Shawn Ryan Show: SRS #309 w/ Megyn Kelly – June 1, 2026 (Transcript)

But that just felt like, okay, I’m underwhelmed. So I don’t have a difficult time believing that people genuinely want to assassinate Trump and that the attempts are increasing because we live in an increasingly violent world where political violence and assassination is now getting normalized and celebrated in more and more corners. So they think they have a chance to seem like a hero if they do it.

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t know, honey. I just don’t know what to think about anything anymore, to be honest with you.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. The biggest takeaway of the news cycle over the past year has been none of us knows anything about anything.

Concerns About Israel and the Cost of Speaking Out

SHAWN RYAN: I think the one thing that I’m the most concerned about is Israel.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, you’re not allowed to be that. You’re an anti-Semite.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, I don’t know what to say.

MEGYN KELLY: Okay.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah. All right, cool.

MEGYN KELLY: That’s how it’s gone, right? A lot of us have had our eyes open on Israel, and then you learn quickly after you’re not allowed to have them open. You’re not allowed to ask those questions. You’re not allowed to have those doubts. And if you do, your whole life is about to change.

SHAWN RYAN: I see that. I’ve seen that with a couple of you guys, a lot of you guys. I don’t know how you guys handle all the attacks. Well, it looks like you’re having fun with them, to be honest with you.

MEGYN KELLY: It depends on the day. Some days you’re like, “Oh my God,” and you laugh. And other days, you get a slew of legit death threats and you think, well, this isn’t great. So I wouldn’t describe it as fun, but it’s just part of the job.

I have been called everything. I’ve been attacked as being all the absolute worst things you can be. And if you’re going to let outside attacks define you in your own head, you’re in a lot of trouble. You’re not going to last in this business. So you do have to get a thick skin and sort of shrug it off and either say, “I am the worst person to ever live.” I mean, I’m all the time — I must be — I’m a racist and I’m a bigot and I’m a transphobe and I’m a xenophobe and I’m an Islamophobe and I’m an anti-Semite. Oh, and I’m pro-pedophile and I’m all the things. Either I’m all those things—

SHAWN RYAN: Pro-pedophile, I haven’t heard that one.

The Jeffrey Epstein Discussion and Michael Jackson Biopic

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, that was what they said because I said that technically Jeffrey Epstein didn’t meet the definition of pedophile, which is interest in prepubescent children. Adolescent children — a person who worked for him had told me that that wasn’t what he was into. He was into more like the 15, 16-year-old types. And of course my detractors ran with it like, “She’s justifying pedophilia.”

No, no, there’s a legal definition of that term. And it’s generally — they put the number at 13, pre-13. We’re more in like the Michael Jackson field. I’ve been doing a deep dive on him, allegedly, reportedly.

SHAWN RYAN: You’ve been doing a deep dive on Michael Jackson?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: Why?

MEGYN KELLY: Well, that new biopic has earned almost $1 billion in a month.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

MEGYN KELLY: There’s a huge movie out right now called Michael, and it’s been put out by the Jackson estate. It stars his nephew Jaafar Jackson, the son of Jermaine, Michael’s older brother, as Michael. And he’s amazing. He looks just like him, only better looking. And he’s got the dance moves, and he practiced the voice, and he sounds just like him. And there’s a familial connection, so it sells mannerisms and so on. They’re there in a subtle way.

And all it does is chronicle the rise of Michael Jackson from childhood to 1987, which is 6 years before the first child molestation scandal. So it’s sort of clean. You can enjoy this great American success story the way you could enjoy a story about Steve Jobs or Bob Dylan. And it just kind of lobs off what happened after 1987, which would include multiple people accusing him of child molestation.

They did it for a reason. They originally had a piece on the end of it that addressed the scandal and tried to dismiss it. But then somebody called to their attention that they had signed a bunch of non-disclosure agreements — mutual non-disclosure agreements — with his accusers, which barred not only the accuser from speaking, but the Michael Jackson estate.

Child Predators and the Institutions That Enable Them

SHAWN RYAN: Holy shit. I just covered this same type of thing with Kanakuk. Did you hear about Kanakuk? The big Christian camp?

MEGYN KELLY: No.

SHAWN RYAN: We’re pretty much done now. But yeah, there was a bunch of sexual abuse, like really bad stuff. Like reading scripture over kids while they’re molesting them, all that kind of stuff. And they would settle with the kids’ parents and the kid could never talk about it again. So we blew the doors off in here with Elizabeth Phillips, whose brother committed suicide because he signed one of those—

MEGYN KELLY: Oh gosh—

SHAWN RYAN: NDAs.

MEGYN KELLY: If you want to find a pedophile, go where children are. That’s the problem — they’re always — it’s never like this cloak-wearing dirty guy in the park. It’s somebody who looks pretty good, is usually very good with kids. No record. Totally likable, warm, the one you’d least suspect. And they will always be in a field where they have access to children, whether it’s — forgive me — Boy Scout leaders, just so tired and worn, but it’s true, it’s why a lot of them went there into the Cub Scout leadership ranks. Churches, of course, not great. Schools also.

As I told the story, when my one son was going off for his fourth grade field trip — all the other moms were like, “Have a great time, honey.” They were spending a couple nights overnight with teachers. And I was like, “Look out for the molesters.” And he looks back at me and I was like, “It’ll be someone you trust.”

SHAWN RYAN: Oh my gosh. I think that’s a good — I don’t think many people think like that. I’ve done a bunch of these now because that’s the thing that I’m most passionate about, because I think you can have a real impact there, unlike politics.

But everybody always gets mad at the institution that we’re talking about — the church in that particular instance, the Christian camp. And it’s like, “Tear it down.” And it’s like, yeah, let’s tear it down, but most of these people have not been caught. And they’re just going to flood into the next thing. Whether that’s a daycare or gymnastics or cheerleading camp or Boy Scouts or whatever — a doctor, pediatrician, a spokesman for a Subway company, Subway sandwiches.

The Michael Jackson Case: Evidence and Allegations

MEGYN KELLY: Right now, Jared is one of the most perverted people I’ve ever actually covered. I mean, we interviewed the woman who worked with the FBI to get him on tape. You remember Jared the Subway guy, right? And she got him on tape talking about how to groom her own children for him. She wasn’t really going to give him her children. She was working with the FBI. But this is how they do it. Talk dirty to them, raise inappropriate subject matters with them so that it will be less jarring when I do it, when I get there. This is how they do it.

So this is why all these leftist submissions to our children’s libraries really do matter in trying to take the guard down on discussing anal sex. Like, it’s a no. What are you priming them for?

But the Michael Jackson case is very, very compelling because he’s one of our greatest stars. We all feel extremely proud of him. Literally everybody who’s accused him has had their hand out, so it really complicates it. Is this about money, or is it about justice, or something terrible that was done? Most of them have grifter parents. So you’re like, mm.

I mean, I think that’s why the one criminal case that was brought against him in 2005, he was acquitted, because the mother of the boy was awful and took the stand and nobody liked her. In 1993, the first case that came out against him, the mother was upset to find out her son had slept in the same bed as Michael Jackson. She was in another room, but suddenly felt a lot better about it when Michael bought her a Cartier bracelet. So that’s how these cases have gone.

And it’s left people with enough room to say, “I don’t know, I love him and I love the music and I want to celebrate him as an American icon.” And these people seem griftery versus the cold hard facts, which include, as I just learned through a Quillette article — I interviewed the guy who wrote it — when they raided Michael Jackson’s home in 1993 in connection with the first allegation brought against him, that did not result in criminal charges because the family took a $20 million settlement and went away and wouldn’t cooperate with the cops. But in that case, there was a search warrant for his home. They went into his home and in a locked box in his bedroom found two pedophile books from NAMBLA — the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

SHAWN RYAN: Oh my God.

MEGYN KELLY: It’s another word for pedophiles. And they were full of naked pictures of boys, like really graphic naked pictures of boys. That’s what Michael Jackson had in his own bedroom in a locked file. There’s no one who’s not a pedophile who has that. And one of them had his own handwriting in it saying, something to the effect of, “What could be more joyful than these beautiful boys?”

So there’s no question he knew it was there. He had handled it, he had looked at it. And then there was another boy whose fingerprints were found in Michael Jackson’s room on a barely legal Hustler magazine. And they found at least two boys’ fingerprints on it. So at a minimum, it proves he was showing porn to boys in his room. Those are facts that are really tough to deal with. Anyway, that’s my perspective.

Victims, Settlements, and the Leaving Neverland Documentary

SHAWN RYAN: Have any of the victims come out?

MEGYN KELLY: Multiple, but everyone is compromised. For example, the two that were featured in the Leaving Neverland documentary that came out in 2019 about him — what happened was there was the kid in ’93 who took a $20 million settlement and went away. There was the kid in 2005 who did wind up in front of the cops, though that wasn’t the first move, who had a whole trial, but the mother had taken — she was awful. And on the stand, it was pretty clear she was a grifter. And so he was acquitted.

And then there were reportedly multiple payouts over the years that he kept quiet. His mother reportedly said to LaToya Jackson, “I’ve seen the checks. There are a lot of them.” There’s another report by Diane Dimond, a journalist who used to work for Hard Copy, and she was integral to the whole Michael Jackson reveal. She had actually gotten lots of tips about him, including from the Division of Child and Family Services. She kind of broke this whole case open back in the ’90s, and she had reported that at least $200 million had been paid out by him to keep people quiet.

SHAWN RYAN: Wow.

Q&A: Epstein Names, Truth-Seeking, and the Massey Race

SHAWN RYAN: Quick Q&A from my Patreon audience. This is from RM. Megyn, do you think anyone, including Massey, will actually expose the Epstein names?

MEGYN KELLY: Yes, I think Massey will do it.

SHAWN RYAN: What do you think happens after he does it?

MEGYN KELLY: I think some people will lose their jobs and there could be potential prosecutions. I think it’ll follow course to what we’ve seen with the limited disclosure so far, though mostly in the UK.

SHAWN RYAN: What do you think is the best way to seek truth about what is currently going on in the world, and how should we protect ourselves from this psychological warfare?

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, I think we need to elect non-elites. I think we need to elect the farmers of the world, the people who didn’t seek office as soon as they got out of college.

Wade Robson, James Safechuck, and the Michael Jackson Estate

But the ones we know about are the ’93 case, the 2005 case, and then the 2019 documentary — I use that term very loosely. That’s where Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who had been child prodigies around Michael — one had been in a commercial with him, one had won a dance contest as a lookalike who danced just like him — got folded into his inner circle. They came out after years of defending him.

Wade Robson took the stand at his trial and said, “Absolutely not,” as a kid. James Safechuck, I think, gave a deposition in the case but didn’t take the witness stand at trial, and said, “Absolutely not, never.” Macaulay Culkin took the stand at his trial and said, “Absolutely not.” Emmanuel Lewis, who played Webster on that smash series — he didn’t take the stand, but he says to this day, “Not a finger, absolutely not. He’s never touched me.”

So that’s 4 I just named. 2 out of the 4 maintain their stories to this day. There’s a 3rd who’s the same — he took the stand and said, “Never,” and he maintains that story to this day. But two of them, Safechuck and Robson, in the 2019 documentary changed their story 180 degrees and said he was molesting them the whole time. That was 3 or 4 years after they had both filed a civil lawsuit against the estate for money.

Why did they file a civil lawsuit in 2013, ’14, or ’15? In that timeframe, the estate had started making money again. It was all but destitute when Michael died. He had paid out a lot of money. He was in serious debt. His brand was no longer good. People were like, “You’re gross. We believe what’s happened.” The estate was literally valued at zero when he died. Are you serious? Yeah.

But the lawyer in whose hands he left the estate management, who’s featured in this biopic — Branca is his name — decided to gamble with a Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson production and then Michael Jackson: The Broadway Musical. And both were hits and have been making real cash. They realized there’s actually still a market for Michael Jackson. People want to celebrate his music and his dancing and his amazing accomplishments, and they’re able to do it without thinking about the artist versus the art.

And then came the biopic, and it’s already made almost a billion dollars in a month. And they have a round 2 ready to go. So people are starting to come out of the woodwork with their hands out.

SHAWN RYAN: A billion dollars in a month?

MEGYN KELLY: Yes.

SHAWN RYAN: Holy sh. Wow. Well, I had no idea any of that was happening. Interesting.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. To me, the legal stuff is always very interesting. I’d rather talk about that these days than politics. Politics is so depressing. Not that that story’s uplifting, but at least it’s interesting because there’s a mystery to solve — about someone we all have feelings about. Everybody has a feeling about Michael Jackson.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah.

MEGYN KELLY: And he’s an interesting, fascinating person with the weird 4-inch eyelashes and the nose.

SHAWN RYAN: Couple of minor surgeries.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah.

Introducing Megyn Kelly

SHAWN RYAN: Let me give you an introduction even though you don’t need one. You ready?

MEGYN KELLY: Sure.

SHAWN RYAN: Megyn Kelly, you spent 13 years at Fox News and moderated multiple presidential debates, including the first Republican primary debate in 2015. You’re the founder of Devil May Care Media and host of The Megyn Kelly Show, one of the top podcasts in the country. Your memoir, Settle for More, debuted at number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Over your career, you’ve interviewed world leaders, presidents, athletes, entertainers, and some of the most influential figures on the planet, from Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Recently, you found yourself at the center of criticism from parts of the conservative media and even from President Trump himself over your coverage of the growing tensions surrounding Iran and America’s role overseas. Welcome back to the show.

MEGYN KELLY: Great to be here.

SHAWN RYAN: Great to have you. And everybody gets a gift. This last time — vigilance.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, nice.

SHAWN RYAN: We go all 50 states.

MEGYN KELLY: Thank you very much. Hide it from the children.

SHAWN RYAN: You’re welcome. But yeah, I want to talk about Massey, all the attacks Trump’s done on you, Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin — your best friend.

MEGYN KELLY: I have a different name for him.

SHAWN RYAN: I heard “micro penis.” Good one. The soldier that got busted with the Polymarket stuff — which I think he was only doing what these guys set the example of. The Iran War, Canada’s oil pivot. Do you know about this?

MEGYN KELLY: No, what are they doing?

SHAWN RYAN: They’ve pivoted away from us. They’re now selling almost a million barrels a day to China to diversify away from us — the petrodollar, lots of sh. AI, Cuba — we’ll see what we get into. Okay, but first off, what does the Massey race mean for us? I mean, I thought that guy was going to win in a landslide.

The Massey Race and AIPAC’s Influence

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, I wasn’t surprised he lost.

SHAWN RYAN: Really?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, they just spent so much money to try to defeat him. Normally they spend like $500,000 in these races. If they spend $500, it’s a lot. And this one was $30 million piled against him by the Israel lobby.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah. AIPAC’s literally bragging about it on X.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. They’re really proud of themselves. They got him fired for Israel. I mean, I guess it’s not as bad as getting our guys killed for Israel.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, that’s next.

The Republican Party Identity Crisis

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, it’s happening. I wasn’t surprised. I think that one’s slightly more complicated than some would have you believe, because I do think Trump’s been gunning for him for a while because he hasn’t been fully supportive of the Trump agenda.

You know, but the thing that’s annoying, and even before he crossed Trump on Epstein, which I think is really what did it, he hadn’t supported Trump’s big, one big beautiful bill. You know, he doesn’t like spending that’s not paid for. The Republican Party used to feel that way. You know, this whole thing came to life in 2010 called the Tea Party based on exactly that principle. And they used to govern that way on Team Red.

And then once they saw the Democrats getting away with out-of-pocket spending that wasn’t justified or paid for, and this sort of new theory of economics that you could get away with that, they jumped on board fully. Because Trump has been the only Republican president since Obama, and he loves to spend. He’s just as much of a spendthrift as anybody on the left. And so now these Republicans in Congress who used to be more like, “Hey, no, no, we have to have justification for it. We have to pay for it.” Completely abandoned that, gave Trump his blank checks.

We’ll never pay off the debt that the country’s paying, ever. Our children, our grandchildren, I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s much more likely we’ll face some sort of a bankruptcy as a country unless we can somehow get these AI companies to take on our debt. They’re the only ones who could afford it.

SHAWN RYAN: And did you come up with that, get the AI companies?

MEGYN KELLY: That’s my idea. Yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: How the hell, why would they do that?

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t know. Because we’ll let them develop their product. Like they’re the only ones who can afford it. They actually could get us out of this jam and maybe we can use it to at least save America and our balance sheet.

But in any event, Massey was one of the guys who held firm on the spending and said, “I’m not voting for spending that’s not paid for. That we can’t offset someplace. There’s enough debt.” And that’s why he didn’t like the one big beautiful bill, among other reasons. And Trump just can’t take any dissension in his ranks. You will be culled from the herd if you cross him on anything. He will not accept dissension. And that’s why we have a House that doesn’t do anything now. We have a Congress that doesn’t check presidential power at all, even though they were supposed to be the most powerful branch, not him.

The founders wanted a small presidency, small executive. That’s why it’s Article II, and Congress is Article I. And so I thought Massey was going to get targeted by Trump. And then when I saw him push on Epstein, I knew Trump was going to, he was so angry.

But the irony of all that is Trump is the one who told us we were going to get disclosure on Epstein. It’s really the Trump backers. Trump didn’t make Epstein a huge campaign issue. But he did a little, and he definitely made disclosure an issue, whether it was the JFK files or the MLK files or the UFO files, all that stuff. And Epstein was a huge issue for a core part of Team Red. So you could argue that Massey was holding Trump to the Trump agenda, not bucking it.

The Epstein Files and MAGA Identity

SHAWN RYAN: See, that’s what I don’t understand, how people don’t see it that way. Every time I blast Trump or anybody in his administration or Pam Bondi, anybody about not releasing those, redacting all the names, all this s*, I get blasted by the Republicans.

MEGYN KELLY: So it’s always important to ask who you’re getting blasted by.

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, it could be bots, probably bots, but I can’t tell.

MEGYN KELLY: Oh, if it has anything to do with Israel, it’s bots for sure. But when it comes to what you just said, what’s core MAGA now?

SHAWN RYAN: I have no idea.

MEGYN KELLY: I think I know. Trump has said from the beginning that he defines what MAGA is. “MAGA is what I say it is,” he has said, and he’s not wrong. It’s his moniker. It’s his campaign slogan. And all along he’s defined what is and is not MAGA. And he told me personally, “MAGA will feel the way I want them to feel. I’ll tell them how to feel about this, that, or the other thing, and they will.” And he has been totally right on that.

The problem for Trump now is that he has defined MAGA literally to those who agree with Mark Levin. If you don’t agree with Mark Levin, you’re not MAGA, which means you must be a neocon whose main issue is what’s in the best interest of Israel. And that defines MAGA down to nothing. It’s a nub. So what’s that? It’s not large, it’s not important, it’s not cool, it’s not appealing to young people. It has no future. Much like Mark Levin himself, it’s old, it’s angry, and it’s dying.

And so those are the people, the diehard loyalists who will just feel the way Trump wants them to feel, are the ones who are harassing you for saying what you think about Thomas Massie. They’re entitled to their opinion, but they do not represent the Republican Party. They don’t represent the right, and they definitely don’t represent the future.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, I don’t even know what the Republican Party is anymore. Nobody stands up for anything.

MEGYN KELLY: It’s unclear.

SHAWN RYAN: Not inside. All these people I thought were Republicans on the outside are standing up against it, but nobody on the inside is except the people that are resigning. And Massey.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, all the— Pete Hegseth fing went down there to campaign against him. What is that s? Did he forget he started a f*ing war?

