her under the bus. I don't know that this gets it done. Senator, what do you think? No, it doesn't. I mean, by the way, she did none of those things. The things he just said in his in his statement there,

Honor, service, you know, responsibility. She didn't take any responsibility. We all watched the hearing. And by the way, she had briefed senators before that hearing five days ago now, six days ago. She briefed senators in a closed door briefing. Megan, she was exactly in that briefing as she was yesterday. She was unprepared. She was ill-informed and she was totally unwilling, totally unwilling.

to take any responsibility. She didn't know basic facts six days ago. She didn't know basic facts yesterday. If the president really wanted to show some leadership, he should have fired her. He should have said, this is totally unacceptable. I never should have appointed you. You're fired.

But of course, this guy won't fire anybody. I mean, let's think back to Afghanistan, where we lost 13 brave service members and hundreds of American civilians left behind to the enemy. Who did he fire after that? Nobody. Nobody. No accountability. Here we have an American president shot, another good American killed, multiple others critically wounded.

Nobody will take any responsibility. It is a sickness in this administration. And when she got up there yesterday, it seemed clear she had things she wanted to hide. There was just one example. I mean, we can go through more of them, but there was the example of how the Secret Service lied on the record about denying President Trump's requests for additional security. I mean, my own suspicion is they thought it was a vanity play.

They thought maybe he was just self-aggrandizing. I don't know. That's my speculation. But they did repeatedly deny him additional resources for protection. And now we know, of course, he did have reason to fear for his life. And they denied it on the record, both when Dan Bongino alleged it, when Susan Crabtree of Real Clear Politics alleged it.

And then they were pressed. Director Cheadle was pressed yesterday on the fact that she signed off on those lies, that she would have had to approve her spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, in the lies that he told. And here was a bit of that exchange with Florida Representative Mike Walz in SOT 24. Did you sign off on that spokesman's statement? The spokesman's statement, I believe, was related to requests that were made. Did you sign off on it?

for the requests that were made at the rally. Did you sign off on the statement before it went out? I sign off on my press spokesman statement before they go out. I would hope you would in the wake of an assassination attempt. Yes, you did. Categorically false that any requests were made. You signed off on it. Thank you for that. Thank you for that clarity. So here's the thing, Senator. What that tells me is that even in the wake of an assassination attempt in which a man died,

She's not even at best. She was an error. Right. So she's not even checking her facts and being careful in the messaging around something as critical as whether they denied Trump's requests or not, which seems like just a massive political CYA effort by Kim Cheadle and those who work for her.

Yeah, 100%. You take the words right out of my mouth. That's exactly what this is. That's what I thought when I first heard her brief senators a week ago. And listen, the other person, Megan, who is the big liar here and has lied in public repeatedly is Alejandro Mayorkas. Mayorkas.

Mayorkas, remember, went on, I believe, the Sunday morning talk shows and said, oh, actually, we had beefed up Trump's security. We had given him even more than he requested. There was a threat from Iran, and therefore we had given even more, and we were tracking this. That's all false. That is just not true. They did not give them the security they requested. His security was not beefed up. That's just an out-and-out lie. And by the way, Mayorkas, head of DHS, he should be on the hook here, too.

He was overseeing this entire operation. So far, he hasn't even appeared before Congress, let alone taken responsibility. So this guy's basically got control, control, in quotes, of the border and of the Secret Service. And it's not going very well. When is he getting hauled before Congress? Yeah, hopefully soon. Hopefully next week. The Senate is going to hold hearings on this next week.

And Alejandro Mayorkas had better be there. It's the Committee on Homeland Security. I sit on that committee. He had better be there under oath because, sure, Cheadle's the director of the Secret Service. She deserves to go. He's in charge, though, I emphasize, Mayorkas, of the whole operation.

He oversees the whole thing. The Secret Service agents who were there, that's his brief. The DHS detailees who were there at the rally. And I'm told now by whistleblowers that DHS personnel are often getting assigned to these events. He oversees them as well. The whole thing is his responsibility. And Megan, he has a lot.

and lied and lied. And you're right. Best before we even get to the border where he lies for a living. This guy is bad news. He's already been impeached by the House. He should have been removed by the Senate. The Democrats didn't even hold a trial. Now we can see what a mistake that was. On his watch, 9, 10 million illegals have come into this country and an American president has suffered an assassination attempt. This guy's got to go.

