Megyn's NYT Interview, WHCA Fires Unfunny Comedian From Dinner, and Newsom's Failed Shift, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 1038

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Download today. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Meg The Megan Kelly Show and happy Monday.
The White House Correspondents Association is reversing course, deciding that we are now in such a, quote, consequential moment for journalism that they will be canceling their scheduled comedian for their big gala in late April and focusing only on honoring the very important work our corporate media does every day to fight for democracy or something like that. They really want to honor the White House reporters who gave it all, left it all on the playing field this year.
You know how like they covered the Biden mental infirmity so closely and explosively and blew the lid right? Oh, wait, no, that never happened. Will that award be given in April for all the people who completely blew it and instead of exposing that, ran cover for him? Because yeah, that happened over the past 12 months since their last big gala.
Or are we just going to honor the reporters who are taking a dump on Donald Trump every day? I can't wait to find out. I was invited to this shindig.
And as I have for every year over the past 10, I declined to go. I'm not going to this.
When I was a very young reporter, I found this exciting before I understood what was what in Washington and back, frankly, when it was relevant and kind of cool. I hate to tell the people going, those days are over.
You're now sort of saying yes to what's become a loser party where they can only get the dregs. And I urge anybody with ego and self-respect to say say no, no, I'm not going to that.

And speaking of corporate media, I went over to the New York Times earlier this month. I mean, the actual New York Times building, the belly of the beast, and sat down for two hours for their, quote, the interview podcast.
This is part of the biggest podcast in America called The Daily, which The New York Times drops Monday through Friday. And then on Saturday, they drop, quote, The Interview podcast with millions of downloads per episode.
And I have some thoughts and some behind the scenes moments for you on what happened, how it came out and why I did it. So let's get into it.
Joining me now, the EJs, Emily Jaschinski, DC correspondent for Unheard and host of Undercurrents, and Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of the Washington Free Beacon and co-host of the Ink Stained Wretches podcast. Did you know scammers can literally steal your home right out from under you? The FBI calls it house stealing and it's a growing real estate scam.
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Ladies, welcome back. Hey, Megan.
Hey, Megan. Great to see you both.
Good to be here. Okay, so why I went over to the New York Times, they gave me this invitation and I talked with Steve Krakauer, my executive producer, about it quite a bit.
And Abby's funny because she always gets the incoming. She's like, don't do it.
She's like, they're going to hate you. You don't want anything to do.
And she's very defensive of me. But Steve was more like, we should consider this one.
And we talked about it. And I have a couple of things that we're promoting right now, like our AM update and our expansion into this more podcast network where we're bringing on other voices and trying to promote them.
So I thought if I were to do it, this would be a time. And the truth is I listen to The Daily most days.
And I talk about the daily on this show a lot. And I'm a weird fan of the show.
Like I, I love to rip on it, but I do learn from it as well. I think it's a useful podcast.
Sometimes it's useful just to bash. Sometimes it actually does provide information.
Like, I loved the podcast they did on what Trump's tariffs are doing down in Mexico when it comes to fentanyl labs.