Pete Hegseth and the Politicization of the Military

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, that was so highly irregular.

SHAWN RYAN: What the f* was that? Is that even legal?

MEGYN KELLY: It’s legal, but it’s—

SHAWN RYAN: As a military member, you can’t be doing s* like that.

MEGYN KELLY: And we have never, in modern history, I think it’s fair to say, I can’t think of another example, have we deployed the Secretary of Defense, or now war, for a specifically political mission. Like, we’ve always tried not to do that because it’s important that our military have the support of all parties, that they not be seen as a politicized group.

And I think the Pentagon tried to justify it by saying, “Oh, he was going down there on multiple items, it wasn’t just to sink Massey.” That’s tough to swallow. And it’s like so much with the Trump presidency, it’s a bridge we shouldn’t have crossed. Like there are certain norms and protocols that are good, that are there for a reason to maintain some faith in institutions. And you can make a very strong case that faith in the Department of War is at the top of the list. People need to believe that that’s not a corrupt organization or one that only fights for one side of the aisle. And we need to keep the troops out from that kind of scrutiny too. And it starts at the top. So it was wrong. They should not have deployed him in the fight against Massey.

SHAWN RYAN: It’s disgusting. I mean, it’s just a shitty example for everybody in the military to have the top guy going around and campaigning for people when literally nobody else in the military is allowed to do that.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. And how do they feel? I mean, I’ll guarantee you the vast majority of the military, if you polled them about whether they wanted Thomas Massey to be reelected, would either have no opinion or you’d have leftists saying, “Well, I just want him out altogether because I’d rather have a Democrat in there.” But the right wing of the military is going to be just as divided as those of us who are not in the military. So it’s like, who are you speaking for? It’s not like something that has popular support within the group he represents.

The Future of American Politics

SHAWN RYAN: So what does this all mean? I thought he was going to win. I thought for sure he was going to win. But then he didn’t. And Israel bought it. They bought the election. So what do we even vote for anymore? What’s the f*ing point? Legitimately, what’s the point?

MEGYN KELLY: It’s very hard for me to argue against your cynicism.

SHAWN RYAN: I think a lot of us, we have a duty to vote, but like, why?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, for what?

SHAWN RYAN: What if they’re just going to—

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, ideally a candidate will come along who will represent an antidote to the system. And I know that we thought Trump was that, but if you look back, there were a lot of signs that Trump was not going to be that. The self-dealing that Trump’s always done on economic matters, like finances around his family business, should have telegraphed to us he was buyable.

I don’t think everyone is. I do think Thomas Massey wasn’t. There are certain people who actually have deep principles and they stand by them and they couldn’t be bought and paid for. Now, could they win in a presidential election? That I don’t know. I haven’t seen that in recent years. But for me, I still think the line between left and right is merging. There’s something rising out of the middle of that that is—

SHAWN RYAN: You’re talking about Anna Kasparian.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, I love her.

SHAWN RYAN: It’s awesome.

MEGYN KELLY: I love her.

SHAWN RYAN: I do too. She’s awesome.

MEGYN KELLY: People think of me as a Republican, but I haven’t been a Republican in over 20 years. I was a registered Democrat when I was fresh out of school, and then I was a registered Republican for a few years when I joined Fox News. And then I quickly realized, I don’t want to wear either of these team jerseys. I’m against both of these guys. And I registered as an independent, back in like 2004 or somewhere around there, which I have been ever since. And I voted for Dems and Republicans. I’m pretty centrist in my politics. Now my cultural sensibilities are definitely more on the right these days than they used to be. But I share a lot in common with some on the left.

So I think something’s coming out of the middle that is going to be the future. It’s going to complicate politics in a really probably good way. Not for the existing parties, but there will be, as a result of that emergence, a candidate or more who stand for what’s happening there in the middle — that’s anti-war and pro-America. America first, actually supports American workers, bringing back manufacturing, doesn’t cede the job fair to what’s happening in China.

There’s a few issues on which I think we agree, removes culture wars from the discussion. So in other words, the leftists who are there are not trying to cut off the body parts of our children, and the people who are on the right are willing not to make, “You must fight with me to stop it,” as terms of whether we can bond together.

I mean, some of those issues are my pet issues. Like I could never vote for somebody who’s going to chop off the body parts of children. I could never vote for somebody who’s voluntarily sterilizing children or supporting it, or the boys and girls sports thing. I can’t. So I still will vote Republican. But what I’d love to see is a different alternative.

And I just think necessity is the mother of all invention and someone will come. Whether it’s Massey, maybe, we weren’t prepared for that. Like we didn’t have enough money in the coffers to fight AIPAC, but we’ll get it because their popularity’s on the way down. And there is a rising group of political power that opposes them and their mission. That’s why they’re in such a panic. That’s why we’re all getting botted.

But they’re not going to win. That’s a lobby. That’s bought and paid for lobbyists who buy loser politicians, but the people have outed them. They’ve been outed for what they do. They’re no longer getting ignored, which is great. And it’s been the Democrats who first have realized that they’re too dependent on these groups and they’re too dependent on politicians who just back Israel knee-jerk. And the Republicans have been the last to that party, but we’re getting there.

There’s only that one core part of MAGA, which is the Mark Levin Party now, the neocon-backed Mark Levin Party. That’s the only part left that is pro-Israel and doesn’t understand what AIPAC is doing to us. So that’s a good thing. That actually lays a pretty good golden path out of this mess.

The Broken Political Machine and the Search for Solutions

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, I want to talk about some solutions at the end, but I just don’t even trust myself to interview any of them anymore after the last— I mean, I interviewed almost everybody in the, not almost everybody, a lot of people. I think it’s like 9 people that wound up in the administration. Pete got picked 5 days after my interview. I just, it’s f*ing disgusting. I have friends running.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, let me ask you something. I know you had Tucker on, he’s a friend. I don’t think he could be bought and paid for. I could get behind a Tucker presidency. He doesn’t want to run, but I could totally get behind. I just don’t think— I think for him, he’s got ideological principles on which he will not bend. And you really have to find somebody who’s like that, who can get backed by people with deep pockets who actually don’t have an agenda that’s different from that person’s.

You know, like Trump, he took $200 million from Miriam Adelson. Well, how did we think that was going to end? I think we took Trump too much at his word on the “I’m not going to start any more wars, especially not Middle East wars, especially not one with Iran.” We could be here for the next hour running those soundbites. We were too non-skeptical when the answers were right there.

If you looked at who was backing his campaign, the biggest donor— and it wasn’t just Miriam. There are many whose, you know, he said her loyalty is more to Israel. Why didn’t we pay more attention to that? Like, why aren’t we blaming ourselves? I don’t accept that there’s no one we could find who wouldn’t be true to the agenda he or she ran on. I am not quite that cynical yet. I’m not quite that blackpilled.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, that’s good because I am. But I wasn’t even talking about president. I was just— I mean, somebody running for Congress, Senate, whatever. I even think the president, they’ll just get eaten alive by the machine.

MEGYN KELLY: But no, you have plenty of reason to think that.

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, I think there maybe is another way out, but it’s going to take a lot of organization.

Shrinking Government as the Path Forward

MEGYN KELLY: The best way out is to shrink government. I mean, that would be the greatest way, just to shrink it all down. Stop with the unitary executive, shrink the president’s powers. It’s happening. Trump’s been reduced to executive orders only. He’s passed no legislation. He got his One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed. He got the Lake and Riley Act passed. And everything he’s done with his pen is going to be undone by the next Democrat to take over.

Even if you got rid of the filibuster, okay, get rid of the filibuster. That’s all going to change as soon as the Democrats take power. All those non-filibustered bills are just going to get reversed by the next Democrat Congress and president. So in a way, they’re all shrinking themselves and how much they matter, which is great. Is there anyone sitting around thinking, “If only we could have more government?” Well, leftists are. No sane person is thinking that.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore. I just don’t even trust my own intuition when it comes to politics because I thought things were going to be so different and I got f*ing duped.

Trump’s Broken Promises and the Iran War

MEGYN KELLY: Nobody knows anything about anything. It’s one of the themes of the year. The thing is, the Trump thing is so disappointing because he did seem like he was going to be different. He was independently wealthy, so there was some reason to believe he wasn’t going to need their money or be swayed by it. He’s such a fighter and a middle finger— he’s a walking middle finger. So he kind of felt like maybe he won’t do Miriam Adelson’s bidding, and he’s too smart for that.

That’s how I saw it. Like, there’s no way he’s going to be pressured by a lobby into reversing himself on one of his top and principal campaign promises. It would be the same as continuing Joe Biden’s open border policies. That’s how impossible it seemed that Trump would start a war.

And everybody’s like, “He said Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.” His defenders say he said that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. Yes, he said that Iran was not close to getting a nuclear weapon. Those are lies. The people who are making that justification for Trump are neocons who just believe in a very hawkish foreign policy. That’s fine. They’re entitled to their belief. But don’t expect me to believe your lie, because we saw the intelligence assessment right before we launched the war saying they’re nowhere near a nuclear weapon. So just stop. Don’t tell me to trust the system that they were about to have it when the system has told us your intel is wrong.

And that’s pre the June strike. Post the June strike, Trump is the one who told us he obliterated their nuclear weapons facilities. Pete Hegseth told us that, and now we’re not allowed to believe that or we’re antisemites. I believed them the first time. I actually believed them that we obliterated it, and repeated it and defended them when others said it was bullshit. So f* you for telling me I’m no longer allowed to believe that. You are the ones who told me that, man.

SHAWN RYAN: It’s enraging. It is enraging.

The Real Cost — Paid by Our Kids

MEGYN KELLY: It is, because it’s like, who’s going to be stuck with this bill? Our kids are going to be stuck with this. And now look at the state of the Middle East. Now look what’s happening in the street.

It’s like I go by the people around me, first of all. My friend and hairstylist Sarah, who I love— she’s like, “I am sick of talking about the Strait of Hormuz,” because she’s a normal person. She is worried. She’s like, “I have a good job, I make decent money, and I can’t get a house. And it cost me $150 to fill up my car yesterday.” That’s what a normal person sounds like.

But what’s happening in the strait is causing some of those problems that she’s having. And because of Trump, now we are forced to think about the Strait of Hormuz, which is in worse shape now than ever, because there’s no way we’re emerging from this without Iran somewhat in charge of it. There’s no way.

SHAWN RYAN: I’m scared to death that the US dollar is going to be thrown off the world reserve currency. I don’t even really know what that looks like if it does, but it’s not going to be good. And that’s what seems to be happening from my perspective. I mean, they’re hitting all the infrastructure of our allies that reinvest all that oil back into Wall Street. I think it’s UAE already said— was it UAE? They already came out and said when we run out of US dollars, we’re going to the yuan.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. And look at the position that the country’s in. If you just zoom out, we are swimming in debt, we have no plan to pay it off, we don’t even have any means to pay it off other than possibly my idea. And China is growing at a rate that’s something like 10 times the American growth rate, and we are facilitating it for them.

Canada, the Pipeline, and America’s Schizophrenic Foreign Policy

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, there has to be— there are conversations every day of heads of state looking at each other going, “We don’t have to put up with this shit. These people have weaponized our dollar. The tariffs, the sanctions, all that. We don’t have to deal with this shit anymore.” And it’s happening. BRICS is growing.

I wanted to wait and talk about this with Canada, but this popped up on my radar the other day. The Trans Mountain Pipeline, TMX, has carried Alberta oil to British Columbia since 1953. Following the Obama and Biden administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL, which would have routed Alberta crude into the U.S. Midwest, Canada pursued its own Pacific outlet. The expansion was approved in 2019, survived COVID delays, and was completed in May of 2024, nearly tripling daily capacity from 300,000 barrels to 890,000 barrels.

So now Canada has pivoted. And here’s the timeline. Biden cancels the Keystone Pipeline in January of ’21. Then 25% tariffs on Canada in February ’25. Annexation threats begin— that’s when we’re saying, “Oh, we’ll make them the 51st state.” Then we blame them for the fentanyl crisis. Then we raise the tariffs to 35%. Then we threaten them with 100% tariff if they do deals with China.

And it’s just like, we’re just this crazy fing schizophrenic country. Trump is threatening them with 100% tariffs for doing deals with China, but the previous administration didn’t even put the pipeline down here. So we’re punishing them for our own fing dealings. And we’re doing this shit all over the world.

MEGYN KELLY: We look like bullies.

SHAWN RYAN: We look like f*ing schizophrenic idiots now.

The Cost of the Israel Alliance and America’s Shifting Alliances

MEGYN KELLY: I can defend the fentanyl thing from Canada because I will say, once we did a better job of enforcing the border down south, there are several reports that they started boatloading it up to Canada and getting it in from our evil top hat to the north, as Michael Knowles calls it.

But yeah, the tariff regime and the oil regime, Trump’s been all over the board on that. And his tariff scheme was struck down by the US Supreme Court because it’s a tax. Taxes have to go through Canada— sorry, through Congress. And he said he’d save it by finding another way, but he’s only found one marginal way. And now we have to pay back all this money to these entities that we taxed through his tariffs that he didn’t have the right to do.

The Gulf Arab states— we promised them protection if we could build our military bases in their countries, and then we didn’t provide it. We didn’t consult them before we began this war. We let them get bombed. We haven’t been particularly protective of them, nor do we have the military resources to do it. We don’t have any more interceptors or any meaningful amount of interceptors. Meanwhile, they’ve rebooted their drones and their $20,000 drones can take out our $2 to $4 million interceptors terrifyingly easily. We don’t seem to have a plan for that other than the president’s son has a company that’s now getting Pentagon contracts.

So there’s not a lot to feel great about if you’re a Gulf Arab friend of ours, because you’re really in a tough position. Now, Iran’s going to have control of this strait. President Trump is saying no, they’re not. And the only real way we have of getting out of it seems to be to refill their coffers with money that’s been sanctioned and on hold— Iranian money that we have control of. So they’re going to get richer one way or another.

And then on Friday, you had President Trump saying they’re not going to have control of the strait. And somebody says, “What about Oman?” Which is one of the proposals— that Iran and Oman, which are the two countries that border the strait, will have some sort of agreed deal where they manage the traffic that goes through in some way. Not a toll, that’s what they want, we don’t want a toll, but something where they manage it. Basically where they get enriched. And Trump said, “They’ll go along or they’ll get bombed too.”

Now we’re going to bomb Oman, which is a US ally with which we cooperate on many international things. But now we’re going to bomb them next? Do they have a nuclear weapon? Why are we going to bomb Oman? Or is that loose talk? Because that’s a friend of ours. So we really are sending a message across the board now, but especially to those Gulf Arab states: we don’t really care about you.

SHAWN RYAN: Do we have any friends left?

MEGYN KELLY: Israel— other than Israel. Israel’s really happy with President Trump. Really happy.

SHAWN RYAN: He’s got a 99% approval rating over there. Yeah, maybe he’ll get the f* out of here and move.

MEGYN KELLY: But what’s a friend? What’s an ally? It’s somebody who actually cares about your interests as well, or who will at least cooperate with you to advance your interests. That’s certainly what we’ve done for Israel. What have they done for us? How is any of this in our interests?

America as Israel’s Benefactor: The Full Cost

SHAWN RYAN: I’m going to be honest. I feel like the United States is just a f*ing cow pasture full of cattle for Israel. We fight their wars. We die for their wars. We pay for their Iron Dome. We pay for pretty much all their missile defense.

MEGYN KELLY: I printed a list out of all the stuff they get, but it must be long.

SHAWN RYAN: It is, and depressing, just like everything else. Annual military aid: $3.8 billion, $38 billion in total. Current 10-year memorandum of understanding signed under Obama, including $33 billion in foreign military financing and $5 billion dedicated to missile defense systems. Covers the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow 2, Arrow 3, and Iron Beam laser defense. The US has been a co-production partner on the Iron Dome since 2024. That’s $500 million a year for that. Post-October 7th emergency packages: $16.3 billion in 2 years. Total aid since 1948: $300 billion.

We send all this f*ing money over there. They get universal healthcare, free education, subsidized universities, monthly child allowances, unemployment benefits, national pension, disability benefits, maternity benefits, and housing subsidies. We don’t get half this stuff.

Obamacare Subsidies vs. Foreign Aid: A Tale of Two Priorities

MEGYN KELLY: Just think about that $16 billion. And this war has cost at least $30 billion. I think it’s more than that, but the administration, about a month ago, estimated $25 billion. So it’s more than that now, even by their estimate.

In 2010, President Obama shoved Obamacare down our throats. The first time ever we’d had a massive entitlement passed without majority support of the people. It was worth one-sixth of the US economy. It was shoved through without majority support. “If you like your doctor, you can keep him. If you like your plan, you can keep it.” Those are lies. People died.

And the only way they managed to actually sell it to the American public somewhat, or prevent revolt, was to say you’re going to get preexisting conditions covered and your premiums aren’t going to go up. Well, that was an impossibility all along. How can you get all the preexisting conditions covered and premiums aren’t going to go up? That doesn’t make any sense. And of course it didn’t make sense. The only way they could do it was with government subsidies.

So they passed mandatory subsidies into the law for all these people who were going to get financially hurt by this new terrible program. And the subsidies have an end date. The Democrats have been saying— because they would like their terrible bill to still be covered up, how awful it was— they want the subsidies to continue. Because the jig is up once the American public actually feels the pain of those subsidies being gone. And the Republicans said no, they’re going to be the fiscally responsible ones now.

And the Democrats said— this is just recently— it’s only going to take $30 billion, but we need to do this for an already suffering public. And look, Shawn, the truth is, even though I hate Obamacare and worked very hard to stop it from passing back in the 2008 to 2010 timeframe, these Americans— it’s not their fault. They didn’t want it. It was shoved down their throat by Obama. They’re suffering. They can’t afford groceries. They can’t afford gas prices. They can’t afford homes. They can’t afford healthcare.

And we’re giving $16.2 billion to Israel for just one of those line items. Never mind what we spent on Israel’s war against Iran, which no one wants. No one. The poll numbers on that are over 70% against. And we’re not going to help our own people. Those Obamacare subsidized consumers are going to suffer because we have other priorities. It’s enraging.

Is the Tide Turning on Israel’s Influence?

SHAWN RYAN: I know. I just feel stuck. I mean, they’re buying our elections. How do we get out from under this? Is it almost over? Is it going to die with the baby boomer generation? I mean, Gen Z is 85% against Israel.

MEGYN KELLY: These are all good things. I have nothing against Israel as a country. I don’t have anything against the people. But the government has definitely been taking advantage of us and we’ve been allowing it, really. And sometimes I do worry— we shouldn’t use Israel as a proxy to hide our anger at Trump. President Trump’s the one who made the call, and Netanyahu—

SHAWN RYAN: This has been going on for a long f*ing time.

MEGYN KELLY: I agree, but I’m just saying Netanyahu made an argument that he thought was in favor of his country. That’s fine, that’s him looking out for his country. Why didn’t our president look out for ours? Why didn’t we say we get it, just like Obama reportedly said to Netanyahu— “We get it”? But no. Many presidents before him in the modern era have been the victims of this dog and pony show by Israel and have said it’s a no. Trump wasn’t the first on whom they tried this.

So I do think it’s important to remember Trump has agency and Trump is in charge of the US military and what it does, not Netanyahu. Netanyahu made the pitch, but we’re the ones who fell for it. And I think Trump is regretting it mightily now. But what you were saying—

SHAWN RYAN: You think he’s regretting it?

MEGYN KELLY: Yes. But hold that thought, because I do want to come back to that.

