Speaker 1: Welcome to the special edition of The Steven A. Smiths Show.
Speaker 1: Coming at You is. I love to do it very
Speaker 1: these three times.
Speaker 2: A week over the digital airways or YouTube, and of
Speaker 2: course iHeartRadio as always. I like to take a moment
Speaker 2: to pause and thank my subscribers and followers constantly listening
Speaker 2: and watching me over iHeartRadio. It There's been millions of
Speaker 2: downloads over the last few months, and of course over
Speaker 2: the digital airways of YouTube, where I've now eclipsed one
Speaker 2: point one eight million subscribers. Can't thank y'all for the
Speaker 2: love and support enough. Keep it coming, and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: keep on coming. This is a special edition, but not
Speaker 2: because of you know, special subject. It's a special interview,
Speaker 2: special person appearing on the show. She's been in the
Speaker 2: news a lot lately, especially during the election. If you
Speaker 2: watch the Megan Kelly Show, Sirius XM, YouTube, various other places,
Speaker 2: She's she's a monster right now. She's big time, over
Speaker 2: three million subscribers and growing and growing and growing every
Speaker 2: single day. Her topics are very poignant, her opinions are
Speaker 2: very poignant. Her perspective is real. She is a journalist,
Speaker 2: a former journalist, still a journalist. Actually she's a lawyer.
Speaker 2: She's been a host, Fox News, NBC, et cetera. She's
Speaker 2: going through a lot in her career, but she's had
Speaker 2: an opportunity and a sort of a renaissance, to be
Speaker 2: quite honest with you, with the things that she is doing.
Speaker 2: She clearly is in support of Donald Trump, was in
Speaker 2: support of Donald Trump as he was running for election.
Speaker 2: Ultimately he won the presidency. One would like to believe
Speaker 2: one could tomorrow she had something to do with that,
Speaker 2: with her unwavering support of him, considering their history with
Speaker 2: one another. Some people would say that was a surprise,
Speaker 2: but nevertheless, she's gone all in. Some people have labeled
Speaker 2: her an extreme conservative. Some people leave being associated with
Speaker 2: her with MAGA. She calls herself a registered independent. No
Speaker 2: matter which way you slice it, at times she appears
Speaker 2: incredibly controversial. As far as I'm concerned, She's usually very factual,
Speaker 2: if not always. She doesn't mess around. She lets you
Speaker 2: know where she stands, and she usually has details and
Speaker 2: facts to back it up. I'm fascinated by her personally
Speaker 2: in terms of the job that she does over the airwaves,
Speaker 2: whether it be digital streaming or otherwise.
Speaker 1: Her career has spoken for herself.
Speaker 2: She's been highly successful, and I'm looking forward to talking
Speaker 2: to her. I am not going to agree with everything
Speaker 2: that she says, nor do I expect you to, but
Speaker 2: I have repeatedly told you all it. On this platform,
Speaker 2: we hear from both sides, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: hear any noise about stephen A talking to yet somebody
Speaker 2: else on the right.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of folks on the left that.
Speaker 2: I have invited on this show, that I have had
Speaker 2: on this show, that I'm willing to have on this
Speaker 2: show in the future. But the same is applicable to
Speaker 2: the right. No matter what you feel, I don't give
Speaker 2: a damn. I'm gonna hear from everybody, and if there's
Speaker 2: one person I definitely wanted to hear from, it is
Speaker 2: Megan Kelly.
Speaker 1: She is a monolist.
Speaker 2: She is the truth and a half, and I'm looking
Speaker 2: forward to talking with her. Even when I don't believe
Speaker 2: what she's saying. Oh, I want to challenge what she
Speaker 2: has said. She has proven to be highly credible over
Speaker 2: the years, and I'm fascinated by her growth because she
Speaker 2: seems to be skyrocketing. I want to hear what she
Speaker 2: has to say. I want to hear perspective on things
Speaker 2: and why, and I think it's something you'd want to
Speaker 2: hear as well. That's why I asked her to come
Speaker 2: on the show, and I'm lucky enough to have her
Speaker 2: accept my invitation.
Speaker 1: The one and only Megan Kelly up next right here
Speaker 1: on The Stephen A. Smith Show.
Speaker 2: Don't go away all right, folks, I need you all
Speaker 2: to stop what you're doing in listen. You know I
Speaker 2: love this time of year, right the NBA playoffs are
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Speaker 1: Hey, hey, run your game today.
Speaker 2: I'll give you my picks for Thursday's game between my
Speaker 2: beloved New York Knicks and the Detroit Pistons.
Speaker 1: So let's get to it.
Speaker 2: First, up, Well Cunningham scored more or less than twenty
Speaker 2: eight and a half points.
Speaker 1: Have you seen his brother play? I mean he looks
Speaker 1: like the best player on the court.
Speaker 2: Smooth the Silk Brothers, got sizing them, got a jake
Speaker 2: and get to the hole, got a mid range game,
Speaker 2: can finish at the basket the brothers. I'm going with
Speaker 2: more than twenty eight and a half points, averaging about
Speaker 2: thirty already. Next up, Well, Jaylen Brunton scored more or
Speaker 2: less than twenty eight and a half points.
Speaker 1: Yes he will, but it'll be tougher.
Speaker 2: He I got so much admiration for big body Brunton,
Speaker 2: as my brother Kendrick Perkins loves to call him, all right, undersized, thick, stocky, big,
Speaker 2: and herky jerky moves. Finds a way to get his
Speaker 2: shot off and make things happen. Plus hitting the three,
Speaker 2: getting into the lane, et cetera. Though some big boys
Speaker 2: that play for the Detroit Pistons, but he's the only
Speaker 2: weapon that's shown up for the New York Knicks offensively.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with more for Jalen Brunson on this one.
Speaker 2: Next up, well, Detroutch Tobias Harris scored more or less
Speaker 2: than fourteen and a half points he did game two.
Speaker 2: I don't think he will in this particular game. I
Speaker 2: think he's gonna be primarily focused on defending against Karl
Speaker 2: Anthony Townsen because he did so so successfully in Game two.
Speaker 2: I think offense won't be a priority on his home
Speaker 2: court because I think others will fill up.
Speaker 1: Will you fill in the.
Speaker 2: Spots, the Beasleys of the worlds, the durings of the
Speaker 2: world and others. I think he'll score less fourteen and
Speaker 2: a half points, but he'll put most of his work
Speaker 2: in on the defensives end of the floor, along with
Speaker 2: the rebounding. Finally, will Michel Bridges scored more or less
Speaker 2: than sixteen and a half points. I would like to
Speaker 2: say I hope so, but I don't believe so.
Speaker 1: I didn't like the way he looked in Game two.
Speaker 2: He missed all four of his shots in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 2: including that wide open three with at the top of
Speaker 2: the key with eleven seconds left in the game.
Speaker 1: I think he was a bit fatigued.