What we've seen is that he's not keeping us safe. He didn't keep Trump safe. He didn't keep this poor fire chief safe who got killed at the Trump rally, Comperatore. The two people who were shot, he didn't keep the border safe and the women who have been killed and raped and the men as well who are the victims. He didn't keep the people who got the fentanyl into their veins as a result of the border situation. I mean, this guy should not be in a position of protecting us. That's obvious with Mayorkas.

Here's the other question I have for you, though, because she deferred yesterday, Kim Cheadle, many times to the FBI. Well, the FBI, this, the FBI, that. And we already know there are a lot of questions about the FBI. Many Americans don't trust the FBI at this point, given their role in Russiagate and all that nonsense. She knew answers.

according to her, that she'd been given by the FBI, which she says is investigating. Meanwhile, it's her service. These are her employees, but she's claiming to get the info from the FBI. And she wouldn't give it up as though there's some sort of attorney-client privilege between the Secret Service director and the FBI, which there isn't. Let me show you this exchange and ask what's next for the FBI piece of this probe, SOC 28.

Have you been in communication with the FBI? Yes, I have. With whom? I speak with the director and the deputy director. Okay. Did they share with you how many shell casings were on the roof? They have shared with me. Did they share with you how many shell casing were on the roof? Yes. Okay. How many were there?

I would refer to the FBI for their investigation. How many were there? And their information that they need to share in their investigation. So they've shared the information with you. You just don't want to share the information with us, correct? If you're supposed to be in charge, if the buck stops with you, how come you can't share the answers? What are you covering up? What are you hiding, my friend? I'm not covering anything up. Then why can't you answer a simple question?

Okay. So what happens to her now? Does she just go off quietly into the night? And then the second piece of it is what happens with the FBI? Like, why do they have sole knowledge of what's happening in this investigation?

Well, Megan, I can tell you as to the FBI, one of the reasons I went to the site myself last week is because I don't trust them to do anything. And I will tell you, when I got there to Butler, to the site, the FBI tried to run me off as quick as they possibly could. When I went to that building that we've been talking about, the American Glass Research Building, the FBI came out onto the property. By the way, I had been given permission by local security to be there.

the folks who have authority over the building, FBI comes out, Megan, and tells me I have to leave. And I said, excuse me? I mean, what authority do you have to tell me that I have to leave? And they said, oh, we're doing an investigation. We'll give you the report later, but you can't be here. You have to go. That told me a lot right there, which is they want to control the information flow, Megan. They want to control the facts and the details here. And you saw it yesterday. You saw this, it looks like an agreement between the Secret Service and the FBI to try to pump this information

And let the FBI control all of the information. Let them control when they release it and let them control the narrative. They don't have the authority to do that, Megan. And we should not allow them. We should not acquiesce to that at all. Listen, if they want to do an investigation, that's fine. But that should not be the end of the inquiry for the American people. And the FBI director, he needs to come to Congress. He needs to be under oath. He needs to answer questions.

Yes. My team telling me because the local law enforcement and state police commissioner, they're on the hot seat this afternoon. State police commissioner just said during the hearing, he believes there are eight casings were found on top of that roof. And that means that would mean that eight shots were fired by the shooter in this case.

I've had my life threatened more times than I can tell you from my political views. I've had my career destroyed because of it. I had an agent who probably was 20 bears deep when he did it on the 4th of July, send me a text and say, I'm feeling patriotic today. I'm going to drop you as a client. Let me rephrase that. Here's what he really meant.

You vote differently for me in the United States of America, so you don't deserve to have the career that you worked your ass off for for 40 years, and I'm going to destroy it and blacklist you.