All the stuff you just said is why we should feel optimistic. Like if you go to the doctor tomorrow and you find out you have cancer, you might feel sad, but it’s actually a good day because you found out about cancer, and it’s better to know so you can do something about it. The reality was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow— you have cancer. But after knowing it, you’re in a better position to improve your life and to make real changes.

That’s how I see this whole problem with Israel. We didn’t understand this, on the left or the right, about how much influence Israel had over American politics. Some did. Glenn Greenwald has been sounding the alarm on this forever, as have people like Anna Kasparian and Cenk Uygur. But it’s been a smaller group. This wasn’t something that was either known or accepted— I guess that might be the better word— by both parties in America. And it is now.

That doesn’t mean they’re not going to still win some battles, especially on Republican elections, because Republicans are still close to this lobby and in bed with them financially. But this is the beginning of the end of that. The incredible response to 10/7, what Israel did in carpet bombing Gaza and now Beirut, and getting America into a new Middle East war, leading our soldiers to be killed, endangering another generation— this is going to be held against them. The Americans are awake now on the issue of Israel, yours truly included, in a way we weren’t the day before. So that’s the good news.

On the subject of Trump regretting this— I do. I think he regrets it very much.

Trump’s Sinking Poll Numbers and the Political Fallout

SHAWN RYAN: Why do you think that?

MEGYN KELLY: Because he’s not dumb. And he knows it’s crushing him. It’s crushing his numbers. When have you ever seen Trump exposed to bad polls not come out and attack the polls? Why isn’t he doing that? Because it’s every poll. Left, right, center. There hasn’t been one poll that’s good for him other than one CNN survey of core MAGA voters early on in the war, who said they were all 100% with Trump. Well, MAGA is basically defined as you’re pro-Trump, so of course they’re going to go along with Trump. But MAGA is shrinking. At best, it’s 19% of the electorate, or of the Republican Party. It’s shrinking in relevance, and the rest of the Republican Party is having real doubts about this war. And of course the left is totally against it.

So I think Trump is looking at his poll numbers and he understands that not only do we have a 70% disapproval rating on this war and climbing, but it’s driven down his approval ratings on the things that really do get people elected, like inflation and the economy. It’s caused inflation. We can all see that— for the first time last month we saw the cost of living increase outpace wages. One was 3.6%, one was 3.8%. So people’s paychecks are literally no longer keeping up with the rises in inflation.

And his approval ratings have a corresponding dip. He is way underwater on his economic approval numbers when it comes to the overall economy and certainly on inflation with everyone. All the Hispanics who came to Team Trump in 2024 are gone. Not only are they not ambivalent— they are saying they’re going to vote for the Democrats. They are deeply disappointed in him.

SHAWN RYAN: Everybody’s f*ing gone except Fox News, Mark Levin, Benny Johnson, and Dan Bongino.

MEGYN KELLY: The white working class leaving.

SHAWN RYAN: Am I missing anyone? I mean, Rogan, you, Tucker, Candace, Tim Dillon, all the comedians, Theo Von. Me. Every big podcast out there is like, “F* you.”

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. “You lied.”

SHAWN RYAN: “F* you.”

MEGYN KELLY: You betrayed. I mean, I’ll tell you, for me, it’s been a confusing time. It’s been a frustrating time for most of us, I think. But I still support the basic Trump agenda. And I still really have hopes that he will get back to it, if for no other reason, out of practicality to save what’s left of his presidency.

Like, I really kind of believed in the whole let’s deport the illegals thing. He did close the border and I give him total credit for that. He did fight the gender war and he’s made a serious difference there, and I’m very grateful to him for that.

SHAWN RYAN: I think those are both pretty low-hanging fruit.

MEGYN KELLY: That’s, yeah, I know, right? But I would love for him to get back to focusing on domestic issues. It’s almost like Trump found it’s really hard to have an effect on those issues and gave up and said like, foreign policy is one area in which a commander-in-chief can make a real difference, which is true. So I’m just going to focus on that.

You know, it’s like that little soundbite that leaked over his Easter lunch that he had that wasn’t supposed to be put online, but it was for about 15 minutes, and then the White House realized and they pulled it down.

SHAWN RYAN: What was that?

Trump’s Easter Lunch Soundbite and the Limits of Federal Power

MEGYN KELLY: He said in that soundbite, there’s really not much the federal government can do to change life at the local level. They can’t really change crime or help you with health insurance, medical care, or those small issues that actually affect your life on a day-to-day basis. That’s really more local government.

And it was a very controversial statement because he made a bunch of promises that he would help people in those lanes, but it also isn’t entirely untrue. And you can hear it almost as a justification for his foreign adventurism. Like, ah, this is annoying. I actually kind of can’t get these illegals out because all these sanctuary cities are protecting them and I haven’t found an effective way around them. I’ve tried to do cleanup in some cities, but most won’t let me in when it comes to crime. So what am I really supposed to do?

Healthcare’s too big to take on. I can’t make many changes there because I don’t have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, nor do I have even 51 Republicans who would vote to change the rules to get rid of the filibuster if I wanted that. I know there are a lot of Republicans who are like, get rid of the filibuster. You don’t have the votes to do it. You have some 5 Republicans who won’t vote for it and no Dems are going to vote for it. So you at least need 51 senators to vote to overturn the protocol that requires a 60-vote majority to get a vote on legislation.

So I think he was feeling, what else can I do? All I have is these executive orders. I issued all the ones I was interested in at the beginning of the presidency back in February of ’25. So what else can I do? Oh, here’s something fun. And I think he loves the military tools, toys that he discovered with the Maduro raid.

SHAWN RYAN: And he could have released the Epstein files.

The Epstein Files Mystery

MEGYN KELLY: That is a mystery to me. I don’t believe Trump’s in the Epstein files in any meaningful way. I really don’t, because I think Joe Biden would’ve used it or gotten it out there. So why — Trump, I did, we did look at this at the time. He wasn’t a huge, “I will release the Epstein files” guy, but his base was. His FBI director and deputy director for the beginning of his term were 100%.

SHAWN RYAN: And his vice president.

MEGYN KELLY: And his vice president. And his son, like Trump’s circle and the ones who are his campaign surrogates absolutely made a huge deal of the Epstein files. Trump got in there and acted like he’d never heard of this before. Like, what are you even talk— who would be talking about Jeffrey Epstein still? Absolutely not, you freaks.

It looked like an invasion of the body snatchers. Like, who do you think you’re talking to? This actually is a huge issue that has a lot more to do with — it has to do with a lot more than just Jeffrey Epstein. So it was a similar 180, it felt like one, to the Iran thing. Only that one, it’s him on camera making the promises over and over and over. But on Epstein, my best guess is it’s his friends, it’s his donors.

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, didn’t he say that to Marjorie Taylor Greene? He can’t do anything, or he said something along the lines, I don’t know, what do you want to do?

MEGYN KELLY: Intimidated her.

SHAWN RYAN: They’re all my friends.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, then all your friends are f*ing pedophiles. Get rid of them. Make new friends.

MEGYN KELLY: None of us gives a sh*t. Like we wanted to see the names. What? The one good thing we have going for us there is there are a lot of angry people who have just been voted out effectively of the Senate and Congress who have 7 months left in office, like Massie. Like there’s nothing stopping him from standing on the House floor and revealing to us some of these names.

SHAWN RYAN: Do you think he’ll do it?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, I kind of do. I mean, what does he have to lose? Nothing.

SHAWN RYAN: His life.

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, what’s going to happen to John Cornyn? I don’t know. Trump says he’s my friend. That’s Trump trying to keep him in line for the next 7 months. He’s probably feeling pretty bitter about what happened to him. I know there’s a few who might.

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t know who that is.

John Cornyn and the Next 7 Months

MEGYN KELLY: Leave with a bang. John Cornyn. He’s the one who just lost to Ken Paxton on the Senate primary down in Texas. But he’s been there for multiple terms. And he’s now on his way out because Trump backed his opponent who’s got a lot of ethical scandals, but who’s fresh blood and a little bit more red meat of a Republican than Cornyn, who’s more milquetoast and a little swampy. But who knows? I think the next 7 months are going to be kind of interesting.

MTG, Joe Kent, and the Resignations

SHAWN RYAN: What do you think about all these people resigning? Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, Tulsi Gabbard. I’m really sad about the MTG one.

MEGYN KELLY: I wish I had gotten the chance to talk her out of it. And I know she had good reasons and all that, but somebody once gave me good advice and it was, don’t let your critics bully you out of a job you love. And I kind of think she was bullied by Trump out of the role because he was—

SHAWN RYAN: Really? You think that’s what happened?

MEGYN KELLY: Kind of, yeah. Like he was making her life a living hell. She was getting death threats. Her kids were getting death threats. He was making her the scourge of the Republican Party as opposed to a heroine of it, which she is. I love her. I was so misled on MTG early on. I had such a different impression of her than I do now. I really admire her and I wish she were still on the inside because we can’t keep losing all our great people.

SHAWN RYAN: But anyway, really there, I thought it was a hell of a statement though, and I was hoping somebody would do it. I was hoping somebody would relinquish, would trade their power for a statement. Yeah, but like, because I think that’s important. I mean, none of these people even have any f*ing power. That’s the thing.

MEGYN KELLY: That’s the thing. We’re just going to seed all the fights. Like, is it better for us that Joe Kent is on the outside? Hell no.

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t know, I disagree. I think it is. Why?

MEGYN KELLY: Well, now we have no one.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, we might have — who do you think’s going to take it? Sebastian Gorka.

MEGYN KELLY: Stop it right now.

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, I don’t think it matters. I don’t think it matters who’s in there anyways. He doesn’t listen to anybody. He doesn’t take any information.

MEGYN KELLY: And I agree, he doesn’t take it, but to make a better decision.

SHAWN RYAN: So he might as well just put a bunch of f*ing his own puppets in place, because that’s obviously what they — the thing I really don’t get is why he fired Pam Bondi. That was a great mouthpiece.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: What happened there?

MEGYN KELLY: He was reportedly mad that she wasn’t indicting more of his enemies.

SHAWN RYAN: Okay.

The Limits of Malicious Prosecution

MEGYN KELLY: But there are limits to what lawyers can do. And by the way, the claims, the cases that Todd Blanch has started have been quietly falling apart. And some of the ones Pam Bondi started because she was under pressure, have been falling apart. There’s such a thing as malicious prosecution. And if you look like you’re doing that, a court can throw out your criminal case against somebody. So it’s not as easy as Trump thinks, as he would like us to believe. And the lawyers who are actually responsible for filing the cases, I think, have realized this.

Like, there’s a reason Pam Bondi, she was a decent lawyer, didn’t knee-jerk do exactly what he wanted her to do on all these people because A, you have to have a real crime, and B, even if you find one, it’s nominally been committed, you can get thrown out thanks to malicious prosecution. That’s what Comey was going to argue before his case fell apart on a technicality. That’s what Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Maryland man, what he argued. Remember, we deported him to the one country he couldn’t be deported to, and then there was a judge’s order saying, all right, you have to let him back in the country because that’s the one country he had protection from being deported to.

And the Trump administration’s trump card was, “Okay, but bam, we’re going to slap him with trafficking charges because he was in a car with no seats and he was traveling to the border and he was clearly bringing in other people and we got a witness in the car who’s going to back us up. And so sure, welcome back to America, but now you’re charged criminally. Good luck.” That case was just thrown out because a judge said this is a malicious prosecution.

Trump right now is threatening, reportedly has the DOJ looking into filing charges for perjury against E. Jean Carroll, the woman who sued Trump civilly for allegedly raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 30-plus years ago. That too is going to get challenged as a malicious prosecution if it’s brought, because the court can look at the circumstances around the charge. And while maybe she is technically guilty of perjury in the case, what the allegation is that she testified in the case under oath. She didn’t have any outside backing for the case. She wasn’t being helped by outsiders. And the truth is she was backed by Reid Hoffman. And that came out later.

So, perjury, you have to show it was an intentional lie as opposed to a mistake. But okay, let’s assume they can cross that hurdle. She’s going to argue malicious prosecution, that the president himself has made clear he’s got an enemies list. He owes me $86 million in judgments. Well, I think $90, $91 million if you add the $5 million plus the $86 million that she recovered against him in civil courts. And everybody knows there’s only one reason why he’s coming for me. And she’s got a decent chance depending on what judge he gets in front of.

So my point is simply Pam Bondi understood this dynamic, I think, better than President Trump, but he wanted what he wanted. And in the same way, like, Massey wasn’t allowed to be a principled objector to the spending on the one big beautiful bill or the Epstein nondisclosures, she wasn’t allowed to say, “I don’t have it. I tried. We tried. We appointed that Lindsey Halligan in the one jurisdiction to go after Comey and Letitia James, but it turns out she wasn’t appointed properly. And so those cases fell apart when she got booted from the role. Mr. President, we tried. It’s just not that easy, thankfully, to come up with charges to go after an enemy criminally on.” So that’s why Pam Bondi’s gone.

But I really believe it’s better for us. I admire Joe Kent and am grateful that he made a point when he left of saying why. But I personally would much rather have him on the inside. I’d much rather have Tulsi Gabbard on the inside. If Tulsi Gabbard hadn’t been on the inside, would we have had a public airing of the assessment that they are nowhere near having a nuclear weapon? If Mark Wayne Mullen had been in that job, do you think he would’ve said that? Or do you think he could have been manipulated by the White House before that testimony to say something else?

And Joe Kent too, I don’t know what Joe Kent has leaked and hasn’t leaked. He’s never leaked to me. He told me he’s never leaked, but I would say it’s not bad to have people in those positions where they could potentially get something out to the media, something that’s knowledgeable and informed and real so that we can pursue avenues that the administration won’t. That’s how the media and the government has worked synergistically since the dawn of time.

So, as a media person, I’d much rather, again, I’m not accusing Joe Kent, because I don’t know what, but people like that who are pro-America, America First, and are on the inside and willing to, in their own way, whistleblow, are important to the national dialogue, to the direction of the country. It can change hearts and minds. Who do we have now?

Joe Kent’s Resignation and the Value of Insiders

SHAWN RYAN: Well, that’s where I just don’t know. I think my opinion differs a little just because I don’t think it matters who we have now because he’s not going to take any information in and change any decision making. He’s going to do whatever he wants to do. And if he doesn’t like it, then get the f out. I’m going to fire you or shut you up. And so I think it takes somebody like Joe Kent with his background and everything that he has actually done for the country. I think that’s a big wake-up call. That is a big statement for a guy like that to come out and go, “I can’t in good conscience support this s.”

MEGYN KELLY: Again, I love him and I appreciate him in both roles, as this sort of righteous resigner. But I still believe we can’t just cede the fights. I don’t think it’s hopeless.

SHAWN RYAN: They weren’t utilizing the asset that he could have been properly. And so it didn’t matter that he left.

MEGYN KELLY: Agreed, with the caveats that I just said. I think there was a way for him to help and for Tulsi to help. I mean, for sure, she did help. And I don’t know how we replace her.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Departure

Reuters is reporting that she was fired. Steve Bannon says she got fired. I’ve spoken to a source very close to her who says it’s not true. In fact, they tried to convince her to stay, that she genuinely left because her husband has cancer and they’re deeply in love. And well, let’s face it, government sucks. Government service is not fun. Remember when Dan Bongino was crying on the couch of Fox and Friends? “I never get to see my wife.” People mocked him, but I was like, that’s real, because it is terrible. Government service sucks. Nobody likes it. You do sit in a windowless room. It’s a thankless job. You have only one master and it’s Trump, and he’s very difficult to please.

Portions of the public may love him, but his staffers really go through hell. He is relentless on them. And you don’t make a lot of money on top of all that. Most of these people could be making a lot of dough out in the private sector. So it’s easy for me to believe that Tulsi, upon getting this terrible diagnosis in her family, said, “It’s time for me to leave. I’ve been doing this for not quite a year and a half, and that’s plenty of time in government service. I gave a year of my life, and now I want to get back to me.” But I don’t know who—

SHAWN RYAN: Well, I mean, the timing was a little odd, because a week before, the report came out that they raided her house or office or something for the JFK files and the MKUltra files. And then a week later, she resigns.

MEGYN KELLY: But did you see what happened with that?

SHAWN RYAN: Then she said they didn’t—

MEGYN KELLY: It wasn’t true. That was Ana Paulina Luna, who said a bunch of nonsense on a cable news show that she immediately had to retract after she said it and everyone’s jaw went slack. She said that, and then immediately Tulsi Gabbard’s office came out and said, “That’s not true, we were not raided by the CIA.” The CIA came in and said, “Not true,” and then she had to take it down.

Now, there had been a report by a CIA whistleblower who testified before Congress that day that did talk about the CIA taking back some 40 boxes of materials from the DNI’s office. This group called The Dig that she started, which is responsible for unearthing documents around MLK, JFK, MKUltra, UAPs, formerly known as UFOs, that the CIA months ago went back and retrieved 40 documents from the DNI’s office that it believed were its and that it didn’t want her going through. That did happen. So it was just misrepresented by Luna as a raid by the CIA that day on Tulsi’s office. Those pieces were not true, and they were denied by Tulsi’s office in writing that night.

So, we talk about the CIA and what the hell business does it think it has going into the DNI’s office and taking back 40 boxes of stuff she was reviewing for disclosure to us on President Trump’s executive order. Like that — sit the f* down.

SHAWN RYAN: Mm-hmm.

MEGYN KELLY: There’s an order that’s been given by somebody higher on the food chain than you. But of course, that’s not the way the CIA sees the president, and it believes it’s operating its own independent fiefdom. If we continue this discussion, I’ll be dead by Friday. The CIA is nothing to trifle with. So it’s more complicated, but yeah, she had definitely crossed the CIA in that way. But it was Trump’s executive order that made her do it.

SHAWN RYAN: She was also staunchly against the Iran War, right? I mean, she was selling “No War with Iran” merch before.

MEGYN KELLY: The consequence of that was not her termination, I believe. Again, I trust my source who said they tried to convince her to stay. I think the consequence of that was irrelevance in Trump world. The reports are that he’s been far more focused on what Marco Rubio has to say, who again is his national security advisor, he’s not just Secretary of State, than on what Tulsi Gabbard has to say. And there are even some reports that he’s looking more to Marco than he is to J.D., and I don’t know whether that’s true.

It could be, because I think JD Vance is much more of a non-interventionalist and Trump’s feeling pretty interventionalist these days and wants sweet nothing. He wants these gummy bears shoved down his throat. Just the lovely taste of sugar instead of cold harsh reality, which is what a president needs to hear.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah.

MEGYN KELLY: So yeah, it’s not going in a great direction in terms of staff.

Did She Get Rolled, or Was She Pushed?

SHAWN RYAN: I got a hot question here for you that has to do with this. We had Claude scrape the internet for everything happening inside the Trump administration right now, and here’s what it came back with. Tulsi Gabbard is out as DNI as of last Friday, the fourth cabinet official gone after Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and Laurie Chavez. Trump publicly said she was wrong on Iran weeks before her resignation. Joe Kent, his counterterrorism chief, resigned in March saying he cannot in good conscience back the Iran war. And Trump’s response was a Truth Social post bringing up the death of Joe Kent’s first wife, a Navy technician killed by a suicide bomber in Syria. One of my really good friends also died in that, Scotty Wirtz.

Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, he said, helped get the job, has survived Signalgate, a second signal chat that included his wife and an entire chief of staff team resigning, and an IG report saying he endangered service members. So here’s the question: did she get rolled, or was she pushed? And why is Hegseth still standing when she’s not?

