Kamala Harris' Shadow Presidency, and Which "White Dude" Harris Will Pick as VP, with Ben Shapiro, Tara Palmeri, and Shelby Talcott | Ep. 850
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. It is Monday, July 29th, and Kamala Harris appears to be the president of the United States. At least that's the way she's talking, and she's being portrayed that way. Would you look at this cover of New York Magazine this week?

Welcome to Camelot, spelled with a K for the listening audience, with all of the dancing, happy Democrats and celebs from Clooney to Beyonce to Chuck Schumer. The reinvention of this woman is being driven by the Pravda-esque media coverage she has received over the past eight days during this coronation, all with the intended effect of making America forget

both her problems and those of the actual president of the United States with whom she's been working for four years to impose failing policies. Remember Joe Biden? Is he even around still? Is he actually still the president? We'll get to why exactly we are starting to wonder.

The failures of the Biden-Harris administration are being completely ignored, all in the service of remaking Kamala Harris and the 2024 race. And guess what? It's working. Joining me now, Ben Shapiro, host of The Ben Shapiro Show and editor emeritus of The Daily Wire.

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Ben, welcome back. It's it's working as we're now seeing in a couple of polls and I'll just kick it off with the Wall Street Journal today. The headline this morning, well, the other morning, Harris erases Trump's lead. Wall Street Journal poll finds talks about how they are now two points away from one another. He's forty nine. She's forty seven within the margin of error. When he was facing Biden, he had a six point lead just earlier this month.

And he is she is making up ground with blacks, Latinos and young voters. In particular, they're looking at battleground states like Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, the Sunbelt states, which are more racially, racially and ethnically diverse and going on as follows. This is a stat I want to give you. Only 37 percent of Biden voters were enthusiastic about him in early July.

81% of Harris voters are enthusiastic about her, says one of the pollsters. One was a Dem, one was a Republican. This is an astounding change. And Ben, is it any wonder, given what we've seen in the last eight days?

Not at all. I mean, I think there's a combination of factors. As you mentioned, the media are trying to convince themselves they are in love with Kamala Harris after years of recognizing what a political incompetent and buffoon she is. But I think what this really is, is just the sugar high of Joe Biden being out of the race, no matter who was going to succeed Joe Biden. Joe Biden being gone is giving them a temporary feeling of euphoria that I think

could wear off before the election. The problem, of course, is that this is now an incredibly compressed election cycle. It's about 100 days from here until the election. So the question is, can they pull off the magic trick for the next three months? Or is this varnish going to start to wear fairly quickly? I mean, obviously, there's a lot of damaging material on Kamala Harris. She's not very good at politics. And these national campaigns tend to strip the veneer off people fairly quickly. I mean, how many national candidates have we seen over the course of our lifetimes

where you watch them at the beginning, they're brand shiny new. And within about a month and a half, they're not wearing particularly well. Kamala Harris does not wear well. But at the same time, if she never faces a single difficult question, if she never has to do an interview where she's asked about her border policy, if she can simply continue doing what she's been doing the last week, that's a very uphill battle for Republicans. They are now trying to make it into, well,

It really, she'd put herself out there to anybody. I'm sure she'd be happy to sit with for an interview with me, uh, with you. Um, but what she'd really like to do, Ben is debate, but Donald Trump is too scared. That is the narrative dominating the contest between the two of them. Um, people to judge out there saying, can you believe like has, has it ever happened that a candidate has agreed to a debate and then withdrawn from

from the debate because Trump agreed to this ABC debate with President Joe Biden, who is no longer running. And she thinks she should get exactly the same terms and same agreement as Biden got. Well, guess what? She's not getting it.

Yeah, I mean, that's an absurdity. And it's ridiculous that they're trying to literally do a bait and switch here. It's a different candidate saying that you agreed to a debate with Joe Biden under certain conditions anytime, anywhere. It's not the same thing as saying that you agreed to debate Kamala Harris anytime, anywhere. And again, I think this is going to be a tempest in a teapot. They will work out terms of it.

of a debate. I would certainly hope that George Stephanopoulos is not the moderator of that debate. But again, right now, the amount of momentum that Harris has, it's hard to tell how much of it is sort of airsats and just, again, inflating the balloon and how much of it is real. What is certainly true is that the lack of enthusiasm that was attendant on Biden's candidacy immediately upon

his debate, all of that has dissipated. And let's be real about this. It's not as though Kamala has jumped to a five point lead. Kamala is still basically dead. Even with Trump, a lot of these States that she, that he was getting blown away and Biden are now a lot closer like Michigan or like Georgia. But the, the base, the race basically reverted to the pre debate state. It didn't, it didn't revert to Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, 2020. It reverted to like February. And in February, Kamala Harris was running like a point or two behind, behind Biden.

And she's still running a point or two behind Trump. I do think that the next three weeks in momentum are going to be very strong for Kamala Harris. She's going to pick some sort of VP candidate, Josh Shapiro or Mark Kelly or Gretchen Whitmer, somebody who is from a swing state. I think that she'd be well advised to do that. And then she's going to have the convention. So you would expect her to get a little bit of a bump over the next three weeks. And then we'll see if they can if they can make fetch happen by continuing to pretend that Kamala Harris is actually really good at this.

Well, they're doing their level best. I mean, you tune into any channel right now other than Fox and you will see. I mean, not only are they're giddy, but the reinvention of this woman as truly a Jesus like figure is kind of stomach turning. Here's just a sampling of what we've been seeing.

We spent three weeks sitting outside the ICU with a death watch for democracy. One little heartbeat of hope, Kamala Harris raising her hand and saying, I'll take care of this. That is the type of grassroots mobilization and engagement that

does remind me of Barack Obama. Recognize what Vice President Kamala Harris has been able to accomplish in less than one week. A thunderous crescendo rumbling its way across every corner of American political and civic and cultural life. The crown jewel of endorsements for any Democrat. President Barack Obama officially endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. They're so excited. They're just so excited. They're so energized.

It's historic. Just walking through the streets, every other conversation on the street was, who should be her running mate? The excitement is palpable. It was a twinkle in her eye. I got chills when she said, Donald Trump, I know your type. I was blown away. I was like, I kind of fell in love with her. I just thought it was a great, great opening act. Ben. I can't. I can't. Twinkle. I can't.

I can't. I just, I can't. I'm sorry. Kamala Harris is the crazy laugh lady. She's the smug smiling lady. She's the queen of smarm. She's like, what are we doing here? And the attempt to, again, turn her into Barack Obama circa 2008. The Trump administration

The truth is her campaign is a lot more like Barack Obama circa 2012, meaning she's got a very unpopular set of policies behind her. She's running an incredibly intersectional campaign. You've already seen her bringing forth her campaign as like white dudes for Kamala, white women for Kamala, a very weird way to do your campaign. And again, she hasn't faced a single difficult question since she ascended to the throne here in a non-democratic coup by the Democratic Party. So yeah, again, this will be her high point.

And I'm having a hard time really telling whether this is enthusiasm for Kamala or this is just, I can't, thank God we got rid of the old man. I mean, it's unprecedented. They did get rid of the old man. They got rid of the corpse. And now they have, you know, a lukewarm body in there as opposed to, you know, the moldering corpse of the president of the United States.

She, so far, has basically given some campaign speeches in friendly scenarios. She's not done a single national interview. Again, I just think that the varnish can't continue this way. Of course they're excited. Why wouldn't they be excited? They just went from a 0% chance to win the presidency to a 50% chance to win the presidency. And so they are doing the same thing that every baseball fan does the first day of the season, like

Oh my God, my team could win the World Series. Well, maybe, and then maybe not. And so we'll have to see whether she actually has better chops than she presented in 2019, 2020, when she ran the single worst presidential campaign in modern history.

I mean, any any interview that she gives will be with a very friendly outlet who will ask her only softballs. That's very clear. So they'll keep the mystique going. They all realize that the election is on the line. The media will respond accordingly. So I don't have a lot of hopes about that. But the debate could be interesting. And I agree with you. They'll come to terms on something and maybe we'll get more than one at this point. Who knows? Right now, we'll

we'll probably get at least one. You mentioned the white dudes for Kamala and white women for Kamala. Just in case the listening audience wasn't paying attention, this is a little of how the white women for Kamala Zoom call that broke Zoom with its 100,000 participants, we broke Zoom, sounded. Don't want to be cheering like a spectator from the stands.

I want to be laid out crying the tears of joy and exhaustion and connectedness that is only ever felt by the team who left it all on the field together. Enduring the discomfort, the risk, the pain, the backlash, that is the work.

That's why white women so rarely do this work, because it's not safe. The bad news is that a majority of white women repeatedly vote for Republicans because too many of us believe, consciously or subconsciously, that it is in our best interest to use our privilege and our support systems of white supremacy and the patriarchy to benefit us. Have you seen Kamala glisten in the brilliance and shine of her true power and leadership? And what does that feel like?

Feels like self-love. We are here because, as if you were here earlier, you've heard BIPOC women have tapped us in as white women to step up, listen, and get involved this election season. Don't make it about yourself. As white women, we need to use our privilege to make positive changes.

If you find yourself talking over or speaking for BIPOC individuals or God forbid, correcting them, just take a beat. And instead we can put our listening ears on. Because she is a woman, she also will listen and lead with empathy, integrity, and the power of the truth. Trust this moment, my fellow white women.

She's right, Ben. I don't know if you're aware, but when we got our vaginas, we got a truth telling vibe that you men just don't have. It's a little known secret of women. I really appreciate Connie Britton underlying, underscoring that for everybody. I mean, they can't even define what a woman is. Half of men are women, according to these people. And I,

I think that you brought me on to torture me here, Megan. Honestly, I feel like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. I'm going to start, my head's going to spin 360 degrees with vomit just going in all directions because what the hell are we watching right now? Like this is the campaign. Karen's for Kamala over here. Like this is going to be the campaign. It's the most difficult thing to watch, but you're right that again, it's all about sort of the vibe and it's about the vibe shift. And I think the thing that they're forgetting and you started to see them discuss this a little bit openly.

