MAGA vs. Establishment Over Hegseth, and Key SCOTUS Case About Protecting Kids, with Michael Knowles and AG Skrmetti | Ep. 958
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

Welcome to the Megan Kelly show. Well, 24 hours ago, literally this time yesterday, I was in Washington, D.C. for an exclusive sit down with President-elect Trump's nominee to lead the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth. As you know, Pete's now in a political dogfight to save his nomination. At this point, his future remains unclear. If you believe some in the media, he's done enough now to secure Trump's continued support. Others suggest he does not have the votes.

and say Trump could pull a switcheroo and name Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in Hegseth's place. Our pal Mark Halperin, who has excellent sources and has been right on

just about everything this year, said the following this morning on his show, The Morning Meeting. I heard from a very good source today that by the weekend, Ron DeSantis will be the nominee for defense secretary. One source, so I'm not telling you it's definitely true, but that's certainly the case. However, if you go on X, you will see another cavalcade of strong supporters for Hegsip who are making this a test of Donald Trump's fidelity

to MAGA and they find it insulting that someone who MAGA has turned on bigly, Ron DeSantis would possibly replace someone who cast himself at least as full-on MAGA. Whatever the case may be, Hegseth is not going down without a fight. This morning, he posted the following on X, quote,

Maybe it's time for a secretary of defense who has led in combat, been on patrol for days, pulled a trigger, heard bullets whiz by, called in close air support, led medevacs, dodged IEDs, and understands to his core the power of this photo because he's been on that knee before.

For those listening to this show on Sirius XM or via podcast, the photo shows two soldiers kneeling in front of a rifle and helmet honoring a fallen friend. Joining me now, Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show. ♪

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If you believe the New York Post, not a single senator is a hard no. But most of the rest of the media is supporting the notion that he right now does not have the votes. And if you believe Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, he is a Democrat and he is claiming that

Between five and 10 Republican senators have told him it's a no, and they're just waiting for the right time to say that it's a no, which is a weird way to phrase it. Between five, was it five or was it 10? I'm not sure what he's trying to do other than tank Pete. But where do you think this stands? And do you think by Monday we're going to have a different nominee?

I'm not surprised that the media and Democrats want to tank Pete Hegseth. And to me, that's a real mark of confidence in his nomination. I really like Pete Hegseth. I have known Pete. Pete is one of the first guys that I met when I got into political media. I've known him for years and years. I've been on air with him. I've been off air with him. Every interaction that I've had with this guy is that he's a really terrific guy. And so the knocks on him that have come from the press are that

Years ago, he was a bit of a Casanova and he's never really hid that, I don't think. But if that's the best that they can come up with, they've got some really insane allegations that there's no evidence for whatsoever. If that's the best they can come up with, he seems, I'm going to try to be objective here like I don't know him, he seems like a really, really solid pick.

I think it is great for the military. I think it's great for morale to have someone who looks like Pete, who talks like Pete, who thinks like Pete, has Pete's experience to be in charge of the Pentagon. I think it's probably already helping military recruitment and military morale. And so I think he's a solid pick.

Could Ron DeSantis do the job? Sure. I think Ron DeSantis could do basically any job in the government. So it's really no reflection at all on Ron DeSantis. But I do think there is real political risk here for President Trump. I understand why he accepted Matt Gaetz's removal from the AG nomination. I totally get it.

But now there's a little bit of blood in the water as a result of that. And so it seems to me there is a major risk if the defense SEC nominee goes down as well, no matter who you replace him with. I don't think that's going to make the sailing any smoother for the Trump administration. I think it's going to bloody up the water even more and make it even tougher to get some of these nominees through because

If Hegseth were to go down, you know all the attention is next going to be on Bobby Kennedy. Then it's going to be on Tulsi Gabbard. Who knows? It's going to be on Ron DeSantis if they put Ron DeSantis up for defense secretary. I don't think that ends the problem. I think in many ways it would exacerbate it.

I think that's a very interesting point because if you don't think they're going to do this to RFKJ, you haven't been paying attention. I realized that Pete has, you know, his belly is exposed. He has not led a perfect life and there's plenty if you want to start attacking his character in terms of his marital history and so on. But as he said to me yesterday, he found around 20, I think it was 18 or so, he found his two J's.

uh, his wife, Jen and Jesus, and started changing his life in a profound way. And, you know, by all accounts since then has really been on the straight and narrow when it comes to the fidelity toward his wife. And, you know, on the drinking, he says, I do drink socially, but I don't have a drinking problem. And I will not let a drop of alcohol touch my lips in this role. Uh, oh, we have that. Okay. Let's play it.

So if you're in Iraq and Afghanistan in a combat zone, you're not allowed to drink. That's how I view this role as Secretary of Defense. They said, I'm not going to have a drink at all. That's not hard for me because it's not a problem for me. But I need to make sure the senators and the troops and President Trump and everybody else knows when you call me 24-7, you're getting fully dialed in, Pete, just like you always did in Iraq and Afghanistan. So this is the biggest deployment of my life. And there won't be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I'm doing it.

Okay. So that's Pete now, but here's the thing. Let's say they get Pete's scalp. Like they got Matt Gates's scalp. Um,

Bobby Kennedy's history makes Pete look like the consummate Boy Scout. He looks like he's ready to enter the priesthood. He's a lot older with a lot more of a checkered past. I mean, even Maureen Callahan, who we love and who comes on this show regularly of the Daily Mail, really,

wrote a whole book about the Kennedys, Ask Not, it's called, and she does not spare RFKJ, and she goes into some detail about the suicide of his first wife, if you just want a little preview for where this is going. It's not going to be pretty at all. So we are really at a crossroads here about whether we are going to

to sacrifice these nominees because of checkered personal pasts or not. It's not going to get easier after Pete.

This is the real issue. And so you hear Pete there come out and he say, I won't drink in the role, which is, which is admirable. But to his point, again, I don't really see any evidence that the man has ever had a serious problem with alcohol other than that, you know, he would drink sometimes like every member of the military and well, pretty much just every single person in the country has done at some point. So again, I think that attack was really, really weak. Some of the really ridiculous stuff, you know, it was, I don't even want to

state it here, some of the tabloid nonsense without any evidence. You know, that's crazy. And so, okay, you know, the guy had a lot of girlfriends in the past. If that is now the standard to tank down nominees, then President Trump might find himself in the same situation he found himself the first go around, which is that it could take months or years to get even top nominees through. And I don't think we have the time for that.

Can we talk about it specifically, though? Okay, so I'll take them in reverse order. You know, the allegations about Pete and the women...

forget that bogus rape allegation. I mean, they may try to make some hay out of that on Capitol Hill. Good luck. Good luck. Because at some point or another, the Republican senators will read the police report and ideally listen to the hour long in-depth piece we did on this show so they can hear just how this story fell apart. It fell apart and that's why it wasn't charged. So I'm, I'm really not kind of worried about that piece of it, frankly, with, with Pete, but the womanizing is admitted. So that's fair game. And the,

they're going to come for him on it. He's cheated on all three of his wives multiple times, according to the reports by, uh, on at least one of the wives. And, um, when he got together with his current wife, he was still with his second wife and he impregnated his current wife while still married to the second. And it wasn't until I think she gave birth that the second wife filed for divorce from Pete and

That's when things went really South and those two had an acrimonious divorce proceeding. Okay. So that's going to be discussed. It's not great, but Pete's point is that's in the past and I admit it. I'm not proud of it. Um, so, so that's the, the cheating. Okay. But the, the RFKJ, like there was literally a news report, multiple news reports a couple of months ago about him, uh,

having a digital affair, you know, like a virtual affair with a reporter who was covering him for New York Magazine that they were allegedly sexting, that they were having phone sex, and that Bobby kept trying to block her in an attempt to be, you know, faithful to Cheryl Hines. But they

They never physically did anything together, but you know, that is an infidelity media. I reported on other women who Bobby Kennedy was allegedly cheating on Cheryl with like recently. So honestly, to the members of the audience, we need to decide right now.

Is this fair game or isn't it? Because if we're going to do this, we're going to start knocking nominees out because as Rich Lowry said, they're Tomcats. It's such a cute colloquial term that we better get used to them all getting knocked out. If this is the, then no one's going to be left standing. Like maybe Ron DeSantis could withstand, but I mean, there are a lot of these guys will have had problems in this lane.

Yes, the strangest aspect of the Bobby Kennedy, Olivia Nuzzi digital sexting story is, and the part that seemed the least credible to me is, the man's a Kennedy. I don't think Kennedys need to have digital affairs. Last I checked, the Kennedys have full-on blown affairs. And so this is very bad. It's always inexcusable to cheat on your wife. She lived in New York.

I know maybe that was, I don't know. Don't they have airplanes? It was just strange given the 70-year history of the Kennedy family. But regardless, it's always bad. It's always inexcusable. There's no defending it in any way. But I think your point, Megan, is really apt, which is...