MEGYN KELLY: Well, I think I’ve answered what I think about whether she got rolled. Hegseth is doing exactly what Trump wants him to do. That’s why he’s still standing. I mean, it was crazy what Trump said about Joe Kent’s wife. It was deeply wrong.

SHAWN RYAN: Mm-hmm.

MEGYN KELLY: I responded to this last week in an interview with the Hodge twins and my right-wing detractors, like the neocons, clipped it to just me ripping on Trump and his marital history as though I just decided to take a gratuitous shot at Trump. That’s not what happened. He’s in a glass house. He is in no position to criticize anyone’s marital decisions. And that’s on top of the point that what he said is morally wrong. You don’t criticize a man whose wife has been killed in service of your administration, Trump 1.0, who served honorably, the mother of his children, for 4 years later finding love again and finding a stepmom for his 2 little ones. That’s disgusting.

SHAWN RYAN: Mm-hmm.

The MAHA Agenda and RFK Jr.

MEGYN KELLY: What the, who would do that? That’s a disgusting comment Trump made. And I was asked to respond to it, and that was the response I gave, and I stand by every word. Pete, look, if you want to go through like the marriages of the Trump administration, which one should be scrutinized? Like, I believe Pete is in love with his wife right now and that he has a good marriage.

But as I said when I was defending Pete from that bullshit rape charge that was used to try to sink his nomination, don’t marry Pete. But it shouldn’t be a disqualifier for this role. But it’s fine for Trump because Pete does what he says. And Joe Kent’s decision to remarry somebody 4 years after his wife had passed, had been killed in a war that Trump sent her to, that somehow is something we’re supposed to hold against him. Why? Because he was mildly and respectfully critical of the Iran War.

He handled that in an honorable way. And I understand people are critical of him because they say, “You should have just quit. You were in service of the president. You don’t detract from the commander-in-chief.” And I accept those criticisms as valid and in good faith. I don’t agree with them in this case, but I don’t take them away from the detractors. However, there’s absolutely no basis to criticize his marital decisions.

So I agree with the question. The premise of the question is that, is there a double standard depending on whether you do Trump’s bidding? And the answer is absolutely there is. 100%.

SHAWN RYAN: There’s a follow-up. Name the next person you predict that will be out of Trump’s administration before the midterms.

MEGYN KELLY: RFK Jr.

SHAWN RYAN: Really? Why do you think that?

MEGYN KELLY: Because he’s dismantling the MAHA agenda, week by week. Trump is, and RFK, based on pressure that’s being put on him. I think he’s a true believer.

SHAWN RYAN: Like the glyphosate stuff?

MEGYN KELLY: Like the glyphosate, that like, let’s insulate glyphosate from legal liability to some extent and mandate it as a national important fertilizer. Like we can’t get rid of it because of national security. What?

All the MAHA moms, which is really just like a placeholder for everybody who cares about chemicals in our food, went ballistic saying, “This is a complete betrayal. This is like one of the top items we wanted you to address. This is one of the reasons why we can’t have pasta, why we have to soak our fruit in vinegar.” Total betrayal.

Marty Makary pushed out of the FDA. Why? The reason reportedly is that R.J. Reynolds wanted approval of its flavored vapes, like berry and like Hawaiian Punch. And he didn’t want to do that because it’s a huge issue, not just for MAHA moms, but for moms across the country where they don’t want their 14-year-old being marketed to with Hawaiian Punch vaping because guess what? She’ll do it. And it’s the same way we didn’t want cigarettes advertised to our children. And eventually that wasn’t allowed. And he was reportedly under pressure to allow it, and he said no, and the next thing you know, he was no longer working there.

Casey Means couldn’t get confirmed as Surgeon General thanks to Bill Cassidy, who wouldn’t let it get out of committee, and thankfully he’s gone, but she was one of the faces of MAHA. She actually is one of the reasons we have MAHA, she and her brother, Calley, who wrote the book “Good Energy” and started a revolution, connected with RFK Jr., they connected with Tucker. This whole thing got rolling. We couldn’t get her as Surgeon General. I mean, it’s kind of important, but it’s not like that huge. It’s kind of just a spokesperson. You’re not really doing medicine, but they were like, “Oh, she’s not a practicing doctor.” Who gives a s*? You need somebody who’s a good talker and who is sensible enough to know what to say, what’s the message and what’s important. Nope. Couldn’t get her over the finish line because we didn’t fight for her.

Well, Cassidy’s leaving. Can we get her later? No, we went with somebody else. No offense to the new person, but this person hasn’t been a stalwart of MAHA. So if you’re asking me if I have to make a bet, I guess that’s what I’ll say.

Glyphosate, Cancer, and Iowa

SHAWN RYAN: And look, I couldn’t believe it. It’s not just another lie from the Trump administration that we’re going to clean all this s* up. And they said, yeah, it’s a national security concern. They labeled fentanyl a national security concern. That’s not even 100,000 deaths a year. Do you know how many people die a year from cancer?

MEGYN KELLY: Millions.

SHAWN RYAN: 618,000.

MEGYN KELLY: What?

SHAWN RYAN: 618,000 a year.

MEGYN KELLY: I thought it’d be higher than that.

SHAWN RYAN: You know where the highest concentration of cancer cases is? In Iowa.

MEGYN KELLY: I was going to say the Midwest.

SHAWN RYAN: Do you know where the highest concentration of glyphosate is?

MEGYN KELLY: Iowa.

SHAWN RYAN: It’s in Iowa. You know this guy running for governor there, Zach Lamb?

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t know him.

SHAWN RYAN: That’s one dude I do like a lot. A lot. I think he’s on next week, but—

MEGYN KELLY: Oh, good.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah, he’s awesome.

MEGYN KELLY: Like, the farming community has been having case after case after case of cancer.

SHAWN RYAN: They can’t even swim in lakes in Iowa because the s has gotten so bad. There are warning signs in the rivers, in the lakes, so you can’t go in there. And then he just fing gave them immunity.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. Victor Davis Hanson has a walnut farm, I think, in Northern California, and for years has been telling me the number of family members who have died of cancer, including his own daughter, who all grew up on the farm. And he said he believed it was because of the chemicals that they sprayed the trees with. And Victor himself came down with cancer this year and has been battling a lung cancer that’s been really tough on him. I love him and am saying prayers every day for him.

But yeah, it’s everywhere. Like, we’re just going to pretend it doesn’t exist, pretend like Bayer needs our protection, right, which bought Monsanto. Like, forgive me, but I don’t buy that. They’ve got more money than God.

SHAWN RYAN: Mm-hmm.

MEGYN KELLY: So it is very frustrating, and it does give you the feeling like, what’s going to change? Like, the MAHA thing helped, really did help get Trump elected. I really thought we’d get more than just a couple of food dyes out of our food.

SHAWN RYAN: Did we do that? Maybe those aren’t legal, those gummy bears.

MEGYN KELLY: They’re supposed to be getting colored with like beets now. Whoops. I’m not sure. I’ll have to check the ingredients. Oh, there’s too many. Corn syrup.

SHAWN RYAN: Hey, there’s nothing in there.

MEGYN KELLY: There’s no beets.

SHAWN RYAN: There’s nothing in there good for you, I can tell you that right now.

MEGYN KELLY: Canola oil, that’s bad. That gives you the bad fat. That gives you the jiggly cellulite fat.

SHAWN RYAN: What are you trying to do to me? I’m just telling you, it tastes f*ing amazing.

MEGYN KELLY: You want the hard fat.

The Legal System and the Supreme Court

SHAWN RYAN: All right, Megyn, we’re back from the break. Let’s talk about some stuff you want to talk about. Everything I want to talk about is super dark, and everybody’s going to think the end of the world’s happening. So, what do you want to talk about?

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, I still believe in the legal system. One good thing to feel good about is the US Supreme Court. Got 6 conservatives on there, sort of, and that’s the best it’s been in my lifetime. So that’s good. That’s one branch of government that’s looking up.

Seriously, it’s been wonderful this term to watch so many decisions come down the right way. Usually you have to beg and plead to get the 5-4 decisions, and now we’ve got one to spare. So that’s positive. They don’t always do what we want them to do, but this is a great court. For anybody who’s sane.

And honestly, the legal news in general has been our cup runneth over this year. It’s just been kind of insane. Like that Alec Murdaugh trial, which is now coming back to us again. I don’t know if you know anything about that.

SHAWN RYAN: It’s this way more on top of s* than I am.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, he was a longtime stalwart of the community in South Carolina, and he comes from a long line of prosecutors. He wasn’t a prosecutor, but he was a well-known lawyer in his community. Long story short, it turned out he was embezzling from his law firm, he was stealing from his clients, and it was all about to come out. And as an attempt to gain sympathy for himself and prevent further scrutiny from, for example, his law firm, he shot and killed his wife and 19-year-old son.

SHAWN RYAN: Oh s*, I did hear about this.

MEGYN KELLY: And played dumb and called 911 and cried and said, “Oh, I can’t believe it. They’re dead.” Got arrested eventually and got convicted. And his conviction was just overturned because the clerk of court, this sweet little Southern Belle kind of gal, Becky Hill, was manipulating the jury behind the scenes, like saying, “Don’t believe him. Look at that body language,” and “The deliberations, these shouldn’t take long,” and more.

And even though everybody knows he did it, it’s so clear he did it, he’s going to get a new trial. And it was the right decision. And it’s one of those things that, for me, it made me feel proud to be an American because that’s our system. We don’t say, “We know he did it, let’s move on.” Under our system, you have a constitutional right to a fair trial with an impartial jury. And if someone interferes with your right, your verdict will be overthrown and you will be given a second bite at the apple.

That’s what’s going to happen to this guy. It’s a gift to the media because everybody covered this case and it was a fascinating case. There are like so many twists and turns to it. I’ve just given you the bottom line. And it’s going to happen now it looks like, because I don’t think there’s a deal to be had here. Could be wrong.

The Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni trial settled because she didn’t want to be cross-examined. That was also a fascinating legal drama. The whole Nancy Guthrie missing mom of Savannah was like a page-turning mystery that the whole country was riveted by for a good 6 weeks. And then we all had to get back to our real lives because there was no resolution and no progress.

But that civil suit that we talked about in the Michael Jackson case by those 2 guys who were in the fake documentary from 2019, that’s going to be in court, we believe, as early as this fall. So there are quite a few things in the pipeline legally and that have been happening in the country that I think are interesting, offer some insights into who we are.

And for me as a lawyer, I practiced law for almost 10 years. And while there are bad judges and we’ve seen that, especially during the Trump administration with judges who are agenda-driven and shouldn’t be, to me, I still believe in the law. I still think the law is the one thing that binds us together. The rule of law. Even Trump knows it, that he can’t flout the decisions that are handed down against him. And that’s been good. He actually has been abiding by the rule of law. There hasn’t been a constitutional crisis caused by the president, that’s for sure. Not yet.

So when I get into bed at night, Shawn, and I can’t sleep because of what’s happening in politics or policy, I do think about the courts and the law and still feel optimistic.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, that’s good. I see MDMA on the list.

Psychedelic Therapy and AI: A Candid Conversation

MEGYN KELLY: So I don’t know much about it. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette. I’ve certainly never taken a drug for recreation or other purposes. I’ve taken like a Tylenol and all that, but— Yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: That’s not a Tylenol.

MEGYN KELLY: And I drink alcohol, so that’s a drug. But I’m curious, in the field of these drugs, there’s MDMA, there’s psilocybin, there’s ketamine. You tell me, but it seems to me that psilocybin should be the first thing because that’s the one Roland Griffiths, who created the lab at Johns Hopkins University and was like the guy who said we should give all this stuff another look— just because Timothy Leary decided to lean in a little too hard at Harvard when doing these studies doesn’t mean these are bad ideas here. They actually could help somebody.

But he was a big fan of the psilocybin, talked about it like a game changer. Talked about— is it MDMA or NA?

SHAWN RYAN: MDMA.

MEGYN KELLY: 2 Ms. So talks about MDMA like it’s more of an empathy drug. He referred to it.

SHAWN RYAN: I think the big one right now is ibogaine.

MEGYN KELLY: That’s the one that Joe Rogan recommended, right? For the vets.

SHAWN RYAN: Yes. And we just got past—

MEGYN KELLY: I think that one is closest to psilocybin. If memory serves from my discussion with Roland, which was a couple years ago, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.

SHAWN RYAN: So the good thing about ibogaine is all these guys that are coming home with traumatic brain injuries from getting blown up, they have these black splotches in the brain. I think I talked about this on yours. I can’t remember. But so Stanford did a study, and the vast majority of them— not all of them, but the vast majority of them— they would go, if they didn’t have shrapnel, they would go to Stanford, get a brain scan, and it would show where all the black spots are in the brain. And then they would go down.

MEGYN KELLY: What are the black spots?

SHAWN RYAN: That’s where the blast affected the brain.

MEGYN KELLY: Okay.

SHAWN RYAN: So there’s no brain function. And they would go to do ibogaine and then they would fly them back like 2 days later to do the brain scan and the entire brain was lit up. And the other thing that it’s doing is it is curing addiction immediately. Pretty much opiates, alcohol, pretty much anything but benzos. So Valium, Xanax, that stuff isn’t going to be cured. But what it does is it’s an immediate cure. So it replenishes the receptors in your brain so you don’t have the cravings anymore.

That’s like that’s how I quit drinking. It’s been over 4 years now.

MEGYN KELLY: It’s miraculous.

SHAWN RYAN: I haven’t had a drop. And so—

MEGYN KELLY: And look at your studio.

SHAWN RYAN: It looks cool. It does look cool. But yeah, I haven’t had a drink in over 4 years now. And it’s just saving lots of lives and home life. I mean, it also— the impact that it’s having on people’s spouses and their kids and everybody around them. I mean, it’s changing a lot of lives.

The Promise and Caution of Psychedelic Medicine

MEGYN KELLY: I think that’s miraculous. And kudos to Joe Rogan for getting in front of Trump and fast-tracking it at the White House. That was a good thing Trump did.

When I talked to that guy Roland, the godfather of all this, he was such a proponent, really thought you should do it under the care of a physician, like was very against just freeballing it, you know, like I’m just going to buy it and do it in my living room. But the one caution he had that stuck with me— because I’m in news, so I always go to the dark place— is if you haven’t been screened, if you have a history of schizophrenia in your family within a second-degree relative, he said you can trip your schizophrenia— I don’t know if it’s a gene or what it is— and never come back. Like, if you’re not under the care of a physician and haven’t been properly screened with psilocybin, at least, you take that shit and you might cross over to a psychotic break from which you might not recover.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, that would be an interesting turn in life.

MEGYN KELLY: So I’m like, okay. I mean, a lot of us don’t— like, I know about my immediate grandparents, but do you know anything about your great-grandparents? I know nothing about my great-grandparents and physical ailments they may have had. So it’s scary to think— I could go, because I’m kind of tempted the way he talked about psilocybin, which again, I think is the closest thing to the ibogaine, how it gives you a feeling of togetherness, of connected purpose, of like diminishing the things that divide us and amplifying things that make us feel out of ourselves and more connected to earth and the great beyond and the belief in what’s next and whole. It was very attractive. That’s— who wouldn’t want to feel all that stuff? But I don’t want to turn into a serial killer after I leave the office.

SHAWN RYAN: I’ve not heard that. I’ve not heard that ever. But I do MDMA therapy with my wife and it’s f*ing amazing.

MEGYN KELLY: So how often do you do it?

SHAWN RYAN: Well, we were doing it maybe once a quarter for a while. We haven’t been doing it that long, but a little over a year. And then what it does is you’re able to send and receive information without feeling any resentment. You just know it’s coming from a loving place, so you can receive it and know that it is meant for good and it’s coming from a loving place without being like, “I don’t f*ing do that.”

MEGYN KELLY: You know, you have your big talks after that. Yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: During it.

MEGYN KELLY: During it. Wow. How long does it last? Like a few hours?

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah, maybe 4 or 5, 6 hours.

MEGYN KELLY: So do you just like make the list, the MDMA list, like “We’re going to— let’s table that until we get to the—”

SHAWN RYAN: No, no, no, no, we’ll do it. But it’s stuff that you might not even really know is bothering you about your husband or your wife or whoever. And it’ll all just come up. It’ll all start coming out. And so you’ll learn things about yourself that you’re doing that annoy the shit out of your husband or hurt your kids or stuff like that. And so every time we do it, the majority of it is parenting issues.

MEGYN KELLY: And it’s not addictive like ketamine is addictive. That’s what took Matthew Perry.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. We’re not addicted to it.

MEGYN KELLY: No, I think they say it’s not addictive.

SHAWN RYAN: Oh, MDMA.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Don’t— check me on that. But I think Roland said the one that’s addictive is the ketamine. You have to be careful with that one.

SHAWN RYAN: I’ve not done any ketamine. And then we don’t do it much anymore because not as much stuff was coming up. In fact, the last one we did, nothing really came up.

MEGYN KELLY: And so— is it MDMA? Ecstasy?

SHAWN RYAN: Yes.

MEGYN KELLY: I thought that was a sexual drug. You know, like you take it and you go nuts for each other. Well, I’ve never heard it.

SHAWN RYAN: That happens too.

MEGYN KELLY: Okay.

SHAWN RYAN: But you get the—

MEGYN KELLY: You can get the loving, nonjudgmental, everything’s coming from a good place feeling right after you have sex too. You can get away with anything in that moment.

SHAWN RYAN: But I’m being serious though. It is. I think everybody should do it.

MEGYN KELLY: I know. I don’t think I’d take anything from Mexico. No offense to our friends south of the border, but no, no, no, I would not drink the water. I’d be worried about having a tamale. And I certainly don’t want a drug from Mexico.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, for the ibogaine, for example, I mean, you’re in a facility, you’re hooked up to a heart rate monitor.

MEGYN KELLY: Okay.

SHAWN RYAN: Like they have doctors on staff.

MEGYN KELLY: Is there an American there?

SHAWN RYAN: Canadians.

MEGYN KELLY: Oh, okay. No offense to the Mexican people, but like, there are some sketchy things down south of the border. It’s like where people go for their bad plastic surgery. Some bad things happen.

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t know. I mean, if you get cancer, you sure as hell aren’t going to get it cured within the U.S.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, that’s the thing. The stem cells, so many people are going out of the country now for all that stuff.

SHAWN RYAN: Everybody’s passing us up, man.

MEGYN KELLY: I know, we have so much regulation here. That’s all we want to do is regulate people out of existence, stifle, while the man makes money off of us all.

Fears About Artificial Intelligence

SHAWN RYAN: What about the AI stuff? Are you worried about that?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: What are you worried about?

MEGYN KELLY: I’m worried that Elon says no one should start a retirement fund because we’re not going to need it, as in we’re no longer going to be here. I do worry about superintelligence and the machines somehow taking over. I’m very worried for our children and their ability to get meaningful jobs. I mean, it’s like white-collar jobs have been all but wiped out potentially by this thing.

Like, if you look at the people who are in the know and what they forecast— like, when I got out of law school, I spent, as I said, 9 and a half years practicing law. The first 3 or 4 of it is no longer necessary. It can all be done by a computer. When you’re doing legal research, you’re calling through cases, you know, you’re looking at documents. That’s what a junior litigator does. That job’s no longer necessary.

A friend of mine just went in for— or was going in for— is it gallbladder surgery? It was some sort of surgery. And he was given the option, a human or a machine.

SHAWN RYAN: Really?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah.

SHAWN RYAN: What did he pick?