Kamala may be sort of abandoning the entire blue wall strategy. They've been saying that she's not going to do well with rural men, particularly. She can do very poorly. If you look at the 2020 election, one of the places where the vote shifted among Democrats is that Biden, weirdly enough, did better among rural white men than anybody

the Democrats had done with Hillary in 2016. And Trump actually outperformed in the cities a little bit. And what you're starting to see is sort of a replica of 2016 in the sense that a lot of rural white men and older people are not going to vote for Kamala Harris, who might have voted for Joe Biden. People are forgetting that Biden did have some strengths

vis-a-vis Kamala Harris. All his strengths were obliterated by the fact that he was completely senile and a vegetable. But before that, he had many advantages against Kamala Harris, which is why he was hesitant to drop out of the race in the first place. It's why reportedly Barack Obama didn't even want him to drop out of the race in favor of Kamala Harris. So if you think that this sort of Hillary Clinton 2016 DNC fight song vibe is going to win you Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,

I think not, which is why you're starting to see all these articles cropping up about, well, you know, maybe she'll just take Arizona or maybe she'll take Georgia or maybe she'll take Nevada. I haven't seen a lot of poll movement in, say, Nevada or Arizona that suggests that she's going to win either of those two states. So, you know, I say this is a tough race for Republicans, and it is in the sense that it has radically shifted. They're going to have to move on a dime and start attacking her in terms of policy. But this is not the easiest race for Kamala Harris either.

It is not as though it's a foregone conclusion that she is going to waltz her way directly to the White House on the basis of her strong and virile coalition.

That's the thing is, yes, the media is disgusting. They're absolutely disgusting and dishonest in their promotion of this one candidate. But we've seen this before. And is it really any worse than it was back in 2016 when Trump was running against Hillary Clinton? I mean, he can win, notwithstanding all of the media being against him. It's just not that easy.

Yes. I mean, one of the things that I saw is that there was a poll that showed that her approval rating had spiked, which had this massive spike in approval rating that everybody was talking about. It spiked from 35 percent approval to 44 percent approval. I noticed that 44 is not 60. It's not even 50. This is not somebody who is now wildly popular with the American public. What it means is that she got the coming home effect that Biden had lost after the debate.

And so we are basically, as we say, back to status quo ante before the debate, which means a very tight race. It means that the Republicans, I know a lot of folks have been put on like, how is Trump going to campaign? What's he going to say? Trump's going to campaign how he campaigns and he's going to say what he's going to say. The thing that I am very much focused on for the Republican Party right now is what is your get out the vote effort like that?

That's almost the only thing that matters at this point, because we're back to again, the base is going to come out for Trump. The base is probably going to come out for Kamala. The independents are likely to split close down the middle, something like that. And what that means is that you really have to have a great voter turnout effort. What does the Republican voter turnout effort look like? Because one thing we know about Democrats is they are absolute professionals about this sort of stuff.

How what what's the update on that? I really feel like it's been outsourced to Turning Point USA. I feel like Charlie Kirk is like the game plan. I'm not sure the RNC is raising money, but who really is in control here? Because most of the vote by mail systems that were put in place in 2020 and these more blue leaning states or purple states in particular remain in place. Yes. So, you know, as far as Charlie, we'd have to ask Charlie exactly what his plans are. But

I'm seeing the same reports that you are, which is the turning point has been given an enormous amount of leeway, authority, and they've raised an enormous amount of capital in order to do massive get out the vote effort. I don't know what their record is in terms of national get out the vote effort. Listen, if it had been me, if I'd been the RNC, my first move would have been, I go exactly to whoever ran Ron DeSantis' team in Florida, which is the only place that had a great voter turnout record in 2022. And I get all those people, whatever you think of Ron DeSantis. And again, I think he's the best governor in America, but he's not the nominee. I would have gotten his team that did voter turnout to do that nationally.

That would have been like my number one priority if I were the RNC. But that's not what's happening. And we have no idea how Republicans are feeling right now about mail-in voting. You know, you've been railing on this too for years now that Trump has been all over the board on it up until very recently. He was against it. He was vocally against it. And-

That's why Republicans in part have been losing a lot because the Democrats love the mail-in voting, but the Republicans don't trust the mail-in voting. They think some Democrats going to get their ballot and throw it in the garbage and replace it with a Dem ballot or just keep it in the garbage and then outdo them at the polls. And I understand that concern. But the truth is, if Republicans don't start taking advantage of vote by mail, they're going to keep losing.

That's 100 percent true. And it's particularly true because the Republican base, now that Biden is out, is going to go back to being a disproportionately older base. So Trump is outperforming among young voters, what he did in 2020, 2016. But Biden was doing really shockingly well among older voters, which is unusual because usually older voters tend to vote Republican. He was doing slightly better among that group, actually a lot better than he was in 2020, even as he was dropping other parts of his voting constituency.

And now a lot of those people, I would assume, are going to revert back to Trump. Those people are exactly the types of people who you want to vote by mail because, you know, Grandma 75, is she going to get up and get in the car and actually go to the polling place? Or is it easier for her to do that two months in advance of the election? You know, you're talking about the differences between the Biden numbers and the Harris numbers, and they are stark. They are stark. You're right. I mean, the Democrats right now do have reason to dance because for the first time, their chances of, you know, come back, they've come alive.

And I saw an interesting post over the weekend, forgive me, because I can't remember who posted it, but I was like, this is a, that's a very interesting question. It said the biggest mistake Trump has made in this election contest was agreeing to debate Joe Biden, which is so interesting, Ben, isn't it? Right. Everybody thinks that was Joe Biden's mistake, but was it Trump's mistake?

I mean, I think that it's hard to say in retrospect it was his mistake because I don't think anyone knew that the Democrats would be stupid enough to actually put a potato out there to debate. I mean, I think that was the core assumption that everybody had is that he was going to look like State of the Union Joe and that Trump would, you know, overcome him. He'd do better than Biden did. But when he came out and he was staring at ghosts,

and looked like the only person is like the end of the sixth sense. He's the only person in the room who didn't know he was dead. Well, when it was that instead of just a normal bad debate performance, I think that was so earth shattering. I can't believe that Trump even could have been expected to do all that. I will say that maybe all of us deserve a little bit of blame because we all agreed and pointed out the truth. Maybe we all could have done what the media doing, just lied about it. Maybe we should have been like, actually, he did better than expected.

And I thought that he was actually pretty lively, right? I mean, we should have done exactly what the legacy media do and just lie about what we saw right in front of our eyes. Actually, you know, he's incredibly virile. Did you see how articulate he was? He would have stayed in the race and then Trump would have won. So, oh, well.

So honestly, it's just an interesting thought in retrospect. Like if Trump loses this election, will people look back and say he never should have agreed to that debate? They could have kept Biden behind closed doors. The enthusiasm would have stayed low. They wouldn't have had a reason to force Biden out of the race. I hadn't thought about it that way at all, but I can see the logic. The second point on this tweet that I'm not remembering who's the author of it, but was that the second point

mistake that Trump has made in this race was picking J.D. Vance. And I know you raised a similar question. And, you know, I without regard to whether people like J.D. or don't like J.D. or wanted J.D. or don't didn't want J.D. That's a that's a question worth exploring now that the race has changed and Biden's out and Kamala's in because now the

It's going to be all about race. It's going to be all about gender. Every little comment, not just J.D. or Trump make about women or minorities will be blown up as front page news items for days. But anything any Republican says, you know, it's like some some Republican talking head on CNN said something which they spent a week hitting on from the Kamala Harris team. So never mind if it comes from the vice president or the presidential nominee. So what do you think of that second question?

So, you know, do I think that I think there's only one rule of vice presidential candidates, and that is

they shouldn't be able to damage you. Meaning that the vice presidential candidates rarely have an upside. There's always this talk of like, you're going to pick a VP, the VP is going to win his home state. That really doesn't materialize very often at all. Nate Silver tried to quantify this. He suggested that maybe a vice presidential candidate in best case scenario might be worth like 0.4 of a percentage point in their home state. So again, I don't think that you can count on your VP to really add this massive upside to your candidacy. The one thing you can do is sort of damage control. I don't

I don't think that J.D. is like a massive downside guy. I just think of the pick of J.D. And again, I think J.D. is brilliant. But I think that the pick of J.D. is more of a blown opportunity by Trump. So let's go back a couple of weeks to the RNC. And Trump is beating the hell out of Biden in the polls. Let's say instead of going J.D., he goes, say, Glenn Youngkin, right, who is the kind of the last

alternative pick and the one who I understand Susie Wiles, who's his campaign manager, was pushing for. So Youngkin is a relatively popular governor of a purple state, deeply inoffensive to pretty much everybody across the aisle. They would have attacked him, but he'd already been battle tested because he'd already run a very rough gubernatorial race in Virginia. And let's say that Trump had done two things. Let's say he picked J.D., that he picked Youngkin rather. And let's say that his expectant

acceptance speech had gone 35 minutes and not 93. Let's say that he had told his story of the assassination attempt, said a couple more words about unity and then stopped. I think there's a good shot the election's over no matter what.

Because the feeling of momentum that Trump is actually a unity candidate, bring the party together, trying to open new spaces for the Republican Party, as opposed to doing with J.D. what I think everyone sort of agrees was a legacy pick, an attempt to turn Trump personally into a Trumpism or bring somebody on who's very personally loyal to Donald Trump.