Like, that was actually a fair and balanced piece. And I think they're making an effort to drop a few here and there that might be a little more acceptable to Trump fans.
In any event, I figured I would I would do it. So I was asked to sit down with Lulu Garcia Navarro, who is a legit reporter.
She's been all over the world covering actual news for the New York Times and other outlets for many, many years. And, um, I didn't know her very well.
I knew she'd done JD Vance and she seemed fair with him. So I figured, all right, you know, here we go.
And Michael Barbaro is the host of the one Monday through Friday. And I, truth be told, I kind of like him and we have a friendly relationship.
We're not friends, but friendly. So in any event, I decided to go over there.
So it was 90 minutes sitting down together in the New York times building. And then it was another, I don't know, half an hour or 45 minutes the next day after you've had a time to reflect, which is kind of funny.
Even that is kind of leftist. Right.
We're going to reflect and then we're going to chat again. So we went over to the New York Times building, guys, and it was very fun.
It was walking in there. I have to say they were very nice.
They were very polite. They treated me well.
But, you know, there are these heads at the New York times, like, Whoa, right. I'm walking through like, yes.
And then you could hear all the like, like, and we weren't even on the main floor. We were just all like on the podcast floor, but everybody would did like a one 80 as it was very funny.
And the one guy, sort of the handler who was dealing with me before Lulu came in and said, you know, Lulu, she often takes people up into like the heart of the news room when the interview's over and introduces them to people. So she might do that with you.
Let's just say that didn't happen. There was no tour of the New York Times newsroom.
It was a no. I appreciate that.
Why would she want to do that? Why would this gains Lulu zero street cred in walking through the New York Times newsroom with me? It was fine. But I have to say, I liked her.
She was very kind to me, like in terms of our, you know, dealings behind the scenes. She was very nice.
You can kind of tell when someone hates your guts and they're about to interview you. I didn't feel that way about her.
And the interview itself didn't reflect some, you know, animus on her part or bad faith. I thought, you know, she's, I think of the left and came at these issues from the left that was understood and not surprising, but I didn't sit across from her thinking, this is someone who can't stand me.
And that would have led to a bad interview had I felt that way. So that's why I think it all worked.
You know, it came off fine. I was more relaxed in giving her answers.
And she was a good interview in terms of saying like, tell me about that as opposed to, you know, just trying to hammer me on various things. So in any event, it posted on Saturday.
I hope people take a listen to it. We'll talk about a couple of sound bites and a couple of the outtakes just because those are always fun to know, you know, what happened.
Um, we released a couple on social media over the weekend and I'll tell you the biggest divide between Lulu and yours truly, which we talked about was she didn't understand exactly what it is people like us do. The, the two women I'm looking at and myself, right.
That like, we do offer political commentary and we do offer our own opinions, but we also are journalists, but we all exist in this new ecosphere, right? Like we all have podcasts. We all have direct relationships with our audiences.
We're all in new media as opposed to corporate legacy media. You know, the free beacon is its own entity.
But I mean, Eliana does instinct wretches and is very honest. In any event, that was where we really kept tripping wires because she didn't get how I can still call myself a journalist and have endorsed Donald Trump.
Which one is that, Steve? Okay, that's number four, and we'll kick it off with that one. Well, you interviewed him, and it was a fair interview, a tough interview, but you opened it by saying that he was a friend.
You said, I've been really dismayed by the amount of pylon that he's been suffering. And I've been outraged by the unfairness of the media's coverage of the allegations.
And that's a direct quote. And so, you know, I'm, I'm curious what you're doing in that interview because you're setting up the interview in a particular kind of way that perhaps it wouldn't be set up in the mainstream media.
Yeah. Well, I'm glad you asked that because I feel like part of our discussion before and today is getting at something that our wires are crossing.
Your wires and my wires are crossing in a way. You're kind of looking at me and saying, it's not behaving like a typical journalist.
And it is still calling itself a journalist. And I'm trying to say to you, yes, I'm still a journalist.
I'm trying to understand it. Yeah, no, I know.
I'm not saying you're judging me. But I'm trying to say to you, yes, I'm still a journalist, but I'm in this new ecosystem where the old rules don't apply.
You know, I'm in this world with, yes, Charlie Kirk and Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro, but my world is also Joe Rogan with these in-depth interviews and also Theo Vaughn. And it's a very large world and how the consumer receives it is by going on youtube.com on their television screen or going to the vertical integrations on Instagram or TikTok and just taking in content.
What's the content that you want to receive? I'm on the list of content creators. And so the fact that I'm also a journalist who breaks news and reports on news is like an extra.
But what's most important in My business now is authenticity, that you are honest with the audience. And really, this is a point we just kept coming back to where she thinks in a way you can be too honest if you get on stage with a political candidate and endorse him and tell people you're voting for him and you think they should too, that you've crossed a bridge that burns as you walk across it and you can never return back over to journalism land.
And I just didn't see it that way at all. We had a long debate and a lot of debates about owning one's bias.
And she didn't understand if you own your bias, like doesn't that sell your soul? Basically that how can the audience then trust you to rip on your own side? And the following soundbite is in that context. Hot one.
I think the most serious thing I've heard about him has been the E. Jean Carroll allegation that he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf dressing room.
And I don't believe one word of that. There are other women who have said I've interviewed some of them.
But look, the things I heard was were included things like he got handsy on an airplane. Now, I don't know whether that happened or it didn't.
But do I find that a deal breaker for a possible politician? Not really. At least I reported on their stories and did them the courtesy of bringing them to air in front of millions of people and let the audience make up its mind.
My problem is more with these Democrats who will bury these allegations against their candidates or their candidate spouses and then play holier than thou when they're looking at Donald Trump. Do you see yourself as a journalist still? Or would you not describe yourself like that anymore? No, I'm still a journalist.
I mean, I break news all the time. And when I sit with Trump or anybody else in the administration, I ask tough questions.
I mean, as recently as September of 23, I interviewed Trump and he got so mad at me. He didn't talk to me for six or seven months.
So it's not, look, it's a tough job to do. You have to be able to hit the people you admire.
And I do, you know, I've, I've hit them all right before the election. I ripped on Trump's Madison square garden rally as too bro-tastic and got specific about why you have to understand, like if, if you haven't sold your soul, you have to be willing to criticize the people, even you, that you admire on your quote side.
And my owning my bias by going out there on stage with Donald Trump and saying, I'm voting for him and you should too, is a bonus when it comes to my credibility. Now, everybody has zero doubt about where I stand and they can filter everything I say through the appropriate lens.
What typically happens in journalism is they say they have no bias, and then they just work it out in the printed word or on their shows without owning it. But the audience knows it, and it creates a distrust and a divide.
Okay, just two points as an addendum, and then we'll get into it. So I went on in the one answer, and she did fine.
I have no problem with the way the Times edited the interview. This is not a Ben Smith situation where I just thought he just tried to hammer me for his own reasons.
She was very fair. But I just want to say that.
And that one answer where I'm like that what I have a problem with is these people who will go after Donald Trump and play holier than now when covering him, but will bury the allegations against Democrats. And what I said at the end of that, because we have a transcript of it, was like, I didn't see a lot of questions by the Times or anyone else about why Doug Emhoff allegedly wailed on his ex-girlfriend, the one he dated right before Kamala.
Where was the deep investigation into whether he fathered a love child with the nanny and why the ambulance came to her home on the night she lost the baby? Nobody cared about that. I've actually reported on both of those stories, which is something about two reporters in America can say.
And then added just a bit later when she was like, I don't get how you can go out and endorse this guy, understanding he's going to make mistakes. He's going to do things that are wrong, who, you know, she says, will have to be criticized because that's the nature of any political leader.
And I said, you know, see, see to me, it's funny to hear you ask that because I guarantee you my audience is going to laugh at this question because they're going to say that is rich coming from the New York Times, which did more to run cover for Joe Biden than virtually anyone else in media. I don't run cover for Donald Trump.
I've ripped on Trump endless numbers of times. I put my record of ripping on Trump up against the record of anybody in the leftist media of running against Joe Biden or calling out his infirmities.
Even when Trump was running, one of the reasons why he attacked me after I hosted a presidential debate that he did not participate in is because I raised questions about Trump's mental acuity. And I had noticed he was having some word slips saying the wrong thing about Obama when he meant Biden, World War Three when he meant two.
And he got mad and he attacked me, which is totally fair game. I am fair game.
I'm in the arena and I'm fair game. I'm not above getting attacked by him.
I wasn't in 15. I'm not in 25.
So to me, it's funny to hear you ask that question because you must not listen to the show that often. Okay.
So having said all that, Emily, your thoughts? Well, yeah, I mean, that was a part of the interview that you just played that I was trying to like stand up and clap when I was listening because it was such a great explanation of what people are doing now and where the wires are exactly getting crossed, which is that I actually think a lot of even thoughtful people who are coming to this conversation in good faith, like I genuinely think she was, don't totally watch the programs that they're engaging with enough to understand what's really happening and what the relationship is with the audience, because your audience would hear the question that you just read out and say, what do you mean? Like, of course, Megan has to criticize. It doesn't matter that Megan went and endorsed Donald Trump.
She's been criticizing him like three days later. It just is a complete and a lot of times it's from these soundbites that go viral is when people who don't regularly listen to a show will dip in.
And so they kind of think that they understand what happens, but it's really totally different. Like your relationship with the audience is totally different than somebody who genuinely doesn't listen to it every day fully understands or, you know, even like three times a week understands.
And that is where I think it's, I think she thought that you were working with the campaign,

cooperating with the campaign,

that you were a part of the campaign

because you gave that speech when in fact,

all you did was be more honest with your audience

than a lot of the journalists

who are even just straight news reporters

who work in their desk at the White House

and absolutely know that they're voting for Kamala Harris, come to every question, believe in Kamala Harris, good, Donald Trump, bad. Every time they sit down and write copy, you're just being honest with your audience.
And that's an improvement for most Americans. Yeah.
Eliana, this is what I was trying to say to her. Like, basically, you guys at The Times are not fooling anyone.
Everyone knows that you're leftist. And everyone who listens to this show knows I'm more on the right.
And in owning it and just expressly saying, this is what I'm going to do in the ballot box and this is what I think you should do. It's really not it's it's not as big a transgression off of where we used to be as she would have us believe.
Like there's no one in America who thinks the majority of New York Times staffers voted Trump. I think that was a really important part of the conversation.
And look, for 20 plus years, you know, you can trace it back to Dan Rather in 2004. But even before that, when we had these experiences with titans of supposedly neutral purveyors of the news who claimed to be one thing, and then there were scandals that showed them to be operating in the service of one political party.
And so your statement that, hey, disclosing your biases up front actually builds trust with an audience rather than undermining it or undermining one's credibility was, I think, really important. And what I think that the Times often misses is that our problem with them, you know, with them and I say this from the beacon all the time like the beacon we say we're conservative like we we own that and our problem with you is that you claim to be down the middle and we know you're something else and that is what is broken trust with audiences readers.
So when you don't cover Doug Emhoff and the scandals surrounding him, that's trust breaking. If you were to come out and say, like, hey, we don't cover scandals about Democrats because it undercuts our political priors or our mission here.
It's going to piss off our readers. Like, okay, we'd be fine with that.
It's the posturing that you're fair. Yes, right.
Just own it. I don't understand why in today's day and age they don't.
You know, but that is why there's this wide open space for people like you and Joe Rogan and others to go build these huge audiences because they're not fooling people. Well, Megan, can I- They're I breaking trust with people? Can I answer why they don't? I think that's actually a really interesting part of this, because I I believe that you could fix trust in media tomorrow if The New York Times and even the good faith people like there's maybe 10 percent of journalists can genuinely be neutral and don't have like significant biases in one direction or the other.
You can't tell it in their copy. Like there are some people who can do that, but they're very, very rare.
But the New York Times and the Washington Post just came out tomorrow and said, our reporting, not our editorial side, our reporting leans left. The vast majority of reporters are liberal.
We think, you know, maybe they put one of those signs in this house, we believe X, Y, and Z outside of the Washington Post and the New York Times. They would fix trust with their audience right off the bat because they do some genuinely decent reporting.
Just tell us what you think. But the reason they can't do that is that they are all in these cultural bubbles where they don't understand that their biases are biases.
They think this is just a matter of human rights or decency or civility, but they don't