MEGYN KELLY: He picked the human.

SHAWN RYAN: Did he really?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. But the machine was cheaper. Then my own doctor told me that he got a colonoscopy that was reviewed only by a machine, and he loved it. Like, it came back right away and they thought it was higher accuracy. And then a different doctor told me that many people have wound up with cancer doing it that way. The machines aren’t as foolproof as we’ve been led to believe.

So it’s like more and more we’re going to turn ourselves over to them. And I have to say, I’m very excited by some of the medical breakthroughs. I genuinely am starting to believe that if we can just live another 10 years, we might not die. We’re all going to be Brian Johnson. Like every day you see something like, “Holy shit, they figured out what causes aging.” And they’re working on a pill to stop it. Like, we might not have to age anymore. So if we can just hold on, if we could just stay out of the sun for 10 more years, it seems like every form of cancer—

My doctor, when he told me about the mRNA vaccines during COVID, I’m like, you know, they’re very controversial. This is what people are saying. And he said, “One day they’re going to cure cancer.” So like, at some point you’re going to be faced with a decision about whether to take them or not. And I’m like, well, preventing COVID is one thing. You tell me it’s going to protect me from getting pancreatic cancer, I may pay more attention. But it’s already happening. I don’t know about that. I’m not endorsing that technology. I’m just saying every day you see a new amazing development, like you no longer have to have melanoma potentially, or pancreatic cancer, or glioblastomas. Like every day we’re getting there.

So that is all linked to AI, and it’s very exciting. It would suck to survive every form of cancer and heart attack only to get nuked by a machine that figured out access to the codes and doesn’t want us around because it knows we could kill it.

SHAWN RYAN: We could kill it. You think AI will eventually have its own agency?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, I do. I believe they’re going to get super intelligent and we’re going to be sorry that we unleashed that without more thought. But my immediate worry is about the children. You need purpose in life. You need something to get up and do every day.

MEGYN KELLY: Cannot live an idle life and be happy, in my view. You know, you can retire after a lifetime of professional contributions or otherwise and be happy, but I just don’t think you can live your whole life the way they used to back in the 1800s as a gentleman and be a fulfilled person. And where are they getting their money in this scenario? From the government? From Anthropic? From OpenAI? Sam Altman? He’s going to have to dole it out like the communist government to them. Is that how— that’s, that’ll be meaningful. That, that’s going to work out well for us.

SHAWN RYAN: Do you think that’s where this is headed?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, how could it not be? All the white-collar jobs are going away.

SHAWN RYAN: No, I see it. It scares the s* out of me. I think this will all be replaced.

The AI Arms Race

MEGYN KELLY: We’re not doing really anything to stop it. Even President Trump’s meeting with Xi, they talked about it a little, but it wasn’t a big agenda item. Right now we’re in a nuclear arms race with other countries, especially China, to see who can dominate AI the fastest.

You know, there was a story, it was highlighted in that movie, it’s on digital, whatever, one of those apps that we all have on. You never know where you see anything anymore. It’s like, I don’t know, you have to go through Netflix and Amazon Prime, figure out where you watched it, but it’s called the AI Doc. It’s very well done.

And there was a story in there where— I’m pretty sure that’s where I saw this— where the AI creator was going to shut down the program. And long story short, he was threatened by the AI that if he did shut it down, the computer was going to tell everybody about the affair he had on his wife. Which it knew about because it had accessed his emails. I mean, s, that’s dark s.

Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, you know, the one prick in the finger and I can tell you everything about you, which was a fraud, and she’s in jail serving a 9 or 10-year sentence. She tweeted out, you can tweet from prison. She actually just followed me. I might have a relationship with Elizabeth Holmes now, I don’t know. She tweeted out, “Delete all of your emails, delete all of your photographs including your hidden photos, delete all of your medical records that are online, delete everything within the next few years because that’s the window you have before it will all be spilled onto the internet by AI that will access everything.”

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t disagree with that. I think that all the time now. I think this is more of a biblical thing, but personally.

The Pope, AI, and the Loss of Humanity

MEGYN KELLY: So does the Pope. You saw he just issued some 40,000-word encyclical against AI, reminding people that while they can do all these things, they’re not real. They’re not human. They don’t have emotions. They don’t really even have ethical judgments. They have some programming on ethics.

Like if you’re an automated car and you’re driving down the street, there’s a woman with a baby stroller in front of you, and on the sidewalk there are two little children. You have to make a decision about which one you’re going to hit. Be hard enough for an actual human to make that call. Someone’s actually got to program that stuff into an AI, but that doesn’t make it human. It makes it a machine. That may or may not take direction from a human.

It’s just, what are we creating when we take the heart and soul out of our society? It’s like the GLP-1 drugs, which is—

SHAWN RYAN: You don’t like the GLP-1 drugs.

MEGYN KELLY: I do like the GLP-1 drugs.

SHAWN RYAN: You do?

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t like looking at unattractive people all day. I appreciate that everybody’s looking thin and, you know, we’re just so morbidly obese, it’s gross. Look how we were in 1908, you know? We were thin and we were fashionable and we cared how we looked to the outside world. And we weren’t these sugar junkies. We were just living cleaner.

And now just like the morbid obesity and people sitting on their couch all day shoving processed foods, that’s terrible, terrible for them. It’s terrible spiritually. So I like them, I like them, and they’re helping people curb drinking and other things, but there are more and more reports about how for some, they’re killing ambition, they’re killing excitement, love of life, drive.

Because the way I guess they work is they work on some receptor in the brain that drives you toward whatever. I don’t know if the word is addiction or drives you toward like need, desire, compulsion. And that’s not an entirely bad thing to have. That could be the thing that makes you stay at the office late because you want money and you want to get ahead, or you want a pat on the head and you want to get it, whatever it is. I’m against taking away ambition.

So AI is that on steroids. Like, you’re no longer needed. There’s some jobs that it can’t do. I don’t think it can do trades. It can’t do this job.

SHAWN RYAN: You don’t think so?

Can AI Replace Real Reporters?

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t think it can be a reporter. I don’t. I think it could imitate social commentary or media commentary. But what does a real reporter do? You probably have forgotten because so few do it now. But a real reporter spends his or her day on the phones or going door to door and gathering information. Like, “Hi, I’m Megyn Kelly. I’d love to talk to you about the bus crash that happened. Were you a witness? What did you see? Is it as the driver said? Who was where? Is it true that this happened? What did you see? You were on the bus. What was your perspective?” AI cannot do that. A big part of it is human connection, convincing a source you’re trustworthy and to trust you with the story.

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t think it will have to because there’s cameras everywhere in every car.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, let’s look at Edward Snowden. He— why did he disclose what he disclosed? Like, why did he choose Glenn Greenwald to talk to? He trusted him. He read his articles. He thought, “This is a good person I can bring my story to,” and did.

I just think the nature of true reporting, which is very personal and all-day shoe leather efforts between humans to lead to information, and then the writing of the story, yes, that could be offloaded to a machine, but the gathering of information is intimately human.

And there are some other professions where you could make the case that humans are necessary. Obviously the trades, yes, like plumbing and HVAC and the construction work on the road, thank God that’ll stick around. That’s good. But it’s not good for society to lose all the white-collar jobs. People who have white-collar jobs are not bad. They’re doing the same thing. They’re working hard to put meals on the table and give themselves a sense of purpose and a reason to get up in the morning. It’s not good to be idle again. And we shouldn’t be encouraging anything that’s going to make us more so.

SHAWN RYAN: You don’t think something will come out of all this? I think something has to come out of all— I mean, I don’t know, I’m worried. I’m worried about it. I do worry about it. But on the other hand, I see like top performers are the ones sticking around. And as a business owner, I really appreciate top performers. And these people that do have drive are learning AI and they’re doing the work of 20 f*ing people. And the people that don’t have the drive are not going to cut it.

MEGYN KELLY: But there are so many people who have drive and are good at what they do, but their jobs just being wiped out is unnecessary now. Like in the financial field, there have been some alarm bells signed by bank execs saying, “Oh my God, the AI can do the work of 2,000 people.” They’re going to be mass layoffs. We are at the beginning of something far more profound than the Industrial Revolution.

Bunkers and the Coming Collapse

SHAWN RYAN: Scares the s out of me. I mean, I just had lunch with one of the main guys behind one of these big major companies here. And I was like, “What are you doing in town?” And he said, “I’m looking for bunkers. I’m here to look at a bunker.” And I was like, “What are you looking at a bunker for?” And he’s like, “The s isn’t going to be good.” He goes, “All these layoffs you’re saying, it’s going to be over a million by the end of the year.”

MEGYN KELLY: I believe it. And what’s bothering me is we’re rushing into it without thinking, without disclosure. The average American doesn’t understand any of this. They’re living their lives. They have other things to think about. They’re worried about their kids, worried about getting a home, maybe possibly taking a vacation this year for the first time in several years.

They’re not like, “What documentary can I watch on one of my many apps that I can’t afford?” These are luxury problems. And they’re just going to wake up one day and yeah, there’s going to be riots or there’s going to be mass dissension or you’re going to need a bunker and they can’t even afford an apartment in the Bronx.

We’re not thinking about it. This has not been offered to the public as like, “Let’s vote on it.” And you saw this year at the graduation ceremonies how many people got booed when they mentioned AI. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, he was at one university, but it wasn’t just him, and mentioned how AI is the wave of the future, they openly booed. Really? Young people know. They know what we’re about to do to them, thoughtlessly.

We never had to worry about this. We knew we were going to have jobs in some way, shape, or form. Might not be the greatest job, might not be the job that you want, but we are going to eliminate some huge portion of jobs that will not be subsidized by what’s available to us in the AI industry, nor will all those masses of people want to work in AI, the very industry that eliminated their chosen profession. Nor are all young people going to want to go work for Sam f*ing Altman? Hard no.

And so we just thoughtlessly run into this as the next greatest thing as though it’s like penicillin or the polio vaccine, and it’s so much more complex and dangerous than that.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, what do we do though? I mean, if we—

MEGYN KELLY: We have to make a decision. We have to make a decision to slow it down.

SHAWN RYAN: The entire f*ing world off. We’ve pissed Canada off, we’ve pissed Europe off, Asia hates us, Middle East hates us. Maybe we got some allies in South America and Israel. Yeah, so if they’re all working on AI and China may or may not be ahead of us. And she’s already said, though, whoever wins the AI race will achieve global domination, right? So what do we do?

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t know, but I know that if we don’t do something within the next year, it’s too late.

SHAWN RYAN: If we stop, then we’re—

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, we’re already done to the bad guys. Yeah, I know, which is why you have things like summits where you try to come up with an agreement because there’s us versus China and then there’s us versus the machines. And on the latter battle, it’s humanity on the same team.

The Future of AI and Human Connection

MEGYN KELLY: You know, so I don’t think we look at it and say it’s a really hard problem. Okay, never mind, bye. We’re going to have to try. Elon’s been jumping up and down about it for a while now.

SHAWN RYAN: What’s he saying?

MEGYN KELLY: He’s worried. This is one of the reasons why he says he went after Sam Altman, because of what he did at OpenAI. And then Anthropic was the product of people who left OpenAI. He’s worried and he’s been trying to say like, this needs to be addressed. No one’s been really listening to him.

The problem is, Shawn, there’s too much money in it. It’s like, this started off with like, here’s half a billion dollars, Sam Altman, see what you can do. I think Elon invested like $32 million, something relatively low for Elon. Now everyone’s in on it. Of course, Microsoft then swooped in when Sam was leaving OpenAI and said, here’s half a billion. But now it’s multiple billions into each AI company, like double-digit or triple-digit billions. And that’s from all of the big tech companies into all of the AI companies, which is now we’re talking potentially a trillion dollars into AI.

And what is that going to beget you? Way more AI, way more AI on steroids. So great, we’re going to cure pancreatic cancer and then get killed by the machine, or we’re going to cure melanoma and then no one has jobs and there’s going to be civil unrest and mass depression and no one’s going to have sex anymore because they’re so depressed the way the kids already aren’t because of the damn phones and the general—

SHAWN RYAN: Porn industry.

MEGYN KELLY: That too, but I think there’s a general malaise that comes from your phone. Like, just take all the shit off of there and go old school. We’re already surrendering. Like, why aren’t the young people having sex? Why aren’t they drinking? I’m sorry, but it’s like, booze is bad for you. I’m not trying to argue otherwise, but like, there should be some debauchery when you’re young. There should be some risk-taking. They’re not even getting driver’s licenses.

SHAWN RYAN: Screen time.

MEGYN KELLY: They’re not dating. Forget sex. Take sex out of it. They’re not dating. They’re not like taking a shot at a girl in a bar anymore. They’re just like on their devices alone at home. And now there’s talk about the future’s going to have your AI avatar speaking to her AI avatar, and they’re just going to do it, like figure out whether you’re compatible, and then they’ll get back to you about whether you—

SHAWN RYAN: That’s a thing?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, that’s the thing, that we’re going from online dating to, actually it’s just online, period. You’re not involved. They’ll get back to you on whether this is your future mate, like the Chinese parent, like an arranged situation by your AI avatar.

This is why the Pope issued the encyclical. This is not living. Living is heart and soul and tears, broken hearts. Uplifted hearts, mad, passionate love affairs that end disastrously and then not. Like, it’s taking risks and failing and feeling bad about yourself only to overcome them and then feeling triumphant. Like, it’s about the glorious feeling of accomplishment that’s built day after day of expending yourself at a job that’s well done. It’s definitely not sending your damn avatar out there to do all the fun things for you.

SHAWN RYAN: I’ve not even heard of that.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, it’s not good. And by the way, the bunker is pointless. That’ll buy you like a week. I love the bunker. Like, all these rich people think these bunkers are going to save them. They’re not. Don’t waste your money.

SHAWN RYAN: Just tell me where it is so I know where to go.

MEGYN KELLY: I actually know one. I’ve got a friend who’s got like a sick bunker and he showed it to me. It’s got everything in there. It’s even got a shooting range, but no food.

SHAWN RYAN: No food.

MEGYN KELLY: You’ll be dead in 3 days. You forgot something important. Damn.

The Wealth Gap and AI’s Impact on Society

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah. A lot of people are looking at him now. My buddy that was down there, I was just like, wow. And that’s what he said. He said it’s going to create the biggest wealth gap that we can’t even fathom it.

MEGYN KELLY: How sick is that? Just the thought of that. I mean, like, so the rich people— it’s like the Titanic. All the rich people get to survive, but the steerage is going to have to go down with the ship.

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, do you have any proposed solutions?

MEGYN KELLY: We need to slow it down. And not only that, I think there’s going to have to be a covenant amongst humanity, that we’re not going to use it or we’re going to prioritize human product. I see in the future everything that’s AI will have to be labeled as such. There’s not going to be this weird world where it’s confusing to us, where we don’t know whether it’s a real video or image or not. There eventually there’s going to have to be a law that requires a disclosure of whether it’s AI or real, because it’s just already getting too ubiquitous.

And I think there’s going to be, sort of like the modern-day Amish, but it’ll be much more widespread where we just choose to be Luddites. Like, in the way we say buy American, it’s going to be like buy human.

SHAWN RYAN: That’s what I think is going to happen. Made in the USA, made by humans.

Choosing Human Over AI — The Creative Arts

MEGYN KELLY: Made by humans. Like, my husband is an author. He’s a writer, and he used to write fiction. Now he does nonfiction. By the way, you should all buy The Lost Empire of Immanuel Nobel. It’s a great story. It just hit the New York Times bestselling list too. But it’s a great story about this guy who was part of the Nobel family, like from the prizes, who built the Russian oil industry just basically himself. And nobody knows his name. And the reason they don’t know his name is because of another guy named Joseph Stalin. And the clash of those two titans is the story of this book. It’s really good. Lost Empire of Immanuel Nobel by Doug Brunt.

But my point is simply that was written by a human. My husband actually had to go look in archives overseas in places like Sweden and on his earlier book in Germany. Right now an AI can’t do that because you had to go into a basement and look at dusty files that people hadn’t seen, that haven’t been categorized and uploaded anywhere. That’s great.

But there are a ton already of fiction books that are being written by AI. One just got outed as AI after it won an award. And they had to take the award away because it was written by a damn computer. But there’s going to have to be a decision. Like, do I want to buy an actual Harlan Coben novel that takes me through twists and turns of a crime? Or do I want to buy one that’s as good potentially, that was written by an AI, but it’s a company and it’s going to go line the pockets again of like some rich fat cat executive who’s a trillionaire now already, like many times over potentially in this scenario.

We have to come up with human covenants. Maybe I go with a law firm that only uses humans and not AI. Although, thinking it through, that’s not going to work because they have to compete against other law firms that may be doing it better. The AI, the reports by like some of these banking executives is, not only is it doing it better than humans, it’s doing it way better. Like, you would be at a competitive disadvantage if you didn’t use it.

But in the creative arts, Justine Bateman of Family Ties — the sister of Jason Bateman — she’s an actress and a director, and she’s been making a big push already in Hollywood for this, like a movie company that only makes movies with actual actors and actresses and tech staff and not AI, because it’s so easy in the creative visual arts to use AI. There’s no such thing as a graphic designer within a year. It may already be there. So it’s going to come down to human preference.

SHAWN RYAN: It’s interesting. I mean, humanity has a choice to make, but usually we choose the wrong thing. I mean, look at social media. It’s just destroying kids’ minds and my mind and your mind and everybody that’s on it. And we still f*ing do it. We still give it several hours a day to get on there.

The Cost of Constant Noise

MEGYN KELLY: I’m bad at it too. It dawned on me the other day, so little of my day is spent in silence. Like most of my day, I’m either doing the news, or I’m listening to an audio podcast of the news. I love this app, Voice Dream, but it can turn any article into an audio service for you. So like, it spares my eyes and it lets me listen to the news while I’m about doing my business. But I’m listening to something on my phone all day long. There’s very little silence, and I don’t think that’s good.

SHAWN RYAN: I live out in the woods. I get silence all the time.

MEGYN KELLY: Is it great?

SHAWN RYAN: I love it. I love it.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah. My kids say you can always tell when I’m coming because you can hear the news.

SHAWN RYAN: What podcasts do you listen to?

MEGYN KELLY: Oh, a lot of them. I basically listen to a wide variety and I listen to them on 2.0, so I can flash right through them. In the morning, I listen to The Daily by The New York Times, Up First by NPR. This is, I do it so you don’t have to, but it’s my job to keep a tab on what the left is saying too. I listen to Morning Wire, which is from The Daily Wire. I don’t hold Ben Shapiro against the morning team. I like those guys and I still listen to them. I listen to my own AM update, which is our own 16, 17-minute news update source for the morning.

And then as the day goes on, I listen to a bunch of them. I still listen to my pals over at National Review, the editors. I disagree with a lot of what they say, but I think they’re sane and they’re right-leaning people who don’t — like some hate Trump, but they don’t let it cloud their judgment. They don’t have TDS. I listen to some like Molly Hemingway, I love her over at The Federalist. Sometimes I’ll listen to the Wall Street Journal Potomac Watch to hear what like the more establishment Republicans are saying.

SHAWN RYAN: Wow, you listen to a lot.

MEGYN KELLY: Oh yeah, I mean, we could be here all day. It’s all news, all news. The only non-news podcasts I listen to are Dateline. I love Dateline, a little true crime. In my downtime, I like to solve murders, Shawn. I love the Dateline. And books, I listen to books on tape. Yeah, but podcasts, the only non-news ones are probably Dateline.

SHAWN RYAN: Man, I just don’t know. How do you stay on top of everything? It changes so fast now.