Speaker 2: I think that we got to keep an eye out
Speaker 2: on for him because he's played, you know, all the
Speaker 2: eighty two games and offense, eve the minutes that he's logged,
Speaker 2: et cetera, to one of those situations where he could
Speaker 2: be worn down, and I don't know how ready he's
Speaker 2: gonna be for game three. So that's it for me,
Speaker 2: right there. Okay, let's go over the list again. More
Speaker 2: for Caid cutting him, more for Jalen Brunson, less for
Speaker 2: Tobias Harris, and less for Michel Bridges, even Steven as
Speaker 2: they call it, you know what I mean. That's what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do here, understanding, not how it goes
Speaker 2: when you're talking about prospects with Stephen A. So go
Speaker 2: to the Prospects app and check out the Steven A.
Speaker 2: Smith Show community play. It's boosted twenty five percent.
Speaker 1: You heard me.
Speaker 2: My next guest is a journalist, an attorney of course,
Speaker 2: a political commentator, and host of her own daily show
Speaker 2: on Serious Extemps Triumph Channel. Please welcome. I think it's
Speaker 2: safe to call her, the incomparable one, herself, the one
Speaker 2: and only Meghan Kelly is on the stephen A.
Speaker 1: Smith Show. Hi Meghan, how are you? How's everything?
Speaker 3: I'm great? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Well, please, the honor is all mine. First of all,
Speaker 2: I way, hey, congratulations on order. You were name to
Speaker 2: the Time list of the one hundred most Influential People
Speaker 2: for a second time. By the way, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 2: I'd like to know congratulations. I'd like to say, first
Speaker 2: of all, and secondly, how does that feel for you?
Speaker 3: Thank you for that?
Speaker 4: Can I tell you say? Maybe you can help me
Speaker 4: decide this? Should I go to this thing? It's a
Speaker 4: big gala on Thursday. And I'll tell you something, stephen A. I.
Speaker 4: When I first got named the list back in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 4: I thought it was a big deal because my career
Speaker 4: was just kind of on the upswing and it meant
Speaker 4: something to me. Now, I have to be honest, it
Speaker 4: means absolutely nothing to me. When they called, I was like, whatever,
Speaker 4: all these people hate me and everything I stand for
Speaker 4: and they're very annoying. But then I was like, maybe
Speaker 4: I'll show up just so I can sort of telegraph
Speaker 4: the FU message and like a really great dress on
Speaker 4: the red carpet.
Speaker 3: Then I'm like, well, that's not the spair.
Speaker 4: I've really been wrestling with whether I should even pay
Speaker 4: any attention to this at all or just go on
Speaker 4: about my life.
Speaker 1: Megan, I am the worst person in the world.
Speaker 2: You should ask that question too, because I could give
Speaker 2: less than a damn about these things. Most time, I
Speaker 2: like to show courtesy or respect to people who.
Speaker 1: Give it to me.
Speaker 2: But I'm not in this business to be celebrated. I
Speaker 2: want to be respected. I want to get paid for
Speaker 2: my hard work. But in the same breath, I don't
Speaker 2: need applause and alcolades and celebratory folks around me. I
Speaker 2: could care less not to mention the fact that you
Speaker 2: did say A lot of them can't stand you, so
Speaker 2: why should you be in their presence? But then again,
Speaker 2: it's recognizing how influential you and showing up. You know
Speaker 2: that might not be such a bad thing, And you
Speaker 2: don't mind rubbing into somebody's face from time to time.
Speaker 1: I could tell that about you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm just not really looking
Speaker 4: to achieve the approval of anybody who would be at
Speaker 4: that thing. But then I heard that there's a possibility
Speaker 4: both Megan Markle and Blake Lively will be there, in
Speaker 4: which case I was like, well, I'm definitely going. I'm
Speaker 4: going with my iPhone and I'm going to have to
Speaker 4: go over them and try to get them to say
Speaker 4: something to me, like I've reported so much on both
Speaker 4: of them, Like.
Speaker 3: That's almost irresistible. So I don't know. I have a
Speaker 3: couple of days to decide.
Speaker 2: Listen, you think about it, whatever choice you want to make,
Speaker 2: you want to make, and listen, nobody can say a
Speaker 2: damn thing to you because it's been earned, and make
Speaker 2: no mistake about it. I mean, you're a person that's
Speaker 2: been around for a long time. You've done exceptional work.
Speaker 2: I know it's not I'm not supposed to say these things,
Speaker 2: but I am a fan. I have been a guest
Speaker 2: on your show. I do watch you a lot, and
Speaker 2: damn it, you've proven me wrong on several occasions.
Speaker 1: So here I stand down with that.
Speaker 2: You know, Megan Kelly, when you talk about people not
Speaker 2: liking most of them can't stand you. Why do you
Speaker 2: think people would feel such negative thoughts towards you today?
Speaker 4: If you had the guests, well, if you have Trump
Speaker 4: arrangement syndrome. Then you don't like me because I've supported
Speaker 4: the president and defended a lot of the things that
Speaker 4: they tell us are Hitler esque about Trump, so you know,
Speaker 4: I'd get caught up in that whole fervor. And a
Speaker 4: lot of people hate Fox News, so they don't like
Speaker 4: me from those years. And a lot of people believe,
Speaker 4: you know, just negative things, negative hit pieces that are
Speaker 4: put out on you over the years, and they tend
Speaker 4: to be very left. Normal lefties, I think are fine
Speaker 4: with me. All my friends are normal lefties, but far
Speaker 4: left lefties those are not my fans.
Speaker 3: And that's fine.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm not everybody's cup of tea, can be
Speaker 4: I can be off putting in a certain commentary of mine, but.
Speaker 3: You know, for the most part, if you know me,
Speaker 3: you probably like me.
Speaker 2: Well, do you find yourself to be a righty or
Speaker 2: do you find somebody Do you find yourself to be
Speaker 2: somebody who's just anti left because of what the left
Speaker 2: represents in the eyes of a lot of people in
Speaker 2: this day and age.
Speaker 4: That's a good question because I don't really describe myself
Speaker 4: as conservative. When people write about me, they say, like
Speaker 4: a conservative podcaster and It always kind of jars me
Speaker 4: a little, like that's that's not quite right.
Speaker 3: I'm a registered independent.
Speaker 4: I was raised a Democrat, I voted Democrat for many,
Speaker 4: many years, and then I just started drifting right word
Speaker 4: when the country lost its mind. You know, when I
Speaker 4: was on Fox, I would say I was probably about
Speaker 4: a six on the ideological scale of Hannity's a ten,
Speaker 4: and now I'm like an eight point five.
Speaker 3: But I don't really feel like I changed at all.
Speaker 4: I just feel like the country changed and I looked
Speaker 4: down at the same spot where my feet were and
Speaker 4: things had shifted underneath me.
Speaker 3: But I'm definitely not a liberal.
Speaker 4: You know, I can't think of anything I'm liberal on,
Speaker 4: so I think it's probably a fair label to call
Speaker 4: me a conservative.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't really resonate with me.
Speaker 2: When do you believe that the country shifted to a
Speaker 2: point where you could no longer find yourself remotely identifying
Speaker 2: with the left? What year was that, What issue was that?
Speaker 2: When do you believe that happened for you?
Speaker 4: Well, it was probably twenty seventeen, eighteen nineteen, and then
Speaker 4: the explosion of twenty twenty wokeness really did me in
Speaker 4: because I was always railing against.