understand that actually those are significant biases in one direction or the other. So they're in such a bubble that they're not even able to determine anymore what's a bias and what's like actually just the things that are still controversial and contentious outside of their little bubbles.
And what's actually just something that's a point of consensus that we all agree on. They can't tell one from the other because they're so siloed in what Charles Murray called super zips, New York, Washington, D.C., L.A., where upper middle class educated people disproportionately cluster and are disproportionately powerful.
They can't even tell anymore. Yeah.
OK, so I I've had these debates online and the audience knows I love Sasha Stone. She's, she has a great sub stack, uh, free thinking through the fourth turning, which she turns into a podcast.
And I love, she's been on the program, but she, she asked this online recently and I took a stab at answering it and we had like a back and forth on it, but she was asking like, I'm going to screw it up, but it was basically, why are they doing this? Like, why, why, why do they do this to us? They continue to pretend that they're, um, neutral and we know they're not. And I said that they genuinely believe they're neutral.
Like they're not like, I'm, I'm biased and I don't want anyone to find out Eliana. They're like, no, I, we are the truthful ones.
Like where we are the gatekeepers, you know, like what is life going to be like if there are no rules? What? And in fact, she and I kind of got into this too, or she's like, you know, what does that look like? You know, where the rules are out the window and here's a little bit of that SOT 5. I think you're right that there is some way that we are seeing things or discussing something different, right? I guess what I'm trying to understand is what are the rules of this new world that you are inhabiting? Are you sort of making them up as you go along and you're sort of seeing what it is? Or do you adhere to some of those old values that you used to embrace? The only way one succeeds in this medium is by violating all those rules that we used to have in journalism, where you don't really talk about yourself at all.
You don't talk about your opinions. You might have a bias.
Your only goal is to hide it, not to own it and then get past it with the audience.

It's just a whole new world. And it's okay.
We used to be much more partisan and openly partisan in our journalism and our media 100 plus years ago. And we survived that just fine.
And we will survive this just fine too. What the audience wants from me is my authentic self and no filter.
What they can smell from a mile away is a phony. So they have no problem with me endorsing Trump, even if they don't like Trump.
What they would have a problem with is me pretending I don't have a horse in the race and going out and trying to deliver the news as though I'm completely objective and I'm just as open-minded to Kamala as I am to Donald Trump. And the secret addendum to that, Eliana, is that is not only actually the rule for me in new media, it's actually the rule for you too, Lulu.
It's actually the rule for everyone. You just haven't realized it yet.
I mean, look, I think there's some truth to the idea that they don't realize they're biased, but it. I'm not totally sure that's that's the case.
I mean, when you have the CEO of NPR testifying before Congress and saying, yes, we're 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, like it does sort of defy logic that they can truly believe that doesn't actually show up in any of the news coverage. I mean, and not to mention, like, do you believe this country is about black plunder? Right.
That woman. Right.
But I genuinely believe that woman is there. Like, I, you know, I don't remember ever tweeting that, but that sounds right.
You know, like, I genuinely believe that woman took to the congressional seat last week and was like, I'm not biased and NPR is not biased. You know, like we, we check our bias.

There's a, there's a legit wall between me and the actual reporters at NPR, Emily. And you know, that protects us from how, and then when you ask the follow-up question, we're like,

what about the people on the other side of that wall? What have you done to satisfy yourself that

they're not just like you and reflecting those biases in their reporting? It's like

the monkey with the see, no evil, hear no evil, speak like I know nothing. Seriously.
And I think actually Eliana's point is a legitimate one. And one time, one thing you hear from the media a lot when you point out those discrepancies is they will say, OK, but it's because like, look at Donald Trump.
It's because Republicans don't have as many serious people to put forth that aren't trafficking in disinformation. That's always the excuse, right? But they don't even understand sometimes that like they don't, they're completely out of the loop.
They dismiss as conspiracy theories often when Republicans point out the lies or the pattern of lies that certain Democrats have told, because again, they will categorically say it's not serious if it's coming from the Federalist. It's not serious if it's coming from Ben Shapiro.
So they don't even understand, like they're not even able to make those equivalencies. You know, they say, well, of course we don't platform as many Republicans as we do Democrats.
Republicans have an endemic truth problem. And it's like you weren't covering, for example, Biden, as you started with, Megan, like every the White House was suddenly talking about how those these were, quote, cheap fakes.
And you guys literally like reprinted their press releases for several weeks until the debate. And you couldn't do it anymore.
There's certain storylines like Tara Reid. There's certain storylines that they just check out of because they assume it's all How many people, literally, how many people in America can say that they've interviewed both Trump accusers on the sexual assault or harassment front and Tara Reid? Literally, I might be the only one.
Like, the New York Times cannot say that. You know, that's what I was trying to say to her.
Like there was another part that didn't make the dance, um, where I said, look, the, the,

the, the, to me, it's funny, you know, that you're asking this about me and how I can maintain my ability to criticize him notwithstanding my endorsement, because I, I, I wrote, I said, this is the sin of which the left is guilty. You know, like no one on the left can really ask this question.
You're asking me. There are very few who actually do raise these questions on their own side and who are willing to go after Kamala and Joe Biden or Barack Obama or, God forbid, Michelle Obama in the way I go after the right and Trump.
They just won't do it. If you listen to my show, you listen for a week, you'll have multiple examples of me raising questions about the way Trump has done something or his team has done something.
But I don't have TDS. I can see the good he does very clearly.
And I have no problem giving him credit for the wins. After that, she said, I'll say that Ezra Klein, one of my colleagues, was one of the earliest people to call for Biden to drop out of the race.
And I said, where was the Times editorial doing that at any point prior to the debate? But that was also January. I mean, that was that was January.
Yes. And he was only saying that he's old.
Ezra Klein was saying Biden's too old. He wasn't saying he's lost it.
He's like, oh, he's too And you know, she said, oh, well, uh, I said, where was that? Where's the times editorial doing that before that debate? She said, well, the editorial pages, um, as you know, are different than the news pages. And I said, where was the news coverage? Where was the news coverage? Where was Peter Baker documenting the fact that these brain doctors had been to the white house 10 times over the prior year.
And she said, I'm not going to litigate the Times' coverage. And I understood she was not there to defend the New York Times, which I totally get.
Like, she wasn't sent to me to come on my show as a representative of the Times and to defend them. She's like, I'm trying to do a nice profile of you, lady.
Why do you keep attacking me? And I was basically saying, you can't ask me how I could possibly be fair to Trump, notwithstanding my endorsement, when you're the New York Times. You just can't do it.
And here's let me explain to you why you can't do it. That's sort of where we were going, Emily.
yeah no and that's a really good point and it to me it's just like they some of these lines

uh some of these like that actually is a good example about the cheap fakes because it's not

just what their editorial writers, their columnists were saying. I mean, your point is that the straight news coverage is shot through with the bias that should be on the editorial side if there were this traditional neutral firewall, which just doesn't really exist.
Nobody believes that it exists. They will tell you in our newsroom every day, there's no overlap, but they believe roughly the same things.
Even if there's little debates, they believe roughly the same thing. So why wasn't there the Peter Baker stories? That's the question we need to have answered about the White House having doctors coming coming in and out of it about donors being

upset when they saw him in person like those stories were nowhere to be found. Instead,

it was the cheap fake storyline on any. It's not just the Times.
We're picking on them because I