I don't see exactly what J.D. as a pick did. I said this at the time. I'm not sure what it did as a pick to add votes to the Trump coalition. Trump already does amazing with exactly the Rust Belt audiences that J.D. mostly appeals to in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In fact, Trump has wildly outperformed J.D. in the one state where they both

competed in Ohio. And by the way, so did Mike DeWine, right? Mike DeWine, the governor of Ohio, who's way too moderate for most Republicans. That guy won his gubernatorial race by 20 in the same election cycle where J.D. won by six. So, yeah. By the way, that's the reason why Vivek Ramaswamy will not be the next senator from Ohio. That is the reason. That's 100% right. So again, I think that the pick of J.D. is more a missed opportunity than it is like a massive downside pick. I also think that the beauty of Trump as a candidate

it is that there's nothing to attack him on because he's already been attacked on everything, right? As I've said about Trump for almost a decade at this point, he's a mud monster. So if you throw more mud at him, it's just more mud on the mud monster. And it's total, he's black socks. It never gets dirty. The longer you wear them, the blacker they get, right? That's Donald Trump as a candidate. No matter what you, no matter what you do to Trump, it just looks like more Trump. The problem with bringing on a very fresh face who's never been battle tested in a gubernatorial race, for example, is that all this stuff is fresh. And JD is particularly fresh because

All of us. I mean, you've said it. I've said we've all said stuff over the course of our political careers that, you know, don't sound great out of context.

The thing is that most of us said it like 10 years ago. J.D., because his trajectory was so short, he went from running a Senate race in 2021 to being the vice presidential candidate in 2024. That means your vetting period is super duper short. And so the time period when he went from being on Tucker and saying kind of funny and inflammatory things to being the vice presidential candidate is incredibly short. Now, does that mean that it's not unfair? Of course, it's unbelievably unfair what they're doing to J.D. They're deliberately misreading what he was saying. They're trying to now suggest that he is a weirdo.

And again, I think that what that really is is a defensive maneuver in order to prevent people from recognizing the true weirdo in this race is Kamala Harris. She's a weird lady. And the Democrats. Yes. It's a weird party and she's a weird lady. And again, I mean that just in the typical sense, like the weird cackling, the strange smiling, the weird hand motions, the word salad straight from soup plantation, like all of it's weird. And then you juxtapose that with his family policy where he says basically it's good to have kids. Like that's supposed to be weird. She's,

with RuPaul's drag race doing get out the vote. I mean, just on a raw level, that's a little weirder. It's like a little weird. So I think they're trying to sort of jujitsu this into J.D. is a weirdo. With all that put aside, do I think that Trump could have made a more politically savvy pick to win the election than J.D.? Yes, but I don't think that's what he was doing with J.D. I think there's a couple of things on that pick. Yes, legacy pick, 100%. But I also think there's a real fear in the inner Trump circle that

something could be done to Trump. You know, that if the VP is too attractive to the establishment, to the intelligence community, that they could try to take Trump out in some way, shape, or form. Yeah, there's a point from the Wall Street Journal. It could be an assassination or something less. I don't know exactly what I'm implying or what they're implying, but I know there's a real fear if the second in command is too attractive to the establishment, it endangers Trump. You go.

I mean, so, okay, that was reported. I think the Wall Street Journal reported that Tucker actually said that directly to Trump. You need to have like a VP insurance policy, somebody who's not going to be so wonderful that you got shot at.

The reason I think that that's a particularly stupid line, just generally speaking, is they literally tried to shoot him the week before and he didn't have a vice presidential candidate. So I don't think it's about who he was going to pick for his VP. I think the people who want him to die just kind of want him to die. And it's not as though, oh, my God, I'm thinking this thing through. If I shoot Trump, oh, my God, I'm gonna get J.D. And that's gonna be so much worse. I probably better preserve Trump's life. I don't know that there's any assassin who thinks that.

who thinks that way. Well, you heard Don Jr. Don Jr. explicitly said when people were saying, pick Nikki Haley. He said that he'll be impeached in two seconds, in two seconds if he wins, if she's his number two. And I take that point. I think that's part of the point they're making. I mean, the only reason that I disagree with that is they would impeach him in two seconds if Mike Pence were his vice president. He

because they did twice. Like, again, I think that we're ignoring the control. The control here is that they will impeach him no matter what. I mean, are we pretending that suddenly- You don't think there's a greater temptation if you've got like a Haley or a Youngkin who they love? They don't love, but they loved Haley and they would tolerate Youngkin more than, you know, a MAGA type like J.D. I think it's an incremental temptation. Let's put it this way. The 99% want to impeach Donald Trump no matter what.

And now they're like 99.4%, depending on who exactly is the vice president. I don't think that you select the vice president on the basis that they might be slightly nicer to you if you pick somebody who is...

slightly worse for them as vice president. Like if you're Trump and you're just gaming out how to win, like my main focus for Trump is how do you win, right? I'm a donor to his campaign. I want him to win. Like I don't, all of this is like assuming he wins. How about we get to like the part where he wins and then we worry about what comes next. I would like him to win. But don't you think that you and I, how many times we were on the air together in 15, 16, right? Back when I was at Fox. They are going to do, they would have done to a young kid

Um, any, anybody name a Rubio, even a Nikki Haley, they would have done to them exactly what they're doing to JD there. They take whatever they can. And they, they, they, they really wanted us to believe that Mitt Romney was a sexist pig because of binders full of women.

You know, we watched them do that. They would definitely do with Youngkin what they did with Romney and Bain Capital. He's made all his money. He exploits the little guy. He hates poor people. You know, they'll find a different way in on each of these candidates. They would go with Nikki Haley with the Boeing and the corporate sponsorships. And she's on that. There's always something to go with.

With J.D., yes, he's made some provocative comments because he recently rose to fame on cable news where you say provocative things. But I just don't think Trump would have been safer with one of these other guys.

So, again, I don't actually think that I agree with you. I don't think that it's like if you pick Youngkin that they wouldn't attack Youngkin the same way they certainly would have. There are only really two questions. One is what's the upside on the candidate? And one is how sticky are the attacks? Those are really the two questions. The question I always had about the J.D. pick, forget everything else, is what's the upside on the pick? What do you get from the pick?

electorally speaking? Where do you win the additional votes that take you to the presidency based on the pick of J.D.? And then the question is, how sticky are things? And, you know, again, everyone's going to be attacked. The stickiness with J.D., we have yet to see. I mean, I think it's a little early. I think everybody's declaring it's super sticky. He's definitely going to be tarred for all time, the same way that Dan Quayle was with misspelling potato or something. I think it's a little early for that. He's been in the race for like two weeks. With that said,

Again, when attacks have been levied against you, if you're the governor of Virginia, they've been levied against you for years and years and years, then more attacks tend to bounce off of you quicker. Again, maybe that's not the way that it goes. But the thing I keep going back to is that I don't see J.D. as a massive liability. I see more J.D. as like, was there a better opportunity to win additional voters or to position yourself more toward the middle? Because the thing that Trump has done that's

actually extremely intelligent politically in this particular race is he has taken up the positional middle ground on nearly every single issue because Biden was running to the left. He has moved to the middle. And so the ability to go find somebody who sort of doubles down on the, hey, you want a moderate? You want somebody who's like a stable moderate? Then maybe you should pick me because, I mean, even look at my VP. That's a good indicator. I mean, I know that's weird, but that's where we are.

I do want to get to the weird attacks because they themselves are weird. J.D. Vance is not weird. He's pretty much as normal as they get, which is why they consider him a threat. That is why they're using a label that doesn't apply to him and for the reasons you just stated. But it's definitely a coordinated attack now. The second...

gentlemen, Kamala Harris's husband said it many, many others on the left keep reviving the weird comment before we went to air moments ago, AOC put out a tweet calling him weird JD. And here's another sampling.

I don't think Kamala Harris is going to pick anyone as weird and creepy as J.D. Vance. It demonstrates and shows us exactly what he believes in by selecting a J.D. Vance who is quite, you know, as the campaign said, weird. The agenda, the way they talk.

talk to people, the way they address people. It is bizarre. It's weird. It is weird. These are weird people on the other side. Donald Trump seems to be drifting away from his own nominee because he's had so many weird views. Unfortunately, Vince's weird views are not even winning praise from within his own party. Donald Trump and his weirdo running mate in the Republican opposition

It's kind of weird how they all have the same messaging, Ben.

So apparently CNN and MSNBC used the word weird to describe J.D. Vance in the last two days over 150 times. So if you don't believe that they're all marching in lockstep and they don't get their talking points from the DNC, they 100% do. So on my show today, I talked a little bit about the sort of weird slur and the fact that they're using this.

Again, to me, this is all projection because there are only two ways in which a candidate is weird. One is sort of interpersonally weird, right? So you might say somebody who laughs strangely and who starts jabbering about coconut trees. That might be a little weird. JD is not that, right? When JD talks, JD is actually perfectly normal. You watch him on TV, you watch him give a speech,

He's like a normal person who is talking. If anything, he lies on the sort of dull side in terms of his sort of affect, right? He's not somebody who's electric on TV. He's not like the vague, very live, right? He is exactly kind of normal when he's on TV.

And then there's weird positionally. And here's where you get something sort of fascinating. According to the left, what makes you weird is believing that it is actually of moral benefit to the United States for people to have children. That's J.D.'s actual position. It also happens to be the biologically correct position, which is that if you wish society to propagate itself, it's very important that on a moral level, people have kids. Now, when J.D. was on Tucker's show, he phrased this in the negative. When he was on your show, he phrased it in the positive. The positive is if you have kids, you should get tax benefits because it's good for society for people to have kids.