Speaker 3: What we used to call political correctness.
Speaker 4: You know that. Remember Bill Marshaw was called politically incorrect.
Speaker 4: It wasn't called wokeness up until like the late teens
Speaker 4: or you know, nineteen twenty or twenty twenty, and that
Speaker 4: I really that's I'm devoting my life to fighting wokeism.
Speaker 4: I can't stand it. I think it's the most pernicious,
Speaker 4: dangerous force that's in America today or in the world
Speaker 4: today in some ways. So if there's anything associated, you know,
Speaker 4: an association between the left and wokeness, I abhor it.
Speaker 3: I fight it.
Speaker 4: I want nothing to do with it, and I would
Speaker 4: never wear a team.
Speaker 3: Jersey that would associate me with that.
Speaker 4: And I think most Republicans feel that way, and most
Speaker 4: Conservatives do too, So whatever that is, I'm totally anti it,
Speaker 4: you know, so is Bill Maher incidentally, but he still
Speaker 4: votes Democrat. But I'm just as vehemently anti I woke
Speaker 4: and I vote Republican.
Speaker 2: These days define wokeism in the eyes of Megan Kelly,
Speaker 2: because so many people sit up there and talk about, well,
Speaker 2: woke used to me something different. I know that being
Speaker 2: conscientious and being observant and paying attention to what was
Speaker 2: going on. But obviously that's taking on a different definition
Speaker 2: over the last several years. So in your mind, what
Speaker 2: you abhor about wokeism, how it's defined in your mind,
Speaker 2: tell us what that is.
Speaker 4: Well, it's an obsession with identity, and it tends to
Speaker 4: be it could be feminism as the left uses that term,
Speaker 4: which is very unattractive to me, but it's The two
Speaker 4: main pillars are race essentialism and gender radicalism, where they
Speaker 4: tell young white kids in school that they're born with
Speaker 4: original sin that can never be overcome, and they tell
Speaker 4: young brown and black kids in school that they're born
Speaker 4: with some sort of inherent perceived defect that we're really
Speaker 4: sorry they were born with, but we'll try to give
Speaker 4: them a bunch of advantages to get them through, which
Speaker 4: is totally disempowering. And on the gender madness, it's there's
Speaker 4: really no such thing as gender.
Speaker 3: It's a social construct. You know, you can be whatever
Speaker 3: you want to be.
Speaker 4: Biological sex is totally irrelevant, and sex is merely assigned
Speaker 4: at birth by some errant doctor. But you'll decide you'll
Speaker 4: just be a little baby until you tell your parents
Speaker 4: whether you're a girl or a boy. And by the way,
Speaker 4: if you make a mistake, you can easily with very
Speaker 4: little trouble switch over to the other sex leader without
Speaker 4: talking about the severe impacts that has on you physically
Speaker 4: and psychologically.
Speaker 3: All of that is just I can't.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can start down any of those lanes,
Speaker 4: but they're all very, very dangerous.
Speaker 1: Why do you believe the Left took on that course.
Speaker 2: I mean, I will tell this to you, and i
Speaker 2: will confess this to you as a black man in
Speaker 2: the United States of America, a part of a populace
Speaker 2: that represents a little bit over thirteen percent of the population,
Speaker 2: closer to fourteen, around thirteen point six percent. I think
Speaker 2: one of the things that I found utterly appalling is
Speaker 2: that some of these issues usurped African Americans, immigrants who
Speaker 2: came across the border legally. Of course, some of the
Speaker 2: Hispanic popular or what have you. It seemed on the
Speaker 2: left to usurp the interest of that voting block that
Speaker 2: supported Democrats for decades. And to me, that's not mentioned enough,
Speaker 2: but I'm not afraid to mention it, and I've mentioned
Speaker 2: it on several occasions. Why do you believe the Left
Speaker 2: went about that business, especially when it came to transgender issues,
Speaker 2: for example, when it might have affected one percent of
Speaker 2: the population, if not less compared to that thirteen percent
Speaker 2: or more as it pertains to the black or Hispanic population.
Speaker 1: Why would the left do that? In your estimation?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think a huge piece of it is
Speaker 4: the death of religion amongst the left. You know, they
Speaker 4: just became more and more secular. And the more they
Speaker 4: squeezed God out of the public square and out of
Speaker 4: their private lives, the emptier they felt, and the more
Speaker 4: the natural need for something, something higher than themselves, bigger
Speaker 4: than themselves, dominated, And if it wasn't going to be
Speaker 4: Jesus or God or you know, Mohammad, it wound up
Speaker 4: being skin color and lady parts and your oppression, which
Speaker 4: really worked for them. And by the way, it worked
Speaker 4: for them politically too, so it had added benefits, made
Speaker 4: them feel like they were part of something that mattered,
Speaker 4: made them feel somewhat better than you know, like I'm
Speaker 4: better than you because I actually care about women. You see,
Speaker 4: I actually care about trans people. See I care about
Speaker 4: black people. If you don't, if you're not favor race quotas,
Speaker 4: you're a racist. You know, those kinds of messages made
Speaker 4: them feel higher than, better than, which worked to fill
Speaker 4: some sort of you know, ego need they had. But
Speaker 4: I really think ground zero on the whole thing was
Speaker 4: pushing religion out of people's lives, pushing technology in increased isolation,
Speaker 4: and just that fundamental human need to hold on to something,
Speaker 4: to belong to something. And in the same way some
Speaker 4: people reach for a bottle or a drug, these people
Speaker 4: reached for this false god of wokeism with really dangerous effects.
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated to be talking to you because there's a
Speaker 2: lot of things that you say that some of it
Speaker 2: I may not agree with, most of it I do.
Speaker 2: Most importantly, I find you to be incredibly thorough. You
Speaker 2: do not play, and I know that when I come
Speaker 2: on Megan Kelly's show, I better be ready to answer
Speaker 2: some questions. I better know what the hell I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: or at least fess up to the fact that I don't,
Speaker 2: otherwise I'm gonna get raped through the coast because she
Speaker 2: is no joke. That's how I view you, and I
Speaker 2: don't mind telling anybody that. But the flip side to
Speaker 2: it is that you've acknowledged reading up on you, doing
Speaker 2: some researching you, you've acknowledged that you've become far more
Speaker 2: opinionated over these last few years than you had ever
Speaker 2: been in the past, when you were working at Fox
Speaker 2: News with the Kelly Files, when you were working at NBC,
Speaker 2: of course, no question about that, and thinks of transition.
Speaker 2: You're in the news today, for example, because yesterday you
Speaker 2: just brought up religion as opposed to secular and what
Speaker 2: have you, and you were in the news for you
Speaker 2: criticizing the pope because of this position on the legals.
Speaker 2: When you look at yourself, first of all, talk about
Speaker 2: that why you took that position, particularly in the immediate
Speaker 2: aftermath of his death. But most importantly, this fearlessness you
Speaker 2: appear to have now more so than ever before, to
Speaker 2: express your opinions and your thoughts, no matter what the
Speaker 2: subject matter is.