What is the standard here? First of all, five seconds ago, the Democrats were telling us that marriage doesn't even exist and everything's fluid and we all need to have throuples and quadruples and Bill Clinton's a paragon of moral virtue and stay out of our bedroom and whatever nonsense they were saying. Now, of course, the situation's totally changed. And I don't know, it seems to me that if we're gonna have a standard, it needs to be a consistent standard. And just from practical politics,

How much chum are we going to throw into the water for these guys? Because it's going to be a really tough fight. In any administration, a president needs to replace about 5,000 people in the government. If you really want to make serious changes to a bureaucracy,

that counts into the millions, you probably need to swap out 40 to 50,000 people. Now, a relatively small number needs Senate confirmation, but a lot of those people are going to get a lot of publicity. So how high are we going to set these standards and how much higher are these standards going to be than the Democrats set them? To me, I think the real reason they're going after Pete Hegseth with such intense fervor is because the guy's good on TV. Somehow being good on TV is now considered a negative in some quarters. I don't think that's a negative.

I think it's very important if you're in senior administration roles to be able to communicate in a way that is persuasive, that gets the message out there, that moves the ball down the field. And so the guy's got a great military background, seems important for running the Pentagon. The guy has very prestigious degrees from, even if you think the schools don't matter anymore, he is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard. He's very good at communicating on air. He's worked with veterans. I don't know.

What more do you really want? If we're going to set these standards impossibly high, then don't be surprised when you can't staff your administration.

I think the media is going after him for a couple of reasons. Number one, yeah, Fox News personality, good looking guy who's a conservative, nevermind white guy, F you. The media is already like, we don't like you. We're jealous that you've been tapped for a massive position of power, notwithstanding your disgusting work over on Fox and Friends weekend, which we loathe with a passion, right?

And they're not that pro-military, most of these media members anyway. So they're inclined to dislike him.

him. But I also think it's just, they're still reeling the media and the Democrats, um, from the loss in the presidential race and they would love to punish Trump and anyone around him. And so any scalp will do that. It's they, they, if they could do this to Tom Homan, who's going to be borders are, which is not re doesn't require Senate confirmation. They would do it to him. If they, if they could do it to the press secretary, they would do it to her. But

But Pete's got personal vulnerabilities, which they're really enjoying exploiting. The thing that's so insane, though, is every single allegation against Pete, every single one has been anonymous. There is not one on the record attack against him. There's no not one name saying that.

He did this to me or I saw him do X. I was the eyewitness who saw him fall down drunk and, you know, require assistance getting into the hotel room, whatever. Not one. And on the other hand, you have Medal of Honor recipients, war heroes, guys who spent time with him at the veterans charities. He spent his middle 10 years working at

saying this is a man of character. We were actually present for a lot of these events and they did not go down as is being alleged. He wasn't even at the strip club. Sean Parnell, Parnell, who's been on this program many times, um, ran for Senate in Pennsylvania has said, I was the, I was at that strip club. He wasn't there. That's not, he wasn't there. Um, he was there on that trip, I think is what he said. I'm not sure if he was at the strip club, but he was saying that didn't happen. Um,

So you have anonymous and then on the record saying not true and refuting a lot of the points point by point, or at least challenging them. So how possibly can you tank a nomination as important as this, Michael, based purely on anonymous accusations that we don't know where they're coming from? We have no way of assessing their credibility.

exactly and this is what's so dangerous about these kinds of allegations is it it's not just when when people throw out a total falsehoods those that's actually pretty easy to knock down what political operators do which is much

more difficult to knock down is they mix a lot of falsehood with a little bit of truth. So we know that Pete has this checkered marital history. So then they're going to start saying, and you know, he showed up drunk to the morning show. Now, this one should be easily disproven because

There's footage, there's video. He's never appeared drunk on the morning show to me. I've done Fox and Friends during the week and on the weekend many, many times. I've been in studio with him many, many times. Never seemed drunk to me. I don't know. There are others who have been on that couch with him every day. Will Kane came out and said, "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm with him every day and this isn't true." But because they mix it in with a little bit of things that are

you know, demonstrably true. The guy's been married multiple times. Then it just gives this patina of credibility. But I think your point is really good, Megan.

Even if there were accusers who were putting their names on this, who were coming out and saying, it was me on this day, and then here's my Sheila Jane Smith, even then there's a good chance that it's nonsense, like the Christine Blasey Ford attacks on Brett Kavanaugh, which were totally without credibility. But in this case, the fact that it's all anonymous, all at the most convenient time, I think it's enough to say that at least 90% of this stuff is bunk.

And you know, it's so galling. So now, you know, Pete got accused of rape by this woman he had an interlude with in a hotel room in 2017. And this woman, the media, I mean, they've abandoned now reporting that she was married and her husband was in a hotel room down the hall. They're not even pointing this out. The woman had a reason to make up the rape charge people. The reason was a man with two legs and two arms and two kids with him who happened to be her spouse. You know,

It's not a great thing to go bang Pete Hegseth when your husband and kids are down the hall. It's, you know, even the loosest of women might have some guilt returning to the marital bed after that. And so...

So that happens and the woman claims, oh, I was raped. And she comes back a couple years later wanting money and he pays her off, as I think most men would. Pete was married to Jen at the time. I'm sure it was an embarrassment. He was at Fox. He didn't want that to hit the news. Who would want that to hit the news? True or not true? Either way, he wouldn't want that in the news. So he pays her off. So now...

Senator Rick Scott of Florida goes on CNN with Jake Tapper and he's defending Pete saying all this stuff is anonymous. This is ridiculous. We can't tank people based on this. And Jake Tapper says, well, shouldn't he release her from the NDA? Then she won't have to be anonymous anymore. What in the actual F? No, this is so this is such bullshit, Michael. Yes. And to his credit, Senator Scott said no.

So you see how it works. So like Pete's got to pay the money to stop the professional embarrassment, which he does. Then a friend of the accuser leaks a memo to the Trump transition team saying he's a rapist. And Pete has to say that's not true. So the woman has clearly violated the NDA through a friend.

So he's not getting the benefit of his bargain anymore. She's she's blown it, but he's still paying because he's upholding his contractual obligations. And now the next media line is, well, release her from her obligations. If you don't like anonymous allegations, if you don't, then tell her.

All the money he's paid flushed down the toilet and presumably might still have to pay. And just unless you give her a national forum to say all the terrible things about you that she said before that you say are made up, then you're guilty. You're guilty and you can't raise the anonymous thing, which, by the way, applies not just to this woman, but to the whatever 10, 15, who knows how many of these people are leaking in the media about his drinking. And that's pretty much what it is, is drinking.

And of course, Megan, I don't know what he paid in this NDA, but the publicity, the book deals, the podcasts, the lecture tour that she's going to get if she becomes the center of a defense secretary confirmation hearing, I guarantee it's going to blow whatever Pete signed off out of the water. So this seems so deeply cynical to me. It seems so deeply opportunistic. It's so obviously hypocritical for the Democrats who consistently mock marriage, mock

monogamy, mock fidelity, try to redefine all of these things or abolish them outright. It's just it's so it stinks to high heaven. And so I really hope for for a number of reasons pertaining to justice, but also just pure practicality. I hope that Republicans don't take the bait here because it's it's a trap. Mm hmm. And it's going to be really hard to get out of on the drinking front.

That one is a legitimate concern. I mean, I think that's a fair thing to inquire about. If Pete can't handle his alcohol, if he's got an alcohol problem, even if it's short of being an alcoholic, he shouldn't be sec def. That's true. So it is fair game to ask questions about whether some of that behavior is ongoing and whether there's any reason to believe, you know, he'd behave like that as, uh,

Secretary of Defense. If so, yeah, it's a no. So I think all that's fair game and they should probe that. And even if Trump is satisfied that that's a problem, he should not pursue this nomination. What I've seen is the only thing that's saying it's anything close to recent is this anonymous NBC News report with 10 current and former staffers, seven former, three current, who say they smelled alcohol on his breath sometimes when he showed up at set. Now, at Fox & Friends,

weekend in the morning, right? Either he was hungover or he went on the air drunk. Show us the tape, right? Show us the tape because let me tell you, I've been on air for 20 years. It's very hard to go on the air and

and I hide drunkenness. You know, I've only ever been drunk once on the air and it was two Fridays ago, right here on the show. The audience watched it happen. It wasn't a secret. It's, I can't imagine trying to hide that. I think even the most, you know, the biggest drinker, the most familiar with alcohol can't do it because even an alcoholic, they may think they're still in control, but the rest of us sober people are looking at them like you're drunk.