sat with them, but NPR with her little firewall, those NPR reporters weren't running around

covering the Joe Biden mental acuity problems. And you all saw last week and when it happened, what they did with the Hunter Biden laptop.
Like we're not our viewers aren't interested in that fake news story. That's that's the problem.
You know, like neither the editorial nor the journalism side is open minded to any bad news to Democrats that doesn't like dovetail with their worldview. You know, like if a Democrat works with a Republican, they might do a negative story on him.
Right. But like they're not going to cover things that could actually undermine Joe Biden's chances of reelection in an honest way.
And everyone knows it. That's what I was trying to say.
Like you go back 150 years in this country. We used to be very partisan.
You know, that so-called yellow journalism period. People used to pick up different rags to read and they would completely affirm their worldview on the right and the left.
And that's how life was. And we did just fine.
And if we're in a country where you're quote siloed that way, it's okay. The reality is we already are there.
That is where we already are. We're just, we're just pretending in the so-called mainstream that we're not, that those are still our gatekeepers.
All right, moving past that particular

subject, I do want to show this. So we did get into my long history with Trump, Eliana, and, you know, me asking him that question at the debate, and then he came after me.
And she raised a question that a lot of the left cannot, and even some on the right who don't love Trump cannot understand. Like they can't understand how I or frankly, anyone who doesn't totally endorse the way Donald Trump has behaved his entire life or with respect to us or an individual like, let's say, John McCain or the Gold Star families in the first race and so on can come around to supporting him like they they, they, like, this is a genuine inability to understand, like, please explain to me how you can endorse that man.
And we got into E. Jean Carroll.
You heard me saying they're like, I don't believe her, but we expanded it just a bit and sought to do think he's taken inappropriate liberties with women and gotten handsy with them in a way he's owned himself. Okay, years ago when he was a celebrity, and it is what it is.
That's the past. But it's just about so much more than that.
We are talking about how many people dying at the southern border because of the invasion that we've suffered under Joe Biden. We're talking about Lincoln Riley, whose killer was let in under Biden.
We put him on a taxpayer flight down to Georgia where he murdered her. I don't give a shit about Trump getting handsy with somebody 20 years ago.
I want someone who will close the border, which he has. I want someone who will keep boys out of my daughter's sports, which he has.
I want someone who will stand up to the insane DEI policies so that white kids will stop hearing in school that they're born with some original sin from which they cannot recover, which he has. And I mean, that right there, Eliana, I mean, that just sums up why so many of us happily, gleefully, hopefully, and just optimistically pulled the lever for Donald Trump in November and remain really grateful to him for the agenda he is unleashing.
It is just, you know, anybody on the left still obsessing about Trump and like E. Jean Carroll or like when he was a celebrity.
But it's just people are dying. You know, young women are being killed.
Young women are being hurt on the sports. It's like have some perspective.
I actually don't think that that question was about Trump, Megan. I think it was about you.
And I think the question was put to you such that it really was, how can you, Megyn Kelly, who talk a lot about how, who position yourself as pro woman, who talk a bit about how to have a real career and build a family who are certainly like, you know, you're certainly not a wilting violet. How can you have that identity, which is very much a public identity and, you know, vote for this scumbag, endorse this scumbag when you have been publicly mistreated on the basis of your, you know, lady parts, like it been made them a subject of conversation.
So I took that to be about you and like, you know, a sort of tacit attempt to undermine, you know, your credibility on that issue. And I actually thought it was an interesting conversation because it gets to issues that like all voters confront, which are like, what are lesser and more important issues to me that I'm going to vote on? And you basically said, like, look, he may have mistreated me personally, like it was a micro and macro thing, but that's just less important to me than other issues the nation is confronting on which I think he's going to perform much better than she would have.
Like, it's just and I do think there's like an inability on the left to get beyond like, well, he mistreated you. How can that not be the main issue that you're going to vote on? Yeah, that's right.
And I think it's a feeling that the left has in general on Trump. And they did include this piece in the interview where she said, what do you think of Trump dismissing the media as enemy of the people and fake news? Oh, and let me add, Megan, like we saw Democrats do this with Bill Clinton all the time.
It was like, oh, whatever. You know, he got handsy with an intern in the Oval Office, but like he's doing a lot of great things.
And I think that's like a perfectly fair argument to make. Like, yeah, that's fine.
You know, and the conservatives issue with him was he with was he lied under oath. But by the same token, I think it is fine for for conservatives to say, like, we don't care that much about his personal conduct from 10 or 20 years ago.
We don't think that he, you know, never lies. But he's doing things that we think are a lot more important.
Well, and it's like you look over at the other side. It's like, well, if I vote for Kamala, I could bring in a party that has had a president in office who did more than get handsy with an intern.
I mean, he was getting blowjobs from her at the Oval. And while he was married, by the way, fine.
Okay. And then the woman who was running is married to a guy who's been credibly accused as an abuser, a woman abuser, which the left wouldn't even cover.
And so it's like, okay, no one is ideal. Like most of these characters who wind up running for office are ideal.
Maybe Mitt Romney was ideal, except for the weird dog stuff. But his policies weren't ideal.
His policies didn't speak to the Republican base. Go ahead.
This came up in the Hegseth nomination, too, where I can't remember which senator asked him, like, were you unfaithful to your wife and suggested that that disqualified him from being the secretary of defense. Was that Tim Kaine? I can't remember who it was, but it was like, are you serious, man? Like, right.
I mean, you ran with Hillary Clinton for a you ran for president with Hillary. How many of these United States senators have been unfaithful to their spouses? But there is this, I think, instinct on the left to say like these matters of personal conduct, which frankly, the country is so far beyond like, yeah, really.
Well, you know, but ironically, I have to say in the left's defense, they got that from the right. You know, the right used to be the more judgmental, like nobody who's had an affair, that party.
It wasn't until Trump came along that that was completely busted open. Remember, the story in 15 was how can evangelicals get behind this guy, this randy, celebrity, handsy percent.
Right. Yeah.
Well, also, Trump was the first person to like first high profile person to understand this about American politics, because the Tim Kaine example is fantastic, at least on the right, that is to say. He brought the Clinton accusers to the debate and put them in like the front row back in 2016.
It was genius, truly genius, because he recognized that his voters and people who could be persuadable to his side, the most important thing he could do was to show that Hillary Clinton does not have the moral high ground when she criticizes his character. And that's what the entire stunt was proving is the emperor is wearing no clothes.
And as soon as you can prove that, Trump realizes he can compete on the policy grounds, but it's convincing those persuadables that there is no moral high ground among his critics. And that's absolutely true.
And it's proven to be true over and over again. It's funny because there was another point at which she and I discussed Trump and his attacks on the media.
And I was saying, like, why are we pretending that we're just like these little butterflies that can't have the wings plucked off? Like, we're tough. We can take, it's fine..
Who cares? Basically what Trump says? Yes, he's demonizing the news media. The whole point would be not to lean in, right? Like try to maintain your objectivity and disprove the accusations.
You look at a place like CNN, that's where they went wrong. Jeff Zucker was like, oh, he's actually

giving me ideas to be an enemy of the people, to be fake news. Yes, that's how I'll drive my ratings up.
Yeah. Put your head down and do your job.
That's it. That's it.
We don't have to spend any time really thinking about his names that he's calling us. Just do the work and try to be fair and try not to have TDS.