Speaker 4: Talk about that for think, Well, the latter is an
Speaker 4: acquired skill, because for most of my career as a journalist,
Speaker 4: the goal was to hide your opinions, you know, to
Speaker 4: definitely not share them, and to quiet your bias and
Speaker 4: really just report the facts and whatever you thought personally,
Speaker 4: you kept in your personal lane. That's pretty much how
Speaker 4: I spent my time as a journalist. And then I
Speaker 4: got elevated to the primetime of Fox, and that show
Speaker 4: was the first that became a little bit more opinion.
Speaker 4: But if you go back and you watch The Kelly File,
Speaker 4: you won't see a lot of my opinion. You know,
Speaker 4: I'll argue with people who shape moronic things, but I
Speaker 4: wasn't really saying this is where I stand.
Speaker 3: On X, Y or Z right.
Speaker 4: And even when I launched my podcast, yeah, I tried
Speaker 4: to do that, and I remember had an argument with
Speaker 4: Mark Cuban and he lost that argument, but he did
Speaker 4: win the following point where he said he was pressing
Speaker 4: me to give my opinion and I said, well, no,
Speaker 4: I don't have to do that, you know, you're the guest.
Speaker 4: And he said, oh no, not in this lane. You're
Speaker 4: going to have to give your opinion here. And he
Speaker 4: was correct. And so five years after launching the show,
Speaker 4: you know, I give it a lot more freely. It's
Speaker 4: why people tune in, you know, they want to know
Speaker 4: where you stand. They want to know what you think
Speaker 4: about things. It's just a totally different game than straight
Speaker 4: new journalism.
Speaker 3: On the Pope.
Speaker 4: You know, look, this was a very liberal pope. He
Speaker 4: was a very progressive guy within the Catholic Church, and
Speaker 4: he was controversial amongst really diehard Christians. They didn't really
Speaker 4: much love what he did to the Catholic Church. They
Speaker 4: certainly didn't love his announcements on immigration and how we
Speaker 4: really needed to welcome all the migrants. It's like, you
Speaker 4: know what, why don't you tell it to Lake and
Speaker 4: Riley's family as they grieve the loss of their daughter
Speaker 4: and Jocelyn Nagaro's family as they grieve the loss of
Speaker 4: their daughter, their twelve year old in Texas, Like, we
Speaker 4: don't need a guy who lives in the Vatican surrounded
Speaker 4: by walls telling us we can't have walls and we
Speaker 4: need to have an open borders policy.
Speaker 3: He was from Latin America.
Speaker 4: Most of the immigrants coming into the United States that
Speaker 4: are you know we're trying to deal with right now,
Speaker 4: are from Latin America.
Speaker 3: You know, he clearly had to bias the other way
Speaker 3: and the Catholic Church.
Speaker 4: This has been my own beef, but that of many
Speaker 4: Catholics has been taking a bunch of money in cooperation
Speaker 4: with the government to try to find homes for these
Speaker 4: illegal immigrants who come in here. So like on Sunday,
Speaker 4: masks I never know what my money's going to anymore.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I try to make sure is this going to help priests,
Speaker 4: this church or this rectory, because I do not want
Speaker 4: to help find housing for illegals.
Speaker 2: But Megan, you know this better than me, at least
Speaker 2: as well as because we've both been in journalism for
Speaker 2: decades now.
Speaker 1: There's one thing to say that.
Speaker 2: It's another thing entirely to say that in the immediate
Speaker 2: aftermath of his passing. You know, back in the day,
Speaker 2: they would have been like, why are you saying this now?
Speaker 1: Could this not have waited a few days or whatever?
Speaker 2: So I think along those lines, and the question that
Speaker 2: enters my mind is, I'm not questioning that you feel
Speaker 2: what you said you feel, I'm wondering the timing of it.
Speaker 2: Did you do it because of your disgust with the
Speaker 2: left and how especially back in the day, and if
Speaker 2: they could do it this way even right now, they
Speaker 2: would have asked a question, what about the corum? What
Speaker 2: about waiting the man just passed away? Where's the level
Speaker 2: of sensitivity? They would ask that question, Megan Kelly, what
Speaker 2: would you say to people who would say something like
Speaker 2: that to you?
Speaker 3: That didn't even cross my mind? To not say that.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're talking about a public figure, one of
Speaker 4: the most famous figures in the world and leader of
Speaker 4: the Catholic Church, and necessarily when a person like that dies,
Speaker 4: there will be a recitation of some of the key
Speaker 4: points of his or her legacy. And in his case,
Speaker 4: you know, his anti or his pro illegal immigration or
Speaker 4: immigrant stance was a major piece of his platform, at
Speaker 4: least in so far as it dealt with the Americas.
Speaker 3: So I mean, it would be I'd be remiss not
Speaker 3: to mention it, you know.
Speaker 4: I remember after Kobe died, there was a big debate
Speaker 4: because some journalists were like, he was a rapist, and
Speaker 4: I remember being like, that is too much because he
Speaker 4: died so tragically and it had been so many years,
Speaker 4: and he was with his daughter.
Speaker 3: It was just such a heartbreaker.
Speaker 4: We were in deep shock and mourning he was gone,
Speaker 4: and that to me did feel very tone deaf. But
Speaker 4: this is a world leader, Like, of course you're going
Speaker 4: to talk about what did they stand for, how did
Speaker 4: they change the church, what were their public positions, and
Speaker 4: how does it affect America? Because he was the leader
Speaker 4: of one point two billion Catholics all over the earth,
Speaker 4: not just the United States, and so how did he
Speaker 4: relate to us over here? As a journalist in America,
Speaker 4: you're always looking to do that, like tell people what
Speaker 4: did he mean to people here?
Speaker 3: Good and bad? That's just the way you do it.
Speaker 2: What do you think about people who'll look at you
Speaker 2: and they'll say, what do you stand for? Megan Kelly,
Speaker 2: especially now because of your support for the president.
Speaker 1: You endorsed him.
Speaker 2: You showed up at the rally I think it was
Speaker 2: the night before election, made sure to encourage everybody to
Speaker 2: vote for him.
Speaker 1: You said you voted for him, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And we all know.
Speaker 2: How he treated you back in twenty fifteen when you
Speaker 2: were at Fox with the Republican primary debate and what
Speaker 2: have you.
Speaker 1: And you know he did.
Speaker 2: He felt that your question was nasty because you brought
Speaker 2: up quotes that he had said about women in the past,
Speaker 2: calling them pigs, amongst other things, and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden he goes on the air and said that you
Speaker 2: were bleeding out of.
Speaker 1: Your eyes or whatever it was or whatever.
Speaker 2: There are people that still look at you to this
Speaker 2: very day and say, how could you support somebody that
Speaker 2: would talk about you that way? This sudden, not sudden shift,
Speaker 2: but this dramatic shift that you had.
Speaker 1: What about you?
Speaker 2: What do you stand for and where do you stand
Speaker 2: on at this particular moment in time, and why is
Speaker 2: that the case? What do you say to people who
Speaker 2: ask those questions about you at this particular moment in time.
Speaker 4: I think they're totally fair. And I appreciate you changing
Speaker 4: it from sudden shift to dramatic, because it really wasn't sudden.
Speaker 3: It was a slow climb.