That's totally inarguable. That I think is perfectly obvious because he phrased it in the negative on Tucker and then used some sort of cable news language about cat ladies. That's what they're glomming onto. They're saying he's positionally weird. What is more positionally weird? That people ought to have kids and that society ought to incentivize

its citizens to have children? Or is it weirder to suggest that society ought to be completely apathetic about whether people have kids at all and ought to treat your personal decision making as to whether you gallivant around on RuPaul's Drag Race or become the head of a traditional family and go to church regularly as a matter of moral apathy? Like Kamala Harris is very weird positionally. The Democratic Party is very weird positionally. This is a party that has made Sam Britton a member of the administration before he started stealing ladies' luggage. This

There's a party that has suggested that Admiral Rachel Levine, who is a dude, is somehow a stands-in for women everywhere. It's a weird party filled with... I mean, they have trans influencers jiggling their fake breasts on the lawn of the White House. If you're just talking weird, the Democrats...

have nothing on weird when it comes to J.D. Vance. And so they've been trying to manufacture this narrative. This is where I get to the question of stickiness. Again, I doubt this is really going to stick to J.D. because I just don't think that he's weird enough for it to actually work. But this is certainly what they're trying.

Here is Kamala Harris just this week going on the RuPaul drag race show to seek support in this election. All right. Now everybody knows RuPaul is a drag queen and drag queens doing drag queen things behind closed doors or in bars or what have you. I don't really care, but shoving it in front of my kids and other people's kids. I care, but the show is controversial for those reasons. So she goes on there. Let's just take a look at here. She is with RuPaul. Yay. It's me, Kamala. Everyone. It's Kamala Harris.

Each day we are seeing our rights and freedoms under attack, including the right of everyone to be who they are, love who they love, openly and with pride. So as we fight back against these attacks, let's all remember no one is alone. We are all in this together and your vote is your power.

So please make sure your voice is heard this November. All right, you get it. Register to vote. She's perfectly fine going on that show, notwithstanding the fact that six weeks ago,

That show featured a trans person. It's a woman who had her breasts chopped off and decided to walk down the runway with a discarded pair of fake breasts in a clear bag, bloodied, bloodied flesh with a depiction of scars across her nipples and scalpels.

on fake arms, shaving off her breasts. And this was celebrated on this very show that our sitting vice president just celebrated two minutes ago. Look up next, got Mick.

Now starring in "Explant 2: Electric Boogaloo." This look is something I have been wanting to do for so long because top surgery absolutely changed my life. So I molded my arms. They're wrapping around me with scalpels. I have Swarovski crystal blood. I have a ponytail. And I have two Swarovski crystal tits in a bag. It is... -That's so fierce. -It's so gorgeous. I love it.

She wants us to listen to her on what's weird. Not a word of condemnation for that. An endorsement of the show, an appearance on the show. That was one of the most disgusting, blatantly misogynistic things I've ever seen on television, Ben, ever. And the fact that our sitting vice president, never mind a candidate for president, would go on that show and celebrate it and lend her credibility to it is an outrage in and of itself. She can spare me the discussions on weird things.

This is exactly right. And I think that she's running directly into the teeth of something here that I think that, again, it was a misdirect because everybody thinks of her as strange, but

I think that this is going to backlash on her. This, I think, is her first mistake of the campaign. Trying to label your political opponent weird while doing a bunch of things that sort of normie Americans think are weird. It's not a good look. It really is not. And this is, again, not the first time that Democrats have tried to jujitsu a sort of Republican attack line onto their opponents. So you remember back when there was a crowded NASCAR race that started chanting F Joe Biden.

And one of the commentators suggested that they were chanting, let's go, Brandon. And that became sort of a rallying cry for people on the right. And then the left took that and they started talking about the dark Brandon memes, right? They had like the sunglasses and the aviators and the laser eyes, like dark Brandon. And then that fell apart on them when it turns out that there is no dark Brandon. There's just a senile old man who's occupying an office he shouldn't hold. Well, if the idea here is that Kamala Harris is a perfect normie,

I don't think that that's going to play other than in sort of coastal elite areas of the United States. And so I think that the backlash against this could be fairly strong. The thing that people mistake when it comes to the Trump phenomenon is in 2016, there's been an attempt to philosophize Trump and suggest that Trumpism is really about economic issues. It's dispossessed white people from the Rust Belt who lost their jobs at the factory, and that's why they're voting for Trump. That's actually not the story of 2016. The story of 2016 is there's a whole group of people in the United States who have families and who go to church.

and who have a set of values that is directly opposed to the kind of stuff that Kamala Harris is pushing. And they're being told that they are less than, that they are bad, that there's something wrong with them. In fact, they are weird for saying the kinds of stuff about childbearing and childrearing and going to church that J.D. Vance says. And

And to me, that's alienating exactly the population that Kamala Harris needs to win over. Who exactly in, say, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona is sitting around going, man, now that she's appearing on RuPaul's Drag Race, I'm going to go out and vote for her. And it's going to shift enough votes for her that it's going to make up for all the votes that she alienates with this kind of stuff.

I just, I cannot get over the fact that we have spent days talking about JD Vance with a throwaway comment about childless cat ladies. And this, these people who are making a deal out of it, can't tell you what a woman is, want to put men into our little girls locker rooms and sports and are, will happily cut off the healthy breasts of a 14 year old girl and sterilize her without giving one thought to her. Nevermind in California with the cooperation of the school and the exclusion of the parents.

Like that is not the pro woman party. Hello. This is a catastrophic development that we've had in modern day America. That is the responsibility of the Democrat party. I, how on earth are we seeding the, who will protect women and girls line to them over a stupid throwaway by JD on cable? It's,

absolutely dishonest. It's infuriating. I don't blame him. They'd be doing this to any Republican, but we've lost our minds when this is the news cycle. This is the discussion.

And again, I think what you said is right. It's all a misdirect. It is all a misdirect. It is all an attempt to get the focus onto J.D. and away from Trump and away from Kamala. That's that's she needs everyone to focus on what she's purporting to be, which is this glitzy, glamorous, unifying figure who does ads to Beyonce's freedom and not what she actually is, which is one of most radical left politicians ever.

that we've ever seen in the history of American politics. She was literally the most left-wing senator in the United States Senate in 2019. They whitewashed that from the internet. That's now gone. She's a person who has given control of the border and proceeded to let in somewhere between 7 and 10 million illegal immigrants. She's a person who in the last week alone, by the way, her Middle East policy in the last week alone, when she's been effectively the acting president, has been disastrous. She did a full-scale press conference in which she spent nearly the entire press conference ripping on Israel for its supposed human rights violations while saying almost nothing about Hamas

And then over the weekend, Hezbollah, which is a terrorist group located in the south of Lebanon, shot a rocket into a Druze area. Druze are Muslim Arabs shot into a Druze area of northern Israel in the Golan. They killed 12 kids. And Kamala Harris's only statement was we have ironclad support for Israel. And that's why we're pursuing diplomacy to stop this. Again, she is she's a radical left disaster area.

And I do think that if the Trump administration focuses in on that and if they run ads about her wanting to ban fracking in Pennsylvania and if they run ads about RuPaul's Drag Race in Arizona and Michigan, I don't think that people, when faced with the actual who Kamala Harris is, are going to resonate in quite the same way as New York Magazine, which is putting her on top of a coconut. I will mention that they have that Camelot

cover that you mentioned there. The end of Camelot is that Mordred actually ends up destroying Camelot. So we should point that out.

Good point. And by the way, we just did an in-depth piece with Maureen Callahan, who wrote the book Ask Not, which is all about the Kennedy family. And she goes in depth on how that whole thing of Camelot, you know, between Jackie and Jack was made up. It was made up by Jackie just to make their relationship look better after he had died. It was based on a bunch of nonsense. He never really did play records of midline plays like that one. Anyway, once again, it's a made up thing.

You mentioned Kamala's reaction when Bibi came and then today after this Hezbollah attack. And she's talking like she's already the president. It's very strange, Ben. What vice president comes out and says, I let Netanyahu know this. I did this. Take a listen to SOT7.

I also expressed with the Prime Minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there. I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done. So to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you.

Okay. And that wasn't it. She also put out the following. This through, this is through the assistant to the president and national security advisor to her, Phil Gordon.

at VP has been briefed and is closely monitoring Hezbollah's horrific attack on a soccer field in northern Israel yesterday, which killed a number of children and teenagers. She condemns this horrific attack and mourns for all those killed and wounded. There is no such statement from the sitting president of the United States, only from the sitting vice president.

What's happening? I mean, this actually does feel like a coup. He is technically still in charge. She's not. No one elected her to be president of anything.

I mean, she's she is the president. I mean, that's the reality. He will not step out because to step out would be to acknowledge that he's no longer capable of the job. And then his story in the American history is defeated Donald Trump to see now to even be president had to drop out. And it also would would throw again more relief on the fact that Kamala Harris and the entire administration have been lying about his health status for legitimately years, which

is an issue that should come up between now and the election. Some 54% of Americans believe that the Biden administration was lying about Biden's health, and 92% of those believe that Kamala Harris was lying about the president's health during this whole crisis. She is acting as though she is already president of the United States, as you mentioned. And then there's the actual content of what she says right there, which is an absolute sop to the pro-Kamala swing of her party. There's a reason that as the sitting vice president and the presiding officer in the Senate, she didn't go to Netanyahu's speech. And then she proceeded to, in that press conference that you played there,

The worst line was she said, I will not be silent. Well, who's trying to silence you, lady? You're the vice president of the United States. You can say whatever you want. The implication, which is that there's a whole group of people trying to silence her, is really quite ugly and nefarious. There are a bunch of people who just want you never to talk about bad stuff.