Staying Steeped in the News

MEGYN KELLY: But if you’re steeped in it, you can do it easily because it’s just incremental day to day. Brit Hume told me that early in my career. He said, you have to stay steeped in the news. And even now, if I hire a producer and I can tell he or she’s not steeped in the news, I’m like, you’re not going to last. If you don’t love news, you can’t be in news. You really need to love it.

I tell my team, we have a producer text chain that we’re all on. I’m like, if you don’t get excited to break news on the producer text chain, like internally to the others, you’re not going to make it.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah.

MEGYN KELLY: You have to get a jones from the news. You have to get a jones from being like the first to share, like, this happened. And that, it’s still what I love about news. And so if you’re that steeped in it, you can’t pull yourself — you shouldn’t want to pull yourself off of X, which is basically our newsfeed. It’s not healthy, but news isn’t healthy. Is that a healthy business? Is that where you go for the natural detox of life? I love that though. I love the never-ending newness of it. The breaking newness of the news is very attractive to me.

Podcasting vs. Mainstream Media

SHAWN RYAN: How do you think mainstream is going to handle — how do you think it’s going to stand up against podcasting in this next upcoming midterm and the next election?

MEGYN KELLY: Well, haven’t you heard podcasts are totally irrelevant now? We were deemed totally irrelevant and of no relevance, of no impact, because we were critical of the Iran War.

SHAWN RYAN: Oh, okay.

The Decline of Cable News

MEGYN KELLY: Like, we’re irrelevant and we have no— no one’s paying attention to them. And then as soon as Trump’s poll numbers went down on the war, it was, “you’re to blame, the neo-Nazi podcasters are to blame.” Okay. I mean, I don’t know. Great. You have the debate with yourself. I’m just going to keep doing my show. How do I think podcasters versus the mainstream will do? I mean, I think young people—

SHAWN RYAN: What are the numbers? Do you know? Are you familiar with the numbers?

MEGYN KELLY: In podcasting? The numbers across news are down. Cable news is down. Podcasts—

SHAWN RYAN: Like how down? How many viewers does Fox News have a day? Or CNN?

MEGYN KELLY: In their primetime, they’re probably getting around 3 million, just under 2.4 to 3 million in the overall and around 400,000 in the demo, which is not great. It’s not great. Cable news is dead. It’s just running out its lifespan. Same for broadcast. I mean, that’s deader than cable, even though they still have like some very old people watching the nightly newscasts.

SHAWN RYAN: Do you enjoy watching it collapse?

MEGYN KELLY: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don’t watch any television news, none. None of it. I find it totally useless to me, I have to say. There’s some people I like, like if I have to tune into news, who do I hope is on? I like Jesse Watters. He’s a good guy and he’s a friend too. If I need like Washington news, I will tune in Brett Baier still.

But I don’t have the tolerance for it or the patience. It’s like, you can’t go 2.0. You have to watch the ads. You have to make it through this 9-minute segment because you know they have an A block to fill. And then the 6-minute segment in the B block, because it’s not like this where it’s like, “this discussion has grown tiresome, let’s move on to our next topic right now.” But we’re only 30 seconds into it. Yeah, but neither of us is feeling it. That’s not the way television news works.

And the consumer listening to this conversation right now just had a feeling inside of, “yes, that’s right.” Even though they weren’t able to diagnose it 5 minutes ago, it’s why people are tuning off from television because they can’t service the modern-day mind in the way it needs, which is why all the young people are in our lane now listening to us, and all the— not even older people, the elderly— are watching television news.

SHAWN RYAN: How long do you think till it collapses? I’m dying, man. I can’t wait. I love watching it.

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, it’s already all but there. Like, you look at the— when I was on Fox News in the primetime, which was, you know, whatever, 2016 or so, those years around that, you looked at the advertising on The Kelly File, like American Express, BMW, like all the blue-chip brands. And while the daytime at Fox still had, like, the Kristi Lane commercials of her singing on a beach and you should buy her CD. Really, you just thought you had mesothelioma if you watched too much cable at the time. Probably still today. But there were blue-chip brands all over the primetime. Not anymore. It’s very different now. And that’s because they don’t command— they don’t have as big an audience. They don’t command those kinds of advertisers.

SHAWN RYAN: What were the numbers when you were on?

MEGYN KELLY: Oh my God. I think when I left, I don’t know, we were averaging like 4.5 million a night and like 700,000 or 800,000 in the demo. I recently looked at this and now it’s just way down. Now you’re in the 2 million. It’s not that we didn’t have nights like that, you know, or low periods.

SHAWN RYAN: So they’re half what they used to be.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, just about. And but not just that, they’re— so they have multiple problems. Who’s watching will determine the advertiser fees. If you have whatever, 100,000 people watching you, you’re not going to get the same advertising fees as somebody who’s got 10 million watching them. But it’s also about cord cutting. Everyone’s cord cutting. I don’t have cable at all on any of my TVs anymore.

Yeah, we don’t either. I use YouTube TV and it’s great. You can get anything. And I think young people, nobody’s paying for a cable news subscription now, nor are they going to the traditional broadcast channels for anything other than maybe a sports event or something that’s breaking that you can only see there.

The Future of Podcasting vs. Traditional Media

SHAWN RYAN: What are your friends inside there still?

MEGYN KELLY: What do they think? They all want to be doing what we’re doing. Why aren’t they? Well, it depends on the person. There are some people who are just platform players, with all due respect, like they couldn’t make it in this lane where it’s very competitive. It’s actually not easy. So you have to have a point of view and then you have to work very hard to develop some sort of a base.

SHAWN RYAN: But they are leaving there with a base, aren’t they? I mean, you left with a base. Tucker left with a base.

MEGYN KELLY: It depends. Like, do you think there’s a single person at CNN who could leave with a base?

SHAWN RYAN: Like, I don’t know. I have no idea who’s even on CNN.

MEGYN KELLY: That’s my point. Like, those are platform players. Everybody up and down the CNN lineup gets views because it’s CNN, not because— with all due respect, it’s Wolf Blitzer. Like, it’s not like, “I gotta see what Wolf is saying.” I don’t mean to pick on Wolf Blitzer, who I think is probably a good guy. I’m just trying to use an example of like, no one’s like, “I gotta know what he thinks,” or like, “this person makes the news really interesting for me.” It’s like, “I get my news from CNN,” or the MSNBCers. Same, like Rachel Maddow probably would have a following. I think that’s probably it over there.

Fox has got a few more stars who people would follow, like Gutfeld, but it’s a short list, under 5. So that’s why, because they’re being practical. They get paid very well. They have a built-in audience because people have brand loyalty. They don’t have to worry about too much channel switching because usually people are loyal to Fox who are loyal to Fox, and MSNBC the same. So there’s a floor built in, and that’s comforting, especially if you have to pay a mortgage and maybe your spouse doesn’t work. Like, I get it. I totally get it.

The Golden Globes Controversy

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t know, man. I don’t know if it’s over. I mean, they might just come over and get propped up. I mean, you saw the Golden Globes. You got nominated for a Golden Globe, right?

MEGYN KELLY: Well, yes, but then we said take our name off the list.

SHAWN RYAN: Oh, you did?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, we weren’t going to pay money to go get considered by those Hollywood libtards. Yeah, there was— Ben Shapiro spent millions to buy an ad of his face in Times Square so that he could win. He spent millions, went different ways, worked out for him, didn’t it?

SHAWN RYAN: I’m assuming millions.

MEGYN KELLY: How much does it cost to put your face on the entire side of an enormous high-rise building, which is what he did to convince the Hollywood Golden Globe crowd to vote for his show, which by the way was never going to happen anyway. They weren’t going to vote for a conservative podcast. I don’t mean to pick on Ben. I’m just in a fight with him right now. But anyway, yeah, no, we withdrew our names from consideration.

SHAWN RYAN: I thought it was hilarious. They brought all these big podcasters in along with a bunch of Hollywood people, and then they just rewarded themselves. It was fing hilarious. I know. And everybody called them on it. It was like, how the f does Joe Rogan not get the Golden Globe for the first— for the first ever— the first year they do podcast and they get— who do they give it to?

MEGYN KELLY: Wasn’t it Amy Poehler? Yeah, yeah, the comedian. Yeah. Okay, sure. She’s got the best podcast, right?

SHAWN RYAN: It’s better than Rogan’s. This is f*ing bullshit.

MEGYN KELLY: I know, it’s hilarious. And do you know that if you’re nominated, you’re expected to go out there— and I guarantee you Amy Poehler did this— and meet with these little Golden Globe committees and basically pull the dress up for them. Like, “Hey, how about me? Pick me.” How absurd. Can you imagine humiliating yourself like that? So you could get one of their stupid statues and sit undoubtedly back in the nosebleeds at their party where they’re like, “Ew, it’s the podcaster. Disgusting people.” Who would do that to themselves?

SHAWN RYAN: Oh shit, I thought it was awesome, but oh wow. No.

MEGYN KELLY: Look, I grew up in the Roger Ailes era at Fox where we did not believe in awards. No one at Fox who spent their career at Fox, none of them has an Emmy. The only people at Fox who have an Emmy got it while they were working for a different channel, because he did not believe in bending the knee to get the pat on the head from these organizations who hate us. And I totally agree with him.

Conflicts with Trump, Ben Shapiro, and Mark Levin

SHAWN RYAN: That’s cool. I like hearing that. How are you dealing with all these people coming after you? You’ve got Trump saying you’re low IQ. I got the tweet here, but I’m not going to read it.

MEGYN KELLY: And nut job too.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah. Low IQ, nut job. Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro. How did all this happen?

MEGYN KELLY: It’s pretty obvious. It’s because of Israel. It’s over Israel and now Iran. Ben Shapiro turned on me at the Turning Point event in December. I saw that. And I was stunned. I was completely flabbergasted. He and I—

SHAWN RYAN: You had no idea that was going to happen? We were good friends. Were you? You were there, right?

The Fallout with Ben Shapiro

MEGYN KELLY: You came up right after. I wasn’t there that night. I arrived the next day. But yeah, I was on my way. And we were good friends, Shawn. Like, we, it’s not like we had dinner together all the time, but we were always very friendly. I helped make him a household name on the primetime at Fox News, put him on regularly, helped make him a star.

When I got into podcasting, he really helped me too. He invited me out to the Daily Wire headquarters in California and really encouraged me to get off the couch and go back into it and offered me a job at The Daily Wire, which of course I didn’t want to do. But I appreciated that he was thinking about me. And then we helped each other on our podcast. I’d have him on, I’d say yes to his show whenever he needed me. I’d promote his people. He’d ask me to put people on my show who were from The Daily Wire to help build their podcast. I always said yes.

And then even when Charlie died, one of the first things I said — I was just looking back at this, we’re working on a project, but I saw this tape of myself after Charlie died and I was on the air announcing it. And one of the first people I mentioned was poor Ben, who I knew was living his life surrounded by 5 or 6 armed guards. I’m like, but this has to stop, you know, this demonization, this otherizing of people who don’t share our political viewpoints. And I read Ben’s tweet about Charlie, empathetically and sympathetically. I had nothing but love for Ben.

And then I did my tour in the fall where I had Tucker Carlson one night and Ben the next night. And I gave Ben the nicest intro a person could possibly give him. I mean, it was a conscious effort to build him up because people were already turning on Ben because the Israel war had gone on so long in Gaza. There was a lot of blowback. Ardently, 100% pro-Israel. And I didn’t like seeing him twist in the wind. I felt bad for him. And I really wanted to sort of vouch for him with my audience to say, “This is a good person. Let me tell you some wonderful things about Ben,” in the intro before he came out. But publicly, we aired that on my show.

And he was in an irascible mood that night. We had a contentious back and forth on the stage, but it was fine. I had no problem with it. And he kind of stormed out of there that night. And I thought, are we not good? And why are we not good?

And I think that night I thought it could be because of Tucker, because I’m still friends with Tucker and those two were openly warring. And I was trying to get them not to. I love Tucker like a brother and I’ve known him a lot longer than Ben, but I care about Ben too. And I tried very much behind the scenes to get them both to come together — for the sake of the conservative movement and the country — to disagree, but not hate each other. Which was a fool’s errand, but it was undertaken in earnest for whatever it’s worth.

And instead it seemed to turn Ben on me, not Tucker. He had no problem — he wasn’t into it, but it wasn’t making him feel angry toward me. You know, it’s only one side asking me to defriend the other side.

The Text Exchange and the Turning Point Attack

But Ben and I had a text exchange after that. And he said in the text, something to the effect of, “I agree that our friendship is more important than what other friendships we have in our lives. And that’s what we should nurture and prioritize.” Because he’d been in my ear about Tucker prior to that. And I was like, I totally get where you’re coming from, but I love him and I disagree with you. And I do listen to his show and I think you’re misinterpreting where he’s coming from. And he rejected that out of hand. And we had already agreed to disagree on Tucker, which is fine, right? Friends do that. I get it. He’s in a very sensitive place. Family in Israel, and I think a home in Israel, and obviously very, very committed to Israel.

And the next thing I knew, Shawn, he was standing on the stage at Turning Point ripping me as a coward. A coward, allegedly because I wouldn’t call out Candace Owens and what she was saying about Erika Kirk. But that’s not what it was about. It was about my not ending my friendship with Tucker, which is the thing that he had been pushing me on for weeks and I wouldn’t do. And he, like many of his supporters, have been using the Candace/Erika feud against me ever since.

At the time, I wasn’t saying anything about whatever was going on between the two of them because I was working behind the scenes to help them resolve it. I actually had gotten to know Candace a little, and I knew Erika pretty well. And Candace was very, very focused on Turning Point, as she remains, including Erika. And Erika asked me if I would help her broker a peace between the two of them. And I said yes. So I was trying to do that at Erika’s request. And people like Ben didn’t quite understand, nor do they give a shit. You know, it was like they just assumed I was a coward, I guess, and I was too weak to stand up.

Meanwhile, it’s like, I’ve been asked by the person you purport to be protecting, Erika Kirk, to help her behind the scenes put this to rest. So go f* yourself. And you’re trying to shame me for not coming out and saying Candace Owens is bad. You know, it’s just possible you don’t know the whole story. Have some humility. And a real friend, before he stood up in front of millions to attack me as a coward, might have shot me a text to say, “Hey, I’m about to attack you for not doing this thing. I know you to be a good person. Is there a reason you’re not doing this thing I demand of you?” And I would have told him.

But from that night forward, he and his supporters turned this into, “You will say the thing about Candace Owens, or you’re bad. You’re bad and Tucker’s bad.” And it got lumped together and this whole thing became a proxy for the fight over Israel. Because they needed me to condemn Candace Owens — not because of what she said about Erika Kirk. To this day, it’s not about that. It’s because she is arguably one of the chief Israel critics in the country. And they need me to say she’s bad, she’s an antisemite.

And now that they’ve made anything I say the stakes of the relationship between me and these people, it’s a forever no. It’s beyond a no, it’s a forever no. You want to get on my bad side? Try to control me. It’s just never going to happen.

Drawing the Line

So I won’t defriend Tucker. I’m not going to say what they want me to say about Candace — who I’ve gotten to know much better. And I’m still close with Erika. I see what’s happening between the two of them. I’ve said what I’m going to say about it, and I have asked Candace to stop, and I’ve said I don’t approve of what Candace is saying about Erika. But it’s never enough. You give them one little — no, you have to say it like this. It has to be this far. You have to go this far about it. You’ve got to condemn it in these terms. F* you. No, I don’t. I can do what I want and I can say what I want and I can have relationships with whomever I want.

And when I went on the stage at Turning Point, I was asked about some of the questions that Candace was asking about Charlie’s murder. And I made clear that I was fine with the questions she was asking about Israel. And really, that added to it. So the ardently pro-Israel crowd really turned on me. “You must be an antisemite, you’re bad.” Some are like, “You attacked Ben.” I didn’t attack Ben — Ben attacked me. The next night I said, “He doesn’t have the power to take all my friends away from me,” which is basically what he was arguing for, to excommunicate me from the conservative movement. That’s not an attack on Ben. And since then, he’s been coming for me ever since. Every once in a while I’ll say something about him, but he hasn’t let up. And then, of course, Mark Levin is just a f*ing lunatic.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, I mean, it didn’t work out for Ben. They just did 2 rounds of layoffs at The Daily Wire. The views are in the f*ing garbage can. If you could just pull the channel up, I can’t remember how many subs they have, but it’s like 1.4 thousand views.

MEGYN KELLY: Ben’s f*ing — he’s buying views right now. That’s what’s amazing.

SHAWN RYAN: I’ve only seen somebody completely destroy their entire legacy with their ego one other time. And it’s interesting to watch it.

Ben Shapiro’s Declining Audience

MEGYN KELLY: And it wasn’t his Trump-for-Israel stance alone either, because he did shed viewers. He’s been shedding viewers — we’re all down viewers who are in news because it’s a rough time in news, but it’s fine. They go and they come in news. It’s happened to me many times over the course of my career.

But the reason Ben’s been shedding them steadily by the tens of thousands for over a year is, I think, that you can be pro-Israel and still have an audience even in the conservative wing that is starting to turn on Israel. It’s just that he’s become so intolerant. He’s become like a leftist scold and won’t allow people who don’t see it the way he sees it their say and their voice, which can be treated as legitimate if potentially wrong. That’s fine. We do that all the time in American politics.

But Ben and many others who are very, very pro-Israel have seemingly changed the stakes to: only we are right, only we are righteous, and everybody who disagrees with us is an antisemite neo-Nazi grifter. Why do they manufacture antisemitism?

SHAWN RYAN: Seems like the leftists — they just have to do it. They have to victimize themselves to continue the f*ing money flow going to Israel. That’s what it is, right? It has to be.

The Pro-Israel Backlash

MEGYN KELLY: It’s the new — it’s funny because Mark Levin calls people like you and me and Tucker the “woke Reich.” Like we’re part of the Third Reich, but we’re woke. And I’ve never understood how they can argue we’re woke. I really genuinely don’t get it. It is they who are behaving like woke leftists, making identity and these baseless accusations — you’re an “-ist” of some sort, racist, bigot, whatever — the stakes of the relationship. That’s what they’re doing.

They have spent the past 5 years condemning the woke for saying, “What’s important about me is my skin color. I want to be seen for my blackness.” And they’ve just replaced it with “my Semitism.” And you’re an antisemite if you disagree with me on anything — anything. It’s because you’re an antisemite.

Like, even if you just say, “Hey, Israel’s gone pretty far. I defended it for 2 years, but it is looking a little genocidey.” That’s how I started off. The most mild — “I defended you for the better part of this war. You haven’t stopped. You continue to seem totally remorseless about killing tens of thousands of civilians. I’ve got to be honest, I’m starting to turn on you.” Anti-Semite. What?

You would not believe the number of attacks that were launched at me just at that point. “Oh, you’re under Tucker’s spell.” No, no, no, no, no. It’s not Tucker. It’s you. It’s you people doing the mass killing and the people who are defending them without being honest about what’s actually happening in Gaza.

I have the capability of being honest. I can condemn what Hamas did on 10/7 with ease and have since it happened. I can be honest about the sexual assaults that took place and all the atrocities, and have condemned it for months and months and beyond. But that same ability allows me to see what Israel is doing very clearly. And when I started to see it and speak up about it, the whole pro-Israel internet turned on me, botted me. There are full groups who are all over my social media now. It’s very annoying. It’s annoying for my fans who don’t want to deal with these bots, and I get it. But I think they’re committed to not letting these people have the final say.