Speaker 4: Between Trump and yours truly, I you know, I when
Speaker 4: he was attacking me for that nine month period, I
Speaker 4: really was not his fan, and I wasn't, you know,
Speaker 4: really gearing up to vote for Trump, because he was
Speaker 4: staying on me like a dog with a bone, and
Speaker 4: it was highly unpleasant. But over time I was able,
Speaker 4: and I'm actually proud of it. I was able to
Speaker 4: check my personal feelings about the guy and start getting
Speaker 4: back to what needs to be my focus as a journalist,
Speaker 4: which is the professional relationship with the guy, the professional Trump,
Speaker 4: and what I saw was somebody who governed in a
Speaker 4: way that I very much respected. There were a couple
Speaker 4: of key moments in Trump one point zero where I
Speaker 4: really did like the head the double head take at
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my god, look what he's doing, like
Speaker 4: when he stood by Brett Kavanaugh, among other things. And
Speaker 4: I really respected it and saw him in a new light.
Speaker 4: And then we got Joe Biden, and I mean, it
Speaker 4: was such a disastrous four years. I probably would have
Speaker 4: run open armed into the arms of any Republican. But
Speaker 4: Trump is just the anti Biden in so many ways
Speaker 4: and was just tailor made for this moment to take
Speaker 4: him down and to take the reins of the country
Speaker 4: back and to take the country back itself. So I really,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know how to say this in
Speaker 4: a way that you know isn't weird. But I professionally
Speaker 4: I fell in love with Trump the president because I
Speaker 4: believed him that he would close the border, you know.
Speaker 4: I believed him that he would fight back against the
Speaker 4: gender madness, which has become a very big issue for
Speaker 4: me for many uses. You know, I believed him that
Speaker 4: he was going to try to get DEI out of
Speaker 4: our colleges and our woke schools, and that he would
Speaker 4: push back on this like truly, not to sound like
Speaker 4: Tip or Gore, but smut that's being pedled to our
Speaker 4: k through five schools in the name of like health
Speaker 4: ed or whatever they're calling it. But it's absolutely disgusting,
Speaker 4: like the sex acts that show up in elementary school libraries,
Speaker 4: all that stuff. Trump's not having any of that. I
Speaker 4: believe that he would lower our taxes. I believe that
Speaker 4: he would be against forever wars. I still believe all
Speaker 4: those things. I believe we roll back regulations so that
Speaker 4: we could get the economy fired up again. I don't
Speaker 4: believe in the climate and extreamists, and they're stupid fake
Speaker 4: models that already had us under water by this point
Speaker 4: in time, and yet we're fine. So I really I
Speaker 4: believed in Trump, and I do believe in Trump. But
Speaker 4: he's doing all the things he said he would do.
Speaker 4: Now they're throwing up obstacles in his way. But I'm
Speaker 4: one hundred percent rooting for him. So I if anything,
Speaker 4: I'm just thrilled that I saw the light on him
Speaker 4: and that I was able to like push my own
Speaker 4: feelings to the side and get past that, and he
Speaker 4: got past his negative feelings about me such that I
Speaker 4: could stand up for him before the election and hopefully
Speaker 4: convince some people.
Speaker 2: Much to my own peril, I'm going to share with
Speaker 2: you what I disagree with you about when it comes
Speaker 2: to President Trump, but not before I pay some bills.
Speaker 2: I'll be right back. The marvelous Megan Kelly right here
Speaker 2: with Steven A. Back with more in a minute. A Hi, everybody,
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Steven A.
Speaker 2: Smith Show right here with Megan Kelly over three million
Speaker 2: plus subscribers on her YouTube channel or her YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: She is absolutely for now. I don't give it down
Speaker 2: what anybody says. I'll watch it as often as I can, Okay,
Speaker 2: and I'm learning along the way, so I'm gonna open
Speaker 2: myself to being taught here. Megan Kelly on a couple
Speaker 2: of issues involving the President of the United States, I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna say you're president. He's our president. He's a
Speaker 2: president of the United States. I can't stand when people
Speaker 2: do that. That's not right, that's disrespectful. He's the president
Speaker 2: of the United States of America.
Speaker 1: So let's get that out the way. DEI.
Speaker 2: Let me explain to you what I think, and then
Speaker 2: I don't mind hearing what you have to say.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: I have I don't have an issue with people who
Speaker 2: want DEI gone. If it is indeed what you say,
Speaker 2: it is that there's preferential treatment when we're talking about diversity, equity,
Speaker 2: and inclusion.
Speaker 1: That there are people that are incompetent that are.
Speaker 2: Placed in positions. Certainly, I understand that. Part my problem,
Speaker 2: Megan Kelly, is how do we ignore its existence to
Speaker 2: begin with?
Speaker 1: Where it originated from.
Speaker 2: If this nation, whether it's Corporate America or beyond, was
Speaker 2: exercising fairness and truly truly looking for the best candidates
Speaker 2: and not engaging in favoritism that favored primarily white males,
Speaker 2: then there would have never been any need for DEI,
Speaker 2: just like there would not have been any need for
Speaker 2: affirmative action or other things. And so for me, when
Speaker 2: I think about it, that's what I believe. Folks who
Speaker 2: speak against DEI, specifically on the right obviously is missing.
Speaker 1: They don't bring up that element to that to say.
Speaker 4: What, well, I think it's mixing a lot of things.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with diversity.
Speaker 4: And if I, you know, we're remaking America, I would
Speaker 4: make sure we had it in all forms, in all places.
Speaker 4: I'd make sure we have lots of different people with
Speaker 4: lots of different backgrounds and lots of different ideological views
Speaker 4: running different corporations.
Speaker 3: But that's not really what DEI is.
Speaker 4: DEI is mostly focused on on the e the equity,
Speaker 4: which is just a joke. Equity means you have the
Speaker 4: right to end up in the same place, irrespective of
Speaker 4: how much effort goes into it. That is not an
Speaker 4: American value, That is not something I value it or
Speaker 4: share an at all you have. I mean that it's
Speaker 4: like the whole you know, at my kids' schools they
Speaker 4: still have DEI at least at my daughter's school, and
Speaker 4: they were asking what does it mean?
Speaker 3: What is equity?
Speaker 4: And I was explaining, and the woman actually said, I mean,
Speaker 4: this is just this year, she said, at our new
Speaker 4: school to which we fled to try to get from,
Speaker 4: the super woke school in New York. Said exactly what
Speaker 4: I said is the definition of equity, right to wind
Speaker 4: up in the same place. And I said, you know what, Yardley,
Speaker 4: that is what equity is. And so on Halloween, you
Speaker 4: should go out there and you should work hard and
Speaker 4: go to every single house in the neighborhood and get
Speaker 4: a huge bucket of candy. Then you should go over
Speaker 4: to some kid's house who didn't trick or treat at all,
Speaker 4: who was too lazy, who just sat in front of
Speaker 4: his TV watching some stupid show, and you should give
Speaker 4: him half your candy because he has the right.
Speaker 3: He has the right to end up at the same place.