Okay, so overall, I thank The Times

for what I thought was a fair interview. I liked Lulu.
If I see her again, I think it'll be friendly. And, um, I think, you know, there was some value to getting in front of the times audience, which by the way, is having a meltdown over the whole interview.
If you look at the comments on the times' YouTube feed, they're so unhappy. They're so mad that I don't believe Eugene Carroll.
I don't believe her at all. Not one word.
Women don't run around laughing about their rapes. And by the way, she can't even remember what year it happened.
Please give me a break. I'll buy you Paris, Rachel.
That is not a rape survivor. Okay.
Anyway, I thank the times for the interview and I thought it was actually a very good conversation. And I'll just add one addendum to Ben Smith of Semaphore.
That's the kind of conversation you and I could have had if you had just asked probative, like open questions to try to get it where media is right now. Like she and I actually plowed new ground

to have sort of somebody from the legacy media talking to somebody like me who was of that world,

but now is in the new. It was an interesting conversation because she was open-minded and she

was honest about like where she was, you know, not getting it. And like that, we advanced the ball.

That's, that's how interviews should be done. So thumbs up.
And I encourage everybody to go

listen to it. It's on the New York times, the daily feed, or you can go to their YouTube channel

Thank you. That we advanced the ball.
That's that's how interviews should be done. So thumbs up.
And I encourage everybody to go listen to it. It's on the New York Times, the daily feed, or you can go to their YouTube channel.
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I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM.

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I do want to spend a minute on Kara Swisher, who is a tech journalist, very nasty person who I used to kind of get along with. I met her at NBC where she was a contributor when I was working there and interviewed her for some tech story involving the Me Too movement.
I can't remember who it was, but it was like a couple of guys out there in Silicon Valley who were not great. And so we interviewed her and we interviewed a bunch of women who were kind of complaining.
And so that's the foot on which we got off, which I would say is a leftist foot, right? Like she met me doing a more left-leaning story and therefore she liked me, right? Because it's like, great, you're a woman of the right, but you're open-minded to sexual harassment claims. So let's go.
Well, we maintained an occasional correspondence via text, et cetera. And I met her like once or twice for a drink.

And I have to say, like, we got along. She's a very tough, ballsy, openly lesbian woman.

And that's fine. I actually have a fair amount of friends who are LGB, LGB.

And that is great. Whatever.
I've got absolutely no issues there. As you know, we stop at the T.
Anyway, so how did things go south? Well, let me play the soundbite first, and then I'll tell you how. Here's her on her podcast.
Megan Kelly's launching a podcast network. Lots of people are doing this.
MK Media launching next month. We'll have shows from Mark Halperin, Maureen Callahan, and Link Lauren.
I think the company she's worked with was sold to Fox, the red whatever you call it. Let's listen to what Megan has to say about this.
So excited about these three. Aren't these a great three to launch with? They cover the gamut, right? It's like Link has got such a following amongst young sort of right-leaning people or independent-minded people who have just had it with the weird left.
Anyway, her podcast, which launched in 2020, I was one of the first people to talk to her about doing a podcast, as I've said before, is consistently one of the most popular news podcasts in the country. I don't know if it's news exactly.
You're kinder than her. I think she's just a rage machine and she has a little act that she takes on the road and screams at women, a lot of women.
But the idea of what's happening here is a bigger thing is there's a lot of really interesting independent companies being created, whether they're on conservative or liberal. And it really is this idea of doing these podcast networks is going to be really interesting in how you do them and keep them entrepreneurial.
I know Scott and I have talked about it, especially the voices on the weird left like ourselves. What is wrong with her? What is wrong is I see you and I hear you and I see how nasty you are to everybody.
And I love that she calls me a rage machine. She is literally known for like walking away with people's balls.
It's a mystery in a mystery in Silicon Valley. Why people continue to sit down with her.
Elon hates her guts. All she does is rip on Elon night and day.
If you are an executive in Silicon Valley that sits with her, you know, she's going to try to leave with your jugular. That's what she's known for.
By the way, I will put my record of protecting women up against Kara Swisher's any day of the week. In fact, I can't think of a single thing Kara Swisher's ever done for women at all, except what? Support abortion rights.
That's probably what she's thinking. But I'll tell you how things went wrong.
And she's right. She did encourage me to launch the podcast.
I remember she sent me a text that said something like, theians are, are for it. Cause she was seeing a bunch of like either lesbian podcasters or just friends that she was after a drink we had.
And I appreciated that. Now, honestly, I, I was very open-minded to Kara Swisher and understood our politics are very different, but you know, I have a lot of friends who are on the other side of the aisle and would never make those the stakes of a relationship.
You know where things went south was she didn't like my COVID commentary once I actually did launch the podcast, either on the show or on X, which was then Twitter. And I was pointing out that young people were getting myocarditis, especially young teenage men, and dying and suffering the world over as a result of these vaccines.
And it wasn't being disclosed. And I was citing Dr.
Vinay Prasad, who was way ahead on this issue, was having pediatric cardiologists on his show and talking about it. She didn't like that.
None of the left liked that. And unfortunately, she invited me to go on her podcast and I agreed.
That's not the unfortunate part. I said, fine, I'll do it.
I was fine. I'm fine mixing it up with people.
I was scheduled to go on, I think on a Tuesday or a Wednesday and the previous Friday, So like five days prior, my sister died. My sister unexpectedly had a heart attack and died at age 58.
And I had Abby text her assistant to say, MK has had something personal happen. Something personal came up and she's not going to be able to make it.
This is five days in advance, but I knew very well I wasn't going to be doing anybody's podcast. And she responded, not the assistant, she responded and said, oh, that sounds like a good idea.
And I certainly hope she'll stay off X in the meantime. So her instinct was to question, right? Like why I was doing it.
Like she wasn't really accepting that it was a personal thing that had happened to me she thought i was trying to avoid her because i was on x saying controversial things that she was she was objecting to and that i didn't i wasn't you know strong enough to go on kara swisher's podcast again like somebody who doesn't fucking know me at all, right? Like I'm afraid of having somebody ask me tough questions or mixing it up. And, uh, Abby responded by saying, actually her sister died and she writes back.
Oh, well, I was only joking. I was only joking, you know, sorry, I'm sorry, but she's a bad person.
That's you're a bad person. Did she ever send me a note? Did she ever say like, I'm so sorry about your sister or, and like the last correspondence we had had was sure I'd, I'd be happy to come on your podcast.
Then she shits on me to my assistant and finds out that she's a shit that I've had a death in the family, someone close to me. And does she say, politics don't matter.
I'm going to shoot her a note. You know, we've had these drinks.
I helped her, whatever. No, she says, oh, I was only joking.
She tries to cover her own ass because she knows she's now made herself look terrible. And from that point forward, all she's done is rip on me.
And frankly, vice versa. I mean, I just see her very differently now.
I think she's a bad person. I think there's a there's a kind of person that cannot put politics to the side.
She liked me when she thought I was a me too loving NBC News employee. And once she realized I wasn't, that I really am more conservative in my worldview, that I would question the COVID vaccines, that suddenly I was too scared to go on with Kara Swisher and must be in bad faith in saying I can't make it after all, and not revealing in the first email my personal tragedy, which Abby would never do without my permission anyway.
It's just, to me, this just shows what we're up against. And now she's out there like, she's a rage machine.
And what is she talking about weird left? Talking about you, Kara, you. You need to make an examination of yourself and your own heart.
Okay, any thoughts on that? Well, I mean, she's just the combination. She has a combination that's really, I think, dangerous, which is sanctimonious and close-minded.
And when you combine those two things, it's really toxic and it makes for very unhappy people. And I think very unappealing media personalities.
And so I'm not entirely surprised by this, but it's just, I think there's a type of journalist who gets validation and sort of the moral affirmations of commentary. And I think unfortunately she's one of those people and it's very dangerous.
Yeah. I don't, it's just like, I'm so over it.
I don't know. Eliana, you've been like openly conservative for a long time.
Like, do you have friends on the left? Do you maintain friendships? Do they make politics the stakes? You know, it's an interesting question. I've always found like when I worked at Politico and when I was a contributor at CNN and even in college and that sort of left left wing environment, I found if you keep your views to yourself and don't express them, that's how I've sort of made my way and made peace there.
And I haven't found people necessarily coming to, you know, a few people, a few people will come and pick fights with you. But the trouble comes if you actually openly express your views.
Right. People don't like it.
It's like, if you want to talk about what you think becomes a problem. If you're going to keep your head down and not say what you think, like you can get by peaceably.
It's so sad. It's really sad.
Like I, that's how different we are. Like I knew very well how leftist she was.
I didn't care. I don't care.
I just don't care about that in my friendships. Life is too short, you know, but she cared.
Like she, once she saw where I stood on COVID, it was a bridge too far. She was, she turned off.
She thought I was like somehow gross and afraid and a liar. Like it's okay.
Whatever. I mean, enough time spent on her, but yeah, go ahead, Emily.
But you were right. This is what drives me crazy.
It's like, you were right. And she was holding herself up as the, as the sort of fact based arbiter of truth and using her platform to smear you.
And it's turned out that you were vindicated. So that's what I think is just like so egregious that there's no humility looking back and thinking like I was the one who was in the wrong and I was coming out real hot.
I was real sanctified. I was real close minded.
I was wrong. Megan was right.
Shouldn't have smeared her. There's just none of that.
It's just more smears. Yeah.
I just don't understand why you wouldn't then reach out to me and say, Hey, hope you're okay. I just, I genuinely don't get it as mystery to me, whatever.
Uh, it life's about, you know, the people who are there for you, not the ones who aren't. Um, okay.
So let's move on. I think it's fascinating the way that the white house correspondents association has canceled this comedian.
Now this guy, Eugene Daniel, Eugene Daniels, we've shown him to the audience before. He's the one.
He's openly LGB. I don't know about T.
I mean, he's posting pictures of himself in like trying to look like Beyonce and sexy Beyonce clothing and wigs. Okay, this is him.
He's the president of the white house correspondence. Okay.
Yeah, I don't. Okay.
The listening audience, please just go to youtube.com. Okay.
I can't do this justice. Go about an hour into the show and you will see it.
YouTube.com slash Megan Kelly. And, uh, Eugene thought this woman, Amber Ruffin would be a great hire for the White House Correspondents Dinner.
And now, why did he think that she would be a great hire for this dinner? Where the rule here at the Gridiron, at the Al Smith Dinner, all of which are events at which the president will typically appear. I mean, it's a great get.
The president will come and he'll make fun of himself and he'll take the press's barbs to or those of a comedian. And it's like a spirit of unity.
But the rule was always singe, don't burn. That is the rule until Trump.
And then these comedians started coming out and lighting bonfires about Sarah's Huckabee Sanders and her devil mascara or whatever the line was. I can't remember it, but it was mean.
And ripping Trump, like, talk about burning. I mean, it was truly like five alarm fire burning.
Okay, we have an example of this? Yeah, here's a montage. Oh, here we go.
My team's way ahead of me of some of what we've seen over the years. It's not 11 against Trump.
And I am truly honored to be here, even though all of Hollywood pulled out now that King Joffrey is president. It feels like the Red Wedding in here.
We got to address the elephant that's not in the room. Trump isn't here.
If you haven't noticed, he's not here. And I know, I know I would drag him here myself.
But it turns out the president of the United States is the one pussy you're not allowed to grab. Nice.
You're all supposed to keep it classy, but anyway, so Amber Ruffin gets hired for the gig and, um, hold on a second. Do we have, We have, okay, we have a little bit of how she sounded prior to getting hired.
Here's take a listen. In an interview on Monday, President Trump said that the phrase Black Lives Matter is, quote, bad for black people.
I fact checked that statement and I found out that it is, in fact, not true. I did some more digging and found out that it was also a dumb thing to think.
In addition to that, it's an even dumber thing to say. And those are the facts.
Oh, my God. That is just so typical leftist.
It's not funny. It's political.
It's ripping Trump. She's looking for applause, not laughs.
And so Eugene Daniels was like, yeah, right on. That's our girl.
Let's do this. So she gets hired and the Trump white house through a spokesperson, a deputy comms person tweets out, I think, I think comms tweets out something like, really, really? And she then goes on a media tour promoting her gig.
And the media tour gets her fired. Here in particular is what appears to have gotten her fired, Sot7.
Okay, so will anyone from the administration be attending? How much do you actually know about who will be in attendance? Do you get, like, the rundown? I'm sure that I will at some point. You will.
I know the news organizations that will be attending. Like, I'm not 100% interested in being like, ha, you're here, look at your stupid head, you're burned.
I care. Like, you're kind of a bunch of murderers.
I mean, so like they were like, you need to be, you know, equal and make sure that the that you give it to both sides and blah, blah, blah. I was like, there's no way I'm going to be freaking doing that, dude.
Under no circumstance. Yeah, I think it's just that burns on Trump hurt badly.