Yeah, if I, by the way, if I have to hear any more of this crap about how Doug Emhoff is Jewish, therefore she can't possibly be anti-Israel. It's such trash. It's such nonsense. Let me say as a Jew, as somebody who actually cares about this sort of stuff, because, you know, I wear the kippah, I actually do the thing. As somebody who cares about that, Doug Emhoff is like your token court Jew inside the Kamala Harris White House. That ain't going to do it. Your policy is what's going to do it. It's ridiculous.

Oh, you better watch it. Because he was out there over the weekend talking about how his feelings get very, very hurt when mean things are said, Ben. You might have just crossed the line. This particular interview was all about J.D. Vance and his comments about single women, cat ladies. And he was speaking to Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney. Take a listen. This is, I mean, this is the sitting second gentleman of the United States. What he said was abhorrent.

It was just stupid, uninformed. So you're telling a lot of people in this country and this world that they don't matter, that the only thing that matters is this so-called, you know, old-fashioned view of, you know, traditional quote-unquote family. It hurt. It hurt my feelings. So it was upsetting. All these flippant, these supplicants,

These opportunists like J.D. Vance and others who go on Fox News and other networks and say the most abhorrent things to see if they can get clicks and get attention of their dear leader, Donald Trump. His wife was literally all over the campaign trail last week calling Donald Trump a predator and a criminal. But Doug Emdor's feelings are hurt, Ben, because J.D. Vance said what he said about people who won't have children and people who will.

I mean, again, I think this entire campaign for the Democrats right now is trying to drive out the female vote. I think they've made very obvious that they do not care about the male vote. They are now having Pete Buttigieg run a group called White Dudes for Kamala. And according to the New York Post, that that entire group is going to be dedicated to white dudes voting.

effectively learning to listen. They have to learn to listen and to use their ears and to get in touch with the non-traditional side of themselves. Sounds like a real pitch for that blue collar man up in the middle of Michigan working in a factory or something. The kind of bringing out Doug Emhoff to preach about his field. Who's the target audience for that? It certainly isn't men. It certainly isn't men. And the gender gap in this particular election is going to be wider than any gender gap, probably in the history of the female vote in the United States.

It's huge. And I mean, Trump's been dominating with men and Biden had a small margin with women, but not enough to win. And now she's trying to drive up her female numbers. And according to that Wall Street Journal poll I mentioned, here is what they concluded. Trump is viewed as more able than Kamala Harris to handle immigration, the economy, foreign relations and crime. Well, that's quite a few issues. They happen to be the top four on most people's value lists. But Harris has given the edge.

51 to 33, almost a 20 point advantage when it comes to abortion.

And there is nothing that stimulates female support on the Democratic ticket more than abortion. And there are more than a few pro-choice Republican women who are more moderate, whether it's been thinking about themselves or their daughters, that they're trying to appeal to, too. They don't care what drives them over to the Democrat ticket. But this is a juicy issue for them. And they do need to run up those female margins.

I do think they run the risk of losing whatever male margin Biden had. I think that the sort of trade that they're making, the tradeoff between you don't think those ladies in the montage of white women for Kamala lecturing everybody on for the love of God, don't correct a BIPOC person is going to drive the men to the polls.

Oh, my God. I mean, can you imagine the number of bipartisan households that are going to emerge in the United States where every man is like, I can't vote for that. There's just no way. And every woman's like, but you have to vote for that. I'm, of course, voting for them, but three times for that. And the war of the sexes is never going to be hotter than it will be in this election. Ben Shapiro. Great to talk to you about it. Before I go, I got 20 seconds. How are you feeling? Outstanding all that, how are you feeling about Trump's chances right now?

I mean, I'm a lot more nervous than I was just a couple of weeks ago. I still think that he's got the advantage, but if I'd put it at like 80-20 before, I would say that we're now at like 55-45 Trump advantage. I completely agree with that 100% of what you just said. Great to see you, my friend. Let's do it again soon. You too. Okay, wow. There's a lot more to discuss. There's more polls and there's more news. Stand by. Do you ever think to yourself, how can I be working this hard and still be in debt? The piles of overdue bills, the threatening phone calls, and never having money to do anything.

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The appointment of Vice President Kamala Harris as the new Democratic nominee was ground up. It wasn't an appointment. It was ground up grassroots. Just ask Chuck Schumer. In a matter of hours, has completely changed the 2024 race. It seems to have tightened the enthusiasm gap in a big way, too. But will it stick? We're breaking down the latest polls and political storylines with Tara Palmieri. She's senior political correspondent for Puck News and host of the Somebody's Got to Win podcast. And Shelby Talcott.

2024 campaign reporter for Semaphore. Great to see you, Tara and Shelby. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having us.

Okay, so we talked a little bit with Ben Shapiro about the Wall Street Journal poll, but there's also been a couple of other polls, including there's a New York Times Sienna poll, which largely mirrored the Wall Street Journal poll, showing that while Trump had been beating Biden by six points, it's much tighter against Kamala Harris. It's now a two or three point race, all within the margin of error.

and that the enthusiasm for Kamala Harris has gone way up. Now the ABC Ipsos poll shows that her favorability rating is now at 43%. And

And that is up from 35% a week ago. So she went up eight points in a week. I think we all know why watching the media coverage of her, she hasn't said or done much. It's, you know, a relief that Biden's gone and a celebration of the prospect of winning by the media and the Democrats. But I repeat myself and, um, just to give you a flavor for, you know, where the enthusiasm numbers are, here's Harry Enten, the data guy over on CNN, which

with a report that Democrats will love. It's not 20. Democrats were suffering from low enthusiasm, so enthusiastic about voting. So this is Democrats for Biden or Harris. Look at this. Back in February, just 62% of Democrats said they were enthusiastic about voting for Joe Biden. Look at this now. Woof. Up to

88% now say that they are enthusiastic about voting for Kamala Harris. That is a huge jump. That is a 26-point jump. Look at Trump during the same stretch. Republicans for Trump. It was 80% in February. Look, it's still fairly high at 82%. But compared to February, where Trump had this 18-point advantage, now we see Harris with a six-point advantage. It's definitely for Democrats. Game on. They are very enthusiastic. We see it in the money being raised. We see it in the volunteer science. And now we're seeing in the polling as well.

So her favorability went up eight points and the enthusiasm within the Democratic Party for their nominee went up 26 points. And that's what Harry Enten is responding to and what we're seeing, you know, why we're seeing the Democrats so gleeful, Shelby, and they're reporting about this. What do you make of it?

Yeah, I think, you know, the the Trump campaign came out last week with actually what I think was a pretty good point, which is, you know, they sort of described this as the Harris honeymoon. And I think there is an argument to be made that Democrats were so relieved to have Joe Biden off the ticket and so relieved to sort of have a reset.

that is playing into these vastly different numbers and this big jump that we're seeing. Now, the question is, does that continue, right? So I think the next few weeks, those sorts of polling is going to be really interesting to see once Harris is out on the campaign trail, once the Trump campaign has really solidified what their attacks are going to be against her. That's what I'm looking at.

more so than these early sort of polling numbers, because I do think that being relieved has played a role in all of this. I mean, it's like, you know, you...

You get the new boyfriend or girlfriend and they, they seem so attractive and you didn't think they were into you, but they are into you. They start calling again and you have this feeling of euphoria. You're like, yay. And then, you know, a few months into it, sometimes the bloom comes off that rose and you realize, eh, it's not that great. So that's what the Trump campaign is hoping will happen with her because the voters kind of know her already. They're just, the Dems are feeling relieved. Now, Tara, here is our

a word of caution from the wall street journal in that reporting that I just referenced. They say, cause the poll was done by a GOP pollster and a Dem pollster who worked together. So I like that kind of a poll. And he said, look, be careful not to feel overly optimistic if you're a Democrat. And he said, um, back in July, 2020,

So, you know, exactly four years ago, the Wall Street Journal national polling had Biden leading Trump by nine points and Biden leading Trump in August by 11 points. Now, Biden would go on to win that race in a very tight race. I mean, it was very tight. You know, a couple tens of thousands of votes made all the difference in that race, even though the polling was showing him 11 points ahead of Trump. Right now, that poll is showing Trump ahead 11.

And his conclusion is that Trump is still in a far better position in this election when compared to 2020. Good caution. I would agree with that. I mean, I've been saying this all along. Trump is historically always underpolled at

at no point in 2020 was Trump ever pulling ahead of Joe Biden. And in the end, he only won by 140,000 votes over. I mean, he only lost over 140 by 140,000 votes in a number of states, battleground states. So I think there is a lot of momentum. I think there is a lot of enthusiasm. And like you said, it's a shiny new toy and that tends to wear off with Trump has any luck, then it will wear off in

in the next before the next three months because she has such a short campaign. It's harder to really make a lasting impact on who this person is, on who Kamala Harris is defining her as quickly as possible. But I think the Trump campaign should ultimately be worried because it looks like he is running against a generic Democrat. And that is not what they want right now. If they can define her as a liberal Democrat from San Francisco, you know, has failed

California, you know, Senator, then, you know, they have a chance, but they don't have a lot of time and they have to act quickly. And they really haven't been up much anyway with advertising, but you see them now mobilizing. And I think, you know, she's going to get good press and that's hard. She certainly is for a while.

Yeah. And it's not going to be honest press. I mean, that's the thing. Like if anybody like to define her as anything other than a liberal San Francisco politician is dishonest. I mean, this that's just

what her record shows up until recently when it started getting scrubbed off the internet, literally getting scrubbed where she'd been dubbed to be the most liberal Senator in the U S Senate, more than Bernie Sanders, more than Elizabeth Warren at the end of her term, she didn't have any more time to serve. And now it's been scrubbed to say that's not true. Okay, sure. Um, there's more data suggesting that even in the critical swing States, it's looking better for her

her for the Democrats, I should say, than it was. This is Fox News polling, and it's showing now Harris and Trump neck and neck in Michigan, where they're currently tied at 49 each. Minnesota, where she's up, according to this poll, six points over Trump. That had been tighter when it was Biden.