Yeah, if one could hide drunkenness, then people would get out of speeding tickets much more frequently, you know? But the thing is, even the most practiced drunk, when he gets pulled over and says, what seems to be the officer problem, everyone knows exactly what's going on. So I find that allegation about Pete to be totally without question.

credibility. And to your point, Megan, it's a fair enough question. And I'm sure for basically any guy in the country, you could find some example of them being drunken in college or in their 20s or something and say that this is evidence of some big problem. But show me the proof that this has been a problem any time in the past

I don't know, decade, half decade. Show me any evidence of that. I don't really see it. And for a guy who's on TV for a living, it would seem to me there would be any evidence whatsoever. So once again, even on this front, the lady charges didn't totally take him out, so now they're trying to call him a booze hound. Okay, provide one shred of evidence. Right now the charges just seem so thin.

Mm-hmm. Um, well on the anonymous front, I want to follow up on something that happened in my Pete interview yesterday, where we talked about this one document based on Pete's time at Concerned Veterans for America, a pro veterans, uh, group that was trying to, uh,

endorse candidates and do things for candidates who would support veterans causes while he was there. Um, Jesse Jane Duff was there in some capacity to his, uh, side says that Pete fired her and that she then became embittered and started attacking him in the media and elsewhere, like quietly though, behind the scenes. And ultimately someone wrote a seven page letter, uh,

complaining about Pete that was sent to Fox News. And it was about his time at Concerned Veterans for America. Just a small clarification. Yesterday, I said that the whistleblower letter was sent to Concerned Veterans for America. That's not the case. It was sent to Fox complaining about Pete.

And we said that the whistleblower, as we understand it, if you want to use that term, was Jessie Jane Duff, because that's what CBS News had reported that she'd been found to be behind the letter. We said we talked to Jessie Jane Duff about it, and we did reach out to her. And here's the statement she gave us. I am not the whistleblower. I cannot come on your show because I invited her to come on, too.

She added, I am the executive director of Veterans for Trump and still a paid member of the Trump team. I work at the behest of President Trump and my loyalty lies there. Now we sent her several follow-up questions that we wanted to clear up because what they're saying on Pete's side is that it was her that she sent the letter and that she forgot to remove the metadata.

And they were able to identify, forget the term whistleblower, but her as the one who wrote that letter to Fox complaining about Pete. And so we asked her in a follow-up,

Did you complain about Pete Hegseth? And did you, do you deny that you wrote an email complaining about peak Hegseth in the 15, 16 timeframe, the metadata of which was later traced back to you? We did not get an answer from her on that. Uh, we did hear from her, from Pete's lawyer who told us standby. I want to make sure I've got it that, uh,

He says she was the one behind the letter that was sent to Fox News. He said it was anonymous, but she did not remember to scrub the metadata and that she was the person behind that. Now she's over on Newsmax trying to say nice things about Pete now, like supportive of his nomination, backing his position about women in combat.

And if she is working for team Trump in any capacity, I'll bet she does have some worries about being identified as somebody who's trying to bring him down either then or possibly right now. But this is what I will say. If any of the media are using Jesse, and if it's true that Jesse was fired by Pete, then

That needs to be disclosed. You cannot just take random complaints about a man and not figure out the bias of the people making the complaints. And if you're going to say anonymous person, anonymous here, then you have an obligation to say this anonymous person was terminated by Pete Hex. Like it's so effing dishonest, Michael. I,

I can't, I've got nothing against Jesse, nothing whatsoever. But if this is all true, then it's just a microcosm of how dishonest this media is.

And don't forget, Megan, we've been viewing this as a lens, through a lens that pits the Trump team against the liberals and the liberal media. But a lot of this fight can also take place within the Trump team. This is not particular to Trump. This is true of any political organization. There is all sorts of infighting. Mar-a-Lago is Versailles because Trump is the great figure in the party. And so

Not everyone is always on board. There are always factions vying for power, vying for influence, rival nominees who want the spot. We're talking about one of the most desirable jobs in the country. You're leading the U.S. military.

So there's going to be all sorts of fighting and backstabbing and trying to hold positions within Trump world while maybe stabbing people in the back who are in a different part of Trump world. That is how politics works. The fundamental things apply as time goes by. But we need to take that for what it is.

There is a lot of cynical jockeying that goes on in any political organization. And it's why we need to be asking questions, not merely about the motives for people in the liberal media or in the Democrat Party or in some Democrat senator's office, but maybe the motives for different factions within the Trump umbrella, because those are in many ways going to be more relevant to the fight that's going on than even what we're seeing on the left.

So let's talk about Joni Ernst and Ron DeSantis because, well, first one, just one quick point. Will Kane put out a tweet on X yesterday saying, just got off the phone with Bill Brown, a former Navy SEAL, a combat vet and leader in the SEAL community. Right now, over 100 Navy SEALs are organizing and committed to march on Washington in support of Pete Hegseth. Just a heads up at GOP Senate.

So it will be very interesting if the rank and file stand up on Pete's behalf and say, no, we're not going to let you pull this bullshit on him. He, we want him. We, we actually really want a war fighter. Who's one of us. Who's not an administrator. Who's not worried about the next star on his shoulder, but who's worried about us.

that's going to put these GOP-ers in a very tight spot because so far what they're saying is, forget what Blumenthal said about five to 10 secretly confessing to this Democrat their plans. They will answer to Trump and to Elon who will unleash his pack on them. So they can tell Dick Blumenthal whatever they want. By the way, he's a known liar. What's gonna matter is voting day. And let's just see if they really do have the balls to stand up to Elon's super pack that's gonna primary all of them.

That's going to spend ad dollars to try to hurt them. Right. So we'll see. But so far, the reports are right now. It's, of course, Murkowski, of course, Collins, McConnell and maybe Joni Ernst, who is a senator from Iowa, red state, served herself. She met with Pete yesterday and came out with some anodyne statements. They were not critical, but they were not positive either.

And, um, I don't know where she stands, but there are some reports now by the Federalist and elsewhere that she is vying for the role that she, she wants to knife Pete because she would like to be that of DOD. And then there's DeSantis who was minding his own business governing Florida. And I mean, I suggested him as a possible fill in if Pete fell. I mean, I don't want him to replace Pete actively, but if Pete goes, um,

I think he'd be great. But it's complicated with him because like if it looks like he's replacing Pete, MAGA will not accept him because he was not a Trump loyalist and in fact was very critical of Trump toward the end of that primary campaign. So what do you make of these, of the senators, including Joni? Because if they lose four, they're toast. They can lose three and J.D. Vance can cast the deciding vote. If they lose four, he's toast and of DeSantis as a possible next bet.

Don't forget who was at the top of George W. Bush's vice presidential search committee. You know, the man himself who just, he kept finding problems with every nominee who came up until, well, alas,

Mr. Bush, if you're asking Dick Cheney to be your VP, I guess I have to serve my country. One gets some of those vibes from Joni Ernst right now, though it's unfortunate. And I hope that if Trump really does want to stand by his nominee, that they impress upon Joni Ernst and any other senators that there could be problems for their political careers and legacies if they don't get on board.

In terms of DeSantis, DeSantis would be great in any part of the government, but I think your fears are quite right, Megan, which is that the way that DeSantis could enter into a Trump administration has to be delicate. One of the things I really love about Trump is that everyone mistakenly believes that for him it's all personal and he holds grudges and he's petty and

But really, I think the opposite is true. He fights in a very personal way, but I've really never seen anyone in politics forgive his enemies and bring them back in quite as much as Trump. I mean, he just put up Marco Rubio, with whom he fought a bitter primary contest in 16, put him up as secretary of state. It's one of the most important roles in the government.

He's now buddies with Lindsey Graham. He's now buddies with Rand Paul. He made fun of Rand Paul's face during a presidential debate in 16. Now they're, they're chummy chummy. He's now pals with Ted Cruz. He's not, you know, all of these guys, he does bring them back in. It's not to quote Michael Corleone. It's not personal. It's strictly business. Yeah. It's a strictly business. Um,

Lindsey Graham is annoying to put it mildly. I think he's trying to tank this nomination right now. I think he's against Pete Hegseth. I've never seen somebody so desperate to like

thread the needle to like play both sides of the fence at once. Right. To me, it seems clear based on his statement so far, you know, like I'm very concerned about the latest reporting. We're going to have to get to the bottom of these. He is not pro Pete. He's a he's a more neoconny kind of guy, but he's bent the knee to Trump. So he knows like he's got to check his neoconny instincts and try to seem a little bit more appealing to MAGA. But to me, it seems clear he doesn't like Pete. I'm sure he'd much rather have a Joni Ernst, who, by the

way, I really like Joni Ernst. I like her. So I don't think we should completely throw her under the bus as like, this is necessarily true until we have proof that it's true. But if it's true, if it's true, she's about to lose a massive amount of support because if there's an active undermining and knifing of Pete without, you know, really giving him a fair hearing, that's not going to go well. And I will tell you this, Charlie Kirk just tweeted out

We're learning a lot about Joni Ernst and the Senate establishment right now. Trump faithful are talking about finding a primary challenger. This is getting very serious. The first response is absolutely. We need to Liz Cheney her. So there's a lot of risk. There's a lot of risk. There's no risk for Collins, Murkowski, McConnell. There's risk for Joni Ernst and any other senator.