And then it trickles down to everyone who's around him.

Because y'all are also guilty.

So I think it just, they got their feelings hurt.

But it may want that false equivalency that the media does.

They want that.

It feels great.

It makes them feel like human beings.

But they shouldn't get to feel that way

because they're not.

Some people are more culpable than others.

That's right.

And they get more jokes made about them

and the jokes are meaner

because they're doing things that are worse

in a lot of ways.

That's how that goes.

It can't be even.

It actually can't.

You could do it. It can't be even handed and becoming a part of what's wrong.
This is who they hire. So that finally got her fired with this sanctimonious statement by Eugene Daniels, who had earlier said, I mean, this woman's beliefs about Trump and the right.
We're not a mystery. We could play 10 more soundbites.
But when he hired her on February 4th, he announced he personally chose her, that her talents are unique and the ideal fit for this current political and cultural climate. Her perspective will fit right in, right in, he said, at this dinner.
And only when she came out and said the truth about what she's going to do to Samantha Bee on this podcast was he then forced, because the White House and the right were completely

ripping them to shreds, and I'm sure that there were many right-leaning journalists saying,

we're not going, not going to go sit there, and the administration, I mean, Trump's not going

already, but maybe they got an administration official or two, I'm sure all of whom said,

we're out. Then he issues this statement saying, the White House Correspondents Association board