Speaker 4: And then when you go to take your exams, you
Speaker 4: have to let the girl who didn't study at all,
Speaker 4: who just phoned it in because she was on the
Speaker 4: phone with her friends, copy off your paper. She is
Speaker 4: entitled to the same grade you have, irrespective of how
Speaker 4: hard you've worked, and she hasn't. That's equity and it's immoral.
Speaker 4: So I'm completely opposed to it. And it's just like
Speaker 4: what Kamala Harris ran on. Diversity is a different story,
Speaker 4: and I think we really were working toward it, and
Speaker 4: we were doing pretty well as a country, you know.
Speaker 4: I think when I grew up and I was in
Speaker 4: college in the nineties and thereafter, it was something race
Speaker 4: was being diminished, and we were starting to look at
Speaker 4: people as whole human beings.
Speaker 3: We were seeing in a racial marriage go up.
Speaker 4: It was just becoming less of a thing than in
Speaker 4: like the seventies, when race.
Speaker 3: Was still very much people's focus.
Speaker 4: And then we set ourselves back by making it the
Speaker 4: top thing that we were supposed to notice about other people,
Speaker 4: and that created a wall between us, that created more
Speaker 4: of a divide between the races in a way I
Speaker 4: had never experienced in my fifty years on this earth
Speaker 4: now fifty four.
Speaker 3: And so I think many of us just.
Speaker 2: You don't look it, by the way, you don't look
Speaker 2: you don't look at it at all.
Speaker 1: I just want to let you know that. Okay, well
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 4: So that that was, you know, my problem, and then
Speaker 4: we had the messaging around it. And I'll tell you
Speaker 4: so just one example, my kids' school in New York,
Speaker 4: one of the best schools in the nation. This is
Speaker 4: the school from which we fled. It was I have
Speaker 4: two boys and a girl, and our boys were at
Speaker 4: this boys' school, and they actually made it mandatory reading
Speaker 4: for the faculty. There this thought piece by this one
Speaker 4: professor who posited that in every classroom where white children learn,
Speaker 4: there is a future killer cop and that white mothers
Speaker 4: are indoctrinating their children in black death.
Speaker 3: In response to which I said, We're out of here.
Speaker 3: This is such bullshit.
Speaker 4: My brother's a cop, first of all, and the nerve,
Speaker 4: the nerve to look at our sweet little boys, what
Speaker 4: my boy was in kindergarten and say, yep, there's a
Speaker 4: future killer cop because of his white skin.
Speaker 3: It's blatantly racist.
Speaker 4: And by the way, most of DEI hiring and firing
Speaker 4: and whatever practices are illegal. It is illegal to even
Speaker 4: count race as a factor in hiring or firing. All
Speaker 4: these companies and these banks who are like well, in
Speaker 4: the end, it, you know, tips the scales if she's
Speaker 4: a woman or if he's a black man. Wrong, you
Speaker 4: just buy the law. You're not allowed to consider it
Speaker 4: at all. But we lost our minds after George Floyd.
Speaker 4: We decided we were going to throw the law out
Speaker 4: the window or just not enforce it and start living
Speaker 4: and dying by immutable characteristics like I should get extra
Speaker 4: points because I have a badge, or you should get
Speaker 4: extra points because your skin is brown.
Speaker 3: It's just utter madness.
Speaker 1: What do you say?
Speaker 2: And I'm certainly not equating him with those examples that
Speaker 2: you just gave, because I get where you're coming from.
Speaker 2: I could research some of those things. I could come
Speaker 2: and push back a little bit, but I have to
Speaker 2: confess to made some good points again. Make it, Kelly,
Speaker 2: But let's get to Petere hag Seth, because I got
Speaker 2: to tell you, I know that's a friend of yours,
Speaker 2: a former colleague of yours. At Fox News, and I
Speaker 2: want to let you know, and I want to before
Speaker 2: I asked this question, I want to let you know
Speaker 2: I'm not bringing up any of the allegations against that man,
Speaker 2: my issues against him. I've never brought that stuff up,
Speaker 2: and I'm not about to. I saw your interview with him,
Speaker 2: and by the way, I applored you for how you
Speaker 2: went down the line, because you were absolutely right when
Speaker 2: you said nobody else did that with him. You went
Speaker 2: point by wait with the accusations that were levied against
Speaker 2: him in terms of his behavior, sexual proclivities, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. You did all of that. So I'm not
Speaker 2: here to get on him about that. Here's my issue
Speaker 2: with Pete Haig Saith. He was a weekend host on
Speaker 2: Fox News Megan Kelly, and now he is the Secretary
Speaker 2: of Defense for the United States of America, overseeing a
Speaker 2: department with three and a half million people, two million
Speaker 2: of whom want civilians. By the way, I understand that
Speaker 2: he served our military honorably and he is to be respected,
Speaker 2: and I am not here to disrespect him. But when
Speaker 2: we talk about DEI okay, when we talk about somebody
Speaker 2: being given a hand up, for my God, doesn't that
Speaker 2: qualify Megan Kelly?
Speaker 1: Doesn't that qualify No?
Speaker 4: I mean, let me just stop by saying Barack Obama
Speaker 4: was a community organizer.
Speaker 3: That's it, that's it. He had no executive but he
Speaker 3: was a literate. We mede him commander in chief.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, if you want to talk about qualifications,
Speaker 4: do the job. Much rather look at Pete's resume than
Speaker 4: Barack Obama's. But Pete, yes, he was a weekend Fox
Speaker 4: and Friends host, but I can I mean, Trump was
Speaker 4: a celebrity Apprentice host. Like you're stint hosting on TV
Speaker 4: or not hosting doesn't determine whether you can do the job.
Speaker 4: Pete was hired because of his military service and his
Speaker 4: then after his military service, his years devoting himself to
Speaker 4: helping vets through Concern Veterans for America and another charity
Speaker 4: group that he formed to help veterans get their voices
Speaker 4: out there in politics.
Speaker 3: But he served at GIPMO.
Speaker 4: He left Princeton voluntarily and enlisted so that he could
Speaker 4: help fight after nine to eleven. Nobody leaves Princeton to
Speaker 4: join the Armed forces. Nobody but Pete did. Then he
Speaker 4: went volunteered again to go to Iraq during the most
Speaker 4: dangerous time. This is when people were being beheaded in Iraq.
Speaker 4: He was like, send me, and he went. Then Afghanistan,
Speaker 4: same thing, went back again. And those three deployments taught
Speaker 4: Pete a thing or two about what it means to
Speaker 4: be a war fighter and how much of a hair
Speaker 4: trigger we've had in this country over the past couple
Speaker 4: of decades, and how neocons are really super enthusiastic about
Speaker 4: fighting every single war in every single pocket of the
Speaker 4: globe without spending a lot of time thinking about what
Speaker 4: it's doing to our actual men. But Pete was changed
Speaker 4: from a neocon to more of a dove, and that's
Speaker 4: one of the reasons why Trump chose him.
Speaker 2: But but Megan, let me be fair to you and Keith.
Speaker 2: I want to be very very clear. I'm not questioning
Speaker 2: his military service. I'm not questioning his record. What I'm
Speaker 2: saying a matter of fact, I do you one better.