When you mentioned that Lindsey Graham is a little bit more neo-conny and there's part of that establishment is really opposed to Pete Hegseth, all you got to remember, the story that tells you this whole story is that after Pete was named as the SecDef nominee,

Politico ran a piece about all the opposition to him and their chief source was a defense industry lobbyist who said, "Who the hell is Pete Heggs at? We don't like this guy." That to me tells you everything. Yes, he hasn't worked.

in the defense industry lobbies. He's not really part of the military industrial complex, and they don't like him. And that is one of the chief recommendations of Pete Hegseth for this job. So, yeah. Well, wait, let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question on the heels of that. Yesterday, I mentioned it in passing yesterday with Pete, but...

Why on the report that came out of NBC about alleged Fox News current and former staffers? Who's that? Gretchen Carlson? I mean, honestly, who? Tell us who. Give me the names because let me tell you something. I will be able to tell you right away whether they are credible and whether they know anything about Pete Hegseth. Tell me who they are. Okay.

Okay, because I was there many years with the guy and I know the scuttlebutt on Pete. It was that he was a philanderer, which we now know is true. That's what people were saying. There wasn't a whiff, not a whiff of he's a drunk. And there were whiffs along those lines about other people, drunk or drugs, depending on the person, never anything about Pete. Okay, so anyway, that NBC News report that allegedly has all these current and former Fox News supporter staffers saying this stuff about him.

One of the lead reporters on it was the NBC Pentagon reporter. Why would the Pentagon reporter be...

penning that story. I realize he's being nominated to be defense chief. But if you're looking for sources at Fox News who know about Pete's alleged drunkenness, then you want your media reporter. That would make some sense. They have an entertainment reporter. That made some sense. But the Pentagon reporter would have very different sources.

Sometimes presidents get elected to just keep things going and make modest improvements. Other times, as in this election, presidents are elected to radically shake things up.

And when you want to radically shake things up, people are going to come out with the knives for you. So to your point, Megan, I think it just backs up the political point, which is that if the Pentagon, if some of the corrupt top brass who spend more time whining about white rage and seeking to instill critical race theory into cadets,

than they do focus on winning wars. If those guys oppose Pete Hegseth, that is a great mark in Pete Hegseth's favor. Even to your point, Megan, on the anonymous sources at Fox, past and present, you've spent a lot more time around Fox News than I have, but I've spent a little bit of time around there. And there, as in many political organizations and media organizations,

There are factions. There are people who don't like the other people there and they want to get the other people fired and they're jockeying for influence and power. And they whine about each other, sometimes even on the record, but usually off the record to other media. That always happens. And so it seems to me that what's going on here is bizarre.

not an honest vetting of a defense secretary nominee in the interest of the common good of the American people. I think what you're seeing is a lot of people trying to settle scores, scores that go back decades that have nothing to do with the job and nothing to do with the administration, scores within old political nonprofits, scores within campaign apparatuses, and scores within media organizations. Okay, that is to be expected, but

No serious statesman should allow that to distract them from the actual job it is before them, which is putting the common good of the American people first and making America great again. Here is Democratic Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts on the Trump picks so far. Listen to this guy.

It looks like the requirements to be in the Trump White House are that you either abuse women or you're an out-of-touch billionaire. What's next? Are they going to replace FBI background checks with a Fox News screen test? I mean, forget about a White House cabinet. Donald Trump is making it into a junk drawer. His Commerce Secretary, a billionaire, a billionaire, big surprise.

His education secretary, yet another billionaire. What's her qualification? She ran WWE. The person he tapped to lead Health and Human Services, he thinks tap water turns kids gay.

His defense secretary, I mean, this guy is probably dropping out momentarily. Apparently, he drinks on the job and paid to cover up his sexual assault allegations. Even his mom doesn't like him. Now, do we want people who understand our struggles? People who will fight for regular folks? Or do we want billionaire trust fund weirdos who just prop up the same broken, rigged system? Okay.

I mean, where to begin? First of all, Pete should sue him for saying he drinks on the job. He should sue his ass. That's defamatory. There's absolutely no proof of that. There's only anonymous sources saying that Pete has denied. So, sir, be careful.

Secondly, the ties to billionaires, you've got to be kidding me, from these Democrats with their, you know, Pritzker and Cuban. Look at the election we just had. Stephen Colbert asked Kamala Harris, who's your favorite billionaire? It's Oprah. Like, would you just spare me your indignation over these politicians surrounding themselves with billionaires? Also, just on the premise, Megan.

The premise to me seems a little weird. I'm not saying that we should have billionaires fill up every position in the government. I think there are legitimate questions about economic inequality and blah, blah, blah. You know, I'm all for it. But when we're talking about the Commerce Department, I don't know. Call me crazy. I don't think we should have a poor guy running the Commerce Department. Like if your job is to run trade and commerce, I would be more inclined to trust a rich guy to do that than, I don't know, someone like me.

Right. What are we going to do? Get somebody from the coffee kiosk at the corner of, you know, 56 and Broadway. I'm like,

There are some roles that we want somebody who's seen some financial success having. And then the womanizing charge from that Democrat. I mean, like, oh, they're abusers of women over on the Republican side. Hello. I mean, Joe Biden, do we have to go through the number of allegations against him? Not to mention Bill Clinton, not to mention Doug Emhoff, which is the final cherry on top of the sundae because all these same media that are running to print these anonymous allegations against Pete, despite the fact that they're anonymous,

totally ignored the Doug Emhoff allegations, both that he cheated with his last girlfriend or with his, sorry, his last wife before Kamala with the nanny and impregnated her. And according to the Daily Mail, did something that that woman, the nanny, affair partner said caused her to miscarry their baby.

And then wailed on another woman out in the open public in France. And that woman is a very successful, credible attorney who made these allegations anonymously so they couldn't cover them, Michael. You see, because we don't go with anonymous reports like this unless you're a Republican. Hello, Republican senators, get into the game or keep losing. Yeah.

Precisely, precisely right. When Charlie Kirk comes out there and makes these not so veiled threats at members of the Senate who don't want to give President Trump his nominees, he's actually educating them. He's making an important lesson, which is, look, some of you guys here in the Senate, in the GOP establishment,

it's like you want to lose. And I think there are people in the GOP establishment who are comfortable being the junior party in the governing coalition. The Democrats are the major party. The Republicans are the minor party. In some ways, those Republicans, they're like court jester conservatives. Their chief role is to

be present, put up the facade of opposition and therefore to legitimize the liberal regime. And they like doing it and they're paid relatively well and they have their positions of prestige. But if you actually want to go in and change things, if you want to improve the situation, you're going to ruffle a lot of feathers. You're going to get a lot of bullets flying at you politically and you're going to have to fight. And so if there are Republican senators who are not up for the fight, uh,

You know, that's a great pity. And probably they should face consequences the next time they're up for election.

Yeah. And you know what? Trump has been reasonable. Like Matt Gaetz fell because there were these allegations about paying 17 year olds for sex and he didn't put on some big campaign to save him. You know, he called some senators and said, gee, it's too bad. I'd really like to keep him. And they said the votes aren't there, Mr. President. Matt Gaetz went away and Pam Bondi came. So it's not that Trump's going to be unreasonable on this, but this can't go on. Like there's like I say, if you

When we get to Tulsi, they're going to be telling us she is a Russian foreign agent. They're going to be tens of anonymous sources in news articles saying she's got this connection to Bashar al-Assad and this connection to Putin and she's compromised and the no-fly list. And like...

This is these Republicans are going to have to find their steely spines or he's right. They will be primaried. They will be primary. Thanks to Charlie. They will be primary. Thanks to Elon. And thanks to all of us who are sick of losing like this.

Yes. You know the letter is already being written. 51 former and present intelligence officials know that Tulsi Gabbard is a secret KGB agent and the leader of ISIS. And we have proof because this whole charge came to us first from...

Hillary Clinton. People forget that. This whole Tulsi's a Russian asset nonsense. That was just a line from Hillary Clinton in 2020. It's totally, well, I suppose the Russia hoax against Trump was also a line from Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she was, ironically enough, colluding with the Russians to get that Steele dossier. So it's just such bunk, Megan, and it's not going to stop. By the way, it's not going to stop with Tulsi Gabbard.

Whoever the next person they put up, that person's going to have a whole dossier of mostly nonsense thrown at them too. So it really, it's not a question. Then they'll get to Marco Rubio and Elise Stefanik and say, oh yeah, they're acceptable. And then they're going to say, see, we're so reasonable. We said he could have a couple of them. It's

It's fine with us because there are more establishment types. And so it's all the core MAGA that do come with, you know, some colorful resumes and histories in some cases. It's kind of I don't know. I just feel like the rebel strain within MAGA produces that, but also produces a willingness to bust things up, which is why he got elected.