And that's what this piece of shit did. Pardon my French. Okay. Now the good news is he lost his, yeah, he lost his biggest client and so on. And then I said, well, I've got to find a way to pull myself up by my bootstraps. And thanks to two wonderful people in my life, David Wargo, my friend from MIT and my glorious best friend for my entire career in Hollywood. And man, I helped get into the business, Chuck Roven, uh,

The three of us together, David and I brought Chuck a book called American Prometheus and said, do you think you can call your associate and friend, Chris Nolan, see if you can get him interested in this project that we've been trying to get off the ground for five years? And he did. And the rest was history. And I was able, thank God.

off by my bootstraps. And, you know, and it was wonderful when Chuck, you know, won the Oscar. And the first thing he did was thank myself and David. First thing that was that was sweet justice, even for me, James, even where I was just to see I have to thank you and see you back the award winning. I mean, it won every award Oppenheimer did. And they had to think that was sincere. But like everyone in Hollywood had to bow down and say this was a great idea.

Yeah. And well, the nice thing about it was, look, if you can put anything in Christopher Nolan's hands and he says, yes, they haven't opened up. He's a remarkable, great cineast. His wife and producer partner, Emma Thomas, wonderful woman. And Chuck Roven, do you know that I am the executive producer of Oppenheimer and you know, I did it all.

on a handshake. We all just shook hands and we made that movie. And we, well, we didn't make the movie. We watched the movie. Chuck and, of course, Nolan made the movie. But we were able to put that together because these are decent people. By the way, Chuck is more liberal, you know, in his politics than I am. Never interferes. We can talk about anything. We don't have to hate each other. I'm going to say something on your show that's going to shock you.

I'm going to try. I'm going to lose a million followers on Twitter right now. I love Whoopi Goldberg. I hate her politics. I think she's insane with her politics. But I worked with Whoopi on a movie, Ghost in Mississippi. I got an Oscar nomination. It was a great experience. I got to meet Van Evers. It was just a remarkable experience. Whoopi and I

had the best time together. She was such a sweet person. We became great friends. I like her. And if Whoopi Goldberg and I sat in a room, I'd sit down and go, who wants to start first? Because no matter who starts first, the person who starts is going to say, why are you so nuts? But here's the difference between, I think,

Look, people say you're a conservative firebrand. I was a Democrat for 20 years. I'm not a conservative firebrand. I am a centrist. I believe in the Constitution of the United States of America. I believe in the laws of the land, and you should obey the laws of the land if you're a citizen, and you should honor your oath of office to support and enforce the laws of the land if you are an elected leader. I don't believe that somebody like Gavin Newsom can say, well, you know, the state of California voted for the death penalty, but I'm just not going to enforce it.

Okay, great. Then I'm not going to acknowledge your gun laws. I'm going to run around with an AK-47 shooting up the sidewalks. Of course not. You don't get to disobey the laws selectively, but Democrats do.

We don't do that. Can I ask you about this? Because I love this. I love, I also have so many friends who are Democrats, who are liberals. I don't really have any woke friends, but I do have a lot of dear, lovely Democrat friends. And I read that you're actually friends with Rob Reiner too, who is one, he's one of the biggest Trump critics. That's a biggie. You worked very early on together. I understand you maintain the friendship.

Well, it was the same movie, but let me say something about Rob, okay? Rob Reiner. Boy, this quote's going to hurt. Rob Reiner is a patriot. And by that, I mean, he is passionate about ideas that he believes in. Hey, it's the United States of America. You can believe what you want. And the things that he believes in are to him the way to make America great again.

Now, it may not be great in the way that some of the ideas I'd like to see to make America great again. It may not be that. We may not have an equivalency there. But I believe that he truly cares about this country, and that's one of the reasons he's so passionate. I think he's very wrong about a lot of his social aggressive ideas. But

You know, he's entitled to that. What's magnificent about this country is that Rob Reiner and I can be friends and completely disagree about just about everything, quite frankly. But you know what? Rob fought for Studio Didn't Want Me, for Ghost of Mississippi. And I promised him, I said, if you take the chance and hire me.

I'll get you an Academy Award nomination with my performance because this is an important story. And it was. It was about the assassination of Medgar Evers, you know, and while hateful people. I'm glad that guy got shot. Let me tell you a wonderful story about that one. We were filming in Jackson, Mississippi.