Speaker 2: I don't mind people who were ultra critical of Lloyd Austin,
Speaker 2: his predecessor, and say Pete could do better.
Speaker 1: I got, I got all of that.
Speaker 2: What I'm talking about is the bare bones of your qualification.
Speaker 2: You understand I'm talking from an administrative perspective, running the
Speaker 2: department with three and a half million. And you brought
Speaker 2: up Obama. Yes he was a community organizer, but he
Speaker 2: was also a senator before he got elected his president
Speaker 2: help on Capitol Hill with I didn't say it did
Speaker 2: I didn't say it did.
Speaker 1: I'm but for years that's how it happened.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the process.
Speaker 3: Should be the Defense Department chief. No, it's a no.
Speaker 3: She's an idiot.
Speaker 4: Like becoming a US Senator doesn't make you qualified to
Speaker 4: do anything other than sit at the US Senate and.
Speaker 3: Drink a bunch of coffee. But Pete, here's the reason.
Speaker 3: I'll bring it home for you.
Speaker 4: What was happening is we were relying too much on
Speaker 4: the so called experts in the so called generals, and
Speaker 4: that is how we wound up into forever wars.
Speaker 3: You know, we have a.
Speaker 4: Ship of yes, it's neocons, and it's the industrial war machine,
Speaker 4: and it's the Boeings of the world and people who
Speaker 4: make a lot of money off of military conflicts. And
Speaker 4: it had become this cottage industry where they saw conflict
Speaker 4: and they pushed us like an aircraft carrier. They had
Speaker 4: that much force behind the push to push us into
Speaker 4: these conflicts, and we had too many Republican leaders in
Speaker 4: particular who said, yes, I'll do it. And by the way,
Speaker 4: the Democrats weren't much better and today are even worse. Yes,
Speaker 4: I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it, and
Speaker 4: we're gonna spread democracy through the Middle East. Okay, sure,
Speaker 4: how did that work out? We made a bunch of
Speaker 4: more enemies, countries hate us even more now, and then
Speaker 4: we sacrificed generations of blood and treasure. And what happened
Speaker 4: with Trump one point zero was he had he saw
Speaker 4: it firsthand with people like General Millie that he shouldn't
Speaker 4: be talking to the generals and just listening to them.
Speaker 4: And he actually brought in a bunch of generals to
Speaker 4: advise him on what we should do about Afghanistan and
Speaker 4: closing that down. And then he brought in a bunch
Speaker 4: of enlisted guys. And one of the reasons why the machine,
Speaker 4: the military war machine, didn't like Trump was because he said,
Speaker 4: I'm done listening to the generals. I want to know
Speaker 4: what the enlisted troops have to say. And they all said,
Speaker 4: get us out of this. Ward's pointless now. And so
Speaker 4: Trump learned that he needs to talk to the actual
Speaker 4: war fighters about whether we're winning and losing, whether it's
Speaker 4: a battle worth fighting, what the actual sacrifice looks like.
Speaker 4: And there was no better person than Pete, who, by
Speaker 4: the way, attained the rank of major, which is great.
Speaker 4: You know, he's not a four star general, but he
Speaker 4: was an officer, and he was also an actual fighting
Speaker 4: soldier in the actual armed forces who had put his
Speaker 4: life on the line.
Speaker 2: Two more questions before I let you get out here,
Speaker 2: because I know you got to run out. I thank
Speaker 2: you so much for your time. Question number one, you
Speaker 2: were critical of Christino, I mean and obviously so, I
Speaker 2: mean you didn't like it enough fatigues with the commercials
Speaker 2: or whatever. You spoke out against her. So you you
Speaker 2: ain't playing around. You're gonna call balls and strikes. I'll
Speaker 2: give you credit for that. But considering her and how
Speaker 2: she just got I think it was a pocketbook stolen
Speaker 2: stolen over the weekend at a restaurant in DC, including
Speaker 2: a password, drivers license keys, and government access badge. When
Speaker 2: you consider the security of this nation we're talking about, Pete,
Speaker 2: hegseth with with with this whole, this whole controversy he's in,
Speaker 2: you know, with the text messages and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and having folks in the text chain, the national security
Speaker 2: issues being over, you know, with his wife and his
Speaker 2: brother included in the text, and then you got Christine Os.
Speaker 2: That's our homeland security, that's our national defense. How secure
Speaker 2: should we feel when the Trump administration appears to be
Speaker 2: having those kind of problems at thisarticular moment.
Speaker 3: I'm not worried about that at all. I really kind
Speaker 3: of know.
Speaker 4: I want to know where Christy n Noman was about
Speaker 4: to flee, to shed her passport and three grand in cash?
Speaker 3: Who travels with that?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 4: I was like, what, I guess that's her personal habit.
Speaker 4: I never used who uses cash anymore? I don't even
Speaker 4: have two nickels anymore. It's like whatever, okay, so that
Speaker 4: doesn't bother me. But the peak thing, I laid it
Speaker 4: out on my show today exactly what's happening to him.
Speaker 4: But what happened there stephen A really wasn't his fault.
Speaker 4: The signal thing that was his fault, and it wasn't
Speaker 4: a good idea, and I don't defend it, But what's
Speaker 4: happening to him in terms of the hit pieces coming
Speaker 4: out against him is a more interesting story. They they
Speaker 4: started having leaks from the Pentagon with a top secret
Speaker 4: information like our plans for the Panama Canal and to
Speaker 4: potentially get them in line if they don't want to
Speaker 4: help us getting China out of there in terms of influence,
Speaker 4: Pentagon plans that the President had asked for. You can't
Speaker 4: have that shit. You cannot have the Pentagon leaking war
Speaker 4: plans to NBC News, which had and so they opened
Speaker 4: up a leak investigation. He wound up saying, these are
Speaker 4: the three guys who we believed the leaks. They got
Speaker 4: escorted out of the building on Friday, and day after
Speaker 4: days since they were escorted out, there's been a hit
Speaker 4: piece on new information that just happens to reflect very
Speaker 4: poorly unpeaked. So you have to keep it in perspective
Speaker 4: and follow the timeline. It's clearly a campaign to bring
Speaker 4: him down. The President sees it. The President has said
Speaker 4: he's not persuaded by it, and I think that's probably
Speaker 4: how this will land.
Speaker 1: Last question.
Speaker 2: He says stuff like he has said in defense of himself,
Speaker 2: and you know, pointed out how these people that will
Speaker 2: let go and release suddenly this information. These stories are
Speaker 2: coming out day by day by day, which is obviously
Speaker 2: another finger being pointed at the left, leftist media. Who's
Speaker 2: who's coming after him? It appears Steve Bannon was on
Speaker 2: this show last week. He had a lot of interesting
Speaker 2: things to say, pushing for Trump in a third term.
Speaker 2: I'm not going for that, the twenty second amendment, Megan Kelly,
Speaker 2: I'm not going for that. No, presidents our third more
Speaker 2: than two terms. Don't try to change it up now.