SHAWN RYAN: I’m getting it too. Not like you are, but whoa — what did that cause? Are you getting a lot of death threats?

Death Threats and Security Concerns

MEGYN KELLY: We’ve had the FBI involved now multiple times because I’ve, you know, you always kind of get death threats in my job, but they have risen to a level that’s just beyond. And so, I can’t and won’t go through all the security precautions we’ve had to implement in my life, but it’s insane. And it’s so wrong. It’s over what? My opinion. I now have to worry about getting shot because of my opinion. And what is my opinion? I think Israel should stop killing civilians in Gaza and Beirut and elsewhere. And I don’t want to be involved in their wars. That’s my opinion. Yeah, it’s just deeply wrong.

A Special Gift

SHAWN RYAN: Well, I got you another present.

MEGYN KELLY: Oh, is it MDMA? What?

SHAWN RYAN: It’s a pistol, since we’re talking about self-defense. It’s got a silencer on there.

MEGYN KELLY: It’s got a silencer. Here you go. That’s awesome. Look at the size of this thing. Wow. It’s got Sig’s new optic.

SHAWN RYAN: It’s got a red dot in it. That’s the suppressor or silencer. Takes 17 rounds plus 1 in the pipe.

MEGYN KELLY: Wait, what kind of a gun is it?

SHAWN RYAN: 9mm. That’s a SIG Sauer. So I got a friend over at SIG. His name’s Jason. And he told—

MEGYN KELLY: Wait, are you actually giving this to me?

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah. Me, SIG Sauer, and Silencer Shop. Silencer Shop also loves you. So they gave me that silencer to put on there.

MEGYN KELLY: This is the coolest thing I now own. There’s a range right next to my house where I do go sometimes. Nice. Don’t want to set the bar too high.

SHAWN RYAN: We’re going to see how often you spend at the range.

MEGYN KELLY: Keep your expectations really low. But this is beautiful. Wow.

SHAWN RYAN: You’re welcome.

MEGYN KELLY: Thanks to our friends out there who gave it to me, too. So the silencer — do I want the silencer? Like, I would use it on a bad guy who came into my house. Don’t I want it to be loud where everybody hears it for miles around and comes and helps me out?

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t know, you might want to keep the kids calm.

MEGYN KELLY: This is badass.

SHAWN RYAN: But yeah, Silencer Shop, they do a bunch of stuff for the Second Amendment too. They’re always standing up for the Second Amendment and doing things and trying to get into legislation. So it’s a good company.

Societal Unrest and the Murder of Charlie

MEGYN KELLY: God love them. We need them. I mean, honestly, it’s like the past year more than ever. Haven’t you thought like, what does the ammo kit look like? I mean, we’ve thought about it in a way we haven’t in years for a lot of reasons. What societal unrest is coming? What bad guy’s coming? The thing with Charlie, I mean, it was just Charlie’s murder. I just think that Charlie’s murder was the seminal event of the whole year. It’s changed a lot about how we all are and how we’re behaving and what’s happened on the right.

SHAWN RYAN: What do you think that was? The last time I interviewed you, you made a recommendation that I interview Charlie. I didn’t get that opportunity, unfortunately. But can you believe that?

MEGYN KELLY: Of all people, I said Charlie Kirk. I’m so sad you didn’t get to know him, because you guys would’ve loved each other.

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah, I wish I would have. I was being put into the MAGA spectrum. And I was never MAGA. And somehow the media placed me there. And so I didn’t want to affiliate with any particular party. And so I kind of steered away from it. Now I wish I would have because I’ve heard so many great things about him.

MAGA Labels and Political Identity

MEGYN KELLY: No, I laugh when Trump’s like, “She’s not MAGA.” I’m like, correct. I’ve never claimed otherwise. I’ve never been MAGA. I’ve always called myself MAGA adjacent. Like I’m a registered independent, which my audience knows very well. I say it all the time. It’s very important to me not to have these team labels on me. I just—

SHAWN RYAN: What do you have to re-register? I’m a registered Republican. I gotta re-register?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, you do. How do you do that? You gotta — you can do it. You get down to the DMV and you change your voter registration. Well, I changed my name when I got married and they gave you the option then. But I had done it prior to that. So yeah, I’ve never been MAGA. I understand MAGA, and my sensibilities are much more affiliated with the right than the left. So like, that’s all real, and that’s me. But I’ve never said I’m MAGA ever.

SHAWN RYAN: I hate that I got placed in that. I never even wanted Trump to win until he was the only guy to vote for.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, that’s the problem is that elections remain binary choices. So it’s like, do I wish I had voted for Kamala?

SHAWN RYAN: Hell no. That’s — yeah, that’s not what I meant. I meant during all the other people that were running. For the Republican side, I was like, “Please just get one of these other people in.” And then when he got it, I was like, “Oh, f*.” And then I was like, “Please don’t put anybody that’s worth a shit in the administration because you’re going to be garbage afterwards.” There’s no chance, especially right now.

MEGYN KELLY: Not feeling optimistic about JD Vance 2028?

SHAWN RYAN: No. Or Rubio or anybody that’s in there because they’re all yes-men fing puppets. Now they’re all talking about Catholicism, which I think is fing hilarious. Well, let’s talk about Catholic — oh, you’re a f*ing Catholic all of a sudden.

MEGYN KELLY: There’s no way to be in the Trump administration without being a yes-man. You won’t last.

SHAWN RYAN: The fastest growing Christian denomination in the world right now. Now all of a sudden we’re going to advertise that we’re f*ing Catholic, right? I’ll tell you, have you heard of this organization Catholics for Catholics? No, what do they do? I mean, it’s Catholics for Catholics. They’re going to get into politics.

MEGYN KELLY: Oh, that’s not a good idea.

SHAWN RYAN: And so now you’re going to give it all these f*ing politicians that are claiming they’re Catholic all of a sudden.

The Republican Party’s Divisions

MEGYN KELLY: Well, I mean, JD’s a recent convert, but Marco Rubio’s a lifelong Catholic, right? He’s a Hispanic guy from Cuba. I don’t know how observant he is, but I’ll tell you what I think.

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t see him standing up for any f*ing Christian rights.

MEGYN KELLY: I think their biggest problem is the Republican Party is so divided, I don’t know who the Republican Party can unite behind. The non-interventionist faction, I don’t think they will back a Rubio or a traditional Republican who’s neocon-y. And the neocon faction is not going to get behind a J.D. Vance. So who’s the solution? I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t see the solution.

That’s why, I mean, it would generally be a good time to be a leftist, but they have zero talent on their side. Oh, Pete Buttigieg, who by the way is polling first in the most recent poll I saw for Team Dem. Pete Buttigieg, okay, sure. He’s not going to be president. He’s not going to be the Democrat nominee and he’s not going to be president. Kamala Harris, no, she’s already been rejected. AOC, I mean, sure, she could get the nomination, but could she convince a general electorate to vote for her? She’s completely radical. She wanted to get rid of all the cows. So it’s like, I don’t think so.

The super fat trans-loving Governor Pritzker of Illinois, no. I mean, as soon as his gender policies and crime policies get outed, the general election electorate’s going to reject him. So I think the best thing the Republicans have going for them is that the lunatic left, how bad they are, how they don’t have a real threat. Gavin Newsom, let’s go through the California policies. Let’s just put them on a board and tell me if you even think they’re real. They’re so radical, you won’t believe they’re real, all under his watch. So I mean, it’s easy to sort of say like the Republicans aren’t going to go anywhere because they’ve been all yes-men to a very controversial, very unpopular guy. Popular agenda, but we have to pick somebody.

Who Megyn Kelly Likes on the Left

SHAWN RYAN: Do you like anybody on the left?

MEGYN KELLY: On the left? Like a politician? No, but if I had to vote for anybody over there who’s like throwing his hat out there, I kind of like Rahm Emanuel. He’s like a fighter. I like how he’s a swearer and he’s a tough guy. Like, he’s a real man. He’s not like this sort of light malofer femme kid — Pete Buttigieg. He’s not afraid to throw a punch. I like that. He has said no more money for Israel. I like that. He has said that. Yeah, he has said no. Believe him? Yeah, I do. He’s Jewish, but he’s not an Israel firster. He has said that he doesn’t want boys and girls sports, and he said that he wouldn’t change a thing about Trump’s border. Like, I could vote for that kind of a Democrat. There’d be things about him I didn’t like, but I’d vote for him over a neoconny righty.

SHAWN RYAN: What do you think of Roe? Who? Roe O’Connor.

MEGYN KELLY: Oh, I like him. He’s been on the show. He’s reasonable. He’s like — that’s the kind of Democrat in general I would like. Though I don’t love him on the trans stuff, and I can’t vote for anybody who’s going to continue chopping off the body parts of children.

SHAWN RYAN: Is he big on the trans stuff?

MEGYN KELLY: He’s not big on it, but he’s not on the right side on it either. So, Rahm Emanuel’s the only Democrat I know who’s suggested they might run for president who is where they should be on that issue. And I just, I could never vote for — we are sterilizing our children. We are depriving them of any hope of sexual pleasure or fertility at the age of 12. There’s no informed consent. They want to ignore this problem like it’s a nothing. It’s not a nothing. It’s not up to a parent. It’s not between a parent and a doctor and a child. It’s between God and a child, and no child can consent to that when they are a minor. So I would never vote for somebody who would not stand against that. And he’s a Democrat who’s both against that and against more Middle East wars on behalf of Israel.

Who Megyn Kelly Likes on the Right

SHAWN RYAN: That’s not very many people. Shortlist. Who do you like on the right?

MEGYN KELLY: I like JD. You like JD?

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah.

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t think JD’s in favor of this war. He’s got to keep his mouth shut about it because he works for Trump. That’s the deal when you’re the VP. He accepted the job, so he’s doing the job nobly. It’s not noble to run around being like, “My boss sucks, I’m against the war, I was the one person who stood against it, make sure that’s printed.” He’s really not doing that. He’s standing for Trump. He’s trying to find the right messaging around it. Like, you know, “It’s not a great idea, but if we do it, this is how I guess we should do it. You’re the boss, you’re the one they elected as president, not me. And so you’re asking me what my thoughts are.”

He’s on the record according to the New York Times as having said, “I don’t think we should do this, but if you’re going to do it, this is what I think we should do.” I think that’s honorable. And I think JD Vance is definitely non-interventionalist. That’s what the neocons hate about him. That’s one of the main reasons they go after Tucker so hard is because they see him as a surrogate for JD and they need JD to be hobbled.

But I think JD on his own, when he’s in the top spot — it’s going to be complicated because when he, if he runs for it, he’s got to run for it while still Trump’s VP. He’s going to be in the same position as Kamala Harris on immigration. And when The View asked her, “Anything you’d do differently?” — “Mm, nothing comes to mind.” He’s going to have to learn to navigate that because he’s going to have to say, “Yeah, there’s some things I’d do differently,” and Trump’s not going to like that. So that’s going to be the joy of being us. We’ll be able to talk about it. We don’t, we’re not responsible for steering it. We just have to cover it. But yeah, I like JD a lot.

SHAWN RYAN: Guy has a f*ing chance in hell of getting it. Why? Because he’s not — I just think the opposite. He’s not saying anything. Well, what would you expect? I don’t think Trump is being loyal to the American people. I think first and foremost, if you’re in any position in the administration, I think you owe it to the people.

MEGYN KELLY: To do what though? What would you expect?

SHAWN RYAN: The right thing.

MEGYN KELLY: What would you say to JD? Do what?

SHAWN RYAN: I would say he needs to speak out against what the f* is happening in this country and in the world.

MEGYN KELLY: Like in front of a microphone. Yeah. And betray his boss. Yeah. And basically probably get forced out of the administration. Yeah. Although it’s— you can’t really fire a VP. See, I don’t—

SHAWN RYAN: I look at him, I see a guy who is totally conflicted in his morals with what’s happening right now. And he doesn’t look like he knows what to do.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, are you so sure he’s not fighting it behind the scenes from the inside?

SHAWN RYAN: I think people need to know that.

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t know that he is or he isn’t. I don’t have inside knowledge on this. I just know where his sensibilities are. But I agree, he’s in a very difficult position. I mean, that’s what happens when you accept this job. You put yourself in that very difficult position. It’s not ideal.

Trump’s Self-Serving Actions and Corruption

SHAWN RYAN: I just don’t see any positivity coming out of this administration. It seems very self-serving. I have a list of stuff printed I could go through, but I mean, what was the last one? He fing made it so he had Tom Blanch do the dirty work so that him or anybody in his family could never be audited by the IRS. What the f is that? The drone company. The $400 million jet from Qatar. Yep. The— what is it? The Executives Club.

MEGYN KELLY: You know about that? Yeah, yeah. That they started in D.C.

SHAWN RYAN: You don’t hear about any of this stuff. Yeah. Does this look like he’s serving the fing people? No. So are you going to serve that? Are you going to speak out against it and let everybody know what the f is happening? You think you’d be better off? Fox News sure as f* isn’t reporting any of this stuff.

MEGYN KELLY: None of it. None of it. No, there’s no question that the corruption in the administration has been far beyond what I ever expected.

SHAWN RYAN: He sued the fing government. He sued his own fing government. For what?

MEGYN KELLY: Like how much? Okay. But that I can defend because look, he was maliciously prosecuted by the DOJ. Do you remember Peter Strzok and Lisa Page? Those two FBI agents who were like, “Don’t worry, we’re going to stop him.” They sued their own government and they got paid $2 million. They got paid — these two who were openly working to defeat a legitimate candidate who’d been nominated by Republicans or was about to be for president. How did they get paid? They complained that somebody leaked their texts to the media and their privacy had been violated, that their government had basically violated their rights. And Joe Biden’s DOJ paid them out $2 million.

Now, $1.8 billion is a lot more than $2 million, but it’s the same principle. Trump saying to the government, the DOJ, which now he runs, but it’s the same organization, “You did the wrong thing. You maliciously prosecuted me and I’m entitled to remuneration.” So he filed this case. He has a case for that. There’s no question that’s true. He was maliciously prosecuted. There was no basis for what they did to him in particular. And they were behind the one in New York, which was one of the most specious. But the January 6th thing, that wasn’t a criminal case against Trump.

SHAWN RYAN: That was just a bullshit lie. You can’t use the presidency for self-retribution, though.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, I mean, you can, unfortunately.

SHAWN RYAN: I see that.

The $1.8 Billion Settlement and Slush Fund Concerns

MEGYN KELLY: So as a matter of settling that, he got this settlement and he knew, even he knew it would be too much to say, “I’m going to line my pockets with this money.” The way he got around it was to say, “Well, I’m going to use this for a fund to pay out all the people who have also been maliciously prosecuted, like the January 6thers.” I mean, James Comey has already said, “How about me?” It’s a fair question, to be honest.

But it’s a huge number. And the 5-person board that oversees the payouts is hand-selected by Todd Blanch, his personal attorney, now our acting attorney general. And Trump can fire any of them at any time. So it looks like a massive slush fund for Trump friends and family or anybody who just happens to come up with a claim. And we don’t know how much the payouts are going to be. There are no criteria for what the payouts are going to be.

And it’s an unprecedented sum that hasn’t been approved by Congress — yet again. Our tax money is not supposed to get spent without the approval of the representatives who answer to us via elections every 2 years. So that when it came to especially matters of the purse, we had the ability to hire and fire them if we didn’t like what they did. That’s being removed from us by something like this.

SHAWN RYAN: I feel like this is how he’s justified to himself to just take advantage of every little thing that comes across his desk that’s going to benefit him financially. He’s justified it through what’s happened to him previously, which I could understand, but I mean, I’m sorry, like, you can’t fleece the American taxpayer.

MEGYN KELLY: Can’t do it like that. No, it’s disturbing. I mean, like the—

SHAWN RYAN: Or he’s owned by Israel, or they threaten him with blackmail or his life, or maybe somebody in his family — I don’t know — or maybe it’s all of it together.

Trump’s Financial History and the Trump Sons

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t know. I’m not sure. I mean, Tucker’s big on the threat. I’m not sure if I believe that. I just think, look, when it comes to matters of the wallet, Trump’s always been very focused on money, and he’s been less than forthright about his finances. That’s why his CFO went to prison at the Trump Organization. There’s a reason, there’s a history there. I guess I just didn’t realize just how grand it would be on the presidential scale.

I guess I kind of thought he’d be more like he was in the first administration where he didn’t do all this. Like, he understood that there were eyes on him, and there was the threat of congressional investigation and potentially prosecution hanging over him. Now that we have a Supreme Court ruling saying not much of what you do in your official role as president can be prosecuted, I think he’s feeling a little more fancy-free. Yep.

But he’s not going to save himself from congressional investigations, which are going to start the moment the Republicans lose the House in November. That’s happening. And that could get ugly for him. So he should watch it a little. And the Trump sons should watch it. The drone company is problematic. We awarded a military contract to a drone company owned by the sons. The crypto stuff. At a time when their dad is the one prosecuting the war. Like, there are conflicts of interest that are pretty obvious that they should have to justify. Oil shorting.

SHAWN RYAN: We don’t know who’s doing that or who’s getting rich off of that, but we’re going to go after a f*ing US service member for a little bet on Poly Market.

MEGYN KELLY: You’re absolutely right. That guy needs more attention, guys. Right? It’s not great. We don’t want it to happen, but we really don’t want it to happen to the tune of millions. And it keeps happening over and over again as a result of reports that get dropped. And that turned out to be untrue. We have a deal, another deal. The Iran war’s over, it’s over. Didn’t you know it’s over? It’s weird how it’s not over. Yeah, no, all of that should be looked into. We need the federal regulators to take a hard look at some of those trades to make sure that they’re legit and people haven’t just accurately gamed it out without having insider knowledge.

Does JD Vance Have a Shot?

SHAWN RYAN: Do you think JD has a shot?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, I do.

SHAWN RYAN: You do? Wow. Who do you think has a shot? Someone’s going to have to win.

SHAWN RYAN: I don’t even think about it anymore because I don’t think it matters.

MEGYN KELLY: I haven’t quite crossed into that level of cynicism yet. I haven’t taken the black pill. I don’t know. I think it’s— I just think I’ve taken a gray pill.

Biblical Times and the Search for Honest Leadership

SHAWN RYAN: Biblical. I really do.

MEGYN KELLY: What do you mean?

SHAWN RYAN: I think we’ve idolized all these fing people. Trump, Musk, Biden, whoever. Insert politician, billionaire, elitist, tech bro, whatever. And we’re all looking for one person to fix this stuff. And we keep propping these fing people up and they’re corrupt. And this veil is lifting. I mean, in the Epstein — I mean, who knows if it’s true or not, but they’re talking about eating f*ing babies and blood rituals on Epstein Island. This stuff is biblical.

MEGYN KELLY: Would you vote for Thomas Massie?

SHAWN RYAN: Yeah.

MEGYN KELLY: Do you think he’d be corrupted?

SHAWN RYAN: I think it’s a very good possibility.

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t know. I like to believe there are still some people who are truly committed to their ideals. Look at Rand Paul. I think he’s a good example of not easily corruptible. He doesn’t care who hates him, and it’s a long list. I respect that. I really do. He doesn’t care. He’ll buck Trump and is therefore loathed by him, but he has a core set of principles inherited from his dad, Ron, that seem genuinely near and dear to him, which I really respect. I still think there are some good men out there and women who could lead in a way we would admire.

SHAWN RYAN: They’re going to get roadblocked though, aren’t they?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, probably. I mean, what are they going to be able to do?