I'm all made up in this makeup, be like Byron D. LeBeckwith. Byron D. LeBeckwith happened to be kept after he was convicted for murder, for life, instead of being in the state prison where he would have been murdered. The state of the Commonwealth of Louisiana, is it a Commonwealth state? Whatever, of Louisiana has a responsibility to protect their prisoners. So they put him in the jail,

in Jackson, Mississippi, in the county jailhouse, which is above their, I think is above their city hall and so on. So he was in the jail, in the hospital part of the jail, looking down on us when we were filming the story. And I walk out of the limousine and I'm looking at the crowd and I look up and there's Byron DeLaBeckwith in the jail window, hospital window, looking down on us.

And I got a note to come into the courthouse. And a lovely lady, she was one of the corrections officers that was assigned to oversee him. And she said, Mr. Woods, I think she was actually a deputy sheriff as well, or a police officer. I'm not sure what her exact, but she was a law enforcement personnel. Very robust person.

black lady serving her community. And she said, Mr. Woods, it's a pleasure to meet you. Mr. Dela Beckwith has asked if you might want to meet him. She said it very cordially. And I said, I'm

Could you tell Mr. DeLabeck with that I decline the invitation and as an amendment to that thought, I hope he rots in hell and has his gizzards eaten out by wild dogs. And she says, you know, I always thought I'd like you. You married? Did not see that coming. Well done. Well, wait, this is so I've got it. I got to follow up with this because I'm driving to something.

You, among your many theatrical accomplishments, you were in one of my, and I venture to say most American women's favorite movies ever.

a little film in 1973 called The Way We Were. It was a very young James Woods playing opposite Barbra Streisand. You were pals on the college campus and you, you know, you weren't Robert Redford to have that role, but you were pretty, pretty prominently featured in this movie. And one of the things that you helped her in was her on-campus protest. She was a communist and

And you guys were young and believed in these leftist, you know, commie ideals. And we pulled a little clip of it. And then I'd love to ask you whether you've maintained with Barbara what you've maintained with Rob. Watch. Katie. Yeah. All the way to Moscow. You can still take communion and like the Soviet Union. The Kremlin is worried about the civil war in Spain. Are you Spanish citizens are being bombed and machine gunned and murdered?

One country is sending help. One country. The Soviet Union. Katie, be my comrade. Okay. Just a little snippet. But she's gone pretty far left too. And I wonder whether there's any relationship there. You know, I bumped into her a couple of times. And again...

You know, it's funny in our business, when you bump into everybody, it's... Social media sort of changed things a lot. When I was kind of focused on social media as a more conservative person, been blacklisted because of that agent's behavior, vile behavior, I went to an opening of a film a friend of mine had produced. He was kind of new to the business, and I thought, okay, I'll go.

It was at the Academy Theater. And you come down the stairs and the place was mobbed. And I thought, oh, man. I felt like I'm just, you know, I felt like that one guy in the famous pictures of everybody saluting Hitler and he's not saluting Hitler. I thought, well, here I am. I'm at a meeting of the Communist Party and I'm in half that room.

People come up to me and go, hey, I just want you to know I'm with you, but I just don't want to say anything. And I said, and don't say anything. I said, because people really are dangerous. They will, you know that these casting directors now will look up your social media history. They'll see who you follow and so on. I say to my friends, I

I won't say who it is, but a very patriotic, great American who does wonderful things for people in this country, supports veterans and a wonderful guy. He said, you know, being just moderately conservative in this country, just being conservative.

in America today is like being gay in the 50s. It's almost like you have to whisper. I see people say to me, we'll be talking, they go, you know, I'm thinking of voting for Trump. But I go, you don't have to whisper this. This is the United States. You don't have to whisper that you're going to vote for

the most popular person in the country right now in terms of the polls to be the next president of the United States. You actually don't have to apologize for exercising your First Amendment rights. And we've got to stop doing that, you know? But if you ever want to work again in Hollywood or if you want to make a career there as a young person, different, different story. No chance. You must keep quiet.

Oh, yeah, you have no chance. I mean, look, it's really funny. When when Oppenheimer came out, there was a discussion about my Twitter. And it was gently suggested that I basically remain invisible, which was painful.