So they're going to be just, just fine with establishment types and try to look like the grownups in the room. But when the true MAGA acolytes get in there, it's going to be bloody. Um, okay. I wanted to show you this. Something very weird happened about Hegseth over on MSNBC. David from goes on there and makes a comment on morning Joe on Wednesday, uh,

I mean, it was kind of it wasn't a nice comment. It was kind of a stupid throwaway. What here's there's a story around it. Watch SOT 9. David, I'll start with you on this. What's your sense of where the exit pick is headed here? Well, just given what one sees on camera, if you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk indeed. OK, well, whatever. Right. Like who cares? Right. He writes for The Atlantic, by the way. So he comes out and says that. And then here's what happens next. SOT 10.

Before we go to break, a little bit earlier in this block, there was a comment made about Fox News in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with alcohol. The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we're in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear.

We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that's a good debate that we should have often. But right now, I just want to say there's a lot of good people that work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we'll want to leave it at that.

What? Right. So she comes out. So like, I'm so sorry. What's happening? Then from comes out and says, we know what's happening here is they're afraid. They're afraid of Trump. And this is very dangerous that they're already bending the knee to Donald Trump because, you know, freedom requires us to express our opinions. But but but but but.

What's happening here? Like what's actually, why is Mika Brzezinski trying to be nice to Fox News? And why are they now trying to act offended at about a joke about a Trump nominee?

I think there are three layers of varying degrees of seriousness. One, if David Frum was making some kind of accusation, I think they want to protect themselves from any claims of defamation. Two, Mika and Joe spent a lot of money on those airplane tickets to go grovel at Trump's feet at Mar-a-Lago. That was only a couple weeks ago. So, you know, I don't even think the polish is off the shoes yet, and they don't want to have wasted that trip. And then three, MSNBC doesn't have any viewers anymore.

They're probably going to be spun off. They're on the chopping block. Their demo gets fewer viewers than local public access, you know, the main demo 18 to 54. So, you know, they realize they're in trouble. And I think in part, they're sucking up to Trump and Fox News really just to appeal to viewers beyond even some of the other considerations.

Those old things that they used to have called viewers. Michael Knowles stays with us. Don't go away. Well, we're all feeling pretty good about where our country's headed right now, aren't we? I am. But it's when we let our guard down that bad things can happen. This is why you always want to prepare for emergencies, no matter how good you're feeling.

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All right, Michael, we've got to spend just another minute on that Scarborough David from of the Atlantic story, because my team will correct me if I didn't think it was interesting enough. We've been laughing the last few minutes in the break about what's actually happening here. We've got a couple of good things lined up for you. All right. So they really wanted me to

to play the Scarborough reaction to David Frum's responsive attack, which I'm going to get to. But first, I'm going to have to read you more of what David Frum wrote. So he says this comment about if too drunk for Fox News, oh, that's bad. Then Mika goes out there like she's Queen Elizabeth, like, oh, we don't talk like that here. This is MSNBC. And then David Frum goes, um,

on to the Atlantic and writes a piece about what just happened to him, right? Like he got called out and treated like he was some sort of a cad. And he writes the sound of fear on air, the sound of fear on air. This morning, I had an unsettling experience. I was invited, invited onto MSNBC's morning Joe to talk from a studio. I was asked about Hegseth, blah, blah, blah. I told this, I said this thing. Uh, I told the story

Oh, I answered by reminding viewers of some history. Then he compares Hegseth, whatever. It goes on. Then he says, um, at the next ad break, a producer spoke in my ear. He objected to my comments about Fox and warned me not to repeat them. I said something noncommittal and got another round of warning. Shortly afterward, co-host Mika Brzezinski read an apology for my remarks. Here we go.

It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease. I write these words very aware that I'm probably saying goodbye forever to a television platform that I enjoy and from which I have benefited as both viewer and guest. I have been the recipient of personal kindnesses from the hosts that I have not forgotten. I

I do not write to scold anyone. I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread and it will paralyze us all. The only antidote is courage and that is infectious too. Boom. That's David Frum, okay? Mic drop. I'm the courageous one. Man up, you P-words over there on MSNBC.

So then Joe Scarborough, it's so fun to watch them fight. It's like these internal Democrat fights. They're all mad at each other. Everyone's very, very sensitive after the Trump victory. Here's Joe Scarborough responding to that on the air. Watch. It was a headline, the sound of fear. Now, that wasn't the sound of fear. That was the sound of civility. I would recommend that if we're at a stage where

Where a comment like this causes a meltdown. And I saw George Conway, another guy we have on the show. Who we love. We love George. Saying, read this article. It's going to make you very sad. But you must read it all. Oh, because of the fearful times we're in. Well, there's some problem with the times that we're in. Let me tell you something. You can talk.

to anybody that's worked in the front office of NBC and MSNBC over the past 22 years, I'll tell you, I'm not fearful. You talk to anybody who served with me in Congress, they will tell you, not fearful of leadership. Yeah. Not fearful. Rambo. Rambo of Morning Joe horn-rimmed glasses wants you to know.

He doesn't, he eats no for breakfast, just like Kamala. He's like, who does he think he's kidding? You guys are chickens. Nuh-uh, you're a chicken. You're the biggest buck, buck, buck. No, you're a buck, buck. This is one of the great examples of an observation by Henry Kissinger. When you are watching the Iran-Iraq war, you're really just hoping that they both lose. I could not find more delight in this. Yeah.

Yes. Okay. So now I have a fun follow-up for you because the media really, it's not going well for them. In fact, I should tell you about the MSNBC ratings before I move on. Problematic to put it mildly. Here it is. On November 26th, last week, MSNBC had the lowest rated non-holiday weekday among that advertiser coveted demo of 25 to 54 year olds.

in 20 years, lowest numbers in 20 years. The audience has heard me talk about the slashies. That's, that's devastating. That's the last thing you do. We never got a slashy on Fox news ever. And that's when you get under 50,000. Um, you'd never get it in the overall at Fox. You might get it on MSNBC, but sometimes the MSNBC years were flirting with slashies.

In the demo, 25 to 54 year olds getting less than 50,000. I mean, the shame, the shame of getting slashies. Well, this was back 15 years ago and they sometimes got them, but then they started doing better and they did better under Trump and so on. They're back. The slashies are back. 25 to 54 year old demo, 38,000.

The average in the demo was 38,000. Its smallest non-holiday audience among the viewers since July 19th, 2020.

Slashies, Michael Knowles. So that, you're right, is why they're like, we don't talk like that here about Trump cabinet nominees or our friends over at Fox News. They're begging Republicans to give them a try. Please, please forget everything we said and did. Please, if you have a Nielsen box, give us a chance.

That number is really shocking, Megan, especially cable and network TV. The numbers are a little murkier based on Nielsen ratings or whatever. It's a little vaguer. If you exist in the new media, as we do, you've worked in all of it, but I came up in the new media, you know your numbers right down to the man, and you know a lot of data about your audience. You know it

Not only the age demo, you know, men, women, this race, that race over here in this part of the country, you get a lot of information. To be posting those kinds of numbers, that is like a week, week,

podcast, forget about a cable news show on what was once a pretty sizable channel. I have never felt more bullish on the new media, specifically right wing or center right new media, which is almost repetitive because the popular alternative media tend to be center right or further right. And that's because it's an alternative to the liberal media, which took over and had a monopoly in the

old ways. This is looking really, really good. And further evidence, I called some weeks ago for the next White House press secretary, now Caroline Leavitt, to tear up the press room seating chart, not only because we don't like these people, but even more so because the chart doesn't make sense. The fact that MSNBC has a seat at all on any day is pretty crazy. The fact that CNN is up there by the front row, I mean, just doesn't make any sense.

But now you see so much more evidence for that. And I think you see a sign that President Trump will be doing it because, you know, the job of the White House press room is to mediate between the American people and the White House, get the White House's message out and get the questions from the people to be asked. Nobody is watching MSNBC. Nobody is watching these old outlets. So time to keep up with the times. And if we got to say goodbye to Joe and Mika, now so be it.

It's amazing. 38,000 on MSNBC. They probably have a hundred staffers over there, you know, per show, at least 50. Like that's the average of my Instagram clips from this show.

Okay. Good luck to you. We have six staffers. So it's not going well, particularly over there. And they're feeling it. And it's not just MSNBC, the leftist media in general. Esquire magazine decides what would be really fun is to embarrass ourselves even more. And so they put out this article. Oh my God, where is it? Why can I never find anything? I just have so much. Here it is. Hold on. I'm

they put out this article that tries to, um, rip on the controversy over the pardons, right? Is that what it is? Hold on a second. I got to find this. Why, why, why can't I find it? What page is this? Oh yeah, here it is. Page two. Okay. So they, this was the headline that they published on Tuesday, Hunter Biden,

I was like Hunter Biden. Isn't the first presidential son caught up in controversy. Anyone remember Neil Bush? And it goes on to say, uh, let's see.