And I think that's a good word. But maybe they got an administration official or two.
I'm sure all of whom said we're out. Then he issues the statement saying the White House Correspondents Association board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year.
I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division, but entirely on awarding our colleagues, he says, at this consequential moment for journalism, entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work, their scholarship and mentorship for the next generation of journalists. So what do you make of it, Emily? It's now, there's not going to be a comedian because what we need to do is focus on the outstanding work of the White House press corps.
Oh, yes, it must be celebrated. This is exactly what we were talking about earlier in that any time they say that there's disproportionate like, oh, your coverage isn't even.
It's not balanced between Republicans and Democrats. They say that's because Republicans are worse.
This is where they can't even tell what their own biases are. And obviously, this is a comedian who is clearly on the left.
She's not claiming to be anything else. But that's the White House Correspondents Association, the bastion of journalistic integrity, saying her views are going to fit right in.
Of course, like this is exactly what we need. And, you know, if they wanted someone who would do a great job skewering Trump and skewering Democrats as well, you could find someone like Thea Vaughn or you could find someone like even Joe Rogan or Shane Gillis, Andrew Schultz, these guys.
Sebastian Maniscalco. Right.
And it's actually a really good parallel with what we're talking about with your New York Times interview. It's like they don't understand that some really popular comedians actually go after Republicans to actually go after Trump like their equal opportunity in the same way a lot of podcasters are equal opportunity.
They don't hold back when they disagree with him or when he does something that's funny and could be spoofed or satirized. And so they have no idea.
They're just in these insane bubbles where they think the only person who could do a good job at the White House Correspondents Association dinner is Amber Ruffin, who is not funny. It's like they hadn't evolved since 2017 with the rest of the country, even though Donald Trump was just elected again with an even higher margin in the Electoral College.
So they're completely out of touch. They were caught in it.
And the last thing I'll say is this is always what the White House Correspondents Association dinner should have been. They want to claim it's a fundraiser.
They want to claim the moral high ground. We're fundraising for journalism.
It's about democracy. OK, well, then stop making it a Hollywood spectacle and just fundraise.
Do that. Fine.
But stop acting like this is some great thing for the country when it's actually just an orgy of elitism. Yeah.
Or, you know, it would have been so easy, Eliana, go for Jim Gaffigan, who spoke at the Al Smith dinner. He's a comedian.
He he's never been really a Trump fan, but he did a great job that night of ripping on both sides. Remember, this is the one that Kamala didn't show up at.
It's this big Catholic ado in New York City. We were there and Trump clearly finds him acceptable because Trump showed up.
Gaffigan was there. Trump was there.
Trump laughed. He was very able to make fun of himself, very open to it.
If it's a singe, not burn. It's not that hard.
Just freaking pay up. Go with Gaffigan.
Go with somebody you know Trump. But they didn't they don't care.
They don't want Trump there.

And by the way, Eugene Daniels knew that because he did a joint interview with this Amber Ruffin on Morning Joe when they made the announcement.

And the following exchange happened.

Look at SOT9.

You say you have invited President Trump and the first lady to attend.

In his first term, he never did. He didn't.

He didn't.

He had four shots.

Four shots. He missed them all.
Do you hope to see him there? No.

No, no, she said, sitting next to Eugene. He's well aware of Amber's feelings about the Trump

administration and Trump himself. That's how she got the invite.
So why do you think he pulled it?

Like, why didn't he just say, oh, calm down, we're going to stick by her? A couple of reasons. I mean, first of all, the goal should be to have the president there makes it a more newsworthy event.
And one thing we haven't talked about is that there's talk of actually the White House participating in a counter-programming event with conservative

journalists, which would actually take the air out of this event. But Eugene Daniels, who was a co-author of Politico Playbook, sort of the flagship newsletter of the DC elites, has quit that and left to be a host on the left-wing MSNBC, which is spinning off from MSNBC or from NBC to become its own, you know, network, independent network.
And as a result of that, there have been calls for him to resign from the White House correspondence from the presidency of the White House Correspondents Association, which is supposed to be held by somebody who's an ostensibly neutral White House reporter. And he's resisted those calls.
I think there's also been some unhappiness with the way the White House Correspondents Association has managed this rift with the White House over the White House's takeover of the pool, the White House press pool. This is all very, very Washington inside baseball.
But the long and short of it is there's a vibe shift in this town. And this is part of it, which is that it now hurts you to have some lunatic comedian appearing at the White House Correspondents Association dinner.
And rather than be honest about that and say this is not an appropriate entertainer for our dinner because she said X, Y and Z, they're doing a New York Times and they are lying to their audience about the real reasons for this shift.

And beyond that, you know, the ultimate defense of comedy is being funny. And she did not have that defense.
You know, like that's just no, that's right. That's not her goal.
Like Stephen Colbert, like Jimmy Kimmel. Well, that was another thing I forgot to mention that Lulu and I had an exchange on my time at NBC and Blackface.
and there was a point which I said, you know, look, I was asking the question about when did that go from being something

you could do with him Lulu and I had an exchange on my time at NBC and blackface. And there was a point which I said, you know, look, I was asking the question about when

did that go from being something you could do with impunity to something you'd get canceled

for?

And she was like, everyone knew it was racist.

And I said, did they really?

I like everyone knows now, you know, thanks to what happened to me at NBC.

That's also why we have more black Santas everywhere. So you're welcome, everyone.
Um, and so I said that everyone knows now. And, uh, she was like, and then here's, I hear, I'll tell you what I said.
I actually have it here. Sam, I meant to read this earlier.
I said, uh, I knew that that had been my experience growing up in the seventies and eighties that people used to do it. I just didn't know that NBC had been airing shows in the past couple of years with people doing it like scrubs, like Jimmy Kimmel.
I meant Fallon. Um, you know, they opened the Oscars with Billy Crystal in blackface.
There were so many examples. Um, I said in the interview, but I didn't have it at the ready because I wasn't expecting a huge controversy over it.
What'd you say, Steve Krakauer? And then Jimmy Kimmel, of course, did it, too. Jimmy Kimmel did it doing Karl Malone.
I mean, he was speaking in Ebonics. It was like the most offensive thing you've ever seen in your life.
Fine. He's on ABC News every night tonight or ABC every night.
Then I went on to say she said I she said I thought everyone understands that blackface is racist. And I said, now they do, but trust me, some of this made the dance, but not much.
I said, Jimmy Kimmel didn't understand it. Jimmy Fallon didn't understand it.
NBC didn't understand it. Julianne Hough, who opened the Oscars doing a land acknowledgement the other night, didn't understand it when she was wearing it.
Ted Danson didn't understand it. Whoopi Goldberg didn't understand it.
I mean, I could keep going now all day. If you want to, I could give you 12 more names.
So it's not true, Lulu, that everybody understood that. It is not.
So that was my question. When did it go from something that people used to do with impunity? Hello, Justin Trudeau.
She included that part to something that will get you canceled. If you go back and look at my comments on the air, that is what I asked.

And I went on to say, um, and that, and for that question, as you point out, ostensibly,

they ruined my career. They bazooka'd me, not they, Andy Lack.
He bazooka'd me by the way,

he later lost his job. Um, so anywho, that's this woman, Amber Ruffin and her history was well known to these people.
I have no sympathy for them. I'll just give you one other soundbite, which is why I think Eugene Daniels hired her and loved her so much and thought she was a perfect fit.
Here she was in 2021 after the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict on her own show, which was on NBC's Peacock. It's not okay for the judicial system to be blatantly and obviously stacked against people of color.
It's not okay for there to be an entirely different set of rules for white people. White people have been getting away with murder since time began.
I don't care about that. I care about you.
You matter so much that the second you start to get a sense that you do, a man will grab a gun he shouldn't have in the first place and travel all the way to another state just to quiet you. So, yeah, that's why he wanted her.
And he learned the hard way. Those days are over.
That kind of, you know, just divisive rhetoric is over. The vast majority of the country has rejected it.
And we don't think it's funny. We don't think her brand of comedy is funny.
So goodbye. Enjoy your ongoing obscurity, Amber.
In the world of podcasting and media shows is now Gavin Newsom, the governor of California.

There is no bigger fan of Gavin Newsom than Bill Maher.

He loves the guy.

Bill, snap out of it.

And he had Gavin Newsom on his show on Friday night. A couple of soundbites making the rounds, including this one on the trans issue, SOT19.