On the other hand, I'm a pragmatic person. And I thought a lot of people put their effort into this. So I'm just going to be an invisible pariah because the people who are going to be voting for Oscars, which is very important for a film to get Oscars, because it does help with the financial reward and the historical impact.

archive in which it will rest forever, Academy Award winning best picture, Oppenheimer. You know, I don't want to deprive those people. I don't want to have some nutcase come out of the woodwork, fabricate some ridiculous story about me. I've had a million of them said they're all lies. I don't want that to happen and have the clickbait story be, James, you want the executive producer, Oppenheimer, we're not going to watch that movie. So, you know, I just, I stepped back

and basically, you know, took one for the team. And just, you wouldn't even know, I wasn't even invited to the Producers Guild Award. I'm a producer on the picture, and I was not invited to go to the Producers Guild Award, which is fine. Awards. By the way, one. But, you know, it's not that environment was not the one that my father shed blood for. It's not the one that I see as the America...

I would like to see my late brother, God rest his soul, my late brother's children, and they're now their children. Not the future I see for them. I'd like you to be able to vote for whoever you want to. And people say, you know what? You have a right to do it. Man, I disagree with you. But Steve, come have dinner and so on. And I just don't know why there's this vicious underlying cancer that has destroyed our business. And here's where it comes from.

By the way, I got a little secret project coming out soon in October. Can't say anything about it. If you go to my website, jameswoods.com, there'll be a little hint of what it might be, but I can't say another word about it because it's going to be secret. But some things are going to kind of come out because I decided to embrace the second act. Oh, look at you. You are such a little devil. I know.

I couldn't figure it out, though. I have the picture, but I don't know what it's telling me. Yeah, you're going to have to think about this now for the next couple of months. But we're going to be teasing stuff out. If you sign up, give your email on the website. You'll be given updates on it. It's...

It's a project that's just unbelievably near and dear to my heart. And the good thing is I'm doing more stuff now. I'm involved in the production of Oliver Stone's new movie. I love Oliver. He's difficult. We disagree on everything. We fight all the time. And he came to me and said, hey, Jimmy, you know, you think you can help with this project like you did with Oppenheimer? And I said, I think I can. And, you know, I've got Chuck and Alex Gartner and, of course, Fernando Sulichan, who's a

who's Oliver's producer. And the four of us are together on a handshake, kind of just trying to get this beautiful project put together. And we will, and it's going to be fantastic. So, you know, F Scott Fitzgerald famously said, there are no second acts in American lives, but my second act, they're shaping up pretty well. And I give all the credit to somebody who's sitting there off camera. My, my,

absolutely beloved, brilliant wife, Sarah, who is, she's like this extraordinary photographer. Oh, there she is. That's the night of the Oscars.

I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch The Megan Kelly Show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave

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Remember Venn diagrams, those three circles, right? And then let's just see where they overlap. You will not be surprised because I have constructed a Venn diagram on this. Remember those three circles, how they overlap? I love Venn diagrams. So I just do. Whenever you're dealing with conflict, pull out a Venn diagram, right? And so, you know, the three circles. The television coverage of just yesterday, that's on top of everything else that we know and don't know yet.

Based on what we've just been able to see, and because we've seen it or not doesn't mean it hasn't happened, but just limit it to what we have seen.

Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly show. My guests today, Charles C.W. Cook and Jim Garrity. And Charles C.W. Cook was on to Kamala Harris early on. This was a piece on National Review after she failed in her presidential bid. Remember, she took on Joe Biden to actually get the presidency. Never mind the vice presidency. That came later. And he concluded this piece on December 3rd, 2019, as follows.

Everything that is wrong with American politics is summed up in Kamala Harris. She's a weathervane. She's dishonest. She's a coward. She's condescending. And she's a phony. She is the answer to no useful or virtuous question. She has nothing of value to offer America. Goodbye. Bad luck. That's all, folks. So you're saying there's a chance she's going to get your vote.

You know, that post, I think, is correct. Unfortunately, it came in the context of my saying good riddance from American politics, because at the time she had flamed out spectacularly. Not only had she failed to make headway and would end up winning no primaries, but she was polling at 3% in California, which is her home state. 3%.