Pennsylvania, where they're tied 49 and 49. Wisconsin, where he's up by one point. All of this is within the margin of error. So the numbers had looked much better for Trump when it was Biden, where back in April, Biden and Trump, yes, they were still tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But in Michigan, a blue state, Michigan, he was

three points behind Trump, 46 to 49. And so you are seeing even in those blue wall states that right now sort of conventional wish wisdom is switching. It's wish switching. I'll stick with you on this Tara too. Well, she might not do that well in the, in the blue wall states in the rust belt, but she's got a chance in the sunbelt that Biden didn't have North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona.

I don't know that we should be counting her out in those Rust Belt states because it's looking pretty tight there, too. Yeah, I mean, it is kind of ironic that Trump may be fighting for the Rust Belt in the end and she may end up getting the Sun Belt. I mean, Georgia in Georgia alone, Trump lost 20 percent of male voters in the last election. He has a problem connecting with these Republicans.

Republicans who are loyal to Brian Kemp, the governor there, who is no Trump fan, if she selects Senator Mark Warner, sorry, Mark Kelly from Arizona,

I mean, he's a very popular senator who's been good on immigration. He's a Democrat. He's a moderate. He could help her really make some connections in the Sun Belt. And then that could put Arizona back in play. Republicans throwing millions and millions of dollars at it. And who knows? I mean,

If there would be no other option for Trump, if she wins the Sun Belt, then to win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. And he lost Pennsylvania by half a percentage point last election, Michigan, too. But maybe J.D. Vance, who he picked specifically to work those voters, may be able to do some magic. We'll we'll see.

I don't know about the vice presidential pick making all the difference. We'll, we'll talk about the possibilities in a sec, but I do want to just address a couple of things that have been hanging out there that have been bothering me on the messaging. Um, Joe Biden came out last week in his farewell address, Shelby. I mean, I don't know what we're calling this. He, he does seem to be gone. He did come out today to say, I want to make all these reforms to the Supreme court, none of which is going to happen. So we're not going to really waste a lot of time on it. But, um,

you know, she's the one responding on Netanyahu. She's the one responding to the Hezbollah attack as though she's already in the office. In any event, he, in his farewell address, he actually had the nerve to come out and tout his record on the border. The border, Shelby, saying that the border crossings are now at a lower point in his administration than they were when he took over as president from Trump, which is like,

The worst gaslighting I've ever been subjected to. It made my head hurt. My head hurts. We went back just for kicks and did a little math, which we never like to do, of course. And under Trump, net net over the four years, about 2.5 million illegals came in. It's about 2.5 million. Under Joe Biden, it's going to be about 10, between 8 and 10 million. I mean, we're still in 2024.

For him to suggest that there's any comparison of the two men's records that makes Joe Biden look tough on immigration is just a blatant lie. But we have not seen the media rush to fact check him.

Yeah, listen, this is sort of what's tough, I think, about the Trump campaign getting their messaging out. As Tara said, within the next three months, it's a very short period of time, particularly when you have media that tends to be friendlier to one side over the other. But the border has been an issue for Democrats this entire election season. And certainly the Trump campaign, when I've talked to the campaign aides, believe that if they can affirm

effectively get that message out that Harris is a tied to the Biden administration, right? It is not just Joe Biden as president. It is the Biden Harris administration. So she is just as responsible for the last four years as he is, but also be that she was tapped to address the root causes of migration and, and sort of fell off with that. Nobody, you know what I mean? So if she can, if they can effectively make that argument, um,

then I think that's really hard for Harris to come back from. And so we see why Joe Biden is sort of trying to get ahead of that narrative, because Democrats are well aware that this is going to be a huge talking point for Republicans over the next few months leading into the election.

So they try to change the topic to women, women, women, abortion. Honestly, like this party thinks we're all about our lady parts. We are all about our lady parts. And in addition, the dictator narrative, which we see pretty much every day, that Trump will be a dictator.

So he was giving a speech down at a turning point event from over the weekend. And he was speaking to Christians, Christian voters. And he was trying to make the point that I know you're unhappy, but if you just vote me into office, you're never going to have to vote again because I'm going to take care of it all.

And I'll play the exact thing that he said. This is now being circulated. People should listen to it, knowing by the left, it's all over X and the news media as Trump promising he's never going to leave office. This is a confirmation of the Rachel Maddow theory that if you vote him in office, he's never leaving. We'll play it. Let the audience decide. Christians get out and vote just this time.

You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you. Get out. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote.

I mean, the number of headlines online and elsewhere are saying that he's promising no more votes if he gets elected. Totally misleading media malfeasance. And even after the campaign clarified, he was saying exactly what he said at the end of that clip, which keeps getting edited off of the relevant clips on the Internet, that you're going to have it so good you're not going to need to vote. Right. You're not going to want

to change things, they misrepresent them. Shelby, I know you've been a member of the media a long time. This is what they do, but it's really pernicious. I think there's plenty of things to pull out. And I've had this conversation with people in the past over various Trump comments. There's plenty of things that can be pulled out that are legitimate criticisms. But then there are also things like this that I do think are sort of misconstrued and oftentimes taken out of context. And it just...

And it it does a disservice to the media industry to not stick to those sort of very obvious ones and instead try to bring in these comments that, you know, as as we saw, I mean, in my personal opinion, I think it was fairly clear what he was saying. I know other people are probably going to disagree with me on that. But again, it just goes back to.

how the media frames things and how we have a responsibility to, you know, do better on both sides of the aisle when we are critiquing and reporting on comments from whether it's Harris or Trump. And sometimes, you know, there's certainly a failure in that.

Oh, my God. I mean, often I don't know if it's a failure. I think it's an intentional malfeasance on the part of people who want to win an election. And those happen to be, you know, on in the press nine times at a time, Democrats. And they do have a lot of power. They can manipulate. They can manipulate people, although, you know, it doesn't always work. Again, Trump won in 16, notwithstanding a

a media onslaught never seen before in American history, at least modern history. All right, standby. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk vice presidential candidates for her, which is getting a ton of buzz now. And it's actually been somewhat entertaining to watch them audition on TV. My gosh, have you seen them trying to come out and do backflips to get her attention? It's really not dignified, but it's happening. We'll talk about it

All right, ladies. So the auditions to be Kamala Harris's running mate are in full force. They're all over cable television. It's actually kind of funny to watch them. We played a soundbite with Ben of all these Democrats calling J.D. Vance weird. And it was like every single one of them from Gretchen Whitmer to Josh Shapiro to J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. I mean, just one after the other.

I'd Mark Halperin who correctly predicted that Joe Biden was going to step down, you know, last Sunday, a week ago, he says, at least seems to be saying it's going to be Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. He posted a picture of him and said, developing kind of drudge style. And, um, that would make some sense given how Pennsylvania is a must win, but definitely hearing a lot of other names still in the mix. Tara, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, it's not surprising to see them on TV trying to show her that they can be a great advocate, that they can be the pit bull if she needs one. I mean, that's part of the job of being a vice president is you're a surrogate. You're the person who goes out on the campaign trail, raises money, fundraising and everything.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of different names. I think Shapiro is an obvious choice because he is from Pennsylvania. That is a 19 electoral college vote state. It's almost a must win if you don't win the Sunbelt, Arizona or Georgia. He's very popular. He won his previous election two years ago by 15 points. That's pretty stunning. And the question now is whether picking a...

Jewish vice president would anger some of the Muslim voters in Michigan. Do you win Pennsylvania but lose support in Michigan? I mean, it's a real thing that's been spoken about. He's a devout Jew. He is, and he's spoken out in support of Israel. So that's something to be factored right now. But then again,

Kamala Harris. But speaking out in support of Israel is a different thing, right? Like what we're hearing in left wing press over and over is, but he's Jewish. So it's a downside. What the fuck? Well, I'm sorry, but it's just total bullshit that we're talking like this now on cable news. Like that's an okay thing. Yeah. Well, he's, well, unfortunately he's black. So, you know, it's a no, you, I know you're not doing that, but that's how they're talking about him.

Well, it's identity politics. I mean, that's truly what it is. And in fact, like some Democratic insider said to me that she actually is soft with Jewish voters right now within the party. So he's seen as someone who might be able to speak to suburbanites. He might be able to help her in swing districts down ballot in New York and California. And those were the districts that...

the Democrats lost in 2022. And that is why the Republicans have the House with just four seats. So, I mean, he has a lot of advantages. But then some people say, you know, bring on Mark Kelly. He's a guy's guy. He's an astronaut. His wife is Gabby Giffords. He's got a compelling story. Senators love him. And

crucially, she's also close in Arizona immigration. It's not Trump is up by seven points. Yeah. Mark Kelly, as much as I love his bio and his brother, by the way, his brother's also an astronaut. He came on my show at NBC and he was amazing. He was totally charming. The brother is like, I was a straight C student. I never got good grades. I don't know how I became an astronaut, but you know, for what it's worth, you can do it too. Everyone can do it. He

He was just a doll. Anyway, this is not Scott. This is Mark. They're identical twins. I just don't, it doesn't make sense to me. He's too, you know, but I get it. He's the son of cops and he's a gun owner, notwithstanding the fact that he's anti, you know, certain gun measures, given what happened to his wife. Okay. So Shapiro is definitely getting the most buzz, Shelby, but we're starting to hear other names. Oh, we have a little side of Shapiro. Let's give the audience a listen to him.