A lot of people lately talking about this 80-20 issue. And I think you are on the other side of this now, the side with the 80.
80 being 80% of the people in this country. Again, this is the issue of should biologically born men be able to compete in women's sports? That's tough.
And, you know you I saw the polling here in California. They think you're a traitor for saying this.
Yeah. You know, when most kind of people call you a traitor, there's a word for that electable.
If the Democrats can't get with 80, how are they going to do something when it's a 51 49? No, look, I get get it. And the other side weaponizes these issues.
They dehumanize, they attack, they demean, and they've weaponized this issue extraordinarily well. That said, the fundamental question, is it fair? And I can give you example after example.
Just in my home state, there was someone that won a triple jump by eight feet. It was fundamentally unfair.
We haven't been able to figure that out. You see, the right has weaponized, one might even say they pounced, Emily, on this issue.
I mean, yeah, of course. It was the right who was just so excited to talk about bathrooms and locker rooms.
They just couldn't resist it, couldn't wait. It wasn't the Obama administration that had a dear colleague letter that wasn't even going through the proper legislative process and suddenly transformed how every school around the country had to use their bathrooms and locker rooms and do sports.
No, no, no. It was absolutely the right who just couldn't wait to make an issue out of transgender kids.
I mean, this is why Gavin Newsom, I think, is having a hard time on his rehabilitation tour as he's launched his podcast. And it's because he's like, it's impossible for him to run from his actual record because he can't fully disavow it.
He can't fully get away from it. It's like how he said, nobody in our office ever used Latinx.
And then a million clips were produced of Gavin Newsom himself, let alone his office, saying the word Latinx. Like he can't fully divorce himself from the last 10 years of politics.
So he tried to tell Charlie Kirk, like nobody in my office has ever used that term Latinx. And then who was it that put it that put this together? Uh, the, the long, Oh, is it was the K file, Andrew Kaczynski, who is one of the best things about CNN.
It's a very short list. You got Harry Enten and you got Andrew.
I'm sure there's something more. Um, I like Tapper.
He's a friend of mine, but I know our audience, not, not, not huge fans. Um, here, Here's what he found put together after Newsom was out there claiming, never, never.

I hope we can really paint a picture in terms of our consciousness of how impactful this has been

on the Latinx community, Latinx community, the Latinx and black communities. You've got politicians

that are banning, not assault rifles, but the word Latinx. They're not even serious.
That's so fun. Gavin, Gavin, a simple Google search about yourself will serve you well before you make these sweeping claims.
But on the same dishonest, disingenuous front, he tried to act like he's the reasonable one on the trans and the children issue, Eliana, which is a lie. His state is as radical as they come.
Only Minnesota under Tim Walz is more radical, which to his credit, because Bill Maher is on the right side on this issue, meaning correct side. He did raise with Gavin Newsom, who then wiggled and wormed and which was typical in the interview, did not accept any responsibility.
Here it is in side 18. But Governor, you were the poster boy for a lot of this stuff.
California had a rule that schools cannot be required to notify parents if their kids in school have changed their gender, their pronouns. It makes a lot of people go, well, you know what? That's the party without common sense.
Now, if that's your state, how are you... I just disagree with that.
I mean, the law was you would be fired, a teacher would be fired, if a teacher did not report or snitch on a kid talking about their gender identity. I just think that was wrong.
I think teachers should teach. I don't think they should be required to turn in kids.
And by the way, turn in? We're talking about their parents. How can you snitch? The idea of a snitch and a parent, to me, doesn't compete.
Well, I just, I don't, but what is the job of a teacher? It's to teach. If Johnny's talking about some identity issue or some issue about liking someone of the same sex, is the teacher's job to then report that? By the way, in this law, the teacher can still do that, but they can't be fired if that's what, can't be fired if that's not what they do.
And that's something I think is, I just think that was fair. God bless Bill Maher for trying, Eliana.
I genuinely appreciate him with the retort of how can you snitch to one's parents when you're talking about a minor and very serious mental problems? I agree with all of that. However, I hate to say I do think that this podcast thing that Newsom is doing is is pretty smart if he wants to run for president in twenty twenty eight.
It appears he is laser focused on that. And Marr actually introduced him as, you know, he's running for president, too, because he is like, look, you said he's worse except for Tim wallss.
Well, he's doing better than like the vast majority than the Democratic Party, which is switching his position. So he's like, you know, far ahead of all of them.
And so the question really is, like, are people going to hold it against him that he's switched all of his positions? I'm not sure if that's really going to matter four years from now. There's going to be lots of embarrassing video, but that's sort of the question that's hanging in my mind is how much will that dog him? But he's doing better than the rest of his party mates.
I mean, I said this on the Times interview as well. He is smart to start this.
And the reason he's smart to start it is because he has no muscles, Emily, none. He's a sinewy little weakling when it comes to arguing any of these issues, especially cultural issues, because he, like all liberals, has never had to do it.
So now he's trying to get his training, which is smart on his part, and it would be smart on the part of conservatives to say no, because they declined to help him get in shape before the big bout. We're supposed to be helping Rocky, not Drago.
What happens if there's no Republican president and everything just sort of goes back to the way that it was before? Gavin Newsom's not going to be the bulwark for sanity when it comes to kids' sports or bathrooms or locker rooms. Look at what happened to the prisons in California.
I mean, it's just been awful, awful under him. So it is smart, but if he could go a step further and be honest about what he got wrong and why he got it wrong, that would be really impressive.
But that's the one thing he will not do. He can't admit.
That's why he said Latinx. Nobody used it in our office.
Like the one thing he can't do is say, here's why I was using the word Latinx. Here's why I thought it was right.
Here's why I was supporting these locker room things. Here's why I thought it was right.
And here's why I was wrong. He won't do that.
So he's not really going to get a lot of the trust back. It's a start because it's not sincere.
It's not sincere. Like if it were sincere, he would totally own it and say like, you know, I am genuinely sorry about this.
It's Carol Markowitz has a great piece in the New York post today writing about, it was posted on real clear politics, talking about how the, the left seems to be at least grappling with the fact that wokeism was an epic fail and like heartily rejected by the American people, has been and continues to be. But they want to quietly move past it without any acknowledgments of what they did.
And same on COVID, same exact thing on COVID. The New York Times, you know, two weeks ago with its piece, like, gee, it really looks like it came from a lab.
Why didn't anyone discuss that? Like, you know, conservatives, like fire coming out of everybody's ears. What is because you, your paper, they were calling people racist.
What do you mean? We were discussing it. Yeah, we, we were misled.
So it's like, they're trying to do this little sleight of hand, not little, large sleight of hand because they lost that there. They looked at that swing state polling, which said they lost because of these issues.
The trans thing, especially in sports, number one. And now they're quietly trying to just reverse where they stand without any acknowledgement of what they've done.
And frankly, of the reality that 30 days ago, they unanimously voted against a very short, clean, simple bill in the U.S. Senate that would have said boys may not participate in girls sports nationwide, period.
They all reject. Not one Democrat said, I will vote for that.
And nor did Gavin Newsom come out and say, I would really like it if our California state senators or US senators would vote for this because it's unfair. I was an athlete.
I have daughters. Let me tell you why I know he's not leading on this because none of this is sincere.
It is all electoral politics. It's smart electoral politics, but it's not sincere.
Okay. I stole the last word.
We're out of time. You guys, thank you so much.
It's a pleasure as always. Thanks, Megan.
Thanks, Megan. And thanks to all of you for listening.
We are going to have two episodes coming out tomorrow. I'm actually going to do a, like a speech, a speaking engagement tonight.
So we actually have a very interesting

show that's on tape that is all new content for you during the 12 o'clock hour tomorrow. And then

we will drop a new podcast that I will be doing live later in the day tomorrow when I get off

the airplane. So look forward to that.
Thank you all as always for watching and listening.

Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
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