No, no, nobody defines Poppy Bush's presidency by his son's struggles. This is Neil Bush was the brother of George W. Bush and the son of George H.W. Bush. Nobody defines Poppy Bush's presidency by the son's struggles or the pardons he issued on his way out of the White House. The morals are

Shut the fuck up about the moral is shut the fuck up about Hunter Biden, please. And this gentleman, the type is so tiny on here. I'm too old for this tiny type. Charles Pierce is the person who published this. Then they wound up removing the article saying this column has been removed due to an error.

And what the article had been about was all about how George H.W. Bush pardoned Neil Bush on his way out of office. So why are we bitching about a president pardoning his son? Well, they had to pull it and issue that statement saying we pulled the article due to an error because the original article stated incorrectly that what did they get like a supporting fact wrong? Did they take a left turn someplace? No. President George H.W. Bush

did not give a pardon to his son, Neil Bush. Esquire regrets. They wrote a whole thing about how he pardoned a son and the whole thing was wrong. It was all made up.

but other than that mrs lincoln how'd you like the play it's not surprising at all uh also even when it says anybody remember neil bush first of all the answer to that question is obviously no but but even if one did even if one did have some awareness of neil bush do you remember neil bush uh recording himself with tons of crack and hookers and even more importantly selling american state influence

potentially with the permission of his father, the president or vice president to foreign actors to get bribes. He was never tried criminally. He never faced any criminal charges. He had some civil case that he got caught up in. There was never, unlike Hunter, he was never convicted of crimes. Absolutely hilarious. It is, you know, really, you saw this broadly with the whole 2024 election.

The argument for the 2024 election was that Trump is a threat to democracy. And to stop the threat to democracy, they kept trying to prevent people from being able to vote for Trump. And then they justified murdering Trump. And then they tried to imprison Trump. And they did all of these things. And now Trump's elected. And what do you know? We still have democracy, a really full expression of democracy because Trump even managed to win the popular vote.

And so, but other than that, you know, Mr. President, your campaign went great. It's, it's so sad. You know, Esquire at least claims to have some kind of credibility. Before I sent a tweet like that, I would at least make a Google search to make sure that my central thesis was correct. Good grief. Mr. Google, he's, he's your friend. Here's this same writer, a couple of, a couple of

recent articles by him. Hunter Biden's pardon has all the idiots riled up. Here's another one. Remove Kennedy from RFKJ from his name. And what do you get? A guy who shouldn't be allowed to mop the floors at HHS, let alone run the joint. Then he calls Jane Mayer, who wrote the latest hit piece on Pete Hegseth and all the alleged women's troubles, et cetera, a national treasure.

et cetera, et cetera. So that's the article, the article's author. K-File, which is Andrew Kaczynski over at CNN, who, I mean, truly this guy may be the best thing at CNN. I really like

the turn he's taken. He's, he's really gotten a lot more fair. Uh, I quite like he writes as follows, right? Uh, he writes and follows about Esquire. Esquire wrote an entire piece saying that people should shut the fuck up about Hunter Biden's pardon, claiming that George H.W. Bush pardoned his son, Neil. The entire story has now been corrected to note. This is not a thing that happened. Quote, Esquire regrets the error. Yeah.

i love it you know in a way so much we're being unfair megan because given the current state of journalistic standards the fact that they even wrote the correction rather than just stealth deleted the entire piece i'm not even being facetious the fact that they even copped to their error is a surprising display of ethics in an era when the mainstream journalists have no ethics whatsoever

You're right. Like Nicole Hannah-Jones at Project 1619 over at the New York Times where they took out all of her historical references and didn't tell us that they were doing it, which is totally dishonest. All right, now that leads me to this lovely little nugget. Speaking of being embarrassingly wrong,

This is so good. The news cycle right now is so delicious. Anna Navarro over at The View is also trying to defend the Hunter Biden pardon. And she decides to send out a tweet to defend the pardon, showing all the others who have pardoned relatives. And it reads as follows. I'm going to get I'm going to get it.

Woodrow Wilson pardoned his brother-in-law, Hunter DeButts. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger. Trump pardoned his daughter's father-in-law, Charlie Kushner, and just appointed him ambassador to France. But tell me again how Joe Biden is setting precedent? That's all great. Hunter DeButts is also not a thing.

doesn't exist, at least not in the public eye. There is one we found just like some rando. We Googled it and who's, you know, someplace doing something who has nothing to do with Woodrow Wilson who died a hundred years ago. So I don't think she's referring to this Hunter DeButts who's alive and well today. So I think the internet piled on immediately and somebody community noted her on X where the community writes, you're an idiot. Here's the actual facts. And,

And her defense was, hey, Twitter sleuths, thanks for taking the time to provide context. Take it up with ChatGPT. And then she shows how she asked ChatGPT, have any U.S. presidents pardoned relatives or in-laws? And ChatGPT decided to have some fun with Anna Navarro and said, Woodrow Wilson pardoned Hunter DeBusk.

Also, if you really check the history ledger, Abraham Lincoln pardoned Mike Hunt. Yes, the famous Seymour Buds pardon, the homosexual. Yes, of course. I love that her rejoinder is, hey, hey, internet sleuths, I don't do my job ever. Hey, internet sleuths, I plagiarized a robot.

Oh, sorry. Am I not? Does that not? You think it is? It's so funny. I mean, truly, Debbie Murphy, my producer, she's like, I mean, honestly, when somebody gives you back a hundred to butts, who doesn't know not to do an extra search? Just like triply sure. I just also love now.

I love that ChatGPT's historical archive is just like old Simpsons jokes. That actually gives me much more respect for ChatGPT. I'll have to use it more. I don't know. I can't get enough of what's happening. People are being very, very well true to form. Okay, I can't let you go without talking to you. Up next, we're going to have the Attorney General of Tennessee.

And a very, very important case went up to SCOTUS yesterday, Supreme Court of the United States. And it involves this Tennessee law. It's a ban on the totally misnamed gender affirming care that these states are trying to give to minors. Puberty blockers into cross-sex hormones and Tennessee also banned surgeries for minors. Great. Good for you, Tennessee. Well, some 24 states have similar bans.

And in Tennessee, there was a challenge filed to not the surgeries piece of it. Not yet. That's not an issue, but the, um, puberty blockers and the cross-sex hormones being denied to minors who say they're quote transgender. And it was a very interesting argument where we'll get into it. And as I said, in about, well, a few minutes, but I wanted to ask you about it, Michael knows this is something near and dear to your own heart as well. Um, and it's been pretty remarkable to watch, you know,

people covering this, especially CNN, which has gone all in in favor of doing this to children, of sterilizing them, of depriving them of any sexual pleasure, which is what Puberty Blockers and Cross-Sex Hormones does, and of trying to make it seem like everyone who opposes this is an evil mouth breather who wants to hurt children. So first, Jake Tapper did an interview with the trans lawyer,

It's a woman pretending to be a man unconvincingly and was using all of the so-called terms, you know, like it was just, you know, he's taken too many lessons from the AP style book on how we're supposed to talk about this. And then CNN airs a segment with a so-called trans child. That's not a thing. Uh, talking about her fear of,

of being murdered. Watch this. It's not 25 or 50. What concerns have you had about speaking out? That I'm going to be like murdered. Like one day I'm going to be walking down the street and somebody's going to come up and like shoot me or something. That's a really scary thing to be worrying about at 10 years old. Yeah, that should not be a worry.

And the lower third is anti-transgender laws and their mental health effect. The poor children who need their gender affirming care, Michael, and the evil states that are denying it. That's awful. And that that child's parents should be arrested. It's just and frankly, the journalists should be fired if not if not brought up on charges for exploiting a child this way. It's just so she's an LGBTQ activist, too.

absolutely disgusting first now the premise of course is false as well the the the notion that there is some kind of violent attack on trans identifying people it does not exist every year there's some list published of the dozen or two dozen trans identifying people who died in any sort of these circumstances that year and usually it's because their prostitutes are involved in other kinds of crime that are already increasing the likelihood of danger and the the number one reason that uh

trans-identifying people die in unfortunate circumstances is suicide, and it's because they've been affirmed and encouraged in this kind of delusion. So it's really total fake news there. It's wonderful. Jonathan Scarametti's done a great job here, the Attorney General of Tennessee, and so many people have spoken out

and called attention to this grave injustice of the transgender ideology, especially on children. I listened to the oral arguments yesterday. I thought the conservative justices, notably Alito and Thomas, did a masterful job of just totally destroying the pro-trans side of the argument, even with simple questions.

you know the the scientific rationale justice alito completely ruined that the legal rationale justice thomas destroyed that uh the best that the liberal justices could muster was sotomayor comparing castrating a little child to taking an aspirin i mean it was laughable and then you had that you had that lawyer that the first ever trans identifying lawyer to argue a case at the supreme court is

Providentially named Strangio. What an amusing fact that is. But if you read the transcript, something that was disturbing is that the transgender ideology was set up in the premise of the whole case. The transcript referred to this lawyer, who's a woman, as Mr. Strangio. So they were already accepting the premise that a man can be a woman or vice versa.