You could not have a clear contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Think about it. Four years as president, guy stacks the NLRB with a bunch of corporate folks who have tried to rip away your rights every step of the way. We can't go back to that, and he can't defend that.

This guy went to the Supreme Court of the United States, a place where Kamala Harris is attorney general in California, went to stand up to expand the freedoms for the good people of this nation. A lot of people saying he sounds like Barack Obama in his cadence and his delivery. I can see it. Okay, but putting him to the side, I can see why we all agree he'd be very appealing to her. Starting to hear some buzz about

about waltz, right? About Tim waltz. He's the Minnesota governor. I mean, I kind of forgot about Minnesota as a possible place plucking ground for VPs, but why is this guy suddenly getting some buzz?

Yeah, he's been well known in Democratic politics, so he would be sort of a major figure. Somebody described, we did a piece recently just sort of diving into all of the possibilities that Harris has, and somebody described it to my colleague as basically like the most exciting group of white men that you could pick from, which is pretty accurate because a lot of these top names are white men. And so again, it goes into that identity politics. But one of the things I think that is a downside to Waltz is,

he hasn't attracted as much national attention as some of the other folks. And so then that dives into the question of does the vice presidential pick really matter? And there's arguments to be made on both sides of the aisle. I know some people believe, particularly for Harris, that it is going to matter. And I've heard that she is going to pick based solely on who is going to help her the most in some of these swing states, which I'm not sure it would necessarily be him over someone like a Shapiro or

But then there's the argument that ultimately it doesn't really matter. It's a flash. You know, it's going to be a really big news story for a few days and then it's going to sort of fade into the background. And if you're going to vote for Harris or if you're going to vote for Donald Trump, then you're going to vote for them. And your vote is not really going to change because of who that person picks as their running mate, which I also think is a legitimate argument. But we'll see.

Well, especially given that she's 59 years old. I mean, Tim waltz is 60. I must say he looks a lot older than Kamala does. She looks good for 59. Um, you know, she's 59, God willing, she's going to have a nice long life ahead of her. This is not like when we elected Joe Biden or frankly, even looking at Trump at 78, if you consider actuarial tables, the vice presidential pick is more relevant, the older they are. So I think you're right. Like, yes, they want some balance. She's a black woman. Um,

You get the white man. Trump went a different route. I don't know. The Democrats are very identity politics focused, though. So is there any chance she is going to add a Gretchen Whitmer Tara who this just this morning said hard? No, I doubt it. I don't think they would. They would risk not adding two women to a ticket. I hate to say it as a woman myself, but I don't I bet they think that the country isn't ready for two women on the top of the ticket. I think I totally agree.

a vice president is not someone you go out to vote for, but you also don't want a vice president that gives you a reason not to vote for somebody, right? And in this case, like,

Joe Biden was picked because he was seen as the elder statesman, the older white man with this young, vibrant Obama. It's like you want the yin to the yang, right? The salt to the pepper. That's what they're trying to do with Kamala Harris. They want people to feel like there's someone in her ear who's like a part of the establishment, a safe pair of hands. And who knows? Maybe can deliver a state. Maybe Josh Shapiro out on the ground in the Rust Belt could really, you know, help her with. It's just half a percentage point.

it's like 40,000 voters. Who knows? He can, he's very compelling. I mean, you just played that clip. I've also heard other names as well. But like Roy Cooper from North Carolina, that is like Democrats do not get the idea of winning North Carolina out of their head again after Obama. And you know, Roy Cooper, popular governor of North Carolina, older man,

Again, salt and pepper kind of thing going on. And yeah, I think they, and he gets along with Kamala and there's, there's talk of him as well, but I don't know. I feel like they're talking about Andy Beshear of Kentucky. Right.

Kentucky brings absolutely nothing to the, to the ticket. There's that we're not debating about Kentucky. The reason he's in consideration, uh, Shelby is he's a shit stir too. He's a pretty good arguer. He, we saw him, we played a soundbite of him last week, attacking JD Vance is a fake hillbilly. And while JD Vance didn't much like that characterization, he's articulate and he's strong. I mean, he would be a very effective attack dog.

Yeah, exactly. And that's what we're seeing on the Sunday shows is all of these candidates sort of, as we said, vying for this position and showing that they can be that attack dog. And I think the argument that, you know, you need someone who is going to be able to obviously spread your message and go after Donald Trump's campaign coherently and aggressively in a way that maybe Harris

doesn't want to write you need sort of these different styles oftentimes when you're running a presidential campaign i also think the benefit to this year's obviously he you know he

He has known her for a while. And so there's an argument of does Harris go and pick somebody who she trusts? Right. And so there's again, there's arguments to be made for all of these candidates. But I think the one thing that a lot of the top ones that we've been talking about have in common is how their rhetoric is, how they can be an attack dog, how they're showing that they can be aggressive in a presidential campaign cycle and make the argument for Harris in a way.

Mm hmm. And he's also a blue Democrat governor in a red state, which would be another reason he's on the list. Soon we're going to find out. Do we do we know the date on which we're going to find out? You know, Trump kept it like the celebrity apprentice, not telling them. That was one of the interesting things J.D. told us on Friday is that he literally got the call like a half an hour before he missed the first call from Trump. And when Trump called back,

He could hear JD's son in the background. He said, put me, put him on, put him on, put me on speaker. And he said to the little boy, your father just missed the most important phone call of his life. It's crazy. But anyway, do we expect, do we know when she has to announce it or is going to announce it?

Well, there's a roll call on August 1st through 7th. The latest date is August 7th. It's the Ohio roll call. It's when the delegates decide who will be at the top of the ballot, basically, since Joe Biden is no longer on the Democratic ballot. And so she ostensibly needs to choose her running mate by that date, August 7th. I think.

I know we're doing the vetting process or they're doing the vetting process in such a compressed amount of time. So they're probably dragging it out. It does add enthusiasm and kind of keeps a narrative around Kamala Harris that doesn't dwell on her faults or the things she said in her past. So there might be some sort of thinking to drag out the process. But when you don't have a running mate, you don't have someone out there fundraising for you, right? You don't have someone out there stumping for you.

And I think she should choose this person sooner rather than later. But we're talking about seven or eight days. We're going to know at the very latest August 7th. She can't drag it on after that. And she's not even technically the nominee. So I guess I'm putting the cart before the horse. You know, she's got to actually, I guess, officially be anointed. I never got to show this on Friday because we had J.D. on and we kind of stuck to, you know, the facts around him. But there was officially an Obama endorsement.

of Kamala on Friday. I'm sorry, but it was the cringiest thing I've seen in a long time. It was truly like, and take one. That's, that was the only takeaway I had from it. That was very, very obviously rehearsed. I'm going to play for the audience as we haven't gotten to it. Watch. Kamala. Hi. Hey there. Oh,

You're both together. Oh, it's good to hear you both. I can't have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala, I am proud of you. This is going to be historic. We call to say Michelle and I couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office. Oh, my goodness. Michelle, Brock, this means so much to me. I'm looking forward to doing this with the two of you, Doug and I both.

All right. Okay. Again, very cringy and obviously fake, but important for her, Shelby. And he was the one person we were wondering about, right? Like, where is Barack Obama? Do we have any reporting on why it took him so long versus everybody else in the Dem party?

Yeah, there were comments suggesting that some of the leaders, because remember, you know, like Nancy Pelosi and some of these other folks also didn't immediately endorse, particularly because they didn't want it to be seen as sort of a coronation of Harris, which...

And obviously it has since become right. There's there's nobody else who really ran against her. So she was sort of the one and only regardless. And so I think once they figured out that she had enough support where she was going to win anyway, it didn't really matter. So that's when we saw the Obamas come out. But as for the cringe thing, I think the cringe part is really interesting because it is sort of, you know, a cringy video. But they've been really leaning into that.

aspect of her. And they've sort of tried to like reinvent cringe as cool and relatable. And, you know, it's an open question whether or not that works long term. But I think that has contributed to this, you know, discourse we've seen from

from voters and from politicians with how happy they are in the immediate aftermath of picking Harris because she's been able to take these moments from her past campaign trail where she said something weird or awkward or like, you know, laughed

oddly, and they're leaning into it. And so I think that this Obama release video, which obviously was planned, right, it's sort of meant to be like it was natural, you know, it was being recorded, obviously. I think that's intentional. I think like the cringe is they're trying to sort of lean into it. And the question is, right,

Do they lean into it too much and it becomes cringe again? Or does it stay sort of cool with that faction of young liberal voters that they're trying to get over to their side?