Hope for a Sea Change in America

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, what are they going to be able to do?

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t know. I’d like to believe we’re at the beginning of a sea change where people have had it. Maybe Trump will actually lead. It’d be great, actually. I’d love to see him lean into the corruption, like go for it, double down, triple down — do it so much that, Joe Biden set the table with his weird son and all the deals they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party and everybody else. That was disgusting. The left wouldn’t call it out, the right did. Then we had Trump who’s doing some corrupt stuff and the right won’t call it out, but the left is.

Like, maybe if it just gets so egregious, we get to the point where it’s burned down and now the only thing that can rise from that heap of ashes is some sort of honest phoenix. I don’t know, I’m always optimistic when it comes to America. I just feel like we won’t continue settling for this level of dishonesty and awfulness. Like, we can’t. Look what we came from. Look how we were founded. Look what we’re about to celebrate as we hit 250.

Like, it should be a good reminder — not with Milli Vanilli playing in the White House wherever they’re going. It’s not even a real band. How did they get booked? They didn’t ever really sing. But with our own celebrations where we reread that Declaration and we remind ourselves what a tyrannical government looks like and how we wouldn’t stand for it then and we’re not going to stand for it now. They say we get the leaders we need. Well, let’s actually do that. Let’s actually do that next time around.

I don’t know, Shawn, I just feel like I don’t believe these are end times. I believe we’re in a crisis. It’s not going well, but that it’s solvable. It’s savable.

The Disappointment of DOGE

What happened to DOGE? They promised $2 trillion in cuts and they got $200 billion and then went away because Elon got tired of politics and everybody hating him. That’s a tough machine to fight too, in the same way Trump said he was going to fight big agri and big pharma and didn’t really. Tried dealing with big government and eliminating all those government jobs. Now we did eliminate some amount of government jobs, but we didn’t really — I mean, okay, so we saved $200 billion. Okay, great. But again, look how much we’re spending. What’s the budget that he just submitted for the Pentagon? I have no idea. $1.5 trillion? I have no idea. Okay, it’s like the $200 billion is feeling like a teaspoon in the ocean. Yeah, DOGE was a disappointment.

SHAWN RYAN: Bessent said what, there’s an estimated $600 billion in fraud a year?

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, $600 billion in fraud a year. It doesn’t surprise me. I mean, at least now they’re looking at it. At least now there have been some reports about fraud, so the government knows the country wants you to pay attention to it. That’s positive. Don’t you think we’re better off in fighting fraud today than we were 4 years ago?

SHAWN RYAN: Yes. At least it’s a topic of discussion.

America’s Decline and Global Instability

MEGYN KELLY: But I mean, I don’t know. To me, it’s like — they say that, what’s the saying? Basically that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. And like people who couldn’t make it in Hollywood wind up in politics or media. Like you weren’t hot enough or you weren’t talented enough or whatever. And so you wound up settling for this like very ugly, toxic industry. And it’s kind of funny.

But the thing is you can look around the toxic stew everywhere when you’re in politics or in media covering it. And think, “God, everyone’s ugly,” you know, in the truest sense of the word. They’re all unattractive. God, they’re covered in toxins everywhere. Damaged, unwell people. “I’m miserable and this sucks.” Or you can look around and be like, it’s a toxic stew, but there are some points of light that we have to figure out a way to exploit and elevate to change the general pH balance of this toxic stew.

We’re going to make the toxic stew better as opposed to just saying it’s toxic and letting it take you under. That’s just not the way forward. We can’t give up on the whole game because the players are gross. We have to find a way of changing the game and elevating better players. That’s just — that has to be the way forward.

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, I agree with you. I just don’t — I just don’t know how we get there.

MEGYN KELLY: Get there one soldier at a time.

SHAWN RYAN: And I just — I don’t know. I just look at everything that’s happening, and the US dollar potentially getting thrown off world reserve currency, I think, is a — like, well, we’re — I think it’s going to happen.

China’s Rise and America’s Decline

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, we’re a nation in decline for sure. There’s no two ways about it. I mean, China’s already the world’s superpower. Like, I don’t know if anybody’s paying attention, but they are. Their economy is growing far faster than ours is. Their trade is huge, like the exports versus the imports. We’re making it easy as hell for them to come here in the United States and buy up our land.

Guess how much land we own over there? None. Guess how many university students we have over there? None. Who would want to go? But my point is simply, there’s just such a gross imbalance that no one seems to care about. So it’s already — that ship has already sailed.

You know, even militarily, they used to have no ships. Wasn’t so long ago they had nothing. Their military was basically non-existent. Now it appears to be bigger and stronger than ours, or on its way, and we continue to enable them. So yeah, we are definitely going to lose our status.

SHAWN RYAN: And we haven’t just pissed everybody off. We pissed Europe off, we pissed Canada off, we pissed the Middle East off, we’ve pissed — Asia obviously f*ing hates us, Russia and China.

MEGYN KELLY: But you talk about it like it’s just not solvable. Like, that’s — so what happens?

SHAWN RYAN: I mean, I just — I don’t know how — I can’t blame anybody for not wanting to do business with us and for leaving, because we’re not stable.

MEGYN KELLY: True. But that doesn’t mean we can’t reverse some of these policies. And like the Canada thing — you’re very focused on Canada.

The Canada and Pipeline Controversy

SHAWN RYAN: I just read this stuff and I’m like, I hear it and I’m like, that’s probably bullshit. And then I look it up a little bit and I’m like, oh my God, we’re punishing them. We’re threatening them with 100% tariff for dealing with China, but we f*ing denied the pipeline to come in here. Like, what is that?

Yeah, of course they’re looking at us like, “Look at these fing people. What are they doing? We offered them this and they didn’t want it.” And then what, 4 or 5 years later, they’re like, “We’re going to slap you with 100% tariffs because of this.” Yeah, they’ve got to be like, “What the f do you want us to do?”

MEGYN KELLY: That’s why the Prime Minister made a speech about how this appears to be a new world order where the United States is really changing its posture in the world. It’s not friend of the world, it’s not the world’s greatest ally, it’s certainly not the world’s protector. It’s every man for himself. Noted.

The Cuba Question

SHAWN RYAN: And then now this thing with Cuba. You know about this? Polymarket says there’s a 49% chance that we strike Cuba before December 31st, 2026. 3 million plus in trading volume. The crowd is nearly split — 49% chance the US carries out a strike on Cuba by the year’s end.

The US cut off Cuba’s oil supply in January after capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and the island has since faced widespread blackouts and fuel shortages. President Trump has publicly stated the US could take over Cuba. On March 19th, the head of US Southern Command told the Senate the military is not rehearsing an invasion.

MEGYN KELLY: But we are sending —

SHAWN RYAN: It sure as f* looks like a bunch of military assets down there. This is exactly what we did before Iran.

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, well, and so far our efforts to topple the government via total economic shutdown have not worked. Although it could be — nobody knows what the hell we’re doing in Cuba because Trump hasn’t told us. He just keeps saying, “I believe I’ll have the honor of taking it.”

SHAWN RYAN: So what does that mean? It means we’re going to invade it.

MEGYN KELLY: Does it mean militarily? Does it mean we’re just going to dial up the economic ratchet? They’re already in 23 hours of darkness there. They have no oil. We basically forced this by cutting off their oil from Venezuela, which I think was part of our plan, but so far the regime hasn’t collapsed. The people haven’t ousted anybody.

Now we appear to be getting ready to do a Maduro on Raul Castro, who’s 96 years old and no longer in power. I’m not exactly sure how that’s going to make them come begging to us and bend a knee, and also it’s going to be a lot tougher. But anyway, we are moving all these military assets to the region, and it does look like a preparation for something.

But what does it mean? Like, I don’t even know what it means. So what — our troops could, quote, “take Cuba?” I think pretty easily. It’s not going to be Iran. They’re in very bad shape there right now. But then what? What are we going to do with it? Is this going to be a new state? Like, we run it?

Because right now we can’t seem to run our own country, honestly. People can’t get to work. The roads suck. The bridges suck. We can’t get into a university. Everything costs three times as much as it should. Young people can’t get jobs. Young, well-educated people cannot get jobs. They can’t pay for their health insurance. They’re very worried about their groceries and their gas prices and so on. We can’t run our own country. Now we’re running Venezuela and Cuba? We’re going to run Cuba? Like, how? How’s that going to go? Who’s going to run it? Like, who exactly?

SHAWN RYAN: Maybe they’re going to turn it into the Gaza Strip.

No Long-Term Plan

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, at least make it a big real estate — at least Cuba is really beautiful. Like, I don’t know. So we’re going to bomb Oman and we’re going to invade Cuba and take it over and maybe make it the 51st state. I don’t know, Shawn.

The president won’t tell us, and it’s disrespectful. Like, we have the right — before we send our men and women in uniform in there — to know what the mission is. Because we just went through this. We just went through this in Iran, and the attempt to stay nebulous on it didn’t pay off. He was forced to offer reasons anyway in the 2 weeks after the invasion because people were pissed. “What are we doing over there?”

So initially he tried to sort of throw darts at the board and say, “It’s this, no, it’s that, it’s regime change, it’s the other, it’s the nuclear thing.” It didn’t work.

SHAWN RYAN: They’ve been our enemies for 47 years. Yeah, well, we’re fing funding one right now — the Taliban, which is where that flag came from — and we’re sending them $40 to $80 million a week. That’s amazing. We’re literally funding that fing enemy, but nobody gives a shit. And they’re going to listen to this f*ing crap about Iran being our enemy for 47 years, which they were. A lot of my friends have been killed by them.

MEGYN KELLY: Yep. Well, that’s what he was banking on — the American people’s empathy for our own guys. And we remember, we have a long memory for the Americans who were killed by Iranian-backed, Iranian-funded IEDs.

SHAWN RYAN: It’s not what it’s about. Otherwise we wouldn’t be funding them.

MEGYN KELLY: Correct. It’s definitely not what it’s about. And we’re not going to know about Cuba. We’re going to wake up one day and there’s going to be an announcement that we took it.

SHAWN RYAN: Like Midnight Hammer.

The Absence of a Plan

MEGYN KELLY: Yeah, but like, we just decided to do this. We don’t have a plan. There’s no long-term plan. There was no long-term plan on Iran, and I don’t believe there’s a long-term plan on Cuba.

The best thing we have going for us there is that Marco Rubio seems to have been focused on Cuba his entire life, so maybe he’ll at least say, “Yo, we need to have a really good plan for after we send the troops in and take it,” because I don’t think Trump really likes the follow-through portion of the invasions. He doesn’t really like having to deal with the remnants of the bombs. And that’s always the case.

You know, it was General McChrystal who said when we first went into Iran — a little tongue-in-cheek, but he basically said — “If you like this war and you’re enjoying watching the power and might of the American military, enjoy it while you can, because the bomb-dropping phase of the war is always the best phase. It doesn’t get any easier or better from here.” And boy, did that turn out to be true.

Look at us now. It is a quagmire, and we don’t know how to solve it, and we don’t have the upper hand, and the Iranians know it. So maybe the solution is to go start something in Cuba and see what’s — I don’t even know. Just to get a win. Yeah, that’s how it’s looking. Like, that’s a “spike the ball in the end zone” moment for him potentially.

Because it’s not like Iran — it doesn’t have 90,000 people and a strong f*ing group of insurgents who will never give up. It’s a different kind — it’s more traditional in its military defenses. And the American military can handle that, I think, more easily than it can handle the nonstop drone supply.

And instead of using a nuclear weapon, they found a nuclear option, which is the Strait of Hormuz. I don’t think that’s available in Cuba. I have no idea. I’d love to hear somebody spell it out for me.

I actually don’t want to talk about Cuba. I don’t want to think about Cuba. I’m with Sarah. I’m done with the Strait of Hormuz. I don’t want to think about them or Cuba. I want to think about myself, my family, and my country. That’s what I want to think about. What’s good for us?

SHAWN RYAN: Well, how do we get out of this then? What’s the real solution?

The Future of American Politics and Foreign Policy

MEGYN KELLY: Well, it’s very good that Trump has started to say he wants to be out of it. That’s great news. He has realized this is a mistake. There’s no question. Otherwise, he’d be leaning into the neocon pressure to do more bombing.

They’re all in a freakout now, like, what? Oh my God, they can see he’s about to open up the financial spigot to Iran to get them to give up the strait. He’s like, well, loosen all the sanctions on your money that we’ve had in place all these years. And they’re like, “Great, we’re going to be rich again, just got to give up the Strait.”

Well, the neocons are not wrong that that puts Iran in a better position than it was before we started this war where they weren’t in control of the Strait and we had their money. Now we’re— how are we better off with that deal than when we were sitting across the table from them, they didn’t control the Strait, and we still had their money locked up? And we were just negotiating about how little nuclear they could enrich. Trump would give anything to be back at that deal right now. They won.

Look, it’s good that some of their military assets have been decimated. I’m not against that. They’re not good people. They’ve been killing our people. But the June strike definitely did damage to the nuclear facilities. That was good. I actually supported that. It’s a very different thing than this war. So I guess some good has been done towards stopping the potential of a nuclear threat in Iran. Let’s take that as a W. It’s a fake W, but let’s just take it and get out.

And I think Trump’s there as he sees he’s underwater with literally every group and his poll numbers are literally the lowest they’ve ever been. His disapproval rating now is the highest it’s ever been in two terms. It’s higher than after January 6th. So he sees that— he’s going to be a lame duck even sooner than the midterms if these numbers keep going lower.

He’s losing Republicans now. The only area left to lose is Republicans. The Democrats of course are gone. All the independents are gone. They’re against Trump now into the mid to high 70s. So you’ve got one tiny sliver of independents who might still be open-minded to you and one tiny sliver— that’s the core MAGA. You can’t lose that or you can’t govern at all. Even your executive orders are going to be scoffed at and potentially not followed.

So he has accurately deduced he does need to wrap it up. He’s not listening to the neocons who are right now saying, “Double down, bomb ’em to smithereens. Remember when he said unconditional surrender? That’s what we need because we can’t open up the financial spigot in exchange for the Strait of Hormuz.” They want to take the strait, keep the spigot closed, insist they give us the nuclear dust. They want maximum return on this investment, and Trump has realized that’s not realistic. That’s good news. That’s great. We should be encouraging him to lean into that instinct.

In some way, shape, or form, the Iran conflict has to wrap up because he knows it politically. He knows it. Cuba, I don’t know. I really hope somebody explains to me what he’s thinking. It’s very hard to make an assessment from here.

Finding a Path Forward

SHAWN RYAN: I meant the whole country. How do we recorrect? How do we get on the right course? How do we get out from Israel’s thumb? How do we stop this? How do we stop the forever wars? How do we get the pulse back to where it needs to be? Nothing’s on the right track. That’s why I think voting— get ’em in in onesies and twosies. I just don’t feel like they’re going to last. I feel like it needs to be a new party, but that’s already been tried.

MEGYN KELLY: Or there can be arresting of control within the existing parties. It’s already starting to happen. The America First wing of the Republican Party is growing— in influence, in numbers. That’s good. That’s better than having the Mark Levin Party run our foreign policy, which is what’s happening right now.

The Democrat Party’s changing too. They’re getting a little less swampy and having some more interesting players come out of their team. No one so far who I would vote for— Rahm Emanuel is not really part of that new wing— but they’re reinventing, which is interesting.

Look, we’ve made it 250 years. We’re not going to implode in the next 5 or 10 or 50. It’s tough to turn an aircraft carrier around, and that’s the course we’re on— the aircraft carrier— where we’ve pissed off all of our friends. The value of the dollar is what it is. We’re in $33 trillion worth of debt. That’s going to be tough to solve.

But I do think number one, shrinking government will help. Number two, the laws of natural consequences where change does tend to follow massive upheaval and upset. And people are feeling that. The Iran War was a bridge too far for millions of Americans. I do think the neocon era is done. We thought it was done with the election of Trump. Clearly it wasn’t. But I do think the answers on those questions are going to be very clear deal breakers in the next election. No one who starts talking about their commitment to Israel has a chance in hell of getting elected. They just don’t.

SHAWN RYAN: So don’t you think Israel will just pay ’em to not talk about it until they win?

MEGYN KELLY: They’re not going to have a choice. It’s going to be shoved in their face by the media.

The Dan Crenshaw Lesson

SHAWN RYAN: This is what’s going to happen with the Crenshaw thing. I fing hate that guy, but everybody wanted me to bring his opponent on to crush him, but I was like, I’m not. I don’t care how much I can’t stand Dan Crenshaw, I’m not bringing his opponent on. I don’t know shit about him, and I’m not going to vouch for him just because I hate this guy. And sure as shit, he gets in there and the first thing he does is start spouting his fing allegiance to Israel. So thank God I didn’t do that. He didn’t— I didn’t hear a word about that shit until he won.

MEGYN KELLY: I just don’t think you’re going to get away with that anymore. Not with these approval ratings within the Democrat, Independent, and Republican parties now.

It was never an issue before, Shawn, especially in GOP politics. Trust me, I’ve been near or in them for a long, long time. There was zero downside to saying that you were 100% pro-Israel in the Republican Party for my entire time at Fox News and beyond. Zero downside. That’s why you’ve got so many statements by Ted Cruz and others like, “There is no daylight between me and Israel. I hope to be the number one most loyal to Israel senator there is.” Why would you even say that? Because there was no downside to that as a Republican.

It was always like the weird Democrats who loved our Muslim adversaries, who hated Israel because they were antisemites. That was the narrative. And the Republican Party was always like, “Israel’s the only democracy in the East. They’re fighting the same enemies we are. They have the same values— Judeo-Christian. That’s a stronghold for us too. They cooperate with us on intelligence.” And a lot of that is true. They did cooperate with us on intelligence, and we’ve paid a very high price for that.

It turns out some of those Middle Eastern Arab nations or Muslim nations may not be quite as hateful and dangerous to the United States as we were led to believe. It’s not to give radical Islam a pass— I’m against it. But there is a version of Muslim statehood that we can work with and that doesn’t need to be demonized as entirely bad and an enemy. You’re not allowed to say that. That’s a no for Israel.

They’re already talking about, “What about Turkey? Might have to invade Turkey.” Trump’s latest greatest idea is to force Saudi Arabia and all these other countries to join the Abraham Accords. He says Iran’s going to join. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, this is utter nonsense.

But I just think these issues are now front and center in the Republican Party in a way I’ve never seen before. I know that’s the case. It’s going to sound very different in the next big election— ’28, the presidential contest where we flesh out the issues. Trust me, I’ve been there on the debate stage with these candidates where the media and the candidates get to decide what’s important to America, and they are driven there by the populace and what messages they’ve sent. And Israel is 100% going to be one of those big issues. I hope so. It’s one of the few bright sides of this whole thing.

Closing Thoughts

SHAWN RYAN: All right, well, I hope you’re right.

MEGYN KELLY: I’ll come back in late ’28 as we’re getting close to the election. Hopefully we have some decent candidates and we can fact-check this entire segment. We can talk about what predictions came true if we still have jobs. We’ll have jobs if AI hasn’t replaced us.

SHAWN RYAN: I already put in an application to be a trash man, so smart move.

MEGYN KELLY: If I get replaced by AI, I hope she’s a lot younger and more energetic.

SHAWN RYAN: Well, Megyn, I really appreciate you coming, and this was an awesome conversation.

MEGYN KELLY: Thank you. Thanks, Shawn. It’s great to see you. Thanks for all the great work you’re doing. Everyone loves you.

SHAWN RYAN: You too. Let’s go blow some shit up.

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