And so she disappeared. And I thought, well, that's good. We have now a great example of consequences for actions. But apparently not. She was resuscitated by Joe Biden and put in the VP spot. And so I am now in the unenviable position of watching an election between my two favorite people in the world, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

I think this is my fault, Megan. I moved to America in 2011. Since then, I've done you guys no favors. Maybe I have to leave. But look, she is an awful, terrible person. And it's not just that her instincts are authoritarian, although they are. It's that she actually doesn't believe in anything. If you look at last time she ran for president...

She said on two separate occasions that she wanted to completely abolish private health insurance. On the first occasion, she agreed with the proposition by putting up her hand, but the second time she was asked about it on the stage directly, and she said in this incredibly flippant way, "Yep, that's it. We've got to move on. It's got to go. Done." 150 million people have private health insurance.

And she was just going to get rid of it. Well, this was not too popular, and she noticed. And so she subsequently said, I misunderstood the question. No, you didn't. You didn't misunderstand the question. That's what you thought you had to say at that point, because if you go back to the 2019 Democratic Party, support for single payer was a prerequisite until Biden won. And perversely enough, given the way he's governed, actually moved somewhat to the

They're right. She is a catastrophe. And my only question is whether or not the press is going to be able to turn her into something in a short space of time that will give her a good shot. I keep hearing skeptical Democrats saying, look...

We don't have enough time to introduce her. But I think the opposite is true. I think the lack of time between now and the election is her greatest asset. If you gave her instead of a runway of 106 days, if you gave her 300 days, I think she'd be dead in the water.

So on that point, Jim, there it's come to our attention. Taylor Lorenzo, the Washington Post wrote this up a couple of weeks ago, but it's all over social media that these young lefties are trying to rebrand Kamala Harris's cringy moments as somehow cool and

The language being used is likable oddball, funny, relatable moments online. She's just goofy, quote, a wine ant, which I've never heard. She's like a wine ant. It's fun. She's just a little goofy. And look at this, Jim. They actually put together a remix using this song called Brat, which I guess is pretty popular. A remix of Harris moments trying to make her seem just fun. Just fun. Watch a little bit of this.

You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. Everything is in context. My mother used to, she would give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us, I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?

exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you. I love Venn diagrams. I really do. I love Venn diagrams. Megan, if I were the Trump campaign, I would be running that in every swing state, in every commercial break possible, just to say, yeah! Yeah! Kamala Harris. She always seems slightly inebriated.

As the slogan for 2024. And maybe she is. Maybe she is a fun person. I don't know if that's necessarily the preeminent quality that Americans are looking for in a commander in chief and president. Willie Brown seemed to think so. I wasn't going to go there. I'm going there.

I make a comment about crime. There's a debate about on this on Twitter right now about whether her sleeping with Willie Brown when she was an up and coming inspiring politician in San Francisco is fair game. It's fair game. It's a it's part of a pattern of her ascending to positions that she does not deserve based on merit for other reasons. First, she slept with this guy, Willie Brown, who was this extremely popular, powerful congressman out in California.

And the assembly out there went on to become the speaker out there. And he put her in two different positions that she did not deserve when she was only 29 or 30. He was 60 already. That affair is sus. And she was making the equivalent of 130 grand a year by today's money for meeting twice a month.

for these medical boards in another position for which she had zero qualifications. He was trying to lay the road for her political career. He admitted that he's the one who helped her win the role as DA, and she was sleeping with him. I'm sorry, it's fair game. Sorry, Jim, go ahead. No, Megan, let's just agree to say that she climbed the greasy pole of California politics. Takes some talent.

By the way, I think you look at the story of Kamala Harris and you look at someone who, from the beginning of her career as an assistant DA to the moment she runs for president, it was one success after another. This was somebody who knew how to appeal to a Democratic primary electorate in a place like San Francisco.

and then to appeal to a Democratic electorate as a whole, which is a whole bunch of liberal progressive Democrats, right? It is basically surviving and rising to the top in California politics, besides any extracurricular activities, is appealing to all the liberal interest groups. You've got to take care of the unions. You've got to take care of Hollywood. You've got to take care of Silicon Valley. You've got to take care of the environmentalists. But it's like the stations of the cross. But if you take care of everybody, then you get the nomination and you cruise to victory in the general election.