Okay, so there is a report out today that came out over the weekend, Tara, from Seymour Hersh. He's a Pulitzer Prize winner. He was with The Times. He was with The New Yorker, though now he's independent and has had some more controversial reporting. He is reporting that, and he discloses the, with respect, thinness of,

of this. He says he has gone over reports

Of Biden's tumultuous trip to Las Vegas last week. This was, this actually appeared in the daily mail. One of the reporters who was on board air force one, uh, Emily Goodwin of the daily mail reported. And it's in the daily mail right now. She was part of the press pool that the president was deathly pale, that air force one flew at maximum speed to Delaware, that people, their plates were shaking. It was scary for those on board. It was very clear to them. They were going usually fast in the air and that they believe the president was having a medical emergency. Uh,

And he says that he has been in touch in the wake of this report and others that with a senior official in Washington who helped Seymour Hersh fashion an account of a White House incomplete disarray culminating in the president's withdrawal from the race. And he says that last Saturday, July 20th, Obama, Mr. Obama was deeply involved in trying to get Biden out of this race.

and that there was talk that he would place a call to Biden quote on Sunday morning,

the official told me with the approval of Pelosi and Schumer resuming quotes, Obama called Biden after breakfast and said, here's the deal. We have Kamala's approval to invoke the 25th amendment, but Obama made it clear. He goes on that he was not going to immediately endorse Kamala Harris. Again, this reporting not being repeated elsewhere,

don't know whether there's truth to this, but if so, that would be a massive piece of reporting. So what do you make of it? Yeah. You know, it is one source, unnamed source on background. So I, I am a little dubious, but you know, Obama made a point of not requesting to speak with Joe Biden. Um, he did not want to contact him because he believed that

It's according to my reporting as well. And I've been pretty ahead of this, you know, in terms of knowing that like Nancy Pelosi was deeply behind this orchestrating it. She was in contact with Obama, but they knew that Obama was not going to have influence on him because of the last time that they talked back in 2019. And he had convinced, sorry, back in 2015 when he had convinced him not to run for office. So it was seen that any sort of

Influence from Obama was not going to work. And and truly, Joe Biden was very dug in. He was very, very dug in at that time. You know, I was told, though, that if he did not drop out by Sunday, that that following week was going to get increasingly nastier, especially from hell leaders.

there would just be, you know, an onslaught of lawmakers calling for him to step down. It would become aggressive. It was just maybe one of them would have said something like that publicly. But and it would all be with, you know,

the leaders hands off allowing them to do that. No one like Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries or Nancy Pelosi stopping them. But I don't believe that it contradicts with my reporting, at least that President Obama picked up the phone and called him and made this threat.

I mean, it would be so extraordinary if that ever gets matched or out there. It that's an earthquake of a report. But who knows? You know, I don't it's not true that it was ground up as Chuck Schumer keeps trying to tell us. We all know that grassroots. He keeps saying, OK, OK.

You say so. Let the roots rise up. Yeah, they rose all the way up to the very top of the Democratic Party. They put some seeds on it, some water and let it happen, right? I think also this reporting, just more generally in Towers reporting, all of what we've heard points to, you know, regardless of the specifics of this 25th Amendment claim, points to the reality that there was an intense pressure campaign to push Biden out.

And it was from Nancy Pelosi on downwards. And I think that's really, you know, the the crux of this is just, you know, he did face this intense pressure campaign from the highest people in the Democratic Party to step aside. And I think that, you know, that reporting just generally gets at that reality that, you know, he

He faced so much pressure that, as Tara said, he did not want to step aside. He had made that clear over the past few weeks. But the pressure built and it was so big that he was you know, he had no choice, essentially, in the end. I think there's an argument to be made.

Well, it's tough to look at the numbers now and say the Democrats made a mistake. Very tough to make that argument, though the process itself definitely have some have some questions about that. And if I were a Democrat voter, I'd be wondering why I didn't get to vote for my nominee. Could have been some others with an even better chance against Trump than Kamala Harris, which they want to ignore her flaws in the press. But the record is what the record is. And she owns all of Joe Biden's policy failures. And she's

She is awkward. So we're going to see it. That can't be hidden. Ladies, thank you. It's great to see you both. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn 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 Megyn Kelly Show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura,

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Go to SiriusXM.com slash MK show to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply. Let's go to some of our callers who've got thoughts. Connie in Indiana. Hi, Connie. What's on your mind?

Hi, Megan. What I just wanted to say, first of all, I think that we need to give J.D. some credit that they had to go back several years to find something, quote, damaging. And, you know, and I think that on his show, he did pretty good damage control, but I don't know who will hear it, you know, because not like the left wing media is going to put anything good out there for him.

Well, I mean, our interview went everywhere. It went everywhere. But of course, the spin on it by the left was just like, no, he he doubled down. He didn't apologize. And so I felt like he did. I think he I think he did really good with your interview. But then I also wonder things like with Kamala's husband, Doug, I just heard that clip on on your show a little while ago to how hurt he is about these comments. It's like, well, was he hurt?

several years ago when they were made? Or is it just now that his wife's running for president? I'm not sure. And it's a lie. Isn't it a lie, Connie? Do you believe for one second his feelings are actually hurt?

Not for one second. And then the last thing I just wanted to say that I felt like Taylor Swift, she's done a really good job keeping out of the media, not going one way or the other politically. And I noticed, I don't remember what celebrity it was, you probably know, but someone posted a picture of her with her cat, you know, around her neck. And I thought, you know what, leave her out of it. If she wants to come forward and say, hey, I'm suspended, let her do it. It kind of

It was really bizarre that a celebrity had to post a picture of her like they're gonna- Wasn't it the Kamala Harris team that did it? I could be wrong, but yeah, I think it might've been them who said like, oh, you know, you're taking on people like Taylor. He wasn't saying childless cat ladies are bad. He was saying that sort of chattering nanny class that's always trying to tell us how to live our lives that has intentionally made a decision not to have children because they wanna save the environment are not the people who should be our leaders. And that's really far less controversial than the way it's being spun. But thank you for getting it, Connie.

Love the fact that you called in and appreciate your insights. Let's go to Gina. Gina is out in Idaho. Hi, Gina. What are your thoughts?

Hi, Megan. I think that Ron DeSantis would have been a better pick. Not that I don't like J.D. I just think that DeSantis, he has a lot of support in Florida, and I think he's got a strong background as being a governor. And if he and Trump could get along, I think he would have been a great person in case something happened to Trump or Trump.

looking out eight years from now, taking over after four years. So, um, you know, they, they would do to him, they'd make him into the boogeyman and say, he's this far right cultural warrior who wants to take away women's rights, the six week abortion ban, all that stuff would have come back to haunt him on the one issue Trump has vulnerability on, which is abortion rights. You know, you saw the numbers there. So I can see why

He was risky for Trump. Plus, I don't think they love each other. But Ron DeSantis, you know, potentially has a long future still in politics. I wonder what he'll do because he is term limited. So maybe he'll do one of those like he'll run for Senate or do something else to keep himself sort of in a governing position. But thank you for your thoughts, Gina. Great to talk to you. OK, let's see. Deborah in Georgia, one of our swing states. Hi, Deborah. What's on your mind?

Good morning, Megan. Thank you for having me, and I love your show, and I greatly appreciate what you do for us. Thank you. If you have a comment on J.D., I personally, I am a 54-year-old single lady, never been married.

And I didn't take none of it offensive because the way he explained it, it was perfectly clear to me. Most common common sense people got it. Yeah. And you know what the media does to any Republican.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And from being from a swing state, I think everybody's going to be a little surprised this time because everybody and anybody I know. And trust me, most of them voted for Biden because they got mad at the bad tweets. And I told him, get over that crap. So what? A mean tweet. You want what we got now over a mean tweet? They're saying, oh, not only heck no, it's.

Hell no. They're voting for Trump. They liked him. They think Georgia's going to go red this time around. I think so. I think it'll be closed. But everybody I know, and I'm going to tell you, I've seen something this time. I'm a truck driver, so I go to all 48 states. But every time I, two months ago when I was at home, I stopped at one of the local, very popular gas stations.

And there was a group of young men, they were between 20 to 25, out talking to people about Trump, to vote for Trump. I've never seen that. I mean, I know we have people that go door to door, but I've never seen it like that. But I don't know who they were. Yeah.

In particular. Yeah, no, I love the, I love the color on it, Debra. Thank you. And drive safely out there. Appreciate what you do.

Okay. Let's go to Steven in New York. It is not a swing state, but it is still interesting. And it is the place I spent most of my 50 years. Steven, what's on your mind? Hi, Megan. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to let you know that sometimes I sit through some of your topics that make me uncomfortable and squirm in my seat and I'm here for it. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, listen, I love having you squirming or not. Thank you. Yep. I, you know, sometimes people don't want to be uncomfortable. You do it. You know how to do it. And, and I'm on the edge of my seat because of it. As far as the, as far as the first debate goes, I don't think it was a mistake. I think Trump took it on like a bull by the horns and he went for it too bad. It didn't happen in the second debate. So,

With that said, J.D. Vance as a pick, as far as I know, Don Jr. lobbied Mr. Trump Sr. heavily for J.D. Vance. You know, listen, can we get a do-over? Is that possible? The Dems did it. Wouldn't that shake up the race for us?

Oh, interesting. And do we need J.D. Vance for these middle of the country states that are already pretty much for Trump? I really wasn't understanding that kind of perspective where like it doesn't sound like Trump. Right. To to understand.

undo a choice and in effect admit that he, it doesn't sound like, I don't think he'll do that. But I think, listen, I mean, I've been through this enough times, like whoever Trump picked, they would demonize him or her. They would make them

some evil devil for whatever issue, and it could be a number of them. You just get the same story, different person if he's subbed out Vance. Stephen, thank you. See you in the New York area sometime soon. Okay, let's go to Nebraska. We've got a minute left. Matt in Nebraska, what's on your mind? I got to tell you, Megan, I'm a big fan. We got to...

not let the Democrats set the narrative on these things. J.D. Vance is a fantastic pick. And if the voters can be swayed away, given everything that's happened, the unfettered immigration and all that, if the voters can be swayed away by a guy that they don't like some comments he made, then this country is already lost. So I love the pick, and I'm glad we're where we're at.

Matt, I totally agree with that. Thank you for saying that. I just, I can't get over the fact that one side can't even say what a woman is. One side is pro castrating little boys.

and chopping off the breasts of little girls and sterilizing them. Why are we spending time talking about a stupid cat comment? Get some perspective, not to mention the 12 million illegals in the country. Anyway, all of it is just so frustrating. If we had an honest media, this would be easy, but-

It's one of our many great challenges as a nation. Thank you for calling in, Matt. Thanks to all of you for calling in and for listening, being with us every day. Really appreciate it. Tomorrow, BDH is back and Stephen A. Smith joins us from ESPN. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.