And this, Megan, I think is the real problem here. I am quite confident after the oral arguments that Tennessee's law is going to be upheld and that kids are going to be protected, at least in some states. However, this is not the sort of issue that really can be argued and have evidence presented for and then some conclusion drawn about.

What is a man? What is a woman is a premise. It goes back to first principles of practical reason, okay? You just have to kind of know. You got to know certain things. Like in math, you have to know A equals A, and if A equals B, then B equals A. You got to know axioms and premises. And so the fact that this case would even make it to the Supreme Court is such a damning...

indictment of our country and the state of our affairs. I'm confident that we're going to get a win here, but we have a lot of work to do. I've got to end on this exchange that I referenced that Jake Tapper had with this strangeo on the air.

yesterday. And for the listening audience, you tell me whether this sounds like a woman or a man. And, you know, I mean, I have already told you it is a woman pretending to be a man. It is a woman with facial hair in a man's suit. She looks slight in the shoulder. This is not a fucking sorry, man. It is a woman masquerading as one. And you the voice, of course, gives it up. This is one of the lawyers who argued in front of the Supreme Court yesterday saying we should do all this stuff to the children to listen.

You heard some of the more deranged things that Donald Trump said on the campaign trail about kids going off to school and the school changes the gender of the kid. You know, at school that day, parents don't. I mean, just wild claims. He he he has also more directly. Well, let's just play some of what he said to get your response.

I will revoke Joe Biden's cruel policies on so-called gender-affirming care. I will sign a new executive order instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age. I will then ask Congress to permanently stop federal taxpayer dollars from being used to promote or pay for these procedures

and pass a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states. Is this case that you are going to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court involving Tennessee relevant to what President Trump, President-elect Trump, says he wants to do there? Yeah, he obviously says a lot of things and it's causing people a lot of panic for good reason. Michael.

I can't, I know Jake and I would like to talk to him personally and explain to him there is nothing deranged or wild about the claim that schools are changing, quote, the gender of children without parental consent. It's happening all over New York City, including at the schools that I attended, where the policy in both public and private is to let the child change his or her gender and to keep it a secret from the parent.

And once you socially transition the child, it is almost impossible to stop the trans ball from rolling into the cross-sex hormone, the puberty blockers, the cross-sex hormones, sterilization, no more sexual pleasure for the rest of your life. An absolute outrage for a school to do without parents, not to mention the rest of those policies that Trump promised, which are the reason many of us voted for him.

Yes. What happened at the Supreme Court yesterday was a decadent circus, the sort of thing you would expect out of late Empire Rome. I don't know if Jake Tapper is just woefully ignorant here or if he's lying to try to spin for the pro-trans side, but that was absurd. And there was a time in this country when in order to practice law, you had to demonstrate a basic, uh,

working faculty of reason, having relatively intact judgment and perception. And if a person thinks that he is the opposite sex, or if a woman thinks that she is the opposite sex, that would seem to be pretty clear evidence that there is a severe defect of reason and judgment.

Yesterday, during the oral arguments, Chief Justice Roberts asked Ms. Strangio if she had anything that she could add, any different arguments than the Solicitor General had previously made, and her answer was no. So she was really just there, it seemed, to

be the first trans-identifying lawyer. As a token, yeah. Which was unfortunate for the federal government's case because she did a very poor job defending what is admittedly an indefensible action, which is to castrate a little kid in the defense of perversions and fantasies. So it's...

It's really depressing to watch. It's depressing to watch that clip earlier of a little child being exploited by lunatics and perverts. It's depressing to watch the Supreme Court have to be degraded to the level of debating whether or not we should castrate little kids. It's just sad. And it's degrading to watch the media take it seriously.

Oh, that is so well said. It is degrading. It's galling to have to watch them deal with this and engage in this fantasy of pretending this woman, because she's got facial hair, is somehow a man and call her mister and talk about this. Yes, you're right. Castration, both actual castration through surgeries of little boys and chemical castration through these medicines.

Oh, he's just going to take estrogen. It's going to make him feel more like the body that he thought he was born in. Yes, that is a chemical castration of your son. He will not perform as a man should for the rest of his life. And you make this decision for him when he is a minor and incapable of understanding what this means. It is abuse.

How are we debating whether it can still happen in any state? I mean, I don't see this as abortion where it's like, all right, we've got the 50 state experiment. Now, you know, Mississippi is going to do something other than California. This Trump should pass a federal ban if if there's the basis for it so that it stops in all 50 states. And the states that are not banning this must be brought to heel. They must have the cast.

review and other research shoved down their throats so they stop hurting minor children and letting parents who are either deranged themselves or fooled by this dishonest, disgusting medical establishment trying to slip its hands into their pockets into believing that there is such a thing as transing a kid that would somehow be a benefit to them. Michael, always a pleasure with you. Love talking to you. Thanks for coming on.

Great to be with you, Megan. Thanks for having me. Well, you heard Michael mention Scrametti, and that's the Attorney General. Jonathan Scrametti's here. He's here next. The Attorney General of Tennessee. We'll ask him what he thought of yesterday. Is the education system the cause and solution to the biggest problems facing America? Check out a fantastic podcast from PragerU that's tackling difficult topics and conversations through the lens of education. Real Talk with Marissa Streit.

As a mother, former educator, and the CEO of PragerU, Marissa believes that education got America into the mess we're in and that it will get us out. This is why she built the pro-American nonprofit PragerU into a disruptor in education with videos that reach millions of young people every single day.

During her show, Marissa interviews leaders in business, education, mental and physical health, and world affairs. Her guests include Tulsi Gabbard, Douglas Murray, Michael Knowles, and many more. Together, they cut through the noise and get to the heart of complex issues, all from the perspective of an educator and parent. Join PragerU's fastest growing podcast. Subscribe to Real Talk with Marissa Strait on your favorite podcast platform, or just watch PragerU.com slash Real Talk. I'm Megan.

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We'll be right back.

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the Biden administration's challenge to a Tennessee law. This is the biggest case of the entire term.

to a Tennessee law that bans hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors who are gender confused. By almost every account, it seemed to be a very good day for supporters of the law. In other words, yay.

Listen to this exchange where Justice Alito, God bless him, forced the first trans-identifying lawyer to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court to admit that so-called gender-affirming treatments, that's not what these are, are not as effective as they want you to believe. On page 195 of the Cass Report, it says, there is no evidence that gender-affirmative treatments are

reduce suicide. What I think that is referring to is there is no evidence in the studies that

this treatment reduces completed suicide. And the reason for that is completed suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare. And we're talking about a very small population of individuals with studies that don't necessarily have completed suicides within them. However, there are multiple studies, long-term longitudinal studies that do show that there is a reduction in suicidality, which I think is a positive outcome to this treatment.

That lawyer, Chase Strangio, is representing the families that originally brought the lawsuit. And the left is getting so desperate, they went back to their favorite tactic, making everything, even this, about race. Here's Justice Katanji Brown Jackson comparing Tennessee's statute to an overturned Virginia law that banned interracial marriage over 50 years ago.

You know, as I read the statute here, excuse me, the case here, you know, the court starts off by saying that Virginia is now one of 16 states which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications. And when you look at the structure of that law, it looks in terms of, you know, you can't do something that is inconsistent with your own characteristics. It's sort of the same thing. So it's interesting to me that we now have this different argument, and I wonder whether Virginia could have gotten away with—

with what they did here by just making a classification argument the way that Tennessee is in this case. Yes, I think that's exactly right, that there is absolutely a parallel.

That second woman you heard there was Biden's solicitor general agreeing with Justice Jackson. This case is called United States versus versus Scrimetti. So who better to bring on than Jonathan Scrimetti himself? He's the attorney general of Tennessee. Good for you, sir, for defending this. And this is a hugely important case. So how do you think it went yesterday?

I think it went great. You never want to prognosticate that justices will spend months talking through this and, you know, you just never know how it's going to turn out. But we put on a very strong case. I thought the questions were probing in a way that gets to the truth of the matter. And I'm looking forward to the court's decision.

We heard in that soundbite, we just played with Justice Alito. The other side admit, admit that gender affirming care, again, this is a misnomer, does not reduce suicides.

It does not reduce suicide. So this is what they've been telling. The truth comes out in court. But what they've been saying everywhere in the public eye is we have to allow these puberty blockers and these cross-sex hormones because these kids will kill themselves. They will kill themselves. They use this to manipulate parents. And there in front of the U.S. Supreme Court,

It's admitted right there by a so-called trans attorney that this so-called care does not reduce suicides. What a moment. I think it's the most important thing that happened in the oral argument. Usually the briefing is what really drives the outcome in the case, and the argument is just to cover a few little loose ends.