Speaker 2: But ultimately, my last question to you would be this,
Speaker 2: it's the Steve Banners of the world. It's a Pete
Speaker 2: Haik said, who's overseeing the Department of Defense. It's somebody
Speaker 2: like a Megan Kelly, who, for all we know, was
Speaker 2: probably reached out to by the Trump administration. But things
Speaker 2: are going for you so well right now, why would
Speaker 2: you do something like that? In the end, when we
Speaker 2: look at Meghan Kelly at this point in time in
Speaker 2: her life and in her career, how happy are you
Speaker 2: doing what you're doing? And what kind of noise do
Speaker 2: you anticipate you making in the years to come, not
Speaker 2: just with your show, but with a podcast network that
Speaker 2: it's now reported you're starting with all the things that
Speaker 2: you have going on, and your voice resonating more and
Speaker 2: more profoundly with each passing day. What do you see
Speaker 2: for yourself coming down the road.
Speaker 3: Well, I never have any delusions of grandeur.
Speaker 4: You know, I have the advantage of being having been
Speaker 4: raised by a mom whose message was generally, I love you,
Speaker 4: You're not special. I'm open minded to specialness, but I've
Speaker 4: really seen nothing so far.
Speaker 3: But you know, still love you. We're going to have
Speaker 3: a great life.
Speaker 4: And that's still my Mom's still around and that's still
Speaker 4: her messaging. So I never think of myself in those
Speaker 4: grandiose terms of like my network and my voice. But
Speaker 4: my goal on the show is to remain relentlessly factual
Speaker 4: in a sea of misinformation. To just try to stay
Speaker 4: relentlessly factual and help people understand what's real. And the
Speaker 4: people who I've added to my you know, podcast network
Speaker 4: whose shows I'm going to help produce and promote, have
Speaker 4: that same commitment.
Speaker 3: You know, these are people you can trust.
Speaker 4: They have their own bent on the news, and that's fine,
Speaker 4: but they'll let you know when it's their opinion versus what.
Speaker 3: They deal in the world of what is real.
Speaker 4: And I think there needs to be a place where
Speaker 4: you can still trust that that's the case. And for me,
Speaker 4: I have to say life's never been better. It's I've
Speaker 4: finally gotten things to the place where I can work,
Speaker 4: which I love and fulfills me. And I think it's
Speaker 4: a public service in a way what we do. But
Speaker 4: I also have time to be with my family.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I take my kids to school every day, I pick
Speaker 4: them up. I have dinner with them every single night
Speaker 4: of the week. My husband too, and we spend our
Speaker 4: weekends together. You know, we're just in a sweet spot
Speaker 4: as a family. Given my kids ages, which are fifteen, fourteen,
Speaker 4: and eleven, they still love us and like us, and
Speaker 4: we feel the same about them.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't change it for the world.
Speaker 4: I would never go back to cable news ever or
Speaker 4: broadcast news. There are rumors that I'm doing it every
Speaker 4: other week on the internet. They're all lies. I don't
Speaker 4: know how people get away with making this stuff up.
Speaker 4: It's all lies. I love what I'm doing and I
Speaker 4: wouldn't change a thing.
Speaker 3: I go to work in my stretchy pants every day.
Speaker 4: Steven a stetchy pants and sneakers. Couldn't do that at
Speaker 4: Fox News. I was in Polyes there with Banks. Okay,
Speaker 4: it's a new day and I'm loving it.
Speaker 2: Should I be on the same channel as Megan Kelly?
Speaker 2: Should Megan Kelly Steven they end up on the same channel.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm qualify. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I'm qualify, and every dangerous proposition for me Megan.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Come on over the water spot, Megan.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I really really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: By the way, Pete, hegse gonna keep his job. If
Speaker 2: you have to predict, he's gonna keep his job, confidences things.
Speaker 4: So I mean, I think we're gonna see more hip
Speaker 4: pieces on him in the coming days and weeks.
Speaker 3: It's possible Trump we'll cut him loose.
Speaker 4: But if I had to put money on it, I'd
Speaker 4: say he keeps his job.
Speaker 2: Keep up the great work. You are always welcome to
Speaker 2: here anytime. I'm always gonna come on your show anytime
Speaker 2: you asked me to schedule permitting. Of course, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for your time. I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I wish we could have talked longer, but both of
Speaker 2: us are busy. We got some stuff to do, so
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate you so much. Lots of love, see
Speaker 3: you soon.
Speaker 1: That was the phenomenal Meghan Kelly.
Speaker 2: And I call her phenomenal because I think she's thorough
Speaker 2: and she knows what the hell she's talking about. She
Speaker 2: knows what she feels and wise, and she's not afraid
Speaker 2: to let you know where she stands, and that's all
Speaker 2: you can ask.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people listening.
Speaker 2: To her, her positions on Trump, her position on Hegseth,
Speaker 2: her position on DEI, along with various other things, and
Speaker 2: you might disagree with her. You might find her positions abhorrent.
Speaker 2: I did not disagree with everything she said, nor did
Speaker 2: I find in most of her positions abhorrent. Might have
Speaker 2: wanted to wait a few days before she spoke on
Speaker 2: the pope who recently passed away, but she told you
Speaker 2: what she felt and why and why she felt the
Speaker 2: need to take that public stance about a public figure,
Speaker 2: a global public figure. May not agree with it, but
Speaker 2: we understand it because she doesn't speak with ambiguity. She
Speaker 2: lets you know clear clearly where she stands, and I
Speaker 2: respect that, and I respect her, so I'm happy that
Speaker 2: she came on this show. I'm looking forward to her
Speaker 2: coming on in the future. I'm certainly looking forward to
Speaker 2: going back on her show, because she's caught me a
Speaker 2: couple of times, and I've been happy to accept. And
Speaker 2: we living we learned ladies and gentlemen. We don't learn
Speaker 2: living in the concoon just hearing voices that agree with
Speaker 2: us every step of the way, march in lockstep with us.
Speaker 2: We hear from different and dissenting opinions and the perspectives
Speaker 2: that they provide. And along the way, we hear things
Speaker 2: that we're not hearing from other people. We hear things
Speaker 2: that we may not have believed, but then folks make
Speaker 2: it make sense for us. I think Megan Kelly is
Speaker 2: one of those people. That's why I'm a fan. That's
Speaker 2: why I listen to her show and watch her show
Speaker 2: as often as I possibly can. And I was happy
Speaker 2: to have her on the show today, even about points
Speaker 2: that I disagreed with her about, including DEI by the way,
Speaker 2: but her opinions are profoundly respected and I understand where
Speaker 2: she's coming from. And I must admit I walked away
Speaker 2: smarter after listening to her, listening to her than I
Speaker 2: was before listening to her. That's what you want from guests. Okay,
Speaker 2: so she'll be back on in the future, as will
Speaker 2: others on both the left and the right. Not running
Speaker 2: away from it, and you shouldn't either if you truly
Speaker 2: care about edifying yourself and elevating your level of thinking.
Speaker 1: It's thought process.
Speaker 2: You don't learn by just getting people to agree with
Speaker 2: you. You learn by hearing those who dissent and are clear
Speaker 2: and their reasons. Why think about that as you think
Speaker 2: about this show that we just had with Meghan Kelly,
Speaker 2: and you'll understand exactly where I'm coming from.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: I know I did. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: Peace and love. Stephen A. Smith, signing off later