That does not prepare you to win the Iowa caucuses. That does not prepare you to win New Hampshire or South Carolina or any of these other states that are just politically and culturally dramatically different to that. And I kind of feel like

Even in that first debate when she calls Joe Biden racist, things are going well for her right up until the moment Tulsi Gabbard guts her like a fish by pointing out the contradictions in her prosecution record and points out, you laughed on a radio interview about smoking marijuana, but you prosecuted this many thousand people for marijuana possession back when you were a prosecutor. And it just goes through all the contradiction. And I think Kamala Harris never came back from that. And I think everything from the nervous laugh

to the perception that she always feels like she's giving a book report on a book she didn't read. The phrases she keeps going, the haiku, Hallmark Bard stuff, I think it's all nervousness. I think she stepped up

and minds in that 2020 campaign. It all came crashing down. And I'm going to quote Charlie back to Charlie, which I think is the ultimate compliment you can give somebody, where he points out that like Joe Biden only became president because Barack Obama picked him off the scrap heap of politics in the summer of 2008. And let's face it, most of us saw him as assassination insurance, right? The idea, but well, you know, nobody's going to take a shot at Obama if Biden's going to be a heartbeat away.

And then Kamala Harris, as you point out, crashed and burned in that 2020 presidential campaign. And then because Joe Biden had promised he was going to pick an African-American and promised he was going to pick a woman, there weren't that many options. And he picked her, which I think, you know, we can all kind of agree, did not work. And the fact that he chose to run for a second term was an ipso facto declaration that he didn't think she could beat Donald Trump one on one in the general election. And yet here we are.

There's a there's a very interesting Axios piece out that says Biden doubted Harris's election chances that he hesitated to drop his reelection campaign in part because he and his senior advisers worried about her. They did not think she was up to the task of taking on Trump, according to three Biden aides familiar with recent talks.

According to the 2020 campaign, his aides recall watching Harris interrogate her then chief of staff, Corinne Jean-Pierre, to the point that it made others uncomfortable. I'll defend Kamala Harris on that. That's easy to do. I mean, you ask her anything. You watch any White House briefing and yeah, that looks more of the same. Yeah, I mean, she thinks the Nobel Prize is the Nobel Prize. She said it repeatedly, the Nobel Prize. Yeah.

So, yeah, that would grow uncomfortable quickly. They said she wasn't a team player. She straight. She stayed away from any task with risk. And then there's this nugget. In April 2022, Harris was the guest for a dinner at D.C. News mogul David Bradley's home.

A salon style event Bradley hosts with Washington journalists and newsmakers. Harris's anxiety about the dinner was such that her staff held a mock dinner beforehand, a mock dinner beforehand with staffers playing participants. According to two people familiar with the event, Harris is even considered including wine in the mock prep. So Harris could practice with a glass or two. They ultimately decided against it.

I I'm horrified by this story. They did hold the mock dinner. They just didn't have the wine. Jim, this is exactly what you're talking about, that she's awkward. She's uncomfortable. She's socially not adept. And we can see all that.

Yeah. And so the first time I ever saw Kamala Harris was in 2012 at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. She was one of the early speakers on one of the early nights. She was not the star. It was kind of a but she was a California attorney general then. And she was kind of seen as a rising star. And I remember it was only like five to 10 minutes worth of remarks. But I remember watching saying, oh, you know, dang it. Here comes the next great Democrat.

Here comes the female Obama, relatively young, relatively charismatic, relatively attractive. And she's from California. She's got a lot. She's going to be the next, you know, this is going to be really tough. Clearly, she had like five to 10 minutes worth of material. And it's interesting to see somebody who was once so self-assured now seems to second guess herself and be very nervous in these things, terrified of saying the wrong thing, and then often ending up saying the wrong thing like, oh, I've been to the border when she had not.

Yeah. And I've never been to Europe. Um, I do want to talk about Charlie's reasons for disliking her because not only was there the thing about moving us all off of private insurance, just with her magic wand, she wants to take away your health insurance and make you go on the government dole. Um, but she also wants to take away guns. She's made that very clear. She was a co-sponsor of the green new deal.

She believed Jussie Smollett. She called Jacob Blake, who pulled a knife on cops, a hero, something along those lines and more. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.