But we've heard for years, you can either have a live son or a dead daughter, and parents have been essentially threatened. And kids have kept hearing over and over again that suicide was the appropriate reaction to not transitioning. And of course, suicide is a social contagion phenomenon. The more kids hear it, the more risk there is. And so to have the truth out there for everybody to hear on the record that suicide is not in fact

the expected outcome, that this treatment, so-called treatment, does nothing to address the instances of suicide was huge. That's going to make a lasting difference in this conversation. And then you've got Sonia Sotomayor comparing the castration of little boys to there are risks in taking an aspirin. Here's that.

And the question of how many minors have to have their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits is one that is best left. I'm sorry, counselor. Every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin. There is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that's going to suffer a harm.

So the question in my mind is not do policymakers decide whether one person's life is more valuable than the millions of others who get relief from this treatment. The question is, can you stop one sex from the other? Let me ask you something in general.

There'd be no question that you could pass a law in Tennessee saying you can't sell fentanyl in pill form over the counter right next to Band-Aids. There'd be no question that you would be allowed to do that in Tennessee and every state. So clearly there is the ability to regulate certain medications and drugs, even something as gentle potentially as an aspirin. So this is a sliding scale. You know, the fentanyl would be a no, the aspirin can be on the shelf. And the question is where does the gender affirming so-called care come

proceed, uh, medications and so on fall. Can you explain to the audience why those, the puberty blockers and acrostics hormones are closer to the fentanyl than they are to the aspirin? Be my pleasure. So every systematic review of the evidence has shown little to no benefit for kids from these procedures, from puberty blockers, from hormone treatments, from surgeries. Uh, it's, it's still relatively new, uh,

Most of the cases have been coming up recently. The numbers have exploded. But all the research out there, when systematically reviewed and analyzed, shows no benefit. And meanwhile, the risks are huge. Kids on these drugs face the permanent loss of their fertility, the permanent loss of their sexual function for the rest of their lives.

They face, depending on which treatment we're talking about, tumors, blood clots, cognitive impairment for the rest of their lives,

bone density disorders. So these are serious conditions and children are not in a position to make those big decisions. We don't let them get tattoos. We don't let them use alcohol. We don't let them consume tobacco products because they're too young to fully appreciate the effect that will have on their future. Meanwhile, these are incredibly consequential

drug regimes that will affect their body forever and ever, the research shows that it's not actually treating the condition it's purported to treat. And the risks are enormous. And that is why Tennessee outlawed these for kids.

There was, this is a lengthy exchange, but I am going to play it. An exchange between Justice Alito and the solicitor general for the Biden administration. Biden administration is on the trans team, not the Tennessee team. That's about to change when Trump takes over. But right now we are where we are. So he really went after her on what I think he believed was a misrepresentation in their brief to the court. Take a listen to this, SOT 36.

Can I ask you a question about the state of medical evidence at the present time?

In your petition, you made a sweeping statement, which I will quote, overwhelming evidence establishes that the appropriate gender-affirming treatment with puberty blockers and hormones directly and substantially improves the physical, psychological well-being of transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria. That was in November 2023. Now, even before then, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare announced

wrote the following. They currently assess, quote, that the risks of puberty blockers and gender-affirming treatment are likely to outweigh the expected benefits of these treatments, which is directly contrary to the sweeping statement in your petition. After the filing of your petition, of course, we saw the release of the CAS report in the United Kingdom, which

which found a complete lack of high-quality evidence showing that the benefits of the treatments in question here outweigh the risks. And so I wonder if...

You would like to stand by the statement that you made in your petition, or if you think it would now be appropriate to modify that and withdraw the statement that there is overwhelming evidence establishing that these treatments have benefits that greatly outweigh the risks and the dangers.

I, of course, acknowledge, Justice Alito, that there is a lot of debate happening here and abroad about the proper model of delivery of this care and exactly when adolescents should receive it and how to identify the adolescents for whom it would be helpful. But I stand by that there is a consensus that these treatments can be medically necessary for some adolescents. And that's true no matter what source you look at.

So she didn't disavow her clearly false statement to the court about the alleged overwhelming evidence that the benefits outweigh the harms.

So what we're looking at in this situation is a conflict between what the evidence tells us and what the consensus tells us. So we've got this manufactured consensus where very biased activists have managed to get all of the major medical organizations to buy in to their approach through a very circular process. Meanwhile, they're suppressing research showing the actual efficacy of this for kids, and they are...

ignoring developments in countries that have pioneered these procedures that used to make them very available to kids.

and now are restricting them because they looked at the evidence. And Steve Marshall, the Alabama attorney general, had an amicus brief in this case that really laid out the process and that showed that the medical guidelines that are being used here were written not by doctors, but largely by policy advocates, by social justice lawyers, and by people within the Biden administration who are lobbying for the most

ideologically aligned outcomes rather than delving into the evidence and making an evidence-based decision about what's best for kids. It's truly horrifying how our medical organizations have been captured by

by these activists who are trying to set policy for our children, for the chopping off of body parts for the most vulnerable among us. And then confused parents go to a psychiatrist, a child psychiatrist or psychologist for help, and they are put on a path of severe danger. Yeah. And I mean, it's just, it goes to a broader problem with America's elite.

which maybe is outside the scope of this conversation, but they are just divorced from reality. We're supposed to embrace evidence-based medicine. We're supposed to look at the evidence when making those determinations. And this is kind of a Trojan horse. They dress it up to look legitimate in every possible way.

But it's empty in the middle. I guess it's not like the Trojan horse at all, actually. But they're transporting these radical ideological beliefs in the guise of legitimate medical research. And that is having a really profound impact on thousands of kids. The numbers have gone up

spectacularly, very dramatically, a 4,000% increase in adolescent girls looking for hormone treatments, according to one researcher.

And as the numbers go up for unexplained reasons, more and more evidence comes out showing that this is harmful. Other countries have pumped the brakes. And here we are with the White House, with the major medical associations, with the American Bar Association, with all sorts of very powerful institutional players in this country pushing in the other direction.

essentially trying to get everyone to ignore the evidence and pursue this ideological end at great cost to children. They are the enemy. They are the ideological enemy. And they're...

so-called expertise must be challenged because it is not coming from a factual or trustworthy place. Thank God you're, you see that. And so do these other States, almost half the union is on board. So, uh, one thing it does look like, I mean, for sure when the Trump administration begins, uh,

the support of the government for the trans argument will go away. That could cause some procedural snafus that could be to your benefit. We'll have to see, but it doesn't look like the case will go away. I agree with you. It looks like you're going to win.

Um, good justice Gorsuch who gave us boss doc, which said you can't discriminate in hiring when it comes to trans people. Didn't say anything yesterday. Interesting, potentially troubling, but I think you got him. I'm going to guess you got him because boss doc said we're not making any pronouncements beyond, um,

hiring of trans people. But what's going to happen now? Because if you win, will it make it easier for sanity to prevail in cases involving boys in girls' sports or any of the other fights that we're seeing on the trans front right now? So if we win, it really depends how we win. Depending on what the court does here, there are just many different outcomes. But the biggest win would be if the court says,

transgender gender identity issues do not receive any heightened scrutiny, rational basis applies, which essentially means the democratically elected representatives of the people are allowed to make the choices about what our policies are. That would impact sports, that would impact bathrooms, that would have a significant impact on the volume of litigation because we're being sued in Tennessee

on a number of different cases involving gender identity as people try to use existing sex discrimination laws to force policy changes on the state. That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to say this is sex discrimination. I got to be honest. I listened to the whole thing. I didn't follow how it's sex discrimination, even arguably. I really didn't. She kept saying like, well, a girl who wants puberty blockers because she has precocious puberty can get the puberty blockers, but a girl who wants them because she thinks she's a boy can't.

And so somehow this is sex discrimination. I don't get it. I don't think the court is going to buy it. The three libs will because they're ideologically driven. But I really think you tell me it's a boon to you that this case went up. You think you would have won anyway, but it went up in the heels of an election in which this issue was front and center and the American electorate overwhelmingly said, we've had enough of this. Do you think it will embolden the more potentially wobbly justices?

Yeah, it's hard for me to say. There's a counter narrative that maybe they're concerned about excesses in reining this in. I mean, I really don't know which way they're going to go, but it is clear that this was an issue in the election. If you look at the coalition of people that were pushing back against these treatments,

It's not just your traditional conservatives. I mean, there were these LGB groups out there. There are sort of insurgent medical organizations of doctors horrified at the lack of evidence-based practice in this area. So there's a broader group concerned about this than just the ideological right group.

I certainly hope that as the country takes a hard look at these policies and where they've gotten us, that the court is paying attention to what seems to be the pendulum swinging back. It got pretty far out there in the last couple of years. God bless you for fighting the fight. Attorney General of Tennessee, Jonathan Scrimetti, please come back on. We have a ruling. Thank you. I will.

All the best. Wow. This is so important, you guys. This is so important. We have to win this. And thanks to Jonathan and men and women like him in there. Looks like we will. Pray God. Okay. See you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.